Jeremiah Babe,
“Credit Card Rates Soar; Costco Toilet Paper Sales Skyrocket;
Restaurants Destroyed; Economy Weak”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
"SoftBank CEO Warns Of 'Lehman-Like-Crisis' That Could Crash Global Economy And Society"
"SoftBank CEO Warns Of 'Lehman-Like-Crisis'
That Could Crash Global Economy And Society"
by Epic Economist
"The SoftBank CEO is warning that a "Lehman-like crisis" could crash the entire global economy. In fact, doomsday predictions for a meltdown of worldwide proportions aren't short amongst experts. In a recent article, renowned anthropologist Joseph Tainter explains why we're already inevitably marching towards the end of the world's civilization as we know it, and we're now headed not only to an economic but also to a major societal breakdown, that will disintegrate the whole system and put humanity back to square one.In this video, we examine experts' insight on how the current financial, economic and social instability is catalyst that could trigger an extraordinary global economic collapse, changing the world as a whole.
Writer and professor, Joseph Tainter is known for having a “sober” perspective when it comes to turbulent episodes experienced worldwide. Amid a global health crisis, walloping unemployment, the eruption of multiple hunger crises, mounting social agitation, and an increasing uncertainty about the future, when questioned if our compounding crises are signaling the start of a major societal rupture, he admitted that our “contemporary society has built-in vulnerabilities that could allow things to go very badly indeed”.
If deterioration continues to rapidly spread at the foundations that have been holding the world together, a generalized disintegration could happen sooner rather than later. In fact, he disclosed to worry it could begin before the year was over. Economists and market strategists have been constantly alerting that the downfall of a single major institution may lead to a global economic collapse. This institution could be an international bank, a leading multinational company, or even the meltdown of one of the world’s dominant economies.
A global collapse will not solely emerge through the happening of the health crisis, or the financial and economic volatility several nations have been dealing with, or even the social dissatisfaction that is being taken to the streets. It’s when not one, but all of these determinants become unsustainable in various places of the planet that things start to fall apart. And if we take a quick look at our neighbors, we’ll understand why experts have been more scared than ever that things can swiftly spiral out of control.
Civilizations are fragile, impermanent things. So the fear surrounding a worldwide meltdown isn’t an apprehension regarding a possibility, but instead the consideration that all states that ever risen in human history have also fallen one day. It seems that now, the convergence of all these critical crises across the globe has given the push needed to make society only fall downhill from here.
In other words, the unsustainability of our economic policies, institutions, political and social junctures, have made societies vulnerable to collapse. Challenges that otherwise could be manageable, such as natural disasters, popular uprisings, and viral outbreaks become insuperable. The United States was collapsing way before the occurence of health crisis. For the last 40 years, our population has been growing poorer and more unhealthy as elites continued to collect staggering profits, boosting their wealth, and expanding their institutional legitimacy.
The current sanitary outbreak has only given us a taste of what happens when a society fails to meet the challenges that it faces, when those who rule the world tend to solely focus on their own issues and leave the population to fight for crumbs. It has emphasized our economic fragility, after we’ve seen years of progress in our unemployment rates being wiped out within the first month of the burst - as well as the formation of several bubbles in the markets, the overwhelming increase of the national debt, and now we’re experiencing a hunger crisis, while our institutions continue to collapse.
Moreover, the next year’s forecasts point to a massive homelessness crisis and ever further financial hardships. That show us that the outbreak might only be the final blow in a descent that had already become inevitable. Furthermore, on the financial backdrop, the SoftBank CEO Masa Son revealed to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. Son cautioned that an imminent "disaster" could sink global markets in the next months, suggesting that despite the coming of a vaccine, there could be "a major company", whose crash would produce a "domino effect" prompting financial turbulence around the world, and crashing global markets. With all that said, it's clear that the world is one coup short of a serious catastrophe - one that will undoubtedly escort us to an apocalyptic future."
Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), “Dolmen Ridge”
Gnomusy (David Caballero), “Dolmen Ridge”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy.
Click image for larger size.
Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131025.html
"Asking For Trouble..."
“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.”
- “Meredith Grey”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
If so, we've certainly got all we want...
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 11/18/20"
NOV 18, 2020 4:24 PM: "Does Science Really Demand That Bars And Restaurants Close?"
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Nov. 18, 2020 2:05 PM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 56,026,900
people, according to official counts, including 11,517,176 Americans.
Updated 11/18/20, 3:25 PM ET
Click image for larger size.
"Wall Street’s Back to 'Full Bull'”
"Wall Street’s Back to 'Full Bull'”
by Brian Maher
"As the bad penny returns to its sender, as the dog returns to its vomit… Wall Street returns to its bull. That is, Wall Street is nearing "full bull." Thus concludes Bank of America Chief Investment Officer Michael Hartnett. We might add a four-letter scatological conclusion to “bull”... yet our harsh Presbyterian standard forbids it.
