"Complexity Theory: the Avalanche and the Snowflake"

"Complexity Theory: the Avalanche and the Snowflake"

by James Rickards

"One of my favorites is what I call ‘the avalanche and the snowflake’. It’s a metaphor for the way the science actually works, but I should be clear: it’s not just a metaphor. The science, the mathematics and the dynamics are actually the same as those that exist in financial markets.

Imagine you’re on a mountainside. You can see a snowpack building up on the ridgeline while it continues snowing. You can tell just by looking at the scene that there’s danger of an avalanche. It’s windswept… it’s unstable… and if you’re an expert, you know it’s going to collapse and kill skiers and wipe out the village below. You see a snowflake fall from the sky onto the snowpack. It disturbs a few other snowflakes that lie there. Then, the snow starts to spread… then it starts to slide… then it gains momentum until, finally, it comes loose and the whole mountain comes down and buries the village.

Question: What do you blame? Do you blame the snowflake, or do you blame the unstable pack of snow? I say the snowflake’s irrelevant. If it wasn’t the one snowflake that caused the avalanche, it could have been the one before, or the one after, or the one tomorrow. The instability of the system as a whole was the problem. So when I think about the risks in the financial system, I don’t focus on the ‘snowflake’ that will cause problems. The trigger doesn’t matter.

A snowflake that falls harmlessly – the vast majority of all snowflakes - technically fails to start a chain reaction. Once a chain reaction begins, it expands exponentially, can ‘go critical’ (as in an atomic bomb) and release enough energy to destroy a city. However, most neutrons do not start nuclear chain reactions, just as most snowflakes do not start avalanches.

In the end, it’s not about the snowflakes or neutrons. It’s about the initial critical state conditions that allow the possibiity of a chain reaction or an avalanche. These can be hypothesized and observed at large scale, but the exact moment the chain reaction begins cannot be observed. That’s because it happens on a minute scale relative to the system. This is why some people refer to these snowflakes as ‘black swans’, because they are unexpected and come by surprise. But they’re actually not a surprise if you understand the system’s dynamics and can estimate the system scale.

It’s a metaphor, but really the mathematics behind it are the same. Financial markets today are huge, unstable mountains of snow waiting to collapse. You see it in the gross notional value of derivatives. There is $700 trillion worth of swaps. ($2.5 Quadrillion by other reputable estimates. - CP) These are derivatives off balance sheet, hidden liabilities in the banking system of the world. These numbers are not made up. Just go to the IS annual report and it’s right there in the footnote.

Well, how do you put $700 trillion into perspective? It’s ten times global GDP. Take all the goods and services in the entire world for an entire year. That’s about $70 trillion when you add it all up. Well, take ten times that, and that’s how big the snow pile is. And that’s the avalanche that’s waiting to come down."

- https://caperebel.com/blogs/

The Daily "Near You?"

Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"And It Was Pointless..."

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”

- Charles Frazier

"I Went to a Russian Lilac Garden on International Lilac Day"

Traveling With Russell, 5/18/23

"I Went to a Russian Lilac Garden on International Lilac Day"

"Come along on a walk through the famous Moscow Lilac Garden, also known as Sirenevyy Sad, which is 10km from the center of Moscow. This Russian Lilac garden has been open to the public since 1975. In honor of International Lilac Day I decided to show you how amazing this place really is."

Do watch this in full screen.

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Incredibly beautiful...

Gerald Celente, "No One Understands How Big This Is Going To Be"

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 5/18/23

"No One Understands How Big This Is Going To Be"

"In this video, Gerald Celente talks about inflation and the problems it has caused. He blames politicians and their policies for the current situation. He also talks about the supply chain disruptions and the negative and zero interest rate policy that has worsened the economic situation. He criticizes the mandatory vaccine card requirement and calls people who follow it cowards. He invites people to a peace and freedom rally and urges them to donate to Occupy Peace. He then talks about various articles that discuss the issue of inflation and Fed policies. In conclusion, he says that nobody knows where the situation is going but the bed on the street now is a pause on raising interest rates."

Strong language alert!

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal PM 5/18/23

"Trends Trackers Beware"

The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Find out more here: https://trendsjournal.com

Strong language alert!

Video and comments are here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is, And Will Be"

Bill Bonner, "The Idea of America"

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"The Idea of America"

Versus the reality for America's struggling middle class.

