"Collapse: Fast Food Chains Close Down By The
Thousands Across The U.S., Restaurant Industry Is Cooked"
Benny Johnson, 6/20/24
View video on Rumble here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, June 21, 2024
"How It Really Is"
“The only difference between the Republican and Democratic
parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when
corporations knock on their door. That’s the only difference.”
- Ralph Nader
Gregory Mannarino, "The Worldwide Economic Freefall Accelerates, And This Is What's Coming"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/21/24
"The Worldwide Economic Freefall Accelerates,
And This Is What's Coming"
- https://traderschoice.net/
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Black Swans Are All Around Us"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/21/24
"Black Swans Are All Around Us"
"Joining me today is Jack, the CEO of Patriot Gold, and we're breaking down the latest economic chaos, from spiraling inflation and consumer confidence plummeting to the US dollar losing its grip as the world's reserve currency. With the economy in shambles and inflation hitting new highs, it's crucial to prepare for what's coming. Are we already in a recession? How Many Black Swans are coming. It's a Flock of Black Swans. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and other financial giants seem to think so. "
Comments here:
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up for 6/21/24"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up for 6/21/24"
War, Financial Collapse & CV19 Vax Awakening Close
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Russia has a small fleet off the east coast of the United States. This includes a couple of armed submarines that have state-of-the-art nuclear weapons. These weapons can be launched from under the sea. Now, there is major pushback in Congress about how reckless the Biden Administration has been with arming the Ukrainians with long range missiles and then giving them the go-ahead to shoot them into Russia. Senator JD Vance is sounding the alarm and charges President Biden with “actively endangering our national security” with his new missile policy. How long will Russia allow the U.S., and its proxy Ukraine, to shoot missiles into the Russian mainland? Is it not fair for Russia to shoot missiles into the U.S.? If this is not bad enough, Congress has just passed a bill to register young people for the draft - including women! Tell me we are not close to global war. Keep voting Democrat.
The latest problem to pop up in the shaky global economy is a deeply troubled big bank in Japan that has to raise cash by selling off $63 billion in U.S. Treasuries. Will other banks front-run this trade and cause a cascade of bond selling? How about the 63 banks, earlier this month, that the FDIC said are in financial trouble? These insolvent U.S. banks have more than half a trillion dollars in sour debt. What makes it even more scary is the FDIC will not name the 63 troubled banks. What you are seeing are all the warning signs of a financial collapse. It’s coming, and it’s only a matter of time before the support is knocked out from under these insolvent banks. The question is how much time do we have? Financial writer Bill Holter says, “not much.” He will explain on Saturday.
The deaths and injuries from the CV19 bioweapon vax injections are not waning; they are getting worse each passing week. People continue to “die suddenly” and get heart disease and cancer at an alarming rate. This includes many young people and children who have been CV19 vaxed. Now, there is a new problem. Sky-high bills to go along with sky-high cancer rates. The bills are so extreme, even if you have insurance, you can be financially ruined. Yet another effect of the CV19 bioweapon vax murder and disability attack on “We the People.” Now, a new lawsuit is being filed by the Kansas AG against Pfizer for fraud, and four other states are jumping in, too. Pfizer has 63% of the CV19 vax market. Is this legal action finally going to wake up America to the crimes of the CV19 bioweapon attack that is still ongoing? There is more in the 53-minute newscast."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 6/21/24:
"The Sage of Baltimore”
"H.L. Mencken, the “Sage of Baltimore” was born in 1880 and is regarded by many as one of the most influential American journalists, essayists, and writers of the early 20th century. To recognize the great political writer here are 12 of my favorite Mencken quotes:
1. Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
2. A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
3. A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
4. Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
5. Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
6. Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
7. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
8. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
9. If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
10. For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
11. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
12. As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
And these days...
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times,
to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- H. L. Mencken
Jim Kunstler, "A Door Closes, A Window Opens"
"A Door Closes, A Window Opens"
by Jim Kunstler
“Almost every headline and what passes as
‘news’ in the United States, is a cry for help.”
- Karen Kwiatkowski
"Now that the gunplay and colorful flash-mobbery of Juneteenth has concluded, it’s on to next week’s big debate between the two major party candidates - if debate is even the right description for what is more like a joint press conference conducted by one candidate’s PR firm. What does the reality-starved public think it will see? Probably anything but a fair fight.
