John Wilder, "The Health System Sucks"

"The Health System Sucks"

by John Wilder

“Life insurance pays off triple, if you die on a business trip.” 

– "Fight Club"

"The health industry in the United States is a mess, probably worse than a woke vampire movie where vampires use pronouns like undead/cursed and make their victims go to DEI training (Death, Exsanguination and Immortality) before selecting them based on their social privilege score. Talk about sucking!

But back to the point: the system is a mess. Case in point, the insurance companies are for-profit institutions. As, um, you might have noticed from recent events this leads to almost inevitable conflict between the patient and “their” insurance company.

This has created some really perverse incentives, especially for the company. If they can successfully deny enough claims, their profit goes up, so their best bet to make the most money is to not allow claims, just like the best way for some specialists and hospitals to make the most money is to do the most testing. “Hey, this is the machine that goes ‘ping’, and it’s useful to see if you have the Hong Pong flu.”

Oh, and lawyers? We didn’t even mention them. Lawyers just love to find that doctors missed giving the right test so that they can sue them. So, we have the groups all competing for an economic slice of the pie. How big is the pie? In 1960, it was a manageable 5% of the economy of the United States. The average life expectancy then was somewhere around 70 years old.

In 2019, healthcare costs were over three times as much, at 17.6% of the economy. Lifespan had gone up to almost (not quite) 79 years. So, 12.6% of the economy for an extra 8 point something years? Is that a good deal?

Well, not exactly. Lifespan is certainly extended by modern medical care to some extent, but a huge amount of that uplift is due to factors that have nothing to do with the increased costs of health care. But some of it is better health care: much better trauma care has also made events like gunshot wounds and car accidents more survivable, so the average is going to go up because people aren’t dying young in car crashes as often.

But people aren’t smoking as much, either. Also, cars and roads are objectively safer than in 1960 by an order of magnitude, and since car deaths are skewed to young men, that really helps the average life expectancy. And all of these things have increased life expectancy:

• Nutrition

• Clean Water

• Sanitation

• Antibiotics

• Vaccines

As you can see, many of these things aren’t healthcare, and with the exception of neonatal healthcare, they’re all stupidly cheap. So, a big part of why health care costs so much more is that people are living longer and consuming more health care. If a smoker didn’t die of a heart attack from smoking at age 45 at nearly zero medical cost, now they’re living longer and using medical care at age 80.

And, like usual, everyone points to cheap strawberries as the benefit, but skips the $19.75 Tylenol™ pill in the hospital. Healthcare in the United States is so expensive (at least in part) because to so many it’s free. This increases the recordkeeping, and hospitals have to spread their bills on decent hardworking non-deadbeats.

So, it’s broken. How do we fix it? On insurance, The Mrs. has a simple idea: make it illegal. All of it. Medical services are cash on the barrelhead. You pay for the services you get. That sounds drastic, but when I really thought about it, this would eliminate the entire medical billing bureaucracy. We talk about a capitalism, but health care tied to insurance is anything but capitalist, especially with all the mandates and cost shifting from programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The Mrs.’ solution has some real-world evidence to show she might be on to something – real prices for services insurance doesn’t pay for like breast, um, augmentation and laser eye surgery have gone down in real terms. Force doctors to post prices, and for emergency services, well, I’m sure we can figure out ways that hospitals can’t create “pay $90,000 for this shot of anti-venom that cost us $125 or you die” scenarios.

Cap malpractice awards to reasonable levels.

Pharmaceuticals are a bit stickier since we want to foster innovation, but how many of them take public institute research to make their drugs? And we can certainly streamline the FDA, especially for sketchy drugs that might help people that are otherwise terminal.

Get the federal government mostly out of health care, except to prosecute people for fraud. Like the people responsible for the Vaxx®. And make the penalties criminal.

Eliminate free care. If it’s so important to you that people who can’t afford to get treatment, get treatment, don’t use my wallet to assuage your feelings. Pay for it yourself, Sally Strothers.

A Christian cross might make a fictional vampire recoil in horror, but the lack of a money trough will make the health-care-hydra vampire wander away to try something else, hopefully by finding a real job, or, failing that, being paid to suck something else. Doctor got his degree from Columbia. I told him I wanted one from America."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

More Perfect Union, 12/9/24

"The $1 Trillion Private Health Insurance Scam"

"Private health insurance corporations are trying to trick seniors across America into signing up for Medicare Advantage. Is it less expensive? No. Is it better coverage? Also no. It’s just another way for corporations to skim more money off the ill."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Grey Swans Are Circling"

"Grey Swans Are Circling"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"History is either "one damned thing after another" - a chaotic collection of random events - or there are connections between events that are not readily visible. The study of history includes both rooting around for more factual evidence to aid our understanding, and interpreting what is known--both the factual evidence and what people living at that time described and thought was happening.

Two recent events invite interpretation: the sudden collapse of Syria's regime and the assassination of an American CEO in America's financial capital. These can be viewed as unique one-off events of little future import or they can be viewed as watershed events, harbingers of a future far different than the present.