The latest Fund Manager Survey is out. That is a monthly barometer of roughly 200 fund managers throughout Earth. And this barometer indicates fair winds and clear skies ahead.
• 66% of the surveyed believe the global economy is in “early-cycle phase.” That is the highest barometric reading since March 2010.
• 84% expect an upswing in global growth - the highest percentage in18 years.
• 73% project a steeper yield curve. That is a record high reading.
In reminder, a steeper yield curve foretells higher growth ahead. A flattened yield curve indicates the opposite.
Greed Is Back: Why precisely is Wall Street nearing “full bull?” BloombergQuint: "The global equity markets rebounded on the back of improving macros, the U.S. election outcome and hopes surrounding a potential Covid-19 vaccine. Cash levels have declined to 4.1% in November from 4.4% in October and 4.8% in September, the survey of a total of 216 panellists with $573 billion assets under management showed. Cash level of less than 4% indicates greed and over 5% fear."
In March… in the razor teeth of the pandemic… CNN’s “Fear and Greed” index had plunged to 2 out of 100 - “extreme fear.” The same index presently reads 72 — “greed.” Any reading above 75 ranges into “extreme greed.” For investors, the nightmare march through the dark, treacherous valley is over. And the wide, sun-soaked uplands are in eyesight.
“Dow 30,000 is dead ahead!” Thus an arctic chill freezes our spinal column… and cold sweat streams down our ashen face.
It’s the Good News We Worry About: For as we have noted before: Bad news frightens us - but good news terrifies us. Too many hopes go up, too many guards go down, too many fools go in, too many “buy, buy, buys” go out. But when a crowd bunches together, we instinctively quicken step… and beat a course for the exits. That is because crowds make us vaguely uneasy. Unsettled. Anxious.
This bullish crowd particularly flusters us. For it gathers around the narrative of “improving macros.” Yet we direct you to the following photographs, taken this prior weekend...
Wall Street Feasts, Main Street Starves: These images depict thousands of automobiles, horizon to horizon, a convoy of the hungry, creeping towards a food bank in Dallas, Texas. Are these the images of improving macros? The North Texas Food Bank piled over 600,000 pounds of food into 25,000 growling bellies last weekend. Incidentally, our understrappers inform us that internet searches for "drive thru food bank near me" are overloading the circuitry.
Lest doubt remain - the stock market is not the economy.
A Return to Full Employment in 2026? Meantime, pre-pandemic unemployment sunk to record lows of 3% or less. It went rocketing to 14.7% in April (likely higher) as millions were thrown from their jobs. Today the official rate hovers at 6.9%. Yet additional lockdowns loom - and fresh issuances of pink slips. When might unemployment return to its pre-pandemic lows?
To steal a possible glance into the future… we look to the past recession, the 2008 recession. United States employment did not fully recover for 76 months - over six years.
Assume a parallel projection… Pre-pandemic unemployment levels would return in 2026. They may return sooner than 2026 of course. Yet they could return later than 2026. Later, because the pandemic may flatten multiple industries for years and years. These include the travel and hospitality industry, the restaurant industry, the entertainment industry, et cetera. It is our sincere wish that these industries emerge intact - and sooner than we fear. Yet we are not half so convinced they will.
Each Recovery Recovers Less: Meantime, today’s debt burden sits far heavier on the economy than in 2008. And debt drags on an economy as a millstone hung about a man’s neck drags on the man. Total pre-pandemic debt levels already ran to $75 trillion or some other enormity. And debt is piling on by the heap, by the load, by the bushel. Headway will therefore be limited, the sledding difficult.
Here Michael Lebowitz and Jack Scott of Real Investment Advice pencil an imaginary line. This line connects the 1990 recession, the 2001 recession, the 2008–09 recession… and the 2020 recession. The line forms a downward slope. Each recession requires more time to recover than the previous recession. And each is saddled with more debt than the previous recession:
• The [2008–09] recession was broader based, and affected more industries, citizens, and nations, than the prior recessions of 1990 and 2001
• The 2008–09 recession and recovery also required significantly more fiscal and monetary policy to boost economic activity
• The amount of federal, corporate and individual debt was significantly lower in 1990 and 2001 than 2008–09
• The natural economic growth rate for 1990 and 2001 was higher than the rate going into the 2008–09 recession.
What about growth rates to come?
Half the Previous Rate of Growth: These two gentlemen tie up to this conclusion: “The economic growth rate going forward may be half of the already weak pace heading into the (2020) recession.”
