Jeremiah Babe, 8/2/23
"Warning: Bank Closures And Trucking Companies
Collapsing Means Big Trouble Ahead"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
"Thousand Of Truck Drivers Laid Off! More Banks Closing! Be Ready For The Collapse!"
Adventures With Danno, PM 8/2/23
"Thousand Of Truck Drivers Laid Off! More Banks Closing!
Be Ready For The Collapse!"
"In today's video, we go over the recent collapse of The Yellow Freight Company and how they just laid off over 30,000 employees. This is a huge blow as these truck drivers keep our country running. We also explain how many local banks inside grocery stores have quietly been closing their doors!"
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"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"
“Like Rubies Ringed With Gold”
by Chet Raymo
“Here’s a Hubble Space Telescope composite photograph of two colliding galaxies in the constellation Corvus.
Each of the three books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” ends with the same words: “the stars.” The Inferno concludes with distant stars glimpsed through the narrow exit of hell. “We emerged,” says the poet, “and saw the stars.” The poet’s journey through Purgatory ends on Earth’s highest mountain, with the heavens seemingly not so far away. He is “ready to ascend to the stars.” Finally, Dante looks down upon the stars from above, from the luminous realm of Paradise. He has experienced “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” The beauty of that final destination, the Empyrean Sphere that encloses the created universe in divine brilliance, taxes the poet’s powers of description:
“I saw light in the shape of a river
Flashing golden between two banks
Tinted in colors of marvelous spring.
Out of the stream came living sparks
Which settled on the flowers on every side
Like rubies ringed with gold…”
Nothing in Dante’s experience could have prepared him for the splendors of the heavens as revealed by the Hubble. The photograph of colliding galaxies in Corvus is a work of genius in the tradition of the “Divine Comedy” – imagination in service to humankind’s loftiest aspirations and longings.
In Dante’s time, astronomy was one of the seven liberal arts – with grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, and music – required of every student who aspired to a university degree. Of all the secular sciences, astronomy was deemed most likely to lead one to the contemplation of things divine. Yesterday’s Hubble pic made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, which is about as close to the divine as I ever get. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is based on the medieval astronomical conception of the world – a system of concentric spheres centered on the Earth and bounded just up there by the Empyrean.
In the Hubble photograph of colliding galaxies we see something akin to Dante’s paradisal vision, but it is not a cosmos centered on the Earth. Here are other Suns and other Earths being born, in prodigious numbers, massive stars destined to die soon as supernovas, and other less massive stars that will live long lives, perhaps evolving life or consciousness on their planets. We see in the Hubble photograph a universe of a fullness and dimension that makes Dante’s human-centered cosmos of concentric spheres seem like a dust mote in an immense cathedral.
Astronomy is no longer a required course of study in our universities, and it’s something of a shame. Who can look at the photograph of colliding galaxies and not be moved to rapture? An understanding of the size, age, and prodigality of the universe should be part of every liberal arts graduate’s intellectual furniture.”
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
Freely download “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, here:
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Inferno”
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Purgatorio”
Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy – Paradiso”
The Poet: Anne Sexton, “Courage”
“Courage”
“It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.
Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.”
~ Anne Sexton
"We Like To Think..."
“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”
- “Grey’s Anatomy”
Greg Hunter, "We Are at the End of Civilization – Gerald Celente"
"We Are at the End of Civilization – Gerald Celente"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Renowned trends researcher and publisher of “The Trends Journal,” Gerald Celente, says the trend for the world is very dark because of the increasing prospects for a World War. Celente pointed out a year ago to an unsuspecting public that “World War III has already started.” There is no end in sight to the Ukraine war, and it is only getting more intense. Celente says, “We are at the end of civilization. Let’s talk about the Ukraine war. Thanks to the U.S. and NATO, they ramped up a situation that would have been over a year ago if we minded our own business. Now, it’s bombs away in Moscow with the drones they are sending in. World War III has begun, and we are on the verge of nuclear annihilation. Look at these people on the cover of the Trends Journal. They are out of their minds. They are evil, demonic, psychopathic, pathological lying freaks."
Since 2014, Celente and his Trends Journal has been warning “Washington is driving the world to the final war.” Looks like we are in the final war now. Celente says the people currently in office in Washington D.C. will do anything to hold on to power. This includes massive cheating in the 2024 Election and jailing Trump if the Deep State can pull it off. Despite the fact Donald Trump is leading the GOP field for the White House in 2024, Celente says they will make sure he does not return to office by cheating him out – once again. Celente also says that Bobby Kennedy Jr. looks like he is trending higher, but he, too, will have to contend with the cheating.
If the cheating does not look like it’s going to work, Celente says, “When all else fails, they take you to war.” Celente says he would not be surprised if a war does not ramp way up before the 2024 Election.
Celente has more bad news you need to consider on the economic trend. The higher interest rates go to fight inflation, the more it will damage the economy. Celente contends the Fed is going to lower interest rates just in time for the 2024 Election. Celente says, “When they lower interest rates, the dollar is going to dive. This will be the beginning of the death of the dollar. Gold prices are going to skyrocket. The only reason gold prices are low is because of the strong dollar. Then you will start seeing the beginning of the unwinding of the economy. That’s the beginning of the death. Also, look at the BRICS (currency) and the 40 countries that have already joined and don’t want the dollar.”
