"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."
“Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis. Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000 light-years across, the spiral galaxy also seems to have more than its fair share of giant star forming HII regions, marked by the telltale reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas. The giant HII regions are energized by clusters of hot, massive stars that explode as bright supernovae at the end of their short and furious lives.
A member of the M81 group of galaxies, NGC 2403 closely resembles another galaxy with an abundance of star forming regions that lies within our own local galaxy group, M33 the Triangulum Galaxy. Spiky in appearance, bright stars in this colorful galaxy portrait of NGC 2403 lie in the foreground, within our own Milky Way.”
“Somewhere, in something I have written, I recall quoting with approval this passage from Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire": “For my own part I am pleased enough with surfaces - in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child's hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of a friend or lover, the silk of a girl's thigh, the sunlight on rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind - what else is there? What else do we need?”
Pleased enough with surfaces. Yes, I know what I meant. Pleased enough with this world, here and now, this world of light and matter. Not wanting or needing that other world that occupies so many people, a world of supernatural agencies, spirits, disembodied presences. Give me a world I can see and hear and touch and taste. Give me a world with heft and substance, a world with surfaces that shine and shimmer. What else is there? What else do we need?
Well, maybe not. I was scanning issues of “Science” and “Nature,” with their usual illustrations of the molecules of life, the nuclei acids and the proteins. The elaborate machinery that unseen, under the surface, endow the apple's flavor, the silk of skin, the abrasion of sand. Think of it. Atoms that are mere whiffs of resonance, binding into molecules, twisting and turning into endless shapes, fitting together like hand and glove, endlessly spinning and weaving, all without the slightest conscious participation on our part. Abbey's world of surfaces spun out of the mysterious, endlessly active, subsurface stuff of the world.
Pleased enough with surfaces? Not really. I want to know what's under the surface, that world of molecular frenzy that cannot be touched or seen, a world that in its own way is as beautiful and as meaningful as the macroscopic world we consciously inhabit. We don't need to know it. We can live a fulfilling life without knowing it. But I want to know it. I want to know what goes on behind the curtain of the senses. I want to hear that silent and ceaseless music of creation.”
"Do as little harm to others as you can; make any sacrifice for your true friends; be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; and grab all the fun you can. Don't give much thought to yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow, live in the moment, and trust that your existence has meaning even when the world seems to be all blind chance and chaos. When life lands a hammer blow in your face, do your best to respond to the hammer as if it had been a cream pie."
"If you’re worried about your finances, you’re far from alone. U.S. banks are warning that a credit crisis worse than 2008 is on the horizon, and it is coming at the worst possible time for American families. Credit card issuers are about to tighten lending standards even further, making it more difficult for consumers to get loans and have access to credit at a time when 77%, or more than three in four, households report feeling anxious about their money situation.
Not only households are having a harder time making ends meet, but getting out of debt is becoming increasingly difficult. No wonder more Americans are going bankrupt. Compared to a year ago, the number of personal bankrupcies is 18% higher. Everyone seems to be dealing with financial setbacks. That’s why we are relying more on credit cards to get by than ever before. And people are not resorting to credit just to make big-ticket purchases, as they used to do in the past. They are having to use their credit cards for basic necessities such as rent, energy, and groceries.
The New York Federal Reserve revealed that the typical household now carries $10,170 credit card debt. In the past quarter alone, nationwide credit card debt swelled by $43 billion - the second-largest increase on record. On the other hand, in September, 60% of respondents to the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations said that their ability to get loans is lower than it was a year ago. That’s because the credit crisis banks have been warning about has already begun.
In recent months, credit card companies have been reporting extensive losses due to the rise in credit card debt delinquencies and defaults. Borrowers are facing mounting challenges to pay their balances in full each month. In all, americans owe more than $1 trillion on credit cards, a record high. Goldman Sachs said on Friday that credit card issuers’ financial losses caused by delinquencies and defaults rose by 3.64% in the past three months. The bank’s analysts see them rising another 1.3 percentage points to 4.93% in October.”Losses have been climbing quickly since early 2022, jumping at speeds not seen since the 2008 financial crisis,” Goldman emphasized.
