"A Look to the Heavens"

"A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy. Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.

Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe. Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130116.html

"Animals"

"Animals"

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they

are so placid and self contain’d;

I stand and look at them long and long,

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied - not one is demented with

the mania of owning things;

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that

lived thousands of years ago;

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth."

- Walt Whitman

"Do You Want..."

"Do you want to live life, or do you want to escape life?"

- Macklemore

"The Long Cycles Have All Turned: Look Out Below"

"The Long Cycles Have All Turned: Look Out Below"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Long cycles operate at such a glacial pace they're easily dismissed as either figments of fevered imagination or this time it's different. But since Nature and human nature remain stubbornly grounded by the same old dynamics, cycles eventually turn and the world changes dramatically. Nobody thinks the cyclical turn is possible until it's already well underway.

Multiple long cycles are turning in unison:

1. The cycle of interest rates: down for 40+ years (last turn, 1981), now up for an unknown but consequential period of time.

2. The cycle of inflation/deflation: the 40-year period of low real-world inflation and rip-roaring speculative debt-asset inflation has ended and now an era of scarcity, real-world inflation and speculative debt-asset deflation begins.

3. The cycle of capital-labor balance: capital has dominated labor for 40+ years, siphoning $50 trillion from labor. This cycle has now turned and the rebalancing is underway: it's capital's turn to surrender gains and power.

4. The cycle of social order-disorder: as documented by historian Peter Turchin and others, social order (in Turchin's phrase, the integrative phase) holds sway for about 50 years and then it gives way to an era of social disorder (the disintegrative phase). This phase doesn't end with mild reforms nobody even notices, it ends with a rebalancing of social, political and economic power.

Ages of Discord:

5. The cycle of wealth/power inequality: wealth - and the political power it buys - becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. This feeds economic and political dysfunction and exploitation that must be remedied by reducing extremes of wealth-power inequality.

6. The cycle of speculative excess: those in power protect their wealth and the wealth of their cronies by instituting moral hazard, the disconnect of risk and consequence: the central state and central bank backstop and bail out the most egregious big speculators, who keep all their gains and transfer their losses to the public.

The public concludes the only way to get ahead in such a rigged financial system is to belly up to the gaming tables and gamble that the next bubble will never pop because those in power won't ever let it pop. But alas, humans do not possess god-like powers, they only possess hubris, and so all bubbles pop: the more extreme the bubble, the more devastating the pop. The faint cries that fade to silence are: but this time it's different! and the Fed will save us! That's not how cycles work: all the god-like powers are revealed as hubris, which arouses the fatal ire of Nemesis."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Market Falls On Moronic! (Yes It Is Moronic); Pharma CEO Warns"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/1/21:

"Market Falls On Moronic! (Yes It Is Moronic); 

Pharma CEO Warns"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The United States Gets Even Closer To War With Both Russia And China"

"The United States Gets Even Closer To

 War With Both Russia And China"

by Michael Snyder

"While most of the U.S. population is distracted by other matters, the Biden administration continues to march us even closer to war with both Russia and China. It is understandable that so much attention is being given to the craziness surrounding the COVID pandemic, our very serious economic problems and the growing violence in our streets, but ultimately our deteriorating relationships with Russia and China will become even bigger news than any of those stories. If we stay on the path that we are currently on, there will inevitably be war with Russia and there will inevitably be war with China. I do not believe that either of those conflicts will erupt this week or this month, but thanks to the recklessness of the Biden administration we are relentlessly moving toward war. So even though most of my articles address concerns that are of a more immediate nature, I am going to keep my readers periodically updated on these developments, because this is a story that isn’t going to go away.

On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin warned the United States and NATO not to deploy troops or missiles in Ukraine…"Russian President Vladimir Putin warned NATO and the US Tuesday that any deployment of troops or missiles in Ukraine would cross a “red line” and prompt a military response. “The emergence of such threats represents a ‘red line’ for us,” the Russian leader said. “I hope that it will not get to that and common sense and responsibility for their own countries and the global community will eventually prevail.”

