Friday, January 27, 2023

"Strange Prices At Dollar General! This Is Crazy! What Now!?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 1/27/23
"Strange Prices At Dollar General! 
This Is Crazy! What Now!?"
"In today's vlog we are at Dollar General, and are noticing very strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:

"A Simple Choice..."

"It comes down to a simple choice, really. 
Get busy living or get busy dying."
- "Andy Dufresne", "Shawshank Redemption"

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/27/23"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 1/27/23"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (PCR), former Assistant Treasury Secretary and international award-winning journalist, is the special guest for this week’s Weekly News Wrap-Up. Dr. Roberts gives his deep dive on the three biggest stories of the week. The U.S. and NATO is stumbling towards nuclear war that nobody even mentions. How close are we to a thermal nuclear exchange? The symbolic Doomsday Clock says just 90 seconds from midnight and total global disaster.

The news for the CV19 bioweapon is all bad, and I mean all bad. Dr. Roberts adds to the bad news with new information that says the CV19 injections helped nobody. Dr. Roberts also says the awakening is unstoppable, but will enough people wake up to bring these criminals to justice?

Finally, big news on the economic front about the U.S. dollar no longer being the exclusive currency accepted by the Saudis in exchange for oil. This effectively kills the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status and thus the buying power. The Lying Legacy Media is not even reporting this huge development that will affect the entire world, especially the U.S. consumer. Is America getting ready to feel a tsunami of inflation? Dr. Roberts says yes. When a former high ranking Treasury official is warning, you should take notice." There is much more in the 55 min. newscast.

"Nuke War, Bioweapon Awakening, Dollar Dies"
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble with special guest Dr. Paul Craig Roberts 
for these stories and more for the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis", Part 2 (Excerpt)

"2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass
 Formation Psychosis", Part 2 (Excerpt)
By Jim Quinn

Excerpt: "In Part 1 of this article, I laid out the mass formation psychosis theory postulated by Mattias Desmet in his book "The Psychology of Totalitarianism" and how totalitarian minded politicians and bureaucrats manipulated the masses by creating the covid crisis. Now I will focus on how this will impact the Fourth Turning we are currently trying to survive.
Decades of social indoctrination and degraded ability to think critically has left most people hopelessly unable to resist the vitriolic opinions of those under the spell of coronavirus mass formation. Even though they didn’t necessarily believe the covid narrative, especially when it became clear only the very old (especially when tyrant governors inserted infected patients into nursing homes) and the very obese actually died with covid, these people still went along. Even the CDC admitted only 6% of deaths were attributable to covid alone.

Based upon research like the Milgram Experiment, we know average people will obey authority without question, even when they know their actions are causing pain. The conformity research done by Solomon Asch explains why a huge percentage of the global population just conformed to what appeared to be a majority opinion. Asch’s experiment had 8 test subjects, but 7 of them worked for Asch. They asked them which line was the same length as Exhibit 1. The 7 Asch employees answered C. Only 25% of the case subjects consistently answered A. They were cowed into giving a patently absurd answer due to peer pressure and lack of faith in their own judgement.
When you have 30% of the population as true believers of the covidian religion, with their savior Fauci, prophets Walensky, Birx, Gottlieb, Biden, the pope, a slew of Big Pharma paid priests for hire, Hollywood elites, low IQ athletes, and a highly compensated mass media campaign of fear and loathing, the 40% in the middle really had no chance to not be pulled into the vortex of pandemia. From the outset they were inundated with data like Neal Ferguson’s Imperial College model of death. Putting up a scary chart, even though it was based on absurd assumptions, is considered fact by the lazy, non-thinking masses.

