"Does A 1904 Geopolitical Theory Explain The War In Ukraine?"

"Does A 1904 Geopolitical Theory

 Explain The War In Ukraine?"

by John Wilder

"When I look at the war in Ukraine and other world events, I see evidence of Sir Halford John Mackinder. It would have been cool if he was the frontman for a 1910s version of Judas Priest, but no. Mackinder was a guy who thought long and hard about mountains, deserts, oceans, steppes, and wars. You could tell Mackinder was going to be good at geography, what with that latitude. The result of all this pondering was what he called the Heartland Theory, which was the founding moment for geopolitics.

What’s geopolitics? It’s the idea that one of the biggest influencers in human history (besides being human) was the geography we inhabit. Mackinder’s first version wasn’t very helpful, since he just ended up with “Indonesia” and the rest of the world, which he called “Outdonesia”.

Mackinder focused mainly on the Eurasian continent. Flat land with no obstacles meant, in Mackinder’s mind, that the land would be eventually ruled by a single power. Jungles and swamps could be a barrier, but eventually he thought that technology would solve that. Mountains? Mountains were obstacles that stopped invasions, and allowed cultures to develop independently. Even better than a mountain? An island.

There’s even a theory (not Mackinder’s) that the independent focus on freedom flourished in England because the local farmers weren’t (after the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Mormons, and Vikings were done pillaging) subject to invasion and were able to develop a culture based on a government with limited powers, along with rights invested in every man.

Mackinder went further, though. He saw the combination of Eurasia and Africa as something he called the World Island. If the World Island came under the domination of a single power, he thought, it would eventually rule the rest of the world – it would have overwhelming resources and population, and it would have the ability to outproduce (both economically and militarily) everything else. “Pivot Area” is what Mackinder first called the Heartland.

Mackinder, being English, had seen the Great Game in the 1900s, which in many cases was a fight to keep Russia landlocked. The rest of Europe feared a Russia that had access to the sea. Conversely, Russia itself was the Heartland of the Mackinder’s World Island. Russia was separated and protected on most of its borders by mountains and deserts. On the north, Russia was protected by the Arctic Ocean, which is generally more inaccessible than most of Joe Biden’s recent memories.

Russia is still essentially landlocked. The Soviet Navy had some nice submarines, but outside of that, the Russians have never been a naval power, and the times Russia attempted to make a navy have been so tragically inept that well, let me give an example: The sea Battle of Tsushima between the Japanese and Russians in 1905 was a Japanese victory. The Japanese lost 117 dead, 583 wounded, and lost 3 torpedo boats. The Russians? They lost 5,045 dead, 803 injured, 6,016 captured, 6 battleships sunk, 2 battleships captured. The Russians sank 450 ton of the Japanese Navy. The Japanese sunk 126,792 tons of the Russian fleet. Yup. This was more lopsided than a fight between a poodle and a porkchop.

Mackinder noted that the Heartland (Russia) was built on land power. The Rimlands (or, on the map “Inner Crescent”) were built on sea power. In the end, almost all of the twentieth century was built on keeping Russia away from the ocean, and fighting over Eastern Europe. Why? In Mackinder’s mind, “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland (Russia); Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” In one sense, it’s true.

Mackinder finally in 1943 came up with another idea, his first idea being lonely. I think he could see the way World War II was going to end, so he came up with the idea that if the United States were to team up with Western Europe, they could still command the Rimlands and contain the Soviet Union to the Heartland.

There are several reasons that the United States has responded with such an amazing amount of aid to Ukraine. $120 billion dollars? Some people don’t work a whole year and get that much money. No, the idea is to bleed Putin as deeply and completely as they can. Why? If they’re following Mackinder, this keeps Russia vulnerable. It keeps Eastern Europe from being under Russia’s control – if you count the number of “Battles of Kiev” or “Battles of Kharkov” you can see that it’s statistically more likely to rain artillery in Kiev than rain water.

This might be the major driver for Russia, too. A Russian-aligned (or at least neutral) Ukraine nicely plugs the Russian southern flank. And this is nearly the last year that Russia can make this attempt – the younger generation isn’t very big, and the older generation that built and can run all of the cool Soviet tech? They’re dying off. Soon all their engineers with relevant weapons manufacturing experience will be...dead. If Russia is going to attempt to secure the south, this is their only shot. Depending on how vulnerable the Russians think they are, the harder they’ll fight. NATO nations tossing in weapons isn’t helping the famous Russian paranoia.

I think that the United States, in getting cozy with China in the 1970s, was following along with Mackinder’s theory – I believe Mackinder himself said that a Chinese-Russian alliance could effectively control the Heartland and split the Rimland, given China’s access to the oceans. And that’s what China is doing now, with the Belt and Road Initiative. Remember Mackinder’s World Island? Here’s a map of the countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative:

Spoiler alert: It’s the world island."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

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Freely download "The Geographical Pivot of History", 

by HJ Mackinder, April 1904, here:

- https://ndisc.nd.edu/

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Why is this important? Consider history, from which we learn nothing...

"The earliest evidence of prehistoric warfare is a Mesolithic cemetery in Jebel Sahaba, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death. Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims that 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace." An unfavorable review of this estimate  mentions the following regarding one of the proponents of this estimate: "In addition, perhaps feeling that the war casualties figure was improbably high, he changed 'approximately 3,640,000,000 human beings have been killed by war or the diseases produced by war' to 'approximately 1,240,000,000 human beings.'" 

