This co-existed with the blue jeans fads of the late 1970s, where everyone wore “elephant bell-bottoms”…
I myself, didn’t get a pair until the late 1980’s. Though my sisters were trend-setters wearing their in the middle 1970s.
I was fashionable with my earth shoes…
And I even had a pair of 1960’s-appropiate moccasins…
They looked like they would melt into the floor being the same color as the linoleum floor tiles that all households used…
t’s a thing that disappeared over the years and has been forgotten. But it is part of my life; a trivial moment, perhaps. But significant in it’s own right.
Here’s some images of today’s trip down memory lane. Perhaps one or two of you will remember some of these…
Today, I want to revisit this moment in time. One that I am sure you all have forgotten…
Today…
New Study Illustrates Coffee’s Unique Influence On Your Gut
Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Coffee drinkers consistently harbor up to eight times more of a specific gut bacterium than nondrinkers, according to recent research.
The international study, which tracked the drinking habits of nearly 77,200 people across 25 countries, found that coffee consumption leaves a distinct microbial signature. Researchers can identify coffee drinkers with 95 percent accuracy by examining their gut bacteria alone.
How Your Brew Affects Gut Microbiome
A 2021 study established that coffee had the strongest correlation with microbiome composition among over 150 studied foods, notably affecting levels of Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus in approximately 1,000 people.
The latest study by researchers from the CIBIO Department at the University of Trento in Italy and Harvard University, published in Nature Microbiology in November, aimed to deepen understanding of how coffee affects gut health.
To achieve this, researchers analyzed diet and medical data from nearly 23,000 people in the United States and UK, along with publicly available data from almost 54,200 people worldwide. They compared stool samples from coffee drinkers and nondrinkers to identify differences in their gut bacteria composition.
The study found a strong association between coffee consumption and the levels of L. asaccharolyticus, with coffee drinkers exhibiting about five to eight times higher levels of this bacterium than nondrinkers.
This trend was globally consistent, revealing that in coffee-consuming regions such as Luxembourg, Denmark, and Sweden, L. asaccharolyticus is prevalent. Contrastingly, it is nearly absent in countries like China, Argentina, and India.
The findings offer insights into how individual foods interact with our microbiomes and their potential effects on health.
The research team demonstrated that individual microbiome profiles could predict coffee consumption with 95 percent accuracy. A lab experiment confirmed that its growth rate increases when L. asaccharolyticus is grown in an in vitro environment with coffee. Further observations indicated that people who drank a lot of coffee exhibited a greater abundance of this bacterium.
Despite these findings, the role of L. asaccharolyticus in human health remains uncertain. Its presence in the gut microbiome correlates with increased levels of hippurate, a marker of metabolic and gut health produced by gut microbes that metabolize plant compounds called polyphenols found in coffee.
“We do not have conclusive evidence regarding Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus as a beneficial or detrimental bacterium,” Nicola Segata, professor of genetics and head of the Computational Metagenomics Laboratory at CIBIO, told The Epoch Times. He noted that the research team is conducting specific additional experiments to better address this question.
Future of Microbiome Testing
The research team aims to expand their inquiry into the effects of other foods on gut microbiota, although they recognize the challenges of accurately quantifying food intake.
These findings suggest a potential for using individual foods to increase the abundance or prevalence of specific gut microbes that are supposed to have beneficial effects, according to Segata. “To achieve this, we need to expand this work to many other foods and other microbes, and this is exactly what we are also working on right now,” he said.
The researchers envision a future where microbiome testing can enable personalized dietary recommendations tailored to the presence of specific bacteria associated with certain foods. This approach has the potential to help people optimize their diets for better health by considering the intricate relationships between our food intake and microbiome composition.
“When looking at a food like coffee that is easy to collect information for, and that it is consumed either very frequently or never, then these links are popping out as very strong and very clear,” Segata said.
on a neighborhood party, i suggested opening our relationship and involving them. Then this happened
This chick is a mess. Is this the way modern women are? Gosh!
This is a karmatic lesson for certain.
https://youtu.be/iTa3QmytCos
What really happens when a car salesman takes your offer to his manager to get the deal approved? Does the salesman actually go to bat for you or do they scheme on how to come back to you with a better deal for the car dealership?
The answer is based on my 10 years of experience working in various dealerships.
It depends. In the vast majority of dealerships, the salesperson has no power over the price of the car or trade-in. They do have to go to a manager for an approval of anything.
In many cases (me the manager) would just look at the offer and write up a counteroffer. Then we would sit around for a few minutes talking about anything but the car deal (remember, we do this all day long). Then after enough time has passed (to create anticipation for the client) we send the saleperson back in with the counter offer – repeat two or three times. IF the deal does not close after this, then we go in ourselves and try to get the deal closed or we send in a better salesperon.
As I have worked in the business for 10 years, I have a simple, effective approach to buying cars, with rules.
- Never fall in love with a car- there are thousands of others that will suffice
- Never show emotion to the sales staff about wanting the car
- Keep negotiation short and simple
- Key item, don’t be afraid to stand up, say goodbye and head for the door. You will find out very quickly what the lowest price is.
So – to sum this up, when negotiating, on the second offer I make, I tell the salesperson this is the last offer I will make. If he comes back with anything other than a deal, I politely thank him/her and start walking for the door. At this point things get interesting. Usually, the manager comes out and presents the best price you are going to get. You then decide what you going to do.
Always be willing to just walk away…
Why are so many countries afraid of China’s rise?
We are at the end of 2024. At this moment, the majority of the world (more than 85%) is solidly behind China.
The only countries that fear China are the USA and its allies, which represent less than 15% of the world. They fear China because China’s rise threatens their global dominance.
while partying, i left for an hour with a friend of mine but he got suspicious and tracked me down..
The United States is failing on EVERY LEVEL.
https://youtu.be/WuVUuVpwgwg
Is it possible for younger people to have more knowledge or understanding than older individuals?
I have a project that is being run by a 25–30 something project manager. I am 61, and have been in my field for over 30 years.
I have not met this PM in person, but I have been told that this PM graduated from an Ivy League university, so she must be somewhat bright.
But she has zero knowledge or common sense. She has no experience doing the work this project requires, and possesses no understanding of the project and the tasks needed to complete the project successfully. I’ve been on this project for two years now and meet with her and her team multiple times a week so I’ve had an opportunity to gauge her abilities. She might be bright, but she has no business on THIS project. There are older folks on this project as well who don’t belong on this project either.
Young people who complain about older people not knowing everything fail to realize that spending time learning something and doing it over time (commonly known as experience) is a HUGE part of being successful. School does not teach you everything, no matter how bright you are. Some things can only be learned by doing them, often for years. As I close out my career, I look back on what I was able to do when I first started compared to my abilities now, and there is no comparison.
