"If you had one last breath - what would you say? If you had one hour to use your limbs before you would lose the use of them forever - would you sit there on the coach? If you knew that you wouldn't see tomorrow who would you make amends with? If you knew you had only an hour left on this earth - what would be so pressing that you just had to do it, say it, or see it? Well there is something that I can guarantee - that one day you will have one day, one hour and one breath left. Just make sure that before that day that you have said, done and experienced everything that you dream of doing now. Do it now - that is what today is for. So pick up the phone and call an old friend that you have fallen out of touch with. Get out and run a mile and use your body and sweat. Seek out someone in your life to say you're sorry to. Seek someone In your life that you need to thank. Seek someone in your life that you need to express your feelings of love to. Then when that day comes you will be ok with it all."
- John A. Passaro
"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"
"Well, it is our fate to live in a time of crisis. To live in a time when all forms and values are being challenged. In other and more easy times, it was not, perhaps, necessary for the individual to confront himself with a clear question: What is it that you really believe? What is it that you really cherish? What is it for which you might, actually, in a showdown, be willing to die? I say, with all the reticence which such large, pathetic words evoke, that one cannot exist today as a person – one cannot exist in full consciousness – without having to have a showdown with one’s self, without having to define what it is that one lives by, without being clear in one’s mind what matters and what does not matter.”
"Could 65 Trillion Dollars In 'Hidden' Derivatives
Cause The Entire Global Financial System To Crash?"
by Michael Snyder
"If you thought that the collapse of FTX was something, just wait until the entire global financial system comes crashing down all around us. Most people just assume that the system is being managed by rational people that behave in rational ways, but of course countless investors assumed the same things about FTX. Sadly, the global financial system has slowly but surely been transformed into the largest casino in the history of the world. It is a colossal Ponzi scheme, and once in a while authorities give us a little peek into what is really going on behind the curtain.
For example, this week the Bank for International Settlements released a report that warned that 65 trillion dollars in “hidden” currency derivatives could potentially be a major threat to the stability of the entire system…"There’s a hidden risk to the global financial system embedded in the $65 trillion of dollar debt being held by non-US institutions via currency derivatives, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
In a paper with the title “huge, missing and growing,” the BIS said a lack of information is making it harder for policy makers to anticipate the next financial crisis. In particular, they raised concern with the fact that the debt is going unrecorded on balance sheets because of accounting conventions on how to track derivative positions."
Last year, the total value of all goods and services produced in the entire world was just 96 trillion dollars. So we are talking about an amount of money that is almost unimaginable. Everything will be okay as long as financial conditions remain relatively stable. But BIS analysts warn that “the next time dollar funding liquidity is squeezed” we could have an enormous crisis on our hands…
“Off-balance-sheet dollar debt may remain out of sight and out of mind—but only until the next time dollar funding liquidity is squeezed,” the analysts write. “Then, the hidden leverage in pension funds and insurance companies’ portfolios . . . could pose a policy challenge.” So let’s hope that such a scenario does not materialize any time soon.
According to the BIS report, banks outside the U.S. are particularly vulnerable…"For researchers at the BIS, it’s the sheer scale of the swaps that’s worrying. They estimate that banks headquartered outside the US carry $39 trillion of this debt — more than double their on-balance sheet obligations and ten times their capital. Accounting conventions only require derivatives to be booked on a net basis, so the full extent of the cash involved isn’t recorded on a balance sheet. “There is a staggering volume of off-balance sheet dollar debt that is partly hidden, and FX risk settlement remains stubbornly high,” said Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the BIS."
When this thing finally implodes, there isn’t going to be enough money in the entire world to fix it all. But don’t worry. The “experts” are telling us that everything is fine.
Meanwhile, more of our largest corporations are planning layoffs. According to the Wall Street Journal, this even includes PepsiCo…"PepsiCo is reported laying off headquarter workers, The Wall Street Journal reports. A person familiar with the matter told the Journal that hundreds of jobs are being cut in the head office of the North American snacks and beverages divisions. Employees in Purchase, N.Y., Chicago, Ill. and Plano, Tex. are said to be impacted."
