Bill Bonner, "Dr. Doom Looms"

"Dr. Doom Looms"

Uncontrolled inflation? Or a hard landing? Why not both?!

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "In this morning’s Bloomberg news is this: "‘Dr. Doom’ Roubini Sees Either US Hard Landing or Uncontrolled Inflation." “The fed funds rate should be going well above 4% – 4.5%-5% in my view – to really push inflation towards 2%,” the chairman and chief executive officer of Roubini Macro Associates said in an interview on Bloomberg Television."

That’s it. Those are the choices. Inflate the bubble. Or let it die. Roubini says he thinks hopes for a Fed “pivot” – from tightening to loosening – is “delusional.”

In the near term, he is certainly right. Fed governors are not stupid… at least, not in a conventional way. It took many years of study to become the simpletons they are. And they are still human! Let’s not forget; they don’t like people laughing at them behind their backs any more than anyone else. And now, everyone can see that they made a huge mistake by not raising interest rates sooner. Then, they made another huge mistake by not recognizing the threat of inflation sooner… and still another big mistake by believing it would go away like a summer shower. Instead, inflation has settled in… and has been drenching consumers for more than a year.

Up to Their Necks: And now, Fed governors must atone… they must make good… they must prove that they are not hopeless morons. How? By getting control of the situation. That is how they will “regain credibility.” And that means – as Mr. Roubini tells us – getting the fed funds rate up above the inflation rate. (Point of reference: The Fed, in 1982, put the key rate about 600 basis points… 6%... ABOVE the CPI to get control of inflation. Currently, the rate is 600 bps BELOW inflation.)

The trouble is, the higher the funds rate goes, the more people have trouble paying their debts. The Fed’s ultra-low rates encouraged people to borrow. Now, they’re up to their necks in debt. And most, but not all, debt needs to be refinanced from time to time… which means, people have to pay a lot more in interest. Already, from June ’21 to June ’22, the typical mortgage payment rose by $700.

All central bankers learn the theory of Keynesian central banking, by heart. It is very simple, based on the Bible story; Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream… in which the latter saw seven skinny cows and seven thin ones… which he took to mean that there were 7 years of famine coming. Pharaoh then began a ‘counter-cyclical policy’ of stocking grain during the fat years in order to have something to eat in the lean ones.

In the Fed’s version, interest rates are raised during the fat years and lowered when the famine threatens. At least, that is the idea. In practice, the Fed really has no idea what is going on… and, being human, Fed governors prefer fat to lean and don’t mind a little legerdemain to keep the pastries coming. That is, they lower rates – even when the economy is strong. You’ll recall that the economy in 2019 couldn’t have been stronger. It was Donald Trump’s turn to play Pharaoh. He said it was the “greatest economy ever.”

Enter Mother Nature: The Fed had been trying to ‘normalize’ interest rates, after leaving the fed funds rate ‘near zero’ for far too long. By the time it got up to 2.4%... in 2019… the stock market turned down… and the Fed panicked, dropping the rate down to zero again. But it was not Mother Nature who determined the lean years or the fat ones in the US economy; it was Fed policy blunders themselves. Everybody likes the fat years, especially the elite, whose stocks and bonds go up. And the Fed, an arm of the Wall Street elite, did what it could to make it happen.

In other words, the people implementing the counter-cyclical policies were the same people who were tricking up the cycles. It was as if the umpire had run around the bases, slid into home plate, and pronounced himself “SAFE!” The Fed could not counterbalance the boom, 2009-2021, because it was the cause of it.

By 2021, it had been force feeding the economy with cash, credit, and fat-inducing calories for more than a decade. And then, in 2021-2022, inflation shot up, the stock market fell and the economy entered a recession. But the Fed couldn’t provide any counter-cyclical policy to offset the bust; its storerooms were empty! It had already dropped the key rate to zero. And now, contradicting the rules set forth in the Central Bankers’ Handbook, it has to raise rates in order to stop inflation and recover a little of its dignity.

And what now? Uncontrolled inflation? Or a hard landing? Which will it be? Our guess: both. A hard landing… and then, uncontrolled inflation. But we’ll wait to see what happens, along with everyone else."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"Your Job..."

