Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 1/24/25
"Alert! 50,000 NATO Troops To Ukraine!
Elites Building Global Bunker Network! AI And WW3!"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, January 24, 2025
Jeremiah Babe, "Trump Brings Hope To California And Help For N. Carolina Disaster Victims"
Jeremiah Babe, 1/25/24
"Trump Brings Hope To California
And Help For N. Carolina Disaster Victims"
Comments here:
"Carl Jung on How to Live and the Origin of 'Do the Next Right Thing'”
"Carl Jung on How to Live
and the Origin of 'Do the Next Right Thing'”
by Maria Popova
"In recent seasons of being, I have had occasion to reflect on the utterly improbable trajectory of my life, plotted not by planning but by living. We long to be given the next step and the route to the horizon, allaying our anxiety with the illusion of a destination somewhere beyond the vista of our present life.
But the hardest reality to bear is that death is the only horizon, with numberless ways to get there — none replicable, all uncertain in their route, all only certain to arrive. This is why there are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives. And this is why each and every one of them, even the most seemingly actualized, trembles with a staggering degree of doubt and confusion. Uncertainty is the price of beauty, and integrity the only compass for the territory of uncertainty that constitutes the landmass of any given life.
And so the best we can do is walk step by next intuitively right step until one day, pausing to catch our breath, we turn around and gasp at a path. If we have been lucky enough, if we have been willing enough to face the uncertainty, it is our own singular path, unplotted by our anxious younger selves, untrodden by anyone else.
The recovery community has a shorthand for keeping this at the center of awareness in times of inner tumult: “Do the next right thing.” The concept, in fact, originated two years before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, in a lucid and largehearted letter Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (July 26, 1875–June 6, 1961) wrote to an anonymous correspondent, included in "Selected Letters of C.G. Jung," 1909–1961 (public library).
On December 15, 1933, Jung responded to a woman who had asked his guidance on, quite simply, how to live. Two generations after the young Nietzsche admonished that “no one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” Jung writes:
"Dear Frau V.,
Your questions are unanswerable because you want to know how one ought to live. One lives as one can. There is no single, definite way for the individual which is prescribed for him or would be the proper one. If that’s what you want you had best join the Catholic Church, where they tell you what’s what. Moreover this way fits in with the average way of mankind in general. But if you want to go your individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in front of the other. If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure-footedly along the path prescribed by your unconscious. Then it is naturally no help at all to speculate about how you ought to live. And then you know, too, that you cannot know it, but quietly do the next and most necessary thing. So long as you think you don’t yet know what this is, you still have too much money to spend in useless speculation. But if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate. With kind regards and wishes,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung"
Two months later, in another gesture of generosity and wisdom, Jung deepens the sentient in a letter to a man who had reached out in abject anxiety and distress, feeling that he had, quite simply, mislived his life. Jung writes:
"Dear Herr N.,
Nobody can set right a mismanaged life with a few words. But there is no pit you cannot climb out of provided you make the right effort at the right place.
When one is in a mess like you are, one has no right any more to worry about the idiocy of one’s own psychology, but must do the next thing with diligence and devotion and earn the goodwill of others. In every littlest thing you do in this way you will find yourself. [Everyone has] to do it the hard way, and always with the next, the littlest, and the hardest things.
Yours truly,
C.G. Jung"
Complement with a poignant, poetic lens on how to live and how to die and Darwin’s deathbed reflection on what makes life worth living, then revisit Jung on life and death, his rare BBC interview about human nature, and the story of how he and his improbable physicist friend Wolfgang Pauli invented the concept of synchronicity.”
"You Are Not What Happened to You"
"You Are Not What Happened to You"
By Thomas
"In psychology, learned helplessness is a common affliction that we all experience occasionally. It refers to the inability to take control over external events and a tendency to accept one’s fate as inevitable. When something bad happens to us (a failure, rejection, loss), we tend to assume that it is beyond our control and that we are powerless against it.
The thought process usually goes like this: “What did I do wrong? Why does this keep happening to me? There must be something about me that makes people not want to be around me or associate with me”. And if we are surrounded by people who constantly reinforce these ideas and make us feel even more miserable about ourselves, then things can spiral out of control quickly, and we may very well develop full-blown depression.
The stories we tell ourselves can do more harm than good. So many people feel stuck or dissatisfied with their current life because they can’t derail their negative perceptions of themselves. The people in your life may pull at you and cause some pain, but they can’t hold you back if you don’t let them. You are not what happened to you; you are what you choose to become.
