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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Thursday, June 18, 2026
Golden Quiet Things, "A Beautiful World"
Full screen recommended.
Golden Quiet Things, "A Beautiful World"
"Experience 'Beautiful World', a heartwarming cinematic folk ballad celebrating the wonders of nature, adventure, and a life well lived. Follow an older traveler as he journeys through majestic mountains, emerald forests, golden fields, starlit skies, and endless oceans. With warm acoustic guitar, gentle cello, rich harmonies, and nostalgic storytelling, this song is a tribute to the breathtaking beauty that surrounds us every day. Whether you love folk music, travel songs, nature documentaries, relaxing acoustic melodies, or inspirational storytelling, this journey is for you. Mountains and canyons, emerald forests and flowing rivers, Northern lights and starry skies Endless oceans and coastal horizons . A celebration of life, gratitude, and wonder..."
"Let Me Age With Grace, Not Burden"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"Let Me Age With Grace, Not Burden"
"Don’t ask for forever… just ask for dignity along the way. “Let Me Age With Grace, Not Burden” is a tender, heartfelt Delta King’s Blues tune about growing older with peace, keeping your spirit strong, and hoping to remain a blessing rather than a weight on the ones you love. A gentle, slow-moving resonator guitar carries the melody like a quiet evening rocking chair on the porch. The harmonica breathes soft and reflective, filled with gratitude, hope, and the wisdom of years gone by. The groove stays warm and unhurried, built for sunset skies, family memories, and prayers spoken under your breath. This is blues with humility and grace. For those who don’t fear old age - only the hope of walking through it with kindness, strength, and peace. Let the years change my face… not my heart."
"The Last Watch, Even When I Can’t Stand…I’m Still Yours"
Full screen recommended.
Midnight Corner,
"The Last Watch,
Even When I Can’t Stand…I’m Still Yours"
"A heartbreaking emotional story song about an old loyal dog and her elderly owner, both becoming weak with time, yet still holding on to the love that never fades. “Even when I can’t stand… I’m still yours.” This song is for everyone who has loved a dog like family - the ones who protected us, stayed beside us, waited for us, and gave their whole heart until the very end. May this song touch your heart and remind you that true love does not disappear. It stays in memories, in silence, and in the little places they once filled."
Native Elder, "Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid of Your Final Years"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid of Your Final Years"
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"If You Look..."
"We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy. It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong."
- Robert James Brown
Dan, I Allegedly, "Are Banks More Powerful Than Governments?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/18/26
"Are Banks More Powerful Than Governments?"
"Who really has more power over your life: the government you vote for or the bank that controls your mortgage, credit cards, savings, and access to money? In this video, I break down why central banks, interest rates, lenders, and financial institutions may have more influence over your daily life than elected officials. From home loans and credit scores to inflation and rising living costs, we're going to examine who really calls the shots. We'll discuss unelected decision-makers, why higher interest rates hurt working families, why banks get bailed out when things go wrong, and what you can do to protect yourself financially. Whether you're concerned about inflation, housing, debt, retirement, or the economy, this conversation affects every American. The question is simple: Are banks more powerful than governments? Watch this video and let me know what you think in the comments below."
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"Shopping in a Soviet Food Market In 2026"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russell, 6/18/26
"Shopping in a Soviet Food Market In 2026"
"Where do Russians go shopping? What does a Soviet food market look like inside? Join me at Moskvoretsky Market Food Market to find out what an original Soviet shopping center looks like. First opened in 1937, with more than 700 different shops inside."
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"Judge Napolitano, Judging Freedom, 6/18/26"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/18/26
"Larry Johnson: Trump Caves on All Iran’s Demands!"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/18/26
"Prof. Mohammad Marandi: Do Iran and the US Have a Deal?"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/18/26
"Max Blumenthal: Israel In Panic"
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Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 6/18/26
"Col. Douglas Macgregor: Israel The Real Loser"
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"U.S. Oil Stockpiles Fall To Critically Low Levels As Iran Continues To Control The Strait Of Hormuz"
"U.S. Oil Stockpiles Fall To Critically Low Levels
As Iran Continues To Control The Strait Of Hormuz"
by Michael Snyder
"Those that believe that the global energy crisis is going to be magically solved by a “memorandum of understanding” that is already being violated by both sides are going to be in for a very rude awakening. As you will see below, the Iranians have continued to launch drones at commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. How are shipowners and insurance companies supposed to feel comfortable while this is going on? In the “memorandum of understanding”, Iran agreed to allow commercial vessels to travel through the Strait at no charge for a period of 60 days. Hopefully that will actually happen. After the 60 day period is done, the Iranians have already announced that they are going to go back to charging ships to pass. Any ships that do not pay up will be subject to attack. Meanwhile, global oil supplies will just continue to get tighter and tighter.
Over the past couple of months, the U.S. has been the supplier of last resort for the entire world. This has kept oil prices at reasonable levels. But once our stockpiles are gone, we won’t be able to do that any longer.
