Friday, September 17, 2021

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 9/17/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 9/17/21"
"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
"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.
September 16th to 17th, 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...

Thursday, September 16, 2021

"Bank Meltdown Is Coming To China As Evergrande Crisis Triggers Commercial Real Estate Collapse"

Full screen recommended.
"Bank Meltdown Is Coming To China As Evergrande 
Crisis Triggers Commercial Real Estate Collapse"
by Epic Economist

"The financial disaster alert is on! A catastrophic bank meltdown seems to be looming in China: The country's entire financial sector is getting extremely alarmed with the possibility of a major default crisis, given that one of its biggest property developers, Evergrande, recently announced that it became unable to pay its gigantic debt. That debacle has exposed the perilous state of China’s vast property sector and its consequences could have a ripple effect across global markets and lead to billions in losses.

Last week, Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, warned that it would likely fail to meet its financial obligations, triggering widespread panic among investors, dealing a severe blow to its bonds, and resulting in trading suspensions in the markets of Shenzhen and Shanghai.The crisis led two credit rating agencies to downgrade Evergrande last week, and it sparked a shocking 80% collapse on its Hong Kong-listed shares since the beginning of the year. And at the beginning of this week, the Shanghai Stock Exchange stopped trading in Evergrande's May 2023 bond after it dropped more than 30%.

Right now, the Chinese developer is sitting under a colossal pile of liabilities that total more than $300 billion, after decades of borrowing to finance its rapid growth. Over the past few weeks, Evergrande has been rushing to sell assets to generate cash but several companies are refusing to accept the firm's commercial paper. According to S&P analysts, the developer might be paying suppliers through transfers of its properties instead of cash.

In essence, the company has become exposed to a vicious debt cycle, and it doesn't have enough cash to finish its projects and generate further proceeds from sales. Only in August, sales declined by a staggering 26 percent compared to the same time last year despite the steep discounts. And, of course, the developer is in desperate need of that cash not only to service but also to reduce, its enormous debts.

Beyond financial markets, the most significant problems that could be triggered by the Evergrande downfall are a residential and commercial real estate collapse all across China, as well as a brutal crisis on the broader property sector. Other worries include the growing possibility of a bank meltdown, as at least 128 banks are highly exposed to Evergrande's liabilities, according to a 2020 leaked document. On top of that, 121 non-banking institutions are also exposed, and all of them are at risk of facing billions in losses.

Analysts have been comparing the imminent bank meltdown in China to the 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, which sparked crises at counterparties and ended up collapsing global markets. Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities warned major lenders to China Evergrande Group "not to expect interest payments due next week on bank loans, which takes the cash-strapped developer a step closer the nation’s largest modern-day restructurings," and signals that China's "Lehman Moment" is right around the corner.

Authorities have been silent on whether they will allow Evergrande creditors to face major losses. Bondholders are speculating that a buyout, break-up, or bailout are the only possible scenarios, which has infuriated countless investors and creditors. The company's intricate web of obligations to bondholders, investors, banks, suppliers, and homeowners has essentially turned into one of the biggest sources of financial risk in the world’s second-largest economy.

It is now threatening to trigger a crisis that goes beyond a residential and commercial real estate collapse -- or even a widespread bank meltdown -- but it could result in a financial catastrophe that would impact the entire world. Analysts argue that now that investors started to sell off their holdings of the company, the broader credit market may be dragged further down if the property developer fails to buy time with banks to pay off its debt. The consequences are also threatening to spill over the Chinese economy.

Considering that real estate is the central engine of China's growth, which accounts for 29% of economic output, a residential and commercial real estate collapse in addition to the bankruptcy of such a large company would have severe repercussions on the economy. Investors are growing increasingly nervous that the Evergrande collapse could spread to other property developers and result in dangerous systemic risks for the country's banking system.

As the financial expert Mark Twain noted, companies go bankrupt in two ways. "Gradually, then suddenly." Until last week, Evergrande was in the "gradually" phase. Now, it just got to the "suddenly" phase. From now on, the collapse is likely to accelerate and generate a cascade of systemic failures, bankruptcies and push China to the verge of a default crisis never before seen in world history."

"California Is Done, I'm Getting Out; Consumers Dependent On Payday Loans And Credit Cards To Survive"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 9/16/21:
"California Is Done, I'm Getting Out; Consumers Dependent
 On Payday Loans And Credit Cards To Survive"

"The Two U.S. Constitutions"

"The Two U.S. Constitutions"
by Brian Maher

"Tomorrow the nation celebrates Constitution Day. Rather, tomorrow the calendar acknowledges Constitution Day. Few Americans realize the high day exists. Fewer yet will hoist a cheering toast in honor of the nation’s founding charter - the first written constitution in Earth’s history.

Nor will your seditious editor celebrate Constitution Day. That is not because he scorns or abominates the United States Constitution… but because he reveres it. It has been distorted beyond semblance. The original constitutional text remains, it is true. The original procedures and formalities remain. The constitutional republic has its three branches of government. It has its official separation of powers. It has its protocols and decorums. That is, the Constitution’s skeletal structure is intact.

Yet take a scalpel in hand. Knife your way through the outer layers… past the intermediate tissues… to the innards, to the vital organs. There you will discover astonishing discombobulations of the bodily processes. The heart breathes oxygen, the lungs pump blood. The kidneys digest food and the liver thinks thoughts...The appendix assumes the powers of the spleen... and the spleen is reduced to an appendage. In all, the original constitutional anatomy is scarcely recognizable.

On What Constitutional Authority? We lift our pocket Constitution from our breast pocket, where it is permanently stationed - near our heart - a heart that pumps blood, though icy blood. We consult Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, which reads, in part that: “No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

Is there a state today that accepts gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts? Please inform us if there is a state. It will be our next address (our minions inform us certain states are considering it).

Next we thumb to Article II, which limits presidential powers to: Signing or vetoing legislation. Ordering around the military and naval forces. Requesting the written opinion of his Cabinet. Convening or adjourning Congress. Granting reprieves and pardons. Receiving ambassadors.

