"The Economic Nightmare That You Have Been Waiting For Is Here"

"The Economic Nightmare That You 

Have Been Waiting For Is Here"

By Michael Snyder

"A lot of people out there have been waiting for the next major economic crisis to arrive. If you are one of them, you don’t have to wait any longer, because it is already here. All of the numbers are telling us that we haven’t faced a downturn of this magnitude since 2008. For example, the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now fallen for 10 months in a row. According to Zero Hedge, this is the first time that has happened since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. And just like we witnessed in 2008, the housing market is crashing. In fact, the median price of a home in the San Francisco Bay Area has already fallen by a whopping 35 percent…

"The median price in the nine-county Bay Area plunged by another 8% in January from December, by 17% year-over-year, and by 35%, or by $540,000, in 10 months from the crazy peak in March 2022, from $1.54 million to $1.00 million, according to the California Association of Realtors." Home prices in the Bay Area are plummeting even faster than they did during the first housing crash. But don’t worry. Joe Biden says that everything is just fine.

Of course the reality of the matter is that everything is not fine. As bad as things are for residential real estate, the truth is that things are even worse for commercial real estate. Earlier today, I came across an article that explained that one of the biggest landlords in Los Angeles just defaulted on 755 million dollars in loans…"Brookfield Corp., parent of the largest office landlord in downtown Los Angeles, is defaulting on loans tied to two buildings rather than refinancing the debt as demand for space weakens in the center of the second-largest US city.

The two properties in default, part of a portfolio called Brookfield DTLA Fund Office Trust Investor, are the Gas Company Tower, with $465 million in loans, and the 777 Tower, with about $290 million in debt, according to a filing. The fund manager had warned in November that it may face foreclosure on properties."

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We stand on the brink of the most epic commercial real estate crash in the entire history of the United States, and it is absolutely going to devastate the financial community.

Meanwhile, the tsunami of layoffs that we have been witnessing just continues to intensify. For instance, KPMG just announced that it will be laying off about 700 workers…"Several financial firms have slashed jobs in recent months including major Wall Street banks, asset managers and fintechs amid a turbulent macroeconomic environment that has pressured consumers and soured demand in several mainstay business units. The cuts at KPMG will affect close to 700 people, the FT report added."

And Docusign is already on their second round of layoffs…"E-signature software company DocuSign on Thursday announced plans to cut around 10% of its workforce. DocuSign had 7,461 employees in January 2022 before it announced an earlier round of layoffs last September that impacted 9% of its workforce. The company said the latest cuts will impact about 700 employees."

Even Apple is letting people go. It is being reported that “hundreds of contractors” were suddenly given the axe last week…"NYPost said Apple fired hundreds of contractors last week. These workers are employed by outside companies but work alongside Apple employees on projects. It appears Apple is reducing headcount as the macroeconomic environment remains challenging." If even an extremely wealthy company like Apple has decided that now is the time for mass layoffs, what does that say about the economic outlook for the rest of 2023?

In 2022, we witnessed a wave of layoffs in the tech industry that was unlike anything we have seen since the Great Recession. And so far this year, we are way, way ahead of last year’s pace…"The news comes after 1,045 tech companies last year fired 161,000 employees in 2022. So far this year, 380 companies have fired 108,000 workers, according to the jobs tracking website Layoffs.fyi."

Does anyone out there still want to try to argue that the economy is in “good shape”? Look, if the economy really is in “good shape”, then why is Walmart closing down more stores?…"Walmart has confirmed it is shutting down seven stores over profitability concerns after a “thorough review process.” Walmart confirmed the closure of five locations across three states to Nexstar last week. Among those was a store in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that was described as “underperforming” in a statement to Nexstar’s KRQE. Other impacted locations included a store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and three in the Chicago area. Nexstar’s WGN reports two of the stores in Chicago did not meet financial expectations."

Walmart can see what is coming. So can Apple. So can hundreds of other major corporations that have been “downsizing” in recent weeks. Everyone is battening down the hatches because we are entering a really bad storm.

Of course not everyone is hurting. If you are in the top 10 percent of all income earners, you may still be doing quite well. For now. But at this point the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us is larger than ever, and most of the population is just trying to find a way to survive from month to month.

Once upon a time, the U.S. had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now our landscape is littered with dollar stores because such stores are some of the only places where our vast throngs of poor people can afford to shop…"A small town in eastern Kentucky has an unusual claim to fame: with a population of just 1,424, it has six dollar stores, most of them built in the past few years. Olive Hill, a quiet hamlet situated on Tygarts Creek in the Appalachian foothills, has two Family Dollar locations and four Dollar General stores in and immediately surrounding the town. All but one of them are located along Tom T. Hall Boulevard, the town’s main drag, named after Olive Hill’s most famous native, the country singer and songwriter nicknamed ‘The Storyteller’."

