Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/27/21:
"The Economy Is Cratering FASTER!
And It's About To Get MUCH Worse"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, May 27, 2021
"Everyone Vaccinated For Covid Will DIE, Warns French Virologist"
"Everyone Vaccinated For Covid Will DIE, Warns French Virologist"
Wuhan Flu shots were designed to “slow kill”
the masses through time-delayed death.
by Ethan Huff
"There is no chance of long-term survival for anyone who received a Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) injection, according to leading French virologist Luc Montagnier. Everyone who is getting jabbed for the Chinese Virus will die, he reportedly stated during a recent interview, which you can watch at Brighteon.com.
“There is no hope and no possible treatment for those who have already been vaccinated,” Montagnier stated plainly during the segment. “We must be prepared to cremate the bodies.” After studying at length the ingredients contained in the injections and what they do, Montagnier came to the conclusion that every single person who gets the shot will eventually die from antibody-dependent enhancement, or ADE. “That is all that can be said,” he added.
Montagnier is credited with being the first to discover HIV, by the way, having warned last spring that the Wuhan Flu contains artificially spliced DNA from the autoimmune-provoking virus. It now appears as though these same alterations can be found in Chinese Virus “vaccines,” which are priming people’s bodies for eventual sudden death.
Montagnier also stated last year that the “presence of elements of HIV and germs of malaria in the genome of coronavirus is highly suspect and the characteristics of the virus could not have arisen naturally.” It turns out he was right. It is one thing for the genetically modified (GMO) virus to be intentionally released, but a whole different thing for the medical establishment to then introduce an injection for it right in the middle of an alleged “pandemic.” In Montagnier’s view, this approach is an “unacceptable mistake,” at best, because all it will do is spread even more “variants” of the Chinese Virus and kill more people – which appears to have been the plan all along.
We have Donald Trump and his “Operation Warp Speed” scheme to thank for this nightmare, by the way. While some of his diehard supporters still insist that Trump should not be blamed because he was simply “misled” by his cabinet concerning the nature of the injections, Trump himself is aggressively pushing them even to this day, despite the tens of thousands of known cases of injury and death.
Evidence continues to mount that Chinese Virus injections were designed to be a “slow” kill for many, meaning their detrimental impact takes a bit of time to manifest. For some, however, injury and death will come immediately, as we have seen in the headlines as of late. All of this would explain the mad rush to vaccinate people at “warp speed,” using any ploy or coercion tactic necessary to reach the desired target. Once enough vaccinated people start dropping dead, the remaining unvaccinated will more than likely resist, which is why the Biden regime is moving quickly to get as many people injected as possibly, preferably before July 4.
“The powers that be have your DNA from the swab tests in a database link with an artificial intelligence that will determine the best time for one to die, and it will be by a ‘natural’ cause like stroke or heart attack,” one commenter at Disclose.tv wrote about people who are not necessarily vaccinated but who have undergone a covid “test.” “A certain frequency will resonate with the target only by the mobility tower closest to your home. Skynet is not sending droids, but frequencies.” More of the latest news about the death and destruction being brought to bear by Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) injections can be found at ChemicalViolence.com."
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MUST READ:
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Related:
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"The prestigious Salk Institute, founded by vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk, has authored and published a bombshell scientific article revealing that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is what’s actually causing vascular damage in covid patients and covid vaccine recipients, promoting the strokes, heart attacks, migraines, blood clots and other harmful reactions that have already killed thousands of Americans (source: VAERS.hhs.gov)."
Critically, all four covid vaccine brands currently in widespread use either inject patients with the spike protein or, via mRNA technology, instruct the patient’s own body to manufacture spike proteins and release them into their own blood. This floods the patient’s body with the very spike protein that the Salk Institute has now identified as the smoking gun cause of vascular damage and related events (such as blood clots, which are killing many people who take the vaccines). "Put simply, it means the vaccines were designed to contain the very element that’s killing people."
Full article:
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Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/26/21: “What Remains Of The Middle-Class Is Going Extinct Rapidly”
Gregory Mannarino, PM 5/26/21:
“What Remains Of The Middle-Class Is Going Extinct Rapidly”
“Your Next Job Is In Fast Food; High Prices, Low Wages; Huge Consequences Coming”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Your Next Job Is In Fast Food;
High Prices, Low Wages; Huge Consequences Coming”
"Housing Crash Is Here! Soaring Prices Result In Record Crash In Home, Appliance Buying Plans"
Full screen recommended.