“Life is half delicious yogurt, half crap, 

and your job is to keep the plastic spoon in the yogurt.”

- Scott Adams

"End-Of-Life Challenges In Modern Times"

"End-Of-Life Challenges In Modern Times"

by Tom Purcell

"A long time ago I watched a documentary about poet Emily Dickenson’s life and writings. One thing that I never forgot about that film is that she lived at a time when death was regrettably common - and therefore the subject of many of her poems. “How are you doing?” is a polite way of introducing ourselves to each other now. But as I learned in that documentary, this greeting during Dickinson’s times meant, “Are you healthy and well and going to be with us tomorrow?”

Until modern times, dying commonly affected all age groups. Women died during child birth. Children died from a variety of maladies. The rich as well as the poor suffered tragedy and loss almost equally.

Haider Warraich, the doctor who wrote “Modern Death: How Medicine Has Changed End of Life,” explained in an interview that in the 1800s in Boston or London people died mostly of three things: injuries, infections, or some type of nutritional deficiencies. “Really,” he said, “death was a very binary event - and it was very sudden. For example, before the advent of medical technology, if someone had a heart attack or if someone had some type of abnormal heart rhythm such as ventricular tachycardia, they would almost certainly die, in many cases instantaneously, sometimes even in their sleep.” Warraich said that dying today is no longer an “instantaneous flash event,” but a “phase of our life.”

New technologies enable people to live longer even if they have chronic diseases, so they are in and out of hospitals - as my dad was the past five months. Today we’ve become disconnected from death, Warraich said. We’ve moved death from our homes and communities to hospitals and nursing homes – where four of five Americans now die.

When my father’s father died at only 34 in 1937, he died in his own bed of streptococcus, now easily cured with penicillin, and was laid out in the parlor of his house. We’d hoped my father would meet his end peacefully in his own home. After repeated visits to the hospital and skilled nursing facilities, we brought him home and hired our own care. We celebrated his 89th birthday at his home a few weeks ago in epic fashion. A glorious event, it was attended by the large extended family he and my mother produced. When his time finally came, he was back in the hospital, but he was surrounded by his family and his wife of nearly 66 years.

As advances in technology change the way we live and die we are becoming fearful of death - yet it’s something every one of us is going to experience. I’m honored to say that my sisters and mother and I fully embraced my dad’s life and supported him with everything we had in his last painful months.

Knowing he’s at peace now quells the hurt of watching him suffer so much for so long. I believe he is in Heaven now, reunited with his parents, and I believe I will see him again. I will wait patiently for that grand reunion.

“How are you doing?” is the question of the moment. I wish you the very best if you are in your end stage of life now or caring for someone you love who is - as you navigate the challenges of dying in modern times."

- https://www.cagle.com/

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"Amen"

 "No, I don't feel death coming.

I feel death going:

having thrown up his hands,

for the moment.

I feel like I know him

better than I did.

Those arms held me,

for a while,

and, when we meet again,

there will be that secret knowledge

between us." 

- James Baldwin

"I Promise You This..."

"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."

- Edward Abbey

"How It Really Is"

"Free"? Surely you jest...

Gregory Mannarino, "JP Morgan Warns Of 'Severe Economic Downturn'"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/16/22:

"JP Morgan Warns Of 'Severe Economic Downturn'"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Yeah, a downturn for you!

"A Stressful Shopping Trip To Meijer! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/16/22:

"A Stressful Shopping Trip To Meijer! This Is Ridiculous!"

"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/16/22"

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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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"Economic Market Snapshot 8/16/22"

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data

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Latest Market Analysis, Updated 8/15/22

- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

August 15th to 16th 

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...

CanadianPrepper, "The Scariest Prediction, Period. 5 Billion Won't Survive. Worst Case Scenario"

Full screen recommended.

CanadianPrepper, 8/15/22:

"The Scariest Prediction, Period.

 5 Billion Won't Survive. Worst Case Scenario"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Winter Is Coming"

"Winter Is Coming"

by Jim Rickards

"The war in Ukraine has dragged on for six months and will likely last for many more months or possibly years if the U.S. doesn’t end its policy of “fighting to the last Ukrainian.” Attention spans have waned. Americans have adjusted to the energy price shocks (in fact, energy prices have come down a lot in the past month). Complacency about the war has set in.