I thought that PepsiCo was doing well. I guess not. But don’t worry. The “experts” are telling us that everything is fine.
This week some of the biggest names in the mainstream media have also announced layoffs…"Hundreds of media industry staffers were laid off this week during a brutal period that saw Warner Bros. Discovery, Gannett and others slash headcount as economic uncertainty plagues news organizations. Gannett, a newspaper juggernaut that owns dozens of local media outlets along with USA Today, began its latest round of layoffs on Thursday. The cost-cutting effort impacted roughly 6% of the company’s news workforce of about 3,440 employees."
I can’t remember ever seeing such a wave of layoffs at our largest media companies. But don’t worry. The “experts” are telling us that everything is fine.
Of course the truth is that everything is not fine. Economic conditions are deteriorating all around us, and the ripple effects are being felt everywhere. According to Fox Business, even Las Vegas is feeling the pain…"Inflation is taking its toll on Sin City as fewer tourists are visiting the gambling Mecca, and those who do spend less than usual, according to a new report.
The University of Las Vegas business school released a report forecasting the city’s economic outlook between 2022 and 2024 and noted that its economy turned grim in June of this year, according to Fox 5. “Interest rates have gone up. And we know that we know that prices are going up as well. And that’s what the Fed is trying to get their hands around and solve. So it may be that the Fed’s policies is having an effect not only nationally, but it’s also affecting our economy locally,” one of the study’s authors, Professor Stephen Miller, told the outlet."
2008 and 2009 were incredibly difficult years for Las Vegas. Now those that run businesses in Sin City are bracing for another extended downturn. In all my years of writing, I have never been more concerned about the short-term economic outlook them I am right now.
It is very likely that 2023 will be a really hard year for the U.S. economy, and of course this comes at a time when the entire globe is being hit by crisis after crisis. For ages we have been warned that a day of reckoning would eventually be coming, and now it appears that day of reckoning has already arrived. There is certainly nothing wrong with hoping for the best. But there is also wisdom in getting prepared for the worst."
“Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.
Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.
According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- “Weightless”- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.
Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.
In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you’ve got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.
Of the top track, Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, “‘Weightless’ was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous.” So don’t drive while listening to these, but do take advantage of them:
"This is amazing. We are seeing some crazy economic predictions for 2023. These are not what you think they would be. It is shocking how these experts have completely predicted the opposite of what is happening now in the economy."
"Everybody And Everything Is More Important Than You"
You will sacrifice and sacrifice until there’s nothing left to sacrifice.
by Robert Gore
"If we’re all responsible to everybody, what’s in it for you? How does it work, exactly? Can you claim anything - your production, property, expression, body, mind, life, or soul - for yourself? If you can’t, if everyone else has first claim to them, what can you claim for yourself? Do you give up everything for our eight billion fellow earth-citizens as they give up everything for you? Do you get one eight-billioneth of what’s nominally everyone else’s? Or is this supposed to be pure sacrifice - give up everything and receive nothing in return? If you give up everything, is there any you left?
It’s best not to think about such questions, they won’t get you anywhere but confused. What you do know is what you’ve been told your entire life: everything you do for others is good; everything you do for yourself is selfish and bad. Just look what happens when everyone pulls together in a cause greater than themselves, like war. Isn’t that a cause greater than yourself, maiming and killing people you don’t know? You must be doing it for the greater good, because you might be maimed or killed by those people you don’t know. Oh, you can’t let yourself think of it that way. Everyone has to pitch in.
Government must be a cause greater than yourself, because you spend several months every year working to pay your taxes. That’s a good chunk of money, and you and millions of other hard-working Americans pay it. People complain a bit, but everybody pays, because it’s necessary to keep the country running and fund all the great things the government does. Like what, exactly? You’re funding those wars, and a lot of money ends up in the pockets of people who are of no discernible benefit to you. A lot of it stays right there in Washington. And even with all the money they take in they are still $31 trillion in the hole. Stop it! You can’t let yourself think of it that way; we’ve got to have government.
