US inflation hits 40-year high of 8.6% as food, gas and shelter costs rise
Inflated grocery prices and shrinking package sizes. The cost of food is rising at fastest pace since 1979
Fed hikes its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage point, the biggest increase since 1994
S&P 500 tumbles nearly 4% to new low for the year, closes in bear market territory
Global stock markets head for steepest weekly fall since 2020 as recession fears rise – as it happened
World Bank Warns of Global Recession, Stagflation — 'This Is the Sharpest Slowdown in 80 Years'
The World Bank says most countries are headed for a recession, and warns of a possible return to 1970s ‘stagflation’
Bitcoin’s Price Sinks Closer to $20,000 As Crypto Crash Continues.
U.S. gas prices average hits $5 as summer of pain sets in
Mortgage rates surge to 5.78%, highest level since 2008
Here's 18 Signs That The Economic Meltdown We've Been Waiting For Has Already Begun

Coverage:
War in Ukraine
NBC News
Economist
BBC
CNN
Politico
Reuters
Wikipedia

Ukraine:
- 44 million people (8th most populous in Europe)
- 2nd largest land mass country in Europe after Russia
- 80% are Christian. 60% are Orthodox.
- 17% residents are Russian
- In 1986, Chernobyl plant disaster
- In 1991, nation formed after collapse of USSR
- World’s largest reserves of iron ore
- Mostly flat geography contributes to major agricultural industry
- Largest grain exporter in world
- Member of United Nations, but not EU
- History of political corruption
Wikipedia
Visual Capitalist
The Fact File

Orange Revolution:
- November 2004 to January 2005
- Protest of 2004 Ukrainian presidential election
Wikipedia

Revolution of Dignity:
- Maidan Revolution
- February 2014
- Protest of Yanukovych not signing EU agreement
- Ousted Yanukovych from power
Wikipedia

Russian invasion:
- Feb 24, 2022 - Russia invades Ukraine
Dmytro Kuleba
Aljazeera

Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
- Born in Jewish family
- Professional comedian
- Became president in 2019
Wikipedia
Zelenskyy’s unlikely journey, from comedy to wartime leader
Servant of the People party
Twitter account

Articles:
The increasingly complicated Russia-Ukraine crisis, explained
Russia’s war in Ukraine: complete guide in maps, video and pictures
Stop asking what Putin wants and start asking what Ukrainians want
I need ammunition, not a ride: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declines US offer to evacuate Kyiv

Movies:
Winter on Fire - Netflix

Videos:
“Prayer for Ukraine” performed by Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York

Photos:
Getty Images
NPR
The Times
Zeebiz

Twitter:
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Dmytro Kuleba - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Stratcom Centre UA

"The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit, is an economic trend in which employees voluntarily resign from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021, primarily in the United States."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Resignation




"38% of pastors in the United States have thought about quitting full-time ministry in the past year, according to The Barna Group."
Pastors leaving jobs amid 'Great Resignation'


"People from Asia to Europe have been walking away from jobs as they re-evaluate their work-life balance amid high levels of burnout."
U.K. Firms Brace for a Great British Resignation in 2022


Causes:

- Concerns about covid
- Lack of childcare
- Better work-life balance
- Stimulus payments
- Dissatisfaction with work
- Long covid and less ability and desire to work
- Toxic culture - "failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior"
- Negative assessments of their company's future outlook
- Burn out
- Seek higher pay
- Seek jobs that offer full-time remote
- Early retirement - forced or voluntary
- Vaccination, mask mandates
- Move to self-employment
- "pandemic epiphanies” - reassessing career path
- "reduce the coercive element of labor as much as possible by subverting capitalism”
- “Well, some of us are lazy and we just don’t want to work.”

“The weariness of the pandemic, the weariness of politics that are extreme on both ends, the weariness of opening and closing and shutting down and wearing a mask and not wearing a mask and vaccinations and not, all of that is just weariness and it's exhausting is the word I’d used,”

"More-innovative companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, Nvidia, and Netflix, are experiencing higher attrition rates than their more staid competitors. The pattern is not limited to technology-intensive industries, since innovative companies like Goldman Sachs and Red Bull have suffered higher turnover as well."
Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation

Links:

What is 'The Great Resignation'? An expert explains
Tang ping - "Lying flat"
Pastors leaving jobs amid 'Great Resignation'
These Are the Top 5 Reasons People Are Quitting During the Great Resignation
Quitting is just half the story: the truth behind the ‘Great Resignation’
Three Myths of the Great Resignation
‘Anti-work’ threads on Reddit are fueling the Great Resignation

