"Too Late to Turn Back Now"

"Too Late to Turn Back Now"

by Brian Maher

"The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet presently exceeds $7 trillion - a record. Yet consider the 2012–14 comments of then Federal Reserve Board member Jerome Powell - before he was chairman: "I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons.

First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated…. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce? When it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response…"

Continued the previous Federal Reserve Board member and present chairman: "My next concern is the problem of exiting from a near $4 trillion balance sheet. It just seems to me that we seem to be way too confident that exit can be managed smoothly. Markets can be much more dynamic than we appear to think… I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. I kind of think that a large balance sheet might prove to be a magnet for trouble over time. So I tentatively land on a floor system with the smallest possible balance sheet…"

Why Stop at $7 Trillion? If Mr. Powell was so flummoxed by a $4 trillion balance sheet, how must he regard a $7 trillion balance sheet? Do not the same concerns arise? We must conclude they do, only with far heavier gravity. $7 trillion is - after all - nearly twice $4 trillion. And so we parrot Federal Reserve Board member Jerome Powell: “Why stop at $7 trillion?”…“It will never be enough for the market”. “A large balance sheet might prove to be a magnet for trouble over time”.

But Powell was left no option, you say. Cruel fate twisted his arm… and yanked his hair. The virus and its consequent lockdowns waylaid the United States with the grimmest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Absent a vast engorgement of the balance sheet, markets could have gone careening 50% - or more. Years and years of stock market gains would have vanished into the electricity… taking with them the retirement dreams of millions.

But Mr. Powell fell into action with swift and delirious abandon. And the balance sheet took on dimensions truly obscene. And sure as sugar, markets soon found their legs. By summer, they were back atop the glorious heights. Merely 148 trading days after its March bottom, the S&P returned to record highs, and Dow 30,000 was in view.

The stock market has slid backward recently. But we are confident that more determined action by Mr. Powell and his mates will have it going again. An expanded balance sheet will do the pushing. How they can ever slash the balance sheet without sinking the market, we do not know. Yet what is true of the balance sheet is likewise true of interest rates…

Into the “Tractor Beam” of Zero Rates: As a dog returneth to its vomit the federal funds rate has returned to zero. The Federal Reserve has implied it will linger there through 2022. Yet we hazard it will remain at zero as far as eyes can gaze. Hedge fund grandee Kyle Bass has said the economy has fallen within the inescapable “tractor beam” of zero rates: "As we have all learned, once an economy falls into the tractor beam of zero rates, it’s almost impossible to escape them. Growth numbers are going to come down and real growth might go to zero. We’re probably never going to go away from zero rates."

We fear Mr. Bass is correct. Like a man hooked to a respirator, the economy cannot breathe on its own. The previous financial crisis collapsed its lungs. The Federal Reserve rushed over, plugged in the oxygen… and never took it out. The economy’s natural breathing apparatus atrophied from disuse.

In 2018, Dr. Powell attempted to wean the patient off support. He increased rates on four occasions. That December he also pledged that quantitative tightening would proceed apace. But the stock market gurgled, sputtered and flailed on the news. It turned in its worst December since the Great Depression.

By early January 2019, Dr. Powell emptied his medical kit into the trash can. Anon he was pumping in more oxygen. The stock market was sitting up in no time, and back in the pink of health. Packed with oxygen-rich blood, it went on another lovely spree.

Then this March a microscopic marauder got loose. The economy scrambled into hiding. And the market took a terrible fright. Powell got the stock market up and going again. Yet it requires more artificial support than ever. And the economy has only partly emerged from its bunker. Will zero rates entice it out?

Are Rates Actually Low? Nominal rates are at zero, it is true. But does that mean interest rates are truly at zero? Not when you consider real interest rates. Jim Rickards: "As for rates being “low,” they’re not. It’s true that nominal interest rates (the kind you see on screens and TV) are near all-time lows. But real interest rates (nominal rates minus inflation) are quite high by historical standards. Real rates have to go much lower to help growth. With inflation dropping, that means nominal rates have to go deeply negative in order to get real rates low enough to help. That is, even at zero, the economy cannot withstand higher interest rates. In this telling, they must in fact sink far into negative territory to push the economy far into positive territory."

Thus the Federal Reserve cannot increase interest rates for years and years. Nor can it saw into its balance sheet without sawing through Wall Street. But if a $4 trillion balance sheet was a “magnet for trouble over time,” what about a $7 trillion balance sheet?"

- dailyreckoning.com

"Life Is Difficult..."

“Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.”

- M. Scott Peck

"Going Full Orwell"

"Going Full Orwell"

by Jim Kunstler

"Oscar Wilde observed that “life imitates art,” and there they were: the three grand poohbahs of social media, stone-facing the Senate Homeland Security Committee on their zoom screens like a trio of James Bond villains - Jack “Twitter” Dorsey, complete with sinister nose-ring and necromancer’s beard, Mark “Facebook” Zuckerberg, pasty and blank as a knish, and Sundar “Google” Pichai the Merciless. Only missing were the Persian cats in their laps.

