"Hope is Not a Strategy - Prepare for the Economic Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, PM 1/14//22

"Hope is Not a Strategy - 

Prepare for the Economic Collapse"

"Everything is off right now. People just don’t get that I need to have a plan with everything in their life. This includes everything from your personal life to your business. The better the plan, the more likelihood you will have for success in everything."

The Poet: Stephen Levine, "Half Life"

"Half Life"

 "We walk through half our life

as if it were a fever dream,

barely touching the ground,

our eyes half open,

our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are,

we watch the ghost of us drift

from room to room,

through friends and lovers

never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean

or meaning half we say,

we dream ourselves

from birth to birth

seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks

and the heart can not abide

a moment longer

as the rest of us awakens,

summoned from the dream,

not half caring for anything but love."

~ Stephen Levine

The Daily "Near You?"

Ranfurly, Otago, New Zealand. Thanks for stopping by!

"Insider Loot"

"Insider Loot"

by Bill Bonner

Paris, France - "It is gray and cold, here in Paris. Mon Dieu! The government here is even more absurd than in the US. French president Macron says he will “emmerd” those who don’t have the vaccination. We’ve seen that translated as “piss off” or “mire in excrement.” A better translation of emmerder is probably something like to “make your life miserable.”

But imagine – what kind of society is it in which one group tries to make another group miserable? In a healthy, consensual democracy, like a healthy marriage or a healthy business, nobody has a monopoly on the truth… and nobody gains much by trying to bully and threaten others. People didn’t need to be forced to take the polio vaccine, for example. When we were in grammar school polio was still a terrible disease… and the vaccine kept us from getting it. COVID, on the other hand, is not a threat to most people and the vaccines don’t keep you from getting it anyway.

The Washington Post: "The omicron coronavirus variant will infect “just about everybody” regardless of vaccination status, top U.S. infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci said Tuesday."

Does vaccinating everyone really make sense? The issue deserves a contrary argument and an honest discussion. It is opposition that reveals the best way forward, not submission. One side puts forward an idea. The other lets him know what a moron he is. From this exchange of ideas and opinions, a consensus emerges. But without the yang, the yin spins out of control… without the immovable object, the irresistible force is lost in space. Alas, in France as in America, the elites conspire to suppress alternative opinions… and the servile press asks no questions. Instead, it gives out the party line. Voters either go along… or else!

Back in the US: Who asked any questions as the Fed lowered interest rates below the level of consumer price inflation? Who objected when it ‘printed’ more than $8 trillion of new money since 2000… or raised the alarm as the feds added more than $23 trillion to US debt?

And now…inflation is officially running at a 7% rate. Romaine lettuce, reports Bloomberg, is 61% more expensive than it was a year ago. A CNN headline: 'Analysis: ‘It’s getting worse every time’: Inflation concerns could spell trouble for Democrats

At today’s inflation level, if you buy a 10-year US note, you get a real yield of about MINUS 5%. Put in $1,000. A year later, you’ll have $950. Alert readers will notice that this is not a good way to build wealth. You can’t lose money on an investment and make it up by doing more of it. You have to do something different.

Which is why yields on the Fed’s benchmark bond – the US Treasury 10-year note – are rising. Investors are looking for the exits. And if yields continue to rise, which seems likely, it creates a big problem for borrowers. They will have to refinance their mortgages… their bonds… and their loans… at higher rates (30-year mortgage rates hit 3.45% yesterday, the highest since March 2020; they were 2.65% a year ago).

Which is when they are likely to wonder if borrowing was such a good idea in the first place…. and whether, when the Fed was getting the whole economy hooked on ultra-low interest rates… someone should have said something.

Nobody did.

Instead, the great and the good – seeing the coast was clear – went right along. And the whole system, with no real opposition or means of correction, became self-serving and corrupt. The press acted as if Bernanke, Yellen and Powell knew what they were doing… Congress became a sinecure for partisan hacks… The rich counted their money…($30 trillion in stock market gains since 2009)… The public was addled by Facebook and the evening news, punctuated by one scary distraction after another… And the printing presses at the Fed ran night and day (no need to raise taxes…or borrow honestly from savers!)…

And now… the Entire Elite Establishment locks arms in favor of more money and power for itself…at the public’s expense, of course…and what can stop it? "

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Do You Want..."

"Do you want to live life, 

or do you want to escape life?"

- Macklemore

Jim Kunstler, "Dog Gone"

"Dog Gone"

by Jim Kunstler

"So much chatter in the news media these days about who will be “Joe Biden’s” running mate in 2024 — not that there’s anything wrong with his current sidekick — but I’ve got half a mind to throw my own hat in the ring. That’d make two of us with half a mind and a shot at the so-far elusive ideal to govern least… and therefore govern best!