"As a new mayor and City Council begin their terms, 488 spots across 123 committees are currently unfilled. The groups include those created by the city and those affiliated with Atlanta to which elected leaders make appointments. That’s over one third of all positions, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of city records that track appointments."
Across Atlanta’s boards and commissions, nearly 500 spots sit unfilled

"The city of Jackson is seeking residents to fill vacancies on various boards and commissions. Currently, the city has 30 vacancies on 13 of its boards and commissions that need to be filled by residents who want to serve, officials said."
Jackson seeking residents to serve on boards and commissions

Workplace Relations Commission board positions still unfilled after three months

Front Royal-Warren County EDA struggles to fill vacancies

Big milestone for me, I just completed the first pass of my translation of the New Testament. You can read it here: TransliteralBible.com

I started this project on Feb 2019 as a way to learn Greek and to dive deeper into the Bible. And this has turned out to be one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. Honestly, when I started on this project, I was in a very dry place. All sermons were boring to me, personal Bible study was boring, and prayer was boring. Preachers seemed to be teaching the same things over and over. Bible study materials did not go very deep.

Doing this has been a journey that has affected me in ways that I would not have ever expected. But, one thing I can honestly say now is I love the law. I have such a greater appreciation and awe of the Bible that really only people who have dug deep can understand. And ironically, I feel I've only scratched the surface. There is so much to dig even further.

Doing this has transformed how I view the Bible, how I walk out the Christian faith, and even improved my marriage! Now, whenever someone is willing to listen to me, I say if they want to transform their Christian walk, they should write their own translation of the Bible.

It's not as hard as it sounds, though it does require effort. We have so many tools now to look into the original languages that one doesn't really need to know Greek or Hebrew. I started just using Blue Letter Bible. Really that's all one needs to write their own translation.

As for the tools I use, three years ago, I got introduced to VS Code at work, which really makes composing the text easier. And also around that time, I started playing with Python which allowed me to automate some of the translation work. Last December, I discovered a fantastic Bible study program called UniqueBible.app. It made my translation work go much faster and it also allows me to publish my translation on the web.

I'll now go through the second pass of the NT and also start translating the OT, which will take much longer. But I'm not too concerned about how long it'll take. It's the journey that has been transformational. And I encourage anyone to start this journey for yourself to dramatically increase your love of God and the Bible.

Overnight Reverse Repurchase Agreements

- Government confiscation of wealth
- One injection of money is not enough
- There will be multiple injections until the fiat money collapses
- Government claiming to help the people
- Government claiming inflation is good
- Initial euphoria
- Commerical activity decreased
- Rich leaving country
- Increase import tariff
- Price control
- Gold/silver illegal
- Reward spys
- Dislike for labor
- Increase of greed, speculation, and gambling
- Shortage of food
- Mob violence

Fiat Money Inflation in France

"They knew too well, from that ruinous experience, seventy years before, in John Law’s time, the difficulties and dangers of a currency not well based and controlled. They had then learned how easy it is to issue it; how difficult it is to check its overissue; how seductively it leads to the absorption of the means of the workingmen and men of small fortunes; how heavily it falls on all those living on fixed incomes, salaries or wages; how securely it creates on the ruins of the prosperity of all men of meagre means a class of debauched speculators, the most injurious class that a nation can harbor,—more injurious, indeed, than professional criminals whom the law recognizes and can throttle; how it stimulates overproduction at first and leaves every industry flaccid afterward; how it breaks down thrift and develops political and social immorality. whom the law recognizes and can throttle; how it stimulates overproduction at first and leaves every industry flaccid afterward; how it breaks down thrift and develops political and social immorality."

"In April, 1790, came the final decree to issue four hundred millions of livres in paper money, based upon confiscated property of the Church for its security."

"Paper money is without inherent value unless it represents some special property. Without representing some special property it is inadmissible in trade to compete with a metallic currency, which has a value real and independent of the public action; therefore it is that the paper money which has only the public authority as its basis has always caused ruin where it has been established; that is the reason why the bank notes of 1720, issued by John Law, after having caused terrible evils, have left only frightful memories. Therefore it is that the National Assembly has not wished to expose you to this danger, but has given this new paper money not only a value derived from the national authority but a value real and immutable, a value which permits it to sustain advantageously a competition with the precious metals themselves."

"The first result of this issue was apparently all that the most sanguine could desire: the treasury was at once greatly relieved; a portion of the public debt was paid; creditors were encouraged; credit revived; ordinary expenses were met, and, a considerable part of this paper money having thus been passed from the government into the hands of the people, trade increased and all difficulties seemed to vanish."

"But soon there came another result: times grew less easy; by the end of September, within five months after the issue of the four hundred millions in assignats, the government had spent them and was again in distress."

