Indian Lake, New York, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, July 7, 2023
The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "Darkness Falls"
"Darkness Falls"
"Darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible things
that wanted more than there was.
All our days are marked with
unexpected affronts -
some disastrous, others less so,
but the process is
wearing and continuous.
Attrition rules.
Most give way,
leaving empty spaces
where people should be.
And now,
as we ready to self-destruct,
there is very little left to kill,
which makes the tragedy
less and more,
much, much more. "
- Charles Bukowski
"A Long March Through The Night..."
"The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in times of despair."
- Bertrand Russell
"Gregory Mannarino, Stansberry Research, PM 7/7/23"
"It's a Big Club and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club.'
- George Carlin
Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/7/23
"More Talk Of Food Shortages, Resource Scarcity.
Be Ready For Anything"
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Stansberry Research, PM 7/7/23
"The Fed Needs Inflation to Survive,
U.S. Is Living on Borrowed Money and Time"
“America is falling. You have a situation [where] we’re living on borrowed money. We’re living on borrowed time,” says Greg Mannarino, founder of traderschoice.net and financial strategist. He paints a bleak picture of the American economy as indicated by the inverted yield curve. Mannarino also expresses skepticism about the authenticity of newly released job data. “It’s not checked by a third party. There’s no bearing on reality. The economy is in free-fall. People are maxed out.” Plus, he warns a new market crash coming because the Federal Reserve “artificially suppressed rates,” reinflating a bubble. “If action is not taken by central banks to keep rates suppressed more than they are now… this market is going down a lot from here.” He also predicts a debt market meltdown, claiming that the Fed has to buy the debt and “create cash out of nothing” to keep targeted interest rates. “A central bank’s power sides in only one thing.. and that is its ability to inflate,” he concludes."
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Douglas Macgregor, "The Truth About the Ukraine War"
Douglas Macgregor, 7/7/23
"The Truth About The Ukraine War"
"Russians Have Brought in an Additional 400,000 Reservists"
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Hindustan Times 7/7/23
"Ukraine Trembles as Putin Places 180,000 Troops
Near Bakhmut; Kyiv Says 'Pretty Powerful Grouping'”
"Ukraine claimed that Russia has stationed more than 1,80,000 troops on two major Eastern battlefronts. "Kyiv called the Russian build-up a 'pretty powerful grouping'. A Ukrainian official further cited possibilities of Russian offensive actions from the side of Bakhmut. Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar also confirmed frequent clashes near Bakhmut."
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"Walmart Is A Complete Nightmare! A Wreck, A Fight, And Massive Price Increases!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/7/23
"Walmart Is A Complete Nightmare!
A Wreck, A Fight, And Massive Price Increases!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Walmart and are noticing that grocery prices are getting unaffordable. This was a complete disaster as we also saw a bad car wreck and a bad fight break out right at the front entrance of Walmart. It's getting rough out here as every grocery store we visit is raising their prices to extreme levels!"
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"Nine Meals from Anarchy"
by Jeff Thomas
"In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky. The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport or even walking, if necessary.
But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbor with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbor and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”
There’s no need to speculate on this concern yet. There’s nothing so alarming on the evening news yet to suggest that such a problem might be on the horizon. So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy, and see whether there might be reason for concern.
The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally, wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This a system that’s still fully operative, but with no further wiggle room, should it take a significant further hit.
If there were a month where significant inflation took place (The Feds lie say 9.1%; really now at least 17%), all profits would be lost for the month for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.
From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, and to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly capitalized.
In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.
However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighborhood seeking food. The real danger would come when that store also closes and both neighborhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighborhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.
In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.
Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s a historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.
Then… unfortunately… the cavalry arrives. At that point, it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighborhoods where the riots are the worst, even if those retailers are unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers.
Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighborhoods, and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place. (If truckers could afford $5.75 a gallon diesel fuel.)
So, what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. (US debt as of October 2022: $31.12 trillion; World debt as of Feb. 2022: $303 trillion.) In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They will most certainly pop.
With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain priced. Therefore, asset holders will drop their prices repeatedly as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.
Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. A by-product of this conundrum is reflected in the photo above. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.
In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.
Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured."
"This Is What Panic Looks Like"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/7/23
"This Is What Panic Looks Like"
"People are getting desperate for money. They’re starting to look for different ways to pay bills. People are also looking to borrow against their IRA and 401(k) at a record pace."
