Full screen recommended.
Moody Blues, "Land of Make-Believe"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, March 30, 2023
"A Look to the Heavens"
"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.
Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”
The Poet: Mary Oliver, “The Journey”
“The Journey”
“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
- Mary Oliver
“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”
“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”
by Marc Chernoff
“Today, I’m sitting in my hospital bed waiting to have both my breasts removed. But in a strange way I feel like the lucky one. Up until now I have had no health problems. I’m a 69-year-old woman in the last room at the end of the hall before the pediatric division of the hospital begins. Over the past few hours I have watched dozens of cancer patients being wheeled by in wheelchairs and rolling beds. None of these patients could be a day older than 17.”
That’s an entry from my grandmother’s journal, dated 9/16/1977. I photocopied it and pinned it to my bulletin board about a decade ago. It’s still there today, and it continues to remind me that there is always, always, always something to be thankful for. And that no matter how good or bad I have it, I must wake up each day thankful for my life, because someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.
Truth be told, happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Imagine all the wondrous things your mind might embrace if it weren’t wrapped so tightly around your struggles. Always look at what you have, instead of what you have lost. Because it’s not what the world takes away from you that counts; it’s what you do with what you have left.
Here are a few reminders to help motivate you when you need it most:
1. Pain is part of growing. Sometimes life closes doors because it’s time to move forward. And that’s a good thing because we often won’t move unless circumstances force us to. When times are tough, remind yourself that no pain comes without a purpose. Move on from what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you. Just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. Every great success requires some type of worthy struggle to get there. Good things take time. Stay patient and stay positive. Everything is going to come together; maybe not immediately, but eventually.
Remember that there are two kinds of pain: pain that hurts and pain that changes you. When you roll with life, instead of resisting it, both kinds help you grow.
2. Everything in life is temporary. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you get hurt, you heal. After darkness there is always light – you are reminded of this every morning, but still you often forget, and instead choose to believe that the night will last forever. It won’t. Nothing lasts forever.
So if things are good right now, enjoy it. It won’t last forever. If things are bad, don’t worry because it won’t last forever either. Just because life isn’t easy at the moment, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh. Just because something is bothering you, doesn’t mean you can’t smile. Every moment gives you a new beginning and a new ending. You get a second chance, every second. You just have to take it and make the best of it.
3. Worrying and complaining changes nothing. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least. It’s always better to attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed. It’s not over if you’ve lost; it’s over when you do nothing but complain about it. If you believe in something, keep trying. Don’t let the shadows of the past darken the doorstep of your future. Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any brighter. Take action instead. Let what you’ve learned improve how you live. Make a change and never look back.
And regardless of what happens in the long run, remember that true happiness begins to arrive only when you stop complaining about your problems and you start being grateful for all the problems you don’t have.
4. Your scars are symbols of your strength. Don’t ever be ashamed of the scars life has left you with. A scar means the hurt is over and the wound is closed. It means you conquered the pain, learned a lesson, grew stronger, and moved forward. scar is the tattoo of a triumph to be proud of. Don’t allow your scars to hold you hostage. Don’t allow them to make you live your life in fear. You can’t make the scars in your life disappear, but you can change the way you see them. You can start seeing your scars as a sign of strength and not pain.
Rumi once said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most powerful characters in this great world are seared with scars. See your scars as a sign of “YES! I MADE IT! I survived and I have my scars to prove it! And now I have a chance to grow even stronger.”
5. Every little struggle is a step forward. In life, patience is not about waiting; it’s the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard on your dreams, knowing that the work is worth it. So if you’re going to try, put in the time and go all the way. Otherwise, there’s no point in starting. This could mean losing stability and comfort for a while, and maybe even your mind on occasion. It could mean not eating what, or sleeping where, you’re used to, for weeks on end. It could mean stretching your comfort zone so thin it gives you a nonstop case of the chills. It could mean sacrificing relationships and all that’s familiar. It could mean accepting ridicule from your peers. It could mean lots of time alone in solitude. Solitude, though, is the gift that makes great things possible. It gives you the space you need. Everything else is a test of your determination, of how much you really want it.
