Monday, December 16, 2024

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster.
Many young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in our Milky Way's close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.”

Chet Raymo, "Starlight"

"Starlight"
by Chet Raymo

"Poor Calvin is overwhelmed with the vastness of the cosmos and no small dose of existential angst. He is not the first, of course. Most famously the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wailed his own despair: "I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me. I am terrified...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."

And he didn't know the half of it. Not so long ago we imagined ourselves to be the be-all and end-all of creation, at the center of a cosmos made expressly for us and at the pinnacle of the material Great Chain of Being. Then it turned out that the Earth was not the center of the cosmos. Nor the Sun. Nor the Galaxy. The astronomers Sebastian von Hoerner and Carl Sagan raised this experience to the level of a principle - the Principle of Mediocrity - which can be stated something like this: The view from here is about the same as the view from anywhere else. Or to put it another way: Our star, our planet, the life on it, and even our own intelligence, are completely mediocre.

Moon rocks are just like Earth rocks. Photographs of the surface of Mars made by the landers and rovers could as well have been made in Nevada. Meteorites contain some of the same organic compounds that are the basis for terrestrial life. Gas clouds in the space between the stars are composed of precisely the same atoms and molecules that we find in our own backyard. The most distant galaxies betray in their spectra the presence of familiar elements.

And yet, and yet, for all we know, our brains are the most complex things in the universe. Are we then living, breathing refutations of the Principle of Mediocrity. I doubt it. For the time being, Calvin will just have to get used to living in the infinite abyss and eternal silence. He has Hobbes. We have each other. And science. And poetry. And love."

"We Don't Have A Clue..."

“We don’t have a clue what’s really going down, we just kid ourselves that we’re in control of our lives while a paper’s thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they’re tired, or bored.”
- Neil Gaiman

The Daily "Near You?"

Whitewater, Wisconsin, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Homeowners Forced To Skip Meals Just To Pay Their Mortgage!"

Orlando Miner, 12/16/24
"Homeowners Forced To Skip Meals 
Just To Pay Their Mortgage!"
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o

"Look At These Egg Prices! 37% Of Americans Struggle To "Pay Their Most Basic Bills As Food Prices Accelerate Again"

"Look At These Egg Prices! 37% Of Americans Struggle To 
"Pay Their Most Basic Bills As Food Prices Accelerate Again"
by Michael Snyder

"When one of my readers sent me a photo of egg prices at a store in western Washington state, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I clearly remember when I could purchase a carton of quality eggs at the grocery store for just 99 cents, but thanks to inflation and a bird flu crisis that never seems to end, those days are long gone. Now it is common to pay five, six, seven or even eight dollars for a carton of eggs. In fact, it probably won’t be too long before we crack the ten dollar barrier. In the old days, eggs were considered to be a very inexpensive way to feed your family, but now eggs prices have gone completely insane.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just egg prices that are spiking. According to CNN, we just witnessed the largest monthly jump in grocery prices in almost two years…"In November, egg prices shot up by 8.2% nationwide, logging one of the highest monthly spikes in the past two decades, according to Consumer Price Index data released last week. And it’s not just eggs - shoppers have seen jumps in beef, coffee and non-alcoholic beverages, driving up overall grocery prices to their largest monthly gain since January 2023." And more increases appear to be coming down the pike for the pulped-paper-packed protein: Wholesale prices for chicken eggs soared by nearly 55% last month, and wholesale food prices rose by 3.1% (their highest monthly increase in two years).

Our leaders in Washington promised us that food inflation was under control. They lied. I realize that this is very bad news. I have heard from so many of you that are deeply struggling at this moment. Now it appears that food prices are going to go substantially higher in 2025. All of us are just going to have to adapt to this new environment somehow.

If you are barely scraping by from month to month, I want you to understand that you are definitely not alone. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau is telling us that 37 percent of Americans are having trouble even paying their most basic bills…"The Census Bureau reports that 37% of Americans are struggling to pay routine bills. Add in the cost of Christmas gifts and other holiday expenses and it can feel overwhelming to keep up with the Clauses. The National Retail Federation predicts an increase in holiday spending this year, but the rise is more indicative of the higher cost of goods than anything else. We aren’t buying more; it’s just what we are buying costs more than before."

