"The Most Costly Of All Follies..."

“The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel.”

- H.L. Mencken

"Nine Meals from Anarchy"

"Nine Meals from Anarchy"

by Jeff Thomas

"In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced." Since then, his observation has been echoed by people as disparate as Robert Heinlein and Leon Trotsky.

The key here is that, unlike all other commodities, food is the one essential that cannot be postponed. If there were a shortage of, say, shoes, we could make do for months or even years. A shortage of gasoline would be worse, but we could survive it, through mass transport or even walking, if necessary.

But food is different. If there were an interruption in the supply of food, fear would set in immediately. And, if the resumption of the food supply were uncertain, the fear would become pronounced. After only nine missed meals, it’s not unlikely that we’d panic and be prepared to commit a crime to acquire food. If we were to see our neighbor with a loaf of bread, and we owned a gun, we might well say, “I’m sorry, you’re a good neighbor and we’ve been friends for years, but my children haven’t eaten today – I have to have that bread – even if I have to shoot you.”

But surely you think, there’s no need to speculate on this concern. There’s nothing on the evening news to suggest that such a problem even might be on the horizon. So, let’s have a closer look at the actual food distribution industry, compare it to the present direction of the economy, and see whether there might be reason for concern.

The food industry typically operates on very small margins – often below 2%. Traditionally, wholesalers and retailers have relied on a two-week turnaround of supply and anywhere up to a 30-day payment plan. But an increasing tightening of the economic system for the last eight years has resulted in a turnaround time of just three days for both supply and payment for many in the industry. This a system that’s still fully operative, but with no further wiggle room, should it take a significant further hit.

If there were a month where significant inflation took place (say, 3%), all profits would be lost for the month for both suppliers and retailers, but goods could still be replaced and sold for a higher price next month. But, if there were three or more consecutive months of inflation, the industry would be unable to bridge the gap, even if better conditions were expected to develop in future months. A failure to pay in full for several months would mean smaller orders by those who could not pay. That would mean fewer goods on the shelves. The longer the inflationary trend continued, the more quickly prices would rise to hopefully offset the inflation. And ever-fewer items on the shelves.

From Germany in 1922, to Argentina in 2000, and to Venezuela in 2016, this has been the pattern whenever inflation has become systemic, rather than sporadic. Each month, some stores close, beginning with those that are the most poorly capitalized.

In good economic times, this would mean more business for those stores that were still solvent, but in an inflationary situation, they would be in no position to take on more unprofitable business. The result is that the volume of food on offer at retailers would decrease at a pace with the severity of the inflation.

However, the demand for food would not decrease by a single loaf of bread. Store closings would be felt most immediately in inner cities, when one closing would send customers to the next neighborhood seeking food. The real danger would come when that store also closes and both neighborhoods descended on a third store in yet another neighborhood. That’s when one loaf of bread for every three potential purchasers would become worth killing over. Virtually no one would long tolerate seeing his children go without food because others had “invaded” his local supermarket.

In addition to retailers, the entire industry would be impacted and, as retailers disappeared, so would suppliers, and so on, up the food chain. This would not occur in an orderly fashion, or in one specific area. The problem would be a national one. Closures would be all over the map, seemingly at random, affecting all areas. Food riots would take place, first in the inner cities then spread to other communities. Buyers, fearful of shortages, would clean out the shelves.

Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s a historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature whenever systemic inflation occurs.

Then … unfortunately … the cavalry arrives. At that point, it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem. Suppliers would be ordered to deliver to those neighbourhoods where the riots are the worst, even if those retailers are unable to pay. This would increase the number of closings of suppliers.

Along the way, truckers would begin to refuse to enter troubled neighborhoods, and the military might well be brought in to force deliveries to take place.

So, what would it take for the above to occur? Well, historically, it has always begun with excessive debt. We know that the debt level is now the highest it has ever been in world history. In addition, the stock and bond markets are in bubbles of historic proportions. They will most certainly pop, but will that happen in a year? Six months? Next week?

With a crash in the markets, deflation always follows as people try to unload assets to cover for their losses. The Federal Reserve (and other central banks) has stated that it will unquestionably print as much money as it takes to counter deflation. Unfortunately, inflation has a far greater effect on the price of commodities than assets. Therefore, the prices of commodities will rise dramatically, further squeezing the purchasing power of the consumer, thereby decreasing the likelihood that he will buy assets, even if they’re bargain priced. Therefore, asset holders will drop their prices repeatedly as they become more desperate. The Fed then prints more to counter the deeper deflation and we enter a period when deflation and inflation are increasing concurrently.

Historically, when this point has been reached, no government has ever done the right thing. They have, instead, done the very opposite – keep printing. A by-product of this conundrum is reflected in the photo above. Food still exists, but retailers shut down because they cannot pay for goods. Suppliers shut down because they’re not receiving payments from retailers. Producers cut production because sales are plummeting.

In every country that has passed through such a period, the government has eventually gotten out of the way and the free market has prevailed, re-energizing the industry and creating a return to normal. The question is not whether civilization will come to an end. (It will not.) The question is the liveability of a society that is experiencing a food crisis, as even the best of people are likely to panic and become a potential threat to anyone who is known to store a case of soup in his cellar.

Fear of starvation is fundamentally different from other fears of shortages. Even good people panic. In such times, it’s advantageous to be living in a rural setting, as far from the centre of panic as possible. It’s also advantageous to store food in advance that will last for several months, if necessary. However, even these measures are no guarantee, as, today, modern highways and efficient cars make it easy for anyone to travel quickly to where the goods are. The ideal is to be prepared to sit out the crisis in a country that will be less likely to be impacted by dramatic inflation – where the likelihood of a food crisis is low and basic safety is more assured."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"If They Will Loot Homes During These Wildfires, What Will They Do To You And Your Family When They Have No More Food?"

