Scott Ritter, "Israel Is The Most Immoral Military"

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 11/15/23

"Israel Is The Most Immoral Military, 

They Used Term 'Human Shield' To Bomb Hospitals"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Democracy Now! 11/15/23

"Worse Than Hell: Dr. Mads Gilbert Decries 

Israeli Military Raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza"

"The Israel military raid on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, is an "unprecedented attack on civilian society" in the "darkest time in modern history," that is being justified in the West by "a deep-rooted and frightening racism," says Dr. Mads Gilbert, who worked at Al-Shifa. "You don't do these things to people you consider equal." Dr. Gilbert is a Norwegian physician who just spent weeks in Cairo trying to enter Gaza to help his colleagues and has worked extensively in Palestine since 1981. "The civilian population of Gaza [have] done nothing wrong other than being born Palestinians in Gaza," he says. "Israeli impunity has reached a new level, and we are all sinking into that abyss of disregard for human life.”

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"15 Retailers Amazon Is Destroying Right Now"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 11/15/23

"15 Retailers Amazon Is Destroying Right Now"

"Industry after industry, Amazon has been taking down traditional retailers without any mercy. The e-commece giant is becoming the biggest market player the world has ever seen. Its impressive growth has allowed the company to expand its business to multiple sectors and offer the widest variety of products in the entire market. From consumer electronics to clothing, groceries, medications, toys, and much more, Amazon offers its customers the convenience of purchasing whatever they want and need with just a few clicks. The online retailer is expanding its business so fast that many brands that used to rule in their product categories are now being dwarfed by Amazon's empire.

For example, Best Buy once was the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. But that changed in 2017 when Amazon finally took the first spot. Today, the e-commerce behemoth is not only the industry leader, but it's also six times bigger than Best Buy. Data provided by Statista shows that last year, Amazon's consumer electronic sales rose to an impressive $44 billion, compared to Best Buy's $7 billion annual revenue. The tech-savvy rival has successfully leveraged the convenience of online shopping and captured a significant portion of the market share that was once dominated by the brick-and-mortar chain. Considering its free delivery services and higher discounts, today it is impossible to surpass Amazon in the sector. The competition isn't leveled at all. The online company isn't just denting Best Buy's business, but beating Apple, Dell, and HP at their own game. Other retailers like Walmart, Target, and Costco are also eating dirt. No wonder why Best Buy stores continue to disappear from the U.S. retail landscape. Over the past five years, almost 300 stores were shuttered as the chain faces slower sales and rising real estate, labor, and supply costs.

On top of that, It's been over a decade since Barnes & Noble is losing customers to Amazon. The bookstore chain is one of the few that has managed to stay in business after the online retailer entered the market. From 2016 to 2021, Barnes & Noble's earnings slumped an astonishing 63%. After Amazon launched Kindle, the chain decided to release its own e-reader, Nook. Despite having a better file system than Kindle, Nook sales have been a total disappointment, and the company's e-book division faced more than $200 million in losses. On the other hand, Amazon's physical bookstores were also a huge fail, and nearly all of them have been shuttered since 2019. Still, Amazon offers more than 33 million titles, and its bookstore segment generates an annual revenue of $469.8 billion, while Barnes & Noble's revenue is at $3.6 billion.

Amazon has changed the retail industry forever. Some say for the worse, others say for the better. But one thing is certain - it made the market more competitive than it already was and forced retailers to come up with new ways to stay relevant and adapt faster to market trends. The impact is noticeable, and is going to continue to shape the future of retail for many years to come. Today, we compiled a few companies that are being absolutely smashed by Amazon in 2023."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Justin Hayward, "The Way of the World"

Full screen recommended.

Justin Hayward, "The Way of the World"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Can the night sky appear both serene and surreal? Perhaps classifiable as serene in the below panoramic image taken last Friday are the faint lights of small towns glowing across a dark foreground landscape of Doi Inthanon National Park in Thailand, as well as the numerous stars glowing across a dark background starscape. Also visible are the planet Venus and a band of zodiacal light on the image left.

Click image for larger size.

