“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.
We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do;
and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”
- Samuel Smiles
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Gerald Celente, "Markets Up, Omicron Fear Down. Will It Be A Happy New Year?"
Full screen recommended.
STRONG LANGUAGE ALERT!
Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal":
"Markets Up, Omicron Fear Down. Will It Be A Happy New Year?"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"6 Million Face Evictions And Foreclosures As Rental Prices Rising To The Highest Level In Decades"
Full screen recommended.
"6 Million Face Evictions And Foreclosures As
Rental Prices Rising To The Highest Level In Decades"
by Epic Economist
"A devastating eviction crisis is rapidly worsening all around the country, and it is threatening to push millions of families out of their homes this holiday season. Even though there was a brief pause in evictions after the moratorium ended in September, that didn't happen because the number of filings had decreased, but because courts were extremely overwhelmed with a record backlog of unprocessed filings. Now, housing advocates are saying that the number of evictions has started to rise at an alarmingly high pace in many parts of the United States. Courts have just started to catch up on the backlog of eviction cases. The latest upsurge highlights the limits of federal emergency rental assistance in places where distribution remains slow and safety nets for tenants are incredibly weak. Soaring housing prices in many markets also are playing a role, as landlords rush to evict non-paying tenants to sell their properties at record prices.
Recent data released by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University has shown that eviction rates have been escalating in all of the 31 cities and six states where it collects data. Evictions in September jumped by 10.4 percent from August. In October, the month-to-month rate climbed to 38 percent. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, in November, the number of households claiming they weren’t confident in their ability to pay next month’s rent went up from about 5 million to 6.3 million in the latest data. The biggest problem is that government officials aren't assessing the severity of the problem. The federal government believes it has already done everything in its power to prevent an eviction tsunami. In fact, officials are truly convinced that the poorly distributed rental assistance program has effectively averted a disaster.
But the truth is that mass evictions didn't occur all at once because many courts were only running part-time due to mandates related to the health crisis, and they still have an enormous excess of cases to litigate and millions of hearings to make while the number of filings continues to pile up. Ben Martin, the senior researcher at Texas Housers, a nonprofit focused on housing issues, said that he was particularly disturbed by the initial commentaries issued by government officials after the moratorium ended, saying that "well, there wasn’t a tsunami so we don’t have an eviction crisis on our hands”. “That initial narrative was somewhat misleading. What we are seeing now is a reflection of reality, which is that evictions take time to work their way into and through the court system,” Martin stressed.
As we move towards the end of the year, there are plenty of signs that eviction cases will keep rising. With millions of children already homeless in America, housing advocates just released some shocking statistics suggesting that an additional 500,000 households with children are under threat of eviction this winter. While the number of homeless children in America is estimated at 1.6 million, many studies indicate the number could be far higher, as homeless statistics are often under-reported at the city, county, and state levels.
"When you’re struggling to pay rent or have an eviction notice hanging over you, the worry can be consuming," explains Polly Neate, chief executive of a homeless shelter. "Oftentimes, it’s impossible to hide it from your kids, even though these are adult fears no parents want their child to experience". "Millions of parents will spend sleepless nights this Christmas worrying about the eviction notices coming, where they will go, and if their next ‘home’ is going to be a gloomy hotel," Neate added, saying that her shelter's emergency helpline is receiving more calls about eviction than it did at the peak of the health crisis, as thousands of families fight to keep a roof over their heads.
To call it a disaster is an understatement. America's housing instability and eviction crisis are becoming a major national emergency that our leaders keep refusing to look at. Our housing crisis is simply catastrophic and we must treat it with seriousness before millions of hard-working Americans are pushed into a poverty spiral that's exceedingly difficult to recover fromThis is going to be a very difficult winter for many families across the country. Things have started to spin out of control, and we should all pay very close attention to the coming events because several challenges are still waiting for us."
"Back to Square One"
"Back to Square One"
by Jeffrey Tucker
"Do you have some sense that we’ve been in this place before? Another variant, another round of panics, more restrictions, models forecasting mass deaths, experts weighing in on all the things you must do, masks, masks, masks, exhortations from discredited experts demanding that you do things again even though they didn’t work the last time.
The great ghoul this time is: OMICRON! A tiny handful of deaths in the entire world have been attributed to it at one step removed. Cases of course are through the roof — and that is because there is a well-established and once-understood tradeoff within this family of viruses between their transmissibility and their severity. More “cases” tend toward fewer deaths.
Yes, health officials around the world have clearly said that it is not serious. It’s not even much of a thing. A cold. It killed no one in the country in which it was discovered. And yet still the whole world is freaking out. But there is no sense in trying to make sense these days. The weary world seems always ready for another round of panic. Nothing has ever really made sense, but now the complete senselessness is on hyperdrive.
Back to the Bad Old Days of 2020: Universities all over the Northeast have closed and gone back to Zoom classes. New York events are being canceled. Israel is blocking its citizens from traveling to some 10 countries, one of which is the U.S. Lockdowns are being imposed all over Europe along with ever more vicious enforcements of masks and vaccine passports. And this is with a vaccine that has been widely adopted and accepted in all the countries that are now locking down. The vaccinated seem especially susceptible to the variant, maybe. I say maybe because all of this is contingent on testing.
The vaccinated now are aware that they are not protected against contracting the virus or spreading it. It is no longer a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” The virus does not seem to care that much about the vaccination.
Health authorities in Rhode Island are warning of impending disaster with overwhelmed hospitals and other facilities. This is because vast numbers have quit their jobs. Oh, but we are told this has nothing to do with the vaccine requirement. No, no. It’s because they found better job opportunities elsewhere.
