Jeremiah Babe, 10/20/26
"This Is Looking Really Bad,
Don't Believe The Massive Economic Illusion"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
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Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Musical Interlude: Disturbed "The Sound Of Silence"
Full screen recommended.
Official release.
Disturbed "The Sound Of Silence" (Studio)
Singer: David Draiman
1.2 BILLION views.
○
Full screen recommended.
Conan O'Brian Show live performance.
Disturbed, "The Sound Of Silence" (Live)
173 MILLION views.
Folks, there's "something" here, it touches your soul, what it is I can't say,
but if there are words for it I don't know them, and can only stand in speechless awe...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“M13 is one of the most prominent and best known globular clusters. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hercules, M13 is frequently one of the first objects found by curious sky gazers seeking celestials wonders beyond normal human vision.
M13 is a colossal home to over 100,000 stars, spans over 150 light years across, lies over 20,000 light years distant, and is over 12 billion years old. At the 1974 dedication of Arecibo Observatory, a radio message about Earth was sent in the direction of M13. The featured image in HDR, taken through a small telescope, spans an angular size just larger than a full Moon, whereas the inset image, taken by Hubble Space Telescope, zooms in on the central 0.04 degrees.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160727.html"Whispers of the Golden Fields"
Full screen recommended.
Gengu AI, "Whispers of the Golden Fields"
"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."
Native American Elder, "5 Signs Your Dog or Cat Is Trying to Tell You Something"
Full screen recommended.
Native American Elder,
"5 Signs Your Dog or Cat Is Trying to Tell You Something"
Comments here:
"Sweep Your Own Porch"; "The Wind Knows My Regrets"
Full screen recommended.
"Sweep Your Own Porch"
"Some people can see every flaw in everybody else’s house… while tripping over the mess in their own. "Sweep Your Own Porch" is a dry-humored Delta blues reflection about hypocrisy, humility, judgment, pride, and the old wisdom of cleaning up your own life before trying to inspect someone else’s. The resonator guitar walks with a sly front-porch swagger, carrying that old Southern attitude between truth and laughter. The harmonica answers with playful bends and knowing phrases, like an old friend who has seen enough nonsense to smile before speaking. The groove stays witty, grounded, and honest… like somebody telling the truth without raising their voice. This is the blues of humility. Not silence. Not weakness. Just the simple reminder that judgment gets dangerous when self-awareness goes missing."
o
Full screen recommended.
"The Wind Knows My Regrets"
:Welcome to The Delta Old Lantern - a home for deep Delta Blues, Southern Gothic storytelling, old soul music, and timeless blues wisdom. Here you’ll find dark Delta Blues inspired by dusty backroads, front porch memories, aging souls, quiet struggles, and the changing world around us. Every song carries the spirit of old acoustic blues, slide guitar echoes, worn-out roads, and stories carved by time. The Delta Old Lantern creates atmospheric blues music for listeners who appreciate raw emotion, old-world storytelling, lonely highways, weathered hearts, and the beauty found in growing older. These songs are inspired by the spirit of classic Delta Blues legends while bringing a modern cinematic sound for today’s listeners. This is music for old souls, late-night thinkers, weary travelers, and anyone who still believes stories matter."
"When One Cannot Be Sure..."
"When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour were longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over."
- Natalie Kusz
"How 'V for Vendetta' Became More Than A Movie"
Full screen recommended.
"How 'V for Vendetta' Became More Than A Movie"
by Tim Brinkhof
“If we had to put some of the stuff that’s happening today into the film back when we were making it, the studio would have told us we were being ridiculous,” James McTeigue, the director of the 2006 film "V for Vendetta", tells Big Think. “But V almost seems tame now, a bit like child’s play.” McTeigue sees the film as prophetic: “It was definitely pointing the way to where we ended up.”
Few movies leave a legacy as large as "V for Vendetta". Although it was met with mixed reviews and modest commercial success upon its release, McTeigue’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel of the same name has never truly left the zeitgeist - and there are a couple of reasons.
The first has to do with the film’s themes. Moore’s graphic novel - written in the 1980s and illustrated by David Lloyd - attacked the Conservative government of “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher. When the film version came out, many viewed it as a critique of Bush-era illiberalism in the wake of 9/11. And with today’s anxieties about mass surveillance, authoritarian tendencies, and national leaders attempting to control media, it’s not hard to see why the film still resonates with audiences two decades after its release.
The second reason has to do with the film’s audience and imagery. A testament to the eponymous vigilante’s iconic exclamation that “ideas are bulletproof,” his grinning, mustachioed Guy Fawkes mask has become a popular sight at demonstrations across the globe, from the U.S. and Venezuela to Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. But how did this happen, and what does it mean?
Guy Fawkes Day: To understand what the Guy Fawkes mask means to real-world rebels, we first have to understand what it means to V the character. As the film briefly calls upon us to “remember,” Fawkes was executed for his involvement in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot: an unsuccessful attempt by Catholic conspirators to blow up the House of Lords and assassinate the Protestant King James.
To commemorate its failure, the day the plot would have taken place - November 5th - was later declared a public holiday. Fawkes, who had been assigned the job of lighting the gunpowder, was not only burned in effigy, but over time, people also started wearing masks that caricatured his distinct appearance.