"If They Will Loot Homes During These Wildfires, What Will They
 Do To You And Your Family When They Have No More Food?"

by Michael Snyder

"When disaster strikes, the first instinct that some people have is to go out and loot homes that have been evacuated. I wish that this wasn’t the case, but it seems to happen every time that we see a huge natural disaster  You have to be quite sick to want to take advantage of people that have left their homes during a great tragedy, but we have seen it happen over and over the last several years. Twisted individuals that have had their consciences completely seared think that undefended homes are an easy target, and a lot of times they get away with it. Fortunately, authorities were able to catch two degenerates that were just looting evacuated homes in Oregon, but only after they led the police on a high speed chase:

"Two men have been charged by Oregon authorities with looting properties that were evacuated by owners fleeing the deadly wildfires that have so far forced half-a-million people from their homes, killed at least 31 people in three states, and left dozens more missing. Anthony Travis Bodda, 21, and Alexander Justin Jones, 36, were arrested on Thursday after they allegedly led law enforcement officials on a high-speed chase in fire-ravaged Santiam Canyon, Oregon, authorities said."

After their vehicle was disabled, the two looters took off on foot, but officers were quickly able to hunt them down: "The two men then got out of the van and made a run for it, according to sheriff’s deputies. One of the men was immediately arrested on the golf course while the other was seen going into a goat shed near the area. A K9 unit managed to locate the other suspect, who was also taken into custody."

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to looting in this country. Earlier this year, literally thousands of young people went on an unprecedented looting spree all over the U.S. during the civil unrest that erupted in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. Authorities are still making arrests as they continue to identify more of the suspects that were involved in looting stores, and hopefully as many looters will be brought to justice as possible.

But the looting will never stop. In fact, it will only get worse as our society continues to decay. And if desperate individuals will stoop to such lows now, what will they be willing to do to you and your family once things get really, really bad and all of their food is gone?

Today, we have more reason to literally be frightened of the behavior of our fellow Americans than we ever have before. By now, I am sure that you have already heard of the shocking ambush that we just witnessed in the Los Angeles area. When protesters heard where the police officers that had been shot were taken, they decided to block the entrance to the hospital: "Protesters have blocked the entrance to the hospital where the two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies ambushed in a shooting Saturday are fighting for their lives, chanting: ‘We hope they ******* die.’ The officers, one the 31-year-old mother of a six-year-old boy, were shot at the Metro Blue Line station at Willowbrook Avenue and Oak Street in Compton by a male suspect who then fled the scene."

I don’t know if I have words that are strong enough to describe how detestable this was. Hospitals should be completely off limits for protests, and by blocking the entrance they were keeping people that needed emergency care from getting in.

There is no reasoning with people like that. In the past, many Americans have attempted to avoid a lot of the craziness that goes on by living in low crime areas, but at this point social decay is spreading like a cancer all over the nation. Just a few days ago, we learned that the feds have successfully shut down a “meth superhighway” that involved hundreds and hundreds of people in major cities such as “Atlanta, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Phoenix, San Diego, and St. Louis”: "U.S. Attorney William Barr and Drug Enforcement Administration Acting Administrator Timothy Shea announced Thursday, at a press conference in Phoenix, a large meth bust across the U.S., seizing thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, tens of millions of dollars, and hundreds of firearms. 

The operation was a six-month-long effort to bring down a ‘meth superhighway’ that was controlled by Mexican cartels and stretched across the U.S. The operation included 750 investigations across ‘meth hubs’ in Atlanta, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Phoenix, San Diego, and St. Louis, resulting in 1,840 arrests, the seizure of 28,560 pounds of methamphetamine, 284 firearms and $43.3 million in drug profits."

Some try to get away from all the crime by living in the middle of nowhere, but unfortunately the truth is that meth and other illegal drugs have made it to almost every small community in America at this point.

I don’t want to end this article on a bad note, and so let me share an example that demonstrates that there are still good people out there too. A little more than a week ago, over 200 campers were trapped by wildfires near Shaver Lake in California, and National Guard helicopters were sent in to rescue them: "More than 200 campers were trapped near a boat dock on Shaver Lake in California’s Fresno County over the Labor Day weekend, encircled by flames and a blinding wall of wildfire smoke.

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joseph Rosamond, piloting a California Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook, had already made the decision to try to put his helicopter down close by the desperate campers on Sept. 5. Emergency personnel on the ground told Rosamond that the smoke made it too risky to conduct a close landing, but Rosamond knew that if he didn’t take a risk that those people would be in severe danger. The fires were closing in and time was running out, and so he made a conscious decision to be a hero.

“I was listening to the radio calls when the Chinook approached restricted airspace” near the lake, said Army Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin, adjutant general of the California National Guard.“Chief Rosamond told them, ‘Just tell us where the people are. We’re going to go get them,’” Baldwin said in a video conference call Monday with the aircrews and defense reporters.

There wasn’t enough room on the helicopters to take all of the campers out in one trip, and so the helicopters actually had to go back to the lake two more times to get everyone. In the end, they didn’t finish the mission until 1:30 in the morning. 12 of the campers ended up in the hospital, but ultimately all 214 of them were saved."

