Monthly Post

An Astrological Interlude: Libra Ingress 2018

The autumn equinox is nearly on us, and with it comes the mainstay of the political astrologer, the ingress chart. Regular readers who’ve been following the discussions here for the last six months already know that the branch of astrology that forecasts trends in politics and society is called mundane astrology, and that horoscopes cast for national capitals at the moment of each solstice and equinox—ingress charts, as mundane astrologers call them—are among the basic working tools of that branch of the art.

This coming Saturday at 9:53 pm Eastern time, the Sun passes into the first degree of that 30° slice of the ecliptic astrologers call the zodiacal sign Libra. At that moment, as we look notionally upwards from Washington DC at the turning heavens, we can get a snapshot of the political weather in the United States for several months to come. Let’s glance over what the previous ingress chart had to say—you can find the post in question here—and then go on to the chart to come. Here’s my summary of the Cancer ingress chart from three months ago:

“To sum up, then, the next three months will see Trump a little less outspoken and a little less central to America’s collective conversation than he’s been of late. The trade wars now under way will continue, causing some disruptions in the supply of goods and services here in the US and some expansion in the supply of jobs. More of Trump’s agenda will get traction in Congress, and there’s the possibility of a significant shift in US drug laws and federal prison policies as a result. The economic news will be dominated by dramatic swings in stocks and other speculative vehicles, with some big winners (especially in tech industries and vaporware generally) and some big losers (especially in smokestack industries and ventures vulnerable to foreign trade barriers). Trump’s opponents will by and large devote their time to preaching to an assortment of Democratic choirs, Congress and several federal bureaucracies will pound their collective chests at each other like a couple of quarreling silverback gorillas, and the rest of the country will swelter through a difficult summer, caught between the grinding weight of too much debt and the maddening chatter of an increasingly self-referential media industry.”

Bills that would legalize the growing of industrial hemp and turn marijuana regulation back to the states have been introduced into Congress but are still working their way through the more than Byzantine intricacies of the Congressional committee system, and no noticeable change in federal prison policies has happened as far as I know. Other than that, I think it’s fair to say I called it. What’s more, comparing this to what was being claimed so confidently on both sides of the cratered moonscape of American poltics three months ago, a case can be made that mundane astrology seems to be a better source of prognostications than the allegedly more rational methods used by pundits in the cultural mainstream.

So let’s move on to the Libra ingress and see what it has to say. Here’s the chart. Those of my readers who aren’t used to astrological charts will want to know that the inner circle is the notional Earth, the outer circle is the notional heavens, and the lines connecting them are the cusps or lines of division between the twelve houses, which are divisions of the sky relative to the observer that define how a given astrological influence will have its effect.

Each cusp position is marked with the sign, degree, and minute of its placement on the ecliptic. See the one at the far left, 03° Gemini 11’? That’s the ascendant, the cusp of the first house, which is also the point of the heavens rising above the horizon at the moment for which the chart is cast. See the one to the right of the top wih the arrow on it, 10° Aquarius 52’? That’s the midheaven, the cusp of the tenth house, which is the point on the ecliptic highest in the heavens at that same moment. Remember these; we’ll need them right away.

The length of time an ingress is effective is determined by whether the sign of the zodiac on the ascendant is a cardinal, fixed, or mutable sign. Gemini is a mutable sign, so this chart is good for six months, until the Aries ingress in the spring. The last two charts had cardinal signs on the ascendant, and thus were good for three months each; the pace of events seems likely to slow down a little over the months immediately ahead.

So what can we expect during the six months to come, in terms of US political and economic events? The first step in figuring that out is to find the planets that refer to the American people, on the one hand, and their government, on the other. Traditionally, the Sun and the planet ruling the midheaven stand for the government, and the Moon and the planet ruling the ascendant stand for the people. The signs and houses these planets are found in, and the aspects they make with one another and with other planets, give advance warning of how the government, the people, and their mutual relationship will fare in the six months ahead.

This lands us at once in interesting territory, because the planet ruling the midheaven, Uranus, is in a difficult inconjunct aspect (150°, plus or minus a modest fudge factor) with the Sun. So we have a federal government divided against itself. In such cases the Sun indicates the head of state and the planet ruling the midheaven indicates the government as a whole. Since Uranus is in the 12th house, the house of large institutions, what this shows is President Trump at loggerheads with the federal bureaucracies.

Neither the Sun nor Uranus is strengthened by its sign placement.  Both have equivocal aspects with other planets.  All things considered, Uranus is in worse shape, because it’s in a cadent house (the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th houses are the cadent houses); it’s in an intercepted sign (Taurus begins and ends within the bounds of the 12th house), and it’s also retrograde (apparently moving backwards along the ecliptic). All three of these are indications of weakness, and taken together they put the bureaucrats on the defensive.  The inconjunct aspect predicts frustration and tension rather than any kind of decisive struggle, though, so don’t expect any kind of resolution during this six month period.

The conflict between the president and the federal bureaucracies will be shaped, and very likely made even more difficult, by a pair of other planets. Notice how Mars in the ninth house is trine the Sun and square Uranus, while Saturn in the eighth is trine Uranus and square the Sun. Mars in a mundane chart indicates military affairs and the military generally; Saturn has a range of meanings, but the eighth house rules financial relations with other countries. On the one hand, this suggests that the Pentagon will continue to back Trump, and his presidency may also be boosted by military success; on the other, troubled relations with other countries over foreign trade and the dollar’s waning status as a reserve currency will be an ongoing source of trouble for his administration, and thus a source of strength to his bureaucratic opponents.

And the people? Here again we have indications of division.  On the one hand, the ruler of the ascendant is Gemini, who is conjunct the Sun, indicating that Trump’s support among voters on his side of the political landscape will remain strong. This is true even though they’ll suffer from some of the troubles indicated by Saturn in the 8th; of course they’ll be thrilled by the military success overseas predicted by Mars in the 9th. On the other hand, the Moon is in the 10th house of government, suggesting that the voters on the other side of the political landscape will keep up their recently acquired habit of cheering on the federal bureaucrats they used to despise.

There’s no aspect connecting the Moon and Uranus, though. Quite the contrary, the Moon is applying to a conjunction with Neptune. Uranus and Neptune form a polarity in astrology as strong as that between Mars and Venus, or Moon and Sun.  In mundane astrology, Uranus fosters the centralization of power in the hands of experts and bureaucrats, while Neptune pulls in the other direction, encouraging mass movements in the political and economic spheres. Neptune is in his rulership in Pisces, although weakened by retrograde motion—in this context, this likely points to a backward-looking attitude focused on past triumphs and conditions that no longer exist.

Thus it’s easy to see that the popular opposition to Trump, as distinct from the opposition he faces from within the elite classes and their institutions, will be drawn increasingly toward socialism, as seen in recent primary wins by socialists in Democratic Party races. (Neptune rules socialism and similar movements; astrologers like to point out that socialism emerged as a political force following Neptune’s discovery in 1846.)  Neptune is semisquare Uranus in this chart, showing tension and opposition between the popular and elite ends of the opposition to Trump. How this will work out after the six months we’re considering right now is something we’ll have to see in future ingress charts.

Let’s glance back at the Sun and Mercury in the fifth house. The fifth house is among other things the house of the wealthy. The Sun’s presence there suggests that Trump has begun to field significant support from the rich, and we can expect to see this begin to have an impact somewhere else:  the media.  During the 2016 election campaign, the US mass media was almost universally lined up on Clinton’s side, and that imbalance has largely continued, with certain defections—notably the Wall Street Journal, which has been running op-ed pieces and news stories critical of Trump’s opponents for some time now.

In the months ahead, as the economic effects of Trump’s trade, tax, and regulatory policies continue to reshape the economy, expect to see more media outlets start to break ranks with the establishment and side with the Trumpist insurgency. I’d expect that to start with newspapers in the flyover states and with niche-oriented online venues, but it may not stay there.  Media in the US are for-profit enterprises, and the first television network that decides to give middle America what it wants, instead of what the coastal intelligentsia thinks it ought to want, will likely see its fortunes rise dramatically as a result—not least because the tantrums thrown at it by said coastal intelligentsia will function as an extraordinarily effective marketing campaign in flyover country.

How these trends will play out in the midterm election isn’t obvious from the chart. The 11th house rules Congress; its cusp is in Pisces, which is ruled by Neptune, and Neptune is in Pisces conjunct the 11th house cusp.  As the planet ruling the 11th and the only planet in that house, Neptune shows us what Congress will be up to; the fact that it has no aspects with the Sun shows that the fond Democratic hopes of impeaching Trump will go unfulfilled for at least another six months.

The big news coming out of the midterms, I suspect, will be the success of populist movements on both sides of the aisle, at the expense of the bipartisan establishment. Since the ruler of the 11th house is not in aspect to the Sun, it doesn’t look as though the outcome of the election will either strengthen or weaken Trump’s position noticeably, though it will make life difficult for the executive-branch bureaucracies that are opposing Trump just now. All in all, I expect the midterms to be something close to a toss-up, with a few seats changing hands but no major shift in power either way.

The consequences of this and the other trends discussed here will be shaped, not to mention shaken to its core, by the most important and least discussed event of the six months ahead:  a significant betterment in standards of living for working people in the US. That’s shown by Jupiter and Venus, the two benefic planets, in the sixth house of employment and the lower classes.  One benefic would be enough to signal a noticeable improvement in jobs and incomes for working people; two is a signal impossible to miss, and suggests two different sources of betterment at work.

That doesn’t mean that everything will be coming up roses for all sectors of the working classes. Both Jupiter and Venus are in Scorpio, which is an intercepted sign in this chart, and also a sign that weakens Venus—the technical term is “detriment.” Venus is also in square aspect to Mars, which doesn’t help.  Thus the upturn in jobs, income, and standards of living for the working poor will be unevenly distributed, it will not benefit as many people as it might, and part of it will be hindered by sudden events overseas—that’s Mars in the ninth again.

On the other hand, another set of factors will be providing additional impetus to the change of fortune for working people: the turn toward socialism on the part of the Left, as shown by the Moon-Neptune conjunction on the cusp of the eleventh house. While socialism as an economic system has pretty consistently flopped in the US, it’s just as consistently played one useful and honorable role in our history: whenever socialists do well in the polls, the very rich panic, and back off from the more extreme exhibitions of kleptocratic frenzy to which they’re otherwise so embarrassingly liable.

In the 1880s and 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1960s, socialist candidates and causes did well in US elections; the consequences of the panics among the rich that followed were the Progressive era, the New Deal, and the Great Society programs. We’re overdue for a repeat, and are now getting one, courtesy of the socialists who are successfully clawing their way into the Democratic party against the frantic opposition of theparty leaders.

There’s good reason for this, too.  The quite frankly insane greed that has made a household name of Jeff Bezos, for example, and led him to subject Amazon employees to subhuman working conditions and starvation wages so that he can add more money to a fortune already so large it’s meaningless, makes a very good recruitment pitch for socialists—and of course the socialists are well aware of this.

Thus in the months to come we can expect it to begin to sink in, among Bezos and his ilk, that their mindless pursuit of absurd levels of notional wealth might well end up costing them their fortunes and their businesses, and—depending on the strength and violence of the socialist backlash—could conceivably cost them their liberty or their lives into the bargain. Bezos could quite easily give every one of his warehouse employees a living wage with good benefits—not to mention paid restroom breaks!—without any noticeable impact on his own standard of living; thus as soon as fear elbows aside greed, expect to see the worst of the current crop of corporate plutocrats, especially but not only in the tech and internet industries, scrambling to improve wages and conditions for their employees in the hope that this will prevent the onslaught of a new wave of antitrust legislation, punitive taxation, or worse.

Such an improvement in conditions for working people has economic implications of its own. As Henry Ford pointed out a long time ago, a consumer economy can’t thrive if too many consumers are too poor to consume.  Higher wages for the working poor thus pay off immediately in the form of increased income for businesses, leading in turn to more hiring and to more investment in productive assets (as distinct from paper assets with purely speculative value). That’s why the steep rise in working class wages that followed the reforms of the New Deal helped drive the longest and most lavish economic boom in US history, and it’s also why the US economy has lurched from crisis to crisis ever since the current crop of plutocrats forgot the hard lessons an older generation learned in the Depression years and bought into the delusion that they and their actions were immune from blowback.

To sum up, then, we can expect six more months of ongoing contention between the White House and the federal bureaucracies that are in theory subordinate to the president, never quite breaking out into open conflict but never resolving into a working relationship either. The chasm between pro- and anti-Trump factions in the voting public will remain unbridged, though some media outlets will break ranks and throw their support to Trump and his followers.  The success of socialist candidates in recent polls won’t turn out to be a flash in the pan—quite the contrary, the absurd excesses of America’s kleptocratic elite have produced the inevitable backlash, and this is working its way through the political sphere in the usual manner. Partly as a result of this, partly as a result of the Trump administration’s rejection of neoliberal economics, better times for working people are on the way.

How will all this work out on the far end of the six month period we’re discussing? We’ll talk about that when it’s time to cast and interpret the Aries ingress in 2019.

*************

In other news that may be of interest to readers of this blog, the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Vintage Worlds I—the anthology of Old Solar System tales launched by a contest on this blog—is closing in on its final weeks, and it’s most of the way to success. If you haven’t chipped in something yet, please consider doing so; if you have, please consider bumping up your contribution to a higher level. You can find all the details here.

168 Comments

  1. Hi John,

    Since you don’t have a TV you probably weren’t aware that the media scenario you described already has played out with Fox News, and did so for a long time, until Fox threw away its street cred by firing their popular host Bill O’Reilly over one of those he-groped-me-25-years-ago accusations. So now flyover folk don’t trust Fox either, so the field is wide open for some network to play to the regular folk, just as you describe. It would be interesting to see Rachel Maddow suddenly becoming “conservative”! For sufficient compensation, of course.

  2. It’s true, Jeff Bezos is a very wealthy man, but this is due to Amazon’s sky-high stock price. Raises for Amazon’s workers would come out of Amazon’s earnings, and the company currently has only a 3.8% profit margin. Amazon increasing prices to pay for better benefits might just be the opening their competition needs.

  3. “See the one to the right of the top wih the arrow on it, 10° Aquarius 52’? That’s the midheaven, the cusp of the tenth house, which is the point on the ecliptic highest in the heavens at that same moment.”

    I’m confused on a basic point again, sorry. Why isn’t the point highest in the heavens at the top of the outer circle?

  4. I have three things to say: two on topic, one off topic.

    I’ll start with the on-topic first: being better than the “pundits” doesn’t mean much. I still think they’ve reached maximum wrongness, where literally anything will do better. That said, it does seem fairly accurate.

    Two: I wonder what Iran’s chart looks like. Currently the most likely spot for a war seems to be the Straits of Hormuz. Assuming Iran follows through on their recent threats it would be very likely the US would intervene to keep the straits open. Also, anyone here more familiar with Iranian politics giving their thoughts on it would be wonderful: I’m basing this on news sources and I don’t know the domestic situation nearly well enough to have an informed opinion.

    Third: with regards to the Green Wizard Magazine, there are some more delays. I’m locked out of my gmail account because I moved and it triggered a security feature that I can’t get around since I didn’t feel like giving a cell number. The system seems like it doesn’t realize it doesn’t have that, so it keeps wanting to verify my identity by phone. I’m also locked out of the wordpress site, since they won’t give me access unless I verify my identity using my gmail account.

    I’m going to just bite the cost and pay for a website, so I’ll get back to everyone here once that’s done. I’m also not at all sure I can run the magazine in Ontario due to crazy laws (that are actively enforced), which seem designed to kill small businesses. Luckily I’m already planning to move to Quebec once I have a chance to anyway, so it’s just going to slow things down.

  5. I remember a story from ancient Greek or Roman history of an army that was having a war go against it. They could have still escaped by sea but the astrologers or other diviners (I forget the specifics) told then they shouldn’t go, or it wasn’t a good time to go. They kept them waiting on the beach for so long the enemy land and naval forces arrived and trapped them. How do diviners’ interpretations sometimes fail so spectacularly?

    I’m ready to go with the sweetening spell at the appropriate time. I want to do the full version with the candle, but it’s proved harder to find pink candles on short notice than I expected. What I’ve got at the moment is birthday candles striped pink and white like a barber’s pole. Is that okay or should I scramble to find some solid pink candles? Is the burn time seven minutes like in the money spell or is it different? On Magic Monday you also said it could be used for getting a job as well as romance. I could do with across the board improvement in relating to people. Can I do that or is focusing on a single area better?

  6. John–

    Is there anything which indicates how the Sun (Trump/Head of State) interacts with the issues affecting the lower classes? Your example of Bezos reminded me that the President has no great love for Amazon, either. Is there any suggestion that the socialist forces and Trump might actually end up on the same side of legislation relevant to the kleptocratic classes? That would be a sight! (Not to mention the ensuing divide-by-zero errors that would be suffered by many…)

    It will be interesting to see how the lower classes’ economic conditions are reported over coming months and whether or not such an uptick is 1) observed and 2) acknowledged.

  7. In your conception then socialism is simply a boogyman meant to scare the pants off of our eternally recurring kleptocratic class. I was a socialist in my youth but i have come to believe that socialism like capitalism doesnt have the juice for a long run.Maybe Trump is right to try and destroy the present system.But make no mistake if he succeeds we are in for an excruciating reset . that said if i get a chance i will vote for the nearest socialist

  8. In the past, you’ve said that Americans confuse socialism w/social democracy, ie. Bernie Sanders is not a “socialist” but a social democrat. In this post, are you using the term “socialist” the way most Americans conceive of it, ie. “social democracy”?

  9. JMG

    Thanks for these charts. They are fascinating and accurate.

    Do these charts ever reveal predictions regarding the environment or natural disasters? I ask this because while you predict economic good fortune for the working classes, the speed of environmental decline is accelerating. This is our work and we see species decline, increasing pollution and the result of climate stress every day. The poor are suffering the brunt. (Think Cancer Alley in Louisiana)

    It seems as if this would have an impact at some point on the health and resilience of our political institutions and the economy.

    Thanks again.

  10. “All in all, I expect the midterms to be something close to a toss-up, with a few seats changing hands but no major shift in power either way.”

    If this is the result it will be seen as a loss for the Democrats. Historically the party in power loses seats in the mid-term anyway but with the Democrats pounding the drum of a “blue wave”, they have raised expectations to the point that even a few seat gains will be seen as a defeat.

    And if *that* happens prepare for “Russia” to be the dominate word for the foreseeable future.

    Ugh,

    AV

  11. Technical question: if this chart is good for six months, would a chart cast for the winter solstice harmonize with it?

