"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"

"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"

by John Wilder

"Time. Of things that have long fascinated me, time is at the top of the list. Even when I was a little kid, time fascinated me. The idea that time, of all of the physical parameters of the world there was the one that we couldn’t control. Humanity has mastered the power of the atom, at least partially. We haven’t tamed fusion, but we can create it, and have several fewer islands in the Pacific because of it.

Humanity has dammed the largest of rivers, giving us power. We have used technology to shrink the world. The first recorded circumnavigation of the world took 1082 days. Magellan didn’t quite make the whole trip, but he still gets the credit on a technicality. Now? The International Space Station does an orbit in 90 minutes or so at 17,150 miles per hour, which is nearly as fast as Haitians are entering Texas.

Humanity has conquered the riddle of steel – we’ve made steel buildings that reach upwards into the sky to please Crom. We have conquered climate – people live at the South Pole in perfect comfort, as well as managing to live in Houston without melting into puddles of sweat.

We can see at night. We can talk, nearly instantly, with people a continent away. My phone buzzes every time there is motion outside my front door – it’s like having a superpower of sensing where and when there is activity at a distance. Another superpower is being able to access obscure facts anywhere on the planet that can reach a cell signal.

But time remains fixed. It flows only one way. And it is the most subjective of our senses. Even Pugsley notices it: “This summer was so short!” He’s in high school. That’s when the transition from the endless summers of childhood begin to transform into the fleeting, never-ending carousel of years that is adulthood. I’ve long felt that I understood why this was. Let me give it a shot.

For a newborn, the second day it’s outside and breathing is 50% of its entire life. For a six-year-old, half of their life is three years – much more. It’s not a big percentage, but it’s much smaller than 50%. For a sixteen-year-old, half their life is eight years. If you’re forty – half your life is twenty years. 1/8 versus 1/20? It’s amazingly different. We don’t perceive life as a line. We’re living inside of it – we compare our lives to the only thing we have . . . our lives. Each day you live is smaller than the last.

But that’s not everything. As we age, novelty decreases. When we’re young, experiences and knowledge are coming at us so quickly that we are presented with novel (new and unique) information daily. New words. New thoughts. New ideas. That’s why babies keep falling for that stupid “got your nose” thing. They don’t realize that I can reattach it. Over time, though, novelty decreases, as does the percentage of your life that each day represents. Ever drive a new route somewhere? When I do it, I have to focus my attention. It seems like it takes longer because I’m having to deal with novelty.

I’ve had my “new” laptop nearly seven years. I had my old laptop for longer than that, yet my “new” laptop still seems like it’s temporary.

There are only so many routes I can drive to work, so much novelty that I can find in a daily drive. Even a commute of an hour begins to fade into a brief moment in time if it’s the same commute, day after day.

Work is similar. Over time, we gain experience. Experience shows us how to fix problems (and sometimes how not to fix them). But that experience of taking a solution and modifying it to fix the next problem isn’t as hard as fixing the first problem.

The fact that each day is a smaller portion of my life, combined with the fact that as I get older, the possibility that I see something new dims. I’ve solved a bunch of problems in my life. Finding a new one is... difficult. Life goes faster, day by day for me. Every endless summer day of youth is in my rearview mirror.

And yet... Each day is still 24 hours. I can still use each day and live it with all of the gusto of a 10-year-old fishing for trout after building a tree fort, playing with his dog, and building a model of a Phantom F-4 to dogfight with the MiG 21-PF already hanging from the ceiling. Even though those 24 hours seem shorter now than at any time in my life, they are relentless in their exact sameness. I get to choose how I spend those moments in my life. I get to choose what I want to produce, and how hard I work to make it happen.

Humanity may never have the ability to crack time – it appears that even today, outside of sands falling from an hourglass, we can only describe time as a fundamental entity, something we measure against. Does the flow of time vary? Certainly. But only if we’re moving at large fractions of the speed of light or are caught in a huge gravity well, but let’s leave your mother out of this.

I have come to the conclusion that I will likely never understand what, exactly, time is, outside of this: Time is all we have – it is what makes up life. We measure our lives in it, because no man can buy an extra hour of life. We have the hours we have. The only difference is what we do with that time.

I mentioned in a previous post that (during the week) I often get by on scant hours of sleep. That’s because I have more things that I want to do in my life than I can fit in a day that’s less than 20 or 22 hours some days. I choose to try to do more, to try to make use of this time, because each moment is a gift.

Maybe I can settle for that definition of time: a gift. Each moment is a gift. Don’t beg for more, or live in fear of losing them. Just make each moment count. Perhaps that’s the secret and precious nature of time. It is the one thing we should never waste, and never wish away."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

The Alan Parsons Project, "Time"

"A Great Kindness..."

“So don’t ask yourself what people want. Ask instead, What is true? What really inspires me, excites me? What will really help people and take away their confusion and suffering? It’s sort of a funny, crazy way to go, but I think it’s the only way to bring water to the wasteland Joseph Campbell described. When I read something truthful, something real, I breathe a deep sigh and say, “Fantastic – I wasn’t mad or alone in thinking that, after all!” So often we are left to our own devices, struggling in the dark with this external and internal propaganda system. At that point, for someone to tell us the truth is a gift. In a world where people all around us are lying and confusing us, to be honest is a great kindness.”

- David Edwards

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." 