That is more than a third of the country. It is difficult for people to hear that they aren’t going to be able to live the way that they previously did. In an attempt to keep their lifestyles the same, many Americans are racking up credit card debt like never before…A new study of Americans credit card debt finds the average household credit card balance as of the third quarter of 2024, was around $10,757 after adjusting for inflation.

That according to the personal-finance website WalletHub which Friday released its new Credit Card Debt Study, which found that consumers added $21 billion in debt during the third quarter of 2024. Early results for the fourth quarter of the year show preliminary data for October at a new record high for credit card debt in the month, in absolute terms. Sadly, we have now reached a point where debt saturation is becoming a major problem and delinquencies are rising. Consumers simply cannot spend money like they once did, and the retail industry is really struggling as a result.

So far this year, retailers have announced the closing of more than 7,000 stores. That represents an increase of 69 percent from last year…"Retail store closures in the United States rose sharply in 2024, with over 7,100 closures announced through the end of November, according to data from the research firm CoreSight. This number marks a 69 percent increase from the previous year under the Biden-Harris administration, which has been plagued by inflation.

The spike in closures is tied to a wave of retail bankruptcies, with 45 retailers filing this year compared to 25 in 2023. Economic challenges, including persistent inflation, have led consumers to cut back on discretionary spending."

As I discussed last week, evidence that the economy is really slowing down is all around us. I am sure that you can see this where you live, and with each passing day we get even more troubling news. For example, it is being reported that Macy’s is planning to close dozens of stores by the end of this calendar year…"Macy’s is ramping up store closures this year as it struggles to revive its faltering business. In February, the embattled retailer announced plans to shut 150 underperforming stores within three years – including 55 closures by the end of 2024. But the company now expects to close 65 locations by the end of the year. Bosses said they will remain open through the holidays to let regular customers shop but then shutter for good before the end of December."

And in a year when so many restaurant chains have already bit the dust, we now have another one to add to the list…"Arizona’s iconic frozen drink and sub chain Eegee’s has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it the latest casualty in a brutal year for fast-food restaurants. The announcement came with the closure of five locations across Tucson and Phoenix, leaving die-hard fans heartbroken. The December 6 filing in Phoenix federal court gives the embattled chain – owned by private equity firm 39 North Capital – a chance to reorganize its finances."

Four years of “Bidenomics” has taken an enormous toll on our nation. We have built up a tremendous amount of economic momentum in the wrong direction, and the very foolish policies of our leaders are taking us exactly where I warned they would take us. Many are hoping that things can be turned around when the new administration takes over. But considering how rapidly conditions are deteriorating both here and around the world, it would literally be a major miracle to pull us out of this mess before a horrifying global crisis erupts. So let us hope for the best, but let us also continue to prepare for the worst."

Greg Hunter, "Trump Faces Quagmire of Economic Math"

"Trump Faces Quagmire of Economic Math"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Financial writer and precious metals broker Bill Holter has been warning of a slowing economy since the September Fed .5% rate cut. If the economy was so strong, why cut rates? Joe Biden is saying his Administration is leaving office with the “strongest economy in modern history.” A recent FOX News poll says a big majority of voters think just the opposite about the economy with a whopping “77%” giving Biden “negative ratings” on the economy. Huge unpayable debt and insolvency problems keep stacking up that are pointing to the much talked about “economic reset.” 

 The latest big warning sign comes from the Bank of England. Holter explains, “For the Bank of England to say starting January 1 of 2025 that whenever they bail out an institution, they are not going to tell the public that that institution was bailed out. That tells me that 2025 is the year of the ‘reset.’ Why would they say starting January 1st they are not going to tell you who they are bailing out? Wait a minute. Why would you need to bail anybody out? Markets are at all-time highs. You are telling us everything is great. The financial markets are great. The economy is great. Apparently, that’s bullshit, it’s not so great, and you feel the need to start bailing out institutions starting in 2025.”

When it comes to the Trump Administration cutting government spending with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Holter sees a big problem. Holter says, “If money doesn’t get borrowed and it doesn’t get spent, it doesn’t get into the economy. The spending part is the important part. Last year, the economy or GDP was roughly $29 trillion. Cutting $2 trillion is about 7% of $29 trillion. If you take that $2 trillion out, that is 7% of GDP that doesn’t exist. So, instead of 2% or 3% growth, subtract 7% from that and you have -4% or -5% growth. That’s what we would have had since 2008. If we were not running deficits, we would have been running a negative GDP economy.”