And the same is true in life. The more life experiences you have, the more knowledge of how the world actually works you have. Young people excuse bad behavior from others. Older people know through life experience that putting up with that will cause problems. Young people engage in risky behaviors or harmful stuff like recreational drug use, eating badly, and their limited experience tells them they will be okat]y doing what they are doing. Older people know that will catch up with you, because some of them did that stuff and they are paying for it, or they know someone who did that stuff.
Yes, just living will teach you a lot.
Sex Before Marriage Was The Worst Thing I Did To My Mental Health
How does the United States handle importing goods despite being a major industrial power? Is exporting not a viable option for them?
Never mind exporting, US cannot make say 90% of the stuffs that they need everyday! Stop being blind i live in South East Asia! I hardly see anything that is made in the USA in our market!
Industrial power sounds nice but US don’t want to dirty their hands to build the nuts and bolts needed. They thought that the world will continue to pour money into the US being a superiority complex nation. Everything they need it will cost them 3–5 times more than they can import from China!
The most important question is why? The US CEO insist on earning billions! The US workers wanted 5 times of Chinese wages but willing to do half as much and 10 times more benefits! Can’t you still sell at the same Chinese prices just based on these alone but there are more.
Your nation graduate bull shit artiste. Not STEM engineers! Your politicians work against your industry and allow your infrastructure to be dilapidated! That is why you cannot make your own underwear!
VDH: Are The Years Of Madness Ending?
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
Never in U.S. history has a president-elect been welcomed as the real president before his January 20 inauguration.
And never has the incumbent president so willingly surrendered his last two months in office and all but abdicated—to the relief of his nation and the rest of the world.
One reason so many are welcoming Trump’s return is the universally desperate hope that his election spelled an end to a collective madness at home and its ripples abroad during the last four years. And why not?
Nations overseas had never quite witnessed anything like the lethal August 2021 American flight from Afghanistan.
That utter humiliation and impotence of the U.S. military likely signaled to Russia there would be no consequences if it invaded Ukraine—and it did; to Iran that it could now unleash Hamas and Hezbollah on Israel—and it did; and to China that it could daily threaten Taiwan and send a spy balloon across the United States with impunity—and it did.
The result was the current global chaos perhaps not seen since the late 1930s when a confused United States was similarly a bystander to the rise of bellicose regimes and wars. The Biden administration shrugged that the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the South China Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea all became dangerous to the U.S. Navy and unsafe to world shipping.
A disparate group of nuclear and near-nuclear powers—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—are either at war with Western allies or threatening war with them. Their confidence was predicated on the assumption that the U.S. after 2020 was engaged in a Maoist-like cultural revolution that warred on its own security, energy, military, universities, and social unity—and would continue with a second Biden term.
The Biden-era cultural revolution has done great damage to the United States. The U.S. border was systematically and deliberately destroyed to allow some 10-12 million illegal entrants to pour into the U.S. without legality or background checks. Never has an outgoing administration spitefully sold taxpayer-purchased border wall material for pennies on the dollar—rather than see it used for the purposes for which it was purchased.
Never had the U.S. experienced such an immigrant surge. And never had more than 50 million, and over 15 percent of the resident American population been foreign-born.
Why did Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas erase the border? What madness and hate drove them to dismantle federal immigration law? Was it sheer nihilism? Or a desperate but calculated effort to alter American demography for political purposes?
For four years, the public, elected officials, and pundits have all warned that Joe Biden was dangerously cognitively challenged and indeed completely unfit to fulfill the duties of the presidency.
A long-suffering nation winced as Biden slurred his words, spoke in unintelligible sound bites, stood frozen and mute, screamed at and libeled half the country, tripped, fell, wandered aimlessly, became bewildered, and more or less proved a global embarrassment. All knew Biden was not able to run the country; yet none knew exactly who was actually in charge of America in his stead. The Obamas? Leftists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, the Squad, Jill Biden, and the Biden staff?
Our allies worried that the usually resilient American president was now all but demented. Our enemies enjoyed these leaderless years of opportunity. And the left serially misled the public that the decrepit Biden, whom they feared in private was senile, was “dynamic,” “energic,” and “fit as a fiddle.”
Never has a president so deserved to be removed by the 25th Amendment or through impeachment and conviction. And never has even his inner circle finally but silently agreed as they left office, the very enablers who had done their political best to mask his dementia for four long years.
Never has the justice system, from local to state to national jurisdictions, so systematically and coordinately, sought to bankrupt, render inert, and jail an ex-president and current presidential candidate.
Rarely have the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, the Department of Justice, and the Pentagon become weaponized and so flagrantly and with impunity broken the law, abandoned their mission statements, and served political agendas rather than the American people. Not since the J. Edgar Hoover era has the FBI hierarchy serially lied under oath, stonewalled Congress, forged a court affidavit, or partnered with the media to suppress the news. Has the FBI ever raided an ex-president’s home, spied on parents at school board meetings, monitored Catholics, or tried to terrify and harass pro-life activists?
Never has a presidential family so brazenly profited by selling its influence to foreign interests. Never has it used the powers of the FBI and DOJ to cover up its crimes and to ensure the family filial bagman would be for years exempted by the DOJ and later pardoned by the president himself, the father of the family miscreant and privy to the family syndicate’s illegal activities.
Seldom has a president and his administration sought to fuel a veritable cultural revolution to change the fabric of the nation by institutionalizing a third, transexual gender, violating civil rights law, and systematically admitting, hiring, and promoting Americans on the basis of their race and gender.
Never since the Civil War era had local and state insurrectionist governments established 600 nullification zones, in which they vowed to break federal law and consider it null and void within their jurisdictions. Never have rioters looted, burned, killed, assaulted, and occupied large swaths of cities for over 120 days, and largely with impunity.
Never had the U.S. Treasury borrowed so much money so quickly and owed $37 in national debt—and been so intent on borrowing continuously nearly $2 trillion a year in annual deficits.
Never has a political party sought to systematically violate long-standing traditions, customs, and often the law itself to destroy a political opponent: hiring a foreign national to spread smears among the media and bureaucracies, impeaching a president twice, trying an ex-president in the Senate, seeking to remove a presidential candidate from 16 state ballots, using five different judicial jurisdictions to try an ex-president, and serially so defaming a candidate and ex-president as a dictator, fascist, and Nazi to create a climate that encouraged two near-miss assassination attempts on him.
In sum, for the last four years, the world has watched aghast as the United States lost its collective mind and became a radical Jacobin revolutionary society.
So why is there not a sense of almost ecstatic relief, not just among conservatives but even among Democrats, that the years of darkness and madness are ending?
The global public believes that the United States will again become lawful, have a secure border, return as a beacon of free-market economics, protect its allies, deter its enemies, win over its neutrals, return to the rule of law, restore the professionalism and prestige of its government agencies, check predatory nations abroad with a new deterrent military, and prepare to lead the world in energy production, exploration of space, and scientific and technology development.