The meaning of this holiday changed. What began as a sober commemoration of a solemn event evolved into a night of bonfires and fireworks, and feelings associated with Fawkes shifted from negative to positive. By the time the Industrial Revolution rolled around - and English Catholics had been officially emancipated - Fawkes was seen less as a villain than as a folk figure.
This is also how V seems to see Fawkes. Though the character never really explains why he chose this particular figure as his revolutionary alter ego, his preoccupation with Fawkes’ larger-than-life (and, frankly, different-from-life) reputation rather than the man himself underscores his belief that symbols are more powerful than people.
Behind the mask: If certain members of Anonymous - the hacking group first credited with adopting the Guy Fawkes mask for real-world demonstrations - are to be believed, V for Vendetta largely owes its political currency to circumstance. Since the hackers decided they would all wear the same kind of mask, they had to pick one that was readily available in stores, and instead of Batman’s, they ended up settling for V’s. (Interestingly, Moore has listed Batman as one of his many, many inspirations for the revolutionary.)
The primary purpose of the masks was to provide anonymity. Anonymous is, as the name implies, anonymous. Used to striking from the shadows of the internet, the group took to the streets in February 2008, when thousands of members protested outside Church of Scientology buildings in dozens of cities. Showing up in person put them at risk of identification - a danger, given the church’s history of surveilling and harassing its critics.
At the same time, people were not unaware of the masks’ cultural connotations. Thanks to the film, Guy Fawkes was now thoroughly and explicitly linked to revolution, anarchism, and vigilante justice. In the graphic novel, V’s methods and motives are questionable. But on screen, he is presented as a more or less conventional superhero: someone dedicated to fighting the good fight, and turning the world into an unquestionably better place as a result. In short: someone many strive to emulate.
If picked for unrelated reasons, the film seemed to inspire the demonstrators. Gathering and posing for photographs, they intentionally mirrored one of the film’s last and most memorable scenes, where ordinary Londoners take up V’s call to action and march across the street wearing his mask: a single force, united behind a single purpose.
The power of symbols: The masks provide other advantages, too, most of which are likewise explored in the film. For both Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started using them in 2011, they reflect the fact that the demonstrations are decentralized and leaderless, making them difficult to break apart. (Masks obviously also make criminals more difficult to identify, which is why some nations have criminalized wearing masks in certain contexts: Some allow them only in lawful protests, not riots; others ban them during any public protest.)
Because symbols are abstract, they can mean different things to different people. “There’s value in abstracting away from what you’re trying to comment on,” McTeigue says. “With the film, we sprinkled enough in there that although the story is set in the U.K., you believe it could happen anywhere.”
Although you’d have been more likely to see the Guy Fawkes mask at left-coded protests over the past two decades, it’s not strictly worn by progressives. In the early 2020s, for example, anti-COVID-lockdown protesters in the U.S. and U.K. sometimes wore the mask, as did at least several people at the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
According to one scholarly article on V for Vendetta, the citywide adoption of V’s Guy Fawkes mask is especially powerful because it signifies the people challenging the monopoly on representation held by the state, which the philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes defined as the “sole actor of the body politic.”
If image and narrative are two of the primary tools that the film’s fascist government uses to ensure the loyalty (or docility) of its citizenry, then V uses those same tools to dismantle that relationship. Early in the film, he hijacks the state broadcast network to announce a visual spectacle of his own: the destruction of Parliament. In the end, the symbol of government - the building - makes room for the symbol of the people: the masks.
How fiction changes the world: Popular music, books, films, shows, video games, and other media do not simply reflect society’s problems and aspirations back at itself. According to French historian Patrick Boucheron, who covers this subject in his 2025 book "Political Fictions," they also - in a way - predict the future by exploring how those problems and aspirations could play out over time.
"V for Vendetta" is hardly the only piece of pop culture to work its way into real-world demonstrations. Recently, another image of fictional origin - the pirate flag of a Japanese manga and anime franchise called One Piece - became a prominent protest symbol in countries like Indonesia, Nepal, and India.
Like the Guy Fawkes mask, the One Piece flag does more than create a feeling of solidarity between protesters. By identifying their own struggles with those of a well-known fictional hero, they not only tap into a narrative that their opponents cannot easily control, but also generate sympathy abroad: anyone familiar with One Piece - the manga alone has sold more than 600 million copies globally - may be predisposed to sympathize with protesters waving the pirate flag, regardless of what the protests are actually about.
“All fiction is an escape from the everyday,” McTeigue says. “But when you escape, you are able to imagine a lot more than when you’re in the drudgery of ordinary life, trying to figure out whether someone on the news is actually telling you the truth, or whether they’re in their own echo chamber.”
Ends and means: V’s strategies may be effective, but are they also justifiable? Reading the graphic novel, one could make a strong case that they are not. Moore presents V as mentally unstable, and frequently frames his use of violence as being little different from the violence of the state. Moore also leaves his ending ambiguous, leaving readers to wonder whether V’s actions actually made Britain a better place.
The film version of V, though more traditionally heroic, also has his share of moral ambiguity. At some point in V for Vendetta, V’s protégé Evey (played by Natalie Portman) is imprisoned and tortured by the fascist police. Or at least, so it appears. After refusing to give up information about V - even under threat of execution - Evey is unexpectedly let go, at which point she discovers that her torturer was none other than V himself. He didn’t want to do it, he tells her, but he had no other choice: To pick up his revolutionary cause, she first had to be put to the test.
