Deuter, "Sound of Invisible Waters"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, December 16, 2022
"A Look to the Heavens"
“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon.
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110906.html
"Memories And Feelings"
"Memories and feelings of nostalgia are nothing more than cruelties; they are the most beautiful lies we will ever convince ourselves to believe. We chase the false hope so fiercely that we nearly push ourselves past the edges of our sanity, longing for that which can never be in our possession again. These edges are blurred by our regrets and desperation all throughout the darkest hours of the night, until finally we are set free from the illusions and the ghosts of our past with the rising of the sun... and we are changed in some small, yet permanent way."
- Margaret E. Rise
"I Know..."
“I know the world seems terrifying right now and the future seems bleak. Just remember human beings have always managed to find the greatest strength within themselves during the darkest hours. When faced with the worst horrors the world has to offer, a person either cracks and succumbs to ugliness, or they salvage the inner core of who they are and fight to right wrongs. Never let hatred, fear, and ignorance get the best of you. Keep bettering yourself so you can make the world around you better, for nothing can improve without the brightest, bravest, kindest, and most imaginative individuals rising above the chaos.”
- Cat Winters
"Most People Are Simply Not Ready For The Economic Chaos That Is Coming In 2023"
"Most People Are Simply Not Ready For
The Economic Chaos That Is Coming In 2023"
by Michael Snyder
"Have you noticed that a lot of big companies have been conducting mass layoffs recently? At this point, it has become exceedingly clear that a major economic slowdown has begun, and payrolls are being feverishly slashed at a rate that we haven’t seen in a long time. In fact, the number of job cuts in November 2022 was 417 percent higher than it was in November 2021. Unfortunately, what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning. We are being warned that a couple million more Americans could lose their jobs in 2023, and the vast majority of the population is simply not prepared for such a scenario. In fact, a new survey that was just released found that 63 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck…
As of November, 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a monthly LendingClub report - up from 60% the previous month and near the 64% historic high hit in March. Even high-income earners are under pressure, LendingClub found. Of those earning more than six figures, 47% reported living paycheck to paycheck, a jump from the previous month’s 43%.
When you are just barely scraping by from month to month, a job loss can be absolutely debilitating. Sadly, this year many large corporations aren’t even waiting until after the holidays to give the axe to thousands of highly dedicated employees…"There is arguably no good time for companies to lay off employees, of course, but as farewell-to-my-job posts continue to populate LinkedIn, many are wondering, why did they have to do this the week before Thanksgiving or right before Christmas?
Despite the job market’s overall strength, big names in tech including Meta Platforms Inc., Salesforce Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have all laid off workers or announced plans to do so in recent months. Thousands of job cuts have also hit other industries, with Ford Motor Co., Walmart Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. all reducing their head counts, leaving many employees to wonder: Could I be next?"
Are things really so bad that these giant firms couldn’t have waited a few weeks? “Happy Thanksgiving! By the way, you’re fired.” When I was growing up, big companies at least pretended to be compassionate. But now corporate giants seem to feel free to let workers go the instant that their usefulness is over…
"Layoffs around the holidays are a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, companies were more cognizant of the optics of putting people out of work during the most wonderful time of the year, says Andy Challenger, a senior vice president with Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a career services and executive-coaching firm. That sentiment has passed, he says. “Today we tend to see companies making the cuts when they feel like they need to.”
Apparently the Washington Post will also be laying off quite a few workers in the days ahead. When staff members learned that job cuts would soon be coming, they were not happy.
Needless to say, the Washington Post is far from alone. In fact, several other very large media companies have also recently announced cutbacks…"Of course, the news of the layoffs comes amid a horrible backdrop for the media industry at large. In recent weeks, CNN has laid off hundreds of staffers, Gannett has cut 200 staffers, NPR has said it needs to find $10 million in savings, and other organizations have implemented moves to slash costs
Even though so many big names have been slashing workers, the government has continued to insist that everything is just fine. And each month they have told us that the U.S. economy has continued to gain jobs. But now the truth of what has really been going on is starting to become quite obvious. In fact, even the Philly Fed is now publicly admitting that the number of jobs in this country has been overstated by the government by at least a million…
"Remember what we said in July when we first looked at the March-June divergence between the Household and Establishment survey: we said that “since March, the Establishment Survey shows a gain of 1.124 million jobs while the Household Survey shows an employment loss of 347K!” Said otherwise, we found that payrolls “calculated” by the Establishment Survey were overestimated by 1.5 million. Shockingly, the Philly Fed seems to agree, and reports that instead of the roughly 1.1 million jobs reported by the BLS, only 10,500 new jobs were added!"
