“The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break
your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See, if
it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.”
- Harry Browne
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Monday, November 9, 2026
"Snyder Reports, 11/9/26"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 11/9/26
"Nobody Is Prepared For This Global Food Crisis"
"Global food security is now at high risk. From a supermarket cyber attack in France to Black Sea shipping attacks, here's why experts say food prices could surge and what you need to stockpile now. In this video I break down why France is blaming Iran for an unprecedented cyber attack on supermarket fridges and freezers, why new Black Sea drone attacks targeting 9 vessels threaten grain exports to Africa and the Middle East, and why Oxford Economics forecasts food prices up nearly 12% in 2026 plus another 4.8% in 2027. I also cover why more Americans are using Klarna and Afterpay to buy groceries, and why experts say to have at least 2 weeks worth of food on hand. Stay prepared with daily news on congressional action, economics, and emergency preparedness."
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Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 11/9/26
"Democrats Threaten Government
Shutdown Over Iran War - Prepare Now!"
'Another government shutdown could happen on December 11, 2026 - and this time Democrats may use it to force an end to the Iran war. In this video we break down what Congress returns to today in its lame-duck session, why the December 11 funding deadline and January 3rd swearing-in of the new Congress matter, what Secretary of State Marco Rubio just said about stalled Iran talks, and what a short shutdown from December 11 to early January would mean for federal pay, benefits, gas and diesel prices, and Strait of Hormuz oil flow. You'll learn why Democrats say they will absolutely not fund the war, why Republicans want to push funding to September 30th, 2027, and why a short-term stopgap to late January is now on the table. If prices fall when the war ends, we cover what has to happen first."
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"Is This Atmospheric River The Beginning Of An “ARkStorm”? Back To Back Atmospheric Rivers Are Expected To Hit California “On A Nearly Weekly Basis” By January"
by Michael Snyder
"An atmospheric river is about to absolutely hammer the Pacific Northwest. There will be flooding in some areas and up to 20 feet of snow in the mountains of British Columbia. Once the atmospheric river is pushed further south, it is expected to dump a month’s worth of rain on Sacramento in just 48 hours. The wild weather that I have just described will be inconvenient, but it won’t be catastrophic. However, if an extended series of atmospheric rivers creates “ARkStorm” conditions in California during the winter months, that truly would be catastrophic. An “ARkStorm” is much more likely to develop during El Niño years, and it is being projected that the Super El Niño of 2026-2027 will be the most powerful El Niño ever recorded. Any atmospheric rivers that approach California will be turbocharged by this insanely powerful Super El Niño, and as a result a colossal amount of rainfall could fall on the state in the months ahead.
As I discussed in a previous article, atmospheric rivers are most likely to hit California between the months of September and March. Peak activity tends to be concentrated in the winter months of December, January and February. As you will see below, meteorologists are warning that back-to-back atmospheric rivers could hammer the state on a nearly weekly basis by January. If such a scenario actually materializes, California could be facing an “ARkStorm”.
Most people do not realize this, but California has actually experienced an “ARkStorm” on many occasions over the past 1,800 years. The most recent occasion was the Great Flood of 1861-1862…
The 1861–1862 Benchmark: Geologic records and historical data document the Great Flood of 1861–1862, when 45 days of relentless atmospheric rivers created a 300-mile-long inland sea across the Central Valley, submerging Sacramento, Stockton, and Fresno.
A Trillion-Dollar Disaster Model: A catastrophic scenario developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NOAA, and FEMA estimates that a modern ARkStorm could inundate up to 25% of all buildings in California.
The Insurance Gap: With the state’s real estate value exceeding $10 trillion and only approximately 12% of California property owners carrying active flood insurance policies, economic damage models warn that uninsured structural losses could top $1 trillion.
A Developing Super El Niño: With climate forecasters estimating an 83% probability that the 2026–2027 El Niño will rank among the strongest in recorded history, atmospheric scientists warn that the threshold for severe, multi-week flooding events has risen significantly heading into the core winter months.
It will take a long series of atmospheric rivers to create “ARkStorm” conditions. So we will watch to see if that is what actually starts happening. Of course a very alarming pattern is already starting to develop… A series of storms carrying long plumes of moisture, known as atmospheric rivers, will bring heavy rain, strong winds and mountain snow to British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Flooding and strong winds will disrupt travel, while heavy snow will increase avalanche concerns in the mountains.
Rain and mountain snow will fall in rounds, with breaks between storms. During the heaviest downpours, rainfall rates could reach 1-2 inches per hour in some locations. Rain this intense can overwhelm drainage systems, especially where fallen leaves clog storm drains.
It looks like there will be large amounts of rain and snow in the Pacific Northwest for a few days, and then Northern California will get hit “later in the week”…Rather than a single storm system, a succession of Pacific disturbances will bring periods of rain, initially focusing on the Pacific Northwest before gradually shifting south toward California later in the week. The pattern is already making its presence felt across the Northwest. Overnight Saturday into Sunday, nearly 100,000 customers lost power across Washington as powerful wind gusts swept through the region. Winds in the lower elevations were near 50 to 60 mph, while higher elevations saw even stronger gusts. Near Mount Rainier, a gust of 95 mph was recorded.
Thanks to the Super El Niño, the storms that are about to pummel the Pacific Northwest will be very strong. By the time Saturday rolls around, some portions of British Columbia and western Washington state are expected to get over a foot of rain… Through Saturday, Nov. 14, more than a foot of rain could pour down in parts of coastal British Columbia and western Washington, particularly on west- and south-facing slopes at lower and middle elevations. “Runoff will increase from each storm as the ground becomes saturated,” AccuWeather Senior Storm Warning Meteorologist Tim Richards said. “As runoff increases and becomes more widespread, the likelihood of flooding in small streams and rivers will rise.”
