So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Bah Humbug: The Police State Wants Us To Be a Nation of Snowflakes
"Bah Humbug: The Police State Wants
Us To Be a Nation of Snowflakes"
By John & Nisha Whitehead
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” - Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"
"What a year. It feels as if government Grinches and corporate Scrooges have been working overtime to drain every last drop of joy, kindness and liberty from the world. After endless months of being mired in political gloom and doom, we could all use a little Christmas cheer right now.
Unfortunately, Christmas has become embattled in recent years, co-opted by rampant commercialism, straight-jacketed by political correctness, and denuded of so much of its loveliness, holiness and mystery. Indeed, the season for giving has turned into the season for getting…and for getting offended. To a nation of snowflakes, Christmas has become yet another trigger word.
When I was a child in the 1950s, the magic of Christmas was promoted in the schools. We sang Christmas carols in the classroom. There were cutouts of the Nativity scene on the bulletin board, along with the smiling, chubby face of Santa and Rudolph. We were all acutely aware that Christmas was magic.
Fast forward to the present day, and Christmas has become fodder for the politically correct culture wars. Over the years, Christmas casualties in the campaign to create one large national safe space have ranged from the beloved animated classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (denounced for promoting bullying and homophobia) to the Oscar-winning tune “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (accused of being a date rape anthem) crooned by everyone from Dean Martin to Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel in the movie "Elf."
Also on the endangered species Christmas list are such songs as “Deck the Halls,” “Santa Baby,” and “White Christmas.” One publishing company even re-issued their own redacted version of Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem “Twas the night before Christmas” in order to be more health conscious: the company edited out Moore’s mention of Santa smoking a pipe (“The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, / And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.”)
In the politically correct quest to avoid causing offense, Christmas keeps getting axed. Examples abound.
Schools across the country now avoid anything that alludes to the true meaning of Christmas such as angels, the baby Jesus, stables and shepherds.
In many of the nation's schools, Christmas carols, Christmas trees, wreaths and candy canes have also been banned as part of the effort to avoid any reference to Christmas, Christ or God. One school even outlawed the colors red and green, saying they were Christmas colors and, thus, illegal.
Students asked to send seasonal cards to military troops have been told to make them “holiday cards” and instructed not to use the words “Merry Christmas” on their cards.
Many schools have redubbed their Christmas concerts as “winter holiday programs” and refer to Christmas as a “winter festival.” Some schools have cancelled holiday celebrations altogether to avoid offending those who do not celebrate the various holidays.
In Minnesota, a charter school banned the display of a poster prepared to promote the school’s yearbook as a holiday gift because the poster included Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and other secular Christmas icons, not to mention the word “Christmas.”
In New Jersey, one school district banned traditional Christmas songs such as “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night” from its holiday concerts. A New Jersey middle school cancelled a field trip to attend a performance of a play based on Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" because some might have found it "offensive."
In Texas, a teacher in Texas who decorated her door with a scene from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” including a scrawny tree and Linus, was forced to take it down lest students be offended or feel uncomfortable.
In Connecticut, teachers were instructed to change the wording of the classic poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to “Twas the Night Before a Holiday.”
In Virginia, a high school principal debated about whether he could mention Santa or distribute candy canes given that they were symbols of Christmas.
In Massachusetts, a fourth-grade class was asked to list 25 things that reminded them of Christmas. When one young student asked if she could include “Jesus,” her teacher replied that she could get fired if Christmas’ namesake appeared on the list.
Things have not been much better outside the schools, muddled by those who subscribe to the misguided notion that the Constitution requires that anything religious in nature be banned from public places. In one West Virginia town, although the manger scene (one of 350 light exhibits in the town's annual Festival of Lights) included shepherds, camels and a guiding star, the main attractions - Jesus, Mary and Joseph - were nowhere to be found due to concerns about the separation of church and state.
In Chicago, organizers of a German Christkindlmarket were informed that the public Christmas festival was no place for the Christmas story. Officials were concerned that clips of the film “The Nativity Story,” which were to be played at the festival, might cause offense.
In Delaware, a Girl Scout troop was prohibited from carrying signs reading “Merry Christmas” in their town’s annual holiday parade.
Clearly, Christmas has become one of many casualties in the misguided dispute over the so-called “separation of church and state,” a controversy that has given rise to a disconcerting and unconstitutional attempt to sanitize public places of any reference to God or religion.