- Oscar Wilde 

"Alan Shore Closing Argument On The Abuses Of Government"

"Alan Shore Closing Argument On The Abuses Of Government"

"Epic closing argument from ABC's "Boston Legal" that illustrates the erosion of our Constitutional liberties and abusive government. This can no longer be defined as a Republican versus Democrat issue. Both parties are equally responsible, as are we, the electorate, for we continue to vote the same quality of politician(s) into office over and over."

"The Old Tablecloth Trick"

"The Old Tablecloth Trick"

by Jeff Thomas

"Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Therefore, if a tablecloth is spread out on a table and an object, such as the fishbowl above, is placed on that tablecloth, the fishbowl will tend to "want" to remain right where it is. If the tablecloth were to be yanked away quickly, the fishbowl would move very little. Inertia, having been overcome by the tablecloth, would then be overcome, but the fishbowl, already at rest, would tend to remain right where it had been before – on the table.

And the same is true of human nature. If a government or an economic system collapses, the populace will experience an immediate shock of change, but their tendency will be to adapt as quickly as possible to maintain their previous situation as much as can be accomplished.

Has the government collapsed? Create a new one, possibly on similar principles as the previous one (hopefully with revisions made, to prevent the next government from making the same self-destructive mistakes a second time.)

Has the economy collapsed? Throw together whatever new form of economy works best until a more solid one can be created. This could mean relying temporarily on barter, but might mean the establishment of a safer form of currency, such as precious metals. And, again, when a new currency is introduced, revisions might be made as to who controls it, in order to assure that the same mistake is not repeated.

But, these are natural calamities that happen from time to time in civilization and, as long as the people dealing with the re-establishment of the government or economy are motivated in the direction of the benefit of the populace, there’s every chance that a solution will be created that would be implemented quickly, might minimize damage and, hopefully, be better than the last version. After all, if left to their own devices, people will come up with whatever system serves them well.

But, of course, we rarely witness the above scenario with regard to governments and economies. What we do see playing out, time after time, in one era or another, in one geographical location or another, is something quite different. Historically, what we’ve seen is that government performs the political and/or economic equivalent of pulling the tablecloth away slowly. And, of course, anyone who’s familiar with the old tablecloth trick understands what will happen. The fishbowl ends up smashed on the floor and the fish are left gasping for their last breaths.

This latter fact illustrates vividly why no one should ever pull away the tablecloth slowly. And yet, in generation after generation, humankind is repeatedly suckered into a situation in which their government does exactly that.

The way it works is that the government first says, "It’s too troublesome for you to run your own lives; leave it to us and we’ll look after you. We’ll take care of all those pesky details of life that are nuisances for you now."

First, they take control of "protection" in the form of a military, to protect the populace from threats from without and, later, create a police force to protect the populace from threats from within. Then, clearly, the people need a central fire service. They also need roads and community buildings. And, of course, these all cost money, so taxes are implemented. Then they are raised, as the costs of such services inevitably increase over time.

Then, an increasingly expansive list of other services is put forward – assistance for the poor, retirement funds, universal health benefits, etc. Soon, it becomes "necessary" to increase taxes to pay for the ever-expanding list of services the government controls. Throughout this process, the populace nods as each new "benefit" is introduced. And, since the process is gradual, they almost invariably fail to worry that the tablecloth is in motion and that their fishbowl is closer to the edge of the table than it was before.

But, in the meantime, the political leaders are continuing to pull the tablecloth and are aware that the fishbowl is nearing the edge. At this point, if they were responsible people, they’d say, "Oh-oh, we’ve been a bit too greedy and we’ve put you folks in danger. But, at this point, it won’t do any good for us to tax you less and cut out the services that have been promised to you. At this point, we need to stop pulling entirely."

And, of course, were they to do that, two things would occur. First, the populace would be up in arms at their entitlements being cut off. Second, the political leaders would be out of a job. With no more services to provide, taxation would cease to have validation. The political leaders would be in far greater danger from a cessation of movement than the people themselves.

What to do? Well, most of us, as we become adults, recognize that, in order to live, we must become productive. That’s what turns us into responsible people. But, remember, political leaders never learn this lesson. They go straight from being parasitical as children to being parasitical as adults. When the jig is up and the fishbowl is nearing the edge, they act the way they’ve always acted – as parasites. Only now, they realise that it’s all about to end very soon. Therefore, it’s time to get a last squeeze of the lemon before it goes dry.

At that point, they ramp up the economy through the creation of debt. They also increase taxation dramatically, with the claim that benefits must be increased. They then do their best to get themselves out of the way as the last pull of the tablecloth sends the fishbowl over the edge.

This, of course, is why it’s so overwhelmingly common for political leaders to take a hike just as their economies and/or governments are collapsing. Regardless of the era, regardless of the geographical locale, whether the leader be Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Shah of Iran, Fulgencio Batista or Idi Amin, those who caused the problem tend to have a well-funded exit plan in place and are rarely themselves trapped in the fishbowl.

Since this has been the nature of governments throughout history, we’d be wise to observe the situation objectively when assessing the country in which we live, and, we’d be wise to concurrently assess how things are going in other countries. If our home country is literally getting close to the edge, we might wish to make a move before the inevitable occurs.