Why can’t we have more heroes like Joseph Rosamond? Sadly, the decisions that our society has made over the past several decades are really catching up with us, and at this point the criminals, looters and sickos greatly outnumber heroes such as Joseph Rosamond. Everywhere around us social decay is rapidly getting worse, and millions of hearts are growing very, very cold."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com

"A Shot in the Arm"

"A Shot in the Arm"

By Bill Bonner

SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "Bloomberg reported yesterday: "The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc have restarted a U.K. trial of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine after it was halted over concerns about a participant who fell ill. The U.K. Medicines Health Regulatory Authority recommended that the study resume after an independent review of the safety data triggered a pause on Sept. 6, Oxford said in a statement. It declined to disclose details about the volunteer’s illness.

While temporary halts are common in vaccine trials, the interruption to the closely watched Astra-Oxford study had raised concerns about the viability of one of the fastest-moving experimental shots seeking protection from the pandemic. The race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine has compressed what is normally a decade-long process into a matter of months, with data from final-stage trials expected as soon as next month."

Help us! Save us! Oh, SCIENCE! Wherefore art thou?

Desperate Measures: Poor Castor and Pollux. The two elephants from the Paris zoo were slaughtered in 1871. Help didn’t arrive on schedule. Desperate Parisians – after four months of a lockdown – ate them. Fancy restaurants developed consommé of donkey head and kangaroo stew. The common people, though, had to make do with dog cutlets and rat sausage. The Parisians were locked down by the German army – or, to be more precise, the armies of Prussia, Saxony, Württemberg, Baden, and Bavaria; Germany did not yet exist – besieging Paris.

Here in Argentina, we’ve been locked down for six months, surrounded by the COVID-19 virus. We arrived in March and planned to leave in April. Then, the borders shut. We postponed our departure to June… then July. And now, we’re aiming for November. Fortunately, we have hundreds of cattle, sheep, and goats; there has been no need to slaughter household pets.

Cut Off: But last week, the noose got tighter. We’re no longer getting supplies from Salta City. The strategy here was the same as in the U.S. – keep the virus at bay by closing up shop, putting on masks, staying home, putting the economy on pause, and hoping a “vaccine” is discovered soon so we can all go back to normal.

This has proven to be a popular strategy, but not a very effective one. A virus can wait. Closing the doors leaves a vulnerable population, virgin to the virus, locked up inside… and ready to be ravished. You can’t stay locked up forever. And as the doors open, in comes COVID… like the drooling Huns marching into Paris.

After opening up… gradually… hesitantly… and then all of a sudden last week, a rash of cases were reported in the regional capital city, Salta. People went back into panic mode. Roads were closed again. In the city, you could go out… but only every other day. And here in our remote bolthole in the Calchaquí Valley, no visitors from the city are permitted.

Deadly Visitor: Alas, the farms here depend on the city for fuel, tractor parts, seeds, chemicals… veterinarians – everything. Throughout the last six months, we were able to keep a crew working on our new barns… clearing fields… and putting in irrigation. But last week, the work came to a halt. “We need cement… and wire,” explained the foreman. “And we’re not getting any deliveries from Salta.”

On Friday, a surveyor somehow slipped through the siege and showed up at the house. He was sent to prepare a map of the irrigation system. The locals – who know from six months of non-stop TV coverage that the virus is a ruthless killer – went into a panic. “He’s got to leave,” said one of the local women. “Well, he’s working out in the fields… by himself. He won’t cause any trouble,” we replied. “Well, don’t invite him to lunch.” “But we have to give him something to eat.” “Maybe he could sit at a table by himself… outside.”

In the end, we compromised. He sat at a separate table, but within conversation range. “Oh… I know everyone is so scared of getting the virus, they don’t want me to come near them,” the leper explained. “But I’ve already had the coronavirus. It was nothing. Just a cold.”

Same Result: Colds come and go. And sometimes, they kill people. Vulnerable individuals can protect themselves – by staying away from other people. But for most people, life goes on.

The death toll in Sweden, which let life go on more or less as normal, is now at 578 per million. And the U.S., with all of its lockdowns, lockups, and hysteria? About the same – now at 599 per million.

The death toll here in Argentina, whose lockdown was among the strictest in the world, is only half that level – 251 per million. But now… having held the gates so tightly shut for so long… as soon as it opens them a crack… the virus comes to call.

Based on the data from the last seven days, the U.S. average daily death rate from COVID-19 is around 750. In Argentina (with only one-seventh the population), 213 people die from the virus every day. And in Sweden, which let the virus do its work already? Only one person per day dies from COVID-19…

So far, the best bet for a person wishing to avoid the virus was to move to Thailand, Vietnam, or Burundi. Almost no one has died from the virus in these countries. Or in Papua New Guinea. Or Tanzania. Have these countries followed “science” with their state-of-the-art health systems? We doubt it. Two of the most dangerous places – in terms of dying from COVID-19 – are Peru and Belgium. The two have very different public health services. And yet, the results are about the same.

American presidential candidate Joe Biden says he will shut down the whole country if that’s what the “scientists” tell him to do. But the UK, France, the U.S., and the Netherlands must have the best scientists in the world. And yet, their COVID-19 death rates are higher than those of Russia, Iraq, Egypt, Nicaragua, and Bangladesh.

All we know, after six months of viral attack, is that science is almost irrelevant. The virus does what it wants. And if the feds had done nothing at all, the results might be about the same.