Yet there’s a really simple solution to this annual angst of whether students and teachers can display Christmas-related posters, wear Christmas colors of red and green or sing Christmas songs, and that is for government officials to stop being such Humbugs and create a vibrant, open environment where all expression can flourish.
While the First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing religion on people or endorsing one particular religion over another, there is no legitimate legal reason why people should not be able to celebrate the season freely or wish each other a Merry Christmas or even mention the word Christmas. After all, the First Amendment affirms the right to freedom for religion, not freedom from religion.
Hoping to clear up the legal misunderstanding over the do’s and don’ts of celebrating Christmas, The Rutherford Institute’s Constitutional Q&A on “Twelve Rules of Christmas” provides basic guidelines for lawfully celebrating Christmas in schools, workplaces and elsewhere.
Yet while Christmas may be the “trigger” for purging Christmas from public places, government forums and speech - except when it profits Corporate America - it is part and parcel of the greater trend in recent years to whittle away at free speech and trample the First Amendment underfoot.
Anything that might raise the specter of controversy is avoided at all costs. We are witnessing the emergence of an unstated yet court-sanctioned right, one that makes no appearance in the Constitution and yet seems to trump the First Amendment at every turn: the right to not be offended.
In this way, emboldened by phrases such as “hate crimes,” “bullying,” “extremism” and “microaggressions,” free speech has been confined to carefully constructed “free speech zones,” criminalized when it skates too close to challenging the status quo, shamed when it butts up against politically correct ideals, and muzzled when it appears dangerous. At the slightest hint of trouble, government officials (and corporations) are inclined to chuck anything that might be objectionable.
Yet when all is said and done, what the police state really wants is a nation of snowflakes, snitches and book burners: a legalistic, intolerant, elitist, squealing bystander nation willing to turn on each other and turn each other in for the slightest offense, while being incapable of presenting a united front against the threats posed by the government and its cabal of Constitution-destroying agencies and corporate partners.
You want to know why this country is in the state it’s in? The answer is the same no matter what the problem might be, whether it’s the economy, government corruption, police brutality, endless wars, censorship, falling literacy rates, etc.: every one of these problems can be sourced back to the fact that “we the people” have stopped thinking for ourselves and relinquished responsibility for our lives and well-being to a government entity that sees us only as useful idiots.
The Greek philosopher Socrates believed in teaching people to think for themselves and in the free exchange of ideas. For his efforts, he was accused of corrupting the youth and was put to death. However, his legacy lived on in the Socratic method of teaching: posing questions that help young and old discover the answers by learning to think for themselves.
Now even the ability to think for oneself is in danger of extinction. As Rod Serling, creator of the classic sci-fi series Twilight Zone and one of the most insightful commentators on human nature, once observed, “We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”
We face an immense threat in our society from this drive to obliterate our history and traditions in order to erect a saccharine view of reality. In the process, we are creating a schizophrenic world for our children to grow up in, and it is neither healthy nor will it produce the kind of people who will be able to face the challenges of a future ruled by a totalitarian regime.
As I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and in its fictional counterpart "The Erik Blair Diaries," you can’t sanitize reality. You can’t scrub out of existence every unpleasant thought or idea. You can’t legislate tolerance. You can’t create enough safe spaces to avoid the ugliness that lurks in the hearts of men and women. You can’t fight ignorance with the weapons of a police state.
What you can do, however, is step up your game. Opt for kindness over curtness, and civility over censorship. Choose peace over politics, and freedom over fascism. Find common ground with those whose politics or opinions or lifestyles may not jive with your own. Do your part to make the world a little brighter and a little lighter, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a chance of digging our way out of this hole."
Bill Bonner, "A Case of Shrinking Money"
"A Case of Shrinking Money"
Wall Street greed, old work boots, gypsy wagons...
and a disappearing money supply.
by Bill Bonner
“We are living in a world that doesn’t have enough money.”
~ Ray Dalio
Baltimore, Maryland - "We’re pausing today; we picked up a bad cold somewhere along the way. And we’re troubled. We’ve been away from the old farm in Maryland for most of the last 30 years. But it’s always a pleasure to come home. Like old friends, we find our boots…and our tools, right where we left them.