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Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 7/7/23"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 7/7/23"
Supply Chain Break, War Theft, Economy Update
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"The story that will most affect you is the possible strike by UPS. Why is that? UPS carries about 60% of the nation’s packages, and if this strike happens at the end of July, the supply lines are going to get clogged - really clogged. FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service and other shippers can in no way pick up the slack. If there is something you need, you will have to order it now or possibly wait months. Even if the strike only goes on for a short while, it will cause much longer wait times for just about everything you need. So, get it now to be on the safe side.
I have been covering the Ukraine war since the very first sanction. I predicted the sanctions would backfire, and every one did backfire on NATO and Europe. Why do these folks want to keep on with the war and not have any talk of peace? Journalist Max Blumenthal says it’s all about the money the Uni-party is stealing by keeping the carnage in Ukraine going. Blumenthal gave a stunning presentation at the U.N. last week talking about the $150 billion ripped off from taxpayers so far. He also gives a long list of grifters inside and outside the U.S. government who are cashing in on death. It’s everything you want to know about the Ukraine war in 15 interesting and entertaining minutes. (You can see it or read the transcript here.) The most important point Blumenthal makes is we are temping nuclear war so a few greedy reckless people can make huge amounts of money.
They are telling us the economy is strong, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Fed is straight up telling us that interest rates are going up. That is going to melt down an already deeply troubled commercial real estate market while thumping residential to boot. Meanwhile, credit card use has exploded while rates on that borrowed money are at an all-time high. To add insult to injury, one of the top search terms on Google is “Pawn Shop Near Me.” That can’t be good." There is much more in the 45-minute newscast.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 7/7/23.
Jim Kunstler, "Father of Our Country"
"Father of Our Country"
by Jim Kunstler
“If cocaine is so prevalent in the West Wing that there is somehow ‘extra’ cocaine just laying around, when is the White House going to start drug testing its employees?”
- Margot Cleveland
"Consider for a moment, and be grateful for, how perfect “Joe Biden” is as president of this foundering republic. He and his family project the rectified essence of every depravity now driving the life of our nation to some murky bottom, where it may be forced to assess its sorry state, repent, and perhaps recover (or just give up and die). There he stands, without ambiguity or conscience: “Joe Biden,” the personification of a failed state.
As a criminal enterprise, for instance, the Biden family influence-peddling operation among foreign powers reflects exactly the racketeering character of corporate America today - which is to say, making money dishonestly, and often for doing nothing. In America’s biggest industry, finance, this is absolutely the case. You may have forgotten what finance is, and what it’s supposed to do: namely, to lend money for activities intended to produce things of value, useful things that people need and want, sometimes even public works that benefit everyone in society.
American Finance now is in the business of receiving free money (loans at minimal interest) from government-chartered central banks (issuing “credit” from nowhere), that banks, hedge funds, private equity outfits, and sundry freebooters can roll into instruments such as interest-yielding bonds (loans back to government) and derivatives (algorithmic bets derived, abstracted from, and tuned to market movements) magically multiplying money that finally produces nothing of value - though it may translate into yacht purchases, alimony payments, luxury suites at ballparks, private Caribbean islands, and traffic in humans for use as sex toys.
The Biden business model also applies nicely to medicine and higher education, two endeavors saturated in prestige and pomp, like the doings in the White House, but which, similarly to that hotbed of policy and action, in the case of medicine, produces shocking amounts of unnecessary death (est. 251,000 a year from iatrogenic treatment errors), and in the case of higher ed, the production of specious and harmful Big Ideas - while both endeavors expand like turbo-tumors within the dying body of an expiring manufacturing economy.
As in the Biden model, dishonesty is now the keystone in both “Meds” and “Eds.” Our public health officialdom hasn’t stopped lying about the Covid-19 episode since it began, and in every aspect from the origin of the disease (if that’s even what it was), to the deaths statistically attributed to it, to everything about the “vaccines” cooked up to stop it. In turn, those officials coerced America’s doctors into withholding the best treatments (ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine) while applying deadly protocols (remdesivir plus intubation) guaranteed to kill hospital patients - which the government then rewarded with gargantuan bonus payments.
