Thursday, April 1, 2021

“There is No Safety You Dumb Bit*h” -The Hound

“There is No Safety You Dumb Bit*h” -The Hound
By Joe Jarvis

"Take heed of The Hound’s warning, and let it free you. There is no guarantee of a job or safety net, there is no absolute security from evil doers, and there is only so much you can do to prevent accidents and illness. The silver lining is that recognizing this is the best way to cushion yourself from the vulnerabilities of an unpredictable world.

Brienne of Tarth, in "Game of Thrones", nobly intends to uphold an oath she swore to Lady Stark to keep her children safe. But she is also a bit naive about the nature of the world in which she lives. Brienne thinks she can bring Arya to a safe place, wherever that is. But as The Hound so eloquently reminds her: “There is no safety you dumb bit*h. And if you don’t know that by now, you’re the wrong one to watch over her.”

If Brienne thinks she can ever let her guard down, or relax, she will never be safe. There is no destination at which point she and Arya will be ultimately secure. It just does not exist. And Sandor Clegane - The Hound - is right; if Brienne of Tarth cannot understand this basic fact about the world, she is the wrong person to be watching over Arya.

The Hound’s negative view on the danger in the world actually leaves him less vulnerable. He never expects to be safe, and is therefore safer because he is alert to danger.

As rough as the Hound is, Arya was in fact safe the entire time she was with him. This was no guarantee, it’s just how it happened, mostly due to the fact that The Hound knows is being constantly vigilant against danger. And although Brienne’s goal is to make Arya even safer, she instead severely wounds the person protecting Arya. Brienne incorrectly judges The Hound to be a danger to Arya, and then fails to secure Arya, leaving her more defenseless than she had been previously.

Brienne’s actions actually prove The Hound’s point. Brienne’s belief that she could bring Arya to safety created a dangerous situation that could have been avoided if she only realized that safety is a constant effort, and not a destination.

But Should We Really Apply a Lesson From a Fake Story in a Mythical Setting? In the modern world we are much safer than humans were in the middle ages. And in the real world there are certain things we don’t have to worry about, like white-walkers and dragons. But unfortunately we do still have to contend with the likes of Cersi and the Lannisters, the Ramsy Boltons, and the treacherous Freys all playing their part in our world’s own “Game of Thrones”. In our lives, they are usually less murdery and slightly more subtle in their elitist desire for domination.

The lesson however remains: there is no guarantee of safety (you dumb bit*h). But before you think I am being gloomy and pessimistic, consider the gift of understanding this. In the pursuit of the ultimate goal of “safety” we expose ourselves and society to all sorts of dangers.

For instance, even assuming the US government had the best intentions over last two decades of drone bombing the Middle East, to supposedly make us more safe, all it really did was create more terrorists. When innocent civilians get murdered by the USA’s bombs, their friends and family become radicalized. Would there still be terrorists and crazy people without all that provocation? Yes, I’m sure. But the numbers would most likely be lower, and we could focus on actual defense.

And even if we assume, for example, that the PATRIOT Act and indefinite detainment clause in the NDAA were passed with the best intentions of targeting terrorists, they has made our own government a much greater threat with the powers they granted. The people who advocate gun control, strict Covid lockdowns, or a government safety net are like Brienne of Tarth, making us less safe because they misunderstand the inherent danger that life carries with it.

If other people take away our agency to respond decide what are the biggest threats facing us, or force us to respond to those threats in a particular way, they will inevitably put us in more danger. That is especially true if they suffer no consequences for their decisions. For example if the people who ban guns can afford to hire private security, then what difference does it make to them if you can’t protect yourself when your home is invaded?

We like to imagine a perfect society in which we are secure, safe, comfortable, and just generally all set, happily ever after. But the desire for a finish line is elusive. We can make ourselves robust against threats, or even anti-fragile so that we could gain from disorder, as Nicholas Nassim Taleb says. But even this requires maintenance and vigilance. You always have to be understanding new threats, and preparing more options which you can choose to exercise, depending on what happens next.

And this goes as much for economics as for physical safety. Don’t expect Social Security to be there for you, have a backup plan. There is no guarantee that any one currency will always stay stable, valuable, or even continue to exist. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, including streams of income, and the skills you have to earn a living.

At the end of the day, safety comes down to vigilance. Unless you are constantly on alert to those things which threaten your safety, you will be taken by surprise. It doesn’t really matter if the person making you less safe is the well meaning but naive Brienne of Tarth or the calculating power hungry Cersi Lannister.

Cersi, in a sense, is safer to be around, because you understand that she is dangerous, and can protect yourself. But how can you protect yourself from someone who thinks they have your best interests at heart, whether you like it or not?

Some people will have noble goals and try to force you into their “safe” world that they have flawlessly designed for security. Their ignorance makes you just as vulnerable as Cersi’s malevolence. Others will offer us safety, utopia, and ultimate security that we can just accept and then forget about. This will lead us down a path of vulnerability.

Whether those who lure you into the false sense of security are doing so because their goals are noble, or because their motives are nefarious hardly matters. We must each be at liberty to look after our own safety.

Arya, for example, had chosen to stick around The Hound and benefit from the safety he provided. When he was incapacitated, she could have chosen to be protected by Brienne, but instead she chose to go it alone, and protect herself. She ultimately became much more capable for it. And that is essentially the option we all need if we hope to make the world a safer place.