A Piece of the Boom: But the neighborhood has changed. How? Immigration. The immigrants come from New York and Florida…California and Wyoming. They are eager to get a piece of the boom in the Washington area, with some of the highest salaries in the country. And now, the character of Southern Maryland has completely changed. It is now a distant suburb of Washington, with probably fewer than one resident out of 100 who has ever caught a crab or even seen a tobacco plant. The new immigrants don’t seem to know where they are….and don’t care.
Wherever we go, we have a project waiting. Stone walls in Ireland. Fallen down adobe shacks in Argentina. A loft apartment in one of the barns in France. Here in Maryland, the project is a gypsy wagon that we began last Christmas, largely to occupy the grandchildren. It’s a simple construction. Mounted on an old hay wagon, the walls rise at an angle, up to a curved roof. We’ve been told that you can get normal corrugated tin roofing and bend it over the hump. We’ll find out soon!
Back to finance…in our view, the key difference between now…and the 40 years, 1980-2020, is money-printing. In our fake money system, new wealth is not earned…it’s created by lending. The Fed lends to member banks. The banks lend to hedge funds, smaller banks, corporations, whoever wants the money. The money supply gets bigger, but so does the debt.
The big borrowers are on Wall Street…financial players who use the cheap money to gamble and speculate. As long as the volume of money – the liquidity – was increasing, it was reasonable to expect asset prices to go up. And they did. The Dow, for example, rose from under 1,000 in 1980 to over 36,000 today.
Shrinking Dollars: Consumers borrowed too – for houses, cars, and credit card purchases. And the federal government was the biggest borrower of all – adding more than $27 trillion to its debt so far this century. All of this borrowing and spending increased the ‘money in circulation’ that was chasing, chiefly, assets. It meant higher asset prices. And higher asset prices made the elite much richer.
Then, in July 2020, the borrowing binge came to a screeching halt. Interest rates and inflation went up. Borrowing went down. And with it, the money supply shrank. Charlie Bilello: "The US Money Supply fell 3.3% over the last year, a record 11th consecutive month with a YoY decline. The US Money Supply has fallen 2% over the last 2 years, the largest 2-year decline on record."
Money is what makes the financial world go ‘round. Note that the money supply was supposed to grow about the same rate as GDP, in order to keep prices more or less stable. GDP grew around 3% per year since 1971. But M2 grew about 5%. And then, in the Trump madness it rose to 27% as the Fed ‘printed’ trillions to keep up with Washington’s deficits. This was the proximate cause of the wave of inflation that struck the US in 2022.
The Way it Works: Then, too late, the Fed changed course. No more EZ money. No more negative rates. The Fed’s key rate rose 500 basis points (five percent) – the biggest, fastest turnaround in Fed history. The money supply collapsed. From 27% annual growth under Trump, it is now bouncing off a low of MINUS 4.5% – an unprecedented decline. House mortgage payments roughly doubled. Interest on credit card accounts rose to 21%. And the feds now pay more than $1 trillion per year in INTEREST on the federal budget – the largest single item of federal spending apart from Social Security/Medicare.
What is troubling about this is that the money supply is no longer increasing. So what makes the world go ‘round, now? How can the economy go from strength to strength, even as liquidity drives up? Stocks sold off in 2022. But now they are rising again. Bonds suffered the biggest sell-off ever…interest rates are generally falling again. And here’s the Intelligencer:
"Wall Street Has Decided It’s Time to Get Greedy Again: The past five weeks were great ones on Wall Street. Since the end of October, the Dow Jones Industrial Average went on a furious rally, climbing more than 11 percent. The bond markets - which, for much of the year, had been reflecting a darker image of the economy - gave up much of their pessimism about inflation and went on a frolic of their own. The thinking behind all this was that, finally, the Federal Reserve would start cutting interest rates soon, and it was better to buy, buy, buy just about everything that could be gotten before it was too late... On Wall Street, it looks as though it’s finally - finally! - time to get greedy again."
Gregory Mannarino, "War With China? Expect It!"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/5/23
"War With China? Expect It!"