Alas, I lack the connections and the ground-game of a seasoned pol such as Liz Cheney, the current favorite, who dragged her esteemed old daddy, Dick Cheney (“George W. Bush’s brain”) up to Capitol Hill this week, for to schmooze up the Progressive caucus and raise morale among the walking dead. Where Dick Cheney treads, you know war can’t be far behind. That must be what America really needs to pep her up in these days of sagging poll numbers and inflating dollars. War, the ivermectin of politics!

But shall it be a foreign war or a civil war? Isn’t that the question? From the looks of things around “Joe Biden’s” White House, where a weird concrete fortification is being hoisted up on the north lawn as I write, it looks like they’re planning for action on the home front, perhaps a full-out assault by the lurking forces of white supremacy — painted savages in horned head-dresses screaming MAGA-MAGA-MAGA as they loot Dr. Jill’s walk-in closet.

The Attorney General, Mr. Garland, has been warning us about this Satanic host of backward-facing demons. They breed like botflies in the red state hills and hollers, swarm and buzz in the school board meetings, caress their AR-15s in prostrate worship of their Trump bobbleheads, scheming to deprive BIPOCs of their votes. They’d like to tie Democracy to the back bumper of a Ford Alpha F-150, drag it over seven miles of broken Southern Comfort bottles, and feed whatever’s left to the hogs. They must be stopped!

Except… what if they fail to materialize? Maybe a foreign war would play better on social media and The View. Our arch-enemy, Vlad Putin, election-meddler supreme, is fixing to invade Ukraine, we’re told. Obviously, that would interfere with “Joe Biden’s” plan to make Ukraine America’s fifty-first state. When Sec’y of State Tony Blinken mentioned that to Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister blew mineral water through his nose all over the conference table. Would a friendly little tussle over that sad-sack country lift America’s animal spirits… like, get the economy firing on all cylinders? Roust up all those work-force dropouts who disdain fine jobs waiting for them in the Amazon warehouses and the fry-lanes of Mickey-D? Put the brakes on all this fentanyl snorting…? All this porn-watching…? Turn around America’s long sickening slide into its own Hollywood fantasy of the zombie apocalypse?

Well, I must be frank: probably not. Probably only hasten America’s journey to the political pits of hell (and Ukraine’s to its special sub-hell). What would be our strategy in this war over Ukraine? Arm Ukraine with the all the latest US gee-whiz fighting gear and let them have a go at the Russian army poised along the border of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts? That’ll work, I’m sure. Call it Operation Russian Roulette, only with a bullet in every chamber. You see, it is not a generally-accepted fact among world military professionals that Ukraine has — how you say? — a well-disciplined, experienced fighting force. I hope that does not offend.

If that doesn’t seem like a viable game-plan, do “Joe Biden,” Tony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin really suppose we would transport x-number of US troop divisions six thousand miles from Kansas to slug it out with those Russian divisions poised at the edge of their own homeland? Have a look at the world map and contemplate the logistical picture. Not so favorable for us, wouldn’t you agree? A long way to re-supply our boys, gals, and theys in uniform with fresh Kit-Kat bars.

Okay, say that dog don’t hunt, what else then? Default to our trusty old ICBMs, waiting patiently in their rusty silos lo these many decades for the chance to do their thing? That is, turn the world into an ashtray? I give you: Dr. Strangelove re-made as a documentary… We are livin’ the dream, all right.

How’s this for an idea: just leave Ukraine alone. If Russia intends to dominate it, so what? For most of our lives Ukraine was a virtual province of Russia, so to speak, and it didn’t hurt us none. Ditto our grandparents and all the ranks of our ancestors. And now it’s a problem? Could it be possible that Ukraine is just none of our business (in the most literal way)?

Meanwhile the business of Covid-19 flares spectacularly in omicron drag — but not vary harmfully — around the world, presaging a welcome end to this contrived global emergency, and yet the member nations of the Western Civ club (including many also enlisted in NATO) drive deeper with their experiment in tyranny even as the end of Covid is in sight. Despite overwhelming proof that the mRNA vaccines don’t work, and actually induce much serious harm to people, Western Civ still strives insanely to vaxx-up every last citizen. The Supreme Court shot down “Joe Biden’s” vaxx mandate for businesses yesterday, and the “president” actually declared that companies should ignore the decision and compel employees to get vaxxed anyway.

If that is not something like peak insane, what is? At least, among the cohort in our land who are susceptible to that madness, which is actually not a majority of the people in this land. Hence, I have news for you: we are now at the turning point. Americans are rejecting blue insanity. We are fixing to drag that old blue dog to the doghouse, where it can cool out for two years before we put it down for good. And a couple more things: “Joe Biden” is done running for president, and Liz Cheney is done running for Congress, or anything else. Welcome back to reality. Let the sun shine in."

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Economic Horror Show: Retail Sales Crater As Prices Continue To Skyrocket"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/14/22:

"Economic Horror Show: 

Retail Sales Crater As Prices Continue To Skyrocket"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Food Shortage At Target - Empty Shelves Everywhere, and Rising Prices!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 1/14/22:

"Food Shortage At Target - 

Empty Shelves Everywhere, and Rising Prices!"

