Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/28/21:
"Meltdown: More Proof That The Economy Is In Collapse"
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Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/28/21:
"Markets: Caution Advised... Look For These Things To Happen"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, October 28, 2021
"Every Single Day..."
"When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour were longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over."
- Natalie Kusz
Greg Hunter, "Interest Rates will Skyrocket if Fed Keeps Printing Money – Michael Pento"
"Interest Rates will Skyrocket if Fed
Keeps Printing Money – Michael Pento"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"In June, economist and money manager Michael Pento warned the Fed was going to kill the economy by “tapering” the easy money policies. Instead, the Fed ignored inflation, which is obviously not transitory and has kept the money printing going. Now, Pento says it’s coming down to one issue for the Fed. Pento explains, “If the Fed does not taper, yields will skyrocket. That will destroy the economy and kill the real estate market.”
Pento goes on to point out how bad inflation from trillions of dollars of Covid money printing really is in the real world. Pento explains, “Why work and get exposed to Covid 19 when they can stay home, do noting and buy stuff online. That’s your real problem. That’s why you have inflation, if you measured it accurately, close to 14%. Almost 14% inflation, that’s the highest we have seen in 40 years.”
Don’t expect China to get the global economy going like it did after the 2008 meltdown either. Pento says, “What they cannot do is repeat what they did in 2008. The global economy is slowing. It’s going to go over a massive fiscal and monetary cliff, the biggest since WWII, and there is not a darn thing China can do about it. They can ring-fence the problem with Evergrande and other construction and real estate companies. They cannot tell the Chinese citizens home prices are already stalling and falling because of the over-built condition of the bubble. So, we are going to go on an expedition to build more? No, you cannot.”
When does Pento think the markets will come under big downside pressure? Pento says, “The average amount of money printed by Mr. Powell and given to Wall Street to gamble with in the stock market is $250 billion each and every month. That’s the average, and that’s going to zero by June of 2022. That is the biggest monetary cliff we have ever seen heading into an economy already suffering from stagflation. If you wanted to kill an economy, you would perpetuate inflation, threaten to raise people’s taxes and you would raise the cost of borrowing, in other words, raise interest rates. All three of those things are happening. The odds of a major liquidity crisis happening in the first half of 2022 should lead to a stock market decline and the freezing of the repo market, credit market and the Fed Funds market. A credit market crisis is a Siamese twin to a stock crisis.”
Pento predicts that if the Fed comes back in with another round of money printing, “interest rates are going to go bonkers to the upside, and that’s what I am watching. This is not going to end well. The salient fear out there is a stock market collapse and a liquidity crisis.”
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with economist
and money manager Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
“McDonalds Hazardous To Your Health; Bank Accounts Off Limits To IRS; Economy Contracting; Jobless”
Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/27/21:
“McDonalds Hazardous To Your Health;
Bank Accounts Off Limits To IRS; Economy Contracting; Jobless”
"When We Least Expect It..."
"When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. "
- Paulo Coelho
"Perhaps..."
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death, ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."
- James Baldwin
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Stardust"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation, "Stardust"
"Relaxing fantasy music with beautiful night skies filled with stars.
This soothing instrumental music is called "Stardust" by Peder B. Helland."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Do you see the bat? It haunts this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. While the Veil is roughly circular in shape and covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), NGC 6995, known informally as the Bat Nebula, spans only 1/2 degree, about the apparent size of the Moon. That translates to 12 light-years at the Veil's estimated distance, a reassuring 1,400 light-years from planet Earth.
In the composite of image data recorded through narrow band filters, emission from hydrogen atoms in the remnant is shown in red with strong emission from oxygen atoms shown in hues of blue. Of course, in the western part of the Veil lies another seasonal apparition: the Witch's Broom Nebula."
Chet Raymo, “The Silence”
“The Silence”
by Chet Raymo
“The hiding places of my power
Seem open; I approach, and then they close;
I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,
May scarcely see at all, and I would give,
While yet we may, as far as words can give,
A substance and a life to what I feel…”
“These few lines from Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” leapt off the page at me. They capture well enough what my life has become. All those years of teaching, of writing in the Boston Globe, were years of sharing public knowledge, knowledge that had been vetted by the scientific community. The work was not about me. The teacher was me, the writer was me, but what I taught and wrote was reliable, consensus knowledge of the world. A student in my classes or a reader of my newspaper columns would have been hard pressed to know my politics or my religion or the nature of the questions that came in the darkest hours of the night. And that is the way it should have been; that was my homage to objectivity.
Those were valuable years, years of building up a sturdy polder in the sea of mystery, a place to stand with a firmness of foot. And now, in retirement, with time on my hands- and on my mind- I find myself more inclined to explore what Wordsworth called “the hiding places of my power.” I approach. They close. I touch with my hand the surface of the pond that Pat wrote about the other day; my hand comes out of the depths to meet me. I see by glimpses. It is, I suppose, a kind of forgetting. With the forgetting comes a certain freshness. My fingertip touches the surface of the world from above and from below, and concentric circles spread outwards, rippling, like a soundless sound, and I struggle, in words, as best I can, to give a substance and a life to what I feel.
This does not mean, I trust, that I am going soft, finding supernaturalist religion or getting all New Age squishy as “age comes on.” I keep my feet planted on solid fact and read my weekly “Science” and “Nature” along with my Wordsworth. No, it is rather a simple freedom to explore the hiding places, attending to private particulars as opposed to public universals, listening for the small voice that whispers from the nooks and crannies of yet unassimilated reality.