Think what would have happened the last couple of years if we hadn’t had the government. We saw that pull-together spirit, with everyone wearing their masks and getting vaccinated. Well, almost everybody. There were a few people who didn’t wear masks or get vaccinated.
But here’s where things started to break down. Because you know a few antisocial refuseniks and they either didn’t get sick or if they got sick, they took care of themselves, took the medicines they weren’t supposed to take, and got well. And you know people who had both rounds of vaccines and every booster and got sick. And there are those stories, all over the Internet, about apparently healthy people, young people, collapsing, some dying; you’ve seen the videos.
The thoughts you can’t shut down started when somebody close to you, a relative or friend, had a severe reaction after a shot, or told you about someone they know who did. And maybe you brushed it off, but then it happened again...and again. These weren’t stories on the Internet; this was direct experience, or direct experience once removed. And it wasn’t just severe reactions, the afflicted recovering after hospitalization. There were long term effects for which there are apparently no cures, lives ruined. And there were those who died. You know of more people harmed by the cure than the disease.
One day, out of nowhere, the question popped into your head: Who’s collecting the sacrificial offerings? Because that’s what all this is - sacrificial offerings - not to propitiate some unseen deity, but to line the pockets and to increase the power of those telling you that you have to sacrifice! That’s the thought you’ve pushing down all these years: All this sacrifice is a damn scam, a racket! Once you gave it some thought, you realized it’s been going on for years, decades, centuries. Somebody telling people they must sacrifice for some greater good, and those same somebodies collecting the sacrificial offerings.
If we’re all responsible to everybody, what’s in it for you? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Actually, less than nothing. You no longer have whatever it is you offer. It’s not even an offering, something you do voluntarily. Your “offerings” are taken from you under implicit or explicit threat of force. What you get back, if anything, is worth less to you than what you gave up.
You’ve never minded giving up things for something you regarded as a greater value - saving for the down payment on a house or a child’s college education. Paying for groceries and utilities rather than taking a vacation you couldn’t afford. Those weren’t sacrifices, not like the sacrifices you’re told you must make for the greater good, where you give up something and get nothing in return.
If you’re giving something and getting nothing, somebody’s getting something and giving nothing. Think of what they’ve done with your sacrifices - your money, your time, and your life - and what you could have done with them. There’s nothing greater or good about their greater good; the country’s going to hell in a hand basket. We’re riding a ruination train downhill, the grade is getting steeper and steeper, and the engineer has it on full throttle.
Their greater good is your greater bad - your life gets increasingly risky and difficult. What you’re paying out is rising faster than what you’re taking in. All while money is tossed down the toilet of the latest war and domestic boondoggles and the trillion-dollar milestones on the national debt come faster and faster. You hear the bell tolling: doom, doom, doom.
You’re dealing with reality to the fullest extent of your capacity so that people you despise, and who despise you, don’t have to. Accept the morality of sacrifice, accept that everybody and everything is more important than you, and you’ve issued them a blank check. They have, they are, and they will continue to take everything you offer, up to and including your life.
The lie has always been that the sacrifices of you and your fellow sacrificers would build a better world for everyone. Now they no longer try to hide it: sacrifice gets you worse, not better. Bugs instead of meat; an urban apartment instead of a house and land; mass transit instead of a personal automobile; a guaranteed income instead of meaningful work; computer entries instead of money, surveillance instead of privacy; compliance instead of freedom; punishment instead of reward.
“And you will be happy.” That assurance is as stale and false as the phony causes they trot out to justify your unhappiness: the climate, the earth, a virus, a war, an alien invasion, the common good, etc. We do owe them one debt. The last few years have made it obvious to anyone who will look that it’s not about the phony causes, it never has been; it’s about power and control, and always has been.
That’s not nothing, for from that recognition comes the realization: run from those demanding sacrifice, which at the least means every government on the planet. Sadly, running is only possible in the metaphorical sense. Gangster governments are the order of the day, regardless of how they cloak their intentions and actions.
"And when you ask ’em, 'How much should we give?'
Ooh, they only answer, 'More, more, more, more!'
