"Are We On The Verge Of A Massive Stock Market Crash?"

Full screen recommended.

"Are We On The Verge Of A Massive Stock Market Crash?"

by Epic Economist

"The biggest stock market bubble of all time is ready to burst and this week's events are signaling that a major correction has already started. We have seen stock prices go on meteoric rises over the past year, even stocks of bankrupt companies and meme stocks have seen prices skyrocketing by 300% in what some may call the craziest bull market run in history. Now, we can definitely say we are witnessing the largest stock market bubble ever, but this bubble will end the way most bubbles do, which means an epic burst is coming and the recent market activity can prove so. Sell-off signs have been spreading across Wall Street for weeks, and on Monday we could see an eruption of full-blown fear amongst investors and big financial institutions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 725 points, marking the worst day for the index since last October. But that alone isn't an indication of a crisis, what is, though, is the fact that a series of individual stocks have started to plunge to bear market territory as veteran investors seem to have become spooked with the growing risks.

Many are pointing to the rapid spread of the Delta variant as the factor responsible for triggering a market plunge yesterday. That's precisely why investors are concerned. Any worsening of the health crisis threatens to crash the high prices stocks have gained over the past year. Investors are expecting the economy to fully recover and forecasting a record growth in economic activity, even though many market veterans have been warning that these rosy expectations may lead to bitter disappointment.

In any case, now that the market has started to go down, some experts are warning that the crash could be quite substantial. For instance, one Morgan Stanley expert believes we could see a “correction” of 10 to 20 percent. “The market appears ready to take on a more defensive character as we experience a meaningful deceleration in earnings and economic growth,” Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson said in a note Monday. “Market breadth has been deteriorating for months and is just another confirmation of the mid-cycle transition, in our view. It usually ends with a material 10-20% index level correction.”

Actually, if that is the worst-case scenario we would be quite lucky. The truth is that we might be headed to a much sharper correction because the mood on Wall Street has dramatically shifted in recent days. According to the CNN Fear & Greed Index, the market is now sitting at 17, which represents “extreme fear”, while the VIX has been soaring. The last time we witnessed this much fear on Wall Street, the S&P 500 was down by 40%. So that's a remarkable sign, to say the least. But while warning signs are emerging pretty much everywhere one can look, our leaders continue shrugging off predictions regarding the consequences of the current monetary policies in collapsing stocks amid rising inflation fears and economic concerns. They keep insisting that a wonderful new era of great prosperity is just ahead.

We all would love to see a massive economic boom after so much time of pain, chaos, and desperation. But sadly, it's very unlikely that things will run as smoothly as he believes. In reality, we are fast approaching some of the most difficult economic times that we have ever seen. Our politicians and policymakers cannot artificially prop markets up forever. This immense bubble is simply unsustainable and the laws of economics cannot be overlooked for much longer. We have to remember that the federal government is already 28 trillion dollars in debt, while our corporations are in the midst of the greatest debt binge of all time, and U.S. consumers continue to go into debt without any fear of the consequences. But a reckoning day always arrives and our "tomorrow" will be far more apocalyptic than most people would dare to imagine."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

The Daily "Near You?"

North Garden, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/20/21: "Market Shrugs Off Both Inflation and C(0)vid Fears"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/20/21:

"Market Shrugs Off Both Inflation and C(0)vid Fears, 

As The Fed. Continues To Buy It All"

- https://traderschoice.net/

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

“Coming down out of the freezing sky

with its depths of light,

like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,

it was beautiful, and accurate,

striking the snow and whatever was there

with a force that left the imprint

of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -

and the grabbing thrust of its feet,

and the indentation of what had been running

through the white valleys of the snow -

and then it rose, gracefully,

and flew back to the frozen marshes

to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,

in the blue shadows -

so I thought:

maybe death isn't darkness, after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us -

as soft as feathers -

that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,

and shut our eyes, not without amazement,

and let ourselves be carried,

as through the translucence of mica,

to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,

that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -

in which we are washed and washed

out of our bones.”

- Mary Oliver

"Not Much Mental Distance..."

“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

"Unwelcome Guests"

"Unwelcome Guests"

by Bill Bonner

ON BOARD THE WB YEATS – "Something odd happened on Saturday. It’s not every day that we see naked young women frolicking in our field. But let’s back up and explain how this began. In the late afternoon, we heard a loud and unfamiliar sound – music. Awful music. Dreadful music, with the boom… boom… boom beat that makes you think there must be something wrong in the engine room. “What in the world…?” we asked each other.