 

Historically, in any era, there are always some countries that are getting near the edge and others that are not. Unfortunately, there's little any individual can practically do to change the course of these trends in motion. The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible. The choice for anyone whose situation is reaching its expiry date might wish to vote with his feet, rather than to await the final pull of the tablecloth."

- internationalman.com

The Daily "Near You?"

Burlington, Kentucky, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“No, You Don’t Have To Care About Any Of This”

“No, You Don’t Have To Care About Any Of This”

by Joe Jarvis

“Lots of people are trying to force you to care about the things they care about. True, some of these issues are really important. But if you don’t care, you don’t care. You don’t have to pretend. And you don’t owe anyone an explanation. Henry David Thoreau summed it up almost 200 years ago when he said: “It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him.”

See, a lot of self-righteous people can’t imagine how anyone could make a different calculation about the most important causes in the world. The person who donates to hungry children finds it absurd that others donate to animal shelters while there are still needy kids out there. But this is just another variation of how specializing makes things more efficient. If everyone works on the causes they care about most, their passion and efforts will go the furthest.

But Thoreau continues that even if someone doesn’t want to help eradicate a wrong, it is “his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.” If you’re not contributing to wrong, that is enough. In fact that is MUCH BETTER than acting like you’re saving the world, when in reality you are contributing to evil.

It’s great to care about important causes, but “I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his own contemplations too.” For example, helping poor people is a noble cause. Forcing others to help poor people is pursuing a noble cause “sitting upon another man’s shoulders.” No, he isn’t automatically evil if he doesn’t help the poor, “he may still properly have other concerns to engage him.”

These days you’ll hear people say things like, “it’s not enough to simply not be racist, you have to be actively anti-racist.” Incorrect. It is absolutely enough to simply not perpetuate an evil. They don’t know you. They can’t see inside your head, or into your life. They don’t know what you’re engaged in. But if you are not hurting others, that is enough.

Like imagine if someone told you, it’s not enough to not murder, you have to become a criminologist, and go out there and solve murders. You know I am grateful there are people out there who go into homicide investigation. But it’s not for me.

It’s pretty ironic actually. Because the same people who try to bully you into taking the action that they want you to take would scoff at your demands for a more peaceful and prosperous society.

Because guess what one of my causes is? It’s not enough to simply not steal others money. You must actively oppose the systemic theft the government calls taxes. Oh wait, but they need to steal from me in order to pursue their causes, because they do so “sitting upon another man’s shoulders.” They tell me that a portion of my income, my labor, my time, will be taken without my consent to support the causes they care about, while whatever I had planned for my labor and time will be subordinated to their whims.

But guess what? No one really cares about my cause. So I moved to Puerto Rico to take advantage of tax incentives, and now perfectly legally pay a 4% tax rate. That did a lot more for me than trying to get people to vote – as if there was anyone who would advance my causes anyway. Now, more than ever, as the chaos of the world seems to be reaching a crescendo, it is perfectly reasonable to tune out, and say, you know what, I just don’t care.

All the ships have sailed. It’s much more important to make sure you and your loved ones are in a position of strength moving forward. Everyone is going to tell you that you have to care about this, that your silence on that is as bad as whatever, that you’re either with us or against us…

I care about a lot of things, and have plenty of passionate ideas about how this world should turn out. But now is the time to keep your powder dry, and wits about you. In the board game Risk, you win by building strength while remaining unnoticed. The strongest players fight it out, and weaken each other. It is then, when the smoke clears, that it is easiest to control the board.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Live your life. Be a good person. That’s enough. Ignore the noise.”

- https://www.thedailybell.com/

"We Like To Think..."

“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”

- “Grey’s Anatomy”

"The Sun Is Doing Something That It Is Not Supposed To Do, And That Could Mean Big Trouble In The Months Ahead"

"The Sun Is Doing Something That It Is Not Supposed To Do, 

And That Could Mean Big Trouble In The Months Ahead"

by Michael Snyder

"The giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around has been far more active than scientists originally anticipated this year, and that could have very serious implications for all of us in the months ahead. Fluctuations in solar activity affect our climate more than anything else does, and we also tend to see more earthquakes when solar activity is at elevated levels. The current solar cycle is supposed to reach a peak at some point during the next 12 months, but so far there are no signs that solar activity is slowing down. In fact, the average number of sunspots that we witnessed last month was the highest that we have seen since 2001…

"The average number of sunspots reached 215.5 in August, according to the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center at the Royal Observatory in Belgium. It’s the highest number since Sept.-Dec. 2001, according to SpaceWeather.com. July’s total was 196.5. Last month, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued a preliminary statement that solar activity is at its highest since March 2001."

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Scientists were originally projecting that we would see about half as many sunspots during the month of August…"Experts had predicted that August would only see half as many sunspots, indicating that the solar maximum is imminent, and it may be more active than anticipated, possibly bringing intense solar flares and coronal mass ejections."

The number of sunspots has been increasing at an exponential rate for the past couple of months. Hopefully we will get a reprieve here in September. Because if we don’t, we could see more severe geomagnetic storms like we did in May…"In May 2024, Earth experienced its strongest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years, with auroras visible much farther south than usual, including regions as far as Florida and Mexico. If another large sunspot appears around the time of the September equinox, it could lead to a similar or even stronger event."