Of course this is not the first time Putin has issued such a warning. For months, the Russians have been making it clear that they will not tolerate western forces in Ukraine. The Russians are particularly concerned about missiles, because a missile launched from Ukraine could potentially hit Moscow in five minutes.

It is kind of like the Cuban missile crisis in reverse. For good reason, the U.S. didn’t want Russian missiles in Cuba because of the close proximity. Similarly, the Russians don’t want western missiles right on their doorstep.

Unfortunately, instead of defusing the situation we continue to see NATO sending more “military hardware” into Ukraine in order to stop a potential “Russian invasion”…"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO on Tuesday of deploying a significant amount of military hardware near Russia’s borders and said Moscow could respond to security threats from Western countries and Ukraine if necessary. U.S., NATO and Ukrainian officials have raised the alarm in recent weeks over what they say are unusual Russian troop movements near the border with Ukraine, and have suggested that Moscow might be preparing to launch an attack. Moscow has denied any plans to do so."

Most Americans don’t realize this, but this is a tinderbox that could literally explode at any time. Meanwhile, the Russians continue to prepare for a future global conflict. A few weeks ago, Putin announced that testing of Russia’s new hypersonic missiles was almost done…"Earlier in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that tests of the Zircon hypersonic missiles are almost completed. Vladimir Putin said that the hypersonic weapon with maximum speed of Mach 9 will appear in Russia in the near future. These missiles can move at unimaginable speeds, and the U.S. has absolutely no way to defend against them."

Even more alarming, Putin is saying that Russia will be deploying “sea-based” hypersonic missiles early next year…"Speaking to gathered experts, Putin called the development of high-speed missiles as a “necessary” response to “Western actions.” “We have already successfully conducted tests, and from the beginning of the year we will have in service a sea-based hypersonic missile of Mach 9,” Putin said."

Russia’s “black hole submarines” are so quiet that they can literally sneak up to our coastlines without anyone ever detecting them. So imagine a scenario where a whole bunch of them suddenly surface just off our coastlines and launch hypersonic missiles which start hitting our coastal cities within just moments.

By the way, China has also developed a very alarming new hypersonic weapon system…"A senior U.S. Space Force officer has stressed that China’s new hypersonic weapon system is indeed orbital in nature and could be able to stay in space for an extended period of time. This is the latest piece of official information about this novel system that reportedly uses some kind of hypersonic glider, which may be capable of launching its own projectiles to actually execute a strike."

At this point, both Russia and China are miles ahead of us when it comes to developing hypersonic weapons. But at least the U.S. military has them both beat when it comes to conducting diversity seminars.

As bad as things are with Russia, I actually believe that war with China is even closer. Taiwan is the primary source of contention between the Chinese and the Biden administration, and things just continue to get even more tense. In fact, China just sent “about 150 aircraft” into Taiwanese airspace over a recent four day period…"The past few days have been busy in airspace off Taiwan’s southern coast, in what’s been a steady uptick of such threatening flights. “Over the past year, the frequency of Chinese incursions has increased, with about 150 aircraft over a period of four days,” The Associated Press tallied by the close of Sunday. This could mark a new record set over a four-day time period, given the first week of October say 145 PLA aircraft within the same window, a prior record. The actions had corresponded with China’s 72nd annual National Day."

I am entirely convinced that the Chinese will pull the trigger on an invasion of Taiwan at some point. When that occurs, the U.S. and China will instantly be in a state of war. But most Americans don’t really care about any of this. Most Americans will just keep their heads stuck in the sand as the world continues to go mad all around them. Unfortunately, when they do finally wake up it will be way too late to reverse course."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Huddersfield, Kirklees, United Kingdom

Thanks for stopping by!

"Noticing Synchronicity: Interconnected Experiences"

"Noticing Synchronicity: Interconnected Experiences"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"Things happen in our lives for a reason, even if that reason is not clear to you right away. When events appear to fit together perfectly in our lives it may seem at first that they are random occurrences, things that are the result of coincidence. These synchronous happenings, though, are much more than that, for, if we look at them more closely they can show us that the universe is listening to us and gently communicating with us. Learning to pay attention to and link the things that occur on a daily basis can be a way for us to become more attuned to the fact that most everything happens in our lives for a reason – even when that reason is not clear right away.

