Tel Aviv, Israel. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, June 17, 2021
"Protect Yourself From Inflation"
"Protect Yourself From Inflation"
by Bill Bonner
"The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more
devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislatures."
- Warren Buffett,
in Fortune magazine, 1977
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Yesterday, a dear reader asked how the average Joe can “get a leg up” in a dangerous and difficult world? It won’t be easy. Here’s the latest mouthful from Bloomberg: "Fed Officials Rattle Rate-Hike Saber as Price Pressures Surprise" What Bloomberg is trying to say is that the Federal Reserve is hinting that it might… possibly… perhaps... raise rates.
Wednesday’s Fed forecast suggested that two increases are likely in 2023; none before. In other words, it said nothing. It could raise rates twice… three times… four times… even 10 times… and still be well below the level of consumer price increases. Which is to say, the Fed is now “behind the curve”… following the trend of events, not leading it… and hopelessly stuck in an Inflate and Die trap. But that is just to say that the “average Joe” should prepare now: Consumer prices will probably continue to rise. And if not now… later.
Price Crime: So let’s look at the leg we’re trying to get up. Most people get their income from selling their time. A man with a backhoe can dig a trench faster than 10 men with shovels. The capital – the backhoe – is what makes a man’s time more valuable. But inflation takes away the backhoe. Here’s Warren Buffett to explain: "High rates of inflation create a tax on capital that makes much corporate investment unwise – at least if measured by the criterion of a positive real investment return to owners."
Remember, there are two sources of price increases. One is natural, normal, and honest… caused by changing economic circumstances and signaling a real change of value – like the invention of the backhoe. The other is phony – a product of the Fed’s money-printing.
We have no quarrel with higher prices – if they’re the first kind. But the second kind are a scam, designed to mislead, confuse, and ultimately defraud. It is a crime perpetrated by the feds. Naturally, it favors the feds themselves and the elite, the top 10% of Americans they represent. They’re not going to rip themselves off. It’s the others – the less well-off 90% of the population – that gets robbed.
Time Lag: And it’s been going on a long time. Earnings for people in elite industries – medical care, education, media, defense, Wall Street, and government itself – have all gone up smartly over the last 30 years. Those for people in manufacturing, construction, mining, hospitality, and other uncool industries – where they produce real goods and services – have been mostly flat. And now, as inflation increases, so will the rip-off.
As we explored yesterday, wage increases don’t keep up with price increases. Prices rise daily… weekly… monthly. Wages tend to be adjusted more slowly – on an annual basis… and in response to the previous year’s inflation. The wage-earner inevitably falls behind. The same is true for people who get Social Security; the adjustments lag the damage.
False Premise: But the whole idea of the Fed’s intentional inflation was a scam from the get-go… Going back to the mid-20th century, economists noticed something they called the Phillips Curve. It purported to reveal that as inflation rose, workers got higher wages and suffered less unemployment. This was shown to be false in the stagflation of the 1970s. But the “stimmy” fantasy survived. And the feds still claim they can stimulate the economy by inflating it with fake money. They even set an annual inflation target – 2% – as if they knew exactly how much a bar of soap should cost. The idea is laughable. But it still guides Fed policy.
Official Rip Off: Even before the 1970s, the French economist Jacques Rueff, explained the real reason the Phillips Curve was nonsense… and why inflation was so harmful to the working classes. As prices rise, the relative cost of an hour of labor goes down. As labor becomes cheaper, the demand for it increases. In other words, inflation only seemed to benefit the proletariat because it made the working man poorer! And now, ripping him off is official policy – intentional, deliberate, and disastrous. The government is spending trillions it doesn’t have. The Fed is printing the cash to cover the deficits. And the costs will fall – principally – on the masses.
The elite are better able to protect themselves. They own property. And stocks. Their jobs, too, are more secure. They are also more sophisticated financially, and can move their money into inflation-resistant assets. The shrewdest of them may take advantage of the chaos to buy valuable assets at discount prices. (As the inflation crisis deepens, however, even many of the elite will suffer as their incomes fail to keep pace. That – when it no longer pays for the elite – will mark the beginning of the end of the inflation cycle.)
Ideal Investment: But what can you do to safeguard your wealth while prices spiral? We mentioned real estate yesterday. At today’s low interest rates, a rental unit could turn out to be a very profitable asset. As prices rise, you should be able to raise the rent. And your fixed mortgage payments will become more and more affordable. But real estate requires attention and work – which might not be practical.
As for stocks, energy companies typically do well in an inflationary period. They already have their rigs and refineries in place, so there’s little extra cost to keeping the juice flowing. And they can increase prices without causing a significant drop in consumption. That’s why energy is on the buy side of our Trade of the Decade.
