"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
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, December 10, 2020
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/10/20"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/10/20"
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DEC 10, 2020 4:20 PM: "US Suffers Record 3K+ COVID Death; States Expand Stay-At-Home Orders: Live Updates"
DEC 10, 2020 10:56 AM: "US Suffers Record 3K+ COVID Deaths; Global Total Nears 70MM: Live Updates"
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Dec. 10, 2020
by Davis Leonhardt
• The U.S. recorded more than 3,000 coronavirus deaths yesterday, a new daily record.
• Canada approved Pfizer’s vaccine and could begin administering shots next week. The F.D.A. has not yet approved use in the U.S.
• Two British people with existing allergies apparently had reactions to the Pfizer vaccine. Officials asked others prone to severe allergic reactions to delay getting the vaccine until researchers had learned more.
• The pandemic has kept a generation of toddlers isolated from one another, leading parents to worry about their social development. But childhood experts say that kids that age are resilient and that most would be just fine.
Dec. 10, 2020 7:59 AM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 68,923,600
people, according to official counts, including 15,468,789 Americans.
At least 1,568,900 have died.
Dec. 10, 2020 7:59 AM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count○
"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/10/20"
"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/10/20"
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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Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/10/20:
"Economic Collapse: Jobless Claims Skyrocket"
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Updated live.
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12/10/2020 - 08:38: "Initial Jobless Claims Jump Most Since March As Lockdowns Strike"
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Daily Update (Dec. 10th)
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Insanity...
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And now... The End Game...
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
“Economic Free-fall; Las Vegas Shuttering; Starbucks Zombies; Million Dollar Home Sales”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Economic Free-fall; Las Vegas Shuttering;
Starbucks Zombies; Million Dollar Home Sales”
"Bracing For A Very Painful Year: 38% Of Americans Say That They Will Spend 2021 In 'Survival Mode'”
"Bracing For A Very Painful Year: 38% Of Americans
Say That They Will Spend 2021 In 'Survival Mode'”
by Epic Economist
"A very painful year is right at the corner, and about 38% of Americans have affirmed they will be spending 2021 in survival mode. Traditionally, the turn of the year was a moment when people used to set their new goals and resolutions, but this time around millions have been feeling the impacts of the worst economic downturn the country has undergone in almost a century, so their outlook for what lies ahead is far from hopeful or optimistic. In fact, another wave of business bankruptcies is prompting the lay-off of hundreds of thousands of workers days before Christmas, and now 1 out of 3 Americans have revealed in a recent poll they cannot afford any holiday gifts this year.
In face of the enormous financial pain mass unemployment has brought, in addition to the growing food and housing insecurity, many have engaged in disruptive behaviors that can be seen in the spike of social agitation in the cities and increased levels of addiction and substance abuse. In this video, we are going to analyze why the future remains bleak in the eyes of millions of our citizens and discuss the rising economic devastation employers and employees have been going through during the last chapters of 2020.
Over two-thirds of Americans have experienced acute financial difficulties throughout this year due to job loss, the reduction or the removal of their household incomes, or the decline of their emergency savings, according to a new Fidelity study. For that reason, a large share of the country is anticipating that many more setbacks are likely to come over the next few months. Of the 3,011 surveyed adults, more than 38% stated they will spend next year in “survival mode,” which means they will try to only focus on the day-to-day activities instead of establishing long-term goals in order to get themselves and their families through 2021.
The main reason why so many can anticipate being in “survival mode” next year is because the financial problems they had to deal with this year are probably going to extend until 2021 as well. According to the same survey, a staggering 68 percent of Americans say to have experienced a substantial financial setback. The study informed that of those, "23% lost a job or household income; 20% had an unexpected non-health emergency; 18% had to provide unexpected financial aid to family or friends; and 16% had a health emergency in their family."
Several households disclosed to still be concerned that financial stresses may worsen next year. Forty-six percent are worried about the sanitary outbreak's impact on the economy, while 35% are fearing for unexpected expenses, and 34% are anxious about the rising cost of food and other day-to-day essentials. Even those who remained employed throughout the recession have been coping with financial problems. A new research by MagnifyMoney found that roughly 1 in 3 full-time workers have experienced a pay cut due to the economic fallout of the health crisis.
Needless to say that all of these financial hardships are having a dramatic impact on holiday spending. After seeing their comfortable lifestyles removed from their reach, the "new normal" is leading millions of Americans to forgo holiday gifts this year. According to a WalletHub study, 1 in 3 Americans can't afford to offer gifts to their loved ones this Christmas.
The past 12 months have been exceedingly painful for most Americans, and the prospect of more turbulence over the next 12 months is leading many to engage in damaging behavior patterns. The strains of living in social isolation can have a destructive effect on millions of lives. A recent study of approximately 2,000 American adults is the first to outline the connection between alcohol use and stress triggered by health-crisis-related shutdowns.
The study uncovered that overall, one in three Americans have reported binge drinking during the current crisis. But with all things considered, it's understandable why Americans have been so overwhelmed, and trying to find an escape since everything continues to collapse around them. And on top of all of the tragic events witnessed so far, the day after Christmas, the extended unemployment benefits that have helped 12 million people and their families to stay afloat are going to expire.
