Full screen, and relax... beautiful.
Deuter, "Atmospheres"
00:00 ⋄ Uno
05:45 ⋄ Deux
11:58 ⋄ Drei
18:27 ⋄ Four
25:15 ⋄ Cinque
31:58 ⋄ Sei
36:33 ⋄ Sieben
42:22 ⋄ Huit
50:55 ⋄ Nine
57:27 ⋄ Dieci
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, April 10, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies some 70 million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the largest Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy.
NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. In fact, on close inspection the nucleus of this classic barred spiral itself shows a remarkable region of spiral structure about 3,000 light-years across. Unlike other spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, NGC 1300 is not presently known to have a massive central black hole.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120325.html
"A Lot Of People..."
“When science discovers the center of the universe,
a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it.”
- Bernard Baily
"There Comes A Time..."
"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency ask the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But, conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Restaurant Prices Soar; Small Business Not Rebounding; Debt Fueled Spending; Worst Trade Deficit"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Restaurant Prices Soar; Small Business Not Rebounding;
Debt Fueled Spending; Worst Trade Deficit"
"Cultural Revolution in America?"
"Cultural Revolution in America?"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"There is a whiff of unease in the air. Beneath the cheery veneer of free money for almost everyone, growing inequality and polarization are rapidly consuming what's left of common ground in America. Though there are many systemic differences between China and the U.S., humans in every nation are all still running Wetware 1.0. So it is instructive to consider what can be learned from China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and see what applies to the U.S. today.
The Cultural Revolution is not an approved topic in China today, and that alerts us to its importance. China's Cultural Revolution was remarkably different from Mao’s communist military-political victory in 1949 over the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. The political revolution was managed by the centralized hierarchy of the Communist Party (CCP). But the Cultural Revolution quickly morphed from a movement launched by Mao into a decentralized mass movement against all elites, including Party and state elites who had been sacrosanct and untouchable.
The important point here is that the Cultural Revolution was not controlled by the political authorities. They did maintain control of the Party and central government hierarchy in Beijing. But this was nothing more than an illusion of control.
The Irony of Cultural Revolution: The forces of the Cultural Revolution had broken free of central command and control, even as the Red Guards expressed their loyalty to Mao and the principles of the Party. But those expressions were only the politically approved cover for their rampage. That's the irony of Cultural Revolution.
The authorities cannot claim it is a political counter-revolution because the cultural revolutionaries proclaim their loyalty to the very ideals and principles the authorities themselves claim to be upholding - but have failed to do so. Cultural Revolutions in effect claim the higher ground. They bypass the political process and take direct action to further the ideals that the authorities have abandoned or betrayed. Given the fragmentary nature of China’s Cultural Revolution, the history is equally fragmentary - especially given the official reticence to discuss it.
A recent academic book, "Agents of Disorder: Inside China's Cultural Revolution", provides granular detail on the fragmented, decentralized, rapidly evolving dynamics of the movement: (The author) devoted decades to examining the local records of nearly all of China's 2,000-plus county-level jurisdictions. He found that factions emerged from the splintering, rather than the congealing, of class-based groups. Small clusters of students, workers, and cadres struggling to respond to Mao's shifting directives made split-second decisions about whom to align with. Political identities did not shape the conflict; they emerged from it. To explain this process of identity formation, he offers a theory of 'factions as emergent properties' and suggests that similar dynamics may characterize social movements everywhere.
In other words, groups modified their alliances, identities and definitions of "class enemies" on the fly, entirely free of central authorities. Factions splintered, regrouped and splintered again. In the chaos, no one was safe. Those who lived through The Cultural Revolution are reticent about revealing their experiences. Even in the privacy of their homes in the U.S., their voices become hushed and their reluctance to give voice to their experiences is evident.