Higher ed has now turned its energies from learning to political activism, meaning the performance of morality preening stunts for acquiring status under the pretense of addressing social problems that boil down to bad behavioral choices and mental illness. Higher ed is now in the business of generating more of both those things in the form of manufactured racial antagonism and sexual torment (in partnership with the medical establishment). All fields of study in college are now racialized and genderized, and all at the expense of organized knowledge, which gets burdened with fatuous theory and spurious crypto-religious missions. The price of admission to this carnival of fakery multiplies at a faster rate than the generalized annual dollar inflation, abetted by federal loan guarantees that “Joe Biden,” in his munificence, seeks to abridge with a jubilee for student debt.
Of course, it’s the fantastic psychodrama within the Biden family that presents the most arresting model for America. “Joe Biden” tells us over and over that he loves his son, who he calls “the smartest man I know.” A father’s love is a wonderful thing, for sure. And yet, is there anything that Hunter Biden has not done to destroy “the Big Guy,” short of, say, driving a number nine knitting needle ear-to-ear through the old man’s skull?
Look at what Hunter has loosed on his loving dad: a photo archive of amateur pornography (including sex acts with children), drug crime, and bribery deal memos so vast and clear-cut that a first-year law student could write them up into a federal criminal case and/or a bill of impeachment. Hunter went and got a pole-dancer pregnant and lately tried to weasel out of paying to support the daughter he refused to acknowledge until DNA testing pinned it on him. He only just wriggled out of tax evasion and handgun charges due to his father enlisting the US DOJ as a private protection service, thus befouling the agency and destroying the public’s trust in it. Now Hunter’s suspected of leaving a bag of cocaine in a West Wing cubby, where White House security was sure to find it.
What we’re witnessing is an order of magnitude greater than Greek tragedy: the implacable drive to destroy not just the father, who happens (by the sheerest electoral subterfuge) to be president, but to take down the nation with him. And it’s working. The Biden family is crashing into smoldering wreckage, and so is the USA - as acted out in the sad-sack nation of Ukraine, a festering hub of Biden family moneygrubbing going back more than a decade, now being needlessly sacrificed as part of a massive criminal cover-up, with America’s geopolitical prestige on-the-line.
I know, the complexity of this melodrama is overwhelming. How can one bumbling political idiot wreak so much havoc? It’s a wonder, all right. But it’s all playing-out before us in real time. “Joe Biden” - who (let’s face it) is only partly there - Hunter, brother Jim, and the rest of this sorry clan are all going down. We won’t miss them when they're gone. Everything about them is ignoble, which you can’t exactly say about our country itself. One way or another, they will be thrown overboard, and then we’ll see if we can get this ship righted and under sail again."
Bill Bonner, "How the Rich Live"
Taormina seen from the Greek theater.
"How the Rich Live"
Sex, money, power and the false god of equality...
by Bill Bonner
Taormina, Sicily - "This is how the rich live. We look out over the Ionian Sea…at the yachts…and the sun glistening on the water. We ask the waiter for another ‘macchiato.’ We are beside the pool. Young women wear such skimpy bikinis, we can scarcely believe our eyes. We have to get closer to verify it; we don’t want to pass along misinformation. We’ll come back tomorrow for confirmation.
Our hotel, the San Domenico Palace, sits on a cliff, with a stunning view of the Ionian Sea, looking out towards Calabria in Italy. It was one of the sets for the TV show, The White Lotus. We see why it would be. It is full of rich people in a rich setting seeking to distract themselves by acting like rich people.
It’s nature’s way. People get a lot of money; they must get rid of it somehow. Some buy the latest tech stocks. Some open their own hotels or restaurants. And some are content to take advantage of the amenities at the Four Seasons in Taormina…and cavort with other rich people.
Oscar, Eddie and Audrey: "Here’s what the hotel says about itself: "One of the world’s most legendary hotels, San Domenico Palace invites you to embark on an epic journey into history. With origins dating back to 1374, this classic Dominican convent was expanded in 1896 to become a hotel, featuring a new building designed in liberty style. For more than a century, San Domenico Palace has welcomed the world’s most illustrious guests – from Oscar Wilde and King Edward VIII to Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren."
At breakfast yesterday, we saw no sign of Oscar, Edward or Audrey. Instead, there were people who might have been Mustafa, Rahul or Omar. A young couple sat near us. The man was heavy, unattractive, wearing brightly colored shorts and a tee-shirt. The woman, dark haired, was his opposite. Slender. Pretty. The two seemed bored with each other. He ate his breakfast, ignoring her. She tried to make conversation, but got only a grunt in return. She made a pouty face and turned to her phone. Rich people having fun!
