QOTD: IF YOU COULD CHANGE TWO THINGS ABOUT THE WORLD, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

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Changetheworld memes. Best Collection of funny Changetheworld pictures on iFunny

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Parallel Societies: Nature’s Way of Improving The World

Guest Post by Paul Rosenberg

Human progress seems nearly always to involve parallel paths. One thing doesn’t just change into something better. Instead, a new way emerges… seemingly fragile, small and tenuous. But because it’s a better adaptation, the old way eventually vanishes as the parallel path flowers.

Consider human evolution for starters: Homo erectus branched off from homo habilis some two million years ago (as best can be ascertained scientifically). At first, Habilis was still the big dog, and Erectus the newcomer… and it took half a million years before Habilis was gone and only Erectus was left. That’s progress (albeit very slow progress) by a parallel path.

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Facing The (Horrible) Future

Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

I’d like to tell you a short story based on a movie that has had a profound impact on me.

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/climate-change-choice_0.png?itok=zU1Ao_G9

I’ll get to the story in a moment, but first, a little background on the movie…

It’s called Griefwalker (by Tim Wilson) and it focuses on the life and wisdom of Stephen Jenkinson, a theologian and philosopher who worked as an end-of-life specialist for many years.  Because we all must face death in our lives, inevitably our own someday, I highly recommend this movie and Stephen’s work to everyone.

After sitting at the death beds of a thousand individuals, Stephen has accumulated a wisdom regarding the process of dying that is perhaps unmatched in our modern times. His views and insights are extraordinarily powerful and extremely well-delivered in the movie.

Stephen is a blunt yet thoughtful man, and my own interview with him (Living with Meaning) remains one of my all-time favorites.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“In our own times we see that politicians raised under neoliberalism are unwilling and unable to effectively use real Keynesian policies: they can’t do stimulus, when they try, they give the money primarily to the rich.

They grew to power by being neoliberals; faced with new times they cannot change. In France we saw the main center-left party (really a neoliberal party) implode because it would just not change, and throughout the West center-left neoliberal parties are dying for just this reason. The world has changed, the people who run those parties cannot change…

Our societies have failed to run themselves acceptably since 2008, and the youngs have no attachment to the status quo since it never ever worked for them. Change is thus not only possible, it is now inevitable.”

Ian Welsh, When People and Societies Change

“Stocks were rallying off the jobs report. The American dream is now a nation of low paid bartenders and waitresses, living from paycheck to paycheck, and preyed upon by corporate behemoths in healthcare, housing, and finance. They are a force of nature, a sleeping giant, that awakened may be filled with a terrible resolve. And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold. But those who stand firm to the end shall be saved.”

Jesse

Why Less than 10% Make Change Happen

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

INVESTMENT GROUP

Canada is especially hard because the general population have really been indoctrinated with socialism. Your government even calls it a new “sharing economy” and overall Canadians have tolerated higher taxation than Americans without complaint. The confidence in government use to be even higher in Japan going into the 1990s.

Genius-A StudentsCritical thinking that leads a person to question his immediate surroundings takes place in less than 10% of the population. It has long been recognized that education today seems more about indoctrination. Schools do not teach people how to create mega companies. This is why the popular saying is why “A” Students work for “C” students and “B” students work for government. To be an A student you need to just memorize what the correct answer will be – not understand it. “C” students are the dreamers like Albert Einstein, whose elementary school teachers thought that he was a foolish dreamer, and one teacher had even asked him to drop out of his class. “C” students put up with the teachers but reject indoctrination retaining their own objectivity, which teachers reject.

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Sometimes the Impossible Becomes Possible

Impossible-Possible

hopeSome people can face adversity but others want to hide and pretend nothing is happening. What might seem impossible with respect to political reform to save our future, actually becomes entirely probable. What you have to grasp here is that the news may be negative. However, it is that negativity that finally lights the one remaining match to create an explosion. They say that HOPE is eternal. I tried very hard to make a difference while working from the inside on Capitol Hill, but it is true that I gave up. What I saw led me to believe I was wasting my time and, above all, it was pointless.

RobberIf you are walking down the street and a guy comes up to you with a gun and says, “Your money or your life?” do you begin to preach that it is illegal to have a gun without a license? Whatever the rules of law might be, such things are totally irrelevant. He has the gun and you do not.

I laugh at those who think corporations are evil and ignore government. They are typically weak minded and easily influenced by propaganda. I may not be a fan of NY bankers who have engaged in manipulating markets and buying government to stay out of jail, but let’s make no mistake — they do not have the guns and tanks to rob us of our freedom. Only government can oppress the people by sheer force of arms. Nonetheless, politicians always blame the “rich” to get elected.

