"A Life of Learning: Earth School"

"A Life of Learning: Earth School"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOm

"Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul. Life is the province of learning, and the wisdom we acquire throughout our lives is the reward of existence. As we traverse the winding roads that lead from birth to death, experience is our patient teacher. We exist, bound to human bodies as we are, to evolve, enrolled by the universe in earth school, an informal and individualized academy of living, being, and changing. Life’s lessons can take many forms and present us with many challenges. There are scores of mundane lessons that help us learn to navigate with grace, poise, and tolerance in this world. And there are those once-in-a-lifetime lessons that touch us so deeply that they change the course of our lives. The latter can be heartrending, and we may wander through life as unwilling students for a time. But the quality of our lives is based almost entirely on what we derive from our experiences.

Earth school provides us with an education of the heart and the soul, as well as the intellect. The scope of our instruction is dependent on our ability and readiness to accept the lesson laid out before us in the circumstances we face. When we find ourselves blindsided by life, we are free to choose to close our minds or to view the inbuilt lesson in a narrow-minded way. The notion that existence is a never-ending lesson can be dismaying at times. The courses we undertake in earth school can be painful as well as pleasurable, and as taxing as they are eventually rewarding. However, in every situation, relationship, or encounter, a range of lessons can be unearthed. When we choose to consciously take advantage of each of the lessons we are confronted with, we gradually discover that our previous ideas about love, compassion, resilience, grief, fear, trust, and generosity could have been half-formed.

Ultimately, when we acknowledge that growth is an integral part of life and that attending earth school is the responsibility of every individual, the concept of "life as lesson" no longer chafes. We can openly and joyfully look for the blessing buried in the difficulties we face without feeling that we are trapped in a roller-coaster ride of forced learning. Though we cannot always know when we are experiencing a life lesson, the wisdom we accrue will bless us with the keenest hindsight."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

•

"Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have 

drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you."
- Richard Bach

•

"Ten Rules For Being Human"

Rule One: You will receive a body. You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth.

Rule Two: You will be presented with lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called 'life.' Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

Rule Three: There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors, and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that work.

Rule Four: A lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can then go on to the next lesson.

Rule Five: Learning does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

Rule Six: 'There' is no better than 'here'. When your 'there' has become a 'here,' you will simply obtain a 'there' that will look better to you than your present 'here'.

Rule Seven: Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about  another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

Rule Eight: What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you.

Rule Nine: Your answers lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

Rule Ten: You will forget all of this at birth. You can remember it if you want by unravelling the double helix of inner knowing.

- Cherie Carter-Scott, 

From "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules"

"The Essence Of Human Existence..."

"Curiosity is the essence of human existence.

'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'

I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions.

I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out."

- Eugene Cernan

The Daily "Near You?"

Athens, New York, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Texas is Screwed - I Warned You This Would Happen!"

Full screen recommended.

Steven Van Metre, 5/5/25

"Texas is Screwed - 

I Warned You This Would Happen!"

"Imports are falling, oil is crashing and prices are rising. I warned you this 

was coming and what's happening in Texas means the crisis is here!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Bus Driver Economics"

"Bus Driver Economics"

by Jeff Thomas

"Economics should not be an especially difficult subject to understand. In essence, it’s simply the study of how money functions. However, academics, theoreticians, politicians, and financial leaders all stand to benefit if they can manage to complicate the basic principles and muddy the waters of economic comprehension.

No individual has been manifestly more successful at this than the economist John Maynard Keynes. Educated at Cambridge, a bastion of Socialist thinking, Mister Keynes famously published "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1936, forever changing the world’s perception of economics. This was quite an amazing feat, especially as Mister Keynes’s goal was not to explain economics, as had traditionally been the object of the subject; his goal was to distort the study of economics - to confuse economic principles in order to promote socialist concepts.

Socialism had, since its beginnings, been unpopular with many people, as it clearly did not work economically. So, in order to make socialism more broadly acceptable, Mister Keynes, in his book, suggested essentially that, although 2 + 2 = 4, with socialism, 2 + 2 could somehow equal 5.

Mister Keynes recommended that governments control the economy, saying that, in good times, they could tax and regulate the people so that government held the money. Then, in bad times, they could pour that money back into the economy in order to revitalize it. In saying this, he ignored the fact that, historically, free markets tend to be self-regulating - that supply and demand invariably create their own balance. Of course, his concept gained the instant approval of all the world’s governments and has held it ever since, as every government would like to control all the money, if at all possible.

Interestingly, just before his death in 1946, Mister Keynes confessed that, in reality, governments, ever dependent upon election cycles, will collect money through taxation and regulation during good times, then immediately spend all of it, then borrow more. Then, when bad times arrive, the government will not only be broke, but in debt. And, instead of then relieving the economy by going out of business, as any failed business would do, they increase taxation, to keep their own nests feathered. Thus, in bad times, government becomes a country’s greatest detriment to economic recovery.

