Cruel Summer

Way back when the Covid panic began, smart people pointed out that shutting down an economy was going to have unforeseen consequences. A modern economy is an incomprehensibly complex organism. Even turning off some parts of it for a short time will change the organism, resulting in downstream changes. It is why people who work with complex things are very careful about the changes they make. They accept that there is much about the system that they cannot known in advance.

Of course, the people in charge are sure they have it all figured out, so they just blundered ahead with their lock downs and new rules. Shutting down most of the restaurant industry and closing the schools. for example, radically altered the demand side of the food market. Suddenly, goods for the restaurant business had no demand, while demand for home products shot through the roof. This should have given them pause, but they kept blundering ahead with their schemes.

Anyone who has been in a grocery store of late knows that food prices are jumping like it is the 1970’s again. There are also weird shortages. Something like mayonnaise will disappear from the shelves for a week and then come back, but then plastic bags become scarce. The same phenomenon is happening with other things like building supplies and petroleum products. The official statistics are complete nonsense, so we have no idea how much food has jumped. It is enough that people are talking about inflation in private conversations for the first time in decades.

The usual suspects, of course, are spilling into the streets to chant about fiat currency, hyperinflation, and the rest of their stuff. It is as if the Great Pumpkin has finally risen out of the pumpkin patch. They have been waiting their whole lives for the Weimar moment foretold in the prophesies. Because these people are always wrong it is good to remember they are wrong now. The problem now is actually much worse than too much money chasing too few goods. It is systemic.

For starters, governments around the world have been taking sledgehammers to the global supply chain. These supply chains evolved over a long period of time to solve the problems of getting goods to the market. In response to Covid, government willy-nilly started turning things on and off without much thought. The system can respond to short term emergencies like natural disasters, but it was never equipped to respond to random outages imposed by people who have never had a job.

Then you have the stimulus plans. Having idled large swaths of the economy for periods, the same people frantically turning things on and off started pumping money into the retail side. At first this new money was absorbed in the system. Personal debt fell in 2020 as people got conservative in the face of the crisis. They also began to change their lives in response to the lockdowns. Going to the movies and out to eat is a habit, not a necessity. Lots of habits changed in 2020.

Labor markets have been radically changed by Covid and the efforts from the rulers to make a big show of dealing with it. Entry level jobs are now hard to fill, because unemployment still pays very well. If you are a restaurant opening for the first time in a year, finding help is difficult. It is not a shortage of labor as much as a shortage of people ready to go back to work. Labor shortages, however, they are created, result in a spike in labor costs, which appear at the cash register.

Finally, we have monetary policy. Central bank policy has evolved over the last thirty years based on certain assumptions. Government policy, for example, has been predictable going back to the 1990’s. While there have been the usual problems, the global economy has settled into some predictable patterns. All of a sudden, none of this is true, so monetary policy has to adjust. Adjusting to erratic government behavior and unpredictable consequences in the economy is practically impossible.

The upshot to all of this is we are seeing real inflation for the first time in generations, but we have a variety of causes this time. In the 1970’s, it was too much money chasing too few goods. Pulling money out of the economy was painful, but it worked. This time, we have too much money in some areas, but we have broken supply chains and labor markets contributing to the problem. The Fed cannot do anything about shortages of aluminum cans or chicken farm with too few chickens.

To make matters worse, pulling money out of the system is probably not possible, given decades of ultra-low borrowing rates. The world has become so accustomed to low interest rates, it has become an axiom, like the changing of the seasons or the laws of thermodynamics. Any significant change in the money supply to combat retail inflation would send the financial markets into a tailspin. Housing would collapse if mortgage rates returned to anything resembling normal.

None of this means there is no answer. Often, the right answer is to do nothing and let things run their course. That was the right answer with Covid. As with Covid, the rulers cannot accept that answer, so they will thrash around some more. The people animating the corpse of Joe Biden are promising to smash things up some more for the greater good. After all, what matters to them is that we know the people in the mansions and castles really care about us, while they live like royalty.

The result of all this is we are heading into a cruel summer. The bill for the Covid response is coming due. How a society responds to crisis is the result of the social trust in that society. America is a low trust society now. Further, the people who will be counted on to dig out of the mess created by the rulers are now treated like second class citizens by those rulers. The fix to the 60’s and 70’s was to first repair the loss of faith in the system. It is hard to imagine that happening this time.


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243 thoughts on “Cruel Summer

  1. I long for the days when the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue wasn’t all girls with male genitals or vitiligo or Kaposi’s.

  2. “Anyone who has been in a grocery store of late knows that food prices are jumping like it is the 1970’s again.” Anyone who was around in the ’70’s recalls that was when there was suddenly no standard for the dollar: No gold standard and no silver standard! But at least hikes in the national debt limit were not automatic, which is the de facto situation for trillions upon trillions of new debt today (and recall that when Gerry Ford pathetically broke out the “Whip Inflation Now” (W.I.N.) buttons, the national debt was still in the billions, i.e. no more than 1/25 of its present level. So we really have no idea of how much new “money” is being created, and no level of inflation should be a surprise. It would take an educated electorate to demand a balanced budget to stop inflation- and where are they?: the educational system has been systematically sabotaged as well.(and you want to hear the funniest part: when I was a kid mothers were still telling kids to clean their plates because “people in China are starving.” For all their intrusions against privacy and civil liberties there, they have succeeded in boosting their economy and standard of living, even as ours is in decline. But it was Confucius who said “Out of debt, out of danger.”

  3. Z often talks about “Judeo-Puritanism” or similar. Here’s an article from today’s ZeroHedge that seems to give a capsule history of it. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but I detected no errors based on historical dates and claims it makes.

    What surprised me most was I figured it would mention the American Negro known for his love of menthol cigarettes, but it doesn’t at all. Furthermore, while the world “liquor” appears a few times, the term “malt liquor” does not at all. Thus, a racism-free post!

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/when-murray-rothbard-predicted-menthol-ban#comment-stream

  4. If you sledgehammer the supply chain, there’s suddenly too much money. Prices go up til the sledgehammered supply has absorbed the surplus money to rebalance demand to equal the reduced supply.

    The Fed dishes money. Now there’s too little supply but the sledgehammer prevents supply from rebalancing demand. Prices go up.

    What’s the difference between the Weimar moment and the crash in asset value due to default on debt? Heads or tails, a loaf of bread still cost a wheelbarrow full of cash.

    • A Weimar crash demands a non- fiat currency. An asset value crash allows fed reflation.

  5. Just had a crazy thought…

    Is whiskey heartiste? Their writing styles sounds really similar…

  6. Cold Fury:

    “my refusal… is not related to some perceived or real government overreach. I’m not here to take a principled stand against the federal or state governments on this issue.
    …..

    My primary reason for refusing the vaccine is much simpler: I dislike the people who want me to take it, and it makes them mad when they hear about my refusal. That, in turn, makes me happy.

    Maybe it’s petty, but the thought of the worst people on planet earth, those whom I like to call the Branch Covidians, literally shaking as I stroll into Target vaccine-free, makes me smile.”

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    • A wise man once wrote that it is as good to be despised by the despicable as to be admired by the admirable.

      T-shirt I’d like to have:
      UNVACCINATED
      And damned proud of it!

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  7. As my comment awaits moderation, don’t expect any opening of the economy. Or anything but more of the same out of the current admin and ruling class.

    The only thing they know how to do well, is feed the emotional needs of their followers who remain basically a bunch of weirdos who cannot make money, power, success, or status on their own.

    I do think however there will be a massive collision between those whose only hope of power, status, and success is taking that from those who have it, and those who do indeed have it, particularly those with just a bit of it. A billionaire can flee to the Caymans. A working man with a house and car is stuck here.

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  8. It looks like Biden / Dems / Ruling Class have a solution to the logistics issues.

    Imprison (or worse) most White people. Already Adam Schiff and Nicole Wallace are calling for basically Gitmo for anyone who voted for Trump. Or might have supported Trump. Nick Fuentes is today on the no fly list, tomorrow he will be in jail like Navalny in Russia. Biden basically declared anyone White a terrorist and said they were a greater risk than jihadis.

    That is really the only thing they can do. They can’t reopen the nation. That’s not something they can do emotionally or politically given their backers demands on total lockdown and need for ever more anti-Whiteness. They CAN roll out in stages various anti-White measures designed to strip wealth and belongings from Whites to themselves and a trickle to their followers. The core of the Dem followers don’t care about income (they don’t work mostly) — they care about status and their enemies (White people) being more and more degraded.

