Oh, it's not just the young. Look around,
everyone has their face jammed into a phone...
Several generations of idiots actually...
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
"Of the Few, By the Few, For the Few"
"Of the Few, By the Few, For the Few"
How government really works...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
“I have my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others…”
~ Groucho Marx
'In the news yesterday was James Bovard, writing in The New York Post: "Special counsel John Durham exposed Monday how the FBI and Justice Department plotted to rig the 2016 presidential election. His 316-page report proves federal law enforcement was weaponized by shielding the Hillary Clinton campaign and persecuting the Donald Trump campaign." That was the FBI, colluding with the Hillary Clinton campaign to distort the will of ‘the people.’ America’s CIA also has a well-deserved reputation for chicanery. It interferes in elections all over the world. Would it be so surprising to learn that it meddles in US elections too?
How the Feds Work: In the 2020 contest, 51 CIA retirees signed an open letter in an effort to bury the Hunter Biden Laptop story. They claimed the affair bore all the ‘classic earmarks’ of Russian disinformation and should be disregarded. But there was no evidence of Russian involvement. And the spooks knew it. The Wall Street Journal: "Biden’s CIA Assist in the 2020 Presidential Election." "A CIA official was using government time and resources to scheme with outside partisans to assist in Mr. Biden’s victory…Consider, too, that this CIA official was better placed to know there was no truth to the letter’s assertion. That very day, then-DNI John Ratcliffe - privy to all - had publicly said the intel community had nothing to support the claim that the laptop was “disinformation.”
This is of interest to us only because it shows how the feds work…and it gives us a hint about how they will deal with the financial crisis ahead. In short, we’ll see how one large group of Americans will be sacrificed to protect a small, more powerful group.
America was s’posed to be a country based on principles, not on brute force or flimflam. But though the bottle was new, the wine was as old as Adam. And it was still intoxicating. In the many generations since The Flood, humans always found ways to cheat. From the bottom deck, from an ace up the sleeve to the wildest cards they could imagine – it was futile and vain to think that they were going to let a constitution or a Bill of Rights – principles – stop them from flimflamming
We edited a book about it. ‘The Idea of America’ it is called. The idea was that instead of being ‘subjects’ to royal or imperial power, people could run their own lives and govern themselves.
Rig the Vote: How much tax would they pay? It was up to them. Who would occupy the White House? Their choice. What rules, regulations, standards would be applied? What language would they speak? What flag would they fly? What kind of beer would they drink? Nobody could say, but themselves. Not the king…not the emperor…not the Grand Poobah…the Sultan…the Doge…neither the Great Khan nor a lesser Khan…no one with roman numerals after his name…no one called “The Magnificent”…no one you had to address as “your highness”…or “your lordship”…no dukes, no barons, no earls, no counts, no viscounts, no no-accounts…no one to whom you had to bend a knee or bow a head.
Americans could hold their heads up. They were the rulers now…they were the deciders. If there were disastrous public policy decisions to be made, they would make them themselves. For better or for worse, it was meant to be a government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’
But how could ‘The People’ know that Hillary Clinton was conspiring with the FBI to rig the election of 2016? How could they know which side God is on in the war in the Ukraine? And how could the typical voter know now that he has been set up by both political parties, and by the Fed, to be wiped out by inflation?
Connivers and Hustlers: The idea of ‘democracy’ came from Greek and Romans writers. And it works fairly well – on a small scale. In a small town, for example, where everyone knows who’s who and what’s what, the voters can form their own judgements – good or bad – and come to reasonable decisions. But on a large scale, honest democracy is a sham. ‘The People’ don’t really have any idea of what is going on. Nobody knows anything. So, the deciders stack the deck and find new principles more suitable to their ambitions.
This view is deeply offensive to many people. They want to believe that their government is benign…that it is looking out for ‘all of us,’ as Hillary famously put it. But the real government is a thin, polished veneer over the crooked timber that is mass man. It is the rich and powerful…the connivers and hustlers…the Bonapartes and Bidens – using their chutzpah and cunning to get an advantage. Yes, government is perhaps inevitable. But like mosquitoes, food poisoning, and social media, the less of it you have, the better off you are.
Our beat is money. And we see ‘inflation’ in a different light than most. It is not an accident. And the damage it inflicts on the middle classes is not ‘collateral;’ it is government policy. It is deliberate. It is a way, not just to fund the programs of the deciders, it is also a way to destroy the middle classes and eliminate them as a political force. More to come…"
Joel’s Note: Dear readers will recall that it was the Greeks who first gave the world democracy – from the Greek, dēmokratía, literally “Rule by ‘People’”. And yes, it was those very same Greeks who put their own beloved Socrates to death… by a majority vote of 361-140. Call it “tyranny of the mobjority.”
It seems that, in the murky realm of human affairs, there really is nothing new under the sun. Jealousy, vengeance and pride before the fall… love, loss and betrayal… scheming, scamming and conniving… it stands to reason that any government made up “of men” (by which we include Hes, Shes, Theys and Undecideds) is likely to express the underlying character of our basic human condition, such as it is. And now, thanks to the wonders of human ingenuity, we can add Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the list of corruptible concerns facing the sacred cow that is modern, representative democracy.
