Sharing knowledge, skills and helpful tips. Discovering the art of living without a State, despite being surrounded by it. Paradise is not a location, it's a frame of mind. Together, we can make the world a better place. It's time to shift the paradigm.
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Alternate Realities
Using "alternate realities" as a form of analysis
By Jon Rappoport
When I finished putting together my collection, The Matrix Revealed,
I wrote several prefaces to it. Here is one:
---Start here: if things weren't the way they are, if they were quite
different in specific ways...
What implications would follow?
This can be a very instructive question.
Most people automatically reject alternate realities on the basis of:
"Well, they don't exist, they're fantasies, so who cares?"
That reaction speaks to a paucity of imagination and little else.
It's a profoundly low-IQ response.
I'll flesh out an example of an alternate reality and trace the
implications. You'll see it illuminates "things as they are" in an interesting
way. This example is based on my experience writing, reading, and watching news
for over 30 years. It's also based on numerous off-the-record conversations I've
had with mainstream reporters.
Suppose the NY Times, which is drowning in red ink, which re-finances
its debt to stay afloat, which is losing its reputation as the paper of record
faster than a rowboat full of holes sinks in a lake, changed its whole method of
finding and presenting news.
Suppose the Times latched on to major scandals beyond its corporate
mandate with the extreme ferocity of an attack dog. Suppose, for instance, it
went after the deadly impact of medical drugs on the population. Suppose it
began with the July 26, 2000, review, published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association, "Is US Health Really the Best in the World?", authored by
Dr. Barbara Starfield, of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, in which
Starfield concludes that, every year, FDA-approved medicines kill 106,000
Americans?
Extrapolating that number out to a decade, the death toll comes to
over a million. A million Americans killed every decade by medical drugs.
Suppose the Times made this its number-one story, not just for a day,
but for a year or more? It lets the hounds loose on the FDA, who approves the
drugs as safe, it sends the hounds to medical journals, which routinely publish
fraudulent studies praising the drugs that kill people. So far we're talking
about nothing less than RICO felonies---continuing organized-criminal acts.
Suppose the Times' hounds probe medical schools, where students are taught to
believe in the killer drugs, where Pharma money funds the teaching
programs.
There are so many nooks and crannies where Times' reporters can
extract confessions from medical players: "I knew about the horrific death toll
years ago, but my superiors ordered me to shut up."
"Which superior was that? You may as well tell me. I'm going to find
out anyway..."
The Times' reporters move in on the Dept. of Justice, which has never
lifted a finger to prosecute these ongoing crimes, despite knowing exactly
what's been going on.
Day after day, as new confessions and facts emerge, the Times puts
its searing stories on page one of the paper.
The size of the headlines increases.
The public is wakened. The public, as it turns out, is unable to turn
away.
The Times puts out two print editions a day and the papers fly off
the newsstands.
Under intense pressure, Congressional hearings are laid on. New liars
come to the fore, and under oath some of them crack and reveal how medical
murder has survived in the shadows all these years. It's a grisly
tale.
The Times' profits soar. The public is on fire.
And then, just when the whole story seems to have lost a bit of its
force, new revelations explode. Major medical reporters for many press
outlets---including the Times---have been sitting on this story for more than a
decade. They're instrumental in the cover-up. Mass firings occur.
At the same time, it becomes apparent that several blockbuster global
trade deals have been engineered, behind the scenes, to further engorge Pharma
profits. Those deals go down the drain and are canceled.
I could go on. This story would have more legs than a phalanx of
centipedes.
But of course, neither the Times nor any other major press outlet
would ever pick up or cover this story. These media operations are locked in
partnership with Pharma. They're on the same side.
Yet, understanding how the story could play and evolve and explode in
an "alternate universe" gives you clues. For example, the public is asleep
because the news keeps it asleep.
The public could wake up.
And if it did, there would be hell to pay.
In a universe of true news, the entire society would be different
because the people would be different. They wouldn't be acting as if they're
brain-damaged. They wouldn't be acting as if they're goggled-eyed glazed-over
New Agers. They wouldn't be afraid to speak out and speak up. They would be
alert and active and forceful. A great deal of delusional scum would be scraped
off the top of consciousness. Vague generalities would no longer suffice. Empty
words would no longer suffice. Business as usual would no longer
suffice.
In this highly instructive "alternate universe" metaphor, the public
would learn that nothing is too big to fail---a valuable lesson. Big Pharma,
exposed to its roots as a crime mob, toppled from all its pillars of trust,
would not, by its fate, doom society. Far from it. Society would be
cleansed.
People would look around and wonder how they had slept for so long.