But that’s a huge mistake. In reality, the worst economic impacts of the war are yet to come. Europe has completely failed in its efforts to diversify energy supplies away from Russia. There’s not that much extra oil output available. Natural gas is also in short supply thanks in part to the Biden administration’s war on oil and gas.

Meanwhile, Putin has been gradually reducing the supply of natural gas to Western Europe. Germany is relying on its energy reserves even as winter approaches and Russian supplies dwindle. Germans are not only reopening coal-burning power plants (after spending 14 years shutting them down); they are gathering firewood to keep warm. Germany is moving from being the world’s fourth-largest economy and one of its largest exporters of high-tech equipment to a neolithic-style reliance on coal and firewood.

Political Spin: Apologists for these policies say that Germany has reached 75% of its gas stocks target ahead of schedule. This sounds like good news. By achieving a 75% target “ahead of schedule” it sounds as if Germany will be in fairly good shape as winter approaches. But the facts reveal a very different state of affairs. German gas storage capacity is 23.3 billion cubic meters, which is about 20% of the actual 100 billion cubic meters of gas that Germany used in 2021.

In other words, the 75% storage target is 75% of 20% of the gas actually used, or 15% of the gas needed. That leaves an 85% shortfall relative to requirements, which can only be satisfied from continued supplies from Russia. But Putin has already reduced supplies to only 20% of capacity and may cut them further in the months ahead. When the best they can do (at least for now) is 15% of what’s needed and the balance is very much in doubt due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, then it’s clear that Germany is still headed for a crisis.

But It’s Worth the Price! Those who support sanctions say it’s necessary to damage Russia economically. That’s fine, but Russia has had little difficulty shifting exports of oil and natural gas to willing buyers, including India and China. There are some logistical challenges and Russia has resorted to discounted pricing, but the flow of energy from Russia continues and the flow of hard currency to Russia at a rate of $21 billion per month continues also. This gives Russia the option to cut off energy supplies to Western Europe without damaging its own economy.

At some point this winter Germany may have to shut down manufacturing, ration what little natural gas may be available and ask consumers to turn thermostats down to 50 F. Hot showers will be limited to five minutes or less. Germans will wear fleeces and heavy sweaters indoors and in offices. It’s a sad state of affairs for a major economy, but it’s how things turn out when ideologues are in office.

There’s a lesson here about not over-relying on a single supplier of critical resources and about not picking a political fight with that supplier. There’s also another lesson to be learned here: Radical “green” policies are divorced from reality and often destructive.

Green Energy: A Triumph of Ideology Over Reality: Alarmists have been running around for years claiming that climate change is an “existential crisis,” that we must end the use of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas and that we must move to electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and other forms of renewable energy.

Countries like Germany have been moving steadily in that direction, moving as fast as they can to end their dependence on fossil fuels. But wind and solar energy can’t possibly meet their energy needs. Only fossil fuels can meet the energy needs of a modern economy. Nuclear power could be a solution, but many climate activists don’t want nuclear power either.

Moreover, charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) heavily depend on fossil fuels. When you consider the environmental impact of mining the precious metals needed for EV batteries, transporting them to production plants and the fossil fuels needed to power charging stations, EVs aren’t environmentally friendly at all. One MIT study, for example, found that the battery and fuel needs for an EV generate higher emissions than the manufacturing of a conventional vehicle.

And if you think that radical environmentalists are “tree huggers,” you might want to think twice. Scotland is cutting down 14 million trees to clear space for wind farms. Trees absorb CO2, so if they’re that worried about carbon emissions, they should be planting trees instead of cutting them down.

Wind turbines, most of which are manufactured in China, also destroy wildlife. It’s estimated that wind turbines kill over a million birds every year in the U.S. alone. Aside from the carnage, that has a significant impact on local ecosystems. And for what?

CO2 Isn’t Destroying the Planet: Science, (real science, not “The Science”) makes it clear there is no climate-related existential crisis. There’s not even a minor crisis. There’s no linkage between human-related CO2 emissions and recent slight warming trends. Slight global warming since 1995 has now ended and global cooling has begun. There is good evidence based on solar cycles, ocean currents, volcanic activity and other real determinants of climate that we are entering a period that may resemble the Little Ice Age from 1645–1720.

