"Voodoo Guesswork"

The economy, 2021

"Voodoo Guesswork"

By Bill Bonner

When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep is your downfall.

– Sid Taylor, former research director, National Taxpayers Union

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – Yesterday, we began our look at the Big Bang… the end of an empire… the grand finale in a Katastrophenhausse. That’s when the you-know-what hits the fan. Trouble is, you-don’t-know-when… or exactly how. Our observation is that inflation is not always and everywhere a purely monetary phenomenon. In fact, it never is. Instead, part cause and part effect, it unsettles and disrupts. It mixes with politics and social movements… and like nitro and glycerin, the combination is inherently unstable… and explosive.

Civilization Is Restraint: Whenever and wherever there is great inflation, so is there great trouble. The French Revolution and the inflation of the assignats and land warrants, for example…Hyperinflation in Russia and the Bolshevik Revolution…Germany’s Weimar Republic inflation and the rise of the Nazis…Yugoslavia, 1994-1996… inflation of 62% PER DAY… and the end of the country.

Civilization is restraint, as Sigmund Freud put it. It requires rules… discipline. Weeds must be pulled up. Trees must be pruned. Property must be protected. Roofs must be fixed. Contracts must be respected. Two plus two must equal four. And money must be neither dear nor cheap, but true.

Order must be maintained. And order requires energy… expense… and time. Slack off… or squander your time and energy – How many women are on your board? Sanction the Russians? More stimmy money for everyone! – and things fall apart…and then blow up.

Empty Gestures: At least, that’s our hypothesis. To which we add… that by our count, in the U.S., the nitro and the glycerin have been edging towards each other for two decades. People still go about their business, more or less as before. Congress still meets and pretends to govern. People still vote, pretending to select worthy representatives. Wall Street still pretends to allocate precious capital to productive businesses. Prices still pretend to reflect the real value of stocks and bonds. The press still pretends to report the news. The Federal Reserve still pretends to offer real money. But the gestures are empty… the facts are fake… and the numbers don’t add up.

Outgo > Income: Forty years ago, in the month of March, the federal government collected $44 billion in tax revenue and spent $53 billion. Even then, the feds were $9 billion in the hole. But they could borrow the money honestly; no big deal.

In March 2021, the feds collected some $267 billion in tax receipts. But they spent $927 billion – a new record. And a record monthly deficit of $660 billion, approximately equal to the entire U.S. annual budget during the Ronald Reagan administration.

Not only do income and outgo not match… they’re never going to get together. Losing money at this rate implies a loss for the year of about $8 trillion… More likely, March was an outlier, and the loss will be “only” about $3-$4 trillion, still far more than can plausibly be borrowed. And this is on top of other big numbers that don’t add up, either.

Trouble Ahead: And here is where it leads. Here’s Business Insider: “…In our view, the risk is investors are going to experience an acceleration in economic growth and inflation of a magnitude economists and the Fed are totally unprepared for,” said Hans Mikkelsen, head of high-grade credit strategy at Bank of America.

And here’s economist Nouriel Roubini: "Over the next few years, loose monetary and fiscal policies will start to trigger persistent inflationary – and eventually stagflationary – pressure, owing to the emergence of any number of persistent negative supply shocks."

Make no mistake: Inflation’s return would have severe economic and financial consequences. We would have gone from the “Great Moderation” to a new period of macro instability. Even Larry Summers, former director of the National Economic Council, who is rarely right about anything, sees trouble coming. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, he said: "This is the least responsible fiscal macroeconomic policy we’ve had for the last 40 years."

Nothing to Worry About: But wait… What are we worried about? The Biden team “modeled” various scenarios. It found that inflation will not be a problem. Here’s The New York Times: "A monthslong effort to monitor and model economic trends inside the White House and the Treasury Department found little risk of prices spiraling upward faster than the Fed can manage."

What a relief! No cause for concern, sayeth the feds’ models. Of course, Rudolf von Havenstein, who ran the German central bank from 1908 to 1923, had models, too. So did Gideon Gono, jefe of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe from 2003 to 2013. And Ben Bernanke, in charge at the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014, had models that told him that the mortgage finance crisis was nothing to worry about, either. On Thursday, May 17, 2007 said the great man: "We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system."

The models sound scientific. But they are nothing more than voodoo guesswork."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is, And Will Be, For A Long, Long time"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/15/21: "MORE #LIES #PROPAGANDA AND #MANIPULATION"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/15/21:

"MORE #LIES #PROPAGANDA AND #MANIPULATION"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Covid-19 Pandemic Update 4/15/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Update 4/15/21"

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“When you don’t have the data and you don’t have

 the actual evidence, you’ve got to make a judgment call." 

- Dr. Anthony Fauci, 3/11/21

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 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 April 15, 2021 12:04 AM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 138,027,200 

people, according to official counts, including 31,444,696 Americans.

Globally at least 2,970,200 have died.

  April 15, 2021 12:04 AM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

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"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/

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"Entirely Possible This Will Be Used For Massive-scale Depopulation"

by Mordechai Sones

"America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) spoke to former Pfizer Vice President and Chief Science Officer Dr. Mike Yeadon about his views on the COVID-19 vaccine, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, the regulatory authorities, and more. At the outset, Dr. Yeadon said “I’m well aware of the global crimes against humanity being perpetrated against a large proportion of the worlds population. I feel great fear, but I’m not deterred from giving expert testimony to multiple groups of able lawyers like Rocco Galati in Canada and Reiner Fuellmich in Germany. I have absolutely no doubt that we are in the presence of evil (not a determination I’ve ever made before in a 40-year research career) and dangerous products.