[Paid-up Bonner-Denning Letter subscribers can read all about Bill’s latest Trade of the Decade here. To subscribe, click here. And colleague Tom Dyson has created a model portfolio of energy-related stocks for his Tom’s Portfolio subscribers. To subscribe, click here.]
Infrastructure businesses may be even better. Toll roads. Hospitals. Airports. They have pricing power… and relatively little need for further investment. What you want for your business investments is the same thing you want for yourself – a steady, reliable stream of income with no need to spend more money to get it. The ideal investment may be in a “royalty” or “streaming” company. These are businesses that own the rights to a stream of income – from, say, gold mining – but are not actively mining themselves. As the price of gold goes up, their revenues increase in value, while they have few offsetting costs.
The Boy Scouts’ Motto: But money is only a part of it. Inflation discombobulates a society. People get confused… distracted. They feel betrayed. They don’t know who to trust or what to believe. Our colleague Dan Denning emphasizes the need to be prepared socially and psychologically… as well as financially.
You want to be in a place where you are comfortable and safe, where you are as little exposed to chaos and rising prices as possible. You may not be able to increase your income; your time may become less valuable. So use your time to make yourself more independent. Plant a garden. Rick up some firewood. Sit on the porch and read our book, Win-Win or Lose. Buy gold. Sell bonds. Be happy. Amor fati."
Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/17/21: "And Again... The Economic Meltdown Is Worsening. Important Updates"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/17/21:
"And Again... The Economic Meltdown Is Worsening.
Important Updates"
"The Test..."
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Unthinkable Thoughts"
"Unthinkable Thoughts"
by Josh Mitteldorf
"This is not what I enjoy writing about, but as I find dark thoughts creeping into my consciousness, perhaps it is better to put them on paper with supporting logic and invite my readers to help me clarify the reasoning and, perhaps, to point a way out of the darkness.
Already in January, 2020, two ideas about COVID were emerging. One is that there were people and institutions who seemed to have anticipated the event, and were planning for it for a long time. Gates, Fauci, the World Economic Forum, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine were among the prescient. (I credit the (now deleted) videos of Spiro Skouras.) Second was the genetic evidence suggesting that COVID had a laboratory origin. Funders of the scientific establishment have lost their bid to ridicule this idea, and it has now leaked into the mainstream, where it is fused with the classical yellow peril propaganda: “China did it!”. I have cited evidence that America is likely equally culpable.
The confluence of these two themes suggests the dark logic that I take for my topic today: Those who knew in advance, not only that there would be a pandemic but that it would be a Coronavirus, were actually responsible for engineering this pandemic.
Immediately, I think: How could people capable of such sociopathic enormities be occupying the most powerful circles of the world’s elite? And what would be their motivation? I don’t have answers to these questions, and I will leave speculation to others. But there’s one attractive answer that I find less compelling: that it’s a money-maker for the large and criminal pharmaceutical industry. The new mRNA vaccines are already the most profitable drugs in history, but I think that shutdown of world economies, assassinations of world leaders, deep corruption of science, and full-spectrum control of the mainstream narrative imply a larger power base than can plausibly be commanded by the pharma industry.
Instead, I’ll try to follow the scientific and medical implications of the hypothesis that COVID is a bioweapon.
The Spike Protein: The spike protein is the part of the virus structure that interfaces with the host cell. SARS 1 and SARS 2 viruses both have spike proteins that bind to a human cell receptor called ACE-2, common in lung cells but also present in other parts of the body. Binding to the cell’s ACE-2 receptor is like the wolf knocking at the door of Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. “Hello, grandmama. I’m your granddaughter. Please let me in.” The virus is a wolf wearing a red cape and hood, pretends to be an ACE-2 enzyme molecule seeking entrance to the cell.
In order to enter the cell, the virus must break off from the spike protein and leave it at the doorstep, so to speak. This is an important and difficult step, as it turns out. Unique to the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a trick for making the separation. Just at the edge of the protein is a furin cleavage site. Furin is an enzyme that snips protein molecules, and it is common in our bodies, with legitimate metabolic uses. A furin cleavage site is a string of 4 particular amino acids that calls to furin, “hey — come over here. I’m a protein that needs snipping.”
The most compelling evidence for a laboratory origin of COVID is that coronaviruses don’t have furin cleavage sites, and until last year, this trick has never evolved naturally.
Click image for larger size.
