Monday, November 11, 2024

"Economic Market Snapshot 11/11/24"

"Economic Market Snapshot 11/11/24"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Comprehensive, essential truth.
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
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Gregory Mannarino, "The Upcoming Total Meltdown Will Be Multiples Worse As Price Action Distortions Worsen"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/11/24
"The Upcoming Total Meltdown Will Be Multiples
 Worse As Price Action Distortions Worsen"
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "A New 'Golden Age' for America?"

"A New 'Golden Age' for America?"
in July 2020, the vigilantes woke up. Inflation and interest 
rates soared. And investors became keenly aware that 
they could lose money in Treasury bonds as well as make it.
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - “I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve,” said Donald Trump in his victory speech. “This will truly be the golden age of America. That's what we have to have. This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again." 
- President- elect Donald Trump

"Big man. Big promise. Can he make good on it? Nobody knows the future. Certainly not us! Instead, we bet on the patterns of history - in politics and markets - and hope for the best. Those patterns suggest that The Donald will face long odds.

Fairly soon, the Trump Team will be confronted by a credit crisis. Budget deficits are expected to run about $2 trillion per year over the next four years. Interest on the debt is already running at $1 trillion per year. Plus, the federal government will have to refinance about $4 trillion per year in existing debt, every year.

Elon Musk, genius of universal renown, can do the math. But if he thinks he’s going to cut $2 trillion of deficit spending by eliminating ‘waste’ from federal spending he has a staggering lack of cynicalism. No chance.

Donald Trump has already pledged to spare the essential parts of the Welfare/Warfare program (the Pentagon, Social Security and Medicare) - leaving only about 18% of the budget exposed to the knife. Even if you cut all of it, you’d still have a deficit of nearly $1 trillion.

In addition, Trump proposes to eliminate federal taxes on Social Security recipients, veterans, first responders, people who earn tips, and federal employees’ overtime pay. Together, these should widen the federal budget deficit by about $11.5 trillion in revenue loss over the next 10 years - or about a third of all revenue. This lost revenue Trump plans to replace by taxing imports... with a 20% across the board tax and a 60% tax on imports from China.

We interrupt to point out that a tax on imports is really a tax on consumption. So, consumers would feel the pain right away... and know the cause of it, unlike the Fed’s money-printing inflation, whose effects take years to be felt. This would also discourage people from spending money and encourage them to save... thereby potentially lowering real interest rates, while increasing savings. Over the long run, implemented properly, these changes could help make a stronger economy.

But Mr. Trump and his entourage can’t afford to look into the distant future. They’ve got a four-year term. And any changes they make will be revised, corrupted and perverted by Washington’s slimy swamp critters (working hard to get exceptions, exemptions, and special treatments).

And the last time the US implemented a sweeping tariff program was, not coincidentally, at the beginning of the Great Depression, not at the end of it. Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley should have never been allowed anywhere near Congress. But their tariff proposal became law in 1930. The foreigners responded with tariffs of their own. And soon world trade was reduced by some 67%... and helped make the aforementioned depression so great.

Putting the chaos and unexpected consequences aside, however... the tariffs simply wouldn’t raise enough money. At present levels, they would generate about $9 trillion over the next 10 years - about $2.5 trillion short of the amount lost to the tax cuts. That loss would grow as the flood of imports turned into a trickle. And it would be added to the national debt, along with the already programmed increases that are expected to take the debt to over $50 trillion by 2034.

But the one big difference between today and Trump’s first term is that additional debt now costs additional money. Because the ‘bond vigilantes’ are back in the saddle. In 2016, bond yields had been falling for 36 years. The feds could borrow as much as they wanted... and their interest payments would generally go down, not up. Even as late as 2016-2020, Team Trump spent trillions... borrowed trillions... and ‘printed’ trillions as interest rates continued to fall.