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "Today, before the clouds gather, we bring a bit of Irish sunshine. The flowers, having cowered under rocks, and hidden in nooks and crannies for many dreary months, peek out in April. Hesitantly, at first, as if fearing they may be mocked for their bright colors…then, flamboyantly, they burst forth. All of a sudden, they are everywhere.

Like an Irish sunbather, they take advantage of every ray of sunshine; it might be their last for the year. Azaleas, rhododendrons (the locals say ‘rhodydendron’), lilacs, clematis, foxgloves, apple, cherry—and dozens of species we don’t recognize…some delicate…some robust…some wild, some carefully planted and protected – all are blooming at once.* The sun sparkles on the river…it glistens on the damp leaves and wet grass…it warms up the whole earth…to a high yesterday of 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh nature! You are setting us up.

Toil and Sweat: But let us return to our grim enterprise. A brief resume: The US government now spends $1 - $2 trillion more per year than it raises in taxes. Where will the money come from? It won’t come from the rich; their taxes are more likely to be cut than raised. And if the US borrows by selling bonds, someone will have to pay the lenders back (they won’t pay themselves back).

The money can’t come from the poor either. They don’t have any money, that’s what makes them poor. Who does that leave? Yes…the long-suffering middle classes – the people who toil and sweat, bus and tote, and sell their time, hour by hour. Of course, there’s nothing controversial about that. The rich have their lobbyists and loopholes. The poor have their handouts. Who’s left to pay the bills? Nor is it controversial that inflation squeezes the middle classes especially tightly, between the rock of rising prices and the hard place of falling real incomes.

The part of our suggestion that is hard to swallow is the megapolitical part – that the middle classes are targeted, not just to raise money…but for destruction. No, no…of course, the powers-that-be don’t sit around coming up with plans to intentionally, expressly crush the backbone families of the USA. Instead, like everyone else, they respond to the incentives and penalties inherent in the system itself. They are prisoners of megapolitics too.

One Nation, Under Debt: Karl Marx was not wrong about everything; a certain amount of ‘class struggle’ is inevitable. But he saw the working classes as the ultimate victors. He was wrong about that. What the rich lack in manpower they more than compensate in cunning. Using their control of the money, the working man has been held in check for half a century. And now, the elites are desperate to raise the ‘debt ceiling,’ so they can bury him in debt. One way or another – probably via inflation – the middle classes will pay the soaring ‘national’ debt. And seduced by artificially low interest rates, they will have their own debts to pay too.

Here’s a report from CNBC (Joel mentioned this yesterday): "Consumer debt passes $17 trillion for the first time despite slide in mortgage demand." "The total for borrowing across all categories hit $17.05 trillion, an increase of nearly $150 billion, or 0.9% during the January-to-March period, the New York Federal Reserve reported Monday. That took total indebtedness up about $2.9 trillion from the pre-Covid period ended in 2019.

Higher rates helped push total mortgage debt to $12.04 trillion, up 0.1 percentage point from the fourth quarter.

Delinquency rates for all debt increased, up 0.6 percentage point for credit cards to 6.5% and 0.2 percentage point for auto loans to 6.9%. Total delinquency rates moved up 0.2 percentage point to 3%, the highest since the third quarter of 2020.

Student loan debt edged higher to $1.6 trillion and auto loans nudged up as well to $1.56 trillion."

Time is Money: Our calculations, provided on Tuesday, showed the typical working man worse off today than he was 50 years ago. Time is what he has to offer. And it takes more of it today for him to buy his two major assets – a house and a car – than it did in 1973. How did this happen? Progress is supposed to make time more valuable. That’s the idea of productivity; you get more out of each hour of work. So, the things you produce get cheaper and better.

And just look around. Rich countries are those with high wages. Time is money; money is time. People in prosperous countries earn a lot per hour. People in poor countries earn very little. Gross wages in Switzerland are nearly $50 per hour. In Uzbekistan they are less than $2. As inflation destroys the value of money, so does it destroy time…and the people who sell theirs by the hour. In Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina – the inflation rate goes up…the middle classes disappear. They flee…or they go broke.

Will that happen in the US? We don’t know. We can’t predict the future. The ‘Idea of America’ is that ‘The People’ – independent, middle class families – rule. But the logic of megapolitics is relentless. The feds want money. They must take it from the middle classes. More importantly, the elite wants power. That too, must be taken away from the very people the politicians claim to represent – ‘The People.’