Then, a few days after that shock, on New Year’s Day, the CDC's eviction moratorium is scheduled to lapse, and all of the delinquent renters that kept housed during the recession just because of the moratorium, are about to get swallowed by a historic tsunami of evictions. As the end of the year approaches much more anxiety will take over the lives of millions of Americans, and as things continue to unravel all around us, the road ahead is certainly not going to get any easier.
"The 'Great Reset'"; "America, 2027"
"The 'Great Reset'"
by Brian Maher
"Like the poor… the world improvers will always be with us. The latest batch is yelling for a “Great Reset.” The prevailing economic, political and social institutions are inadequate to needs, they insist. Capitalism in its current form is the barbarous relic, a grotesque antique. Tinkering, adjusting, tweaking the thing is hopeless. It wrecks the climate. It opens vast gulfs of inequality. It alienates. Heave it into the fire, they say.
A beautiful new capitalism will rise in its place, the phoenix up from the ashes - a “greener, smarter, and fairer” capitalism. World improver extraordinaire Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum Founder: "Anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s. But, while this outcome is likely, it is not unavoidable.
To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism…
Left unaddressed, these crises, together with COVID-19, will deepen and leave the world even less sustainable, less equal, and more fragile. Incremental measures and ad hoc fixes will not suffice to prevent this scenario. We must build entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems."
The pandemic has already shoved the world out of its customary grooves, its habitual ruts. We must keep shoving, says this one-worlder - alert to the unique opportunity before him. It is time to push the Great Reset.
Here again is Schwab... globalist dreams bouncing in his skull, technocratic stars twinkling in his eyes: "The level of cooperation and ambition this implies is unprecedented. But it is not some impossible dream. In fact, one silver lining of the pandemic is that it has shown how quickly we can make radical changes to our lifestyles. Almost instantly, the crisis forced businesses and individuals to abandon practices long claimed to be essential, from frequent air travel to working in an office.
Likewise, populations have overwhelmingly shown a willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of health-care and other essential workers and vulnerable populations, such as the elderly. And many companies have stepped up to support their workers, customers, and local communities, in a shift toward the kind of stakeholder capitalism to which they had previously paid lip service. Clearly, the will to build a better society does exist. We must use it to secure the Great Reset that we so badly need."
Perhaps we do not wish to make more “radical changes to our lifestyles.” We might prefer our old lifestyle instead. And perhaps a Great Reset does not interest us. Does the will to build a better society exist, as Mr. Schwab states? It does exist, yes. But how to build it?
He and his mates would draft the blueprints... boss the work crews… supervise the construction. Orders come from up top: “That will require stronger and more effective governments,” this fellow concedes freely and openly. Thus he turns Jefferson upon his head — “that government is best which governs least.”
We are with Jefferson. As we are with Jefferson, we are against world improvers, sob mongers, tear-squeezers, meddlers... and humanitarians with guillotines. They are forever scratching what the great individualist Albert Jay Nock labelled the “monstrous itch for changing people.” We would leave people be, in peace… taking them as we find them. The only action a man can take to improve the world, Nock argued, is to present it with one improved unit.
The Klaus Schwabs of this world would present it with 7.8 billion improved units. We are with Nock - as we are with Mencken: “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.”
Below, Jim Rickards writes us from the year 2027, reflecting upon the Crash of 2025… and a vastly changed, greatly “reset” America. Read on."
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"America, 2027"
By Jim Rickards
"As I awoke this morning, Oct. 14, 2027, from restless dreams, I found the insect-sized sensor implanted in my arm was already awake. We call it a “bug.” U.S. citizens have been required to have them since 2024 to access government health care. President Harris, who replaced Joe Biden in late 2021, signed it into law.
The initiative gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic that transformed the nation in 2020-2021. Vaccines were declared mandatory. You couldn’t hold a job, get on an airplane or attend any large public gathering without documented proof that you’d been vaccinated. Implanted chips that proved you were vaccinated were eventually required. That was to counter all the fraudulent papers of those who didn’t want the vaccine.
Anyway, the bug knew from its biometric monitoring of my brain wave frequencies and rapid eye movement that I would awake momentarily. It was already at work launching systems, including the coffee maker. I could smell the coffee brewing in the kitchen. The information screens on the inside of my panopticon goggles were already flashing before my eyes.
Images of world leaders were on the screen. They were issuing proclamations about the fine health of their people, their economies and the advent of world peace. Citizens, they explained, needed to work in accordance with the New World Order Growth Plan to maximize wealth for all.
That plan grew out of the “Great Reset” that took place after the pandemic, when globalist elites took control of the world economy to fit their vision of a “greener, smarter, and fairer” future. It was a plan to take power away from nation-states and concentrate it in their own hands. Equality and fairness were simply stalking horses to win popular support.
I knew it was all propaganda, but I couldn’t ignore it. Removing your panopticon goggles is viewed with suspicion by the neighborhood watch committees, who took their inspiration from the mask-wearing enforcers during the pandemic. Your “bug” controls all the channels.
I’m mostly interested in economics and finance, as I have been for decades. I’ve told the central authorities that I’m an economic historian, so they’ve given me access to archives and information denied to most citizens in the name of national economic security. My work now is only historical, because markets were abolished after the Panic of 2025. The pandemic-induced crash of 2020 was bad, but the Fed still had enough room on its balance sheet to re-inflate the stock market with massive asset purchases.