But in July 2020, the vigilantes woke up. Inflation and interest rates soared. And investors became keenly aware that they could lose money in Treasury bonds as well as make it. And now, in anticipation of Mr. Trump’s second act, investors are already demanding more interest to compensate for the inflation they see coming. These higher rates will raise the cost of financing the debt... slow the economy... and goad the administration and the Fed to take action. That is when the Golden Age gets badly tarnished. Stay tuned... "

Jim Kunstler, "Mysteries Revealed"

"Mysteries Revealed"
by Jim Kunstler

"People in the media are aware of how illegitimately they've done 
their jobs that they think they're on the very of being locked up" 
 - Scott Adams

"You must admit, it’s a little spooky how quickly and rigorously Mr. Trump intends to deconstruct those parts of the government at war with the people: clean out “rogue bureaucrats,” firehose the malignant agencies, release and expose their document trails on spying, censorship, lawfare, and abuse-of-power. The consequence would be the return of consequence in our national life. It’s been absent for so long you can hardly imagine its power to get people’s minds right.

There are already reports of frenzy among the culpable DOJ lawyers, and FBI Director Wray is set to resign before Mr. Trump can fire him. Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone radio-silent for his own good since Election Day. Expect many abiding mysteries to get unraveled, such as exactly how many federal agents did work the crowd around the Capitol on J-6, 2021 - which Mr. Wray has pretended to not be able to discuss “due to ongoing investigations.” Expect to learn more about the pipe-bomb caper at the DNC HQ a few blocks away that same day. Prepare to be amazed at how deeply criminal these schemes were. You must wonder if the document-shredding party is already underway, despite calls to preserve all the emails, memos, and texts.

Then there are the poisoned realms of the intel blob located at CIA, DHS, State, DOD, and elsewhere being subject to inquiry and overhaul. Think: John Brennan, James Clapper, Bill Barr, Michael Atkinson, Mayorkas, Judge Boasberg, Mary McCord, Col. Vindman, Senator Warner, Avril Haines, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power, Gina Haspel, Marie Yovanovitch, Jen Easterly, all their deputies, and many more unknown to the public. Some of these names may yet seem obscure to you. They were all neck-deep in what looks a lot like sedition, treason, real conspiracies, not theories. Even state officials such as New York AG Letitia James, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, GA, DA Fani Willis, would be subject to federal charges under 18USC Section 242: willful deprivation of constitutional rights acting under color of law. That is exactly what the Trump lawfare cases amounted to.

And then, of course, there are the long-running rumors of pedophilia and human trafficking networks among the elite, the Jeffrey Epstein list and the P. Diddy list. If these things exist, and they are released, history would shudder. Think: the Clinton Foundation.

These people are looking ahead 70 days with visions of shoes dropping and hammers falling. If the mysteries are revealed, it’s hard to imagine that criminal proceedings would not be far behind. You can also imagine that the motivation across a broad and powerful elite class runs white-hot to stop Mr. Trump from entering the Oval Office. So, these days ahead will be fraught with threats, schemes, plots, ploys, and deceptions. The paranoia must be out of this world among people who still have the resources and hold the levers-of-power needed to undertake nefarious deeds.

There is chatter about “a coup” being considered among as-yet-unnamed parties in the Pentagon to prevent Mr. Trump from rising back into power. It’s unclear how that would work among our high command of transsexual generals and admirals and their hapless DEI adjutants. The strata of colonels benath them might have different ideas. But it could be the starting gun for actual civil war. We would find out what the Second Amendment is all about. “Joe Biden” likes to say that the citizenry can’t go up against his F-16 war-planes, but he evidently does not understand how much mischief can be made with small arms - rifles, grenades, rockets, drones - despite examples of it all over the world lately. That is hypothetical for now, of course.

In short, these are dangerous times. Mr. Trump would be advised to stay out of airplanes until inauguration day and to be extra-careful who he puts himself around, especially in public. You also must expect more lawfare of the most extreme sort going forward to January, every possible stone unturned to find procedural tricks to prevent certification of the election. Do you think Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Andrew Weissmann just laid back and watched football this weekend? They are probably quarterbacking efforts to finagle ballots for the remaining contested seats in Congress, in order to game-out Rep. Jamie Raskin’s well-publicized block-Trump play this coming Jan. 6.

