Bill Bonner, "What Would Clausewitz Say?"

"What Would Clausewitz Say?"

America's Firepower Industrial Complex 

storms into the Middle East... again...

by Bill Bonner

“No one starts a war – or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so – 

without first being clear in his mind what he intends 

to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.”

- Carl Von Clausewitz

Normandy, France - "This is not an ideal time to take the ferry from Ireland to France. Most of the passenger ferries aren’t running. Your only choice is to go with the Polish truck drivers on the Stena Line. And then, when you get out in the Atlantic, the sea is rough. The clouds are low. The wind is stiff. All you can do is to lie in your berth, and let the gentle, or not so gentle, rock of the boat put you to sleep.

Last night, the on-board restaurant was nearly empty. The truck drivers have their own restaurant. There were probably only 4 or 5 passengers who were not truck drivers on the ship, including one older man with wild white hair, who resembled Albert Einstein in later life. We could not linger over dinner. The ship was beginning to rock and roll too violently. So, we made our way down the corridor, bouncing from one side to another, to our cabin.

There, we hastened to bed. Lying flat seems to be a good way to avoid getting sick. Then – except for the crash of the waves against the hull…and the creak of every piece of metal above the water line – you can imagine that you are on a hammock softly swinging in a summer breeze. But here we are. It is still very gray and cold. But, there’s work to do. Reckoning to reckon with. Dots to connect.

Ready, Fire…Aim: If you’re going to have any hope at all of understanding and anticipating what’s coming our way…you need a framework – a structure on which to hang the baubles and bangles of the daily news. For example, in the news last week was this, CNN: "President Joe Biden’s decision to strike 85 targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday in response to the death of three American soldiers last weekend amounted to a middle ground: short of a direct strike inside Iran, which would almost certainly spark a wider war, but still more expansive than any action the US has taken so far against the groups it accuses of destabilizing the region."

Whether the 125 precision-guided missiles fired over 30 minutes Friday night will have the effect of preventing further attacks on Americans is a question officials aren’t yet ready to answer. “I think it is a real strong deterrence,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and Iraq War veteran. “We’re saying: Listen, we don’t want to go to war. But have a little taste of what we can do. Here you go. Eighty-five targets. And I think that that is part of the balancing act that we need to be engaged in right now.”

Eighty-five targets? One hundred and twenty-five missiles? Show them what we can do? We pause for breath. To the clowns currently listed on ballots across the country must be added the jokers who run America’s military machine…aka, the firepower industry. Between them – civil and military authorities – these deciders have the wherewithal to ruin the economy and bring the empire to its knees. What to make of them? Are they not nature’s way…like mold on yogurt…to turn a wholesome dessert into sickening slime?

A Military Maxim: What is the likelihood that the same intel geniuses who missed 9/11 and the Hamas attack have now peered into the dark hearts of ‘terrorists’ in 85 separate locations? Where is the risk/reward calculation that tells us it would be a good idea to kill them…even at the risk that the survivors will become sworn, lifelong enemies of the USA? Where in the US Constitution does it give a president the right to start a war on his own say-so?

And what would Clausewitz say? Where is the plan? What are the war aims? Have the pros and cons been debated by the peoples’ representatives? ‘You shoot at everything…you hit nothing.’ It’s a military maxim that applies to the rest of life. You try to do everything, you end up getting nothing accomplished. That’s why Clausewitz has been so popular with business schools. Commerce, like war, is competitive. The competitor who tries to be everything to everyone gets nowhere. The winners are those who know where to attack…and do so precisely. Military power, too, needs to be focused…on particular, achievable objectives. It’s not meant to be hurled around like cheap threats in a Saturday night barroom.

Smart attackers do not disperse their firepower, they concentrate it on specific points for specific reasons – to cut off the enemy from his supplies, to capture (or destroy) a vital bridge, to eliminate a small force before it can join with others, and so forth. As Clausewitz explains, there’s ‘emotion’ involved in war. And chance. But they are tempered and directed by reason. Where’s the reason in Biden’s missile barrage?

Forever Wars:The logic of Generalissimo Biden’s war must be to ‘send a message’ to Iran. But this is the same kind of numbskull thinking that had the US bombing the hell out of Laos and North Vietnam…threatening to send them ‘back to the stone age.’

It did no good. In Laos, US bombing killed a tenth of the population. No advantage was gained. In Vietnam, the ‘enemy’ bobbed and weaved…in a kind of lightweight military ‘rope-a-dope’ strategy. The Pentagon’s amateur bean counter - Robert McNamara - could do all the body counts and pain assessments he wanted. But in the end, the US had no alternative but to run away…with a final, disgraceful retreat by helicopter from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon.