"In today's vlog we are at Target with empty shelves everywhere! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and to get a few items of course they don't have. It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/14/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/14/22"

CV19 Conspiracy Facts, Mandate Sunk, 

Inflation Raging, War w/ Russia

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Give Project Veritas a hand because it has broken the biggest government coverup story since the infamous Pentagon Papers. The release back then showed the U.S. government lied and covered-up a decade’s long involvement in the Vietnam War. Fast forward to today, and you see history repeating itself with the recently released papers form DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and other government documents. It shows the government was well aware of CV19 gain of function, vaccine plans, thwarting the use of Ivermectin and HCQ and the weaponization of a virus unleashed on the world to basically kill people and get them to take experimental vaccines out of fear. This was racketeering to kill people so Big Pharm could make obscene amounts of money with a dangerous vaccine that was unnecessary and unneeded. The “Pentagon Papers” helped end the Viet Nam War, and the “DARPA Papers” will hopefully end the CV19 virus and vax scam. Maybe the Supreme Court took this into consideration when it voting down and sinking the Biden Vax mandates for private companies.

The latest inflation number is out, and the official number is 7%, which is well above the 2% Fed target rate. In the real world, the inflation rate, without government gimmicks to lower it, is 15%, according to economist John Williams at Shadowstats.com. To make matters worse, the PPI (Producer Price Index) just hit fresh record highs year over year coming in at 9.8% to the upside. The Fed is in a panic to get control, but if it raises interest rates and cuts off the easy money, will it crash the economy? Please keep in mind, there is mind blowing debt and derivatives in the hundreds of trillions of dollars, and experts say it would not take much of a nudge for the Fed to lose total control and melt it all down.

Last week, Russia, the USA and NATO were trying to ease tensions and work out an agreement to de-escalate the tension on Ukraine’s border with Russia. The U.S. and NATO don’t want Russia to influence the region, and Russia does not want more NATO countries on its border. Talks ended without an agreement, and now the Biden Administration is talking about sanctions against Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin. How close are we to another war? Maybe a lot closer than you think."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about

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

- https://rumble.com/

"Sometime In Your Life..."

"Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even."

- Daniel Berrigan

"Cargo Ships Flood California; Supply Chain Nightmare; Economic Crisis Out Of Control; Job Losses"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 1/13/22:

"Cargo Ships Flood California; Supply Chain Nightmare; 

Economic Crisis Out Of Control; Job Losses"

"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."

"The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn't right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below."

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

"David Rosenberg’s Last Warning: The Largest Market Crash Will Burst This Year"

Full screen recommended.

"David Rosenberg’s Last Warning: 

The Largest Market Crash Will Burst This Year"

by Epic Economist

"Investors are becoming increasingly scared. Over the past few weeks, they have been rushing to sell off risky assets, which is causing some major stock indexes to record a significant drop. As the tech bubble burst continues, the Dow Jones has fallen by 434 points, while the Nasdaq plunged by nearly 3 percent and the S&P 500 fell by almost 5 percent. The decline in share price has been triggered by high bond yields, which have pushed overvalued stocks to correction territory. According to Bloomberg, the rush to sell off risky assets, especially in the tech sector, has removed $1.5 trillion from the market in the first two weeks of the year. In the first five days, some of the most expensive stocks have fallen by roughly 50 percent. And many market veterans and insiders are warning that the stock market crash is far from over. This is just the beginning and things are only going to get bumpier from here.

Amongst them, the veteran strategist David Rosenberg is sounding the alarm about the burst of this historic "Everything Bubble" in asset prices and predicting a sizable stock market crash for 2022. "We have nutty, crazy, massive bubbles everywhere. In my professional lifetime, and probably going back further, I don't remember there being so many asset bubbles taking place at the same time," Rosemberg stressed. "We've come off three years with an average 20% increase in the S&P 500. Normally, the stock market goes up in price by 7% per year. We have tripled what is normal three years in a row. It's caused people's brains to get all fuzzy, and the greed is egregious," he explained.

When asked whether he could see a massive crash happening this year, Rosemberg said that "the odds are high we're going to see a bear market sooner," and that he wouldn't be surprised if it occurred over the next few weeks or months, given that tightening fiscal and monetary policies at a time of extremely expensive valuations are very likely to result in a sharp correction in every corner of the market. According to Morgan Stanley’s Michael J. Wilson, the crash isn't over and valuations will continue to fall. With the S&P 500 and NASDAQ indices both down this month and with some stocks losing more than 50% of their value in less than a week, it seems that Wilson is right again. Wealth manager RIA Advisors pointed that nearly 40% of stocks are now down more than 50% from their 52-week highs.

