Full screen recommended.
Deuter, “Loving Touch”
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, November 1, 2021
"The Tipping Point Has Been Reached: Mass Civil Disobedience 'Counteroffensive' Against Vaccine Tyranny Begins NOW… WALKOUTS on Nov 3 and Nov 8-11"
"The Tipping Point Has Been Reached: Mass Civil Disobedience
'Counteroffensive' Against Vaccine Tyranny Begins NOW…
WALKOUTS on Nov 3 and Nov 8-11"
by Mike Adams
"With pilots, police officers, firefighters, nurses and people in all walks of life now taking a stand and saying, "NO" to the deadly vaccine jabs, a tipping point has been reached in America. The realization has hit home for millions that complying with the increasingly insane demands of vaccine tyrants leads only to more suffering and death.
We cannot "comply" our way to freedom... especially when those demanding our compliance are power-hungry criminals and psychopaths.
All across the cultural landscape, people are rising up now, and two walkouts have been publicly announced. This is the moment humanity must take back core freedoms or lose them forever.
Only someone as pathetic as Joe Biden could UNIFY the Left and Right into mass rejection of a disastrous regime that seems determined to bring America to its knees. Meanwhile, all across America, people are shouting, “Let’s Go Brandon!” This meme has now taken over the majority of top song sales on iTunes, and the chant can be heard at sporting events, public protests and the occasional airline trip.
Loza Alexander, "Lets Go Brandon"
Americans have nothing left to lose… if we don’t resist the tyranny, we will all be destroyed and the nation will be plunged into a Venezuela-style economic collapse. It’s now abundantly clear to anyone paying attention: Complying with tyranny only gets you more tyranny. If we don’t stand up now and demand our freedoms - take them back - we will lose them forever. These include:
● The freedom to speak (end censorship!)
● The freedom to worship (end the forced lockdowns of churches).
● The freedom to vote (end election machine fraud and rigging).
● Freedom of medical choice (NO vaccine mandates!)
● The freedom to travel (no quarantines, checkpoints).
● The freedom to participate in society (no vaccine passports).
● The freedom to engage in free market transactions without government interference.
The vaccine coercion issue has brought all this to the surface, but this is about much more than vaccines… it’s about the very pillar of liberty and the right to exist. That’s why we strongly support first responders who are standing up against the vaccine lunacy."
"Lets Go Brandon" indeed!
"I've Been Driving Trucks For 20 Years, I'll Tell You Why America's Shipping Crisis Will Not End"
Full screen recommended.
"I've Been Driving Trucks For 20 Years,
I'll Tell You Why America's Shipping Crisis Will Not End"
by Epic Economist
"There's no end in sight for the chaotic shipping crisis the U.S. has been experiencing. Port conditions have never been so turbulent, and with each passing day, the backlog of containers only gets bigger and more difficult to solve. One industry insider is warning that it's all downhill from here and American consumers should start saying goodbye to fast free shipping. From now on, companies are going to start charging some painful premium shipping rates for on-time deliveries, and even so, nothing is guaranteed. Our ports' operational system is terminally broken, and they're lacking in infrastructure, equipment, and staff. But no one is willing to pay the price to make this crisis go away. Especially not when shipping companies are cashing in huge amounts of money to offer a terrible service, and they can charge even more if customers chose a premium to get their products out as fast as possible.
All of the experts defending 24/7 port operations are contributing to the creation of an even larger backlog because there are simply not enough truck drivers in the market to move those containers from ports to warehouses. That's what Ryan Johnson, a 20-year veteran in the trucking industry, revealed in a recent article published by Medium. The best way to understand how deep a crisis goes is to learn from the source what is really going on so that we know what the media, the so-called experts, and the government are refusing to tell us. That's why Johnson's exposé is so relevant and so urgent at a time our supply chains are severely collapsing and our leaders don't seem to bother fixing it.
The trucking industry veteran pointed that one of the main reasons why most trucking companies don't want anything to do with transporting shipping containers is the fact port operations have always been extremely messy, and things have gotten a whole lot worse since the beginning of the health crisis. Ports don’t have enough workers to keep operations fluid, no matter whether you're in a coastal or inland, union or non-union port, the situation is the same all over the nation. That's why when ports started to get congested due to the impacts of the health crisis last spring, the vast majority of drivers refused to show up.
A huge part of the problem is that there are extensive equipment shortages that is compromising the flow of containers. Johnson explains that "one of these critical shortages is the container chassis. A container chassis is the trailer the container sits on. Cranes will load these in port. They are essential for container trucking. There aren’t enough of those to begin to address the backlog of containers today, and now drivers are sitting around for hours, sometimes days, waiting for chassis."
When a container arrives in a warehouse, many of them have to be manually unloaded because the goods are not sitting on pallets. So it takes a sizable working crew and a considerable amount of time to do this, particularly now that warehouses are extremely short-staffed. Those who want to get their deliveries on time are going to have to pay expensive premium rates. They will be on the top of the priority list while those who paid lower or no premium rates will face prolonged waiting times to get their products. The backlog of containers doesn't hurt the owners of the transportation business and shipping companies, but those who are paying higher shipping costs: manufacturers selling products and consumers buying products. The laws of supply and demand essentially mean that they are going to collect record-high profits for poor service and they won't have to change a thing in the system.