In closing, Celente says, “People need to get prepared physically, mentally and spiritually because you are in a fight for your life. United we stand and divided we die.” There is much more in the 53-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with the top trends researcher on the planet, Gerald Celente. He’s the publisher of “The Trends Journal", which has new original cutting-edge material each and every week.
"Doug Casey: The Collapse of American Cities"
"Doug Casey: The Collapse of American Cities"
by International Man
"International Man: What made big American cities attractive places to live in the past?
Doug Casey: Well, it’s not just American cities; it’s cities in general. Throughout all of history, cities have equated with civilization. Cities offer safety, comfort, wealth, and community. They’re a medium for people to exchange ideas and trade easily. The Ascent of Man is built on cities and wouldn’t have been possible without them. Civilization is all about specialization and division of labor. The larger the city, the freer the society, the greater the possibilities.
American cities have been among the best in history because America itself has offered more freedom and less government restrictions than anything in the past. It’s no mystery why American cities should have been so great in the past, but things are changing. To destroy cities is to destroy civilization.
International Man: American cities have visibly deteriorated across all metrics in recent years. For an increasing number of people, the value proposition of living in cities no longer makes sense. What is your take?
Doug Casey: I presume everybody’s heard the mnemonic, "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." Unfortunately, American civilization has reached the stage where it’s getting soft, weak, and degraded.
I place the State - government - at the root of this collapse. It’s implemented welfare, which not only allows but encourages people to consume without producing. So-called "democracy" has created class warfare, wherein everyone tries to gain control of the government to gain wealth and power. It’s created an unstable society, inventories of people that have been correctly called "useless mouths." They’re incapable of anything beyond consuming and voting. Governmental policies have turned the cities into cesspools.
That little aphorism about weak men that we quoted earlier can be seen as a variation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - one of the few laws that I believe in. It states that everything winds down over time unless there’s an adequate input of energy to keep things going. In other words, to stay healthy, they should produce more than they consume. But that’s no longer true. Many American cities are now net drains on the country.
The collapse that American cities are experiencing has been very quick from a historical point of view. You can lay part of it to the general degradation of society, which has been actively promoted by academia, the media, and the entertainment industry. Wokesterism, a philosophy of neo-Marxism, racism, and rabid collectivism, has totally captured governments everywhere. But especially in the cities, from which their corrupt and degraded ideas spread out to the general population.
International Man: What will happen to the already tight budgets of many cities as their most productive residents continue to leave in increasing numbers? What are the implications?
Doug Casey: Well, the degradation affecting American cities is actually nothing new. It’s happened across time and space throughout history. Babylon rose and fell and went back to dust. The Egyptian, Hittite, and Assyrian Empires all vanished. The golden age of Athens lasted less than 100 years. After Rome collapsed, cows and goats grazed in the forum during the following Dark Ages. It doesn’t have to happen that way, but that’s the general trend of things. At this point, the American empire is collapsing, and its cities are leading the way.
International Man: If not cities, where would you recommend people consider living?
Doug Casey: Well, certainly not the suburbs. They used to be a good alternative that allowed some space, sunshine, and other advantages of a rural environment while maintaining many of the advantages of a city. But no longer. If you’re going to get out of the city, forget the suburbs.
It’s best to head for small towns, especially those in red states. If you narrow the focus further, choose a small town on a body of water - the ocean, a river, or a lake, preferably with mountains nearby. Those things make them more recreation-oriented. More pleasant and amenable, drawing economically successful people. California was perfect 75 years ago. But, as they say, that was then. And this is now - a different world.
International Man: A recent article in the NY Times claimed there are over 26 Empire State Buildings worth of empty office space in New York City. What are the implications of this trend on commercial real estate and financial markets? Are there any speculative opportunities you see?
Doug Casey: That’s a pretty shocking statistic. It’s still way too early to jump in. There’s going to be a collapse that compounds upon itself. Many office buildings will be permanently emptied as businesses contract. Furthermore, people don’t want to come into the city anymore. They’ve found they can work more effectively from home at least one or two days a week, and they want to avoid both monetary the expense and the waste of time involved in commuting.
As more buildings become see-through, most of the shops and restaurants that catered to business people will also close. As that happens, those buildings become even less desirable. It’s a negative feedback loop.
Can office buildings be repurposed into residential condominiums? Not easily. They don’t have the necessary plumbing for bathrooms and kitchens. They’re mostly not laid out in a way that allows economic conversion.
On top of that, as people leave, city governments will no longer be collecting property taxes, sales taxes, or a myriad of other levies. Even now, city governments are highly indebted and borderline bankrupt. But they’ll still have to support their useless mouths - not only a large number of employees but thousands of migrants. Crime will certainly go up, further aggravating the situation. It could result in a real crisis.
We’ve got to ask ourselves: What’s going to happen to cities as the economy descends deeper into the Greater Depression? Will vagrants take over empty office buildings and hotels to avoid sleeping on the streets? That’s what’s happened in Caracas, which used to be a wonderful city, years ago…
And Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. It was always poor because of stupid government policies, but it was very safe and, in many ways, really delightful as late as the early 1980s. Now it is one of the worst hellholes on the planet.
But things can go the other direction too. When I first went to Dubai at about the same time, the airport was as tiny as an airport can be. Now it’s one of the largest and most efficient in the world. Dubai has gone from a tiny little fishing village to a world center of commerce. The same is true of Singapore and Hong Kong. Things can rise as well as fall. It’s all a question of culture and management. However, I regret to say I’m not optimistic about either the US or its cities."
