"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI)is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding,safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
3I/ATLAS Is an Artificial PROBE Breaking Physics!"
"Four of humanity’s most powerful telescopes - James Webb, Hubble, SPHEREx, and TESS - have just delivered the same shocking verdict. Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is breaking every rule of physics, chemistry, and orbital mechanics. What began as a faint comet now appears to be a vast, engineered machine.
Infrared scans from Webb revealed bursts of metal-rich exhaust that lined up with flickers of acceleration, like thrusters firing. Hubble detected light scattering exactly like polished metal, not dusty ice. SPHEREx found a compact internal heat source - far hotter than the Sun could explain - glowing with industrial metals like tungsten and nickel. And TESS showed its tail shifting from red to neon green, accelerating steadily as if powered by a plasma drive.
The data leaves little room for natural explanations. Together, these telescopes have built the first case for an interstellar probe under intelligent control. And now, 3I/ATLAS’s path brings it terrifyingly close to Mars. Will it collide, skim the atmosphere, or reveal itself to our orbiters This could be the moment history changes forever."
They've discovered 4, possibly 6, larger objects coming in on the same exact vector as I3/Atlas, which may be a scout ship for a larger fleet arriving in strength. Their purpose unknown, all conjecture at this point, but data verified. We shall see... - CP
"This song is from our album, "The Emerald Way". The Emerald Way refers to that moment in life when a pivotal choice must be made – to choose the way that is customary and expected of us – or to head down the overgrown hidden path leading to the unknown."
"A gorgeous spiral galaxy, M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy. This sharp optical view of the well-known galaxy made from ground-based image data was processed to preserve details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104's bright central bulge.
Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen across the spectrum, and is host to a central supermassive black hole. About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Still the colorful spiky foreground stars in this field of view lie well within our own Milky Way galaxy. "
Laramie Wyoming - "Not many people know that the Judgement of Paris was preceded by the Golden Apple of Discord. But if you didn't before, you do now! And given the week we’ve just had, it might be a good time to revisit this ancient story of love and strife, before we dive back into financial markets, rate cuts, and more tomorrow.
Eris was the Greek god of Strife. It may seem a little weird that the Greeks HAD a goddess of Strife. But that tells you chaos, discord, and strife are part of the human condition and not anything modern or new. The Roman goddess of Strife was named Discordia, which will be important to our story in a moment. Back to Eris.
Unlike other more important gods, Eris wasn’t invited to the marriage of the sea nymph Thetis and Peleus, a mortal king. She decided to cause a little chaos as a result. She inscribed a golden apple into the wedding banquet with the words ‘To the Fairest’ written on it. The Greek word for fairest is ‘Kallisti.’
Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each claimed the apple was obviously meant for her. A dispute ensued. The female gods turned to Zeus for a final decision on who ‘the fairest’ was. Being a wise man, Zeus wanted nothing to do with the argument. Instead, he appointed a mortal, Paris, a prince of Troy, to be judge. ‘The Judgement of Paris’ is the famous name given to the choice Paris made.
The thing is, not trusting in their own beauty (or the good judgement of Paris), each of the goddesses tried to bribe him. Proving that things never change, it worked, at least for one of them. Aphrodite promised Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world if he chose her. Paris gave Aphrodite the Golden Apple (of discord) and Aphrodite caused Helen of Sparta to be in love with Paris. Happily ever after. Blah blah blah. End of story, right?
Nope. The trouble, as you probably know now, is that Helen was already married to Menelaeus, the King of Sparta. Paris didn’t let a small matter like that get between him and true love. He abducted (or eloped, depending on how you read it) with Helen and took her back across the wine dark sea to Troy.
The ten-year Trojan war–which resulted in the fall and sack of Troy and the death of Paris, his brother Hector, and his father Priam followed. Paris did manage to kill the Greek warrior Achilles in the war, firing an arrow that was directed by the god Apollo and hitting Achilles in the only area of his body not protected by divine intervention, the heel.
