Thursday, June 24, 2021

"They Are Gaslighting Us! Nightmarish Inflation Is Already Here But The Fed Is Denying That It Even Exists"

"They Are Gaslighting Us! Nightmarish Inflation Is 
Already Here But The Fed Is Denying That It Even Exists"
by Michael Snyder

They would like us to believe that what we can see happening right in front of our eyes is not actually real. Over the past year, our politicians in Washington have gone on the largest spending binge in U.S. history by a very wide margin, and the Federal Reserve has created the most enormous financial bubble of all time by pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into the financial markets. Of course this was going to cause very painful inflation, and prices are rising very aggressively all around us. But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other leaders in Washington are trying to convince us that even though they added all of this money to the system it has hardly affected the overall rate of inflation at all. They are “gaslighting” us, and it is absolutely infuriating.

If you are not familiar with the term “gaslighting”, the following is how Wikipedia defines it… "Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement."

This is precisely what they are trying to do to all of us. Everyone can see that nightmarish inflation is already here, but they are trying to manipulate us into thinking that it is not.

Just look at home prices. Everyone needs a place to live, and existing home prices have risen 23.6 percent over the past year… "The median existing-home price rose 23.6% in May from a year earlier to $350,300, a record high, NAR said. The annual price appreciation was the strongest in data going back to 1999. Median sales prices have climbed sharply since rising above $300,000 for the first time last July."

At this point, homes are absolutely flying off the market. In fact, the average time that a home stays on the market has hit a record low… "Homes are selling quickly. The typical home that sold in May spent 17 days on the market, matching the record low reached in April, NAR said. Buyers with limited cash for down payments are struggling the most to compete. Half of existing-home buyers in April who used mortgages put at least 20% down, according to a NAR survey."

But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell insists that everything is just fine and that the Fed is perfectly capable of keeping inflation around 2 percent… “When Congress spends trillions of dollars and the Fed prints money, something’s got to give,” Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.) said. He asked Mr. Powell whether the price increases seen in recent months are “the start of something that could be as bad as the ‘70s,” when inflation reached double digits. Mr. Powell said such a scenario is “very, very unlikely,” in part because the central bank “is strongly prepared to use its tools to keep us around 2% inflation.”

What an insane thing to say. How can you claim that you are going to “keep us around 2% inflation” when inflation is already out of control? As John Williams of shadowstats.com has documented, if honest numbers were being used the official rate of inflation would already be well into double digits.

Of course for certain categories we are now seeing triple digit inflation. For instance, at one point in May the price of lumber was four times higher than it was at the same time last year…"The price of lumber, which shot up to $1,600 per thousand board feet in May from $400 early last year, is making renovations more expensive – especially projects that involve kitchens cabinets, hardwood floors and additions that require framing."

But Powell just told Congress that he is not troubled by any of this… “If you look behind the headline and look at the categories where these prices are really going up, you’ll see that it tends to be areas that are directly affected by the reopening,” Mr. Powell said in a hearing before a House subcommittee. “That’s something that we’ll go through over a period. It will then be over. And it should not leave much of a mark on the ongoing inflation process.”

These days, Powell is definitely starting to sound a lot like Frank Drebin. We are supposed to believe that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, but meanwhile the wholesale price of chicken wings has more than tripled… “The [wholesale] price of wings a year ago was as low as 98 cents,” per pound, Charlie Morrison, Chairman and CEO of Wingstop Restaurants Inc., told CNN Business. “Today, it’s at $3.22. So it’s a meaningful difference.”

Our leaders insist that this is perfectly normal. Nothing to see here. Please move along. To me, one of the craziest examples of inflation in our economy is what is happening to used car prices. At this point, some used vehicles are now selling for more than they sold for when they were brand new… "When it was new, the window sticker price on a typical 2019 Toyota Tacoma SR double cab pickup was just under $29,000. Two years later, dealers are paying almost $1,000 more than that to buy the same vehicle, even though it’s used. Then they’re selling it to consumers for more than $33,000."

Welcome to the wacky world of U.S. car and truck sales, where the pandemic and a global shortage of computer chips have pushed prices to record levels. I was absolutely floored when I first read that. We have never seen anything happen like this before in all of U.S. history. But Fed officials are going to continue to tell you that everything is just fine in the months ahead even as economic conditions continue to go haywire all around us.