What Cultural Revolutions Share in Common: Here’s the unifying thread in my view: The accused belonged to some "counter-revolutionary" elite - or they were living vestiges of a pre-revolutionary elite (children of the landlord class, professors, etc.) - and it was now open season on all elites, presumed or real. What generates such spontaneous, self-organizing violence on a national scale? My conclusion is that cultural revolutions result from the suppression of legitimate political expression and the failure of the regime to meet its lofty idealistic goals.
Cultural revolutions are an expression of disappointment and frustration with corruption and the lack of progress in improving everyday life. These frustrations have no outlet in a regime of self-serving elites who view dissent as treason and/or blasphemy. By 1966, China's progress since 1949 had been at best uneven, and at worst catastrophic. The Great Leap Forward caused the deaths of millions due to malnutrition and starvation, and other centrally planned programs were equally disastrous for the masses. Young people found there was no avenue for dissent within the Party, and no way to express their frustration with the Party's failure to fulfil its idealistic goals and promises.
When there is no relief valve in the pressure cooker, it's eventually released in a Cultural Revolution that unleashes all the bottled-up frustrations on elites which are deemed politically vulnerable. These frustrations have no outlet politically because they threaten the status quo. All these repressed emotions will find some release and expression, and whatever avenues are blocked by authorities will channel the frustrations into whatever is still open.
A Cultural Revolution gives the masses permission to criticize the abstract class that "deserves" whatever rough justice is being delivered by the Cultural Revolution. As the book review excerpt noted, the definition of who deserves long overdue justice shifts with the emergent winds. So those at the head of the Revolution might find themselves identified as an illegitimate elite that must be unseated. I submit that these conditions exist in the U.S. today.
The Falcon Will No Longer Hear the Falconer: The systemic failure of the status quo to deliver on idealized promises and the repression of dissent outside "approved" (i.e. unthreatening to the status quo) boundaries. What elite can be criticized without drawing the full repressive powers of the central state? What elite will it be politically acceptable to criticize? I submit that "the wealthy" are just such an abstract elite.
To protect itself, a repressive status quo implicitly signals that the masses can release their ire on an abstract elite with indistinct boundaries - a process that will divert the public anger, leaving the Powers That Be still in charge. But just as in China's Cultural Revolution, central authorities will quickly lose control of conditions on the ground. They will maintain the illusion of control even as events spiral ever farther from their control. The falcon will no longer hear the falconer.
In other words, once the social pressure cooker valve gives way, then the unleashed forces soon grasp that there are few limits on what they can criticize as long as they do so within an implicitly approved narrative. For example, "the wealthy" hoarded wealth and power and so it is just to claw it back by whatever means are available. Since the government failed to do so, the people will have to do so.
The Pressure Cooker Is Getting Hot: The extreme inequalities of wealth and power that are now the dominant dynamic in America are heating the cultural pressure cooker. When the pressure can no longer be contained, then being recognized as wealthy will shift very quickly from something desirable to something to avoid at all costs.
The lesson of China's Cultural Revolution in my view is that once the lid blows off, everything that was linear (predictable) goes non-linear (unpredictable, fragmented, contingent, emergent, prone to extremes, uncontrollable). If America experiences a Cultural Revolution, the outcome won't lend itself to tidiness or predictability.
To use an analogy, if the pendulum is pushed to an extreme, when it's released, it will reach an equivalent extreme (minus a bit of friction) at the opposite end. That could be an unexpected but entirely foreseeable Cultural Revolution. Those who claim that can't happen in America are safely outside the pressure cooker, protected by a delusional confidence that ‘since I'm doing great, everyone is doing great.’ Since real political agency is no longer allowed, then the pressure will find release outside the political system. And yes, it could happen here."
○
"Cultural Revolution?"
"BLM Founder Branded 'Fraud' After Buying
Million-Dollar Home In Mostly-White LA Enclave."
"The co-founder of the polarizing Black Lives Matter movement is under fire for buying a $1.4 million home in a posh California neighborhood that’s 88 percent white. It’s an interesting decision for Patrisse Cullors, a self-professed Marxist and race-baiting activist who has paid lip service to promoting black pride. According to Dirt.com, the home is located in Topanga Canyon, an idyllic rustic neighborhood about 48 minutes outside of Los Angeles and less than 30 minutes from tony Malibu."