Where does the Constitution authorize the president to mandate vaccination… determine the wages of federal contractors… suspend oil production on federal lands or offshore waters… to name some. Is this not the work of the legislature? Examples of constitutional derangement multiply and multiply.

The Two Constitutions: We conclude the United States Constitution has endured what old Greek Aristotle labeled “a revolution within the form:” People do not easily change, but love their own ancient customs; and it is by small degrees only that one thing takes the place of another; so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about a revolution in the state.

We have in fact two United States Constitutions… The first is the Old Testament Constitution, the “government shalt not” Constitution. The second is the New Testament Constitution, the “government shall” Constitution.

The Old Testament Constitution represents what the legal men term a “charter of negative liberties.” It binds and shackles the federal authority. It throws up a cordon around it. What is the Bill of Rights but a charter of negative liberties? Congress shall make no law… shall not be infringed… The right of the people to be secure… No person shall be… the accused shall enjoy the right to… shall not be construed to deny or disparage (other rights) retained by the people.

The New Testament Constitution: But the Old Testament Constitution has yielded to the New Testament Constitution over time, a process vastly accelerated during the Great Depression. The needs of the day - we are told - required an energetic, centralizing government… busy on ever-expanding and previously uncontested fronts.

Social Security is but one example. The Great Society legislation of the 1960s was perhaps the New Testament Constitution’s high moment, its apotheosis, its grand culmination. That is, the New Testament Constitution turned the Old Testament Constitution upon its head… Under the Old Testament, the people looked after the government. Under the New Testament, the government looked after the people.

Here former President Obama sketches the division between Old and New Testaments: "Generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."

Government That Does for You Must First Do to You: Yet the government that does on your behalf is the government that vandalizes the Old Testament Constitution, ransacks the Treasury... and shatters the domestic peace. That is, government generally assists society the way a hammer assists a nail. It assists the way a leech assists the blood. It assists the way a termite assists a house. The helping government constitutes, in brief, a menace.

Of course… we understand others hold an opposite view. We have no heat against them. Yet of this we are certain: The “parchment barrier” of the Constitution could never restrain men determined not to be restrained. As 19th-century individualist Lysander Spooner lamented, in devastating fashion: "Whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it…" There is much justice in this comment… at least as we see it.

The Constitution Wasn’t Written in Stone: The nine members of the Supreme Court are the high priests and priestesses of the New Testament Constitution. It is they - and they alone - who interpret scripture under the New Testament. The drafters of the Old Testament Constitution, in contrast, left the business to the People. That is, the original United States Constitution blessed future updating. But only through the amendment process. “If there are errors, it should be remembered, that the seeds of reformation are sown in the work itself,” argued signer James Wilson in 1787.

Signer Gouverneur Morris added: "Surrounded by difficulties, we did the best we could; leaving it with those who should come after us to take counsel from experience, and exercise prudently the power of amendment, which we had provided."

No less a personage than Tommy Jefferson - author of the Declaration of Independence - argued the Constitution should be updated: “Every 19 or 20 years”... to “be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time.”

Penumbras and Emanations: The abstruse and nuanced legal insights of these clergy are beyond our slender abilities to appreciate. The “penumbras and emanations” glowing from the constitutional text are visible to them. They are invisible to us. That is, we are incapable of distinguishing Article I from Article II. We are incapable of distinguishing “shall” from “shall not.” That is, we are disqualified from service upon the Supreme Court of the United States. But the clergy has blown so much life into the Constitution, so much vitality… the thing is so alive… it is nearly dead. New Testament beatitudes have displaced the Old Testament injunctions.

The Only Constant Is Change: Here we do not pass judgment. We merely observe… reflect… and stroke our chin, pensively. Perhaps it was all inevitable.

Our co-founders Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, from "Empire of Debt:" "Institutions have a way of evolving over time - after a few years, they no longer resemble the originals. Early in the 21st century, the United States is no more like the America of 1776 than the Vatican under the Borgia popes was like Christianity at the time of the Last Supper…

In America, all the restraints, inhibitions and modesty of the Old Republic have been blown away by the prevailing winds of the new empire… The United States Constitution is almost exactly the same document with exactly the same words it had when it was written, but the words that used to bind and chafe have been turned into soft elastic. The government that couldn’t tax, couldn’t spend and couldn’t regulate can now do anything it wants. The executive has all the power he needs to do practically anything. Congress goes along, like a simpleminded stooge, insisting only that the spoils be spread around."

"Happy Constitution Day!"

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Fans of our fair planet might recognize the outlines of these cosmic clouds. On the left, bright emission outlined by dark, obscuring dust lanes seems to trace a continental shape, lending the popular name North America Nebula to the emission region cataloged as NGC 7000. To the right, just off the North America Nebula's east coast, is IC 5070, whose avian profile suggests the Pelican Nebula. The two bright nebulae are about 1,500 light-years away, part of the same large and complex star forming region, almost as nearby as the better-known Orion Nebula. At that distance, the 3 degree wide field of view would span 80 light-years. 
Click image for larger size.
This careful cosmic portrait uses narrow band images combined to highlight the bright ionization fronts and the characteristic glow from atomic hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen gas. These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan."