"The cheaper currency had largely driven out the dearer; paper had caused small silver and copper money mainly to disappear; all sorts of notes of hand, circulating under the name of "confidence bills," flooded France,—sixty-three kinds in Paris alone."

"Yet each of these issues, great or small, was but as a drop of cold water to a parched throat. Although there was already a rise in prices which showed that the amount needed for circulation had been exceeded, the cry for "more circulating medium" was continued. The pressure for new issues became stronger and stronger."

"This was the doctrine that all currency, whether gold, paper, leather or any other material, derives its efficiency from the official stamp it bears, and that, this being the case, a government may relieve itself of its debts and make itself rich and properous simply by means of a printing press:—fundamentally the theory which underlay the later American doctrine of 'fiat money.'"

"Throughout France there came temporary good feeling. The nation was becoming inebriated with paper money. The good feeling was that of a drunkard just after his draught; and it is to be noted as a simple historical fact, corresponding to a physiological fact, that, as draughts of paper money came faster the successive periods of good feeling grew shorter."

"Attention was aroused by another menacing fact;—specie disappeared more and more. This disappearance of specie was the result of a natural law as simple and as sure in its action as gravitation; the superior currency had been withdrawn because an inferior currency could be used."

"Still another troublesome fact began now to appear. Though paper money had increased in amount, prosperity had steadily diminished. In spite of all the paper issues, commercial activity grew more and more spasmodic."

"The plenty of currency had at first stimulated production and created a great activity in manufactures, but soon the markets were glutted and the demand was diminished."

"Heavy duties were put upon foreign goods; everything that tariffs and custom-houses could do was done."

"Thus came a collapse in manufacturing and commerce, just as it had come previously in France: just as it came at various periods in Austria, Russia, America, and in all countries where men have tried to build up prosperity on irredeemable paper."

"The result was that capitalists feared to embark their means in business. Enterprise received a mortal blow."

"With the masses of the people, the purchase of every article of supply became a speculation—a speculation in which the professional speculator had an immense advantage over the ordinary buyer. Says the most brilliant of apologists for French revolutionary statesmanship, 'Commerce was dead; betting took its place.'"

"One of these was the obliteration of thrift from the minds of the French people. The French are naturally thrifty; but, with such masses of money and with such uncertainty as to its future value, the ordinary motives for saving and care diminished, and a loose luxury spread throughout the country."

"at large there grew a dislike of steady labor and a contempt for moderate gains and simple living."

"The artful plundering of the people at large was bad enough, but worse still was this growing corruption in official and legislative circles. It is some comfort to know that nearly all concerned were guillotined for it."

"In speeches, newspapers and pamphlets about this time, we begin to find it declared that, after all, a depreciated currency is a blessing;"

"Daniel Webster, that "of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper-money."

"Issue after issue followed at intervals of a few months, until, on December 14, 1792, we have an official statement to the effect that thirty-five hundred millions had been put forth"

"The result was that on the 28th of February, 1793, at eight o’clock in the evening, a mob of men and women in disguise began plundering the stores and shops of Paris. At first they demanded only bread; soon they insisted on coffee and rice and sugar; at last they seized everything on which they could lay their hands—cloth, clothing, groceries and luxuries of every kind. Two hundred such places were plundered. This was endured for six hours and finally order was restored only by a grant of seven million francs to buy off the mob. "

"In view of the steady rise in prices of the necessaries of life, had proposed a scheme by which these prices should be established by law, at a rate proportionate to the wages of the working classes. Shopkeepers therefore could not sell such goods without ruin. The result was that very many went out of business and the remainder forced buyers to pay enormous charges under the very natural excuse that the seller risked his life in trading at all. To detect goods concealed by farmers and shopkeepers, a spy system was established with a reward to the informer of one-third of the value of the goods discovered."

"It decreed that any person selling gold or silver coin, or making any difference in any transaction between paper and specie, should be imprisoned in irons for six years:—that any one who refused to accept a payment in assignats, or accepted assignats at a discount, should pay a fine of three thousand francs; and that any one committing this crime a second time should pay a fine of six thousand francs and suffer imprisonment twenty years in irons. Later, on the 8th of September, 1793, the penalty for such offences was made death, with confiscation of the criminal’s property, and a reward was offered to any person informing the authorities regarding any such criminal transaction."

"The mercantile classes at first thought themselves exempt from the general misfortune. They were delighted at the apparent advance in the value of the goods upon their shelves. But they soon found that, as they increased prices to cover the inflation of currency and the risk from fluctuation and uncertainty, purchases became less in amount and payments less sure; a feeling of insecurity spread throughout the country; enterprise was deadened and stagnation followed."