They were on-board to answer how come their monstrous information engines were censoring the news so as to possibly influence a national election, and they offered the confabulated fantasy that their cancellation of the Biden Family influence-peddling story in The New York Post, and disabling the accounts of sundry un-Woketarian journalists, was actually a policy of “transparency.” With the election only days away, the subtext of their demeanor was a clear “F**k you, you can’t do anything about it” to the American people.

Apparently so, but their insolence may be answered by the antitrust case lately teed up against them by the Department of Justice, especially if said election doesn’t go exactly the way they’ve attempted to engineer it. The rest of the Woke news media followed suit with the trio, of course, in an extraordinary affront to the public interest. The New York Times, CNN, and the rest of the gang completed their metamorphosis from a free press to Orwell’s memory hole, where reality goes to die.

But the Biden family grifting story has a life of its own, and the story is that the Democratic Party’s candidate for president would not survive a month in office before being dragged through some dreadful legal proceeding as a threat to national security, having sold himself to the rulers of several foreign countries, all too neatly documented to ignore.

For now, with the news media covering for him, Mr. Biden has managed to duck the story without refuting the authenticity of the evidence, namely, troves of genuine emails and texts between the principals of the various companies set up (in Delaware!) by his son, Hunter Biden, naming the former vice-president as an informed accomplice in schemes to sell his “services” to all comers. And he came pretty cheap, too, considering that the tens of millions proffered was mere walking-around-money to the CCP-connected Chinese billionaires, and others, who sought the deals. They even sent Hunter a hundred-large just “to buy a car.” (Did he get a Chevy Spark and blow the change up his nose, as was his wont, I wonder?)

The now infamous “Laptop from Hell” left behind brainlessly by Hunter in a Delaware repair shop apparently contains a parallel trove of photos and videos self-chronicling the scion’s sordid private life - sex, drugs, etc. - suggesting that he has set himself up as the perfect target for blackmailing operations. And goodness knows what Chinese intel on its own initiative recorded him doing in the hotels there (with amenities supplied) on his many visits to their land. Said laptop was also, it turns out, in the possession of the FBI as far back as the impeachment preliminaries in Adam Schiff’s House Intel Committee, fall of 2019. Since it was full of material counter-evidence about the issue at hand - the president’s phone call to Ukraine’s President Zelensky vis-a-vis the Biden family’s shady doings in that country - the question arises of how deep was the FBI’s complicity in the impeachment ruse?

Could FBI Director Christopher Wray not have known of the laptop’s existence when it came into the agency? I doubt it. Could Mr. Wray have concealed the information from Attorney General Barr? Yes, quite possibly. In the meantime, Mr. Barr has not said a word about the entire Biden pay-for-play/laptop extravaganza. I imagine he’s chewing the office furniture at Main Justice in a fury over it with the election pending, and his duty to avoid influencing the outcome. Mr. Trump has felt a little freer to share the wicked business with the public in his campaign appearances, setting the table for a banquet of consequences when the election is over.

If it can be gotten over, since the Democrats have made no secret of their elaborate plan to confound the results with post November 3 ballot harvesting and Lawfare shenanigans in the swing states - to be accompanied by riots staged by their Antifa and BLM shock troops. I think the idea is to provoke Mr. Trump to call out US troops to quell the riots, thereby opening him up to accusations of being a tyrant. I suspect they’ll be overplaying their hand on that trick, since a sizable portion of the public that has not collectively lost its mind is good and goddam sick of riots, arson, destruction of property, and the looting capers that go with them. Mr. Trump has overcome every adversity thrown in his path for four years, and I believe he will get through this final tribulation, beep-beep. And then the games can begin in earnest.

Mr. Biden apparently changed his mind about “putting a lid” on the last week of his campaign and strayed out of his basement in what looks like a desperate effort to dispel the odium hanging over him. He might as well just paint a big “L” on his forehead. Thursday evening, he was onstage in Tampa, angry and fulminating to his usual sparse audience, when the skies opened. The audience peeled away in the pouring rain and so did Joe Biden after only nineteen minutes of bitter vituperation, the perfect picture of loserdom… Captain Queeg meets Willie Loman… without the charm."

- https://kunstler.com

"We Like To Think..."

“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”

- “Grey’s Anatomy”

"Market Fantasy Updates 10/30/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates 10/30/20"

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

Only the consequences are real - to you!

○

"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

○

Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/30/20

"TWO Major Banks 'Short The Dollar.' 

Fed. Ready To INCREASE Debt Purchases"

- https://traderschoice.net/

○

Updated live.

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

○

- https://markets.businessinsider.com/

○

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

OCT 30, 2020 4:00 PM: "Shocktober: Stocks Suffer Worst Pre-Election Plunge In History"

OCT 30, 2020 3:25 PM: "Wall Street Braces For "Terrifying Risk" And A 20% Plunge In Just A Few Days"○

- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

○

Daily Update (October 30th 5 AM PT)

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

○

Insanity... 