There is a passage in “The Prelude” where a young Boy (the poet?), standing in evening air by the glimmering lake, makes a mimic hooting with his hands to his mouth and the owls answer. Twooo-twooo. And the reply. Twooo-twooo. Then, unaccountably, the answers cease. And in the silence the boy becomes more keenly aware than ever of water, rocks, and woods, and mountain torrents, “that uncertain heaven, received into the bosom of the steady lake.” Thoreau has something similar. He rejoiced in owls; their hoot, he said, was a sound well suited to swamps and twilight woods. The interval between the hoots was a deepened silence, suggesting, to Thoreau, “a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized.” It is that that I now attend: the deepened silence between the hoots.”
Gerald Celente & Judge Napolitano, "Our Rights Are Being Robbed From Us. Is Freedom of Speech Next?"
Gerald Celente & Judge Napolitano,
"Our Rights Are Being Robbed From Us.
Is Freedom of Speech Next?"
"Go To The Stores And Stock Up Now Because The Mother Of All Depressions Is Coming In Weeks Or Months"
Full screen recommended.
"Go To The Stores And Stock Up Now Because
The Mother Of All Depressions Is Coming In Weeks Or Months"
by Epic Economist
"We're getting closer and closer to the mother of all economic depressions and its effects are about to bring about an unprecedented amount of turbulence, chaos, and despair to our modern society. The horror stories from the Great Depression of the 1930s are about to be repeated. Most preppers have that grim era burned into their minds as a stark reminder of how fast things can go wrong, even in the wealthiest country in the world. And today, global events are rapidly accelerating and things are spinning out of control at an alarming pace in the United States.
For decades, preppers had the Great Depression as a motivation and a reminder to get ready for dark times even before things start to go bad. But the truth is that this is the scenario all of us should be preparing for. Recently, several economists, financial analysts, and market watchers have been warning that another Great Depression is coming for us and it will throw us back into an era of poverty, hunger, and distress that is likely to start by the end of this year. Last year, when the health crisis struck America, the economy has fallen into a deep recession in a matter of days. Over 700,000 unemployment claims were filed within a few short months and the US GDP dropped by 31.4 percent in the second quarter -- the deepest and fastest collapse ever recorded.
However, due to the extraordinary amount of printed money artificially injected into the system by the Federal Reserve, our economy has become numb. These measures may have averted a greater collapse in the short term, but they created huge imbalances that are now threatening to bring the entire system down. Every dollar in those government stimulus checks was either created out of thin air by the Fed or borrowed from the Treasury. At some point, the consequences of having expanded our money supply by the trillions would start knocking at our doors. That's why now we're facing an inflationary spike like no other seen in modern times.
To make things worse, the price of essential goods, such as housing, has jumped to record-highs, so Americans now have to spend a lot more money to buy or rent a home. That also contributes to making the dollar weaker and inflation even more persistent. As our currency gets debased, we have to pay more for imported goods, such as oil. Consequently, gas prices are bound to surge, and car prices get more expensive too because we import a lot of cars from other countries.
Given the steep imbalances between supply and demand, prices are ruthlessly rising all around the world. Companies are having to pay more for energy and raw materials, so they pass along those costs to consumers. Higher gas prices and transport costs are also added to consumer prices. Therefore, even though we now have more dollars in the economy, our purchasing power has significantly declined. After inflation infiltrates the system, it starts to feed on itself and it takes off like a rocket.
Ever since the Fed stepped in with its monetary policies, our money supply has started to inflate by about one billion dollars per hour. On the other hand, our national debt is surging so rapidly that it's hard to keep track. By 2030, debt interest is expected to match and then exceed tax revenues. That means we will have to borrow and print more money to pay the interest on the money we borrowed and printed throughout the last recession. No wonder why so many economists say our economic system will meltdown way before that. All of this is making inflation even worse, and it might be too late for the government to get the situation back in control. The smart ones will be ready in advance for the Great Depression that is looming on the horizon.
The Depression of the 1930s caused a lot of damage to our country, but the next crisis will be far, far worse. Today our economy is much more interconnected, and if the U.S. goes down, the rest of the world will suffer too. No one will come to our rescue, especially now that all major economies are experiencing continued disruptions. Have you ever imagined what a world without enough energy for everyone looks like? Or without enough food? Have you ever considered what you will have to do to survive in a world of limited resources? Because that's what you should start thinking about right now. This is going to be our future, and most people remain unaware of the risks and threats that are coming for us. But you have been warned. So the only question left is: Are you prepared?"
"The Most Expensive Thanksgiving Ever! Wall Street Ignores Reality"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly PM 10/27/21:
"The Most Expensive Thanksgiving Ever!
Wall Street Ignores Reality"
"Every part of the Thanksgiving meal will cost you more this year. You will pay more for turkey, vegetables, gravy, desert and everything to prepare the meal. Your dollar gets you less and the stock market is at an all time high."