Comments here:
Monday, December 4, 2023
Jeremiah Babe, "Banking System Meltdown Is The Biggest Threat In The World"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/4/23
"Banking System Meltdown
Is The Biggest Threat In The World"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Wings II, Return To Freedom"
2002, "Wings II, Return To Freedom"
Over 1 hour of soothing, relaxing music for studying, meditation,
yoga, and sleep. These are peaceful, soothing, instrumental compositions.
"A Look to the Heavens"
“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the below gorgeously detailed image was taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”
"It Was Ironic..."
"It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane."
- Philip José Farmer
The Poet: Carl Sandburg, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
1
"The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.
2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened...
and the only listeners left now...
are…the rats…and the lizards.
And there are black crows
crying, “Caw, caw,”
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards.
4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.
And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."
- Carl Sandburg
Canadian Prepper, "WW3 Has Begun: CIA/Nuclear Expert Andrew Bustamante"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/4/23
"WW3 Has Begun:
CIA/Nuclear Expert Andrew Bustamante"
"Today we talk with former CIA spy Andrew Bustamante about WW3 and the nuclear threats, a mindblowing conversation you wont want to miss."
Comments here:
"The Questions..."
“I don't pretend we have all the answers.
But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.”
- Arthur C. Clarke
"What Everyone Needs to Know About the Financial and Political Turmoil Right Now"
"What Everyone Needs to Know About
the Financial and Political Turmoil Right Now"
by Jeff Thomas
"International Man: What types of risks - financial or otherwise - should people be aware of today?
Jeff Thomas: Well, much of the former free world, as we once knew it, is on the verge of collapse economically. You have the U.S. after World War II suddenly taking over the world in production, and they were the future. A lot of countries got onboard: Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan. All those countries got on that particular train and did very well. But the U.S. went from being the greatest nation in the world in terms of manufacturing to losing almost all of that and became the foremost debtor nation in the world. Now the US may well be in a worse financial place than any country in the world.
It’s just that whatever collapse is going to occur, it hasn’t happened yet. So, that shoe hasn’t dropped, but when it does, it won’t only be the U.S. that goes down, it will be all the other countries that are on that particular train.
So, what that means is that if you want to come out of this well, then you try to diversify yourself into those countries that are not going to be as directly affected. For example, if you wanted to leave the U.S., you wouldn’t go to Japan because it’s going to give you just as much trouble. You might choose to go to Thailand, or you might choose to go to Uruguay. There are a number of places that you could choose where you’re still going to have quite a good life and, going forward, possibly an even better life than exists in those places now.
Historically, this is always true. If you look at history over thousands of years, there’s always some country going down and another country coming up. It’s just a question of timing; when something is about to collapse, you want to get out. In 1938, for instance, many people left Germany. It’s the same thing now. It’s hard to accept that this is about to happen to the great US of A since it’s been number one for so long, but it’s reached its sell-by date.
Jeff Thomas: Well, there’s going to be a major debt collapse. It’s inescapable at this point. You get to a tipping point where, even if it hasn’t occurred yet, it’s too late to fix it. When you get countries at the point where they’re borrowing so much money that they can’t even pay the interest any longer yet are moving headlong to borrow more and offering their people increased entitlements, the money isn’t going to be there. It simply doesn’t exist. In that regard, it’s really a question of simple arithmetic. Do the numbers add up, or do they not?
We see that in the US, where it’s rapidly moving in the direction of far greater entitlements and more Americans who are demanding much more in the way of entitlements. Somebody’s got to pay for this. Historically, the same thing happens in every empire. Every empire ends in the same fashion because human nature remains the same in any generation, in any era. The same mistakes end up being made by those in charge. So, you can look at what’s happened elsewhere.
For example, just in recent history, we can look at 2001 in Argentina and examine that. Or, you can visit Zimbabwe and research what happened there in 2008 and watch those that collapsed, how that unfolded. Or, we could take a trip right now to Venezuela and watch that in its collapsing stage. I started warning about Venezuela a decade or so ago and, since that time, the collapse has occurred, and Venezuela has bottomed out. They’re right in the middle of their collapse and nearing the end of it, at this point.
So, you can kind of watch the movie as it’s played out in other nations and say, "This is the pattern." You can examine the pattern, and it’s almost always the same. So, you follow that, and you say, "Well, this is what potentially is going to be happening in the country that I live in." It’s not a question of trying to change the country because, historically, it doesn’t work. What you do, instead, is you step aside, you simply let it go past you by being in another jurisdiction.
