Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/27/21:
"Critical Updates! A Total FReAksHOw TOMORROW! Watch for it"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
"A Look to the Heavens"
"The W-shaped ridge of emission featured in this vivid skyscape is known as the Cygnus Wall. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive outline popularly called The North America Nebula, the cosmic ridge spans about 20 light-years. Constructed using narrowband data to highlight the telltale reddish glow from ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with electrons, the two frame mosaic image follows an ionization front with fine details of dark, dusty forms in silhouette.
Sculpted by energetic radiation from the region's young, hot, massive stars, the dark shapes inhabiting the view are clouds of cool gas and dust with stars likely forming within. The North America Nebula itself, NGC 7000, is about 1,500 light-years away.”
Chet Raymo, “To Sleep, Perchance To Dream”
“To Sleep, Perchance To Dream”
by Chet Raymo
“What is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than a pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing
In a green island, far from all men's knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?”
"What indeed? The poet Keats answers his own questions: Sleep. Soft closer of our eyes. I've reached an age when I find myself occasionally nodding off in the middle of the day, an open book flopped on my chest. Also, more lying awake in the dark hours of the night, re-running the tapes of the day. And, in the fragile moments of nighttime unconsciousness, dreaming dreams that reach all the way back to my childhood.
I've read the books about sleep and dreaming. There has been lots of research, but not much consensus about why we sleep or dream. Sleep seems to be pretty universal among animals. Who knows whether animals dream. Do we sleep to restore the soma? To knit the raveled sleeve of care? Process memories? Find safety from predators? After 50 years of work, the sleep researcher William Dement opined: "As far as I know, the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy."
The Latin poet Martial supposed that sleep "makes darkness brief," a worry-free way to get through the scary hours of the night when wolves howl at the mouth of the cave (and goblins stir under the bed). That hardly explains my dropping off after lunch into a dreamless stupor that I neither desire nor welcome.
“Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!”
Not quite! There are the nightmares too. The tossing and turning. The hoo-has. But enough of this idle speculation. I'm getting sleepy...”
"Surely..."
“It’s 3:23 A.M.
And I’m awake because my great great grandchildren won’t let me sleep.
They ask me in dreams,
‘What did you do while the planet was plundered?
What did you do when the earth was unraveling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started flailing?
As the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?
Did you fill the streets with protest?
When democracy was stolen, what did you do once you knew?
Surely, you did something…’”
- Drew Dellinger
“The Last Night of the World”
“The Last Night of the World”
Originally published in the February 1951 issue of Esquire.
by Ray Bradbury
“What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world?”
“What would I do; you mean, seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“I don’t know – I hadn’t thought.” She turned the handle of the silver coffeepot toward him and placed the two cups in their saucers. He poured some coffee. In the background, the two small girls were playing blocks on the parlor rug in the light of the green hurricane lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of brewed coffee in the evening air.
“Well, better start thinking about it,” he said.
“You don’t mean it?” said his wife.
He nodded.
“A war?”
He shook his head.
“Not the hydrogen or atom bomb?”
“No.”
“Or germ warfare?”
“None of those at all,” he said, stirring his coffee slowly and staring into its black depths. “But just the closing of a book, let’s say.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“No, nor do I really. It’s jut a feeling; sometimes it frightens me, sometimes I’m not frightened at all – but peaceful.” He glanced in at the girls and their yellow hair shining in the bright lamplight, and lowered his voice. “I didn’t say anything to you. It first happened about four nights ago.”
“What?”
“A dream I had. I dreamt that it was all going to be over and a voice said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway, and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn’t think too much about it when I awoke the next morning, but then I went to work and the feeling as with me all day. I caught Stan Willis looking out the window in the middle of the afternoon and I said, ‘Penny for your thoughts, Stan,’ and he said, ‘I had a dream last night,’ and before he even told me the dream, I knew what it was. I could have told him, but he told me and I listened to him.”
“It was the same dream?”
“Yes. I told Stan I had dreamed it, too. He didn’t seem surprised. He relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through offices, for the hell of it. It wasn’t planned. We didn’t say, let’s walk around. We just walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks or their hands or out the windows and not seeing what was in front of their eyes. I talked to a few of them; so did Stan.”
“And all of them had dreamed?”
“All of them. The same dream, with no difference.”
“Do you believe in the dream?”
“Yes. I’ve never been more certain.”
“And when will it stop? The world, I mean.”
“Sometime during the night for us, and then, as the night goes on around the world, those advancing portions will go, too. It’ll take twenty-four hours for it all to go.”
They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.
“Do we deserve this?” she said.
“It’s not a matter of deserving, it’s just that things didn’t work out. I notice you didn’t even argue about this. Why not?”
“I guess I have a reason,” she said.
“The same reason everyone at the office had?”
She nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block are talking about it, just among themselves.” She picked up the evening paper and held it toward him. “There’s nothing in the news about it.”
“No, everyone knows, so what’s the need?” He took the paper and sat back in his chair, looking at the girls and then at her. “Are you afraid?”
“No. Not even for the children. I always thought I would be frightened to death, but I’m not.”
“Where’s that spirit of self-preservation the scientists talk about so much?”
“I don’t know. You don’t get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we’ve lived.”
“We haven’t been too bad, have we?”
“No, nor enormously good. I suppose that’s the trouble. We haven’t been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.”