Shutting down the world was based on this worthless fraudulent model. Add some fake videos of dead people piling up in the streets in China, with media talking heads declaring hospitals being overrun (even though nurses had time to do coordinated dance routines on Tik Tok), and graphics on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox showing cases rising (based on a faulty PCR test set too high), and Fauci knowingly lying about the effectiveness of masks and the ineffectiveness of ivermectin and hydroxychloquine, and you’ve got panic."
Full, highly recommended article is here:

"How It Really Is"

 

Gerald Celente, "WWIII: US, NATO vs Russia, It Was Never a Proxy War"

Full screen recommended.
Very strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 1/26/23:
'WWIII: US, NATO vs Russia, It Was Never a Proxy War"
"U.S. and Germany agree to send tanks into Ukraine. 
What comes next?"
Comments here:

Oh, Gerald's in fine form... lol

"NATO Is Going To Get Us ALL Killed With This Move"

Full screen recommended.
Redacted, 1/26/23:
"NATO Is Going To Get Us ALL Killed With This Move"
"NATO's escalation of the war in Ukraine is going to lead to massive blood shed and no positive outcome. Germany, Poland, Portugal and the United States announced plans to send tanks to Ukraine in a dramatic show of force."
Comments here:

Thursday, January 26, 2023

"People Aren't Laughing Now, The Struggle Has Just Begin"

Jeremiah Babe, 1/26/23:
"People Aren't Laughing Now, 
The Struggle Has Just Begin"
Comments here:

Douglas Macgregor, "Russia Established Air Defense System in Moscow"

Douglas Macgregor, 1/26/23"
"Russia Established Air 
Defense System in Moscow"
Comments here:
o
Related:

"Egg Prices Skyrocket 2023! Food Shortages Plan Accelerated"

Full screen recommended.
"Egg Prices Skyrocket 2023! 
Food Shortages Plan Accelerated"
By Epic Economist

"Do you remember when you could buy a dozen eggs for 99 cents? It seems like it was only yesterday, but unfortunately those days are now gone for good. Thanks to a variety of factors, egg prices have risen to levels that we have never seen before, and in some areas of the country significant shortages are being reported. In fact, things are so bad that Whole Foods is apparently “now limiting egg carton purchases to two per person”. This is extremely alarming, because millions of U.S. households have traditionally relied on eggs as a cheap source of protein. Unfortunately, it appears that eggs will not be “cheap” for the foreseeable future. According to an article that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the average price of a dozen eggs in California actually reached $7.37 this week.

Meanwhile, more families are coming to the food bank, where volunteers dressed as the Three Kings passed out free toys and about a dozen shoppers filled carts with fresh produce, frozen meat and loaves of bread early Friday afternoon. Most products were out on display for the taking. But eggs had been rationed to small plastic bags in the back.

Inflation on basic grocery staples such as milk and flour has burdened poor families for months. But the current egg shortage has been particularly tough for families who rely on the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Social media is brimming with reports of missing food items at Kroger supermarket locations across the country.

A repeat of early 2020 when toilet paper and other essentials ran bare, the start of 2023 is seeing “a lot of empty shelves” at Kroger, according to numerous reports, some containing video evidence of lingering supply chain problems. Not only are Kroger shelves missing many essentials, but prices for things that are still in stock, most notably eggs, are skyrocketing to unprecedented levels.

As we are hit by one crisis after another throughout 2023, I expect our supply chain problems to continue to intensify. So I would encourage you to stock up while you still can. Yes, prices may seem ridiculously high now, but the truth is that they aren’t going to be getting any lower than they are at this moment."

“Today It Is Ukraine, but Tomorrow It Will Be Us”

“Today It Is Ukraine, but Tomorrow It Will Be Us”
By Brian Maher

Annapolis, Maryland - “Today it is Ukraine, but tomorrow it will be us, if we do not stop Putin now.” These are the remarks of Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal - babbled this week in Ukraine. Standing next to him was Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican. He too had something to say. Thus he intoned: "If Putin gets away with this, there goes Taiwan. If Putin's successful in Ukraine and is not prosecuted under international law, everything we said since World War II becomes a joke."

An empire such as the United States can no more sit idle in Ukraine… than a cat can sit idle as a mouse slinks by. It must get itself in the action. And to these senators the year is 1939. Herr Hitler is on the goose step - today in Ukraine, tomorrow in Warsaw, the next day in perhaps London.