The lower figure is more plausible, but could still be on the high side considering that the 100 deadliest acts of mass violence between 480 BC and 2002 AD (wars and other man-made disasters with at least 300,000 and up to 66 million victims) claimed about 455 million human lives in total. Primitive warfare is estimated to have accounted for 15.1% of deaths and claimed 400 million victims. Added to the aforementioned figure of 1,240 million between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, this would mean a total of 1,640,000,000 people killed by war (including deaths from famine and disease caused by war) throughout the history and pre-history of mankind. For comparison, an estimated 1,680,000,000 people died from infectious diseases in the 20th century."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

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"It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human 

race proved to be nothing more than the story of an 

ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump."

- David Ormsby-Gore

"Reality Avoidance: This Is Who We Are"

"Reality Avoidance"

by Morris Berman

"It’s quite amazing how the news is endlessly about nonsense. Filler, is what I call it. Very little of this has anything to do with reality, which the Mainstream Media and the American people avoid like the plague. What then is real?

1. The empire is in decline; every day, life here gets a little bit worse; all our institutions are corrupt to varying degrees; and there is no turning this situation around.

2. A crucial factor in this decline and irreversibility is the low level of intelligence of the American people. Americans are not only dumb; they are positively antagonistic toward the life of the mind.

3. Relations of power and money determine practically everything. The 3 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom 50% of the population, and this tendency will get worse over time.

4. The value system of the country, and its citizens, is fundamentally wrong-headed. It amounts to little more than hustling, selfishness, narcissism, and a blatant disregard for anyone but oneself. There is a kind of cruelty, or violence, deep in the American soul; many foreign observers and writers have commented on this. Americans are bitter, depressed, and angry, and the country offers very little by way of community or empathy.

5. Along with this is the support of meaningless wars and imperial adventures on the part of most of the population. That we drone-murder unarmed civilians on a weekly basis is barely on the radar screen of the American mind. In essence, the nation has evolved into a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by mindless millions.

Most Americans hide from these depressing, even horrific, realities by what passes for ‘the news’, but also by means of alcohol, opioids, TV, cellphones, suicide, prescription drugs, workaholism, and spectator sports, to name but a few. This stuffing of the Void is probably our primary activity. In a word, we are eating ourselves alive, and only a tiny fraction of the population recognizes this."

- https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

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Read it and weep...

"Morris Berman On A Dumbed-down America"

by RoryLitwin

Excerpt: "I am sharing a passage from Morris Berman’s book from a few years ago, "The Twilight of American Culture." Berman has generously agreed to let me share this passage, which is about the deplorable state of ignorance of the American people. The facts and data in this passage are a bit old, but all signs suggest that things have gotten worse since then, not better. "The Twilight of American Culture," pp. 33-40.

Turning to Item (c),The collapse of American intelligence, we find a picture that is unambiguously bleak. The following data are going to seem invented; please be assured, they are not.

• Forty-two percent of American adults cannot locate Japan on a world map, and according to Garrison Keillor (National Public Radio, 22 March 1997,) another survey revealed that nearly 15 percent couldn’t locate the United States (!). Keillor remarked that this was like not being able to “grab your rear end with both hands,” and he suggested that we stop being so assiduous, on the eve of elections, about trying to get out the vote.

• A survey taken in October 1996 revealed that one in ten voters did not know who the Republican or Democratic nominees for president were. This is particularly sobering when one remembers that one of the questions traditionally asked in psychiatric wards as part of the test for sanity is “Who is the president of the United States?”

• Very few Americans understand the degree to which corporations have taken over their lives. But according to a poll taken by Time magazine, nearly 70 percent of them believe in the existence of angels; and another study turned up the fact that 50 percent believe in the presence of UFOs and space aliens on earth, while a Gallup poll (reported on CNN, 19 August 1997) revealed that 71 percent believe that the U.S. government is engaged in a cover-up about the subject. More than 30 percent believe they have made contact with the dead.

• A 1995 article in the New York Times reported the results of a survey that revealed that 40 percent of American adults (this could be upward of 70 million people) did not know that Germany was our enemy in World War II. A Roper survey conducted in 1996 revealed that 84 percent of American college seniors cannot understand a newspaper editorial in any newspaper, and a U.S. Department of Education survey of 22,000 students in 1995 revealed that 50 percent were unaware of the Cold War, and that 60 percent had no idea of how the United States came into existence.

• At one point in 1996, Jay Leno invited a number of high school students to be on his television program and asked them to complete famous quotations from major American documents, such as the Gettysburg address and the Declaration of Independence. Their response in each case was to stare at him blankly. As a kind of follow-up, on his show of 3 June 1999, Leno screened a video of interviews he had conducted a few days before at a university graduation ceremony. He did not identify the institution in question; he told his TV audience only that the students he had interviewed included graduate students as well as undergraduates. The group included men, women, and people of color. Leno posed eight questions, as follows:

1. Who designed the first American flag? Answers included Susan B. Anthony (born in 1820,) and “Betsy Ford.”

2. What were the Thirteen Colonies free from, after the American Revolution? One student said, “The East Coast.”

3. What was the Gettysburg Address? One student replied, “An address to Getty;” another said, “I don’t know the exact address.”

4. Who invented the lightbulb? Answers included Thomas Jefferson

5. What is three squared? One student said, “Twenty-seven;” another said, “Six.”

6. What is the boiling point of water? Answers included 115 degrees?

7. How long does it take the earth to rotate once on its axis? The two answers Leno received here were “Light years” (which is a measure of distance, not time,) and “Twenty-four axises [sic].”

8. How many moons does the earth have? The student questioned said she had taken astronomy a few years back and had gotten an A in the course but that she couldn’t remember the correct answer.

It is important to note that not a single student interviewed had the correct answer to any of these questions. Leno’s comment on this pathetic debacle says it all: “And the Chinese are stealing secrets from us?”