As the tsunami of layoffs continues to accelerate, it is probably just a matter of time before the U.S. economy starts losing large numbers of jobs every month. That is exactly what several of the largest financial institutions on Wall Street are now projecting, and we continue to get more evidence that economic conditions are really starting to slow down. On Thursday, we learned that U.S. retail sales actually declined during the month of November…"U.S. retail spending and manufacturing weakened in November, signs of a slowing economy as the Federal Reserve continues its battle against high inflation.
November retail sales fell 0.6% from the prior month for the biggest decline this year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Budget-conscious shoppers pulled back sharply on holiday-related purchases, home projects and autos. Manufacturing output declined 0.6%, the first drop since June, the Fed said in a separate report."
But apparently economic conditions are not yet bad enough for the officials at the Federal Reserve, because they just decided to raise interest rates even higher…"The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest level in 15 years, indicating the fight against inflation is not over despite some promising signs lately.
Keeping with expectations, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted to boost the overnight borrowing rate half a percentage point, taking it to a targeted range between 4.25% and 4.5%. The increase broke a string of four straight three-quarter point hikes, the most aggressive policy moves since the early 1980s."
What the Federal Reserve is doing is absolutely suicidal. They have just ensured that unemployment will go even higher, that our new housing crash will get even worse and that a very painful economic downturn is coming in 2023. In the aftermath of the Fed’s decision, the Dow was down 764 points on Thursday…I"nvestors dumped stocks on Thursday as more headwinds emerge for the U.S. economy as the Federal Reserve stays the course in raising interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 764 points, or 2.2%, as the broader markets faced the worst session since November."
The mood on Wall Street is quite glum right now. The outlook for 2023 is not good, and the outlook for the years beyond 2023 is even worse. Our leaders have been making incredibly bad decisions for decades, and now we are starting to pay the price. There is going to be so much pain during the year ahead, and the vast majority of the population is not prepared for what is coming at all."
The Poet: James Baldwin, "Amen"
"Amen"
"No, I don't feel death coming.
I feel death going:
having thrown up his hands,
for the moment.
I feel like I know him
better than I did.
Those arms held me,
for a while,
and, when we meet again,
there will be that secret knowledge
between us. "
- James Baldwin
"Humanity Today..."
"Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life."
- Edward O. Wilson
Bill Bonner, "The Freedom Files"
"The Freedom Files"
How Twitter colluded with your government
to abridge your first amendment rights
By Bill Bonner
"Won’t someone rid me of this turbulent priest?"
~ Attributed to Henry II,
before the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Youghal, Ireland - "The first thing we noticed when we got back to Ireland was the cold. There is frost on the cars. And the canal in Ranelagh is iced over. “This is a record cold we’re having,” said the taxi driver. “The temperature went down to 27 degrees last night. That’s Fahrenheit. We don’t see that very often in Ireland.” Ireland has a mild climate. Rarely very hot. Rarely very cold. “It happens only about once every 10 years,” continued the taxi driver.
Unlike much of the rest of Europe, Ireland does not depend on the Russians or the Americans for its gas. It seems to have enough of its own. People here don’t need to chop down forests or steal firewood from each other’s front porch.
Meanwhile, here in Dublin, the shops are adorned with the usual Christmas bling…the restaurants are full…the bars are noisy…and at 4pm you will have a hard time getting a table for tea at the Westbury Hotel.
Market Blues: Today, we’re going to leave our usual beat. But before we do, we check in on Wall Street and note that in this hinge season…the stock market is turning back towards deflation. CNN: "The Dow plummeted nearly 765 points, or 2.3%, Thursday, and it is down 4% in December following solid gains the previous two months. Verizon (VZ) was the only one of the 30 Dow stocks in positive territory. The S&P 500 fell 2.5% and the Nasdaq was 3.2% lower Thursday. The S&P 500 is now off 4.5% for the month while the Nasdaq has sunk nearly 6%." Asset prices are going down. If we’re right, they’ve got a lot further to go.