I have been warning that a nightmarish economic meltdown was coming for a long time. Now it is here. And it is going to get a lot worse. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that we are still only in the very early chapters of this crisis. So I would encourage you to do what you need to do, because things are only going to get rougher from here."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"Fools And Knaves..."

“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of

fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain

degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”

- Philip Stanhope

“There are more fools than knaves in the world,

else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”

- Samuel Butler

"Vandals and Knaves"

"Vandals and Knaves"

Destroying the money, shooting down

 balloons and blowing up pipelines...

by Bill Bonner

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "What a treat last week was. From one clown show to the next. The Pentagon wasted millions of dollars shooting down harmless weather balloons….while the whole nation watched what it thought was either a war with extraterrestrials…or at least a war with the Chinese. Member of Congress James Comer - who is supposed to be endowed with normal human intelligence - worried that the balloons might be vectors for “bio-weapons,” forgetting that thousands of tons of imports from China arrive every day. If China wants to attack with bio-weapons, it doesn’t need to send up silly party balloons.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics let it be known – what everybody already knew – that prices were going up. Despite all the reports of ‘softening’ inflation and a soon-to-come ‘pivot,’ the numbers show inflation is not going away anytime soon. USA Today: "Stubborn inflation is worrying economists as new numbers reveal hotter-than-expected price data Producer prices, or those charged by manufacturers, farmers and wholesalers, jumped 0.7% in January after dipping 0.2% in December. It was the largest gain since June and nearly double what economists had forecasted. Over the 12 months to January, [CPI] prices rose 6%, which was also more than economists had predicted but slower than December’s 6.5%."

AKA ‘Reality’: Producer price increases lead to consumer price increases later. So, the Fed will have to stick with its rate hikes. And higher rates are bound to cause consumers and businesses to make cutbacks (aka ‘recession’). The essential problem is this: the interest rate cycle turned in July 2020. So, the cost of carrying debt is going up. As interest rates rise, more and more people will have trouble keeping up. Then, debt that can’t be paid, must be liquidated.

Last week, it was reported that thanks to the Fed’s ultra-low interest rates, the US now has a record amount of debt. Corporate debt…government debt – both are at record highs – and still going up. Here’s The New York Times with a report on household debt: "Household Debt Rises to $16.90 Trillion; Credit Cards Pass Pre-Pandemic High."

"Total household debt rose by $394 billion, or 2.4 percent, to $16.90 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. Credit card balances increased by $61 billion to reach $986 billion, surpassing the pre-pandemic high of $927 billion; mortgage balances rose to $11.92 trillion, auto loan balances to $1.55 trillion, and student loan balances to $1.60 trillion. The share of current debt transitioning into delinquency increased for nearly all debt types."

In an honest economy, people create wealth by producing goods and services. The value of this output is recorded and preserved in ‘money.’ But in a dishonest society, they just print money. In the first instance, money is a credit – it reflects real wealth. In the second instance, it is a debit; it is a claim on wealth that doesn’t exist, measured as ‘debt.’

A Stunning Lack of Thought: And then, as debt increases and the cost of carrying it goes up, the mismatch between the money and the real goods and services it can buy becomes unsustainable. The accounts must be reconciled. How? The claims can be erased – by defaults, write-offs, and market crashes, for example. Or, the value of the money itself can be adjusted downward in a devaluation or inflation. Inflation is the most likely outcome. Politically, it is the only acceptable way.

Another absurd report last week came from the Congressional Budget office. It estimates that we will almost double our ‘national’ debt over the next 10 years. That goofy news deserves special comment, so we’ll return to it tomorrow.

For today, we’ll close with an observation. What was most amazing about the media reports of last week was what wasn’t in them. Yes, the press worked hard last week to ignore the biggest story to come along in many years. It appears that the president of the United States of America ordered the destruction of a vital piece of commercial infrastructure. The report, from respected investigative journalist Seymour Hersh (of Mai Lai and Abu Ghraib fame) presents a plausible case that the Biden Team blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. This is the sort of thing, as we pointed out last week, that Think Tanks might want to think about, but as Chesterton pointed out in his “Twenty Ways to Kill a Wife,” actually doing the deed reflects a stunning lack of thought.