There are some areas in western Washington state that are quite prone to flooding. If you live in one of those areas, you should be aware that there is a very strong chance that you are about to get flooded again.
In the mountains of British Columbia, the amount of snow that falls could be up to 20 feet deep…Through Nov. 14, total snowfall accumulation could reach 10-20 feet in parts of British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. Farther south, snow in Washington’s Cascade and Olympic mountains will generally be confined to the highest elevations.
I have never lived anywhere that got that much snow. How do people manage that? Once we get to Friday, the atmospheric river will have been pushed further south and will start soaking Northern California. It is expected that the amount of rain that Sacramento gets from this system will be equivalent to what it normally receives during the entire month of November…
Precipitation Timing: The system is expected to deliver one to two days of heavy, concentrated rainfall across Northern and Central California before pushing inland.
Monthly Rainfall in 48 Hours: Projections indicate cities like Sacramento could receive nearly two inches of rain during the storm window - matching the city’s entire historical average for the month of November in a single event.
Heavy Sierra Snowfall: At higher elevations, the system is expected to dump several feet of snow across the Sierra Nevada, providing an early boost for Lake Tahoe ski resorts preparing for November openings.
Winter Cadence: Meteorologists note this mid-November system is only an opening salvo. Because El Niño is projected to intensify over the next two months, California could experience back-to-back atmospheric rivers on a nearly weekly basis by January. Sacramento was one of the areas that was underwater for months as a result of the Great Flood of 1861-1862.
Of course one storm is not anything to get too excited about. What alarms me most about the article that I quoted above is the fact that meteorologists are warning that California “could experience back-to-back atmospheric rivers on a nearly weekly basis by January”. That is precisely the type of weather pattern that could potentially create “ARkStorm” conditions.
Already, long-range models are indicating that there will be large amounts of precipitation for California as we move through the rest of this month…Long-range models are hinting at some of these Pacific waves continuing to drive into California and for the Four Corners next week. Heavy rain, snow, and strong winds could be a possibility as we move into the middle of November. Whatever happens this month would just be the warm up act. December, January and February are the prime months for an ARkStorm.
According to the USGS, the geologic record shows that there have been “6 megastorms more severe than 1861-1862 in California in the last 1800 years”
What that is telling us is that there have been many “ARkStorms” in California in the past, and we should expect more in the future. Thanks to the Super El Niño of 2026-2027, conditions are ideal for one to occur during the upcoming winter months. If an ARkStorm does materialize, it will likely be the costliest natural disaster in modern American history."
Dan, I Allegedly, "This Is Getting Ridiculous"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/9/26
"This Is Getting Ridiculous"
"California is considering a mileage tax that could charge drivers for every mile they travel. And this isn't just a California story. States across the country are studying road-usage charges, raising questions about what drivers could pay, how mileage would be tracked, and what happens to personal privacy. We're looking at California's budget problems, existing gasoline taxes, government spending, the California Lottery, and the growing debate over mileage-based fees. Who collects the money? Who monitors your miles? What will the bureaucracy cost? And will these charges replace existing taxes or become another expense? This is personal finance, business news, government accountability and national news that could affect drivers across America. Your vote has consequences. Make sure you understand the issues."
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Jim Kunstler, "The Curse It Is Cast"
Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed at His Victory Celebration
"The Curse It Is Cast"
by Jim Kunstler
“History and even corruption itself have
a way of normalizing the unbearable.”
- Naomi Wolf on Substack
"That 60-Minutes interview with the President Sunday night was a doozy: he allowed Ross Douthat (former New York Times columnist) to over-speak him so audaciously you had to wonder why Mr. Trump even bothered to show up. He barely levered a word in edgewise and looked rather glum in the process. Actually, you were watching an act of political ju-jitsu: the president pretending to take it like a whipped dog, so that his antagonists would think he was offering himself up for slaughter. They’d better think again (but watch, they won’t).
Also on Sunday, Roger Stone wrote that Stephen Miller, the new chief of staff, was just promoted to “wartime consigliere.” You are a little off, Roger. It’s more like wartime field marshal. The president has gone to war against the treasonous Democratic Party, the Party of Victims. Now they know. And now you know. The positions on both sides have hardened-up. I’m dreaming of...a strange Christmas.
Pardon me for going out on a limb here. The Party of Victims has flat-out said it wants to see the president drawn, quartered, beheaded, pissed-on, and stuffed into an unmarked hole in the ground. Plus, anyone who ever worked for him or voted for him to be hurled into prison. There’s your casus belli. The curse it is cast.
The Party of Victims has also announced its intentions to shred the Constitution via legal legerdemain for the purpose of making the USA a one-party state and, as such, subservient to governing entities outside the USA. Those entities reside mainly in and around the European Union, including the EU itself, the financial elites that it serves, and an international NGO galaxy of aggrieved “activists.” These are commonly identified as the “Globalists.” Note that this cabal is already under extreme stress on its home territory as the nations of Europe explode in violence. IOW, these Globalists are already losing and turning ever more desperate.
Discount any prattle coming out of the Party of Victims and their ancillaries in the news media about “our democracy.” The phrase is a ruse, aimed at malware they have already installed in your brain, straight out of Rachel Maddow’s pretty mouth. “Our democracy” is a phantom concept to disguise a political apparatus that only works for the Party of Victims. Also note: the Party of Victims wants to make victims of everybody outside their party. “Our democracy” actually means: we get to push you around and do our bidding...or else go off and die.
So, the Party of Victims has “won” the midterm election super-bigly. They crushed it. They are supreme. Everybody and his uncle voted for them overwhelmingly, in record numbers so stupefying they seem...a little supernatural. Yes, like they got an assist from somewhere, from someone - and probably not from the better angels of our nature, if you know what I mean. Somehow an extra 20-million ballots were cast this midterm over the previous midterm in 2022. But they were strangely distributed.