  12. Darkest Yorkshire,
    By this time of year your local Catholic bookstore may have Advent candles in stock; a set consists of three purple and one pink. Catholic friends may have partially burnt ones – I save mine for power failures. I have no idea if the cross-purposes of your spell and their original use would affect your spell’s efficacy – I leave that to our host!

  13. @ AV

    A blunted Blue Wave (TM) would not be a bad thing, in my book. The last thing we need is a resurgent establishment headed by the usual suspects. (Apparently, Booker has been quoted as saying that it would be “irresponsible” for him not to consider the Presidency. Talk about ‘ugh’…)

    My own federal votes likely won’t count for much this November, as my CD is a solid Republican district and it looks like Baldwin has opened a wide lead over Vukmir. For this election, anyway, I’m in firm “those who the adversaries of the people who have pissed me off will be tolerated” territory. One way or another, it looks to be an interesting November.

  14. Pogonip, interesting. You’re right, I wasn’t aware of that.

    Jeff, 3.8% is quite a respectable profit margin in retail these days, and a modest cut of 3.8% of Amazon’s gargantuan gross income would pay for a lot of restroom breaks!

    Dewey, because the ecliptic (the band in which the Sun, Moon, and planets move) is tilted relative to the celestial equator, so the point of the ecliptic that’s highest in the sky isn’t necessarily lined up with what’s straight overhead.

    Will, I won’t argue about maximum wrongness! As for Iran, the ingress chart for Tehran will have the same planets in the same signs and degrees, but completely different ascendant, midheaven, and house cusps. I haven’t looked at it, as there are only so many hours in a day (and way too many countries in the world).

    Yorkshire, diviners are human beings and therefore fallible. A lot of British astrologers made fools of themselves in 1939 by holding a big meeting and announcing that the heavens said there would be no war that year. As it happens, they were wrong about the astrology, not just about the war — the 1939 London ingress chart had all kinds of red flags in it that they ignored, because they wanted peace and so saw it in the heavens. This is why it’s crucial to check interpretations against the standard meanings of the planetary placements, to help avoid howlers. (As for the other half of your comment, that’s way off topic here; please bring that up at the next Magic Monday on my Dreamwidth journal.)

    David, there’s some connection between Trump and the improvement in conditions for working people, in that the Sun-Mercury conjunction is in Libra, which is ruled by Venus in the 6th house (and is also the sign on the 6th house cusp), but it’s not direct or obvious. My best guess is that it won’t be Trump but the new wave of populist Republicans heading into Congress who will find common ground with the new wave of socialist Democrats, and support legislation that will throw the interchangeably Demublican old guard into fits.

    Since Jupiter and Venus are both in an intercepted sign, don’t expect to see much about the upturn in conditions for working people in the mainstream media. I suspect the political impact of that upturn will blindside a lot of people.

    Keith, the word “socialism” is used very loosely these days! The specific political-economic system worked out by Karl Marx et al. and inflicted on about half the world’s population over the course of the 20th century turned out to be a dead loss in the long run, and also caused more mass murders of civilians by their own government than any other ideology in human history; it deserves, and seems to be getting, decent burial. The “socialists” we have in today’s America seem to be what Europeans call social democrats, and the political and economic pendulum in the US swung so far in the direction of laissez-faire kleptocracy that it’s not surprising a lot of people want to vote the other way.

    Shane, I’m simply using the label the politicians in question use for themselves, the same way I use “Democrat” for the profoundly undemocratic party of that name!

    Marc, environmental astrology is basically a new field, and it’s going to take a long time and a lot of hard work before it’s possible to make predictions on that basis. Some environmental factors will show up in a mundane chart; a malefic planet ruling the sixth house cusp in certain signs and aspects can predict environmental illness, a similar configuration involving the fourth house cusp can warn of agricultural failure, tenth house conditions can indicate weather problems, and so on. Since an ingress chart is a snapshot of specific conditions over a period between three and twelve months, though, it’s not well suited to mapping environmental conditions, which tend to change over a much longer timescale.

    Beau, you’re most welcome.

    AV, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out. If the Democrats pick up even a single seat in Congress, I’d expect them to insist that this shows the “blue wave” is building, and will sweep all before it in 2020. If it’s a tie or the GOP picks up any seats at all, yeah, Boris Badenov is going to be credited with even more control over the elections than before; since the alternative is for the Democrats to face the fact that they sold out their historic constituencies and have richly earned the bitter distrust they now get from so many working people of all skin colors, yelling about Boris is going to seem like the best option.

    RPC, a chart for the winter solstice — which I may well cast and interpret here — would be read as a commentary on, and modification of, this chart. They might well differ in important ways, but just as you read your own progressed chart as a commentary on your natal chart, not something of equal importance, a subsidiary ingress (like this year’s Capricorn ingress for the US) is treated as a secondary source of information and clarification.

  15. @Dewey

    Placidus, the house system that JMG is using (it’s traditional) is an unequal house system, meaning that the houses usually occupy more or less than the equal 30 degrees on the ecliptic that each sign occupies. Chart makers have to decide on whether the signs or the houses are going to be equal since they can’t have both. Making the houses unequal in the chart is the traditional choice.

    @Will J.

    Giving Google your phone number isn’t the only way of handling that security feature. A Yubikey works a whole lot better, but it requires a browser that supports it (like Chrome).

    @Darkest Yorkshire

    One of the worst failures of astrological technique was perpetrated just before WW II broke out. I think it was C. E. O. Carter, but my memory may be mistaken. He used multiple charts of the worsening situation and came to the conclusion that there would not be a war. Oops! While there are still people who use ingress charts, it’s no longer the only way to do mundane astrology.

    By the way, most astrologers who did Hitler’s chart before the war predicted he would become a very wealthy man from sales of Mein Kampf. Finding all those indicators of political depravity seems to have been a post-war exercise.

    Another big one, although from farther back, was the failure to predict the Black Plague.

    @David

    You may find this article from the on-line Atlantic magazine enlightening: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/is-america-facing-a-labor-shortage/570649/ .

    @keith Hammer

    The big problem with Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. This has never worked: “Meet the new boss, just like the old boss.”

    If you could get something where the people who actually work in an enterprise owned the enterprise, and where that was supported by law and custom, you’d have something very, very different from anything that’s been called “socialism” to date.

    It would also terrify the investing class, although there are ways of having private investments that have a decent rate of return.

    @AV

    When has anyone been pounding the drums for a “blue wave” recently? Granted there are some over-enthusiastic cheerleaders out there, but the more credible analysts are not predicting a wave election.

    Fivethirtyeight.com has been giving 4-1 odds of the House changing hands, and 4-1 odds of the Republicans holding on to control of the Senate. That doesn’t indicate a major power shift to me.

  16. I’m hoping for socialism myself–and while, yes, Bezos’s wealth comes from the stock rather than salary, there’s nothing but his own greed preventing him from reinvesting it in a way that means his employees are treated well.* The more I hear from him, Musk, and those pharmabros hiking the prices of life-saving medicine, the harder it is to remember that guillotines generally don’t end well. (But what, asks the devil on my shoulder, ever does?)

    Anyhow, I’m all in favor of the social democracy end of socialism. My understanding of astrology might best be termed “basic” in many ways, but I am wondering if the balance/justice aspect of Libra is coming into play here as well?

    * One of the laws I’d put in place, were I some kind of iron-fisted world tyrant, is that if you run or are otherwise in charge of a business, and your annual income is more than ten times that of your lowest-paid employee, the difference gets taken away and redistributed as yearly bonuses to the non-management workers. I wouldn’t differentiate between kinds of gain, either.

  17. John, it won’t do you any good right now, but when football season is over you might want to stop in at your local white-prole bar and behold Fox in action; right now they are still the closest thing to the Proletarian Network. Or if you have a friend or relative with cable or satellite TV you could do it right now.

    I’m fascinated by the female “talent.” They all look and act like medium-high-end whores. (Which profession does require talent, but not the talent ordinarily associated with TV “news.”). Watching them sit down, cross their legs, or flip their long straight blonde hair back is eerily fascinating; they all do it exactly the same way, at the same speed. I think Fox HQ has a cloning machine somewhere on the premises.

    You’ll be the only husband in America who can come home after an evening of observing whores at the local bar and truthfully tell his wife he was doing research! 😄

  18. John–

    Re potential new alignments

    I’d certainly be willing to vote for populist candidates. We’ll have to see what the next cycle or so brings. Will the establishment folks double-down or get a clue, I wonder?

  19. Will J: that Gmail question isnt really security, they know you haven’t given a number before – it’s a dishonest way to get you to give a phone number now. Any number will work – there are stories online of people on holiday in foreign countries having to use the phones of random strangers to get at their email!

  20. Hi Darkest Yorkshire,

    You can get solid pink birthday candles at a party-supply store in the little-girl’s-birthday-party section, and they’d be a heck of a lot cheaper than Advent candles! Religious stuff is always extremely expensive, for some reason. Which is why a lot of us buy those electric Advent candles—not only are they safer, they work out to be cheaper as well.

  21. Other sources for colored candles, while I’m here, include Yankee Candle Company/Bath & Body Works type places (if you don’t mind them smelling like peppermint/cotton candy/etc) or, since it’s pink, adult product stores, if you don’t mind beyond-suggestive shapes. (Bachelorette parties are…experiences.)

  22. Could not the prison strike (now in Canada as well) started this summer, and the ongoing increasing funding and construction of immigration detention camps be the changes in the federal corrections landscape from last chart? http://time.com/5374133/prison-strike-labor-conditions/

    Also, Trump already bought out nearly all the local news networks (including one my family member works at), who must now read only what they get from headquarters, so as far as many people who only check the local station are concerned, the media is already solidly on Trump’s side, and it won’t take much to escalate https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17180020/sinclair-broadcast-group-conservative-trump-d avid-smith-local-news-tv-affiliate

  23. Reading about the rich, I couldn’t help but wonder where Pluto was, since there is a reason the rich have historically been called “Plutocrats,” terminology and planetary name coming from the same source. I note the Romans made the god of the underworld also the god of wealth, though he shares the honors with Saturn.

  24. I will have to second your notion that the Plutocrats are going out of their way to provide miserable and inhuman working conditions. Some of them appear to be against labor laws.
    I worked for each of the big 3 chain pharmacies over the past 25 years (Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid). Walgreens one year gave their CEO a 17 million dollar bonus for cutting all the low wage employees to 35 hours a week, thus cancelling their medical insurance. The others were doing the same sort of thing.
    So it would not be surprising if socialism makes a good showing in the US.
    To anyone who is enduring those conditions I say, Do what I did. Take a job at a smaller company even if the pay and benefits are less. You will be glad you did.

  25. One occasionally reads about worker-owned businesses in the U.S. They all seem to do quite well.

    If anyone brings the guillotines out of storage, it’ll be the pharmabros. That one smirking ***hole even infuriated the U.S. Congress, a group not known for its sympathy for the proles; it has not, for example, shown any inclination to do anything about Jeff Bezos. Probably the difference is that, while a Congresscritter can’t imagine himself or a family member ever working in a warehouse, he can easily imagine a life-saving medicine priced out of even his reach.

    John once mentioned that everyone should read old books; in this context, I recommend any of Berton Roueche’s “The Medical Detectives” collections. Modern Americans will be stunned at story after story of people allowed to stay in the hospital as long as they needed to be there, autonomous doctors, and health departments actually allowed to take action to protect the public health.

  26. The common theme of astrology and how it can be used to give us a perspective on government, nations, and life, and where they are heading has definitely given me a lot of respect for this tool. In fact, as I recently intended to get the paperwork submitted for my wife and step-son to immigrate to the US, since they’re from Russia, I opted to consult the stars and submit the paperwork on a date the stars said was more favorable. I’ll let you know how they works as I learn more!

    In regards to your essay, the idea that things may become more favorable for the working class nearly brought me to tears. I have seen a lot of people suffering over the years, and especially since I’ve returned 6 months ago. It will be gladdening to see more people, and the society in general, benefiting from an economy that is turning away from the kleptocracy we’ve seen. It’ll be interesting to see how that is done though. From my perspective, two things which will need to be done to help the economy is some changes in the healthcare industry and changes to the large corporations. How that might happen remains to be seen!

    As far as changes to the government and elected officials, I just skimmed over a piece from The Atlantic making some valid points as to why democracy hasn’t been as … democratic over the past few decades and especially the last two. One of the things that I’ve mentioned to friends with the election of Trump is I love how his election has energized people to get more involved in politics. Some do it out of spite for him, but I think he has helped to electrify interest in politics again because someone who was not a career politician has gotten in the highest office. This means the average person has a shot to make a difference again. As a Generation Xer (I think being being in 1981 makes me Gen X) I see quite a few of my contemporaries leaning more and more to socialist democratic tendencies. Bernie Sanders was very strongly backed by people under 40. As more and more of members of this demographic are encouraged to get into the democratic institution, I could definitely see more socialist democrats being elected. We’ll find out in November!

  27. @John Roth,

    “If you could get something where the people who actually work in an enterprise owned the enterprise, and where that was supported by law and custom, you’d have something very, very different from anything that’s been called “socialism” to date.

    “It would also terrify the investing class, although there are ways of having private investments that have a decent rate of return.”

    There’s a chain of Distributist bakeries in the SF bay area, which do very well in terms of most every measure I’m able to assess them by.

    Because they aren’t publicly traded, I imagine they’re invisible to the investing class, except perhaps as a footnote in reports about chain restaurants’ market share, with an effort to explain under-performance in certain regions in terms of local quirks.

  28. I’m curious why you use Placidus. Also, I thought that the 12th house (when it did so) ruled institutions that confined large numbers of things; prisons and mental hospitals would be examples. Do you view federal bureaucracies as confining, or is that not how you read the meaning of institutions as signified by this house?

  29. @John Roth – I just checked fivethirtyeight, and they give team blue an 80% of taking control of the house, and a 30% chance team blue takes control of the Senate. Given how gerrymandered the house districts are, and how unfavorable to senate map is for team blue, I’d say that amounts to something of a wave. Not a tsunami, but least something the leftward end of the party can surf… To be clear, I’m not cheerleading for team blue, it just seems to me that a number of commenters here have been ignoring quite a few negative data points about the current regime and how their policies are going over with the people.

    @JMG – Might the tension between the head of state and the bureaucracy involve the Mueller investigation? I mean, Mueller and his team keep getting guilty pleas out of many of Trump’s close associates, and Trump has been constantly going after Jeff Sessions on social media demanding he shut down the investigation. Sounds like tension to me,

  30. John Michael,
    I really enjoy these ingress readings of yours. I’ve been an eager and attentive student of your mundane astrology lessons since you started doing it. Each time you cast and interpret a chart I end up with a couple of pages of notes, so that by the time the next one shows up on another happy Mercury-day, I’ve moved that previous learning into an operational place in my own understanding, and am ready to learn another couple pages of new info.

    That is to say, mundane astrology has gone from completely opaque to me to a place where I can at least see the light shining through the murk! But maybe not much further yet…this time I spent half an hour with the chart before reading on, and was able to recognize and assign the planets to their zodiacal signs, houses, and aspects with each other. I expect to know a lot more by the Aries ingress.

    I will definitely be rereading this with my wife in the morning over tea, and that conjunction always produces favorable results!

    Cheers,
    Tripp

  31. Something just hit me. Since the people and the government are ruled by different planets (+Sun, Moon), their interests almost never align. (Same thing for military, finances etc.) So then it’s basically impossible to have a true government by the people, for the people right?

    And with all the planets in constant motion (+ Earth’s tilted axis meaning the sky is always ‘shaking’ as the capital moves closer and further away from the ecliptic) no country ever achieves balance, or if it does, only for a brief moment. That also explains how nomadic societies can seemingly defy the odds and persist for millennia, they’re mobile so they’re able to keep chasing after the perfect point of balance.

    Hmm, I’m wondering if we could game this system by putting a satellite at the right position and declare it as capital. Maybe that Asgardia space kingdom business wasn’t completely nutty after all…

  32. Hi John Michael,

    Thanks for this astrological series.I know very little about mundane astrology but am wondering if you will still be casting an ingress chart for the Winter Solstice? If so, do the two charts then intermingle their influences for three months?

    Despite the uncertain indications regarding the midterm elections, you seem to be forecasting that the Democrats will not retake the House. Am I reading that correctly? Obviously, if they do, it will have a profound effect on the second half of DT’s first term. Aside from the judicial appointments which only require Senate approval, it’s hard to imagine him having any legislative success. We shall see!

    I know you’re not a huge Rudhyar fan but I thought you might find this 1977 article interesting: https://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/astroarticles/riddleusahoroscope.shtml. His concluding paragraph touches on the Pluto influence — I’m really looking forward to your further elaborations on the waning influence of this planet.

    On an unrelated note, I thought you’d be intrigued to see that Smith College is producing the World Premiere of a new musical this October: Moonlight on the Miskatonic. It’s described as follows: :The campus of Miskatonic U is decked out for Illumination Night. Four alums have arrived for their five-year reunion, only to find creepy goings-on hidden behind the ivy-covered walls, and terrifying disappearances of students keep happening. There’s a snake in Paradise…or something much, much worse. Based on the super scary stories of HP Lovecraft, this new musical is about love, friendship and growing up — and about horrors that lurk very near.” If you’d like to come out to check it out, I’d be honored to be your host!

    Thanks for all you do.

    Jim

  33. I backed the Kickstarter, to the point of getting a hard copy of the book and an issue of Mythic.

    On the political front: Several folks were talking about politics in the recent Magic Monday, but I refrained from commenting, as it had nothing to do with occultism.

    I seem to be living in reverse-land. In Phoenix, the Trump supporters I knew were cubicle workers, people who would find the idea of losing their cubicle jobs (if they ever allowed it to enter their awareness) to be terrifying. Some disliked Trump’s antics, but most supported Republicans even through the lowest ebb of the Bush years. The idea of the end of cheap petroleum energy was incomprehensible to them.

    Meanwhile, my dad is a lifelong construction worker (albeit college educated). He’s got the derangement – he mutters darkly about ill fortune descending upon the Trump children. I haven’t been able to explain that although I detest Trump in general and Zinke in particular, I enjoy how he’s injected chaos into the G7 and the intelligence establishment.
    There’s no clean end to the baleful things that rule the world; havoc seems inevitable.

    Especially on the environmental front. My sentiments echo Marc Flora’s – a resuscitated consumer economy means ever faster consumption of the natural world, and ruin seems to be the only result that I can see.

  34. Will J, please email me about the magazine. I may have a few work arounds that will help you. I might be able to give you a US address for the magazine which could get you around all the muck of regulations.

    BTW I’m the guy running the Green Wizard website and I’d love to see a print magazine out there promoting all that John has written about.

    And about the Green Wizard website…

    For those of you who once visited (and registered an id) on the older Green Wizard dot Org forum established by Teresa and don’t stop by that much now (or ever) I am excited to say we are totally upgrading the forum and the website into an integrated space with an expanded forum and new tutorials. If you have an id at the older forum, you will be receiving an email telling you have a new account there over the next few months.