Think about this. The staff and nurses 18 months ago were working like crazy and treated like heroes for exposing themselves to the virus. They obtained natural immunity. But to sell vaccines, the CDC and NIH don’t like to breathe a word about natural immunity. They act like it doesn’t exist. So they demanded that the whole staff get vaccinated on top of existing broad, safe and effective natural immunity.
Big Pharma’s Role: We’ve known about natural immunity for thousands of years. Now it is mostly denied or not spoken about. How can you account for that? Minds go immediately toward the power and influence of the pharmaceutical lobbies. From the points of view of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, that’s an insult. It’s insulting enough to cause anyone to quit on the spot. So yes, many employees just began feeling demoralized. Here is where we stand and a look at why there is a crisis. Crisis upon crisis.
So yes, they created the health care crisis that they long predicted. And it’s not just Rhode Island. The ICUs are filling up but not necessarily from COVID. These are health problems generated by lockdowns. Cancer. Drug overdoses. Obesity. Broken immune systems.
The Devil Unleashed: For the first time since this crisis began in America in March 2020, I feel a loss of words, an inability to explain or even describe the world in which we live. We are on the precipice of disaster, with the Supreme Court only days away from deciding on the OSHA mandate that could permanently change life in America.
Starting on Jan. 5, 2022, the new terms of service will come into effect for Google, YouTube and Twitter. Millions of videos and accounts are likely to be deleted. These companies have clearly signed up to work for Fauci and company and the deep state generally. They will target their enemies and any thoughts that do not comport with the prevailing line.
Millions of people are now scrambling to find other means of communication: new email accounts, new video platforms, new chat systems, new social media platforms. But there are so many and none has anywhere near the reach of companies like the legacy large companies. So there is a kind of social diaspora taking place, clearly designed to frazzle and confound the enemy.
Many businesses are now fighting for their lives. CEOs of major airlines have pleaded to end the mask mandate that is so awful for their customers flying on their extremely clean planes. Fauci flat out says no. We must wear masks forever, he says. Who elected him? Why is he, of all people, the dictator of our businesses, communities and lives? And it all happened so quickly and shockingly.
The Markets: Finally, the markets have been hit recently, yet again. It’s inflation. It’s fear of lockdowns. It’s cancellations. It’s public panic, which now seems as intense as it was in the spring of 2020. It’s as if we have learned nothing.
We now have major voices such as Jeremy Faust of Harvard writing in his influential column: "Am I willing to give up life as we know it for another year or two? Not particularly (especially once all age groups are eligible for vaccines, which is not yet the case). But am I willing to disrupt certain aspects of life temporarily when necessary to achieve a clearly stated goal? Yes. The key is to define that goal and to implement a strategy that can deliver it. Nobody gets tired of winning. What we’re tired of is losing."
Forget your rights. Now people like Fauci are in charge. And they want to implement the same losing strategies that have already failed us. At what point do we say enough is enough? At some point, this disaster is going to wreck even the financial markets. Not yet, but at some point. Where is the safety in today’s world?
The idea of buying Bitcoin sounds like a good alternative and if civilization is collapsing around us, digital earnings are more useful than nothing. Others might prefer something more tangible: gold. But how much better would be the idea of freedom? That seems like the one word that one cannot say and the one solution no one in the ruling class is willing to consider. To them, freedom for us is the freedom to obey their orders."
"Benedicto"
"Benedicto"
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
- Edward Abbey
"Fear Is A Childs Vice...
“I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others.”
- Ernest Hemingway, "True at First Light”
"Prepare Now for "Shock and Awe" Inflation – or Suffer the Consequences…"
"Prepare Now for "Shock and Awe" Inflation –
or Suffer the Consequences…"
by David Smith
"The Producer Price Index (PPI) is a measure of inflation expectations by industry producers. Most investors keep an eye on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). However, the CPI gauge is not only incomplete, it is, as U.S. Global's Frank Holmes likes to say, "backward looking" …and, as Graham Summers pointed out, "gimmicked to the point of fiction."
Producer Price Index
The PPI is forward looking. Rambus Chartology at shows that this logarithmic chart mapped out the biggest rise in inflation since 1982 – only two years after the first $50 silver "bubble" burst. The PPI’s rising wedge began with the 2008 near-collapse of the global economy and by mid-2021 had broken out of a 12-year wedge formation to the upside. Investors and ordinary folks who hope to protect their purchasing power would do well to reflect on this chart, build an understanding of it into their decision-making, and accept what it tells us as a long-term talisman for wealth-preservation.
Most of the commodity indices, across all subsectors, e.g. the CRB, DJP, GNX, XOI as well as GYX, an industrial metals index), are now surging to the upside. Rambus writes: "For the last 12 years or so the PPI has built a bullish expanding rising wedge with the last reversal point being the 2020 crash low. The breakout from that massive bullish rising wedge consolidation pattern came this year in March... strongly suggesting that inflation is really just getting started and will last for many years to come. Keep in mind there will be corrections along the way because nothing goes straight up or down in the markets... Always remember big consolidation patterns leads to big moves which is clearly evident on this combo chart.
The current round of inflation that started in Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey – and the U.S. – as a tame, presumably short-term phenomenon has the potential to grow in the months and years into an all-consuming, systemic generational-destroyer of wealth, both accumulated and productive capacity yet to be."
Is this the fate mandated upon those in the West who fail to recognize and effectively deal with it? Just because gold and silver don't always respond on cue to inflationary warnings, should you ignore several thousand years of global history to the contrary and go about your business? Odds are that sooner than we might expect, the metals, along with a surge in premiums, and questionable retail availability, are going to join the parade. Try not to let fear cause you to freeze in the headlights or, just as bad, drive in the wrong direction.
Jeffrey Tucker, a particularly astute observer of economic and business conditions, writes: "There are certain things you can know in advance. For example, if you shut down an economy by force, you will wreck investor confidence in the future... we’ve known for a year and a half that we would likely see inflation in this country without precedent in our lifetimes...price increases in components and materials can be absorbed for a few months but not over the long haul. They devour profitability like a fast-moving cancer.