Back in the Hood: We have become accustomed to the absolute calm and tranquility of rural Ireland. We hear the birds sing in the morning and the pheasants cluck in the afternoon. We hear the rustling of the leaves as the wind passes and tractors in the fields. But suddenly, we were back in the “hood” of Baltimore… with the kind of noise delinquents listen to when they are trying to imitate a good time.

At first, we assumed it must be coming from a neighboring farm. Maybe the young folks were having a party, and blasting their music so loud, it crossed the river. “Hope the parents get back soon,” we thought. Later, we realized that the party was taking place in our own field. This became apparent when we saw three women… in the distance… barely visible through the trees. We saw the flesh… and from such a distance… only the flesh. One, with her back to us, appeared to be completely sans clothes.

Illicit Shindig: But what were they doing on our property? We needed to investigate! Maybe it was a nudist gathering… or just some kids having an illicit shindig. Ireland is still under COVID-19 restrictions. Then, we heard shouting – joyful… drunken… dumb shouting.

We set out across the field to where we had seen the young women. There was a group of nearly 20 young people… the men stripped down to the waist in the 75-degree heat… the women in tiny bikinis. Some were sitting around a campfire. Others were putting up a huge tent… situated on the side of a hill. Still others stood in a circle… drinking, talking, and laughing. The partiers had come in unnoticed from an old boreen and through a gap in the stone wall.

We approached, wearing our work clothes. When they saw us, they stopped talking. We were an unwelcome guest. “What do you think you’re doing here?” we asked… not smiling at the trespassers. “Oh… Is this private property? We didn’t know,” said a young man with an earnest look.

One of the others approached menacingly, lurching, as if drunk. “Settle down, Adam,” the first interceded. “Honestly,” said a blond girl with a blue tattoo and a nose ring, “we didn’t know. We thought it was okay to camp here.” A dark-haired woman stared. “Well, it is private land. You have to go,” we said firmly.

Bad Deal: What followed was a spell of explaining, negotiating, and pleading, in which your editor – never very good at that sort of thing – ended up agreeing to let them keep their camp… on two conditions. “You turn down that music… If I hear the music from the house, I will call the Gardaí (the Irish police),” he warned them. “And make sure you clean up when you leave in the morning.” The rules in place, we went back to the house… and were quickly informed about the bad deal we had made.

We’ll come back to our little story later… First, let us check in with Wall Street…

Bad Day on Wall Street: Yesterday started badly. Stocks dropped, with the Dow down more than 900 points, before rising to end the day down 725. Commentators were quick to blame the “Delta” variant of the coronavirus, anticipating more lockdowns and face masks. It’s hard to imagine that people will put up with more COVID-19 restrictions. Those who are afraid of the virus are already vaccinated. Others have had the disease already… or don’t care about getting it. And all can see that there is little apparent connection between these public health measures and their risk of dying.

A better explanation for the price drop is that investors are beginning to realize that the economic recovery may not be as strong as they had hoped. Stocks are priced for a very prosperous world. But that world may not be what’s coming.

Smarter Than Stocks: For weeks now, while inflation has surprised to the upside, the bond market has surprised to the downside. That is, while inflation rose, bond yields fell. Yesterday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note dipped below 1.2%… its lowest yield in five months. “Bonds are smarter than stocks,” say the old-timers. And it looks like they are right. Bonds are telling us that a period of slow growth… or a recession… is headed our way – even as consumer prices continue to rise. Stagflation is what they called it in the 1970s. Get ready for it.

Decent People: Back at home on Saturday… “You’re letting 20 young people you don’t know… some of whom are already drunk… camp on your land, in violation of the COVID-19 restrictions? Don’t you think something might go wrong?” “What could go wrong?” “One of the neighbors could complain… or call the Gardaí. They’d want to know why you allowed this illegal party. “Or who knows what they might get up to… half-naked women… drunk men? A fight? An accident?” This was the “bond” side of the household speaking, if you know what we mean.

“They seemed like decent people,” we replied lamely. “I didn’t want to ruin their party.” “Decent people do not trespass on other people’s property.” As it turned out, they were decent enough. They turned down the music. And by 11 a.m. on Sunday… they were gone. The campfire was still smoking, but otherwise, they left little trace."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is"

"Are We On The Verge Of A Massive Stock Market Crash?"