    I have to manually move every thread and comment in the old forum (old software, uggg!), and as I do, I create new accounts for each person who posted. If you try and register, but the system says your email is already taken, please email me, and I’ll send you a temp password to get onto the site.

    My email is green wizard dtrammel at gmail dot come

    The new site is Green Wizards dot Com

    I’m posting on the front page on the 5th and the 20th of each month and am currently going back over some basic concepts of Green Wizardry in preparation for a discussion on Systems Thinking. Our most recent post, on the 5th, though was a Summer Book review, on which we looked at long time ADR comment poster “The Cloud Walking Owl” (aka Bill Hulet’s) book “Walking The Talk”.

    Great book, you should read it.

    On the old forum, I have been doing experiments in growing “micro greens” for the last few months as a way for beginning Green Wizards to dip their toes into gardening. A big plus is renters can do them too.

    While the chart John has posted foretends a period of better economic situations for the middle and lower classes, we must always remember, the Long Collapse is right around the corner. You can learn to “Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush”, when you have the resources to shrug off temporary setbacks, or do it when the Collapse has got you in its teeth.

    We know what happens to prey in teeth and it isn’t pretty.

    Please take a few minutes and visit us.

    (and update your contact email too, so we can let you know of your new account,)

  35. Errors in astrological predictions are bound to happen. Paraphrasing what John said here many times, the planetary influences are not straitjackets. Some sectors will be less influenced, others more. It is still better than many systems to get precise timing. Astrology works through the influence the planets have in the currents of astral light, and the predictions can be timed precisely, due to the existence of the planets in the physical plane; other methods of divination do not have this anchor, and getting timing right in anything astral ranges from quite hard to nearly impossible. The influence of the planets could be said to be very “real,” opposed to the potential of the astral realm, where future is not, so to say, set in stone, and it also has this maze-y, labyrinthine quality to it; time “there” just not works like “here” (between quotes because I know we exist in all planes, the disclaimer is just to avoid nitpicking).

    Here in Brazil, it is not possible to activate a cell phone line without giving to the provider the local version of the VAT number, so providers of internet services use activation by phone as a proxy to verify the identity of the user. Brazilian law allows freedom of speech, as long as it is not anonymous, so that a person can be accounted for things like libel, slander, hate speech and harassment. Freedom of assembly is granted, but people in public protests are not allowed to wear masks for the same reason.

    Candles were phased out to a certain degree, in our country, due to rechargeable lanterns and photographic flash lights in cell phone cameras (not long ago, while I was looking for new candlesticks for ritual magic practice, a young clerk in a store did not recognize the Portuguese word for candlestick, “castiçal”, which is different from the word for candle, “vela”), but they are still widely available and inexpensive because of the African-American religious supply stores. I asked to a grocer at the public market where I could buy candles and he pointed me to one of those stores. I was worried about consecration, and I started to attempt to explain what consecration was to him, and to my surprise he said I shouldn’t worry, because their were not so; he told me he buys candles for his own use in power outages (limits to growth, climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, what John calls The Long Descent is starting to take its toll; the piper must always be paid).

    I would say much more, to provide data points on the Brazilian situation, but I will save those for a future open thread; what I wrote here is at least related to replies.

  36. @Isabel Cooper

    While I pled guilty of parteking on the ironclad-tyrant fantasies myself, and I very much approve of your feelings of generosity towards the lower end of the labor force… I am afraid your proposal will never fly. You see, if business owners were to earn *merely* 10x above their lowest compensated hired-hand, there will mostly be small businesses, and a lot of them. Which would have been fine for society in general, except in order to remain a tyrant you will have to have a big fat bureaucracy in order to deal will those huge numbers of businesses. Therefore, all the entitled jerks will simply move out of private enterprise and enroll on your tax collecting agency (and pounds to peanuts that they will overcharge left and right the minute you happen to turn your eyes elsewhere).

    Not to mention, with even the humblest labourer earning 10% of the boss’es fare, you will see a sharp decline in young men willing to put life and limb in the line for the sake of making a name of themselves in your Legions of Terror. So I need no astrology to tell your tyrancy will be a short one…

    @Pogonip

    Electric candles? Oh Humanity!!!

    Seriously, though. I’d expect the actual fire to have a metaphysical effect in your prayer, as well as the fumes and therefore the material the candle was made off. I do not know what experiments there are on the parapsycologic effects of electrict currents, but pop culture seems to think it cannot be good. I have even read works of fiction which assume the current de-enchanment of the world is an unintended side effect of widespread cooper wiring and indoors plumbing, so the idea at least is flowing around.

  37. Is there any reason why not to look further into the future with mundane astrology? I took a look myself at charts for Washington DC through the next five years and the Aries ingress for 2023 looks like it might be interesting, in the Chinese curse sense.. I’m far from an expert in astrology though.

  38. @CR: Yeah, I pretty much need legions of the undead or similar if I’m to rule the world, I’m pretty sure. And my ascent to lichdom keeps getting derailed by things like apple crisp.

    Also I would be a horribly ineffectual tyrant-queen, in actuality, for similar reasons. Any plucky band of heroes could just toss pastries and alcohol in my direction and I’d probably let them take over.

  39. I’ve enjoyed this blog and your previous blog for some time, but this is my first comment. Reading your recap of the Cancer Ingress chart, I recalled reading this earlier in the summer regarding prison reform legislation. I’m not sure if it’s moving forward, but prison reform is certainly under discussion and some form of legislation appears to be in the works. Thank you for a very interesting blog.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-meets-with-governors-to-address-prison-reform-recidivism/4522509.html

  40. John,

    Darkest Yorkshire’s question sparked my curiosity: isn’t it possible to retroactively build an ingress chart for whatever location and time based on the relative positions of the planets and Earth at any other given time? isn’t it also possible to predict future relative positionings, and thus future ingress charts? This is a disturbing thought, I suspect I must be getting something wrong.

  41. John (if I may), yes, that was C.E.O. Carter. His attempts to explain away his failure in later writings make painful reading.

    Isabel, social democracy has a lot going for it. It inevitably goes to extremes, but then so does its opposite. As for Libra, yes, having Libra on the 6th house cusp does suggest that things are coming back into balance for working people.

    Pogonip, I’ll have to find one. The neighborhood I live in is largely Portuguese-American and Cape Verde-American, with an admixture of students of every imaginable background, and it’s soccer season, not football season, that dominates the local bars.

    David, my guess is that they’ll double down until too many of them get thrown out of office.

    SaraDee, the changes in 12th house conditions should have been for the better, and I haven’t seen that. As for the shift in local media, fascinating — thanks for the data point.

    Patricia, I put Pluto in the same category as Ceres and the larger asteroids — a minor body that’s relevant only to specialist analyses. In a mundane chart, the plutocrats are represented by whoever rules the cusp of the fifth house.

    E. Goldstein, yep. That’s the kleptocratic mentality that rules corporate America today, and the only thing that will change it is stark terror in the boardrooms, which socialists are good at providing.

    Pogonip, I’m very much in favor of worker-owned enterprises and patronize them whenever I can.

    Prizm, here’s hoping!

    Flow, I use Placidus because I find it gets more accurate results in my charts than the other house systems I’ve tried. As for the 12th house, remember that mundane astrology has its own idiosyncratic take on the houses; all bureaucracies, in a certain sense, have lots of people confined in them — check out a bureaucratic cubicle farm someday! — but in mundane work, the 12th house is institutions and bureaucracies of all kinds.

    Ben, the Mueller investigation is doubtless part of it, but there’s clearly more going on than just that.

    Tripp, delighted to hear it. If you have the time and the opportunity, you might see if you can find a copy of either Raphael’s or H.S. Green’s books, both titled Mundane Astrology; they go through many of the basics.

    SpiceIsNice, excellent. You get tonight’s gold star. Yes, exactly; there is no such thing as a perfect society, no way to make the endless tangles of human social life sort themselves out into patterns of perfect fairness and justice — if such a thing could even be imagined! — and if by any chance things worked out close to that for a little while, conditions would then change. That’s the nature of our existence.

    Jim, it seems most likely to me, from examining the chart, that the Dems will not retake the House. If they gain seats, it’ll fall short of that goal, and they may not gain seats. At the same time, it’s clear that there’s not going to be a “red wave” of Trumpist Republicans throwing the Democrats out of office. Thank you for the Rudhyar article; while I don’t use his methods, I respect Rudhyar’s skill as an astrologer, and his arguments for the Sibly ascendant seem quite solid to me. Thank you also for news of the musical!

    Cliff, thank you! I think a lot of the country is reverse-land in one sense or another — it’s a very complex social and cultural landscape, and broad generalizations tend to fall flat here more often than not.

    Packshaud, many thanks for the data points.

    Kashtan, you can certainly do so. The advantage of doing each ingress chart as it arises is that you can put the chart in context. Two years ago, for example, I’d have had to guess what the Moon-Neptune conjunction means — it’s only the upsurge of socialist candidates in recent months that makes it clear what that placement is talking about.

  42. Ryan, fascinating! Thanks for the data point.

    Lorenzo, sure, but you won’t know the political context and so will be left flailing around in a sea of abstractions. It’s because I’ve observed what’s going on with Trump and the federal bureaucracies, for example, that I could figure out what the Uranus-Sun inconjunct means.

  43. I also have another question regarding other news. Can you recommend two of your After Oil anthologies, or is it best to start with the first two? Thanks again.

  44. JMG, I find it interesting you’re reading of the increase of wealth, or “better times” for the working stiffs in America over the next six months seems in stark contrast to the long-term grind downward in the Long Descent. It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out over the elections and next couple of quarters. I still see Amazon’s business model of relying on cheap shipping rates eventually (which may be a couple of decades out for all I know) grind it into the dust.

    As for socialism, I’m dubious that here in the U.S. we have the demographics to support the system the way it sort of succeeded in Northern Europe and Canada – where the vast majority of well-educated, healthy and ethical people resulted in the “makers” far outnumbering the “takers”. In the U.S. half of the citizens are relying on government programs and handouts, and the longer term picture of the economy is in decline. Socialism will gain favor of those in need, but it sets the table for totalitarianism when giving government that much more power, and destroys the motivation of the “producers”. We’ll be lucky, very lucky IMHO, to be no worse off than 1955 East Germany in 20 years.

    Thanks for the reminder about the OSS kickstarter – tossed some of my hard-earned bucks that way tonight.

  45. Greetings all!

    Currently Trump is waging economic war against Iran which in my understanding can spin off in many directions. Do your chart has to say anything about the matter?

    Regards

  46. Here comes a question I wanted to ask on an earlier chart, but somehow I got sidetracked by something and then forgot.

    Given today’s knowledge about the movement of the celestial bodies, isn’t it possible to compute these charts many years in advance and create long term prophecies? And perhaps as a bonus question: is this maybe the secret of the famous prophets of the past (e.g. Nostradamus)?

    If such long term prophecies are possible and given the computer power of big companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon, then I wonder, if it is really only luck that these companies stay successful for so long. But I guess, that sounds too much like a conspiracy theory or stuff from a sci-fi/phantasy novel.

  47. JMG
    There is an interesting article by John Harris in Guardian (UK) relating to the balance of powers in complex interactive world, in this case in Britain under the same sun and moon (see @SpiceIsNice’s comment and your reply).
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/britains-insecure-towns-left-behind

    Harris quotes a 2014 book by two academics:
    “Over recent decades,” goes the text, “deep social and economic changes have hit particular groups within British society particularly hard: older, less skilled and less educated working-class voters. These are the groups we describe as the ‘left behind’ in modern Britain, who could once rely on the strength of their numbers to ensure a voice in each of the mainstream parties.” (Goodwin & Ford, 2014)

    Harris discusses on the ground data points he has collected in Walsall, one of the many ‘ground zero’ towns in contemporary Britain – ‘modernised’, even the poverty, to the point of surreal juxtaposition. He raises the question of ‘whose’ future it will be, as well as ‘what’ future. He hazards that much wider swathes of the population could face the edgy insecurity already experienced by the erstwhile working class.

    He ends his short summary article thus:
    “This is arguably the biggest challenge Labour [Party, aka ‘socialist’] faces, and tackling it has to start with a realisation some might see as counterintuitive to the point of logical impossibility: that all of sudden, it is the “left behind” who hold the key to the country’s future.”

    best
    Phil H

  48. “All in all, I expect the midterms to be something close to a toss-up, with a few seats changing hands but no major shift in power either way.”

    The GOP is very worried they will lose the House. In fact all the complaints about ‘fake news’ appear to be backfiring as Republican voters exhibit complacency in not believing this. We’ll see. I’ll go with the data, GOP either loses the house, or barely retains it.

  49. Wouldn’t socialism itself be one of the mechanisms that move the wealthy towards Trump?

    i.e. if they intuit that the choice is between Trump and socialism, then they will gravitate towards the lesser (for them) of two evils.

  50. partly as a result of the Trump administration’s rejection of neoliberal economics, better times for working people are on the way.
    I don’t see any serious rejection of Neoliberal economics in the Trump administration. Foreign trade and immigration are the only two areas where some minor changes have been attempted. The core principles of pro-market regulation, intense financialisation, privatisation of the commons, and corporate-state integration seems to be not just ever present but on steroids.
    I hope that things pick up for working people all around the world, but people are not even being educated in any kind of alternative approach, let alone us seeing it manifest in government.

  51. @SpiceIsNice

    That’s one reason I prefer the opening of the 2nd Continental Congress as the main US chart. It has a very nice Sun – Moon trine, suggesting that there will be cooperation between the government and the people.

    It also has Neptune closely conjunct the Moon, which I think is very descriptive of one of the less lovely characteristics of the American people.

    There are other reasons – I’ve had some success using it to predict elections.

    @kashtan
    Re: far future

    Astrological charts are always interpreted in respect to the then-current situation. We don’t really know what’s going to be happening in five years. Or even in five months, for that matter.

    I know of only one system that works for long time – that’s the one Robert Hand developed in analyzing the actions of the angles through the actual constellations (not the signs). Aquila the Eagle is the constellation for the US, BTW. There are at most three more contacts before the US ends…. (This is also why the Piscean age isn’t over yet, and why the “age of Aquarius” isn’t in the near term future: the first contact with the actual constellation of Aquarius is still several centuries away.

  52. I would have waited for Magic Monday for the questions about the sweetening spell but Friday is showtime and I didn’t want to put it off another week. 🙂 So another question that is hopefully enough on topic, and may save you some time going forward. Like you did with the astrology and planetary hours calculators, can you recommend a good set of online correspondence tables? Then we don’t have to ask every time we want to know what planet, colour, number, etc, goes with what. I’ve seen a few online but they contradicted some of the ENM, like Venus corresponding to 6 rather than 7.

  53. Wow. Your powers of prediction are quite well-honed. I think they even go beyond mundane charts. Here’s a data point for you, which is actually from a week ago, but is more pertinent to this week’s post.

    When you said recently (I think it was in a comment response) that you could foresee Congressional investigations into the Silicon Valley tech giants depending upon the election outcomes this November, I had assumed (perhaps cynically) it was an overly optimistic bit of wishful thinking.

    I thought that could never happen in a million years, but here we are, one step closer:
    https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/trump-campaign-manager-calls-for-investigation-into-google-after-breitbart-video-threat-to-republic/

  54. @JMG: Exactly re: balance! I’m inclined toward individualism myself–mostly because I’m a cranky introvert–but came to bleeding-heart liberalism, really, once I got a glimpse of how truly awful the corporate world in America is. (We have less time off than the average medieval peasant got, for example.) Also, work-for-work’s-sake, competition/growth at all costs, and the idea that stripping down the rest of your life is a model of virtue* are really toxic, harmful ideas, and unfettered capitalism promotes them a lot.

    So under social democracy, I’d want to be careful not to fall into the trap of saying everyone must have exactly the same things as everyone else, of making people intertwine their lives too closely, or of not providing a mechanism for keeping people with bad habits from making everyone else’s lives worse. (I really like the *idea* of co-housing, for example, but then I remember living with roommates, and I think you’d need some way of dealing with the person who leaves plates with food on them lying around for days, or makes a whole bunch of noise at 3 AM, or whatever, and gentle talking-tos do not work.) But, as you say, balance and counterbalance.

    * I got a fair amount of “well, if someone can’t make a million dollars a year after taxes, they’d have no motivation to work as hard” pushback from various people, and my argument was that it’s generally better for you and everyone else if you’re *not* regularly putting in sixty- or eighty-hour weeks. (I hear about the lack of sleep common to most medical interns, for example, and it makes me quite nervous about going to the hospital, should I need to do so.) And if the prospect of making a million dollars a year is the only thing keeping you in your job, I’d argue you maybe shouldn’t be in that job.

  55. @Michael Meier: “If such long term prophecies are possible and given the computer power of big companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon, then I wonder, if it is really only luck that these companies stay successful for so long.”

    Generally speaking, big IT companies don’t stay successful for very long at all, and of the 4 you’ve named, only 1 has even existed for more than 20 years – and it’s well past its prime now. When I was growing up IBM was the 300lb gorilla in the IT world, and they’ve been reduced to a niche player. For comparison, Standard Oil was founded in 1870, and its successor companies (Marathon, BP, ExxonMobil, and Chevron) are still major economic forces today. IT companies are mayflies.

  56. Ryan, to my mind the last one is the best of all, but only by a hair. You won’t go wrong reading any of them.

    Drhooves, I’ve noted before that the Long Descent isn’t a straight line — quite the contrary, there will be steep downward lurches, followed by stabilization and even by modest improvements in the window of opportunity before the next crisis hits. Working people in the US have been through one of those steep downward lurches; now the modest improvement seems to be cutting in. In a decline lasting one to three centuries, a lot of variation can be expected.

    As for socialism, er, as I said, it’s pretty consistently a flop in the US. I don’t expect it to attract more than ten per cent of the electorate — but that’s enough to scare the bejesus out of the kleptocratic rich, which is a good thing for reasons already discussed.

    Karim, nope. To work that out, you’d have to compare the ingress charts for the US and Iran, then compare both of those to the foundation charts of the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran — that is to say, a heck of a lot of work.

    Michael, I’ve noticed that a lot of people think in these terms! The thing to remember is that a successful astrological prediction always depends on paying attention to the rest of the world — not just the stars. A good astrologer who wants to do a natal chart will spend some time talking to the client, getting a sense of their personality and situation, because that gives the context in which the astrological factors work. In a mundane chart, that’s even more true. In 1950, for example, there would have been no way for an astrologer looking at the Aries ingress chart for London for 2019 to realize that a lot of what it was saying has to do with Brexit, since the EU didn’t exist yet and the thought of Britain handing over much of its national sovereignty to a European government was unthinkable at that time; all the astrologer would be able to predict was that some combination of forces would cause an economic boom and a rearrangement of something or other having to do with foreign trade.