But let’s switch topics. The remarkable upshot of Elon Musk’s takeover at Twitter is that he decided to release the records that show what the feds are up to. In effect, they outsourced the suppression of the First Amendment. Twitter executives colluded with federal authorities to censor what writers could write and readers could read. “Private companies can do what they want,” is our view here at the headquarters of Bonner Private Research. But there’s a lot more going on here…and it’s worth exploring.
We, The Elite: The idea of America, its Constitution and its Bill of Rights, is that government should be limited. There are things it can do. And things it shouldn’t be allowed to do. Most importantly, it can’t take anything away from ‘The People’ without ‘due process of law.’ It can’t take away their property, or their liberty, or their right to go about their business.
In the case of ‘free speech,’ the prohibition is very clear: “Congress shall make no law” that keeps people from saying what they want. In other words, the American system is meant to protect people from their government. And we know, too, that “the government” is just an abstraction. What the restrictions really do is protect the common man from the elite who control the government.
This worked reasonably well. But gradually, laws and regulations ate away at the restrictions and took a big bite out of the rights reserved ‘to the people.’ The elite wanted not only to control ‘the people,’ they wanted to enlist them in their pet projects.
It was not enough to let people pursue happiness in their own way, they also had to change the way they interacted with one another. There’s a whole body of ‘labor law,’ for example, that tells employers and employees how they need to treat each other. And there are laws and regulations up the gazoo, telling restaurants, banks and hotels how to deal with customers. Those laws grew into today’s disputes over whether a pastry shop has to put two gay guys on a wedding cake…or whether website designers may be required to work for people of whom they disapprove.
But now, the Twitter files reveal a whole new dimension to the elite’s efforts to control ‘The People;’ now, in full contempt for the First Amendment, they want to regulate what ideas and news people may read. How does this work?
You’ll recall that until fairly recently, the US took a dim view of torturing prisoners. So, in the War on Terror, prisoners were sent to ‘Black sites,’ where they were tortured by allies and friendly nations. In effect, the Pentagon outsourced what it didn’t want to do itself. Now, let’s imagine that the feds notice that some people don’t vote the way the elite would like. ‘For the good of the country’ they might get together with a private printer to make sure that some people got illegible mail-in ballots. That would clearly be wrong.
Or imagine that the elite – acting through the government they control – contact Visa and say: ‘it would be a lot better if some people were denied credit cards; they just send their money to the wrong things. Some drive too much and harm the environment. Some eat too much and overburden the hospitals. Some give money to wingnut causes.’ And then, couldn’t Visa, a private company, advised by the federales, decide for itself who should get a credit card?
Or, take the actual case at hand. Apparently, some government officials – those from the FBI and Homeland Security have been mentioned – said to Twitter executives: “Won’t someone rid us of this troublesome information? Look, some people have the wrong ideas. We can’t censor the news. But you can. How about making sure ‘The People’ don’t get any misinformation?”
Twitter honchos were eager to help. They met with the feds regularly, deciding what should be published and what shouldn’t. The government effectively outsourced what it couldn’t do directly – ignoring the Constitution and censoring speech. Doing so, it took away from citizens their First Amendment rights…the right to hear both sides of the story…and decide the truth of it for themselves.
It will be interesting to see what happens next. But we will take a guess. The media will find the story not worth reporting. And the public – always easy to gull or bamboozle – won’t care."
"Your Bank Will Never Be the Same"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 12/16/22:
"Your Bank Will Never Be the Same"
"Have you ever read your banks, terms and conditions? They are insane. They are only getting worse. You will not believe this. Retail sales also fell off a cliff."
Comments here:
"Major Price Increases On Groceries At Target; This Is Crazy! Not Good!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 12/15/22:
"Major Price Increases On Groceries At Target;
This Is Crazy! Not Good!"
"In today's vlog we are at Target, and are noticing major price increases on groceries! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products."
Comments here:
"Economic Market Snapshot 12/16/22"
"Economic Market Snapshot 12/16/22"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
"While Putin Readies Nuclear Missiles, Germany Has Run Out Of Munitions And Can Only Fight A War For Two Days"
"While Putin Readies Nuclear Missiles, Germany Has
Run Out Of Munitions And Can Only Fight A War For Two Days"
by Mike Adams
"Germany’s military readiness has collapsed. The Germany Defense Ministry has publicly stated it could only sustain a war for one week due to shortages in supplies and soldiers, reports AsiaTimes.com. What’s even more astonishing is that a German lawmaker says that’s too optimistic. The real duration of what Germany is capable of sustaining in a war is just two days.