Why Not a Blank Check? Yet Sen. Graham further simpered that he is not requesting a “blank check” to aid Ukraine. Here is our question: Why didn’t the South Carolina senator demand a blank check to aid Ukraine? If tomorrow it “will be us”… if Taiwan will go away… if Russian victory would “turn the world order upside down" as Sen. Graham likewise claimed...Why would the United States recognize any financial limits whatsoever?

If Vladimir Putin is the equal of the little Austrian corporal - again, we are told he is - it follows that his scotching must trample any financial concern. If it empties the United States Treasury… then it empties the United States Treasury. And in our estimation the good senator should just go ahead and say it: The United States should issue Mr. Zelenskyy the naked check and a pen to go with it. Let him write in the dollar amount, as he deems necessary.

Tanks to Ukraine: Mr. Zelenskyy has not yet been issued the blank check. Yet he will now receive Abrams tanks from the United States Army - some 31 of them as we understand it. He will likewise receive some number of Leopard 2 tanks from Germany and Challenger 2 tanks from Great Britain. They will almost certainly prove inadequate to purposes. They simply lack the oomph to muscle Mr. Putin out of Ukraine. Moreover, these paladins have proven vulnerable to anti-tank weaponry in various Middle East wars — to Russian anti-tank weaponry in particular. We hazard most will end their service lives in junk heaps, wrecked or as trophies of war in Russian military museums. But then what?

Up the Escalation Ladder We Go: Is a great power such as the United States to simply throw up the sponge… and walk off with its head bowed in defeat? The calls to “do more” will come issuing. After all, “we are next” should the Nazi aggression - pardon, the Russian aggression - stand. We cannot imagine that the United States would walk off. It has already invested too much money, material and morality into the business. It will not permit the blow to its reputation, to its leadership, to its “prestige.”

What great power would? What then will it do once its tanks are cleared from the battlefield, smoldering and dead? Here we speculate…It is quite possible the United States and its NATO understrappers dispatch airplanes to Ukraine. There is already talk of F-16 shipments. These are light attack aircraft, modest yet capable. Over Ukraine they will drop aerial bombs and other munitions upon the heads of unfortunate Russian soldiers - or at least they will attempt to.

Our spies inform us that Russia boasts the most formidable integrated air defense systems on Earth. They maintain very close watch over Ukraine’s airspace and will not be easily subdued. Come we now to the next question: What happens should this initial aerial campaign fail to turn the wartide in Ukraine’s favor? Again we speculate…

Out Comes the Heavy Stuff: Out will come the sharpest and shiniest swords in the American armamentarium - F’s 22 and 35… B’s 1, 2 and 52. The latter are “strategic” bombers capable of delivering a monstrous pummeling to those beneath them. Recall, the United States is very serious about defeating Russia in Ukraine. We do not believe its efforts will cease with artillery, tanks or lighter aircraft. Would these aircraft succeed against Russian forces… where other systems have failed? We do not know. Yet it is a very plausible possibility.

The question then becomes… how does Mr. Putin respond? Does he sit idly upon his hands while heavy American bombers let go tons and tons of ordinance upon his men?Does he then turn around and limp away from Ukraine and beg for forgiveness - and fly himself off to the Hague to face trial for crimes against humanity?

We cannot imagine that he would, no. By all appearances he is a very determined and resolute fellow. He will no more vacate Ukraine than the United States will vacate the NATO alliance. His goose is well and truly cooked if he does. This he knows - and knows well.

Can You Trust the Western Media? Incidentally, our spies notify us - strongly against Western claims - that Mr. Putin enjoys fantastic domestic support. The people of Russia are largely with him. To the extent he is unpopular it is because he has proved too gentle. That is, he has failed to display the requisite aggression against Ukraine. They have seen videos of Ukrainians executing disarmed Russian war prisoners, for example, and are hot for vengeance.

Our spies further report that Russian arms factories are going night and day, producing arms and ammunition in prodigious quantities. This too defies Western reports that Russia is running out. We cannot confirm these reports. But our men are earnest about it. Moreover, they rarely miss. We are therefore inclined to accept their word.