In the Texas gubernatorial, for instance, almost two million new voters showed up this year above the total voters in 2022 - 9.9 million over 8.1 million. Nationwide, Republican votes were nearly the same in 2026 as 2022, but those 20-million new votes went strictly to the Party of Victims. Gol-lee! Where did they come from? I think we’re going to find out. Of course, to find out, you have to first inquire. Why would you inquire if the election was one hunnert percent above-board, fair-and-square? How dare you! That would be election denialisim, spurious, illegitimate...tyrannical...verboten!
That is the Party of Victims’ well-advertised “red line,” right there, the thing that triggers their thing, which is activist activism going active in the streets, protest marches, shrieking nose-rings, froggie costumes, raging inflamed transsexuals, POCs unchained, Boomer grandmas in a lather, all of them maybe busting up some storefronts, setting a few fires, mostly peaceful, you understand, except where they’re not. Chicago is suddenly like Paris was in October. And the Party of Victims double-dares you to do something about it!
The president will do something about it, probably something that entails federalizing the national guard, or failing that, sending in regular army troops. It will probably require him to declare the Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. §§ 251–255), which overrides the Posse Comitatus Act. No approval from Congress is required.
Anyway, the U.S. has operated under multiple overlapping national emergencies for decades (the oldest still-active one dates to the 1979 Iran hostage crisis). The 2018 Election Interference Emergency order (EO 13848) is one of them. It was renewed by the president in August 2026. Which is to say, the country is already under an emergency, this one pegged to foreign interference in our elections. It mandates an “assessment” of foreign interference by the Director of National Intelligence, and further action by the DOJ. It may not be enough. Effective executive action might require the declaration of a National Security Emergency in the event that substantial evidence of election fraud is discovered.
The “Our Democracy” NGOs scheming in the background of the midterm election want the Party of Victims to go medieval on the president. This is where their plan kicks in to nullify the president and turn over his executive powers to a panel of governors (Newsom, Pritzker, Hochul, etc.), who will then supposedly preside over a “restructuring” of the basic charter of the USA. Their chatter about this was recorded and distributed across the internet the past month, along with their written memos to the same effect. It’s all out there. In short, this actually is an insurrection, and Mr. Trump will oblige himself to stop it, just as Abraham Lincoln had to oblige himself to put down the southern secession. And for the same reason, to save the Union.
You might have noticed that there is also a lot of background chatter on the web about “stocking up” on food and supplies...about possible interruptions of the internet, perhaps days or even weeks... about threats to the electric grid. Of course, it’s alarming. It implies rather extreme and severe circumstances. But do you really know what might happen? This is serious. Pay attention. Maintain situational awareness. This could be a very strange Christmas indeed."
Bill Bonner, "The Road to Ruin"
"The Road to Ruin"
by Bill Bonner
Ardmore, Ireland - "Poor Pete Hegseth. He picked the wrong week to stop drinking. And what a week! People who didn’t stand a chance in mainstream politics were suddenly elected to the US Senate. A few years ago, or even a few months ago, a guy like Abdul El-Sayed would have been a pariah. Asked who was worse - Israel or Hamas - he refused to give the only answer approved by America’s most powerful lobby. But now, apparently, a lot of voters aren’t sure either.
It is almost a week since Donald Trump was thrashed in the midterm elections. And Democrats are giddy with delight. They hope to see heads roll. They’ve got their list. And they’re counting on Republicans to do much of the chopping. But who was going to be blamed? Who was going to be tossed off the boat in the hopes of making it more sea-worthy? MS Now: "The man could not be more incompetent: Rep. Ansari calls for Pete Hegseth’s impeachment."
Officials tell MS NOW the President’s allies “smell blood in the water” after Tuesday’s blue tsunami. But wait, NBC News: "President Trump says he has ‘every intention’ to keep Secretary Hegseth. President Trump said he intends to keep Secretary Pete Hegseth in his job, as GOP Rep. Thomas Massie prepares to reintroduce an impeachment resolution against Hegseth. ABC News’ Karen Travers reports."
As in the Soviet Union, no rumour is confirmed until it has been officially denied. What POTUS intends to do with Hegseth, we don’t know. He is probably the least able man in the cabinet, where the competition is stiff. As such, he may be useful to the president. Like a body double, Hegseth may draw fire that otherwise would aim for him.
But whether he goes or stays, his tenure as laughingstock head of America’s military probably won’t be like Sherman’s march through Georgia. Custer’s march through Montana is probably the more likely model. In addition to the usual battles, somewhere in the low hills of the incoming Congress an angry woman, with a feather in her hair and war paint on her face, lies in wait. Yes, it’s Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, the very woman Hegseth fired. Lacore, with her 35 years of experience in the military, will no doubt take her place among the inquisitors Mr. Hegseth will face.
She might pose Pistol Pete questions that the rest of us have been too polite to ask. By what authority did he summarily execute alleged drug dealers - with no trial, no judge, no jury, no evidence and no defence permitted? How is that different from what the law books call, ‘mass premeditated murder’? “Do you think just losing your job is a satisfactory punishment,” Admiral (ret.) Lacore might ask, “Wouldn’t something more ...well...‘lethal’ be in order?”
On Friday morning, another candidate for the guillotine was Stephen Miller. The New Republic: "Leaks from within the Trump administration are targeting the White House adviser and deputy chief of staff for policy, with unnamed sources attacking Miller. According to The Wall Street Journal, First Lady Melania Trump at one point complained to President Trump that people she knew were getting deported, leading the president to tell his aides that Miller’s aggressive deportation plans were going too far."
Another report in The New York Times noted that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, herself potentially on the chopping block after Republicans’ election fiasco, was not a fan of Miller’s heavy-handed immigration approach, and had tried for months to get Trump to take a different route.