Movies - especially Hollywood movies - are full of characters who have convinced themselves that the ends justify the means, however horrible. They’re great for storytelling, imbuing scenes with drama and tragedy. But in real life, such lessons arguably risk glorifying and legitimizing political violence, something many Americans fear has become more common and accepted today than it was in the past, even if certain experts have their doubts. (A recent survey found that about one-third of Americans reported that political violence is at least sometimes justified to advance a political cause - a share that didn’t change much from mid-2024 to 2026.)
Less controversial is V’s belief in the dynamics and potential of mass protest itself. Reflective of real-world research showing that the biggest protests start because of some sudden, unexpected event (such as a scandal or accident) rather than long-standing grievances, V shows that one domino can set off a chain reaction. “It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, Evey,” he says in the graphic novel, “for silence is a fragile thing, one loud noise, and it’s gone.”
Full screen recommended.
"The Dominoes Fall"
"This Species is Amusing Itself to Death. The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"
"This Species is Amusing Itself to Death.
The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"
By Dr. Gary G. Kohls
“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.” - Roger Waters
“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” – Clive Maund
“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
– Winston Churchill
"30 years ago (1985) Neil Postman (a professor of communications arts and sciences at New York University – until his death in 2003) wrote the best-selling book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”. (Free download below.) The book exposed, among other things, the subtle but profound dangers to the developing mind from the mesmerizing (and addictive) commercial television industry.
The lessons from that book have essentially been ignored by the amoral and corrupted sociopathic capitalist system that says “damn the torpedoes/full steam ahead” and blindly and greedily promotes unlimited growth no matter what the costs and who or what gets hurt long–term in the resource-extractive, exploitive and permanently polluting processes.
But Postman’s thesis applies even more strongly today to the current internet/computer/ age-inappropriate, pornographic sex and pornographic violence-saturated televangelist/political-contaminated media reality with which the prophetic Postman was properly alarmed.
SOMA, the Drug That Predicted Prozac by 50 Years: In the classic “Brave New World” (1932) Aldous Huxley wrote about the new form of totalitarianism that has now come to pass in the developed world, thanks to the privatized profit-driven, drug, medical and psychiatric corporations whose practitioners were once (naively or altruistically?) mainly concerned with relieving human suffering and trying to holistically and permanently cure their distressed patients’ ailments (rather than lucratively “managing” said “clients” as permanently paying consumers of unaffordable prescription drugs). Nearly 30 years after he wrote the book, Huxley said,
“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” Neil Postman’s very last sentence of his book concerned the prescription drug-infested victims of the new form of totalitarianism that Huxley had described in “Brave New World”.
Of course, Huxley’s book was all about his imaginary psychotropic drug SOMA that Prozac’s makers and promoters in the late 1980s to falsely claim to make its swallowers “feel better than well”. One of the characters in Brave New World said: “And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears; that’s what Soma is.”
Postman ended his book by writing: “What afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” A couple of years after the publication of Postman’s book, Roger Waters (of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” fame) released a “concept” album that was inspired by the book. He titled the album “Amused to Death”. The lyrics of the title track are as follows:
“Amused To Death”
by Roger Waters
"Doctor, Doctor what’s wrong with me?
This supermarket life is getting long.
What is the heart life of a color TV?
What is the shelf life of a teenage
queen?
Ooh western woman,
Ooh western girl,
News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol of
detachment
Attracted by the peeling away of
feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell
of the belle
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
And the children of Melrose strut
their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough?
And out in the valley warm and clean
The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry down to the very
last breath.
Bartender what is wrong with me,
Why I am so out of breath?
The captain said excuse me ma’am,
This species has amused itself to death
We watched the tragedy unfold,
We did as we were told.
We bought and sold,
It was the greatest show on earth.
But then it was over,
We oohed and aahed,
We drove our racing cars,
We ate our last few jars of caviar,
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah.
And when they found our shadows,
Grouped ‘round the TV sets,
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test,
They checked out all the data in
their lists.
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed.
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise,
They logged the only explanation left.
This species has amused itself to death.
No tears to cry,
No feelings left,
This species has amused itself to
death…"
○
Freely download “Amusing Ourselves to Death:
Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, by Neil Postman, here:
John Wilder, "Distractions, Pascal, And Postman"
"Distractions, Pascal, And Postman"
by John Wilder
“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
– "Fight Club"
"Distractions. Blaise Pascal wrote about them in his book "Pensées," which is French and means “reflections” and is pronounced “Hamwich” because the French never properly figured out that sounds in words should be connected in some fashion to the letters used.
Pascal was a mathematician, a physicist, and invented the laptop computer, which was initially a plank of wood. In reality, he did some of the foundational work that showed that atmospheric pressure varied with altitude, even has a unit named after him. Pascal was also a philosopher, and thought a whole bunch about Christianity. This was back before the “let’s get a cappuccino and listen to Pastor Dave talk about why God wants lesbian ministers” type of church, and instead when there were debates on how salvation occurred and if free will was a thing.
Pascal wrote: “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet, it is, itself, the greatest of our miseries.” And, although he’s dead, Pascal was entirely correct. We see it all around us right now.