We should be able to choose our own government - and not just from the 200 or so very similar, subpar options currently available. And we should also be able to choose to go it alone, or create our own society, if we don’t like the options available. The ability to take our business elsewhere, without threat or force, will create a market for the best protection against various threats, which will improve the variety and quality of the services offered."
Strong language alert.

"Having Thus Become A Mindless Tool..."

“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”

"Our 'Wealth': Cloud Castles in the Sky"

"Our 'Wealth': Cloud Castles in the Sky"
by Charles Hugh Smith

"Buyers know there will always be a greater fool willing to pay more for an over-valued asset because the Fed has promised us it will always be the greater fool. I realize nobody wants to hear that most of their "wealth" is nothing more than wispy Cloud Castles in the Sky that will dissipate in the faintest zephyr, but there it is: that which was conjured out of thin air will return to thin air.

I've assembled a few charts that reflect the illusion of financial wealth that has a death grip on the public psyche. Something for nothing is a powerful attractor, but it doesn't offer a narrative that the delusionally self-important demand: I earned this by working hard and being smart. Oh, right, yeah, sure. It had nothing to do with currency being created out of thin air and made available to insiders, financiers, banks, etc., or being able to leverage this new money into ever-larger bets, all guaranteed to be winning trades by the Federal Reserve. Nope, you're all stone-cold geniuses.
Back in reality, note that tangible assets - real as opposed to financial conjuring - are at historic lows relative to financial-bubble assets: tangible assets represent such a meager proportion of total assets that we might assume they could slip to zero without affecting our "wealth" much at all.
If we compare financial-bubble assets to the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a (flawed) measure of real-world activity, we find Cloud Castles in the Sky are worth over six times the nation's real-world economy. This reflects what happens to the valuations of Cloud Castles in the Sky when "money" is created out of thin air and then leveraged into fantastic, monstrous illusions of "wealth."

The next two charts illustrates the sole dynamic driving assets higher: the Fed is the greater fool. Assets are chasing their own tails higher, completely disconnected from the real world, a reality visible in the chart of IWM, the small-cap index. Examine the recent rocket launch higher and explain why this is completely disconnected from previous decades' valuations.

The answer is the Fed is the greater fool: since everyone knows the Fed will always save the day should valuations falter, buyers know there will always be a greater fool willing to pay more for an over-valued asset because the Fed has promised us it will always be the greater fool.
Take a look at the chart of M2 money stock, and please explain how this is just plain old normal healthy "capitalism" at work. After you've explained chasing your own tail, then explain who's getting all the Fed's free money for financiers. It isn't those working for a living, as evidenced by the chart of money velocity, which has plummeted into the Dead Money black hole from which there is no escape.

So by all means, lavish yourself with praise for constructing a Cloud Castle in the Sky of "wealth" with your hard work and genius, and keep chasing your own tail because the Fed has promised us it will always be the greater fool. What a pretty cloud, what a pretty fantasy."

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare."

Apr 01, 2021 09:12 AM:
"Ozymandias"

"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said - “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/1/21: "Updates: The US Economy Is CRATERING. Free-Fall Collapse WITH NO END IN SIGHT"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/1/21:
"Updates: The US Economy Is CRATERING.
 Free-Fall Collapse WITH NO END IN SIGHT"
Related:

"As Russian Tanks Move Toward Ukraine, The Globe Braces For The Possibility That World War 3 Could Soon Erupt"

"As Russian Tanks Move Toward Ukraine, The Globe
Braces For The Possibility That World War 3 Could Soon Erupt"
by Michael Snyder

"At this hour, more Russian military forces are massed near Ukraine’s borders than we have ever seen before. Western military leaders say that they are concerned that the troop movements that we have witnessed in recent days may be leading up to an invasion, and if an invasion does happen it will greatly test the resolve of the Biden administration, EU leaders and NATO brass. In particular, the hawks in the Biden administration would almost certainly not be willing to just sit back and let the Russians conquer all of Ukraine. There would likely be a major response by the United States, and that could set off a chain reaction that could ultimately spark World War 3.

So what made the Russians suddenly move a massive invasion force toward Ukraine? Well, it turns out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky essentially signed a declaration of war against Russia on March 24th. The document that he signed is known as Decree No. 117/2021, and you won’t read anything about it in the corporate media. I really had to dig to find Decree No. 117/2021, but eventually I found it. I took several of the paragraphs at the beginning of the document and I ran them through Google translate…

"In accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I decree:

1. To put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine of March 11, 2021 “On the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” (attached).

2. To approve the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (attached).

3. Control over the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, enacted by this Decree, shall be vested in the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

4. This Decree shall enter into force on the day of its publication.

President of Ukraine V.ZELENSKY
March 24, 2021"

Basically, this decree makes it the official policy of the government of Ukraine to retake Crimea from Russia. Of course the Russians will never hand over Crimea willingly because they consider it to be Russian territory, and so Ukraine would have to take it by force. This is essentially a declaration of war against Russia, and Zelensky would have never signed such a document without the approval of the Biden administration.

Following the signing of Decree No. 117/2021, we started to see Russian forces pour into Crimea and into separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine at a staggering rate. For example, you can watch a column of Russian tanks being transported by rail right here.