The story of the return of the Greeks back home, "The Odyssey," is currently being made into a movie by the director Christopher Nolan. We tell these stories because they are timeless and remind us that people haven’t changed much. But for now, the point: Discord is not a deity. But it is a part of human history and will be part of the future too. A big part of present as well!
Discord the name of a social media technology that facilitated a revolution in Nepal this week. Given the week that the world had, you can be forgiven if you missed what happened. But it’s worth passing on quickly. Gen Z (younger Nepalese who are savvy with technology) used Discord servers to organize and protest a corrupt communist government in Nepal, and even voted in their choice to replace the disgraced former Prime Minister. It all happened lighting fast.
The government tried to silence dissent by imposing a social media blackout. It didn’t work. Discord servers–which are a little like live chat rooms where people can talk to each other live and share files and links–became the main tool for organizing the first digital revolution of its kind in the world.
It was a pretty amazing story. You can read about it now on-line. My favorite part was the Finance Minister fleeing naked into a river after being chased by an angry mob. That’s the kind of accountability we should expect from the people who manipulate the value of our money and influence (negatively) the quality of our lives.
In any case, discord (and Discord servers) are part of the modern landscape. Since our beat here is money, we’d like to suggest that most of these problems have their ‘root causes’ in the money. When the value of the money goes…all values tend to go with it. If that’s true, your best bet in the current chaos is to hang on to your values and those things most valuable to you. As investors, that means objects of permanent value like gold, precious metals, and high quality companies. As people, that means friends, family, your relationship with God (if you have one). And don’t forget your furry friends too. My brother’s dog Bandit crossed the Rainbow Bridge this week, which sucked.
It’s a big week coming up with the Fed meeting. We’ll be on the case. In the meantime, you’ll find a quick review of the week that was below. Have a good Sunday and get outside from some fresh air and peace and quiet."
"P.S. If you found the story of Eris and Paris thought provoking, you might do what I just did and pick up a copy of "The Essential Classics: An Anthology of Greco-Roman Literature." The hardcover edition from late last year has an introduction from my old managing editor Van Bryan, and a forward from Anya Leonard. Long-time readers will recognize Anya as the head of Classical Wisdom, a project she and Bill Bonner began years ago. Anya’s been running the show on her own for years and sometimes even gets some help from old BPR collaborator Joel Bowman (her husband). The book is a must have for lovers of books and of Classical Wisdom."
"When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair."
- Blaise Pascal
Ahh, but it does...
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“When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.”
- Scott Russell Sanders
Folks, I fear our time for such reverence is upon us.
A brief report from the thin line between the living and the dying...
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "We’ll hit the pause button today. We’ll catch up with the economy tomorrow. Herewith, for no particular reason and of no particular importance, is what happened over the weekend. “Is it still alive?” Elizabeth wanted to know. The poor kitten, one of four she had rescued, had been brought into the office. There, she tried to nurse it…with extra rations and a warm blanket. But it wasn’t looking good.
The four kittens were just part of a litter at a neighbor’s house. Born in a barn to a stray cat, they weren’t likely to survive for very long. Elizabeth had grabbed those she could reach and brought them home. “I’ll try to find homes for them.” After a couple of days of feeding and cleaning up, three seemed to be doing well – playing in the yard…jumping…happily amusing themselves by getting into everything. The other one barely moved.
Death in the Fall: It was a beautiful fall weekend in this part of France. The sky was clear. The days were warm. And the nights were crisp, with a bright moon leaving long dark shadows across the lawn. A few of the trees have begun to shed their leaves…one or two of them danced on the breeze before disappearing into a ditch. But the bulk of the autumnal dying is still ahead.