Unfortunately, our stockpiles are rapidly disappearing. It is being reported that total U.S. oil inventories have now fallen for 10 weeks in a row…"U.S. crude oil inventories fell for a 10th straight week last week as demand surged, pushing total stockpiles to their lowest level in over 40 years as the Iran war continues to upend global energy markets, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Total crude inventories, including commercial stocks and those in the Strategic Petroleum, plunged by 17.2 million to 758.5 million barrels last week, its lowest since March 1985, the EIA said."
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is in better shape than commercial oil inventories, but even it has fallen to the lowest level since 1983…"The U.S. supply of emergency oil has hit its lowest level since 1983, according to newly released federal data. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is down to 340.3 million barrels, according to the data released on Monday." The last time that levels were this low was 1983, when the Reagan administration was filling up the reserve for the first time. The U.S. established the emergency oil reserve in 1975 after an oil producer embargo against the country triggered an energy crisis.
We should have never allowed ourselves to reach such a dangerously low level. But I am far more concerned about what is happening to our commercial oil inventories. The tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma are about to hit critical operating levels, and even CNN is writing about this… Today, neighboring Cushing is the hub of America’s energy market. It literally provides the oil plumbing for the United States. It’s where America’s benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil is priced and warehoused. From there, it’s piped to refineries around the country.
In normal times, Cushing stores around 40 million barrels of oil with capacity of up to 75 million. These are not normal times. Right now, there are approximately 21.6 million barrels of oil at Cushing. That sounds like a lot. But as CNN has correctly noted, once the tanks at Cushing drop below 20 million barrels of oil “they effectively hit empty”…
"Cushing’s current inventory is 21.6 million barrels, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s dangerously close to operational stress levels, the tipping point at which Cushing struggles to supply all of its customers with the oil they demand. When Cushing’s reserves get below 20 million, they effectively hit empty, scraping the bottom of the barrel of what is largely unusable sludge." And when Cushing runs empty, strange things happen to the oil market.
To say that “strange things” will occur is a major understatement. Once we hit the 20 million barrel mark at Cushing, there will be widespread panic. We cannot drop below that level, because the storage tanks need a certain amount in them in order to be able to keep operating…In oil storage tanks, “tank bottoms” refer to the unusable layer of sludge, sediment, water, paraffin, and other residues that settle at the base. These cannot be easily pumped or processed without operational issues.
At the Cushing hub level, the operational stress threshold is around 20 million barrels. Below this, pipelines lose pressure, blending and transfers between tanks become difficult or impossible, and outbound flows to refineries or export terminals can be curtailed or delayed. Experts note that much of the remaining volume at current levels (potentially only 1–1.6 million barrels truly usable) consists of this sludgy material.
There is no way that we can keep supplying the rest of the world. In fact, in very short order we won’t have enough oil to supply everyone in this country. On Wednesday, President Trump openly told the press that the U.S. is on pace to “run out of reserves in about four weeks”…President Trump’s comment at the tail end of the G7 press conference about rapidly depleting crude reserves may have been the clearest admission yet of what is really driving the urgent push for an MoU with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “We run out of reserves in about four weeks,” Trump told reporters.
This is one of the reasons why Trump was so desperate to make a deal with Iran. But the deal is already failing. According to NBC News, the Iranians “launched multiple drones toward commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz” after the memorandum of understanding was signed…"Iran has launched multiple drones toward commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday, according to a US official, NBC News reported on Tuesday.
The official said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been carrying out repeated drone launches targeting shipping lanes in the strategic waterway. US forces have intercepted the drones before they could threaten commercial or military vessels, the report said.
According to NBC News, the official added that the IRGC has launched multiple drones each night since the agreement was signed, and that the US military continues to coordinate with commercial shipping operators to support safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz."
The Iranians were supposed to open the Strait of Hormuz. Of course we were told the exact same thing when the first ceasefire agreement was signed, and that never materialized either. But let’s assume that the Iranians stop attacking vessels in the Strait and decide to keep their word. According to the text of the memorandum of understanding, the Iranians will have the right to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz once a 60 day period of free passage is over…
"Upon the signing of this MOU, Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf or littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz."
As I have discussed previously, the Iranians have repeatedly stated that they intend to charge ships to pass through the Strait once the 60 day period has been completed. And even if everything goes perfectly, it would still take many months for traffic through the Strait to return to close to pre-war levels. Meanwhile, the world will continue to run an oil deficit. Stockpiles will continue to be depleted, and there will be shortages. Hopefully the shortages will be isolated. But I wouldn’t count on that, because I am convinced that the war in the Middle East is far from over. If all-out war erupts again, that will make the crisis that we are facing so much worse. So let us hope for the best, but let us also get prepared for the worst."
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Bill Bonner, "What AI Won't Do, Part Three"
Turtles on a log.
"What AI Won't Do, Part Three"
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - Will AI make us all “very rich,” as Mr. Trump assures us? Will it make anyone rich? Take the softball first. Will it make us all rich? It will not — and the very asking of the question betrays a mind that has never paused to consider how the world is actually put together.
“Rich” is a relative thing, not an absolute one. We can no more all be rich than we can all be in the ninetieth percentile; the word itself would be meaningless. So it is with “truth.” With “good.” With “handsome,” and with very nearly every adjective a fellow can pull from the dictionary.
