"How the Fed's Money Printing Broke American Industry - and What Comes Next"

"How the Fed's Money Printing Broke 

American Industry - and What Comes Next"

by David Stockman

"You can bet the 12 purported geniuses on the FOMC have never looked at the graph below. It shows that for all their wild-ass money printing in recent years, the US index of manufacturing output stands at 101.39, which is nearly 5% below the level reached on the eve of the financial crisis in December 2007.

That’s right. The US manufacturing economy has been shrinking in real physical terms for the past 18 years, notwithstanding the fact that during that interval the Fed has printed nearly $6 trillion in brand, spanking new money that it snatched from thin air. So something big and bad happened after the Fed went all in on money-printing in response to the stock market meltdown in the fall of 2008. After all, during the 28 years between 1972 and 2000 the very opposite occurred. Manufacturing output in the US rose by nearly 150%, which translates to a 3.3% growth rate per annum.

Yet there is no mystery as to why manufacturing output abruptly went flatter than a board after the Financial Crisis. To wit, the mad money-printers in the Eccles Building simply inflated the bejesus out of the US economy at a time when what was urgently needed was a stern deflation of an already inflation-bloated industrial sector.

Here’s the thing: the price of a Pilates studio session or dentist visit is mainly driven by supply and demand balances in local markets, but with today’s shipping and communications technology, the manufacture of durable goods is subject to ferocious global competition. Indeed, when you look at the current fully loaded (for fringes and benefits) wage rates among major foreign suppliers, it is no wonder that the output of US-manufactured goods has flatlined.

Average Fully Loaded Manufacturing Wages Per Hour in 2024:

• Vietnam: $3.50
• India: $4.50
• Mexico: $5.00
• China: $6.00
• S. Korea: $20.50
• Canada: $22.00
• Japan: $28.00
• UK: $30.00
• EU-27: $32.50
• USA: $44.25

Well, for crying out loud! What’s the mystery? The USA has priced itself out of the global manufacturing market, which is exactly why America has been running chronic and massive trade deficits that reached the staggering annual level of $1.2 trillion in 2024. Indeed, the collapse of America’s trade balance has been relentless over the last 30 years, with the deficit rising by 10X, from $10 billion to $100 billion. Per month!

And, no, POTUS, foreign trading partners did not suddenly turn into ever-worsening unfair trade cheats in the last three decades. The cause of the plunging line below is domiciled on the banks of the Potomac, not in foreign capitals.

The vast gap between US manufacturing wages and those of our major trading partners has been building relentlessly since the early 1990s, when Greenspan put the Fed in the monetary central planning business. Back then, the fully loaded US manufacturing wage was about $18.50 per hour, meaning that it has risen in nominal terms by 2.4X since then.

However, owing to the Fed’s relentless pro-inflation policies, the CPI index has risen by 124%, meaning that in 2024 dollars, the 1992 fully loaded manufacturing wage was $41.10 per hour. Accordingly, workers who managed to keep their jobs gained barely 7% over one-third of a century from all of the Fed’s pro-inflation money printing, even as the ever-rising level of nominal US wages made blue-collar workers a sitting duck in global markets. Again, for want of doubt, see the gaping fully loaded international manufacturing wage levels in US dollars shown above.

Of course, the Fed’s fanboys on Wall Street say not to worry - productivity gains will offset the nominal wage gains. That was partially true for a few years during the technology-driven productivity boom of the 1990s, but no more. Since 2007 unit labor costs in US manufacturing have soared by +53%, which exactly coincides with the deep plunge in the US trade deficit in goods after the turn of the century.

In short, what America really needed from the early 1990s onward, as the China export machine and its worldwide supply chain came to life, was zero inflation at worst and ideally a spell of price, wage, and cost deflation to offset the vast ballooning of US production costs after Tricky Dick Nixon severed the dollar’s link to gold in August 1971. Between that date and mid-1992, the general price level in the US rose by 250%, and now stands at 700% above its June 1971 level. Is there any wonder, then, that the US has priced itself out of the global manufacturing market?

Of course, this sheer monetary insanity is justified by the Fed on the grounds that inflation is good for prosperity, at least to the extent of 2.00% annually, year in and year out. Except there is not a shred of historical evidence or sound economic logic to justify the Fed’s sacred 2.00% target. It’s just a handy excuse for running the printing presses at rates which please the gamblers on Wall Street and the Spenders in Washington.

Industrial production is the heart of the modern economy and the main source of sustainable gains in real output and living standards. Even a half-assed assessment of the world in 1990 would have told any honest and capable monetary central planner that wringing out some of the 250% increase in the domestic cost and price level that had accumulated since Camp David was imperative if the US was to remain competitive in global markets.

Alas, the Keynesian fools who took over the nation’s central bank under Greenspan’s leadership cooked up a closed bathtub style model of the US economy, and conferred upon themselves the Keynesian mission of keeping "aggregate demand" full to the brim via low interest rates and massive injections of fiat credits into the nation’s financial markets. That was a drastic error from the get-go, but the money-printing gospel is of such convenience to both ends of the Acela Corridor that this cardinal pro-inflation error rolls forward unquestioned by both wings of the UniParty.

Accordingly, with inflation stalled at more than 3.0%, when it should be zero or negative, the Fed has again sung the Einstein Chorus. That is to say, these "insane" apparatchiks seem to believe that doing the same thing over and over again - even after 700% inflation - will finally generate a positive outcome. Decades of reckless money-printing have hollowed out America’s industrial core and set the stage for the next great financial upheaval."