Col. Douglas Macgregor, "This War Is Over, Russia Has Won"
Col. Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls, 8/2/23
"This War Is Over, Russia Has Won"
"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current
geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."
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o
"Discarding Illusions, Ending Wars"
From the moment the war in Ukraine started, Western
reporting on the war was a radical repudiation of the truth.
by Col. Douglas Macgregor
"From the moment the war in Ukraine started, Western reporting on the war was a radical repudiation of the truth. Washington and its NATO allies always knew that NATO expansion to Russia’s borders would precipitate an armed conflict with Moscow, but NATO’s ruling globalist class did not care. For them, Russia in 2022 was unchanged from the weak and incapable Russia of the late 1990s. The risk of failure seemed low. Ergo, Russia could be bullied into submission.
Americans and most Europeans did not bother to question or analyze. Widespread strategic ignorance about Russia and Eastern Europe ensured that most Americans and even West Europeans would react quickly and viscerally to the Western media’s distorted images and lies about Russia. At the same time, tolerance for criticism of Washington’s role in fashioning the corrupt and deceitful conduct of the Volodymyr Zelenskyy Regime and its war was disallowed in the press.
Washington’s ruling class was cheered when it dismissed Russian proposals for talks on any grounds that did not recognize NATO’s right to transform Ukraine into a base for U.S. and Allied Military Power aimed at Russia. Ukrainian flags sprouted from the lush grounds of America’s wealthier neighborhoods like flowers in an arboretum and wonders in the form of limitless military assistance, miracle weapons, and cash were promised to President Zelenskyy - promises that strategic reality did not justify.
In 2022 the Biden Administration no longer possessed the military and economic strength to wage high-end conventional warfare that it had in 1991. Waging a major war 10,000 miles from home on the Eurasian continent is impossible without the support of truly powerful Allies on the model of the British Empire during WWII. Washington’s NATO allies are military dependencies, not formidable strategic partners.
Whereas Russian Military Power is still structured for decisive operations launched from Russian soil, U.S. Military power is geared to project limited air, naval, and land power thousands of miles from home to the periphery of Asia and Africa. American military power consists of boutique forces designed for safari in Africa and the Middle East, not decisive combat operations against great continental powers like Russia or China.
Eighteen months later Ukraine is in ruins. Its latest counteroffensive achieved nothing. In the last three weeks, an estimated 26,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in pointless attacks against world-class Russian defenses ‘in depth.’ (Defenses ‘in depth’ mean a security zone of 15 -25 kilometers in front of the main defense, that consists of at least three defense belts twenty or more kilometers deep.) By comparison, Russian losses were minimal.
Today, more than 100,000 Russian troops are conducting offensive operations along the Lyman-Kupiansk axis. These forces include 900 tanks, 555 artillery systems and 370 multiple rocket launchers. It does not take much imagination to anticipate the breakthrough of these forces to the North where they can encircle Kharkiv.
Once Russian Forces surround the city, they will become an irresistible magnet for Ukraine’s last reserve of 30-40,000 troops. Ukrainian Forces attacking to the East to break through to Kharkov will present the combination of Russian space and terrestrial-based ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets and Precision Strike Aerospace, Artillery, Rocket, and Missile Systems with a target array that only a blind man could miss.
None of these developments should surprise anyone in the West. Building a Ukrainian army on the fly with a hotchpotch of hastily assembled equipment from a multitude of NATO members and an officer corps of many courageous, but inexperienced officers had little chance of success even under the best of circumstances.
Wars are decided in the decades before they begin. In war, the sudden appearance of “Silver Bullet” technology seldom provides more than a temporary advantage and strong personalities in the senior ranks do not compensate for inadequate military organization, training, thinking, and effective equipment. A new, leaked memorandum from sources inside Ukraine illustrates these points:
“Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are at such terrible states of degradation that soldiers are abandoning their posts, and whilst not mentioned in these documents, a flood of videos have been published from Russian sources claiming Ukrainian service personnel are surrendering at the first opportunity owing to the belief that they are being treated as ‘nothing more than cannon fodder.’”
Events on the ground are beginning to overtake the carefully orchestrated charade in Kiev. There is little that pontificating retired generals and armchair military analysts can do to halt the inevitable. Moscow understands that the war will not end without Russian offensive action. Whatever the Washington’s original goals may have been, theybeen they are unrealizable. Russian forces will soon fall on the Ukrainian forces with the momentum and the impact of an avalanche.
In view of these points, before all of Ukraine’s manpower is annihilated, or a “Coalition of the Willing” from Poland and Lithuania marches into Western Ukraine, Washington can arrest Ukraine’s downward spiral into total defeat, and Washington’s own irresponsible drift into a regional war with Russia for which Washington and its allies are not prepared.
Cooler heads can prevail inside the beltway. The fighting can stop, but a ceasefire, and the diplomatic talks that must proceed from a ceasefire, will not occur unless Washington and its Allies acknowledge three critical points:
First, whatever form the Ukrainian State assumes in the aftermath of the conflict, Ukraine must be neutral and non-aligned. NATO membership is out of the question. A neutral Ukraine on the Austrian model can still provide a buffer between Russia and its Western Neighbors.
