"Pentagon Considers Raising Budget by 50%"

"Pentagon Considers Raising Budget by 50%"

by Martin Armstrong

"President Trump’s announcement that he wants to push the U.S. defense budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027 is being framed as a necessary response to “very troubled and dangerous times” and a way to build what he calls a “Dream Military.” He claims that tariff revenues generated by his trade policies can help fund the increase and even allow for debt reduction while maintaining economic growth. There is a reason that Washington wants to increase its budget drastically, and the timing aligns perfectly with our computer model.

The proposal represents a roughly 50% increase from the $901 billion defense budget approved for 2026. The massive increase in funding represents a country preparing for a major geopolitical event. America stands alone. It can no longer trust the neocons in NATO, besides, America was the one primarily funding the organization. All of America’s allies are on the fence in terms of continued support, with the majority showing intense disapproval for recent military ventures.

Europe’s involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war cannot be ignored. Protests have erupted in France and Germany to declare that the people do not wish to die for Ukraine, but they have no say. The EU is run by neocons who are eagerly awaiting their turn to enter the conflict directly. China, the Middle East, South America, and Europe - conflicts are emerging in every corner of the globe, and unsurprisingly, America has been at the forefront.

An additional $500 billion ensures the United States retains its reputation for having the most advanced military in the world, one would hope, but China has been rapidly advancing its military capabilities in preparation for a grand-scale conflict. Russia has been testing nuclear missiles, some powerful enough to create toxic radioactive tsunami waves that can wipe cities off the map.

We are approaching a critical turning point in the Economic Confidence Model. Confidence will continue to decline as war nears, and capital will continue to seek refuge in private assets. When confidence declines, politicians turn to external enemies to justify internal failures. War becomes a tool to distract from fiscal mismanagement and to consolidate power. The 2026 panic cycle aligns with a historic pattern in which sovereign debt crises and geopolitical conflict converge. This is not the beginning of war; it is the escalation phase."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

John Wilder, "Civil War 2.0 Mid-Month Update: Setting The Stage"

"Civil War 2.0 Mid-Month Update: 

Setting The Stage"

by John Wilder

"Minnesota is the current flashpoint in our march towards Civil War. It is a revealing event for several reasons. First, GloboLeftists are awful. Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people while defending his life. All were felons. The fat lesbian that was shot in Minnesota? She had lost custody of her children. Women get custody in about 80% of cases. I’ll let you do the math.

Second, how did she and her live-in fetish partner make money? It always comes down to that, but these people are getting funding somewhere to fund their lifestyles. In the middle of the workday, if the dead lesbian and her fetish partner can just drive around spending all their time and gasoline, someone is paying for it. And it didn’t come out of the lesbian’s poetry earnings.

Those that are funding this are looking to create the moment when they seize absolute power. The playbook hasn’t changed in centuries. The first step is to create unrest, and to try to find that incident that galvanizes their side to violence. Remember all those bricks conveniently left out during the George Floyd protests?

Violence is the key to creating instability. That instability is then used to create a larger movement, which leads, ultimately, to open war so that power is finally and irrevocably put in the hands of the group leading the unrest. This worked in France a few times, in Russia once, but failed in Germany, leading to the other side ultimately gaining power. But violence is the playbook, and power is on the line.

How does this finally spin out of control into a full-blown Civil War 2.0? One avenue is through collisions of authority. Here’s an example: Tim Walz, in a fit of stupidity, calls up the State Patrol in Minnesota to arrest ICE agents. Trump responds with elements of the 82nd Airborne and parts of the 1st Marine Division. Of course, there’s a protest, and Walz calls out the Minnesota National Guard. Trump immediately federalizes the Guard, but leadership under control of Walz disobeys orders.

Gavin Newsom, seeing the opportunity to get some more press coverage, does the same in California. Now it’s national. Maybe the cartels even join in, since they might have decided that business was fine, but owning their own country carved out of northern Mexico and southern parts of the United States might be even more fun.