When we realize that things often go more smoothly than we can ever imagine, it allows us to take the time to reflect on the patterns in our lives. Even events that might not at first seem to be related to each other are indicators that the universe is working with, not against, us. This idea of synchronicity, then, means that we have to trust there is more to our lives than what we experience on a physical level. We need to be willing to look more closely at the bigger picture, accepting and having confidence in the fact that there is more to our experiences than immediately meets the eye. Being open to synchronicity also means that we have to understand that our lives are filled with both positive and negative events. Once we can recognize that one event is neither more desirable nor better than the other – they all have an overall purpose in our lives -- then we are truly ready to listen to the messages the universe gives us.

While we may not be able to see everything in our lives as being synchronous, we can certainly use hindsight to be more aware of how the universe guides us. This sense of wonder at the mysteries of the universe and the interconnectedness present in our lives will help us see our overall ways of being and will in turn make it easier to work more consciously towards our spiritual evolution."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

The Poet: Galway Kinnell, "Another Night in the Ruins"

"Another Night in the Ruins"

"How many nights must it take

one such as me to learn

that we aren't, after all, made

from that bird that flies out of its ashes,

that for us

as we go up in flames,

our one work is

to open ourselves,

to be the flames?"

~ Galway Kinnell

"Curiosity..."

"Curiosity is the essence of human existence.

'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'

I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions.

I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out."

- Eugene Cernan

"Your Money is Worth Nothing and the Music is About to Stop"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 12/1/21:

"Your Money is Worth Nothing and the Music is About to Stop"

"There are so many international warnings that we cannot ignore. Inflation is not transitory and the dollar is losing value every day. Your money is worth nothing and the music is about to stop playing. Will you be ready?"

"Trust Me, I Know What I’m Doing"

"Trust Me, I Know What I’m Doing"

by Bill Bonner

"Trust me, I know what I’m doing."

– ­Inspector Sledge Hammer, 1980’s TV show

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – "Oh My Cron? OH-mee-cron? Or something like that. President Biden sees it as such a big thing, he scheduled an address to the nation. Of course, POTUS knows nothing more about the omicron COVID variant than the rest of us. Still, he urged all Americans to get a booster shot. Is he practicing medicine without a license? Who knows? Here at the Diary, the hardest decision we make each morning is choosing what to laugh at first.

Quick Movers: Meanwhile, some slick hustlers moved fast to capitalize on the omicron craze. Yes, you guessed it… they rushed out an Omicron crypto coin. No kidding. What market did it serve? What product or service did it offer? Why the hell would anyone want to buy it?

We have no idea, other than that the word “omicron” came to be very much used over the weekend. Here’s Mark Gongloff at Bloomberg: "A crypto thing called Omicron has soared more than 900% since Saturday because there is now also a Covid variant called omicron. That’s it. That’s the reason. Omicron the Crypto Thing is, in the words of CoinTelegraph, “a recently introduced decentralized reserve currency protocol that runs on the Ethereum layer-two network Arbitrum. Its native OMIC token is backed by several other crypto assets including the USD Coin stablecoin and liquidity provider tokens. It can only be traded on the SushiSwap decentralized exchange.”

Clear as mud…

Here’s Gongloff’s colleague, Matt Levine, with more gibberish: "Omicron is a clone of OlympusDAO, a fascinating decentralized-finance Ponzi scheme that we’ll probably have to talk about around here one day, but that’s not why it’s up. It’s up because it is a tradable claim with the word “omicron” in its name, and the word “omicron” is up. You just have to unfocus your eyes and not think too hard about it. Omicron, omicron, get it?"

Distract and Conquer: In South Africa, where the variant first made landfall, health officials say omicron, the virus, is no big deal. It produces “mild” symptoms, they say. But hey… there’s one born every minute. Some become crypto gamblers. Others become presidents of the USA.