    As for the big tech companies, most of them are riding a temporary boom caused by absurdly low borrowing costs and the fad-driven nature of the stock market. My guess is that some of the biggest tech and internet stock names will go the way of Pets.com in the decade or so immediately ahead of us.

    Phil H., that got into the Guardian??? The official megaphone of Britain’s politically correct minority? Must be a blue moon or something… 😉

    MetaMetaMeta, the data said that Brexit would lose and Hillary Clinton would be elected president. Shall we see if third time’s the charm?

    Phil K., yes, and I should have thought of that, of course.

    Mog, don’t mistake neoliberal economics for the broader realm of capitalist “free” market economics. Trump is an unabashed partisan of the latter, but his trade and immigration policy are in flat contradiction to basic principles of neoliberalism, and his administration’s assault on the regulatory state undercuts an equally important but normally unmentioned element of neoliberalism as practiced.

    Yorkshire, hmm! I don’t know of one, though they may well be out there. I learned the correspondences out of books — that’s what we had back in the day — and it’s been years since I’ve had to look one up.

    Blue Sun, one secret for effective prediction is to remember that every political action is followed by an unequal and not precisely opposite reaction. The massive concentration of wealth and influence in the hands of the tech-industry plutocrats was always guaranteed to generate blowback, and the extent to which the tech industry has aligned itself with the establishment against Trump guarantees that they’re going to have a big red bull’s-eye taped to their collective backside if he gets through the midterms without a resounding rejection by the voters.

    Isabel, no argument at all. Why the idea of making a million dollars a year should justify not having a life is a mystery to me; each of us only has so many years before we die, after all, and I really, truly doubt that when these people are lying on their deathbeds, waiting for that last breath to rattle out, they’re going to be thinking, “If only I could have put in more hours at work!”

  57. @JMG: Likewise. Or if they are, that’s sad. I blame the Puritan version of Calvinism, myself, and the notion that (to paraphrase Stephen King) you can tell which people God likes by whose bank balance is healthiest. Actually, there may be a paper/story/thing in the interaction of American Puritanism with your description of the Wendigo* elsewhere: effort and lack of pleasure as worth/wealth as worth/consumption as wealth/consumption as the most valuable thing.

    I’ve also seen the concern over wealth as the inverse of that–the idea that one’s offspring should never have to know any minor hardship. When I was working on legal books and pointed out that the estate tax, in most states, only kicks in over a million dollars, an acquaintance objected that, if you have more than one kid, they might only be getting a couple hundred thousand each, in tones that indicated this was a vast problem. Taking out college tuition and/or providing for long-term disability (and I believe there are workarounds for each of those) I’m going to go ahead and say that someone whose adult kids won’t be quite satisfied with a $100K inheritance has failed as a parent in one way or another.

    *Which I, in my vainer moments, think I’m better than some at resisting–but then I see books, or boots, or ridiculous cheese, and then know myself more realistically. 😛

  58. Which books have the best and most comprehensive correspondence tables? Does one of your books have them?

  59. Since the movements of Celestial bodies is basically known, wouldn’t that allow for projection of future charts to the Nth degree? Say 500+ years into the future? Then the only unknowns would be say asteroids or other non-typical movements and of course who the players of the time would be.

  60. @ John Roth

    Thank you for the link. I had been thinking of the issue of monopsony power recently and sure enough, there it was in the article. Perhaps if we got a sufficiently strong populist wave (from both wings, for balance) then maybe we will see some push-back on big business — someone might even offer up a Constitutional amendment putting a stake through the heart of corporate personhood, which would go a long way toward resolving some of these issues.

    @ isabelcooper

    Re work

    We lack both the concept of “enough” (“more” is generally seen as always “better”) and an effective means to achieve that balance. For example, I could live fairly comfortably on, say, three-quarters of my salary. But I do not have the option of working 30-hour weeks for pro-rated pay. (As it is, being salaried, I put in 45 hours a week as a matter of course.) It is very much “all or nothing” the way our economic system is set up. I’ve brought up the notion here at work of allowing employees to “purchase” additional vacation time (at a price properly grossed up to account for the value of fringe benefits), which would be a backdoor way of pro-rating one’s pay to an extent, but haven’t gotten anywhere with it.

  61. Prizm,
    As I’m sure you know, that’s electional astrology! And I’m absolutely fascinated by it too. We are going to be making a big marketing push with our top product next Spring, and will definitely not be doing so without the aid of the stars via electional astrology.
    Cheers.

  62. JMG,
    Thanks so much for the book recommendations! Green’s “Mundane Astrology” is on my short list, along with Warnock’s “Secrets of Planetary Magic.” I really like this stuff…

    More than I like cards even. And I always enjoy card readings. I’ve always used the Carr-Gomm Druid Animal Oracle, but you’ve never openly thrown out a vote of confidence in it when I’ve mentioned it before. Is there a better way to go? Or is that more a matter of personal preference and imprinting?

    Also, my natal chart suggests that I may have a gift for clairvoyance, and I naturally gravitate to herbs like eyebright (We make a truly wonderful eyebright product for sale – always rave reviews, when people give it a fair shake. At 45 I have 20/15 vision in both eyes…unless I use it a lot, then it’s more like 20/10! I’m now trying to get more serious about WHEN I make it…).

    What else, besides keeping at the appropriate herbs, astrology, and card divination, could I be doing to exercise my potential gift?

    Thanks so much.
    Tripp

  63. Is there a representation of organized crime in mundane astrology, or is the system too old to parse any distinction between a racket and a government?

    I ask because I’ve done reasonably well predicting Trump’s actions (including the fact that he did not take visible steps to legalize recreational cannabis this past quarter) by trying to reason out whether a particular action would help or hinder organized crime. If your readings currently ignore criminal organizations, it might be worth adding them into the mix.

    Asking the above raised a related question: how does mundane astrology handle nomads and stateless ethnic groups?

  64. John–

    Our politics is just a mess. (I realize that politics is generally a mess, regardless.) I want to know what is going on, but then when I see what is going on, I just want to wash my hands of the whole thing. Double-standards, self-serving rhetoric, shameless power plays, short-term thinking, hypocritical stances — little wonder people turn away. Yes, I know, human nature is what it is. But still…

    My experience at the local level hasn’t been too bad in that sense, but it is frustrating in its own way. Everyone complains about something; the city can’t do anything right. People want services, but they don’t want to pay for them. And, of course, it is all incredibly slooooooooow going — particularly when dealing with state and/or federal agencies. Even the private sector, at times.

    There are days when hermitting in a remote location far from other people has a definite appeal.

  65. John Michael,

    I hope this isn’t too off-topic…It does concern energy flow and something like house divisions!

    My wife is fairly practiced in the art of feng shui, and since I’ve become less empirical and more receptive to such things, she insists that it’s time to do something about where I sleep in the house.

    Despite a constant and protracted effort toward eating better, herbal supplementation, etc, my physical health (apart from eyesight obviously) has been steadily deteriorating for the past…almost 5 years, which is precisely when we moved our bed from a location that was just “not-optimal” for me according to my pa-kua lo shu numerology to a place where it was downright dismal. A year later we built a privacy wall between us and the stairs because our kids (upstairs) were getting old enough to…need it.

    Things got noticeably worse for my situation immediately. I just didn’t believe in such “rubbish” at the time, so I didn’t think of that as a potential solution. And so the suffering continued.

    Again over the past couple of days my health has taken another hard knock, and over tea this morning (after rereading your new post to her obviously) we decided it was time to move the bed. In our little cabin the options are pretty limited, but we were able to turn the bed 90* from West to North, putting my wife and I both in a #2 auspicious position – not the very best, but going from an 8 to a 2 (for me, staying 2 for her) is significant.

    But here’s the rub. I haven’t even slept in the bed yet and I’m already getting relief from my increasingly unbearable arthritis issues. The wrench in my back that developed yesterday for no real reason and was keeping me from standing, sitting, or even breathing normally, is dissipating steadily, the chronic arthritis in my right hip is nowhere to be found, after only a few hours!!

    How is this possible?? I thought I’d at least have to sleep in the bed one measly night to start getting relief. But no, I’m getting it from just the act of moving my sleeping spot from a terrible to an auspicious position! I mean, yee-ha!, but wha?

    Again, if this is too off-topic, just delete it and I’ll hit you again with it on Magic Monday.
    Thanks,
    Tripp

  66. Just since I like playing devil’s advocate…

    Perhaps working hard in this lifetime might benefit a person if their reincarnated as that person’s grand or great-grandchildren. Some of those funds will take care of multiple generations of families. But then again, perhaps not. I don’t want to argue the point especially since I am not familiar with how reincarnation works, but perhaps it is a possibility.

  67. Hi JMG

    I have two questions to you

    a) The things seem heating-up in Syria with the downing of a russian EW plane with 15 soldiers killed and I think it is a quite scary incident. Do you thing when you talk about “military success” for the US in the near future could be related also to Syria?

    b) Recently I have copied a comment from the web The American Conservative, where a commenter describe what alt-right peope “are” compare to the “normal” conservatives, it sounds quite impressive for me. Do you think is an accurate representation or is an exageration?:

    “If I had to diagnose the difference between “Conservatives” versus the “Alt-Right” set, your Conservative grows up in an intact nuclear family and attends church on a weekly basis in a community that is relatively ethnically homogeneous. Think Salt Lake City or small-town Kansas.

    In contrast, the “Alt-Right” experience, I suspect, is a result of growing up in dysfunctional families in dying, de-Industrializing cities and towns, who, thanks to the gift of the diversity, gets the opportunity to get beaten up by children of all different creeds and colors, only to be told that he or she actually deserves to have his or her face stamped in due to some invisible and/or ancestral blood curse.
    To put it differently, conservatism exists in those regions of the country relatively untouched by “Progress”, whereas the kind of punk rock rightist stance requires feminism, mass immigration, rising inequality, de-industrialization, rising suicide rates, secularism, and, of course, a thriving drug culture, to provoke a kind of political gag reflex.

    I believe there is a divide on the right based on whether people grew up in the last bastions of a culture of life, or whether someone grew up in the center of the culture of death. Further, I suspect that the future belongs more to the Alt-Right than the conservatives, because it is a consequence of “Progress”, the more America “progresses”, the stronger the Alt-Right will grow.
    I don’t think this is a good thing, it is probably a bad thing, but if one writes about politics, one has to look reality square in the face. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that Life will ultimately triumph, but it may be messy in the interregnum.”

    Cheers
    David

  68. Ben said: “it just seems to me that a number of commenters here have been ignoring quite a few negative data points about the current regime and how their policies are going over with the people.”

    Tripp says: this is surely very highly influenced by where you live and what news you take in. In my 85% red rural north Georgia county, for example, your garden-variety working class Joe is just tickled pink at the way things are going. With the added bonus being that their giddiness is rubbing off on some of us not-likely-to-vote-Pub folks. It’s pretty hard to remain cynical in the face of such open joy.

    At this point anyway, here’s one 3rd party vote you can move into the Trump column in 2020. And no, I’m not a Russian bot…

    Cheers.

  69. Interesting! It seems like nothing particularly drastic is going to happen in the next six months of the US, then.

    I was wondering, since you say Uranus and Neptune are opposites – which makes complete sense based on what I know – what does it mean when they’re conjunct? They’re conjunct in my natal chart and I imagine in a bunch of other people born around the same time as me. Similarly, what happens if/when Mars and Venus are conjunct?

    (Also, as an aside, thanks for doing the Brexit astrology the other week. I didn’t read it until after the comment cycle closed, but, being UK-based, I appreciated it a lot.)

    Thanks,

    L.

  70. …it is most useful to understand neoliberalism’s policy implications in terms of 10 norms that have defined its historical practice. These norms begin with trade liberalization and extend to the encouragement of exports; enticement of foreign investment; reduction of inflation; reduction of public spending; privatization of public services; deregulation of industry and finance; reduction and flattening of taxes; restriction of union organization; and, finally, enforcement of property and land ownership.

    Trump’s agenda aims to realize the foremost goals of neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, tax-cutting, anti-unionism, and the strict enforcement of property rights.

    -Daniel Bessner

    I struggle to see how changes to trade laws but the continuation (and acceleration) of the ‘foremost goals’ mentioned above will, as you say, bring ‘better times for the working people’. I guess I see Trump as I did Obama – with a big disparity between appearance and reality.

  71. John–

    (With apologies for the mini-rant earlier)

    Do you see any movement towards the kind of economic nationalism which both Trump and Sanders (generally) championed on the campaign trail back in ’16? The bureaucracy and the economic elite seem to be pushing back hard, but I wonder if the broader public (particularly the lower classes) have caught onto the implications of the idea yet and/or made their thoughts known. I don’t know where to look for evidence one way or another. The analysis one reads is written by those whose livelihood is dependent on such a thing not occurring. It would be nice to see some movement in that direction, though I realize it is going to take far longer and be more stutter-stepped than (I think) it should.

  72. To “L” – that’s a very good question. I have both Mars and Venus in Scorpio at midheaven, practically on top of each other, one in the 9th house and one in the 10th. Both my ability to win any sort of confrontation and to find a mate have not been in the cards – or in the stars – ever. Bad luck? Bad tactics? Brain wiring at 90 degrees from everybody else in every dimension? Whatever, and for what it’s worth.

  73. David, BTL said: “. For example, I could live fairly comfortably on, say, three-quarters of my salary. But I do not have the option of working 30-hour weeks for pro-rated pay. (As it is, being salaried, I put in 45 hours a week as a matter of course.) It is very much “all or nothing” the way our economic system is set up.”

    I haven’t had a regular salary for 11 years now, and it is wonderful! And completely terrifying…

    I guess one would have to freelance odd-jobs to get away with it, as I’ve done in times of need, or have a small business interest, which I definitely have, but which also has a seasonality to it. Reminds me a bit of solar power actually! DIY and be ready for interruptions!

    Art Ludwig made a point in his book “Water Storage” that really stuck with me after reading it years ago: between 95% system consistency and 97.5% consistency you can expect to roughly double the cost of the system and its maintenance; ditto for a jump from 97.5% to 99% consistency; ditto again for another increase to 99.5%, and again to 99.7%; and ditto again for increasingly tiny increments of consistency as you asymptotically approach perfection (I’m paraphrasing here but hopefully the point is clear).

    In other words, if one can stomach a little system down-time, the whole technology – whether that’s water supply, or power generation, or whatever – can cost a LOT less, orders of magnitude less, than it supposedly has to in our culture. The meager rainwater and solar power supply systems at our place are a prime example. We use less than 500 gallons of water a month, and our back-up water supply is two 7-gallon “aqua-tainers” that I fill up at a public artesian well in town.

    I’ve said all along that behavioral innovation, being mentally able to allow a little system down-time – JMG’s “collapse now and avoid the rush” maxim fits – is the best way to prepare for, and enjoy spending time in, the future.

    Yeah, a salary is nice, but you sure do give up a lot of your life for it.
    Cheers, friend.

  74. Ley Lines of the Earth: perhaps your next topic, JMG, and a question: did Dion Fortune discuss Ley Lines?

    Idle comment, not meant to incite rancor: more than anything, I’m interested in learning at some point in the future just what exactly did the Russian ambassador tell Jeff Sessions that motivated Sessions to recuse himself? Granted, it may be a half-century or so before it’s revealed.

  75. @ Tripp

    Re salaries, systems, and cost

    First off, color me very impressed! 500 gal/mo is a feat indeed, particularly for a multi-person household (which I’m assuming, as you said “we”). Working at a utility, I have some understanding of relative usage. I’ve been interested in monitoring our household’s power & water consumption and have tracked them for years now. We are running ~325 cubic feet of water (nearly 5x your usage), still below the “standard” 200 cubic feet per person. On the electric side, we’re doing much better, just over 200 kWh/mo, with some dips below that (on a 12-mo rolling average).

    Your main point, though, is well made. My approach has been to moderate my needs while preparing for an earlier exit. This latter carries a certain price, but I’ve got my spreadsheets, I’ve assessed the costs and benefits, and I am willing to pay those penalties when that time comes. (8 years, 7 months, and 10 days — but who’s counting?) There’s also the fact that, for the most part, I enjoy what I do. (Twist my arm. Make me do math.) And it does serve the public good. So, for the time, I’m ok with the trade of time for money. I won’t be sticking around there into my 60s, however.

    Reducing the demand side of the equation absolutely opens possibilities that most cannot perceive, I heartily agree. I keep working to make incremental moves in that direction.

  76. Isabel, to my mind the difference between the Wendigo mindset and ordinary human desire is that desire can be satisfied. The warm glow of satiety when you finish a really good book, or a really good cinnamon roll, or — well, I’ll let you fill in your own examples here — and don’t want another just then isn’t something that the Wendigo ever knows. One of the things that fascinates me on those rare occasions when I go into a Whole Paycheck grocery or some other hangout of the privileged is the starved dissatisfied look on so many of the faces; it’s always struck me that the people who have that look are never really able to enjoy the things they have, which is why they keep on heaping up possession after possession and status symbol after status symbol. It all goes tumbling down into a void that nothing can fill.

    Yorkshire, depends on what kind of magic you’re doing. My book Circles of Power has a good set of tables for the Golden Dawn system, but if you’re going to practice hoodoo, say, you want something else. There is no one comprehensive set of tables of correspondences, nor will there ever be — it’s like asking for a dictionary of all human languages.

    Drakonus1985, if you scroll up a little ways you’ll find that I’ve already answered that same question twice.

    Tripp, glad to hear it. When it comes to card oracles, that’s an utterly personal issue; I know people who get excellent results with decks (for example, the Hanson-Roberts tarot) which won’t talk to me at all, and I get very good results with decks (for example, the Gypsy Witch deck) which other people find utterly ineffective. I don’t use either of Philip’s Druid decks — they don’t speak to me — but I know quite a few people who get excellent results with them. As for what else you can do, well, my standard advice is don’t try to pile on too many things — just do more work with the things you decide to work with. Herbs, astrology, and card divination are enough to keep anyone busy as can be, as long as you put in plenty of work on all of them!

    Joel, organized crime is nowhere discussed in the classic texts of mundane astrology that I use. It wasn’t of political importance until Pluto started on its way to planetary status, and it probably won’t be politically important once Pluto fades out; in the meantime, you can probably use Pluto aspects and transits in a mundane chart to track it. As for nomads and stateless ethnic groups, they also fall through the cracks. Mundane astrology, like all branches of astrology, are empirical sciences; they’ve been assembled over many centuries on the basis of what seems to work, and so there are inevitably things we don’t yet know how to read in the heavens.

