Monday, October 18, 2021

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/18/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/18/21"

"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.
 October 17th to 18th, 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...

Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 10/18/21"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/18/21:
"Risk In This Market Is Rising; No Fear, No Panic!"
Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/18/21:
"Billionaire Investor Warns: 'Market Will Hit A Wall.' 
Economy Continues To FREE-FALL"

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Must Watch! “Economy Has Been Shredded; Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think; FED intervention Not Working”

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/17/21:
“Economy Has Been Shredded; Economic Crisis Is 
Worse Than You Think; FED intervention Not Working”
Related:
"The point is, through policies of mass dollar debasement, we’ve now entered the next stage of the mass repricing of goods and services in the economy.  The price of just about everything will adjust upward by several hundred percent – or much, much more – over the next decade. Pre-pandemic prices are gone forever…and your savings, investments, retirement, purchasing power, and the quality of life that you’ve spent a life time planning and working for will be shredded."


Greg Hunter, "Deep State Cannot Stop Unprecedented Awakening"

"Deep State Cannot Stop Unprecedented Awakening"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Award winning journalist Alex Newman says, “The Deep State globalists cannot stop the “unprecedented awakening going on in America.” Newman, who wrote the popular book called “Deep State: The Invisible Government Behind the Scenes,” explains, “Everybody knows that the press is lying. Nobody believes the press anymore. ‘Let’s go Brandon.’ Everybody knows this is absolutely absurd. The point is not to make people believe these absurdities anymore. The point now is to demoralize people and to really silence us. That’s what’s going on with sicking the FBI and DOJ on parents complaining about hate being taught to their children, and that’s what’s going on with the propaganda. They want to silence us. They want to intimidate us. They want to bully us, and they want to terrorize us into staying quiet. AG Garland said all these parents are intimidating and harassing school boards. What could be more intimidating than sicking one of the world’s most powerful law enforcement agency on parents expressing their concern? I can’t think of more things that would be more intimidating than that. So, the irony is off the charts, but the goal here is to silence people into submission.”

Newman says the threats and bullying are backfiring and is not working in the least. There is good news, and Newman explains, “They trot out these people to demoralize us and to scare us and make us think that everything is over. Just keep your head down and comply, but it’s not working. It is absolutely not working. We have an awakening going on in this country, there’s an awakening that is happening here that is unprecedented in the modern history of this country. It is such good news, but now we are in a race against time. They are trying to collapse the supply chain and trying to implode everything before enough people wake up and do something about it.”

Newman points out that since 2016, the Deep State has been losing the narrative and losing badly. Newman explains, “The entire propaganda machine was non-stop bombarding Americans with anti-Trump propaganda, and Americans went to the polls. Even with all the voter fraud in 2016, Trump still won in an Electoral College landslide. That’s how much they have lost control of the narrative. They thought by shadow banning us and rigging their algorithms, people should not come across our information. That failed, and that’s why they had to ban you. This is why they had to ban thousands of top content creators that were making huge amounts of money for them. They have lost total control of the narrative, and they are left with what can they blow up and what can they do to scare us? What can they do to make us think we are all alone, and that’s exactly what we are seeing right now, and it is crystal clear. I think everybody should be able to see this at this point.”

In closing, Newman points out how weak the Deep State really is and says, “Their entire narrative is based on lies, deception, trickery and intrigue. When you examine it closely, it all falls apart. It’s true with the clot shots. It’s true with the mandates. It’s true with the schools. It’s true with the courts, and it’s true with everything that they are doing. They have to rely on lies. The Bible says the devil is the father of lies.”

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with award winning journalist Alex Newman, founder of LibertySentinel.org and author of the recent popular book “Deep State.” 

"Shortages Have Begun At Our Local Supermarkets As The Global Energy Crisis Goes From Bad To Worse"

Full screen recommended.
"Shortages Have Begun At Our Local Supermarkets 
As The Global Energy Crisis Goes From Bad To Worse"
by Epic Economist

"Another tough winter is coming for Americans and on top of everything else our country has been facing recently, our supply chain problems are about to escalate to a whole new level as a very alarming energy crisis is rapidly spreading all over the world. Supplies for energy, mainly natural gas and coal, are getting increasingly tighter and prices are surging at breakneck speed. This is causing a power shortage that is dramatically affecting manufacturing in major exporting countries, including China. As a result, the flow of goods from one nation to another is getting even more strained just as we started to approach the busiest shopping season of the year, which means that shortages in our stores are going to become a whole lot worse. US consumers are already witnessing empty shelves all around the country, and we may have to deal with even more shortages in the coming weeks, given that more and more goods are disappearing from inventories and never being restocked. Industry experts have been calling this phenomenon "the everything shortage," and ever since it began last year, it has been intensifying with each passing week.