The Panic of 2025, however, was the final nail in the market’s coffin. That was not the original intent of the authorities. They meant to close markets “temporarily” to stop the panic. But once the markets were shut, there was no way to reopen them without the panic starting again.
Today, in 2027, trust in markets is completely gone. All investors want is their money back. Authorities started printing money after the Panic of 2008. But the printing went into overdrive in 2020 to support the economy and markets during the lockdowns. That solution stopped working by 2024 because the Fed printed so much money, the world lost faith in the dollar. When the panic hit, money was viewed as worthless. So markets were simply closed.
In 2025, the G-20 abolished all currencies except for local currencies. The resuscitated dollar became the local currency in North and South America. Europe, Africa and Australia used the euro. The ruasia was the only new currency - a combination of the old Russian ruble, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen - and was adopted as the local currency in Asia.
There is also new world money called special drawing rights, or SDRs for short. They’re used only for settlements between countries, however. SDR is also used to set energy prices and as a benchmark for the value of the three local currencies. The World Central Bank, formerly the IMF, administers the SDR system under the direction of the G-20. As a result of the fixed exchange rates, there’s no currency trading.
All of the gold in the world was confiscated in 2025 and placed in a nuclear bomb-proof vault dug into the Swiss Alps. The mountain vault had been vacated by the Swiss army and made available to the World Central Bank for this purpose. All G-20 nations contributed their national gold to the vault. All private gold was forcibly confiscated and added to the Swiss vault as well. All gold mining had been nationalized and suspended on environmental grounds.
The purpose of the Swiss vault was not to have gold backing for currencies, but rather to remove gold from the financial system entirely so it could never be used as money again. Thus, gold trading ceased because its production, use and possession were banned. By these means, the G-20 and the World Central Bank now control the only forms of money.
Some lucky people had purchased gold before 2021, when it was under $2,000 an ounce, and sold it when it reached $40,000 per ounce in 2025. By then, inflation was out of control after the Western democracies conducted a failed experiment in Modern Monetary Theory, and the power elites knew that all confidence in paper currencies had been lost.
The United States was hit especially hard. The only way to re-establish control of money was to confiscate gold. But those who sold near the top were able to purchase land, which the authorities did not confiscate. Those who never owned gold in the first place saw their savings, retirement incomes, pensions and insurance policies turn to dust once the hyperinflation began. Now it seems so obvious. The only way to preserve wealth through the Panic of 2025 was to have gold or land (or fine art, which wasn’t confiscated).
However, investors not only needed to have the foresight to buy it, but they also had to be nimble enough to sell the gold before the confiscation, and then buy more land and hang onto it. For that reason, many lost everything. Land and personal property were not confiscated because much of it was needed for living arrangements and agriculture. Personal property was too difficult to confiscate and of little use to the state.
Stock and bond trading was halted when the markets closed. During the panic selling after the crash of 2025, stocks were wiped out. The value of all bonds was also wiped out in the hyperinflation of 2025-26. Governments closed stock and bond markets, nationalized all corporations and declared a moratorium on all debts.
World leaders initially explained it as an effort to “buy time” to come up with a plan to unfreeze the markets, but over time, they realized that trust and confidence had been permanently destroyed and that there was no point in trying.
Wiped-out savers broke out in money riots soon after but were quickly suppressed by militarized police who used drones, night vision technology, body armor and electronic surveillance. Police honed their techniques putting down the great Antifa riots before the election of 2024, when Donald Trump ran for president again.
Highway tollbooth digital scanners were used to spot and interdict those who tried to flee by car. By 2026, the U.S. government required sensors on all cars. They not only tracked carbon emissions. They also allowed officials to turn off the engines of those who were government targets, spot their locations and arrest them on the side of the road.
In compensation for citizens’ wealth destroyed by inflation and confiscation, governments distributed digital Social Units called Social Shares and Social Donations, an outgrowth of the Great Reset. These were based on a person’s previous wealth. Americans below a certain level of wealth got Social Shares that entitled them to a guaranteed income. Those above a certain level of wealth got Social Donation units that required them to give their wealth to the state. Over time, the result was a redistribution of wealth so that everyone had about the same net worth and the same standard of living.
To facilitate the gradual freezing of markets, the “cashless society” was sold to citizens as a convenience. No more dirty, grubby, or virus-carrying coins and bills to carry around! Instead, you could pay with smart cards and mobile phones and could transfer funds online. Only when the elimination of cash was complete did citizens realize that digital money meant total control by the government. This made it easy to adopt negative interest rates. Governments simply deducted amounts from its citizens’ bank accounts every month. Without cash, there was no way to prevent the digital deductions.
The government could also monitor all of your transactions and digitally freeze your account if you disagreed with their tax or monetary policy. In fact, a new category of hate crime for “thoughts against monetary policy” was enacted by President Harris’ executive order in 2025. The penalty was digital elimination of the wealth of those guilty of dissent.
The entire process unfolded in stages so that investors and citizens barely noticed before it was too late. Gold had been the best way to preserve wealth until the Panic, but in the end, it was confiscated because the power elites knew it could not be allowed. First, they eliminated cash. Then they eliminated diverse currencies and stocks. Finally came the hyperinflation, which wiped out most wealth, followed by gold confiscation and digital socialism.