The girls were laughing in the parlor as they waved their hands and tumbled down their house of blocks.
“I always imagined people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this.”
“I guess not. You don’t scream about the real thing.”
“Do you know, I won’t miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or autos or factories or my work or anything except you three. I won’t miss a thing except my family and perhaps the change in the weather and a glass of cool water when the weather’s hot, or the luxury of sleeping. Just little things, really. How can we sit here and talk this way?”
“Because there’s nothing else to do.”
“That’s it, of course, for if there were, we’d be doing it. I suppose this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has really known just what they were going to be doing during the last night.”
“I wonder what everyone else will do now, this evening, for the next few hours.”
“Go to a show, listen to the radio, watch the TV, play cards, put the children to bed, get to bed themselves, like always.”
“In a way that’s something to be proud of – like always.”
“We’re not all bad.”
They sat a moment and then he poured more coffee. “Why do you suppose it’s tonight?”
“Because.”
“Why not some night in the past ten years of in the last century, or five centuries ago or ten?”
“Maybe it’s because it was never February 30, 1951, ever before in history, and now it is and that’s it, because this date means more than any other date ever meant and because it’s the year when things are as they are all over the world and that’s why it’s the end.”
“There are bombers on their course both ways across the ocean tonight that’ll never see land again.”
“That’s part of the reason why.”
“Well,” he said. “What shall it be? Wash the dishes?”
They washed the dishes carefully and stacked them away with especial neatness. At eight-thirty the girls were put to bed and kissed good night and the little lights by their beds turned on and the door left a trifle open.
“I wonder,” said the husband, coming out and looking back, standing there with his pipe for a moment.”
“What?”
“If the door should be shut all the way or if it should be left just a little ajar so we can hear them if they call.”
“I wonder if the children know – if anyone mentioned anything to them?”
“No, of course not. They’d have asked us about it.”
They sat and read the papers and talked and listened to some radio music and then sat together by the fireplace looking at the charcoal embers as the clock struck ten-thirty and eleven and eleven-thirty. They thought of all the other people in the world who had spent their evening, each in their own special way.
“Well,” he said at last. He kissed his wife for a long time.
“We’ve been good for each other, anyway.”
“Do you want to cry?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
They went through the house and turned out the lights and locked the doors, and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness undressing. She took the spread from the bed and folded it carefully over a chair, as always, and pushed back the covers. “The sheets are so cool and clean and nice,” she said.
“I’m tired.”
“We’re both tired.”
They got into bed and lay back.
“Wait a moment,” she said.
He heard her get up and go out into the back of the house, and then he heard the soft shuffling of a swinging door. A moment later she was back. “I left the water running in the kitchen,” she said. “I turned the faucet off.”
Something about this was so funny that he had to laugh. She laughed with him, knowing what it was that she had done that was so funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed, their hands clasped, their heads together.
“Good night,” he said, after a moment.
“Good night,” she said, adding softly, “dear…”
”Ubuntu"
“An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ”Ubuntu, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?” ’Ubuntu’ in the Xhosa culture means: ‘I am because we are’. How many of you knew this?”
- Found in a group chat.
"Remaking American Society"
"Remaking American Society"
By Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "We suggested yesterday that, while the Biden administration’s “net zero” climate change project itself is unlikely to affect the world’s climate, Biden’s proposals will almost surely take a few weeks off our economy’s growing season. Today, we elaborate.
You’ll recall that when the money goes funny, everything goes funny. First, things get weird. Then, they get nasty. But that is all still ahead – the consumer price inflation… the financial controls… the depression… the crack-downs… and the crack-ups. We are still in the delightful, delusional, weird stage.
Good Intentions: Ordinary people, for example, are beginning to hallucinate that old-fashioned working and saving is a mugs’ game. They can make as much money in one hour trading Dogecoin as they can in a whole month stocking shelves… So why not? Dogecoin rocketed upward after Elon Musk signalled via Twitter that it might be important. Now, the coin – which began as a joke in 2013 – has a market cap of nearly $36 billion.
Or they believe the government can take care of them, by cancelling their student debt and sending them regular stimmy checks. Here’s CNBC: "In early April, President Biden asked the U.S. Department of Education to see if his executive authority gives him the ability to enact massive student loan forgiveness without congressional approval."
Some even think the feds should control the world’s temperature. Why not? The sky’s the limit! Others want to turn the entire U.S. into a “safe space,” where people are not allowed to voice any opinion that others might find offensive… And we all must be vaccinated and continue to wear triple masks, just in case.
Good intentions? Maybe. Power unchecked by real, limited money? Surely.
Green Agenda: The Biden Administration is enjoying a heady brew – a clear majority in the House and an edge in the Senate… widespread relief after four years of Trumpismo… and a national credit card with no apparent limit. So it has set out to remake American society… remold its economy… and reshape its politics to give the liberal wing of the Deep State unchecked control.
Just last week, we saw the Biden team unveil two major initiatives. First, its Green Agenda. From CNN: "Climate is a big focus of the President’s roughly $2 trillion infrastructure proposal. He has said his proposal would create hundreds of thousands of jobs while tackling the climate crisis, reducing emissions and building a “modern, resilient and fully clean grid.”
