Full screen recommended.
"Beautiful Relaxing Music - Calming Piano & Guitar Music"
"Beautiful relaxing music by Soothing Relaxation. Enjoy calming piano and
guitar music composed by Peder B. Helland, set to stunning nature videos."
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
"A Look to the Heavens"
“NGC 253 is not only one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, it is also one of the dustiest. Discovered in 1783 by Caroline Herschel in the constellation of Sculptor, NGC 253 lies only about ten million light-years distant.
NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies. The dense dark dust accompanies a high star formation rate, giving NGC 253 the designation of starburst galaxy. Visible in the above photograph is the active central nucleus, also known to be a bright source of X-rays and gamma rays.”
"All We Really Need..."
"Causes do matter. And the world is changed by people who care deeply about causes,about things that matter. We don't have to be particularly smart or talented. We don't need a lot of money or education. All we really need is to be passionate about something important; something bigger than ourselves. And it's that commitment to a worthwhile cause that changes the world."
- Steve Goodier
"Find the things that matter, and hold on to them,
and fight for them, and refuse to let them go."
- Lauren Oliver
"As Humans..."
“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short just wants to be.”
- Bill Bryson
The Poet: Langston Hughes, "Mother To Son"
"Mother To Son"
"Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."
- Langston Hughes
o
"You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.”
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,'
I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'"
- Sydney J. Harris
"The Worst Part..."
"People cry not because they are weak.
It's because they've been strong for too long."
- Johnny Depp
"Breaking News! The Big Beautiful Bill Just Passed - What It Means for You"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/1/25
"Breaking News! The Big Beautiful Bill Just Passed
- What It Means for You"
"The Senate just passed a 900-page bill, and I’m breaking down the 12 shocking changes you need to know! From tax cuts and overtime exemptions to major spending on border security and AI regulations, this bill has massive implications for every American. Whether it's no taxes on tips, new Medicaid work requirements, or tax credits for buying American-made cars, there’s something in this for everyone to consider. And yes, it’s coming with a $3 trillion price tag - so let me know your thoughts!"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/1/25
"Summer of Economic Hell - What You Need to Know"
"Get ready for the "Summer of Economic Hell"! In this video, I break down the critical issues facing us this season - rising inflation, volatile oil prices, AI replacing jobs, and the impact of tariffs and trade uncertainty. From the fallout of economic policies to the skyrocketing costs of living, we’re diving into what this all means for your wallet. Plus, I share real-life stories, insights on the debt ceiling drama, and how AI is reshaping industries like banking. Join the conversation as we explore these pressing topics and what they mean for the future. Don’t miss my thoughts on the state of California’s business exodus, the wild increases in home repair costs, and why Walmart is rethinking self-checkouts. Curious about gold and silver? I’ll explain why now could be the perfect time to consider precious metals as a safe haven."
Comments here:
"A Much Needed And Totally Different Escape-From-The-Bad-News Interlude"
Full screen recommended.
Jive Bunny And The MasterMixers,
"Swing The Mood"
We now return to our regular programming, already in progress...
"How It Really Is"
For those few who still even have a job...
"We're so freakin' doomed!" - The Mogambo Guru
"Everyone’s Afraid to Speak"
"Everyone’s Afraid to Speak"
by Joshua Stylman
"Someone our family has known forever recently told my sister that they’ve been reading my Substack and that if they wrote the things I write, people would call them crazy. I got a kick out of that - not because it’s untrue, but because it reveals something darker about where we’ve ended up as a society. Most people are terrified of being themselves in public.
My sister’s response made me laugh: “People do call him crazy. He simply doesn’t care.” The funniest part is that I don’t even write the craziest stuff I research - just the stuff I can back up with sources and/or my own personal observations. I always try to stay rooted in logic, reason, and facts, though - I’m clear when I’m speculating and when I’m not.
This same guy has sent me dozens of private messages over the last 4 or 5 years challenging me on stuff I share online. I’ll respond with source material or common sense, and then - crickets. He disappears. If I say something he doesn’t want to hear, he vanishes like a child covering his ears. Over the last few years, I’ve been proven right about most of what we’ve argued about, and he’s been wrong. But it doesn’t matter - he’s got the memory of a gnat and the pattern never changes.
But he’d never make that challenge publicly, never risk being seen engaging with my arguments where others might witness the conversation. This kind of private curiosity paired with public silence is everywhere - people will engage with dangerous ideas in private but never risk being associated with them publicly. It’s part of that reflexive “That can’t be true” mindset that shuts down inquiry before it can even begin. But he’s not alone. We’ve created a culture where wrongthink is policed so aggressively that even successful, powerful people whisper their doubts like they’re confessing crimes.
