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“Once you strip out the effects of the debt binge, the artificial stimulus via currency depreciation, and the fabled ‘wealth effect’ from the equity market runup, real GDP growth stripped-down to its core was the grand total of 0.7% last year. Potemkin would be proud.” – David Rosenberg

It appears every president finds the religion of false economic narrative once they ascend to power. Trump never stops babbling and tweeting about the fantastic economy and raging jobs market since his election. He has embraced the stock market bubble as proof of his brilliant leadership, rather than the tens of trillions in debt propping up the most overvalued market in world history. Every president takes credit for any good news, spins bad news as good news, or blames the previous president for bad news that can’t be denied. The president has absolutely zero impact on the economy or stock market over the short term. It’s like taking credit for the sun rising in the east each morning.

The Big Lie method works wonders when you have a willfully ignorant, mathematically challenged, easily manipulated populace. I spent the entire Obama presidency obliterating the fake economic data perpetuated by his BLS, BEA and every other government agency trying to paint a rosy economic picture. I voted for Trump because the thought of Crooked Hillary as the president made me ill. Despite disagreeing with many of his economic, budgetary, and military policies during his first year in office, I’d vote for him again over Hillary in an instant. The thought of having that evil shrew running the country gives me chills.

But that doesn’t mean I will stand idly by, cheerlead and ignore the facts to provide cover for Trump. I despise false narratives, whether they are spun by Democrats or Republicans.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Muck’s Minute #48 Future of Mankind Part III

February 15, 2018

Muck’s Minute #48 Future of Mankind Part III

Authors’ note: The response to the first few parts of this series show that the vast majority of readers are myopic in their view point. This series is about l-o-n-g t-e-r-m consequences of currently occurring happenings. It is not intended to be thought of as a One Turning forecast or even multiple 4TH Turnings. A turning is between 80-100 years and I’m talking about a thousand years and specie survival. I’ll try and rein in my long term view after this series and get back to talking about next month.

___________________________________________

Start Part III

The higher productivity of agriculture is the reason why population density and growth has fallen off the table as a popular subject to debate. Additionally, religion that espouses moral opposition to birth control in any fashion (including abortion) is spreading throughout undeveloped areas of the world ( as well as the USA’s swing to evangelical prominence) so we can be sure that more and more of the extra food production technology makes possible will be swallow up faster and faster. Worse luck, that, and our greatgrandchildren will live to regret it. True, this must be balanced against the fact that the more education women get, the fewer children they tend to have. You can also have a problem like they have in China with their “one child” policy that had led them to a demographical time bomb about to go off. On balance, population will still increase with time.

What is far more likely the result of continuing population expansion is war. Wars are fought over possession and control of land. There are, of course, other excuses for fighting a war, such as wars based on religious or cultural differences, but throughout the history of human conflict, fighting over the control of land and the resources thereon is the basis for war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BABY STEPS: You’ve Been Woke. Now Exit the Matrix.

February 11, 2018

BABY STEPS: You’ve Been Woke. Now Exit the Matrix.

‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit……

Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues

– Revelation 18

There is an English salutation said to have been translated from a Chinese curse. It states: May you live in interesting times. Well, like it or not, we do. There is so much insanity occurring every day, on a global basis, it is difficult to process. So much so, that historians will one day look back on our time and scratch their heads in open-jawed, disbelief.

“Wait a minute,” they will say, “let us get this straight:”

Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was overseeing an investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia because Trump was said to have obtained damaging information on Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton; but, during the same time period, Schiff was engaged in obtaining damaging information from Russians on Presidential Candidate Donald Trump?

Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had to rig the 2016 Primary Elections because she was losing to a very popular Democratic Socialist? Then Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 Presidential Election? Clinton received 65,844,610 votes, even when the charitable foundation she founded with her husband, an impeached former U.S. president and disbarred attorney, profited $145 million in the sale of 20% of America’s uranium supply to Russia? Russia? Who, supposedly, stole the election from her?

