Full screen recommended.
Kensington Ave Philadelphia, 1/6/25
"Walking The Streets of Philadelphia, USA"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, January 6, 2025
"Thanks To Years Of Inflation, The Price Of Breakfast In America Is Now Obscene"
"Thanks To Years Of Inflation,
The Price Of Breakfast In America Is Now Obscene"
by Michael Snyder
"They have officially ruined breakfast. Once upon a time, breakfast was the least expensive meal of the day, but now everything has changed. Eggs, butter and coffee have all become extremely expensive, and there is no relief in sight in 2025. When I went to the grocery store on Friday, I spent about 45 dollars for just nine tubs of butter. I could hardly believe my eyes, but after doing some digging I discovered that five dollars for a pound of butter is very close to the national average at this stage.
Of course in some areas it is even more expensive. During an exchange on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, Joe Scarborough was astounded to learn that the price of butter has reached 7 dollars in some stores in his area…“It’s $7… I’m just saying it’s 7,” Brzezinski interrupted. “Butter is $7… What, is it framed in gold?” Scarborough replied incredulously, with a look of shock on his face. “It’s seven bucks…. it depends where you go,” Brzezinski stated somberly.
Europe is facing a similar crisis. In fact, the price of butter in Europe jumped by an average of 19 percent during the 12 month period ending in October…"Across the 27-member states of the European Union, the price of butter rose 19% on average from October 2023 to October 2024. That included a rise of 49% in Slovakia, and 40% in Germany and the Czech Republic, according to EU figures with reports indicating the cost has continued to rise." But they keep telling us that inflation is under control. Yeah, right.
Egg prices have been rising even more rapidly. In some areas of California, a carton of 12 eggs will now cost you 9 dollars…"Egg prices in California have reached unprecedented levels, with some areas reporting costs as high as $9 per dozen. This surge is largely attributed to the ongoing impact of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), commonly known as bird flu, which has significantly disrupted egg supply across the United States.
The price escalation in California is particularly notable. While the national average for a dozen Grade A large eggs hovers around $3.20, in California, the average price for a carton of white cage-free eggs has hit $5.11. However, in certain regions, consumers are seeing prices nearly double that amount."
I vividly remember when you could buy a carton of 12 eggs for less than a dollar. Sadly, those days are long gone and they aren’t coming back. It is being reported that egg prices have risen 160 percent since 2019, and they are expected to go substantially higher in 2025 because of the bird flu.
If you love coffee, you should be aware that coffee prices are also being projected to continue to rise at an exponential rate in 2025. Can you imagine paying 8 dollars for a single cup of coffee? Well, those that live in Australia could be doing exactly that by the end of this calendar year…"Coffee lovers could soon not be able to justify buying their caffeine fix daily with experts warning single cup could cost from $8-$12 by the end of 2025."
A confluence of factors has pushed Arabica bean prices into the stratosphere. If you can believe it, the price of a pound of Arabica beans jumped more than 80 percent in 2024…"The warning comes as the price of Arabica beans, the world’s most popular variety, continues to rise. Buying a pound of the bean variety topped US $3.44 on December 10, having risen more than 80 per cent in 2024."
Chocolate prices are entering unprecedented territory as well. In 2024, cocoa futures actually tripled in price…"Prices for chocolate’s main ingredient have almost tripled since the start of 2024 as faltering production in West Africa - the world’s biggest growing region - led to massive supply shortages, the publication wrote, citing exchange data. In early January, cocoa futures traded at around $4,000 per ton. In mid-December they peaked at $12,700 per ton, according to data from Trading Economics."
As this price shift starts filtering down to the consumer level, a lot of us won’t be able to afford to eat as much chocolate as we once did. In fact, we have already reached a point where chocolate is being referred to as a “luxury” item.
