Jeremiah Babe, 3/10/23:
"We Just Witnessed A Bank Run And Bank Collapse In One Day;
Bank Balances Missing; Liquidity Crisis"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, March 10, 2023
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "I Giorni"
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "I Giorni"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum Galaxy and lies a mere 3 million light-years away. Sprawling along loose spiral arms that wind toward the core, M33's giant HII regions are some of the largest known stellar nurseries, sites of the formation of short-lived but very massive stars. Intense ultraviolet radiation from the luminous massive stars ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas and ultimately produces the characteristic red glow.
To highlight the HII regions in this telescopic image, broadband data used to produce a color view of the galaxy were combined with narrowband data recorded through a hydrogen-alpha filter, transmitting the light of the strongest hydrogen emission line. Close-ups of cataloged HII regions appear in the sidebar insets. Use the individual reference number to find their location within the Triangulum Galaxy. For example, giant HII region NGC604 is identified in an inset on the right and appears at position number 15. That's about 4 o'clock from galaxy center in this portrait of M33."
"Alert! Bank Seized - We Don’t Have Your Money"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 3/10/23:
"Alert! Bank Seized - We Don’t Have Your Money"
"Breaking News!! The first bank seizure of 2023 has happened. Silicon Valley Bank has closed its doors. The FDIC came in and took over the operation of the bank today."
Comments here:
So it begins...
"Remember..."
"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.
That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand. "
- Emily Kimbrough
"I Was Given Something..."
"I had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how... rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not - that none of us - are alone! I wish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and hope. But... that continues to be my wish."
- "Ellie Arroway", "Contact" by Carl Sagan
o
"Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be."
- Orson Scott Card
"Now the voices and the sound of movement were gone, and the stream could be heard running quietly under its banks. The air was full of the scent of water and of flowers. She walked, quiet, while the house began to reverberate: a band had started up. She walked beside the river while the music thudded, feeling herself as a heavy, impervious, insensitive lump that, like a planet doomed always to be dark on one side, had vision in front only, a myopic searchlight blind except for the tiny three-dimensional path open immediately before her eyes in which the outline of a tree, a rose, emerged then submerged in dark. She thought, with the dove's voices of her solitude. Where? But where? How? Who? No, but where, where? Then silence and the birth of a repetition. Where? Here. Here? Here, where else, you fool, you poor fool, where else has it been, ever?"
- Doris Lessing
"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/10/23"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/10/23:
"Heavy Bombing Continues in Ukraine - Scott Ritter"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Gregory Mannarino: It's A Freak Show On A Knife's Edge"
Gerald Celente, 3/10/23:
"Gregory Mannarino: It's A Freak Show On A Knife's Edge"
"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:
o
Related:
"We Are All Burned Out"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/10/23:
"We Are All Burned Out"
"People are complaining about everything. There are so many layoffs right now. People are just feeling the wrath of all this and they are burned out."
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Are We 'Too Negative?'"
"Are We 'Too Negative?'"
Bill responds to popular demand...
By Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
"Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
San Martin, Argentina - "Back home on the range, after 2 days on the road, we take stock. Has anything important changed? Are the economy and the markets still following the script we laid out? But wait…
Colleague Tom Dyson just asked dear readers what they thought of our service. Many remarked that your editor was ‘too negative.’ Whew! We worried that we were too positive. We were afraid we had not warned you with sufficiently lurid details about the crash, depression, hyper-inflation, revolution, war, poverty and mass death ahead. Nevertheless, today, we will respond to popular demand. We’re not changing our tune. But we’ll try to be more up-beat about the coming catastrophe.
Buying the Market: You’ll recall that Wall Street was once a market for stocks and bonds. Each one was analyzed, inspected, weighed and judged. Investors looked for the best of them and traded them with each other, depending on their guesses and opinions. Then, the Fed came into the picture…cautiously…gradually…and then emphatically. Marty Zweig was among the first to notice that Wall Street had become something different…no longer a market of stocks, now it was an investment of its own…a ‘stock market,’ that investors could use like a gambler used Las Vegas…as a place to make his bets.
Instead of doing any real studying, an investor could just “buy the market” …perhaps by getting an ETF…and his fortunes would rise (or fall) with the stock market itself. Zweig noticed, too, that the key to succeeding in this new market was to understand the role of the Fed. “Don’t fight the Fed,” he advised.