Second, Washington and its Allies must immediately suspend all military aid to Ukraine. Doubling down on failure by introducing more equipment and technology the Ukrainian Forces cannot quickly absorb and employ is wasteful and self-defeating.
Third, all U.S. and allied personnel, clandestine or in uniform, must withdraw from Ukraine. Insisting on some form of NATO presence as a face-saving measure is pointless. The attempt to extend NATO’s “new globalist world order” to Russia has failed.
The point is straightforward. It is time for Washington to turn its attention inward and address the decades of American societal, economic, and military decay that ensued after 1991. It’s time to reverse the decline in American national prosperity, and power; to avoid unnecessary overseas conflict; and to shun future interventions in the affairs of other nation states and their societies. The threats to our Republic are here, at home, not in the Eastern Hemisphere."
John Wilder, "The Great Rollover"
"The Great Rollover"
by John Wilder
"Yellow Freight® shut down. They had been around for 99 years, starting business way back in time when Bernie Sanders was trying to ruin the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Bulgaria or wherever he came from. Yellow Freight© was an old company and 30,000 people lost their jobs. What went on? Well, Yellow© borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars emergency ‘rona bucks. When they went bankrupt, they had an outstanding loan balance (backstopped by you and I) of $729.2 million. During the two and a half years that they’d had the loan, they’d paid down $54.8 million in interest. They’d also paid down $230 in principle. Not $230 million. Not $230 thousand. $230, so I’m guessing their strategy was to pay it off at $10 a month, which would ensure that they’d pay off the loan in roughly the year 6,079,523.
Oddly, no one would take a risk on refinancing a company that had such powerhouse earnings, and so all of the people who used to have pensions with Yellow™ found out that their pension value would be paid out at the same rate as the loan was being paid out, and it’s pretty hard to split $10 among 30,000 people each month. Most of the 30,000 folks from Yellow Freight© will find another job – truckers are still in demand, and other companies have picked up the slack so far.
This isn’t the first. Just like the banks who had money in Treasury paper took a hit (Silicon Valley Bank®, I’d be looking at you if you were still here) because the “super-safe” bonds making 1% were worth a lot less when interest rates went up to 4%. The FDIC™ requires the banks that they insure to report data. It’s kinda scary when the FDIC© uses the X® (the social media company formerly known as Prince) to notify banks (and the American public) that banks might be in trouble again.
The same thing is, perhaps, happening to the dollar itself – yesterday lost its AAA bond rating from Fitch™ and is now producing AA bonds. Still a good rating, but it’s a big hit from “nearly perfect plus has nuclear missiles” and the first step to becoming a “drunk wine aunt country that can’t afford to take vacations”, like Uzbekistan.
As I’ve written before, it’s awesome to have “the reserve currency”, since that means you can print all the cash you want and spend it on things like iPods™ from China, Hello Kitty™ slippers from Bangladesh, and tequila from Mexico (what’s known as a “Hunter Biden Saturday Morning Special”). Losing it means a loss of that ability, and all of a sudden you have to work for all of that stuff rather than just printing cash.
That’s difficult, because there’s always competition in having the reserve currency. One competitor, of course, is precious metals. Another is land. My father-in-law liked to say, “if it blows up, at least you still have the hole.” After the debt ceiling deal (translation: spend as much as you want until after the general election), the debt shot up, climbing $1.8 trillion in just two months. I mean, that’s a crazy number, we don’t even give that much to Zelenskyy in a year!
Eventually that has an effect on all assets. Although Darth Powell doesn’t exactly have the understanding of how home prices work, it is closer to say that at the same payment at a 7% mortgage rate, you can afford a heck of a lot less home than you can afford at 2.7%. Unless wages go up or BlackRock© decides to buy houses because they ran out of illegal aliens to import this month.
Or, if the bankers get absolute control over who uses what cash and when. That’s the goal. Will that happen if things are going well, and we’re surrounded by prosperity? Of course not. In order to get control, the idea is chaos, uncertainty, war, and mayhem. If you’re old enough, how do the 2020s compare to the 1980s? The 1990s? The 2000s? In nearly every way that doesn’t involve ludicrously cheap televisions, each of those decades was objectively better. I’ve noted before that Peak USA probably hit somewhere before I was born to when I was a little kid.
I’m normally a fan of the idea of ineptitude being responsible for at least being some contributing factor to the problems that we have, but when I look at the gross mismanagement of the economy for decades it almost seems like it’s planned. But I’m sure I’ll hear Bernie lecturing us all that socialism and more government is the way out from the balcony of one of his three houses soon enough. After all, it’s worked out pretty well for him, what with him never having had an actual job and all."
"There Are Times..."
"There are times the lies get to me, times I weary of battering myself against the obstacles of denial, hatred, fear-induced stupidity, and greed, times I want to curl up and fall into the problem, let it sweep me away as it so obviously sweeps away so many others. I remember a spring day a few years ago, a spring day much like this one, only a little more sun, and warmer. I sat on this same couch and looked out this same window at the same ponderosa pine.
I was frightened, and lonely. Frightened of a future that looks dark, and darker with each passing species, and lonely because for every person actively trying to shut down the timber industry, stop abuse, or otherwise bring about a sustainable and sane way of living, there are thousands who are helping along this not-so-slow train to oblivion. I began to cry.