Room with a view.
The Peacock Walk: The most fundamental drive of humans is survival. The next is procreation. This second one is the interesting one; it takes an infinite number of sizes, shapes, and disguises. It is why we have wars, Swiss watches and the San Domenico Palace hotel.
Heads swivel towards wealth or fame. Eyes are easily blinded by the pixie dust of power…and bulge at the swimming pool. But for the sake of Dear Readers, your editor tries to keep his wits about him…recording the human comedy faithfully, rather than acting like one of the comic characters himself. It is a romantic comedy…a ‘rom com,’ as they say in Hollywood. Boy meets girl. Girl rejects boy. Boy goes to Wall Street, makes a pile of money. Boy invites girl for a weekend at the San Domenico Palace. Boy gets girl. Girl later divorces him.; takes half his money…and the family dog.
How boys and girls…or boys and boys…girls who used to boys…boys pretending to be girls…and non-binary people with piercings and green hair…get together is not only the subject of countless movies, it is the sotto voce story of our lives…and all the world’s vanities, power struggles and quests for wealth.
We men need to show ourselves and others that we have the brightest feathers on the peacock walk. We do so in endless iterations, many of them contradictory, senseless, and futile. We play chess to win the game. We wear the latest styles…or dismiss them as fads. We spend our money to show off…or hoard it to show how prudent we are. One man feels superior because he lifts weights. Another knows he has a leg up because he reads books. And yet another does neither – and regards it as an emblem of superiority.
False Gods: It’s why ‘equality’ is a false god. Nobody really wants to be equal…we all want to be superior. We want to stand out. That’s the way the animal kingdom (including us) works…by discriminating, good from bad, better from worse, winners from losers. In the end, we all want to ‘get the girl’ (the prize…the recognition…the love…the money). All of it, from the most petty insult to the conquest of Gaulle, is rooted in the fertile soil of sex.
At least, that is our view, which we share (perhaps) with Lucretius and Epicurus. The desire to be better…superior…Numero Uno...is the motor force of progress…the real success secret of the human race. We innovate to impress; we impress to reproduce. Even monks, who live in a cloister, and have taken a vow of chastity, do so because it makes them feel better about themselves, (so they would be better mates…if they were into that sort of thing.)
In the world of money, some make it by inventing new computer chips. Others take it from them by producing fine wines and building elegant hotels. This insight, if it is one, has little practical application. But at least it gives us a hard surface from which to launch our ruminations.
Note that this view emphasizes the relative nature of wealth. While some people innovate to get ahead…others get ahead by trying to force others behind. Even the campaign for ‘equality’ is just another way for some people to feel better about themselves. First, they feel superior simply because they have fashionable opinions – showing the proper concern for the poor. Second, wealth equality can only be achieved by leveling down…reducing the wealth of the rich and thereby making the non-rich relatively richer. This helps us understand why so much of politics seems so stupid; the real goal of it is not to increase human progress, happiness or wealth, but to take it away from some (those who create it) and give it to others (those favored by the elite who control the government).
The math is easy to understand. You and your neighbor each have $100. If you earn another 50 dollars, you’re $50…or a third…richer than he is. If he could prevent you from earning more money, he would remain – relatively – rich. And if he could take away $50 from you, you’d have only $50 left, while he’d have $150 – three times richer! He can go to the San Domenico Palace…you’ll have to stay at home."
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert"
Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert"
"Nuclear PSA Alert! Consulates Close; The Only Plan Left is This; 500,000 Mobilizing"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 7/6/23
"Nuclear PSA Alert! Consulates Close;
The Only Plan Left is This; 500,000 Mobilizing"
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Context...
"Douglas Macgregor: Devastating Strike!"
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"Disney Is In Deep, Deep Trouble As Major Losses Threaten To Collapse Its Retail Business"
Full screen recommended.
"Disney Is In Deep, Deep Trouble As Major Losses
Threaten To Collapse Its Retail Business"
By Epic Economist
"Disney is in financial distress as its latest movie releases result in billionaire losses while its retail footprint continues to shrink, its streaming service underperforms, and its Florida amusement parks face political battles with state government Ron DeSantis. The company’s poor financial results are worrying Wall Street and sending shares into a free fall at a time when bankruptcies in the entertainment sector continue to rise. Experts say CEO Bob Iger has a huge problem on his hands, and in today’s video, we break down the troubles facing the House of Mouse.