A battery, to carry a positive charge, requires a negative ground; flip it as you please, but you cannot have the one without the other. And when “good” or “fast” or “rich” floods the land in overwhelming quantity, you may as well have none of it at all.
Consider the tallies of yesterday morning. Between the ringing of the IPO bell and his next breakfast, Elon Musk is reckoned to have gained some $400 billion. But the old principle of declining marginal utility tells us that each fresh dollar is worth less than the last. Spread across a whole economy this melancholy truth wears the name “inflation,” and it gnaws quietly at every dollar in your pocket. For a man like Elon, sitting upon roughly $1,400,000,000,000, the next single dollar is worth approximately nothing. Park that fortune in U.S. Treasuries and it throws off some $56 billion a year in interest. Every second is worth $29 to Elon. So, the dollar lying on the sidewalk is not worth stooping to pick it up.
Hold this in mind as we proceed, for it is the very hinge on which the whole contraption swings, and it explains why AI is apt to prove a fat and conspicuous flop. The principle is this: that which is too easily had is not worth having, and that which is already too plentiful is not worth piling higher. In Stockholm a fine bronze tan draws admiring glances; in Dakar or Kinshasa, not so much.
Which brings the follow-up question. If not all of us, then who? At first squint, the prizes would seem to fall to those chasing them - recklessly, even, with great barrowloads of other people’s money. We refer to the hyperscalers, financed by the trusting shareholders of Microsoft, Meta, Google, SpaceX and the rest. If a queue is forming for those destined to strike it rich, surely they stand at the head of it. But as we saw yesterday, those apparently best placed to seize a new technology are commonly those most thoroughly chained to the old one.
We all remember Kodak. Its “Kodak moment” marched straight into common usage. Kodak even invented the digital camera back in the 1970s. But it could never coax a profit from it, and slid into bankruptcy in 2012. Today’s Kodaks may meet the same undertaker.
The true Henry Fords of AI may not be those with household names, nor the glittering IPOs. They may not even be Americans. Politico: "People around the world see a winner on AI - and it’s not the US. Respondents in key U.S.-allied countries increasingly see China as the world’s AI leader, while American optimism about the technology continues to erode."
Whatever. But there lurks a further possibility: that AI may simply turn out to be a dud. It deals in words, designs, fake videos, scraps of information - and it scoops these ‘ideas’ from the internet, where the human race has deposited them in great reeking heaps, like guano upon some forgotten island. A little manure does wonders for the roses. Shovel on too much and they wilt and die. Dollars cheapen as they multiply, and so do ideas. In the stock market, when every last soul is certain a share will rise, one thing alone is sure: it will not rise - for who is left to buy once “everyone” has already laid down his bid?
The machines can ape Shakespeare’s sonnets, draft an airplane, untie a mathematical knot - and do it in an instant. They also work around the clock, without rest. Every eleventh-grader now knows AI can knock out a term paper better than the boy himself and trim a screenplay in a wink, and all of it at very nearly no cost at all.
In the time it takes your editor to grind out one of these dispatches, the machine called Claude can produce a hundred - no exaggeration; we put it to the proof. It needs less than five minutes for Claude to write one. In the six or seven hours we spend chiseling a single column into shape, Claude turns out dozens, and they all sound smarter than we do - like a celebrated economist, like a Financial Times editorial, like a man who actually knows what he is talking about. And then - here is the rub - the next iteration of the machine will feed not upon our labors but upon its own, for it has manufactured so many more of them.
The Conversation: "More than half of new articles on the internet are being written by AI. The experts now put AI-generated stuff at 80 percent of the top search results. And since these AI artifacts are groomed and pimped by the algorithms of AI itself, the AI-driven search shows a tender preference for its own offspring. AI-optimized. AI-written. AI-ready. The upshot is that the human sources which once made the machine seem clever are buried in a mounting pile of its own derivatives. AI has stopped imitating human intelligence in other words; it now imitates AI intelligence.
A doubter once accosted Thomas Huxley - the great Victorian naturalist - as he was explaining how the planets wheel about the sun, insisting instead that the world lay flat upon the back of a turtle.
“And what,” asked Huxley, hoping to drive his questioner into an absurdity, “does the turtle stand upon?”
“Another turtle,” said the woman.
“And that turtle - what does it stand upon?”
“No, no, Mr. Huxley, you do not understand. It’s turtles all the way down.”
And so it shall be in the brave new world of AI - a counterfeit world, quality smothered beneath quantity, and humbug all the way down."
"You're Watching The American Empire End"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 6/17/26
"You're Watching The American Empire End"
"Jeffrey Sachs Columbia professor, advisor to three UN Secretaries General, twice named Time’s 100 Most Influential gave six interviews in four months declaring that American hegemony is over. He called the Iran war the breaking point. He said the SWIFT sanctions began dethroning the dollar. He said China’s industrial dominance is the real power shift. He said the political class is trapped in 1991. He said multipolarity has already arrived. Past tense. Done. One publication described his analysis as “an autopsy of an empire that still believes it is immortal.” Gold is at $4,722. The dollar is at a 30-year reserve low. Your television didn’t show you any of it. This video does."