* Please do view the beautiful flowers described above here:

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com

"This Is An Extinction Level Event For The Middle Class"

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Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/18/23

"This Is An Extinction Level Event For The Middle Class"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Here Is What Happens Next"

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Dan, I Allegedly 5/18/23

"Here Is What Happens Next"

"We are going to start seeing the ramifications of the debt 

ceiling not being settled. This is going to have major issues globally."

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Searching For The Best Deals At Kroger! Stocking Up, Getting Prepared!'

See Enforced Post Format Change

Adventures With Danno, 5/18/23

"Searching For The Best Deals At Kroger! 

Stocking Up, Getting Prepared!'

"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are seeing grocery prices continue to rise!  With inflation causing prices to skyrocket everywhere, we are traveling from store to store every day to try and help everyone save money!"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Imagination Land"

"Imagination Land"

by The Zman

"All of us live in a silo of our own making to some degree. We read news sites we like and we like them because they tend to cover the stuff we think is important, in a way we hope is accurate. We admire opinions with which we agree. We hang out with people who share our interests. That’s normal. It’s also normal to know it and know others have different opinions and interests. Most normie conservatives get that Fox News is biased toward the Republicans, but they know all of the other stations are heavily biased to the Democrats.

This self-awareness has never applied to the Left. Every normal person has had a conversation with a Progressive friend where they claim the news is biased against them or is too easy on some conservative they currently hate. They will argue that Fox News is poisoning the minds of the public. When you point out that 90% of the mass media is run by hard left true believers, they scoff and say you’re nuts. The hive mind of Progressives has always allowed them to pretend they are surrounded by a sea of their enemies.

One point made by some on the Dissident Right is that this blinkered view of the world has infected the so-called conservatives. They are blind to the intellectual revolution going on over here, because they stare at Lefty all day. Like people looking directly into the sun, they are blind to everything else. As a result, the legacy conservatives carry on like it is 1984 and Dutch Reagan is riding high. Much of what so-called conservatism is these days is just a weird nostalgia trip, celebrating a fictional past with no connection to the present.

There are many reasons why so-called conservatives are becoming irrelevant, but the main reason is that their good friends on the Left are racing off into a fantasy land of their own creation. Listen to a modern Progressive talk and it is a weird combination of echolalic babbling and paranoia about dark forces that are imaginary. Replace “Russian hacking” with “work of the devil” and their howling makes more sense. Things like “foreign meddling” and “institutional racism” are just stand-ins for Old Scratch.

This increasingly weird disconnect between the Left and this place we call earth shows up in their main propaganda organs. Those old enough to remember reading English versions of communist newspapers can recognize the unintended humor on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. This front page item is a good example. Everything in that “news” story describes a world that only exists in the fevered imaginations of the Left. It was a fictional account of present reality written for believers.

This Andrew Sullivan piece bumps up against this reality a little bit, but from a different angle. His argument is that the fantasy land of academia is casting a long shadow over American society, so it is imperative that the college campus be reformed to look something like reality. His framing of things is mostly wrong because he is just a slightly less berserk member of the hive he is trying analyze. His description of the dynamic on campus, though, is correct. It is a world untethered from reality.

The fact is, the college campus is the apotheosis of Progressive spiritualism. It has been dominated by the Left for as long as anyone has been a live. The constant flow of credit money into American higher education has removed all restraints on the people in charge. They are free to indulge whatever fantasies they have at the moment, as no one ever gets fired and the money spigot stays open. As a result, the American college campus is the full flowering of the Progressive imagination. It’s Wakanda for cat ladies.

This lurch into madness is the result of plenty. Up until recent, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the lack of universal prosperity has reined in the excesses of the Left. In order to win elections, Progressive politicians had to focus on better economics and expanding opportunity. Of course, the Cold War kept everyone focused on practical reality, as a mistake could have set off a nuclear exchange. That’s no longer the case as prosperity is near universal, in human terms, and there are no looming threats.

Progressivism has always been a spiritual movement. It is the quest for cosmic justice based on the notion that we are only as good as the weakest among us. That is a fine and noble sentiment, as long as it remains a sentiment. The reality of scarcity has always kept this spiritualism in check. As we enter into what appears to be a post-scarcity world, Progressives are free to explore the far reaches of their mysticism. The result is a ruling class that is looking more like eastern mystics, than pragmatic rulers.