And if you want it, you’ll do it, despite failure and rejection and the odds. And every step will feel better than anything else you can imagine. You will realize that the struggle is not found on the path, it is the path. And it’s worth it. So if you’re going to try, go all the way. There’s no better feeling in the world… there’s no better feeling than knowing what it means to be ALIVE.
6. Other people’s negativity is not your problem. Be positive when negativity surrounds you. Smile when others try to bring you down. It’s an easy way to maintain your enthusiasm and focus. When other people treat you poorly, keep being you. Don’t ever let someone else’s bitterness change the person you are. You can’t take things too personally, even if it seems personal. Rarely do people do things because of you. hey do things because of them.
Above all, don’t ever change just to impress someone who says you’re not good enough. Change because it makes you a better person and leads you to a brighter future. People are going to talk regardless of what you do or how well you do it. So worry about yourself before you worry about what others think. If you believe strongly in something, don’t be afraid to fight for it. Great strength comes from overcoming what others think is impossible.
All jokes aside, your life only comes around once. This is IT. So do what makes you happy and be with whoever makes you smile, often.
7. What’s meant to be will eventually, BE. True strength comes when you have so much to cry and complain about, but you prefer to smile and appreciate your life instead. There are blessings hidden in every struggle you face, but you have to be willing to open your heart and mind to see them. You can’t force things to happen. You can only drive yourself crazy trying. At some point you have to let go and let what’s meant to be, BE.
In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, losing and finding happiness, cherishing the memories, and learning through experience. It’s a long-term journey. You have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting every step of the way. Laugh at the confusion, live consciously in the moment, and enjoy your life as it unfolds. You might not end up exactly where you intended to go, but you will eventually arrive precisely where you need to be.
8. The best thing you can do is to keep going. Don’t be afraid to get back up – to try again, to love again, to live again, and to dream again. Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart. Life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. There will be times when it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. And you might feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won’t. When you feel like quitting, remember that sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right. Sometimes you have to go through the worst, to arrive at your best.
Yes, life is tough, but you are tougher. Find the strength to laugh every day. Find the courage to feel different, yet beautiful. Find it in your heart to make others smile too. Don’t stress over things you can’t change. Live simply. Love generously. Speak truthfully. Work diligently. And even if you fall short, keep going. Keep growing. Awake every morning and do your best to follow this daily TO-DO list:
Think positively.
Eat healthy.
Exercise today.
Worry less.
Work hard.
Laugh often.
Sleep well.
Repeat…”
"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.
You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”
- Haruki Murakami
“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”
- Richelle E. Goodrich
"How Easy It Seems..."
“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”
- George R.R. Martin
Greg Hunter, "Lies, Nuttery & Craziness Everywhere in America – James Howard Kunstler"
"Lies, Nuttery & Craziness Everywhere in America –
James Howard Kunstler"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Renowned author and journalist James Howard Kunstler (JHK) has been complaining and pointing out that the American public is told one lie after another by the Lying Legacy Media (LLM), the government and the medical community. This kind of lying, according to JHK, is pure treason by all parties, from the 600 million CV19 bioweapon/vax injections, to the crumbling banking system, to the war in Ukraine. Let’s start with the genocide of the CV19vax. JHK says, “They are pretending that they didn’t cause any damage, and they are ignoring their own assembled statistics, and they don’t want to paint a realistic picture for the American public to see what the consequences were for their vaccination program. I don’t think they can suppress the reality of it that much longer. There are just too many people who know too many people who have been injured or killed by the vaccines. The basic problem is dishonesty puts you in a place of weakness, and the truth puts you in a position of strength. Eventually, if you are not being honest with yourself and the other people around you, you are going to be found out. They have to keep doubling and tripling down on narratives that are manifestly untrue, and pretty soon I think people are going to be super pissed off about how all this went down.”
With the banking crisis, JHK says the lie that everything is under control is going to be exposed too. JHK says, “When you are compelled to liquidate like Silicon Valley Bank, they are liquidating their assets below their supposed value and they become insolvent. I would imagine there is a great deal of damage waiting to express itself out there, and we haven’t seen much action in the derivatives racket so far, and that’s going to be a big deal when that happens because of the completely reckless contracts that are made. It’s really a bad bet, and the people taking the bet can’t pay off the bet, and the whole thing is really a disaster waiting to happen.”