Chet Raymo, “The Journey”

Click image for larger size.
“The Journey”
by Chet Raymo

“Here’s a deep-deep sky map of the universe from the March 9, 2006 issue of Nature. The horizontal scale is a 360 view right around the sky; the vertical gaps at 6 hours and 24 hours are the parts of the universe that are blocked to our view by the disk of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The vertical scale – distance from Earth – is logarithmic (10, 100, 1000, etc.) measured in megaparsecs (a parsec equals 3.26 light-years). Across the top is the Big Bang, and the oldest and most distant thing we can see, the cosmic microwave background, the radiation of the Big Bang itself. A few relatively nearby galaxies are designated at the bottom. All that stuff in the middle that looks like smoke or dusty cobwebs are quasars and galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

A smoke of galaxies! (2 trillion galaxies according to latest estimates.- CP) A universe cobwebbed with Milky Ways! Each galaxy itself a smoke of stars, hundreds of billions of stars, many or all of them with planets. My book, “Walking Zero,” is about the human journey from the omphalos of our birth into the world of the galaxies, a journey many of us are disinclined to make. Here is how the Prologue to the book begins:

“Each of us is born at the center of the world. For nine months our physical selves are assembled molecule by molecule, cell by cell, in the dark covert of our mother’s womb. A single fertilized egg cell splits into two. Then four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Ultimately, 50 trillion cells or so. At first, our future self is a mere blob of protoplasm. But slowly, ever so slowly, the blob begins to differentiate under the direction of genes. A symmetry axis develops. A head, a tail, a spine. At this point, the embryo might be that of a human, or a chicken, or a marmoset. Limbs form. Digits, with tiny translucent nails. Eyes, with papery lids. Ears pressed like flowers against the head. Clearly now a human. A nose, nostrils. Downy hair. Genitals.

As the physical self develops, so too a mental self takes shape, not yet conscious, not yet self-aware, knitted together as webs of neurons in the brain, encapsulating in some respects the evolutionary experience of our species. Instincts impressed by the genes. The instinct to suck, for example. Already, in the womb, the fetus presses its tiny fist against its mouth in anticipation of the moment when the mouth will be offered the mother’s breast. The child will not have to be taught to suck. Other inborn behaviors will express themselves later. Laughing. Crying. Striking out in anger. Loving.

What, if anything, goes on in the mind of the developing fetus we may never know. But this much seems certain: To the extent that the emerging self has any awareness of its surroundings, its world is coterminous with itself. We are not born with knowledge of the antipodes, the plains of Mars, or the far-flung realm of the galaxies. We are not born with knowledge of Precambrian seas, the supercontinent of Pangea, or the Age of Dinosaurs. We are born into a world scarcely older than ourselves and scarcely larger than ourselves. And we are at its center.

A human life is a journey into the grandeur of a universe that may contain more galaxies than there are cells in the human body, a universe in which the whole of a human lifetime is but a single tick of the cosmic clock. The journey can be disorienting; our first instincts are towards coziness, comfort, our mother’s enclosing arms, her breast. The journey, therefore, requires courage – for each individual, and for our species.

Uniquely of all animals, humans have the capacity to let our minds expand into the space and time of the galaxies. No other creatures can number the cells in their bodies, as we can, or count the stars. No other creatures can imagine the explosive birth of the observable universe 14 billion years ago from an infinitely hot, infinitely small seed of energy. That we choose to make this journey – from the all-sustaining womb into the vertiginous spaces and abyss of time – is the glory of our species, and perhaps our most frightening challenge.”

The Poet: Wendell Berry, “The Circles Of Our Lives”

“The Circles Of Our Lives”

“Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon,
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,
each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone
into the darker circles of return,
Within the circles of our lives…”

- Wendell Berry

"Life, eh?"

Gerald Celente, "Inflation Up, Wages Down, China's Economy Weakening"

Gerald Celente,
"Inflation Up, Wages Down, China's Economy Weakening"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

"A Little Late..."

 

The Daily "Near You?"

Wichita Falls, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Expect the Unexpected with the Economy - Inflation Surges as the Economy Shrinks"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly AM 9/16/21:
"Expect the Unexpected with the Economy - 
Inflation Surges as the Economy Shrinks"

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 9/16/21"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 9/16/21:
"The Economy Continues To FREEFALL, 
And The Worst Is Yet To Come"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 9/16/21:
"Ignore The Constant Warnings! 
Understand What You Are Doing And Why"

A Cherokee Prayer Blessing

"May the warm winds of Heaven blow softly upon your house.
May the Great Spirit bless all who enter there.
May your mocassins make happy tracks in many snows,
and may the rainbow always touch your shoulder."

~ A Cherokee Prayer Blessing

Musical Interlude: Warren Haynes, Gov't Mule, "Forever More"

Full screen recommended.
Warren Haynes, Gov't Mule, "Forever More"

Some songs you just feel...

"How It Really Is"

 

"Lies at the Speed of Light"

"Lies at the Speed of Light"
by Freed Radical

"Chapter 1,984: A conversation overheard by a park bench on the mall in Washington, D.C.

“Thanks for meeting me on short notice. Our team has some questions with all that’s going on. We need to touch base to make sure we are on the same track. I did not want to do this over the phone, especially since we are not even supposed to know each other.”

“No problem. First, judging from the reports I have received, your crew is right on target and doing good for the effort. I apologize for not showing you more of the big picture, but things have been moving so fast.

Let me give you an update. Our plan is progressing well. The vaccination push has about half the population submitting. I know, the media says 60% or 70%, but that’s just the inflated numbers we are feeding them. Half of those have received the placebo and have no side effects, other than giving their lives over to us and thinking they are protected against our virus. The ones who got the various experimental formulations are right on track as well, with the expected number of miscarriages, heart problems, and deaths. Anybody putting out truth about these things gets immediately censored and ridiculed, and we have an office full of news and social media monitors in Arlington working 24/7. We are ready when the infertility phase starts, with numerous waves of disinformation, including blaming the unvaccinated. Nobody is suspecting that the new operating system for the human body is hosting a spontaneous abortion app. Maybe a few researchers, but they were quickly silenced.

Demonization of the unsubmissive is also going well. Social media is playing a huge part, and we are not even having to coach the CEO nerds much. It’s as if they believe our lies, too, which makes this all easy. Labeling free thinkers as domestic terrorists has moved the ball way down field. Blaming the vaccine poisoning hospitalizations on them has worked well, too. This dumbing down of education over the last 50 years is really paying off. People will believe anything they see on their phones.”