A systemic case can be made that the grey swans circling above us are harbingers of transformative change. What is a grey swan? A grey swan is an event that is known and possible to happen, but which is assumed to be unlikely to occur. The term derives from Nassim Taleb's black swan theory, which describes an event that is unlikely but unknown.

The explanation machine is already spewing out reams of reasons why Syria's dynasty collapsed practically overnight after enduring for decades in a tumultuous region riven by war and conflict. What's strikingly difficult to explain neatly and coherently is how everything is forever until it is no more. Are there causal factors that are common to all such sudden collapses of regimes that appeared to be if not forever, then demonstrably durable?

This raises interesting questions. If we identify the causal factors of sudden collapse, are they discernable in other nations that appear stable at the moment? Could some of these factors act like viruses, and spread to neighboring countries, or via the Internet, to distant lands that share similar profiles? Could such a collapse act as a domino falling, providing the impetus to other fragile states collapsing?

Equally interesting is the mass of propaganda being spewed to cover up the systemic vulnerabilities that might have played a role in the Syrian regime's collapse. The tsunami of propaganda is intended to bolster the everything is forever narrative, but the enormity and virulence of the propaganda effort suggests the opposite: extreme vulnerability and fear of other regimes that they could be next.

Discussions of what triggered the Western Roman Empire's collapse shed some light on the ease of embracing an interpretation that misses the mark. Gibbon concluded that Christianity undermined Rome's coherence; others view Christianity as the alternative structure that enabled Europe to maintain critical coherence in the centuries after Western Rome fell. (The Eastern Roman Empire - the Byzantine Empire-  had a different set of circumstances and endured in truncated form for almost a thousand years after Rome fell.)

Moral and social decay are often listed as causal factors, but dismissed by those who see the increasingly capable Barbarian armies as the cause of Rome's collapse. Others have widened the narrative from war and internal decay to climate change and the ravages of pandemics.

The relevance of all these factors leads to a diagnosis of polycrisis - the collapse cannot be attributed to any one factor but to the confluence of many factors, each of which undermined the status quo's moral, financial and material bases which fatally destabilized the coherence of the regime's military and political responses.

From the perspective of polycrisis, the collapse of Syria's regime could be a harbinger of future collapses, not a one-off event. The reason for this is that many of the keystone/linchpin elements of polycrisis are visibly global in nature: they affect every region and nation-state, regardless of size or location.

Sudden collapses of key regimes tend to unleash forces that destabilize other regimes, or act as triggers for regimes to take actions which are initially viewed as protective which end up imploding the regime from within.

Humans like to think we're in charge, but forces such as extreme weather and demographic decline are not controllable in the same way as declarations of war, which tend to exacerbate whatever problem the war was intended to solve.

History is definitive in one regard: there are discernable eras of widespread turmoil, conflict, demographic decline, destabilization and the collapse of the status quo. The Warring States era in China comes to mind, as do the 1600s in Europe.

Only time will tell if Syria's regime collapse is the first inning of a long game of global destabilization, or if it is a one-off event with limited knock-on consequences. If we line up the systemic elements of polycrisis that are already evident globally, the argument that it will all blow over with minimal long-term impact seems unpersuasive.

The assassination of an American healthcare CEO illuminates many of America's taboos, realities that cannot be openly stated without immediate vitriol from defenders of the status quo. One such taboo is to state the obvious: an economy-society that defines prosperity by the metrics of corporate profits and a rising stock market rather than the well-being of its citizenry is an economy-society begging for overthrow.

Matt Stoller's essay on this event provides much-needed historical context for domestic violence against the status quo: "An Assassin Showed Just How Angry America Really Is." Stoller excerpted quotes from American leaders in the previous era of domestic violence against America's status quo (1886-1920) that reveal their clear understanding that unrestrained corporate power wielded by monopolies and cartels were as oppressive as Communism, though obviously by different means.

To state that extreme asymmetries of wealth and power will eventually incite social disorder on a mass scale is also taboo. When I state this openly, for example, "Fix This or Nothing Else Matters" (12/3/24) and "The Seeds of Social Revolution: Extreme Wealth Inequality" (11/15/24) I immediately get vitriolic pushback.

I'm angrily accused of being a Marxist (an accusation equally broad-brush and meaningless as being accused of being a Nazi), and heaped with abuse for thinking that "soaking the rich" is a solution to what is clearly the Invisible Hand of the Free Market doing its magic, making everything better every day, in every way, even as the "prosperity" and the well-being of the bottom 90% of the citizenry are in slow-motion disarray.

To say that the job of every CEO in America is not to provide a quality product or service for the good of the citizenry but to boost the corporation's profits and stock valuation is also taboo. That this is so obviously true is what makes it taboo.

