Full screen recommended.
2002, "Spirit Moves"
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"
Deuter,
"Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
•
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
- Walt Whitman
"One Summer Night..."
"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."
- Rachel Carson
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans: Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
"The Gods Laugh At Your Plans:
Chekhov, Jaspers, And Life-changing Moments"
The most momentous and significant events in our lives
are the ones we do not see coming. Life is defined by the unforeseen.
by Jonny Thomson
"You’re in the shower one day, and you feel a lump that wasn’t there before. You’re having lunch when your phone rings with an unknown number: there’s been a crash. You come home and your husband is holding a suitcase. “I’m leaving,” he says.
Life is inevitably punctuated by sudden changes. At one moment, we might have everything laid out before us, and then an invisible wall stops us in our tracks. It might be an illness, a bereavement, an accident or some bad news, but life has a habit of mocking those who make plans. We can have our eyes on some distant shore, some faraway horizon, only to find everything come crashing down by the most unseen of events. As the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley” (often go wrong).
In Anton Chekhov’s remarkable play, "The Seagull," we meet a cast of characters who are all, in some way, in love with something. The young, idealistic artist Konstantin is in love with the idea of pure art. Arkadin, his mother, is in love with her fans and her celebrity. Konstantin’s girlfriend, Nina, is in love with becoming rich and famous. Everyone in the play has some kind of ambition and plan, or they live in regret over the life they chose. They rail against how misguided or mistaken their life has been, while longing for something else.
They are each like a seagull, flying over the sea or a great lake, and aiming purposefully for the shore. The view up there is wonderful. But the longer the seagull flies, the more oblivious they are to how they tire or weaken. They’re so fixated on some distant horizon that they’re at the mercy to life’s sudden changes. They’re blinkered and distracted, and the gods love nothing more than the hopeful hubris of mankind.
At one point in the play, Chekov has the character Trigorin recount a short story about a gull flying over a lake who’s, “happy and free.” But in the next moment, “a man sees her who happens to come that way, and he destroys her out of idleness.” The seagull is killed, its flight and plans annihilated, in one instant of random thoughtlessness.
Boundary Situations: While so much of our lives are spent in planning and preparation, the most transformative and significant moments are those which come at us out of the blue. These are what the psychiatrist Karl Jaspers called “boundary situations” - the ones we cannot initiate, plan, or avoid. We can only “encounter” them. These are not the mundane, everyday parts of our life - what Jaspers calls “situation being” - but rather they are things which thunder down to shake the foundations of our being. They change who we are. Although these “boundary situations” (sometimes called “limit situations”) change a bit in Jaspers’ works, he broadly sorted them into four categories:
Death: Death is the source of all our fear. We fear our loved ones dying, and we fear the moment and fact of our own death. When we know grief and despair, or when we reflect on mortality, we are transformed. We always know about death, but when it’s a boundary situation, it comes crashing into our lives like some grim scythe; an unforeseen curtain call. The awareness and subjective encounter with death transforms us.
Struggle: Life is a struggle. We work for food, compete for resources, and vie with each other for power, prestige, and status in almost every context there is. As such, there are moments when we are inevitably overcome and defeated, but also when we are victorious and champion. The final outcomes of struggle are often sudden and great, and they make us who we are.
Guilt: Hopefully, there comes a moment for each of us when we finally accept responsibility for things. For many, it comes with adulthood, but for others it comes much later still. It’s the awareness that our actions impact all around us, and our decisions echo into the world. It’s seeing the damage or tears we’ve caused. It’s to recognize that, however small or big, we’ve hurt and upset someone. It’s a profound pull of the heart that changes how we live, and it often comes on unexpectedly.
Chance: No matter how neat and ordered we might want our world to be, there will always be a messy, chaotic, and unpredictable exception. We can hope for the best, and make the plans we want, but we can never take a steering handle on the facts that will affect our existence. According to Jaspers, we each prefer, “assembling functional and explanatory structures… whose central axis lies in sufficient reason” and yet, “despite this, it is not possible for man to control and explain everything. In fact, day by day he faces events that he cannot call anything else other than coincidences or hazards.” We want order, and regularity. What we get is the mercurial and capricious throes of chance.
The best laid plans: What Chekhov’s Seagull and Jaspers’ “boundary situations” get right is that we are each much more vulnerable than we might want to allow. A wedding, three years and a fortune to plan, is ruined by a stomach bug. An hour-long journey home for Christmas winds up getting you stuck in the traffic of a freak snowstorm. A lifetime achievement is overshadowed by a national disaster. Our lives are defined by the unforeseen. We have our dreams, hopes and are flying to some faraway shore. Yet life doesn’t care. Around every corner, at every flap of our wings, everything can change."
○
If you caught a glimpse of your own death,
would that knowledge change the way you live the rest of your life?"