And anyone who thinks the ‘terrorists’ will now back off – in shock and awe at American firepower – is just not paying attention. The Iraqis have had more than a “little taste” of US firepower; they got a full meal of it during America’s war to liberate them. Now, they want the US to get the hell out. And the Houthis are regarded as the heroes of the whole Muslim world…and much of the rest of it. They’ve been taking US-made ‘incoming’ fire for the last 20 years. They’re not going to stop now that it is coming directly from the US rather from its proxies in Saudi Arabia.

What outcome is likely? What would Clausewitz say? More to come…"

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! NATO F-16s Target Russian Missile! Romania Attack Plan! Russia Schools Nuke Training; Iran"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 2/7/24

"Alert! NATO F-16s Target Russian Missile! 

Romania Attack Plan! Russia Schools Nuke Training; Iran"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How Stupid And Gutless Can You Be To Obediently Follow Your Ignorant, Arrogant Political Leaders?"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 2/6/24

"How Stupid And Gutless Can You Be To Obediently 

Follow Your Ignorant, Arrogant Political Leaders?"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Red Alert: System Is Being Run By Criminals, Get Out; McDonald's $18 Big Mac"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/6/24

"Red Alert: System Is Being Run By Criminals, Get Out; 

McDonald's $18 Big Mac"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Yanni, “To the One Who Knows”

Full screen recommended.

Yanni, “To the One Who Knows”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What will become of these galaxies? Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive this collision. Typically when galaxies collide, a large galaxy eats a much smaller galaxy. In this case, however, the two galaxies are quite similar, each being a sprawling spiral with expansive arms and a compact core. As the galaxies advance over the next tens of millions of years, their component stars are unlikely to collide, although new stars will form in the bunching of gas caused by gravitational tides.

Close inspection of the above image taken by the 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile shows a bridge of material momentarily connecting the two giants. Known collectively as Arp 271, the interacting pair spans about 130,000 light years and lies about 90 million light-years away toward the constellation of Virgo. Recent predictions hold that our Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130825.html

The Poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "What If?"

"What If?"

"What if you slept?

And what if,

In your sleep

You dreamed?

And what if,

In your dream,

You went to heaven

And there plucked

A strange and

Beautiful flower?

And what if,

When you awoke,

You had the flower

In your hand?

Ahh, what then?"

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, "Hope"

"Hope"

"Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves."

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

Chet Raymo, “Angling For Happiness”

“Angling For Happiness”

by Chet Raymo

“There is a concept in physics called angle of repose. Set an object, a book say, on a plank. Now slowly tip up one end of the plank until the moment when the book just starts to slide. The angle between the plank and the horizontal is the angle of repose, where the component of the gravitational force down the plank becomes greater than the maximum friction force holding the book at rest. Or, in more evocative terms - as I write I am lying on the couch with the laptop in my lap, in perfect repose. If you started tipping up the couch, at some point I'd go sliding into a heap at the bottom. That's the angle of repose, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the angle of the end of repose.

This comes to mind because I just spent fifteen minutes on my knees in the yard watching ants excavate a nest in the ground. One by one they scurry out of the hole carrying a tiny grain of sand, which they dump in a ring around the hole. A circular pile. Now if the ants just dumped their burdens at the mouth of the hole, pretty soon the pile would get so steep that the sand grains would slide back into the hole. Instead, the circular ring gets higher and wider, with a slope that never exceeds the angle at which the grains will slip - the angle of repose. Now here's the thing: the ants almost invariably carry their grain to just beyond the top of the pile. If the grain slips, it will slide away from the hole. These tiny ants, hardly bigger than sand grains themselves, understand a little physics in their mysterious instinctive way.

Wallace Stegner has a novel titled "Angle of Repose." It is indeed an evocative phrase. In a job, in a relationship, in life itself, many of us instinctively seek that maximum degree of individual gratification that will satisfy emotional needs without doing violence to our essential repose, and that of those around us - the art of walking close to the edge, the thrill without the spill. Every day in the news we hear of folks - politicians or celebrities - who tipped the plank too far, whose lives went sliding into self-destruction, who failed to grasp, metaphorically speaking, something that a tiny ant instinctively understands.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"The Level Of Intelligence..."

"If man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog."

- Robert Brault

"One Day..."

 

Fred Reed, "A View from Mexico"

"A View from Mexico"

by Fred Reed

"We south of the border hear considerable rumbling and grumbling about things we frijoleros, genuine and only sort of, do that set poorly in the north. Well, yes and no. A few reflections.

In 1965 the United States, not Mexico, changed the immigration laws, apparently to encourage immigration from the south. What other reason could there have been? Why else would you change laws that successfully prevented the influx to laws that encouraged such? Having thus asked for a mass ingress, it seems odd for America to complain that it got one.