If you love beef, I have more bad news for you. According to Zero Hedge, cattle futures just hit another new all-time record high…"Cattle futures in Chicago surged to fresh record highs on Friday, driven by severe winter weather forecasts for the Central Plains and Midwest, two key regions home to the nation’s cattle belt. Analysts warn that the harsh conditions could reduce herd sizes and impact carcass weights, further tightening the nation’s cattle supply. “While cattle can tolerate cold weather, extreme cold forces them to expend more energy, directly impacting feed conversion rates and ultimately reducing carcass weights,” Daily Livestock Report wrote in a note on Friday, warning that cattle weights fell 3% during last year’s cold blast across the Lower 48."
Demand for beef remains very robust, but the size of the U.S. national cattle herd just keeps shrinking. At this point, it is the smallest that it has been since 1961. So beef prices will just keep escalating in 2025. You could try switching to chicken or turkey, but they are both becoming more expensive thanks to the bird flu.
The bottom line is that we are transitioning into an entirely new environment. We were quite accustomed to living in a society that produced enormous quantities of extremely inexpensive food. But now global food supplies are steadily getting tighter, and global food prices are steadily marching upwards.
Hunger is on the rise all over the world, and demand at food banks in the United States is higher than ever before. Years in advance, I explained to my readers in excruciating detail where global food production trends would be taking us. Sadly, it will not be possible for our leaders to reverse those trends. Horrifying global food shortages are in our future, and I would suggest that you prepare accordingly."
Judge Napolitano, "Ray McGovern: How Deep is the Deep State?"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 1/6/24
"Ray McGovern: How Deep is the Deep State?"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "A Permanently High Plateau"
The Potala Palace on the Tibetan Plateau
"A Permanently High Plateau"
There’s always some cause for a parade. In the 1990s it was the
internet and a new crop of tech geniuses. They were the young hustlers
who ‘got it.’ They understood how the internet would make us rich.
by Bill Bonner
"Happy New Year, ‘Cause We’re All Going to Get Really Rich."
- George Gilder and Richard Vigilante
Baltimore, Maryland - "Hope springs eternal...Oh bright flame of promise...Could it be that Gilder and Vigilante are right? Maybe AI will make us all ‘really rich?’ Eugene Doyle writes: "2025 is set to be the ‘break-out year’ for artificial intelligence. Mark Zuckerberg says we will see the arrival initially of thousands but soon billions of AI ‘agents’ who, via the major tech companies, will integrate themselves into our lives and perform an increasing number of tasks for us. An agent can be defined as “a software-based entity powered by artificial intelligence designed to perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions autonomously or semi-autonomously to achieve specific goals”. Some are calling it the dawn of the Age of AI or the Agentic Age. "
Almost every day here at Bonner Private Research we look at how the US is headed for a debt crisis. It’s coming. And the Trump team won’t stop it. But what about AI? We posed the question to the AI souped-up Microsoft co-pilot in our computer: "Hey, AI... you’re so smart... how can the US avoid going over the fiscal cliff?" The answer: "Work on long-term economic solutions in collaboration with scholars and policymakers. Recognize that current statutory fiscal rules have failed to solve the debt crisis. Explore options to cut spending and raise revenues."
Well, that’s helpful! But wait... what about the tech breakthroughs themselves? We’ll ask again: "Will AI make us rich?" The answer: "AI has the potential to significantly impact wealth creation, but it's not a guaranteed path to riches for everyone. Here are a few ways AI can contribute to financial success:
Business Efficiency: AI can automate repetitive tasks, optimize operations, and improve decision-making, leading to cost savings and increased productivity.
Investment Opportunities: AI-driven tools can analyze vast amounts of data to identify investment opportunities and manage portfolios more effectively.
New Business Models: AI enables the creation of innovative products and services, opening up new markets and revenue streams."
Note that the world is a competitive place. Businesses compete to deliver new products and services. Consumers compete to get the most for their money. And since everyone, more or less, has access to the same AI tools, no one has an enduring advantage. Businesses will still compete with each other, keeping profit margins slim. Investors, by and large, will get the same hit-or-miss returns they’ve always gotten. And an AI-powered prestidigitation is unlikely to raise us up so we can ‘grow our way out’ of the debt hole.