Unusual events are also captured, however. First, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, while usually a common site, appears here to hover surreally above the ground. Next, a fortuitous streak of a meteor was captured on the image right. Perhaps the most unusual component is the bright spot just to the left of the meteor. That spot is the plume of a rising Ariane 5 rocket, launched a few minutes before from Kourou, French Guiana. How lucky was the astrophotographer to capture the rocket launch in his image? Not lucky at all- the image was timed to capture the rocket. What was lucky was how photogenic - and perhaps surreal - the rest of the sky turned out to be.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

The Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke, "A Walk"

"A Walk"

"My eyes already touch the sunny hill.

going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

it has inner light, even from a distance -

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it,

we already are; a gesture waves us on

answering our own wave...

but what we feel is the wind in our faces."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Conditions Are 'Drier Than The Dust Bowl Years In The Heartland Of America"

"Conditions Are 'Drier Than The Dust Bowl 

Years In The Heartland Of America"

by Michael Snyder

"The seemingly endless drought in the heartland of America is not going to be good for food production. For years, I have been relentlessly warning my readers that Dust Bowl conditions would return to the middle of the country. And now, Dust Bowl conditions have returned to the middle of the country. In fact, as you will see below, it is being reported that conditions are “drier than the Dust Bowl years” in some parts of Iowa. If the heartland of America doesn’t start getting more precipitation, we are going to be facing some enormous problems in the years ahead.

According to drought. gov, half of the Midwest is experiencing drought right now, and things are particularly dire in the state of Iowa…"94% of Iowa is currently in drought, with 24% in extreme drought (D3). Despite decent improvement over the last month, drought is still impacting 68% of Wisconsin and 58% of Minnesota."

Needless to say, the heartland of America produces much of our food. So it should deeply concern all of us that communities all over the Midwest are starting to run out of water…"The southeast Kansas city of Caney will run out of water by March 1 without rain, officials said. Its school district has moved to a four-day week to conserve water. Four wells in Belle Plaine, Iowa, are producing 40% as much water as usual. Residents of Osceola, near Des Moines, can be fined $65 or more if they defy water restrictions.

Residents in many towns aren’t allowed to wash their cars. Port-a-potties have replaced some public bathrooms. “We’re hoping it just rains,” said James Rainbolt, manager of a wholesale water plant that supplies parts of four counties in southern Kansas. “We’re at the mercy of the weather.”

Ultimately, we are all at the mercy of the weather. Despite all of our advanced technology, we remain highly vulnerable to shifting weather patterns. And at this moment we are being told that some parts of Iowa are literally “drier than the Dust Bowl years”…"Two counties in Iowa have had the driest three-year period on record, going back at least to the 1890s, he said. “Drier than the Dust Bowl years,” he said. Dozens of other communities are “carefully watching well levels and streams,” Hall said, “trying to make sure they don’t end up in the same situation as Belle Plaine or Osceola,” which are experiencing water shortages."

As a result of the extremely dry conditions, major dust storms are becoming increasingly common in the Midwest. Earlier this year, a colossal dust storm in Illinois actually caused a vehicle pileup that involved dozens of motorists…"Gusting winds in the Midwestern United States have kicked up a fatal dust storm, reducing visibility to zero and triggering a major vehicle pileup that killed at least six people on an Illinois highway. More than 30 additional motorists, from ages 2 to 80, were hurt in the crash as a result of Monday’s storm, according to Illinois state police. Their injuries ranged from minor to life-threatening."

The lack of precipitation is also causing enormous headaches all along the Mississippi River, and authorities are warning that this is not likely to change any time soon…"Lack of rain brought drought to much of the Mississippi River basin early this summer, and it’s likely going to linger into winter, Army Corps of Engineers leadership said during a press conference on Nov. 8 in Memphis, while a dredge was working nonstop to keep the river channel open a few miles south. It’s the second year in a row that extreme drought has caused a shrinking channel, forcing the Corps to dredge later in the season than normal. Last year, low river levels lingered into the winter, and dredging continued until January."

It’s shaping up to be the same this year. Welcome to the “new normal” along the Mississippi River. And considering the fact that so much of our food is transported on vessels that use the Mississippi River, this is a big problem for all of us.