Distraction is seductive. I remember we were on a family vacation and stopped at a Denny’s® to get breakfast. There was a line, and about 30 people (mainly families) were waiting. As I looked, every eye was focused on a phone – 30 people sitting next to each other, yet distracted by whatever it was that they were looking at. They had escaped reality, and also escaped talking to each other, almost as if they were addicted to the distractions coming to them over their iPhones®.
In reality, many of them probably are technically addicted to those phones. Much of the internet, even back then, was built on the premise of stimulating dopamine to create engagement with the phone, and not with the world surrounding us. Were those people worried about their bills, their jobs, or their immortal soul? Nah. They were distracted by flappy bird games or Faceborg™ or InstaChat©. They were allowing the moments of their lives to drain away into that sea of distraction rather than confront reality.
They did have bills. Their jobs sucked. Their immortal soul was in peril. But that’s difficult to think about, so it’s much easier to look at pretty colors and cat videos for ten seconds before flipping to the next infotainment bite. The distraction was total.
Is it any wonder that coping skills have been drastically impacted in the generation raised on the distraction of phones? Kids can’t cope because they’re never forced to confront themselves until the stakes are high. This creates a group of victims. I hate victims. A lot. They’re whiney and they suck every bit of energy out of the room, like psychic vampires. Oh, wait, I just described "The View." Huh.
Absolutely, there are people who are in situations that are far beyond their control. And, absolutely there are people who don’t deserve what fate has given them. However, when I look at people who have self-control, who have looked fate in the eye and said, “Yeah, so what? I’m still standing here, chump,” I feel admiration.
Neil Postman was a professor and writer, but then he died. Perhaps his best-known work is "Amusing Ourselves to Death," written in 1985. The Mrs. introduced me to it not long after we met, and I knew she was a keeper. In it, Postman talks about the impact of amusement. Amusement is close enough to distraction for our purposes and both Postman and Pascal are dead, so they can’t put up too much of a fight.
Again, Postman wrote about this in 1985, well before the every distraction, every place, all at once monster of the smartphone appeared. In it, Postman identified television as a drug. If so, it’s a gateway drug like aspirin, and the Internet is heroin.
Part of distraction is that it discourages the formation of complete thoughts. I think at least partially that’s part of the inspiration for this place, since I want to create and bring forth ideas that people might not think about, or might have forgotten in all frenzy of flashing lights, free porn, and distractions of Instabook© and Facegram™.
It’s a world where, “Excuse me, I’m talking” becomes a replacement for actual thought and people thinking deeply about issues like old Pascal becomes rarer and rarer. A side effect is that the information we get becomes information we can’t take action on. Want to complain to your congressman? How would you even contact them? How would you get their attention? Hell, getting the attention of an HOA is nearly impossible in some subdivisions. Instead, you’ll complain to your neighbor.
Worse, though, is the impact that’s happening to our youth. The lesson that bad crap is going to happen to them so they need to learn deal with it simply isn’t taught because they just distract themselves away from the Truth they don’t want to consider. It’s not their fault – their brain is optimized to live in villages, and we distract them with the hardest hitting drug in history: the smartphone.
Failure is an option. And failure is a teacher, but when the teacher is fired and replaced with social media? The lesson is muted or ignored. How did Pascal manage to deal with being a religious philosopher, a mathematician, and a physicist? I guess Pascal was good at avoiding distraction and dealing with pressure."
And so we have this...
"The Millennial Job Interview"
"Snyder Reports, 10/20/26"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 10/20/26
"The Future Of Grocery Shopping Is Here
(And It's Not A Store)"
"Walmart just announced a $120 bundle combining Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus - and it could change grocery shopping forever. Here's what the deal includes, what it costs vs paying separately, and what it means for your wallet, grocery stores, and jobs. In this video I break down the new Walmart Sam's Club membership bundle, free delivery from both chains, Peacock/Paramount Plus streaming, gas savings and 2% Sam's cash, plus why apps, delivery drivers, and dark stores mean fewer shoppers in-store and potential layoffs ahead. If you use grocery delivery or Walmart delivery, you need to see this. Have you used Walmart delivery yet, or are you thinking about it? Let me know in the comments - how concerned are you that everyone is shifting to apps and delivery?"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "Get Ready! 9% Mortgages and a 50% Home Price Crash?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 10/20/26
"Get Ready! 9% Mortgages and a
50% Home Price Crash?"
Comments here:
"Alert! Not Normal - The Riots Are Preparation for Martial Law and WW3"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/20/26
"Alert! Not Normal - The Riots Are
Preparation for Martial Law and WW3"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "The Death Zone"
"The Death Zone"
by Bill Bonner
"Tariffs are paid by parents trying to provide for their families.
They are paid by students saving up to buy their first car.
They are paid by anyone who seeks to spend money on any conceivable product."
- Rand Paul
Ardmore, Ireland - "Two big surprises coming your way. But first, the news. Amidst the misery and mystery of last week came a report on tariffs. Washington Post: "The New York Federal Reserve released a study last week about the effects of tariffs on prices. As it turns out, by February this year the import taxes that Trump announced in 2025 “contributed 2.9 percentage points to goods price inflation,” the issue that remains the top concern among voters. Without the barrage of tariffs, the New York Fed says, “goods prices would have fallen slightly.”