You can put people to work doing anything you want. They could generate power, for example, by tending thousands of caged hamsters running on wheels. But letting politicians decide how you generate electricity and allocate capital – as the Soviet Union proved – is more likely to result in a poorer society than a richer one.
Reducing Inequality: This climate change boondoggle is supposed to be paid for, at least in part, by raising taxes on the rich. It seems to bother no one that the “rich” – the top 5% of taxpayers – already pay more than 60% of the money collected by the feds. The bottom 50% of the population pays almost nothing. Fair? You decide.
But this is just another of the new administration’s conceits. It knows what the weather should be… and how much money we should have. The rich have too much, it believes; the poor have too little. And so what if the numbers don’t add up… The “facts” are only guesswork… and the Green Agenda doesn’t really alter the world’s climate? At least we’re trying! And the collateral benefits – reducing inequality, creating jobs – will make it worth it.
Wealth Shift: Most people will be pleased to hear about higher taxes on the rich. They think wealthy people are getting away with something. Perhaps they are. But it has nothing to do with loopholes and not paying their fair share. Instead, they are on the receiving end of a $30 trillion wealth shift – thanks to the Federal Reserve.
Total financial wealth (most of it owned by “the rich”) averaged about 350% of GDP from the end of World War II to the end of the 1980s. Now, it’s about 500%... or an extra $30 trillion. Where did all that extra wealth come from?
The Fed prints money. It buys Treasury bonds. The rich own bonds. Bond prices go up. And the “rich”… now joined by basement-dwelling, knuckle-dragging millennials… put their money into stocks in order to get a little yield (the Fed has pushed the real rate of return on savings down to under zero… where it has been for most of the last 11 years).
Fake Wealth: And since March of last year, the world’s central banks and governments have pumped some $27 trillion into their economies, supposedly to offset the damage done by COVID-19 shutdowns. What were people supposed to do with this money? They couldn’t go out and have a good time – bars, restaurants, cruise lines, theaters, et al. were closed. And there was no point putting it in a savings account, either; it would earn no interest.
But the investment markets? There’s the ticket! And guess what? The markets went up. And the rich got richer. The S&P 500 is up 45% in the last 12 months. Tesla (TSLA) is up more than 4 times. And bitcoin (BTC)… are you ready for this?… is up 7 times!
Any similarity between this and properly functioning, honest asset markets is purely coincidental. Real companies do not become four times as valuable in a single year. Real money – which bitcoin claims to be – does not go up 7 times. It does not go up at all. And governments do not create trillions of dollars out of nothing.
Even Weirder: But those are just some of the things that happen in the weird stage. And rather than curtail the weirdness… the Biden Administration is proposing to make them even weirder.
As for the stock market riches, the Democrats are in on the scam as much as the Republicans. They own stocks, too. They have their political “Big Daddies”… They have their lobbyists… And they, proportionally, are richer than Republicans. From the Washington Examiner: "Democrats are the party of the wealthy, a flip from decades ago when it was the party of the poor and middle class. Democrats represented 65% of taxpayers with a household income of $500,000 or more in 2020, according to IRS data, while 74% of taxpayers in Republican districts have household incomes of less than $100,000."
As you get wealthier, the “declining marginal utility” of money means that higher tax rates are not that significant to you – especially if you didn’t actually earn the money. The extra social value – from appearing to want to help the poor… or make society fairer – may have relatively more value.
Huge Gap: In any case, the tax increases to pay for the climate change boondoggle, such as they are, are likely to include big headline numbers, which will get moderated somewhat before rich Democrats have to pay them. That will leave a huge gap that will have to be filled – as usual – by printing more of the money that made the rich so rich in the first place. So, most likely, none of the goals will be reached. Temperatures will go whither they want… productive jobs will be destroyed so that the resources can be redeployed… the new jobs will be time wasters… and the rich will get richer.
Tomorrow, we will look at Biden’s more ambitious proposals. Not only do they aim to transfer trillions of dollars to unworthy causes, but also, to give the fantasists almost permanent control of Washington."
"Toads..."
“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley. Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads, and they are going to stay that way. Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
"Why Illinois Is In Trouble – 122,258 Public Employees Earned $100,000+ Costing Taxpayers $15.8 Billion Despite Pandemic"
"Why Illinois Is In Trouble – 122,258 Public Employees
Earned $100,000+ Costing Taxpayers $15.8 Billion Despite Pandemic"
by Adam Andrzejewski
"Illinois public employees and retirees with $100,000+ paychecks grew from 109,881 (2019) to an all-time high of 122,258 in 2020 – costing taxpayers $15.8 billion. Congressional “bailouts” made it possible. The recent $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act provided an additional $13.5 billion to Illinois state and local governments. (Look up your hometown here — $350 billion flowed to states and 30,000 communities.) Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com compiled the list of six-figure earners from Freedom of Information Act requests.
Barbers at State Corrections trimmed off $115,000; janitors at the State Toll Highway Authority cleaned up $123,000; bus drivers in Chicago made $174,000; line workers on the Chicago Transit Authority earned $222,278; community college presidents made $418,677; university doctors earned up to $2 million; and 171 small town managers out-earned the Illinois governor ($181,670).
Our interactive mapping tool allows users to quickly review the 122,258 public employees and retirees across Illinois making more than $100,000 (by ZIP code). Just click a pin at the interactive map and scroll down to see the results in your neighborhood rendered in the chart beneath the map.