Крым, 30 марта pic.twitter.com/yaMoN7leio
— IgorGirkin (@GirkinGirkin) March 30, 2021

And you can see a massive column of Russian forces on the Crimea bridge right here. Russian military equipment on the Crimean Bridge. 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers, various trucks, BMP-3 IFVs.
— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) March 31, 2021

In addition, it is being reported that the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade is on the move, and that is not a good sign at all. For those who don’t know, this isn’t the brigade you want to see on the move. The 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade is an airborne brigade of the Russian Airborne Troops. The brigade was first formed in 1979 and fought in the Soviet–Afghan War, the 1st & 2nd Chechen War. https://t.co/lAthOpiIvw
— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) March 31, 2021

The Russians are taking Zelensky’s declaration of war very seriously, but the corporate media in the western world is blaming “Russian aggression” for the increase in tensions in the region. But the truth is that the Russians never would have made any of these moves if warmongers in the Biden administration had not given Zelensky the green light to sign Decree No. 117/2021.

And what most people in the western world don’t know is that fighting has already begun in Ukraine. The ceasefire that was agreed to in July 2020 has been violated hundreds of times over the past week… "The OSCE’s civilian Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has reported hundreds of cease-fire violations in recent days. On March 26, four Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two others injured in the eastern part of the country. The Ukrainian military said its soldiers were hit by a mortar attack it blamed on Russian troops. Russia denies having a military presence in eastern Ukraine, where it backs separatist forces." At this point, the ceasefire of July 2020 is completely dead.

In response to the renewed fighting, U.S. European Command “has raised its alert status to the highest level”… "U.S. European Command has raised its alert status to the highest level after fighting resumed between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk Region of eastern Ukraine, marking the end of a June 2020 ceasefire, and Russian forces began building up military equipment along the border."

And we just learned that the chairman of the joint chiefs actually had a telephone call with his counterpart in Russia on Wednesday to address the escalating situation: "In a statement on Facebook on Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that at the initiative of the U.S., chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, had a telephone conversation with his counterpart. “Issues of mutual interest were discussed,” the statement said."

In the days ahead, the corporate media in the western world is going to continue talking about “Russian aggression”, and the Russians are going to continue to blame Zelensky and the Biden administration for the rise of tensions in the region. Ultimately, we could spend countless hours debating who is in the right and who is in the wrong. But what really matters is keeping this from escalating into a global conflict. Because if someone does something really stupid and the Russians feel a need to send their invasion force into Ukraine, there will be no going back ever.

I have been warning about a future conflict between the United States and Russia for a very long time, and we have never been closer than we are right now. With Trump in the White House, relations with Russia were relatively stable, but now Joe Biden is in charge. Biden is a hothead that is showing signs of advanced cognitive decline, and he is surrounded by a team of warmongers that are determined to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place. The inmates are running the asylum, and it won’t take much of a mistake at all for things to go horribly, horribly wrong."
Related:

"Cites 'rare peak' in Russian military patrols off Europe with transponders off..."

March 31, 2021 "Chinese Military Aircraft Enter Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone AGAIN" "Ten Chinese military aircraft including fighter jets entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Monday in a further escalation of tension across the sensitive Taiwan Strait."

Folks, we do not want to do this...any of this.

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

"Doug Casey on Diversity Officers, Compliance Officers, and Other Supernumeraries"

"Doug Casey on Diversity Officers, 
Compliance Officers, and Other Supernumeraries"
by International Man

"International Man: Everywhere you look, ever-increasing government regulations create a serious obstacle to economic activity. There are too many regulations today, many with severe penalties. Most companies of even modest size now have a compliance department, along with numerous compliance officers and supernumeraries. That wasn’t the case a few decades ago. It seems the compliance industry was created not by satisfying a demand in the marketplace, but rather by satisfying some rule a politician made arbitrarily. How and why did this happen? What does this say about the economy and society?

Doug Casey: It indicates a growing dislike and distrust of business and commerce and increasing reliance on the government. It’s a disturbing trend. Companies have a vested interest in providing the best product at the most competitive cost to their customers. That’s how you succeed in business. Government, on the other hand, is necessarily a monopoly based on coercion. That’s bad enough, but it’s run by - no surprise - the type of people who become government employees. You can see them at the DMV and the post office. Worse, the whole apparatus has long been captured by rent-seeking cronies.

The situation is complicated by the fact outfits like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Twitter work hand in hand with certain government agencies. It’s unfortunate that at this point you really can’t trust either government or Big Business. On the bright side, however, the average person seems to be becoming aware of that. That’s a good thing because it’s better for the society if everybody is skeptical and questions authority.

Despite that, we’re basically becoming much more centralized. Big companies are getting bigger, merging and acquiring smaller companies. The government continues growing much faster than the economy itself. As an economy becomes more centralized, it naturally becomes less responsive. Big bureaucratic things move slower than little entrepreneurial things. They don’t react as quickly. They don’t notice what the little guy thinks or says and don’t much care about the peons in "flyover country."

It’s bound to get worse, not just for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but because legislatures of all sizes are constantly passing new laws. They believe that’s what they’re there for. Old laws are rarely abolished, just buried under new laws. Furthermore, most new laws and regulations are oriented toward identity politics, notions of social justice, multiculturalism, political correctness, and the like.

Government regulations are never good; they subvert the market. And there are more of them now than ever. It goes back to what Reagan very cleverly said about the government versus the economy: "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

International Man: According to Reuters, 66% of companies expect the cost of senior compliance staff to increase. And nearly two thirds of companies expect their total compliance budget to be slightly or significantly more over the next 12 months. This trend doesn’t show signs of slowing down. What does it mean when you have a whole category of busybodies looking for a hundred different reasons to say no to a client?