Summed up, the welcomed counterrevolution is one of restoration—to dream again that nothing is impossible, and the dreary age of stasis, envy, cynicism, and nihilism is ending, replaced again by a world without limits. No one knows quite what is ahead, but all know that it is at least better already than the current nightmare.
What scandals should NOT have been forgotten?
In 1988, Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart admitted to cheating on his wife with a prostitute. He tearfully broke down on Television and claimed he had sinned because he visited a sex worker.
That should have been game over for his “ministry”. He asked people to donate money to him for the work he did “for the Lord” and he preached about morality and the evils of things like rock and roll. And then he used some of the money people gave him to pay a prostitute.
So that should have been the end of him as a televangelist and he should never been able to beg for money on TV again with any kind of credibility.
But three years later he was still running a ministry and still getting people to donate money.
In 1991 he was caught with another prostitute, this time in his car. Rather than tearfully breaking down he said, and I quote, “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business.”
And he just kept going. He keeps preaching about morality and people keep giving money to him.
Seriously people. If a guy gets caught cheating on his wife with prostitutes twice in three years, he’s not someone worth listening to on issues of personal morality and you should not be giving him any money.
Cornish Pasties
Originally from Wales, Scotland and England, these pasties were popular with the miners in the copper mining regions of Arizona.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup lard
- 1/3 cup water (approximately)
- 4 medium potatoes, pared
- 2 medium onions, sliced
- 1 pound beef round (no fat or gristle)
- Butter, salt and pepper
Instructions
- Make pastry from flour, salt, lard and cold water, being careful not to make it too moist. It should hold together well enough to leave the sides of the bowl as mixed. Divide into four sections. Roll each out as for pie, keeping as round as possible.
- Place on one-half a circle a layer of thinly-sliced potatoes and onions.
- Cover with beef, cut into medium pieces.
- Top with butter, salt and pepper to taste.
- If desired, sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley.
- Fold unfilled half of crust over filling and seal by pinching with fingers or pressing tines of fork to make a half-moon.
- Cut a small hole in the center of each.
- Bake for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.
Cheating Wife Came Home SMILING After 1-Night Stand, INSTANTLY REGRETTED IT!
3 Dead, 7 Injured After Teenage Female Opens Fire At Wisconsin School
Update 2 (7:00pm ET): The deceased girl shooter’s manifesto has reportedly leak, and according to Slatzism, here is an excerpt:
* * *
Update (4:20pm ET): The Abundant Life Christian School shooter in Madison, WI was a teenage female, CNN reports, adding that at this time, at least three people are dead including a teacher, a teenage student, and the female suspect shooter.
* * *
At least two people have been killed and seven others were injured at a shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday morning, local police and ABC News said. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said the suspected juvenile shooter was also found dead.
“This remains an active and ongoing investigation. More information will be released as it is available. We currently need people to avoid the area,” Madison police said.
Officers responded to a call about an active shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School at 10:57 a.m. local time, Barnes said.
“Our officers were responding to a call of an active shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School here in Madison,” Barnes said at a news conference. “When officers arrived, they found multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds.”
Abundant Life is a K through 12th-grade school with about 400 students.
Barnes added in the news conference that he won’t provide any details on the victims, including their names or if they are staff or students, until their next of kin are notified.
“We are praying for the kids, educators, and entire Abundant Life school community as we await more information and are grateful for the first responders who are working quickly to respond,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement on social media.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote on social media: “My sincere condolences and prayers for all the victims of the tragedy at Abundant Life Christian School. I will continue to closely monitor the situation.”
And Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) also said, “I have been briefed on the active shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison and my heart goes out to all those impacted. My office is in touch with local and state officials, and I stand ready to assist law enforcement and anyone affected.”
Men want PEACE W0men want revenge & to punish. Men walk away for self preservation!
One of many battles going on in the West today. But you know, it will all settle down.
Eventually.
Coconut Octopus
Submitted into Contest #207 in response to: A journalist has been granted permission to visit the premises of a lab carrying out top-secret work. They could never have anticipated what they’d find…… view prompt
Khadija S. Mohammad
The girl smiled. “Popular misconception. Logically, the plural is octopodes. Although publicly it’s still octopuses.” He rubbed the back of his head. Try to unearth the biggest scientific secret of the century, and all you end up with is a headache and a lesson in octopus plurals.
“Come with me, our secret is in here.” She was laughing at him?
He followed her through a wide door and into a glaring white chamber. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light he noticed boxes of blue and other bright colours dotting the room. Octopus tanks.
The girl strode towards the farthest wall, avoiding the tanks and other obstacles with ease. Thomas was not so lucky; His natural clumsiness asserted itself, and by the time he stood next to her, three items were displaced, and one was broken. He was vaguely aware of a white figure glaring at his back as it cleaned up the mess.
In front of them, a blank wall. The girl leaned into the wall and placed her eye in front of a hidden sensor. Slowly, the protective covering went up and what faced them was another octopus tank. “This is Hàixiū,” she said, putting her hand against the glass. Thomas spotted a small jellyfish-like shape in one corner. He pointed at it.
“Yes, that’s her. Hàixiū is Chinese for ‘shy’.”
A small squeak came from the corner of the room. Thomas turned and saw a silver-rimmed octopus tank with a young man standing in front of it, looking like something from a black-and-white movie. His skin was pale, almost white, and his clothes were black and grey. He squeaked at the octopus in front of him, and leant close to the tank, whispering like the breeze on a cold day. Thomas pointed at him and looked inquisitively at the girl.
“Hàorán. He’s a little mad,” she explained, lowering her voice. “Ever since he came here he’s been whispering to Kuàisù, his octopus. He seems to think that Kuàisù can learn to talk.” Thomas glanced back at Hàorán and wondered…
A man of about twenty walked in. “There you are Mimi. It’s time for Hàixiū’s injection.”
“Just a moment, Hui. Our journalist needs something to write about. Is it okay if he stays?” Hui nodded.
They put on gloves and found equipment while Thomas watched, occasionally glancing back at the tank. Hàixiū didn’t move.
“Turn on the Mush,” said Mimi. Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Just watch, it will explain itself.” Hui pressed a button on another wall and Thomas waited for something to happen.
Mimi pulled her gloves above her elbows and stretched her arms towards the tank. Thomas stared. Mush. Her hands just sank through it, the glass melting and moulding around them. The octopus flew – right to the other end of the tank.
“Come back here, you little monster,” Mimi said playfully. Hàixiū refused to come nearer, waiting until Mimi was just close enough to touch an arm with her fingertips before jetting away, pointing her suckers at them. And that’s what you are, she seemed to say. Not so much shy as cheeky, Thomas thought.
Hui talked while Mimi chased the elusive Hàixiū around the tank. “We take them out every day and inject them with Systimosin. It’s a kind of stimulant.”
