So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, January 17, 2021
"I Don't Pretend..."
“I don't pretend we have all the answers.
But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.”
- Arthur C. Clarke
Musical Interlude: "Super Intelligence - Binaural Beats Concentration Music for Work and Focus"
Greenred Productions, "Super Intelligence -
Binaural Beats Concentration Music for Work and Focus"
"Super intelligence music with binaural beats for concentration and focus.
Use this studying music to improve alertness and concentrate for daily tasks."
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A Comment: Look folks, whether you want to know it or not we're literally in the fight of our lives, and for our lives, as the economy totally collapses all around us, and it's only beginning. I for one will take any edge available to improve understanding how and why it's all happening, and surviving the very grim consequences that are coming. You should too. From my own experience these binaural beats videos work, simple as that, and I recommend you use them, too. God help us all, and good luck. Stay strong!
- CP
"Stimulus Check Update: FIND MISSING STIMULUS PAYMENT - SSI, SSDI VA CHILD SUPPORT"
"Stimulus Check Update:
FIND MISSING STIMULUS PAYMENT - SSI, SSDI VA CHILD SUPPORT"
Jan 17, 2021: This is your Second Stimulus Check update, stimulus package update, $1400 Checks, $1400 Payment and stimulus check 2 update and daily show for news today. Biden Says $2000 Checks Will "Go Out the Door". Here’s what Biden calls for:
• Direct payments of $1,400 to most Americans, bringing the total relief to $2,000, including December’s $600 payments.
• Increasing the federal, per-week unemployment benefit to $400 and extending it through the end of September.
• Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
• Extending the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums until the end of September.
• $350 billion in state and local government aid.
• $170 billion for K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.
• $50 billion toward Covid-19 testing.
• $20 billion toward a national vaccine program in partnership with states, localities and tribes.
• Making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable for the year and increasing the credit to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for a child under age 6).
LINKS:
• USPS:
• IRS FREE 2020 Tax Form - 1040/1040-SR:
• IRS - TAX TRANSCRIPT (CREATE ACCT):
• IRS GET MY PAYMENT:
If you didn’t get any payments or got less than the full amounts, you may qualify for the credit, even if you don’t normally file taxes. For more information:
• IRS NON FILERS TOOL: The tool is closed and it will not be available for other payments including the second Economic Impact Payment or the Recovery Rebate Credit. Economic Impact Payments were an advance payment of the Recovery Rebate Credit. You may be eligible to claim the credit by filing a 2020 1040 or 1040-SR for free using the IRS Free File program. These free tax software programs can be used by people who are not normally required to file tax returns but are eligible to claim the credit.
• IRS Stimulus Check toll-free phone number you need is 800-919-9835
"Do Not Live..."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
- Christopher Hitchens
"The Minds Of Men..."
"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. This diminutive stature of mankind was daily sinking below the old standard."
- Edward Gibbon,
"The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire"
"You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?'
The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?"
- Gore Vidal
"The Gray Curtain Descends," Part 2
"The Gray Curtain Descends," Part 2
by Robert Gore
"It's secession or war... Four days after the election, a woman calling herself OHMama posted “I Am Done” on The Burning Platform website. It was the site’s most read article of 2020. SLL and many other websites reposted it. It was raw, explosive anger and a profoundly moving lament; OHMama was clearly at the end of her rope. The closing paragraph packed a wallop.
"I was raised to be a lady, and ladies don’t curse, but f*ck these motherf*ckers to hell and back for what they’ve done to me, and mine, and my country. All we Joe Blow Americans ever wanted was a little patch of land to raise a family, a job to pay the bills, and at least some illusion of freedom, and even that was too much for these human parasites. They want it all, mind, body and soul. Damn them. Damn them all."
OHMama gave voice to what’s beneath the surface for so many of us - abject disgust, barely contained fury, and dread of what’s to come. She claimed her own life to live it as she sees fit, and damn them, damn them all, who presume to rule us.
