Bill Bonner, "All Hell Broke Loose"

"All Hell Broke Loose"

Plus, America at a cross roads: destitution... or revolution?

by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina - "Take a look at this.

We don’t usually put charts in our daily comments. If we’re going to make mistakes, we prefer to make them with words. But this chart is just more graphic evidence of how the future has been hi-jacked. The average American today can expect to be poorer than his parents. For the first time in our lives, yesterday really was better than tomorrow.

The disappointment is even more remarkable when you consider the context. Never before has tomorrow had so much to work with – so many people with college degrees, so much capital – trillions of it – sloshing around Wall Street, so many inventions, innovations, and technical breakthroughs…and over all of it, a class of elite deciders, enlightened by Keynesian economics and protected from ‘misinformation’ by The New York Times and federal censors.

So many forward gears…and still going backward! What does it mean? Where does it lead? To revolution? Or destitution?

Born of the Wind: In the meantime, a report from the Calchaqui Valley. As long time readers know, we spend part of each year down here in Argentina. Here, we learn more about dysfunctional economies…and what happens when inflation goes over 100% per year. It began as it was supposed to. The cows – about 100 of them – were to be moved from one side of the river to the other. “Hoop…yaaah…aiyee.”

Two cowboys rode into the corral…got behind the cows to urge them out of the gate. Two others were waiting outside the corral to guide them down the road and across the river. Down here, in the valley, the local people don’t really know much about cattle ranching. We raise our cattle up at the ranch, an hour and a half away, by the gravel road…but 8 hours for the cattle, who come over the pass. The two properties join each other. But only up at the pass, with a lot of rocky trail between one pasture and another. These cows were brought down here because here is where the rolls of alfalfa are. “Ya….ahi…baca…baca…”

Since the local people are farmers, not ranchers, we brought in a couple of young men from the ranch to work down here. Lazaro and Pablo are both of medium height and slight of build. Dark hair, brown skin – they could be brothers. And maybe they are. People here know their mothers. They are sometimes less clear about their fathers. When a girl gets pregnant, often the unknown sperm donor is referred to as “el viento’ (the wind).

We don’t ask questions. Both Lazaro and Pablo are friendly. And they are good with horses and cattle. That’s all that matters. “Yip…yip…yip…” The cattle drive was short. The herd moved along nicely…entered the river and then, dripping with water, continued along the road to the stone corral on the other side.

All Hell Breaks Loose: The next day they would be given their vaccinations and released into a field of fescue waiting for them. No problem. “But that’s when all hell broke loose.”

Our son-in-law was on the scene. As we hinted earlier this month, we had a secret agenda for our visit. We were hoping that he would take an interest in our projects down here…and take charge of them. “You either love the valley,” says our neighbor, a lifelong resident. “Or you can’t stand it. There’s no middle ground.”

So far…the affair between the valley and our son-in-law seems to be progressing. He reports: “I’m a city guy. I was not prepared for it. But I like it. We got all the animals in the corral. And then, Pablo noticed that one of the cows was missing a horn. It had gotten knocked off in a fight. And the wound had not healed. Plus, they had taken away her calf; she didn’t like that much either.

The idea was to separate the cow from the herd and run her through the chute. There, we’d be able to lock her neck in place and treat the infection. Lazaro had a needle and thread…as well as some disinfectant. And, of course, his knife.

The cow didn’t want to go into the chute. We yelled at her…and whipped her. But she only got mad and charged us. We were ducking and diving all over the place. At one point, we had her in the little corral…and I was meant to cover one of the exits…and not let her out. But she came right at me. I waved my hat…and poked her with my stick. She kept coming. I had to jump out of the way or I’d be gored. I felt bad about it. I was supposed to stop her. But I didn’t want to die trying.

We finally got her into the chute…and put the ‘sepo’ on her neck, to keep her head from moving. We could see the problem closer up. There were maggots in the wound. They had to be cut out….the wound disinfected and sewn up. But her head was still moving around too much.” “We’ve got to do this the old-fashioned way,” said Pablo.

The Rise of Lazaro (and Pablo): “I was so impressed by those two guys. They really know what they are doing. They let her out of the chute. But she got her leg stuck. Lazaro grabbed her tail and pulled as hard as he could to get her to back up. And Pablo grabbed her foot to pull it out of the fence. Then, she ran around wildly. She was tired. We were all tired. We’d been wrestling with her for half an hour. They tried to rope her. And she kept charging. We got out of the way as fast as possible. And then, we went back into the corral to try again.