Present-Day Keynesianism: Back to the present day, we observe both the EU and US governments (and a host of other economically troubled governments) actively pursuing Keynesian economics. As much of the world is presently in the midst of the (still unacknowledged) Greater Depression, politicians in each election cycle, trot out yet another promise for prosperity, always based upon governmental control of the economy - the very same Keynesian concept that created the economic calamity in the first instance.

One year, the promise will be "green shoots." When that fails to materialize, the next promise will be "shovel-ready jobs," which also fails to materialize - in every case, because the premise itself was fundamentally, economically unsound.

During downswings in each of these jurisdictions, any government prides itself on declaring, at intervals, that a small percentage of new jobs has been created, in an effort to suggest recovery. They do this in the face of the fact that government employment numbers are skewed to not include those who have given up looking for work. In addition, anyone who has insufficient work to support himself and his family, but is still employed even one day a week, is counted as "employed." In the US alone, if all the people who are not fully employed were acknowledged, the present percentage of unemployment would be above 20%. 

True Rate of Unemployment

When an economy is in decline, there are few new real jobs to be had, whilst others continue to disappear. And here is where Keynesianism really comes to the rescue. Since the actual take-home pay of an individual is less important to government statistics than new-job creation, one socialist solution is simply to divide up the existing jobs.

By creating shorter work-weeks - say, thirty hours - many ten-hour jobs open up, and these can be claimed to be "new hires." Of course, they are improvements only in a statistical sense, as both the thirty-hour employee and the ten-hour employee see diminished standards of living than if a free-market economy had prevailed and both employees may have had the opportunity for forty-hour employment. As previously stated, this condition, whilst simple to understand in principle, is hopelessly confused and muddied in practice - a situation that allows it to prevail.

A Practical Lesson: Perhaps it would be helpful to offer, for comparison, a more transparent version of the same condition. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Cuba’s primary export product had been sugar. The USSR was Cuba’s principle customer, paying more than four times the going rate to Cuba for its sugar, in exchange for being a loyal Russian ally.

When, after the collapse of the USSR, the Russians pulled out of Cuba, the Cuban economy, having been based on an inflated product value, virtually collapsed. Large numbers of Cubans, previously employed in the sugar industry, were simply no longer necessary, and Cuba had a problem on its hands. One attempted solution was the "sharing of jobs" (essentially the same "solution" that is now developing in the US). In the years following the sugar debacle, if you were on a bus, travelling from, say, Havana to Santa Clara, you would have two bus drivers on board for the entire round trip.

One would drive to Santa Clara, whilst the other sat in a seat behind him. On the return trip, the second driver would take over. A pointless exercise that only resulted in a divided paycheck. Yes, both drivers were now "employed", but each earned less than he might have in a less socialistic economy. Understandably, nothing improved in any real sense for the Cuban people.

The lesson here is that a socialist government first degrades the free market through over-taxation and over-regulation. Once it has done so and the system is beginning to break down, a socialist government never reverses its policies in the face of failure, it instead redoubles the failed policies. Having made the pie smaller overall, it then divides up the slices in an effort to maintain the perception that everyone still has his piece of the pie. Unfortunately, that sliver may not be enough to sustain the recipient. But of course, in socialism, as in governments in general, perception has always been regarded as being more important than reality.

As a footnote to the Cuban comparison, it’s instructive to note that, when the Cuban government launched policies like the above-described Bus Driver Economics during the economic crisis that it euphemistically called the "Special Time," another policy was to limit the expatriation of its citizens to other countries. As the Special Time grew worse, the penalties for exiting Cuba became more severe. This is another classic symptom of major economic decline - an effort by the government to trap the population from exiting. And not surprisingly, we’re seeing the early stages of this in the EU/US.

As Doug Casey might say, the chances of a people changing a country’s direction from within are "Slim to none… and Slim is out of town." Socialism, historically, has never ended with a gentle reversal to a free-market system. It invariably ends with further deterioration until the point of economic collapse. When a country is clearly on the road to socialistic oblivion, the wisest decision might be to get off the bus."

- internationalman.com

○

Freely download "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,"

by John Maynard Keynes, here: 

- https://www.files.ethz.ch/

"Supply Chain Expert: 'It’s Going To Be An Extinction-Level, Asteroid-Wiping-Out-The-Dinosaurs Kind Of Event'”

"Supply Chain Expert: 'It’s Going To Be An Extinction-Level,

Asteroid-Wiping-Out-The-Dinosaurs Kind Of Event'”

 by Michael Snyder

"Are you ready for store shelves to start emptying all over America? When I first started writing about the coming shortages last month, I received quite a bit of criticism. But now expert after expert is warning that we really are facing a crisis of historic proportions. Most major retailers still have several weeks of inventory on hand, but after that shortages are going to start becoming very visible.

