Jeremiah Babe,
"System Is Collapsing - Get Out; Market Meltup;
Time Is A Valuable Asset; Don’t Prepare, Watch Oprah"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, March 8, 2021
"The American Rescue Plan"
"The American Rescue Plan"
by Brian Maher
"Today the sun glows brighter...The air is crisper, the grass grows greener, the birds chirp louder. There is more joy in heaven…For rescue is at hand.
On Saturday, the United States Senate passed Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion “stimulus” package - the American Rescue Plan by title. Tomorrow it ships to the House of Representatives… where passage is certain… then on to America’s rescue. Individuals collaring under $75,000 per year will receive $1,400 giveaways. Married couples collaring under $150,000 will receive the identical $1,400. But should you think the rescuing is limited to pandemic relief… please have another guess.
What About the Other $1.45 Trillion? “The government” would spend roughly $435 billion to slip a $1,400 cheque in every American wallet. Yet the American Rescue Plan does not spend $435 billion. The American Rescue Plan spends $1.9 trillion. The Washington Post informs us this legislation “showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty...”Why previous administrations did not sharply cut poverty by showering money on Americans… we do not pretend to know. But President Biden insists we must “act big.” Act big we will.
What extravaganzas account for the remaining $1.45 trillion of America’s rescue plan? Jim Rickards: "COVID relief sounds like something that's badly needed and most Americans support it. But, that's not what this bill is. Only about $200 billion of the $1.9 trillion goes directly for COVID-type assistance in terms of public health, vaccine distribution, testing and aid to hospitals and other public health facilities. The rest goes for a wish list of Democratic welfare spending.
Which includes: An extra $300 per week in unemployment benefits (that's $15,000 per year on top of usual benefits), a tax exemption for the first $10,200 in unemployment benefits (which increases their value by 24%)... a $3,600 fully refundable tax credit for children under 6-years old and $3,000 per child if they're under 17, up to $8,000 in child-care tax credits, Obamacare subsidies, converting the earned income tax credit into a pure tax credit whether you have income or not and much more."
Towards Guaranteed Basic Income and an Expanded Entitlement State: Have you no compassion, Jim? One can debate the equities of each of these policies. But, they have nothing to do with COVID or public health. This is a huge leap in the direction of guaranteed basic income and an expanded entitlement state. Jim’s suspicions are our suspicions.
A fellow grows accustomed to his government cheques. He bellyaches mightily if he stops receiving them. And he registers his distress in the voting booth. Vox correspondent Dylan Matthews: "Cash’s bipartisan popularity, and its ability to muster large-scale public interest and support, suggests that the future might involve a lot more policies like checks — even when the pandemic has passed. Covid-19, in other words, may have done what years of basic income advocacy could not do on its own..."
What politician is unwilling to reach into a man’s left pocket… seize his cash... and sink it into the right pocket? The poor fellow fails to notice the transfer.
40% of the Entire Budget From Two Years Ago: The federal government ladled out $4.4 trillion in 2019. The American Rescue package costs a walloping 40% of that total. And the year is youthful. Trillions in additional spending will come hemorrhaging by year’s end. Jim: "With the ink not yet dry on the new spending, congressional leaders are already planning a new multi-trillion dollar deficit spending package to be passed later this year, probably by August... The details are still being debated, but some suggestions include a $4 trillion spending package paid for with $2 trillion of tax increases and $2 trillion of new deficits financed with borrowings."
Is additional narcotic the cure for a narcotics addiction? Does a man trim his waistline by doubling, tripling - quadrupling - his calories? Does the same man attain wealth by purchasing $5 of goods for each $1 he hauls in? We find very little evidence that he would… and much evidence that he would not. Nor are we convinced that the government - millions of men chained together - is different. Yet our position is the uneducated position, say the spenders.
Debt Is Wealth: The government runs by an alternate accounting, they insist. Government accounting is not the accounting of the household. The household must balance its books. The federal government does not. Each borrowed dollar the printing press spits settles in somebody’s hand, a private hand. The fellow who catches it throws it at this gewgaw or that gimcrack. The gewgaw peddler or gimcrack peddler proceeds to throw it at the restaurateur… who throws it at the automobile salesman. On this dollar goes into the next hand and the next hand after that one.