Relief Column: But many people believe that if you lock down… and stay locked down long enough, like Paris during the Siege of 1870, the relief column will arrive. Yes, we are awaiting SCIENCE! to come to the rescue. Like an avenging angel, or the French Army south of the Loire, it is expected to slay the terrible COVID-19 and save us. The subject is on every pair of lips. There are sightings reported in the press. “Pfizer is getting close.” “AstraZeneca has renewed its trials.”

The president periodically informs the believers that a vaccine should be here by summer… No, by election day… No, by early 2021. But how likely is that? A vaccine is not impossible. But there’s never been a successful vaccine developed for a coronavirus. And those under development seem a long way from producing proven, reliable results. Besides, even if they were proven to be safe and effective… how long would it take to give a shot in the arm to everyone who wanted it? Having misled the public into believing that we are all at risk, how could the feds restrict the new vaccine to only those who really need it?

High Cost: Meanwhile, the cost of the siege is getting higher and higher. Rations are getting short. The natives are getting restless. Government tries to hand out fake bread – like its money, made from wood pulp – but there’s no nourishment in it. And most likely, like the Parisians in 1870, we’ll be eating the animals in the zoo before we get an effective vaccine."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Who Wants to Live Forever?"

"Who Wants to Live Forever?"

by Mark Manson

"Each week, I send you three potentially life-changing ideas to help you be a slightly less awful human being. This week, we’re talking about topics that are a matter of life and death. No seriously, we’re talking about life and death this week: 1) the scientific progress in "treating" aging, 2) what a vastly longer lifespan would mean for culture and society, and 3) why do things die in the first place? Let’s get into it.

1. Can aging be reversed? - One of the more quietly controversial and interesting areas of scientific progress today is around the idea that biological aging can be treated as a disease and potentially be reversed. For years, researchers have been pioneering methods to limit cellular deterioration, stave off chronic diseases, and help older individuals stay healthy and independent as life expectancies rise.

Last week, a new study found that a cocktail of drugs not only slowed biological aging (measured by markers on the individual’s genome), it reversed it by approximately 2.5 years. To my knowledge, this is the first time an aging reversal has been shown in human subjects. This is a stunning result that even the researchers did not expect. (Note: it was a small study and had no control group, so don’t wet your panties just yet. As always, more studies need to be done.)

As with most bleeding-edge technologies, the idea that we can defeat aging, like most controversial ideas, has inspired reactions from experts that range from utopian to apocalyptic.

I was first exposed to the idea that aging could potentially be conquered by science in Ray Kurzweil’s book "The Singularity is Near." In it, Kurzweil's’ views are beyond utopian. They're like the religious rapture. In the book, Kurzweil makes the argument that not only will we cure death, but it will likely happen in most of our lifetimes.

Kurzweil points out that over human history, not only has life expectancy been increasing, but the rate at which it increases has been increasing as well. So, maybe centuries ago, life expectancy increased at a rate of 0.01 years per year. Then, it increased to 0.1 per year. Then 0.2 per year. Then 0.3 per year. He argues that eventually, life expectancy will hit a tipping point where it increases by at least one year per year, meaning that for every year that goes by, humans are expected to live at least one year longer. Ergo, we all become immortal. The end.

Maybe Kurzweil hasn’t spent much time investing in financial markets, otherwise, he’d be aware of the ubiquitous warning that accompanies every exciting chart: "Warning: Past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Indeed, there seems to be a "low-hanging fruit" effect on human longevity. It turns out that giving most of the world running water, sewage treatment, and, you know, food, vastly increases lifespan. So that "exponential curve" of increasing life expectancy that forever increases into the future is more likely an "S-curve" where life expectancy jumps massively as countries industrialize and modernize and then begin to level off at around 75-80 years old.

But regardless of the murky science and controversial implications, the lure of immortality is too strong for many to ignore. Companies have emerged that offer to cryogenically freeze your body when you die, promising to keep you frozen until the technology to "cure death" emerges in the future.

No, I’m not making this stuff up. Apparently, some notable people such as Larry King and Peter Thiel have signed up for it. But don’t get too excited. Freezing your body indefinitely after death starts at around $200,000 USD. Better start saving today!

2. Who wants to live forever? - In my book, "Everything is F***ed: A Book About Hope", I argued that one of the dangers of consumer culture is that we often equate "giving people what they want" with progress. Given that we so often want things that are terrible for ourselves (not to mention others), I point out that this is a pretty flimsy standard for measuring the social good.  

To me, curing aging (and maybe even death) is the ultimate question of, "Okay, we definitely want it… but should we?"

It’s hard to imagine the social and psychological repercussions of a population where the average life expectancy is, say, 250 years old. Would we overpopulate the planet? When would the retirement age be? Would our healthcare systems collapse? Would bridge and bingo become Olympic sports?

I joke, but I do think there are some serious philosophical questions here. Our ability to value things is driven by scarcity. We often care about things in our lives because we have an abiding sense that we will never experience them again. If we live forever, all experience becomes abundant, therefore much of it loses its meaning. Everything becomes more superficial—there’s no sense of legacy, no sense of, "I lived for that."

Or what about family? Will it become standard for everyone to have half a dozen marriages and a dozen kids? Will people have brothers and sisters 70 years younger or older than themselves? Will we appreciate our parents more or less knowing that we’re stuck with them for another two centuries and will end up sharing them with dozens of other people?

The perceived costs of things like traffic accidents, disease, and war would become much larger. Far fewer people would want to risk getting shot or dying in a car accident if they know they’re giving up hundreds of years of life. People would oddly become much more risk-averse. Pandemics would be waaaay scarier. The power of compound interest would become far more valuable, creating much more of a culture around saving and learning rather than spending and doing. Expertise would reach a point where people spend 30 or 40 years getting educated before starting their careers. Forty really would be the new twenty!

