"Want Hope and Real Growth? Let the Dead Forest of Corruption and Fed Manipulation Burn Down"

"Want Hope and Real Growth? Let the Dead Forest 

of Corruption and Fed Manipulation Burn Down"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"You know what happens when fire suppression policies limit forest fires: deadwood piles up and all the trees killed by bark beetles are awaiting a spark to ignite. Sure enough, a random lightning strike provides the ignition, and the entire forest is consumed in an out-of-control conflagration made inevitable by the policy of suppressing fires as "bad" for lumber companies and tourism, i.e. the politically influential.

This is a remarkably apt analogy for the central banks' policy of suppressing business cycle recessions that burn down dead zombie corporations and all the deadwood suppressing new growth.

The Yellowstone Analogy and The Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism (May 18, 2009)

No Recession Ever Again? The Yellowstone Analogy (November 8, 2019)

If you're an insider using Federal Reserve "free money for financiers" to milk your zombie corporation, you love the Fed's suppression of actual capitalism. Fed free money enable you to continue to borrow cheaply and buy back your zombie company's shares, enriching insiders even though the company doesn't even earn enough to service its ballooning debts.

If you're not yet aware of the ballooning number of zombie companies, please read: Welcome To The Zombie Global Economy.

Recall that free-market capitalism's business cycle of over-investment and excessive risk-taking must be followed by a reduction in debt, the liquidation of bad loans and excess inventory, limiting exposure to risk, etc. - in other words, a fast-burning forest fire which incinerates all the deadwood, clearing space for the next generation of growth. Some seeds will only open if exposed to heat. If the Fed makes sure there's never any risk of fire touching too big to fail/jail companies, cartels, monopolies and the soaring number of zombie corporations, then the seeds of real growth can't possibly open.

Welcome to the hopeless result of Fed manipulation: stagnation, soaring inequality and rampant corruption. Fed manipulation and widespread corruption are not separate dynamics: Fed manipulation - distributing trillions of dollars to those at the apex of the wealth-power pyramid - has fueled corruption by giving the most sociopathic, greediest few the means to buy political protection of their monopoly/cartel (Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Defense, and so on) by influencing narratives (buying up the media), regulators and elected officials.

There is no way America would be as corrupt as it now is if the Fed hadn't provided trillions of dollars to those most anxious to corrupt every institution that might limit their greed and power. If money wasn't free, the predators, parasites, zombies and monopolists couldn't borrow such enormous sums to jack up their share price and buy political influence to protect their winnings.

The Fed's policy of permanent, expanding manipulation has picked the winners in our economy - the predators, parasites, zombies and monopolists who use Fed free money to strangle competition, eliminate transparency and corrupt anything that might represent the public interest or the common good, because these are anathema to the predators, parasites, zombies and monopolists.

The Fed has also picked the losers - the bottom 99%, and especially the bottom 90%, as these charts make abundantly clear. Have you looked at what you earned in interest on your nestegg? $2? This is the perversity of the Fed's incentives: to even hope to keep up with real-world inflation, everyone must sink their savings into dead trees that are just awaiting a spark to burn to the ground.

Some readers tell me that they feel depressed after reading my blog posts. Well cheer up, all we need to do is to let the Fed's manipulated, corrupt dead forest burn down. Once all the corruption and deadwood that the Fed has protected from market forces (i.e. competition and transparency) and any effort to promote the public interest and the common good burns down, then hope and new enterprises will finally have the open ground and sunlight to germinate and thrive.

Wake up, America, and see the Fed for what it really is: 

a totalitarian tool of kleptocracy."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"It Shouldn't Be A Bragging Point..."

"This country is like a college chick after two Long Island iced teas: We can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget the town halls, and replace them with study halls.

Listen to some of these stats: A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. 

Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators, and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only three got their wife's name right on the first try. People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes more twenty-four percent of our budget. It's actually less than one percent.

A Gallup poll said eighteen percent of us think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks.

And I haven't even brought up religion. But here's one fun fact I'll leave you with: Did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which came first.

I rest my case.”