But, as it turned out, the blade came down on the neck of one of the least obnoxious people in the whole White House cast, the aforementioned Susie Wiles. Daily Mail: "A key former staffer and ally of Robert F Kennedy Jr accused outgoing Chief of Staff Susie Wiles of taking money from corporations and foreign interests to sabotage RFK’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda. Trump announced Friday that ‘ice queen’ Wiles would leave the powerful position on Monday for a position in Trump’s political operation, to be replaced by Stephen Miller."
As of this morning, God is in His Heaven. And the King is on his throne. Hegseth is still at his Department of War. And Miller heads the White House staff. And traffic on the road to ruin is still moving along nicely. But there’s always tomorrow."
Adventures With Danno, "This Is An Unusual Situation, Strange Times Ahead"
Adventures With Danno, 11/9/26
"This Is An Unusual Situation, Strange Times Ahead"
Comments here:
"Economic Market Snapshot 11/9/26"
"Economic Market Snapshot 11/9/26"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
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Sunday, November 8, 2026
Jeremiah Babe, "Heading Into Crisis Mode: Conditions Are Changing Rapidly"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/8/26
"Heading Into Crisis Mode:
Conditions Are Changing Rapidly"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Beautiful Relaxing Music for Stress Relief"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation,
"Beautiful Relaxing Music for Stress Relief"
"Beautiful relaxing music for stress relief, composed by Peder B. Helland. This instrumental music ("The Hidden Valley") works well as sleep music, ambient study music, meditation music or relaxation music."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic spans about 40,000 light-years across the central region of M101 in one of the highest definition spiral galaxy portraits ever released from Hubble.
The sharp image shows stunning features of the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.”
Hander Memory Art, "Peaceful Days"
Full screen recommended.
Hander Memory Art, "Peaceful Days"
"Welcome to Hander Memory Art – where time stands still and golden memories are reborn through the pinnacle of AI art. Dedicated to souls who appreciate beauty, cherish the value of time, and seek emotional depth, Hander Memory Art proudly offers a luxurious and elegant space for art appreciation. We delicately combine modern technology with fond nostalgia to create AI Movies and AI Music that truly touch the heart. We believe that true art has the power to heal and connect generations. Every video on our channel is meticulously crafted - both visually and aurally - to perfectly suit the refined taste of our viewers. Thank you sincerely, and we wish you abundant health and peace!"
Native American Elder, "Why You're Still Alive After Everything"
Full screen recommended.
Native American Elder,
"Why You're Still Alive After Everything"
Delta Blues Brother, "My Daddy Kept Every Screw"
Full screen recommended.
Delta Blues Brother,
"My Daddy Kept Every Screw"
"My Daddy never threw away a screw. He had an old box filled with rusty washers, bent nails, pieces of wire, strange keys, old plugs, brackets, and parts nobody could remember where they came from. To a kid, it looked like junk. To him? It was a box full of solutions. “My Daddy Kept Every Screw” is an original Delta blues song about fathers, sons, memories, growing older, and the quiet ways some men show their love without ever becoming very good at saying it. Warm resonator guitar and soulful harmonica carry a deeply nostalgic story about an old toolbox - and the realization that comes years later when the son finds himself keeping the exact same useless-looking things. “Love didn't always sound like ‘I love you’... sometimes love just fixed the damn thing.” Some fathers aren't big talkers. They check your tires. Fix the loose hinge. Listen to the strange sound coming from your engine. Save a piece of wire because somebody might need it someday. They prepare for problems before their family even knows there's a problem. And sometimes it takes becoming older yourself to recognize what all of that really was. Care. Guess we inherit more than eyes and names... sometimes we inherit what love taught us to do. If your father or grandfather had that drawer, that coffee can, that toolbox, or that old box where absolutely nothing was allowed to be thrown away, this song might feel familiar."
"Hackers Can Shut Off Your Supermarket Freezer: What You Need To Know Now"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 11/8/26
"Hackers Can Shut Off Your Supermarket Freezer:
What You Need To Know Now"
"FBI and CISA just issued an urgent warning: hackers are targeting U.S. grocery stores and food supply cold storage. Here's what it means for you and the 5 freezer foods to stock up on now. In this update, we break down the new joint advisories from the FBI, CISA, the Department of Health and Human Services, USDA, and Department of Transportation warning about hackers targeting supermarket refrigeration networks and cold storage facilities. Authorities report malicious actors are exploiting unpatched software and internet-connected controllers to remotely manipulate temperature settings. This follows the wave of freezer cyber attacks across Europe that left shelves empty in France, Belgium, Sweden, Netherlands and other countries. We explain why your local supermarket is vulnerable, what food retailers are being told to do next, and what you can do to protect your household.
Experts recommend keeping these 5 foods in your freezer at all times: Frozen vegetables (8-12 months), frozen fruits like berries and mangoes (8-12 months), frozen chicken - whole chicken up to 12 months, pieces 6-9 months, ground beef and ground turkey (3-4 months), and bread, tortillas and rolls (3+ months).Plus: why the focus on fridges could be a misdirect, and what to watch next as federal investigations continue."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy_wKOZintg
Dan, I Allegedly, "No More Strawberries?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/8/26
"No More Strawberries?"
"California's strawberry farming industry is facing a serious financial crisis. Southern California farmers are struggling with rising operating costs, labor expenses, insurance, and the economics of growing food. Six major farms are reportedly closing, with more than 570 farmworkers facing layoffs. Ventura County's agricultural industry is under pressure, and the consequences could reach far beyond the farms. What does this mean for California agriculture and the strawberries you buy at the grocery store? But that's not all. We also look at restaurant closures, the changing cost of doing business, USAA auto insurance price reductions, Black Friday shopping deals, In-N-Out's California roots, and Fox's acquisition of Roku. This is your daily look at personal finance, business news, the economy, and the stories affecting your money and everyday life. Welcome to iAllegedly - business news you can use."