By last year, 2026, free markets, private property and entrepreneurship were things of the past. All that remains of wealth is land, fine art and some (illegal) gold. The only other valuable assets are individual talents, provided you can deploy them outside the system of state-approved jobs.
If only someone had warned us ahead of time."
"What Happens When the Suspension on Evictions Ends?"
"What Happens When the Suspension on Evictions Ends?"
by International Man
"International Man: Earlier this year, CDC was able to extend its powers unprecedentedly by issuing a nationwide suspension on evictions. What's your take on how a public health agency grew to be in the position of telling property owners what they can do on their properties?
Doug Casey: Health paranoia is an excellent method of control. People put their health above almost everything. I'm only surprised it hasn't been used as a lever up until now. It's part of a trend toward mass control that has started in earnest early in the 20th century and has been increasing exponentially over time.
First was the income tax. If you didn't comply, it was not only seen as a legal crime but also promoted as a moral sin. The prohibition of liquor from 1919 to 1933 was under way as a moral failing and then was turned into a crime. It's the same with the prohibition of some drugs; Nixon started that hysteria in 1971, and it was put on steroids, so to speak, by Nancy Reagan. Next came the war on terror, especially since 2001. These were all promoted with both legal and moral taboos. Everybody is supposed to line up with them shoulder to shoulder, like in one of those old socialist realism propaganda posters the Soviets and the Nazis specialized in. The public is supposed to self-police under the supervision of the authorities, like they did in Salem in 1692.
Public health is the current impetus for mass hysteria and paranoia. All of these things impinge upon your right to ownership of private property, including your own body, which is the primary form of property. The public health angle is potentially the most dangerous and invasive one from the viewpoint of freedom. Busybodies - the type of people who work for and actively support the State - always need an excuse to control others en masse. This pandemic provides an excellent template for the future.
Wearing a mask - whether or not you want to or think it helps - isn't just about virtue signaling. It also shows whether you're willing to do as you're told - whether you're "politically reliable", as the communists like to say. It's like wearing the Party's armband.
In fact, wearing a mask and social distancing in stores, bars, restaurants, and gymnasiums shouldn't be up to the government. It should be strictly up to the property owner. Decisions that the individual makes regarding his own health are his own; it's between the individual and his doctor. I have no problem if the owner of a bar or restaurant wants to keep me out if I'm not wearing a mask. It's his property. He makes the rules. I can go elsewhere, where it suits me better. It's an affront and an imposition on restaurateurs and storekeepers to be told what they and their guests can and cannot do.
This isn't, incidentally, about a technical or medical problem. The value of wearing masks, social distancing, and obeying quarantines and lockdowns is questionable at best, as Sweden has shown. The real problem is ethical and that there's no moral pushback from either the public or the property owners. People are arguing on strictly technical grounds: "Yes, you have a right to tell me what to do, and even close my business. But you shouldn't because it's not 'fair', or your solutions aren't optimal". They accept the busybody's premises. The argument is over before it even begins. Americans are truly acting like whipped dogs.
Whether the masks, distancing, and the rest of it work or not, isn't the point. My own belief is they're at best of marginal value and may well be counterproductive. But that's beside the point. The point is that it's immoral and destructive for the State to tell people how to relate to each other.
As for the CDC, it's just another government bureaucracy concerned with putting itself in the limelight, gaining more power, enhancing its budget, and the number of its employees—and making Fauci, a lifelong but previously insignificant swamp creature, into an international celebrity.
International Man: Currently, over 18 million Americans are currently behind on their mortgage or rent payments. That temporary suspension on evictions ends December 31st. What do you think will happen next?
Doug Casey: Just as with the financial markets, the government has no alternative but to "do something." They will - they have to - print more money to keep the rotten house of cards from collapsing on itself. The Democrats have already said that they want to increase the next stimulus to over $3 trillion. The fact that most of the last round of stimulus was either overtly wasted, went to cronies, or can't be accounted for, is completely lost on them. They recognize that unless they give a lot of money directly or indirectly to the hoi polloi, there are going to be millions of them on the streets.
Approximately 11 million renters and 4 or 5 million mortgagees are now in forbearance. They'll be kicked out of their houses and apartments come January 1, barring a huge bailout. Where are those people going to go?
If Obama had made good on his ridiculous promise about shovel-ready projects, there'd be a lot more bridges that they could camp out under. But he didn't. They have a real problem on their hands. Millions of people have been living above their means and have no savings. At this point, if they let landlords and banks kick all those people out, a number of things will happen. Residential property prices will collapse. Millions of people will be scrambling for somewhere to live. Lots of banks and landlords would go bust.
The longer the government kicks the can down the road, the bigger the inevitable bust will be. The stimulus money will have to continue because Biden doesn't want it all to come unglued on his watch. The State is not only going to have to pay individuals and business owners that their idiotic policies have busted. They'll be subsidizing banks, landlords, and utility companies - because you can't live in a house or an apartment without water and electricity.
It's worse than that because even if you cover the bare essentials, there's no money leftover for maintenance. There will be millions of buildings across the country suffering from deferred maintenance. The South Bronx, East St. Louis, and Baltimore will be replicated across the country.