On Sunday, we went to a special mass, a memorial to a local girl who died in an accident many years ago. “She was so pretty and so smart,” explained a friend. “Her father and mother adored her, of course. They expected her to take over the family business. But when she died the whole family fell apart. They just couldn’t get over it. The mother started drinking. She was okay for a while, then she’d go on a binge. Finally, she got lung cancer from smoking so much. She was thin as a rail. They spent years fighting the cancer…alcoholism…and depression. She died last year. And the poor father. He used to be so outgoing. So sociable. He had a career in politics. Everyone liked him. And then, he just closed in on himself.”
We saw him in church. Stooped. Gray. He looked much older than we remembered him. Along with many others, we had come to pay our respects to him. But as soon as the service was over, he slipped out of the side door.
Elizabeth coached us as we were making our way out of the church. “There’s Jean-Jacques. He lost his wife last year.” “What was her name?” “Francoise…be sure to say something to him. And there’s Marie-Juliette, don’t forget to ask how Rene is doing.” “Who’s Rene?” “Her husband…he had an operation; I can’t remember what kind of operation.” “Oh, you know…” Marie-Juliette replied. “He has good days and bad days… He had a heart operation; the surgeon was very pleased with it. But it didn’t seem to do Rene much good.”
Middle Ages: Friends gathered in front of the ancient church, built in the middle ages. We exchanged greetings…and thoughts that the old stones must have heard 1,000 times.
“It’s hard getting old,” our friend continued. “So many things can go wrong. I think of all the people we know who are widows or widowers. And so many our age who can’t get around because they have some problem.” He listed a few. One neighbor spends his days in a wheelchair; he has a degenerative nerve disease. Another has such a serious case of arthritis, her hands and feet have twisted…making it difficult to walk. Still others are dying of this or that. “I guess we are all going the same way, sooner or later. And I guess we should be grateful that we’re not there yet.”
Back at home, “How are the kittens doing?” we asked Elizabeth. “The vet said to keep the sick one warm…and bring them in tomorrow, if they’re still alive.”
From across the road, Claude and Christine came to visit. Claude limped. He is much younger than we are, but much heavier…and a farmer. He’s had to stop work. One knee was repaired. He shifted his weight onto the other one. “Now they say I have to have my left knee operated on too, because I’ve been using it too much. Then, it will be another 6 months off work. I’m going a little crazy sitting around the house.” Christine nodded her head in agreement.
Deep France: “But did you hear the good news? Well, maybe it’s not good news for you. Your renters are leaving you. [We rent out two tiny houses on our property.] “What a shock. I saw that they were getting along well…but I was surprised. They’re moving out so they can move into a bigger place – together.”
The shock of it comes from the fact that one of our tenants is 62 years old and already retired. Paul, a disabled electrician, has an earring, which seems uncharacteristically fashionable for this area. This is ‘la France profonde’ – deep France – where the fashions of Paris seem far away…and generally unwelcome. Paul has a bad hip. The other renter is a young woman in her 30s. Heavily tattooed and extremely shy, she might have some disability of her own. Improbably, they got together.
Later in the day, Paul came over to ask permission to break the lease. Then, explaining his new living arrangement: “I didn’t expect it. But you never know. These things happen. I just hope it lasts.” “Best of luck to you both,” we said, as we raised a coffee mug.
By Sunday evening, the kitten was still breathing. But barely. We studied it. It was alive. Prodded, it could move its paws. It murmured once or twice. We watched as it struggled for breath. There is such a thin line between the living and the dead…sometime during the night, the line was crossed. Breathing stopped. These things happen."
“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.” - Roger Waters
“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” – Clive Maund
“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James
“A lie gets halfway around the world before
the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
– Winston Churchill
"30 years ago (1985) Neil Postman (a professor of communications arts and sciences at New York University – until his death in 2003) wrote the best-selling book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”. (Free download below.) The book exposed, among other things, the subtle but profound dangers to the developing mind from the mesmerizing (and addictive) commercial television industry.