For the entire supply chain to operate smoothly every point of it has to be working at an equal capacity. If any disruption erupts along the way, the whole system gets clogged. "Right now, it’s ALL failing spectacularly TOGETHER, but fixing one piece won’t do anything. It ALL needs to be fixed, and at the same time," he emphasizes. "My prediction is that nothing is going to change and the shipping crisis is only going to get worse. Nobody in the supply chain wants to pay to solve the problem". Sadly, this is the new normal. American consumers are soon going to be shocked by the painful rates they will have to pay. All this mess is being brought to us by those who are running our supply chains and by flawed government measures that only aggravate the problem. This crisis is far from over, and the worst is yet to come."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"The dream was to capture both the waterfall and the Milky Way together. Difficulties included finding a good camera location, artificially illuminating the waterfall and the surrounding valley effectively, capturing the entire scene with numerous foreground and background shots, worrying that fireflies would be too distracting, keeping the camera dry, and avoiding stepping on a poisonous snake. Behold the result -- captured after midnight in mid-July and digitally stitched into a wide-angle panorama.
Click image for larger size.
The waterfall is the picturesque Zhulian waterfall in the Luoxiao Mountains in eastern Hunan Province, China. The central band of our Milky Way Galaxy crosses the sky and shows numerous dark dust filaments and colorful nebulas. Bright stars dot the sky - all residing in the nearby Milky Way - including the Summer Triangle with bright Vega visible above the Milky Way's arch. After capturing all 78 component exposures for you to enjoy, the photographer and friends enjoyed the view themselves for the rest of the night."
Chet Raymo, “Telling Stories”
“Telling Stories”
by Chet Raymo
"When the pulse of the first day carried it to the rim of night, First Woman said to First Man, "The people need to know the laws. To help them we must write the laws for all to see"...And so she began, slowly, first one and then the next, placing her jewels across the dome of night, carefully designing her pattern so all could read it. But Coyote grew bored watching First Woman carefully arranging the stars in the sky: Impatiently he gathered two corners of First Woman's blanket, and before she could stop him he flung the remaining stars out into the night, spilling them in wild disarray, shattering First Woman's careful patterns."
This episode from the Navajo creation story of is from "How the Stars Fell Into the Sky", a children's book by Jerrie Oughton. It is a lovely story, full of ancient wisdom. For centuries, Navajo children heard the story at an elder's knee. The story was taken literally, or at least accepted with a willing suspension of disbelief. I heard a similar creation story in my youth - of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Serpent. I accepted the story with a willing suspension of disbelief.
All cultures, everywhere on Earth, have stories, passed down in scriptures, traditions or tribal myths, that answer the questions: Where did the world come from? What is our place in it? What is the source of order and disorder? What will be the fate of the world? Of ourselves? No people can live without a community story. The problem comes when the community story becomes so disconnected from empirical experience that it no longer commands a suspension of disbelief. For many of us in the West, that is the case with the creation stories that have undergirded Western civilization.
Today, a New Story exists for those who choose to accept it. It is the product of thousands of years of human curiosity, observation, experimentation, and creativity. It is an evolving story, not yet finished. Perhaps it will never be finished. It is a story that begins with an explosion from a seed of infinite energy. The seed expands and cools. Particles form, then atoms of hydrogen and helium. Stars and galaxies coalesce from swirling gas. Stars burn and explode, forging heavy elements - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen - and hurling them into space. New stars are born, with planets made of heavy elements.
On one planet near a typical star in a typical galaxy life appears in the form of microscopic self-replicating, carbon-based ensembles of atoms. Life evolves, over billions of years, resulting in ever more complex organisms. Continents move. Seas rise and fall. The atmosphere changes. Millions of species of life appear and become extinct. Others adapt, survive, and spill out progeny. At last, consciousness appears. One of the millions of species on the planet looks into the night sky and wonders what it means. Feels the spark of love, tenderness, responsibility. Makes up stories - of First Woman and Coyote, of Adam, Eve and the Serpent - eventually making up the New Story. The New Story places us squarely in a cosmic unfolding of space and time, and teaches our biological affinity to all humanity. We are inextricably related to all of life, to the planet itself, and even to the lives of stars.
This episode from the Navajo creation story of is from "How the Stars Fell Into the Sky", a children's book by Jerrie Oughton. It is a lovely story, full of ancient wisdom. For centuries, Navajo children heard the story at an elder's knee. The story was taken literally, or at least accepted with a willing suspension of disbelief. I heard a similar creation story in my youth - of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Serpent. I accepted the story with a willing suspension of disbelief.
All cultures, everywhere on Earth, have stories, passed down in scriptures, traditions or tribal myths, that answer the questions: Where did the world come from? What is our place in it? What is the source of order and disorder? What will be the fate of the world? Of ourselves? No people can live without a community story. The problem comes when the community story becomes so disconnected from empirical experience that it no longer commands a suspension of disbelief. For many of us in the West, that is the case with the creation stories that have undergirded Western civilization.