I warned that extremely painful inflation was coming in my last book, and I will be warning about it again in the new book that I will soon be releasing. Our leaders consciously made the decision to flood the system with new money in a desperate attempt “to save the economy”, and they should just be honest with us about the consequences of that decision. But instead, they are just going to keep trying to spin the truth for as long as they can. Unfortunately for them, the clock is ticking, and time is not on their side."

"How It Really Is"

 

Related:
"On The Mean Streets Of America,
The Gun Battles Never Seem To End…"

"When the Roof Fell In"

"When the Roof Fell In"
by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "In the news yesterday was a report about a major real estate purchase. Blackstone Group bought Home Partners of America and thus acquired its 17,000 rental units. We don’t know the particulars of the deal. But the average monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment, for example, is about $1,200. That gives a gross rental income of about $14,000 annually, per unit. So Blackstone could expect about $250 million in annual rental income from the 17,000 units owned by Home Partners of America.

Shrewd real estate investors look for properties they can buy for about eight times gross rental income. So, if the units rent for average amounts… Blackstone’s purchase price – $6 billion – is far too much. The grey-haired real estate veteran must shake his head. How is this going to work out, he must wonder? How can Blackstone afford to pay three times the going rate? What does it know that we don’t know?

Ka-Boom! Buying real estate is a classic way to prepare for an inflationary storm. Especially if it is built of brick and block and won’t blow away in the howling winds. In an inflation, the dollar goes down, effectively lowering the real cost of fixed, low-interest rate payments. Construction costs go up, making existing buildings more valuable. Rents can be raised to keep up with rising costs. Improvements can be put off. And as more and more people try to protect their capital by moving into real estate… prices tend to rise.

Our colleague Dan Denning has an update: "The median existing home price in America is now $350,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. It’s the first time it’s ever hit that level. Even more impressive (or alarming) is that median home prices have grown by nearly 24% in the last twelve months – the fastest pace on record. Boom! Boom. Boom. Ka-Boom!"

ATM in the Bedroom: If another big real estate whirlwind is approaching, perhaps we should spare a moment to look at the last one. The author of the current property price increases, as well as those of the last bubble, can be found in the Eccles Building, home of the Federal Reserve.

In the first financial crisis of the 21st century, the monetary savants at the Fed cut interest rates in order to buck up the financial system after the collapse of the Nasdaq. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman outlined the plan in 2002: "To fight this recession, the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, [Fed chief] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."

We’ll come back to Mr. Krugman tomorrow. Today, our scorn is reserved for the Fed. Alan Greenspan, then chair of the Fed, did as Mr. Krugman bid him do. He lowered interest rates. Financial assets went up. So did real estate. By 2005, the real estate market was in such bubble territory that houses practically lifted off of their foundations.

Legend has it that people with no visible means of support were able to buy $1 million houses – without providing lenders any proof of income (no-doc mortgages). Then, they got “cash back” at closing that left them with money in hand… as well as a new house. Then, as house prices rose, they were able to go to the ATM machine in their bedrooms and “take out” even more cash. “Equity,” they called it.

The Roof Fell In: Here at the Diary, we laughed at the bubble… mocked the buyers… applauded the sellers… and, to the annoyance of our dear readers, looked down at the whole affair with a lofty and disapproving air. But we weren’t making $33 million a year. Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, was. His company wreaked havoc – with its EZ mortgage terms – all over the nation… and got rich doing it. “Real estate never goes down,” said one and all.

But it wasn’t long before the typical home buyer owed too much money on the typical house, on which the lenders had lent too much… and which the next typical buyer couldn’t afford to buy. Then, the roof fell in. Real estate did go down, after all. From April 2006 to October 2010, the median new house price fell from $257,000 to $204,200. Mozilo retired. And four million families lost their homes.

Crashed and Burned: Dear readers will find in this parable many of the themes we have been describing in these pages of late. The Fed’s fake interest rates misled lenders and borrowers alike. It made the assets of the rich – stocks and bonds – pricier, thus making their owners richer. But while it made houses pricier, it made most people (excepting those who had bought years ago and were ready to cash out of the housing market in order to die or go live on Mars) poorer.

Investors could volley their stocks back and forth at whatever prices they wanted. The trouble was that, for ordinary people, houses were a big part of the real world. Not just financial assets, they were places to live and part of their cost of living. And they had to pay for their houses out of their incomes. As prices rose, incomes failed to keep up. Finally, the average family could no longer afford the average family house. Prices fell. The lenders’ collateral disappeared… and the whole financial hullabaloo came to an end.