With more banks announcing tighter lending standards, many consumers will become more financially insecure, especially those who rely on overdrafts to cover short-term financial needs and unexpected expenses and maintain their purchasing power. This situation has put already-struggling banks on edge. Fears of a full-blown credit crunch and the resulting negative impact on households, businesses, and the U.S. economy are at an all-time high. During a credit crunch, loans become tougher to get. Banks that offer them might do so with more onerous terms like abnormally high-interest rates or other restrictions - making such financing more costly.
At this point, banks are doing whatever they can to stay afloat, because this time around, there will be no rescuing or bailing out from the Federal Reserve. According to Bloomberg, we may face potentially dire consequences due to the administration’s continued inability to manage its finances. That matters because it shows that the government does not have the means to lift the country out of a crisis like it did in 2008. So if more people become delinquent on their debt and more financial institutions fail, there will be no safety net protecting our economy from collapsing."
"10 Fast Food Chains Are in Serious Financial Trouble"
"Even in the best economy, the restaurant industry is all about struggle. Margins are incredibly tight and even the slightest change in one statistic can make life miserable for the finest of establishments. Restaurants have been taken down by rising food prices, lower walk-in customers, government investigations, and fast food chains in particular have swung from huge revenues to near-oblivion with shocking speed. Today we're talking about 10 fast food chains that are in serious financial trouble."
"Food Shortage Report: It's Worse Than We Thought!"
"We are covering the food shortage report for Fall and Winter of 2023 and 2024. It's Worse than we thought it would be as food shortages are popping up everywhere. We expose the truth as thousands of our viewers have commented on what is come up missing in their grocery stores!"
"We kicked the can down the road for 45 days on our government shut down. There are still things are going to be affected by the lack of our government being completely open. The stock market is in a precarious spot. Plus, if You drive a Kia or Hyundai, do you need to watch this."
U.S. Banks are facing some $600 billion of unrealized losses,
roughly 25% of total banking capital, near the highest levels in history.”
by Automatic Earth
"The U.S. banking system and likely, the global banking system, is essentially bankrupt. They just won’t admit it and central bankers won’t let them admit it. These “brilliant” Harvard Business School and Wharton trained financial geniuses thought it was a great idea to load up their institutions with mortgage and Treasury bonds when they were paying 0.5%. Now the ten year Treasury is 4.58%. Even a dolt like AOC or Pelosi should know bonds lose value when rates go up.
So here we are with banks almost $600 billion underwater in their bond holdings, waiting for our next Minsky Moment. Those living in a fantasy world of no consequences aren’t worried, because these banks don’t have to realize these losses unless they sell.
After re-watching "The Big Short" last week, I realized we are about to see history rhyme. There was an interminable period prior to the 2008 financial crash where the Wall Street cabal, government bureaucrats, central bankers, rating agencies, home buyers, and stock investors all pretended everything was fine. As the toxic fraudulent mortgages began to default because Mexican migrant workers and topless dancers couldn’t make the payments on their $500,000 mortgages, the banks actually marked their CDO and CLO weapons of mass financial destruction up in price. They were going to keep on dancing until the music ended. Extend and pretend kept the good times rolling. Until it didn’t.
Once the wrong grain of sand falls on the weakest part of the sand pile we call our financial system, the collapse will commence. Once the losses start to mount, these Wall Street banks will be forced to sell in order to generate liquidity. I know it’s coming. You know it’s coming. They know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of when. The Fed’s balance sheet will be doubled again in a fruitless effort to save their corrupt system once more.
We are in the waning years of this Fourth Turning. This will not be resolved peacefully or by kicking the can down the road once again. We are about to reap what Washington and Wall Street have sown since 2008."
"Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has been warning his war cycles were turning up. Nenner says, “It happens like clockwork in the second decade of a new century.” Nenner says it’s a lot like the stock market running out of gas, and he warns, “It’s like a stock market that is topping. First, the weak stocks go down. Then, the indexes are still holding up, and then the big ones go down. Now, you see for instance, Apple also came down, but first, the small stocks came down. It’s already happening, but you only see the results suddenly when the whole thing crashes.
Americans seem to have no worries about the war that could be coming. I don’t want people to lose sleep, but the pact is forming. It is China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. They are going against the United States that does not have a functional army anymore. Who do the Americans think they are? It’s over, they can’t rule the world anymore. If they are going to fight all these countries, I don’t think it is going to end well.”