These are the darkest and most explosive parts of Mr. Trump’s admirably deep to-do list for fixing the many things that have stopped working in American life. The simplest picture of our current predicament, and why people voted as they did, is of “things going in the wrong direction,” Well, what direction is that, exactly? The tyranny of giant forces over our little lives and communities. It’s a leviathan government seeking to invade and dominate everything - and to do it with maximum malice when resisted. It has left American men and women mentally disordered, demoralized, stolen their sense of purpose, deprived them of roles in society that provide meaning, alienated them from each other, and from their history. And it has left them, as Robert Kennedy points out, catastrophically unhealthy.

All of which is to say, we have more to clean up and reorganize than just our government. We’re going to get it done, you may be sure, even if the zeitgeist has to drag us kicking and screaming out of the malaise we’re stuck in. All of this points to some very different new arrangements to made in our everyday life, beginning with the realization that the era of getting something-for-nothing is over."

"Veterans Day 2024"

 

Sunday, November 10, 2024

"Happy 249th Birthday United States Marines"

"The Marines Hymn"
Happy 249th birthday Marines!
- CP, Veteran, United States Marine Corps
MOS 0311, Infantry Rifleman
Semper Fi!

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Cycle of Time"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Cycle of Time"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown. In the background, just past the end of the central Pinnacle, is a bright crescent Moon. The eerie glow around the Moon is mostly zodiacal light, sunlight reflected by dust grains orbiting between the planets in the Solar System.
Arching across the top is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Many famous stars and nebulas are also visible in the background night sky. The featured 29-panel panorama was taken and composed in 2015 September after detailed planning that involved the Moon, the rock spires, and their corresponding shadows. Even so, the strong zodiacal light was a pleasant surprise."

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "One"

"One"

"The mosquito is so small
it takes almost nothing to ruin it.
Each leaf, the same.
And the black ant, hurrying.
So many lives, so many fortunes!
Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.
Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour
before the slug creeps to the feast,
before the pine needles hustle down
under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

How many, how many, how many
make up a world!
And then I think of that old idea: the singular
and the eternal.
One cup, in which everything is swirled
back to the color of the sea and sky.
Imagine it!

A shining cup, surely!
In the moment in which there is no wind
over your shoulder,
you stare down into it,
and there you are,
your own darling face, your own eyes.
And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,
touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,
and you know what else!
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination."

~ Mary Oliver

"The Invitation"

"The Invitation"

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have
become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,
to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul;
if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty,
every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like
the company you keep in the empty moments."

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"I Realized..."

"Lifes impermanence, I realized, is what makes every
single day so precious. It's what shapes our time here.
It's what makes it so important that not a single moment be wasted."
- Wes Moore

"Carlo M. Cipolla‘s Theory of Stupidity"

Full screen recommended.
"Carlo M. Cipolla‘s Theory of Stupidity" 

"In this video, we dive into The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by economist Carlo M. Cipolla - a thought-provoking exploration of how irrational actions shape our world. Cipolla’s five laws reveal the surprising impact that stupidity has on individuals and society at large. Far from being just a lack of intelligence, stupidity is a pervasive, unpredictable force that disrupts our lives in ways we often underestimate. Join us as we break down each of Cipolla’s laws, from the unexpected prevalence of stupidity to its devastating effects when left unchecked. Discover why stupidity is more dangerous than malice, how it crosses all social boundaries, and why it’s more powerful than we might think. Whether you want to protect yourself or simply understand human behavior better, this video offers crucial insights on how to navigate a world often influenced by the irrational."
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand. Thanks for stopping by!