"God Speaks – Part IV"
"God Speaks – Part IV"
by Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "God vs. Man… the Trial of the Millennium. Just to bring new readers up to speed, God has been on the witness stand for three days. Today marks his fourth day of testimony. What we’ve learned so far is that God accepts the blame for the “system,” with its “planned obsolescence” for everything in it. But He specifically denies blame for “every dumb thing done by man.” This is important, because if man is to blame for the decline of America, for example, then he can also turn it around. Making America great again is then not just a campaign slogan, but a real possibility. But if the decline is just “in the cards,” as God put it on Monday, there is nothing that can be done.
Complicity of Man: God clarified yesterday that there are “soft” limits and there are “hard” limits. The soft limits – like the lifecycle of empires – require the complicity of man. As we saw, presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden were a godsend… if you wanted to bring America down a peg. Self-serving, stupid, and incompetent – history couldn’t have asked for more.
In 1999, the U.S. federal government owed only $5 trillion. Now, thanks to their efforts, it owes more than five times as much. And now, with so much debt, and so many people depending on government “transfer” payments, it cannot afford “normal” interest rates… It cannot stop “printing” new money… And it cannot fight inflation. It is now caught in a trap – Inflate or Die… U.S. leaders walked right into it. We can’t blame God for that one.
God’s Doing: The hard limits, meanwhile, do not require any help from man. An Ice Age or an asteroid impact… a real plague – these are God’s doing. It doesn’t matter what men do or what they think. Sometimes… up against these “hard” limits… empires collapse. And sometimes, whole civilizations are destroyed forever. Like the Olmec or the Khmers… all that remains are stone buildings peeking up through the jungly vines. And today, God warns that we, too, may be facing a hard limit as well as a soft one… God takes the stand…
Life Source: You people amaze me. So smart… but so dumb. Some of your dear readers even write in to say that they “don’t believe in God.” Or that “there is no God.” How do they know?
They don’t. They just want to believe that THEY are in charge… and don’t have to respect My limits. They just think it’s all a matter of “knowledge” and “technology,” like fixing a kitchen faucet. Just find the right inflation rate… the right interest rate… and the right amount of stimulus, and presto!… you don’t have to worry about spending more than you can afford. They even think they’re going to “Save the Planet” by controlling the Earth’s weather with carbon credits and windmills. Ha ha. Good luck with that. But that brings me to my point.
I made the Heavens and the Earth. It took Me six days. But then, it took millions of years to stock them with energy. All life comes from Me. And all life, if it has any sense, trembles before Me. I am the source of life… and death. Everybody dies. Every empire declines. Some of them disappear forever. And once in a while, when I lose my temper, I even bring on an Extinction Event. The last one, 66 million years ago, caused the extermination of 75% of all species.
So pay attention. With some very minor exceptions, all the world’s energy comes from My sun. And over millions of years – when the Earth was much warmer than it is today, by the way – the sun made plants grow… which gave animals something to eat. Is this too basic for you?
The point is, these plants and animals all died – as everything in My world does. And their bodies then decayed and got compressed… and eventually, turned into coal, oil, and gas. So essentially, almost all energy is solar energy. It is My energy.
Growth Spurt: For thousands of years, after eating, mating, and sheltering, man barely had any energy left for making progress. But all that changed when he figured out how to use those millions of years of stored-up solar power I gave him. In the 18th century, man saw that he could change the heat energy of coal, gas, and oil into the kind of energy you can use to turn wheels. And then, it was a whole new ballgame. That was the beginning of the biggest… and only… great “growth spurt” of progress in human history.
Now, you plow your fields with great tractors… and harvest your crops with huge combines. Factories – often equipped with robot labor – run night and day. When someone comes to clean your gutters or fix your plumbing, he arrives in a truck powered by an internal combustion engine… often with tools that also depend on power, ultimately, from fossil fuels. It was this “industrial revolution,” powered by millions of years of the sun… that raised standards of living all over the planet. But please understand, it was My sun that made it possible, not man’s creative genius. (Did I mention that man’s brain is getting smaller?)
Slowing Progress: But let me ask you something: Once you have an automobile, a microwave, and a leaf blower… what more do you need? And how much difference is there between an Allis-Chalmers tractor from 1970 and a John Deere or Massey Ferguson in 2021? Does the new climate-controlled cab make it more efficient? Or just more comfortable? And here’s the revelation: The growth spurt caused by the Industrial Revolution may have been a one-time thing.
England… America… Germany… Japan… China – wherever it was put to use, people got a big boost. But once you are making full use of fossil fuels, what do you do next? You can only use so many factories and so many tractors, trucks, and backhoes. Then what?
[We interrupt God, briefly, with corroborating testimony of our own. We’ve seen this process up close. When we bought our ranch in Argentina, there were no internal combustion engines on the place. None. And no electricity, either. Plowing, cultivating, harvesting – it was all done with horses and mules. Very picturesque, but not very productive. We brought in modern machinery – tractors, harvesters, solar panels. We saw an immediate increase in output. More hay, more cattle, more onions, and more grapes. But this increase took place over 24 months. Then, it was over. There has been no growth in output in the 10 years since then. Back to God…]
In other words, drawing on My stored-up energy, you were able to make progress faster than ever before. China was the last major economy to experience this “growth spurt;” it went from pre-industrial to post-industrial in less than two generations. But growth rates did not speed up permanently, only temporarily. And now, the machine is slowing down in almost all fully modern economies. And guess what? So is the use of fossil fuels. Here’s the World Economic Council, doing My work: "U.S. fossil fuel consumption is at its lowest in 30 years."