Willful Ignorance: Imagine if the president had ordered his goons to blow up the Holland Tunnel or the San Francisco bridge. The Republicans would be holding hearings already; they’d have the president impeached almost immediately. But this vandalism is much worse. Blowing up someone else’s infrastructure is not only illegal, unconstitutional (the constitution gives the president no power to start a war) and criminal – it is an act of war against two foreign countries, one of which is our own ally.

In Germany, at least one member of Parliament has called for an investigation. If the report is confirmed, he says he will demand the removal of US troops. There have been low rumbles, too, in the press throughout the world. But in the US…not a peep. An interview with Hersh, that appeared on U-Tube, was suddenly blocked. The US government has gone rogue. But Americans don’t want to know…and the mainstream press doesn’t want to tell them."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Urgent Info: Nuclear Physicist's Warning!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 2/19/23:

"Urgent Info: Nuclear Physicist's Warning!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Rental Market Apocalypse: America Is Facing The Worst Housing Crisis Ever"

Full screen recommended.

"Rental Market Apocalypse: 

America Is Facing The Worst Housing Crisis Ever"

by Epic Economist

"The rental market apocalypse continues. New research reveals that almost all renters in the U.S. today are cost-burdened, and a significant rate of them are spending 50% of their incomes on rent this year. But with so few rental units listed in the market right now, people are being forced to choose between making sacrifices to keep up with higher prices, or facing the risk of losing their homes. Conditions are so chaotic that even Goldman Sachs is predicting that over half a million Americans can be pushed to the streets as early as March. This is shaping up to be one of the most catastrophic housing crises America has ever seen, and the pace at which everything is crumbling down is stunning.

From January 2022 to January 2023, rent prices surged by 8.6%, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show. That is adding hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to the average rent payment. A survey conducted by ZONE asking renters about their cost of living expenses revealed that 59% of Americans said their rent went up in the past 30 days, and 43% of them saw an increase of up to $500. Believe it or not, 36% or around 15 million people faced rent hikes of $1000 or more.

In an interview with CNBC, Shannon Corrick, who lives in Cheney, Washington, said her landlord increased her rent and that forced her family to move out of their home. Just like a lot of hard workers out there, Corrick was priced out from the neighborhood she and her children grew up in. "We had lived there for decades," she said. "Then out of the blue, he said he was going to raise the rent. If we signed a lease, it would be a 30 percent increase. If we did not sign a lease, it was going to be a 50 percent increase, and we could not find anywhere to move that was at all affordable."

A major difference between the current housing market and last year’s housing market is that now the bottom 90% of the population is paying 30% or more of their income on rent, meaning that almost everyone in America is cost-burned by rent prices in 2023. It’s the first time in history that an overwhelming majority of renters spend so much of their monthly pay on housing alone, new research by Moody’s Analytics found.

By being forced to keep spending so much on rent, people have less to save for a down payment to buy a house, noted Alexander Hermann, a researcher at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The rate of U.S. households who are now severely cost-burdened households — paying more than 50% of their incomes on rent – rose by 22% since 2020, standing at 36%.

In face of all that, it isn’t surprising at all that Goldman Sachs predicts that landlords will evict 750,000 U.S. households in March, according to Bloomberg. The firm also forecasts a rental price growth of 8.4% in 2023. And that’s on top of previous increases. It’s important to note that in the past 30 days, there was a 17% increase in the number of renters behind on their rent compared to the month prior. It’s safe to say that this figure will soar even higher as the economy deteriorates and unemployment rates spike again. This is the messiest rental market we have ever seen, and the consequences of such steep imbalances will be disastrous for all of us."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Real Estate Agents Are Going Broke; Do Not Buy A Home Today; Foreclosures Are Coming"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 2/19/23:

"Real Estate Agents Are Going Broke; 

Do Not Buy A Home Today; Foreclosures Are Coming"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Banks Are About To Steal Your Money"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/19/23:

"Banks Are About To Steal Your Money"

"The unavoidable is about to happen. We’re going to have a car wreck when it comes to the banking system. The central bank and digital dollar is about to be unfolded throughout different countries. This will destroy freedom and your ability to shop on your own."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Breaking News: Water Intake From Ohio River Shut Off For Concerns Of Contamination!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/19/23

"Breaking News: Water Intake From Ohio River 

Shut Off For Concerns Of Contamination!"