- https://internationalman.com/

Bill Bonner, "Burning Down the House"

"Burning Down the House"

by Bill Bonner

“Oh, you’re surprised Jeff Epstein committed suicide?

 Imagine how surprised Jeff must have been.”

Baltimore, Maryland - "Gosh…what is in those Epstein Files? Enough to change the US system of government? Maybe.

There are three branches of the ‘tri-partite’ government. Executive, Legislative. Judicial. Congress makes the laws. The administration executes the laws. And the courts resolve controversies. The idea is that they work together, one challenging and limiting the other. That is the system of checks and balances that is meant to protect ‘our democracy.’

Future generations of historians will no doubt marvel at how easily and quickly the three-part system was tossed overboard. Already, many important pieces of it are in the water — the ‘war power’…the budget power…trade policy…and much more. “Laws” are still written, but at the president’s request. And now, Trump’s man in Congress, Mike Johnson, has simply closed down the House.

This is not at all the same thing as the ‘shutdown’ of the federal government we’ve been hearing about. The feds have shut down executive functions, not legislative functions. But Mr. Johnson has closed the House too. Why? You would think that representatives would have something to talk about. Fortune:

The U.S. national debt has surged past $38 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, just two months after surpassing previous forecasts to reach $37 trillion in August. This means the federal debt rose by $1 trillion in a little over two months, which the Peter G. Peterson Foundation calculates is the fastest rate of growth outside the pandemic. Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the nonpartisan watchdog dedicated to fiscal sustainability, said this landmark is “the latest troubling sign that lawmakers are not meeting their basic fiscal duties.” In a statement provided to Fortune, Peterson said that “if it seems like we are adding debt faster than ever, that’s because we are. We passed $37 trillion just two months ago, and the pace we’re on is twice as fast as the rate of growth since 2000.”

Peterson emphasized that the costs of carrying this debt are mounting rapidly. Interest payments on the national debt now total roughly $1 trillion per year, the fastest-growing category in the federal budget. Over the last decade, the government spent $4 trillion on interest, and Peterson calculated that it will balloon to $14 trillion over the next 10 years. He said that money “crowds out important public and private investments in our future.”

But the House - meant to be where the peoples’ representatives solve this kind of problem - is as silent as a tomb. No hearings. No investigative reports. No committee meetings. Of course, the House will re-open soon, right? After all, it has work to do. But what if it never really opens again?

According to internet scuttlebutt, one of the reasons for the closure may be that POTUS and other powerful figures do not want to see their names in the Epstein files. And if the House reconvenes, Speaker Johnson will be forced to seat the newly-elected Adelita Grijalva, who has said she would provide the final vote necessary to bring the files to light. It seems unbelievable that the House could be put out of business over a single vote on a non-essential subject, but would anyone miss it? Maybe not.

Congress could easily end the shutdown by coming to an agreement on healthcare subsidies. Other disputes, too, could be readily resolved in the familiar way - in which both sides agree to spend more money. But how do you compromise on the Epstein files? The Biden administration didn’t want to release them. And now, neither does the Trump team. They promised to do so, but then Biden Administration didn’t want to release them. And now, neither does the Trump team. They promised to do so…but then they insisted that they never had any files. It was a ‘hoax,’ said POTUS. And there was nothing to see in them, anyway.

That is possibly true. But Bill Clinton reportedly visited Epstein’s island 28 times. What were they talking about? And Trump was supposed to have been Epstein’s “closest friend” for ten years, according to audiotapes recorded by journalist Michael Wolf and reported by Salon. Maybe those files would be devastating, not just to a few high-profile men…but also to the tight relationship between the US and Israeli intelligence.

Which leads us to wonder if the House will ever re-open as long as the threat of complete release of the Epstein files remains a risk. After less than a year of the second Trump term Americans have gotten used to being governed by the Big Man. Hardly a day goes by that he fails to announce a fresh policy - never discussed or approved by Congress. Trump does this, says one headline. Trump does that, says another. There appears to be no limit to what POTUS can do.

So why do we need a House of Representatives? In Germany, the Reichstag was burned in 1933. In the US, will the House be simply cancelled? And how hard would it be to shift legislative power to the Big Man? All Mike Johnson has to do is play dead. If he doesn’t re-open the House soon, Trump may be forced to assume emergency powers. And who could blame him? Stay tuned."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Full screen recommended.

Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House"

Jim Kunstler, "Reality v. Garbage"

Pretty silicone virtual girlfriends all in a row.

"Reality v. Garbage"

by Jim Kunstler

"The business incentives driving consumer AI development 

remain fundamentally misaligned with reducing hallucinations." 

-The Singularity Hub on "X"

"Which is to say, there is Reality, and then there is every other cockamamie aggregate of simulation pretending to represent Reality, i.e. garbage. How many millions among us already subscribe to the latter? Apparently, lots, and they are not evenly distributed these days. You surely know where to look for the un-Reality. The party of men can get pregnant, and all the rest. . . .

Enter A-I to make things worse. Probably a lot worse. We have failed to learn the chief lesson of the computer age, which is that the virtual is not an acceptable substitute for the authentic. So, we plunge deeper into realms of the un-real and the inauthentic. This turns into a quest to get something-for-nothing, and the unfortunate result of that old dodge is that you will end up with nothing, and that is exactly why we are at such a hazardous pass in the human project.

I apologize if the above seems too metaphysical. But that’s the scenery en route when a civilization flies up its own wazoo. Novelist Cory Doctorow has nicely labeled this the enshitification of daily life.