"Are We On The Verge Of A Massive Stock Market Crash?"

by Michael Snyder

"Is time finally running out for “the bubble to end all bubbles”? Over the past year, we have seen stock prices rise to levels that are completely and utterly absurd, and many have pointed out that we are currently in the largest stock market bubble in the entire history of our nation. Of course this bubble will end the way that all of our other stock market bubbles eventually ended, and recent market activity has a lot of people wondering if the time for that is drawing near. Signs of trouble have been percolating on Wall Street for weeks, and on Monday we finally witnessed an eruption of full-blown fear. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 725 points, and that represented the worst day for the index since last October. But one really bad day is not a crisis, and even though many individual stocks have already plunged into bear market territory, we have a long, long way to go before people start using the word “crash”. In fact, I don’t think that anyone should even think of using the word “crash” until the Dow drops below 30,000.

But without a doubt, a crash is inevitably coming. Whether it happens this month, next month or next year, stock prices will plummet from these ridiculously inflated levels. As for the plunge that happened on Monday, many are blaming it on fears about the “Delta variant”… “It’s a bit of an overreaction, but when you have a market that’s at record highs, that’s had the kind of run we’ve had, with virtually no pullback, it becomes extremely vulnerable to any sort of bad news,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading & derivatives at Charles Schwab. “It was just a matter of what that tipping point was, and it seems we finally reached that this morning” with worries about the delta variant."

To me, there are other issues that are of much greater concern, but apparently this is what is spooking investors this week. According to CNBC, the number of newly confirmed COVID cases per week has more than doubled over the past month… "Covid cases have rebounded in the U.S. this month, with the delta variant spreading among the unvaccinated. The U.S. is averaging nearly 26,000 new cases a day in the last seven days through Sunday, up from a seven-day average of around 11,000 cases a day a month ago, according to CDC data. Cases were already flaring up around the world because of the delta variant."

Now that the market has started to fall, some experts are warning that the drop could be quite substantial. For example, one Morgan Stanley strategist believes that we could eventually see a “correction” of 10 to 20 percent… “The market appears ready to take on a more defensive character as we experience a meaningful deceleration in earnings and economic growth,” Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson said in a note Monday. “Market breadth has been deteriorating for months and is just another confirmation of the mid-cycle transition, in our view. It usually ends with a material (10-20%) index level correction.”

Actually, if that is the worst that happens we will be quite fortunate. In recent days, the mood on Wall Street has shifted dramatically. In fact, the CNN Fear & Greed Index is now sitting at 16 which is considered to be in the “extreme fear” range, and the VIX has been soaring.

As our friends at Zero Hedge have pointed out, the last time we witnessed this much fear on Wall Street the S&P 500 was absolutely plummeting… "With the S&P 500 around 3.5% off its record highs, we note that fear has exploded. The last time fear was this high, the S&P was down 40%!"

We shall watch and see what happens this time around. Zero Hedge has also pointed out that Goldman Sachs has been aggressively selling off billions of dollars worth of stocks recently… "What is even more remarkable is just how much Goldman has harvested so far in 2021: as shown below, having started with a $20BN equity portfolio which has enjoyed a $5BN increase in market prices, Goldman dumped a whopping $5.5 billion of its equity assets so far (excluding a modest $1.5BN in purchases) or more than a quarter of its entire portfolio as of Dec 31."

This is not normal for Goldman Sachs. In fact, you have to go all the way back to just before the financial crisis of 2008 to find another time when they did such a thing… "The last time Goldman was “aggressively” selling into a “supportive” market? Well, we have to go back all the way to 2007 and 2008 when Goldman was busy creating the very CDOs which its prop desk would then “aggressively” short."

We all remember how prophetic that particular move turned out to be… That is “interesting” to say the least. But as big financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs are dumping stocks, talking heads on television continue to assure all of us that a wonderful new era of great prosperity is just ahead. Just check out what Bill Ackman told CNBC on Monday… "Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said Monday that the spread of the delta variant doesn’t pose a significant threat to the economic reopening, and he sees interest rates rising on the back of the big comeback. “I hope what it does is that it motivates anyone who doesn’t get the vaccine to get the vaccine. I don’t think it’s going to change behavior to a great extent,” Ackman said in a interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “You are going to see a massive, my view, economic boom. … We are going to have an extremely strong economy coming in the fall.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if he was right? I would love to see a “massive” economic boom. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that is going to happen. In fact, I believe that we are rapidly approaching some of the most difficult economic times that we have ever seen. The laws of economics cannot be ignored forever. The federal government is now 28 trillion dollars in debt, we are in the midst of the greatest corporate debt binge of all time, and U.S. consumers continue to go into debt as if tomorrow will never arrive. But tomorrow always arrives eventually, and our “tomorrow” is going to be a day of reckoning that is going to be far more painful than most people would dare to imagine."

