"A Look to the Heavens"

"Finally It's here,the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe to date: Webb's First Deep Field. The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb's NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features.

This first image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies, including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared, have appeared in Webb's view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arms length by someone on the ground."

- https://www.youtube.com/c/Factnomenal

○

Full screen recommended.

"NASA Reveals More James Webb Space Telescope Images"

"Always..."

"Always stand up for what you believe in…

even if it means standing alone."

- Kim Hanks

"Iranian Intelligence Just Announced An Attack From Israel Is Imminent!"

Full screen recommended.

Tech Beat, 6/20/24

"Iranian Intelligence Just Announced 

An Attack From Israel Is Imminent!"

"Today, we will look at a significant and concerning development in international relations. Iranian intelligence has just announced that an attack by Israel is coming. This announcement has sent shockwaves across the global community, and we're here to help you understand the intricacies."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Israel's Army Admits Israel Cannot Win"

Full screen recommended.

Owen Jones, 6/20/24

"Israel's Army Admits Israel Cannot Win"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"War"

"War doesn't determine who is right - only who's left."

"Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims that 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20).] An unfavorable review of this estimate mentions the following regarding one of the proponents of this estimate: "In addition, perhaps feeling that the war casualties figure was improbably high, he changed 'approximately 3,640,000,000 human beings have been killed by war or the diseases produced by war' to 'approximately 1,240,000,000 human beings...&c.'" The lower figure is more plausible but could still be on the high side considering that the 100 deadliest acts of mass violence between 480 BC and 2002 AD (wars and other man-made disasters with at least 300,000 and up to 66 million victims) claimed about 455 million human lives in total."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

○

The Daily "Near You?"

Irwin, Pennsylvania, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"

"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Contrary to first impressions, I am not a doom-and-gloomer; I'm a systems-cycles-er, meaning I'm interested in where systems and cycles are heading. Cycles work because we're still running Wetware 1.0 which entered beta testing around 200,000 years ago and was released, bugs and all, around 50,000 years ago. Since the processes and inputs haven't changed, neither do the outputs.

Nature is a mix of dynamic, semi-chaotic systems (fractals, etc.) and cyclical patterns which tend to operate within predictable parameters. Why should human nature and human constructs (societies, economies and political realms) be any different?

So longterm success breeds complacency, hubris, economic and intellectual sclerosis, draining political infighting and the overproduction of parasitic elites, to use Peter Turchin's apt description. Consumption of resources expands to soak up every last bit of what's available and then the supply of goodies plummets for a multitude of completely natural and predictable reasons (sunspot/solar activity, El Nino, etc.) and a host of unpredictable but equally natural semi-chaotic extremes (100-year droughts, floods, etc.).

Wetware 1.0's go-to solutions to all such difficulties are rather limited:

1. Ramp up magical thinking. If a couple of human sacrifices ensured good harvests in the good old days, let's slaughter a couple hundred now - and if that doesn't work, then...

2. Do more of what's failed spectacularly and slaughter a couple thousand fellow humans, because darn it, maybe everything will turn around if we just kill another couple dozen. This requires ignoring the novelty of the current challenges and clinging to what worked so well in the past even as whatever worked in the past can't possibly work now because circumstances are fundamentally different.

3. Seek scapegoats. It's those darn witches. Burn a bunch of them and our troubles will magically disappear.

4. Go take what we need from some other tribe. What's our oil doing under their sand?

5. Consolidate power and wealth in the hands of elites whose failures exacerbated the crisis. Because the obvious solution (to the elites with cushy offices around the palaces and temples) to repeated failures of a leadership that only excels in one thing, squandering rapidly depleting resources on infighting and self-aggrandizement, is to give us all the remaining wealth and power. Hey, this makes perfect sense once you understand #2 above.

6. Demand sacrifices of the many to protect the privileges of the few. The Empire needs some warm bodies to fend off the Barbarians, because it would be a real shame if the Barbarians reached our palatial estates and disrupted the flow of wine and festivities. No worries when you come back on your shield; the bureaucracy will give you a decent burial and your spouse and kids can join the multitude of half-starved beggars waiting for the dwindling distributions of bread and circuses. But never mind that, did you hear about the upcoming games in the Coliseum? Good seats are going fast.

7. Eat your seed corn to keep the party going awhile longer. Not every human group had the luxury of borrowing "money" to keep the fast-unraveling party going awhile longer, so they consumed their seed corn and drained the last of their reserves--which is the same thing as borrowing "money" from a future with diminishing resources and productivity.

8. Maintain supreme confidence that "it will all work out fine because it's always worked out fine" without any sacrifice required of "those who count." What's forgotten is that the luxe greatness that is now teetering on the precipice of ruin was won by the sacrifices of the elites far exceeding the sacrifices of the many.

Back in the day, joining the elite and maintaining one's position required constant sacrifices on behalf of the common good, and strict adherence to public virtue. Now that's all forgotten, and all that remains are elites possessed by the demons of shameless greed and self-interest.