First of all, get this: A-I has already quit operating as-advertised. It has lost the “I” part. A-I does its thing by rapidly combing through the Internet to evaluate and seize information that you request. Increasingly, A-I colonizes the Internet with second-hand, third-hand, and so forth A-I-generated information. The more territory A-I seizes on the Web, and the more it trains itself on recursive feedbacks of its own garbage, the more distorted the output gets. As that occurs, A-I becomes increasingly abstracted from Reality, which is exactly what happens when a person goes insane. So, expect an exponential rise in incorrect content that would, in theory, become a pretty serious problem when you ask A-I to run things like systems we depend on, the electric grid, harvesting crops, warfare. . . .

Secondly, as that process runs, and probably before it gets very far, A-I looks like it will wreck the financial system, which, in turn, would crater the economy of everyday life - the ability of people to earn a living, buy stuff, support children, get food, and stay out of the rain. Zillions of dollars are being invested in A-I now and lately it is mainly what drives the capital markets. So far, alas, return on that investment is scant - actually, negative. The situation might never improve, and as the recognition hits, look out below. The only question is whether that happens before the central banks destroy the world’s currencies with money-printing.

One A-I application, robotaxi services such as Waymo, have never turned a profit. Will they ever? Doesn’t look good. Notice, too, that the elimination of cab-drivers means X-number fewer humans making a living to buy stuff (presumably made by other people in other jobs soon to be replaced by robots). Of course, that’s the self-replicating problem with all applied A-I in every field of employment. The more jobs eliminated, the fewer customers for anything. Please don’t tell me that guaranteed basic income fixes that problem.

In desperation - and due to certain weaknesses of human nature - another early attempt to monetize applied A-I turns out to be pornography: create your own personalized sex fantasy to-order. Companies are already producing the first rudimentary A-I sex robots, which, let’s face it, amounts to a masturbation industry. Why bother cultivating a real-live girlfriend when you can fall into the pre-heated silicone embrace of a Jennifer Lawrence simulation that will never talk back or ask for anything? You can easily see how that would result in a whole lot less human reproduction - of which there is already a signal shortage in Western Civ - meaning even fewer people to work at anything or buy anything or do anything, or simply be here in the pageant of Planet Earth.

The A-I pioneers managed to make the situation worse from the get-go. The Open A-I company’s Chat GPT, Google’s Gemini and Bard A-Is, and Facebook’s Meta A-I are all trained-up to be politically Woke-to-the-max, meaning on any given issue in the public arena their output is one patent absurdity or another. Note: last April, conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Facebook when its chatbot reported out falsely that he had been on-the-scene for the Jan 6, 2021 US Capitol protest (he was in Tennessee that day). Facebook’s parent company, Meta, settled the case with Starbuck in August, 2025, for undisclosed terms and the company apologized publicly.

Two days ago, Mr. Starbuck sued Google for defamation (with malice and negligence) when it’s Bard A-I output alleged that he was a “child rapist,” a “serial sexual abuser,” that he abused and stalked his ex-wife (Starbuck states in his lawsuit that he has no ex-wife). It accused him further of fraud, embezzlement, drug charges, stalking business partners, and being a “shooter” or “person of interest” in a 1991 murder case (Starbuck was two years old at the time), of appearing in Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs (untrue), working as a porn actor, and voicing support for the Ku Klux Klan.

The A-I cited non-existent news articles from outlets such as Newsweek, The New York Post, Rolling Stone, Mediaite, The Daily Beast, and Salon, along with fake URLs and headlines (e.g., “Robby Starbuck Responds to Murder Accusations”). Starbuck demonstrated this in a podcast episode on October 22–23, 2025, where he queried the A-I live.

Google spokesman José Castañeda attributed the issues to its A-I “hallucinating” — which tells you that the recursive feedback of garbage content in A-I is already well-advanced. Prepare for ever more interesting mischief, while you watch your portfolio of index stocks go up in a vapor."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

"Philadelphia Homeless Crisis 2025: Walking Through America’s Forgotten Hell"

Full screen recommended.

US Homeless Stories, 10/23/25

"Philadelphia Homeless Crisis 2025:

 Walking Through America’s Forgotten Hell"

"Philadelphia - once called the City of Brotherly Love - now hides a heartbreaking reality behind its historic streets. In this episode of US Homeless Stories, we walk through Kensington, a neighborhood where despair and addiction have created one of America’s most shocking humanitarian crises. This documentary takes you deep inside Philadelphia’s homeless hell - where fentanyl dominates, tents stretch for blocks, and human suffering unfolds in plain sight. You’ll hear the real voices of those forgotten by society, struggling each day to survive the chaos of 2025. Through unfiltered street footage and emotional interviews, we expose the hidden face of urban poverty and the collapse of a system meant to protect its people. Welcome to a side of America most never see - raw, painful, and real. Share your thoughts in the comments - what would you do if this was your city?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "More Sanctions On Russia, More War On Venezuela, More Money For Argentine, No Money For Us"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 10/23/25

"More Sanctions On Russia, More War On Venezuela,

 More Money For Argentine, No Money For Us"

"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."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Walmarts Will Be Danger Zones, Grocery Stores Will Be Very Unsafe Very Soon"

Jeremiah Babe, 10/23/25

"Walmarts Will Be Danger Zones, 

Grocery Stores Will Be Very Unsafe Very Soon"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Stefan Burns, "Huge Comets Begin Growing Larger as Solar Activity Explodes; 3I/ATLAS Q&A"

Full screen recommended.