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/20/21: "Important Updates: Stocks, Gold, Silver, Dollar, Crude, Crypto, Debt"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/20/21:

"Important Updates: 

Stocks, Gold, Silver, Dollar, Crude, Crypto, Debt"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How Breakdown Cascades Into Collapse"

"How Breakdown Cascades Into Collapse"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Maintaining the illusion of confidence, permanence and stability serves the interests of those benefiting from the bubbles and those who prefer the safety of the herd, even as the herd thunders toward the precipice.

The misconception that collapse is an all or nothing phenomenon is common: Either the system rights itself with a bit of money-printing and rah-rah or it collapses into post-industrial ruin and gangs are battling over the last stash of canned beans.

Neither scenario considers the fragility and resilience of the socio-economic system as a whole. It is both far more fragile than the believers in the permanence of the waste is growth model grasp and more resilient than the complete collapse prognosticators grasp.

The recent relatively mild logjams in global supply chains of essentials are mere glimpses of precariously fragile delivery-supply systems. These can be understood as bottlenecks that only insiders see, or as unstable nodes through which all the economy's connections run. Put another way, the economy's as a network appears decentralized and robust, but this illusion vanishes when we consider how the entire economy rests on a few unstable nodes.

One such node is the delivery of gasoline and fuels. It's such an efficient and reliable system that 99.9% of us take it for granted: there will always be plenty of gasoline at every station, the tanks of jet fuel will always be topped off, and so on.

The 0.1% know that this system, once disrupted, would knock over dominoes all through the economy.

Hyper-efficiency and hyper-globalization has reduced the number of producers of essentials to the point that disruptions cannot be overcome with redundant sources. We see this everywhere in the global economy: a handful of plants and companies (sometimes a single source of essential components) process or manufacture essential components in much larger systems. This is how you end up with thousands of newly manufactured vehicles parked in lots awaiting one critical part that is in short supply.

Another key weakness is the entire system's reliance on debt, leverage and speculation. Few seem to understand that physical production and delivery systems can grind to a halt for financial reasons - for example, lines of credit being pulled, a counterparty to some arcane commodity swap goes under, taking the presumably solvent corporation down with it, and so on.

The more debt that's been piled up, the greater the instability of the entire system. Risk always appears low until the system destabilizes, and then all the hedges fail and risk breaks out, flooding through the entire financial system.

Leverage is great fun on the way up, as it magnifies gains. Since the Federal Reserve implicitly guarantees that "buy the dip" will generate massive gains, why not ramp up leverage ten-fold to maximize those Fed-guaranteed gains? Leverage is less fun on the way down. When the underlying collateral has shrunk to 20% of the leveraged bets being made, a 21% decline in the asset wipes out all the collateral holding up the palace of leveraged debt. The Fed can print money but it can't create collateral, nor can it make insolvent entities solvent. All the Fed can do is increase the debt and leverage, which is not the solution, it's the problem.

Speculation is also inherently unstable, as the euphoric herd, once startled, turns in panic and stampeded in fear. Markets which appeared liquid - i.e., sellers could count on someone buying as many millions of shares as they desired to sell - become illiquid, as buyers vanish like mist in Death Valley. With buyers gone, prices plummet to levels the herd reckoned "impossible" just days before.

The Fed's entire strategy in the 21st century has been to inflate asset bubbles that generate the illusion of wealth - the so-called wealth effect which is presumed to inspire voracious borrowing and spending.

Unfortunately for the Fed, most of the gains flowed to the top 0.1%, and an economy based on a handful of billionaires buying super-yachts and spaceships is a line of dominoes awaiting the inevitable "accident." So there are two systemic problems with relying on asset bubbles to generate "wealth": 1) since 90% of the assets are owned by a thin slice of the populace, bubbles increase destabilizing inequality, and 2) bubbles are intrinsically unstable. So the U.S. economy, dependent on the Fed for the "juice" of monetary stimulus, is now dependent on incredibly unstable bubbles in assets, debt and leverage, bubbles which have generated extremes of wealth/income inequality that are destabilizing the social and political orders.