After stopping inflation with a 20% Fed Funds rate in 1980, Fed policy pushed rates down and the stock market up for the next 40 years. From 1982 to 2022, the Dow doubled once…twice…thrice…four times…FIVE TIMES. But in 2020, the bond market topped out. Interest rates hit record lows (when bonds go up, yields go down)…and then began an historic move up. A four-decade bull market in bonds (with lower and lower yields) was over.
Measured in Real Money: Last year, the Fed changed course, too. It is now raising rates and lowering stock prices. Here’s the Wall Street Journal: "The Fed has been trying to curb investment, spending and hiring by raising rates, which makes it more expensive to borrow and can push down the price of assets such as stocks and real estate. The fed-funds rate influences other borrowing costs throughout the economy."
Speculators have been slow to understand. They put their ears to the rail…listening carefully for sounds of that coming Pivot Express. They are sure it is rolling their way; soon, they believe, things will return to ‘normal.’ In the meantime, they are still ‘buying the dip’ and expecting a return to booming markets with super-low interest rates
As we’ve pointed out, there was little ‘normal’ about the last 22 years. And stocks do not always go up. So far in the 21st century, even the greatest investor of all time – Warren Buffett – has not made a penny. Not in real money, gold.
Is this beginning to sound ‘negative?’ Well, let’s look at it from the bright side. The US has been on the decline…with fake money, fake wars…and fake prosperity for the last 22 years; happily, Buffett’s flagship company, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn’t lost value. Priced in gold, it is neither more or less valuable than it was in 1999.
That brings us up-to-date. There has been no real change in the program since the bond market hit bottom and the Fed changed course. Interest rates up; asset prices down. And from here on out, there’s nothing but good news: Currently, consumer, business, and government debt is still going up. Borrowing puts more money in circulation, which causes prices to rise (inflation).
Sunny Side of the Street: Thanks to the Fed’s error – keeping interest rates far too low for far too long – we have far too much debt, much of which can never be paid. But, (more positivity!) – that’s what recessions are for. Trying to stop recessions and corrections is like preventing episodic forest fires. The dry tinder just builds up – creating an even bigger danger. That is what has happened. Like fallen limbs and pine needles, the US has accumulated some $90 trillion worth of debt, including about $50 trillion in ‘excess’ tinder (above traditional norms). Good news for a pyromaniac!
So…on with the sunny-side-of-the-street weather outlook: For now, all is hunky dory. Low unemployment (as measured by the feds)…and satisfactory consumer spending (thanks to borrowing) allow the Fed to continue its policy of raising rates, without really causing much pain. Said Jerome Powell: “The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated.”
And (will the good news ever stop?!) the Fed’s higher rates will probably have the effect the Fed desires – stocks will fall, interest rates will rise, borrowing will go down, consumer spending will drop off…and jobs will disappear. And debt will decline – either by defaults, bankruptcies and write-offs…and/or, later, by inflation.
Yes, there’s a small shadow over our otherwise sunny report. It’s easy to turn down a hamburger when you’ve just eaten a steak. It’s much harder when you are starving. When the lean days come – when stocks crash and the economy goes into a recession – we expect Powell’s appetite for a ‘pivot’ to be irresistible. And he’ll have plenty of company. Yes, the Fed is subject to the same fads and trends as the rest of the government. ‘Diversity hires’ at the Fed are likely to favor more government, bigger deficits, lower interest rates and looser monetary policies.
It would be a “serious mistake,” said Larry Summers to load up the Fed with wokish, dovish, leftist deciders. It would cause people to expect more inflation, and thereby “put more inflation premium into interest rates…likely to lead to higher long rates, which means higher mortgage rates for the very people progressives are trying to help.”
Even there, the glass is half full as well as half empty. The housing sector has begun a decline already. Higher mortgage rates will give it a shove, helping it get where it is going sooner. Higher prices….and higher mortgage interest rates…will prevent people from buying houses they can’t really afford.
So you see, dear reader, everything always works out for the best."
Joel’s Note: Speaking of happy days, small business owners and members of America’s entrepreneurial class can finally rejoice. After years watching their bloated federal government overpromise, over-react and overspend on just about every front, President Biden swooped to the rescue yesterday with the promise of…higher taxes and more government spending!
