Excerpt: "Evil is in a topping formation. Evil is completely dependent on the good it attempts to destroy. When good discovered fire, invented the wheel, and started planting seeds, evil invented government. Evil produces nothing, it only commands, coerces, enslaves, destroys, and murders. Gigantic tombs loom over Egypt’s desert, built by slaves millennia ago, monuments to rulers’ vanity. A single farmer working the Nile’s alluvial soil produced more than any pharaoh, yet the former had to send a portion of his crop to the latter. Nothing has changed since then. How do the production and lives of the good become the property of evil?
Force, fear, and fraud are the usual answers, but they can’t be the entire answer. Rulers and their military and police forces are always vastly outnumbered by the ruled. Revolts have brought down countless governments. Yet, why have most people down through the ages not revolted but endured the force, fear, and fraud?
The trick is to get the ruled to assign their right in their own lives to the rulers, acting as the purported agent of a collective. If the mass of people accept the proposition that there is a cause or causes greater than themselves, the rest is easy. So, find a greater cause - God, country, fighting evil enemies domestic or foreign, fighting a deadly germ, safety, the common good, the public interest, global warming, global cooling, climate change - the list is endless.
The people will fight wars, pay taxes, comply with every absurd law and regulation, mask up, lockdown, take deadly vaccines, embrace misery, and line up for the concentration camps. Who am I, they might ask, to question, to object, to fight, to revolt? They’ve already answered that question. They’ve surrendered their lives and souls; they are nobodies. Figuratively and perhaps literally, these corpses will join the stack in the ditch or the ashes in the crematorium.
The rulers expertly play their emotions, but what stirs their greatest passion is the occasional odd man or woman out - the ones who refuse to assign their lives to the collective. The nothings burn the somethings at the stake; self-loathing finds its expression in destruction and death.
By a wide margin no person or institution has caused more destruction and death than governments. Evil and governments are joined at the hip, and history’s bloodiest epoch, from World War I right up to today, has also been the epoch of its largest and most totalitarian governments. That’s no coincidence.
That epoch is drawing to its bloody close. Evil finds itself undone by its perpetual nemesis, its inability to produce. Honest income statements for the world would show that production and income are in decline. Honest balance sheets would show that the world is bankrupt, debt far in excess of assets and almost every asset already pledged as collateral, often several times over.
The rapacity of evil knows no limits. Plans are supposedly being made for a Great Taking, which will hoover up much of the world’s book entry claims - or in the lingo of the thieves, subordinated security entitlements - on income and assets. Those entitlements are subordinated to “secured creditors,” the largest participants in the derivatives complex. Imagine losing your stocks to Goldman Sachs. The grim joke is on evil. A Great Taking may well happen - once. Evil will feed itself for a few weeks or months, but just like its victims, it will ultimately own nothing."
One of the great virtues of capitalism is that people can buy what they want
and get what they deserve. When amateur investors want to buy tech stocks,
Wall Street finds new tech tech to sell them.
by Bill Bonner
"It doesn't actually make any difference whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make the people think that they have had something to do with the electing of presidents for 200 years when they've had absolutely nothing to say about the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run."
- Gore Vidal
Poitou, France - “The nice thing about living overseas,” said an American who came to visit yesterday, “is that I don’t have to read the US news.” Among the idiotic reports he’s missing is this from today’s Markets Insider: "The markets went berserk on Friday. The US stock market plunged into chaos on Friday as investors digested a streak of negative economic data and disappointing earnings from mega cap tech companies.
All three major US indexes closed more than 1.5% lower, with tech and small-caps taking the biggest hit. The Dow Jones industrial average was down almost 1,000 points at intraday lows. The moves continued a marketwide skid that started on Thursday. The S&P 500 ended up sliding 3% in just two days, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down nearly 5% over the period, and now sits in correction territory."
Of course, the markets didn’t go ‘berserk’ on Friday. The Dow barely dropped below 40,000... leaving it still near the top of its range. Besides, investors weren’t going ‘berserk’ anyway; they were coming to their senses. Stocks always move from high to low and back. Sometimes, they go crazy. That’s what happened in 1999, for example. The tech darlings just kept going up. Many people were convinced that it was a New Era... made possible by the stunning new technology: the Internet.