JHK says the so-called reset is going to happen, but not the way Klause Schwab wants it to happen. All will go extremely local, and JHK says, “Social discourse will make it all much worse.”
The lies about Ukraine and the losing war started by NATO are summed up by JHK, “In retrospect, we could see why Donald Trump would want to have a phone call with Zelensky over the Biden family activities in Ukraine. The whole Ukraine portfolio is just a big bag of crap. Because of those activities, there is a war against the people, and that includes a war against Donald Trump. They are trying every way possible to shove him off the playing field. I think it is safe to say the U.S. government is not your friend.”
In closing, JHK says, “This is an extremely socially and politically perverse period of history. I grew up in the hippie period. It was quite based compared to the baseless nuttery and lunacy that this country is involved in now. The fact that there has to be any debate about drag queen story hour for children is amazing. That’s okay? Deliberately, demonstrable male imitation of a female. That’s supposed to be good for kids and not scare them? There is a uniform craziness across the culture, and people are being asked to swallow increasingly absurd propositions. That’s where we are now. We are being asked to swallow absurd ideas one after another.” There is much more in the 52-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One
with author and journalist James Howard Kunstler.
"200 Nukes Moving Now; USA Ends Pact; 2 Weeks To 'Dollar Crash'"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 3/30/23
"200 Nukes Moving Now; USA Ends Pact;
2 Weeks To 'Dollar Crash'"
Comments here:
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Col. Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls, 3/30/23
"No More Defense Lines to Stop The Russians"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current
geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
Comments here:
"Banking Crackdown - Shock and Anger!"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/30/23
"Banking Crackdown - Shock and Anger!"
"The FDIC chairman got in front of Congress this week, and made a complete fool of himself. We are seeing so many problems with the banking system right now. What other bank is about to fail? People are furious!"
Comments here:
"Grocery Price Are Skyrocketing At Kroger! This Is Not Good!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danny, 3/30/23
"Grocery Price Are Skyrocketing At Kroger!
This Is Not Good!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger, and are noticing massive price increases on groceries! This is not good as we are also seeing some empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products, and also charging extremely high prices!"
Comments here:
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
"You're Not Ready For What's Coming! Don't Be Fooled, This Is Just Beginning"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/29/23
"You're Not Ready For What's Coming!
Don't Be Fooled, This Is Just Beginning"
Comments here:
"Middle Class Families Can No Longer Afford Rent As Prices Hit Astronomical Levels"
Full screen recommended.
"Middle Class Families Can No Longer Afford
Rent As Prices Hit Astronomical Levels"
By Epic Economist
"A decent, safe, and affordable home is something all Americans need to thrive. For decades, low-income families have struggled to have access to affordable rental homes, but now this is a huge problem for the middle class, too. Millions of middle-income earners can’t afford rent in major U.S. cities due to the steep rise in prices recorded since the pandemic. Without significant pay raises or government assistance, these middle-class households are being shut out from typical middle-class neighborhoods, and this is triggering a chain reaction that leads to systemic poverty and lingering inequality. In other words, housing costs are squeezing the life out of middle-class Americans.
The typical home now costs about $80,000 more than it did just two years ago, and the average rent in the U.S. is over $1,000 more expensive than in 2020. Rents are climbing an average of 3.5% annually, the study found, while middle-class renters’ incomes have declined 9% over the past decade. In most metropolitan areas across the country, the American middle class has been spending far more on housing than they can afford, researchers found. The study highlights that 21.2% of middle-class homeowners and 46.3% of middle-class renters in the United States are either moderately or severely burdened by housing costs — defined as spending more than 30% or more than 50% of their income on housing, respectively.
"Ultimately, we're in a rental affordability crisis," noted Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a research associate with the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Believe it or not, 15 years ago, more than two-thirds of people who rented an apartment or a single-family home in the U.S. earned less than $30,000 a year, the study shows.