    And of course for people like Schiff and Hunter Biden, there are great opportunities to sell seized houses, property, etc. for profit. So expect a lot of that. The core looting phase has begun. Don’t forget George Soros got his career start hunting out fellow Jews for the Nazis so he could sell their property at auction. He remains intensely proud of that history.

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    • Stealing money from the Boomers will keep their schemes afloat for a little white longer.

      The sad part is how many normal white people see the craziness, and just knuckle under and hope that the storm will pass. “Maybe if I’m really quiet they will let me grill”.

      Of course that never works. Especially when the tone of your skin is what determines your rank from “evil” to “saintly”. You can’t really escape it.

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  9. Two masked San Francisco radical cunts sitting behind doddering Joe last night–first in line should something happen to him.

    That, and the fact that the American people are quite OK with that, explains everything, doesn’t it?

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  10. Hey ZMan, I stalk your Gab feed and I saw someone say something about the ICU situation in Calgary hospitals. Well, I live in Calgary, I do taxes, it’s personal tax time up here, and as I am a jewish guy I have quite a few doctor clients (insert jokes here).

    It’s not nearly as bad as the news is making it seem. They have plenty of capacity. This is from the horses, err, doctors mouths. What these people like the one who replied to you are getting is this, from the news “X number of people in ICU today” but they don’t actually get told how many total ICU units are available. There is something like 140 people in ICU (according to the news IIRC) and I think something like 600 ICU beds in Calgary alone. So not a crisis at all.

    Your point about us being lied to all the time is indeed correct. The branch covidians are fucking insufferable.

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    • Do you have a doctor shortage up there? Doctors have been retiring early like crazy since all the regulations came in ten years ago. Now we pay top dollar for these ‘nurse practitioners,’ essentially anyone with a bachelor’s degree in basketweaving with 2 years of health training.

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    • They tried the “hospital are overflowing” here in Lagos. I went to two of them and they were literally empty. It looked like they were closing. The reason was they stopped doing anything other than emergency care. Sure, there were some extra Covid people, but otherwise it was the opposite of what was claimed.

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      • The gap between the claims that hospitals were over capacity and all the videos people took of local hospitals looking like a ghost town was an early tell for me as to the extent of the lying around Covid.

        Unfortunately when I showed those videos to middle of the road normies who sort of got the fraud, they refused to see the significance. They couldn’t bring themselves to see that it, like every other narrative, is an easily provable lie.

        I live in Thailand. Population is nearly 70 million. Since the dawn of Covid around 300 have died. To put that in perspective 1100 on average die in traffic fatalities per month.

        Many thais don’t want to take the vaccine because the news here lies about the severity of the illness but doesn’t lie about the deaths from vaccines. To prime the populace for the vaccine, the government has mandated that anyone who tests positive for Covid must spend 14 days in the hospital even if symptom free. Consequently they have achieved their goal of overwhelmed hospitals filled with people who aren’t sick.

        The government recently disclosed that of the 23000 people in the hospital only 418 had serious symptoms and around 100 (out of nearly 70 million) are on ventilators. This was of course presented by the media as a health care crisis.

        The government has mandated that every one must wear a mask outside the home including when the family is in the car.

        The over capacity hospitals are blowing up on the government because seriously ill people can’t be treated in the hospital and are dying because the hospitals are full with asymptotic people.

        Some of the largest government hospitals won’t even take accident victims. You have to be in a coma to be admitted.

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  11. I am a patent attorney and federal trial lawyer in IP cases. Business has been booming. Unfortunately, client checks have been bouncing. I am spending more time than ever before addressing collections. It cuts into my day and so I have eliminated nearly all pro bono. I just had to tell a friendly acquaintance that I will no longer handle his trade secret defense for free. Which cost me that relationship, and my karma, but with the civilizational outlook I am scraping every penny off the sidewalk. (Beware the penny, it’s a partner trap!) Things are getting mean out here in Chicagoland, I can feel it.

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  12. What I see is this: A cabal of corporate people are rewriting the social contract. Unfortunately for the rest of us, these are the same folks who write user agreements for software and social networks, which you are presented with (take it or leave it) as you first go to use the service. Included is a clause that says they are free to change the terms at any time… Only now it is not only to use their service, it is to participate in any aspect of society necessary for survival, and their enforcement network is a very large segment of the population as well as nearly all corporations and government.

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    • This ^^^^^.

      and what’s even worse is so many of them are unprofitable after the accounting gimmicks are removed. At least let it be profitable oligarchs that do this to us.

    • The “cabal of corporate people” is centered around the New York CFR and its network of interlocking affiliates. They re-wrote the “social contract” nearly a century ago, and shifted into high gear after WW2. The end game is closing in fast…

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  13. My wife and I can pay the higher prices for food, at least for now. And at my age a little lower calorie intake is a good thing. If I were going to worry about something it would be the impact of seven billion people competing for a six billion person food supply. “But there’s always been enough before” isn’t going to carry much weight.

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    • The funny thing is, modern food production is capable of producing about 10 billion people’s worth of food. The pinch point is logistics, of which, as our esteemed blog host has pointed out, our betters are making a total hash in the name of public health.

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      • My dad’s buddy is a farmer, and he said just month or two of delay created a situation where tens of millions of livestock had to be slaughtered and buried because they grew too large in size for the processing facilities to handle them.

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        • And as I understand it the interval between a bull or hog getting happy and a critter being ready to.convert into cuts of meat is a tad bit more than a couple of weeks! Those knotheads put into motion negative effects which will be YEARS being resolved.

      • Modern farming is not sustainable since it requires too much complexity and far too many inputs.

        One blip in natural gas and no fertilizer (that happened very recently) not to mention the global phosphorus shortage

        We’d be far better off tapering to less energy intensive system with more local production. We can still enjoy the luxury of things like winter tomatoes with green houses,

        This plus a victory garden policy would have real effects in shifting the culture to the Right as well.

        It won’t happen for a while, like most things until the dollar crash or after a boog.

  14. The new alternate reality includes a shortage of people willing to work. Businesses are begging for help. This is a great time for a job upgrade.

    I’m shopping for a remote work position for when I retire in about a year. The job alerts fill my inbox, and they’re throwing everything at me. A waitress was telling me yesterday that the local crabhouse she works for is hiring people with no experience. The wait staff they do have is working double shifts and making nine hundred dollars a night. You pretty much just have to be willing to show up.

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    • Its not quite that easy around here but my part of California is pretty pre collapsed and there are a lot of help wanted signs out which is quite unusual.

      Also the skilled Boomers are starting to leave the workforce en mass do to age and the unpleasantness of the workplace. So are older Gen X which is going to leave clown world with an even larger skills gap than it already have Hell the older competent Gen Y are pushing 40 so they won’t be around the workforce soon enough

      On top of all that movement like minimalism and F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence Retire Early) which are kind of tied together along with the very low fertility rate is going to gank consumerism.

      If clown companies decide to double down on work for home, this will also do huge damage across many industries but how that goes, who knows?

      Anyhoo I expect the system to go bat-spit insane as the economy both contract and becomes incapable of large scale anything.

      Future USA after the dollar is no longer the reserve currency will be Brazil basically but we’ll be more able to avoid the system and very lucky, form a new nation.

      Alas we can run on fumes from being the reserve currency for quite some time so its not soon enough.

  15. My son has wisely decided to work as a lifeguard this summer in South Carolina – where covid is a distant memory. Being down there is like visiting 2019.

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  16. We’re having a lot of fun in manufacturing, it’s one shortage to the next, along with price increases on all material. Many vendors are breaking contracts through an act of god, and only taking smaller orders. Rubber and plastics are next.

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  17. The system itself is technically insolvent. The Fed creates about $150 Billion a month to keep reanimating the corpse of the country. One in five S&P 500 members is a zombie corp, that would catastrophically fail with even a marginal rise in interest rates. The government itself is now a zombie on monetary life support. Debt financing would tailspin if rates went to even low historical levels of 4-5%. All of this can keep going for years, until one day it doesn’t. The supply chain issues have crept in. For instance my neighbor has been waiting a month for an out of stock pool vacuum. As far as inflation goes, it will worsen, until whatever 2000 or 2007 (or combination thereof) like market breakdown happens. At that point we’ll have a deflationary scenario, as asset destruction outpaces money creation. However, it will the the worldwide central banking reaction to this that actually does give us an inflationary hell. We’ve spent a year hearing about “Covid cytokine storms.” They will create a monetary cytokine storm that will blow up the place because governments (ahem…liberal democracies) won’t have the ball sack or stomach to structurally reform their wasteful governments and millions of people would eat their own grandchildren for dinner before losing their pensions. (See CalPERS).