Combine that with labor shortages and you have major problems. Wages keep being bid up, faster and faster, but still not in a way that increases the purchasing power of the money workers receive. That’s because consumer prices are chasing the producer prices closely behind.
The trajectory here is striking. This is not a stable rate of high increase. It is an increasing rate of high increase. Forecast this out over six months, compounded, and you are looking at something truly horrific. Already these are the largest increases in wholesale prices on record. Keep in mind that this is getting worse.
Fear is a protective mechanism. It's how nature preps us to deal with a sense of danger that at the moment may not be fully understood but which seems "a bit off." An old saying tells us that our success in life is often less about the gravity of the issue faced than how we respond to deal with it. Cus D'Amato, who raised boxer Mike Tyson from age 13, and became his coach, is reputed to have said about fear, “Emotions, particularly anger, are like fire. They can cook your food and keep you warm, or they can burn your house down."
So consider the proven historical narrative – across cultures and millennia – expressed here as a viable financial analogy for what we're facing just in front of the windshield. Ignoring the signals coming from the unease and fear we're all going through right now, and failing to prepare for the consequences, could one day "burn your (financial) house down"!
Gregory Mannarino, "A Global Financial Nightmare Is On The Horizon - A World-Wide Meltdown Beyond Your Wildest Dreams"
Gregory Mannarino, 12/23/21:
"A Global Financial Nightmare Is On The Horizon -
A World-Wide Meltdown Beyond Your Wildest Dreams"
"The Wrath of Economic Instability Will Cause the Next Depression"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 12/23/21:
"The Wrath of Economic Instability Will Cause the Next Depression"
"Financial Tragedy is coming fast. The experts say we are already in a depression. Things are getting worse in the economy. The entire financial system is headed for a collapse."
A Christmas Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "O Holy Night"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"O Holy Night," (Looped Album) • Instrumental Christmas Music
Beautiful...
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
"Escape From California - Lots Of Pain Coming; Home Sales Down"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 12/22/21:
"Escape From California -
Lots Of Pain Coming; Home Sales Down"
"Shortages Are Getting Worse As The Global Supply Chain Crisis Enters An Ominous New Chapter"
Full screen recommended.
"Shortages Are Getting Worse As The Global
Supply Chain Crisis Enters An Ominous New Chapter"
by Michael Snyder
"All of the shortages were supposed to be gone by now. During the first half of 2021, the blind optimists were assuring us that by the end of the year the pandemic would be over, the spike in inflation would have proven to be “transitory”, the global supply chain crisis would be resolved, and the U.S. economy would be booming. Of course the truth is that none of those things happened. In fact, overall conditions are even worse than they were six months ago. Now we are heading into 2022, and even the optimists are finding it difficult to say anything positive about the coming year.
What is 2022 going to look like if global supply chain problems continue to intensify? Not since World War II have we seen anything like the long-term shortages that we are now experiencing, and for many people this has been deeply frustrating.
For example, a lot of pet owners have been dealing with severe pet food shortages for months, and those shortages just seem to keep getting even worse. The following comes from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “The Pet-Food Shortage Is Real, and Owners Are Scrambling”… "After an online order didn’t show on time, Phyllis Pometta stopped at five different stores before she hit pay dirt. There it was on the shelf: beef stew-flavored dog food. Ms. Pometta scooped up about four cans, which weren’t her preferred brand. She was desperate, with supplies of the food she usually bought for her dog nowhere to be found online or in stores."
These shortages are not just limited to a few areas of the country. This is truly a nationwide phenomenon, and experts agree that it isn’t going to end any time soon. Meanwhile, we are now being told that our nation is in the midst of “the great Candy Cane Crisis of 2021”…"And now we’re apparently in the thick of what the New York Post has called “the great Candy Cane Crisis of 2021.” According to the outlet, some retailers haven’t been able to keep candy canes in stock, due to a combination of ongoing supply chain issues and a downturn in this year’s peppermint crop. “We only received half of our candy cane order for the holiday season and sold out almost immediately. We currently have zero in stock,” Mitchell Cohen, the owner of New York City’s Economy Candy, told The Post."
I never imagined that I would be writing about a candy cane shortage in December 2021, but here we are. And for those that like to get drunk during the holiday season, we are also facing a growing nationwide shortage of beer…"Having a hard time finding your favorite craft beer? It could be part of the aluminum shortage, but the price of ingredients for beer is also skyrocketing due to supply chain issues throughout the world." If this particular shortage continues to get worse, what will alcoholics all over America do in the months ahead?
Over in Japan, they are facing a different sort of a crisis. A lack of potatoes is forcing McDonald’s to start rationing french fries…"A ‘fry-tening’ supply chain problem has materialized for McDonald’s Holdings Co. Japan is forcing it to ration french fries for at least a week due to a potatoes shortage. Beginning on Friday, Japanese consumers desiring a classic Big Mac will be barred from ordering medium- and large-sized french fries. They will be only allowed to order small french fries as the company blames massive flooding in Vancouver for its soggy mess and attempts to source spuds elsewhere."
The good news is that the Japanese tend to be quite polite, and so a lack of fries probably won’t start any riots. But if we had to start rationing fries here in the United States, it would be a completely different story.
On the other side of the globe, the energy crisis in Europe went to an entirely new level this week…"Europe’s energy crisis got even worse on Tuesday as a shortage of natural gas, nuclear outages, declining wind power output, and cold weather boosted prices. The gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, the benchmark gas price for Europe, soared 10% to a new record high of 165 euros per megawatt-hour after gas entering Germany at the Mallnow compressor station plunged to zero. Flows were diverted eastward to Poland." Energy prices in Europe are now rising at an exponential rate, and that is going to mean a very cold winter for a whole lot of people.