Tropical storms, tornados and forest fires can be severe but they are no more severe than in times past. Sea levels are rising at about 7-inches per 100 years, but this trend has been measured since the 1890s long before widespread use of the automobile or coal-fired power plants.

In short, the climate “crisis” is a false alarm, and we’re lowering our living standards for no good reason. We may also be doing more environmental harm than good. It’s mostly an ideological fetish of wealthy globalist elites who use climate as a pretext for increasing their power and control. It’s the poor who will suffer the most from these policies.

Global Famine: But a looming energy shortage isn’t the only coming man-made fiasco we’re facing. Food shortages and in some cases famine will emerge this fall as the 2021 harvest stores are depleted and the 2022 harvest is not delivered either because it was never planted due to the war (or fertilizer shortages) or it cannot be delivered because of the war. These food shortages will impact the Global South the most, where the majority of people struggle to get by as it is.

Such massive food shortages could also trigger another global migration crisis, as desperate masses seek relief in wealthy nations. If you think we have a migration crisis on our southern border now, just wait. Freezing in the dark while starving is not a description anyone should take lightly. Unfortunately that may be exactly what lies ahead to a greater or lesser degree in many parts of the world by November of this year. Tragically, it was all avoidable."

- dailyreckoning.com

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, “Serenity”

Liquid Mind, “Serenity”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“It's the bubble versus the cloud. NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, is being pushed out by the stellar wind of massive central star BD+602522. Next door, though, lives a giant molecular cloud, visible to the right. At this place in space, an irresistible force meets an immovable object in an interesting way.

The cloud is able to contain the expansion of the bubble gas, but gets blasted by the hot radiation from the bubble's central star. The radiation heats up dense regions of the molecular cloud causing it to glow. The Bubble Nebula, pictured above in scientifically mapped colors to bring up contrast, is about 10 light-years across and part of a much larger complex of stars and shells. The Bubble Nebula can be seen with a small telescope towards the constellation of the Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111011.html

"Perhaps..."

"Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy.

But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants

can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future.

Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future."

- Arthur C. Clarke

"People Are Going To Go Absolutely Insane When Food Prices Double Or Triple From Current Levels"

Full screen recommended.

"People Are Going To Go Absolutely Insane 

When Food Prices Double Or Triple From Current Levels"

by Epic Economist

"If you think people are angry right now, just wait until food prices explode to levels that hardly anyone ever anticipated. The perfect storm of events is creating a completely nightmarish scenario for food production in 2022, which means that food supply chains will be facing immense stress in 2023. Most people don’t even know this, but we’re still consuming the food that was grown last year, and given that far less food than originally projected is being grown right now, soon executives, grocers, consumers, and authorities will start realizing that there isn’t enough food supplies to feed everyone. Devastating droughts are still destroying millions of acres of crops in the United States, and geopolitical conflicts are greatly restricting the flow of agricultural goods around the globe.

Tens of millions of Americans are already working as hard as they possibly can just to pay the bills each month. With over 60% of the population living paycheck to paycheck, it’s safe to say that the vast majority of the country is financially struggling to make ends meet. That’s precisely why the soaring price of food is such a big deal. Unfortunately, the truth is that we haven’t seen the worst of food inflation yet. What we are seeing at the grocery store right now is mainly a reflection of what happened in 2021, we haven’t felt the impact of the widespread crop failures and other disasters that hit U.S. food production in 2022 just yet.

One recent example that illustrates how the food supply chain works is the current potato shortage happening in Idaho. If you haven’t heard about it already or noticed fewer and fewer potatoes in your grocery store’s produce section, you will soon. This shortage was caused by a ravaging heat wave that happened last summer.

Before the 2022 harvest comes into the pipeline - it’s just now beginning, - consumers are facing the shortage from last year's crop. This means that the crop failures of 2022 are going to be felt very keenly in 2023. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, nearly half of the nation is experiencing some level of drought at this moment, with meteorologists saying that the ongoing megadrought in the Southwest is the worst in 1,200 years.

