"Panic At Sea: 100,000 Sailors Stuck At Cargo Ships As Global Shipping Crisis Goes From Bad To Worse"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic At Sea: 100,000 Sailors Stuck At Cargo Ships 

As Global Shipping Crisis Goes From Bad To Worse"

by Epic Economist

"The explosion in consumer demand over the past year and a half was the trigger of the ongoing global shipping crisis. There was some hope demand for goods would ease this year, but up until now, it has stayed at record highs. On the other hand, wait times have never been longer and the logistical nightmare faced by global supply chains seems to have no clear end in sight. Experts are now predicting that it will take at least another year before the shipping crisis starts to stabilize. However, the uncontrolled spread of the new virus variant and the slower pace of staff vaccination may jeopardize that forecast. Unfortunately, this means also the worst is yet to come. Supply chains are about to face many more disruptions and consumers will have to deal with extensive shortages from now on.

The backlog at ports is a problem that has only been intensified since March 2020, compounded by a challenge that definitely won’t be solved in the next five to six months: increasingly large container ships, and ports that haven’t been remodeled to accommodate the gigantic vessels. In fact, the Port of Los Angeles just recorded its busiest month in history, with over 1 million shipping containers waiting to get unloaded. To make matters worse, a shortage of port workers and the unprecedented volume of cargo are overwhelming longshoremen and seafarers who are having to work for months beyond their contracted lines.

At this point, the crew change is severely worsening, with thousands of workers trapped at sea for over a year. "I've seen grown men cry," revealed Captain Tejinder Singh, who hasn't set foot on dry land in almost a year and isn't even sure when he'll finally go home. "We are forgotten and taken for granted," he said in an interview with Reuters. At least one hundred thousand workers are stranded at sea as the Delta variant rapidly spreads onshore. The Maritime Labour Convention highlighted that that the maximum continuous period a seafarer should serve on board a vessel without leave is 11 months, but many thousands of crew have now been at sea for over 16 months. “The situation is going from bad to worse. We need more than lip service from governments, we need concrete action that allows crew changes to be carried out in a safe manner,” stressed Stephen Cotton, general secretary, International Transport Workers’ Federation.

With virus outbreaks occurring on ships and endangering the lives of marine workers, further disruptions on trade are expected, according to a new Bloomberg report. On the flip side, another 100,000 are stuck on shore, unable to board the ships they need to earn a living on. Can you even imagine the nightmare of being stuck at sea for over a year? According to the United Nations, the situation is quickly evolving into a major humanitarian crisis. Given that only 2.5% of seafarers have been vaccinated, the vast majority of them are not allowed to go back home.

An imminent labor crunch could halt global shipping indefinitely and threaten the operations of global supply chains for months. Keeping in mind that the global economy is heavily dependent on the world's almost two million seafarers who operate the global fleet of merchant ships, which transport around 90% of the world's trade, the aggravation of this crisis also poses a major threat to the US supply chains. We are extremely reliant on exports to keep our economy up and running. Everything - from oil to iron, to food and electronics - either comes or is processed overseas. According to Insider's Rachel Premack, this also means that American consumers should brace for yet higher prices and shortages of many products.

As chaos sweeps across global supply chains, we might be headed to a holiday season of empty shelves yet again. Right now, the international shipping crisis is deepening the financial pain faced by our producers as U.S. agricultural exports are seeing their shipping times increase dramatically. The imbalances between supply and demand are only intensifying global supply chain woes. And this crisis will only truly ebb when demand does. “The import level we’ve seen in the past year is astronomical and not something that our infrastructure can handle,” as Premack laid out. This is a tumultuous and unprecedented time, and we all should start getting prepared for the imminent chaos while we still can because there are serious threats emerging on the horizon."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy.

Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html

“This Is Reality - Businesses Ain’t Coming Back; Banks Will Steal Your Home; Don’t Hire Zombies”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/21/21:

“This Is Reality - Businesses Ain’t Coming Back; 

Banks Will Steal Your Home; Don’t Hire Zombies”

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/21/21: "Crude Oil SURGES Higher And The FReAk ShOW Stock Market Gains Again!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/21/21:

"Crude Oil SURGES Higher And 

The FReAk ShOW Stock Market Gains Again!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Time to Grab an Umbrella"

"Time to Grab an Umbrella"

by Brian Maher

"Heavy weather barreled through Wall Street Monday - beneath the weatherman’s detection - and gave investors a savage drenching. Squalling rains washed away 925 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average… before relenting late in the day. High pressure, high skies and high expectations were back yesterday. The Dow Jones reclaimed 536 points. It took back another 286 points today.