That anger surfaced in Washington on January 6. The protest and raid of the Capitol were illuminating in several ways. They defined the two sides: the government, its string-pullers, and its allies versus those who despise and oppose them.
The Saul Alinsky line was crossed, setting an important precedent. His acolytes insist their enemies live by their own rules while exempting themselves from any rules other than those that secure power. Playing by the rules when the opposition doesn’t is a guaranteed loser. Caring what they think of you is craven. Cowering when they call you hypocrites is unilateral surrender. Going forward, Alinsky’s acolytes may face an opposition that plays by the same rules they do - those necessary to secure power.
The Capitol raid scared the crap out of uniparty politicians, witness the hysterical overreaction. Given what they and their accomplices have done to Americans and people around the world, they should live in perpetual, mortal terror. Unfortunately, their cowardice outruns their brains. Instead of responding to the message they’ll shoot the messenger and clamp down harder.
Legacy media was filled with paeans to our “sacred” government and its “temples,” deploring the “sacrilege” of those who “desecrated” and “defiled” them. What absolute tripe! Washington is a Corruptocracy, a moral cesspool. Anything sacred would have been vandalized or torn down by the mobs allowed to run riot last year. They would have toppled the Washington Monument if they could have figured out how.
Americans who build businesses or pursue careers honestly producing goods and services for voluntary trade are engaging in activities far more sacred than anything that goes on in the capital. Millions of parents instill moral principles in their children, only to see those principles defiled daily by the government. Washington delenda est - if it were leveled and sown with salt America and the world would be better for it.
The corruptocrats’ ability to shore up the debt-riddled global financial and economic systems with ever more debt has astounded skeptics, among them SLL. The debt load is many times annual global production and debt service is sucking up that production like a tapeworm sucks up its victim’s meals. Every financial asset is a debt or equity claim, and virtually every income stream and real asset - factories, real estate, houses, warehouses, inventories, office buildings, malls, etc. - has been pledged or mortgaged, often several times over.
We saw the global daisy chain unravel in 2008 and 2009 and the system is daisy-chainier now. If you’re looking for canaries in the coal mine, watch the yields on sovereign debt. Once they really start to climb it’s game over. The devastation will be unprecedented and epic.
Collapse will decimate over-indebted, non-productive governments that have made promises they can’t keep to millions of their citizens. That may be part of a plan to destroy national governments and generate clamor for totalitarian global government. Yet, every tyranny confronts the question: who is going to host its predation and parasitism if the disobedient but productive (there is a correlation) have been imprisoned or executed? Slavery is notoriously unproductive.
Globo-government will be in the same position as the national governments it supersedes—bankrupt, bereft of resources, and unable to produce anything other than fiat debt instruments. Dispensing a steadily depreciating universal basic income will be problematic. Not that it will bother globo-government if billions of its wards die of poverty and starvation. The bigger concern will be securing the resources necessary for surveillance and suppression of the remaining enslaved.
Enfeebled or failed governments of any stripe engender both chaos and opportunity. Collapse and chaos will be huge blows to governments, the perpetual enemies of liberty, but could be a game changer for the liberty-minded, who are well-advised to wait for the bubble to burst.
Chaos will require preparation by those who want to capitalize on the opportunity. Many alternative media sites stress personal preparation and establishing local networks, and offer valuable strategies and advice. Readers are invited to list their favorites in the comments section. No one can prepare for every contingency, but if you haven’t prepared for the most obvious ones - grid down, lack of access to food and water, etc. - now is the time to do so.
If governments are the enemy and are destined to collapse, then the opposition should do everything possible to hasten that collapse. In the US, twenty-five million people, about a third of Trump’s voters, simultaneously withdrawing their financially intermediated assets would spread panic across our massively over-leveraged, inextricably interconnected globe. (For more, see "Revolution in America," Robert Gore, SLL, January 7, 2015.)