"Housing Crash Is Here! Soaring Prices Result
In Record Crash In Home, Appliance Buying Plans"
by Epic Economist
"As the summer months approach, the weather isn't the only thing heating up - according to recent sales data, the housing market seems to be overheating, and home sales have been steadily declining, which means the current boom is nearing an epic burst. As home prices continue to skyrocket all across the country, buying a house is becoming increasingly difficult, and this has been preventing millions of people to enter the latest housing market rally and it has also led some experts to fear that the real estate price bubble might be getting ready to explode. In every corner of the market, major strains continue to emerge. Starting with the historically low inventory while existing homes are just too expensive. In April, the median existing home price was a record-high of $341,600. In May 2020, it was $283,500, a shocking year-to-year rise of more than 20 percent.
It's comprehensible why most people can't simply make their way into the market anymore - it seems almost impossible to afford current prices while wages are nowhere near keeping up with the pace of home price appreciation. Economists expect the supply and demand imbalance to keep pushing prices up, which will make homeownership even less attainable for first-time buyers or those with limited budgets, especially given that new homes have been incredibly hard to come by. Housing starts and new residential construction projects also fell 9.5% between March and April, and even though homebuilders have tried to increase their construction pace, it could take years to reduce the huge nationwide deficit of houses.
In one of the early indications that the lack of inventory is causing home sales to crash due to the exorbitant prices, sales of newly built homes dropped by 5.9% in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 863,000, the Commerce Department reported. The Mortgage Bankers Association disclosed that its seasonally adjusted Purchase Index dropped 4.2% in the week ended May 21 from a week earlier, reflecting a 7.2% decline in applications for refinancing. For Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics, the data underscores that the housing boom is reaching an end. “Over time, though - and usually not much time - new home sales gravitate to the pace implied by the trend in mortgage applications,” Shepherdson wrote. “So, absent any other reliable near-time indicators of the pace of sales, we have to expect a steep drop in April.”
The housing market pressures are being even more aggravated by growing inflation fears, as explained by Fannie Mae senior vice president and chief economist, Doug Duncan: "Stronger inflation and a resultant move in interest rates are risks that we believe should be monitored. As the effects of expansionary monetary policy continue to work their way through the economy, inflationary expectations may continue to rise. This could lead to prices rising further even with growth concurrently slowing in the presence of diminished labor market slack and waning fiscal policy support".
That's the same warning shared by experts with ZeroHedge. They argue that the lack of rising wages will fuel even higher prices. That will happen partially because pricing futures are taking into consideration temporary wage hikes employers have been offering to attract workers back into the labor market. However, as unemployment benefits expire in September, millions of currently unemployed workers are expected to make their way back into the labor force, which will send wages sharply lower given that instead of raising base payments, most employers only offer one-time bonuses.
The report also says that buying intentions, measured by the Conference Board, have plunged across the 3 major spending categories - homes, automobiles, and major household appliances. The drop was so massive, it amounted to the biggest one-month drop in intentions to purchase appliances, and homes. The vast majority of US consumers are getting increasingly tapped out, and considering homebuyer confidence has started to collapse, housing prices won't have anywhere else to go but down.
"What does that mean for the economy? Well, all those producers and retailers who got used to bumper demand and pushed their prices sharply higher, will face a stark choice: either drag prices right back down or sell far fewer goods and services," they wrote. As for the housing market, it means that no matter how much bubble deniers say today's fundamentals are different, prices will have to face a major correction as almost no one can afford them anymore. That is to say, there's essentially no way around the next housing market crash. As the experts highlighted - if anything this screams stagflation. And one thing is certain: six months from today, the US economy will be far, far uglier."
Musical Interlude: Medwyn Goodall, “Eyes of Heaven”
Full screen recommended.
Medwyn Goodall, “Eyes of Heaven”
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 at left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This narrow- and wide-angle, multi-camera composite finds details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced in starry fields either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. Mirach is just 200 light-years from the Sun. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away.
Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are engaged in a gravitational struggle. In fact, radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.”
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"Everything passes away- suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"
"Anyone Who Isn't Confused..."
"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."
- Edward R. Murrow
"Peak America"
"Peak America"
by Brian Maher
"Yawns on Wall Street today...The Dow Jones scratched out a light 10-point gain. The S&P gained seven; the Nasdaq, 80. The 10-year Treasury yield inched higher, gold inched lower. If it’s excitement you seek, Bitcoin gained 3% in today’s trading. But as we often note: The fleeting fancies of the market, its momentary moods, its passing passions, hold little fascination for us. They amuse us — to the verge of tears at times. Yet they do not fascinate us. It is the grand sweep that fascinates us... the long view... the view of the eagle high overhead. To everything there is a season, Ecclesiastes tells us...
