So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, November 1, 2024
Adventures With Danno, "I Don't Know How To Explain This... It's Getting Worse"
Adventures With Danno, AM 11/1/24
"I Don't Know How To Explain This... It's Getting Worse"
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Adventures with Danno, PM 11/1/24
"Listeria: This is Bigger Than We Thought.
This Is Unacceptable"
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Meanwhile, elsewhere...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 11/1/24
"Can You Buy Butter in Russia in 2024?
(Western Media Says No)"
Can you buy butter in Russia in 2024? Are they locking up butter in Russian supermarkets? Join me as I tour nine different supermarkets in Russia to see the truth behind recent Western news stories in person."
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Gregory Mannarino, "This Is It! The Point Of No Return..."
Gregory Mannarino, 11/1/24
"This Is It! The Point Of No Return..."
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Dan, I Allegedly, "Bank of America: Money Laundering Scandal"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/1/24
"Bank of America: Money Laundering Scandal"
"Bank of America: money laundering scandal exposed? Hey, it's Dan from I Allegedly, diving into the latest banking turmoil! Is Bank of America in hot water for money laundering? Let's unravel this scandal together. With banks under intense scrutiny, Bank of America is facing an anti-money laundering investigation. How deep does this go, and what's the fallout for their clients? You won't believe the stories we've uncovered, shedding light on the murky waters of banking ethics."
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Bill Bonner, "The Biggest Loser"
"The Biggest Loser"
If Ms. Harris wins, voters will get what they expect. If Mr. Trump wins,
on the other hand, they will get what they deserve.
by Bill Bonner
"Never in history has there been such a vivid contrast between the brilliance of so many and the utter uselessness of so few. The American experiment is still alive and kicking, but there is a cancer in Washington that is out of control and may soon threaten to kill the host - whoever wins on Tuesday..." - Matthew Syed
Baltimore, Maryland - "We did our ad hominem analysis yesterday. The two candidates are opposites. One is empty... and ready to do as she is told. The other is full of grievances and mischief. Both are rascals. And the poor voters! We can just imagine the conversations coming down the pike. You voted for him? You voted for her? What were you thinking?
It’s a shame they can’t both lose. The long-suffering electorate is damned if it does... and damned if it doesn’t. Either way, it’s the public that loses. Today’s mission: a guess about who the biggest loser will be.
Here’s the Executive Summary: A common theme in the press is that the nation is ‘deeply divided.’ Mr. Trump is accused of trying to widen the division. Ms. Harris says she will ‘bring the country together.’ And yet, the two candidates agree on the fundamentals. Neither offers a balanced budget. Both want to continue spending money they don’t have on programs that most people neither want nor need. Both support the empire of The West and will put US troops in harm’s way for reasons that have nothing to do with US national security. Both claim to know when an abortion should be permissible. Neither thinks the US Constitution should be allowed to stand in his way.
This is also the ‘center’ position…or the ‘New York Times’ view, the creed of the ruling elites. Ms. Harris represents it. Mr. Trump claims to be against it. If Ms. Harris wins, voters will get what they expect. If Mr. Trump wins, on the other hand, they will get what they deserve.
On the surface, Trump and Harris proposals are very different. We asked AI to summarize them for us:
Kamala Harris:
• Taxes: Harris aims to raise taxes on high-income earners and big businesses while providing tax cuts and credits for middle- and lower-income households.
• Inflation and Cost of Living: She plans to reduce food and housing costs, ban price-gouging on groceries, and support first-time home buyers.
• Trade: Harris supports targeted tariffs, maintaining some of the tariffs introduced during the Biden administration.
• Climate and Energy: She has been involved in passing significant climate legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which supports renewable energy.
Donald Trump:
• Taxes: Trump proposes across-the-board tax cuts, including making permanent the tax cuts from his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
• Inflation and Cost of Living: He promises to lower energy costs through increased oil drilling and to reduce housing costs by deporting undocumented immigrants.