Besides… this is a good time for distractions. Inflation is getting worse… Stocks are falling… Congress is again bumping into a debt ceiling… Gasoline is 60% higher than a year ago… Supplies of oil, gas, and electricity are becoming more fragile…and winter is coming. USA Today adds:

"Who imagined that COVID-19 would continue to ravage us and that we would also have record-high inflation, sky-high gas and food prices, and our fellow Americans left behind in Afghanistan? Who could have seen that the No. 1 enemy of the Justice Department in 2021 would be parents worried about what their children were taught in school? Who thought that our southern border would be effectively open and that the supply chain crisis would be so dire, children’s Christmas gifts are at risk?"

When you are out of office, tell the voters that things are getting worse. But when you are in office, let them think that Heaven on Earth is just around the corner. If we were president, we know what we’d say: Inflation? No problem; it’s transitory. Debt ceiling? Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan. New variant? Under control. And winter? Who could have seen that coming?!

Special Precautions: Viruses, like cryptos, replicate. And then, they tend to lose their puissance. They are living things. They “want” to spread out… to reproduce. And they do it best by infecting people, but not killing them… at least, not until they’ve had a chance to spread to others. But you never know. Most of the deaths – whether from COVID-19 or the flu – are probably “accidental,” or collateral damage, from the virus’s point of view. Their hosts just couldn’t handle the load. And you might be one of them.

So, if you don’t want to risk getting a virus, the way to do it is easy – never leave your home… and never permit any visitors, not even from pets. Few humans want to live that way. Instead, they take their chances. They drive fast, eat mushrooms, and enjoy one-night-stands without asking vaccination status… and go see doctors and priests to help them through their moments of doubt and pain.

And as they get older, they become more vulnerable, so they take special precautions. They move more slowly, for fear of falling. They drive more carefully, aware that their reactions are not as swift as they once were. They get their shots. And they die.

Tried and True: Here at the Diary, we have no problem with any of that. Amor fati. Do fools get separated from their money? Do old people die? Do the leaves turn color in the autumn and politicians lie all year round? We are serene about the way the world works. But we prefer truth to lies, beauty to ugliness, and courage to cowardice. And when the leaves turn and the chilly winds blow, we prefer looking out on a few cords of dry firewood, rather than trusting the Department of Energy to make sure we stay warm.

For our money, we’ll stick to the old tried-and-true. And as to medical advice, we’ll talk to our doctor."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Total Control: The Secret You Are Not Allowed To Know; The US Economic Freefall Worsens"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/1/21:

"Total Control: The Secret You Are Not Allowed To Know; 

The US Economic Freefall Worsens"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Yanni, “To the One Who Knows”

Full screen recommended.

Yanni, “To the One Who Knows” 

"No Smooth Road..."

"Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere

of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps,

till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself."

- W. C. Doane

The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"

"The Circles Of Our Lives"

"Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon,

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing. Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy. The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return,

Within the circles of our lives..."

- Wendell Berry

○

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust,

swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of Infinity.

Life is Eternal.

We have stopped for a moment to encounter 

each other, to meet, to love, to share.

This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in Eternity.”

- Paulo Coelho

○

"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars... Everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."

- Thornton Wilder

"Effort and Understanding: Having It Easy"

"Effort and Understanding: Having It Easy"

by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"When we view the lives of others and think they have it easy, we are not seeing the whole of their life or the story they are presenting. Our lives are an exercise in facing challenges. We dream the grandest of dreams as youngsters only to discover that we must cultivate copious inner strength and determination in order to meet our goals. Our hard work does not always yield the results we expect. And it is when we find ourselves frustrated by the trials we face or unable to meet our own expectations that we are most apt to take notice of those individuals who appear to accomplish great feats effortlessly. Some people’s lives seem to magically fall into place. We can see the blessings they have received, the ease with which they have attained their desires, their unwavering confidence, and their wealth. But, because we can never see the story of their lives as a whole, it is important that we refrain from passing judgment or becoming envious.