What does it mean? It means your big growth spurt, driven by fossil fuels, is over.
Expensive Promises: But wait… this hard limit might not matter so much, except… your democracy depends on growth. Take your Social Security system, for example. It only makes sense if each generation gets more out of it than it puts in. Otherwise, it might as well just save its own money.
Up to now, Social Security benefits could rise – thanks to an increase in the population (more people “contributing” to the system) and economic growth (as society got richer, it could afford to pay out higher pensions). The expectation of something for nothing became embedded in the whole system. Politicians promised voters of all ages more and more “free stuff,” counting on “growth” to catch up. Earlier retirement. Free medical care. Free education. Stimmy checks. Unemployment toppers. Housing, food, transportation assistance. Just this week, Chicago may enact a “basic income” program of $500 a month for 5,000 low-income households.
The Party’s Over: And now, the “birthing parents,” ha ha, just aren’t having as many children. And with the fossil fuel growth spurt over… coming on top of wars, bailouts, and boondoggles… all of the major economies now have debts and obligations that can’t be met – not honestly. All must default, either directly, by missing payments and cutting back on “transfers”… or indirectly, by inflating their currencies. All will choose inflation as the least-honest alternative.
Instead of getting what he has been promised, in other words, the common man will be ripped off even more. He’ll have to pay higher prices for everything. And he won’t be very happy about it. Remember the “insurrection” of January 6 on Capitol Hill? Well, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. The bottom line? You ignored My limits. You scoffed at My rules. And now, you will suffer the consequences.
War. Revolution. Bankruptcy. Hyperinflation. It’s all ahead. And no, AI… 5G… and the “metaverse” won’t save you.
Tomorrow, God takes to the stand once more to explain why…"
We're Back!
After 3 rather agonizing days I've succesfully recovered my hard drive data back to exactly where I was when the hardware failure occurred. Posting will continue normally. The new blog is discontinued. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and thanks for stopping by!
CP
Saturday, October 23, 2021
"A Big 'Thank You' From The Global Oligarchy"
"A Big 'Thank You' From The Global Oligarchy"
by Rob Slane
"Dear People,
We are now almost two years into our great transition, and although there’s still a very long way to go, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your help in allowing the project to run so smooth thus far, and to encourage you to allow us to continue making progress.
We must begin by saying how very pleased we have been by the levels of restraint shown. Given the nature of the plan, we naturally factored in the potential for high levels of civil unrest, but we have been surprised - pleasantly surprised it must be said - by the general absence of turmoil. Yes, there have been a few outbreaks of late, and they have meant we needed to take appropriate steps - for the good of humanity - to ensure that such disquiet is not broadcast around the world. But by and large you have got on with your thing - whatever things it is that you do - which has allowed us to get on with the important business of the day, largely unhindered and with extraordinarily little fuss.
Even more pleasing than the restraint, however, has been the exceptional levels of compliance and acceptance of restrictions which - speaking candidly - we had some reason to doubt we’d be able to pull off, such were their nature. Indeed, when we ordered your governments to implement the mass quarantining of millions of healthy people for the first time in history; the wearing of bits of cloth over your faces; and the entire human race to be injected with a new technology gene therapy which had never even been used in a vaccine, nor had any long-term safety trials, there was a real possibility that you’d smell a rat and simply refuse to comply. But thanks to our colleagues in the behavioral science teams across the world, and to you for so placidly and willingly going along with their messaging, it has all gone off far smoother than we could ever have imagined.
Of course, this has not been true of all of you. There have indeed been some misguided attempts to push back against our important agenda, and this might have been problematic had such troublemakers been given a platform. However, given the nature of our position and status, it was of course little trouble for us to silence the most egregious violators, denying them the ability to air their views, which most of you will hopefully agree was justified in the interests of serving the good of humanity. As for the more bog standard offenders, most of this was taken care of by the majority of you, who helpfully took up the cause on our behalf, refusing to listen to these “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-vaxxers”, and hearteningly taking all your news and views from our official and trusted media outlets.
This is not without irony, however. Though it has been an important part of our plan that so many of you use our pejorative labels to describe those who claim the last two years has been about something other than the official narrative we have set out, the truth is that throughout the transition we’ve been at pains to be as open and honest with you about our plans as we were able. Very little has been done in secret. From the outset, and long before anyone had so much as a needle in their arm, Bill was telling you that the plan was to jab every human on the planet. Then of course Klaus made it clear that this was a one-off window of opportunity to reset everything in the way we’ve been hoping to do for many years. He even kindly went on to drop a few more clues when he talked about your future being a fusion of your digital, physical, and biological selves. Klaus’s marketing team even put out that thing about you owning nothing but being happy. Of course the bit about being happy was added as a bit of light-hearted banter, but the point is this: we’ve been entirely open about our plans, and nobody can say they weren’t told.
Nowhere has this been seen more clearly than when we got the whole crew across the globe using the same phrase - Build Back Better. And so it has been a genuine source of amusement for us that when people have pointed to all this as evidence of some sort of agenda to destroy the existing socioeconomic order and replace it with a Transhumanist Technocracy replete with a Social Credit ID System, they have been scoffed at and called Tinfoil Hat Wearing Nutjobs, as if they’d based their opinion on the Conspiracist’s Gazette, rather than the World Economic Forum or Bank of International Settlements. Most amusing!