Public schools (40,000) – Last year, nearly 24,500 educators earned a six-figure salary while more than 15,500 retirees received six-figure pensions. Most Illinois schools were not back to fulltime, in-person instruction as of March 2021.
Sixteen retired school superintendents pocketed $300,000+ in retirement pensions, among them Lawrence A. Wyllie (Lincoln-Way CHSD 210 – $351,250); Henry Bangser (New Trier Township HSD 203 – $341,433); Gary Catalani (Wheaton-Warrenville Unit SD 200 – $339,915); Laura Murray (Homewood-Flossmoor CHSD 233 – $334,418); and Mary Curley (Hinsdale CCSD 181 – $324,796).
Chicago (25,000) – We calculated that the city paid out $737 million in extra pay (overtime, vacation, supplemental, fitness, etc.) above base salaries. The Chicago police and fire departments paid nearly 1,000 employees between $200,000 and $430,000 in cash compensation last year.
The Chicago Transit Authority, operator of mass transit in the city including the “L” train, paid rail service supervisors up to $239,806, ironworkers as much as $225,579, and line workers collected $222,278. A signal maintainer took home $191,627, a telephone line worker was paid $190,030 and a customer service representative made $185,152.
Colleges & universities (17,100) – The state of Illinois paid University of Illinois basketball coach Bradley Underwood $3 million last year. Top paid junior college presidents included a hefty salary for Christine Jean Sobek (Waubonsee Community College — $418,677), and a big retirement pension for Vernon Crawley (Moraine Valley Community College— $406,600).
Current Illinois State University President Larry Dietz (salary: $364,820) was out-earned by retired ISU president Clarence A. Bowman, who collected a $422,039 pension.
Fady Toufic Charbel ($2 million); Mark Gonzalez ($1.2 million); and Konstantin Slavin ($1 million) are million-dollar doctors at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). A UIC pension paying out $540,591 goes to a retired doctor, Tapas Das Gupta. The retired doctor from University of Illinois –Springfield, Leslie Heffez, has the largest pension at $635,122.
State of Illinois (16,500) – Six-figure salaries and pension payouts amounted to nearly $2 billion last year. Eleven barbers at Corrections made between $100,000 and $115,000. Veterans, Human Services, and Corrections paid between $100,000 and $260,900 to 559 nurses.
The ten top paid sergeants at the State Police earned between $200,100 and $268,700 while 238 officers made between $150,000 and $268,700.
A court-ordered monitor, Dr. Stewart Pablo, was paid $352,000 by taxpayers to report on the barriers to access mental healthcare within the prison system – his pay amounts to nearly $1.4 million during the past four years.
Cities & villages (9,100) – Small town managers collect high pay, along with perks and pension benefits. Top paid managers were Richard Nahrstadt (Village of Northbrook – $336,722); Stephen Gulden (Village of Romeoville – $301,821); Michael J. Ellis (Village of Grayslake –- $294,980); Jeffrey Rowitz (Village of Northbrook – $291,875); and Reid Ottesen (Village of Palatine— $283,899). The interim village manager in Romeoville responded to our comment request and said that Stephen Gulden’s extra payments beyond $191,141 were the result of his retirement in November.
In the shadow of O’Hare International Airport, the small town of Rosemont (pop. 4,200) has three highly compensated officials: Patrick Nagle ($302,313—head of the Allstate Arena entertainment venue), Christopher R. Stephens ($295,813—Executive Director of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center), and mayor Bradley A. Stephens ($269,998) – who also made $69,413 as an elected state representative. A village spokesperson noted that the two arenas were not mothballed during the last year, but continued to have a limited schedule.
The big dogs of Illinois - the systems conferring the most six figure salaries and pensions on public employees in 2020. Largest pay and pension systems in Illinois conferring $100,000 per employee or retiree. Private associations, nonprofits and retired lawmakers. There are several legal loopholes for individuals to access state funding through private associations, nonprofit organizations, and state legislative bodies.
Retired Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) double dipped the pension system for nearly $238,000. Daley made $153,479 per year in state lawmaker pension payouts after a short eight-year career as a state senator plus another $83,784 per year in city pension payouts for his 22 years as the mayor of Chicago.
Three top paid earners within the municipal-government pension system work for private associations – not government. Brad Cole of the Illinois Municipal League pulled down $407,656, up from $313,997 (2019). Peter Murphy, executive director of Illinois Association of Park Districts, made $378,070, while Brett Davis, executive director of the Park District Risk management Agency, brought in $349,269.
These private nonprofits and associations muscled their way into the government system where taxpayers help fund and guarantee retirement annuities.
Peter B. Maggs and James J. Stukel are collecting government pensions of $453,512 and $439,575, respectively. Both retired from the University of Illinois Foundation, the nonprofit private fundraising agency for the University of Illinois.
Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar (R) double dipped pension systems: General Assembly pension ($181,230 per year) and University Retirement System pension ($85,140). After “retiring” from the University of Illinois, he was hired back part time for another $62,769. Last year, Edgar’s total payout from all sources was $329,139.
We estimate that Edgar earned $2.4 million in compensation from the University of Illinois (2000-2013) and another $2.2 million in pension payments already paid-out from his career as legislator, secretary of state and governor.