And so this borrowed dollar takes a fantastic journey through the economic highways, through the economic byways. It enriches every hand it touches. It performs heroic duties. Thus the public debt is a private blessing. That is what the wiseacres tell us. This is what they often neglect to tell us: The borrowed dollar must be repaid - with a bit of interest into the bargain.
Stick ‘em Up! As we have argued and argued again: Government claims no resources of its own. It corrals money in one of two ways. Here is the first: It presses a pistol against the citizen’s ribs… and plunders his wallet. Here is the second: It takes to the credit markets, sinks to its knees, and extends an empty cup.
But even if the government borrows, the pistol goes against the ribs. Recall, the citizen must pay taxes to service the borrowing. And how - again - does the government take in taxes? In both instances, the pistol comes out… and the citizen puts his hands up. In days such as these, we might recall the timeless principles of economics…
The Light: Here is Henry Hazlitt from his masterly primer on economics, "Economics in One Lesson": Everywhere government spending is presented as a panacea for all our economic ills. Is private industry partially stagnant? We can fix it all by government spending. Is there unemployment? That is obviously due to “insufficient private purchasing power.” The remedy is just as obvious. All that is necessary is for the government to spend enough to make up the “deficiency”…
Here we shall have to say simply that all government expenditures must eventually be paid out of die proceeds of taxation; that to put off the evil day merely increases the problem… Once we look at the matter in this way, the supposed miracles of government spending will appear in another light."
But who will look into this light? Not Democrats… certainly. And Republicans only view the light when Democrats direct the show. When in the director’s seat, Republicans spend grandly, magnificently, lavishly. Their vision suddenly fails them. Our vision detects another light, presently hoving into view. It is the headlight of the steam locomotive barreling down the rails…
Runaway Train: The locomotive is the nation’s debt. It is careening for $30 trillion… $35 trillion… $45 trillion. Meantime, the economy is sweating and panting dreadfully. It is struggling to outrace the thing. This hulking menace adds speed with every additional dollar of debt... another shovelful of coal into the boilers. But the economy bleeds speed with every additional dollar of debt... creaking and groaning under the impossible weight... frantically piling up more and more debt… shedding more and more speed... The onrushing light grows brighter by the day. One question remains in our estimation - which we cannot yet answer: When is the inevitable crack-up?"
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Freely download "Economics in One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt, here:
Gregory Mannarino, Post-Market 3/8/21 "More Updates Plus! ALERT: Watch For Another BIGGER "Attack" On An Oil Facility"
Gregory Mannarino, Post-Market 3/8/21:
"More Updates Plus! ALERT:
Watch For Another BIGGER "Attack" On An Oil Facility"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission nebula, at the top of the image, atop a long stem of glowing hydrogen gas. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244.
These stars formed about four million years ago from the nebular material and their stellar winds are clearing a hole in the nebula's center, insulated by a layer of dust and hot gas. Ultraviolet light from the hot cluster stars causes the surrounding nebula to glow. The Rosette Nebula spans about 100 light-years across, lies about 5000 light-years away, and can be seen with a small telescope towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros)."
Chet Raymo, "Why We Need Poets"
"Why We Need Poets"
by Chet Raymo
"The poet Jane Hirshfield referred in a poem to the number of atoms it takes to make a butterfly. Ten to the 24th power, I think she said. I thought I'd check it out. A typical butterfly might weigh about half a gram. The exact ratio of elements I don't know, but mostly hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Let's assume an atomic weight of ten for a typical atom; that is, an atom with ten nuclear particles (Hydrogen=1, carbon= 12, oxygen=16, and so on). A proton or neutron has a weight of about 1.6 X 10-24 grams. About 3 X 1022 atoms in a butterfly.
If I'm remembering Hirshfield's reference correctly (and I may not be), we are off by one or two orders of magnitude. No matter. It's a very big number. You want to make a butterfly? You will need 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. And every one in exactly the right place.