"In the aftermath of East Palestine Ohio Train Derailment, we are preparing for the likely scenario that the chemicals may be traveling down the Ohio River towards Cincinnati. Cincinnati has shut off the water intake from the Ohio River, and we are here to check out the situation."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Related must read:

"There Is Fire In Our Crowded Theater" (Excerpt)

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Greater Than The Sum"; "Memory of the Sky"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Greater Than The Sum"

○

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Memory of the Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“NGC 3314 is actually two large spiral galaxies which just happen to almost exactly line up. The foreground spiral is viewed nearly face-on, its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. But against the glow of the background galaxy, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust appear to dominate the face-on spiral's structure. The dust lanes are surprisingly pervasive, and this remarkable pair of overlapping galaxies is one of a small number of systems in which absorption of light from beyond a galaxy's own stars can be used to directly explore its distribution of dust.

NGC 3314 is about 140 million light-years (background galaxy) and 117 million light-years (foreground galaxy) away in the multi-headed constellation Hydra. The background galaxy would span nearly 70,000 light-years at its estimated distance. A synthetic third channel was created to construct this dramatic new composite of the overlapping galaxies from two color image data in the Hubble Legacy Archive.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110715.html

"I Can Pretend..."

"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come and Gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend..."

- Olethros, in "Sandman"

Chet Raymo, “Ad Deum Qui Laetificat Juventutem Meam”

“Ad Deum Qui Laetificat Juventutem Meam”
by Chet Raymo

“And so it begins. On the woodland floor. The first paired leaves of the wild-lily-of-the-valley. The nodding blossom of the bellwort. The five-petaled gift of the wood anemone. The planet leans into the Sun. That old random tilt. Twenty-three-and-a-half degrees. It could have been more, or less. It could have been zero. If it had been zero, our lives would have been different in a myriad of ways. Not just the transformation of our physical circumstances in a world without seasons. Our psychic lives, too.

The annual cycle of the seasons - the departure and return of the Sun - is the progenitor of our most primitive conceptual categories. "The chief difference between the man of the archaic and traditional societies and the man of the modern societies with their strong imprint of Judeo-Christianity lies in the fact that the former feels himself indissolubly connected with the Cosmos and the cosmic rhythms, whereas the latter insists that he is connected only with History," writes Mircea Eliade at the beginning of his classic work, The Myth of the Eternal Return.

Even the Christian story, for all of its historicity, participates in the archetype. Jesus is another of Joseph Campbell's "heroes with a thousand faces," who retreats into the darkness of Calvary to return in glory at the equinox. The cycle of the solar season - as Eliade, Campbell, Frazer, and many others have documented - is impressed upon our subconscious as firmly as flesh itself.

Of course, these days we can insulate ourselves from the diurnal and annual cosmic rhythms. Heat and light can come and go at the flick of a switch, and with every flick we become more psychically removed from connection with the cosmos. But wait! There, just there, pushing aside last summer's decaying leaf litter, those two green hands, folded as if in prayer, Introibo ad altare Dei, the wild-lily-of-the-valley, the tip, the tilt, the eternal return."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

•

Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam: 

I will go in to the altar of God; to God, the joy of my youth.

The Daily "Near You?"

Lyons, Oregon, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“Thucydides in the Underworld”

“Master, what gnaws at them so hideously 

their lamentation stuns the very air?” 

“They have no hope of death,” he answered me…” 

- Dante Alighieri, “The Inferno”

“Thucydides in the Underworld”

by J. R. Nyquist

“The shade of Thucydides, formerly an Athenian general and historian, languished in Hades for 24 centuries; and having intercourse with other spirits, was perturbed by an influx into the underworld of self-described historians professing to admire his History of the Peloponnesian War. They burdened him with their writings, priding themselves on the imitation of his method, tracing the various patterns of human nature in politics and war. He was, they said, the greatest historian; and his approval of their works held the promise that their purgatory was no prologue to oblivion.

As the centuries rolled on, the flow of historians into Hades became a torrent. The later historians were no longer imitators, but most were admirers. It seemed to Thucydides that these were a miserable crowd, unable to discern between the significant and the trivial, being obsessed with tedious doctrines. Unembarrassed by their inward poverty, they ascribed an opposite meaning to things: thinking themselves more “evolved” than the spirits of antiquity. Some even imagined that the universe was creating God. They supposed that the “most evolved” among men would assume God’s office; and further, that they themselves were among the “most evolved.”

Thucydides longed for the peace of his grave, which posthumous fame had deprived him. As with many souls at rest, he took no further interest in history. He had passed through existence and was done. He had seen everything. What was bound to follow, he knew, would be more of the same; but after more than 23 centuries of growing enthusiasm for his work, there occurred a sudden falling off. Of the newly deceased, fewer broke in upon him. Quite clearly, something had happened. He began to realize that the character of man had changed because of the rottenness of modern ideas. Among the worst of these, for Thucydides, was that barbarians and civilized peoples were considered equal; that art could transmit sacrilege; that paper could be money; that sexual and cultural differences were of no account; that meanness was rated noble, and nobility mean.

