"Get Ready For A Supply Chain Nightmare As U.S. Exports And Imports Are Both Collapsing Dramatically"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 5/7/25

"Get Ready For A Supply Chain Nightmare As 

U.S. Exports And Imports Are Both Collapsing Dramatically"

"In the last few decades, the world economy has gotten more connected than ever, but now everything's changing fast. The flow of goods between the world's biggest economy and second biggest economy is totally falling apart, and that's going to hurt both sides of the Pacific in a big way. I've written a lot about how U.S. imports are way down, but the numbers show our exports are dropping like a rock too. There has been a 51 percent decline in exports at the Port of Portland and a 28 percent decline in exports at the Port of Tacoma…

What began as a rapid drop in U.S. imports as shippers cut orders from manufacturing partners around the world has now extended into a nationwide export slump, with the U.S. agricultural sector and top farm products including soybeans, corn and beef taking the hardest hit."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The Flame Nebula is a stand out in optical images of the dusty, crowded star forming regions toward Orion's belt and the easternmost belt star Alnitak, a mere 1,400 light-years away. Alnitak is the bright star at the right edge of this infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. About 15 light-years across, the infrared view takes you inside the nebula's glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds though. It reveals many stars of the recently formed, embedded cluster NGC 2024 concentrated near the center. 

The stars of NGC 2024 range in age from 200,000 years to 1.5 million years young. In fact, data indicate that the youngest stars are concentrated near the middle of the Flame Nebula cluster. That's the opposite of the simplest models of star formation for a stellar nursery that predict star formation begins in the denser center of a molecular cloud core. The result requires a more complex model for star formation inside the Flame Nebula.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/

"The Problem Is That We Are All Stupid"

"The Problem Is That We Are All Stupid"

by David Cain

"The question “What’s wrong with the world?!” is usually more of a statement of exasperation than a question. But it can be treated like a question, and it is a good question. Clearly something is wrong, at least with the human world. Even if you don’t trust the news to tell you how the world really is, we all witness too much pettiness, unfairness, and dishonesty to say with a straight face that nothing’s wrong.

However, I’m not sure you could rewind us to a point in the last 10,000 years when we wouldn’t feel the same way. Our complaints today are about corrupt leaders, unfair systems, unscrupulous merchants, religious demagoguery, and everything else that has happened perpetually since we freed ourselves from picking berries all day.

In an article about the “What’s wrong” question, Masha Gessen got me thinking that the answer is quite straightforward: we’re all stupid. Contrary to popular belief, stupidity isn’t only present in some of us, it’s a universal human trait. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t also smart—we simply exhibit both qualities. As intelligent as we are in certain ways, each of us is also very stupid in other certain ways, and the powers conferred by the intelligent, inventive part can increase the amount of damage the stupid part can cause.

Among other signs of the times, she mentioned the comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen, who seems able to draw the pettiness and stupidity out of virtually anyone, on camera. His approach is very simple: get people talking about their strongest beliefs, while pretending to agree, and watch the ridiculous pronouncements pour out. Most recently he was able to get several congressmen to apparently state their support for issuing firearms to “highly trained” kindergarten students to keep classrooms safe.

I have always found his comedy difficult to watch, and I think Gessen might have articulated the main reason: "Every segment of every episode is designed to leave the viewer feeling not so much appalled - something a sentient being in today’s America experiences many times a day - as finally enlightened: the ultimate explanation for what’s happened to us is that everyone is a moron."

The idea that everyone is stupid seems a little stupid itself. Clearly only some people are stupid. Otherwise how did we figure out DNA sequencing and particle physics, or design the Rubik’s Cube (let alone solve one)? Well, because stupidity can co-exist with smarts in the same person. The human world is so often portrayed as a noble battle between the stupid and the rest of us, each of us drawing our own smart-stupid line in some way or another between individuals, often corresponding to political, religious, or sports team fanship boundaries, as we see them.

This is the classical way to think about the distribution of human intelligence and human idiocy - each person is mostly a concentration of one or the other. But maybe that simplistic view is a good example of our stupid-aspect at work. Perhaps every single one of us is stupid, just not completely. Clearly there are variations in what we can call “personal style,” but nobody is so smart that they are not also frequently stupid, and vice versa.

The same person can design an award-winning public building and still be defeated by a parking meter with perfectly clear instructions on the side. A hobby chess player can visualize a tree of possible moves five or six deep, but cannot anticipate running out of toilet paper until the moment he does. I somehow created my own dream job, but I’ve had winter tires on my vehicle for at least 48 consecutive months, and I cannot seem to make a doctor’s appointment.