Every year that passes by, it gets even harder for middle-class renters who cannot qualify for subsidized housing to find affordable apartments on the market. Renters need to earn $21.21 an hour to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment in the U.S., according to the National Low Income Housing Council, significantly more than the average national hourly wage of $16.38. This is why 51% of renters in the middle class are unable to afford a place to live in most U.S. cities.
The savings that used to be associated with the middle class have dried up in the past few years, as wage growth stagnated. Not only does this make it harder for people to stay in the middle class, but it makes coming up with high sums to rent or buy city apartments impossible. “If there aren’t enough cheaper options, it becomes a chain, with a middle-class person living in an apartment a lower-income person might have occupied, and so on,” Apartment List Senior Research Associate Sydney Bennet said. “If you miss that gap in the middle for housing, it has a chain reaction.”
And the aftermath of that is systemic poverty and an increasingly unequal America, where only those at the very top of the economic chain can own their homes and build equity through properties while the middle class is hollowed out. This isn’t only a housing and rental crisis, this is the reflection of the crumbling foundations of a broken society. And nothing that our leaders are doing is making things any better. The financial meltdown that we’re witnessing today is a reminder that more distress is coming for everyday Americans. And sadly, it looks like real estate will be the next domino to fall."
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Courting the Moon"
Full screen recommended. Beautiful!
2002, "Courting the Moon"
"This song is from our latest album, 'Hummingbird.' A Mayan legend says that the hummingbird is actually the sun in disguise, and he is trying to court a beautiful woman, who is the moon."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What will become of these galaxies? Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive this collision. Typically when galaxies collide, a large galaxy eats a much smaller galaxy. In this case, however, the two galaxies are quite similar, each being a sprawling spiral with expansive arms and a compact core. As the galaxies advance over the next tens of millions of years, their component stars are unlikely to collide, although new stars will form in the bunching of gas caused by gravitational tides.
Close inspection of the above image taken by the 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile shows a bridge of material momentarily connecting the two giants. Known collectively as Arp 271, the interacting pair spans about 130,000 light years and lies about 90 million light-years away toward the constellation of Virgo. Recent predictions hold that our Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.”
Chet Raymo, “At Home In An Infinite Universe”
“At Home In An Infinite Universe”
by Chet Raymo
“They are questions that bedeviled thinkers for thousands of years: Is the universe infinite or finite, eternal or of a finite age? It is certainly hard to imagine a universe that extends without limit in every direction, or a universe without a beginning or end. It is equally difficult to imagine a finite universe; what is beyond the edge? Or a beginning or end in time; how can something come from nothing? how can what is cease to be?
The problems are so intractable philosophically that their resolution has generally been left to the theologians, which from a philosophical (or scientific) perspective offers no solution at all. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for proposing a philosophical resolution (an infinite universe) that offended theology.
An escape from befuddlement is provided by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which - for example - can describe a finite universe without a boundary, as the “two-dimensional” surface of a sphere is finite and without an edge. Unfortunately, multi-dimensional curved space-time is so counterintuitive that it is difficult to get one’s head around it without mastery of the mathematics. Given a choice between the ancient myths of your local preacher and the obtuse mathematics of the physics professor, it’s not hard to guess what most folks will opt for.
I have reviewed a book by physics professor Chad Orzel called “How To Teach Relativity To Your Dog.” It’s a fun romp, and clever pedagogy, but I can’t imagine it making the best seller list, much less displacing “Heaven Is For Real.”
Meanwhile, I’m reading a meditation on infinity by physics professor Anthony Aguirre, in a collection of essays called “Future Science.” He discusses contemporary cosmological theories based on general relativity, and in particular the rehabilitation of the idea of an infinite and eternal universe, or, more precisely, that our universe might be just one of an infinity of infinite universes. He writes in conclusion: “What seems clear, however, is that infinity can no longer be safely ignored; beautifully constructed, empirically supported, self-consistent theories have brought infinity from idle curiosity to central player in contemporary cosmology. And if correct, the worldview these theories represent constitutes a perspective shift unlike any other: in comparison to the universe, we would be not just small but strictly zero. Well, I can’t imagine many folks racing to embrace that conclusion."
Oh, but wait. Aguirre adds one final sentence: “Yet here we are, contemplating – if not quite understanding – it all.”