A new analysis by Valliant Renegate estimates that the Walt Disney Company is looking at a $900 million loss following the fiasco of its latest releases. The last eight studio movies put out by the entertainment giant had a very weak performance compared to executives' expectations.
CEO Bob Iger has been facing increasing pressure due to the mounting losses, but he has also been dealing with a political battle against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is trying to take over Disney World's theme park district. The conflict between DeSantis and Disney started in 2022 after the entertainment enterprise, in the face of rising backlash, publicly opposed legislation concerning a bill that banned schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity for the state’s students.
In retaliation, DeSantis took over Disney World's governing district through legislation passed by lawmakers and established a new board of supervisors. But the truth is that Disney’s amusement park problems in Florida are small in comparison to the issues facing its online and brick-and-mortar retail operations.
The company’s streaming media business is going from bad to worse this year. According to data shared by Reuters, “Walt Disney Co faced streaming losses by $400 million in the prior quarter and also shed subscribers in Q1 2023.” Overall, the entertainment corporation lost $659 million just on its streaming segment. Subscriptions dropped to 157.8 million from 161.8 million. In total, the company is seeing a loss of over $1.5 billion. Additionally, Iger announced that two dozen physical locations in America will be eliminated before the end of 2023.
Wall Street is extremely worried about the headwinds faced by Disney, and investors punished the company for its latest earnings report. Amid multiple controversies and shakeups, The Walt Disney Company’s stock price is nowhere near where it once was, losing 117% of its value since 2021. Since the beginning of the year, shares plunged by almost 20%. Financial experts say that the selloff was fueled by uncertainty over Iger’s takeover of the company.
So far, the new CEO has not turned the company around. His, so far, has not been successful. Instead, he laid off 7,000 workers in a cost-cutting move. The cuts come as he tries to slash $5.5 billion in costs to keep the business afloat. The outlook is truly concerning, especially amid a trend of billionaire bankruptcies in the entertainment industry. This year alone, Vice Media, Regal Cinemas, which owns CineWorld and National CineMedia filed for bankruptcy due to a massive drop in revenue and loss of profitability. The environment is getting more hostile for US businesses as Americans continue to struggle financially. The future of Disney is on the line, and now more than ever, executives must step up their game to save the legacy of Walt Disney."
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"Americans Are Panic Selling To Pawn Shops"; Financing Your Wannabe Millionaire Lifestyle"
Jeremiah Babe, 7/6/23
"Americans Are Panic Selling To Pawn Shops";
Financing Your Wannabe Millionaire Lifestyle"
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"A Look to the Heavens"
“Planetary nebula Abell 78 stands out in this colorful telescopic skyscape. In fact the colors of the spiky Milky Way stars depend on their surface temperatures, both cooler (yellowish) and hotter (bluish) than the Sun. But Abell 78 shines by the characteristic emission of ionized atoms in the tenuous shroud of material shrugged off from an intensely hot central star. The atoms are ionized, their electrons stripped away, by the central star's energetic but otherwise invisible ultraviolet light.
The visible blue-green glow of loops and filaments in the nebula's central region corresponds to emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms, surrounded by strong red emission from electrons recombining with hydrogen atoms. Some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Cygnus, Abell 78 is about three light-years across. A planetary nebula like Abell 78 represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience... in about 5 billion years.”
Chet Raymo, "Why We Need Poets"
"Why We Need Poets"
by Chet Raymo
"The poet Jane Hirshfield referred in a poem to the number of atoms it takes to make a butterfly. Ten to the 24th power, I think she said. I thought I'd check it out. A typical butterfly might weigh about half a gram. The exact ratio of elements I don't know, but mostly hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Let's assume an atomic weight of ten for a typical atom; that is, an atom with ten nuclear particles (Hydrogen=1, carbon= 12, oxygen=16, and so on). A proton or neutron has a weight of about 1.6 X 10-24 grams. About 3 X 1022 atoms in a butterfly.
If I'm remembering Hirshfield's reference correctly (and I may not be), we are off by one or two orders of magnitude. No matter. It's a very big number. You want to make a butterfly? You will need 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. And every one in exactly the right place.
If I'm remembering Hirshfield's reference correctly (and I may not be), we are off by one or two orders of magnitude. No matter. It's a very big number. You want to make a butterfly? You will need 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. And every one in exactly the right place.