If war is announced on Monday, in other words, Germany is finished by Wednesday and forced to surrender. “NATO countries running out of ammunition as Germany left with ‘2 days’ of stocks,” blares the headline from Express.co.UK: "Germany has been facing pressure to maintain its defense commitment to NATO while providing Ukraine with the necessary weaponry to fight back against Russia. According to local reports, the German Army has been left with only “two days” worth of ammunition to sustain active combat if necessary."
While Russia is reportedly firing 20,000 artillery rounds per day - which implies they are able to manufacture something close to 20,000 rounds per day - NATO countries like Germany have near-zero ability to manufacture much of anything needed to sustain a war. In Germany’s case, that’s due to their reliance on cotton linters from China - a component used in artillery munitions. Apparently, Germany sources this material exclusively from China, and China turns out to be nine months behind schedule on shipping cotton linters.
Capol.in explains why cotton linters matter in war: "Bleached Cotton Linters are being used by our Ordinance Factories for production of propellants used for gun ammunition & also various missiles. For production of propellants, one of the basic explosive is Nitrocellulose(NC). Basic raw material for production of Nitrocellulose(NC) is Bleached Cotton Linters(BCL) which is produced out of raw cotton linters after processing."
By faking covid lockdowns, China creates artificial supply chain shortages affecting enemies of Russia. Why are cotton linters extremely difficult to source from China right now? Because China has been using covid-19 lockdowns as a cover story to focus on its own military readiness, pursuing a path that will ultimately lead China to war with the West. Meanwhile, the West is largely dependent on China for its war components, thanks to outsourcing and short-sightedness among “woke” NATO country leaders. As AsiaTimes.com reports: "The widespread ammunition shortage has caught nearly all war professionals (planners, operators, analysts) by surprise. The Ukraine war is eating up available ammunition supplies at a huge rate."
What, do European military planners no longer plan? Isn’t the point of planning to make sure you plan ahead? The collapse of practical intelligence among “woke” European countries is truly astonishing. They can no longer even manufacture ammunition… something China has been doing for thousands of years, long before the current nations of Western Europe even existed.
Adding to the embarrassment, “German soldiers are missing all sorts of supplies including in some cases winter socks, pants and ballistic jackets,” says AsiaTimes. Are you kidding? No pants for German soldiers? Are they supposed to fight the Russians half naked? “Attack! Attack in your underwear!” No doubt Putin is experiencing uproarious laughter at all this.
US military is on the very of a munitions wipeout and depends on Asian countries for manufacturing. The US, meanwhile, is also running out of munitions and military weapons for the simple reason that they’ve sent most existing weapons to Ukraine. Via AsiaTimes: "The shortage of smart weapons has come about because the US has used its critical war stocks to supply Ukraine, something the Pentagon never planned. Thus now famous weapons such as Stinger man-portable missiles and Javelin anti-tank rockets are now almost out of stock."
In the “not-too-smart” weapons category, the US is short of conventional ammunition, particularly 155mm artillery shells that are the backbone not only of Ukraine’s artillery capability (as older Russian-made Ukrainian artillery tubes wear out) but also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s. America’s 155mm artillery shells, it turns out, are being manufactured in South Korea, not the USA. And Poland is buying tanks from Hyundai Rotem, after sending their Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine, most of which have already been destroyed by Russia.
All this begs the obvious question: Why is the West provoking World War III with Russia when western nations can’t manufacture enough weapons of war to actually wage World War III?
Putin prepares nuclear YARS ICBMs targeting the US and UK: As all this is happening, the western media is going into a frenzy over Putin’s public deployment of YARS missile systems which carry nuclear warheads that can strike the United States. Although the left-wing media hyperventilating over this seems overblown - since Putin has long had ICBMs ready to launch at western nations - it does bring to light something critical to understand: Russia’s missiles are two decades more advanced than those of the USA.