Solzhenitsyn famously wrote - or so the smart people tell me - that the line between good and evil runs “not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either but right through every human heart.” This seems true with the line between smart and stupid, and each human mind. We are complex apes, with innate abilities to be both profoundly clever and powerfully stupid. This isn’t a contradiction, just two complementary talents.

Of course, stupidity can’t comprehend itself—that’s one of its most interesting properties - which is why we overlook our own so easily. When it comes to my stupidest beliefs, I’m likely to think they’re my smartest ones. I easily fall in love with strongly-worded arguments that make me feel good but which I didn’t examine very well. (Am I writing stupid things at this very moment? How would I know?)

This may be why we often feel wholly smart when we witness some apparent evidence of our own intelligence (good grades, completed crosswords) and wholly stupid when that second quality becomes more obvious (such as when it’s your turn to tell the group a little about yourself). We evaluate others even more readily, with even less evidence, probably because we tend to assess a person’s smart and/or stupid qualities moments after they’ve just impressed us with one or the other.

Meanwhile, privately, we all know that much of life consists of trying to hide the extent of our own stupid-aspect, while accentuating the smart stuff so that others might think we’re made of it through and through.

Despite our varying personal styles of intelligence and stupidity, there are species-wide patterns. Humans are generally good at untangling contained problems with definite parts, but bad at doing things we’re emotionally averse to doing. We’re good at separating things into lists, labels, patterns, blacks and whites, and not so good at interpreting grey areas and patternless data.

Research suggests we’re atrocious at weighing moral questions objectively, an important skill for any meaningful “What’s wrong with the world” discussion. We make our moral judgments very reflexively and emotionally, and we seldom re-examine them. (Related: "Why The Other Side Won’t Listen To Reason") Above all, we’re notoriously susceptible to confirmation bias: scanning for evidence that we’re smart and already informed, and ignoring evidence that we’re dumb and/or wrong.

It’s not hard to see that whether we deem someone smart or stupid has a lot to do with whether or not we identify with that person in some way—whether they sit in our own political or social wheelhouses, or seem to be an outsider to them. We’re quick to point out this sort of bad faith in others, even though we’d see, if we looked for it, the same motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and selective hearing in ourselves. No matter how smart we are in some ways, humans are universally susceptible to those types of stupidity at least.

Probably. That’s my hypothesis anyway. It seems like a smarter bet than the traditional view: stupidity is a defining quality of certain people and not others. And I think that’s my smart side talking. I’m pretty sure."

- https://www.raptitude.com/

"I Am An American!"

"Alan Shore Closing Argument

 On The Abuses Of Government"

"Epic closing argument from ABC's "Boston Legal" that illustrates the erosion of our Constitutional liberties and abusive government. This can no longer be defined as a Republican versus Democrat issue. Both parties are equally responsible, as are we, the electorate, for we continue to vote the same quality of politicians into office over and over."

Gerald Celente, 5/7/25

"No Constitution: 

Our Freedoms Are Under Attack"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Time Will Tell"

"Time Will Tell"

by The ZMan

"Western countries largely came into being after the Second World War in that their political and economic systems were formed up after the war. There was the aftermath of the war and the Cold War that shaped the political economy of the West. We still talk about “The West” in the 20th century sense of it, despite the fact that the Cold War is long over and many formerly communist countries are in the EU. The West is as much about political psychology as geography.

A part of that political psychology was a Marxist sense that the moral questions had been resolved, at least with regards to politics and economics. Social democracy was rebranded as liberal democracy in Europe and in the United States it was rebranded as democratic capitalism or free market capitalism. The mainstream political parties accepted the consensus on politics and economics but offered small alterations to it to distinguish themselves from the other parties.

In the United States, this meant that the two parties agreed on all the major items like dealing with the Russians but had different approaches to the same goal. In Europe, the main parties decorated themselves with things like environmentalism, socialism, and some cultural items, but they agreed on the most important items which were relations with the United States and anti-nationalism. The former was in response to communism and the latter was in response to fascism.

This is a highly simplified model of post-war reality, but useful in understanding the psychology of voters and the political class. The consensus and faith in it are what shaped politics until the current crisis. Politicians did not have to worry about policies or ideology, as the ideology was settled, so they just had to select from platforms that had been approved within the consensus. The voters showed their displeasure by voting against the incumbent or their satisfaction by voting for him.