Back in the 1920s, many people were convinced that new tech wonders - automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances - would make us all rich. They would raise the value of stocks to a new ‘permanently high plateau,’ said the nation’s leading economist, Irving Fisher. It didn’t work out. Asset prices rose in the ‘20s. Then, they fell in the ‘30s. And meddling by Hoover and Roosevelt led to the Great Depression. The tech improvements kept coming.
The next great hope was the “Nifty Fifty’ stocks of the 1960s. Pfizer, Phillip Morris, IT&T, Xerox and Eastman Kodak represented the best in American technology and marketing. Investing was simple. You could buy these stocks and just forget about doing anything else. They were the best... they could hire the best talent... and borrow at the lowest rates to build the future. Alas, the future happened... and many of these ‘buy-it, forget-it’ companies weren’t in it. Overall, after hitting a high in 1966, stocks lost value to inflation over for the next 16 years
But there’s always some cause for a parade. And in the 1990s it was the internet and a new crop of tech geniuses. They were the young hustlers who ‘got it.’ They understood how the internet would make us all rich.
Michael Saylor - now famous for investing his whole wad, and more, on bitcoin - was then dead certain that these ‘information’ companies would soon reach some kind of ‘escape velocity’ that would allow them to create more and more wealth, without the need for more capital investment. But in 2000, came the rain. Saylor was forced to restate the last two years of his company’s financial results... his stock fell 60% in one day... and the dot.com bust was underway.
As we now know, most of the goofy dot.coms disappeared. Only a very few people got rich. And instead of speeding up, GDP growth limped along... even more slowly than before. Will the AI bubble be any different? We wouldn’t bet on it."
Jim Kunstler, "Prank-O-Rama"
"Prank-O-Rama"
by Jim Kunstler
"They found a cure for gluttony. Now do narcissism."
- Peachy Keenan
"Poor “Joe Biden” can’t help himself as the suns sets on his ignominious career. He ordered the American flag to fly at half-staff into January 20, inauguration day, to signal grief and distress at Donald Trump’s swearing-in - not realizing, apparently, that Mr. Trump’s first act in office will be to order the flags raised back up, signaling symbolically the end to America’s grief and distress under “Joe Biden.”
You might wonder: what other sort of vicious mischief the Party of Chaos has in store in the final ramp-up to a momentous change of government? Well, no sooner had ol’ “JB” draped the Wegovy-slenderized neck of Hillary Clinton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, than Bill Clinton went on ABC’s The View to declare he was “open to talking with [‘President Biden’]” about a preemptive pardon for Hillary.
Say, whu..? What crimes did Bill have in mind that such a pardon might avail? Skokovo? Uranium One? The Clinton Foundation’s sketchy activities in Haiti after the earthquake there? Bill preemptively mentioned the old emails bidness as a ruse. Nothing to see there, folks, he protested. (Just don’t look anywhere else!)
You must imagine that the incoming Solicitor General, John Sauer’s, first act in office will be to ask SCOTUS for a ruling on the legitimacy of preemptive pardons - blanket pardons for crimes alive perhaps in guilty consciences but nowhere extant as yet in the legal system. The justices might detect a certain logical incoherence in that proposition. “Joe Biden” should have just draped wreaths of garlic around the necks of Mrs. Clinton, Liz Cheney, and Alex Soros (standing in for ol’ George).
Judge Juan Merchan did not get a medal. He’s warming up for his January 10 stunt of sentencing of Mr. Trump for the “felony” of recording a payment to lawyer Michael Cohen as a “legal expense” (times thirty-four) so Democrats can holler “nyah nyah, felon!” as Mr. Trump re-enters the Oval Office. Judge Merchan himself has racked-up an impressive list of federal offenses around deprivation of Mr. Trump’s civil rights and due process issues as well as judicial misconduct, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Justice may await the judge.
