Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/24/21:
"Risk In This Market Is Rising RAPIDLY...
This Is What You Should Do NOW"
○
Related:
Charles Hugh Smith:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
“Can The Average Consumer Survive The Next Great Depression?”
Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/23/21:
“Can The Average Consumer Survive
The Next Great Depression?”
Peak Prosperity, "On the Brink of Chaos"
Full screen recommended,
Peak Prosperity, "On the Brink of Chaos"
"Protests erupted all over Europe and in Australia over the prospect of renewed lockdowns, vaccinating children and other Covid measures. They’re fed up. I am fed up. You are fed up. The main problem? None of the measures have actually worked so far and are an incoherent mess. Instead of rethinking strategies and being more thoughtful in communicating the necessity and goals of the new approaches, many governments have instead become more dictatorial and authoritarian. This is creating even more friction within and among the citizenry.
To avoid being a ‘rat in a cage’ your first step toward freedom rests in understanding who is delivering the shocks and why."
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal; "The Covid War; The Shot Heard Round The World"
Full screen recommended.
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal;
"The Covid War; The Shot Heard Round The World"
"Welcome to this week's Trends Journal: What's going on in the world is unprecedented. How can markets keep going up under this kind of pressure? I answer this and much more during this week's new video - leave a comment below."
"Supply Chain Crisis Threatens To Trigger A Flood Of Bankruptcies As Shipping Prices Soar 500 Percent"
Full screen recommended.
"Supply Chain Crisis Threatens To Trigger A Flood Of
Bankruptcies As Shipping Prices Soar 500 Percent"
by Epic Economist
"The US retail sector is facing a supply chain nightmare before Christmas! A myriad of disruptions is threatening to derail retailers' prospects and push hundreds of thousands of businesses over the edge. The latest data is doing little to calm nerves amongst industry executives. Estimates show that due to worsening port congestion, if goods aren't off a boat by now, it's highly unlikely that they'll make it onto store shelves before the beginning of the holiday season, which may result in significantly lower profits for retailers and small businesses in the most important shopping season of the year.
The complex logistics of unloading the ships and getting their containers onto trucks that will drive them to warehouses and stores across the country means that all of the goods that are still stuck at ports won't make it to store shelves by the end of the year. Therefore, hundreds of thousands of Christmas gifts will arrive too late for the holidays, but that doesn't mean the price of those delayed goods will be any lower when they're finally on the reach of consumers. Prices will continue to rise in the near future. In fact, as of now, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday fast approaching, 70% of US retailers are warning that there will be fewer deals for shoppers by as much as 75%.
Higher shipping costs are also weighing on that equation. According to a new study released by the UN, soaring shipping prices can hike the prices of consumer goods by over 10% in 2022. Most big US retailers, such as Walmart and Target, are already struggling to ensure inventory amid the growing supply chain chaos. Executives of the industry are extremely nervous about the logistical challenges threatening the very existence of some smaller businesses that just got past the worst effects of the recession. Over the past twelve months, the cost of shipping a container from Asia to the U.S. West Coast climbed over 500%.
Experts specialized in troubled companies are warning that another massive wave of bankruptcies is looming given that financially impaired businesses are likely to experience more hardships than those that have the capacity to hire more warehouse workers, or even charter their own ship, to cope with the turbulence. And as the most important shopping season of the year approaches, this is a make-or-break time for retailers.
This year, the survival of hundreds of thousands more companies is still on the line, according to bankruptcy professionals who have been helping overly indebted businesses to reduce their balance sheet to live to fight another day. In a recent Bloomberg piece, they said that the current supply chain challenges mean that many of these companies will be gone over the next 18 to 24 months.
And, unfortunately, a new analysis published by the spend management specialist, Coupa, is making everyone in the sector even more nervous. The study found that US retailers must brace for revenue losses as high as 20 percent due to worsening supply chain issues. Over the past 18 months, retailers already recorded $68 billion in losses. Now, at least two-thirds, or nearly 63 percent, of retailers are concerned that the current disruptions will hit Christmas revenues and generate more painful losses ahead.
Some of the drop in revenue is happening because inventory remains unavailable, but thousands of products never make it to the stores or warehouses because they get stolen at ports. Delivery delays are actually giving thieves opportunities to steal from containers. "Thieves are targeting electronics and household goods," according to CargoNet, which tracks supply chain thefts.
From January to September this year, roughly $45 million in cargo thefts were reported. In 2020, over $68 million worth of goods were stolen. As winter approaches and surveillance becomes more sparse, CargoNet said it expects theft to remain elevated into the final quarter of this year and into early 2022.
So you should prepare accordingly because the shortages and price increases we've experienced so far are just a hint of the devastating crisis we will be facing this winter. When it comes to 2022, you should prepare for the worst before things spin out of control, especially when considering that our economy and essentially all of our other important systems are falling apart all around us. Things are only going to get harder from this point forward, and our society is about to be crushed by a crisis most people are totally unprepared for."
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow.