• Trade: Trump plans to impose new tariffs on most foreign goods, particularly from China.
• Climate and Energy: He advocates for expanding Arctic drilling and rolling back environmental protections.
In short, Ms. Harris will continue today’s democratic policies, more or less. Mr. Trump meanwhile would put some kinks in the rope. But both will pull the nation towards financial catastrophe. The real problem is that the feds spend too much money. A debt crisis is coming soon. And neither candidate seems to know or care.
In addition to extending his tax cuts, Trump has suggested excusing government and military people from income taxes. He has even proposed to eliminate income taxes altogether, replacing the revenue with tariffs. In theory, that would exchange a tax on earnings with a tax on spending. This would be great for the rich, who earn relatively much and spend relatively little. And since it would punish consumption rather than savings or investment, in the long run it might actually lead to greater capital formation and more wealth.
But in practice, Congress might go along with the tax cuts... but it would stumble on the revenue side. Debt would grow faster than ever... forcing up interest rates and probably triggering an inflationary depression.
And it would be a field day in the swamp, with lobbyists and political donors darting and swishing like a school of piranhas on a dead cow. Exceptions, special side deals, preferences and exonerations - the Swamp would grow. The economy would shrink. Outside of the greater Washington area, people would be poorer.
Trade would go down. Prices would go up. And the discombobulation of trying to switch a $6+ trillion federal budget to tariff-based funding would be one for the record books... a sad story of chaos and poverty.
Either way, Trump or Harris, the main fruit of the 2024 election will be bitter disappointment. Harris won’t bring the divided nation back together - not with more of what drove them apart. And as for the MAGA crowd, their man is not the disruptor they think he is. He won’t change what needs to be changed. And what he might change would probably make things worse."
Jim Kunstler, "Actually, The Democratic Party is Hitler"
"Actually, The Democratic Party is Hitler"
by Jim Kunstler
"The Blue Team is protected by the sheer audacity of their
betrayal of Americans. For most, their approach is literally beyond belief."
- Bret Weinstein
"Along about now, you’re probably wondering what sort of mayhem the Party of Chaos is set to unleash on our democracy after their mighty ballot fraud operation fails to overcome the yet more powerful instinct of the voters to expel them from the seats of power they seized by fraud in 2020 and 2022. You can be sure they’ve gamed-out a playbook aimed at paralyzing the nation one way or another if the effort to install Kamala Harris in the White House face-plants, as it appears to be doing in these final days before the reckoning.
Rioting, arson, and looting in the cities? Not so much. Probably some, but only because it’s an excuse for 100-percent-off sale “shopping,” plus the need for hordes of dopamine-deprived youth to seek a little dangerous excitement — in a society that gives them nothing meaningful or purposeful to do. It’d surely reflect poorly on the regime clinging to power in the months before January 20. Anyway, “Joe Biden,” Kamala, and company would be blamed for letting the cities get wrecked again, and then double-blamed by their own partisans if they try to stop it with the national guard. It’s a no-win deal for them.
More likely, the Party will hijack the nation’s legal machinery to cancel the election ex post facto. They’ve done a swell job in advance setting up conditions that make it difficult if not impossible to sort out legal ballots cast from the frauds. So, expect the Party’s chief lawfare ninja Marc Elias, and his zillion-dollar-funded cadre of pettifoggers, to contest the swing-state precincts where their ballot-harvest somehow fell short a few bushels. They’ll file enough lawsuits to gum up the courts until the sun becomes a red dwarf.
If the actual numbers add up to a Trump victory, the Democrats will re-brand that as the new “Big Lie” and commence a strenuous campaign in the old media to gaslight the public into believing the vote-count isn’t what it looks like. After all, numbers are math and math is racist. That will provide the rationale, and furnish the game-space, to stop Trump by other means.
Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has already advertised his scheme to knock Mr. Trump off the game-board by using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to declare him an “insurrectionist,” disqualified from holding office. Of course, Mr. Trump has not been charged, indicted, or convicted for insurrection, nor was anyone involved in the J-6 protest and riot.