There’s a powerful inducement for preemptive withdrawal: the front of the line is the best place to be during a bank run (other than not being in line at all). The bank run is inevitable, the question is whether or not you want to be its victim. This strategy is legal, effective, nonviolent, and hits governments where they are weakest - their insolvency and inability to produce.
Our opponents have clearly defined goal - absolute power - and they are absolutely committed to subjugating or eliminating anyone who stands in their way. Until recently most of those on our side didn’t even realize we were at war. Before such a war goes kinetic (the modern term for old-fashioned war where people get killed) and in the hope that it doesn’t, we need a clearly defined goal and a strategy to achieve it. The goal is the fundamental right of every human: the liberty to peaceably live one’s own life and pursue one’s own happiness. The strategy is more complicated.
Peacefully splitting the US into two or more countries when it is so irretrievably and irreconcilably riven is almost breathtaking in its common sense. You go your way and we’ll go ours appeals to both logic and justice. What could be fairer than to give people a choice?
Our side should never stop advocating for a peaceful split and our own territory. This does not mean advocating for insurrection and revolution, which would imply replacing the current government with one of our own. Why would we want to take possession of a cesspool government and rule over so many who hate us? Secession and liberty, not insurrection and revolution, are the goals. Leave the present government to the corruptocrats, their minions, and their dependents.
Most productive people would opt for liberty. Absolute power would have to feed, subjugate, and terrorize masses of subsistence-level slaves. It would be counting on enslaving the productive without reckoning on what replacing incentives with fear and coercion would do to their willingness to produce or their desire to stay. The totalitarians cannot allow a free alternative to coexist just across the border. Unfortunately, peaceful secession is a remote possibility, which means contemplating the alternative.
The government’s many senseless wars have demonstrated the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare against forces superior in every conventional metric: manpower, firepower, and technology. Among tens of millions of potential secessionists, many of them well-armed, there are members or veterans of the military with counterinsurgency experience. They’ve gone to school on guerrillas and their tactics. They’ll likely provide secessionist military leadership once the totalitarians’ war (and they will start it) goes kinetic.
Modern, decentralized technologies and weaponry will be a key component of secessionist strength. The war will be won more with brains and creativity than troop strength or bravado. Teams that can design and assemble weaponized drones and robots, experts in artificial intelligence, remote-control munitions specialists, and computer hackers will be more important military assets than platoons of AR-15 toting commandos.
These technologies will be essential to counter the opposition’s surveillance capabilities, infrastructure, and command and control systems. Secessionists who ignore next-generation technologies, believe they won’t be deployed against them, or fail to realize their offensive potential will be fighting the last war…and they will lose. These technologies are relatively cheap compared to traditional superpower weaponry; their biggest expense is the brainpower they incorporate. It’s a safe bet that among 70 plus million Trump voters and otherwise disaffected that kind of brainpower can be found.
Don’t assume that those within the present power structure, or the emerging globalist one, won’t use every weapon in their arsenal to preserve their hold on power, even at the cost of their own and humanity’s extinction. While the police and military may refuse to fire on their own kin and countrymen, it’s impossible to overestimate the suicidal depravity of the so-called humans issuing their orders. Thus, while conventional armaments, remote technologies, committed secessionists, and guerrilla warfare will be important and essential when kinetic war breaks out, they won’t, in and of themselves, guarantee victory. Too much faith that they will could in fact lead to the opposite outcome.
Along with a straightforward assessment of the opposition’s weaknesses and strengths and a realistic strategy for capitalizing on the former and neutralizing the latter, it’s time to convert current rage into a full-scale political movement. That doesn’t mean the pound-your-head-against-the-wall strategy of trying to win rigged elections. It does mean informing, persuading, and recruiting - the nitty gritty of building a political movement. Much of that building will have to be underground as public dissidence is canceled, corrected, and punished. One of the Viet Cong’s key assets was its political arm, the National Liberation Front, to which they gave much of the credit for their success in the Vietnam war.