“That’s encouraging. Thanks for closing the loop for me. On our side, we have been pumping the employer vax mandate through back channels, and have received only positive feedback from business. We estimate that within weeks 80% of the unvaxxed population will be under pressure by their employers to get the shot. Even if the courts strike down the mandate, that will take months, and millions more will have taken the vaccine just to stay employed.”

“And the ones who get fired will be on unemployment. We get their submission either way."

“The courts have been a great strategic tool, and even when we lose, we win. Our law school infiltration team has been a great investment over the last century."

“We are also working back channels with some major grocers on implementing a vax mandate to buy food. Expect an EO on that, too. Speaking of pressure, how is Operation Terror Bait going?”

“Very well, indeed! These right wing crazies are eating it up. With every pronouncement from President Air Head the forum chatter of molon labe, shooting threats, and acute lead poisoning snark increases. We have infiltrators fanning flames on every major comment board on the planet, with two or three arguing several sides for division’s sake. We’ve discovered one of the best tools of division is theology."

“These Trumpers are red lining at 500psi and are ready to explode. When one of them cracks, then ten of them will. And then we’ll have smooth sailing for total gun confiscation. We are pushing for this to happen before the welfare state collapses, and are accelerating it to the best of our ability. You guys just need to keep the welfare payments flowing until the right wing has been eliminated. Then we can work on the useless eaters."

“These bitter clingers are so easy to jack up. With every new phase of our plan, each new restriction and right lost, they express fresh outrage, and respond with blistering blog posts! Do none of them suspect that our end game is not their subjection, but their death? The only problem we are seeing is some of the wing nuts are building community, off the communications grid, and we cannot track them. But we think there are too few to make a difference.”

“Good, good. 10-4 on all that. We are writing every executive order with more and more radical, conservative-targeted policies. If we can get just a few of them to break, we’ll be golden. We have some false flags in reserve, and some informants that we are gas lighting. It’s a piece of cake to pour fuel on the flames of these conservative cults. They enjoy being enraged. The indefinite detention for the Jan 6 protesters is working like a charm to dampen any real resistance as well.”

"We’ve been pushing conspiracy theory demonization widely on mainstream outlets. It’s so easy to get people to stop thinking, with only a frown from somebody they don’t even know. But I must admit I’m a bit worried about Biden’s optics. The guy is so out to lunch it’s laughable. My plants in the media are telling me their colleagues are having reservations, it’s such a comedy show. I’m having to feed them some scraps of meat to keep them engaged.”

“I know, but optics are the least of our worries. You have to ask who is viewing the optics. It’s a bunch of public school educated morons who lap up every lie we tell. Look at the man on the street interviews. Most people have no idea who Biden is, much less what gaffes came out of his mouth last week. It’s only the slightly smarter media types, the ones who think they are smart at least, that we have to manage. The population is a pile of dupes."

“Don’t sweat the optics. Just stay the course and this will all work out as planned.”

“Okay. I’ll pass that on to the troops. I did get some raised eyebrows about the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, and they are wondering how we will spin the hostages that remain.”

“That was not a botched anything. All went according to plan. Right now thousands of older loyal US military people are planning their exit, and after that we can replace them with more public school graduates who’ll do anything we tell them to. I just love the Ritalin generation.

We have a media blackout on the hostage situation. There are actually more than a thousand, many more, but we’ll have no Jimmy Carter 2.0. Each of those people is a pawn to allow us to control the Taliban savages. They think they have us on a string, but they are the ones all tied up. We’re strangling Islam just like Christianity, with porn and pedophilia. And of course we have withdrawn nothing, we just left some gear behind for them to kill each other. We have many informants in their ranks, and contractors on the ground, and our opium revenue stream is untouched.”

“Not sure how I can dress it up for my people, but I’ll figure out something. How’s the succession plan coming along?”

“All the pieces are falling into place. Kamala is being insufferably cackly. Could be the next Hillary if she developed some cankles. She thinks she’s in line for the big chair. These politicians are idiots. They think they run the show. She’ll be lucky to walk out of this in one piece. And Fauci. I can’t be rid of that moron too soon.”

“What about the Constitutional objections? I know we don’t care about the Constitution, but it seems that might be a rallying point.”

“That’s why we have to get the right wingers to overplay their hand and end up in camps or mass graves first. No high school graduate knows anything about any Constitution. College graduates think it’s worthless anyway. The destruction of free thought is one of those last pieces, also falling into place. Once the succession is complete – and who cares who sits in the big chair? – we’ll have a blank slate to rewrite the Constitution, which is merely symbolic at this point. The new document will be a candy store of freebies for all who submit, at least until they are dead.”

“Last time we talked you mentioned another bug coming out of the labs. Any progress on that?”

“Oh yes! The next one will not be so virulent, but it will cause a lot of gross bleeding and pain, and is nearly always fatal, after a few days of intense suffering. We’re shooting videos of test subjects now, black people, to nip the vaccine opt-out we are seeing today. We want to be right out in front with footage of the new pandemic. These sheep are going to be begging for masks. They’ll lick our boots for whatever ‘vaccine’ we give them. Not as many people will die, but the fear factor will be 100x of covid, and it will look like the masks and lock downs are working miracles. I hope your people don’t have weak stomachs because this bug is a real flesh eater. We have some other bugs in reserve if they are needed.”

“Nice. When’s that starting?”

“We’re going to work the covid variant schtick for a while, to play it for several rounds of boosters, of various types and purposes. With the doctors on our side, withholding actual cures and preventatives, and funneling patients onto killer ventilators, we can get some traction for another year or two at least. The new bug will be deployed sooner if we get any resistance on the change of government. Nobody’s gonna care about a piece of parchment when their spouse’s flesh is sloughing off. But it’s all still in flux.”