“The world will ask you who you are,
and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.”
- Carl Jung
In the words of Carl Gustav Jung, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” According to Jung, our past experiences, whether good or bad, can influence us in many ways, including shaping our personality, values, and beliefs. However, he believed that it is not the experiences themselves that define us, but rather our response to them. In other words, we are not defined by what happens to us but by how we choose to respond to those events.
People are shaped by their personal experiences but also possess the power to shape their own lives. Jung thought people have a unique capacity to overcome their past experiences and transform their lives in meaningful ways. He observed people are not passive victims of circumstances or events, but active agents who can make choices and exercise their free will to create their own futures.
Jung emphasizes the importance of personal agency and the ability to choose your own path in life rather than being defined by past experiences or external circumstances. We all have the power to transform ourselves by confronting our deepest fears, desires, and conflicts. The courage to face our past or personal struggles can help us gain a greater understanding of ourselves.
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes,” argues Carl Jung. When you view your life as a series of experiences and opportunities rather than as something that happened to you, you are much more likely to find the silver lining in any dark cloud that might be hanging over your head.
You are the sum of the choices you make and the actions you take today. No matter what life throws your way, you have the power to choose how you respond and choose who you want to become. Your path in life is determined by the decisions you make, the goals you strive for, and the life you create for yourself. You are in control of the direction your life takes. The choices you make today can shape the person you will be tomorrow.
Get comfortable with your truth. “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are,” Jung said. The self-awareness journey requires us to ask ourselves tough questions and to open up to the possibility of change. It asks us to confront our fears and embrace our true self’s beauty. It is a privilege to peel away the layers of our identity and become the person we were born to be.
Navigating the self-discovery process can be daunting; many people never try to know themselves deep enough. However, there is a tremendous sense of satisfaction that comes from understanding and exploring who you are and what makes you special. It is a privilege to pursue this journey and gain a greater understanding of yourself and your place in the world. It is a chance to live a life of purpose and clarity and to gain a greater sense of self-awareness.
According to Jung, “people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” He believed that true personal growth requires a willingness to face one’s own shadow and integrate the unconscious aspects of the self into consciousness. Living your truth requires total acceptance. That means confronting your unconscious mind and the shadow aspects of your personality. The shadow refers to the aspects of our personality that we repress or deny, such as negative emotions, impulses, and desires.
By acknowledging and integrating these aspects of ourselves, we can achieve greater wholeness and self-awareness. You can develop greater empathy and understanding of others by exploring your own unconscious biases and prejudices. When you explore your emotions and motivations, you will better understand your reactions to situations and develop greater emotional awareness and regulation. By turning your attention inward and exploring your own inner world, you can awaken to your unique potential and sense of purpose in life."
"Does Anyone Know..."
"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?"
- Andre Comte-Sponville
Dan, I Allegedly, "Turn Your Keys In - You’re Fired"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, PM 1/24/25
"Turn Your Keys In - You’re Fired"
"Why are fired officials still holding onto their security access? In today’s video, I break down the madness of why some former government officials continue to have access to sensitive information even after leaving their jobs. From outrageous costs of security details, like $24 million a year for Mike Pompeo, to the shocking revelations about Hunter Biden’s laptop, this week’s news has been mind-blowing. We’re talking about accountability, common sense, and the big question—should these individuals still have access when they no longer work for the government? Let me know what you think!
I also share stories about how this would never fly in the real world—try keeping your office keys after getting fired, and see how that works out! Plus, we discuss the recent decisions to revoke access for some big names like Dr. Fauci, John Bolton, and others. Are you as shocked as I am at how long they’ve been allowed to keep this access?"
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Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 1/24/25
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "Sunny Mornings"
Full screen recommended.
Peder B. Helland, Soothing Relaxation,
"Sunny Mornings"
"I am a composer from Norway and I started this channel with a simple vision: to create a place that you can visit whenever you want to sit down and relax. I compose music that can be labeled as for example: sleep music, calm music, yoga music, study music, peaceful music, beautiful music and relaxing music. I love to compose music and I put a lot of work into it.
Thank you very much for listening and for leaving feedback. Every single day I am completely astonished by all your warm support and it really inspires me to work even harder on my music. If you enjoy my work, I would be very happy if you decided to subscribe and join our community. Have a wonderful day or evening!"