Stefan Burns, "Huge Comets Begin Growing 

Larger as Solar Activity Explodes; 3I/ATLAS Q&A"

"Powerful explosions have been occurring on the farside of the Sun, blasting tons of plasma towards Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS and the planet Venus while pelting Earth and the other inner planets with high-energy particles (protons, electrons). As this is happening 3 other comets have positioned themselves around Earth in a sort of tetrahedron formation, altering the energy resonance field of the Solar System as a whole. Meanwhile, strange business ensues with NASA as key footage of these solar explosions was apparently deleted from the public data records and imagery of 3I/ATLAS from the Mar's Reconnaissance Orbiter taken around October 3rd still has yet to be released by the infamous agency. An international campaign has been initiated to observe 3I/ATLAS in November and December, and a whirlwind of misinformation is inundated the internet around 3I/ATLAS... geophysicist Stefan Burns does his best to separate fact from fiction and provides the latest space weather update."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Temple of Silence"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Temple of Silence"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon.

Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/

Chet Raymo, “Singing Beside Me In The Wilderness”

“Singing Beside Me In The Wilderness”
by Chet Raymo

“In one of those infuriating lapses that go with being a certain age, we could not remember the other evening the name of the poet who wrote "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou..." After scraping the tip of my tongue for a few minutes, I turned to the computer (Google is my browser's home page) and by typing "jug thou" brought Omar Khayyam back into consciousness. (Another click and I could have had the entire Rubaiyat.) (Freely download the entire "Rubaiyat" at that link. - CP)

And so it is that the Googlized internet arrives just in time to compensate for our withering brain cells. Everything I ever remembered is there to be Googled, plus everything I never remembered. Ten billions pages. The searchable memory of the human race. With more yet to come.

My great-great-grandchildren will no doubt have tiny video cameras implanted in the middle of their foreheads, like Hindu beauty marks, recording everything that passes before their eyes 24-7, with a sound track too. All of which will be stored digitally, ready for instant playback, and searchable by date, time, GPS coordinates, or keywords- the whole of a life, not only available to the subjects themselves in their memory-lapsed dotage, but to future generations. "Here's great-great-grandpa on his ninety-first birthday, back in 2027. Look how he dribbles soup on his shirt. Ha, ha."

I think nature knew what it was doing when it allows our memory to fade with age. It is particularly notable that the more unpleasant memories go first, so that every summer past was golden with sunshine, and every child was a model of respectful propriety. And no one, not even grandpa himself, remembers the time he... “

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"A Message from the Hopi Elders"

"A Message from the Hopi Elders"

"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.
Here are the things that must be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift, that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personal. Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word "struggle" from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for!"

- Oraibi, Arizona, Hopi Nation

"Don’t Fear The Reaper"

"Don’t Fear The Reaper"

by John Wilder

“No. Not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.”

- James T. Kirk, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.'”

- Carlos Castaneda, "Journey to Ixtlan"

"When The Soon To Be Mrs. and I were just dating, I was cooking something or other. I think it was eggs. I like eggs sunny side up, and don’t particularly care if they’re cooked all the way. 

The Soon To Be Mrs.: “Aren’t you worried about salmonella?”

John Wilder: (Laughs in full Chad manifestation.)

The Soon To Be Mrs.: (Swoons.)

Seriously, she swooned. I’ve never seen it before in my life, but in that moment I think that was what sealed the deal, the moment in time that The Soon To Be Mrs. realized that this one is different. He’s not like the others. Here is a man who has zero fear of The Current Thing, and knows that salmonella won’t be the thing that punches his ticket out of having a functioning circulatory system.

No. I’m not afraid of salmonella. I would spit in its tiny little eyes or flagellum or tentacles and say, “Not today, my bacterium friend! My Danish-Scots-Germanic blood is far too strong for the likes of you!” And then I would attack Poland. Oh, wait, that’s been done.

I know I’m not going to die like Hemingway, and I’m not going to die like the comedy greats Belushi, Twain, or Nietzsche did. Nope. I think I’m gonna go out like Elvis. On a toilet after having eaten a fried peanut butter, jelly and bacon sandwich covered in cheddar cheese and mayo. Nope, I’m gonna die on a toilet. I mean, after all, a king should spend his last moments on the throne, right?

A lot of people worry about dying. I suppose I did, in my 20s, when I was worried about carrying out my responsibilities as a dad. Those are serious responsibilities – because those kids are going to be the legacy that I leave on Earth. That and my writing, collection of PEZ® dispensers and velvet Elvis paintings.

Again, a lot of people worry about dying. I’m not sure why. Of things that are more-or-less predetermined, that’s the big one. We’re all going to die. All of us. And I’m not sure I care.

Oh, sure, I want to live. I have no particular desire to die. If given the preference, I suppose I’m in favor of my continued heartbeat. But I don’t fear death. I don’t go to sleep at night wondering if this pain or that pain or that thing might be the symptom I look up on WebMD® that seals the deal that Wilder is going up to irritate Jesus in Heaven with bad puns.

I don’t worry about some future point when I’m going to enjoy life. I’ve achieved nearly every goal I’ve ever set for my life. End. Full stop. It’s like when a baseball game goes into extra innings, “Hey, free baseball.” And me? Free life. I’ve done nearly everything I’ve ever wanted to do.