And no one's talking about how to cover the real estate taxes due on these properties. Many local governments are already bankrupt. Their expenses are going way up even while their tax income collapses. The whole country has painted itself into a corner at this point. That's what happens when you adopt a collectivist economic policy, as the Soviets, the Chinese, and scores of other countries have discovered.
I'm not sure how they're going to get out of it because the economy itself has just started to collapse. Of course, they'll print up more money because they see that as a solution when it's actually a cause. It's going to worsen the collapse.
International Man: For the tens of millions behind on their mortgage and rent payments, will their back rent and overdue payments ever be repaid?
Doug Casey: The government will not only have to pay the rent for the future, but it's going to have to cover landlords' previously unpaid rent - if they don't want lots of bankrupt landlords and banks. It will lead to a guaranteed annual income, which they've been thinking about for some time. In some cases, the government will take over properties. It's nothing new. Most major US cities already have significant public housing. None of it's good, but most isn't as bad as Cabrini-Greene or Pruitt-Igoe.
Who knows where this daisy chain will lead? With all the unemployed people who can't pay their rent, perhaps the government will develop something like national service. Then there will be millions more people working for the government, doing god knows what. It will lead to the socialization of society. Remember, this COVID hysteria is just the pin that broke the bubble. The Greater Depression was already in the cards. Americans will beg the government to cure it, which is guaranteed to make it vastly worse and longer-lasting and invite some charismatic authoritarian to be their savior and take charge.
International Man: Assuming the COVID hysteria and lockdowns are behind us in 2021, what lasting effects could we see taking place?
Doug Casey: It's going to destroy the restaurant, retail, and travel industries all at once. Stores, restaurants, and small businesses are always failing - maybe 15% of them annually - and new ones are starting up in normal times. It's the circle of life. The problem is that about half of these businesses are failing all at once. That makes it much harder to recover.
The economy is a lot like a body. If you burn your finger, it hurts, but you'll recover. But if you suffer burns on over 50% of your body all at once, it might kill you. That's what we're looking at right now.
Commercial real estate is another area that is going to be devastated because a lot of people will continue working at home and prefer it over working in an office. Who knows what's going to happen to all that commercial real estate and how it's going to be repurposed. It's certainly going to consume a huge amount of capital.
Another area that will change is schools. I would have been happy to have a year off from school because classes bored me. I would have read many more things on my own. But today, most kids don't read books. Public school kids are lucky to absorb a few things by osmosis. Now they're mostly playing video games or are on social media - mostly doing nonproductive things on their computers at home. I don't know the effect of not being able to associate with other kids. For most kids, it may be damaging. On the bright side, many parents have decided that school is a waste of time and have started homeschooling their kids. That's generally a positive thing.
Here's the important thing, we don't know how long this hysteria is going to last. People are so scared that they'll be easy to control for fear of the next real or imagined virus that comes down the road. When people are scared and don't know what to do, they will want somebody to kiss it and make it better.
Unfortunately most people have no idea what really happens when a government goes out of control, let alone how to prepare… The coming economic and political crisis is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we’ve seen in the past."
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/9/20: "Congress Awaits The GO ORDER From The Fed On Stimulus"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/9/20:
"Congress Awaits The GO ORDER From The Fed On Stimulus"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This false-color composite image views the nearby stellar nursery using data from the Herschel Space Observatory's panoramic exploration of interstellar clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly.
The famous pillars are included near the center of the scene. While the central group of hot young stars is not apparent at these infrared wavelengths, the stars' radiation and winds carve the shapes within the interstellar clouds. Scattered white spots are denser knots of gas and dust, clumps of material collapsing to form new stars. The Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).”
Chet Raymo, “On Being Good”
“On Being Good”
by Chet Raymo
“Several years ago, I attended a seminar on the foundations of ethical systems. The participants quoted Plato, Jesus, Heidegger, and a host of other authorities; they trotted out every philosophical and theological reason why we can or should be good. Of course, prominent among the arguments was that old canard: Without the promise of eternal salvation or the threat of damnation, we would all be scoundrels.
No one mentioned that we are first of all biological creatures with an evolutionary history, and that altruism, aggression, fidelity, promiscuity, nurturing and violence might be part of our animal natures.
I looked around the auditorium and saw folks of every religious and philosophical persuasion, and of many cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and I thought, "Gee, I'd trust any one of these folks not to take my wallet in a dark alley." Sure, humans are capable of great evil, but most of us are pretty good most of the time, and I suspect that it has more to do with where we have been as a biological species than with where we hope to be going in some airy-fairy afterlife.
We are animals who have evolved the capacity to cherish our fellow humans and to resist for the common good our innate tendencies to aggression and selfishness, not because we have been plucked out of our animal selves by some sky hook from above, but because we have been nudged into reflective consciousness by evolution. When it comes to living in a civilized way on a crowded planet, I choose to put my faith in the long leash of the genes rather than fear of hellfire or the chance to walk on streets of gold.”
The Poet: David Whyte, "The Winter of Listening"
"The Winter of Listening"
"No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning red in the palms while
the night wind carries everything away outside.
All this petty worry while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious inside us does not
care to be known by the mind
in ways that diminish its presence.