• A 1998 survey by the National Constitution Center revealed that only 41 percent of American teenagers can name the three branches of government, but 59 percent can name the Three Stooges. Only 2 percent can name the chief justice of the Supreme Court; 26 percent were unable to identify the vice president. In the early 1990s, the National Assessment of Education Progress reported that 50 percent of seventeen year olds could not express 9/100 as a percentage, and nearly 50 percent couldn’t place the Civil War in the correct half century–data that the San Antonio Express News characterized as evidence of the “steady lobotomizing” of American culture. In another study of seventeen year olds, only 4 percent could read a bus schedule, and only 12% could arrange six common fractions in order of size.

• Ignorance of the most elementary scientific facts on the part of American adults is nothing less than breathtaking. In a survey conducted for the National Science Foundation in October 1995, 56 percent of those polled said that electrons were larger than atoms; 63 percent stated that the earliest human beings lived at the same time as the dinosaurs (a chronological error of more than 60 million years;) 53 percent said that the earth revolved around the sun in either a day or a month (that is to say, only 47 percent understood that the correct answer is one year;) and 91 percent were unable to state what a molecule was. A random telephone survey of more than two thousand adults, conducted by Northern Illinois University, revealed that 21 percent believed that the sun revolved around the earth, with an additional 7 percent saying that they did not know which revolved around which.

• Of the 158 countries in the United Nations, the United States ranks forty-ninth in literacy. Roughly 60 percent of the adult population reads as much as one book a year, where book is defined to include Harlequin romances and self-help manuals. Something like 120 million adults are illiterate or read at no better than a fifth-grade level. Among readers age twenty-one to thirty-five, 67 percent regularly read a daily newspaper in 1965, as compared with 31 percent in 1998.

• In a telephone survey conducted in 1998, 12 percent of Americans, asked who the wife of the biblical Noah was, said “Joan of Arc” (reported on National Public Radio, 13 June 1998.)

• In 1997, as a hoax, the attorney general of the state of Missouri submitted a proposal to an international academic accrediting agency (not identified) to establish an institution he named Eastern Missouri Business College, which would grant Ph.D’s in marine biology and genetic engineering, as well as in business. The faculty would include, Inter Alia, Moe Howard, Jerome Howard, and Larry Fine - that is, The Three Stooges; and the proposed motto on the college seal, roughly translated from the Latin, was Education Is for the Birds. The response? Academic accreditation was granted."

Complete article is here. Read it and weep...

- https://litwinbooks.com/

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"The Twilight Of American Culture", by Morris Berman

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As the great Mogombo Guru said, "We're so freakin' doomed!"

And that's why...

David Stockman, "Why Stalin and Hitler Should Never Have Happened"

"Why Stalin and Hitler Should Never Have Happened"

by David Stockman

"Herewith is a capsulized dissection which attempts to explain why Stalin and Hitler should have never happened. Accordingly, the hot, cold and Forever Wars wars that followed thereafter condemn the case for the American Empire, not make it; and they show that Trump’s America First is a far more appropriate lodestone for national security policy than Imperial Washington’s specious claim that America is the Indispensable Nation.

The Great War had been destined to end in 1917 by mutual exhaustion, bankruptcy and withdrawal from the utterly stalemated trenches of the Western Front. In the end, upwards of 3.3 million combatants had been killed and 8.3 million wounded over four years for movement along blood-drenched front-lines that could be measured in mere miles and yards.

Still, had America stayed on its side of the great Atlantic moat, the ultimate outcomes everywhere would have been far different. Foremostly, the infant democracy that came to power in February 1917 in Russia would not have been so easily smothered in its crib.

There surely would have been no disastrous summer offensive by the Kerensky government to rollback Germany on the eastern front where the czarist armies had earlier been humiliated and dismembered. In turn, an early end to Russia’s bloody and bankrupting impalement on the eastern front would also likely have precluded the return of Lenin to Russia in a German boxcar and the subsequent armed insurrection in Petrograd in November 1917. The flukish seizure of power by Lenin and his small band of fanatical Bolsheviks, in turn, would most certainly never have happened.

That is, the 20th century would not have been saddled with what inexorably morphed into the Stalinist nightmare. Nor would a garrisoned Soviet state have poisoned the peace of nations for 74 years thereafter, while causing the nuclear sword of Damocles to hang precariously over the planet.

Likewise, there would have been no abomination known as the Versailles peace treaty because it was a toxic peace of victors. But without America’s billions of aid and munitions and two million fresh dough-boys there would have been no Allied victors, as we demonstrate below.

Without Versailles, in turn, there would have been no "stab in the back" legends owing to the Weimar government’s forced signing of the "war guilt" clause; no continuance of England’s brutal post-armistice blockade that delivered hundreds of thousands of Germany’s women and children into starvation and death; and no demobilized 3-million man German army left humiliated, destitute, bitter and on a permanent political rampage of vengeance.

So, too, there would have been no acquiescence in the dismemberment of Germany at the Versailles "peace" table. As it happened nearly one-fifth of Germany’s pre-war territory and population was spread in parts and pieces to Poland (the Danzig Corridor and Upper Silesia), Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland), Denmark (Schleswig), France (the Saar, Alsace-Lorraine and the neutralized Rhineland) and Belgium (Eupen and Malmedy).

This sweeping loss of territory also meant Germany lost 50% of its iron production capacity, 16% of its coal output and 100% of its far flung colonies in Africa and East Asia to England and France.