The purveyors of fake news, with their touted experts, would experience a level
of (justifiable) paranoia they'd never imagined. Not just in their coverage of
the medical arena, but in every sphere where lying and cover-up and diversion
have been the order of the day.
The overarching position of "Elite News Anchor" would drown in its
own corrupt juices. The networks would scramble like rats to survive a ratings
crash beyond their wildest nightmares.
And yet, again, society would not be doomed.
Many, many, many more individuals would wake up.
Information, the neutral god of the technocratic secular church,
would suddenly be colored with purpose. It would reveal. It would expose. It
would take on muscle. It would range along dynamic lines of force and unseat
criminals in the highest of places, with no restraint.
The population would develop a new appetite. Instead of alpha-wave
hypnotic trance, people would insist on the demise of false idols. And lawful
application of justice would finally mean something.
All this...this is what the mainstream news could deliver. In an
alternate universe.
In the "real" universe where we live, the task falls to independent
investigators. But the aim is the same: rousing the people from their
slumber.
When you can envision the implications of a preferable
"other-universe," all the way across the board, you can understand what your
work is here and now.
You can summon the energy to go all-out. You can throw off
insubstantial roles. You can create your own engine, shove it into gear, and
move up to high velocity.
The imagining of alternate universes creates
energy.
|
Use this link to order Jon's Matrix
Collections.
|
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Brexit Pushed The Stock Market Down: O The Horror by Jon Rappoport
Brexit pushed the stock market down: O the horror |
(To read about Jon's mega-collection, Exit From The
Matrix, click here.)
|
Brexit pushed the stock market down: O the horror
Stocks go up, go down: does it really mean anything?
By Jon Rappoport
An investor asked God, "Is the stock market an intrinsically woven
part of the universe You created?"
And God said, "Only if you believe I wanted to create a new sucker
every minute."
In the wake of the Brexit vote, and in many other cases where an
event is said to be "negative," stocks plummet. Major media promote these
downward actions as evidence that "something bad has happened," and the "economy
is suffering" because of it.
On the other hand, if the general trend of the stock market is up,
and "new highs" are reached, media claim the economy is "recovering" or "in good
shape," or "booming."
Indeed, the movements of the market are used as critiques of
political and economic choices and happenings. "X policy-move shouldn't have
been taken, because look at what the market reaction was."
We need to examine all this blather.
First of all, and this is the big one: what is the connection of the
stock market to the companies whose stocks are being traded?
Is the whole landscape of buying and selling stocks intimately tied
to those companies?
What is really going on?
Many people believe the sale of stock benefits a company. This is
true when a privately held company goes public by issuing stock in what's called
an initial public offering (IPO). During the limited time period of the IPO,
money from the sale of stock does go back to the company issuing it, and that
money can used for company growth. Yes.
Later, the company can issue more stock in what's called a follow-on
offering, and then, too, money from the sale of the stock goes back to the
company.
But...by far the greatest amount of activity in the stock market is
the simple buying and selling of shares...and none of the ensuing profits and
losses accrue to the companies whose shares are being traded. It's a pure casino
operation.
***This casino operation does nothing to benefit the companies in the
way of adding cash to their assets.
The casino is all about trading, perception, prediction (and of
course, price manipulation). "What do I think other people are thinking about
Stock Z, and what should my response be? Should I buy Stock Z, should I sell it
short (bet it goes down)?"
The ups and downs of stock prices have nothing to do with the "health
of the economy," whatever that is supposed to mean. The ups and downs occur
according to what investors are willing to pay for a stock or what they are
willing to sell it for. In the casino.
None of the action really reflects the condition of the companies
whose stocks are for sale. None of the money from buying and selling reverts to
the companies. It's all gambling, all the time. That's all.
If a company reports a loss of profits for the current year, yes, its
stock price may go down. But that merely means stock investors believe it should
go down and are willing to pay less for the stock (at the moment). However, the
price of the stock might go up, even on the heels of a loss of profits. Or the
price could stay the same. Whatever the price does has nothing to do with the
condition of the company. It only reflects what casino players believe, because
they are the buyers and sellers.
This is hard for some people to understand. They want to imagine that
the stock market directly reflects the condition of the companies that issue
stock. Wrong.
The market reflects perception of the bettors, plus manipulation
(which isn't the subject of this article).
"Let's see. I think that other people think that I think stock A is
going to go up. They'll buy it, so I guess I should buy it..."
Idiot's delight.
Perception of other people's possible perception. That's the
market.