    David, I get that. I admire those people who have the courage and stubbornness to get actively involved in politics, not least because I don’t.

    Tripp, that’s Magic Monday fodder. We can certainly talk about it then!

    Prizm, but if all you do in that future life is keep on piling up money for the life after that, and so on, what good does it do? At what point do you get around to actually enjoying anything?

    DFC, Trump seems to have succeeded rather nicely in forcing a postponement of the final battle in Idlib province. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up declaring victory and getting the troops out — and that could boost his popularity quite a bit in flyover country. As for the quote, I think it’s valid, but not as insightful as it could be. The author still seems to be stuck in the notion that “progress” is inevitable, and of course it’s not — and the successes of the alt-Right show, at least to my mind, that the liberal “wave of the future” has broken and is running back out to sea.

    He’s also missing the existence of a third group. I’d call the people he calls “conservatives” by a different name — traditionalist conservatives — and position them alongside two other groups, the alt-Right and the pragmatic conservatives. A lot of the people who are joining the #walkaway movement belong to the latter group, as indeed do I; they don’t have the emotional commitment to older social forms that drives the traditionalist conservatives, they simply recognize that the place toward which current liberal ideas of progress is leading is a place no sane human being would want to go, and are moving into the abandoned center of American politics.

    L, the meaning of any aspect depends to a great extent on the sign and house where it takes place, and on any other aspects that either planet makes with other factors in the chart. Astrology isn’t the kind of simplistic thing where a given factor always means the same thing, no matter what its context! Very, very broadly, though, Uranus conjunct Neptune in a natal chart will tend to make the native (the person whose chart we’re discussing) unusually sensitive to their surroundings, for good or ill. Such people very often have trouble with boundaries in whatever area of life is ruled by the house in which the conjunction appears — for example, if it’s in the seventh house, issues of where the boundaries are will show up in their partnerships, romantic and otherwise. There are many other things that unfold from that conjunction, but again, you have to know the context.

    Mars and Venus in interaction have a lot to do with sexuality, and if they’re conjunct, you’re likely to have a fairly strong sex drive– though how that is expressed, again, depends on the context. In the fifth house and an appropriate sign, with favorable aspects to the Sun or the ruler of the natal first house, the native is going to be tumbling into bed with a lot of people; on the other hand, if the conjunction is in Virgo and square the Sun, the native is going to spend a lot of time being strongly attracted sexually to people who aren’t available. It really does depend.

    Mog, that is to say, it’s always possible to get into a squabble over definitions! I’ll pass, thank you.

    David, I’m not yet sure. Certainly the positive economic impact of Trump’s trade policy in the flyover states will likely make a good many people more sympathetic to tariffs…

    Jenxyz, only in her fiction. Leys and the earth currents related to them — now there’s a can of worms! I’ll consider it, but no promises.

  77. @David: Exactly! And the health care industry in the US is such that freelancing is a risky endeavor–as Tripp describes, doable, but daunting. It’s one I may well embark on in a few years, if I can build up enough of my savings that a broken leg won’t put me in lifelong debt. (We need trade guilds so much. I vaguely recall that the SFWA used to offer basic health insurance, but it no longer does, and the Freelancer’s Union only has it in New York–and even there it’s $500 a month.)

    One thing I really hope happens is more pro-rated jobs, and also more acceptance that you don’t need to be in an office to do certain types of work, whether that involves taking work home or logging in remotely. To my mind, we waste a lot of time and a lot of fossil fuels (both in the commutes and in heating/cooling/lighting/cleaning office space) bowing to the presumption that employees have to be in a place where they can be monitored like galley slaves. Some tasks do require on-site work, but many more don’t.

  78. “MetaMetaMeta, the data said that Brexit would lose and Hillary Clinton would be elected president. Shall we see if third time’s the charm? ”

    I’ll leave Brexit commentary aside, as I am not well-versed on the details (although some polls very close to the vote had Leave winning).

    First, we must distinguish data from interpretations of data, ie the national polling was fairly accurate overall in the final tally (Hillary had more voters after all). When commentators said Hillary has a 98% chance of winning, that isn’t data. That is their opinion of the data. Many of the problems had to do with state polling for a variety of reasons I won’t go into right now.

    Data includes polling, historical trends in midterms, and the sheer mathematics of how many House seats the GOP has to defend in a year with an unpopular President, and where those seats are (25 of them are in districts Hillary won in 2016). I could go on but you get the idea.

  79. @JMG: Excellent distinction, and thank you! I’ve been working on the Lilith aspect of the Paths of Wisdom meditations of late, and one of the techniques that I’ve found useful to help with obsessive desire is to ask myself what I’ll do if I get whatever-it-is, or what I’d actually use it for. It seems like the Wendigo is very much about desiring stuff without being able to answer those questions, which ultimately come back to *one* question: how will it satisfy me, and for how long?

    Oh, Whole Paycheck. Their produce and cheese is very tasty, and the one in PVD sells great black-and-white cookies, but I absolutely know what you mean. Interestingly, I have a friend whose vile ex-wife works there, and said ex-wife used to spend five thousand dollars a week, somehow, on food, and then didn’t eat most of it, which seems to speak to the sort of thing you’re talking about.

  80. JMG,

    Isn’t part of the purpose of reincarnation so that we learn and develop from the past life experiences? At some point those experiences will pay off, but in another way. A learning experience.

  81. Tripp,

    Thanks for the tip that astrology related to when the best time to make something happen is called electional astrology. I had no idea. The more I learn, the less I know! I had mostly decided after reading these charts nearly every solstice or equinox, and some of the Cosmic Doctrine discussion, that there are times more suitable for certain evens. Probably not all that different from how a plant grows when the timing is most suitable (spring and summer), blossoms during the most suitable time, and fruits at the most suitable time. It’s astounding how everything is connected and so similar, yet so different.

  82. @JMG – yes, I get the fact the decline is taking place over a much longer term than the short-term improvement you’re (or rather the charts) are predicting. But considering we’re at the far end of one of the longest economic expansions on record, with debt at record levels, bond and house prices dropping, and interest rates climbing, it’s certainly a contrarian forecast to state improvement is ahead. I sincerely hope you’re correct, but the data points I’ve observed and experienced this past spring and summer don’t support that. It looks to me like we’re more on the cusp of a steep downward lurch versus a slight improvement. My impression is that many businesses (and households) are running on fumes.

    Just last month I moved out of the Portland metro area back to the Midwest, taking a job for far less money than I was making when I took a “break” a couple of years ago, and I experienced serious – and I mean very serious – age discrimination. (health care for those of us in our 50s isn’t cheap) Many of my peers and friends in IT remain unemployed or underemployed or have left the field. That’s not to say that other career fields aren’t doing better, but the gamed job numbers can’t even keep pace with population growth, and I’m not convinced that lower wage jobs in the service sector (and some manufacturing) are the path to prosperity. While reviewing some purchases for parts and supplies this week, I noticed prices for many were lower than before, and there’s been a lot of pipeline stuffing and stock buybacks and creative accounting techniques to goose corporate and government numbers the past few years. A good hearty dose of deflation in the near term, and Trump won’t survive the 2020 election.

    Again, I hope I’m wrong – but I see your prediction/reading in this post far more bold than previous ones….

  83. Mog, that is to say, it’s always possible to get into a squabble over definitions! I’ll pass, thank you.
    Pass on the squabble and just offer a definition?

  84. Thanks for answering, JMG. I did think after I’d gone to bed last night that maybe I should have been more specific with the sign and house, though the other people who have it wouldn’t have the same thing. FWIW, the Uranus/Neptune conjunction in my natal chart is in Capricorn (I was born in 1993), and for me it’s in the second house.

    Regarding the discussion above about living on three-quarters of a salary, but not being able to find part time work that only pays three-quarters of a salary: those who feel trapped in a salary job may be interested in looking up Mr Money Mustache (who, admittedly, tends to buy into the whole Progress myth quite a bit), or Early Retirement Extreme (who doesn’t so much). Those sites are basically showing how if you save a high enough percentage of your income each year, you can retire early from your salary job and do what you want instead (or, indeed, go part time earlier and start having more time from an earlier point). Then, once you’ve retired early (and a person starting this plan in their twenties and saving aggressively might achieve it in their 30s or 40s, depending on what their income was), you can focus on what’s actually important to you instead.

    Those sites had a big impact on me, though I have since decided that rather than work at a stressful full-time salary job and retiring completely, I’d rather work at a part-time job, accept my lower income, and have the time now, because the Long Decline isn’t going to wait for me to retire before it starts declining, so I figured it was better to start having the extra time now. But either way, if you can live on a lower amount of money, you are much more flexible career-wise than somebody who “needs” a higher amount to live on.

    I wouldn’t recommend retiring just so you can sit on the sofa and watch Netflix, though. If you’re going to retire, make sure you have an idea of what you’re going to do afterwards (volunteer, start a garden, learn some interesting skills, pursue your calling as an artist, whatever).

    Hopefully this isn’t too off-topic or anything. 😉 Just thought I’d mention it since it came up.

  85. Hi John Michael,

    It is funny you mention that person. I’d heard that about employees being under so much pressure from KPI’s that they appear to be unable to go to the toilet. Labour does not appear to be immune to the laws of supply and demand given that is the case. I read in the newspapers recently that business leaders wanted increased immigration again because there is apparently some sort of impending skills shortage. I know a few people out of work and they seem to have skills.

    I have sympathy for that toilet story too because I once turned up to work at a business that because of unusual circumstances involving a minor celebrity, they did not offer me access to a toilet. It was a surreal experience and I pointedly remarked to them: “What the frack do you want me to do?” It was as if the thought that I might need to go had not even crossed their minds… It was all very weird.

    Anyway, the goals of the person that you mentioned seem a bit odd to me. I mean how much does a person need? And thank you for your thoughts and I have meditated upon them lately.

    Cheers

    Chris

  86. Thanks JMG!

    I’m from Mexico, and I was wondering if you read about the recent elections. The president elect, AMLO, has been a social leader repudiated by the establishment for a long time. He formed his own party a few years ago, and in this elections won a majority in both houses and the presidency. The super rich, and the political establishment are in shock, and even though he hasn’t even started his term there are already big changes taking place.

    He’s a socialist and a nationalist. Since both Trump and him are nationalist, I think they will get along well. Neither of them like having their countries depend too much on each other. Trump wants to recover manufacturing jobs, and AMLO wants to resuscitate agriculture and the petrochemical industry (we now sell most crude to US refineries). I was interested in hearing your thoughts on this, I think it is interesting and too much of a coincidence that both countries happened to elect leaders representing the forgotten at the same time.

  87. JMG said:

    The most important and least discussed event of the six months ahead: a significant betterment in standards of living for working people in the US.

    Here’s a link to June 15, 2018 story about recent economic conditions:

    https://www.newsweek.com/more-jobs-higher-wages-surging-economy-wheres-our-thanks-trump-opinion-974948

    Perhaps our journalists are too preoccupied with evidence-free accusations of 30 years ago to notice the turn toward prosperity.

    On the other hand, increasing debt (personal, corporate, and governmental) has been putting money into somebody’s pockets for a long time now, and that money may some day need to be repaid. The best thing that can be said about the story above is that the money is spreading beyond the financial elite. Maybe we’re comforted by the sound of our engine being “jump started”, pretending that we don’t know that we’re almost out of fuel, too.

    Another analysis accounts for prior wage-growth suppression by noting that employers are paying ever more for health care insurance, which doesn’t show up in simplistic hourly wage and household income statistics. Money paid for insurance continues to circulate in the economy, even if the hourly worker doesn’t have much control over where it goes.

  88. “if the conjunction [of Venus and Mars] is in Virgo and square the Sun” — I figure it was merely a brain fart on your part, JMG, but for astrological novices a note of clarification is in order: Mars can be “square” (ninety degrees from) Sun, but Venus can never be square the sun. Venus can never be more than forty-eight degrees (a bit more than a semi-square) from Sun.

  89. David BTL:

    I think you’re doing great! Troglodytes with my level of tolerance for system interruption are hard to come by…

    And yes, it definitely helps to enjoy what you do! I never really enjoyed having a “real” job, even in a field I loved. I’ve always done better just not needing much. I really don’t care for complexity. But I do have to balance that with the needs of the other 75% of my household…(yes, that’s 500 gallons of water for 4 of us!)

    Funny, I got this mental image of a really long paper chain with one link for every work day remaining in your countdown stretched across your office! Like the ones we used to make for Christmas!

    Always enjoy your contribution to this wonderland.

  90. Jose Garmilla,
    Hola! I happened to watch some of the recent televised conversation between President Trump and your current president regarding the new trade deal to replace NAFTA. Your president-elect was apparently very much included in those negotiations, which I thought was smart and congenial, and it seemed as if all parties indeed came away from the negotiating table with smiles on their faces.
    Cheers.

  91. Thank you for another fascinating mundane astrology post, JMG! I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while, and I’m sorry if I’ve missed it if you have addressed this, but can you recommend a good introductory manual on mundane astrology? Your explanations here are very informative, but it feels like attending lecture without the text book!

  92. @Anthony Valtera
    Re: Opinions

    I don’t think of Vanity Fair’s opinion as worth the paper it’s printed on. The NPR quote is from April, which is very definitely not “recent.” Bloomberg is right on the money as usual, though – I’ve heard this from multiple sources. That’s a Republican prediction, though, not a Democratic one. It could well be a clever ploy to fire up their base and create complacency in the Democratic base.

  93. John, et al.

    Haven’t caught up on the comments since this morning, but wanted to provide a data point from the heartland (or WI, anyway). My better half and I are away for long-overdue anniversary get-away this weekend. On the journey, I lost track of the number of signs and billboards along the way announcing available manufacturing and other similar jobs. Some even posted starting wages. Not sure how this compares to other parts of the country, but it sure was noticeable.

  94. Hi Mog,

    Pass on the squabble and just offer a definition?

    It is generally considered polite to consider someone else’s point of view. I’m curious, what do you hop to achieve by doubling down on your point of view?

    Chris

  95. JMG, possibly off topic, but what do you make of Trump’s increasingly antagonistic stance towards Canada? I know “allies” (client states) are particularly unneeded at this point in the process of imperial decline, but is there something particularly parasitic about the Canadian/American relationship as opposed to other Western nations, or is it just that NAFTA is being renegotiated?
    I’m reminded of the saying/quote “you can’t get a man to understand something if his livelihood depends on his not understanding it” when it comes to Canadians. I’m coming to realize that when a Canadian asks, “What is going on in the States?”, it’s a rhetorical question, and one they have no interest in getting an honest answer. They don’t really seem to listen at all to a thoughtful answer. What is interesting about Canada is that people of all classes hold views that are reserved only for the elite in other Western nations, which makes me think that Canadians must be some kind of elite in their own right–“if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck…”

  96. @ Tripp

    Thank you. And I am even more impressed than before. For a family of four, that is an amazing number.

    I must admit that I have been very fortunate in finding a well-paying job that I generally enjoy in a field that is somewhat recession-resistant. I try to remain mindful of that good fortune, keep my wants modest, and give back when and where I can.

    Re the countdown, no, no paper chain. I do have a small notation in one corner of my whiteboard, however, which I update periodically with the years, months, and days until the option goes “live”. It is interesting that the day in question turns out to be a Friday 😉

  97. Hi Chris at Fernglade.
    It is generally considered polite to consider someone else’s point of view. I’m curious, what do you hop to achieve by doubling down on your point of view?

    Is it impolite to probe anything written by John? If there are many articles circulating which challenge the media trope that ‘Trump has abandoned Neoliberalism’ then it seems intellectually honest to question John’s recitation of this notion. When I did so, John inferred that I was ‘squabbling about defintions’, however, I am not sure how he, or anyone, distinguishes between (what he calls) Trump’s ‘unabashed free market economics’ and what is commonly understood as ‘Neoliberalism’. Is it just trade policy that marks the difference?

    I applauded John’s writing (amongst that of others) when it shone a light on the reality behind the ‘Hope and change’ public relations mantra of the Obama years, yet I wonder if Trump is merely ‘the Obama of the Right’ – giving us an image of radicalism, concealing what is in truth, a continuation of the same Neocon foreign policy (NB Bolton) and Neoliberal economics ?

    I am trying to consider someone else’s view by asking about it.

  98. @Shane W: I know the question was not directed at me (because I am a first-time commenter! But long-term sometime reader), but as a Canadian, with very conservative views by Canadian standards, here is perhaps something of an answer for you.

    Firstly, congratulations: I really enjoyed reading your comment. You’ve written some insights that are accurate and striking for not being very common among Americans, who, even if they have an interest in Canada, are usually bewildered and just not able to penetrate what Canadians are all about.

    I have a friend with whom I’ve discussed issues like these; he lives in a State bordering Canada so is a bit more knowledgeable than most, and for my money the most insightful thing he ever said was, “Canadians are people who don’t understand that the entire rest of the world doesn’t think like they do.” This is quite true.

    Canadians are essentially overgrown children in an important part of their psychology: we grow up *so* coddled and *so* sheltered by the USA that we (meaning the general “we” – *I* don’t believe this) really and truly don’t believe that anything bad could ever happen, and consequently we don’t bother trying to forecast the future or connect cause and effect. For example, to the extent that they think about it at all, Canadians really do believe in the shiny, happy utopian vision of a multicultural society where everyone just “gets along”. And to be fair, Canada really has managed to make this vision of the future work better than anywhere else. So far. For now.

    I’m coming to realize that when a Canadian asks, “What is going on in the States?”, it’s a rhetorical question, and one they have no interest in getting an honest answer. They don’t really seem to listen at all to a thoughtful answer.

    I guffawed very loudly at this comment, because it’s absolutely bang-on, excellent. You’re right: Canadians would *not* listen to a thoughtful answer. “How could Americans actually elect Trump?” would be a rhetorical question, not a sincere one deserving of a very serious answer. Like elitist snobs everywhere, especially ones who have been coddled AND who simultaneously sport a galactic-sized inferiority complex, Canadians automatically think that they have nothing to learn from anyone and assume that their views are just somehow always going to “work”.

    What is interesting about Canada is that people of all classes hold views that are reserved only for the elite in other Western nations, which makes me think that Canadians must be some kind of elite in their own right

    I think what’s going on here is just that, as I said, things have been so good for so long, and we’ve forgotten how we got here and absolutely, long ago, begun taking everything for granted.

    So – going back to the question: what’s with Trump’s increasingly antagonistic stance towards Canada, and is there something particularly parasitic between the USA and Canada?

    Speaking as a very conservative Canadian who likes Trump, I don’t view him as exactly “antagonistic”; that’s not the word I would have chosen. You want antagonism? How about the Canadian Minister of Trade who, the week after meeting with trade delegates in the USA, publicly and flagrantly attended a vicious “screw Trump” rally? That’s antagonism. How much of this does anyone think the Trump admin is supposed to accept?