The Medusa's transforming star is the faint one near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend above and right of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across."
The Poet: John O’Donohue, “In These Times”
“In These Times”
“In these times when anger
Is turned into anxiety,
And someone has stolen
The horizons and mountains,
Our small emperors on parade
Never expect our indifference
To disturb their nakedness.
They keep their heads down,
And their eyes gleam with reflection
From aluminum economic ground,
The media wraps everything
In a cellophane of sound,
And the ghost surface of the virtual
Overlays the breathing earth.
The industry of distraction
Makes us forget
That we live in a universe.
We have become converts
To the religion of stress
And its deity of progress;
That we may have courage
To turn aside from it all
And come to kneel down before the poor,
To discover what we must do,
How to turn anxiety
Back into anger,
How to find our way home.”
~ John O’Donohue,
from “To Bless the Space Between Us”
○
“Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.”
– Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Chet Raymo, “Reaching For The Stars”
“Reaching For The Stars”
by Chet Raymo
“Here is a spectacular detail of the Eagle Nebula, a gassy star-forming region of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 7,000 light-years away. The Eagle lies in the equatorial constellation Serpens. If you went out tonight and looked at this part of the sky – more or less midway between Arcturus and Antares – you might see nothing at all. The brightest star in Serpens is of the third magnitude, perhaps invisible in an urban environment. No part of the Eagle Nebula is available to unaided human vision. How big is the nebula in the sky? Hold a pinhead at arm’s length and it would just about cover the spire. I like to think about things not mentioned in the APOD descriptions.
If the Sun were at the bottom of the spire, Alpha centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, would be about halfway up the column. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s sky, would be near the top. Let’s say you sent out a spacecraft from the bottom of the spire that travelled at the speed of the two Voyager craft that are now traversing the outer reaches of the Solar System. It would take more than 200,000 years to reach the top of the spire.
The Hubble Space Telescope cost a lot of money to build, deploy, and operate. It has done a lot of good science. But perhaps the biggest return on the investment is to turn on ordinary folks like you and me to the scale and complexity of the universe. The human brain evolved, biologically and culturally, in a universe conceived on the human scale. We resided at its center. The stars were just up there on the dome of night. The Sun and Moon attended our desires. “All the world’s a stage,” wrote Shakespeare, and he meant it literally; the cosmos was designed by a benevolent creator as a stage for the human drama. All of that has gone by the board. Now we can travel in our imagination for 200,000 years along a spire of glowing, star-birthing gas that is only the tiniest fragment of a nebula that is only the tiniest fragment of a galaxy that is but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies we can potentially see with our telescopes.
Most of us still live psychologically in the universe of Dante and Shakespeare. The biggest intellectual challenge of our times is how to bring our brains up to speed. How to shake our imaginations out of the slumber of centuries. How to learn to live purposefully in a universe that is apparently indifferent to the human drama. How to stretch the human story to match the light-years.”
"What Keeps You Going..."
“What keeps you going isn’t some fine destination but just the road you’re on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, ‘What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?’”
- Barbara Kingsolver
"The Stock Market Could Drop 50% in Value - We Are Being Played"
Dan, iAllegedly 11/23/21:
"The Stock Market Could Drop 50% in Value -
We Are Being Played"
"The Stock market is a rocket ship that will never come down. We all know that is total nonsense. The experts are starting to agree that there is impending doom coming to the stock market and people need to be ready."
"And It May Be..."
“It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut,
with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well;
and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes
life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.”
– Joseph Conrad, “Lord Jim”
"Squandermania!"
"Squandermania!"
by Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Who are these guys? We’re talking about the “12 Nobel Prize-winners” we mentioned yesterday, who supposedly (according to Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii) believe more government spending will reduce inflation. What’s the theory? How does that work? When, where, how has it worked in the past?
We’ll look at those Nobelistas in a moment. But first, this morning’s big story. The Boston Globe: "Biden crosses liberals to renominate Powell as Fed chairman, keeping a crisis-tested veteran to tackle inflation. Senator Elizabeth Warren and several other high-profile Democrats publicly opposed giving Powell four more years as chairman of the central bank’s board of governors, but President Biden chose to nominate him anyway."
Crisis-tested? The big test came in 2020, when the feds tried to replace real output with fake money. It was a foolish program, now being paid for in higher consumer prices. And Powell was right there, every step of the way. Yes, he was “crisis-tested.” And he failed. So, let’s now turn to the geniuses – the Nobel winners.
Total Failures: The first thing we notice is that it wasn’t just a dozen. There were 17 of them, guided by the lead-dog, Joseph Stiglitz. The September 20 Economic Policy Institute headline reads: "Seventeen winners of the Nobel Prize in economics sign letter in support of the President’s Build Back Better package."
Ok… And here’s Stiglitz explaining why this isn’t going to be like every other federal boondoggle program: "The President’s economic agenda, the “Build Back Better” package being debated in Congress, would provide vital public investments in the nation’s physical and human infrastructure, as well as in our tattered safety net. These investments are long overdue – they were needed before the COVID-19 pandemic, and their necessity has been highlighted by the virus and the economic shock that came with it."