As we look to the future, however, we must ask that you continue to be patient. A transition of this size and scope clearly cannot be done overnight, and there are lots of moving parts which will need to run in some form or other for a number of years. Thankfully, years of mass priming on the climate stuff should take care of that. We will of course require that every one of you take all the Covid booster shots offered to you over the coming years, and whilst our hope is that you will avail yourselves of this important part of our plans without the need for coercion, I’m sure most of you will agree that those who refuse or resist - the Anti-Vaxxers - will only have themselves to blame when we are forced to deny them access to all the basic essentials of life, since the good of humanity is at stake, is it not?
We would also ask that you spare a thought for us. Although the last couple of years has gone far more smoothly than we could ever have imagined, it has nonetheless been a stressful time planning each next move and wondering whether the majority might start asking awkward questions and taking steps to thwart the agenda we have committed the planet to. Many sleeplessness nights have been had. Many a day of uncertainty. As has been observed of the movers and shakers of the world down the ages, “ours is a high and lonely destiny”. But we press on, as we must. For the good of humanity."
Best wishes,
The Global Oligarchy
P.S. Those who read this and conclude that we really are attempting the most audacious reordering of the world that has ever been seen, remember: that’s just nothing but a Conspiracy Theory. Stay safe!
"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity"
Full screen recommended.
"Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity":
"Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless - reasons fall on deaf ears. Bonhoeffer's famous text, which we slightly edited for this video, serves any free society as a warning of what can happen when certain people gain too much power."
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Read online:
Friday, October 22, 2021
"The Economy is Completely Out of Control - Christmas is Cancelled?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly, PM 10/22/21:
"The Economy is Completely Out of Control -
Christmas is Cancelled?"
"The Global Economy is completely out of control. There is nothing in sight that resembles it coming back together. The holidays are going to be a mess this year."
"Brace For Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal: It’s Only Going To Get Worse"
Full screen recommended.
"Brace For Shortages Of Oil, Natural Gas, Propane And Coal:
It’s Only Going To Get Worse"
by Epic Economist
"No one is telling you the truth about the extremely serious problem we could potentially face this winter. Over the past few months, several countries started to suffer with a ravaging energy crisis, and now that crisis has become global. Blackouts and power outages are happening all over the planet, and energy prices are spiking at an absolutely breathtaking pace. Meanwhile, the global supplies of oil, natural gas, propane, and coal just keep getting tighter, even though the heart of winter in the northern hemisphere is still several months away.
Summer just ended a few weeks ago, and the fact that global energy supplies are already dropping isn't a good sign. If things are this bad already, how the world is going to look like when we get into January and February? All over the U.S., gas prices are already going through the roof, but the situation is particularly dire in California. The supply and demand crisis is the main driver of such acute price increases. Energy demand, particularly across the industrial sector, continues to soar, while supplies are getting increasingly limited.
A recent study released by JPMorgan warned that the crude oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma could be effectively out of supply in just a few weeks. In recent a note predicting the near-term dynamics of the oil market, JPMorgan’s commodity Natasha Kaneva wrote that "in a world of pervasive natural gas and coal shortages, which are forcing the power sector to increasingly turn to oil, Cushing oil storage – which just dropped to the lowest level since 2018 is just weeks from being completely out of crude.”
In an interview with Reuters, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that energy users worldwide were switching from gas to oil, which could trigger a demand spike of 500,000-600,000 barrels per day during the winter. Abdulaziz argues that just now the people were waking up to the reality of severe shortages in the energy sector. Considering all of these factors, how high could the price of oil actually go? If prices face another massive spike in the months ahead, just imagine how much Americans would have to pay when they go to fill up their vehicles. That's going to be very painful for millions of families who are already coping with higher prices for everything.
To make things worse, one expert recently told Bloomberg that the propane market could be in total chaos in the winter season. Edgar Ang, an IHS Markit analyst, said that stockpiles of the important heating fuel may have already "topped out for the year" and could be "stretched thin" by early 2022. The Energy Department expects "nearly half of U.S. households that heat primarily with natural gas will spend 30% more than they spent last winter on average - 50% more if the winter is 10% colder-than-average". For the 41% of U.S. households that heat primarily with electricity, they will spend 6% more or 15% more in a colder winter. Meanwhile, the 5% of U.S. households that heat primarily with propane will spend 54% more or 94% more in a colder winter. And the 4% of U.S. households that heat primarily with heating oil will spend 43% more or 59% if temperatures drop more than usual.
This means that the exceedingly expensive energy bills that have been causing headaches in Europe and Asia will soon hit the U.S. On the other side of the globe, dwindling natural gas supplies have already become a huge problem. According to Global News, in several countries in Europe and Asia, natural gas prices have more than tripled this year, which is forcing manufacturers to either shut down or slow down activity from Spain to Britain to China. In addition to a shortage of natural gas, China is also struggling with an acute coal shortage, which is contributing to the immense economic distress the country is facing at the moment.
All of this means that all the goods that we import from Asia will become more significantly expensive. This is just the beginning. And if things continue to escalate this quickly, we might face a simultaneous shortage of oil, natural gas, propane, and coal by the beginning of 2022. We have to keep in mind that these shortages aren’t something that we have to wait for. They are already here, and they are going to get a lot worse and make our supply chain problems even more frustrating in the coming months. As global energy supplies get tighter and tighter, all of us are about to feel the pain. So you should start making plans for this winter because things are really starting to get crazy out there."
