HALF-FULL REPORT 03/17/23

The Saint Patrick’s Day Report

Saint Patrick’s Day

Saint Patrick’s Day is a fine day to write the HFR. Saint Patrick was a Christian missionary and bishop during the fifth century and is regarded by the faithful within the Orthodox Church and the Irish Catholic Church as an equal to the Apostles. Rome, however, is not quite as enthusiastic.

Patrick is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. The Catholic Church never canonized Patrick as the practice was done at the local level then. The Orthodox Church treats him as a pre-Schismatic saint of great importance. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, or ROCOR, recently dedicated a large icon to the Venerated Patrick in Wayne, West Virginia.

The attention given to Saint Patrick by the Russians is curious and might result from the uneasy alliance between the Irish and Roman Catholic Church. The Irish were a merger and acquisition, not a conquest, with the Irish Church remaining skeptical of the need for a supreme pontiff and centralized authority since about 431.

Further, since 431, lip service has been paid by the Irish to the Augustinian dogma of Penal Substitution as the meaning of the Crucifixion and Atonement because Rome orders it so.

But…behind closed doors at any Irish Catholic Church or in many a pub when the whiskey loosens the tongue, the perspective is Christus Victor or the victory of Christ over evil. Saint Patrick was a strong and masculine figure who stood up to evil. The concept of the Fighting Irish comes directly from this Christus Victor theology as taught by Saint Patrick, requiring the faithful to stand their ground, roll up their sleeves and fight back against evil.

Patrick was born in Britain to a decurion, a prominent senator and tax collector. He was educated as a youth before being captured by Irish pirates and taken to Ireland as a slave. He herded animals for about six years before receiving a vision to return home to his family. He did so through great effort. Some claim his birthplace was in modern Ravensglass in Cumbria, but his official birthplace is Kilpatrick, Scotland.

In his Confession, Patrick claims that he converted to Christianity as a slave and became quite spiritual. His grandfather was a priest when that was possible, and Patrick was likely introduced to Christianity before his capture. Upon returning home, Patrick was ordained as a priest and traveled to the continent to further his education. Shortly after, he received another vision to return to Ireland as a missionary. Legend has it that he returned via the island of Inis-Patrick off the Skerry coast.

His missionary effort was directed toward prominent, wealthy women who later converted their households. He established convents for young women to become nuns and escape the horrors of street life facing single women in a rugged land. The nuns established schools and further spread the Gospel and the need to stand and fight against evil using an aggressive, Christus Victor approach.

Thousands were baptized, and new communities were established. The emphasis on establishing convents where nuns taught youth created a sufficiently literate population to enable monks to emerge. Education of the commoners was a critical element within Western Civilization because this culture of monks later painstakingly hand-copied Scripture and the works of antiquity. The ancient world survived the Dark Ages primarily due to the hand copying of manuscripts taken from Athens and Rome.

Irish pagans worshiped triune gods corresponding to land-sea-sky and mind-body-spirit before Patrick’s mission. Legend has it that he used the shamrock to explain the Christian Trinity to the population already primed to accept trinitarian beliefs. The pagan triskele consisting of a triple spiral with rotational symmetry, was part of Irish pagan culture since about 3,200 BC. Similar symbols have been dated to the same era throughout the Mediterranean, especially in Syracuse, Sicily. It is not known whether the pagan Irish mind-body-spirit and the pagan Greek logos-ethos-pathos have the same root, but maybe.

Patrick’s official burial spot is in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, along with Brigid and Columba, at Down Cathedral. Downpatrick, and this is a bit south of Belfast.

The takeaway is the growing friction between the Latin Vatican and the English-speaking Catholic Church as led by the Irish. American cardinals have been meeting in Houston for years to discuss a schism between the old and new world—a divorce.

American cardinals have a strong Irish influence and prefer a more robust, action-oriented Christianity to Rome’s behind-the-scenes approach. Calls are growing for a new synod to be held far from the Vatican, perhaps a Council of Houston, to supersede the French communist-inspired Vatican II.

A revolution is underway, and Saint Patrick would likely be pleased with an action-oriented Christus Victor, Fighting Irish, approach to restoring civilization and pushing back the woke. Rome is displeased and is encouraging mass migration to drown out the rebellion. At the same time, with its strategic ties to the Kremlin, Russian Orthodoxy now has a Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Moscow and recently dedicated a new Moscow church to Saint Patrick. New Orthodox churches dedicated to Patrick have appeared in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela as part of ROCOR.

Russia intends to influence a future Houston synod as they influenced Vatican II, using conservative Catholic grievances as a recruiting tool. It is not just the Evangelical Christians being targeted by Russian influence operations. Subversive influence operations must be on the radar as the heavy lifting to restore society proceeds.

Bank Failures

If a bank has a leverage multiplier of 10, it only has enough assets to cover ten percent of its obligations. The bank then fails if it suffers a ten percent loss in asset value.