Political scientists and whizz-bang computer engineers have long warned about the potential for advanced technology to usurp the so-called “will of the people” at the voting booth. Ignoring the fact that “the people” have no collective will in the first place, experts fretted that cheap, widely-available AI tools could be used to render “deep fakes,” in which counterfeit audio and video could be produced to sway voter opinion.
Until recently, the images and imitations have been rather crude. But that’s changing… and fast. Reads a story from the Associated Press earlier this week: "Sophisticated generative AI tools can now create cloned human voices and hyper-realistic images, videos and audio in seconds, at minimal cost. When strapped to powerful social media algorithms, this fake and digitally created content can spread far and fast and target highly specific audiences, potentially taking campaign dirty tricks to a new low."
The implications for the 2024 campaigns and elections are as large as they are troubling: Generative AI can not only rapidly produce targeted campaign emails, texts or videos, it also could be used to mislead voters, impersonate candidates and undermine elections on a scale and at a speed not yet seen.
On the political front, you can expect this to open the door for all manner of accusations of “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “mal-information” from jilted politicians (on both sides) who don’t get the results they paid for. No doubt the powers that be will use this as an excuse to usher in ever more “content moderation” (read: censorship) in order to “protect” voters from outside influences (read: the other team).
There’s a lot more to the developing AI story, both from a political, social and, of course, financial stand point. Dan touched on this in his Friday research note to BPR members. It’s something we’ll be following up on, too, in future musings. Stay tuned…
"Do You Believe..."
“Do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other as they do today, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”
“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”
- Voltaire
"Brace Yourselves: We’re Hurdling Toward Disaster"
Full screen recommended.
City Prepping, 5/16/23
"Brace Yourselves:
We’re Hurdling Toward Disaster"
"This event could singlehandedly change the US economy (and the world) as we know it. Yet, our leaders are incapable (or unwilling) to address this issue."
Comments here:
"We Can’t Catch a Break"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 5/16/23
"We Can’t Catch a Break"
"Janet Yellen is concerned that the debt ceiling will not be solved. She is warning Congress again that this needs to be resolved immediately. She says this this will be catastrophic to the worlds economy if it is not resolved."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "More Lies, Distractions And Deceptions! The Data Is 100% Fake!"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/16/23
"More Lies, Distractions And Deceptions!
The Data Is 100% Fake!"
Comments here:
o
Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/16/23
"More Fake News, The Economy Is Over"
Comments here:
"Grocery Deals At Meijer This Week! Get Prepared! Stock Up!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/16/23
"Grocery Deals At Meijer This Week!
Get Prepared! Stock Up!"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are showing the best deals to stock up on this week. It's getting rough out here as inflation is at an all-time high, and grocery prices continue to skyrocket!"
Comments here:
o
Meanwhile...
Full screen recommended.
Traveling With Russia, 5/16/23
"Russian Typical (Swiss) Hypermarket Tour: Selgros"
"Take a walk inside a Russian TYPICAL Hypermarket locatedi n Moscow, Russia. Selgros Cash & Carry chain of Hypermarkets which are Swiss Owned. Currently in Russia there are 11 of the Selgros Hypertmarkets to shop in."
Comments here:
"We Are Watching It ALL Collapse And They Won't Stop It'
Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 5/15/23
"We Are Watching It ALL Collapse And They Won't Stop It'
"The Biden administration says that White Supremacy is the biggest threat facing the United States. Is it? We take a look at the crisis at the southern border and that seems to be a pretty big threat. Why is this being hidden from us?"
Comments here:
Monday, May 15, 2023
"Most People Believe That Life In America Is “Worse” Than It Was 50 Years Ago"
"Most People Believe That Life In America
Is “Worse” Than It Was 50 Years Ago"
By Michael Snyder
"If you could go back and live in 1973, would you do it? To me, that is not an easy question to answer. I think that for many of us it would be a real challenge to adjust to a world without the Internet and so many of the other technologies that we enjoy today. But I also think that if we were suddenly transported back to that time we would be absolutely shocked by how freely people lived. In 2023, there are literally millions of different laws, rules, regulations and ordinances that constrain how we behave down to the smallest detail. A lot of us still think that we are “free”, but that hasn’t actually been true for a very long time. In addition, the values of our society are completely different from what they were in 1973. Over the past 50 years our culture has been completely turned upside down, and we can see the nightmarish consequences of this cultural revolution all around us.
Of course there was no time in U.S. history when life was perfect. But when Pew Research recently asked people if life in America “is better, worse, or about the same as it was 50 years ago”, an overwhelming majority of respondents said that life is worse today…"The survey showed Americans with a negative view on how life is for people now. They were asked, “In general, would you say life in America today is better, worse, or about the same as it was 50 years ago for people like you?” Over half, 58 percent, said they believe life is “worse” for people like them than it was 50 years ago. That reflects a 15-point increase from the 43 percent who said the same in July 2021. Only 23 percent said they believe life is “better,” and 19 percent said it is “about the same.”
Needless to say, if many of us had to pick the best years in American history, 1973 would not be among the top few choices. The economy was really struggling and the fashions were absolutely horrible. But if you watch this footage of New York City in the 1970's you can see that life was pretty good and people seemed to be pretty happy…
Full screen recommended.
Would I want to trade my current life for a life in 1973? No. But if I could trade the people and values of 1973 for the people and values of 2023, I would do that in a heartbeat.