Perhaps it is because tariffs hit businesses (who pay the levy directly to the feds) first, producers are being whacked by much more inflation than consumers. This from Wolf Richter: "Inflation in prices that businesses pay each other and charge each other – tracked by the Producer Price Index (PPI) – accelerated to 6.3% year-over-year in September, the worst inflation in the realm of businesses since December 2022.
Inflation has been far more aggressive for businesses than for consumers, though it has also been getting worse for consumers: The Consumer Price Index yesterday accelerated to +3.7% year-over-year. GDP tracks inflation that all economic participants face – consumers, businesses, non-profits, and governments."
Tariffs make a nice target. Partly because they are stupid and partly because they don’t work. Fox: "Manufacturing - the industry the tariffs were intended to help - fared particularly poorly, according to the damning report. Researchers estimate the sector lost roughly 75,000 positions during the policy’s first year, or about 6,250 jobs per month. “We can say with an over 90% confidence level that manufacturing lost jobs because of the tariffs,” Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital.
No surprise there. Modern factories do not just sell to foreigners...they buy raw materials from them too. Tax their inputs and their outputs go up in price. That’s how producer prices rose 6.3% over the last twelve months. Nor did tariffs reduce the trade deficit. CEPR: "By December [2025], the deficit had risen back to $100 billion a month, roughly the same as the pre-election level. The deficits have increased sharply again in 2026, driven in large part by a surge in semiconductor chips due to the AI boom. The August level of $132.6 billion is the second-highest deficit on record, topped only by last year’s March deficit."
Tariffs are a self-imposed problem that is easy to fix. Just drop them. Tout de suite. Problem solved. Inflation itself is easily solved too. Just eliminate the tariffs and put the government on a pay-as-you-go basis...including paying down the debt. No borrowing. No funny money. Why not? Every farmer, widow, and half-wit voter can do it. But not if they can avoid doing it. And not when they still think they can ‘inflate the debt away.’ You might as well ask the wolf to give up meat for Lent.
This is where the first surprise comes in. The kind of inflation they see coming - slow, mild, house-trained inflation, at…say…the Fed’s 2% target rate - will work tolerably well...but only so long as the accumulated debt remains under control. The upward limit seems to be about 100% to 130% of GDP.
Thanks to Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who together added $20 trillion to US debt in the last ten years, we have reached the death zone. Now, even small increases in interest rates can spin out of control. Deficits cause borrowing, which causes higher interest rates, which raises the feds’ budget, which causes them to borrow more. As Tom points out, the “inflate” part of ‘inflate or die’ no longer rescues you...it finishes you off.
Investors and consumers are already alert to the swindle. They expect it - but at fairly civilized rates...certainly, less than 10% per year. Surprise number one is that inflation - that adorable pet curled up in front of the fire - will go feral. Maybe next year. Maybe ten years from now. It will eat your lunch. Your dinner. The furniture. Wolf-like...monstrous...and ravenous, it will devour your savings. ‘Hyperinflation!’ the press will shriek. ‘No one saw it coming.’
This will cue the Treasury for the second big surprise. The dollar will be devalued, perhaps 100 to 1. Or perhaps a new form of money will be inaugurated...invented by Elon Musk; it will do back-flips...and land in your bank account. AI-enhanced, crypto money - we will be happy to get it! The feds will declare your ‘old’ dollars void and worthless...an empty gesture, since it will have already become worthless. The president will make the announcement, crossing his heart and hoping to die if ever again we see such high inflation. Most surprising of all, many voters will believe him."
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Walmart"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 10/20/26
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart"
Comments here:
Monday, October 19, 2026
"Another Round Against Iran Will Break What Is Left of the Gulf"
"Another Round Against Iran
Will Break What Is Left of the Gulf"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Washington and Israel are talking again about “finishing the job” in Iran. Before they do, someone should take a hard look at the bill for the jobs already done. My friend Karl Miller, who has called this region correctly more often than most of the people paid to do it, sent me his latest assessment on Monday. His conclusion is blunt: on the current course, another round of escalation is coming, and the countries paying for it will be the ones that never got a vote.
The Gulf is being bled dry: Start with the people who are supposed to be America’s partners. The IMF’s October outlook reads like a casualty report. Kuwait’s economy is forecast to shrink 16.7 percent this year. Qatar’s will shrink 15.6 percent, and Bahrain’s 11.3 percent. The UAE, long sold as the region’s safe haven, is now expected to contract 3.9 percent, a seven-point swing from the IMF’s April forecast. Saudi Arabia is forecast to shrink 3.3 percent. The only Gulf economy still growing is Oman, and that is because its ports sit outside the Strait of Hormuz.
These are not paper losses. Qatar lost two LNG trains at Ras Laffan in March, about 17 percent of its export capacity. QatarEnergy says the repairs will take three to five years and will cost it roughly $20 billion a year in revenue. Saudi Arabia’s escape route around Hormuz, the East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, is crippled. My sources tell me four of its 11 pumping stations are severely damaged and out of service. Riyadh now projects a deficit of 4.9 percent of GDP, is borrowing to cover it, and has frozen non-essential spending.