3. The evolutionary value of death - You might read all this and throw your hands up in the air and shout, "What are they doing? This isn’t natural!" But you’d be wrong.

Although they are rare, there are "immortal" species on the planet (in this case, "immortal" means that they do not biologically age.) The jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii doesn’t die. Neither does the bristlecone pine tree. Many species of lobster technically don’t age and could theoretically live forever, the problem is that they outgrow their shells which then decay and fall apart, leaving them vulnerable to predators (talk about tragic).

Lifespans vary widely across the natural world. Some sharks and tortoises live for half a millennia. There are species of apes that only live to be about 15 years old. There are several species of flies that live for 24 hours or less.

It turns out that death is not inevitable. In fact, death exists for a specific evolutionary purpose. Ideally, by mixing and matching genetics, a species becomes more robustly adapted to its environment. The quicker individual creatures die, the faster they must procreate new generations, and the faster the rate of genetic mutation and adaptation within the species.

Therefore, each species has a "sweet spot" for lifespan based on the necessary evolutionary adaptation to its environment. If a species needs to adapt quickly and often, it dies quickly and often. If it needs to adapt slowly (or never), then it dies slowly (or never).

That "sweet spot" for humans seems to be every 2-3 generations, or every 80-100 years. The telomeres on our chromosomes appear to "run out" soon after that, effectively putting a limit on how long we can live naturally. This sweet spot probably exists because it’s short enough to stay ahead of the quickly mutating infectious diseases that threaten us, but long enough to have some grandparents around to help raise kids (for more on this idea, see Matt Ridley’s excellent book, "The Red Queen").  

A lot has been said about the scientific potential to alter our own species - genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc. But perhaps nothing would be so fundamental as altering our ability to age and die. Our psychology, our biology, and our societies seem to be largely based on it. Changing it could change everything. The question is, will we be around to see it? Until next week,"

- https://markmanson.net/

"When We Consider..."

"When we consider that each of us has only one life to live, isn't it rather tragic to find men and women, with brains capable of comprehending the stars and the planets, talking about the weather; men and women, with hands capable of creating works of art, using those hands only for routine tasks; men and women, capable of independent thought, using their minds as a bowling-alley for popular ideas; men and women, capable of greatness, wallowing in mediocrity; men and women, capable of self-expression, slowly dying a mental death while they babble the confused monotone of the mob?"

- Neil Gaiman

"How It Really Is"

"Market Fantasy Updates 9/14/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates 9/14/20"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!

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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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Updated live.

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

SEP 14, 2020 7:11 AM: "Amazon Hires 100,000 Workers Ahead Of Holiday Season Amid Pandemic-Inspired E-Commerce Boom"

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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Daily Update (September 13th to 14th)

- http://www.shadowstats.com/
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Gregory Mannarino, 

AM 9/14/20: 

“Important Updates: Markets, the FED, Crude, More”

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 9/14/20"

 

SEP 14, 2020

By David Leonhardt

"A Midwestern surge: Coronavirus cases have soared in the Midwest even as cases are largely falling across the South, the Northeast and the West, as these Times charts show. The Midwestern surge is partly the result of young adults getting sick on college campuses. Cases have also been linked to a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D., last month and to a jail in Wichita, Kan.

In other virus news:

• Restaurants, hospitals and workplaces have started using contact-free thermometers and scanners to take visitors’ temperatures. But experts say those measures are unlikely to detect asymptomatic carriers.

• Israel is heading back into a nationwide lockdown for at least three weeks starting on Friday, just before the Jewish New Year.

• Outside Las Vegas last night, Trump held an indoor campaign rally for the first time since late June. Health officials blamed that June event, in Tulsa, Okla., for an increase in local virus cases."

SEP 14, 2020 2:27 AM ET:

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 29,000,200 
people, according to official counts, including 6,538,053 Americans.

      SEP 14, 2020 2:27 AM ET: 
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

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Sept. 14, 2020 at 11:45 a.m. ET: "WHO Says Record Number of New Cases — 307,930 — Counted Worldwide on Sunday"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

SEP 14, 2020 4:15 AM: "New Research Shows Google Searches For COVID-19 Stomach Symptoms May Predict Outbreaks"

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Updated 9/14/20, 2:26 AM ET

Click image for larger size.

- https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Musical Interlude: Dire Straits, "Private Investigations"

Dire Straits, "Private Investigations"

"In The End..."

"Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. 

Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.

 In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. 

In the end that’s all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn."

- Gregory David Roberts. "Shantaram"

"The Four D's That Define the Future"

"The Four D's That Define the Future"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Four D's will define 2020-2025: derealization, denormalization, decomplexification and decoherence. That's a lot of D's. Let's take them one at a time.

I use the word derealization to describe the inner disconnect between what we experience and what the propaganda/marketing complex we live in tells us we should be experiencing. Put another way: our lived experience is derealized (dismissed as not real) by official spin and propaganda.

The current state of the economy is a good example. We see the real-world economy declining yet the officially approved narrative is that there's a V-shaped recovery underway because Big Tech stocks are hitting new highs. In other words, we don't need a real-world economy, all we need is a digital economy provided by Big Tech platforms. This is derealization at its finest: the everyday world you experience directly no longer matters; what matters is stock prices and various statistics that all paint a rosy picture.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest class is fleeing soon-to-be-bankrupt cities. The wealthiest class has the means to buy the best advice and also has the most to lose, so I give their actions far more credence than official propaganda. 