Unveiling his much anticipated tax plan, Mr. Biden’s 2024 budget proposal calls for massive new social spending programs and (get ready to be shocked) tax hikes on the rich. Here’s MSN…"The president’s budget calls for paring back the deficit over the next decade while also spending more than $2 trillion on dozens of new domestic policy initiatives, paid for by more than $4.5 trillion in new revenue, primarily through hefty tax hikes on high earners and large corporations and by reining in federal spending on prescription drugs.
The blueprint envisions a much more expansive role for the federal government overall, aiming for about $10 trillion in annual spending by 2033 — up from roughly $6.3 trillion currently, and about $6.9 trillion in the next fiscal year."
Hmm… a ~50% increase in annual spending over the next decade... funded by “eating the rich?” Where have we seen this playbook before? And this, from the same ace administrators who oversaw the Paycheck Protection Program, from which a cool $120 billion was purloined… not to mention the $163 billion siphoned from the federal unemployment insurance program. Boy, these guys sure have a handle on the situation!
This latest budget would also lift the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, quadruple the stock buyback tax levied last year, double the capital gains tax to 39.6% from 20% for households making over $1 million and raise the top personal-income tax rate to 39.6%, from 37%, for Americans earning $400,000 or more.
But why stop there? At last count, American had 724 billionaires, the most of any country on the planet. (China is #2, at 698.) According to inequality.org, the billionaire class added $2.1 trillion dollars to their net wealth during the pandemic. Never mind whether these people earned their wealth through honest means or by grift… by providing real world goods and services or leaching off the state. Since we’re already coveting our neighbors’ property, why not just go “Full Bernie” and soak ‘em all?!
Well, because… math. Let’s say we arrest Messers. Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuck, Buffett and the rest of their uber rich buddies. Let’s say we confiscate their yachts, pilfer their accounts, commandeer their rocket ships and turn their factories, outlets, research plants, investment funds, offshore accounts and all the rest over to the federal government.
Taking inequality.org at its word – that is, assuming America’s billionaires have a cool $5 trillion for us to “appropriate” – looting the mega rich would yield enough lucre to run Mr. Biden’s dream 2033 federal government for… six months. Then what? Maybe then it would finally be time, as the learned George Bush II so eloquently phrased it, to “make the pie higher.”
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 3/10/23"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 3/10/23"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"The video released this week by Tucker Carlson and FOX shows one big fact. Everything the J6 Committee in Congress told us was a huge lie. There was no insurrection, and the video proves it. There are 14,000 hours of video that can be released, and I suspect it will prove the J6 Committee committed treason against the American people for promoting this huge lie. Was it all to make Donald Trump into a crazy insurrectionist to stop him from running in 2024? I think the answer is Yes, and the weasels who promoted this hoax should pay.
While fighting over releasing video proving people were protesting a stolen election in a peaceful manner, the death count with the CV19 bioweapon/vax keeps growing and keeps being ignored. With 600 million CV19 bioweapon injections in USA alone, we are far from finished with the massive amounts of death and disabilities happening every day. The Lying Legacy Media (LLM) keeps on ignoring the problem that will affect every man, woman and child alive today for the rest of their lives. Again, 600 million injections in America alone and about 13 billion injections worldwide of a bioweapon that did NOT HELP A SINGLE PERSON. Maybe FOX can report on this story and explain why it took Pfizer money and HHS money and did not offer a word resisting this CV19 deadly hoax.
The Fed is going to keep raising interest rates. The LLM keeps telling you the Fed is almost done, but Fed Head Jay Powell threw another cold bucket of water on that wet dream this week and said more rate increases are coming to fight inflation. Catherine Austin Fitts says, “The Fed is going to protect the dollar.” It’s really that simple." There is much more in the 35-minute newscast.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble for these stories
and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 3/10/23:
Jim Kunstler, "Everything, All at Once"
"Everything, All at Once"
By Jim Kunstler
“There’s a lot of stupidity in public discourse, and most of it is not worth paying attention to. But once in a while, there is a kind of stupidity that is so grotesque that its very existence to any substantive degree tells us something about our culture.” - Richard Hanania
"Time, they say, is nature’s way of making sure that everything doesn’t happen at once. Whoever “they” are - and these days it is liable to be just one person - obviously hadn’t tried living in the USA in 2023, because now everything is happening at once. The cosmic weirdness has left some observers, such as the formidable and admirable Naomi Wolf, to wonder if we are under the sway of something supernatural, and not a good something.