When a very large geomagnetic storm occurs, it can disrupt our lives in countless ways. Back in May, even farm equipment was dramatically affected…"Ronald Rabon, the owner of Double R Farms, said back in May when the G-5 extreme solar magnetic levels occurred, he was out spraying his cotton field when his equipment started acting up.

“I didn’t know what was wrong with it,” Rabon said. “All I knew, it was, and you could get it straightened up and go for a few minutes. And it might go 20, 30 minutes and whatever minutes from then, all of a sudden, you’d be going through the field and it might just take a left.” Rabon said one of the biggest problems with the solar flares is preventing his sprayers from being accurate. His GPS uses precise alignments for spraying, and when knocked out of its track, could overspray his crop and kill it."

Of course if our planet is hit by a large enough storm, it could fry power grids, take down the Internet, and cause massive societal problems all over the world. Hopefully such a scenario will not play out any time soon.

All of the solar activity that we have been witnessing is also the primary reason why there has been so much intense heat this summer…"Summer broke global heat records for the second straight year, scientists have confirmed - putting 2024 firmly on track to be the hottest year in recorded history. The period between June and August - summer in the Northern Hemisphere - was the world’s hottest such period since records began in 1940, according to data published Friday by Copernicus, Europe’s climate change service."

Much more importantly, there tends to be a lot of seismic activity when solar activity is very high, and that is precisely what has been occurring. In particular, a lot of experts are quite alarmed about all of the shaking that we have seen in California lately…"Residents in California experienced a swarm of five earthquakes within the last 48 hours. A 4.4-magnitude was felt in the north around Lake County on Saturday and two more struck the area the following evening, ranked as a 2.7 and 2.8-magnitude. Locals in southern California also reported two more quakes on Saturday, with the largest ranking a 3.9-magnitude."

Within the past 7 days, there have been more than 900 earthquakes in California and Nevada. As I discussed the other day, I am extremely concerned about the instability that we have been witnessing on the west coast. This is something that I will be watching very, very closely during the months to come. In my brand new book, I explain why I believe that we have entered a time when we will see historic earthquakes of absolutely epic proportions.

Of course it isn’t just the U.S. that will be affected. There has also been a lot of shaking south of the border lately too. On September 6th, a gigantic crack in the Earth that suddenly opened up actually swallowed four cows…"A large earth crack opened in Ejido J. Cruz Gálvez, located in the Hermosillo municipality of Sonora, Mexico, on September 6, 2024, swallowing four cows. The crack is reported to be approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) long and 1.5 m (5 feet) wide, with a depth of 4 m (13 feet) in some sections. According to the rancher who recorded a video of the crack, it swallowed four cows. Local authorities have not yet issued any statements regarding the matter."

It is not normal for a crack in the Earth that is 3 kilometers long to appear out of nowhere. When will people finally start to wake up? Our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and this should deeply alarm all of us. Meanwhile, the skies above our heads are becoming increasingly active as well.

For example, a giant space rock that is “approximately the size of two football fields” will come flying by our planet on September 15th…"An asteroid approximately the size of two football fields is set to make a close approach to Earth this month. According to the New York Post, the 720-foot-wide asteroid named 2024 ON, will pass around 620,000 miles from our planet on September 15. While this distance might seem vast, it’s remarkably close in astronomical terms – equivalent to just 2.6 times the distance between our planet and the Moon. However, it poses no threat to Earth."

The good news is that this particular giant space rock is definitely going to miss us. In the future, we may not be so fortunate. So much is happening in the skies above our heads, but most of the population is not paying attention. Unfortunately, it is just a matter of time before major events start to happen that none of us will be able to ignore."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"The War Of Politics"

"The War Of Politics"

by The ZMan

“War is a continuation of politics by other means” is a famous quote attributed to Carl von Clausewitz, a 19th century Prussian military theorist. This line is often used to end discussion about the causes of a war, rather than to understand the motivations of both sides, but that is the way to use it. Wars are not just about geopolitics, the disputes between the combatants, but the internal politics of the parties. In most cases, the parties to a war are in the war due to internal political reasons.

We see this with the Ukraine war. For Russia, decades of meddling around the border of the Russian Federation had reached a critical point internally. The pro-Western wing of the Russian political class had maintained that they could deal with elements in the West to address the concerns of Russia. The realist wing argued that there was no dealing with Washington, as they were implacably anti-Russian. The oligarchs sided with the former for financial reasons.

The provocations by the Biden administration along with the superheated rhetoric aimed at Putin changed the internal dynamics of Russian politics. On the one hand, this vindicated the position of the realists. They said all along that there was no way to make a deal with Washington, because Washington was not honest. It is impossible to deal with people who come to the table in bad faith. Any deal you make with them will fall apart because they will never abide by it.

Proof of this was when Angela Merkel said in an interview that the Minsk agreements over the disputed areas in eastern Ukraine were just a stalling tactic so the West could arm Ukraine for a war with Russia. This statement was done to humiliate Putin within the Russian political elite. This was when the West was sure that sanctions would topple the Russian state, so it was a bit of anticipatory celebration expecting that Putin would be out of power at any minute.

Instead, it had the opposite effect. The reason for this is both wings of the Russian political class wanted a peaceful solution to the Ukraine issue. They just disagreed about the best course. Western behavior leading up to the war and throughout the war has convinced both wings that peace can only come through the defeat of the NATO backed army in Ukraine. In other words, Russian politics brought war to their border, but now Russian politics control the prosecution of the war.