Miller explains why this is worse than the headline oil price suggests. A damaged plant produces nothing to sell, but the payroll, the debt payments and the repair bills keep coming. A plant that is still standing but cannot get parts in or cargo out is in almost the same position. A $108 barrel of oil is worth nothing if you cannot ship it. And the cash the Gulf states used to invest at home and abroad is vanishing fast. If a government takes in 100 and must spend 70, it has 30 left over. Cut income to 80 and that cushion drops to 10. A 20 percent hit to revenue wipes out two-thirds of the money for everything else.
The Gulf states bought American protection to safeguard exactly this wealth. Instead, as Miller puts it, they have ended up paying for the costs of American strategy. That is a bargain they will not keep making forever.
A new round means a deeper shortage: Now consider what another round of American and Israeli strikes would do to a world that is already short of energy. Oil flows through Hormuz are running around 11.6 to 11.9 million barrels a day, against a pre-war level of about 17 million. Middle Eastern fuel exports are below half of what they were before the war. The International Energy Agency says diesel will stay tight well into 2027, and that the diesel stocks already burned will not be rebuilt before the second half of that year. Brent is around $108, up more than 75 percent from a year ago.
Every escalation so far has followed the same pattern. Iran answers by tightening its grip on Hormuz. Its allies in Yemen widen their target list. Gulf facilities that were patched together get hit again before they earn back the cost of repairing them. That is the cruelest part of Miller’s analysis: repeated attacks make repairs pointless, because nobody will spend billions restoring a plant that may be destroyed again next month. A new campaign will not reopen the Strait. It will close it further, take more Gulf capacity offline, and push diesel back toward September’s record of more than $200 a barrel, just as Europe heads into winter. France and Italy are already rioting over the cost of living. Imagine them in February.
Israel’s dark future: Miller’s harshest judgment is reserved for Israel, and it deserves a full hearing. He believes Israel will never recover from what it has done in Gaza, which a UN commission of inquiry concluded last year was genocide. In his words, the state is “done economically. It is done politically. It is done morally.” That is strong language, but the argument behind it is not hysteria. It is about how a state wears itself out.
His reasoning runs like this. Israel’s leadership has bet everything on military domination: hit every opponent hard enough that no one dares resist. Force can win battles, but it cannot make anyone accept the result. Every campaign therefore creates the need for the next one. Opponents rebuild, resentment grows, and the circle of countries willing to stand with Israel gets smaller. So the government doubles down with more force, because the alternative, accepting real limits on occupation and on its treatment of the Palestinians, threatens the political project it is defending. War becomes a way to postpone the reckoning, not avoid it.
The cost is already showing. The IMF says Israel’s economy is about 9 percent smaller than it would have been without the war. The budget deficit is heading to 6.2 percent of GDP, and public debt is on track to reach about 74 percent of GDP by 2031. Reservists are pulled from their jobs again and again. Israelis are already fighting over who carries the burden, with ultra-Orthodox men still far less likely to work or serve than everyone else. Foreign investors and partners grow more cautious with each campaign. Miller’s warning is that Israel’s project could become unsustainable long before its military power runs out. A country can keep its tanks and jets and still lose the economy, the alliances and the legitimacy it needs to survive. That is the dark and uncertain future he sees, and I find it hard to argue with.
Trump says Russia is doing nothing. Lavrov says otherwise: Which brings me to the President’s latest reassurance. On October 13, Donald Trump said he does not believe Russia or China is helping Iran. On Sunday he went further on social media, insisting that “Russia is doing very little to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared with what it could be doing,” if it is doing anything at all, and that he wants it to stay that way “unless some stupid people get in the way.”
Less than a day later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stood next to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran and said the opposite. “I am confident that Iran’s cause, like Russia’s, is a just cause,” Lavrov declared. He said Russia “has no intention of abandoning the implementation of agreements with Iran in the economic and investment spheres,” and recommitted Moscow to the 20-year strategic partnership that formally took effect on October 2. He announced that Russian specialists will return to the Bushehr nuclear plant. He called for Hormuz to return to pre-war conditions, and tied that to protecting Iran from renewed attacks. Before landing in Tehran, he called Trump’s approach “wrong.”
To be fair to the President, Russia has not gone to war for Iran, and the partnership treaty does not require it to. There is no mutual-defense clause. But that is a lawyer’s distinction. Russia’s foreign minister does not fly into a capital under threat of attack to call its cause just by accident. Add the reported Russian satellite data reaching Iran’s allies and the steady improvement in the accuracy of Iranian and Houthi missiles, and the picture is of a partner that is careful, deniable and very much engaged. Moscow does not need to fire a shot. It only needs to keep Iran standing while America bleeds its Gulf allies and Europe’s economy.
The bill comes due: If Washington and Israel launch another round, they will be betting that this time force produces a settlement. Three years of evidence says it will not. What it will produce is deeper Gulf recessions, a longer energy shortage, more anger in Europe’s streets, and a bigger bill for an Israel that is already running out of room. Miller’s forecast is that the next round is coming anyway. I hope he is wrong this time. I doubt it."
o
I discussed the Houthi military capability with Judge Napolitano:
Larry C. Johnson, "How The Houthis Fight"
Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Code 100 Activated In Iran!"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/19/26
"Alert! Code 100 Activated In Iran!"
Iranian insider has informed us that Iran is at maximum readiness and expects sh!t will hit the fan in the next couple weeks. Code 100 indicates the highest level of readiness as Israeli jets fly around Syria. Hegseth has met with Netanyahu and Israel has suspended leave for IDF as of Thursday."