“Fortunate Son,” John Fogerty, Credence Clearwater Revival, 1969
You will sacrifice and sacrifice until there’s nothing left to sacrifice, and then they’ll discard you like last night’s garbage. Your life means one thing to them - enslaved, subjugated submission. It’s the less than zero existence, the logical consequence, of everybody and everything is more important than you.
Accept that - and most people do - and you’ll deserve what you get - less than zero. Claim your life and resolve that nothing is more important to you than the freedom to live it, and your course will be fraught with danger. It’s not the less-than-zeros who change things; expect nothing from them but opposition. If you want what’s yours you’re going to have to fight for it, and yes, fight means fight. That is the truth that can no longer be evaded.
Resistance is lonely and dangerous. Choose it, and you may have compatriots, but if you’re not careful, you’ll also have false friends who will betray you in the darkest hour. You will, fortunately, have an ally in the incompetence and evil of those who seek to enslave you. Nothing they’ve established can last and their system is collapsing. In some ways that will make things easier - bankrupt and collapsed governments don’t have the wherewithal to maintain order. However, chaos presents its own dangers.
Fight for your life, or accept endless sacrifice and less than zero. There are no other choices, no middle ground. It’s your choice. It’s your life."
"Massive Sales At Meijer! Check This Out! Stock Up Now!"
"In today's vlog we are at Meijer, and are noticing massive sales on groceries! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the food shortage situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
“This shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Moving toward to bottom of this beautifully detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its narrow appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula.
About 5 light-years long and a mere 800 light-years away, the Pencil Nebula is only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter and is the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar gas.”
“The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug, until we can’t anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant: That knowing is better than wondering. That waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.”
Age and treachery, details and statistics, lies and economics...
by Bill Bonner
"Sleep, baby, sleep,
Angels watch over you..."
~ Jimmie Rodgers
Baltimore, Maryland - You’re going to go to the hospital,” said the doctor. “But I don’t want to go to the hospital.” “Why not?” “I might catch something.” “You’ve already got something. You need to stay for at least 24 hours so we can keep an eye on you.” “What if I just keep an eye on myself?” Eventually, age and treachery triumphed over the doctor’s youth and skill. We went home.
And there, we spent last week in bed. We lay in a near-coma, from some form of flu. Drifting in and out of wakefulness…an angel hovered at the end of the bed. Were its wings brushing against our flushed cheeks? Or was it the HVAC system merely warming the room?.
The angel was actually a Latin American painting of an “armed saint,” a very fine young man in a luxurious outfit, holding a muzzle-loading rifle. And he had wings. In our tormented state, we saw something new. It seemed to us that there was also another face, hidden in the folds of his 17th century finery, much more sinister. We hadn’t noticed it when we were feeling well. But weak, and sick, trembling with cold or bathed in sweat, the devils and demons show up.
Poorer Workers: And now we are back in the office. A little shaky, at least we are able to walk and talk, read the headlines…and act like a normal person. And what gives? Angel or devil…living or dead? Here, we attempt to make sense of a pandemonium of conflicting data.
Last week, The New York Times was on the story: "Wages climbed 5.1 percent, a still-rapid pace as Fed awaits slowdown. Average hourly earnings picked up by 5.1 percent in the year through June, moderating slightly from 5.3 percent in the year through May. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had expected a slightly bigger cool-down, to 5 percent."
This news item could be easily filed under “Economy Improving” or “Why the Fed Won’t Pause.” But wait. Here’s Charles Bilello with the other side of the story: "November was the 20th consecutive month in which the rate of inflation outpaced the growth of hourly wages, a decline in the prosperity for the American worker."
See? Wages up at a “rapid” pace. And workers get poorer. It’s like that with almost every detail. Each fact needs to be turned over, like a warped board. On the other underside are the worms and bugs. The unemployment rate is near a record low. But the number of people actually working…along with the number of hours they put in…have never recovered from the Covid Hysteria.
Savings Plummet: House prices have been going down for 3 months. But rising interest rates make them more expensive. For the median family, prices have risen so much that buying a median house would take nearly half its income. The Fed is still raising rates. But it still lends at 370 basis points below the CPI. And the money supply, meanwhile, goes down – the 1.5% drop is the biggest ever recorded in a 7-month period. October’s personal savings rate was one for the record books too – 2.3% was the second lowest level ever recorded. Consumers were spending; but they are running out of money. And if a recession is coming, it will hit them hard.