I've sketched out my thesis on denormalization in "The 'New Normal' Is De-Normalization" and "Here's Why the 'Impossible; Economic Collapse Is Unavoidable": This is why denormalization is an extinction event for much of our high-cost, high-complexity, heavily regulated economy. Subsidizing high costs doesn't stop the dominoes from falling, as subsidies are not a substitute for the virtuous cycle of re-investment.

The Fed's project of lowering the cost of capital to zero doesn't generate this virtuous cycle; all it does is encourage socially useless speculative predation. Collapse isn't "impossible," it's unavoidable.

The basic idea is that all the structures of the "normal" economy only function at full capacity, as costs have moved higher, unproductive complexity has increased and our ability to pay these higher costs is based on ever-expanding debt. As a result, "normal" became extremely fragile and binary: it's either fully funded at full capacity or it collapses. The structures of everyday life (to use Braudel's apt phrase) are incapable of downsizing to 70% of their previous complexity and cost, much less 50%.

There won't be any "new normal" because the system has become too rigid, ossified, over-regulated and controlled by entrenched interests and elites. It is incapable of reducing complexity and cost, and bailouts via borrowed money are stopgaps, not actual solutions.

Decomplexification is a mouthful, and everyone inside the machine knows the impossibility of paring organizational complexity. Everyone who is a stakeholder in the status quo (which is virtually every employee, manager, etc.) will fight to keep the status quo intact as is, for fear that any re-organization might imperil their livelihood or security. This is entirely understandable, of course.

Modern life is inherently complex. Democracy is complex and cumbersome because having a bunch of stakeholders all competing for public resources and advocating for a bigger slice of the pie is inherently messy. There must be oversight and feedback to minimize the possibility of one clique gaining complete power.

Long global supply chains are inherently complex. Managing ever-increasing regulations is inherently complex. And so on. When the money runs out or loses its purchasing power, all sorts of complexity that were previously viewed as essential crumble to dust. We're witnessing the early stages of this in real time in healthcare and education: overly complex and costly systems are breaking down not just from the challenges of the pandemic but because they're structurally incapable of adapting or evolving beyond pseudo-reforms and policy tweaks.

As an illustration, consider the current overly complex way our healthcare system funds itself and a system in which customers pay cash for medical care: no insurance, minimal oversight auditing, etc. Regulations boil down to a requirement to publicly post prices for services and actually charge only the posted prices.

In higher education, as per the model I outline in my book "The Nearly Free University," the campus and its entire bureaucracy becomes superfluous. Classes, embedded apprenticeships and in-person workshops are organized online. The entire scheme of accrediting colleges is jettisoned in favor of accrediting each student.

And so on. You can see the problem: eliminating unproductive, obsolete layers of costly complexity will eliminate millions of middle-class jobs that can't be replaced with new expansive bureaucracies. Yes, paying cash for healthcare and campus-less, mostly automated universities are oversimplifications. So where is the middle ground between current costly complexity and some "new normal" with half the costs and complexity? There's no way to accomplish this while retaining the payrolls, priorities, processes and structures of the existing systems.

The point here is that when the money runs out or loses much of its purchasing power, overly costly complexity collapses whether we like it or not.

Decoherence is an interesting word. In science, "Decoherence can be viewed as the loss of information from a system into the environment, since every system is loosely coupled with the energetic state of its surroundings." Decoherence refers to the loss of systemic coherence between narratives, values, processes and systems. Simply put, stuff no longer works right and it no longer makes sense. What worked in the past has been transformed by two systemic drifts:

1. Systems that evolved to function in a specific socio-political-economic context continued adding complexity and cost because debt-based funding was available, not because they were becoming more efficient or effective.

2. The socio-political-economic context has changed and so the status quo systems are mal-adapted, i.e. obsolete.

These two systemic drifts occur so slowly that we aren't even aware of the loss of coherence unless we compare the current system to a previous set point or look at it from the perspective of starting from scratch: what would the most sustainable, lowest-energy consumption, most efficient and productive system look like if we designed it from scratch? It certainly wouldn't be the system we have now.

The four Ds help us understand why the status quo is incapable of adapting/evolving fast enough and effectively enough to manage a controlled collapse to a much lower level of cost and complexity. The status quo can't even admit the need for a controlled collapse, much less manage it.

We can add a fifth D: denial. The four Ds are already in motion and denial is only accelerating systemic decoherence."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"Something Really, Really Bad Is Going To Happen: Evictions, Starvation And Next Great Depression!"

"Something Really, Really Bad Is Going To Happen: 

Evictions, Starvation And Next Great Depression!"

by Epic Economist

"At this stage of the economic collapse, we should be experiencing calmer times. After every big crash, a bounce-back follows, almost as the involuntary reflex inherent to human nature, an instinct of survival, in which we supposedly would have some time to breathe through the chaos. When you hit rock bottom, the only way out is up, isn't that what they say? But from where we stand, it feels much more like we've hit the economic rock bottom and we're still trapped down there, we just have gotten a little bit more used to it, so we can't see how bad it looks anymore, because the shock is so frequent that it became ordinary. If this is the so-called recovery, something really wrong is happening here. That's why today we decided to unmask this delusive idea that things are getting back on track, and show you why this is far from being a recovery.

If this is supposed to be the moment when things get more stable, why does it feel like we're still free-falling? If these are "calmer times" we wonder how much chaos is coming for us next. As we will discuss later on this video, more than half of the American families are suffering from serious financial pain, while the pace of unemployment claims continues to hit new records every week it passes by. The United States had never seen anything like that prior to 2020. The latest record was set in 1982, when 695,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits during a single week, configuring the worst rate for jobless claims for almost 38 years, and right now we have passed over that old record for 25 weeks in a row. 