It is why civic nationalism is a dead end street. You see it in the Andrew Sullivan piece about the campus culture. What he is arguing in favor of is the same things we hear from civic nationalists. They all agree with Progressives that we need a unifying religion. They just want a debate about the contours and end points of the religion. The fact that no one has ever pulled this off without ushering in a bloodbath never gets mentioned, Instead, all of these folks prefer to frolic in imagination land, where all their dreams come true.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

○

“Father, O father! what do we here
In this land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far,
Above the light of the morning star.”
- William Blake, “The Land of Dreams”

"Target Sends Ominous Warning; Economy And Society Falling Apart; Middle Class On Borrowed Time"

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Jeremiah Babe, 5/17/23

"Target Sends Ominous Warning; Economy And 

Society Falling Apart; Middle Class On Borrowed Time"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"McCarthy Folds,Gets His Orders. Debt/Inflation To Skyrocket Beyond Imagination"

See Enforced Post Format Change

Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/17/23

"McCarthy Folds,Gets His Orders. 

Debt/Inflation To Skyrocket Beyond Imagination"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Grateful Dead, "A Touch Of Gray"

     

      Grateful Dead, "A Touch Of Gray"

        "We will get by,

          We will survive..."

"Kroger Reports Insane Price Hikes As Business Starts Collapsing All Around Us"

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"Kroger Reports Insane Price Hikes As 

Business Starts Collapsing All Around Us"

By Epic Economist

"Consumers are noticing some insane price hikes at Kroger right now. They are reporting massive increases in their weekly bills, and saying that some products have more than doubled in price pretty much overnight. That’s why today, we decided to investigate how much grocery costs are going up at the retailer’s stores and compare its prices with prices at other major chains including Walmart, Target, Aldi, and Costco. The results are quite shocking – with items more than 70% more expensive at Kroger stores!

For that reason, we decided to analyze data provided by Cheapism. The consumer blog revealed that in all major product categories, Walmart's prices are cheaper than Kroger’s. Pre-cut vegetables and organic by-products are almost 23.1% more expensive at Kroger. Frozen foods at Kroger are 8.57% higher than at its biggest competitor. The same goes for Target. Although the website didn’t provide a specific product comparison, analysts tracked the cost of a basket with 25 grocery essentials, including milk, crackers, pasta, tomato sauce, soda, sausages, corn, and frozen fruits, at both stores and found a staggering 28% price difference – with the total at Target at $44.50, while the same products at Kroger cost $56,96.

When it comes to Aldi, the disparities are even more alarming. The same basket at Aldi cost only $38.88, which means that overall Kroger prices are 47% pricier than Aldi prices.

That can certainly make a world of difference for those on a tight budget. But the greatest and most mind-blowing discrepancies were found between Kroger and Costco. Cheapism compared over 50 items at both stores and in the end, Costco wins with average prices 63% cheaper on 43 of the 50 items.

The U.S. Sun recently reported that shoppers are taking to social media to expose some painful price spikes seen at the megaretailer’s stores. On Reddit, many users are saying they’re experiencing sticker shock at Kroger’s stores. “Since when are these $5.99?” asked one person who posted a photo of a package of extra crispy crinkles. “I could’ve sworn they were $3.79 just last week,” the shopper wrote. “Kroger has been sneaking up their prices for the last 2 years,” answered another.

“It's ridiculous that everything has gone up by at least 2-3$,” said a third. “[It’s] more like 50% to 100% increase. And I'm not even sarcastic or anything, it's literally happening that much,” commented another person. This wasn’t supposed to be happening at this point in the game. With inflation numbers going down, food prices should be following suit, but that’s simply not the case.

And for Kroger shoppers, this is not the worst of grocery inflation, especially as the company merges with Albertsons over the next few months. “Historically, mergers of this magnitude have a negative impact on workers and the public. Less competition almost always means higher prices and fewer choices,” explained Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. Will the merger be the salvation or the damnation of the retailer? Only time will tell. But for now, all we can tell for sure is that conditions are getting very cloudy for the big-box store chain, and a perfect storm has already begun for the retail industry.

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Cycle Of Time”

Full screen recommended.

2002, “Cycle Of Time”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars. The colors in this remarkably deep composite image clearly show the star forming galaxies with a blue tint and galaxies with older stellar populations with a yellowish cast. 