Today, a New Story exists for those who choose to accept it. It is the product of thousands of years of human curiosity, observation, experimentation, and creativity. It is an evolving story, not yet finished. Perhaps it will never be finished. It is a story that begins with an explosion from a seed of infinite energy. The seed expands and cools. Particles form, then atoms of hydrogen and helium. Stars and galaxies coalesce from swirling gas. Stars burn and explode, forging heavy elements - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen - and hurling them into space. New stars are born, with planets made of heavy elements.
On one planet near a typical star in a typical galaxy life appears in the form of microscopic self-replicating, carbon-based ensembles of atoms. Life evolves, over billions of years, resulting in ever more complex organisms. Continents move. Seas rise and fall. The atmosphere changes. Millions of species of life appear and become extinct. Others adapt, survive, and spill out progeny. At last, consciousness appears. One of the millions of species on the planet looks into the night sky and wonders what it means. Feels the spark of love, tenderness, responsibility. Makes up stories - of First Woman and Coyote, of Adam, Eve and the Serpent - eventually making up the New Story. The New Story places us squarely in a cosmic unfolding of space and time, and teaches our biological affinity to all humanity. We are inextricably related to all of life, to the planet itself, and even to the lives of stars.
It has been the task of many of us gathered here on this cyber porch to help wed the New Story to the spiritual quest, to create what Thomas Berry calls an "integral story." In his introduction to Kathleen Deignan's collection of Thomas Merton's nature writing, Berry writes: "Today, in the opening years of the twenty-first century, we find ourselves in a critical moment when the religious traditions need to awaken again to the natural world as the primary manifestation of the divine to human intelligence. The very nature and purpose of the human is to experience this intimate presence that comes to us through natural phenomena. Such is the purpose of having eyes and ears and feeling sensitivity, and all our other senses. We have no inner spiritual development without outer experience. Immediately, when we see or experience any natural phenomenon, when we see a flower, a butterfly, a tree, when we feel the evening breeze flow over us or wade in a stream of clear water, our natural response is immediate, intuitive, transforming, ecstatic. Everywhere we find ourselves invaded by the world of the sacred."
Berry reminds us that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred. The older creation stories locate the source of the sacred outside of the creation. The New Story, the scientific story of creation, provides unique opportunities to experience the creation itself as holy and good.
We should treasure the ancient stories for the wisdom and values they teach us. We can praise the creation in whatever poetic languages and rituals our traditional cultures have taught us. But only the New Story has the global authority to help us navigate the future. Of all the stories, it is certainly the truest. It is the only story whose feet have been held to the fire of exacting empirical experience.”
The Poet: A. J. Constance, "All of Us Here On This Spinning Blue World"
"All of Us Here On This Spinning Blue World"
"Let's not plan too much
or expect
or promise
or say how much
or how little
or outline how things must be
or how they must not be.
All of us here on this beautiful
spinning blue world,
let's just love each other
from one millisecond to the next
as much as we can."
- A. J. Constance
○
Full screen recommended.
The Moody Blues, "Blue World"
“'Net Zero' Stands Zero Chance"
“'Net Zero' Stands Zero Chance"
by Brian Maher
"The United States president - and other bow-wow wowsers of his type - presently huddle in Glasgow, Scotland. Their objective: to break a fever. They inform us Earth is down with an alarming one, with worsening sweats in prospect. Thus they fixate their eyes distressingly upon the rising mercury. Increases greater than 1.5 degrees (Celsius) over pre-industrial levels risk breakaway heating, potentially fatal heating. And so the world’s leaders plan to scotch the pathogen producing the sweats.
That is of course Earth’s great menace... carbon dioxide. In Glasgow they will chart a path toward net zero emissions "by or around midcentury."
Releasing 13,000 Tons of Carbon Dioxide to Halt Carbon Dioxide Emissions: So contemptuous, so disdainful they are of the demon molecule... they were willing to choke the atmosphere with it today… deepening Earth’s fever… in the hope of breaking Earth’s fever tomorrow. From all compass points they are winging into Glasgow, Scotland, aboard 400 private jet aircraft. None was hurled through the sky by wind or solar energies. These craft guzzle fossil fuel - and buckets of it.
The United Kingdom’s Sunday Mail informs us this aerial armada will spew 13,000 tons of carbon dioxide coming in and going out of Glasgow. These 13,000 tons - the Sunday Mail further informs us - equals more carbon dioxide than 1,600 Scotsmen heave up in one entire year.
More CO2 Than Several Normal People Emit in a Year: Here is a certain Matthew Finch, of the Transport and Environment campaign group: "The average private jet, and we are not talking Air Force One, emits two tons of CO2 for every hour in flight. It can’t be stressed enough how bad private jets are for the environment. It is the worst way to travel…"
To put it in context, the total carbon footprint of an ordinary citizen - including everywhere they travel and everything they consume - is around eight tons a year. So an executive or politician taking one long-haul private flight will burn more CO2 than several normal people do in a year. Meantime, the United States president rolled around within an 85-vehicle convoy on Sunday - each pushed along by internal combustion, each vomiting streams of carbon dioxide vapors.
Evidently we must destroy Earth… in order to save Earth.