- Peder B. Helland, composer for Soothing Relaxation
"A Look to the Heavens"
“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
•
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
- Walt Whitman
"Looking for a Reason to Believe: The Benefit of the Doubt Is Cracking"
"Looking for a Reason to Believe:
The Benefit of the Doubt Is Cracking"
by Paul Rosenberg
"Those of us who pursue positive change are very often frustrated. We see the necessity of change all too clearly, and we can explain how it should come about, but it never seems to happen. The truth, however, is that change does come; it just comes more slowly than we’d like, and in ways that differ from those we imagined.
One real change I like to point out is the passing of blind trust in politicians. In the 1950s and ‘60s, most people spoke of politicians with respect and even with reverence. Now it’s almost standard for people to agree that they’re liars and thieves. That’s a very significant change, even if it did take several decades to unfold. So, a significant change has occurred in our time, and over a very broad base. Still, most people are hanging on, and often desperately, to old ways that should really be abandoned.
The Automatic Benefit of the Doubt: It’s a bit troubling to see how blindly, and for how long, people give the benefit of the doubt to hierarchy and its operators. They can know that a system is abusing them, and they can complain about it at length, but still they grasp at reasons to keep believing in it.
Here’s what I mean: During the bad spots of the Middle Ages, people would be abused by the clergy but say, “If only His Holiness knew!” During the reign of the USSR, people in the Gulag would often say, “If only Stalin knew!” In our time, people hold Political Party A or Political Party B as grave evils, while pretending that the combination of A + B is good and noble.
Still, such blind biases do eventually break. Stalin, after all, is gone, along with his USSR. The Protestant reformation broke the domination of the Church. And the delusions of our time will die as well.
“Still, I look to Find a Reason to Believe”: If there were such a competition, I’d nominate Rod Stewart’s song, "Reason To Believe," as the Anthem of the Age. Regardless of how badly they are abused, people have a very hard time letting go of their hierarchies; they’ve taken emotional refuge in them, after all. Even when sharp pain forces them to examine the hierarchy that constantly tells them, “Obey or we’ll hurt you,” the impulse to maintain belief erupts. Here’s how the song expresses it:
"If I listened long enough to you,
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true.
Knowing that you lied,
straight-faced while I cried.
Still I look to find a reason to believe."
Humans have a real problem with that last line: looking for reasons to believe. It flies in the face of both logic and honesty, but people not only do it, but vigorously defend it. As for specific reasons to believe, they’re endless. Seldom are humans quicker and cleverer than when justifying their previous actions.
Why This Is a Good Sign: When people are desperately grasping for reasons to believe, it’s because the benefit of the doubt is cracking beneath them. Otherwise, why would they fight so wildly? The circumstances of our modern world are propelling people toward this break. Every time a ruling system tells gigantic lies, censors the public square, surveils their own people and frightens the masses for their own benefit, belief in their system cracks a little.
More and more people are conceding that it’s not just “one bad actor” here or there, but that Joe Stalin really is evil, that the clergy really is corrupt, and that hierarchies are abusive by nature. The whirlwind of distractions and slogans arrayed against moral clarity are losing their effectiveness. Little by little, humanity’s blind devotion to authority is cracking. Someday, it will break."
o
Rod Stewart, "Reason To Believe"
"Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"
Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation,
"Life Changing Poems for Hard Times"
Read by Shane Morris
Poems:
"Defeat" by Khalil Gibran
"A Psalm of Life" by H. W. Longfellow
"If" by Rudyard Kipling
"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley
"Desiderata" by Max Ermann
"Every Day..."
“Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans to gain or maintain power. What is more, those who choose not to empathize may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it through our own apathy. If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”
– J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement, June 5, 2008
"The Trouble With Most People..."
"Kaufman thought his public health students at the Kennesaw State University might know more than high schoolers. During the same week, he conducted an ad hoc survey in class, “How many of you believe the American dream is dead?” He asked his class of about 25 students. “Ninety percent raised their hands,” said Kaufman. “I was just blown away.”
He asked his college students what the American dream was. Not getting an answer, he defined it for them, “The American dream is, in this country, if you work hard, you sacrifice, and you never quit, you will find some type of success in your life.” After giving the students his definition, he tried again, “How many of you still believe the American dream is dead?” Still, 90 percent raised their hands. “If you believe the American dream is dead in this country, why are you sitting in a college classroom?” he asked. The class was silent. Students looked shocked, and one said he hadn’t thought about that."
○
"Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?''
- Thomas Sowell
○
"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read.
The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.
The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is;
he confuses it with feeling."
- Thomas Sowell
○
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their
hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."