The old movie "Poltergeist" comes to mind. Remember? Every evil entity in the pop culture universe came spewing out of a TV all at once, to disorder a perfectly banal and serene suburban neighborhood, representing all of us, of course. These days, when I drive to the supermarket to behold the astounding price of tomatoes, I half-expect to see a giant projection of Joy Reid piggyback on a hoofed-and-horned Klaus Schwab, ride across the sickening red twilight sky, her shrieks making the leafless trees cringe and the asphalt crack. The shadow-side of everything in American history and posterity is loose upon the land, and our country has finally come to look exactly like Dylan’s "Desolation Row": "They’re selling postcards of the hanging, and painting the passports brown, all right. The beauty parlor’s filled with sailors, the circus is in town."
The defining moment of the week was the White House ceremony with Dr. Jill Biden and her side-piece, Tony Blinken, presenting an International Women of Courage award to Ms. Alba Rueda of Argentina, a biological man. But, of course! Kisses all around. Mattias Desmet, author of "The Psychology of Totalitarianism," pointed out some time ago that a psychotic political regime would require the people to swallow ever-greater absurdities as things played out in its death-wish drive toward national nullity.
But was that little scene more absurd than the regime’s campaign in Ukraine to do… uh, to do what, exactly? To punish Vladimir Putin, or something like that. Or is it nuclear war they’re really after? A war, they’re telling themselves, that we would surely win, as if being a continent-sized ashtray is winning. Meanwhile, our Intel Community has discovered that it was… well might have been… Ukraine, after all, who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines - with help from some outside parties (namely, America’s Intel Community).
But waitagoshdarnminnit! How does that get anybody off-the-hook for the costly caper? NATO supposedly backs Ukraine, right? And Germany is the European leader of NATO, right? So you’re telling me Ukraine blew up a systemically-important asset of a leading country that supports Ukraine? Something doesn’t add up in that-there rebus puzzle. I’ll spare you the mental labor. The US Spook Industrial Complex is just laying another trip on you. And the “you” includes poor bamboozled Germany, led by arguably the biggest sap ever elected by a supposedly advanced nation, Olaf Scholz, whose name will evermore ring through history as a synonym for “chump.”
Sooner or later, one or both of the following must happen: the German people will dump this chump and/or his replacement will find a way to bow out of Germany’s commitment to America’s foolish proxy war against Russia, leading post-haste to the disintegration of NATO, and leaving America’s army of vaccine-injured transsexuals to reconquer the Donbas and Crimea, led by Tony Blinken in an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress.
Anyway, by the time that hallucination comes to pass, all the other things that are happening at once will be so vividly in America’s face that the epic sleepwalk of the Walking Woke ends with a jolt like unto a cattle prod upside the brain-pan. For instance, the implosion of our financial markets along with a sudden, shocking expiration of the US dollar as a credible currency. The mighty “woosh” heard from sea to shining sea will be the sound of capital going up in a vapor. The event will halt all that jabber about debt ceilings, budgets, and billions for Ukraine. A nauseated silence spreads across the land. Then, what?
I heard a rumor this week (yes, it’s just a rumor) that the Federal Reserve is bailing out WalMart, the Krogers supermarket chain, and other national food distributors in a stealth overnight lending operation. Their business model is shot. Nobody has the scratch to buy stuff. The never-ending Blue Light Special has finally gone dark. Make of it what you will. Could be some kind of fake news. But if it’s not, we’re talking about not just giant businesses in deep trouble and possibly going down, but of a big problem with food moving around the country. Do you suppose that might get people’s attention?
Two other big deals are ripening now: America is discovering just how played the country was by the Covid-19 stunt, including the “vaccine” fraud, now burgeoning into a nightmare of escalating injury and all-causes death. Just this week the nation learned how the previous chief of the CDC, one Robert Redfield, was left entirely in the dark by Dr. Tony Fauci and his minions in discussions of how the novel coronavirus came to be, and who, exactly was responsible for this fiasco. Something went very wrong in American public health officialdom. Indictments, anyone?
