Kalispell, Montana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, June 19, 2023
"There Goes the Neighborhood"
"There Goes the Neighborhood"
by Jeff Thomas
"Throughout history, there have been periods when people who were otherwise quite settled in their towns and villages, pulled up stakes and headed elsewhere. During the decline of Rome, many of those who had been the net producers chose to move north and live amongst the barbarians, as life amongst them, although less sophisticated than in Rome, offered more freedom and opportunity. Certainly, it must have been a difficult decision, but for many, it proved to be for the best.
In the 17th century, the Pilgrims also sought greater freedom. Initially, they attempted a socialistic approach to farming (from each according to his ability; to each according to his need), and most died as a result of this faulty logic. In desperation, those remaining opted for a change to a free-market system. The following year, the resultant productivity led them to hold the first Thanksgiving.
The Amish, too, sought greater freedom and found it in America. In the 19th century, many other Europeans moved across the ocean to America in search of a more fruitful way of life. Since that time, many Americans have moved within the US. Farmers from Oklahoma went west out of desperation when their crops failed due to a prolonged drought. By contrast, millions of Americans moved out to suburbia in the 1950s, following the dream of a house with a white picket fence, away from the crime, smog, and crowding that had taken over the cities.
Some of these people travelled a long way; some travelled less than fifty miles. Some went out of desperation; some relocated due to the promise of upward mobility. What they had in common is that they all made their moves because the grass appeared greener elsewhere.
Historically, such people have always been praised for their gumption. But history is hindsight. At the time when they made their moves, there were many, many people who remained behind, urging those exiting not to go. Again historically, those who remained behind have always ended up as the forgotten ones, as they did not have the fortitude to make the change. They did not go forth to build the next new neighborhood or new country.
It should be said that the majority rarely leave a neighborhood (both in the village sense and the country sense). Most remain behind and become casualties of the decline. A dying city (Detroit in the US? Bradford in the UK?) never completely empties out. Many people remain behind, clinging to whatever scraps are tossed to them.
Today, the new exodus is an uncommon one. It resembles the Roman exodus: those who had once been able to live fairly well but realize that the end of their way of life is near. It’s also an international exodus, primarily taking place in the EU and the US, but also encompassing other First-World countries.
The governments of many major countries have, in recent decades, gone on a spending spree of unprecedented proportions and in the foreseeable future will pay the price. Many citizens hang their heads and say, "What can you do? It’s the same all over." And this thought makes it easy for them to remain behind, doing nothing to save themselves.
Others, however, who are making the effort to look up at the horizon, admit to themselves that, like the Romans, the wiser decision is to move to "the land of the barbarians," as life there, whilst possibly less sophisticated, is also freer and promises a greater future.
For every individual who considers making an exit to a better way of life, there are countless others decrying such a move. A good example of such an individual is an associate of mine who is American. A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, whose forebears have fought in every American war, beginning with the Revolution, she’s always thought of herself as a patriot. By every standard, she’s a "loyal American." However, she’s not by any means stupid. Recently, she’s come to realize that her loyalty is not to the government of her country, but to the concept that her country was founded on. She’s leaving for what people always leave for: better opportunities, greater freedom, and an escape from the fear that her home country’s direction will not end well.
And yet, she’ll be going alone, with few of her peers believing she is making the right choice. The political and economic climate is constantly changing... and not always for the better. It's clear the situation in the US, Europe, and other parts of the world will continue to deteriorate. For anyone who is questioning whether to make an exit, the question should not be, "Can I survive this if I remain here?" It should be, "Is there a better future elsewhere?"
"And Then, There's US..."
I wasn't going to do this, but the reader comment below stuck in my mind, there could be no denying it, and I could only think of what we could have been, should have been, and weren't...See for yourself.
Full screen recommended for all videos.
Reader comment: "Very beautiful country, city, vibe, and happy people. No trash, no homeless, no racism, no racists, no creepy drug addicts, no creepy weird multiple gender freaks trying to get attention, no cops. Every city and country should have these nice spirits."
o
And then, there's us. Look around, America...
Are you happy? Are you proud?
This is who and what we are...
Full screen recommended.
Kensington, Philadelphia
Full screen recommended
o
Full screen recommended.
Oakland, California, and everywhere.
Thoughts, comments?
