2002, "We Meet Again"
Incredibly beautiful, full screen, please.
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, January 30, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known.
The galaxy's protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872's spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).”
The Universe
“Believe me, I know all about it. I know the stress. I know the frustration. I know the temptations of time and space. We worked this out ahead of time. They're part of the plan. We knew this stuff might happen. Actually, you insisted they be triggered whenever you were ready to begin thinking thoughts you've never thought before. New thinking is always the answer.”
“Good on you,”
The Universe
“Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!”
Chet Raymo, “The (Unattainable) Thing Itself”
“The (Unattainable) Thing Itself”
by Chet Raymo
“Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
Pink and white carnations. The light
In the room more like a snowy air,
Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
At the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations- one desires
So much more than that. The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
With nothing more than the carnations there.”
"Simplicity. Morning. Forty minutes till sunrise. Coffee. An English muffin. Sit on the terrace. The sky a deep violet. Then rose. Then gold. Simplicity. The senses fill to overbrimming, displacing thought. The moment is sweet and pure. Distilled. The shackles of conscience fall away. One simply is.
“Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.”
Now I wait with my eyes fixed on that place along the horizon where the Sun will rise. The sky itself holds its breath, anticipates the flash of green. I try, I try to empty myself, Zenlike, to become an empty vessel for nature to fill. A gathering vessel, brilliant edged. To exist entirely in the moment, outside of time, this moment, just now, now, as the disk of the Sun bubbles up on the sea horizon, that orb of of molten gold.
“There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.”
It's no use, of course. No way to obviate the conscious mind. Perhaps a Zen master might do it, a mystic in transport, a drunken sailor who walks into a lamppost. Even as the Sun's disk inflates, swells, unaccountably huge, the mind parses, frames, construes. I close my eyes to shut out thought and the words fill up the space behind my eyelids. The thing itself is out of reach, the moment adulterated by mind. The blessing of consciousness. And the curse."
(The three stanzas are Wallace Stevens' "The Poems of Our Climate.")
"Above All..."
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. "
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"
The Poet: Mary Oliver, “October”
“October”
"There’s this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.
What does the world
mean to you if you can’t trust it
to go on shining when you’re
not there? and there’s
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.
I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the
green pine tree:
little dazzler
little song,
little mouthful.
The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It
grunts into view. There is no measure
for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes-
there is no telling
the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns
and yawns.
Near the fallen tree
something- a leaf snapped loose
from the branch and fluttering down- tries to pull me
into its trap of attention.
It pulls me
into its trap of attention,
And when I turn again, the bear is gone.
Look, hasn’t my body already felt
like the body of a flower?
Look, I want to love this world
as thought it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.
Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink
from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;
I won’t whisper my own name.
One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn’t see me- and I thought:
so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful."
- Mary Oliver
"The Motive..."
"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."
- Blaise Pascal
"Is The Reddit Rebellion About To Descend On The Precious Metals Market?"
"Is The Reddit Rebellion About To Descend
On The Precious Metals Market?"
by Epic Economist
"Redditors seem to be at war against Wall Street traders. Analysts are pointing out that the young tech-savvy traders have just started a generational conflict that will likely spread across the globe, as European stock markets are already experiencing unusual fluctuations and, apparently, GameStop stocks were just the beginning. According to market watchers, the Reddit rebellion is about to descend on the precious metal markets, which could undoubtedly disrupt one of the most speculative markets of all and crush investors' gains while destroying some of the U.S. major banks. That's what we're going to investigate in this video.
When the Reddit investors embarked on a stock-buying frenzy, leading demand to the roof and, consequently, pushing the price of stocks up, hedge fund investors were left in a really tight spot. Although numerous big Wall Street investors are rushing back to the market to limit their losses, the damages caused already led to the bankruptcy of Melvin Capital Management, which allegedly had to be bailed out with more than $ 2 billion to cover losses on some shares, including those of Gamestop.