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"Alert: The Iran War is Not Over, The MOU Is A Sham. Round 2 Will be Worse"
Canadian Prepper, 6/17/26
"Alert: The Iran War is Not Over, The MOU Is A Sham.
Round 2 Will be Worse"
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 6745 actually shows the results of two galaxies that have been colliding for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above digitally sharpened photograph to the lower right is the smaller galaxy, moving away. The larger galaxy, pictured above, used to be a spiral galaxy but now is damaged and appears peculiar. Gravity has distorted the shapes of the galaxies.
Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies directly collided, the gas, dust, and ambient magnetic fields do interact directly. In fact, a knot of gas pulled off the larger galaxy on the lower right has now begun to form stars. NGC 6745 spans about 80 thousand light-years across and is located about 200 million light-years away."
"He Cannot Help..."
“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”
- Erich Fromm
"The American Empire: Promises Broken, Truth Buried, No Liberty, No Freedom"
Celente & The Judge, 6/17/26
"The American Empire: Promises Broken,
Truth Buried, No Liberty, No Freedom"
"Gerald Celente and Judge Andrew Napolitano break it down - calling out America’s transformation into an empire driven by endless wars and global dominance. From the Iran War racket to decades of deception, they expose the pattern: lies sold to the public, promises never kept, and policies that leave nations destroyed and economies sinking. This hard-hitting conversation uncovers the truth behind the war machine and the consequences for America’s future.
The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What's Next in these increasingly turbulent times.
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Jeremiah Babe, "The FED Will Crash The Dollar Or The Stock Market"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/17/26
"The FED Will Crash The Dollar Or The Stock Market"
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"15 Americans Reveal What's Really Happening Across The Country And It's Scary"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 6/17/26
"15 Americans Reveal What's Really Happening
Across The Country And It's Scary"
"The economy looks 'fine' on paper, so why does everyone feel like they're falling behind? This video pulls together real people sharing what daily life actually costs right now: layoffs, rent hikes, rising grocery prices, and student loan debt that won't budge. You'll hear from a worker laid off the same week her rent jumped $1,100, a homeowner whose mortgage rose over $7,000 a year, and a teacher shopping on a $50 summer budget. What this video covers:
• Layoffs hitting workers with strong performance reviews and great clients.
• Rent jumping while wages stay flat against $1,600 to $2,000 bills.
• Grocery prices climbing while portions and quality shrink.
• Homeowners watching property taxes push monthly mortgage payments higher .
• Student loan and medical school debt reshaping people's life plans.
• The wide gap between everyday struggles and wealthy spending habits.
If any of this hits close to home, drop a comment about what's stretching your budget the most right now. Share this with someone who keeps hearing that things are 'fine' when their own numbers say otherwise. Subscribe for more compilations that put real voices to what people are dealing with. This video looks at the rising cost of living, layoffs and unemployment, rent increases, grocery prices, student loan debt, mortgage and property tax hikes, and the growing gap between paychecks and bills that so many people are facing right now."
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"Hand In Hand"; "A Very Old Town"
Full screen recommended.
Gengu AI,
"Hand In Hand"; "A Very Old Town"
"Welcome to Gengu AI – your ultimate destination for AI-generated music and next-generation sound experiences. This channel is dedicated to creating unique, high-quality tracks powered by artificial intelligence, blending creativity and technology to deliver music that feels fresh, emotional, and immersive. AI was the tool. The story came from human feeling. If this film gave you a quiet breath, a memory, or a moment of peace, thank you for being here."
"Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It)"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It)"
"Ain’t nobody enjoys the creaks and cracks… but we’re all heading there together.“Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It)” is a funny, brutally honest Delta King’s Blues tune about stiff joints, fading energy, and learning to laugh at the universal ride of getting older. A gritty, easy shuffle acoustic guitar keeps the groove moving like an old truck that rattles but still runs. The harmonica grins and groans at the same time, carrying equal parts humor and truth. The rhythm rolls slow and steady, built for folks who know aging ain’t pretty - but it sure makes for good stories. This is blues for everybody feeling the years. For people who ache a little more, nap a little longer, and laugh a little harder about it. Getting old may suck… but the alternative ain’t much better."
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"I'm One of the Last of My Tribe... I Need to Tell You Something Before I Go"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"I'm One of the Last of My Tribe...
I Need to Tell You Something Before I Go"
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"How It Really Is"
Everywhere you look, faces buried in the phone. Several generations of idiots...
"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
"It’s Not Van Life – Millions of Americans Are Living in RVs Just to Survive"
Full screen recommended.
The Unfolded States, 6/17/26
"It’s Not Van Life – Millions of Americans
Are Living in RVs Just to Survive"
"Millions of Americans are now living in RVs, vans, and cars, not for freedom or adventure, but because traditional housing has become financially out of reach. As the housing crisis continues to worsen across the United States, more working people are being pushed into a form of hidden homelessness that most people never see. In this video, we break down the real economics behind vehicle homelessness, including why rent has outpaced wages, how housing supply shortages created a severe affordability gap, and why RVs have become the last fallback option before street homelessness. We also examine how rising insurance, healthcare, and living costs are quietly reshaping what survival looks like for millions of Americans.