Odd. In America there is much anger at the ingress that America invited and its government protects. Why doesn’t Mexico do something about it? A Mexican might ask why it is Mexico’s duty to protect America’s borders when America purposely won’t. Open borders are an American, not a Mexican, policy.

Yes, most Americans want to end the flood. Yet the federal government – that is, America – as a matter of national policy, maintains the frontier open. For example, as I write Washington forbids Texas to use barbed wire to stop the influx. This is official policy. From a Mexican point of view, America’s refusal to protect its borders is a major problem as it draws immigrants from all of Latin America, no favor, and then Mexico has to put up with America’s anger at Mexico’s failure to do what America should do for itself.

Drugs? From a Mexican point of view, the drug trade is a serious problem inflicted on it by the United States. The drug trade exists because Americans want drugs. They want them very, very much, and will pay high prices for them. If this were not so, there would be no demand, no drugs, and no cartels. Neither Mexicans nor the Chinese nor Colombians force Americans to take drugs. They take them because they want to. It has proved impossible to keep them from doing so even with laws and specialized police forces.

Because the United States is so voracious a drug market, with something approaching civil war between a population lusting for dope and a government that doesn’t want the public to have it, Mexico is overrun with DEA agents and threatened with military invasion. The drug racket is not of benefit to Mexico. If America enforced its drug laws, Mexico would have few narcotraficantes.

Note that Mexico does not have a fentanyl problem, which is interesting. Only America does. Why? It is just my guess, but I suspect the reason is that America, once a pleasant land, is now miserable with declining living standards, rising crime, virulent political antagonisms, and little hope for the future. Before fentanyl, hundreds of thousands died of Oxycontin poisoning, and Washington did nothing about this either. Oxies were produced by American pharmaceutical companies, and thus easily controlled had the government wanted to. Being as I am a Pollyanna, I cannot imagine that Big Pharma, getting rich by peddling oxies to the miserable in regions devastated by offshoring, would bribe congressmen to look the other way. Perish forfend.

The United States actively supports the drug cartels. Mexico cannot control these because the cartels have military armament in large quantities, coming from the United States. Washington knows this, has known it for decades, and does nothing. This is probably because the arms industry buys congressmen in bulk lots, though some say it is because of the Second Amendment. If Mexico armed the New York Mafia with anti-tank weapons and rocket launchers, and claimed some constitutional clause to justify it, would that be OK?

While we are on the subject of the drug trade, I offer a conspiracy theory. Everybody else seems to have several, so why not me?

The drug trade is too big to fail. It exists because too many people get rich from it, like oil. I occasionally see the figure of sixty billion dollars as the annual take. That’s a lot of potatoes, as Damon Runyon would say. That much moolah does not go into the pockets of dirtball drug lords to buy pricey pickup trucks and gold chains. Where does it go?

A portion goes into the pockets of those supposedly trying to end the trade, DEA, FBI, Mexican police, and so on. When you get paid for solving a problem, the last thing you want to do is to solve it, because then you stop getting paid. Another portion goes to politicians to, as a probable example, prevent the prevention of arms sales or too much attention to money laundering. The bulk, I will bet, ends up in the big banks, hedge funds, and offshore tax havens. Note that the heavy flow of armament, condoned and apparently protected by Washington, prevents Mexico from doing anything effective against the narcos. Again, where is the money going?

Serious question: Do you really think that anyone on the receiving end of that much money will want to end the industry that provides it? And do you think that, if Mexico and China disappeared in a flash of blue light, nobody else would start doing the same thing? That is, that the sixty billion in honey would not attract new flies?

Massive illegal immigration causes many grave problems, certainly to the US, and no sane country would allow it. Still, it might be interesting to look at it from the standpoint of the immigrants, or many of them. Let us consider Paco and Lupita, living in a dirt-floored cinder block hovel in San Salvador, and listening nightly to their two children crying because they are hungry. They are not hungry because Paco and Lupita are stupid or lazy, but because there are no jobs in San Salvador.

The couple, desperate, powwow and decide that the only solution is for Paco to go to the United States, work, and send money back home. Paco has never been outside of El Salvador, perhaps not outside of San Salvador, so this is not an easy decision. It seems the only decision, though.

While their friends and relatives are as poor, they manage to pool a bit of money to help Paco on the way. He starts hitchhiking north through Central America, manages to cross into Mexico, and proceeds further north on the Train of Death, as it is known, a freight train line. Having gotten to the US border miraculously still in possession of his grubstake, he finagles his way across the border and, following advice from local Latinos, manages to reach relatives in Indiana, where he gets a job in a meatpacking plant.

He sends money home. His children stop crying from hunger. He starts preparations to bring his family north.