What we strive for in perfection
is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire,
what disturbs and then nourishes
has everything we need.
What we hate in ourselves
is what we cannot know in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer so far off
I feel it grown in me now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years listening to those
who had nothing to say.
All those years forgetting how everything
has its own voice to make itself heard.
All those years forgetting how easily
you can belong to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow difficulty
of remembering how everything
is born from an opposite
and miraculous otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that otherness.
So let this winter of listening
be enough for the new life
I must call my own."
- David Whyte,
"The House of Belonging"
"The Level Of Intelligence..."
"If man were relieved of all superstition, and all prejudice, and had replaced these with a keen sensitivity to his real environment, and moreover had achieved a level of communication so simplified that one syllable could express his every thought, then he would have achieved the level of intelligence already achieved by his dog."
- Robert Brault
"The Pretender’s Dilemma"
"The Pretender’s Dilemma"
by The Zman
"Critics of modern liberal democracy often repeat Juvenal’s line about the populace being pacified with bread and circuses. In the modern usage it means the public is easily bought off with free stuff and mindless entertainment. While the average guy is watching television sports and adding to his waistline, he does not care that the political class is looting the country. Just as long as he has a steady stream of new products, he is happy to abandon his duties as a citizen.
Juvenal had a different meaning, as he was writing in the second century. He was criticizing the Roman political class for their lack of heroism and virtue. They cared more for holding office than tackling the challenges of the day. They would corrupt the people with free grain and elaborate public spectacles, if that is what it took to win favor and gain power. The ruling class was mortgaging the civic virtue of Rome in order to get short term profit from the political system.
Of course, the culture of liberal democracy forbids the idea of a ruling class, so the blame must always fall on the people for the problems with the rulers. After all, the people picked the office holders. If they are unhappy with the choices, they should find new ones that they prefer. The civic religion of liberal democracy is like a spell cast on even the most jaded. It prevents them from accepting that there is not a democratic solution to the inherent defects of liberal democracy.
The irony is the cynical will often quote de Maistre and say that the people get the government they deserve. This is ironic in several ways. One is that de Maistre was no fan of democracy or popular government. He also meant that a people, as in a biologically connected people, will get the ruling class that reflects their temperament and talents, regardless of the system. This is something that no modern liberal democratic could possibly accept and remain a liberal democrat.
Putting that aside, the problem with the Juvenal quote is that bread and circuses is the only peaceful and predictable solution to the large society problem. Bringing large numbers of people together under a single ruler, whether it is the farce of democracy or the force of a despot, goes against man’s nature. Humans can only know and trust about 150 people at one time. Once a group breaks what is called the Dunbar number, no one person can know everyone well enough to trust them.
The solution long ago was a code, a set of rules for the group. A set of rules to govern relations between all people within the group solved this problem. The members did not have to trust one another or even know one another very well. They just had to trust that the rules made sense for the group and that the people enforcing the rules could be trusted to predictably enforce the rules. The proof of these two pillars of society would be the peace and prosperity of the group.
Of course, once you get to very large groups, like city-states and countries, you end up with lots of dissimilar people in the same society. A large group of related people will come with the habits of mind to make cooperation natural. Have a large diverse group of people and those habits of mind will inevitably conflict. This is the large society problem and we have just two solutions. One is a great mission to focus the public’s attention and the other is bread and circuses.
The great mission or crusade, like a war, comes with an expiry date. You can rally the most diverse and uncooperating people against some crisis. In a war, for example, people put aside their grievances to fight the common enemy. Yankee New England dropped their secession drive, for example, because of the War of 1812. The trouble is, people tire of war and every crisis losses its sense of urgency. Even the communists figured this out eventually.
This is the fork in the road the American ruling class faces now. The pretender Biden also adds the complication of being seen as illegitimate by most people. Many of those people may be glad Trump is gone, at least for now, but they also know that Biden has no business on the throne. He is just a shuffling corpse, animated by players operating in the shadows. Like all pretenders, Biden will be limited by the fact that the rest of the ruling class is looking to exploit him, rather than support him.
Compounding his dilemma is that the people who engineered his ascent to the throne want to start a new cold war with Russia and start a war with Iran. They also seek to impose the Chinese social model on Americans. Speech and movement will be sharply curtailed with the help of the corporate oligarchs. In other words, the new regime tilts heavily toward a holy crusade to rally the people, like a war against the virus and a war against Iran, rather than a new round of bread and circuses.
This is something that was overlooked in the Trump years. After eight years of the dreary preaching of Obama, Trump’s antics were a relief. His style was not everyone’s cup of tea, but he kept things lively. He also focused on the economy, which did rather well until the Covid panic. The stock market doubled in value during his time in office, which is something that matters a lot to people. In other words, Trump gave the people four years of bread and circuses.
Finally, the other dilemma for the Pretender Biden is that he will have Trump out there reminding people of how Biden got on the throne. In the old days, Biden’s first order of business would be to have Trump assassinated. By removing the old ruler, there was no chance for him to return to power. That’s unlikely to happen with Trump, although one cannot rule it out, so Biden will have to operate in the shadow of what many will view as the rightful President.