Most of the necessary technical brainpower will be found among the young. Right now, the average secessionist is over sixty, voted for Trump, owns plenty of firearms, and has vague notions of a mass movement of the like-minded either miraculously defeating the government or going out in a bolt-hole blaze of glory. That’s not a strategy, it’s a death wish.
It’s easier to carp about snowflakes and SJWs than it is to reach out and educate the open-minded among the young (yes, they are out there) to show them that they will be the primary victims of totalitarianism. The gray curtain is descending over their futures. They have to be inspired by the vision of something far better - their own freedom - if that gray curtain is not to become their gray shroud. You can do worse than give them copies of the "Declaration of Independence", "The Road to Serfdom", and "Atlas Shrugged."
It’s not necessary to change the thinking of every member of Generations X, Y, and Z, or even a majority. What’s essential is to make connections and form alliances with some of the best, brightest, and bravest, to inspire their commitment to their own freedom and future. Start with your own children and grandchildren, and remember that listening is a big part of persuasion. To be understood one must first understand.
Nothing will be fair about the coming fight. It’s no use whining about the other side’s lack of principles, its lies, hypocrisy, unfairness, ruthlessness, and control of virtually every important institution. They’re evil totalitarians, what the hell do we expect? Their principle is absolute power and they’ll do whatever is necessary to acquire and keep it.
Ashli Babbitt’s death, if it is to mean anything at all, should be the cold slap of reality across the faces of those who haven’t grasped the nature of what we face. To ignore the risk that breaching an Imperial Sanctum would be met with violence was pure foolishness. The demonstrators who entered the Capitol could have been murdered en masse. Any expectation that their murderers would receive justice from the Corruptocracy would be delusional naiveté.
No more foolishness or naiveté. Any supposedly peaceful protest will be infiltrated by agent provocateurs bent on making trouble for our cause (including the protests being advertised for next week). The totalitarians will do what they do until they’re completely defeated. This is war, which calls for the unremitting exercise of cold, ruthless rationality. We will administer justice and show mercy when appropriate, but we will expect or receive neither from the other side.
Let’s get on with it."
"And That's Why..."
"Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living."
- Alysha Speer
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
- Steve Jobs,
Commencement Speech, Stanford University, 2005
"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true...
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called "The Whole Earth Catalog", which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of "The Whole Earth Catalog", and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
Musical Interlude: Justin Hayward, “Forever Autumn”
Justin Hayward, “Forever Autumn”
From Jeff Wayne’s “The War Of The Worlds”
Full screen highly recommended.
(Letting auto-play continue would be sweet... ;-))
"War of the Worlds"
"War of the Worlds"
by Nomi Prins
"In 'The War of the Worlds', H.G. Wells evokes a species - humanity - rendered helpless in the face of a force greater than itself and beyond its control. His depiction of the grim relationship between the Martians and the humans they were suppressing (meant to remind readers of the relationship between British imperialists and those they suppressed in distant lands) cast an eerie light on the power and wealth gap in Great Britain and around the world at the turn of the twentieth century.
The book was written in the Gilded Age, when rapid economic growth, particularly in the United States, bred a new class of “robber barons.” Like their twenty-first-century counterparts, they also made money out of money, while the economic status of workers slipped ever lower.
It was an early version of a zero-sum game in which the spoils of the system were increasingly beyond the reach of so many. Those at the top ferociously accumulated wealth, while most of the population barely got by... or drowned.
A crisis of inequality had been sparked by the Industrial Revolution, which started in England and then crossed the Atlantic. By the late nineteenth century, America’s “robber barons” were insanely wealthy. According to economist Thomas Piketty, there was a steeper increase in wealth inequality during the Gilded Age than ever before in American history. In 1810, the top 1% of Americans held 25% of the country’s total wealth; between 1870 and 1910, that share leapt to 45%. Today, the top 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the whole of the middle class, a phenomenon that has held true since 2010.
By 2018, about 75% of the $113 trillion in aggregate U.S. household assets were financial ones; meaning, they were tied up in stocks, ETF’s, 401Ks, IRAs, mutual funds, and similar investments. The majority of nonfinancial assets in that mix were in real estate.