Shoppers have been describing that every time they go to their local grocery stores, a wider range of products isn't available. Some consumer favorites cannot be found anywhere at this point, and customers are getting increasingly frustrated. In Charleston, West Virginia, local reports describe that at the Bigley Piggly Wiggly the entire bottled drink section is close to empty. “Who would think that a Gatorade shortage would be a problem to get in the store? But apparently, it is and it is something that we have been wrestling with for quite some time now,” said Jeff Joseph, store owner. The entire market is facing a shortage of plastic bottles. According to industry insiders, a variety of issues have been aggravating the problem in recent months and making it more difficult to keep shelves fully stocked.

The United States has been facing a plastic shortage since August 2020, and due to factory shutdowns, wildfires, and shipping delays, the issue was never resolved. Supply chain challenges are different week to week, that's why most grocers are having a hard to predict what items will be missing so that they could place their orders in advance. “One week we may have the plastic items in and the pet food section is suffering. The next week it may be boxed goods. So you just kind of, it really just depends and we don’t know at this point,” Joseph added.

We have never seen such extensive shortages in the US, but everyone in the industry keeps telling us that the worst is yet to come. With all that in mind, the reason why shortages aren’t going to go away any time soon becomes more evident. There's no easy way to fix these bottlenecks. Some say we will keep facing supply chain challenges for at least the next two to three years - but that only in case things don't get even worse in the near future. To make things even more complicated, an acute shortage of coal is sending energy prices to sky-highs. In China, the coal shortage and rising energy prices have caused extensive power outages on a scale unseen in more than a decade, which has prompted some cities to turn off traffic lights to conserve power.

But the impact on manufacturing is truly alarming. Some say this is the most dramatic energy crisis in modern times. In recent weeks, Chinese officials have begun a much more aggressive rationing program, with factories only allowed to use power for 1 or 2 days a week in all major manufacturing regions and other important heavy industrial, chemical, and energy-product hubs. As a consequence, China will be exported significantly fewer products to America, and our store shelves are only will get barer and barer. For years, specialists have been warning that outsourcing our production to China would put us in a crisis like this, but no one really listened. Now, these constant disruptions have become the new normal, and this means our future is going to be exceedingly painful. The widespread shortages are just beginning, and the global economy will never be the same after this."

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Children in Time"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Children in Time"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"It may look like a huge cosmic question mark, but the big question really is how does the bright gas and dark dust tell this nebula's history of star formation. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region NGC 7822 lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and dark shapes stand out in this colorful and detailed skyscape. 
The 9-panel mosaic, taken over 28 nights with a small telescope in Texas, includes data from narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. The emission line and color combination has become well-known as the Hubble palette. The atomic emission is powered by energetic radiation from the central hot stars. Their powerful winds and radiation sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes and clear out a characteristic cavity light-years across the center of the natal cloud. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cut off from their reservoir of star stuff. This field of view spans over 40 light-years across at the estimated distance of NGC 7822."

"How Do We Know What We Want: Milan Kundera on the Central Ambivalences of Life and Love"

"How Do We Know What We Want: Milan Kundera
 on the Central Ambivalences of Life and Love"
by Maia Popova

“Live as if you were living already for the second time,” Viktor Frankl wrote in his 1946 masterwork on the human search for meaning, “and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” And yet we only live once, with no rehearsal or reprise - a fact at once so oppressive and so full of possibility that it renders us, in the sublime words of Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, “ill-prepared for the privilege of living.” All the while, we walk forward accompanied by the specters of versions of ourselves we failed to or chose not to become. “Our lived lives,” wrote psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his magnificent manifesto for missing out, “might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live. But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are.” We perform this existential dance of yeses and nos to the siren song of one immutable question: How do we know what we want, what to want?

Czech-French writer Milan Kundera examines our ambivalent amble through life with unparalleled grace and poetic precision in his 1984 novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (public library) - one of the most beloved and enduringly rewarding books of the past century.