Doug Casey: Compliance results in waste, inefficiency, and less customer satisfaction. We’re becoming more like the old Soviet Union, where things weren’t done for economic reasons, but for political reasons.

It’s very bad for consumers and the economy overall. But little companies are hurt worse. Big companies can afford to hire a regulatory staff. They even hire lobbyists to get new regs passed, to cement themselves in place, and quash new competition. New regulations and compliance costs are very intimidating for little guys and new companies. But they’re not even a rounding error in costs for giant companies like General Motors or IBM or Google. Little companies and startups generally have to obey the same laws, but it’s a huge cost for them, sometimes an unsurmountable cost.

Regulatory compliance only helps the big get bigger. The little people can’t even get into the game to compete with them. That’s bad because it’s anti-entrepreneurial. It hurts the economy by increasing costs for all corporations of all sizes - even while it helps the big relative to the small.

More regulations are also an excuse for government to hire more employees to enforce them. So you’ve got higher costs for business and higher costs for government. It’s actually worse than a total waste. It would be better to pay these people to dig ditches during the day and fill them up at night. That would be better than having them enforce regulations that actively damage the economy. Everybody loses. There are no good consequences to regulations except for the cronies who get them passed and whom the regulations help at the expense of the economy as a whole.

International Man: How has overregulation created such a massive disincentive to producing products in the marketplace? How is it stifling economic development?

Doug Casey: Well, let me answer that question by looking at an industry that I’m involved in: the mining industry. It’s never been an easy business, but today it’s actually one of the worst businesses in the world because of regulation and government action in general.

It used to be that if you were lucky enough to find a viable deposit, the only thing that stopped you from putting it into production was raising capital and getting the machinery and miners on site to start digging. Today, from the time that you figure out it’s a viable deposit, it probably is going to take you another 10 years of jumping through various legal and environmental hoops. Regulations have practically killed the mining industry by raising its costs immensely.

Regulations don’t just stifle general economic development. If you violate them you’re subject to legal prosecution, possibly of a criminal nature. This is a huge disincentive to do anything. It’s why Americans are disinclined to open factories and employ people. Every employee is a potential liability, a walking potential lawsuit. It’s one more reason industry has left the US for other countries

International Man: The banking industry is one of the worst offenders when it comes to the burdens of government regulations. It’s well known this has made dealing with banks and brokers a nightmare. Financial institutions often treat their own customers like they’re criminals or terrorists. Will banks regulate their way out of existence? Is the same kind of frustration coming to other industries?

Doug Casey: Essentially banking should be - and once was - a business like any other business. There were two totally different types of accounts: demand and time. With demand deposits, you charge people to store their money securely and write checks against it. With time deposits a customer had to leave his money with the bank for a fixed amount of time, for a fixed interest rate. The bank might give them 3% and lend it out at 6%. In those days, bankers competed based on their liquidity and solvency - nobody thinks of these things today. Everyone figures the government will bail out any bank that needs it.

Today banking is a highly regulated, quasi-government monopoly business. Classical banking was based on 100% reserves. Today it’s all fractional reserves, perhaps 10%. This is a subject few people have any familiarity with today. Perhaps we should talk about it in detail sometime.

Disregard their ads: Most banks today are zombies; they’re walking dead men. They’re all on the edge of bankruptcy because they’re no longer run according to classical rules of banking. Fractional reserve banking makes every bank in the world liable to a run. Few will prove solvent in a major economic downturn. Absolutely none of them are liquid. The system relies on the Fed to print money to paper over an excess of bad loans.

But it’s not just that the basic system is unsound. It’s become highly bureaucratized. When I was a kid it was possible to walk into a bank - as a kid with no identification - and open an account. It was easy. That’s impossible today. And forget about transferring any meaningful amount of money without filing numerous forms. "Where did the money come from?", "Where is the money going?", "Who exactly is the recipient?", and "Why are you sending it?" are standard questions now. Anybody can be accused of the artificial and made-up crime of money laundering today. Banks have become almost an arm of the State. It’s no wonder nobody trusts banks and everybody hates banks today. And they should.

The silver lining to this, however, is that as time goes on, people will increasingly use cryptocurrencies to obviate banks. With cryptos you can send money anywhere privately -which is impossible with banks - and instantly - which is impossible with banks - and at almost no cost - which is also impossible with banks today. Cryptos like Bitcoin check a lot of boxes.

The banking industry in its present form is a dinosaur. The only hope for the banking industry is for it to return to its roots. That would include the segregation of demand and time deposits, a return to banking secrecy, and the abolition of the Federal Reserve, among other things. But none of that is going to happen in today’s world.

International Man: The compliance industry represents a degradation of society and the economy. But today it’s gone much farther than that. There is another new supernumerary at many companies these days… diversity officers. Where did these people come from and what are the consequences for business and society as a whole?

Doug Casey: This was one of the more insane consequences of accepting the tenets of political correctness. Diversity officers require or at least encourage companies to have quotas of blacks, Hispanics, gays, the disabled, females, and so forth. I don’t know how many different classifications of politically favored people there are. But there are quite a few and more every day.

Companies are pushed to hire people based upon accidental characteristics like gender, skin color, religion, and God knows what else. Not what they can do or the quality of their work. It’s absolutely insane on every single level. Among other faults, it perversely works against the very people it’s supposed to help… smart customers will tend to avoid them because they might be an incompetent diversity-hire.