Throughout our lives, we glimpse only the outer hull of others’ life experiences, so it’s tempting to presuppose that the abundance they enjoy is the result of luck rather than diligent effort. In a small number of cases, our assumptions may mirror reality. But very few people “have it easy.” Everyone must overcome difficulties and everyone has been granted a distinctive set of talents with which to do so. An individual who is highly gifted may nonetheless have to practice industriously and correct themselves repeatedly in order to cultivate their talents. Their myriad accomplishments are more likely than not the result of ongoing hard work and sacrifice. You, no doubt, have natural abilities that you have nurtured and your gifts may be the very reason you strive as tirelessly as you do. Yet others see only the outcome of your efforts and not the efforts themselves

Our intellects, our hearts, and our souls are constantly being tested by the universe. Life will create new challenges for you to face each time you prove yourself capable of overcoming the challenges of the past. What you deem difficult will always differ from that which others deem difficult. The tests you will be given will be as unique as you are. If you focus on doing the best you can and making use of the blessings you have been granted, the outcome of your efforts will be a joyous reflection of your dedication."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

The Universe

“There are no accidents. If it's appeared on your life radar, this is why: to teach you that dreams come true; to reveal that you have the power to fix what's broken and heal what hurts; to catapult you beyond seeing with just your physical senses; and to lift the veils that have kept you from seeing that you're already the person you dreamed you'd become. There are no accidents. And believe me, that was one heck of a dream.”

“Tallyho,”

The Universe

“Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!”

- www.tut.com

Gerald Celente, "2022 Top Trends"

Full screen recommended.

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal,

"2022 Top Trends"

"2020 was the Year the World Changed. The implications of the 

raging COVID War will be felt far and wide as we have detailed,

 and continue to forecast in the Trends Journal."

- https://trendsresearch.com/

Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Bad Moon Rising"

Creedence Clearwater Revival, 

"Bad Moon Rising"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Who knows what evil lurks in the eyes of galaxies? The Hubble knows -- or in the case of spiral galaxy M64 - is helping to find out. Messier 64, also known as the Evil Eye or Sleeping Beauty Galaxy, may seem to have evil in its eye because all of its stars rotate in the same direction as the interstellar gas in the galaxy's central region, but in the opposite direction in the outer regions. Captured here in great detail by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, enormous dust clouds obscure the near-side of M64's central region, which are laced with the telltale reddish glow of hydrogen associated with star formation. 

M64 lies about 17 million light years away, meaning that the light we see from it today left when the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees roamed the Earth. The dusty eye and bizarre rotation are likely the result of a billion-year-old merger of two different galaxies."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210329.html

"The Truth About Last Friday’s Crash"

"The Truth About Last Friday’s Crash"

by Jim Rickards

"You’re probably familiar with the adage that stocks take the stairs up and the elevator down. Well, last Friday, the stock market took the elevator down. The Dow crashed 905 points or 2.53%. The S&P and Nasdaq indexes had similar falls, about 2.25% each. The reason for the decline was reported to be new fears of the COVID pandemic in the form of the Omicron variant.

Financial writers never have any difficulty coming up with an explanation for extreme market moves, even if the explanation is just an after-the-fact rationalization based on the headline du jour. No doubt the Omicron variant had something to do with the performance on Wall Street. Thin volume and low liquidity were also factors. Still, the bigger story (and the one not reported) is that the stock market was, and is, primed for a fall. And today’s popular investment model only makes the problem worse. Here’s what I mean...

Inflows of cash from passive investment managers have been allocated based on market cap. This means the seven biggest stocks (Apple, Amazon, Google [Alphabet], Facebook [Meta], Microsoft and Tesla) get the lion’s share of the allocation. This drives their prices higher, which attracts more inflows and buying and results in still higher prices.

Market bubbles and ridiculous valuations result when retail investors bid up stocks in the hope that a greater fool will pay them even more when they cash out. In these situations, the market capitalization becomes completely detached from fundamental value, projected earnings or any other tool used in securities analysis. It’s just a bubble with inevitable losses for the last buyers.

But feedback loops of this kind can work in reverse, except the crash happens much faster than the melt-up because of tight stops, redemptions, margin calls and a mad scramble for liquidity. And unfortunately, each crisis is bigger than the one before and requires more intervention by the central banks. The reason has to do with the system scale. In complex dynamic systems such as capital markets, risk is an exponential function of system scale. Increasing market scale correlates with exponentially larger market collapses.