Now consider the miracle of metamorphosis. The caterpillar builds a chrysalis. Wraps itself up in its closet. And there, in the privacy of its self-sufficiency, it rearranges those arrangements of atoms. The caterpillar's six stumpy front feet are turned into the butterfly's slender legs. Four wings develop, as do reproductive organs. Chewing mouthparts become adapted for sucking. A crawling, insatiable, leaf-eater is transformed into a winged, sex-obsessed nectar sipper.
This is why we need poets. It's one thing to count atoms, or draw diagrams of the 22 amino acids, or suss out their sequence on the long chains that are the proteins. Or read out the genome that controls the machinery that turns a creeping leaf-cruncher into a winged angel. But all that biochemistry, as wonderful as it is, leaves the essential mystery intact. The hum. The unceasing hum that is life. The inextinguishable continuity. Sing, poets. Sing your hosannas."
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Can You Imagine?"
"Can You Imagine?"
"For example, what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark of a summer's night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness, like that."
- Mary Oliver, "Long Life"
Paulo Coelho, "Walking the Path"
"Walking the Path"
by Paulo Coelho
"I reckon that it takes about three minutes to read my text. Well, according to statistics, in that same short period of time 300 people will die and another 620 will be born. It takes me perhaps half an hour to write a text: here I sit, concentrating on my computer, books piled up beside me, ideas in my head, the scenery passing by outside my window. Everything seems perfectly normal all around me; and yet, during these thirty minutes, 3,000 people have died and 6,200 have just seen the light of the world for the first time.
Where are all those thousands of families who have just begun to weep over the loss of some dear one, or else laugh at the arrival of a son, grandson or brother? I stop and reflect for a while: perhaps many of these deaths are reaching the end of a long, painful sickness, and some persons are relieved that the Angel has come for them. Besides these, in all certainty hundreds of children who have just been born will be abandoned in a minute and transferred to the death statistics before I finish this text.
What a thought! A simple statistic that I came upon by chance and all of a sudden I can feel all those losses and encounters, smiles and tears. How many are leaving this life, alone in their rooms, without anyone realizing what is going on? How many will be born in secret, only to be abandoned at the door of shelters or convents? And then I reflect that I was part of the birth statistics and one day I will be included in the toll of the dead. How good that is to be fully aware that I am going to die. Ever since I took the road to Santiago I have understood that although life goes on and we are eternal, one day this existence will come to an end.
People think very little about death. They spend their lives worried about really absurd things, putting things off and leaving important moments aside. They risk nothing because they believe that is dangerous. They grumble a lot, but act like cowards when it is time to take certain steps. They want everything to change, but they themselves refuse to change. If they thought a little more about death, they would never fail to make that telephone call that they have been putting off. They would be a little more crazy. They would not be afraid of the end of this incarnation because you cannot be afraid of something that is going to happen anyway.
The Indians say: "Today is as good a day as any other to leave this world ." And a sorcerer once remarked: "May death be always sitting beside you. That way, when you have to do something important, it will give you the strength and courage you need." I hope, reader, that you have accompanied me this far. It would be silly to let the subject scare you, because sooner or later we are all going to die. And only those who accept this are prepared for life."
○
"We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide. "
- "Richard", "Grey's Anatomy"
"Figures Don't Lie, but Liars Figure"
"Figures Don't Lie, but Liars Figure"
by Jeff Thomas
"It’s an old saying, but never truer than today, when profoundly false figures are being used to fuel the COVID hysteria. In less than one year, the rulers of the US and many other countries have successfully closed down businesses, decimated social interaction, shut down those who sought to seek group solace in their faith, trashed economies and forcibly seized power, replacing democratic structure with executive edict.
This has been achieved solely through the creation of fear over a flu virus. Mother Jones has stated, "The staggering death toll was both preventable and entirely predictable. Even aside from his vast personal incompetence… Trump blithely put into practice cherished conservative principles that are incompatible with a decent pandemic response. Castigating and de-legitimizing government institutions, demonizing minority communities, and playing into white grievances may help Republicans win elections, but when it comes to beating back a massive public health catastrophe, what’s paramount is robust public agencies, a strong health care system, and special attention to the vulnerable. In many ways, we were doomed from the start."