I was on a hike last year with a very prominent tech VC. He was telling me about his son’s football team - how their practices kept getting disrupted because their usual field on Randall’s Island was now being used to house migrants. He leaned in, almost whispering: “You know, I’m a liberal, but maybe the people complaining about immigration have a point.” Here’s a guy who invests mountains of money into companies that shape the world we live in, and he’s afraid to voice a mild concern about policy in broad daylight. Afraid of his own thoughts.
After I spoke out against vaccine mandates, a coworker told me he totally agreed with my position - but he was angry that I’d said it. When the company didn’t want to take a stand, I told them I would speak as an individual - on my own time, as a private citizen. He was pissed anyway. In fact, he was scolding me about the repercussions to the company. What’s maddening is that this same person had enthusiastically supported the business taking public stands on other, more politically fashionable causes over the years. Apparently, using your corporate voice was noble when it was fashionable. Speaking as a private citizen became dangerous when it wasn’t.
Another person told me that they agreed with me but wished they were “more successful like me” so they could afford to speak out. They had “too much to lose.” The preposterousness of this is staggering. Everyone who spoke out during Covid sacrificed - financially, reputationally, socially. I sacrificed plenty myself.
But I’m no victim. Far from it. Since I was a young man, I’ve never measured achievement by finance or status - my benchmark for being a so-called successful person was owning my own time. Ironically, getting myself canceled was actually a springboard to that. For the first time in my life, I felt I’d achieved time ownership. Whatever I’ve achieved came from being raised by loving parents, working hard, and having the spine to follow convictions rationally. Those attributes, coupled with some great fortune, are the reason for whatever success I’ve had - they’re not the reason I can speak now. Maybe this person should do some inward searching about why they’re not more established. Maybe it’s not about status at all. Maybe it’s about integrity.
This is the adult world we’ve built - one where courage is so rare that people mistake it for privilege, where speaking your mind is seen as a luxury only the privileged can afford, rather than a fundamental requirement for actually becoming established. And this is the world we’re handing to our children.
We Built the Surveillance State for Them: I remember twenty years ago, my best friend’s wife (who’s also a dear friend) was about to hire someone when she decided to check the candidate’s Facebook first. The woman had posted: “Meeting the whores at [company name]” - referring to my friend and her coworkers. My friend immediately withdrew the offer. I remember thinking this was absolutely terrible judgment on the candidate’s part; however, it was dangerous territory we were entering: the notion of living completely in public, where every casual comment becomes permanent evidence.
Now that danger has metastasized into something unrecognizable. We’ve created a world where every stupid thing a fifteen-year-old says gets archived forever. Not just on their own phones, but screenshot and saved by peers who don’t understand they’re building permanent files on each other - even on platforms like Snapchat that promise everything disappears. We’ve eliminated the possibility of a private adolescence - and adolescence is supposed to be private, messy, experimental. It’s the laboratory where you figure out who you are by trying on terrible ideas and throwing them away. But laboratories require the freedom to fail safely. What we’ve built instead is a system where every failed experiment becomes evidence in some future trial.
Think about the dumbest thing you believed at sixteen. The most embarrassing thing you said at thirteen. Now imagine that moment preserved in high definition, timestamped, and searchable. Imagine it surfacing when you’re 35 and running for school board, or just trying to move past who you used to be.
If there was a record of everything I did when I was sixteen, I would have been unemployable. Come to think of it, I’m way older than that now and I’m unemployable anyway - but the truth still stands. My generation might have been the last to fully enjoy an analog existence as children. We got to be stupid privately, to experiment with ideas without permanent consequences, to grow up without every mistake being archived for future use against us.
I remember teachers threatening us with our “permanent record.” We laughed - some mysterious file that would follow us forever? Turns out they were just early. Now we’ve built those records and handed the recording devices to children. Companies like Palantir have turned this surveillance into a sophisticated business model.
We’re asking children to have adult judgment about consequences they can’t possibly understand. A thirteen-year-old posting something stupid isn’t thinking about college applications or future careers. They’re thinking about right now, today, this moment - which is exactly how thirteen-year-olds are supposed to think. But we’ve built systems that treat childhood immaturity as a prosecutable offense.
The psychological toll is staggering. Imagine being fourteen and knowing that anything you say might be used against you by people you haven’t met yet, for reasons you can’t anticipate, at some unknown point in the future. That’s not adolescence - that’s a police state built out of smartphones and social media.
The result is a generation that’s either paralyzed by self-consciousness or completely reckless because they figure they’re already screwed. Some retreat into careful blandness, crafting personas so sanitized they might as well be corporate spokespeople for their own lives. Others go scorched earth - if everything’s recorded anyway, why hold back? As my friend Mark likes to say, there’s Andrew Tate and then there’s a bunch of incels - meaning the young men either become performatively brash and ridiculous, or they retreat entirely. The young women seem to either drift toward fearful conformity or embrace monetized exposure on platforms like OnlyFans. We’ve managed to channel an entire generation’s rebellion into the very systems designed to exploit them.