Meantime, the Congressional Budget Office estimates: "The pandemic will hack $8 trillion off real GDP these next 10 years… and $15.7 trillion off nominal GDP." Real GDP minuses out inflation’s false additions, of course. Nominal GDP does not. This lost GDP - if the figures are accurate - is GDP lost forever.
What Will Never Be: It is aborted wealth, pre-murdered wealth. It represents houses never inhabited, automobiles never driven, airplanes never flown, jobs never performed, vacations never taken… It represents computers that will never compute, televisions that will never televise, hacksaws that will never hacksaw, medicines that will never medicate, air conditioners that will never condition the air… It represents businesses that will never do a lick of business. That is, this lost GDP represents a diminished national life. And potentially a vastly diminished national life if actual numbers prove even worse. One year of slack growth, two years of slack growth, these are endurable. Yet a string of annual slack growth is not…
The Long Run: Average real annual economic growth since 1980 runs to 3.22%. Yet since 2009… that figure has fallen to 2.23%. What if the pre-2009 3.22% rate held steady? Jim Rickards estimates the United States would be at least $4 trillion wealthier today.
Extend the malaise 30, 50, 60 years, Jim says… and you arrive at a dismal conclusion: A society that grows at 3.22% will be twice as rich as one that grows at 2.23% over the course of an average lifetime.
Assume two men. The first has enjoyed vast wealth but lost it. The second never knew wealth whatsoever. The first man is the more pitiful of the two… for he knows what he has lost. The second man cannot miss what he has never known. Unless existing trends reverse, the United States may one day feel the sting..."
Gregory Mannarino, "The Biggest Market Meltdown In History Is Coming"
Gregory Mannarino,
Post-market Report 11/18/20:
"The Biggest Market Meltdown In History Is Coming"
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Related:
The Poet: David Wagoner, "Getting There"
"Getting There"
"You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived.
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.
What did you want to be?
You'll remember soon.
You feel like tinder under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change.
The sky is pulsing against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were,
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.
What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly like a dream,
That lost traveler's dream under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.
You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings."
~ David Wagoner
"This Is The Motive..."
Full screen mode suggested.
"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."
- Blaise Pascal
"Dark Winter Cometh"
"Dark Winter Cometh"
by Bill Bonner
"We’ll sing in the sunshine
We’ll laugh every day..."
– Sonny and Cher
SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – "We are setting off today… after an unexpected nine-month stay in the mountains of Argentina. First, a five-hour drive to the regional capital, Salta. Then, a flight to Buenos Aires. On Friday, we will board another flight to Miami. If all goes well, we will be back in the U.S. by Saturday morning.
Key Takeaways: But we’re still here in the Calchaquà Valley this morning. And we’re still wondering… what to make of it all? What will be our “takeaways”? For one thing, we’ve found that you can live very well, even in a collapsing economy – as long as you don’t depend on the local currency or the government.
Here, the wine is strong and the peso is weak. The weather is beautiful, but the politics are ugly. Living is easy, but earning a living is hard. Also, it’s not our country! We’re not responsible for it. We can laugh at the funny things foreigners do. That’s the nice thing about being overseas – you see life as a comedy, not a tragedy.
Probably most important are the details… the specifics. It’s the particulars of your situation that count. Who are you with? What do you see when you look out the window? What do you do? Who are the neighbors? How is the food? And the weather? How much does it cost to live there?
By all of those measures, our life in Argentina has been charming and delightful – even though the country is an absolute mess. From start to finish, the sun has shone almost every day. “It’s not going to be the same when you get back to the U.S.,” warns a friend. “People are either angry about the election… afraid of getting the virus… or both.” But we will continue telling our story. You can make of it what you will.
Disappointing Morning: First, this quick financial update… Having closed on Monday just 50 points short, the Dow was expected to punch through the 30,000 mark yesterday morning. Instead, it stepped on a rotten board and fell 440 points… then spent the rest of the day climbing out of the hole.
One of the reasons given for the morning disappointment was that retail sales had not risen as hoped. But what did they expect? Without another federal giveaway, what are people expected to spend? The real economy – shorn of all the feds’ fuzzy wool – is a thin, shabby beast. It cannot produce a real recovery… let alone push the stock market to an all-time high.
That leaves the feds to do the job – with their fake money. They can goose up consumer spending. They can jazz up the stock market. But they can’t boost real output… real earnings… or real wealth. Real wealth requires real savings, real sweat, real innovation… and time. You can’t just “print” it.
Dark Winter: But that won’t stop them from trying. From Business Insider, here’s the new man warming up: "President-elect Joe Biden on Monday called on Congress to pass a $3.4 trillion stimulus plan that House Democrats approved earlier this year. And he warned of a “dark winter” as virus cases reach new highs and prompt some states and cities to enact new restrictions to thwart its spread." He’s probably right about the dark winter. And while it is impossible to know how dark it will get, our advice is to prepare for a total eclipse.