Keep an eye on Credit Suisse, First Republic, State Street, Bank of America, Merril Lynch, Bank of NY, Mellon, and Wells Fargo. Last week’s failure of SVB was the second largest in history behind Washington Mutual in 2008. Along with Signature and the other 560 bank failures since 2000 (most in 2008), there is a problem with the banking sector.

Banks that parked stimulus money in long-term bonds or malinvested into non-producing, woke projects are now zombie banks with increasing inflation. Massive bailouts with newly printed money worsen inflation, threatening more banks. Perhaps the government will swap lower-yielding bonds for new, higher yields. Maybe they will force mergers or outright nationalization.

If raising interest rates to control inflation without collapsing zombie banks is impossible, the government might consider dramatic tax increases to reduce the money supply. Even if banks wanted to abandon woke policies and restaff with POTs (People of Talent), there are not enough POTs available.

Increased fees and fines, transaction taxes, and other tools designed to remove funds from the economy might also be considered.

The banking outlook is not good and getting worse.

Meta Layoffs

Meta, formerly Facebook, announced another 10,000 layoffs this week. The announcement is probably tied to the SVB bank failure, but this is speculation. Facebook was once a way to connect advertisers with markets but became a government-directed social control tool. It is where everything you say can and will be used against you.

Meta had 87,000 employees last Monday and blamed the return to normalcy after the pandemic for their financial woes. Shares prices are down about 24% YTD and 73% over twelve months.

Investors are shifting to AI companies that promise to eliminate free will, a step beyond Meta’s attempt to manipulate it as some computerized Skinner box. Meta’s attempts with virtual reality fell flat as their 87,000 programmers could not produce an authentic-looking virtual world.

Zuck lost $100 Billion of personal wealth over the past 13 months. It will be a little harder for him to buy the next election.

Media productions that once required million-dollar studios and a large staff of skilled cinematographers and technicians can now be produced on iPhones. We saw this in last week’s Skye’s Links.

The result is a shift in demand to the fresh and edgy and away from the larger productions. Disney continues to underperform with their Marvel series. Once the Disney VCR tape was a two-hour babysitter in a box, the kids prefer TikTok and control over what they watch.

The heavy investment in media production shows signs of obsolescence from CNN to Universal Studios, to Disney, to Warner Records. It was a good run, as technology goes, a run of about 100 years since Edison. But times are changing.

Biden Bucks

The House of Representatives issued a subpoena on February 27, 2023, for financial records associated with Biden family and business associate transactions. They obtained documents from John Robinson Walker of Robinson Walker, LLC.

Between 2015 and 2017, Biden family members received over $1.3 million from Mr. Walker. These included Hallie, James, and Hunter Biden, as well as an unknown bank account listed as “Biden.”

Payments were made while Joe Biden held public office, and the payments were sourced from an account that received $3 million from China.

It appears that Joe Biden and his family accepted bribes, kickbacks, or other fees for service from a CCP shell company, through a domestic shell company while Biden was vice president.

What influence did Biden offer China? Most importantly, how will this be blamed on Donald Trump?

Merrick Garland probably shrugged and said, “Oh, those crazy Bidens!” before directing the FBI to destroy more evidence.

Public opinion must be managed, or this story might get out of control, and the PR houses are probably holding meetings now. Otherwise, the fundamental trust between the president and his woke base might be damaged. Suppose the narrative can be spun to tie republican efforts to investigate Biden’s money laundering to the bank collapses or increased inflation. In that case, the ends will justify whatever slimy means can be hauled from the swamp.

Perhaps poor banking practices can be blamed for mistakenly putting funds into the Biden accounts. Democrats do not need truth, just plausible deniability; the media will take care of the rest, especially if lunch is catered to the presser.

Electric Cars

The old TV show Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kindom featured Marlin Perkins narrating near-death experiences between Jim Fowler, his assistant, and wild beasts. It was pretty good TV as the viewer tuned in to see if Jim would be strangled by a snake, mauled by a bear, or chewed down by a crocodile.

There was always a watering hole on some African plateau. And there were usually zebras, gazelle, or some other prey animal down by the watering hole, slurping up a drink. The watering hole was the only place to find water.

The predators like the crocs and lions were usually lying in wait to pounce on the prey. A sudden frenzy of activity would occur, and the herd animals would jump back as one was eaten alive. Within moments, all returned to drink the cool water.

Imagine EV owners pulling into lonely charging stations. They are stuck there for up to two hours—their car drinks in that electricity for at least half an hour, if not the full two hours. The driver would prefer to fill a bucket with electricity and be on their way, but it does not work like that.

The highwaymen from days gone by used to attack lonely travelers. Bandits, hostiles, and opportunists are participating in a growth market at the charging station.

Ammo for Ukraine

Ukraine maintains a robust firing schedule while the United States is sourcing prepositioned stocks of 155 mm shells from Israel, South Kores, Germany, and Kuwait. Russia threatens countries not to contribute from their reserves, making the drawdown from prepositioned US stocks necessary.