The other shock will come when somebody at the FBI - if not Director Chris Wray himself - will finally be forced to disclose to a congressional committee that the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol was fomented by a substantial band of US government agents working the crowd of hapless protesters to produce the perfect Trump-ending fiasco. That will be the end of “Joe Biden.” But then, what?"
o
Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row"
"Alert! Make No Mistake! We Are Now In The Early Stages Of A Systemic Meltdown"
Gregory Mannarino, 3/10/23:
"Alert! Make No Mistake!
We Are Now In The Early Stages Of A Systemic Meltdown"
Comments here:
"Strange Prices At Dollar General! Preparing For The Future!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 3/10/23:
"Strange Prices At Dollar General!
Preparing For The Future!"
"In today's vlog we are at Dollar General, and are noticing some strange price increases! We are here checking out some long shelf life grocery items to stock up on for the future. We continue to see skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves!"
Comments here:
o
"Oh Yeah..."
"When life hands you a lemon, say
"Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?"
- Henry Rollins
Thursday, March 9, 2023
"I Hope I End Up..."
“I don’t want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don’t want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, “Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case.” I will turn and say to them, “It is you who are the basket case! For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn’t even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!” And maybe, the passersby will drop a coin into my cup.”
- Henry Rollins
"Streets of Philadelphia, 3/9/23"
Full screen recommended.
kimgary, 3/9/23:
"Streets of Philadelphia, 3/9/23"
"Problems with drugs and crime on Kensington Ave, Philadelphia's most dangerous street. In Philadelphia as a whole, violent crime and drug abuse are major issues. The city has a higher rate of violent crime than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. The drug overdose rate in Philadelphia is also concerning. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50%, with more than twice as many deaths from overdoses as homicides. Kensington's high crime rate and drug abuse contribute significantly to Philadelphia's problems.
Because of the high number of drugs in the neighborhood, Kensington has the third-highest drug crime rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia, at 3.57. The opioid epidemic has played a significant role in this problem, as it has in much of the rest of the country. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed in the United States over the last two decades, and Philadelphia is no exception. In addition to having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% of Philadelphia's overdose deaths involved opioids, and Kensington is a significant contributor to this figure. This Philadelphia neighborhood is said to have the largest open-air heroin market on the East Coast, with many neighbors migrating to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high concentration of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have focused on the neighborhood in an attempt to address Philadelphia's problem."
o
Full screen recommended.
Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia"
"Beware: March Economic Meltdown Madness"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 3/9/23:
"Beware: March Economic Meltdown Madness"
Comments here:
The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Find out more here: https://trendsjournal.com
Musical Interlude: 2002, "The End Is a Beginning"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "The End Is a Beginning"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"What's happening at the center of the Trifid Nebula? Three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear near the bottom, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, cataloged as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulas known.
The star forming nebula lies about 9,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). The region pictured here spans about 10 light years. The featured image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler."
The Poet: Rolf Jacobsen, "When They Sleep"
"When They Sleep"
"All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
God, teach me the language of sleep."
- Rolf Jacobsen,
"The Roads Have Come to an End Now"
"Could Be Worse..."
"I'd been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it's sort of depressing, thinking how many times I'd been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse."
- Jim Butcher
o
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Dig your way out, they said...
"People Will Panic When Gas Prices Surge To $7 A Gallon In The Coming Weeks"
Full screen recommended.
"People Will Panic When Gas Prices Surge
To $7 A Gallon In The Coming Weeks"
By Epic Economist
"Prepare to see gas prices surge to nearly $7 this driving season! A supply and demand crisis is gripping the market right now, and the national inventory is falling short of experts’ estimates for this time of the year. A few weeks from now, paying $4 per gallon of gasoline will become the reality for millions of Americans. And executives in the industry are pointing to higher pressure on crude oil markets, refinery disruptions, and increased volatility as the drivers of the coming price spike that could push the cost of a gallon of gasoline to double or triple in many states in the coming months!
This is going to be another tough year for U.S. motorists. We enjoyed a few months of lower gas prices after the historic rise that drove the national average to above $5 in 2022. But now costs at the pump are surging rapidly, and several factors are combining to create a new price spiral over the next few weeks and months.
In an interview with Insider, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan warned U.S. drivers to brace for a spike in gas prices due to refinery shutdowns and amid renewed energy demand from China as the Asian nation reopens its economy. "2023 is not going to be a cakewalk for motorists. It is going to be expensive," De Haan noted in the firm’s March 2023 fuel outlook report.