“Got you!” said Mimi, grabbing hold of an arm and struggling to hold her still. “Hurry up Hui, she’s really strong.”
“Coming, coming.” He passed her a syringe filled with a thick, colourless liquid. “It was developed for the first time in this lab a few weeks ago. It supplies new connections in the octopodes’ brain, making it smarter. We’re also expecting it to give them a longer life span.”
Mimi injected the liquid into Hàixiū’s arm, then let go of her. “She’s developing faster than the others. They’re all developing faster than I expected.” Hui laughed.
“If you have any questions, ask Mimi. She’s the biggest octopus expert around here. I’m just the assistant.” Something is his voice – in the words he spoke? The way he spoke? – hit Thomas like a wave. He’d always been sensitive to emotions. If you don’t talk, you get to listen longer. And words aren’t the only thing you can listen to.
He put up a hand, a Wait, please sign; He wanted to write. He hoped his face would say what his hands couldn’t. He’d never been the best at polite talk. Or impolite talk.
Somehow they understood. Hui left. Mimi waited, then began walking him round a tour again, stopping at each new tank to add a special comment about the octopus inside.
“Each octopus is different,” she explained, “They each have their own personalities. This is Yonggan,” as they neared another tank where an octopus was attached to the glass. “We joke that he’s Hàixiū’s soulmate, the two are exact opposites. Yonggan is very playful; He loves new people. We expected him to develop the fastest, but Nature never makes things easy.” Thomas nodded and bent over his notebook as they walked on. “They’re each named after their most prominent traits, it makes them easier to place and helps when we forget which name is attached to which octopus.” He nodded again.
They walked on, carefully avoiding Hàorán’s corner, where he continued whispering to Kuàisù, ignoring them completely, or just not seeing them.
“Remember, this is top-secret work. No leaks,” Mimi said. Thomas rolled his eyes. I’m a journalist. Whatever I see, the public sees. Suddenly he bent over his notebook, writing something and ripping it out to show her.
“What if one of the scientists leak?” She read. “That’s simple; They wouldn’t. I would trust any one of my crew with my life. We all trust each other.” Thomas wasn’t satisfied, but he kept quiet as they moved to the next tank.
“And this is Xiaochou, the clown. You wouldn’t think that he was nocturnal, would you?” Xiaochou was currently doing octopus backflips, front flips, and side flips.
“We always use Amphioctopus marginatus, the Coconut or Veined octopus, for our experiments. We tried using other types, but Systimosin doesn’t create intelligence, it just increases what’s already there, so they either showed no signs of developing or died when we tried increasing the dose.”
Thomas was confused. Surely she was fond of the creatures after working with them for weeks, but he couldn’t detect any emotions from her when she talked of their deaths.
“The government decided that it was too damaging to risk too many tests, so they only granted permission for 10 octopodes, 5 tests each. It’s at the edge of our limit; If an octopus died now…” She shivered. “Well, hopefully all goes to – ”
“Hàixiū is out!” The steady thud of feet on the spotless white floor, squeaks, squeals and more shouting. Only Hàorán stayed where he was, a surprised but smug grin on his face. Why, Thomas wondered. Somehow, the alleged madman fascinated him.
He followed Mimi back to Hàixiū’s tank, notebook forgotten, where a group of teuthologists stood in a loose circle, talking. He caught a few words. “- before we expected.”
“She’s certainly developing fast,” Mimi commented, “She wasn’t scheduled to escape for a few weeks.” Nobody seemed panicked. In fact, nobody was even looking for Hàixiū. It was as if they all knew that she would be back soon, like she was a colleague who had just gone out for a coffee and would return in a few minutes. Thomas stood awkwardly behind the group, staring absent-mindedly into Hàixiū’s empty tank.
“Hui?” Mimi called. Hui walked in and looked at her expectantly. “She should be near the vent in the test room, could you bring her in please?” Hui nodded and left.
He returned a minute later with a frozen look of panic on his face. “She’s not there.”
No one knew what to do. The chances of her not doing what they expected were a thousand to one. They froze.
Suddenly everyone was moving, and Thomas watched with an amused smile. This is what happens when you become too logical, he thought. Resuming his watch on the tank, he let his mind roam, headlines and front-page news drifting in and out of his consciousness.
“Where could she be?” “What’s happened to her?” “What if she’s got out?” “Why didn’t we calculate correctly?” People zipping back and forth, searching the rooms, searching the vents, making more calculations and searching again.
Half an hour later, the panic was broken, the problem still unsolved. In place of blind frenzy came desperation for some, depression for others. Some were sitting cross-legged on the floor, crying, knowing that Hàixiū was already dead, some continued stubbornly searching. Thomas was still glued to the glass, trying to appear oblivious to his surroundings, overwhelmed with the emotions that flooded the lab. A single octopus meant so much to them. In the passageway, a man was on his knees, praying.
As Thomas stared through the tank, something caught his eye. “Mimi,” he shouted, realising he didn’t know her last name. His voice was scratchy and thick with disuse. She lifted her head from her hands and looked around, unsure of who was calling her. “She’s here.”
Everyone crowded around him, following his finger to the small jellyfish-like shape in the corner. Mimi squealed with relief. Hui and another man slapped each other on the back. Tears were forgotten, driven away by almost hysterical laughter.
Thomas was confused, alone in his thoughts. Hàixiū had always been there; She hadn’t moved from when he first entered the room. And throughout the commotion that had followed her ‘disappearance’, no one had admitted coming near the tank. ‘Hàixiū is out’…
Safe in his corner, Hàorán laughed. Kuàisù had proved his worth.
Shorpy
World’s Smallest Violin Plays As “Depressed” Biden Bureaucrats Can’t Find New Jobs
Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
This is a corker.
Politico is reporting that Biden Administration bureaucrats are depressed because they can’t find new jobs, and members of Biden’s “national security team” are “frantically” scrambling to find new careers before Trump dismantles the deep state.
“Our side is just battling depression while we update our resumes,” one White House official stated, while another staffer declared that “Everyone is willing to take a demotion because there aren’t enough jobs.”
Boo hoo. Cry harder.
While the higher ups are all abandoning ship for Defence contractors, think tanks and consulting firms, the lower level dogsbody bureaucrats are whinging that they face taking “unglamorous jobs” with pay cuts.
“There’s a lot of good career people here who went through the first Trump administration and are saying, ‘Can I really go through that again?’” said one Biden appointee at the State Department.
Oh my God, the hardship of having someone you don’t agree with running things.
“It’s going to be very saturated and crowded and so beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” said another Biden State Department appointee, adding “The crazy thing is none of these jobs we’re desperate to get are particularly glamorous, unless you want to go lobby for some autocratic foreign governments.”
The world’s tiniest violin is playing for them.
Politico notes that “Wherever they land, a wave of Democratic national security and foreign policy staffers will continue the tradition of patiently treading water for four years until, just maybe, a Democrat can win the presidency again in 2028.”