It's also taboo to state that America's corporations have profited immensely from sickening the citizenry to the point that 75% of the populace is at risk of metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes. This was not the case 50 years ago. Something changed, and immense profits have been reaped not by improving the public's health but in sickening them and then alleviating the symptoms of these lifestyle diseases.

"Three-Quarters of U.S. Adults Are Now Overweight or Obese:" A sweeping new paper reveals the dramatic rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990.

It's equally taboo to state that America's healthcare system isn't actually about healthcare, it's about profits. Please read this account of the amazing healthcare America offers its homeless populace, all without regard to profit, of course:

"The Invisible Man:" We see right through the unshowered soul living in a car by the beach, or by the Walmart, or by the side of the road. But he's there, and he used to be somebody. He still is. A firsthand account of homelessness in America.

If America has the "best healthcare in the world" available to all, then by all means back up your certitude by switching places with this fellow.

Recall the response of the Monsanto representative when challenged to drink Round-Up since it was so safe. ("F-U!") The well-paid apologists for the status quo know how to lie glibly and attack those who break the taboos, but they never back up their claims with their own personal lifestyle. It's called hypocrisy and moral rot. "What Happened to Integrity and Honor?" (12/6/24)

When we speak of the present as the New Gilded Age, perhaps we should review the social history of the prior Gilded Age: decades of disorder and violence from the Haymarket bombing in 1886 to the bombing of Wall Street in 1920, with everything from strikes being suppressed with machine guns, shootings of industrial titans and politicians and mail-bombs in between.

That's 34 years of social disorder. But never mind, everything will be fine as long as we avoid saying what's taboo out loud. The lifestyle of a stable New Gilded Age is out of stock. Maybe history is nothing but random events without any common causal foundations, but to wager that The New Gilded Age is forever may not be a safe bet."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"Alert! The East Coast Is Being Buzzed By 'Very Sophisticated' Giant Drones Every Night That 'Go Dark' When Approached By U.S. Aircraft"

Full screen recommended.

"Alert! The East Coast Is Being Buzzed By 'Very Sophisticated' 

Giant Drones Every Night That 'Go Dark' When Approached By U.S. Aircraft"

by Michael Snyder

"Enormous “mystery drones” are buzzing rooftops and flying freely through the skies in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, and our government is powerless to stop it. As I discussed yesterday, these drones have been spotted over military facilities, water reservoirs, transportation hubs, police departments and other sensitive installations. But even though some of these drones are the size of cars, and even though they are buzzing us at rooftop level in some cases, we can’t seem to track them effectively and when our aircraft do approach they “go dark” and disappear.

What in the world is going on? These drones have been appearing just about every night since mid-November, and there are countless eyewitnesses. In fact, New Jersey State Senator Doug Steinhardt says that he saw them from his own front porch…"And State Senator Doug Steinhardt says that’s simply not good enough. “I’d be happy with an explanation that we’ve looked at it, and we don’t have information, or for law enforcement to say it’s an ongoing something or other, you know, and that’s as much as we can tell you, but we’re not even getting that which is unfortunate,” said Steinhardt. And Steinhardt says he’s not just speaking as a lawmaker, he’s speaking as a witness. “I walked out of my front porch last night and saw it would look like drone activity to me. I mean, I’ve seen airplanes cross the sky before and this wasn’t that,” he says."

We have never seen anything quite like this before, and people are really starting to freak out.

Many can’t seem to understand why nothing is being done to stop these unidentified drones from doing whatever they want in our airspace. The mayors of 21 different towns in New Jersey got together and wrote a letter to Governor Phil Murphy demanding action…"The mayors of 21 towns in New Jersey are demanding action in a letter sent to Gov. Phil Murphy over the mysterious drones that have been spotted flying overhead in recent weeks.

Since mid-November, large drones of uncertain origin have been repeatedly spotted in the sky at night over central and northern New Jersey. The drones, which are larger than the type typically used by hobbyists, have raised concerns due to their proximity to both a military installation and President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course. Of course Murphy is quite concerned as well.

At a press conference on Monday, he explained that these drones are “very sophisticated”…"New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy commented on the situation on Monday, saying that while authorities have not identified any immediate threats, they are treating the sightings with seriousness. “This is something we’re taking deadly seriously,” Murphy said during a press conference Monday, adding, “These are apparently very, as I understand it, very sophisticated. The minute you get eyes on them, they go dark.” Murphy said state and federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, are actively investigating. He noted that 49 sightings were reported on Sunday. This confirms what we have been hearing from other sources.

Apparently we have been trying to confront these drones, but the moment they see our aircraft coming they “go dark” and disappear. If one of our enemies has giant drones that we can’t track and that can elude us with ease, that is a major problem.

Of course it would probably be even worse news if these drones do not belong to any of the usual suspects. At this point, authorities are openly admitting that they do not know who these drones belong to or where they are coming from. When Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson, this is what he was told…

"Pergram: It seems as though Members from both sides are not getting answers about these drones or whatever they’re seeing in New Jersey and Staten Island. There’s a hearing focusing on this today. What is the level of concern? Do you think the government is being straight? And Members can’t even get answers on this.