I would like to tell you that these problems are going to go away in 2022, but I can’t. Instead, it appears that our supply chain issues may continue to escalate.
One of the largest grocery store chains here in the United States began limiting purchases of certain food items prior to Thanksgiving, and then they made the list of restricted items quite a bit longer for the Christmas season…"Publix, which has more than 1,280 stores in the southern U.S., started limiting purchases of canned cranberry sauce, gravy, canned pie filling ahead of Thanksgiving. It has expanded its list of limited-purchase products ahead of Christmas to include sports drinks, half-and-half creamers, bacon, toilet paper, disposable plates, vegetable oils and cat food. “Due to ongoing supply issues and increased holiday demand, we have updated our purchase limits,” Maria Brous, Publix director of communications, told USA TODAY, adding most products on the list are limited to two of each item including cat food variety packs."
But widespread rationing is perfectly normal, right? The American people showed a great deal of patience early in this crisis, but now they are getting very restless, and many are blaming Joe Biden for our woes.
In fact, CNN is reporting that Joe Biden now has the lowest economic approval rating of any president since Jimmy Carter in 1977…"Biden now sports the lowest net economic rating of any president at this point through their first term since at least Jimmy Carter in 1977. In the latest CNN/SSRS poll, Biden comes in with a 44% approval rating to 55% disapproval rating among registered voters on his economic performance. This makes for a -9 point net approval rating. The average of all polls taken in December is quite similar with Biden at -13 points on the economy."
And another recent survey found that seven out of every ten Americans believe that 2021 was a bad year for our country…"The new Fox Business survey of registered voters finds 70 percent say 2021 was a clunker for the country. While that is better than the 78 percent who felt that way about 2020, it’s still much worse than the 38 percent who called 2019 bad."
In addition, 55 percent feel this was a bad year for them personally. That too is an improvement from a high of 67 percent last year, but a far more negative assessment than in December 2019, before the pandemic started, when just a quarter said the same (26 percent). It has definitely been a very tough year for most Americans, and so many of us are desperately hoping for a major turnaround in 2022. But that isn’t going to happen.
It has taken decades of exceedingly foolish decisions to get us to this point, and an incredible amount of pain awaits us as we continue to steamroll down the path that we are currently on. Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Powell, Yellen, Fauci and all of our other “leaders” in Washington are absolutely clueless. And if you actually believe that they can navigate us out of this mess, you are clueless too.
The blind are leading the blind, and most Americans don’t even realize that they are leading us right into a horrifying economic abyss."
Gerald Celente And The Judge, "The US Government Hates Christmas"
Gerald Celente And The Judge,
"The US Government Hates Christmas"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"What will become of our Sun? The first hint of our Sun's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky - and visible toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula) with binoculars.
It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, featured here in colors emitted by hydrogen and oxygen. We now know that in about 6 billion years, our Sun will shed its outer gases into a planetary nebula like M27, while its remaining center will become an X-ray hot white dwarf star. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science, though. Even today, many things remain mysterious about planetary nebulas, including how their intricate shapes are created."
"Doug Casey on How Marxists Captured the Universities and Will Soon Capture the Nation"
"Doug Casey on How Marxists Captured the
Universities and Will Soon Capture the Nation"
"International Man: Communist and socialist ideas are growing in popularity among the millennial and Gen Z generations. In fact, the majority of young people dislike capitalism and favor a more socialist or even a communist economic system. This is evidenced by the rise of politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) and The Squad. What’s your take on this?
Doug Casey: The youth are being corrupted, and it’s more serious than ever. Although I say that a bit tongue-in-cheek since people have probably thought the youth were becoming degenerate since about day one.
For instance, one of the two charges against Socrates when he was executed in Ancient Greece was corrupting the youth. Older people always think the youth are foolish, ignorant, lazy, crazy and generally taking the world to hell in a handbasket. And, of course, many of their charges are, and always have been, true. But as kids get older, they generally get wiser, more knowledgeable, harder-working, and more prudent—nothing new here. The world has survived roughly 250 new generations since civilization began in Sumer 5,000 years ago. And it will likely survive this one too.
That’s the bright side. And, as you know, I always look on the bright side. But, on the other hand, the American university system has been totally captured by Cultural Marxists, socialists, statists, collectivists, promoters of identity politics, and people of that ilk. These people hate Western Civilization and its values and are actively trying to destroy them. My view is that this challenge is perhaps the most serious we’ve ever encountered, and the dangers are greatly amplified by advancing technology.
International Man: What role are Western universities playing? How is this shaping current and future generations?
Doug Casey: Universities have been totally transformed in many ways over the past century, and it’s been for the worst in every instance. When the average 18-year-old goes to college, he knows very little about how the world works in general. He’s got vague ideas he picked up mostly from TV, movies, and people who got a job teaching high school. They know basically nothing about economics, government, or history. Worse, what they think they know is mostly wrong. That makes them easy prey for professors with totally bent views to indoctrinate them.
It’s not so much that they’re taught inaccurate facts. There are plenty of "factoids" (artificial facts), of course—like the War Between the States (which shouldn’t be called the Civil War) was mainly fought to free the slaves. Or that Keynesian economics is correct. Or that the US is a democracy ruled by "We the People." And many, many more. But that’s just part of the problem.
It’s not just the factoids they’re taught. It’s the way the schools interpret actual facts and the kind of meaning they infuse into events. The "why?" of events is twisted, and concepts of good and evil are perverted. The education system has been almost completely captured by Marxists and other leftists. They’re in a position to indoctrinate the youth, and they use that power to the maximum. Once a kid’s thoughts are bent—much the way a tree can be bent as a sapling—in one direction or another, it’s very hard to straighten them out.