International Man: You’ve written extensively about international diversification. What is the basic concept behind it?
Jeff Thomas: It’s a process of diversifying yourself amongst several jurisdictions so that no one jurisdiction can dictate to you. It’s a known fact that countries tend to treat their guests a lot better than they treat their own citizens. Once they feel that they own you, they can be a lot rougher on you and make greater demands.
What you would ideally hope to do would be to have your citizenship in one country, probably have your residency in a second country or even more than one country, have your income in a third country, and even have your banking or wealth storage in a fourth country.
Jeff Thomas: Well, it certainly does take some planning. But what it really takes is researching some places where you’d be happy being or where you feel that you’d be better treated and where the laws would treat you better.
For example, if you happen to be a U.S. citizen, which is one of the most difficult countries to be a citizen of right now—they tax their citizens worldwide, and other countries don’t do that—what you’d want to do is find the country that you could either be a citizen of or at least be a resident of or have investments in that has either little or no direct taxation. Then you would have an opportunity to keep the money that you’ve made rather than simply turning it over to others.
International Man: What are some of the practical things that people should be looking to do to start this process?
Jeff Thomas: First, I tend to focus much more on what’s coming than what exists right now. Most people try to face whatever is facing them right now and saying, "Can I live with this?" My approach is to be looking ahead 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and for whatever reason, I’ve done that all my life. And so, based on what’s coming, I say to myself, "Can I live with that when it happens?" And if not, I want to get out of the way of it.
For example, the worst hasn’t happened in the U.S. by any means. Some people would be saying, "Well, if I see it get bad, then I’ll get out." But historically, what ends up happening is that you then start having capital controls. Your government places capital controls on you so that you can no longer move your money out. They will use a number of reasons why this is necessary, but they’re usually not true.
This time around, they’ll blame it on money laundering or terrorism so that you’re some sort of an evil person if you actually want to take your money out. That will be followed by migration controls where you are physically not allowed to leave. If you try to leave, you lose your passport.
A lot of these laws have already been written in the US over the last eight years. And there’s a whole pile of them that have been written but not yet implemented. So we know they’re coming. We know that they intend to implement these laws, but many of them will only be rolled out as needed, now that the crisis period has begun.
So, if somebody wanted to deal with this, the first thing that they’d do would be to liquidate all their assets in any country that’s at risk. They don’t want to leave anything there. Anything that you keep behind is sacrificial, and that would include a bank account. Even if you continue to live in that country, you’d keep only three months’ worth of spending money in a bank account and then regard that as being sacrificial. It could conceivably be lost.
In the US, you have a confiscation law, as of 2010, which allows the banks to confiscate all the money that you have on deposit in a bank. Very few Americans know that, but there it is. It’s there in black and white; it’s in the American law that banks can do that.
So you’d want to liquidate your assets, then you’d want to expatriate the proceeds. Then, if possible, if you can afford it, you would establish a residency somewhere else and then prepare an exit so that if it got to the point where you say, "Whoops, this is really beginning to fall apart now; I can’t take it any longer; I’m going to make an exit," you would be ready.
At that point, you may not even be able to sell your house; you may have to just turn the key in the door, wave goodbye, but at least… you have an exit plan. If you’ve done everything in advance, you’d just pack a carry-on, and out you’d go. Those people will be able to escape. A lot of people will not be able to.
International Man: It sounds like the underlying message here is to start preparing for this sooner rather than later and to have your solutions in place before people start to panic and before there’s a rush to the door, which is often the case.
And again - Nazi Germany, in 1938, there was a conference in 1938 - the Évian Conference - when the Jews attempted to begin to leave Germany, 32 governments got together and said, "There’s going to be millions of them, we can’t take them, but we don’t want to look like bad guys, so let’s all make an agreement that we won’t take them, then they’ll have nowhere to go, then they’ll just stay where they are." And that’s exactly what happened.
So that will happen again. The welcome mat will be pulled in a lot of countries, so whatever legal residency you want to have somewhere else, you need to get it in place now while the welcome mat is still out. The time to prepare is now."