Finally, Victor (a big guy who doesn’t even work for us) got a rope around her back legs. And then Pablo was able to tie up her front legs. They pulled her over onto her side. And we all piled on top of her to hold her head down while Lazaro did the surgery.”

We got up cautiously. We were ready to run for the gate. But when we untied her, she got up and didn’t move. I’m not sure whether she was just exhausted…or whether she was grateful that she had gotten necessary treatment.”

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

"Russia is Annihilating Ukraine's Last Soldiers"

Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 3/21/l23

"Russia is Annihilating Ukraine's Last Soldiers"

"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"This Just Makes No Sense"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 3/21/23:

"This Just Makes No Sense"

"It is crazy that we are seeing banks fail globally. Now we’re supposed to believe everything is going to be OK. Billionaires and economist have stepped forward to remind us how serious everything is and that we have major problems coming in the economy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Shopping Trip To Meijer! Finding Some Deals On Groceries!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danny, 3/21/23:

"Shopping Trip To Meijer! 

Finding Some Deals On Groceries!"

"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing a massive amount of price increases on groceries! This is getting ridiculous as products continue to skyrocket in the grocery stores! It's getting rough out here as stores also seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "In the Moment"

Liquid Mind, "In the Moment"

"186 More Banks “Are At Risk Of Failure”, And That Could Push Us Into The Next Great Depression"

Full screen recommended.

"186 More Banks “Are At Risk Of Failure”, 

And That Could Push Us Into The Next Great Depression"

by Epic Economist

"They are desperately trying to plug one leak in the system after another, but what happens if the entire system suddenly comes crashing down all around them? Back on January 4th, I specifically warned that our problems would “greatly accelerate over the next 12 months”, and that is precisely what has happened. We are now in the midst of the most severe banking crisis since 2008, and it could soon get a whole lot worse. We have already witnessed the second and third largest bank failures in the entire history of our nation, and now it is being reported that 186 more banks “are at risk of failure”…

On the heels of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse earlier this month, 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their depositors decide to withdraw their funds, a new study has found.

The collapse this month of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank prompted a flood of deposits out of regional lenders and into the nation’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. Customers spooked by the bank failures were taking refuge in firms seen as too big to fail.

If every bank account in America is suddenly fully guaranteed by the federal government, there will be a giant sucking sound as wealthy individuals pull their money out of European banks where large balances are not fully insured.

The European banking system is already teetering on the brink of collapse. In fact, we just learned that Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has agreed to buy its ailing rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal aimed at stemming financial market panic unleashed by the failure of two American banks earlier this month.

Our economy runs on mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and debit cards. If a bank gets into trouble, the flow of credit from that bank is restricted. And if a bank fails, the flow of credit from that bank completely stops. If lots of banks start going under in this country, economic activity will shrink substantially and we really will be facing “another great depression”. Hopefully a way can be found to stabilize the banking system, because economic conditions are certainly bad enough already."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"We're so freakin' doomed!"

- The Mogambo Guru

"Liquidity Crisis. Failed Bank 'Rescue.' Expect A Global Inflation Tsunami"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/20/23

"Liquidity Crisis. Failed Bank 'Rescue.'

 Expect A Global Inflation Tsunami"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Banks Panic As Liquidity Crisis Spreads, Banking Disaster Imminent, Who Will Bail You Out?"

Jeremiah Babe, 3/20/23:

"Banks Panic As Liquidity Crisis Spreads, 

Banking Disaster Imminent, Who Will Bail You Out?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue"

Full screen recommended.

Paul Mauriat, "Love is Blue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"On an August night two friends enjoyed this view after a day's hike on the Plateau d'Emparis in the French Alps. At 2400 meters altitude the sky was clear. Light from a setting moon illuminates the foreground captured in the simple vertical panorama of images. Along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy stars of Cassiopeia and Perseus shine along the panorama's left edge. 

Click image for larger size.

But seen as a faint cloud with a brighter core, the Andromeda galaxy, stands directly above the two friends in the night. The nearest large spiral galaxy, Andromeda is about 2.5 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Adding to the evening's shared extragalactic perspective, the fainter fuzzy spot in the sky right between them is M33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy. Third largest in the local galaxy group, after Andromeda and Milky Way, the Triangulum galaxy is about 3 million light-years distant. On that night, the two friends stood about 3 light-nanoseconds apart."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211106.html

"What Might Have Been..."