Yeah. Maybe learn to tread water a lot longer.
Or perhaps learn to code.
Welcome to the real world, losers.
Get to the back of the line.
Trump is going to provide a lot of opportunities for you.
Maybe just don’t mention your last job on your resumé.
* * *
Nothing Like These Hidden Temples Exists Outside of the Films of Indiana Jones
By MessyNessy
November 14, 2024
damanhur
“Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside”, threatened Italy’s state prosecutor when police had failed to locate a rumoured network of mysterious chambers buried 30 metres in the foothills of the Alps. They had been dug by hand in complete secrecy in the 1970s under the direction of Oberto Airaudi, a philospher and artist who claimed to have had visions of ancient temples at age 10 from a previous life. The Temples of Humankind, a massive five-level complex of murals, mosaics, labyrinths and hidden doors is still only considered to be only 10% complete. When authorities finally discovered it in 1992, the architectural inspector for the Italian Heritage Ministry, said: “Nothing like this exists outside of the films of Indiana Jones.”
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Excavation began in 1978 by just fifteen followers of the Federation of Damanhur, a peaceful, spiritual commune founded as a social experiment a few years earlier, 30 miles north of the city of Turin.
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“The first pick struck the rock on a warm August night. It was a Saturday evening in 1978. Oberto and about ten other Damanhurians sat around a fire … A large star fell across the sky… It was a positive sign; a good moment to begin to dig a tunnel into the mountain … to build a temple the likes of which had not existed for a thousand years or more … The Damanhurians worked intensely, tenaciously aroused by an enthusiasm that united all in the pleasure of group activity and the taste for secrecy. Secrecy because at this point they did not have permission to excavate.” – TheTemples.org
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Images (c) Damanhur
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Images (c) Damanhur
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More than a decade after building began, the entire community was awoken early one morning in a violent police raid. Police dogs searched houses for drugs while helicopters circled the sky above. Unable to find anything incriminating (such as an illegally-constructed underground temple), police armed with machine guns presented the resident lawyer with a magistrates warrant, stating an alleged tax evasion of 50,000,000 Lire (around $30,000). The charges were unsubstantiated but over the years the reclusive community had attracted local suspicion and negative attention from the press for its unusual practices.
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Frequently labelled as a cult by outsiders, the group admittedly has some pretty far-out practices and holds a mix of New Age and neopagan beliefs. With its own constitution and currency, Damanhur also believes they are an experiment for the future, using technology bestowed upon them by the lost city of Atlantis.
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Some of their more bizarre activities include playing music with plants to reflect their passion for nature and in the past they’ve even claimed to have unlocked the secrets to time travel, but Damanhur has always adamantly denied accusations that the community is a cult.
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A year after the first raid, police stormed the eco-society again, this time in search of the temples, armed with a map obtained from a disgruntled former member of Damanhur who had been trying to blackmail the community. But the map was outdated by more than a decade and police were unable to find any entrances. It wasn’t until authorities threatened to blow up the whole mountain that the commune finally decided to give in and show the police their secret sanctuary.
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Allegedly the policemen emerged from the tunnels an hour later, “tearful and overcome by the profound beauty of the Temples” and the prosecutor admitted to the founder Oberto Airaudi, “We must do something to save the Temples.” Even the police chief of the raid later became a great friend of the community.
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On October 9, 1992 a press conference was held in Damanhur to announce the existence of the Temples of Humankind to the world, but its troubles weren’t over yet. The magnificent refuge built inside of a mountain was dubbed an 8th wonder of the world by the press while the Catholic Church immediately urged the local authorities to have it destroyed. Construction was ordered to cease and a long publicised court battle followed, but it only helped Damanhurians gain international support for the underground marvel they had created.
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Eventually, the Italian government gave the community retroactive permission for their excavation and construction. The Temples are now open to the public and visitors are of course free to come and go, which would make the suggestion of cult activity more difficult to believe. The Damanhur website welcomes outside communities, saying it is open to sharing their knowledge and research and hosts thousands of visitors a year who participate in tours, seminars and courses through its own Damanhur University. This eco-society was even awarded by an agency of the United Nations as a model for a sustainable future.
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From here, it doesn’t look like we’re dealing with a bloodthirsty cult; no enslaved children for Indiana Jones to come and rescue– more like a bunch of Italian hippies who once had a really cool secret. Right?
You can take a virtual tour of The Temples of Humankind here. There’s also an old VBS documentary which takes you through the secret doors of the temple here.
Brian Proves Why These Women Are Gonna Be CAT Ladies
Do you believe China’s development represents an opportunity and not a threat for the United States and the world?
Of course it is! As long as one can see in win win and not win lose being set in the western Caucasian Anglo Saxon mindset.
To you guys China need to fail in order for US to win and vice versa. USA must killed all the Red Indians so that they get their land. You win and Red Indians lose! Or enslave Africans so that they get to toil for free to served you guys! Think about what if the 50 million Red Indians have grown to 150 million today and they helped to make America greater? That never went to their head.
So they had to destroy USSR to be the only hegemony in town! Or make Germany a dog to keep them down? And now to keep China poor thinking that will make them rich? How about China becoming 4 times as rich and buys 4 times of what you can sell? Or taking 4 times more burden shouldered by USA today? France and UK thought they could plunder the world and rob their colonies dry to build castles in France and UK, today, their wines, Brandy’s and perfumes sold the most in China not in France, UK or USA!
What if they see 4 China’s to get rich on? Or 4 China’s to profit from? But as a white Caucasian person you think you need to kill the one China to some how be richer? This view is wrong and perverse! It is archaic like your respective nations! I dare say if the US never attacked Vietnam and murder 3 million Vietnamese today their chance of being like the US and ally with them grew exponentially! And these 6–10 million more people will be your customers and friendly to America!
But some how you think killing them will make the US better and Vietnam worst? And so are the deaths of another 3 million Muslims in the Middle East. If that don’t happened you you have a stronger moral leadership!
What impresses you the most about smart city technologies in China, such as cashless payments or AI-powered services?
What if you lose your phone?
Or your phone gets switched off?
No problems
You can use your PALM scan to make payments, withdraw money, transfer money and go by the local metro Or virtually anything else
So what if you are inebriated and someone scans your palm
You can secure against this by adding a security feature where the machine first needs the first digit and last four digits of your phone number and then approves your payment
You see these Taxis?
You need to just place your palm and the ride starts
It’s a Robo Taxi with no driver
You want to go to Hospital?
Just scan your palm or show your face and your entire insurance history comes up
So in an emergency no need of a phone or wallet
Your face is enough, Your palm is enough
I know what you’re thinking.
Submitted into Contest #207 in response to: A journalist has been granted permission to visit the premises of a lab carrying out top-secret work. They could never have anticipated what they’d find…… view prompt
“George, while you were in the bathroom, we received a call from the university for you.”