The Four Seasons: In spring, the green saplings shoulder their way out of the earth. Buds form upon the trees. The days lengthen. It is the season of possibility. Summer is nature at high noon. It is green. Lush. The days are long; they are radiant… they are free of cares. Then fall descends…The first wrinkles of age appear. Summer’s greens go gray and the trees lose their hair. The first frosts arrive. Then comes winter… with its snow… its ice… its dark. It is the season of death.
Economies follow a similar cycle of seasons. They sprout, blossom, fade… and die.
Winter Closing In? The Daily Reckoning’s Charles Hugh Smith has argued winter may be closing in. Charles says the world is marked by “souring social mood, loss of purchasing power, stagnating wages, rising inequality, devaluing currencies, rising debt, political polarization and elite disunity.” “These are all characteristics,” Charles laments, “of the long-wave social-economic cycle that is entering the disintegrative (winter) phase.”
Is the economy entering winter? Charles leans on the work of historian Peter Turchin. Turchin explores historical cycles of social disintegration and integration over 50, 150 and 200-year cycles in his book "Ages of Discord." These cycles are as natural as the seasons — and perhaps as inevitable.
He identifies three primary forces spinning the disintegrative cycles: An oversupply of labor that suppresses real wages… an overproduction of parasitic elites… a deterioration in state finances. Do any of the three pertain to the United States?
Signs of Disintegration: Real American wages have remained largely flat for decades. Evidence suggests the bottom half of American adults earn no more than they did in the 1970s — in real terms. An overproduction of parasitic elites? Must we comment? A deterioration in state finances? The Treasury groans under a $28.3 trillion national debt that is growing… with each tick of the grandfather clock.
Meantime, unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare currently exceed $50 trillion by some estimates. $50 trillion liabilities cannot be met. They can only be repudiated in one form or another.
The one constant in this world of markets and men… is change. Today’s first violin is tomorrow’s second fiddle. Today’s top dog is tomorrow’s second banana. And vice versa. So it is with business. So it is with nations… and empires.
The Cycle of Empires: Ancient Athens attained high noon in the fifth century B.C. — “the Golden Age of Athens.” Athens had led a coalition of Greek city-states that defeated Persian invaders. It emerged king of the Hellenic world. The United States is not the first power in history to export democracy. Yet in time Athens began to heave its formidable weight around. Its former allies began seeking a balancing counterweight. They tied themselves up to Sparta. The 27-year Peloponnesian War that followed ultimately took Athens to its knees… and the Golden Age was no more.
What of Rome?
Obituary of Empire: Rome attained zenith in the second century A.D., under the emperor Trajan. Rome’s shadow covered Britain in the northwest, Mesopotamia in the east, North Africa in the south — and all points between them. To what city did all roads lead? That is correct. But the civilizational sinews ultimately weakened… a corrupting rot seeped into the marrows… and Rome began losing its purchase upon the world. Barbarians ultimately breached the walls. Rome fell in 476.
Now come forward a bit…The British Empire, on which the sun never set — and on which the blood never dried — reached high noon in 1914, before the Great War. It would never reclaim it.
The Soviet Empire saw its market cap peak in the 1970s — then collapse to zero on Christmas Day, 1991.
Turning now to these United States. Has high noon come… and has high noon gone?
Peak America: We estimate America attained its zenith during the 1990s. Its victory over communism marked the “end of history.” America bestrode the world like an overtowering Colossus. But history began anew on Sept. 11, 2001. America has been hemorrhaging market share ever since… In Afghanistan — the graveyard of empires — in Iraq, Libya, Syria.
America’s 'mission civilisatrice' to spread democracy the world over now appears a grotesque jest. It exports a bankrupt currency. The world watched American cities burn last summer. The world watched the statues coming down. In November, the world witnessed an American presidential election soaked through with allegations of fraud. In January, it watched thousands and thousands of furious protestors barrel their way into the United States Capitol, sending congressmen scurrying under the bed. If this is democracy, said the world, please count us out — thank you all the same.
