So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, April 14, 2023
"Your Offer Is Rejected"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 4/14/23
"Your Offer Is Rejected"
"Banks are having a real problems. The Credit Suisse
and UBS bank merger is in trouble. Regulators have rejected this."
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "Disorder is the Order of the Day"
"Disorder is the Order of the Day"
By Jim Kunstler
“We are fueling a proxy war in Ukraine in order to defend freedom, such as the freedom to censor dissenting views on our proxy war in Ukraine.” - Aron Maté
"How long do we have to wait before Volodymyr Zelensky opens a disco in Boca Raton? That’s one of the questions raised by the secret CIA documents leaked last week, supposedly by a 21-year-old National Guard airman in Massachusetts named Jack Teixeira. Since that’s about the lowliest rank in the whole US military, you have to wonder how Jack got his mitts on all that embarrassing info, and what it says about the Pentagon’s command structure and its relations with the Intel “Community.”
I guess our cyber-security isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. But then, neither is our war effort in Ukraine. Yes, our war effort. We own this war from tail to snout, lock, stock, and barrel, the whole shootin’ match. We started it (in 2014, when we began the preps there), we goaded the Russians into it in bad faith, and now we’re losing it. Why? Because it was a stupid venture from the get-go. Now, it’s really a matter of how psychotic our government’s reaction will be when the Russians restore order to the place.
Restore order? That’s right. I believe that’s what they’re aiming to do. Our country went into Ukraine to create disorder in that corner of the world - which has been within Russia’s sphere-of-influence for over three hundred years, you understand. Sowing disorder is what we do, usually with very bloody consequences plus a bad outcome. Except for our stunning victory in the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, 1983, this has been our country’s practice in recent decades.
The mysterious “Joe Biden” regime, in its brief two-plus years of service, has proven especially adept at creating fiascos. Are they aiming for the gold ring in this Ukraine gambit, that is, nuclear war? People seriously wonder. Or is something else going on? Blogger and ex-CIA agent) Larry Johnson says the leak was done for a specific purpose, namely to shove “Joe Biden” out of the White House. Yes, our Deep State is at it again. Why, because “Joe Biden” can no longer be trusted to even pretend he’s chief executive. (Well, maybe they shouldn’t have installed him in the first place.)
Larry also reminds us that, conveniently, an Obama-era whistleblower named Mike McCormick, who accompanied Veep Joe Biden’s delegation to Ukraine in 2014, has stepped forward to detail Biden family grifting operations there, with the help of then-aide (now National Security Advisor) Jake Sullivan. It’s like somebody is laying out a case for impeachment - or resignation. One really off-the-wall theory floating “out there” has Veep Kamala Harris being induced to take Diane Feinstein’s senate seat (DF, 89, is very ill), and “Joe Biden” then appointing Barack Obama to be Veep - with BHO stepping back into the White House when “JB” exits (or gets exited). Note, the XXII Amendment only prohibits a person from being “elected” president more than twice. No mention of appointment. Now there’s a real Catch-22!
The blogger who styles himself as “Sundance” at the excellent Conservative Tree House website has another theory. He writes, "The Leak Was the Op", saying its purpose was to help get the Restrict Act passed. This loathsome legislation, pimped by Senate Intel Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), would essentially allow the government to censor everything and anything on the Internet, including blogs and comments on blogs and all websites generally - that is, the entire Alt Media. Senator Warner, you might recall (if you followed the immensely tangled story) was one of the prime movers behind the RussiaGate hoax. What a daisy he is!
Where is all this going? I will try to tell you. Since disorder is the order of the day, be aware that things will be going non-linear and chaotic. A lot of events are converging and colliding in the weeks ahead. Whatever the Mike McCormick whistleblower matter means, it’s only an additional layer to the rotten onion of Biden family corruption, the millions of dollars flowing into their bank accounts from all over the planet. This treasonous business has been right in America’s face for three years. The Hunter Biden laptop alone is crammed with hard evidence of felonies that the federal justice system has willfully managed to ignore. Rep. James Comer’s House Oversight Committee sits on a raft of Biden family bank records detailing hundreds of flagged suspicious transactions.