    Is there something particularly parasitic about the Canada/US relationship? Well, it depends on how you want to characterize things. Obviously people can view the same situation and interpret or describe it in very different ways, depending, inter alia, on what’s most convenient, comfortable, or flattering for them personally. “Parasitic” is probably not the word I would choose; nonetheless, I do believe and acknowledge, flat-out, that Canada has gotten a very good deal from the USA over the past century or so; if we haven’t exactly been given a “free ride”, we’ve been given an extremely high standard of living (via a generous trade relationship) and guaranteed safety from most ills of the world.

    At the end of the day – this is my view; others will doubtless disagree – I believe the Trump admin’s stance on Canada is underpinned by a more realistic understanding than any other recent admin of where Canada has been, and where it is going. I think that “tough love” is the relevant phrase; I think that Trump-admin’s philosophy is essentially, “Look, Canada, you can’t keep doing what you’re doing. The path you’re on is suicidal – for you personally, but also, because you’re our next-door-neighbour, it’s endangering *us*. Hitherto we might have been happy to tolerate a certain amount of more-or-less harmless snobbery from you, but not anymore, because things are getting so bad that serious solutions by serious people are needed, and if you can’t be serious, then we’re going to make you.”

    To put this another way, I do sincerely believe that the Trump-admin realizes that Canada can’t fix itself without some “tough love” showing us just how bad things could get if we don’t adopt a more realistic outlook on life.

  99. @ David, by the lake

    Please don’t apologize for your ‘mini-rant’…it really resonated with me.

    Regarding the cesspool mess of our current national politics, I recently came across this quote from Seneca: “When the state is so rotten as to be past helping, if evil has entire dominion over it, the wise man will not labor in vain or waste his strength in unprofitable efforts.” Hmmm…are we there yet?

    With respect to your comments about participation in local politics, all your points are spot on. In my one foray into local politics, I was elected to serve on our regional school committee. While discussing a major budget shortfall because the state had not lived up to its commitment, we were informed that the state’s offical response was “That was a promise, not an obligation.” The endless meetings required in both public and private settings brings to mind one of my favorite posters. It’s bold heading is MEETINGS with the image below of a bevy of hands in business attire shown from the elbow down. There are hands of all colors and genders. The caption reads: “None of us individually is as dumb as all of us together.” Is it cynicism or realism?

    Finally, on hermitting I’m reminded of an old anonymous Chinese poem I came upon many years ago.

    My hut lies in the middle
    of a dense forest.
    Not much news of
    the affairs of people.
    When the sun shines
    I mend my robe.
    When the moon comes out
    I read Buddhist poems.
    I have nothing to report my friend.
    If you want to find the true meaning,
    stop chasing after so many things.

  100. In re: jobs, I will also note that the average corporate position expects and sometimes requires an obsessive desire for growth. “Move up or move out,” is fairly common, and the standard assumption is that everyone wants to be senior management; most of my interviews and/or self-assessments in jobs have included a “What are your career goals?” question, to which I think my honest answer of “retirement, trashy novels, death, probably dogs eating my face before anyone finds me*” would not go well.

    The world is full of qualified people who would love to do a particular job, be good at that job, and continue doing that for their working lives–assuming said job had a good balance of living wage and free time–but corporate America thinks there’s something defective about that, as far as I can tell.

    *Though if I get dogs in my old age, I promise I’ll have someone look in regularly enough that they wouldn’t have time to get hungry or thirsty once I was gone.

  101. @Mog, Chris, etc.

    Definitions matter. A lot of miscommunication occurs when two people are using the same word with different meanings.

    I’ll believe Trump has abandoned Neo-libreralism when he abandons laissez-faire market policies and eliminates the “corporations are people” doctrine as well as the idea that corporations are solely responsible to their stockholders, and the devil take everyone else – including their workers and the environment.

    Free trade is part of it, but only part of it.

  102. So the anniversary getaway is going nicely, marred only slightly by the witnessing of a political protest earlier this afternoon. (Actually, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more, given that we’re in Madison, the state capital.). Wandering about, we happened onto the University campus there and passed by a vocal group protesting the Kavanaugh nomination.

    Now, I’m certainly no fan of the nominee and I rather disagree with a number of his apparent views on executive power and the like, but I also don’t believe that incidents from one’s high school days are relevant to one’s fitness for office. When they began chanting “Free abortion on demand!” I’m thinking, ok, an extremist position I disagree with, but they have their right to free speech. When they got to “Clarence Thomas has to go!” I started feeling my pockets for my handy copy of the Constitution, as these college students were obviously ignorant of certain aspects of that document; namely, that one’s tenure on the Supreme Court is not subject to public approval — by design. It took a bit to work past the energy that the incident provoked, as while I am open to debate and discussion of differing viewpoints, I’m less tolerant of ignorance of the basic processes. My better half, who is very nonpolitical, was a bit miffed at me, to say the least.

    This was on a college campus, as I said, so something of the heart of liberal territory and not necessarily indicative of liberalism as a whole. But if this is where things are, it is a terrible mess.

    Yes, the conservative movement has no better a track record when it comes to hypocrisy, I agree. I wish politics were more the rational discussion, reasoned debate of positions, and careful negotiation of compromises I’d envision it to be, so that we might actually address the issues confronting us as a society (and, I don’t know, actually serve the public good, perhaps), rather than the hollow posturing, sham principles (altered according to the needs of the moment) and naked positioning of power we see in action.

  103. Phil K.,
    What rubbish! The author speaks as if populists can’t even read what he has deigned to spell out about them. Even if he IS grasping at straws. Until the establishment starts treating populist voters Iike they are actual people, with thoughts and opinions of their own, and not just a voting bloc meant for manipulation, they will continue to lose election after election. And I say they deserve it.

    Not that you didn’t know that…😉

  104. Hi Mog,

    A well penned and polite reply is always appreciated!

    I went back and re-read your comments.

    The core argument of your first comment was that your country continues its neo-liberal agenda with the exception of: “Foreign trade and immigration are the only two areas where some minor changes have been attempted.”

    As a disinterested observation, tinkering around with those two policies to the effect of placing restrictions upon both is in fact not compatible with neo-liberal policies which tend to push for more open movements of such things.

    Look, that is not an insignificant difference. I looked into the soul of your words and what you pine for is radical change and you have personal hankerings in that direction. I advise caution because you should be aware that such things have been tried before and generally not to good effect. It is probably better to adjust the edges and then measure the effect of changes. But you know mistakes will be made. That’s life.

    “yet I wonder if Trump is merely ‘the Obama of the Right’ – giving us an image of radicalism, concealing what is in truth, a continuation of the same Neocon foreign policy (NB Bolton) and Neoliberal economics ?”

    Not to put too fine a point upon the matter, you yourself pointed to two differences in your first comment and then attempted to claim that the differences are to be disregarded because they don’t suit your argument.

    You guys over in the US put so much emotional energy into your political views. From an outsiders point of view it looks pretty weird and I would suggest you ignore personalities and begin focusing on actual policies.

    Cheers

    Chris

  105. Hi beekeeper,

    Almost missed the opportunity to ask you: How are your bees going over there? The hives here over winter nicely and have done so for many years, but I am curious about whether you purchase new hives in the spring or allow your lot to over winter? Dunno. It seems sort of important to me…

    The bees here are flying about the place whenever the air temperature is over 50’F. And when the sun shines, they’re all over the orchard. One thing I’ve noticed this year is that the European honey bees are some of the earliest pollinators to show up. The indigenous bees enjoy much warmer weather, but when they eventually turn up, they’re much hardier to the variable weather conditions I get here whereas the European honey bees scuttle back to their hives waiting for better conditions. I guess that is why we can harvest honey from them. 😉

    Cheers

    Chris

  106. One way to find out what is being said in conservative circles and how people feel about it is talk radio. Almost all the programming is conservative and, since more jobs allow radio listening than TV watching I think it may reach more wage class people. When the accusations against Judge Kavenaugh first hit the news earlier this week I mentioned on Facebook that the automatic ‘believe the woman’ response made Democrats look like hypocrites when you considered the reception give to accusations against Bill Clinton. I was accused of ‘whataboutism’ and making excused for Kavenaugh. A bit later I caught a talk show host ask why those chanting “I believe Professor Ford. I believed Anita Hill” did not also chant “I believe Paula Jones.”? Sean Hannity even brought up Ted Kennedy and Chappaquidick as an example of how the Democratic Party would excuse and paper over reprehensible behavior. For those who drive a commute or have other time to listen to the radio I recommend occasionally tuning in to the talk shows; it is an education.

  107. Drhooves: JMG’s drawing off of the astrology, and my assessment concurs: this chart doesn’t predict economic trouble, and unless one or both benefics are affecting one of the other sixth house concerns (public health and military personnel) it will be a good sixth months for the wage class. (My read for a while has been that we’re in this economic cycle’s equivalent of 1998-1999 or 2006-2007.) If you want an astrological indicator of the next crash, though… you might go check out the 2020 Aries ingress for the US. We may not be able to get specifics this far out, but “how will the economy be?” is a more general prediction, and that chart’s a doozy: Jupiter in his fall of Capricorn in the second ruling the second (which you’d expect to augur poorly for the economy on principle, and was operative in the 2008 Libra ingress), and both Mars and Saturn in the second to boot (plus Pluto, for whatever influence that has). Moreover, Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto (again, for whatever Pluto counts) are in a triple conjunction, and Jupiter is besieged (unless Pluto is both strong enough to be relevant and doesn’t count as a malefic) weakening him further. There’s a couple of contraindicators in there – Mars exalts in Capricorn (IIRC I’ve seen it floated that Mars in Capricorn in the second house indicates reforms that will be beneficial to the economy) so is less malefic than usual, Capricorn is intercepted weakening its effects, and Venus is in the sixth ruling the sixth – but overall that argues rather strongly that the next recession starts sometime that year, probably in the first half. Given Uranus in the fifth house I’d expect the trigger in speculative aspects; Uranus ruling the third probably has something to do with the specifics.

    Jose: Lobrador will be interesting – I suspect he’ll do things that will be good for Mexico in the long run, especially regarding foreign relations… provided he isn’t assassinated first or overwhelmed by fighting the cartels. Which is a distinct possibility, especially since Mexico’s chart for next year’s Aries ingress is one of the three I’ve looked over that really stands out as suggesting significant events where it applies, along with the US{/Canada} and China: it has Mars conjunct midheaven, Neptune in the seventh conjunct Mercury in the eighth on the eighth house cusp, Venus conjunct descendant, Jupiter conjunct fifth house cusp, Sun in the eighth ruling the ascendant, Moon in the second ruling the twelfth. I’m not sure what to make of that – I don’t have much of a handle on planetary aspects to cusps and angles – but I suspect the cartels are involved somehow. (I think Mexico might have economic trouble next year, though, given that the chart’s second house is ruled by retrograde-detrimented-and-in-fall Mercury.)

    AV: We’re probably getting all-Russia-all-the-time next spring and summer no matter what. I mentioned that the US version of the Aries 2019 chart looked important? It’s got the Mercury-Neptune conjunction in the seventh, both conjunct the descendant, Mercury ruling the ascendant and midheaven (it’s likely to be an unpleasant six months) and Neptune ruling the seventh; I may be wrong, but that sure looks like Russiagate to me.

    (Looking at this Libra chart and next year’s Aries ingress, I’m going to go against the grain of the comments and predict that the Democrats narrowly retake the House. That’s partially Neptune ruling the eleventh here but mostly the Aries chart. Remember that Sun-Moon opposition in the British version of the ingress? That’s the other really big feature in the US version; the US chart has Moon rising in the first house ruling the eleventh and the Sun in the seventh house ruling the twelfth. I can think of a few candidates for that – and I suspect “Trump trying to bring the federal bureaucracy/Deep State into line” and Trump focusing on foreign policy will both be in play – but Congressional investigations are both the most obvious possibility and the only one that really fits the Moon-ruling-eleventh criterion, and I have a hard time seeing those happen without a Democratic House.)

  108. Hi John,

    How are you going?

    I’m not necessarily sanguine that definitions matter as much as you believe they do.

    The thing is, I believe that endless arguments about definitions are a tool with which to never finalise a matter. I mean definitions are by their very nature elusive beasts and can mean whatever a person chooses them to mean.

    Cheers

    Chris

  109. @Rita: It’s a stance that I think a lot of liberals of my generation (HS/college for the Starr Report), at least, are re-thinking. To my mind, there are a couple differences–the focus on Lewinsky/Flowers *was* nonsense,* and really clouded the picture for anyone else, and what Jones describes was, by the standards of the time, more a crude one-time pass than either a physical assault or an ongoing pattern of behavior. But those aren’t unassailable arguments, by any means, and also there are a couple of much more disturbing allegations (Wiley and Broadderick), that didn’t, for whatever reason, get much publicity at the time.

    Re: Kavanaugh: If he’d been accused of something less serious, even something sexual and less serious–sex with a 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 18, some unasked-for casual groping at a party, even sex when one or both parties were too drunk for consent to be reasonable, given that we’re talking about the eighties–I’d agree it shouldn’t be as much of an issue. But the descriptions I’ve heard seem to include an amount of premeditation and malice that disturbs me, and the high school argument doesn’t work for me for those, especially since he and his party argue that seventeen-year-olds should be able to own firearms and should have to give birth.

    * Yeah, lying. But lying about sex is like using a sick day to go to the beach (provided you’re not inconveniencing your co-workers by doing so, granted, which you’re not at most salaried jobs): just about everyone does it, because it’s the way to get around a slightly ridiculous system, and people who do it are (IME) trustworthy in most serious aspects of life.

  110. Re Seneca and David by the Lake: I did sign a petition a friend was circulating, asking the state Attorney General to bring suit on behalf of the children on the border. Despite the wildly OTT flavor of the cover letter attached to the petition – as many different fonts as they could squeeze in, and a headline reading “Fascist!” and the emotional tone of “whipping up a crowd” I still signed it because it was the most sensible approach a local person could take. (The media are dong a great job of arousing national and international sentiment.)

    I will not, to the dismay of every other person with a petition, sign anything which begins “DEMAND OF …. (this national level politician or that multinational corporation)” and ends with “What will you give to…. $5,000, $1,000……. $25.” The petition is a fine exercise in spitting into the wind, and the gimme at the end is tiresomely predictable..

    “Today is the LAST!!! day to send your dollar to P.O. Box 12345……”

  111. @SJ Esquire,
    thanks for the reply! Ontario is something of a respite for me, and there are lots of things going for Canada, both historically and currently. If Canada stays true to “peace, order, and good government” and it’s overall small-c conservative, caution in making changes, non-revolutionary history, it could very well thread the needle. Though in all these political conversations, I’m reminded of the puritanism that earned Toronto the label “Toronto the Good”–even though it’s transferred from booze and sex to social justice warrior posturing, it’s still just as ugly. Still, in the day-to-day life here, things are very easy, and people are generally trusting. I keep my cards very close to my chest politically, b/c having a political discussion w/anyone now outside of this forum is pretty much useless. The big difference is the suspicion of people in the States–no one there trusts anyone, and when I’m equivocal or not committed to either “side” of the faux divide, people automatically assume I’m w/the “opposition”. I haven’t had as much of that, here, but I do see the potential for a social justice witch hunt here that could put Salem to shame, but I hope it doesn’t come to that. In the states, we just need secession: Calexit followed by “Blexit” (blue exit) so we can end this worthless fighting and get on w/the post-American century.

  112. I mean, there is a sort of distastefulness to the way Canada is behaving. The best I can compare it to is the clinginess of a child on the first day of school, when the parent is like, “go on, Johnny”, yet Johnny is wailing and won’t get out from under his mother’s skirt and go into school. You’re seeing that among all of America’s “allies”, but at least Western Europe has populist movements that could theoretically deliver it smoothly into Russia’s hands, if the cards are played right. The most hope I have here in Canada is talk of a resurgent Commonwealth led by India, which is something I mentioned a while back to confusion that now seems to be something Canadians are thinking about now that Trump is president…

  113. The weird disconnect for Canadians I have trouble explaining–if the good voters of Mississippi could care less what people in New Jersey think, and often vote in diametric opposition to them, why would Canadians have any more influence over Mississippi voters than New Jersey?

  114. @ isabelcooper

    Re Kavanaugh

    No arguments that I’d rather have someone else nominated. However, if the Dems wanted to control nominations for SCOTUS, they ought to have won the Presidency. For me, it is a process thing; ends and means, mainly that the former do not justify the latter. If one has issues with the professional qualifications of a nominee for a post, then one should make that case on the basis of those professional qualifications. All that has been done is that henceforth, future SCOTUS nominees will have their background examined back to when they were minors. And I’ve already seen at least one commentator lamenting how unfair it is that accusers in the case of sexual crimes are “saddled with the burden of proof.” This is not conducive to a functional society.

    This short-sightedness is incredibly frustrating. The Republicans were foolish to impeach Clinton; the Democrats would be equally foolish to impeach Trump. The Republicans won a tactical victory with Gorsich, at the expense of a weakening of (what remains of) the moral authority of the Senate. What we have are two parties in a suicidal race to see who can rend the fabric of our society the fastest. It is incredibly sad and disheartening to watch. I often feel that we are more a rabid pack of beasts snarling at each other over the mangy carcass of a recent kill than a society of intelligent and reasoning creatures assessing the issues confronting us in a rational manner.

  115. Hi Chris!

    Last year was really awful for the bees; we had a very wet spring extending into June. Since honeybees do not forage in the rain, they got a very late start on the season and did not recover well. We lost some hives over the winter, but I knew by October which colonies weren’t going to make it. So far this year our bees are doing spectacularly well – the hives are very strong, good solid queens, good honey and pollen stores and still a good deal of capped and uncapped brood in all the hives I’ve checked so far this month.

    Every January I order one package of bees for pick up in April just as insurance in case we have a really bad winter and lose a bunch of hives. We can always make splits from strong colonies, which also reduces swarming.

    Because Vermont is so cold in the winter and winter lasts almost forever (the saying up here is ‘Vermont has 9 months of winter and 3 months of darn poor sledding’), we start planning for winter in the spring. We’re careful to leave plenty of honey in the hives for the bees to eat and when we have to supplement with feed we make the syrup by starting with a chamomile and lemon balm tea, add the cane sugar and then lower the pH with vitamin C as described by Michael Bush on his website. This has worked much better than the regular sugar and water syrup I was taught to make. We don’t use the pollen patties that are sold by beekeeping companies, because they’re all soy based and we haven’t observed them working all that well. I also cover all the hives with 2″ rigid foam insulation after the last inspection of the fall to give the bees a little more cover. We’re up in the mountains so the winds can get pretty intense in the winter. In the summer when a breeze would be welcome, there’s nothing. Figures.