Meantime, Russia is shooting off perhaps 60,000 artillery shells per day. Ukraine is fortunate, we understand, if it can shoot 6,000 back the other way. All the while, we understand the United States is scavenging ammunition depots in Israel and South Korea to keep Ukraine up and going. We must therefore conclude that war’s grim calculus leans strongly toward Russia.

Answers Please!!! Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, once argued that the entire Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Is all of Ukraine worth the bones of a single American pilot, or tanker or infantryman? If it is then Sens. Graham and Blumenthal should notify us that it is.

But to return to the larger question, for which we also request a square answer: How does this Putin fellow react if his men in Ukraine start absorbing a true licking? Here you have the $64,000 question, the $164,000 question, the $1,164,000 question. Do Sens. Graham and Blumenthal have the answer? If they do, we request - and request loudly - that they share it. We would remind them both that Mr. Putin’s Russia houses loads of nuclear toys. We would further remind them that a cornered beast is a dangerous beast. They nonetheless appear determined to back the Russian beast into a very tight corner.

We suspect Mr. Putin is ticketed for a very hot place once he pays his debt to nature. If the senators have their way, that day is near. Are you, senators, prepared to follow him? And are you prepared to drag millions along with you? Answers please, gentlemen - and soon."

"America’s Generational Failure Exposed, Episode 4: “The Demise of the Dollar”

"America’s Generational Failure Exposed,
Episode 4: "Demise of the Dollar"
by Addison Wiggin

"Episode 4 of the hit miniseries America’s Generational Failure is finally available for free viewing! The much anticipated series finale, titled "Demise of the Dollar, is the culmination of years of research on the American financial machine, and how greed, fear, and corruption have poisoned the USA and our way of life.

If you’re easily offended by facts and truth, you may not want to watch this episode. It’s an eye opening roundtable discussion exposing the reality behind:

The “quantity theory of money” and what that means for everyday Americans saving for retirement.

Corporate bankruptcies, “zombie businesses” that don’t earn enough even to pay the interest on their debts, big names going bust (like Lehman Bros. in 2008)…and the dreaded panic sell-off sure to follow.

How (and when) we expect the fallout of this fiasco to play out in an inevitable economic downturn

Why joblessness will rise, too…maybe to 10%...maybe higher

A look into when the Fed will “Powell pivot” and how investors can use this as an opportunity to create true wealth

Plus, how new digital currencies fit into this twisted form of social governance. Those are just some of the highlights from the grand finale.

You’ve got 24 hours to watch this must see episode before it goes behind a paywall. I strongly urge you to watch it immediately, so that you don’t risk missing a single second of the valuable information revealed here. Information from top financial analysts…Former Wall Street advisors…Best selling writers…And some of the biggest names in the industry about how to not only survive this crisis, but thrive as a result of it.

Again, this episode will be available free for one day only. I hope you take this opportunity to help you protect yourself, your family, and your money. I’ll see you in the viewing room. So it goes..."
o

Musical Interlude: Yanni, "To The One Who Knows"

Full screen recommended.
Yanni, "To The One Who Knows"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round?
Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star visible above at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.”

Chet Raymo, “Why Cranes Fly”

“Why Cranes Fly”
by Chet Raymo

"There were a few Comments here about herons, from right around the world. What is the power of this bird to touch our minds and hearts? The naturalist Aldo Leopold was intimately familiar with the cranes of Wisconsin, cousins of our New England great blue heron, the Irish gray heron, and Adam2's aosagi from Japan, and wondered about their ability to move us so deeply. In A Sand County Almanac he watches as a crane "springs his ungainly hulk into the air and flails the morning sun with mighty wings." Our ability to perceive beauty in nature, as in art, begins with the pretty, he says, then moves into qualities of the beautiful yet uncaptured by language. The beauty of the crane lies in this higher realm, he proposes, "beyond the reach of words."

Words may fail, but poets have tried to capture the ineffable.

John Ciardi sees "a leap, a thrust, a long stroke through the cumulus of trees" and stops to praise "that bright original burst that lights the heron on his two soft kissing kites."

Theodore Roethke observes a heron aim his heavy bill above the wood: "The wide wings flap but once to lift him up. A single ripple starts from where he stood."