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    • “millions of people would eat their own grandchildren.” Part of this is due to drop in genotypic IQ, but also I think our consumerist society has trained the older people to live like YOLO hedonists. Have you seen the commercials for reverse mortgages? “Drain your equity so you can travel before you die, leaving your descendants, who are on their 2nd recession in 12 years, with absolutely nothing!”

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      • Love the Tom Selleck one “This isn’t my first rodeo.” Although the Fred Thompson ones were the sleaziest. This country has been a sick joke for a long time.

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        • Re: Fred Thompson, I always got a kick out “Jesse” the 100% white, earth-crunchy newspaper stand guy. Jesse’s probably Antifa, now.

      • You know? I looked into reverse mortgauges once. Spent a good hour chasing down references online and came away thinking “Not only ‘No!’ but Oh, HELL No!!!”

        Love to watch both Sellick (2nd best shit-eating grin out there next to Dennis Quaid) and Fred Thompson (“Son, a Russian don’t take a dump without a plan!” ) work but for the record I wouldn’t buy a used car from either one of em!

      • I’m re-reading Fuerle’s book (“Erectus Walks Amongst Us”) and that hits a nerve. Prehistoric man, say some scientists, was often a cannibal. Still happens for non-starvation reasons in Africa, to the surprise of no one who’s read his or similar books 🙁

    • One wonders if the supply chain issues you allude to will have an effect on Amazon.
      I don’t use the service, but they were chirping about how they bought 100,000 electric trucks to be more green.
      How does that work with nothing to deliver?

  18. Everything Z noted on the post is true but we still need to remind ourselves that this has worked incredibly well for the ruling elite. They have managed to get the masses support for:

    1. looting the middle class and transferring that wealth upwards

    2. Giving unprecedented power to the ruling cabal over every aspect of people’s lives

    3. Crushing small competition to the ruling class

    4. Essentially criminalizing any criticism of what the ruling class is getting away with

    And they aren’t getting tired of winning

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    • Yeah, you have to wonder if what appears to be a massive screw-up isn’t actually “The Plan”: take control of the entire economy and supply chain, completely control the movements and behavior of the masses, collapse the currency and replace it with digital fiat money that can be tracked every step of the way, pay lower-class people to not work while giving them enough “money” to buy Chinese-made shit online, destroy the petit bourgeois economy and enrich the global oligarchs, rig elections and install a puppet, surveil and prosecute your political enemies.

      Seems to be working quite well so far — for “them.”

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  19. Z, generally you are quite correct in your assertions. But today I must take you to task. You are dead wrong about inflation. You are “correct” in the sense that you are repeating what conventional economics has taught for decades. But the truth, rarely learnt in classes these days, is the base definition of inflation. It is not an increase in prices of goods and services; that is a SYMPTOM.

    IT IS A DECREASE IN THE VALUE OF MONEY. Simple as that. To claim that it is “demand side” or “supply side” or “cost-push” is abject bullshit. It’s clouding the issue.

    Some elementary logic and analysis is in order. What, precisely, does the statement “Decrease in the value of money” mean? Well, that is worth clarifying.

    What is money, to begin with? Traditionally, it’s defined as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Throughout history, it’s been many things, often a physical commodity. Gold, silver and copper perhaps the most enduring examples. Put then came paper money — effectively an IOU, a promise of payment. This has expanded to the point where much “money” is purely conceptual, a series of bookkeeping entries. We call it credit or debt.

    At heart of any system, is the requirement of confidence in the value of that unit of account. If most people think it has value, it is useful as money. But if the public loses faith, not even gold or diamonds would be worth anything. So, in general, means of exchange and unit of account are satisfied.

    But what about “store of value?” You see, the problem with paper money, or even worse, computer entry make-believe money, is that there is no upper limit on the supply. History shows, without exception, that these types of monetary systems are abused by those who control them, typically the bankers and the government. Some last longer than others. But in the end, the supply of the currency drops to zero as the supply becomes infinite. It is replaced by something else.

    If the supply of money were finite, it would place a limit on how high prices could be raised. People couldn’t spend money they didn’t have, no matter how much they wanted an item.

    To claim that, say, mayonnaise is getting more expensive because of “tight supply” is disingenuous. You are repeating the lies of the economist priesthood. To be more accurate, this is another example of looking at only part of a greater whole, or of telling a half-truth. Looked at from a classical perspective, one might reframe that statement saying simply that the market is willing to pay more dollars (currency unit) for a given unit of Mayonnaise. This is another way to say that demand, relative to supply, is increasing. If you investigate in detail, you might find that the cost of eggs, water, vinegar, labor, shipping, packaging, etc. were increasing, thus adding to the total cost. But why are each of the sub-costs increasing? Same analysis. Supply and demand. What is usually overlooked in the analysis? The value of the money!

    Now, let me soften my dogmatic views a bit. Yes, prices should increase because of increased demand. But to call that “demand-pull” inflation is, in my opinion, deceptive. That is just a fancy name to describe what a normal free market should do. Similar argument for so-called “cost-push”: if costs increase, yes they are normally passed on to buyers as higher cost. But that only works if the end buyer is willing to pay the higher cost. All of these terms tend to ignore the root question: why are the source costs changing? It could be changes in the availability of real goods or services, but often, usually perhaps, it is due to an increase in the supply of money. People, including academics, seem to forget that the money itself is a “good,” and thus is a factor in all economic transactions, subject to the simple laws of economics.

    With a fiat currency, there are few limits on the supply of the money, and this completely distorts any rational attempt to figure supply and demand for real world goods and services. Welcome to Clown World of economics.

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    • Prices can rise for reasons other than inflation. For example, if there were a naturally caused shortage of rubber, the cost of rubber goods would go up. Or if suddenly a good or group of goods became very trendy. Or say there was a coup in Saudi Arabia the price of oil could go through the roof.

      My simple understanding is inflation is a general rise in prices across the economy and not just in some sector, which may have other underlying reasons.

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      • Or, say, ammo.
        For various reasons, ammo has risen sharply in the past year.
        At the moment, in my area, regular gas costs 2.7
        .45 acp rounds/ gallon.

        Yikes!

      • You’re absolutely right. Individual prices rise and fall all the time, typically due to supply and demand. If an item jumps in cost, it is usually due to sudden shortage, increased demand, or both. That’s normal market operation.

        Your second statement is a better “layman” definition of inflation: a rise in all, or nearly all, prices.

        But the point is: if money were a finite good, there would be an upper limit on how high prices could go. In fact, if all prices are rising, this is equivalent to saying the value of the good called “money” is declining, most likely to an increase in its supply. Remember, there’s nothing magical here — except that unlike real goods and services, fiat money can be created and destroyed at a whim; that’s not “magic” though…

        • When the price of something gets too high, an alternative or replacement is purchased. If beef gets too high, a lower price substitute like pork or chicken will be purchased.

    • “What is money, to begin with? Traditionally, it’s defined as a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Throughout history, it’s been many things, often a physical commodity. Gold, silver and copper perhaps the most enduring examples. Put then came paper money — effectively an IOU, a promise of payment. This has expanded to the point where much “money” is purely conceptual, a series of bookkeeping entries. We call it credit or debt.”

      This is wrong. The historical record is that money is debt, and that commodities as currencies (or commodity backed currencies) are the exception, not the rule. Units of account can only exist as a function of social trust, so hard currency needs only exist when social trust is low but trade lines are infungible. Debt, by David Grabber, provides pretty exhaustive evidence of this, for further reading.

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      • We are splitting hairs. You’re right, but so was I. Or was I? It’s true you can have money without it being a store of value — long term. My $20 gold coin still has a (US) legal tender value of $20. But the gold in it is worth about $1800 in today’s paper dollars. So much for the (paper) dollar being a “store of value”.