As the three charts below illustrate, the fragility and instability are well hidden until it's too late: bubbles, debt, leverage, budgets and revenues can only click higher because the system breaks down if there is any sustained decline (the rising wedge model of breakdown). Once the subsystems fail, there's no putting the eggshell back together.

The second chart depicts how buffers thin beneath the surface, masking the systemic fragility. The loss of redundancy, the decay of maintenance, the loss of experienced workers -  all of these are hidden from public view until the system breaks down.

The third chart tracks the S-curve of expansion, confidence, complacency, delusion and collapse followed by human systems, from nations to empires to corporations: as the buffers thin and the rising wedge reaches an apex of vulnerability, the leadership evinces a delusional confidence in the permanence and stability of increasingly fragile, unstable systems.

Maintaining the illusion of confidence, permanence and stability serves the interests of those benefiting from the bubbles and those who prefer the safety of the herd, even as the herd thunders toward the precipice. This is how breakdowns in apparently stable subsystems triggers the fall of dominoes throughout the larger system, leading to a collapse that was widely viewed as "impossible." Such is the power of complacency and delusion."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

- https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/

"More Banks Closing Credit Lines - Economy in Chaos"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, IAllegedly, PM 7/19/21:

"More Banks Closing Credit Lines - Economy in Chaos"

"First it was Wells Fargo bank, now there are more banks added to the list that are closing credit lines. Our Economy is in complete chaos as the stock market teeters on complete collapse."

"Bank Meltdown Is Coming As Latest Data Reveals Something Is Terminally Broken In The US Bank System"

Full screen recommended.

"Bank Meltdown Is Coming As Latest Data Reveals 

Something Is Terminally Broken In The US Bank System"

by Epic Economist

"A remarkable and yet concerning development in the banking sector is signaling the financial system is in big trouble. Severe imbalances between the volume of loans and deposits in all four of the U.S. biggest banks are indicating that the overflow of liquidity issued and pumped into the system by the Federal Reserve over the past 12 months is triggering operational problems for banks and setting the economy up for failure. The loan-to-deposit ratio is a measure of how much money printed by the central bank enters the bank system and how much money is created by private entities, the first being responsible for bad inflation - higher prices for assets and goods, lower growth - and the second by good inflation - boosting economic growth with real money.

The largest US bank, JPMorgan, just released its latest earnings report in which it exposed that in the second quarter its total deposits went up by a staggering 23% year-over-year, to $2.3 trillion. On the other hand, the total amount of loans issued by the bank remained flat, at $1.04 trillion. This means that more printed money is making into the financial system than real money is getting out and going into circulation across the economy. Moreover, the report highlighted that this is the second time in history that in the first quarter, JPMorgan recorded 100% more deposits than loans. In other words, the ratio of loans to deposits is now 50%. The last time such sharp imbalances between the volume of loans and deposits occurred was just before the Lehman crisis, so this is a very alarming situation financial analysts have been closely watching.

However, for Bank of America, this epic divergence is even worse: Deposits hit a new all-time high of $1.91 trillion, despite the fact that the bank's loans have continuously shrunk at a very alarming, deleveraging pace and are sitting now at $927 billion, roughly $100 billion below their level just before the Lehman crisis. That is to say, Bank of America recorded zero loan growth for the past 12 years, while the bank's deposits have doubled. The same has happened to Citigroup and even Wells Fargo. Simply put, for the past 12 years, only unbacked money was put into circulation.

There are two major implications resultant from the collapsing loan-to-deposit ratio. The first is that this ratio is a closely watched metric that measures how much lending a bank is doing when compared to its capacity to lend. The second is actually the most fundamental question in modern fractional reserve banking: "what comes first, loans or deposits"? Put it another way, do private, commercial banks create the money in circulation by first lending it out, or is the central bank the only one responsible for money creation? Deposits are coming first because the money supply has exponentially grown in the past year, and everyone knew that eventually, this money would flood financial markets while also pushing the price of assets, goods, and services to sky-highs. For evidence, just note the recent explosion in consumer prices that readjusted inflation expectations to the highest in 13 years. In essence, the recent loan and deposit data mean that the conventional process of deposit creation via loans is terminally broken.