Many US-based ICBMs are still running on 1980s technology, for example. They follow “dumb” flight paths that are entirely predictable and able to be intercepted by Russia’s advanced anti-air defense systems. Russia, on the other hand, has both nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles as well as advanced MIRV units (re-entry warheads) capable of complex maneuvers and hypersonic glide paths. These cannot be intercepted by any known technology possessed by the West. And this means if Russia launches such nukes at the US and UK, there is literally nothing that can be done to stop them.
The West is now characterized by dumb missiles and dumb leaders. It won’t be difficult at all for Putin or China to defeat western nations should they decide to pursue that course of action. Hilariously, Europe is destroying itself by cutting off its own energy resources, forcing its own widespread deindustrialization. Putin must be asking himself, “Who needs to bomb Europe when the wokies are carrying out far worse acts of destruction on their own?”
Get more details on all this and other critical
stories in today’s Situation Update podcast:
Thursday, December 15, 2022
The Poet: Robert Frost, "Acceptance "
"Acceptance "
"When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened.
Birds, at least must know,
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be."
- Robert Frost
"Emergency! Russia Activates More Nuclear Silos, Kyiv is Preparing Fallout Shelters"
Canadian Prepper, 12/15/22:
"Emergency! Russia Activates More Nuclear Silos,
Kyiv is Preparing Fallout Shelters"
"Russia loads more nuclear weapons into silos causing alarm in west; Russian general threatens to nuke London on air; Poland essentially declares war on Russia by deeming it state sponsor of terror; US sending troops to Ukraine with Patriot missiles (Crazy!); Russia planning another attack on Kyiv, with 200,000 Soldiers preparing (according to Ukraine commander); China crematoriums see line ups and backlogs due to unprecedented pathogen spread, funeral homes running 24/7; medicine shortages around the world; Cold fusion hype is debunked (still decades away); Alberta resists Canadas federal governments anti-firearm tirade; California declares drought emergency; Stock Market is crashing (but what else is new); US preparing to Ban TikTok out of concern that Chinese can control American phones... Interesting times!"
Comments here:
"We're Entering A Very Scary Time; Markets Panic, No FED Rescue"
Jeremiah Babe, 12/15/22:
"We're Entering A Very Scary Time;
Markets Panic, No FED Rescue"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News"
Full screen recommended.
Very Strong Language Alert!
Gerald Celente, 12/15/22:
"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."
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and dutifully cataloged as NGC 7023 this is not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this remarkable image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries in impressive detail. Within the Iris, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star.
The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the dusty clouds glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula may contain complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The bright blue portion of the Iris Nebula is about six light-years across.”
The Poet: Fernando Pessoa, “I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”
“I Don’t Know If The Stars Rule The World”
“I don’t know if the stars rule the world,
Or if Tarot or playing cards
Can reveal anything.
I don’t know if the rolling of dice
Can lead to any conclusion.
But I also don’t know
If anything is attained
By living the way most people do.
Yes, I don’t know
If I should believe in this daily rising sun
Whose authenticity no one can guarantee me,
Or if it would be better (because better or more convenient)
To believe in some other sun,
One that shines even at night,
Some profound incandescence of things,
Surpassing my understanding.
For now...
(Let’s take it slow)
For now
I have an absolutely secure grip on the stair-rail,
I secure it with my hand –
This rail that doesn’t belong to me
And that I lean on as I ascend...
Yes... I ascend...
I ascend to this:
I don’t know if the stars rule the world.”
- Fernando Pessoa
"Aldi Shortages Are Freaking Americans Out As A Large Number Of Products Disappear From Stores"
Full screen recommended.
"Aldi Shortages Are Freaking Americans Out As
A Large Number Of Products Disappear From Stores"
by Epic Economist
"One of the most popular chains, Aldi, is now watching demand for their products skyrocket, and while that might seem like a good thing for the grocer, it’s causing some major inconveniences for their customers. Hundreds of reports detail that consumers are getting angry and frustrated with shortages of basic everyday items that have been lingering for months. Empty shelves are spreading across the store, and to make things worse, now the retailer is warning that price increases are “inevitable,” and that a wide range of products may double in price soon.
No business is immune to stockouts these days. Grocers from Walmart to Costco to Trader Joe’s, and Albertsons as well, are all reporting concerns about keeping certain consumer staples in stock. Some Schnucks stores have actually posted signs essentially telling customers that if a shelf is empty, there’s no more stock in the back they can go fetch; they are simply sold out.