The current sell-off is having a disproportionate impact on expensive stocks, as it should, but the real determinant of how long and deep this correction lasts will be growth, said Wilson, adding that "investors are now entering a tighter monetary policy environment and this is going to mean more uncertainty at the index level." Moreover, the billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones is also concerned about the future of the market, warning that the Fed will tank the economy and forecasting that today's leading stocks will start to struggle in the days ahead. He highlighted that 'winning stocks' - a group that includes meme stocks and cryptocurrencies - would be hit the hardest by tighter monetary policies. "US equities are really extraordinarily valued relative to GDP," Jones emphasized, noting that the current Buffett indicator reading of more than 200% indicates the stock market is hugely overpriced relative to the size of the economy.

It seems like everyone in the market right now is really frightened about the coming change in monetary policy. This will be the first time in over a decade that the market will have to say goodbye to all that excess liquidity that made indexes skyrocket to one record high after the other. And don't be mistaken: this loss of liquidity in the market caused by a hawkish Fed will hit more than just winning tech stocks. They aren't the only one leveraged by excess liquidity - the entire market is. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the consequences. The market is likely to crash by up to 90% when the Fed finally removes all of that easy money from the market. Right now, bubbles are already popping everywhere, showing that intrinsic value matters after all. All signs are there for people to see, and we must start acting before it's too late."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

○

A market crash of far less than 90% will trigger a tsunami of margin calls of 

the $2.4 QUADRILLION derivatives, absolutely bankrupting everyone. 

Everyone...

Stipendium peccati mors est...

Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News"

Full screen recommended.

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, "Trends in The News"

"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."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Musical Interlude: Alan Parsons Project, “Ammonia Avenue”

Alan Parsons Project, “Ammonia Avenue”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue vdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are interstellar dust clouds, blocking the light from background stars in the case of Barnard's dark nebulae. For vdB 31, the dust preferentially reflects the bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae. 

Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about four light-years.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html 

"Of Course..."

"To show mercy is not naive. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. Of course... we are all doomed; we are all poisoned from our birth by the rot of stars. That does not mean we should succumb to the seductive fallacy of despair, the dark tide that would drown us. You may think I'm stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world."

- Rick Yancey

The Poet: Jane Hirshfield, "The Task "

"The Task"

"It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.

We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair - 

a robe unfurled

in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task

we've taken on,

though also vast:

from dusk to dawn,

from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not

be blinded by the praising.

To lie like a cat in hot

sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;

and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch

within the deep rooms of the house,

where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms." 

- Jane Hirshfield

"This Is The Motive..."

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."

- Blaise Pascal

"Stores Ration Food! Empty Shelves; Panicked Shoppers in U.S."

Full screen recommended.

Tommy Bites Homestead,

"Stores Ration Food! Empty Shelves; 

Panicked Shoppers in U.S."

○

○

Related:

"Global Economy Heading For "Mother Of All" 

Supply Chain Shocks As China Locks Down Ports"

Gregory Mannarino, "The Dollar Is Dying And Here Is The Proof; BlackRock Warns Of Commodity Prices"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/13/22:

"The Dollar Is Dying And Here Is The Proof; 

BlackRock Warns Of Commodity Prices"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Collapse: You Are In One, And The Worst Is Yet To Come. Very Important Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/13/22:

"Collapse: You Are In One, And The Worst Is Yet To Come. 

Very Important Updates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Middle Class Getting Wiped Out - Highest Inflation in 40 Years"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 1/13/22:

"Middle Class Getting Wiped Out - Highest Inflation in 40 Years"

"We have the worst inflation in 40 years. Nothing makes sense. Experts now say that we cannot raise interest rates because of the damage that’s been done. The Middle Class is finished."

"Hell to Pay"

"Hell to Pay"

by Bill Bonner

Paris, France... "This morning’s headline in the Financial Times: "Four-decade high for US inflation fuels Fed fears over jobs recovery." Yes, dear reader. Inflation didn’t slack off in December. “US consumer price growth rose at the fastest pace in almost four decades in December… "The consumer price index increased at a 7% year-on-year pace last month, a step up from the 6.8% rate registered in November and the biggest jump since June 1982."

The road to ruin includes many twists and turns. And there are plenty of signs along the way to mislead travelers. It wouldn’t surprise us to see the inflation numbers moderate in the months ahead. But the general direction of America’s decline is not likely to change. As we’ve explored in these pages, the people who control US public policy have an agenda. It includes spending a lot of money they don’t have (with much of it going into their own pockets)… and doing a lot of things that could have very unpleasant consequences. The switchover – from ‘dirty’ old fuel to clean, new fuel – is one of them.

Here’s a headline from Reuters. We had to read it three times. Even then we weren’t sure what it meant: "Coal to make up 85% of total US power capacity to be retired in 2022."

(Reuters) - "Coal-fired plants will account for about 85% of total U.S. power capacity scheduled for retirement this year with natural gas and renewables taking a greater share of the supply, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday."

One of our themes here at the Diary is that the feds are cruisin’ for a bruisin’ by meddling in the energy industry. Fossil fuel is what makes modern civilization possible. It keeps the trucks on the road and sustains 7.9 billion people. Take it away suddenly… or clumsily… and there will be Hell to pay. But the word ‘clumsily’ was practically invented to describe the way the government does things. It bullies. It bumbles. It makes the proverbial bull in the china shop look like a ballerina.

