John Wilder, "Memorial Day, 2024"

AA gun at Corregidor

"Memorial Day, 2024"

by John Wilder

“If words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice.”

- Ronald Reagan

This was originally written in 2023. It says what I want to say in 2024.

"Last year when The Mrs. was putting flowers on the graves of her relatives, my job was to drive the car while she located the locations. It was her first year when she actively did that for all of her relatives. Her mother had done that previously, but since my mother-in-law passed, that duty of remembering the family had fallen to The Mrs.

I saw one gravesite in particular, and I decided to research it. It stuck out, because it was the grave of a United States Army officer who died in May of 1942. I was curious. Thankfully, there was at least some information about this officer online. He had been born elsewhere, but went to high school here in Modern Mayberry. His particulars weren’t all that unusual for a young man in the 1930s: he loved baseball, he graduated, went to college, got a degree, got a job, and got married.

While in college, he was in ROTC, so he graduated as a 1st Lieutenant in the Army Reserve. I think even in the mid-1930s people could see the writing on the wall that there was the real possibility of war, so I imagine a core group of people with officer training was just what they wanted on the shelf.

His life was, I imagine, the same as millions of lives in that quasi-Depressionary era. He and his wife welcomed a baby into the world 1940, but by early 1941 the young officer had been drafted back into the Army. He was sent, half a world away, to Manila. I’m sure he told his wife as they shipped him off that his job, thankfully, was to be in the rear with the gear. It would be other people that would really be in the crosshairs of the enemy. Besides, it would be crazy of the Japanese to make a strike at Manilla. That would mean war!

He was at the airfield in Manilla on December 8, 1941, when the Japanese attacked. The planes he was supposed to serve hadn’t arrived. The troops that were supposed to protect the airfield hadn’t arrived. Yet his Company had. On Christmas Eve, 1941, his group was given the task of demolishing the airstrip and leaving nothing the Japanese could make use of. This is generally not a good sign.

Then, every man in his Company was given a rifle and told they were now members of the Provisional Air Corps Infantry. This is an even worse sign.

Our young officer and his troops were then ordered to join the defense of Bataan. Bataan is a peninsula that forms the northern part of the entrance to Manila Harbor. To really control Manila and use it as a base, you have to control Bataan. The original allied plans had called for falling back to Bataan and holding out, but MacArthur had thought that defeatist, and planned on a more active defense.

When the Japanese attacked, there weren’t enough supplies for MacArthur’s plan, so they fell back to Bataan, where there also weren’t enough supplies for the defense of Bataan because they stopped shipping those because MacArthur had changed his mind.

The Japanese general who would later be fired because it took him too long to defeat the combined American-Filipino army at Bataan also noted that the Americans had numerical superiority, and in his opinion, could have retaken Manila. I’m not sure that going through this exercise made me think more highly of MacArthur...

If you’re not familiar with the Battle of Bataan, it took over three months, and ended up the largest U.S. Army surrender since the Civil War. Over 76,000 troops were captured. To my knowledge, there is no written record of the Provisional Air Corps Infantry during the Battle of Bataan, though there is a record that on March 4, the 1st Lieutenant was promoted to Captain, just before MacArthur high-tailed it out of the Philippines to safety in Australia.

The troops at Bataan were officially surrendered on April 9, 1942. But in this case, the Provisional Air Corps Infantry was not part of the surrender, and was ordered to the island of Corregidor. Over 20% of the men of the Company had already been lost.

Corregidor was an island that resembled a battleship – at the time of the Japanese invasion, it was bristling with coastal defense guns, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, and minefields. Now that Bataan was taken, the last thing required to control Manilla Bay was that the island forts fall. Corregidor was, by far, the biggest of these.

The Navy ran the guns, but the defense of the beach was the responsibility of the 4th Marine Regiment, along with a ragtag group of other orphan units, including at least one Company from the Provisional Air Corps Infantry and a young Captain from Modern Mayberry, who were sent into the foxholes with the Marines to guard the beaches since they had combat experience from Bataan.

Sometime in early May, the young Captain was in one of those foxholes with several Marines, and a Japanese artillery shell hit, killing them all. Even the very date this happened isn’t clear, and his family wouldn’t even hear of his death until a year later.

I don’t know what this young officer from Modern Mayberry did during his time in battle on Bataan and Corregidor – it’s nearly certain that no one alive does. His wife later remarried, half a decade after finding out her husband was dead. His son still bears the name of a father he never knew, if he’s still living.

There is a white cross in a field in Manilla, surrounded by green grass that is regularly cut, where it is said, his body lies. The marker here in Modern Mayberry is only for remembrance, to let people like me know he lived.