Today, systemic risk is more dangerous than ever because the entire system is larger than before. This means that the larger size of the system implies a future global liquidity crisis and market panic far larger than the Panic of 2008. Too-big-to-fail banks are bigger than ever, have a larger percentage of the total assets of the banking system and have much larger derivatives books. The ability of central banks to deal with a new crisis is highly constrained by low interest rates and bloated balance sheets, which have exploded even higher in response to the pandemic.

What I just described is an unsustainable feedback loop especially in view of a slowing economy due to supply chain disruption, the new virus variant and, yes, monetary tightening. The Federal Reserve is about to screw up. Again. The Fed announced their latest tapering program (reductions in asset purchases with printed money) a few weeks ago. The plan was to complete the taper by June 2022 and then begin a series of interest rate hikes in the second half of 2022 with a view to normalizing interest rates at around 2.25% by late 2023.

The Fed can’t make an accurate six-month forecast, so the idea that they can forecast the economy and set monetary policy two years in advance is absurd. The bigger point is that the Fed tried this before and failed. They tapered from 2013–2014 and then raised rates from 2015–2018 at which point the stock market crashed 20% in the three months from October–December 2018. After that, the Fed put rate hikes on hold and then eventually cut them to zero and added new asset purchase programs during the pandemic in 2020.

The latest from the Fed is that they may accelerate both the taper and the rate hikes in this new effort to escape the room. They will fail again. The economy is weakening due to supply chain disruption, new pandemic virus variants and low labor force participation among other factors. The Fed should be on hold until the situation clarifies. Instead, they are plunging ahead by tightening into economic weakness.

It’s just another in a long line of blunders for the Fed. Unfortunately, it will prove very costly to investors who mistake tightening for a strong economy. We don’t have a strong economy. We have a wrong-headed Fed. You still have time to lighten up your equity exposure and allocate more to cash and hard assets like real estate, gold and silver. It’s much better to be a little bit early than one day too late.

Below, I show you why the next market swoon could spiral rapidly out of control before anyone can stop it. Read on."

○

"Robot Trading Will End in Disaster"

by Jim Rickards

"Today, stock markets and other markets such as bonds and currencies can best be described as “automated automation.” Here’s what I mean. There are two stages in stock investing. The first is coming up with a preferred allocation among stocks, cash, bonds, etc. This stage also includes deciding how much to put in index products or exchange-traded funds (ETFs, which are a kind of mini-index) and how much active management to use. The second stage involves the actual buy and sell decisions - when to get out, when to get in and when to go to the sidelines with safe-haven assets such as Treasury notes or gold.

What investors may not realize is the extent to which both of these decisions are now left entirely to computers. I’m not talking about automated trade matching where I’m a buyer and you’re a seller and a computer matches our orders and executes the trade. That kind of trading has been around since the 1990s. I’m talking about computers making the portfolio allocation and buy/sell decisions in the first place, based on algorithms, with no human involvement at all. This is now the norm.

Eighty percent of stock trading is now automated in the form of either index funds (60%) or quantitative models (20%). This means that “active investing,” where you pick the allocation and the timing, is down to 20% of the market.

An active investor is one who does original research and due diligence on her investments or who relies on an investment adviser or mutual fund that does its own research. The active investor makes bets, takes risks and is the lifeblood of price discovery in securities markets. The active investor may make money or lose money (usually it’s a bit of both) but in all cases earns her money by thoughtful investment. The active investor contributes to markets while trying to make money in them. But in all, the amount of human “market making” in the traditional sense is down to about 5% of total trading. This trend is the result of two intellectual fallacies.

The first is the idea that “You can’t beat the market.” This drives investors to index funds that match the market. A passive investor is a parasite. The passive investor simply buys an index fund, sits back and enjoys the show. Since markets mostly go up, the passive investor mostly makes money but contributes nothing to price discovery.

The benefits of passive investing have been trumpeted by the late Jack Bogle of the Vanguard Group. Bogle insisted that passive investing is superior to active investing because of lower fees and because active managers can’t “beat the market.” Bogle urged investors to buy and hold passive funds and ignore market ups and downs. The problem with Bogle’s advice is that it’s a parasitic strategy. It works until it doesn’t.