Here at the Diary, we’ve searched in vain for an example of a federal “investment” – in recent history – that has paid off. As near as we can tell, World War II and the interstate highway system were the feds’ last successful programs… And even as to them, we have our doubts.
[Then came the Vietnam War (1955), the War on Poverty (1964), the War on Drugs (1971), Amtrak (1971), the War on Terror (2001), the War on Afghanistan (2001), the War on Iraq (2003)…
We remind readers that U.S. debt increased from $5.6 trillion to nearly $29 trillion between 1999 and 2021. That extra $23 trillion, invested by the federal government, was supposed to make us richer, not poorer. And if those marvelous “investments” – the War on Terror… bailing out Wall Street, etc. – had worked, they would have paid dividends, allowing us to pay down our debt. Instead, the “investments” were total failures… GDP growth rates slowed… and the debt grows bigger and bigger. We also remind readers that when you pay for your “investments” with printing-press money, the most likely consequence is higher prices – which is really just a devious tax on consumers. It takes money from consumers tomorrow so that money can be stuffed down ratholes today.
Silly Argument: So, let’s see what these Nobelistas have to say for themselves. There are two parts to their argument. First, these spending programs will increase output… Stiglitz: "These are importantly supply side measures, increasing the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, helping to improve our low employment-working age population ratio. Significantly reducing the fraction of children growing up in poverty and giving these children access to pre-K and college education will reap large dividends in years to come."
This is such a silly argument that we scarcely deign to reply. There are only so many hours… so much savings… so many workers… so many skills… so many resources available. The question is: Who decides what happens to them? Either people decide for themselves… or the feds make the decisions for them. But there is no evidence, anywhere, anytime, anywhichway that when the feds spend the public’s money, they do so more efficiently or better. To the contrary, every indication – both empirical as well as theoretical – shows us that the feds are terrible asset allocators.
No Inflationary Threat: And won’t this extra spending have to be financed with “printing press money”? And won’t it lead to higher prices… undermining any good that might otherwise come from the spending programs themselves? “No,” says Stiglitz: "We need safe school buildings and bridges, and affordable child and elder care, whether inflation is 2% or 5%. With the investments being financed by tax increases, the inflationary impacts will be at most negligible – over the medium term outweighed by the supply side benefits; and their progressivity will help address one of the country’s critical problems, the growing economic divide."
The federal government spends far more today on schools – including college loans – than it did in the past. But where are all these better-educated, higher-earning, civic-minded taxpayers? They don’t exist. Nor is the “supply” of goods and services increased by taking money from the people who earned it and giving it to other people. Instead, it is diminished and impaired by perverse incentives and government inefficiency, corruption, and waste. Still, Stiglitz pours on the blah, blah. “Investments.” “Social needs.” “Climate crisis.” And all of this can be accomplished “without presenting an inflationary threat.”
No Winner: In what world does this happen? Where can you take money away from people… spend it on your pet projects… and everyone comes out ahead? Where can you “print” money and not cause inflation? How can the feds undertake a $5 trillion Build Back Better project without squandering most of the money? If they get the money from taxing… there is no net gain. Some people win. Most people lose. If they get the money from the “printing press,” the tab is eventually paid by consumers – in the form of higher prices. And either way… real wealth is squandered."
Gregory Mannarino, "AM/PM 11/23/21"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/23/21:
"The Game Continues,
And You Are Being Played Like A Grand Piano"
○
Gregory Mannarino, PM 11/23/21:
"Is Gregory Mannarino A Time Traveler? Maybe..."
"Since Inflation Is So High Now, The Elite Have Some Suggestions For How You Can Save Money This Thanksgiving"
"Since Inflation Is So High Now, The Elite Have Some
Suggestions For How You Can Save Money This Thanksgiving"
by Michael Snyder
"Normally, inflation is not a major theme on Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, these are not normal times. Thanks to Joe Biden and our other crooked politicians in Washington, we are facing an inflation crisis that is unlike anything that we have experienced since the 1970s. Earlier this week, I discussed a new poll which showed that 88 percent of Americans are deeply concerned about inflation, and a different poll found that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of the way that Biden is handling rising prices. Now Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and most Americans are finding that their grocery dollars are not stretching as far as they once did.
This is being hailed as “the most expensive Thanksgiving ever”, but don’t worry, because the elite are offering some suggestions for how you can save some money. For example, NBC News is telling us to “consider not buying a turkey” in order to save some cash.
If that wasn’t offensive enough, they are also saying that “some people think turkey is overrated” and that an “Italian feast” might be a better alternative…“I know that is the staple of the Thanksgiving meal. However, some people think turkey is overrated, and so it tends to be the most expensive thing on the table. Maybe you do an Italian feast instead.” I love Italian food, but Americans have eaten turkey on Thanksgiving for generations.