Even before the pandemic, only the richest 20% of American households had recovered fully (or, in the case of the truly wealthy, more than fully) from the financial crisis. That was because fewer households had participated in the stock market or owned real estate since the crisis, so they didn't have a chance to capitalize on increases in the values of either.
Much of the appreciation in the stock market and real-estate values has been directly or indirectly related to the Fed’s actions. By the end of December 2020, its balance sheet had increased by $3.164 trillion, reaching a total of $7.35 trillion, 63% more than its book at the height of the decade following the 2008 disaster. Its ultra-loose policies made it cheaper to borrow money, but not as attractive to invest in low-interest-rate, less risky securities like Treasury bonds. As a result, the Fed incentivized those with extra money to grow it through quicker, often riskier investments in the stock market or real estate.
That’s not free market capitalism at all. It’s more like a casino where the games are rigged. The Fed is doing the rigging.
By 2020, urbanities were engaging in cash-only bidding wars for suburban homes that would provide refuge from coronavirus-stricken cities. These all-cash offers were beyond the reach of most traditional buyers.
Congress passed two much-needed Covid-related stimulus packages that extended unemployment benefits, offered two one-off payments, and instituted a Paycheck Protection Program to support smaller businesses. However, the impact of those acts paled in comparison to the tax breaks and investment power the stock market provided to the well-off and corporate kingpins.
While markets leapt to record highs, poverty in the United States also rose last year from 9.3% in June to 11.7% in November 2020. That added nearly eight million Americans to the ranks of the poor, even as America’s 659 billionaires held double the wealth of the 165 million poorest Americans.
The Martians Are Here: The gap between incoming and outgoing federal funds rose as well. The U.S. deficit increased by $3.3 trillion during 2020. The size of the public debt issued by the Treasury Department reached $27.5 trillion. Total federal revenue was $3.45 trillion, while the corporate tax portion was just $221 billion, or a paltry 6.4%.
And though many larger and mid-size corporations filed for bankruptcy protection due to coronavirus related shutdowns, the brunt of permanent closures affected smaller, local businesses the most. Restaurants, hair salons, and health and wellness shops were the hit hardest, only exacerbating economic disparity at the community level.
In other words, the real problem when it comes to inequality isn’t the total amount of taxes received versus money spent in a time of crisis. The greatest issue is that the composition of federal revenue is wildly out of whack (something the pandemic has only made worse).
Take the defense sector, for example. The U.S. government doled out $738 billion to the Pentagon for fiscal year 2020. The contracts to defense-related private companies in 2018, the most recent year for which data was available, totaled roughly 62% of a full defense budget of $579 billion, or $358 billion. Now imagine this: that amount alone dwarfed the total of all corporate taxes flowing into the U.S. Treasury in 2019.
Inequality is about the disparity between people and countries with respect to income, wealth, or power. There will never be perfect equality in a free society, and I’m not saying we should attempt to create it. That would be totalitarian, and it’s been a disaster wherever it’s been tried. But a strong middle class has been America’s backbone. When inequality reaches such extreme levels, it creates an unstable society and invites social unrest. And the more that corporations keep relative to their bottom line when compared with ordinary citizens, the more the stock market rises relative to the real economy. That just perpetuates the cycle.
The more that individuals, rather than corporations, shoulder the burden of tax revenues, the greater the inherent inequality in society. The more that financial assets appreciate and money seeks to multiply itself in the quickest way possible (think of it as like a virus), the greater the distortion created. It’s speculation, not investment in the productive economy.
The Fed can focus on its inflation-versus-full-employment dual-mandate all it wants. But if it continues pushing policies that distort the value of the real economy compared to financial assets, then we are headed for disaster. The reality is that the more those Fed-inflated assets grow relative to real ones, the greater the inequality gap. That’s plain math, and it’s the ugly essence of the United States of America as 2021 begins.