At this point, many groups are indiscriminately tossing lead, and true civil war is unlocked. I wouldn’t want to be a Trump voter in a blue hive or an illegal in a red town. This could happen in the span of hours. There are plenty of flashpoints that are ready to explode. For instance, Philadelphia sheriff Rochelle Bilal (Yes, she is. Feel free to look up a picture.) said that, “The criminal in the White House would be able to keep” ICE agents out of jail. And I heard that Philly was so nice!

To be clear, Civil War 2.0 doesn’t have to start during Trump’s administration. It’s more likely to, though, if the GloboLeft get to the point where they feel that they’re on the verge of losing it all. I think the GloboLeft feel like they’re going gain control of the Senate and perhaps the House after the midterms. This would lead to Trump essentially being an agent of chaos and annoyance to the GloboLeft, but one that can’t pass any laws.

If the 2026 election happens without Civil War 2.0 breaking out, I predict two years of impasse until the 2028 election. Given that amount of time, it’s likely that the GloboLeft will have made many millions of illegals and imports voters, even if they aren’t citizens. They want to have the final election, and if that’s how they take power, they’re fine with that.

But if it comes to violence, well, they’re fine with that as well. They actively seek to have deaths like the dead lesbian in Minnesota. They love to have martyrs to their cause so that they can show what stunning and brave victims they are. Partially, this is to infect the “it’s crying so it’s a baby” instinct latent in women, and especially so in women who haven’t had children or have decided to murder their own unborn children.

That’s a guilt-debt, and having someone like the dead lesbian to trot out is just what they want. Notice how they put themselves on roads, daring people to run them over? They hate themselves and they hate their own lives, so ending it all to become a tragic martyr to their cause is a perfect end for them. But if it comes to dishing out violence, they and their pets are more than willing to accept those conditions. They talk about violence all of the time. When someone on the TradRight mentions it, immediately they’re shut down by other people on the right.

GloboLeftists feel free to talk about “punching Nazis” and mean it. They are not afraid of embracing violence and destroying entire towns. Keep in mind, that even if you are a middle-of-the-road “both sides suck” voter, you are a Nazi to them. They reveled in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and were driven to ecstasy by the death of Charlie Kirk. They want you dead and replaced by a more compliant populace.

Are the ICE raids a wonderful opportunity for them? I believe so. I think that the time leading up to the 2026 midterms is a time where we are at a heightened likelihood of the initiation of Civil War 2.0. The GloboLeft is fueled by fear and hate, and one long hot summer could lead to Civil War 2.0 breaking out in 2026.

Me? I’d have declared an insurrection, called out the troops, surrounded the areas of the riots, arrested everyone using whatever force was necessary, taken them all to camps, deported anyone who wasn’t a citizen, and tried the rest for insurrection, since what they’re doing now is far worse than January 6. But I like simple solutions. The clock, though, is ticking..."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com

Bill Bonner, "Wrong Again, Dimwits"

"Wrong Again, Dimwits"

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "Here we go again! Business Insider: "Trump says he is instructing ‘representatives’ to buy $200 billion in mortgage bond purchases in an effort to push down rates."

Trump has stuck to the script. He’s playing his part masterfully...helping to bring the empire down with the classic mix - an excess of spending and reckless military adventurism. In the latest caper, POTUS proposes to offer the housing market more of what it needs least - more credit. Excess credit already caused two bubbles in this century...and the worst affordability crisis in history. Credit drives demand for housing. But it drives up house prices too. And then people end up with way too much mortgage debt. Come the next correction, they find they have more mortgage than house.

Already, in last week’s news, the housing market is getting ready for another bubble. Barron’s:

"Real estate stocks jump on Trump’s mortgage bond plan. Rates hit 5.99%." The first bubble in housing blew up in 2008...it was such a serious explosion that the Fed jefe at the time, Ben Bernanke, warned Congress that we might not have an economy at all unless it stumped up $700 billion in subsidies and bailouts.