How we think about natural disease: The classical understanding of a viral or bacterial disease is this: A parasite is an organism that uses the host’s resources for its own reproduction. It is evolved to reproduce efficiently. If it has co-evolved with the host, it may be evolved to spare the host’s health, or even to promote it, because this is the optimal long-term strategy for any predator or parasite. But newly-emerged parasites can do well for awhile even if they disable or kill their hosts, and this is the kind of disease that is most damaging to us. The damage is done because the (young) virus’s strategy is to reproduce rapidly and disperse itself into the environment where it can find new hosts. The virus has no interest in harming the host, and was not evolved to this end, but this is a side-effect of commandeering the body’s resources for its own reproduction.
How engineered diseases can be different: A bioweapon virus is designed to cause a certain kind of harm.
* What kind of harm? It depends on the projected use for the weapon.
* Doesn’t the virus have to reproduce? Probably, for most weapon applications; but a bioweapon is not necessarily designed for rapid reproduction. A bioweapon can be designed as a “sleeper” to remain dormant for months or years, or to cause incremental disability over a long period.
If COVID had evolved naturally, we would expect that its spike protein would be adapted to mate well with the human ACE-2 receptor. There’s no reason to suspect it being otherwise biologically active. But if COVID is engineered, it may be that the spike protein itself has been designed to make us sick.
One reason this is significant is that the vaccines have all been designed around the spike protein, assuming that the spike protein were metabolically neutral. If the virus had been naturally evolved, this is a reasonable assumption. But if it came from a laboratory (whether it leaked or was deliberately released) the spike protein might be actually be the agent of damage. There are several reasons to suspect that this is the case.
The Spike Protein as an Active Pathogen: Back in February, 2020, this article noted that the spike protein was not perfectly optimized to bind to human ACE-2 and put this forward as an proof that “SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus.” But if someone were designing the virus to cause harm, the spike protein would be a convenient locus for the damage vector, so the spike might have been designed with twin purposes in mind, binding and toxicity. The spike protein appears in many copies around the “crown” of the coronavirus. Since each copy has a furin cleavage site at its base, many spike proteins will break off into the bloodstream. We now have several reports and hypotheses concerning the spike protein as an active agent of damage. The spike protein is suspected of causing blood clots, of inducing long-lasting neurological damage, and of causing infertility. Many anecdotes describe injuries to un-vaccinated people who have been in close proximity to vaccinated, prompting speculation about “shedding” the spike protein.
“Individuals with COVID-19 experience a vast number of neurological symptoms, such as headaches, ataxia, impaired consciousness, hallucinations, stroke and cerebral hemorrhage. But autopsy studies have yet to find clear evidence of destructive viral invasion into patients’ brains, pushing researchers to consider alternative explanations of how SARS-CoV-2 causes neurological symptoms….
If not viral infection, what else could be causing injury to distant organs associated with COVID-19? The most likely culprit that has been identified is the COVID-19 spike protein released from the outer shell of the virus into circulation. Research cited below* has documented that the viral spike protein is able to initiate a cascade of events that triggers damage to distant organs in COVID-19 patients.
Worryingly, several studies have found that the spike proteins alone have the capacity to cause widespread injury throughout the body, without any evidence of virus. What makes this finding so disturbing is that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer and currently being administered throughout the U.S. program our cells to manufacture this same coronavirus spike protein as a way to trigger our bodies to produce antibodies to the virus.” [Global Research article, Feb 2021]
Note: the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines are also based on the spike protein, and cause the spike protein to be created in the vaccinated person.
* “Research cited below” refers to this study in Nature which reports that the spike protein, injected into mice, crosses into the brain, where it causes neurological damage.
Bigger news came just this week from a study in which researchers from California’s Salk Institute collaborated with Chinese virologists. They have found that the bare spike protein without the virus (injected in mice) can cause damaged arteries of the kind that lead to heart disease and strokes in humans. The original paper was published in Circulation Research, and the Salk Institute issued a news report describing the research.
One of the most credible dangers of the spike protein involves fertility. None of the vaccines were tested in pregnant women, and yet many government and other authorities are recommending it as safe for pregnant women. VAERS has reported 174 miscarriages to date after COVID vaccination. VAERS is notoriously underreported. I find the anecdotes less concerning than the fact that no one is taking this seriously, and research is being actively discouraged in the best-respected science journals.
There is a credible mechanism, in that the spike protein is partially homologous to syncytin. Syncytin, in fact, was originally a retroviral protein, inserted into the mammalian genome many aeons ago, and evolved over the ages to play an essential role in reproduction, binding the placenta to the fetus. An immune response that attacks syncytin might be expected to be impose a danger of spontaneous abortion. In any ordinary times, this would be a subject that medical researchers would jump on, with animal tests and field surveys to assess the danger. But these are no ordinary times, and the risk is being dismissed on theoretical grounds without investigation. This is especially suspicious in the context of history: a Gates Foundation vaccination program in 1995 was allegedly promoted to young women, causing infertility. (Yes, I know there are many fact-checkers eager to “debunk” this story, but I don’t find them convincing, and some of these fact-checkers are compromised by Gates funding.)