Even in the multi-party system of Europe, voting was a binary thing. If the economy was good, then the parties that were associated with the status quo did well, but if the economy was bad, then those parties were punished. In the United States, you had the added aspect of party fatigue. Even in good times, a party that had been in power for too long would lose an election because the voters wanted a new look. Bill Clinton won in 1992 mostly due to this reason.

This worked fine if the public was satisfied with the consensus and no one was permitted to question the consensus. The fear of nuclear war solved the first part during the Cold War and credit money handled it after the Cold War. While there is always discontent, no matter how good things feel, it was never enough to cause any serious doubt about the status quo. The populist rumblings since the Cold War were marginalized by the media and political class.

That is where the second part of the model is important. The political classes in the West became increasing narrow after the Cold War. The seriousness of the situation in the Cold War required serious debate about the issues of the day, so the debate was open to a broader range of ideas. After the Cold War, triumphalism and the economic boom narrowed the range of tolerated opinion. The uniparty concept we see everywhere in the West is a product of this.

This is how the West has reached the current crisis. As the public has grown unsettled about public policy and the fruits of it, they find themselves with no reasonable options at the ballot box. The mainstream parties all hold the same views. This is especially obvious in Europe where parties that are allegedly polar opposites form governments, often as a way to exclude popular outsider parties. Germany and France now have governments without popular support as a result.

The root cause of the crisis in the West is that old Marxist line about once morality is settled, there is no need for politics. The Western consensus was a moral consensus, which means the politics within the consensus were performative. Since the end of the Second World War, the West did not have much in the way of politics, because everyone agreed on the important moral questions. After the Cold War, the moral consensus narrowed, and dissent was exiled.

The current crisis is due to elite moral consensus narrowing to a set of beliefs at odds with the sensibilities of the public. The moral consensus has collapsed with regards to the elites and the public. What the Cloud People believe is not only different from the beliefs of the people over whom they rule, the Dirt People, but it is hostile to the interests of the Dirt People. It is how the shuffling zombie that is the UK Prime Minister can boast about favoring aliens of British subjects.

It is why there is no solution within the democratic process. That process evolved to give the Dirt People choices approved by the Cloud People. There will never be an option to get rid of the Cloud People on the ballot. The point of the democratic process is to confirm to the Cloud People that they are the Cloud People. We see this with Trump, who is like a giant set upon by a massive swarm of bees. The democratic system will defend its master at any cost.

Proof that the universe has a sense of humor is the fact that the West has reached this crisis because the defenders of democracy are daring the people to do what is necessary for the will of the people to be respected by the state. The smug, soyish faces of the male politicians and the schoolmarmish demeaner of the females, reeks of contempt for the voters. They see the people as weak and contemptible for not doing what they should, in response to the elites.

Time will tell if this holds. The election results increasingly show that the public in the West do not like their options. As they search for alternatives, the system seeks to eliminate those options. Maybe the people will run out of excuses and rise up to do what they should have done long ago. Maybe Trump succeeds enough to destabilize the system to the point where it falters and is replaced. Maybe we just keep voting ourselves into civilizational collapse. Time will tell."

- https://thezman.com/

"Peak Focus for Complex Tasks, Study Music with Beta Isochronic Tones"

Full screen recommended.

"Peak Focus for Complex Tasks, 

Study Music with Beta Isochronic Tones"

by Jason Lewis - Mind Amend

"Experience intense focus when working on complicated tasks. Study music mix version of my 'Peak Focus For Complex Tasks' isochronic tones session. Listen to this when you need to maintain a high level focus to concentrate and study things like advanced mathematics, scientific formulas, financial analysis or any other complex mental activity. If you are new to this type of audio brainwave entrainment, find out how isochronic tones work and how they compare to binaural beats here:

- https://www.mindamend.com/

○

A comment: I'm quite aware this blog's content has progressively turned into a virtual chamber of horrors - the ongoing total economic collapse and it's inevitable consequences, loss of civil liberties, wars, poverty, climate change, rampant drug use, homelessness, real poverty, suicides - one disaster or horror after another - everything's going to Hell in a hand-basket and it's clearly displayed here. The world's a complex place, so the articles are sometimes lengthy of necessity. Not by choice - I'd much rather focus on other, better things, or be doing something else, but take a glance at the main-stream liars and propagandists, you won't see any of these things covered there, just more of the sensationalistic garbage and pure propaganda from all those cheaply bought low-life money whores. I've always believed you CAN handle the truth, given the chance to know it. Of course you can find truth, or the best version of it, elsewhere on many sites, if you know where to look and I hope you're doing that. 