“When you first recruited me – what was that, ten years ago? – we talked about the changes this country needed to go through to kill all this capitalism and freedom. I was on board 100%, but seeing it happen now, it’s just surreal. I turn on the television and see a story that our group brainstormed just 12 hour prior. When your group targets a pol for takedown, we can make it happen in a week, tops. A little tweak of a social media algorithm, and you know we have logins direct to their servers… we can make a king or destroy a prince, in minutes. Our offshore cyber teams can target any system, company, or government for immediate action, 24 hours a day. We don’t ever use the word warrant any more. We just do what needs to be done. And our unlimited budget is a dream come true."

“These politicians are so stupid. They know we can hoover up the contents of their phones at any time. But they have not figured out that we can also deposit incriminating evidence on their phones at any time. It will be nice to be rid of this election sham, and the glad handing, drooling politicians with it.”

“Yes, it’s an amazing time we live in. Our philosophical forefathers would have never guessed it would be so easy to manipulate the masses. Lies at the speed of light. That’s what it is.”

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

"Doug Casey on the Next 'Crisis' the Global Elite Have Planned"

"Doug Casey on the Next 'Crisis' 
the Global Elite Have Planned"
by International Man

"International Man: Every year, the international ruling class - the most influential world leaders, CEOs of big corporations, top academics, and even celebrities - come together at Davos. They discuss topics that interest them and prescribe their preferred policies. What’s your take on the Davos crowd and what they are doing?

Doug Casey: The Davos crowd has become the most visible element of the ruling class. Although, they overlap with lots of other groups who are pushing the same agenda -Bilderberg, CFR, and Bohemian Grove among them.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article after I attended the Concordia, which is very similar, with exactly the same people. I don’t plan on going back. It was disturbing and depressing listening to soulless bigshots natter about the best way to rule the plebs. These people are all part of what you might call the "World Deep State." They all know each other. They go to the same conferences, and more often than not, they’ve attended the same universities, belong to the same social clubs, and have kids in the same schools. But most importantly, they share the same worldview. They live in their own little silo, where the rest of 7.9 billion people in the world are outsiders. So it’s only natural that people in such a relatively close-knit - albeit informal - group conspire.

Adam Smith famously observed that whenever two men from the same occupation get together, they always conspire against the interests of the public. It’s a perfectly normal and natural thing. But these people aren’t just merchants contriving to make a few extra shekels. These people are the top dogs in all of the world's governments, NGOs, corporations, universities, and media organizations. They have contempt for the little people, whom they treat as either useful idiots or useless mouths. They’re interested in power more than anything else. As they’ve recently shown in this COVID exercise, they pretty much control the world. They’re very dangerous; I despise them.

International Man: In 2019, well before the first case of COVID was reported, the World Economic Forum (WEF), which hosts the annual Davos conferences, held an event to discuss the possibility of a worldwide pandemic. In fact, they ran a simulation exercise for how the scenario could play out and how governments, large corporations, and the media should handle the situation. What do you make of this? Was it a coincidence?

Doug Casey: These people are quite bold. They believe - correctly - that 90% of the public will basically eat whatever they’re fed and accept whatever they’re told. I have no doubt that these people have an informal understanding with each other as to how the world ought to reset to their benefit. It’s not a formal conspiracy, per se, just a natural consequence of what inevitably happens when people of the same class, worldview, and philosophy are in a position of power.

The problem is that worldwide conflagrations over the last century have gotten much more serious each time around. World War 1 was unbelievably nasty. World War 2 was even nastier. We dodged the bullet of a global thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union. But that doesn’t mean that World War 3 isn’t going to occur. It’ll just be different than it would have been 40 or 50 years ago.

So, based on the trend in motion, if World War 1 killed 20 million people and World War 2 killed 60 or 80 million people, anything could happen in whatever turns out to be World War 3. Maybe 500 million or a billion. Think big, like the people who put together the Deagel report. As I’ve said before, this war will have little to do with obsolescent junk like Abrams tanks, F-35s, and Ford-class carriers. Those toys serve little purpose beyond bankrupting the US while enriching the Deep State. This will be primarily a cyber and biological war.

I’m just surprised that more people aren’t watching and referring to the movie V for Vendetta, which also revolves around a virus called the St. Mary’s virus. The world desperately needs a real V. There are really a lot of parallels today. I wonder if the "little people" know that the elite have been planning or playing with the idea of a virus for years. Probably not - it’s hard to imagine anyone could be as evil as the Nazis, Soviets, or Chicoms because that was ancient history and human nature has obviously changed. A great virus to smite humanity has been the subject of lots of sci-fi novels and movies over the years. And now, as usual, life is imitating art.

Let’s fantasize for a moment. Perhaps the elite, who mostly masquerade as philanthropists, will rationalize their plan as a way to cleanse the gene pool, reducing the population by 80 or 90%.* I have no doubt these people could justify a viral plague as a way to save Gaia from a human plague. Perhaps the vaccine will actually be the real vector, killing some after a time and sterilizing the rest. Perhaps it will serve as a catalyst for the vaccinated, the obedient 80%, to put the independent unvaccinated 20% in camps. Perhaps the current virus is just the first gambit, and after the Delta and Mu strains a genuinely serious Zeta variant will present itself.

Anything is possible. We’re living in a science-fiction world at this point. Even if things just go along more or less as they are, there are lots of advantages to the COVID-19 virus from their point of view. The collapse of the economy, the Greater Depression, won’t be blamed on central banking, inflation, and the State. They’ll be sold as heroes in the fight against the virus. The depression will be blamed on COVID - a Deus ex machina device - as opposed to the real causes. It’s really quite perverse.

International Man: Earlier this year, the WEF started making a lot of noise about cyberattacks disrupting global supply chains. Klaus Schwab, the WEF founder, has been calling for the internet to be vaccinated preemptively - presumably meaning more controls, regulations, and less freedom and privacy. Are they foreshadowing the next real or manufactured crisis? How could it play out?

Doug Casey: There’s no question in my mind at this point that the US, and in fact many countries, are turning into genuine police states. It’s happening right before our eyes with Australia - the entire country is locked down. People, masked at all times, of course, can’t go more than a couple of miles from their homes without suffering draconian penalties. No one can enter Australia, and - this is really shocking - no one can leave. And it’s not even questioned. If it can happen in Australia, New Zealand, and in parts of Canada, it can happen anywhere.