On top of that, farmers are paying the most expensive prices for fertilizers ever record. The American Farm Bureau revealed that some fertilizers spiked over 300% since 2020. Fertilizer is essential for crops. Without fertilizer, plants may not get the nourishment they need to result in the yields necessary to meet global demand. Researchers at the International Fertilizer Association say that we would only be able to feed about half of the global population without fertilizer. For that reason, farmers are finding themselves forced to pass some of those costs along to customers, which is going to contribute to even higher grocery prices.

When we start feeling those cost increases being passed along to us in 2023, a lot of people are going to be pushed over the edge. We have to admit that we’ve got a colossal mess on our hands. And conditions are set to worsen dramatically in the months ahead. As things deteriorate, a lot of people out there are going to go completely insane. The U.S. population is becoming hopeless and infuriated with this situation, and people are rapidly reaching a snapping point."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

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If they'll do this over a TV, what happens where there's no food?

"Banks See Big Trouble Ahead; FED's Money Printer Overheating; Economic Crash Landing"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 8/15/22:

"Banks See Big Trouble Ahead; 

FED's Money Printer Overheating; Economic Crash Landing"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Surely..."

"It's 3:23 A.M.

And I'm awake because my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep.

They ask me in dreams,

 What did you do while the planet was plundered?

What did you do when the earth was unraveling?

Surely you did something when the seasons started flailing?

As the mammals, reptiles and birds were all dying?

Did you fill the streets with protest?

When democracy was stolen, what did you do once you knew?

Surely, you did something..."  

- Drew Dellinger

"HOW in the hell did the artist do that???"

"HOW in the hell did the artist do that???"

by Stucky

"I’ve watched this about 20 times... still as amazed the 20th time as I was the first. Would love to see this in person...maybe then I might understand better?"

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

This brilliant painting shows human aging:

Watch in full screen!

pic.twitter.com/Qw6T4WBHPN

- Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) August 13, 2022

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Hat tip to Stucky and The Burning Platform for this material.

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The artist's name is Sergi Cadenas, born 1972. He is a Spanish painter who rose to fame after a series of Instagram videos of his illusory, dual-image portraits went viral. Self-taught, Cadenas uses a piping bag to prepare large-scale canvases with precise vertical ridges before painting separate portraits on either side of the narrow ridges. The process leads to a mesmerizing effect in which each portrait appears to transform into the other as the viewer shifts vantage point. Through these paintings, Cadenas explores complex themes of duality, such as youth and mortality, the polarity of emotions, and racial difference. Cadenas’s technique is informed by his training as a metalworker in Girona, Spain, where he runs his family’s centuries-old foundry, Ferros d’Art Cadenas. His artwork can be found in the Porrentruy Optical Art Museum (POPA) in Switzerland and in private collections around the world.

- https://www.artsy.net/artist/sergi-cadenas

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Google Search for Sergi Cadena images:

- https://www.google.com/search

The Daily "Near You?"

Bothell, Washington, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Bank Warns - This is Much Worse Than a Recession"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 8/15/22:

"Bank Warns - This is Much Worse Than a Recession"

"We just got another bank warning from the one and only JP Morgan. Jamie Dimon came out and spoke to his wealthy clients on a conference call. He gave them several warnings and spoke about how he feels that the country is heading into much deeper trouble than a recession."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "Crossing the Rubicon"

"Crossing the Rubicon"

The ongoing bananafication of a once proud nation.

by Bill Bonner

"We write today in non-partisan alarm. For the first time in US history, the nation’s highest law enforcement agency – the FBI – has pulled out its automatic weapons and raided the house of an ex-president, as if he were a drug dealer. Why not just ask for the files, politely? Did they think Donald Trump would skip town? Were they afraid he would put up a fight? Were FBI agents’ lives in danger? Justified or not? We don’t know. But the raid on Mar-al-Lago was certainly a step towards bananafication.