Stuck in the Mud: Now, back to our story. One of the unexpected results of the coronavirus pandemic here in the Calchaquà Valley is that the roads have been neglected. They are all dirt roads anyway. Without traffic, there was no need to tend them. So it was that when we decided to take a shortcut up to the ranch on Friday, we had scarcely gone a couple of miles when the road disappeared entirely.
We tried one direction and then another. Neither led to the track we remembered. Finally, we decided to follow a dry river bed, figuring it would lead back to a more traveled path. We followed it downhill for a mile or two.
We were right about where it led. But between the road and the river bed was an irrigation ditch that looked impassable. We could go back and around. But that would add almost an hour to our trip. We got out of the truck and examined the canal carefully. The Toyota truck has very good 4x4 traction… If we crossed at an angle, we figured we could make it. But when we were halfway over the hump on the far side of the ditch, our forward progress stopped and the wheels spun, sinking into the soft, damp earth at the bottom of the canal. Uh-oh. We had been driving for two hours already, and had only passed one truck coming in the other direction. We could be here for a long time.
Waiting Game: One of the characteristics of the people in the valley is patience. They arrive at a river and find it uncrossable; they wait. In the dry season, wind and dust can make it impossible to go on; they wait. Spare parts, fuel, mail – important supplies need to come up from the city. Will they come this week… or next? So, they wait. Hours. Days. Weeks. They are used to waiting. That is true of the horses, too. They are ridden to the farm and tied up. They will wait – sometimes all day – until they are finally set free.
Normally, we travel with a shovel in the back of the truck. But the shovel was not there. We couldn’t remember what had happened to it. All we had was a mason’s trowel… which was woefully inadequate for the job. What could we do, but wait?
To the Rescue: But our waiting period was short. Along came an ambulance! And another car with the doctor and her assistants. They stopped. Out came the nurses and doctors, and a few burly fellows whose roles were unclear.
And here we saw another of the qualities of the valley people – they are used to helping each other. They may fight each other bitterly… and share an almost universal contempt for the gringo… but they are all ready to help, as necessary. Here, you don’t pass a car that is broken down or stuck in the sand. You pick up hitchhikers. You offer wayfarers hospitality.
The men were on the case immediately – one dressed as a surgeon… the others in their “street” clothes. “Let’s all push from behind.” “No, try to go forward.” “Get out the jack; we’ll put rocks under the wheels.”
Push!
Everyone had an opinion. And it was clear to us that none of them were very good. “I think the best bet would be for the ambulance to pull it out,” we suggested. But they largely ignored us… until… after trying to push and pull…finally, they backed up the ambulance and easily pulled the truck out of the ditch.
“Gracias… Muchas gracias…” we said, giving them all the fist-to-fist greeting that has become de rigueur in the Age of Coronageddon. On our way back to the farm on Sunday, we dropped off a case of wine in the health clinic to thank them. Stay tuned."
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Since you insist...
"It Becomes Sad..."
"Why does truth carry such a dreadful face? Why does subjugation carry
such a happy mask? It becomes sad when people understand that they
can lead a better life as long as they bow their heads, ignoring the truth."
- Lionel Suggs
"Market Fantasy Updates 11/18/20"
"Market Fantasy Updates 11/18/20"
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.
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NOV 18, 2020 11:20 AM, "The Fed Has No Way Out"
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Daily Update (Nov. 17h to 18th)
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Insanity...
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And now... The End Game...
"One Could Make People Believe..."
“One could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."
- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
Hat tip to the excellent Jesse's Cafe Americain for this quote.
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Of course, we know very well what to expect...
"The 'COVID Coup'"
"The 'COVID Coup'"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"What we are experiencing is a COVID coup... While Joe Biden (apparently) won the election, the entire process was dominated by COVID precautions and distortions. Nearly 80% of Joe Biden’s vote - according to the exit polls - named COVID as the key issue. A similar 80% of Trump’s vote saw the economy as the key issue. In the name of COVID fears, election day was essentially cancelled and more than half the votes were cast by mail, many of them weeks before.
With the Democrats leading the push for early mail-in voting, people who feared to go to the polls (because of COVID) were overwhelmingly Biden voters. Republicans across the country allowed the Democrats to intimidate voters with COVID myths and then use the myths as a pretext for voting by mail from home. On the assumption that it was perilous to vote in person, mail-in ballots were authorized everywhere. More than 100 million votes were mailed-in.
Breaking the links between personal presence, IDs, signatures, ballots, and individual voters, the new procedures fostered a murky and error-prone system that should not be repeated. The mail-in operations prolonged the voting period and changed the electoral dynamic. We can only hope that the American future was not “lost in the mail.