"Anarchy From Above"
"Anarchy From Above"
by Brian Maher
"Here is reader Jason M., in response to yesterday’s Reckoning: "Today’s article really got my blood boiling. This Micheline Maynard is the epitome of what’s wrong with the elites and our federal government today. We are in this mess because the elites shut the economy down for a virus that has a 99.8% survival rate. Shelves are going bare because the government has pursued policies that destroyed our manufacturing capacity and then made it near impossible to conduct business or make a living. Now countless people are going to lose their jobs in critical fields over the vaccine mandate. I am one of them.
When is enough going to be enough? How long are we going to let the government and elites like Ms. Maynard lord it over us while we bend over and take it? I’m fed up with all of them. I’m ready to rebel against the system. There’s only so much one can take of being told what to do by one’s “betters” before you want to punch them in the face. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Thank you for putting out the great content that you do!"
Jason is far from alone. His frustration and resentment are the frustration and resentment of many. His boiling blood is their boiling blood. Jason, to our knowledge, is a normal man. And as Mr. Henry Louis Mencken noted: "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats… Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."
We assume Jason has made that conclusion. Your editor does not claim to be normal. Yet even he has arrived at the identical conclusion.
Take the Jab or Lose Your Job! Our earnest sympathies are with Jason. We hope he is able to retain his employment. He labors within a critical field. Who will take his place? Your editor’s own brother - who incidentally hunts out drug risks for a behemoth pharmaceutical concern - confronts the identical dilemma. He has obtained legal counsel in the hope of wriggling out of it. He has until Dec. 8 to plead his case to victory. If counsel fails him… he must take aboard the alien genetic material… else take the consequences.
Mind you - these are trial vaccines whose enduring effects are not known. Moreover, they do not prevent infection to any reliable degree. Nor do they prevent the vaccinated from radiating the virus outward.
Double Standard: Meantime: Migrants swarming illegally across the Mexican border with the United States can roam unvaccinated. Leaked Border Patrol documents reveal a minimum 160,000 of these unlawful entrants have been turned loose within the United States - with little oversight. Yet foreign voyagers entering United States airports must provide vaccine documentation upon entry.
Reduce the thing to its essentials. These are the facts confronting you: A man visiting these shores for days must be inoculated, else he is turned 180 degrees around and ordered home. Yet another man… whose very entrance to the United States ran contrary to its immigration laws… and who intends to stay for years… can roam around unvaccinated and unharassed. Is this logic? Is this justice? Is this law?
A Bonfire of Law: We have no heat against the immigrant chasing his rainbow in these United States. We acknowledge his strivings. We do not fault him for seeking a higher level. We fault the parallel standards presently being enforced - one for the one group and another for different groups.
It is the anti-logic that wrings our gizzard. It is the anti-justice that wrings our gizzard. It is the anti-lawfulness that wrings our gizzard. The umbrella of law must cover all alike. Else it is not law. It is anti-law, a reverse polarity of law, a bonfire of law. It is “anarchy from above”…
“A Government May Grow Anarchic as Much as a People”: Chesterton - G.K. Chesterton - once wrote of anarchy from above. You imagine anarchy and you imagine a mob amok. Violence. Chaos. That is, you imagine anarchy from below. Yet as Chesterton noted: “It is not in the least necessary that anarchy should be violent; nor is it necessary that it should come from below.”
Thus he concludes, gravely, pithily - presciently: “A government may grow anarchic as much as a people.” Look behind you, to last year’s tribulations. As we have noted previously…
Locked Down: Governments shuttered America’s restaurants, alehouses, barbershops, nail salons, gymnasiums, arenas, beaches… all places of public resort. Governments ordered churches to scatter their flocks - and to bolt their doors. Governments restricted funeral attendance to a handful of bereaved.
These were the grim but necessary costs of containing a demon virus, we were told. Yet the same governments that barred you from graveside, that locked you out of Sunday service and the haircutter’s store… blessed the mightiest mass gatherings we have ever encountered. We refer of course to the George Floyd protests…
Americans swarmed the streets in numbers truly prodigious… each one a potential plague-spreader… in hundreds of cities… in all 50 states of this union… plus the District of Columbia. Authorities not only permitted these disease incubators to infest the streets - they waved them in. That is, certain Americans could assemble in their thousands, in their tens of thousands… yet others could not gather in their dozens to worship almighty God or to plant a relative.
“Only Gather in Groups if You Are Protesting Trump!” The morality of the cause is beyond our care. Our stance is not pro. Nor is our stance con. We are concerned merely with its logic. We therefore conclude: The rules were arbitrary. The rules were capricious. The rules warred against all logic - save the logic of the illogical.
Libertarian author Jeffrey Tucker, in concise yet withering summary: “Go inside, no wait, don’t go inside!” “Stay healthy, but shut the gyms.” “Get away from the virus, but don’t travel.” “Don’t wear a mask, wait, do wear a mask.” “Only gather in groups if you are protesting Trump!”
More Anarchy From Above: Meantime, “mostly peaceful” hellcats who vandalized public and private property, who set buildings aflame, who besieged police… received largely slaps across the wrist joint. Yet protesters who loafed around outside of the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 - without stepping inside it - are labeled domestic terrorists and clapped into jails for trespassing upon public property.