Yes, it was idiotic...but that is the sort of thing that dimwits do. The bubble was caused by the Fed itself, which lowered its key lending rate by 500 basis points in the early 2000s. Mortgage rates went down with the Fed rate. People borrowed to buy houses. Housing prices went up - to the point where they became unaffordable. Then, as the Fed normalized interest rates, house prices fell. Homeowners realized that they owed more on their houses than they were worth. And mortgage lenders realized that they had made some bad business decisions, lending too much money based on overpriced collateral.

This led naturally to the biggest bankruptcy filing in US history - Lehman Bros. It probably would have brought down some of the biggest names on Wall Street too, including Goldman Sachs, but the feds, having caused the crisis, intervened again to save the big banks… and caused another bubble.

Once again, beginning in 2008, the Fed cut its key lending rate by 500 basis points to make housing more ‘affordable’...and what ho... housing prices soared! The Fed had learned a lesson - the wrong one - from the first blowup. It saw that returning mortgage rates to a ‘normal’ level triggered a sell-off in housing. So, it decided not to return rates to normal. Instead, it pushed them down...and left them below zero - after inflation - for much of the next 13 years, 2008–2021.

Real interests since 1997…the Fed funds rate minus CPI

Finally, , in the summer of ’21, interest rates could go no lower. After four decades, the downswing of the credit cycle finally reversed. Inflation - caused by bailouts, stimmie checks, and overspending - forced the Fed to raise interest rates. In our view, this was the most important turning point in recent financial history. Forty years of falling interest rates...and the biggest boom in stock market history...were over.

But in the housing market, it left a huge affordability problem. Normal mortgage rates made sellers reluctant to give up their abnormal, ultra-low-rate mortgages. Tight supplies kept prices high. High prices combined with high mortgage rates meant that few ordinary people could afford to buy the ordinary house. Between 2008 and 2025, the Social Security Administration’s Average Wage Index rose from $41,000 to $70,000 - a 70% increase. During that same time the average selling price for a house rose from around $200,000 to around $430,000 - up 115%.

The Housing Affordability Index hit record lows last year in nearly every major housing market in the US. In 1971, the average person paid a 7.5% interest rate on an average house price of $28,000...leaving him with a monthly interest cost of $175. Now, thanks to all the efforts over the last 54 years to make housing more affordable, the average house buyer faces an interest payment of 6% on $420,000 - or $2,100 per month. Thanks a lot."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Dystopian Science Fiction vs. the Anti-ICE Karens"

"Dystopian Science Fiction vs.

 the Anti-ICE Karens"

by Benjamin Bartee

"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.” - George Orwell, "1984"

"The phenomenon of feral anti-ICE Karens currently running riot across the country is what happens when childless women - who don’t believe in God or anything else but are starved for meaning - decide, spurred by savior complexes instilled in them via culture, to adopt society as their children and turn an entire country into their infants to be protected from the bad men.

The bad men who, in this context, per Social Justice™ dogma, are white men trying to fend off the Third World invaders lured into every Western country by the globalist power structure in order to undermine and rot them from within ahead of consolidation into a sprawling techno-dystopia free of the vestiges of national sovereignty. In other words, ICE is the perfect boogeyman to coax the anti-ICE Karens, facilitated by both literal and de facto state media, into full-on psychosis, which is what we are seeing unfold.

A lot of this stuff, like this menacing softball catcher-type lesbian who might literally have rabies, harkens back to the theatrical histrionics of the Salem Witch Trials. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to the psychopathy that goes into these displays of lunacy, but, as Orwell and others have long observed, something unique to female psychology spawns it."

First Witch Trial Scene, "The Crucible"

- https://armageddonprose.substack.com/

Jim Kunstler: "Permission Granted: Go Kill Yourself"

Renee Nicole Good moments before she was shot to death.

"Permission Granted: Go Kill Yourself"

by Jim Kunstler

"A mascrosocial cluster B crisis is ripping this nation apart 

because Leftism has hijacked the minds of progressive females

 who then LARP out dangerous Gnostic heroic delusions." 