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Brace For Impact, Prices Are Skyrocketing"
Adventures With Danno, 10/19/26
"Brace For Impact, Prices Are Skyrocketing"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Michael Franti, "Hey World (Don't Give Up)"
Full screen recommended.
Michael Franti, "Hey World (Don't Give Up)"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars. The colors in this remarkably deep composite image clearly show the star forming galaxies with a blue tint and galaxies with older stellar populations with a yellowish cast.
The sharp picture spans about 3/4 degree across the cluster center, corresponding to over 6 million light-years at the cluster's estimated distance. Diffraction spikes around brighter foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy are produced by the imaging telescope's mirror support vanes. In the cosmic vista many galaxies seem to be colliding or merging while others seem distorted - clear evidence that cluster galaxies commonly interact. In fact, the Hercules Cluster itself may be seen as the result of ongoing mergers of smaller galaxy clusters and is thought to be similar to young galaxy clusters in the much more distant, early Universe. "
"Where the Pearl Palace Glows Beneath the Moon"
Full screen recommended.
Crystal Heaven,
"Where the Pearl Palace Glows Beneath the Moon"
"Welcome to a magical world where pearl palaces glow beneath the moon, crystal waterfalls flow into turquoise waters, and enchanted gardens bloom beneath a sky filled with stars. Let this peaceful fantasy journey carry you through a dreamlike kingdom of crystal castles, luminous waterfalls, sparkling rivers, elegant gardens, magical flowers, and heavenly moonlight. Soft, sweet ambient music with gentle piano, delicate harp, warm acoustic guitar, soft trumpet, airy melodies, and distant angelic vocals creates a calm atmosphere perfect for deep sleep, relaxation, meditation, studying, reading, stress relief, and peaceful dreaming. Relax, breathe slowly, and imagine yourself wandering through this beautiful Pearl Palace beneath the moon. Let the music wash away the noise of the day and guide you into a peaceful dream."
Native American Elder, "Why Happiness Was Easier 40 Years Ago"
Full screen recommended.
Native American Elder,
"Why Happiness Was Easier 40 Years Ago"
Delta King's Blues, "Bite Me, I'm Busy"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues, "Bite Me, I'm Busy"
"Sometimes you’ve got your own problems, your own plans, and absolutely no patience for anybody else’s nonsense. This bold Delta King’s Blues tune is about setting boundaries, minding your business, and living life on your own terms. Gritty acoustic guitar and soulful harmonica bring a raw, laid-back blues groove full of attitude, humor, and hard-earned wisdom. I ain’t ignoring the world. I’m just busy enjoying my peace."
"We Are Facing A Global Energy Crisis, A Global Food Crisis, A European Financial Crisis, The End Of The AI Bubble And A Super El Niño All At Once"
by Michael Snyder
"We have never seen a year quite like 2026, and we are certainly not prepared for what is coming in 2027. There has never been a time when we haven’t had problems, but now we have entered an era when we are just getting hammered by crisis after crisis after crisis. At the moment, we are simultaneously facing an unprecedented global energy crisis, an unprecedented global food crisis, an epic meltdown in Europe, the end of the biggest financial bubble in history and the most powerful Super El Niño ever recorded. To say that we have a lot on our plate would be a massive understatement, and what we have experienced so far is only just the beginning.
For a few months a decent amount of oil was sneaking through the Strait of Hormuz, but now Iran is trying to slam the door shut. The Iranians have been attacking more oil tankers than ever before this month, and earlier today yet another oil tanker hit an Iranian naval mine…A violating oil tanker struck a naval mine in the southern Strait of Hormuz, causing an explosion and a fire in its engine room, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Navy said in a statement.
The vessel, which was trying to exit the Strait of Hormuz, had switched off all its positioning and navigation systems from the start of its voyage and was attempting to cross the unauthorized southern route of the strait in disregard of its regulations when the incident occurred. The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Navy said any ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf that turn off their navigation and identification systems will be dealt with severely and decisively.
The southern route through the Strait of Hormuz near the coast of Oman used to be clear of mines. Not anymore. Every time a single oil tanker is put out of commission that is a major loss. A new oil tanker costs somewhere between $60 million and $140 million, and once an order is placed it takes 9 to 15 months to build it.
Investors are starting to realize that the global energy crisis is not going to end any time soon, and on Monday the price of Brent crude nearly hit 110 dollars a barrel…Brent crude futures briefly tagged $109.99 a barrel in overnight trading before retreating from five-month highs during the Asian session and into European trading, as signs of recovering Middle Eastern supply offset renewed attacks on energy infrastructure and critical maritime shipping lanes.
Of course Iran is not able to export much oil either, because the U.S. naval blockade is having a devastating impact on their economy…In a video message posted on Friday, U.S. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper said the naval blockade has prevented Iran from exporting at least $25 billion worth of crude oil. The U.S. and its partners have also frozen nearly $350 million cryptocurrency assets, he added.
The effects have rippled throughout Iran’s economy, forcing the regime to withhold salaries, pensions, and benefits to workers in the energy, manufacturing, construction and security sectors, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Cooper said.