Johnson: We’re working on that. We need straight answers of course. We are concerned about drones and all of these new technologies and what it might mean for national security and the safety of the American citizen. I’m looking forward to the outcome of that hearing. And if we don’t get the necessary answers there, we’ll dig deeper and go to the classified level.

Pergram: Any thought that these might be “dark” programs?

Johnson: I hope not. I do not believe so. But there’s a lot of investigation going on. So we’ll find out."

Yes, I do hope that we get some “straight answers” soon. The FBI is deeply involved in the investigation, and they just released a statement that tells us absolutely nothing… “We understand the concern, and we are doing all we can to figure out what’s going on,” a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Newark Field Office, which is leading the investigation, told PIX11 News. “We truly don’t have much information to provide at the moment.”

If these drones actually belong to our military as some are suggesting, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t be expending resources looking into this. The fact that they are trying to solve this “mystery” tells us a lot. And obviously Congress doesn’t know what is going on either, because they are actively searching for answers. So that leaves us with two main theories.

Either Russia, China or another one of our enemies has drone technology that we cannot defend against, or these drones originate from a source that is not human. As I have discussed extensively, there has been a dramatic increase in sightings of unidentified aircraft all over the world in recent years. At this point, it is becoming very clear that something truly unusual is happening.

As for the enormous drones that are invading our airspace night after night, hopefully it will turn out that there is a simple explanation. But for now, mystery drones continue to brazenly buzz the East Coast during their nightly visits, and people are really getting scared."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Horrific Debt Crisis Inevitable"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/10/24

"Horrific Debt Crisis Inevitable"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

"I did my best, it wasn't much,

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch.

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.

And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah..."

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga). The spider-shaped gas cloud on the left is actually an emission nebula labelled IC 417, while the smaller fly-shaped cloud on the right is dubbed NGC 1931 and is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula.

About 10,000 light-years distant, both nebulas harbor young, open star clusters. For scale, the more compact NGC 1931 (Fly) is about 10 light-years across.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180129.html

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" I do not question the presence of intelligent life on other planets;

 but I do question its existence on this one."

- Dr. Ivan Desantis

Chet Raymo, “Half Sick Of Shadows”

“Half Sick Of Shadows”

by Chet Raymo

“Who is this woman? Her name is on the prow of her boat: The Lady of Shalott.  Yes, it’s Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott,” from the poem of 1842, here illustrated by John William Waterhouse in 1888. By some unspecified curse this lovely maiden was confined to a tower…

“Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Through the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river”

near Camelot, where, forbidden to look out the window, she observed the world in a mirror and wove what she saw into a tapestry. So what is she doing in the boat, with her hand-stitched creation? One day, Sir Lancelot rode by her tower alone. She saw him in the mirror and – “half sick of shadows” – couldn’t resist turning to see him unreflected.

“His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;

On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow’d

His coal-black curls as on he rode…”

The mirror cracked. She left her loom, descended from the tower, found a boat, inscribed her name on the prow, and…

“Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right -

The leaves upon her falling light -

Thro’ the noises of the night”

cast off to drift downstream to Camelot – and to Lancelot. But curses are not to be foiled.

“For ere she reach’d upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.”

We are all of us in a way the Lady of Shalott, all of us who seek to create an image of the world, artists, poets, scientists. We perceive the world through the filter of our limited senses, our biologically evolved brains, our nurtured preconceptions. We weave our tapestries, knowing that our creations are a reflection removed from reality. Our “curse” is to be in love with the real, yet never able to embrace it except in the cold glass of conceptualization. Our legacy? To be found in a boat lodged among the reeds, our tapestry draped across the thwart, with Camelot yet somewhere further down the stream, glistening, beckoning, inescapably out of reach. But, ah, there’s that gorgeous tapestry.

There is another curse, self made, and that is to mistake the mirrorworld for the world outside the window, to fail to recognize the contingency of our conceptualizations, to forego an honest seeking for the falsely found, and – most ominously – to want to impose our own mirrorworld on others.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Some Oddities..."

"There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."

- Douglas Adams

"Don’t Fear The Reaper"

"Don’t Fear The Reaper"

by John Wilder

“No. Not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.”

- James T. Kirk, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.'”

- Carlos Castaneda, "Journey to Ixtlan"

"When The Soon To Be Mrs. and I were just dating, I was cooking something or other. I think it was eggs. I like eggs sunny side up, and don’t particularly care if they’re cooked all the way. 

The Soon To Be Mrs.: “Aren’t you worried about salmonella?”

John Wilder: (Laughs in full Chad manifestation.)

The Soon To Be Mrs.: (Swoons.)

Seriously, she swooned. I’ve never seen it before in my life, but in that moment I think that was what sealed the deal, the moment in time that The Soon To Be Mrs. realized that this one is different. He’s not like the others. Here is a man who has zero fear of The Current Thing, and knows that salmonella won’t be the thing that punches his ticket out of having a functioning circulatory system.