Insurrection was supposed to be established as fact by the House J-6 Committee, but it died of illegitimacy after destroying all its accumulated records last year, including documents in evidence and the videos of all the witnesses it deposed. Whoops. The Jack Smith prosecution in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s DC Federal District court was a backup plan for that, but the July SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity has, so far, gummed up that ploy. Mr. Raskin would need a Democratic House majority to pass such a resolution, in any case, and it looks unlikely that he will have that.
A rather desperate gambit to oust Mr. Trump with a military coup, first advanced by former Pentagon official Rosa Brooks in a February, 2017, op-ed in the high-toned journal Foreign Policy, and reiterated by Nancy Pelosi in January, 2021, has been resurrected now that Mr. Trump is firmly branded as Hitler by the Party of Chaos — meaning he can be eliminated by any means necessary. “Joe Biden’s” woked-up generals might be game for a coup, but they’d have to overcome a lot of counter-coup-minded, not-so-woked-up colonels to get there.
Anyway you cut it, the hysteria in the body politic is running at a pitch — as Mr. Trump himself might say — that has never been seen before, at least not since Fort Sumter. The Democrats complain that a Trump victory means the Department of Justice will be weaponized against them. Is that rich, or what? It actually tells the whole story since you know the Party always accuses its opponents of exactly what it is already doing.
Speaking of which, we must look forward to Judge Juan Merchan’s November 26th sentencing of Mr. Trump in DA Alvin Bragg’s “Stormy Daniels hush money” case. It’s out there, looming, and it ain’t going away. Judge Merchan is going to have to do...something! The jury has pronounced Mr. Trump guilty of those 34 “felonies” (based on 34 book-keeping entries, originally misdemeanors, and beyond the applicable statute of limitations).
I’d like to see the Judge stash the president-elect in the Rikers Island lockup for a few hours. It’ll be a better stunt than Mr. Trump’s shift serving fries at McDonald’s, or riding the garbage truck after “Joe Biden” called more than half the country that supports him “garbage.” Because a few hours after Mr. Trump settles into his Rikers cell and enjoys his first boloney sandwich, the SCOTUS is going to turn a flame thrower on Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg and vacate the absurd case and every half-assed procedure that was used to arrive at it, and refer Merchan and Bragg for disbarment for professional misconduct, malicious prosecution, and failure to uphold the law.
Which means, if Juan Merchan has an ounce of sense, on or before November 26th he will find an excuse to dismiss his own case (yes, he can) on the grounds of procedural irregularities, or insufficient evidence...or some other Mickey Mouse grounds...and suck up the humiliation...and get on with his life...hoping (and maybe even praying) that sometime after January 20th, 2025, he does not find himself under indictment, along with several other Biden-era lawfare ninjas, for conspiracy to deprive the once and future president of his civil rights.
The days just ahead will be filled with tension and angst, I know. Make sure you vote. After Tuesday, our country will be politically fogged-in for a while. Hunker down, keep your heads screwed on, and have faith in each other. The cause is a righteous one. MASA: Make America Sane Again."
"Alert! Iran Preparing 'Bigger' Strike On Israel; Korean Generals In Ukraine; Gov. Warns To Prepare!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/31/24
"Alert! Iran Preparing 'Bigger' Strike On Israel;
Korean Generals In Ukraine; Gov. Warns To Prepare!"
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Thursday, October 31, 2024
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters.
One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy."
Chet Raymo, "The Meaning Of Life"
"The Meaning Of Life"
by Chet Raymo
"There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself."
– Erich Fromm
"I had heard from a high-school student in the midwest who had read my book 'Skeptics and True Believers,' in which, as you may know, I take to task all forms of faith that lack an empirical basis, including astrology and supernaturalist religion. He writes: "Are we just meaningless beasts roaming a meaningless Earth with the sole purpose of popping out babies so we can raise them to live longer, more meaningless lives?"
A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.
As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.
"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.
In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."
A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.
As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.
"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.