"Social justice warrior", huh? Right...
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Oh no I'm not...
"Today’s Inflation Is Deliberate… and Disastrous"
"Today’s Inflation Is Deliberate… and Disastrous"
by Bill Bonner
"As I’ve been describing in recent Diaries, the financial markets are beginning to realize that the coming inflation is not “cyclical”… It is structural. The distinction is important. Cyclical inflation is more or less benign. It is a feature of the business cycle. As the economy heats up, demand grows for consumer products and the raw materials to make them. This is a healthy trend, but it engenders an immediate feedback loop. That is, the demand for financing increases.
Businesses need financing to boost output and meet the rising demand. Consumers need financing, too. They enhance their lifestyles – with new houses and new cars – counting on rising incomes to help pay for them. This increasing demand for credit raises interest rates, which tends to cool down appetites for both credit and further consumption. Price inflation subsides… interest rates decline… and growth rates cool.
Related to and concurrent with this phenomenon is the government’s need for credit. In an economic expansion, the government also expands. And it tends to absorb credit like a sponge. In a healthy and honest financial system, this is self-limiting, too. Excess government borrowing “crowds out” private borrowing (because the feds are the most reliable borrowers in the world). This raises interest rates even further… thus putting the kibosh on the expansion… and usually leading the Chamber of Commerce, among others, to call on the feds to back off.
Fake Money and False Pretenses: But cometh the Federal Reserve’s fake money, and the whole cyclicality of it collapses. Prices rise, not because a robust economy has increased demand… but because the government has created fake dollars that bid for goods and services just as if they had been gotten honestly. Then, too, consumers, businesses, and the government itself can borrow as much as they want – because the Federal Reserve, through the banking system, is creating new credit at will.
Interest rates do not necessarily rise… because the feedback loop has been severed. The Fed provides fake savings, indistinguishable from real savings… which keeps lending rates low. Even the ever-alert financial press cannot tell the difference. Hardly a day passes without a report that the “U.S. savings rate is soaring” or that “Americans are sitting on a huge pile of savings.”
How could savings increase when GDP is down… unemployment is up… and millions of small businesses are going broke? How is that possible? It is possible because a crisis – especially one where millions of people are under house arrest – always reduces consumer spending. But this time, the savings rate is altogether a different thing. Much of what people “save” today is money they never earned. It is money given to them by the generous folks at the U.S. government. It is fake money, given away on false pretenses. And now, it is fraudulently described as “savings.”
These ersatz savings help depress interest rates, until people realize how it works. Then, they see that the incipient inflation is not cyclical. It is structural. It is part of the government’s program… a program that the feds can’t stop.
Intentional, Deliberate, and Disastrous: Prices are beginning to rise, in other words, not because a real boom is increasing demand for goods and services. Instead, fake demand – a bigger supply of dollars – is driving up prices, with no offsetting increase in goods or services. This phenomenon has a feedback loop of its own. But it’s not self-correcting… It’s self-destructive.
Instead of increasing interest rates and thereby reducing demand for credit, the fake money increases debt loads, dependency, and the need for more cheap credit – more money-printing – to keep up with it. This time, governments are not encouraged to cut back on their programs to prevent “crowding out” private borrowers.
Instead, they’re begged to step up their money-printing, to spend more money, to buy more bonds (or, later, stocks too), to provide more “stimmy” money, to build more highways, to control the planet’s temperature, to right the wrongs of the past, and to look into the changing future and make sure it never happens.
Investors soon figure out that this means higher prices and less output. They take steps to protect themselves… And the government takes steps to prevent them from protecting themselves. “Structural inflation,” in other words, is not a natural feature of the business cycle. It is government policy. Intentional. Deliberate. And disastrous."