Really?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Happy New Year: Don’t Be Fooled By the Orthodoxies of the Messengers

December 29, 2017

Happy New Year: Don’t Be Fooled By the Orthodoxies of the Messengers

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

– Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”

Edward Bernays (1891 – 1995) was a famous pioneer in the field of public relations and is, today, often referred to as the Father of Propaganda.Perhaps Bernays became thus known because he authored the above quoted 1928 book titled with that very term. He was actually the nephew of the famed psychopathologist Sigmund Freud and was very proud of his uncle’s work. More than that, however, Bernays accepted the basic premises of Freud towards the use of emotional manipulation of the masses through advertising. It was, in fact, Bernays, who changed the term propaganda into “public relations”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to deal with doom burnout

December 16, 2017

How to deal with doom burnout

In the intro to a recent post on TBP, admin said the following:

I love Denninger’s ability to be outraged day after day and his continuous rage against the machine. I’ve lost that fire. After nine years of this, I’m burnt out. I no longer have that passion driving me. What will be will be.

I think that burnout is something a lot of us feel – we find out what’s going on in the world, get outraged, and then gradually realize that we’re like old men yelling at clouds – all of our indignant anger isn’t worth shit and it isn’t going to change shit. We slowly burn out, realizing that the world is simply unjust and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

That sentiment is echoed in the comments of many posts on TBP, ZeroHedge and other similar sites – “We KNOW everything is fucked up, what do we DO about it!”

So let’s have that discussion – what DO we do about it? Because the reality is that people can change things, it happens all the time. But it’s not going to happen commiserating with like minds on an internet forum. So how do we cause change?

Here are my thoughts:

Develop a vision. Anyone can bitch about how things are. But unless you know what they should look like instead, there’s no way to incite change. People need a target – they need to know what they’re working towards. Just saying that things are bad now doesn’t give anyone any actionable information.
Get out of the echo chamber. There’s great comfort in commiserating with fellow red-pills, but hiding away in our doom fortress isn’t going to change anything. If there’s going to be change we need a much larger movement, which means going out and preaching to the unconverted.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

On the Road to Oblivion: “Quality, Thy Antonym is Equality!”

November 30, 2017

On the Road to Oblivion: “Quality, Thy Antonym is Equality!”

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

― C.S. Lewis

On Thanksgiving eve, I was notified of a circumstance which caused me to drive thirteen hours round trip the following weekend. The event which precipitated my travels is now beside the point, but I will say, given prior commitments and work scheduling, I was compelled to go alone. I didn’t mind. So I booked my hotel located in a major American metropolis, and that Saturday, packed my bag, grabbed my toothbrush and car keys, and bid my bewitching bride fare-thee-well.

Rather than take my larger rig, I decided to drive something more compact for the city; and more fun. Soon, I was rolling over roads that were seemingly slung before me like waving ribbons in a whimsical wind. Although my material journey had just begun, mentally, I was already traveling down familiar, distant thoroughfares at the speed of thought; what The Grateful Dead would call the “West L.A. Fadeaway”: Little red light on the highway, big green light on the speedway, hey hey hey.

My coincidental cognitive cruise began with gratitude. If I were to align sonic bell curves to represent my personal automotive preferences, the car I was driving would percuss the pinnacle position of every measure. With just the right exterior dimensions, and the perfect amount of interior room, horsepower, safety, comfort, reliability, economy, and style, I am fortunate to own such a vehicle.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The End of the Age of Benevolence

November 25, 2017

The End of the Age of Benevolence

The history of democracy, Marxism and feminism is the history of the snake, which, being hungry for more, stalks its own tail and consumes itself.

Some evenings I sit on the sofa in the family room with my teenage daughter and watch a TV program with her. I leave the choice of the show to her, it matters little to me, and when she finds something she likes she sits next to me, puts her head on my shoulder, and snuggles up for the hour it takes to watch whatever it is she’s chosen.