"Dispatches From The Culture War"
"Dispatches From The Culture War"
By John Wilder
“Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.” – The Borg, "Star Trek: TNG"
"There is so much going on any given news cycle in the last few months that it’s now difficult to be amazed about anything. Credible sourcing that Joe Biden took bribes? When asked about it, he said, “Then where’s the money?” That’s not the way that innocent people act, rather, that’s a taunt that’s similar to a mobster saying, “You got nothin’ on me, copper.” Biden did it, might even remember he did it, and is now telling the world that he’s above it all and doesn’t fear anything. Of course, he’s a thousand years old now, so he’s probably pretty deep in “old guy DNGAF” mode.
Certainly, Biden (or whoever has the remote control that makes Biden say things like a big flesh robot) gave the nod before Trump was indicted. This was intentional. There is something about Trump that the Left and Official Washington and Big Money despises that caused them to set up a propaganda campaign among their followers like few before it. They even got high on their own supply, believing that the echo chamber that they had created was a reflection of reality, rather than just their own words played back to them on an infinite-repeat loop, like I play The Accountant, or Big Trouble in Little China.
Regardless, the split is deep, and, although I don’t think Pew® has updated their Left/Right split data, I think that the split has become ever deeper. The Los Angeles Dodgers® can’t even fathom why Catholics would protest the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an LGBT+ group that openly mocks Christian faith. They can’t understand why most Americans don’t want to go to war due to two oppressive Eastern European countries fighting each other over land that’s been fought over so many times that I think they’re on the Juneteenth Battle of Kharkov.
Trump embraced the LGBT+ agenda explicitly, so it’s not that. His performance on illegals, while much better than Biden’s, looked more like Obama than Eisenhower. So, it must be the war thing, since Democrats and the Neo-Con branch of the RINO party have been all-in on Ukraine for decades. Remember when Russia wanted to join NATO? Sigh.
Whatever was the common core of America is no longer common. Using Michael Savage’s mantra of borders, language, and culture to define a country (not a nation, that’s different) is a bleak exercise.
Borders: The Right would like some. The Left thinks that borders are fundamentally racist and that everyone is a citizen of the United States, they just haven’t gotten here to vote for them. Biden still thinks that Borders® is a bookstore.
Language: The Right would like just one, English. The Left celebrates multiplicity of mutually unintelligible people. A few years ago, I listened to an NPR® station that had a late night talk program that focused on the idea that it was racist if you couldn’t understand what some dude who just crossed the river or got off the boat said, regardless of how heavy and thick his accent is. I mean, at least fish have an excuse for having a Finnish accent.
Border and Language are in absolutely horrible shape. Culture, of course, is the worst off
One of the constant cries of the Left is that the United States has no culture. This is patently a lie – fish don’t know about water because they’re surrounded by it, all the time. So are Leftists, but they hate it. But I said it was a lie. Leftists do see the culture, and want to destroy it and rebuild it to fit their ideology because the last thing they want is to see happy people. Here are just a few segments of culture, and what the Left is doing to try to destroy it.
A huge target for the Left has been the effort to dismantle the history of the West. Slavery? Even though it was far from a Western invention, and even though the United States fought a war to end it, and even though Great Britain used their navy to end the trade, it has been painted as only a sin of the West. The effort is also in full swing to distort and demean every single historical figure that generations of schoolchildren idolized. Why did the Left start tearing out statues? Any previous hero must be destroyed so that the Leftists can choose new, acceptable heroes.
The customs and traditions are being erased. Examples are everywhere, but just look toward the military of the United States for some particularly egregious examples. I’m fairly certain the Marines will soon be issued Nerf® guns so they don’t hurt themselves. Etiquette is also falling apart, where Americans are told that they have to conform to the etiquette of foreigners and Leftists. Previously, it was accepted that aliens would have to adopt American customs and traditions. In 2023, that is racist, of course.
The arts and literature of the nation are being changed. Movies, which morphed from the pro-American fare of the Disney® era now is actively anti-American. Thankfully, many of the ideologically driven writers, directors, and executives that are now in charge make horrible movies, but it’s clear that the last decade has brought fewer good movies than the year 1986 did by itself. Literature now consists of horrible screeds against racism, but they’re not content with that – publishers are now actively editing works from the past to make them conform to Leftist principles. Electronic media is all subject to that so books and DVDs might be the only way in the future to see the real deal.
Education is a cornerstone for any culture. Vladimir Lenin said, “Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” The commies have always focused on this, and they’ve done a really good job on the education centers of the world. But it doesn’t happen all at once. First, they grabbed the colleges. Then, bit by bit, they grabbed each teacher that they could coming through the system and indoctrinating them into Leftism. When I was in school, the real first wave of hardcore Leftists were hitting the schools, but it was just one or two. Now? Videos I’ve seen in big cities show they’re Lefty, through and through. Even in Modern Mayberry are they attempting to take over. Thankfully our school board is pretty good at keeping those zealots out.