The Myth and Mantra of COVID: The ruling theme of the campaign was the myth and mantra of 220,000 “COVID deaths.” This claim the media inculcated and propagated relentlessly and even Trump disastrously seemed to condone. The electoral campaigns pivoted on the myth of the 220,000 or more deaths. Actual COVID-caused deaths were less than 10% of this number and the average age of deaths was higher than the average age of all-cause deaths. Measured by years of lost life, COVID was insignificant compared to ordinary flu, pneumonia, TB or other diseases.
The chief significance of COVID were the political lockdowns, quarantines of the healthy, and neglect of the sick in the name of reserving healthcare resources for COVID. A probable majority of so-called “COVID deaths” occurred in nursing homes and “assisted living facilities,” where the average stay is around five months. Unlike the flu, measles, or other diseases, which kill millions of young people, COVID chiefly kills people already in the process of dying.
In reality, our bodily biomes are full of viruses, mostly innocuous or neutralized by the immune system and many of them are coronaviruses associated with the common cold. But the CDC classified anyone who died with a positive test as a “COVID death.” Depending on how many actual infections there were, false positives were frequent. A test that harbored 1% false positives — the lowest estimate — would produce 50% false results in the case of an infection rate of 2%.
You just can’t trust the numbers. But as Mark Twain wrote: “It is easier to fool the people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
This principle applies overwhelmingly to politicians. Once they have made a mistake, it is nearly impossible for them to admit error. It is far more popular to double-down on the error than to retract it.
American democracy is now fraught with pernicious myths. Under the Democrats, it suffers from an electoral process devoted both to a myth of pandemic and to an economic program devoted to a green religious cult. On the Republican side, the Administration has enlisted in a misguided campaign based on the myth of the “trade” gap. Democrats propose to replace this myth with the myth of CO2 pollution in a futile battle against climate change that voters rank near the bottom of their list of priorities.
For investors, the climate change paradigm means a massive national program of subsidies for a feckless transformation of our energy economy from a robust and functional system to a vulnerable, volatile, and vain apparatus marked by windmill totem poles and pervasive sunhenges. Our meager national savings will be dissipated, and our scarce resource of arable land will be wasted in a campaign against CO2, a benign elixir of life.
Intelligent investors understand that economic growth is real learning, based on falsifiable facts rather than on political fantasies. Against the overwhelming power of socialist government, learning is constantly thwarted.
Investors will increasingly tend to look overseas. There, the best opportunities reside in Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, and China. Although it is not good news for Americans to be forced to focus much of their investment abroad, Biden’s program of national lockdowns, confiscatory taxes, and energy suppression gives us little alternative.
The upside of a Biden Administration is a possible improvement of international trade and technology policy. The only serious blunder of the Trump years was his adoption of mercantilism based on the pursuit of the chimera of a trade surplus. The result was a retrograde effort to use U.S. technology assets to bully China. In international trade and technology policy, Biden offers some promise of improvement.
The Biden downside overseas is a catastrophic failure of his Israel Test. Based on a keen grasp of the centrality of Israel in the American prospect, Trump triumphantly passed his Israel test as no other President, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and supporting Israel’s outreach to the Arab world beyond the seething “Palestinians.”
Kamala Harris’s eagerness to reenter the Paris climate accord is exceeded only by her passion for the cause of a Palestinian state and its renewed intifada “Peace Process” that is devoted to the destruction of Israel. The pursuit of peace by negotiating with Jihadists always produces war in the Middle East."
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
"COVID-19 Ushers In An Unconstitutional Hell For America"
"COVID-19 Ushers In An Unconstitutional Hell For America"
by Michael Walsh
"Thanks to the dreaded Covid-19, it’s good-bye Thanksgiving and, soon enough, farewell Christmas. And after that, who knows?
Having discovered that Americans have lost their spines and are now easily penned inside their homes like two-legged sheep, the petty potentates who rule - not govern, rule - far too many states and municipalities have concluded that we will never fight back, never resist, and never reject their latest whimsical edicts.
For proof, look no farther than California, where 41 of the state’s 58 counties have just been returned to most-restricted status, and a statewide curfew is now being bruited in Sacramento. California is “pulling an emergency brake,” as CCP virus “cases” rise, said Newsom, who recently attended a pricey private birthday party at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley, violating his own Caligulan guidelines.
There are vague promises that things might begin to open again next year, but don’t hold your breath. “Two weeks to slow the spread” and “fifteen days to flatten the curve” have long since morphed into a semi-permanent nanny state in which the very act of slowing and flattening ensures that the virus will go on indefinitely by guaranteeing a continuous stream of new “cases” with which to frighten the public and increase government power.