In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."
- http://www.sciencemusings.com/
" I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"
" I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I'm Just Tired"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The Presidential election, the “most important elections of our lifetimes,” will soon be over. Whoever wins, it isn’t really going to change much. Today’s system is simply too deeply entrenched. While the much-touted differences between America's political parties get obsessive, hysterical attention, the sameness of Imperial corruption, waste and squalor regardless of who's in power gets little notice.
Scrape away the differences - mostly in domestic and cultural issues - and we see the dead hand of Imperial Corruption is on the tiller. The core of Imperial Corruption is the disconnect between the nation's ideals of representational democracy and open markets and the sordid reality: elites serve their interests by corrupting both democracy and open markets.
Elites Against Democracy: Unfettered democracy and markets cannot be controlled by a tiny, self-serving elite. Stripped of corruption, democracy and markets are free-for-alls that are constantly evolving. This open-ended dynamism is the beating heart of both democracy and open markets. But the dynamic adaptive churn of unfettered representative democracy and open markets are anathema to insiders, vested interests and elites. Each has gained asymmetric power by subverting democracy and markets to serve their private interests. They’ve destroyed the system’s natural dynamism.
When "competition" has been reduced to two telecoms, two healthcare insurers, two pork processors, etc., the system has been stripped of adaptability and resilience. Democracy has been replaced by an auction of political power to the highest bidder.
Everything’s Up for Grabs: It rewards cronies and devotes all its resources not to solving the nation's problems but to whipping up conflagrations of divisiveness and partisan hysteria that wash away the middle ground where problems can actually be addressed. This crippling of the nation's ability to actually solve difficult problems serves the interests of self-serving elites whose sole interest is accumulating personal wealth and power.
Their proclaimed interest in solving the nations' real-world problems are fraudulent tissues designed to hide the putrid reality that all their so-called "solutions" distill down to sluicing huge sums of state money to cronies and campaign contributors under the guise of "solving problems."
The only "problem" America's elites know how to solve is the "problem" of how to get personally richer while tightening their control of the nation-state's vast flood of (taxed/ borrowed) money. Cronies and contributors get tax breaks hidden in 1,000-page legislation and overflowing rivers of money (here's looking at you, Big Pharma, Big Defense, Higher Education, Sickcare, et al.).
Masters at Misdirection and Distraction: America's elites are masters at misdirection and distraction: it's always the other side's fault that the nation is sliding down the chute. The elites don't really care which side is in power, as they control them both to serve their own interests. Any advance that increases efficiency and productivity and furthers the public good is squelched, suppressed or co-opted by vested interests. They fear, rightly, that their share of the spoils might be diminished by advances that render obsolete their particular cartel, monopoly or other embedded skim, scam, fraud, embezzlement or simply unproductive dead weight.
But something funny happens on the way to gaining control of complex emerging systems: that control destroys the system's self-correcting mechanisms and adaptability. Rigging the system to serve one's own interests destroys the system's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and selective pressures.
Adapt or Die: Once a system has been crippled to serve the interest of an elite, when forced to adapt or die, it can only die as its mechanisms of adaptation were destroyed by the power-grab of elites. An economy dominated by a handful of cartels and quasi-monopolies is an economy that is doomed to slide into the dustbin of history, as cartels and monopolies "win" by crushing competition, as competition threatens their profits and control of markets and governance, a.k.a. "democracy."
Any system that serves the interests of the few by choking off adaptability and the dynamisms of a free-for-all churn lacks the tools needed to avoid systemic collapse. By enabling elites to organize the nation to serve their personal interests, America has been stripped of the dynamics needed to adapt. Without these dynamics, collapse is the only possible outcome.
Don’t Forget the Deep State! But no mention of today’s “democracy” can ignore the Deep State - the unelected and unaccountable Administrative State. The Administrative State has existed in some form in every nation-state/empire, but the U.S. Deep State only gained its vast global powers in World War II and the Cold War. That was when the Deep State learned the lesson that the public can’t always be counted on to do “the right thing.” They may choose unwisely (for example, choosing appeasement over preparation). And so the really important decisions needed to preserve the nation cannot be left to the public or parochial politicos in elected office. Those decisions must be in the hands of those who know what has to be done.