This is not just a story about homelessness. It is a deeper look at what happens when full-time work no longer guarantees stable housing. From service workers and families to retirees on fixed incomes, this shift reveals how America’s housing market is changing and why safe parking programs may be a sign of a much larger structural problem. If rent in your city suddenly increased by five hundred dollars, how long could you realistically stay housed without borrowing or moving? Share your thoughts in the comments."
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Dan, I Allegedly, "They Sold You a Lie"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/17/26
"They Sold You a Lie"
"Today we're covering a major development as 36,000 student loan borrowers receive debt forgiveness after attending colleges accused of deceptive and predatory practices. Many students were promised high-paying careers, only to be left with massive debt, incomplete degrees, and limited job opportunities. We'll break down how these schools operated, why the government is forgiving these loans, and what it means for future borrowers. We also discuss the latest economic news, interest rates, inflation concerns, retail store closures, consumer spending trends, gold accumulation by central banks, vehicle recalls, and personal finance strategies to protect yourself during uncertain economic times. If you're concerned about the economy, debt, investing, banking, or your financial future, this episode is packed with information you need to know."
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Bill Bonner, "What AI Won't Do, Part II"
"What AI Won't Do, Part II"
by Bill Bonner
Youghal, Ireland - "Reuters: "Bank of Japan raises interest rates to 31-year high. The Bank of Japan raised interest rates to a 31-year high on Tuesday, marking another landmark step in normalizing monetary policy as it focused on taming price pressures from the energy shock caused by the Iran war.
Now here is a thing worth turning over. It puts two dots at wide angles...and pulling away from each other. Artificial Intelligence - now coming under the scrutiny of political quacks who couldn’t tell a transistor from a turnip - is supposedly destined to make us all “very rich.” So, the price of money ought to be sinking, not climbing. The logic is plain; the IPOs of the hyperscalers alone are forecast to shower an additional $4 trillion upon the moneyed classes. They will have a lot more money to lend.
Yet the rates rise. All over the world, central banks are raising rates, not lowering them. And with the US inflation reading now higher than the Fed Funds rate, odds are that no editorial, no policy white-paper, no breathless dispatch from a man with stock options will alter the verdict. Cycles, patterns, and History Herself - that grim and unsentimental dowager - always speak last, and they are not in the habit of asking permission. For four decades money grew cheaper. Now it grows more dear. That, we believe, is the primary trend. AI may be magic or mischief, but the tide does not consult the barnacles.
So how to connect the two dots? Consider SpaceX, which last year flung $12.7 billion into AI - thrice what it spent on its - and lost roughly half of it. For all the trumpeting, all the press-agentry, all the worshipful prose, this magnificent enterprise has not produced a single honest penny of new wealth. It has consumed billions in real hours and real material. They are not tucked away on some shelf awaiting a rainy day. They are gone - vanished, combusted, irrecoverable as last year’s snow.
To add to the wealth of the world, a company must make a thing it can sell to a willing and able buyer for more than it cost to make it. This elementary act of commerce - known to every fruit peddler and shoeshine boy since the Phoenicians - SpaceX has not yet performed, and may never perform. So far, measured honestly, it is a destroyer of wealth, not a creator of it. And so is AI.
Skanda Amarnath puts the big techs’ wager at some $2 trillion in software and machinery. In the last year alone the hyperscalers are said to have invested $400 billion in AI - a figure expected to swell to $700 billion this year. By what miracle of arithmetic do they ever get that money back?
Capital is not manna. It does not fall free from heaven. It must be reckoned with. And here the outlays are so monstrous that the depreciation alone is likely to dwarf whatever income the ‘intelligent’ machinery throws off. Translated out of the accountant’s mumble: they will lose money, properly counted, and lose a lot of it.
Strange things do happen, of course. We would not be so reckless as to pronounce success impossible - only improbable, which in the long run amounts to nearly the same thing for the man holding the shares.
When the dot-com bubble burst in the year 2000, hundreds of companies went to their graves even though the internet was still alive and well. But Amazon, Facebook, now known as Meta, Google, now decked out as Alphabet, and Microsoft crawled from the wreckage and prospered. They sold real services to real people and pocketed real profits, and they managed the feat without any “policy framework” to lead them by the hand. Now they shovel those profits into a fresh bet - AI - and the question hangs in the air like cigar smoke: will it pay, or are they merely squandering shareholders’ money to keep themselves looking cool? Nobody knows. Occasionally, an aging gentleman dyes his hair, purchases a scarlet roadster, and happily runs off with a girl half his years. More often, he succeeds only in looking like an old fool.