Investors’ poured into Wall Street hoping to get rich. They read the news. They had heard about the New Era of prosperity, led by companies such as Webvan and Boo.com. These companies were going ‘to the moon.’ Everybody wanted to go along with them. One of the great virtues of capitalism is that people can buy what they want... and get what they deserve. And when amateur investors want to buy tech stocks, Wall Street quickly finds some new tech to sell them. There was Spiral Frog, for example, and Flooz.
But then, on March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq peaked at more than 5,000... and the bubble popped. The amount of money flowing into new deals dropped from over $120 billion in 2000 to under $20 billion in 2002. The Nasdaq itself fell back to nearly 1,000... and didn’t return to its previous high until 15 years later. Overall, stocks lost $5 trillion in value.
Lesson: buying low and selling high works; buying high and selling low doesn’t.
What makes the news both infuriating and entertaining is that it is mostly fake - like a science fiction novel that sounds all-too-real. And it supports a whole fake world... much of which we’ve been describing in these daily commentaries.
Debt Reckoning: We’ve seen that stock prices... and much of the success of the US economy... are fake. They were purchased on credit, with fake money. And now the US faces a $100 trillion - private and public - debt reckoning. One way or another that bill will have to be paid. Then, when the transaction is finally complete, we will see how wealthy we really are. That story - how the US climbs down from its debt mountain - is the one to watch for the next ten years or so. Our high-confidence guess is that there will be a lot of sore feet and banged up knees along the way.
But this is an election year, and most of the fake news is fake political news. We’ve seen that our beloved democracy is largely fake. The bigger the scale, the bigger the fraud. ‘The People’ do not really control the US government. Instead, the insiders are in the driver’s seat. And they go where they want to go, not where the people want to go. And much of the fake political news today concerns their fake candidate... Kamala Harris... who now dominates the fake news cycle. ‘Kamala is a failed candidate,’ says one headline. ‘Kamala is unfit and unqualified,’ says another. Kamala this. Kamala that.
Kamala’s only real qualification for the top job is that she is neither male, nor white... and most important... she is not Trump. And now, voters will be able to select the candidate they want... and get the president they deserve. According to the latest news, this woman, Kamala... chosen for us by party insiders... is in the lead. Newsweek: "Harris now leads Donald Trump in eight national polls." "RMG Research is the latest pollster to find Harris leading Trump in the national popular vote. The firm released a survey on Friday showing her with a 5-point lead (47 percent to 42 percent) over the former president. The poll was conducted among 3,000 registered voters from July 29 to July 31."
So, it all comes together in a crescendo of fakery. Fake money. Fake interest rates. Fake conservatives. Fake liberals. Fake democracy. And a fake president! Stay tuned."
“The global economy is becoming unburdened by what has been.”
- Jordan Schachtel on “X”
"That two-by-four upside our country’s head you’ve been waiting to get whomped with? Looks like it’s landing now. We got a banger in 2008, but it didn’t make a much of an impression. Maybe you don’t even remember these people, but then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke came in like a code blue squad and hooked up the banks to an IV-drip speedball of cocaine and heroin, i.e., “money” that didn’t actually exist (a.k.a. “liquidity,” hallucinated capital), and that crew kept it coming for years.
And then Janet Yellen and her posse kept it coming with never-ending zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) until the national debt canceled America’s future. And that left Jerome Powell pretending there was a way out of this doom-loop. Then came the repo market spasm in September 2019 that freaked out the blob so badly they shut down the whole world with Covid and locked-down economies. And everything since then has been a waiting game. The financial world was in hospice.
The wait is over. Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives - bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something. (And because they are worth something, they‘ll eventually sell off some too, to cover margin calls on other stuff hemorrhaging value. But they will not go to zero like a lot of other stuff, and they’ll come back stronger.)
You understand this can’t play out like it did in 2008-9. The authorities are out of tricks and out of fake money. They can try the emergency interest rate cut, but it won’t change what is actually happening: the epic revaluation of everything humans make and own - with much of it losing value and quite a bit losing all value because it never really had any. The spooky catch is that there will be an attempt in this wild and terrifying process, for certain devious, unprincipled parties to take possession of many things shaking loose - what remains of collateral... real things... commodities... facilities... properties... chattels... artworks... and, of course, whatever securities still have a relationship to realities of production.