The sharp picture spans about 3/4 degree across the cluster center, corresponding to over 6 million light-years at the cluster's estimated distance. Diffraction spikes around brighter foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy are produced by the imaging telescope's mirror support vanes. In the cosmic vista many galaxies seem to be colliding or merging while others seem distorted - clear evidence that cluster galaxies commonly interact. In fact, the Hercules Cluster itself may be seen as the result of ongoing mergers of smaller galaxy clusters and is thought to be similar to young galaxy clusters in the much more distant, early Universe."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140625.html

"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"If I have harmed anyone in any way

either knowingly or unknowingly

through my own confusions

I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way

either knowingly or unknowingly

through their own confusions

I forgive them.

And if there is a situation

I am not yet ready to forgive

I forgive myself for that.

For all the ways that I harm myself,

negate, doubt, belittle myself,

judge or be unkind to myself

through my own confusions

I forgive myself."

o

"It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive."

- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"

The Maddest Of All..."

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams - this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness - and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"

- Miguel de Cervantes, "Man of La Mancha"

"There Was A Tale..."

“There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries. The story had never made sense to him as a boy. It did now.”

- Neil Gaiman

"Decline of Empire: Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part IV"

"Decline of Empire: 

Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part IV"

by Doug Casey

"Now to gratify the Druids among you. Soil exhaustion, deforestation, and pollution - which abetted plagues - were problems for Rome. As was lead poisoning, in that the metal was widely used for eating and drinking utensils and for cookware. None of these things could bring down the house, but neither did they improve the situation. They might be equated today with fast food, antibiotics in the food chain, and industrial pollutants. Is the U.S. agricultural base unstable because it relies on gigantic monocultures of bioengineered grains that in turn rely on heavy inputs of chemicals, pesticides, and mined fertilizers? It’s true that production per acre has gone up steeply because of these things, but that’s despite the general decrease in depth of topsoil, destruction of native worms and bacteria, and growing pesticide resistance of weeds.

Perhaps even more important, the aquifers needed for irrigation are being depleted. But these things have all been necessary to maintain the U.S. balance of trade, keep food prices down, and feed the expanding world population. It may turn out, however, to have been a bad trade-off.

I’m a technophile, but there are some reasons to believe we may have serious problems ahead. Global warming, incidentally, isn’t one of them. One of the reasons for the rise of Rome - and the contemporaneous Han in China - may be that the climate cyclically warmed considerably up to the 3rd century, then got much cooler. Which also correlates with the invasions by northern barbarians.

Economy: Economic issues were a major factor in the collapse of Rome, one that Gibbon hardly considered. It’s certainly a factor greatly underrated by historians generally, who usually have no understanding of economics at all. Inflation, taxation, and regulation made production increasingly difficult as the empire grew, just as in the U.S. Romans wanted to leave the country, much as many Americans do today.

I earlier gave you a quote from Priscus. Next is Salvian, circa 440: "But what else can these wretched people wish for, they who suffer the incessant and continuous destruction of public tax levies. To them there is always imminent a heavy and relentless proscription. They desert their homes, lest they be tortured in their very homes. They seek exile, lest they suffer torture. The enemy is more lenient to them than the tax collectors. This is proved by this very fact, that they flee to the enemy in order to avoid the full force of the heavy tax levy.

Therefore, in the districts taken over by the barbarians, there is one desire among all the Romans, that they should never again find it necessary to pass under Roman jurisdiction. In those regions, it is the one and general prayer of the Roman people that they be allowed to carry on the life they lead with the barbarians."

One of the most disturbing things about this statement is that it shows the tax collectors were most rapacious at a time when the Empire had almost ceased to exist. My belief is that economic factors were paramount in the decline of Rome, just as they are with the U.S. The state made production harder and more expensive, it limited economic mobility, and the state-engineered inflation made saving pointless.

This brings us to another obvious parallel: the currency. The similarities between the inflation in Rome versus the U.S. are striking and well known. In the U.S., the currency was basically quite stable from the country’s founding until 1913, with the creation of the Federal Reserve. Since then, the currency has lost over 95% of its value, and the trend is accelerating. In the case of Rome, the denarius was stable until the Principate. Thereafter it lost value at an accelerating rate until reaching essentially zero by the middle of the 3rd century, coincidental with the Empire’s near collapse.