- Will Durant
○
"It takes considerable knowledge just to
realize the extent of your own ignorance."
- Thomas Sowell
"11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad"
"11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad"
by Michael Snyder
"Most Americans realize that the federal government is drowning in debt and that inflation is out of control. But very few Americans can coherently explain where money comes from or how our financial system actually works. For decades, bankers that we do not elect have controlled America’s currency, have run our economy into the ground, and have driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve is an institution that was designed to drain wealth from U.S. taxpayers and transfer it to the global elite. Have you ever wondered why a sovereign nation such as the United States has to borrow United States dollars from anyone? Have you ever wondered why a sovereign nation such as the United States does not even issue its own currency? Have you ever wondered why we allow a group of unelected private bankers to run our economy?
Those are some very important questions. Hopefully what you are about to read will open the eyes of many. The truth is that our financial system is centrally-controlled and centrally-managed by a group of banking oligarchs who oversee a constantly expanding debt spiral which could come crashing down at any time. If the American people truly understood how our system works, they would be protesting in the streets right now. The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve is bad…
1 – The Federal Reserve was created as a way to enslave the U.S. government. In fact, the Federal Reserve system literally could not function without U.S. Treasury bonds. Government debt is at the very core of the system, and our federal government is now trapped in a debt spiral from which it can never possibly escape because the system is operating exactly as it was designed. Our national debt has been rising at an exponential rate, and that will continue to be the case until either the current system collapses or we adopt an entirely new system.
2 – The individual Federal Reserve Banks are not “federal” at all. In fact, on the official website of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, it is openly admitted that Federal Reserve Banks “are not a part of the federal government” and that private banks “hold stock in the Federal Reserve Banks and earn dividends”…The Federal Reserve Banks are not a part of the federal government, but they exist because of an act of Congress. Their purpose is to serve the public. So is the Fed private or public? The answer is both. While the Board of Governors is an independent government agency, the Federal Reserve Banks are set up like private corporations. Member banks hold stock in the Federal Reserve Banks and earn dividends.
3 – Why does the Federal Reserve issue our currency? The U.S. Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to issue our currency… [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; . . .
4 – The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air. I asked Google AI about this, and this is what I was told…Yes, the Federal Reserve (Fed) creates money out of thin air by increasing the money supply. This process is called “creating money out of thin air” because it involves adding funds to the economy without printing currency.
5 – The Federal Reserve devalues our currency. Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost more than 96 percent of its purchasing power. The truth is that just a two percent inflation rate will wipe out half of your purchasing power within a single generation. In the chart below, you can clearly see that the beginning of the rapid rise of inflation in the United States coincided with the creation of the Federal Reserve.
6 – The Federal Reserve manipulates the U.S. economy by setting interest rates. By moving rates higher or lower, the Federal Reserve has the power to create economic growth or to destroy it. They have the power to inflate massive economic bubbles and to pop them. Most Americans believe that our presidents “run the economy”, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve has far more control over the economy than the White House does. As you can see below, every recession since World War II has come after a period of rising interest rates.
7 – The Federal Reserve also controls the national money supply. They can pump trillions of dollars into the economy or pull trillions of dollars out of the economy without being accountable to anyone. This can have absolutely disastrous consequences. For example, inflation started getting wildly out of control after the Federal Reserve dramatically increased the size of the money supply during the pandemic.
8 – The Federal Reserve has become far, far too powerful. Our financial markets swing up and down whenever a Fed official makes an important statement, and every man, woman and child in the entire country is directly affected by the decisions that the Federal Reserve Board makes. Ron Paul once told MSNBC that he believes that the Federal Reserve has actually become more powerful than Congress… “The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress.”
9 – The Federal Reserve is dominated by Wall Street and the New York banks. The New York representative is the only permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, while the other members rotate. The truth is that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been the most important of the regional Fed banks by far, and in turn the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been dominated by Wall Street and the major New York banks.
10 – The Federal Reserve has completely eliminated minimum reserve requirements for our banks. Fractional reserve banking has always been a way that the bankers have conned the public, but now they have gotten rid of minimum reserve requirements altogether. This is literally insane.
11 – The Federal Reserve is not accountable to the voters, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is flaunting the fact that he cannot even be fired by President Trump…Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a clear, direct response when asked during a press conference Thursday if he would step down if asked to do so by President-elect Trump. “No,” said Powell, whose term as chair ends in 2026. When asked to elaborate and if he would be legally required to leave, he again said, “No.” Powell later said it is “not permitted under the law” for the president to fire or demote him or any of the other Fed governors with leadership positions. Powell’s term will eventually end, but until then he can do whatever he wants.