Look in the Mirror! Columnist Fred Reed: "The whole world can see, in what calls itself the richest country in the world, squalid, diseased, often rat-infested encampments of tens of thousands the homeless on the sidewalks of city after city: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Austin, on and on. In New York they live in subway stations, often on the trains. Forgotten diseases return. This must cause astonishment in civilized countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan…
Next, crime, levels of which constitute a measure of civilization. American lawlessness is a wonder of the world. Over seven hundred killed annually in Chicago, three hundred in Baltimore, with perhaps three times as many shot but not killed. Similar numbers per capita can be adduced for many other cities. Equally elevated figures exist for assault, rape, carjacking, mugging, shoplifting. To citizens of Taiwan or South Korea these numbers must look more appropriate to civil war in Sudan than a country that regards itself as an example to the world…
Public disaffection is rampant in America. Washington is so afraid of its citizens that it called in over twenty thousand soldiers to assure calm when Biden was inaugurated. The whole earth watched, some in shock, others in amusement, as infuriated citizens stormed the Capitol. During a recent trial in Minneapolis troops were needed to protect the proceedings from an angry population, with stores boarding up in fear of looting. Can anyone imagine this in Tokyo?"
We could continue. But our patriotic honor forbids it… and we sob over America’s sinking prestige. Even Venezuela, Russia and China razz the United States for its derangements. The pots call the kettle black of course — and then some. But can the kettle plead truly innocent?
Consuetudo Fraudium: It is fashionable in some quarters to compare the present United States to ancient Rome. The comparisons are often overwrought. Often — but maybe not always. Rome had its spring. It had its summer, its fall… and then its winter. The seasons glided one into the next so easily, scarcely anyone noticed.
From "The Empire of Debt," co-written by our founders Addison Wiggin and Bill Bonner: "In Rome, the institutions evolved and degraded faster than people’s ideas about them. Romans remembered their Old Republic with its rules and customs. They still thought that was the way the system was supposed to work long after a new system of consuetudo fraudium — habitual cheating — had taken hold… As time went on, the empire came to resemble less and less the Old Republic that gave it birth. The old virtues were replaced with new vices." We cannot help but think of these United States as we reflect upon these lines.
Indispensable? Our nation shows many of the same telltales, in ways large and small. But we are cynical by nature. And a man sees what he expects to see, even if it horrifies him. We cannot truly identify America’s present season. Perhaps it is in a disguised spring. But we have our jacket and gloves ready… just in case.
And is America the indispensable nation? Here we modify a phrase about indispensable men — and it pains us mightily to announce it — however: The graveyard is filled with indispensable nations…"
“There Is No Reality Anymore…”
“There Is No Reality Anymore…”
by Thad Beversdorf
“I‘d love to change the world, but I don‘t know what to do,
so I’ll leave it up to you…” *
“What a great lyric that is from the late 60′s, early 70′s English band “10 Years After.” I believe this describes that uneasy feeling of discontent that sits deep in the stomach, beneath the day to day exteriors, of so many people today. The world is like a black hole in that it seems to be getting smaller and smaller as the years go by but also heavier and heavier with each passing day.
When I was a teenager and my friends and I were taking reality obscuring substances, one of my buddies (this means you Nichol) would stop us at certain points throughout the night for a reality check. This was just a few moments where we ‘d all gather our senses to make sure the world was still right and then we’d venture back into obscurity. I feel that reality is an old world term. There is no reality anymore. With advances in technology came unending possibilities of if you can dream it they can make it so. The ubiquitous flow of information ensures that the truth is always available but never known with certainty. It means there is no such thing as a reality check. It’s like that dream inside a dream inside a dream. Which reality is real anymore? How deep does the rabbit hole go?
We are raised with pretty standard ideals of what the world is meant to be but these ideals seem to take place only in the movies. It must be incredibly difficult for our young people to reconcile the two worlds, I know it is for me. That which they learn as a child and that which they find has replaced it as a young adult. Our leaders are despicable, arrogant and egotistical fools who pretend we elect them because we don’t see them for what they are. But we elect them because we feel we have no choice. We know what we want the world to be. We know what it should look and feel like. And we know it is not the world in which we live today. I know I’d love to change the world but I don’t know how and so I’ll leave it up to you. And so we continue to move forward down this path, each step uneasy as though something ungood is lurking just around the next corner.
We are able to put that feeling out of our minds for the most part but our subconscious is always aware that things are off. We have all kinds of self help books and new age theories that attempt to make sense of it all and explain why we just aren t happy the way we envision happy should be. Perhaps the only reality is the reality that the world isn’t what we had hoped it would be and we don’t know how to make that right. I’d love to say that if we just stand up and do the right thing, act from our hearts and have good intentions that it could change the world. But quite honestly there are ill-intentioned people that are constructing this new world in which we sub-exist.It is them and us, but they’d never say it that way. Certainly though their intention is not for us to co-exist along side them.