What do you give a man who has everything? I mean, besides another bottle of wine. You give that man: Today. I’ve got Today. The only moment I live in is right now. And right now isn’t all that bad. I’m sitting in the sitting room (question: is any room I sit in, by definition, a sitting room? Discuss.) with the cool night air blowing in the window, some songs I love playing on the laptop, a cold beer by the keyboard, and the knowledge that at this moment, everything is fine.

Literally, in my life, Every Single Thing Is Fine. I could go into details, but you already know how awesome I am. So, I live for today? Hell no.

That’s YOLO. The idea that “You Only Live Once” is a free pass to act in any fashion has corroded society. It’s really at the root of many of the problems we have today. It is, in many ways, the absolute inverse of the philosophy I’m trying to describe. YOLO seeks to elevate hedonism and the passions of the moment as the highest good. YOLO is Tinder® times Planned Parenthood© times SnapFaceGramInstaChat® times Rwanda®.

t’s the inversion of beauty: it consists of being positive about, well, any old thing that feels good. I could list these “pleasures”, but you know the list as well as I do. We see it every day, with vice being paraded as virtue, and the continual demand going out for people to celebrate it, because, “Can’t you see? This horrid abomination that no healthy society or people in the entire history of the world has tolerated, iS BeAuTIfUL!” No, I think living a life built on YOLO is one doomed to fail – inevitably it will fail based on two reasons: it is materialism or a faith based on the nihilism of the material world writ large, and it is based on needs, like youth, wealth, sensation, or, yes, even life. So, not YOLO.

One thing I’ve tried to preach is outcome independence. Indeed, since the final outcome of life on Earth is fixed, all the intermediate steps lead there. Instead, I try to focus on virtue and faith. I write not because of YOLO, and not because it’s easy. Some nights it’s hard as hell to get the post to “close” and feel right. There are dozens of posts where, even after 1600 words, I still didn’t say exactly what I meant to say. That’s okay, it’s on me. I’m learning, and if I were perfect at this, I wouldn’t have more work to do.

For me, it’s the work. It’s getting better. It’s finding ways to add value to those people around me. There are those who pull their weight in the world, and those that don’t. I want to be one that pulls his weight, who has contributed as much as I can to helping my family and the wider world.

I don’t always do it. And I’m not always right, either. I’ve produced some stuff in my life that was really, really good, but not perfect. Thankfully, that’s not my mark, either, since just like immortality here on Earth, searching for perfection is a lonely and silly pastime. I want to make the world a better place with my family (first) and my work (now second) guided by God. And I want people to laugh hard while learning and thinking about the things I write.

The beauty of this is to win, all I have to do is the best that I can do every day. To win? All I have to do is be the best person I can be every day. See? Each night, I go to bed and sleep soundly if I know, in that day, that I gave it my all. Do I take time for me? Sure. But that’s not the goal – I serve a higher purpose.

So, what do I fear? Not death. It’s coming whether I like it or not, and, honestly, I’d rather not return my body in factory-fresh condition – I’d like all the parts to fail at once. On the toilet. I think Elvis would have wanted it that way. Oh, wait... I wonder if Elvis ate eggs sunny-side-up? Hang on, I’m sure he did. Elvis ate everything."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

○

Full screen recommended.

Blue Oyster Cult , "Don't Fear The Reaper"

"Congress Should Miss Their Paychecks Too"

"Congress Should Miss Their Paychecks Too"

by Tiffany Smiley

"This week marks the third week of the government shutdown – and there continues to be no end in sight. This week, millions of federal workers officially missed their first paycheck. These workers are staring down the barrel of piling bills; many are unable to put gas in the car or food on the table for their families.

The consequences of a prolonged shutdown are stacking up fast. Federal services are grinding to a halt. Veterans’ career counseling and regional offices have gone dark. Flight delays and travel disruptions are wreaking havoc across the country. And for every week this drags on, the U.S. economy takes a $15 billion hit. A month-long shutdown means 43,000 more Americans are thrown out of work.

And yet, there’s one group that hasn’t missed a single paycheck: members of Congress. While working-class families are about to miss paychecks their livelihoods depend on, fat-cat politicians in Washington continue to get paid. It’s time for Congress to feel the pain they’re inflicting on millions of Americans.

Congress should miss their paychecks. Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego displayed the hypocrisy out loud as the shutdown began. In an interview with NBC News, he defended his refusal to forgo his salary during the shutdown, saying, “I’m not wealthy, and I have three kids. I would basically be missing, you know, mortgage payments, rent payments, child support.”

Exactly, Senator. That’s precisely what millions of everyday Americans are facing right now. Ask yourself – would this shutdown even happen in the first place if members of Congress couldn’t make their own mortgage payments or pay their own rent? If they were scrambling to fill up their gas tanks or stay on their feet? Not a chance.

My heart breaks for the families who are beginning to feel this impact while their members of Congress treat this like a political game. I’ve lived this struggle myself. In 2005, my husband Scotty was blinded by an IED suicide bomb while serving our country in Iraq. While he lay in a coma at Walter Reed, I was forced to navigate a system that offered no real support – not for him, and certainly not for me. I had resigned from my job to be by his side, while facing student loan debt and mounting care expenses. There were no safety nets, no clear guidance – just bureaucracy and silence.

That was 20 years ago. Shamefully, not much has changed. While I’m thrilled and thankful to see President Trump ensure that members of our military get paid, law enforcement, air traffic controllers, and millions of moms and dads are still missing paychecks.

I know firsthand what it’s like to take on the government with no help, no roadmap, and no reward. If we’re serious about solving these systemic failures, then we must start by holding Congress accountable – not just for writing policy, but for standing behind the people they claim to serve.