- Bill Maher

Must Watch! “Count Down To Chaos; Great Depression 2.0; Housing Crash 2.0; Market Bubbles; Rental Market Crashes”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Count Down To Chaos; Great Depression 2.0;

 Housing Crash 2.0; Market Bubbles; Rental Market Crashes”

"BofA Predicts Perfect Storm: 20% Stock Market Crash Will Be Seen In A Couple Of Days"

"BofA Predicts Perfect Storm: 

20% Stock Market Crash Will Be Seen In A Couple Of Days"

by Epic Economist

"An unprecedented stock market crash is right at the corner. In face of mounting uncertainty surrounding the coming elections, new BofA data suggests that a 20% market plunge will be seen in a couple of days. The prospect of a contested outcome might crush investors expectations and finally trigger the ultimate downfall. In this video, we discuss this perfect storm investors have been long fearing.

This year, the global health crisis has prompted the benchmark S&P 500 to shrink 34% in a matter of just 33 days. And then, stock markets experienced the fastest snap-back rally to new highs from a bear market low on record. According to history, a stock market crash or correction was already highly expected. 

Doomsday predictions for the stock market have been piling up, and volatility is just one of the factors of influence for the coming crash. Domestic equity funds are also riding a 19-week streak of ongoing outflows that are happening just when U.S. Treasury yields are on record-lows. Investors seeking guaranteed income have been coping with only a 0.8% yield on the 10-year Treasury note.

That’s to say, Treasury bondholders are going to lose loads of money if they decide to keep holding on to these bonds until maturity. And this is just the beginning. The possibility of another round of lockdown restrictions both within and outside the United States has been scaring investors who desperately need business activity to resume since the increasing delinquency rates for mortgages, rent, credit cards, and personal loans that are likely to skyrocket in the coming months.

The elections' uncertainty can also swiftly become a major problem. Wall Street doesn't care about who will be named as a winner, but the lack of a clear result that could create a contested election causing the markets to rattle. 

The biggest concern for investors is reviving the 2000 election scenario of Al Gore vs. George W. Bush, which lingered for 34 days after the vote counting and required Supreme Court intervention to decide who was the winner. 

In the case of a close election, it will take time to count and invariably re-count all the absentee and mail-in ballots, which would be the worst-case scenario for the market, jeopardizing the market performance into the year-end, especially because the economy is in desperate need of another round of stimulus relief.

The most urgent worry now is that a delay in the settlement of a new president would also imply a delay in delivering more much-needed federal assistance. In the absence of a clear winner, it will become even harder to advance stimulus legislation through Congress during the weeks after the election. That would coincide with the holiday season, and consequently, undermine the projected upswing in consumer spending and put the holiday spending season at risk.

Stocks are expected to drop in all sectors since investors aren’t accounting for that. Their anguish surrounding the issuance of a new stimulus bill also exposes how markets have become too dependent on government open-handedness, but there’s only so much that governments can do. A cobra effect is being formed on the markets and so much unbacked stimulus will cause a hyperinflationary economic collapse, which means the next stock market crash will merely be one more chapter of this multi-faced economic collapse, but hardly the end-line."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Hymn"

Vangelis, "Hymn"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"What's happening at the center of the Trifid Nebula? Three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear near the bottom, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, cataloged as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulas known. 

The star forming nebula lies about 9,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). The region pictured here spans about 10 light years. The featured image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler."

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

"Shibumi"

"Shibumi"

by Trevanian

"Shibumi, Sir?" Nicholai knew the word, but only as it applied to gardens or architecture, where it connoted an understated beauty. How are you using the term, Sir? 

"Oh, vaguely, And incorrectly, I suspect. A blundering attempt to describe an ineffable quality. As you know, Shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is...how does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that."

Nicholai's imagination was galvanized by the concept of shibumi. No other ideal had ever touched him so. "How does one achieve this shibumi, Sir?" 

"One does not achieve it, one discovers it. And only a few men of refinement ever do that. Men like my friend Otake-san." 

"Meaning that one must learn a great deal to arrive at shibumi?" 