“I hope that they don’t want to take my degree away after having a second look at the papers I wrote way back when.”
“Very funny George. This is serious. Apparently there is a group of scientists at the university who have made what they called a great discovery. So far no outsiders know about this discovery, and they want you to interview them and observe the effectiveness of what they have invented.”
“Wow. Well I did take a first year foundational course in science when I was there, and I got a good mark, the highest mark that year for me.”
“No George, they were apparently quite impressed with the article you wrote about the strengths and weaknesses of electric cars and self-propelling lawnmowers.”
“When do they want me?”
“As soon as you can get there. They are quite eager to let the world know what they have discovered.”
George grabbed his camera and his recording device, and sprinted out of the office, into his car, and sped down to the university. Although it had been years since he was last on the campus, he found his way to the science building easily enough.
He was greeted on the main floor by a university security officer, and told to take the elevator to the top floor. George was surprised by what he saw when he arrived at his destination and the elevator door opened. There were two police officers standing there, one of whom asked him whether his name was George Stanley, and did he have ID on him to prove that he was who he said he was. He replied in the positive, took out his wallet and showed the officer his driver’s license. He was then escorted by the two officers into the room that apparently housed the experiment. Everyone in the room except for the officers, and, of course, himself, wore long white lab coats.
The one who seemed to be the leader approached him and said, “Before we explain what it is that we have discovered, we are going to demonstrate it to you, with you as the research subject.”
George began to feel a little nervous at this point. The leader then reassured him that this experiment would be painless. “I am just going to expose you to some electro-magnetic waves, that will pair up with the waves created by your brain. What we are going to show you is our lie detector. I am pretty sure that you are about to tell me that such a device has already been developed, but it really has not. What was previously invented is what we call a psychophysiological detector of deceptions, and it is not infallible. It is more an intimidator that it is a detector – no intimidation, no detection.
For our invention to work we have to influence a person’s brainwaves with the waves from our machine. Now stand still. What I want you to do after I send the waves your way is to have you say what colour comes into your mind. If it is the same one that we have programmed our wave machine to send your way, then the two of you are connected. And we will be able to catch you in a lie.
George was usually a big talker, with a sarcastic comment for every occasion. In this case he was more than a little stunned by the experience, and said nothing. When the device was turned on, he heard a kind of buzzing in his brain, that had lasted a few seconds, later to fade away. Then the scientist pointed the device at him again, and there was a different tone of buzzing, followed by the word ‘brown’ resounding in his head several times.
“Okay, George, what was the colour?”
After a few seconds, in which George seriously contemplated giving a wrong answer, he said “brown.”
“Right! Now George, we are going to ask you a question, to which you can lie or tell the truth. We will tell you which one it is. George, are you married?”
George said that he was, and the lead scientist correctly replied with “That’s a lie”. George just nodded his head in response.
“We are now going to explain to you how it works. Let us know if you don’t understand. It is highly technical of course.”
George then asked a question, “Are you not going to de-program me first?”
The reply hit him like a hammer blow.
“Oh, we cannot do that. We tried, but could not find a way to do that, so we ended that part of the research. We feel that it would be relatively harmless to keep people programmed, as we will have absolute control of the devices. There will be no misuse.”
George recorded the explanations of different aspects of the technology, so his complete attention was on what he was learning. He had the distinct impression that when he did not quite get what they were saying, they would repeat what they had said slowly and with more explanation.
When he was about to leave, the lead scientist asks him a peculiar question. “When are you going to be writing this piece?” He replied by telling the man that he always wrote his articles as soon as he arrived at work at nine o’clock in the morning, as he was a ‘morning person’. He gave his standard joke about that saying, “I never wrote anything intelligent in the afternoon.”
After he had left and was driving back to the newspaper office, he wondered that the repetition of the explanations that he didn’t quite follow was the product of their ‘reading his mind’. He wondered how far he would have to go to be beyond their range. Or would there be no ‘beyond the range’. He knew from his regular reading of scientific journals that electro-magnetic waves were used to travel far into space. Travelling on earth should not then pose a significant challenge to their use.
When he got back to the newspaper office, he went straight away to talk to the editor to explain the problem he would have with writing an unbiased article on the research. The editor, whom George respected for his intelligence, particularly as it was demonstrated in his ability to write meaningful articles, presented him with a strategy that could resolve his problem.
He followed it to the letter. The next morning, at precisely nine o’clock, he first wrote an article that was solidly supportive of the research, and the researchers. Minutes after he was finished the draft copy of this piece, he received a phone call from the lead researcher, who stated that he was sure that whatever he wrote would be fine with them. He should not worry about “getting it right”.
Then, as the editor had suggested, he wrote what he truly felt, giving the article the title “Do you want to be programmed?” It had a powerful impact on the readers. The research ethics committee of the university soon declared that they would cut the funding of the project until such time as they found a way to deprogram those who were subjected to the waves. The committee asked George whether he wanted to be a research subject, as he was one of the very few who had been programmed, the others being university students who had badly needed the money. While he was apprehensive of the scientists ‘messing with my mind’, particularly after the critical article that he wrote, he agreed to participate as he wanted his brain purged of the effect of the waves. When he made his return to their research room, his first words were “I know what you’re thinking.” There was an initial silence. Then they laughed.
Inside A Collapse: The Most Abandoned American Cities Ever Filmed
This is what “flyover America” looks like. Nick Johnson has toured the United States, and has filmed what “middle Class” America looks like today. The sight is horrible. It is a car crash; a train wreck. It is a scene of near complete destruction and desolation. This video is both mesmerizing and disgusting. You just cannot pull your eyes off of the “exceptional United States”.
I wish that I could show some hope, but it’s gone. Long gone. There just ain’t anything left.
The good news is that a civilization, a person, a relationship MUST be completely destroyed and ground into the dust before it has any hope of growing back again.
Should Canada and Mexico sit back and let Trump impose tariffs, what would the end result be?
Say you are a Car Company
You have a $ 5 Billion Investment in Canada, you have 18,500 workers in Canada and you have invested various profits you make, back into Canada
One day someone tells you that your cars costing $ 46,200 now costs $ 53,668 due to a 25% Tariff on the import price
The Customer has to pay $ 7,468 extra to buy your car
That’s an extra $ 221.72 a month he has to pay in Car Finance installments
So would that make you wrap up your $ 5 Billion Investment, sell your investments, cut your 18,500 workers and move to the US and start all over again?