    Hope this is the information you were looking for!

  116. @ All

    Re Trump and new-liberalism

    FWIW, I’d argue that the free flow of people and goods across national borders is a key aspect of neo-liberalism and that Trump’s rejection of such should not be taken lightly.

  117. @David: That makes a lot of sense to me, yeah. I think my exception to that would be felony indictments for violent crimes, which may mean that my real issue is that the statute of limitations on sexual assault in DC fails to take a lot of factors into account, and should go far longer.

    That said, it’s hard, because I think there really should be a clause for background factors that indicate an overwhelming predisposition for violence or the abuse of power/trust: like, if it came out that neighborhood pets tended to disappear when the nominee was a kid, I would want to know that, and I don’t think that person should be anywhere near lawmaking power–but ideally that should be a factor way before the person in question becomes a judge *at all*. (I would also bar people with a history of being mean to waitstaff, but I’d rule the world with an iron fist and shouldn’t be trusted with power myself.)

    So I see your point, but I also see where the protesters are coming from–that there’s a certain amount of antisocial behavior that should keep a person from high office, even if they’re lucky or clever enough to escape criminal charges for that. But overall, I agree: there has to be a system, and things we do or don’t take into account, and we need to operate within that system. “This guy is kind of a violent creep,” never got codified–I don’t know if there was an unwritten rule that that guy just quietly got put on the sidelines, or an unwritten rule that nobody talked about the violent creepiness in question, though I suspect the latter–and maybe it should be, but I think we have to do the codification before we can apply it.

  118. OT but people keep bringing up Russia.

    Bee Keeper,
    Have you looked into Russian Horizontal Hives?
    They are supposed to be really good for cold country. I found ‘Keeping Bees with a Smile’ by Fedor Luztin an interesting read. Never got around to building one. You can find more info at deepsnowpress.com – two books on bees. The gardening and fruit books are also interesting. A some what different take on things.
    (JMG you might find the ‘Art of Soaring’ and ‘The Magic of Luck’ fun. Magic through Laughter – Russian style.)
    There are also plans for horizontal hives and swarm boxes at horizontalhive.com. It’s run by the translator of the above books – Dr. Leo Sharashkin.
    He also translate the Anastasia books…

    NJ0C

  119. Metametameta, here again, we’ll see, won’t we?

    Isabel, good gods. I was about to ask “How the frack can one person spend five thousand dollars a week on food?” — and of course then I remembered why it’s called “Whole Paycheck.” Still, that’s pretty far out there.

    Prizm, that’s certainly one traditional way to look at it.

    Drhooves, oh, IT is going to take it in the gut, and so are a lot of other middle class occupations. It’s the working class end of the economy that’s going to benefit, not the university-educated knowledge professions. As I pointed out in my prediction, the boom won’t be evenly or fairly distributed, and some of those who have been sitting pretty in recent decades are likely to end up in a world of hurt as things shift.

    Onething, if we had a corporate death penalty for serious crimes I’d object a lot less to corporate personhood. As it’s applied in current law, though, corporations have all the benefits of being legal persons, but none of the responsibilities and costs.

    Mog, the comment of mine to which you objected describes three core features of neoliberalism; that kind of working taxonomy, it seems to me, is more useful than a definition about which, inevitably, nits will get picked. Do you disagree that free trade, open borders, and metastatic government regulation aimed at crushing small businesses are core elements of the neoliberal playbook?

    L, it’s almost always easier to lower your expenses than to increase your income, and as long as you don’t mind spending less money than your friends, it’s nearly always the best strategy. Of course most middle class Americans these days are wet-their-pants terrified of being seen as poorer than they are, but that’s just one of those little hangups that adults need to outgrow… 😉

    Chris, when business leaders talk about a skills shortage, what that means is that they’re furious that they might have to raise their wages to attract employees. The poor dears, they can’t bear the thought of making not quite so many million dollars a year!

    Jose, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Neoliberalism has failed, not just a little bit but totally; it has not yielded the general prosperity it was supposed to yield — quite the contrary, it’s benefited an already comfortable minority at the expense of everyone else. As that becomes ever more painfully clear, voters are looking for alternatives, and finding them; the rise of populist parties and leaders in eastern Europe, in the US, and in Mexico is part of that very broad trend. Thus Trump and AMLO seemed to have no trouble at all finding common ground for a trade agreement; they can approach the negotiations in good faith, on the assumption that each nation has its economic interests to protect — just as Trump and the Polish prime minister, another populist, had a very productive meeting the other day. I expect to see more of this as populism spreads.

    Lathechuck, thanks for this. I’m not at all sure what’s going to be done about the ghastly economic burden of debt that recent economic policies have loaded on all and sundry. One way or another, it’s going to have to be lifted; the question is simply how that happens.

    Zoidion, thank you for catching that. Yes, it was a brain fart. Replace “square” with “semisquare” if you like.

    Vanshar, H.S. Green’s book Mundane Astrology is a solid introduction; you can also find much of value in Raphael’s book of the same name.

    David, thank you for the data point. Enjoy your vacation!

    Shane, I suspect that partly it’s a personal grudge — Trump and Trudeau seem to have taken an instant dislike to one another — but it’s also Canada’s role as the most privileged of the client states in the US empire. During our age of empire, having Canada as a contented and loyal vassal was essential to the US geopolitical strategy, and so a variety of one-sided arrangements were put in place to keep Canada in that position. As the US stands down from its global empire, we don’t need Canada as a vassal, and the privileges we’ve given our neighbor to the north cost more than, in an post-imperial age, they’re worth.

    As a result, expect to hear the wealthy classes in Canada scream like banshees as the US says “Nice knowing you” and pursues a policy oriented toward its own domestic interests, and to building a mutually beneficial relationship with its southern neighbor instead. What’s still undecided is whether Canada will seek to maintain its status as a lapdog of empires and cuddle up to China, or whether it will start acting like the huge and resource-rich nation it is and pursue an independent foreign policy in alliance with Australia and India, its logical allies as a counterbalance against Chinese global hegemony.

    Pogonip, which presumably one celebrates by giving your friends dismembered body parts or something. (Full disclosure; I’m not a fan.)

    Phil K., yep. I’ve seen several other expressions of that recently. I suspect depression is still about two months away…

    David, fascinating. Ignorance plus entitlement does not equal political effectiveness…

    Shane, I wonder how long that’s going to last…

    Tripp, you’re most welcome.

  120. @JMG: Right? I think that even there I’d have trouble spending that much money, and she’s about my size.

    Woman in question (healthy working adult in her early thirties) also howled like a trapped coyote at the prospect of not getting alimony *in addition* to having all her debts paid off and getting a new car and something on the order of twenty thousand dollars from asset division, so…she’s a piece of work, really. The Wendigo thing brought her to mind in a lot of ways.

    (Also spotted it in the trend of designer clothes for kids under ten. I am not wildly familiar with children, but even I know that a) they grow out of clothes within about a year, at that age, b) before they get a chance to grow out of them, they generally render them uninhabitable in some other way, even with a lot of effort from parents, c) no three-year-old on Earth cares whether they’re fashionable or not.)

  121. Coop Janitor:

    Thanks so much for the book recommendations! There’s plenty of time for reading around here in the winter after we’re done shoveling all the snow.

    Top bar (horizontal) hives have become rather trendy in recent years; we haven’t retired our Langstroth equipment yet, although I am experimenting with no-foundation frames to let the bees configure their cells entirely on their own, which is one of the features of top-bar hives. Since heat rises, I would think that vertical hives would make more efficient use of heat generated by bees in the winter, but I’m interested in reading about other people’s experience with different types of hives. For sure, I’m not keeping bees the same way I did as a beginner almost 20 years ago.

  122. So, back in the Aries 2018 thread I made some predictions about the Cancer ingress. That ingress is now in the books, so how did I do? Let’s see:
    – Major speculative bubble with media support: Half credit, maybe less. The speculative bubble remains consistent with events (I’d say we’re about two years to early to say for sure), but the media support never really appeared. On the gripping hand, there’s a decent chance I botched the interpretation and was at best right for the wrong reasons. Looking at how things played out I’m not sure that was pointing to the economy at all – I think it may have been pointing at The Resistance ™.
    – Further popular distrust of the media: Check, with the caveat that it manifested in the form of both sides of the political aisle distrusting media they considered to be on the other side – the recent pushes by tech giants to shut down right-leaning websites are probably also a manifestation of this.
    – Resolution of #MeToo unfavorably to women: Too early to tell. A week ago I would have called this a whiff, but the aftermath of the Kavanaugh nomination may yet prove this prediction correct. I suspect I misread the nodal symbolism either way, though.
    – Hostile foreign policy environment: Half credit. I see some signs of this – especially regarding North Korea – but a fair bit of it was self-inflicted and may have long-term benefits (though even if so the way in which they were delivered may have blowback in the short-to-medium term). This does seem to have involved a shift in US foreign policy priorities, given which I note with some interest that Pluto was also in the seventh house of the Cancer ingress – its influence may be waning, but I suspect it still has some. (Also, looking over the chart again I think both Mars in this chart and Mars-Saturn in the Aries chart were pointing at trade war.)
    – Something major going down re: Trump: Hit, with the admitted caveat that this was a rather broad prediction. There’s a few candidates here, but given Sun in the twelfth (institutions, prisons, and secret enemies) ruling the third I think this was specifically pointing to the border detention camps.

    Also of note: I think Uranus in the Cancer chart may have been pointing to Kennedy’s resignation rather than marijuana/hemp legislation. (Uranus in the eleventh ruling the ninth shows up again in this year’s Capricorn ingress, so we’ll see if Supreme Court nominations are an issue then.)

    Now, predictions for this ingress:

    – Mueller. Mueller, Mueller, Mueller. To my eyes the Sun-Uranus inconjunction is pointing specifically to that investigation, and I think it’s also playing into Moon-in-tenth. (Also of note: this, like next year’s Aries ingress, is a bucket chart, which indicates increased emphasis on the the planet separate from the others – which, in this case, is Uranus. An obvious possibility here is Trump moving to remove Mueller.)
    – All Trump all the time in the media (Sun conjunct Mercury, natch), especially while horse-race election coverage is going on but also after that (see: Mueller).
    – I concur with JMG: barring major resources going to soldiers, it should be a good six months for at least parts of the working class. (Which is also what I’d expect from first principles, since by my read we’re in the part of the economic cycle where the gains filter down to the working class.)
    – The midterms will result in a Democratic Speaker of the House, which may not be Pelosi. This is by no means a certainty, but I think it’s slightly more likely than not – I’d put the odds around 60%. I’m considerably more dubious about any much-ballyhooed “blue wave” or the Democrats retaking the Senate, though it’s not completely out of the question (I glanced over the ingresses last three big wave elections; 1994 and 2010 I can parse, but if anything the 2006 chart looked favorable for the incumbents); I’d put the odds of those closer to 10%.
    – Note: Mars is conjunct the South Node to fifteen minutes of arc. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m pretty sure it means something – possibly just Kavanaugh, given the ninth house. Honestly, I’m not really sure what Mars and Saturn are pointing to in this chart in general.

    A bit thin, but then this looks like the least interesting ingress of the next two years. (Hold on to your butts…)

  123. JMG,
    I admitt the term’s meaning is contested. From my reading, the three core principles would be ‘the importance of private property rights, market-based social organization, and the [perceived] dangers of government intervention in the economy.’
    Open trade borders are also emphasised, but in truth, tariffs have continued to be used to some degree as political/ economic tools throughout the ‘Neoliberal era’, and Trump’s selective application of these (sometimes called ‘National Neoliberalism’) has precedents such as the trade war against China in the late 80s -early 90s. Trump is more aggressive it is true, as befits the shrinking pie and slow down in economic growth worldwide.
    Immigration/ free labour movement seems to be generally considered outside of economic policy, although it obviously has economic repercussions.
    Trump’s ‘war on regulations’ seems to be in the Neoliberal mold, and Reagan was the last to strike off so many environmental, worker and consumer regulations. I agree that regulatory capture and the ‘revolving door’ have skewed business in favour of big corps, but without the changes to the ‘core principles’ noted above, de-regulation will only leave the working people of america much worse off, or so it is argued.
    I have to say that I am surprised at what seems your tacit endorsement of Trumpism. As a writer on the environment, you must know much better than I do how the stripping of environmental protections are already proving to be Trump’s most profound legacy. Trump is the apotheosis of aggressive Neoliberal hyper capitalism, with its elevation of private corporate power over the ecology of Earth embodied in him being the first billionaire president.
    He is not any kind of adversary to it.
    https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/24/trump-and-national-neoliberalism

  124. Thanks for another fascinating astrological interpretation and forecast! They’ve certainly helped me move on from my threefold prejudice towards the discipline (prejudices of the Old Testament, Newspaper Horoscope and Neil Tyson variety).

    I find your insistence – here and elsewehere – that metastatic government regulation is a core feature of neoliberalism to be somewhat baffling. Deregulation has been a staple of neoliberal rhetoric since Milton Friedman and is widely considered one of its core tenets. It is also a part of neoliberal practice, as the undeniably neoliberal policy prescription imposed on Greece, which included a whalopping dose of deregulation, clearly shows.

    As for the U.S., Republican candidates routinely call for the rollback of what they term excessive government regulation that’s strangling business. The fact that it’s actually being done now strikes me as a sign of agreement between president Trump and the Republican congress on this issue.

  125. Dearest Yorkshire: You’re thinking of Athen’s expedition to Sicily in late 5th century BC, led by Nicias, of whom Thucydides (book 7) says that ‘he was too much given to divination and the like’.

  126. Since honey bees have come up. I would like to ask our Beekeeper in Vermont how many have to you guys have and how do you handle varroa mites. I too have bees and am curious. Thanks much

  127. @JMG:

    As a result, expect to hear the wealthy classes in Canada scream like banshees as the US says “Nice knowing you” and pursues a policy oriented toward its own domestic interests, and to building a mutually beneficial relationship with its southern neighbor instead.

    As I said above, this is why I enjoy this blog. I don’t know of many places where people of different political stripes can have civil and entertaining discussions of this calibre.

    From where I stand, I see conservatives in the USA, and the Trump admin very particularly, being puzzled and absolutely taken aback by Canada’s recent NAFTA behaviour. “Don’t you Canadians realize that (strategically) we don’t *need* you anymore, but in spite of it all, we still *like* you well enough that we’re *still* offering you a pretty good deal – and you won’t… take it? Don’t you… understand the position that you’re in?” – that’s essentially what I hear from Trump-admin.

    I’m not alone in wondering whether our Trudeau government *wants* the talks to fail so that Canada can begin joining some other political sphere.

    What’s still undecided is whether Canada will seek to maintain its status as a lapdog of empires and cuddle up to China, or whether it will start acting like the huge and resource-rich nation it is and pursue an independent foreign policy in alliance with Australia and India, its logical allies as a counterbalance against Chinese global hegemony.

    Overall, I quite agree – this is definitely “still undecided” and in fact it’s *the* question of the hour for Canadians, although they may not realize it. For the sake of my children, I’ve been spending no small amount of effort trying to figure out “where Canada is going”, and my conclusion is that Canada (or perhaps the various regions of Canada) is going to have to figure out to whom it wants to pledge loyalty; which sphere do we want to belong to.

    I do perhaps disagree slightly on several points – I think it’s quite premature to dismiss the notion of continued US/Canada cooperation, after so many years of close alliance. In any event I don’t believe we have what it takes to stand on our own, “independently”. Also, the idea about a coalition led by India, mentioned by both you and Shane, is one I’ve never heard in my life (seriously, India?!), although I admit I avoid Toronto and other metropolises at all costs.

  128. John–

    Another data point re employment. This morning I heard a radio spot for a local employer looking for people. Not only that, but the nature of the spot was very much: “You’ve seen all the ads for jobs offering good wages and benefits. How can you sort through them to decide which is best for you?” The spot went on to highlight the longevity and stability of that particular employer’s workforce, its contributions to the local community, and its investment in its workers. Certainly a change of tone from employees as expendable assets of yesteryear soon to be replaced by AI, IIOT, and other alphabet soup techno-fantasy.

  129. @Tripp. Yes, I was aware of that. I think that the Trump administration intentionally stalled negotiations with the current Mexican government because they knew they had a much better chance at getting a stable deal with the new government. Also, AMLO said during campaign he would undo any trade deals made before him that he considered harmful for Mexico.

    @pretentious_username. Thanks for that! It does feel like big things are about to happen. I hope the negative connotations in your reading are not as bad.

    Thanks JMG! Neoliberalism did fail pretty bad, the problem is that a lot of people still don’t realize it’s on its way out. I hope the two governments continue to find common ground, the relation with the US is extremely important to Mexico.

  130. I have really nothing to say about mundane astrology, but since the comments have veered over to corporate personhood, a subject of real interest to me, I’ll offer a book recommendation: “Gangs of America; The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy” by Ted Nace and published by Berrett-Koehler Inc in 2003. It’s a very readable history of corporations from roughly 1820 to 2003 and includes some discussion of how our own founding fathers viewed corporations and the earlier British roots of what became American Corporations. Unless there’s an updated edition out there, it does not include any discussion of the important Citizens United case from 2010, which, speaking figuratively, opened the floodgates of corporate political influence in the US.

  131. Hi John

    Fascinating post.

    I concur with you on your forecast that not much will change in the mid-term elections (e.g. Republicans will keep control of the House and Senate).

    This article might interest you, it’s about how internal climate migration is already happening in America as the “smart set” quietly sell their homes in exposed parts of America move to higher ground.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-here

    The Brexit negoitations seem to be tracking your astrological prediction closely. The EU27, led by France, decided to crush Chequers which seems to have shocked May’s inner circle, if not anybody else.

    The direction of travel is towards Canada, a Hard Brexit, which presupposes that the EU will soften their position on the Irish border.

    As Eurointelligence reported today…

    “Salzburg could go down in history as one of the most disastrous EU summits ever, if it turns out to be the one which pushed Theresa May over the brink. May is now coming under domestic pressure to move towards the Canada option, which as we have pointed out before is not compatible either with the EU’s red line on Northern Ireland or with the British red line of avoiding a customs border inside the UK. It is possible that Canada stands for a fudge, if everyone compromises over their backstop provisions. This is possible, but not a given. Our reading of the UK position is a different one: the UK has effectively suspended negotiations and, as of now, is holding up Canada as a take-it-or-leave-it threat to the EU.”

    https://www.eurointelligence.com/

    One final point. Labour announced a series of left-wing policies today. What is your take on them, given your great post on syndicalism economics as a third way between neo-liberalism and statist socialism? My own view is that whilst there are positive elements within Labour’s policy, it strikes me as far too statist and heavy handed. My preference is a carrot approach, using the tax and regulatory system to encourage and award businesses that move towards local, cooperative and worker owned business models.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45621361

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45620778

    In particular, the ending of free schools and academies is a retrograde step away from a revolution in schooling that allowed groups of locals set-up their own schools with their own individual ethos and policies.