In sum, banks won't have another alternative rather than issuing a massive amount of loans to offset the massive amount of liquidity injected by the Fed into the financial system. Most importantly, once banks release this huge lending effort the inflation provoked by the Fed's policies will show its worse effects. Another critical reason why this data is so relevant is that the continued loan destruction is a sign of looming deflation, meaning that prices will stay up while growth will remain flat, so the inflation fueled by the Fed won't serve its purpose of actually stimulating the economy. But even though everyone has been warning the Fed about the flaws of the current policies, it is very likely that once a deflationary period starts to occur, the government will launch another major reflationary mega stimulus, which will also fail to stimulate benign inflation and keep fueling asset and price bubbles across the financial markets and the economy for another 3 to 6 months, in case they haven't already burst.

Needless to say, this helicopter money will and once again fail to create benign economic inflation, and every additional liquidity injection will only push us one step closer to uncontrolled asset price hyperinflation as soon as those trillions in newly created printed dollars start flowing right back into the financial market again. We're on the verge of a new era of painful price hikes and a stagnant economy, and we will be incredibly lucky if a catastrophic financial crisis doesn't burst in that process."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Resonance Blue"

Deuter, "Resonance Blue"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Two stars within our own Milky Way galaxy anchor the foreground of this cosmic snapshot. Beyond them lie the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster. In fact, while the spiky foreground stars are hundreds of light-years distant, the Hydra Cluster galaxies are over 100 million light-years away.

Three large galaxies near the cluster center, two yellow ellipticals (NGC 3311, NGC 3309) and one prominent blue spiral (NGC 3312), are the dominant galaxies, each about 150,000 light-years in diameter. An intriguing overlapping galaxy pair cataloged as NGC 3314 is just above and left of NGC 3312. Also known as Abell 1060, the Hydra galaxy cluster is one of three large galaxy clusters within 200 million light-years of the Milky Way. In the nearby universe, galaxies are gravitationally bound into clusters which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters that in turn are seen to align over even larger scales. At a distance of 100 million light-years this picture would be about 1.3 million light-years across."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120512.html

"No Special Hurry..."

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry."

- Ernest Hemingway, "A Farewell To Arms"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/19/21: "Morgan Stanley Warns On The Market. Cost Of Living SURGING On Runaway Inflation"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/19/21:

"Morgan Stanley Warns On The Market. 

Cost Of Living SURGING On Runaway Inflation"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Dow sinks 726 points for worst day in over 3 months 

amid escalating worries about COVID's delta variant."

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

"A Question of Timing"

"A Question of Timing"

by Jeff Thomas

"France, 1788. Russia, 1916. Germany, 1937."

"These dates have something in common. In France in 1788, political conditions had been getting questionable, but there was no apparent need to panic. That came the following year, with the sudden outbreak of the French Revolution. From that point on, it was dangerous even to go out in the streets of Paris. So many people had become enraged, that even if you were not a member of the aristocracy, you could easily become collateral damage. And so, it would have been wise if, in 1788, you had decided to pack your bags and remove yourself from the epicentre of what was developing.

Similarly, in 1916, Russia was at war with the Germans, and the populace was becoming increasingly vocal about the state of the economy. Yet, even the czar believed that the people simply had to accept the situation and muddle through. A year later, soldiers were deserting, a host of political wannabes were vying for power and anyone who simply wanted to be left alone to run his own life was now afraid to go out on the streets.

And of course, in Germany, prior to Kristallnacht in November of 1938, all the warnings were there that the country was beginning to unravel, but virtually everyone assumed that, somehow, things would be all right. A year later, Germany was at war with five nations and had invaded three others. People were being rounded up, imprisoned and/or shot. Those who sought to get out of Germany found that they were no longer allowed to do so.

And history is full of similar cases. In hindsight, the warning signs have always been there: an increasingly autocratic government, increasingly volatile and irrational political struggles, mounting debt, increased taxation, a declining economy and the removal of basic freedoms "for the greater good."

In 1929, if you lived in the US, you might have just paid $2,735 for a new Packard Custom 8 Roadster – a means of showing off your recent gains in the stock market. A year later, you might well have offered it for sale for only $100, as, for all your previous price offers, there were no takers. And you, like they, had been wiped out in the crash, and $100 meant the difference between eating and not eating.