○

And now. The End game...

The Daily "Near You?"

Londonderry, New Hampshire, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

"The Second Coming"

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

- William Butler Yeats, January 1919

"Our Dilemma..."

"Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; 

what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better. "

- Sydney J. Harris

"Americans Are Panic Buying Lots Of Food As Difficult Times Approaching"

"Americans Are Panic Buying Lots Of Food 

As Difficult Times Approaching"

by Epic Economist

"Food-stockpiling tendencies are on the rise, with a pantry surge of up to 3,400%. Many Americans already started to stock food for the winter, fearing the occurrence of shortages just as seen earlier this year. However, food prices are fast increasing, and not everybody will have access to food products. The U.S. is about to experience a hunger calamity, and over 54 million people could potentially face hunger by the end of the year. In this video, we investigate this very worrying matter and reflect upon the damaging effects it will pose to millions of households across the country. 

Back in March, American consumers started to panic-buy shelf-stable meals and cleaning products, leaving store shelves empty, and unconsciously contributing to supply shortages. Now, grocery store owners have affirmed they have been preparing for a second surge in the stockpiling trend, but now that massive purchases already started, they seem unsure about having enough to attend the demand. 

On the other hand, local production has been compromised by several natural disasters throughout the year and also big manufacturers' orders for farmers to dump production and slaughter their animals due to contractual obligations. For its part, store supply in smaller cities or distant rural areas couldn't afford to prepare in advance, considering many of them were never fully restocked since the first round of supply shortages. 

Even though some companies are insisting that they are better prepared than before, shortages persist in many places. The real struggle for food companies is not only to rebuild the inventories that were depleted at the beginning of the year but keep it properly restocked throughout the coming winter, and most importantly, to still have sufficient available items after the holiday season is over. 

Many companies revealed they don’t expect its inventories to get back to normal levels until next year, considering consumers are still hoarding as much food as they can, which adds extra pressure on companies across the industry. 

However, when demand is high and the offer is low, prices tend to soar. In other words, in the face of mass unemployment and the absence of further stimulus packages, those who still have a source of income will have it at their stockpiles, but those who don't are likely to cope with food insecurity. 

Furthermore, a survey by Feeding America found that over 54 million Americans are likely to face hunger by December, which puts the country in the worst hunger calamity in history. Worldwide, an additional 100 million people or more could also be facing starvation this year. Analysts point that we’re in the midst of a health crisis; we’re in the midst of an economic crisis; we’re in the midst of a social justice crisis, particularly here in the United States, and I think we’re in the midst of a leadership crisis, as well.

By the end of August, the federal aid wore off and families had to deal with empty cupboards again as viral cases increased in the Midwest. Rising crop and livestock prices echoed into grocery stores. The cost of bread climbed almost 20% in June, while meat jumped 17%.

While government officials are still battling over the issuance of additional stimulus, more households are falling into poverty. In short, despite some food manufacturers and grocery chains have been bolstering efforts to support the demand and avoid supply shortages, increasing prices and the deteriorating conditions of the labor market will continue to boost food insecurity to unprecedented levels."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

"America’s Weak Men"

"America’s Weak Men"

by Bill Bonner

"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times.

 Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times."

– G. Michael Hopf

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "America’s weak men – in Congress, on Wall Street, in the Federal Reserve, in universities and newsrooms – getting old, desperate to hold on to their status and their money – are setting up some very tough times. At least, that’s our guiding hypothesis here at the Diary. But the blockheads think that, with math and mechanics – or brute force – they can escape the patterns of the past… and the poetic judgment of the future.

Simpleton Logic: During the Vietnam War, for example, the number-crunchers, led by former secretary of defense Robert McNamara, tried to win by doing simple cost/benefit analysis. They watched the “body count”… as if it were the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Then, in an effort to increase the cost to the enemy, they “sent a message to Hanoi,” threatening to bomb it “back to the Stone Age,” if it didn’t do what the U.S. wanted. Years later, North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap said to McNamara, “We didn’t know you were trying to send a message. We thought you were trying to kill us.”

We see the same sort of simpleton logic at work in America’s “sanctions” – against Russia, Iran, and others. They are supposed to increase the pain to the foreigners and result in a gain for the U.S. Instead, the “enemy” digs in its heels and rallies behind its leaders.

Illusion of Recovery: The mechanistic/math-based illusion is also at the center of the feds’ ham-fisted “stimulus” measures. Dropping money bombs from helicopters (or supplemental unemployment compensation… or business bailouts), they believe they can increase real “demand” and change the behavior of the economy.

Which is what led to the latest “blowout” GDP growth numbers. According to the number-torturers, U.S. GDP grew 33% in the third quarter – a record. But wait. How could GDP go up so much while 22 million people – 13% of the workforce – are receiving unemployment? And when actual on-the-job earnings are down by hundreds of billions of dollars? And when long-term unemployment is rising as more and more small businesses simply give up?

