Chet Raymo, “The Journey”

“The Journey”

by Chet Raymo

“Here’s a deep-deep sky map of the universe from the March 9, 2006 issue of Nature. The horizontal scale is a 360 view right around the sky; the vertical gaps at 6 hours and 24 hours are the parts of the universe that are blocked to our view by the disk of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The vertical scale – distance from Earth – is logarithmic (10, 100, 1000, etc.) measured in megaparsecs (a parsec equals 3.26 light-years). Across the top is the Big Bang, and the oldest and most distant thing we can see, the cosmic microwave background, the radiation of the Big Bang itself. A few relatively nearby galaxies are designated at the bottom. All that stuff in the middle that looks like smoke or dusty cobwebs are quasars and galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

A smoke of galaxies! (2 trillion galaxies according to latest estimates.- CP) A universe cobwebbed with Milky Ways! Each galaxy itself a smoke of stars, hundreds of billions of stars, many or all of them with planets. My book, “Walking Zero,” is about the human journey from the omphalos of our birth into the world of the galaxies, a journey many of us are disinclined to make. Here is how the Prologue to the book begins:

“Each of us is born at the center of the world. For nine months our physical selves are assembled molecule by molecule, cell by cell, in the dark covert of our mother’s womb. A single fertilized egg cell splits into two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Ultimately, 50 trillion cells or so. At first, our future self is a mere blob of protoplasm. But slowly, ever so slowly, the blob begins to differentiate under the direction of genes. A symmetry axis develops. A head, a tail, a spine. At this point, the embryo might be that of a human, or a chicken, or a marmoset. Limbs form. Digits, with tiny translucent nails. Eyes, with papery lids. Ears pressed like flowers against the head. Clearly now a human. A nose, nostrils. Downy hair. Genitals.

As the physical self develops, so too a mental self takes shape, not yet conscious, not yet self-aware, knitted together as webs of neurons in the brain, encapsulating in some respects the evolutionary experience of our species. Instincts impressed by the genes. The instinct to suck, for example. Already, in the womb, the fetus presses its tiny fist against its mouth in anticipation of the moment when the mouth will be offered the mother’s breast. The child will not have to be taught to suck. Other inborn behaviors will express themselves later. Laughing. Crying. Striking out in anger. Loving.

What, if anything, goes on in the mind of the developing fetus we may never know. But this much seems certain: To the extent that the emerging self has any awareness of its surroundings, its world is coterminous with itself. We are not born with knowledge of the antipodes, the plains of Mars, or the far-flung realm of the galaxies. We are not born with knowledge of Precambrian seas, the supercontinent of Pangea, or the Age of Dinosaurs. We are born into a world scarcely older than ourselves and scarcely larger than ourselves. And we are at its center.

A human life is a journey into the grandeur of a universe that may contain more galaxies than there are cells in the human body, a universe in which the whole of a human lifetime is but a single tick of the cosmic clock. The journey can be disorienting; our first instincts are towards coziness, comfort, our mother’s enclosing arms, her breast. The journey, therefore, requires courage – for each individual, and for our species.

Uniquely of all animals, humans have the capacity to let our minds expand into the space and time of the galaxies. No other creatures can number the cells in their bodies, as we can, or count the stars. No other creatures can imagine the explosive birth of the observable universe 14 billion years ago from an infinitely hot, infinitely small seed of energy. That we choose to make this journey – from the all-sustaining womb into the vertiginous spaces and abyss of time – is the glory of our species, and perhaps our most frightening challenge.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Biden Accuses Himself of Dictatorship"

"Biden Accuses Himself of Dictatorship"

by Brian Maher

"We have it on reliable authority - his own - that President Joe Biden is a menace to American democracy... By his own admission... he has exercised dictatorial powers contrary to the prerogatives of his office. Candidate Joe Biden, October 2020: "I have this strange notion. We are a democracy. Some of my Republican friends, and some of my Democratic friends occasionally say‘ well if you can’t get the votes, by executive order you’re going to do something.’ You can’t do it by executive order, unless you’re a dictator. We’re a democracy, we need consensus."