"The Darker Ages"
"The Darker Ages"
A new age of brutality, subjugation and
stupidity for the WrongThinking masses...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
Baltimore, Maryland - "If this is really the beginning of a long, dark period of rising yields and falling asset prices, the markets still haven’t gotten the message. The Dow closed on Friday over 36,000 – near an all-time record (still, with an inflation adjusted loss of about 20%). Gold is hitting a record high. And Bitcoin is once again trading over 42,000. Bloomberg:
"The biggest cryptocurrency rose as much as 6.1% to reach $42,144 as of 11 a.m. on Monday in London. Bitcoin was last at these levels in April 2022, before the TerraUSD stablecoin collapse that accelerated a $2 trillion rout in digital assets. It’s on track for the biggest annual gain since 2020."
Of course, we could be wrong. Maybe the economy really is healthy. Maybe stocks and bonds really are going up in price, reflecting the general prosperity of our time. Maybe…but more likely we are still in that transition stage from one major trend to another. We’ve left behind one period (marked by ultra-low interest rates without much inflation); we have not fully entered another (where the threat of higher inflation hangs over Fed policy). In the meantime, anything can happen. But last week, we were looking at something else…deeper and more dangerous – the revolt of the masses.
A Superficial Understanding: We’ve seen that immigration is a hot button. It was Donald Trump’s ticket to the White House. So it was Geert Wilders’ winning formula. Trump is now counting on it to give him an encore. Other Republican contenders are trying to rouse the rabble by appealing to animosity towards immigrants, but also towards Mexicans, Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Muslims, Democrats, trannies or others. Immigration is a ‘cultural issue.’ Very visible. Easy to understand…at least superficially.
[Extended parenthetical: Some of our Dearest Readers insist that immigrants are destroying the country. But most of our adult life has been spent in countries other than our own. We don’t like anyone telling us where to live; we return the favor.
In a perfectly free world, people would go where they wanted…with neither aid nor hindrance from the government. But we don’t live in that world. In our world, immigration is a political issue…connected to labor rates, housing, welfare systems, crime and other matters. And like all political issues…it is a mess of lies and propaganda.]
Immigration benefits the ruling, asset-owning classes. They get higher sales, lower wage costs, and more voters to do their bidding. So they continue to shove it down the public’s throat, whether the voters like it or not. Immigration may be the key to protecting Americans’ social security system too. The whole program is a ponzi scheme. It needs an influx of new contributors to keep it solvent. New immigrants could help pay the pensions of old, native-born retirees. Whether it is worth the social problems it brings, we don’t know.
Canceled, Fined, Jailed - Apart from immigration, elites champion a series of other issues that the masses find hard to swallow. Sex change operations, for example, even in the military. The plain people don’t much care for ‘trans’ women competing at sports with real women either. And they don’t like being told what pronoun to use when addressing or referring to others. They think it is faddish nonsense.
Speech has become another battleground between the elites and the masses. Most people think they should be able to say whatever they want without fear of being labeled, censored, canceled, fined or jailed. “Free speech” is in the US Constitution, after all. But the elites want to control the masses’ thoughts…and they begin by controlling who can say what to whom.
The most recent example is in the widespread use of the epithet – ‘antisemite.’ A decent person might disapprove of both sides in the Hamas/Israeli slaughter. And since at least 10 Palestinians are killed for every 1 Israeli, he might begin to wonder about who will suffer the judgment of Heaven. He could condemn the Palestinians and feel very satisfied with himself. But woe to those who accuse the Israelis of mass murder. They are called “antisemitic.’ Then, they lose their jobs. Their advertisers leave them. Their speaking fees vanish. Their book contracts are withdrawn. In short, they are ‘disappeared’ from the elite classes.
Whatever the subject, elites believe they have the final truth. Vaccines, climate change, EVs, windmills, race relations, sex, marriage, politics – you name it. And the mainstream press backs them up. They “condemn” alternative opinions… ‘call out’ incorrect views…and ‘school’ anyone suspected of WrongThink.
Antisemitism, Racism, Nazism - Their aim is to make sure you never have a wrong thought…and never come in contact with one. That’s the convenience of sloppy slurs such as ‘antisemite’ or ‘racist.’ No need to discuss the issues. Just label opponents; as everyone knows, ‘you can’t argue with a Nazi!’