Pretty scathing. As we can see, the media are not just commenting, but handing out pitchforks to the villagers. As in all irrational calls to arms, the former president has already been convicted of genocide in the court of public opinion. By comparison, Dr. Fauci, who has served as the government’s expert physician has been left off the hook entirely; yet no eyebrow is raised.
Some people in the US will swear by the above statements, whilst others will say that they are exaggerations and misinterpretations. Interestingly, however, most all Americans seem quite willing to accept the 400,000 death count as being accurate. And yet we can obtain the A.M.A. and/or CDC/NCHS annual All-Cause death statistics and both sources offer up a very different picture. Let’s have a look:
We can see that the death count seems to increase by about 1% each year – predictably, as the population also increases. Therefore, if there had been no coronavirus, we might have expected an all-cause death count of about 2,883,386, but the actual count for 2020 was 2,916,492, or an increase from the norm of 33,106, not 400,000. Based upon a total population of 330,849,169, if every single one of these additional deaths was due to covid-19, this would mean a death rate of .01%.
This death rate is clearly not in keeping with a pandemic. But it is, in fact, very much in keeping with a standard flu season rate. The only way that the coronavirus could be responsible for 400,000 deaths in the US in 2020 would be if at least 367,000 people conveniently ceased dying of other causes, such as heart failure, car crashes and cancer.
Researcher Thomas Di Ferdinando, in reviewing the extraordinary increase in claimed death count, has commented, "Without those added deaths, there would be no evidence of a Covid pandemic. This triangulation of facts: essentially no excess deaths beyond the normal annual background count; absolutely NO relationship between Covid "confirmed" cases and Covid "confirmed" deaths; and the mysterious, last-minute dump of 268,259 all-cause deaths into the 2020 end-of-year all-cause death totals; completely demolish any pretext of their having been a 2020 viral pandemic, whether caused by a novel coronavirus or by anything else and that therefore there is no rational reason to be putting masks on children, isolating elders, destroying businesses, locking down populations and shattering the public trust."
Quite so. I couldn’t have phrased it better. But if all the misery that has occurred in the past year has been unnecessary – that is, if this was just another in the series of coronaviruses that have caused a periodic nuisance for over sixty-five years – why have all the lockdowns, loss of jobs, loss of personal liberties, etc., been forced upon people?
Well, in fact, that question may be easily answered. All we really need do is to ask ourselves what a government would accomplish by imposing such draconian requirements. What we see all around us is a people who have been subjugated. "Inalienable" rights that we are supposed to enjoy have been removed. In their place is a state of tyrannical rule. Any demands that have been made by the government, no matter how irrational, have been instituted through force and the populace have caved in to it all.
What might otherwise have taken decades of incremental depreciation of rights has been accomplished in a very short time. And just in time, too. For dramatic changes are in store in the form of rule that the country will live under very soon. A litany of new plans has been put forward that will effectively eliminate freedoms of every type.
In the place of the old system will be a state of totalitarian collectivist rule. Out of a job? The state will provide universal basic income. Can’t afford your education? The state will forgive all student debt. Can’t afford your health plan? The state will provide universal health care. I doubt that it would be a rash prediction to make, that an all-encompassing collectivist plan will be unfolding very soon. And that the fear that has been manufactured will be maintained until the plan is well under way."
"The Fact..."
"The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Letters and Papers From Prison"
"Dietrich Bonhoeffer (4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book "The Cost of Discipleship" has been described as a modern classic.
Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp. After being accused of being associated with the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was quickly tried, along with other accused plotters, including former members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office), and then hanged on 9 April 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing."
Read the full text of "Letters and Papers From Prison ",
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, here:
"A Different Kind of Order"
"A Different Kind of Order"
By Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Over the weekend, the Senate passed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 boondoggle. And the U.S. 10-year Treasury note – the bedrock of the entire American capital structure – now trades at more than three times the yield it had last August. There are two overlapping narratives to explain the rise in bond yields. The one favored by Wall Street and Washington is that the economy is entering a fantastic growth phase… with businesses borrowing heavily to keep up with expanding demand (thus pushing up yields). As long as “growth” is so robust, say the bulls, consumer price inflation won’t be a problem. The other hypothesis is that bond yields are rising because the feds are increasing the money supply about 15 times faster than GDP growth. Investors are looking ahead and seeking protection against inflation.