I started writing this post on Fathers’ Day, and was amused because it’s not really Fathers’ Day anymore, it’s “I’m a single mom so I am both father and mother and this is about me” Day. The destruction of the traditional and nuclear family structure is the first thing Leftists have attacked, from the French Revolution to the Soviet Revolution to the communist version of Spain that Franco destroyed. It’s a shame Franco didn’t have helicopters. The social organization of a country is the what regenerates it. Family structures and gender roles reinforce the culture. Every wonder why those are marked for change?
Finally, the values and beliefs of a culture help define it. It used to be that prostitution was a dirty little secret. Now? Leftists argue that “sex work is real work” and Moms spend time making money on Only Fans®. Was there hypocrisy in old America? Sure. But shame and ostracism were powerful motivators to keep the rot down.
This list could go on and on – I have over 10 more categories where I could go through the same exercise, but the answer wouldn’t change and this post would then be 4,000 words and I’d get no sleep at all tonight. The Mrs. keeps reminding me that sleep is no substitute for caffeine, and I’ll have plenty of time to rest after I’ve died.
As I’ve recently been saying, the idea isn’t to conserve our culture, since it has been turned into a smoking crater by Leftists appealing to the vanity and pride of susceptible folks. This will end as it has always ended, since the reason American culture was successful will cease to exist as American culture ceases to exist. From there, there will be tears. And then? Our job is to rebuild and restore. And most of the people that formerly fell into the Leftist trap of dismantling the success and wholesomeness of the culture will welcome that restoration, after having seen what their depravity has created.
Rebuilding a culture takes time. It won‘t be done in my lifetime, but probably will be in the lifetime of my children. And that’s good enough for me. Our job is to keep the fire lit, and to not let the Left get away with the lie and call the destruction they’ve created to be simply called “bad luck”. Oh, and I almost forgot! Don’t forget to celebrate Juneteenth!"
Bill Bonner, "Deadwood, Deadends, and Deadheads"
"Deadwood, Deadends, and Deadheads"
VC's mass extinction event,
$10 trillion in new debt and 60 years of disappointment...
by Bill Bonner
"Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot." ~ Jackie Kennedy, to Look Magazine, with a line from the musical.
Youghal, Ireland - "Whoa…that was a close call. It took us nearly 60 years of disappointment, observation and regret to get it. We didn’t want to lose it. You don’t develop cynicism overnight. It takes business deals gone bad…political promises that we never meant to be kept…innovations and inventions that didn’t work out…public policies that were idiotic when they began, disastrous when they ended.
In today’s world, where would you be without cynicism? Doing five years in the can for visiting the Capitol building without a permit? Joining the Ukrainian army to ‘protect our democracy?’ Buying Nvidia and trusting that the Fed really does know what it is doing? We can’t even write those words without chuckling to ourselves. It was only two years ago that the Fed forecast inflation for 2023 at 0.1%.; now they say it will be 5.6%. They were only off by 5,500%!
Stronger, richer, freer? Last week, US government debt passed $32 trillion. And it is growing fast – up by $10 trillion over the last 4 years…and now increasing at $2.1 trillion per year. And what do you think? Did a single penny of that debt make the US stronger, richer, freer? How young do you have to be to believe it?
As the debt rises, so do interest rates. Year over year, the feds’ interest payments are up nearly 50%. Next year, more tax money will be needed to support the debt than to support the Pentagon.
The private sector is also paying higher interest rates. Companies that took on billions of debt at 3% interest now have to refinance at 7%. And they can’t print money. Wolf Richter: "…companies that only made it this far thanks to Easy Money are now getting hung out to dry. Bankruptcy filings will whittle down the corporate debt overhang. Many companies will emerge from bankruptcy with less debt, and they’ll be nimbler and more able to thrive. Others will be sold off in bits and pieces, making room for appropriately managed companies not encumbered by these issues.
There is a cleansing aspect to this part of the credit cycle that needs to be allowed to do its job to get rid of the excesses and the deadwood at the expense of investors. This cleansing process that has now just started is long overdue."