Oh, Dear Reader… you already know the answer, don’t you? In the midst of the sharpest downturn in history, the feds increased Americans’ incomes by giving them more money than they earned when they were working – with more than $5 trillion in fiscal and monetary stimulus. Since they were trapped at home, folks took the free cash and started daytrading… or bought new appliances. Now, they have new refrigerators… and a new TV to watch while they’re waiting to be called back to work.

If you just looked at the numbers, the result could be mistaken for a “recovery.” And if you were particularly thick, like a Federal Reserve governor… or a White House economic advisor… you might conclude that the economy needs more of this stimulus.

Old Wives’ Tales: But if you have any poetry in your soul… or any real brains in your head… you know you can’t borrow or “print” your way to wealth. The “recovery” has stalled. Because the mechanical/mathematical metaphor – even dressed up as the Fed’s “dynamic stochastic equilibrium” model – is a fraud. There are deeper patterns at work… oft brushed off as old wives’ tales and moral lessons: “A penny saved is a penny earned.” “Don’t go looking for trouble – or you’ll find it.” “Marry for money – and you’ll earn it every day.” And our favorite: “One generation learns; the next forgets.” The generation of the 1930s and 1940s faced hard times. They learned to work, save their money, and let the economy do its stuff.

Weak Men: That is what produced the good times of the 1950s and 1960s… making the U.S. the world leader non-pareil, in every sense. First in economy. First in art and culture. First in military power. First in science, learning… You name it. We were number one. But the good times produced weak men.

Richard Nixon was faced with rising inflation – it hit 4.3% in 1971. The U.S. dollar was falling. The French were coming to the Treasury, demanding to exchange – as guaranteed by six generations of U.S. Treasury Secretaries – their U.S. dollars for gold. What did Nixon do? Stiffen his backbone… cut government spending… cut taxes… and roll up his sleeves to dig his way out of the hole Lyndon Johnson had put him in? Nope. His knees buckled. He slithered down and ordered the “gold window” at the Federal Reserve closed.

Thenceforth, America operated with a new kind of fake money – not backed by anything except the jelly-like ligaments of future Treasury and Fed chiefs. Inflation rose to 13% in 1980 and threatened to go higher… until Paul Volcker, America’s last honest Fed chairman, brought it under control. This “save” bought the U.S. 20 more years of relative prosperity… and peace.

No Backbone: But since then, it is as if America’s Achilles tendon had been cut. Wibbly wobbly… flippety floppety… First, in 2001, George W. Bush gave in to the warmongers and the military/industrial/surveillance wing of the Deep State… He began the longest, most expensive, most pointless war in U.S. history. There wasn’t even an identifiable enemy.

Meanwhile, Fed chief Alan Greenspan collapsed, too. Rather than let the economy heal itself after the recession of 2001, he jazzed it up and perverted it by lowering the key federal funds rate by more than 500 basis points (5 percentage points). These artificially low interest rates caused the mortgage crisis of 2008-2009. Then, both the Fed – under Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke – and the federal government, under Barack Obama… gave way.

Bernanke famously applauded his own spinelessness in his hagiographic book, "The Courage to Act." Like his predecessor, he cut the federal funds rate by more than 5 percentage points… down to near zero. For his part, Obama backed the “shovel-ready” boondoggles already in motion. And though he had pledged to get America out of Bush’s futile wars, when push came to shove… rather than go up against the warmongers… including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden – he went limp.

No Strength or Courage: The next crisis, in February of this year, brought forth a new bowl of noodles. Donald Trump couldn’t stand up straight and confront his own health bureaucrats. And the Jerome Powell Fed went along with an outrageous money-printing spree, in which in the second quarter of this year brought government spending to more than half of GDP… and made the deficit for 2020 greater than tax receipts.

So far, in the face of the COVID-Lockdown-Recession, there have been few people who have shown any strength at all. Instead, they watch the numbers – new “cases”… “with-COVID deaths”… hospital beds in use… They must think that if they only had enough data, they could defeat death itself. Somehow, the Swedes mostly resisted the hysteria. Practically everywhere else, people panicked and fled in terror.

Perhaps the greatest exception is a federal judge in Pennsylvania. On September 14, the New York Daily News reported… "A federal judge on Monday struck down Pennsylvania’s coronavirus restrictions that banned large gatherings and forced nonessential businesses to close, calling the order “unconstitutional.” Judge William Stickman ruled in favor of four counties that had sued Gov. Tom Wolf and Health Secretary Rachel Levine over the rules. “There is no question that this country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort,” Stickman wrote. “But the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment.”

As for the rest – the whole elite of judges, politicians, rich people, media figures… the soft generation that grew up in the cushy 1960s and 1970s – there is little sign of strength or courage. Surely, the curse of history is on us all."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

○

"We're so freakin' doomed!"