Just so. What actions did President Biden undertake, January 20, 2021, his first day in office? He authored 19 executive orders. By day seven… he authored 37. How many executive orders did Dictator Trump author in his initial week? Four. How many did Mr. Obama author in his first week? Five. Bill Clinton authored one… while fascist George W. Bush authored none. Yet this Thomas Jefferson issued 37 — nearly four times the executive edicts the prior four presidents issued… combined.

A Blow for Liberty? What precisely did the chief executive order?

Did he issue a dictate reauthorizing gold and silver as legal tender - as Article I, Section I, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution specifies?

Did he issue a dictate to shutter the Department of Education or some other bureaucratic atrocity?

Did he issue a dictate to balance the budget? To dismantle the Federal Reserve?

That is, did he strike a blow for the American people?

He did none of it - we have looked through his orders. Perhaps then he ordered a federal holiday in honor of Donald J. Trump? Again, the answer is no. He did not.

“I Decree”: What then did the president mandate? Here is a partial list:

Require masks, physical distancing and other health measures while on federal property…

Direct the acting education secretary to pause federal student loan payments and collections and keep the interest rate at 0%...

Expand protections for federal workers, including putting federal agencies on a path to require a $15 minimum wage for contractors…

Increase the amount of federal spending that goes to American companies and orders an increase in domestic content…

Sets climate change as a key consideration for U.S. national security and foreign policy, establish a National Climate Task Force, pause new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters "to the extent consistent with applicable law," sets the goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2035…

Require that all residents of a state be counted in the census, regardless of immigration status…

Halt construction and funding of the border wall…

Revokes the Pentagon's ban on transgender people serving in the military…

Directs Health and Human Services secretary to mitigate "racially discriminatory language in describing the COVID-19 pandemic," among other measures.

We do not here judge the substance of the president’s directives. Perhaps he is doing the devil’s work. Or the angels’ work. But is he doing Mr. Madison’s work? Does the United States Constitution grant the president power to issue these edicts?

Article II of the Constitution: We lift our pocket Constitution from our breast pocket, where it is permanently stationed - near our heart. Thus we are informed Article II limits presidential powers to: Signing or vetoing legislation. Bossing the military and naval forces. Requesting the written opinion of his Cabinet. Convening or adjourning Congress. Granting reprieves and pardons. Receiving ambassadors.

Where does the Constitution authorize the president to mandate wages of federal contractors… suspend oil production on federal lands or offshore waters… to halt construction and funding of a border wall? Is this not the work of the legislature? We concede it - we are incapable of the abstruse and nuanced insights of the legal scholar. The “penumbras and emanations” glowing from the constitutional text are visible to him. They are invisible to us. That is, we are incapable of distinguishing Article I from Article II. We are incapable of distinguishing “shall” from “shall not.” Thus we are disqualified from service upon the Supreme Court of the United States.

Yet, we expect fully the president to issue an executive order impeaching himself for usurping the rightful powers of Congress. For in the president’s words, “We are a democracy. We require consensus.” He indicts himself of dictatorship. You say impeachment is the prerogative of Congress - not the executive. Well, is setting wages the prerogative of the executive? Article, section and clause, please.

A Bipartisan Enterprise: Please understand, we do not mean to isolate President Biden for razzing. Republican and Democratic presidents alike have issued executive orders through United States history. Old Abe Lincoln issued the first official executive order in 1862. Presidents before him mandated hundreds of similar (unnumbered) orders - Washington among them.

Some presidents issued them in such staggering numbers… cries of caesarship came thundering from below. Roosevelt I - Theodore, that is, a Republican - put out no fewer than 1.081. Cousin Franklin Delano dictated 3,728. Of course, Franklin’s arose in response to a national emergency, the Great Depression.