The idea that debt, leverage, speculation, greed, exploitation and parasitic elites can expand exponentially forever is magical thinking. Yet that is precisely what America and the rest of the global economic order insists is true and will always be true, forever and ever.

By all means, reject those horrid, awful doom-and-gloomers who look at systems and cycles. Everything will be fine as long as you secure seats for the next games at the Coliseum - they should be spectacular - but not in the way you expect."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"Grave Faults..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”

- Paulo Coelho

○

“Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.”

- "Michael Corleone"

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."

- John F. Kennedy

“9 Short Quotes That Changed My Life and Why”

“9 Short Quotes That Changed My Life and Why”

by Ryan Holiday

“Like a lot of people, I try to collect words to live by. Most of these words come from reading, but also from conversations, from teachers, and from everyday life. As Seneca, the philosopher and playwright, so eloquently put it: “We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application – not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech – and learn them so well that words become works.”

In my commonplace book, I keep these little sayings under the heading “Life.” That is, things that help me live better, more meaningfully, and with happiness and honesty. Below are 9 sayings, what they mean, and how they changed my life. Perhaps they will strike you and be of service. Hopefully the words might become works for you too.

“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”- Nassim Taleb. This little epigram from Nassim Taleb has been a driving force in my life. It fuels my writing, but mostly it has fueled difficult personal decisions. A few years ago, I was in the middle of a difficult personal situation in which my financial incentives were not necessarily aligned with the right thing. Speaking out would cost me money. I actually emailed Nassim. I asked: “What does ‘saying’ entail? To the person? To the public? At what cost? And how do you know where/when ego might be the influencing factor in determining where you decide to go on that public/private spectrum?” His response was simple: If it harms the collective, you speak up until it no longer does. There’s another line in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar.‘ Caesar, having returned from the conquest of Gaul, is reminded to tread lightly when speaking to the senators. He replies, “Have I accomplished so much in battle, but now I’m afraid to tell some old men the truth?” That is what I think about with Nassim’s quote. What’s the point of working hard and being successful if it means biting your tongue (or declining to act) when you see something unfair or untoward? What do you care what everyone else thinks?

“It can have meaning if it changes you for the better.” - Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned and survived three separate Nazi concentration camps, lost his wife, his parents, job, his home and the manuscript that his entire life’s work had gone into. Yet, he emerged from this horrific nightmare convinced that life was not meaningless and that suffering was not without purpose. His work in psychology – now known as logotherapy – is reminiscent of the Stoics: We don’t control what happens to us, only how we respond. Nothing deprives us of this ability to respond, even if only in the slightest way, even if that response is only acceptance. In bad moments, I think of this line. It reminds me that I can change for the better because of it and find meaning in everything – even if my “suffering” pales in comparison to what others have gone through.

“Thou knowest this man’s fall; but thou knowest not his wrassling.” - James Baldwin. As James Baldwin reflected on the death of his father, a man who he loved and hated, he realized that he only saw the man’s outsides. Yes, he had his problems but hidden behind those external manifestations was his own unique internal struggle which no other person is ever able to fully comprehend. The same is true for everyone – your parents, your boss, the person behind you in line. We can see their flaws but not their struggles. If we can focus on this, we’ll have so much more patience and so much less anger and resentment. It reminds me of another line that means a lot to me from Pascal: “To understand is to forgive.” You don’t have to fully understand or know, but it does help to try.

“This is not your responsibility, but it is your problem.” - Cheryl Strayed. Though I came to Cheryl Strayed late, the impact has been significant. In the letter this quote came from, she was speaking to someone who had something unfair done to them. But you see, life is unfair. Just because you should not have to deal with something doesn’t change whether you in fact need to. It reminds me of something my parents told me when I was learning to drive: It doesn’t matter that you had the right of way if you end up dying in an accident. Deal with the situation at hand, even if you don’t want to, even if someone else should have to, because you’re the one that’s being affected by it. End of story. Her quote is the best articulation I’ve found of that fact.

“Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.” - Heraclitus. People are going to criticize you. They are going to resist or resent what you try to do. You’re going to face obstacles and a lot of those obstacles will be other human beings. Heraclitus is explaining why. People don’t like change. They don’t like to be confused. It’s also a fact that doing new things means forcing change and confusion on other people. So, if you’re looking for an explanation for all the barking you’re hearing, there it is. Let it go, keep working, do your job. My other favorite line from Heraclitus is: “Character is fate.” Who you are and what you stand for will determine who you are and what you do. Surely character makes ignoring the barking a bit easier.

“Life is short – the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.” - Marcus Aurelius. Marcus wrote this line at some point during the Antonine Plague – a global pandemic spanning the entirety of his reign. He could have fled Rome. Most people of means did. No one would have faulted him if he did too. Instead, Marcus stayed and braved the deadliest plague of Rome’s 900-year history. And we know that he didn’t even consider choosing his safety and fleeing over his responsibility and staying. He wrote repeatedly about the Stoic concept of sympatheia - the idea that all things are mutually woven together, that we were made for each other, that we are all one.

