So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, August 26, 2022
"Empty Shelves At Dollar Tree! What's Coming!? What's Next?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 8/26/22:
"Empty Shelves At Dollar Tree! What's Coming!? What's Next?"
"In today's vlog we are shopping at Dollar Tree and finding lots of empty shelves! Items are missing everywhere! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products. I have never seen Dollar Tree so empty!"
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "Expect The Economy To Crater Faster As Inflation Surges Higher!"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/26/22:
"Expect The Economy To Crater Faster As Inflation Surges Higher!"
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "An Ill Wind"
"An Ill Wind"
Something’s coming… everybody feels it…
by Jim Kunstler
"Something ominously foul rides the late summer breeze as our country, and Western Civ with it, tilts into the season of growing darkness. Can you sense it? Death is in the air, and not in the usual Halloween vaudeville mode, either, with the cackling lawn zombies and top-hatted, tap-dancing skeletons. This ain’t no foolin’ around.
We have never been so unprepared for a calamity in plain sight and that is because the people who run things have made it happen in combined acts of wickedness and stupidity. After decades of mere racketeering, arranging things so as to bankrupt anyone who gets seriously ill, corporatized health care now presides over a harvest of medically-induced death, pretending dumbly that there is nothing to see.
Get this: the people are seeing it now, and talking about it, and there will be no stopping their discovery of exactly what has gone on, or their wrath in the afterwash. The chief architect of this epic debacle, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Captain Queeg of American Public Health, has announced his exit from the scene “to pursue the next chapter of my career.” He was coy about what that might be. I think the job title is: defendant. It will be a milestone in human history to witness The Science itself go on trial, should it live long enough. What awaits to take its place? Vizirs with wands and pointed hats? Crones riding broomsticks against a cold, lifeless moon? A principality of dark magic? Descent into the underworld?
The medically-induced termination of life at large scale accompanies the current effort to provoke the suicide of culture and nationhood - more orchestrated depravity and folly. Institutions are turned against us like flame-throwers. The FBI might break down your door next in its quest to suppress dissent. The composers of official mind-f**kery never sleep, assuring that you will not know which end of anything is up. Your purblind legislators just set 87,000 new IRS agents on your asses, as if that was any sort of a good idea. The courts exist to protect The Party, but which party? (What does it matter, at this point? quoth Hillary Clinton.) Take your pissant complaints about those alleged constitutional rights someplace else, like Twitter and Facebook, where they can be expunged as soon you hit the “post” button. You’ll be dead soon, anyway.
We’ve heard ad nauseam that the Washington DC insiders, the denizens of that demi-mythic Deep State in the wealthiest metro area of all the land, look down on the rest of America. Why is that? I’ll tell you. Because the DC confederacy of grifters has gotten fat off your suffering as they have systematically wrecked and looted that rest of America, the sinking middle-class. They are living in fabulous comfort off your bamboozlement and ruin. Their contempt for you grows on your tragic breakdown like fungus on a once-mighty fallen tree. They prevailed in this world and you didn’t. You chumps are in Palookaville on your way to the bone orchard, and therefore they are better than you, ha ha ha.
There is another side of this life, in case all that has got you demoralized. That is the side where human beings say things that comport with reality, where people mean what they say and use language as if it evolved to describe things and doings with some exactitude - as in this is this and that is that… and not the inverse or opposite. That is the side of life where pretending is not the highest-and-best use of human intelligence. I know, these days it’s hard to imagine that side of life, but it’s actually still there, waiting to be reanimated.
The regime that has turned our world inside out in its Satanic pursuit of comfort and power will be stripped naked and judged, if not by official judges, then by an unstoppable consensus. The sore-beset public will take an inventory of what has been lost and begin reconstructing a scaffold of shared life that rewards fidelity to the way things actually work. It will be a rough passage out of what amounts to a hostage crisis. There will be friction and heat. You will not be comfortable, but you will be dauntless. You will certainly not have nothing or be happy about that. You will have, at least, a restored memory of what it was like to strive honorably for a life worth living.
We’re in the crucible of all that just now, where everything is white hot. Do not bend or melt. Soldier through. Be men and be women (there is truly nothing in-between, and do not fall for faithless inducements to doubt that). You are brothers and sisters in an enterprise worth saving and you have a history worth defending. Believe it."
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CCR, "Bad Moon Rising"
"Dead Romans Agree: Don’t Let The Small Stuff Bother You"
"Dead Romans Agree:
Don’t Let The Small Stuff Bother You"
by John Wilder
"I woke up this morning just irritated. No particular reason. In all fairness, it was entirely an internal feeling, and I imagine most people never noticed. I was nice and polite to nearly everyone I interacted with. And why not? None of them were my ex-wife. I wasn’t irritated with them, I was just irritated. There were no issues. I wasn’t in pain. No one around me was in particular trouble. Thankfully I’m not an electrician – people might dislike me not being positive at work.
As I thought about it, what was irritating me? I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. There was no rational reason at all. During a conversation lat night, though, I had a reason to quote Marcus Aurelius: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Sure, Marcus Aurelius’ kid was an utter tool, but when you become Caesar at 18, well, it might tend to go to your head – think of Commodus as Miley Cyrus, 180 A.D. Back to Marcus, though. Marcus genuinely did his best for the Roman Empire. As near as I can tell, Marcus was a pretty good leader. And that little quote above wasn’t written for you and me. It was written for Marcus, by Marcus. He was reminding himself that the external things in the world had only the power he gave them. He was giving himself a pep talk.
Marcus Aurelius was right. In the conversation I was having lat night, the person was very upset (most of you don’t know the person, though specific readers in California and Indiana do – hi guys!). The reason she was upset? Nothing rational at all. So I quoted a dead Roman emperor. Did it help? I don’t know. I’m beginning to see a pattern where crying people don’t stop crying when I quote dead Roman emperors. I’m beginning to see why the kids call The Mrs. when they want actual human sympathy.
My irritation (I think) came from the same place. Nowhere. I felt fine (except for my right knee which is much better now) and the day generally went fairly well. I realized that the advice I gave was meant just as much for me as for the person I was talking to. I was just being irritated because I let myself be irritated.
Once I was done and realized I didn’t have to be irritated? My irritation disappeared. I know that the way I feel is (generally) my choice. I can choose how I feel: salty, Wednesday, or even drunk. The only reason that I’m not happy every morning is if I choose not to be happy on some particular morning.