Failed Prophecies of Doom: Of course, we do not believe carbon dioxide is destroying Earth. We are merely razzing whom we regard as ridiculous fellows. Our men inform us Earth has endured carbon dioxide levels 25 times or greater than today’s. If Earth is so exquisitely sensitive to carbon dioxide risings… we wonder… why hasn’t it already sizzled into oblivion? The match never struck. Why should it now?
The catastrophists of this world have been yelling wolf for years and years and years... In 1989 NASA’s James Hanson hazarded the Hudson River would claim New York’s West Side Highway by 2019. We motored an auto down the West Side Highway within recent months. The roadway was dry as any tinder. It effortlessly held off the Hudson River lapping harmlessly and nonmenacingly to its starboard. At the going rate the West Side Highway will remain high, will remain dry, for the next 539 years - at minimum.
Even Worse Than the Federal Reserve: In 1988, the United Nations fretted the Maldives would be under the water by 2018. In 2021 the Maldives jut high above the water. They drive a flourishing tourist trade.
Mr. Albert Gore soothsaid in 2009 that the polar ice cap may vanish by 2014. Seven years on, the ice still caps Earth’s poles. It shows little sign of liquefying.
In 2009 climatologist of climatologists - Prince Charles - shrieked that humanity had but eight years to save Earth. In 2021… four years past the midnight deadline… Earth pegs along yet.
Examples as these abound and abound. Only the botched economic crystal-gazings of the Federal Reserve approach them.
“Net Zero Emissions”: We accept the proposition that mankind’s fuel-burnings have tinkered the planetary temperature. Yet the proposition that carbon dioxide is cooking Earth we find extravagant. It has little excuse in the facts as we find them. This evil molecule evidently lacks the oomph to fan a fever.
The world’s leaders nonetheless congregate in Glasgow, Scotland… atop their hobby horses… chasing the grail of net zero emissions "by or around midcentury." The grail will elude them of course. It will prove a juiceless pursuit. The developed nations of Earth have still failed to attain climate objectives made years and years ago. They will fail to realize present pursuits - depend on it.
"Half-Measures Rather Than Concrete Actions": Reports France 24: "Environmental campaign group Greenpeace slammed the final statement as "weak, lacking both ambition and vision", saying G20 leaders "failed to meet the moment." "If the G20 was a dress rehearsal for COP26, then world leaders fluffed their lines," said executive director Jennifer Morgan.
Friederike Roder, senior director at anti-poverty group Global Citizen, told AFP the summit had produced "half-measures rather than concrete actions"... "Beijing plans to make its economy carbon neutral before 2060, but has resisted pressure to offer nearer-term goals..."
The G20 also set no date for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, saying they will aim to do so "over the medium term." That is, they will come around to it one of these days. And one of these days generally equals none of these days.
A New Hidden Climate Tax: Yet these high eminentos have imminent plans for you... Fighting a planetary fever is costly business. It demands tax money in overflowing heaps - your tax money included. Money man extraordinaire Marin Katusa is a wizard of natural resource investments. He is also a New York Times bestselling author. From whom: "There’s a new hidden tax that will underpin the global economy just like the internet underpins every single tech company and piece of software today. This is not a hypothetical tax or a hidden marketing tactic. There will be no escaping this.
It’s already embedded every time you click on Google Flights. Switzerland’s largest online marketplace (their version of Amazon) is already charging this tax. Every single Amazon product will have this tax. It will be a part of the input cost on every item in your grocery store."
What “Build Back Better” Means for You": More: If you don’t prepare yourself for what’s coming - slow at first, and then at lightspeed - you will find it difficult, if not impossible to adjust. At the rate of adoption this “tax” is going, it’s just a matter of time before nearly every asset will be out of the average person’s price reach. The elites would’ve “Built Back Better.” And you’ll be stuck “owning nothing and being happy.”
This Katusa fellow is beginning to raise our hair. And we begin to perspire, much like Earth itself perspires. But what - precisely - is this foreboding and impending “tax”? This hidden tax is actually a brand-new “commodity” that few people have even heard about. Yet it’s a brand-new, secret commodity sector that’s nearly guaranteed to take off. What then is this brand-new commodity? And how can you get greened from this secret commodity sector? Further details tomorrow..."
"In 2022, 'Things Aren’t Gonna Get Done' On An Absolutely Massive Scale"
"In 2022, 'Things Aren’t Gonna Get Done'
On An Absolutely Massive Scale"
by Michael Snyder
"Are we about to witness one of the greatest self-inflicted economic wounds in history? Vaccine mandate deadlines are starting to arrive, and large numbers of very qualified people are losing their jobs as a result. Of course this comes at a very bad time, because we are already in the midst of the most epic worker shortage in U.S. history. Despite the biggest hiring push that I have ever seen in my entire lifetime, businesses all over America are still desperate for workers. The funny thing is that lots of available workers should theoretically be out there somewhere. The number of Americans that are currently working is still about five million less than the peak that was hit just before the pandemic arrived. So where did all of those missing workers go? That is a question that we desperately need an answer for, because millions of workers seem to have evaporated from the system. Now the vaccine mandates are going to make things far worse, because millions of Americans that are actually good at their jobs are going to be ruthlessly terminated, and finding replacements for them is going to be exceedingly difficult.