We do not bless the actual violence of that day. Felonious assaults upon police undisputedly took place… and their perpetrators must face the law’s wrath. The judge has our permission to heave his law book at them. Yet a fellow lolling harmlessly hundreds of feet from the chaotic scenes is not a menace. He should not be cooped.
Will We All Be Called Domestic Terrorists? Here is who the United States Department of Justice (do not laugh!) likewise brands domestic terrorists: "Parents who object to certain school curricula they deem offensive."
At some point, perhaps not distant, we may all be branded domestic terrorists. We pray upon both knees the day never dawns in our pristine and God-favored nation... But will the point come when normal men feel they must spit upon their hands, hoist the black flag... and begin slitting throats?"
"A Look To The Heavens"
"This pretty field of view spans over 2 degrees or 4 full moons on the sky, filled with stars toward the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Above and right of center in the frame you can spot the faint fuzzy reddish appearance of Messier 1 (M1), also known as the Crab Nebula. M1 is the first object in 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier's famous catalog of things which are definitely not comets.
Click image for larger size.
Made from image data captured this October 11, there is a comet in the picture though. Below center and left lies the faint greenish coma and dusty tail of periodic comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as Rosetta's comet. In the 21st century, it became the final resting place of robots from planet Earth. Rosetta's comet is now returning to the inner solar system, sweeping toward its next perihelion or closest approach to the Sun, on November 2. Too faint to be seen by eye alone, the comet's next perigee or closest approach to Earth will be November 12."
Chet Raymo, “The Sea Grows Old In It”
“The Sea Grows Old In It”
by Chet Raymo
“The poet, like the electric [lightning] rod, must reach from a point nearer to the sky than all surrounding objects down to the earth, and down to the dark wet soil, or neither is of use. The poet must not only converse with pure thought, but he must demonstrate it almost to the senses. His words must be pictures, his verses must be spheres and cubes, to be seen, and smelled and handled.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Ah, Mr. Emerson. This seems about as good a description of poetry as one is likely to find. I love the image. Not a hand reaching up to grasp the hand of Zeus, the hurler of bolts, but merely a pointed rod that reaches higher than any surrounding objects. A pen-point, scratching the firmament. Not a conductor reaching down to the earth, but deeper, into the wet inkpot of the soul.
Not lofty thoughts, airy philosophies, gnostic arcana. Rather, ideas that come wrapped in the stuff of the senses. Ideas that must be unwrapped the way you’d peel an orange, or pry open an oyster, or stir up from the bottom of a bowl of soup. The electric fire of the heavens captured and stored in the Leyden jar of physical self.
Take, for example, Marianne Moore’s “The Fish”, a poem that has been endlessly analyzed without ever giving up its secrets. Anyone who stands on that rocky shore with the poet, looking into the wave-washed chasm - the sea as fluid as breath, as hard as a chisel- takes away a lesson as profound as any one might learn in school, perhaps without being able to articulate exactly what the lesson is. The experience is simply there, to be seen, smelled, handled, in the weave and wave of animal bodies, in the intricate rhyme and syllabication of the poem. Truth- crow-blue, ink-bespattered, hatcheted, defiant.
I’d go further. I’d say that Emerson’s description of poetry can be equally applied to science, or to any human attempt to attract the spark of Zeus. One must lift one’s rod beyond the scratch and tumble of the everyday, while keeping its foot buried in the dark wet soil of lived experience.”
•
“The Fish”
“Wade through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
opening and shutting itself like an injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave,
cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the sun,
split like spun glass,
move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices -
in and out, illuminating
The turquoise sea of bodies.
The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff;
whereupon the stars, pink rice-grains, ink-
bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies,
and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.
All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice -
all the physical features of accident -
lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes,
these things stand out on it;
the chasm-side is dead.
Repeated evidence has proved that it can live
on what can not revive its youth.
The sea grows old in it."
- Marianne Moore
The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sunset”
“Sunset”
“Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so helplessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs -
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
"Where Your Gaze Lingers..."
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that has nothing to do with you, this storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up the sky like pulverized bones.
You have to look! That’s another one of the rules. Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”
- Haruki Murakami
“Closing your eyes won’t make the awfulness go away. It may be that nothing will. But dwelling on it, dreading the evil, playing out the misery in your head – doesn’t this feed the monster? You can’t close your eyes to life, but you can choose where your gaze lingers.”
- Richelle E. Goodrich
"God Speaks"
"God Speaks"
By Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Yesterday evening, traffic was snarled, almost gridlocked, all around our neighborhood in Baltimore. Fortunately, we walk to work. Headed home, we noticed dozens of unmarked police cars with red and blue lights flashing. “What’s going on?” we asked when we came in the door. “Oh… that’s the president. He’s doing a ‘Town Meeting’ down the hill. He’s promising people a lot of free stuff. I think that’s the gist of it.” He calls it the “caring economy.” More medical care. More child care. More senior care. More homeless care. More care for the Taiwanese. More caring for minorities, women, and, of course, the non-binary members of the population. And most important, though the president didn’t mention it, more care for the rich… who already get the most care of all.
It’s wonderful… how caring you can be when you can print money ad infinitum. And now, with so much caring going on… the U.S. slips and slides… stumbles and falls. This week, we looked for someone to blame. Two suspects came readily to mind: God or man. We made our case against man. But God bears some of the guilt, too. He created the world… and man… and death. No one… and no empire… escapes. And today, in what we believe is a first for the newsletter business… if not for the entire publishing industry… we put God Himself on the witness stand… and let Him defend Himself.