Awakened from the sleep of death, Thucydides remembered what he had written about his own time. The watchwords then, as now, were “revolution” and “democracy.” There had been upheaval on all sides. “As the result of these revolutions,” he had written, “there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.”

Thucydides saw that democracy, once again, imagined itself victorious. Once again traditions were questioned as men became enamored of their own prowess. It was no wonder they were deluded. They landed men on the moon. They had harnessed the power of the atom. It was no wonder that the arrogance of man had grown so monstrous, that expectations of the future were so unrealistic. Deluded by recent successes, they could not see that dangers were multiplying in plain view. Men built new engines of war, capable of wiping out entire cities, but few took this danger seriously. Why were men so determined to build such weapons? The leading country, of course, was willing to put its weapons aside. Other countries pretended to put their weapons aside. Still others said they weren’t building weapons at all, even though they were.

Would the new engines of destruction be used? Would cities and nations be wiped off the face of the earth? Thucydides knew the answer. In his own day, during an interval of unstable peace, the Athenians had exterminated the male population of the island of Melos. Before doing this the Athenian commanders had came to Melos and said, “We on our side will use no fine phrases saying, for example, that we have a right to our empire because we defeated the Persians, or that we have come against you now because of the injuries you have done us – a great mass of words that nobody would believe.” The Athenians demanded the submission of Melos, without regard to right or wrong. As the Athenian representative explained, “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” 

The Melians were shocked by this brazen admission. They could not believe that anyone would dare to destroy them without just cause. In the first place, the Melians threatened no one. In the second place, they imagined that the world would be shocked and would avenge any atrocity committed against them. And so the Melians told the Athenians: “in our view it is useful that you should not destroy a principle that is to the general good of all men – namely, that in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing. And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world.”

The Athenians were not moved by the argument of Melos; for they knew that the Spartans generally treated defeated foes with magnanimity. “Even assuming that our empire does come to an end,” the Athenians chuckled, “we are not despondent about what would happen next. One is not so much frightened of being conquered by a power like Sparta.” And so the Athenians destroyed Melos, believing themselves safe – which they were. The Melians refused to submit, praying for the protection of gods and men. But these availed them nothing, neither immediate relief nor future vengeance. The Melians were wiped off the earth. They were not the first or the last to die in this manner.

There was one more trend that Thucydides noted. In every free and prosperous country he found a parade of monsters: human beings with oversized egos, with ambitions out of proportion to their ability, whose ideas rather belied their understanding than affirmed it. Whereas, there was one Alcibiades in his own day, there were now hundreds of the like: self-serving, cunning and profane; only they did not possess the skills, or the mental acuity, or beauty of Alcibiades. Instead of being exiled, they pushed men of good sense from the center of affairs. Instead of being right about strategy and tactics, they were always wrong. And they were weak, he thought, because they had learned to be bad by the example of others. There was nothing novel about them, although they believed themselves to be original in all things.

Thucydides reflected that human beings are subject to certain behavioral patterns. Again and again they repeat the same actions, unable to stop themselves. Society is slowly built up, then wars come and put all to ruin. Those who promise a solution to this are charlatans, only adding to the destruction, because the only solution to man is the eradication of man. In the final analysis the philanthropist and the misanthrope are two sides of the same coin. While man exists he follows his nature. Thucydides taught this truth, and went to his grave. His history was written, as he said, “for all time.” And it is a kind of law of history that the generations most like his own are bound to ignore the significance of what he wrote; for otherwise they would not re-enact the history of Thucydides. But as they become ignorant of his teaching, they fall into disaster spontaneously and without thinking. Seeing that time was short, and realizing that a massive number of new souls would soon be entering the underworld, the shade of Thucydides fell back to rest.”

- https://www.financialsense.com/

"No Way Out for the USA"

"No Way Out for the USA"

by Jeff Thomas

"On the surface, it would appear that the US is in the catbird seat: Since Bretton Woods in 1944, the US has been able to dictate the economy to its trading partners and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the world. Those countries that got on board the Bretton Woods Choo-Choo would be the world’s leaders in commerce, and the rest would take second shrift.

This was possible because, at the end of the war, the US had been supplying the allies with most of their armaments and materiel and had insisted on being paid in gold. By 1944, they held the great majority of the world’s gold and had the most productive manufacturing facilities. They were in a position to call all the shots, and the countries that subsequently made up the First World went along for the ride.