Thereafter, the Fed repeated its Krugmanian mischief… cutting interest rates and hiking up asset prices again. This time, 2009-2020, stocks and bonds responded quickly, while real estate prices moved more slowly. Once burned, buyers were shy about touching overpriced houses.

Bubble Territory: But in the COVID-19 crisis – the third big financial blow-up of the 21st century – the feds followed Krugman’s advice even more aggressively. Dan has the figures Just under two years ago, the Fed’s balance sheet was at $3.7 trillion and steadily declining. Since then, the U.S. central bank has printed $4.3 trillion to buy mortgage-backed securities and government bonds at the pace of $120 billion per month. Its balance sheet is now over $8 trillion and climbing. And now, real estate prices are entering bubble territory again.

But are the super-sophisticated analysts at Blackstone making a mistake? Or are they on to the Fed’s tricks… anticipating higher real estate prices, higher mortgage rates, and more inflation? We’ll see. And Paul Krugman? He’s urging the Fed to ignore the early warning signs. Inflation? Nah… don’t worry about it. He won a Nobel Prize. Surely, he’s not the dope he appears. Or is he? Tune in tomorrow…"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/24/21: "Must Watch! The US Economy Is Collapsing FASTER"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/24/21:
"Must Watch! The US Economy Is Collapsing FASTER"
Related:

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

"The Economy is like a Bad Magic Trick - Full of Smoke and Mirrors"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, IAllegedly, PM 6/23/21:
"The Economy is like a Bad Magic Trick - 
Full of Smoke and Mirrors"

Musical Interlude: Tron Syversen, “Moonlight Reflections”

Full screen recommended.
Tron Syversen, “Moonlight Reflections”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog.
Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (left), NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the angular boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the human eye, the above long-exposure, deep-field image taken earlier this year shows much of the faint complexity that actually surrounds the smaller galaxy. Thousands of the faint dots in background of the featured image are actually galaxies far across the universe.”

"Economic Market Snapshot PM 6/23/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot PM 6/23/21"
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/23/21:
"Alert! The Fed. Admits Inflation Will Persist! 
And Another Airline Bailout"
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

CNN Market Data:

CNN Fear And Greed Index:
A comprehensive, essential daily read.
June 23rd to 24th, Updated Daily
Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Daily Job Cuts
Commentary, highly recommended:
And now, the End Game...
Oh yeah...

"Never More Frightening..."

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than
when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
~ Laurens van der Post
"In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well."
- Chris Hedges

The Daily "Near You?"

Port-of-spain, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Thanks for stopping by!

"Sometimes..."

 

"Life..."

"Life is not what you see, but what you've projected.
It's not what you've felt, but what you've decided.
It's not what you've experienced, but how you've remembered it.
It's not what you've forged, but what you've allowed.
And it's not who's appeared, but who you've summoned.
And this should serve you well until you find what you already have."

- The Universe

Greg Hunter, "Fed Kills the Economy – Michael Pento"

"Fed Kills the Economy – Michael Pento"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Money manager and economist Michael Pento warns to keep your eyes on the Fed. It will be responsible for the next market crash coming this year or next. Just look what happened after the most recent Fed meeting last week. Pento says, “After the June FOMC meeting, the Fed talking about tapering sent stock prices skidding. When they actually announce they are tapering, and when they actually announce a date for tapering that, I believe, will be in August at Jackson Hole, the market will sell off absolutely.”

The Fed has been propping up the markets with massive amounts of printed money since the financial meltdown of 2008. Something has changed, and Pento points out, “Now, the inflation has become such a problem that even the Fed can no longer ignore it. Now, the calculation goes like this: Either the economy will slow significantly on its own to slow the rate of inflation, which will cause the earnings per share to collapse and the stock market will collapse, or the Fed is going to kill it for you. There has been an epiphany, a watershed moment at the Fed, they are all starting to notice the inflation. Even the core rate of inflation has gotten out of hand, and they have to address it. They can’t ignore it, and this is the big watershed change. I cannot stress this enough. The big change is the success of creating 2% inflation, which is now well over double what the Fed wants it to be.” They wanted 2%, and it’s now over 5%. The Fed is going to kill the economy or the economy is going to roll over on its own. I think it’s going to be both.”