The Covid Conformity Test: This is how totalitarian thinking takes root - not through jackbooted thugs, but through a million small acts of self-censorship. When a venture capitalist whispers his concerns about immigration policy like he’s confessing to a thought crime. When successful professionals agree with dissenting views privately but would never defend them publicly. When speaking obvious truths becomes an act of courage rather than basic citizenship.
George Orwell understood this perfectly. In "1984," the Party’s greatest achievement wasn’t forcing people to say things they didn’t believe - it was making them afraid to believe things they weren’t supposed to say. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” O’Brien explains to Winston. “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.” But the real genius was making citizens complicit in their own oppression, turning everyone into both prisoner and guard.
History shows us how this works in practice. The Stasi in East Germany didn’t just rely on secret police - they turned ordinary citizens into informants. By some estimates, one in seven East Germans was reporting on their neighbors, friends, even family members. The state didn’t need to watch everyone; they got people to watch each other. But the Stasi had limitations: they could recruit informants, but they couldn’t monitor everyone simultaneously, and they couldn’t instantly broadcast transgressions to entire communities for real-time judgment.
Social media solved both problems. Now we have total surveillance capability—every comment, photo, like, and share automatically recorded and searchable. We have instant mass distribution - one screenshot reaching thousands in minutes. We have volunteer enforcement - people eagerly participating in calling out “wrongthink” because it feels righteous. And we have permanent records - unlike Stasi files locked in archives, digital mistakes follow you forever.
The psychological impact is exponentially worse because Stasi informants at least had to make a conscious choice to report someone. Now the reporting happens automatically - the infrastructure is always listening, always recording, always ready to be weaponized by anyone with a grudge or a cause.
We saw this machinery in full operation during Covid. Remember how quickly “two weeks to flatten the curve” became orthodoxy? How questioning lockdowns, mask mandates, or vaccine efficacy wasn’t just wrong - it was dangerous? How saying “maybe we should consider the trade-offs of closing schools” could get you labeled a grandma-killer? The speed at which dissent became heresy was breathtaking.
History has shown us that governments can be terrible to citizens. The hardest pill to swallow was the horizontal policing. Your neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family members became the enforcement mechanism. People didn’t just comply; they competed - virtue-signaling their way into a collective delusion where asking basic questions about cost-benefit analysis became evidence of moral deficiency. Neighbors called police on neighbors for having too many people over. People photographed “violations” and posted them online for mass judgment.
And the most insidious part? The people doing the policing genuinely believed they were the good guys. They thought they were protecting society from dangerous misinformation, not realizing they had become the misinformation - that they were actively suppressing the kind of open inquiry that’s supposed to be the foundation of both science and democracy.
The Ministry of Truth didn’t need to rewrite history in real time. Facebook and Twitter did it for them, memory-holing inconvenient posts and banning users who dared to share pre-approved scientific studies that happened to reach unapproved conclusions. The Party didn’t need to control the past - they just needed to control what you were allowed to remember about it.
This wasn’t an accident or an overreaction. This was a stress test of how quickly a free society could be transformed into something unrecognizable, and we failed spectacularly. Anyone who actually followed the science understood that the only pandemic was one of cowardice. Worse, most people didn’t even notice we were being tested. They thought they were just “following the science” - never mind that the data kept changing to match the politics, or that questioning anything had somehow become heretical.
The beautiful thing about this system is that it’s self-sustaining. Once you’ve participated in the mob mentality, once you’ve policed your neighbors and canceled your friends and stayed silent when you should have spoken up, you become invested in maintaining the fiction that you were right all along. Admitting you were wrong isn’t just embarrassing—it’s an admission that you participated in something monstrous. So instead, you double down. You disappear when confronted with inconvenient facts.
Raising Prisoners: And this brings us back to the children. They’re watching all of this. But more than that - they’re growing up inside this surveillance infrastructure from birth. The Stasi’s victims at least had some years of normal psychological development before the surveillance state kicked in. These kids never get that. They’re born into a world where every thought might be public, every mistake permanent, every unpopular opinion potentially life-destroying.
The psychological impact is devastating. Research shows that children who grow up under constant surveillance - even well-meaning parental surveillance - show higher rates of anxiety, depression, and what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” They never develop internal locus of control because they never get to make real choices with real consequences. But this goes far deeper than helicopter parenting.
The ability to hold unpopular opinions, to think through problems independently, to risk being wrong - these aren’t just nice-to-haves. They’re core to psychological maturity. When you eliminate those possibilities, you don’t just get more compliant people; you get people who literally can’t think for themselves anymore. They outsource their judgment to the crowd because they never developed their own.
We’re creating a generation of psychological cripples - people who are practiced at reading social cues and adjusting their thoughts accordingly, but who have never learned to form independent judgments. People who mistake consensus for truth and popularity for virtue. People who have been so thoroughly trained to avoid wrong-think that they’ve either lost - or never developed - the capacity for original thought entirely.