Shouldn’t we have some way to keep them accountable? After all, they have an incredible amount of power over us, shouldn’t we have at least a little bit of power over them? Nobody knows what is really going on inside the Federal Reserve, because we aren’t allowed to see. Unfortunately, the truth is that they desperately do not want light to be shined on the elaborate “shell game” that they are running.
Have you ever wondered if it was just a coincidence that the personal income tax was implemented just about the same time that the Federal Reserve was created? Why does the U.S. government have to tax us at all? Prior to 1913, there was no personal income tax in this country.
If you take a few minutes to stop and think about it, an America where there is no Federal Reserve, no personal income tax and no IRS is not that hard to imagine. If the U.S. government functioned just fine without all of them at one time, then why couldn’t the U.S. government function just fine without all of them now? The system that we have now is clearly not working. The Federal Reserve was supposed to guarantee that our system would be perfectly stable, but in reality our system has become much more unstable.
It is time for different thinking. It is time for the U.S. government to take back control of our currency and to take back control of our economy. For more than a decade, I have been on a crusade to bring the Federal Reserve system to an end, and many others have been pushing for the exact same thing. Now that we have a new administration in Washington, perhaps they will be open to listening to us.
o
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Media is Broken"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 1/24/25
"The Media is Broken"
"CNN is struggling like never before, and I’m breaking it all down in today’s video. From plummeting ratings to layoffs affecting hundreds, it’s clear this media giant is facing serious challenges. I’ll share why their business model is falling apart, how their content no longer resonates, and what this means for viewers and advertisers alike. Plus, we’ll dive into other key topics like rising interest rates, layoffs sweeping the economy, and shocking issues with companies like Equifax and Cash App. It’s a wild time right now, and there’s so much we need to keep an eye on."
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Major Price Changes at Sam's Club"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/24/25
"Major Price Changes at Sam's Club"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Strange Days...and the Big Gain"
John McAfee, back from the dead to participate in the
next crypto boom as a disembodied consciousness.
"Strange Days...and the Big Gain"
Leaders don’t make as much difference as most people think.
The path of events is determined by deeper historical forces -
the ‘primary trend’ in markets... and in politics.
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "An old Irish joke goes: "How do I get to Dublin?" The local replies, "Well, you don't want to start from here. You can't get there from here." We begin with where we are. USA Today: "US stocks end up, with S&P 500 at record." But the S&P is not the only thing hitting records. Fartcoin, Butthole coin, Microstrategy, FartStrategy, $Trump, $Melania, $Lorenzo…even dead men are launching new wealth defying cryptos. John McAfee, who committed suicide three years ago, on X yesterday: "I'm back with AIntivirus. An AI version of myself," @officialmcafee's post reads. "You didn't think I would miss this cycle did you?" Whatever else can be said about where we are... it’s a pretty strange place.
Our first priority is to avoid the Big Loss. If we can keep our wealth more or less intact, we can benefit from time, compounding, luck, our own wisdom... increasing (or decreasing!) with age, and occasionally, good research. That brings us to our second priority. Going in the opposite direction from the Big Loss is the Big Gain. Today, we wonder where it is. We don’t think the Trump Team can get from where we are to where we want to go…but we don’t doubt that there’s money to be made somewhere.
To bring new readers – if there are any – up to speed, leaders don’t make as much difference as most people think. The path of events is determined by deeper historical forces — the ‘primary trend’ in markets... and in politics.
In democracies at least, the aspiring Caesar must connect to the soul of the masses... or he’ll be forever condemned to lead a more honest life. This is not to say that he must obey the ‘will of the people’ once in office... but only that his rigging and conniving can’t be too far out of step with where The People think they want to go. These considerations usually give us the leaders we need — not to ‘do the right thing,’ but to carry out the mission given to them by fate.
This brief description of ‘historical determinism,’ of course, is not ‘true’ in any empirical way. It can’t be tested or proven. But it’s probably a good way to look at it. And it’s the best we can do... without having access to the mind of God.
Empires rise and fall. There are no exceptions. It doesn’t matter what people said... or thought. Or whether their leaders were good or bad. They could have polled the citizens of Rome in the 5th century. Most people might have answered, ‘yes, I’d like to keep the empire as it is.’ But so what? In 410, Rome was sacked. By 472, the western empire was history.