For smaller businesses, the shortages will be noticeable a lot sooner. On Sunday, I visited a local small business to purchase some groceries. In addition to selling groceries, this particular discount store also sells a wide variety of other products, and some of them are made in China. As I walked through the aisles, I was stunned by how low their stock levels were. Honestly, it was kind of depressing.

Of course anything that we are witnessing now is just the leading edge of what is eventually coming. According to CNN, it is being estimated that “Chinese imports into the United States will plunge by as much as 80% by the second half of the year”…"The historically high tariff on China has effectively stopped all trade between the two countries, Trump has said repeatedly. The number of cargo ships headed from China to the United States fell 60% in April, according to Flexport, a logistics and freight forwarding broker. JPMorgan estimates Chinese imports into the United States will plunge by as much as 80% by the second half of the year."

American consumers should expect pandemic-like disruptions as goods that were warehoused before tariffs took effect begin to run out over the next week or so, including higher prices, shortages and empty store shelves.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said repeatedly that the high tariff on China are “unsustainable,” and Trump also said he expects the tariff to come down. But it would need to come down significantly – by more than half – for any real trade to recommence, trade experts say. But even then, the economic damage would be done — and it would be weeks or even months before American shelves would be replenished. This is going to be catastrophic. Anyone that cannot see this simply does not understand how our system works.

Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen is a supply chain expert that helps thousands of businesses move products around the globe, and he is warning that we are facing “an extinction-level, asteroid-wiping-out-the-dinosaurs kind of event”…“If they don’t change the tariffs, it’s going to be an extinction-level, asteroid-wiping-out-the-dinosaurs kind of event,” he told me. “Only these aren’t dinosaurs. These are dynamic, healthy businesses.” He knows this because those businesses are his customers.

They use Flexport to transport products from the factory to your front door. Petersen’s company handles everything from booking space on planes, trucks and enormous ocean carriers to managing all the tedious paperwork along the way. Ryan Petersen knows exactly what he is talking about, because dealing with supply chains is what he does for a living.

According to Petersen, container bookings from China to the United States have already fallen by 60 percent…"But since the tariffs took effect, ocean-freight bookings from China to the U.S. have dropped 60%, Petersen says. In response, containership operators are shrinking their boats and canceling trips altogether. It takes a while for downstream consequences to flow through the system—but logistics nerds can look at the data on their screens and see into the future." If tariffs continue at this rate, Petersen says, it’s only a matter of time before that asteroid hits.

There are thousands upon thousands of products that are made in China that aren’t made anywhere else. And it takes years to build new factories and set up new supply chains. So how are we possibly going to replace the 438 billion dollars of imports from China that normally fill up our store shelves? Of course the truth is that we aren’t going to replace those imports and store shelves will soon start getting emptier and emptier.

In addition, it is likely that we will see massive layoffs as supply chains all over the U.S. slow down dramatically. Southern California is one area that will get hit particularly hard…"With more than 70% of the port workforce living within a 10-mile radius of the complex, LA’s waterfront communities of San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach are expected to be the first hit by the slowdown, but they will certainly not be the last, said Gary Herrera, president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) local 13.

“One in every five jobs in southern California is tied to the ports – warehouse workers, truck drivers, logistic teams and more,” said Herrera, who has been a longshore worker since 1998. Herrera says LA’s Inland Empire, including Riverside and San Bernardino, which serve as warehousing centers for retailers such as Walmart and Amazon, as well as communities such as Bakersfield and Barstow, which have freight rail lines, will also be severely affected."

Even if President Trump made a deal with China this week, we are being told that it could take up to a year for our supply chains to fully return to normal… “These are big, massive bullwhips that have not been seen since COVID,” Evan Smith, the CEO of the supply-chain-management company Altana Technologies, told me. “The tariffs themselves are a shock to the system, and the shock is echoed and amplified across the entire chain. Even if there is resolution, it will take nine to 12 months to work out these bumps.”

The good news is that it appears that the Chinese are open to beginning negotiations with the Trump administration. But the Chinese are insisting that they will not be coerced into making a deal. There had been hope that tariffs on Chinese goods would be reduced in an attempt to get China to the negotiating table, but President Trump has slammed the door on that possibility…"When Welker directly asked, “You’re not dropping the tariffs against China to get them to the negotiating table?” Trump’s response was unequivocal: “No.” His firm stance underscores a broader strategy of using tariffs as leverage to protect American economic interests and curb China’s global influence."

Even if negotiations commenced tomorrow, we would probably not see a deal with China until months from now. Meanwhile, our supply chain crisis will continue to get worse with each passing day. If there is anything that is made in China that you are going to need, I would get it immediately.

It does not appear that President Trump plans to reverse course on his tariffs any time soon. In fact, he just unveiled a new 25 percent tariff rate on most foreign-made auto parts…"President Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made auto parts began on May 3, with automakers receiving some concessions from the administration but still feeling the heat on others. Trump signed an executive order formalizing the new rules late last week, which gave some carve-outs to what would have been blanket 25% tariffs on imported auto parts. Everything from foreign-made powertrain components to seats and airbags is affected."