But here’s what’s most disturbing: the kids are learning this behavior from us. They’re watching adults who whisper their real thoughts, who agree privately but stay silent publicly, who confuse strategic silence with wisdom. They’re learning that authenticity is dangerous, that having real convictions is a luxury they can’t afford. They’re learning that truth is negotiable, that principles are disposable, and that the most important skill in life is reading the room and adjusting your thoughts accordingly.
The feedback loop is complete: adults model cowardice, children learn that genuine expression is risky, and everyone becomes practiced at self-censorship rather than self-examination. We’ve created a society where the Overton window isn’t just narrow - it’s actively policed by people who are terrified of stepping outside it, even when they privately disagree with its boundaries.
This is the architecture of soft totalitarianism. Just the constant, gnawing fear that saying the wrong thing - or even thinking it too loudly - will result in social death. The beauty of this system is that it makes everyone complicit. Everyone has something to lose, so everyone stays quiet. Everyone remembers what happened to the last person who spoke up, so nobody wants to be next.
The technology doesn’t just enable this tyranny; it makes it psychologically inevitable. When the infrastructure punishes independent thinking before it can fully form, you get psychological arrested development on a mass scale. It’s already baked into education and employment through DEI and ESG. Wait till it’s baked into the monetary system. Maybe they’re just connecting us to the Borg anyway?
We’re passing this pathology down to our children like a genetic disorder. Except this disorder isn’t inherited - it’s enforced. And unlike genetic disorders, this one serves a purpose: it creates a population that’s easy to control, easy to manipulate, easy to lead around by the nose as long as you control the social rewards and punishments.
The Price of Truth
I don’t share my opinions because I “get away with it” - I don’t get away with anything. I’ve paid socially, professionally, and even financially. But I do it anyway because the alternative is spiritual death. The alternative is becoming someone who messages critics privately but never takes a public stand, someone who’s perpetually annoyed by others’ courage but never exercises their own.
The difference isn’t ability or privilege. It’s willingness. I’m open-minded and open-hearted. I can be convinced of anything - but show me, don’t tell me. I’m willing to be wrong, willing to change my mind when new information comes to light or I gain a different perspective on an idea, willing to defend ideas I believe in even when it’s uncomfortable.
There are a lot of us right now realizing that something isn’t right—that we’ve been lied to about everything. We’re trying to make sense of what we’re seeing, asking uncomfortable questions, connecting dots that don’t want to be connected. When we call that out, the last thing we need is people who haven’t done the work standing in our way, carrying water for the establishment forces that are manipulating them. Most people could do the same thing if they chose to - they just don’t choose to because they’ve been trained to see conviction as dangerous and conformity as safe.
A 2020 Cato Institute survey found that 62% of Americans say the political climate prevents them from sharing their political beliefs because others might find them offensive. Majorities of Democrats (52%), independents (59%), and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share.
When adults who lived through Covid saw what happens when groupthink becomes gospel - how quickly independent thought gets labeled dangerous, how thoroughly dissent gets suppressed - many responded not by becoming more committed to free expression, but by becoming more careful about what they express. They learned the wrong lesson.
What we’re creating is a society where authenticity has become a radical act, where courage is so rare it looks like privilege. We’re raising children who learn that being yourself is dangerous, that having real opinions carries unlimited downside risk. They’re not just careful about what they say - they’re careful about what they think.
This doesn’t create better people. It creates more fearful people. People who mistake surveillance for safety, conformity for virtue, and silence for wisdom. People who’ve forgotten that the point of having thoughts is sometimes to share them, that the point of having convictions is sometimes to defend them.
The solution isn’t to abandon technology or retreat into digital monasteries. But we need to create spaces - legal, social, psychological - where both kids and adults can fail safely. Where mistakes don’t become permanent tattoos. Where changing your mind is seen as growth rather than hypocrisy. Where having convictions is valued over having clean records.
Most importantly, we need adults who are willing to model courage instead of strategic silence - who understand that the price of speaking up is usually less than the price of staying quiet. In a world where everyone’s afraid to say what they think, the honest voice doesn’t just stand out - it stands up.
Because right now, we’re not just living in fear - we’re teaching our children that fear is the price of participation in society. And a society built on fear isn’t a society at all. It’s just a more comfortable prison, one where the guards are ourselves and the keys are our own convictions, which we’ve learned to keep safely locked away.
Whether it’s experimental medicine or the masters of war lying again to drag us into what might become World War III - it’s PSYOP season - it’s never been more important that people find their conviction, use their voice, and become a force for good. If you’re still scared to push back against war propaganda, still getting swept up in manufactured outrage cycles, still choosing your principles based on which team is in power - then you may have learned absolutely nothing from the last few years.
These days, friends are starting to confide in me that maybe I was right about the mRNA vaccines not working. I don’t gloat - in fact, I appreciate the openness. But my standard reply is that they’re four years late to the story. They’ll know they’ve caught up when they realize the world is run by a bunch of satanic pedophiles. And yeah, I used to think that sounded crazy too."