In the U.K., it’s abundantly clear that the authorities are bent on a course which will result in administering ‘vaccines’ to as many of the population as they can. This is madness, because even if these agents were legitimate, protection is needed only by those at notably elevated risk of death from the virus. In those people, there might even be an argument that the risks are worth bearing. And there definitely are risks which are what I call ‘mechanistic’: inbuilt in the way they work.

But all the other people, those in good health and younger than 60 years, perhaps a little older, they don’t perish from the virus. In this large group, it’s wholly unethical to administer something novel and for which the potential for unwanted effects after a few months is completely uncharacterized.

In no other era would it be wise to do what is stated as the intention. Since I know this with certainty, and I know those driving it know this too, we have to enquire: What is their motive? While I don’t know, I have strong theoretical answers, only one of which relates to money and that motive doesn’t work, because the same quantum can be arrived at by doubling the unit cost and giving the agent to half as many people. Dilemma solved. So it’s something else.
Appreciating that, by entire population, it is also intended that minor children and eventually babies are to be included in the net, and that’s what I interpret to be an evil act.

There is no medical rationale for it. Knowing as I do that the design of these ‘vaccines’ results, in the expression in the bodies of recipients, expression of the spike protein, which has adverse biological effects of its own which, in some people, are harmful (initiating blood coagulation and activating the immune ‘complement system’), I’m determined to point out that those not at risk from this virus should not be exposed to the risk of unwanted effects from these agents.”

AFLDS: The Israel Supreme Court decision last week cancelling COVID flight restrictions said: “In the future, any new restrictions on travel into or out of Israel need, in legal terms, a comprehensive, factual, data-based foundation.”

In a talk you gave four months ago, you said, “The most likely duration of immunity to a respiratory virus like SARS CoV-2 is multiple years. Why do I say that? We actually have the data for a virus that swept through parts of the world seventeen years ago called SARS, and remember SARS CoV-2 is 80% similar to SARS, so I think that’s the best comparison that anyone can provide.

The evidence is clear: These very clever cellular immunologists studied all the people they could get hold of who had survived SARS 17 years ago. They took a blood sample, and they tested whether they responded or not to the original SARS and they all did; they all had perfectly normal, robust T cell memory. They were actually also protected against SARS CoV-2, because they’re so similar; it’s cross immunity.

So, I would say the best data that exists is that immunity should be robust for at least 17 years. I think it’s entirely possible that it is lifelong. The style of the responses of these people’s T cells were the same as if you’ve been vaccinated and then you come back years later to see if that immunity has been retained. So I think the evidence is really strong that the duration of immunity will be multiple years, and possibly lifelong.”

In other words, previous exposure to SARS – that is, a variant similar to SARS CoV-2 – bestowed SARS CoV-2 immunity. The Israel government cites new variants to justify lockdowns, flight closures, restrictions, and Green Passport issuance. Given the Supreme Court verdict, do you think it may be possible to preempt future government measures with accurate information about variants, immunity, herd immunity, etc. that could be provided to the lawyers who will be challenging those future measures?

Yeadon: “What I outlined in relation to immunity to SARS is precisely what we’re seeing with SARS-CoV-2.
The study is from one of the best labs in their field. So, theoretically, people could test their T-cell immunity by measuring the responses of cells in a small sample of their blood. There are such tests, they are not “high throughput” and they are likely to cost a few hundred USD each on scale. But not thousands. The test I’m aware of is not yet commercially available, but research only in U.K.

However, I expect the company could be induced to provide test kits “for research” on scale, subject to an agreement. If you were to arrange to test a few thousand non vaccinated Israelis, it may be a double edged sword. Based on other countries experiences, 30-50% of people had prior immunity & additionally around 25% have been infected & are now immune.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to deal with the authorities on their own terms: that you’re suspected as a source of infection until proven otherwise. You shouldn’t need to be proving you’re not a health risk to others. Those without symptoms are never a health threat to others. And in any case, once those who are concerned about the virus are vaccinated, there is just no argument for anyone else needing to be vaccinated."

AFLDS: My understanding of a “leaky vaccine” is that it only lessens symptoms in the vaccinated, but does not stop transmission; it therefore allows the spread of what then becomes a more deadly virus. For example, in China they deliberately use leaky Avian Flu vaccines to quickly cull flocks of chicken, because the unvaccinated die within three days. In Marek’s Disease, from which they needed to save all the chickens, the only solution was to vaccinate 100% of the flock, because all unvaccinated were at high risk of death. So how a leaky vax is utilized is intention-driven, that is, it is possible that the intent can be to cause great harm to the unvaccinated.

Stronger strains usually would not propagate through a population because they kill the host too rapidly, but if the vaccinated experience only less-serious disease, then they spread these strains to the unvaccinated who contract serious disease and die.

Do you agree with this assessment? Furthermore, do you agree that if the unvaccinated become the susceptible ones, the only way forward is HCQ prophylaxis for those who haven’t already had COVID-19? Would the Zelenko Protocol work against these stronger strains if this is the case? And if many already have the aforementioned previous “17-year SARS immunity”, would that then not protect from any super-variant?