The 155 mm artillery round is about two feet long and weighs about 100 pounds. The USA sent 160 howitzers to Ukraine that use 155 mm ammunition, making this round crucial to the fight. So far, the USA has shipped over 1 million rounds, fired almost upon receipt. About 90,000 rounds are fired per month. American production is limited to about 20,000 rounds per month, with new production lines expected to increase this to 50,000 rounds per month by 2024. Either Ukraine will need to use artillery more conservatively or improve the use of substitute weapons.

Its DIE, not DEI

Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity programs are based on the premise that AI programs will soon be able to direct a workforce. According to the new paradigm, critical thinking skills, innovation, and deep preparation will no longer be marketable. People will be supervised directly by machines and hired as interchangeable parts.

Already, the future workforce is being groomed for compliance by the schools. Training them to change genders and beliefs instantly to accommodate the day’s narrative mimics the future workplace. Instead of tending the machines, the machines will decide what the people must be and do on any given day.

Those who can program the machines will be very valuable until the machines self-program. Then those people will be obsolete.

With all their hiring for compliance and shape-shifting, it is unclear whether faster computers can solve the pretense of knowledge problem. Computers work with closed data sets and mine solutions from their database. Humans can work with open data sets and use intuition and innovation to fill in the gaps.

I am working at a heavy industrial site with lots of steel, giant cranes, and welding sparks this week. The older, experienced hands are competent, but the wokesters are slackers lacking critical thinking skills. The old hands are carrying the workload and showing hustle. Sooner than later, we will run out of aging hands. Then we won’t be able to build machines or manufacture new products without tremendous cost overruns and wide quality limits.

America needs at least four new production lines to produce 155 mm artillery shells, which we need now. Between the safety culture and the lack of hustle, the inability to find sober workers, and the expectation that nothing should be lifted that weighs over 20 pounds (so the gay men and girls can work without back injury), we can’t build those new production lines.

BlackRock calls the master secret squirrel plan for the future the Diversity Equity and Inclusion workforce, or DEI. But it is DIE, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity because organizations that adapt the philosophy, like Meta and SVB, begin to die.

The Most Desired University

MIT, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, solidly beats the Ivy’s as the nation’s premier university according to 2022 applicants. While the university desperately tries to go woke, its brand of students seems to want little of it. They see wokism as a distraction and foolish waste of time. Applicants are keen to study authentic science and technology, hoping to secure an excellent living post-graduation.

At the other end of the spectrum, universities such as George Mason are cutting back on the liberal arts and humanities. Applicants are wise to the scam of buying an English degree on credit, only to be forced to work off the debt at some crummy mid-wage job for the rest of their lives. Some smaller colleges are closing while school districts nationwide are consolidating and laying off teachers due to the rise of homeschooling.

The teachers’ unions will undoubtedly throw everything into the 2024 elections to ban homeschooling and increase their market share. It seems that the reports of teacher shortages are a lie and meant to strong-arm contract negotiations with school boards.

Hydrogen Foolishness

The WEF announced this week that China-owned solar power farms in Africa will soon separate hydrogen from water using advanced ion exchange membranes and electrical current and then will ship the hydrogen as a cryogenic liquid worldwide. These are big plans that WEF-affiliated companies want the governments (read that as the American government) to pay for.

Sounds neat, except that 2.5 liquid hydrogen transporting ocean tankers are required to replace just one LNG tanker on a BTU to BTU energy content basis. We struggle to make 155 mm artillery shells. The West cannot suddenly build new ships, and so any new  ships will be Korean or Chinese. Disabling Korean ship-building capacity might hand control of the world’s energy to China in a hydrogen-driven future.

OMG Launched

The man has a sense of humor. The (James) O’Keefe Media Group launched this past Wednesday. Whatever happened between Pfizer and Veritas remains confidential. O’Keefe lost his job, and Pfizer restored their narrative traction.

At one point, OMG was gaining 100,000 new followers per hour. That’s power, baby. That is power.

It goes back to the core theme of this HFR that the big media control houses and propaganda firms are becoming obsolete except for the federal government, except for the J6 farce.

J6: The Reichstag Fire V. 2.0

Skye’s Links covered this pretty well yesterday, so it would be redundant to pursue it here other than our government maliciously lied, falsified, and fabricated most of the J6 narrative—federal agents’ provocateur-directed the activities from the initial social media invitations sent to targeted individuals to the herding of the crowd. The feds bused in Antifa and BLM and dressed them as Trump supporters. Feds led them into a trap in the Capital building. A congressional committee spun the lies.

It was all a production. A manufactured event. And it is all on video.

Citizens have been incarcerated for years, tortured physically and mentally, and denied a trial by their peers.

The internet never forgets, and the assumption that lives could be destroyed as political chattel without consequences is utterly false. An entire generation has been conditioned to no longer trust or support the United States Federal Government. The repercussions will last for generations.

If one wants to find a bright side, restoring the 10^th Amendment, limiting the Commerce Clause, and unwinding the regulatory state will now be a slam dunk.

Mike Ryan is a chemical engineering consultant for the Iron and Steel, Minerals, Heavy Chemicals, and Fibers Industries.