Our society is falling apart all around us, and that is because the character of this nation has been fundamentally transformed. Crime rates are spiking in our major cities, mass killings are happening at a record pace, our streets are filled with drug addicts, and the biggest crooks of all are walking the halls of power.
In addition, we live at a time when millions of Americans are afraid to leave their homes because our society is literally teeming with predators. For example, the next time a hotel manager tells you that he wants to check in on you, it may not be because he is concerned about your air conditioning unit…"A manager at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Nashville has been charged with aggravated burglary and assault after he reportedly entered a guest’s room and sucked on his toes.
According to Metro police, 52-year-old David Neal was the night manager at downtown Nashville’s Hilton Hotel, located in the 100 block of 4th Avenue South. Police said Neal allegedly made a key card and used it to enter the guest’s room on March 30 at around 5 a.m. The guest told police he woke up and found Neal sucking on his toes. He immediately confronted Neal and recognized him as the person who had come into his room the day before with another employee to address an issue the guest was having with his TV, according to investigators."
There are millions of others just like him all over the country. And some of them even get invited to the White House. Of course it is debatable whether we even have a “country” at this point because we essentially have no southern border. Thousands upon thousands of migrants illegally enter the U.S. every single day, and this isn’t just causing enormous issues in the border states.
In the state of Indiana, approximately 22 percent of all students in the public schools “receive lessons in both English and Spanish”…"But it’s not just a problem in the border states. Take Indiana, for example, where Indianapolis police have just declared the capital city a sanctuary for the invasion. WISH reported last year: “Across Indiana, there are nearly 78,000 students called ‘English Learners’ who receive lessons in both English and Spanish. The number of English learners in Indiana schools has increased by almost 27,000 from six years ago.” FAIR estimates that 22% of Indianapolis students are LEPs!"
And now that Title 42 is expiring, the surge of migration that we have been witnessing is likely to become an avalanche…"Tens of thousands of migrants are reportedly surging at the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of Title 42’s expiration. In the Texas border city of El Paso, about 2,200 migrants are currently camped or living on the streets a few blocks from major ports of entry that connect El Paso with the Mexican city of Juárez. The city is prepared to open up shelters next week if needed at two vacant school buildings and a civic center."
So the pace of societal change is only going to accelerate even more in the years ahead. I just wish that things would go back to the way they once were. We live at a time where almost everything is corrupt. For example, if I order a chicken sandwich at a restaurant, I want them to give me a piece of meat that comes from a dead chicken. But instead, our “chicken-based products” often contain fillers such as “seaweed” and “wood pulp”…"Fried chicken is a favorite for millions of Americans – but many of the options offered by America’s biggest fast food chains contain other unexpected ingredients.
These restaurants will often fill their food with additives, preservative and even other proteins in order to keep costs to a minimum and give their offerings a longer shelf life. Others may use buzzwords such as ‘premium’ or ‘all-white meat’ to describe their poultry-based offerings. But more surprising ingredients – such as beef, seaweed and even wood pulp – can be found in the recipe for some chicken-based products at major restaurants."
Yuck! And don’t even get me started on the “meat glue” that is used to hold many of our meat products together. The reason so many people eat “organic” today is because they want to eat like people did 50 or 60 years ago. In fact, many of the “movements” that we are witnessing right now are simply attempts to recapture what life in America was once like. We have lost so much, and we are losing even more with each passing day.
But there are still many of us that remember how great America was in the old days, and we simply are not willing to stand by and just accept the new version of “America” that is now being forced upon us."
o
"I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Gonna Take This Anymore!"
"Network", Sidney Lumet, 1976
"Nuke Bombers Moved To NATO Border; Belarus/Poland War"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 5/15/23
"Nuke Bombers Moved To NATO Border;
Belarus/Poland War"
Comments here:
"The Warning Signs Are Everywhere; Americans Are Going Broke; Credit Card Debt Destroying Households"
Jeremiah Babe, 5/15/23
"The Warning Signs Are Everywhere; Americans Are Going Broke;
Credit Card Debt Destroying Households"
Comments here:
"20 Facts That Prove American Families Are Being Completely Crushed By Rising Prices"
Full screen recommended.
"20 Facts That Prove American Families Are
Being Completely Crushed By Rising Prices"
By Epic Economist
"Higher mortgages, rents, car payments, grocery bills, and monthly expenses are financially draining U.S. households at a breathtaking pace. The cost of living continues to rise much faster than our salaries, and our purchasing power isn't the same as it used to be just a few years back. Today we're paying more for everything and consuming way less than we have historically. At this point, the overwhelming majority of Americans are stressed about money, and that may not change anytime soon. We're coping with increasing responsibilities at work but we're not being compensated accordingly. Adding all that to a scenario of inflation and the threat of another severe recession and we understand why even middle-and-upper-income earners are going broke, while low-income families are buried up to their heads in debt. This is America today, and we're being warned that many more challenges are still ahead.
In March, a new NPR and Marist poll revealed that 38% of Americans say their personal finances have gotten worse over the past 12 months. That's an 8-point jump since February. The findings reflect the rapid pace at which conditions are deteriorating for U.S. families. Although officials say economic fundamentals are improving, the public isn’t seeing that being reflected on their grocery bills or at the pump.