Mass VC Extinction Event: And here’s Garrett Baldwin at ‘Postcards from the Florida Republic:’ "Venture Capital has imploded over the last 18 months. Last week, the Wall Street Journal released a distressing analysis. They've found many startups are now unable to secure the funding they need. To say VC has been "suffering" is an understatement. Tom Loverro, a general partner at VC shop IVP, has said “The Mass Extinction Event for startups is underway.” Venture capital losses over the last two quarters are key to understanding why those top seven Nasdaq stocks are thriving. Pitchbook Data shows that the annual “internal rate of return” for the 3rd quarter of 2022 hit “negative 7%.” That’s the worst annualized return since 2009. More startups are closing shop. Others aren’t even getting off the ground as deal activity dries up."
This ‘cleansing process’ is an essential part of the win-win, free enterprise system. The deadwood, deadends, and deadheads must be eliminated so new growth can occur. But guess what? America’s military/industrial/spook and elite complex is full of deadheads. And they’re not going anywhere. Most people get ahead by peacefully exchanging goods and services. “Give and ye shall get.” It might say that somewhere in the Bible. If not, it should. That’s the way ‘gentle commerce,’ works. But that’s not the way the military/industrial/spook/elite complex rolls. It doesn’t give; it just gets.
Yes, there are patterns to markets and to history. Trends have lives of their own. Inflation, for example. Once it gets underway it is hard to stop. Because rising prices cause other prices to rise…as costs go up, more money is needed. Consumers need money to pay the bills. Corporations need more money to pay their employees. The feds need more money to keep the wheels turning and the cash flowing. Caught in the ‘inflate or die’ trap…the easiest way forward is to add more money!
Drug or alcohol addiction follows a pattern, too. It starts as fun…it becomes hard to resist…and then it ruins your life. If you’re lucky you hit some kind of ‘bottom’ and bounce off it. If not…you just keep going down.
The Kennedys thought they could change the pattern of history. They wanted to steer the government towards peace. But an empire’s stock-in-trade is violence; peace would put it out of business. It was like expecting a wolf to give up lamb chops for Lent. It’s alright to be a believer when you are young. But when you are our age, if you still believe that ‘the people’ run America…or that every stock market dip is a buying opportunity…or that communism or nationalism or any other kind of ‘ism’ will make us better off..well, you are simply a fool.
American Values, RIP: That’s why sensible societies have ‘councils of elders,’ guys and gals who’ve been around the block once or twice, not councils of adolescents. But we were young once, too. And last week, we were almost young again. We remembered the ‘60s…and almost forgot the cynicism it took us more than 50 years to accumulate. Revisiting those years after half a century, by reading Robert Kennedy’s memoir, “American Values,” we imagined we heard the Rolling Stones…we recalled hitchhiking across the USA, coast to coast, on Route 66….we wanted to wear our old bell-bottoms…and let our hair (missing in action in the ‘90s) grow out again.
We found ourselves with a renewed interest in politics, too…rooting for the Kennedys and longing for a New Era...and then, as they were killed – Jack and then Bobby…we were saddened, all over again…as if we had known them personally…and our cynicism came flooding back. It wasn’t a New Era at all. It was a very old era, after all..."
"Prepping For A 'Lights Out' Situation! Preparing The Mind! Stocking Up On Essentials!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/19/23
"Prepping For A 'Lights Out' Situation!
Preparing The Mind! Stocking Up On Essentials!"
"In today's vlog, we are preparing as if we were in a Lights Out situation. From food to essential items, we go over many items we are prepping on for the future!"
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "Strange Days"
Armored Vehicles Roll Through Philadelphia
"Strange Days"
by Jim Kunstler
“Team Brandon has also made the USA utterly toxic to 80% of humanity. Sort of what they accused Trump of doing but they actually did it! LOL. They are the gift that keeps on giving.” — Jacob Dreizin
"Strange doings at a strange time in a strange land. Videos of widespread military vehicle maneuvers around our nation popped up on the Web at mid-weekend while the American citizenry went about its holiday weekend business (including Father’s Day revels and “Juneteenth” celebration mass shootings): Scenes of armored personnel carriers rolling down Walnut Street in downtown Philly; B2 bomber wings over Minnesota; Tank columns galumphing along a California highway… leading to widespread suspicions that something untoward is up. Durned if I know what it is.
Among things one can know: The “Joe Biden” presidency is whirling around the drain in plain sight, and with it, likely, the Globalist hopes and dreams of making everybody eat bugs while they take away everything you own. Last week, audiotapes surfaced of the main parties to the Ukraine grift (Biden and Poroshenko) working things out in 2016 over the phone in “JB’s” final days as vice-president. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has got its mitts on Biden family bank records galore detailing the abstruse money-laundering activities that were run through obscure European banks and innumerable Biden shell companies. Well, sonofabitch…!