Meanwhile, our Democratic politicians continue to prolong the government shutdown – voting six times to keep the government shuttered. While Democrats vote for a continued shutdown, President Trump and congressional Republicans are fighting for a clean-funding extension that will immediately open our government. Passing this stopgap funding measure gives Congress time to pass its funding bills through regular order and continue this historically bipartisan process.

I’ll be blunt: Enough is enough. If the American people have to feel the pain of a government shutdown, members of Congress should be in the foxhole with them. They should be the ones holding the empty bank account. Imagine the urgency if every member of Congress faced foreclosure notices. Some members, both Republicans and Democrats, have already pledged to forgo their pay; others, like Gallego, should join them and stand with the people they claim to represent. Withhold congressional salaries until the government is funded. And watch how fast the government gets funded.

This shutdown isn't about policy – it’s about power. Democrats are gambling with American families’ paychecks to score political points. Senate Democrats need to pass the clean funding extension or face the consequences of their own making. Let’s end this farce and stop paying Congress. And reopen the government today."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Be Open to the Signal"

"Be Open to the Signal"

by David Cain

"There’s a timeless story trope where the hero is wandering the streets, lost in worry or despair, when the universe sends a sign. His gaze lands on a mother bird feeding her chicks, or a neon cross in a tattoo parlor window, breaking him out of his daze and awakening him to a path he didn’t see. I’m not sure whether the universe does that kind of thing on purpose. But I think we’ve all experienced similar poetic signals, and we’re affected by them whether they’re ultimately haphazard, or somehow authored for us.

On a rainy Tuesday, just when your world is feeling small and lonely, someone texts you out of the blue, reminding you that you already have a lot of wonderful people in your life, if you care to reach out to them. You’re procrastinating on an important task by making a needless walk to the corner store. On the way, you pass a box of free books, and sitting on top is a copy of "Hamlet.". A distant church bell tolls.You’re thinking in circles about whether to relocate for a new job, when the driver behind you honks. You look up and the light is green. “Go already!” he shouts.

I don’t think we should try to explain these signals. You don’t have to work into your belief system some way that the universe can summon a baby rabbit into your presence just when you need to contemplate the preciousness of life. Instead, you can just recognize that signals do happen, and that they do matter. The “signal from the universe” is currency in film and literature because sudden strokes of meaning happen to everyone. They punch through our belief systems, grabbing us by the lapels and showing us something we need to see.

Maybe I should call Mom.

The reason signals work is that they pull you out of your thinking, and the thinking mind can be a small and oppressive place. Our thought patterns are well-trodden territory, so the mind tends to lead itself in circles. I think that’s where we get the trope about the preoccupied hero leaving his apartment to wander the dreary streets. Something in you knows when you need to change the scenery. That thing is hoping you see something that jars you out of rumination.

The signal jars the mind with such force that the current train of thought derails, allowing a new idea to take over and start a train headed elsewhere. The neon cross glowing at you just when you’re feeling lost and forsaken. The baby bird appearing just when you’re feeling mean.

Cat’s in the Cradle comes on the radio.

This is why it doesn’t work to demand a signal. Signals have to come from the world, from outside the mind, so you can’t wish them into existence. But you can be open to them, and when you’re open to them, more of them reach you. If you’re open to the signal, you might find the world is constantly trying to show you things. Patient trees subsuming chain-link fences. Industrious squirrels preparing for winter’s wrath one acorn at a time. Graffiti speaking wise words or cryptic warnings. Make of these images what you will. The universe does seem to have a lot to say, whether or not it’s doing it on purpose.

Just as you’re about to call it a rain day.

Being open to the signal is just a matter of looking out into the world more, especially when the mind feels tight. Look out at the wealth of detail in the world around you, and see what’s looking back. You will be shown words, emblems, signs, animals, talkative strangers, and discarded objects. When you see them, they’re already staring right at you. Doors. Arrows. Songs. Your own name. Conspicuous rays of light. Ominous and welcoming sights. Sometimes they’re shouting at you, even physically colliding with you. Other times they’re waiting in a shaded corner for some keen eyes to land on them.

Being open to the signal only means looking out into the world as a habit, just to see what’s there outside the mind. Of course, the time we most need to be shown something is when we’re completely preoccupied and inward-looking. Openness is not a state of signal-hunting, or divination. You certainly don’t want to assume everything is a sign. What does this broken doorknob mean? Is this lamp post my father, finally telling me not to go to law school?

Signals come to you. They jump in front of your eyes and attach automatically to meaning. No wondering or divination is needed. Some of what strikes you seem to be clear hints, ideas, or guidance. Some just suggest a certain mood or tonal shift. Some are just funny. I’m furrowing my brow about some serious thing when my cat gets a Post-it note stuck to her foot, panics, and bolts out the door like a cartoon character. The wind picks up, thunder rumbles, and discarded Burger King crown rolls up to my feet.

My birthright reveals itself.

Sometimes signals are vague or absurd. Other times it’s undeniable that a billboard has the perfect advice for you, or that a belligerent seagull is rightfully calling you out. No matter how you think it all works, the universe sometimes has something to clear to tell you. You need to apologize. Life is long and your problem is small. The time to make the dream happen has arrived. If important signs sometimes strike us, that must mean they sometimes miss us. Be open to the signal.

When are you going to make it happen? You already know this, but here’s a few reminders about how the human mind works:

• You have big aspirations that are deeply important to you.