In Chekhov's "The Three Sisters", sister Masha refuses "to live and not know why the cranes fly, why children are born, why the stars are in the sky. Either you know and you're alive or its all nonsense, all dust in the wind."
o
Kansas, "Dust in the Wind"

"Maybe..."

“Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be a human. Maybe, we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe, we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.”
- “Grey’s Anatomy”

Gregory Mannarino, "A New Phase Of Ridiculousness"

Gregory Mannarino, 1/26/23:
"A New Phase Of Ridiculousness: 
Faking Of The Data Just Hit A New All Time High"
Comments here:

"Debts, Deficits... and Death to the Middle Class"

"Debts, Deficits... and Death to the Middle Class"
Inflation to the left, housing crisis to the right, 
America's workers get squeezed...
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman

Normandy, France - "Let’s slow down for a moment and take stock. Investors are mostly bewildered, but hoping that inflation has peaked out and the Fed will soon ease up. Easing up seems likely to us…but not decisive. There’s more to the story, which we will come to in a minute. Consumer prices are still rising at an unacceptable rate. And workers – that’s most of us – are still losing ground. Wages are going up. But after inflation, we are poorer.

Meanwhile, real estate, where most people keep most of their wealth, is going down. We saw yesterday that house prices may fall 30% – in line with the last bear market in real estate. Many families only have ‘equity’ of 30%...or less…in their houses. So, the expected drop will wipe out 100% of their accumulated wealth. And most likely, the Fed will continue its ‘tightening,’ forcing those who need to Hypotheses, 1 & 2…

We expect the Fed to continue its rate hikes until one of two things happen. A big bankruptcy, crash on Wall Street, or other financial emergency will cause the Fed to panic and ‘pivot’ towards lower rates. That is our hypothesis number 1: that the Fed will continue to raise rates “until something breaks.”

But there’s another possibility, hypothesis number 2: that the Fed will be forced to raise rates by the federal government. The Fed caused today’s inflation; it is trying to redeem itself by getting it under control. But the elite who control the national government are still very much in spend, spend, spend mode. No cutting back for them. They have elections to win…battles to fight…claptrap to promote and boondoggles to finance. And they are increasingly turning not just to spending money they don’t have…but also to guaranteeing credits they can’t really afford.

Yes, the feds are running huge deficits. If everything goes well, you can expect another $1 trillion shortfall this year. In case of recession – which is likely – the deficit will be much greater. But in addition, they are steering private spending towards their favorite projects by offering an expanding system of tax breaks and credit guarantees. Homeowners are promised public money if they will put solar panels on their roofs, for example, or insulation in their walls. Buyers are given credits if they purchase an EV. Young people are promised loans (later to be forgiven!) if they submit to further indoctrination, rather than finding a job where they might actually learn something useful. to pay higher rates (mortgage rates have already more than doubled since 2020).

The Primary Trend: This spending, direct and indirect, has to be covered. Meaningful tax hikes are out of the question. So, the money has to come from borrowing or printing. Borrowing will drive up interest rates, thereby also increasing the cost of carrying the government’s $31 trillion debt pile. Either way – borrowing or printing – the Fed will be forced to make low-cost funds available.

Thereby, one way or another, along comes the much anticipated ‘pivot.’ And with it comes a new phase of the developing catastrophe, with the Fed supporting federal spending and the economy with lower rates, and probably more QE.

When this happens, many people will see a boom. Stocks are likely to go up. It will seem like an early spring thaw, with flowers coming up everywhere. Investors will remember how the Fed goosed up stocks after the dot.com crash…and again, after the mortgage finance crisis…and again, after the economy was shut down in the Covid Panic. They will think: ‘here we go again.’

But this time, it will probably turn out much differently. In our view, the Primary Trend is what counts. And the primary trend…for stocks…for bonds…for real estate…for the US empire…for the dollar-dominated currency system…for western democracy…for Congress and the administration…for the economy…for standards of living…is down. That’s the ‘cluster’ we’ve been exploring, when many things go wrong together. Night follows day. Bust follows boom. A young man becomes an old man. And a church warden sneaks into a brothel. You get the idea.