- Paco Ahlgren, "Discipline"
The Poet: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
“Ulysses"
"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
o
Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
"I Hope I End Up..."
"I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. (Or blog! lol - CP) People will walk by and say, 'Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case.' I will turn and say to them, It is you who are the basket case! For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times! And maybe, the passers-by will drop a coin into my cup."
- Henry Rollins
"A Point Of No Return..."
"When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of
no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.
Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown and pray for an exit. "
- Dan Brown
"This Will Unwind Very Fast"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 5/6/23
"This Will Unwind Very Fast"
"We are going to see our teetering economy finally fall off a cliff. We are being told that employment is doing well as our banks collapse, and businesses close all around us."
Comments here:
"When One Cannot Be Sure..."
"When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour were longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over."
- Natalie Kusz
"Hundreds of Thousands of Russian Troops Are Sweeping Everything Before Them"
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls 5/6/23
"Hundreds of Thousands of Russian Troops
Are Sweeping Everything Before Them"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world. Interview with Dan Ball."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 5/6/23
"Russian Air Force Can Destroy Ukraine':
Putin's Aerial Superiority Worries United States"
"The U.S. is in panic mode over fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin might use his colossal air force against Ukraine in the coming days. According to a Newsweek report, the Pentagon is nervous that Russia's overwhelmingly superior air force could wreak havoc in Ukraine. U.S. military experts told Newsweek that Ukraine's air defense is rapidly depleting and needs upgrading in order to counter Russia's air attacks. The Russian Air Force is the world's second-largest air force after the United States. U.S. military experts say that Russian air power could decimate Ukraine's much-anticipated counteroffensive and also change the course of the war."
Comments here:
"Food Shortages At Kroger! This Is Not Good! Be Prepared!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/6/23
"Food Shortages At Kroger!
This Is Not Good! Be Prepared!"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger with shortages everywhere! We are here to check out food shortages, and the empty shelves situation! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
Comments here:
o
Meanwhile...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 5/6/23
"Russian Typical Supermarket Tour:
What are Prices Like in 2023?"
"What are prices like in a Russian typical supermarket in 2023. Take a walk inside Globus Supermarket in Moscow, Russia and find out together."
Comments here:
(1 ruble = 0.013 US dollars.)
Comments, Good Citizen?
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 5/5/23"
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 5/5/23"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"The banking bummer Jamie Dimon said was over is far from over. More banks are going down, and more banks are finding themselves in deep financial trouble. The banking collapse of 2023 is already far greater than the banking collapse that touched off the so-called “Great Recession” in 2008. Did I say it was far from over? In a new Gallup poll, almost half of all Americans are “worried” about their deposits in the bank. That’s reassuring!!
To make matters worse, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning that if the debt ceiling is not raised by congressional legislation by June 1st, the USA could default on it’s debt. Yikes!! That has never happened before. This sounds almost unreal, and yet it is from the mouth of our Treasury Secretary. The sailing is not going to be smooth, even though a bill raising the debt ceiling has already passed the House. In the Senate, at least two Democrats are going to side with the Republicans to whittle down the price tag. This should be interesting and dangerous at the same time.
People in large numbers are becoming disabled and dying from the CV19 bioweapon/vax, and yet folks in power ignore it and act as if nothing is wrong. Money manager and number cruncher Ed Dowd said on USAW that 30% of the workforce is either dead, disabled or chronically ill from the injections – so far. The trend is not turning down, and this has huge implications for the economy and the readiness of our military. Keep in mind the demonic powers running our country have war in Ukraine and probably one coming in China, too, in the not-too-distant future." There is much more in the 50-minute newscast.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 5/5/23:
Friday, May 5, 2023
"'It Could Start In Hours' - Russian Official; Evacuation Underway; Nuclear Plant Incident Likely"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper 5/5/23
"'It Could Start In Hours' - Russian Official;
Evacuation Underway; Nuclear Plant Incident Likely"
Comments here:
"20 Big Box Retailers Closing Down Stores Right Now"
Full screen recommended.
"20 Big Box Retailers Closing Down Stores Right Now"
by Epic Economist
"Your favorite store may be gone before the year ends. Big-box retailers, grocery stores, apparel chains, home goods companies, and even some very big names like Burger King, GameStop, and Sephora are announcing mass store closings in 2023 due to a series of economic threats emerging everywhere all at once.
Similarly, Kroger is not done closing stores in the U.S. The grocery chain is getting rid of hundreds of locations that have been reporting poor performance and profitability in recent years. Lori Raya, president of Kroger's Mid-Atlantic Division, said in a statement that the company “could not continue to operate stores that have been losing money for a sustained period of time.” But according to retail analysts, a much bigger wave of shutdowns may be ahead. Kroger’s merger with Albertsons means that about 500 branches will be chopped so that the companies meet legal requirements. Unfortunately, this also means that thousands of jobs are going to be lost during that process.