It’s getting hard even for Democrats to ignore the accumulating evidence of the Biden family’s global grift operation, and “JB’s” obvious advancing mental deterioration, provoking moves that should lead to his ejection from office. Last week, their captive mainstream news media broadcast a cavalcade of embarrassing public idiocies committed by the Commander in Chief — declaring “God save the Queen” incongruously at the end of a Gun Safety Summit in Connecticut; groping actress Eva Longoria’s boobs after a White House movie screening; cracking a weird joke about the “Philadelphia girl” in his bed (Dr. Jill Biden); being introduced at an I-95 bridge collapse event by brain-damaged PA Senator John Fetterman who tossed up a word salad about the federal “delegadation” aiming to fix “infructure,” while dressed-up looking like Uncle Fester out of The Addams Family. The indignity of it all was really something to behold.
You understand, “Joe Biden’s” reelection campaign is another rank hoax, yet another trip laid on the American public by a desperate, degenerate Democratic Party that doesn’t know what to do next with public opinion souring on it. There’s no way this gibbering near-corpse can run again. He can’t even perform as a puppet anymore. He’s a broke-down engine pulling a train of failure, perfidy, and treason five miles long behind him. The Ukraine war project he presides over looks more and more like an effort to conceal and cover-up his family’s bribery schemes by laying waste to the pitiful chump of a foreign land that went along with the grift - and which, anyway, is winding up as yet another American military humiliation with the Russians finishing off what’s left of Ukraine’s army in the failed “spring offensive.”
Do you suppose that all these military vehicle movements around the country in recent days signal a constitutional crisis in the offing, necessitating martial law? Let me lay it out: Absolutely no one believes that Vice-president Kamala Harris is up to the job of stepping-in when “Joe Biden” gets bum-rushed out of the White House. Nor, I’m sure, are they willing to force her to resign hastily without a substitute vice-president (say, Gavin Newsom) in place - a cumbersome process that requires approval by both the House and Senate (with the Senate split 50-50 and no vice-president to preside over the body with a tie-breaking vote). But if Harris were flat-out forced to resign, then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would automatically become president.
Mr. McCarthy is, arguably, just another houseboy of the now-heinous administrative state (or deep state, or permanent bureaucracy, or blob, as it’s sometimes called). But he is not a Democrat, and is subject to the fractious pressures in the Republican Party, and could plausibly be induced to fire-and-replace post-haste the whole honking host of seditious rogues running the executive agencies - from AG Merrick Garland, to FBI Director Chris Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, Treasury Secretary Yellen… every last one of them - which could even lead to prosecutions of these scoundrels.
Any way you cut it, it looks like the sudden catastrophic downfall of the Democratic Party, an existential crisis that would amount ineluctably to one possible outcome: nominate Bobby Kennedy, Jr. or die. But then, what would Mr. Kennedy do about all the remaining bad actors in the Party of Chaos? My guess is that almost all of them down to the rank-and-file would snap out of the mass formation psychosis they’ve been locked in for seven years and completely flip, denouncing the tyrannical madness that their deposed leadership inflicted on our country. They might even believe it never happened, or that they were not responsible for it, like the whole thing was no more than a bad dream.
Or maybe, what we’re seeing in all these military movements is the prelude to a real live military coup d’é·tat? Just sayin’…"
o
Full screen recommended.
Riverside Homestead Life, 6/19/23
"WARNING ⚠️ Military On the Move"
Comments here:
o
John Lennon, "Nobody Told Me"
"Strange days indeed, most peculiar mama..."
"Economic Market Snapshot 6/19/23"
"Economic Market Snapshot 6/19/23"
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
o
Sunday, June 18, 2023
"Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 6/18/23"
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 6/18/23
"1,000,000 Russian Troops All The Way Around Ukraine"
"Ukraine news today and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America. Colonel Douglas Macgregor's Ukraine/Russia war update."
Comments here:
Must Watch! "I Can't Believe What's Happening; You Won't Get Bailed Out; Debt Doesn't Matter Till It Does"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/18/23
"I Can't Believe What's Happening; You Won't Get Bailed Out;
Debt Doesn't Matter Till It Does"
Comments here:
"Domino's Closing Thousands Of Stores As Retail Apocalypse Hits America's Largest Restaurant Chains"
Full screen recommended.