It’s hard to imagine what possessed “Joe Biden” to decide this was a good idea for him (unless he wasn’t the decider). Since we’re in an era of archetypal psychodrama, the event looks more like a ritual sacrifice. His recent public performances have been, shall we say, less than reassuring in both utterance and physical poise. He comes off as Captain Queeg meets Mr. Magoo. So, you have to wonder if some ancient tropism-of-the-mind steers him to certain destruction, egged on by those of his own faction who will benefit from his exit.
The sordid spectacle of the Alvin Bragg prosecution has backfired spectacularly as even the president’s own cheerleaders begin to perceive the frightful dishonesty of a politicized DOJ that could just as easily be turned on them. Rachel Maddow and Joy Behar rehearsed their persecution fantasies for all to see on air this week - and, of course, and as usual, it was a sheer psychological projection of what their own party has been up to for eight long years.
One supposes that “Joe Biden” will follow exactly that script next Thursday, as he accuses Mr. Trump of being “a dictator,” Adolf Hitler 2.0, seeking to use the levers of power to terrorize the defenders of democracy. It’s hard to see how he might get away with that. All Mr. Trump has to do is aver to the long list of malicious prosecutions, including the ones aimed at himself, launched lately against “JB’s” opponents. And he might throw in the regime’s lust to suppress free speech and truth itself - as in the Hunter Biden laptop monkey-business and hiding the facts around the Covid-19 fiasco.
Speaking of which, this would be the best opportunity for Mr. Trump to come clean, if he can, about his role in the mRNA vaccine roll-out that has now morphed into what looks like the biggest disaster in modern medicine. It appears obvious that, as president, Mr. Trump was buffaloed by “the experts” in a culture that worships expertise. How exactly would he have opposed the White House Coronavirus Task Force headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci? And backed by the combined forces of the CDC, the FDA, the NIAID, the NIH, and every medical board from sea to shining sea? Should he have just said, Nah, we’re not gonna do that? I don’t think so. But there won’t a better moment, or a bigger audience, to explain how all that actually worked, and went wrong.
Since Mr. Trump’s temperament has drawn the most intense objurgation from his detractors, the easiest thing he can do in this debate is just mind his manners, and not allow himself to be baited or taunted. The roster of “Joe Biden’s” failures is so deep that all Mr. Trump has to do is remind the audience what they well-know adds up to an apparently deliberate to wreck the nation: the open border and the growing record of atrocious crimes committed by illegal aliens plus the immense anxiety about the intentions of jihadists and other nefarious foreigners ushered in by Homeland Security; the idiocy of our role in the Ukraine War and how easily the conflict could be concluded by willing negotiation; the cratering on-the-ground economy of goods and services (minus government hand-outs, bail-outs, subsidies, and statistical shell games); the out-of-control Deep State intel blob that is eating away at our basic liberties; the insane race-and-gender hustles aimed at sowing hatred and disordering normal modes of human relations; and much more that has been done to insult and humiliate the people of this land.
In short, the record of “Joe Biden” and the claque behind him is unequaled for demolition of our national principles, institutions, traditions, and aspirations, and if it’s not already plain to see all around you, Mr. Trump is in a position to calmly make the case next Thursday night without resorting to any histrionics. There will also be opportunities for him to use the old Muhammad Ali “Rope-a-Dope” play on “Joe Biden.” Let the old grifter start yapping “convicted felon” and Mr. Trump can offer a review of the many cash gifts from foreign entities received into Hunter Biden’s dozen or so shell corporations, with a recitation of bank records, deal memos, and testimony-under-oath already in evidence, with hearings still ongoing.
There’s also the fair chance that, despite the Adderall lighting up what’s left in his brain-pan, “Joe Biden” will quickly melt down altogether into a pathetic, gibbering zombie, spouting inanities about his Uncle Brosey amongst the cannibals, his victory over the arch-villain Corn Pop, his conquest of Mt. Everest side by side with Xi Jinping, his growing-up Latinx and Jewish in Scranton, PA, his rescuing Martin Luther King from a mob of Ku Kluxers and... well ... the nabobs of the Democratic Party will finally have what they’re longing for: the excuse to dump this perfect ass of a fake president and throw the window wide open for Hillary Clinton to fly in on her leathery wings (Caw! Caw!) and lead the dwindling number of her deranged admirers to another humiliating election loss.