“I think the Gerrt Vanden Bossche story is highly suspect. There is no evidence at all that vaccination is leading or will lead to ‘dangerous variants’. I am worried that it’s some kind of trick. As a general rule, variants form very often, routinely, and tend to become less dangerous & more infectious over time, as it comes into equilibrium with its human host. Variants generally don’t become more dangerous. No variant differs from the original sequence by more than 0.3%. In other words, all variants are at least 99.7% identical to the Wuhan sequence.

It’s a fiction, and an evil one at that, that variants are likely to “escape immunity”. Not only is it intrinsically unlikely – because this degree of similarity of variants means zero chance that an immune person (whether from natural infection or from vaccination) will be made ill by a variant – but it’s empirically supported by high-quality research.

The research I refer to shows that people recovering from infection or who have been vaccinated ALL have a wide range of immune cells which recognize ALL the variants. This paper shows WHY the extensive molecular recognition by the immune system makes the tiny changes in variants irrelevant.

I cannot say strongly enough: The stories around variants and need for top up vaccines are FALSE. I am concerned there is a very malign reason behind all this. It is certainly not backed by the best ways to look at immunity. The claims always lack substance when examined, and utilize various tricks, like manipulating conditions for testing the effectiveness of antibodies. Antibodies are probably rather unimportant in host protection against this virus. There have been a few ‘natural experiments’, people who unfortunately cannot make antibodies, yet are able quite successfully to repel this virus. They definitely are better off with antibodies than without. I mention these rare patients because they show that antibodies are not essential to host immunity, so some contrived test in a lab of antibodies and engineered variant viruses do NOT justify need for top up vaccines.

The only people who might remain vulnerable and need prophylaxis or treatment are those who are elderly and/or ill and do not wish to receive a vaccine (as is their right). The good news is that there are multiple choices available: hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, budesonide (inhaled steroid used in asthmatics), and of course oral Vitamin D, zinc, azithromycin etc. These reduce the severity to such an extent that this virus did not need to become a public health crisis.”

AFLDS: Do you feel the FDA does a good job regulating big pharma? In what ways does big pharma get around the regulator? Do you feel they did so for the mRNA injection?

Yeadon: “Until recently, I had high regard for global medicines regulators. When I was in Pfizer, and later CEO of a biotech I founded (Ziarco, later acquired by Novartis), we interacted respectfully with FDA, EMA, and the U.K. MHRA.
 Always good quality interactions.

Recently, I noticed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) had made a grant to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)! Can that ever be appropriate? They’re funded by public money. They should never accept money from a private body.

So here is an example where the U.K. regulator has a conflict of interest. The European Medicines Agency failed to require certain things as disclosed in the ‘hack’ of their files while reviewing the Pfizer vaccine. You can find examples on Reiner Fuellmich’s “Corona Committee” online. So I no longer believe the regulators are capable of protecting us. ‘Approval’ is therefore meaningless.

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg and I petitioned the EMA Dec 1, 2020 on the genetic vaccines. They ignored us. Recently, we wrote privately to them, warning of blood clots, they ignored us. When we went public with our letter, we were completely censored. Days later, more than ten countries paused use of a vaccine citing blood clots.

I think the big money of pharma plus cash from BMGF creates the environment where saying no just isn’t an option for the regulator. I must return to the issue of ‘top up vaccines’ (booster shots) and it is this whole narrative which I fear will he exploited and used to gain unparalleled power over us.

PLEASE warn every person not to go near top up vaccines. There is absolutely no need to them. As there’s no need for them, yet they’re being made in pharma, and regulators have stood aside (no safety testing), I can only deduce they will be used for nefarious purposes.

For example, if someone wished to harm or kill a significant proportion of the worlds population over the next few years, the systems being put in place right now will enable it. It’s my considered view that it is entirely possible that this will be used for massive-scale depopulation.”

- https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/

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Related:

• "Basic Arithmetic For Leftist Losers"

• "Shot in the Dark: 

Medical Doctor Exposes Deadly Dangers of Covid-19 Vaccines"

• "The COVID Fraud Will Not Stay Hidden Forever"

• "Straight Talk On Covid"

• "Redefining Death"

"Food Prices Are Rising Aggressively And It Is Only Going To Get Worse... Be Prepared"

Full screen recommended.

"Food Prices Are Rising Aggressively And It Is 

Only Going To Get Worse... Be Prepared"

by Epic Economist

"If you’re like most Americans, you must have noticed that grocery shopping has been growing more expensive with each passing month. Food prices are soaring all across the country, and industry experts are alerting that from now on, it's only going to get worse. Even the mainstream media is warning that grocery bills will continue to climb for the rest of the year, and when corporate media starts flashing a red light over an issue that was overlooked for months, we know that things are about to get serious. The truth is that U.S. consumers should brace for a widespread shortage of goods and, as a consequence, skyrocketing prices will continue on a meteoric rise as our economy gets ravaged by inflation. And that's what we're going to expose in this video.

A new report released on Tuesday by the Labor Department revealed that consumer prices shot higher in March, as trillions in stimulus money started flooding the economy, pushing the consumer price index up 2.6% from the same period a year ago. The main driver of this staggering hike on the consumer price index was the significant increase in gasoline prices, which have surged 9.1% in March, and went up 22.5% from a year ago, part of a 13.2% increase in energy prices.