This brings a sharp end to the current political sitcom, especially the situation of the Democratic Party. They will get blamed for the economic carnage left behind by the shattered money system. They lied about everything for years, every number, every index, every supposed “policy”.
Kamala Harris won’t be cackling her way out of this. It’s hard to see how she might remain the party’s nominee. She can’t even speak to the massive catalog of prior failures to govern our country coherently and effectively. And it’s equally hard to figure how “Joe Biden,” still presiding emptily over this fiasco, can get Twenty-fifthed out of the way for his feckless veep. More likely, the coming convention will be a desperate, bloody mass cage fight and somebody else will stagger out of it to go through the motions of campaigning in a hopeless cause. Hillary might even decline the roll in this horror show.
Now, I began writing this post well before dawn, eastern time. The action in Asia, across the international date line, was a slaughter. Europe got smacked hard, but not catastrophically. Maybe the Wall Street wonderboys can stop the bleeding here, but the futures numbers sure look grim. I’ll come back later when the US markets have spoken and add a few observations on the situation.
Oh, and you’ve probably noticed that World War Three is shaping up to kick off today. Interesting times. And I’m supposed to be on vacation this week."
"Egon von Greyerz (EvG) stores gold for clients at the biggest private gold vault in the world buried deep in the Swiss Alps. EvG is a financial and precious metals expert. EvG is a former Swiss banker and an expert in risk. He says the risk in the global markets has never been this high.
EvG explains, “Credit has increased dramatically through derivatives. All instruments being issued now by banks, pension funds, stock funds, it’s all synthetic. There is no real underlying payments in anything almost. Therefore, my estimate for derivatives would be at least $2 quadrillion, and I think that is probably conservative. Then, we have debt on top of that of $300 trillion, and we also have a couple hundred trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities. So, we are talking about $2.5 QUADRILLION, and that’s with a global GDP of $88 trillion. So, there is a disaster waiting to happen, and especially because all this created money has created no value whatsoever. I always knew this would collapse, and it’s taken longer than I expected, but I think we are at the end of a major era.
These derivatives, at some point soon, will actually turn into debt. Central banks will have to cover all the outstanding liabilities of the commercial banks as we are seeing now with Credit Suisse, Bank of England and etc. This is going to happen across the board. Whether it’s called derivatives or called debt, as far as I am concerned, it’s the same thing. It will have the same effect on the world financial system, which will be disastrous, of course.”
EvG says the derivative markets were simply a way for financial institutions to carry debt and not show it on their balance sheets. In the end, everything will balance out. EvG goes on to say, “Nobody can repay the debt, and they can’t even pay interest. So, therefore, when the debt implodes, so will the assets that were financed by this debt. So, both sides of the balance sheet have to come down. Whether it comes down by 50%, 75% or 90%, I don’t know. All I think about is risk, and the financial system will not survive in its present form. Central banks only use one kind of medicine, and that is more printed money. Now, you are getting negative returns on printed money. So, that is not going to save anything.
Sadly we are looking at a situation when this system will start to implode. The rich are still rich, but the poor are really poor. Overall in the UK, Germany and most European countries, people don’t have enough money to live. This is a human disaster already. With food costs going up 25% and energy going up the same and gasoline, interest rates and rents, people don’t have enough money, and that is happening now. It’s a human disaster of mega proportions. It’s so sad, and governments will have no chance of doing anything about it. The risk is increasing exponentially, and it is going to get worse.” There is much more in the 43-minute interview.
"Complexity Theory: the Avalanche and the Snowflake"
by James Rickards
"One of my favorites is what I call ‘the avalanche and the snowflake’. It’s a metaphor for the way the science actually works, but I should be clear: it’s not just a metaphor. The science, the mathematics and the dynamics are actually the same as those that exist in financial markets.
Imagine you’re on a mountainside. You can see a snowpack building up on the ridgeline while it continues snowing. You can tell just by looking at the scene that there’s danger of an avalanche. It’s windswept… it’s unstable… and if you’re an expert, you know it’s going to collapse and kill skiers and wipe out the village below. You see a snowflake fall from the sky onto the snowpack. It disturbs a few other snowflakes that lie there. Then, the snow starts to spread… then it starts to slide… then it gains momentum until, finally, it comes loose and the whole mountain comes down and buries the village.