For instance, you can’t just pull guys off the street and have them fly planes. Very soon, large numbers of pilots will be sent packing on a permanent basis, and pilots for American Airlines gave us a taste of what is coming by engaging in a “sick out” over the weekend…"American Airlines canceled another 634 flights on Sunday, more than 12% of its total operations for the day, the company said Sunday. The airline has now canceled more than 1,500 flights since Friday, as it deals with weather issues and staffing shortages that started last week."
Of course American Airlines is trying to blame “the weather” for these canceled flights, but everyone knows what is really going on. And I greatly applaud the pilots for taking a stand. If these airlines don’t reverse their mandates, pretty soon we will have widespread air travel headaches on a permanent basis in this nation.
In New York City, Friday was the deadline for municipal workers to get vaccinated, and more than 26,000 of them have refused to comply… "Twenty-six percent of municipal employees in New York City were still unvaccinated following a Friday deadline that mandated workers get the COVID-19 vaccine. A significant jump in vaccinations occurred among city employees due to the deadline, the city said, according to The Associated Press, but more than 26,000 workers have not uploaded proof of their vaccination status and face unpaid leave as a result."
Moving forward, all of the work that those 26,000 workers used to do simply will not get done. Already, a total of 26 fire companies have had to be completely shut down… "The FDNY shuttered 26 fire companies citywide on Saturday due to staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 vaccination mandate, according to furious elected officials, who ripped the move as “unconscionable” — and warned it could have catastrophic consequences."
So will this cost lives? Of course it will. In fact, a seven-year-old boy just died in an apartment fire…"A seven-year-old boy died and his grandmother was seriously injured in an apartment fire in New York City as the FDNY deals with staff shortages in response to a vaccine mandate. Firefighters responded to a 1:30 a.m. call Saturday at a building in Washington Heights, where fire broke out in the building superintendent’s basement apartment. First responders quickly contained and extinguished the fire."
Meanwhile, trash is starting to pile up around the city at a very alarming rate… "Trash bags can be spotted all over the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, where some residents said that it has been days since their trash was last picked up. A few said they realized something was off earlier in the week, as one missed pickup happens, but they started to think there was a problem after the second missed time. On both residential streets and commercial areas, the trash bags on the sidewalk are piled several feet high in some instances. One resident who has lived in the area for about 40 years said she has never seen the area as dirty as has been the past few days."
So what is the city going to look and smell like in a few months once we get into the early portion of 2022? The sad thing is that none of this had to happen. The vaccine mandates are absurd, and they are going to cause enormous problems all over the country.
Countless supply chain workers are going to be pulled out of our supply chains in the coming months, and we are already facing painful shortages from coast to coast…"Supermarket chains are revamping their operations to navigate persistent product shortages, expanding storage space and curbing discounts to make sure they don’t run out. Companies are planning for shortages of popular brands of food and staples to continue for months and managers are trying to keep up as different products run short from week to week, industry executives said."
A lot of Americans are still expecting these shortages to go away eventually, but Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is now admitting that there will be supply chain problems “as long as the pandemic continues”…"Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the supply chain crisis will continue at least until the COVID-19 pandemic ends amid fears of shortages ahead of the winter holidays.
‘There are definitely going to continue to be issues, especially as long as the pandemic continues,’ Buttigieg told Fox News Sunday. ‘If you have, for example, the third-largest container port in the world in China shutting down because of a COVID outbreak in late summer you’ll feel that in the fall here on the West coast.’"
Of course there is no end in sight for the pandemic. The virus is constantly mutating, and any immunity to it is very temporary. So just like the common cold and the flu, COVID will be with us indefinitely.
If Biden administration officials want to reverse recent polling trends, they better find a way to address our supply chain issues, because right now their numbers are really dismal. Here is just one example… “Americans have lost their confidence in President Joe Biden and their optimism for the country.” That, according to Chuck Todd, is the top takeaway from a just-released NBC News poll out Sunday. Breaking down the numbers on Meet the Press, Todd pointed to data from the survey that he deemed “shocking.” “Just 22 percent of adults say [the U.S. is] headed in the right direction,” Todd reported. “A shocking 71 percent say we’re on the wrong track.”
The only surprise from that survey is that there are 22 percent of Americans that are still gullible enough to have a positive outlook. The Democrats have cooked up a recipe for national suicide, and they are setting the stage for so many of the things that I warned about in my latest book. If Joe Biden had any sense, he would rescind all nationwide vaccine mandates immediately. But he isn’t going to do that. And major cities like New York and Los Angeles are not going to rescind their mandates either. So “things are not gonna get done” on an absolutely massive scale in 2022, and we will all suffer deeply as a result."