This is illegal, and Americans have every right to oppose it. But we are looking at it from Paco’s standpoint. He thinks the wellbeing and future of his family matter more than the laws of any country. In the same predicament, what would the reader do? Would it not be irresponsible not to do it?

Them’s my thoughts. I will now go into hiding."

-https://fredoneverything.org/

The Daily "Near You?"

Gilmer, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Epic Economist, "15 Things You Should Do To Survive A Food Supply Chain Attack"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 2/6/24

"15 Things You Should Do To 

Survive A Food Supply Chain Attack"

"American Patriots, inflation is on a meteoric rise, and supply chain shortages are becoming more and more obvious. With many global disruptions in America's supply chains, we are facing shortages in the upcoming months of this year that Americans are only beginning to understand. Even worse, the potential for a devastating attack on our food supply chains is becoming more likely each day.

For American Patriots, this is an issue that needs to be addressed before the situation becomes critical. If you're not prepared for the upcoming supply chain crisis, you could very well be looking at the hardest and most difficult year you've seen. It's never too late to start preparing, though. These are 15 things you should do to survive a food supply chain attack!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The US Is Going To Light The Middle East On Fire! Much More War, Here's Why"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/6/24

"The US Is Going To Light The Middle East On Fire!

 Much More War, Here's Why"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Inevitable Secession And Civil War; Geopolitical Analysis"

"Inevitable Secession And Civil War; 

Geopolitical Analysis"

by Mike Adams

"The illegitimate Biden regime is waging "invasion warfare" against U.S. states, deliberately attempting to overwhelm them with invading migrant forces that await battle orders to "activate" inside the United States. This is pushing state leaders and citizens to call for secession, and secession may lead to civil war as the desperate Dems try to maintain their tyrannical grip over the productive "red" states where most of America's GDP actually comes from.

Today I bring you a detailed analysis plus a new interview with Steve Quayle on secession, world war III, conflict with Russia and the accelerating collapse of the US financial system."

View video here:

- https://www.brighteon.com/

"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/6/24"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/6/24

"Lt. Col. Karen Kwaitkowski:

 Is the US Govt a Ponzi Scheme?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Don Miguel Ruiz, "Don't Take Anything Personally"

"Don't Take Anything Personally"

by Don Miguel Ruiz

"Whatever happens around you, don't take it personally. Using an earlier example, if I see you on the street and I say, "Hey, you are so stupid," without knowing you, it's not about you; it's about me. If you take it personally, perhaps you believe you are stupid. Maybe you think to yourself, "How does he know?  Is he clairvoyant, or can everybody see how stupid I am?"

You take it personally because you agree with whatever was said. As soon as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you are trapped in the dream of hell. What causes you to be trapped is what we call personal importance. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about "me." During the period of our education, or our domestication, we learn to take everything personally. We think we are responsible for everything. Me, me, me, always me!

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.

If someone gives you an opinion and says, "Hey, you look so fat," don't take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators, the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up.

You eat all their emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of hell. Immunity to poison in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement.

When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. You also try hard to be right by giving them your own opinions. In the same way, whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say, what you do and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made- and these opinions have nothing to do with me.

It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don't take what you think personally. I don't take it personally when people say, "Miguel, you are the best," and I also don't take it personally when they say, "Miguel, you are the worst." I know that when you are happy you will tell me, "Miguel, you are such an angel!" But, when you are mad at me you will say, "Oh, Miguel, you are such a devil! You are so disgusting. How can you say those things?" Either way, it does not affect me because I know what I am. I don't have the need to be accepted. I don't have the need to have someone tell me, "Miguel, you are doing so good!" or "How dare you do that!"

No, I don't take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them.

You may even tell me, "Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me." But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way that I can take this personally. Not because I don't believe in you or don't trust you, but because I know that you see the world with different eyes, with your eyes. You create an entire picture or movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director, you are the producer, you are the main actor or actress. Everyone else is a secondary actor or actress. It is your movie.

The way that you see that movie is according to the agreements you have made with life. Your point of view is something personal to you. It is no one's truth but yours. Then, if you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself. I am the excuse for you to get mad. And you get mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will get mad at me. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will hate me. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will be jealous or sad.

If you live without fear, if you love, there is no place for any of these emotions. If you don't feel any of those emotions, it is logical that you will feel good. When you feel good, everything around you is good. When everything around you is good, everything makes you happy. You are loving everything that is around you, because you are loving yourself. Because you like the way you are. Because you are content with you. Because you are happy with your life. You are happy with the movie you are producing, happy with your agreements with life. You are at peace, and you are happy. You live in that state of bliss where everything is so wonderful, and everything is so beautiful. In that state of bliss you are making love all the time with everything that you perceive.”

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/

"A Point Of No Return..."