Needless to say, God did not create the map of Europe on the 6th day of his labors. But it is absolutely the case that it was the vast German territories and peoples "stolen" at Versailles that provided the fuel for Hitler’s revanchist agitation during the years before his seizure of power; and it was that campaign to regain the lost territories which nourished the Nazis with patriotic public support in the rump of the fatherland.

Likewise, the French-Belgium occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 would not have happened because the justification for that invasion of German lands was that the latter had not paid its oppressive war reparations–a staggering sum that would amount to more than $500 billion in today’s purchasing power.

As it happened, it was the reparations crisis that led to Germany’s insane printing press monetary spree and the destruction of the German middle class in the 1923 hyperinflation. And without that society-crushing development along with all of the above, the history books would have never recorded the Hitlerian ascent to power and all the evils that flowed thereupon."

- https://internationalman.com/

"10 Retailers At Risk Of Bankruptcy In 2024"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 1/12/24

"10 Retailers At Risk Of Bankruptcy In 2024"

"We delve into the financial challenges faced by some of your favorite retail brands. From iconic giants to trendy fashion outlets, discover why these household names are on the brink of bankruptcy. Join us as we explore the factors leading to this precarious situation and what it means for the future of the retail industry.

Join us in understanding the financial troubles in the retail industry as we dissect the issues affecting the retail sector in 2024. From declining sales to shifting consumer preferences, find out why these troubles are causing retail giants to tremble.Discover why retail giants facing bankruptcy is a headline in 2024. We explore the financial woes of prominent retailers and their battle to stay afloat in a competitive market. Gain insights into the strategies they're employing to avoid bankruptcy.

The future of retail brands is uncertain as we examine the challenges faced by struggling retailers. Explore the possibilities of reinvention and survival in the ever-changing world of retail. In struggling retail companies 2024, we shed light on the difficulties faced by retail brands in the current economic climate. learn why some of these companies are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and what it means for their future."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "'Divenire', Live at Royal Albert Hall, London"

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, 

"'Divenire', Live at Royal Albert Hall, London"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The rim of the large blue galaxy at the right is an immense ring-like structure 150,000 light years in diameter composed of newly formed, extremely bright, massive stars. AM 0644-741 is known as a ring galaxy and was caused by an immense galaxy collision. When galaxies collide, they pass through each other and their individual stars rarely come into contact. The large galaxy's ring-like shape is the result of the gravitational disruption caused by a small intruder galaxy passing through it. When this happens, interstellar gas and dust become compressed, causing a wave of star formation to move out from the impact point like a ripple across the surface of a pond. 

Other galaxies in the field of view are background galaxies, not interacting with AM 0644-741. Foreground spiky stars are within our own Milky Way. But the smaller intruder galaxy is caught above and right, near the top of the frame taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Ring galaxy AM 0644-741 lies about 300 million light years away toward the southern constellation Volans."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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"The eternal silence of infinite spaces frightens me. Why now rather than then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time have been ascribed to me? We travel in a vast sphere, always drifting in the uncertain, pulled from one side to another. Whenever we find a fixed point to attach and to fasten ourselves, it shifts and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desires to find solid ground and an ultimate and solid foundation for building a tower reaching to the Infinite. But always these bases crack, and the earth obstinately opens up into abysses. We are infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, since the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from us in an encapsulated secret; we are equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which we were made, and the Infinite in which we are swallowed up."

- Blaise Pascal

"Purpose, Calculus, and the 'Why' of Life"

"Purpose, Calculus, and the 'Why' of Life"

by John Wilder

“As you will find in multivariable calculus, there

are often a number of solutions for any given problem.”

– "A Beautiful Mind"

"Often as I go through my daily life, I have to step back and ask the question, “Why?” “Why” is a really important question, but Sir Isaac Newton was focused in his science on “What”. Newton figured out (to the best of available information and measurements possible at the time) a very large amount of the “What”. His equations of motion and gravity are really, really accurate, right up until the point where very large speeds (think how quickly illegals pass over our “border”) or very large masses (think your mother) change the game. Newton’s rules allow us to predict the orbits of most of the planets with precision. This is all based on based on 1690’s tech, which your mother would have been familiar with.

Gottfried Leibniz, though, was really focused on the “Why” question even though he and Newton discovered calculus about the same time. For Newton, the “Why” was a given. Newton spent more time in study of the Bible than he did in study of nature or of economics (Newton was the Grand Baron of the Mint, or some such, and was really in favor of executing counterfeiters and people who clipped coins. Like I always say, for every problem there is a very simple solution.

Leibniz wanted to go further and understand why gravity existed. Ultimately, that was a question that he couldn’t solve with the measurements available at that time, and we still really don’t have a good idea for the “why” of many basic features of the reality that allows us to make and enjoy PEZ™, watch movies, or sit in a hot tub. Yeah, things like “time”, “inertia”, “why everyone likes Italian food”, and “why we are even here in the first place”. Those are things that are, so far, beyond the ability of physics and science in general to explain. And that’s okay.

When I look at my own life, I often wonder “why” about a ton of different issues. I really believe that I’m fortunate in many ways that I really can’t understand the “why” of. I remember when teachers would tell me that my kids were smart, well, I’d feel proud.

Now? I realize that I had (almost) no impact on that, at all. They were born with it – as Rush Limbaugh (PBUH) used to note that he had “talent on loan from God.” When I first heard that, I thought it was braggadocio, but then realized that Rush was acknowledging that his way with words and skill at communicating, even his sense of humor were nothing for him to be personally proud of – they were on loan from God. I get it now.

The events of our lives are like that, too. Some are random, and some have a deeper meaning that either is immediately apparent or is apparent at some future point in time. The random ones are just that, random. It doesn’t generally matter (much) if a leaf falls on the east side or the west side of my house – I can ignore them perfectly well on either side. It’s meaningless.