But so we carry on and we, move forward, to the best of our abilities. We accept the good with the bad and acknowledge that everything is a trade off. We believe that if we go to college we stand a better chance in life and so we borrow our first 10 years of post college wages to get an edge over the next guy who is doing the same. When we get out of school we know that it is time to buckle down and get serious. We put our lives on hold in order to focus on the future with the idea that one day we will be sitting on the porch with the person we love, the one we put on hold for all those years, and we will then enjoy our life’s work then.
But then we get further in debt because we need a sleeker car and we need a bigger house but it’s ok because we can just work a little more. And then the kids come and as far as we got to know them they are great, I think. But it’s ok because they just finished college and now they’ve moved back in as the job market is tough out there and so we’re paying off their student loans. Eventually they get away and begin their life’s journey and they take their debt with them. And then we realize, god I’m almost 60. But it feels great because that means soon I’ll be there on the porch getting to know the one I love again and life will be grand at that point.
But then we turn 65 and we realize all those policies that were implemented by all those well-intentioned decision makers have actually left us with very little. And we say it’s ok because we’d be bored anyway just sitting on the porch. And so we take a job waving at people in Walmart but feel like OMG how did I get here. But the shift ends and we go home anxious to spend time with the one we love because, although it’s a terrible thought, we are aware we’re both getting long in the tooth. And so we arrive home only to realize the one we love is now sick and that it’s too late for our days sitting on the porch getting to know each other again. We do everything we can but we cannot afford to help that person who stood quietly behind us all those years as healthcare costs are unrealistically out of touch with reality . And then it hits us that despite taking all the right steps to ensure we have a great life we failed to ever really be happy, to really love and to really accept love. And then it really hits us, this world provides but one shot.
Well, then that feeling of uneasy discontent that shadowed us when we were young is now an intense pain in our heart. And we look out at the world and we ask ourselves how could this have happened? I did everything they told me I was supposed to do, I did everything right! And it becomes clear that life was a chance to change the world, but we didn’t know what to do, and so we left it up to…”
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*Ten Years After, “I’d Love To Change The World”
“Stockdale Paradox: How It Can Help You Survive the Worst”
“Stockdale Paradox:
How It Can Help You Survive the Worst”
By Janey Davies, B.A.
“Would you describe yourself as an optimist or a pessimist? Perhaps you’re more of an idealist? Maybe you think it’s important to see the reality of a situation? In any case, is it better to be one or the other? The Stockdale Paradox states that a mixture of realism and optimism is the best way forward.
What Is the Stockdale Paradox and Who Was James Stockdale? The Stockdale paradox is named after the high-ranking naval officer Admiral James Stockdale. Stockdale fought in the Vietnam War and, unfortunately, was captured by the Viet Cong. He was held prisoner from 1965 to 1973. During this time, he underwent some of the most brutal torture ever inflicted during a conflict; all whilst living in subhuman conditions. But Stockdale survived. Not because he was an unwavering optimist, or, indeed, a naïve idealist. Stockdale lived to tell his horrific tale because he managed to deal with the realism of his appalling situation with a small measure of optimism.
Life in Prison During the Vietnam War: Out-matched by America’s great show of military strength, Vietnamese guards took a different tactic. They set about staging a propaganda war instead. They captured thousands of US soldiers and brutalized many into ‘confessing’ the bombings of school children and homes of civilians. Guards filmed US prisoners denouncing the US government in humiliating videos.
So why did Jim Stockdale survive whereas others didn’t? In an interview, he said: “I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect, I would not trade.”
He was asked ‘Who didn’t survive?’ “Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.” The interviewer pressed Stockdale for more details. “The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
Stockdale’s Role as a POW in Vietnam: American POWs endured appalling conditions in the prison camps. Routinely shackled to beds by their legs with ironclads, these metal shackles were extremely tight and led to infections and sores. For days on end, prisoners were left to lie in their own feces and urine.
Vietnam guards tortured Stockdale over twenty times. One form of torture was the rope trick. Prisoners would have their hands cuffed behind their backs, then guards would use ropes to rotate their arms up until their elbows and shoulders popped out of their sockets. Guards would hang prisoners up for hours, days even. During this time prisoner’s arms would turn purple through lack of blood. Sometimes guard would hogtie a prisoner’s arms and legs together then string them up from a meat hook. Returning at regulars intervals, guards would tighten the ropes until the prisoners had no feeling left in their limbs. Arms and legs would balloon to twice their normal size.
Remember, these were prisoners with infections and injuries from the war or previous torture. So they were already gravely ill before these hanging sessions. And torture sessions would go on for hours, in some cases even days.