So too is the accusation of ‘racism’ slung so often it has lost its sting. The common White man is meant to believe he is a racist…(most likely a white supremacist and patriarchal SOB too!). What can he do? He must ask for forgiveness…and sign up for an anti-racist course taught by racism profiteers.
The majority of level-headed citizens have a hard time taking this claptrap seriously. The common man wants to ‘save the planet’ as much as anyone, but he suspects that the Green Agenda may be a scam. He believes in treating his fellow man with the respect he deserves…but he’ll decide for himself how much respect is suitable.
As for ‘racist,’ the greater danger is that he might begin to believe it. Then, he asks: Why not act like one? ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ was engraved on Moses’s tablet. We don’t recall the qualifier: ‘unless you have a good reason.’ But if your thoughts are pure, approved by the New York Times, why not? Therein lies the final abomination. Once you decide that it is thoughts that matter, rather than acts, you can get away with murder."
o
Joel’s Note: Meanwhile, down here at the fin del mundo, it appears they may have turned a different corner. After 75 dark years of ignorance, stupidity and brutality – on the part of the government – the Argentine voters finally saw fit to throw off their chains and elect a libertarian president.
Now, we have no idea if Sr. Javier Milei will stick to his guns… or cave to the demands of the corrupt, entrenched interests of the political establishment, but he sure talked a big game ahead of the election. One of the key points he hammered during the campaign was his firm stance as “anti-woke.” That is to say, Sr. Milei has no time for empty virtue signaling and cheap political correctness… and he suspected most ordinary people don’t, either. He was right. Not only did the poor and working class swing heavily in his favor, even the youth responded to his plain talking and denouncement of so-called “social justice.”
Not that this should come as a surprise… Argentina’s “backwardness” – that is, its stubborn rejection of political correctness – is one of its charms.
Here in the Downside-Up capital, local, independent supermarkets – run largely by the city’s Asian population – are still called “chinos.” People call each other, affectionately, nicknames like “gordo” (fatty), “flaca” (skinny) and even “loco” (crazy). And, contrary to what progressives in the English speaking world would have you believe, Latinos largely despise the cringeworthy “Latinx” mutilation of their elegantly gendered language.
In fact, a 2020 Pew Research poll found that, while a quarter of Hispanics in the US had heard of the gender-neutral term, only 3% actually used it themselves. Outside the US, that figure quickly approaches zero. Turns out, Spanish speakers don’t appreciate self-righteous virtue signalers (many of whom do not even speak Spanish) colonizing their language and rewriting the rules. Go figure!
So while the some in the “civilized west” continue down the path of political correctness DEI and social justice nonsense, it’s nice to know there’s a place in the world where you can still think and say what you want… and you may even get elected for doing so!"
Dan, I Allegedly, "Credit Crisis - Are We the Next Zimbabwe?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 12/4/23
"Credit Crisis -
Are We the Next Zimbabwe?"
"The country is upside down financially. Can I pay my credit card with another? I am no financial expert, but we are all tackling the debt crisis threatening America. With national debt spiraling out of control, we risk total financial ruin. What must be done before it's too late? Get context on the debt emergency, China's property bubble, job loss from AI, lithium to power electric vehicles, and more."
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Jim Kunstler, "Bidenomics in Action"
"Bidenomics in Action"
by Jim Kunstler
“We are at an inflection point, a threshold, where weak, brittle,
effete personality structures are a threat to human civilization.”
- JD Haltigan
"If you’re troubled at all about the state of our country, and even your own small role in it, you might be asking yourself whether the people running things have any idea what they’re doing. Some of these doings happen in the metaphysical realm of finance, for instance America’s national debt ($34-trillion and going up like mad), and the death of the US dollar, along with the bonds that underwrite it. Or the game of hide-the-salami with the repo and reverse repo markets played between the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury to give the broken banking system the appearance of stability when it is actually in deepening ruin.
Did you understand any of that? Probably not, but not because you’re dumb. It’s because all that action is meant to be incomprehensible even to people who went to grad school. The news media only amplify the mystification. The net effect is that increasingly nothing in the life of our nation is real. Every action taken is a swindle of one kind or another, a cavalcade of switcheroos aimed at zeroing out the consensus about reality.