Question: What do you blame? Do you blame the snowflake, or do you blame the unstable pack of snow? I say the snowflake’s irrelevant. If it wasn’t the one snowflake that caused the avalanche, it could have been the one before, or the one after, or the one tomorrow. The instability of the system as a whole was the problem. So when I think about the risks in the financial system, I don’t focus on the ‘snowflake’ that will cause problems. The trigger doesn’t matter.
A snowflake that falls harmlessly – the vast majority of all snowflakes - technically fails to start a chain reaction. Once a chain reaction begins, it expands exponentially, can ‘go critical’ (as in an atomic bomb) and release enough energy to destroy a city. However, most neutrons do not start nuclear chain reactions, just as most snowflakes do not start avalanches.
In the end, it’s not about the snowflakes or neutrons. It’s about the initial critical state conditions that allow the possibiity of a chain reaction or an avalanche. These can be hypothesized and observed at large scale, but the exact moment the chain reaction begins cannot be observed. That’s because it happens on a minute scale relative to the system. This is why some people refer to these snowflakes as ‘black swans’, because they are unexpected and come by surprise. But they’re actually not a surprise if you understand the system’s dynamics and can estimate the system scale.
It’s a metaphor, but really the mathematics behind it are the same. Financial markets today are huge, unstable mountains of snow waiting to collapse. You see it in the gross notional value of derivatives. There is $700 trillion worth of swaps. ($2.5 Quadrillion by other reputable estimates. - CP) These are derivatives off balance sheet, hidden liabilities in the banking system of the world. These numbers are not made up. Just go to the IS annual report and it’s right there in the footnote.
Well, how do you put $700 trillion into perspective? It’s ten times global GDP. Take all the goods and services in the entire world for an entire year. That’s about $70 trillion when you add it all up. Well, take ten times that, and that’s how big the snow pile is. And that’s the avalanche that’s waiting to come down."
"This Is What The Final Stages Of A Bubble Economy
Look Like Just Before A Collapse Happens"
by Michael Snyder
"How does it feel to be living on the edge of a bubble just before it bursts? Ever since the days of the Great Recession, our leaders have been going to extremes that we have never seen before as they attempt to keep our failing economy propped up. The Federal Reserve has created trillions upon trillions of dollars out of thin air and pumped it into the financial system. Our politicians in Washington have been on the greatest debt binge in the history of the world, and as a result our national debt has soared to truly horrifying levels. On Monday, our national debt reached 35 trillion dollars, and even the New York Times is admitting that it is growing “more quickly than many economists had predicted…
"America’s gross national debt topped $35 trillion for the first time on Monday, a reminder of the nation’s grim fiscal predicament as legislative fights over taxes and spending initiatives loom in Washington. The Treasury Department noted the milestone in its daily report detailing the nation’s balance sheet. The red ink is mounting in the United States more quickly than many economists had predicted as the costs of federal programs enacted in recent years have exceeded initial projections.
To mark this milestone, the House Budget Committee released some numbers about how rapidly our debt has been growing over the last 12 months…$196 billion in new debt per month:
$6.4 billion in new debt per day.
$268 million in new debt per hour.
$4.5 million in new debt per minute.
$74,401 in new debt per second."
The third number in that list really stands out to me. $268 million dollars is being stolen from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day, and hardly anyone seems to care. We are literally committing national suicide. When a government borrows money which must be paid back later, prosperity in the future is being sacrificed for more prosperity in the present.
We were 10 trillion dollars in debt when Barack Obama entered the White House, and now we are 35 trillion dollars in debt. We have literally destroyed the bright future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have, but all of this borrowing has allowed us to enjoy a standard of living that is far higher than what we actually deserve. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where economic conditions are steadily getting worse even though our government continues to pile up mountains of new debt.
According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, homelessness in the U.S. has been growing by an average of about 10 percent a year since the pandemic ended…"According to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), since the end of the pandemic, we have experienced an average of 10% a year growth in homelessness. By the end of 2023, the U.S. hit its highest reported level in history since they began tracking it in 2007."