The fact that these things are accepted without protest is a sign of how degraded and irrational society has become. Nobody dares protest this nonsense for fear of being called out as an evil person.

It’s a boon only for ambulance-chasing lawyers and malingerers. Diversity and political correctness act as causes for frivolous lawsuits. Anybody can use arbitrary reasons based on accidental characteristics to sue and in effect shake down their employer. Diversity officers help only race-hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and people who see themselves as professional blacks or professional Hispanics or professional gender aberrants.

International Man: Many companies and institutions in America today value political correctness over merit. What will this trend do to productivity?

Doug Casey: It’s devastating. And it goes farther than just altering who is hired and why. Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) are trying and succeeding in influencing how people think. Through TV commercials, among other things. Some commercials are much more interested in promoting diversity than selling products. It should be a cause for shareholder suits against management. Take the infamous Gillette commercial that was so antagonistic and hateful against white males.

In the past, I just bought any razor that seemed to work. Including Gillette, which has a good product. But now I go out of my way as a matter of principle to not buy any Gillette product, because I’d feel I was supporting cultural Marxism and enemies of civilization. Not that the few dollars I spend on shaving equipment every year will make any difference, but I suspect there are millions of people who feel the same way.

SJWs are actually destroying their own companies in pursuit of political correctness and diversity. They’re not fostering harmony; they’re breeding resentment and antagonism. They’re causing people to look at themselves not as individuals - as human beings - but as members of racial groups. It’s insane and perverse. But this is just one symptom of the malaise affecting almost every aspect of Western Civilization."

Musical Interlude: Loreena Mckennitt, "Mummers Dance"

Loreena Mckennitt, "Mummers Dance"

"A Look to the Heavens"

Who knows what evil lurks in the eyes of galaxies? The Hubble knows -- or in the case of spiral galaxy M64 -- is helping to find out. Messier 64, also known as the Evil Eye or Sleeping Beauty Galaxy, may seem to have evil in its eye because all of its stars rotate in the same direction as the interstellar gas in the galaxy's central region, but in the opposite direction in the outer regions. 
Captured here in great detail by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, enormous dust clouds obscure the near-side of M64's central region, which are laced with the telltale reddish glow of hydrogen associated with star formation. M64 lies about 17 million light years away, meaning that the light we see from it today left when the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees roamed the Earth. The dusty eye and bizarre rotation are likely the result of a billion-year-old merger of two different galaxies."

"How, Then..."

"How, then, shall we face the future? When the sailor is out on the ocean, when everything is changing all around him, when the waves are born and die, he does not stare down into the waves, because they are changing. He looks up at the stars. Why? Because they are faithful..."
- Soren Kierkegaard

"The Universe as Pool Hall"

"The Universe as Pool Hall"
by Fred Reed

"We will start this magisterial explanation of everything with the time-honored approach of the philosopher, beginning with the things we know beyond doubt and then reasoning from them to suitably astonishing truths. As we know, Descartes began by saying, “Cogito ergo sum,” I think therefore I am.” (Ambrose Bierce, a more profound thinker, said, “Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. Cogito.” But this way lies madness.) So with what certain knowledge can we begin our quest?

Our only certain knowledge is that we don’t have any. Acceptance of this condition will diminish the world’s output of philosophy, or so we may hope, but this column faces reality with a brave front. We may now list our certainties: We don’t know where we came from, where we are, why, what if anything we should do while we are here, and where if anywhere we go when we die.

On this bedrock we shall construct our philosophy of everything. However, before we begin thinking about these profound matters, we need to take into account one more certainty: Thinking is impossible. I will explain. But what it comes to is that while we know nothing about which to think, it doesn’t matter because we couldn’t think about it if we did know something.

Why? Consider the brain. It is an electrochemical mechanism, blindly obeying the laws of physics and chemistry (chemistry being the physics of the interactions of atoms). For example, consider a nerve impulse propagating along a neural fiber, depolarizing, sodium in, potassium out. Pure chemistry and physics. When the impulse comes to a synapse, a neurotransmitter diffuses across the gap, pure chemistry and physics. It can’t do anything else. Even chemicals with long, imposing names cannot make choices. The neurotransmitter then binds to receptor sites, because it has to. Textbooks of neurophysiology state it thus: “A brain has less free will than a wind-up clock.” Or at least if it were so stated, it would be. This is close enough for philosophy.

Putting it precisely, the state of a physical system is determined entirely by its previous state. This establishes beyond doubt that we have no free will, and that what we think are thoughts were determined at the time of the Big Bang, if any.

Now, no philosophical essay can be held in repute unless it contains words ending “ism.” The reigning creed today is materialism, the philosophy of the wantonly inattentive. Many who believe in materialism are of high intelligence, and so can only be sufficiently inattentive by great effort. Anyway, a materialist believes than nothing exists but space, time, matter, and energy, however hyphenated. That is, physics. As the physicist Joe Friday said, “The physics, ma’am, just the physics, and nothing but the physics.”

This means that the Big Bang, if any, was set up, or I suppose I should say, set itself up, like one of those billiard-table trick shots. You know the kind: The balls seem randomly placed on the table but bounce around a lot before miraculously running into the pockets like birds returning to their nests. In the Bang, if any, all those subatomic whatsamajigggers erupted forth at exactly the right angles and velocities so that, billions of years later, they formed Elvis, San Francisco, and Hillary. (This had to be by chance, since no one in his right mind would form Hillary on purpose. QED.)