Highly compensated locals: DuPage County employees have a history of hefty salaries and pensions. Top paid county employees included Richard Rushing ($263,509—deputy sheriff); Peter Balgemann ($241,168— chief deputy auditor); Ibrahim Khaja ($238,108—psychiatrist); Daniel Baran ($237,709—facilities manager); and Daniel Raysby ($227,959— detective).
Local park district administrators out earned the state director of parks ($156,900). These included James Pilmer ($256,256) at Fox Valley; Raymond McGury ($215,872) at Naperville; Michael Bernard ($212,708) at Wheaton. However, the top pension exceeded the highest salary: Elizabeth Kutska ($279,025) also from Wheaton.
Even water district employees tapped into the largess. David Miller pulled down $219,336 at the North Shore Water Reclamation District while Larry McFall made $214,901 at the Rock River Water Reclamation District. John Spatz made $214,479 at the DuPage Water Commission.
Possible solutions to the Illinois crisis: Last April, Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon wrote a letter to Congress asking for a $40 billion bailout. Congress eventually provided $13.5 billion. Then, in November, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wanted to hike the income tax during pandemic and pushed for a state constitutional amendment to allow for a progressive income tax. However, the voters shot it down, 55-45.
Our updated analysis at OpenTheBooks.com shows that an Illinois family of four now owes more in unfunded pension liabilities ($98,000) than they earn in household income ($63,585). In a state of 13 million residents, every man, woman, and child owes $24,000 — on an estimated $317 billion pension liability. Illinois may have already crossed the Rubicon.
U.S. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell suggested another path last April, “I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route.” McConnell specifically mentioned Illinois along with Connecticut, California, and New York."
And how are things where you are, Good Citizen?
"There Is Always The Hope..."
“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time. Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse. This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one’s ribs get re-broken again.”
- Inga Muscio
"Don’t Look Now"
"Don’t Look Now"
by Jim Kunstler
"There was Joe Biden, all masked-up at the Virtual Climate Summit Meeting, the only world leader with his face covered, like he was fixing to rob the joint. In reality - if such a place in space-time still exists - Joe was sitting all by himself in an otherwise empty room in front of a video camera, all vaxed-up, too, as is everybody else who comes and goes in the White House. So, what was the mask all about? Surely not the virus. Does Ol’ White Joe bethink himself some kind of international Lone Ranger?
This was only one of countless mysteries orbiting around the dimming star that is Joe Biden, the biggest one, the planet Jupiter of all puzzlements, is how the guy managed to get elected occupant of the oval office. Or, more to the point, how did others manage to get him elected? I mean, considering those few embarrassing campaign forays from the basement to a bunch of empty parking lots back in the fall of 2020, not to mention the supernatural victory on Super Tuesday that rescued his pitiful old ass from the glue factory of discarded candidates.
We may be about to find out as Arizona’s State Senate finally got around to approving a full audit of the November 3rd vote in Maricopa County, comprising Phoenix and its asteroid belt of suburbs, which amounts to more than two-thirds of the state’s population. The Democratic Party tried pretty hard to stop the durned thing, sending its gnarliest Lawfare warrior, one Mark Elias from the Clinton-indentured DC firm of Perkins Coie, and a posse of 70 other attorneys, to bury the proceedings in court orders. But all they got was a weekend pause from an Arizona judge who imposed a $1-million-dollar bond payment on the Democrats to cover expenses for the interruption — which would then be forfeited if the audit went forward. The Dems declined to pay up, so the pause was lifted and the audit goes forward today.
The usual suspects in the mainstream media attempted to bury the Arizona vote audit story or denigrate it - for instance the The New York Times, which characterized the inquiry in its Saturday lede as “false claims of a stolen election,” and then “a snipe hunt for skullduggery,” before asserting the boilerplate “baseless theories of election theft” to seal the deal with its avidly credulous readership. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC practically jumped up and down going woo-woo-woo to discredit the audit. What do you suppose they’re afraid of?
I’ll tell you: For one thing, if the vote turns out to have been compromised by fraud, Arizona is liable to lose a Democratic senator elected on Mr. Biden’s (possibly) phantom coattails - Mark Kelly (D) who defeated incumbent Martha McSally (R) - which would cancel the Democrat’s current one-vote majority grip on the body. The result of that would be the end of the party’s effort to jam various new laws down America’s craw: DC statehood, the HR-1 voter fraud act, the Supreme Court-packing bill, and, actually, anything else on the party’s Satanic wish-list for disassembling the republic.
Then, of course, there’s the tally for president. One thing probably for sure: if the audit uncovers any serious systematic mischief that would alter the November 3rd vote, revealing that Mr. Biden did not win Arizona’s electoral college votes, then there would be tremendous pressure to look into the results of other swing states likewise under suspicion of gross balloting irregularities. The local authorities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia will, no doubt, attempt to demur. But you may be sure these matters will be back in the courts, perhaps even the US Supreme Court, and this time they might not be able to duck the issue. At the very least, proof of a reversal in Arizona will cast Joe Biden as an illegitimate president in even more minds than the current half of the nation.