And perhaps a company grown fat on one technology can vault onto the next. But that is not the way it generally goes. The expert makers of horse drawn carriages did not bolt internal-combustion engines onto their hansoms and cabriolets; instead, they were swept off the road by upstarts named Ford, Dodge, and Olds. Nor, when the internet broke over the land, did the old data-grinders - IBM, Honeywell, Control Data - lead the charge. They were prisoners of their own yesterdays, manacled to the very thing that had enriched them. The new wave was surfed by Gates, Jobs, and Bezos, who had all come to the beach empty handed.
Elon, too, began with nothing, and now gallops at the head of every parade in sight - to Mars, to electric cars, to AI...and his “Boring Company” is busy burrowing beneath Las Vegas. The hyperscalers are resolved not to be left at the post. Even the flush and the canny ‘whales’ are eager to join in. The Wall Street Journal: "Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, has bought a more-than $1 billion stake in SpaceX, betting on founder Elon Musk and what she says is the potential for his rocket maker to shape industries for decades."
Ne sutor ultra crepidam - let the cobbler stick to his last. Mrs. R., it appears, has mislaid the maxim. The Journal goes on: "Her closely held company built a giant iron ore mine in Australia’s Pilbara, where Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock, is widely credited with discovering a bounty of iron ore in the 1950s. Today, roughly half the world’s iron-ore exports come from that region.
She made her fortune the honest, gritty way - by selling Australia itself, by the ton. To leap from the certainties of the Pilbara’s open pits into the dark pool of rockets and thinking machines is a plunge into the genuinely unknown. And who can say - the dice are sometimes kind, even to those who throw them blind.
More to follow - on why, in a world where the price of money is climbing, AI may not make us ‘very rich’ after all."
Adventures With Danno, "Shopping Trip To Target!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/17/26
"Shopping Trip To Target!"
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Tuesday, June 16, 2026
"People Are Getting Angry About What's Happening To Their Food"
Full screen recommended,
Epic Economist, 6/16/26
"People Are Getting Angry About
What's Happening To Their Food"
"Shrinkflation is hitting your favorite snacks and meals, and this compilation shows real people opening up bags, boxes, and bags of fast food that came up short. You paid the same (or more) for less product, smaller portions, and packaging that looks emptier every year. From bagels with one raisin to chip bags that rattle, see exactly how the snacks and drinks you grew up with keep getting smaller while the prices climb. If you've noticed your groceries doing the same thing, drop a comment with the product that shocked you most and how much smaller it got. Subscribe so you never miss our next breakdown of shrinking snacks and rising prices, and share this with the friend who keeps saying it's all in your head. This video looks at shrinkflation, smaller snack sizes, rising grocery prices, fast food portion cuts, chip bag fill rates, ice cream bar shrinkage, deli meat weight, and packaging that holds less product than it used to."
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Musical Interlude: Alexandro Querevalú, "El Condor Pasa"
Full screen recommended.
Alexandro Querevalú, "El Condor Pasa"
"'El Condor Pasa' is an original Peruvian Folklore (song) popularized by Simon & Garfunkel in 1970. "If I could" is the best-known Peruvian song from the zarzuela El Cóndor Pasa composed by Daniel AlomÃa Robles in 1913. From 2004 this piece is a Cultural Heritage of Peru from 2004: This theme is considered the second National Anthem of Peru. The Condor flies in both the Americas connecting all natives races. The best ever live version with flute expressed in this musical interpretation by Peruvian musician Alexandro Querevalú with a native Indian flute called Quena and traditional Andes regalias (poncho) is felt deep within the soul.
Alexandro was born in Lima, Peru, to a humble but hard·working family. The oldest son of the family, he dreamed of helping his family financially. With this in mind, he emigrated to Poland at the age of 18. He plays a wide variety of wind instruments, such as the Quena, Quenacho, Antara or Zampona among others Andean and Native American flutes. He has a large repertoire, including 'The Last of the Mohicans', 'El Condor Pasa', and many other favorites. His live performances dressed in different Native American regalias are truly breathtaking.
Alexandro Querevalú is a brilliant performer, one of the best of his kind, and the one whose popularity has spread more than that of any other performer by means of social networks worldwide to the United States, Europe, Asia, the Arab countries and Australia. This is due to the unique way that he plays these indigenous instruments of both North and South America. The versatility, the eloquence, the sadness and the happiness which he expresses in his musical interpretations are felt deep within the soul, which is why he himself says “this song makes me cry.”
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"A Look to the Heavens"
“Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round?
Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star visible above at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.”
Native Elder, "Why Nobody Respects Old People Anymore"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"Why Nobody Respects Old People Anymore"
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John AI Art, "The Best Days Were Ordinary"
Full screen recommended.
John AI Art, "The Best Days Were Ordinary"
Delta King's Blues, "Life Was Simple"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues, "Life Was Simple"
"There was a time when the days didn’t ask so many questions… when the road felt shorter, the bills felt lighter, and a little music was enough to carry you through the night. Back then, life didn’t need explaining - it just was. “Life Was Simple” is a soft, nostalgic Delta King’s Blues reflection on easier days and quieter dreams. Acoustic guitar drifts warm and gentle, like sunlight falling across an old front porch. Harmonica breathes slow and tender, carrying memories that still feel close if you don’t reach too fast. The rhythm moves easy and unhurried, letting the past sit beside you for a while. This is the blues of remembrance - not bitter, not angry… just honest about how things used to feel. Calm. Gentle. Deeply human. Life got complicated… but the blues remembers when it was simple."