Sadly, many Americans won’t be having turkey this year because it has just gotten too expensive. Of course NBC has an answer for that too. They are suggesting that if you tell those you have invited that there won’t be any turkey on the table “some guests may drop off the list, and that’s a way to cut costs too.” Seriously? That is what they actually think ordinary Americans should do? It just makes me sick how the elite talk down to us like this.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is being even more offensive. A few days ago, they encouraged Americans to consider a “soybean-based dinner” because turkey is so much more expensive… “A Thanksgiving dinner serving of poultry costs $1.42. A soybean-based dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs 66 cents and provides almost twice as much protein” Yuck. Just yuck.
Over the years, I have tried “alternative” soybean-based products from time to time, and to be frank all of them were disgusting. And I find it to be highly offensive for the people that actually created this inflation crisis to be pushing Americans toward less expensive and more “eco-friendly” alternatives.
We wouldn’t be in this mess if the Federal Reserve had not created trillions upon trillions of dollars out of thin air over the past couple of years. And we wouldn’t be in this mess if NBC News and other media outlets had not endlessly promoted the corrupt politicians in Washington that just keep borrowing and spending money as if the future will never come.
We didn’t get here by accident. What we are now experiencing is a perfect example of cause and effect. Our insane leaders flooded the system with new money, and now a typical Thanksgiving dinner is 14 percent more expensive than it was last year…"The cost of providing a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner to 10 people in 2021 is 14% higher than a year ago, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual survey." Thankfully, your income has gone up 14 percent over the past year as well, right? Sadly, most of you will not be able to answer that question affirmatively.
The cost of turkey is rising at a particularly blazing pace. At this point, the average price of a 16 pound turkey is $4.60 higher than it was at this time in 2020…"Ranking the data this way lets us see that the increase in the cost of turkey is responsible for most of the year-over-year increase. Rising by $4.60 from 2020’s $19.39 to 2021’s $23.99 for a 16-pound bird, turkey alone accounts for nearly 72% of the year-over-year increase in the total cost for the meal."
But at least soybean-based dinners are still affordable. Of maybe you could even eat bugs this year. The global elite would really love that.
In addition to changing the menu, the elite are also giving us pointers for how to minimize the spread of COVID during our Thanksgiving celebrations. According to the New York Times, children should wear masks, eat as quickly as they can, and stay as far away from the adults as possible…"I’m glad to hear that the children and all guests are vaccinated. As the kids will not be fully vaccinated until two weeks after their second shot, I think some care is warranted, especially because some attendees are 65 and older and thus at greater risk of more serious breakthrough infections. You could have the kids wear masks, eat quickly and stay away from the older adults when eating."
So I guess that hugging grandma and grandpa is out of the question. These control freaks really do want to micromanage all of our lives, and those that obediently do whatever they say without thinking are part of the problem. The truth is that the vast majority of the “experts” that they put on television to tell us how to live our lives really aren’t “experts” at all. It is all a big con game, and it amazes me that there are still so many people out there that fall for it.
Once you get a look behind the curtain and you realize what a giant fraud their entire system is, there is no going back. Unfortunately, much of the population is still under their spell, and so we need to work really hard to wake people up while there is still time to do so.
Look, I really do hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Eat lots of turkey, enjoy your family and friends, and try to smile. We should find joy in these moments while we still can, because soon everything will change."
Monday, November 22, 2021
“Financial Reckoning; Wall St Buying Up Homes; Wages Falling Fast; Economy On Borrowed Time”
Jeremiah Babe, PM 11/22/21:
“Financial Reckoning; Wall St Buying Up Homes;
Wages Falling Fast; Economy On Borrowed Time”
"Jan. 4: Expect an Economic Train Wreck"
"Jan. 4: Expect an Economic Train Wreck"
by Jim Rickards
"Today, President Biden renominated Jerome Powell to a second term as Federal Reserve Chairman. Progressives in his party wanted Biden to nominate someone more to their liking, such as Lael Brainard, the only Democrat on the Fed's Board of Governors. But it really doesn’t matter, unless you somehow manage to resurrect Paul Volcker. And his options would be far more limited today than they were in 1981 when he raised interest rates to 20%.
With today’s crushing debt levels, raising rates to any significant extent would collapse the entire system. No Fed head could afford to do it, even if he or she wanted. Whoever heads the Fed, it’s proven time and time again that it has no idea what it’s doing. There’s absolutely no reason to expect anything different from Powell the second time around. He’s a one-trick pony, and that trick is old. And the Fed has no answers for the most urgent problem facing the economy right now: supply chain shortages.
Plenty of Blame to Go Around: By now, you’re well aware of the supply-chain fiasco unfolding across the country. Of course, it’s not just an American phenomenon; the supply-chain crisis is global. But, as the world’s largest economy driven 70% by consumption, it’s fair to say America is ground zero in this struggle.