Friday’s jobs report allegedly showed a healthy up-tick in hiring. But while jobs in the service sector increased, those in mining and construction actually went down. And considering that mining and construction jobs pay about three times as much as waiting on tables or handling baggage at an airport, what this really shows is further deterioration of the economy – from one that creates wealth to one that consumes it, by giving people fake money.
Turning Point: We also believe August 2020 marked the beginning of the end for the fake-money system, with the bottom of a 40-year bond cycle. If we’re right, inflation and interest rates are headed up and up… until they are completely out of control.
So far, all we’ve seen are a few nuts and bolts dropping out of the engine. SPACs (special-purpose acquisition companies) fell some 20% last week… Bitcoin is about 15% off its high. And the headlines are beginning to talk about a “tech sell-off.” But as American households, businesses, and the government struggle to refinance $80 trillion in debt… it’s going to get harder and harder to keep the jalopy on the road.
World Improvers: In the meantime, let us tell you about our trip back to Ireland. A week Friday, we sat in a hotel bar in Managua, Nicaragua. Eight TV screens hung over the bar. Those with loud latino music made sure no conversation was possible. Which was okay with us. We had no one to talk to anyway.
We reflected on the differences… the things that make one group different from another – culture… race… nationality… religion. The “Third World” always seems disorderly. Traffic goes every which way. Trash gets tossed into the trees and gullies. People don’t form up into neat lines. There is an order; it is just a different one.
This kind of thinking – about what separates one group from another – was very popular in the early 20th century. People thought race explained why some groups were so much more advanced than others. Africans were far behind, they thought, because they were Africans! And the world-improvers of the time thought they could improve the world by improving the people in it. “Eugenics” it was called, supported by the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation, and rich families such as the Kelloggs and Harrimans… and backed by smart people such as Alexander Graham Bell.
They were motivated to improve the human race by reducing birth rates for “inferior” groups. Efforts were also made to sterilize mental defectives (“Three generations of idiots is enough,” famously ruled the Supreme Court.) Also, less “fit” mothers – Black, Hispanic, Native American – were the targets of forced sterilization efforts, that didn’t go very far.
By the way… the “Native American” tag is a bit of subterfuge. No peoples are native to the Americas. All are immigrants. At least Christopher Columbus made an honest mistake; he thought he was in the East Indies and called them “indians.” But the whole field of race relations and cultural politics was – and still is – crowded and muddled. And naturally, the feds made it worse… with the Immigration Act of 1924, in which “nordic” races were favored.
Giving Racism a Bad Name: It was (mostly) harmless crackpottery until the Nazis got in on the act. They gave eugenics a really bad name… pretending to be better than everyone else… and murdering those they considered inferior – the Untermenschen.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain was a scientist… a scholar… a learned man, who had traveled around Europe with a Prussian tutor. Very unlike the louts who invaded the U.S. capital, he learned to speak German, French, and Italian and studied anatomy, botany, geology, and physiology. And yet, for all his learning, he came to conclusions that today, we would regard as not only scientifically incorrect… but morally wrong, too. That is, he worshipped the Aryan gods… and feared that Jews – like a virus – were infecting the Teutonic race. In 1935, Germany passed a law making marriage between Christians and Jews illegal.
Still, his ideas, scholarship, and a good marriage with the composer Richard Wagner’s daughter, brought him fame. And when he died in 1927, a young Adolf Hitler attended his funeral. Hitler lost World War II, of course. And eugenics and racism were discredited.
Comeback: But now, racism is making a comeback… Once again, people think it explains why some groups are more successful than others. To put this in perspective, “Hispanics” are generally not as rich as “Nordics.” Even in their own Latin American countries, those with more “European blood” tend to be better off than those with less. The whiter the skin, the higher the income. That is just our observation. Whether it is supported by academic study or not, we don’t know. But we’d be surprised if it weren’t true.
Nor is it meant to point the finger of blame in either direction. Wealth requires work, self-discipline, forbearance, and saving. Not everyone thinks it’s worth the effort. And, who knows? Maybe it isn’t. Still, if we were to take away grudges and enemies, many people’s brains would suddenly deflate like a popped balloon. The “Europeans” blame the “shiftless Hispanics” for their lower incomes. The “Hispanics” blame the “European oppressors.”