In a world in which most mutual funds and wealth managers are active investors, the passive investor can do just fine. Passive investors pay lower fees while they get to enjoy the price discovery, liquidity and directional impetus provided by the active investors. Passive investors are free riding on the hard work of active investors the same way a parasite lives off the strength of the elephant. What happens when the passive investors outnumber the active investors? The elephant starts to die.

Since 2009, over $2.5 trillion of equity investment has been added to passive-strategy funds, while over $2.0 trillion has been withdrawn from active-strategy funds. The active investors who do their homework and add to market liquidity and price discovery are shrinking in number. The passive investors who free ride on the system and add nothing to price discovery are expanding rapidly. The parasites are overwhelming the elephant.

The second fallacy is that the future will resemble the past over a long horizon, so “traditional” allocations of, say, 60% stocks, 30% bonds and 10% cash (with fewer stocks as you get older) will serve you well. But Wall Street doesn’t tell you that a 50% or greater stock market crash - as happened in 1929, 2000 and 2008 - just before your retirement date will wipe you out. But this is an even greater threat that’s rarely considered…

In a bull market, this type of passive investing amplifies the upside as indexers pile into hot stocks like, for example, Google and Apple have been. But a small sell-off can turn into a stampede as passive investors head for the exits all at once without regard to the fundamentals of a particular stock.

Index funds would stampede out of stocks. Passive investors would look for active investors to “step up” and buy. The problem is there wouldn’t be any active investors left, or at least not enough to make a difference. There would be no active investors left to risk capital by trying to catch a falling knife. Stocks will go straight down with no bid. The market crash will be like a runaway train with no brakes.

When the market goes down, passive fund managers will be forced to sell stocks in order to track the index. This selling will force the market down further and force more selling by the passive managers. This dynamic will feed on itself and accelerate the market crash. Passive investors will be looking for active investors to “step up” and buy. Active investors perform a role akin to the old New York Stock Exchange specialist who was expected to sell when the crowd wanted to buy and to buy when the crowd wanted to sell in order to maintain a balanced order book and keep markets on an even keel.

The problem is there won’t be any active investors left or at least not enough to make a difference. The market crash will be like a runaway train with no brakes. The elephant will die.

It comes back to complexity, and the market is an example of a complex system. One formal property of complex systems is that the size of the worst event that can happen is an exponential function of the system scale. This means that when a complex system’s scale is doubled, the systemic risk does not double; it may increase by a factor of 10 or more. This kind of sudden, unexpected crash that seems to emerge from nowhere is entirely consistent with the predictions of complexity theory. Increasing market scale correlates with exponentially larger market collapses.

Passive investors may be enjoying the free ride for now but they’re in for a shock the next time the market breaks. Welcome to the world of automated investing. It will end in disaster."

- dailyreckoning.com

"It Has Begun: The Stock Market Crash Nobody Believed Was Coming Is Already Upon Us"

Full screen recommended.

"It Has Begun: The Stock Market Crash Nobody

 Believed Was Coming Is Already Upon Us"

by Epic Economist

Chaos is taking over stock markets all around the globe. Traders have been in a total panic since last Friday, when a number of leading stocks crashed and oil prices significantly plunged, after a wave of infections caused by a new virus variant was recorded in South Africa and several European countries, leading to another round of lockdowns, travel restrictions, and reigniting concerns about the economic impacts of the health crisis.

The S&P 500 had its worst day since February as several nations around the globe, including the US, reimposed travel bans from a half-dozen African countries. The sudden uncertainty spooked otherwise bullish investors who had thought that the worst of the health crisis was over. The prospects of new prolonged and strict lockdowns disrupting global production have shaken the market, which had seen a robust performance in recent weeks.

However, according to some market watchers, this initial reaction was just the beginning of the meltdown. As countries continue to assess the risks of the new variant, volatility will become more widespread and cause even sharper drops. Most investors were pricing the stocks for perfection and forgetting about our economic reality. But the day of reckoning seems to have arrived, and they're just realizing that the risks are much more dangerous than they've anticipated.