”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”

- Graham Greene

o

“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back. Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown… and pray for an exit.” - Dan Brown

o

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

o

“Never be ashamed of a scar.

It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.”

- Unknown

"How It Really Is"

“There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

- Mark Twain

"The Great Growth Hoax"

by Jeffrey Tucker

"For several days, ever since the supposedly amazing GDP report from quarter four 2023, we’ve been blasted by the media about how great the economy is doing. It’s exasperating because these claims do not fit with human experience. Last we heard from the Census Bureau, real income is down, and no one doubts it. Everyone, or at least most average people, has felt strong downgrades in living standards over these last four years.

And yet, no recession has been declared. This is for technical reasons. A recession is supposed to show up in the technical reading of the GDP plus unemployment. We’ve known for years that the unemployment data is broken. It does not account for labor dropouts or adjust for multiple job holders or otherwise reveal anything about labor participation or remuneration. Unemployment is technically low, but so what?

As for GDP, it is not a measure of the standard of living or even economic growth. It is a measure of output - stuff going on as measured in dollar terms, whether necessary, productive, society serving, efficient or not at all. The aggregate was concocted at a time when economists believed that spending was itself productive, whether it flowed from a sustainable capital base or government itself. Anything moving and churning was regarded as good.

We Don’t Need More GDP Reports Like These: When the latest report came out and everyone cheered, I dug around the data a bit but figured I would wait for my favorite analysts to weigh in. Sure enough, Peter St Onge writes it up and it is a doozy: "Fresh GDP numbers came in and it was a blowout. The kind of blowout that only a $2.7 trillion government deficit can buy while the private economy crumbles around it. Another couple blowout GDP reports like this and Americans will be living under an overpass.

The essential ruse comes down to unfathomable amounts of government spending that is being recorded as productivity and output, and interpreted by the media as growth: In the past 12 months the federal deficit increased by $1.3 trillion. Yet we only got half that in GDP - about $600 billion. In other words, everything else shrank. It’s even worse for that brave and stunning Q4 - there we got just $300 billion in extra GDP for - wait for it - $834 billion of new federal debt. To put a fine point on it: Essentially, [GDP is measuring] the pace at which we’re going Soviet, replacing private wealth with government waste."

It Costs $2.50 to Generate $1: In his interpretation of the data, we are destroying wealth at the fastest rate since 2008. An analysis by Zero Hedge echoes the same thought: "While Q4 GDP rose by $329 billion to $27.939 trillion, a respectable if made-up number, what is much more disturbing is that over the same time period, the U.S. budget deficit rose by more than 50%, or $510 billion. And the cherry on top: The increase in public U.S. debt in the same three-month period was a stunning $834 billion, or 154% more than the increase in GDP. In other words, it now takes $1.55 in budget deficit to generate $1 of growth… and it takes over $2.50 in new debt to generate $1 of GDP growth!"

To further the analysis, and doing the math: Every dollar in GDP growth cost $1.69 in new debt, and also means that every new job cost future generations of Americans $957,100.48. To say this is unsustainable is more than obvious. It is a disaster and this is dragging American prosperity into the pits, if by prosperity you mean quality of life. No matter how many gizmos to which you have access, the resources for living a good life are depleting very fast.

The American Dream? The idea of a one-income family is nearly extinct, whereas it was the norm three-quarters of a century ago. Even the gizmos are falling apart and not serving us well. Household appliances don’t work unless you somehow get your hands on the most high-priced models. They’re trying to shove everyone into urban commuter cars so that you cannot drive on those big vacations that used to be the American norm. College is out of reach and the degree that costs a fortune to get is increasingly worthless anyway.

People are ever more despairing for the future and thinking that this is just the new normal. Even looking at output data over the long term, you can see the trend, even given all the manipulation and fakery. It’s still very obvious where things are headed.

It didn’t need to happen. The United States has been the world center of technological innovation during these years, and the historical home for free enterprise and entrepreneurship. We should have had the greatest boom times in our history! Instead, government stole all that energy for itself. It’s a tragedy.

Is There Hope? Everyone underestimates the wild effect of 2020 and the following chaos caused by lockdowns. Those sent the workplace into upheaval, wrecked data collection, made property rights and liberties far less secure and entrenched a professional managerial class in government and industry that conspires against the public. On the good side, we are seeing the evaporation of trust in media, medicine, academia and government. Large media organizations are laying off workers in droves just to survive, and the woke agenda generally seems on the ropes.

Dramatic reforms are possible but are they likely? We will see. There needs to be wholesale reform in government and much more besides in order to save what’s left of the great American prosperity machine. As it is, the more likely outcome is to go the way of empires past, a long slog through the miasma of corruption and stagnation until generations hence will speak of the United States in the past tense the way we talk about the Portuguese empire. That’s a big departure from the way this article opened so let’s go back to the point.