But by the 1970s, the US went off the gold standard and was paying for imports with US Treasuries. This was seen to be a boon at the time, as the Treasuries could be created from thin air, and the demands by the US became boundless. The US became the biggest house on the block, but it was, in fact, a house of cards, which was only as good as the currency it was built upon – not true money but debt.

To paraphrase Norm Franz, "Gold is the money of kings… debt is the money of slaves." The US was, from 1971 on, in the business of enslaving its partners. Along the way, it became more economical to outsource manufacturing, and, over the ensuing decades, the production of most goods came from countries other than the US.

But a wrinkle occurred in recent decades: some of the overseas suppliers of goods, and in particular, energy were now building up their ability for world trade to the point that the US itself was no longer essential. Indeed, better business could often be created between countries without going through the US, and the US was becoming an obstacle to the economic advancement of other nations.

In recent decades, China and Russia have emerged as the most essential providers of goods and energy, respectively, precisely at the time that the US had planned to establish globalism – dominance over the entire world by the US, with the backup support of the other First World countries, most notably, Europe. As long as the other First World countries continued to endorse American diktat to the world, US hegemony would not only continue but expand.

But then, Russia threw a rather major wrench into the works: the Nord Steam pipeline already supplied much of the natural gas to Europe, allowing it to heat its homes and run its factories. With the addition of Nord Stream II, a tipping point was reached: the great majority of Europe’s essential energy, which it was unable to produce itself, could be gotten from Russia and at a price that no other supplier could match.

What’s often overlooked in the discussion of the importance of Nord Stream II is that, from the first day that the tap was to be turned on to supply Europe, US hegemony would end. Although the US had succeeded in dominating European policy over the last half-century, that situation had now reversed. In a choice between pleasing the US and pleasing the eastern suppliers of goods and energy, Europe’s default position would now be with Asia, not the US.

In this one seemingly minor change in supply, the hegemony of the US would cease. And, more troublingly, US power had been a house of cards for decades. It was no longer a manufacturing titan; in fact, it now produced little besides debt. It had once used its manufacturing capacity to bully its trading partners, but now this power had become a mere remnant.

In recent decades, the US has been operating on its past laurels and the assumption that it was the big boy on the block and must be obeyed, no matter how unreasonable its demands were. When US federal and corporate leaders realized their dilemma, they understood that they had only one last-ditch option: war. Historically, this is always the last play of a dying empire: when you’re about to lose everything, a major war must be created as a distraction to buy time.

A small war is only a temporary respite. A major war serves to upset the world as a whole. If the world can be turned upside down, perhaps there’s a chance that the dying empire can actually survive with some of its power intact. If not, the empire goes the way of the dodo. It slips away into insignificance or even extinction. And this is where the US now finds itself. The shift to the Asian century is well underway. Quietly, one nation after another is shifting its trade and its deference to the Asian leaders. Those countries like Saudi Arabia, that can make dramatic shifts and do so safely, will be bolder in their shift. Less powerful countries will be a bit more subtle, tiptoeing away from their former master. And that, too, is now underway.

But again, the key ally of the US – the one without which it could not be an empire - has been Europe. The EU is already on the ropes; it was a misconceived experiment from the start and has now begun to splinter. Although no major breakup has begun, the rot is already beyond any possible salvage, and the dictates of Brussels are encountering refusals by some member countries.

With the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, it has become quietly apparent in Germany and other EU countries that they will be facing extreme hardships as a result. They can no longer back out of their support for the US push to create warfare in Ukraine. Additionally, they face the US attempt to draw all the NATO countries into war with Russia – a suicidal prospect for Europe.

The US, in its desperation to escalate the war, has begun to suggest that a "limited nuclear war" might be advisable, but Europe understands that a limited nuclear war is akin to being "a little bit pregnant." Europe would not survive such a war. And so, Germany has begun the pull away from the US. President Olaf Scholz has personally gone to Beijing to broker peace. In doing so, he also makes a clear statement: Germany is acknowledging that it is moving over to a new master.

To be sure, the US will not take this lightly. There will be collective nail-biting in the First World countries as the average man wonders and worries whether the US will do the sane thing and back away from warfare. What the average man does not understand is that, whilst this may be the best choice for the average man and the world in general, it would be the end for those who rule the US. The US would slide inexorably into a lesser state, or even fragment, leaving the US elite with no empire to rule.

This, above all, cannot be tolerated. And, so, it’s important to understand that, to the rulers of the US empire, this is an all-or-nothing game. And to be clear, it’s a game that cannot be won. The US no longer produces much; it no longer has a meaningful balance of trade; it’s the most indebted nation in world history; it’s broke, and it can no longer win a protracted war.