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"What a Slow Crash Looks Like From Inside a Household That Still Has a Job"
"What a Slow Crash Looks Like From
Inside a Household That Still Has a Job"
by Milan Adams
"A crash rarely announces itself anymore. More often, it arrives in the form of a renewal notice. The first warning might be a letter from an insurance company explaining that the annual premium has increased by thirty-one percent and that roof damage is no longer covered. A few weeks later, a property tax reassessment arrives, based on a valuation that bears little resemblance to what the homeowner could actually get for the house. Then the credit card company lowers the spending limit, leaving the account dangerously close to its new ceiling and pushing the customer into a more expensive borrowing bracket. Individually, these changes might seem manageable. For a family already living from one payday to the next, they can wipe out whatever money was left after the monthly bills. Both adults may be working full-time, the mortgage may be paid on schedule, and yet there is almost nothing left to fall back on.
Across the country, more households are finding themselves in this position. They are not necessarily poor, at least not by the standards traditionally used to measure financial hardship. Many own their homes, have two cars in the driveway and contribute something to a retirement account. On paper, they appear reasonably comfortable. The problem becomes apparent when an unexpected expense arrives. A transmission failure, an emergency dental procedure or a sudden job loss can be enough to throw the entire household budget off course. Once one payment is missed, the consequences begin to accumulate. Late fees appear, interest rates rise, transportation becomes unreliable and working hours are lost. Within a matter of weeks, a family that had been getting by can find itself struggling to meet even its most basic obligations.
The economic figures released every month offer little indication of how precarious these households have become. Gross domestic product continues to measure economic activity, but it says very little about how much financial breathing room ordinary people actually have. An expensive medical procedure adds to recorded economic output, just as higher insurance premiums contribute to the money circulating through the economy. Neither tells us whether families are becoming more secure or simply spending more to maintain the same standard of living. Unemployment can remain near four percent while millions of employed Americans struggle to cover an unexpected thousand-dollar expense. There is no contradiction in those figures. They describe different parts of the same economy, and the distinction matters.
What is emerging is a prolonged deterioration in the ability of households and businesses to absorb financial shocks. It is happening beneath economic headlines that still look relatively reassuring, which makes the underlying problem easier to overlook. Financial institutions have access to information that rarely receives much attention outside specialist circles. Fitch tracks subprime auto delinquencies, Trepp monitors commercial mortgage defaults, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York publishes quarterly figures on household debt. Taken together, these reports offer a picture of growing financial pressure. Lenders have responded in ways that postpone the recognition of losses: extending repayment periods, modifying loans and granting temporary relief rather than forcing immediate defaults.
There is no need to imagine a secret agreement between banks, government officials and financial firms to explain why this keeps happening. Their individual decisions are often understandable. A bank would rather extend a struggling loan than record an immediate loss. A mortgage servicer may find it cheaper to modify a payment schedule than pursue foreclosure. State governments rely on temporary funding measures because raising taxes or cutting services carries an immediate political cost. Families accept payment extensions because even a few extra weeks can make the difference between keeping and losing a home. The difficulty is that these temporary solutions do not necessarily resolve anything. They move the financial burden further down the road, where it can become considerably harder to manage.
The effects are unlikely to appear everywhere at once. Households usually feel the pressure through expenses that can change from one month to the next, including insurance, rent, utilities, credit card payments and car loans. Other costs remain relatively stable until a contract expires or a refinancing becomes unavoidable, at which point the increase can be substantial. Smaller businesses generally have fewer resources to withstand prolonged losses than large corporations, while communities already struggling to maintain public services have little room to absorb further cuts. The same financial pressure can therefore produce very different consequences depending on where someone lives, how they earn their income and what resources they have available. Over the next year, those differences may become increasingly difficult to ignore."
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
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Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.
"10 Threats America Will Meet Before 2026 Ends, and the Quiet Arithmetic Behind Every One of Them"
"10 Threats America Will Meet Before 2026 Ends,
and the Quiet Arithmetic Behind Every One of Them"
by John Walter
Excerpt: "Slack is what runs out first, and there is less of it now than at any point since 2008, with eight weeks left in the year. Both chambers of Congress changed hands four days ago while the executive kept the war. Borrowing authority expires around the turn of the year. Reservoirs serving forty million people sit at their lowest recorded elevations, measured in August, when they ought to be full. Measles has passed five thousand cases for the first time in a quarter century and a regional health body is preparing to certify that the country can no longer keep it out.
None of that counts as the catastrophe. It is the condition, and the condition matters for what it does to everything else. Systems fail in proportion to the margin left inside them, and margins have been spent: sold forward to data centers, drawn down to hold a price, converted into a coupon payment, eaten by a redistricting war and a shooting in a Minneapolis street.
Watching from close range breeds a particular kind of attention. Since spring I have been reading the documents nobody reads, on the theory that useful facts about a bad year never appear in speeches. Capacity auction results. Federal register notices. Monthly reservoir gauge readings from the Bureau of Reclamation. Nonrenewal filings across thirteen states. Friday-afternoon CISA advisories opened by four thousand people and forwarded by perhaps forty. A cousin at a municipal utility supplies some of the rest, usually after the second beer, and a man I knew at college who went into reinsurance now describes coastal property the way a radiologist describes a scan. Handwritten notebooks kept by a retired lineman on the edge of town record every transformer failure on his old route, the asset-management software having lost his trust and time being something he has. None of these four gets a name here, though each exists, and what unites them is the useful sort of fear, the kind that ends in a list rather than an argument.
Their picture is not apocalyptic. Squeezing is happening in ten places at once, administered by arithmetic rather than villains, which is the part generally missed. Threats in the popular imagination arrive with a face attached: foreign autocrat, domestic fanatic, virus with a cinematic name. Line items do the reordering. Capacity auctions clear at the ceiling while bond auctions come in soft, and a reservoir sets a record in the wrong direction in August and fails to recover in September. Counties lose their last insurer, then their last hospital, then their last bank branch, which becomes a storage unit. Ledgers produce this, and ledgers foreclose. (What does room “3327” of the New Yorker Hotel in 1943 have to do with you? What they discovered may be more disturbing than you think. See full video!)