What’s coming next? Pento warns, “I think the Fed is going to taper asset purchases just as the monetary cliff kicks in. In that case, watch out. They are losing control of the monetary system. They are losing control of inflation. They are losing control of asset prices. They are losing control of the fiat currency system. They are losing control of everything.”

In closing, Pento says, “We are going to go through iterations of inflation and then rapid and devastating deflation. And with each iteration, the bubble gets bigger and the amount of debt grows exponentially. Do we have one more left or two more left? I don’t know, but I am calling for a rapid and violent deflationary bust of asset prices probably early in 2022. At some point, bond market yields spike out of control. That is not happening yet. After that, you are going to see a problem with helicopter money like we have never seen before and inflation like we have never seen before.”

Pento also says he’s long term bullish on gold and short term bullish on the dollar, too. He explains in detail in the 55 minute interview."

"Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with economist and 
money manager Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies."

"How to Remember You're Alive"

"How to Remember You're Alive"
by David Cain

"One way to appreciate virtually any moment of your life is to pretend that the whole thing is already over. Your life came and went a long time ago, but for some reason you’ve just been sent back to this random moment, here in this office chair, or in line at Home Depot.

It isn’t clear why you’ve been sent back. Maybe it was a cosmic accounting error, or a boon from a playful God. All you know is that you’re here again, walking the earth, having been inexplicably returned to the temporary and mysterious state of Being Alive.

Any moment will do for this experiment. In fact, the more mundane the moment, the more profound the effect. You might find yourself, in this instance, pushing a cart through the frozen foods aisle. Or maybe you’re seated in front of a bowl of cereal at the speckled Formica breakfast table you bought on Craigslist. Or you’re carrying a bag of recycling down the back stairwell on a muggy night. It’s definitely your life though, and at least for now, you get to be alive again.

When you view life as something you’re returning to — rather than something that has never not been happening — it feels like the gift it perhaps always should. It’s just so damn interesting to be alive and experiencing things, and choosing what to do during those experiences.

Seeing life as the curious and rare condition it is gives even ordinary events the character of a brilliant film. An oblong rectangle of sunlight on the table flutters with the shadows of leaves. While you fold laundry, your phone lights up: a friend texting you a cheesy pun she knows you will appreciate. A short-lived party of bubbles appears and disappears when you fill a glass of water from the tap. A thin mist pours from the open freezer display onto your sandaled feet. It’s all spectacular, just because it’s happening, and once it’s over you would greatly miss it if you could. So why not miss it now? Or at least understand why you would.

The state of Being Alive also comes with a rich and distinct sense of possibility. You can make any number of interesting things happen by sheer will. You can scrawl sentences on a scrap of paper that will trigger certain thoughts later, for you or someone else. You can touch a few buttons on your phone and be speaking to any of a hundred people you know, and whatever is said would change each other’s day, or life, in some way. You could clean the house this afternoon, or leave it messy, and each option would give a different shape to the evening.

Can you believe that this condition – of being in the world, of feeling stuff and doing stuff - was once happening all the time? Remember being able to open windows and pet dogs and wash your hands in warm water? What an amazing time that was. No matter what happened, whether life was decidedly going “well” or not, it was always so eventful, and you got to decide what to do in each moment of it.

It’s all over, of course, which is too bad. You didn’t realize at the time how small a window it was, and you can’t believe you spent a lot of it complaining. However, for right now at least, for some reason, you’re back. You have at least this moment to enjoy being alive. There may be more coming afterward, but you can’t count on that. Not this time anyway.

Except in moments of extreme emotional tilt, this exercise always seems to work. I can almost always, when I think of it, choose to see the current moment as a certain kind of an unexpected gift - a long-awaited return to the most interesting thing ever, which is being alive.

It works because if it were true - you really had just been sent back to the realm of the living - chances are you really would think it’s unutterably great to be here, even if you didn’t the first time. By mentally jumping out of life and then back in, it becomes clear that the experience of being alive really is a profoundly interesting thing, and we can live with an ongoing awareness of that. That few seconds of contemplation reframes virtually any moment as the best thing that can happen: you, enjoying a rich pocket of Being Alive Right Now, amidst a vast universe that is almost entirely not that.

At least, it becomes interesting when you’re aware that there’s no reason any of this should necessarily be the case. There will not always be things happening. You will not always have the ability to experience the world and respond how you please. But - by the grace of whoever - you do right now. Whatever the metaphysics of it really is, the point is that the window is small, and if you’re in it right now, that should probably be regarded as a profoundly lucky thing, whether it’s your first time here or you’ve been sent back for another tour.