On the flipside, Holter contends that the debt can’t grow forever either because interest on the debt is more than $1 trillion a year and exploding higher every year. Holter says, “Trump is not going to be able to come in and save the system because it’s just math. He can come in and make whatever happens follow the rule of law instead of the rule of make it up as you go. Trump is in a quagmire of mathematics, and the mathematics in this country is broke. The whole financial system is a Ponzi Scheme that depends on deficit spending and increases in money supply or monetization.” By the way, outgoing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says she is “sorry” (NOT sorry) for creating $15 trillion in new debt during the Biden Administration.

Holter says the so-called economic reset will be in two stages. Stage one will be banks will be bailed out, and then people will be bailed-in and lose their money in the bank. Holter points out all the laws have been changed to make depositors unsecured creditors of the lowest level. Same for people with stocks as the so-called great taking will take all shares out of your accounts. The second stage will be the world will not accept digital dollars or any other crypto for payment for real things. Holter says, “The world is going to demand real payment for real goods. That’s when the price of everything resets.”

Gold, silver and other tangible assets, according to Holter, will reset higher, and most other things will reset lower - much lower. Holter says, “This will be true price discovery.” There is much more in the 56-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with
 financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter:

"How It Really Is"

 

" Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/16/24"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/16/24
"Alastair Crooke: A War Without Limits"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/16/24
"Pepe Escobar: The Syrian Tragedy"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/16/24
"COL. Douglas Macgregor:
 First Syria, Is Egypt The Next To Fall?"
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Adventures With Danno, "I Was In Complete Shock At Meijer"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 12/16/24
"I Was In Complete Shock At Meijer"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "What’s Up With the Drones?"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 12/16/24
"What’s Up With the Drones?"
"Unbelievable footage of car-sized drones terrorizing neighborhoods across America! Why is the government keeping us in the dark? From New Jersey to California, these massive UFOs are buzzing homes, evading detection, and sparking panic. But wait, it gets worse! Our clueless leaders claim "no threat" while citizens take matters into their own hands. You won't believe what one man did when a drone invaded his property! Is this a foreign invasion? Secret military tech? Or something even more sinister? The truth will shock you!"
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Bill Bonner, "Gimme' the Meat Axe"

"Gimme' the Meat Axe"
The chainsaw technique is the only way to do it. First, because you 
can’t cut $2 trillion from the most politicized budget in the world 
with tiny incisions. You need to hack away whole programs.
by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "Already, the press... the intellectuals... the greasy ‘policy makers’ are finding reasons to dull the DOGE. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Francis Fukuyama gives bad advice to the Musk/Ramaswamy duo: "The solution to our problems does not lie in the wholesale undermining of government but in appropriate regulation."

As we have seen, Reagan was right: the more government you have, the less honest, civilized activity you are left with. The whole purpose of government is to rake off wealth and power from the people who earned them... and shift them over to people who didn’t.

Making this more efficient is beside the point. The only sure way to cut back on the expense of government is to cut back the government itself. Like pruning a fig tree, you’ve got to hack away the limbs, not just pluck off a few leaves. That’s why Javier Milei held up a chainsaw at his rallies, not a scalpel. He offered to whack off huge parts of the government, not to excise tiny moles or ingrown nails.

The chainsaw technique is the only way to do it. First, because you can’t cut $2 trillion from the most politicized budget in the world with tiny incisions. You need to hack away whole programs, departments, mandates... fast. You don’t have time to argue over every small cut. The only way to do it is to rev up the chainsaw and let the chips fly. And if you don’t, you’ll be playing the feds’ own game.

Back in the 1970s, as the very young, very naïve head of the National Taxpayers Union, we proposed cuts to the federal budget to save taxpayers’ money. Then, we were talking about millions, not billions or trillions. But the feds resisted... frequently complaining that we were proposing an irresponsible ‘meat axe’ approach to federal spending, rather than a ‘carefully detailed program of budget reductions.’