In 1958, you might have been enjoying a daiquiri at El Floridita in Havana and joking to friends about ‘las barbudas’ – the tiny rebel force hiding in the Sierra Madre. A year later, the joking had ended and private businesses like El Floridita had been nationalized by the new government.

For millennia, the playbook has been the same. Countries that had been wonderful to live in, began to deteriorate from within, and the great majority of residents had failed to read the tea leaves – the warning signs that, in the future, conditions were not going to get better; they were going to get worse. But why should this be so?

Well, in 1787, in the midst of the Scottish Enlightenment that gave rise to Adam Smith, economist and historian Alexander Tytler is credited as having said: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

He further noted that the latter stages of any such decline are marked, first, by complacency, then by apathy. The final stage is invariably one of bondage.

In some cases of collapse, the country is taken over by an outside force, but invariably, as stated above, the rot always starts from within. It’s simply human nature for the majority of any population, when passing through challenging times, to fall prey to promises that, somehow, a change in the form of government can and will result in the elimination of problematic conditions.

But how do those who make such claims sell their ideas? Do they suggest that everyone should work harder and practice a greater level of abnegation? Well, no. Although such people may exist and may even become outspoken, they are, historically, never the individuals whom the majority of the population follow. Invariably, the majority (having become complacent and pathetic), choose those who promise to take from one group and share the spoils amongst those who are less productive.

As illogical as this promise is, most people, even if they doubt the reality of the claim, tend to think, "Well, it couldn’t be any worse. I might get something, so let’s give it a try." A very simple case in point is the Bahamas election of 1967, in which Bahamians elected their first ‘man of the people’ as their premier. Under his rhetoric of ‘Bahamas for Bahamians,’ he promised the large underclass of Bahamians that he would take the top jobs away from the British bankers and other business leaders and that the spoils would go to the average Bahamian.

Of particular interest were the luxury vehicles driven by successful businessmen. Bahamians in their thousands imagined that the senior staff in banks would be fired, that they themselves would be given the jobs… and the fancy Jaguar Saloons. And that did happen to some extent. Those who were loyal to Prime Minister Lynden Pindling did move up to management positions overnight – positions for which they were not qualified. Not surprisingly, they were unable to learn decades of knowledge overnight. They subsequently either lost their new jobs, or the banks lost business on a massive scale.

And the Jaguars? Well, it turned out that there were thousands of Bahamians for every Jaguar that existed, and for 99.9%, there would be no previously imagined spoils. Instead, their lives soon headed south in the coming months and years, as wealth flowed away from the Bahamas, most of it never to return.

In other countries the details have often been quite a bit more complex, but the scenario and the outcome have been the same. Once the warning signs begin to appear, it’s important to remember that, historically, the process never reverses itself. An apathetic population is not one that will suddenly decide to roll up its sleeves and get the country, once again, on a productive footing. Invariably, the population jumps on the toboggan of empty promises and rides it downhill until it reaches the economic bottom.

And so, circumventing such a situation becomes a question of timing. When it becomes clear that the telltale signs are reappearing once again, those who are wise will acknowledge that the sands are running out and it’s time to move on. The signs tend to be the same in any locale, in any era. They’re quite easy to see. The difficult part is choosing to make an exit whilst it’s still easy to do so."

- internationalman.com

The Daily "Near You?"

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"Human Life..."

"Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart."

- Blaise Pascal

The Poet: Anne Sexton, "Courage"

"Courage"

"It is in the small things we see it.

The child's first step,

as awesome as an earthquake.

The first time you rode a bike,

wallowing up the sidewalk.

The first spanking when your heart

went on a journey all alone.

When they called you crybaby

or poor or fatty or crazy

and made you into an alien,

you drank their acid

and concealed it.

Later,

if you faced the death of bombs and bullets

you did not do it with a banner,

you did it with only a hat to

cover your heart.

You did not fondle the weakness inside you

though it was there.

Your courage was a small coal

that you kept swallowing.

If your buddy saved you

and died himself in so doing,

then his courage was not courage,

it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone,

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock.

Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,

you gave it a back rub

and then you covered it with a blanket

and after it had slept a while

it woke to the wings of the roses

and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion

your courage will still be shown in the little ways,

each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,

those you love will live in a fever of love,

and you'll bargain with the calendar

and at the last moment

when death opens the back door

you'll put on your carpet slippers

and stride out."

~ Anne Sexton