Impeachment hearings can commence at any time. It would only require a 51-percent majority in the House to pass any particular article of impeachment, equivalent to an indictable charge. The hearings alone may be damaging enough to force “Joe Biden’s” resignation. If any articles or charges pass, the matter moves to a trial in the Senate. We have already seen how that works in the trials of Mr. Trump. Given the Democrats’ Senate majority, it might be difficult to get a two-thirds vote for conviction on anything. But the damage is already done.
In the meantime, though, we’re likely to see the collapse of the Ukraine war effort. The recriminations from that should be huge, with calls for General Milley and SecDef Austin to step down just for starters and turmoil through the Pentagon command. Imagine also the confused rage of American voters who watched over $100-billion squandered on this stupid misadventure, including the estimated $300-million that Mr. Zelensky stuffed in his pockets.
Also, in the meantime, watch the rapidly accelerating move away from the dollar in global trade settlements as many other nations lose confidence in the floundering USA. That, of course, will affect the value of the dollar. The Federal Reserve will be helpless to manage the consequences of that, and the problem will be hugely aggravated if other nations start dumping the US Treasury bonds and bills they hold. In short, at the same time the Ukraine is lost and the “Joe Biden” regime falls apart, we get a king-hell financial crisis combined with a cratering on the-ground economy. Things stop moving, including food.
Triple-also, in the meantime, the spooky question of Covid vaccine deaths rises to the previously resistant public’s attention, and they realize that they have been poisoned by their own government, now in ominous convulsion. All of this will make starkly clear that America suffers a dangerous leadership vacuum. This is not civil war. This is something else. But what?"
"Major Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Getting Ridiculous! What Now?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 4/14/23
"Major Price Increases At Aldi!
This Is Getting Ridiculous! What Now?"
"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:
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap 4/14/23"
"Weekly News Wrap 4/14/23"
Brace For Impact, mRNA Graphene Poison & Trump’s Trials
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
'Don’t let the Jim Cramers (CNBC) of the world tell you everything is great with the economy, and we are headed for new highs. Just the opposite is coming, according to the IMF. The International Monetary Fund is warning of a “heavy downside risk” because the banking crisis you were told was over is far from over. Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini (aka Dr. Doom) says stagflation is a coming “mega-threat” and is warning of big “crashes.” It’s not just the economy that is going to crash, but the U.S. dollar. With all the bank bailouts and trillion-dollar spending plans in Congress, there is no way for the dollar to go anywhere but down.
They told us for years that there is no poisonous graphene in the mRNA CV19 bioweapon injections. They lied - again - surprise!! Newly released Pfizer documents say there is most definitely graphene in this swill passed off as some life-saving vaccine. This graphene admission means mRNA based CV19 injections are, in fact, bioweapons, and they did NOT help a single person. Nuremberg 2.0 here we come.
It’s another week and another Deep State lawsuit to try and stop Donald J. Trump from getting back into the White House. This week, it was yet another lawsuit from far left New York Attorney General Letitia James to sue President Trump and his family about the value of their real estate holdings. Trump was grilled for 7 hours in an attempt to get a $250 million judgment against Trump. James is on the record several time making threats and promised she was going to get Trump while she was campaigning for her job. There is much more in the 58-minute newscast."
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 4/14/23:
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Musical Interlude: Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"
Full screen recommended.
Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"
"I did my best, it wasn't much,
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch.
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah..."