With such a confusing mix of facts before them, people could form any opinion they wanted. Investors chose to look on the bright side. The economy is basically healthy,’ they said to one another. ‘The Fed’s higher rates don’t hurt it. So, let’s get back in the stock market.’ The rally, so far, has brought a 17% gain off the October lows. There have been four previous rallies. Each one ended in new lows. Will this be the same? We don’t know. But tomorrow, let’s look at the contradictions and ambiguities from a different perspective. In preview, we will see why today’s data is supposed to be confusing."
“The DNC and Biden Team knew they had friends at Twitter who would do their bidding during the election. And Twitter lied to the FEC [Federal Election Commission] about that influence… But that’s just at the surface.” - TechnoFog on Substack
"Have Americans grokked that virtually all of the mis-and-dis-information bombarding them lo these many years actually comes from the government and the news media channels that serve it? What we’ve got now in this country is a Mind-F**kery Industrial Complex waging a psy-ops war on the people of this land. Why is that?
Essentially, to cover-up crimes against the country by public officials that have already occurred. Twitter, pre-Musk, was a major accomplice and enabler of all that, and suddenly it’s not - to the horror of everyone in charge at our nation’s seat of government. The main crimes revolve around selling-out America’s future one way or another - “Joe Biden” and Company being only the most blatant perps in the big picture.
Before them was Hillary Clinton, with her purchase of the Democratic National Committee and previous lucrative ops during her turn as Secretary of State, like the Uranium One deal, the Skolkovo military tech transfer op, and then the Russia Collusion op to insure none of that would ever come to light. The whole Intel Community behemoth was neck deep in it, too, amping up the Russia prank into a four-year coup d’état. Remember, The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that Hillary’s little hoax was for-real. It’s all just gotten more grotesque since Mr. Trump was ejected in the souped-up 2020 election, with sideshows such as the ongoing race-and-gender hustles, the climate con, and the Green New Deal bullshit.
Covid-19, surely released on-purpose, was, as Ed Dowd avers, a cover for global bankruptcy. Nothing else explains the astounding coordination of so many governments acting the same way against their own citizens: lockdowns, vaxx mandates, vaxx passports, and all. The icing on that poison cake, of course, is that everything the public health officialdom told you about Covid-19 was patently untrue, and dishonestly so, not via omission or plain incompetence. In fact, the virus was made in a Chinese lab with the help of Dr. Fauci and colleagues. Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine did work effectively against it. The “vaccines” were not tested properly and turned out to be harmful. And now the Covid-19 melodrama is ending in a discernable death-of-the-vaxxed and the reveal of all those aforesaid lies, while, anyway, the global bankruptcy approaches its nauseating climax.
Watching the post-election political vaudeville during the lame-duck Christmas intermezzo, one can’t escape perceiving that just about everything in the USA is now heading south toward breakdown and ruin. The on-the-ground economy craters, inflation rages at the supermarket, supply lines break, the oil and gas industries get strangled, health care goes down smoking and burning, public education folds in disgrace and failure, Wall Street ends with a bang and a whimper, and John Fetterman prepares for his place in history.
Our government’s Ukraine op is ending in disaster for that sad-sack former Russian province and, surprise-surprise, for the European Union, NATO, and us, too. We finally played the Russia card like we’re the proverbial patsy at the poker table. Our hand turns out to be a pair of deuces with the five-of-diamonds high. Russia rakes in the chips with its massive natural resources and the world’s most stable currency, soon to be backed by gold. How’d that turn out, Victoria Nuland?
The EU was already functionally bankrupt. Now it has lost its entire industrial base for a lack of fuel to run it - self-Epsteined, shall we say, on the national scale - and faces not just a return to the medieval standard-of-living but also to the competitive savagery of many small nations soon to be fighting among themselves, making bad conditions worse. So sad. Euroland was a nice place to visit at the turn of the millennium and now the lights will blink out, like seeing a fond relative expire, eyes going vacant, on her deathbed.