"Domino's Closing Thousands Of Stores As
Retail Apocalypse Hits America's Largest Restaurant Chains"
by Epic Economist
"The largest restaurant chains in America are struggling to overcome waning demand as the economy continues to slow down. Even giants like Domino’s Pizza, which operates almost 19,000 stores worldwide, are reporting a series of challenges and financial losses in 2023. The chain is now closing thousands of underperforming locations after recent price hike controversies depressed domestic and international sales and sent its shares plummeting to the lowest level in over a decade. The latest data shows that the pizza company is in far more trouble than we all thought, and experts say that if it fails to fix its problems before the current downturn gets worse, the American pie chain may rapidly become overwhelmed by its debt and fall victim to the Great Retail Collapse.
In February, conditions for the company have gone from bad to worse. In a single day, share prices plunged by a whopping 16%, marking the largest price decline since 2010. From that point on, share prices have continued to trend down, settling around $310 per share, or about 39% lower than during the same period a year ago. Now, thousands of stores have started to close, with Domino’s making the tough decision to shutter its entire operations in some areas due to profitability concerns.
It all started when just like many other US restaurants, the pizza chain started to adjust to the inflationary environment and raise its delivery and menu prices to offset higher labor and commodity costs. In October 2022, executives reported a 7% price hike that prompted many customers to cook at home instead of getting their meals delivered. Overall, the chain’s prices remain 12% higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to Eat This, Not That.
Industry experts argue that its pricing strategy was not efficient given that the company failed to consider changing consumer spending habits and how competitors’ price increases compared to its own. A new report reveals that Americans became very dissatisfied with the new prices, which led sales to sink all across the country.
Delivery problems are also weighing on Domino’s bottom line. The Michigan-based pizza brand is still experiencing a serious shortage of delivery drivers. With workers seeking out higher wages and better working conditions en masse, many just aren't interested in delivering pizzas anymore. Despite this clear shift in the US labor market, Domino's has been hesitant to partner with third-party delivery options like GrubHub or DoorDash, thus, losing customers to other rivals.
In America, the chain is losing ground and market share. Over the past six months, Domino’s significantly underperformed rivals including Pizza Hut and Papa John's, which actually benefited from new menu news and third-party delivery marketing and driver service.
Its unwillingness to adapt to the current market and while rivals get stronger and snap more market share may throw the company over the edge. Considering how high its debt currently is and the depth of its profitability concerns, Domino’s must come up with better strategies to rebalance its finances soon because not even the largest pizza chain in the world is infallible and immune to the impact of recessions and downturns. This could be the beginning of the end for the company as the US retail apocalypse continues to claim more and more struggling businesses that fail to differentiate themselves in this wildy competitive market."
Comments here:
"Would You Buy This?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 6/18/23
"Would You Buy This?"
"Look at these homes for sale in Huntington Beach, California. Lennar homes is the builder and I cannot believe what they are getting for these houses."
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Two Steps From Hell, "Evergreen Extended"
Full screen recommended.
Two Steps From Hell, "Evergreen Extended"
Close your eyes, listen, let your imagination go where it will...
what images are conjured up by this music?
"A Look to the heavens"
“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon.
Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110906.html
“The Loss Of Dignity”
“The Loss Of Dignity”
by The Zman
“If you step back and think about it, the normal man can probably list a dozen things he cannot say in public that he grew up hearing on television, usually as jokes. Then the jokes were no longer welcome in polite company and soon they were deemed “not funny” by the sorts of people who worry about such things. The same was true of simple observations about the world. Somehow noticing the obvious became impolite, then it became taboo and finally prohibited.
The reverse is true as well. Middle-aged men can probably think of a dozen things that were unimaginable or unheard of, which are now fully normal. Of course, normal is one of those things that is now prohibited. It implies that something can be abnormal or weird and that itself is forbidden. The proliferation of novel identities and activities that demand to be treated with dignity and respect is a function of the old restraints having been eliminated. When everything is possible you get everything.
The strange thing about all of this is there is seemingly no point to it. The proliferation of new taboos was not in response to some harm being done. In most cases, the taboos are about observable reality. The people turning up in the public square with novel identities or activities demanding respect did not exist very long ago. If they did, not one was curious enough to look into it. The public was happy to ignore people into unusual activities, as long as they kept it to themselves.
Of course, none of what we generally call political correctness is intended to be uplifting or inspirational. The commissars of public morality like to pretend it is inspiring, but that’s just a way to entertain themselves. These new identity groups are not demanding the rest of us seek some higher plane of existence or challenge our limitations. In fact, it is always in the opposite directions. It’s a demand to lower standards and give up on our quaint notions of self-respect and human dignity.