No. I’m not afraid of salmonella. I would spit in its tiny little eyes or flagellum or tentacles and say, “Not today, my bacterium friend! My Danish-Scots-Germanic blood is far too strong for the likes of you!” And then I would attack Poland. Oh, wait, that’s been done.

I know I’m not going to die like Hemingway, and I’m not going to die like the comedy greats Belushi, Twain, or Nietzsche did. Nope. I think I’m gonna go out like Elvis. On a toilet after having eaten a fried peanut butter, jelly and bacon sandwich covered in cheddar cheese and mayo. Nope, I’m gonna die on a toilet. I mean, after all, a king should spend his last moments on the throne, right?

A lot of people worry about dying. I suppose I did, in my 20s, when I was worried about carrying out my responsibilities as a dad. Those are serious responsibilities – because those kids are going to be the legacy that I leave on Earth. That and my writing, collection of PEZ® dispensers and velvet Elvis paintings.

Again, a lot of people worry about dying. I’m not sure why. Of things that are more-or-less predetermined, that’s the big one. We’re all going to die. All of us. And I’m not sure I care.

Oh, sure, I want to live. I have no particular desire to die. If given the preference, I suppose I’m in favor of my continued heartbeat. But I don’t fear death. I don’t go to sleep at night wondering if this pain or that pain or that thing might be the symptom I look up on WebMD® that seals the deal that Wilder is going up to irritate Jesus in Heaven with bad puns.

I don’t worry about some future point when I’m going to enjoy life. I’ve achieved nearly every goal I’ve ever set for my life. End. Full stop. It’s like when a baseball game goes into extra innings, “Hey, free baseball.” And me? Free life. I’ve done nearly everything I’ve ever wanted to do.

What do you give a man who has everything? I mean, besides another bottle of wine. You give that man: Today. I’ve got Today. The only moment I live in is right now. And right now isn’t all that bad. I’m sitting in the sitting room (question: is any room I sit in, by definition, a sitting room? Discuss.) with the cool night air blowing in the window, some songs I love playing on the laptop, a cold beer by the keyboard, and the knowledge that at this moment, everything is fine.

Literally, in my life, Every Single Thing Is Fine. I could go into details, but you already know how awesome I am. So, I live for today? Hell no.

That’s YOLO. The idea that “You Only Live Once” is a free pass to act in any fashion has corroded society. It’s really at the root of many of the problems we have today. It is, in many ways, the absolute inverse of the philosophy I’m trying to describe. YOLO seeks to elevate hedonism and the passions of the moment as the highest good. YOLO is Tinder® times Planned Parenthood© times SnapFaceGramInstaChat® times Rwanda®.

t’s the inversion of beauty: it consists of being positive about, well, any old thing that feels good. I could list these “pleasures”, but you know the list as well as I do. We see it every day, with vice being paraded as virtue, and the continual demand going out for people to celebrate it, because, “Can’t you see? This horrid abomination that no healthy society or people in the entire history of the world has tolerated, iS BeAuTIfUL!” No, I think living a life built on YOLO is one doomed to fail – inevitably it will fail based on two reasons: it is materialism or a faith based on the nihilism of the material world writ large, and it is based on needs, like youth, wealth, sensation, or, yes, even life. So, not YOLO.

One thing I’ve tried to preach is outcome independence. Indeed, since the final outcome of life on Earth is fixed, all the intermediate steps lead there. Instead, I try to focus on virtue and faith. I write not because of YOLO, and not because it’s easy. Some nights it’s hard as hell to get the post to “close” and feel right. There are dozens of posts where, even after 1600 words, I still didn’t say exactly what I meant to say. That’s okay, it’s on me. I’m learning, and if I were perfect at this, I wouldn’t have more work to do.

For me, it’s the work. It’s getting better. It’s finding ways to add value to those people around me. There are those who pull their weight in the world, and those that don’t. I want to be one that pulls his weight, who has contributed as much as I can to helping my family and the wider world.

I don’t always do it. And I’m not always right, either. I’ve produced some stuff in my life that was really, really good, but not perfect. Thankfully, that’s not my mark, either, since just like immortality here on Earth, searching for perfection is a lonely and silly pastime. I want to make the world a better place with my family (first) and my work (now second) guided by God. And I want people to laugh hard while learning and thinking about the things I write.

The beauty of this is to win, all I have to do is the best that I can do every day. To win? All I have to do is be the best person I can be every day. See? Each night, I go to bed and sleep soundly if I know, in that day, that I gave it my all. Do I take time for me? Sure. But that’s not the goal – I serve a higher purpose.

So, what do I fear? Not death. It’s coming whether I like it or not, and, honestly, I’d rather not return my body in factory-fresh condition – I’d like all the parts to fail at once. On the toilet. I think Elvis would have wanted it that way. Oh, wait... I wonder if Elvis ate eggs sunny-side-up? Hang on, I’m sure he did. Elvis ate everything."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

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Blue Oyster Cult , "Don't Fear The Reaper"

The Daily "Near You?"