Of course drought is just one of the factors that has been depressing food production in this nation. Overall, natural disasters “caused $21.5 billion in agricultural losses” in the United States last year…"Research from the American Farm Bureau Federation suggests that nationwide, natural disasters caused $21.5 billion in agricultural losses last year. Only about half of those were protected by insurance, the majority of which is sold through federally-backed programs. Their payouts to farmers have increased over 500 percent in the last two decades."

That number is almost certainly going to be even larger this year. And this is one of the reasons why food prices are going to continue to go up no matter what our leaders choose to do. Food production is being hammered from one direction after another, and this is happening at a time when global supplies of food are becoming tighter and tighter. So I hope that you decided to stock up on food while prices were still relatively low. Because they are a lot higher now, and it won’t be too long before they reach exceedingly painful levels."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Chet Raymo, “The Radiance Of What Is”

“The Radiance Of What Is”

by Chet Raymo

“In the summer of 1936, as I nestled snug in my mother's womb, Fortune magazine sent the young writer James Agee and the photographer Walker Evans to rural Alabama to report on how the Great Depression was affecting the poorest of the poor. For eight weeks they lived with three impoverished sharecropper families. (Pictured below is the family of Bud Fields.)

Their combined work never appeared in Fortune, but it was published as a book- “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men”- in 1941. The book was not an immediate success, but decades later, after Agee won a posthumous Pulitzer for "A Death in the Family", it found a new audience and eventually a place in the American canon of literary and photographic masterpieces.

The book has a strange, difficult and self-lacerating Preamble in which Agee tries to understand what it is that he and Evans have done. Does art report or create? Have the two artists exploited the families they reported on? How do we discern the truth when we are burdened with so many limitations, preconceptions and personal agendas? How do we make ourselves neutral channels for what is and not for what we wish it to be? Is it possible to be "neutral"? Is it desirable?

These are questions that science and art struggle with perennially, each in its own way. These are questions that each of us should ask about our own constructions of reality. Agee writes:

For in the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and centrally and simply, without dissection into science or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself like a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all of consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revised, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is.

Agee professes his desire to suspend imagination, so that "there opens before consciousness, and within it, a universe luminous, spacious, incalculably rich and wonderful in each detail, as relaxed and natural to the human swimmer, and as full of glory, as his breathing."

A marvelous aspiration. But impossible, of course. Science strives mightily for "objectivity." The artist too wants to reveal something real and wonderful, a cruel radiance. And always there, between our eyes and the world, is the imagination. And why not? It is the imagination that defines our humanity, the channel by which the world becomes conscious of itself. We read “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” or look at Evans' photographs, and we see what is and what should be, creation roaring in the heart of itself and in our hearts too.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Daily 'Near You?"

Torino, Piemonte, Italy. Thanks for stopping by!

"Something You Already Know..."

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!” 

- Rocky Balboa

The Atlantis Report, "The Middle Class Is In Big Trouble..."

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 11/15/23

"The Middle Class Is In Big Trouble..."

"A sad reality is dawning on Americans as the middle class is fast becoming nothing but a vague illusion. Past generations aspired to attain the American dream; a fancy middle class life with a comfortable family home, good cars, enough money for basic needs, destination vacations, a couple of luxury items and some thousands of dollars stacked in savings and retirement accounts. However, the current generation of young millennials and Zoomers are waking up to the grim realization that this dream is now further off than ever before.

It’s a multidimensional crisis rocking both sides of the boat. Young people who were born into the middle class can not afford to sustain the quality of life they’ve been used to while older adults who had already attained middle class status are struggling to hold on to it. For many, it’s already slipping out of their grip and there’s very little they can do about it. Cost of living is rising, incomes are stagnant and inflation is eating deep into the economy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "This Untold Crisis Brought Down a Bank"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly AM 11/15/23

"This Untold Crisis Brought Down a Bank"

"Citizens Bank, heavily invested in trucking loans. They folded amidst regulatory pressures and the shipping recession, leaving many questioning the stability of similar institutions. We just got an inflation report that is utterly ridiculous. We are seeing retailers go out of business left and right. People cannot afford to live without using their credit cards."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either. It happens to be my view, but it doesn't challenge any of the findings of Darwin or Huxley or Einstein or Hawking.” - Christopher Hitchens