The lessons from that book have essentially been ignored by the amoral and corrupted sociopathic capitalist system that says “damn the torpedoes/full steam ahead” and blindly and greedily promotes unlimited growth no matter what the costs and who or what gets hurt long–term in the resource-extractive, exploitive and permanently polluting processes.
But Postman’s thesis applies even more strongly today to the current internet/computer/ age-inappropriate, pornographic sex and pornographic violence-saturated televangelist/political-contaminated media reality with which the prophetic Postman was properly alarmed.
SOMA, the Drug That Predicted Prozac by 50 Years: In the classic “Brave New World” (1932) Aldous Huxley wrote about the new form of totalitarianism that has now come to pass in the developed world, thanks to the privatized profit-driven, drug, medical and psychiatric corporations whose practitioners were once (naively or altruistically?) mainly concerned with relieving human suffering and trying to holistically and permanently cure their distressed patients’ ailments (rather than lucratively “managing” said “clients” as permanently paying consumers of unaffordable prescription drugs). Nearly 30 years after he wrote the book, Huxley said,
“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” Neil Postman’s very last sentence of his book concerned the prescription drug-infested victims of the new form of totalitarianism that Huxley had described in “Brave New World”.
Of course, Huxley’s book was all about his imaginary psychotropic drug SOMA that Prozac’s makers and promoters in the late 1980s to falsely claim to make its swallowers “feel better than well”. One of the characters in Brave New World said: “And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears; that’s what Soma is.”
Postman ended his book by writing: “What afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” A couple of years after the publication of Postman’s book, Roger Waters (of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” fame) released a “concept” album that was inspired by the book. He titled the album “Amused to Death”. The lyrics of the title track are as follows:
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books.
What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to
ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one...
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those
who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism...
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance...
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we
would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent
of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy...
As Huxley remarked in 'Brave New World Revisited', the civil libertarians and the rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In '1984,' Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World,' they are controlled by inflicting pleasure...In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
Excerpt: "A fundamental tension between two forces marks every society. These two forces are often referred to by various names, including conservative and liberal, traditionalist and progressive, among others. One side wants to maintain the status quo and uphold traditional values, while the other seeks to make changes and improve the social structure. This fundamental opposition in every human society is not exclusively a left-right divide. This divide existed long before the left-right political spectrum existed. It is also not necessarily a matter of politics. Defenders of the status quo can exist in business, technology, agrarian conglomerates, hypersonic 4th-dimensional alien spaceships (probably), and subreddits.
Here are two facts about the two sides in this divide:
First, one of the sides justifies itself by faith, and the other justifies itself by reason.
Second, one of these two sides is not consistently correct. Sometimes, neither side is.
Socrates Had It Coming: The life and death of Socrates provides insight into this divide. Socrates was wise because he recognized the limitations of his knowledge. He gave himself a standard: if it cannot be demonstrated through reason, there is no way to tell if something is true. He traveled around, asking people questions to find out if anyone had any good reason to know anything. It turns out that nobody had a good reason to know anything they thought they knew. The people of Athens got tired of this, so they killed him.
In his dialogue with Euthyphro, Socrates inquires about the nature of piety. Euthyphro’s father likely murdered a servant, and Euthyphro is on his way to testify against his father. Socrates immediately recognizes that Euthyphro is a pious man. Only a righteous man would put the interests of justice over familial interests.
Recognizing that Euthyphro is pious, Socrates desperately tries to get Euthyphro to explain his piety. He is practicing piety, so he must be able to give a conclusive description of the nature of piety. Euthyphro’s justifications end up relying on the gods. Socrates is dissatisfied. Neither can figure out if the gods love the good because it is good, or if the good is good because the gods love it. Euthyphro eventually becomes annoyed and confused and exits the conversation.
This is not a good thing, at least in the moment. Socrates ultimately confused a good and just man about the nature of goodness and justice. What if Euthyphro, in his confusion, decided not to testify against his father? In the long run, though, it is a good conversation because, presumably, such conversations bring us closer to the nature of goodness. Eventually.