"Few Really Ask..."
“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world – few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can’t go on. To really ask is to open the door to a whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”
- Anne Rice, “The Vampire Lestat”
"The Pursuit Of Happiness Is An American Lie"
Gerald Celente, The Trends Journal 3/29/23
"The Pursuit Of Happiness Is An American Lie"
"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."
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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
"Questions..."
“Here’s a question every angry man and woman needs to consider: How long are you going to allow people you don’t even like – people who are no longer in your life, maybe even people who aren’t even alive anymore – to control your life? How long?”
- Andy Stanley
“That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we’d had the chance to talk before this,” he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. “There’s a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office – ‘There is no grief like the grief that does not speak’ – and it’s true. I’ve found that keeping pain inside doesn’t give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you’re strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn’t heal emotional wounds, and you don’t want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That’s how people self-destruct.”
- Laura Wiess
"Be Dignified, as a Rule"
"Be Dignified, as a Rule"
by David Cain
"Much of what you’ve read on this blog has been written in pajama pants. Writing directly follows meditation in my morning routine, so I’ve often gone right from the cushion to the coffeepot to the desk. Occasionally life would remind me that there are practical reasons to put on socially acceptable pants before beginning the workday. Someone could knock on the door, for example. But for the most part it seemed like an unnecessary formality that only added friction to the getting-to-work process.
Today I do get properly dressed before going to my desk, because it’s simply more conducive to productivity. Changing into leaving-the-house clothes gives me a “going to work” feeling, which is the kind of feeling you want whenever you’re going to work, even if your office is just across the hall.
Recently I noticed that this effect is stronger the better I dress. Jeans and a pullover are better than PJs and a hoodie. Proper slacks and a button-up shirt are even better. I’m sure an Edwardian waistcoat and tie would generate an even stronger feeling of being a dignified writer getting to work.
I thought it was interesting that this feeling of dignity often follows when you discover a better way to do a thing. Decent pants don’t just inspire a productive mentality, they also elevate the writer’s self-respect. Dusting a shelf after clearing it entirely, rather than by shuffling its contents around, improves the quality of the dusting but also just feels more dignified. Dutifully assembling your tools and ingredients before cooking, a practice known as mise en place, improves the food but also dignifies the cooking process, as well as the person doing it, because you’re no longer scrambling like Ricky Ricardo to find the right spices while your rice boils over.
Undignified
It only recently occurred to me that it actually works the other way around. Dignity doesn’t follow effectiveness as much as effectiveness follows dignity. We’re more engaged while reading from a beautiful hardcover than from a computer printout, or in a lamplit armchair rather than a plastic patio chair. Wine tastes better out of a spotless wineglass than from a paper cup. Perhaps we should have dignity foremost in mind whenever we do anything, because it’s an intuitive sense we all have, and it points the way to a thing done well.
It might sound like I’m equating my own aesthetic preferences to dignity. I like lamps and armchairs and wine, maybe you don’t. What feels dignified depends on the person, but we can always sense our own dignity, or lack thereof, in how we do a thing, even when nobody else is there to see it. Dignified doing has always spoken to me, although I haven’t known what to call it. I once wrote a post on Raptitude’s Patreon feed specifically about the dignity of looking up words in a real, paper dictionary — or rather the corrosive indignity of using an ad-riddled online one that you don’t even own.
Exudes purpose There are dignified and undignified ways to do everything. You might have noticed a subtle difference in how it feels to gently push a jar onto a crowded fridge shelf, forcing the other jars back and to the sides, and how much better it feels to make a space intentionally and then put the jar in it. A little more intentionality, a lot more dignity.
Technology tends to pull us away from this way of being, eroding dignity in the quest for speed, variety, or convenience. I find it more dignified, for example, to listen to music by playing a single album, rather than an AI-generated playlist. Instead of an infinite stream of algorithmically-similar songs, you get a coherent work as its artist intended. I have no vinyl collection, but anyone who does knows there is something spiritually superior about setting an LP onto a turntable rather than thumbing over to the same album on Spotify, sound fidelity aside.