The tears stopped soon enough. I realized we are not so outnumbered. We are not outnumbered at all. I looked closely, and saw one blade of wild grass, and another. I saw the sun reflecting bright off the needles of pine trees, and I heard the hum of flies. I saw ants walking single file through the dust, and a spider crawling toward the corner of the ceiling. I knew in that moment, as I've known ever since, that it is no longer possible to be lonely, that every creature on earth is pulling in the direction of life- every grasshopper, every struggling salmon, every unhatched chick, every cell of every blue whale - and it is only our own fear that sets us apart. All humans, too, are struggling to be sane, struggling to live in harmony with our surroundings, but it's really hard to let go. And so we lie, destroy, rape, murder, experiment, and extirpate, all to control this wildly uncontrollable symphony, and failing that, to destroy it."
- Derrick Jensen,
"A Language Older Than Words"
"All Sins..."
"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst, and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?"
- Andre Comte-Sponville
o
Joe South, "Walk A Mile In My Shoes"
Bill Bonner, "The Sun Also Sets"
"The Sun Also Sets"
"Adrift in a sea of woe, woke, and weird,
the sun begins to set on 'The West'"...
by Bill Bonner
"The Pope…how many divisions has he?"
~ Josef Stalin
Poitou, France - "This just in on the latest Gallup Poll. Americans’ most trusted institution, the military, is falling from grace. Responsiblestatecraft.org: The left claims that racism and other intolerances in the ranks have caused Americans to turn against the military; the right says “woke” politics are at the root of increasing alienation. Perhaps the culture indeed is responsible for the 25 percent shortfall in recruitment, but beware of partisan narratives that appear to speak for everyone and explain trends so neatly. Never is anything that simple.
Nope. Not that simple. The right supposedly thinks the military is too woke. The left supposedly thinks it is not woke enough. But what if the real reason Americans are losing faith in the Pentagon is neither? What if they are losing faith in Congress…in the White House…both political parties…in the Supreme Court…and in the whole shebang?
They, the Elite: What if ‘The People” are catching on? What if they are realizing that the military works for the elite…and that the elite deciders work for themselves, not for ‘The People?’ Why do we have $32 trillion of federal debt? Why do the feds continue to add more?Bloomberg reports: "The Treasury Department increased its net borrowing estimate for the July through September quarter to $1 trillion, well up from the $733 billion amount it had predicted in early May."
One trillion dollars in just three months. And every penny of it will be paid – one way or another – by “The People.” Wars, boondoggles, claptrap programs – why are there so many of them? And yes, the superficial reasons for these things are obvious: they pay off for the deciders. Bloomberg again: "Lockheed Is Reaping $2.3 Billion So Far Restocking the Pentagon." "Pushing to restock depleted US weapons stockpiles, the Pentagon has already committed almost $2.3 billion of a potential $6 billion to Lockheed Martin Corp., the top maker of munitions that the US has provided Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, according to new Defense Department data."
Unequal Men: But in this sea of woe, woke, and weird…there are deeper currents. ‘Megapolitics’ is the term coined by our friends, James Davidson and Lord Rees Mogg, to describe them. Largely invisible, rarely understood, and impossible to contradict, they sweep us along like plastic bottles on a flood tide.
“All men are created equal” is an idea. The 375 Zulu warriors killed at Rorke’s Drift was a fact. And behind that fact was another one: the handful of English soldiers who killed them had rifles. The Zulus had spears. For hundreds of years, the power relationship was so unequal that Europeans were able to colonize much of the world…while neither Africans, Asians, nor the Indians of North or South America colonized any part of Europe.
That’s megapolitics. It didn’t matter what anyone thought; the Zulus were out-gunned. Ultimately, it’s the facts that matter. Ideas are how we explain, justify and misinterpret them.
Which brings us to the latest twist in the story of the Industrial Revolution, and the deciders’ latest crusade; they want to eliminate fossil fuels. It was coal that gave the English a decisive edge at Rorke’s Drift. Coal…and later, oil and gas…fired the furnaces that made steel. The steel was turned into the ships that took the English to Africa…the motors that powered the ships…and the guns that they used to kill Zulus.
Cometh the Machines: Your humble editor, personally, brought the industrial revolution to the Calchaqui Valley in Argentina. When we arrived there were no tractors or modern machinery in use on the farm. The cowboys rode horses. An aging percheron pulled a hay rake. A mule pulled a plow with a single blade. In less than 10 years all that changed. Tractors, trucks and a backhoe now do the hard work. The ranch hands ride on motorbikes or pickup trucks. Output rose in a single hop. And then it was over. We can increase productivity, perhaps, with newer machines, more chemicals, more fertilizer and better seeds – but probably not by much.
And in Europe and ‘the West’ today, the Industrial Revolution is over. Growth rates have been going down for half a century. Birthrates are falling. Populations are in decline. Our use of fossil fuel is going down. Debt is piling up; current output can’t keep up with our expenses. And now, the Zulus have automatic rifles too. The BRICs become more independent, more powerful. The “Global South” (which somehow included India, and China, both in the Northern Hemisphere) will soon produce most of the world’s cars, ships, and guns.
Meanwhile, in ‘the West,’ the advances of the Industrial Revolution, if there are any, are incremental…not revolutionary….and often, illusory. Today, we have all the internal combustion engines we can use. We can get new and better ones, but they will make only incremental improvements to output. It is in this fertile soil…the declining marginal utility of fossil fuels…that a new idea has taken root: that coal, gas, oil are evil. More to come…"
"So, How Do You Beat The Odds..."