Next, consider plane geometry as taught in high school. (You may wonder why we have to consider it. Well, we just do.) Plane geometry deals with planes, lines, points, angles, and nothing else. It is useful and interesting, but it cannot explain a cheeseburger, Formula One race, or political hysteria. Why? Because cheeseburgers exist in three dimensions, which plane geometry doesn’t have. Formula One races involve matter, energy, and motion, which plane geometry also doesn’t have. Hysteria is an emotional state associated with liberal co-eds in pricey northern colleges who, thank God, do not exist in mathematics.

What it comes to is that a logical system is defined by its premises, and all downstream results are mere elaboration. (Of course, as established in the beginning of this luminous essay, we have no premises except the lack of premises, but philosophy readily overlooks such minor hindrances.) Plane geometry is not wrong. It is just incomplete. To state it in mathematical terms, you cannot flatten a cheeseburger enough to fit into a plane.

Physics, the foundation of the current official story of everything, also depends on its premises. Physics is just mathematical materialism. From its equations one may derive all manner of fascinating and useful things, such as planetary motion, npn transistors, smartphones, nerve gas, and hydrogen bombs. (Some of these may be more useful than others.)

But, just as you cannot get strawberry milkshakes from plane geometry, because they are not implicit in it, there are things you cannot derive from the equations of physics: Consciousness, free will, beauty, morality, or curiosity – the whiches there just ain’t in physics. This would not worry a rational thinker. He (or, assuredly, she) would simply state the obvious: Physics is not wrong, but incomplete. It does what it does, and doesn’t do what it can’t. Not too mysterious, that.

However, the true-believing physics-is-all Neo-Darwinian matter-monger cannot admit that anything – anything at all – exists outside of physics. Since some things obviously do, the only-physics enthusiasts have to resort to contorted logic. I think of kite string in a ceiling fan. Or simple denial.

For example, sometimes they say that consciousness is merely an “epiphenomenon.” Oh. And what does that mean? Nothing. (Actually it means, “I don’t know, but if I use a polysyllabic Greek word, maybe nobody will notice.”) Epiphenomenon of what?

Sometimes they will say, “Well, consciousness is just a by-product of complexity.” But if consciousness is a byproduct what is the primary product? A computer is somewhat complex, so is it somewhat conscious? Is a mouse less conscious than a human or just, in some cases, less intelligent? A materialist ignoring consciousness is exactly equivalent to a geometer ignoring cheeseburgers.

We will now examine the question, where did we come from? The answer is ready to hand: We don’t have a clue. We make up stories. The physics-only folk say, see, there was the Big Bang and all these electrons and protons and things flew out and just by chance formed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in the most motingator a-stonishing pool-table trick shot ever set up. Just by accident. Damn! Who would have thought it?

Of course any sane person, to include materialists when they are thinking of something else, would say that TSMC was designed by hordes of Chinese engineers. But of course designing anything requires mind and intelligence (or a computer designed to simulate these things), But Mind cannot be derived from the equations of physics. Therefore we are all mindless. In general human behavior supports this.

Of course other stories exist. Yahweh created the world, or maybe Shiva, or Allah, and I think some remote tribes believe that it just appeared on the back of a giant turtle. I have no information on the matter, though frankly I incline to the turtle story, but will let the reader know the instant I find out.

The weakness of creation myths from Bang to Turtle is the question of the five-year-old, “But Mommy, where did God come from?” or “Who made God?” Fifteen years later in dorm-room bull sessions he will phrase it differently, “Well, what came before the Big Bang?” Same question.

A sort of second-echelon creation myth now in vogue is Darwinian evolution, also a subset of physics and therefore completely determined. Mutations are chemical events following the laws of chemistry. Thus trilobites had no choice but to form, and so they did. Metabolism is physical from the level of ATP to animals eating each other.

There is of course no such thing as a sex drive, teenagers notwithstanding, since no sort of drive can be derived from physics. (This will no doubt devastate Pornhub.) From this the inevitable conclusion, proven by physics, A that we cannot reproduce. Therefore we either have always existed or do not exist at all.

To give oneself an aura of overwelling wisdom, one may say things like ontology, epistemology, entelechy, and teleology, but these do not detract from mankind’s underlying and perfect ignorance. It’s all a trick shot, I tell you."

The Daily "Near You?

Ocean Shores, Washington, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"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
"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 lef t- 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."

"A Long Time Forgotten"

"A Long Time Forgotten"
by Bill Bonner

"We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green."
– English writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Long-suffering Diary readers have accompanied us for the last two days… wandering in and out of the woods… back and forth in history…wondering how come people forget the things that are most important to them… the things that make them successful. Well, today, we reach our destination – or at least, as far as we’re going to go: The wild weeds grow every day. Give them a chance, and they take over.

Getting Weedier: By our reckoning, America seemed to run out of “Roundup” around about the turn of the century – in 1999. Since then, by almost every measure, the country has been getting weedier. Here’s the latest from Harper’s: "The United States fell 11 places below its 2010 position, to just below Argentina and Mongolia, on a watchdog’s annual ranking of countries according to political rights and civil liberties; worldwide, freedom declined for the fifteenth consecutive year."

What seems to be happening is a general dumbing down… so that important insights and the hard-earned lessons of the past are forgotten… neglected and abandoned. Balance the budget? The expression hasn’t been heard in Washington for many years. Free enterprise… free markets – yes, of course, but with federal guidance! Real money? What’s that? Work for a living? Why not just hand out more stimmy checks? More women in the Cabinet? That’s what we really need! Even the most fundamental brick in the whole social edifice – the family – has been cast aside. Marriage rates in the U.S. are at their lowest level on record.