Does Nenner see the American Empire ending? Nenner says, “I think it ended already, but we just don’t know it yet. One of the signals of end of empire is bad education, which we have. Another signal is the lifespan of people is shorter than for the people before. What do you want me to say? It does not look good, does it? Another signal is your children have it worse than the generation before. So, there is a whole list of signals, and it points to the United States is in trouble. I would be short America and I would go long the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India China).
Nenner says the stock market is on its way to being “substantially lower, but not just yet.” Nenner also sees the cycles for gold, silver, bonds and real estate all going lower from here, but gold and silver will be going back up longer term. The only thing Nenner likes right now are short-term Treasury bonds. The dollar will hold up for now, but it is headed much lower in the not-so-distant future. Nenner also likes energy, but it is cycling down at the moment. Nenner says, “Inflation goes up and down” and warns, “Inflation is starting another up trend.” This round of inflation is probably going to be very painful for the common man. There is much more in the 41-minute interview."
"Watch this and have your mind blown. Whoever wrote the script for this episode of X-Files 20 year ago has to be a time traveler or a senior deep state operative who revealed their entire plan just for giggles."
A Factual Overview:
Sound familiar? It should, look around... Who is the World Economic Forum, and what's their agenda? Do your own research, gather all the relevant facts and draw you own conclusions...
With all that's happening right here on Earth there's no time to engage in pointless speculation but what these videos, credited to nasa.gov, appear to show is astonishingly incredible if genuine, and they appear to be. This is a close-up ground shot like so many of Rover's transmissions. The object is small, and obviously not a natural phenomenon. What is it? Created by who, or what?
If genuine, consider the implications... What else haven't we been shown? And please, if anyone has additional information about this please share it in the Comments below.
"Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk.
Click image for larger size.
With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago."
"Things weren’t always this horrible. Once upon a time, America’s shiny new cities were the envy of the entire world. Our citizens dressed sharply, they treated one another with respect, and they worked incredibly hard. But now our country is teeming with extremely slothful degenerates that want everything handed to them on a silver platter. Rampant greed is everywhere that you look, crime is completely out of control, we are facing the worst drug crisis in the entire history of our nation, millions of our fellow citizens are absolutely seething with hatred for one another, and those that attempt to stand up for what is right are considered to be the problem. We should be deeply grieved by what has happened to our society, because it truly is a great tragedy.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Matt Walsh published an excerpt from a letter that an infantryman sent to his family during the Civil War…"If you want to see how much the English language has deteriorated in modern times, go read the letters that random infantrymen wrote home to their families during the Civil War. These were young men often without much formal schooling who wrote naturally like poets. One example:"
Can you write like that? I certainly can’t. Those of us in this generation like to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of human history, but the truth is that we can’t even compare to those that have come before us.
Let me give you another example. More than a century ago, the streets of New York City were filled with extremely civilized people that dressed incredibly well when it was time to go out into the public arena…
Full screen recommended.
But now New York City is a crime-ridden, drug-infested hellhole. At this point, drug overdoses account for 80 to 85 percent of all accidental deaths in the Big Apple…
New York Times:
Is this “progress”? I don’t think so.
In Portland, conditions have gotten so bad that more than 2,600 businesses have left the downtown area over the past few years…"Business owners are fleeing Portland in droves amid a pronounced rise in crime and homelessness, officials in the Democratic stronghold have revealed. Public data shows that since the pandemic, more than 2,600 downtown businesses have filed changes of address with the U.S. Postal Service to leave their downtown ZIP codes. Several big-name employers, from Unitus Community Credit Union to Umpqua Bank, have been among the mass exodus, carried out by owners who have taken issue with the rising crime levels and homelessness – and the city’s failure to address it."
Apparently officials want even more businesses to leave, because now a bill that would give homeless individuals $1,000 a month “in no-strings-attached cash” is being seriously considered…"Oregon is considering giving its vast homeless and low-income population $1,000 in no-strings-attached cash. The bill was proposed by woke State Senator Wlnsvey Campos – who was among those calling to abolish the police in the summer of 2020 when the city of Portland was besieged by protesters – and Rep. Khanh Pham." If they actually do this, most of that money will go straight to the drug dealers.
Down in San Francisco, drug addicts are fueling a crime spree that is worse than anything that the city has ever experienced. When one woman recently went into the city for a yoga class, she was told that the building “had been broken into six times in two months”…"Yesterday I went to a yoga class in San Francisco for the first time in years. They had the front door locked (had to be buzzed in), a sign on it that said “no cash on premises,” and the woman at the front desk said they had been broken into six times in two months."