Start with the arithmetic, since the arithmetic is where the year actually stands. Federal debt closed the fiscal year at $40.17 trillion and cost $1.36 trillion to service, more than national defense, more than Medicare, second only to Social Security, with roughly $860 billion of statutory headroom left beneath a $41.1 trillion ceiling. Drought made the first three months of 2026 the driest first quarter on American record. August brought the lowest elevations ever measured at Lake Mead and at Lake Powell, a national cattle herd at a seventy-five-year low, and ground beef at $7.16 a pound. Measles passed five thousand cases on the second of November; Washington State reported the year’s first H5N1 death the same day. Brent averaged $114 a barrel in September and traded near $98 in the first week of November, which shows how far the baseline has drifted when ninety-eight dollars reads as relief.
Voting finished on the third and the opposition took seven Senate seats and forty-one House seats, decisively enough that the losing side’s most prominent figure conceded within a day. Four days old and already load-bearing, because it converts the next fourteen months into divided government with a hostile legislature holding subpoenas and the purse. Whatever the executive now wants on the grid, the water, the debt or the war has to be done around a Congress with no incentive to help.
Three people who price risk professionally have told me, in almost identical words, that the American system absorbs compound pressure unusually well, being rich and vast and full of redundant machinery. Mostly true, and precisely why preparation stays thin. Redundancy that has always worked cannot be told apart, from the inside, from redundancy that will always work. Trucks arrive, power comes back by ten, and the pole stops being interesting.
Ordered below, roughly by how soon and how hard each item can bite, sits an inventory with the figures attached and the sensible measures named where they belong. Thin evidence says so, projections get labelled, and where serious people disagree the disagreement stays in rather than being smoothed away. Four things hold across all ten.
ͦ Almost nothing here surprises the institutions paid to watch it, whose warnings exist, are dated, and are public; failure sits in the distance between a warning and an appropriation.
ͦ Rarely is the disaster itself the binding constraint. Lead time is, on transformers, switchgear, chips, pipe, actuaries, and the 180-day clock governing a rate case.
ͦ Federal attention is being eaten by a war, a debt and a transition, so states, utilities, hospitals and households will carry more of this than they carried in 2019, with less help.
ͦ Preparation costs little against recovery and looks unglamorous, which is why the people who do well in these events are seldom the ones with the most equipment.
Read the ten in order and a second pattern shows beneath the first, less comfortable than any single entry. Every one is a place where a system already carried more than its designers intended, and where the answer at each turn was to ask it to carry a little more. Capacity went forward to the servers instead of into reserve. Fiscal room went to the coupon instead of the response. Reservoir storage was drawn to protect a price instead of a season. One habit governs the whole list, and the habit is to turn a margin into a figure on a spreadsheet and trust the month to hold."
Full, most highly recommended article is here:
"What If..."
"What if when you die they ask, "How was Heaven?"
~ Author Unknown
A truly terrifying thought...
"The “Black Sky” Plan And The “Be Ready” Campaign – What Kind Of Disaster Is The UK Urgently Preparing For?"
by Michael Snyder
"Is there something that they aren’t telling us? All of a sudden, governments all over the globe are instructing their citizens to stockpile food, water and other essential supplies. Why is there such a sense of urgency to do this in late 2026? What has changed? Without a doubt, conditions are far different than they were 12 months ago. It appears that the war with Iran will soon greatly escalate, the war in Ukraine just continues to intensify, a Super El Niño is causing global weather patterns to go nuts, European cities are being ravaged by seemingly endless riots, and we are simultaneously facing a global energy crisis, a global fertilizer crisis and a global food crisis. Chaos is erupting all around us, and the months ahead are almost certainly going to be even more chaotic. But does this explain why governments throughout the world have suddenly decided that now is the time for everyone to go out and buy emergency supplies?
In the UK, the BBC just published a very long article that reveals details about their “Black Sky” doomsday plan…"In a major emergency, we are being told to hunker down and turn on an FM radio, as thousands did in Lancaster. This is why the BBC has its own Black Sky plan. Only a small number of staff know the full details, but from what I have gleaned, about 100 people in the BBC will run a special emergency radio studio. It will have secure lines of communication not dependent on the internet, and fuel, water and food to ensure it can operate without resupply for at least three days."
What kind of scenario are they anticipating that would make this “Black Sky” doomsday plan necessary? Apparently it would include a loss of power and Internet, because they are planning to use radio transmission towers to keep the British public informed over FM radio…"The BBC’s broadcasts will be sent via radio transmission towers, isolated from the internet and equipped with tanks of between five and 40,000 litres (8,800 gallons) of diesel to keep their generators going for three days – FM radio is power hungry. The teams will be using satellite phones to keep in touch and if these stop working there are pre-agreed protocols and meet-up points." Why FM? Because it works almost everywhere, even in a blackout or a crippling cyber-attack.
This “Black Sky” doomsday plan was revealed less than a month after the UK government’s “Be Ready” campaign was launched. Starting on October 22nd, the UK government began instructing citizens to stockpile food, water and other emergency supplies…"The government’s new Be Ready campaign is advising the public to stock up on three day’s worth of supplies for use during severe weather or cyber-attacks, so help can be directed to the most vulnerable first.
In a concise, two-page document, it suggests people stock bottled water and non-perishable food for three days, a torch with spare batteries, a wind-up FM radio, a first aid kit and a copy of their passport. To stave off panic buying, it advises people to check their cupboards first and build up items gradually on regular shopping trips."