Adventures With Danno, "Shopping At Ollies, Bargain Hunting!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 11/15/23

"Shopping At Ollies, Bargain Hunting!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Ollie's and are seeking out some bargains on grocery items. With massive price increases continuing at grocery stores, we are searching for some good deals during these times of high inflation. We will go over the quality and prices of items that we shop for in the store."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "The Federal Reserve Will Inflate On A Scale Which Has Never Been Seen Before"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 11/15/23

"The Federal Reserve Will Inflate On A 

Scale Which Has Never Been Seen Before"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"All That Is Necessary..."

“The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.”

- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

o

“Murderers are not monsters, they're men. 

And that's the most frightening thing about them.”

- Alice Sebold, "The Lovely Bones"

"'Stripped, Blindfolded': IDF Interrogates Gazans At Al-Shifa Hospital; Hezbollah Threatens Revenge"

Full screen recommended!

"'Stripped, Blindfolded': IDF Interrogates Gazans

 At Al-Shifa Hospital; Hezbollah Threatens Revenge"

Hindustan Times, AM 11/15/23

"The situation at the Al-Shifa hospital in north Gaza is getting worse amid Israeli military operations. A harrowing account from inside Gaza's biggest hospital has surfaced. According to reports, Israeli forces are interrogating dozens of stripped-down, blindfolded people surrounded by tanks inside the hospital complex. Iran, Jordan, and Hezbollah have warned Israel against the Al-Shifa assault."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended!

Times Now, 11/15/23

"Newborns Among 179 Buried As Al-Shifa Turns

 Mass Grave After Israel Raids Gaza's Biggest Hospital"

As IDF troops advance in Gaza, the Al-Shifa Hospital has become the main focus of the Israel-Hamas war. "The hospital authorities have claimed that 179 patients including children have died in the medical facility. According to Shifa hospital’s director Mohammad Abu Salmiyah, dead patients were buried in a ‘mass grave’ inside hospital premises. Salmiyah claimed the authorities were forced to bury the bodies as they littered the hospital premises and there was no electricity in morgues."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

What kind of inhuman MONSTERS do this?!!

God damn them, God damn them to Hell!!!

Stipendium peccati mors est...

"Alert! 11 Russian Bombers Activated; Biden Warned; Israel Chaos; 30,000 Polish Troops Move On Belarus"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 11/14/23

"Alert! 11 Russian Bombers Activated; Biden Warned; 

Israel Chaos; 30,000 Polish Troops Move On Belarus"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

We're really gonna do this, and someone will do something stupid...

God help us.

Gerald Celente, "Follow Your Political Leader! Do What You're Told! You're Nothing More Than A Piece Of Sh*t!"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 11/14/23

"Follow Your Political Leader! Do What You're Told! 

You're Nothing More Than A Piece Of Sh*t!"

"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."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Unimaginable Bank Outages Are Happening, Causing Millions To Panic"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 11/14/23

"Unimaginable Bank Outages Are Happening, 

Causing Millions To Panic"

"The United States is currently grappling with an unparalleled banking crisis that has sent shockwaves through the nation. Widespread bank outages, persisting for a concerning sixth day, coupled with the collapse of yet another bank, signify the severity of the situation. This video aims to delve into the systemic issues, the public's response, and the potential ramifications of this crisis on the larger financial landscape."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Biggest Banks Leave Americans Without Money As Account Shutoffs Begin"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 11/14/23

"Biggest Banks Leave Americans Without 

Money As Account Shutoffs Begin"

"Banks are closing down personal accounts without any notice, according to a new report released by the New York Times. That comes as the credit crisis continues to worsen and hurt Americans financially. Banks are now trying to reduce the risk of losses and failures, even if that means leaving people without access to their funds. Conditions continue to deteriorate in the financial sector, which is putting many institutions in a tough situation right now.

The Times reported that the number of clients getting dumped by their banks is rising dramatically. Experts estimate that thousands of people are losing access to their bank accounts and credit cards every month. Oftentimes, they are restricted from withdrawing their funds for weeks and months That is leaving many people scrambling to pay their bills and buy everyday essentials right now. Even though banks do not reveal precise data on how often they are doing this, analysts observed a 50% increase in the number of "suspicious activity reports" (SARs), which typically lead to them ghosting customers without warning.