And at stores of one of Americans’ favorite discount grocers, Aldi, things are no different. A few weeks ago, one shopper took to social media to express her concern as she noticed her favorite items disappearing. The shopper wrote on a Facebook group for fans of the supermarket: “I’ve just come back from Aldi. The shelves are looking emptier by the week. No soy milk for weeks. No almond milk for two weeks. Cranberry juice is very hit-and-miss and has been for weeks. I love Aldi but what is happening?”
According to a new article by Yahoo, Aldi customers have been left angered and confused by an ongoing toilet paper supply shortage across several stores. "Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on with the toilet paper and other paper goods at Aldi, they haven’t had any for ages," one customer asked on an Aldi fans Facebook page.
According to the Aldi Reviewer, there are many other products that are currently in short supply, such as sour cream, ricotta cheese, saltine crackers, spaghetti noodles, canned cat food, fresh garlic, apples, frozen meals, various types of meats and personal hygiene products. The company says that the shortages are being caused by a variety of factors, “including post-pandemic supply chain issues, the current conflict in Ukraine, and an increase in feed and fuel prices,” it noted on its website. “We know it is frustrating, and we are sorry for any and all inconveniences," Aldi’s website reads.
Another inconvenience that has been infuriating some customers is the fact that the supermarket chain is doubling the price of some of its most popular products. The discount grocer is known for offering everything from produce to packaged meals at affordable prices. But it looks like the effects of historically high inflation are beginning to take a toll on Aldi as costs skyrocket along the supply chain.
The grocer has actually warned that grocery prices will “inevitably” continue to rise given that the cost of food is going up all across the board. “Some grocery prices will inevitably increase in the months ahead,” said Aldi customer interactions director Adrian Christie. At the end of November, several reports uncovered that Aldi announced 20 to 50 percent price hikes on almost 400 of their products. So Americans should probably get their favorite products at Aldi before these changes start to be put into effect in the weeks ahead - but that’s only if they can find what they want at their local stores."
"Our Parasitic Generation"
"Our Parasitic Generation"
Yes, there is a lot of ruin in great nations.
But even America is by now running low on it.
by Victor Davis Hanson
"Be assured young friend,
that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation."
- Adam Smith
"Are we sure that there is all that much ruin left in the United States? We are $31 trillion in collective debt. The new normal is $1.5 trillion budget deficits. The military is politicized and short of recruits. We trade lethal terrorists for woke celebrity athletes as if to confirm our enemies’ cynical stereotypes.
Our FBI is corrupt and discredited, collaborating with Silicon Valley contractors to suppress free speech and warp elections. We practice segregation and racial discrimination and claim we do not because the right and good people support it and, anyway, the victims deserve it. The country has seen defeat before but never abject, deliberate humiliation as in Kabul, when we fled and abandoned to the terrorist Taliban a $1 billion embassy, a huge, remodeled air base, thousands of friends, and tens of billions of dollars in military hardware - and hard-earned deterrence.
We are witnessing the breakdown of basic norms essential for civilized life, from affordable food and fuel to available key antibiotics and baby formula. Old Cairo seems safer than an after-hours subway ride or stroll at dusk in many major American cities. Medieval London’s roadways were likely cleaner than Market Street in San Francisco. Speech was freer in 1920s America than it is now.
The Breakdown of Basic Society: Our California always is a preamble to America’s future. Our present is likely your tomorrow. Each summer here we impotently expect forest conflagrations. Millions of acres of flames pour more millions of tons of smoke and carbon and soot in the skies. Tens of millions of hated combustion engines cannot begin to match the natural blankets of aerial dirt.
The state seems to shrug it off, saying wildfires are both inevitable and natural. Old-fashioned forest management and fire-fighting strategies, honed over centuries, are deemed obsolete by our green experts. So, we let fiery nature take its better course. What is the implicit message to those in the way of fires that devour homes and trees? Nature’s way? Natural wood mulch? Or that such fools should not build their cabins or homes where they are not wanted?
What was bequeathed to us from a state of 15 million - magnificent aqueducts, once brilliantly designed freeways and airports, superb universities and schools, perfectly engineered reservoirs, and downtowns of majestic skyscrapers - in a California of 41 million are frozen in amber or in decay. They have few updates and even fewer replacements. The decrepitude recalls the weedy forums and choked fountains of Vandal-era Roman cities, which is what happens when a later parasitic generation mocks but still consumes what it inherits but cannot create.