  132. I’d like to apologize for the delay in responding to people. I went to visit family and got stuck with a power outage, got involved in a last minute camping trip (otherwise they’d have had to cancel), and have been busy in general lately.

    Since the Kavanaugh debacle has come up, my general opinion is that the claims of abuse should be taken into account, but it’s up to the person making the accusations to prove it. Arguing otherwise means that all it takes is the mere accusation to kill a man’s career.

    The biggest risk I see, for the people making that claim, is that two can play at that game. I bet that at least a few conservative women are planning to accuse whoever the Democrats nominate in 2020 of sexual assault, since what’s good for the goose is good for the gander….

    JMG,

    Would you mind giving Marcu my email address? Given David by the Lake and I were in talks for another project, would you mind giving him my email address as well?

  133. Hi JMG

    A bit OT but another US “vassal” state (well, some people would say it is de opposite) has now some troubles, I mean Israel in Syria after the downing of the russian plane IL-20, and the reaction of Israel saying that all what the russian MoD says about the incident is false (the israelis jets were in the Israel air space when the IL-20 was downed), and they vow to continue to bomb Syria in any place at any time they choose to do, all this seems to have infuriated even more the russian army

    Today the russian MoD has announced that:

    a) They will send a complete set of S-300 systems to Syria un just 2 week, and they will hurry-up the operational readiness of these systems in syrian hands.

    b) Russia will deliver advanced automated air defense management systems which will *dramatically* increase the Syrian air defense capabilities and prevent future “friendly fire” incidents.

    d) Russia will use her electronic warfare capabilities to suppress satellite navigation, onboard radar systems and communications of warplanes attacking targets on Syrian territory in the regions over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea bordering with Syria, “to cool-down some hot-heads” (as Shoigu said)

    So at the end there is now what Hillary always wanted: a No-Fly zone over Syria (hehehehe!)

    It seems that the israelis are turning for help to the US, so Bolton said today that all of this was a significant scalation and “hope” Moscow “will reconsider the decision”….

    It seems the situation could escalate quickly and I think now depends on Trump decisions, I am sure the neocons are pressing him to “show the ruskies who is really the boss”

    Do you think Trump will de-escalate the situation or will add more fuel to the fire?

    Cheers
    David

  134. David, BTL:
    There’s a fair amount of mass hiring going on around north Georgia too, only it’s mostly in the construction and materials manufacturing sectors.

  135. Chris and Beekeeper,

    On the other hand…it’s been a dismal honey season in the U.S. Southeast. Rain, rain, and oh look, more rain. Up until about a month ago anyway. Now beekeepers are having to settle for watching the bees put up enough honey for themselves from late summer/fall nectar flows, but not enough for them.

    Honey could get REAL expensive around here. And Southerners love their honey. Probably only slightly less than high fructose corn syrup… 😉

  136. Shane said,
    “Calexit followed by “Blexit” (blue exit)”

    Calexit sounds dumb. I still can’t figure out why they won’t adopt my much snappier “Cal-gone (take me away!)” 🙂

  137. This is just a comment for the beekeepers on the list. I live in the Sacramento Valley, which has long, hot, dry summers and rainy, cold with occasionally freezing spells, winters. One summer, much to my surprise a bee swarm appeared in the branches of one of our oak trees. I expected it to move on, but instead the bees started to build comb, out in the open only sheltered by the leaves of the tree. The colony was about the size of a soccer ball, built around one large and several smaller branches. I was pretty sure they would not survive a winter, so we called a local beekeeper who hived the colony. I had never heard of such a thing in temperate zones, although I believe some tropical bees nest in the open like that. I took a course in apiculture at U Calif., Davis and my ex and I kept bees for several years. I can’t do it anymore since I developed allergy to the stings. But it just goes to show that they are wonderfully versatile animals.

    Isabel Cooper–I also would rule with an iron fist and am not to be trusted with power–but maybe the two of us could share the Empire and balance one another 🙂 .

  138. Hello everyone! I keep lurking here and enjoying your conversations as well as JMG’s fascinating articles. OT–Very busy with volunteer translation, and it now appears to have been a smart meter at my brother-in-law’s house that set off and made me so terribly sensitive that I feel woozy in front of the computer, with effects that gradually improve over several months. My husband loses control of his blood sugar there, too, and suffers severe insomnia. If I weren’t aware of the research on EMF bio-effects, he wouldn’t know what hit him. The moral of the story is: don’t let anyone put a smart meter on your house.–OT off.
    Regarding the military victory for Trump, this is going to be very interesting. I hope that somehow by cooperating with Russia behind the scenes something can be engineered to allow America to claim victory. Russia recognizes the strategic importance of that. The downing of the Russian aircraft appears to have been a SNAFU by Israel rather than a sneaky provocation, which is how everyone initially read it. It wouldn’t work anyway, because everyone was anticipating a sneaky provocation. It gave Russia the excuse it needed to arm Syria with something real, create an unofficial no-fly zone that will work to the disadvantage of the insurgents, and initiate an assault on the last stronghold west of the Euphrates. But a “chemical attack” has apparently been stage-filmed in or near Homs, so America still has that card up its sleeve. It doesn’t seem to matter whether anyone believes it or not. It’s an excuse for real military action.

  139. Well, it does make sense that Trump would pivot to Mexico and Latin America, considering he represents the Confederate and Confederate leaning parts of the country, and considering that Canada and the rest of the Western world, along w/the Yanks, have had nothing but disdain and contempt for the once and future Confederacy since the beginning of Yankee imperial ascent. The once and future Confederacy has the fastest growing Latin American communities and strong ties to Mexico and Central America via immigrants. And Latin America does not have the long history of anti-Confederate animosity and contempt present in the rest of the West. So it does make sense that in the 21st Century, Mexico is very close, and Canada is very far away.
    SJ,
    India and China have had a long running animosity and I think have been openly at war in the past. As far as I understand it, India is desperate to contain China. The Commonwealth is an old tool that can be dusted off and put to use again, provided it is led by India. India is the world’s largest democracy, and Trump has toughened up his stance against NATO and free riders. The Commonwealth, were it to be dusted off and put to use by India, would provide India w/allies UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the other Commonwealth nations, and, since the US has signaled it’s intent to abandon NATO, provides Canada and the other Commonwealth nations w/an alliance, headed by an up-and-coming nuclear power. (Waves to Will J)
    As far as the China/India question of who Canada turns to, it’s an open question at this point. Idealistic people I’ve talked to seem to idealize both China and India, though one particularly chilling exchange by a very idealistic guy I know involved him idealizing China b/c it’s not democratic, and can make environmental changes by decree w/out that pesky democratic process getting in the way(!). As far as immigrants, Canada has both a large Indian and Chinese expat community, so I think it could be a toss-up as to which community has more clout in Canada if it came to an open tug-of-war between India and China over Canada. If Canada acts out any of the values it professes, it will embrace democratic India and cast suspicion on China.

  140. There are already bumper stickers saying “I’ll agree that corporations are people when Texas executes one.”

  141. @pretentious_username – thanks for the additional data points. While the prediction of improvement of the wage class seems bold to me, I have begun to appreciate the knowledge and wisdom behind the mundane methodology – with the many of the ideas presented here by JMG over the years regarding balance, equilibrium, forces of nature, and so on. While interpreting the data and creating a reading seems to be more artistic than quantitative in nature, I would guess six months from now we can be arguing about metrics, bias confirmation and ground “truth” regardless of what happens.

    As a recovering meteorologist though, and a broken-down horseplayer, I can’t help myself and feel compelled to make my own predictions – and so I come away from this with a bit of motivation to start making and tracking some concrete predictions to see how accurate I can be, though based on some of my economic calls over the last 10 years, I can only improve.

    @JMG – I agree whole-heartedly that the salary class occupations are in for some serious upheavals. However, I believe the health of the over-economy will also be a drag on the wage class, and while I also agree with the “unfair distribution” of some of the gains, I think it’s pretty evident we’re all taking a hit to some degree. With oil rising again, I may have waited too long to jump on the strategy of that famous sage, “collapse now and avoid the rush….” I believe the rush is picking up steam.

  142. JMG,
    one thing I notice in your predictions is that you focus solely on the economic impact on the working class and assume that that will help. I wonder if you’re shortchanging social decay. I mean, the economic forecast for the working class in KY could improve considerably, but it still wouldn’t affect the profound social decay.

  143. Hi Rita,

    The bees were probably originally looking for a hollow in a tree trunk. One of the problems with cutting down big old trees is that invariably they’re the ones that everything wants to live in. We have our understanding of forestry complete backwards around which is an impressive effort!

    Hi Tripp,

    Yeah it is a real problem. And one way to get a hive to over winter is to reduce the amount of honey that you take from it. Of course that presents economic problems for the beekeeper. A lot of bee problems are caused I reckon by folks taking too much honey from the hive. It is their winter food stores after all.

    Hi Will,

    No varroa mite here – thankfully, although an infected colony did arrive on a ship recently. We take bio security semi seriously down here and they keep hives in and around airports and ports which are regularly inspected. I have two colonies. One in a langstroth box (four boxes high). Needless to say it is a big colony. The other is in a top bar hive. I like the top bar hive better if only because I put a little double glazed Persprex screen at the rear of the hive (which can be closed to the light) and I can inspect the goings on without having to open the hive. Plus I used hardwood 2 by 4 timbers which reduces heat loss for the hive. Both hives regularly over winter. I need the bees primarily for pollination services and they are also populating the surrounding forest.

    Hi Beekeper,

    Mate, I’m massively impressed with your story. Thank you for taking the time to share it. I like your insurance strategy too and I follow a similar strategy with my hives. And you do know whether they’re going to make the winter or not. I usually put my ear up to one of the vent holes and take a listen every week or so during the depths of winter. I don’t actually know how I’d cope with one of your winters though, and I’m a bit spoiled as I have fresh fruit of some form or another every day of the year on the trees.

    I’ve never directly fed a hive, if only because there are flowers for most of the year here – although the bees hide in their hives for many long winter months – but your point about adding other herbal products (and vitamin C) to the sugar water is a genius idea. I’ve seen photos of hives that have had digestive reactions to being fed sugar water, and it ain’t pretty!

    Have you ever tried any backyard sugarin from the maple trees up your way? I have a few sugar maples planted and have high hopes for those. At least the maples wont try to sting me if I tap them for sugar! 🙂

    Cheers

    Chris

  144. Beekeeper, Tolstoy’s ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’ reminded me of how John T. Reed described his 1980s foray into investing in Texas real estate. 🙂

    Skdkekd, thanks. I was wondering which war I was thinking of.

  145. Absurdly late in the comment cycle, but i just went and cast my ballot over lunch. Feels very good to have that taken care of. I was all over the board: Rep, Dem, Green, even an independent for state assembly. We’ll see how it turns out in Nov.

  146. Jumping in very late in the game… JMG, if you get to this I had a couple of questions–

    1. I don’t understand how Uranus represents centralization. I thought it was related to disruption and rebellion? That’s what I remember from Raphael’s book, and it fits Uranus’s symbolism in astrology more generally. Am I missing something?

    2. More of a general astrological question… I’ve been reading Alan Leo, and he pretty clearly considers Neptune a malefic. Do you agree with that point of view? It seems to me that Neptune needs to be a higher-order benefic to balance Uranus.

    and

    3. Speaking of Neptune, Uranus and astrology, I wonder if you’ll get around to doing a post on the astrological Tree of Life you described on the Magic Monday talk, with Neptune at Kether and Uranus at Chokhma? Either here or at the Dreamwidth.

    @ Patricia Matthews– I read the blog that you posted… I have no idea who Dana Blankenhorn is. I hope he isn’t somebody with very many readers. I started to say “That was one of the most ludicrously unhinged things I’ve ever read.” Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, since that kind of insanity is par for the course these days. But… my God, he literally cites tariffs as one reason to call for civil war. I wonder if A) he has any idea what civil war entails, to say something that psychotic over a political disagreement and B) given his tough-guy talk about “ruthlessly” destroying the Confederacy, he has any idea that his position on foreign trade is identical to Jefferson Davis’s.

    @ Mog– So… Trade barriers and restricted immigration are now “the apotheosis of neoliberalism”? Either they changed what that word means since my time as a left-wing antiglobalization activist (of the sort that used to read sites like Common Dreams every day), or neoliberalism was a good idea all along.

  147. Canada, Australia and India never fought all that hard for ideals like democracy and human rights during the reign of the American Empire, so it’s hard to see why they would make a convincing bulwark against Chinese hegemony. Remember, Canada is more than happy to sell military equipment to an absolute monarchy currently involved in the genocide of Yemen.

  148. Hi Will Oberton!

    How many hives we have at any given moment depends on a lot of things, but we usually try to stay between a dozen and a dozen and a half so that we can give them the attention they deserve. Since I generally do much of the work alone, that’s a bit of a time investment.

    Hive numbers fluctuate over the summer due to a lot of variables: if a hive is particularly strong and I think it might swarm, I’ll split it into two. If a hive is weak or, after a couple of week’s observation, it looks to have no queen and laying workers have taken over, I’ll split it up and divide it among the strong hives. I’ve learned that there’s little to gain by trying to re-queen a hive with laying workers; the bees generally kill the new queen and if you’ve had to buy that queen, you’ve wasted a good chunk of change.

    I am very cautious with treatments for varroa mites and have never used any of the hard chemical products. The old formic acid strips (O.K. for organic application) that had to be on the hive for several weeks worked pretty well, but then the beekeeping companies introduced the quick strips which work in a couple of days. I tried those and the pile of dead bees in front of those hives was immense. After that I switched to the thymol preparations (also O.K. for organic application) and they seem fairly effective, but I don’t use those with any regularity. When I do a full hive inspection, which is roughly every month over the summer, I take every single frame out of the brood chambers and spray all the bees with a light sugar/water syrup which makes them groom themselves and, hopefully, knock the varroa mites off. This is not foolproof, but we’ve not had a lot of issues with the mites and that’s good enough. I do have a powdered sugar applicator, but if I’m going to use that I wait until late afternoon when rain is forecast for the next day because almost nothing I’ve seen makes honeybees angrier than being doused in powdered sugar; the first time I tried this I was chased by a lot of very pissed-off bees and had to stay indoors – and they came after me the next morning, too. By timing the application for the day before rain, the bees have calmed down when they’re able to come out and forage again.

    Hi again Chris!

    We’ve done a bit of sugaring now and again; after all, we’re in Vermont and it’s practically a religion up here.

    I can’t imagine having fresh anything every day of the year! I’ve always lived in places that had cold winters and have gotten used to hunkering down with a pile of books and plenty of sewing, knitting and mending jobs from late November until the last of the snow in April. For three weeks last December it was -22 F every night on top of our mountain and I felt really sorry for the chickens, but they seemed to handle it well.

    For the bee syrup (sorry about the American measurements!), I put a half gallon of water in a big pot, bring it to a boil, add two chamomile tea bags and a bit of dried lemon balm and let it steep about 10 minutes. Then I fish out the bags and balm and add about 7 pounds of cane sugar, stirring to dissolve it. Finally, I crush a 1000mg vitamin C tablet, dissolve it in a little bit of water and add it to the syrup. This will fill a one-gallon bucket feeder. We’ve had better luck with this recipe than plain sugar syrup.

  149. @Shane:

    Well, congratulations, you have taught me something new, as I have never heard tell of this idea of a resurgent Commonwealth, led(!) by India, superseding the relationship with the USA.

    I still think that geography matters, and that the future USA is not going to tolerate a flagging (if not exactly failing) state on its northern border, nor is it going to tolerate Canada becoming a Chinese colony.

  150. Hi Shane W,

    What do you mean exactly by social decay? It is a relative term that is loaded with emotions and can mean pretty much whatever anyone wants it to mean. If say for example, you are personally comfortable (and a lot of people are these days) then any backward economic step could be viewed as social decay, but your life may improve immeasurably from many other respects. One that pops into my mind is that you might personally get more exercise because you rely less on energy to move you around and do useful stuff. The other that pops into mind is that you might re-engage with the community because we currently use energy to socially isolate ourselves. In a low energy future that ain’t possible.Does community come with problems and costs – you betcha – but it also comes with significant benefits. It is just so many people run a mile from the thing these days – and that takes energy. Just a few points for you to consider.

    Cheers

    Chris

  151. Dear Will J, Have you considered that the Cavanaugh accusations are a psy-op– most if not all other Me Too accusations seem to have been for real–which, like any good psy-op has several targets?

    1. Is of course to hand the Republicans a defeat or at least maximum embarrassment right before the election. To be fair, the Republicans brought this on themselves. They could easily have had hearings for Garland, and then voted to not confirm. This time around the Democrats are baying for blood and don’t care how they get it.

    2. Is to avoid having to ask the nominee substantive questions about has he ever met a Big Important Company he didn’t love, and does he think banks should be subject to ANY regulations? That line of questioning would only encourage the Berniebro populists, who are getting waay to big for their britches already. and, last but not least

    3. Is to trivialize and divert the Me Too phenomenon away from a substantive discussion of the daily round of insult, verbal abuse and backstabbing intrigue and character assassination to which women have been subjected on a daily basis over the last 5 or 6 decades.

  152. Hi JMG! As an amateur astrologer, just wondered whether you factored in Mercury being combust by the Sun, or does that not apply in mundane astrology?
    Also, I see you used Placidus, but in Hellenistic astrology they used whole sign houses..How did you choose the house system?

  153. Thanks Beekeeper that was really interesting . Thanks also to Chris you guys in Australia are lucky to not have mites

  154. @SJ,
    don’t know how much you follow the comments, but I don’t think there will be a future USA. I fully expect California to secede with red state support once the Trump administration eliminates the California emissions waver and gets reelected in 2020. I expect this will set off a blue secession wave on both coasts. I think things are bad enough in the US that the US can’t afford to worry about Canada, which is why the US is setting Canada free.
    @Chris,
    I should have said “culture death”, as JMG has talked about here. I really can’t get over the culture death where I’m from. I don’t recognize the place anymore. I don’t think anyone outside the US understands how profound it is here.
    I’m not sure that any India led Commonwealth will be based on values any more than realpolitik. India desperately wants to check China, the UK needs allies and trading partners after the inevitable punishing blow from the EU, and Canada needs trading partners post-NAFTA, after the US abandons it.

  155. Hey John,

    Always pleased by these analyses. I’ve been meaning to learn more about mundane astrology, so that I interpret ingress charts for Brazil (we’re in a weird political moment here, and a little guidance from above can’t hurt). Do you know of any online resources where i could find at least the basics?

    Thanks anyway!

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