A growing number of Americans say they can’t pay their bills in full every month, according to the Census Bureau's most recent Household Pulse survey. About 36% of consumers say it has been "very difficult" for them to pay their usual bills in the last month. That represents a 14% increase compared with a year earlier, and is higher than even in the early months of the pandemic, the data shows. As a result, they are taking on more and more debt to cover their bare necessities.
Meanwhile, the Working Poor Families Project reports that in America today over 53 million people, including 24 million children, are living in a low-income family. From 2020 to 2023, the share of working families who became low-income (below 200 percent of the official poverty threshold) increased from 28 percent to 31 percent. While there was an increase of 2.2 million people since 2020, the number of children in low-income working families rose by more than 500,000 in just one year.
All of these numbers are proof that living conditions in America have never been so complicated. We have actually gotten poorer than our parents and grandparents as our opportunities for growth shrank in the face of fewer middle-class jobs, inflation, rising interest rates, stock market volatility, and the housing bubble. It's hard to see how we climb out of the hole we're shoved into, but Americans have proven to be one of the most resilient people in the world. Hopefully, our nation finds its strength back to start turning things around before it's too late. In today's video, we decided to compile several numbers that reveal just how much economic suffering is happening out there."
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Josh Groban, “You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)”
Full screen recommended.
Josh Groban, “You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)”
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.
In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."
"There Are Days..."
"How do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You stand strong, keep pushing yourself past all rational limits and never let yourself give up. But the truth of the matter is, despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered."
- "Dr. Meredith Grey," "Grey's Anatomy"
○
"There are days that make the sacrifices seem worthwhile... and then there are the days where everything feels like a sacrifice. And then there are the sacrifices that you can't even figure out why you're making. A wise man once said, you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant, nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you're willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right. And letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming. When we don't have time to come up with a strategy, to pick a side, or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear."
- "Dr. Meredith Grey", "Grey's Anatomy"
"Memento Mori"
"Memento Mori"
by Ryan Holiday
"Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We're tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers." - Seneca
Born with a chronic illness that loomed large throughout his life, Seneca was constantly thinking about and writing about the final act of life. "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life," he said. "Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time."
Most interestingly, he quibbled with the idea that death was something that lay ahead of us in the uncertain future. "This is our big mistake," Seneca wrote, "to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death." That was Seneca's great insight - that we are dying every day and no day, once dead, can be revived.
So we should listen to the command that Marcus gave himself. He wrote,"Concentrate every minute like a Roman on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions." The key to this kind of concentration? "Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life."
That's the power of Memento Mori - of meditating on your mortality. It isn't about being morbid or making you scared. It's about giving you power. It's to inspire, to motivate, to clarify, to concentrate like a Roman on the thing in front of you. Because it may well be the last thing you do in your life.
The Stoics were philosophers, but more than that they were doers. They didn't have room for big words or big ideas, just stuff that made you better right here, right now. As Marcus Aurelius said: "Justice, honesty, self-control, courage, don't make room for anything but it - for anything that might lead you astray, tempt you off the road, and leave you unable to devote yourself completely to achieving the goodness that is uniquely yours."
"The Champ"
"The Champ"
by CP
"Ding, ding, ding, you hear the bell for the start of the fight, hear the crowd, noisy, excited to see this rematch between you and Life. You're here, and still the Champ, right? Fought this guy so many times before, always beat him, too, though you took many a beating yourself in the process, each fight a little tougher, taking a little more out of you each time. You meet in the center of the ring... damn, has this guy grown somehow? He looks bigger, more muscled, and has a real confident look in his eye. So what? You're the Champ, still standing, right? Let'sget it on!
Ding, ding, ding, you meet him in the center of the ring, toe to toe, jabbing, bobbing and weaving, feeling each other out. He seems faster than you remember, while your own punches are a hair slower, not quite able to connect solidly, while his land solidly, crisply, heavily. He lands a tremendous body shot to your side, knocking the air right out of you, and you clinch him desperately, sucking in as much air as you can while he hammers away at you, your forearms blocking most, but not all, of those heavy, heavy punches.
Ding, ding, ding, the bell ends the round and you sit on your stool, hearing the trainers tell you how to fight this guy, "Don't clinch with him, he's too strong, he'll bust you up!" "Dance, man, side to side, bob and weave, don't give him anything to hit! Jab and dance away, jab, jab, jab..." words you've heard so many times before. You think of previous bouts with this guy, the loss of a job when you had a family to support, the bitter divorce, the deaths of loved ones, and every time he came wanting to knock your head off, but your will power, training and instincts always kept you standing at the end, still the Champ, right? But this time, something's not right, something's different somehow.
Yeah, time's gone by, not so young or strong as you once were, not as fast, don't recover as fast, but haven't been taken out yet, right? And everybody knows the rules, the only way he wins is to knock you out, you just gotta hang on, take his best shots and give him all you got until that bell rings for the end of the fight, and if you're still there, still standing, you win. Still the Champ, right? Round after round after round...
Ding, ding, ding, last round, you're feeling so tired, legs almost gone, no snap to the punches, but he looks fresh, strong, and bores in with a mean intent, landing hammer blows, knocking you back towards the corner where he wants you, you try dancing sideways, he cuts off the ring, no escape that way, and keeps coming in. A thunderous right cross lands smack on your chin, everything turns black for a second, legs about to go as the instincts kick in and you throw your body back out of the way, sucking in as much air as you can, shaking your head to clear the blurriness, but you're in the corner now, where he wants you, and here he comes with a vengeance, fast, strong, wanting the knockout, but you're still standing, still the Champ, right? Right?