Normally, the energy ‘market’ adapts to conditions on the ground, with thousands of producers responding to delicate, real-time price signals in order to furnish 600 quadrillion Btus of energy per year. But when politics and inflation get involved, there is bound to be trouble. “Supply chain disruptions,” for example. Price spikes. Shortages. Cut-offs. Mistakes. Failures. Here’s the news from Berlin: "Thousands of people in the east of Berlin had to get by for hours on Sunday evening without heating and without warm water – with outside temperatures of around three degrees Celsius. A brief power outage at the state’s own electricity network operator Stromnetz Berlin had paralyzed the Klingenberg thermal power station in the Rummelsburg district in the afternoon, as the energy supplier Vattenfall announced. The power plant owned by the company had to shut down."

Europe is leading the way. Since 2,000, in the Old World, oil production has dropped in half. Nuclear reactors are decommissioned. And the price of a gallon of gasoline, when we filled up the tank yesterday near Paris, was about $7.

Click image for larger size.

(Source: Eurostat)

People don’t like running out of power. And they don’t appreciate it when their energy costs go up. In Kazakhstan, the president has given the order to ‘shoot to kill’ protestors. The back story is that after years of controlling the price of fuel, the government decided that it had enough… eliminated the price controls… and the price doubled overnight. This set off some serious objections… in which protestors set fire to the country’s parliament.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, CNN reports: "Grocery store shelves across America are wiped clean, and they're staying empty as stores struggle to quickly restock everyday necessities such as milk, bread, meat, canned soups and cleaning products."

After contending with two years of a pandemic and supply chain-related problems, grocery stores still aren't getting the break they had hoped for. We have no particular insight into any of these news stories. But our hunch is that they are connected to the new ‘activism’ of our leaders… and the corruption of our elites. A further guess is that we’ll see more of them."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

“How Are Things Going, Joe?”

“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine… couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

"All Sins..."

"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst, and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?" 

- Andre Comte-Sponville

○

Joe South, "Walk A Mile In My Shoes"

"Coming Market Madness Could Take 70 Years To Recover From"

"Coming Market Madness Could

 Take 70 Years To Recover From"

by Egon von Greyerz

"Cervantes famous classic novel "Don Quixote" can in simple terms be described as a fight for liberty and freedom against oppression and against the state. This book is from 1605 and considered to be one of the best books ever written. In the midst of market madness, risk doesn’t exist because lunatics neither see, nor worry about risk. And still, 2022 will be more about risk and survival than anything else. So I will obviously talk more about “The Triumph of Survival” which I discussed in a recent piece.

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies.” 

– Don Quixote

The year 2022 will most likely be the culmination of risk. An epic risk moment in history that very few investors will see until it is too late as they expect to be saved yet another time by the Fed and other central banks. And why should anyone believe that 2022 will be different from any year since 2009 when this bull market started? Few investors are superstitious and therefore won’t see that 13 spectacular years in stocks and other asset markets might signify an end to the epic super bubble.

The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2006-9 was never repaired. Central bankers and governments patched Humpty up with glue and tape in the form of printed trillions of dollars, euro, yen etc. But poor Humpty Dumpty was fatally injured and the intensive care he received would only give him a temporary reprieve.

When the GFC started in 2006, global debt was $120 trillion. Today we are at $300t, rising to potentially $3 quadrillion when the debt and derivative bubble finally first explodes and then implodes as I explained in my previous article.

It is amazing what fake money made of just air can achieve. Even better of course is that the central banks have manipulated interest rates to ZERO or below which means the debt is issued at zero or even negative cost.

Investors Have Found ShangriI-La: Investors now believe they are in Shangri-La where markets can only go up and they can live in eternal bliss. Few understand that the increase in global debt since 2006 of $180t is what has fuelled investment markets. Just look at these increases in the stock indices since 2008:

Nasdaq up 16X

S&P up 7x

Dow up 6X

And there are of course even more spectacular gains in stocks like: Tesla up 352X or Apple up 62X.

These type of gains have very little to do with skilful investment, but mainly with a herd that has more money than sense fuelled by paper money printed at zero cost.

To call the end of a secular bull market is a mug’s game. And there is nothing that stops this bubble from growing bigger. But we must remember that the bigger it grows, the greater the risk is of it totally wiping out gains not just since 2009 but also since the early 1980s when the current bull market started.

The problem is also that it will be impossible for the majority of investors to get out. Initially they will believe that it is just another correction like in 2020, 2007, 2000, 1987 etc. So greed will stop them from getting out. But then as the fall continues and fear sets in, investors will set a limit higher up where they intend to get out. And when the market never gets there, the scared investor will continue to set limits that are never reached until the market reaches the bottom at 80-95% from the top. And thus paper fortunes will be wiped out. We must also remember that it can take a painstakingly long time before the market recovers to the high in real terms.