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"You're Watching the America Empire Die In Real Time"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 6/16/26
"You're Watching the America Empire Die In Real Time"
"You thought the collapse would look like a movie. Tanks in the streets. Helicopters overhead. It doesn’t look like that. It looks like Tuesday. A gas price you can’t believe. A grocery bill you can’t explain. A credit card that goes up even though you haven’t bought anything you didn’t need. A neighbor you haven’t seen in three weeks. Rome took 200 years to fall. A historian projected 22 years for America starting in 2003. That clock ran out last year. The SPR is at 1983 levels. The Strait has been closed for 100 days. The dollar is at a 30-year reserve low. 264,000 Americans die of despair every year. And 180,000 left the country. You are watching the empire die. In real time. This video shows you what you’re watching and what to do about it."Comments here:
"What Might Have Been..."
“Space I can recover. Time, never.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte
“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”
- Ryan Holiday
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And in secret moments of despair, Too late, too late...We think
what might have been, should have been, and we let it slip away...
"The Last Temptation of Things"
"The Last Temptation of Things"
by Edward Curtin
“I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears
as soon as there is an excess of things.”
- Albert Camus, "Lyrical and Critical Essays"
"Let me tell you a story about a haunted house and all the thoughts it evoked in me. Do we believe we can save ourselves by saving things? Or do our saved possessions come to possess their saviors? Do those who save many things or hoard believe that there are pockets in shrouds? Or do they collect things as a magical protection against the shroud?
These are questions that have preoccupied me for weeks as my wife and I have spent long and exhausting days cleaning out a friend’s house. Many huge truckloads of possessions have been carted off to the dump. Thousands of documents have been shredded and thousands more taken to our house for further sorting. Other things have been donated to charity. This is what happens to people’s things; they disappear, never to be seen again, just as we do, eventually.
Tolstoy wrote a story – “How Much Land Does A Man Need’’ – that ends with the answer: a piece six feet long, enough for your grave. As in this story, the devil always has the last laugh when your covetousness gets the best of you. Yet so many people continue to collect in the vain hope that they are exceptions. Ask almost anyone and they will reluctantly admit that they hoard to some degree.
In capitalist consumer societies, getting and spending and hoarding not only lays waste our powers, but it is done on the backs of the poor and destitute around the world. It is a system built to inflame the worst human tendencies of acquisitiveness and indifference since it teaches that one never has enough of everything.
It denies the primal sympathy of human care for all humans as it teaches that if you surround yourself with enough things – have ten pair of shoes, twenty shirts, an attic filled with things in reserve – you will be safe from the fate of the majority of the world’s poor who have next to nothing. It is an insidious form of soul murder wherein one pulls the shades on the prison-house, counts one’s possessions, and shakes hands with the Devil. And it is sadly common.
From attic to cellar to garage, every little cubbyhole, closet, and drawer in this relative’s house was filled with “saved” items. Nothing was ever thrown away. If you walked in the front door, you would never know that the occupants were compulsive keepers. While there were plenty of knick-knacks in evidence like so many houses where the fear of emptiness rules (the emptiness that is the source of freedom and creativity), once you opened a drawer or closet, a secreted lunacy spilled out seriatim like circus clowns from a small car.
Like all clown shows, it was funny but far more frightening, as though all the saved objects were tinged with the fear of death and dissolution, were futile efforts to stop the flow of time and life by sticking a finger in a dike.
Let me begin with the bags. Hidden in every corner and closet, there were bags stuffed in bags. Big bags and little bags, hundreds if not thousands, used and unused, plastic, paper, cloth bags with price tags still on them. The same was true for boxes, especially empty jewelry boxes. Cardboard boxes that once held a little something, wooden boxes, cigar boxes, large cartons, boxes from every device ever purchased – all seemingly being saved for some future use that would never come.
But the bags and boxes filled each other so that no emptiness could survive, although desolation seemed to cry out from within: “You can’t suffocate me.”
Tens of thousands of photographs and slides were squirreled into cabinets, closets, and their own file cabinets, each neatly marked with the date and place of their taking. Time in a “bottle” from which one would never drink again – possessing the past in a vain attempt to stop time. These photos were kept in places where their taker would never see them again but could find a weird comfort that they were saved somewhere in this vast collection. Cold comfort by embalming time.
It so happens that while emptying the house, I was rereading the wonderful novel, Zorba The Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis. There is a passage in it where a woman has died, and while her corpse lies in her house, the villagers descend on her possessions like shrieking vultures on a carcass.
Old women, men, children went rushing through the doors, jumped through the open windows, over the fences and off the balcony, each carrying whatever he had been able to snatch – sauce pans, frying pans, mattresses, rabbits... Some of them had taken doors or windows off their hinges and had put them on their backs. Mimiko had seized the two court shoes, tied on a piece of string and hung them round his neck – it looked as though Dame Hortense were going off astraddle on his shoulders and only her shoes were visible….