In the "Demon In Democracy", Polish academic Ryszard Legutko observed that liberal democracy had abandoned the concept of dignity. This is the obligation to behave in a certain way, as determined by your position in society. Dignity was earned by acting in accordance with the high standards of the community. In turn, this behavior was rewarded with greater privilege and responsibility. Failure to live up to one’s duties would result in the loss of dignity, along with the status it conferred.
Instead, modern liberal democracy awards dignity by default. We are supposed to respect all choices and all behaviors as being equal. There are no standards against which to measure human behavior, other than the standard of absolute, unconditional acceptance. As a result, the most inventively degenerate and base activities spring from the culture, almost like a test of the community’s tolerance. Instead of looking up to the heavens for inspiration, liberal democracies look down in the gutter.
Dignity comes from maintaining one’s obligations to his position in the social order, but that requires a fidelity to a social order. It also requires a connection to the rest of the people in the society. In a world of deracinated individuals focused solely on getting as much as they can in order to maximize pleasure, a sense of commitment to the community is not possible. Democracy assumes we are all equal, therefore we have no duty to one another as duty requires a hierarchical relationship.
In the absence of a vertical set of reciprocal relationships, we get this weird lattice work of horizontal relationships, elevating the profane and vulgar, while pulling down the noble and honorable. The public culture is about minimizing and degrading those who participate in the public culture. In turn, the public culture attracts only those who cannot be shamed or embarrassed. The great joy of public culture is to see those who aspire to more get torn down as the crowd roars at their demise.
The puzzle is why this is a feature of liberal democracy. Ryszard Legutko places the blame on Protestantism. Their emphasis on original sin and man’s natural limitations minimized man’s role in the world. This focus on man’s wretchedness was useful in channeling our urge to labor and create into useful activities, thus generating great prosperity, but it left us with a minimalist view of human accomplishment. We are not worthy to aspire to anything more than the base and degraded.
It is certainly true that the restraints of Christianity limited the sorts of behavior that are common today, but he may be putting the cart before the horse. The emergence of Protestantism in northern Europe was as much a result of the people and their nature as anything else. Put more simply, the Protestant work ethic existed before there was such a thing as a Protestant. The desire to work and delay gratification evolved over many generations out of environmental necessity.
Still, culture is an important part of man’s environment and environmental factors shape our evolution. It is not unreasonable to say that the evolution of Protestant ethics magnified and structured naturally occurring instincts among the people. With the collapse of Christianity as a social force in the West, the natural defense to degeneracy and vulgarity has collapsed with it. As a result, great plenty is the fuel for a small cohort of deviants to overrun the culture of liberal democracies.
Even so, there does seem to be something else. Liberal democracy has not produced great art or great architecture. The Greeks and Romans left us great things that still inspire the imagination of the man who happens to gaze upon them. The castles and cathedrals of the medieval period still awe us. The great flourishing of liberal democracy in the 20th century gave us Brutalism and dribbles of pain on canvas. The new century promises us primitives exposing themselves on the internet.
There is something about the liberal democratic order that seeks to strip us of our dignity and self-respect. Look at what happened in the former Eastern Bloc countries after communism. Exposed to the narcotic of liberalism they immediately acquired the same cultural patterns. Fertility collapsed. Religion collapsed. Marriage and family formation collapsed. These suddenly free societies got the Western disease as soon as they were exposed to western liberal democracy.
The reaction we see today is not due to these societies being behind the times, but due to seeing the ugly face of liberal democracy. It is much like the reaction to the proliferation of recreational drugs in the 1970’s. At first, it seemed harmless, but then people realized the horror of unrestrained self-indulgence. That’s what we see in the former Eastern Bloc. Their leaders still retain some of the old sense of things and are trying to save their people from the dungeon of modernity.
That still leaves us with the unanswered question. What is it about liberal democracy that seems to lead to this loss of dignity? It is possible that such a fabulously efficient system for producing wealth is a tool mankind is not yet equipped to handle without killing ourselves. Maybe we are just not built for anything but scarcity. Want gives us purpose and without it, we lose our reason to exist. Either way, without dignity, we cannot defend ourselves and the results are inevitable.”
"Heaven And Hell..."
“Many people don’t fear a hell after this life and that’s because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn’t end. The kind of hell that doesn’t burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can’t see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It’s where you feel freedom, where you’re not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing.”