As Ray Dalio shows in the chart below, the 1929 high in the Dow was not even recovered in real terms by the mid 1960s. Finally it was surpassed in 2000.

Click  image for larger size.

This means that it took 70 years to recover in real terms! So investors might have to wait until 2090 to recover the current highs after the coming fall. So looking at the chart, the market is now at a similar overvalued level it was in 1929, 1972 and 2000. Thus the risk is as great as at some historical tops in the last 100 years.

The Epic Bubble Might Not Recover Until 2090: The chart above shows that the 1929 top in the Dow was not reached in real terms until 2000.

As the world is being ever more oppressed and controlled by the state, Cervantes’ message in Don Quixote could not be more appropriate. I am quite convinced that Don Quixote would also have fought against the wokeness that today has become the guideline not only for human behavior but also for justice.

In the UK last week, a court acquitted four people accused of pulling down a statue of a historical figure who had been a major benefactor of the city of Bristol. Yes, he had made money on the slave trade in the late 1600s but where do we stop rewriting history? With today’s woke interpretation of history, virtually every historical king, emperor, government leader, general or businessman, to mention a few, should be put on trial even if they are all dead.

For example, Great Britain, France, Spain were all part of invading North America killing a major part of the Indian population and taking their land. So if we rewrite history, shouldn’t all these Europeans as well as the Africans be pulled out of North America and the land handed bank to the Indians. The same goes for South America of course. The Spanish and the Portuguese must all return and give the land back.

And where do we stop? We should really go back to the Han Dynasty, the Roman, the Mongol, the Ottoman, Spanish, Russian or British Empires. Why just deal with the slave trade in Africa when all these empires ransacked and conquered major land areas, took slaves and stole the riches of the countries they invaded. In a woke and fair world, all these actions must be reversed too. If the world decides to rewrite history, it must be done properly with major restitutions. There must of course be a UN Commission, and EU Commission and many more to deal with this properly. As Don Quixote said: “Who knows where madness lies”.

Easy Money Madness: But it is most probably the total market Madness in the financial world which will have the biggest effect on the world economy in 2022 and onwards. As I have pointed out many times, the US has not had a budget surplus since 1930 with the exception of a couple of years in the 1940s and 50s. The Clinton surpluses were fake as debt still increased.

But the money and market Madness started in the 1970s after Nixon couldn’t make ends meet and closed the gold window. The US federal debt in 1971 was $400 billion. Since then the US debt has grown by an average of 9% per year. This means that the US debt has doubled every 8 years since 1971. We can actually go back 90 years to 1931 and find that US debt since then has doubled every 8.3 years. What a remarkable record of total mismanagement of the US economy for a century!

The US has not had to build an empire in the conventional way by conquering other countries. Instead the combination of a reserve currency, money printing and a strong military power has given the US global power and a global financial empire.

Even worse, since the sinister smart coup by private bankers in 1913 to take control of the creation of money, the US Federal debt has gone from $1 billion to almost $30 trillion. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild poignantly stated in 1838: “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws”. And that is exactly what some powerful bankers and a senator decided on Jekyll Island in 1910 when they conspired to take over the US money system through the creation of the Fed which was founded in 1913. Ever since that time the bankers have helped themselves from the self-filling honeypot.

Controlling the Fed has given the bankers an unlimited supply of money and credit to finance their activities. They have used this to acquire assets around the world as well as power. As is the general rule today, debt is never repaid since new debt always makes the old debt insignificant as the currency is constantly debased with all the new money issued.

The debt issued was not only used for the direct financial gain of the bankers. No debt buys enormous power and by creating money to finance profligate governments, the bankers are also buying power and controlling the politicians. What a wonderful position as Rothschild made clear almost 200 years ago."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

○

Freely download "Don Quixote (The Ingenious Gentleman 

Don Quixote of La Mancha)" by Miguel de Cervantes here:

- https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/don-quixote-ebook.html

"Are You A "Terrorist"? Take This 50 Question Quiz And Find Out!"

"Are You A "Terrorist"? 

Take This 50 Question Quiz And Find Out!"

by Michael Snyder

"Could you be the kind of person that the government is looking for? The U.S. Justice Department has just announced that it will be creating a brand new unit “to counter domestic terrorism”, and they are going to need something to show for all of the time, money and energy that they are going to be putting into this new project. You may be tempted to think that they will be going after the people that have rioted and burned buildings hundreds of times all across this nation over the past couple of years, but that simply is not going to happen. Instead, they are telling us that this new unit will specifically target “extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies”. So if you have been critical of the Biden administration, any of our government agencies, or any of our top public health officials, you could be in really big trouble.

To help you out, I have created a 50 question quiz to help you determine if you are a “terrorist”. Most of these questions are based on statements made by Biden administration officials or on specific government documents that have been publicly revealed. So are you ready? Here we go. For each of the following questions, answer either “yes” or “no”…

#1 Do you ever criticize the government?