Even doing what the spike protein is supposed to do — tying up ACE2 — can be a problem for our lungs and arteries, which are routinely protected by ACE2.
The most dangerous possibility, suspected but not verified, is that the spike protein causes a prion cascade. Prions are paradoxical pathogens, in that they are misfolded proteins that cause misfolded proteins. Their evolutionary etiology is utterly mysterious, so much so that it took Stanley Prusiner a decade after describing the biology of prions before the scientific community would take prion biochemistry seriously. But prions make potent bioweapons, which laboratories can design outside of natural evolutionary dynamics. The possibility of prion-like structures in the spike protein was noted very early in the pandemic based on a computational study. This recent review combines theoretical, laboratory, and observational evidence to make a case for caution. Once again, I find it disturbing that this possibility is being dismissed on theoretical grounds rather than investigated in the lab and the field.
Where did the idea come from that all vaccines are automatically safe? Why do so many journalists dismiss the suggestion that vaccines should be placebo-tested individually, like all other drugs? Why has it become routine to ridicule and denigrate scientists who ask questions about vaccine safety as politically-motivated luddites, or “anti-vaxxers”? How did we get to a situation where the “precautionary principle” means pressuring young people who are at almost no risk for serious COVID to accept a vaccine which has not been fully tested or approved? I don’t have answers, but I do know who benefits from this culture.
Putting together all the evidence:
• Knowledge beforehand.
• Suppression of treatments and cures.
• Toxicity of the spike protein which, if it had been made by nature, should have been benign.
• Inclusion of the toxic spike protein in the vaccines that are supposed to protect us.
• Heavy promotion of these scantily-tested vaccines and
• Censorship of scientists and doctors who question the vaccines’ safety.
Putting together all this evidence, it is difficult to escape the inference that powerful people and organizations have engineered this pandemic with deadly intent."
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Related, Must Read!
"Everyone Vaccinated For Covid Will DIE, Warns French Virologist"
"There is no chance of long-term survival for anyone who received a Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) injection, according to leading French virologist Luc Montagnier. Everyone who is getting jabbed for the Chinese Virus will die, he reportedly stated during a recent interview, which you can watch at Brighteon.com. “There is no hope and no possible treatment for those who have already been vaccinated,” Montagnier stated plainly during the segment. “We must be prepared to cremate the bodies.” After studying at length the ingredients contained in the injections and what they do, Montagnier came to the conclusion that every single person who gets the shot will eventually die from antibody-dependent enhancement, or ADE. “That is all that can be said,” he added."
Full article here:
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"The prestigious Salk Institute, founded by vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk, has authored and published a bombshell scientific article revealing that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is what’s actually causing vascular damage in covid patients and covid vaccine recipients, promoting the strokes, heart attacks, migraines, blood clots and other harmful reactions that have already killed thousands of Americans (source: VAERS.hhs.gov)."
Critically, all four covid vaccine brands currently in widespread use either inject patients with the spike protein or, via mRNA technology, instruct the patient’s own body to manufacture spike proteins and release them into their own blood. This floods the patient’s body with the very spike protein that the Salk Institute has now identified as the smoking gun cause of vascular damage and related events (such as blood clots, which are killing many people who take the vaccines). "Put simply, it means the vaccines were designed to contain the very element that’s killing people."
Full article:
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Excerpt: “Executives are having their HR staff and their managers, superintendents, floormen, etc., go through and look at the staff that have received the vaccines, and they’re planning on having to replace them all within the next three years. What does that say to you?” The woman does not name herself, but does claim that she runs a company that works in succession planning. We are taking her word for it, but it does resonate with what French virologist and Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier recently admitted about what will happen to jabbed people within the next few years. View Brighteon video in article.
“It’s got some of these guys literally in tears as they’re going through the company and literally checking off all of these individuals who have taken the vaccine, knowing that most likely within the next three years they’re going to have to replace that person,” the woman adds. “This is a really big thing in the industry that I’m in. These massive gas and oil companies are looking to have to replace thousands of personnel.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Must Watch! “Ominous Times Ahead; Consumer Is Broke; Eviction Crisis; Food Lines Return”
Jeremiah Babe, PM 6/16/21:
“Ominous Times Ahead; Consumer Is Broke;
Eviction Crisis; Food Lines Return”
"Michael "Big Short" Burry: This Is The Greatest Bubble Of All Time In All Things"
Full screen recommended.