I can only speak to what you'll find here. Please, don't come here expecting all sweetness and light, you'll be rudely disappointed. Anymore the blog article selection is really a threat-analysis and prioritization process, in hopes of keeping you informed about what's really happening behind the smoke screens and lies, and alerting you to imminent crises. We've run out of time, hence the sense of urgency. These things are upon us, they're here now, and you have an absolute right to know and understand how and why it's all happening as it is. That knowing may help you prepare, help you deal more effectively with inevitable changes we can do nothing about, may help you survive. But we will NOT go down without a fight! So, apologies for the sometimes grim article content, but that's real life, just how it really is, whether any of us like it or not. Stay informed, stay aware, and stay strong, always, and most of all thanks for stopping by!

- CP

The Daily "Near You?"

Bacolod City, Bacolod, Philippines. Thanks for stopping by!

"Do You Want..."

"Do you want to live life, or do you want to escape life?"

- Macklemore

'Ironic, Huh?"

“Thought is real. Physical is the illusion. Ironic, huh?”

- Robin Williams, “What Dreams May Come”

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “The Journey

“The Journey”

“One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save.”

- Mary Oliver

"Luxury..."

Clint Eastwood, a legendary 94-year-old actor, has given one of the most important lessons of his life to the younger generations: "Do not look for luxury in watches or bracelets, do not look for it in villas or sailboats! Luxury is laughing and having friends, luxury is rain on your face, luxury is hugs and kisses. Do not look for luxury in shops, do not look for it in gifts, do not look for it in parties, do not look for it in events! Luxury is being loved by people, luxury is being respected, luxury is having your parents still alive, luxury is being able to play with your grandchildren. Luxury is what money cannot buy."

- https://extremelyinterestingfacts.quora.com/

"How It Really Is"

Strong language alert!

Full screen recommended.

"The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The World of Yesterday"

"The World of Yesterday"

by Joel Bowman

“We believed – and the whole world believed with us – that this had been the war to end all wars, that the beast which had been laying waste to our world was tamed or even slaughtered... We were foolish, I know. But we were not alone.”

~ Stefan Zweig, "The World of Yesterday" (1942)

Cairo International Airport, Egypt -  "We’re on the road today, dear reader... or rather, in the skies. Soaring over the scorched Sahara Desert this morning, from the ancient city of Aswan en route to the capital, we were again taken aback by the sheer marvel of it all. No Egyptian Pharaoh, no matter how impressive his tomb... nor how many slaves perished during its construction... nor how lavishly decorated his death mask... ever experienced the gift of flight.

Never did a Ramesses or a Ptolemy soar above the clouds on wings of steel, view the land from such great heights... nor so much as suffer an in-flight meal. For century upon century, millennium upon dusty millennium, was man bound to terra firma, the stars above him wandering the heavens like gods, forever beyond his reach.

Meanwhile, outside the plane’s window, the Nile continues to flow... the earth continues to turn... and man continues his journey ever onward; to what end, is not given him to know. The papers are full of the latest “news.” But there’s nothing “new” about our story. Tariffs and trade wars... debts and deficits... war, hubris and political chicanery...

History gives some clues as to how these endeavors inevitably end, but seldom does man take his cues from such quaint notions as the experiences of those who went before him, preferring instead his own sense of certainty that “this time is different.” And so, as the past tumbles headlong into the future, we take a look back into The World of Yesterday, penned by one of modern history’s most astute biographers and novelists, Stefan Zweig, to see what may be learned about what comes next. We’ll return with your regular Notes, including our impressions of Egypt (as promised), later this week..."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

Freely download "The World of Yesterday", by Stefan Zweig, here:

- https://dn790008.ca.archive.org/

"How Are Things Going, Joe?"

“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine… couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

John Wilder, John Wilder

"Ghost Jobs And The Fate Of A Nation"

by John Wilder

"If I were a kid looking for work today, I’d be pissed. By one study, at least 60% of jobs listed on job posting sites are as fake as the girl in Canada my friend kept talking about. One survey had 81% of recruiters admitting that they posted ghost jobs. They never existed, and never will exist. This is a little like thinking you have a blind date with a girl and then finding out it’s actually Michelle Obama. Why on Earth would they do that? Not the whole “dating Michelle Obama” thing, but the fake jobs...Why? Well, several reasons:

• People in HR are evil like a cat and enjoy the thought of torturing their prey,

• To fake that the company is growing,

• Because it’s Tuesday and they’re bored,

• To get resumes to compare against existing staff,

• Looking for hot chicks to apply, and

• Trolling for resumes to show that there’s a need for infinity H-1B visa holders to come on over from India with fake credentials and take the job at $7.35 an hour.