Apparently the “Be Ready” campaign has been very successful. A co-owner of a prepping store in the UK was absolutely astounded by the number of orders that started coming in…"While there is no evidence the advice has triggered mass panic, the public is clearly responding. Jack Brown, who co-owns Sgt Prepper Shop, which stocks emergency food and survival tools, said he received a month’s worth of orders in the first 24 hours of the Be Ready campaign. “I thought my phone was glitching or being hacked with the number of orders coming in,” he said."
I think that this is wonderful. But what has prompted this dramatic change of tone by officials in the UK? Are they concerned that cyberattacks could take down the power grid or the financial system? In France, hackers just broke into a prominent bank and successfully got away with 133 million dollars…"French cooperative bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa was targeted in a cyberattack that enabled fraudulent transactions of up to $133 million, forcing it to respond by suspending certain systems. The bank says that the attacker used its own account to initiate transactions to other banking organizations, but customer assets remain unaffected. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa is a major French banking group with more than 5.8 million members and 211.5 billion euros in assets."
Our financial institutions are under constant attack, and artificial intelligence is giving hackers more powerful tools that we have ever seen before. Without a doubt, that is a very serious threat.
There is also the possibility that the war in the Middle East could soon get very serious. If they are attacked, the Iranians have warned that they could actually start cutting undersea Internet cables, and apparently they are quite serious about this threat…"Ships linked to Iran looped, loitered and went dark over undersea internet cables in the Gulf of Oman in the weeks after Tehran threatened the region’s digital infrastructure, the Financial Times reported on Friday. "One of them had been boarded by US Marines in May.
At least four vessels tracked by the maritime analytics firm Windward took unusual routes and lingered over cable corridors off Oman in October, the FT said. Three were tankers under US sanctions. The fourth was a small Iranian fishing boat with no known owner. The ships sailed normally “until they reached a specific cable corridor, and only then slowed, looped, turned back, loitered or went dark,” Windward told the newspaper. That behavior “fits the profile of mapping the cable routes, or placing charges or mines on them while dark,” it said. If Iran starts cutting undersea Internet cables, that could have serious implications for the entire global financial system."
Meanwhile, the war between Russia and Ukraine has reached a very dangerous stage, and there is a very real possibility that NATO could get directly involved.
Ominously, a major British news source has just published a very alarming article entitled “‘Every single Brit’ must prepare for WW3 conscription as major warning issued“…"Brits could face being called up to fight in a potential World War Three, with the “whole of the nation” warned to brace for conscription within six years. Security and intelligence expert Professor Anthony Glees delivered the stark warning amid growing concerns that Britain could become entangled in a wider conflict with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The University of Buckingham academic stated the “whole of the nation” should be prepared for the prospect of conscription, while urging the Government to begin recruiting volunteers. Professor Glees said: “The UK Government should plan to sign up volunteers now and over the next three years and ‘the whole of the nation’ should prepare for conscription within six years unless Putin were defeated.”
Sadly, the truth is that we are in the midst of World War III right now, but most people are not calling it that yet. War, famine, pestilence, cyberattacks, financial chaos and historic natural disasters are all in our future. So it certainly makes sense to stockpile food, water and emergency supplies. But I have a feeling that there is something that they aren’t telling us. I don’t think that it is just a coincidence that governments all over the planet are suddenly telling their citizens to prepare for doomsday. We live in such perilous times, and I am convinced that 2027 is going to be even more chaotic than 2026 has been."
"What We Gain By Recognizing The Role Of Chance In Life"
"What We Gain By Recognizing
The Role Of Chance In Life"
By Mark S. Rank
"Your luck, they say, can turn around. All you need to do is work a little harder. As a saying often attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca goes: ‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.’ A similar proverb is dated to the 16th century: ‘Diligence is the mother of good luck.’ And even the French chemist Louis Pasteur echoed the idea when he declared in 1854 that ‘chance only favours the mind which is prepared’. Today, many of us still believe that our fortunes can be engineered. But that is not always how the world works. Luck plays an ungovernable and unpredictable role in our lives, which we can’t fully mitigate through preparation or diligence. So why do we continue to believe we can turn our luck around?
On 18 August 1913, at a casino in Monte Carlo, a roulette wheel was spun, and the ball fell on black. This is not unusual. The alternating red and black colours of a roulette wheel mean that, like a coin toss, there is roughly a 50-50 chance that the ball will land on either color. But as the ball continued to land on black, again and again and again, gamblers rushed to the table, placing bets on red in the belief that the alternating color must be coming up. Convinced that things would eventually balance out, gamblers raised their bets each time the ball landed on black. But they continued to lose. Improbably, the ball would settle on black a total of 26 times.
The ‘Monte Carlo fallacy’, also known as the ‘gambler’s fallacy’, is the belief that a string of bad luck must end. It is the belief that there is a sense of balance in how luck plays out. It explains why gamblers playing roulette mistakenly believe that one color is overdue after a consecutive series of the other color, even though the odds remain 50-50. But the relevance of the Monte Carlo fallacy goes far beyond the tendencies of gamblers in casinos.
Though anecdotal evidence for the fallacy is well established, only in recent decades have experts confirmed our belief that a string of bad luck must end. In a 2005 study, two US researchers studying decision-making, James Sundali and Rachel Croson, analysed gambling behaviour at casinos in Reno, Nevada. Among those who were making 50-50 bets in roulette, Sundali and Croson found that gamblers who had watched one spin of the wheel evenly divided their bets between red and black. However, as the wheel landed on red (or black) in consecutive spins, the betting changed significantly. After five consecutive reds, 65 per cent of the bets were placed on black, and after six consecutive reds, 85 per cent of the bets were on black. Though the sixth spin of a roulette wheel is not influenced by the previous five spins, gamblers still placed their bets as if it was. Our intuitive sense is that imbalance must be corrected.