In defiance of all previous medical experience, the Covid “pandemic” has muzzled the population with bank-robber masks, driven families asunder, forced elderly couples to die apart, punished schoolchildren with the false promise of “remote learning,” made Americans eye each other with suspicion and sidle away, and created a near-Stasi level of rats and snitches only too happy to inform on their fellow citizens.
It’s also killed the hospitality industry, the airlines, and commercial real estate. And all in brazen violation of the Constitution’s explicit guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, and religious observance.
It has been a monstrous disgrace, made even worse by its supine acceptance. But even more dire consequences have followed the arrival of the Chinese Communist Party on our shores. In short order:
Masks became normalized, even mandated, thus allowing the brutal, cowardly thugs of Antifa and Black Lives Matter “activists” to go about in public in ninja mufti, faces concealed in violation of innumerable local ordinances. Once, the wearing of a concealing mask was practically prima facie proof of criminal intent, but now, thanks to the irresponsible and self-aggrandizing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other “experts,” the lack of a mask signals an inability to accept authority and perhaps also a willingness to expel the phantom virus into the faces of the innocent.
With the public rise of the neo-fascist Left in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, urban disorder became mainstreamed, justified as it was by calling it “mostly peaceful” protest against the United States of America and its form of government. Even as private gatherings were being banned, thousands gathered in the streets to demonstrate against the American constitution and celebrate Donald Trump’s apparent electoral defeat. Indeed, “Black Lives Plaza” on one of the most expensive blocks in Washington, D.C., violates private property and civil rights within sight of the White House.
Watching the videos of patriotic Americans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to show support for president Trump’s efforts to legally fight clear vote fraud in the recent election - as is his constitutional right - and who were then set upon, sucker-punched, and otherwise assaulted by the feral minions of Antifa and Black Lives Matter within sight of the White House, was sickening and enraging.
Once actual peaceful protest had become essentially forbidden, the red-diaper baby media was free to shed its skin-suit of journalistic “objectivity,” enthusiastically join the leftist cadres in its open loathing of Donald Trump and all that he symbolized, and renew its attack on the Constitution, including among other things, the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Bill of Rights. All in the name of a more “honest” journalism adhering to a “higher loyalty,” of course.
Indeed, the New York Times - Pravda West - in the run-up to the election informed the nation via Twitter that it would be the media that would call the winner of the 2020 election, even before the votes were counted, certified, and sent to the Electoral College. “The role of declaring the winner of a presidential election in the U.S. falls to the media,” the Democrat propaganda sheet masquerading as a newspaper proclaimed, falsely.
It later deleted the tweet and issued a sheepish “apology” for “referring imprecisely to the role of the news media. … It projects winners and reports results; it does not declare the winner of the election.” Of course, that was a bald-faced lie as well. In fact, insofar as the media is concerned, it does declare the winner - and its word goes. Why else is an often-masked Joe Biden now claiming the non-existent “Office of the President-Elect”? The media couldn’t wait to declare Biden over the top, even though the election is now in its constitutionally permitted disputation phase, and does not go to the Electoral College until Dec. 14.
Lastly, the Dreaded Covid occasioned a wholesale “emergency” rewriting of voting laws, removing essential safeguards in the name of “safety” and thus permitting a host of outcome-altering refinements, including a record-number of mail-in votes whose provenance is often unprovable, early voting, late voting, and last-minute registration and voting.
During the counts in crucial swing states, tallies were suddenly halted for a couple of hours in the wee hours as the Democrat urban-machine apparatchiks calculated how many manufactured votes were needed to overtake Trump’s lead and then, two hours later… they appeared, courtesy of foreign-made voting machines with hidden algorithms.
And all because of the CCP virus. For unless something dramatic happens, the Left will never, ever, ever let us go. Thanks to the hysterical overreaction to the novel coronavirus, the weaponizing of it by the Democrat Party in order to change election laws and thus harvest millions of likely fraudulent mail-in votes in key swing states, and a leftist media that speaks with one voice as it gaslights the population with the party line, we are now all living in the unconstitutional hell of the neo-Marxists’ “new normal.”
"How do you like it, America?"
“Life, Explained To You”
“Life, Explained To You”
Author Unknown
“On the first day God created the dog. God said, “Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years.” The dog said, “That’s too long to be barking. Give me ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten.” So God agreed.
On the second day God created the monkey. God said, “Entertain people, do monkey tricks and make them laugh. I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.” The monkey said, “Monkey tricks for twenty years? I don’t think so. Dog gave you back ten, so that’s what I’ll do too, okay?” And God agreed.
On the third day God created the cow. “You must go to the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves, and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life span of sixty years.” The cow said, “That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. Let me have twenty and I’ll give back the other forty.” And God agreed again.
On the fourth day God created man. God said, “Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. I’ll give you twenty years.” Man said, “What? Only twenty years? Tell you what, I’ll take my twenty, and the forty the cow gave back, and the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back, that makes eighty, okay?” “Okay,” said God, “You’ve got a deal.”