It’s one of the lesser-known Stoic concepts because it’s easier to only think and care about the people immediately around you. It’s tempting to get consumed by your own problems. It’s natural to assume you have more in common and the same interests as the people who look like you or live like you do. But that is an insidious lie – one responsible for monstrous inhumanity and needless pain. When other people suffer, we suffer. When the world suffers, we suffer. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus said. When we take actions, we have to always think: What would happen if everyone did this? What are the costs of my decisions for other people? What risks am I externalizing? Is this really what a person with good character and a concern for others would do? You have to care about others. It’s sometimes the hardest thing to do, but it’s the only thing that counts. As Heraclitus (one of Marcus’ favorites) said, character is fate. It’s the fruit of this life.

“Happiness does not come from the seeking, it is never ours by right.” - Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable woman. Her father killed himself. Her mother was verbally abusive. Her husband repeatedly betrayed her – even up to the moment he died. Yet she slowly but steadily became one of the most influential and important people in the world. I think you could argue that happiness and meaning came from this journey too. Her line here is reminiscent of something explained by both Aristotle and Viktor Frankl – happiness is not pursued, it ensues. It is the result of principles and the fulfillment of our potential. It is also transitory – we get glimpses of it. We don’t have it forever and we must continually re-engage with it. Whatever quote you need to understand this truth, use it. Because it will get you through bad times and to very good ones.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” - Marcus Aurelius. If there is better advice than this, it has yet to be written. For many civilizations, the first time that their citizens realize just how vulnerable they are is when they find out they’ve been conquered, or are at the mercy of some cruel tyrant, or some uncontainable disease. It’s when somebody famous – like Tom Hanks or Marcus Aurelius – falls ill that they get serious. The result of this delayed awakening is a critical realization: We are mortal and fragile, and fate can inflict horrible things on our tiny, powerless bodies. There is no amount of fleeing or quarantining we can do to insulate ourselves from the reality of human existence: memento mori – thou art mortal. No one, no country, no planet is as safe or as special as we like to think we are. We are all at the mercy of enormous events outside our control. You can go at any moment, Marcus was constantly reminding himself with each of the events swirling around him. He made sure this fact shaped every choice and action and thought.

“Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.” - Seneca. After beginning with Seneca, let’s end with him. Inertia is a powerful force. The status quo – even if self-created – is comforting. So people find themselves on certain paths in life and cannot conceive of changing them, even if such a change would result in more personal happiness. We think that fickleness is a negative trait, but if it pushes you to be better and find and explore new, better things, it certainly isn’t. I’ve always been a proponent of dropping out, of quitting paths that have gotten stale. Seneca’s quote has helped me with that and I actually have it framed next to my desk so that I might look at it each day. It’s a constant reminder: Why am I still doing this? Is it for the right reasons? Or is it just because it’s been that way for a while?

The power of these quotes is that they say a lot with a little. They help guide us through the complexity of life with their unswerving directness. They make us better, keep us centered, give us something to rest on – a kind of backstop to prevent backsliding. That’s what these 9 quotes have done for me in my life. Borrow them or dig into history or religion or philosophy to find some to add to your own commonplace book. And then turn those words… into works.”

- https://ryanholiday.net/short-quotes/

“The Loss Of Dignity”

“The Loss Of Dignity”

by The Zman

“If you step back and think about it, the normal man can probably list a dozen things he cannot say in public that he grew up hearing on television, usually as jokes. Then the jokes were no longer welcome in polite company and soon they were deemed “not funny” by the sorts of people who worry about such things. The same was true of simple observations about the world. Somehow noticing the obvious became impolite, then it became taboo and finally prohibited.

The reverse is true as well. Middle-aged men can probably think of a dozen things that were unimaginable or unheard of, which are now fully normal. Of course, normal is one of those things that is now prohibited. It implies that something can be abnormal or weird and that itself is forbidden. The proliferation of novel identities and activities that demand to be treated with dignity and respect is a function of the old restraints having been eliminated. When everything is possible you get everything.

The strange thing about all of this is there is seemingly no point to it. The proliferation of new taboos was not in response to some harm being done. In most cases, the taboos are about observable reality. The people turning up in the public square with novel identities or activities demanding respect did not exist very long ago. If they did, not one was curious enough to look into it. The public was happy to ignore people into unusual activities, as long as they kept it to themselves.

Of course, none of what we generally call political correctness is intended to be uplifting or inspirational. The commissars of public morality like to pretend it is inspiring, but that’s just a way to entertain themselves. These new identity groups are not demanding the rest of us seek some higher plane of existence or challenge our limitations. In fact, it is always in the opposite directions. It’s a demand to lower standards and give up on our quaint notions of self-respect and human dignity.