Ding, ding, ding..."
“The History of the Middle Finger”
“The History of the Middle Finger”
by pappy
“Well, now… here’s something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I feel compelled to send it on to my more intelligent friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified.
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as ‘plucking the yew’ (or ‘pluck yew’).
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and they began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, “See, we can still pluck yew!” Since ‘pluck yew’ is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentalfricative ‘F’, and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute! It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as ‘giving the bird.’”
"The Entire Financial System Is Teetering On The Edge, And Wont Take Much To Push It Over."
Gregory Mannarino PM 5/15/23
"The Entire Financial System Is Teetering On
The Edge, And Wont Take Much To Push It Over."
Comments here:
"Babson's Warning"
"Babson's Warning"
by Jeff Thomas
"A crash is coming, and it may be terrific. The vicious circle will get in full swing and the result will be a serious business depression. There may be a stampede for selling which will exceed anything that the Stock Exchange has ever witnessed. Wise are those investors who now get out of debt."
The above words could easily have been stated by me or another of the (very) few others who currently predict the coming of crashes in the markets. But they were not. The statements above were made by investor Roger Babson at a speech at the Annual Business Conference in Massachusetts on 5th September, 1929. Mr. Babson’s prediction was not a sudden one. In fact, he had been making the same prediction for the previous two years, although he, in September of 1929, felt the crash was much closer.
News of his speech reached Wall Street by mid-afternoon, causing the market to retreat about 3%. The sudden decline was named the "Babson Break." The reaction from business insiders was immediate. Rather than respond by saying, "Thanks for the warning - we’ll proceed cautiously," Wall Street vilified him. The Chicago Tribune published numerous rebuffs from a host of economists and Wall Street leaders. Even Mr. Babson’s patriotism was taken into question for making so rash a projection.
Noted economist Professor Irving Fisher stated emphatically, "There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash." He and many others repeatedly soothed investors, advising them that a resumption in the boom was imminent. Financier Bernard Baruch famously cabled Winston Churchill, "Financial storm definitely passed." Even President Herbert Hoover assured Americans that the market was sound. But, 55 days after Mr. Babson’s speech, on 29th October, 1929, the market suddenly went into a free-fall, dropping 12% in its first day.
Today, most people have the general impression that on Black Friday, the market crashed and almost immediately, there were breadlines. Not so. In the Great Depression, as in any depression, the market collapsed in stages. The market did not reach its bottom of 89% losses until July of 1932. Along the way, thousands of banks and lending institutions went belly-up. Thirteen million jobs disappeared.
And of course, the political leaders of the day did their bit. They implemented knee-jerk "solutions" that actually worsened the situation. Restrictive tariffs, gold confiscation, and a more dominant government were employed, just as they will be this time around. So, as the market tumbled, we would imagine that Babson came to be praised by Wall Street for his insight, but in fact, the opposite occurred. Having accused him of being utterly incorrect in September, they later accused him of having caused the depression.
So, was Babson’s prediction a lucky guess? Did he simply observe the bull market and arbitrarily predict the opposite of the trend of the day to see what would happen? Not at all. Such predictions are not guesswork, nor are they attributable to a vision seen in some crystal ball. Such crashes are entirely predictable. When any major bull market becomes overbought; when too many investors begin buying on margin because they can’t come up with the purchase price for stocks; when they then become even more obsessive and borrow money to buy on margin, the market has become a house of cards, waiting for the slightest breeze to come along.
So what do we take away from this? First, we can be certain that as the present-day house of cards begins to shake, there will be no warnings from Wall Street. In fact, quite the opposite. Their bread gets buttered by buyers. They will be adamant (and even, in many cases, truly believe) that the sky is the limit and investors should buy, buy, buy, as there are fortunes to be made by doing so. And investors, watching the rise, will fall all over each other, just as in 1929, buying with both hands.
This time around, the crash and its byproducts will be more extreme than in 1929, as the bubble itself is more extreme. And Wall Street can count on television and a media that has a vested interest in keeping the charade going as long as possible. It will also be more extreme, as the governments of much of the world are now broke and can only worsen their respective economies through the customary "solutions" that governments always employ - tariffs, confiscations, greater government control, etc.
Finally, the aftermath will be more extreme, as - unlike in 1929, when most people actually believed in the government - this time around, there will be dramatic unrest. Just as in 1929, those who are declaring that "the Emperor has no clothes" are few in number, and their viewpoint is most certainly not put forth in the conventional media. For this reason, it’s understandable that the great majority of people invariably ignore the Babsons of the world as Chicken Littles and blithely charge toward the cliff like lemmings.
Those who do think independently and become convinced that history is repeating itself are focusing their attention on finding a way out of being a casualty in the train wreck that’s coming. This is difficult to do, as invariably, the closer the event becomes, the more difficult it is to swim against the tide. For this reason, even many who conclude that the end is near often fail to act to save themselves and their families.