- JD Haltigan

"Historians of the future, grilling beaver-tail paninis over their campfires, will look back in wonder and nausea at the madness of America - and other regions of Western Civ - in the raging 2020s. It will be clear by then that it was largely a female hysteria, like other departures from social sanity in the annals of the Homo sapiens, such as the outbreak of witchery in the Massachusetts Colony, 1692, the Dancing Plague of Strasbourg, 1518, and the lunacy of Meowing and Biting Nuns that spread through the convents of Europe in the 1400s.

The Lefty-left has devised what’s called a “permission structure” for women to take the lead in acting-out the concocted grievances of their show-runners in the Democratic Party who, in times gone by, once had a coherent political program, but are now chiefly concerned with staying out of jail. I speak of those two orbiting moons, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and their many subalterns, such as John Podesta, Lisa Monaco, Norm Eisen, Adam Schiff... you know the huge cast of characters.

In 2020, they put their African-American clients in the vanguard, hoping to provoke Mr. Trump into a bloody suppression of the George Floyd riots. Didn’t really work, though the riots were a grand distraction from Marc Elias’s behind-the-scenes nefarious setup to queer the balloting process in that year’s election - a thumping success! All that mischief propelled brain-dead “Joe Biden” into the Oval Office, the perfect stooge to front for Hillary and Obama in their campaign to disorder the US body politic.

None of that worked for them in 2024, though, and only, apparently, because Elon Musk got wind of some election-hacking signals from a bunker in Serbia, and somehow managed to put the kibosh on its functionality... but that’s another story not quite yet spun for the public. Anyway, Mr. Trump got back into the Oval Office and now there is - forgive the cliché - hell to pay. Folks looking at jail time, famous folks, folks previously inoculated against such a fate. And it’s driving them batshit crazy. What on earth to do?

As it happens, enough Americans are sick and tired of the race hustle that its antics no longer avail the Democratic Party in stirring up animus against order, so now the party sends its women out onto the front lines to bang on police car windows, scream at the officers to perform sex acts on themselves, and impede their duties. In the course of all that action, one of them, Renee Nicole Good, got shot last week gunning her Honda Pilot at officer Jonathan Ross.

Ms. Good’s female wife, Becca Good, wailed in the aftermath, “I made her come down here, it’s my fault.” Come down to do what? To play a part in the show. To use Renee’s Honda Pilot to block the street so that ICE agents couldn’t do their job (which is removing illegal immigrants for processing and deportation). Who told Becca that was a good idea? The Lefty-left’s permission structure told her. So, Becca played her part in the show, ostentatiously recording a video of the scene, yelling taunts at the officers, telling her wife, Renee, to disobey the officer’s command to “get out of the car” and instead to drive away. Becca will have that on her conscience forever, alas. Bet you wouldn’t want to be her.

What is it in American women these days that makes them susceptible to such a demonic permission structure that the Lefty-left uses to make them pawns in this game? Most obviously, American women are less and less inclined to enter healthy relations with men. Why is that? Probably several reasons. American men are less and less good husband material - except at society’s tippy-top where they make obscene amounts of money in activities that are, frankly, pretty antisocial when you look hard - like, running monopolies, inducing the entire population into ill health, and selling out their country. The great wad of men in the classes below the tippy-top face ever-reduced opportunities to make a living, let alone support a wife and children.

Both American men and women are working pretty hard to make themselves sexually unappealing. Obesity is epidemic now that the national diet consists almost entirely of pizza and soda pop. You have to wonder how the idea of facial piercings, nose-rings, and massive tattoos caught on. Half the women in this country look like they could be harpooneers on the whaler Pequod. Meanwhile, the tubby men with no prospects can occupy themselves with free porn on their phones - which, you might admit, kind of cuts down on their motivation to even try to meet real women, let alone protect and care for them.

The result of all this dysfunction is a society with deeply disrupted relations between men and women, people who can’t produce children - or, by happenstance, as in the case of Renee Nicole Good, two children who did not live with her - people of both sexes who can’t enact the basic roles of human adulthood, people of both sexes who can hardly find gainful employment, and you end up with a land of broken people, broken families, and behavior that verges into madness.