It’s our time.

Occasionally we’ll sneak in another twenty or thirty minutes to the objection of her mother but I like my time with her so I put up with the raised eyebrows and the, “She’s got school tomorrow,” scoldings. It’s important to me that she knows I love her, that I want to spend time with her and that she feels safe when she is with me. Someday, when she is a grown woman I want her to find a man that will take care of her and protect her like I do. I expect no less from a suitor and neither should she.

There will be women who read this who will object to my stance. They will say, “She doesn’t need a man to feel safe or validated or content,” but I would disagree. When she gets older she’ll need a good man, not just any man, and that’s as true today as much as it was ten years, twenty years, fifty years, one hundred years and even one thousand years ago. And it will become even more so as time goes on.

Indeed, we have reached peak denial in our civilization and whether we like it or not reality is about to make a come back.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pictorial: American Animosity Ambling Amuck

November 21, 2017

Pictorial: American Animosity Ambling Amuck

This Russia Collusion thing has been going on for one year now. I’m not interested in debating whether or not Trump colluded. I am interested in examining the massive hypocrisy emanating from our government, and on display daily in living color from MSM ~~whores~~, ~~prostitutes~~, ~~traitors~~, teleprompter readers. Who among us Dirt People isn’t amazed that our politicians can feign their fake indignant shock that such a thing could happen …. for, surely, America would never do such a thing!

The fact is that we treat the world like a giant outhouse, a place where we shit upon any nation we choose, at the time of our choosing, and then pretend outrage when they return the favor. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. Because, there isn’t, right? It’s how the world works.

But, the Whores&Pols act as if foreign entanglements should be a pure and noble endeavor when, if fact, it’s a dirty rotten business, played as such by powerful nations. Criticism of Russia, China, etc. has risen to a fever pitch. Meanwhile, they paint America as a friendly bringer of democracy, whose motives are pure as the driven snow, building shining cities on the hill for other countries, and where unicorn farts smell like wildflowers.

Of course, this is all poppycock because making America great again comes at a price.

—– Henry Kissinger said, — “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” (Probably stolen from British PM Benjamin Disreali, who likely stole it from Lord Palmersto)

—– Czar Alexander III said; — “Russia only has two allies: the army and the navy.”

—– De Gaulle said — “a man can have a friend, a nation, never”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Unbearable Slowness of Fourth Turnings

November 14, 2017

THE UNBEARABLE SLOWNESS OF FOURTH TURNINGS

“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe– The Fourth Turning

This Fourth Turning was ignited suddenly in September 2008 as the housing bubble, created by the Federal Reserve and their criminal puppeteer owners on Wall Street, collapsed, revealing the greatest control fraud in world history. A crisis mood was catalyzed as the stock market dropped 50%, unemployment surged to highs not seen since 1981, foreclosures exploded, and captured politicians bailed out the criminal bankers with the tax dollars of the victims.

The mood of the country darkened immediately as average Americans flooded their congressmen’s websites and phone lines with a demand not to bailout the felonious Wall Street banks with $700 billion of TARP. But they ignored their supposed constituents and revealed who they are truly beholden to.

Trust in the political and financial system disintegrated and has further deteriorated as the ruling elite continue to loot and pillage as if the 2008/2009 global financial meltdown never happened. From the perspective of the archaic social order there is no longer a crisis. The recovery narrative, flogged ceaselessly by the crooked establishment and their propaganda fake news corporate media mouthpieces, has convinced millions of willfully ignorant Americans progress is occurring.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Non-Compete Clause – Modern Day Slavery

November 11, 2017

The Non-Compete Clause – Modern Day Slavery

From Wikipedia:

“…The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War…”

Unfortunately, the thirteenth amendment to our Constitution did not put an end to slavery. It has changed form, but it is still very much alive today.