Closely related to this is the mistaken belief that the distribution in small numbers will reflect the distribution in large numbers. Take the case of flipping a coin. The odds in any one flip are 50 per cent heads, 50 per cent tails. If we flip a coin 10,000 times, close to 50 per cent of the total flips will be heads and close to 50 per cent tails. However, if we flip a coin 10 times, the result could easily be seven heads and three tails. Though it is a mistake to think the odds of a small number of cases will reflect the odds of a large number of cases, we find this belief in many areas of life. For example, parents who have had several children of the same gender may believe that they are overdue for a child of the other sex and that their odds will shift if they keep trying.
Part of the reason why we cling to the belief that a string of bad luck must end is that we find it hard to reconcile the difference between the odds of large and small numbers, but there is also a deeper explanation for why these fallacies are so hard to shake: we like to believe the world is just and fair. We like to believe in balance. When someone works hard and plays by the rules, we hope they’ll be appropriately rewarded; when a crime is committed, justice is seen as being served if the criminal is sentenced to a punishment that fits the nature and severity of the crime. On the other hand, if an individual commits a serious crime and is neither apprehended nor punished, we feel an injustice has occurred. Thus, in situations where individuals experience events that are incongruent with their prior actions and behaviors – like young children who have terminal cancer, or civilians who are killed during a war – the world appears unbalanced and unjust. Our intuitive sense is that such an imbalance must be corrected. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible.
Chance and luck have little interest in our notions of balance and deservedness. In life, bad things can happen to good people, and good things can happen to bad people. Accidents take place, illnesses strike, and unlucky breaks occur indiscriminately. In this regard, the randomness of the universe is blind to any sense of justice. We can attempt to rectify some of the negative consequences of this randomness, and be grateful when good luck strikes, but we should not deceive ourselves into believing that the world is always fair.
The philosopher Nicholas Rescher stated this well in "Luck" (1995) when he wrote: "The trenchant question of old (posed by unfortunate and fortunate alike) is: Why me; what have I done to deserve this? The irony of course is that the appropriate and correct answer is: Nothing. It is simply a matter of chance – of fortuitous luck."
In the bestselling book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" (1981), the US rabbi and author Harold Kushner attempted to reconcile how God could allow so much injustice in the world. Kushner explained that these ‘bad things’ are basically random events. When they occur, one can turn to God for comfort and strength. Yet, as Jane Eisner wrote about Kushner, he believed it is our role ‘to accept the randomness of the universe, not to blame God or ourselves for tragedies but to believe in God’s omnipotent goodness as a nourishing force.’
Many decisions that affect us involve some element of luck and may have little to do with our abilities. Consequently, there may be times in life when there is little point to casting about for blame. The randomness of the universe simply does not abide by such a conjurer. In some respects, this understanding can be liberating. Rather than searching for blame or a causal reason, randomness can relieve us from such a burden.
So how else might we use a deeper understanding of chance and randomness to our advantage? Can luck help create fairness, balance and a better world? I think it can.
By recognizing the prevalence of luck, a strong argument can be made for the importance of perseverance in pursuing one’s goals. This is subtly different to the view of luck presented by Seneca or Pasteur, in which preparation and work lead to a change of fate. Many decisions affecting us involve some element of randomness and luck and these decisions may have little to do with our abilities or credentials. As the US sociologist Michael Sauder has observed, we often blame ourselves for things that could be attributed to chance: ‘We did not get the job we applied for because our application was misplaced by the hiring committee, but we assume we reached too far and attribute the outcome to our lack of worthiness.’
In discussing careers in the arts and entertainment fields (where good luck is often a prerequisite for getting ahead), the Canadian author Stephen Marche has observed that ‘persistence is the siege you lay on fortune’. We cannot control randomness and chance, but we can increase the odds that chance will shine in our favour by increasing the number of opportunities for a particular result to play out – we can, as the aphorism says, keep ‘many irons in the fire’. By being persistent, and thus increasing our chances, we can also increase the importance of talent and ensure that skill carries more weight.
Recognizing and accepting chance and luck also fosters a heightened sense of gratitude. The recognition of randomness in our lives helps ensure we don’t take the good things for granted – it helps us understand the precarious nature of good fortune. As we gain insights into the world of randomness, we realize how easily we might find ourselves in less favorable conditions. This is reflected in the saying ‘count your blessings’, but is slightly different in that it recognizes the precariousness of those blessings. In turn, this can help us develop a greater sense of both humility regarding our own accomplishments and empathy for the plight of others. While there is no denying that hard work and skills are important in life’s journey, there is also no denying that luck and chance may be every bit as important in shaping the course of our lives and our achievements. This splashes cold water on the belief that we live in a world of strict meritocracy where we deserve all that comes our way.
Randomness underlines the importance of a strong social safety net. By recognizing the ubiquitousness of chance in our lives, we are in a much better position to empathize with the misfortunes of others. Bad luck can strike anyone at any time. Accepting this fact allows us to imagine ourselves in the position of the less fortunate, and creates the possibility for more meaningful and empathetic connections with each other. In this way, recognizing luck has significant policy implications.
Randomness underlines the importance of ‘social insurance’ and a strong social safety net. When we insure our home or car, we don’t anticipate having an accident immediately. Instead, we are acknowledging the possibility that we may experience an accident at some point in the future. Likewise, a strong social safety net is designed to protect individuals from the bad luck of economic hardship that can strike at any point. By understanding the frequency and reach of bad luck, we can blunt and counteract some of its negative impacts through a set of robust safety-net programmes.
For the ancient Romans, the goddess of chance, Fortuna, would spin her wheel of fortune, causing some to rise and others to fall. What goes up can come down, and vice versa. She delighted in reversing the fortunes of us mortals, and 2,000 years later she is still spinning her wheel. Many of us believe that we can find some deeper logic to the outcome of her spinning wheel and anticipate how it will spin. But things don’t always balance out. We can’t always turn our luck around.
By acknowledging and better understanding chance, we can begin to better co-exist as we make our way through life. We can begin to see the world as it is, rather than how we imagined it to be."
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