The conservative press took the bait… calling out the G-Men for “crossing the Rubicon.” Newt Gingrich in Newsweek: "Crossing the Rubicon at Mar-a-Lago|Opinion." "On Monday, Buck Sexton told Jesse Waters: It almost feels like a preemptive coup.... This is meant to prevent Donald Trump from being able to run again... This is the Rubicon being crossed. This is something we've never seen before. This is something that is outrageous. And the usage of the FBI in this way is really the nail in the coffin for so many Americans as to whether you can trust the FBI or trust the DOJ. Clearly not on political matters." On CNN on Tuesday, George Conway repeated that "they've crossed the Rubicon here." Crossing the Rubicon references a historic event with a specific meaning. To truly "cross the Rubicon" is to take a step which changes decisively the circumstance in which politics and government occur.

Bad Money: “Alea iacta est,” said Caesar as he crossed the Rubicon. (The die is cast.) But Caesar was an able, energetic commander at the head of a victorious army. The FBI is very different; it has not exactly covered itself in glory over the last few years. And it was not the Rubicon that the FBI crossed… it was another, muddier river.  

Money is our beat, not politics. But money is just a piece – an important one – in the web of civilization. Money keeps score, telling us who has and who has not. And when the tally is falsified, everything goes bad.

Today is Assumption Day… the day celebrated by Catholics for the Virgin Mary’s rise to Heaven. It is also the day when America’s money went to Hell. It was on this day, in 1971, when the US substituted a “paper” dollar for the old, gold-backed greenback.  This new money had an advantage; it could be diddled, counterfeited, and tricked-up. The Fed could ‘print’ as much as it wanted… and fiddle interest rates down to absurd levels (zero!)

After a stumbling start, the Fed figured out how to exploit the new money system in the ‘80s. Thereafter, it was off to the races… with huge increases in debt… and a steady decline in the value of the dollar. Since the switcheroo in 1971, a person who had put his money in his mattress has lost 86% of it.

The slippage sped up dramatically after 2020. The Chinese could no longer be counted on to reduce consumer prices… and the lockdowns from the Covid Panic had caused severe supply chain disruptions. Once people get used to not working, for example… it became a hard habit to break.

Fox News: "According to Labor Department data, the number of workers in the U.S. has fallen 400,000 since March, a troubling sign after the number of workers approached pre-pandemic levels earlier this year. The total labor force is now about 600,000 smaller than it was in early 2020, right before widespread COVID-19 restrictions plunged the economy into a recession."

Slouchy Flimflam: In 2020, the Fed added $4 trillion new dollars – and the federal government spread the new money around in stimmie checks, unemployment boosters and PPP loans. By the summer of 2022, the CPI (consumer price index) rose over 9%, the worst inflation since 1980. Suddenly, the whole scam became clear. The feds could ‘print’ money. Or, they could control the value of their money. They couldn’t do both. In the event, they chose to expand the supply of dollars; the value of each one fell.

Along with the money, faith in “the system” fell too. Civil society became less civil. Politics became more vicious. The press became more partisan and less reliable. The universities stifled debate, rather than encouraging it. The rich got richer. The poor got poorer.

Last week saw a major step down for America’s justice system. The FBI crossed an important river. But it was not the Rubicon… it was the Rio de la Plata. And it leads not to the imperial magnificence of Augustus… but to the slouchy flimflam of Juan Peron’s Argentina, where chaos, cynicism and corruption still dominate political life.

But wait. All is not lost. The Fed is trying to reverse the damage. After three decades of inflating, it is now deflating – desperately trying to restore its credibility, gain the upper hand against inflation, and save the value of the dollar. How long will it be able to stay the course? Or will it be tempted to ease up… now that inflation has “peaked? Like the FBI, will it take a little raft across the Rio de la Plata itself?”

That is the story we are watching. It is also the drama that will determine the direction of the US economy for decades into the future. Stay tuned…"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Jim Kunstler, "A Different Sort of Warrant"

"A Different Sort of Warrant"

by Jim Kunstler

"It should be pretty obvious that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was an attempt to seize evidence likely to be used in former President Donald Trump’s civil lawsuit in the Southern Florida Federal District Court against Hillary Clinton and associated defendants in and out of government for the defamation and racketeering operation known as RussiaGate - AND in any future criminal proceedings that might grow out of congressional investigations-to-come against officials past and present in the DOJ and FBI. The idea is to tie up all those documents in a legal dispute about declassification so they can’t be entered in any proceeding.