The GDP data is not reflective of anything real except government profligacy and stagnation in every sector that counts. You can read the headlines or look at the underlying realities. One perpetuates existing myth-making and the other reveals that the myth is not long for this world."

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

Bill Bonner, "Cap’n Biden's Trillions"

"Cap’n Biden's Trillions"

Full speed head on election year spending...

by Bill Bonner

Youghal, Ireland - "Here’s a shocker. A high government official – Jerome Powell – is trying to warn Congress that it is headed over a fiscal waterfall. Business Insider: "America is racking up dangerous amounts of debt because of its excessive spending, and future generations are likely to suffer the consequences, Jerome Powell said. "The US federal government's on an unsustainable fiscal path," the Federal Reserve chair said in a "60 Minutes" interview broadcast on Sunday. "The debt is growing faster than the economy."

Fiscal deficits over the past four years alone have totaled about $9 trillion, which has helped to more than triple the national debt to a record $34 trillion in the past two decades, Treasury data shows. ‘Unsustainable’ means it can’t go on. But it’s already gone on for a long, long time. Since 1970, US GDP rose from $5 trillion to $25 trillion – a five times increase. US debt meanwhile rose from $350 billion to $34 trillion – or nearly a 100x increase.

This will not come as a shock to anyone. Everyone knows it. But it has gone on for so long, most people – if they think about it at all – must think it is perfectly sustainable. After all, it’s been this way for half a century.

A Trillion Here…What is new about this…is not really new at all. It’s just the pattern of fiscal tomfoolery holding steady. It begins with small deficits….allowing spending to rise too. It wasn’t until 1982 that US debt went over $1 trillion. It took another 27 years, until 2009, to increase the debt by $10 trillion.

Gradually the deficits increase…and then, all of a sudden, they are mammoth. From 2009 to today – just 15 years – the debt has increased by $22 trillion. And now, based on the first 5 months of this fiscal year, the deficit is headed for around $2.5 trillion…which will be added to the national debt.

What Chairman Powell is signaling is not a change in direction, but a change in speed. The direction was set in 1971 when the US switched to a fake money. It was slow going at first, unlearning all of the lessons of the real money world. The wisdom of countless generations had been distilled as instincts: …a penny saved is a penny earned…waste not, want not... a borrower nor a lender be…

All of this ‘common sense’ had to be replaced with uncommon new habits. Balance the budget? Cut out unnecessary spending? Turn the lights off when you leave a room? Who does that anymore? In this new and altogether remarkable world, deficits didn’t matter. Nutty? Yes. And finally, someone – other than ourselves – is spreading the alarm.

A Trillion There…Alan Greenspan. Ben Bernanke. Janet Yellen. None of them thought debt was worth mentioning. And so, while the men and women at the helm changed…no course correction was made. The ship just went further and further towards the lip of the financial world, where economies plunge into chaos and catastrophe. And now what?

This warning will come like a fire-alarm test in a cruise ship. No way are people going to go out onto a cold deck in their underwear. ‘The ship has never sunk before,’ they’ll say to themselves; ‘it won’t be this time either.’

Meanwhile, it’s full speed ahead. Cap’n Joe Biden will spend as much as possible in preparation for the November election. Money for Israel. Money for the Ukraine. Money for the chip industry. Money for the firepower industry. Money for DEI and WTF. Money for everything. Money for everyone. The money is already flowing all over the place. Tickets to the Superbowl, for example, are edging towards $10,000.

But wait. What if Mr. Trump wins? Ahem.

The Other ‘T’ Word: This is the same Donald Trump who pestered Jerome Powell to lower interest rates…to make it easier to borrow…back in 2017. And this is the same Donald Trump who ballooned up the biggest deficit in US history – over $3 trillion. He now says that if he is elected, one of his first acts will be to fire Jerome Powell. Barrons: "Trump Says He Would Replace 'Political' US Fed Chair Powell."

"In an interview published Friday, Trump accused Powell, who he as president first appointed to run the independent US central bank, of being "political," suggesting Powell may move ahead with interest rate cuts to help the Democratic party win reelection. "I think he's going to do something to probably help the Democrats," Trump said in an interview with Fox Business published on Friday, referring to the upcoming presidential elections in November.

Cutting rates is just what Powell has not done. Yet. Instead, he said he wanted to see inflation firmly at his 2% target level before cutting rates…and he has warned Congress and the public that this borrowing, printing, and spending will have to be brought under control. But Trump is right; if he sticks with his positions, and really wants to bring overspending under control, Powell will have to go."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

And on the Good Ship "US Economy", we're the band...