The study also presents that 29.6 million people who continued to claim unemployment insurance under all programs translate into 18.4% of the civilian labor force of 161 million. The blue columns stand for continued claims under state programs, showing an increase from 54k to 13.2 million, the first increase after five decreases in a row. The red columns stand for continued claims under federal established by the CARES Act and some other programs, outlining a rise from 326k to 16.4 million.

These numbers would be considered “catastrophic” at any other period in American history, but we are at a point when we constantly face catastrophic numbers so we have become somewhat desensitized to them. Even though the unemployment numbers are not as abysmal as they were earlier this year, and other economic figures seem to have stagnated for the time being, many analysts have been arguing that this moment of "relative" - and we mean very "relative" - "calm" won't last very long. 

If you are having this gut feeling that something really bad is about to happen, you're not the only one. It feels like a simple wind strike would make the entire house of cards collapse, but let's not panic just yet. In hard times like these, we should stick to the ones we love and care for, so if you get the chance to spend some quality time with our family, take it, especially because not everyone can afford to have this privilege right now. Unfortunately, many American families are facing anxiety over having the basics to attend their needs, and a recent report revealed that over 50 percent of the households in some of our largest cities are currently facing severe financial distress.

Also, millions of people can face homelessness and starvation depending on how the election goes. We reported on our last mortgage crash video that due to a massive rental insolvency, many homeowners and business owners were receiving eviction moratoriums at a very accelerated rate, because with these extremely high unemployment rates and of thousands of businesses being directly affected by the lockdown, it has become almost impossible to make ends meet. But of course, it would look really bad for the administration to let a surge in homelessness happen just before the elections, so the CDC started to invoke some of these moratoriums to build up an image of concern and care for the citizens. But the act will expire by the end of the year, that is to say, if the outcome of the election doesn't come as planned, all these people can lose their homes for good.

Wherever we look things are falling apart. All of our systems are failing and a fog of insecurity is rising everywhere. The anticipation for the eruption of the next crisis is both nauseating and intriguing. What will be the next turn? When will the reckoning day arrive? How are you dealing with such expectations? What do you think is going to happen next? Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section, they will be much appreciated. Are you prepared for the next Great Depression yet?" 

-  https://www.epiceconomist.com

Must Watch! "Economic Red Flags; Las Vegas Collapse; Stimulus Checks On Hold; Coming Wave Of Defaults"

Jeremiah Babe,

"Economic Red Flags; Las Vegas Collapse; 

Stimulus Checks On Hold; Coming Wave Of Defaults"
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Related:

"Las Vegas is a ghost town where even the strippers put up signs­ saying, 'Sorry, we're clothed': Caroline Graham visits the ruined home of gaudy capitalism in the shadow of Covid-19."

Musical Interlude: Tyrone Wells, "Time of Our Lives"

Tyrone Wells, "Time of Our Lives"

Please view in full screen mode.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"In brush strokes of interstellar dust and glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Composed using 22 different images and over 180 hours of image data, the widefield mosaic spans an impressive 24 degrees across the sky. Alpha star of Cygnus, bright, hot, supergiant Deneb lies near top center. Crowded with stars and luminous gas clouds Cygnus is also home to the dark, obscuring Northern Coal Sack Nebula, extending from Deneb toward the center of the view. 

Click image for larger size.

The reddish glow of star forming regions NGC 7000 and IC 5070, the North America Nebula and Pelican Nebulas, are just left of Deneb. The Veil Nebula is a standout below and left of center. A supernova remnant, the Veil is some 1,400 light years away, but many other nebulae and star clusters are identifiable throughout the cosmic scene. Of course, Deneb itself is also known to northern hemisphere skygazers for its place in two asterisms - marking the top of the Northern Cross and a vertex of the Summer Triangle."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200826.html

Chet Raymo, “The Ring of Truth”

“The Ring of Truth”

by Chet Raymo

“In Salley Vickers’ novel, ‘Where Three Roads Meet,’ the shade of Tiresias, the blind seer of the Oedipus myth, visits Sigmund Freud in London during the psychoanalyst’s final terrible illness. In a series of conversations, Tiresias retells the story of Oedipus - he who was fated to kill his father and sleep with his mother - a story at the heart of Freud’s own theory of the human psyche.

At one point in the conversations, as Tiresias and Freud discuss the extent to which our lives are fated, the question of immortality arises. Freud says of Oedipus that “he made his story into an immortal one, so far as any story is.” And Tiresias replies, “But, Dr. Freud, stories are all we humans have to make us immortal.”

Oedipus lives on, whether he lived or not in actuality. Sophocles lives in our consciousness as vigorously as ever he did in life. They live because their stories touch something resonant and unchanging in human nature. Vickers suggests that what makes the Oedipal story immortal is not any necessary tendency of humans to act out the Oedipal myth, a la Freud, but rather Oedipus’s rage to know the truth- or become conscious of a truth he has known all along and suppressed- even though the truth will be his undoing. 

The poet Muriel Rukesyser got it exactly right when she said: “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” Even atoms are stories we tell about the world, having first paid close attention to how the world works. The plays of Sophocles and the other Greek dramatists live on not because their authors were immortal, but because nature endures and their stories tell us something that rings true about enduring nature. And, like Oedipus, we have a rage to know, even if knowledge will unseat some of our more comfortable illusions.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"We're All Waiting..."