“Space I can recover. Time, never.” 

-  Napoleon Bonaparte

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

- Ryan Holiday

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "There Is Time Left"

"There Is Time Left"

 "Well, there is time left 

fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away

from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put ones foot into the door of the grass, which is

the mystery, which is death as well as life,

and not be afraid!

To set ones foot in the door of death,

and be overcome with amazement!"

~ Mary Oliver

"Bad News Comes in Small Packages"

"Bad News Comes in Small Packages"

by Jeff Thomas

"There’s a change taking place in supermarkets – one that’s going largely unnoticed, in spite of the fact that it’s becoming a new norm. Packaging for products, particularly foodstuffs, is getting downsized. Folger’s coffee, Chobani Yoghurt, Fritos, etc. – all are being offered in smaller packages than before. The resizing is not dramatic; in fact, it’s so small – sometimes less than 10% - that it’s hard to imagine why they’re bothering to do it. This is particularly true of items that come in plastic packaging. Gatorade, for example, has been reduced in size from 32 to 28 ounces, but the price is the same.

To the consumer, a change in the size of a plastic Gatorade bottle doesn’t raise an eyebrow, but for food producers, it’s a significant event. Each time a new bottle is designed, even if the change is very slight, new moulds must be designed and machined. And every machine in every factory across the country that produces the bottles must be fitted with new moulds. Then, the injection-moulding machine must be re-calibrated to insert a smaller amount of polyethylene into the mould, and the moulding time must be re-calibrated. Injection moulding machines are notoriously temperamental, and it can take weeks or months to fine-tune them to perform consistently in continual production. Very costly.

While this information is boring for most of us, it’s of great importance to the producer of the product. Resizing packaging is a last resort for any producer of goods. A simple downsizing is costly enough that he wouldn’t entertain the idea unless he’s backed into a corner and can’t do anything else. If an entire industry is downsizing products, it means something more concerning than just a few companies trying to remain competitive. And, in fact, a writer for Consumer World commented recently that price increases and smaller packaging "comes in waves," but that "We happen to be in a tidal wave at the moment."

But, again, all this is small potatoes to the consumer – it’s not his problem. So why should we bother to think about the minutiae of food production when we have bigger issues to concern us? Well, in actual fact, there’s no issue that’s of greater importance to us than the supply of food. Until recently, we’ve been able to be fairly complacent about food availability, as most of us have been accustomed to the shelves at the supermarket remaining full. But, recently, there have been a few scares. Some items have gone missing for several months. Certainly, the shortage of baby formula was important enough to have appeared on the evening news for several weeks.

But what if all food products were, without warning, in short supply? What if a percentage of the supermarkets began shutting their doors across the country?

Let’s back up a bit here. In decades past, it was the norm for most major supermarkets to have their own warehouses, where backup stock could be stored. If, for any reason, shipments were delayed by, say, a snowstorm, the shelves could be restocked locally until the weather improved. In addition, payment terms of 30 days net were not uncommon in the industry.

Markups, too, were substantial enough that items that were marked up 10%, 20%, or more could cover for those items that could not be marked up as much but were necessary as a draw to get customers through the door. A store owner might decide, "Put 5% on the milk, and we’ll get the shortfall back on the Häagen-Dazs."

But, over the last decade or more, the food industry has taken repeated economic hits. In each case, the industry has attempted to give the impression that there were no problems – that it has been business as usual. But, truth be told, the viability of the industry as a whole has degraded considerably.

The food industry has, for years, gotten by on a retail markup as low as 2% on most items. Also, suppliers are demanding three-day payment turnarounds in order to get by. In addition, the local warehouses that most supermarkets once maintained are largely gone. Supermarkets now rely on semi-weekly deliveries from wholesalers to keep the shelves full. There’s minimal backup supply.

What all this means is that the food industry, from the producers to the wholesalers, to the retailers, has no wiggle room left. At this point, the industry resembles a boxer who has given up and dropped his hands and is just waiting for the knockout punch.

It will come as no surprise to the reader that inflation is increasing due to dramatic government spending. In the last ten years, more currency has been created than in the previous 230 years put together. Dramatic inflation is unavoidable. If significant inflation were to occur in any given month, food industry profits would be eliminated for the month. This now happens periodically in the industry, but it’s recoverable the following month. (The next shipment is marked up enough to cover inflation, and while the profit for the month in question is never recovered, the industry survives.)