        Note that the credit and debt scheme of banking will work in either system (commodity backed or fiat). It’s not the accounting that is fraudulent, although fraud can occur. The dishonesty enters in when the unit of account (the money) is a fiat currency, is as reliable as a rubber ruler, having no value at all save what the confidence of the market imputes to it. When that confidence evaporates, the entire system collapses.

        To use your terms, you could say that social trust was far higher a century ago, when most of the world used a gold standard. Even so, most commerce was done either via credit (e.g. checks) or paper money, but it was redeemable in gold, until FDR stopped it in 1934.

        We are a far lower trust society today, and the value of our money reflects that. Even our lowly penny lost most of its copper in 1982. As bad as this erosion has been, the USA, EU, etc. are still the best of a bad bunch. The majority of the world’s currencies are close to worthless (Exhibit A: Zimbabwe Dollar).

    • Yes, it’s annoying when people assume all price increases can be called ‘artificial inflation,’ when it’s usually just an increase in demand, nothing artificial about it. People on the real estate forums in san diego were calling high rental prices in their neighborhood ‘artificial inflation’ when, in their case, it was AIRBNB that had turned every rental into a vacation home.

    • [INFLATION] IS A DECREASE IN THE VALUE OF MONEY. Simple as that.

      Damn! I love that definition! I always thought of money as something I could use to get stuff with. For my money, inflation was where the same amount of money that would get me what I wanted yesterday WON’T get it today. Back when President Peanut was inhabiting 600 Penn, I had stripes on my sleeves. Back then we had BY GOD inflation. No two ways about it. Now the whole time ol’ PP was prez, we got “cost of living” raises every year. Now you younger folks and need to civilians probably are unaware but at that time the only reason ALL ENLISTED FOLKS in grades E-6 and under (and that is the vast majority of active duty armed forces members) DID NOT qualify for food stamps was because the rules for gettin the things SPECIFICALLY DISCUALIFIED active duty armed forces members. Yes, we had the PX/BX and Commissary but often times I could bag my own groceries at a nearby warehous food store and save money over the commissary. Anyhow, by the end of the fournyears of wonderfulness of PP’s administration the net result was a net 25% LOSS in purchasing power. Effectively even though the deposit numbers on my bank statement GREW, the amount of stuff I could GET with it SHRANK – BY A FOURTH in just FOUR SHORT YEARS!

      So I love your definition of inflation.

  20. Speaking of the summer, DiBlasio is claiming NYC will reopen at 100% capacity:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/nyc-will-fully-reopen-july-1-all-businesses-100-capacity-de-blasio-says

    Anyone with a pea brain understands this is an obvious setup for epic Burn Loot Murder riots leading into a nuclear false flag in the form of a dirty bomb or suitcase nuke followed by a couple days of the MSM autistic screeching, “Russia! Russia! Russia!” leading to the the ultimate 4th of July fireworks in the form of global thermonuclear war and adios muchachos.

    Or, y’know, it might just a mayoral election year in NYC.

    19
      • Someone here once referred to sports as “our nogs vs. their nogs” and now that’s what politics is going to be. Both parties running their black faces against each other.

        • I was living in Sodom on Hudson during the one term of David Dinkins. I’d moved from London a few years earlier during the Koch Regime. I was struck then by how much of it was a third world city, it got worse under Dinkins.
          Having discovered the joys of rural life all I can say about New Yorker’s is Fuck em.

  21. “Suddenly, goods for the restaurant business had no demand, while demand for home products shot through the roof.”

    Indeed. Sage words. I don’t over here if it would have been possible to get restaurant goods from the wholesaler for a household. Could have saved a few trips to the supermarket with the one way system and people fighting over bog roll.

    6
    1
    • About a year ago, the local deli was selling the kind of giant toilet paper rolls that you see in office building restrooms. I thought it funny, but it made sense – nobody was in the offices taking craps.
      That deli is now unfortunately closed. The owner told me that too much of his revenue was made catering to office lunches and that business may never return. Damn shame, they did some great bbq.

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    • At the height of the great toilet paper panic, my husband’s employer bought a bunch of the rough tan/gray industrial stuff usually found in retail establishments in the US (which is still an improvement over the parchment paper larping as toilet paper found in the UK) and gave everyone a few rolls. We never ran out of the real thing so I shoved our few rolls in the bathroom closet. Future trade goods with the English? The inhabitants of the British Isles have true grit when it comes to your version of indoor plumbing.

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      • There’s more than one type of TP in the UK. Sneering at our indoor plumbing?! you can walk around UK cities and not step on human poop. Maybe it’s your “pioneer spirit”.
        Also what would Merkins know about hygiene?

        1
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        • Poointheloo: I’m sorry I offended you; I was taking the piss. I’ve lived in England and I love the English people (although not your plumbing and bathrooms). Yes, you do have regular toilet paper but not in public bathrooms, at least not 40 years ago. And fwiw, you could walk around American cities back then and not step in poop either. I have no idea what English cities are like now.

  22. All the “respectable” economists are talking about the coming boom due to stimulus and pent up demand. Predictions are for 2021-22 to be strong economically. I don’t know. If I drive around town, I see lots of empty stores and office buildings. My friend is a commercial insurance broker serving small and medium sized businesses. He says a lot of them have been really hurt by the Covid lockdowns and craziness. Do small businesses not really contribute that much to GDP? That can’t be.

    The cruel summer may go on for quite some time.

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    • They mean a boom for businesses that matter, like Amazon and the big boxes.

      25
    • “The cruel summer may go on for quite some time.”

      Good! Let it!

      We should be doing everything we can, within reason, to crash this economy. Who cares if the restaurants open again. Don’t go. Who cares if the theatres open again. Don’t go. It’s just a pile of woke horses**t anyway. Who cares if the stores reopen. Don’t shop. Buy second-hand: use kijiji, flea markets, garage sales, Craig’s list, whatever. Every time you buy something you’re funding into a state that’s at war with its own people via sales tax, payroll tax, and the income tax paid by the store owner.

      To hell with them all. There comes a time when the ship is no longer worth saving. Stop bailing and man the lifeboats.

      And for chrissake stop voting for Republican cucks. In fact, stop voting. Once the Republican cucks realize they’re finished it will create an opportunity for a real alternative party to emerge. A new party is what Trump would have created were he not a loudmouth, big-talking, small-doing entertainment celebrity posing as a leader.

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      • I was blackpilled in my teens on demographics and american culture. 20 years later I voted for the first time ever for Trump, not because i believed anything would change in 4 years, but because he was the first candidate to talk about immigration aggressively. It could be 30 more years before any significant change happens, but a presidential candidate in the US discussing demographic replacement was a big step in the right direction for the entire western world, even if he didn’t mean what he said IMO

        21
        • Fair. But if people stopped rewarding do-nothing Republicans 30-40 years ago and just stayed home, even for one election, it might have lit a fire under the asses of the Republican Party.

          Instead, people kept voting for the same losers year after year, decade after decade, under the false belief that not doing so would let the Democratic Party radically change the country in one term.

          That was crap. The Democratic Party wasn’t radically changing the country, the academic elites were: the Democrats were just along for the ride as their cheerleaders. At least the Democrats were (mostly) honest about their support for the radical left. The Republicans pretended to oppose them, but did next to nothing, except cash their cheques.

          Watching Trump go running back to the Republican Party after they stabbed him in the back for four years was painful, and it shows, methinks, that neither are true allies of those who oppose the far-left takeover of the country.

          9
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          • Great call.
            Academia is the licensing chokepoint. Your license to even participate, get hired, etc.

            They hold the keys to the clerisy.

  23. And now they’re predicting gas shortages this summer because of a lack of tanker drivers.

    I’m thinking I should buy more Wise emergency food buckets for my family and I. And more slugs for my .38.

    14
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    • That’s just a clickbait headline. in one sense, there are no such things as shortages; just low bids. I bet they could find more drivers if logistics companies paid higher wages.

      5
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      • Actually, it’s very difficult to find qualified drivers. Especially for hauling hazardous liquids and materials, such as gasonline.

    • I have never heard so many radio ads for drivers. All the majors, even Walmart and UPS. Small guys are folding because everybody’s staying home on unemployment.

      Still, here I sit- the load didn’t fill, either because of shipper (supply breakdown) or nondelivery (no drivers).

      Tankers have a long supply chain too, one that leads right to yours truly.

      And, of course, the truckstop restaurant is closed, because that’s where they actually make their profit margin.

  24. the people in charge [were] sure they [had] it all figured out . . . thus they kept blundering ahead with their schemes.