One such inmate of a notorious POW camp, known as the Hanoi Hilton, is Congressman Sam Johnson. He described the torture in an interview: “As a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, I could recall nothing from military survival training that explained the use of a meat hook suspended from the ceiling. It would hang above you in the torture room like a sadistic tease – you couldn’t drag your gaze from it.” How do you survive such mental and physical torture with no end in sight?
How Stockdale Survived the POW Camps: Jim Stockdale knew that no one could survive endless torture, either physically or mentally. So he devised a step-by-step system of rules that would help. For instance, he advised prisoners to endure x number of minutes, then give away some information. This gave the prisoners a system to work from. In fact, Stockdale was instrumental in organizing his fellow inmates. He invented an elaborate communication system so that isolated prisoners could feel connected.
Slashing his body with a razor and beating himself bloody with a stool, Stockdale knew the guards would not videotape him as propaganda for the Vietnamese war effort. He taught prisoners a simple code of blinking Morse Code when they were videotaped for propaganda purposes. Now prisoners have a modicum of hope that their messages were getting out.
So where did Stockdale get his incredible resilience from? Was it his training in the Navy? Actually, Stockdale took inspiration from philosophy. He remembered quotes from the famed Stoic Epictetus: “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.” “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
A Matter of Free Will: Stockdale realized that despite his capture and subsequent imprisonment, he still had the capacity for free will. Although he couldn’t change what was happening to him, he could control how he reacted to it all. And that’s different from hoping things will turn out okay in the end. It is being proactive but also realistic about the situation. There are the factors you can control, for instance, your reaction to imprisonment and torture.
Then there are other factors you cannot control, such as liberation. Stockdale knew that to survive this horrific experience, he could not have ‘faith’ that things would turn out alright in the end. Because, dash this faith, time and time again, and there was no knowing if his mental state would ever recover from the sheer disappointment. Instead, he confronted head-on the desperation and brutality of his situation and devised methods to deal with the worst of them.
So What Does Stockdale Paradox Teach Us? So how does the Stockdale Paradox help us today? I’ll let Jim Stockdale answer that question: “You have to have faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” In other words, a healthy dose of realism along with a measure of optimism is the best way through any difficult situation.”
"I Want Better..."
“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”
- Ray Bradbury
"Zombies Everywhere"
"Zombies Everywhere"
By Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Yesterday, we promised a “reveal.” Why do empires collapse? And why do economies decay? Keeping it all very simple… A society prospers or declines depending on how much of its vitality is engaged in providing useful goods and services… compared to how much is spent grifting… stealing… politicking… and wasting time and savings on zombie companies, wars, and dead-end investments. And appearances can be misleading…
Complete Disaster: In the early days of the Third Reich, for example, many observers thought the German economy would be a good model for the rest of the world. Coming out of a catastrophic hyperinflation in the early 1920s… and after dragging the burden of reparations like a ball and chain… Germany nevertheless rebounded smartly in the 1930s. Suddenly, everyone was working and every industrial chimney was belching smoke.
But it was a fraud. The German economy had been hijacked by warmongers – drafted in to support Hitler’s fantasies of world domination. Instead of making passenger cars, it was tanks that rolled off the assembly lines. Instead of making commercial airliners, they built fighter jets and bombers. Instead of growing wheat and vegetables for their families… German laborers were needed on the Eastern Front! In the 1940s, when the unemployment rate in Nazi Germany went to zero… workers were forcibly recruited from France and Poland. By then, Germany was “investing” more than half its entire GDP in the war effort. We all know what these “investments” produced – a complete disaster, for Germany as well as her neighbors.
Impaired Judgment: As a general rule, the more of a society’s energy is “invested” by government (rather than by private investors with a profit motive), the lower the return. Government “investments” are more likely to be either disguised transfer payments… or worse, megalomaniacal crackpottery. In either case, the real return on investment is typically below zero.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve noticed that many private investments can also be unproductive. When fake money is handed out like free booze, it’s bound to lead to some impaired judgment. At its recent peak, the cryptocurrency market was worth $2.4 trillion. And of America’s top 1,500 companies, 200 of them – with a combined market value of $2.3 trillion – haven’t made a profit in three years. Cryptos aren’t designed to provide products or services. And money-losing companies subtract wealth; they don’t add it. Together, that is nearly $5 trillion of zombie capital. (Much of it will disappear in the next crash.)
Connecting the Dots: But how can we connect these dots? The misguided investments… the idle minds… the goofball spending? For the first time in the history of economics – you are the first to see it, Dear Reader – we unveil our Zombie Index (ZI).