Western Civ is, after all, a kind of family. And now the family is disintegrating - as old families will - in a malodorous fog of receivership, vice, and imbecility. Here in the USA, it’s hard to have faith in the supposed political opposition, the Republican Party. Not with Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy still riding herd. They preside over their own coterie of extravagant grift and disgusting privilege. Don’t be shocked… shocked… if they just stand by while America collapses at the hands of “Joe Biden.” If there is any saving of this nation these two must be defenestrated, and, anyway, saving the nation from penury, depravity, and senility looks increasingly improbable, at least in the form of our old federal republic.
The macro trend is quite clear, as laid out in "The Long Emergency:" what’s coming is the opposite of global government; rather, national governments become increasingly impotent and illegitimate, and smaller regions by necessity must retreat into autarky to keep anything going. For us that means Washington DC sinks into irrelevance while the states, or perhaps mere parts of the states, have to take charge of their own affairs.
That process might have been jump-started by the Elon Musk revolution at Twitter. It will be a lot harder for the Mind-F**kery Industrial Complex to operate with this key player in revolt. Lies will be contested now on the grand scale in ways that were formerly subverted. Things blurry will come into focus. Fresh air will blow in on chill winter winds. New ops against the people, such as the threatened central bank digital dollar, will be laughed off the stage. Some lights go out, but others get turned on."
"This is a sign of the times. Here it is the holiday season and we’re getting notification that many retailers are about to close. What makes it worse is that restaurants are going to be a close second, massive closures coming."
"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."
"Trickery In The Grocery Stores! What They Don't Tell You!"
"In today's vlog we discuss different tactics grocery stores are using to get you to buy their products! I will discuss how to avoid this trickery, and what to watch out for so you don't waste your money!"
"Breaking News: USA Power Grid Was Just Attacked!"
The US power grid was just attacked, who committed the act? The FBI is investigating. Only a handful of substations need to go down to plunge North America into darkness."
"The pantry of most American families today is probably looking a lot different than it was just a few months ago when grocery prices were lower and we still could find the majority of the products we usually rely on in our day-to-day lives. But now, shoppers are increasingly noticing the ongoing shortages at their favorite stores. With supply chain problems still impacting the production and delivery of goods, and mass migrations of employees searching for better wages resulting in labor shortages in the food sector, many of our favorite staple items are becoming harder to find. And that’s especially true at Costco.
In fact, new reports reveal that Costco warehouses are facing many different shortages, and dozens of products are about to be discontinued. Costco customers are getting more and more frustrated as they see essential items disappearing from the store’s shelves and start facing purchase limits once again. Today, we decided to track some of the most severe product stockouts and also expose which items may disappear next.
In recent months, American shoppers have been repeatedly reporting missing grocery items at their local Costco warehouse. But things seem to have taken a turn for the worse in October when several food products that were supposed to enter our food supply chains never arrived. We had a year of historical crop losses due to extreme weather conditions. The worst drought ever seen in this century resulted in some of the weakest harvest seasons in nearly five decades.
The scorching temperatures also led our beef cow herd to rapidly shrink, as farmers sent their animals to slaughter earlier than they typically do to prevent them from dying of thirst and starvation amid dwindling supplies of water and cow feed. You also probably heard about the avian flu epidemic, which is not only leading to shortages of chicken but also pushing poultry and egg prices to skyrocket The result of all of these losses is now being seen at the stores in the form of empty shelves.
Even major grocers like Costco are struggling to keep shelves fully stocked and announcing that in the coming months, many items will be discontinued. That’s why we decided to analyze data provided by Eat This, Not That, a leading news outlet in food, nutrition, and health, to track which are the most persistent grocery shortages at the retailer’s locations and what items are about to go out of stock.
The company just announced that dozens of products are being discontinued over the next few months. This means that your favorite treats may disappear from the store and not come back. A new report exposed that you may have to say goodbye to a wide range of treats that the retailer decided it will no longer sell. Knowing that some of your favorite items are going to be discontinued is one of the most disappointing experiences as a grocery shopper.