I’m sure some proportion of our modern malaise comes from this sort of technology-induced dignity loss. The more our tools automate once-manual actions, and the more we access them all through the same lifeless touchscreen, the less intentionality and resolve there is behind whatever we’re doing. Maybe some friction and formality is a good thing, because it keeps our values in charge of the action, leaving less to momentum.
Ultimately it’s a choice though, and the dignified way is there whenever you look for it. I have a folding steamer basket I use almost daily. For a while one of the petals would come off if you held the thing sideways, so I made sure to handle it gingerly and keep it level. Finally I did the dignified thing: I got out a flathead screwdriver, sat down at the table, and carefully re-bent the metal flap that held the loose petal in place. Now it stays. The steaming of vegetables is a little easier of course, but the greater gain was in becoming the person who fixed the thing that needs fixing, and no longer the person oppressed by his faulty steamer basket.
Dignity isn’t only a matter of the tools, clothing, or the method with which you do a thing. It’s in the way of doing: the earnestness, the uprightness, the respect for the task and its doer. I’m endlessly inspired by a particular entry in Marcus Aurelius’s journal, in which he admonishes himself to do everything this way, to “do what comes to hand with a correct and natural dignity,” and to regard this way of being as the only thing the gods require of him.
Dignified to the end.
There have been periods, lasting hours or sometimes days, when I’ve settled into this dignified groove of doing one thing at a time, with undivided intention, devoting the whole self to each task, rather than applying just “enough” of the self to deal with it.
The sensation of being in this groove is like a calm version of surfing - you’ve caught a certain exhilarating momentum, you have to make frequent, intuitive adjustments to maintain it, and the roiling sea still surrounds you, but there’s no thought whatsoever of wanting to be anywhere else."
How It Really Is"
Hey, they have something big for you too, Good Citizen...
Same as it ever was, same as it ever will be...
"How Inflation Precipitates Societal Collapse"
Full screen recommended.
Academy of Ideas,
"How Inflation Precipitates Societal Collapse"
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"It's ALL Collapsing And They Don't Know How To Stop It"
Full screen recommended.
Redacted 3/29/23
"It's ALL Collapsing And They Don't Know How To Stop It"
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○
Gregory Mannarino, 3/29/23
"Alert! Hundreds Of Billions Being Pumped Into
A Dead System. This Entire Thing Is Fake"
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"Strange Prices At Target! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno 3/29/23
"Strange Prices At Target! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?!"
"In today's vlog we are at Target, and noticing some very confusing prices. Like every store right now, we are finding more, and more price increases on most products, including groceries! It's getting rough out here as prices continue to skyrocket!"
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"This is 2008 All Over Again"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 3/29/23
"This is 2008 All Over Again"
"We are getting a warning from Elon Musk, saying that this is 2008 all over again. He is talking about the high price of interest-rates and that we are going to see a commercial real estate apocalypse."
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"Middle Class Blues"
"Middle Class Blues"
Plus, sinking real estate, Marx vs. Lachmann,
dividing the elites and plenty more...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
San Martin, Argentina - "Uh oh. More bad news for the middle class. Fortune: "National home prices fall for the seventh straight month. On Tuesday, we learned that U.S. home prices as measured by the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller National Home Price Index fell for the seventh straight month in January. Since peaking in June, U.S. home prices have fallen 3% on a seasonally adjusted basis, and 5% without seasonal adjustment. That 3% drop in single-family house prices marks the second-biggest home price correction of the post–World War II era."
And this from the Wall Street Journal: "Most Americans Doubt Their Children Will Be Better Off, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds."An overwhelming share of Americans aren’t confident their children’s lives will be better than their own, according to a new Wall Street Journal-NORC Poll that shows growing skepticism about the value of a college degree and record-low levels of overall happiness."
Today and tomorrow, we look at it from a different angle…and see why it is likely to get whacked even harder.
“Don’t Fight the Fed” Karl Marx believed the driving force of social/political/economic history was the struggle between the classes. Richard Lachmann believed it was the struggle within various elite groups. Lachmann is probably more right than Marx. The masses pay taxes. They vote for their leaders. They die in wars. But they are not the deciders. Even revolutions are usually led by disenchanted members of the elite, not by the common man.