"The Life Of The Mind..."
"All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about
as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo. "
- Morris Berman
Apologies to armadillos for the comparison...
Friday, April 9, 2021
"Jim Rickards Warns America: War On Cash Has Started, Prepare Your Self For Digital Dollar"
Full screen recommended.
"Jim Rickards Warns America: War On Cash Has Started,
Prepare Your Self For Digital Dollar"
by Epic Economist
"A dangerous war on cash has started and it is threatening to eliminate all paper dollars forever. According to the economist James Rickards, plans that once seemed too absurd to be true and might have been dismissed as baseless speculation or conspiracy theories are now being publicly enforced by people who occupy the highest levels of power. The ongoing development of central bank digital currencies is going to be the next blow on our personal freedom, as governments will start to collect people's private information to impose punitive measures, negative rates, automatize the deduction of taxes and increase surveillance on all of our banking transactions. The United States is now facing a critical moment as rising inflation is putting the dollar's leading position as the world's reserve currency at risk and that, according to the expert, is going to be the perfect cue for our leaders to justify implementing digital dollars and abandoning paper money. But the consequences of this change will be obscure and will be many. And that's what we're going to discuss in this video.
Economist, investment banker, and financial writer James Rickards recently published an article on the Daily Reckoning warning that the global financial system is experiencing a structural reform that will change money as we know it forever. The Great Reset, as most specialists call it, is finally here, and it is rapidly and silently developing on the dark backstage of central banks all around the world. The health crisis has undoubtedly ravaged economies all over the planet, but it also allowed governments, particularly the U.S. government, to engage in massive spending, expanding our money supply by the trillions. That, however, is putting our position as the world's reserve currency at risk, as rising inflation is threatening to sharply collapse the value of our currency.
The more our deficits grow and our purchasing power declines, the less people will trust in our currency. Knowing that the narrative of a decaying dollar scares most Americans, the central bank has been quietly working on the perfect solution. So when things go downhill and the imminence of severe financial losses sparks panic and chaos across broad swaths of the US population, the federal government and policymakers will arise with a life-changing proposal: digital money. Arguing that in order to reverse runaway inflation and major wealth losses the only logical move would be to completely abandon paper dollars and fully embrace an entirely digital currency, world leaders - who, by the way, unleashed inflation through the staggering monetary response to the health crisis - will come up with what will look like a helpful and progressive plan to get us out from the mess they created themselves.
The truth is that the total elimination of cash has been the global elite's pet project for decades, and now they finally found the ultimate chance to get started. For the wealthy 1%, digital currencies make the dream of infinite money come true, but for the average person, it means that central banks will have access to all of our private banking transactions, and more concerningly, it gives authorities a free pass to directly impose negative interest rates in our banking accounts. The European Central Bank agrees that negative rates will be applied as a “penalty” against “hoarding” cash.
Although the roll-out of the new digital dollar is being kept a secret, the consequences of its imminent issuance are already raising many eyebrows in the financial sector. Considering that banks and other financial institutions are the very foundations of today's stock market, determining valuations alongside the tech sector, CBDCs may represent the end of traditional banks, which also implies that the stock market would either have to significantly shrink in size or cease to exist as a whole. On top of all that, there's an even more obscure side to CBDCs. With no cash, there's no anonymity, and therefore, governments will be allowed to track your whereabouts and habits at all times only by analyzing your use of funds through the CBDC payment system. A central bank digital currency can also result in the automatic deduction of taxes with no alternative for holders to escape.
Given that our country has already started the process of enabling inflation and eliminating cash, anyone who is concerned about the prospect of being pushed into the new digital currency regime trap should make it a high priority to turn to hard money to preserve their savings outside of the financial system. Tough times are ahead for our nation in many different ways, and you should closely watch the next series of developments of the financial world, here, on Epic Economist."
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe - a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way.