Last Thursday, U.S. stock markets were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, and on Friday, traders logged out early, which some argue may have contributed to the delayed response compared to other markets around the world. Thin trading over the weekend is also likely to exacerbate the swings throughout this week, but the carnage so far has been considerable. On Friday, the market's decline pushed the S&P 500 down from a record high reached just last week, closing 2.3% lower. The Nasdaq composite index fell 2.2%, while European stock markets fell 3% to 5%.

In recent months, investors have been mainly worried about supply chain disruptions and shortages of labor and goods - factors that are still fueling inflation growth as the price of everything skyrockets. Central banks have already announced plans to withdraw stimulus to fight rampant inflation rates, which many believed would be the pin to pop the stock market bubble. But the unexpected emergence of a new virus strain has brought their focus back to a problem that never really went away.

Of course, as the economic impacts of this variant are just starting to be felt, what happened so far was just the beginning of an intense financial meltdown that is going to result in a massive stock market crash over the next few weeks. At this stage of the bubble, all evidence points that the market has already reached its peak, and from now on, the only way to go is down.

"It's one thing when a single market indicator - or even a few indicators - show weakness," says John Hussman, president of the Hussman Investment Trust. It can be hard to draw major conclusions from small sets of numbers. But it's a very different thing when "dozens" of indicators start to issue red flags at the same time, he argues. "Across four decades of work in the financial markets, and over a century of historical data, I've never observed as many historical indications of a market peak occurring simultaneously," Hussman said in a recent note. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Hussman cited some very alarming indicators that expose that conditions are set for a sizable stock market crash. The investor believes that there's no way this bubble can last for much longer and that future returns will be dismal.

"Jay Powell talks about transitory, or certainly did for a long time, and got mocked for it because we're watching things that look pretty permanent coming in," David Hunter, the chief macro strategist at Contrarian Macro Advisors, outlined in a recent interview. Hunter, just as many other market veterans, including Harry Dent, Michael Burry, Jeremy Grantham, and Robert Kiyosaki are calling for the "biggest stock market crash in world history".

He sees that tightening measures will cause stocks to crash to a tune of about 80%, marking the largest drop since 1929. Given that the bubble has been popped, and the mounting risks have become too unbearable, the amount of evidence supporting their view is definitely alarming. What markets have gone through so far is just a slight indication of what is coming next. It is safe to say that this is game over. The stock market crash no one thought was possible is already upon us. It's all downhill from here."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Gregory Mannarino, "Stocks Fall And Crude Enters The Death Zone; Get Long Covid"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 1/30/21:

"Stocks Fall And Crude Enters The Death Zone; 

Get Long Covid"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"This Real Moron Thing..."; "It's A BIG Club & You Ain't In It!"

 

Strong language alert! 

Full screen recommended.

George Carlin,

"It's A BIG Club & You Ain't In It!"

The Daily "Near You?"

Branson, Missouri. USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"You Pretend..."

"That life. This life. It looks as if you can have both. I mean, they're both right there, one on top of the other, and it looks as if they'll blend. But they never will. So, you take this thing. You take this thing you want, and you put it in a box and you close the lid. You can let your fingers trace the cracks, the places where the light gets in, the dark gets out, but the lid stays on. You don't look inside. You don't look at this thing you want so much, because you Can. Not. Have. It. So there's this box, you know, with the thing inside, and you could throw it away or shoot it into space; you could set it on fire and watch it burn to ashes, but really, none of that would make a difference, because you cannot destroy what you want. It only makes you want it more. So. You take this thing you want and you put it in a box and you close the lid. And you hold the box close to your heart, which is where it wants to go, and you pretend it doesn't kill you every time you feel yourself breathe."

- Megan Hart

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "I Want A Lot"

"I Want A Lot"

"You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

the darkness that comes with every infinite fall

and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing

and are raised to the rank of prince

by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces

that so work and feel thirst...

You have not grown old, and it is not too late

to dive into your increasing depths

where life calmly gives out its own secret."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Promise Me..."