Once again… all is peace. Yahoo! Finance: "Stocks opened higher on Wednesday, following a session in which investors... cast aside their fears that a resurgence of COVID-19 cases might derail a red-hot economic recovery, as strong earnings provided a ballast to beaten-down markets." Strong earnings? "A batch of encouraging second-quarter earnings on Wednesday from industry bellwethers Coca-Cola (KO), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Verizon (VZ) gave investors reason to focus on the fundamentals. All three companies topped market expectations, converging with sentiment that drove Tuesday's rally."

Just so. Yet, we are not half so convinced the weather will hold.

Conditions Are Too Good: The barometric pressure has risen to delirious levels, unsustainable levels. The pressure in the gauge cannot sustain. Mr. Robert Shiller’s famous CAPE ratio for the S&P 500 goes at 38.19 - a near-record. 16 is about par.

Stocks were only pricier prior to the hell storm of 2000. Not even the peak roars of the 1920s approached today’s extravagances. CAPE came in at 32.56 before the Crash of ‘29. Again… today the CAPE ratio goes at 38.19. The S&P - argues Mr. Shiller - is presently more expensive than in 96% of all previous quarters, 141 years running. But might today’s valuations outdo even their 2000 records?

Even More Insane Than 2000: Mr. Fred Hickey, editor of The High-Tech Strategist, argues they do. But the Federal Reserve’s false fireworks blind the vision: "This market is insanely overpriced. The price-to-sales ratio for the S&P 500 is at 3x. That’s 30% above the peak of 2000 which was crazy. Market cap-to-GDP is at record highs, too. Basically, every indicator other than the P/E ratio is at a record high. The only reason the P/E ratio is slightly below the 2000 record is because of all the financial engineering that’s done to try to pump up the earnings. As insane as the 2000 bubble was, this is more insane - and it’s broader. It’s a direct result of the Federal Reserve and the other central banks pumping enormous amounts of money into the system."

In addition: "This market has become terribly narrow which is another big risk. The record highs are driven mostly by five stocks: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook. Their combined total valuation is $9 trillion, and people continue to pile into this small group of names. This trend has been accelerated by the movement of passive investing where everybody just piles into the same ETFs.

The market cap of the S&P 500 is $36 trillion, and those five companies are now 25% of the index. So when people put money into the ETFs, they essentially buy more of these big tech stocks. It’s a self-perpetuating phenomenon until it ends - and when it ends, the market is going to collapse because the valuations don’t make sense. Look at Apple: Only a couple of years ago, people were getting excited about Apple hitting $1 trillion. Now its market cap is $2.5 trillion, and the stock trades at 33x peak earnings. That’s absolute insanity!"

Insanity, we must agree, and absolute.

No Problem, Don’t Worry: Yet Wall Street’s drummers insist today’s obscene valuations are justified in full. That is because today’s obscene interest rates - obscenely low interest rates - warrant them. Stripped to bolts and nuts, the argument runs this way: Stock prices merely represent the current value of future cash flows. Lower borrowing costs - lower interest rates - raise earnings. So long as rates remain frozen at low settings, today’s valuations are swell.

Yet analyst Charlie Bilello says have another guess. The theory finds little excuse in the facts… "Mr. Bilello has interrogated the data stretching to 1881. He finds: "If low interest rates were the primary driver of higher valuations, we should see the highest valuations in the lowest interest rate periods. But this is not the case. Instead we find the highest average CAPE ratios [when interest rates were between 4.5% to 6%]. This occurred during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s and early 2000s."

Meantime, today’s interest rate... paralleling yields on the 10-year Treasury note... pegs along at 1.29%. More, please: "The full data set shows a correlation of -0.24, meaning that there is a slight historical tendency for lower interest rates to be associated with higher valuations (and vice verse). But it’s not nearly as predictive as many suggest.

There have been a number of periods where interest rates and valuations have been low (1934-35, 1938, 1940-1954) and other periods where interest rates and valuations have been high (1995-2000). There is no precise formula that can give you the appropriate valuation at a given interest rate."

This Time Is Always Different: Yet the wish is the father of the thought. Wall Street wishes today’s slim interest rates authorize today’s obese valuations. And so the thought has its father… in the wish. But each stock market delirium runs to different themes, different narratives, all lovely, all logical - and all false. They are all bound together by one common feature: The fool belief that this time is different.

“Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau,” it was argued in 1929. “Markets are perfectly efficient,” it was said in the 1960s. “Earnings do not matter,” it was claimed in 1999. “Low interest rates justify high valuations,” it is blabbed in 2021. Each previous narrative came to grief, wrecked upon reality’s hard rocks. We have every suspicion the present narrative will end upon the identical rocks.