Apparently, it’s starting to happen here in the US with Biden having laid down not-so-subtly veiled threats against people that don’t get vaccinated. It was ominous to hear the senile old scumbag say that he, and the righteous vaccinated, were starting to "lose patience" with Americans who think they control their own bodies. I have no plans to get vaccinated. At best, the vaccine is unproven - and possibly, we won’t know how risky it is for several years. Which is why in the past, radical new therapies have always had to be tested for years. But that hasn’t happened in this case.

But the vaccine psychosis is just one aspect of this war. As much as the elite want to sell the January 6th event in Washington, DC as the equivalent of the Reichstag fire, I don’t think the average American buys it. Therefore, perhaps something real or imagined will transpire to allow them to designate a whole class of American citizens as domestic terrorists.

We now have genuinely crazy people in control of the apparatus of the state. They’re exactly the same psychological and philosophical profile as the Bolsheviks or the Jacobins. They’re not going to let go of power voluntarily. Anything is possible at this point; we’re still in the early days. As we enter the trailing edge of the Greater Depression, there’s actually something much more serious to consider in looking at the world situation. Things are similar to 1914 or 1939. Who knows exactly what happens next?

International Man: The COVID hysteria worked out exceptionally well for power-hungry politicians around the world. The public has now accepted an unprecedented level of government control over their everyday lives. If there is a so-called "cyber pandemic" as the elites are hinting at, what would the consequences be for personal freedom?

Doug Casey: As I said earlier, World War 3 won’t be about nuclear weapons or conventional armies, but biology and computers. The cyber war aspect will be huge because the entire world now runs on computers. In fact, the world is starting to run on artificial intelligence. I don’t doubt that robotics will come into its own soon. As far as a cyber pandemic and closing down the Internet is concerned, I’d say that’s a near certainty. They definitely want to do that, because the fact of the matter is that you’re only as alive as you can communicate with others.

If you can’t get your thoughts or news of what’s going on out to other people, you might as well be sealed in a tomb. It makes sense that people who want to control other people want to cut down on popular means of communication. They’ll find excuses to keep what they consider to be unsound views off the internet. It’s already happened in regard to the so-called pandemic. Contrary views, no matter how well-reasoned and factual, even from renowned sources, are quashed. Dissent, or even discussion, isn’t tolerated. You’ll find that spread to all other areas of intellectual and political discourse.

We already can’t travel easily; domestic flights are inconvenient, and international flights are down about 85%. Vaccine passports are on the way. In many places, we can’t gather, even in small groups. And of course, the next big thing - the big thing - is a heavily controlled internet. At that point, all you’ll have is what you’re told officially and what you can see in your own little local area. These people are all about quashing communication. It’s a great formula, critical, really, for control. They don’t want people organizing to challenge them.

In Biden’s recent speech, he several times made out the unvaxxed as a potential enemy - a domestic danger. It’s no coincidence that the people who don’t want to take the jab correlate strongly with people with conventional right-wing views, Trump voters, and cultural conservatives. The battle lines are drawn. It’s really turned into a class and ideological war.

They’re playing the health card with this COVID nonsense. They’re playing the race card and domestic terror card. They’re succeeding in delegitimizing American values and history, as well as masculinity in general and white males in particular. Next will be a reemphasis on the Global Warming scam. You plebs won’t be allowed to do anything, and most will go along with it because they’ve been indoctrinated over several generations to believe it’s right. The elite are doing everything in their power to ramp up fear. Fear for your health, fear of domestic terror, fear of the non-compliant, and fear of the climate destroying the planet. As I discussed previously, fear is the most powerful tool that governments have to control the people. That's what governments are all about. They thrive on fear. Fear is the health of the State.

International Man: What can the average person do to protect themselves from these disturbing trends?

Doug Casey: In Solzhenitsyn’s 'Gulag Archipelago', he talks about how, when they're all together in the Gulag under the worst possible conditions, they said, "If we had only known, when they came to round us up as individuals… if we'd only grabbed a frying pan, or a pipe, or a rock and attacked these criminals..." But they were afraid. And they didn't think that things could possibly be as bad as they turned out to be.

It’s understandable that they were hesitant to attack the state apparatchiks when going off to the Gulag, just as the Jews rarely attacked the Gestapo when they were rounding them up to take them off to camps.

You naturally might think, "These people can't be that serious. These people can't be that bad…." And you’d be wrong. It takes a lot of physical courage to even think about these things. Why didn’t any of the nomenklatura around Stalin simply kill him? They all knew the odds were good he was going to kill them eventually. You'd think that any of the rats around him would have cut his throat.

But everybody's afraid to take physical action because we tend to be optimists. We tend to hope for the best, as we do right now. We hope that this will blow over, and maybe it will. But it boils down to what will you do, maybe five minutes from now, when you're confronted one-on-one with an apparatchik from the State who gives you an order.

What will you do? It's too dangerous to take physical action against the guy because it may bring down the whole weight of the State organization on you. So how do you resist? Well, unless you want to be a hero, the only thing I can think of is to have enough assets to insulate yourself from the bad guys or to move yourself physically to a different location.

We're headed into a very rough patch in US history, especially for the next three or four years."
* Related - Must Read!

"We See The World..."

 

Musical Interlude: James Taylor, "You Can Close Your Eyes"

James Taylor, "You Can Close Your Eyes"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Is this one galaxy or two? The jumble of stars, gas, and dust that is NGC 520 is now thought to incorporate the remains of two separate disk galaxies. A defining component of NGC 520 - as seen in great detail in the featured image from the Hubble Space Telescope - is its band of intricately interlaced dust running vertically down the spine of the colliding galaxies. A similar looking collision might be expected in a few billion years when our disk Milky Way Galaxy to collides with our large-disk galactic neighbor Andromeda (M31). 
The collision that defines NGC 520 started about 300 million years ago. Also known as Arp 157, NGC 520 lies about 100 million light years distant, spans about 100 thousand light years, and can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Fish (Pisces). Although the speeds of stars in NGC 520 are fast, the distances are so vast that the battling pair will surely not change its shape noticeably during our lifetimes."