This is not a drill. A global trade war is here, and it is going to cause immense pain all over the planet. It won’t be too long before empty shelves start appearing all over America. So if there is something that you need to get done, get it done now."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "An Asteroid is Headed for the Economy"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 5/5/25

"An Asteroid is Headed for the Economy"

"Tariffs are set to wreak havoc on small businesses, and the economic fallout could be catastrophic! In this video, I break down why these tariffs might cause "extinction-level" damage to small enterprises and how the ripple effects could impact all of us. Plus, I discuss the latest on Target’s changes to self-checkout, the struggles in the ports, and why consumer confidence is plummeting. Are we already in a recession? I think so, and I explain why I believe things are only going to get worse if we don’t act now."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"Don’t Look at Stock Markets. Look at the Ports."

A drop in maritime traffic suggests that the worst is yet to come.

"How It Really Is"

 

Free Download: Henry Hazlitt, "Economics in One Lesson"

"'Economics In One Lesson':

 A Review of a Classic"

by Sean Ring

"If you’ve ever found yourself cornered at a dinner party by that one guy with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye and a penchant for explaining why the economy is “just a series of smoke and mirrors,” you’ll appreciate Henry Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson." It’s The Book that offers the economically curious a set of brass knuckles to face the muddled nonsense of popular economic “thought.” And by “thought,” I mean whatever passes for it in political speeches, social media debates, or the average op-ed.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, a quick primer: Hazlitt’s book is an economics classic, albeit one that uses plain language to dismantle the kind of Keynesian tomfoolery that has turned deficit spending into a national sport. Published in 1946, it’s a slim volume that packs a heavyweight punch. Think of it as the literary equivalent of Muhammad Ali in his prime - quick, elegant, and devastatingly effective.

A Double-Edged Sword: Hazlitt begins with the titular “One Lesson”: the art of economics consists of not just looking at the immediate effects of any policy but at the longer-term effects, as well. Further, it demands that the consequences of that policy be examined for all groups, not just one. A lesson so obvious it seems like common sense - until you realize it’s precisely what most policymakers and pundits ignore.

Why? Looking at all the consequences of an economic policy requires work, patience, and critical thinking. It’s far easier to promise free lunches than to explain why those lunches aren’t free. Hazlitt’s brilliance lies in his ability to show how economic fallacies perpetuate precisely because they focus on immediate, visible effects while conveniently ignoring long-term, invisible ones. The result? Politicians handing out economic band-aids while ignoring the arterial bleeding beneath.

Smashing Windows (and Fallacies): Hazlitt’s first stop is the famous “Broken Window Fallacy.” You’ve heard the argument before, even if you didn’t realize it: destruction stimulates economic activity. The idea is that rebuilding a shattered window, for example, creates jobs for glaziers, boosts spending, and pumps life into the economy. What could possibly be wrong with that? Everything.

Hazlitt dismantles this nonsense by pointing out the unseen cost: the money spent on the new window could have been used for something else - perhaps a new pair of shoes. Instead of creating new value, we’ve merely replaced what was lost. It’s like celebrating a flat tire because it “supports” the tire repair industry. Hazlitt’s takeaway: destruction doesn’t create wealth; it squanders resources. So, the next time someone extols the “economic benefits” of rebuilding after a hurricane or a riot, feel free to remind them that their logic is as sound as a screen door on a submarine.

Not Free, But Taxpayer-Funded: Ah, public works! The bread and circuses of modern governance. Hazlitt addresses the perennial myth that government spending on infrastructure - roads, bridges, statues of politicians with dubious legacies - is a magic wand for economic growth.

But wait, you ask, aren’t those things good? Sure, they can be. The problem, Hazlitt reminds us, is that taxes fund such projects. And taxes, lest we forget, take money out of the pockets of individuals and businesses. What could those people have done with that money? We’ll never know because the government has already spent it on a bridge to nowhere. Hazlitt’s biting critique should be required reading for anyone who still believes in the economic tooth fairy.

Luddites of the World, Unite! Ever since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, there’s been a persistent fear that machines will destroy jobs. Hazlitt gleefully trashes this notion, pointing out that technological progress doesn’t eliminate jobs; it reallocates them. Machines increase productivity, lower costs, and free up human labor for other pursuits - like writing snarky economic reviews. It’s a shame Barack Obama didn’t read this book. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bemoaned how ATMs took the jobs of bank tellers. (They didn’t; see here.)

The real “curse” of machinery isn’t job destruction; it exposes the economic illiteracy of those who cry wolf every time a new technology emerges. Remember when computers were going to put us all out of work? Funny how that turned out.