Our own generation’s pale contributions are multibillion-dollar, quarter-built, graffiti-defaced high-speed rail Stonehenge monoliths. We prefer to shut down rather than build nuclear plants. Our solar battery plants are as prone to combust as they are to store electricity. And our urban streets reek of feces. All seem testaments to our incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance. We fear the idea of homelessness, and so cede to the homeless our downtowns and avoid what follows.
Our great universities, once the most esteemed in the world from Berkeley and Stanford to UCLA and USC, grow burdened with commissars, too many of their outnumbered faculties are weaponized, and their students have never been more confident in their abilities, and with so little reason for that confidence. A return to syllabi and grading standards of just 30 years ago would result in mass flunkings. Failure on tests apparently means the test, not the test taker, is found wanting.
What follows is the erosion of meritocracy and competence. And that reality is starting to explain the great unraveling: why our bridges take decades to build rather than a few years, why train tracks are not laid after a decade of “planning,”and why to drive down a once brilliantly engineered, but now crammed and dangerous road is to revisit the “Road Warrior” of film. Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes are the apt characters of our age.
Institutions That Went Rogue: The FBI has imploded. It has all but become a Third World retrieval and investigatory service for the Democratic Party. Its last four directors either have lied, misled, or pleaded amnesia while under oath.
In 2016, the bureau with the Democratic National Committee sought to destroy the integrity of an election by fabricating a Russian collusion hoax. Its continuance and coverup ultimately required FBI agents and lawyers to alter legal documents, to lie under oath, to destroy subpoenaed phone data, and to outsource illegal suppression of First Amendment rights to Silicon Valley contractors. The nation now fears there isn’t anything the FBI might not do.
As we became hyper-legal with Trump, we are more sublegal with the entire Biden family. For a decade, with impunity, it gorged multimillion profits from selling the “Big Guy”/Mr. “10 Percent” Joe Biden’s name and access - sums for the most part hidden and likely not completely taxed. We all know it is true, and we all know the FBI and Department of Justice know it is true, and we know further that the truth means nothing.
This self-satisfied generation constantly brags of transforming elections. But it will be known more as the destroyer of a once hallowed Election Day. Not so long ago 70-80 percent of the electorate took the trouble of voting under transparent protocols. We replaced it in most states with 60-70 percent of the votes without audit and the product of vote harvesting and curing. Our generation, in just a couple of years, destroyed Election Day voting and Election Night counting.
The New Medievalism: Despite different calibrations, various data reveal what is self-evident to the naked eye. The American middle class is shrinking, if not insidiously sliding into indebted peasantry. Westerners are regressing and by design, now deciding daily whether to top up the tank, turn up the heat, or buy beef.
Society is also bifurcating. A tiny powerful minority has more leverage than any other elite in the history of civilization. And a large underclass of subsidized poor shares with the wealthy a disdain for the struggling middle class, the old bulwark of democracy.
In place of knightly penances and chivalric oaths, our elite takes Bankman-Fried-like vows to “fight climate change,” support “transitioning,” and ensure “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” But like their Medieval brethren, they do so only by first enhancing, not endangering, their own careers.
For the ruling class, prep schools, alphabetic certifications from tony universities, and revolving-door résumés are modern versions of having an abbey on site, a stately coat-of-arms, or taking vows from the correct religious orders. Otherwise, it is the same medievalism masked by pretension.
Our Rhine and Danube: America is rapidly resembling something like wide-open fifth-century A.D. Rome, when its traditional inviolable northern borders on the Rhine and Danube rivers vanished. Thousands of unassimilated tribes crisscrossed as they pleased on the premise that no one among their overripe, soft hosts could or would dare stop them.
Joe Biden just remarked that he is too busy to visit the southern border. And why not? There may have been roughly 5 million illegal aliens who have crossed it since his inauguration. He earns contempt both from those who try to enforce the border and those who cross illegally over it. Biden surrealistically trashes Trump’s supposed archaic idea of a wall - always without noting self-evident truths about it: anywhere Biden stopped the wall or has not replaced prior rickety fencing, there are the most porous and trafficked entry points.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ various mendacities that the border is “secure” translate to allowing as many million aliens as possible to break the law to enter the United States in the four years of the Biden experiment. The administration sees itself in a race to create a one-off window of historic laxity through which millions can pour in—before a comatose nation wakes up and shuts it down.