Lachmann is probably right, too, when he says the actual course of events is an accident…the product of competition between elite factions, along with unpredictable technological and social developments.
Not interested in macro, socio-historical blah-blah? We aren’t either. But ‘don’t fight the Fed’ has been good advice for the last 40 years. Will it be good advice for the next 40? The Fed controls monetary policy. And the federal government controls fiscal policy. Between the two of them, they decide the future of the US dollar…and the US economy. Naturally, we want to know what they’re up to.
Remember, is not by guessing, one day to the next, about stock prices, that you really make money on Wall Street. Instead, it is by being in the right place at the right time…and staying there as the Primary Trend runs its course. Recall, too, that the Primary Trend reversed itself – after 4 decades – in two turnarounds. The bond market hit a record high in July 2020. The last time it had done that was around the time we were born – in 1948. Since 2020, it has been going down.
And the stock market topped out at the end of 2021. The Dow rose over 36,000. It has been dropping ever since…with tempting bounces along the way. (One of the endearing features of a bear market is that it tries to take as many investors as possible down with it. Over the 40 years, 1982-2922, investors learned to BTFD [buy the dip]; now, every bounce leads them back into dip-buying…and then the market dips again.)
But back to Lachmann…Divide the Conquerors. In short, he may be on to something. And it may help us understand what is coming next. The elite have approximately $50 trillion in new wealth, thanks to the policy choices of their compadres at the Fed and the federal government over the last 30 years. Congress spent money it did not have. And the Fed financed the deficits at ultra-low interest rates. Those low rates were responsible for an orgy of borrowing and spending that 1) raised corporate profits and asset prices, 2) provided vast funds for elite projects (such as stock buybacks…the invasion of Iraq…the Covid Lockdown…), and 3) led to today’s $90 trillion debt burden.
Historically, the US could comfortably carry debt equal to 1.5 times GDP. That is, for every dollar of output (GDP) we could afford $1.50 worth of claims against it (debt). But the Fed’s way-too-low, for way-too-long interest rate policy distorted the old relationships. Had normal interest rates produced normal debt levels, we’d have total debt today of about $40 trillion. Instead, we have $90 trillion…or $50 trillion too much.
Who will decide what happens to the excess? Not the voters! The deciders will decide. And there are only two broad possibilities. Deflation or inflation. Either the excesses are reckoned with in the traditional, honest way – with bankruptcies, defaults, and market crashes. Or, they are inflated away.
Clearly, the elite prefer inflation, because much of the ultimate cost will fall on the public, not on themselves. But here is where it gets interesting. Lachmann tells us that when the elite is divided, it often cannot get what it wants. Republicans vs. Democrats…conservatives vs. liberals…left vs. right – are the internal divisions so deep that the elite cannot stick together… and stick it to the common man? Tune in tomorrow for more…"
Joel’s Note: "While residential real estate prices continue their downturn, analysts have their noses to the screens monitoring the looming crisis in the $20 trillion commercial real estate market. Here’s the Washington Post: "The initial banking crisis is easing. Another may be around the corner. Commercial real estate could become a problem for midsize banks. Federal authorities still grappling with the banking crisis caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank are already beginning to worry about the next potential bomb to go off in the nation’s financial system.
In the White House, Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, policymakers are examining the potential risks posed by the approximately $20 trillion market for commercial real estate, which some analysts project is heading for a crash over the next two years, according to four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations."
Bonner Private Research readers will be familiar with this theme… one we’ve covered on and off for the past few months. Here’s Bill, musing just last week…"The banking sector that saw the most growth over the past 10 years was commercial real estate. In the Bubble Epoch, it paid to borrow money at very low interest rates – from banks – in order to buy commercial buildings.
But then, what happened? At first, prices rose nicely and speculators made money. Cometh the Covid Hysteria, however, the bets went bad. Buildings emptied out. And still, 3 years after Trump’s emergency decree, they’re far from back to normal. Our employees in Baltimore, for example, have learned to work from home. They don’t want to come back to the office. And as a result, we have buildings that are half empty…and some that are completely empty.