Of course, that leads to the question of whether the youth should be directed one way or another in the first place. Which values are "right" or "wrong?" I certainly have views on that subject, but this isn’t the place to go into them—beyond saying that basic values are too important to be left to random government employees.
The real problem, however, is that today’s education does not teach critical thinking. Rather just the opposite is true. Students are taught blind acceptance of what’s currently considered politically correct. Instead of questioning authority in a peaceful and rational manner—which is what Socrates did—the current idea is to prevent any divergent views from even being discussed. The professors are basically all socialists, and the kids tend to believe what they’re taught. Those views are reinforced by the other sources of information surrounding them—Hollywood, mass media, and the government itself.
Destructive ideas usually start with "intellectuals." Intellectuals typically despise business, commerce, and production, and they envy the money the capitalists have. Intellectuals feel they’re not only smarter but also much more moral than business people. That gives them the right, in their own eyes, to dictate to everyone else. They’re usually socialists, and approve of "cadres" like themselves, ordering everyone else around. Intellectuals naturally gravitate to the universities, where they’re paid to hang out with each other, be lionized by kids, and hatch goofy ideas.
This has always been the case. But it’s become a much bigger problem than in the past, partly because a much, much higher percentage of kids go to college now than ever before. Even in the recent past, at most five or 10 percent of kids went to college. These days, almost everybody goes, and a much higher proportion of the youth are being infected with leftist memes than ever before.
Some kids will grow out of it and realize that most of what they’ve paid an exorbitant amount of money to learn is nonsense. But most will reflexively defend what they were taught in the cocoon. And I’m afraid those people now make up a big chunk of the U.S. population.
Kids who are polled say that they think socialism is good.. I suspect the polls are accurate. And even if they don’t think it, almost all of them feel it—although few know the difference between thinking and feeling … If you’re brought up thinking that the values of socialism and the welfare state are good, and everyone around you believes in them, the chances are you will too.
International Man: What are your thoughts on the emphasis on identity politics and the concept of "white privilege?"
Doug Casey: Identity politics is essentially the idea that a person is first and foremost a member of some race or ethnicity and only secondarily an individual. In recent years, most people have been indoctrinated indirectly and directly, subtly and overtly, to believe white people and the civilization they created are bad. The meme is everywhere. They’ve come to believe Western Civilization is a bad thing and that white people are destroying the world.
Even if they don’t want to believe it because the concept is so stupid and so utterly contrafactual, they end up accepting it just because they’ve heard it over and over. Propaganda works. Memes that originated with intellectuals in universities have thoroughly infiltrated the mass media and the entertainment industry. It’s perverse how today’s "thought leaders" overwhelmingly think the same thing.
There’s been no defense at all—forget about a counterattack—from so-called capitalists and business leaders. All they’re interested in is making money. In fact, they not only accept the ideas but contribute money to the causes of their enemies, idiotically thinking that virtue-signaling will placate them. It’s an unfortunate fact that business people, especially the suits managing large corporations, don’t really care how they make money. They tend to be completely amoral or immoral philistines and political hacks. They look like hypocrites and are (correctly) held in contempt by the intellectuals. The corporate types are happy to work with and for their counterparts in government, which is exactly what the fascism of Mussolini advocated. They self-righteously make charitable contributions to universities and NGOs, subsidizing the source of the poison.
There’s almost no defense of the ideas that brought us Western Civilization, which is responsible for just about everything that’s good in the world. I’m not kidding when I make that assertion. With the exception of a few anomalies like Taoism, martial arts, yoga, and Oriental cooking, East minus West equals zero. Without it, the whole world would resemble Africa, Cambodia, or Mongolia—not even today, but 200 years ago. Ideas like individualism, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, science, rationality, and capitalism are products of Western Civilization. These concepts no longer have any defenders anywhere. They’re under attack everywhere.
International Man: What do you think the impact of this will be on the markets and the economy?
Doug Casey: I’m bearish, Especially for the near term since actual Jacobins are in charge in Washington. How can the markets be healthy when what passes for a ruling class in the West actually hate themselves and middle class is collapsing economically and psychologically? When, political entrepreneurship is valued more than making money through production, When the currency is being actively destroyed to prop up what has become a very corrupt political system?
In fact, the economy and the markets are the least of our problems. The very foundation of civilization itself is under attack. The widespread acceptance of destructive statist and collectivist ideas is serious. The consequences will be the same here as they were in Russia under the Soviets, in Germany under the Nazis, and in China under Mao. The situation may be even more serious since the idea of Western Civilization itself is under serious attack in the U.S., which has been the bulwark for the last century. So, excuse my bearishness, but I think it’s warranted."
"We Have A Fear..."
"We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and
the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves
because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together."
- Terence McKenna
"Standing Up When It’s Too Late"
"Standing Up When It’s Too Late"
By JR Nyquist
"This article is a comparison between America and another great empire faced with rot in high office and a decline of the state - Rome. The writer, JR Nyquist, artfully points out it’s not the big events that sink an empire but many seemingly little ones. You could call what is happening to the U.S. “death by a thousand cuts.” Except in this story, people are not really aware how deep the cuts are and exactly who is doing the cutting. I loved this piece, and I hope you do as well." - Greg Hunter
○
"There is a letter by Marcus Tullius Cicero, dated 18 December 50 B.C. This letter was written to his friend Atticus on the eve of the Roman Civil War. He wrote as follows: “The political situation alarms me deeply, and so far I have found scarcely anybody who is not for giving Caesar what he demands rather than fighting it out.” To explain the situation in brief, G. Julius Caesar had demanded the right to circumvent the Roman constitution, to break laws with impunity, to extend his command over a large army by using that army to threaten the Senate of Rome. “And why should we start standing up to him now?” asked Cicero. The next day he wrote to Atticus: “We should have stood up to him [Caesar] when he was weak, and that would have been easy. Now we have to deal with eleven legions…” Though he hated the idea of civil war, the only course, said Cicero, was to follow “the honest men or whoever may be called such, even if they plunge.”