We are approaching an historic 50 million residents who were not born in the United States, and of various legal and illegal statuses. In a sane world, we might survive the challenge - if newcomers had all come legally, learned the customs and language of their desired new home, were audited and queued by some logical meritocratic process, and were quickly assimilated and integrated by a confident host population that assumed any who wished to live in America surely desired help in becoming an American and felt gratitude to their hosts. Instead, there is only chaos - and it is by design.
The legal immigrant waiting in line to enter the United States is considered a fool, while illegal aliens and residents instead quickly absorb three messages from their hosts. First, illegal residents will often be treated better than American citizens, at least in terms of lax law enforcement, various legal exemptions and amnesties, and unaudited entitlements.
Second, many will soon learn they can assume immediate moral claims against the majority population of their new home, who can be seen as racist oppressors and obligated to offer reparatory concessions in terms of hiring, admissions, and entitlements.
Third, too many will quickly learn, Ilhan Omar-style, to harbor a quiet derision for their benefactors. Their contempt is not due to Americans’ dearth of magnanimity and generosity, much less to “systemic racism.” Instead, their American hosts are silently assumed to be naïve, timid, overly solicitous, malleable, easily manipulated, rolled, and conned - especially when it is understood that if the roles were reversed and the entrants were the hosts, they would have a different notion of borders.
The idea of 330 million American citizens of different incidental races and ethnicities united by a common American identity of shared values, customs, and traditions is all but mocked. In its place is arising something like the former Yugoslavia - an undefined mishmash of competing and increasingly hostile tribal interests, with residents sorting themselves out into red and blue states that eventually will lead to two antithetical Americas.
So once assumed services, customs, institutions, and expectations are eroding - from a safe walk to a government office in a large city’s downtown, to a visit to the local public emergency room in extremis for humane, rapid, and competent care, to a clean, safe subway ride in a major city, or watching election returns conclude on Election Night.
A Nation of Thieves? In a nearby Home Depot the other day, there were two long lines to check out. The other six were closed, as was the largest exit with several self-check-out counters. Why? When asked the clerk whispered that the theft rate is high in the store and that from time to time it shuts down various exits to limit stealing or perhaps to confuse calculating thieves. I added that I had learned that almost any large item in a box purchased at Home Depot had to be first opened to ensure that key parts like knobs, wires, and screws had not been ripped off.
A local Walmart stopped its 24-hour service; again, the clerk said it was due to unsustainable looting during the early morning hours. I also went to Walgreens and Rite-Aid recently. Much of what anyone wanted, from razors to antihistamines, was under lock-and-key. None of this was true just a decade ago. I live in a rural area among small towns - a world away from Los Angeles and San Francisco where smash-and-grab robberies and unapologetic looting have caused the mass closures of pharmacies and all-service stores.
Exemptions given thefts under $950 in some states may be the culprit. Others cite the post-George Floyd riots and the climate of unpunished street criminality. Maybe years of mask-wearing made us forget who normally had used masks and for what reasons. Weaponized activist district attorneys and virtue-signaling mayors also signal to criminals that property crimes don’t warrant arrest, much less conviction, much less incarceration.
But whatever the cause, a once famously lawful America has become a veritable land of thieves. The criminal is all but exempt. And the middle class and poor suffer as a result from poor services, higher prices, reduced hours, and fewer stores.
We know the solution is to deter crime by assured punishment for the guilty. But the majority of Americans either cannot or will not demand a return to sanity for fear of some sort of undefined pushback from their elites. Pick your charge: “racism,” “privilege,” “bias,” “discrimination.” Any will do.
We have seen lots of cultural revolutions in this country, but never one that was so singularly focused on razing the foundations of America - until now. Yes, there is a lot of ruin in great nations. But even America is by now running low on it."
o
"Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
“The past is a bucket of ashes.”
1
"The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.
2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened...
and the only listeners left now...
are…the rats…and the lizards.
And there are black crows
crying, “Caw, caw,”
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are…the rats…and the lizards.
4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.
And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was."
- Carl Sandburg
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