In ‘n’ Outta Whack: The Primary Trend is merely the process by which that which was out of whack gets back into whack…and then goes out of whack again. In the bond market, for example, we have seen only two major course reversals in our entire lives. Bonds fell in price from the late ‘40s until the early ‘80s. Then, the primary trend turned…and they rose for the next 4 decades. The second turn only happened in 2020, when they finally topped out, and yields (which go in the opposite direction) began to rise. Since then, the 10-year Treasury bond, the most common brick of the whole modern financial edifice, rose from barely one half of one percent in July 2020, to 3.7% – seven times as much.

We pay attention to the primary trend because 1) it is almost impossible to make any real money by trading in and out, trying to pick winners or anticipate the markets’ moves, 2) primary trend changes destroy fortunes as well as make them, and 3) when you invest in the primary trend you don’t have to pay so much attention to Wall Street.

We should probably add that the primary trend also brings us in contact with the ironies and disappointments of real life. ‘He that did ride so high doth lie so low,’ we say, with the gravitas of a sage, after a crash. What goes up must come down. The last shall be first. The chambermaid will be queen. And the jerk, who gets elected to Congress, eventually gets what he has coming.

So many opportunities to say “I told you so!” But wait…how can the ‘primary trend’ be down…and yet, after the Fed pivots, the economy may boom and stocks may go up? Stay tuned…"
o
Joel’s Note: "After the great housing bonanza of the past couple of years, the US real estate market is finally coming back to earth. Here’s the unhappy headline from Fox Business: "US suffering from the second biggest home price correction of the post-WWII era." "According to the 2022 Housing Affordability Survey, conducted by CATO Institute, “55% of Americans say they cannot afford to buy their home in today's market.”

How could this be? With so much of the fed’s free money sloshing around, isn’t everyone as “rich as an Argentine”? Well, yes… and that’s not a good thing. As usual, Bonner Private Research’s macro analyst, Dan Denning, was on the case… “Let's remember the Fed pumped $1.3 trillion into the housing market by buying mortgage backed securities during the pandemic,” recalls Dan. “This coincided (caused, led to, created) a 40% increase in median existing home prices across the country over 24 months. Median home prices are now over $450,000 in much of the country.”

Take a look at the following chart, which Dan sent to the BPR team this morning. You can see clearly the massive liquidity injection spiking at the end of the recession (gray area) on the right…
Click image for larger size.
Of course, what goes up must eventually revert to the mean… but not before overshooting in the opposite direction.

According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales fell 1.5% in December, marking the 11th straight month of declines. On an annual basis, home sales were down 34%, the largest calendar year drop on record… and that’s despite mortgage rates easing slightly for the month.

Goldman Sachs reckons prices could keep falling for another 6 months before things turn around. But even that may prove to be optimistic…“As much as the Fed wants to blame fiscal policy for underlying inflation (which is true),” cautions Dan, “the asset bubbles they created and which are now bursting will do just as much to wipe out middle class wealth. Bursting bubble with the left hand. Inflation with the right. Over and over.”

"No More Income Tax"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 1/26/23:
"No More Income Tax"
"There is a radical proposal being talked about in the Senate, they want to eliminate the income tax that we pay it altogether. They want to replace it with a national sales tax."
Comments here:

"We Do Choose..."

"All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
- Joseph Epstein
"George Harrison knew something most of us didn't and still don't: there is a reality beyond the material world and what we do here and how we treat others affects us eternally. As he sings in "Rising Sun":
"But in the rising sun you can feel your life begin,
Universe at play inside your DNA.
You're a billion years old today.
Oh the rising sun and the place it's coming from
Is inside of you and now your payment's overdue."
Lyrics here:
"Death twitches my ear. 'Live," he says, 'I am coming.'"
~ Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

The Daily "Near You?"

Valley Center, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"One Day..."