However, if a mere three consecutive months of significant inflation were to occur, we might expect to see the lights going off in supermarkets across the country. Those that are the most heavily in debt would go first. They’d be followed in the following months by others for as long as the inflation trend continued.

If any nation were to lose suppliers and retailers in, say, shoes or washing machines, shortages would occur, and we would simply adjust. Our old shoes would go to the cobbler rather than being thrown out. We’d call the washing machine repairman if we couldn’t go to the appliance store and buy a new one. But food is different. It’s the one product that must be replaced immediately. We cannot simply postpone our need for food for a period of weeks or months.

A decade ago, when I wrote that food shortages would take place in the coming economic crisis, unsurprisingly, few people took the notion seriously, as the warning had been made so early. But those shortages have now begun. They’re not yet serious, but we’re now seeing the warning signs. Back then, I additionally projected that the shortages would become severe enough that food riots would take place and, worse, that famine would occur for the first time in living memory in the First World.

If there’s a shortage of shoes or washing machines – let’s say 10% or even 20% - we’d simply adjust. But if there’s a 10% or 20% shortage of food, it means that some retailers have folded and that a given area no longer receives food. If producers, wholesalers, and retailers shut their doors in greater numbers, there is famine. It will be selective – that is – it will be greater in some areas than others. And, of course, that’s a hard concept for us to wrap our heads around in an economy that until now allowed us to simply pop around to Burger King if we got a bit peckish.

So, the downsizing of a Gatorade bottle doesn’t mean that tomorrow, we’ll be without food. This is a mere symptom of a greater problem. But it’s a warning sign that we should be paying closer attention to an industry that has run out of wiggle room and may soon become unsustainable. If and when that happens, the outcome will be far more important than any of the other economic concerns that we presently focus on. Whether it’s groceries, medical care, tuition, or rent, it seems the cost of everything is rising. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point."

- internationalman.com

"How An Army Commercial Shows We’re Rapidly Falling Apart"

Military begins pregnancy simulation training program.

"How An Army Commercial Shows

 We’re Rapidly Falling Apart"

by John Wilder

“Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it’s usually something unusual. But now I know why I have always lost women to guys like you. I mean, it’s not just the uniform. It’s the stories that you tell.” – Stripes

"The United States’ Army has a new ad campaign out. The slogan, however, is fairly familiar: “Be All That You Can Be.” This became the slogan of the Army’s recruiting campaign back when they had to convince people to join because driving a fast car like Burt Reynolds while marrying busty blondes was a much more interesting career option.

That slogan lasted from 1980 to 2001, with “Army Of One®” was replaced by Call of Duty™ online mode. The Air Force was encouraged by that slogan, and decided to use “Air Force Of Only One Plane®” since that was all they could afford if they decided to go with the F-35.

But things have not gone well for Big Green recently. I heard in the last year, they actually recruited only one soldier, and he was a decoy. I kid. They had a goal of something like 60,000, but only recruited 45,000. I’m guessing that’s because the other 15,000 decided that working at McDonald’s® was a better option.

And, why not? The videos showing recent Army performance have been, um, less than stellar. From the pullout of Afghanistan, to Biden forcing troops to take the Vaxx or take a hike, it’s been bad. The commercials for recruitment have likewise been horrific. If it’s not good enough for the wise Latina child joining the armed forces and then looking back on her lesbian biracial parents who gave her hormone replacement therapy at age three, well, it’s not good enough for me.

I think the Army missed some real gems in going back to that old slogan. They could have chosen some of these:

1. Join the Army, where the camouflage makes you invisible to your ex.

2. Join the Army, and let us take care of your social life . . . because you won’t have one.

3. The Army: Where you can kill two birds with one grenade.

4. The Army: If you needed a good excuse to shave your head.

5. Join the Army: Where you’ll find that “hurry up and wait” isn’t just a saying, it’s a way of life.

6. The Army: “You’ll learn to stay awake while standing up.”

7. Join the Army and see the world, through the scope of a rifle.

8. The Army: “You’ll make lifelong friends. Or enemies. Or both.

9. The Army, where you can put your Call of Duty™ skills to use, just without the respawn.

10. Join the Army, and get one free PEZ™ dispenser every year.

I mean, who traditionally makes up the Army, anyway? Actually, white dudes. In the terminology of today, people who were born male at birth and score low on the diversity index. Hell, in 2023, I’m wondering when “mail” will show up as a gender – “Oh, baby, put me in the big slot! I’m an oversized package!”