Are there actual reasons why I might have different feelings? Sure. If I had mental problems (other than an unseemly affection for awful jokes and a desire to consciously be able to make my fingernails grow absurdly fast) that might be a reason to have a feeling other than what I choose.
Don’t know. I do know that there are people with actual mental problems. There’s proof: some people actually voted for Biden. But, going back to Marcus, that’s not external. Being sick or goofy enough to vote for Biden isn’t external.
Physical pain also is an internal source that can destroy moods. I once (for a few months) had sciatica. I was irritable enough every morning to chew nails and spit bullets. Then I discovered that I could work out for a few hours on an elliptical trainer to make the pain go away. A week later? I was fine. My irritation vanished along with my sciatica, never (hopefully) to return. That was nearly 15 years ago. Sure, I’ve felt pain since then, but most of it was the good pain from a hard workout. Heck, most days the worst thing that happened was the crisp morning breeze running through my back hair.
My mood depends on me. My attitude depends on me. Does that mean that I can’t see the actual situation we’re in? Of course not. I see a nation tearing itself apart. It’s worse: it’s not just a nation, Western Civilization seems to be happily thrashing about as it marches down a path to extinction.
Is that good? Of course not. Does it mean that I should walk around every day being sad? Of course not. I am doing, I assure you, everything I can think of to stave off that darkness. I mean, those memes won’t make themselves. And I am doing it cheerfully. I laugh every day. I smile because I know that most of the things that I worry about can have no power over me unless I give them that power.
Make your choices, and understand that while you might wake up irritated – it’s your choice if you wish to stay in that mood for a minute or an hour. Me? I like being happy, so I choose that, even in moments where it might not be appropriate. I might even need to stop high-fiving people at funerals.
So, I got started late typing this after a day I chose to just be irritated. And, I’m going to choose to end now. With a smile on my face. Go and have a great day. Most of the time, having a great day is just a choice. Choose wisely."
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"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. "
- Carlos Castaneda
"Ah, You Miserable Creatures!"
"Ah, You Miserable Creatures!"
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great!
You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything!
Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
- Frederic Bastiat
How much more evidence do you need to
realize we as a society have lost our collective minds?
"How It Really Is"
Never in the history of the world has there been such a totally kind, compassionate, caring people as you, Good Citizens! $300 billion for these deadbeat clowns, $60 billion for the neoNazis in Ukraine, all while our economy's destroyed; stores and restaurants closed everywhere; millions jobless and homeless after losing their homes; inflation out of control and about to explode higher; elderly can't afford life saving medications; rents sky high; food banks desperately getting empty and your kids are hungry; gas prices about to explode much higher; $800 billion a year, at least, for the military and its 800 bases around the world to spread "democracy" to the suffering masses everywhere; Wall St. thieves stealing TRILLIONS of dollars while you go broke trying to pay the electric bill; and yet, despite all this, Americans find it in their loving hearts to relieve other's suffering! My hearts bursts, it bursts I tell you, with pride and admiration! Well, not exactly, but if I put here what I really feel about all this they'd instantly delete this blog...
- CP
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/26/22"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/26/22"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"The Deep State Democrats are afraid Trump will help win the House and Senate in 2022 and be back in the White House in 2024. It’s so bad that the White House, DOJ and FBI are trying to come up with a new crime to frame Trump. The last frame job by the FBI was a spectacular failure as it was revealed the so-called “Russian Collusion” was ALL made up right down to the totally phony incriminating dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton. This time, the frame job appears to be more out in the open as the judge, who signed the affidavit to raid Trump’s personal Florida residence, has ordered the affidavit to be unsealed. It will also be redacted. So, expect to see a lot of black ink.
That is not the only problem coming for Donald Trump. I have been telling you for months about how bad the CV19 bioweapon/vax is and why Trump has to call a halt to the vax in the light of spiking deaths and injuries. No doubt, Trump faced a tsunami of lies and liars about the vax. Dr. Deborah Birx recently came out and admitted that she always knew the mRNA vaccine would “not protect against infection” of the CV19 virus. This, after 600 million doses of swill they tried to pass off as a vaccine was injected into a gullible public. Now, a House Select Committee says Trump authorized “unproven treatments” as the death and injury count from the vax is on its way to the moon. President Trump was lied to by everyone about the CV19 vax. It is not safe and not effective, but rather deadly and debilitating. The death and injury numbers will be in the 10’s of millions for America alone before it’s all over. Donald Trump will have to say it was all a mistake and he thought he was the “Father of the vaccine,” not a bioweapon that is killing in mass. The sooner Trump sucks it up and says the CV19 vax was a huge lie and monstrous fraud, the better. “Stop the Shots” should be Trump’s new battle cry.
If you think the economy is getting better, you are living in a protected fantasyland. The government might shut down this Fall. 40% of small businesses cannot afford their rent. 20 million Americans are behind on their power bills, and their electric may be shut off by Fall. The Fed looks like it’s going to continue to raise rates to fight inflation, but it will kill what’s left of the economy. Oh, gas has gone down a bit, but it looks like it will be heading back up soon to record highs because of instability in Ukraine, China and the Middle East."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/26/22:
Thursday, August 25, 2022
"Buy Lots Of Food And Store It Some Place Safe, Because Very Difficult Times Are Approaching"
Full screen recommended.
"Buy Lots Of Food And Store It Some Place Safe,
Because Very Difficult Times Are Approaching"
by Epic Economist
"After two years of continued interruptions in food production, global food supplies have gotten really tight. But now that extreme weather events are leading to the mass destruction of crops and the liquidation of beef cow herds, while a bird flu pandemic is resulting in the depopulation of millions of egg-laying chickens, food supplies are set to get even tighter. And when people start realizing that massive shortages are emerging everywhere, it’s safe to say that things are going to get a lot crazier. When even the UN starts using the word “biblical” to describe the famine that the world is facing, that is a sign that the hour is very late. Right now, food prices are aggressively shooting higher, but given that the Federal Reserve is still scrambling to contain inflation growth, this is about as low as food prices are going to get for the foreseeable future, and that is going to have very serious implications during the times that are ahead. We still have a window of opportunity before the next wave of trouble comes along, and in this video, we’re going to show you why you should use this window of opportunity to buy lots of food and store it some place safe.