"Thousands Of Russian Troop & Weapons Land in Iran – Israel Faces All-Out Catastrophe"

Full screen recommended.
Douglas MacGregor, 11/10/24
"Thousands Of Russian Troop & Weapons Land in Iran –
 Israel Faces All-Out Catastrophe"
Comments here:
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Related:
Prof. Mohammad Marandi, 11/10/24
"Israel's Defense Shattered by 
Hezbollah's New Iranian Super Missiles"
Comments here:
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"Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern: Israel's Defense 
Destroyed by Iran's Missiles - Hezbollah Crushing IDF"
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "They are Still Counting Votes - Shocking Election Delays"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/10/24
"They are Still Counting Votes -
 Shocking Election Delays"
"The election that never ends. Today we are diving into the shocking election delays here in California! In this video, we uncover the ongoing election saga with the Orange County Register of Voters, where volunteers are tirelessly verifying signatures. Can you believe they're still counting votes days later? It's a wild scene, filled with unexpected twists and turns, including bomb threats that caused disruptions. As we explore the ins and outs of the process, from signature verification to ballot duplication, you'll get an insider's look at this chaotic yet crucial civic duty."
Comments here:

"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; or 'Handle Hard Better'"

"'Life Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Damn Thing'; 
or 'Handle Hard Better'"
by Justin Smith

“We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better. That’s what happens. Most people think that it’s going to get easier. Life is going to get easier. Basketball is going to get easier. School is going to get easier. It never gets easier. What happens is you become someone who handles hard stuff better. And if you think life when you leave college is going to all of a sudden get easier because you graduated, and you got a Duke degree, it’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So make yourself a person that handles hard well.” ~ Kara Lawson, Head Coach for Duke University Women’s Basketball Team and Graduate of the University of Tennessee [July 5th 2022]

An incredible number of Americans today have been coddled, pampered and fed a sense of entitlement from birth that continued into their early adulthood, making them always look to others or the government for help in acquiring their needs and wants. They have been raised without a backbone, weak-willed and dependent; and so, whenever they find themselves to be in a minority, they more often than not petition the federal and state governments, protest and riot, in order that their particular concerns are proactively pursued and implemented as favored, privileged and superior, no matter how insane, from destroying humanity by way of transgenderism or energy and job-killing fallacious “climate change” policies.

From my earliest memories, I saw hard men, laughing, loving, fighting hard and playing just as hard, as they’d rise each day to head out to work, in the mines, the forests, office buildings and on the nation’s lines of defense, and in particular I recall learning something of worth from each of them, much as I did from my Granddad Spurge, who was a coal miner and a stone mason. They were a hardy bunch of industrious scrappers, who pulled up their sleeves and worked hard to make a better life for themselves and their children, to build better communities, a better America.

But what passes for young “men” today is but a mere shadow of men of worth from better days gone by, what with their feminine appearances and their aversion to doing anything to break a sweat. And aside from weak bodies, too much coddling has made their minds work in a new, cunning devious manner, in which they waste enormous amounts of effort sidestepping real work and figuring out how to get something for nothing rather than perform an honest day’s work to pay for bills they make, without any intention of ever repaying, such as student loans.

Half of America seems content to allow Uncle Sam to make life better for them and their children via the welfare system and the government cheese, even tho’ it means a life of subsistence, just scraping by. Although today, many have developed gaming the system into a real art, whereby they live just about as good as anyone working a full-time job, complete with HUD homes, EBT cards, late model cars, color T.V.s and government purchased cellphones.

Life doesn’t owe any of us a thing, regardless of the circumstances and station of our birth. The miracle of your birth alone doesn’t mean you are automatically owed a job, a house, a bed or a single meal after you are a grown adult and supposedly capable of doing for yourself. You’re not owed recognition and understanding for simply existing, and neither are you owed success and comfort, abundance and happiness or immunity from the problems, pain and suffering that is simply a part of the human condition, and you certainly aren’t due any money you haven’t earned through your own sweat and effort, not from me, the American taxpayers or the U.S. government.

The only thing anyone should expect from The Government, if we are to accept the Contract found in our Constitution, are those things enumerated in its original form, and in that sense, we are owed a strong, affirmative and fierce defense of our Inalienable God-given Rights, as expressed and defined in the Bill of Rights, to be left alone to our own devices to live and thrive as free born Americans, without interference from The Government and its agents where no real harm is being done.