What’s actually more interesting is to compare the images on the coinage of Rome and the U.S. Until the victory of Julius Caesar in 46 BCE (a turning point in Rome’s history), the likeness of a politician never appeared on the coinage. All earlier coins were graced with a representation of an honored concept, a god, an athletic image, or the like. After Caesar, a coin’s obverse always showed the head of the emperor.

It’s been the same in the U.S. The first coin with the image of a president was the Lincoln penny in 1909, which replaced the Indian Head penny; the Jefferson nickel replaced the Buffalo nickel in 1938; the Roosevelt dime replaced the Mercury dime in 1946; the Washington quarter replaced the Liberty quarter in 1932; and the Franklin half-dollar replaced the Liberty half in 1948, which was in turn replaced by the Kennedy half in 1964. The deification of political figures is a disturbing trend the Romans would have recognized.

When Constantine installed Christianity as the state religion, conditions worsened for the economy, and not just because a class of priests now had to be supported from taxes. With its attitude of waiting for heaven and belief that this world is just a test, it encouraged Romans to hold material things in low regard and essentially despise money. Today’s Christianity no longer does that, of course. But it’s being replaced by new secular religions that do."

- internationalman.com

o

"See here for Part III

o

Related:

"Currency Debasement and Cultural Degradation"

The Daily "Near You?"

Orland Park, Illinois, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, "Hope"

"Hope"

"Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves."

- Czeslaw Milosz,
"Hope", from "The World"

"We Are The World..."

"We are the world. We are the people and we 

deserve better, not because we're worth it, but because no 

worth can be put on the incalculable, on the infinite, on life."

- Nick Mancuso

○

“Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless -

 each of us with his or her right upon the earth; 

Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth; 

Each of us here as divinely as any is here.”

- Walt Whitman

"How It Really Is"

 

Bill Bonner, "On 'Megapolitics'"

See Enforced Post Format Change

"On 'Megapolitics'"

Beneath the choppy surface lurk deeper, murkier currents...

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "We are talking about something our old friends Jim Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg called ‘megapolitics.’ These are trends and events that are beyond the day-to-day, Republican v. Democrat antics you see on TV. Megapolitics doesn’t care who says what to whom…or how the media spins the news…or who wins an election. But it helps explain some of the things you see happening that otherwise “don’t make sense.” Like a cold, deep, undersea river…megapolitical currents move along, to destinations of their own choosing, no matter what chop or slop is happening on the surface.

Speaking of which…here comes Cap’n Yellen: "If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests."

They, The Deciders: Really? Suppose US debt really were capped at $32 trillion. Would that cause hardship to American families? How so? Do American families depend on the US government’s rising debt? Does the money go to them…or come from them? And if not from them, who does it come from?

Do we borrow money from Chinese families in order to give it to American families? Or do we borrow from Russians? The English? Indians? Don’t they have hardships of their own to worry about? Of course they do. And even if they lend to the US, who will be on the hook to pay them back?

Money has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, the only place the US government can get money is from the American families who earn it. And according to Ms. Yellen, those families will be in severe distress if they can’t borrow from themselves.

In America, “The People” are supposed to be the deciders. And democracy works plausibly well for running a corporation…or a church vestry…or a small town. But at scale, ‘democracy’ becomes a fraud. Politicians lie. Elections are rigged. Promises are unkept. Whistleblowers are locked up. The media propagandizes; the universities indoctrinate. ‘The People’ are too far from the facts; they know nothing. So, they’re ready to believe anything.

The US has $32 trillion in debt already. What did it get for all that borrowing? Stable prices? No. A more dynamic, faster-growing economy? Nope. Victories against overseas enemies? Hm… Are Americans richer? No, wages have been going down for more than 2 years. Are they healthier? No again, life expectancies are going down too. The average person in a G7 (big) nation can expect to live 81 years. Americans now live 5 years less.

Bipartisan Collusion: Whatever borrowing trillions of dollars was meant to achieve, it failed. But the deep currents of megapolitics continue. Borrow more? Sure, why not? What’s it to us?

Yesterday, we saw how Democrats colluded with the FBI and the CIA to prevent fair elections. In 2016, the FBI assisted Hillary Clinton by giving credence to the “Russian interference” claim…and in 2020, the CIA, both retired and active-duty operatives, tried to keep the wraps on the Hunter Biden laptop affair.