In the "Demon In Democracy", Polish academic Ryszard Legutko observed that liberal democracy had abandoned the concept of dignity. This is the obligation to behave in a certain way, as determined by your position in society. Dignity was earned by acting in accordance with the high standards of the community. In turn, this behavior was rewarded with greater privilege and responsibility. Failure to live up to one’s duties would result in the loss of dignity, along with the status it conferred.

Instead, modern liberal democracy awards dignity by default. We are supposed to respect all choices and all behaviors as being equal. There are no standards against which to measure human behavior, other than the standard of absolute, unconditional acceptance. As a result, the most inventively degenerate and base activities spring from the culture, almost like a test of the community’s tolerance. Instead of looking up to the heavens for inspiration, liberal democracies look down in the gutter.

Dignity comes from maintaining one’s obligations to his position in the social order, but that requires a fidelity to a social order. It also requires a connection to the rest of the people in the society. In a world of deracinated individuals focused solely on getting as much as they can in order to maximize pleasure, a sense of commitment to the community is not possible. Democracy assumes we are all equal, therefore we have no duty to one another as duty requires a hierarchical relationship.

In the absence of a vertical set of reciprocal relationships, we get this weird lattice work of horizontal relationships, elevating the profane and vulgar, while pulling down the noble and honorable. The public culture is about minimizing and degrading those who participate in the public culture. In turn, the public culture attracts only those who cannot be shamed or embarrassed. The great joy of public culture is to see those who aspire to more get torn down as the crowd roars at their demise.

The puzzle is why this is a feature of liberal democracy. Ryszard Legutko places the blame on Protestantism. Their emphasis on original sin and man’s natural limitations minimized man’s role in the world. This focus on man’s wretchedness was useful in channeling our urge to labor and create into useful activities, thus generating great prosperity, but it left us with a minimalist view of human accomplishment. We are not worthy to aspire to anything more than the base and degraded.

It is certainly true that the restraints of Christianity limited the sorts of behavior that are common today, but he may be putting the cart before the horse. The emergence of Protestantism in northern Europe was as much a result of the people and their nature as anything else. Put more simply, the Protestant work ethic existed before there was such a thing as a Protestant. The desire to work and delay gratification evolved over many generations out of environmental necessity.

Still, culture is an important part of man’s environment and environmental factors shape our evolution. It is not unreasonable to say that the evolution of Protestant ethics magnified and structured naturally occurring instincts among the people. With the collapse of Christianity as a social force in the West, the natural defense to degeneracy and vulgarity has collapsed with it. As a result, great plenty is the fuel for a small cohort of deviants to overrun the culture of liberal democracies.

Even so, there does seem to be something else. Liberal democracy has not produced great art or great architecture. The Greeks and Romans left us great things that still inspire the imagination of the man who happens to gaze upon them. The castles and cathedrals of the medieval period still awe us. The great flourishing of liberal democracy in the 20th century gave us Brutalism and dribbles of pain on canvas. The new century promises us primitives exposing themselves on the internet.

There is something about the liberal democratic order that seeks to strip us of our dignity and self-respect. Look at what happened in the former Eastern Bloc countries after communism. Exposed to the narcotic of liberalism they immediately acquired the same cultural patterns. Fertility collapsed. Religion collapsed. Marriage and family formation collapsed. These suddenly free societies got the Western disease as soon as they were exposed to western liberal democracy.

The reaction we see today is not due to these societies being behind the times, but due to seeing the ugly face of liberal democracy. It is much like the reaction to the proliferation of recreational drugs in the 1970’s. At first, it seemed harmless, but then people realized the horror of unrestrained self-indulgence. That’s what we see in the former Eastern Bloc. Their leaders still retain some of the old sense of things and are trying to save their people from the dungeon of modernity.

That still leaves us with the unanswered question. What is it about liberal democracy that seems to lead to this loss of dignity? It is possible that such a fabulously efficient system for producing wealth is a tool mankind is not yet equipped to handle without killing ourselves. Maybe we are just not built for anything but scarcity. Want gives us purpose and without it, we lose our reason to exist. Either way, without dignity, we cannot defend ourselves and the results are inevitable.”

- http://thezman.com/wordpress/

"How It Really Is"

As always...

"U.S. Plunges Into Death Trap"

"U.S. Plunges Into Death Trap"

by Brian Maher

"The United States government debt runs presently to $34.8 trillion - and gallops by the second, by the minute, by the hour, by the day. Dr. Paul Krugman believes he holds the solution. He believes it would bring an overall stability to the predicament. In the good doctor’s telling: "Congress need merely nick deficits 2.1% each year for the following 30 years. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the United States debt-to-GDP will scale an economy-sapping 166% by 2054." Yet if Congress takes aboard his guidance, 2054’s debt-to-GDP ratio would equal today’s debt-to-GDP ratio - a manageable menace.