"Michael "Big Short" Burry:
This Is The Greatest Bubble Of All Time In All Things"
by Epic Economist
"This week, none other than legendary investor Michael Burry made a comeback on his Twitter account to share another apocalyptic warning about overvalued markets and the epic asset bubble burst that is about to be triggered by rampant inflation and higher interest rates. Earlier this year, the investor alerted that the U.S. was on the path to face Weimar-like hyperinflation, he argued that government monetary policies were "inviting inflation" by adding trillions of stimulus money to the financial markets, overlooking the national debt, and fueling consumer demand in times when employee and supply chain costs have been skyrocketing. Burry argued that America will face a major paradigm shift that can only be compared to what happened to Germany in the 1920s. And up until this point, his forecast is seeming worryingly accurate.
During that period, Germany's markets and businesses were booming, just as we're seeing happening in the U.S. right now, with the demand for goods and assets much greater than the available supply, leading prices to all-time highs. Like the dollar today, the exchange rate of the mark against other currencies rose for quite a while, and there was a short span - right on inflation's eve - in which the mark was actually considered the strongest currency in the world. And while the government fueled the markets' progress during that time, side by side with the wealth were the pockets of poverty. Similar to what we have been witnessing since the beginning of the health-crisis-induced economic recession, back then, many fortunes arose overnight, while the cities remained plagued by turbulence and chaos.
The similarities don't stop quite there, since Germany saw its strong currency suddenly become worthless in face of a major inflationary collapse. At that time, authorities have enabled the inflation cycle to run for years, and Burry indicated that's exactly what the U.S. government is currently doing, especially now that "dollars are falling from the sky" and management teams are having the opportunity to get creative and take more risk by paying out debt-financed dividends to investors or investing in risky growth opportunities, which, in his view, "has beaten a frugal mentality - hands down."
All of which led to Burry's latest tweet warning yesterday: "People always ask me what is going on in the markets. It is simple. Greatest Speculative Bubble Of All Time In All Things. By two orders of magnitude. #FlyingPigs360," he wrote. The hashtag was a reference to a popular saying in investing: "Bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered." Burry has repeatedly alerted that investors that are being too greedy, speculating wildly, taking on too much risk, and expecting unrealistic returns.
His latest tweets echoed many of his other cautions. He compared the hype surrounding bitcoin, Tesla cars, and meme stocks to the dot-com and housing bubbles. A couple of months ago, he said that the stock market was "dancing on a knife's edge," and amongst the factors he sees as signs of an imminent new crash are rising investors' debt to leverage their positions, and "out of control speculation". On Monday, he resumed tweeting and on Tuesday morning, he warned of the biggest market bubble in history, suggesting that his worries about growing inflation and speculation only grew during his 10-week hiatus from social media.
The latest market data shows that the investor's warnings are likely accurate, as the market valuation rose to unprecedented levels, in line with what was seen in 2000 and among the highest ever recorded. Today, valuation metrics point to an extraordinarily overvalued market - for instance, equity value to GDP stands at the highest level since the 1950s while the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index to GDP ratio hit a record high. The most frequent catalyst of a bubble burst throughout history has been rising inflation and interest rates, and as Burry fears, there's no way to turn around an inflationary collapse.
As for the housing market, it seems that the national average doesn’t do justice to the absurdities seen in specific housing markets. In Boise, Idaho, housing prices skyrocketed 37% year-over-year. The national average might not be as high, but it's crazy enough. House prices soared nearly 17% from a year ago, the biggest increase since December 2005, on the eve before it all started to fall apart in 2006. Needless to say, this will not end well, especially considering that the housing market is extremely vulnerable to rising interest rates. With inflationary pressures mounting and increasingly more warnings making the headlines every day, it's safe to say that just as all prior bubbles, this too will burst - and we may be closer to that event than we think."
Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/16/21: "100% Proof That The Economy Is Collapsing And The FED Is Buying It All"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/16/21:
"100% Proof That The Economy Is Collapsing
And The FED Is Buying It All"
Moby, "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" (Ben-E.dit)
Full screen recommended.
Moby,
"Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" (Ben-E.dit)
"A Look to the Heavens"
“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”
The Poet: Rolf Jacobsen, "When They Sleep"
"When They Sleep"
"All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
God, teach me the language of sleep."
- Rolf Jacobsen,
"The Roads Have Come to an End Now"
"Actually..."
"I'd been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it's sort of depressing, thinking how many times I'd been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse."
- Jim Butcher
Dig your way out, they said...