In 1980, gold was at its zenith... stocks at their nadir. A single ounce of gold could have paid for almost the entire 30 Dow stocks. The potential for a big gain in gold was slim; the risk of a big loss was obvious. From a high over $800 an ounce, gold fell all the way to the ‘Brown Bottom’ in 1999. On May 7th of that year — with the price at $282.40 – Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sec. of Treasury), announced the sale of approximately half of Britain’s gold. The timing couldn’t have been worse. After suffering the Big Loss, 1980-1999, with the price down 67%, Brown then locked in the loss by selling gold at its lowest price.
But if the Bank of England and other gold holders had already taken the Big Loss, we reasoned, there probably wasn’t much loss left to take. Instead, the action of the previous 19 years should be followed by an equal and opposite reaction over the next 19 years. A Big Gain, in other words. With the price of gold still under $300, and the Dow now selling for more than 40 ounces of gold, the Big Loss should now come to the stockholders, not the holders of gold.
That is what happened. Gold rose 10 times to today’s $2,770 price. Stocks went down; in gold terms, the Dow fell from over 40 ounces to today’s 16 ounces. Historical determinism works for markets as well as politics. It didn’t matter who was president... or what investors thought... or said. The primary trend turned against gold in 1980... and against stocks in 1999.
And today? When we look around today, it is clear today where the Big Loss is likely to come from. Once again, stocks are selling for record-high prices. Fortune: "Larry Summers warns bubbling asset prices are hitting levels of froth last seen prior to the financial crisis. In an interview with German business daily Handelsblatt, the former Treasury Secretary said bullish sentiment reminded him of the giddy days that preceded the 2008 financial crisis and the dotcom bubble at the turn of the century."
Not only are equity prices near a top, strange non-equities are having a field day too. CNBC: "Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn thinks speculative behavior in the current bull market has ascended to a level beyond common sense. "We have reached the 'Fartcoin' stage of the market cycle," Einhorn wrote in an investor letter obtained by CNBC. "Other than trading and speculation, it serves no other obvious purpose and fulfills no need that is not served elsewhere."
And where’s the Big Gain? Tune in next week for more..."
John Lennon, "Nobody Told Me"
Strange days indeed...
Jim Kunstler, "The Great Sorting-Out Begins"
"The Great Sorting-Out Begins"
by Jim Kunstler
“The purpose of a pardon is to correct a miscarriage of justice,
not to prevent future judicial action.”
- Dr. Joseph Sansone
"This, as they say, is one of those weeks when decades happen. You realize that under the fiends fronted by “Joe Biden,” the US government became a demon-driven machine for wrecking lives, perverting the law, and demolishing all scaffolds of decent behavior. And now, it all has to be fixed, cleaned up, fumigated, rectified, rehabilitated.
Scores of executive orders flew out of the Oval Office, rescinding four years of “Biden” regime lunacy in every direction: Censorship, dead. . . Gain of function research, killed. . . CBDCs banned. . . CBP-app for aiding illegal migrants, discontinued. . . border fortified. . . homicidal alien mutts deported. . . World Health Organization, no thanks. . . Paris Climate Accords, fuggeddabowdit. . . DEI, vacated through all of government. . . Green New Deal, scrapped. . . “pride” in mental illness, cancelled. . . Ukraine War, headed for the negotiating table. . . all in four days and so much more coming.
The DEI flimflam is particularly illustrative of the hazards still lurking. The DC blob is desperate to hide its chaos agents by switching their job titles and shuffling them around to hidey-holes in obscure precincts of this-or-that bureaucracy. Being federal employees, of course, they all have searchable names and payroll accounts, so you may be sure they’ll be discovered wherever they’re hiding-out and placed, as ordered, on “administrative leave.” Since DEI was essentially a program to promote incompetence, these employees represent a monumental cargo of dead-weight. So, the next task will be finding a way under the civil service codes to cashier them for good. For instance, reclassifying their job status to render them fire-able.
This is sure to be a major friction-point for the so-called “resistance,” the huge cadre of “activist” Wokesters embedded in the agencies. Cue the army of Democratic Party lawyers who will be filing suits to prevent the chief executive from coherently managing the departments of the executive branch. But there’s a catch: this time, the White House will not be funneling scads of money directly to the NGOs that pay for these blob-adjacent lawyers, nor will they be able to redirect money out of the DOJ, FBI, and CIA for that purpose. The president may also find a way to interrupt the flow of money from foundations financed by malign freelancers such as George Soros and Linked-in founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman (who financed the E. Jean Carroll “rape” trial hoax and many more Democratic Party pranks ).