What does this party have to run on besides the utterly empty, mendacious battle cry about saving our democracy? It offers nothing but ruin. The debate might even spell the death of the party itself. Oh, but also don’t rule out “Joe Biden” canceling at the last moment. Reasons."
The full name of Kunstler's website is so absolutely true...
Bill Bonner "Back in the U.S.S.A."
"Back in the U.S.S.A."
The Soviet economy was largely fake, almost all of it controlled by
the Communist Party. Government deficits supported a bloated
military that looked powerful on paper but couldn't win a war.
by Bill Bonner
"The best government is a benevolent tyranny
tempered by an occasional assassination."
- Voltaire
Poitou, France - "There are the elites... and there are ‘the people.’ Yes, the rich are different. But it’s not just a matter of money, they also have power. It is as if they lived in ‘two separate countries,’ says Stephen Moore.
The elites live on the two coasts. They send their children to good schools and universities. They work in the ‘talking professions’; that is, they don’t sweat with hammers, drills, grills, machines or chemicals. Instead, they bend ideas, information and spreadsheets - as investors, lawyers, journalists, professors and managers. They earn more money. They live in bigger houses. But they weigh less, on average, than MAGA supporters... .and they wouldn’t be caught dead at a Trump rally. As socialite Ms. J. Gordon Douglas once put it, among the elite, ‘you can’t be too rich or too thin.’
The Rasmussen polling organization took their pulse at the end of last year, reporting the results in January. They defined the elite as having at least one postgraduate degree after graduating from an Ivy league college, $150,000-plus income, and living in a ‘dense urban area.’ This probably defines more of a super-elite than the top 20%... but it is something the rest of them can aspire to.
What did they find? Moore summarizes: "Nearly three-quarters of the elites surveyed believe they are better off now financially than they were when Joe Biden entered the White House. Less than 20% of ordinary Americans feel the same way....Elites are three times more likely than all Americans to say there is too much individual freedom in the country. Astonishingly, almost half of the elites and almost 6 of 10 ivy leaguers say there is too much freedom.
An astonishing 72% of the elites - including 81% of the elites who graduated from the top universities - favor banning gas cars. And majorities of elites would ban gas stoves, nonessential air travel, SUVs and private air conditioning.
Most elites think that teachers’ unions and school administrators should control the agenda of schools. Most mainstream Americans think that parents should make these decisions. Oh, and about three-quarters of these cultural elites are Biden supporters."
"You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life,
and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country."
- Gore Vidal
Moore comments: "The snobs thumb their collective noses at the unrefined working-class Americans. The elites believe they are intellectually, culturally and morally superior to the working class and rural America… Crime, illegal immigration, inflation, fentanyl and factory closings aren't keeping the elite up at night because in their cocoons, they don't encounter these problems on a daily basis the way so many Americans do today. Not too many main street Americans are losing sleep about climate change or LGBTQ issues."
But the situation does not describe merely a political divide. It is not just a matter of Republicans versus Democrats... not a case of good guys versus bad guys. If you vote for Donald Trump you may think you will end the elites’ control. But that’s not how it works. If you rid yourself of one group... another will take its place. Like the poor, the elites will always be with us.
The coming election will make little difference... no matter which way it goes. Because both parties are frauds. They merely represent different aspects of elite America; neither represents ‘the people.’ Both have been corrupted by power and money; both have signed on to the important parts of elite agenda - more spending, more war, and more debt.
Both Republicans and Democrats have been suborned... neither dares oppose the powerful elites that support them. That’s why debt ‘ceilings’ never hold... budgets are never balanced... and US troops still lounge at more than seven hundred overseas bases – decades after the need for them disappeared.