However, because the window is open continuously until it’s closed for good, it’s hard to feel the luckiness of being alive while life is still happening. This is one way to contact that sense of good fortune reliably - see the moment as an inexplicable return to the wild and spectacular condition of Being Alive, which was once so abundant you forgot to appreciate it. This experience you’re having right now, of being here in a body, experiencing the world and choosing how to respond - is gone, and by the Law of Joni Mitchell, you only now know what you had. But by some unbelievable stroke of luck, here it is again."

"How It Really, Crazily, Is"

 

The Poet: Henry Austin Dobson, “The Paradox Of Time”

“The Paradox Of Time”

“Time goes, you say? Ah no! 
Alas, Time stays, we go; 
Or else, were this not so, 
What need to chain the hours, 
For Youth were always ours? 

Time goes, you say? – ah no! 
Ours is the eyes’ deceit 
Of men whose flying feet 
Lead through some landscape low; 
We pass, and think we see 
The earth’s fixed surface flee - 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

Once in the days of old, 
Your locks were curling gold, 
And mine had shamed the crow. 
Now, in the self-same stage, 
We’ve reached the silver age; 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

Once, when my voice was strong, 
I filled the woods with song 
To praise your ‘rose’ and ‘snow’; 
My bird, that sang, is dead; 
Where are your roses fled? 
Alas, Time stays, – we go! 

See, in what traversed ways, 
What backward Fate delays 
The hopes we used to know; 
Where are our old desires? 
Ah, where those vanished fires? 
Time goes, you say? – ah no! 

How far, how far, O Sweet, 
The past behind our feet 
Lies in the even-glow! 
Now, on the forward way, 
Let us fold hands, and pray; 
Alas, Time stays, – we go!”

- Henry Austin Dobson
“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen? To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed? But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?”
- Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, “The X-Files”
The Alan Parsons Project, "Time"

"Why Are Large Numbers Of Birds Suddenly Dropping Dead In Multiple U.S. States?"

"Why Are Large Numbers Of Birds Suddenly 
Dropping Dead In Multiple U.S. States?"
by Michael Snyder

"As if we didn’t have enough weird things going on, now birds are suddenly dropping dead in large numbers all across the eastern half of the country. Before they die, a lot of these birds are exhibiting very strange symptoms. Experts are telling us that in many cases birds are developing “crusty or puffy eyes”, and often they appear to go completely blind. In addition, quite a few of these dying birds lose their ability to stay balanced, and we are being told that some even seem to be having “seizures”. If scientists understood what was causing this to happen, that would be one thing. But at this point they have no idea why this is taking place, and that is quite alarming.

So far, confirmed incidents of this strange phenomenon have been documented in Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Could it be possible that we are dealing with a “mystery disease” that started in one state and that has now spread to other surrounding states? Or is something else going on here?

We are being told that “blue jays, common grackles and European starlings” are the most common birds that are being affected. But whatever is happening is not just limited to one species of birds, and I think that should be a red flag.

If our best experts even had a decent working theory about why so many birds are dying, I probably would not have written this article. But at this point they are openly admitting that they have absolutely no idea why so many birds are suddenly dropping dead… “We’re experiencing an unusual amount of bird mortality this year,” said Kate Slankard, an avian biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “We have yet to figure out what the problem is. The condition seems to be pretty deadly.”

In Kentucky, the bird deaths seem to have begun in late May. The following comes directly from the official website of the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources… "In late May, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources began receiving reports of sick and dying birds with eye swelling and crusty discharge, as well as neurological signs. Wildlife agencies in Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia have reported similar problems.

State wildlife agencies are working with diagnostic laboratories to investigate the cause of mortality. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has sent more than 20 samples for lab testing to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia. More results are pending, but no definitive cause of death has been identified at this time."

After testing 20 samples, they still have no idea what is going on. According to Slankard, “hundreds of birds” in her state have now become victims… “They’ll just sit still, often kind of shaking,” Slankard said. “It’s pretty safe to say that hundreds of birds in the state have had this problem.” But of course the truth is that we have no way of knowing how many birds have actually been affected. It could be thousands of birds in the state. It could be hundreds of thousands. We just don’t know, and Kentucky is just one of the states that has been hit.