Because love heightens all of our senses and amplifies our existing preoccupations, it is perhaps in love that life’s central ambivalences grow most disorienting - something the novel’s protagonist, Tomáš, tussles with as he finds himself consumed with the idea of a lover he barely knows: 

"He had come to feel an inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger.
[…]
But was it love? … Was it simply the hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it? … Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love."

The woman eventually becomes Tomáš’s wife, which only further affirms that even the rightest choice can present itself to us shrouded in uncertainty and doubt at the outset, its rightness only crystallized in the clarity of hindsight. Kundera captures the universal predicament undergirding Tomáš’s particular perplexity:

"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
[…]
There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture."

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being," it bears repeating, is one of the most life-magnifying books one could ever read. Complement this particular point of inflection with Donald Barthelme on the art of not-knowing and Adam Phillips on the rewards of the unlived life."

The Daily "Near You?"

Waynesville, North Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: Critical Must Know Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, 10/17/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: Critical Must Know Updates"

"Being Poor Ain't Cheap"

"Being Poor Ain't Cheap"
by Joshua Wilkey

"Poor people are cash cows.

It makes no sense, really. One would think that poor people, by virtue of being poor, would not be profitable customers. However, for many large corporations that target the poor and working poor, there's big money to be made on the backs of those who have no money.
At Dollar General Store locations, customers can get cash back on their purchases. This is not novel. In fact, most all retailers these days offer this option. Soccer moms get cash back so they can have lunch money for their children. Restaurant patrons can get money back to leave a cash tip for their servers. I sometimes get cash back at the grocery store so I can buy Girl Scouts cookies on the way out. It's a simple process. Click "yes" when the little screen asks for cash back, tap the $20 icon, and the cashier hands you some bucks along with your receipt. We've all done it. For those who are poor and those of us who are not but who have limited retail options, however, there's often a sinister catch.

I noticed this a few years ago, first at Dollar Tree, then at Dollar General. There's a little asterisk after the standard "would you like cash back?" prompt. The footnote indicates that "a transaction fee may apply." The transaction fee is usually $1 no matter the amount of cash back. If one opts to get $10 cash back, one is charged a dollar. That's a ten percent fee, for a service that costs the retailer nothing. It's just another way for retailers like Dollar General to make a profit off of their customers, many of whom are very often living below the poverty line.

If an organic grocer or movie theater were charging a fee of this sort, I would likely be annoyed by it, but I wouldn't be so annoyed that I would write about it. However, the poorest members of our communities do not shop at Whole Foods, and they do not often get a chance to go see the latest blockbuster at the theater. They can afford neither. In fact, they likely do not have either organic grocers or first-run theaters in their neighborhoods. Instead, they have Dollar General. Dollar General's stores grow like kudzo in rural America. Even if there isn't a real grocery store in most tiny communities, there's probably a DG.

These ridiculous transaction fees are but one example of how corporations make billions of dollars by taking advantage of socioeconomically disadvantaged customers with few options. There are many other examples, though, and politicians continue to allow it at the expense of their poorest and most marginalized constituents.
Payday lending is one of the most sinister ways that large corporations exploit poor people. For those who are not familiar, payday lending goes something like this: People who are running short on money but who have a verified record of regular income (whether it be Social Security, SSI, payroll, etc.) are able to go to payday lenders and receive a cash loan to be repaid on payday. Often, borrowers are unable to repay their full loan balances and simply “roll over” their loan until a future payday, accruing all sorts of fees and additional interest. The annualized interest rate on these loans is often in the triple digits. Yes, that’s right. Sometimes the annual interest rate is over one hundred percent.

In defense of this practice, many payday lenders and their high-dollar lobbyists argue that they are simply offering a service to poor borrowers that said borrowers cannot obtain anywhere else. This is partially true. The poorest members of society have no access to traditional forms of credit. Some even lack access to checking accounts because of low credit scores or a history of financial missteps.