And BPR investment director, Tom Dyson, from his January report to members…"The entire commercial real estate industry operates at massive leverage. What do owners do when an asset appreciates in value? They borrow more money against it, as the owners of this building must have done. Then, because owners always seek to maximize leverage, any significant fall in property values ensures huge swathes of the industry turns into negative equity.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week reports that San Francisco’s largest landlord, Veritas, has just defaulted on a $448m loan. The loan is secured by a portfolio of 1,734 rent-controlled units in 62 buildings across San Francisco." Here’s another story, from Globe St, published yesterday. A company called Chetrit Group from New York is looking to sell a portfolio of 43 buildings in order to pay off a floating rate $481m loan that it can no longer afford.
Are these stories just random misfortunes or are they the tip of an iceberg that hasn’t been revealed yet? I’m inclined to think it’s an iceberg, but we’ll have to wait and see... In San Francisco, office vacancy rates hit 30% for the first quarter of 2023. Back east, meanwhile, brokerage firm Savills calculates that close to 19% of all high-end office space in Manhattan was available for lease in the fourth quarter of 2022, up from just 11.5% in early 2019.
The pandemic sent the kids home to work… now they don’t want to come back. The situation is such that, earlier this week, the world’s sometimes-richest man, Elon Musk called the state of the commercial real estate debt market ‘by far the most serious looming issue.’ Translation: Iceberg ahead!"
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
"The American Way: No Peace, Only War. U.S. Track Record Proves It"
Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal" 3/28/23
"The American Way: No Peace, Only War.
U.S. Track Record Proves It"
"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."
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"Kroger Hit By A Flood Of Store Closures As A Nightmarish Scenario For Retail Bankruptcies Begins"
Full screen recommended.
"Kroger Hit By A Flood Of Store Closures As A
Nightmarish Scenario For Retail Bankruptcies Begins"
by Epic Economist
"Now one of the most famous grocery chains in the U.S. is getting hit by a massive wave of store closings as a nightmarish scenario for retail bankruptcies starts to unfold. Earlier this month, a spokesperson confirmed that Kroger is shuttering multiple stores, and by early 2024 over 400 locations could go dark permanently. Thousands of jobs will be slashed and many communities may lose their main grocer. And the worst part is that Kroger will not be the only one.
The news came as a surprise to many, given that Kroger has been a staple in the grocery industry for decades. "As part of a recent real estate portfolio review, we expect to close 11 stores in April," Teresa Dickerson, a Kroger spokesperson, said in a March 2 press release. "The closing stores, on average, are approximately 30% larger than our current prototype and are underperforming financially."
But according to the source, these initial closings will pale in comparison to what is coming in the months ahead. The compounding effects of lower demand and the rise of online grocery shopping and delivery services are hurting traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. The looming closures are also part of a larger restructuring plan for the struggling company.
As it attempts to save its business and snap a bigger market share in the U.S., Kroger is merging with Albertsons. However, the merger will not be completed without some deep cost-cutting efforts. The grocers will be forced to sell and close hundreds of locations. The firm reports that the merger will see between 250 and 300 Kroger and Albertsons stores sold by November 2023. On top of that, another 400 locations are going to be shuttered so that both companies can pass regulatory guidelines.
The loss of these locations combined will result in a financial hit of approximately $5 billion for the retailers. And the final number of closings could be even higher due to the fact that the grocery chains are being sued by government officials and consumers in California, Texas, and Florida, who filed a lawsuit against the deal, alleging the merger would cause increased grocery prices and fewer choices for customers.
Unfortunately, they’re not alone. There is evidence that consumer spending is falling faster than during the 2008 recession, savings are also declining and debt levels are surging at a breathtaking pace. All of this is worsening the outlook for retail. The industry has seen over 2,600 store closures in the past 12 months. In total, 391 retail companies filed for bankruptcy in 2022, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. But this year, the situation could be much more alarming.
A nightmare scenario for bankruptcies has been forming since December last year when companies reported the lowest holiday sales in over a decade. With economic activity gradually freezing, interest rates deteriorating credit conditions for businesses, and the threat of a deep recession at our door, companies should brace for expect considerably more distress in the months ahead. All signs point to a real bloodbath for the sector, and the recent store shutdowns are proof that the carnage has only just begun."
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