And these broken people are egged on to self-destruction by the cynical managers of a criminal political party desperate to hide its crimes and avoid prosecution. When the arraignments begin, the derangements will ebb. Just watch and see."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 1/12/26"

"Economic Market Snapshot 1/12/26"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

o

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

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

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

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...

o

"Iran Gold Airlifted To Russia; Credit Card Shock Coming; Who Are The Puppet Masters?"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/11/26

"Iran Gold Airlifted To Russia; 

Credit Card Shock Coming; Who Are The Puppet Masters?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Alert! No Election in 2028. WW3, Martial Law"

Full screen recommended.

Prepper news, 1/11/26

"Alert! No Election in 2028. WW3, Martial Law"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Layoffs Are About To Explode And People Are Not Prepared For The Coming Economic Disaster"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 1/11/26

"Layoffs Are About To Explode And People Are 

Not Prepared For The Coming Economic Disaster"

"Layoffs are sweeping across America at a pace we haven't seen since 2020. Major companies like Amazon, Nike, Starbucks, General Motors, and even federal agencies are cutting thousands of jobs, many of them right after the holidays. And the scary part? This is just the beginning. With over a million jobs already lost in 2025 and more layoffs planned for 2026, the American workforce is facing one of its toughest periods in decades. In this video, we're breaking down the latest wave of layoffs, what's happening in the job market right now, and why so many people are struggling to find work. From college graduates unable to land interviews to experienced professionals getting lowballed on salary offers, the reality on the ground is rough. And while jobs are disappearing, the cost of living keeps climbing groceries, healthcare, housing, none of it is slowing down. If you're feeling the pressure right now, you're not alone. Millions of Americans are going through the same thing. We're all trying to figure out how to navigate this economy and protect our families. Let me know in the comments how you're handling things and what you're seeing in your area."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

The Alan Parsons Project, "Sirius", "Eye In The Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"In the lower left corner, surrounded by blue spiral arms, is spiral galaxy M81. In the upper right corner, marked by red gas and dust clouds, is irregular galaxy M82. This stunning vista shows these two mammoth galaxies locked in gravitational combat, as they have been for the past billion years. The gravity from each galaxy dramatically affects the other during each hundred million-year pass.

Last go-round, M82's gravity likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in the richness of M81's spiral arms. But M81 left M82 with violent star forming regions and colliding gas clouds so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. This big battle is seen from Earth through the faint glow of an Integrated Flux Nebula, a little studied complex of diffuse gas and dust clouds in our Milky Way Galaxy. In a few billion years only one galaxy will remain."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160203.html

o

"When observing the stars, you should see them in another perspective. Take into account what they really are: the mothers of the atoms from which we are constituted, the atoms that constitute the mortal and thinking species that admire the sun as a god, a father or a nuclear power station. The particles that were composed at the beginning of the Universe, the atoms that were forged in the stars, the molecules that were constituted on Earth or in another place… all that is also inside us."

- Michel Cassé, French astro-physicist, "Desafio do Século XXI"

"The Long Dark"

"The Long Dark"

by Chris Floyd

"We are in the Long Dark now. Both hope and despair are the enemies of our survival. We must live in the awareness that we might not see the light come back, without ceasing to work - with empathy, anger and knowledge - for its return.

We must be here, in the moment, experiencing its fullness (whatever its horrors or joys), yet be elsewhere, removed from the madness pouring in from every side, the avalanche of degradation. We must be here, now, but also in a future we can’t see or even imagine.

We must see that we are lost, with no clear way forward, no sureties or verities to cling to, no roots to anchor us, no structures within or without that will always keep their coalescence in the chaotic, surging flow.

We must live in discrete moments of illumination and connection, pearls hung on an almost invisible string winding through the darkness. Striving, always striving, but not expecting; striving without hope, without despair, without any certainty at all as to the outcome, good or bad.

These are the conditions of the Long Dark, this is what we have to work with, this is where we find ourselves in the brief time we have in this vast, indifferent, astounding universe. As I once wrote long ago, quoting the old hymn: “Work, for the night is coming.”

