Discussion about this post

User's avatar
John Day MD's avatar

Thanks Tessa. Same feeling. Feeling so heavy right now.

https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/01/toiling-together.html

When I was working at the Pinon clinic on the Navajo reservation, in 1991, somebody rushed in and called for me to "come quick, a lady has been shot". I rushed down the dirt street to see a middle aged Navajo woman's head and shoulders on the ground and her bottom and feet up in the passenger side of the open truck. I pulled her out onto the dirt and stabilized her head and airway. She breathed.

A hysterical white lady was praising God, "She's Alive! Praise God!"

The woman had been shot in the right eye and the bullet came out the back of her head. Her heart was beating.

Her breathing became deeper, more gasping, periodic, then occasional gasps, then no more.

Her pulse weakened, then trailed off.

A Young Navajo man wanted to do CPR. I said, "no, she just herniated her brainstem. She's dead."

EMS arrived and I declared her dead.

I walked back with dusty trousers to finish seeing strep throats and diabetes at the clinic, hours of ordinary work for the people.

It was really hard for me to keep moving, ploddingly practicing medicine, but I had to do it. They needed me to provide their care.

There is that no-way-out feeling. We have to do this together. Individual humans just don't survive.

Any one of us has to come forward into the new world with the rest of us.

We have to co-create a living world. Selfish motives cannot work any more.

Sharing-paradigm-or-bust.

That's the conundrum, like in the dream, when you are just about to hit the ground and you wake up.

Spiritually, in Buddhism, this anguished helplessness is the situation to drive the soul to transcend the physical constraints.

The only way to change the hopeless situation is through spiritual engagement.

I practiced channeling love to each person I saw, or whose presence I felt, on my bike rides to work Thursday and Friday.

I both did so and noticed my impediments in doing so.

I'm a spiritual Swiss cheese.

Expand full comment
Alex Golubev's avatar

MC on the Titanic theory and existential crisis. Absolutely. My version points to the fact that the SEC was created after the 1929 crash that was caused by 5% margin trading. An equivalent of 5% in-the-money call options (ITM). It's widely publicized that in 2020, the dumbest of the dumb are driving up stocks using (deep) out-of-the-money (OTM) call options, particularly on leadership stocks like FANG and TSLA in spades.

Think about that for a second.

The Great Depression and FDR. The New Deal (voted down by the supreme court a few times, until he threatened to pack the court)... Also the securities act, the adviser's act - top notch regulation in the world until even today! Also a brief multi-decade stint and corrective course of socialism and central planning taking over "capitalisms-first US". Because that's what happens with leverage running amok!

And things were "fine" for many decades. Until early 1980's de-regulation, cause "big gov't bad". Late 1990's repeal of the division between commercial and investment banking... Cause socialism died and capitalism is THE truth. Uh-oh, right?

And now in 2020. We go back all the way to 0 and deep past it into the land of obscene leverage for the masses - AGAIN. Even 5% ITM margin is 20x leverage. It's always literally game over with 5% ITM. There's no bet in the world that doesn't take you to BK with 5% leverage. You have to bet tiny portions of your capital to not run the risk of ruin. As if!

But it's way worse!

When the SEC patiently looks the other way and lets armies of Robinhooders (tails) wag 60% of world's market cap (US stocks) using nothing but leveraged lottery tickets - deep OTM calls... it's because scapegoats are needed for the crash. The crash itself is assured. It's just CYA time.

1. Musk - a rich mostly unpopular white South African with bs businesses barely producing anything, who's know the world's richest person! (Think South Sea Bubble). Think Michel Milken on crack. But yeah, white South African - jail worthy and no one will complain.

2. The masses themselves, who "recklessly" speculated and crashed the system. If we couldn't blame the masses themselves, the masses would come for blood or regulators and gov't and instead they will be told how bad they were and what kind of bread, sugar, and flour coupons they will get each month. Along with a few coupons of circus and chill.

And yes, the reset is global. More of a Chinese/Russian style of more explicitly/admittedly centrally-controlled "capitalism". US has operated on a mirage of "free market" primacy since the late 1930's. WW2 helped. (MC on pearl harbor........). And then after USSR fell, capitalism gunned itself into the wall, on Churchil-esque strawman argument logic.

It's a miracle we bridged it from 2008 for 12 years on a mirage of health. Now it's transition time! And what we are witnessing now is a demolition.

Expand full comment
48 more comments...

No posts