Over in Los Angeles, violent crime has become such a problem that extremely expensive “executive protection dogs” have become a very hot commodity…"The elite animals - typically German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, Dobermans, cane corsos or a mix of those breeds - are marketed under names such as “personal canine bodyguards” and “executive protection dogs.” Amid a spate of high-profile crimes in upscale parts of Los Angeles, they have become highly sought after among the rich, many of whom worry about being targeted.
Protection dogs, they say, provide an immediate layer of front-line defense, unlike security cameras (which merely show an intruder on the property, and only if the devices happen to be pointed in the right direction) and home alarm systems (which can be bypassed or ignored). Even if police are summoned, they can be slow to respond, if at all. So homeowners who can afford it are being more proactive."
This is the world that we live in now. But most Americans don’t seem to care. We are literally living in an “idiocracy” in which people are dropping dead all around us, but most Americans are so far gone that they can’t even understand what is happening.
Of course it isn’t just the United States that is facing such problems. Up in Canada, crime rates are absolutely exploding thanks to the reckless policies of the Trudeau regime…"The Toronto Police Service data portal shows that Toronto experienced a 17.2 per cent spike in overall major crimes in 2022, including a 9.8 per cent increase in assaults, a 44.2 per cent spike in auto thefts, 6.5 per cent growth in break and enters, a 28.5 per cent jump in robbery, an 11.3 per cent increase in sexual violence, and a 35.8 per cent gain in theft over cases."
And in many areas of South America crime has risen to levels that we have never seen before…"Countries across Latin America and the Caribbean continued to experience high murder rates in 2022, as cocaine production reached new heights, the fragmentation of gangs continued, and the flow of weapons across the region grew more acute.
For Ecuador, the situation was downright catastrophic. Historic amounts of cocaine entering the country fueled violence, with murders skyrocketing as gangs targeted judicial officials and killed police officers at record rates. That cocaine came largely from Colombia, where recently inaugurated President Gustavo Petro has promised to shift away from the war on drugs in favor of efforts to achieve a “Total Peace” with the country’s rebel and criminal groups."
Our entire world is deeply sick. We have turned our backs on what is good, and we continue to run after evil as rapidly as we can. As a result, our society is a complete and total mess. We truly are living during one of the most critical times in all of human history, and we desperately need to change course. Unfortunately, most people seem to think that everything is just fine, and so they see no need for a new direction."
"Those of us who pursue positive change are very often frustrated. We see the necessity of change all too clearly, and we can explain how it should come about, but it never seems to happen. The truth, however, is that change does come; it just comes more slowly than we’d like, and in ways that differ from those we imagined.
One real change I like to point out is the passing of blind trust in politicians. In the 1950s and ‘60s, most people spoke of politicians with respect and even with reverence. Now it’s almost standard for people to agree that they’re liars and thieves. That’s a very significant change, even if it did take several decades to unfold. So, a significant change has occurred in our time, and over a very broad base. Still, most people are hanging on, and often desperately, to old ways that should really be abandoned.
The Automatic Benefit of the Doubt: It’s a bit troubling to see how blindly, and for how long, people give the benefit of the doubt to hierarchy and its operators. They can know that a system is abusing them, and they can complain about it at length, but still they grasp at reasons to keep believing in it.
Here’s what I mean: During the bad spots of the Middle Ages, people would be abused by the clergy but say, “If only His Holiness knew!” During the reign of the USSR, people in the Gulag would often say, “If only Stalin knew!” In our time, people hold Political Party A or Political Party B as grave evils, while pretending that the combination of A + B is good and noble.
Still, such blind biases do eventually break. Stalin, after all, is gone, along with his USSR. The Protestant reformation broke the domination of the Church. And the delusions of our time will die as well.
“Still, I look to Find a Reason to Believe”: If there were such a competition, I’d nominate Rod Stewart’s song, "Reason To Believe," as the Anthem of the Age. Regardless of how badly they are abused, people have a very hard time letting go of their hierarchies; they’ve taken emotional refuge in them, after all. Even when sharp pain forces them to examine the hierarchy that constantly tells them, “Obey or we’ll hurt you,” the impulse to maintain belief erupts. Here’s how the song expresses it:
"If I listened long enough to you,
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true.