Socrates continues to have these conversations, and the Athenians are becoming increasingly upset. They have a good society going, and this ugly old man keeps accosting people and confusing them. Upper-class young men of Athens think it is cool and probably edgy that Socrates is confusing the lawmakers, businesspeople, and soldiers of Athens about the reasons behind their actions. It is pretty edgy. He is undermining the social order.
Socrates is put on trial. At his trial, he testifies that some guy named Chaerophon asked the Oracle and Delphi who the wisest man ever was. The Oracle says that the gods say Socrates. Socrates testifies that this was the impetus for his inquisitive quest. He knows nothing, so how could he be the wisest? He had to test everyone to see if they knew anything, because then he would have found someone wiser. Socrates spoke to every supposedly wise person and discovered they were not wise; he made many enemies. He testifies that this endeavor served Oracle because he vindicated Oracle's statement by proving that nobody knew anything.
Socrates presents compelling arguments throughout his trial, defending himself against his accusers and speaking the plain, rational truth. And Socrates is right. He states that he will not abandon philosophy, even unto death. He likens himself to Achilles, defending his honor at all costs. His post is philosophy. If he abandons his post, the subsequent dishonor would be worse than death. The fear of death is only the pretense of wisdom. One cannot be certain what comes next or whether it will be worse or better than the present. To choose the assured evil of indignity and dishonor over the possible good of death would be foolish and unwise. He will not quit philosophy because he wants men to focus on the highest things and improve their souls.
Bringing someone to see the light of the good, true, and beautiful can be a slow and painful process. The cave allegory in the Republic teaches this lesson. There may be temporary negative externalities, such as Euthyphro forgetting to testify against his father as he ponders the nature of justice and piety. If everyone stops doing and thinks all the time, who will harvest the crops or defend the city? There is a lot to do and little time for thinking. Socrates is disrupting their productive activities by confusing them and forcing them to think, rather than fulfilling their other duties. But Socrates also makes people more virtuous. This seems like an impasse.
But it is not an impasse. The court makes the optimal decision. By killing Socrates, the court stops his disruption, but it does not stop philosophy. Socrates warns that, by killing him, they will make more people interested in his story, and more people will encourage virtue, wisdom, and thoughtful consideration. Yes! This is what Socrates wants, is it not? Socrates is a nuisance because he interferes with the city's day-to-day affairs. Remove the immediate nuisance, and philosophy continues. And it did. Plato wrote down the dialogues and started a school. Aristotle learned from Plato and also started a school. Philosophy continued."
"I am celebrating a good friend’s 70th birthday, which means I have limited time to write. I interviewed Andrei Martyanov on Thursday, before traveling to my friend’s town, and took time out today to chat with Nima since I was unable to make our usual Friday gig.
I am very troubled by the unbridled hatred some are expressing towards Charlie Kirk. It is callous, inhuman and evil in my view. Charlie did something remarkable in building up Turning Point USA into a potent political player. I do not agree with nor endorse all of his statements during his brief career. But I also recognize that he was still a young man who was changing some of his positions, particularly with reference to the Zionist cause. We will never know if he would have made the full conversion to denouncing the Zionist genocide of the Palestinians, but I believe he was on his way. The key point is that nothing he said justified the use of force to silence him. If you don’t understand that, then you are a morally flawed person in my view. You only kill someone who poses an imminent threat to you of death or grievous bodily harm. Anything short of that is murder.
My apologies for not being able to write more. I’ll do better tomorrow. Looks like Russia is making major advances in the Donbas."
"Four brand new Moscow metro stations have just been opened in Moscow. One of them is even in my neighborhood, Akademicheskaya. Come with me as I take you on a tour of all four of these futuristic stations. To make it even more interesting we will do the tour at midnight. This will not only show how clean and modern these stations are but how I feel this is the safest metro system in the world!"
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