President Biden likewise invokes emergency - climate emergency: "We have already waited too long," Mr. Biden moaned this week. "And we can't wait any longer." Act “we” have. And act we will. There is always an emergency in crying need of remedy.

Congress Cedes Its Powers: But we do not claim Mr. Biden is usurping Congressional powers. Congress has handed them away. Our legal men inform us Congress has delegated 136 statutory powers to the executive branch. Of these, only 13 require additional Congressional say-so. 123 do not. Why should the latest president refuse the offer? Elections - after all - yield consequences. We might hold Congress responsible and the courts that blessed it. Yet we hold no one responsible - and everyone responsible. It was nearly inevitable…

Republic to Empire: The young, vital commercial republic went “not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” By the late 19th century, it took up the hunt. It has remained on the hunt to this day. At home the federal leviathan has come to regulate every last detail of life. No sparrow falls without its knowledge. Nor does any tree. As befitting an empire, power has concentrated increasingly in the executive authority.

The ancients warned of it; the Founders warned of it. The constitutional Republic’s skeletal structure is intact. It has its three branches of government. It has its separation of powers. It has its decorums and its procedures. Yet look closer. Peer within. The words are the same... but the definitions are not. It is as if Webster has altered their meaning. But the process is so gradual few notice it, as the frog in its pot of gradually warming water fails to notice the heat.

“The Executive Has All the Power He Needs to Do Practically Anything”: Our co-founders Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, from “Empire of Debt”: "Institutions have a way of evolving over time - after a few years, they no longer resemble the originals. Early in the twenty-first century, the United States is no more like the America of 1776 than the Vatican under the Borgia popes was like Christianity at the time of the Last Supper, or Microsoft in [2021] is like the company Bill Gates started in his garage.

Still, while the institutions evolve, the ideas and theories about them tend to remain fixed; it is as if people hadn’t noticed. In America, all the restraints, inhibitions, and modesty of the Old Republic have been blown away by the prevailing winds of the new empire. In their place has emerged a vainglorious system of conceit, deceit, debt, and delusion. The United States Constitution is almost exactly the same document with exactly the same words it had when it was written, but the words that used to bind and chaff have been turned into soft elastic.

The government that couldn’t tax, couldn’t spend, and couldn’t regulate, can now do anything it wants. The executive has all the power he needs to do practically anything. Congress goes along, like a simple minded stooge, insisting only that the spoils be spread around. The whole process works so well that a member of Congress has to be found in bed “with a live boy or a dead girl” before he risks losing public office."

The “parchment barrier” of the Constitution could never restrain men determined not to be restrained. As 19th century individualist Lysander Spooner lamented: "Whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it..." Sign away, Mr. President…"

- dailyreckoning.com

"Anyone Who Isn't Confused..."

"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."

- Edward R. Murrow

Gregory Mannarino, "Brokerages/Markets - A Crime In Progress For Retail Investors"

Gregory Mannarino,

"Brokerages/Markets - A Crime In Progress For Retail Investors"

- https://traderschoice.net/

The Daily "Near You?"

Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Thanks for stopping by!

"There Are Days..."

"There are days, there are times, when you feel like you've walked so far, when the voice inside you is complaining that it's all uphill, that it always will be. And then, after all that, way beyond your blue horizon, you see the biggest mountains you've ever seen, and you think, I can't do that. Well, I hope you always have somebody who tells you that you can. Like I'm telling you now."