And, I saw it, and learned his story, and every year around this time, I tell a few people from Modern Mayberry who haven’t heard about him. The Mrs. plans to put some flowers out for him, but even if she doesn’t, I’ll spend some time thinking about him."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

Bill Bonner, "Revelation"

"Death on a Pale Horse" by Benjamin West

"Revelation"

by Bill Bonner

Dublin, Ireland - "Today is Memorial Day in America. It’s a holiday established during the Civil War to honor those who have died in military service to their country. We’ve written an entire book honoring The Idea of America. But today, we’ll leave that idea aside.

For the benefit of new readers, and ourselves, we reveal our creed…as succinctly as possible. There are dots to connect, between politics and markets. And while our beat is money, we live in a political age. We can’t ignore it.

The best we can do is try and see the big picture. That’s what we do in this musings every day at Bonner Private Research. And then, behind the curtain, for our paying subscribers, we try to give them the specific investment advice they need, first to avoid ‘The Big Loss’ and second, to make a respectable profit (more on that later from Dan).

Hidden Patterns: We believe there are patterns to just about everything. There is a deep and powerful Gulf Stream, for example; it takes warm water from the Gulf of Mexico, carries it across the North Atlantic, and makes Northern Europe habitable. But looking only at the surface waves, you wouldn’t see it.

Likewise, you can’t tell much from the day-to-day market action. But there are still hidden trends. The most important of them is what we call the Primary Trend. It marks the basic direction of prices, often for many decades.

We also think that stories have ‘morals’ – lessons, distilled from generations of experience – that are found in popular sayings, novels, the Bible, and “old wives’ tales.” Rarely are they revealed by economic theory or financial analysis.

Wealth is created by people who produce goods and services for each other. Anything the government does to interfere with this commerce reduces the total material satisfaction of the public. But wait! We recognize that material satisfaction – as in, having more wealth – is not the only motivation driving humans. Sometimes, they seem to want nothing more than to make damn fools of themselves. (The Salem Witch Trials, Napoleon’s March on Moscow, WWI, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, War on Terror etc.)

From an economic perspective, government is fundamentally a win-lose, coercive enterprise. Its many rules, regulations, taxes, debt, spending, and unnecessary wars reduce the output of goods and services that we regard as ‘prosperity.’ That’s why dynamic, productive capitalism and Big Government are largely incompatible. It takes a small government to produce big economic gains.

Curiously, government also tends to exaggerate the Primary Trend – though not intentionally. It manipulates interest rates down, for example, and makes the upswing of asset prices more powerful than ever (1980-2021). And/or it hampers needed market adjustments, thereby making the downswing worse (the Great Depression.)

The Knowledge Problem: A fundamental part of our analysis is that the world of money doesn’t work the way you think it does. The Fed cannot actually know what interest rates America needs, for example. Nor can it know what ‘full employment’ or ‘full capacity’ for the US economy is. We also think that Wall Street seriously and episodically misprices assets as investors get caught up in fads and the ‘madness of crowds.’

We further believe that the switch to a gold-free dollar in 1971 was a mistake. It made it much easier to diddle the value of the world’s reserve currency and thereby allowed and promoted large distortions throughout the global financial system. Today, for example, great swings in stock prices occur following comments by Fed officials, even though they are unlikely to affect the real value of the underlying companies.

In short, most of what you hear from economists, Wall Street or the government is likely to be BS. And generally, the more economists, Big Banks, or politicians are involved, the less productive the economy. For example, the Soviet Union had so much government control that its economy was extremely inefficient, causing its elite to abandon it entirely.

Get the Big Trend Right: The trick to successful wealth-building is to get on the right side of the major trend…and stay there. This has been the basis for each Trade of the Decade we’ve made since 2000. It’s worked each time. And in fact it’s working now, as we’re ‘long’ oil and gas and, essentially ‘short’ the US dollar, the ‘Net Zero’ crowd, and the whole idea of ‘The Energy Transition.’

For investors, every study shows that asset allocation (being in the right place at the right time) is more effective than specific investment selection. It could be stocks for one decade. Bonds the next. Or, cash, gold, and commodities. Getting the mix right has a much larger impact on your portfolio results than a single stock selection. That’s why, when we set up shop in 2021, our first report to readers was on what this mix should be. We’ve been reviewing and updating for our readers every month since.

What the Primary Trend says Now: The place to be for the last Primary Trend was in the US stock market. The Dow rose from under 1,000 in 1980 to over 36,000 in 2021. That Primary Trend came to an end as two tops were hit. First, bond prices topped out in July 2020 with the US benchmark 10-year note yielding 0.59% (bond prices vary inversely with yields.)

Then, in December 2021, when US stocks hit a high of 36,388, the ‘top was in,’ as they say on Wall Street. Note that while the Dow has subsequently gone up, it has still not surpassed its high – in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Nor has it gone up when priced in gold, which is how we prefer to measure our gains. Gold doesn’t lie.