Remember, when people can work, save, invest, and innovate – without interference – they prosper. But when people are distracted, detained, bamboozled, or otherwise prevented from carrying on with their projects, the society gets poorer. And now, our impression is that the zombies are many… They are breeding like rabbits. We think that explains why U.S. GDP growth rates are now at their lowest levels since the Great Depression. Let us see if our hypothesis is true.
The U.S. labor force participation rate hit 67% in 2000. Now, it’s down to below 62%. That’s about 7 million more zombies right there. This year, there are about 260 million adults in the U.S. But, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 151 million are “employed.” That leaves 109 million zombies.
An important nuance: There is nothing wrong, morally, with being a zombie. Old people. Sick people. Children. Prisoners. Malingerers… lazy bums… and crypto day traders. Zombies are not necessarily good or bad. But they must eat. And since they do not produce, they must eat what others produce.
We hasten to let ourselves… and many dear readers off the hook… adding that a retired person, living off his own accumulated savings, is not a zombie at all. He earned the money… and merely delayed spending it. But that kind of fine tuning of our Zombie Index will have to wait for someone with more than half an hour to think about it. Grossissimo modo, our Zombie Index tells us what percentage of the population is producing wealth… and what part is consuming it. Generally, (this is in no way to be confused with science) the more zombies you have… the lower the wealth of the society.
Government Zombies: But wait… What about all the people employed by the government? Some, such as firefighters and teachers, do useful work that we would gladly pay for. Most do not.
Optimistically, let us say that 80% of government employees are “zombies.” In 2020, there were about 22.5 million on state, local, and federal government payrolls. So we take 80% of these “employed” people – about 18 million – and move them over to the zombie side of the street. It should be added that there are millions more who are honestly employed in the private sector… but who still do zombie work. Accountants preparing tax returns, lawyers… lobbyists… diversity commissars… and millions of others… do not really add to our wealth. But that calculation is far beyond the scope of this little reverie.
So is the fact that many people – in and out of government – not only fail to add to output, they actively try to reduce it… by imposing regulations, paperwork, skullduggery, and claptrappery – such as the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rates. As they say in France… “Half the population works; the other half tries to stop them.”
Final Tally: So, putting the numbers together… out of 332 million people in America, approximately 199 million (109 million unemployed + 18 million “zombie” government employees + 72 million non-adults = 199 million) – 60% of all Americans – are zombified. To these simple numbers we add another important measure. In 2000, state, local, and federal governments together – the biggest source of zombieism – spent an amount equal to 34% of GDP, or about 1 out of every 3 dollars. Today, the number is 44%. That represents a huge gain for the zombies. And it completes our Zombie Index as follows…
We add the two ratios together – 60% and 44% – and divide by two, giving us our final Zombie Index reading of 52%… or just over the half-way mark. The French are right! Half the people work; the other half get in their way. For reference, the Zombie Index for the year 2000 would have been about 45%, which confirms our impression: The zombies are multiplying. Regards,"
Greg Hunter, "Dollar is Going to Collapse"
 |
| "Dollar is Going to Collapse" By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com |
"Money manager and economist Peter Schiff says all the debt and money printing by the Fed will, ultimately, get down to one thing and that is the U.S. dollar. The Fed has been getting away with this turbocharged money creation policy since the last financial meltdown in 2008. In 2021, the consequences of “money for nothing” are finally kicking in. Schiff explains, “The inflation crisis and the dollar crisis are a much bigger economic event that will have a much greater impact than the 2008 financial crisis. I have been warning about the consequences of all this money printing for years and years. Now, finally, you are really starting to see that. The government has been able to bury the amount of inflation they have been creating because of the CPI (Consumer Price Index). The CPI doesn’t really capture the degree that prices are going up. So, it creates a false sense of confidence that we haven’t had inflation, but now prices are rising so rapidly that even the government’s doctored CPI number can’t hide it. We are getting these huge price increases across the board.”
How worried should people be about all the Fed money printing? Schiff warns, “The Fed says there’s nothing to worry about. Inflation is just going to magically come back down. We are still going to be at 2% inflation. So, we can keep the printing presses going with the pedal to the metal, and we are going to have these huge deficits. We are going to print all this money, and there is nothing to worry about. Well, you better worry! This crisis will be much worse than 2008, and unlike 2008, nobody’s getting a bailout. The reason the Fed could do the bailouts is the Fed could print the money to fund the bailout. The next crisis is the dollar that is going to be in crisis. The dollar is going to be crashing, and they can’t bail anybody out from a dollar crash because all they can do is print more dollars, which will just accelerate the collapse of the dollar.”