Today, January 6, of course, is electoral vote certification day in a joint session of Congress. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has been making noises about contesting certification on the grounds that Mr. Trump is an “insurrectionist” under the disqualification clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Don’t be surprised if Jamie makes a show of it to justify all his loose talk, but it will only be a performance. He might as well bring a chicken into the chamber and bite its head off.
The shadowy claque behind “Joe Biden” has been super-busy cooking up documents for the demented old bird to sign before leaving office, anything that supposedly might discommode the incoming Mr. Trump. “JB” is like a bandit fleeing the scene of a crime, throwing his stolen booty into the road off the back of his truck to trip up the police closing in. Close down offshore oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for evermore...ban gas-powered water heaters... any old thing to make life more uncomfortable for the people of this land. The shadowy claque seems oblivious to the fact that the people won’t appreciate these pranks, that they just give more reasons for them to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the Democratic Party - as if it even had one.
Prank-of-the-week, though, goes to Tony Blinken’s State Department. No sooner had Congress defunded his agency’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) - that is, its censorship coordination hub - than the muppets at State redistributed GEC’s personnel to other corners of the agency and scared up new funding for their censorship activities from some dark hidey-hole of sequestered money. Do they suppose no one will find out where these employees went? All that’s necessary is to look up who was on the GEC’s payroll in 2024, and earlier in the hub’s heyday, and see if they remain on the State Department’s payroll now - and then fire the whole lot of them for cause: abrogating Americans’ First Amendment rights. Buh-bye...
You are not out-of-order worrying, of course, that the political Left and the deep state blob behind them might look, in desperation, for other ways to prevent Donald Trump from getting sworn in. There’s the president-elect’s rally in DC the night before the inauguration. Not a few MAGAs are wondering if that’s really a good idea. And the recent garish drone swarms around the USA have put folks ill at ease about a swearing-in on the west front of the US Capitol, out in the open air. I’d even be a little concerned about the mechanicals of Mr. Trump’s airplane as he flies north from Mar-a-Lago to the big event in Washington.
Nobody will surprised if “Joe Biden” does not show up on the dais at the Capitol that fateful day. He at least has one final snub left for Mr. Trump as “JB” departs office with the pardon he will preemptively lay on himself in the wee hours of January 19 - in case anyone might inquire into all those shadow companies that First Son Hunter was running over the years to receive money from China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, and Gawd knows who else, to be redistributed (i.e., laundered) through the innumerable bank accounts of Biden family members. There is that to consider."
"Economic Market Snapshot 1/6/25"
"Economic Market Snapshot 1/6/25"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Comprehensive, essential truth.
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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: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
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Scottish Guy in Moscow, "Russia’s Biggest Mall Under Sanctions!"
Full screen recommended.
Scottish Guy in Moscow, 12/26/24
"Russia’s Biggest Mall Under Sanctions!"
"Aviapark is not only Russia’s biggest mall but also the biggest mall in Europe. Come with me as I take you on a tour of this enormous shopping center. What shops do Russians have to choose from? Which are not here anymore? Watch to find out!"
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Full screen recommended.
Scottish Guy In Russia, 2/28/24
"Russia’s Biggest Hypermarket - Shocking!"
"Welcome to Russia’s largest supermarket, Ashan located in Avia Park Mall. I will take you inside and show you around both levels of this enormous store. Come with me and see what products Russians can buy and which ones have disappeared from shelves."
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Sunday, January 5, 2025
"Russia Tells NATO To Prepare For War, Ukraine's Army Crushed"
Danny Haiphong, 1/5/25
"Russia Tells NATO To Prepare For War,
Ukraine's Army Crushed"
"In this huge livestream, geopolitical analysts Scott Ritter, Larry C. Johnson, and Andrei Martyanov join to respond to Russia's warning that NATO targets are on the table in response to the latest round of Ukrainian strikes into Russian territory. It's about to be a massive year of geopolitical turmoil and change in 2025 and we cover what comes next as we enter Trump 2.0."