I looked up the makeup of the Army using the most recent statistics I could find. They’re kind of murky, because they don’t break out “Hispanic” by itself. I guess I can understand that. Even though I’ve been described as “so Danish that’s the picture in the dictionary” I can also claim that at least 25% of my ancestors were born in Mexico. Were they Danish? Yeah. Still don’t understand how they dealt with the sunburn. But Pugsley can check that box on the college application.

So, the stats I could find are murky. It looks like the numbers of white people in the Army has gone down 2% in two years from 70% to 68%. And what’s one percent? About 5,000 guys. So, of their missing 15,000, you could make an argument that 10,000 of them might have been white guys that didn’t join up. I know three kids that were friends of The Boy that were gung ho about joining the military, until November, 2020. Then? “Nah, I think I’ll work.”

So, to recreate the idea that perhaps the Army wants white guys to join up, the reversion to the “Be All That You Can Be™” slogan was the reaction from the Army. To be clear, they’re still using food made before 1960, ammo made before 1970, so why not a slogan that was made in 1980?

Enter the new video. Where in the last few, the only thing not visible was a white guy, this video is chock full of white guys. At one location where the video was stored on YouTube©, the comment section was more disastrous than French naval performance at Trafalgar. I mean hundreds and hundreds of comments that, well, I’ll just post a few of them on the website and let you draw your own conclusions. I did not cherry pick these, and did not see a single, not one, zero positive comments. Feel free to go give a look yourself – the video is here:

Yup, pretty bad. Both of my sons have received text messages from Army recruiters, heck, as late as 2016, I presented to The Boy the options of West Point and Colorado Springs for colleges. He noped out of both choices. Pugsley is not at all interested.

I am not disappointed – rather, the opposite, and became doubly so after the decision by the Biden Administration to force armed forces members to Vaxx up. Sure, the DOD rescinded the requirement this year on January 10, but that didn’t help the people who already Vaxxed up. Wonder if the VA is going to cover that?

Regardless, I would hazard a guess that confidence in the cohesion of the country is lower than at any time in my life. Perhaps the real slogan should be “Be All That You Can Binge-Watch On Netflix®”?"

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

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Meanwhile, as our Army learns pregnancy simulation...

"Spetsnaz GRU - The Deadliest Russian Special Forces"

"Spetsnaz GRU is the special forces or spetsnaz of the G.U., the foreign military intelligence agency of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The Spetsnaz GRU was formed in 1949, the first special force in the Soviet Union, as the military force of the Main Intelligence Directorate, the foreign military intelligence agency of the Soviet Armed Forces. The force was designed in the context of the Cold War to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage against enemy targets in the form of special reconnaissance and direct action attacks. The Spetsnaz GRU inspired additional spetsnaz forces attached to other Soviet intelligence agencies, such as the Vympel and Alpha Group of the KGB."

The Daily "Near You"

Arzignano, Veneto, Italy. Thanks for stopping by!

"Don’t Think That This is Good"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 3/20/23:

"Don’t Think That This is Good"

"We are seeing banks that want to be bailed out. They are asking the Fed for two years of funding. Plus, I do an update on two great stories over the last two weeks."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

○

"We Are in the Eye of the Hurricane – What Happens Next?"

"How Many Times...

"How many times do you have to get hit over the

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

- Harry S. Truman

Bill Bonner, "The 'Stealth Pivot'"

"The 'Stealth Pivot'"

Is this the moment we've been waiting for?

by Bill Bonner

San Martin, Argentina - "What a week! Another exciting mix of the absurd, the ominous and the sublimely ridiculous. The most important thing that happened was that the Fed revealed more of its ‘stealth pivot.’ It came out with a program to bail out the big depositors of failing banks. Already, the FDIC insures the deposits of small account holders (under $250,000). Now the new alphabet group – BFTB, or something like that – is going to look after large account holders. In other words, the whole banking system is being nationalized.

Well, not exactly. The losses are being nationalized. The profits will remain with the bankers. What’s behind it? We recall our old friend Richard Russell: ‘The feds can control the banks to a large extent. They can control the bond market, to some extent. They can control the stock market, also to some extent. They can cause booms and trigger busts. But they can’t do those things and also control the value of the currency. The dollar is the pressure value. It suddenly pops open when the system needs a reset.’