It would cost you almost $ 10 Billion
So you would rather lose sales of upto 132,000 cars a year and lose $ 206 Million in Annual Profits
Much cheaper than uprooting your entire manufacturing and incurring a $ 10 Billion bill
Especially when you know Trump 2.0 is only for Four Years
Better lose $ 824 Million in 4 years versus spend $ 10 Billion
Thats the end result
Every exporter will embrace themselves for a cut in profits for four years
However US Consumers will pay higher prices that they would be forced to pay since they still have no alternative cheaper choice within the US
Unless US can replace these imports with local, cheaper alternates
This is inevitable
Only US Consumers will be affected badly and their buying power will reduce which will cut some profits to the Exporters
Still a far more affordable option than relocating entirely to US
Corn Chip Tamale Loaf
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (16 ounce) can cream-style corn
- 4 ounces corn chips
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon Mexican oregano
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 pound ground chuck
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 1/4 cans canned tomatoes
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 24 ripe olives
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Combine corn, corn chips, salt, pepper and oregano.
- Sauté garlic and meat in oil; add chili powder and tomatoes. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Combine with first mixture. Add eggs and olives.
- Bake in a greased loaf pan for 1 hour.
What are some things about oceans that only sailors know?
The sea will kill you instantly if you do things wrong. There is no mercy at all.
Most people go around dreaming about a round-the-world sail, with your family and everyone tearing happily along. Like this:
Problem is that the oceans only behave like this part of the time. Without very much warning, things can swiftly turn into something like this:
«Ah» you say – «we’ve got weather satellites and technology and GPS and everything, can’t be that bad!»
And that might easily qualify as «famous last words»
The sea CAN be a beautiful place, but that’s only part of the picture. So many times have I been surprised by unannounced terrible weather, that I will forever flatly refuse any romantic notion of a round-the-world family cruise with anything less than a sturdy ship.
Here’s a 100m cargo ship in a perfectly normal storm. What would a 12m sailboat do in such weather?
Let’s talk about some news
Biden Lied About Everything: Philly Fed Finds All Jobs “Created” In Q2 Were Fake
Back in August, many were surprised by the accuracy of our forecast, when we predicted that in its annual revision, the Biden Bureau of Labor Statistics would revise jobs for the April 2023-March 2024 period by “up to 1 million”, something which we said would mean that all job report “beats” recorded in the past year will have been misses and the US labor market is in far worse shape than the admin would admit.
The final results, as everyone knows by now, was a shocking 818K revision lower, just as the Philadelphia Fed had predicted 6 months prior, in March, when it calculated correctly that the Biden Department of Goalseeking Propaganda had overstated payrolls by “at least 800,000.”
The answer ended up 818,000 for the 12 month period ended March 31 (or about 68,000 per month) and the implied sharp deterioration to the job market was the main scapegoat used by the Fed to launch its easing cycle with a jumbo 50bps rate cut (now that “suddenly” the economic golden age pushed by the Biden propaganda regime, and trillions in debt, had just collapsed).
We mention all of this up because on Friday, the Philly Fed served up its latest shocker: not only did the Biden admin lie again, but the collapse in the labor market that had been covered up for much of the past year and was only exposed with the annual benchmark revision, extended into the second quarter.
“Estimates by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia indicate that the employment changes from March through June 2024 were significantly different” – read lower – “in 27 states compared with preliminary state estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Current Employment Statistics (CES)”, the Philly Fed said on December 12.
“According to the early benchmark (EB) estimates conducted by the Phily Fed, employment was lower in 25 states, higher in two states, and lesser changes in the remaining 23 states and the District of Columbia.”
Translation: 23 states unchanged, 1 revised higher… and 25 lower. The breakdown is shown below.
Maybe someone can calculate what the odds of that distribution occurring naturally are, but here is our guess: virtually nil. Which is why would make such a loud stink every month after the Biden BLS revised jobs data lower month after month after month. The whole point was to make the labor market appear stronger than it was, then to gradually revised it all away. And now the Philadelphia Fed confirms – again – that we were right all along.
And so, after it first revised the 12 months ending March 31 by 818K, the downgrads extended into the second quarter of 2024, when the Philadelphia Fed early benchmark estimates showed that instead of the 1.1% gain shown initially by the BLS, payroll jobs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia were actually down 0.1%!
By state, the regional Fed bank estimates that largest revision of employment for the nine-month period ended in June will come from California, where it sees a downward revision of 172,700 jobs. Payrolls in Texas may be revised down by 112,100. An extended forecast by the BLS to the third quarter show further declines as well.
And while we don’t yet know the specifics of the revisions – those will be revealed on Feb 7, 2025 when the final numbers are published – at the national level, we do know that all the jobs reportedly “created” in the second quarter, were actually fake, there were no net jobs created at all, and in fact, the US lost jobs in Q2!
Translation: in his latest attempt to create an impression of economic growth, Biden lied about everything, again.
Source: Philly Fed
What are the signs of an active addict?
I drink alcohol every day. Not all day. From lunchtime. I have a couple then do housework or nap or write. Then wait for my partner and we eat and socialize together.
For me it is an enjoyable habit that most would frown upon. The “most” being people who smoke pot, have never worked, are obese due to unrecognized food addiction, who have their own little addictions they wouldn’t admit to. Porn. Sugar. That sort of thing.
I like Gin & Tonic. Nothing else unless out socializing and then I like bourbon. Im in bed for 9. Up at 5. I walk & run daily between 7&14k steps. My homes are clean and tidy. I cook every day delicious food. I am “retired” now at 44 because I did my 25 yrs working full time. I don’t like people enough to work for them anymore. Thanks to inheritence and a business plan for holiday rentals, and having 4 books out, I don’t have to work traditionally. But I’m not lazy or unclean or chaotic.
My partner and I have fun. Are active sexually. I’m not sick. I don’t pee the bed. I don’t fall asleep in odd places or find myself in risk situations. We go places. I’m not some isolated blubbering wreck.
I’m ambitious and will finish renovating this villa and buy 1 or 2 more. I like being busy but on my terms.
People like to judge or imagine drinkers as ugly unhealthy fat losers. That’s not drink. That’s personality.
My personality is busy, happy, outgoing, but I’m also an introvert. Booze doesn’t change me. The only time booze has been an issue is if I’m already deeply stressed and upset about something and the booze makes me impulsive. But maybe a couple times a year?
I’d act out when sober in just same way.
What does it mean if Trudeau tries to convince Trump that Canada cannot levy the tariff, because it would kill the Canadian economy?
Does a thief/robber care about the victim? Of course not. Below is my earlier post.
There are many reasons why Trump 2.0 imposes high tariff on ALL countries in the world. Below is 1 reason.
The big picture: Elon Musk said US economy is collapsing. Its debts is sky high at $36 tn as of 2024/11. With a skyrocket speed to increase debt from $10 tn in 2008, to $20 tn in 2016, to $36 tn in 2024.
USA has 2 deficits: budget deficit (ie overspending) & trade deficit due to deindustrialisation. In 2024, US budget deficit is $1.9 tn ie 125% of GDP. US trade deficit with China, alone, is US$800 billion. US has trade deficit with most countries in the world.