Over the weekend, independent journalist Paul Sperry reported that many of the same FBI officers involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid happen to be subjects of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of RussiaGate. Have some of them already been hauled into grand juries? We don’t know. But, with the Mar-a-Lago caper, it looks like the law enforcement apparatus of the federal government is seeking to suppress evidence of its own long-running criminal enterprise.

The parallel purpose of the raid was to find - or perhaps plant - documents that might be used in a scheme to disqualify Mr. Trump from running for office again. The January 6th show-trial in Congress has failed to galvanize the country’s attention, and may have foundered in its attempt to find grounds for a criminal referral against the former president that would take him off the playing field. So, now this.

Momentous legal quarrels that arise out of the Mar-a-Lago raid may evolve into a constitutional crisis that the captive news media can use as a smokescreen to divert the public’s attention from any balloting shenanigans going into the November election. At least it will shove any other issues off-stage in the run-up to the midterm. Is it a miscalculation?

The choice of going to federal magistrate Bruce Reinhart for the Mar-a-Lago warrant sure looks crude and desperate. Only weeks ago, he was presiding over the Trump v Clinton lawsuit. How did that even happen, given Mr. Reinhart’s role defending Jeffrey Epstein’s associates - many of them Clinton-connected - in the 2007 sex-trafficking case? And only after the spectacularly weird act of switching sides from the federal prosecution team to Epstein’s defense team. Not to mention Mr. Reinhart’s record of public statements denouncing Mr. Trump. There are twenty-five other magistrates who rotate their duties in the Southern District of Florida, why pick him?

It all shapes up as a systematic effort to obstruct justice by the US Department of Justice. They’ve been doing it consistently since 2016 in all matters pertaining to Mr. Trump, and it is a big reason that the country is now viciously coming apart. This is just a continuation of the same seditious treachery that went on with James Comey releasing his classified interview memo concerning Mr. Trump to The New York Times via his attorney friend from Columbia University, Daniel Richman; and the ensuing dishonest Mueller investigation the leak provoked; and the Crossfire Hurricane operation run by Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and Rod Rosenstein; and the illegal entrapment and prosecution of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn; and the serial misrepresentations to the FISA court; and the illegal coordinated maneuvers in impeachment #1 between Rep. Adam Schiff, ICIG Michael Atkinson, the National Security Council, and CIA-agent Eric Ciaramella posing as a “whistleblower;” and more recently, the mischief around the FBI’s conjured-up Gretchen Witmer kidnapping scheme; and the FBI’s role in turning the January 6, 2020 election protests into a riot at the US Capitol.

Former president Trump is not without resources and recourse in all this. Though the news media does not follow it, the Trump v Clinton lawsuit trial continues, and it might not go so well for Mrs. Clinton and her friends. Criticism and doubts about Special Counsel John Durham aside for a moment, realize that evidence introduced during the March trial of DNC lawyer Michael Sussman has firmly established that the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DNC, the Perkins Coie law firm, and various private contractors created the Russian collusion narrative that evolved into the FBI/DOJ crimes of RussiaGate. It won’t be difficult to prove these parties’ intentions in all that, namely to drive Mr. Trump from office or disable him in the process. Do you think Mr. Trump can’t make that case against his antagonists? This is not being tried in the pliant DC federal district court. A Florida jury may see exactly what happened.

Let’s also suppose that Mr. Trump and his aides were pretty scrupulous about collecting documentary evidence about these shenanigans over the years they took place. Mr. Trump did indeed order the declassification and de-redaction of reams of pertaining documents before leaving office. Do you suppose that the Supreme Court would not adjudicate any quarrels over them with dispatch? The effrontery (and gross stupidity) of Attorney General Merrick Garland stands in luridly full display. In signing off on the Mar-a-Lago raid warrant, Mr. Garland signed the death warrant on his own reputation and career."

- https://kunstler.com/

"The Difference..."

"The difference between stupidity and 

genius is that genius has its limits."

- Albert Einstein

"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 8/15/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Crazy! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Aldi, and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Repression, Terror, Fear: The Government Wants to Silence the Opposition"

"Repression, Terror, Fear: 

The Government Wants to Silence the Opposition"

by John & Nisha Whitehead

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” - President Harry S. Truman

Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Lockdowns.