The Donald Should Read About Tariffs: Hazlitt’s takedown of tariffs is a masterclass in economic wit. Hazlitt argues tariffs are a tax on consumers disguised as “protection” for domestic industries. Yes, they shield those businesses from foreign competition. But they shield them at the expense of everyone else. Higher prices, reduced choices, and economic inefficiency are the actual costs of protectionism. So, the next time someone suggests that tariffs are a “win” for the economy, remind them that taxing your citizens to prop up uncompetitive industries is about as bright as burning your house down to keep warm.

Inflation: The Illusion of Prosperity: Hazlitt’s chapter on inflation is remarkably prescient in today’s economic climate. He explains inflation is a stealthy way for governments to rob their citizens, not a sign of prosperity. It’s a tax that a central bank unethically levies, not a legislature. Inflation erodes the value of savings, distorts investment, and wreaks havoc on the economy. And yet, inflation is often sold to the public as a necessary evil or even a good thing. Hazlitt’s advice? Don’t buy it. Inflation benefits debtors (read: governments) at the expense of savers and wage earners. It’s the economic equivalent of a shell game, and you’re the sucker being fleeced.

Profit: Capitalism’s Dirty Word: Perhaps one of Hazlitt’s most important lessons is his defense of profits. In an era where “profit” is often treated as a four-letter word, Hazlitt reminds us that profits are essential for economic progress. They signal where resources should be allocated, incentivize innovation, and reward risk-taking. Destroy profits, and you destroy the engine of growth. It’s a message that should resonate with anyone who’s ever complained about greedy corporations while simultaneously complaining about them by posting on X from their iPhones while wolfing down avocado toast and an egg nog latte.

Why You Should Read This Book (Again): Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson" is a survival guide for navigating the economic nonsense that permeates modern discourse. So, the next time someone tells you that we need more government spending, higher tariffs, or artificially low interest rates, do yourself a favor: hand them a copy of "Economics in One Lesson" and watch as their arguments crumble faster than a house caught in a tornado’s path.

Wrap Up: Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson" is a welcome relief in a world celebrating economic illiteracy. It reminds us that good economics is about understanding the unseen, the long-term, and the big picture. So, grab a copy, pour yourself a stiff drink, and prepare to see the world - and its economic absurdities - in a new light. Just be warned: once you’ve read Hazlitt, you’ll never be able to watch the news without yelling at your TV."

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

Freely download "Economics In One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt, here:

- https://www.liberalstudies.ca/

"Words..."

"Words ought to be a little wild, for they

are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking."

- John Maynard Keynes

"The Magic Trick"

"The Magic Trick"

by Jeff Thomas

"In 1791, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the US, Alexander Hamilton, convinced then-new president George Washington to create a central bank for the country. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed the idea, as he felt that it would lead to speculation, financial manipulation, and corruption. He was correct, and in 1811, its charter was not renewed by Congress.

Then, the US got itself into economic trouble over the War of 1812 and needed money. In 1816, a Second Bank of the United States was created. Andrew Jackson took the same view as Mister Jefferson before him and, in 1836, succeeded in getting the bank dissolved.

Then, in 1913, the leading bankers of the US succeeded in pushing through a third central bank, the Federal Reserve. At that time, critics echoed the sentiments of Messrs. Jefferson and Jackson, but their warnings were not heeded. For over 100 years, the US has been saddled by a central bank, which has been manifestly guilty of speculation, financial manipulation, and corruption, just as predicted by Mister Jefferson.

From its inception, one of the goals of the bank was to create inflation. And, here, it’s important to emphasize the term "goals." Inflation was not an accidental by-product of the Fed - it was a goal.

Over the last century, the Fed has often stated that inflation is both normal and necessary. And yet, historically, it has often been the case that an individual could go through his entire lifetime without inflation, without detriment to his economic life.

Yet, whenever the American people suffer as a result of inflation, the Fed is quick to advise them that, without it, the country could not function correctly. In order to illustrate this, the Fed has even come up with its own illustration "explaining" inflation. Here it is, for your edification

If the reader is of an age that he can remember the inventions of Rube Goldberg, who designed absurdly complicated machinery that accomplished little or nothing, he might see the resemblance of a Rube Goldberg design in the above illustration. And yet, the Fed’s illustration can be regarded as effective. After spending several minutes taking in the above complex relationships, an individual would be unlikely to ask, "What did they leave out of the illustration?"

Well, what’s missing is the Fed itself. As stated above, back in 1913, one of the goals in the creation of the Fed was to have an entity that had the power to create currency, which would mean the power to create inflation. It’s an established trend in motion that is accelerating, and now approaching a breaking point.

It’s a given that all governments tax their people. Governments are, by their very nature, parasitical entities that produce nothing but live off the production of others. And, so, it can be expected that any government will increase taxes as much and as often as it can get away with it. The problem is that, at some point, those being taxed rebel, and the government is either overthrown or the tax must be diminished. This dynamic has existed for thousands of years.