Must Watch! "Economy Holds On By A Thread - This Crash Will Be Worst Since Great Depression"
Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/1/21:
"Economy Holds On By A Thread -
This Crash Will Be Worst Since Great Depression"
"Things Are Getting Spooky with the Economy - Big Changes in November"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly AM 11/1/21:
"Things Are Getting Spooky with the Economy -
Big Changes in November"
"There are so many economic announcements coming in the next few weeks. From tapering to world wide interest rate increases, the news will be big and affect all of us. "
No One Wants to Strangle the Goose"
"No One Wants to Strangle the Goose"
by Bill Bonner
"Don’t tax you,
Don’t tax me,
Tax that fellow
Behind the tree"
– Former United States Senator Russell B. Long
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Tax it… borrow it… squander it…print up some money to cover it…and then inflation comes along and spoils the party. That’s how we roll! Over the last 20 years, four of the worst presidents in U.S. history added some $23 trillion to our debt. Now, we need to keep up with the debt payments… which means we need to keep interest rates low…which means we need to print money to buy bonds (to hold rates low)… and run deficits (to create more bonds)… so that we can continue to fund our boondoggles.
The Biden Administration is doing its part… busily trying to keep the jig up by coming out with a huge spending bill – originally $3.5 trillion (with an ultimate $5.5 trillion price tag over 10 years)… Then, under pressure from its own party, the Biden group decided it didn’t really need to spend $2 trillion of that… so the proposal was shaved down to $1.5 trillion (likely to be far more, as the sun never sets on “sunset” provisions).
Tax the Billionaires: Everybody is now alert to the danger of rising inflation. So the politicians must pretend to be concerned about both sides of the ledger – both income and outgo. It was the income side they had in mind when they came up with the “billionaire tax.” It allowed them to claim that they would raise trillions in new income without actually taxing “you or me”… but by socking it to the “fellow behind the tree.”
In this case, the fellows behind the tree are very few. You need to make $100 million a year, for three years in a row, in order to join this club. Not many people do that. So the political costs are negligible… while the political gains (the favorable reviews from jackass reporters… and the hoorahs from the mob) are substantial. Everybody knows the rich dodge taxes. This would be a way to make them pay “their fair share.”
Tax Future Gains: Trouble is, they dodge taxes by doing exactly what Congress and the IRS have told them to do. As investors and card players know from bitter experience, you should never count your winnings until you get up from the table. And the tax law, too, says you pay “capital gains” only when you actually have a capital gain.
The proposal from the Democrat team, however, would insist that billionaires pay tax on the gains they haven’t even made yet. In other words, if the stock is up, the rich guy would have to pay a tax on the gain… even while he was still in the game. Of course, this would mean that he would have to sell his appreciated shares to pay the tax… or strip the capital out of the business.
The result would be a setback, not just for the super-rich, but also the not-so-rich, including thousands of Reddit gamblers, who would see their own shares go down when the big guys sold. It would also mean that the most successful entrepreneurs wouldn’t want to “go public” at all… since that would expose them to the tax on unrealized capital gains.
Tax Overboard: hese thoughts must have crossed the minds of the fantasists on the Biden team. They thought they had a big hit… an Emmy award-winner, for sure. Then reality came their way. And the reality is this: It is much easier to print money than to tax.
Democrats have “big guy” donors, too. And stock market portfolios. As we reported last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gained some $74 million from the feds’ market manipulations since 2004. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t do too badly, either – with some $31 million in gains. Nobody wants to strangle that goose. Not as long as it keeps laying. So, while yammering on about the “pay fors” and “deficit neutral” provisions, the Democrats quietly threw their own tax proposals over the side. The billionaires tax, for example, was the first to hit the water. It “may have died before the ink was dry on its 107-page text,” says The New York Times.
Pot of Gold: But that wasn’t the only tax proposal the Democrats scuttled. The Washington Post explained it: "They’ve not only abandoned many of the new taxes on the rich and on corporations that they once promoted, they can’t even bring themselves to “roll back the Trump tax cuts, which every single Democratic lawmaker opposed in 2017.”
“So why have Democrats gotten cold feet? The problem is partly that the Democratic voter base has shifted toward the college-educated, professional class, therefore becoming higher-earning. It’s uncomfortable for Democrats to endorse taxes on their own constituents, particularly when those constituents don’t realize that they, too, are technically rich.”
And here’s The Economist with the last word: "Joe Biden promised to pay for his big social-spending proposals by raising taxes on the rich and nobody else. Now Democrats are rushing to find a big pot of money without raising headline rates of tax at all. They are making a mess of it. Where will they find this “pot of money”? At the Federal Reserve, of course."
As we’ve been saying… and saying… and saying… The two parties – Democrats and Republicans – are in cahoots. They both represent the elite. Not the masses. They spend. They borrow. They print. The only tax they will raise is the inflation tax… which will fall most heavily on the public, not on themselves."
"Chilling Bigly"
"Chilling Bigly"
by Jim Kunstler
"Is it so, as some wags say, that industry no longer makes money; only finance does? That’s been the operating theory for much of the West lately. Of course, that invites the question: what then is finance supposed to finance… that is, put money into? Why… industry, of course, and in the broadest sense of the word: the production of goods… goods being things that have value (that’s what‘s good about them). How quaint! But most of the industry that used to be here has gone to other lands.
What about all that money (capital) flowing into technology: Facebook, Google, Amazon? Hmmmm. What does Facebook produce, besides conflict between its users? Okay, it harvests data about them to sell to advertisers. And what are the advertisers advertising? Their products. Who produces the products? Mostly those people in other lands. Facebook users, then, are increasingly not employed, at least not in the production of goods. Perhaps in services like nursing, trucking, garbage pickup, food prep, police, firemen, prison guards, government bureaucracy (is that a service or a dis-service?) and et cetera.