- C. JoyBell C.
o
John Milton,
o
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
- William Shakespeare, "The Tempest"
"May Sarton on How to Live with Tenderness in a Harsh World"
"May Sarton on How to Live with Tenderness in a Harsh World"
By Maria Popova
"This world is radiant with beauty. This world is also capable of bone-chilling brutality and the small, corrosive daily cruelties that salt our days with sorrow. For a sensitive person to live with the duality, to keep the light aflame without turning away from the darkness that needs illumination, may be the most difficult thing in life - and the most rewarding.
What it takes, and how it rewards us, is what the great poet and diarist May Sarton (May 3, 1912–July 16, 1995) explores in a journal entry from her altogether dazzling 1977 book "The House by the Sea" (public library). With an eye to the daily reality of teenagers killing with firearms - a reality that, in the decades since, has been magnified from interpersonal violence to mass shootings - she considers the long roots of desensitization, fanged into the body of the world with every war: "What have we done to our children that such indifference is possible? A total disconnection between the act and the human terror and despair involved?"
In a passage of stunning prescience and relevance to our own epoch, she answers: "We are in a period where torture is taken for granted almost everywhere, and where the so-called civilized peoples must go on eating candy and drinking whiskey while millions die of hunger. So one has to extrapolate the morally indifferent boys to the whole ethos in which they live. And at the root of it all is the lack of imagination. If we had imagined what we were doing in Vietnam it would have had to be stopped. But the images of old women holding shattered babies or of babies screaming ended by passing before our eyes but never penetrating to consciousness where they could be experienced. Are we paying for Vietnam now by seeing our children become monsters?"
Sarton offers a cure for this deadly indifference - a cure that honeys this twenty-first-century soul with its poignancy and its potency: "I am more and more convinced that in the life of civilizations as in the lives of individuals too much matter that cannot be digested, too much experience that has not been imagined and probed and understood, ends in total rejection of everything - ends in anomie. The structures break down and there is nothing to “hold onto.” It is understandable that at such times religious fanatics arise and the fundamentalists rise up in fury. Hatred rather than love dominates. How does one handle it? The greatest danger, as I see it in myself, is the danger of withdrawal into private worlds. We have to keep the channels in ourselves open to pain. At the same time it is essential that true joys be experienced, that the sunrise not leave us unmoved, for civilization depends on the true joys, all those that have nothing to do with money or affluence - nature, the arts, human love. Maybe that is why the pandas in the London Zoo brought me back to poetry for the first time in two years."
Complement this fragment of the wholly ravishing "The House by the Sea" with Sarton on the cure for despair, then revisit Walt Whitman, writing shortly after his paralytic stroke, on what makes life worth living and Mary Oliver on the measure of a life well lived."
The Poet: John O'Donohue, "In These Times "
"In These Times "
"In these times when anger
Is turned into anxiety,
And someone has stolen
The horizons and mountains,
Our small emperors on parade
Never expect our indifference
To disturb their nakedness.
They keep their heads down,
And their eyes gleam with reflection
From aluminum economic ground,
The media wraps everything
In a cellophane of sound,
And the ghost surface of the virtual
Overlays the breathing earth.
The industry of distraction
Makes us forget
That we live in a universe.
We have become converts
To the religion of stress
And its deity of progress;
That we may have courage
To turn aside from it all
And come to kneel down before the poor,
To discover what we must do,
How to turn anxiety
Back into anger,
How to find our way home."
~ John O'Donohue,
from "To Bless the Space Between Us "
"If You Look..."
"We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy. It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong."
- Robert James Brown
"Paveletskaya Square: Moscow's Most Complicated Park in History"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 6/18/23
"Paveletskaya Square:
Moscow's Most Complicated Park in History"
"Situated in the center of Moscow, Russia. Paveletskaya Square is concidered one the most complicated construction projects in Moscow's 875 year history of construction. Together with the park, there is also a 3 level shopping centre built under the street level of the park its self. Amazing."
Comments here:
Astonishing...
o
Full screen recommended.
Lost in Moscow, 6/18/23
"Moscow Live. Gorky Park. Friday Dancing"
Comments here:
Reader comment: "Very beautiful country, city, vibe, and happy people. No trash, no homeless, no racism, no racists, no creepy drug addicts, no creepy weird multiple gender freaks trying to get attention, no cops. Every city and country should have these nice spirits."
And then, there's us. Look around...
Thoughts, comments?
o
Come on, tell me, show me, show us all what We the People got for it...
How It Really Is"
And not a damned penny to help you, is there?
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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