This summer, millions of children are experiencing food insecurity because they can’t have access to school meals. Mia Medina, program manager at No Kid Hungry Texas, a national campaign aimed at ending childhood hunger, says that schools are often the front lines for food-insecure children: “During the school year, kids can rely on school meal programs like breakfast, lunch and after-school meals, but when school is out, many of those meals disappear,” Medina said. “Summer is the hungriest time for a lot of our kids and teens. That means they miss out on a lot of the consistent nutrition that they’re used to or that their families have to stretch their budgets even further than they anticipated.”
Right now, an estimated 38.3 million individuals in the United States are living in a household that is defined as food insecure. All over the country, food banks are making every effort to meet the higher demand due to decreased donations, supply chain delays, and inflation. People can stay in line for up to six hours to be able to get a box filled with fresh produce, cereals, and non-perishables. This is the reality of what we are currently facing. So many Americans are already in desperate need, and this “perfect storm” is just getting started. The United Nations is using the word “biblical” to describe the famine and starvation that are coming all around the world.
Recent projections released by the UN’s World Food Program predicted that the number of people facing “acute food insecurity” stood to rise to 265 million by the end of this year, up from 135 million a year ago. That would mean an additional 130 million people were “living on the edge of starvation,” largely due to the worsening global economic conditions, with wages, supply chains, and production under pressure all around the world.
Most Americans still want to believe that the future is going to be peaceful and prosperous, and so they see absolutely no need to prepare for the turbulent times that are approaching. But we must take care of ourselves because no one else will and getting ready in advance is going to be crucial to survive the challenging times that are ahead of us. Act while you can because when the window of opportunity closes, there will be nothing left to do."
Comments here:
CanadianPrepper, "Cancel Everything and Leave Town!"
CanadianPrepper, 8/25/22:
"Cancel Everything and Leave Town!"
"The whole system is literally collapsing before our eyes."
Comments here:
"15,000 Cars Repossessed Per Day, People Losing Everything; Mad Max Is Coming; The World Is Bankrupt"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/25/22:
"15,000 Cars Repossessed Per Day, People Losing Everything;
Mad Max Is Coming; The World Is Bankrupt"
Comments here:
"I'm Sure..."
"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
It's just been too intelligent to come here."
"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the
Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region.
Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130113.html
Chet Raymo, "Asperges Me, Domine "
"Asperges Me, Domine "
by Chet Raymo
"Our earliest mammalian ancestors were presumably nocturnal - to escape the predations of dinosaurs - but for most of human history we have been afraid of the dark, huddling in caves around stuttering fires, curled together in darkness like mice in a burrow. Night belonged to animals with big, dark-adapted eyes and sharp teeth, to footpads and graverobbers, to werewolves and vampires. Ironically, it was with the coming of electric illumination that it became reasonably safe to go out and about at night, even as the illumination erased the best reason to do so.
William Blake called day Earth's "blue mundane shell... a hard coating of matter that separates us from Eternity." At night we peer into infinity, awash in a myriad of stars. We creep to the door of the cave and look up into the Milky Way and catch a glimpse of divinity - everlasting, all-embracing, utterly unknowable. Night - that cone of shadow, that wizard's cap of spells and omens - is the chink in Earth's shell through which we court Ultimate Mystery the way Pyramus courted Thisbe.
Which is why, I suppose, that whenever I think of "the porch" of people who visit here, I imagine Carolina rockers on a southern summer verandah, far from city lights, Vega, Deneb and Altair swimming in the Milky Way, fireflies flickering on the lawn. At some point the conversation ceases and we simply sit, rock, and listen to the sounds of the night- the whippoorwill, the bullfrog, the cricket and the owl - and let starlight fall upon our heads like a sprinkling of holy water."
"Asperges Me, Domine"
"Wash me, Lord. Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean."
- The Catholic Mass
“Mind Games: Reading Classics Stimulates Brain Activity”
“Mind Games:
Reading Classics Stimulates Brain Activity”
by RT.com
by RT.com
“British scientists have proved that reading Shakespeare and other classics can stimulate the mind and has a beneficial effect on brain activity. Scientists at Liverpool University have monitored the brain activity of a number of volunteers while they were reading works by William Shakespeare, T.S Eliot and others, The Daily Telegraph reports. Then the original texts were altered and "translated" to simpler modern language and given to the readers again. The data recorded during reading both versions of the text proved that the more "sophisticated" the language in both prose and poetry the more electrical activity the reader's brain showed.
Scientists tracked the brain activity caused by certain words and saw that unusual words and complicated sentence structures stimulated the brain. "Serious literature acts like a rocket-booster to the brain. The research shows the power of literature to shift mental pathways, to create new thoughts, shapes and connections in the young and the staid alike," The Daily Telegraph quotes Professor Philip Davis involved in the study as saying.
According to the study poetry particularly stimulates activity in the right hemisphere of the brain responsible for self-reflection, creativity and imagination. "Poetry is not just a matter of style. It is a matter of deep versions of experience that add the emotional and biographical to the cognitive," Professor Davis said. Sophisticated and unusual words in the text also prompted better concentration of the reader after they've come across these words. The researchers' conclusion that reading the classics is better and more useful for the mind than easy-reads might not be a surprise to many avid readers.”
Scientists tracked the brain activity caused by certain words and saw that unusual words and complicated sentence structures stimulated the brain. "Serious literature acts like a rocket-booster to the brain. The research shows the power of literature to shift mental pathways, to create new thoughts, shapes and connections in the young and the staid alike," The Daily Telegraph quotes Professor Philip Davis involved in the study as saying.
According to the study poetry particularly stimulates activity in the right hemisphere of the brain responsible for self-reflection, creativity and imagination. "Poetry is not just a matter of style. It is a matter of deep versions of experience that add the emotional and biographical to the cognitive," Professor Davis said. Sophisticated and unusual words in the text also prompted better concentration of the reader after they've come across these words. The researchers' conclusion that reading the classics is better and more useful for the mind than easy-reads might not be a surprise to many avid readers.”
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"All the World's a Stage"
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
- William Shakespeare
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FREE download:
"Complete Works of William Shakespeare,"
every known work of the Bard, in one large volume:
Greg Hunter, "Mass Medical Bankruptcy & Collapse Coming – Dr. Elizabeth Eads"
"Mass Medical Bankruptcy & Collapse Coming – Dr. Elizabeth Eads"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"In May, Dr. Elizabeth Eads revealed the CV19 vax was causing extreme disease. Few doctors were sounding the alarm on the death and carnage from the bioweapon injections, and it’s going to get much worse before it’s over. Dr. Eads says, “Worldwide there are 10,000 deaths from these Covid vaccines daily. That’s a culmination of data collected from Israel, UK, Canada, the U.S. and Brazil. So,10,000 a day and they are estimating we are already up to 12 million deaths worldwide.” Dr. Eads thinks the death and injuries from the CV19 bioweapon will be orders of magnitude higher in the next five years.
Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, the FDA and CDC see what is coming. According to Dr. Eads, “They know this. They planned for it. They knew the consequences. They manipulated the vaccines as they went along and what was going into the vaccines to make the booster shots more lethal. Your immune system is absolutely destroyed with these shots. Every time you get a shot, you lose more of your immune system. You lose 30% after the first shot, 60% to 70% after the second shot, 80% or more after the third shot, and you lose 100% of your immune system after the 4th shot. You also have the propensity to develop vaccine induced aids.”
You can also get heart disease, blood clots, strokes, brain disease, extreme shingles and develop fast spreading extreme cancers, just to name a few of the effects of the bioweapon so-called vaccines, according to Dr. Eads.
Dr. Eads goes on to say, “People are waking up and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I do to my immune system,’ and this is irreversible. It’s irreversible because you cannot not turn off the intercellular mechanism. You cannot turn off the nano particle system that is making these long clot-like structures in veins and arteries. There is no such thing as ‘Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. These are side effects of the vaccine. Nobody dies of ‘Sudden Death’ when they are otherwise healthy adults. There is no such thing. Here are the numbers I pulled off Attorney Todd Callender’s site. (He’s suing the U.S. military over the CV19 vax.) The all-cause mortality rate in the military is up 1,100%. The top five life insurance companies are banding together and are going to file a class-action lawsuit against Big Pharma.”
That’s not all, according to Dr. Eads, as she sees not only Big Pharma liable for damages but hospitals, doctors, nurses, drug store chains and all sorts of people who helped make this bioweapon genocide possible. Dr. Eads says, “You are talking about billions of dollars, and they are not going to be able to afford to pay out all these claims. It’s going to bankrupt Big Pharma, and Big Pharma will end up collapsing. Hospitals will also end up collapsing because they were complicit in death by ventilators and remdesivir. Mass medical bankruptcies are coming 100%. This is going to be the collapse of the Rockefeller medical industry.”
Dr Eads says there are treatments that can help both the vaxed and unvaxed with removing harmful spike proteins. Two she named are Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Dr. Eads says there are some other helpful treatments and procedures as well.
There is much more cutting edge, frontline medical information in the nearly 1-hour and 19-minute interview."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks to 25-year veteran Dr. Elizabeth Eads, DO, as she continues to highlight the worsening, and now obvious, effects of the CV19 bioweapon vax.
"It's Not Such An Easy Business..."
“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've got more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”
- Woody Allen
"Bank Scams are Rampant - You Have to Get Ready"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 8/25/22:
"Bank Scams are Rampant - You Have to Get Ready"
"Bank Scams are running rampant. You have to be leery of every communication you get that doesn’t seem normal from your bank. The scammers are using a very creative ways to get to your information."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "FED Warns 'People Will Lose Their Jobs'; Cost Of Living Crisis; Inflationary Depression"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/25/22:
"FED Warns 'People Will Lose Their Jobs';
Cost Of Living Crisis; Inflationary Depression"
Comments here:
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Related:
"Student Debt: Cancelled"
"Student Debt: Cancelled"
Next up, mortgages, auto loans, credit cards,
bar tabs and annoying social obligations!
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "Every day the headlines come. And every day they are a mixture of real news, propaganda and claptrap. CNBC: "Biden cancels $10,000 in federal student loan debt for most borrowers. Nearly 45% of borrowers, or almost 20 million people, would have their debt fully canceled, according to the White House."
Isn’t that nice of him, dear reader? Of course, it wasn’t his money. And canceling the debt won’t cost him a penny. But Biden’s generosity is a big step forward in financial history. For thousands of years, we humans have been plagued by debt. And now we have the answer – just ‘cancel’ it. Free at last… free at last…
And now it’s time for Our Saviour to take aim at all the other disagreeable debits in our lives; he should cancel auto-loans… and mortgage loans… and payday loans… revolving loans… government debt… pawn shop loans… bank loans… credit card debt… margin loans… social obligations (‘they invited us…we need to reciprocate’) …loans for solar panels and EVs… child support… alimony… gambling debts… and bar tabs too.
Thanks to the Fed’s ultra-low interest rates and its ‘money-printing,’ our economy is burdened by $90 trillion in debt. And Mr. Biden has just shown us all how to get rid of it. And why stop there? Why should we have to return the umbrella we borrowed from the Merrion Hotel during a sudden downpour in Dublin… or the serving platter Ms. Jones left with us when she brought over some cookies? We also have a nice little rental car in the driveway; we’d like to keep it. Thank Divine Providence, our president is on the case!
Robbing Peter to Forgive Paul: Only Fox News dared to ask: if the people who got the service don’t have to pay for it, who does? Education is a service. It has a cost. It must be paid by someone. Biden’s act of largesse means that the freight will be paid by people who didn’t ride the train, many of whom didn’t go to college and don’t earn as much as the people who did. In other words, the law clerks and bookkeepers will have to pay for their bosses’ professional training.
Is that such a good idea? Maybe not. But don’t worry about America’s middle class. The housing market may be rolling over. Mortgage payments may be going up. But at least, according to the mainstream press, the job market is still ‘red hot.’ Here’s the most recent monthly report, from the Wall Street Journal: "July Jobs Report: U.S. Added 528,000 New Jobs as Unemployment Rate Fell to 3.5%."
"U.S. employers added a robust 528,000 jobs last month, helping the economy recoup the 22 million positions lost early in the pandemic, as hirers clamored for workers despite a slowdown in economic growth. The labor-force participation rate - or the share of adults working or seeking a job - ticked down to 62.1% in July from 62.2% a month earlier. While the economy has recovered all the jobs it lost since February 2020, there are still 623,000 fewer people in the workforce…Wage growth was stronger than economists anticipated in July, with average hourly earnings rising 0.5% from June and 5.2% from a year ago."