To top it off, the system is rigged: often, when a job does appear, the hiring manager wrote the description for a specific person, i.e., a person who isn’t you, and although it has already been filled, the description has to be posted because “rules”. It’s a fair competition, exactly like the “who is the best boy” competition I entered and my mom was the judge. Seriously, though, how could she pick the neighbor kid?

When I got my very first job, it was because my brother already worked at the place. My second job? Because I played football with the boss’s kid in high school. When hired for my first job out of college, my employer knew details they could only have learned from conversations with my professors or the NSA.

Since then, nearly every job that I’ve had has been as a result of someone knowing me, picking up the phone, and calling me because they wanted me in the role. I am very lucky to have gotten in that groove – the main way I’ve gotten jobs is due to a friend or other connection. But first you have to have a friend.

Kids these days? Not so much. The meme was, “Go in, give ‘em a firm handshake, and tell ‘em you want the job.” In many places, that’s simply not possible. Many corporations only take job applications online. And, if the resume doesn’t have the right keywords to get plucked out of the luminiferous aether of the digital world by an A.I. on its lunch break, it goes into the black pit of resume despair, from which no word will ever be heard, only faint moaning and the rustling of paperclips.

Ghost jobs make it worse, somehow. When tech was busy laying of hundreds of thousands of coders so they could import the population of Mumbai instead, there were job listings aplenty. These kids, getting ready to graduate from college, didn’t know anyone, yet there were thousands of (apparently) available jobs. How could they fail?

The big lie is that those jobs were never really real, and of the ones that were real, each of them would get somewhere (depending on the job) between 250 and 1,000 applications. In a realistic world, probably 20% of the applications were a good fit. So, that means that for every job, there were likely between 50 and 200 people that could do the job with enough skill to make the hiring company happy. But only one person gets the job.

I have written in the past about the keys to the devolution of the country – popular immiseration being one of those keys. In order for that unrest that leads to collapse to occur, people need to be not uncomfortable, not unhappy, but miserable with no visible way out. Because, after all as the songwriter wrote: freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.

Men need a job. Men need a purpose. They have to have this as much as they have to have oxygen. Give them a soft life, give them all the material comforts, give them video games and weed, and they are still miserable. They have to have a purpose, and the most common way to have a purpose is to have a job that matters. Without it, men are miserable.

Now, consider the exceptionally capable. Not the Elon Musks. Not the very top elite, but exceptionally capable people who would have been great mid to upper mid management for IBM™ back in 1966. Those people used to be, while not the spark plug, but maybe the timing chain of the economy. Necessary, but not the folks that are going to start a business.

We have entered, perhaps, the era where exceptionally capable and exceptionally qualified people exist in numbers beyond where they are useful. There are simply too many people who can program now for it to be especially profitable – the advice I gave both of my boys was simple: never get a degree where you’ll be competing against a billion people for a job.

Programmers now have to find something new. Maybe they should learn to mine coal? No, that’s shut down. Maybe they should become journalists? Not, those are being fired faster than they’re produced. The world that we’re moving into won’t particularly value many of the things that these young people spent years learning.

That’s bad enough. But now, dangle a ghost job where they’d be the perfect candidate in front of them, and let them apply for it and experience the frustration of a poodle pawing at a plastic porkchop? Are you trying to radicalize them? I mean, that’s probably what happened to Barack..."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "People Are Not Ready For This, Digital Chains With Your Name On It"

Gregory Mannarino, 5/7/25

"People Are Not Ready For This, 

Digital Chains With Your Name On It"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Trump posts himself as Pope on Truth Social.

"I am not planning on sharing this in my video blog. As you already know, I am a man who does not hold anything back! And I never will. I say what I say and I am unafraid. With that… What we are witnessing right now is not just politics. This is modern Pharaoh rising. Not clothed in linen and gold, but in media, power, and illusion. In a recent interview, and please look this up for yourselves, Trump said that he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold constitutional due process. Lions. That’s not a policy disagreement. That’s Pharaoh language. That is a man placing himself above the law, above the system, above the nation. Posting as the Pope… selling Bibles…That is not reverence. That is sacrilege for profit, he sells it like merchandise, he wraps himself in the cloak of religion to mask the lust for authority.