But I’ve observed that little delays in my life, the “where did I put my keys” moments that slow me up getting out the door have several times saved me from getting into accidents. A small thing? Certainly. But there are bigger ones that happen, too, things that are so unlikely to happen that they are effectively miracles – those have occurred far too frequently in my life for me to ignore. Yes, once you’ve lived through 10,000 or more days, 5,000 or more commutes, some unlikely stuff is going to happen.

But we all know the bigger coincidences when we see them – the events that occurred in our lives that, looking backward, were either omens or led to situations we never expected.

This leads, ultimately, to a contradiction in my life there is John Wilder who:

• Tries to prepare all of the important things so that everything is covered, and tries to live a virtuous and Godly life,

And,

• Sees the outcome of the planning slowing turning into a colossal mess and the attempts at being virtuous leading to negative personal outcomes and says, “Meh, whatever.”

It’s true – virtue and grace don’t guarantee economic success – soulless creatures like George Soros prowl the world like a Lovecraftian Monster, using their money to spread chaos and disrupt cultural traditions dating back thousands of years. And he’s rich. If Soros has even a single positive virtue, I have yet to hear of it.

There is a scene from that great classic of cinema, 'BASEketball", where the main character (Joe Cooper) has reached rock bottom, he’s been abandoned by his childhood friend, his girlfriend is filled with contempt for him and he’s being publicly vilified. His boyhood friend, however, has gotten everything: public acclaim, money, and gets into a hot tub with a Playboy® playmate (they used to be girls). Spoiler: Joe Cooper sticks to the path of virtue, and in the end, everything is returned to him. That’s the way that, as humans, we want to see life work out, so the good guys win.

But it doesn’t always do that, and that’s okay – Soros will be rich until he leaves that money (along with control of dozens of Evil Foundations) to his son. I can’t change that, and I won’t be upset about it. It just is.

In the end, I’ll try to be like both Leibniz and Newton. Like Leibniz, I’ll work as hard as I can to try to understand the “why”, but like Newton, if I don’t get there, I’m good with that. I mean, they were okay with your mom, so you should cut them some slack."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"The Minds Of Men..."

"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. This diminutive stature of mankind was daily sinking below the old standard." 

- Edward Gibbon, 

"The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire"

o

"All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about

as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo."

- Morris Berman

Apologies to armadillos for the comparison...

Bill Bonner, "Up To Our Necks"

"Up To Our Necks"

Debts, deficits and defaults... the US heads off the deep end.

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland -  "Some things, once set in motion, cannot be stopped. A study from Hirschmann Capital tells why the worry about government debt is not just academic, or theoretical, handwringing. Since 1800, 51 out of 52 countries with gross government debt greater than 130% have defaulted, either through restructuring, devaluation, high inflation or outright default. We need to add an asterisk, noting that, so far, this has not happened to Japan, whose government debt has been off-the-charts for years. But, it’s worth looking more closely. Because, 98% of the time is pretty close to ‘always.’ A bet with 98% odds in your favor is a very good bet. Only a fool takes the other side of the trade.

Meanwhile, US government debt is rising by $340 billion per week. If we’re not at the ‘point of no return’ already, we will be soon. Dan adds: "The debt has grown by just under $2 trillion since the debt ceiling agreement on June 1st of last year. The ratio is going up. $50 trillion here we come

The feds owed only $5 trillion when the 21st century dawned. By the beginning of the current year, the total had grown to $34 trillion. Readers will note that this should have been the most prosperous period in human history, for the simple reason that there was more capital than ever available…and more Ph.Ds, entrepreneurs, engineers, and software geniuses to exploit it. And yet, the feds couldn’t even fund their current programs, let alone pay off the $5 trillion outstanding.

Under Preasure: The GDP of the US, meanwhile, began the century at just over $9 trillion. Today it is $27 trillion. So as a percentage of GDP, US debt went from about 60% to, now, 123% now. Which means, grosso modo, that for nearly a quarter of a century, debt has increased about twice as fast as the economy that supports it. How long can that go on? We’re going to find out.

There was no ‘emergency,’ such as WWII, which, now ended, allows the feds to dramatically reduce spending. Military spending has gone up, not down. The population of over-65 retirees is now increasing at the rate of about 12,000 per day. Nor has Congress made any attempt to produce a balanced budget. Nor is there any sign that taxes will be raised to cover the deficits. Nor are any of the leading politicians, newspapers, or universities screaming an alarm.

Deficits are running at $2 trillion per year. According to the Tax Foundation there are about 150 million tax returns filed, of which only 100 million paid any taxes. Those taxpayers produced about $1.7 trillion in income taxes. Raising enough money to fill the deficit would mean, roughly, doubling their taxes.

Obviously, that is not going to happen. Nor is spending going to be significantly reduced, for the simple reason laid out many times in these pages: The People and The Deciders are not the same. The former suffer from government spending (taxes and inflation); the latter benefit from it (transferring trillions to their pet projects and crony parasites). What will happen? You’ve seen us predict that the feds will have no choice. It’s either inflate…or die. The Deciders will choose to inflate.

Dangerous Spikes: But wait. Hirschmann says there’s more to the story: "Contrary to popular belief, the Fed cannot pay off the USG’s debt by printing money. Printing money would cause hyperinflation (e.g. 1920s Germany and Venezuela today). Hence the Fed has funded its bond purchases by borrowing rather than printing. The catch is that the Fed will be trapped if Treasury yields spike due to a USG debt crisis. If the Fed does not raise the interest rate on its deposits to match spiking Treasury yields, hyperinflation would result as banks redeem their Fed deposits and lend them to the economy. If the Fed does raise the interest rate on its deposits, its carry trade would hemorrhage cash and exacerbate the debt crisis."