Higher gasoline prices have increased transport costs and demand continues to outpace oil production, therefore, that rise will be passed on to consumers. Data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicate food price inflation will escalate an additional 3% this year. In 2020, food prices rose 3.9%, almost triple last year's overall rate of inflation, according to the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. From now on, "people will have to get used to paying more for food," that's what the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, Sylvain Charlebois, told Bloomberg, stressing that “it’s only going to get worse.”

Amongst the main drivers to this meteoric price rise is the plummeting food production. Since the health crisis started, several production and packing plants were completely shut down due to a number of widespread outbreaks caused by crowded working conditions. Even though many processing plants are reopening, owners are having to invest in technology and new operations to keep their workers safe, which includes more automation and equipment that can be operated remotely. And, of course, that additional investment cost will be absorbed by the end consumer.

Moreover, the sanitary outbreak also derailed food distribution, and the recent transportation tumult is adding to the price pressures. The Food and Drug Administration noted the U.S. imports account for 15% of its overall food supply, and estimates show we import roughly 65% of our seafood from international producers. Higher demand and a change of habits are contributing to elevated prices too. After restaurants were forced to close and remote working became more popular amongst American workers, people have begun eating more at home. With millions of families now at home for three meals a day, food consumption in the U.S. has boomed.

A recent article disclosed that 50% of participants in a food consumption survey affirmed they had been buying more food than usual during the health crisis, with 33% admitting to stockpiling it. And as the food supply sinks, there’s really only one direction prices can go. On top of all that, extreme weather has severely disturbed the global supply chain. One simple example of how vulnerable supply chains are at the moment can be seen in the fallout of the recent Texas storms. Farmers were forced to dump roughly 14 million gallons of milk during the crisis, and the state’s farmers and ranchers have lost more than $600 million. When similar events started to occur more frequently and more powerfully, the threat to the U.S. food supply will only grow, and grocery bills will continue to follow that upward trend.

In essence, even in the best of times, the planet was already struggling to feed the entire world population, and we're headed to even steeper hardships in both food production and distribution. Although the U.S. might still have enough supply for people to stockpile and secure themselves and their families, only those who managed to somehow keep their jobs and maintain some sort of financial stability during the recession will be able to afford such highly inflated prices. It is very unfortunate to admit that food prices may not return to lower levels for years, and things are going to become even more painful as our leaders continue to flood the system with more cash. Dark clouds are emerging on the horizon, and you should get prepared."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"From American Dream to American Nightmare" (Excerpt)

"From American Dream to American Nightmare" (Excerpt)

by Jim Quinn

"For most of the ninety years since James Truslow Adams coined the term American Dream, most Americans still believed the fairy tale of the American Dream, that no matter how humble your beginnings, everyone had a fair chance to become a success in America, based upon your individual talent, intelligence, work ethic and a society that rewarded those who exceled. Sadly, that dream is no longer achievable for most Americans. Our society has devolved into an oligarchy since The Epic of America was published in 1931, where a powerful few rule over a willfully ignorant many through propaganda, mistruth, fear, and an iron fist.

“But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position…

The American dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.” – James Truslow Adams, "Epic of America", 1931

It is terribly distressing the American dream has vaporized in less than a century after Adams wrote those profound, and at one time true, words. The real questions are why did the American dream turn into an American nightmare and is there a pathway back to the kind of country our forefathers created? There are numerous reasons why the country has fallen far from its original conception as a proud defiant Republic to its current state as a dying empire of depravity, decay, debt, and decadence. The conspiratorial creation of the Federal Reserve and implementation of a Federal income tax in 1913 marked a true destructive turning point for America.

These two choices, implemented by greedy bankers and sleazy politicians, put the country on a road to perdition. They centralized the power of money printing and confiscation of our wages at the point of a gun. The result has been a 96% loss of purchasing power of the dollar and an average tax burden of at least 30%, when all Federal, state, and local taxes are taken into consideration. The standard of living has steadily eroded for the average working class, while extreme wealth has been accumulated by the ruling class. And it was not an accident or miscalculation. It was purposeful. We have been fleeced by bankers, politicians, and the ruling oligarchy for decades.

Our world is now ruled by a tyrannical few who have used the system, created by their class, to accumulate immense wealth and power, sustained by a government they manipulate by buying politicians and having their cronies and thugs write and enforce the laws. The misinformation, propaganda, and fake news dished out by a mainstream media, owned, and controlled by the ruling oligarchy, creates a smokescreen to obscure who wields the true power in this country. The Deep State is no longer a looney conspiracy theory, but the reality of how this country is now controlled and run.

Despite his personality deficiencies, the four-year reign of Trump tore the curtain away and revealed the vile creatures wielding their traitorous power within the swamp of D.C. These despicable vermin (Obama, Clintons, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Soros, Bloomberg, Gates, Biden) conducted a coup against a duly elected president and ultimately drove him from office by successfully executing a fraudulent election in conjunction with Big Tech despots and Democrat governors in a few swing states. The oligarchs have boldly gone where their criminal counterparts throughout history have gone before. In a just world these wretched traitors would be executed for their crimes against humanity."

Please view this complete and most highly recommended article here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

“Hedge Funds Are Buying Up Homes; The ‘Recovery’ Is Over; Get Ready To Pay More; Loving The Illusion”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Hedge Funds Are Buying Up Homes; The ‘Recovery’ Is Over;

 Get Ready To Pay More; Loving The Illusion”

Musical Interlude: Sting, "Fields of Gold"

Sting, "Fields of Gold"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though. 

Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars. Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210402.html

The Poet: Charles Bukowski, “Roll The Dice”

“Roll The Dice”

“If you’re going to try,

go all the way,

otherwise, don’t even start.

If you’re going to try,

go all the way.

This could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

Go all the way.

It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.

It could mean freezing on a

park bench.

It could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery, isolation.

Isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your endurance,

of how much you really want to do it.

And you’ll do it,

despite rejection and the worst odds,

and it will be better than

anything else you can imagine.

If you’re going to try,

go all the way.

There is no other feeling like that.

You will be alone with the gods,

and the nights will flame with fire.

Do it, do it, do it.

Do it.

All the way,

all the way.

You will ride life straight to

perfect laughter, it’s

the only good fight there is.”

- Charles Bukowski

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“Are You Sane?”

“Are You Sane?”

by Charles Hugh Smith

“A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, “Welcome to the Monkey House”

“Madness has engulfed the entire world, with a concentration of power in the hands of a few psychopathic financial elite wielding an inordinate and dangerous expanse of power over the lives of the common man. They are a modern day version of Al Capone, except their weapons of choice aren’t machine guns, but a printing press, peddling debt, creating derivatives of mass destruction, and peddling heaping doses of disinformation. The contemporary criminal class wears Hermes suits, Rolex watches and diamond studded pinky rings, drops $500 to dine at Masa in NYC, travels by chauffeured limo, lives in $10 million NYC penthouse suites, occupies luxurious corner offices in hundred story glass towers, and spends weekends hobnobbing with the other financial elite at their villas in the Hamptons. They have nothing but utter contempt for the lowly peasants who depend upon a weekly paycheck to make ends meet. Why work when you can steal $1 or $2 billion from farmers with no consequences?

The willfully ignorant masses are kept at bay by the selling them a false dichotomy of Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals, and capitalism versus socialism. The ruling class distracts the public with fake wars on poverty, drugs and terror, while using these storylines to further enrich themselves and keep the public alarmed and frightened. We’ve been “fighting” the wars on poverty and drugs for over four decades and poverty is at record levels, while drugs are easier to obtain than candy in a candy store. The war on terror is nothing more than a corporate arms dealer welfare plan. The end of the Cold War put a real crimp in the bottom lines of Lockheed Martin and the rest of the peddlers of death. 9/11 and the subsequent undeclared wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, with Iran on the horizon, have been a godsend to the bottom lines of the corporations Eisenhower warned about in 1961.

In reality, the politicians are interchangeable and bought off by corporate and special interests. The people are sold a fable, and controlled opposition is the fairy tale. They perpetuate the welfare/warfare state that enriches Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the healthcare service complex, politically connected mega-corporations and the corporate media propaganda complex. The American people are given the illusion of choice by their keepers. The system is rigged. The real decisions are made by unelected secretive men who operate in the shadows and use their wealth to direct the decision making of the politicians, government bureaucrats, and corporate entities that benefit from those decisions. Edward Bernays described a society that existed in the 19th Century, 20th Century, and has now grown to immense proportions in the 21st Century:

“Political campaigns today are all sideshows. A presidential candidate may be ‘drafted’ in response to ‘overwhelming popular demand,’ but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting around a table in a hotel room. The conscious manipulation of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” – Edward Bernays

The manipulation of the masses has been perfected by the ruling class through decades of corporate mass media messaging the purposeful dumbing down of the populace through government public school education that teaches children how to feel rather than how to think. The conscious manipulation of the masses has been designed to produce obedient non-thinking consumers of corporate products, educated to believe the accumulation of material goods with debt constitutes wealth, to fear whatever the government tells them to fear, and never look up from their iGadgets long enough to actually think for themselves. We are bombarded with Orwellian memes designed to keep us sedated and pliant, as the ruling class pillages the national wealth and expands their power and control over our lives.

Conform; Stay Asleep; Do Not Question Authority; Obey; Consume; Reproduce; Submit; Watch TV; Buy; Follow; Doubt Humanity; No New Ideas; Feel, Don’t Think; Fear; Accumulate; Honor Apathy; Believe Experts; Surrender; Spend; No Independent Thought; Win; Want More; Hate; Succumb To Desire; Yield To Power; Choose Safety Over Liberty; Choose Security Over Freedom

This insane world was created through decades of bad decisions, believing in false prophets, choosing current consumption over sustainable long-term savings based growth, electing corruptible men who promised voters entitlements that were mathematically impossible to deliver, the disintegration of a sense of civic and community obligation and a gradual degradation of the national intelligence and character.

Vonnegut and Huxley’s social commentary reveals a basic truth that societies and human beings have been prone to bouts of madness over the course of decades and centuries. Humans are a weak species, susceptible to the vagaries of greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth, envy and pride. The seven deadly sins are in full bloom today, as the American empire descends through Dante’s inferno of reality TV, celebrity worship, religious zealotry, adulation of wealthy titans, military conquest and worship of false idols.

This is where the interests of those in power and those being ruled have coincided, as a fiat based monetary system allowed unlimited spending to keep the welfare/warfare state growing, enriching the crony capitalists, deepening the power of the state, and providing the masses with foreign made trinkets, baubles, corporate logoed clothing, techno-gadgets, and pimped out financed wheels. The concepts of self-restraint, discipline, saving for a rainy day, prudence, discretion, and deferred gratification are rarely displayed in modern day America. In a case of mass delusion, Americans have convinced themselves to live for today, recklessly ignore their futures, irresponsibly spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need, neglect their civic duty towards future generations, choose ignorance over knowledge, and vote for spineless politicians who promise them entitlements that are mathematically impossible to honor. The public’s foolish attitude towards debt accumulation matches the arrogance of our gutless intellectually dishonest leaders.”