Aggravated readers, eager to tell us that “the Republicans did it too,” can relax. Of course they did. That’s the point. They all do it because the system invites it. They do it because they want to win an election. They do it because they have principles – new, updated principles – that they put above the “Idea of America.” They do it…well…because everybody does it.

Everybody tries to get an advantage from the tax system too. Like raising the debt ceiling, Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful tax cut’ of 2017 was supposed to help “America’s hard-working families.” Did it?

ProPublica reports: "Proponents touted it as boosting “small business” and “Main Street,” and it’s true that many small businesses got a modest tax break. But a recent study by Treasury economists found that the top 1% of Americans by income have reaped nearly 60% of the billions in tax savings created by the provision. And most of that amount went to the top 0.1%. That’s because even though there are many small pass-through businesses, most of the pass-through profits in the country flow to the wealthy owners of a limited group of large companies.

Tax records show that in 2018, Michael Bloomberg, whom Forbes ranks as the 20th wealthiest person in the world, got the largest known deduction from the new provision, slashing his tax bill by nearly $68 million."

Family Matters: Rigging elections. Gaming the tax system. Like plastic bottles and flipflops floating in a harbor, they are merely the surface flotsam and jetsam. They are largely meaningless. Why shouldn’t Bloomberg get a $68 million tax cut? Why shouldn’t Biden be president? Besides, deep down is where the real corruption flows.

Tax cuts (without parallel spending cuts) are a fraud. They don’t ‘cut’ taxes…they just move the tax burden around. Likewise, raising the debt ceiling will not help American families. Whether the feds borrow or tax…whether the money comes out of salaries or out of price increases…at the end of the day, every penny the feds spend has to come from American families.

But which American families? Families like those of Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump? They’ve got the money. But they also have lawyers and lobbyists to make sure they don’t have to give too much of it to the government. Or the poor families…from inner cities and outer hollows…from tent shelters or Section 8 housing projects? Squeeze them as hard as you want; you will get nothing. Politicians say they want to ‘protect America’s hardworking families.’ But in the dank and dark of megapolitics…the middle classes will have to pay. Tune into tomorrow..."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/

o

"Financial Post: The Debt-to-income Ratio Has 

Reached “Record” Levels Of 180%"

Must View! "1,000,000 Russian Soldiers Now Marching To The Polish Border"

See Enforced Post Format Change

Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 5/17/23

"1,000,000 Russian Soldiers Now 

Marching To The Polish Border"

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

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Redacted, PM 5/17/23

"Douglas Macgregor - Russia's Devastating Airstrike on Ukraine"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Not In A Good Place"

See Enforced Post Format Change

Dan, I Allegedly 5/17/23

"Not In A Good Place"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Massive Price Increases At Costco! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

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Adventures With Danno, 5/17/23

"Massive Price Increases At Costco! 

This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog, we are at Costco 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!"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"US Empire Of Debt Headed For Collapse" (Excerpt)

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"US Empire Of Debt Headed For Collapse"

By Pepe Escobar

Excerpt: "Prof. Michael Hudson’s new book, "The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization’s Oligarchic Turning Point” is a seminal event in this Year of Living Dangerously when, to paraphrase Gramsci, the old geopolitical and geoeconomic order is dying and the new one is being born at breakneck speed.

Prof. Hudson’s main thesis is absolutely devastating: he sets out to prove that economic/financial practices in Ancient Greece and Rome – the pillars of Western Civilization – set the stage for what is happening today right in front of our eyes: an empire reduced to a rentier economy, collapsing from within. And that brings us to the common denominator in every single Western financial system: it’s all about debt, inevitably growing by compound interest.

Ay, there’s the rub: before Greece and Rome, we had nearly 3,000 years of civilizations across West Asia doing exactly the opposite. These kingdoms all knew about the importance of canceling debts. Otherwise their subjects would fall into bondage; lose their land to a bunch of foreclosing creditors; and these would usually try to overthrow the ruling power.

Aristotle succinctly framed it: “Under democracy, creditors begin to make loans and the debtors can’t pay and the creditors get more and more money, and they end up turning a democracy into an oligarchy, and then the oligarchy makes itself hereditary, and you have an aristocracy.”