“So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is, despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”
- “Meredith”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
○
“In the movie “The Lion in Winter”, when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:
Richard: ”He’s here! He’ll get no satisfaction out of us! Don’t let him see you beg! Take it like a man!”
Geoffrey: “You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!”
Richard: ”Well, when the fall is all that’s left, it matters a great deal.”
"Too Often..."
"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."
- Leo Buscaglia
Dan, I Allegedly, "You Need To Pay Up"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly 8/2/23
"You Need To Pay Up"
"The deadline has passed. You must pay all your back rent into payments. First one is an 18 month payment due on August 1, 2023 the second 24 months of payments is due on February 1, 2024. Plus, people are so upset that they have to pay their student loans back."
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"Massive Price Increases At Family Dollar! This Is Overwhelming! What Now?"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 8/2/23
"Massive Price Increases At Family Dollar!
This Is Overwhelming! What Now?"
"In today's vlog, we are at Family Dollar and are noticing some very frustrating price increases. Prices have gotten so high here due to inflation and other factors. This is getting overwhelming as many families are searching for cheaper grocery prices and struggling to put food on the table."
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"Alert! NATO Evacuations Underway; Troops Deploy After Border Incident"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 8/1/23
"Alert! NATO Evacuations Underway;
Troops Deploy After Border Incident"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 8/1/23
"Russian Ally Belarus' Military Choppers Enter Poland;
NATO Briefed, Warsaw Rushes Troops To Border"
"In a major escalation, Belarusian military choppers entered NATO nation Poland's airspace on Tuesday, prompting Warsaw to send additional troops on the border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia. Warsaw said that the choppers of the Belarus army entered Polish airspace during military drills. Poland is already on alert since Wagner Group mercenaries entered Belarus after their failed mutiny against the Kremlin in June. The Polish government said that NATO has been informed about the latest development."
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Tuesday, August 1, 2023
"Having No Money And No Job Is Scary; House Poor Americans; Debt Is Eating You Alive"
Jeremiah Babe, 8/1/23
"Having No Money And No Job Is Scary;
House Poor Americans; Debt Is Eating You Alive"
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"McDonald's Bankruptcies Soar 40% And Now Thousands Of Stores Are About To Disappear"
Full screen recommended.
"McDonald's Bankruptcies Soar 40% And Now
Thousands Of Stores Are About To Disappear"
by Epic Economist
"Mcdonald's is a fast food empire with over 40,000 restaurants across the globe and more than 13,000 locations in the United States. With an annual revenue of over $23 billion a year, the company is by far the largest burger chain in the world. Since the pandemic, it saw profits ballooning, despite citing rising operational costs and supply chain issues as major problems dragging growth and even passing along a series of price increases to its customers to allegedly offset sales losses. With its stock rallying at the moment, and higher menu prices resulting in a significant increase in average ticket costs, it’s hard to imagine how a business of this size and magnitude can be struggling right now. The answer is not simple, but in today’s video, we’re going to explain why the biggest fast food chain in the entire industry is facing a rare and yet unsurprising wave of bankruptcies in 2023.
Despite being the greatest fast-food corporation the world has ever seen, 95% of McDonald’s restaurants in America are operated by independent owners, and the war between corporate and franchisees seems to be getting worse this year. For decades, operators have been fighting McDonald’s tightening rules and expensive demands, and now many of them are hitting a breaking point.
For about 40% of franchisees, McDonald’s new financial requirements may end their years-long leases because the company’s rising expenses are not allowing these stores to hit profit targets. Simply put, these franchisees may have their contracts canceled, losing all of their investment if they fail to meet corporate expectations. In other words, one in four McDonald’s operators is at risk of going bankrupt due to the actions of the company itself.
But their strategy of expanding their business on the back of operators isn’t a clever one. At some point, its entire model could be at risk if enough of them decide to leave the company. When they signed their contracts with the megachain, franchisees were promised to become partners with the company. But over the years, corporate changed rules and regulations, so that the operators were the only ones responsible for the risk of managing a low-margin restaurant business during economic downturns.
On a consumer level, things aren’t going great either. The brand’s push for more expensive burgers has not been well-accepted by customers. Even though the average ticket prices have risen by roughly 15% over the past 12 months due to higher menu prices, there are fewer people visiting McDonald’s locations on a monthly basis, and they are even fewer people revisiting its restaurants multiple times in a month.
Put simply, customer loyalty is going down, and that was one of the main pillars that helped McDonald’s to build its brand since its foundation in 1955. Unfortunately, McDonald’s case is a clear demonstration of how a great business can rot from within due to its own greed. That’s a reality more people are waking up to right now, and that ultimately will contribute to the demise of the greatest fast-food chain America has ever seen."
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"A Look to the Heavens"
“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the below gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130422.html
Chet Raymo, “The Spark of Life”
“The Spark of Life”
by Chet Raymo
"In a previous post I quoted Teilhard de Chardin referring to the discovery of electromagnetic waves as a "prodigious biological event." A biological event? What could he mean? The universe was awash with electromagnetic waves long before life appeared on Earth, or anywhere else in the universe. The cosmic microwave background radiation- the residue of the big bang- is electromagnetic. Starlight is an electromagnetic wave. You can "discover" electromagnetic waves by opening your eyes.