The effects are not limited to the paper goods aisle at Costco as they were during the pandemic. The effects are everywhere. There are bare spots on shelves in every aisle of the supermarket. Liquor stores can’t get certain kinds of wine. Garages can’t get auto parts. Doctors can’t get certain medical devices. Anyone not done with her Christmas shopping should prepare for disappointment. Santa won’t be coming to a lot of homes this season. Everyone is blaming everyone else.
Ships that can’t unload at ports blame the truckers who are supposed to remove the containers already ashore. Truckers blame state regulators who make them wait in line for days to pick up containers only to tell them to come back tomorrow. Retailers blame distributors. Customers blame retailers.
The problem is they’re all right. The supply-chain breakdown is not at one single bottleneck. It’s up and down the supply chain at all levels from component suppliers to manufacturers to transportation providers to customers. What is the Biden administration doing about this?
Making a Bad Situation Worse: They’re busy making things worse. First, the Biden administration ordered the Port of Los Angeles to stay open 24-hours per day and work three shifts to ease the backlog. The problem is that working longer was never the problem. The port can’t unload the vessels because there’s no place to put anything. The piers and storage yards are full. Containers are stacked to the sky. Working longer hours does nothing when there’s no place to put the cargo. The next Biden move was even dumber.
They proposed a penalty on containers that remain on the docks for more than six days. But, no one wants the containers moved faster than the shippers. It’s just a physical impossibility when they can’t get the trucks to the ports. The penalty does not speed up the transportation process, but it does increase the cost of goods, which makes inflation worse and could drive some retailers out of business. The supply-chain crisis is real. The Biden administration is incompetent. That’s a bad combination for the economy. Compounding the problem is a labor shortage, which is going to get much worse in January.
The Straw to Break the Camel’s Back: There’s already a labor shortage in America. The causes are complicated. In reality, there’s no literal shortage of potential workers, but many workers prefer to stay home because of some combination of government benefits, child-care responsibilities or inadequate pay offered by employers (who can’t afford to pay more themselves because they’ll go out of business).
A lot of this centers on lower-wage jobs such as waiters, store clerks, fast-food staff and office assistants. But, there will be a labor shortage coming soon in more high-skilled areas such as engineers, pilots, machinists and medical personnel.
This shortage will not be due to low pay but to vaccine mandates. Joe Biden ordered that all federal contractors had to be fully vaccinated. (That’s in addition to federal workers and the military who already have no choice). This mandate is different from the OSHA vaccine mandate that applies to all employers with 100 or more employees. The OSHA mandate has been stopped by the courts while the federal contractor mandate goes into full force and effect on Jan. 4 (pushed back from the original Dec. 8). The vaccinated rate among federal contractors is actually lower than the country as a whole.
The national vaccination rate is approaching 70%, while the federal contractor rate is closer to 60% and even lower in some specialties such as avionics. These workers know the vaccine is available, understand the risks (both ways because of side effects) and have chosen not to be vaccinated. It’s almost impossible to change their minds at this point.
Expect a Train Wreck on Jan. 4: But the Biden administration is not backing off the mandate, despite the fact that the vaccines don’t stop you from getting the virus or from spreading it to others. Its effects also wear off after a few months, which is why they’re pushing the booster shots so aggressively. And if you think you’re fully vaccinated after getting both jabs, you might want to think again. Dr. Fauci is warning that we may have to change the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include getting the booster. Well, what about when the booster wears off? Are you going to need booster shots every few months to be considered fully vaccinated or else lose your job and your ability to lead a normal life?
The Federal contractor workforce is huge; it’s in the millions. So, expect an economic train wreck on Jan. 4. Workers from Boeing to Textron and hundreds of thousands of other firms will be fired or quit that day. The economy is already weak. The supply chain is already busted. This mass termination of skilled contractors could put the economy into a recession. It’s a good time to lighten your equity exposure. As usual, the stock market will be the last to see this coming."
"Welcome To The 'New Normal': This Is Going To Be A Holiday Season That None Of Us Will Ever Forget"
Full screen recommended.
"Welcome To The 'New Normal': This Is Going To Be
A Holiday Season That None Of Us Will Ever Forget"
by Epic Economist
"Americans are facing a nightmare that seems to have no end. Every time people think conditions are starting to improve, something happens and we get back to square one. At the beginning of this year, the federal government assured the population that the economy would be booming by the end of 2021, but that turned out to be a big fat lie. Instead, what we have is the worst inflation since the 1970s, the most epic supply chain crisis in the history of the United States, and nationwide supply shortages that are threatening to undermine our traditions this holiday season.
In fact, this is going to be the "new normal" holiday season, and you have to set your expectations very low, otherwise, you'll probably get bitterly disappointed. The upcoming holidays will not be like what most people have grown accustomed to, but our leaders and the corporate elites are still trying to make things sound better than they actually are. The corporate media is already encouraging us to look "on the bright side," because as opposed to last year, in 2021, we won't have to "cancel Thanksgiving," even though shortages continue to plague most of our stores and supermarkets.