People aren’t created equal in the very real definition of the word and life has never been fair to anyone, and yet, the constant refrain heard all across all levels of American society today, from the ranks of the Mau Mau Marxist-Maoist totalitarians, those lovers of “democracy”, is “the world is so unfair”. They were evidently raised to believe “all men are created equal” in the context of the Declaration of Independence meant they are somehow guaranteed equal outcomes in everyday life, instead of the simple “equality under the law” as intended. And their voices are now amplified by an out-of-control regime that seeks to use their envy to complete the fundamental transformation of America, by any means necessary, no matter how unconstitutional or illegal they might be and are currently proving to be.

Standing on one’s own two feet and making your way through the merit of your own knowledge and work are now a thing of the past, as the poorest results in school and on the job are given the same weight and worth as the best and everybody gets a participation trophy. And in its place, envy, greed, sloth, gluttony, lies, sex and murder, the destroyer of worlds, are the rule, for a generation indoctrinated through Marxist-Maoist multiculturalist doctrine and propaganda, taught from kindergarten through university, who are now driven by an unhinged hate and anger directed at white society and capitalism.

This, in part, is the reason we see whole cities, controlled by the Marxist-Maoists and the totalitarian minded, enacting new “laws” that make the theft of anything $900 or less a misdemeanor, giving way to thousands of groups of poorly taught, undisciplined, predominantly black “youths” rampaging, rioting and looting numerous times a day, taking $900 dollars worth of merchandise nine times a day, if not more, taught racism and hatred and driven by envy and greed. It’s the reason cities across America are folding up, shriveling like a crop attacked by locusts and dying on the vine where once they thrived, back when our people, indeed our youth, had more pure hearts and moral directions and had not strayed far and away from America’s Christian roots.

Over the past thirty years, the nutcases of the Democrat Party have advocated a pathologically negative agenda for America that is based on destroying the Founding and revising history to portray early America as evil and worth casting on the ash-heap of history. Accelerating their plans through the public education system, an entire generation of America’s youth have been brainwashed to believe our planet is dying due to manmade CO2 and “climate change”, in defiance of actual science, and as if that isn’t enough, we are all constantly inundated with one alarm after another raised over racism — even as reverse racism against whites is now advocated, capitalism — which hasn’t really existed in America for over 100 years, homophobia / gender bigotry, capitalist oppression — even tho’ our system is economic fascism, and the fallacious assertion that White Supremacist Nazis are ascending in every community in America.

The real problem found within the ranks of the Takers? They just can’t face the fact that life isn’t easy for anyone, especially the Makers; and it never has been, although exceptions can be found in those born into wealth. But even the wealthy are weighted with life’s problems, if of a different variety, much as the old adage says that “money can’t buy you love or happiness”, even if it does buy you a line of coke and hookers, in a sad sort of dystopian world of a different immoral construct.

The routines many of us indulge in daily have made the largest percentage of Americans, a fairly large majority, complacent and apathetic, caring next to nothing on matters of government and whether or not they are actually living free.

Americans rise each morning, check their emails and cellphones, shower, shave and maybe brush their teeth, to rush off to their same, everyday, boring regular job that may or may not quite pay the bills, grabbing their $7 dollar cup of Starbucks special latte of the day, to do a job they find meaningless. At day’s end, they may grab some overpriced fast-food on the way home, to relax and maybe drink a cheap beer or glass of whiskey, while they watch The Voice — or is it porn [?] — call some friends to complain over how bad things are, and then simply watch some news, ’til they call it a night, sleeping fitfully and rising the next morning to do it all over again, and everyday afterward, year after year, until one day someone hands them their walking papers or a copper watch upon their “retirement”.

Too many live under the delusion that they should be able to drive brand new $60k cars, own $400k homes complete with the most exquisite adornments and furniture on their $15 per hour paycheck at McDonald’s, having never put forth the effort to gain useful knowledge demanded by skilled and professional career positions, in order to make themselves more valuable to society on the whole, and thus able to demand a salary that would allow them to buy all the trappings of such success. Instead, they cast an envious eye in the direction of the Makers and scheme on how to take what they want, by any scheme, any illegal act, any means necessary. They believe their mere existence entitles them to other people’s property, just because deep down in their black little souls, they really, really want it — just not enough to go after it the right way.