Internationalization is both time-consuming and costly. Additionally, it’s lonely, as it’s considered foolish and unnecessary by more than 99% of the population. The great temptation is to decide, "Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe I can live with it." And in fact, for most people, this will be the prevailing view - that although their personal situation will be diminished in many ways, the crashes will be tolerable. The question is whether we wish to make the pre-emptive effort to create a life that is far better than tolerable, and possibly even improved, whist the opportunity for doing so still exists.
Economically, politically, and socially, the United States seems to be headed down a path that’s not only inconsistent with the founding principles of the country but accelerating quickly toward boundless decay. It’s contributing to a growing wave of misguided socialist ideas."
Free Download: John Steinbeck, "The Grapes Of Wrath",
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"There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success."
“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.”
“...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
- John Steinbeck, "The Grapes Of Wrath"
Freely Download, John Steinbeck, "The Grapes Of Wrath", here:
"The War Against Will"
"The War Against Will"
by Paul Rosenberg
"The modern world will allow you to join any of a thousand collectives, but it will punish you for standing on your own, as a self-willed entity. People who commit this crime understand that they are outlaws in the present world. And if at first they don’t understand that, the world makes sure they know.
The world as it is, then, is the enemy of will. This is nothing new, of course, governments have been at war against will since they began: How else can you get people to blindly obey you, to hand over half their income, and to thank you for it? People who possess a full and active will must be convinced to do things, and governments couldn’t function if they had to do that.
The present world is built around the restraint of will, and not just on the government level. Advertising, for example, is more or less devoted to implanting subconscious desires and subverting the will with them. In dysfunctional families, manipulating one another – whether by guilt, ridicule, being left out of Papa’s will or whatever – is the currency of the realm.
And so obedience, consumption and acquiescence have become cardinal virtues, and the avoidance of immediate pain the prime directive. As we might paraphrase an old apostle, this world’s God is the belly.
The Willful, For Whom Heaven And Earth Were Created: All human creativity functions on individual will. Everyone interested in creativity knows this, and here are just a couple of passages to make the point:
"Everything that is really great and inspiring is
created by the individual who can labor in freedom."
- Albert Einstein
"This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the
individual human is the most valuable thing in the world."
- John Steinbeck
It is the active will of individuals that has created everything good in this world. Really, life comes down to a choice between creativity and entropy:
• The world (the realm of officialdom, acquiescence and so on) is an incarnation of entropy, winding down and collapsing once the fuel left to it by creative men and women of the past is burned out.
• The creatives, who are willing to take blows in defense of their willfulness, and who bless the world in myriad ways
The willful, then, are creativity incarnate; the universe is and ought to be dedicated to beings of their type. It should also be populated by beings of their type, and I think someday shall be. This is not to say that entropic people can’t make their way out of entropy and join the creatives; in fact they can, and do, on a daily basis. Still, it is a gulf that must be crossed, and the only way across is to act on one’s own will, alone, and for purely self-generated reasons. That is the price.
The Automated War On Will: The great threat of the modern world is a system I call Descartes’ Demon, the Big Data/AI personalized manipulation system that is already in daily use. I held back talking about this for years, seeing that it was too much for people to bear, but the beast has progressed so far that I can’t see holding back any further.
The Matrix, as it turns out, was all too true, and its world is now the world of Facebook, Twitter and especially Google. The real-life version of The Matrix is functional, right now. (See here for explanation, or here for illustration.) What personalized manipulation is really all about is the subversion of individual will. And if you don’t think it’s happening, pull up YouTube on your smart phone, then ask your friend to pull it up on his or hers: You’re already receiving personalized pages. The world is deeply committed to passing this off as trivial and ridiculing those that don’t. But it isn’t trivial; it’s a present and actual war against free will.
We Are Inherently Creative: Humans are inherently creative beings. We cannot create matter out of nothing, but we can mold it to an infinite number and variety of uses. We are the fountains of new and beneficial action in the universe. And we ought to function that way.
I’ll leave you with a few words from Albert Schweitzer: "Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it… It is only an ethical movement which can rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals." This is what we need… and we need it now."
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Full screen recommended.
Those who know, know...
•
"This I Believe..."
"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual
human is the most valuable thing in the world.
And this I would fight for:
the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
And this I must fight against:
any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. "
- John Steinbeck
Jim Kunstler, "Dirty Secrets"
"Dirty Secrets"
by Jim Kunstler
“The average Democrat knows the Biden family is profoundly corrupt and they simply don’t care…Sam Harris spoke for all of them when he said it wouldn’t matter if Hunter’s laptop was packed w/pictures of dead kids.” - MartyrMade on Twitter
This is the dirty secret of our time: the device that the Woke / Progressive elite used to finally get rid of Donald Trump - Covid-19 - shoved them over a cliff Wile E. Coyote style. And now, as they freefall off that cliff, the supposed antidote to Covid-19 - getting vaccinated - is blowing up in their faces, again, Wile E. Coyote style. The elite now have to wake up every day and wonder if the vaccines they rushed to get will end up killing them prematurely. This is what has finally driven them crazy. And, of course, crazy people will do crazy things: like destroy their own country.
I decided early-on to not get vaccinated for a simple reason: as the vaxx program got up to speed in the late winter and spring of 2021, reports came out that the spike protein in it attacked the endothelial lining of the blood vessels and led to unusual blood-clotting. As someone who had bypass surgery some years earlier, that was all I needed to hear. This was before any Censorship Industrial Complex formed to attack “misinformation.” The news was still getting out.