The warning is simple. Schiff says, “This is a completely dysfunctional economy that is going to collapse when the bottom drops out of the dollar. I think that crisis is close at hand.”
In closing, Schiff points out, “Gold and silver are very cheap. Everything is in a bubble except gold and silver because gold and silver are real money. We are going to see all these bubbles deflate in terms of gold and silver. The price of stocks, real estate and crypto currencies are all going to come way down in terms of gold and silver. Get your gold and silver, physical coins, buy that now while you can still get it. In the future, not only are the prices going to go way up for the metal, but the premium on the coin is going to go way up in addition to that.”
Join Greg Hunter with Peter Schiff on Rumble:
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Related:
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/26/21: "A Stock Market Crash Beyond Your Wildest Nightmares IS COMING... Be Ready"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/26/21:
"A Stock Market Crash Beyond Your Wildest
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Tuesday, May 25, 2021
"What Will You Do When Soaring Prices Will Lead To Panic And Chaos At Grocery Stores?"
Full Screen Recommended.
"What Will You Do When Soaring Prices Will Lead
To Panic And Chaos At Grocery Stores?"
by Epic Economist
"Signs of an imminent economic catastrophe just keep growing all around us. Experienced investors, economists, financial analysts, and other highly respected voices have been warning about the continual deterioration of our living standards and the collapse of our currency. However, most Americans seem to be in a state of numbness and they don't realize the impending dangers of an inflationary spike. With so many other disasters going on, we can understand why most part of society isn't listening to those warnings. People have their hands full, trying to take care of their families and make a living during one of the worst recessions this country has ever seen. But when prices start to rise at the grocery store, while housing prices skyrocket and health care costs keep spiraling out of control, it becomes evident that inflation is already a major problem.
Perhaps those warnings never reach the average person also because the mainstream media keeps denying there's anything to worry about. Politicians and policymakers continue to overlook this issue so that they can keep launching massive 'fiscal relief' packages without ever considering the consequences that will follow. Since the beginning of the health crisis, the Federal Reserve never ceased to inject more and more liquidity into the financial system, while the federal government always found a way to recklessly spend these fresh piles of newly created dollars. In a failed attempt to 'help' the population, our leaders directed a fraction of that printed money to Americans through stimulus checks, but those have only made the problem worse, as they resulted in rampant inflation and widespread shortages, and unfortunately, they weren't enough to ease the financial pain most people have been facing.
Even though trillions upon trillions of dollars have been pumped into the economy, the U.S. still has 8.2 million fewer jobs than it did before the sanitary outbreak. In fact, last Thursday, we learned that another 444,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits. Needless to say, in 2019, this figure would have been considered devastating and probably unacceptable. But now that things have been going from bad to worse for so long, that number is actually seen as “good news”, as the "new normal" make these absurdities look palatable. Political leaders were trying to artificially create an "economic boom," but they ended up setting the stage for an implosion of epic proportions.
According to data from Deutsche Bank, Americans have been searching for “inflation” online more frequently now than they have in over a decade. They have certainly been feeling the painful impacts of rising prices, but as the government keeps insisting that everything is okay - negating people's economic suffering and reaffirming there will be no change in the current monetary policies - millions of Americans just don't know what to do to fight it.
On the other hand, the wealthy groups of the US society are always aware of potential threats that can compromise their gains, and they have deeply concerned about inflation. Many of them have begun offloading overly-inflated stocks at a very brisk pace in recent weeks, as reported by a recent Bloomberg piece, which noted that when the nation's CEOs, billionaires, and corporate insiders start to run to the exits sooner than expected in what seems to be the end of a 13-year bull market, it's because they know there's something extremely wrong with the economy, and the imbalances happening in our current inflated equity markets are a clear signal that they have to leave before everything bursts.
Now it is time to wake up to the fact that we are steamrolling toward an economic disaster that will make the history books, and inflation is just one element of the many crises our society will have to deal with. So pay attention to the real facts and to the voices that are underscoring problems that the media keeps sweeping under the rug, and do not uncritically believe in the rosy forecasts provided by "official" sources, otherwise, you will be blindsided by the coming perfect storm that will plunge our nation into a nightmarish depression. And given that dissonant voices have been silenced, in this video, we decided to bring them back to the surface and share the warnings several experts have been sounding recently."
MUST WATCH! "Bills Are Coming Due; Hedonistic Society About To Learn A Valuable Lesson; Big Shots Will Lose"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Bills Are Coming Due; Hedonistic Society About To
Learn A Valuable Lesson; Big Shots Will Lose"
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