Analysts tracked a series of real-life examples of customers getting abruptly dropped by their banks and exposed plenty of instances where the decision was not just sudden but completely unjustified. Delinquent customers face the highest risk of having their accounts shut down. Americans took on a massive amount of debt in recent years, and as interest rates went up and made loans more expensive, it’s getting more difficult to get out of debt.

At the same time, it’s also getting harder to have access to loans as banks continue to tighten their lending standards. This is cutting an important credit line for millions of struggling consumers at a time when pandemic aid has waned and inflation is making more people need an additional form of financial support.

Officials revealed that not only consumers but all major sectors of the economy are being impacted by the credit crisis. Banks reported tighter standards for all commercial real estate categories, residential real estate, credit card, auto, and other business loans in October. Their reasons to limit borrowing to businesses at this point in the game include “a less favorable and more uncertain economic outlook; a reduced tolerance for risk; a deterioration in the credit quality of loans.”

So far this year, banks experienced $620 billion in mark-to-market losses on their Treasury bond portfolio. The latest fall in Treasury bond prices will only add more pressure on them. Moreover, U.S. bank stocks have fallen to an all-time low in 2023 compared with the S&P 500 index. With all that said, you can understand why banks are panicking right now. Just a few days ago, another bank failure occurred. The latest bank failure has raised many questions about the Fed’s current mantra of high-interest rates for longer. It seems to be doing more harm than good to the economy. It’s hard to grasp why policymakers are still withdrawing $95 billion a month in market liquidity at a time when the Treasury is having trouble financing itself at reasonable interest rates.

If the Fed continues to inflict significant losses on banks' balance sheets through higher interest rates, the credit crisis might become the next financial crisis, and it will likely hit us before the middle of next year."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, 

"Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

Beautiful...

"A Look to the Heavens"

“These bright rims and flowing shapes suggest to some melting ice cream on a cosmic scale. Looking toward the constellation Cassiopeia, the colorful (zoomable) skyscape features the swept back, comet-shaped clouds IC 59 (left) and IC 63. About 600 light-years distant, the clouds aren't actually melting, but they are slowly dissipating under the influence of ionizing ultraviolet radiation from hot,luminous star gamma Cas. 

 Click image for larger size.

Gamma Cas is physically located only 3 to 4 light-years from the nebulae, just off the upper right edge of the frame. In fact, slightly closer to gamma Cas, IC 63 is dominated by red H-alpha light emitted as the ionized hydrogen atoms recombine with electrons. Farther from the star, IC 59 shows proportionally less H-alpha emission but more of the characteristic blue tint of dust reflected star light. The field of view spans about 1 degree or 10 light-years at the estimated distance of gamma Cas and friends.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111103.html

"Character..."

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. 

Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be 

strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

"The World of Existence...

“The world of existence is like unto an orchard and humanity is like unto the trees. All these trees are planted in the same orchard, reared through the heat of one sun, watered with one rain. We must be the cause of the adornment of this orchard. The world of humanity is like unto a rose garden and the various races, tongues and people are like unto contrasting flowers. The diversity of colors in a rose-garden adds to the charm and beauty of the scene as variety enhances unity. Why should we not look upon the human world with rose-colored vision?”

- Abdul Baha

"The Wisdom Of Satchel Paige"

“Age is a case of mind over matter. 

If you don't mind, it don't matter.”

“Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

“Ain't no man can avoid being born average, 

but there ain't no man got to be common.”

“Money and women. They're two of the strongest things 

in the world. The things you do for a woman you wouldn't

 do for anything else. Same with money.”

“How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?”

"Work like you don't need the money.

Love like you've never been hurt.

Dance like nobody's watching."