GasBuddy predicts the national average price of gas at the pump to top around $4 a gallon in most major U.S. cities just a few weeks from now. And by this year’s driving season, when demand shots up amid the summer break, many U.S. cities are likely to see gas prices approach nearly $7 a gallon!
Some cities in the West Coast state of California, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, aren’t that far from that average already. Meaning that they could see prices three times higher than the current national average by the summer. "Basically, curveballs are coming from every direction," De Haan stressed. "I don't think we've ever seen such an amount of volatility as we are seeing this year, and that will be a trend that likely continues to lead to wider uncertainty over fuel prices for the rest of 2023," he added. According to the executive, the rebound in gas prices is already starting and it will only accelerate from here on, as refineries close down for maintenance after a rough winter and curb the production of gasoline and diesel.
While during this time in 2022 refiners were operating at full capacity, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that for the week ended on March 3rd, refiners were operating at just 85.2% capacity due to heavy maintenance at several key pipelines. Demand, however, has stayed strong. And the AAA says that the imbalance between supply and demand will likely add further stress for U.S. drivers in the next few days. "The increase in gas demand, amid tighter supplies, has contributed to rising pump prices. If demand continues to grow, drivers will likely continue to see pump prices increase," the association noted.
In fact, gas prices are set to rise by a minimum of 62 cents by Memorial Day, experts with the association said. Conditions in the oil market, the gasoline and diesel market, and in the auto industry are deteriorating faster than anyone could have imagined. A nightmare scenario is now unfolding, and U.S. drivers should get ready for more pain and uncertainty ahead as the perfect storm begins."
Comments here:
o
"A nightmare scenario is now unfolding..." "People Will Panic..." Indeed it is and they will, as this video metaphorically accurately depicts the consequences of the good ship "World Economy" encountering the final full force of a total global economic collapse and destruction. Melodrama? No, impending nightmare reality. Believe what you will, but you'd better brace for impact... I could be wrong, but I'm not...God help us.
Full screen recommended.
o
But of course...
“Alas, regardless of their doom,
the little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
nor care beyond today.”
- Thomas Gray,
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
"The FED Is About To Crush The Economy And Markets; Credit Card Breaking Point"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/9/23:
"The FED Is About To Crush The Economy And Markets;
Credit Card Breaking Point"
Comments here:
"The Economic FREEFALL Continues To Accelerate And Market Risk Continues To Rise"
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
Gregory Mannarino, 3/9/23:
"The Economic FREEFALL Continues To
Accelerate And Market Risk Continues To Rise"
Comments here:
o
Market Data Center
o
"We Just Witnessed An Economic Red Flag
That We Haven’t Seen Since 1981"
"Russia Has Annihilated the Ukrainian Armed Forces"
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 3/9/23
"Russia Has Annihilated the Ukrainian Armed Forces"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States and the world."
Comments here:
o
In Focus, 3/9/23:
"Douglas Macgregor:
Huge Offensive! Crushing The Defenses"
"Have We Reached “Peak Idiocracy” Yet?" (Excerpt)
"Have We Reached “Peak Idiocracy” Yet?" (Excerpt)
by Michael Snyder
Excerpt: "We should all be absolutely horrified by what has happened to our society. Everywhere you look, people seem to be going completely and utterly nuts. Once upon a time, the crazy people were a very small segment of the population that could be easily ignored. But now the lunatics are literally running the asylum. If you doubt this, just look at our statehouses around the nation and the current crop of politicians that we have in Washington. Sadly, the truth is that the people that are representing us are a very accurate reflection of what we have become as a nation. We truly have become a raging “idiocracy”, and the rest of the world is literally laughing at us."
The complete, hang our heads in shame article is here:
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"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?
"People Are Starting to Worry"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/9/23:
"People Are Starting to Worry"
"There is a great survey asking people what keeps them up at night. The biggest concern right now is inflation. Inflation is a bigger concern for people than taxes are."
Comments here:
"Our Perspective..."
¨"There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."
- Douglas Adams
Bill Bonner, "Think Like An Argentine"
"Think Like An Argentine"
A local businessman explains how
"gringo" thinking misses the nuance...
by Bill Bonner
"When dem cotton balls get rotten
You can’t pick very much cotton..."