"Meaning, rather, that one must pass through knowledge and arrive at simplicity." From that moment, Nicholai's primary goal in life was to become a man of shibumi; a personality of overwhelming calm."

- https://www.phillipmccollum.com/

"A Day..."

"A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation

of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day;

and a succession of such days is fatal to human life."

- Lewis Mumford

"Choose A Side"

"There comes a time in every man's life when he has to choose sides. I have chosen my side. I am comfortable with my decision. I do not think everyone on my side is a saint, but I know that those on the other side are much, much worse.

Sometimes a man with too broad a perspective reveals himself as having no real perspective at all. A man who tries too hard to see every side may be a man who is trying to avoid choosing any side. A man who tries too hard to seek a deeper truth may be trying to hide from the truth he already knows. That is not a sign of intellectual sophistication and 'great thinking'. It is a demonstration of moral degeneracy and cowardice."

- Steven Den Beste

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"Trump Rally Hits 57 THOUSAND PEOPLE IN PA As Newspaper Endorses Him As First Republican Since 1972"

November 1, 2020: "Trump Rally Hits 57 THOUSAND PEOPLE IN PA 

As Newspaper Endorses Him As First Republican Since 1972"

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

○

Trump rally near Pittsburgh, Pa Oct.31, 2020

"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Endorses President Trump, 

Marking First GOP Endorsement In Almost 50 Years"

by Tyler Durden

"The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - a well known paper in a key battleground state - came out on Sunday morning and announced their endorsement of President Donald Trump. It's the first Republican the paper has endorsed for President since 1972 - nearly fifty years ago. In an editorial called "The Man And The Record", The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette makes the case for shaking off arguments about Trump's personality and putting a focus on his record.

The editorial starts by asking what is important when choosing a president. "Isn’t the real question whether he has been taking the country, and the economy of this region, in the right direction these last four years? Can we separate the man from the record?"

The paper also started by acknowledging many of the personality flaws that are often brought up when discussing President Trump: "We share the embarrassment of millions of Americans who are disturbed by the president’s unpresidential manners and character - his rudeness and put-downs and bragging and bending of the truth."

But then, it does something that many on the left are unable to do: it looks at, and judges Trump, based on his record. 

"Let’s look at the Trump record," the piece says. "Under Donald Trump the economy, pre-COVID, boomed, like no time since the 1950s. Look at your 401(k) over the past three years. Unemployment for Black Americans is lower than it has ever been, under any president of either party. Under Mr. Trump, our trade relationships have vastly improved and our trade deals have been rewritten. Thanks to him, middle America is on the map again and the Appalachian and hourly worker has some hope."

It continues: "Has Mr. Trump done enough for these struggling fellow citizens? No. But he recognized them. Maybe he was not articulate, but he recognized their pain."

The piece notes that Trump has put America first, the way he said he would: "No one ever asked the American people, or the people in 'flyover,' country, if they wanted to send their jobs abroad - until Mr. Trump. He has moved the debate, in both parties, from free trade, totally unfettered, to managed, or fair, trade. He has put America first, just as he said he would."

And it praises him for appointing Amy Coney Barrett: "He also kept his promise to appoint originalists to the Supreme Court of the United States. His third appointment, Amy Coney Barrett, is the best of all - a jurist whose mind and character and scholarship ARE first class. We hope she stands against both judicial and executive excess."

And you can't talk about Western PA without talking about the energy industry: "Finally, let’s talk about one of the most important concerns in this region - energy. Under Mr. Trump the United States achieved energy independence for the first time in the lifetimes of most of us. Where would Western Pennsylvania be without the Shell Petrochemical Complex?"

Finally the Post-Gazette rails Joe Biden as "too old for the job, and fragile" and says Kamala Harris "gives no evidence" of being ready to takeover for Biden: "Mr. Biden is too old for the job, and fragile. There is a very real chance he will not make it through the term. Mr. Trump is also too old but seemingly robust. But in Mike Pence, Mr. Trump has a vice president ready to take over, if need be. He is a safe pair of hands. Sen. Kamala Harris gives no evidence of being ready to be president."