What trickles down from all this cosmic activity is the dwindling possibility of a fruitful life for most Americans. You cannot make a living. You can’t fix all the machines in your life or get new ones. You can’t get married because there’s no way you can fulfill your end of the contract. You search in vain for something purposeful to do. You are eventually faced with the choice: surrender to depression and hopelessness, or revolt against a ruling blob that is only good at one thing: depriving you of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
What also trickles down from on-high is the increasing dysfunction of all the systems that evolved to serve American life on-the-ground. For instance, the supply chains that stuff the gigantic merchandise marts from sea to shining sea. The trucking industry is falling apart. The industry can’t find enough workers to load the trucks. They call them “lumpers” in the trucking biz. United Parcel Service (UPS) is hurting so badly for lumpers that they now make the drivers load and unload the brown trucks and have to pay them double overtime for it. The fruit and vegetables that have to make a truck journey thousands of miles from the sunshine lands to the icy north sit rotting in the warehouses because there aren’t enough lumpers on the loading docks — in case you’ve noticed that the produce in your supermarket is looking wilty and gross.
All the systems that move stuff around this big country are wobbling. Many trucking and logistics companies went out of business in 2023, led by Convoy’s bankruptcy in October due to a “an unprecedented freight market collapse” and inability to get financing. UPS has not recovered from the big drop in shipping that followed the end of Covid lockdowns - 1.2-million packages per day in lost volume - nor adjusted to its new contract with the Teamsters Union, a 46 percent cost increase for drivers in the first year. UPS CEO Carol Tomé even took a pay cut: $19 million this year, down from $26 million (including stock packages) in 2021. Federal Express also saw a sharp drop in package deliveries and in September yanked its full-year profit guidance. The FedEx share price dropped 20 percent in one day. Consider, too, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations aimed at a “zero carbon emissions” goal in 2035, legislation guaranteed to first paralyze and then kill trucking in that state, including trucks delivering into and out of California. Good luck with that.
Then there is the good US Postal Service, a crypto-public/private corporation cobbled together back in the 1970s supposedly because mail delivery was losing money. While our Constitution stipulates that the government “establish post offices and post roads” with the implied authority to carry and deliver the mail, the Constitution never said that the post office had to show a profit any more than the Army or the Navy does. These days it looks like our country is just about done with the mail business. Been to your local post office lately? Ours is looking like an old soviet DMV... a few part-timers on duty... mail delivered when they feel like it... an odor of rot in the building. Consider that the post office is one of the few places where we citizens actually interface directly with the government’s workings. So, how does it look like it’s working to you?
Christmas, 2023, will be a test of how all these crumbling services and wobbling business models are affecting the people who live in the outfit known as the USA. Initial reports of empty Walmarts and maxed-out credit cards don’t paint a pretty picture. The Yuletide potlatch will not look like it used to. At some point, the activity on-the-ground - or eerie absence of activity - might ordinarily be expressed in the stock indexes - but these strange days the markets seem to be hostages of some algorithm cult that operates in a mystical vacuum where nothing matters. When it gets to the point where famished Americans start eating each other to stay alive, will we see another S & P record high?"
Oh yeah, the full title of his website says it all...
Adventures With Danno, "Shopping Trip To Dollar Tree!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 12/4/23
"Shopping Trip To Dollar Tree!
Christmas Decor & Holiday Gift Ideas!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Dollar Tree and are checking out all of the different Christmas items, including holiday decor and many different gift ideas! We're excited to take you with us as we go over the new Christmas options at Dollar Tree for 2023!"
Comments here:
"Economic Market Snapshot 12/4/23"
"Economic Market Snapshot 12/4/23"
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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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Your guide...
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/4/23
"Markets, Gold, Silver, Central Banks,
Bitcoin, New System, More!"
Comments here:
"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, December 3, 2023
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! World War III Update! 3 More Wars Starting, 70K Troops Near Russia"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/3/23
"Alert! 3 More Wars Starting, 70K Troops
Near Russia, Ukraine Collapses, NATO Preps"
Comments here:
And you just know somebody's gonna do something stupid...
God help us...
Jeremiah Babe, "Warning! We Are In Serious Trouble"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/3/23
"Warning! We Are In Serious Trouble;
Consumer In Danger; Animal Shelters Are Flooded, Need Help"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Vangelis, “Beautiful Planet Earth”
Full screen mode recommended.
Vangelis, “Beautiful Planet Earth”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.
Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120212.html
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