That same report says that the four states that have the largest problems with homelessness are California, New York, Florida and Washington…"The largest populations of homeless people are mainly in four states: California, New York, Florida and Washington. New Hampshire and New Mexico saw the largest increases in homeless people, with 52% and 50% respectively. New York came in third, moving up by 39% since the last survey."
In addition to growing homelessness, we are also seeing poverty and hunger rise all over the nation…"Combined data released last month from federal agencies found the U.S. is facing growing rates of poverty and food insecurity. In 2023, more than 12% of the nation was living below the poverty line and nearly 13% said they didn’t have enough to eat. Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said, “More people are becoming homeless for the first time.” This increase is due to people becoming un-housed faster. “They have no place to go so they end up on the streets.”
Our national debt has gone from 10 trillion dollars to 35 trillion dollars since Barack Obama first entered the White House, and our economy is still crumbling. This represents an epic failure of historic proportions. We have accumulated the largest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and most of the population is still struggling.
But all of this money has created an immensely painful cost of living crisis. Today, there are six major U.S. cities where you will only be able to live a middle class lifestyle even though you are making $200,000 a year…"Earning $200,000 a year might seem like enough to live a life of luxury. But in six of the 25 biggest US metros, rampant inflation in the past two years means this six-figure salary is only enough to be middle class."
Of course the vast majority of Americans will never make $200,000 a year. In fact, most Americans are just barely scraping by. As I discussed last week, one recent survey discovered that 71 percent of U.S. adults are stressed out about their “ability to afford everyday expenses”…"71% of Americans say they’re stressed by their ability to afford everyday expenses. Americans most regularly spend money on groceries, phone bills, utilities, gasoline and rent/mortgage payments. Grocery bills frustrate Americans more than any other regular expense. Utilities, rent/mortgage payments, gasoline and insurance payments round out the top five most annoying expenses."
Are you constantly stressed out about your finances? If so, you certainly aren’t alone. Unfortunately, things are only going to get worse from here. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have set the stage for a colossal collapse. The bubble we have been riding will inevitably burst, and once that occurs the consequences will be absolutely excruciating.
Here in 2024, red flags are popping up on an almost daily basis. For example, shares of Ford Motor Company recently plummeted by 18 percent on a single day due to very disappointing results…"The last time shares of Ford Motor dropped by more than 18% in a day, as they did last week, the U.S. automotive industry was on the brink of bankruptcy during the Great Recession. Ford, which avoided bankruptcy in 2008-2009, is far from any sort of such disaster, but the freefall in shares after the company missed Wall Street’s earnings expectations is the leading example of the uphill battle automakers face for the remainder of the year."
As conditions get even worse during the second half of this year and beyond, our leaders will attempt to stabilize things by doing even more of what they have already been doing. But that will just make the cost of living crisis even worse, and it will just make our long-term problems even worse. Of course our long-term problems are rapidly becoming our short-term problems. The entire system is convulsing with tremors, and our bubble economy is slowly but surely heading toward a date with oblivion."
"Recession ALERT: Prepare for the Hard Landing NOW. I'm diving deep into the economic turmoil that's unfolding before our eyes. Just 45 days ago, the economy was the topic of optimism, but now, the word "recession" is on everyone's lips. With job numbers fluctuating, inflation soaring, and even Warren Buffett making significant stock moves, it’s clear—we're heading for a hard landing."
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI)is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding,safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
"If we compare health and endurance, well-being, security, general attitudes, family
and community ties and values, we would conclude that it is we who are impoverished."
by Charles Hugh Smith
"We're taking care of my 92-year old mother-in-law here at home. She has the usual aches and pains and infirmities of advanced age but her mind and memory are still sharp. Her memories of her childhood are like a time capsule from the 1930s.
My mom-in-law has always lived in the same general community here in Hawaii. She's never lived more than about 10 miles from the house where she was born (long since torn down) in 1931. Listening to her memories (and asking for more details) is to be transported back to the 1930s, an era of widespread poverty unrelated to the Great Depression. Many people were poor before the Depression. They were working hard but their incomes were low.
Prior to the tourist boom initiated by statehood and affordable airfare, Hawaii's economy was classically colonial: large plantations owned by a handful of wealthy families and/or corporations (known as The Big Five) employed thousands of laborers to raise and harvest sugar cane and pineapple. Pearl Harbor, Hickam air base and Schofield Barracks were large military bases on Oahu. Travel between islands was expensive (ferries) and each island was largely self-sufficient. Even taking a bus for the 12-mile ride to the island's sole city was a rare luxury, an excursion that occurred a few times a year.