Now consider the miracle of metamorphosis. The caterpillar builds a chrysalis. Wraps itself up in its closet. And there, in the privacy of its self-sufficiency, it rearranges those arrangements of atoms. The caterpillar's six stumpy front feet are turned into the butterfly's slender legs. Four wings develop, as do reproductive organs. Chewing mouthparts become adapted for sucking. A crawling, insatiable, leaf-eater is transformed into a winged, sex-obsessed nectar sipper.
This is why we need poets. It's one thing to count atoms, or draw diagrams of the 22 amino acids, or suss out their sequence on the long chains that are the proteins. Or read out the genome that controls the machinery that turns a creeping leaf-cruncher into a winged angel. But all that biochemistry, as wonderful as it is, leaves the essential mystery intact. The hum. The unceasing hum that is life. The inextinguishable continuity. Sing, poets. Sing your hosannas."
The Poet: Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas
“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”
“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”
by
Robert Fulghum
“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check. I was outraged.
On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.
That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.
I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him. I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.
I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.
As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.
“Fulchum, are you finished?”
“No. Why?”
Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.”
“So what’s wrong with me?”
“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.
Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.
For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?”
I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”
"We Are About to Lose It All"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 7/6/23
"We Are About to Lose It All"
"It’s crazy. Retail theft is at an all time high. When you apply for a job, they want you to have all your personal information. Website, history, social media, history, and now you’re biometric data. It’s over, Johnny."
Comments here:
The Poet: Maya Angelou, "When You Know Better, Do Better"
Full screen recommended.
Maya Angelou,
"When You Know Better, Do Better"
"Sometime In Your Life..."
"Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even."
- Daniel Berrigan
"Our Alleged President Is a Corrupt Scumbag and the Ruling Class Is OK With That"
"Our Alleged President Is a Corrupt Scumbag
and the Ruling Class Is OK With That"
by Kurt Schlichter
"It’s undeniable that PINO – President-In-Name-Only – Joe Biden is massively corrupt in every possible way. From leveraging his position as vice-president for cash to covering up for his meth-addled, stripper-banging, scumbag son – who is currently spilling his Bolivian party powder all over the White House – this senile pervert is a one-man crimewave. And the ruling class simply doesn’t care. If anything, its members are happy about it. This is not something they merely excuse. This is something that they find a positive good. Grandpa Badfinger reset the corruption bar for all of them. Now they too can now freely line their own pockets without fear of shame or prosecution while sending us proles an unequivocal message – we can do whatever we want.
As the gang at the Ruthless podcast (who I’m scheduled to visit next month) observe, this is not about hypocrisy. We’re so far past “Imagine the scandal if Trump did that!” This is about hierarchy. This is to show you that they have power and there is nothing you can do about it. But I’m unconvinced they are thinking this through.
Granted, it’s bad now and will likely get worse before it gets worse – for them. Let’s understand something. Nothing is ever going to happen to Joe Biden regarding his massive criminal enterprise. Nada. Zip. Asa Hutchinson’s chances in the primaries.
Sure, Crusty is probably going to get impeached somewhere down the road, once the Republicans gather all the evidence they can, and there’s a lot of evidence. It’s damning. And it does not matter because Democrats support the PINO’s graft. While the impeachment will barely squeak through the House on a pure party line vote, it’ll go over and die in the Senate. Not a single Democrat – well, maybe election-year Manchin – will vote for it. Understand that to the Democrat Party, power is more important than any of our norms, rules and/or customs. We constantly hear about “Our Democracy,” despite us being a Republic. Well, Our Democracy, Our Butt. It doesn’t mean a nation run by citizens to them. It means the nation run by them.
So, Joe Biden will skate on being impeached, as will that loathsome Stasi clerk Merrick Garland, and whatever that idiot’s name is who runs Homeland Security and left the border wide open. There will be no accountability because there is no accountability. The ruling class figured out that if they just refuse to abide by the rules that used to exist, there’s no cosmic referee out there who will descend from the sky and enforce them. The regime media certainly isn’t going to do it. You just bullSchiff your way through, you commit a bunch of crimes, and you keep your position and your prestige. That’s great for the elite in the short-term. It’s not so great for Our Democracy in the long term. But the elite does not want citizens to have a say in our government. It does not want us to have a saying in anything. It wants us to be disenfranchised, disarmed, defeated, and sometimes deceased.