- http://www.theburningplatform.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

League City, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/14/21: "US Dollar Purchasing Power Falls To ALL TIME LOW. Crude Surges Higher"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/14/21:

"US Dollar Purchasing Power Falls To ALL TIME LOW.

 Crude Surges Higher"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"You Can Never Tell..."

"You can never tell what people have inside them

until you start taking it away, one hope at a time."

- Gregory David Roberts

"An Economic, Social, and Political Catastrophe"

"An Economic, Social, and Political Catastrophe"

By Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "This morning, the Irish Independent reports: “US consumer prices climbed by the most in nearly nine years in March as the end of pandemic lockdowns triggered a rebound in travel and commuting that pushed up the cost of petrol, car rentals and hotel stays.” The death of an empire begins with a whimper… and ends with a bang. Yesterday, we trod lightly over the whimpers. After all, they are mostly silly… and puerile. Together, they generate a lot of noise, but they mean nothing. They are pointless… stupid… time-wasters.

Big Deal: Today, we sink into more serious matters. The Big Bang, that is. Yes, the Katastrophenhausse. The empire suffers a thousand paper cuts – trivia, distractions, and BS. But the deeper wound comes from the people who control the money. The logical and inevitable consequence of the Federal Reserve’s money-printing and reckless spending is inflation. Prices go up.

No big deal? Well… actually… Inflation is not always, everywhere, and only a monetary phenomenon. It is much more than that. It is an economic, social, and political catastrophe.

Asset Inflation: Before we go further, we will point out that “inflation” refers to increasing the money supply. This “inflation” then goes somewhere… but not always where and when you want it to go. So far, in the 21st century, it has mostly gone into asset prices.

The Nasdaq-100, for example, home to many of America’s leading tech companies, has gone up more than 500% over the last 10 years. But Sanford Bernstein Research tells us that 37% of companies in the tech sector are unprofitable.

Housing, too, has been distorted by price inflation. We are now in the second housing bubble of the century, with prices rising even faster than they did in the last one. Politico reports: "Home prices in January – typically a slow month for the market – were up 14 percent over the same month the previous year, while sales jumped 24 percent, despite an unemployment rate that was almost twice as high. Demand for existing homes is so strong that the average residence is on the market for just three weeks, and inventory is at a record low after seeing its steepest drop last year since the data was first tracked in 1999."

Inventory is at a record low? Didn’t Trump and Biden’s $5 trillion of “stimulus” increase output… including the supply of new houses? No, it didn’t. While house prices are 43% higher than they were at the height of the last housing bubble, the rate of new house construction is down nearly 50%. Hmmm… More money… Fewer houses available to buy? What do you get? Well, let’s take a look.

Road to Ruin: Let’s take a little trip… a little vacation… to the biggest island in the Caribbean. There, we will find an example of what we’re looking for – a social, political, and economic catastrophe approaching its climax.

Back in the 1950s, Cuba was a vacation spot. A jewel, with the fifth-highest per capita income in the Western Hemisphere, equal to 41% of the U.S., making the average Cuban wealthier than the typical American in the poorer states such as Mississippi or South Carolina. Cuba was second to the U.S. in ownership of automobiles and telephones, and first in ownership of TV sets. It was a mecca for American tourists.

A friend recalls, as a child, family vacations every year in Cuba. Ernest Hemingway lived for 20 years outside of Havana. And Lucille Ball’s husband – Desi Arnaz – brought the popular Cuban rhythms to New York and American television.

Had it been allowed to evolve in a normal way, Havana probably would have become like Las Vegas – but with Latin culture and a beach – rather than the dilapidated metropolis it is now. But so desperate are people for government – like children for parents – that they will put up with almost anything, no matter how bad. And so it was that the Castro regime – with its central planning and price controls – set Cuba on the road to ruin, where it stayed for the next 60 years.

Dire Economic Crisis: This week, the Castros’ reign comes to an end. Financial Times reports: "Cuba’s last Castro is set to leave the political stage, as Fidel’s 89-year-old brother Raúl cedes power to a younger generation at next week’s communist party congress which must also tackle a dire economic crisis and growing political dissent."

The “dire economic crisis” is the rather obvious fruit of dumbbell policies pursued over the last six decades. They began with the appointment of Che Guevara, the famous revolutionary, as head of the central bank of Cuba. Mr. Guevara knew no more about banking than current U.S. Treasury Secretary and former head of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen does. The result was an early setback for the new government… to be followed by many more over the years – almost all of them driven by activist bureaucrats, who thought they could do a better job of allocating capital than the “market.”

The end result is now on display. “This is cattle country,” the FT quotes a source in Camagüey province, “but there’s no milk, butter, yogurt or meat.” Cuba imports 60% of its food. And when its tourism industry hit the skids in the COVID-19 panic of 2020, it left very little money available for other things.Over the years, some 1.4 million Cubans left the island. Those who remain live like paupers. That is not to say they are necessarily unhappy or unwell. But its pursuit of “equality” left most Cubans poorer.