"Warning: We Will See 50 Years Of Change in The Next 6 Months"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 4/13/23
"Warning: We Will See 50 Years Of Change in The Next 6 Months"
Comments here:
"People Are Losing Everything; 18,000 Cows Burned Alive; 50K Stores Could Close"
Jeremiah Babe, 4/13/23
"People Are Losing Everything;
18,000 Cows Burned Alive; 50K Stores Could Close"
Comments here:
Greg Hunter, "Global Monetary Experiment Ends in a Bloodbath"
"Global Monetary Experiment Ends in a Bloodbath"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Analyst and financial writer John Rubino said in February, “We are in a debt and death spiral” that will force dramatic changes on the world. It was a direct hit because in March, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) tanked, and the FDIC and the U.S. Treasury were forced to basically back-stop the entire banking system. The financial problems are far from over as Rubino explains, “Basically, interest rates have been artificially low for a decade. In that time, crazy numbers of office buildings went up and were financed at really low rates. Now, office vacancy rates are spiking, which means office building are not profitable anymore. The debts they have at 2% to 3% now have to be rolled over at 5%, 6% or 7%. This means an already unprofitable office building is going to be even more unprofitable because of rising interest rates. Now, they want to sell this office space, and the price cuts that have to be done to get a deal done is 30% to 50%. Some are down by 80%. Local and regional banks already had their troubles last month but are going to have bigger troubles when all these building turn out to be not worth nearly as much as we thought they were. This paper is in pension funds, they are going to go into crisis. So, real estate is liable to be the catalyst in crisis in several other sectors. The government is going to have to let it burn and have a 1930’s style depression, or bail out everybody in sight at the cost of rising inflation and the dollar tanking.”
Rubino says, “There is no fix. There is no way to refill these buildings. There is no way to refinance them without going bankrupt. Sometime this year we are going to drop back into negative growth, and it’s going to be a bloodbath. There is no solution, and these guys see it coming and they have no idea what to do about it. This is the sector we want to watch and will be the catalyst for the next big crisis. The next bailout creates a lot of new dollars, and that pushes down the dollar, and then, we are in the death spiral where there is no fix. That is out there waiting to happen, a bailout so huge that it terrifies holders of the currency and Treasury bonds. Then it’s game over. This is just a question of when people figure this out. That really is our situation right now.”
In closing, Rubino says, “This is a much bigger story than what happens to the dollar as the reserve currency. This is the end of a global monetary experiment that is going to go out with a very fiery end. This is not going to be fun to watch.” Rubino advises people to get tangible assets such as food, water, tools, gold, silver, a car title and a garden, to name a few. Rubino says, “We all should be preppers now.” There is much more in the 48-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes
One-on-One with financial writer John Rubino.
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Atmospheres"
Full screen recommended.
"Relax, find yourself in enchanted and blissful serenity..."
Deuter, "Atmospheres"
00:00 ⋄ Uno
05:45 ⋄ Deux
11:58 ⋄ Drei
18:27 ⋄ Four
25:15 ⋄ Cinque
31:58 ⋄ Sei
36:33 ⋄ Sieben
42:22 ⋄ Huit
50:55 ⋄ Nine
57:27 ⋄ Dieci
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The Pelican Nebula is changing. The entire nebula, officially designated IC 5070, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, is particularly interesting because it is an unusually active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds.
The featured picture was processed to bring out two main colors, red and blue, with the red dominated by light emitted by interstellar hydrogen. Ultraviolet light emitted by young energetic stars is slowly transforming cold gas in the nebula to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as an ionization front, visible in bright red across the image center. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain. Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will surely leave something that appears completely different.”
○
"In a universe devoid of life, any life at all would be immensely meaningful. We ARE that meaning. "And what we see, "says the poet Mary Oliver, "is the world that cannot cherish us, but which we cherish." As though life itself is the great, universal, unrequited love of all time. But there is even more to this. Deep mystery. We are the universe aware of itself. We let the miracle get lost in distractions. On a planet so rich with living companions, much of humanity sentences itself to solitary confinement. Late at night, I used to lie in my boat listening to radio calls from ships to families ashore. There was only one conversation, and it boils down to, "I love you and I miss you: come home safe." Connections make us individuals. Ironic, isn't it? The more connected, the more unique our life becomes."
- Carl Safina
"Halt and Catch Fire"
"There's a great phrase, 'Halt and Catch Fire', which means, basically, you know sh&t's going to hit the fan, so you stop, accept it and move the [another expletive we'd prefer not to write] on. 'Halt and Catch Fire'is an early machine command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all conditions to compete for superiority at once."
- Addison Wiggin
"Whole Foods Faces Store Closings As Biggest Retailers In America Brace For Bankruptcies"
Full screen recommended.