Fat Chance: Yet will Congress execute even a modest budget nicking? We are far from convinced that it will. Nor is Mr. Andrew Wilford of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. From whom: "Krugman’s proposal translates to reductions of over $45 trillion, or more than 40 percent of the projected deficit over that period. This year alone, Congress would have to cut $782 billion from the deficit - just slightly less than our entire national defense budget. Congress struggles just to avoid increasing the deficit every year, imagining that it can easily find the willpower to cut the equivalent of the military budget on a permanent basis is ludicrous. And even if such willpower existed, it would do nothing to reduce our debt-to-GDP ratio or leave us any room to respond to unexpected fiscal challenges or crises."

Former colleague David Stockman directed the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan. David discovered that the slenderest budget item is sealed deep within fortress walls. It is ringed by armed guards. And they are ready to repel any invader.

Forget About It: For example: David proposed shuttering the national endowments for the arts and humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They were not proper functions of the federal government, David argued. And there was more than ample private philanthropy to make any shortages good. David says the combined budgets of these programs amounted to a mere six hours of federal spending annually. Six hours of spending - out of a 365-day calendar! But closing out those six hours proved impossible.

David was poor Sisyphus pushing his rock eternally uphill… only to have it roll eternally downhill upon him. David says not even Reagan would cancel these slight draws upon the Treasury.

It’s Hopeless: David ultimately submitted a modest 25% trimming to Capitol Hill. Would Capitol Hill accept this 25% trim? It would not. It ceded David “maybe an 8% reduction for a couple of years until the various K Street lobbies and assorted forces of high-toned culture completely restored the funding.” That is, no elimination. Not even a 25% trim - but an 8% nicking - and a temporary nicking at that.

Here is a question: If you cannot even put a sustained 8% nick in the national endowments for the arts and humanities or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting… how are you going to get true cuts anywhere else? Here is the shortened answer: You cannot. Here is the lengthy answer: You cannot. Thus we heave Dr. Krugman’s modest proposal into our hellbox.

Into the Debt/Death Trap: We are convinced the United States is ensnared with a debt trap. It cannot wriggle free. Imagine a fellow…This is a wastrel sunk impossibly in debt - credit card debt in our example. Spiraling interest payments begin to swamp him. He must take on an additional credit card in order to satisfy interest payments on the original. Yet he must soon take on another credit card… to service the interest on the card he previously took on… which he took on to service the interest on the first. That is, he must borrow money to service previously borrowed money. Reduce the thing to its essentials and you will find: The money he borrows is dead money. It lacks all productive purpose. He is merely shoveling it into a roaring fire. Before he knows what has struck him… he is undone… bankrupt. Well friend, here you have the government of the United States.

Snowballing Debt: It is the reckless and improvident fellow just described - who opens new credit cards to service the interest on existing ones - who is the slave of nonproductive debt. Projected interest payments on the nation’s debt presently will likely exceed $892 billion this year. They will likely increase year upon year. The nation is far along the ruinous path. How far down the ruinous path has the United States strayed?

Mr. Alasdair Macleod, economist: "The day of reckoning for unproductive credit is in sight… Malinvestments of the last 50 years are being exposed by the rise in interest rates, increases which are driven by a combination of declining faith in the value of major currencies and contracting bank credit. The rise in interest rates is becoming unstoppable…"

The interest bill is already growing exponentially… Clearly, it won’t take much more of a credit squeeze and the increasing likelihood of a buyers’ strike to push the interest bill to over $1.5 trillion…Irrespective of central bank policy, the shortage of credit is driving borrowing rates higher, and the cost of novating maturing debt is rising, if the credit is actually available - which increasingly is rarely the case.

It is an old-fashioned credit crunch, not really seen since the 1970s. And it has only just started… The big picture is of an asset bubble which has come to an end. And by any standards, this one was the largest in recorded history. It is our sincere hope this fellow is wrong. It is our profound fear this fellow is correct.

The Fed’s Out of Tricks: Yet cannot the Federal Reserve and its brother central banks reach into the deep trick bag into which they reached last decade - interest rate suppression, quantitative easing and the rest? Will not these magic tricks prove adequate next time? No, says Mr. Macleod. Thus we are informed: "The era of interest rate suppression is over. G7 central banks are all deeply in negative equity, in other words technically bankrupt, a situation which can only be addressed by issuing yet more unproductive credit. These are the institutions tasked with ensuring the integrity of the entire system of bank credit. This is not a good background for a dollar-based global credit system that is staring into the black hole of its own extinction."

Just so. Yet with the highest respect, sir, we have heard this “doom and gloom” before. In fact, we have heard it issue from an orifice upon our very face, the one directly beneath the nasal base. For three decades - at least - these cries have come issuing. And for three decades it has been cries of wolf. In each instance the financial system has been knocked horizontal… it has shortly regained the vertical. Whether under its own steam or assistance from the financial authorities, it has gotten up. Why should next time prove different?