Our youth have lost all sense of shame and seem fine with getting anything they want, right when they want it, no matter how they come to acquire it. They never learned that something worth having is worth the work it takes to purchase, as if stuff is just supposed to fall from the heavens and land in their lap.

Things of real worth don’t come easy.

Sure. Not everyone has the intelligence and capability to become a surgeon, but if that’s your dream, you will never know if you could have been one, until you try — same for anything else that any of you are dreaming of being, no matter if you dream of being a content farmer or a successful writer. Whatever you want in life, put forth the effort to achieve competency in that field and then go do it.

If you want something of worth in life, stop depending on others. Venture out on your own in some business or capacity you love, rather than settling to work for someone else your entire life. And for your own sake, quit wallowing in self-pity over bad circumstances created by your own bad choices.

As Ms Lawson notes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzfZOfNki4) at one point: "Any pursuit in life, if you want to be successful, it goes to the people that handle hard well. Those are the people that get the stuff they want. People that wait around for easy, you probably see them at the bus stop. They’re waiting on the easy bus to come around. Easy bus never comes around. Go handle hard.”

Too many parents, too many schools, too many churches have failed America by failing to teach them that hard times won’t break you if only you have the right state of mind on life — that there is a loving God — and no one will ever find a fulfilling or positive way of life by looking to The Government for answers and solutions. Our society stopped teaching the youth how to be strong and independent somewhere along the way, as the tyrant-wannabes persisted in teaching “everyone is a victim”; but the fact remains today, anyone can be a proud survivor of hard times, if only they persevere and never give-up and never give-in to defeat, choosing to ultimately succeed and live good, prosperous and happy lives."

How It Really, Shamefully, Is"

 

What an absolute disgrace... but anymore, what isn't?

"Oliver Sacks on Despair and the Meaning of Life"

"Oliver Sacks on Despair and the Meaning of Life"
by Maria Popova

"Meaning is not something we find - it is something we make, and the puzzle pieces are often the fragments of our shattered hopes and dreams. “There is no love of life without despair of life,” Albert Camus wrote between two World Wars. The transmutation of despair into love is what we call meaning. It is an active, searching process - a creative act. Paradoxically, we make meaning most readily, most urgently, in times of confusion and despair, when life as we know it has ceased to make sense and we must derive for ourselves not only what makes it livable but what makes it worth living. Those are clarifying times, sanctifying times, when the simulacra of meaning we have consciously and unconsciously borrowed from our culture - God and money, the family unit and perfect teeth - fall away to reveal the naked soul of being, to hone the spirit on the mortal bone.

The poetic neurologist Oliver Sacks (July 9, 1933–August 30, 2015) - who thought with uncommon rigor and compassion about what it means to be human and all the different ways of being and remaining human no matter how our minds may fray - takes up this question of life’s meaning in one of his magnificent collected "Letters" (public library).

In his fifty-seventh year, Sacks reached out to the philosopher Hugh S. Moorhead in response to his anthology of reflections on the meaning of life by some of the twentieth century’s greatest writers and thinkers. (Three years later, LIFE magazine would plagiarize Moorhead’s concept in an anthology of their own, even taking the same title.) Sacks - a self-described “sort of atheist (curious, sometimes wistful, often indifferent, never militant)” - offers his own perspective:

"I envy those who are able to find meanings - above all, ultimate meanings - from cultural and religious structures. And, in this sense, to “believe” and “belong.”
[…]
I do not find, for myself, that any steady sense of “meaning” can be provided by any cultural institution, or any religion, or any philosophy, or (what might be called) a dully “materialistic” Science. I am excited by a different vision of Science, which sees the emergence and making of order as the “center” of the universe."

It is in this 1990 letter that Sacks began germinating the seeds of the personal credo that would come abloom in his poignant deathbed reflection on the measure of living and the dignity of dying thirty-five years later. He tells Moorhead: "I do not (at least consciously) have a steady sense of life’s meaning. I keep losing it, and having to re-achieve it, again and again. I can only re-achieve (or “remember”) it when I am “inspired” by things or events or people, when I get a sense of the immense intricacy and mystery, but also the deep ordering positivity, of Nature and History.