Along with a bright central core, this stunning galaxy portrait, a composite of image data from amateur and professional telescopes, highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries tracing the galaxy's spiral arms. It also shows off remarkable reddish jets of glowing hydrogen gas. In addition to small companion galaxy NGC 4248 at bottom right, background galaxies can be found scattered throughout the frame. M106, also known as NGC 4258, is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.”
Chet Raymo, "Lessons"
"Lessons"
by Chet Raymo
"There is a four-line poem by Yeats, called "Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors":
"What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass."
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass."
Like so many of the short poems of Yeats, it is hard to know what the poet had in mind, who exactly were the unknown instructors, and if unknown how could they instruct. But as I opened my volume of "The Poems" this morning, at random, as in the old days people opened the Bible and pointed a finger at a random passage seeking advice or instruction, this is the poem that presented itself. Unsuperstitious person that I am, it seemed somehow apropos, since outside the window, in a thick Irish mist, every blade of grass has its hanging drop.
Those pendant drops, the bejeweled porches of the spider webs, the rose petals cupping their glistening dew - all of that seems terribly important here, now, in the silent mist. There is not much good to say about getting old, but certainly one advantage of the gathering years is the falling away of ego and ambition, the felt need to be always busy, the exhausting practice of accumulation. Who were the instructors who tried to teach me the practice of simplicity when I was young - the poets and the saints, the buddhas who were content to sit beneath the bo tree while the rest of us scurried here and there? I scurried, and I'm not sorry I did, but I must have tucked their lessons into the back of my mind, a cache of wisdom to be opened at my leisure.
Whatever it was they sought to teach has come to pass. All things hang like a drop of dew upon a blade of grass."
"In Ordinary Times..."
"In ordinary times we get along surprisingly well, on the whole, without ever discovering what our faith really is. If, now and again, this remote and academic problem is so unmannerly as to thrust its way into our minds, there are plenty of things we can do to drive the intruder away. We can get the car out or go to a party or to the cinema or read a detective story or have a row with a district council or write a letter to the papers about the habits of the nightjar or Shakespeare's use of nautical metaphor. Thus we build up a defense mechanism against self-questioning because, to tell the truth, we are very much afraid of ourselves."
- Dorothy L. Sayers
"God Grant Me The Courage..."
“God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right,
even though I think it is hopeless.”
- Adm. Chester W. Nimitz
"We said together, wistfully, 'Life, eh?' It says everything without having to say anything: that we all experience moments of joyful or painful reflection, sometimes alone, sometimes sharing laughs and tears with others; that we all know and appreciate that however wonderful and precious life is, it can equally be a terribly confusing and mysterious beast. 'Life, eh?"
- Miranda Hart
"How to Spot Your Own Self-Delusion"
"How to Spot Your Own Self-Delusion"
by Pamela Meyer
"What if deception is in the eye of the beholder? And what if lies can help us tell the truth? The biggest lies are the lies we tell ourselves. S.E. Hinton wrote in "The Outsiders", "I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me." Maybe she was onto something. We've trained ourselves to accept certain truths about where we find fulfillment, where we find joy, and where we find success. But should we challenge that conventional wisdom? Recent studies show that much of what we know about leading a rewarding life is wrong. Some of it is delusional, and some of those delusions are self-inflicted. Here are 5 lies we tell ourselves that we should cleanse from our brains.
Lie #1: Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop: A hard day's work is great. Mindless busy work is not. The greatest threat to success isn't an hour lunch break or a seven-hour day. Everyone's had a boss that believes working hard is the same as working smart. Take this 2013 study from the New Zealand Productivity Commission (yes, that's a thing). In it, experts draw a sharp contrast between work and productivity. The two are not interchangeable. Productivity, notes the study, is the efficient use of both labor and capital. You shouldn't waste labor, just like you shouldn't waste money. We're hardwired to equate quantity of work with quality of work. So we admire and promote the co-worker who puts in the longest hours, when we should be rewarding the co-worker who puts out the best work. We trick ourselves into emphasizing inputs instead of outputs.