Folks, it has been a privilege playing with you.

"A 'Gigantic Systemic' Meltdown, Greater Than 1930s Depression is Coming"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/6/24

"The Central Bank Induced Ponzi Scheme

 Is Going To End In Global Disaster"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Daniela Cambone, 2/5/24

"A 'Gigantic Systemic' Meltdown, Greater 

Than 1930s Depression is Coming"

"Daniela Cambone interviews Bert Dohmen, founder and president of Dohmen Capital Research, discussing the banking sector, China, the Fed, and the importance of having a Plan B in their recent conversation. Dohmen warns that the failure with regional banks last year was not a “one-off” situation, and he emphasizes that a "gigantic systemic meltdown" is underway and would be hard to halt. He also expresses that we are currently in an era worse than the 1930s, marked by wars, riots, droughts, food shortages, and market crashes. Dohmen further advises people to email their Congress representatives to oppose detrimental legislation. Watch the video to delve deeper into his insights and learn how you can be prepared for the unfolding uncertainties."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "How Safe Is It To Fly?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 2/6/24

"How Safe Is It To Fly?"

"We just heard that Boeing is starting to inspect planes that are being built and now they’re finding problems with planes that haven’t even been delivered yet. Is this a product that should be flying? Would you hop on a Boeing plane? Plus there’s a lot to cover in the economy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "A Very Disappointing Trip To Meijer! This Was Frustrating!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 2/6/24

"A Very Disappointing Trip To Meijer!

 This Was Frustrating!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are seeing some frustrating prices. This was disappointing as we came here expecting to find some great deals leading up to next weekends big game, but found nothing really worth it. We also continue to see price increases on groceries, which is making it very difficult for families to put food on the table."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell, 2/6/24

"Russian Typical (Discount) Supermarket: 

Could You Shop Here?

"Join me for a tour of a Russian discount supermarket. Chesnok is a Russian owned discount supermarket chain with everyday low prices. Could you shop in store like this?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Alert: Poland Braced For Russian Strike!"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 2/5/24

"Alert: Poland Braced For Russian Strike! 

Russia Claims NATO Downed Plane! Britain Rapidly Arming!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Dolmen Ridge"

Gnomusy, "Dolmen Ridge"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though. 

Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars. Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210402.html

"Remember..."

"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.

That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand."

- Emily Kimbrough

Epic Economist, "China Is On The Brink Of It’s Biggest Collapse In History"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 2/5/24

"China Is On The Brink Of It’s Biggest Collapse In History"

"Explore the depths of China's economic crisis as we unravel the layers of its spiraling debt and deflation. From Mao Zedong's controversial economic model to Deng Xiaoping's transformative reforms, journey through the milestones of China's economic history. Delve into the current challenges, including declining consumer confidence, President Xi Jinping's impactful policies, and a staggering real estate collapse."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Something Is Wrong In America"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/5/24

"Something Is Wrong In America; 

The Housing Market Can't Be Saved; Don't buy A House Today"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Thanks for stopping by!

"Still, Sometimes..."

“The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug, until we can’t anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant: That knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.”

- “Meredith”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

"On The Meridian Of Time..."

“On the meridian of time there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama. If at any moment anywhere one comes face to face with the absolute, that great sympathy which makes men like Gautama and Jesus seem divine freezes away; the monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.”

- Henry Miller

o

“In the time of your life, live - so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

In the time of your life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

- William Saroyan,

"The Time of Your Life" (1939)

Free Download: Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”

"In the myth, Sisyphus (Σίσυφος), wayward king of a Greek city-state, antagonized the Gods something fierce by not acting right. Basically, he killed some people he wasn’t supposed to kill and had sex he shouldn’t have, etc. The details don’t matter; his transgressions aren’t the point of the story. What the point of the story is that, as punishment, they cursed him to an eternity of repeating the same task, over and over, only to have his work, each time he completed it, rendered moot.

Via GreekMythology.com: “Zeus, fed up with Sisyphus' tricks and cunning as well as his hubris - believing he was more cunning than Zeus - punished him to eternally push a boulder uphill. However, as soon as he would reach the top of the hill, the boulder, like a rolling stone, would roll off and Sisyphus had to push it back again. This daunting task, symbolizing the endless rolling of stones, represents the futile yet persistent endeavors that define the human spirit. This myth later inspired French philosopher Albert Camus, who saw Sisyphus' unyielding labor as a metaphor for the human struggle against the absurdity of life, a cornerstone concept in existentialist philosophy.”