Another friction point: release of the pardoned J-6 prisoners is being loudly opposed by DC District federal judges such as Tanya Chutkan and Amy Berman Jackson. They don’t enjoy any privilege or prerogative for voicing prejudicial opinions about vacated cases, nor for failing to comply with paperwork needed to discharge them. They can be impeached for that in the House of Representatives. Or, if they actively obstruct releases, the new-and-improved Department of Justice might consider 18 U.S.C. § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law.
Meanwhile, goons at the DC jail detained pardoned prisoners unlawfully this week after years of the grossest mistreatment, including solitary confinement in basement “holes” without beds, blankets, or water, and direct physical assault that could be described as “torture.” All of this was countenanced by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, despite plentiful public reports of abuse over the past four years. That is, she knew all about it. This is an argument for finally rescinding Washington DC’s “home rule” status and placing the city and all its departments back under federal management.
Last night, Mr. Trump signed an order to declassify government files relating to the murders of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. Of course, the intel agencies holding these files have had a half-century to expunge anything in the files that might reflect poorly on the intel agencies — such as, the long-trafficked rumor that the CIA was behind the killing of all three. Why would you expect to get anything like that? How could the remaining material be anything but a cover-your-ass file? Well, now we shall see. At some point in his first term, Mr. Trump allegedly saw what was in the files and demurred from his promise then to release them. Was it too shocking? Or was it the well-groomed nothingburger described above.
That’s not to say that there’s any shortage of weird, tantalizing documentation around all those cases, inexplicable doings. . . sketchy characters like Oswald, Jack Ruby, Howard Hunt, Clay Shaw, Sirhan Sirhan, Thane Eugene Cesar, James Earl Ray, “Raul” (Ray’s alleged “handler”), Frank Liberto, Loyd Jowers. . . and curious circumstances like the so-called “magic bullet” that supposedly exited JFK and wounded Texas Governor Connolly, and was later found oddly intact on a stretcher in Parkland Hospital. I guess we’ll find out shortly.
Now, we await the confirmation of Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Pam Bondi’s USAG nomination was held up for a week by peevish freshman Senator Adam Schiff, after she called him out for being censured last year in the House for “reckless” statements — that is, she reminded the committee and the public that Mr. Schiff is a chronic liar. There are rumblings that he will be kicked off the Senate Judiciary Committee (maybe not such a good fit for someone incapable of telling the truth). The preemptive pardon he received last week from “Joe B” might be tested through the courts in the years just ahead. The Judiciary Committee announced that it will convene an inquiry into the whole J-6 fiasco. Do you sense that there is much to discover in that hairball of enigmatic events, hidden actions, concealed motives, and buried evidence? All this (plus a lot I left out) and the first week isn’t even over yet!"
"I Went to a Brand-New Russian Supermarket in 2025"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 1/24/25
"I Went to a Brand-New Russian Supermarket in 2025"
"What does a Russian typical brand-new supermarket look like inside? Opened only days ago. Join me on a tour of Food City Express, which is Russian-owned and has just opened its first "close to home" supermarket in Russia."
Comments here:
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Gerald Celente, "We Called The Trend First, Trump Said He Will Lower Interest Rates"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 1/23/25
"We Called The Trend First,
Trump Said He Will Lower Interest Rates"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "Can America Avoid Economic Disaster Or Is The Pain Coming?"
Jeremiah Babe, 1/23/25
"Can America Avoid Economic Disaster
Or Is The Pain Coming?"
Comments here:
Judge Napolitano, "Col. Douglas Macgregor: The Coming World War III"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 1/23/25
"Col. Douglas Macgregor: The Coming World War III"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Two Steps From Hell, "Evergreen"
Full screen recommended.
Two Steps From Hell, "Evergreen"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, pictured above, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer.
The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus) Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.”
Chet Raymo, “Examination of Conscience”
“Examination of Conscience”
by Chet Raymo
"I have been reading Stephanie Smallwood's “Saltwater Slavery,” a close examination of the trade in human beings between the coast of West Africa and the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is a sobering read, but if there is one thing I came away with, it was this: We have an enormous capacity to rationalize the most horrendous crimes. Everyone involved in the slave trade - the European owners of the ships, the masters of the trading companies, the ship captains and crews, the plantation owners in the West Indies and the Chesapeake, the African tribal chiefs who captured and sold their neighbors to the European merchants - knew in some part of their souls that what they were doing was wrong. All of them - good Christians among them, pillars of their communities - found ways to rationalize their participation.