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases at Sam's Club"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7AM 7/1/25
"Massive Price Increases at Sam's Club"
Comments here:
"This Is The Worst Year For The U.S. Dollar Since The Oil Crisis Of 1973"
"This Is The Worst Year For The
U.S. Dollar Since The Oil Crisis Of 1973"
by Michael Snyder
"The U.S. dollar just keeps getting weaker and weaker, and that is a major problem because our current standard of living depends on having a strong dollar. When the U.S. dollar is strong relative to other national currencies, our paychecks stretch farther and we can buy more stuff. Conversely, when the U.S. dollar is weak relative to other national currencies we can’t buy as much stuff and our standard of living goes down. So the fact that the U.S. dollar is “having its worst start to the year since 1973” should deeply alarm all of us…
The US dollar - once a pillar of American economic strength - is having its worst start to the year since 1973. President Trump’s whipsawing trade and economic policies have prompted investors to sell what is still the world’s dominant currency. So far in 2025, the dollar index - which tracks the greenback against major currencies like the euro and pound - has dropped more than 10 percent. That marks the sharpest first-half fall since the collapse of the gold-backed Bretton Woods system more than 50 years ago sent the dollar down 15 percent.
Were you alive in 1973? If so, you probably remember that it was a horrible year. The Vietnam War was raging, tax rates were sky high, crime rates were rising, the U.S. economy was in really rough shape, and Arab nations hit us with a crippling oil embargo.
Unfortunately, we are facing a similar scenario today. We are involved in wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the federal government is drowning in debt even though tax rates are still way too high, there has been rioting in the streets of Los Angeles and other major cities, economic conditions just continue to get worse, and a global trade war has erupted.
The rest of the world is losing confidence in us and in our currency, and the dollar index fell once again on Monday…"The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.15% to 97.05, on track for its sixth straight month of losses. It is set to mark its worst half-year since the 1970s."
The fact that the dollar index has now fallen for six consecutive months is a major national crisis. Why aren’t more people talking about this? The silver lining of having a weaker dollar is that it is supposed to make our products more competitive to the rest of the world and reduce our trade imbalances. But instead, the U.S. current account deficit exploded to a brand new record high during the first quarter of 2025…
"The U.S. current account deficit widened to a record high in the first quarter as businesses front-loaded imports to avoid President Donald Trump’s hefty tariffs on imported goods. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Tuesday the current account deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, jumped $138.2 billion, or 44.3%, to an all-time high of $450.2 billion. Data for the fourth quarter was revised to show the gap at $312.0 billion instead of $303.9 billion as previously reported."
Meanwhile, our economy as a whole actually contracted at a 0.5% annualized rate during the first quarter of this year…"The U.S. economy contracted a bit faster than previously thought in the first quarter amid tepid consumer spending, underscoring the distortions caused by the Trump administration’s aggressive tariffs on imported goods. Gross domestic product decreased at a downwardly revised 0.5% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said in its third estimate of GDP on Thursday. It was previously reported to have dropped at a 0.2% pace."
One of the big reasons why our economic performance has been so dismal is because the U.S. housing market is having “its worst year in decades”…"Meredith Whitney thinks the housing market is set for “its worst year in decades.” The CEO of investment research firm Meredith Whitney Advisory Group and senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group told Yahoo Finance that 2023 and 2024 were both bad years, but it’s now looking even worse with about 4 million sales of existing homes expected. Whitney thinks the actual number may be significantly below that figure. “That poses a real problem for the general economy,” she said."
The Federal Reserve needs to reduce interest rates immediately. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell seems to think that everything is just fine. I can certainly understand why President Trump is so frustrated with him. On top of everything else, now that the student loan payment pause is over we are facing a student loan delinquency crisis of unprecedented magnitude…
Another significant development for consumer spending power is the return of student loan delinquencies. After a 43-month payment pause, nearly one in four student loan borrowers (23.7%) were behind on their student loans in the first quarter of 2025. The scale of this change is unprecedented. According to the Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit published by the New York Fed, more than 2.2 million newly delinquent borrowers have seen their credit plunge by over 100 points, while more than 1 million have experienced drops of at least 150 points."
This isn’t just about student loans – it’s about access to consumer credit going forward. An estimated 2.4 million delinquent borrowers previously had credit scores above 620, meaning they qualified for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards before these delinquencies hit their reports. Many no longer do.
We have got a real mess on our hands. Nobody can deny this. Looking ahead, there is a tremendous amount of trouble looming on the horizon. In fact, CNN just published an article that warns that “economic hell” could be coming this summer. According to that article, one of the reasons why “economic hell” could be approaching is because the pause on “reciprocal tariffs” on most of our trading partners ends on July 9th…"The first is July 9, which marks the end of President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on what he termed as “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of America’s trading partners. Unless those countries reach trade deals with the US, they could potentially face much higher tariffs."