- The Mogambo Guru

"How It Really Is"

"Escape from L.A…and Joe Biden"

"Escape from L.A…and Joe Biden"

by Michael Reagan

"It doesn’t matter who wins on Tuesday, America is in for big trouble. If it’s Joe Biden, the Democrat Party’s street gangs will celebrate by rioting in the streets. If Donald Trump wins re-election, Biden’s supporters will be so enraged they’ll riot, loot and burn everything they can – and the liberal media will say they had every right to express their anger.

I live in Los Angeles, which government law-and-order experts say is not likely to riot and burn because of next week’s presidential election results. But I’m taking no chances. Here they riot and loot when the Dodgers win the World Series, so I don’t plan to be anywhere near my home on Nov. 3. I’m hiring a guard for my house and on Election Day morning my family and I will get out of town. I’m not revealing where we’ll go, but I don’t plan to come back till the following week, when most of the rioting, torching and shooting should be over.

If all this sounds paranoid to you, it’s because somehow you’ve failed to notice that in the last half year our country has gone crazy, and gone to Hell. I’m not blaming Donald Trump for the country’s dangerous craziness. I’m blaming social media and the deranged, dishonest mainstream liberal media in general because of the way they’ve ginned up hatred for him and protected corrupt and senile Joe Biden.

For the last 20 years everyone clamored for a businessman to become president and drain the Washington swamp of the creatures who’ve been wrecking the country with their bad laws, high taxes and endless wars in the Middle East. Then when the country elected a businessman president, the political class in Washington couldn’t handle it.

Now the D.C. “elites” and the media pundits think a lifetime political hack who has been living in the swamp for half a century is going to fix everything? Biden’s going to control COVID-19? Really?What’s he going to do that Trump and his administration hasn’t already done? New therapeutics and tests are here already. A vaccine is on its way. Other than destroy the economy with another crippling lockdown and a national mask mandate, Biden has nothing to offer.

I fear for what might happen on the streets of L.A. next week if Trump wins, but I’m lucky. I can afford to take my family out of town. Most people can’t. No big city in the country run by Democrats is safe from rioting and violence. Their mayors and governors don’t lead. They tell police to watch looters not stop them. As usual, the poorest people in cities will become the main victims of mob violence and the failure of police and local government to protect them, their property and their businesses.

If I weren’t able to leave town, I’d sure as heck make sure I was well-armed on Election Night. I’d want to be ready to defend my family, because once the rioting starts you never know where it’s going to end. I don’t want it ending at my front door.

I’m not going to predict the results of the election. With all the mail-in voting and delayed vote counts in key states like Pennsylvania, we might still be wondering who the winner is three weeks from now. But my prayer is that Trump wins big. No matter what I think of his tweets or his personality, my prayer is that Joe Biden, his leftwing puppet-masters and his dishonest allies in the media are shocked and humiliated once again."

- https://www.cagle.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/30/2020"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 10/30/2020"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"More bad news for the Biden crime family hit this week when it was discovered there is an active FBI criminal investigation into “Hunter Biden and associates” in what is now an obvious influence peddling scheme that has been going on for many years. Emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop and whistleblowers confirm that Joe Biden is taking part in this action. The bigger story is the mainstream media (MSM) is either ignoring it or passing it off as, wait for it, more Russian disinformation. Of course, this is a huge lie, and all the information that has been released so far has been totally confirmed by multiple U.S. government sources.

The MSM has reduced itself to a DNC propaganda machine to protect Joe Biden and help him defeat Donald Trump. They are now outright making up stories with zero backup or sources calling the Hunter Biden revelations a “smear campaign.” This is a huge crime to misinform the public and not tell them before a Presidential Election that candidate Joe Biden is compromised and sold out to multiple enemies of America. The MSM is complicit in treason, in my mind. Journalism is dead at the soon to be bankrupt MSM.

There is good news and more bad news in the economy. The GDP is up a record 33%, and it looks like Trump has America heading in the right direction. The bad news is another 775,000 people filed for unemployment last week, and simply not enough jobs are being created to put America back to work in bigger numbers."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about

 these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

“Economic Bailout Coming; Homeless Crisis to Boom; Job Losses Surge; Stock Market Is Fake”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Economic Bailout Coming; Homeless Crisis to Boom; 

Job Losses Surge; Stock Market Is Fake”

Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/29/20: "Stocks Struggle For Direction, Where Are They Going?"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/29/20:

"Stocks Struggle For Direction, Where Are They Going?"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Challenge From Heaven”

2002, “Challenge From Heaven”

Full screen mode recommended.

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young. 

 

But like any open star cluster orbiting in the plane of our galaxy, M34 will eventually disperse as it experiences gravitational tides and encounters with the Milky Way's interstellar clouds and other stars. Over four billion years ago, our own Sun was likely formed in a similar open star cluster.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100211.html

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Mysteries, Yes"

"Mysteries, Yes"

"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds

will never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads."