- Windy Ariestanty

“Standing Up When It’s Too Late”

“Standing Up When It’s Too Late”

By JR Nyquist

“This article is a comparison between America and another great empire faced with rot in high office and a decline of the state – Rome. The writer, JR Nyquist, artfully points out it’s not the big events that sink an empire but many seemingly little ones. You could call what is happening to the U.S. “death by a thousand cuts.” Except in this story, people are not really aware how deep the cuts are and exactly who is doing the cutting. I loved this piece, and I hope you do as well.” – Greg Hunter

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“There is a letter by Marcus Tullius Cicero, dated 18 December 50 B.C. This letter was written to his friend Atticus on the eve of the Roman Civil War. He wrote as follows: “The political situation alarms me deeply, and so far I have found scarcely anybody who is not for giving Caesar what he demands rather than fighting it out.” To explain the situation in brief, G. Julius Caesar had demanded the right to circumvent the Roman constitution, to break laws with impunity, to extend his command over a large army by using that army to threaten the Senate of Rome. “And why should we start standing up to him now?” asked Cicero. The next day he wrote to Atticus: “We should have stood up to him [Caesar] when he was weak, and that would have been easy. Now we have to deal with eleven legions…” Though he hated the idea of civil war, the only course, said Cicero, was to follow “the honest men or whoever may be called such, even if they plunge.”

And who were these “honest men”? “I don’t know of any,” wrote Cicero in the same letter. “There are honest individuals, but there are no honest groups.” Then he asked rhetorically if the Senate was honest, or the tax farmers, or the capitalists. None were frightened of living under an autocracy, he lamented. The capitalists, especially, “never have objected to that, so long as they were left in peace.” But civil war occurred nonetheless, because people are not free to be dishonest forever. They must admit to certain responsibilities, and oppose the advance of evil. The previous inclination to look away, to do nothing, to shrug off responsibility, proves in the end to be no more than a delaying tactic. They attempted to put off calamity, Cicero suggested, and made it all the more calamitous. That is all.

Why did the Roman Senate suddenly stand up to Caesar? What triggered their resistance? As with all free people, they began with policies of procrastination and appeasement. They hoped that the problem (i.e., Caesar) would go away. In the end, however, they discovered their mistake. Everyone still hoped for peace, though none believed it was possible. Everyone wanted to avoid war, but nobody saw a way out. Pompey stood before the Senate and gave voice to what everyone thought. “If we give Caesar the consulship, it will mean the subversion of the constitution.” In other words, it would mean the end of Rome, the end of the republic, the destruction of their country.

In a fitting preface to John Dickinson’s “Death of a Republic,” George L. Haskins wrote, “that the history of Rome is the history of the world, that, as all roads lead to Rome, so all history ends or begins with Rome.” Why do free people fall into complacency? Why are threats ignored until the eleventh hour?

“Surely,” wrote Cicero at the end of Caesar’s dictatorship, “our present sufferings are all too well deserved. For had we not allowed outrages to go unpunished on all sides, it would never have been possible for a single individual to seize tyrannical power.” Caesar’s cause was not right, but evil, Cicero explained. “Mere confiscations of the property of individual citizens were far from enough to satisfy him. Whole provinces and countries succumbed to his onslaught, in one comprehensive universal catastrophe…” As for the city of Rome, Cicero lamented, “nothing is left - only the lifeless walls of houses. And even they look afraid that some further terrifying attack may be imminent. The real Rome is gone forever.”

Republics are slow to defend themselves against enemies that advance, like Caesar, under camouflage. But make no mistake, republics always defend. Groups and categories of men may not be honest or brave, but when they are finally confronted with the truth – as individuals – they see no other course. They stand up and fight. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Caesar was struck down in the Senate and killed by thrusting daggers.

It is all too true, of course. “We should have stood up to him when he was weak,” Cicero lamented. The problem with republican government is its tardiness; or rather, tardiness in the face of danger. As Machiavelli wrote, “The institutions normally used by republics are slow in functioning. No assembly or magistrate can do everything alone. In many cases, they have to consult with one another, and to reconcile their diverse views takes time. Where there is a question of remedying a situation that will not brook delay, such a procedure is dangerous.”