That is a really big deal. If tariffs suddenly go far higher on literally thousands upon thousands of imported products, that is going to cause an immense amount of economic pain. And the war between Israel and Iran could potentially erupt again at any time. If that were to happen, the Iranians would likely close the Strait of Hormuz, and that would make the oil embargo of 1973 look like a Sunday picnic.
The first half of 2025 has been crazy, but I am even more concerned about the second half of 2025. I believe that it is going to be filled with all sorts of unpleasant surprises, and that won’t be good for any of us."
"Monetary Witchcraft And A Total Wipe-Out Of Everything You Thought Was Real"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/1/25
"Monetary Witchcraft And A Total Wipe-Out
Of Everything You Thought Was Real"
Comments here:
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Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/1/25
"U.S. Factories Are Dying Faster;
Senate Passes Massive Spending Bill"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "An Abundance of Scarcity"
"An Abundance of Scarcity"
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - "Is the war still going on between Russia and the Ukraine? Are there still any Palestinians alive in Gaza? Who knows? The news cycle has moved on. No time to think about it. No time for study or reflection...The incoming news rushes in like drones, hot and heavy. Newsweek: "Republicans Ask Donald Trump To Revoke Zohran Mamdani's Citizenship." That would be one way to eliminate the political threat. And it would be a lot easier than actually addressing the reasons why so many voters turned to a “communist lunatic” for mayor of New York.
We all know, for example, that the US economy is exceptionally beautiful - Biden and Trump both told us so. But the voters didn’t believe Biden...and apparently New Yorkers don’t believe Trump. Historian Adam Tooze doesn’t seem to believe either of them:
"The largest increase in poverty in NYC between 2019 and 2022 was amongst those in “deep poverty” which is defined as less than half of the federal poverty level. In 2022, the federal poverty threshold was $14,880 for a single person, and $29,678 for a four-person family with two adults and two children. In New York City, nearly 52 percent of the city’s poverty population of 1.5 million in 2022 lived in “deep poverty,” that is 750,000 people. Poverty affects entire sections of the city. In the borough of the Bronx, with a population of 1.4 million, the median income is $45,517, uncomfortably close to the Federal poverty line for a family of four. In 2022 New York City recorded a child poverty rate of just shy of 25 percent."
In terms of the inequality of income, between rich and poor, New York is right up there with Rio de Janeiro; it has many of the richest people in the US...and many of the poorest. No surprise that Mamdani’s promise of ‘free stuff’ was a vote getter. Free schooling...from kinder-garden all the way through university? Free public transportation? Reduced rents? ‘State-run food stores? How would you pay for these things? Squeeze the rich until the pips squeak!
But in today’s world, the ‘pips’ not only squeak...they leave town. Rich New Yorkers already have second homes in Florida, Arizona, or Mexico. Give them a good reason and they will split the Big Apple in a New York minute. Then, where are you? The gap between rich and poor would narrow...everyone would be poor!
Inequality is a fake problem. It is a symptom, not the disease itself. And when we set aside the headlines du jour, and look more closely, what we see is a whole edifice of fakery - statistics that don’t mean what you think they mean...news that is meaningless...numbers that are false...‘facts’ that are fraudulent...and problems that are not really problems at all. No wonder the solutions are also fake!
So, along come leading democrats with a new one. The Washington Post: "Top Democrats convened a “WelcomeFest” event recently to discuss “abundance” - the hot new idea circulating in the Democratic Party. The debate has been fueled by a recent book, “Abundance,” by journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Well-meaning Democrats, it argues, have embraced so many complex rules and time-consuming procedures that government has all but lost its ability to produce - or get private companies to produce - obvious needs like affordable housing or high-speed rail."
Democrats are now proposing to ‘Get Sh*t Done’ - by cutting back on their own regulations. Yes, they’ll repair the damage that they caused...and avoid facing up to the real problem - themselves...by un-doing ‘improvements’ they made over the last five decades. After all, it was Democrats who ran the last two successful government programs - the Grand Coulee dam...and WWII. And they can do it again. Then, what do we have...abundance!
Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds. It includes, for example, building government-run grocery stores in poor neighborhoods. Supermarkets - even the most efficient ones - operate with very slender margins. Typically, they make about a three per cent profit on the goods they sell. What are the odds that a bureaucrat-run grocery store will keep a 3% margin? Approximately zero. The stores will lose money, just like Amtrak.
No matter. Build government-operated grocery stores all over the country. Hire thousands of clerks. Sell billions worth of purple drink and pop tarts. GDP goes up. Unemployment goes down. The statistics mayl never look better. But wait. A loss means that you’ve put more resources, capital, energy, and labor into a project than you get out of it. Real wealth is destroyed, not created. And as you destroy wealth, you end up with scarcity, not abundance. More to come..."