Chet Raymo, "Seeing"

"Seeing"
by Chet Raymo

"There was a moment yesterday evening when the elements conspired to evoke these few lines, spoken by Macbeth:

            "Light thickens,
    And the crow makes wing to the rooky woods,
    Good things of day begin to droop and drowse."
The fading light. The crows gliding down the fields to the trees in Ballybeg:
            "Light thickens,
    And the crow makes wing to the rooky woods,
    Good things of day begin to droop and drowse."

It's all there, in those few lines- the mysterious power of poetry to infuse the world with meaning, to anoint the world with a transforming grace. One could spend an hour picking those lines apart, syntax and sound, sense and alliteration. The t's of light thickening, tongue against the teeth. The alar w's making wing. The owl eyes of the double o's. The d's nodding into slumber - day, droop, drowse.

The poet Howard Nemerov says of poetry that it "works on the very surface of the eye, that thin, unyielding wall of liquid between mind and world, where somehow, mysteriously, the patterns formed by electrical storms assaulting the retina become things and the thought of things and the names of things and the relations supposed between thing." It works too in the mouth, in the physical act of speech - tongue, teeth, those d's gliding deeper into the darkness of the throat.

I stand in the gloaming garden and the black birds glide, down, down to Ballybeg, and I marvel that with so few syllables Shakespeare can- across the centuries- teach me how to see.”

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Mysteries, Yes"

"Mysteries, Yes"

"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads."

~ Mary Oliver

“6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful”

“6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful”
by Nicolas Perrin

“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.”
~ Mary Catherine Bateson

“It was a balmy spring morning and I started my day as per usual, but I soon realized that my mind was entertaining fearful thoughts about my financial insecurity. With many new ventures within the seedling stage, my income flow was erratic and unpredictable, while my financial responsibilities were consistent and guaranteed. At the time I ignored these thoughts as “petty,” like a parent dismissing a crying child after a mild fall on the pavement.

What I didn’t realize was that my mind wanted to entertain these fear-based thoughts like a Hollywood blockbuster, and as you may know, what you focus on expands. Before I knew it, my body was in a state of complete anxiety and fear. I literally felt my cognitive and creative centers shutting down. I felt completely powerless, a hostage to my own mind. My body felt paralyzed, and I felt disconnected from my talents and gifts. I felt separate, isolated, and vulnerable. I became a victim of the fear. In this moment I realized the powerful impact thoughts can have on how we feel, mentally and physically. Here is what unfolded through me, and the lessons I treasured from this experience.

Fear is a closed energy, referred to as inverted faith. Fear exists when we do not trust our connection to the infinite part of who we are and buy into a story about what’s unfolding in our life. The emotions we feel are created from the thoughts that we choose to focus on, consciously or unconsciously. The emotions act as markers to let us know if we are focusing on expansive, empowering thoughts or fearful, limiting thoughts.

If I were to relate this in a story, it may be like a pilot believing he no longer had any guidance or support from the airport control tower in a large storm, and no instruments on board to detect if he was on a collision course with another airplane. If the control tower represents the infinite part of who we are, which always knows what’s best for us, it can be understandable why the pilot with no other guidance except for his own eye sight would be fearful of the situation at hand. An alarm on the plane beeping at the pilot would represent the emotions. The alarm’s purpose is to get the attention of the pilot so he can focus and realize he is off the path. Once our emotions start to take a grip of our physical body, what can we do to move from a state of limitation and fear into an open, tranquil, peaceful state?

1. Come back to the present moment. The first step is to bring your awareness to the present moment. To do this, take three deep breaths through your nose and exhale through your mouth. After the air has filled your lungs and you’ve felt your stomach rise, exhale through your mouth by forcing the air through your teeth, as if you were hissing out loud. This detoxifies your body from the heavy emotions you’re experiencing and brings you back into the present moment. When I do this, I place my awareness into my feet so I am in a feeling space within my body, rather than being in my mind, entertaining the stories that swirl around with vigor, like a dangerous hurricane. Imagine that all your emotions are in a large sludge bucket. This breathing technique will empty the bucket out so you are empty and free.

2. Put things in perspective. Now that you are present, acknowledge the experience and ask yourself this question: “What is the worst case scenario that can happen to me?” Once we can accept this and realize we will be okay if that happens, we are free from the fear. When I realized I’d blown things out of proportion with my fears, I was able to detach from the story and put things into perspective. I like to imagine that in every moment I have two wolves I can feed (per the Native American myth): the fear wolf or the love wolf. The one that gets stronger and wins is the one I feed.

3. Become an observer of your thoughts. What has served me well in moments like this is to say, “I’m not these thoughts. I’m not these emotions. I’m not this body. I’m an infinite being having a human experience.” In saying this, we immediately detach from the story and allow ourselves the choice of suffering or to become the observer. Imagine that your life is represented in a book, and the story you are living out comes from the words on the page. We can change the words of the story at any point in time.

4. Change your experience. The fourth step is to place your awareness and your right hand on the heart center, which is located near the sternum. Close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and make the following command: “I am now connected to the infinite part of who I am, which already knows how to be whole and complete. I take full responsibility and accountability for this creation, I recognize how it has served me, and I am now ready to let it go. I command that the fear energy be transmuted into unconditional love now. Thank you. It is now done.” This process is incredibly empowering. We allow ourselves the opportunity to experience being our own inner master and a co-creator of our reality.

5. Prevent your mind from sabotaging you. Visualize a stone being thrown into a pond. Observe the ripples it creates when it enters the water. This is to simply distract your mind and allow the process to unfold without doubt or self-sabotage. It is only our mind that can interfere with our own healing.