At the same time, it looks like purchasing limits are back with a vengeance. When searching the warehouse's website for "limit", we found dozens of items, ranging from active dry yeast at five per member, to almond flour at one per member, to acetaminophen at one per member, several types of wild canned tuna at one per member, mac and cheese at 10 per member, to soy milk at two per member, and many more. Retailers haven’t been able to catch a breath these days. The environment for most businesses remains tough, and as this downturn accelerates, they will continue to see their bottom lines getting hurt, and the same will be true for our personal finances."
"The co-author of the most comprehensive Nuclear War Survival Guide joins us to discuss surviving the worst. This is part 1 of an in depth breakdown of everything you need to know about surviving nuclear war."
"Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation.
The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and to the left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.”
"A silhouette of a human being stands before you. Perhaps an old friend. Perhaps a neighbor. Perhaps a perfect stranger, like me. Here are 11 things we all need you to keep in mind… 1.You never really know how much the people around you are hurting. You could be standing next to someone who is completely broken inside and you wouldn’t even know it. So never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have. And remember that there are two ways to spread light in this world: You can either be a flame of hope, or a mirror that reflects it. Be one of the two every chance you get. 2.The most important trip you will likely take in life is meeting others half way. You will achieve far more by working with people, rather than against them. Giving someone else a voice, and showing them that their ideas matter, will have a long-lasting, positive impact on the both of you. 3.Relationships don’t create happiness, they reflect it. Happiness is an inside job. Relationships are simply the mirrors of your happiness; they reflect it and help you celebrate it. They are mirrors because they are a perfect reflection of your thoughts and beliefs. To reflect means to encourage you when you feel weak and challenge you when you feel strong, thereby returning you to your center. And to celebrate is to share the natural ease and joy of living from your center – of living in the now with clarity. 4.Compassion comes back around. The son who tends to his chronically ill mother, ignoring his own exhaustion; the neighbor who gives a helping hand, even as his own needs go unanswered; the one who donates a couple dollars to someone in need, even if she has to break her last five dollar bill to do it. Maybe you don’t hear the names of these unsung heroes in the news, but surely the universe hears their names and treats them accordingly. 5. Timing is everything. There is a time for silence, a time to let go and allow your friends to launch themselves into their own destiny, and a time to cheer for their victories, or help them pick up the pieces, when it’s all over. 6. Actions are the loudest form of communication. What you do speaks so loud that others will have a hard time hearing what you say. So practice what you preach or don’t preach at all – walk the talk. And remember that there is often a major gap between what someone says and what they do. Characterize people by their actions and you will never be fooled by their words. 7. A healthy relationship keeps the doors and windows open. Plenty of air is circulating and no one feels trapped. Relationships thrive in this environment. Keep your doors and windows open. If a person is meant to be in your life, all the open doors and windows in the world won’t make them leave. 8. People are more what they keep silent than what they say. Pay attention to their quiet gestures. If you cannot understand someone’s silence, you will have a hard time understanding their words. 9. What others say and do is often based entirely on their own self-reflection. When you have people speaking to you who are angry and upset, and you nevertheless remain very present and continue to treat them with kindness and respect, you place yourself in a position of great power You become a means for the situation to be graciously diffused and healed. A Zen teacher once said, “When somebody backs themselves into a corner, look the other way until they get themselves out; and then act as though it never happened.” Allowing people to save face in this way, and not reminding them of what they already know is not their most intelligent behavior, is an act of great kindness. This is possible when we realize that people behave in such ways because they are in a place of great suffering. People react to their own thoughts and feelings and their behavior often has nothing directly to do with you. 10. Sincerity is giving without expectation. Good character and true friendship is all about how a person nurtures another person who is vulnerable and can give nothing in return. So when you have been through tough times and come out the other side, look around you. The people still standing beside you are your true friends. 11. Not every relationship is meant to last forever. Some people aren’t meant to stay in your life. Some people are just passing through to bring you something – perhaps a lesson you need to learn, or memory that makes you smile years later. When the time comes, it’s okay to let go and move on with your life."
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