Lie #2: "Winners never quit, and quitters never win." Vince Lombardi immortalized that can-do spirit, and has the creds to back it up. Today, we accept his cliché blindly. But quitters can win, and win big. Einstein was a patent clerk in his first gig. Lombardi's wisdom would've had Einstein working to be the best darn patent clerk in Germany. He quit, and traded a fulfilling civil service career for the theory of relativity. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg quit Harvard, Steve Jobs quit Reed College - how significantly has our world changed thanks to their quitting spirit?
Winning strategies don't come from the senseless pursuit of bad ideas. To wit, that's precisely what this fascinating psychological report concludes. In an exhaustive study of 12,000 young people's progress over their lifetime, the University of Florida's Timothy Judge found a beguiling little demographic of successful individuals. Their success didn't come from their backgrounds, but from their ability to collective, analyze, and reject -quit, if you will--certain paths in front of them. Not only did they succeed, they succeeded at higher levels than peers who had greater advantages in pedigree and education.
Lie #3: "Money for Nothing": There's no such thing as a free lunch. This data from The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), read: a bunch of rich countries, found that working hours have gone down since 1991 while wages have gone up. Along with that trend comes the perception that success comes easy and money comes quick.We live in a world of miracle weight loss, fast cash and no-hassle loans. This is an era where people actually believe a Nigerian Prince is willing to pay them millions in exchange for a social security number. The reality is that if you want to make it, you need to get gritty and you need to get dirty. There's no quick, clean fix, there's rarely an easy set path, and there are no free rides. Richard Branson had a little record shop before he started signing bands like The Sex Pistols and founding Virgin Airways (no, not that kind of dirty.) He said: "You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over."
Re: the grit and dirt part, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is a good place to find both. Two West Point professors, along with two of their colleagues, confirm the bad news: "grit" and determination towards achieving a goal is just as important as your individual talent.
Lie #4 "I will win at all costs. I can do it." That philosophy worked so well for Lance Armstrong... But losing isn't just an option; it's the breeding ground for resiliency. And we shouldn't fear it. Harvard's Rosabeth Moss notes "the difference between winners and losers is how they handle losing." Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper gig for lacking "imagination" and "original ideas." Michael Jordan was cut from his High School basketball team. Oprah was demoted from her news gig because she "wasn't fit for television." Losing, writes Kanter in her book, is the building block of confidence. As the self-esteem generation rises -with its noted intolerance for criticism and defeat- the biggest winners will be the best losers.
Lie #5: Note to self: "You are my best friend: You are special": It sounded so good when Mr. Rogers said it. But we're not all special. Not until we do something to prove it. Psychologist Jean Twenge has studied what she calls the "Narcissism Epidemic" that courses through our society. It's a look at how an infatuation with ourselves is chipping away at the foundations of success and mental health. This self-deception, says John Reynolds of Florida State University, has engendered inflated ambitions and expectations, which -surprise!- leads to depression and feelings of failure.
So what's the antidote for all the special snowflakes out there? In "The Pyschology of Success", Carol Dweck speaks to the importance of having a "growth mindset" rather than a "fixed mindset." Put plainly, you can be special and you can be talented. But it isn't divinely appointed. Act mediocre, lead a mediocre life, and you'll be as special as a glass of lukewarm milk. Per Dweck, you either grow personally and professionally to fulfill your aspirations, or your stubbornly expect your aspirations to come to you.
All of this, of course, is easier said than done. The logistician Ludwig Wittgenstein said "nothing's so difficult as not deceiving ourselves." Clear heads are hard to come by, common sense is rarely common, and perception isn't always reality. True honesty isn't limited to the way you talk to your neighbors. It can also come from the way your heart talks to your brain.”
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/9/21: "Central Banks Gone Wild! Expect A Tsunami Of Inflation To Hit"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/9/21:
"Central Banks Gone Wild! Expect A Tsunami Of Inflation To Hit"
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