This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order. This is the language of force. This is how the government at all levels - federal, state and local - now responds to those who speak out against government corruption, misconduct and abuse. These overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by force have become standard operating procedure for a government that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the language of brutality, intimidation and fear.

We didn’t know it then, but what happened five years ago in Charlottesville, Va., was a foretaste of what was to come. At the time, Charlottesville was at the center of a growing struggle over how to reconcile the right to think and speak freely, especially about controversial ideas, with the push to sanitize the environment of anything - words and images - that might cause offense. That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82 years.

In attempting to err on the side of political correctness by placating one group while muzzling critics of the city’s actions, Charlottesville attracted the unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest. That’s when everything went haywire.

When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all. On August 12, 2017, government officials took what should have been a legitimate exercise in constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest) and turned it into a lesson in authoritarianism by manipulating warring factions and engineering events in such a way as to foment unrest, lockdown the city, and justify further power grabs.

On the day of scheduled protests, police deliberately engineered a situation in which two opposing camps of protesters would confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to justify allowing the government to shut everything down. Despite the fact that 1,000 first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard) - many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months - had been called on to work the event, and police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three sides, police failed to do their jobs.

In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.” “Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville,” reported ProPublica. Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.” In this way, police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either.

Indeed, a 220-page post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government’s response by former U.S. attorney Timothy J. Heaphy concluded that “the City of Charlottesville protected neither free expression nor public safety.” In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates. The police failed to carry out their duties as peace officers. And the citizens found themselves unable to trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring their safety.

This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene. Indeed, there’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention. Civil discontent leads to civil unrest, which leads to protests and counterprotests. Tensions rise, violence escalates, police stand down, and federal armies move in. Meanwhile, despite the protests and the outrage, the government’s abuses continue unabated.

It’s all part of an elaborate setup by the architects of the police state. The government wants a reason to crack down and lock down and bring in its biggest guns. They want us divided. They want us to turn on one another. They want us powerless in the face of their artillery and armed forces. They want us silent, servile and compliant.

They certainly do not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully, whether it’s protesting politically correct efforts to whitewash the past, challenging COVID-19 mandates, questioning election outcomes, or listening to alternate viewpoints - even conspiratorial ones - in order to form our own opinions about the true nature of government.

And they definitely do not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. Why else do you think Wikileaks founder Julian Assange continues to molder in jail for daring to blow the whistle about the U.S. government’s war crimes, while government officials who rape, plunder and kill walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist?

This is how it begins. We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties. Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.” This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose. The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state. Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware.

So what’s the answer? For starters, we need to remember that we’ve all got rights, and we need to exercise them. Most of all, we need to protect the rights of the people to speak truth to power, whatever that truth might be. Either “we the people” believe in free speech or we don’t.

Fifty years ago, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas asked: “Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet. At the constitutional level, speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive. A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”

In other words, the Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even civil to government officials. Neither does the Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on nonviolence). Somehow, the government keeps overlooking this important element in the equation."

- https://www.rutherford.org/

"Operation Mockingbird Never Stopped. It Merely Morphed"

"Operation Mockingbird Never Stopped. It Merely Morphed"

by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Excerpt: "TPV provides a quick review of Operation Mockingbird, a CIA operation in which journalists were recruited and paid to distribute fake news stories and CIA propaganda. Interestingly, the Mockingbird op was launched in 1948, the same year the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act (aka the Smith-Mundt Act) became law, which forbade the U.S. government from pushing propaganda onto the U.S. population. This anti-propaganda law was repealed in 2013 by then-President Barrack Obama. So, since July 2013, the U.S. government and CIA have been legally permitted to propagandize U.S. citizens.

Ironically, the dismissal of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists as mentally unstable crackpots was a tactic invented by the CIA. Its intent is to marginalize and demoralize anyone who dares question the official narrative. In the video below, media analyst Mark Dice provides a slightly more in-depth summary of Operation Mockingbird."

View this complete article here:

- https://articles.mercola.com/

"Operation Mockingbird:

CIA Control of Mainstream Media - The Full Story"

"We'll Know..."

"April 13, 1953: CIA OKs MK-ULTRA Mind-Control Tests"