"Whole Foods Faces Store Closings As Biggest
Retailers In America Brace For Bankruptcies"
by Epic Economist
"Now several Whole Foods stores are being shuttered as fears of retail bankruptcies grow across the sector. Experts are saying that the organic supermarket chain is Amazon’s biggest risk and many pieces of evidence show why Whole Food locations are falling apart faster than other grocery stores.
This week, Whole Foods made the headlines after it announced the shutdown of a flagship store in San Francisco. The company is closing its doors only one year after opening there, citing horrible street conditions outside as the reason. The decision caused a stir online, with people taking to Twitter and Reddit to express their frustration. “I’m incredibly disappointed but sadly unsurprised by the closure of Mid-Market’s Whole Foods,” San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey tweeted on April 10. The San Francisco store wasn’t the only one on the food retailer’s chopping block. Recently, it has announced store closings in four states: Alabama, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
The volatility faced by the company makes many retail experts argue that Whole Foods is Amazon’s biggest risk. According to analysts with the Wall Street Journal, Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy has a daunting challenge on his hands as the upscale grocery chain continues to fall short of earnings expectations amid rising inflation.
That concern is raising many alarm bells particularly because the e-commerce retailer just announced the shutdown of many of its Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, and Amazon Style stores, as well as its Just Walk Out cashier-less locations a few months ago, and the permanent closure of all of its physical bookstores, Pop Up stores and 4-star stores.
In 2022, Amazon reported a loss of $3.84 billion, or $7.56 per share, compared to a profit of $8.1 billion, or $15.79 a share, during the same period in 2021. In other words, it looks like Whole Foods is Amazon’s $13.8 billion liability, and six straight quarters of declining sales are proof that consumers are losing interest in the stores as prices become too out of their reach.
Data shows that rival chains including Sprouts Farmers Market, Kroger, and discount chain Aldi are between 19% and 24% cheaper than Whole Foods. They have also picked up a considerable share of Whole Foods customers. Last month, Barclays advised that Whole Foods had experienced a “staggering” decline in foot traffic that it estimated at 3% or roughly 14 million customers.
No wonder why Amazon is rushing to reduce its retail footprint and cut costs to save its business. According to a Deloitte survey, the 2023 retail outlook for bankruptcies is worse than pre-pandemic levels. Over half of retail business owners, or 55.3 percent, who were surveyed projected a higher risk of downsizing, debt default, or bankruptcy in 2023, as sentiment across the sector continues to deteriorate.
“Many retailers’ financial models don’t make sense anymore, their debt loads don’t make sense anymore, and they aren’t functional companies anymore,” says Craig Ganz, a bankruptcy lawyer with Ballard Spahr. “A whole slew of these retail companies just can’t survive,” the expert warns.
At the end of the day, the latest wave of stress will continue to separate winners from losers. “We’re going to see what I refer to as the continuing Darwinism effect on retail,” says Perry Mandarino, head of restructuring at B. Riley Financial Inc. “Only the strongest survive.”And we will soon find out if Amazon’s biggest grocery chain is strong enough to stay alive."
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Trends In The News"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 4/13/23
"Trends In The News"
The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing
global current events forming future trends."
Comments here:
The Poet: Maya Angelou, "Alone"
“Alone”
“Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home,
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone.
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong,
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use,
Their wives run round like banshees,
Their children sing the blues.
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone,
But nobody,
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know…
Storm clouds are gathering,
The wind is gonna blow.
The race of man is suffering,
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody,
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody,
Can make it out here alone.”
- Maya Angelou
Dr. Seuss, "The Waiting Place"
"The Waiting Place"
by Dr. Seuss
"Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And then things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!
You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don't.
Because, sometimes, you won't.
I'm sorry to say so
but, sadly, it's true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.
You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That's not for you!
Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don't
Because, sometimes they won't.
I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.
And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike,
And I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
You're off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!"
"Fate. Luck. Chance"
“That is life, isn’t it? Fate. Luck. Chance. A long series of what-if’s that lead from one moment to the next, time never pausing for you to catch your breath, to make sense of the cards that have been handed to you. And all you can do is play your cards and hope for the best, because in the end, it all comes back to those three basics. Fate. Luck. Chance.”