So do we counsel fatalism, a dark, defeated surrender, a retreat into bitter, curdled quietude? Not a whit. We advocate action, positive action, unstinting action, doing the only thing that human beings can do, ever: Try this, try that, try something else again; discard those approaches that don't work, that wreak havoc, that breed death and cruelty; fight against everything that would draw us down again into our own mud; expect no quarter, no lasting comfort, no true security; offer no last word, no eternal truth, but just keep stumbling, falling, careening, backsliding, crawling toward the broken light.

And what is this "broken light"? Nothing more than a metaphor for the patches of understanding – awareness, attention, knowledge, connection – that break through our darkness and stupidity for a moment now and then. A light always fractured, under threat, shifting, found then lost again, always lost. For we are creatures steeped in imperfection, in breakage and mutation, tossed up – very briefly – from the boiling, chaotic crucible of Being, itself a ragged work in progress toward unknown ends, or rather, toward no particular end at all. Why should there be an "answer" in such a reality?

What matters is what works – what pulls us from our own darkness as far as possible, for as long as possible. Yet the truth remains that "what works" is always and forever only provisional – what works now, here, might not work there, then. What saves our soul today might make us sick tomorrow.

Thus all we can do is to keep looking, working, trying to clear a little more space for the light, to let it shine on our passions and our confusions, our anger and our hopes, informing and refining them, so that we can see each other better, for a moment – until death shutters all seeing forever."

- http://www.chris-floyd.com/home/

"There Is No Escape..."

"The precept: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."

- Ayn Rand

"Bombs Away!"

"Bombs Away!"

Geopolitics in 2026...

by Joel Bowman

“Madness is rare in individuals -

but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 to 1900)

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Is man a “teachable animal,” capable of learning from experience? Or is he doomed to historical repetition, as the saying goes? On an individual level, he may learn to stack one block on top or another, to eat with a knife and fork and to enunciate his diphthongs. Stick him in a classroom, however, and he’s as prone to believe that XX = XY as he is to understand Aristotle’s A = A.

Get him to a voting both, and there’s no telling what collectivist nonsense he might be persuaded to believe. “Diversity is our greatest strength”… “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”… “Silence is violence (and so are words)”… “Workers of the world unite!” It seems the greater the number of men, the steeper the decline in his ability to think rationally, reasonably… or even at all. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,” cautioned the inimitable Mark Twain, “it is time to pause and reflect.”

Naturally, the world of politics does not lend itself to sane and prudent thinking. Rather, it is the domain of murky ambiguity, deceptive nuance, and slippery slopes. At turns captivating and mortifying, it arrests the attention like a fat man bouncing on a diving board at the local swimming pool; one simply cannot look away."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

The Poet: Charles Bukowoski, "The Laughing Heart", "Roll the Dice"

"Alea Iacta Est"

by Alexander Macris

"In the closing days of 50 BC, the Roman Senate declared that Julius Caesar’s term as a provincial governor was finished. Roman law afforded its magistrates immunity to prosecution, but this immunity would end with Caesar’s term. As the leader of the populares faction, Caesar had many enemies among the elite optimates, and as soon as he left office, these enemies planned to bury him in litigation. Caesar knew he would lose everything: property, liberty, even his life. Caesar decided it was better to fight for victory than accept certain defeat. In January 49 BC, he crossed the Rubicon River with his army, in violation of sacred Roman law, and began a civil war. “Alea iacta est,” said Caesar: The die is cast."

- https://macris.substack.com/

Full screen recommended.

Charles Bukowoski, "The Laughing Heart", "Roll the Dice"

Read by Tom O'Bedlam

"BPR Week in Review (Alea Iacta Est)"

"BPR Week in Review (Alea Iacta Est)"

By Dan Denning

Laramie, Wyoming - "Did you know that the office of the President - indeed the entire Executive Branch - are completely absent from the Articles of Confederation? All the Executive and Judicial powers we associate with two separate and equal branches of government today were vested in the Congress in America’s original founding. Congress could select an officer to ‘preside’ over it. But he wasn’t a President. The Articles only lasted about eight years, from 1781 to 1789. The weak central government couldn’t tax, couldn’t regulate commerce, couldn’t field a standing army, and couldn’t easily declare war. The good old days!