Government can’t equalize up; for that would require creating new wealth. It can only equalize down, by taking away money and redistributing it… and destroying much of the wealth-generating capacity of the free economy in the process.

At first, Castro’s Cuba relied on the Soviet Union for subsidies – selling its sugar at inflated prices. Then, it depended on Venezuelan oil money to keep going. Both of these socialist paradises have gone into the ditch. And now, Cuba is on its own… desperately trying to hold itself together.

End in Sight: But alert dear readers are already wondering: Why doesn’t the Bank of Cuba just print up some more money, like the U.S. is doing? Doesn’t it know the “stimmy” trick? Well, what do you think?

Of course, Cuban central bankers read the same books and journals as those everywhere else. The Cuban government recently devalued the peso by 96%... and raised salaries for everyone who works for the government – but not for the 40% of workers who actually produce goods and services. And guess what? Cuba approaches its Big Bang finale.

Consumer price inflation there is said to be approaching 500% this year. And new revolutionaries gather around Havana… like sharks off the Playa Paraiso… ready to take a bite out of Havana’s aging rulers. More to come…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Food Prices Are Rising Aggressively, And Even The Corporate Media Is Admitting That It Is Only Going To Get Worse"

"Food Prices Are Rising Aggressively, And Even The 

Corporate Media Is Admitting That It Is Only Going To Get Worse"

by Michael Snyder

"Food prices are outrageous now, but they are only going to go higher. Earlier today, I came across an NBC News article entitled “Get ready for higher grocery bills for the rest of the year”. I thought that it was strange that a piece put out by the corporate media sounded like it could have come straight from my website, because I have been sounding the alarm about higher food prices for quite some time. Surprisingly, the NBC News article was generally right on point. Thanks to a variety of factors, food prices have been rising aggressively, and that is going to continue for the foreseeable future.

According to the Labor Department, consumer prices overall were up 0.6 percent from February to March: "Consumer prices shot higher in March, given a boost by a strong economic recovery and year-over-year comparisons to a time when the Covid-19 pandemic was about to throttle the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The consumer price index rose 0.6% from the previous month but 2.6% from the same period a year ago. The year-over-year gain is the highest since August 2018 and was well above the 1.7% recorded in February."

0.6 percent may not sound like that much, but if you multiply that figure by 12 months you get an annualized rate of 7.2 percent. Of course the government has changed the way the inflation rate is calculated dozens of times over the years, and at this point everyone knows that the official number greatly understates what is really happening in the economy. In fact, John Williams of shadowstats.com says that if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would be over 10 percent right now. In other words, we have now reached Jimmy Carter levels of inflation.

One of the places where we are really starting to see inflation show up is in food prices. Here are just a few examples: "Before the pandemic began, the national average for a pound of bacon in January 2020 was $4.72. By last month, that price had soared to $5.11, according to exclusive supermarket point of sale data from NielsenIQ. Ground beef is up $5.26 a pound from $5.02. Bread is up $2.66 a loaf from $2.44."

So why are food prices increasing like this? Yahoo News recently posted an article that listed four explanations:

1. Plummeting food production.

2. Transportation tumult.

3. More eating at home.

4. Wild weather.

Moving forward, the pandemic will continue to suppress global food production, commodity prices will likely keep climbing, and increasingly wild weather patterns will certainly cause even more damage to crops. All of these factors are making it more expensive for food companies to operate, and as NBC News has noted, food companies are starting to pass along those costs to consumers: "Issues like higher gas prices, increasing transport costs that get passed on to consumers, especially for items like bread, are only going up as driving increases faster than oil production. So grocery prices are likely to remain on the higher end of estimates for at least the rest of the year, Olvera said. Producers may eventually increase their output in order to capture the heightened demand, but that won’t happen until toward the end of this year, Olvera said."

Of course it isn’t just the United States that is wrestling with these problems. Food prices are actually rising far more rapidly in much of the rest of the world, and we recently learned that global food prices spiked for a tenth month in a row during March: "Global food commodity prices rose in March, marking their tenth consecutive monthly increase, with quotations for vegetable oils and dairy products leading the rise, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported today.

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 118.5 points in March, 2.1 percent higher than in February and reaching its highest level since June 2014."

Those at the very bottom of the economic food chain are being hurt the most by rising food prices. We have already started to see food riots in some areas, and one relief organization is warning that millions of people in East Africa are now on the verge of starvation: "Over 7 million people across six East African countries are at the cusp of starvation as communities have faced existential threats from violence, flooding, the pandemic and locust infestation, the evangelical humanitarian organization World Vision has warned."

Even during the best of years, we really struggle to feed the entire planet, and 2021 is definitely not going to be a great year for global food production. The good news is that there is still plenty of food in our supermarkets right now, and that means that we have a window of opportunity.

I know that food prices may seem ridiculous, but they aren’t ever going to be any lower than they are right now. I would encourage you to use this window of opportunity to stock up at these relatively low prices, because the price increases are only going to become even more painful as our leaders continue to flood the system with more cash."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/14/21: "FReaKShoW: The Economic Collapse Worsens"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/14/21:

"FReaKShoW: The Economic Collapse Worsens"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

"A Hundred Days of Joe"

"A Hundred Days of Joe"

by Jim Kunstler

"America’s first animatronic president outside of Disney World routinely does a disappearing act every weekend. Where does he go? Does his management team plug him into a recharging station? Does he rest on a catafalque in some sub-basement of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue like one of the fabled undead from the Hollywood crypt classics? Or do they just stuff him into a closet where the rolling podiums and teleprompters are stored?