- Kelseyleigh Reber
“Unless, of course, there’s no such thing as chance… in which case, we should either - optimistically - get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might - as pessimists - give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought-decision-action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?”
- Salman Rushdie
"Living In A Potemkin World" (Excerpt)
"Living In A Potemkin World" (Excerpt)
by Jim Quinn
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” - George Orwell, "1984"
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” - George Orwell, 1984
"I never thought I would experience the dystopian “fictional” nightmare Orwell laid out in his 1949 novel. Seventy-two years later and his warning about a totalitarian society, where mass surveillance, repressive measures against dissenters, mind control through government indoctrination and propaganda designed to convince the masses lies are truth, fake is real and the narrative can be manipulated to achieve the desired outcome of those in power, have come to fruition.
Everything is fake. I don’t believe anything I’m told by the government, the media, medical “experts”, politicians, military leadership, bankers, corporate executives, religious leaders, financial professionals, and anyone selling themselves as an authority on any subject matter. We are truly living in times of mass deception, mass delusion, and mass willful ignorance.
The term Potemkin Village comes from stories of a phony movable village built by Grigory Potemkin in the late 1700’s to impress his former lover, Catherine II, during her journey to Crimea in 1787. He supposedly erected fake villages along the banks of the Dnieper River, as her vessel sailed by, to impress her with the progress he was making on her behalf. After she passed, he would have the village disassembled and then reassembled further along downstream.
I guess this was an early version of fake news, though I am sure there were also plenty of falsities and propaganda in the newspapers of the time. But, in our current day, oppressors have taken lies, falsities, miss-truths, and propaganda to heights never conceived by Edward Bernays, George Orwell or Joseph Stalin."
Please view this outstanding, and highly recommended complete article here:
"How It Is, Always Was, And Always Will Be"
"We know they are lying, they know they are lying,
they know we know they are lying,
we know they know we know they are lying,
but, they are still lying."
- Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
"Violence does not always and necessarily lunge straight for your throat;
more often than not it demands of its subjects only that they
pledge allegiance to lies, that they participate in falsehood. "
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Start of the End?
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 4/13/23
"Start of the End?"
"When you have an A+ office building go with a 36% loss does that concern you? It concerns me with the economy. Blackstone just sold two office towers in orange county California for a huge loss. Plus today we’re going to take a little tour through Whole Foods."
Comments here:
"Welcome to the U.S.S.A.'s Banquet of Consequences"
"Welcome to the U.S.S.A.'s Banquet of Consequences"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"When I mention that the U.S.A. feels increasingly like the U.S.S.R., a surprising number of people tell me they feel the same way. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.: United Simulacra States of America where everything is an absurdly transparent simulation with little connection to reality and dissent is crushed by an ever-present, ubiquitous narrative police state enforced by the union of Big Tech social media, search and other monopolies and the Savior State: do what we tell you and you'll get a piece of our endlessly spewed trillions.
My colleague Mark Jeftovic recommended an insightful book on the unraveling of the USSR, "Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." It's an academic book so there are the required servings of jargon and references to suitably opaque academic tropes, but beneath the conceptual clutter lies a profound analysis of how humans adapt to and navigate a system that has lost all authenticity and survives entirely on the ceaseless marketing of artifice: in other words, the USA today.
Of particular interest are the book's personal accounts of dutiful Party members going through the motions of obedience as a means of enjoying their private friendships and lives. Joining the Party's machinery was a way to meet friends who you recruited for your committee work. Everyone went through the motions but nobody actually believed any of it: you did homework while "listening" to the endless canned speeches, you went out for coffee while telling the Party functionary that you were on Party business, and you worked on parades and activities that were a bit of fun despite the dreary official purpose which everyone ignored.
Despite the enormous effort put into placing propaganda everywhere, nobody actually saw any of it: it was all background noise. When it changed, nobody noticed. "Regular" party members avoided the True Believers and the Dissenters as both could get you in trouble - and who wanted trouble? It wasn't worth it. And so a carefully cloaked language of phrases and signs emerged to separate the safe "regular" members from the dangerous True Believers and Dissenters.