Meanwhile, a fourth round of store closings has begun for Macy’s. After shuttering 125 of “its least productive stores” in 2021 and 2022, another 45 locations are now on the retailer’s chopping block. Previously, Macy’s announced that it would slash a fifth of stores and lay off 2,000 employees to allegedly improve productivity. Last month, CEO Jeff Gennette explained in a statement that the decision came after the company analyzed its sales growth outlook and revenue forecasts for 2023. “Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data, we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and we have planned to adjust our accordingly, ” he said.
Target is now conducting a series of store closings citing declining foot traffic, rising shoplifting cases, and collapsing profits as the reason for the decision, according to a recent report. The first round of shutdowns will hit dozens of grocery stores in Maryland, as well as Virginia, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. Executives said the locations haven’t been able to improve performance over the past twelve months, and the retailer’s worsening financial woes are behind the tough decision.
With so many major brands seeing operations crumble in such a short period of time, we can certainly comprehend why retail experts call this crisis an "apocalypse." Our economic scenario is being ravaged by so many losses. Consumers and U.S. communities are losing stores that served them for years and will definitely be missed. Struggling stores don't stand a chance in this unforgiving environment, and it is safe to say that many other chains will follow the same move in the coming months.
The situation is so dire that analysts estimate that by the end of 2023, the national brick-and-mortar footprint may be reduced by up to 20% - the biggest annual decline since the onset of the U.S. retail apocalypse in 2017. We may actually surpass the number of closures seen during the pandemic when thousands of businesses collapsed pretty much overnight. This is certainly an unprecedented crisis, and in today's video, we decided to expose which major chains are shrinking their store bases this year so you can have the chance to visit some of these beloved retailers one last time."
Comments here:
"Prepare For A Mad Max World; Everything Is Being Propped Up"
Jeremiah Babe, 5/5/23
"Prepare For A Mad Max World;
Everything Is Being Propped Up"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and dutifully cataloged as NGC 7023 this is not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this remarkable image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries in impressive detail. Within the Iris, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star.
The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the dusty clouds glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula may contain complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The bright blue portion of the Iris Nebula is about six light-years across.”
"And The Hell Of It Is..."
“You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine... couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
"People are sad. People are broke. People are worried about money, people are worried that they're not enough and not amounting to anything and they don't feel good about themselves. People have rough times, and everybody's pretending it's not true, and we need to break that veneer." - Eve Ensler
"The Odds Are Stacked Against Us..."
"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods. "
- J.K. Franko, "Life for Life
"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself. "
- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo
Chet Raymo, “The Sound And Fury”
“The Sound And Fury”
by Chet Raymo
“Not so long ago, I mentioned here Himmler and Heydrich, two of Hitler's most terrible henchmen. A friend said to me: "If there's no afterlife, no heaven or hell, then those two diabolical creatures got away with it. Their fate was no different than that of any one of their victims, an innocent child perhaps." And, yes, if there is no God who dispenses final justice, then we are left with an aching feeling of irresolution, of virtue unrewarded, of vice unpunished. Heydrich was gunned down by partisan assassins, and Himmler committed suicide a few hours before his inevitable capture, both fates arguably less tragic than that of their victims. How much more satisfying to think that the two mass murderers will spend an eternity in hell, while their victims find bliss.
This may not be a logically consistent argument for the existence of God, but it is certainly compelling. My friend says: "If there's no afterlife, then it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Of course, this emotive argument for the existence of God is balanced by another argument against his existence – the problem of evil: How can a just and loving God allow the existence of a Himmler or Heydrich in the first place. Here the argument is not just emotional, but consists of a thorny contradiction.
It comes down, essentially, to head vs. heart - what we would like to be true with all of our heart, vs. what our head tells us is an unresolvable conundrum. So each of us decides: To follow our hearts and make the blind leap of faith, or to follow our heads and learn to live with the sound and the fury. For those of us who choose the second alternative, the relevant words are that distressing coda, "signifying nothing." Our task is one of signification, of finding a satisfying meaning this side of the grave.
For many of us, that means finding our place in the great cosmic unfolding, and of recognizing that our lives are not inconsequential, that by being here we jigger the trajectory of the universe in some way, no matter how small, and preferably for the good and just. Yes, we make a leap of faith too, I suppose - that love, justice, and creativity are virtues worth living for- but at least it is a leap of faith that is not into the unknown, does not embody logical contradiction, and is consistent with what we know to be true, or at least as true as we can make it.”
"Waiting..."
"We're all sinking in the same boat here. We're all bored and desperate and waiting for something to happen. Waiting for life to get better. Waiting for things to change. Waiting for that one person to finally notice us. We're all waiting. But we also need to realize that we all have the power to make those changes for ourselves."