There has been a push by companies and major corporations over the past decade or so to what they call a ‘non-compete clause’ as a requirement for employment. They require an employee, whether they be new hires or even some that have been employed with them for many years, to sign one of these in order to obtain or to continue their employment there.

These clauses state that an employee cannot seek employment in the same field for a designated period (usually at least one year and oftentimes several years) after leaving their company.

In most cases, the reason for an employee’s departure makes no difference. Whether they went to a competitor for more money or better benefits, were laid off from their current company, or even fired for any reason. They are still bound by this unconscionable clause.

If you have been in a given business for all of your professional career and at some point you choose to leave and go to another employer for whatever reason, these clauses state that you cannot, and your former employer can and will sue you if you do.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Cliché Series # 5: Perceiving Profiles Confined Within Certain Configurations

November 2, 2017

Cliché Series # 5: Perceiving Profiles Confined Within Certain Configurations

Whenever anyone uses the term conspiracy theory or calls someone a conspiracy theorist in any debate, they are, in most instances, revealing their own contempt prior to investigation. This is, in fact, an exemplification of prejudice even by those claiming their minds are open. In truth, they are not willing to consider any evidence that might challenge what they have previously decided to be untrue, or unproven; these, of course, being two very separate prospects.

If people were intellectually honest they would acknowledge, at the very least, the POSSIBILITY of SOME truth behind what they designate as “conspiracy”. Or, should they wish to engage in the discussion, they would debate using opposing facts; or any additional contravening corroboration behind their perspectives and ideological positioning.

This, of course, requires some level of enthusiasm to discuss any given subject and a moderate comprehension of the elementary facts regarding the stated topic. Sadly, for most people, they lack both, and when they cannot muster the energy to converse, acknowledge alternative possibilities, or present opposing arguments, they will then either engage in ad hominem labeling or attempt to characterize any perceived contradicting evidence as “conspiracy”.

Perhaps they do this as a defense mechanism in order to ensure the continuity of their worldview. Or it could simply be the result of apathy, laziness, fear, or pride. Or maybe most folks just don’t like loose ends.

Nevertheless, these are the people who comprise the majority of American citizens today. The same folks who swallow, hook, line, and sinker, that the September 11, 2012 attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya was caused by a YouTube video; and that the Russians hacked the 2016 Presidential Election.

Talk about conspiracy theories!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bull in a China Shop

October 30, 2017

BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

“So the modern world may be increasing in technological knowledge, but, paradoxically, it is making things a lot more unpredictable.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

“Success brings an asymmetry: you now have a lot more to lose than to gain. You are hence fragile.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

I had read Nassim Taleb’s other best-selling tomes about risk, randomness and black swans – Fooled by Randomness & The Black Swan. They were not easy reads, but they were must reads. He is clearly a brilliant thinker, but I like him more because he is a prickly skeptic who scorns and ridicules academics, politicians, and Wall Street scumbags with gusto. There were many passages which baffled me, but so many nuggets of wisdom throughout each book, you couldn’t put them down.

When his Antifragile book was published in 2012, the name intimidated me. I figured it was too intellectual for my tastes. When I saw it on the shelf in my favorite used book store at the beach, I figured it was worth a read for $9. I’m plowing through it and I haven’t been disappointed.

His main themes are more pertinent today than they were in 2012. He published The Black Swan in 2007, just prior to one of the biggest black swans in world history – the 2008 Federal Reserve/Wall Street created financial collapse. His disdain for “experts” like Bernanke, Paulson, and Wall Street CEOs, and their inability to comprehend the consequences of their actions and in-actions as the financial system was blown sky high, was a bulls-eye.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The “Experimenter”: Understanding Why Shit Happens and How Conformity Kills

October 18, 2017

The “Experimenter”: Understanding Why Shit Happens and How Conformity Kills

During inclement weather days, late nights, lazy weekends, and when one’s eyes tire of small print or words and images levitating in digital ether, Netflix offers a video library of sorts allowing the viewer to recline, and imbibe knowledge in a relatively easy way. Many of Netflix’s films consist of documentaries, nonfiction stories originating from books, historical retellings, or fictionalized narratives derived from actual circumstances and people. Two such films, recently viewed by the author of this post, are historical accounts, originated from books, and retold from the perspective of the actual persons who lived the events recounted therein. These two films, currently showing on Netflix, include: “First They Killed My Father” (2017) and “Experimenter” (2015).