    Such is the nature of idiocracy and carnies. Themselves being of low actual intelligence but possessing a kind of low cunning, they, like one of the blind men who encountered the elephant, having misperceived the miniscule slice of reality with which they actually interected, in their hubris claimed understanding of the whole and pronounced draconian “solutions” to non problems.

    There are also weird shortages.

    It drives me crazy. We used to shop at Walmart (woke or not they had the best over-all prices) but had to switch to a local chain which produces its house brands locally.and (apparently) has better connections with national brands as well. Shopping at the Mart was a nightmare because we could never predict which products on our list would be missing! The first couple of weeks after the February freeze were horrific at Wmart. Much less so at the local (equally woke {sigh}) local chain.

    Oh, and for the record, no vaccine for this old codger and no face diapers (except in Dr’s offices) in any public space since Gov Abbot opened Texas back up. Haven’t seen very many like minded souls but so far nobody has called me down for it – even staff in businesses displaying “masks required” signs. One thing about the masks. It’s hard to give someone a dirty look using only your eyes. I figure it’s just that there are a lot of near-sighted people out and about.😉

    21
    • Not that I bother with many businesses anymore, but I tend to take note of the ones that have ‘displayed’ their mask signage in hard to see places; and who don’t pester me for not wearing one. I found a nice little cafe the other day, even though the owner was a foreigner (can’t win them all, I suppose) he did not wear a mask and did not care if I did or not. Refreshing. Two young English girls walked in with similar lack of consideration toward that greatest and most deadly of China viruses.

      Upon coming out, I walked past an old English green grocer who was moaning to his younger employee (English) about ‘diversity’. I wasn’t going to buy anything, but thought: Hey, I’ll support this bloke – he hates it all as well.

      Having said that, between the races and different cultures, the social capital is screwed. Absolutely screwed. But it’s always nice to be able to pick out the like-minded.

      40
  25. Cheer up. The GOP’s “rising star”, per Faux News, Tim Scott just responded to Biden’s congressional speech in epic based fashion. TL;DR: Democrats are the real racists. I feel confident we’re in good hands. Everything will calm down soon and blacks will be back voting republican in no time, just as soon as PragerU puts out their next video with Jayz and Candace Owens.

    65
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      • Wow, you mean the based black senator turned out to be just another angry minority with an axe to grind against whitey? Imagine my shock.

        They are always the same deep down, regardless of political affiliation or ethnic background.

        If the Republicans just become the party of reparations, gibs, and anti white lunacy they will lock down the black vote and sweep 2022.

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        • Yes. It is important to remember that, when pushed, the wogs will align based on race. These days, one doesn’t even need to push to far to see the anti-whiteness come out.

          24
          • Yes, I found that any non white “friend” inevitably turned out to harbor some hatred of whitey, no matter how nice they seemed at first. They also usually tried to turn the relationship into a parasitical one.

            I learned that we cannot be friends with aliens the hard way. At best, acquaintances.

            25
        • Thing is, even normie whites are souring now. Even they know Tim Scott hates them.

          Shame, here’s hoping the GOP doubles down.

          30
      • “The capitalization thing is infuriating, as deceitful little pricks will give all sorts of nonsense to justify it, while they know the intent is to dehumanize whites while elevating minorities is the clear aim.”

        Capitalization of letters looks like a small thing, but it is NOT. This is the type of thing that is done to prepare an information battlefield for a genocide. And a GOP senator is doing this!?!

        30
        • Hyphen Americans are never anything more than what comes before the hyphen.

          “American” is just a decoration they use for access past the velvet ropes.

          Whites on the right just can’t seem to move past this blind spot even though it is plainly written as such and is turned on them time and again.

          Which is why American is now just a decoration.

          And why dispossession and deracination of Whites is the norm.

          We handed power to the hyphen and it divorced us but kept our last name.

          I guess it feels better to write those support checks to people who hate us as long as we share the name.

          24
    • But if we just left 1969 part two and we’re entering the 1970s part two then that means Uncle Tim Scott is Reagan part two.

    • I was relieved to see a recent piece up at AmericanGreatness making the case that the real White Supremacists are white liberals. Really trolling the Libs now!

      Now that Obiden has put the pretender seal on the official narrative of white men being “domestic terrorists”, the conservative case for trannies makes more sense too.

      Cruel Summer is looking a lot like men in sundresses having it out over who gets home field in the congressional socially distanced softball mashup while urban businesses are liberated from their inventories.

      Unlike wuhan or common sense, the madness of King George is highly contagious.

      24
    • To see some real racists, see “The Secret Relationship Between Jews and Blacks” which details the history of the Jewish controlled slave trade in the Americas, and their leading role in the “civil war”. The Nation of Islam has no love for whitey, but this is some history you will find nowhere else:

      https://archive.org/details/the-secret-relationship-between-blacks-and-jews/The%20Secret%20Relationship%20Between%20Blacks%20and%20Jews%20Vol%201/page/n1/mode/2up

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    • Few I suspect are buying the GOP line anymore. As party agit prop conflicts with reality. The GOP has went out of it’s way to show they are irrelevant. We see that with the way they went silent on the jailing and torture of Trump supporters at the Jan 6th rally. They have nothing to say about the demonization of Whites, or about the FBI and DOJ being turned on ordinary White Americans.

      You’d expect with the DOJI raiding Giulani and Toensing offices the GOP would go ballistic. Instead they roll over.

      And they give the rebuttal to their house jogger who hates Whites and may as well be a Democrat just to show people “look we are not raycist!!” No one cares anymore. It didn’t work for Trumpy and won’t work for McCarthy and company.

      Con Inc doesn’t get it. A black will always side with blacks against Whitey.

      30
      • At least it wasn’t a tranny I suppose, maybe next year…

        There’s still a lot of “cope” to go around, they think a sweep of the primaries will cause some sort of reformation. That’s a lot of hope on a very unlikely event that wouldn’t even do anything even if it happened.

  26. “ In the 1970’s, it was too much money chasing too few goods. Pulling money out of the economy was painful, but it worked.“

    This is actually backwards, with a twist. The stagflation of the 70s was driven by the 1973 Oil Embargo which was the effect of Nixon closing the Federal Reserve’s gold window to foreign central banks in 1971. The immediate response by OPEC was to announce a demand for pricing oil in good, but they did not have coercive force to make the demand any good.

    Interest rates are the prices of borrowed capital over various terms and subject to supply and demand forces. The interest rates went sky high into ((Volker’s)) reign because everyone wanted to borrow money to buy cheap capital assets. Today, in spite of near or below zero interest rates across sovereign yield curves, private sector credit demand is tepid at best.

    It’s not just the US government that has become the borrower and consumer of last resort, but it is leading the way. The major world governments have worked out informal currency pegs/bands and create corresponding proportionate quantities of sovereign deficit spending to generate that amount of additional debt. The world is awash in “outside money” (don patinkin) now that only exists as long as debt default is avoided – via any means.

    Once the velocity of money drops below 1, new deficit spending will actually undermine the economy and generate a negative stimulus outcome. This is half of the reason The Great Reset scheme has been pulled forward. It not just a mass foreclosure of all assets of society, it is also a system to coerce consumption of what the ((control freaks)) or produced and to dynamically tax to manage inflation.

    The power of a sovereign currency is derived from its usage to pay taxes. If you have no income, you do not have any taxes to pay to the IRS. If you are a foreign central bank, you do not have any taxes to pay the IRS – China’s handling of tariff costs not withstanding. In the context of international trade, the currency that corporations like Nestle, Volkswagen, GE or Toyota stipulates with their trading partners also drives demand for currency.

    All current and any conceivable currency selected for payment of taxes is definitionally fiat. The medium is not what makes a currency fiat.

    14
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      • Note that the Nixon admin was dominated by members of the Rockefeller’s Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), including Kissinger, Shultz, Schlesinger, Colby and Fed chair Burns. Nixon himself was a CFR member (1961-64), and a protege of Nelson Rockefeller. Paul Volcker was a CFR director for 25 years.

  27. A New Tomorrow (cont)
    Use what you know.

    Firearms are useful for hunting & self-defense, and that is their main benefit in this Brave New World of America. And as such, our modern problems are better suited to the more obtuse solutions that may arise from the ordinary or the unforeseen. Think creatively, but always start with a seed that springs from your own personal experience or something that you already know quite a bit about. If you know how something works, then you also know how it doesn’t work. Focus, define a potential goal, and then imagine how it may be accomplished. Think in terms of stepwise actions flowing in a logical order. Cogitate & refine this plan in your head only. Opportunity knocks for those who have prepared to meet it.