6. Be grateful. Express gratitude and appreciation for the integration and healing you have received. The key to happiness is awareness. When we become aware that our mind is wandering, we can gently bring it back to the present moment. It’s only in the present moment that we are empowered and can consciously choose the thoughts we engage with. The thoughts we focus on will determine where our energy flows, and thus what is created in our life. Each thought has a vibration, which is reflected by the feeling we experience in our body. To be able to move from a fear-based experience to an open, peaceful experience we must first take full responsibility and accountability that on some level we created the experience, and nobody else is to blame. The choice is truly ours. Do we choose to experience a fearful, limited life or do we choose a happy joyful life?"
Reduce fear, good. Reduce stress also...
Full screen recommended.
Marconi Union, "Weightless"
"Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song 
Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent"
Think more clearly...
"Cognition Enhancer For Clearer and Faster Thinking - 
Isochronic Tones"
Full screen recommended.
"This session stimulates Beta, SMR and Alpha to train your 
brain for better cognition, such as clearer and faster thinking."

The Daily "Near You?"

Holly Springs, North Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The U.S. Economy In a Nutshell: When Critical Parts Are On 'Indefinite Back Order,' the Machine Grinds to a Halt"

"The U.S. Economy In a Nutshell: When Critical Parts 
Are On 'Indefinite Back Order,' the Machine Grinds to a Halt"
by Charles Hugh-Smith

"Setting aside the “transitory inflation” parlor game for a moment, let’s look at what happens when critical parts are unavailable for whatever reason, for example, they’re on back order or indefinite back order, i.e. the supplier has no visibility on when the parts will be available. If the part that blew out is 0.1% of the entire machine, and the other 99.9% still works perfectly, the entire machine is still dead in the water without that critical component. That is a pretty good definition of systemic vulnerability and fragility, a fragility that becomes much, much worse if there are two or three components which are on indefinite back order.

This is the problem with shipping much of your supply chain overseas: you create extreme systemic vulnerability and fragility even as you rake in big profits from reducing costs. Speaking of costs, let’s look at the costs of having a large, costly, complex mechanism sitting idle in a non-functioning state due to some broken element for which there is no substitute available. Whatever productive capacity the mechanism, process, etc. had is now stuck at zero.

Buying a new replacement is extremely costly, and that’s not always available for all the same reasons that parts and components aren’t available. Finding someone to fabricate a new component is not easy due to the wholesale transfer of manufacturing moxie and capability overseas.

You might be able to find someone to weld a replacement strut, but try finding someone to fab a new bicycle derailleur or better yet, a multilayer semiconductor chip. What about 3-D fabrication? Doesn’t that solve this problem? If the part can be “printed,” yes, but there are limits on what can be 3-D fabbed. You can’t 3-D fab a complex thermostat or controller, for example. You can’t 3-D fab a rubber gasket, either, or a great many other bits of petrochemical-based manufacturing.

Scarcities are not limited to parts and components; skilled people can be scarce, too. For example, there is a limited supply of ICU doctors and nurses. The training required to work in an ICU is specialized and experiential; throwing someone with minimal training in is not a substitution that’s going to work. You can’t order an ICU staff from China or print one digitally the way the Federal Reserve creates currency out of thin air. It takes many years to train the staff to function at a high level in ICU. A great many such labor scarcities exist for skilled workers who cannot be replaced except by someone with the same training and years of experience. This is one reason ICUs can break down: there is no replacement staff available, and no way to “print more.”

It turns out there’s also a scarcity of people willing to do the dirty-work jobs America needs done for wages that haven’t kept up with inflation. As I have explained here, the $1.65 minimum wage I earned in 1970, if factored for real-world inflation, is around $18 per hour, and arguably closer to $20 per hour. The solution is to raise the pay to levels that attract workers, but then this requires raising prices on the good and services to the point that customers can no longer afford them.

But wait, can’t we automate all work and deliver full-gee-whiz free-money, no-work communism to everyone? I invite everyone who reckons this is in the realm of the do-able to design, program and manufacture an automated robot that can trundle out to the laundry room, pop open a broken clothes dryer, diagnose the problem, manage to find a new controller board, fit it correctly and properly reconnect all the little wiring bits, close it up, test it, lift the dryer back on the washing machine and do all that for the relatively modest cost of a human repairperson. When you accomplish fabricating and programming that robot to do all the work without instruction or oversight, by all means let us all know how much it cost to design, program and manufacture, what the payback of the development and manufacturing process will cost amortized over the (short) life of the robot and how reliable it is in the real world.

The point is, fantasies are nice but reality is far more demanding. There can also be scarcities of competence. There may be replacements who claim competence, but when reality intrudes on the shuck-and-jive, their competence was illusory, and the net result is the entire institution can be described by President G.W. Bush’s memorable phrase, this sucker’s going down.

There can also be scarcities of institutional infrastructure and capacity. Once the institution, enterprise, state agency, etc. has been stripmined of redundancy, institutional memory and competence, then the first scarcity that cannot be replaced is the first domino that topples all the other dominoes of systemic vulnerability and fragility.

The Federal Reserve can print trillions of dollars and the federal government can borrow and blow trillions of dollars, but neither can print or borrow supply chains, scarce skills, institutional depth or competence. That nice shiny new semiconductor fab you reckon will resolve the chip shortage? You can print the billions of dollars needed in an instant, but the machinery, expertise and time can’t be conjured quite so easily. That fab is years away from completion no matter how many freshly conjured dollars you throw into the air.

When Critical Parts Are On “Indefinite Back Order,” the Machine Grinds to a Halt: that’s the U.S. economy in a nutshell. A great many essential components in America are on indefinite back order, including the lifestyle of endless globally sourced goodies at low, low prices. That lifestyle is out of stock and cannot be replaced with financialization fakery.

Hey, Federal Reserve, can you conjure up a non-corrupt financial system, a domestic supply chain, and an economy of open competition, transparency, accountability and competence? If not, you are even more worthless than we feared."