Of course, what Teilhard referred to was the conscious control of electromagnetic radiation by sentient biological creatures. Electromagnetic waves were predicted theoretically by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1864, as he played with equations describing electric and magnetic fields. Then, twenty-two years later, electromagnetic waves were experimentally demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz, who in effect made the first radio broadcast and reception. At Hertz's transmitter a spark jumped back and forth between two metal spheres 50 million times a second. Across the room a similar spark was instantly produced at the receiver. Invisible electrical energy had passed through space at the speed of light.
A spark dancing between two spheres- an unpretentious beginning for the age of radio, television, mobile phones and wireless internet. That first transmitter and receiver had a basement-workshop simplicity about them. Hertz demonstrated the nature of electromagnetic waves with constructions of wood, brass and sealing wax.
Wood, brass, sealing wax and conscious intelligence. Here on Earth- perhaps throughout the universe- stardust gave rise to living slime. The slime complexified, became conscious. Invented mathematics, experimental science. Caused sparks to jump between metal spheres. Sent the signature of biological activity across a room. Across a planet. Across the universe."
"Prodigious!”
The Poet: Margaret Atwood, "The Moment"
"The Moment"
"The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the center of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round."
- Margaret Atwood
"Morning in the Burned House"
"The Farewell"
“The Farewell”
“Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness,
and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over,
and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day,
and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more,
we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream
we shall build another tower in the sky.”
- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
"The Truth?"
I've always believed you can handle the truth, given the chance...It may not be what you want to hear, but it is the truth to the best of my ability to determine. What if anything you do with it is of course up to you... - CP
"Lessons From The Unraveling Of The Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization"
"Lessons From The Unraveling Of The Roman Empire:
Simplification, Localization"
The fragmentation, simplification and localization of the
post-Imperial era offers us lessons we ignore at our peril.
by Charles Hugh Smith
"There is an entire industry devoted to "why the Roman Empire collapsed," but the post-collapse era may offer us higher value lessons. The post-collapse era, long written off as The Dark Ages, is better understood as a period of adaptation to changing conditions, specifically, the relocalization and simplification of the economy and governance.
As historian Chris Wickham has explained in his books "Medieval Europe" and "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000," the medieval era is best understood as a complex process of social, political and economic natural selection: while the Western Roman Empire unraveled, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) continued on for almost 1,000 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the social and political structures of the Western Roman Empire influenced Europe for hundreds of years.
In broad-brush, the Roman Empire was a highly centralized, tightly bound system that was remarkably adaptive despite its enormous size and the slow pace of transport and communication. Roman society was both highly hierarchical--the elites claimed superiority and worked hard to master the necessary tools of authority-- slaves were integral to the building and maintenance of Rome's vast infrastructure--and open to meritocracy, as the Roman Army and other classes were open to advancement by anyone in the sprawling empire: every free person became a Roman Citizen once their territory was absorbed into the Empire.
When the Empire fell apart, the model of centralized control/power continued on in the reigns of the so-called Barbarian kingdoms (Goths, Vandals, etc.) and Charlemagne (768-814), over 300 years after the fall of Rome. (When the Ottomans finally conquered Constantinople in 1453, they also adopted many of the bureaucratic structures of the Byzantine Empire.)
Over time, however, the feudal model of localized fiefdoms nominally loyal to a weak central monarchy replaced the centralized model of governance. This adaptation fit the highly fragmented nature of European societies in this era.
But centralized influence never went away. The Christian churches based in Rome and Constantinople continued to exert centralized influence in politically fragmented regions, and monarchies continued to exist, in various states of strength and weakness. The Holy Roman Empire--as Voltaire is reputed to have observed, "neither Holy, Roman or an Empire"--had an enormously complex history in Germany and the rest of Europe. The monarchies in England and France remained in place, and the city-states of northern Italy wielded influence via trade and shifting alliances.
In other words, the Medieval era was ultimately a complex competition between overlapping models of governance and sharing resources, a competition between centralized and localized (what Wickham calls "cellular") nodes of power and the various ways that rulers and those they ruled dealt with each other.
Throughout the era, the legitimacy of rulers ultimately flowed from public assemblies, a tradition inherited from Rome that manifested in aristocratic courts and the church's leadership (bishops, etc.) and eventually, in parliaments. This tension played out in the sharing of costs and resources and the general direction of the state.
As a general rule, when monarchs consolidated too much power, they engaged in catastrophically costly and doomed wars (The Hundred Years War) because they were able to override or ignore the cautious counsel of elite assemblies. Understood as a selective process of adapting to changing circumstances, this history offers us valuable lessons and templates for our future.
Once the centralized power of Rome fragmented, economic, social and political power simplified and relocalized. Trade volume shrank and trade routes vanished. Once the bureaucratic and military structures dictated by Rome collapsed, regions and localities were on their own.
Elites naturally sought out the best means to consolidate and expand their power, and residents (as a general rule, the peasantry and town-dwellers) sought to improve their own lives by reducing costs and securing access to resources.
The immense geographic, cultural, social and economic diversity of Europe was in effect freed to play out. This diversity is still evident; the European Union may have unified the European financial system, but cultural and social divisions have not dissolved.