That should have been clear to the West in 2022 when the Russians reorganized their army and military industrial complex in response to the collapse of the Istanbul negotiators that were skuttled by Washington. The competition with the West had changed, so the war with the West was changing. The Russians settled in for a long war of attrition against the Ukraine army, society, and the West. The Ukraine war was now part of a larger global conflict with the West.

This is where the war reveals things about politics in the West. It was clear by the end of 2022 that there was no scenario in which the Ukrainians defeated the Russians militarily, so the set of possible outcomes was limited to a total defeat of Ukraine or some sort of negotiated settlement. This is what realists like John Mearsheimer argued even before the war started. The trouble is, there are no realists in Washington or the European capitals, at least none with influence.

Instead, foreign policy is controlled by a coalition of ideological zealots and infantilized managers who are easily led by the zealots. They do this by creating pleasing narratives that always end with the managerial elite coming out as Churchill in this new version of the last world war. Every new scheme to win the war always ends with some Western political figure giving the great speech announcing the triumph of the forces of good over the forces of evil.

As an aside, it is why the usual suspects broke out in hives when Tucker Carlson had on his show a historian who questions the role of Churchill. They immediately started calling Cooper and Carlson Nazis, not because either of them defended Hitler or the Nazis, but because they questioned the archetypical hero of the modern political narrative, the figure every managerial striver sees in the mirror. Cooper did not just question the narrative, but the point of the narrative.

That aside, we see this political dynamic in the conduct of the war. The Western political class is the audience, demanding a good war narrative. The ideologues are the producers, who collaborate with the writers and show runners in Ukraine. Together they create narratives like the Great Ukraine Counter Offensive of 2023 or now The Great Kursk Offensive for the fans in the political class. The military logic of these schemes does not matter, because it is all about the politics of the West.

Now that The Great Kursk Offensive has turned into a military disaster for Ukraine, the series will be cancelled, so the usual suspects are busy working on a new show to put on for the Western political class. This time it will probably include firing long range missiles into Russia to “humiliate the Putin!” You see, despite it all, the main plot line says that in the end, someone in the West will be the idealized Churchill, triumphing over Putin, who they have bizarrely cast as their Hitler.

This war has also altered geopolitics. The Chinese, who had a similar dynamic in their political elite as the Russians, experienced a similar evolution in thought about how they deal with the West, especially Washington. The Chinese have been quite blunt in their assessment of Washington. They have repeatedly told high ranking Biden officials that the constant lying is an impediment to good relations. If the Chinese think your candor is a problem, you have a serious problem with honesty.

Returning to Clausewitz, this war has allowed Russia and China to reorient global politics away from the unipolar, post-Cold war arrangements toward a multipolar world based in regional interests. This has been made possible by the war exposing the superciliousness of Western political leaders, but also the childish ignorance of the people allegedly making policy in the West. The world is starting to see the West as a setting sun and men close their doors to the setting sun."

- https://thezman.com/

Freely download "On War", by Carl von Clausewitz, here:

- https://antilogicalism.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Dangers Of Money Printing: Thomas Jefferson And The Financial Panic Of 1819"

"The Dangers Of Money Printing:

 Thomas Jefferson And The Financial Panic Of 1819"

By Mike Maharry

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before morning."

- Henry Ford

"To steal a phrase from Thomas Jefferson, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government have buried us under a "deluge of paper money." We deal with the consequences of this monetary malfeasance every time we go to the grocery store or the gas station. Our rapidly deprecating money buys less and less every single day. Central bankers and politicos claim to be fighting this inflationary monster, but the ugly truth is that inflation is by design. The political class is destroying your money as a matter of policy.

This is nothing new. Government people have been ruining our money for their gain since the Republic's earliest days. Sadly, most people don't realize what's happening. They believe price inflation is due to greedy corporations, Putin's price hikes, or voodoo.

As Thomas Jefferson warned, “The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause & consequences.” Looking at the past can inform us about the present. As the saying goes, history doesn't necessarily repeat. But it often rhymes. With that in mind, the first American boom-bust crisis in the early 19th century is informative. During this period. Jefferson’s chilling warnings about unchecked fiat, paper money proved prophetic.

In an 1814 letter to Thomas Cooper, Jefferson wrote, “Every thing predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper as we were formerly by the old Continental paper.” Just one year later, a depression gripped the United States kicked off by financial panic. This economic downturn lasted until 1821 and is widely viewed as the first boom-bust period in U.S. history. It was exactly what Jefferson predicted.

The depression was rooted in an all-too-familiar problem – excessive money printing. The economic downturn came on the heels of the War of 1812, which officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on Feb. 18, 1815. After the war, banknotes began to rapidly depreciate due to the exponential increase in the amount of paper in circulation.

The First Bank of the United States charter ended in 1811 and was not renewed. The Second Bank of the United States (SBUS) wasn’t created until 1816. This led to a proliferation of state-chartered banks.

As economist Murray Rothbard explained in his book, "The Panic of 1819", to fund the war, the federal government turned to these state-chartered banks, and they issued large numbers of paper money banknotes far exceeding the amount of gold to back them. This caused gold to drain from these banks. To keep the money flowing, the U.S. government agreed to a suspension of specie payments from state banks and the situation persisted after the war ended. This allowed banks to make loans with little to no regard for gold reserves to bank them. It was a formula for disaster.