#2 Have you ever been banned, shadowbanned or censored on social media for a political opinion that you expressed?

#3 Are you a parent?

#4 Do you attend school board meetings?

#5 Have you ever expressed concern about the education of your children at a school board meeting?

#6 Do you believe in “conspiracy theories”?

#7 Are you suspicious of the FBI?

#8 Do you know who Ray Epps is?

#9 Do you wonder why Ray Epps has never been arrested?

#10 Are you unvaccinated?

#11 Have you ever questioned the efficacy of the COVID vaccines?

#12 Do you have a negative opinion of Dr. Fauci?

#13 Would you consider yourself to be a “constitutionalist”?

#14 Do you believe in “individual liberties”?

#15 Do you know what the 10th Amendment says?

#16 Have you ever referred to anyone in the Democratic Party as a “communist”?

#17 Have you ever referred to any public official as a “globalist”?

#18 Do you know what the “Great Reset” is?

#19 Would you consider yourself to be an opponent of the LGBT agenda?

#20 Have you ever said anything on social media that was critical of illegal immigration?

#21 Have you ever referred to yourself as a “patriot”?

#22 Have you ever used the wrong pronouns when addressing a member of the trans community?

#23 Do you believe that global leaders are conspiring to create a “New World Order”?

#24 Are you a “climate denier”?

#25 Are you opposed to Agenda 21?

#26 Have you ever belonged to a militia group?

#27 Are you worried about “gun control”?

#28 Are you ever critical of the IRS?

#29 Do you ever visit “extremist websites”?

#30 Have you ever attended rallies that promote “extremist causes”?

#31 Do you have “right-wing bumper stickers” on your vehicle?

#32 Would you consider yourself to be a “nationalist”?

#33 Do you believe that your “way of life” is under attack?

#34 Would you consider yourself to be an opponent of Critical Race Theory?

#35 Are you a “prepper”?

#36 Have you ever had any “survivalist training”?

#37 Would you consider yourself to be a “fundamentalist”?

#38 Do you believe that religion should influence politics?

#39 Are you “anti-abortion”?

#40 Are you a military veteran?

#41 Do you believe in a “right to bear arms”?

#42 Have you been involved in stockpiling ammunition?

#43 Have you ever protested at an abortion clinic?

#44 Do you have a negative opinion of the United Nations?

#45 Would you consider yourself to be an evangelical Christian?

#46 Do you ever have questions about the legitimacy of our elections?

#47 Have you lost faith in public health officials?

#48 Are you resentful when you are ordered to wear a mask?

#49 Have you ever said anything negative about the big pharmaceutical companies?

#50 Are you opposed to vaccine mandates?

If you answered yes to none of these questions, you are exactly the kind of citizen that the federal government wants and you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

If you answered yes to between one and ten of these questions, you have some anti-government tendencies but if you start watching CNN a lot more you can still probably turn things around.

If you answered yes to between eleven and thirty of these questions, you are clearly a “troublemaker” and you may be on your way to becoming a terrorist. You are going to need to watch endless hours of MSNBC and playing glowing documentaries about Dr. Fauci over and over again will be very helpful as well.

If you answered yes to between thirty-one and fifty of these questions, there is no hope. You are clearly a terrorist and the government is eventually going to be coming for you. In fact, they are already holding exercises that simulate what it will be like to confront “extremists”. The following is just one example… "A “realistic” guerrilla war will be fought across two dozen North Carolina counties in the coming weeks, with young soldiers battling seasoned “freedom fighters,” according to the U.S. Army.

According to MSN News, The two-week “unconventional warfare exercise” will be staged from Jan. 22-Feb. 4 on privately owned land. And it will be realistic enough to include the sounds of gunfire (blanks) and flares, the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School said in a news release. Exact times, locations, and exercise specifics were not provided. However, advance publicity is intended to make sure civilians - including law enforcement officers - don’t mistake the fighting for terrorism or criminal activity, which has happened in the past."

Let me be serious for a moment. I find all of this to be extremely sad. We should be finding ways to come together as a nation, but instead the Biden administration just keeps finding ways to make our divisions even deeper. A house divided will surely fall, and I am deeply concerned about the future of our country. If we don’t find a way to unite as a nation, we simply are not going to make it. Unfortunately, our leaders in Washington and the mainstream media just continue to stir up more anger and more hate, and that is a recipe for national suicide."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"The Dollar Has Entered A Death Spiral, And A Lot More Inflation Is On The Way" by Michael Snyder

"The Dollar Has Entered A Death Spiral, 

And A Lot More Inflation Is On The Way"

by Michael Snyder

"Did anyone out there actually expect things to turn out differently? When the federal government kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, we were warned that this day was coming. And when the Federal Reserve kept pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into our financial system, we were warned that this day was coming. So why is anybody surprised by what is happening at this point? On Wednesday, it was being reported that in December the U.S. consumer price index rose at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years…

"Inflation rose at the fastest pace in nearly four decades in December, as rapid price gains fueled consumer fears about the economy and sent President Biden’s approval rating tumbling. The consumer price index rose 7% in December from a year ago, according to a new Labor Department report released Wednesday, marking the fastest increase since June 1982, when inflation hit 7.1%. The CPI – which measures a bevy of goods ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents – jumped 0.5% in the one-month period from November."