And, to reiterate, the US has no other option at this point. It has destroyed all its other options and has no way out of its dilemma – its modern-day Thucydides Trap. As such, it will not go quietly. Much like a cornered rat, it will make a last attempt to take down as many others as it can on its way out. That should give us pause. Those who wish to avoid becoming collateral damage as the behemoth falls would be advised to extricate themselves, economically and even geographically, from the dying empire."

- internationalman.com

"An Imperial Disaster"

"An Imperial Disaster"

By The ZMan

"One of the most studied and debated events in human history is the decision by the Athenian empire to send an expeditionary force to Sicily. This happened in 415 B.C. during the middle of the Peloponnesian War between the Delian League led by Athens and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Athens decided to send military support to allies on Sicily who were opposed to the dominant city state of Syracuse, which also happened to be an ally of Corinth.

The Sicilian Expedition is one of those events that offers something for everyone interested in the ancient world. The politics involved in the decision to send the expeditionary force are fascinating. Then you have the military side of things, which is one of the first examples of politics undermining military effectiveness. Of course, the political psychology around the war to that point is also important. Much of Athenian politics had been shaped by war.

The decision to send the navy to Sicily would turn out to be the turning point in the war with the Spartans. The expedition was a spectacular failure. In fact, it is on the list of great military disasters in human history. The defeat not only permanently weakened the Athenians militarily, but it also crippled their political culture. The politics of the region quickly moved against Athens, leading to the overthrow of the democratic system and the eventual defeat to the Spartans.

Like all great events in history, if you ask ten people with an interest in the topic, you will get eleven theories as to what happened and what it means today. Academic careers have been made studying the war and the events surrounding it. There is also the fact that Athens, despite losing the most important war in human history, continues to cast a shadow over the West. Sparta, on the other hand, is largely remembered for being a cartoonish version of a warrior state.

It matters to us today because the Global American Empire models itself after the Athenian empire. The Athenians had a moral certainty about themselves and what they did based on their form of government. Their system was superior, therefore whatever they did to spread their system must be righteous. Of course, spreading their system often meant overthrowing the rulers of neighboring city-states and installing their system, led by people friendly with Athens.

We see the same thing with the American empire. In fact, it has become a defining feature of the system. For the last thirty years, Washington has been trying to overthrow governments around the world in defense of democracy. There is even an organization called The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which works with various tentacles of the American empire to overthrow governments around the world. The business of America is not business. It is regime change.

Like the Athenian empire, the American empire has found a way to embroil itself in a war with a land power. This proxy war with Russia over Ukraine has little to do with the facts on the ground in Ukraine and everything to do with the politics that drive the expansive polices of the American empire. Like the Peloponnesian War, this is just the latest phase of a war that goes back to the defeat of fascism, which is the analogue for the defeat of the Persians by Athens and Sparta.

Like all historical analogies, this one is far from perfect, but it does provide a lens through which to view current events. Looking at this fight with Russia as a continuation of the Cold War helps explain the actions of the people involved. For the people driving American foreign policy, the main enemy was always Russia. In fact, they were at war with Russian long before they set foot in the new Athens. World War II was just another chapter in that long fight.

This might seem like a stretch but look at the people running foreign policy for the American empire. The people named in Seymour Hersh’s piece on the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines is a who’s who of neoconservatives. All of them are members of the same club, which is led by Robert Kagan. The wife of Robert Kagan is Victoria Nuland, who runs Ukraine policy for the empire. She is also the person who engineered regime change in Ukraine in 2014.

Proof that the universe has a sense of humor is the fact that Robert Kagan is the ideological leader of the war party. He was born in Athens, Greece. His father was Donald Kagan, “the Sterling Professor of Classics and History Emeritus at Yale University and a specialist in the history of the Peloponnesian War.” His book on the Peloponnesian War is excellent. His book on the Sicilian Expedition is also quite good, but more aimed at an academic audience.

Robert appears to have read none of his father’s books, as his cult has led the American empire into its own version of the Sicilian Expedition. The decision to bet on Ukraine is turning into a catastrophe. Instead of sending triremes to aid a supposed ally in order to undermine an opponent, as Athens did when she sent that expedition to Sicily, Washington has sent its prestige and military production capacity to Ukraine in a futile attempt to undermine Russia.

Much like the Sicilian Expedition, the Ukraine war has become a dynamic all its own, sweeping up everyone in the empire. The Europeans, which should know better, have gone along with Washington. In the process, they have revealed themselves to be nothing more than a collection of flunkies serving Washington. The rules-based world order that Washington has claimed to defend has also been exposed as a rigged game to serve the interests of the empire.