Head in SandOur HOPE will be very simple. We have to CRASH AND BURN first. Without that pain, there is no reform or gain. Nobody will change anything before the system fails. It is unrealistic to see this message as BAD to justify hiding in the shadows. The good news, if you understand what is unfolding, is that you understand what the game is about and you can help in our time of need. We do not need someone hiding their head in the sand. If they do not comprehend how we have reached this point, then they will blindly hand more rights to those who have created this nightmare. Therefore, what seems impossible (political reform) becomes possible only when the majority opens their eyes.


The Donald’s Odds Against Hillary

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

The Donald’s Odds Against Hillary

In a Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump race – which, the Beltway keening aside, seems the probable outcome of the primaries – what are the odds the GOP can take the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court?

If Republicans can unite, not bad, not bad at all.

Undeniably, Democrats open with a strong hand.

There is that famed “blue wall,” those 18 states and D.C. with a combined 242 electoral votes, just 28 shy of victory, that have gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1988.

The wall contains all of New England save New Hampshire; the Acela corridor (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland); plus Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin in the Middle West; and the Pacific coast of California, Oregon, Washington – and Hawaii.

Changing demography, too, favors the Democrats.

Barack Obama carried over 90 percent of the black vote twice and in 2012 carried over 70 percent of the Hispanic and Asian votes. These last two voting blocs are the fastest-growing in the USA.

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For The Times They Are A-Changin’

Guest Post by Jesse

‘Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future…

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence…

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?’

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

John F. Kennedy

‘Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything.

Cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things.’

Stephen Colbert

‘All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.’

John Kenneth Galbraith

‘This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.’

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

For good or ill, after a long period of abuse and a testing of the extremities of power and the people’s willingness to accept them, the only inevitability is change.  Always.

History is not a given, it is not given to us. It is what we are, what we have been given, and what we make of it.


LET YOUR LIFE BE THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

Spent my entire Sunday moving big bales for the cattle this winter. Spent all of last week putting a new steel roof on a 100′ long barn. Gardened, read books, kept date night with my wife on Saturday night in our kitchen, shelled enough peas to last through till next year, sold some piglets, helped some local millennials with their new farm stand venture, cleaned totes, scraped and repainted the front of the milk house, cut hay with scythe for the chickens for winter, slaughtered and processed 100 meat birds for the freezer, made coffee from the beans our family sent from Hawaii, repaired a piece of equipment, york raked a neighbor’s driveway, weeded, planted second crop of greens, slept. My total work hours last week (if you include shelling peas on the bed @10pm work) was just over 75. My body is stiff when I wake up, my arms are sore most of the time I’m not moving but I can say the following-

We spent $0 on healthcare. We spent $0 on electricity. We spent $0 on groceries- that’s a lie, my wife bought Italian ices for us yesterday as a treat, I think she took $6 out of my wallet. All week I enjoyed myself, improved our homestead, had a great date with my wife that lasted until we went to bed, spoke with old friends on the phone Sunday evening, helped neighbors and acquaintances locally, fed ourselves delicious meals, provided for our Winter, earned enough off farm doing something I enjoy to pay six months worth of property taxes, composted waste, put up animal fodder, repaired our own property and belongings, built soils and created an environment where one of our customers who was leaving the state for good had to stop by and see it “one more time so I never forget”.

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WHEN THE TIME COMES, THERE WILL BE NO TIME

Guest Post by Jesse

Gold and silver caught an overnight flight to safety on the war breaking out between Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen on the overnight.

Gold hit a high around 1218 or so on the spot price, but was pushed back down towards 1203 during the New York trading hours.

The miners were hit rather hard, which sometimes portends a hit on the metals the next day. Let’s see how that works out. These mechanisms and influences are not linear.

It would be in the manner of the bucket shop to give a gut check on a price drop to those new holders of futures contracts from today’s precious metals option expiration. But since I cannot see into all the players hands, to know who is holding what with any confidence, it is too hard to say.

I do think that the US Fed will raise rates this year by some token amount, unless the wheels completely fall off the economy for two quarters in a row. The first quarter is looking increasingly dismal, but it is easy to dismiss that as a one-off due to the weather.

The pampered princes and princesses of the Feds would like to raise rates for the benefit of their Bankers. And they will perform as required. Like the politicians, this is why they are there, to give plunder the appearance of legitimacy.

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