"The Masses Will Pay the Price"
"The Masses Will Pay the Price"
by Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "We’re in a rush this morning. No time to write a short message. We’ll have to send you a long one. First, here’s Business Insider with a news update: "Michael Burry said markets were in a bubble of unprecedented scale. The “Big Short” investor tweeted his dire warning after a 10-week break from Twitter. Burry has flagged reckless speculation on Tesla stock, bitcoin, and other assets. “People always ask me what is going on in the markets,” the investor tweeted. “It is simple. Greatest Speculative Bubble of All Time in All Things. By two orders of magnitude. #FlyingPigs360.”
Meanwhile, a dear reader in Canada, Luke K., sees inflation in action: "Hi Bill, inflation is definitely here. And it came with a massive bang. Our pool heater went on the fritz the other day. We called to have a heater technician come by for an inspection from our local pool company. $349 Canadian for one hour of his time. To clean the heater and get it going. Parts extra.
Instead, we called a private individual. Showed me the part that needed replacing. A small circuit board that might cost $10 to build. Local shops, and online ones, were selling the card for $600 CAD. After the tech left (which cost me $100 for his visit), I removed the card from the heater and found a spider had touched two live leads on the other side and virtually exploded all over the circuit board. Cleaned the card with a toothbrush and reinserted. Heater was working again. Best $100 I ever spent. As for new heaters? $2500 (used to be $1000-$1500) and not a SINGLE ONE in the entire city. Backordered until July. Welcome to the beginnings of hyperinflation!"
That’s a shocker! We didn’t even know they had swimming pools in Canada.
No Choice: Another dear reader, Patricia M., wonders what to do: "I’m a very new investor in the stock market. I’m astounded at what I’ve learned in just nine months on the scene, which is that there’s no rhyme or reason to investing in stocks. I know I’m failing to protect myself and my family, but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do to turn the tables without having an awful lot of money! I can see something really huge coming down the pike. I think I understand most of it; I’ve been reading like there’s no tomorrow, just trying to learn how to play. But every time I turn around, up pops another story to complicate, obfuscate, misdirect, and so on.
So, my big question is: How does an average Joe get a leg up on this situation? Between Wall Street, governments, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the 1%ers, and whoever else is “IN” the game, I don’t believe life will ever again make sense. I used to be an optimist, but how can one remain optimistic in a world that one just can’t relate? I just can’t see a positive outcome for the masses."
You’re right. There’s not going to be any positive outcome for the masses. The game is rigged against them. The feds (representing the entire elite of the U.S.) cannot expect to get much more from them in taxes. And their savings are not enough to cover the deficits. Now, as we told you yesterday, its Inflate AND Die… meaning, the feds have no choice. They have to print money. And this means the masses will pay – via consumer price inflation.
Dangerous Time: But let’s try to be helpful. What should a normal person do to protect himself and increase his wealth? The quick answer: The normal person, in a normal time, should do the normal thing. But this is no normal time. It’s a freaky… weird… and head-scratching time. And a very dangerous time. But we still have to start with the basics.
The trouble with the average Joe is that he has only his time to sell. And the trouble with his time is that even in normal times, it may not be worth very much. It depends on what he does with it. The average wage is about $25 an hour. So, if he works 40 hours, he makes $1,000 per week. If he does that for a full year, after taxes, he ends up with about $40,000. That’s not going to take him very far…
If he is a skilled professional, on the other hand – an accountant, dentist, surgeon, lawyer, engineer, or architect – he should do better. He might net out (after fixed office costs, insurance, and fees) $100 an hour. This would give him $200,000 a year… which might then be reduced to, say, $150,000 after taxes.
The trouble with time is that it is not scalable. Each hour clicks by exactly like the hour before it. And the hourly worker – no matter how skilled – cannot make more of it. So, selling his time, the average Joe cannot increase his earnings easily. He has to take some of his earnings and put them into something that is scalable…
Too Little, Too Late: Investing, for example. He might, for example, buy a rundown house… fix it up on weekends… and rent it out. The house might go up in price, while he is collecting a decent rent. Then, he might be able to borrow against the equity in order to buy another house. That is classic scaling. It works as long as he doesn’t get stuck with too much debt… and empty houses.
This approach also has the advantage of offering some protection against inflation. Typically, people try to escape inflation by buying real estate – something solid that won’t lose value. This pushes up property prices. Plus, the landlord can raise rents to try to keep up with his rising costs. But the poor renter is squeezed. He struggles to keep his wages in line with price increases. But he falls behind… the salary adjustments don’t come fast enough. They’re too little and too late. Inflation makes time less valuable! Not only because the average wage-earner can’t keep up… but also because it destroys capital – which is what gives value to time.