Jefferson understood this all too well, making his views clear in his letter to Cooper. “I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for any thing but coin. but our whole country is so fascinated with this Jack lanthern wealth, that they will not stop short of its total and fatal explosion”

On March 23, 1815, the U.S. entered a period of financial panic. It was followed by several years of mild depression culminating in a sharp economic downturn known as the Panic of 1819. The panic was exacerbated by financial conditions in Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, but it was fundamentally a domestic problem caused by money printing.

Whenever the money supply rapidly expands, as it did during the war years, it creates all kinds of malinvestments in the economy. The expansion of credit fueled land speculation in the West, that likely would not have happened in a more sound monetary environment. Historian George Dangerfield argued that the entire postwar American economy was “based on a land boom.” Since the U.S. Treasury accepted payments for land in the form of state-issued bank notes, state-chartered banks helped fund this land boom. The problem was most of them lacked sufficient specie to back their paper.

After it opened for business in 1817, the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS) jumped right in to further expand money and credit. The SBUS had 18 branches. They were supposed to operate with oversight by the main bank in Philadelphia, but the oversight was lax. Meanwhile, the SBUS was supposed to regulate state banks. This oversight was also lax.

Meanwhile, western branches of the national bank got caught up in the land boom mania and began issuing SBUS banknotes at a dizzying pace. In his book "The Awakening of American Nationalism," Dangerfield noted that SBUS banks tried to restock their insufficient gold reserves by redeeming their notes for hard money at eastern and northern SBUS branches. The result was, as Jefferson called it, “a deluge of bank paper” without sufficient gold backing.

According to Rothbard, by 1818, the Second Bank of the United States had demand liabilities exceeding $22.4 million. Its specie fund stood at a mere $2.4 million – a 10:1 ratio. A 5:1 ratio was considered sustainable. That year, the SBUS tried to rein in the problem by curtailing loans by its western branches. When state banks began presenting their banknotes for redemption at the Second Bank of the United States, it refused to provide gold specie from its reserves. There was simply too much paper and not enough gold. The state banks did the only thing they could do; they began foreclosing on heavily mortgaged farms and business properties. This led to widespread bankruptcies, bank failures, a collapse in real estate prices, and spiking unemployment. It was just what Jefferson predicted.

In an 1819 letter to John Adams, Jefferson lamented that the situation would never change or even improve until people understood the root cause of the economic malaise – paper money. “The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause & consequences.”

Jefferson went on to pinpoint the root of the problem with paper money, “want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads & wampum of the Indian.” Jefferson was responding to a letter penned by Adams discussing Chapter 6 of the 1817 Treatise on Political Economy by Destutt de Tracy. Adams cited a passage calling the printing of paper money more ruinous and a greater theft than empires of old shaving off a little gold from their coins and passing them off as full-weight. In other words, Tracy called it stealing.

“A theft of greater magnitude & still more ruinous is the making of paper. It is greater because in this money there is absolutely no real value. It is more ruinous because by its gradual depreciation during all the time of its existence it produces the effect which would be produced by an infinity of successive deteriorations of the coin.”

Adams put it in even harsher terms, writing to Jefferson: “That is to say an infinity of successive felonious larcenies. If this is true as I believe it is we Americans are the most thievish people that ever existed, we have been stealing from each other for an hundred & fifty years.” 

How much worse are things today? We can accurately predict another economic meltdown in the future because, after more than 200 years, the problem of paper money remains. The people still have not become radically instructed as to the cause and consequences of the boom-bust cycle that’s fueled by printing massive amounts of paper (and today, electronic) money.

The government continues to print it at a dizzying pace. Just consider that the Federal Reserve created nearly $9 trillion out of thin air since the 2008 financial crisis through quantitative easing alone. That was on top of the expansion of money and credit due to more than a decade of artificially low interest rates.

Economic principles don’t change with the times. In 1788, Jefferson wrote, “Paper is poverty … it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.” It’s still true today. In other words, Jefferson called it. His foresight underscores the enduring danger of paper money and government excess, echoing through history’s economic crises."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Bill Bonner, "Pet Cemetery"

"Pet Cemetery"

America is the biggest single consumer market in the world. But if exporters

 want to access US customers, they’ll have to stick with the dollar... or face a 100% tariff.

by Bill Bonner

"They’re eating our pets.’"

- Donald Trump last night, talking about immigrants.

Normandy, France - It’s an election year... when brightly-colored campaign promises fall to the ground like autumn leaves... and rot. We didn’t get much out of the Harris-Trump debate. One candidate seemed like a big, old, angry, tired dummy. The other... younger... more conniving... appeared as a smooth, but empty, pantsuit. Based on that performance alone, our betting money would be long Kamala... and short US assets, including the dollar.

Faced with debt up the kazoo, and deficits from here to eternity, US policy makers only have two choices. Tighten up - with spending cuts. Or loosen up - with interest rate cuts. The first pill is hard to swallow. It causes immediate discomfort. The second is a happy pill - at least, for a while. It makes the bubble economy even more bubblicious. Neither candidate has any intention of taking the hard pill.

Yesterday, we looked at Donald Trump’s proposal to stick foreigners with a big part of the losses from US inflation. America is the biggest single consumer market in the world. But if exporters want to access US customers, they’ll have to stick with the dollar... or face a 100% tariff. The idea is simple: Force foreigners to keep using the dollar as it wastes away.