If we are right about the new Primary Trend, the simplest thing for an investor to do now is simply take cover. We are in “maximum safety mode” – emphasizing cash and gold over stocks and bonds.

Most of our subscribers are over 55 years old. At that age, losing money is a bigger threat than failing to make more of it. A younger person may take a loss, learn from it, and then recover the money…and more. But over 55, it becomes more and more difficult. You just don’t have the time to recoup a major loss. So, our program is designed primarily to avoid the Big Loss while still participating, safely and prudently, in market gains. In short, we buy stocks when they are cheap. We sell them when they are expensive.

Using the Dow/Gold Ratio:

How do you know when stocks are too cheap or too expensive? We use a very simple model based on gold. Ultimately, gold has proven the safest, surest way to inventory wealth over the last 3,000 years. So, we look to the price of stocks – in gold terms – to tell when they are really cheap or expensive. And since we never know for sure, we allow for a generous ‘margin of error’ to keep us from taking the “big loss.”

Briefly, when you can buy the entire 30 Dow stocks for 5 ounces of gold, or less, it is time sell gold and buy stocks. When the price goes over 15 ounces of gold, it is time to go in the opposite direction; sell stocks and buy gold. Currently, with the Dow/gold ratio at about 17, our recommendation is to keep the bulk of your wealth in cash or gold, while holding only a few stocks that you believe are fairly priced. We’ll stick with that position until the ratio falls to 5 or below.

The last Primary Trend was set in motion when Paul Volcker quashed inflation and saved the post-1971 money system. Thereafter, the feds amplified and extended the trend by dropping interest rates too low and keeping them there – below zero, inflation-adjusted – for far too long.

Our intuition tells us that they will amplify the current Primary Trend too – towards lower asset prices and higher inflation and interest rates – by running large budget deficits, involving the US in unnecessary wars, undermining the US dollar with sanctions and seizures, and draining more and more capital out of real investment and squandering it on government boondoggles.

The point will come soon enough, however, when rising interest rates trigger a panic flight from the bond market, driving up the government’s cost of borrowed funds to impossible levels. That is when the ‘inflate or die’ trap snaps shut. Then, the government will be forced to choose: either ‘print’ more money or let the debt-drenched bubble economy die.

A Mountain of Debt: The effect of the government’s ultra-low interest rate policy prior to 2022 was to create a mountain of debt. Worldwide, that debt has reached beyond $300 trillion. US government debt alone is nearly $35 trillion, while total US debt – government, business and household – now approaches $100 trillion, or nearly 4 times GDP.

This is more debt than can be carried or managed in a high interest rate environment. Paul Volcker pushed the fed funds rate to 20% to stifle inflation in the 1970s. That is no longer possible. Even a 10% rate would fall upon the financial markets like a hammer on an egg.

But the government has only two choices. Inflate or Die. Either it continues to inflate (with low real rates and high deficits). Or, it radically cuts spending – triggering major bankruptcies, defaults and a depression…effectively killing the bubble economy that its ultra-low rates created.

What Next? We think we know which direction it will go. You see, great empires follow patterns too. They rise. They fall. Every one of them. In 1992, the US had the chance of a lifetime. The Soviet Union disbanded. Oligarchs took over and began selling raw materials, in bulk, at low prices. The Chinese, meanwhile, had already decided to take the ‘capitalist road.’ By the 1990s, they were lowering costs on finished products.

Its enemies out of the way…its consumer costs falling…the US could have cut it's military budget (a ‘peace dividend’) and used the money to shore up its domestic industries and infrastructure.

Instead, it invaded Iraq. And went to war in Afghanistan. And then, supported wars in the Ukraine and Gaza. Its military budget exploded to the upside. Its reputation slid to the downside. And its debt soared – adding $25 trillion, so far, in the 21st century.

We believe this failure will prove fatal to the empire. It will exaggerate the now-in-motion Primary Trend and send asset prices to shockingly low levels (in real terms.) This financial failure, combined with the social and political chaos it brings, risks creating a major debacle. With elections in both the UK and the US coming up, you might think things will change. Unlikely.

Instead, we advise you to buckle up. Get on the right side of the Primary Trend. Learn to look at market prices in real terms, not fake terms. And surround yourself with friends who will see the world for what it is...and figure out how to navigate it together. Stay tuned."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Collinsville, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Quantitative Brainwashing"

"Quantitative Brainwashing"

by Jeff Thomas

"We’re all familiar with the term, "quantitative easing." It’s described as meaning, "A monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply." Well, that sounds reasonable… even beneficial. But, unfortunately, that’s not really the whole story.