I do not believe in, never have believed in, any “transcendental” spirit above Nature; but there is a spirit in Nature, a cosmogenic spirit, which commands my respect and love; and it is this, perhaps most deeply, which serves to “explain” life, give it “meaning.”

Nine years later, in a different letter to Stephen Jay Gould, he would take issue with the idea that there are two “magisteria” - two different realms of reality, one natural and one supernatural - writing: "Talk of “parapsychology” and astrology and ghosts and spirits infuriates me, with their implication of “another,” as-it-were parallel world. But when I read poetry, or listen to Mozart, or see selfless acts, I do, of course feel a “higher” domain (but one which Nature reaches up to, not separate in nature)."

A century and a half earlier, his beloved Darwin had articulated a similar sentiment in contemplating the spirituality of nature after docking the Beagle in Chile, as had Whitman in contemplating the meaning of life in the wake of a paralytic stroke - exactly the kind of physiological and neurological disordering Sacks studied with such passion and compassion for what keeps despair at bay, what keeps life meaningful, when the mind - that meeting place of the body and the spirit - comes undone. At the heart of his letter to Moorhead is the recognition that there is something wider than thought, deeper than belief, that animates our lives:

"When moods of defeat, despair, accidie and “So-what-ness” visit me (they are not infrequent!), I find a sense of hope and meaning in my patients, who do not give up despite devastating disease. If they who are so ill, so without the usual strengths and supports and hopes, if they can be affirmative - there must be something to affirm, and an inextinguishable power of affirmation within us. I think “the meaning of life” is something we have to formulate for ourselves, we have to determine what has meaning for us… It clearly has to do with love - what and whom and how one can love."

As if to remind us that the capacity for love may be the crowning achievement of consciousness, which is itself the crowning achievement of the universe, which means that we may only be here to learn how to love, he adds: "I do not think that love is “just an emotion,” but that it is constitutive in our whole mental structure (and, therefore, in the development of our brains)."

Complement this small fragment of Oliver Sacks’s wide and wonderful "Letters "with Rachel Carson on the meaning of life, Loren Eiseley on its first and final truth, and Mary Shelley - having lost her mother at birth, having lost three of her own children, her only sister, and the love of her life before the end of her twenties - on what makes life worth living, then revisit Oliver Sacks (writing 30 years before ChatGPT) on consciousness, AI, and our search for meaning and his timely long-ago reflection on how to save humanity from itself."
"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to
 whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"Bravery..."

“There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery I must have now.”
- Veronica Roth, "Allegiant"

“You can't go back and change the beginning, 
but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- C.S. Lewis

"A Recipe For Heroes And Saints"

"A Recipe For Heroes And Saints"
by Paul Rosenberg

"Rules and obedience have never elevated anyone to heroism and greatness., but I know what does, and I discovered it in the rubble of 9/11. I was scheduled to be in New York for a convention in early 2002, and sent an email to my old friend Jack. The text was along the lines of “Hey, I'm coming to NYC. Wanna get lunch?” His reply was simple: “Sure, but first I’d like you to come see my new project.”

Jack’s new project, as it turned out, was the restoration of the old New York Telephone building, now called the Verizon building. It was notched into the World Trade Center site, merely a few yards from the destroyed Building 7. This building was badly damaged on September 11th, but it didn't come down. And it was extremely important that it did remain in service: nearly every telephone line serving Wall Street ran through it.

Lessons from a Disaster Zone: It was a cool, rainy, hazy day. Fitting, I thought. Most of the debris had been removed by the time I arrived, which gave everyone on the job a clean view of what was missing, and how much work lay ahead.

Since Jack and I are old electrical guys, we began by examining the power systems. And thus began a day of epiphanies. Each new piece of information brought others to mind. Every fact implied a lesson. I was grateful to have a good memory; scribbling notes in the rain wasn’t going to work.