But wait... here comes another dumbass proposal... this one endorsed by both parties. The Wall Street Journal: "Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on very little these days. But officials from both parties are intrigued by the idea of the U.S. deploying a new economic tool: a sovereign-wealth fund. White House officials say they have been working for several months on the design of such a fund. The fund would provide capital to advance strategic interests such as early-stage technology and energy security as competition with China heats up.

The disclosure comes after former President Donald Trump in an appearance last week called for a sovereign-wealth fund to “invest in great national endeavors for the benefit of all of the American people,” such as infrastructure and medical research."

We wish we had been in the room at the Economic Club of New York when Donald Trump suggested it. We would have liked to see the mouths water and the eyes bulge. Trump: “We’ll be able to invest in state-of-the-art manufacturing hubs, advanced defense capabilities, cutting-edge medical research and help save billions of dollars in preventing disease in the first place. And it is many of the people in this room who will be helping to advise and recommend investments for this fund.”

Washington and Wall Street both live on OPM - other people’s money. Both have gotten rich thanks to post-1971 credit money and the Fed’s manipulation of interest rates. And now The Donald dangles billions - trillions! - more in fees, commissions, and inside deals before the Wall Street crowd.

But help us out here, dear reader. What was the last ‘great national endeavor’ that paid off? AMTRAK? The war on poverty? The War on Drugs? The invasion of Iraq? The War on Terror? The F-35? The zero interest rate policy? $2 trillion budget deficits? If these ‘investments’ were so profitable, how come, now, we have a $35 trillion debt fund... and not a $35 trillion ‘wealth fund?’

Pity the TV interviewers don’t ask more questions. Who would run such a program? The same elites who run the rest of the government, of course. How could they invest the public’s money better than private investors with their own skin in the game? Why would they do a better job of this than they do of handling the border crisis, downtown San Francisco or the federal budget itself? And, since so much wealth has already been squandered on previous ‘investments,’ where would the new wealth fund cash come from?

A modest prediction: If the feds keep ‘investing’ more and more of our money, pretty soon we’ll be eating our own pets."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "It's All on Fire!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 9/11/24

"It's All on Fire!"

"Southern California's inferno nightmare is unfolding, and you're right here with me, Dan, on IAllegedly as five relentless fires rage across Southern California, threatening upscale communities like Dove Canyon and Hidden Ridge. The severity is unimaginable; roads are blocked, and insurance woes are mounting as insurers shy away from high-risk areas."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "Scott Ritter, US to Attack Russia"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 9/11/24

"Scott Ritter, US to Attack Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "7 Day Countdown Begins, U.S. Dollar Collapse Accelerates"

Gregory Mannarino, 9/11/24

"7 Day Countdown Begins,

 U.S. Dollar Collapse Accelerates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Iran & Hamas Vow Revenge After Israel Flattens Gaza Tents In Al-Mawasi; 'Insane...Nazi Policies...'"

Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 9/10/24

"Iran & Hamas Vow Revenge After Israel Flattens 

Gaza Tents In Al-Mawasi; 'Insane...Nazi Policies...'"

"Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani denounced Israel’s Al-Mawasi strike in strongest terms. He said the deadly attack on a tented encampment in southern Gaza near Khan Yunis shows Israel has no respect whatsoever for legal and international standards as well as moral principles. The Al-Mawasi attack killed at least 45 and injured 60 other people."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

See the size of that bomb crater? That's from a 6,000 lb. bomb YOU, America, paid for and sent to these psychopathic, bloodthirsty degenerates called Israel! They're totally incapable of feeling shame and disgrace...Hell is not hot enough and eternity not long enough for these Zionist monsters. And THIS is who and what WE are now, America! - CP

"Wars And Rumors Of War, 9/10/24"

Full screen recommended.

Schiller Institute, 9/10/24

"Does the U.S. Intend to Fight a Nuclear War?"

"Dr. Ted Postol, MIT Professor Emeritus and one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons, addressed the meeting of the International Peace Coalition on September 6, 2024. Dr. Ted Postol characterized recent U.S. upgrading of nuclear weapons systems as “prompt preemptive strike forces.” The U.S. has, at great cost, produced “super fuse” weapons, designed to preemptively destroy silo-based missiles. One would only pursue this approach if planning to fight and win a nuclear war, an extraordinarily delusional mindset. A Russian military officer would be forced to conclude that the U.S. intends to attack."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Douglas MacGregor, 9/10/24

 "Israel Preps 60,000 Troops for War with Iran - 

Middle East Break Out!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Jeffrey Sachs, 9/10/24

 "Israel Will Attack Lebanon in 72h - 

Iran Threaten Launch Sonic Missiles to Tel Aviv"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "Politicians Want War, People Want Peace"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 9/10/24

"Politicians Want War, People Want Peace"

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

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "We Had Attempted Home Invasion This Morning, It's Getting Bad Out There"

Jeremiah Babe, 9/10/24

"We Had Attempted Home Invasion This Morning,

 It's Getting Bad Out There"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Debt Spiral Crosses the Point of No Return"

"The Debt Spiral Crosses the Point of No Return"

by Nick Giambruno

"There was once a mathematician who supposedly invented the game of chess and presented it to his king. The king, impressed by the game, asked the mathematician to name his reward. The mathematician asked for grains of wheat, using the chessboard to calculate the amount. He requested that a single grain of wheat be placed on the first square and doubled for every subsequent square. This means two grains on the second square, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on, for all 64 squares on the chessboard.