- Satchel Paige

"A $250 Million War Game and Its Shocking Outcome"

"A $250 Million War Game and Its Shocking Outcome"

by Nick Giambruno

"At a cost of $250 million, Millennium Challenge 2002 was the largest and most expensive war game in Pentagon history. With over 13,500 participants, the US government took over two years to design it. The exercise pitted Iran against the US military. Washington intended to show how the US military could defeat Iran with ease. Paul Van Riper, a three-star general and 41-year veteran of the Marine Corps, led Iranian forces in the war game. His mission was to take on the full force of the US military, led by an aircraft carrier battle group and a large amphibious landing force in the Persian Gulf. The results shocked everyone…

Van Riper waited for the US Navy to pass through the shallow and narrow Strait of Hormuz, which made them sitting ducks for Iran’s unconventional and asymmetric warfare techniques. The idea is to level the playing field against a superior enemy with swarms of explosive-laden suicide speedboats, low-flying planes carrying anti-ship missiles, naval mines, and land-based anti-ship ballistic missiles, among other low-cost but highly effective measures.

In minutes, Van Riper emerged victorious over his superior opponent and sank all 19 ships. Had it been real life, 20,000 US sailors and marines would have died. Millennium Challenge 2002 was a complete disaster for the Pentagon, which had spent a quarter of a billion dollars to set up the extensive war game. It produced the exact opposite outcome they wanted.

So what did the Pentagon do with these humbling results? Like a child playing a video game, they hit the reset button. They then rigged and scripted the game so that the US was guaranteed to win. After realizing the integrity of the war game had been compromised, a disgusted Van Riper walked out mid-game. He then said: "Nothing was learned from this. And a culture not willing to think hard and test itself does not augur well for the future."

The main lesson of Millennium Challenge 2002 is that aircraft carriers - the biggest and most expensive ships ever built - wouldn’t last a single day in combat against even a regional power like Iran. Russia and China would have an even easier time dispatching them. They are overpriced toys. That means the US has wasted untold trillions on military hardware that could prove to be worthless in a serious conflict.

Nonetheless, the US government still parades aircraft carriers around the world from time to time to try to intimidate its enemies. However, it’s a flawed strategy prone to catastrophic results if someone calls their bluff.

While Millennium Challenge 2002 occurred more than 20 years ago, it is of paramount importance today. Iran has substantially improved its asymmetric and unconventional warfare capabilities. It’s doubtful the US military would fare much better today than 20 years ago. In short, war with Iran today could be even more disastrous than the Millennium Challenge 2002 simulation. Unfortunately, war with Iran is an increasingly probable outcome as tensions in the Middle East are at their highest point in generations and are trending higher.

Previously, I lived in Beirut, Lebanon, for several years while working for an investment bank. The experience was effectively an advanced training course in Middle East geopolitics. Today, it helps me see the big picture in the region… and unfortunately, it isn’t pretty. I think the next big war in the Middle East is coming soon and could be the biggest one ever. It will focus on Iran.

The market doesn’t appreciate how close we are to a big war and the implications of it. But this distortion in the market is a blessing. It’s handing us a golden opportunity. First and foremost, I think there’s a huge opportunity to profit in the oil market right now. I’m certainly not cheering for war. I despise war, which is the health of the State.

Regardless, a big war is highly likely, with significant investment implications that would be foolish to ignore. Unfortunately, most people have no idea how close we are to a catastrophe of historical proportions, let alone how to prepare...The coming crisis could be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we’ve seen since World War 2. Countless millions throughout history were wiped out financially - or worse - as big wars unfolded. Don’t be one of them."

- https://internationalman.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Winnweiler, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Bonner, "New World Order"

Puxi, The Bund and Pudong Lujiazui, Shanghai, China

"New World Order"

As 'The West' continues slip-sliding away, 

a new civilization reaches for the clouds...

by Bill Bonner

'Mankind'… has no aim, no idea, no plan, any more than the family of butterflies or orchids. 'Mankind' is a zoological expression, or an empty word. … I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can only be kept up by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of the facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother region to which it remains firmly bound throughout its whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will and feeling, its own death."