Needless to say, the budget reductions never happened. Because the ‘careful’ approach required further analysis and discussion. Which regulations needed to be updated, revised? What would be the impact? Inter-agency discussions would have to be held. And perhaps existing procedures be streamlined, rather than eliminated? How could policy guidelines be made clearer... less ambiguous... and more easily implemented? These blabfests - involving endless committee meetings - would take years. And they would require hiring more employees to study the proposals for cutting back on employees!

But Fukayama urges Musk and Ramaswamy to go slowly... carefully... and avoid getting blood on the floor. He isn’t interested in getting rid of government workers, he thinks we need more of them: "The federal government doesn’t need fewer bureaucrats; it needs more talented and ambitious ones. Only 7% of the federal workforce is under the age of 30, while 14% are over 60. This is not the right age balance for a government that needs to keep up with the latest changes in technology like artificial intelligence…You are not going to attract smart, creative young people to the civil service if you aim to rule them by fear and arbitrary firings.’

So hang up that meat axe. Put some steaks on the grill and see how many more people you can attract to work for the feds. Fukuyama explains why we need so many: "The U.S. is unique among modern liberal democracies in its cultural hostility to government. People in other countries understand that government is necessary to control air traffic, forecast the weather, manage the money supply, regulate food and drugs, police stock markets, train and equip the armed forces and deliver social security checks each month…government performs many critical functions that we take for granted, and Americans will be upset if they wake up one day to discover there aren’t enough bureaucrats around to perform those tasks.’

Really? Will people be upset if the feds closed some of their 800 overseas military bases? And what if they didn’t spend so much... didn’t run deficits... and didn’t need to cover the excess with inflation?

Would the shock of stable prices give the economy the heebie-jeebies? Would ‘The People’ really wring their hands in despair if private companies kept their eyes on the weather? And what if investors had to face the truth: that the SEC works for Wall Street, not for them? And the FDA works for Big Pharma, not for consumers? And the whole government looks out for itself…not for ‘The People?’ Our pulse quickens... the horror!

A world without the promise of something-for-nothing... without the Appalachian Regional Commission busily stimulating ‘indigenous arts and crafts,’ or the National Capitol Arts and Cultural Affairs, whose purpose seems to be to provide funds to the Kennedy Center, so the Great and the Good in the Washington DC area can watch operas... subsidized the by the citizens of Cleveland, Sioux Falls, and Albuquerque. A world without AMTRAK…without the F-35….without perpetual war….without $36 trillion in federal debt.

Let the Beltway swamp critters pay for their own damn opera? Let ‘The People’ decide for themselves what foods they will eat…what products they will buy…which car they will buy…and how they will spend their own money? We shudder at the thought."

Jim Kunstler, "Santa, Please Bring Me a War for Christmas"

"Santa, Please Bring Me a War for Christmas"
by Jim Kunstler

"Understand this deeply - you nearly lost your country and 
your freedom to a deranged, totalitarian-leaning enemy 
of our nation's soul and destiny. Take this personally." 
 - Mel K

"So, you expected “Joe Biden” to serve up a neat little Christmas-time World War Three, lobbing ATACMS into Russia and all, but instead, surprise surprise, you got The War of the Worlds: mysterious drones hovering on-high over the endless muffler shops, manicure parlors, mafia palazzos, and mosques of New Jersey. But there seems to be more to this than, say, the stunt that Orson Welles pulled in 1938, scaring a few rubes over the radio. This ain’t no foolin’ around.

It’s been going on for weeks. And not just in New Jersey. But around New York City, up the Hudson River Valley above Stewart Airport, over in Massachusetts, down in Pennsylvania, and out in Ohio in the vicinity of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton Ohio. Howls of “WTF” echo all over the cable news channels. The US government - that is, the twilighting “Joe Biden” admin - plays dumb.

Alejandro Mayorkas, our unimpeachably frank Homeland Security chief told ABC-News on Sunday “that there’s no question that drones are being sighted.” I’m sure that told you a lot. He went on to explain that the FAA changed its rules last year allowing drones to fly at night. Are we to suppose that avid US drone-owners waited until the very last month of this year to start flying their pet aircraft after dark? Pentagon spox John Kirby, added helpfully at a news conference that federal investigators had been “unable to corroborate reports of any unauthorized drones above New Jersey.” (Translation: DARPA and other Pentagon ops are too busy figuring out new ways to surveil and kill you to bother with these drone swarms.)