The Gates of Hell: Ultimately, when you spend more than you can afford, something’s gotta give. Either you go broke. Or, if you are a sovereign country with debts denominated in your own currency, you ‘print’ more money to pay the bills. It’s either deflation (when prices fall), or inflation (when the dollar falls). Either you protect the currency (and the people who depend on it) and let the chips fall where they may. Or you print and spend…and let the dollar go to Hell. Last week, we saw the gates of Hell open a little wider.

Big depositors, faced with big losses, turned to the big Fed for relief. The Fed could have said: ‘you called the tune; you dance to it.’ Or it could have used a less-festive metaphor: ‘you made your bed; you sleep in it.’

The real world is full of simple truths like that – a penny saved is a penny earned! – observations…recommendations…illuminations that help us avoid mistakes. But the feds live in a fake world…a planet of wishful thinking and self-serving illusions. For more than 12 years, they encouraged people not to save, but to spend.

The Fix Is In: Naturally, some of them go broke. But rather than acknowledge their mistake, they said, ‘Okay…We’ll get a new band…and change the bed. You’ve got too much debt. We’ll give you more of it…so we can keep the scam going.’ That is how the Fed handled every crisis since 1987. It backed the markets with more and more credit…leading to more and more debt…to the point where the debts cannot be serviced at normal interest rates.

But now, for the first time in 40 years, the Fed is not merely adding debt, goosing up the economy and making the rich richer, it is fighting inflation. Yes, the wheel has turned. Jerome Powell is no Paul Volcker. 2023 is not 1979. And the Fed will not follow through on its inflation fight. It has gone too far down the road to perdition. It can’t turn back. So, when the going gets rough, then it will take a dive. But the fix has been in for a long time.

First, the federal government is not even pretending to protect the dollar. It is spending money wily-nily on every cockamamie scheme that comes its way. The deficit this year is anticipated to be $1.7 trillion – that is more than the entire federal budget in 2002. And the interest on the debt is already reaching almost $800 billion. Soon will hit $1 trillion. All of this spending, far in excess of receipts, is inflationary.

Under Pressure: And the Fed, too, is already well advanced with its ‘stealth pivot.’ A month ago, it quietly changed the way it handles its QE bond portfolio. Instead of letting the bonds run off – as had been the program (to reduce the money supply) – the Fed began quietly rolling them over…effectively increasing the supply of debt in the Fed’s balance sheet.

Dan reported last week: "This has been burning up the Twitter wires all night. Quantitative Tightening reduced the Fed's balance sheet by $625 billion when it started on April 13th of last year. Since March 1st, it's up $299 billion. So 47% of QT was wiped out when the first hint of crisis came. And even now, a year after the campaign of rate hikes began, the Fed’s key rate is still well below the level of consumer price increases. The 2-year “stacked” CPI is around 7%. The Fed Funds rate is below 5%. You can do the math. Speculators and borrowers still earn a net 2%."

That is why the debt level is still going up. Household, government, corporate – all major categories of debt are increasing…adding to the pressure in the system. Most likely, the Fed will publicly announce another rate increase this week…and continue with its inflation agenda, without mentioning it."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

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"The global derivatives market is a $2+ QUADRILLION (2,000+ TRILLION) ticking time-bomb. When banks fail, derivatives won't just unwind in an orderly fashion. Few people understand this. These are some of the top U.S. banks ranked by derivatives exposure (double-digit TRILLIONs)."

- https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/

Stipendium peccati mors est...

"Alert! Central Banks To Provide "Unlimited Liquidity" To The Banking System"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/20/23:

"Alert! Central Banks To Provide 

"Unlimited Liquidity" To The Banking System"

- https://traderschoice.net/

So, Good Citizen, while you're fighting for your life 

are you getting your share of this "unlimited liquidity?"

Oh, sorry, I forgot...