And who were these “honest men”? “I don’t know of any,” wrote Cicero in the same letter. “There are honest individuals, but there are no honest groups.” Then he asked rhetorically if the Senate was honest, or the tax farmers, or the capitalists. None were frightened of living under an autocracy, he lamented. The capitalists, especially, “never have objected to that, so long as they were left in peace.” But civil war occurred nonetheless, because people are not free to be dishonest forever. They must admit to certain responsibilities, and oppose the advance of evil. The previous inclination to look away, to do nothing, to shrug off responsibility, proves in the end to be no more than a delaying tactic. They attempted to put off calamity, Cicero suggested, and made it all the more calamitous. That is all.
Why did the Roman Senate suddenly stand up to Caesar? What triggered their resistance? As with all free people, they began with policies of procrastination and appeasement. They hoped that the problem (i.e., Caesar) would go away. In the end, however, they discovered their mistake. Everyone still hoped for peace, though none believed it was possible. Everyone wanted to avoid war, but nobody saw a way out. Pompey stood before the Senate and gave voice to what everyone thought. “If we give Caesar the consulship, it will mean the subversion of the constitution.” In other words, it would mean the end of Rome, the end of the republic, the destruction of their country.
In a fitting preface to John Dickinson’s "Death of a Republic," George L. Haskins wrote, “that the history of Rome is the history of the world, that, as all roads lead to Rome, so all history ends or begins with Rome.” Why do free people fall into complacency? Why are threats ignored until the eleventh hour?
“Surely,” wrote Cicero at the end of Caesar’s dictatorship, “our present sufferings are all too well deserved. For had we not allowed outrages to go unpunished on all sides, it would never have been possible for a single individual to seize tyrannical power.” Caesar’s cause was not right, but evil, Cicero explained. “Mere confiscations of the property of individual citizens were far from enough to satisfy him. Whole provinces and countries succumbed to his onslaught, in one comprehensive universal catastrophe…” As for the city of Rome, Cicero lamented, “nothing is left - only the lifeless walls of houses. And even they look afraid that some further terrifying attack may be imminent. The real Rome is gone forever.”
Republics are slow to defend themselves against enemies that advance, like Caesar, under camouflage. But make no mistake, republics always defend. Groups and categories of men may not be honest or brave, but when they are finally confronted with the truth - as individuals - they see no other course. They stand up and fight. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Caesar was struck down in the Senate and killed by thrusting daggers.
It is all too true, of course. “We should have stood up to him when he was weak,” Cicero lamented. The problem with republican government is its tardiness; or rather, tardiness in the face of danger. As Machiavelli wrote, "The institutions normally used by republics are slow in functioning. No assembly or magistrate can do everything alone. In many cases, they have to consult with one another, and to reconcile their diverse views takes time. Where there is a question of remedying a situation that will not brook delay, such a procedure is dangerous."
Machiavelli concluded, therefore, “that republics in imminent danger, having no recourse to dictatorship, will always be ruined when some grave misfortune befalls them.” This is the weakness of republican government. Here is the ground on which it dies. An obvious threat, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor is not the greatest danger. It is the subtle, camouflaged threat, that creeps up from behind. It is this camouflage that gives reluctant men a way out. “We need not fight. We need not make a fuss. There is nothing to fear.”
When this is the prevailing view, people who understand a given threat may ask: “What is to be done?” As long as we are isolated individuals, there is nothing to do. The individual may be honest with himself, but groups are not honest. What prevails overall is an optimistic dismissal. “The threat isn’t real.” This is how Hitler got so far. This is how Communism took over so many countries, and continues today under camouflage. There is nothing the individual can do that will sway the crowd. And as we are a republic, our political system operates according to the psychology of a crowd. The majority are caught up in the fads and media trends of the moment. Cynical and empty publicity characterizes much of our public discourse. But one day the country will awaken. Then, and only then, Americans will stop going along as if nothing serious hangs over them. Will it be too late? Perhaps it will be too late to save the republic. But it will not be too late to save the country."
"Bound for Collision"
"Bound for Collision"
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland... "It could be almost anything, of course. A stock market crash. A sharp rise in bond yields. Extreme weather. A new ‘variant.’ The omicron variant, for example. An internet search this morning turned up a total worldwide death count of 8 people, 7 in the UK and 1 in Texas. Not exactly the end of the world.
But when you have a degenerate empire sinking into an abyss, you go with the emergency you have on hand. And those are just the known unknowns. As for the unknown unknowns, the woods are full of them. Today, we return to one of the most plausible… and most alarming.
The Fed claims it has begun a tightening cycle. That means, it will be throwing less gasoline on the inflation fire than before – but still about $3 billion per day of new money. It says it will reduce the amount of new money creation gradually, and then stop it altogether in March of next year. Then, it will consider raising its key lending rate - the real rate, adjusted for inflation, is currently 6.5% below zero.
No serious person believes these baby steps will relieve the upward pressure on prices. Certainly, investors don’t believe it. Yesterday, shaking off Monday’s shivers, they bid up stocks… as if they hadn’t a care in the world. And the Biden Administration, backed by the Democratic party, and the whole elite establishment, says what is needed is more spending, not less. There are more emergencies that need to be met – with money, of course. ‘Social infrastructure.’ Covid. Climate change. A record Pentagon budget… and maybe even war with Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.
Fitter, Happier, More Productive: According to the fantasy, more boondoggles will contribute to growth, which as we all know, is the same as progress - with a chicken in every pot… free lunches all around… diversity, equality and equity for all, necking in the parlor and dancing in the street. As to ‘growth,’ the idea that a group of politicians can create real economic progress by printing up money and passing it out to their cronies, friends, and pet projects has been around for a long time. But if they could really do that... what have they been waiting for?