Why This Time Is Different: Here Mr. Macleod inform us why “this time is different”: "This time, the Global South, the nations standing to one side of all this but finding their currencies badly damaged by unfavorable comparisons with a failing dollar, a dollar forced into higher interest rates in a world that knows of nowhere else to go - this non-financial world is on the edge of abandoning American hegemony for a new model emerging from Asia…The pressure for a whole new monetary system for the emerging nations is increasing… There is only one answer, and that is to abandon the dollar."

Thus the United States confronts the wages of its monetary and fiscal sins. It has cast all restraint to the scattering winds. It has sacrificed the morrow upon the altar of the present. And it has made its dollar headache the world’s migraine. We hazard the world - in turn - will make that dollar the United States’ migraine…"

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Countdown: Economy and Markets, Expect Extreme Distortions To Get Much Worse"

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

o

Your guide...

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/20/24

"Countdown: Economy and Markets, 

Expect Extreme Distortions To Get Much Worse"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/20/24

"Fixed Prices? Price Controls? 

Shortages? Rationing? It's All Coming"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Middle East Update, 6/20/24"

Full screen recommended.

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/20/24

"Scott Ritter: Netanyahu Destroying Israel"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 6/20/24

"Israel Running Out Of Cash? IDF Special Forces

 Plead For Money Online; Claim Army Denied Funding"

"An Israeli Special Forces squad from the Shalmon unit, part of the IDF's 551 division, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to acquire necessary military gear. The campaign, titled 'Emergency Gear for Shalmon Squad,' highlights heavy losses suffered during operations in Gaza and the urgent need for specialized equipment like tactical helmets, padded socks, compact binoculars, and more."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhiGFSA-DfE

"We need emergency gear to slaughter more women and children!"

Well, you cowardly monsters, you won't be needing anything soon, very soon...

o

Mahmood-OD, 6/20//24

"The IDF Spokesperson Just Said Something True"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Full screen recommended.

Crux, 6/20/24

"Hamas Basks In IDF's “Frank Confession” As 

Military Spokesman Feuds With Netanyahu On Gaza War Goal"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "You Can’t Buy a Car"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 6/20/24

"You Can’t Buy a Car"

"Another day and another massive cyber attack. 

This one affects the automotive industry."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Retirement Nightmare! Hordes Of Retired Americans May Need To Go Back To Work Just To Survive"

"Retirement Nightmare! Hordes Of Retired Americans

 May Need To Go Back To Work Just To Survive"

by Michael Snyder

"The Social Security program was instituted to help elderly Americans thrive during their retirement years. Unfortunately, millions upon millions of retired Americans are finding that their monthly Social Security payments are simply not enough as the cost of living spirals out of control. One recent survey found that a whopping 85 percent of U.S. adults now consider inflation to be one of the most important political issues that we are facing, and seniors are being hit particularly hard. In fact, a different survey that was just conducted by the Motley Fool discovered that 44 percent of retired Americans are thinking of going back to work because they need more money to survive…

A growing number of retired Americans are considering returning to work as they continue to battle chronic inflation, according to a new survey published by the Motley Fool. About 44% of respondents said they are thinking about looking for work because their Social Security benefits have not adequately kept pace with high inflation. Needless to say, trying to go back to work in your seventies, eighties or nineties is not an easy thing to do. But if you have to choose between going back to work or not eating three meals a day, I think that the choice is easy.

Today, the average Social Security payment is less than half of what the average retired American spends each month…"The average monthly Social Security payment in 2024 is $1,907, according to the Social Security Administration. But that is just a fraction of the $4,818 that Americans age 65 and older reported spending in 2022."

Of course the current economic environment has been very difficult for all of us. If you can believe it, compared to three years ago the typical household in this country is spending an extra $1,069 per month just to maintain the same standard of living…"The typical U.S. household needed to pay $227 more a month in March to purchase the same goods and services it did one year ago because of still-high inflation. Americans are paying on average $784 more each month compared with the same time two years ago and $1,069 more compared with three years ago."

Sadly, the cost of living is only going to get worse because our leaders just can’t help themselves. At this point, our politicians in Washington have borrowed so much money that we are spending more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt. In fact, we now spend more on interest on the national debt than we do on national defense. But instead of slowing down, our politicians just continue to borrow and spend trillions upon trillions of dollars. So inflation is not going away any time soon.

Meanwhile, the number of home foreclosures was up once again last month…"Home foreclosures rose again in May as Americans continue to grapple with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. That is according to a new report published by real estate data provider ATTOM, which found that there were 32,621 properties in May with foreclosure filings, which includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions."

That certainly isn’t a good sign. Needless to say, there have been lots and lots of troubling signs for the economy lately…"In addition to the conflicting rise in unemployment, other signs of deterioration include stagnant retail sales, a slowing of consumer spending, weak industrial production and manufacturing orders, increasing consumer debt, depressed new housing starts, falling annual earnings of full-time employees, and rising commodity prices."

To many of those at the bottom of the economic food chain, it feels like the economy has already collapsed. Today, 20 percent of the entire population of California is living in poverty, and massive homeless encampments have sprouted all over the state. Unfortunately, many more Americans will soon be joining the ranks of the poor because the economy is rapidly moving in the wrong direction.