~ Mary Oliver

"Shaya's Home Run"

"Shaya's Home Run"

by Rabbi Paysach Krohn

"In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning-disabled children. Some children remain in Chush for their entire school careers, while others can be mainstreamed into conventional yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs. There are a few children who attend Chush for most of the week and go to a regular school on Sundays. At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, “Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything that Hashem [G-d] does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is Hashem’s perfection?” The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father’s anguish and stilled by his piercing query.

“I believe,” the father answered, “that when Hashem brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that He seeks is in the way people react to this child.” He then told the following story about his son Shaya. Shaya attends Chush throughout the week and Yeshivah Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway on Sundays. One Sunday afternoon, Shaya and his father came to Darchei Torah as his classmates were playing baseball. The game was in progress and as Shaya and his father made their way towards the ball field, Shaya said, “Do you think you could get me into the game?”

Shaya’s father knew his son was not at all athletic, and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya’s father understood that if his son was chosen in, it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging. Shaya’s father approached one of the boys in the field and asked, “Do you think my Shaya could get into the game?”

The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates. Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, “We are losing by six runs and the game is already in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning.” Shaya’s father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field, a position that exists only in softball. There were no protests from the opposing team, which would now be hitting with an extra man in the outfield.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya’s team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded and the potential winning runs on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shaya was told to take a bat and try to get a hit. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible, for Shaya didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it. However as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so that Shaya should at least be able to make contact.

The first pitch came in and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya’s teammates came up to Shaya and together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shaya. As the next pitch came in, Shaya and his teammate swung the bat and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game.

Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far and wide beyond the first baseman’s reach. Everyone started yelling, “Shaya, run to first! Shaya, run to first!” Never in his life had Shaya run to first. He scampered down the baseline wide eyed and startled. By the time he reached first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who was still running. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher’s intentions were, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman’s head, as everyone yelled, “Shaya, run to second! Shaya, run to second.”

Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran towards him, turned him towards the direction of third base and shouted “Shaya, run to third!”

As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming, “Shaya, run home! Shaya, run home!” Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit the “grand slam” and won the game for his team.

“That day,” said the father who now had tears rolling down his face, “those 18 boys reached their level of perfection. They showed that it is not only those who are talented that should be recognized, but also those who have less talent. They too are human beings, they too have feelings and emotions, they too are people, they too want to feel important.”

That is the exceptional lesson of this episode. Too often we seek to find favor and give honor to those who have more than us. But there are people who have fewer friends than we, less money, and less prestige. Those people especially need attention and recognition. We should try to achieve the level of perfection in human relationships which the boys on the ball field at Yeshiva Darchei Torah achieved. Because if children can do it, we adults should certainly be able to accomplish it as well."

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/flo/floshayashomerun.htm

"The Only Cure..."

"We're all susceptible to it, the dread and anxiety of not knowing what's coming. It's pointless in the end, because all the worrying and the making of plans for things that could or could not happen, it only makes things worse. So walk your dog or take a nap. Just whatever you do, stop worrying. Because the only cure for paranoia is to be here, just as you are."

- Dr. Meredith Grey, "Grey's Anatomy"

Free Download: Joseph Heller, “Catch-22”

“Catch-22”

by Wikipedia

“’Catch-22’ is a satirical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. It is frequently cited as one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century. It uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so that the timeline develops along with the plot.

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

The novel’s title refers to a plot device that is repeatedly invoked in the story. Catch-22 starts as a set of paradoxical requirements whereby airmen mentally unfit to fly did not have to do so, but could not actually be excused. By the end of the novel it is invoked as the explanation for many unreasonable restrictions. The phrase “Catch-22″ has since entered the English language, referring to a type of unsolvable logic puzzle sometimes called a double bind. According to the novel, people who were crazy were not obliged to fly missions; but anyone who applied to stop flying was showing a rational concern for his safety and, therefore, was sane.”

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22

Freely download “Catch-22″, by Joseph Heller, here:

- https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/catch-22.pdf

"Write Your Worries On The Sand..."

“I walked slowly out on the beach.

A few yards below high-water mark I stopped and read the words again: 

WRITE YOUR WORRIES ON THE SAND.

I let the paper blow away, reached down and picked up a fragment of shell. 

Kneeling there under the vault of the sky,

 I wrote several words, one above the other.

Then I walked away, and I did not look back. 

I had written my troubles on the sand. 

The tide was coming in.”

- Arthur Gordon

The Daily "Near You?"

 

Derby, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"To Really Ask..."

“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world – few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can’t go on. To really ask is to open the door to a whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”

- Anne Rice, “The Vampire Lestat”

"On the Trail of the Disappearing Water"

"On the Trail of the Disappearing Water"

By Bill Bonner

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "Yesterday, the Dow fell another 943 points. Investors paced nervously… worrying …that the coronavirus is not going away…that no vaccine will prove effective (at least not soon)…that sales and profits will be down for a long time…and that the results of next week’s election won’t help.