However, inflation is a bit of a magic trick. Now, remember, a magician does no magic. What he does is create an illusion, often through the employment of a distraction, which fools the audience into failing to understand what he’s really doing. And, for a central bank, inflation is the ideal magic trick. The public do not see inflation as a tax; the magician has presented it as a normal and even necessary condition of a healthy economy.

However, what inflation (which has traditionally been defined as the increase in the amount of currency in circulation) really accomplishes is to devalue the currency through oversupply. And, of course, anyone who keeps his wealth (however large or small) in currency units loses a portion of it with each devaluation.

In the 100-plus years since the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Fed has steadily inflated the US dollar. Over time, this has resulted in the dollar being devalued by over 97%. The dollar is now virtually played out in value and is due for disposal. In order to continue to "tax" the American people through inflation, a reset is needed, with a new currency, which can then also be steadily devalued through inflation.

Once the above process is understood, it’s understandable if the individual feels that his government, along with the Fed, has been robbing him all his life. He’s right - it has. And it’s done so without ever needing to point a gun to his head.

The magic trick has been an eminently successful one, and there’s no reason to assume that the average person will ever unmask and denounce the magician. However, the individual who understands the trick can choose to mitigate his losses. He can take measures to remove his wealth from any country that steadily imposes inflation upon him and store it in a country where this either does not occur, or occurs to a lesser degree. Unfortunately there’s little any individual can practically do to change the trajectory of this trend in motion."

- https://internationalman.com/

"There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
- John Maynard Keynes

Bill Bonner, "When The Lights Go Out In Omaha"

94-year old Warren Buffett announces his retirement as the head of

 Berkshire Hathaway in front of a crowd of thousands at 

the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

"When The Lights Go Out In Omaha"

by Bill Bonner

From the ranch at Gualfin, Argentina - "Associated Press: "Massive power outage in Spain and Portugal leaves thousands stranded and millions without light An unprecedented blackout brought much of Spain and Portugal to a standstill Monday, stranding thousands of train passengers and leaving millions of people without phone and internet coverage and access to cash from ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.

Emergency services and rail workers in Spain had to help evacuate some 35,000 people from over 100 trains that stopped on the tracks when the electricity was cut. By 11 p.m. passengers from 11 trains still needed evacuating, Sánchez said. “I’ve been here for almost three hours, trying to get someone to take me to the airport because my family arrived today and I can’t talk to them," Jessica Fernández told The Associated Press. “This is terrifying.”

Tout de suite, the ‘right’ blames renewables. It says 58% of Spain’s electricity at the time of the blackout came from solar panels. The ‘left,’ of course, wants more windmills and solar panels...to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Here at the ranch in Argentina, power outages are not a problem. We are not connected to the grid. Instead, the sun charges large batteries. A few days without sun, however...and the power will go out. No problem. Candles. Wood fires. Plenty of beef on the hoof. Plenty of wine in the storeroom. We can live without electricity almost indefinitely.

But civilized societies are wired. And the authorities are trying to increase reliance on the wires. And like central planning, central banking, and centralized trade rules,central power comes with risks.

Europe is convinced that the world produces too much carbon and that it must go Net Zero - at almost any cost. Architects, planners, builders, politicians - all want ‘all electric,’ all the time. Automobiles to plug in too. Two million electric cars were sold in Europe last year, bringing the EV share of the whole fleet to 15%. That makes more than 30 million cars that won’t run without electricity. The others won’t run either - not after the electric pumps stop working.

‘Green’ energy sources are not nearly as reliable as old-fashioned coal, oil or gas. The wind doesn’t always blow when you want to use the toaster...and the sun isn’t necessarily shining when you want to take a bath.

The authorities insist that they can overcome the variability of the weather - by adding more panels and windmills. Maybe they can. But when the power went out last week, people wondered if there weren’t other things at work. Like terrorists. Scalawags with a yen for mischief. Or maybe centralized energy itself.

As the electrical grid becomes larger and more complex, it involves more electronics...more engineers...more computer nerds...and more malcontents - that is, more things that can err. Then, the odds of system failure are multiplied, not added. Two plus two plus four may equal eight...but they make a complex system 16 times more likely to fail. The promoters put in more costly fail-safe controls and reserve generating power...but, often, they just increase the number of things that might go wrong. And as they introduce more grid-protecting software, they tempt the cyber desperadoes.

The lights went out in Spain, Portugal and parts of France within five seconds. They stayed out for about ten hours in most places. Apart from those who were unable to cook a warm meal, there were those who were standing on the platforms waiting for a train to take them home. Where did they go? Were their antique legs able to get them there? And what about the many people who rely on oxygen concentrators...or needed prompt visits from medical professionals? What about those on the 25th floor...with weak knees and no working elevator?