Prepper News, "Alert: How Close Are We To Nuclear War?"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 6/30/25
"Alert: How Close Are We To Nuclear War?"
Comments here:
Monday, June 30, 2025
"Warning: U.S. Dollar Crashing Worst In 52 Years, Economy Continues To Die Slowly"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/30/25
"Warning: U.S. Dollar Crashing Worst In 52 Years,
Economy Continues To Die Slowly"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Greater Than The Sum"
In ancient Greece, philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
wrote “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the below image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.
The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110524.html
"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass'"
"The Sometimes Hidden Beauty of ‘This Too Shall Pass'"
By Richard Haddad
"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence to be ever on view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.'" “This too shall pass.” The sentiment may be difficult to accept amidst so many hardships from lost jobs, lost businesses and lost lives.
This adage grew from the roots of a Persian fable and became known in the Western world primarily through a 19th-century retelling by the English poet Edward FitzGerald, who crafted the fable “Solomon’s Seal” in 1852 illustrating how the adage had the power to make a sad man happy but, conversely, a happy man sad. The fable was reportedly also employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States.
But the version I want to share today that I think is most beautiful and powerful was written in 1867 by American newspaper editor and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. He reworked the fable into a poem called “The King’s Ring.” Here again, the retooled adage wields a double-edged sword. It can help us endure the passage of difficult times, or keep our perspective and humility during good times. Here is the Tilton poem:
"The King’s Ring"
"Once in Persia reigned a King,
Who upon his signet-ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which, if held before his eyes,
Gave him counsel, at a glance,
Fit for every change or chance;
Solemn words, and these are they:
“Even this shall pass away.”
Trains of camels through the sand
Brought him gems from Samarcand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to rival these.
But he counted little gain
Treasures of the mine or main.
“What is wealth?” the King would say;
“Even this shall pass away.”
In the revels of his court,
At the zenith of the sport,
When the palms of all his guests
Burned with clapping at his jests,
He, amid his figs and wine,
Cried, “O loving friends of mine!
Pleasures come, but do not stay:
Even this shall pass away.”
Lady fairest ever seen
Was the bride he crowned the queen.
Pillowed on his marriage-bed,
Whispering to his soul, he said,
“Though no bridegroom never pressed
Dearer bosom to his breast,
Mortal flesh must come to clay:
Even this shall pass away.”
Fighting on a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield.
Soldiers with a loud lament
Bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning from his tortured side,
“Pain is hard to bear,” he cried,
“But with patience day by day,
Even this shall pass away.”
Towering in the public square
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his statue carved in stone.
Then the King, disguised, unknown,
Gazing at his sculptured name,
Asked himself, “And what is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay:
Even this shall pass away.”
Struck with palsy, sere and old,
Waiting at the Gates of Gold,
Spake he with his dying breath,
“Life is done, but what is Death?”
Then, in answer to the King,
Fell a sunbeam on his ring,
Showing by a heavenly ray -
“Even this shall pass away.”
I believe enduring well is an essential part of the test we must pass while on this Earth together. I am still taking this test. We all are. I also believe we must have a certain amount of faith and hope as we do all in our power to make things right in this world while also accepting that we don’t have the power to control all outcomes. I’ve been learning these truths and striving to apply them more in my own life. In the past I have sometimes hearkened to gloomy voices in the world. Many a time I entertained unnecessary doubt and worry. But I am learning that worry works against faith and hope. My mother once shared this other saying with me that I have tried to apply in my older years - “Worry is interest paid on money never borrowed.”
"May we all strive to endure, live and love well, for this too shall pass."
"The Constitution – The Past and Present"
"The Constitution – The Past and Present"
by Jeff Thomas
"In recent years, many Americans have become refocused on the Constitution in a spirit of returning the country to its original objectives and values. This is not surprising. The US has deteriorated, both economically and governmentally, to such a degree that the very structure of the US is in danger of collapse. Small wonder that many Americans are hoping for a return to the simplicity and unified focus that can be found in the country’s original “business plan.”
The framers of the American Constitution borrowed ideas from historical governmental structures, particularly the Roman Republic. They added a few new ideas and came up with a document that may well be the finest concept that has yet been written by which to govern a country.
It is difficult for us to grasp today that, at the time the new Republic was created, it was viewed by the rest of the world as an experiment. Not even the framers of the Constitution were convinced that the Republic would last. After all, the country was broke from having fought a major war, they had no currency of their own and none of them had previously held political office.
It has been stated that the Constitution is brilliant in its brevity; that it had not become bogged down in reams of detail. This is true. One only need look at the weighty Constitution of the European Union as an example of how not to write a constitution.
The implication of the simplicity of the Constitution is that the framers were fully in agreement on the basics, and, that they felt that the rest could be sorted out later by the Legislature. This is partly true – thankfully, the framers were not politicians and they did believe that simplicity was better. But the document is also brief because the committee of ten that wrote it disagreed so extensively on some basic concepts that it was difficult to get anything on paper that they could all accept.