Look at all the norms and the rules and the guardrails that have been bulldozed away and you might well wonder what the bottom of this slippery slope is going look like. But those of us with a glancing familiarity with history don’t wonder. We know the answer, and the answer is not particularly nice. In the short-term, America will stumble along under the New Corruption for a while, but over time this is unsustainable. These guys are running our country on the fumes of the empty gas tank of American democracy.
They keep going because of inertia, running on the power of default. Normal people want to think everything‘s just going along as it always has, but they can sense that something is wrong. They are troubled when they see the persecution of Donald Trump and other dissidents, of pandemic shenanigans, of Wall Street bailouts and endless wars, but it’s comforting for them to assume that everything is working, that the system is fair and just, and that we aren’t living in a dictatorship of the Whole Foods bourgeoise.
Those of us who are based see the reality and accept it, and that’s why we’re not freaking out when we see Hunter using daddy’s name in vain to shake down Chinese crooks for cash. It’s not a shock. We understand the inherent corruption of the ruling class. We understand that the idea that we live under the rule of law is baloney. We understand that the only thing that matters is power. But the normal people are going to figure that out too. How do I know? Because I know history, and this kind of crap cannot go on forever.
The advantage that patriots have over the people running the institutions is that our garbage ruling class is not composed of impressive people. They didn’t build the institutions they are destroying. They inherited them via their Ivy League credentials – often as legacies, which the left will cry about but not actually change because that is how the ruling class perpetuates itself. These are not accomplished people. These are not smart people. These are not brave people, and these are not tough people. They are cruel and ruthless people, willing to use the existing systems of power to defend their societal sinecure, but their problem and their weaknesses that they rely on the proles to do their dirty work.
Can the elite really rely on them? As I’ve discussed before, they can certainly rely on the leadership of the institutions, like the military, to do whatever they were told to do in order to maintain the power of our garbage ruling class. But an institution is not just its leaders. An institution is also its members. The members are largely normals. And remember that the enemy – and you are the enemy – always gets a vote. Crushing us would be no simple task no matter what F-16 advocates like our PINO say.
How is this trend going to turn out? It’s too early to say. But it very likely will get much, much worse. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Republicans are going to nominate a man for president who the Democrats will throw in jail on trumped up charges – figuratively and literally – before the 2024 election. And then it’s going to occur to even the most unbased people that the rules don’t necessarily apply anymore. Oh, we’re not going to break into some sort of civil war because Trump gets hauled off to Leavenworth. That’s not likely for a number of reasons. But it is going to destroy the illusions of norms for the normals, and the illusion of norms matters. Norms are, in fact, the only real protection those currently engaged in eliminating the norms have.
I’ve often said that Trump is not our last chance but their last chance, and that remains accurate. A backlash is coming. It’s inevitable. Just look at history, which is a giant timeline of rebellions and reformations and revolutions. The idea that the mass of Americans is going to spend the rest of eternity being bullied by a bunch of people with the politics of a divorced Santa Monica wine mom simply goes against everything history teaches us. The question is not if they are stopped but how, and how hard.
Are we going to re-embrace the Constitution? Are we looking at an American Cesar, or an American Franco? These are questions that our ruling class will never ask because they are uninformed of history and uninterested in it. But they’re going to get interested, very interested, in history because history is very interested in them."
Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
Bill Bonner, "Less to Save, Less to Spend"
The Greek theatre with Mount Etna volcano smoking
ominously in the background, Taormina, Sicily, Italy.
"Less to Save, Less to Spend"
Plus "free" Italian villas, out of whack tech, Swedish Gelato and plenty more...
by Bill Bonner
Taormina, Sicily - "Sicily is warm. Dry. Sunny. The drive from Catania to Taormina was pretty with rose laurel in bloom along the highway and the sparkling Ionian sea on our right. The countryside is beautiful, if a bit stark. It is a fashionable place, with large yachts anchored offshore…and fancy hotels on the steep hillsides.
But inland, houses are free. Apparently, there are some available now in nearby Castiglione di Sicilia. The birthrate in Italy (as in much of the rest of the developed world) is so low, many towns are being abandoned. Houses – their owners in old-age homes or already under the ground – find no buyers. Instead, they are left empty…with fading paint and windblown shutters. Towns die along with their residents.
Swedish Gelato? A few years ago, an enterprising mayor had the idea of giving away the houses just to attract new residents. There was a catch, you had to spend some money to fix up the place…and live in it, at least for some minimal time. Since then, many places have followed the example, adding to the inducement with cash to pay for the renovations. Most recently, islands off the west coast of Ireland are offering houses and as much as $100,000 to anyone who will move in.