Democracy is simply the rubber stamp for doing what's necessary. Beyond that, it's a potentially fatal hindrance. That's the mindset of the Deep State, and if you and I were in upper-echelon positions in the Administrative State, we'd agree with this mindset when things get serious.
Trump: Why do you think they were so opposed to Donald Trump? Whatever you think of Trump personally, or what I think of him personally, is completely beside the point. This isn’t about politics. The fact is, the Deep State perceives him as a grave threat to its interests and is doing everything it can to stop him.
This mindset is a self-reinforcing group-think feedback loop. Those who believe the public should set policy are weeded out, either by self-selection or via being sent to bureaucratic Siberia. We're protecting you. That's all you need to know.
This opens the door to functionaries who came to do good but stayed to do well, i.e. those with the right credentials and connections to enter the Power Circle to "serve the public" but soon become insiders maximizing their own private gains. That's the problem with the Administrative State: it's ultimately unaccountable, not just to the public or elected officials but to itself.
Enjoy the Circus: But in the meantime, enjoy the political theatrics we’ve been treated to down on the sand-strewn floor of the Coliseum. While Imperial Corruption undermines what's left of the nation's ability to adapt fast enough and successfully enough to survive what lies ahead, we can cheer the "winners" of the political bloodsport. We can simply ignore the winds of disorder sweeping the land.
It seems like it can just go on forever. But everything is forever until systemic weaknesses reveal themselves, typically at the most inopportune junctures. We could well be at one of them. It's easy to be disgusted. But I’ve found that being disabused of the fantasy that the system is self-correcting is the healthier perspective. I used to be infuriated by it all. Now I'm just tired of it all."
Jeremiah Babe, "Demonic Forces Attacking The President; Mass Looting In Los Angeles; Evictions Soar"
Jeremiah Babe, 10/31/24
"Demonic Forces Attacking The President;
Mass Looting In Los Angeles; Evictions Soar"
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Adventures With Danno, "Stores Are Closing Everywhere, Very Sad News"
Adventures With Danno, PM 10/31/24
"Stores Are Closing Everywhere, Very Sad News"
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"The Monstrous Thing..."
"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."
- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”
Freely download “Tropic of Cancer”, by Henry Miller, here:
Gerald Celente, "Idiot's Delight: A Geopolitical And Socioeconomic Freak Show"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 10/31/24
"Idiot's Delight:
A Geopolitical And Socioeconomic Freak Show"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing
global current events forming future trends."
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"Bamboozled..."
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. "
- Carl Sagan
"Why Can’t We Thrive Like 1905?"
"Why Can’t We Thrive Like 1905?"
by Paul Rosenberg
"When writing historical things, I try to include perspective from people who actually lived through the events. And for money issues in the US, I’m able to do that back to about 1905. So, do you think life was nasty, brutish, and short in 1905? That there were poor and starving people falling dead on every street corner? Hardly.
The Wright brothers were flying for 30 minutes at a crack; Einstein was upgrading the laws of physics; telephones and electric lights were being installed all across America; Henry Ford was getting the final pieces in place for his moving assembly line and Model T; radio was being developed; art was flourishing; and the world was more or less at peace.
Sure, we have far more tech and better medicine now, but mostly because the people of earlier times (like the 1905 era) gifted it to us. People in 1905 lived in heated homes, refrigerated their food, had access to professional physicians, traveled the world (mostly on trains and ships), read daily newspapers (there were many more of them in those days), watched early movies, and ate just about the same foods we eat.
So, was it really that bad a time? No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was better in important ways, and one in particular: It was moving rapidly forward.