They keep telling us that the consumer price index was actually increasing at a faster rate back in 1982, but whenever the corporate media makes such a claim they are not being honest. The way that the consumer price index is calculated has been changed more than two dozen times since 1980, and every single time it has been changed the goal was to make the rate of inflation look smaller.

According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the consumer price index was still calculated the way it was back in 1990, the official rate of inflation would be above 10 percent right now. And if the consumer price index was still calculated the way it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be above 15 percent right now. But 7 percent sounds a whole lot better than 15 percent, doesn’t it?

We can get a better picture of what is really going on out there when we start looking at individual categories. The following category numbers were posted earlier today by Citizen Free Press…

Gasoline up 56%

Heating oil up 42%

Used cars: 37.3%

Car rental: 36%

Natural gas up 31%

Hotels: 27.6%

Beef: 18.6%

Pork: 15.1%

Furniture: 13.8%

New cars: 12%

Unfortunately, it looks like the price of gasoline will soon go even higher. In fact, Reuters is telling us that some analysts are projecting that the price of oil could soon exceed 100 dollars a barrel… "Oil prices that rallied 50% in 2021 will power further ahead this year, some analysts predict, saying a lack of production capacity and limited investment in the sector could lift crude to $90 or even above $100 a barrel." It takes energy to transport virtually all of the goods that we purchase on a regular basis, and so a higher price for gasoline will cause inflationary pressure throughout our entire economy.

Some companies are responding to this crisis by giving their customers less for the same price that they were charging before. For example, if you order chicken wings from Domino’s Pizza you will only get a package of eight from now on… "Domino’s Pizza customers ordering chicken wings will soon get fewer of them for the same price. The pizza chain said it’s cutting the number of wings in its $7.99 carry out offer from 10 pieces to just eight because of rising food and labor costs. Wings will also become an online exclusive, meaning customers can no longer order them via phone."

All around us, there is evidence that our standard of living is rapidly going down. The cost of living is increasing much, much faster than paychecks are, and that is an extremely alarming trend. According to Zero Hedge, real average hourly earnings have now declined for 9 months in a row… "Finally, and perhaps most importantly for Main Street, real average hourly earnings fell (down 2.4% YoY) for the 9th straight month…"

So the next time a politician tries to tell you to be grateful that your wages are going up or you can move to a new higher paying job, just remind him that the surge in the cost of living is outpacing wage gains, thanks to The Fed’s money-largesse and Congress’ lockdown policies and helicopter money have crushed the quality of life for millions. In other words, most Americans are getting poorer.

Meanwhile, the appalling nationwide shortages that have erupted continue to make headlines all over the nation. According to USA Today, the following are some of the most severe shortages that we are witnessing right now…

- Baby formula shortage

- Cream cheese shortag

- Aluminum shortage

- Cat food, dog food shortages

- Chicken tender shortage

- Lunchables shortage

- Toilet paper shortage

- Beer shortage

And it turns out that fear of Omicron has also sparked a really bad shortage of cold medicine… "Stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are facing cold medicine shortages as flu season picks up and the omicron variant of the coronavirus continues. “The new toilet paper shortage,” an employee at an East Dallas pharmacy told Fox 4 of the empty shelves.

One pharmacist at a CVS location in East Dallas said that customers with symptoms appearing to be the coronavirus or flu have been buying up cold medicine and cough syrup, while others are coming in to just stock up. So if you were thinking of stocking up on Benadryl for some reason, I would go out and grab some while you still can.

The corporate media seems absolutely stunned that our politicians in Washington and the magicians at the Federal Reserve have lost control of our economy. But we were warned for years that what they were doing would kill the U.S. dollar, and the death spiral that we have now entered is going to become exceedingly painful.

What we are experiencing now is not just another short-term economic crisis. This truly is the beginning of the end for the U.S. economy, and I would recommend that you prepare accordingly."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"There Are Days..."

"There are days, there are times, when you feel like you've walked so far, when the voice inside you is complaining that it's all uphill, that it always will be. And then, after all that, way beyond your blue horizon, you see the biggest mountains you've ever seen, and you think, I can't do that. Well, I hope you always have somebody who tells you that you can. Like I'm telling you now."

- Windy Ariestanty

"Sometimes..."

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether 

it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

That ultimately is the question...

Adrian Lester as Hamlet: "To be or not to be..."

William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act III, Scene I

"There Arrives A Point..."

"When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of

no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.

Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown and pray for an exit."

- Dan Brown

“And It Was Pointless..."

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”

- Charles Frazier

"Do You Believe..."

“Do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other as they do today, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”

“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”

- Voltaire