Plantation workers were not yet unionized in the 1930s, and wages were around $20 a month for backbreaking field labor - work performed by both men and women. Typical of first and second-generation immigrant communities of the time, families were generally large. Six or seven children was common and nine or ten children per family was not uncommon. Many families lived in modest plantation-provided camps of two bedroom houses.
Gardens were not a hobby, they were an essential source of food to feed a table of hungry kids and adults. Candy, snacks, sodas, etc. were treats rserved for special occasions and holidays. Kids usually went barefoot because shoes were outside the household's limited budget.
Staples were bought at the company store (or one of the few privately owned groceries) on credit and paid off when the plantation paid wages.
Credit issued by banks was unknown. Neighborhoods (kumiai) might pool a few dollars from each family every year and offer the sum to the highest secret bidder or by lottery. Those households that scraped up enough to open a small business often worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week (or equivalent: 14 hours 6 days a week).
Neighbors helped with births and deaths.
Since no one could even dream of owning a car, transport was limited. Children and adults walked or biked miles to school or work. Many sole proprietors made a living delivering vegetables, meat and fish around the neighborhoods. (This distribution system is still present in rural France where my brother and sister-in-law lived for many years). Each vendor would arrive on a set day / time and housewives could gather to buy from the proprietor's jitney or truck. Children could eye the few candies longingly, and if they were lucky, a few pennies would be given to them to buy a candy.
Locally baked bread was delivered by boys. Milk was delivered by small local dairies.
Nostalgia is a powerful force, but I don't think we can dismiss the general happiness of my Mom-in-law's childhood as airbrushed impoverishment. The poverty seems obvious to us now, but at the time it was normal life. Everyone was in the same general socio-economic class. The plantation manager lived in a mansion with servants, but those with wealth were few and far between. In other words, wealth and income inequality was extreme but the class structure was flat: the 99% had very similar incomes and opportunities - both were limited.
Employment was stable, community ties and values were strong without anyone even noticing, and everyone had enough to eat (though not as much as they might have wanted, of course).
This secure plantation structure of work and community was still firmly in place in 1969-1970 when I lived on the pineapple plantation of Lanai (and picked pineapple with my high school classmates in the summer), and so I was fortunate to experience it first-hand. My Lanai classmates speak fondly and with a sense of loss when they recall their youth. Life was secure and protected, and with unionization of the workforce, the wages sufficient enough for frugal households to save enough to send their children to college off-island. I can personally attest that fond memories of 1970s plantation life are not distorted by nostalgia. These memories are accurate recollections of a far more secure, safe and nourishing place and time.
Compared to today, the typical 1930s diet was locally grown/raised and therefore rich in micro-nutrients. Grains such as rice and flour came from afar, but other than canned fish and similar goods, food was local and fresh. Little if any was wasted. People typically worked physically demanding jobs that burned a lot of calories.
There are many people 90+ years of age in our neighborhood. My Mom-in-law's brother - like many of the men in this age bracket, he was a World War II veteran of the famed 442nd unit -died last year at 96, despite smoking a half-pack of cigarettes daily until the end. A neighbor/friend just passed away at 99 (he was also a 442nd veteran). Our neighbor (cared for by her daughter and son-in-law, just like us) just turned 100. These people are generally healthy and active until the end of their lives.
If we look for causal factors in their advanced age and generally good health, we cannot ignore the high-quality, near-zero-processed foods diets of their youth and their strong foundations in community ties and values.
If we compare the financial and material wealth most enjoy today with the limited income and assets of the pre-war era, we would conclude they lived in extreme poverty and their lives must have been wretched as a consequence. But if we compare health and endurance, well-being, security, general attitudes, family and community ties and values, we would conclude that it is we who are impoverished and it was their lives that were rich in these essentials of human life.
The world has changed since the 1930s, of course. Materially, our wealth and options of what to do with our lives are off the charts compared to the 1930s. But if we look at health, security, well-being, community ties, social cohesion and civic virtue, our era seems insecure, disordered and deranging.