Money In The USA: Facts: Consider this: The working person of 1905 kept his or her money. They ended up saving somewhere between a quarter and a half of everything they made – after living expenses. It’s hard to be completely precise when reconstructing the budgets of average people in 1905 (records are hard to find), but we do have enough for a good, close guess. Here’s how finance worked for a working family man of 1905:
Annual income: $700.00
Annual expenses: ($350.00)
Annual savings: $350.00
If you’re thinking that I’m taking liberties with these numbers, let me assure you that I’m not – I’m being conservative. For example:The income figure should probably be higher. I’ve found figures of well over $800 for construction workers. As for expenses, I rounded up from a New York Times article, dated 29 September, 1907. It specified $325 per year. Added to that is the fact that many people grew their own food during that time, which would skew the figures further.
As noted initially, I compared these numbers with stories I heard from relatives who lived through the time. My uncle Dave, for example, used to tell me how he got a job paying $390 per year sweeping floors, as an unskilled immigrant who spoke almost no English, in 1903.
The next time you drive through an old part of town and see the grand old houses, remember that people were able to build and buy them because their paychecks weren’t stripped bare. There were no income taxes in 1905, no sales taxes, no state taxes, and not much in the way of property taxes. There was also no such thing as a military-industrial complex in those days, and – miracle of miracles – the rest of the world survived!
And Now… As you know, today’s situation is much different. The average working family pays about half their income in combined taxes: income taxes (to the state and the Feds), payroll taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, utility bill taxes, sales tax, local taxes, and on and on. So, figuring an average income of just over $50,000 (that’s a 2011 figure). And combined taxes of about $25,000, the average American family is left to pay bills like these:
Mortgage $11,000
Car payments $6,000
Gas, repairs, etc. $2,500
Property taxes $2,500
Food $3,000
Total $25,000
That leaves people zeroed-out. And again, I’m being conservative: I haven’t included a number of smaller expenses, and that huge numbers of people are deeply in debt.
If Great Grandpa Could Do It… Our great grandfathers faced very few of the taxes that we face. (The government survived on tariffs.) There was no social security either, and – believe it or not – the streets were never full of starving old people. Families were able to take care of their own – it’s not that hard when you’re saving half of your income! We have forgotten that it was once possible for an average person to accumulate money. The truth is that productive people should be comfortable. Well-off, as they used to say. So, why can’t we thrive like it’s 1905? You might want to hold that question in mind."
Bill Bonner, "Trick or Treat?"
The character 'Leatherface’ from the movie
‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.
"Trick or Treat?"
All governments are really ways for the elite few to lord over off the non-elite many.
They tax. They spend. They hand out money to their clients and cronies. They inflate.
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Elections are sordid and preposterous affairs. But they are funny too. They seem to concentrate absurdity, mendacity, and stupidity, like the rays of the sun focused through a magnifying glass. The amusing thing is that everyone is in on it. It’s like the World Series in which everyone’s home team is in the playoffs. The fans show their colors — red or blue. They wave their flags and flaunt their slogans. They put signs in their front yards, to show the neighbors which side they are on.
So let us do our part by asking a simple question: does it matter? Former Ambassador Chas. Freeman: "It doesn’t seem to matter which political party controls the House or Senate. Congress still can’t pass a budget or otherwise set national priorities. When it’s not shut down, our government runs on credit rollovers. Our debt is out of control. So far this century, we’ve committed almost $6 trillion to wars we don’t know how to end. "
Still, the outcome of the 2024 elections may have an effect - especially on our money. We need to be alert. So, here’s the Executive Summary: Ms. Harris offers ‘more of the same.’ With her, we will continue our odyssey of war, inflation, bankruptcy and jackassery. Mr. Trump offers something different. On foreign policy, his ‘Big Man,’ tough guy approach may make things better... or worse. And on domestic matters he is likely to lead us into the same financial debacle as Ms. Harris... but perhaps sooner. More tomorrow... in the meantime...