This is the dilemma facing the Pretender Biden. He cannot go for the bread and circuses route, as that would be a concession to the hated Trump. That means going along with the warmongers and scaremongers. The trouble there is that requires trust and exactly no one trusts a pretender. The only solution may be to forge ahead with a manufactured crisis like a war with Iran and hope the people are gullible enough to fall for it like they did in the Bush years."
"How and When the SCOTUS Will Overturn the Election"
"How and When the SCOTUS Will Overturn the Election"
by The Phoenix
"Get ready for some fireworks. The state of Texas (along with Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and South Dakota) is suing the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the Supreme Court. Texas is arguing that those four states violated the constitution when they passed new election laws to allow mail-in voting and other changes to their election process.
The Constitution of the United States is explicit that only state legislators NOT state governors, attorney generals, or secretary of states can change how elections are processed. The media is keeping pretty quiet about this, or attempting to frame it as nothing, but it is a HUGE deal. The Supreme Court has already docketed the case meaning that the SCOTUS will hear it.
If the SCOTUS rules that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin did in fact violate the constitution (they did), then either:
1) Those votes that were allowed under the new laws are thrown out.Or…
2) The elections in those states become null and void.
If the outcome is #1, then President Trump wins all four states in a landslide. Remember, the mail-in ballots were pro-Biden by a massive margin (90%+). If those votes no longer count, Biden loses tens of thousands of votes in all four key states (his margin of victory is only 1% or lower in all four of them).
If the outcome is #2, then 62 electoral college votes vanish from the vote count. This means NO ONE hits the required 270 electoral college votes to win the election outright and the election moves into Congress as per the 12th Amendment. There, the House of Representatives votes for the President on a one vote per state basis. The GOP has 26 states, the Democrats have 24 states. This again, means Trump wins the election.
You can be furious at this all you want, but it’s the law. The fact the media doesn’t bother explaining this only reveals that they’re ignorant of how elections work in the U.S. or are so biased they can’t be bothered to consider an outcome in which Biden doesn’t win.
So, like I said… get ready for some fireworks. The odds of President Trump actually winning the election are the highest they’ve been since the election itself."○
Related:
"Bracing For A Very Painful Year: 38% Of Americans Say That They Will Spend 2021 In 'Survival Mode'”
"Bracing For A Very Painful Year: 38% Of Americans
Say That They Will Spend 2021 In 'Survival Mode'”
by Michael Snyder
"If nearly 40 percent of the entire nation anticipates spending the next 12 months in “survival mode”, that is not a good sign for what the coming year will bring. Traditionally, Americans have looked forward to the turn of the year with tremendous optimism, but this time around things are very, very different. 2020 brought us the COVID pandemic, tremendous violence and civil unrest in our major cities, and the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Sadly, a large chunk of the country is anticipating more difficulties in the coming months, because one recent survey found that 38 percent of all Americans plan to spend 2021 in “survival mode”: "Of the 3,011 surveyed adults, over 38% said they will spend the year in “survival mode,” meaning they’ll focus on the day-to-day rather than long-term goals to try to get themselves and their families through 2021."
The biggest reason why so many anticipate being in “survival mode” is because of the financial problems that they experienced this year. According to that same survey, a whopping 68 percent of all Americans say that they experienced some sort of “financial setback” in 2020: "Although some respondents maintained their usual income over the past year, 68% had setbacks. Of those, 23% lost a job or household income; 20% had an unexpected non-health emergency; 18% had to provide unexpected financial aid to family or friends; and 16% had a health emergency in their family."
As I keep reminding my readers, Americans have filed more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits this year, but even many of those that have been able to keep their jobs have fallen on very hard times. Another new survey found that approximately one-third of all full-time workers in the U.S. “have experienced a pay cut” in 2020: "Roughly 1 in 3 full-time workers have experienced a pay cut due to the coronavirus pandemic this year, according to a recent MagnifyMoney survey of 984 professionals surveyed Nov. 6 to 11."
If you were employed throughout all of 2020 and you are still able to pay all of your bills on time, you should be very thankful for your blessings, because you are now in the minority.
For most Americans, the past 12 months have been exceedingly painful, and this new round of lockdowns promises to extend the economic suffering long into 2021. Some industries that were absolutely devastated by the first round of lockdowns are officially in panic mode at this point. For example, we have already permanently lost approximately 17 percent of all of the restaurants in the entire country, and the National Restaurant Association is warning that 10,000 more could permanently shut down “in the next three weeks”: "About 17% of America’s restaurants have already permanently closed this year, with thousands more on the brink according to a new report.
The National Restaurant Association is publicly pleading with Congress to pass new stimulus to help the industry that has been damaged by the pandemic. The group said Monday that 10,000 restaurants could close in the next three weeks, in addition to the 110,000 that have already shuttered in 2020."
Even during the best of times, running a successful restaurant is exceedingly difficult. The margins are razor thin, new competition is always popping up, and employees are constantly coming and going. When you add a global pandemic on top of all of that, it has become almost impossible for many eateries to keep going, and we are being told that the future for the industry looks quite “bleak”:
• "87% of full-service restaurants (independent, chain, and franchise) report an average 36% drop in sales revenue. For an industry with an average profit margin of 5%-6%, this is simply unsustainable. 83% of full-service operators expect sales to be even worse over the next three months."