When QE was implemented, the purchasing power was weak and both government and personal debt had become so great that further borrowing would not solve the problem; it would only postpone it and, in the end, exacerbate it. Effectively, QE is not a solution to an economic problem, it’s a bonus of epic proportions, given to banks by governments, at the expense of the taxpayer.

But, of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that governments have passed off a massive redistribution of wealth from the taxpayer to their pals in the banking sector with such clever terms. Governments of today have become extremely adept at creating euphemisms for their misdeeds in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the populace. At this point, we cannot turn on the daily news without being fed a full meal of carefully- worded mumbo jumbo, designed to further overwhelm whatever small voices of truth may be out there.

Let’s put this in perspective for a moment. For millennia, political leaders have been in the practice of altering, confusing and even obliterating the truth, when possible. And it’s probably safe to say that, for as long as there have been media, there have been political leaders doing their best to control them.

During times of war, political leaders have serially restricted the media from simply telling the truth. During the American civil war, President Lincoln shut down some 300 newspapers and arrested some 14,000 journalists who had the audacity to contradict his statements to the public. As extreme as that may sound, this practice has been more the rule in history than the exception.

In most countries, in most eras, some publications go against the official story line and may very well pay a price for doing so. But, other publications go along with the official story line to a greater or lesser degree and are often rewarded for doing so. It should come as no surprise, then, that media outlets often come to report the news in a less than accurate manner. Mark Twain is claimed to have said, "If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed." Quite so.

Still, only fifty years ago, much of the then "Free World" enjoyed a relatively objective Press. Even on television, reporters such as Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc. presented the news in a bland manner. It wasn’t very exciting, but at least it was relatively balanced and, to this day, most people who were around then still have no idea as to whether reporters like Walter Cronkite were liberal or conservative. Although he was a committed Democrat, he never allowed that to significantly color his reporting.

But today, we have a very different corporate structure as regards the media. The same six corporations hold the controlling interest of over 80% of the media. And those same corporations also own a controlling interest in the military industrial complex, Wall Street, the major banks, Big Pharma, etc. What we’re witnessing today is media having been transformed into something more akin to a three-ring circus than journalism of old. This is no accident. The present travesty that is the 21st century media, is journalism in name only.

So, why should this be so? Well, as it happens, people tend not to like governments dominating their lives – simple as that. And yet, the primary objective of any government is to increase its size and power as rapidly as the populace will tolerate it. The only reason that they rarely do this quickly, is that they can’t get away with it. Like boiling a frog, it takes time to lull the populace into submission, bit by bit.

Once having had enough time to do so, there comes a point at which the government becomes woefully top-heavy, as well as unworkably autocratic. At such times, all that’s necessary to make people rebel is an economic crisis. Such is the case in much of the world today – the EU, the US, Canada, etc.. Even in their arrogance, the powers that be have to be aware that they’re right at the tipping point. An economic crisis would almost certainly push the situation over the edge.

When truth threatens to undermine machinations for self-aggrandizement, individuals tend to obfuscate in order to delay the inevitable fallout. Governments are no different. So it was that, in 1999, the largest banks entered into a massive lending scam that would most certainly collapse within a decade. However, before putting the scam in place, they arranged for a "bailout" by the government, which would effectively pass the bill to the taxpayer, while the banks themselves simply increased their own wealth massively.

Of course, QE, as massive as it was, was a mere Band-Aid solution. All those involved (big business and the government) understood that it would hang like a sword of Damocles over the economy until it inevitably came crashing down – a fate far worse than if QE had never been implemented.

And so, for those entities to have invested into the domination of the media was, in fact, essential. Had they not done so, it’s entirely likely that, with a free press, the man on the street would, by now, have figured out that he’d been hoodwinked. Thus do we see the journalistic equivalent of Quantitative Brainwashing, in which the inevitable realization is delayed for as long as possible. And, in order to make sure that the public do not figure out what’s been done to them, the news reporting becomes Orwellian in its endless repetition of a false narrative.

It is, however, true that, "You can’t fool all of the people all of the time." Eventually, the Band-Aid peels back to reveal an infection that’s far beyond what had been generally perceived. It then falls away in layers, as increasing numbers of people become aware that they’ve been scammed – that the media is entirely corrupt and that the media’s owners – big business - have, with the enthusiastic compliance of the government, robbed them on a wholesale basis. Historically, that’s when the jig is up. What happens then is a matter of historic record."

- https://internationalman.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "They Keep Losing Money"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 5/27/24

"They Keep Losing Money"

"The mortgage industry is losing money handover fist. Plus, there are a lot of people 

still in forbearance, and commercial real estate is a week away from the crash starting."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Our Alaric Moment"

"Our Alaric Moment"

by The ZMan

"If you were living in the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century you probably knew that things were not going well. This assumes that you were prosperous enough to have time to think about these things. You could see that the infrastructure was failing and that the empire was struggling to maintain order. On the other hand, the decline had been happening for a long time so things may have seemed normal. Without some way to compare the present to the past, you only have instinct.