Another outcome should be the end of efforts to block real reform of the voting process in the United States. That should mean no more janky-ass computer voting machines, like the Dominion and Smartmatic system that lobbyists sold to twenty-eight states, often lavishly dispensing grift to git’r’done. Also, no more voting without ID (as in most other civilized nations) to prove that you are, at least, a bonafide citizen, no more promiscuous mail-in vote hijinks that forego chain-of-custody rules, and nix expanded voting periods beyond the constitutionally-mandated election day (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November). Of course, the details would have to be left to the fifty states themselves, since the constitution also mandates that they are in charge of election law. None of that will determine whether only schmucks and rogues run for high office in this land, but at least they might be elected fairly."
Monday, April 26, 2021
"Tens Of Millions Of Working Poor Americans Are Deeply Suffering Due To Rising Living Costs"
Full screen recommended.
"Tens Of Millions Of Working Poor Americans
Are Deeply Suffering Due To Rising Living Costs"
by Epic Economist
"Our leaders and the mainstream media keep insisting on the idea that the economy is experiencing some sort of recovery. But even though profits are mounting for the top 1% of the US society, the American working poor are plunging even deeper into economic distress. Since the recession began, tens of millions of working Americans have been struggling to stay afloat despite still having a source of income. To stay employed, many of them had to cope with declining wages and reduced working hours. As result, they have been bringing increasingly less money to their households - but living costs haven't stopped climbing. That, for its part, is a direct consequence of the current monetary policies.
As we previously discussed, after the sanitary outbreak burst, politicians and policymakers found the perfect excuse to engage in reckless borrowing and spending, and the effects of it can already be seen in soaring prices all over the economy. Sadly, as several experts have warned, all of the "stimulus money" that seemed of great help during these tough times have ended up making life much tougher for those on the very bottom of the economic food chain. At this point, having a job doesn't mean you will be able to afford to pay your bills and your debt. Economic conditions for most people across the country have greatly deteriorated over the past year, with more and more middle-class Americans being pushed out of their comfortable lifestyles straight into poverty.
Although several eviction moratoriums were enacted to protect those who have been suffering the most from the impacts of the economic downturn and to avert a potential eviction tsunami as well as a homelessness crisis, in many cases, those moratoriums don't truly prevent tenants from being evicted. According to Princeton University Eviction Lab, at least 318,091 households were evicted despite the CDC's moratorium. But projections show a much larger figure for potentially vulnerable households that may soon experience eviction and possibly homelessness. By May, more than 7 million Americans will be at risk of being pushed into the streets as they collectively owe $40 billion in back rent, according to Moody's Analytics.
Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Federal Trade Commission’s acting chairwoman, stated in an interview that "bad conduct by large multistate landlords and private equity firms has an enormous impact on renters across the country". We grew up being told that if we worked hard enough we would have all that was necessary to ensure a prosperous life, but that doesn't correspond to reality anymore. In fact, the current monetary policies managed to expand the gap between those at the top of the economic chain and those at the bottom. Day after day, we watch news reporting how big corporations have continued to thrive during the recession, whereas at least 10 million Americans are still unemployed and even those still working aren't immune from facing steep financial setbacks. One clear example of such staggering wealth disparities can be seen in California, the state that has the most billionaires in the country - but also has the largest poverty rate in the U.S.
According to the Census Bureau, California has the highest level of 'functional poverty' of any state, meaning that several employed residents do not have enough means to afford the state's extraordinarily high cost of living. On average, 18.2% of its 40 million residents have fallen into poverty over the past few years. California’s rate is almost identical to the national rate, with more than 35% of Californians, totaling 15 million people, living in severe economic distress. As living costs skyrocketed, particularly for housing, their modest incomes could not keep up, creating a huge group that has been dubbed the “working poor.”
Needless to say, the main culprits behind these enormous imbalances in the markets and the tragic deterioration of our purchasing power are the Federal Reserve and our desperate leaders. In twelve months, our money supply was expanded to levels it had never crossed throughout the entire U.S. history. And now, we're literally paying the price of such reckless monetary policies, as living costs surge - and, perhaps more concerningly, food prices are going through the roof.
Consequently, this will add extra stress on tens of millions of “working poor” Americans that are barely making ends meet month to month. Lamentably, we didn't get to this point without a series of warnings that this is what happens when an economy lets inflation run wild. We're entering a time when devastating famines will emerge across the country and across the globe. So get prepared because this relative calm the economy is experiencing right now will not last for much longer."
“Buying The Illusion; Leveraged Americans Will Get Wiped Out; State Bailouts”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Buying The Illusion;
Leveraged Americans Will Get Wiped Out; State Bailouts”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“To some, the outline of the open cluster of stars M6 resembles a butterfly. M6, also known as NGC 6405, spans about 20 light-years and lies about 2,000 light years distant. M6 can best be seen in a dark sky with binoculars towards the constellation of Scorpius, coving about as much of the sky as the full moon.
Like other open clusters, M6 is composed predominantly of young blue stars, although the brightest star is nearly orange. M6 is estimated to be about 100 million years old. Determining the distance to clusters like M6 helps astronomers calibrate the distance scale of the universe.”
Chet Raymo, “New Philosophy”
“New Philosophy”
by Chet Raymo
"It is one of Albert Einstein's most-often quoted quotes: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." Is the world comprehensible? Apparently at least partially so. Consider the NASA solar eclipse atlas I referenced previously. It is possible to calculate the precise locations and times for solar eclipses thousands of years into the future and past. That's comprehensibility for you.