A Pharaoh for Babylon’s Final Act: To me Trump represents the perfect modern day Pharaoh. Idolized by millions. Believed to be “chosen.” Above criticism, law, or even Scripture. Selling God’s Word as a commodity, not a covenant. Painting himself as God’s vessel, while using the same tools of oppression. It’s not just ego, this is a spiritual delusion, weaponized by Babylon to usher in its final system.

What’s really going on? We are witnessing the preparation for the next empire. Not Egyptian. Not Roman. Not American. But Global Babylon 2.0, where one voice will rise, not to serve, but to be worshiped. Trump may or may not be the Antichrist, but he is a prototype of Pharaoh. Today way to many people have submitted to being silent. Well, I refuse to submit. Today we get to witness Babylonian theatre, staged for the blindfolded masses. Here’s what’s truly happening beneath the circus lights:

The Theater Of Conflict: Today is the Fed monetary policy decision. I personally expect the Fed to do nothing. Here is why…

It's A Set Up: Trump screams, “We need lower rates! We need a weaker dollar!” The Fed responds with. “We're data dependent. Inflation remains sticky.” But what the public doesn't realize is there is no conflict between Trump and The Fed. There is only coordination disguised as contradiction. This is In our facw control by contradiction! The illusion of struggle to conceal shared intent.

The True Agenda: They are manufacturing consent for: Rate cuts, which will ignite a new tsunami of debt issuance. Further debase the dollar. Create the illusion of short-term prosperity Controlled collapse of the current system, so they can. Introduce a central bank-controlled digital currency (CBDC). Link every citizen to a programmable, surveilled economic identity. Enforce maximum monetary obedience They will sell it as "rescue," but it is integration into a digital cage.

Why Trump Is The Perfect Messenger: Trump has always been the populist mask of elite policy. He speaks to the so called “forgotten man,” while signing the deals of the empire. He can say, “I fought the Fed,” while helping it launch its greatest transformation ever. This will feel like economic revival to the public… But it’s the resurrection of Pharaoh, in digital chains. Do not fall for this game, this charade. See the long game, the real plan is consolidation of monetary control. Sound about right? Let me know…"

- Gregory Mannarino

- https://traderschoice.net/

Dan, I Allegedly, "They Are Spying On You - Here's the Shocking Truth"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 5/7/25

"They Are Spying On You - 

Here's the Shocking Truth"

"Your car is spying on you and the truth is shocking. In today’s video, I’m breaking down how automakers like Toyota and others are collecting and sharing your personal data - speed, braking, stops, and even your distractions like radio and phone usage - all without you truly knowing. A Florida man’s lawsuit against Toyota and Progressive Insurance has shed light on the growing issue of privacy invasion. If you own a car from 2018 or newer, you might want to pay close attention to this!

This isn’t just about Toyota - other car companies and even insurance apps are tracking your driving habits, and it’s raising serious concerns about how this data is used and shared. From lawsuits involving OnStar eavesdropping to new revelations about "risk regions" impacting your insurance rates, the invasion of privacy is everywhere. Plus, I’m diving into Ford’s recent financial struggles, the EV mandates, and the fight to keep gas-powered vehicles alive."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "Breaking Wind"

"Breaking Wind"

by Bill Bonner

From the ranch at Gualfin, Argentina - "In the hills around Gualfin, unwed mothers are the rule, not the exception. The father, say the locals, was ‘the wind.’ And so a strong breeze must have blown across the Potomac when the inflation of 2021-22 was sired. Democrats and Republicans point their fingers at each other. Democrats look at the inflation numbers and see a strong likeness to Donald J. Trump. The stooped shoulders? The fleshy face? The heft and solidity? In any case, it was he who was in the White House at the moment of conception, they say. And everyone knows how he fooled around. Republicans, on the other hand, were sure that their man had nothing to do with it. It happened on Biden’s watch...when Trump was as chaste a choirboy, they say.

Meanwhile, the wind blows...from every direction. Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, reassured investors this week: "The United States government will never default," said Bessent at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday. "We will raise the debt ceiling, and Treasury will not use any gimmicks." Let’s see, how does that work? No gimmicks? Raising the debt ceiling does not put a single extra penny in US coffers. But raising the debt ceiling allows the feds to print more money. How’s that for a gimmick?

And what do you call it when you lower your own debt by inflating the currency in which it is denominated? A gimmick? Or blame the wind. Many are those who complain about the Trump Team’s ‘disruptions.’ But what we see - at least in the things that really matter - is continuity. All the usual gimcrackery and balderdash, that is. Even the gimmicks remain the same.