Comments here:
"If Nobody Can Afford A Home...Who's Going To Buy Them?"
Full screen recommended.
Michael Bordenaro, 1/5/25
"If Nobody Can Afford A Home...
Who's Going To Buy Them?"
"If nobody can afford a home who is going to buy them? The answer is increasingly becoming nobody as we see transactions in the housing market now hitting 30 year lows. For a while, the narrative in the housing market was that home prices will continue to rise forever because we have a major housing shortage in this country. But looking at where the current inventory stands at the beginning of 2025 we know that there is no housing shortage, and there never was."
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"A Look to the Heavens"
"A mere seven hundred light years from Earth, toward the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. A total of 90 hours of exposure time have gone in to creating this expansive view of the nebula.
Combining narrow band image data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, it shows remarkable details of the Helix's brighter inner region about 3 light-years across. The white dot at the Helix's center is this Planetary Nebula's hot, central star. A simple looking nebula at first glance, the Helix is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry."
"I Can't Convince Myself..."
“I can’t convince myself that it does much good to try to challenge the everyday political delusions and dementias of Americans at large. Their contained and confined mentalities by far prefer the petty and parochial prisons of the kind of sense they have been trained and rewarded for making out of their lives (and are punished for deviating from them). What it costs them ultimately to be such slaves and infants and ideological zombies is a thought too monstrous and rending and spiky for them even to want to glance at.”
- Kenneth Smith
“If you want to tell people the truth,
make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
- Oscar Wilde
"Never Be A Spectator..."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
- Christopher Hitchens
The Poet: Mary Oliver, “Evidence”
“Evidence”
“Where do I live?
If I had no address, as many people do not,
I could nevertheless say that I lived in the
same town as the lilies of the field,
and the still waters.
Spring, and all through the neighborhood
now there are
strong men tending flowers.
Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.
But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function -
to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.
Glory to the world, that good teacher.
Among the swans there is none
called the least,
or the greatest.
I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.
Also in singing,
especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.
As for the body,
it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail;
it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body;
it is the only vessel in the world that can hold,
in a mix of power and sweetness:
words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,
ingenuity,
devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
- Mary Oliver
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“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for! To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless - of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer: That you are here - that life exists, and that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
- “Dead Poets Society”
“Requiem for a Ladybug”
“Requiem for a Ladybug”
by Frankly Francis
“You lie still less than a foot away on top of the soft mouse pad that protects me from carpal tunnel syndrome. I noticed this morning, through eyes not yet clarified by my first coffee of the day, your presence in my study. Odd, I thought, that you would even be present now. It is certainly past your time of the year in these parts.
I had the presence of mind to reckon that your life must be short. Rather than remove you from my space, both physical and mental, I decided that if these were your final moments then my study could be your Hospice and I your companion.
Your flight and movement were a little chaotic, seemingly random. You nestled in the heat of the light in the globe of my desk lamp, you circled my cranium, you landed in various spots, and in and on various objects on my desk while I got about the business of the day.
Sometimes I could see you, other times I did not know where you were. Then you would rise again to a new location. I wondered if you had any purpose in this, if there was more going on than my conscious programming allowed me to realize.
Perhaps it was, in your reality, some last business to be done? Or perhaps a ritual of your species’ existence? I hoped that if there is any pleasure in being a Ladybug that it was satisfying in some way, even so far from your natural habitat. Then you landed on your final resting spot and moved no more.
For me, my study is a place of many good things. I hope in your last moments it was to you as well. Rest in Peace my little Ladybug. And thanks for reminding me of the preciousness and fragility of life.”
"Memento Mori"
"Memento Mori"
by Ryan Holiday
"Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We're tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers." - Seneca
Born with a chronic illness that loomed large throughout his life, Seneca was constantly thinking about and writing about the final act of life. "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life," he said. "Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time."