• You believe you will do them later, not now.

• Later never arrives, because life only happens now.

• When you forget this, you put off what’s most important to you, and you just get older.

If you really do want to write your book, make that career change, finish the renovations, learn the piano - it has to happen now. Otherwise life’s default activities will crowd it all out"

- https://www.raptitude.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Argyle, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"This Is Your Life..."

“This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice.

To be or not to be.

Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice.

Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume

and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?"

- Chuck Palahniuk

○

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,

who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"

- Stephen Levine

The Poet: James Baldwin, "Amen"

"Amen"

 "No, I don't feel death coming.

I feel death going:

having thrown up his hands,

for the moment.

I feel like I know him

better than I did.

Those arms held me,

for a while,

and, when we meet again,

there will be that secret knowledge

between us." 

- James Baldwin

"How Modern Entertainment Created the Dumbest Generation in History"

Full screen recommended.

Philosophical Vision,

"How Modern Entertainment Created

 the Dumbest Generation in History"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Don't Wonder..."

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.

In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,

wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."

- "Grey's Anatomy"

"In The Last Few Years..."

"In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the

alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted."

- Michael Musto

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive"

- Sir Walter Scott, "Marmion"

"The Fragile Species: A Forgotten Masterpiece of Perspective on How to Live with Our Human Nature"

"The Fragile Species: A Forgotten Masterpiece of 

Perspective on How to Live with Our Human Nature"

by Maria Popova

"When Earth first erupted with color, flowers took over so suddenly and completely that, two hundred million years later, the baffled Darwin called this blooming conquest an “abominable mystery.” When earthlings first realized that our Milky Way is not the cosmic whole but one galactic particle of the whole - one of unfathomably many galaxies, each abloom with billions of stars orbited by other worlds - the universe suddenly appeared “so brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.” When it became clear that a mysterious substance is holding each galaxy together, keeping each world’s orbit a perfect corolla around the stigma of its star, we gave that substance a name befitting an abominable mystery: dark matter.

Along the way, we - thinking, feeling, meaning-hungry creatures - kept trying to make beauty of the truths we found, composing poems about flowers and poems about dark matter as we composed our equations and our theories.

Reality’s ability to continually baffle us with what we don’t yet know, and our willingness to continually plumb the unknown for new truth and beauty, even as it baffles and terrifies us, is the loveliest thing about being alive. Being alive together, as members of this boundlessly inquisitive and imaginative species, is the loveliest thing about being human.

That is what Lewis Thomas (November 25, 1913–December 3, 1993) - a scientist, poet, and perhaps my favorite writer about the native poetics of reality - explores throughout his altogether exquisite final essay collection, "The Fragile Species" (public library).

In the opening essay, originally delivered as a talk in 1987 for the fiftieth reunion of his Harvard Medical School class, Thomas reflects on the splendid bafflements of science since he and his classmates parted ways in the prime of their lives half a century earlier. With his signature winking genius, he writes: "I cannot count the number of new items of ignorance I’ve picked up in fifty years; the list is simply too long. Instead, I have prepared another kind of list, shorter, more personally humbling, of some things I think I might have been learning more about if I hadn’t been so puzzled all those years by medicine itself. There are matters that I assume most other people my age comprehend nicely, and I never got round to studying.

The Federal Reserve System is at the top of my list. I’ve never known what it was or what it did or how it did it, and what is more I don’t want to be told. The same goes for the stock market, and for the bond market, and the word processor (one of which I actually possess and am baffled by), and the internal combustion engine, and the universe, black holes, galactic mirrors, those other universes, and space-time. Most of all, space-time. I cannot get ahold of it."

With so fetching a wink, Thomas turns to the real object of his meditation: our native inability to comprehend how the same processes that begot these remote abstractions also begot the fleshy, feeling concreteness of us. There is something incredibly lovely about Thomas’s warm humor - here is man of extraordinary intellect, scientific erudition, and uncommon human sensitivity, inviting the rest of us, far more ordinary and modestly lettered, to join him in his gladsome bafflement at the seeming miracle of life:

"I even have troubles of my own with evolutionary biology. Not first principles, mind you, not the big picture, mostly just the details. I understand about randomness and chance, and election, and adaptation, and all that, and I now know better than to talk, ever, about progress in evolution, never mind purpose. My problems come when I think about the earliest form of known life, those indisputable bacterial cells in rocks 3.7 billion years old, our Ur-grandparents for sure, then nothing but bacteria for the next two and one-half billion years, and now the chestnut tree in my backyard, my Abyssinian cat Jeoffry, the almost-but-not-quite free-living microbes living in all our cells disguised as mitochondria, and, just by the way, our marvelous, still-immature, dangerous selves, brainy enough to menace all nature unless distracted by music."

Leaning on his training as an etymologist - that is, an evolutionary biologist for the living organism of language - Thomas adds: "We need a better word than chance, even pure chance, or that succession of events, while still evading any notion of progress. But to go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass and the Late Quartets, deserves a better technical term for the record than randomness.

I like the word stochastic better, because of its lineage in our language. The first root was stegh, meaning a pointed stake in the Indo-European of 30,000 years ago. Stegh moved into Greek as stokhos, meaning a target for archers, and then later on, in our language, targets being what they are and aiming arrows being as fallible as it is, stokhos was adapted to signify aiming and missing, pure chance, randomness, and thus stochastic. On that philosophical basis, then, I’m glad to accept all of evolution in a swoop, but I’m still puzzled by it."