‘Dere’s dem dat’s smart... and dem dat’s good,’ said Uncle Remus. But in this contest, both candidates are neither good nor smart. And so what? Adolf Hitler didn’t have to be good or smart; he just had to refrain from invading other countries and killing people. And, today, we have a monument to Abraham Lincoln in Washington because he had more firepower than Jeff Davis, not because he was gooder or smarter.
All governments are really ways for the elite few to lord over off the non-elite many. They tax. They spend. They hand out money to their clients and cronies. They inflate. They bungle. They boondoggle. They bribe. They bully. And they kill. Almost everything a government does is evil, stupid, or inefficient. The best leaders are those who do the least of it. But neither of today’s candidates is proposing to cut back.
Getting control of the US government means getting your hands on $6+ trillion of annual slush. A big prize. To get it, the leading parties typically ‘run to the center,’ courting the moderate, middle-of-the-road voters... ending up with policies that are more or less tolerable to most people.
But the center is the ‘more of the same’ that Donald Trump is running against. Like Milei in Argentina, he’s the ‘chainsaw candidate.’ Milei, though, has a well-developed set of free-market principles to guide him. Trump does not. He has the chainsaw, but doesn’t know what to do with it.
Mr. Trump rose to prominence largely by spending his father’s money... and developing an anti-elite patois that made him attractive to the masses. He put his name everywhere he could - on casinos, hotels, airlines, universities – most of which went broke. He ran full-page ads in the New York Times. And he prepared himself for today’s role by hiring a ruthless mentor - Roy Cohn.
Cohn, as a young man, was toughened up by visiting his uncle in Sing Sing... and perhaps just by being a homosexual at an inconvenient time. He eventually died of AIDS, but not before showing Donald Trump his signature tactic. Cohn ignored the issues, the principles and the law... he simply attacked anyone who got in his way. This approach was later immortalized in Trump’s ghosted 1987 handbook, "The Art of the Deal." If someone hits you, he advised, you hit back ‘ten times as hard.’
This Big Man mantra, unrestrained by grace, experience or truth, is the essence of the Trump personality. It relies neither on historical perspective, ideology, nor traditional values. Instead, it relies on the ‘will to power’ of the great man himself, with his instincts... his cronies... and his personal genius.
John Flynn says ‘he’s the most flawed human being’ he has ever known. Mitch McConnell says he is ‘despicable.’ He ‘tries to divide us,’ said James Mattis. ‘... he’s unfit for office,’ said Mark Esper. ‘...a laughing fool,’ added John Bolton. Tom Bossert: ‘...an utter disgrace.’ ‘A domestic terrorist’ - Anthony Scaramucci.
But if he balanced the budget and stopped the wars, would we care if he were a jerk? And Ms. Harris? Is she likable? Is she a paragon of virtue... a pillar of wisdom and rectitude... or a slimy California hustler? Was it her fault she was Willie Brown’s girlfriend and that he decided to launch her into politics? And it was just remarkable luck that she was available when East coast white guy, Joe Biden, needed a West coast DEI vice president. And it wasn’t she who made her boss shuffle and slur just months before the election... leaving her as the only viable replacement. And now, there she is, an empty boat…ready to go in whatever direction the elites steer her.
So, enjoy the show. Wave the flag. Blow a horn. Send a contribution. Available on the internet is a tee-shirt you can purchase for someone’s birthday, with a quotation from Kamala Harris’s pensee: “The important thing to remember about this birthday was that on this day there was a birth, and that someone was born on this day.”
Or maybe you’d prefer a Trump tee-shirt with this quote: "They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the pets of the people who live there."
Mr. Trump is supposed to be the ignorant oaf - a description that is hard to argue with. But Ms. Harris is supposed to be educated and intelligent. Kamala tried to pry that gap wider on Monday, starting out with this: “There’s a big difference between he and I,” Harris told reporters... Huh? Where did she go to school? ‘Between’ is a preposition. It should be followed by the ‘objective’ pronouns... him and me... not he and I. A small thing, for sure. Makes no difference to the fate of the nation. But it highlights our conclusion for today: Both candidates are ignorant scalawags. More to come on the financial consequences of the 2024 election tomorrow."