I know some people who make occasional use of payday lending because they genuinely have emergencies arise that they could not address without a short-term infusion of cash. I also know people, including members of my own family, who have been riding the high-interest payday loan merry-go-round for years, and who have paid thousands more back than they have borrowed yet still owe more. In debating the role of payday lending in our communities, it is essential that we take a nuanced approach. Some form of short-term credit is necessary for those mired in poverty. However, it is flat-out immoral that we regulate payday lending so loosely in many places that people end up feeling crushed under the weight of small high-interest loans that they have no hope of ever repaying. Taking out a $1,000 payday loan should not mean a person becomes tied to tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Another egregious example of corporations exploiting the poor is rent-to-own retailing. Companies like Aaron’s and Rent-a-Center purport to offer a valuable service for the poor. Because those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum are seldom able to save for big-ticket items like appliances or furniture, these retailers offer a pay-by-the-month scheme that often requires no credit check and no money down. The result is that customers pay as much as three times the retail price of the item, assuming they are able to make payments until the item is paid for. When they are not able to maintain the payments, the retailers simply show up to repossess the items.

Like payday lenders, rent-to-own retailers argue that they provide a valuable service to poor consumers. However, many observers, myself included, conclude that some rent-to-own practices are ethically questionable and tend to target vulnerable consumers who need immediate access to essentials like appliances and bedding. In many states, companies are not required to disclose the final price of the items. Instead, they simply tell customers the amount of the monthly or weekly payments. Because companies call the arrangement "rent-to-own," in many places they are not required to disclose the amount of "interest" customers will pay because it technically isn't interest. When consumers can no longer afford the payments and have to return the item, they often get no credit for payments they have made even if they have paid substantially more than the item is worth. Many customers never realize that they are paying as much as three times the retail price for their items. Those who do realize it likely have no choice apart from going without a bed or refrigerator.

In some instances, state attorneys general have successfully sued major rent-to-own retailers for violating usury and consumer protection laws. However, because these retailers are covered generally by state laws rather than by federal laws, there exists a hit-and-miss patchwork of regulations. Some consumers enjoy greater protections than others. The only determining factor is their location. Those states with more corporation-friendly attorneys general are unlikely to see any activity that might force retailers to behave more ethically toward their customers, because such enforcements will result in a drop in profitability for the retailers. Many major corporations spend good money to be sure that politicians protect their interests rather than the interests of consumers. Rent-to-own retailers and payday lenders are no exception. The poor, of course, can’t afford lobbyists or political contributions.

There are some who will argue that the free market, not the federal government, is the best solution to corporations that exploit the poor. However, those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, especially the rural poor, do not live in anything resembling a free market. Also, it is important that we label the behavior of rent-to-own companies and payday lenders as what it is: exploitation.

In the hills of Appalachia, poverty is often the rule rather than the exception. One of the most poverty-stricken ZIP codes in the United States is Manchester, Kentucky. Manchester is located in Clay County, which has a population of just over 20,000 people. According to the most recent US Census data available, the per-capita income average between 2011 and 2015 was just $13,802 (less than half the national average) and 46% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Manchester, Rent-a-Center is often the go-to option for poor people looking to buy appliances or furniture. The county has a Walmart, but the nearest discount appliance and furniture dealers are miles away, too far for many to drive. There are some locally-owned options, but few in Clay County are able to pay cash for major purchases given the high rate of poverty and the low rate of employment.

In addition to the rent-to-own retailers, Clay County also has no less than five payday lenders, but only two traditional banks. Conveniently, the primary shopping center in Manchester currently houses a Dollar General, a Rent-a-Center, and two payday lending branches, all within feet of one another.

In places like Manchester, rent-to-own and payday lending outfits thrive. They do so often to the detriment of the poor folks who frequent their businesses. Those promoting the so-called free market approach might argue that customers are not forced to do business with these types of companies. However, given their dire financial circumstances and lack of available options, poor people in Manchester have little choice. They are excluded from participating in the wider world of commerce, often because of forces beyond their own control.

Manchester is not a rare exception. Particularly in central Appalachia, rent-to-own retailers are often the only option for poor people, and payday lenders outnumber banks by large measure. In addition to being food deserts, many poverty-stricken communities are retail deserts. In the most isolated rural areas in Appalachia, Dollar General is one of the only available retail options. Within ten miles of our house in rural Jackson County, NC, there are four Dollar General stores, and our community isn't even particularly isolated. Dollar General is the closest store to our home, and my wife and I tend to shop there by default because it is either that or a ten minute drive to the closest grocery store, or worse, a twenty minute drive into town. While we have the resources to go to town any time we want, many of our neighbors do not. The folks in the trailer park down the road often walk to Dollar General because they have few other options. This does not seem much like a free market driven by competition. Therefore, "free market" solutions simply do not work here.