The truth is that the shortages we experienced last year have only gotten worse and more widespread this year, despite the fact that every government "expert" said in 2020 that this crisis would be long gone by now. A recent survey exposes that product availability for this year's Thanksgiving is far lower than during the same period last year. According to Krishnakumar Davey, president of IRI's strategic analytics practice, the survey used point-of-sales data and e-commerce transactions to track weekly store stock rates. It highlighted that retailers typically have a roughly 95% in-stock rate overall. But this year, stores aren't anywhere close to that.
For those who still remember the "good old days", an era of abundance and fair, affordable prices, these holiday shortages will be exceedingly painful. We might not see such days again for decades to come. To make things worse, there's also a shortage of Christmas trees. Recent reports revealed that the U.S. is now facing a significant shortage of both real and fake Christmas trees, and anyone planning on purchasing a tree this year, should act fast before they run out. Of course, a Christmas tree shortage is not the end of the world.
We can definitely survive without most of these items. However, if anything, these extensive shortages and price hikes highlight our leaders' utter incompetence to ease the impacts of the crisis we faced throughout the year, including disasters sparked by extreme weather and the supply chain crisis that has been affecting every aspect of our society, even our traditions. At this stage, even Goldman Sachs is publicly acknowledging that the inflation crisis is going to be further aggravated in the coming months. We're in the middle of one of the most devastating inflation crises this country has ever had, and our society is becoming increasingly restless.
Our population is just now realizing that inflation will stay at record-highs for much longer than what our politicians and policymakers have promised. In short, with living expenses relentlessly going up, Americans are losing their trust in the federal government. Inflation is downgrading our living standards at the same time it boosts price growth like never before. We definitely have a lot of bad news out there. But it could be much worse. One "positive" thing that happened recently was the official suspension of the implementation and enforcement of the OSHA vaccine mandate. However, as litigation proceeds, the verdict could still change in the future. At least for now, millions of jobs have been saved, and the U.S. economy has avoided an absolutely crushing blow.
That's probably the first smart choice our leaders have made in a very long time. Of course, it's in their best interest to keep people in their jobs during the most important season of the year. They don't want to be seen as the ones who "ruined" the holidays for us. But we all know that we're here because of them, and much of this chaos could have been prevented if they have acted intelligently a long time ago. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because it doesn't mean that this is all over. They lied to us before, and they are probably lying to us right now. The truth is that this is going to be a painful holiday season none of us will ever forget.
Musical Interlude: Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
Full screen recommended.
Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
Procol Harum performing "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and choir at
Ledreborg Castle, Denmark in August 2006.
"A Look to the Heavens"
"In 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope took the image of a millenium, an image that shows our place in the universe. Anyone who understands what this image represents, is forever changed by it."- YouTube/NASA
Full screen recommended.
"It helps to put things in perspective here on our frenetic little planet with a look at this extraordinarily powerful and moving video of the Hubble Space Telescope mapping of the Universe, whose known size is 78 billion light years across. The video of the images is the equivalent of using a "time machine" to look into the past to witness the early formation of galaxies, perhaps less than one billion years after the universe's birth in the Big Bang.
The video includes mankind's deepest, most detailed optical view of the universe called the Hubble Deep Field (HDF). One of the stunning images was assembled from 342 separate exposures taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) for ten consecutive days. Representing a narrow "keyhole" view stretching to the visible horizon of the universe, the HDF image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime located 75 feet away. Though the field is a very small sample of the heavens, it is considered representative of the typical distribution of galaxies in space because the universe, statistically, looks largely the same in all directions. Gazing into this small field, Hubble uncovered a bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of evolution.
Most of the galaxies are so faint (nearly 30th magnitude or about four-billion times fainter than can be seen by the human eye) they have never before been seen by even the largest telescopes. Some fraction of the galaxies in this menagerie probably date back to nearly the beginning of the universe. "The variety of galaxies we see is amazing. In time these Hubble data could turn out to be the double helix of galaxy formation. We are clearly seeing some of the galaxies as they were more than ten billion years ago, in the process of formation," said Robert Williams, Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, Maryland. "As the images have come up on our screens, we have not been able to keep from wondering if we might somehow be seeing our own origins in all of this."
The video includes mankind's deepest, most detailed optical view of the universe called the Hubble Deep Field (HDF). One of the stunning images was assembled from 342 separate exposures taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) for ten consecutive days. Representing a narrow "keyhole" view stretching to the visible horizon of the universe, the HDF image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime located 75 feet away. Though the field is a very small sample of the heavens, it is considered representative of the typical distribution of galaxies in space because the universe, statistically, looks largely the same in all directions. Gazing into this small field, Hubble uncovered a bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of evolution.
Most of the galaxies are so faint (nearly 30th magnitude or about four-billion times fainter than can be seen by the human eye) they have never before been seen by even the largest telescopes. Some fraction of the galaxies in this menagerie probably date back to nearly the beginning of the universe. "The variety of galaxies we see is amazing. In time these Hubble data could turn out to be the double helix of galaxy formation. We are clearly seeing some of the galaxies as they were more than ten billion years ago, in the process of formation," said Robert Williams, Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, Maryland. "As the images have come up on our screens, we have not been able to keep from wondering if we might somehow be seeing our own origins in all of this."