The outlook is so bleak that even Walmart is closing down stores…"Walmart has decided to close three more stores across the US, bringing this year’s total number of failed locations to 11. The retail giant said these three stores – located in Georgia and Colorado – underperformed financially."

And we just learned that more Pizza Hut locations are being permanently shuttered…"Pizza Hut shuttered 15 locations in Indiana on Friday while more than 120 additional locations are in danger of closing, according to a report from The Times of Northwest Indiana.

The latest closures come after a long-running dispute between the chain and a franchisee. EYM Group, which owns and operates 142 Pizza Hut locations in Illinois, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Wisconsin, was accused of defaulting on millions of dollars in payments owed to Pizza Hut by a June deadline."

A new economic crisis has already begun, but it is going to get so much worse during the months and years that are ahead of us. As we approach the end of this calendar year, we will want to keep a very close eye on the global financial system. There have been a number of ominous signs lately that should definitely alarm all of us. Most notably, the fifth largest bank in Japan just announced that it will be selling off approximately 63 billion dollars in government bonds…

"But if that was the first, and still distant, sign that something was very wrong at one of Japan’s biggest banks (Norinchukin is Japan’s 5th largest bank with $840 billion in assets) today the proverbial canary stepped on a neutron bomb inside the Japanese coalmine, because according to Nikkei, Norinchukin Bank “will sell more than 10 trillion yen ($63 billion) of its holdings of U.S. and European government bonds during the year ending March 2025 as it aims to stem its losses from bets on low-yield foreign bonds, a main cause of its deteriorating balance sheet, and lower the risks associated with holding foreign government bonds.”

See, what’s happened in Japan is not that different from what is happening in the US, where as the FDIC keeps reminding us quarter after quarter, US banks are still sitting on over half a trillion dollars in unrealized losses, as a result of the huge jump in interest rates which has blown up the banks’ long-duration fixed income holdings, sending them trading far below par and forcing banks (and the Fed, see BTFP) to come up with creative ways of shoving these massive losses under the rug.

Major banks all over the world are sitting on gigantic mountains of unrealized losses. If things start going wrong, it won’t take much to induce panic. And once panic starts, it won’t take much to spark a financial avalanche. We are in far more trouble than most people realize, and the dark clouds on the horizon are getting closer with each passing day."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"'This Is Noah' - The Short Story Of A Fentanyl-Addicted Child In Utopian Hellhole San Francisco"

"'This Is Noah' - The Short Story Of A 

Fentanyl-Addicted Child In Utopian Hellhole San Francisco"

By Tyler Durden

"The radical leftists in San Francisco City Hall need a reality check about their destructive progressive drug policies that have effectively handed out implicit death sentences. A policy course correction is desperately needed as overdose deaths reached a record high last year.

If you have lived or visited San Francisco in recent years, parts of the metro area have been transformed into a utopian progressive hellhole of drugs, death, violent crime, feces, needles, and abandoned retail stores.

As of last year, overdose deaths in San Francisco topped a record high of 800. Open-air drug markets and homeless encampments are widespread in the downtown area. Failed progressive public health policies are responsible for why the city's drug overdose rate is nearly double the nation's. In terms of cities over 500k in population, San Francisco was number four in overdose deaths.

Tens of thousands of drug addicts roam the city streets of the metro area, where the drug of choice is fentanyl. This drug, which is 100 times more potent than morphine, is flooding the nation through President Biden's open southern borders. And it's being cooked by Mexican cartels that receive chemicals from China (read: House Subcommittee Finds "New Evidence" That China Fuels America's Fentanyl Crisis).

With the overdose crisis only worsening, we want to share with readers a heartbreaking short documentary of a kid way too young to be addicted to fentanyl - getting high in downtown San Francisco. This kid should be entering college, or at least working a productive job, and aims one day to start a family and benefit the nation. But no, he's addicted to drugs, wasting his life away in the utopian hellhole of a city.

Citizen journalists are stepping up to the plate since corporate leftist media cannot - nor want to do actual reporting. Instead, they push propaganda from woke leftists in the White House or whatever their mega-corporate sponsors say.

X user jj smith documented his interactions with 19yo Noah. This video was filmed between Oct. 2022 and through at least the first half of 2023 and shows the young addict's life on the streets of downtown San Francisco. 

This is the story of a child that was abandoned, Noah. 

View this heartbreaking video here:

 pic.twitter.com/JX0BBt4n3h

- jj smith (@war24182236) June 18, 2024

"The Progressive movement has enabled more drug use in San Francisco more than ever before, and the non-profits who are taking millions of dollars from, have done absolutely nothing to getting kids like Noah help. They feel it's better to hand out tin foil and straws, rather than getting them the help they truly need," Jaime Puerta, founder of Victims of Illicit Drug Use or VOID, wrote in a statement in response to the video.