The market doesn’t care about politics. It’s a creature that acts in accordance with the goals of its largest participants. The real economy, on the other hand, requires far more effort -planning, prioritizing, and executing programs and projects that can produce tangible profits. We’re a long way from a world that puts investment in the real economy ahead of those soaring financial markets. That gap, in fact, might as well be like the distance between Earth and Mars. In the midst of a pandemic, as billionaires only grow richer and the markets soar, can there be any doubt that we’re experiencing something like a Martian invasion?"
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Nomi Prins is an American author, journalist, and public speaker. She is the editor of 'Nomi Prins' Dark Money Millionaire' and contributor of Jim Rickards' 'Strategic Intelligence.' She has worked as a managing director at Goldman-Sachs and as a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns, as well as a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers and analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank.
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Theme related:
Jeff Wayne, "The War of the Worlds"
Richard Burton's narration.
"This is the Jeff Wayne musical version of "The War of the Worlds." I have edited out all of the songs in order to have the incredible voice of Richard Burton's narration of the story in one continuous flow." - Stuart Ward
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Jeff Wayne, "War of the Worlds" Complete
An astounding achievement! Highest recommendation!
Treat yourself, close your eyes, and unleash your imagination!
Please view on YouTube, with auto-play on, here:
"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march, it was a stampede, without order and without a goal, 6 million people, unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of mankind."
Saturday, January 16, 2021
"America’s Slide Into Economic Oblivion Is Already Starting To Accelerate Here In 2021"
"America’s Slide Into Economic Oblivion Is
Already Starting To Accelerate Here In 2021"
by Epic Economist
"The mainstream media is making it look delightful to live in a decaying society amid a devastating economic downturn that has been pushing millions over the edge. The most recent figures are alarming but, apparently, now that dissonant voices are being silenced and freedom of speech has been "canceled", the establishment's version of the facts became the universal truth. And what they are trying to convince us is that things are going to get so much better - "if we just believe it". The "new normal" looks so fun. People have become so "woke" about their environmental footprint that they're choosing to live in tiny homes, vans, and their own cars. That - obviously - doesn't have absolutely anything to do with the fact that proper, affordable housing has been removed from our reach. For some, it may be an adventure, a change in their lifestyle. For others... well, they don't have much of a choice, do they? About 40 million could be evicted by the end of the year, but if they're lucky enough to still have a vehicle of their own, maybe they can join the new hot trend, right?
The expansion of "green initiatives" is being largely accepted. Now that health agencies have given the green light for people to snack on worms (yes, you heard that right), maybe people will have an inexpensive alternative protein source since the price of meat, pork, dairy products, and even some vegetables continues to climb to infinity. But, hey, it's all to protect mother Earth. Perhaps, a tiny little bit to keep the wallets of the wealthy nice and full while our living standards get sacrificed in the name of whatever the trendiest reason is at the moment, but we can't affirm anything for sure since expressing any independent thoughts might get you in trouble. Jokes aside, in this video we're going to report some terrible economic news that have been getting the most positive light possible in the mainstream media, but they actually don't give us much reason for laughter.
We are barely three weeks into 2021, and the most recent reports show that 965,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week. The media says this is an "evidence that the resurgent virus has caused a spike in layoffs". No, not business shutdowns and the freeze in economic activity, the virus is the one to blame. According to the press, "the high pace of layoffs coincides with an economy that has faltered as consumers have avoided traveling, shopping, and eating out in the face of soaring viral caseloads". Sure, the consumer behavior shift is what's behind mass lay-offs. This worrying surge in unemployment figures have nothing to do with the restrictions federal and state governments imposed upon us.
Reports say that "employers shed jobs for the first time since April as the [health crisis] tightened its grip on consumers and businesses". It seems that the health crisis has now become an agent force of its own. Strict lockdown mandates, on the other hand, were just the "necessary evil" the whole nation had to endure to help curb cases.