 

Greg Hunter, "One Giant Financial STD and Everybody is Infected"

"One Giant Financial STD and Everybody is Infected"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter said last summer that the Fed rate increases would tank the economy. Everywhere you look you see the economy falling apart. House prices and sales are down. Banks are clocking record losses, vehicle prices are falling and unemployment is rising. The economy has not completely crashed, but it will. Holter explains, “There are over $2,000 trillion worth of derivatives outstanding on a global economy that has maybe a little more than $500 trillion in asset values. So, you have this dog walking around with a gigantic tail that will shake the dog. When derivatives go, it’s a 48-hour event. Who do you think holds all these derivatives? You’ve got the big banks, all the big brokers, all the big insurance companies and they are all going to go down. It’s like one giant financial STD, and everybody is in bed together and everybody is infected.”

Add to this the announcement from Saudi Arabia that it will now accept payment in currencies other than the U.S. dollar and you have the makings of a destabilizing hyperinflationary catastrophe for America. Holter says, “There will be other Arab nations to follow, and that is a huge hit to the artificial demand for the dollar. You had nations all over the world who were forced to buy dollars to buy oil, and that is no longer. Going one step further, these nations who have stockpiled huge dollar portfolios are no longer required to use dollars. What do you think is going to happen to them? Those dollars are going to come back to the U.S., and that will be a hugely inflationary event. It will add many multiples to the dollar pie that thus will dilute the value.”

What is the Fed going to do? Holter says, “The Fed is in a box. They will have to make a choice to save the dollar or save the financial system. They can’t save everything. Something has to break. I have said this for years, and that is there are already losses out there, but somebody has to own up to them. Nobody has had to take the losses because everything has been papered over for so many years where losses were just kicked down the road, and there is no more road.”

Holter goes on to say, “The best way to sum it up is the facade that we have lived our lives through is ending and will completely end. The reality is going to blow people’s minds. That will be a depopulation event because people will be starving. The Fed has always feared a deflationary collapse where it cannot inflate the system. Credit is the foundation to the whole system. If credit cracks and credits collapses, it means the foundation collapses and thus the entire house.”

If everything is collapsing in price, what happens to gold and silver prices? Holter says, “Gold and silver are the only real money on the planet that cannot or will not default.” Holter likes them both and adds, “Silver is the most undervalued asset out there right now.” There is a lot more in the 48-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One 
with financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter. 
o
Related:

"Prices Are Skyrocketing At Kroger! This Is Ridiculous! When Will It End!?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures Wit Danno, 1/26/23:
"Prices Are Skyrocketing At Kroger! 
This Is Ridiculous! When Will It End!?"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger and are noticing massive price increases! We are here witnessing skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
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"The Cost Of Living Has Become Extremely Oppressive And 57 Percent Of Americans Cannot Afford A $1,000 Emergency Expense"

"The Cost Of Living Has Become Extremely 
Oppressive And 57 Percent Of Americans 
Cannot Afford A $1,000 Emergency Expense"
by Michael Snyder

"I don’t have to tell you that your money doesn’t go as far as it once did. You see it every time that you go shopping. Our leaders flooded the system with money and pursued highly inflationary policies for years, and now we are all paying the price. The cost of living has been rising much faster than our incomes have, and this is systematically destroying the middle class. Survey after survey has shown that a solid majority of the population is living paycheck to paycheck, and at this point most U.S. consumers are tapped out. In fact, one brand new survey just discovered that 57 percent of Americans cannot even afford to pay a $1,000 emergency expense

According to Bankrate’s Annual Emergency Fund Report, 68% of people are worried they wouldn’t be able to cover their living expenses for just one month if they lost their primary source of income. And when push comes to shove, the majority (57%) of U.S. adults are currently unable to afford a $1,000 emergency expense. When broken down by generation, Gen Zers (85%) and Millennials (79%) are more likely to be worried about covering an emergency expense.

These numbers are quite ominous, because they clearly demonstrate that we are completely and utterly unprepared for any sort of a major economic downturn. And thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living, we are losing even more ground with each passing month.

Another survey that was recently released found that “earnings are falling behind the cost of living” for 72 percent of middle income families…"Nearly three-quarters, or 72%, of middle-income families say their earnings are falling behind the cost of living, up from 68% a year ago, according to a separate report by Primerica based on a survey of households with incomes between $30,000 and $100,000. A similar share, 74%, said they are unable to save for their future, up from 66% a year ago."