The first item on the agenda was the 13,000 volt electrical service to the building. It was running over an aluminum scaffold, inside of a plywood box. Now, you may be thinking that 13,000 volts on a metal scaffold doesn't sound very safe, and you would be right. There's no way this installation would be acceptable in any normal circumstances.

But in this case, there wasn't much choice. This was a disaster zone and an “approved” installation wouldn't be possible for months. (They couldn't even get the right kinds of wires.) So, the rules went out the window and Jack's crew had to come up with something that would work and that wouldn't kill anyone, or else Wall Street would shut and half of New York would have no telephones. The rules were simply overridden by reality. I couldn't help thinking of an old saying, attributed to the Dalai Lama:

"Learn the rules well, so you will be able to break them properly."

But the big story of the day came after our inspection. At lunch, Jack explained that after Building 7 fell initially on 9/11, other, partial, collapses continued for quite a while. Each time, clouds of dust and debris filled his Verizon building. On one particular day, the FBI vault in the basement of Building 7 caved in under the weight of yet another collapse. “And I swear to you, Paul,” Jack assured me with bulging eyes, “twenty- and fifty-dollar bills came floating through the site!” Free money... it's hard to imagine a better setup for a moral dilemma.

I made some comment about the guys being very happy that day. “No,” Jack said, “they wouldn't touch them!” I looked at him and waited for some elaboration. Finally he spoke up again. “They said 'that's not our money, it belongs to other people.' And they wouldn't touch it. They wouldn't allow anyone to touch it. It just sat there until the FBI guys came through and picked it all up.”

When the lure of free money fails, I pay attention. This was clearly no ordinary event. Here were dozens of construction workers who refused to take free money – a lot of free money – when there was no enforcer looking over their shoulders or threatening them. I looked at Jack again. He was stone serious; as serious as I have ever seen him.

So I was left facing a pointed question: A significant group of construction workers were turned into paragons of ethics, but exactly why? Obviously it was the change of situation that mattered, not the basic nature of the men; one's nature does not change in a moment.

Then I understood: These men had never lacked a basic decency, what they had lacked was moral clarity. This was the first time in their lives when the difference between right and wrong was this clear. Holding a clear vision of right and wrong, it would have been stupid for these men to take $50 bills belonging to others – their conscious sense of righteousness was worth far more.

For the rest of their lives, these men will know that when it counted, they stepped up to the task and performed it with honor. And I would bet large that, on their death beds, this fact will pass prominently through their minds. They will feel honorable, and they will have earned it.

What this Means: This means that while the fear of penalties may restrain people from certain actions, it is moral clarity that makes them actually good. I know that we've all been taught to freeze up at questions about good and evil, but it really isn't hard. Here’s all the answer you really need, in two very simple statements:

What is hateful to you, don't do to anyone else.
Do not encroach upon anyone or their property, and keep your agreements.

Number one is the Golden Rule, and number two is the essence of the common law - more or less an extension of #1. And that's all that we really need. Sure, a professional philosopher can come up with weird exceptions, but that's not a serious concern. Send the one-in-a-million scenario to a specialist and get busy with the other 999,999. Yes, life is complex, but that's no reason to say “we can't know right from wrong.” Act with integrity and I guarantee you'll do the right thing 99% of the time.

The Lesson: The events of 9/11 were obviously very stark, and we certainly don't want to rely on such things to set our moral compass. But, the lesson is clear: It is moral clarity that turns us into heroes and saints. So, if you want to see good conduct, talk about integrity, self-honesty, and the courage to make individual judgments. If you want to feel good about yourself, cultivate these in yourself. Require them of your children. Oppose people who try to cloud moral choices.

I leave you with a few lines from a song called "The Hero", by David Crosby:

"And the reason that she loved him,
 was the reason I loved him too. 
He never wondered what was right or wrong, 
he just knew, he just knew."

Jeremiah Babe, "Hollywood Is Collapsing, People Are Waking Up"

Jeremiah Babe, 11/9/24
"Hollywood Is Collapsing, People Are Waking Up; 
Government Workers About To See Mass Layoffs"
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