The former film is a Netflix Original and based upon the 2000 book, “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers”, written by Loung Ung. Loung was a five-year-old Cambodian girl living in Phnom Penh when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge subjugated the city forcing the Ung family to flee into what later became known as the Cambodian Killing Fields. The latter film retells the story behind the Stanley Milgram obedience experiments which took place at Yale University in 1961.

Loung Ung’s father was a Captain in the military police for the Lon Nol government. He correctly believed it was wrong for Cambodians to have placed their faith in the resolve of the lying and politically schizophrenic United States Government during the Vietnam War. Yet, at the same time, he feared the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot and the unification of Cambodia under the Communist Party of Kampuchea.

The Ung family lived a comfortable upper-middle-class existence right up until the Khmer Rouge defeated the Khmer Republic of Lon Nol; and everything changed terribly when the rebels marched into the city of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Trump Accept Responsibility When This Shitshow Implodes?

April 16, 2017

WILL TRUMP ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY WHEN THIS SHITSHOW IMPLODES?

Donald J. Trump has taken credit for making America’s economy great again. He’s been crowing about all the jobs being created, the soaring consumer confidence and record highs in the stock market. It’s all because the Donald has inspired Americans about our glorious future.

But, a funny thing has been happening in the real world. The economy has gone into the shitter and GDP will be lucky to reach 1% in the first quarter of his presidency. The bullshit consumer confidence surveys mean absolutely nothing. Feelings don’t mean shit. What consumers do is what matters.

67% of the US economy is dependent upon Americans spending money they don’t have on shit they don’t need. And they’ve dramatically reduced that spending. If consumers are so confident, why are a record number of major retailers going bankrupt and closing 3,500 stores in 2017? Mom and pop retailers have been shuttering for years.

If the narrative about a dramatically improving housing market was true, why would furniture store sales and building material store sales be falling? They wouldn’t. It seems even the spendthrift millennials have run out of dough, as restaurant sales are in free fall. Restaurant chains have begun closing units now. It has only just begun.

The auto industry ponzi scheme has come to an end, as billions in subprime loans to deadbeats is finally coming home to roost. If you lend money to idiots with no means to repay you, the loans will go bad. Auto sales have begun to fall and will continue to fall for the next couple years, as this house of cards built on the Fed’s easy money collapses.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

February 22, 2017

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” –Alice in Wonderland

We live in an age when the level of deceit and propaganda is at an all-time high. Joseph Goebbels, Vladimir Lenin, and others did their best to force-feed propaganda to the masses, but they were rank amateurs compared to the spin doctors employed by the political leaders of today. They’re masters at convincing people of impossible things.

Whenever I listen to Americans discuss their country, I find people that are eager for more news and information, yet most, without even knowing it, accept much of the dogma they’ve been fed on a daily basis by their government and the media, even if, to outsiders, the assumptions are preposterous. Only those who make a concerted, ongoing effort to see through the smokescreen seem to keep clear.

Here are six impossible things that many seem to have little trouble accepting as reality.

Yes, the country’s in a mess, but that’s because of opposition-party meddling. If the party I favour could get a majority, they’d sort things out.

This seems to have been a popular belief for decades. It’s believed by Democrats and Republicans alike. But, in 2001, the Republicans held both houses of Congress, plus the presidency, yet even then they failed to deliver on what they claimed were their party’s fundamental goals. Between 2009 and 2011, the Democrats controlled all three, yet they, too, failed to deliver.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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