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

"We Will No Longer Support This War Against Russia"

Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 3/20/23:

"We Will No Longer Support This War Against Russia"

"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current 

geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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"The Gathering Storm"

"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

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

- Arundhati Roy, "The Cost of Living"

Jim Kunstler, "This Has Got to Stop"

"This Has Got to Stop"

by Jim Kunstler

“As the evidence mounts of an even broader censorship effort by the Biden administration, the Democrats’ attacks have become more unhinged and unscrupulous. After shredding any fealty to free speech, they now are attacking journalists, demanding their sources and claiming their reporting is a public threat.” - Jonathan Turley

"And it will stop because, as the old wag Herb Stein laid down in his law years ago: Things that can’t go on, stop. Which raises the question: which things? And the answer is the things Western Civ is doing in its attempted suicide: inciting war, recklessly running up debt, persecuting its own citizens and stealing their liberties, subjecting them to medical malfeasance, destroying their goods production and food-growing capabilities, and subjecting the public to incessant mind-f**kery in a campaign to falsify and disfigure reality.

A consortium of public and corporate bureaucracies has institutionalized the falsification of reality under the pretense of saving the human race from a pack of hobgoblins led by climate change, racism, and normal sexual reproduction. They have been driven insane by the actual reality of pending economic collapse, which has only been accelerated by their own suicidal activities. What they apparently really want to save is their own positions, perquisites, and power. Their enabling mechanism is the digital computer and its many ways of assembling and controlling information, and thus controlling people, especially those who object to totalizing control. They do it because they can.

You can see how bad it got by reading the Twitter Files #19, assembled by independent reporter Matt Taibbi and released on March 17: "The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine, Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” . The thread tells of the campaign led by Stanford University called the Virality Project, marshalling government agencies, academia, Big Pharma, and NGOs, such as several financed by George Soros, to suppress “misinformation” on social media, including “stories of true vaccine side effects.” Hence, truth became misinformation.

You might see in that how anyone on the side of falsifying reality is playing at a disadvantage. If that is your first principle in a political struggle, you are fighting not just against your opponents but against the laws of the universe. The only recourse of a faction at war with reality is tyranny, forcing the people to accept your bullshit and do your will, whether they like it or not. That is exactly what you get in America’s Democratic Party and other regimes currently in power around Western Civ. Being at war with reality places them at war against their own citizens.

The Covid-19 release seems to have been an act motivated by multiple players for their own reasons which, combined, amounted to crimes against humanity. Anthony Fauci, America’s infectious disease czar, apparently sought a crowning career triumph, which would have been a successful vaccine against a dangerous virus. So, he arranged to engineer the organism that he could then triumph against. Like all of Dr. Fauci’s projects over the roughly forty years that he ran the NIAID agency, the mRNA vaccines - subcontracted to the US Military and manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna - turned out to be an epic fiasco.

Covid-19 also happened to be a convenient device for ridding the government of the troublesome President Trump, who threatened to disassemble major parts of the permanent US bureaucracy. If you revisit the many videos of Mr. Trump appearing in the White House Covid crisis room in early 2020 with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and other public health officials, I’m sure you will notice his discomfort, as if he suspected he was being played (he was). And conveniently, right after that, the locked-down public’s attention was galvanized by the George Floyd, BLM, and Antifa riots until the 2020 election was upon us. (Another grotesque prank against the people, never adjudicated.)

It took more than a year after the “vaccines” came out for the disturbing actuarial data to emerge from the life insurance industry that many non-elderly people were being killed and disabled by the shots’ adverse effects. (I think the censors were caught by surprise that the truth leaked out from there.) Meanwhile, any able investigator could understand how the half-assed “vaccines,” along with the denigration of off-label early treatment medicines, the reckless use of dangerous remdesivir combined with enormous government payments to hospitals for mis-treating patients with it, the gaming and hiding of CDC statistics, and the obvious censorship of all that information in the corporate news and social media (with help from the CIA and FBI), all added up to monstrous criminal offense against human decency.

The government now led by the career criminal “Joe Biden,” needed another distraction from intrusive reality in 2022 - including the emergence of the Biden family’s crimes - so it arranged to start a war in Ukraine by threatening to turn that country into a forward NATO base on Russia’s border. Russia was exceptionally clear and straightforward that it wouldn’t accept such an arrangement and the US proceeded anyway. Our country was exceptionally dishonest in its positioning for this conflict. (And our NATO allies were astoundingly credulous going along with it, even after we fatally damaged the EU’s economy).

Now, entering the spring of 2023, all of this sordid untruth is unravelling along with something else that the news media will have trouble lying about: the collapse of the money system in Western Civ. Unlike Covid-19 and the Ukraine War, a banking collapse has no propaganda value to the regimes in power. There is no narrative they can concoct out of it to their advantage. The public will do what they always do to a government that plunges them into penury and hardship. They will turn it out or pull it down.