Soviet America: Historian Niall Ferguson likens the US situation circa 2024 to a “late, Soviet America.” He notes that in 1990, observers were noticing a “ghastly and tragic... loss of morality” within the USSR. “Apathy and hypocrisy, cynicism, servility, and snitching,” were running wild. Nearly half the population thought that theirs was an “unjust society.” USSR leaders were old party hacks - Brezhnev, Kuznetsov, Andropov, Chernenko - or just ineffective.
The Soviet economy was largely fake... almost all of it directly or indirectly controlled by the Communist Party. The government ran chronic deficits... supporting a bloated military that looked powerful, on paper, but couldn’t win a war.
“Sound familiar?” asks Ferguson: "Look at the most recent Gallup surveys of American opinion and one finds a similar disillusionment. The share of the public that has confidence in the Supreme Court, the banks, public schools, the presidency, large technology companies, and organized labor is somewhere between 25 percent and 27 percent. For newspapers, the criminal justice system, television news, big business, and Congress, it’s below 20 percent. For Congress, it’s 8 percent. Average confidence in major institutions is roughly half what it was in 1979."
We gave up trying to solve the nation’s problems a long time ago. Today, we merely try to anticipate them. It’s not the Democrats’ fault. Nor the Republicans’. Both are tools of degenerate elites, who are likely to drag the country further and further into debt, inflation... and war. Expect a long period of chaos - financial, political and social. And watch out for the guillotine."
But what the Elites everywhere have always forgotten, to their regret...
We are many, they are few.
Thursday, June 20, 2024
"Alert! Nuke Bombers Deploying; US Carrier Headed To Warzone; Putin Warns Of Nuclear Apocalypse"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 6/20/24
"Alert! Nuke Bombers Deploying; US Carrier Headed To Warzone;
Putin Warns Of Nuclear Apocalypse"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Great Depression 2.0? It's Worse Than We Thought!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 6/20/24
"Great Depression 2.0? It's Worse Than We Thought!"
Comments here:
"Car Prices Crash By 60% But The Worst Is Yet To Come"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 6/20/24
"Car Prices Crash By 60% But
The Worst Is Yet To Come"
"In a surprising twist, the U.S. auto market is experiencing a phenomenon that's both a blessing and a curse. Car prices, which once seemed to climb endlessly, are now plummeting at an alarming rate. For consumers, this means long-awaited relief at the dealership. But for many car dealers, this trend is nothing short of a nightmare.
For years, Americans have grappled with skyrocketing car prices. Now, amidst economic uncertainties, we are witnessing a dramatic shift. According to industry analysts, the average price of a new vehicle has dropped by nearly 20% year-over-year. The used car market is even more volatile, with prices plunging by an astonishing 59% from the 2022 peak.
According to data shared by Wolf Richter, seasonally adjusted, prices of used vehicles that were sold at auctions across the U.S fell to $18,151, the lowest since April 2021, and are down by $5,423 (or 23%) from the peak in January 2022, according to the Used Vehicle Value Index by Manheim, the largest auto auction house in the U.S. “From February 2020 through the crazy peak in January 2022, auction prices had spiked by a mindboggling 64%, or by $9,252,” Richter noted. “The historic plunge so far has surrendered 59%, or $5,423, of that $9,252 spike.”
Last month alone, prices fell significantly in all major vehicle categories on a yearly basis, according to Manheim. Luxury cars went down by 12.9%, while SUVs & crossovers prices declined by 14.6%, pickups lost 15.2%, midsize cars fell 16.8%, EVs dropped by 17.5%, and compact cars went down by 17.6%."
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Retail Sales Down, Debt Levels Skyrocketing - Crash Coming?"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 6/20/24
"Retail Sales Down, Debt Levels Skyrocketing -
Crash Coming?"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
"Alert! Nationwide Power Outage Grid Down; US Dollar Is Done; Retirement Nightmare"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/20/24
"Alert! Nationwide Power Outage Grid Down;
US Dollar Is Done; Retirement Nightmare"
Comments here:
"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."
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Full screen recommended.
"NASA Reveals More James Webb Space Telescope Images"
"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:
"Israel's Army Admits Israel Cannot Win"
Full screen recommended.
Owen Jones, 6/20/24
"Israel's Army Admits Israel Cannot Win"
Comments here:
"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."
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"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."
"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.”
“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.”
"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…"
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