Alternative Hypothesis: To these two hypotheses, we offer an alternative: It’s the fault of neither. The races – like individuals – are neither always good nor always bad, but always subject to influence. And there’s nothing particularly wrong with the way either chooses to live. We studied the subject over the weekend of our departure.
In order to get out of Nicaragua, we first had to get deeper into it. That is, we had to leave our pleasant bubble on the Pacific Coast and experience the country the way the locals do. The point of the exercise was to get a COVID-19 test at the government’s “Ministry of Citizen Power for Health.” Without the test, we couldn’t leave. You get to the federales’ medical compound by weaving through a maze of slums.
In America, builders throw old tin away. In Managua, it is recycled… and recycled. Bent, broken, pierced by holes, it nevertheless is put to work as a wall or a roof. Rusty tin is probably the most ubiquitous building material in Nicaragua. Is that the way it should be? Is that the way we would do it? Do we think buildings made of rusty tin are attractive? Charming? Elegant? Nobody cares what we think.
Attitudes and Actions: The do-gooders and world-improvers always want to change other people. Themselves, they regard as the crown of creation, with no need for improvement. Others, however, need to get with the program. The “poor,” for example, should build with cinder blocks and concrete… neat little houses that look more like our own. Of course, if the locals acted like us, they’d already have houses like ours. But why should they?
Let us imagine that the residents of Managua began acting like the residents of Zurich, Switzerland. They clean the canals and streets. No more mañana… they do it today! They learn to make expensive watches, run banks, and yodel. And they insist that everything be done well – with an attention to detail that bordered on obsession. Being even a minute late would be considered shameful.
Now, can you imagine these Swiss-like people living in rusty-tin houses, with chickens scratching around in the trash for something to eat? No? Well, neither can we. Attitudes produce actions. Actions have consequences. But if people want to throw their trash in the streets, it’s none of our business.
Bedlam: After negotiating the narrow streets, weaving between chickens, busty grandmothers, desperately thin dogs, and prim school children dressed in their crisp blue and white uniforms…we arrived at our destination, only to find what we feared – bedlam. People clustered in front of the entrance. The Swiss would have a well-organized system. Here, it was hard to know if there was any “system” at all.
We explained to a man in a brown uniform that we were there to get the coronavirus test… and that we had already paid for it. We had paid online in the mistaken belief that it might speed up the process. What it did was get us directed to another line… where our payment details could be verified and our document rubber stamped. Then, another man in a brown uniform directed us towards somewhere… we weren’t sure where… People were going in every direction. “You’re taking the COVID test,” said a friendly voice in English. “Follow me.”
The helpful young man led us out a door, across a courtyard… and then, improbably, through a narrow corridor. Then, he wished us well… We continued… and were directed, by yet another man in a brown outfit, to sit down and show our documents. “Where’s your passport?” he wanted to know. “We didn’t realize we needed it. It’s out in the car.” “Yes… you need it. But I’ll keep your place for you.”
Pleasant and Helpful: One of the surprising things in a country run by a man many consider a ruthless dictator is that the civil servants are pleasant and generally helpful. And the apparent chaos can add flexibility. In a federal building in Baltimore, a guard might tell you to follow the signs to the exit… and start the process all over again. Any objection, and he’d have you down on the floor with his knee on your neck.
We simply backtracked, going against the traffic and exiting through the entrance door. And then, explaining to the three brownshirts what had happened, we were allowed to break ranks and accomplish our mission. Back in our seats, the helpful man in the brown uniform inspected our documents. Finding them in order, he bid us take a seat, along with about 30 other people.
The man next to us had a U.S. passport. But he spoke English poorly. Another man in the group appeared to be about our age. He was with his wife, or perhaps it was his daughter, who carried a very young baby. The rest of the group looked like a cross-section of Nicaragua. Most were getting the test so they could go to Miami.
Odd Method: Rather than call out numbers… or let us into the screening room one by one, the method was an odd one. Each time someone moved in to have his nose rotor-rooted, everybody got up and moved one seat closer to the front. Finally, it was our turn. Again, our papers were inspected. Our passport was taken. When the work was completed, a sticker was attached to our passport. “Come back at 3 p.m… Show them this number.” And so we did. The vital paper was delivered and we were free to leave. The “system” worked."