Time to Buy Your Umbrella: We do not know when the great undoing will occur. Nor do we pretend to know. We have forecast too many false tempests, too many false tornadoes, too many false typhoons. Yet we are most alarmed by extended stretches of fair weather. That is when guards come down.

And when guards come down, ours goes up. It is presently up. It is a terrible pity no one purchases an umbrella when it is most available, when blue skies stretch to the horizon. Come the inevitable downpour, most are caught in the open, unprepared. Perhaps this is the time to purchase your umbrella. Many are available. And they are on sale..."

- dailyreckoning.com

"Animals"

"Animals"

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they

are so placid and self contain’d;

I stand and look at them long and long,

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied - not one is demented with

the mania of owning things;

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that

lived thousands of years ago;

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth."

- Walt Whitman

The Daily "Near You?"

Horton, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The World Rests In The Night..."

“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”

- John O'Donohue,

"Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"

○

“On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colors,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.”

○

John O'Donohue was an Irish author, poet, philosopher and former Catholic priest. He was born in County Clare on January 1, 1956. He died suddenly on January 4, 2008. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality and is the author of a number of best-selling books on the subject.

"Tomorrow’s Trouble Is Today’s Fun"

"Tomorrow’s Trouble Is Today’s Fun"

by Bill Bonner

NORMANDY, FRANCE – "The trip on the ferry passed agreeably. The sea was still and smooth… almost like a glass tabletop. We sailed along nicely, not noticing any motion. Arriving in France yesterday morning, we drove down to the Pays d’Auge to spend the night with friends.

“You’ve come at a bad time,” said Jean-Paul. “France is finished. Over. The country is run by criminal morons… It’s a disaster.” “I think they [he was talking about France’s political class… but his comments could easily be applied in America as well] just want to control everything. They don’t want us to go anywhere or do anything. Everything is either prohibited or compulsory. And they think they can make up for the loss of revenue with money from Brussels [from the European Central Bank]."

Dead Industry: “And this ‘Sanitary Pass’ is the worst yet. It’s scheduled to go into effect in September. You’ll need to show the pass to do anything. And if you don’t want to be vaccinated… or just don’t want to get the pass… you’ll be completely isolated. In France, tourism is a major industry. It’s important, and not just for the money. It’s part of what we are… what we do. But tourism is dead.”

Jean-Paul owns a hotel in Paris. “The hotel has been closed now for 18 months. That’s a whole year and a half of revenue that is gone forever. People say ‘You can make it up later.’ But that’s crazy. I only have so many rooms. There’s no way to make up lost revenue. At best, I’ll be able to go back to earning a normal amount of revenue. But I’ll never get back what was lost. And the hotel is going to stay closed until next April. There’s no point in opening now. The Americans aren’t coming."

“I’m lucky. I’ve owned the hotel for many years. I don’t owe money on it. I can just hunker down. A lot of the old hotels in Paris are like that. But anyone who bought a hotel recently… or owes money on it… he’s dead. Broke. Same for the restaurants. There are thousands of restaurants in Paris. They depend on tourists. Without tourists, they have no business. Those who have been around for a long time can afford just to close the doors. But the young guys… who had to borrow money… or pay rent… they’re in big trouble. The government gives them money now… But how long will that last?"

Scam: “I’m glad I’m retiring… I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. I hate the face masks. And, you know, it all just seems like a scam. I got the coronavirus last year. I’ve got high blood pressure and diabetes. I’m 65. And I’m overweight. But it just felt like the flu. My wife had it, too, and didn’t even know she had it. And look, tuberculosis, malaria, auto accidents – they kill millions of people every year… and they’re all preventable. But nobody says we should stop everything because of them.”

Jean-Paul gave a weary, gallic shrug. He lives well in the Normandy countryside, but worries about how his children and grandchildren will make out. “I know I complain about everything… but the real problems haven’t even begun. Just wait until all this money-printing catches up to us. I’m old enough to remember the ‘old franc’ when I was a child. Then, the new franc. And then, the euro. That’ll go away, too. But I don’t know if I’ll still be around to see it.”

Rebound: Meanwhile… back in the USA… MarketWatch announces with great relief: "Dow ends up more than 500 points, recovers from slump Monday. S&P index sees largest one day percentage gain since March 26, 2021.

Explaining what had gone wrong on Monday was Art Hogan, a “chief market strategist” at B. Riley National: "Markets have a way, particularly in the middle of the summer, to price in the worst-case scenario pretty quickly."