Let’s see, wages are rising at a 5.2% rate. But prices are rising at an 8.5% rate. Doesn’t that mean that workers are worse off? Yes, of course it does. And what about all those people who don’t have jobs? David Stockman at ContraCorner: "According to the BLS, 243,000 workers dropped out of the labor market in July and 449,000 abandoned the search for work since March. In turn, these fugitives from the jobs market have caused the participation rate to fall to just 62.1%—-the lowest level (aside from the Lockdown plunge of April 2020) since April 1977!"
Working Class Ripoff: Since February, 2020, the adult US population has grown by about 6 million people. But the labor force is actually smaller – by 623,000 people. That must mean that there are 6.6 million MORE adults without jobs than there were 2 years ago. And here’s another part of the story worth mentioning: Inflation. Economists long ago noticed that inflation seemed to correspond with lower unemployment. From there it was a hop, skip and jump into error: that a little inflation was ‘good for the economy’ because it brought higher employment.
The French economist, Jacques Rueff, saw the scam immediately. If inflation lowers unemployment, he pointed out, it was only because it rips off the working class by reducing their real wages.
So, aren’t we lucky? We live in an enlightened Republic, where we are encouraged to borrow so that we can study gender fluidity and ‘intersectionality’ – rather than get a job and learn how to be a competent welder…where we are lured to borrow money to install solar panels on our roofs and drive a spiffy electric car…where we are less productive and earn less money… but we have a ‘red hot’ labor market…and where we can run up trillions in debt…and then, the government cancels it!"
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Joel’s Note: "As to the great student debt inferno, dear readers may fairly be wondering… what happens to honest, hard working folk who saved their money and paid back their college loans? Will they be getting a check in the mail?
What about people who chose to forego college altogether, so that they might proceed directly into the workforce, who were paying taxes while their comrades in college were playing beer pong and mastering the art of the keg stand? How about the truck driver who took out a loan to start his own small business… and had the audacity to pay it back? Or the stevedore who worked double shifts to pay off his mortgage? Or the joiner who bartended on weekends to get through his apprenticeship?
These people may not have blue hair or master’s degrees in Critical Everyone Else Is A Racist Theory, but surely their skills in building real world things that real world people use count for something, right? Moreover, what about the people who (and this concept will come as a triggering shock to many) chose not to go into debt in the first place, but to simply live within their means?
As it happens, one such everyman dared put the question to Senator Elizabeth Warren, an ardent champion of the bill who never saw a cent of someone else’s money she wasn’t willing to generously give away, back in 2020. Their brief exchange resurfaced yesterday… and promptly lit up the interwebs…
Senator Warren appeared on MSNBC around the time this clip was going viral (again) to express her confidence heading into the upcoming midterm elections. “I’m liking it, I’m liking it, I’m liking it!” she said, gleefully rubbing her palms together.
Dear readers heading to the polls in November may wish to recall H.L. Mencken’s wise words as they step into the booth: Every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods."
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Related:
"828 Million People Go To Bed Hungry Each Night, And That Number Will Soon Be Much, Much Higher"
"828 Million People Go To Bed Hungry Each Night,
And That Number Will Soon Be Much, Much Higher"
by Michael Snyder
"Will you go to bed hungry tonight? Probably not. Most of my readers are in the western world, and for now just about everyone in the western world still has enough to eat. But in other areas of the planet, hunger is spreading like wildfire. Multiple famines have already begun, and they are only going to get worse in the months ahead. As I have been carefully documenting in recent weeks, global food production is going to be way down in 2022. And the food that is not grown in 2022 will be a major global issue in 2023.
Of course we are already dealing with an extreme hunger crisis here in 2022. According to the World Food Program, 828 million people on this planet go to bed hungry each night…"As many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared – from 135 million to 345 million – since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine." That is a lot of people. In fact, it is more than double the entire population of the United States.
The chief economist for the World Food Program says that this is a nightmare that is going “from bad to worse”…“It’s the story that keeps getting from bad to worse,” U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) Chief Economist Arif Husain told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “When the World Food Programme is setting records, that’s not a good thing for the world. And we have been doing that since at least 2021.”
When is the last time that you saw an interview with a mother that just lost a child to starvation in eastern Africa on the nightly news? You aren’t seeing it because that isn’t what they want you to focus on. Instead, they want you to focus on the endless games that our politicians are playing. But even though the nightly news is largely ignoring this crisis, it is very real.
According to McKinsey, several factors have combined to reduce the size of the global food supply dramatically in 2022, and things are supposed to get a whole lot worse in 2023…"In 2022 alone, these crises are expected to result in a deficit of roughly 15-20 million metric tons of wheat and corn from the global supply, according to research by McKinsey. That number is expected to nearly double by 2023."
There isn’t enough food for everyone in the world right now. And next year there will be even less. Even in the wealthiest countries, producing enough food is becoming a major problem. For example, just check out what is happening in Italy…"Massimo Saronni walks across his rice field, each step a loud crunch. This field should be flooded with water, flourishing with four-foot emerald green blades and golden rice panicles. Instead, the plants have taken on a yellow-brown tinge and the soil has hardened from lack of rain. Small patches of survivors dot the field, but they only reach his ankle.
“These crops are seriously damaged. They haven’t had water, so they’re not going to make it,” says Saronni, who has worked as a rice farmer for over 30 years. He cultivates different rice varieties, including carnaroli, a high-starch rice prized in Italian cuisine for the creamy risotto it makes." Italians love their risotto, and so this is a really big deal over there.
Just like so much of the rest of western Europe, northern Italy desperately needs rain. At this point, we are being told that this is the worst drought that the region has experienced “in more than 70 years”…"Northern Italy is suffering from spiking temperatures and its worst drought in more than 70 years. Broad stretches of the Po, Italy’s longest river, have turned to sandy beaches. Its famed lakes, including Maggiore and Como, are also receding. Many canals that branch out of freshwater sources and feed agricultural fields like Saronni’s are now stagnant and drying up."
Other parts of Europe are being hit even harder, and this has caused widespread crop failures. Overall, it is being reported that Europe is now dealing with the worst drought that it has seen “in at least 500 years”…"Europe is facing its worst drought in at least 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent in a state of alert or warning – reducing inland shipping, electricity production and the yields of certain crops, a European Union agency said on Tuesday. The August report of the European Drought Observatory (EDO), overseen by the European Commission, said 47 per cent of Europe is under warning conditions, with clear deficit of soil moisture."
Conditions are quite dire here in the United States as well. At this point, “66 percent of the area of the continental United States” is currently experiencing drought. That number has been above 60 for 82 of the past 98 weeks.