We haven’t experienced anything like this in the United States in decades. When I walked into a Walmart store the other day, I was shocked by how high the prices are now. Isn’t Walmart supposed to be the place with “low prices every day”? Well, the prices were certainly not “low” when I walked through the store. And I was stunned to learn that McDonald’s is now selling one hash brown for three dollars.
Are you kidding me? I am sure that many of you can remember a time when they were 50 cents. Sadly, those days are not coming back.

Food prices are going to continue to go up, and the CEO of Unilever recently admitted that his company has actually “been accelerating the rate of price increases that we’ve had to put into the market”… “For the last 18 months we’ve seen extraordinary input cost pressure … it runs across petrochemical derived products, agricultural derived products, energy, transport, logistics,” he said. “It’s been feeding through for quite some time now and we’ve been accelerating the rate of price increases that we’ve had to put into the market,” he added."

That doesn’t sound good at all. And he also ominously warned that “there’s more inflationary pressure coming”…"Unilever’s view, he said, was that “we know for sure there’s more inflationary pressure coming through in our input costs.”

As food prices continue to rise, these big companies are going to look for ways to reduce input costs. One way that they are going to do that is by starting to put crushed bugs in our food. I know that this may sound really bizarre to you, but this is already happening in Europe…"As of yesterday, a food additive made out of powdered crickets began appearing in foods from pizza, to pasta to cereals across the European Union. Yes, really.

Defatted house crickets are on the menu for Europeans across the continent, without the vast majority of them knowing it is now in their food. So you might want to start reading labels a lot more carefully from now on."

Of course it isn’t just the cost of food that has become extremely oppressive. Just about everything has gotten more expensive, and this has broken the remaining strength of the U.S. consumer. If you doubt this, just consider some of the latest economic numbers that we have seen.

U.S. retail sales fell once again last month…"US retail sales continued their fall in December, dropping by 1.1% as inflation remained high, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That’s the largest monthly decline since December 2021, and practically every category (except for building materials, groceries and sporting goods) saw sales drop from the prior month."

Sales of existing homes have now fallen for 11 months in a row…"U.S. existing home sales slowed for the 11th consecutive month in December as higher mortgage rates, surging inflation and steep home prices sapped consumer demand from the housing market."

More Americans than ever before are being forced to pay at least 30 percent of their incomes on rent…"The average US household is now considered ‘rent-burdened’ as a record-high number of people are spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. According to Moody’s Analytics’ latest affordability report, the national average rent-to-income (RTI) ratio reached 30 percent for the first time since the company began tracking the data more than 20 years ago."

U.S. consumers are being stretched financially like never before, and many are turning to debt to help them maintain their current lifestyles. As a result, the savings rate has plunged to a historic low, credit card debt has surged to a record high, and the average rate of interest on credit card balances has also risen to a record high. As Zero Hedge has aptly noted, this is “nothing short of catastrophic”…

"The combination of record high credit card debt and record high credit card interest is nothing short of catastrophic for both the US economy, and the strapped consumer who has no choice but to keep buying on credit while hoping next month’s bill will somehow not come. Unfortunately, it will and at some point in the very near future, this will also translate into massive loan losses for US consumer banks; that’s when Powell will finally panic."

For a long time, we have been warned that the very foolish economic policies that our leaders were implementing would have deeply tragic consequences. And now it is starting to happen right in front of our eyes. Sadly, the truth is that this is just the beginning. The entire system is cracking and crumbling all around us, and there is much more pain ahead."

"How It Really Is"

 

Douglas Macgregor, "Ukraine: A Huge Russian Offensive"

Douglas Macgregor, 1/25/23:
"Ukraine: A Huge Russian Offensive"
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Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor, 1/26/23:
"Ukraine is Currently Staring Annihilation in the Face"
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"War..."

"War does not determine who's right... only who's left."
- Bertrand Russell

"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting
 each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals."
- Edward Abbey

The Poet: William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

"The Second Coming"

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
- William Butler Yeats, January 1919

"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," indeed...