Who among us is immune to self deceit? To what extent am I implicated in the horrendous tragedies that are Darfur and Iraq? What do I owe to the global environment? Is there such a thing as innocence when we are so intimately connected that people in Fiji and Japan will read these words only moments after I write them?
What about science, the favored subject of this blog? Here is Smallwood: “The littoral [of the West African coast]...was more than a site of economic exchange and incarceration. The violence exercised in the service of human commodification relied upon a scientific empiricism always seeking to find the limits of human capacity for suffering, that point where material and social poverty threatened to consume entirely the lives it was meant to garner for sale in the Americas.”
Even science, like religion and democratic politics, can be pressed into the service of evil. We are all of us to some extent in the grip of economic forces as powerful and sometimes as pernicious as those that drove the saltwater slave trade. Few of us are required to personally face the direst evils. We are saved from moral anguish only by the fact that our acts of commission and omission ripple outward until their consequences are diluted and lost in the general happiness or unhappiness of humankind.”
Who among us is immune to self deceit? To what extent am I implicated in the horrendous tragedies that are Darfur and Iraq? What do I owe to the global environment? Is there such a thing as innocence when we are so intimately connected that people in Fiji and Japan will read these words only moments after I write them?
What about science, the favored subject of this blog? Here is Smallwood: “The littoral [of the West African coast]...was more than a site of economic exchange and incarceration. The violence exercised in the service of human commodification relied upon a scientific empiricism always seeking to find the limits of human capacity for suffering, that point where material and social poverty threatened to consume entirely the lives it was meant to garner for sale in the Americas.”
Even science, like religion and democratic politics, can be pressed into the service of evil. We are all of us to some extent in the grip of economic forces as powerful and sometimes as pernicious as those that drove the saltwater slave trade. Few of us are required to personally face the direst evils. We are saved from moral anguish only by the fact that our acts of commission and omission ripple outward until their consequences are diluted and lost in the general happiness or unhappiness of humankind.”
“Just Sit Down And Think?”
“Just Sit Down And Think?”
by Oliver Burkeman
“’All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone,’ wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It's a line repeated so frequently, in the era of smartphones and social media, that it's easy to forget how striking it is that he wrote it in the 1600s. Back then, a sentence such as "Yo is a messaging app that enables iPhone and Android users to say 'Yo' to their friends" might have got you burned as a witch.
Yet even in 17th-century France, apparently, people hated being alone with their thoughts so intensely, they'd do almost anything else: play boules, start the Franco-Spanish war, and so on. Still, I'd wager even Pascal would have been disturbed by a study published in Science, showing that people detest being made to spend six to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think – even to the extent of being willing to give themselves mild electric shocks instead. It's natural to conclude that there's something wrong with such people. Which means, all else being equal, that something's probably wrong with you, too.
Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking. The new study, led by Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia, first asked students to entertain themselves with nothing but their thoughts in an "unadorned room". Most said they found it hard to concentrate; half found it unpleasant or neutral at best. In further experiments, older people, and those who rarely used smartphones, got similar results. Meanwhile, those given the chance to do something outward-directed, such as reading, enjoyed it far more. And when 42 people got to choose between sitting doing nothing and giving themselves electric shocks, two-thirds of men and a quarter of women chose the latter.
Are we mad? In his book "Back To Sanity," the Leeds Metropolitan University psychologist Steve Taylor answers: yes. The condition he diagnoses, "humania", isn't recognized as a disorder, but only because we're all victims, he argues, and it's part of the definition of a mental illness that most people don't have it. The "urge to immerse our attention in external things is so instinctive that we're scarcely aware of it", he writes. We often speak of emails, tweets and texts as if they're annoyances that we'd eliminate if we could. Yet the truth, of course, is that half the time we're desperate to be distracted, and gladly embrace the interruption.
Taylor's explanation for this puzzle borrows from Buddhism (among other places). We mistake ourselves for individual, isolated beings, trapped within our heads. No wonder we don't dwell on what's inside: that would underline the loneliness of existence, so obviously watching TV is more fun. To sit comfortably with your thoughts first requires seeing that there's a sense in which they're not real. A less new agey way of putting it is simply that you don't need to believe your thoughts. Whereupon they become fun to watch, and the need for distraction subsides. To quote the title of a book by Sylvia Boorstein, a meditation teacher: don't just do something, sit there.”
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