The irony is that those who have grown weary of our divisive, rage-inducing socio-economic system yearn for all that's been lost in the rise to material wealth and opportunities to spend that wealth. Those who grasp the emptiness of spectacle and material wealth and who have the means to do so are seeking the few enclaves that still have a few shreds of community and social cohesion left. These enclaves then get listed on "best small towns in America" or "best places in the world to retire" and the resulting influx of wealthy outsiders destroys the last remaining shreds of what everyone came for.
I recently harvested some of our homegrown green tomatoes, and my Mom-in-law gave me a handwritten recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes from her collection. The first ingredient was "two tablespoons of bacon drippings." Um, okay, if we were all working 10-hour days hauling 80-pound loads of sugar cane on our backs, no problem, but we're a household of three seniors, 69, 70 and 92. I think we'll substitute two teaspoons of olive oil for the bacon drippings..."
"1930s USA - Fascinating Street Scenes of Vintage America"
"Step back in time with us as we unveil a mesmerizing journey through 1930s America like you've never seen before! While the Dustbowl was heating up in the southwest, the country as a whole was fighting through the Great Depression. All the while, Americans were living their day-to-day lives, and getting on as best as they could.
In this captivating video, we've meticulously colorized a collection of stunning photographs that capture the essence of a tumultuous yet resilient period in American history. From bustling cityscapes to serene countryside vistas, witness the contrast between hardship and hope that defined an entire generation. Discover the intricate details of everyday life as we explore the highways and byways of the past, complete with corner gas stations, storefronts, and bustling city streets. Journey through snapshots of the stunning architecture that emerged during this era, from Art Deco skyscrapers to quaint suburban homes. Each frame is a window into a world where innovation and creativity thrived despite adversity.
Join us on this mesmerizing visual journey, as we honor the legacy of the past and celebrate the indomitable spirit of the American people. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to experience the 1930s in an entirely new light. Whether you are a history enthusiast, a lover of vintage aesthetics, or simply curious about the past, this video offers an immersive visual experience that will evoke a sense of nostalgia and leave you with a renewed appreciation for the beauty of the human experience."
"I Went to a Russian Premier League Football Match"
"What is it like to attend a Russian Premier League Football match in Moscow, Russia. Join me at the game between Dynamo and Lokomotiv Moscow. Come behind the scenes with me as I get a chance to finally attend a game in Russia."
“Pamela and Randy Copus are the duo known as 2002. Randy Copus plays piano, electric cello, guitar, bass and keyboards. Pamela Copus plays flutes, harp, keyboards and a wind instrument called a WX5. Both musicians also provide all of the vocals on their albums, recording their voices many, many times and layering them to create a "virtual choir" with a celestial, angelic quality.”
"Some spiral galaxies are seen nearly sideways. Most bright stars in spiral galaxies swirl around the center in a disk, and seen from the side, this disk can appear quite thin. Some spiral galaxies appear even thinner than NGC 3717, which is actually seen tilted just a bit. Spiral galaxies form disks because the original gas collided with itself and cooled as it fell inward. Planets may orbit in disks for similar reasons.
The featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a light-colored central bulge composed of older stars beyond filaments of orbiting dark brown dust. NGC 3717 spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 60 million light years away toward the constellation of the Water Snake (Hydra)."
"If you were living in the Western Roman Empire in the fourth century you probably knew that things were not going well. This assumes that you were prosperous enough to have time to think about these things. You could see that the infrastructure was failing and that the empire was struggling to maintain order. On the other hand, the decline had been happening for a long time so things may have seemed normal. Without some way to compare the present to the past, you only have instinct.
Today we have mountains of facts and figures to tell us how things are doing in the Global American Empire. There was a time not so long ago when these facts and figures made up the bulk of news coverage. Economists became court wizards, explaining the latest unemployment figures or trade numbers. They were also called upon to bless whatever polices were being debated in Congress. In the Obama years, economic data was the way we measured the glories of the empire.
That has all changed now. One reason is no one in their right mind takes anything the government says at face value. People had grown used to the way the media biased the numbers depending upon who was in office, but the mortgage crisis cratered the public’s confidence in the numbers themselves. If all of the court wizards explaining the numbers could not see the mortgage fiasco coming, then why should anyone believe them about unemployment or inflation?