Via Britannica: “Influenced by the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus argues that life is essentially meaningless, although humans continue to try to impose order on existence and to look for answers to unanswerable questions. Camus uses the Greek legend of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods for eternity to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top, as a metaphor for the individual’s persistent struggle against the essential absurdity of life. According to Camus, the first step an individual must take is to accept the fact of this absurdity. If, as for Sisyphus, suicide is not a possible response, the only alternative is to rebel by rejoicing in the act of rolling the boulder up the hill. Camus further argues that with the joyful acceptance of the struggle against defeat, the individual gains definition and identity.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

“A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus on Our Search for

Meaning and Why Happiness Is Our Moral Obligation”

by Maria Popova

“To decide whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy,” Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) wrote in his 119-page philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” in 1942. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. Everything else… is child’s play; we must first of all answer the question.”

One of the most famous opening lines of the twentieth century captures one of humanity’s most enduring philosophical challenges – the impulse at the heart of Seneca’s meditations on life and Montaigne’s timeless essays and Maya Angelou’s reflections, and a wealth of human inquiry in between. But Camus, the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature after Rudyard Kipling, addressed it with unparalleled courage of conviction and insight into the irreconcilable longings of the human spirit.

In the beautifully titled and beautifully written “A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning” (public library), historian Robert Zaretsky considers Camus’s lifelong quest to shed light on the absurd condition, his “yearning for a meaning or a unity to our lives,” and its timeless yet increasingly timely legacy: If the question abides, it is because it is more than a matter of historical or biographical interest. Our pursuit of meaning, and the consequences should we come up empty-handed, are matters of eternal immediacy.

Camus pursues the perennial prey of philosophy – the questions of who we are, where and whether we can find meaning, and what we can truly know about ourselves and the world – less with the intention of capturing them than continuing the chase.”

Reflecting on the parallels between Camus and Montaigne, Zaretsky finds in this ongoing chase one crucial difference of dispositions: “Camus achieves with the Myth what the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty claimed for Montaigne’s Essays: it places “a consciousness astonished at itself at the core of human existence.”

For Camus, however, this astonishment results from our confrontation with a world that refuses to surrender meaning. It occurs when our need for meaning shatters against the indifference, immovable and absolute, of the world. As a result, absurdity is not an autonomous state; it does not exist in the world, but is instead exhaled from the abyss that divides us from a mute world.”

Camus himself captured this with extraordinary elegance when he wrote in “The Myth of Sisyphus”: “This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them together.”

To discern these echoes amid the silence of the world, Zaretsky suggests, was at the heart of Camus’s tussle with the absurd: “We must not cease in our exploration, Camus affirms, if only to hear more sharply the silence of the world. In effect, silence sounds out when human beings enter the equation. If “silences must make themselves heard,” it is because those who can hear inevitably demand it. And if the silence persists, where are we to find meaning?”

This search for meaning was not only the lens through which Camus examined every dimension of life, from the existential to the immediate, but also what he saw as our greatest source of agency. In one particularly prescient diary entry from November of 1940, as WWII was gathering momentum, he writes: “Understand this: we can despair of the meaning of life in general, but not of the particular forms that it takes; we can despair of existence, for we have no power over it, but not of history, where the individual can do everything. It is individuals who are killing us today. Why should not individuals manage to give the world peace? We must simply begin without thinking of such grandiose aims.”

For Camus, the question of meaning was closely related to that of happiness - something he explored with great insight in his notebooks. Zaretsky writes: “Camus observed that absurdity might ambush us on a street corner or a sun-blasted beach. But so, too, do beauty and the happiness that attends it. All too often, we know we are happy only when we no longer are.”

Perhaps most importantly, Camus issued a clarion call of dissent in a culture that often conflates happiness with laziness and championed the idea that happiness is nothing less than a moral obligation. A few months before his death, Camus appeared on the TV show Gros Plan. Dressed in a trench coat, he flashed his mischievous boyish smile and proclaimed into the camera: “Today, happiness has become an eccentric activity. The proof is that we tend to hide from others when we practice it. As far as I’m concerned, I tend to think that one needs to be strong and happy in order to help those who are unfortunate.”

This wasn’t a case of Camus arriving at some mythic epiphany in his old age – the cultivation of happiness and the eradication of its obstacles was his most persistent lens on meaning. More than two decades earlier, he had contemplated “the demand for happiness and the patient quest for it” in his journal, capturing with elegant simplicity the essence of the meaningful life – an ability to live with presence despite the knowledge that we are impermanent: ”We must” be happy with our friends, in harmony with the world, and earn our happiness by following a path which nevertheless leads to death.”

But his most piercing point integrates the questions of happiness and meaning into the eternal quest to find ourselves and live our truth: ”It is not so easy to become what one is, to rediscover one’s deepest measure.”

- https://www.brainpickings.org/

o

Freely download “The Myth of Sisyphus,” by Albert Camus, here:

- http://www2.hawaii.edu/