Many people have taken these offers. There are towns here in Sicily, for example, whose inhabitants are almost entirely American, Dutch, German or Scandinavian. They spend full or part time in their sunny new digs. And with the internet, many continue to work at their old jobs without interruption.
The only trouble is that one of the things that makes a place nice to live is the people who live in it. Take the Sicilians out of a Sicilian town and it’s no longer a Sicilian town. Where is the local bar? Where are the neighbors, speaking their distinct form of Italian? Where’s the panna cotta…the gelato...the ravioli neri? Foreigners can do a pretty good job of imitating these things…but it is not the same. More about Sicily…as we discover it.
Today, we turn back to what a great economy the US has…but only to say it ain’t so. Recall that the Fed funds rate was approximately zero for the 14 years, 2009-2022, with the after-inflation rate substantially negative. Now, the nominal rate is over 5%...approximately even with inflation.
Our hypothesis is that there is no way you can go from sustained interest rate falsification (setting lending rates far too low for far too long) back toward ‘normal’ without a serious rerating of capital values. By that we mean, if a stock was worth $100 when interest rates were sub-zero, it may be worth only half as much when they are near to 5%.
Back Into Whack: Why? Because an investor can now get a 5% return – with virtually no risk. Buying Nvidia, on the other hand, is practically an invitation to lose money. Real estate…bonds, same story. The Primary Trend in interest rates turned in 2020 (or so we believe). Now, the higher they go, the less stocks, bonds, and real estate are worth.
But wait…the financial media tells us that all is hunky dory. As Tom put it yesterday, we’ve gone from ‘hard landing’ to ‘soft landing’ to no landing at all. Take the stock market, for example. There is great excitement about the “Magnificent Seven.” These are the Big Techs. Together, they are supposedly worth $10 trillion. The most magnificent of them is probably Nvidia. It makes the silicon chips that investors believe will power the new AI advances. But the AI-inspired super-boom will almost certainly fizzle…just like the crypto bubble…and the dot.com bubble before it.
A form of artificial intelligence already powers things like ChatGPT and delivers blah blah on any subject you want. But like the breakthrough techs that preceded it, AI probably won’t contribute much to real, broad GDP growth. Most likely, at least one or two AI firms will turn into money makers…but Nvidia may not be one of them.
The Big Techs are very expensive. Unless something truly extraordinary has happened, they’ll almost surely be less expensive in the future. And when they go down, they will most likely drag the non-big, non-techs down with them.
Meanwhile, consumers are running out of money. Real incomes went down for more than two years. They’ve shown positive growth only recently…and the last revisions suggest that they may soon turn down again. Mortgage payments are back to over 40% of median income – right where they were in 2007, when the last real estate bubble popped.
Less to Save, Less to Spend: And now that the stimmies, giveaway loans, ultra-cheap interest rates, and tax cuts are visible only in the rear view mirror, the road ahead looks rocky. Consumers have less money to save. Newsweek reports: "The rate of savings among American households is rapidly falling. In February, the U.S. personal savings rate was estimated to be around 4.6 percent - much below the decades-long average of about 8.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis."
And they have less to spend. Here’s Stephanie Pomboy: “How is this not the ONLY thing people are talking about today? The trend in weekly same store sales is F-ugly! And remember, this is NOMINAL. (The picture is even f-uglier in the context of soaring credit card borrowing.)”
Charlie Bilello has more: "The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index declined in May for the 14th month in a row. They are now calling for a US recession from Q3 2023 to Q1 2014, driven by tight monetary policy and lower government spending. The two components in the Leading Index that are not currently portending economic weakness: the stock market (S&P 500) and Building Permits (increase in residential homebuilding activity). The other areas (inverted yield curve, credit, consumer expectations, new orders, etc.) continue to suggest a downturn is coming."
And here’s the conclusion of macro-strategist Gerard Minack: "In short, while several factors have delayed a prospective recession, most of them are temporary and will fade in the second half. Real GDI has fallen for two consecutive quarters, which is a strong signal that a second half recession is likely."
Recession coming? Stocks…real estate…bonds – all falling? We don’t know. But after seeing our hotel bill here in Taormina, we’re going to check out those free houses in Castiglione de Sicilia. We may need one."
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