Dollar General is, I believe, fully aware of the demographics of their shoppers. They know that there are often few ATMs near their locations, and their customers often lack access to traditional banking anyway and end up paying fees of three or four dollars to access their money at ATMs. Especially for people who depend on Social Security or SSI for their income, access to money is an important issue. Dollar General and similar retailers, it seems, understand this. Their solution is not to offer a resource for their customers but to profit from their customers’ limited access to funds. It's cheaper than an ATM, but it's a fee more affluent shoppers never have to think about. While there is nothing illegal about this, it is certainly morally questionable.

That’s the thing about the so-called free market. It makes no accounting for moral right or wrong. That, free market proponents allege, is up to the consumers. Poor consumers, however, still need to eat. They still need ovens and beds. Consumer choice and self-advocacy is often, like so many forms of social or political action, a full-stomach endeavor. When one is hungry, one’s ability to be an activist is diminished. When poor people have no choice but to do business with the greedy companies who reap a hefty profit from their customers' lack of options, those drawing the short straw simply do what they must to survive. Surviving is what poor people do best, and it makes for a miserable life. I know, because I have been there.

When poor people have little option but to do business with discount retailers who charge cash-back fees, rent-to-own retailers who charge inflated prices, and payday lenders who mire their customers neck-deep in impossible-to-pay-back high-interest loans, they are even less likely to ever escape poverty. The stark reality is that poor people often pay substantially more for essentials – bedding, appliances, housing – than would those of us with means. If my wife and I needed a new washer, we'd shop around for the best deal and go buy it. In fact, we might even buy it from Amazon Prime and get free two-day shipping. When my mother, who lived her entire life in poverty, needed a new washer, she was forced to buy one from a rent-to-own outfit that charged her an outrageous delivery fee and hassled her every time she was even a few hours late on a payment. She probably ended up paying $2,000 for a $450 washer. The poor do not have access to Amazon Prime like the rest of us because they can't afford a hundred bucks a year to subscribe. They do not get free delivery and obscenely low prices. They get fleeced.

The limited options available to those in poverty are rarely considered by the political ideologues who are so prone to victim-blaming. These retailers, who are all too often protected by state and federal lawmakers from both parties, package their predatory tactics as opportunities. What they are really selling are tickets on yet another segment of the poverty train. The politicians who protect them should be deprived of options and see just how much more expensive it is to survive. They should be ashamed for protecting those who profit from poverty, and those of us who know about it and have the resources to fight back should be ashamed for letting it happen to our neighbors."

"Insider View on the Supply Chain Issue: People Have No Idea What’s Coming"

"Insider View on the Supply Chain Issue:
People Have No Idea What’s Coming"
by Chris Black

"This is what a guy who works in retail told me yesterday: "The problems are many, starting with the insane margin requirements of Big Retail. Tell me why Target should get to make $65 on a $100 item? Amazon is the same. The average big box margin on most items is 55-60%. It doesn’t matter if it is online or a store.

There are exceptions, like some electronics where they only make 15-20%. Clothing margins are usually 70-80%. Jewelry is as high as 90%. I know for a fact that Crown Bolt pays a nickel for a machine screw they sell at Home Depot for $1.25. Most people have no idea how much air exists in the products they buy.

Most $100 items left a factory in China for less than $10. One of my competitors just said they can’t deliver product for next spring. In a seasonal business, that means you are out of business. I was supposed to get twelve containers last week, we got two. We’ve rerouted a lot of traffic to New York from LA, but the New York ports aren’t capable of handling the traffic of LA. So there are massive delays.

Rates are through the roof, and the publicly traded companies are buying out containers from smaller companies, offering $20k above spot just to get a container. The entire supply chain is toast.

I would love to make my stuff in the USA, but it is nearly impossible. We don’t have the textiles, molding machines, and workers. Where am I going to find 150 people to sew in a room? Plus the environmental regulations and standards make it really hard to even get something like that approved.

I did get a quote from an American manufacturer for one product. I was quoted $38. My wholesale price is $22 for a $50 retail. At $38, I’d have to set my wholesale at $50 to clear any meaningful profit. My retail partners would then put it at $115. I doubt any American consumer would pay $115 for the exact same product they could buy for $50, just so they can buy American.