A week after the blackout on the Iberian Peninsula began, the experts are still trying to figure out what had gone wrong. In this case, they were able to get the electrons flowing after a few feverish hours. But what if they could not? What if each fix were again attacked...and quickly undone?

The troubling fact is, modern economies are extremely complicated and extremely vulnerable to centralized failure. When the Federal Reserve makes the wrong move, it can crash the whole financial system. This is a point Nassim Taleb made in his great book, ‘Antifragile.’ Centralized political, financial and energy systems are fragile. When they fail, they can fail bigly.

How many people would suffer if their heat went off...their credit cards didn’t work... their phones went silent...the ATM was unplugged...the gas pumps didn’t pump and the shelves couldn’t be restocked by the trucks that weren’t running and the computers that weren’t toting up sales? We hope we are down here at the ranch when we find out."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Greg Hunter, "Global Wars, Depressions, Defaults & Debt Crisis Begin in 2025"

"Global Wars, Depressions, Defaults & 

Debt Crisis Begin in 2025"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with an avalanche of problems coming to the world starting in 2025. Depressions, defaults, debt crises and wars are going to sweep the globe, according to Armstrong and his “Socrates” predictive computer program. Armstrong has called every big economic turn in the past three decades. He predicted Trump would win the 2024 Presidential Election in a landslide many months ahead of November. Armstrong called the huge stock crash of 1987 to the day. He predicted the dot com boom and bust in 2000. He was spot on calling for the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, and now, we are headed for more big turns. Armstrong says, “The last one turned on May 7th of last year. That was the same day Putin had his inauguration, and it was the same day a couple of Ukrainian colonels tried to assassinate Zelensky. From there, we are turning down into a global recession, which won’t bottom until about 2028. Central banks started cutting rates right after that, and I think Canada was the first. It’s going to be more of a depression in Europe, a very sharp recession in China, and it won’t be as bad in the United States. When you create a debt crisis, that’s what causes a depression. The stock market going down is the least damage to an economy.”

Europe has trillions of dollars of unpayable debt, and Armstrong says, “The leadership knows if they don’t have war, the people will come after them.” What will be the next big turn? Spoiler alert, it has to do with war in Ukraine and Russia. Armstrong says, “Europe does not want peace. Look at things the EU has said: that Russia is too big and has to be broken up. I have very good contacts very high up, and they really do think they can conquer Russia. It has $75 trillion in natural resource assets. They will then control that. Once they get their hands on that they will rise to the top of countries of the world, like the Roman Empire will be resurrected or something.”

But instead of the EU winning a war against Russia, Armstrong predicts, “They will lose big time. The third time is not going to be the charm. The euro will disappear, not the dollar.”

The timing of the next big turn for war? Armstrong says, “After May 15, war is turning up (in Ukraine) and it will be turning up into 2026. If I am Putin, there is no way I am signing a peace deal. Putin signed a peace deal (in 2015) and what did they do? They built an army while Russia didn’t.”

Armstrong predicts China will come in on the side of Russia, and there could be as many as “one billion dead and wounded” as a result. What should the US do? Armstrong says, “I have been talking to people in Washington, and I have told them to ‘Get the hell out of NATO.’ There are plenty of people warming up to that idea.” Armstrong predicts if that happens, capital will leave Europe and flow into the US as a safe haven.

Armstrong also thinks gold will hit $5,000 per ounce at the next target, but it will not hit that price until war takes off in Europe and Ukraine. Armstrong also thinks the Democrat party will split in two, and they will not retake the House of Representatives in 2026.

Does the conflict between Pakistan and India blow up or blow over? Armstrong says, “My computer (Socrates) says it blows up.” There is much more in the 64-minute in-depth interview."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumbleas he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong as he gives his analysis on war, default, depression and unpayable debt that will make a huge mess for the world.

- https://rumble.com/

Jim Kunstler, "There Will Be Boundaries"

"There Will Be Boundaries"

by Jim Kunstler

"Fascism is when Dad says 'no.'" 

- Aimee Terese on "X"

"It’s vain and futile to suppose that the disordered minds of Western Civ’s entrenched Wokester Jacobins might ever be subject to polite persuasion about anything they believe. They believe only in the power of pushing their fellow citizens around, and so, alas, the only persuasion that might conceivably work to stop their infantile assaults on liberty, truth, and decency is to push back harder until they suffer and break.

This is something that most parents with young children instinctively understand. You don’t negotiate with two-year-olds. You tell them how things are and what sort of behavior is required of them, as plainly and simply as possible. Mr. Trump, having been the father of many two-year-olds over time, appears to get this. It has been apparent for years that Mr. Trump’s symbolic role as a father figure is the most deeply resented feature of his role in US politics.

It also appears that many men in this country likewise get this, perhaps because nature conditions them early on to understand that some day they might have to play the role of father, meaning they will have to push back hard against emotional disorder, hysteria, illogic, and untruth, and violence.