Decision Time: Yes, we are getting closer and closer to decision day. A fork in the road. One tine leads to more spending, more bombast, more debt, more money-printing, more drama, and more BS… Heck, in the second quarter of this year, government spending was more than half of GDP! The other tine leads to more bailouts and giveaways… with more new programs – A Green New Deal… universal free medical care… free college… a universal basic income… and, of course, more money-printing…

Both roads end up in the same place – inflation… depression… social upheaval… political corruption… imperial decline… and national disaster. On November 3, voters – those who haven’t already wasted their time – will get a chance to express themselves on which road they prefer. Since both roads, high and low, lead to the same place, the choice is largely aesthetic.

Mr. Donald Trump is like a huge, colorful eyesore of a couch in a small living room. It is the object that catches everyone’s eye. Some want to get rid of it – it is simply too imposing, they say, with neither charm nor style. But many are happy with the sofa… 100% made-in-America… red, white, and blue! It may be ugly, they say, but it is comfortable. They don’t want any of that fashionable, Scandinavian, modern, or minimalist contemporary stuff. Our guess is that most voters are ready to redecorate. If so, they may end up with an even more hideous piece of furniture in the White House. But we will see.

Hell and Paradise: Meanwhile, we’ll follow up with our report on life here in the Calchaquí. To remind readers… our adversaries are entrenched in two high valleys. In the Quebrada Grande are four farms… occupied by local families with deep roots in the area. That is where the local activist, Maria La Gorda (Fat Mary) lives. We went to see her a week ago and reported on our visit yesterday.

On Sunday, we went up to the bigger, farther-away, higher valley – Compuel. It is a huge valley – perhaps of some 10,000 acres… maybe more. But there are no trees… and no possibility of farming. More like Mongolia than Missouri, it is for herdsmen, not farmers. Both paradise and Hell, Compuel is surrounded by majestic mountains. In the summer, there are shallow lakes, marshes, ducks, and lush grass. In the winter, the flowers shrivel, the cattle die, the water disappears, and a cold, bitter wind blows a gale through the whole valley.

Disappearing Water: At the bottom of the valley floor, a stream runs from north to south… finally coming to a narrow defile between the mountains, where it tumbles down about 10 miles to the small valley where our grapes are grown. That stream has practically disappeared completely, leading some of our farmhands to conclude that the originarios up in Compuel had dammed the river.

We had thought of damming the river ourselves. The pass is so narrow, it would be easy to block it. Then, the resulting lake could serve as a huge reservoir, from which we could release water as needed. It was a good idea, but beyond our engineering abilities… as well as beyond the range of our logistical support… So we forgot about it.

Compuel Cattle: In the meantime, the whole valley slipped out of our control. A severe drought five years ago forced us to remove our cattle. They were taken down to a lower valley. Many died, unable to adjust to different food and a different climate. And the survivors went soft, gradually adapting to an easier life. They got used to electric lights and mild winters. Then, it was impossible to take them back up to Compuel. Few would survive. “Compuel cattle need to be raised in Compuel and stay in Compuel,” explained our former farm foreman, Jorge. “You almost have to create a special breed, a mixture of the mountain creole cattle and Brafords.”

On the Warpath: In theory, the valley floor is ours to use as we see fit. The pastajeros (shepherds) who live at Compuel are supposed to keep their animals up in the mountains. But now, the originarios are on the warpath. They have seized the whole place… filling it with sheep, goats, cattle, llamas, and burros. They don’t worry about the quality of the animals or about selling them… or even about keeping them alive. Instead, the animals are allowed to reproduce. Then, in the dry season, they have nothing to eat.

It is a long, hard ride to Compuel… up over three passes, the highest at 14,000 feet… and then out onto the broad valley floor to where the river comes down from the high mountains to the north.

Valley floor.

(Credit: Elizabeth Bonner)

We left before first light, taking the long way around… to avoid the harder trail up over the mountain behind the house, and to spare the horses. Then, it was a long, slow ride… the three of us – Elizabeth, our foreman Gustavo, and I – along with two dogs cheerfully trailing behind.

Heading for Compuel

(Credit: Elizabeth Bonner)

Inca Ruins: The old road follows an Inca trail. There were Indian terraces on the hillsides and remnants of old irrigation ditches. Stone walls – from terraces, fences, and abandoned houses – are all over the place. Indians were in the area for, maybe, 10,000 years… and the Spanish for another 300 years. It’s hard to know which ruins belong to whom. When we finally crested the highest of the passes, we looked down on the vast valley. Then, riding down to the valley floor, we rounded a huge, rocky hill and came upon one of the most important of the Inca ruins.

Large squares or rectangles, outlined with stone walls, they are too large to have been roofed. Archeologists guess that they were a vast series of corrals. But it is hard to see why so many would have been needed. Bits of broken pottery lie all over the ground. Last year, when visiting these ruins, we looked down and found a tiny puma head made of clay.