Of course, there are still things we do not comprehend, such as consciousness or the development of organisms, but there is no good reason to suppose those things are intrinsically beyond human understanding. The whole of modern technological civilization and medicine is a monument to comprehensibility.
Why? Why this strange consonance between the world and the human mind? For centuries the answer was simple. God created a world of space and time, a finite mirror, so to speak, of his own intelligence. He created humans in his own likeness. Human intelligence partook of the intelligibility of God. Everything in the closed, human-centered cosmos was ordered in his likeness. The world was comprehensible because it was made that way - for us to comprehend.
Then, in the 16th and 17th centuries, came the great disruption, which Alexandre Koryé described in his seminal 1957 book "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe." Daring thinkers resurrected the Greek idea that the universe might be infinite in extent and eternal in duration - no boundaries in space, no beginning or end in time. It was a radical thought, heretical really, but it meshed well with what the astronomers and physicists were learning about the world we live in. As the poet John Donne wrote:
Of course, there are still things we do not comprehend, such as consciousness or the development of organisms, but there is no good reason to suppose those things are intrinsically beyond human understanding. The whole of modern technological civilization and medicine is a monument to comprehensibility.
Why? Why this strange consonance between the world and the human mind? For centuries the answer was simple. God created a world of space and time, a finite mirror, so to speak, of his own intelligence. He created humans in his own likeness. Human intelligence partook of the intelligibility of God. Everything in the closed, human-centered cosmos was ordered in his likeness. The world was comprehensible because it was made that way - for us to comprehend.
Then, in the 16th and 17th centuries, came the great disruption, which Alexandre Koryé described in his seminal 1957 book "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe." Daring thinkers resurrected the Greek idea that the universe might be infinite in extent and eternal in duration - no boundaries in space, no beginning or end in time. It was a radical thought, heretical really, but it meshed well with what the astronomers and physicists were learning about the world we live in. As the poet John Donne wrote:
"And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th' earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation."
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th' earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation."
Of course, it wasn't as bad as all that. Galileo and Newton provided a new coherence. The physical world itself took on two characteristics of the Godhead - omnipresence and everlasting life. Everything unfolded not in accordance with the divine will, but according to eternal and immutable laws of nature. The Divine Artifex, master craftsman, in Koyré's words, was replaced by the Dieu fainéant, a lazybones God with nothing to do. And the comprehensibility of the world became- well, as Einstein said- incomprehensible. But...things were about to get more complicated.
Koyré's "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe" was published in 1957. When I started teaching college in 1964, the required reading for my general studies science course included two articles by two prominent physicists published in "Scientific American" at about the same time as Koyré's book. George Gamow, a principal architect of the big bang theory, made the case for a universe that began billions of years ago as an explosion from an infinitely dense and infinitely small seed of energy. Fred Hoyle, stalwart champion of the steady state theory, took the stand for an infinite universe with no beginning and no end, in which matter is continuously created in the space between the galaxies.
Both theories had strengths and weaknesses. For example, the big bang successfully accounted for the known abundances of hydrogen and helium in the universe but posited an embarrassing beginning that could not be explained. The steady state theory avoided the stumbling block of a universe that seemed to come from nowhere but replaced it with many little unexplained beginnings (those particles of matter appearing continuously from nothing). Yet the big bang theory made one prediction that was testable: if the universe began in a blaze of luminosity, a degraded remnant of that radiation should still permeate the cosmos, and the precise spectral distribution of this microwave-frequency background could be calculated.
Then, that very year I started teaching, the cosmic microwave background radiation was serendipitously discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, with precisely the predicted spectrum, a triumph of comprehensibility. The universe- space and time- had an apparent beginning! For some people, this extraordinary development re-opened the door to a creator God, whose intelligence is the source for the intelligibility of the world. Koyré may have anticipated this. In his final paragraph he wrote: "The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with external and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those - all the others the departed God took away with Him."
What others? Personhood. Love. Justice. And intelligence. Intelligence that is the source of the intelligibility of the world.
But for Einstein, and many of us here, the mathematical singularity which is the big bang is an opaque barrier. To say the universe is created by God conveys no more information than to say it is created by X. We learned to live without Koyré's Dieu fainéant, the lazybones God who had nothing to do, and see no reason to bring him out of retirement. So why is the universe comprehensible?
Both theories had strengths and weaknesses. For example, the big bang successfully accounted for the known abundances of hydrogen and helium in the universe but posited an embarrassing beginning that could not be explained. The steady state theory avoided the stumbling block of a universe that seemed to come from nowhere but replaced it with many little unexplained beginnings (those particles of matter appearing continuously from nothing). Yet the big bang theory made one prediction that was testable: if the universe began in a blaze of luminosity, a degraded remnant of that radiation should still permeate the cosmos, and the precise spectral distribution of this microwave-frequency background could be calculated.
Then, that very year I started teaching, the cosmic microwave background radiation was serendipitously discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, with precisely the predicted spectrum, a triumph of comprehensibility. The universe- space and time- had an apparent beginning! For some people, this extraordinary development re-opened the door to a creator God, whose intelligence is the source for the intelligibility of the world. Koyré may have anticipated this. In his final paragraph he wrote: "The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with external and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those - all the others the departed God took away with Him."
What others? Personhood. Love. Justice. And intelligence. Intelligence that is the source of the intelligibility of the world.