- Susane Colasanti
"Trouble..."
“We’ve all heard the warnings and we’ve ignored them. We push our luck. We roll the dice. It’s human nature. When we’re told not to touch something we usually do even if we know better. Maybe because deep down, we’re just asking for trouble.”
- “Meredith Grey”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
If so, we've certainly got all we want...
Gerald Celente, "A Complete Breakdown Of The Global Financial System"
Full screen recommended.
Gerald Celente, 5/5/23
"Lynette Zang:
A Complete Breakdown Of The Global Financial System"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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o
"The Scourge of the Middle Class"
"The Scourge of the Middle Class"
How inflation is hollowing out
the central pillar of America's economy...
by Bill Bonner
Dublin, Ireland - "Yesterday’s big news was not news at all. ABC News: "Fed raises interest rates 0.25%, escalating inflation fight amid banking woes." "The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its short-term borrowing rate another 0.25%, escalating the central bank's attack on inflation just two days after the forced sale of First Republic Bank. The Fed’s 10th consecutive rate increase arrives less than a week after fresh government data showed that U.S. economic growth slowed over the first three months of this year. "Inflation pressures continue to run high," Powell said. "The process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go."
How long is the ‘long way?’ We don’t know. But it is possible that the Fed has already hiked about as far up as it is going for this season. Traders are awaiting the jobs report out later today. Rumors – ‘early data’ – tell us that unemployment claims are moving up fast. That, along with other signs of an approaching recession, may cause the Fed to ‘pause,’ and await developments.
On Their Way: Another bank failed last week – First Republic Bank – the second biggest bank failure in US history. Pacific Western (PacWest) may be next. M2, measuring the money supply, is down more than 4% – the biggest decline on record. Rents are still going up, but only at a 1.7% rate. House prices are up 2% – the lowest rate in more than 10 years. Lumber has fallen 80% from its May 2021 peak. Pending home sales are down 23% since last year. 30% of San Francisco offices are vacant…7x the rate at the end of 2021.
We are still in the ‘deflation’ stage. The foam is leaving the beer. Stocks are down about 10% from their peak at the beginning of last year, 16 months ago. But we still haven’t seen the big sell-off…the crash…or even the recession. We presume they are on their way. And when they arrive – or we get a sudden, nasty political shock – the Fed will likely turn around completely and high-tail it back to deeply negative real territory. Then, we can move from the ‘deflation’ stage to the ‘inflation’ stage…which will probably lead to the ‘hyper-inflation’ stage.
Ultimately, the Fed only has two choices: ‘Inflate or Die.’ Either the authorities print more money to keep the jig up…or they let the beer go flat, the lights go off, musicians pack up…and the party’s over.
The Cost of Empire: This week, we focused on why the deciders will continue to print money. They run an empire. And empires have life cycles of their own. Once underway, even a clownish, losing empire…like our own Empire of Debt…is hard to stop. We’ve seen that the empire makes us all poorer; ours costs about $1.5 trillion per year. That’s about $17,000 per family of four, annually.
US tax receipts are only enough to cover domestic spending, including “transfer” payments – Social Security, unemployment comp, etc. We are just in the opening chapter of America’s Decline and Fall, and already it is politically impossible to balance the budget. So, the entire cost of America’s overseas misadventures must be borrowed…or printed. You can inflate without an empire, but it’s hard to have an empire without inflating. This practically guarantees higher consumer prices.
We saw too that inflation is the scourge of the middle class. Real wages go down. Prices go up. And housing – the emblem of the middle class – becomes a debt trap. Families borrow to buy houses. Then, they refinance. And then they must have low rates, or they will lose their homes. The Fed ‘prints’ to keep rates low…drawing them further and further into debt.
When the Empire Dies: The shrinking of the middle class also dooms representative democracy. The elites use their access to ‘printing press money’ and their control of the federal budget to squeeze as much wealth and power, as fast as possible, from the rest of the society.
The poor, meanwhile, become dependent on the feds. The government pays for their indoctrination and education…it provides ‘affordable housing’ and subsidized mortgages…it gives out food stamps (‘Independence’ cards)…and it forces employers to pay ‘minimum’ wages. The elites even tease the poor – like a stripper at an old man’s birthday – revealing promises of ‘reparations’ and a ‘universal basic income.’ Why do demagogues target the poor? Because there are more and more of them, and their votes are relatively cheap.
With fewer independent, middle class voters…political power ends up in the hands of those who are best able to manipulate the poor. Then, they must reward the poor with free stuff, requiring more printing press money, while continuing the policies that make the poor poorer and the rich richer – including keeping the empire in business.
Yesterday, we saw what inevitably happens. The empire dies. The US, said Madeleine Albright, is ‘indispensable.’ But the graveyards are full of poor people, broken banks and indispensable empires."
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