Most interestingly, he quibbled with the idea that death was something that lay ahead of us in the uncertain future. "This is our big mistake," Seneca wrote, "to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death." That was Seneca's great insight - that we are dying every day and no day, once dead, can be revived.
So we should listen to the command that Marcus gave himself. He wrote,"Concentrate every minute like a Roman on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions." The key to this kind of concentration? "Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life."
That's the power of Memento Mori - of meditating on your mortality. It isn't about being morbid or making you scared. It's about giving you power. It's to inspire, to motivate, to clarify, to concentrate like a Roman on the thing in front of you. Because it may well be the last thing you do in your life.
The Stoics were philosophers, but more than that they were doers. They didn't have room for big words or big ideas, just stuff that made you better right here, right now. As Marcus Aurelius said: "Justice, honesty, self-control, courage, don't make room for anything but it - for anything that might lead you astray, tempt you off the road, and leave you unable to devote yourself completely to achieving the goodness that is uniquely yours."
"The Invitation"
"The Invitation"
"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have
become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,
to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul;
if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty,
every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like
the company you keep in the empty moments."
- Oriah Mountain Dreamer
"Big Lots Fires 32,000 Workers as Hundreds of Stores Close"
Full screen recommended.
Market Gains, 1/5/24
"Big Lots Fires 32,000 Workers as Hundreds of Stores Close"
Comments here:
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"Over 151k Tech Workers Were Laid Off in 2024"
In 2024, some 542 tech companies laid off 151,484 employees, according to layoffs.fyi.
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"Retail Apocalypse: Store Closures Surged 57% in 2024"
According to Coresight Research, more than 7,300 stores shuttered
their doors, marking a 57% increase from the previous year.
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What happens to all these people who lost their jobs?
Dan, I Allegedly, "You Are About to Be Evicted"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 1/5/25
"You Are About to Be Evicted"
"The shocking truth about 2025's record evictions is here! Join me as we dive
into the alarming rise in eviction filings and its impact on the economy."
🏠 Maricopa County's staggering 87,000 evictions in 2024.
💰 Skyrocketing rents and unaffordable housing.
📉 Public housing struggles in New York.
🏢 12 major company bankruptcies in 2024.
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Something Big Is Happening
Gregory Mannarino, 1/5/25
"Markets, A Look Ahead: Something Big Is Happening...
Is It Brilliance? Insanity? Or Evil?"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Richard Wolff, 1/5/25
"What's Coming Is Worse Than A Recession, Last Warning"
Richard D. Wolff is an American economist and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is known for his critiques of economic inequality and his advocacy for worker cooperatives as a way to empower individuals and address systemic issues within the economy. Through his books, lectures, and public appearances, Wolff explores topics such as economic democracy and alternative economic models.
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended,
Richard Wolff, 1/5/25
"Why America Is Entering A Horrific Financial Crisis"
Comments here:
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Canadian Prepper, "Warning! The Most Dangerous People When SHTF! It's Not Who You Think!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/4/25
"Warning! The Most Dangerous People
When SHTF! It's Not Who You Think!"
Comments here:
"Buying A Multi-Million Dollar Home From Disney - This Is A Dangerous Market"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 1/4/25
"Buying A Multi-Million Dollar Home From Disney -
This Is A Dangerous Market"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"In silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the arachnalogical constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower.
In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across this gorgeous telescopic portrait. Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the upper edge of the scene. That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule's bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away."
"The Pale Blue Dot - Where We Make Our Stand"
Full screen recommended.
"The Pale Blue Dot -
Where We Make Our Stand"
by Carl Sagan
"In the climactic final episode of Cosmos titled "Who Speaks for Earth?" Carl Sagan makes an impassioned plea for nuclear de-escalation. The first nine minutes of the piece are particularly spellbinding, and the introduction draws to a close with Sagan walking along a rocky shoreline where he delivers a historic monologue:
"The civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and sky. In our tenure on this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence, the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.
Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet earth. But up and in the cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.
There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably into self-destruction. I dream about it... and sometimes they are bad dreams."
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