Machiavelli concluded, therefore, “that republics in imminent danger, having no recourse to dictatorship, will always be ruined when some grave misfortune befalls them.” This is the weakness of republican government. Here is the ground on which it dies. An obvious threat, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor is not the greatest danger. It is the subtle, camouflaged threat, that creeps up from behind. It is this camouflage that gives reluctant men a way out. “We need not fight. We need not make a fuss. There is nothing to fear.”

When this is the prevailing view, people who understand a given threat may ask: “What is to be done?” As long as we are isolated individuals, there is nothing to do. The individual may be honest with himself, but groups are not honest. What prevails overall is an optimistic dismissal. “The threat isn’t real.” This is how Hitler got so far. This is how Communism took over so many countries, and continues today under camouflage. There is nothing the individual can do that will sway the crowd. And as we are a republic, our political system operates according to the psychology of a crowd. The majority are caught up in the fads and media trends of the moment. Cynical and empty publicity characterizes much of our public discourse. But one day the country will awaken. Then, and only then, Americans will stop going along as if nothing serious hangs over them. Will it be too late? Perhaps it will be too late to save the republic. But it will not be too late to save the country.”

- http://usawatchdog.com/

"This Is A Choice..."

“To desire and strive to be of some service to the world,

to aim at doing something which shall really increase the

happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind -

this is a choice which is possible for all of us; 

and surely it is a good haven to sail for.”

- Henry Van Dyke

"Let the Games Begin!"

"Let the Games Begin!"

By Bill Bonner

WEST RIVER, MARYLAND – "Today, we turn away from Washington and look to Wall Street for our usual dose of claptrap. And yesterday… in what must be some kind of Bubble Climax… the price of a video game company purveyor, GameStop, traded as high as $370… and then up above $500 in this morning’s pre-market. That’s almost 80 times higher than its price this time last year… and more than 26 times higher than it was at the start of this year.

Every oldtimer on Wall Street knows that you’re supposed to buy low and sell high. But this is no “oldtimers’” market. This is a casino, where gamblers bet against each other… all with chips furnished by the Federal Reserve. What played out in the stock market yesterday was a high-stakes poker game between those betting that GameStop shares would go down – mainly a couple of hedge funds – and those betting that they could force the share price up.

Fake and Foolish: But perhaps readers are in need of some context… as we were. On the banks of the East River, as well as on the banks of the Potomac, almost everything is now fake and foolish. There is no star to steer by… no fixed point of reference… no magnetic North. Fake money has screwed up everything – markets as well as politics.

U.S. stock markets fell yesterday – not enough to make any difference… but enough to make the headlines. MarketWatch has the news: "U.S. stocks book worst daily losses since October as Powell stresses long road to recovery and short squeeze drama plays out.

Stocks closed sharply lower Wednesday, leaving the Dow and S&P 500 index negative for 2021, on mixed earnings reports and after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell underscored the long road to economic recovery ahead, following the central bank’s first policy meeting of 2021. The Dow Jones Industrial Average skid 633.87 points, or 2.1%, to close at 30,303.17, posting its longest losing streak since Friday, February 28, 2020 when the market fell for seven straight trading days."

Gone Bananas: Dear Readers wisely pay little mind to what is happening on Wall Street. The Street has gone bananas. It’s supposed to discover what stocks are worth. Millions of careful investors with sharp pencils and sharper minds are supposed to tote up expected earnings and discount them to “present value,” based on their calculations of risk and interest rates.

But both pencils and minds have gone dull. By almost every measure you choose – comparing share prices to earnings, sales, book value, GDP, clicks, electricity consumption, the nap on wooly caterpillars… you name it – stocks are overpriced. It’s not hard to see why. Interest rates are phony. And at negative real yields (adjusted for price inflation), any stream of earnings is an Amazon of liquidity and value. So young traders can think anything they want. And tuning into chat rooms such as WallStreetBets, they can make a sport of it.