Hmmm… Does Mr. Hogan really think a 725-point Dow selloff was the worst-case scenario? By our reckoning, we would need to sell off 10,000 points to get stock prices back to a “normal” price range. In a crash, 15,000 or 20,000 Dow points might disappear.

Tomorrow’s Trouble: But investors must have realized that there is no way the Federal Reserve will permit a genuine selloff. Not if it can help it. So, at least for now, tomorrow’s trouble is still today’s fun. Delta variant? Don’t worry about it. Debt? Who cares? Inflation? Hey… it’s just “supply chain disruptions.”

High stock prices are no virtue. And keeping them inflated is no great achievement; it merely puts off the day on which they are properly priced. But a selloff would end the fun, wouldn’t it? And isn’t that the one and only purpose of Fed policy today – to delay the inevitable reckoning? To inflate now… and die later… and laissez les bons temps rouler in the meantime?

Party On: And here, we turn to economist Ken Rogoff for an explanation of why even higher inflation rates should not stop the party: "Because the US Treasury and the Fed stepped in so quickly and proactively, there were actually fewer corporate bankruptcies in 2020 than in 2019."

Mr. Rogoff notes that bankruptcies usually rise during a recession. Last year was the worst economic setback for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression. Businesses that couldn’t pay their way should have closed up shop. Instead, they got money from the feds… and are still losing money!

Whoopee! In an honest economy, stocks go up and down… and businesses come and go. Some people get lucky. Some get smart. And all get more or less what they deserve. In today’s economy, the zombies get infusions… households get stimmy checks… the stock market gets pumped up… real losses are papered over with fake money… and the party continues… until it ends."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"The Fed Says the Recession is Over - This is a Depression"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 7/21/21:

"The Fed Says the Recession is Over - This is a Depression"

"The Fed has just issued a report saying that the recession is over. It was the shortest recorded session in the history of our country. No one believes this. This is a depression and I’m going to prove it to you."

"How It Really Is"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/21/21: "The FEAR Trade Remains On! Its ALL A Total FReaK sHOw!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/21/21:

"The FEAR Trade Remains On! Its ALL A Total FReaK sHOw!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"America’s Frontline Doctors File Federal Lawsuit to Curtail Emergency Use of Covid Vaccines"

"America’s Frontline Doctors File Federal Lawsuit

to Curtail Emergency Use of Covid Vaccines"

by Paul Craig Roberts

Excerpt: "It appears that my reading of the Covid information is correct. The official reported cases and deaths are a scam, and the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus. America’s Frontline Doctors have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the emergency use of untested and unapproved vaccines on three groups of people. We will see if Big Pharma owns the courts too.

We have been lied to by medical bureaucrats such as Fauci at NIH and Rochelle Walensky at CDC, by the medical establishment, by ignorant politicians, and of course by the scum presstitutes and social media. The question is: did they lie out of ignorance or on purpose? Are they concerned with our health or with Big Pharma’s profits, government control over people, and perhaps darker agendas such as population reduction and the WEF’s “Great Reset”?

As Americans are so gullible and insouciant, these mass murderers are likely to get away with their monstrous crimes.

One of the doctors involved with the lawsuit stated; “My child will not be the subject of an experiment. What kind of monsters are we allowing to control us? Perfectly healthy children have developed heart inflammation, brain bleeding and even died! I have had enough. I am not sacrificing my child so a pharmaceutical company can experiment on her. This madness has to stop.”

Full article is here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

- https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

○

Related:

For Covid facts divergent from the official lies see:

1. - https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

2. - https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

○

An absolute MUST read:

"Unthinkable Thoughts"

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, “Zero Degrees Zero”

Liquid Mind, “Zero Degrees Zero”

"The Worst Part..."

 

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.

Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”

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

"Many Great Deeds..."

"For many great deeds are accomplished in times of squalid struggle. There is a kind of stubborn, unrecognized courage which in the lowest depths tenaciously resists the pressures of necessity and ill-doing; there are noble and obscure triumphs observed by no one, unacclaimed by any fanfare. Hardship, loneliness, and penury are a battlefield which has its own heroes, sometimes greater than those lauded in history. Strong and rare characters are thus created; poverty nearly always a foster-mother, may become a true mother, distress may be the nursemaid of pride, and misfortune the milk that nourishes great spirits."

- Victor Hugo

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: Delta Dystopia, Government Control and Dehumanized"

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: 

Delta Dystopia, Government Control and Dehumanized"

"'The Trends Journal' is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

"Bank Failures/Bank Runs Coming; Debt Defaults Ahead; Economy On A Dead End Road; Recession Is Over"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/20/21:

"Bank Failures/Bank Runs Coming; Debt Defaults Ahead; 

Economy On A Dead End Road; Recession Is Over"