Theories abound and multiply. One is that these are US Govt drones seeking signals of radioactivity emanating from a nuclear bomb supposedly purloined out of Ukraine’s old Soviet arsenal - and possibly stashed in a shipping container or some-such other hidey-hole along our east coast. It’s a good story. It’s rumored that some-60 Uke nukes from that era have gone missing in the decades since. Of course, the theoretical owner of such a device would have to be pretty dumb to not stash his nuke in a lead-shielded casket to prevent detection. In the meantime, what else can be said or done? Standing by on that mushroom cloud...

Blogger/Author and former White House stenographer (2002 – 2018) Mike McCormick had a neat theory: that shipping interests were testing drone deliveries of imported goods from offshore in an attempt to work-around the longshoreman’s union contract negotiations currently underway. The union has been fighting against automation that would eliminate the good-paying jobs of 85,000 dock-workers. Any takers on that one?

Of course, it’s difficult to swallow the govt’s statements that, basically, they dunno nuffins ‘bout no drones. There are enough of them flying over enough varied terrain that surely the USAF could find a way to shoot one down over a cow pasture in, say, Orange County, New York. I’m frankly a little surprised that some enterprising civilian marksman hasn’t popped off a few 7mm Remington mag loads into the hovering lights. At least they haven’t said it’s Santa Claus testing a new high-tech delivery system that would put his old-timey sleigh-and-reindeer out of business.

The theory I lean toward is the notion that “Joe Biden” (meaning the DC blob) is desperately seeking some way to obstruct or fend-off the January 20th inauguration of Mr. Trump. Because, well, to put it bluntly, a whole lot of blobistas are worried about going to jail when the likes of Kash Patel, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi-G, and Pam Bondi get their mitts on the levers of power and start opening up the files. They’ve got thirty-five days to...to do something! (Somebody, please do something!!!)

There was a lot of chatter all year long about a coming space alien emergency. I know, sounds preposterous, and even more so when you consider that the military arm of the blob would be so dumb as to try to pass off drones as alien spacecrafts - like something out of a 1950s horror movie when the “special effects” had to be done with puppets and balsa-wood models flying on wires. Maybe it’s actually come to that in this super dumbed-down age. (Are you aware that the main diminishing return of our magical computer tech is that it’s made our society an order-of-magnitude dumber across the board? Well, it has.)

The situation remains fluid, with ongoing investigations and public discourse about the implications and origins of these drone activities. The FBI is on-the-case (so never fear!) along with Mr. Mayorkas and his outfit, and maybe even the US military. Chill. They got this - as Hollywood loves to say. Go shopping. Have a goshdarn eggnog. Shut up."

"Economic Market Snapshot 12/16/24"

"Economic Market Snapshot 12/16/24"
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
o
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...
o

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Bad News - This May Be Our Last Video?!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 12/15/24
"Alert! Bad News - This May Be Our Last Video?!"
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"Radiation Levels Spike In New York And New Jersey Metro - Drones Search For Nuclear Matter?"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/15/24
"Radiation Levels Spike In New York And New Jersey Metro - 
Drones Search For Nuclear Matter?"
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Musical Interlude: The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured exposure, taken from Florida, USA, covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon.
Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight."

"Be Careful..."

 

"I Urge All Of You..."

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special. I just got one last thing... I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have.”
- Jim Valvano

"People Are Going Flat Broke As Credit Crisis Hits Nearly 50% Of Americans"

Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 12/15/24
"People Are Going Flat Broke As 
Credit Crisis Hits Nearly 50% Of Americans"

"American households are spending a thousand dollars more every month just to purchase the same goods and services as three years ago. It's no wonder why so many people are turning to credit cards to make ends meet. But the situation is becoming so extreme that now almost half of all Americans are on a hamster wheel of credit card debt, according to a new report.

That includes children, Gen Zers, Millennials, and pretty much every generation after that. Yes, you heard it right. Recent data shows that there are millions of children in the U.S. drowning in debt. At the same time, seniors are literally unretiring to be able to pay off their balances, and conditions are growing worse with each passing month. Today, we're going to expose the darkest side of the American credit crisis. There's a lot to cover in this video, so stay with us until the very end."
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The Daily "Near You?"