- http://www.dailygalaxy.com/
•
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
- Walt Whitman
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
- Walt Whitman
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Mysteries, Yes"
"Mysteries, Yes"
"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads."
~ Mary Oliver
"What's He To Do Then?"
"You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.”
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
○
"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,'
I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'"
- Sydney J. Harris
"A Well-Packaged Web Of Lies..."
“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.”
– Dresden James
"The Economic Bubble Bath"
"The Economic Bubble Bath"
by Jeff Thomas
"At the end of a long, tiring day, we may choose to treat ourselves to a soothing bubble bath. Surrounded by steaming water and a froth of sweet-smelling bubbles, it’s easy to forget the cares of everyday life.
This fact is equally true of economic bubbles. When the markets are up, we’re inclined to feel as though life is rosy. Unfortunately, it does seem to be the norm that investors fail to recognize when a healthy up-market transforms into a dangerous bubble. We tend to be soothed into overlooking the fact that we’re in hot water, and economically, that’s not an advantageous situation to be in.
Periodically, any economy will experience bubbles. It’s bound to happen. Human nature dictates that, if the value of an asset is on the rise, the more success it experiences, the more we want to get in on the success.
Sadly, the great majority of investors have a tendency to fail to educate themselves on how markets work. It’s easier to just trust their broker. Unfortunately, our broker doesn’t make his living through our success; he makes it through brokering transactions. The more buys he can encourage us to make, the more commissions he enjoys.
It’s been said that a broker is "someone who invests your money until it’s gone," and there’s a great deal of truth in that assessment. And so, we can expect to continue to witness periodic bubbles in the markets. They’ll occur roughly as often as it takes for us to forget the devastation of the last one and we once again dive in, only to be sheared once again. But we’re presently seeing an economic anomaly – a host of bubbles, inflating dramatically at the same time.
The Stock Market Bubble: Only a decade ago, stocks plummeted and billions were lost by investors. But then, before the system could be cleansed of the detritus, more money was artificially pumped into the system and stocks began to rise again.
Margin debt is now at an all-time high and complacency is at a maximum. The present condition looks quite a bit more like 1929 than 2008, and the stock market is overdue for a crash. This time, it promises to be much greater than before, as the debt that’s fueling the bull market is at a level that’s historically unprecedented.
Back in 1929, communications were poor and stock market trades were recorded in handwritten ledgers. Today, the recording is entirely electronic, and in addition, in order to minimize losses, the investor may have his broker set electronic stops that will ensure that a given stock is offered on the market automatically, if it drops below the stop price. This works quite well as long as times are good, but, if there were to be a crash, what it means is that, even if a crash were to be triggered in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep, the market would awake in the morning to a sudden collapse, as prices blew through the stops of countless investors. Therefore, the collapse would be much swifter and much more severe than in 1929.
The Bond Market Bubble: This bubble could just as easily be termed a "debt bubble," as bonds are simply a promise to pay a debt at a future date. (It’s important to note that the bond market consists of a far higher level of investment than the stock market and therefore has the potential to do far more damage in a crash.)
Bonds may be issued by companies, municipalities or central governments. By far, the largest portion of the bond market is that of Treasuries, or government-issued bonds. Since 1944, the US has been in the catbird seat in the world, as its dollar has been the world’s default currency. But, as the US has, in recent decades, increasingly abused that privilege, the rest of the world has been looking for ways to extricate itself from this economic stranglehold.
With the introduction of new central banks in Asia, plus the new CIPS system (an alternative to the monopolistic SWIFT), it’s become increasingly possible for the East to wean itself from the dollar. Increasingly, this has meant dumping US Treasuries back into the system. Bonds are presently in a bubble of epic proportions, and with every month, the foundation underneath them is crumbling more, due to ever-increasing dumping. Even the perma-conservative Alan Greenspan now states that, "We are in a bond market bubble… Prices are too high… The bond market bubble will eventually be the critical issue."
The Real Estate Bubble: In 1999, the Fed, then under Alan Greenspan, convinced the US president to repeal the Glass Steagall Act, freeing the banks to create the types of loans that helped cause the Great Depression. This, of course, led to the real estate crash of 2007, but instead of the banks going belly-up, they were rewarded for their misdeeds through bailouts that were paid for by taxpayers. Consequently, although there was a significant correction in real estate prices, this didn’t result in prices dropping to fair value.
They have once again risen and, at this point, are overdue for a major correction. That correction is now well under way. Since it has begun at a time when other markets are also in peril, the level of bailout required for all of them at the same time is impossible to achieve.
Had each of these markets been allowed to collapse in the normal manner, as would occur in a free-market system, they would have done so at levels below the present ones and would have done less damage when they burst. Additionally, each bubble would have burst at its own, logical time. Instead, all are being propped up artificially, far beyond their natural sell-by date.