• Although sales are significantly lower for most independent and franchise owners, their costs have not fallen by a proportional level. 59% of operators say their total labor costs (as a percentage of sales) are higher than they were pre-pandemic.
• The future remains bleak. 58% of chain and independent full-service operators expect continued furloughs and layoffs for at least the next three months.
Of course it isn’t just the restaurant industry that is laying off workers in large numbers. Just about every day there are more major layoff announcements in the news, and many experts are expecting the job loss numbers to accelerate as we make the transition into 2021. Without paychecks coming in, millions of unemployed Americans are unable to pay the bills, and we are being warned that we could be facing a historic tsunami of evictions starting just after the holiday season: "The day after Christmas, the extended unemployment benefits that have kept 12 million people and their families afloat are scheduled to expire. Then, mere days after that cliff, on New Year’s Day, a national ban on renter evictions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also set to lapse.
Overnight, an unprecedented bill of $70 billion in unpaid back rent and utilities will come due, according to estimates by Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi. In all, up to 40 million people could be threatened with eviction over the coming months, research from the Aspen Institute says."
The politicians insist that they are keeping us caged up for our own good, but the truth is that they are absolutely destroying millions upon millions of lives in the process. There is a lot of debate about whether or not the lockdowns have helped to prevent the spread of the virus, but what we do know is that thousands of businesses have been permanently destroyed, millions of jobs have been lost, more people are committing suicide, and Americans are increasingly engaging in self-destructive behaviors: "Overall, one in three Americans report binge drinking during the coronavirus pandemic. The average person also reports spending about four weeks in lockdown this year; spending 21 hours a day at home. More than seven in 10 people in the survey did not even leave their home for work."
If we cannot even handle the COVID pandemic, how in the world is our society going to be able to handle what else is coming? As things continue to unravel all around us, people are going to be in great need of hope. Millions of Americans are already in “survival mode”, and the road ahead is certainly not going to get any easier."
○
Related:
Michael Zubar, "Dec 9 Financial News:
10,000 Restaurants to Close This Month, Mall Owners"
"The Limits of Our Freedom"
"The Limits of Our Freedom"
by Mark Harrison
"Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote in "Man's Search for Meaning", "Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies all our freedom.In the most extreme conditions of privation imaginable, Frankl discovered that he was, remarkably, free to choose his response to any situation. I love this quote because it sums up the essence of my philosophy. I believe it is the cornerstone of a happy and effective life. A real, experiential understanding of this radical freedom is life changing, liberating and empowering. To suddenly come upon the realization that we have always been free, not in some abstract sense, but in a real, personal and imminent way, is like being let out of prison.
We are not free to control others: The point is that we are free. And so is everyone else. That means we cannot impinge on the freedom of others. This is not some moral statement. I'm not saying we should not interfere with other people's freedom - it is simply impossible to do so. You cannot make another person do anything. Even putting a gun to someone's head cannot make them do anything. If someone is threatened to the extent that they fear for their life, they are likely to comply with whatever is being demanded of them, but this compliance is not a result of the threat, it is still a choice they make. If you doubt it, think about the people who have been threatened and not complied, think about people who have died for what they believe in rather than comply with an external demand.
The belief that we can control and coerce others, bending them to our will, is the cause of a great deal the misery in the world. This belief, springing from the external control psychology that we have overwhelmingly been conditioned to accept, is the cause of much of our pain. To let go of our belief that we can control others is astonishingly liberating. To accept other people as they are, to make no demands on them, simply to dance our own dance, as Anthony de Mello would have put it, and to accept that we cannot but allow everyone else to do the same, is not only the only choice that makes any sense, but is also the only way we can make any difference in the world.
We have a choice: In every situation, there is a choice. Accept that we cannot control other people or try to force, coerce, manipulate and bully to get our own way. The latter course of action damages relationships and, in the end, leads to pain and dysfunction. Or, we can accept people as they are, accept they are utterly free agents, accept that we cannot force them, and concentrate instead on building relationships with them and on building the inner world which echoes back to us as our experience. When we have good relationships, things work. Perhaps not in the way we might have expected, or even in the way we would have preferred, but things will work. The world is not ours to control, so let it go, and let it work in its own miraculous way. This is the effortlessness to which Lao Tzu alluded when he wrote, "The world is a mysterious instrument, not meant to be handled." Those who act on it never, I notice, succeed.
We are responsible: We are responsible for ourselves. We make our choices and then we must live with them, not blaming others or circumstances, and not cowardly abdicating responsibility to some external forces. We are not victims! We are in control. By the same token, we are not responsible for other people. Their fear, their anger, their pain, their misery - it's all a choice they make, as freely as we make ours, and they need to shoulder the consequences of these choices, they are not our crosses to bear. Their happiness, their success, their joy - it's all their doing, not ours.
Being proactive: So here lies our freedom, it is inside us every moment and we can recognize it and live our lives according to the truth of this freedom, or we can continue to behave in the way we have been conditioned by society and try to force our way through life, pushing and coercing others into doing our will. One way is peace and happiness, the other way is pain and madness. Being proactive is the first of Steven Covey's "Seven Habits" and is the cornerstone of a truly effective life. I believe that living a proactive life, centered in the self, accepting that we can change nothing but ourselves, and choosing to focus on the good in our life and seeking to attract more it to ourselves is the purpose of our existence."
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