Anyway, those service people are being fired left-and-right now because they refuse to be coerced into taking a vaccine that was never properly tested and has many scary side-effects. By the way, as of Sunday, the “newspaper-of-record” (The New York Times) finally had to come clean, after months of whistling past the graveyard, and admit what the public already knows: mRNA vaccines are dangerous:
While we’re on the subject, what does Google produce? Supposedly, answers to questions, plus, like Facebook, it harvests information about the people who ask the questions and then sells the info, blah blah. And whutabout Amazon? Don’t they sell a lot of products? Yeah, mostly produced by those people in other lands. What Amazon really produces is a phenomenal amount of motion - trucks going hither and thither, at increasing cost now as the price of gasoline and diesel fuel shoots up. To me, that looks like a problem for Amazon’s business model. Another problem is the growing number of people without gainful employment who have little money to buy stuff from Amazon, wherever it comes from.
That last problem has been papered-over for two years by “helicopter money” from the federal government - direct payment to the people for doing nothing, producing neither goods nor services. This has been an impressive trick. The money comes from nowhere and for nothing. The trick is based on simple accounting fraud. The second law of thermodynamics, a.k.a. entropy, suggests that eventually this process will degrade the value of the money (or “money”) issued by the fraudsters.
The hand in play for the moment is the spending legislation proposed by “Joe Biden.” It would generate a whole helluva lot more helicopter money from nowhere for nothing, and would theoretically keep the game going a little bit longer - except the process will only generate more unwanted entropy, causing decay in the value of that “money” and canceling the desired effect of spreading it around. That’s called inflation. If the value of money drops hard and fast, that is called hyperinflation. It would be politically and socially devastating, and probably lead to the downfall of the government. The net effect would be a nation bankrupt at all levels and that will segue into an epic economic depression.
If the legislation doesn’t get passed, the USA will perhaps skip the hyperinflationary intermezzo and move straight into a deflationary depression, which is what you get when nobody has any money. When that happens, especially in a system with money actually based on debt-creation, debts do not get paid (mortgages, car payments, credit cards, perhaps even coupons on US Treasury bonds), and when debts are not paid, money disappears. Poof! No money! It’s a vicious cycle. The more money disappears the more money keeps disappearing. None of this bodes well for the winter ahead.
Add to that the growing breakdown in global trade operations. Even many of those goods produced in other lands aren’t making it to the docks, and the reduced flow of goods that happened to already land on the docks can’t get unloaded and delivered to its various destinations because of disruptions in the US trucking sector. To some degree, those disruptions are cause by bonehead government regulations, especially in California, where most of the stuff from Asia lands. The bonehead regulations (like, outlawing trucks more than three years old) can be thought of as typical government “dis-services.”
Now add to that the rising cost of oil, natural gas, and coal — the global economy’s primary resources - and disruptions in the industries that produce these vital resources and you’ve got another layer of disorder being introduced into the system (entropy again). For the moment, government propaganda tries to divert your attention to a possible shortage of Christmas presents as the nation’s main concern. Don’t be fooled. It’s more about total systemic economic breakdown, as in US citizens having no heat and no food. Also, no gasoline and no parts for fixing broken cars (and trucks).
Do you suppose the capital markets will keep rising as all this spins out? I would suppose that the capital markets will lose 80 to 90 percent of their value when all is said and done. The fabled “One Percent” will finally feel the pain that was previously distributed among the rest of us. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the One Percent can control the situation. They are mere Wizards of Oz, barfing into their laptops. If working-from-home wasn’t a thing, they’d be jumping out of windows on Wall Street.
It’s a grim outlook, I admit, but you could see it coming over the horizon from a thousand miles away. Where I differ from other observers is that I doubt that any sort of extreme government surveillance state can be imposed on the public under these conditions. The people will be too pissed-off and, anyway, the current regime will be broke and out of mojo - possibly to the degree that it has to be shoved aside. “Let’s Go Brandon” is serious business. It’s the end of something.
In the background lurks this virus thing, and the insane vaccination program it prompted. We know that people have been harmed by the vaccinations, but not how many people altogether will be affected moving forward. The possibility, though, is for a nation both broke and sick struggling to get through a dark passage of history. Stay nimble, stay local, stay reality-based, be helpful, be honest, be brave, and be kind to each other. We’ll get through it."
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 11/1/21"
"Economic Market Snapshot AM 11/1/21"
"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
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
October 31st to Nov 1st, Updated Daily
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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."
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Daily Job Cuts
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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And now, the End Game...
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Oh yeah...
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Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 11/1/21"
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
Your guide:
Gregory Mannarino,
Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/1/21:
"Alert: Fed. 'Inflation Is Transitory' Narrative
Now Changing To 'Contained'"
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Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/1/21:
"Is There A Trap Door Under The Stock Market?"
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave, October 31, 2021"
Full screen recommended,
"Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Ave,
October 31, 2021"
"Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas. Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015. A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.
Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids. With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem."