Initially, the request seemed modest to the king, who agreed. However, the reality of exponential growth became apparent as the process unfolded. By the time the board was half-covered (at the 32nd square), the number of grains was already enormous, reaching over four billion. As the squares continued to be filled, the numbers grew astronomically larger. By the 64th square, the total wheat needed for the entire board reached 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains - about 18.4 quintillion.

To put this into context, let’s convert this to a more understandable measure, such as metric tons. The average weight of a grain of wheat is about 50 milligrams or 0.00005 kilograms. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains * 0.00005 kilograms/grain = 922 trillion kilograms. Since there are 1,000 kilograms in a metric ton, this equals about 922 billion metric tons.

To compare this with global wheat production, let’s consider recent figures. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world’s wheat production in a recent year was about 761 million metric tons. The 922 billion metric tons required for the chessboard is about 1,211 TIMES the entire global wheat production. This example illustrates the astonishingly large number that results from exponential growth, even when starting with something as small as a single grain of wheat.

Drowning in a Stadium: Imagine you’re sitting in a large sports stadium that is completely watertight. A single drop of water is placed in the middle of the stadium, and the amount of water then doubles every minute. At first, the growth seems slow. You won’t even be able to notice the water until it’s almost too late. Let’s say it takes 48 minutes for the stadium to become full of water. At 47 minutes, the stadium would only be half full, and at 46 minutes, it would only be a quarter full, and so on. By the time you become aware of the water’s presence, you are only a few minutes away from drowning.

The stadium and chessboard examples are metaphors to illustrate the power of exponential growth. With exponential growth, things can seem under control or manageable for a long time. Then, an inflection point is reached, and the situation rapidly becomes overwhelming, growing to unimaginable scales. Exponential growth is a concept that is initially deceptive because humans are more accustomed to recognizing linear growth rather than exponential patterns. That’s precisely why many people are missing what could be the most important financial trend of the decade.

The Debt Spiral: Ray Dalio is one of the world’s most successful hedge fund managers. His success is due to his consistent ability to get the Big Picture right. He recently said this: "We are at a point in which we are borrowing money to pay debt service. When you keep having debt growth faster than income growth, that means you have debt service encroaching on your spending, and you want to keep spending at the same time. As that happens, there is a need to get more and more into debt. It accelerates. We are at the point of that acceleration. We are near that inflection point."

Dalio is warning about the explosive nature of the US government’s compounding debt situation. We can see this in the below chart from The Heritage Foundation. It does a good job illustrating Dalio’s point about reaching the part where the acceleration occurs, the inflection point. It’s worth noting that the chart only goes to 2023, and the situation has significantly deteriorated since.

The financial position of the US government has been gradually deteriorating for decades, so it’s not surprising that many people are complacent. They’ve long heard about the debt problem, and nothing has happened. However, it is now reaching the tipping point. That’s because the US government is now borrowing money to pay the interest on the money it has already borrowed, as Dalio noted. Politicians are adding more debt to solve the problems of prior debt.

It’s creating a self-perpetuating doom loop. It will result in the total debt growing not linearly but exponentially. The debt increases at a faster rate over time because it is compounding. Each calculation period adds more interest to the total amount owed, which requires more borrowing and causes a larger interest expense.

As the exponential growth of the wheat on the chessboard and the water in the stadium illustrated, the dramatic change happens very quickly after a long period of seemingly slow growth. It took 48 minutes for the water to fill the stadium, but the water only became evident in the last couple of minutes. The inflection point - where the growth accelerates and spirals out of control - occurs near the end of the process. It’s when the effects of exponential growth become dramatically evident.

Similarly, the US government’s debt has grown steadily over decades but is now rapidly increasing. Dalio says the US is near the inflection point where the debt growth will accelerate and explode into previously unimaginable levels. I think he is correct, and that has enormous implications.

Below is a chart of the US federal government’s interest expense. The inflection point at the end of the chart is clear. It appears we are at the moment where the water is becoming noticeable in the stadium.

Unfortunately, most people have no idea how bad things can get when their government goes bankrupt, let alone how to prepare. We will likely see incredible volatility in the financial markets that could decimate many ordinary people’s life savings and retirement assets.

But I’m not just talking about a stock market crash or a currency collapse… It’s something much bigger… with the potential to alter the fabric of society forever. It’s created an economic situation unlike we’ve ever seen before, and it’s all building up to a severe crisis on multiple fronts.

It could all go down soon… and it won’t be pretty. It will result in an enormous wealth transfer from savers to the parasitical class - politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them. Countless millions throughout history were wiped out financially - or worse - during periods of profound change because they failed to see the correct Big Picture and take appropriate action. Don’t be one of them."

- https://internationalman.com/

o

"The 2024 Debt Spiral: 

How $1 Trillion in Interest Is Breaking the Federal Budget"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Believe"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Believe"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC).

The above image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry by an amateur to win the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to 30 Doradus. Studying the stars in N11 has shown that it actually houses three successive generations of star formation. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130211.html

"All Sins..."

"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?"  

- Andre Comte-Sponville

Joe South, "Walk A Mile In My Shoes"