    8
    17
      • You know, if you’d stop whining so much, you might learn something. And no, I’m not going to run away because of your snark & school yard insults.

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        • You are squatting here, because you are afraid that if you started your own blog, nobody would read it. It’s not my “whining” that’s the problem. You are writing inane off-topic spam.

          Start your own blog. Maybe the people who are giving you the pity-upvotes will come there.

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          • That’s your opinion, and you don’t own the blog. My opinion is that you are engaging in an SJW Cancel Culture tactic in which your use of snark & personal insults in just an attempt to intimidate & ostracize because the comments don’t comport with your “approved” rules.How does that make you any different from the Libs we trash on this blog daily? Maybe you’re the one who’s the oddball here.

            This country is going to shit and we are not going to win it back with internet snark. You might want to consider working on some other skills too.

            5
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          • Do you even know what cancel culture is? It’s certainly NOT telling someone what you think of their writing.

            personal insults

            You have shown that you know how to use them.

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        • You don’t have to tell us that you’re too obtuse to take a hint! Everyone here figured that out ages ago.

          1
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          • If you feel that strongly, why don’t you take it up with Zman. He can ban me, you cannot. I’m not going to runaway because you continue to whine about comments you don’t like.

            I’m done responding now. Whine on if you must. I hope it gives you some relief. That’s the least I can do for you.

  28. Well from my view until we deal with systemic racism full on , all these other minor and trivial problems can be dealt with later. Just the other day Lebron was made fun of by that cop’s video. And you want to talk about muh inflation and muh supply chain?

    Ok, we are in Blundering 20’s now so strap in.

    24
  29. Inflation is caused by one thing, a greater increase in money than an increase in wealth. While modern monetary theory, which states that government can never “write a bad check”, has gone from a delusional utopian fantasy to official government policy. The idea that since yesterday the US dollar was the standard of international exchange means that it must remain so tomorrow is similarly silly.

    7
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    • No, price increases can be the result of several factors. Supply problems decreasing supply is one example, one we are experiencing. Pent up demand is another. It’s why countries transitioning from a wartime economy to a peace time economy can experience inflation.

      14
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      • Everything for electronics and computer pcb’s is on a long wait. Cpld chips and the like are going to take a long time.

        Even the middle aged adolescents are crying they can’t get their six hundred dollar video cards.

        14
        • This is actually something we should be excited about because it pours sand in the gears of Fourth Industrial Revolution.

          Sometimes I think there was an optimal level of technology that mankind surpassed at some point in the ’50s to ’00s period.

          Personally, I had a great time growing up with the tech in the 80s and 90s. I could easily go back to cassette tapes and CDs.

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          • I’ve still got my 20 year old ipod with 800 odd songs on it that still works like a charm.

          • My late-millenial son has a number of old zunes with thousands of songs on them. Swears by them.

            3
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          • I am from the generation whose entire music collection was on cassette. I may as well have flushed that money down the toilet. I suppose it was the same for the boomers w/ vinyl if they lived in an hot climate.

      • Price increases aren’t the same as inflation. Sure, as you point out, mismatches in supply and demand raise prices but that isn’t inflation. Enpixelating more and more money means each monetary unit is worth less in terms of the country’s actual wealth. Modern Monetary Theory recognizes this fact by suggesting that if there are inflationary pressures taxes can be raised to pull that money back out of the economy.
        The Fed’s attempt to manage the economy is exemplified by Hayek. . .”The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

      • The weird, random shortages could be caused by living in an area both vibrant and heavily covid mandated where truckers refuse to go. At least, that is my observation from where I live.

    • The Federal Reserve controls the money supply, but who controls the Fed? The current Fed chair (Powell) and Treasury secretary (Yellen) are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), like most of their predecessors. Nearly every president of the powerful NY Fed has been a CFR member, including Tim Geithner, the former Treasury sec and current CFR director.

      David Rubenstein, billionaire founder of the Carlyle Group, is the current CFR chairman; Jerome Powell was a Carlyle partner. Larry Fink, billionaire chairman of BlackRock, is a CFR member. Fink and Rubenstein are trustees at the Davos WEF, etc.

      13
      • CFR, Carlyle Group, Bilderbergers
        I read stuff like that and instantly my “conspiracy theory bullshit” detector sounds off – kind of like when I see a.pic of that UFO/Ancient Aliens guy with the weird hair.

        Help an old man out, Zman. I trust you as much as I trust any internet huckster these days. Is that shit real?

        3
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        • They’re real, documented, commented and reported on, videotaped. The scope of their influence can be debated, although the names involved are a who’s who list, but they’re real.

        • You have been trained well. The masters have instilled Pavlovian reflexes in you so that you filter this stuff out and don’t ask uncomfortable questions. Most people have been trained like that.

          None of these things are secret, btw.

          The Carlyle Group is a publicly traded company.

          CRF has it’s own website: https://www.cfr.org/

          People who attend the Bilderberg meetings are also not keeping it secret. I have seen some put it in their resume.

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          • These relationships are not “secret” but they are well hidden by the CFR controlled media. The major finance, energy, defense, pharma and media corps are CFR sponsors. Many of their execs are members/directors.

            Most of the players on the “Biden team” are also CFR members, including the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security and CIA — plus dozens more. This is not a random event.

            To paraphrase Orwell, our ignorance is their strength. Know the enemy!

        • The Rockefeller Foundation Lockstep pandemic document is publicly available on the Internet.

          You can buy the WEF Great Reset on Amazon.

          As Jim Corbett says, none of this is hidden. It’s all there if you start looking for it.

          16
          • Never in human history have people had direct, instantaneous access to primary documents of TPTB which clearly state their plans for the World. Yet 99.99% of people can’t take the time to do a 30 second internet search and read these things for themselves. They consider anything that is not on CNN to be a “BS conspiracy theory.”

            14
          • Fareed Zakaria of CNN is a CFR director, and a member of the WEF. Jake Tapper is a CFR member. The former chairmen of TimeWarner and AT&T are CFR members. The founders of CBS and NBC were CFR members…

        • Over much of my life, I’ve dabbled on the edges of these “traditional” global conspiracies. With the possible exception of ones like the Bilderbergers, much of the “conspiracy” is quite out in the open. Not in the sense that you’d ever read it in the New York Times or the Washington Post. You WOULD see the names of many famous movers and shakers. No, I mean in the sense that much of this is driven by long-established organizations, many perhaps most of whom are open about their aims, goals and memberships. The Council on Foreign Relations or the Trilateral Commission are real things. You can read their web sites, order their publications, etc. The set-up of the Federal Reserve was hardly a secret cabal. You can read the history of these entities. But it’s not clear that knowing the details really will empower you.

          • Knowing the details doesn’t change a thing because TPTB know full well their populations are mostly composed of docile sheep that will go their deaths without a fight.

            For example where is the outrage and demonstrations over Trump supporters being illegally jailed and tortured? The MAGA peeps are quiet, the DR is still in 1985 mode.and can’t be bothered.

            Nick Fuentes is basically rendered a non-person by the state and no one cares. Yeah I know you DR types hate his guts. But the kid is a canary in the coal mine. What they can do to him they can and will do to us.

            Remember that when they put the boot on your necks.

          • Not “knowing the details” about this interlocking CFR/UN/WEF network, which has totally dominated US policy since WW2, is what allows this billionaire’s scam to continue. The “inner party” remains invisible, but the “outer party” must be exposed if there is to be any hope of changing course.

      • Q: “Where does the money the Fed prints go to?
        A: Wall Street Banks
        Q: Like $JPM, Bernie Madoff’s bank?
        A: Yes.
        Q: You mean the same bank that paid $35,819,302,225 in fines for market manipulation and money laundering,etc.?
        A: Yes.
        I could go on like this for days. https://bit.ly/2SfJLDV

      • Per Peter Dale Scott, in the 70s or thereabout you had a “Trader” faction of the elite centered on the CFR and Wall Street, lead by the Rockefellers and supported by the old guard in the CIA, that leaned Democrat/Rockefeller Republican and was less aggressive with the Soviets, and a “Prussian” faction of the elite centered on the oil companies and mil-ind complex, associated with the politicos that got big roles in the Ford Administration (Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney), that leaned Conservative Republican and wanted military buildup. The guys from the Prussian network started the Carlyle group (Carlyle’s Frank Carlucci was SecDef under Reagan). The “Prussian’s” contacts with Iran via Israel probably helped manipulate the hostage crisis in 1980 so that Reagan would beat pro-CFR Carter. But it appears that the informal divide between the Traders and Prussians has dissolved since the 90s, so the situation is that the same figures float back and forth between groups like the CFR and Carlyle.