“Be patient,” asks POTUS. Last week, Trump explained that the slowdown in the US economy wasn’t his fault: "This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s." The very next day, word came that new jobs were more than expected. Donald Trump then decided that maybe the economy was his after all. The Irish Star: "Trump backtracks following decent job report, no longer 'Biden's economy'." The political factions take credit when they can... and when policies inevitably lead to trouble, they deny paternity.

Donald Trump was hoping that the Fed would pull his favorite gimmick out of the hat today. He urged Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. Lower short-term borrowing rates don’t really make companies stronger or more profitable. They can have the opposite effect, luring corporate executives to take on too much debt...or misleading them with sales figures based on runaway credit. But the gimmick works in the stock market: prices usually go up.

But Powell, driven into a corner by Trump’s bullying, is unlikely to lower rates now. MarketWatch explains: "Trump’s repeated attacks on Fed Chair Jerome Powell, including the usual schoolyard taunts and names, have made it almost impossible for Powell and his colleagues to cut short-term rates at their meeting tomorrow, even if they wanted to. Any such move would run an enormous risk of being viewed as capitulation to pressure from the White House.

As for the job numbers, they come with their own gimmicks and miscues. Suppose POTUS decreed that everyone had to be employed... and that those without jobs would be given shovels and told to dig. The unemployment rate: zero. Would that be a good thing? Of course not. It depends on what people are doing... and what they are getting in compensation.

Employment suggests you are contributing to the support of yourself and your community. But many of those counted as ‘employed’ are part time or gig workers in low-pay industries. ‘Living Wage for US’ reports that: "Across the U.S. today over half of American workers don’t earn enough to support themselves and their families at a basic level of decency..."

And what about a clerk at the Pentagon...or a staff member in Congress? He will be counted as ‘employed.’ And well paid. Hire more people like him and unemployment will go down. But these people are a cost center...not a source of added wealth.

And talk about gimmicks! Now the federal budget - the ‘big, beautiful bill’ - is working its way through Congress. The Republicans talk about ‘spending cuts,’ but if there are any, they are offset by spending increases. In short, it is a budget much like the other budgets that have come along this century. Too much spending. Too little income. The country will go broke. The baby daddies in Washington will blame 'the wind.' And we'll all be screwed."

Click image for larger size.

Source: Debt Limit Analysis, Bi-Partisan Policy Center

Research Note, by Dan Denning: The ‘X-Date’ is the theoretical date when the US Treasury runs out of gimmicks (and cash) and begins selectively defaulting on payments and obligations. This means running out of ‘extraordinary’ measures (such as not funding federal pensions). It also means choosing which bills (or creditors) to pay and which to stiff. That date (absent action by Congress) could come as soon as July, according to some research.

Despite official assurances to the contrary, the US government DID technically default on Treasury bills in late April and early May of 1979. You can read about it here. The default was ‘temporary’ and blamed on ‘technical difficulties’. It resulted in a 60 basis point rise in interest rates and the realization that government debt is not a ‘risk free’ investment.

FDR’s Gold Reserve Act of 1934 was a ‘de facto’ default. It devalued the dollar by raising the statutory price of gold from $20.67/ounce to $35/ounce. The 1971 ‘Nixon Shock’ was another de facto default, where Nixon ‘closed the gold window’ and ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold for foreign investors (the statutory price of gold was changed again in September of 1973 to $42.22/ounce).

The committee that advises the US Treasury on debt said last week that it will need to borrow $514 billion in the next three months, and another $541 billion in the three months after. It said the uncertainty about the debt ceiling and the ‘X-date’ increase the risk of a technical default in US debt payments. It recommended getting rid of the debt ceiling altogether.

That’s probably what will happen, once Congress gets around to passing its ‘big, beautiful, bill’. And it won’t count as a technical default. But it will accelerate the selling of US Treasuries as a reserve asset…and the buying of gold."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Nuclear Standoff In Kashmir! US Loses 3X F-18s! Trump Lies, US Sends B-52s to DG!"

Canadian Prepper, 5/6/25

"Nuclear Standoff In Kashmir! 

US Loses 3X F-18s! Trump Lies, US Sends B-52s to DG!" 

Comments here:

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"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."

Gerald Celente, "Gold Spikes; India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Israel, Yemen Wars Escalate"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 5/6/26

"Gold Spikes; India, Pakistan, 

Ukraine, Israel, Yemen Wars Escalate"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Warning: Global Recession Inevitable, Prices About To Spike"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/6/25

"Warning: Global Recession Inevitable, 

Prices About To Spike"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Shelves All Over America Are Going Empty And You Won’t Believe What’s Coming"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 5/6/25

"Shelves All Over America Are Going Empty

 And You Won’t Believe What’s Coming"

"Have you prepared yourself for the possibility of empty store shelves across America? When I first started talking about the upcoming shortages last month, many people were skeptical. But now numerous experts are warning that we're facing a crisis of historic magnitude. Most larger retailers still have several weeks of inventory on hand, but after that, the shortages will become increasingly evident.