For many online investors, it's not just about making money. They want blood. According to market analyst Neil Wilson, by reading the group's conversations on Reddit, it is clear that the battle of the Reddit traders with Wall Street is clearly personal. "It is a generational, redistributive battle. It is about stealing from the rich to give to the 'poor'," says Wilson.
Recent publications have been arguing that the Reddit Rebellion is migrating to one of the most manipulated markets of all: the precious metals market. Considering precious metals ETFs and mining stocks suddenly went up yesterday, the predictions appear to be accurate. A recent ZeroHedge article has exposed what one of the WallStreetBets users posted on the message board a couple of days ago.
The message reads: "Silver Bullion Market is one of the most manipulated on earth. Any short squeeze in silver paper shorts would be epic. We know billion banks are manipulating gold and silver to cover real inflation. Both the industrial case and monetary case, debt printing has never been more favorable for the No. 1 inflation hedge Silver. Inflation-adjusted Silver should be at 1000$ instead of 25$. Why not squeeze $SLV to real physical price. Think about the gains. If you don't care about the gains, think about the banks like JP Morgan you'd be destroying along the way."
ZeroHedge has also posted some charts showing that Silver is already spiking, and Gold is on an upward path too. But Argentum is the one that is going through the sharpest rise, which means that that the hedge fund investors' nightmare is far from being over. Meanwhile, a heated debate over the legitimacy of the Reddit Rebellion is taking over the mainstream media as well as social media as both the RobinHood platform and Reddit limited the actions of the group.
WallStreetBet’s discord was shut down allegedly for “hate speech”, and Robinhood has suspended new long positions in Gamestop, AMC and a few other junk stocks hedge funds were shorting. But many have been calling out the hypocrisy of the measures. Economy scholar Tom Woods noted that if the average American suffers a loss, that’s a darn shame. But if big players suffer a loss, everything is shut down.
Overall, this whole narrative is indicative of how the financial system is rigged. When profits stayed inside the accounts of wealthy traders, no one complained about the fact they were betting and profiting on the decay of our businesses, but when a bunch of young rebels dare to question this manipulation, they're practically seen as criminals. The system is structured so that the public always loses, and the Establishment always wins, even if they have to change the rules or endlessly move the goalposts to do so.
But one of the things WallStreetBets has done that might spark a change of winds inside the markets was exposing how investors' insanity and manic euphoria are completely unsustainable no matter on what side they are on. In a time when the U.S. economy keeps crumbling every day it passes, unemployment rates continue to climb, and 24 million Americans told Census Bureau interviewers that they’re having trouble getting enough to eat, keeping all eyes on a market play is clearly deviating the attention from our real problems. And we can't afford to do that."
"All There Is..."
"Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening."
"Angel", 2001
"Huxley vs. Orwell"
"Huxley vs. Orwell"
by Neil Postman
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one...
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism...
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance...
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy...
As Huxley remarked in 'Brave New World Revisited', the civil libertarians and the rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In '1984,' Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World,' they are controlled by inflicting pleasure...In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
Huxley was quite obviously correct...
"The Web Gallery of Art"
"The Web Gallery of Art"
"The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 50,500 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.
․
The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors' need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.
The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.
We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home."
"Never More Frightening...:
"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than
when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
~ Laurens van der Post
"Two Shocking Headlines That Sum Up Covid: Billionaires MADE $3.9 Trillion During The Pandemic, While Workers LOST $3.7 Trillion"
"Two Shocking Headlines That Sum Up Covid: Billionaires MADE $3.9
Trillion During The Pandemic, While Workers LOST $3.7 Trillion"
by Damian Wilson
"The economic impact of Covid-19 on regular folk across the globe is as devastating as the physical toll it has taken, but we can’t just blame the super rich(er) for our woes – the true villains are much closer to home.
In a simple comparison, two headlines seem to say it all about the economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis: the first, from Business Insider, reads “Billionaires made $3.9 trillion during the pandemic” while the second, from The Guardian, shouts “Covid-19 has cost global workers $3.7 trillion in lost earnings.”
A classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, it would appear at first glance but of course, the world doesn’t work that way and the two ideas behind the headlines are not directly related, no matter what your bicycle-riding, woolly-sweater wearing, craft-beer-quaffing socialist pals might say.