Today we have mountains of facts and figures to tell us how things are doing in the Global American Empire. There was a time not so long ago when these facts and figures made up the bulk of news coverage. Economists became court wizards, explaining the latest unemployment figures or trade numbers. They were also called upon to bless whatever polices were being debated in Congress. In the Obama years, economic data was the way we measured the glories of the empire.

That has all changed now. One reason is no one in their right mind takes anything the government says at face value. People had grown used to the way the media biased the numbers depending upon who was in office, but the mortgage crisis cratered the public’s confidence in the numbers themselves. If all of the court wizards explaining the numbers could not see the mortgage fiasco coming, then why should anyone believe them about unemployment or inflation?

Then you have the general lying that has become a feature of government. The lying about Covid not only disgraced the medical profession, but it finished off whatever trust people had in the official numbers. If the government lies about how many people are dying from Covid just to move more product for the drug makers, the government will lie about how many people are working or the inflation numbers. No one trusts the numbers because no one trusts the people issuing the numbers.

The point here is we cannot trust the numbers if the numbers have no relationship to anything we have experienced. When the end of the world has the same numbers as what most consider to be a golden era for the empire, those numbers cease to have any meaning to us. Throw in the fact that most people do not feel like they are richer than their ancestors and those inflated stock figures carry even less weight. We are left to rely on our instincts to judge things.

Of course, our sense of things, that gut feeling, is the result of a many small things that we experience every day. Three-quarters of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction because they go to the grocery store every week. They see that despite the crowing about inflation coming down lies, food remains expensive. They see every day that gives people a sense of things.

Think about something simple like a pint of premium ice cream. A few years ago, a pint was sixteen ounces. “A pint is a pint the world around” was true from peak of the British empire until just a few years ago. Now a pint is fourteen ounces. The price for the new pint is not the same as the old pint. The price is more than the old pint. A few years ago, the old pint of ice cream was five dollars. That is about 31¢ per ounce. Today the new pint is over seven dollars or 51¢ per ounce.

That is a seventy percent change in the price. This is one example and probably not a representative one, given that butterfat prices drive dairy prices. Even so, this is something people see all over the marketplace. Shrinkflation is a word because it is a thing that exists. People notice that the containers are getting smaller, or they are getting less full in the case of things like snacks. Meanwhile, prices go up. This subtly tells people that something is going wrong.

This is probably why we are no longer getting a parade of court wizards analyzing the latest economic numbers. According to the numbers, Joe Biden should be dozing into reelection with an insurmountable lead, as his court wizards flood the airwaves with the good news about the economy. Instead, no one talks about the numbers and Biden is as popular as rectal cancer. It is possible he could lose the election to a man sitting in prison or be deposed by the secret police.

This brings us back to where we started. There were those in the Roman Empire who sensed the true state of affairs. No doubt some of them lived and died expecting things to fall apart, only to stagger on long past their time. Then there were others who internalized this reality and just accepted that no matter how grim things might appear, the empire was a permanent feature of life. The people probably just tried to make the best of things, even as they noticed the decline.

All of that changed on August 24, 410 AD when Alaric led the Visigoths into the eternal city, sacking Rome and setting off the collapse of the Western empire. The empire staggered on for a bit longer, but it was over at that point. All of those bad signs people had sensed probably seemed obvious in retrospect. Even so, the sack of Rome by the Visigoths was a shock to the world. The signs seemed obvious, but people still thought that the imperial order was permanent.

This is most likely the fate of the American empire. There are lots of signs that things are going poorly for the empire. Getting whipped by a collection of bronze age goatherds in the graveyard of empires should have been a wakeup call, but the empire is now picking fights with Russia and China. Meanwhile things deteriorate domestically, both economically and culturally. Yet, we stagger on, but somewhere out there is an Alaric moment just waiting to happen."

- https://thezman.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"‘I Cry Quietly’: A Soldier Describes the Toll of Russia’s War"

Full screen recommended.

"‘I Cry Quietly’: 

A Soldier Describes the Toll of Russia’s War"

"For Valentyn, a Ukrainian soldier in the Donetsk region, the war’s death toll is more than a statistic. He is tasked with moving wounded troops - and dead bodies - away from the front lines, often under Russian fire."

"Under Russian Fire, 

A Ukrainian Soldier Evacuates the Wounded"

By Yousur Al-Hlou and Masha Froliak

Near Kremmina, Ukraine - "The sound of artillery launching and landing along the front line punctures the stillness of the forest just a few miles away, where combat medics are waiting to receive the wounded. On the horizon, a military vehicle moves along a dusty road and screeches to a halt when it reaches the trees. A soldier named Valentyn parks it there for natural camouflage from Russian drones scouting for Ukrainian military positions.