~ Oswald Spengler

Poitou, France - "It’s big. It’s grand. It’s pretentious. Does it have any real world meaning? We’re talking about today’s theme – about the slip-sliding of ‘The West.’ After more than 1,000 years, western civilization – or, what Spengler called “Faustian culture” – is facing a serious challenge. The BRICS…the developing countries of Muslims, Slavs, Chinese and Africans…are jockeying for leading roles. They’re growing faster. They’re buying more, spending more, and saving more. They’re still benefiting from fossil fuels. They’re dodging sanctions. They’re making new alliances…and finding new sources of financial aid and technical guidance. They’re resisting NATO in the Ukraine…and denying the West’s moral superiority in Israel. They are forging a new world order…one without the USA at the top of it. Does it matter?

Place Your Bets: Warren Buffett says you should never bet against America. But never is a long time…even for Buffett. What’s this? MarketWatch: "Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cash pile hits record $157 bln with deals scarce."

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ended the third quarter with a record cash pile and reported a deeper overall loss due to weakness in the stock market…You’re either long or you’re short. You own it, or you don’t own it. You bet on America’s businesses…or you hold cash. Buffett is now betting against America. He’s ‘short’ its stocks (not owning them) by a wider margin than ever before.

What to make of it? And what to make of the bond market? US bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Banks, insurance and retirement funds hold big wads of US paper…debt, that is. Corporate treasuries, non-profits, university and hospital endowments – almost the entire capital structure of stocks, bonds and real estate is directly or indirectly supported by US bonds.

So what happens when investors lose faith in the issuer? What happens when the credit quality declines? What happens when a nation…an empire…or a whole ‘civilization’ hits the skids? CNN reports: "Moody’s sends a warning to America: Your last AAA credit rating is at risk." The United States is one step closer to losing its last perfect credit rating after Moody’s Investors Service changed the outlook of the nation’s debt to negative on Friday after markets closed. Even the prospect of a US downgrade could hurt Americans’ investment portfolios, make it even more expensive for them to borrow money, and make it more costly for the government to pay off its debts.

Decline and Fall: Let’s return to Oswald Spengler. We’ve heard of his ‘Decline of the West,” published in 1918, all our lives. But we have never read it. Dan reports that it is unreadable…written in heavy, academic German, which translation scarcely improved.

But since the core of Spengler’s pensée corresponds to our own, we take the man for a genius. The idea of it is that history proceeds not by chronological eras…but by cultural or ‘civilizational’ epochs. Each ‘civilization’ is like an organism - unthinking, unprogrammed, uncontrollable - with a beginning…and an end. The caboose end of ‘the West’ is nowhere in sight. But the powerful engine went by years ago.

We mentioned American politics yesterday. It is the “same stupid clown car with a different driver,” says Representative Dusty Johnson. Democracy works tolerably well when it is done at a local level. But it is not scalable.

In the famous painting by Norman Rockwell above, a working man stands up at a town meeting and says his piece. It could be about the new school…about moving the town dump…and an ordinance that bans spitting on the sidewalk – whatever it is, the man can have an informed opinion on the matter. But suppose he is one of 150 million voters? And suppose he has to choose his candidates from TV ‘debates’ and mainstream media coverage? Suppose he is asked his opinion on AI…or the need for a new fighter plane…or a quarter-point increase in the Fed Funds rate? What are the odds that he will have a coherent, well-informed view?

The larger the scale, the dumber the policies…and the more real policy making is hijacked by elites for their own purposes. Who benefits from America’s non-stop wars? Who benefits from DEI/LBGQT+ spending? Who benefits from anti-racism indoctrination…from tariffs…from laws, rules, and regulations – often thousands of pages long…costing trillions of dollars – that no one (save the insiders) has even read?

The result is an unaffordable, corrupt and incompetent leadership. Every ‘Europeanized’ government – including Japan – is now deeply in debt. Each spends more than it can afford. Each has made promises that cannot be fulfilled. And each muddles along making things worse with every move. How much faith can you have in such a government? How much credit can you give it? More to come…"

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com

"The Horseman Of The Economic Apocalypse Draws Near"

"The Horseman Of The Economic Apocalypse Draws Near"

By Mike Adams

"US treasury debt has just been downgraded to negative. It costs a trillion dollars a year just to pay interest on the debt. The fed's money printing machine is running all out, while fewer and fewer investors trust the ability of the US to ever pay back its debt obligations. The dollar collapse draws near. Full coverage in today's Brighteon broadcast here:

- https://www.brighteon.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Good luck!