Of course, they haven’t waited at all. In this century, the US government, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve, stimulated ‘growth’ more than any time in America’s history. US debt has grown by more than $23 trillion since 1999 – a 300% increase.
Click image for larger size.
Source: US Federal Reserve
But look out the window. Do you see dancing in the streets? Are people more prosperous than they were in 1999? Happier? Freer? We didn’t think so either. Instead, the rich got richer… growth rates fell… and markets became more bizarre and erratic. Wall Street had to be bailed out… in the emergency of the housing debt crisis of 2008-2009.
And then, the whole economy had to be bailed out in the Covid shutdown emergency of 2020 and on... and on... And now, the public, betrayed by its leaders and now bearing the cost of so much ‘emergency’ spending, in the form of higher consumer prices, is becoming surly and ill-tempered.
But steeped in the holiday spirit, as we are, we are loath to sink into a pit of despair and spoil Christmas. We’ll save that for January… This week, we’ll just keep rolling merrily along, doing our best to keep a straight face and a positive attitude. But just to give us all a fair warning, we see a very dangerous intersection ahead – and a new emergency.
Out of Energy: From one direction come 7 billion people… almost everyone of whom depends on the traditional fossil fuel that made our modern economy possible. From the other comes the feds’ inflation…distorting the prices that the energy industry needs to keep supply in balance with demand. And there… at the crossroads itself… is the US government directing traffic!
We hardly need to say so, but in today’s world – distributing food, providing shelter, and delivering energy – with its factories, trucks, tractors, electric lines – runs mostly on fossil fuels. Take them away, suddenly or haphazardly, and the result is likely to be widespread misery. The delivery mechanism for energy, as for other things, is exceedingly complex… with millions of components all working together, all over the world, with different climates, different religions, different languages… and all guided by prices. If prices go up… supplies generally follow. If they go down, so too go supplies.
But now, a menace we haven’t seen, in the USA, for nearly half a century – inflation – is corrupting price signals. Suddenly, prices are going all over the place. The price for a gallon of gasoline, for example, gained more than 50% over the previous year. And last week, Goldman Sachs’ head of energy research said the price of oil could go to $100 a barrel next year.
But instead of going up, in response to higher prices, energy supplies are headed down. Rystad Energy: "Global oil and gas discoveries in 2021 are on track to hit their lowest full-year level in 75 years should the remainder of December fail to yield any significant finds, Rystad Energy analysis shows. As of the end of November, total global discovered volumes this year are calculated at 4.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and, with no major finds announced so far this month, the industry is on course for its worst discoveries toll since 1946. This would also represent a considerable drop from the 12.5 billion boe unearthed in 2020."
After working so fluidly for more than a century, with only very few problems, all of a sudden it looks like supply and demand are bound for a collision. That will be a genuine emergency. Stay tuned..."
“The Wit and Wisdom of Will Rogers”
“The Wit and Wisdom of Will Rogers”
by Tom Purcell
"Things are mighty heated these days. Tempers are flaring and minds
are closed. Here’s the solution: the wit and wisdom of Will Rogers.
“The short memory of voters is what keeps our politicians in office.”
“We’ve got the best politicians that money can buy.”
“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
Rogers spoke these words during the Great Depression, but they’re just as true today. With 24-hour news channels, our memories are shorter than ever. And in the mass-media age, the politician who can afford the most airtime frequently wins.
“Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.”
“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing.
That was the closest our country has ever been to being even.”
“Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”
Today, unfortunately, we’re getting more government than we’re paying for. We cover the difference by borrowing billions every year. As the king of the velvet-tipped barb, Rogers never intended to be mean, but to bring us to our senses. One of his favorite subjects was to remind the political class that it worked for us, not the other way around.
“When Congress makes a joke it’s a law,
and when they make a law, it’s a joke.”
“You can’t hardly find a law school in the country that don’t, through
some inherent weakness, turn out a senator or congressman from
time to time…if their rating is real low, even a president.”
“The more you observe politics, the more you’ve
got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”
That’s for certain. Rogers’ thinking on American
foreign policy really hits home today:
“Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”
“Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.
You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.”
“Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.”
Rogers was born and raised on a farm in Oklahoma. His wit reflected the heart of America — the horse sense, square dealing and honesty that were the bedrock of our success:
“When a fellow ain’t got much of a mind,
it don’t take him long to make it up.”
“This country is not where it is today on account of any one man.
It’s here on account of the real common sense of the Big Normal Majority.”
Franklin Roosevelt, a frequent target of Rogers’ barbs, understood how valuable Rogers’ sensibility was during the years of the Depression: “I doubt there is among us a more useful citizen than the one who holds the secret of banishing gloom… of supplanting desolation and despair with hope and courage. Above all things, Will Rogers brought his countrymen back to a sense of proportion.”
A sense of proportion is clearly what we’re lacking right now. We need to get it back quickly. What we need now more than ever is the calm, clear perspective of Will Rogers. He offered some sound advice on how we can get started: “If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "What I Have Learned So Far"
"What I Have Learned So Far"
"Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of - indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone."
~ Mary Oliver
Gregory Mannarino, "Beyond The Debt Hyper-Bubble... A Biblical Loss Of Life Will Occur"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/22/21:
"Beyond The Debt Hyper-Bubble...
A Biblical Loss Of Life Will Occur"
"There Is No Christmas For The Homeless This Year - LA Edition"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, 12/22/21:
"There Is No Christmas For The Homeless This Year - LA Edition"
"I am in Downtown Los Angeles, California. There is no Christmas for the Homeless this year. As the economy gets slammed there are tens of thousands of people sleeping on the streets."