A group of soldiers, visibly shaken, quickly unloads three bodies that have just been recovered from the front line, placing each one into a plastic body bag and zipping it closed. Their position was shelled and then attacked by a drone, they say. “They’re shooting at you from all sides. You turn, you run, they hit you, and it’s impossible to get away,” said Maksym, who survived the attack. “This is a big tragedy for us.” “One more body is left behind with the Russian soldiers,” he added.

While much of the world’s attention was fixated on the bloody urban battle taking place in Bakhmut, Russia’s campaign in eastern Ukraine is also raging in forests and fields about 50 miles north of the city, near Kreminna. Here, soldiers take positions in trenches surrounded by tall, slim trees, crouching to avoid the direct line of sight of their Russian enemies. “People say it’s harsh in Bakhmut,” said Valentyn, who joined the army seven months ago. “But it’s harsh here, too.”

For the past month, Valentyn has been stationed at this evacuation point, traveling back and forth to the front line almost daily to rescue wounded soldiers and recover the dead. His job requires him to drive directly toward Russian forces, and he has come under fire at times. “There is nothing good about it,” Valentyn said. “What is this war for?”

Ukrainian and Russian military officials have been reluctant to release data on casualties within their ranks, though the U.S. government and military experts estimate that both sides have suffered significant losses in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

For Valentyn, the work of responding to the casualties has been both grim and relentless. “There is blood everywhere,” he said, while cleaning it from his vehicle. “It has a smell. Especially fresh blood.” Bright red liquid trickled through his fingers as he rinsed out a bloodied cloth. He drained the cloth and used it again to wipe off the back seat. “It’s difficult to see young boys die,” Valentyn said. “Sometimes I cry quietly.”

In calmer moments when there is no one to evacuate, Valentyn travels deep into the forest to transport soldiers to and from the contact line, where Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are sometimes positioned just hundreds of meters apart. He said at least one group of soldiers couldn’t make it to their position because Russian troops had already taken it over.

“Every day is scary here,” said Viktor, a soldier who returned with Valentyn. “I feel constant anxiety, for our country and our lives.” His stoic face reflected the fear and horror known only to those who had witnessed the fight in the forest. “Those who haven’t been there will never understand.”

- https://www.nytimes.com/

Don't you dare look away! You, and me and all of us have paid at least $150 billion for this nightmare! The blood of 600,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers he's cleaning up is on all our hands, too...

Dwight D. Eisenhower, "The Chance for Peace Speech"

"The Chance for Peace Speech"

by Dwight D. Eisenhower

Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 

delivered 16 April 1953, Statler Hotel, Washington, D.C.

Full speech here:

- https://www.americanrhetoric.com/

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, 

only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"On Memorial Day, Dulce et Decorum Est"

"On Memorial Day"

by Matt Taibbi

"As a boy I read Wilfred Owen’s famous poem about World War I, describing the suffering of young men sent by industrial powers to die in clouds of poison gas. It’s a warning: if you saw what Owen did, and your nights were tormented by visions of blood and death, “You would not tell with such high zest, to children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”

Owen was killed in November 1918, a week before the Armistice. In his poems you read a soldier’s hope that boys like me would read them before they became old enough to want to prove themselves in combat. God didn’t design us to be killers, he said, noting we aren’t born with claws or talons, and a boy’s teeth are more suited for “laughing round an apple.” I know that’s true of my children, who’ll be taught to remember soldiers like Owen today."

o

"Dulce et Decorum Est"

by Wilfred Owen

"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: 

"Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori."

Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: 

“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Free Download: Erich Maria Remarque, “All Quiet on the Western Front”,

Ask her if it was worth it...

o

“You still think it's beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment

taught us better. When it comes to dying for country, it's better not to die at all.”

“We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill.”

- "Paul Baumer", "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)

Freely download “All Quiet on the Western Front”, by Erich Maria Remarque, here:

- http://explainallquietonthewesternfront.weebly.com/

o

Memorial Day 2024

 

Canadian Prepper, "Breaking! Another Russian Nuclear Radar Hit; Emergency Meetings Underway; WW3 Warning From Serbia"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 5/26/24

"Breaking! Another Russian Nuclear Radar Hit;

 Emergency Meetings Underway; WW3 Warning From Serbia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "R.I.P. Dollar Stores; Car Max Is Maxxed Out; Hollywood Has Fallen"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 5/26/24

"R.I.P. Dollar Stores; Car Max Is Maxxed Out; 

Hollywood Has Fallen"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "A Great Day for Bad News"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 5/26/24

"A Great Day for Bad News"

"It’s a beautiful holiday weekend. But not all the 

news is good. It’s a very expensive Memorial Day."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Cycle of Time"; "Challenge From Heaven"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Cycle of Time"

o

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Challenge From Heaven"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"In the lower left corner, surrounded by blue spiral arms, is spiral galaxy M81. In the upper right corner, marked by red gas and dust clouds, is irregular galaxy M82. This stunning vista shows these two mammoth galaxies locked in gravitational combat, as they have been for the past billion years. The gravity from each galaxy dramatically affects the other during each hundred million-year pass.