As I discussed yesterday, this is the worst multi-year megadrought to hit the western half of the nation in 1,200 years, and countless farmers are deeply suffering. In fact, it is being reported that nothing at all has been planted on 531,000 acres of farmland in the state of California alone…"California’s years-long megadrought has left more than 531,000 acres of the state’s farmland unplanted, the US Department of Agriculture has revealed – leading experts to warn that supplies of key crops could become scarce during next year’s harvest. At-risk crops include wheat, cotton, rice, and alfalfa, officials say, due to dwindling water levels and supplies incurred by the dry spell, which has pressed on for the past three years. The increase in unplanted land represents a 36 percent hike from this time last year, shortly before California water officials warned citizens to prepare for another dry year after experiencing a significant lack of snow that winter."
If farmers do not grow our food, we do not eat. And in 2023, there will be much less food to go around. But don’t worry, the elite have a plan. “Beetle-burgers” may not sound very appetizing, but they could soon start showing up at your local grocery store…“Beetle-burgers” could soon be helping to feed the world, according to new research. A group of scientists say the insects’ larvae - better known as mealworms - can serve as an abundant meat alternative that helps to alleviate hunger around the globe. Mixed with sugar, they taste just like the real thing, according to the South Korean team. The study contends that mealworms could soon be an alternative in convenience foods such as sausages or chicken nuggets, since they are also a tasty source of extra protein."
I’ll bet you can’t wait to put a couple of those burgers on the grill. Unfortunately, normal food is just going to keep getting more and more expensive. I just heard from a friend that said that she was handed a bill for more than 50 dollars after her and her husband had a couple of burgers at a popular chain restaurant recently. She also told me that she isn’t going back.
But the truth is that what we have experienced so far is just the very beginning of this crisis. Global food supplies are going to get tighter and tighter and tighter. So if you plan to stock up, I would do it now. Things are starting to get really crazy out there, and I expect global events to accelerate even more once the summer is over."
"Stocking Up At Kroger! Prepping For The Future! Get It Before It's Gone!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 8/25/22:
"Stocking Up At Kroger!
Prepping For The Future! Get It Before It's Gone!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing massive price increases, and are prepping for the future! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
Celente & The Judge, "Taxation is Theft. CIA = KGB"
Full screen recommended.
Celente & The Judge, 8/24/22:
"Taxation is Theft. CIA = KGB"
"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."
Comments here:
"Taxpayers Get Fleeced - Again"
"Taxpayers Get Fleeced - Again"
by Brian Maher
“The wicked borroweth,” reads Psalms 37:21, “and payeth not again.” The president is evidently facilitating wickedness by the wholesale…Yesterday he announced plans to wash away up to $10,000 in student loan debt for those wicked debt-kiters earning under $125,000 per year. Those who received Pell Grants may be forgiven $20,000. The United States Department of Education estimates 27 million wicked will qualify for the $20,000 forgiveness.
In all, some 45 million groan beneath a combined $1.7 trillion of student debt. And so the president declared this afternoon: "In keeping with my campaign promise, my administration is announcing a plan to give working- and middle-class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023."
Just so. Yet why now? Might it relate to the upcoming midterm elections?
Election-Year Politics: We suspect strongly a political motivation. A recent poll - a Harvard poll - revealed that 85% of voters below 30 declared for wickedness. They are for debt erasing to one degree or other. Fully 38% were for a complete clearing away of all student loan debt - wickedness absolute, wickedness unadulterated. The president’s scheme was likely hatched to draw this crowd to the polls (or the drop boxes?) in November. Does the president wield the authority to clear away student debt at a stroke?
We have scoured Article II of the United States Constitution. We discovered no lawful provision. Not even our legal analysts - themselves vastly skilled in the dark and oily arts of constitutional interpretation - can locate one. Yet put the Constitution aside… as it has been put aside for much of American history. We appeal instead to simple justice.
The Taxpayer Foots the Bill: The proposal is merely a weight transfer from one set of shoulders to another. Student loan forgiveness does not mean creditors will go scratching under the customary system of profit and loss. Behind these loans stands the taxpayer, the sore-beset taxpayer - the taxpayer who must tend to his own debts - with no one to cushion his fall lest he fall into arrears. On his shoulders the load will fall. He will make good the differences. He will ensure that creditors walk away undamaged, with whole skins.
Many taxpayers have also assumed past student debt. Yet they met the terms of their contracts… and retired their debts, honestly and honorably. And now they must brunt the burden for those absolved of their debts - many of whom pursued joke degrees in sociology or gender studies or some other juiceless discipline. Here television personality Mike Rowe levels his darts at this system of “higher” education: "America is lending money it doesn't have to kids who can’t pay it back to train them for jobs that no longer exist. That’s nuts."
Is This Just? Many newly burdened taxpayers take in a good deal less than the wicked whose debts they will assume. Should a fellow earning $46,000 per year take the burden of another hauling in $124,999.99? No, thunders Jim Rickards: "Working-class people will now pay more in taxes to cover the costs of forgiving student loans for elites who got college degrees or professional training. What do you do for a kid who paid her debt? What do you do for those who paid tuition upfront? What do you do for a kid who never went to school? What do you do for a kid who spent four years in the military to pay for school?"
We believe you know the answers. Research by the Wharton School of Business concludes that: "Between 69–73% of the debt forgiven accrues to households [that rank] in the top 60% of the [U.S.'] income distribution."
So Much for Deficit Reduction: Meantime, the fresh Inflation Reduction Act - so-called - pledges a good hacking away at deficits. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would slim the deficit by $305 billion over the next decade. We do not believe the legislation would reduce deficits in the least. Yet let us accept CBO’s optimistic crystal gazing, that the bill would clear $305 billion over the next decade.
Now consider this: This proposed student loan forgiveness would put the $305 billion right back upon the books - and then some more. The abovesaid Wharton School of Business and its numbers crackerjacks estimate that: "Forgiving $10,000 for those earning below $125,000 will add $330 billion to the deficit over the next decade." A $25 billion overall addition to the deficit - how do you like it? We have seen estimates higher yet… incidentally.
The Student Loan Shell Game: Yet Jim Rickards sketches the scene in darker colors yet. He argues student loan forgiveness will send deficits spiraling. Here we quote Jim at length: "To understand the importance of this announcement, it’s necessary to drill down a bit on exactly how the student loan market works.