So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy ourselves; the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family; the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren; and the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.”
“Life has now been explained to you.”
"Fear..."
“I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men, and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others.”
- Ernest Hemingway, "True at First Light”
"The Power Of One"
"The Power Of One"
by Adam Taggart
"I’m hearing so many people express feelings of defeat and despair, that they feel they have no agency to make a difference in a world victimized by huge corporate cartels, government overreach or climate instability. To offer a candle of hope against that feeling of powerlessness, I want to remind folks that one person can indeed make a tremendous difference, even in the darkest of times:
"Never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
Few people embody being “that one person” better than Nicholas Winton. Never heard of him? Neither had I until a few years ago. But he’s now a hero of mine.
Winton was a British citizen who rescued nearly 670 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia during World War Two. He did this of his own accord, not as part of any state agency or organized movement. Initially on a skiing trip to Switzerland, he canceled his vacation after Kristallnacht and went to Prague to help a friend there who was working to support the local Jewish population. Having learned that Britain’s Parliament had recently voted to accept European war refugees provided they had a place to stay and could pay a £50 deposit, Winton began single-handly relocating Czech Jewish children to safety in his home country.
Before the Nazis tightened their control on Czechoslovakia, Winton managed to put 669 children on trains to the Netherlands, from where they were then sent to homes of foster families in Britain that he (and his mother) had found for them. Tragically, after their children departed to safety, many of the biological parents left behind ultimately ended up perishing at Auschwitz.
Winton sought no fanfare for his heroism. He spoke so rarely of it that the general public had no idea what he had done until nearly 50 years later. His own wife (whom he married after the war) didn’t even know until she one day came across the ledger he had used to keep track of the children during the evacuation.
Once she realized the magnitude of what this quiet hero had done, she worked with a television producer on a TV special to recognize him publicly for his humanitarian effort. By this time, Winton was an elderly man.
He agreed to attend, embarrassed by the attention. And unbeknownst to him, the producers had tracked down one of the children he had rescued, now an adult, and seated her next to him throughout the evening. It wasn’t until the end of the ceremony that they announced to him who she was. Watching Winton realize that the smiling woman next to him had been able to live a long, happy life because of his courageous action all those years ago is a very tender moment.
And if that doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, what happens next should. The host then asks the audience “Is there anyone else here who owes their life to this man?”… and EVERYONE stands up. Turns out, they had packed the theater with his former rescued children, now in their 50s and 60s, each of whom was saved by this kind, humble man.
We rarely get to witness such a moment of grace like this. It’s simply perfect. For me, it’s a reminder never to discount the impact our own individual acts can have. Winton certainly answered Fuller’s call to “be that one person” to make a difference in the world. Will each of us?"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way's gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus, The River.
Located over 50 million light years away, the large, distorted spiral NGC 1532 is seen locked in a gravitational struggle with dwarf galaxy NGC 1531 (right of center), a struggle the smaller galaxy will eventually lose. Seen edge-on, spiral NGC 1532 spans about 100,000 light-years. Nicely detailed in this sharp image, the NGC 1532/1531 pair is thought to be similar to the well-studied system of face-on spiral and small companion known as M51.”
Chet Raymo, "Know Thyself"
"Know Thyself"
by Chet Raymo
"The ancient Greek aphorism, attributed to Socrates and others. Good advice, I'm sure. If only we knew what it means. Is it the same as the "examination of conscience" we were asked to perform as young Catholics? "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Well, yes, it is good to ask ourselves if we have lived up to our highest moral aspirations. But surely "Know thyself" means more than that.
Does it mean to be aware of our self-awareness? That is to say, not to act impulsively, but reflectively. Thoreau's "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Or perhaps it means to apply the method of scientia to the problem of consciousness, treat the mind like a fish that can be dissected at the lab bench, watch the brain flickering on the display of a scanning machine as the subject is stimulated with love, sex, fear, music, pain. Neuroscience. Daniel Dennet's book audaciously titled "Consciousness Explained." There is a line from a poem by Jane Hirshfield, in which she questions herself: "A knife cannot cut itself open/ yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
Is it hopeless then? Is there an essential absurdity in a thing knowing itself? Does knowing necessarily imply a knower more complex than the thing known? Is it possible that we might fully understand, say, the neurology of the sea slug Aplysia, that favorite subject of experimental neurobiologists with only 20,000 central nerve cells, big nerve cells, ten times bigger than human neurons, but not the workings of the human brain, with its 100 billion nerve cells, each one connected to thousands of others?