Since money and banking are subject to the laws of physics, we are going to get the ultimate payback for messing with reality. A lot of things that can’t go on will stop."

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Economic Market Snapshot 3/20/23"

"Economic Market Snapshot 3/20/23"

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

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- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...

"Breaking: Massive Recall On Frozen Berries And Baby Formula!"

Adventures With Danny 3/20/23:

"Breaking: Massive Recall On

 Frozen Berries And Baby Formula!"

"There is a massive recall on frozen strawberries and baby formula that is affecting many stores around the United States. Costco, Aldi, and Trader Joe's are some of the stores involved. Along with this we have another Baby Formula Recall on the Gerber's Good Start SoothePro Formula. Make sure to check all the dates we go over in our video, or you can visit the F.D.A. website to see if these dates affect you."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Breaking News! NATO 300,000 Troops at Russian Border, Civil Unrest in USA, Banks Brace for Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper 1/19/23

"Breaking News! NATO 300,000 Troops at Russian Border,

 Civil Unrest in USA, Banks Brace for Collapse"

"Massive troop deployments are coming to Europe, Civil unrest in the USA, Germany threatens to Arrest Putin, Poland will enter conflict, thats just scratching the surface of todays talk. Buckle up!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"All Hell Is Breaking Loose In The Stock Market As Major Threats Emerge"

Full screen recommended.

"All Hell Is Breaking Loose In The Stock Market 

As Major Threats Emerge"

By Epic Economist

"All hell is breaking loose on the stock market as major threats emerge in the system. Last week, fear of a financial crisis unleashed widespread chaos across markets, plunging bank stocks and sending shockwaves that could result in a disastrous selloff when trading resumes tomorrow. According to some big market players, conditions are looking a lot like those of 1929. Scary predictions and warnings about what will happen next for stocks don't stop coming, and angst over inflation, interest rates, recession, and systemic risks are making the odds of a brutal stock market crash look more imminent than ever.

Financial markets were already facing a period of extraordinary anxiety over tighter credit conditions, worsening outlooks for businesses, and deteriorating economic conditions when a sudden string of U.S. bank failures exponentially raised the risk of a stock market crash in a span of just seven days.

Right now, investors across stocks, bonds, and commodities are in crisis mode. Several key indications are revealing signs of extreme stress, with some nearing levels last seen during previous turmoils. Optimism has vanished, and now investors are increasingly seeking insurance against a potential flash crash in stocks as they brace for more tumult in the market this week after worries over a banking system collapse shook asset prices over the last week.

All of these developments prompted Tesla CEO Elon Musk to warn that there were frightening similarities between the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the crisis that triggered the 1929 Wall Street crash. "Lot of current year similarities to 1929," he said on Twitter Tuesday, in response to a thread by Ark Invest CIO Cathie Wood. In late October 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 23% in two days, signaling the start of the Great Depression. And now Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson is alerting about a potential 22% flash stock market crash by the end of this month.

In a new note to clients, Wilson said he sees the S&P 500 falling to a low of 3,000 after the Fed meeting this coming Wednesday, representing a further 22% downside from current levels. Similarly, JPMorgan analysts added that if inflation stays higher than the Fed and investors would like, “it could spark further downside for a March sell-off that appears to have already kicked off.”

On Friday, stocks plummeted as investors pulled back from positions in risky assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 400 points, to close at 31,861.98 points. The Nasdaq Composite slid 0.74%, and the S&P 500 lost 1.10% and is now 5% from February levels. Markets closed at a critical moment. “There’s nervousness into the weekend of: How does this all look on Monday?,” says Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “The market is nervous about holding stocks into that.”

The big question at the moment is how far the contagion will spread in the coming days. Analysts are bracing themselves for another rash of selling Monday morning, and things could get a lot worse than they already are. We will soon find out if they are right. But whatever happens, this is all a sign of a much bigger crisis that will ravage the financial world in 2023. This won’t be just a banking crisis or a stock market crash. It will be an everything collapse that will repercuss for years to come."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Kevin Kern, "Another Realm"

Kevin Kern, "Another Realm"

"A Look to the Heavens: Carl Sagan, 'The Pale Blue Dot'"

"The following excerpt from Carl Sagan's book "Pale Blue Dot" was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990. As the spacecraft was departing our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned it around for one last look at its home planet.

Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size."

"The Pale Blue Dot"

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

- Carl Sagan