(Credit: Elizabeth Bonner)

It was next to these old ruins – centrally located near the entrance to the valley, and near a fulsome supply of stones – that previous owners had recycled the Inca walls into a grand corral… along with two small houses, where the cowboys could stay out of the wind when they were up taking care of the cattle. These two houses are now blackened shells, having been partly dismantled and then burned.

Disastrous Decision: We pushed on to a stone formation deeper into the valley. It is called the “Tower,” because it looks a bit like a medieval castle with a castle keep sticking up. Looking more carefully, we see that it is capped by a huge stone that teeters on edge and looks like it might fall down at any time. There, we stopped for lunch… circumnavigating the Tower, looking for shade. But in the midday sun, there was no shade to be had. So we huddled against a large rock to get out of the wind.

“We used to keep 250 cows here,” Gustavo explained. “And when we saw any animals that belonged to the local people, we told them to get them off… or we’d shoot them. They don’t have the right to this grass. We should never have taken the cows out of the valley.” “But they were starving…” we replied. “Most of them would probably have survived. And now, we’ve lost the valley. We’ll put a few cows here in the summer. But it’s so full of useless animals, none of them will have much to eat. Look at it… It’s a disaster.”

Attack of the Curious Llamas: This was a comment from an experienced cattleman. What we saw were groups of cows – 10 here, 20 there… hundreds of them in total – grazing on what little grass was left. Sheep were abundant, too – with dozens and dozens of lambs bouncing as if carefree over the clumps of eaten-down grass.

One of the peculiarities of the place is that when the water dries up, the land that appears is lumpy… as if it were bubbling up. The horses find walking on it difficult. They have to make their way over and around the clumps of dirt and grass. In addition to the skinny cows… and both white and black sheep, with scraggly wool and spindly legs… there were dozens of burros and llamas. The burros ran off when we approached them. But the llamas are curious. They approached us.

Elizabeth’s horse was startled by them… it panicked and started to run. Her horse had recently been brought up from the farm below; it had never seen these strange-looking beasts. Gustavo dismounted and tried to shoo the llamas away…“Go ahead,” he yelled to Elizabeth. We put our horse – who had no fear of the llamas – between the animals and Elizabeth… like running interference in a football game… allowing her to get away from them.

Not Strictly Legal: The most useless animals – llamas and burros – seemed to be in the best shape. They appeared healthy, at least. The burros looked sturdy and well-fed. The llamas had thick, almost luxurious fleeces – dark brown or tan – that would have been good additions to any living room. The locals make no attempt to control breeding. And they can’t sell their animals in any quantity. Instead, they let nature take her course. But nature is cruel up here. On our short ride, we saw five or six dead cows. They get thin and weak… and then die. And the worst is still ahead. It won’t rain until December or January.

“You know, in the old days…” Gustavo began. We cut him off. “I know… I know… The owner would have come up here, shot all the animals, and burned down the locals’ houses. But we can’t do that. This is 2020… and we’re foreigners. We’d be crucified in the press… and in the courts. We’d end up in jail for the rest of our lives.”

“Yes, of course… But we don’t have to do it. Some of the guys around here – including the governor… I mean, the ex-governor… your friend – they call in the Bolivians.” “I only met him once or twice… The Bolivians?”

"Yes, they are some really nasty guys. But they get the job done. And everybody knows they mean business. So they don’t have to use violence. They would just go to visit these originarios and let them know that bad things will happen to them if they don’t straighten up. Otherwise, we’re going to have to fix the corral… and they’re going to destroy it again. But after a visit from the Bolivians, they won’t want to do anything.

You know, this is not North America. This is Argentina. A lot of things happen here that aren’t strictly legal. I mean, who changes his money at the official rate? Nobody. And what businessman declares his income honestly? He’d have to be crazy.”

Gustavo laughed. “And if you tried to respect all the laws, you’d soon be broke… and crazy.” “Sounds tempting… I mean, calling in the Bolivians… But once you start down that path – unless you’re the governor – bad things can happen to you, too. It’s like paying a hit man. Then, he can control you. Sounds like it would make a good movie plot. But what makes you think you can trust them? The ex-governor, he’s got power… friends… connections. He might be able to use those Bolivian guys. But us? No thanks.”

Nothing Illegal: After an hour or so, we had finished our lunch… We remounted and continued on to the middle of the valley. We stopped by a small stream still running with water. “They haven’t blocked it,” noted Gustavo. “At least not down here. But this time of year, it won’t reach the end of the valley. It will sink into the ground and come up again further on down the mountain.” This was what we wanted to see. So we headed south to the end of the valley, vaguely shadowing the meandering stream.

After about a half an hour more, the tiny river came to a pool… and didn’t go any further, about a mile short of where the valley ends and the water splashes down between the rocks. “That’s all there is. They didn’t block it. It just doesn’t go any further. The water goes into the sand.” Having satisfied ourselves that there was no reason to call the police – or the Bolivians… we turned our horses around and headed home."

- www.rogueeconomics.com