Alas, the forces of collectivism and centralization are powerful and have deep pockets. The US Constitution as we know it was drafted and signed in 1787. It was ratified in 1788 and became the law of the land. Though specifically defining and limiting the powers of the Federal government, it amounted to vast expansion of Federal power and an assault on the States and individual liberty.

Still, try as you might, you can read all of Article II (dealing with the powers of the Executive branch and the President) and you’ll find no mention of capping interest rates on credit cards, limiting stock buy backs, or forbidding the corporate ownership of single family homes. Those were all things the current President proposed doing this week.

It would take an act of Congress to do any of those things. And even then, they might be un-Constitutional (violating the due process language in the 5th amendment). Individual states actually CAN cap credit card rates under ‘usury’ laws. This is why so many national credit card companies (Citibank, Chase, Capital One) are based in Delaware and South Dakota - because those states have no maximum interest rate limit on credit cards (general usury cap, in legal terms).

Of course I haven’t spoken to anyone who hates the President’s idea of lowering credit card interest rates to 10% for a year. Americans have about $1.3 trillion in credit card debt. The average APR on that debt is over 20%. That adds up to roughly $260 billion in interest payments each year. That does seem a bit usurious, but the again those companies are effectively taking the risk of lending money to debtors who might not pay it back. You take what you can get.

What does this Presidential over-reach/populism/outreach mean? The President wants to run the economy ‘hot’ headed into this year’s mid-term elections. You dole out some tariff money as a ‘stimulus,’ you eliminate taxes on tips, you buy $200 billion in mortgage backed securities to lower interest rates and stimulate the housing market, you replace your Fed chair with someone willing to do your bidding and lower interest rates, and you save debtors money on interest payments they can now spend. It all adds up…but to what?

Keep an eye on GDP figures and the velocity of money. If the intention of the Executive branch is to do everything in its power - and some things clearly NOT in its power - to boost economic activity, it will show up in a higher velocity of money (higher inflation). That, plus Congresses inability to restrain, much less cut, spending, should be a tail wind for precious metals in 2026.

By the way, sometime in the early hours of January 11th, 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the actual Rubicon. ‘Alea iacta est,’ Caesar said. The die is cast. Caesar was governor of Cisapline Gaul, or what is now northern Italy. But under Roman law, he could not legally cross into the Roman homeland with his army, as a General. It was an offence punishable by death. He did it anyway and the Roman civil war began. All the institutions of power were up for grabs. The sword was more important than the vote.

You could argue this was the real end of the Republic, although as I pointed out Friday, historians generally point the rule of Octavian (Augustus) as the point at which Rome ceased to be a Republic and became an Empire. It doesn’t really matter exactly when, especially since the process took place over more than century. For ordinary people, life went on.

And America today? Well, who knows. This summer will mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It’s been a good run. Let’s hope we make it another 250 years! Life goes on either way. And we must all do something with our money, to protect it, and our families. That work continues this week."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Piscataway, New Jersey, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Magician's Sheep"

"The Magician's Sheep"

GI Gurdjieff

"There is an Eastern tale that speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where the sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines and so on, and above all, they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and their skins, and this they did not like.

At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them, first of all, that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned; that on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place, he suggested that if anything at all were going to happen to them, it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to some that they were eagles, to some that they were men, to others that they were magicians. After this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again, but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins."

-GI Gurdjieff

“Just Sit Down And Think?”

“Just Sit Down And Think?”

by Oliver Burkeman

“’All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone,’ wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It's a line repeated so frequently, in the era of smartphones and social media, that it's easy to forget how striking it is that he wrote it in the 1600s. Back then, a sentence such as "Yo is a messaging app that enables iPhone and Android users to say 'Yo' to their friends" might have got you burned as a witch.