Witness Testimony: "Be still. Yep. It’s Me, God. Representing Myself. I don’t need no jackass ambulance chaser to give My side of the story. I’ll do it Myself. Bill Bonner has alleged that I am at least partially responsible for the decline of the U.S. He says I created a world where tides ebb and flow… days dawn and then the sun sets… where people allow themselves all sorts of vain illusions… fall into predictable traps… and then, amidst all the upward striving… the fight for love and glory… success and failure… in the end, everybody dies anyway.
And I don’t deny it. Yes… I created the world. And man, too. Man is an imperfect creature. Well, I’m being too kind. He’s a moron, really. I don’t know why I put up with him sometimes. But let’s back up… well… to Genesis, and I’ll explain how it came to be.
God’s Work: I first put man into a paradise… Adam. I gave him a wife… Eve. And the two of them cavorted, naked as jaybirds, in the Garden of Eden. You’d think they’d have been grateful. Instead, they got together and thought they were pretty hot stuff… and they didn’t need Me to tell them what to do.
That was the beginning of the trouble. I had to banish them from the garden. The easy living was over; now, man had to live by the sweat of his brow. But he was never a straight-shooter. He was always robbing Peter to pay Paul… looking for shortcuts… for aces up his sleeve… and loose change in his pocket. And he had that scoundrel, Lucifer, to tempt him.
I tried to lead man… I tried to teach him… and even to create a better model. Once, I was so disgusted, I drowned almost all of them, like unwanted kittens. And then, I gave the dirty work to the Jews… and told them to exterminate the other tribes. Mixed results there, too. You win some; you lose some.
The Chosen Ones: And I knew Americans would make a mess of things. Why shouldn’t they? Every other group has. Remember when Madeleine Albright – there was a piece of work! – called the USA the “indispensable nation”? “If we have to use force, it is because we are America,” the then Secretary of State said in an interview on The Today Show with Matt Lauer in February 1998. “We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.” I almost fell out of my chair laughing. She thought THEY were the chosen people. And nobody sees into the future but Me. But that’s the thing with clowns like Albright… they think they are gods, too.
Know-It-Alls: The Romans had the right idea. They had a slave walk alongside a victorious general, whispering in his ear: memento mori (remember, thou art mortal). And the clowns always have Big Plans… Thousand-year Reich? Remember that one? Ha ha. A “war to end all wars?” Heh heh. “Democracy…?” “Diversity?”
They always think they know more than any human who ever lived before them… and that what they want, right now, is what humans should want for all eternity. And then, the next thing you know, they’re retreating from Moscow and freezing their buns off.
Really, it’s amazing what drivel people will believe… and what mischief they’ll get up to. Ha, ha, ha… They’re alright – mostly – when they stick to what they really know – their own lives… their own families… their own business… But the minute they walk upon the public stage… and begin making plans for others… well, good God, it’s a disaster.
Rules of the Road: Okay… yes… I admit… I’m to blame for the ebb and flow… the yin and yang… and the rise and fall of nations. And yes, My creature, man… never comes upon a banana peel without slipping on it. I take responsibility for the world, but not for every dumb thing done by man. I gave him “free will.” You know what that means? When he screws up, it’s his own damned fault.
But Bill already made the case against man. There’s no point in My saying more on that. So, let’s turn to Me… Ich… Yo… Moi… What is My fault? There are some basic laws that govern all my creations… and some rules of the road, “traffic lights,” as you call them.
Nobody gets out alive, for example. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you think. And you can’t get something for nothing. And whether you call it “democracy” or armed robbery, ripping people off is not a good idea. And you can’t just print up “money” and pretend it’s real wealth.
Yes… I imposed “limits.” You can’t spend more than you earn – not for long. You can’t beat a royal flush with a pair of eights. And if you’re over 70 and you try to act like a 25-year-old, you’ll make a fool of yourself.
Reaping the Whirlwind: Bill has shown that Americans have ignored the limits for a long time. They’ve sown the wind, to coin a phrase. Now, they’re reaping the whirlwind. He’s shown why they can’t back up… why they can’t change direction… and why the result will be the worst financial calamity the world has ever seen.
But it’s not just the USA. Almost all modern economies are headed for the same crisis. They’re running into My limits… and it’s going to be one Helluva crash."
God has agreed to come back to the courtroom next week so he can continue his testimony."
"24 Norse Life Rules (Lessons From the Vikings)"
Full screen recommended.
RedFrost Motivation,
"24 Norse Life Rules (Lessons From the Vikings)"
Life rules are based on the Hávamál, a collection of old
Norse poems from the Viking age. Read the original here:
"We Must Marvel..."
“In our society, confidence leads to knowledge – which leads to power – which leads to pride – which leads to a fear of seeming ignorant – which constricts learning like an iron vise. We must understand that confidence is a blessing, for it is the embodiment of self-love, and through it we find the fuel for innovation and progress. We must realize that ignorance is merely the opportunity to learn more. And lastly, we must marvel rather than groan at the fact that there will always be more to learn… Only then will we be free of the intellectual prisons we have so readily caged ourselves within.”
- Zeb Reynolds
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