The total amount of student loans outstanding is about $1.7 trillion. [That’s not reported as part of the deficit because] the Treasury is not the actual lender (this is done through third-party lenders and loan servicers). But the Treasury guarantees repayment of the loans to the lenders. Since the obligation is a guarantee rather than a loan, it is “off-the-books” for budget deficit purposes. That’s fine as long as the loans are repaid. But when the loans default, the lenders turn to the Treasury to compensate them by performing on the guarantee.
The Treasury writes a check to the lender and that’s when the bad loan hits the government books. When that happens, the entire $1.7 trillion will hit the deficit books at one time on top of the multiple trillions of dollars of deficit spending that has already occurred. And who pays for that deficit spending? In the end, you pay for it as a taxpayer.
None of this is well understood by the general public… The less people know, the easier it is to hijack $1.7 trillion of taxpayer wealth. That bill is coming soon and it’s just one more headwind to economic recovery, as if we don’t face enough already."
A, B and X: We do not pretend to know how high deficits will mount over the next 10 years or even the next two years - though we hazard they will be plenty handsome. We are far more confident in our understanding of politicians, particularly in election years such as this. The great Mencken argued that democratic elections are “a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” We believe there is great justice here.
Baltimore’s sage further argued that, “When A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.” In the case before us B is the American taxpayer and X is the student loan-indebted - the wicked under Psalms 37:21. And A is the sitting president…"
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Related:
"The Student Loan Forgiveness Scam"
"It’s hard to imagine how we could screw up higher education any more than we already have, but we’re about to - by making sweeping student loan forgiveness a reality. How? To answer this question, we must start by asking another one: cui bono?"
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom: "Scott Ritter - Ukraine, Russia & Poland"
Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom, 8/24/22:
"Scott Ritter - Ukraine, Russia & Poland"
Comments here:
"Doug Casey on Propaganda, Changing Language, and Thought Crimes"
"Doug Casey on Propaganda,
Changing Language, and Thought Crimes"
by International Man
"International Man: Recently, the Biden administration tried to change the traditional definition of a recession which is "two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's GDP." The new definition of a recession is more vague and is "a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months." What's your take on this?
Doug Casey: Odd. It sounds like the definition of a depression, not a recession that I've used for years. Words shape thoughts, and thoughts shape beliefs. That was a major theme in Orwell's book "1984". The government consistently changed the meaning of words, labeling some as "bad think" or "thought crime." "1984" is the ultimate evolution of cancel culture, PC, wokeism, and the like.
It's critical that words be defined and used precisely. If definitions are nebulous and can be changed at will, it becomes hard to communicate. The closer we come to redefining "blue" as "red," or "war" as "peace," or "recession" as "prosperity," the closer we come to literally not knowing what we're talking about.
Politicos don't like the word "recession." You may recall when Alfred Kahn, Jimmy Carter's chief economic advisor, joked he'd rename a recession a "banana" because the word wouldn't scare people so much. During the last depression, Roosevelt said that "All we have to fear is fear itself." But that was totally untrue. What the country really had to fear was his destructive policies.
As for the definition of a recession, their previous "two-quarters of decline in GDP" was arbitrary - but at least it allowed everyone who juggled economic numbers to use a meaningful shorthand. Though frankly, who can even be sure what the GDP even is with trillions of new fiat dollars injected into the economy? And the value of the currency fluctuating wildly against everything? Even by the government's own inaccurate figures, the currency is losing value at nearly 10% per year. It's hard for even an honest observer to put his finger on what a recession is when a currency is dropping radically by an indeterminate amount.
Who can trust any of the stats that the government comes up with these days? For instance, how many of the millions employed directly by the State, and millions more indirectly as contractors, are doing something truly productive, something that's actually needed and wanted? Many of them are just pointlessly digging ditches during the day and filling those ditches up at night.
Their costs and income are credited to GDP, but their product is economically marginal or worthless. In fact, creating regulations and shuffling paper, their main "product," often creates negative value. Actually, digging ditches and then filling them up might at least be neutral.
Let's forget about a recession. We're in the early stages of a severe depression. I define that as a period of time when most people's standard of living drops substantially.
International Man: The roll-out of the COVID vaccine has led to the CDC changing its definition of a vaccine - eliminating the point about it "producing immunity from a specific disease." The new definition states that a vaccine is "a preparation that is used to stimulate the body's immune response against diseases." What are the implications of something like this?
Doug Casey: Everybody has to favor Edward Jenner's invention of a smallpox vaccine 200 years ago. It was a major medical breakthrough. I am not anti-vaccine, but the fact is that children are now given 65 or 70 vaccines before they're six years old. Many of them are given in batches. Apart from the fact that many or most of these vaccines may not be efficacious or necessary. There's always risk with injections; putting that many foreign substances in young kids' bodies that quickly is unlikely to be a good idea. It may take decades to tell what the effects may be.
Controversy correctly surrounds conditions like autism. These things ought to be investigated, not automatically dismissed as hysteria. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of vaccines today are unnecessary.
Good nutrition, cleanliness, and a general high standard of living - not widespread inoculations - have eliminated most causes of disease. The current mania to vaccinate everybody for everything is unnecessary and probably dangerous. Perhaps very dangerous.
There's a moral dimension to this too. The fact is, your primary possession is your body. If you can't control your own body, you don't control anything. Anything a person does with his body is their own decision. That includes taking drugs and vaccines - another word where the definition has recently been changed.
From a moral point of view, anybody should have the right to take any drug: marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, or a thousand others that are illegal. It's rather odd that you're totally prohibited under penalty of long-term imprisonment or death to take some drugs and at the same time forced to take others. In medicine, the Hippocratic Oath is being replaced by the Statist rule "Anything that's not mandatory is prohibited." It's a huge moral violation. Borderline insane, actually.
A vaccine, if it works, should be there to safeguard you and your health. If you're afraid of catching some disease - smallpox, polio, the flu, or hundreds of others - it's your business how you want to balance the risk of taking a vaccine against the risk of getting the disease.
International Man: From its founding in 1828, Webster's Dictionary has always defined inflation as an increase in the money supply. Then in 2003, it changed the definition to mean a rise in the general price level. Today, most are unaware of the traditional definition of inflation. What is going on here?
Doug Casey: Definitions of words are absolutely critical because if we don't understand precisely and exactly what words mean, we cannot communicate with each other. Changing definitions subtly and over time can only lead to a lack of understanding and confusion. What amounts to enforced stupidity.