Alliston, Ontario, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’"

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence to be ever on view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.'"

"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass’"

By Richard Haddad

"“This too shall pass.” This proverb has no doubt been repeated millions of times in many different languages. Now the sentiment may be difficult to accept amidst so many hardships from lost jobs, lost businesses and lost lives.

This adage grew from the roots of a Persian fable and became known in the Western world primarily through a 19th-century retelling by the English poet Edward FitzGerald, who crafted the fable “Solomon’s Seal” in 1852 illustrating how the adage had the power to make a sad man happy but, conversely, a happy man sad. The fable was reportedly also employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States.

But the version I want to share today that I think is most beautiful and powerful was written in 1867 by American newspaper editor and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. He reworked the fable into a poem called “The King’s Ring.” Here again, the retooled adage wields a double-edged sword. It can help us endure the passage of difficult times, or keep our perspective and humility during good times. Here is the Tilton poem:

"The King’s Ring"

"Once in Persia reigned a King,

Who upon his signet-ring

Graved a maxim true and wise,

Which, if held before his eyes,

Gave him counsel, at a glance,

Fit for every change or chance;

Solemn words, and these are they:

“Even this shall pass away.”

Trains of camels through the sand

Brought him gems from Samarcand;

Fleets of galleys through the seas

Brought him pearls to rival these.

But he counted little gain

Treasures of the mine or main.

“What is wealth?” the King would say;

“Even this shall pass away.”

In the revels of his court,

At the zenith of the sport,

When the palms of all his guests

Burned with clapping at his jests,

He, amid his figs and wine,

Cried, “O loving friends of mine!

Pleasures come, but do not stay:

Even this shall pass away.”

Lady fairest ever seen

Was the bride he crowned the queen.

Pillowed on his marriage-bed,

Whispering to his soul, he said,

“Though no bridegroom never pressed

Dearer bosom to his breast,

Mortal flesh must come to clay:

Even this shall pass away.”

Fighting on a furious field,

Once a javelin pierced his shield.

Soldiers with a loud lament

Bore him bleeding to his tent.

Groaning from his tortured side,

“Pain is hard to bear,” he cried,

“But with patience day by day,

Even this shall pass away.”

Towering in the public square

Twenty cubits in the air,

Rose his statue carved in stone.

Then the King, disguised, unknown,

Gazing at his sculptured name,

Asked himself, “And what is fame?

Fame is but a slow decay:

Even this shall pass away.”

Struck with palsy, sere and old,

Waiting at the Gates of Gold,

Spake he with his dying breath,

“Life is done, but what is Death?”

Then, in answer to the King,

Fell a sunbeam on his ring,

Showing by a heavenly ray -

“Even this shall pass away.”

I believe enduring well is an essential part of the test we must pass while on this Earth together. I am still taking this test. We all are. I also believe we must have a certain amount of faith and hope as we do all in our power to make things right in this world while also accepting that we don’t have the power to control all outcomes. I’ve been learning these truths and striving to apply them more in my own life. In the past I have sometimes hearkened to gloomy voices in the world. Many a time I entertained unnecessary doubt and worry. But I am learning that worry works against faith and hope. My mother once shared this other saying with me that I have tried to apply in my older years - “Worry is interest paid on money never borrowed.”

"May we all strive to endure, live and love well, for this too shall pass."

- https://www.dcourier.com/

"The Real Glory..."

"The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask more of you than you are willing to give. And then you say, 'Life is not something that should have been. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to call "out". There are three positions possible. One is the up-to-it, and facing the game and playing through. The second is saying, "Absolutely not. I don't want to stay in this dogfight." That's the absolute out. The third position is the one that says, "This is mixed of good and evil. I'm on the side of the good. I accept the world with corrections. And may the world be the way I like it. And it's good for me and my friends." There are the only three positions."

- Joseph Campbell

o

“How Buster Douglas Beat Mike Tyson” 

by johnnysmack7

“Going into the fight, Mike Tyson was the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He held the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles. Despite the several controversies that marked Tyson’s profile at the time, such as his notorious, abusive relationship with Robin Givens; the contractual battles between longtime manager Bill Cayton and promoter Don King; and Tyson’s departure from longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, Mike Tyson was still lethal in the ring, scoring a 93-second knockout against Carl “The Truth” Williams in his previous fight. Most considered this fight to be a warm-up bout for Tyson before meeting up with then-undefeated number 1 heavyweight contender Evander Holyfield (who was ringside for the fight). Tyson was viewed as such a dominant heavyweight that he was not only viewed as the world’s top heavyweight, but often as the number one fighter in the world pound-for-pound (including by “Ring Magazine”), a rarity for heavyweights.