Like a Rocket: In the case at hand, a pair of hedge funds saw that GameStop was overbought. Headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, it had respectable sales of $5.2 billion in its last full financial year, ending October 31, 2020. But it lost $275 million during that period. A company that loses $275 million per year is not a moneymaker; it’s a money destroyer.

And yet, at its peak, the company was priced as if it had discovered the Holy Grail. Or developed an eternal youth drug. Or inked a contract to sell Donald Trump’s new autobiography, “How I Made America Great Again. LOL!” Of course, it had not. And that’s the point, as Bloomberg’s Matt Levine pointed out. You don’t need to do all that math and research anymore. You just buy a company with a rocket emoji next to its name. The rocket 🚀 is all you need. (The insiders must be selling stocks like crooks unloading stolen money from the getaway car.)

Earlier this year, the hedge funds sold the shares of GameStop short. That is, they sold shares in the company that they didn’t own… betting that the stock would be a lot cheaper when they had to cover their bets. This may be a rocket, they said to themselves, but it is soon going to explode in mid-air and fall to the ground.

YOLO: On the other side were the proto-momo (momentum) players. Every market has its buyers and sellers, its winners and losers. And it’s the momo guys who are setting the pace in this one. The spirit of it was further revealed in a comic video making its way around the World Wide Web. In it, The Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix, explains to his interviewer host, played by Robert De Niro, that the baby boomers have essentially destroyed the economy.

Millennials have no chance, says The Joker, of ever enjoying the financial success of their parents and grandparents. They might as well take their pittance – from unemployment or stimmy checks – and roll the dice.

In the case of GameStop, the momo delinquents (the “longs”) expected to cash in on the new name recognition and dumb luck. After all, everything goes up, doesn’t it? And there was so much “short interest” on the other side, they saw an opportunity to squeeze the shorts, adding to the excitement, the drama, and the profits. If the longs could bid up the price, the shorts would be forced to “cover” – buy the shares at a higher price… and thus push the price even higher.

As it turned out, they pushed up the price so high – with the help of “short covering” – that the hedge funds had to retire from the field, leaving their horses dead on the field – with 100% losses. Between them, buyers and sellers, GameStop was the most traded stock in the world this week. And it’s all good, pointless fun. YOLO. (You only live once)."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

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Related:

"Investors Launch Class Action Against Robinhood,  AOC Blasts Market Manipulation" "THIS IS A F**KING CRIME!!!"

JAN 28, AT 9:17 AM: "Gamestop Shares Are Collapsing, Pelosi Says 'Will Be Reviewing Issue'" "Raising margins, restricting access, blocking position-building, and widespread condemnation appears to have done the trick... for now."

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 1/28/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 1/28/21"

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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

Your guide:

Gregory Mannarino, AM 1/28/21:

"Twisted! The Economic FREE-FALL Worsens, 

And This Is Bullish For Stocks"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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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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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

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

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

Jan 28th, Updated Daily 

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

"How It Really Is"

"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"

"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"

by Ryan Holiday

"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.

The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.

Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”

As they say, life comes at you fast. Have the last 12 months not been an example of that? In December of 2019, the Dow was at 28,701.66. Things were good enough that people were complaining about the “war on Christmas” and debating the skin color of Santa Claus. In January, the Dow was at 29,348.10 and people were outraged about the recent Oscar nominations. In February 2020, when the Dow reached a staggering 29,568.57, Delta Airlines stock fell nearly 25% in less than a week, as people argued intensely over a message from Delta’s CEO about passengers reclining their seats. Even in early March, there were news stories about Wendy’s entering the “breakfast wars” and a free stock-trading app outage that caused people to miss a big market rally.

And that was just in the news. Think about what you busied yourself with at home during that same period. Maybe you and your wife were looking at plans to remodel your kitchen. Maybe you were finally going to pull the trigger on that Tesla Model S for yourself - the $150,000 one, with the ludicrous speed package. Maybe you were fuming that Amazon took an extra day to deliver a package. Maybe you were frustrated that your kid’s room was a mess.