"Donald Trump is not Churchill, to be sure, but he gets things done," the paper concludes. You can read the full endorsement here: "This newspaper has not supported a Republican for president since 1972. But we believe President Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year."

Via @pgopinions https://t.co/dZYEQp3pGY

- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (@PittsburghPG) November 1, 2020

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect a Big Move This Week"

 

Gregory Mannarino,

"Alert! Markets, A Look Ahead: Expect a Big Move This Week"

- https://traderschoice.net/

The Daily "Near You?"

 
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Super Intelligence - Binaural Beats, Focus Music for Concentration and Memory"

Greenred Productions, 

"Super Intelligence - Binaural Beats, 

Focus Music for Concentration and Memory"

"Study Music & Concentration Music is brainwave background music to help you to study, focus, and concentrate on learning process and work more effectively. Alpha Waves help your mind to get to the state of focus, which is perfect for studying or preparing for exam or test you have at school or university. It also maintains your alertness while studying. Beta waves will help to concentrate for tasks, enhance intelligence.

We compose instrumental and electronic music that is specially designed to enhance brain function and concentration, spa and massage therapy, and healing music therapy. For this reason, we use binaural beats. There are many types of beats for different daily meditation purposes: Delta Waves – Sleep Music/NREM sleep, Alpha Waves are neural oscillations, Theta Waves (Cortical theta rhythm and Hippocampal theta rhythm). Beta waves associated with muscle contractions in isotonic movements, Gamma waves can help to release serotonin, endorphin and dopamine, so it works as happiness music for depression treatment."

"Start..."

“Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.”

- Adam Michnik

Free Download: Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist”

“'The Alchemist' is a gripping narrative about a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago and his journey to find the greatest treasure in the world. This charming story follows Santiago on his journey to Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there. Santiago travels across great distances and encounters crazy adventures in his quest for gold. Little does he know that the ultimate treasure is actually found deep within.

This dream was so prophetic that Santiago genuinely believed this was his ultimate goal in life. After deciding to travel to a Romani fortune-teller in a nearby town to discover its meaning, a gypsy woman tells him that there is a treasure in the Pyramids in Egypt.

Towards the beginning of his journey, Santiago meets an old king, named Melchizedek, who advises him to sell his sheep in order to travel to Egypt. He also introduces the idea of a Personal Legend, stating that your Personal Legend, “is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is.”

Along the journey, Santiago meets an Englishman who is in search of an Alchemist and together they continue their search for treasure. As they travel through the Sahara desert, Santiago meets and falls in love with a beautiful Arabian woman named Fatima. After a brief period of time, Santiago asks Fatima to marry him, but she tells him that she will only marry him after he finds his treasures. Perplexed by this, Santiago later learns that true love will not stop one’s Personal Legend, and if it does, it is not true love.

Eventually Santiago meets a lone alchemist who teaches him about Personal Legends. He shares his wisdom that people want to find only the treasure of their Personal Legends but not the Personal Legend itself. The alchemist states, “Those who don’t understand their Personal Legends will fail to comprehend their teachings.”

If you are looking for a book that will inspire courage, this is the one. No matter what your dream, goals or visions are, the universe will conspire to help you achieve the things you want, regardless of how insurmountable the task seems. You must live the life you truly desire to its fullest extent if you want to look back on a life having worth lived.”

- Jeff

○

Freely download “The Alchemist”, by Paulo Coelho, here:

- http://www.metaphysicspirit.com/books/The%20Alchemist.pdf

“Why Not Despair?”

“Why Not Despair?”

“To view our times as decadent and dangerous, to mistrust the government, to imagine that those in power as not concerned with our best interests is not paranoid but perceptive; to be depressed, angry or confused about such things is not delusional but a sign of consciousness. Yet our culture suggests otherwise. But if all this is true, then why not despair? The simple answer is this: despair is the suicide of imagination. Whatever reality presses upon us, there still remains the possibility of imagining something better, and in this dream remains the frontier of our humanity and its possibilities To despair is to voluntarily close a door that has not yet shut. The task is to bear knowledge without it destroying ourselves, to challenge the wrong without ending up on its casualty list. “You don’t have to change the world,” the writer Colman McCarthy has argued. “Just keep the world from changing you.”