But that doesn’t make the news any easier to swallow. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the world’s billionaires, and maybe one day soon I won’t have to. They seem intent on moving to Mars in their big rockets where their whacked-out ideas and dreams of a super-race can become a problem for the little green men to deal with.
However, their surging wealth has become a headline writer’s dream. Added to those already cited, the BBC trumpets that the increase in wealth of the 10 richest men in the world during the pandemic would cover the cost of vaccinating every single person on the planet. It’s not fair! It’s just not fair!
But it is no use bleating about this. It’s our fault. Stuck at home while riding out this damned virus, we’ve been online around the clock, buying stuff we don’t need to have it delivered by Amazon, streaming hours and hours of online entertainment, addictively watching Tiktok and furiously messaging on social media, all activities that are unwittingly causing a boom in stock prices for all those global tech giants and their oddball owners – people like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Bill Gates.
Not everyone is cashing in our boredom. Nope, there are serial investors out there who pre-pandemic already suffered from the condition of having way too much money at their disposal. People who share the outlook of 19th century American robber baron, John D. Rockefeller who admitted, “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” Men like Warren Buffet, the so-called Sage of Omaha, who has made more than $20 billion since last March. Unfortunately, his good fortune comes not by selling anything the rest of the world can use – like free care homes for the elderly and vulnerable or a reliable Covid-19 vaccine that everyone clamors to buy – it’s through smart investment of his existing billions.
All this would be easy to shrug off – oh well, that’s just the way it is – if it wasn’t for the incredible tsunami-like impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on our national economies and our everyday lives that can be seen with a cursory glance at the graphs and tables that chart such effects.
While we each come to terms with our own new normal, the collective overview is alarming. Every major economy is struggling with rising unemployment. Up 11 percent in Italy in 2020 compared with 2019. Nearly nine percent in the US and France. Some 5.4 per cent in the UK and 4.3 in the European powerhouse, Germany.
Across the globe, shoppers have vanished with retail footfall down 97 percent in Germany, 78 percent in the UK, 65 percent in France and Canada, and 20 percent in the USA, the biggest economy on the planet.
Global tourism has been crushed, with 2020 a total washout for everywhere from Thailand to Brazil to Italy and France. The airline industry? Devastated. This means millions of jobs lost, many of which may never return.
There is no need to go on. Unless you’re a billionaire, let’s face it, the figures suck. You can believe that as a result of the collapse in our economies, and the jobs that have followed down that big black hole, lost earnings from workers could quite easily total that estimated $3.7 trillion figure. You’d have to bet it will be even higher once the various government-backed furlough schemes and income support grants inevitably come to an end in countries like the UK.
It would be fun to paint the world’s billionaires as evil puppet masters bent on global domination and the development of a Mars-bound master race, sucking up the wages of the world’s workers so they can buy more rocket fuel and mansions built into mountains, but sadly the reality is far more prosaic.
All governments were caught criminally flat-footed by this pandemic and everyone has subsequently paid a terrible price. Years of complacency, cuts to public health budgets and dismissive approaches to warnings of a global pandemic are what got us where we are. The shambolic handling of the Covid-19 crisis cannot be blamed on crooked billionaires scheming away in their secret island hideaways, but can be laid at the feet of the very politicians that we ourselves elected, operating in plain sight. It is essential that we remember this the next time these true villains want something from us – like votes – or we risk this all happening again."
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Friday, January 29, 2021
Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "Warm Light"
Peder B. Helland, "Warm Light"
Please savor this exquisite work in full screen.
Must Watch! “Stock Market Is Rigged; Robinhood Selling Out Customers; Market Collapse Coming 2021 To Get Worse”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Stock Market Is Rigged; Robinhood Selling Out Customers;
Market Collapse Coming 2021 To Get Worse”
"Hedge Fund Managers Need To Go to Jail"
Tucker Carlson,
"Hedge Fund Managers Need To Go to Jail"
"Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy joins Tucker Carlson to discuss exactly what is happening between GameStop investors and the popular app Robinhood."