Buster Douglas was ranked as just the #7 heavyweight by Ring Magazine, and had met with mixed success in his professional boxing career up to that point. His previous title fight was against Tony Tucker in 1987, in which he was TKO’d in the 10th round. However, a string of six consecutive wins gave him the opportunity to fight Tyson. In the time leading up to the fight, Douglas faced a number of setbacks, including the death of his mother, Lula Pearl, 23 days before the fight. Additionally, the mother of his son was facing a severe kidney ailment, and he had contracted the flu on the day before the fight.”

- http://www.knockouts2sleep.com

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back.

That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”

- Vince Lombardi

Full screen mode recommended.

At 2:40 of this video Douglas takes a tremendous uppercut and goes down, kneeling to clear his head; look closely...you can see him wondering to himself if he should get up. No one at all expected him to, but he reached for something deep inside himself, found an inner strength perhaps even he was unaware of, and got back up to continue the fight. The rest, as they say, is history… and real glory. – CP

•

"Scott Ritter: Syria Truth Exposed, Putin & Iran on High Alert as IDF Bombs Damascus"

Danny Haiphong, 12/10/24

"Scott Ritter: Syria Truth Exposed,

 Putin & Iran on High Alert as IDF Bombs Damascus"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Times Of India, 12/10/24

"Putin 'Enters' Syria-Israel War: Russia Rains Fire 

On Netanyahu For Seizing Syrian Golan Buffer Zone"

"Russia and Israel are now at odds over the situation in Syria, with tensions escalating after recent remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Golan Heights. During an address on Dec 9, Netanyahu said that the Golan Heights will "forever be an inseparable part" of Israel. In response, Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, criticized Israel’s contradictory statements on the matter. Watch for more."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Oh, and you ain't seen nuthin' yet...

"Miracle on the Pampas"

Argentine President Javier Milei

"Miracle on the Pampas"

Everybody knows what causes a nation to sink and decay.

 Everybody knows that over the long run, you can’t spend more than 

you can afford. And everybody knows that people will game the system.

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "Reuters…on the most exciting story in the financial world: Argentina’s Milei wants to make austerity great again. Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei laid out a bleak vision in his maiden speech a year ago amid an economic crisis. He warned there was "no money", pledged shock therapy for the economy and said things would get worse before they got better. A year later Milei has managed to pull off a gravity-defying feat: keeping that fervor burning and avoiding tipping the country into fiery protest even as he rolls out severe spending cuts…

A year ago, the question on the table was whether democracy was capable of genuine reform. We know from observation as well as theory - dating to the time of the ancient Greeks - that democracy seems to have a ‘best if used before’ date. As time goes by, elite special interests gain more and more power... and curdle the milk. They are corrupted by power... and the government becomes a means of ripping off ‘The People’ and distributing the loot to competing elite groups.

Then, along comes a demagogue who appeals directly to the masses, who by then are completely fed up with it, and promises real change. He dismantles much of the ‘checks and balances’ that restrict his own power... and the country becomes much less ‘democratic.’ And then, there are always surprises - catastrophic events, war, bankruptcy, hyperinflation, plague or revolution. Debts go unpaid. Assets are marked down. Rich and poor are both impoverished... and the process begins all over again.

And so it was that a year ago today, Javier Milei took over as El Presidente in Argentina. ‘The People’ had had enough. He offered a new direction. He was very straightforward about it, carrying a chainsaw to his rallies and promising to use it to cut back the government. So far, Milei has done what he said he would do. He’s fired 50,000 employees. He stopped the red ink and put an end to money-printing. The results? Our friend on the scene, Rob Marstrand reports:

"Consumer price inflation hit 25% in the month of December 2023, as Milei took office. That’s equivalent to an annual rate of close to 1,400% (with compounding). Actual (backwards looking) inflation peaked at over 280% in the early part of this year. By October, the latest available figure, Argentina's monthly inflation rate had dropped to 2.7%, equivalent to 38% a year (with compounding). That's still high, but it's a major improvement. It's also propped up artificially, to some extent, by the progressive removal of the previous government’s price subsidies for utilities (electricity, natural gas, water), fuel and transport (buses and trains). My electricity bill used to be $8 a month (now about $35), and a ride on the subway was about 10 cents a year ago (now about 80 cents). Both are still cheap, but rising."

There’s no secret to this. Everybody knows what causes a nation to sink and decay. Everybody knows that over the long run, you can’t spend more than you can afford. And everybody knows that people will game the system, if they’re allowed to.

Trouble is, it is very hard to correct. In a democracy, if you want power, you need your man to get elected. And he won’t get elected if he attacks the money flow. Because, whenever the feds spend, part of the money is destined for lobbying, campaign contributions, think tank support - all for the purpose of increasing the money-flow. Try to eliminate the unnecessary spending... and the moneyed elites start working to eliminate you. The rich and powerful will undermine you. The poor – deprived of their handouts – will take to the streets.