By then, Mr. Trump was out, too, deposed in a janky election rigged with Covid-19 ballot “innovations” that made fraud easy. He was replaced by a fake chief executive too impotent to even campaign, but useful as a front for the gigantic “security” bureaucracy that was actually running things. This naturally raises the question: what exactly is the relationship between the political elite and this security state?
The elite are the useful idiots of the security state. They enable it and protect it with their divisive antics. The dirty secret of the security state is that it’s not about the security of the state, that is, of the nation known as the USA. Its about the security of the people running the security state, the agency heads and their officers in the Intel Community and all its spinoffs, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Defense Department and their accomplices in Congress and the federal judiciary.
What does this security state need protection from? From accounting for all its prior cumulative crimes against the nation. These crimes slowly accreted over the decades after the Cold War and then blossomed in 2016 - slowly, and then all at once - when the security state was rocked by the election loss of its avatar, Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton had many crimes of her own to conceal, most of them committed with the help of the security state, such as the Uranium One grift, the Skolkovo transfer of US computer tech to Russia, and the Clinton Foundation’s financial escapades following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, to name a few biggies.
The person who beat Mrs. Clinton had averred publicly and shockingly to her crimes during the campaign, going so far as to label her “Crooked Hillary.” That is why the Russia Collusion hoax became the centerpiece of security state harassment during Mr. Trump’s term in office. The Democratic Party was enlisted as the praetorian guard for the security state. The public had to be conditioned to believe any number of things that were the opposite of true.
Like myriad institutions in recent decades, the Democratic Party had come to be dominated by women. Women, being hard-wired for safety-seeking, were easily manipulated by the security state into an hysteria fixated on Donald Trump, who was made to represent everything that seemed unsafe. They gave the game away on Mr. Trump’s inauguration day with their women’s march that featured thousands wearing the emblematic “pussy hats.” Message: don’t think you can have your wicked way with this!
The hysteria hasn’t let up since then, and now that Mr. Trump is resurging from a thousand attempts to kill him off like some implacable axe-murderer in a horror movie, the corps of useful idiots is showing signs of nervous exhaustion. The Democratic Party’s front-man, “Joe Biden” (or the claque behind him backstage), has screwed the pooch on just about every matter of vital public interest at home and abroad, and now this president stands revealed as the head of a racketeering operation that specialized in bribery. Yet, oddly, it is Mr. Trump who has been fed into the cogs of the judiciary on an unending set of Mickey Mouse charges. There’s a pretty fair possibility that none of that will work.
The Democrats must suspect this, and their nemesis has declared his intentions for a return to power pretty clearly: fire all the seditionists in the security state, pardon all the people on the Right who were unjustly prosecuted, and commence some righteous prosecutions against people who actually deserve it. Thus, the Left plunges ever-deeper into mental illness - celebrating it at every opportunity and even shoving it America’s face, Joker-style, in defiance: Here, have another drag queen….
A big part of the Left’s mental illness is the inability to even notice their own self-destructive trajectory. There’s a way out for them but it’s pretty drastic. That would be turning to RFK, Jr. for leadership. Trouble is, Mr. Kennedy intends to go after the Democrats’ patron, the security state itself, which he’s publicly blamed for the deaths of his father and uncle. Bobby Kennedy also happens to be an enemy of the US public health agencies and especially a critic of the Covid-19 vaccines that the Left has hung its identity on. They still can’t admit that getting vaxxed and boosted was a tragic mistake.
But an election contest between RFK, Jr. and Donald Trump would be a most salutary exercise for our country. Both of them want to dismantle the overgrown surveillance apparatus and severely reform the agencies under the executive branch. That is, they are both intent on disarming the security state and the Censorship Industrial Complex it spawned. They are both against the stupid Neo-con wars. Trump versus RFK, Jr. would bring the people of this country together and refocus the nation’s attention on things that matter. It would also be the Baby Boomer’s last stand."
"Downsizing America"
"Downsizing America"
'Secular' inflation, unaffordable autos
and exploding homelessness...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
“...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
- John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath"
Youghal, Ireland - "The ‘information content’ of last week’s news was low. We learned that, overall, inflation is continuing its very modest decline. But ‘core’ inflation, without energy or food, is still over 5%...and ‘sticky’ inflation – which includes things that don’t move very quickly, such as rent, insurance, and medical care – is, well, stuck. It hasn’t come down much. As we will see, ‘inflation’ is no accident. It’s government policy. It has a purpose. And lo…the wrath grows. Here’s the story.
‘Secular’ Inflation: While the CPI has gone down, the nature of inflation has changed. The first inflation shock, at the end of 2021, was probably the result of failures in 2020. Politicians, state and federal, including most prominently Donald Trump, used a panic over the Covid virus to pump trillions of new dollars into the economy. Stimmie checks, loans you didn’t have to pay back, unemployment ‘boosters’ (so you got more money than when you were on the job), mortgage and student loan payment suspensions…etc. etc. – consumers’ pockets were stuffed with cash.