Of course, much of the trading these days is done automatically, by
computers belonging to large investment funds. But that doesn't change the basic
reality---the buying and selling are removed from the companies whose stocks are
being passed back and forth. Therefore, whether the prices go up or down has
nothing to do with the financial health of those companies or the economy in
general.
This stock market casino operation, its ebbs and flows, are fodder
for media, who pretend the latest down or up is "how the overall economy is
reacting to world events." This is nonsense.
The overall economy does not equal the performance of the stock
market. The performance of the market doesn't equal the state of the overall
economy.
Consider what can happen to a large retirement pension fund. The fund
takes in money from employees. It will later pay back that money, plus
"bonuses." Meanwhile, the pension fund invests a great of the money it is
holding in the stock market. It buys a variety of stocks and sells them and buys
them and sells them. So if those stocks plummet and stay down, and the pension
fund isn't willing to ride out the storm in hopes that the fall will eventually
turn into a rise, the pension fund will sell off those stocks and end up losing
much money. It gambled in the casino with other people's money, and it
lost.
But even here, the basis of the loss was an incorrect
perception/prediction about what was going to happen in the casino. It wasn't
about actualities of the economy.
So when "titans of finance" and media analysts blather about how, for
example, Brexit caused a sudden drop in the market, and how this is an indicator
of the sudden negative state of the economy, they're blowing smoke. Assuming the
titans didn't manipulate the market to make it fall in the first place (a risky
assumption), in order to fabricate a "gloomy outlook," the plummeting market
says nothing about the economy, any more than an analysis of falling profits in
a Vegas casino says anything about the general state of the US
economy.
"Stocks fell today on reports of rising oil prices..."
One, the falling stock prices have no direct impact on the companies
whose stocks are being traded.
And two, falling stock prices have nothing to do with the price of
oil. They might be connected to gamblers' perceptions of what rising oil prices
mean (at the moment), but that's all.
Let me give you a loose analogy. Let's say, in a casino, there is a
game called One to Ten. Depending on the flow of business, there are usually
about 1000 people in a room in Vegas, and each person has to bet on a number
between one and ten. You're one of those people. When all bets are in, if you
bet on the number most other people bet on, you'll win 50 cents for every dollar
you bet. So you think, "Most people will pick a number in middle. Five. So I'll
bet on five, too." You do. And indeed, this time 350 people bet on five. The
other 650 people bet on various numbers, but no other number between one and ten
garnered 350 bettors. So you won. This time.
While this little operation was going on, media anchors were
stationed around the room. They were quickly broadcasting tidbits about floods,
hurricanes, military build-ups, political campaigns, polls, celebrity arrests,
Hollywood box office receipts, new genetic research, a terror attack in
Pakistan, fracking, school picnics, climate change, a man who ate 300 hot dogs
in two hours, and so on. And these anchors are claiming that the result of the
bet you're involved in is definitely connected to these events. They're
insisting on it.
That's a picture of the day-to-day stock market plus what media are
spreading around about the market.
The market is a massive and monumental goof for casino
gamblers.
If it's a measure of how the world is going, I'm selling orange
groves on Saturn.
Here's a final analogy. Bird droppings. You're an investor, and you
see there's a trading market in bird droppings. You decide to put your money
into this market.
The price of droppings goes up. You're doing well.
One day, sitting at your lap-top in the back yard, you think, "Wait.
These droppings are worthless. Of course, that doesn't matter, but suppose a lot
of other investors think that same thought I'm thinking right now. The price
would go down. Are a lot of other people thinking my thought right now? Or are
they going their merry way, buying more droppings because they see the price
going up? Which is it?"
All around the world, other investors in bird droppings are having
the same monologues with themselves.
Now, if enough of those people don't care about the intrinsic worth
of droppings, the market will hold. But if enough of them are worrying about
what other investors might be thinking, they will sell their droppings, and the
price will go down.
Prediction. Perception. Speculation about what other people are
predicting and perceiving.
A share of IBM, once it has been unhooked from an IPO or a follow-on
offering, has no more intrinsic worth than a package of traded bird droppings.
People buy and sell that share based on what other investors might or might not
be thinking about it.
That's all.
"Power outages in three Eastern states have resulted in a severe
depression of the bird dropping market. Analysts are worried and
gloomy..."
They're worried and gloomy because they're supposed to connect world
events to the market, in order to pick up their paychecks, and "worried and
gloomy" is the easiest reaction to have.
If they admitted the power outages had no relation to, ahem,
intrinsically worthless bird droppings, they might end up pumping gas in Death
Valley or selling canned heat in the Sahara
desert.
|
Use this link to order Jon's Matrix
Collections.
|
Saturday, July 2, 2016
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