~ Lead Belly
“You need to think like an Argentine. You see everything in black or white…legal or illegal; that doesn’t work down here. Everything here is a shade of gray.” To our recent complaints against the simpleminded nuttiness of ‘us vs. them,’ good vs. evil, we add the advice came from a local businessman. We had driven out to a large, flat valley in the eastern part of Salta province. Farmers there cultivate as many as 75,000 acres – huge, industrial-scale agriculture.
Farm products are the source of Argentina’s wealth, and more importantly of her foreign exchange. And farmers – or, at least these farmers – seem prosperous. How do they do it?Prices are doubling every year. Many parts and supplies are almost impossible to get. And to make it worse, the government hands out so much “welfare” money, many people no longer want to do the hard work farms require.
A Time to Reap: “The ‘planes’ [various welfare programs] don’t give you a lot of money,” explained our retired foreman on Monday. “Some of the payments are only about $100 US per month. But a guy works full time on a farm; what does he get? Maybe only $350 for a month. I guess he figures the difference is just not worth it. And then, he forgets how to work. So, even if they want to get back on the job, they don’t have the habits they need. They’re no longer used to hard work…and can’t take it.”
Part of the secret to these large farms in the East is that they don’t need many people. Up at the ranch, we have 8 full time employees tending our grapes and herding our cattle. And when it is time to round up the cattle…or pick the grapes…we hire extras, when we can find them.
“Out here,” our business informant continued, “we might have only one employee per 5,000 acres. Everything is mechanized. The tractors are huge. So, are the planters and the harvesters. A guy might pass through the field just three or four times per year. He sprays on a herbicide to kill the weeds. He then goes over it with a planter; we don’t plow or disc up the soil. If we did, it would blow away. And then, he harvests. The genetically modified plants don’t need as much attention as they used to.” He was showing us a field planted with cotton.
The Inflation Tax: “See these plants. We used to have to fumigate 4 or 5 times to kill the bugs. Now, these plants have been improved. They’re poison to most of the insects that used to eat them. The bugs just drop dead.”
But the technical advances, here in Argentina, have been offset by political set-backs. These crops are designed for the global market…and expected to sell at world market prices. So, the government – desperate for revenue – imposes “retentions” on them. It’s a tax the gaucho feds collect even before any profit is made. That is, it’s a tax on the export of the commodities, whether you made any money producing them or not.
“That’s nothing,” our expert continued. “Inflation is running about 100%...so the inflation tax is about 50%. A year from now, your money will only be worth half of what it is now. What can we do? The seeds, machines, pesticides and other things we need are quoted in dollars. And we’ve got pesos. Every day, our costs go up. And we might have gotten our income – from selling a crop – a year ago.
Sometimes you can’t get anyone to take your crop for cash. All you can get is post-dated checks. And then, you just have to pray that the peso doesn’t lose too much value before you can cash your check. That’s why you’ve got to think like an Argentine, not like a gringo.
Sometimes we can’t get a tractor part here in Argentina, so we go to Bolivia….and then smuggle it back across the border. Some guys even take the corn they’ve grown in Argentina, and sneak it across the border and sell it there. Of course, it’s illegal…but what are we supposed to do? The government cheats us. We cheat the government. What a crazy society, but that’s the way it works. In Bolivia, you can sell your corn for dollars. And you pay no tax. That’s illegal too…but so what?”
BGT - A New Dimension: The Argentine tax collectors use satellites to keep an eye on what farmers are growing. When harvest time comes, they expect to be paid. “Yes, of course they do that,” explained our inside source. “The trick is to keep a set of records for most of your crops that appears impeccable. They must look so tight that the tax agents don’t question them. And then, when asked what happened to the corn or beans or cotton. You simply explain that it was attacked by bugs, or even though the plants looked good from the air, they produced no fruit. Or they dried up and we got nothing from that field. There are so many things that can go wrong in farming, they can’t argue with it...if your other records are in order. The foreigners [he looked at us gravely] never seem to get it. You think it’s either/or. Either it’s okay…or it’s not. Legal or illegal. Good or bad.”
Our interlocutor was adding a new dimension to our complaint about bad guy theory. “You may think I’m a ‘bad guy,’ as you put it, because I break the law. But I say, they’re the bad guys; they made laws we have to break. You say it’s dishonest. Or illegal. And, of course it is. But if farmers tried to comply with all the government’s laws, they’d go out of business. Who’d produce the food then?”
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