Weeding and Pruning: Civilization is restraint, said Sigmund Freud. But it’s more than that. It’s callouses. It’s planting and building. And it’s pulling out the weeds and pruning off foolish ideas. It requires discipline and a willingness to make distinctions – between what is true and what is false. Two plus two must equal four. Not seven. Words must have meaning; they can’t mean anything you want.

And money must have value; it must represent real wealth, not just pieces of paper you pass out on street corners. Robbers and counterfeiters should be hung, not hired to run government. Murder ought to be punished, not disguised as “war.” Spending must be controlled, and debt must be limited… not allowed to run wild until the country is bankrupt. Two plus two must equal four.

Civilization requires learning, too… and relearning… It means finding out what works and cleaning out what doesn’t… and always maintaining, shoring up… fixing and protecting.

Weeds Take Over: But the weeds don’t stop growing. And when the civilizing energy is spent, they soon take over. Then, a few generations go by, and soon, nobody remembers anything. In the jungles of Central America, for example, there are vestiges of a powerful civilization – including vast stone temples and sculptured heads. But by the time the Europeans arrived… nobody knew who made them… or how.

The same could be said about dozens of “lost” civilizations – the Zapoteca, Hurrian, Punt, Harapan… and so forth. On Easter Island in Polynesia, magnificent statues face out to sea. But the locals still don’t know why. Even here in Ireland, there are ruins that have been here for thousands of years. Who built them? When? Why? Nobody knows.

Within a mile of our house, there is the Molana Abbey (mentioned yesterday). It is in ruins. And there is a Norman castle nearby, also in ruins. There are ruins on our property, too. Maps from the 19th century ignore them… as if they didn’t exist. The cartographers must have thought they weren’t worth noting. Our house here was the “rectory” of the church down by the castle. The church itself is fairly recent – from the 19th century. But it, too, is abandoned, and covered in vines.

Lost Civilization: This past weekend, we cut into the laurel, the trees, the vines, the weeds, and the underbrush to try to reestablish a road that led from the old “lodge” (which must have functioned as a gate house) to the rectory. The lodge was barely visible when we arrived – completely covered in vines. The farm itself is about 60 acres. Before the Great Famine in the 19th century, the area had more people… and much more human activity. The fallen-down walls and houses attest to a more carefully planned and tended property, with large families and many hands at work.
People used to live here.

The old Ordnance Survey map from 1837 shows roads, houses, walls, orchards, and gardens that no longer exist. Back then, local people lived off the local produce that the farm supplied; it had to be productive. They couldn’t “print” bread, apples, or potatoes. Today, much of Ireland’s GDP comes from high-tech businesses centered around Dublin. Rural areas have been relatively neglected, except for the remaining farmers, who rely on the latest in farm equipment to make up for scarce, and expensive, labor.

Exploring the Woods: Unable to penetrate the thick underbrush on the old road coming up from the lodge, last Saturday, we brought in reinforcements – one of the O’Keefes with a backhoe – and Matt, who helps around the house. While they continued working on the road, we decided to explore from the other side, leaving from the house, crossing the cow pasture – hopping gingerly over the wire so as to avoid electrocution – and then entering the woods.

At least, this time of year, we can see much more; the trees and brambles have not yet set out their leaves. Once over the wire fence, we came to a stone fence, only about 3 feet high, with big gaps where the stones have disappeared. On the other side, a short, steep hill led down to a small stream, easily forded by stepping on stones. Up on the other bank was a large beech tree, so grand and thick, it had killed the competition, leaving only a carpet of ivy on the ground. It was not hard to see where the Celts got their weavy patterns – they are on display, natural expressions of the vines.
Vines on a tree.

Hidden Portal: Crossing over the ivy, we ducked under a laurel limb, and there it was – one of two large portals in an ancient wall. This wall – hidden in the woods – is higher than others in the area – about 12 feet tall. And it was built to a different standard. The stones are tighter, more carefully laid up than most.
Hidden portall

The entry passageway – big enough for a horse-drawn carriage – was sculpted with cut stone. Going inside, we saw that the wall continued around in a horseshoe form, with another large passageway on the opposite side and two doorways in between.
Ancient doorway.

The two large portals were in good shape, with scarcely a stone out of place. But a big stone must have recently fallen from the arch of one of the doorways; it lay naked on the ground, unclothed by moss or vines. We ducked under more laurel limbs… some growing over or into the high walls. A sycamore tree, too, has grown up in the middle of the horseshoe. What was it? An entry… but to what? And why was it open on one side, while seriously closed on another? When was it built? By whom? Why?

Ancient Enemies: We walked back down the hill to where we heard a chainsaw at work. Matt was cutting a big tree that lay across the road. Pat O’Keefe stood by his machine, waiting to push the debris down the hill. The O’Keefes have been in this area for “donkey’s years,” we were told. “They were a powerful family. And they probably know more about local history than anyone.”

So we asked Pat about the ruins. “Do you know anything about them?” “Yu blwa vul ashn crotrech” said Pat, a thin man with a thin beard. We don’t know what he said, either. So we turned to Matt, our regular translator. “What did he say?" “I don’t know meself. He’s from the other side of the river. And over here, we don’t talk to the O’Keefes."