Hence, you might see the peril of living in a land with so many fatherless households. This lamentable state of things defines the Democratic Party, where raging, inchoate, resent-driven Jacobinism dwells, a party now with no leader, a household with no father, no one to regulate its frenzied, power-seeking behavior. This also tells you how the Democratic Party has become the party run by women, and of particular types of women - women who have traded the management of children and households for bureaucratic careerism, women too lacking in feminine appeal to attract mates, women attempting to become the men missing in their lives - and men wishing to become women, or pretending to be women.

And so you see how these disorders play out in the ongoing melodrama of men in women’s sports, a proposition so obviously insane that no healthy society has ever abided it for a moment until the American Jacobins ran with it as a cardinal political irritant to vex their opponents (and really for no other reason). The state of Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, clashed openly with Mr. Trump over his executive order to desist from allowing biological men in women’s sports. The matter is currently making its way through the courts.

This week, a “trans” athlete named Soren Stark-Chessa, beat the field of females in a Maine track-meet by a country mile in the 800-meter and 1600-meter runs. No one, except the political leadership of Maine, was fooled about the fairness of this, of course. Fairness is not the point. Intransigent defiance of reality was the point. It is always the point for Jacobin politicians.

Soren Stark-Chessa in full stride

What is most obviously insane in matters like this, is that the female governor is so eager to punish and humiliate her younger fellow females in order to merely press a political point - that she is the boss of Maine, and nobody can tell her what to do, even if she deranges the cultures of schooling and sports. This illustrates, by the way, a principal difference in the way men’s and women’s brains work. Men typically understand boundaries, where things begin and end. It is a necessary cognitive device for regulating behavior in the household and for acting in the face of danger when required.

Sports is just a microcosm of our politics. The whole gestalt of Woke-Jacobin politics is driven by the wish to dissolve boundaries. That is, it is driven by female minds, and what the Woke-Jacobins might call female-adjacent minds. That is why the open border fiasco was another point-of-principle for the Democratic Party - and why “Joe Biden” the phantom president (actually the shadowy figures behind him) pretended that nothing could be done about it.

Mr. Trump demonstrated that was a lie in a New York minute. The damage from four years of a wide-open border is immense, much worse than men running in girls’ races. The motive for it is also obvious: to jam as many illegal aliens as possible into the country so as 1) to disorder the next census count in swing states to keep congressional districts safe, and 2) to install a base of new “voters” - qualified to vote or not - who will be eternally grateful to the Democratic Party for letting them flood into the country and gifting them with housing, social services, transportation, free meals, and walking-around-money.

And now, a Woke-Jacobin judiciary, assisted by an infrastructure of Lawfare ninjas, led by the outlaw Norm Eisen, and financed by George Soros, and what remains of Soros-adjacent NGOs, is using the courts to keep all those illegally-admitted aliens in place here at all costs. So, you see, they are attempting to dissolve a boundary crucial to the Republic’s survival: who is a citizen and who is not a citizen, and what are the privileges entailed? The objective is to keep this dispute alive in the courts long enough to affect the 2026 midterm elections in the hopes of winning Congress back.

You can also see how this will oblige Mr. Trump to marshal the most aggressive legal force possible to crush this seditious legal insurrection. He has executive powers and perquisites in reserve that he has not used yet, or even revealed. He will defeat these monsters in the end just as he is methodically disassembling their scaffold of psychopathic ideology and their pipelines of funding. It will really be something to see."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 5/5/25"

"Economic Market Snapshot 5/5/25"

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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

o

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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Comprehensive, essential truth.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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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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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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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...

o

"The Economic Warning Signs Are Piling Up Everywhere"

Full screen recommended.

Michael Bordenaro, 5/4/25

"The Economic Warning Signs Are Piling Up Everywhere"

"There are so many problems are in our economy today that is hard to even keep track, but I'm gonna list quite a few of them here in this video. And the worst part is nothing is being done about it. We all standby and watch it get worse as most of us are powerless to have any influence on the direction things go next."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Your New Career Is Working Fast Food, The Sheeple Are Not Ready For What's Coming"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 5/4/25

"Your New Career Is Working Fast Food,

 The Sheeple Are Not Ready For What's Coming"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"; "The Sounds of Silence"; "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"

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Simon & Garfunkel, "The Sounds of Silence"

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Simon & Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries, some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy. Also known as NGC 772, the island universe is over 100,000 light-years across and sports a single prominent outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic portrait. 

Its brightest companion galaxy, compact NGC 770, is toward the upper right of the larger spiral. NGC 770's fuzzy, elliptical appearance contrasts nicely with a spiky foreground Milky Way star in matching yellowish hues. Tracking along sweeping dust lanes and lined with young blue star clusters, Arp 78's large spiral arm is likely due to gravitational tidal interactions. Faint streams of material seem to connect Arp 78 with its nearby companion galaxies."

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

"I Enjoy Talking To You..."

- George Orwell