Prof. Hudson sharply explains what happens when creditors take over and “reduce all the rest of the economy to bondage”: it’s what’s called today “austerity” or “debt deflation”. So “what’s happening in the banking crisis today is that debts grow faster than the economy can pay. And so when the interest rates finally began to be raised by the Federal Reserve, this caused a crisis for the banks.”

Prof. Hudson also proposes an expanded formulation: “The emergence of financial and landholding oligarchies made debt peonage and bondage permanent, supported by a pro-creditor legal and social philosophy that distinguishes Western civilization from what went before. Today it would be called neoliberalism.”

Then he sets out to explain, in excruciating detail, how this state of affairs was solidified in Antiquity in the course of over 5 centuries. One can hear the contemporary echoes of “violent suppression of popular revolts” and “targeted assassination of leaders” seeking to cancel debts and “redistribute land to smallholders who have lost it to large landowners”.

The verdict is merciless: “What impoverished the population of the Roman Empire” bequeathed a “creditor-based body of legal principles to the modern world”.

Full article here:

-https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Holy $#!+! Russia Just Sent NATO A Nuclear Message, Patriot System Neutralized!

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Canadian Prepper, 5/16/23

"Holy $#!+! Russia Just Sent NATO A Nuclear Message, 

Patriot System Neutralized!

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com

"Grave Faults..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”

- Paulo Coelho

○

“Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.”

- "Michael Corleone"

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."

- John F. Kennedy

"Most Of Them Are Dead!"- Ukraine's Army DECIMATED Says Col. MacGregor"

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Redacted, 5/16/23

"Most Of Them Are Dead!"- 

Ukraine's Army DECIMATED Says Col. MacGregor"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Don't Buy A House Now; Inflation Is Not Going Away; US Debt Default"

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Jeremiah Babe, 5/16/23

"Don't Buy A House Now; 

Inflation Is Not Going Away; US Debt Default"

Video and comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Enforced Post Format Change

Enforced Post Format Change: Immediately after posting this "Durham Report Exposes Greatest Crime in U.S. History? This Was A COUP!" Blogger for unknown reasons began denying the upload of any new graphics or videos, though text could be uploaded. Attempts to do so raised a window informing me I had to log into Google in order to do so. Well, geez, I'm already logged into Google for Blogger, YouTube and Gmail, but even trying to do so was pointless as the sign-in box instantly disappeared. So, until this is resolved, if it ever is, new posts containing videos and/or graphic illustration will simply have the URL for it instead of the actual YouTube video or picture. Videos and graphics already uploaded and archived can be transferred seemingly, though who knows, so expect non-usual posting. I'll do my best. But as you see below there are no guarantees...

Steve Jobs said, "We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?" After 12 years and one month of daily posts the original "Running" was suddenly, with no warning or explanation whatsoever, deleted by Blogger on Sept.10, 2020.

This was our "dent"... to 9/10/20

Posts Since 8/14/2008: 63,149

Unique Visitors 3,130,395

Total Pageviews 8,988,153

374 Followers

Stats updates ended then.

Archived material may be viewed here: https://web.archive.org/

Paste this in search field: running 'cause I can't fly

I'll answer any questions or comments here:

coyoteprime@gmail.com

And, as always, folks, thanks for stopping by! Onward!

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Wings II, Return To Freedom"

2002, "Wings II, Return To Freedom"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Moving toward to bottom of this beautifully detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its narrow appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula.

About 5 light-years long and a mere 800 light-years away, the Pencil Nebula is only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter and is the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar gas.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120924.html

"For Nothing Is Fixed..."

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

- James Baldwin

"We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear."

- C. JoyBell C

Chet Raymo, “Take My Arm”

“Take My Arm”

by Chet Raymo

“I’m sure I have referenced here before the poems of Grace Schulman, she who inhabits that sweet melancholy place between “the necessity and impossibility of belief.” Between, too, the necessity and impossibility of love.

Belief and love. They have so much in common, yet are as distinct as self and other. How strange that two people can hitch their lives together, on a whim, say, or wild intuition, knowing little if nothing about the other’s hiddenness, about things that even the other does not fully understand and couldn’t articulate even if he did. Blind, deaf, dumb, they leap into the future, hoping to fly, and, for a moment, soaring, like Icarus, sunward. The necessity of wax. The impossibility of wax. We “fall” in love, they say. Schulman: “We slog. We tramp the road of possibility. Give me your arm.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/