The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Darkness Falls"
"Darkness Falls"
"Darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible things
that wanted more than there was.
All our days are marked with
unexpected affronts -
some disastrous, others less so,
but the process is
wearing and continuous.
Attrition rules.
Most give way,
leaving empty spaces
where people should be.
And now,
as we ready to self-destruct,
there is very little left to kill,
which makes the tragedy
less and more,
much, much more. "
- Charles Bukowski
"The Middle East: War"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/31/24
"AMB. Chas Freeman: Will Israel Self-Destruct?"
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Dialogue Works, 10/31/24
"Prof. Ted Postol: Israel’s Situation is
Getting Worse by the Day - Israel vs Iran/Hezbollah"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "Buyers are Taking a Pause"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 10/31/24
"Buyers are Taking a Pause"
"I dive into the unfolding real estate crisis! Buyers are hitting pause on spending as high interest rates and skyrocketing property taxes create roadblocks. DR Horton, the world's largest home builder, faces setbacks with canceled contracts and a stock drop. We also explore the impact of insurance woes, local tax hikes, and how these factors are shaking up the market. Plus, Wing Stop, McDonald's, and even Subway are feeling the pinch as economic challenges ripple across all industries. "
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Adventures With Danno, "Scary Good Deals At Kroger"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 10/31/24
"Scary Good Deals At Kroger"
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Wednesday, October 30, 2024
"Ray Dalio Warns Of Social Unrest Post Election; Americans Are Working 3 Jobs And Have No Money"
Jeremiah Babe, 10/30/24
"Ray Dalio Warns Of Social Unrest Post Election;
Americans Are Working 3 Jobs And Have No Money"
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Adventures With Danno, "I Don't Really Know How To Explain This, This Is Overwhelming"
Adventures With Danno, PM 10/30/24
"I Don't Really Know How To Explain This,
This Is Overwhelming"
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"Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern: Iran & Hezbollah Crushing IDF, Israel Losing on All Fronts"
Danny Haiphong, 10/30/24
"Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern:
Iran & Hezbollah Crushing IDF, Israel Losing on All Fronts"
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.
The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.”
The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"
"Getting There"
"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived.
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."
~ David Wagoner
Chet Raymo, “Learning And Yearning”
“Learning And Yearning”
by Chet Raymo
“This photograph of the Eagle Nebula made by a rather modest telescope - the 0.9 meter instrument at Kitt Peak, Arizona - appeared on APOD. I sat in front of the computer screen for ten minutes, breathless. One tiny corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, one of tens of billions of galaxies that we can potentially see with our telescopes! At the center are the so-called "Pillars of Creation" from a famous Hubble photograph.
I recall when the Hubble photograph appeared in the media hundreds of viewers claimed to see the face of Jesus in the billowing clouds. Which prompted these observations from "Skeptics and True Believers": "In an article on the psychological basis of belief, the psychologist James Alcock proposed that two aspects of the human brain might be called the "yearning unit" and the "learning unit." He probably didn't mean these terms to be taken literally, as referring to separate compartments of the brain, but yearning and learning are certainly central to the way we interact with the world. It is hard to imagine how we can be fully human without a little of each. Finding the proper balance between the two is a task that can keep us occupied for most of our lives.
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.
Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.
Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.
Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."
Travelling with Russell, "I Went to a Brand New Russian Shopping Mall in 2024"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 10/30/24
"I Went to a Brand New Russian Shopping Mall in 2024"
"Odipark Shopping Centre is the newest shopping mall to open in Moscow, Russia. What does a brand-new Shopping mall in Russia look like in 2024 after 981 days of sanctions?"
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"At Last..."
“At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.”
- Richard Bach, “Nothing by Chance”
"Ray McGovern: Israel's Unstoppable Downfall? Total Collapse Looming on All Fronts!"
Dialogue Works, 10/30/24
"Ray McGovern: Israel's Unstoppable Downfall?
Total Collapse Looming on All Fronts!"
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