“The financial strain on Iran’s military has become so significant that there are reports of Iran-aligned militia groups across the region withholding payments to their soldiers in order to funnel money back to the IRGC, which also is not paying its troops,” he explained. “The Islamic regime is clearly feeling the economic pain, and the IRGC is increasingly showing signs of greater desperation as a result.”
What we really need is for the war in the Middle East to end. But that isn’t going to happen. In fact, it appears that it could soon greatly escalate. The fighting in the Middle East has also really driven up fertilizer prices. Farmers all over the world are paying far more for fertilizer and far more for fuel, and those costs are going to get passed along to everyone else.
Global food prices increased by 13 percent during the third quarter of 2026, and we are being warned that even higher prices are ahead… Global agricultural prices jumped 13 percent in the third quarter of the year, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which warned a “global food crisis is looming”. The surge in energy prices due to conflict in the Middle East has sparked a sharp increase in the cost of fertilisers and fuel this year, driving up agricultural production and transport costs. “Over the next six to nine months, we will see continued increases related to food prices, but also I would say even inflation in terms of food, which will impact most of the populations that actually can afford it less,” IFAD President Alvaro Lario told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.
When food prices go up, more people go hungry. That is just the way that it works. The outlook for 2027 is extremely grim, and we are already at a point where the number of people in the world experiencing acute hunger has doubled over the past ten years…Acute hunger has doubled over the last ten years and now affects 266 million people across 47 countries and territories, according to a new report from Action Against Hunger.
But at least the wealthy countries will be fine, right? Actually, they won’t be fine at all. We have been witnessing horrifying riots in France, Belgium, Italy and Albania in recent days. The rioting has been particularly intense in France, and on Monday French stocks were way down…French markets tumbled on Monday, with bonds, Paris-listed stocks and even the euro falling after widespread protests across France underscored difficulties the government faces in reducing its large deficit.
Already contending with weak growth and ballooning debt, the euro zone’s second-biggest economy witnessed some of its worst unrest in years over the weekend. Thousands of people were arrested and shops were looted during protests over high prices and declining public services. France just kept borrowing gigantic amounts of money year after year, and currently they are absolutely drowning in debt.
Now French bond prices are crashing hard and everyone is freaking out…A slide in bond prices on Monday pushed France’s 10-year yield up 13 basis points to 4.9%, on track for its largest one-day rise since late September, while the German 10-year yield, the benchmark for the euro zone, rose 4 bps to 3.45%. The difference between those two yields, which is a reflection of the premium investors demand to lend to France rather than Germany, was 146 bps, its highest in two weeks, though it has eased from the nearly 160 bps hit in early October.
French banks are facing nightmarish unrealized losses on the French bonds that they are holding. If there is a run on the banks, we are being warned that many of them could start collapsing as a result of this crisis. I certainly wouldn’t want my money in French banks at this stage.
Germany is in a lot of trouble too. The German economy has been in stall mode for years, bond yields have been rising, and even Volkswagen has fallen on hard times… In another episode of the “death of Europe,” a new report from Germany brings more troubling news for struggling automaker Volkswagen, suggesting to us that globalists in the bloc have squandered not just their inheritance but their economic future through a failing progressive experiment that has neutered Europe’s industrial base.
German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports that Volkswagen plans to freeze salaries through the end of the decade as it expands its cost-cutting push after lowering its outlook and doubling its job-reduction target. “Internal documents reveal that hundreds of thousands of employees are to forgo pay raises. These latest plans represent a further escalation in the conflict between management and employee representatives,” SZ wrote in the article.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain are supposed to be the pillars of the European Union. Unfortunately, all of them are currently on shaky ground. This is a story that is still in the early chapters, and I am convinced that the whole world will be shocked by what is about to happen to Europe.
Meanwhile, the AI bubble in the U.S. is beginning to burst. Many AI stocks have fallen substantially this month. Investors are starting to realize that AI will never be the income-generating miracle that it was touted to be at one time. So now there is a lot more hesitancy to fund new data center projects, and some projects are either being delayed or canceled…
More than three years into the AI boom, these ambitious data centre plans are running into reality. At least 47 large projects have been delayed, withdrawn or blocked in 2026, according to data shared by RegLayer, a regulatory intelligence company, which described it as a “conservative estimate” focused on the largest sites. When there is a stock market bubble, you only get rich if you get out at the top. Those that hold their AI stocks all the way to the bitter end are going to end up deeply, deeply disappointed.
On top of everything else that I have discussed in this article, we are also facing a Super El Niño. According to the NOAA, there is an 83 percent chance that this will be the most powerful El Niño ever recorded… As of October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts there is an 83 per cent chance that this will be the strongest El Niño since records began in 1950.
Meanwhile, NASA’s satellite measurements show that sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific are currently 1.7°C (3°F) above the long–term average, and could jump another fraction of a degree higher in the coming months. This band of warm water expanded throughout the spring and now covers millions of square miles in an area stretching from the coast of South America to the heart of the Pacific.
In some parts of the world, this Super El Niño has caused monster storms. In other parts of the world, this Super El Niño has caused crippling droughts and widespread crop failures. Sadly, this Super El Niño is expected to persist well into 2027. That is not good news at all.
At the same time, the global energy crisis and the global food crisis are both going to continue to intensify as we roll into next year. We really are in the midst of a “perfect storm”, and I anticipate that global financial markets will go totally nuts in the months ahead."
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