What Hirschmann is describing is the mechanism that kicks in…like a cyanide capsule in the mouth of a spy…to bring the show to an end. Central banks have no magical powers. They cannot command interest rates to stay low…nor can they insist that the dollar stay high. As the debt level increases, investors anticipate higher levels of inflation. They want a higher yield to protect themselves. Real rates inevitably rise.

Can the central bank keep rates low, simply by printing and lending more money? No…because real savers – the people lend real money – would ditch their US Treasury bonds, leaving the government to finance the entirety of its over-spending with printing press money and leading to the hyperinflation it sought to avoid.

At 130% debt/GDP, an economy is up to its neck. At that level, the spy bites down. Real interest rates rise, whether you like it or not; that is the implication of Hirschmann’s numbers. Asset prices fall. The system blows up – either in hyperinflation, defaults, depression or a major restructuring. Bullets fly and governments often change.

Fish, Birds & Bubbles: Hirschmann points out that no country would ever default, if it could keep its interest rates low. Low rates would make debt sustainable. At the Fed’s ultra-low rates of 2020, for example, the interest on the entire US government debt would be less than $300 billion – only a third of what it is now. Even in 2020, with the lowest interest rates in 500 years, Argentina, Ecuador and Lebanon defaulted – despite the best efforts of their central banks to keep rates low. And it’s not only marginal countries that default.

In the 1970s, for example, the richest country in the world – the US – lost control of inflation and interest rates and suffered the worst recession since the Great Depression. In 1976, the IMF had to bail out Britain. In 2008, Iceland was on the brink…and in 2015 Switzerland’s currency peg collapsed.

Hirschmann continues: "Worse yet, government debt is also currently at dangerous levels in other major economies, including Brazil, China, Japan, the UK and the eurozone…Thus, a government debt crisis in one country might easily ignite a global government debt crisis that pops the bubbles in China, US equities and US real estate."

We have no solution to this problem. Neither does the Fed. Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. And a bubble has to pop."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Brighton, Colorado,

“5 Painfully Obvious Truths We Tend to Forget in Hard Times”

“5 Painfully Obvious Truths

We Tend to Forget in Hard Times”

by Angel Chernoff

“This is going to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We are going to get through this, I promise,

and we’re going to get through it together. “

- Dr. Jon LaPook

“You know how you can read or hear something dozens of times in dozens of different ways before it finally sinks in? The little truths listed below fall firmly into that category – timeless life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, yet for whatever reason we tend to forget in the heat of the moment. This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all, especially as we collectively cope with the evolving reality of economic and life circumstances.

1. Life is short, and nothing is guaranteed. We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know. It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step. You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.

LIVE your life TODAY! Don’t ignore death – or the imminent dangers now becoming obvious – but don’t be afraid of life either. Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take positive action today. Death is not the greatest loss in life, neither is illness. The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive and well. Even in these difficult times, be bold, be courageous, be a scared to death, and then take the next step anyway. Just change the way you do it.

Invest your heart and soul into whatever you have right in front of you. Bring passion into otherwise ordinary moments. You don’t have to be surrounded by lots of people. You don’t have to be going anyplace new. You can distance yourself and still passionately engage in each moment.

2. Everything will change again soon. Embrace change and realize in many ways it’s necessary. It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end most forms of change are worthwhile because they force us to grow. So keep yourself in check right now.

What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow. You never know. Things change, often spontaneously. People and circumstances come and go. Life doesn’t stop for anybody. It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day. It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives. A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth. Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event. And these events are always happening – as they are right now.

So just remember, however good or bad a situation is now, it will change. That’s the one thing you can count on. Accept it. Breathe. Be where you are. You’re where you need to be right now. There’s a time and place for everything, and every hard step is necessary. Just keep doing your best, and don’t force what’s not yet supposed to fit into your life. When it’s meant to be, it will be.

3. Changing your response is what puts you back in control. Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your head and heart. And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard to stay true to your intuition and values. This is your life, and it is governed by your choices. May your actions speak louder than your words. May your daily choices preach louder than your lips. May your inner sense of satisfaction be your noise in the end.

And if your present life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it. Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land – even when there are so many unknowns – be brave enough to stand up and listen to your heart. Remember that the most powerful moments in life happen when you find the courage to let go of what can’t be changed. Because when you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself – to grow beyond the unchangeable. And that changes everything! (Marc and I discuss this in more detail in the “Passion and Growth” chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.“)

4. Life’s storms can be a great source of strength. Hard times are like strong storms that blow against you. And it’s not just that these storms hold you back from places you might otherwise go. They also tear away from you all but the essential parts of your ego that cannot be torn, so that afterward you see yourself as you really are, and not merely as you might like to be.

Ultimately, you realize you are here to endure these storms, to sacrifice your time and risk your heart. You are here to be bruised by life. And when it happens that you are hurt, or betrayed, or rejected, let yourself sit quietly with your eyes closed and remember all the good times you had, and all the sweetness you tasted, and everything you learned. Tell yourself how amazing it was to live, and then open your eyes and live some more.

Because to never struggle would be to never grow. You must let go of who you were so you can become who you are. Again, it is within the depths of the strongest and darkest storms that you discover within you an inextinguishable light, and it is this light that illuminates the path forward.

5. You don’t need all the answers right now. Accept the feeling of not knowing exactly where you are going, and train yourself to love and appreciate this sensation of freedom. Because it is only when you are suspended in the air, with no destination in sight, that you force your wings to open fully so you can fly. And as you soar around you still may not know where you’re traveling to. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is the opening of your wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as your wings are spread, the winds will carry you forward.