With great subtlety and sensitivity, Thomas then pirouettes to observe that this stochastic miracle of life across time exists only because death too exists. A generation before Richard Dawkins made his poetic point about the luckiness of death and an epoch after the grief-stricken Darwin, having lost his most beloved child, found personal solace in the scientific fact that the death of the individual is what fine-tunes evolution to ensure the survival of the species - “there is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin wrote - Thomas dismantles the central logical fallacy beneath our species’ fantasies of immortality, be they retro-religious or techno-futuristic.

With an eye to various speculative proposals - which have grown all the more various and more unsoundly speculative in the decades since - about hacking the entropy that frays at all matter in order to attain long-term preservation of information systems, including the information system of us, Thomas considers the inherent syllogism of such hopes: "If it had been arranged that way, we’d all still be alive forever but, in the nature of things, we would still be those same archaebacteria born 3.7 billion years ago, unable to make molecular errors, deprived of taking chances, and therefore never blundering into brains. That is, if we could be immortal, we could not exist; if we were already perfect, we could not exist. It is only because we are mortal and imperfect, you and I and Dickinson and Darwin, that the sum of us, the galaxy of humanity drifting through impartial stars, goes on."

Although he had art on his mind, Van Gogh was contouring a deep scientific truth, a truth both existential and evolutionary, when he observed how inspired mistakes propel us forward. With his pliant logic and playful love of the human condition, Thomas considers the reflexive conclusion to which this awareness might lead the inattentive: "Nature is an immense mechanism, operating itself in accordance with the laws of physics. We, and our brains, are working parts of the machinery, having made our appearance here and having our existence because of the operation of those laws, set in place on what we like to see as the pinnacle by the beneficent operation of chance and quantum mechanics. Pure luck, indeterminate and intentionless, all the way."

But this, of course, is Lewis Thomas. And this, therefore, is not a case for vacuous materialism. This is Lewis Thomas, who often makes the deepest point by caricaturing its shallow opposite: "This view takes us a long distance toward understanding our place in nature, but not quite the full distance. We are still stuck with the problem of consciousness, and because of this not-quite-settled matter, we are stuck as well with the incessant questions with which our consciousness continues to plague us and disturb our sleep (for which also, by the way, we do not have a good explanation). Questions like: Are we the only creatures on the whole planet with real consciousness? Why is being being; why not nonbeing? Why should there be something, instead of nothing? How do you organize a life, or a society, in accordance with physical laws that forbid purpose, causality, morality, and progress, especially when you have to do so with brains that stand alive with these very notions? Where’s the fun in it?"

In another essay from the book, in a passage from which the entire book borrows its title, Thomas writes at the peak of the Cold War and its menacing specter of nuclear catastrophe, which has since only changed costume as the ecological catastrophe menacing our own time: "This is a very big place, and I do not know how it works, or how I fit in. I am a member of a fragile species, still new to the earth, the youngest creatures of any scale, here only a few moments as evolutionary time is measured, a juvenile species, a child of a species. We are only tentatively set in place, error-prone, at risk of fumbling, in real danger at the moment of leaving behind only a thin layer of our fossils, radioactive at that."

In a passage of extraordinary prescience, precisely in the context of our present ecological precariousness and what its only solution might be, Thomas adds as he considers our place in the family of life: "We are different, to be sure, but not so much because of our brains as because of our discomfiture, mostly with each other. All the other parts of the earth’s life seem to get along, to fit in with each other, to accommodate, even to concede when the stakes are high. They live off each other, devour each other, scramble for ecological niches, but always within set limits, with something like restraint. It is a rough world, by some of our standards, but not the winner-take-all game that it seemed to us awhile back. If we look over our shoulders as far as we can see, all the way past trillions of other species to those fossil stromatolites built by enormous communities of collaborating microorganisms, we can see no evidence of meanness or vandalism in nature. It is, on balance, an equable, generally amiable place, good-natured as we say.

We are the anomalies for the moment, the self-conscious children at the edge of the crowd, unsure of our place, tending to grabbiness… But we are not as bad a lot as some of us say… At our worst, we may be going through the early stages of a species’ adolescence, and everyone remembers what that is like. Growing up is hard times for an individual but sustained torment for a whole species, especially as brainy and nervous as ours. If we can last it out, get through the phase…. we might find ourselves off and running again."

What might save us from ourselves, Thomas intimates, is not our maturity but our mutuality: We are more compulsively social, more interdependent and more inextricably attached to each other than any of the celebrated social insects… One human trait, urging us on by our nature, is the drive to be useful, perhaps the most fundamental of all our biological necessities. We make mistakes with it, get it wrong, confuse it with self-regard, even try to fake it, but it is there in our genes, needing only a better set of definitions for usefulness than we have yet agreed on."

Complement this fragment of "The Fragile Species" - which remains one of the finest, most fiercely humanistic and scientifically perspectival books I have ever read - with philosopher Martha Nussbaum on how to live with our human fragility and the forgotten visionary William Vogt, writing half a century before his ideas shaped the modern environmental movement, on our interdependence resilience, then revisit Lewis Thomas on our wiring for mutuality and his science-rooted existential meditation on the medusa and the snail - still the subtlest, sanest thing I have read about the eternal mystery of the self."

- https://www.themarginalian.org/

"How It Really Is"

Yeah, we remember...

"I Cannot Believe..."

"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be “happy.” I think

the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate.

It is, above all, to matter and to count, to stand for something,

to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

- Leo C. Rosten