Last go-round, M82's gravity likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in the richness of M81's spiral arms. But M81 left M82 with violent star forming regions and colliding gas clouds so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. This big battle is seen from Earth through the faint glow of an Integrated Flux Nebula, a little studied complex of diffuse gas and dust clouds in our Milky Way Galaxy. In a few billion years only one galaxy will remain."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160203.html

o

"When observing the stars, you should see them in another perspective. Take into account what they really are: the mothers of the atoms from which we are constituted, the atoms that constitute the mortal and thinking species that admire the sun as a god, a father or a nuclear power station. The particles that were composed at the beginning of the Universe, the atoms that were forged in the stars, the molecules that were constituted on Earth or in another place… all that is also inside us."

- Michel Cassé, French astro-physicist, "Desafio do Século XXI"

"America In 2024: Fast Food Is A 'Luxury', 11 Million Children Live In Poverty, And 1000s Of Stores Are Closing"

"America In 2024: Fast Food Is A 'Luxury', 

11 Million Children Live In Poverty, And 1000s Of Stores Are Closing"

By Michael Snyder

"Little by little, our standard of living has been eroding. A couple decades ago, we had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now most of the country is struggling. At this point, fast food is considered to be a “luxury”, 11 million children are living in poverty, and thousands of stores are permanently shutting down all over the United States because consumers have so little discretionary income these days. We are in the midst of a historic cost of living crisis, and those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest. The ultra-wealthy don’t really care that food costs have been soaring, but for those that are barely scraping by from month to month it makes an enormous difference.

Once upon a time, fast food restaurants were where those that were struggling went to eat. But now fast food is considered to be a “luxury” in 2024, and that is because fast food prices have gone absolutely haywire…"A Big Mac sandwich at McDonald’s, for example, cost $3.99 in 2019. Now, that price has more than doubled to $8.29, according to Fast Food Menu Prices, an online tracker.

Gone, too, are the days of the $5 Footlong at Subway. A BLT Footlong that cost $5.50 in 2019 now costs customers $8.49 in 2024, though prices can vary by location. Additionally, Chipotle’s beloved chicken burrito that cost $6.50 in 2019 now runs customers $10.70."

Fast-food executives have pointed to rising wages and increased costs for ingredients as factors driving up the prices on their menus. I am sitting here looking at those numbers and I still can’t wrap my head around them. I never imagined that I would see the day when it took more than 8 dollars to buy a Big Mac. That is insane!

A different survey that was recently conducted by Lending Tree discovered that almost 80 percent of all Americans believe that fast food is a “luxury item” now…"Nearly 80 percent of Americans now consider fast food to be a “luxury item” as families feel the squeeze from the Biden regime’s failing economy. According to a survey from Lending Tree of around 2,000 adults, what was once considered an affordable option for low-income workers is fast becoming the opposite."

Meanwhile, the number of American children living in poverty continues to increase with each passing day. If you can believe it, we are being told that over 11 million U.S. children are now living in poverty…"More than 11 million children were estimated to be living in poverty in 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau data published by the Children’s Defense Fund. That equates to around one in seven children in the U.S., or 15.3 percent. It’s a high toll, and one even higher than the adult population, which was 10.5 percent for 19-64 year olds that year and 10.3 percent for adults aged 65+.

According to an analysis by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, this difference is due to factors such as the “cost of caregiving and its responsibilities, transitions to a single parenthood household, unemployment of parents, and disabilities of family members.”

Today, approximately 40 percent of the entire country is considered to be either living in poverty or among the ranks of “the working poor”, and 42 million Americans are on food stamps. We now have an absolutely gigantic “underclass” that is largely made up of people that were once solidly middle class. The rapidly rising cost of living is just shredding families from coast to coast.

In Montana, one senior is incredibly frustrated because his property taxes have increased by 790 percent over the past several years…"A senior from Montana has delivered a viral speech about the sorry state of property taxes in the Treasure State. “I’m on Social Security, I’m 68-years-old and working just to pay my taxes,” says Kurt, in a clip shared on TikTok by Ryan Busse, who is running to be the next governor of Montana.

Kurt claims that over the last couple of years, his annual property taxes have soared from $895 to almost $8,000 - an increase of around 790% - which he says is like paying almost “$700 a month rent to the state to live in our own house.” The state has an Elderly Homeowner/Renter Tax Credit, and the maximum credit is $1,150. His property taxes have skyrocketed because property values have skyrocketed. And property values have skyrocketed because our leaders flooded the system with way too much money.