Truth be told, some of the greatest outcomes that transpire in your life will be the ones you never even knew you wanted. As long as you keep your mind open to new perspectives and yourself moving forward, there really are no wrong turns in life, only paths you didn’t know you were meant to travel. And you never can be certain what’s around the corner. It could be everything, or it could be nothing. You keep gliding steadily forward, and then one day you realize you’ve come a long way from where you started.

All details aside, someday all the pieces will come together. Unimaginably good outcomes will likely transpire in your life, even if everything doesn’t turn out exactly the way you had anticipated. And you will look back at the hard times that have passed, smile, and ask yourself… “How in the world did I get through all of that?”

- https://www.marcandangel.com/

The Poet: Maya Angelou, "When You Know Better, Do Better"

Full screen recommended.

Maya Angelou,

 "When You Know Better, Do Better"

"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"

"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"

by John Wilder

"Time. Of things that have long fascinated me, time is at the top of the list. Even when I was a little kid, time fascinated me. The idea that time, of all of the physical parameters of the world there was the one that we couldn’t control. Humanity has mastered the power of the atom, at least partially. We haven’t tamed fusion, but we can create it, and have several fewer islands in the Pacific because of it.

Humanity has dammed the largest of rivers, giving us power. We have used technology to shrink the world. The first recorded circumnavigation of the world took 1082 days. Magellan didn’t quite make the whole trip, but he still gets the credit on a technicality. Now? The International Space Station does an orbit in 90 minutes or so at 17,150 miles per hour, which is nearly as fast as Haitians are entering Texas.

Humanity has conquered the riddle of steel – we’ve made steel buildings that reach upwards into the sky to please Crom. We have conquered climate – people live at the South Pole in perfect comfort, as well as managing to live in Houston without melting into puddles of sweat.

We can see at night. We can talk, nearly instantly, with people a continent away. My phone buzzes every time there is motion outside my front door – it’s like having a superpower of sensing where and when there is activity at a distance. Another superpower is being able to access obscure facts anywhere on the planet that can reach a cell signal.

But time remains fixed. It flows only one way. And it is the most subjective of our senses. Even Pugsley notices it: “This summer was so short!” He’s in high school. That’s when the transition from the endless summers of childhood begin to transform into the fleeting, never-ending carousel of years that is adulthood. I’ve long felt that I understood why this was. Let me give it a shot.

For a newborn, the second day it’s outside and breathing is 50% of its entire life. For a six-year-old, half of their life is three years – much more. It’s not a big percentage, but it’s much smaller than 50%. For a sixteen-year-old, half their life is eight years. If you’re forty – half your life is twenty years. 1/8 versus 1/20? It’s amazingly different. We don’t perceive life as a line. We’re living inside of it – we compare our lives to the only thing we have . . . our lives. Each day you live is smaller than the last.

But that’s not everything. As we age, novelty decreases. When we’re young, experiences and knowledge are coming at us so quickly that we are presented with novel (new and unique) information daily. New words. New thoughts. New ideas. That’s why babies keep falling for that stupid “got your nose” thing. They don’t realize that I can reattach it. Over time, though, novelty decreases, as does the percentage of your life that each day represents. Ever drive a new route somewhere? When I do it, I have to focus my attention. It seems like it takes longer because I’m having to deal with novelty.

I’ve had my “new” laptop nearly seven years. I had my old laptop for longer than that, yet my “new” laptop still seems like it’s temporary.

There are only so many routes I can drive to work, so much novelty that I can find in a daily drive. Even a commute of an hour begins to fade into a brief moment in time if it’s the same commute, day after day.

Work is similar. Over time, we gain experience. Experience shows us how to fix problems (and sometimes how not to fix them). But that experience of taking a solution and modifying it to fix the next problem isn’t as hard as fixing the first problem.

The fact that each day is a smaller portion of my life, combined with the fact that as I get older, the possibility that I see something new dims. I’ve solved a bunch of problems in my life. Finding a new one is... difficult. Life goes faster, day by day for me. Every endless summer day of youth is in my rearview mirror.

And yet... Each day is still 24 hours. I can still use each day and live it with all of the gusto of a 10-year-old fishing for trout after building a tree fort, playing with his dog, and building a model of a Phantom F-4 to dogfight with the MiG 21-PF already hanging from the ceiling. Even though those 24 hours seem shorter now than at any time in my life, they are relentless in their exact sameness. I get to choose how I spend those moments in my life. I get to choose what I want to produce, and how hard I work to make it happen.

Humanity may never have the ability to crack time – it appears that even today, outside of sands falling from an hourglass, we can only describe time as a fundamental entity, something we measure against. Does the flow of time vary? Certainly. But only if we’re moving at large fractions of the speed of light or are caught in a huge gravity well, but let’s leave your mother out of this.

I have come to the conclusion that I will likely never understand what, exactly, time is, outside of this: Time is all we have – it is what makes up life. We measure our lives in it, because no man can buy an extra hour of life. We have the hours we have. The only difference is what we do with that time.

I mentioned in a previous post that (during the week) I often get by on scant hours of sleep. That’s because I have more things that I want to do in my life than I can fit in a day that’s less than 20 or 22 hours some days. I choose to try to do more, to try to make use of this time, because each moment is a gift.

Maybe I can settle for that definition of time: a gift. Each moment is a gift. Don’t beg for more, or live in fear of losing them. Just make each moment count. Perhaps that’s the secret and precious nature of time. It is the one thing we should never waste, and never wish away."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Hans Zimmer, "Time"

"It Strikes Me..."