The avidity for things drives many people mad, to get and to keep stuff, to build walls around life so as to protect themselves from death. To consume so as not to be consumed. Kazantzakis brilliantly makes this clear in the book. "Zorba, the Greek" physical laborer and wild man, is different, for he knows that salvation lies in dispossession.
"One day he encounters five little children begging in a village. Their father has just been murdered. “I don’t know why, divine inspiration I suppose, but I went up to them.” He gives the children his basket of food and all his money. He tells his interlocutor, a writer whom he calls “Boss,” a man whom Zorba accuses of not being able to cut the string that ties him to a life of living-death, that that was how he was rescued.
Rescued from my country, from priests, and from money. I began sifting things, sifting more and more things out. I lighten my burden that way. I – how shall I put it? – I find my own deliverance, I become a man."
In the jam-packed attic where there is little room to move with boxes and objects piled on top of each other, I found a large metal four-drawer file cabinet packed with files. In one file folder there was a small purse filled with the following: four very old unmarked keys, six paper clips, two old unworkable watches, a bobby pin, a circular case that contained what looked like a piece of a human bone, a few old medallions, tweezers, four buttons, an eye screw, a safety pin, a nail, a screw, two ancient tiny photos, and a lock of human hair.
Similar objects were stored throughout the house in various containers, bags, boxes, the pockets of clothes, in old ancient furniture in the basement, on shelves, in cigar boxes, in desks, etc.
Old receipts for purchases made forty years ago, airline baggage tags, ticket stubs, school papers, jewelry hidden everywhere, old foreign and domestic coins, perhaps twenty-five old unworkable watches, clocks, radios, clothes and more clothes, more than anyone could ever have worn, scores of old pens and pencils, hand-written notes with no dates or any semblance of order or meaning, chaos and obsessive account-keeping hiding everywhere in contradictory forms shared by two people: one the neat freak and the other disorganized.
One dead and the other forced by fate to let her stuff go, to stand naked in the wind.
How does it help a person to record that they bought a toaster for $6.98 in 1957 or a bracelet for $20 in 1970 or that they called so-and-so some undated time in the past? What good does it do to save vast correspondences documenting your complaints, bitterness, and quarrels? Or boxes upon boxes of Christmas cards received thirty years ago? Or brochures and receipts from a trip taken long ago? Old sports medals? Scrapbooks?
Photos of long dead relatives no one wants? Fashion designer shoes and coats and handbags hidden in a dusty attic where you don’t even know they are there. An immigrant mother’s ancient sewing machine weighing seventy-five pounds and gathering dust in the cellar?
Nothing I could tell you can come close to picturing what we saw in this house. It was overwhelming, horrifying, and weirdly fascinating. And aside from the useful things that were donated to charity and some that were taken to the woman’s next dwelling, ninety percent was dumped in a landfill, soon to be buried.
In his brilliant novel "Underworld", Don DeLillo writes about a guy named Brian who goes to visit a collector of old baseball paraphernalia – bats, balls, an old scoreboard, tapes of games, etc. – in a house where “a mood of mausoleum gloom” fills the air. The man tells Brian: "There’s men in the coming years they’ll pay fortunes for these objects. Because this is desperation speaking. Men come here to see my collection. They come and they don’t want to leave. The phone rings, it’s the family – where is he? This is the fraternity of missing men."
Men and women hoarders, collectors, and keepers are lost children, trying desperately to secure themselves from death while losing themselves in the process. In my friend’s house I found huge amounts of string and rope waiting to tie something up neatly someday. That day never came.
Zorba tells the Boss, who insists he’s free, the following: "No, you’re not free. The string you’re tied to is perhaps no longer than other people’s. That’s all. You’re on a long piece of string, boss; you come and go and think you’re free, but you never cut the string in two. And when people don’t cut that string...
It’s difficult, boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do that; folly, d’you see? You have to risk everything! But you’ve got such a strong head, it’ll always get the better of you. A man’s head is like a grocer; it keeps accounts. I’ve paid so much and earned so much and that means a profit of this much or a loss of that much!
The head’s a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string. Ah, no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! If the string slips out of its grasp, the head, poor devil, is lost, finished! But if a man doesn’t break the string, tell me what flavor is left in life? The flavor of camomile, weak camomile tea! Nothing like rum – that makes you see life inside out."
On the way out the door on our final day cleaning the house, I found a beautiful boxed fountain pen on a windowsill. I love pens since I am a writer. This one shone brightly and seemed to speak to me: think of what you could write with me, it said so seductively. I was sorely tempted, but knowing that I didn’t need another pen, I left it there, thinking that perhaps the next occupants of this house would write a different story and embrace Camus’ advice about an excess of things. Perhaps."
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Look around you, see all the fine possessions you have, how proud you are of it all. Then ask yourself how many of them you will take back into eternity when your time comes. None. No, you will take out exactly what you brought in... nothing, "and all your money won't another minute buy." Fill a bowl with water, and place your hand in it, then take it out. The hole left in the water is how long you'll be remembered. You are, as we all are, "dust in the wind..."
Kansas, "Dust In The Wind"
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