Wickham distinguishes between two primary sources of income and wealth accessible to elites and governments: land and taxes. Collecting taxes requires an immense bureaucracy to identify and assess property owners, tenant farmers, merchants, collect duties on trade flows, etc. Taxes are the only reliable way to fund professional armies and the stupendous bureaucracy required to manage a complex centralized empire. The Byzantine Empire survived multiple rivals, invasions, etc. largely due to its competent tax collection bureaucracy, and European monarchies could only fund long, costly wars once they established tax collection bureaucracies.
Wealth from land--surplus skimmed from the labor of peasants--was adequate to fund highly localized nobility (many of which had one or two castles and a small fiefdom), but it wasn't reliable enough or large enough to support professional armies or vast centralized states.
How does this history offer a template for the next 20 years? I have long held that the dominant global forces binding the global economy are globalization and financialization. Both have greatly increased the income and wealth that nation-states can tax to fund their vast structures: military, social welfare, and bureaucracies of management, regulation and control.
I have also held that globalization and financialization became hyper-structures prone to over-extension and the diminishing returns of the S-Curve. (see chart below) Both have reversed and are now in decline, a decline that I anticipate will accelerate unpredictably and rapidly as each dynamic is centralized and tightly bound, meaning each subsystem is highly interconnected with other subsystems. Should one break, the entire system unravels.
Globalization may appear to be decentralized, but the vast majority of global trade and capital flows through a few centralized nodes, and many aspects of trade depend on a very small number of routes and suppliers. This makes global trade exquisitely sensitive to disruption should any critical supplier or node fail.
Financialization is equally centralized and tightly bound, to the absurd degree that obscure financial structures (reverse repos, etc.) can trigger cascading crises in the real-world economy.
I anticipate a global simplification of trade and finance as fragile hyper-structures collapse as the failure of subsystems cascade through the entire system. These systems have greatly accelerated extremes of wealth-income inequality by their very nature, and these vast distortions and imbalances are unsustainable. Also unsustainable is the immense expansion of the plundering of the planet's remaining resources via globalization and financialization. These dynamics will collapse under their own weight.
What will be left? Once the income and wealth that supported enormously costly nation-state governments contracts, central governments will no longer be able to fund their gargantuan systems. (States that attempt to fund their activities by printing money will only speed the collapse of their finances and thus their coherence.)
As in the post-Roman era, central authority may well continue, but its actual power and influence will be greatly reduced. Without expanding income and wealth to tax, the central state may attempt to extract most of the nation's surplus, but this stripmining of elites and commoners alike will trigger pushback and revolt.
A more sustainable response would be to offload most of the central government's financial burdens onto states, provinces, counties, etc., in effect pushing the impossible task of maintaining entitlements and promised spending on local entities.
Given the diversity of cultures, social values and economic dynamics in large nations and regions, we can anticipate a flowering of adaptations to these greatly reduced means. Some localities will favor increasing authoritarian controls, others will favor reducing authoritarian controls and ceding authority to the smallest units of public assembly.
Locales (shall we call them fiefdoms?) will divide naturally along geographic boundaries, just as fiefdoms in medieval Europe fell into natural boundaries shaped by rivers, valleys, mountain ranges, etc., and along economic and cultural borders.
This relocalization may manifest in the well-known forecasts of the US breaking into multiple regional states, or it might manifest as I suggest in a much-weakened but still influential central government ceding power to local political structures which may themselves fragment or form alliances with nearby entities with whom they share cultural and economic ties.
In other words, a churn of evolutionary adaptations can be expected. Just as there was no one post-Roman adaptation that worked equally well everywhere, we can expect there to be some adaptations of roughly equal success and many that are unsuccessful.
As individuals and households, we want to be located in successful adaptations that share our values and offer us agency, i.e. a say in public assemblies and the freedom to move and work as we see fit.
As I have outlined many times in the blog and in my books, locales that are highly dependent on long global supply chains and distant capital for their essentials will fare very poorly once those supply chains break and the capital dries up. Regions and locales that generate their own essentials (food, energy, metals, concrete, electronics, etc.), talent and capital are much more likely to generate enough resources to satisfy both local elites and the public.
As I explain in my book "Self-Reliance," we who have lived in the past 75 years of expanding production and consumption of Everything have lost touch with both the natural world that sustains us and the social and practical skills needed to endure and prosper in an era in which the engines of centralized power and wealth (globalization and financialization) decay and collapse.
Some locales will choose to foster relocalization and individual agency. Others will cling on to failing models of authoritarian control and globalization/financialization. Ironically, perhaps, the most successful regions will be prone to indulging in hubris and denial, just as the Roman elites, basking in their centuries of dominance, dismissed the "Barbarians" and clung to their delusions of grandeur even as their world fragmented around them. Those locales left behind by globalization and financialization may well offer much better opportunities for successful adaptation, relocalization and individual/household agency.
It is human nature to find reasons to dismiss the storm clouds on the horizon. We look around and find solace in the apparent strength of our institutions and economy, while ignoring their sobering dependence on unsustainable hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization.
The fragmentation, simplification and localization of the post-Imperial era offers us lessons we ignore at our peril. It's important to view these lessons not just as an academic abstraction but as a guide to your own decisions about what places are most conducive to your security and well-being. Not every locale will do equally well, and the culture of many places may not be a great match for your own values and goals. If you decide to move, sooner is better than later."
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