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Kaboom"
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Kaboom"
by Jim Kunstler
- The New York Times
"Isn’t that a curious concept from the front page of Re-set Central? How does a couple with no jobs and no income earn $150,000 in a year that they were not working? And if they somehow brought in $150,000 anyway, why do they need the support of the US government? Such are the many mysteries of the Coronavirus 2021 stimulus bill.
What’s actually going on with this monster of legislation? Kind of looks like an attempt to replace what used to be a national economy with something that pretends to be money conjured from a system pretending to tax itself on wealth that was never generated in the first place. In other words: politicians have achieved the final divorce of wealth from production, and thus economy from reality. The USA has become the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Whatever else the Soviet experiment was, it was at least predicated on producing stuff, however defective the incentives turned out to be, or how shoddy the stuff was that got produced - and the system finally crashed anyway, because it was based on fantasies of human social behavior that just didn’t comport with reality. Now, the USA, in its own existential climax phase, seeks to re-do the Soviet experiment, only minus that feature of industrial production. Instead, our “wealth” gets generated from the banking system alone, and its subsidiary activities, such as hedge funds, arbitrages, dividends from companies with no earnings, and the fees for swapping digitized bundles of this-and-that. You understand that it’s all an illusion, right?
Bitcoin is the exemplar of that divorce of wealth from production. Its value appears to be derived from two features: the mathematically elegant blockchain code, which is a distributed accounting system supposedly impervious to government meddling. And “mining” Bitcoin using colossal amounts of electricity to churn the blockchain code, a simple dissipation of energy. What is actually produced by these operations? A promise that a set of digits residing on countless flash drives around the world equal X-amount denominated in national currencies, which are themselves spun out of nothing by a process far less complex than the exertions that produce Bitcoin.
It may be true that Bitcoin’s distributed “ledger” is difficult for governments to crack, but governments can just abolish Bitcoin in a few keystrokes by criminalizing the trade of it and confiscating any theoretical profits from it. They have probably refrained so far because the traffic in Bitcoin is still relatively tiny compared to the trade in stocks, bonds, and their derivatives, and because they prefer to keep the Bitcoin model running as a demonstration project in preparation for their own entry into national cryptocurrencies, with all its advantages for tracking individual transactions and targeting tax liabilities.
Let’s spell out the more blatant shortcomings of Bitcoin: The blockchain may be theoretically bomb-proof, but the exchanges that Bitcoin trades on can be fiddled, hijacked, and erased from the universe, and Bitcoins with them. Remember Mt. Gox? When it went tits-up in 2014, 850,000 Bitcoins vanished (out of the 21 million that can ever be “mined” under the system as designed). Bitcoins were worth under $1000 when that happened. Also, keep in mind is that Bitcoin is meaningless without reliable electric service and the Internet that runs on it. How many Bitcoins were bought-and-sold in Texas those dark days a couple of weeks ago when a blue norther rolled in and the lights went out. Of course, trading Bitcoin might be the least of your problems when the pipes freeze and all the sheetrock in your house gets prepped for a black mold experiment. But just sayin’…
The Schumer-Pelosi gang looks exorbitantly proud of their legislative coup in the stim bill (and Mitch McConnell’s gang, too, which had to play along, or get tagged and cancelled as Dr. Seuss-like creatures of Grinchified parsimony). Obtuse, desperate, and stupid as these grandstanding politicians are, they all overlook the workings of entropy in these foolish expedients to keep the plates spinning in this performance-art economy. Namely: disorder. Everything is groaning and cracking out there.
One-time $1,400 handouts and even regular $300 unemployment subsidies won’t pay the mortgages or feed families very long, and every day there are fewer families bringing in anything close to that mythical $150,000. For many, it’s more like… nothing. The one-time bailouts of recklessly insolvent city and state governments and pension funds will only postpone their collapse. The varying guaranteed basic income schemes, enhanced child credits, advances on tax refunds, and other gimmicks would turn the former working class into sub-lumpenproles with nothing to occupy them but crime and vice. In fact, we already have a sizable underclass demonstrating exactly what you’ll get from enlarging the social group dependent on government support.