Documentarian Adam Curtis called this artifice as reality hyper-normalization, a concept also referred to as super-normalization: "normal life" is stripped of authenticity in favor of a simulacrum "normal" that supports those at the top of the status quo. This "new normal" reaches extremes of artifice, hence hyper-normalization.
As long as everyone thinks there are no alternatives to this hyper-normalized simulacrum, this artificial construct appears to be immutable - everything is forever. But once the power structure admits, however minimally, that it no longer has the answers to the decay of the social-economic order, then the entire artificial construct collapses in a heap. This is the sociology of collapse: people accept a facade of artifice and propaganda without actually believing any of it, though they do have a limbic loyalty to the founding ideals of the State.
The ideologues (True Believers) are avoided as dangerous brown-nosers, and the Dissenters are avoided because it's not worth being sent to digital Siberia (shadow-banned, deleted, marginalized) just to publicly call attention to the abject failure of status quo institutions and organs of propaganda.
What's real is denial, repression of dissent, group-think, virtue-signaling and a profound loss of competence. What's hyper-normalized artifice is all the media spew about how great everything is going to be once we print and squander another couple trillion dollars to prop up the zombie corporations, institutions and government agencies until the magical vaccine time machine returns us to the glorious debt-dependent overconsumption of 2019.
The USSA has not yet admitted that the decay of its socio-economic order is unstoppable, and so the internal gulag has yet to be breached. But artifice is not a substitute for reality, and what's unsustainable (hyper-normalized artifice) unravels very quickly once the first thread is pulled.
The USSR took 20 years to unravel, but 19 years of the decay were hidden by an increasingly disconnected-from-reality simulacra of "success" and competence: the USSR lost the race to the moon in 1969 and 20 years later two decades of decay led to collapse.
The USSA responded to the dot-com crash of 2000 with artifice and propaganda, an absurdly transparent simulacra of "success" and competence. Twenty years of decay has brought us to the precipice of collapse, and the internal gulag of TINA - there is no alternative - is fraying. The incontestable incompetence of the USSA's monopolies, institutions and agencies is about to take center stage. The sociology of collapse will be followed by a not-be-missed banquet of consequences."
"Gulag Capitalism"
"Gulag Capitalism"
What people want vs. what they deserve.
by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "What’s wrong with capitalism? What’s wrong with the US economy? Why isn’t it making people richer? News flash from The Telegraph: "All Western economies are now facing the consequences of two decades of fundamental economic mistakes. Interest rates are the warning sign. They are far too low for a free market economy."
Capitalism, left alone, generally does make people better off. If it’s more money they want, they work for it…and get it. If it’s more leisure that they really care about…they can get that too. More hula hoops? More Bud Light? More diversity officers? Well…that’s where the story becomes more complicated.
In a capitalist system, people get ‘money’ by providing goods and services to other people. Then, they use their money to ‘vote’ for what they want. Naturally, if it is rocking chairs they want…capitalists deliver them. The whole ‘system,’ if you can call it that, intends to satisfy the wants and needs of “The People.”
Who Wants What? This is not to say that everyone gets what he wants. People make mistakes. They make bad choices. They develop bad habits. So, what they actually get is not exactly what they want, but what they deserve.
But what about diversity officers? Who wants them? Why do we have them? Who votes for them? It turns out that there are people who want you to spend money on what they want, rather than what you want.
Nobody wants a tax accountant. But the elite who run the government have made sure that you need one. Who wanted to spend an estimated $100,000 per household so the Pentagon could lose a 20-year war in the Middle East? Who wants to pay for an anti-drug policy that doesn’t work? Who wants to send money to the Ukraine, where hundreds of millions are skimmed off by the corrupt elite? Who wants to pay for more regulators to tell them what to do?
And if you look at the entire federal budget – OMG, who wants that? This year, the feds will spend nearly $6 trillion. So far, half way into the year, which begins in October, the deficit has hit a record. Fox: "Federal budget deficit hits $1.1 trillion in first half of fiscal 2023, $430 billion higher than last year. Government spending was 13% higher so far this year compared to 2022, while revenues dropped 3%, the CBO said."