Fairmont, Minnesota, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Free Download: Richard Bach, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

"Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live - to learn, to discover, to be free! How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there’s reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!"

"What he had once hoped for the Flock, he now gained for himself alone;
he learned to fly, and was not sorry for the price that he had paid...”
- Richard Bach, 
“Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

Freely download “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”, by Richard Bach, here:

The Poet: Carl Sandburg, “From the Shore"

“From the Shore"

“A lone gray bird,
Dim-dipping, far-flying,
Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults
Of night and the sea
And the stars and storms.

Out over the darkness it wavers and hovers,
Out into the gloom it swings and batters,
Out into the wind and the rain and the vast,
Out into the pit of a great black world,
Where fogs are at battle, sky-driven, sea-blown,
Love of mist and rapture of flight,
Glories of chance and hazards of death
On its eager and palpitant wings.

Out into the deep of the great dark world,
Beyond the long borders where foam and drift
Of the sundering waves are lost and gone
On the tides that plunge and rear and crumble.”

- Carl Sandburg

"What Foolish Forgetfulness..."

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.”
- Denis Diderot

"It Strikes Me..."

“It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can’t get out of, but I think this is very usual in life. There are people, particularly dumb people, who are in terrible trouble and never get out of it, because they’re not intelligent enough. It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry - or laugh.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”

“The Meaning Of Good And Evil In Perilous Times”
by Brandon Smith

"Perhaps the most destructive idea ever planted in the minds of the general public is the notion that nothing in this world is permanent – that all things can and must be constantly changed to suit our whims. The concept of impermanence fuels what I call “blank slate propaganda.” The usefulness of the blank slate as a weapon for social control should be explained before we examine the nature of good and evil, because these days it infects everything.

The push for never ending social “evolution” has been called many things over the decades. In the early 1900s in Europe it was called “futurism;” an art and philosophical movement that helped spawn the rise of communism and fascism in politics.The argument that all old ideas and longstanding traditions should be abandoned to make way for new ideas, new technologies, news systems etc., assumes that the supposedly new ways of doing things are superior to the old ways of doing things. Things are rarely this simple, and in most cases the new methods so proudly championed by movements for social change are usually recycled and repackaged old ideas that are notorious for failure.

The blank slate theory is designed to confuse people with self-doubt and to misrepresent the constructs of nature as constructs of society. It most effectively disrupts people’s relationship to their own moral compass by suggesting that moral compass should be completely ignored as artificial. The argument by blank slate proponents is that all boundaries are created by society instead of by inborn conscience, and that these boundaries often hold us back from achieving our goals, bettering ourselves as a species and generally getting what we want out of life.

But the things we want are not always the things we need, and this is something that movement’s for social change often refuse to grasp. If we are all blank slates and if morality and the human soul are myths, why not do whatever the hell we want, whenever we want and live life as if it is one big Roman orgy of feasting, self-medicating and overall addiction to sensation?

The problem with the blank slate concept is that while it purports that all restrictions in the human psyche are taught to us rather than being inborn and that they can be abandoned any time we want, we still can’t seem to avoid the consequences of breaking those restrictions. People lose their sanity, societies crumble and nations fall to ruin over time the more we cast aside our principles in the name of social evolution or short term gain. It is unavoidable.

The only people who seem to benefit from the spread of the blank slate are the people already in political and economic power. For if they can convince the masses to ignore their conscience, they can then convince us to accept almost any other conditions.

To act in a manner consistent with inherent conscience, or to ignore conscience and act destructively, is a choice. It is the core pillar of free will. The choice to act destructively does not erase the reality of inherent conscience; in fact, people often have to be fooled into believing that a destructive and immoral action is a “good thing” before they are convinced to carry it out. Inherent conscience must be bypassed through trickery.

The problem with choosing to stick by one’s principles is that it is easy during times of relative stability, but increasingly difficult during times of struggle. In perilous days, the temptation to use destructive tactics to maintain an expectation of comfort or to merely survive can be high. It is no coincidence that power elites, the same people that tend to promote blank slate propaganda, also tend to deliberately engineer social crisis and chaos. But perhaps this needs a deeper explanation. We must define something most of us already understand intuitively. We must define “evil.”