Everywhere we look, we can see that the economy is falling apart all around us. Federal agencies can sugarcoat the data, but they can't impede us from interpreting them how they really are. At least, not yet. 2020 was undoubtedly one of the toughest years low-paid workers have ever faced. Unemployment for the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. is currently above 20%, but Federal Reserve officials are implying that this isn't enough justification for a policy change.
In other words, policymakers have no intentions of changing the policies that have been hurting the economy. Therefore, there isn't an effective plan to assist the workers that have been struggling the most. But how can we put a positive spin on this? One may ask. Well, at least more and more workers are being conceded the opportunity to stay home and not catch a potentially fatal respiratory infection. So some could say that this labor market collapse has actually had a beneficial impact on public health.
The American health care system is so primitive and profit-oriented that even during a global sanitary outbreak the main step to control contagion is to issue stay-at-home orders instead of educating the nation on how to handle effective health safety measures at the workplace. It's undeniable that the lack of efficacy of these procedures is leading our entire system to a disaster. As the economic collapse writer Michael Snyder has perfectly put into words "now there is deep pain everywhere around us, and the level of suffering is only going to increase as the U.S. slides even faster toward economic oblivion".
Must Watch! "Stop Buying Dumb Stuff; Zombies Keep Spending Money; Poor Get Poorer"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Stop Buying Dumb Stuff;
Zombies Keep Spending Money; Poor Get Poorer"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/16/21"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/16/21"
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JAN 16, AT 4:48 PM: "LA County First In US To Top 1MM Cases: Live Updates"
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Jan. 16, 2021 2:22 PM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 93,985,100
people, according to official counts, including 23,721,328 Americans.
Globally at least 2,010,500 have died.
Jan. 16, 2021 2:22 PM 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.
- https://covidtracking.com/
○
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
○
“The Illusion of Freedom" (Excerpt)
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”- Frank Zappa
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.” - George Orwell, "1984"
“The Illusion of Freedom" (Excerpt)
by Jim Quinn
"The quote from Frank Zappa has truly come to fruition during the first two weeks of 2021. We have been living in a Surveillance State since the introduction of the Patriot Act in 2001 (Biden has boasted that he wrote the bill years before). Until Snowden and Assange revealed the depth and depravity of this un-Constitutional intrusion into our lives only the Deep State cabal knew the truth.
Most Americans ignored these revelations, as they continued to be distracted and entertained by their iGadgets and new social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and others. These social media companies parlayed people’s narcissist need for affirmation, likes and followers into multi-billion-dollar conglomerates with near monopolistic control over the distribution of news, opinions, and on-line communication of the masses.
They have gathered personal data on hundreds of millions, used that data to create an addiction to their platforms, created algorithms to maximize their monetization of you, and colluded with government surveillance agencies to spy on you. The illusion of free speech provided by these Silicon Valley billionaires was extremely profitable for the last couple decades, so now with virtually total control of internet communication, these left-wing oligarchs have conspired with the Deep State traitors, the Democrat party, and the Davos crowd to pull back the curtain and reveal the brick wall at the back of the theater.
They began moving the tables and chairs with the manufactured global pandemic for the Chinese bio-weapon lab virus in March. The psychopaths, who wield the real power, have no concern for humanity. They seized upon this “crisis” to implement a plan to remove Trump through using Covid as an excuse to roll-out a mail-in ballot scheme (supplemented with Dominion voting machine rigging) to commit just enough fraudulent votes to throw the election to basement Biden, a senile bumbling clown who drew tens of tens to his massive rallies."
Please view this complete and most highly recommended article here:
Musical Interlude: Melanie, "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)"
Melanie, "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)"
Full screen recommended.
Once upon a time...
"A Look to the Heaven"
"This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved by winds and radiation from the region's newborn stars, now found scattered in open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174, off the top of the frame.
Though star formation continues within these dusty cosmic clouds they will likely be dispersed by the energetic newborn stars within a few million years. Recorded at infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, the interstellar scene spans about 6 light-years. Scheduled for launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is optimized for exploring the Universe at infrared wavelengths."
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