I have been notified of 20% price hikes from my overseas factories. We used to factor in $1 per unit shipping cost, it is now $4. People also forget that there are still additional tariffs on top of the normal duty, 20%. The normal duty is 14%. So that is 34% on top of the FOB price. What was a $12 item with $1 shipping, and $1.68 duty. Is now $15 with $4 shipping, and $5 duty. $14.68 landed is now $24. That additional $10 represents $30 at retail. The $60 retail item is now $90. That isn’t 2% inflation. People have no idea what’s coming."

"I'm Sure..."

"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
 It's just been too intelligent to come here."
- Arthur C. Clarke

"It’s Time For All Good Men to Stop Fearing John Galt"

"It’s Time For All Good Men to Stop Fearing John Galt"
by Tom Luongo

“Who is John Galt?
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

"There comes a point in every person’s life when they have to reckon with the person in the mirror. Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going? Since the beginning of the COVID-9/11 story I’ve watched it break so many people who couldn’t answer these basic questions. The fear of the virus uncovered a lot about all of us. For many, unfortunately, it provoked their inner tyrant.

Last year, during the height of the COVID insanity after publicly hanging up on an unhinged Lee Stranahan live on Sputnik Radio I tweeted this out: "When you hit someone's existential fear that's when you uncover their inner tyrant. When something is beyond their capacity to understand, that's when they turn to projecting that fear on other people.

This is what was done to justify the lockdown."- Tom Luongo (@TFL1728) April 27, 2020

This wasn’t just directed at Lee, but it really was. The hard investigative journalist of February 2020 turned into a sniveling, state-worshipping baby by late April. Fear of death uncovered his Room 101. That incident, among others, eventually took down his radio show with certified stand-up guy, Garland Nixon. Today it’s a shadow of its former self.

I don’t know if my action was the catalyst for the changes that came, but I do know after that day nothing was the same. The sad truth is that Lee wasn’t alone. His collapse was just the most public version I ran into personally. When you buy into fear, you sell your reason. Gone is your skepticism as your world collapses. Your eyes focus on your next step too afraid to raise them to the horizon. There is no bigger picture, there is only the moment.

For 20 months now, we have lived among people terrorized by a story, not a virus but a story, that told them they are the heroes for being afraid and the skeptics are the villains. To save ourselves we just have to give up our humanity and submit to an authority incapable of telling us the truth. Because the truth is we had very little to actually fear.

These are the real villains, the Faucis, Bidens, Schwabs, Psakis, Trudeaus and anyone who still believes their patter. It was never about the disease, it was about control and the real damage being done to our psyches, our bodies and our communities, exactly as I argued to Lee on the radio eighteen months ago before I hung up on him.

They created the fear and then manipulated it into something violent. They preyed on our common decency and humanity, twisting it into something evil which is now plain for anyone who lifts his eyes off the ground to see.

Because vaccine mandates are the ultimate form of state violence, the death penalty notwithstanding. Once they had a large enough segment so terrorized they would rather die than admit they had been duped, those villains pushed the ultimate Hobson’s Choice on us: get the vaccine against COVID-9/11 and you can have your life back. But it was never their life to take in the first place. We gave it to them, hoping they weren’t as evil as many suspected.

It’s amazing how just one year after a summer of looting and burning over police brutality against a black man who overdosed on fentanyl, these same people are making excuses for even worse police violence against people walking around in sunshine unmasked. To them we are the Untermenschen, the unvaxxed, the unclean. And that makes their violence justified because, to them, we are the ones keeping things from getting back to normal.

Once the threat from COVID-9/11 was well established, rationality should have returned. But it hasn’t. Too many people are still stuck in Room 101, wedded to their shame over being duped by villains. They now wish death by COVID on those who refuse to get a shot for a virus that has a defined low probability of killing them and for which multiple therapeutic options are available. If they would just shut up, trust the science and let doctor’s practice medicine, life would really return to something close to normal.

But it’s increasingly obvious to enough people that these mandates don’t measure up to the threat of the virus. Every day it becomes clearer that this is about their fear of us seizing back the power we gave them.

To save themselves from The COVID they wish it on us, just like Winston Smith, who looked in the mirror and betrayed his love to serve a master who hates him as much as he hates himself. It doesn’t matter if the vaccines are ‘safe’ and ‘effective’ or not. I’m not here to argue that. That’s your personal choice, make it as you see fit. No blame. No shame. What’s important is that it is no one else’s choice.