The problem was, the authorities also shut down theaters, restaurants, cruise lines, amusement parks, public beaches and anything and everywhere people went to spend money and have a good time. Their options limited, people ordered ‘stuff’ from Amazon. And all of a sudden, there wasn’t enough stuff to fill the orders. Prices rose.
But as Dan signaled to us on Friday, that first wave of inflation hit the boardwalk months ago. What’s coming now are smaller, but more persistent, waves of ‘secular’ inflation. We suppose the word ‘secular’ was chosen because economists didn’t know what else to call it. Applied to inflation, it means that the sources of price increases are hard to identify and seem to come from many different directions.
Here’s an example. The Washington Post: "New cars, once part of the American Dream, now out of reach for many." "Even as inflation is easing and global chip supply shortages are beginning to resolve, more Americans are being priced out of the nation’s new car market, industry and government data suggests. Spending on new cars by the lowest 20 percent of earners dropped to its lowest level in 11 years. Meanwhile, spending on new cars by the top 20 percent reached its highest level on record, going back to 1984, according to the most recent data from the 2021 Consumer Expenditure Survey, not adjusted for inflation."
What happened? Did the price of steel shoot up? Silicon chips? Rubber? Did automakers suddenly get greedy? Or, are financing costs putting new autos out of reach of the people who need them? And it’s not just autos that are becoming unaffordable.
Exploding Bidenvilles: The average house is selling for $450,000. An average mortgage, at 6.5% interest, would be about $30,000/yr – in interest alone. But average household income is only around $75,000. Can an average family afford an average house?
Economic Collapse: "Homeless Encampments Are Exploding In Size All Over America As Rents Soar And Evictions Surge." Communities all over the United States are being taken over by giant homeless encampments, but we are supposed to believe that this is perfectly normal. The Biden administration is trying very hard to convince all of us that the economy is in fine shape even though many of our most prominent corporations are currently conducting mass layoffs and even though Challenger, Gray & Christmas is telling us that the number of jobs cuts during the first three months of this year was up 396 percent compared to the same period last year. Just like in 2008 and 2009, large numbers of people that have lost their jobs or their businesses are ending up living in the streets, and as a result, homeless encampments are absolutely exploding in size from coast to coast."
Economists can study the in-puts. They can trace price increases all up and down the supply chain and explain why takin’ the Chevy to the levee ain’t as cheap as it used to be. But they would do better to look at the demand chain – specifically, at the links with politicians’ fingerprints on them. More on that tomorrow…and at how inflation destroys the “hardworking American families” that politicians claim to be working for."
Joel’s Note: Earlier this year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development released its first comprehensive Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) in two years. The findings were not inspiring.
By the end of 2022, the number of people “experiencing homelessness” (what used to be called “homeless people”) in the USA stood at 582,462. The total, nation-wide number increased every single year measured since 2016, with a majority of states seeing increases during that period. (Delaware, Vermont, Louisiana and Maine all saw their homeless populations more than double since 2019.) California, Vermont, Oregon, Hawaii and New York had the highest homeless residents per capita.
Chronic homelessness, defined as “people who have been homeless for more than 12 months or have experienced extended periods of homelessness over the past three years,” has increased by 65% since 2016 (from 77,500 to 127,700).
More than half (52%) of the homeless population is found in major cities, with Los Angeles (54,469 individuals) and New York City (32,308) having by far the largest numbers of homeless people, collectively accounting for nearly one-fifth of the country’s rough sleepers.
Having spent hundreds of billions of dollars over six decades on its War on Poverty, the United States Government proposes to solve the problem by (wait for it…) spending more money it doesn’t have on programs that demonstrably do not work. Last month, President Biden proposed a 2024 budget that would direct $10.3 billion in federal funding for homelessness assistance programs, a 6% increase from FY 2023 and an increase of…
• 90% for DOJ’s Transitional Housing Assistance Grants to Victims of Sexual Assault
• 64% for Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness and
• 23% for Health Care for the Homeless
Apparently the 100-plus federal programs already in existence, plus the dozens of education and job-training programs, 17 different food-aid programs, and over 20 housing programs, were not sufficient. The CATO Institute crunched the numbers…"Altogether, the federal government spends more than $1.1 trillion a year on 134 welfare programs. State and local governments add about $744 billion more. Thus, government at all levels is spending roughly $1.8 trillion per year to fight poverty. Stretching back to 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson first declared a “war on poverty,” anti‐poverty spending has totaled more than $30 trillion."
Here’s the chart…
And yet, despite the myriad programs, committees, departments and agencies, the poverty rate remains almost exactly where it was when LBJ declared “War on Poverty” in his 1964 State of the Union Address. It was 13.5% then… and is 13.2% today (having fluctuated between a low of 11% in 1973 and a high of 15% in 1982 and 2012.) No doubt it’s a complex problem in search of a real solution. But who knows… maybe renaming “homeless people” to “people experiencing homelessness” will finally do the trick?"
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Crazy! What Now?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/15/23
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart!
This Is Crazy! What Now?"
"In today's vlog we are at Walmart and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
"Banks Closing Credit Cards"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 5/15/23
"Banks Closing Credit Cards"
"We are seeing a complete problem with banks, globally, closing credit cards, and shutting off credit lines. It doesn’t matter how good of a customer you are. We are seeing these problems multiply."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "U.S. Economic Meltdown Worsening"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/15/23
"U.S. Economic Meltdown Worsening"
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