“We’re all sinking in the same boat here. We’re all bored and desperate and waiting for something to happen. Waiting for life to get better. Waiting for things to change. Waiting for that one person to finally notice us. We’re all waiting. But we also need to realize that we all have the power to make those changes for ourselves.”

- Susane Colasanti

“The Inevitability of Snollygosters”

“The Inevitability of Snollygosters”

by Jeff Thomas

“Snollygoster is an archaic term for, “A fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force monumental talknophical assumnancy.” All right, that’s a rather antiquated definition, but then, “snollygoster” is a very antiquated term. It hasn’t been in use since the mid-1800’s. Another definition is, “A shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician.”

So, of what interest is this bygone nomenclature to us today? Well, the definitions are exactly in keeping with our present-day politicians. When we look at our senators, parliamentarians, presidents and prime ministers, we see that, even with the passage of considerable time, the term snollygoster is applicable today.

And, we, the constituents, could be referred to as “grumbletonians,” a word common in England in the 1600’s for those who are angry or unhappy with their government. And we’re just as likely to be so exasperated with our political leaders that we resort to a “whipmegmorum” – a Scottish word from the 1700’s for a noisy quarrel about politics.

These ancient and forgotten terms may be entertaining, but they may additionally raise a question in modern minds. We may ask ourselves, “Do you mean that it isn’t just that our present leaders are virtual cartoons – and destructive ones at that? Do you mean that (gulp) it’s always been this way?

’Fraid so. But, how is this possible? How is it that, regardless of the times we’re in, and regardless of whether we have literally hundreds of millions of citizens to choose from (in the larger countries), we end up with literal cartoon characters as leaders? Is it that we’re so bad at making a selection that we always choose the worst person?

Well, actually, there, the answer would be, “No.” Voters don’t actively seek out the worst. The problem is that they’re presented with the worst. In the UK, we can complain about how useless Theresa May was; that she continually dropped the ball and repeatedly acted with foolhardy overconfidence. But, if asked, “Would you rather have had Jeremy Corbin?” those of us who grumble are likely to respond vehemently in the negative. (We don’t wish to jump from the pan into the fire.)

Similarly, across the pond in the US, Americans, including republicans, cannot help but laugh at their president as being an arrogant and petulant buffoon. (For the record, those of us outside the US also regard him as a source of perverse entertainment). Still, I expect that most of those same people, if asked whether they thought Hillary Clinton would be closer to their ideal of the perfect leader, they’d emphatically have said, “No.”

So, the problem is not that the voters “get the leader they deserve.” The problem is that the game is rigged – that there are no good choices. In a small country, it’s easy to introduce a candidate whom the electorate actually believe in, then to push him forward to victory. But, the larger the country, the more impossible it is for anyone who deserves a leadership position, to actually achieve it. (The system promotes its own kind.) But, this notion presupposes that the majority of people within the political structure are already “contaminated,” that they, too are, for all practical purposes, undesirable. Can this actually be the case?

Again… ‘fraid so… But how is this possible? Well, as long as we’re discussing definitions, there are two more that we might want to investigate. Let’s look at this one: “A long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of others’ feelings. People affected by it often spend a lot of time thinking about achieving power or success.”

Well, that certainly fits virtually all political leaders and political hopefuls. This definition is used to describe “narcissistic personality disorder.” A fuller description is: “Persistent grandiosity, excessive need for admiration, and a personal disdain for, and lack of empathy for other people;  Arrogance, a sense of superiority; actively seeks to establish abusive power and control over other people; openly disregards the feelings and wishes of others, and expects to be treated as superior, regardless of their actual status or achievements; usually exhibits a fragile ego, an inability to tolerate criticism, and a tendency to belittle others in order to validate their own superiority.” Take a moment and ask yourself whether the above describes a leader near you.

And, here’s another interesting definition: “A pervasive and persistent disregard for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others. Individuals with this personality disorder will typically have no compunction in exploiting others in harmful ways for their own gain or pleasure and frequently manipulate and deceive other people, achieving this through wit and a facade of superficial charm.”

This is a definition for sociopathy, or “antisocial personality disorder.” To expand, sociopaths demonstrate a “Disregard for right and wrong, persistent lying or deceit to exploit others, callous, cynical and disrespectful of others, using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure, arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated… repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty, impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead, hostility, significant irritability, agitation… lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others, unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others… failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them.”

Initially, we may be tempted to say to ourselves, “Surely, it’s not as bad as all that.” But, if we really want to get an accurate picture, a useful exercise might be to picture a specific leader whose behavior we’ve witnessed repeatedly and then read the above descriptions once again, whilst picturing his face. The surprising truth is that many political leaders and political hopefuls display these characteristics exactly. Many are clearly narcissists, sociopaths, or both.

But, why should this be? Well, the easy answer is “obsessive behavior.” Those who have the above disorders will literally do anything to achieve superiority over others and will have no remorse or regret whatever. Therefore, it’s perfectly predictable that, over time, any government will become populated by pathological individuals.

This is not a new occurrence. ‘Twas ever thus. The snollygosters have been a chronic dominant presence in governments for millennia. And they’ll continue to be dominant. However, there is a positive takeaway here. If we recognize that this syndrome is in fact the norm, in any age, in any country, we can stop hoping for a hero to arise and save us from the parasitical dominance of governments. We can accept that, if we’re to thrive, this may only be accomplished through our own independence of mind and action, not through the empty promises of pathological leaders.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/
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“The barbarian hopes, and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles. “ 

- Hilaire Belloco