Sunday, October 31, 2021
"You Better Wake Up, Because The Shortages Are Getting A Lot Worse"
Full screen recommended.
"You Better Wake Up,
Because The Shortages Are Getting A Lot Worse"
by Epic Economist
"For months, experts have been warning us that shortages are only getting worse. Industry after industry is deeply hurting and executives say that there's no end in sight for the supply chain crisis. To make things worse, the vast majority of our manufacturers are extremely reliant on technology to keep their operations running, which has become pretty standard in our modern world. But due to a global chip shortage, thousands of industries are now struggling to increase production to meet demand. And we're being told this is just the beginning. In January, many were expecting the global semiconductor shortages to be over by the end of 2021. Here we are at the end of the year, and so far, things have gone from bad to worse. Even the corporate media is alarmed by the fact that one of the core parts for global production is simply missing everywhere.
The Wall Street Journal recently published a piece entitled: "The Global Chip Shortage Is Far From Over As Wait Times Get Longer,” in which it revealed that companies are facing extended delays to get the chips they need to make their machines and products work. It's an unprecedented situation for the auto industry and it has become particularly worrying for other industries as well given that now millions of products need chips to function. We're rapidly getting to a point where waiting times can't even be measured in weeks anymore. The truth is that the global semiconductor shortage shows no signs of easing, and in the meantime, the automotive industry continues to face a crunch like no other, with many of the biggest carmakers in the world blaming the shortage for disappointing financial results.
Considering that the scarcity of chips has collapsed new car production and car dealers around the country are seeing their inventories drop to alarmingly low levels, consumers have been turning to the used car market. Consequently, as demand has skyrocketed in recent months, used car prices just hit absolutely insane levels. With far fewer new cars hitting the market, over the past 12 months, prices for used cars have jumped by more than 24 percent in the US, and consumers are engaging in bidding wars that have been pushing those prices even higher.
There's a similar phenomenon happening with farm equipment. Since the chip shortage has broken down production, farmers are turning to used equipment to fulfill their needs. Just like we're witnessing with used cars, many pieces of used farm equipment are now selling for simply insane prices. According to farm equipment dealer Joel Everett, one used 2009 John Deere tractor was at a recent auction in Strawberry Point, Iowa, for tens of thousands of dollars more than its regular price when it was brand new. Of course, all of those increased costs for farm equipment will ultimately result in higher food prices.
Already, food prices are rocketing at a very brisk pace. Crop failures, harvest setbacks, rising consumer demand, and prolonged supply chain disruptions have all contributed to this painful increase, and the latest spike has affected almost all types of foodstuffs, adding to inflationary pressures across the entire economy. Day after day, more people come forward to expose the empty shelves that they see on a regular basis. And as food supplies get tighter, we are going to see even more shortages erupt in the months ahead, and price hikes will be particularly painful.
In the USDA website, they added a section specifically telling us that there are “no nationwide shortages of food although in some cases the inventory of certain foods at your grocery store might be temporarily low before stores can restock". Don't you think it's particularly annoying when they deny our problems exist or say it's all "temporary". What does that even mean? People need to eat today, not in a couple of months, not in a couple of years. If the government refuses to admit the struggles we're all facing, this means that we're on our own. To be honest, we have always been on our own. So we can't afford to ignore the signs that are telling us that things will only get harder from now on. We must wake up and start acting before it's too late."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. NGC 7814 is centered in the pretty field of view that would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and central bulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing smaller and fainter only because it is farther away.
In this telescopic view from July 17, NGC 7814 is hosting a newly discovered supernova, dominant immediately to the left of the galaxy's core. Cataloged as SN 2021rhu, the stellar explosion has been identified as a Type Ia supernova, useful toward calibrating the distance scale of the universe."
Chet Raymo, “In A Dark Time…”
“In A Dark Time…”
by Chet Raymo
“I’ve quoted a few of these lines before, from a poem by Charles Simic:
“It’s like fishing in the dark.
Our thoughts are the hooks,
Our heart the raw bait.
We cast the line past all believing
Into the night sky
Until it’s lost to sight.”
In a sense, that’s the story of my life: a long love affair with the night sky. My first book of popular science was “365 Starry Nights”. My first book of personal prose was “The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage”. “An Intimate Look at the Night Sky” followed much later, but every book in between, fiction and non-fiction, cast a line into the night sky.
What is it about the starry night that gives rise so effectively to what might be called the “religious instinct”? The dark, precisely. The unplumbable depth. The hiddenness. The silence. The infinity. The abyss of time. I can calculate the number of thimblefuls of water in the sea, but I have no way of knowing how many galaxies there are in the universe, or whether the universe is finite or infinite, or even how many universes might exist. Or where the universe came from. Or where it’s going.
I stand barefoot on the terrace in the dark of night, and looking is a kind of prayer. A prayer without words. Without supplication. A silent acknowledgement of ignorance. Heartfelt ignorance. An ignorance that is a receptacle aching to be filled.
“My heart the bait.”
The dark night of the soul. The starlit valley of shadow. The knowing that unknows. There, just there, hanging between Cassiopeia and Perseus, the barely visible blur of the double cluster, the rent veil of the temple.
“The line’s long unraveling
Rising in our throats like a sigh.”
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