  30. There’s a story I’ve read about Christopher Columbus, maybe apocryphal, but relevant: Columbus was supposedly so lost at sea at one point during his voyage that he started to invent coordinates for where he thought they were on the open ocean, forging his tables so that if his sailors checked, they would think he knew what he was doing and they wouldn’t mutiny and toss him overboard. My guess is something similar happened with Covid, that the people in charge recognized they overreacted to a bad flu season by destroying large swaths of society, careers, and lives. People have committed suicide over the ruin that the little apparatchik Fauci has brought down on their heads. So naturally instead of admitting they were wrong and facing the music, the people in charge just kept doubling down on false statistics, phantom mutations, janky numbers and cooked books on the vaccine’s efficacy. A militarized DC and a police state might not be enough to protect them from the wrath if people literally start starving due to our rulers’ overreaction to the Wuhan Flu.

    They’re getting ready to switch to mewling about climate change so that they can enjoy squandering the remaining resources in the Hamptons and in the Valley while we pay higher taxes to do things like heat our homes and buy gas. I’m going the “agree and amplify” route with climate change, though. Mealworms and edible insects are the highest protein, lowest intensity food to cultivate, while cows give the worst yield for cultivation. So if you see a prog grilling, douse the fire, hand them a sack of worms or ants, and tell them we’re all in this together. I’ve heard if you coat the ants and grasshoppers with chocolate, they’re not half-bad.

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    • Aren’t the Hamptons at sea level? Global Warming will surely soon destroy them. I bet they are all dumping their summer houses at rapid pace.

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      • I bet they are all dumping their summer houses at rapid pace.

        And if they’re not then wouldn’t that mean they don’t really believe all the climate change bullshit they’ve been feeding us? Or am I looking at it too logically? Also, since the total sea level this century is only a foot or two, wouldn’t it be cheaper, easier and simpler to just construct the equivalent of levees/dikes around the important, low-lying areas? Seems like that would be easier than wrecking the world’s economy (which is based in large part on fossil fuels). I mean, look at all the jobs.that would create. They could even start on important endangered areas such as the Hamptons.

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    • De Blasio announced this morning they are reopening New York City July 1st. Why wait two more months? They can get everything going again just in time for the city’s wealthy residents to flee to their vacation homes for two months anyway.

      10
    • See the “Event 201” pandemic simulation exercise, sponsored by Bill Gates and the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF). Gates has earned billions from the vaccines. BlackRock chair Larry Fink is a WEF trustee and a CFR director. BlackRock owns $15B in Pfizer shares and Pfizer is a CFR sponsor, etc. All of this advances the CFR/WEF “Great Reset” agenda.

      https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

      12
    • A late ‘thank you’ to the commenter who gave us that delightful New Yorker piece. What a barn-burner that was!

      I guess his educated friend would choke if I told him atmospheric CO2 was 1000% higher during the lush, green Jurassic at 4000 ppb.

      In the Amphibian Age, before the dinosaurs, the Earth was so warm salamanders larger than crocodiles lived in the swamps of the Antarctic.

      (Oh, and expanding deserts are caused by cooling, as evaporative water gets locked up by freezing poles.)

      • Whenever tree stumps are exposed when a glacier melts, any normal person would conclude that there didn’t used to be a glacier there. Recently scientists taking ice core samples found intact green leaf matter. If true, that’s scarier than anything-how fast it happened.

        • Hadn’t heard of that one. Does sound anomalous. But it is true that frozen mammoths were found in Europe in 19th century. The meat was so fresh it was served in restaurants. Back in 1981 there was a “Climate fiction” novel, “The Sixth Winter,” that posited the VERY sudden arrival of a new ice age. In this respect, it was very similar to the plot of the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.”

          Not ruling out anomalies, but my money is still on slow (by human perspective) climate changes. Alas, humans can do major damage to themselves over human-scale time spans 🙁

  31. I had figured the inflation in building supplies, particularly lumber, was due to money printing but even the guys in the comments at ZH have pointed out that a huge part of it is the supply chain issue that you point out: closing down lumber mills for WuFlu, and then basically paying the employees to not come back to work when they open back up. Add in increased demand from China and paying people to sit around their house to work on it and the prices are through the roof. Pulling money from the system might clean up part of it, but not all.

    18
    • The lumber can’t be milled fast enough. That is where the bottle neck is. The growers of timber are not making bank. It is the mills. There aren’t enough of them and it takes time to build one which may not be worth the cost.

      17
    • read that lumber is flowing back up the production chain, from retail, back to the wholesalers, and then out to builders!?

  32. And as I’ve been saying, the anti red meat crusade in America just so happens to coincide with a massive surge in demand from china’s burgeoning middle class

    Wait wait, people like AOC and Biden wouldn’t want us eating less red meat so this way we can instead send it to China to make them happy? Would they?

    Anyone who eats steaks regularly knows their prices have been soaring since obama

    24
    • I can only imagine the peels of laughter coming from Xi and upper CCP officials as they fool the idiot Westerners.

      “You mean we actually convinced roundeye that eating meat was bad for them?”

      *Uproarious laughter*

      “And get this. All we had to do was feed the dementia patients son crack and video tape him fucking underage hookers”

      41
    • I don’t eat steak at all often and even I know meat prices are soaring while supplies are spotty at best. Reckon it has anything to.do with the meat packing plants being boarded up a.year ago and producers having to kill and bury stock? Even chickens take a while to grow from a.freshly laid egg to a critter ready to slaughter. My understanding for cattle and hogs is that the time frame is a couple of years!

      Ignorant, brainless, ultra-prideful incompetents doing what they do best – f***ing things up for everyone!

      15
      • Once is happenstance.

        Twice is coincidence.

        Three times is enemy action.

        The count is currently a couple orders of magnitude above three.

        18
  33. It’s pretty easy to see the lockdown going on forever. The borders are still wide open with 3rd world shit holes where God knows what kind of mutations could happen.

    Pretty easy to say “oops we left the border open with India, and this new variant is not protected by vaccines” and then shut everything down again. Which is what I suspect is going to happen, but we’ll see. Basically a non stop loop of a new “mutation” (real or imagined), then open borders and alot of supposed spreading, then media and Karen panic.

    For alot of these Karens and atheist liberals, it’s the first time their lives have actually had purpose. They enjoy pulling together to “end COVID”. Why do you think they still wear masks and refuse to see family ever after getting vaccinated? Plus they were already miserable before and they don’t feel left out now that everyone is locked down. Doctors are very arrogant and love being the center of attention, so I don’t see them wanting to end this anytime soon either. We’ll see what the ruling class decides.

    50
    • All very true, but I don’t think the Karen’s out there are still as gung ho as they were a year ago. I’m seeing them getting just as fed up and tired of covid as I am

      Yes, they had a purpose in life for that brief shining moment of young covid. They were going to save the world.

      Now they just want to get back to complaining and being miserable, in other words back to their natural default position. They don’t have it the energy or capacity to keep up with saving the world. In fact, I expect most Karen’s to have a nervous breakdown in the near future

      26
      1
      • I certainly expect the mental breakdown. The mental health and stability of white wine moms, cat moms, and career women was already precarious prior to the lockdowns. They seem to have gone fully insane/depressed since.

        From what I see the Good whites are not giving up on the lockdown fantasies. They are tired of people not wearing masks. Of people not trusting the science. Of anti vaxxers spreading COVID. They still enjoy the feeling of sacrificing for a greater cause though. The more pain they feel, the more righteous they are.

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        • “Good whites” is that the people I see squinting at me when I boldly walk maskless through places with signage clearly indicating that mask wear is mandatory? Funny, I just figured they were near sighted.😉

          13
          1
          • I don’t wear a mask either to shop anymore but I find it very stressful. I don’t make eye contact with anyone. Sometimes I want to wear a mask just so it’s not stressful but then I feel like a coward and a hypocrite so so I’m in a real quandary now

        • Of people not trusting the science.