With $6.74 tn of bonds (ie 1/6 of total $36 tn) expiring in 2025 + $1.9 tn budget deficit in 2024, USA must borrow again & will increase US debt by $8.64 tn in 2025. Minimum.
Just paying interest on the debts already costs USA $882 billion in 2024 ie $3 bn per DAY (source: US Treasury Dept). Its debt increases by $8.7 bn per 24 hours. … indeed rocket speed. E.Musk was not joking when he said US is broke.
USA makes tons of $$$ from wars. But wars only benefit MIC & Wall Street. Not USA the country because the rich dont pay tax. Thus USA must rob others thru tariff, regardless allies or not.
Trump 1.0 ended Syrian war. Then illegally occupied Syrian oil field ie rob Syrian oil (80% production). Who pockets the Syrian oil money? US gov or MIC? USA robs Iraqi oil too after Iraqi war.
Tariff causes inflation. Without cheap goods from China & Mexico, US inflation will be sky high too.
Yet, Trump 2.0 imposes crazily high tariff on ALL countries = violently rob them to feed USA like mafia in movie. Because USA is truly broke.
Inside USA, tariff on foreign country = tax increase on Americans because foreign sellers will add (part of) the tariff to the sale price of their exported goods to USA. In Trump 1.0, 90% of tariff was added to the sale price by foreign sellers.
In both Trump 1.0 & 2.0, Trump has & will decrease tax to attract votes. How to recover the loss of revenue incurred from tax decrease? Use tariff to cause inflation so that all Americans pay a bit ie use tariff to disguise tax increase.
We must understand: 60% tariff on Chinese imports & 20% on smaller countries is crazily unreasonable. Not many firms can make 60% of profit. Not even 20% for small firms/countries. Nobody will do business with no profit. Thus, decouple & stop/reduce sale to USA is the only option.
In fact, decoupling may be the plan of Trump 2.0. Trump may want USA to start all over again by manufacturing its own products from toilet paper to Trump’s campaign cap to washer etc. Trump wants everything to be made in USA.
US wage is higher than southeast Asia. That is Made-in-USA is more expensive. Trouble is whether USA will increase the wage to catch up with the inflated consumer products. Otherwise Americans will become poorer.
Trump 1.0 failed to attract US investors back to USA. Some still stayed in China. Some moved from China to, say, Thailand to do a finish touch on the Chinese products. This disguise of made-in-Thailand products also pushes up the American consumer price.
Let us watch Trump 2.0 to roll out.
All Three Pillars Holding Up The Economy Have Cracked
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
All three pillars propping up workforce spending are cracking. Plan accordingly.
Karl Marx and Henry Ford both understood the key pillar of an industrial economy: the workforce has to earn enough to buy the output of the economy. If the workforce doesn’t earn enough to have surplus earnings to spend on the enormous output of an industrial economy, then the producers cannot sell their goods / services at a profit, except to the few at the top as luxury goods–and that’s not an industrial economy, it’s a feudal economy of very limited scope.
Marx recognized that capitalism is a self-liquidating system as capital has the power to squeeze wages even as the output of an industrial economy steadily increases due to automation, technology, etc.
Henry Ford understood that if his own workforce couldn’t afford to buy the cars rolling off the assembly line, then his ambition to sell a car to every household was an unreachable chimera. (There were other factors, of course; the work was so brutal and mind-numbing that Ford had to pay more just to keep workers from quitting.)
If we say the three pillars holding up the economy, the conventional list is: 1) consumer spending (i.e. aggregate demand); 2) productivity and 3) corporate profits. These are not actually pillars, they are outcomes of the core pillar, wage earners making enough to buy the economy’s output.
As the statistics often cited here show, the purchasing power of wages has been declining for almost 50 years, since the mid-1970s. This means the workforce’s surplus earnings have bought less and less of the economy’s output.
There are three ways to fill the widening gap that’s opened between what the workforce has to spend as surplus earnings and the vast output of the economy:
1. Government distributed money. The government distributes “free money” to the workforce via subsidies, tax cuts and credits, or direct cash disbursements.
2. Cheap abundant credit. The cost of credit is lowered to near-zero and credit is made available to virtually the entire workforce so workers can borrow money to buy goods and services they cannot afford to buy from surplus earnings. If auto loans are 1.9%, the interest is a trivial sum annually.
3. Asset bubbles. Boost the value of assets via monetary policies to generate unearned “wealth” that can be spent (by either borrowing against the newfound wealth or by selling assets). This expansion of “free money” also generates the “wealth effect,” the feel-good high of feeling richer, which increases the confidence and desire to spend more money.
There are intrinsic, unbreachable limits to each of these solutions.
1. The government either “prints” or borrows the money it distributes to the workforce. Over time, low interest rates are unsustainable, despite claims to the contrary, and the interest paid on the state’s vast borrowing consumes so much of the state’s revenues that it starts limiting how much the government can spend. Once state spending stagnates or declines, this pillar breaks and the economy crumbles into recession / depression.
In other words, depending on the government to fill the gap between wages and the economy’s output is a self-liquidating system.
2. The expansion of credit leads to defaults and bankruptcies. Relying on the ceaseless expansion of credit based on the declining purchasing power of wages is also a self-liquidating system, as the number of marginal borrowers steadily increases, as does the volume of marginal loans issued by lenders. Marginal borrowers default, triggering losses that push lenders into bankruptcy. This is a self-reinforcing cycle, as the economy rolls over into recession as credit contracts. More workers lose their jobs and default, more loans become uncollectible, and so on.
3. Asset bubbles concentrate the newfound wealth in the top 10%, exacerbating wealth-income inequality and pushing those left behind to gamble in an increasingly speculative financial sector as the only available means of getting ahead. Speculation is also a self-liquidating system as risky bets eventually go bad and the losses trigger a self-reinforcing feedback of selling assets to raise cash which then pushes valuations lower, triggering more selling, and so on.
All three of these pillars propping up the economy are self-liquidating systems, and they’re all buckling. Federal borrowing is pushing up against the limits posed by the interest payments on soaring debt. Credit costs are rising and cannot return to near-zero due to inflationary forces. All asset bubbles eventually pop, and the higher they ascend, the more devastating the collapse.
Wages’ share of the economy have been in structural decline since 1975:
Federal debt: and no, we can’t “grow our way out of debt” by inflating asset bubbles and subsidizing consumer spending with federal debt:
Total debt, public and private: the acme of a self-liquidating system:
The pillars of consumer credit and federal borrowing are reaching intrinsic breaking points, and so everything is now depending on the asset bubbles in housing and stocks to keep inflating phantom wealth at rates high enough to support more borrowing and spending.
The problem is all asset bubbles pop, despite claims that “this is a new era.” That was widely held in March 2000, too, just before the dot-com bubble burst and the Nasdaq fell 80%.
All three pillars propping up workforce spending are cracking. Plan accordingly.