Like inherent conscience and moral boundaries, blank slate theorists and social change advocates attempt to muddy the waters of what constitutes evil. Some will say there is no such thing - that evil is whatever we deem it to be in any given era depending on our biases. Others will claim that tradition, permanence and anything in society that remains static is evil. The only “good” for them is constant change.

But evil is not as illusory and changing as these people suggest. In fact, most men and women recoil automatically from certain specific behaviors regardless of how they were raised, what environment they come from, what culture they were born into or what era they lived. The people who don’t recoil at these behaviors are the people we have to watch out for because they are missing something integral to the heart and mind that makes the rest of us human.

In psychological terms, the characteristics of high level narcissists and sociopaths match most closely with our historic concept of evil. And, in my view, most great evils done in history are in fact done by people with multiple narcissistic traits. As far as global elitists are concerned, they represent a rather insidious threat, because they are narcissistic sociopaths that have organized into a predatory gang, so all the traits consistent with the behavior of your average serial killer are now magnified a thousandfold by their access to unlimited resources.

How do we identify these people? Well, this is a difficult prospect at times because narcissistic sociopaths commonly hide in plain sight. Some people live with them for years before realizing exactly what they are. They also like to insert themselves into nonprofit organizations that claim to do good for the community as a cover for their more insidious motives.

Some traits and behaviors that are common are a lack of normal emotional response to traumatic events or joyous events, or they will mimic the responses of others to blend in but they come off as “forced” or “fake.” They have no concept of empathy; it does not exist for them.

They seek out centers of power and are drawn to positions of authority. They always seem to be demanding the efforts of others while rarely offering their own help. They make terrible leaders, always attempting to lead from a place of safety while letting their conscripts take the risks. Leading by example is a foreign concept to them.

They will lie repetitively about their accomplishments and their accolades. They will misrepresent their professional achievements in order to gain people’s trust. Ask them to prove through actions that they can do all the things they claim they can do, and they will try to avoid the test or respond indignantly and angrily.

They will gaslight their ideological enemies or people they are trying to control. They will accuse others of being “narcissists” or “sociopaths” or fascists or any moniker that will push the buttons of their target. Whatever evils they are guilty of, they will try to flip and lay at the feet of their enemies.

They always seem to have “minions” to do their dirty work for them and attack those that oppose them. People that have dealt with narcissistic sociopaths in their personal lives sometimes refer to these minions as “flying monkeys,” referencing the flying monkeys enslaved by the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Flying monkeys are essentially useful idiots that the narcissist employs through fraud and sometimes through pay. Whenever the narcissist is under threat of being exposed, they unleash their flying monkeys onto the streets or onto the internet to undermine truth tellers.

They do not believe in moral or personal boundaries which is why they are always trying convince people that such boundaries are a myth. They will cross moral lines, always testing the fences for weaknesses; trying to wear others down until they give up and stop fighting back.

They desperately want to come out of the shadows and into the light of day. They want to be adored as the monsters they are, rather than the fake philanthropists they portray themselves as. In order to do this, every narcissistic sociopath makes it their duty to erase the idea of conscience, whether they are part of the globalist cabal or just another ghoul down the street. Their natural inclination is to corrupt whatever they touch, and if they cannot corrupt a thing, they will attempt to destroy that thing.

Most of all, narcissistic sociopaths want everyone around them to believe that we are just like them. That “deep down” all of us are unprincipled and morally bankrupt and all it takes is a crisis or calamity, just a little chaos to bring out the devil in everyone. But if this were really the case, then humanity would have died out long ago through endless self-destruction; something keeps bringing us back from the brink in our personal lives and in society as a whole. Conscience keeps defeating evil by refusing to grant evil people the utopia of blank slate chaos they want so badly. And this is what give me confidence that no matter how terrible our days might become there is something on our side that goes beyond the physical world.

Every crisis is a test, a test of each person and a test of our culture. Can we act with reason and courage and principle even in the worst of times, or will we be lured to make our struggle easier through malicious means? Will we do right by those around us, or will we happily trample over them in the name of “survival?”

In the end, the worst men bring the best men to the surface. This is the only “good” they will ever do.”

"How It Really Is"

 

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