Further, it’s not your personal choice to tell me that I can’t partake in civil society if I don’t get the shot or, like Joe Rogan, choose a different path to treating COVID-9/11 than you would. Joe Rogan asks Sanjay Gupta if it bothers him that CNN outright lied about Rogan taking horse dewormer to recover from covid. This is fantastic: pic.twitter.com/PEgJqIXhSD
- Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 14, 2021

Because Winston always had a choice. He could choose to face his fear and finally become a man, like Joe Rogan. Or he can project his fear onto real men and stay in his personal hell for all the world to laugh at:

"Hey @joerogan nice to hear you paused from gargling Goat Urine or whatever you did instead of overcoming your fear of the Vaccine, to call me "unhinged" for pointing out what terrified snowflakes you and your clown car of followers are.

 Here's the video that set off Mr. Afraid:" pic.twitter.com/gLOgKiWlGs
- Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) October 13, 2021

Watching this man’s Two Minutes of Hate is revealing of everything that is wrong with the COVID-9/11 story. And that same choice is now directly in our path, vaxxed or unvaxxed. COVID-9/11 is never going away. Neither will the flu, the common cold or any other virus endemic to the environment.

Life is risk and it belongs to those willing to face those risks to keep the world from breaking. Cower in fear if you like, but scapegoating the unvaxxed won’t save you. I saw this in March 2020 saying we have to be brave and celebrate everyone willing to go to work to make the things we need to treat the sick and protect the healthy.

In a real economy, everyone is an essential worker. This is because everyone contributes in their small way to the fully functional world that ensures the shelves are stocked, the energy flows and our meager triumphs over nature’s hostility to our presence remain in place.

For months now we have been openly threatened with having our lives taken away because we don’t have our party registration papers up to date. We’ve all wrestled, at some level, with our disbelief that things would degrade this badly and this quickly.

The Olbermensch tells us we can be friends again after we just get the damn shot. What he won’t admit is that we know he’s lying. Keith hates us for the mirror we hold up in front of him. Take a long look, that is the face of shame. Because ideals are judges. Those ideals only shame men capable of admitting it. The rest sink into solipsism and insanity.

In Rand’s novel, John Galt built the engine that could change the world. But he refused to give it to the world he lived in. The Olbermensches would just use it to perpetuate their power, their evil.

Who is John Galt? He’s that best version of ourselves that knows who we are, what we want and where we will end up. And it’s past time we stopped fearing the loss that comes with stating that directly.

The strike of the productive and the self-aware Rand envisioned is here. The airline pilots, an Ubermensch class of people if there is one in this sick, sad world, walked out over last weekend taking most of Southwest Airlines’ staff with them. The Olbermensches are furious, openly lying about what happened and castigating anyone who says otherwise. But we shouldn’t care. Just like we shouldn’t care that Sanjay Gupta, after Rogan’s shaming, was forced into a public Struggle Session to retain his place at CNN, proving to all the world that he is a man without principles, ideals or shame.

As I write this, on October 15th, vaccine mandates go into effect all around the Davos-controlled world. The choice is now in front of hundreds of millions of people. Becoming your own version of John Galt comes with loss. It means giving up something today to retain not just your integrity but provide strength to those not quite there yet.

Everything rests on giving them your consent. The Olbermensches do not negotiate, they bully. Bullies are cowards. Your consent today feeds their addiction to fear.

Previously I told you to quietly, “Just Say No” to them. Now I’m telling you that takes the form of withdrawing consent completely, risking today’s comfort for tomorrow’s benefit. The strength you display today is the foundation of a world we build back better than the one that is gone.

I had a good gig with Sputnik Radio. But I owed them nothing. But when the mask of civility fell, it was time to go. We all wear that mask at times but only with those worthy of reciprocating. All things come to an end, good and bad. What matters is who we choose to be, what we want and unafraid of where those choices lead us."

"How It Really Is"

 

Maybe...

"Only Human..."

"A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably
excuses himself to himself by saying, 'I'm only human, after all.'"
- Sydney J. Harris

Only human... compared to what?
"Whenever I hear  someone sigh and say life is so hard
I'm always tempted to ask 'Compared to what?'"
- Sydney J. Harris
Full screen recommended.
Billy Joel, "You're Only Human"

"Truth..."

"If Truth is taken away from us, then Right and Wrong are taken from us as well. If we don't know Right and Wrong, then we can't, we won't control ourselves, but will look to someone else to bring order through brute force and raw power. We will be controlled by a tyrant, and we will no longer be free."
- Frank Perettio

"Internet Sacred Text Archive"

“About Sacred-Texts”

“All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for, - real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope.”
- Max Müller, "Introduction to the Upanishads" Vol. II.