In Indiana, authorities tested for avian flu and West Nile virus, but those tests came back negative… "Indiana wildlife officials said there have been suspicious deaths of blue jays, robins, northern cardinals and brown-headed cowbirds in five counties. James Brindle, spokesman for the state’s Department of Natural Resources, said birds there have tested negative for avian influenza and West Nile virus."

One theory that is floating around is that these birds are ingesting large amounts of pesticides because of all the cicadas that they are eating. Some experts are flatly dismissing that theory because “the disease has also appeared in states where cicadas are not present”. But how can they be so sure that it is a disease if they have absolutely no idea why this is happening?

I don’t think that we should jump to any conclusions that are not backed up by science. Obviously a lot more testing needs to be done. If it does turn out to be a disease that is causing this, is it a disease that can also spread to humans? Moving forward, that could be one of the most important questions that needs to be answered. Hopefully we can get some solid answers, because this is not the first time something like this has happened. Back in September, one expert said that it appeared that “hundreds of thousands” of birds were dropping dead in New Mexico…

"Wildlife experts in New Mexico say birds in the region are dropping dead in alarming numbers, potentially in the “hundreds of thousands.” “It appears to be an unprecedented and a very large number,” Martha Desmond, a professor at New Mexico State University’s department of fish, wildlife, and conservation ecology, told NBC’s Albuquerque affiliate KOB."

But whatever was causing those deaths to happen in New Mexico seems to have stopped. Is there any connection between that event and the deaths that are happening in the eastern half of the country now? I wish that I had the answer to that question.

We live at a time when pesticides, high technology and other forms of human activity are having a greater impact on birds and animals than ever before. But we have also entered an era when I believe that great pestilences are going to become very common. Obviously something is killing all those birds, and hopefully scientists will have something solid to tell us very soon. With each passing day, our world is getting crazier, and so much is going wrong all around us. Many are hoping that 2020 and 2021 will just turn out to be anomalies, but I am entirely convinced that they are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg."

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/23/21: "Important Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 6/23/21:
"Important Updates: 
Stock Market, Gold, Silver, Crypto, Dollar, Crude, MORE"

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

"Shortage Of Everything Is Here! Prices Are Soaring: Prepare Yourself For Panic And Chaos!"

Full screen recommended.
"Shortage Of Everything Is Here! Prices Are Soaring: 
Prepare Yourself For Panic And Chaos!"
by Epic Economist

"If 2020 was the year the health crisis tumbled the economy, 2021 is the year of stressed supply chains, widespread shortages, and rampant inflation. Most of the U.S. industries are still feeling the cascading effect of global supply chain disruptions, rising commodity prices, soaring freight costs, a computer chip shortage, and now an acute labor shortage is threatening to hold back the economic recovery for much longer than expected. From cyberattacks to extreme weather to panic buying, our supply chains have experienced one major challenge after the other. But while inventories have been at all-time lows, pent-up demand and skyrocketing container prices are pushing consumer prices to sky-highs. That's why you should start stocking up on food supplies right now because experts are alerting that prices are about to explode.

Economists have been warning that grocers will have no hesitation about passing on those increased costs to consumers. In fact, grocery stores are not only passing on the bill of rising commodity and freight prices to shoppers but also testing their limits to see how much they can send prices up before demand starts cooling and they effectively start losing money. Consumer prices for food increased by 2.2% in May, compared to the same time in 2020. The price of pork, seafood, fruits, vegetables, and milk, all jumped between 1.9% and 9%. Higher milk prices and a shortage of other ingredients and supplies are affecting even Starbucks, making it hard for consumers to get their favorite drink. In the company's app, the first thing you see is a pop-up that reads, “Sorry for the inconvenience, some items are temporarily unavailable". Just like many other chains, the company is having to remove some products from the menu because prices are just too high to turn a profit.

But that’s just one sign of how deep this crisis is getting. Supply chain problems are affecting almost every industry from Starbucks to cars to pretty much every sector you can think of. And adding transportation issues to product shortages and soaring demand, the result is very painful inflation for American consumers. As food prices continue to surge, beef and pork have been leading the rise. Pork prices jumped 2.6 percent in the month of April and 4.8 percent from a year ago, adjusting for seasonality. While beef and veal prices went up by 3.3 percent from a year ago, according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday.