The only other question for now is when do the different population groups in this land explode in violence? The group loosely bundled as “Red” is angry enough with the ongoing insults of Wokery, failed rule-of-law, and abridgments of basic constitutional rights. The states where they dominate are likely to resist any more fiats by the federal government, like the imminent attempt to confiscate firearms. The “Blue” auxiliary armies are beyond their creators’ control. Antifa will be ready to rock-and-roll in the streets with good weather because so many young people have absolutely no prospects to thrive in the collapsing economy, and the streets have become their social space, with so little money for lattes and beers. And BLM need look no further than the Derrick Chauvin trial in Minnesota, starting today, for an excuse to resume its characteristic activities.
Does anyone seriously believe that the husk of Joe Biden will remain in office more than another few weeks? It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the mental mojo to work an authentic press conference, and surely not the customary address to a joint session of Congress. Even the news media may seek to know who is actually in charge of the executive branch before much longer. Pay close attention to events unspooling. Get ready for trouble. It’s coming every which way, from money to public order to rollicking spring weather."
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 3/8/21"
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 3/8/21"
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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 3/8/21
"IMPORTANT UPDATES: Saudi Oil Facility Hit,
Crude Higher. Gold, Silver, Crypto, MORE”
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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
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
March 7th to March 10th, 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
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And now, the End Game...
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Oh yeah...
"Tell Yourself..."
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
- Louise Erdrich
Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger"
"The Mysterious Stranger"
by Mark Twain
"An unfinished novella that Mark Twain worked on periodically from roughly 1890 until his death in 1910. The body of the work is a serious social commentary addressing Twain's ideas of the Moral Sense and the ''damned human race.'' Published posthumously in 1916 by Twain's biographer Albert Bigelow Paine.
“…I must go now, and we shall not see each other any more." “In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?” Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, “There is no other.” A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true - even must be true. “Have you never suspected this, Theodor?” “No. How could I? But if it can only be true.” “It is true.”
A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it could issue in words, and I said, “But - but - we have seen that future life - seen it in its actuality, and so –” “It was a vision - it had no existence.” I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. “A vision? - a vi –”
“Life itself is only a vision, a dream.” It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times in my musings! “Nothing exists; all is a dream. God - man - the world - the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars - a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space - and you!”
“I!”
“And you are not you - you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream - your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me... I am perishing already - I am failing - I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever - for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!"
“Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago - centuries, ages, eons, ago! - for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane - like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell - mouths mercy and invented hell - mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!
You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier. It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.”
Read online a wonderfully illustrated version of
Mark Twain’s “The Mysterious Stranger” here:
- https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3186/3186-h/3186-h.htm
- https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3186/3186-h/3186-h.htm
“This I Believe..."
“This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual
human is the most valuable thing in the world.
And this I would fight for:
the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
And this I must fight against:
any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.”
- John Steinbeck
Paulo Coelho, “Afraid To Change”
“Afraid To Change”
by Paulo Coelho
"We are afraid to change because we think that, after much effort and sacrifice, we know our present world. And even though that world might not be the best of all worlds and even though we may not be entirely satisfied with it, at least it won’t give us any nasty surprises.
We won’t go wrong. When necessary, we will make a few minor adjustments so that everything continues the same. We see that the mountains always stay in the same place. We see that fully-grown trees, when transplanted, usually die. And we say: ‘We want to be like the mountains and the trees. Solid and respectable.’
Even though, during the night, we wake up thinking: ‘I wish I was like the birds, who can visit Damascus and Baghdad and come back whenever they want to.’ Or: ‘I wish I was like the wind, for no one knows where it comes from nor where it goes, and it can change direction without ever having to explain why.’ The next day, however, we remember that the birds are always fleeing from hunters and other larger birds, and that the wind sometimes gets caught up in a whirlwind and destroys everything around it.
It’s nice to dream that we will have plenty of time in the future to do our travelling and that, one day, we will. It cheers us up because we know that we are capable of doing more than we do. Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying to transform your dreams into reality."
"Wrong!"
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