And now? How quaint and stupid does that all seem? As of January 27, 2021 77 million people have been added to the unemployment rolls in the US. The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 100,579,200 people, according to official counts, including 25,564,952 Americans. Globally at least 2,165,600 have died. There have been runs on supplies. Hospitals are maxing out ventilators. The global economy has essentially ground to a halt.

Life comes at us fast, don’t it? It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility-even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.

And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.

One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.

What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.

In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.

Second, we should always be careful not to tempt fate. In 2016 General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, he was swept into office in a whirlwind of success and power. Then, just 24 days into his new job, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice President about conversations he’d had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He would be brought up on charges and convicted of lying to the FBI, and eventually pardoned by President Trump.

Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.

Third, we have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”

Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.

When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.

This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.

Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out.

- https://ryanholiday.net/

"If Only..."

“How do the geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us; there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it, that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown.”

- Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

"Be Ready For Retail Apocalypse, Massive Store Closures And Bankruptcies In 2021"

Epic Economist,

"Be Ready For Retail Apocalypse, 

Massive Store Closures And Bankruptcies In 2021"

"The Coming Revolt of the Middle Class"

"The Coming Revolt of the Middle Class"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"The Great American Middle Class has stood meekly by while the New Nobility strip-mined $50 trillion from the middle and working classes. As this RAND report documents, $50 trillion has been siphoned from labor and the lower 90% of the workforce to the New Nobility and their technocrat lackeys who own the vast majority of the capital: "Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018."

Why has the Great American Middle Class meekly accepted their new role as debt-serfs and powerless peasants in a Neofeudal Economy ruled by the New Nobility of Big Tech/ monopolies/cartels /financiers? The basic answer is the New Nobility's PR has been so persuasive and ubiquitous: soaring inequality and Neofeudalism has nothing to do with us, it's just the natural result of technology and globalization - forces nobody can resist. Sorry about your debt-serfdom, but hey, your student loan payment is overdue, so it's the rack for you.

The recent Foreign Affairs article referenced here last week "Monopoly Versus Democracy"(paywalled) describes the net result of the economic propaganda that the strip-mining of the working and middle classes was ordained and irresistible: Today, Americans tend to see grotesque accumulations of wealth and power as normal. That's how far we've fallen:

"As the journalist Barry Lynn points out in his book "Liberty from All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People," the robber barons shared with today's high-tech monopolists a strategy of encouraging people to see immense inequality as a tragic but unavoidable consequence of capitalism and technological change. But as Lynn shows, one of the main differences between then and now is that, compared to today, fewer Americans accepted such rationalizations during the Gilded Age. Today, Americans tend to see grotesque accumulations of wealth and power as normal. Back then, a critical mass of Americans refused to do so, and they waged a decades-long fight for a fair and democratic society." (emphasis added)

The bottom 90% of the U.S. economy has been decapitalized: debt has been substituted for capital. Capital only flows into the increasingly centralized top tier, which owns and profits from the rising tide of debt that's been keeping the bottom 90% afloat for the past 20 years.

As I've often observed here, globalization and financialization have richly rewarded the top 0.1% and the top 5% technocrat class that serves the New Nobility's interests. Everyone else has been been reduced to debt-serfs and peasants who now rely on lotteries and luck to get ahead: playing the stock market casino or hoping their mortgaged house in an urban sprawl on the Left or Right coasts doubles in value, even as the entire value proposition for living in a congested urban sprawl vanishes.

America has no plan to reverse this destructive tide of Neofeudal Pillage. Our leadership's "plan" is benign neglect: just send a monthly stipend of bread and circuses (the technocrat term is Universal Basic Income UBI) to all the disempowered, decapitalized households, urban and rural, so they can stay out of trouble and not bother the New Nobility's pillaging of America and the planet.