Economics, the study of how the world of human action works, has turned into a pseudo-religion, and Ph.D. economists been have turned into a priesthood. People have come to believe these secular priests are needed to interpret statistics - most of which are unreliable - and formulate policies, most of which are unrealistic at best. Garbage in, garbage out, GIGO. From the night watchman who writes down whatever he wants in order to report something to the computer programmed this way or that way with abstruse academic notions.
The fact of the matter is that everybody should be an economist, not just a designated priesthood that have received an arcane and largely irrelevant education focused on mathematics with little to do with how the world actually works. It's important to understand how people go about producing, consuming, and trading with each other.
One of the most misunderstood words in economics is "inflation," which, as you pointed out, used to mean something very different than it does today. Misdefining inflation confuses cause and effect. That's devastating to clear thinking in any area of interpreting reality.
So what is inflation? Inflation is a verb, not a noun. In brief, it's an increase of purchasing media, which lessens its value. In today's world, dominated by central banks, it's the active debasement of the value of a currency. Anybody should be able to understand most of what they need to know about economics simply by asking questions and demanding precise answers. But that's impossible when words can mean anything or nothing.
International Man: Currently, the EU is attempting to change the definition of "green energy" to help serve their interests. With a full-blown energy crisis in Europe looming, the EU is set to reverse its stance on natural gas and anoint it as "green." What is your take on this?
Doug Casey: Everyone wants clean water and clean air. That makes sense. But what started out as a simple desire to avoid corruption of one's environment has, like economics, developed into a religion. Its main denomination is Greenism. Their path to salvation is guided by laws and regulations, which are not only costly but arbitrarily interpreted and applied by bureaucracies.
In a free market world, if somebody corrupts your water or air, the matter would wind up as a tort suit before an arbitration agency. That would dispense with the gigantic and counterproductive superstructure that we have today. Being against pollution has evolved into a war against the periodic table.
Sulfur was considered a demon element, then uranium, then lead was the enemy. Then coal. From there, the jihad moved to more obscure things like cadmium and arsenic. Then plastics became the enemy, then petroleum. Then, as you pointed out, natural gas became the new naughty compound. Even though, perversely, it has "natural" in its name. Trying to dispense with coal, uranium, petroleum, and natural gas is tantamount to destroying civilization.
Greens, especially in Europe, have found themselves in a self-created crisis. At the moment, they're looking to reform the reputation of natural gas because they don't want to freeze in the dark. I'm all for natural gas. It's a simple and very clean fuel; it's primarily methane. There are a few problems with methane, the chemical symbol CH4. But there are problems with absolutely everything. The solution lies with economics—trading risk for reward—and property rights. Not passing laws and regulations. Why not? I recall one interviewer very successfully asking members of the public to sign a petition banning dihydrogen oxide because it was causing scores of thousands of deaths per year. They had no idea it's also known as water.
But back to natural gas. Weight-wise, it's mostly carbon, the current enemy element, supposed to cause global warming. Methane is said to be 50 times more inducive to global warming than carbon dioxide. It's a hugely overrated hysteria.
When you drill for natural gas, some winds up being released into the atmosphere at the wellhead and more is released through unsightly and dangerous pipelines, which lead to large and dangerous storage and processing facilities. Natural gas is a fossil fuel like oil. In the US, most is generated through fracking, which is another no-no.
The Greens view natural gas as a stop-gap, an improvement over evil petroleum. But the ultimate solution in the back of these people's minds is to reduce the population so that less of Gaia's natural resources are used. That's their ultimate solution to the non-problem of global warming - less energy, less power, and a lot less people. Human sacrifice is a tenet of the Green religion. If conversion to the dogma becomes too widespread, it will result in the collapse of civilization. But not to worry. This civilization will be replaced by… something.
International Man: What will happen to people who commit so-called "thought crimes" and don't go along with the government and media's new definition of words?
Doug Casey: We're reverting to acting like primitive people with taboos like South Pacific natives who dare not say certain words because it will bring down the wrath of the gods. Primitive? In Europe and the US, you still can't discuss COVID skeptically without risk. How many people actually get sick with it? How serious is it? How many people die from it? Exactly why do they die? Exactly what are its origins? And what cures are there other than the vaccine? What are the dangers of the vaccine itself?
These things are basically not allowed to be discussed in the public media or even scientific forums. If you do, and if you're a medical professional, you risk losing your license, your livelihood, and being ostracized as a "conspiracy theorist." The same is true of discussing global warming. It's insane. Not long ago, the safest and most innocuous subject of conversation was the weather. Not now.
Neither can you discuss the differences between races. Human races are the equivalent of breeds of dogs. Rottweilers are protective, border collies are smart, and labs are friendly. With humans, I'll generally want West Africans on my track team, Icelanders on my weight lifting team, and Jews on my chess team. But you're not allowed to say that. I say to hell with these self-appointed censors.
Opinions on these things have turned into religious heresies. If you say, or even think, something unorthodox that the priesthood doesn't affirm, bad things can happen to you. It's created a very toxic atmosphere. If you can't discuss, explore, and debate what's right and wrong, true and false, real or imaginary, the result is ignorance. And ignorance creates fear. And fear leads to violence.
The solution is totally free speech on everything and anything, including "hate speech." A big redeeming factor to "hate speech" is that only by allowing people to express themselves can you find out what's really on somebody's mind. It's nice to know what kind of person you're dealing with, rather than having to guess because everyone is afraid to talk. If you can't broach touchy subjects, then you can't be sure of the character and the nature of the person you're dealing with.
Hate speech is prohibited, and now there's mandatory "love speech" as well. It's equally destructive. For instance, talk about the military today must always make obeisance to its selfless devotion to the country. A cynical observer might say the military is just a heavily armed version of the Post Office. There are a myriad of reasons soldiers join up. But how often is the military just robotically serving the government as opposed to the country? The government and the country are two different things. Imprecise thinking combined with emotive words is very dangerous.
There's a thesaurus of words for new concepts recently ginned up out of nothing, like ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and corporate governance. That and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) are used to psychologically and verbally sanitize the melding of business and government. Leftists, progressives, and wokesters are succeeding in concretizing views that are not only inaccurate but, in some cases, purposefully misleading. It's dangerous and destructive. We owe it to ourselves to challenge the misuse of words at every opportunity."
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