Hirshfield's poem is titled "Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant." Perhaps that is the best we can do. To know ourselves in those fleeting moments of recognition than come now and then, often unbidden, sometimes as the result of a chance encounter with beauty or with ugliness, sometimes bidden out of the silence and solitude of meditation - a flash upon one's inward eye that is, perhaps, all the ancients were asking for when they asked us to "know ourselves."
◆
"Instant Glimpsable Only For An Instant"
"Moment. Moment. Moment.
- equal inside you, moment,
the velocitous mountains and cities rising and falling,
songs of children, iridescence even of beetles.
It is not you the locust can strip of all leaf.
Untouchable green at the center,
the wolf too lopes past you and through you as he eats.
Insult to mourn you, you who mourn no one, unable.
Without transformation,
yours the role of the chorus, to whom nothing happens.
The living step forward: choosing to enter, to lose.
I, who am made of you only,
speak these words against your unmasterable instruction -
A knife cannot cut itself open,
yet you ask me both to be you and to know you."
~ Jane Hirshfield
"No Small Business And No Jobs; California Closing Down; Americans Starve; Auto Sales Fall; Retail"
Jeremiah Babe,
"No Small Business And No Jobs; California Closing Down;
Americans Starve; Auto Sales Fall; Retail"
"UN Warns Of Famines Of Biblical Proportions In 2021 As Some Americans Wait 12 Hours For Food"
"UN Warns Of Famines Of Biblical Proportions In 2021
As Some Americans Wait 12 Hours For Food"
by Epic Economist
"The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has been warning global leaders that the world is about to experience a famine of biblical proportions. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the number of food-insecure households is fast expanding, the reliance on food banks keeps increasing and pantries are completely overwhelmed by demand. In some cities, people line up for over 12 hours to get enough for only a couple of meals.
In addition to this devastating hunger crisis, lockdowns are expected to get even more strict by January 2021, jeopardizing the survival of struggling businesses and prompting another wave of lay-offs. However, the worst part of it is that millions are on the brink of eviction and could become homeless. That's what we talk about in this video.
After lockdowns were enacted around the world, wealthy countries saw years of economic and social progress being wiped out in the time span of a few weeks. However, poorer countries have been tremendously affected by the total or partial shut down of their economies, and an alarming share of their populations are already dealing with a dire hunger crisis, and in the face of a second round of lockdowns, their situation could become much worse. This is what David Beasley, the head of the UN World Food Program and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been alerting to global leaders.
He also pointed out that the health crisis has not only worsened but also generated multiple hunger crises worldwide, and with another wave of confirmed cases spreading across the globe, economies are continuing to deteriorate particularly in low- and middle-income countries. That is to say, due to the adverse effects of business shutdowns on the economy, it is likely that the money that was available in 2020 is not going to be available in 2021.
According to WFP estimates, nearly $15 billion would be necessary to avoid a tragic hunger crisis next year, $5 billion just to avert famine, and $10 billion to continue executing the agency's global programs including for malnourished youngsters and school lunches, which are often the only meal many children can get.Although the hunger problem fortunately hasn't hit the same level compared to these countries, in the US, the number of food-insecure citizens, especially children, is escalating amid unemployment growth and the absence of federal aid.
For instance, in Maryland, local news reported that the state is indeed experiencing a hunger crisis, and schools have been trying to reach out to low-income children by providing school breakfast programs to at least help the kids to get food. The rise in Maryland's childhood hunger stressed how breakfast programs in schools are more needed now than ever before. For every 100 low-income students about 62 are reliant on school meals to be able to eat.
Low-income families are becoming increasingly dependent on government programs and food bank assistance to get the supplies they need to feed themselves for a week or two. Now that the holiday season is approaching, thousands of unemployed workers are waiting up to 12 hours at drive-thru food banks.
This is what has been happening in Texas, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, the state's unemployment rate in September was at 8.3 percent, marking an increase from 6.8 percent in August. Economists say that this surge is an example of how some industries that had hoped to overcome the health-crisis-induced economic recession have not yet been able to do so and have instead just have informed they will be letting go a large number of employees by the end of the year.
However, the recession disproportionately affected other states, such as Nevada, which has a strong emphasis on the service industry and tourism, and some of these jobs may never come back. Also known for its celebrated tourism New York City has 19 percent of its population facing food insecurity, and almost 300,000 New Yorkers have moved out of the city to avoid the coming eviction crisis.
Also, as of January 1, the CDC moratorium is lifted nationwide and those who have missed rent payments are at risk of eviction. The Center for Disease Control is warning that massive evictions will create a homelessness crisis of unprecedented proportions, that could put 10 percent of the American population at risk of losing their homes. The consequences of leaving its citizens unemployed, hungry, and without a home will certainly trigger a lot of turbulence in the U.S. streets in the coming months. 2020 was just the beginning of the collapse, and we will still be seeing the impacts of this catastrophic crisis for a long, long time."
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