Then you have the general lying that has become a feature of government. The lying about Covid not only disgraced the medical profession, but it finished off whatever trust people had in the official numbers. If the government lies about how many people are dying from Covid just to move more product for the drug makers, the government will lie about how many people are working or the inflation numbers. No one trusts the numbers because no one trusts the people issuing the numbers.
The point here is we cannot trust the numbers if the numbers have no relationship to anything we have experienced. When the end of the world has the same numbers as what most consider to be a golden era for the empire, those numbers cease to have any meaning to us. Throw in the fact that most people do not feel like they are richer than their ancestors and those inflated stock figures carry even less weight. We are left to rely on our instincts to judge things.
Of course, our sense of things, that gut feeling, is the result of a many small things that we experience every day. Three-quarters of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction because they go to the grocery store every week. They see that despite the crowing about inflation coming down, food remains expensive. Granted, no one is starving in America due to a lack of affordable food, but it is that thing they see every day that gives people a sense of things.
Think about something simple like a pint of premium ice cream. A few years ago, a pint was sixteen ounces. “A pint is a pint the world around” was true from peak of the British empire until just a few years ago. Now a pint is fourteen ounces. The price for the new pint is not the same as the old pint. The price is more than the old pint. A few years ago, the old pint of ice cream was five dollars. That is about 31¢ per ounce. Today the new pint is over seven dollars or 51¢ per ounce.
That is a seventy percent change in the price. This is one example and probably not a representative one, given that butterfat prices drive dairy prices. Even so, this is something people see all over the marketplace. Shrinkflation is a word because it is a thing that exists. People notice that the containers are getting smaller, or they are getting less full in the case of things like snacks. Meanwhile, prices go up. This subtly tells people that something is going wrong.
This brings us back to where we started. There were those in the Roman Empire who sensed the true state of affairs. No doubt some of them lived and died expecting things to fall apart, only to stagger on long past their time. Then there were others who internalized this reality and just accepted that no matter how grim things might appear, the empire was a permanent feature of life. The people probably just tried to make the best of things, even as they noticed the decline.
All of that changed on August 24, 410 AD when Alaric led the Visigoths into the eternal city, sacking Rome and setting off the collapse of the Western empire. The empire staggered on for a bit longer, but it was over at that point. All of those bad signs people had sensed probably seemed obvious in retrospect. Even so, the sack of Rome by the Visigoths was a shock to the world. The signs seemed obvious, but people still thought that the imperial order was permanent.
This is most likely the fate of the American empire. There are lots of signs that things are going poorly for the empire. Getting whipped by a collection of bronze age goatherds in the graveyard of empires should have been a wakeup call, but the empire is now picking fights with Russia and China. Meanwhile things deteriorate domestically, both economically and culturally. Yet, we stagger on, but somewhere out there is an Alaric moment just waiting to happen."
"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. "
Excerpt: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” - George Orwell, "1984"
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” - George Orwell, 1984
"I never thought I would experience the dystopian “fictional” nightmare Orwell laid out in his 1949 novel. Seventy-two years later and his warning about a totalitarian society, where mass surveillance, repressive measures against dissenters, mind control through government indoctrination and propaganda designed to convince the masses lies are truth, fake is real and the narrative can be manipulated to achieve the desired outcome of those in power, have come to fruition.
Everything is fake. I don’t believe anything I’m told by the government, the media, medical “experts”, politicians, military leadership, bankers, corporate executives, religious leaders, financial professionals, and anyone selling themselves as an authority on any subject matter. We are truly living in times of mass deception, mass delusion, and mass willful ignorance.
The term Potemkin Village comes from stories of a phony movable village built by Grigory Potemkin in the late 1700’s to impress his former lover, Catherine II, during her journey to Crimea in 1787. He supposedly erected fake villages along the banks of the Dnieper River, as her vessel sailed by, to impress her with the progress he was making on her behalf. After she passed, he would have the village disassembled and then reassembled further along downstream.
I guess this was an early version of fake news, though I am sure there were also plenty of falsities and propaganda in the newspapers of the time. But, in our current day, oppressors have taken lies, falsities, miss-truths, and propaganda to heights never conceived by Edward Bernays, George Orwell or Joseph Stalin."
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