Yet even in 17th-century France, apparently, people hated being alone with their thoughts so intensely, they'd do almost anything else: play boules, start the Franco-Spanish war, and so on. Still, I'd wager even Pascal would have been disturbed by a study published in Science, showing that people detest being made to spend six to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think – even to the extent of being willing to give themselves mild electric shocks instead. It's natural to conclude that there's something wrong with such people. Which means, all else being equal, that something's probably wrong with you, too.

Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking. The new study, led by Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia, first asked students to entertain themselves with nothing but their thoughts in an "unadorned room". Most said they found it hard to concentrate; half found it unpleasant or neutral at best. In further experiments, older people, and those who rarely used smartphones, got similar results. Meanwhile, those given the chance to do something outward-directed, such as reading, enjoyed it far more. And when 42 people got to choose between sitting doing nothing and giving themselves electric shocks, two-thirds of men and a quarter of women chose the latter.

Are we mad? In his book "Back To Sanity," the Leeds Metropolitan University psychologist Steve Taylor answers: yes. The condition he diagnoses, "humania", isn't recognized as a disorder, but only because we're all victims, he argues, and it's part of the definition of a mental illness that most people don't have it. The "urge to immerse our attention in external things is so instinctive that we're scarcely aware of it", he writes. We often speak of emails, tweets and texts as if they're annoyances that we'd eliminate if we could. Yet the truth, of course, is that half the time we're desperate to be distracted, and gladly embrace the interruption.

Taylor's explanation for this puzzle borrows from Buddhism (among other places). We mistake ourselves for individual, isolated beings, trapped within our heads. No wonder we don't dwell on what's inside: that would underline the loneliness of existence, so obviously watching TV is more fun. To sit comfortably with your thoughts first requires seeing that there's a sense in which they're not real. A less new agey way of putting it is simply that you don't need to believe your thoughts. Whereupon they become fun to watch, and the need for distraction subsides. To quote the title of a book by Sylvia Boorstein, a meditation teacher: don't just do something, sit there.”

- http://www.theguardian.com/

"Why Modern Society Is Producing More Toxic People Than Ever"

Full screen recommended.

The Psyche,

"Why Modern Society Is Producing 

More Toxic People Than Ever"

"Why do people seem more irritable, defensive, emotionally distant, or aggressive than ever before? Why do conversations feel colder, relationships more fragile, and empathy increasingly rare? What if this is not a coincidence - but the result of how modern society is shaping the human mind? In this video, we explore why toxic behavior is no longer an exception, but a growing pattern in modern life. Drawing from the insights of Carl Jung, Freud, Viktor Frankl, Erich Fromm, and contemporary psychology, this reflection goes far beyond blaming individuals. Instead, it uncovers the hidden systems, pressures, and emotional mechanisms that quietly produce toxic personalities.

This is not a video about judging others. It is an invitation to understand human behavior at a deeper level - including your own reactions. Because toxicity does not end through confrontation, but through consciousness. If you are interested in psychology, philosophy, self-awareness, and deep reflections on modern society, this video will challenge how you see people, conflict, and inner growth. The world may be growing louder and harsher - but awareness remains one of the most radical forms of resistance."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Shortly..."

"Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think 

for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information

 they've been given on the previous night's news." 

- Zbigniew Brzezinski 

Just a guess, but it appears "shortly" has arrived...

"How It Really Is"

 

Good luck!

"The Times..."

"The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent incivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance, causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious, and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity. To disregard them, their presence, would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive, but we'll come out it, unharmed and liberated."

- Chirag Tulsiani

o

Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

- Samwise Gamgee, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Your Taxes, Bills and Rent Are Late!"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 1/11/26

"Your Taxes, Bills and Rent Are Late!"

"You have a problem! Big changes are here! The U.S. Postal Service has quietly rolled out new rules that could cost you big time. From delayed postmarks to rising prices, these changes affect everything—your taxes, rent, insurance, child support payments, and more. If you rely on mailing bills or documents close to their deadlines, this new system could mean late fees and major headaches. In this video, I break down what you need to know to stay ahead, including the impact on priority mail, rental payments, and even credit card bills. Don’t let these changes catch you off guard!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/