Incalculable Costs: In other words, the feds are spending about $5 for every $4 in revenue. The excess gets remembered as debt, now almost $32 trillion. That’s about $400,000 per household, which will most likely get ‘paid’ in the form of consumer price inflation. And what half-wit would want to save money, and then lend it to a bank or the government at a lower rate than inflation? But that’s what everyone was forced to do for more than an entire decade. And even now, after more than a year of ‘going back to normal,’ the inflation-adjusted key rate is still almost 2% below the CPI.
This last point is an important one. Because the cost is incalculable. The price of money is the most important information in the whole system. And if it is distorted…and untrue…everything begins to warp and wobble. The cost of money (interest rates) tells us where to invest…and where not to. If the interest rate is 5% a project must deliver 6% or 7% just to breakeven. Any less than that destroys capital.
But put the interest rate at NEGATIVE 2%...and where do you invest? You don’t know. Could you borrow money, buy gold, bury it in the ground and then just wait until you could repay your loan at pennies on the dollar? Maybe. Long term investing requires faithful numbers. And all the numbers are fishy. Better to take the money now – in dividends…or higher stock prices. Or speculate – it costs nothing to borrow…so why not take a chance?
Gulag Capitalism: The result is a fall-off in the kind of real investment that the economy needs. Production slumps. Productivity slides. Real growth and real prosperity disappear. Adjusted for inflation, real wages just went down for the 24th month in a row.
Real GDP growth is only half the average of the 63 years from 1954 to 2017. As we calculated last week, it now takes the average worker three times as much time on the job to buy the average house as it did in 1971. And, oh yes…there’s a building boom going on. New houses are now being put up at the same rate as 1978. This is reported as good news, but now we have 100 million more people in the US than we did in the 70s.
What’s wrong with capitalism? The answer is very simple: nothing. Capitalism does its best. Even in Soviet Gulags, capitalism continued, as prisoners exchanged food and clothing. Wherever they are, people try to produce things that other people want…and to trade with them for the things they want. The Fed’s phony interest rates did not stop capitalism. Nor did $31 trillion federal debt – almost all of it squandered on wars, stimmies, and boondoggles. But they made it much harder for people to get what they really wanted.
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Joel’s Note: "Yesterday we mentioned the stagnation in real (that is, adjusted for inflation) wages. American workers have essentially gone nowhere in over a generation… and for the past couple of years, virtually the entire Biden administration, wages have actually gone backwards when measured against rising prices.
That alone would be bad enough. But as we know, the state never saw a wound it didn’t feel the sadistic urge to rub salt into. Have a look at the average “price of money” down the line and you’ll see what we mean. In an effort to keep their heads above water, working Americans have been smashing the plastic of late… to the tune of almost a trillion dollars. Our macro man up in Laramie, Dan Denning, sent over this rather fugly chart, courtesy of the Fed’s Board of Governors…
Click image for larger size.
As you can see, the chart shows the explosion in outstanding credit card loans (and other revolving plans) beginning in mid-2021… and then really taking off during the “recession-that-wasn’t-technically-a-recession,” in the back half of 2022. Of particular note here is the fact that, according to the latest Forbes Advisor’s weekly credit card rates report, the average credit card interest rate in the US is… wait for it… a decidedly non-trivial 24.20%.
Unsurprisingly, after a significant uptick in Q4, 2022, credit card delinquencies are expected to see a sharp rise through 2023. TransUnion expects serious delinquencies – usually defined as being more than 30 to 90 days in arrears – to rise from 2.1 to 2.6%, the highest they’ve been since 2010. Delinquency rates on personal loans are also expected to track a similar path.
But unlike crony banksters, for whom money is cheap, plentiful and practically failure free, honest workers cannot simply declare insolvency and be “made whole” by their buddies/paymasters inside the beltway. As usual, it’s rule for thee… and not for the SOBs. Call it what you will, Messrs. Sanders, Stewart, Edwards et al. Just don’t call it “capitalism.”
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