Unhealthy Economy: In a healthy economy, people save… and invest their money to try to earn more money. They start businesses and hire workers. Wages go up. But in an inflationary economy, nobody wants to save. Capital gets frittered away on meme stocks… NFTs… dogecoin… overpriced zombie companies… gambling… super yachts… and government boondoggles. An air of Sha… na… na… Live for today takes hold. And then it turns grim… and the masses are robbed. We’ll be back tomorrow with more helpful comments!"
"If We Have No Idea..."
“If we have no idea what we believe in, we’ll go along with anything.
Truth takes courage. Courage to stand up for what we believe in.
Not necessarily in a confrontational way, but in a gentle yet firm way.
Like an oak tree, able to sway gently in the wind, but strongly rooted to the ground.”
- A.C. Ping
“Fortune’s Fools”
“Fortune’s Fools”
by Phil Rockstroh
“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.”
- Miles Davis
“As a general rule, musicians, artists, and writers, as well as those possessed of an ardor for self-awareness and a commitment to political activism have been advised to avoid a habitual retreat to comfort zones… to take note of the criteria that causes one’s pulse to quicken, brings flop sweat to the brow, causes sphincters to seize up, and delivers mortification to the mind. In order to quicken imagination and avoid banality, it is imperative to explore the fears that cause one to awaken in the darkest of night to stare bug-eyed at the ceiling until dawn; to embrace discomfort; to shun crackpot complacency; to wander through the teeming polis of the psyche, and, in so doing, to not only stray and mingle among the outcasts, demimonde and mad, but proceed to the locked-down wards of the region’s lunatic asylum, and make an exhausting inquest into the nature of the hopeless cases that have been hidden from public view.
As of late, my darkest thoughts and angst-engendered imaginings have involved the following: The ecological debasement of the earth, the ongoing degradation of daily life within U.S. society, and the attenuated destiny of the individual under the yoke of late stage, coronavirus-destroyed global capitalism. My ruminations have been, in large measure, engendered and inflamed by the following: On Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013 August Franklin Rockstroh came into this world at a time when the planet he will inhabit is warmer than it has been in 11,000 years, a condition caused by the industrial production of man-made greenhouse gasses. He arrived into an age wherein it is imperative that we as a species re-imagine nearly all we know. Thus far, from the halls of power to the floors of minimarts, our avidity for avoidance of the realities at hand does not augur well for humankind’s chances.
Two weeks before the Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Well “spill” (what a dishonest word for that noxious, bleeding gash) into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I dreamed of a badly injured fish who had had half his face torn off by some brutal method employed by the practitioners of industrial scale fishing operations to exploit the world’s oceans. The fish had worked himself upon a rock on a craggy shoreline. Holding an eternity of suffering in his remaining eye, the fish turned to face me. Ever since, this dream image has lived within me. I carry the fish’s suffering and I bear his dark rage regarding what our species has done to his/our home – this complex, mysterious, beguiling, dangerous, sublime, monstrous, and magnificent world we were cast into… my sense of sorrow, at times, seems unbearable; my rage… bottomless. Who will speak for the voiceless – who will make amends for their suffering?
This much is clear: The means that sustain the present economic order not only defies moral justification (i.e., a culture dependent on the enforced misery of the multitudes and the wanton exploitation of nature) but the order has proven anathema to the balance of the earth’s life-enabling forces – a balance of forces mandatory to the continuance of the human species on the planet. The fate of the earth is inexorably linked to our personal destiny.
Deep down we know this to be true, but the atomizing nature of late capitalism inflicts learned helplessness. Social and political change seems impossible. Personal transformation is relegated to the realm of New Age snake oil. Human longing is deracinated. The Tree of Knowledge rendered a Chia Pet. The unruly call of destiny is bowdlerized into sterile careerism.
Yet, my son, as we all do, will long to embrace his own authentic destiny. The alienation at the mechanized heart of the corporate/consumer state’s structure will present a daunting challenge to him, for it is difficult to live a life imbued with depth and resonance without meaningful human engagement. Abiding bonds that bring the depth of oneself deep into life must be formed. A social milieu must be in place that allows for love and friendship, for coming upon mentors, for grappling with antagonists, whereby one is destroyed by catastrophic victories and enlarged by propitious failures.
Although every individual arrives at a fate uniquely his/her own, soul-making is a collaborative effort. Destiny only appears to be a solo act. My character, like yours, is a composite of all the events, happenstance, and circumstances that transpired before, and after, I arrived in this world. It is resultant from the accumulation of my choices – and the choices of those in positions of power and authority, over which, I am, all too often, powerless.
But if you discern what I yearn for, you will know who I am.