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/31/21: “S&P 500 Hits New Record High; Trillions In More Debt Will Support The Market”

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/31/21:
“S&P 500 Hits New Record High; 
Trillions In More Debt Will Support The Market”

"How It Really Is"

 

"America’s Cities Are Being Turned Into Crime-Ridden War Zones, And Murder Rates Are Way Up Again In 2021"

"America’s Cities Are Being Turned Into Crime-Ridden
War Zones, And Murder Rates Are Way Up Again In 2021"
by Michael Snyder

"The wealthy are reveling in their giant mountains of money, but meanwhile our society is literally coming apart at the seams all around us. The stock market has been hovering near all-time record highs, and for those at the very top of the economic pyramid these may seem like the best of times. But for most Americans, the “good old days” are a long distant memory. More than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed over the past year, poverty is absolutely exploding all around us, and crime rates are shooting higher at an unprecedented rate. In fact, one study of 34 big U.S. cities found that their murder rates rose by an average of 30 percent in 2020…

"A study by the National Commission on Covid-19 and Criminal Justice found that murders increased by 30% across 34 large U.S. cities. In some areas, carjackings, robberies, shootings, sexual assaults and violence have become so common that it seems like the crime literally never stops. Unless you have a death wish, there are certain parts of Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore that you should never enter night or day. If you doubt me, just go wander the streets of the worst neighborhoods of those cities and see what happens to you.

This was supposed to be a year when crime rates began to return to normal, but instead they are on the rise again. One study that looked at 37 large U.S. cities found that murder rates are up by an average of 18 percent so far in 2021… "The big increase in the murder rate in the United States in 2020 has carried over to 2021. A sample of 37 cities with data available for the first three months of this year shows murder up 18 percent relative to the same period last year."

What is truly frightening is that this is about as good as things are going to get in America from here on out. So if murder rates are spiking this much under relatively good conditions, what will our cities look like when things get really crazy?

Some of the crimes that we are witnessing are almost too horrible for words. For example, just consider what just happened to a 12-year-old boy in Miami… "A suspect in a black car kidnapped the boy at about 2 a.m. early Saturday morning from a Miami street, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. He drove a few blocks, raped the boy, and then shoved him out of the car and drove off, police said. A good Samaritan on a bike near the scene of the crime came to the boy’s rescue. He was bleeding from the head and said he had been shot."

How sick do you have to be in order to do something like that? Sadly, I could write about nightmarish crimes such as this every single day of the week if I wanted to, because they happen constantly.

Much of the crime boom is being fueled by gangs. There are more than 100,000 gang members living in the city of Chicago alone, and a steady stream of illegal immigrants ensures that the gangs will always have an influx of new recruits. Securing our borders would go a long way toward solving this problem, but we refuse to do that.

Just recently, a sheriff in Texas took a reporter from the Daily Mail down to “the easiest illegal border crossing along the Rio Grande”… "The crossing point is on private property where an abandoned house sits on a quiet rural street that runs parallel to the Rio Grande, about 5 miles out of town from Del Rio, Texas, 150 miles southwest of San Antonio. Law enforcement has nicknamed it ‘Border Lawn.’ ‘It’s the easiest illegal border crossing along the Rio Grande,’ Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.

When the river is low, immigrants can wade across the Rio Grande in about five minutes. Authorities know that hordes of people come across the border at this spot each week, but they won’t stop it.

Of course any immigrants that are detained need to be held somewhere, and facilities at the border are already packed beyond overflowing. In particular, the infamous facility in Donna, Texas is already holding more than 10 times more migrants than it was designed to hold… "The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holding facility in Donna, Texas, is supposed to house no more than 250 migrants during the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, the tent complex was holding more than 4,100 migrants, including 3,200 unaccompanied children, according to Oscar Escamilla, a Border Patrol official in the Rio Grande Valley who briefed reporters during the first press tour of a CBP facility under President Biden."

So much of the immigration debate is focused on the unfortunate children that are being held in places such as this, but that is just a drop in the bucket. Each week, thousands of grown men illegally cross the border without being detained at all. Many of those grown men end up in our core urban areas, and with few legitimate employment prospects available many of them turn to crime.

In an article that I published yesterday entitled “We Have Never Seen A Home Buying Frenzy Quite Like This”, I discussed the fact that we have seen a mass exodus from our core urban areas over the past year. Millions of Americans have been looking to buy homes in desirable rural and suburban locations, and this has pushed housing prices into the stratosphere.

Today, I came across another example of this phenomenon. 122 offers were made on a 1,400 square foot home that was listed for sale in Citrus Heights, California in just one weekend…"A Citrus Heights home in a quiet cul-de-sac received 122 offers in one weekend on the market. The 1,400 square feet home has three bedrooms, two baths and a spacious backyard with a swimming pool and an asking price of $399,900.00."

Could you imagine paying $400,000 for a house that is just 1,400 square feet in size? The real estate agent that listed this property was astounded to receive so many offers, because it wasn’t underpriced at all… “People would think that it was underpriced. It was not underpriced. It was straight on with the comps,” said Deb Brittan, the listing agent for the property. “I had hoped, I thought, maybe if we get 20 offers that would be amazing.” As for the couple that sold the house, they don’t need it anymore because they are moving to Idaho.

As conditions in the United States continue to deteriorate, we will continue to see people flock to rural and suburban communities at an unprecedented rate. So if you are planning to move, I would not wait. Millions of Americans have already been priced out of the market, and the feeding frenzy is not going to subside any time soon."