For smaller businesses, these shortages will be apparent much earlier. Just last Sunday, I visited a local small business to purchase some groceries. This particular discount store sells food items along with various other products, many manufactured in China. As I browsed through the aisles, I was shocked by how depleted their stock levels were. It was truly disappointing to see. Of course, anything we're observing now is merely the beginning of what's eventually coming."

Comments here:

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Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Virtuality II"; "Dolmen Ridge"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Virtuality II"

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Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Dolmen Ridge"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster, named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found. Although almost 20 times more distant than our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, Fornax is only about 10 percent further that the better known and more populated Virgo cluster of galaxies.

Fornax has a well-defined central region that contains many galaxies, but is still evolving. It has other galaxy groupings that appear distinct and have yet to merge. Seen here, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the Fornax cluster. The picturesque barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 visible on the lower right is also a prominent Fornax cluster member."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

"Look to This Day..."

"Look to this day

for it is life,

the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all

the realities and truths of existence,

the joy of growth ,

the splendor of action,

the glory of power.

For yesterday is but a memory,

And tomorrow is only a vision.

But today well lived

makes every yesterday a memory

of happiness,

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day..."

- Kalidasa

"Fate..."

"I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed."

- Paulo Coelho

"Top 15 U.S. Retail Chains Near Collapse - Empty Shelves and Insane Food Prices?"

Full screen recommended.

Discovery Globe Collapse, 5/6/25

"Top 15 U.S. Retail Chains Near Collapse - 

Empty Shelves and Insane Food Prices?"

"Across America, once-bustling retail giants are shrinking—or vanishing. Shelves go empty, prices surge, and local communities are left in limbo. In this video, we break down 15 major U.S. retail chains now facing serious downturns—some barely hanging on. What’s causing this silent retail crisis? What does it mean for food access, jobs, and older Americans who rely on these stores daily."

Comments here:

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"I Warned You: China’s Hiding An Economic Meltdown!"

Full screen recommended.

Steven Van Metre, 5/6/25

"I Warned You:

 China’s Hiding An Economic Meltdown!"

"Exports are crashing, sentiment is plunging and unemployment

 is rising. China's covering up a collapse that’ll hit us all."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

St. James, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Green Frog Skin"

"The Green Frog Skin"

by John (Fire) Lame Deer

"The Green Frog Skin – that’s what I call the dollar bill. In our attitude towards it lies the biggest difference between the Indians and the whites. My grandparents grew up in an Indian world without money. Just before the Custer battle the white soldiers had received their pay. Their pockets were full of green paper and they had no place to spend it. What were their last thoughts as an Indian bullet or arrow hit them? I guess they were thinking of all that money going to waste, of not having had a chance to enjoy it, of a bunch of dumb savages getting their paws on that hard-earned pay. That must have hurt them more than the arrow between their ribs.

The close hand-to-hand fighting, with a thousand horses gally-hooting all over the place, had covered the battlefield with an enormous cloud of dust, and in it the green frog skins of the soldiers were whirling around like snowflakes in a blizzard. Now, what did the Indians do with all that money? They gave it to their children to play with, to fold those strange bits of colored paper into all kinds of shapes, making into toy buffalo and horses. Somebody was enjoying that money after all.

The books tell of one soldier who survived. He got away, but he went crazy and some women watched him from a distance as he killed himself. The writers always say that he must have been afraid of being captured and tortured, but that’s all wrong. Can’t you see it? There he is, bellied down in a gully, watching what is going on. He sees the kids playing with the money, tearing it up, the women using it to fire up some dried buffalo chips to cook on, the men lighting their pipes with green frog skins, but mostly all those beautiful dollar bills floating away with the dust and the wind. It’s this sight that drove the poor soldier crazy. He’s clutching his head, hollering, ‘Goddam, Jesus Christ Almighty, look at them dumb, stupid, red sons of bitches wasting all that dough!’ He watches till he can’t stand it any longer, and then he blows his brains out with a six-shooter. It would make a great scene in a movie, but it would take an Indian mind to get the point."

- John (Fire) Lame Deer, "Seeker of Visions"

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Brule, "Stomp Dance"