"It progressed according to a law in social physics which we may call the "law of accelerating issue and depreciation." It was comparatively easy to refrain from the first issue; it was exceedingly difficult to refrain from the second; to refrain from the third and those following was practically impossible."

"Napoleon was hard pressed financially, and it was proposed to resort to paper money; but he wrote to his minister, "While I live I will never resort to irredeemable paper."

- Economists expected 1 million new jobs created
- 266,000 actual jobs added
- Biggest miss of expections on record
- Unemployment went up to 6.1% from 6.0%
- March revised down to 770,000 from 916,000 jobs
- Total jobs down 8.2 million jobs versus February last year
- Average hourly earnings jumped 21 cents to $30.17 last month
- 4.8% rise in leisure and hospitality average hourly earnings
- "The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- $300 benefit results in approximately one in four recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working.

Links

U.S. adds just 266,000 jobs in April, far below expectations
April jobs report disappoints: What happened, and how did economists get it so wrong?
Tough jobs report scrambles Washington battle ahead of crucial week
Major disappointment: America added way fewer jobs than expected in April
What Caused the Biggest Jobs Miss on Record?
The Jobs Report: The Boom That Wasn’t
US Chamber of Commerce calls for ending extra unemployment benefits after disappointing jobs report
29% of unemployed Americans have been jobless over a year

T-Mobile currently has a deal to get a $415 credit for a iPhone 7+ trade-in for a iPhone 12, with no add-a-line requirement. I liked having the fingerprint sensor, esp since it works at night time and wearing a mask. But, I doubt I'll ever be able to get this much for the phone, so I decided to upgrade.

I was waffling between the 12 and the 12 pro. The 12 pro costs $170 more with the 12 pro at $1000 and the 12 at $830. The 12 with 128 GB runs $880. So, would I be willing to pay $120 more for a better camera? The store sales rep surprisingly said to just get the 12. The better camera isn't really worth it. So, went with the 12.

Since the store didn't have a 12, had it shipped to my house. I think this worked out better since I could then transfer the data at home. I had bought it on Wed night and the phone arrived at my house on Friday afternoon. The automatic phone settings transfer is very convenient. It replicated everything on my old phone to the new phone, including apps, the menu setup, and alarms. The only problem I encountered was the apps were not initially downloading. I guess having so many apps to be downloaded at once confused it. So, I paused the download of the apps by individually clicking on each app and pausing the download. When it only got down to a few apps to download, it then was able to download them. Then I reenabled the download for each app. I was a little concerned the phone was running hot during this time. But, after it all got setup, it hasn't been a problem.

Surprisingly, I don't notice much significant feature difference between the 7+ and the 12. I had expected more since there's a 5 generation difference between the two. The biggest gain is having 5G. Speed at my house is 273 M down and 27 up. It's significantly faster than my wifi with 86 down and 21 up. 12 is much lighter than the 7+. Screen size is about the same. Form factor is smaller. It's also nice now to have better portrait modes.

Suspect:
- Robert Aaron Long
- 21 years old, white male
- Described himself as "Pizza, guns, drums, music, family, and God. This pretty much sums up my life. It's a pretty good life."
- According to police, his parents recently kicked him out of their house due to concerns about his sex addiction - "kicked out of his parents' house last night"
- Cherokee County sheriff’s captain Jay Baker told investigators that he blames the massage parlors for providing an outlet for his addiction to sex

Victims:
- 8 killed in 3 spas
- Young's Asian Massage
- Gold Spa
- Aroma Therapy Spa
- Killed: Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; and Yong Ae Yue, 63
- Injured: Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, 30

Police:
- Capt. Jay Baker - "Place your order while they last," Baker wrote above the photo of two T-shirts that said, "Covid 19 IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA."

Response:
- President Joe Biden has ordered that flags across the United States lowered to half-staff to honor the eight people who were killed at three Atlanta-area spas.
- "Today @POTUS and I met with Asian American leaders in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss the rise in attacks against the community. We want Asian Americans in Georgia and across our nation to know: We won't be silent. We won't standby. We will always speak out against violence." Kamala Harris
- Crabapple First Baptist shut down their site and replaced with a statement page


Links:
Wikipedia
Cpt. Jay Baker, who said spa shooting suspect had 'bad day'
Metro Atlanta spa shooting victims remembered amid outpours of support
Atlanta spa shootings: Biden says ‘hate can have no safe harbor in America’
Christian leaders wrestle with Atlanta shooting suspect’s Southern Baptist ties
Georgia Church Disowns Spa Shooting Suspect, Says He Betrayed Faith
Did Georgia Capt. Jay Baker Promote ‘Imported Virus From Chy-na’ Shirts?
Parents of alleged Atlanta spa shooter Robert Aaron Long helped cops apprehend him