There's a lot of bright and shiny PR about rebuilding infrastructure and the Green New Deal, but our first question must always be: cui bono, to whose benefit? How much of the spending will actually be devoted to changing the rising imbalances between the haves and the have-nots, the ever-richer who profit from rising debt and the ever more decapitalized debt-serfs who are further impoverished by rising debt?

As I explain in my book "A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet", people don't want to just get by on UBI, they want an opportunity to acquire capital in all its forms, an opportunity to contribute to their communities, to make a difference, to earn respect and pride.

That our "leadership" reckons bread and circuses is what the strip-mined bottom 90% want is beyond pathetic. The middle class has meekly accepted the self-serving claim of the New Nobility that the $50 trillion transfer of wealth was inevitable and beyond human intervention. But once the stock market and housing casinos collapse, the last bridge to getting ahead-high -risk gambling - will fall into the abyss, and the middle class will have to face their servitude and powerlessness.

That's how Neofeudal systems collapse: the tax donkeys and debt-serfs finally revolt and start demanding the $50 trillion river of capital take a new course."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Is This It? BIG STOCK MARKET CRASH?"

Gregory Mannarino,

"Is This It? BIG STOCK MARKET CRASH?"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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Related:

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 1/27/21"

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), 

"Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"This shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Moving toward to bottom of this beautifully detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its narrow appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula. 

About 5 light-years long and a mere 800 light-years away, the Pencil Nebula is only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter and is the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar gas."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120924.html

"Focus on the Good: Raise Your Vibration"

"Focus on the Good: Raise Your Vibration"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOm

"There are many ways to raise your vibration including thinking positive and uplifting thoughts. Everything in the universe is made of energy. What differentiates one form of energy from another is the speed at which it vibrates. For example, light vibrates at a very high frequency, and something like a rock vibrates at a lower frequency but a frequency nonetheless. Human beings also vibrate at different frequencies. Our thoughts and feelings can determine the frequency at which we vibrate, and our vibration goes out into the world and attracts to us energy moving at a similar frequency. This is one of the ways that we create our own reality, which is why we can cause a positive shift in our lives by raising our vibration.

We all know someone we think of as vibrant. Vibrant literally means “vibrating very rapidly.” The people who strike us as vibrant are vibrating at a high frequency, and they can inspire us as we work to raise our vibration. On the other hand, we all know people that are very negative or cynical. These people are vibrating at a lower frequency. They can also be an inspiration because they can show us where we don’t want to be vibrating and why. To discover where you are in terms of vibrancy, consider where you fall on a scale between the most pessimistic person you know and the most vibrant. This is not in order to pass judgment, but rather it is important to know where you are as you begin working to raise your frequency so that you can notice and appreciate your progress.

There are many ways to raise your vibration, from working with affirmations to visualizing enlightened entities during meditation. One of the most practical ways to raise your vibration is to consciously choose where you focus your attention. To understand how powerful this is, take five minutes to describe something you love unreservedly—a person, a movie, an experience. When your five minutes are up, you will noticeably feel more positive and even lighter. If you want to keep raising your vibration, you might want to commit to spending five minutes every day focusing on the good in your life. As you do this, you will train yourself to be more awake and alive. Over time, you will experience a permanent shift in your vibrancy."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

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Greenred Productions: "Happiness Frequency"

"Happiness frequency music with binaural beats alpha waves. 

Alpha waves will help to release serotonin, 

dopamine and endorphins during your relaxation session."

"In Ordinary Times..."

"In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its way into our minds, there are plenty of things we can do to drive the intruder away. We can get the car out or go to a party or to the cinema or read a detective story or have a row with a district council or write a letter to the papers about the habits of the nightjar or Shakespeare's use of nautical metaphor. Thus we build up a defense mechanism against self-questioning because, to tell the truth, we are very much afraid of ourselves."

- Dorothy L. Sayers

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"The world is a comedy to those that think,

 a tragedy to those who feel. " 

- Horace Walpole, In a Letter, 1770