“It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can’t get out of, but I think this is very usual in life. There are people, particularly dumb people, who are in terrible trouble and never get out of it, because they’re not intelligent enough. It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry - or laugh.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

Musical Interlude: Elton John, "Your Starter For"; "Funeral For A Friend"

Shake off all the bad news...

Elton John, "Your Starter For"

o

Elton John, 

"Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"

"How It Really Is"

This degenerate abomination is not 

the country I swore allegiance to long ago...

- CP, Veteran, US Marine Corps, MOS 0311

Dan, I Allegedly, "Crisis Looms - Are You Prepared?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 1/12/24

"Crisis Looms - Are You Prepared?"

"Tesla just announced that they are going to give a raise unilaterally across the country. That should be good news. The stock price fell on this news. Experts say that it’s going to take away for the margins for what they sell. Plus, there’s a lot of other news to cover today."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up:

Bigger War, Bigger Fraud and Bigger CV19 Death Toll"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"This is the year of bigger, and in this case, bigger is NOT better. There is a bigger war brewing in the Middle East – much bigger. Some say this is the beginning of WWIII. There is no end in sight for the conflicts all over the region. You have a hot war in Gaza. Hezbollah is ready to ramp it up in Lebanon on Israel’s Northern border, and the US and UK both opened up big attacks on the Iranian backed Houthis in Yemen. Meanwhile, Iran was busy taking an oil tanker by force near the Strait of Hormuz. You have conflict on the biggest choke points for oil tankers and shipping at the Red Sea and the Persin Gulf. Is there a big economy-killing oil spike coming? If this keeps going, and it will, the answer is yes.

It’s hard to believe the fraud being conducted to keep Donald Trump from running for his old job in 2024 could get any bigger, but it has. The Georgia DA, Fani Willis, prosecuting the Trump Rico case is in hot water for sending her boyfriend to the White House just before the Trump indictment for RICO charges. Marjorie Taylor Green is seeking criminal referrals for all involved. Even if Willis could get a conviction on her case, there are many avenues for it all to fall apart on appeal. Colluding with the Biden White House to jail a political opponent is a huge “get out of jail free” card. Somebody other than Trump may go to jail for what President 45 calls election interference. It’s hard to disagree when you have fraud in your face that is this big.

Bigger numbers of those who “died suddenly” and so-called “medical emergencies” because of the CV19 bioweapon vax are soaring, according to NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller (MCM). Of course, the deaths and disabilities are caused by the CV19 bioweapon vax, but the Lying Legacy Media is trying to cover up and gaslight the public into thinking it’s not really a problem. But it is a problem, a huge problem, and it is getting worse. With more than 700 million CV19 injections that have “intentionally toxic” ingredients, it is only going to get worse and become a much bigger death toll and disability. This is why MCM is asking for all the help you can give him to help document this historic tragedy and murder program. (You can donate to MCM’s “Died Suddenly Project” by clicking here.) He wants to get the truth out that the demonic population-reducing globalists want to keep hidden. There is much more in the 57-minute newscast.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about

 these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 1/12/24:

- https://rumble.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! The Fuse Is Lit, The War Has Started, Get Ready!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 1/12/24

"Alert! The Fuse Is Lit, The War Has Started, Get Ready!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Gaza War Expands As US, UK Warplanes 

Bomb Houthi Strongholds In Yemen"

o

Full screen recommended.

Hindustan Times, 1/12/24

"Houthis' 'Mega Revenge' Next? 

Yahya Saree Declares 'U.S., UK Will Now Bear..."

"Yemen's Ansar Allah Rebel Movement, also known as Houthis, has issued a terrifying warning. Houthis declared that the U.S. and UK will bear the responsibility for its retaliation. The group has taken a pledge to carry out revenge strikes after U.S.-led attacks. 73 strikes by the U.S. and UK forces hit five regions of Yemen under Houthi control. This report has the video statement of Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Comments: Some factual Middle East contextual observations: Game over!

•  Gaza: 23,385 innocent men, women, old people and 12,000 children have been killed by the IDF dropping over 6,000 2,000 lb. bombs supplied by the United States. The entire 2 billion Muslim world is absolutely and rightfully enraged.

• Turkey has a 2 million man totally modern and equipped professional military, whom Scott Ritter describes as "ferocious fighters" which includes a powerful air force and navy, and huge missile stockpiles. They could very rapidly eliminate the IDF.

• Syria can and will retake the occupied Golan Heights. The IDF has neither the troops or the resources to stop this.

• Hezzbollah has 150,000 very well trained and equipped professional soldiers, battle hardened by 10 years of involvement in the Syrian civil war. Doug Macgregor states they have 140,000 missiles which can reach anywhere in Israel.

• Hamas in Gaza has fought the IDF to a standstill and withdraw while only using a fraction of their reported 30,000 fighters.

• The entry of Iran into a wider regional war is a distinct probability, adding it's huge military and  10's of thousands of missiles stockpiles to the mix.

• The Yemeni Houthis, whom Ritter describes as the honey badgers of the Middle East, absolutely fearless and ferocious, have closed the Red Sea to all shipping causing enormous financial losses not only to Israel but the global economy. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates dare not attempt to intervene under threat of Houthis completely destroying their petroleum facilities.

• The Egyptian government, while reluctant, may be forced into the conflict by the political pressure of their absolutely enraged population which is demanding action.

• Israel's only ally is the United States, which is totally impotent to assist them, lacking the troops and ability to intervene. The US Navy fleet are useless sitting ducks, targets for precise missile strikes, and will very rapidly be destroyed, including the aircraft carriers.

Your thoughts and comments?