"David Beats Goliath"
"David Beats Goliath"
by Brian Maher
"We sense we are among unrealities... Joe Biden is president of the United States, Donald Trump was president of the United States… The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is famous… Washington and Lincoln are infamous... And a fifth-rate stock that trades for $17 on January 4 trades for $469 on January 28.
In what world could it come to pass? Surely the clocks run backward. Ice is aflame. The sun dawns in the west and dusks in the east. GameStop is a “brick-and-mortar” retailer of video games and related merchandise. Like many retailers, it confronts savage competition from digital rivals. Its business model is obsolete. Why visit the store when you can simply download your entertainment? The company is losing money. Yet its stock has gone skyshooting over 1,600% this month. Its chief executive officer is presently worth $1 billion… though he captains a sinking vessel.
You are likely aware of the mania at this point. Flush hedge funds had “shorted” GameStop stock, expecting to profit when its price dropped. But a collection of some five million day traders on a Reddit forum - WallStreetBets by name - tossed a spanner in the works. Most own accounts with small balances… generally under $5,000. They are, in the parlance of the trade, “newbies.” These saboteurs piled into GameStop stock in astounding volume. This mass purchasing sent the stock price galloping higher.
The short-selling hedge funds began hemorrhaging sweat. The higher the price jumped, the more money they would lose. We will not descend into the witchcraft of options trading. It can be complicated. And we are versed only in its merest rudiments. But this you must understand: When you short a stock, you must borrow it from a broker. You then sell it upon the open market. To exit your position at a later date, you must repurchase the stock… and return it to the broker.
If the stock declines - as you had planned - you reap a profit. If the stock increases, you endure a loss. The higher the stock price, the more money you lose. You, therefore, prefer an early exit. You would rather lose some than lose much. But recall, you must repurchase the stock to exit your position. If many short-sellers purchase the stock, it pushes the stock higher still. Other short-sellers then capitulate… and exit their position… meaning they purchase more shares… pushing prices higher yet.
Now come back to GameStop… The small fry traders of WallStreetBets gobbled loads of GameStop stock. That, of course, placed upward pressure upon the price. The flummoxed hedge funds began exiting their short positions to avoid further losses. That is, they were forced to purchase GameStop stock.
Thus the stock price increased. The billiard balls were set in dizzying motion… more short-sellers being “squeezed” from their positions… the more stock they were forced to purchase… the higher the stock price. Before you know what has struck you, GameStop stock streaked from $17 to $469 within one month.
Impossible - but there you are. Thus the day trading minnows harpoon the mighty hedge fund whales. GameStop trades today at $323, not $469. It is plenty handsome nonetheless. WallStreetBets members reaped windfall fortunes. Many are now in clover… at least until they squander it all chasing the next rainbow. In all, they squeezed $20 billion from the short-sellers this month.
And so the gold rush is on… Some two million new members stampeded into WallStreetBets yesterday alone. Each seeks his fortune in the new wild west. Go long shorted stocks, young man.” Most will come to grief of course… prospectors plumbing dry river beds. Here you have the bubble psychology in all its fevered delirium, all its dizziness. How much longer it can rage we do not know.
Richard Fisher - former president of the Dallas Federal Reserve - is gravely concerned: "I think we've had a bubble for some time. This is just icing on the cake. When things get out of control like this, it is a sign that you should be very worried."
They have seen the rich get extremely rich by taking advantage of cheap money - and they want to get their piece as well. This is a sign that we are getting a blow-off top. What you're doing is throwing money out there - and hoping to find an idea. It's another indicator that money is too cheap.
But why, Mr. Fisher, is money too cheap? Perhaps because your former institution has pummeled it to nothing? A drug peddler gives away his narcotics in order to hook customers. It is the first intoxication for many. He hooks them. Before long they are addicted, bankrupted and ruined. He then scolds them for accepting his offer. Now you have the flavor of it. For now, the dealer still pushes his drugs… and many of his addicts are heading for the gutter…"
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