Small businesses are being monkey-hammered by inflation as well. In fact, one recent survey found that 86 percent of all U.S. small businesses say that they are being hurt by inflation…"An overwhelming majority of small business owners say they are being hurt by rising prices. The new survey released Wednesday by small business network Alignable shows 86% reporting being hurt by high costs with only 6% saying they are thriving and not struggling. Alignable surveyed more than 3,000 business owners from mid-April to mid-May and found that they overwhelmingly lament the burden of inflation."

Dollar stores in particular are being hit really hard by rising costs. For example, 99 Cents Only has decided to close all of their stores because conditions have changed so dramatically…"For years, dollar stores were a fixture in nearly every strip mall in California, offering cheap household goods, bread and produce, and even toys and gifts. But if it seems like your favorite dollar store is heading for the exit, you’re not wrong. 2024 may be their swan song.

In April, California-based 99 Cents Only announced it was closing all 371 locations after decades in business. The retailer blamed economic factors, including rising levels of “shrink,” inflation, and shifting consumer demand that has presented “significant and lasting challenges.”

Not to be outdone, Dollar Tree has announced that it will be closing about 1,000 stores…"Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, recently said it will close nearly 1,000 stores. That’s after Dollar Tree raised prices in the past couple of years for the first time in decades."

Overall, so far in 2024 retailers have already announced that they will be closing nearly 3,200 stores, and we haven’t even reached the mid-point of the year yet…"The retail industry is going through a tough time as it copes with inflation-weary consumers and a rash of bankruptcies, prompting chains to announce the closures of almost 3,200 brick-and-mortar stores so far in 2024, according to a new analysis. That’s a 24% increase from a year ago, according to a report from retail data provider CoreSight, which tracks store closures and openings across the U.S."

The final countdown for the U.S. economy has begun, but most Americans do not even realize what is happening.

Most Americans just assume that our leaders can fix things by printing even more money and that conditions will “return to normal” eventually. But the truth is that there isn’t going to be a “return to normal”, because this is about as “normal” as things are going to get. It has taken decades of horrendous decisions to get us to this point, and now we are steamrolling toward economic oblivion. If you think that our leaders in Washington will be able to turn this ship around, you are just being delusional."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Jersey, Jersey. Thanks for stopping by!

- https://www.hotels.com/go/england/

"The Cattle Crisis Will Trigger A Massive Price Increase For Meat This Summer As Production Collapses"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 5/26/24

"The Cattle Crisis Will Trigger A Massive Price Increase

 For Meat This Summer As Production Collapses"

"Ranchers are warning that our food systems are in great danger right now. Cattle production has plummeted to the lowest point in decades, and new diseases are rapidly spreading across U.S. beef cow herds, which is threatening our entire food supply chain. This is the sign for you to start stocking up on basic staples before things get any worse because cattle farmers are extremely concerned about the fate of our national beef industry. They believe more price hikes are coming for consumers, and shortages of meat and dairy are about to become more widespread in many regions of the country over the summer.

America is currently running low on cows, according to new numbers released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The figures show that nationwide beef cattle inventory dropped by 1 billion pounds to just 28.2 million cows this year – the lowest level since the 1970s. Even worse, total U.S. cattle and calf inventory plunged to its lowest point since 1951. Agricultural economists say drought over the last three years, along with higher input costs and persistent inflation, are adding a lot of pressure on both farmers and grocery retailers, and conditions will get much more complicated over the next three to six months. The end consumer will be the hardest hit, of course.

Meat and dairy prices, which already rose by 21% and 17%, respectively, since 2021, are going to face another spike right as the summer grilling season begins. Supplies will become harder to find too, according to ranchers. While demand for beef remains strong, they have serious doubt whether there's enough inventory to go around this year. Heatwaves, feed and water scarcity had a drastic impact on livestock farming in 2023, and the aftermath will be seen in the months ahead."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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"

"How It Really Is"

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either. It happens to be my view, but it doesn't challenge any of the findings of Darwin or Huxley or Einstein or Hawking.” - Christopher Hitchens

"Knowing..."

“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”

- Sue Monk Kidd

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

- Arundhati Roy, "The Cost of Living"

"All We Really Need..."

"Causes do matter. And the world is changed by people who care deeply about causes,about things that matter. We don't have to be particularly smart or talented. We don't need a lot of money or education. All we really need is to be passionate about something important; something bigger than ourselves. And it's that commitment to a worthwhile cause that changes the world." - Steve Goodier

"Find the things that matter, and hold on to them,

and fight for them, and refuse to let them go."

- Lauren Oliver

"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."

- Christopher Hitchens