Knowing that you lied,
straight-faced while I cried.
Still I look to find a reason to believe."
Humans have a real problem with that last line: looking for reasons to believe. It flies in the face of both logic and honesty, but people not only do it, but vigorously defend it. As for specific reasons to believe, they’re endless. Seldom are humans quicker and cleverer than when justifying their previous actions.
Why This Is a Good Sign: When people are desperately grasping for reasons to believe, it’s because the benefit of the doubt is cracking beneath them. Otherwise, why would they fight so wildly? The circumstances of our modern world are propelling people toward this break. Every time a ruling system tells gigantic lies, censors the public square, surveils their own people and frightens the masses for their own benefit, belief in their system cracks a little.
More and more people are conceding that it’s not just “one bad actor” here or there, but that Joe Stalin really is evil, that the clergy really is corrupt, and that hierarchies are abusive by nature. The whirlwind of distractions and slogans arrayed against moral clarity are losing their effectiveness. Little by little, humanity’s blind devotion to authority is cracking. Someday, it will break."
"Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth."
“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”
"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage;
anger at the way things are, and courage
to see that they do not remain the way they are."
- Augustine of Hippo
"Several long-time activists have told me recently they are overwhelmed, worried, and think that we may be losing the struggle. One very smart friend asked me if there is any basis for hope.
Hope is an act of will, not a passive mood. Admittedly, things are easier when circumstances bring hope to us, and we can just receive the hopeful and inspiring news. But if we care about winning, we have to be able to decide to have hope even when outer circumstances aren't so positive.
I have children who are counting on me to leave them with a reasonably safe and sane planet. As I've said elsewhere, I care too much about my kids and my freedom to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down.
If I allowed myself to lose hope about exposing falsehoods, about protecting our freedom and building a hopeful future, I would be dropping the ball for my kids. I would be condemning them to a potentially very grey world where bigger and worse things may happen, where their liberties and joys are wholly stripped away, where every ounce of vitality is beholden to joyless and useless tasks.
Many of us may be motivated by other things besides kids, and only you can know what that is. But we each must dig down deep, and connect with our most powerful motivations to win the struggle for freedom and truth.
I don't know about you, but I don't have the luxury of giving up hope. When I get depressed, overwhelmed or exhausted by the stunning acts of savagery, treason, and disinformation carried out by the imperialists, or the willful ignorance of far too many Americans, I will myself into finding some reason to have hope. Because the struggle for life and liberty is too important for me to give up."
Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are opting to surrender to the Russian Army. These surrenders were seen even through a newly established Russian radio frequency. Clayton Morris, an American journalist, expressed his astonishment and said, "This is a story the Western media does not want you to see. Russian Army officials claim around 10,000 Ukrainian fighters have dropped their arms."
"Ukrainian soldiers are surrendering by the thousands in Ukraine since the beginning of summer. 10,000 have reportedly turned themselves over to Russian forces rather than being turned into hamburger. 400,000 to 500,000 Ukraine military have been killed in action during the nearly 2-year war. 80,000 reportedly have been killed during the failed so-called “counter-offensive” that started in early June. The Russians are winning big, and the Lying Legacy Media have been lying to America the entire time. Ukraine is a NATO disaster, and it should stop ASAP. There is much more in the 48-minute newscast."
"Russia's defense minister has claimed that the Army killed 17,000 Ukrainian soldiers this month in the course of the war. Sergei Shoigu was chairing a board meeting at the defense ministry. He added that over 2,700 pieces of military equipment including U.S-made Bradley Infantry Vehicles, German-made Leopard and UK-made Challenger tanks have been destroyed. Shoigu trained guns at Ukraine and its allies for "throwing untrained soldiers into senseless assaults."
"The CEO of Citibank just announced a major restructuring of the company. It starts by getting rid of the weakest links in the company. There is no time for bystanders. Plus, we go to the Huntington Beach airshow."
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing more price increases on groceries and are finding some empty shelves as some products are getting harder to get in due to a multitude of reasons! It's getting rough out here as most grocery items continue to skyrocket in price!"
“Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous young star clusters and dark dust lanes. Still, for earthbound astronomers NGC 3621 is not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe.
This beautiful image of NGC 3621 traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy's brighter central regions that span some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.”
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