“This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language. This site has no particular agenda other than promoting religious tolerance and scholarship. Views expressed at this site are solely those of specific authors, and are not endorsed by sacred-texts. Sacred-texts is not sponsored by any religious group or organzation.

Sacred texts went live on March 9th, 1999. The traffic started to increase when sacred-texts was listed at Yahoo! under ‘Society and Religion | Texts’. In its first year of operation sacred-texts had about a quarter million hits. By 2004, it was receiving well over a quarter million hits per day.

Today, site traffic often exceeds a million hits a day. Sacred texts is one of the top 20,000 sites on the web based on site traffic, consistently one of the top 10,000 sites in Australia, the US and India, and is one of the top 5 most visited general religion sites (source: Alexa.com).

The texts presented here are either original scans from books and articles clearly in the public domain, material which has been presented elsewhere on the Internet, or material included under fair use conditions in printed anthologies.

Many of the texts included here were originally posted in ftp archives or on bulletin boards before the growth of the World Wide Web and have been lost. In some cases, the texts were posted in such a form as to make them unusable by non-technically oriented users. Some of these texts were on the web at some point but have completely disappeared because the site they were posted on has closed. Thus the need for an archive which organizes this material in a persistent location.

From the start, we have had a special focus on remedying the under-representation of traditional cultures on the Internet. The site has one of the largest collections of transcriptions of complete books on Native American, Pacific, African, Asian and other traditional people’s religion, spiritual practices, mythology and folklore. While many of these pre-20th century books are flawed due to orientalist or colonialist biases, they are also eye-witness accounts by reliable observers, typically at the moment of contact. These texts are crucial to the study of tribal traditions, and in many cases, the only link with the past. Locked up in academic libraries for decades, sacred-texts has made them freely accessible anywhere in the world.

We have scanned hundreds of books which have all been made freely accessible to the world. A comprehensive bibliography of the texts scanned at sacred texts is available here. https://www.sacred-texts.com/stbib.htm

We welcome email regarding typographical or factual errors in any file at sacred-texts. Please write us if you spot an error; include the URL and a few lines of context so we can pin down the location.

While all due care has been taken in the reproduction of the texts here, none of the texts or translations here are represented to be sanctioned by any particular religious body or institution. We welcome advice as to errors of fact or transcription.

Some of the material here may be copyrighted. It is our hope that the copyright holders may allow these texts to be posted here in the public interest. If you are the copyright holder of record of a text which you believe has been archived at this site in error, please contact us at the email address listed at the bottom of this page. We have made a good-faith effort to determine the provenance of each text and apologize if we have posted a text in error. Note: If you are requesting the removal of a file, you must be the copyright holder of the file, and you must specify the exact URL of the file.”

Fascinating, an absolute treasure trove! Enjoy!

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 51,400 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.

The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors’ need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.

The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.

We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home.”

"Luminarium"

“I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world, and to comfort noble hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does not regard: it's life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart's delight and its pain of longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved.”
- Gottfried Von Strassburg

A treasure for those who love the language...

The Poet: James Broughton, "Having Come This Far"

"Having Come This Far"

"I've been through what my through was to be,
I did what I could and couldn't.
I was never sure how I would get there.
I nourished an ardor for thresholds,
for stepping stones and for ladders,
I discovered detour and ditch.
I swam in the high tides of greed,
I built sandcastles to house my dreams.
I survived the sunburns of love.

No longer do I hunt for targets.
I've climbed all the summits I need to,
and I've eaten my share of lotus.
Now I give praise and thanks
for what could not be avoided,
and for every foolhardy choice.
I cherish my wounds and their cures,
and the sweet enervations of bliss.
My book is an open life.

I wave goodbye to the absolutes,
and send my regards to infinity.
I'd rather be blithe than correct.
Until something transcendent turns up,
I splash in my poetry puddle,
and try to keep God amused."

- James Broughton

"The Monstrous Thing..."

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."
- Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer”

"Subway Sandwich Is Disgusting; Talking To Zombies; You Will Lose Your House And Be Happy"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/16/21:
"Subway Sandwich Is Disgusting; Talking To Zombies;
 You Will Lose Your House And Be Happy"