Milei’s story is unusual because he has a strong ideological commitment to reducing the power of the government. But he also came along at just the right time in the Primary Political Cycle. Cynics may doubt the motives of public figures. Cynicalists that we are, we assume the system works for those who control it. And in the election battle of 2023, it looks to us as though the Peronists (national socialists) who have ruled the roost in Argentine politics since the 1940s, took a dive.

Why? Because the elites had squeezed so much juice out of the economy there wasn’t much left. Mismanagement and rip-offs had brought about the aforementioned 1,400% inflation. And it was getting worse. Chaos and catastrophe were on the way. Better to let a ‘free market’ guy get the blame. Or, in the unlikely event that Milei were to succeed in reviving the economy, the Peronists would at least have more to steal when they returned to power.

Argentina is still no paradise. There are confusing and difficult money rules. The employment rules - very similar to those in France - make it hard to employ people. And there are still a lot of bills to pay. But Milei explains his progress so far: ‘When we took office…the inflation in the first week of December [last year] was running at 1% per day, which meant it was 3,700% per year…. In addition, for 10 years the economy had not grown. Per capita, it fell by 15%. Wholesale inflation was at 17,00%. Now it’s only 28%. And now we are bringing consumer inflation down to just 2.5% annually. And the poverty rate was 57% in January [2024], now it is only 47%.’

What is probably most remarkable about Milei’s speech is that he is able to talk about complicated and subtle economic issues confidently and intelligently. We know of no American politician who can do the same.

The drop in the poverty rate already has released about four million households from poverty. Investors have taken notice, too. A group of them recently visited our area, Salta, looking for bargains... and potential boltholes. And some investors see in the Argentina story the kind of boom that took place in Eastern Europe after it was freed from the Soviet Union in 1991... or in China, after the entire economy was unleashed by Deng Xiaoping in 1979.

Of course, the Milei revolution may still fail. He’s cutting back on salaries, jobs, benefits and giveaways. As time goes by people are likely to forget why these cuts are necessary... and long for the good ol’ days of something-for-nothing. But for now, Argentina is the biggest turnaround story since the Soviet Union disbanded. Stay tuned."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com

Gregory Mannarino, "Banks Are In Trouble, But They're Getting A Backdoor Bailout, And You're Not"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/10/24

"Banks Are In Trouble, 

But They're Getting A Backdoor Bailout, And You're Not"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

So, let's see... $170 BILLION to Ukraine; God knows how many $BILLIONS secretly given to the psychopathically inbred degenerate Israeli monsters to keep slaughtering old people, women and children; $3 BILLION a DAY to pay the interest on the inconceivable $37.5 trillion national debt; the Big Banks getting countless BILLIONS to keep them from the bankruptcies they so richly deserve; a $1 TRILLION "defense" budget; and on and on and on. But what you won't see is any help for YOU, Good Citizen, because they don't give a goddamn about us... - CP

Dan, I Allegedly, "Here Is A New Low"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 12/10/24

"Here Is A New Low"

"We explore why so many Americans are facing impossible choices in today's economy. From sky-high housing costs to mounting insurance expenses, discover the real reasons behind this growing crisis. Plus, hear shocking statistics about how many people are selling their possessions just to make ends meet. We also cover the disgraceful treatment of disabled students at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, troubling news about phone spyware affecting 8 million devices, and updates on bank controversies. Learn what these developments mean for your financial security and what steps you can take to protect yourself. This is more than just statistics - it's about real people making heartbreaking choices every day. Whether you're struggling yourself or want to understand what's happening in our economy, this video provides crucial insights into America's growing meal-skipping crisis."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Cash Jordan, 12/10/24

"More Renters Go Homeless… 

As NYC Destroys Itself"

"A recent report reveals the shocking freefall of NYC's housing market, 

which is now forcing renters to make choices most Americans could never imagine."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Major Changes At Dollar Tree"

Adventures With Danno, AM 12/10/24

"Major Changes At Dollar Tree"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Russia/Iran Running Out Of Options; Congo 'Disease X'"

Canadian Prepper, 12/10/24

"Alert! Russia/Iran Running Out Of Options; 

Congo 'Disease X'"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Beware Of An Ominous Black Swan Event, Global Financial Markets Will Be Rocked"

Jeremiah Babe,12/9/24

"Beware Of An Ominous Black Swan Event, 

Global Financial Markets Will Be Rocked"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Another Rental Crisis Will Leave Millions Of Americans Without Homes"

Full screen recommended.

Epic economist, 12/9/24

"Another Rental Crisis Will Leave

 Millions Of Americans Without Homes"

"If you’re a renter, you will want to hear this. A toxic mix of soaring rental prices and vanishing support for renters is triggering the largest spike in evictions since 2019. New data reveals that more than half of the nation's renters are at risk of losing their homes as prices continue to climb above incomes, and more people fall behind on payments. The situation is reaching critical levels right as we head into the winter. Today, we are going to reveal the true forces driving this alarming rental crisis and explain why things are about to get a whole lot worse than you can imagine."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/