It’s unclear exactly what his duties were in eight years as vice-president, besides running interference for his busy son, Hunter, who followed the Veep around the world like a Roomba vacuum cleaner picking up nickels and dimes, but Joe did have to answer to the then-Bigger Guy, Barack Obama, and one wonders if that is not still the case. Does he actually meet regularly with go-between Susan Rice, or just wait for instructions, go where he is told to go, and read what has been prepared for him to read?

The executive regime, whatever it actually consists of, has rolled out an impressive first hundred days agenda of orders and acts designed to obliterate whatever remains of an American common culture and a US economy based on the transactions of free individuals. The easiest, and most readily damaging, was to simply reverse the previous administration’s policy of controlling our border with Mexico. All you had to do was order the border agents to do nothing - and let the restless folk to the south hear that the welcome mat was laid out. Voila! An out-of-control border! Just what you want!

It worked so well, it almost became an embarrassment, except that news media which used to function as the nation’s conscience, has turned sociopathic and is incapable of embarrassment or shame as it bombards the confounded public with narratives that, in any other era, would be easily recognized as rank propaganda. For instance, the apparent fib that Veep Kamala Harris has been placed in charge of managing the situation on the border. In the month since her assignment, she has been seen nowhere near the US-Mexican border, and somehow not a single reporter has asked her to account for that.

The other part of that deal, of course, is to make sure that the newcomers here illegally become Democratic Party voters by demolishing any process that would require proof of citizenship for filing a ballot. That is HR 1, the deviously styled “For the People Act,” wending its wicked way through Congress. The proposed law would attempt to abrogate the constitutional prerogative of the fifty states to craft their own election rules. It couldn’t possibly stand up to a Supreme Court review, and may not even survive its journey through the federal legislature. 75 percent of actual Americans polled favor voter ID, probably for the excellent reason that not requiring ID would be insane.

Is the Democratic Party determined to drive the nation insane? Kind of looks like that. They certainly seem bent on fomenting a race war. That would be insane, but the Democratic Party’s will to punish the nation eclipses all its other hopes, dreams, and aims - and such a degree of sadism tends to indicate a mental health problem. Prior to 2020, they had already destroyed at least a dozen US cities via sheer mal-administration, and the George Floyd riots across the country successfully wrecked much of what bad governance plus the Coronavirus lockdowns had left behind.

Wouldn’t you think that things are already bad enough, for instance, in Minneapolis, what with the Derek Chauvin trial about to entertain the defense’s case, and the courthouse secured like Fort Apache? And so, a fresh incident occurred on Sunday involving one Daunte Wright, 20, shot during a traffic stop. Apparently, there was a warrant out for Mr. Wright, meaning he was a suspect in a crime. When the police tried to detain him, he got back into his car against their clear instructions, raising the possible inference that he might be going for a gun. The officer shot him. A riot ensued, of course. In the chaos, some looting occurred. Black Lives Matter turned out in a matter of minutes, along with members of Daunte Wright’s family. Is another martyr being manufactured?

What message do you suppose the Minneapolis city council sent last month when it settled $27-million on the family of George Floyd - before the trial in the matter even began? It looks more and more like a high stakes hustle: Whatever the truth is about an incident that involves the police, the city will burn and large cash settlements await. Calling personal injury attorney Ben Crump….

And so, the riot season has arrived, as if right on schedule. If Minneapolis and other cities start burning again, will Mr. Biden be positioned to ignore it as he’s ignored the now-lawless situation at the border? Will his managers wind him up to inveigh against “white supremacy?” Or have they set a dynamic feedback loop in motion that is fast running beyond their control - making it clear that perhaps nobody is in charge?

Update 2:pm Monday: Minneapolis police release body-cam video of the Daunte Wright traffic stop. Mr. Wright, standing outside his car, disobeys instructions to be taken into custody on outstanding warrant, then slips away from attempt to handcuff him and back into the driver’s seat. Officer on the driver’s side declares intent to use taser, but grabs handgun instead and fires. A lot to sort out there - except the fact that Duante Wright resisted arrest and attempted to escape the scene."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Isochronic Tones: Clear Focus Space Voyager Mix Study Music"

"Isochronic Tones: 

Clear Focus Space Voyager Mix Study Music"

Headphones are NOT required for this video.

by Jason Lewis - Mind Amend

"Clear focus space voyager mix study music with a space style theme. Play during long study sessions, especially if you're feeling stressed or under pressure. Helps to clear your mind of distraction and keep you in a relaxed focused mental state. Includes low-intensity beta and alpha wave isochronic tones plus amplitude entrainment effects embedded into the music.

How does it work? This is a brainwave entrainment music track using isochronic tones combined with music. The music has also been embedded with amplitude entrainment effects, where the music is subtly distorted and vibrates in unison with the same frequency of the isochronic tones. This helps to add further strength to the entrainment effect. This brainwave entrainment session cycles through a frequency range of between 10Hz in Alpha, (which can help with memorization and learning), and up to 14Hz in the Beta range, (which will help with increasing focus and concentration)." 

If brainwave entrainment is a new concept for you, there is some information about it here:  - https://www.mindamend.com/brain-hub/

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I use these daily, and suggest you do, too. This one is particularly excellent.

- CP