For this reason, they’re so over-inflated that, when one bubble is popped, it’s all but certain that they’ll all go down together. And so, effectively, the financial world is in a bubble bath. The investor is surrounded by soothing bubbles, each of which is rising, reassuring him that his investments are growing. Although it should be clear to him that he’s in hot water, the majority of investors are holding on to their bonds, rubbing their hands over the rising sale prices of homes in their neighborhood and considering taking out a loan to buy more stocks on margin. The collapse will therefore come to most as a complete surprise.
Economic bubbles are normal. They’re created by the lack of forethought that’s common to human nature. But the present bubble bath is an anomaly without precedent and, as such, promises to result in a crash of unprecedented proportions."
"Night..."
“The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone. Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but angels of God.”
- Jerome K. Jerome
"Boondoggle Back Better"
"Boondoggle Back Better"
by Bill Bonner
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Sit down. Remain calm. Let’s try to figure this out…The big news on Friday was that the House got together and passed Joe Biden’s social spending program. Nancy Pelosi congratulated herself: "[The package] is a spectacular agenda for the future, with transformational action on health care, family care and climate that will make a significant difference in the lives of millions of Americans."
Here at the Diary, we don’t care much for numbers. We don’t trust them. We’re talking about numbers used in public policy discussions – which tend to be confected on multiple levels of legerdemain and statistical fuzz. But the numbers connected to the Build Back Better Boondoggle are especially shifty. How much in tax increases? What’s the final tab? Darned if we know.
Fuzzy Numbers: The numbers are all over the place, depending on which lies you believe. The Hill elaborates: "That Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment, released Thursday evening, flew in the face of Biden’s promise that the legislation would be fully paid for. It has sparked some debate – and plenty of confusion – over how much the bill will cost overall.
The CBO found that, in total, the package allocates $1.64 trillion in new federal spending over ten years. But unlike the White House, the budget office does not include the tax credits as part of that top-line number. If those credits are added to the CBO’s spending tally, the figure would jump into the $2.4 trillion range – well above Biden’s initial $1.75 trillion framework."
The Wall Street Journal tries to explain further: "The current $10,000 limit on the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction increases to $80,000 through 2030. In 2031 it would return to $10,000. Penn Wharton says this gimmick would lead to $65 billion in additional tax revenue through 2031 though it would cost about $300 billion through 2025." Well… we’re glad that’s cleared up!
High-Cost Boondoggle: The Penn Wharton Budget model “scored” Biden’s new Build Back Better Boondoggle at $4.6 trillion over 10 years. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (which sounds oxymoronic to us) says the cost will go to $4.9 trillion when the feds finally admit that the sun will never actually set on their “temporary” provisions. But for today’s purpose, let us assume that the Great Cause – whatever it is – will end up taking $5 trillion out of the public purse.
Are you sitting down? Are you aware that this proposal comes on top of the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” boondoggle… which came on top of the $2.77 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2021… which is 12% of GDP, considerably more than Argentina’s 8.5% deficit/GDP ratio?
And are you aware that every penny in the public purse must come from the public, in one form or another? And that the purse now holds nearly $29 trillion worth of I.O.U.s that the public will eventually have to pay – most likely, in the form of higher consumer prices? Are you aware, too, that inflation is on the move… rising at the fastest pace in 31 years? And that the average working stiff is getting poorer (his wages are going up, but about 2% more slowly than prices)?
Elizabeth reported yesterday that her trip to the grocery store cost $100 more than it usually does. She thought the clerk had made a mistake. But it was no mistake; prices are rising. “Think of those poor families living paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “It must be awfully depressing.”
Almost every penny of the federal deficit is now covered by “printing press” money. So isn’t adding another $5 trillion to federal spending likely to make the situation worse? And won’t this put voters in a foul mood, in which they will most likely throw out the Democrats in the next election? So, why on Earth would the feds do such a thing?
Obvious Cause: We turn to a Democratic senator for a dumb answer. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) believes that additional spending is good for the economy. Newsweek reports: "I disagree… that Build Back Better is going to add to inflation. In fact, economists rarely agree about anything, but 12 Nobel science economists say that Build Back Better is actually going to not add to inflation and will be anti-inflationary over the long term. So we need to get on and pass the Build Back Better to lower costs for families and to address climate change and all of the other parts of the bill that will actually strengthen our families and our economy."
So, let’s see if we have this straight…Inflation is rising in almost all sectors. The rather obvious cause is that the Federal Reserve added nearly $5 trillion to the nation’s monetary base since August 2019. As we elaborated Friday, fish gotta swim… and money gotta buy something. Buying things caused ships to back up, shelves to empty out, and prices to rise. And now, there are those among us – including 12 Nobel Prize-winning economists! – who believe that another $5 trillion down the drain will “strengthen our economy.”
How so? Tomorrow… it might be worth looking at these 12 Nobel Prize-winners – or at least one of them – more closely."
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