This heartbreaking short video makes you want to hug your kids - if you got them - and also reflect on the political elites who have created this environment that has sparked a drug overdose death crisis that is killing two Vietnams of Americans per year."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

Full screen recommended, if you can stomach it.

"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave."

"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.

Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia, at 3.57. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended, if you can stand it.

"Opiod Addiction (Xylazine/Fentanyl) 

Is Killing Every 11 Minutes In America"

Filmed in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "That All Men Are Created Equal"

Portrait of French King Louis XVI.

"That All Men Are Created Equal"

The divide between the elite and the rest of the people became intolerable. 

The guillotine solved the problem. How will the widening 

canyon between America’s elites and the “little people' be solved?

by Bill Bonner

"The assertion that men are objectively equal is 

so absurd that it does not even merit being refuted."

- Vilfredo Pareto

Poitou, France - "This just in, MSNBC: "CBO: Increased Immigration will boost US growth." Once again, statistics take on a life of their own... and become a policy goal.We listened to the talking heads explaining it. A young woman declared that US fertility rates were declining. She seemed to think this - another statistic - was cause for great concern. Who will pay taxes? Who will increase US GDP growth? Where will we get our teachers, firemen, and hedge fund managers? Who will pay the interest on our national debt... now more than $1 trillion per year?

So many dumb ideas... so many silly numbers. America’s elites created a debt-drenched economy that needs growth - in credit, in sales, GDP and tax revenues - just to stay in business. And now we need to have more children... and open the borders, say the public policy experts, in order to pay for past policies.

“American women have only 1.6 children,” explained the authority. (Another statistical mirage... we’ve never met a couple with 1.6 children.) “We need two children per couple, just to stay even. We’ll have to make up the shortage with immigrants.” There are 330 million people in the US. But we need more!

Spare a thought for the poor Swiss. Yes, they live longer. They have more money. They are not involved in foreign wars. They have little crime. Their streets are clean and safe. Their borders are orderly. But... Swiss women have only 1.5 children... and the Swiss GDP is only 2% of US GDP. And if every penny of Swiss GDP were put to the task it wouldn’t even pay the interest on our debt pile.

Keeping the show on the road - with more spending, more debt, more firepower…and now, more immigrants - is the main goal of US elites. Policy choices follow.

Elitism: Two weeks ago, we laid out one of our ‘shared secrets.’ Today, we give you another one: elitism. Excess immigration may actually lower wages and living standards for the average American. But immigrants are a source of low-wage labor... and help the system survive. The elites are for it. It is not flattering to be called an ‘elitist.’ It generally signals that you think you are better than others... and should be granted special privileges.

Here at Bonner Private Research we use the word in a purely descriptive manner. Elitism is not a disease... it is not a sin... it is not a mistake. It is just how societies operate. Our guiding light in this regard is the great Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. You probably know him as the author of the 80/20 rule. Always and everywhere, he said, 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the people... 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your investments... etc.

No matter what you call your government, there are always a few people - an elite - that actually runs things. Louis 14th, for example, was an ‘absolute monarch.’ But Louis did not collect his taxes himself... nor win his wars... nor design and stitch his uniforms. His rule was made possible by what Javier Milei calls the ‘casta politica’ - the political caste. Likewise, they were the apparatchiks and nomenklatura who ran the Soviet Union. And they were the Nazi Party members who ran Hitler’s Germany.

Today, in the US, we have politicians, lobbyists, CEOs, influencers, economists, kibitzers and hobnobbers. They allow citizens to vote... often with surprising and disruptive results. But the main decisions and lasting policies are determined by the elites. They control the public conversation.

A Widening Canyon: Typically, when a society is new, and/or small... there is little difference between the elite 20% and the rest of the population. They are neighbors, friends, business associates... the parish priest... the local judge... the small-town mayor. But over time, the elites pass more and more laws... and write more and more regulations... gradually gaining more and more control over the rest. Gradually, too, their views and interests diverge.

That is what happened in France before the revolution. The aristocracy grew more and more distant from their own properties... and from the lives of their tenants and peasants. They lived in great splendor, wearing precious silks and velvets... and eating sumptuous meals (even while millions of ordinary people - in the 1780s - shivered and starved). They granted themselves special privileges... and even exempted themselves from taxes. Eventually, the divide between the elite and the rest of the people became intolerable. The guillotine solved the problem.

How will the widening canyon, between America’s elites and the “little people,” be closed? Tune in tomorrow."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Get These Deals At Kroger Now Before It's Too Late!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 6/20/24

"Get These Deals At Kroger Now Before It's Too Late!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

Full screen recommended.

Travelling With Russell, 6/20/24

"I Went to a Brand-new Russian Supermarket"

"What does a Russian typical brand-newSupermarket look like inside? Opened only days ago, join me on a tour of DA! Supermarket, which is Russian-owned and has more than 220 locations in Russia."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Just like where you live, right Good Citizen? Right?