One’s destiny awaits just over the crest of the horizon. It is glimpsed in sublime snatches like a beautiful stranger who catches your gaze from a passing train. Yes, it sleeps within, but must be roused into being by interaction with the outer world. It awaits you in the vastness of life. The truth of your being is honeycombed into life’s intricacies. As a general rule (Emily Dickinson excepted) one’s destiny does not make house calls.
If character is destiny, the soul of the world is the catalyzing agent that conjures manifestation. While, to some degree, all who live are imprisoned by the past, it is best to be aware of what criteria brought about your incarceration to habit and circumstance. It is essential to become aware of the contours of your cage… to be in possession of a blue print of the prison. In this way, your odds of escape are greatly enhanced.
Are you weighted down by feelings of powerlessness… nettled by feelings of helpless rage? Good. Your feelings are appropriate to the tone and tenor of the times. Use the feeling of being weighted down to your advantage: Descend deep into the deepest recesses of your being and listen to the garrulous silence therein.
Appropriate your blessed rage as well: What admonitions cry out from the heart of light ensconced within your darker places? What is it that is essential about your deepest nature that needs to find its way into Animus Mundi – the soul of the world… must seek out collaboration with even the most mundane moments of the breath of day. This is how the creative spirit flourishes, how every moment is made holy.
And remember: Your life is a question that you live your way into. Any attempt to coerce an answer amounts to vivisection, not art.
Conversely, and anathema to the process, the guiding principle of the neoliberal economic order reduces the things of the world to mere economic entities. At this point, this much is, or, at least, should be grimly obvious: Existence within a system that defines all things by their ability to enrich the fortunes of a predatory class of elites starves the soul and blights the landscape; it has come to exist…as a thief, defiler, and squanderer. Exploited and demeaned, the populace grows callow and empty. Desperate to sate the hollowing emptiness within, the citizens of the corporate/consumer state have internalized the noxious mythos of endless growth, peddled by their exploiters, and have been driven to devour their seed crop.
In doing so, all concerned will condemn their society to the landfill of history. Yet, even in this age of corporate despotism, political duopoly, communal atomization, ecocide and the attendant alienation and ennui, life can be lived with passion and grace, and, as individuals, we can take measures to promote a transformation of the prevailing order.
There are simply too many hidden variables involved to predict and control the future. Consequently, this is what we can do: resist the present, corrupt order; organize to bring it down; and strive to create more viable alternatives. All of which exist within the spectrum of the doable.
At the end of the day, it is a far better choice to err on the side of your inner calling, than to languish as a simulacrum of yourself… evincing a counterfeit consciousness that demands you spend your days compliant to the demeaning dictates of a ruthless few. As a general rule, one stands powerless before the sweep of history and the caprice of the ruling elite. Regardless, you must choose to slouch in the direction of your destiny, or else your life will consist of a litany of thwarted longings – an agonizing death within life that is absent death’s release and resists the warmth and proffered consolation borne of the living.
All the world may be a stage, but don’t allow yourself to be miscast as an expendable, one dimensional character, conceived by miserable hacks. Deep down, your life’s calling is encoded within you. Throughout your lifetime, it will arise as inchoate yearnings, reveal itself as implausible daydreams, or as dream-borne symbols that seem, in regard to your daytime exigencies, abstruse or useless. You may know it as a hollow ache in your chest. Or a nettling voice, in the recesses of your awareness, that asks, “How did it come to this?”
Ignore destiny’s entreaties at your own risk. Although, your soul will stay at you; it will implore you to pay attention… even if it must pummel you with nightmares or conjure a state of depression that brings on a darkness at noon.
“We are all subject to the fates.
But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.”
- Philip Pullman
To paraphrase Rilke, if you ignore the beckoning call of your own uniqueness, your soul will serenely distain to annihilate the false notions that propel you through the harried hours of meaning-denuded day. When shunted aside or blocked by barriers of calcified habit, the soul’s inexorable agency will be experienced as a kindly cataclysm. At times, becoming ensnared in the dark night of the soul will allow a lodestar to reveal itself.
Withal, on a cultural basis, the nature-decimating, soul-shredding agendas of the neoliberal enterprise are propelling us collectively towards economic and ecological cataclysm. When questioned by the youth of future generations, those born into the world created by our myopic choices, about how you responded when the earth was burning, will you reply that you went to the mall, sat in public places staring at a glowing electronic box, engaged in cretinous palaver about the private lives of sub-cretinous celebrities and the dim machinations of reality show jerk-rockets?
At this critical juncture, one’s individual calling will be interwoven with the fate of the earth and the collective destiny of all of humankind. The age of elitist narcissists is drawing to a close. The time for dreamers, visionaries and activist has arrived, and their time of arrival is long past due.”
“The world is full of magic things,
patiently waiting
for our senses to grow sharper.”
- W.B. Yeats
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