But for Einstein, and many of us here, the mathematical singularity which is the big bang is an opaque barrier. To say the universe is created by God conveys no more information than to say it is created by X. We learned to live without Koyré's Dieu fainéant, the lazybones God who had nothing to do, and see no reason to bring him out of retirement. So why is the universe comprehensible?
There are reasonable arguments for the incomprehensibility of human consciousness, and some of them were given here the other day in Comments. Let me offer arguments for the contrary.
First, one very important feature of consciousness has already been comprehended. We can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no ghost in the machine, that consciousness is an emergent physio-chemical property of the material brain. Whether consciousness is deterministic or involves some measure of quantum uncertainty remains to be seen, but I find Roger Penrose's argument for quantum uncertainty unconvincing. For the moment, Ockham's Razor rules.
Second, we can study emergent consciousness by observing other organisms, from sea snails to chimpanzees. That is, in principle, we can build up an understanding of human consciousness incrementally. This assumes, of course, that human consciousness differs from that of other organisms only in complexity, not kind. Again, for the moment, the Razor rules.
Third, as I mentioned here once before, a project is underway to fully map the neuronal structure of the human brain, at which point it should be possible to construct an operational electronic analog of the brain. Will such machines be conscious? Google "artificial consciousness" and you'll find arguments for both sides. At the very least we will pare away some of the incomprehensibility.
Fourth, we may already have created a "conscious" machine: the internet, which approaches the human brain in its degree of interconnected complexity. It is continuously "aware," sensitive to millions of sensory inputs- touch, vision, hearing, smell, and for all I know even taste. I can ask a question in human language or tap an icon and instantly have a response from the internet's vast memory. The internet and its myriad of input/output devices mimic enough of the aspects of human consciousness for us to be increasingly confident that consciousness is not intrinsically beyond in principle understanding. And isn't in principle understanding all we ask of science, and Life?"
First, one very important feature of consciousness has already been comprehended. We can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no ghost in the machine, that consciousness is an emergent physio-chemical property of the material brain. Whether consciousness is deterministic or involves some measure of quantum uncertainty remains to be seen, but I find Roger Penrose's argument for quantum uncertainty unconvincing. For the moment, Ockham's Razor rules.
Second, we can study emergent consciousness by observing other organisms, from sea snails to chimpanzees. That is, in principle, we can build up an understanding of human consciousness incrementally. This assumes, of course, that human consciousness differs from that of other organisms only in complexity, not kind. Again, for the moment, the Razor rules.
Third, as I mentioned here once before, a project is underway to fully map the neuronal structure of the human brain, at which point it should be possible to construct an operational electronic analog of the brain. Will such machines be conscious? Google "artificial consciousness" and you'll find arguments for both sides. At the very least we will pare away some of the incomprehensibility.
Fourth, we may already have created a "conscious" machine: the internet, which approaches the human brain in its degree of interconnected complexity. It is continuously "aware," sensitive to millions of sensory inputs- touch, vision, hearing, smell, and for all I know even taste. I can ask a question in human language or tap an icon and instantly have a response from the internet's vast memory. The internet and its myriad of input/output devices mimic enough of the aspects of human consciousness for us to be increasingly confident that consciousness is not intrinsically beyond in principle understanding. And isn't in principle understanding all we ask of science, and Life?"
"Change"
"Change"
"Change.
But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed.
•Sit in another chair, on the other side of the table.
Later on, change tables.
•When you go out, try to walk on the other side of the street.
Then change your route, walk calmly down other streets,
observing closely the places you pass by.
•
Take other buses. Change your wardrobe for a while; give away your
old shoes and try to walk barefoot for a few days – even if only at home.
•
Take off a whole afternoon to stroll about freely,
listening to the birds or the noise of the cars.
•Open and shut the drawers and doors with your left hand.
•Sleep on the other side of the bed. Then try sleeping in other beds.
Watch other TV programs, read other books, live other romances –
even of only in your imagination.
•Sleep until later. Go to bed earlier.
•Learn a new word a day.
•Eat a little less, eat a little more, eat differently; choose new seasonings,
new colors, things you have never dared to experiment.
•Lunch in other places, go to other restaurants,
order another kind of drink and buy bread at another bakery.
•Lunch earlier, have dinner later, or vice-versa.
•Try something new every day: a new side, a new method,
a new flavor, a new way, a new pleasure, a new position.
•
Pick another market, another make of soap, another toothpaste.
Take a bath at different times of the day.
•Use pens with different colors.
•Go and visit other places.
•Love more and more and in different ways.
•Even when you think that the other will be frightened,
suggest what you have always dreamed about doing when you make love.
•Change your bag, your wallet, your suitcases,
buy new glasses, write other poems.
•Open an account in another bank, go to other cinemas,
other hairdressers, other theaters, visit new museums.
•
Change. And think seriously of finding another job, another activity,
work that is more like what you expect from life, more dignified, more human.
•If you cannot find reasons to be free, invent them: be creative.
•And grab the chance to take a long, enjoyable trip –
preferably without any destination.
•Try new things. Change again. Make another change.
Experiment something else.
•You will certainly know better things and worse things
than those you already know, but that does not matter.
What matters most is change, movement, dynamism, energy.
Only what is dead does not change – and you are alive."
- Clarice Lispector
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)