Probably the biggest parallel between these two events is how the political class in both cases failed to consider failure as an option. When news of the disaster reached Athens, no one believed it. No one had prepared the Athenians for the possibility of defeat, much less a catastrophe. Once reality sunk in, panic gripped the people as they processed what the disaster meant for the war. Everything about the Sicilian Expedition assumed victory was inevitable.

Something similar is brewing for Washington. For a year the war party has been feeding the political class stories about the Russians running out of weapons and Russian troops being forced to fight naked in the snow. Political leaders are given scripts with big talk about total victory and the dissolution of Russia. The public has been told nothing about the reality of the war. Once news of this disaster makes itself fully known, we may see panic and disbelief in Washington.

Again, historical analogies are never perfect. At best they help contextualize current events by providing an objective viewpoint. Washington is not Athens. Robert Kagan is not Alcibiades and there is no one playing the role of Nicias. Instead, the empire is led by spoiled children of the managerial elite that rose along with the American empire in the aftermath of Word War II. The disaster for this empire, however, will be just as real as it was for the Athenian empire."

- https://thezman.com/

"Situation Is Getting Even Worse Than You Think In Ukraine!"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 2/19/23:

"Situation Is Getting Even Worse 

Than You Think In Ukraine!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Shopping At Trader Joes! Trying Some Of Their Products!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/19/23:

"Shopping At Trader Joes! 

Trying Some Of Their Products!"

"In today's vlog we are shopping at Trader Joe's! We go over some prices, and different grocery options they have. We also make a homemade pizza with all ingredients that we buy at Trader Joe's!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

“How many times do you have to be hit over the 

head until you figure out who's hitting you?”

- Harry Truman

MUST READ! "There Is Fire In Our Crowded Theater" (Excerpt)

"There Is Fire In Our Crowded Theater" (Excerpt)

by Adam Gaertner

Excerpt: "250 million people live east of the Mississippi. Two million gallons of vinyl chloride might have something to say about that. Up to two and a half million gallons of one of the most toxic substances known to man have been released into the air, water and soil of the Eastern Seaboard, and are presently making their way south and east. Acid rain, which in this case is hydrochloric acid mixed with concentrated, unburned vinyl chloride, has (so far) been reported in every direction:

West: 400 miles west to Lafayette (probably further)

North: 1200 miles north up to Durham, Canada;

East: 1200 miles east to NYC and Boston today more

South: 800 miles southwest to Kentucky so far..."

Full, horrifying must-read article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

Related:

"Get The Hell Out Of There" - 

Ohio's Apocalyptic Chemical Disaster Rages On"

o

"Palestine, Ohio Train Wreck: It’s The Dioxin"

o

"The Ohio Train Derailment Toxic Dioxin

 Bomb Is Far Worse Than We Realized"

o

"A Cover Up Of Epic Proportions Is

 Happening In East Palestine, Ohio"

"The cloud of toxic chemicals that was created by the “controlled burn” was so large that it could literally be seen from space, and the long-term health problems that are being caused all over the east coast could stretch on for decades."

If you're not terrified you should be. God help us...

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "In the Moment"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "In the Moment"

"A Look to the Heaavens"

“Is our Milky Way Galaxy this thin? Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. This sharp, colorful image reveals the spiral galaxy's boxy, bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565's thin galactic plane. 

An assortment of other background galaxies is included in the pretty field of view. Thought similar in shape to our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 4565 lies about 40 million light-years distant and spans some 100,000 light-years. Easily spotted with small telescopes, sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial masterpiece Messier missed.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210517.html

"It’s Time to Use the “D” Word"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/18/23:

"It’s Time to Use the “D” Word"

"We are getting warning after warning from some very serious business, people and economist that what we are heading into is going to be much worse than a regular recession. This is going to be the big “D" word."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

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

The Poet: David Whyte, "One Day"

"One Day"

"One day I will say

the gift I once had has been taken.

The place I have made for myself

belongs to another.

The words I have sung

are being sung by the ones

I would want.

Then I will be ready

for that voice

and the still silence in which it arrives.

And if my faith is good

then we'll meet again

on the road,

and we'll be thirsty,

and stop

and laugh

and drink together again

from the deep well of things as they are."

- David Whyte,

"Where Many Rivers Meet"

"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.

And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see -

it is, rather, a light by which we may see - and what we see is life."

- Robert Penn Warren

"A Very Close Resemblance..."