Oddly, those who instinctively understand this best are often those who seem to have the least reason to do so – survivors of abuse, oppression, and isolation who somehow discover not so much how to beat the odds, but how to wriggle around them. They have, without formal instruction, learned two of the most fundamental lessons of psychiatry, philosophy, and religion:

You are not responsible for that into which you were born..

You are responsible for doing something about it.

These individuals move through life like a skilled mariner in a storm rather than as a victim at a sacrifice. Relatively unburdened by pointless and debilitating guilt about the past, uninterested in the endless regurgitation of the unalterable, they free themselves to concentrate upon the present and the future. They face the gale as a sturdy combatant rather than as cowering supplicant.”

- Sam Smith

"How It Really Is"

"Such Is The Law..."

"Every day things happen in the world that cannot be explained by any law of things we know. Every day they’re mentioned and forgotten, and the same mystery that brought them takes them away, transforming their secret into oblivion. Such is the law by which things that can’t be explained must be forgotten. The visible world goes on as usual in the broad daylight. Otherness watches us from the shadows. We have conquered the whole world before leaving our beds. But we were awakened and it was dark, we rose and all was strange to us.”

- Fernando Pessoa

"Mind Blowing Magic"

"Mind Blowing Magic"

by Stucky

"Hey folks, I don’t post crapola time wasters, right? So let me tell you this. I have never never never ever seen a magic trick like this. I’m not even sure it’s magic - I think the guy is a time-traveler. I watched it twice to see if I could come up with a possible gimmick he’s using. Bupkis. I was even more amazed the second time. Oh, one more thing, you just might shed a tear. Really."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

I'm speechless...and shed a tear...

Full screen mode recommended.

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 11/1/20"

 by Remy Tumin and Judith Levitt

Nov. 1, 2020: "Two days before the presidential election, the coronavirus is so widespread not even American health officials are able to keep up. The U.S. has recorded its worst week of known coronavirus infections with more than 500,000 new cases reported and a single-day record of 99,784 new cases on Friday, surpassing nine million total cases nationwide.

At least 1,200 counties - a full third of the country - qualify as a virus hot spot. Above, medics respond to a Covid-19 patient in Glen Burnie, Md.

Many people are coming to a frightening conclusion: They have no idea where the virus is spreading. As one public health expert put it: “It’s just kind of everywhere.”

Masks work. Really. In this animation, we show you just how effective a piece of fabric can be at warding off the virus.

And in Europe, Britain announced expansive new restrictions that effectively establish a national lockdown, joining France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland in shutting down large parts of their societies to try to keep their hospitals from being overwhelmed amid vast second-wave surges in coronavirus infections."

Oct 31, 2020 8:11 PM ET: 

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 45,990,300 

people, according to official counts, including 9,198,326 Americans.

      Oct 31, 2020 8:11 PM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

NOV 1, 2020 11:10 AM: "White House Slams Dr. Fauci As Outbreak Slows; Australia Sees First COVID-Free Day In 5 Months: Live Updates"

NOV 1, 2020 7:35 AM: "'Le Grand Escape' From Paris: Footage Shows Record-Breaking Traffic Gridlock Hours Before Lockdown" "One newspaper calculated that lines of cars stretched over 430 miles in and around capital hours before stay-at-home orders took effect."

10/31/2020 - 20:00: "'A Lot Of People Are Leaving': COVID Shutdowns Have Turned San Francisco Into A Ghost Town"

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Updated 11/1/20, 5:24 AM ET

Click image for larger size.

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

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• "CDC Admits: No Conclusive Evidence Cloth Masks Work Against COVID"

• "COVID19 PCR Tests are Scientifically Meaningless"

A "Must Read":

• "These 12 Graphs Show Mask Mandates Do Nothing To Stop COVID"