Gregory Mannarino, “The Entire Financial System Will Lock Up When The Debt Hyperbubble Bursts”
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/22/21:
“The Entire Financial System Will Lock Up
When The Debt Hyperbubble Bursts”
"And Never, Never..."
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."
- Arundhati Roy
"How Vulnerable Is Your Personal Supply Chain?"
"How Vulnerable Is Your Personal Supply Chain?"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"Americans consider abundance and ready availability as birthrights so basic they're like the air we breathe. The idea that shelves could become bare and stay bare is incomprehensible. yet that is the world we're entering, for a number of complex reasons.
One is that the world added not just another billion humans (now 7.9 billion), but one billion middle-class consumers, consumers who use about 100 times more energy per person than poor people. These additional billion middle-class consumers doubled the number of high-energy consuming humans in a few decades, and this enormous expansion of demand has consumed all the easy-to-extract resources of the planet. There are no cheap, easy-to-extract resources left; all that's left is expensive to reach, extract, transport, etc., and since energy is the master resource, as its cost rises, so does the cost of literally everything that depends on energy.
Consider a poor person in a rural village. Most of their food is grown locally, and their income is so limited they do not have the means to consume much energy or items shipped halfway around the world via the global supply chain. They might have a cheap mobile phone and a few consumer items gifted to them by relatives working in the developed world, but very little of their consumption depends on long global supply chains. If those chains break, the impact on the poor villagers is relatively modest.
Compare this relative self-sufficiency to the extreme dependence on long supply chains of the average American. Very little, if any, of their everyday consumption is sourced locally, i.e., within walking distance. Every item on the shelves requires immense consumption of energy to be manufactured/produced and shipped to the shelf, and every item has a long dependency chain of intermediaries, each of which is dependent on numerous components, specialty materials, machinery and processes.
Every intermediary, and every process and source used by each intermediary, is a potential source of failure of the entire supply chain. Complexity and supply chains are abstractions. To understand the intrinsic fragility of global supply chains, we must count the number of intermediaries in the chain from the resources extracted from the Earth to the end customer in the store aisle, and then count the intermediaries in each of those links.
Counting the intermediaries in every dependency chain between the source of what we need/ want and the item on the shelf (or in the UPS/FedEx/postal service vehicle) is a measure of our dependency: the more intermediaries, the greater our vulnerability and the greater the fragility of the dependency chain.
This chain of dependencies is poorly understood outside each specialized industry. Consider semiconductors, widely touted as “the new oil,” i.e., the essential component in global production. The process of manufacturing semiconductors is extremely complex and resource-intensive, and many of the solvents, machines and components are only manufactured by one or two firms globally. If any of these links are disrupted, the entire chain of production breaks, as each is irreplaceable.
If one firm produces 80% of the global supply of a specialty solvent, the smaller firm producing the other 20% cannot quadruple production for many reasons: its facilities are limited, adding capacity is a multi-year project, the equipment to expand isn’t available, the supply of the petrochemical feedstock cannot be increased due to limitations in the storage and delivery chain, and so on.
There are many limits which are excluded from consideration when the supply chains are functioning. If we consider a system Americans take for granted - the ample supply of gasoline and diesel fuels - there are many unseen limits in the delivery system: the number of tanker trucks is limited, the number of drivers credentialed to drive the trucks is limited, intermediate storage of fuels is limited, and so on.
The system is optimized for the average driver to have less than half a tank of fuel. Should the system break down and drivers start hoarding, i.e., constantly topping off their fuel tanks, then the system cannot recover its previous stability: the system has been optimized to a narrow range of storage, tanker trucks, drivers, etc., and once the system breaks out of that narrow window, the entire chain collapses.
This is the reality of long global supply chains with dozens or hundreds of intermediaries: every supply chain has been optimized to function within a narrow window, and once any intermediary is disrupted, the entire chain breaks and cannot be restored once hoarding (at the wholesale level, over-ordering) begins. Hoarding is our instinctive response to shortages, and once the awareness of systemic fragilities and vulnerabilities rises, so too will hoarding.
There is another source of fragility in long supply chains with many irreplaceable intermediaries. Each intermediary must make a profit or it will shut down. If price increases passed along to an intermediary cannot be passed along to the next link, then the firm absorbing the increase will lose money. Since many intermediaries are small, marginally profitable firms, they cannot absorb losses for long. Once they shut down, the chain cannot be restored without replacing them, and that is a major project, as many intermediaries have specialized skills and trusted networks which cannot be replaced without local connections and sources.
Lastly, many of the global supply chain’s numerous intermediaries depend on credit markets to function, as their receivables often exceed 90 days. In other words, they often receive payment months after they delivered the goods or services, and so they rely on credit to fund day to day operations. Should credit markets seize up - a typical occurrence in crises - these intermediaries will shut down due to lack of funding.
The price to be paid for stripping the domestic economy of productive capacity will be far higher than proponents of trade can even imagine, much less calculate. The price to be paid for becoming dependent on long, complex global supply chains with hundreds of intermediaries optimized for a narrow window of functionality will also be far higher than conventional analysts can imagine, much less calculate.
How vulnerable is your personal supply chain? For the average American, the answer is: very. How do we reduce that extreme vulnerability? One way is to consume less. Another is to reduce the number of intermediaries between the source of our essentials and our household. For example, a barrel that collects rainwater off your roof is a source of water that has no intermediary. Vegetables collected from your home garden have limited intermediaries (sources of fertilizer and seeds). A solar panel that can charge your mobile devices in daytime has no intermediary once the panel has been purchased and installed.
All the items that become sources of essentials - water barrels, solar panels, fertilizers - could become costly or scarce, as each requires massive amounts of energy to produce. Obtaining sources is different from stockpiling the end products. Both are worthy of consideration. So is moving to a less dependent locale and reconfiguring one's life to consume less and reduce the number of intermediaries between your household and the sources of what you need."
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