They did agree that they would form a Republic and that it would be run by democracy. (Today, these words have, to some extent, lost their meaning. A republic is a form of government in which each citizen possesses stated rights… while democracy is only a means of governing, in which each citizen has an equal vote. The US is no longer a republic and it can be argued that it is no longer run by true democracy.)
From the beginning, the primary disagreement was the role of the Federal Government. John Adams, who later found the Federalist Party and became the first Federalist president, argued that a strong central government was essential to hold the states together (at that time, the word “state” meant “country”). Jefferson disagreed, arguing that “That government governs best that governs least,” and sought to have as minimal a central government as possible. Jefferson later helped found the Democratic Republican Party and became the first Democratic Republican president. To a great degree, Jefferson won out backed by the Constitution’s principle author, James Madison, and others.
However controversial the founding concepts were, we assume today that once the Constitution had been signed, that was it, done deal. But this was not so. Almost immediately the various factions began to “interpret” the Constitution and even recommend amendments… each seeking to bend the Constitution into the direction that would allow him to achieve his personal goals for the union. (Does this sound familiar?)
From the start, Alexander Hamilton (first Secretary of the Treasury) sought to create taxation. When Jefferson admonished him by saying that they had just fought a war to end taxation by King George, Hamilton responded that this taxation was different, as they would be the recipients of the money, not the king. This event should remind us that in every country, in every era, there will always be those who adjust their ideals according to whether or not they themselves are in power. At that time, Hamilton also attempted to create the Bank of the United States — a federal bank.
To Americans today, Jefferson has emerged as the hero of the Constitution and deservedly so. As president, however, when he had the opportunity to purchase Louisiana for the bargain price of $15,000,000… he couldn’t resist. He had previously often argued that the central government should not make major expenditures and then pass the bill to the states. Yet at the time, the Louisiana Purchase was the greatest expenditure that had yet been considered by the Federal Government. Jefferson made possible the western expansion of the US by making the purchase. But in doing so, he allowed future presidents to take on huge expenditures. Was he right to sacrifice his own principles in order to do so?
This trend continues today on a grand scale. Even the most conservative politicians have their pet projects they feel should be fully funded… while de-funding the projects of others. Human nature dictates that while we may strive to agree on basic principles, as soon as we have agreed, we begin making exceptions. Human nature also dictates that power corrupts. In the early days of the union, Washington, Jefferson and even Adams believed that to accept public office when called upon was a duty… but… that having completed a term or two, it was time to return to the farm. Yet they all found that once having been in office, they were reluctant to leave.
So, where does this leave us today? Has nothing changed? Actually yes, there have been significant changes… each one for the worse. First, beginning with John Quincy Adams, the concept of career politician has come into existence. Ideally, each candidate for office should have had an alternate career prior to running for office. At the very least, this would provide some objectivity. But career politicians generally have a very poor grasp of the real world, because they have never worked in it.
Second, the bureaucracy has become so ponderous that the bureaucracy itself routinely takes precedent over the best interests of the country in the present day, pork is still being seen as more important to legislators than a balanced budget.
The US is now entering the greatest period of crisis since the creation of the union itself. What will be the fate of the Constitution? Will it be discarded? Will there be revolution?
I believe that the answer will be that the Constitution will remain… but will have ever-decreasing significance. The reasons are these: First, politicians of today no longer represent the voters. They represent those who pay for their campaigns. These groups are already in control of the country and, to them, the Constitution is irrelevant. Second, all Americans receive benefits of some kind from the federal government. They can wave the flag all they want, but when their pet entitlements are threatened, they will scream bloody murder. The fact that the entitlements are not allowed for in the Constitution will have little significance.
In the end, with or without electoral shakeups, with or without a second revolution, Americans will argue in favor of their own entitlements and against the entitlements of others. This is not an issue that will reach a resolution. Just as in ancient Rome, once the republic had become watered down to the point of corruption on the one side, and entitlements on the other, the republic had run its course and the slow collapse began. Concurrently, the “barbarians” (the third-world of their day) took the lead both economically and governmentally and Rome became a backwater.
The writing of the American Constitution was a high-water mark in governmental history. Today, however, the truth is that not even those who profess to honor it would be prepared to make the sacrifice necessary to live by it. Just like the Romans before them who settled for “bread and circuses”, rather than economic recovery, Americans will choose the inevitable decline of their country rather than give up “entitlements.”
If you've made it to the end of this piece, you understand what so many refuse to admit: the Constitution may still exist, but its influence is fading fast - and with it, the principles that once made the United States unique. As explained above, the decay is not just political or philosophical - it’s systemic, financial, and accelerating. The parallels to ancient Rome are no longer cautionary tales; they are playing out in real time."
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