After a cyberattack shut down one of the biggest meat processing plants in the U.S., the decline in meat production dropped to the lowest level recorded since 1996, and since meat and pork production have been dwindling since last year, and stockpiles in cold storages have significantly shrunk, meat shortages might get a whole lot worse this summer as demand has already increased 7.7 percent this year. While retailers are running out of a wide range of products, from bicycles to hot tubs and most notably - since they weigh so heavily in retail sales - new and used vehicles, this mess is still showing up on inventories. A recent report released by the Census Bureau exposed that inventories at retailers, from grocery stores to new and used vehicle dealers, plunged to $602 billion in April, marking the lowest inventory-sales ratio in the history of data going back to 1992.

And if you think things might improve throughout the year and inventories might get restocked, according to meteorologists an above-average hurricane season is likely to worsen U.S. supply chain woes this year. Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at The Weather Company, says that there will be at least 19 named storms, eight hurricanes, and four major hurricanes in the outlook. However, as Convoy's Terrazas pointed out, hurricanes won't be the only disasters that will affect supply lines this summer. "We're obviously watching all kinds of weather. It's not just hurricane season, but it's also shaping up to be a pretty active Western drought and wildfire season. Basically, the Western half of the United States is in severe drought at this point already," he said.

For that reason, the best way to fight against such catastrophic shortages and insane price hikes is to prepare in advance for potential disruptions, especially when natural disasters are looming. "The sooner you get your bottled water and your canned food needs in your garage or in your basement, you're going to be prepared for whenever it strikes and put less stress on supply chains through last-minute shopping," Terrazas concluded. So get your emergency supplies ready before a threat arises and, of course, before they become too expensive. We should be prepared for the perfect storm that is coming because once it hits there's going to be a mad rush all over the country."

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: Stock Market Crash, The Bankster's Gang Gamble"

Gerald Celente,
"Trends Journal: Stock Market Crash, 
The Bankster's Gang Gamble"

“California Bailout; The Market Must Crash; Gambling On Ponzi themes; Greed Is A Killer”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 6/22/21:
“California Bailout; The Market Must Crash; 
Gambling On Ponzi Schemes; Greed Is A Killer”

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Where The Stars And Moon Play”

Full screen recommended.
2002, “Where The Stars And Moon Play”

“Pamela and Randy Copus are the duo known as 2002. Randy Copus plays piano, electric cello, guitar, bass and keyboards. Pamela Copus plays flutes, harp, keyboards and a wind instrument called a WX5. Both musicians also provide all of the vocals on their albums, recording their voices many, many times and layering them to create a "virtual choir" with a celestial, angelic quality.”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“This colorful skyscape features the dusty, reddish glow of Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus.
 
Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young, blue stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by the radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright blue O-type star above picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across.”

"I Am That..."

 

Chet Raymo, “Trying To Be Good”

“Trying To Be Good”
by Chet Raymo

“A few lines from Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese":

    "You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves."

"I've quoted these lines before, if not here, then elsewhere. When I first read them back in the late 80s, they resonated with what I felt at the time. I had spent part of my earliest adulthood walking on my knees, both literally and metaphorically, seeking to tame what I took to be the animal within. Saint Augustine was whispering in my ear, and Bernanos' gloomy country priest walked at my side. I was ready to follow Thomas Merton into the desert; indeed, I once took myself briefly to the monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky, where Merton was in residence.

That was a journey of more than a hundred miles, and I was busy repenting, although of what I don't know.

As I read those lines from Mary Oliver in middle age, I had long been cultivating the "soft animal" within, immersing myself in the is-ness of things, the flesh and blood, the gorgeously sensual. No more walking on my knees, repenting. I walked proudly upright, with my sketchbook and my watercolors, my binoculars and my magnifier, sniffing the world like an animal on the prowl. I was letting my body learn to "love what it loves." Those were the years I wrote "The Soul of the Night" and "Honey From Stone" - the most intensely creative years of my life. The world offered itself to my imagination, if I may borrow another line from "Wild Geese."

And now, another half-lifetime has passed. The soft animal dozes, the body seeks repose. And I think of the first line quoted above: "You do not have to be good." What could the poet have possibly meant by that? Of course one has to be good. In a cell at Gethsemane or on the bridge over Queset Brook, one has to be good. And so one tries, one tries. The soft animal of the body that nature has contrived for us is not fine-tuned for goodness.”
“Wild Geese”

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Mound, Minnesota, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/22/21: "The Fed. Again Promises To Buy It All. "Not Concerned" About Inflation"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 6/22/21:
"The Fed. Again Promises To Buy It All. 
"Not Concerned" About Inflation"