          Every time someone tells me to trust the science, I say “No – I would rather trust the math.”

          14
        • Despite Texas being officially ‘open,’ every retail establishment still requires a mask, and I’m one of a very small minority who wears one down around my neck. Haven’t been to the hair salon or had a professional manicure in a year, and am still having no luck trying to find a place without a mask requirement (the Orientals immivaders here are all heavily masked up). My old gym keeps sending me special offers but they require masks that I will not wear. Hubby suggested dinner out for our anniversary but I don’t want to participate in the public mask farce. Corporate America loves masks – they heavily market them, all personalized for each snowflake. It’s not in their interest to have them go away.

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          1
      • Brother, let me tell you, they are not tired of it. I live in a very wealthy, VERY lefty community. Yesterday I took my daughter to the park and was the only one not wearing a mask. This is after the CDC and the Deity of science, Dr. Fauci, peace be upon him, said it was safe for vaccinated people to not wear masks outside. I guarantee you I was not the only vaccinated individual. This indicates something deep that’s happened to them. Brainwashing is easy shorthand description, but I think this might be a better way to explain it. The media and elites created a deep rooted fear these trusting types. It’s similar to arachnophobia for individuals afraid of spiders. An arachnophobic person can see a harmless daddy long legs and go into panic. They’ve installed this same irrational fear into tens of millions of people. They’re going to have a hard time turning it off, but they learned a pretty valuable lesson about the malleability of the American people.

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        • All governments have always attempted to eliminate groups that may defy them. That’s the true meaning of “assimilation”, to reject the tenets of your particular group, be it nationality, ethnicity, philosophy and adopt those considered harmless by the government. Now, “white supremacists” are viewed as terrorists because white people looking out for their own interests could be a group uncontrolled by the government. Everything the government does from kindergarten to the military is meant to eliminate other social relationships, including the family, and be the sole provider to the populace. Some relationships are acceptable, however. Fans of professional sports teams are deemed harmless so the leagues and teams are in fact subsidized by the government. They’re no threat to state authority and actually enhance its power.

          • “Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”
            ― Étienne de La Boétie

        • Matches my experiences in Chevy Chase MD almost exactly. Masks, social distancing, etc. It’s all now performance art for the middle class strivers, *and* it comes with added benefit of continued work from home schemes. I’m routinely seeing people wearing two masks while driving solo with the windows up. I’m seeing little infant-sized cloth masks (seriously) on kids in strollers. This is long, long from over … Covid panic is the latest liturgy of the Proggy religion.

          • Do you think your neighbors will let go of Covid hysteria when the media switches to climate change hysteria assuming they don’t multi task and keep both hysterias going simultaneously like they did with BLM and Covid?

        • Weaponized mass hypochondria.

          A broken people.
          They’ve broken their will.

          …that means, then, they were ready to be broken.
          A deNazification or of society- the way to get ahead is to denounce one’s own nation.

          What are we, Iraq?
          Shock and awe doctrine?

          • Training fleas is about putting a lid on a jar until they learn to stop hitting their head on it trying to jump out.

      • The cats and the box of Franzia in the fridge have been neglected for too long 😀

    • Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb has been a frequent CNBC guest since Covid started. A few months ago he started telling them the CDC needed to significantly change tactics and offer a clear path back to normalcy or people were going to start tuning them out. Clearly he meant people give any authority to what the government says in the first place, as a good 40-50% of the population was tuning them out no later than the “peaceful protests” last Memorial Day. Even among those who have bought into the panic, the vaccine is testing their patience for reopening society. Eventually the hard core zealots will go back to being ignored by everyone else like they were before.

      14
      • He’s right. Nobody in my corner of NJ pays attention to the state of federal busy bodies any longer. We don the mask to enter the supermarket, but otherwise ignore the rules including restaurant and bar capacity.

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    • Coming soon to panic rooms in media houses next:

      “Breakthrough Cases”.

      These are people who caught Covid and died after they were vaccinated.

      The Covid police will never stop, until we make them stop.

      20
      • I have a 40-something cousin who got a positive Covid result yesterday (smell and taste symptoms but not much else), at least a month after getting his second dose of the vaccine. My mom was completely gobsmacked to learn this, as if the Wuhan flu couldn’t have possibly overcome Dr. Fauci’s Magical Final “Solution”. I’ve tried for a few months now to get her to understand that these shots do not confer immunity, but I can’t overcome the official narrative. Maybe this will help, but I doubt it.

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        • My dear chap, multiple colleagues as well as their relatives have now had the shot. And quite a few have felt very ill. These people were not older than forty-five. You cannot reason with them; and neither ought you. Let them alone to their destruction.

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        • The good news is that he will soon be immune for real and should never get another dose of their magic elixir.

          • Disagree. I’ve never seen any claim that a case of COVID will confer natural immunity for more than several months. Same for the vaccines. Absent hard evidence, I use the rule of thumb that catching a case or getting the jab (which I certainly do NOT intend to get; I DO agree that one should be wary of that “magic elixir” — primarily because it is an experimental drug with unproven long-term efficacy and unknown and unknowable long-term side effects) is very much like the regular flu: you will be immunized against the current strain, or the best-guess mix of strains that goes into this year’s jab, but at best you’ll have some resistance against future mutations.

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            1
          • Previous attempts at a SARS vaccine failed due “antibody-dependent enhancement” (ADE) caused by the vaccine. When test animals were exposed to the virus *after* vaccination, they developed a severe auto-immune reaction which destroyed their lungs.

            This time, Pfizer et al just skipped the pesky animal testing and are using the “human herd” for their experiments instead.

            See paper from 2012, note conclusion:
            https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22536382/

          • Its like every doctor has somehow forgotten that humans have this magic thing called an immune system that has evolved over millions of years to do exactly this.

            ~”But there is no evidence of natural immunity” says the retards in defiance of the evidence all around that all humans are not dying of every tiny interaction daily with the hundreds of virus variants in the environment.

        • The thing is if you turn on the TV you are bombarded by panic porn from TV doctors and the like on a continual basis. And most people being trusting to some extent will believe what the TV doctors are saying.

          In short they are victims of a massive MSM induced hysteria. I haven’t seen anything like since the lead up to the first Gulf War and before that with the Satanist scare of the 1980’s driven by the McMartain pre-school case. Then in the late 80’s came the AID’s is going to kill everyone scare.

          Most people don’t get the MSM has been gas lighting the public in one form or another for over 50 years.

        • KGB – you can tell your mom that there are lots of people who are contracting COVID after having both shots weeks and weeks beforehand. A friend mine (both of us are nurses) was diagnosed with Covid 4 weeks after she got her second shot. She is fine. But the touted efficacy of these shots is not to be confused with their success at inhibiting transmission.

          As with all medical treatments, we will learn a lot about these shots over time. Mandating them, especially this early in the game, is madness.

    • In the EU, they are pushing for everybody to be vaccinated (“voluntarily”, of course) and they are implementing the Covid Passports to allow travel or to enter certain stores or to go to the barber… Exceptions will be allowed – just a paper with a PCR test result instead of the jab and the passport (yes, even not you need a proof of a negative test to enter Bauhaus/Home Depot).

      When the next flu season starts, they will lock down again and blame the jab-avoiders and Covid-pass distrusters. Then the jabs and Covid-passports will become mandatory.

      This is worse than Communism.

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      • Several doctors and scientists are predicting a large spike in deaths during the next “flu” season due to vaccine-induced auto immune reactions. Those deaths will likely be blamed on some new “virus variant” instead of the vaccines, and will be used to panic the herd into taking more shots of the latest pharma cocktail to save them, etc.

    • Just yesterday, that little twerp fauci (in a rebuttal to Joe Rogan) stated that everyone, regardless of age should get the jab – you know, for the greater good of all, damn your impudence.

      20
    • Stop worrying about variants and vaccines. This isn’t the Black Death. Some people will die, but it will run its course like any other virus if we just go about our business.

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      1
      • I don’t think many here actually “worry” about variants of the Coof. I was able to predict a year ago that as the initial hysteria died away the next thing would be scaring people over “mutants”, neglecting the fact that practically all viruses actually do is mutate.

    • > . Why do you think they still wear masks and refuse to see family ever after getting vaccinated?

      On second thought, I want to mania to last forever.

    • And to all the people still wearing masks in places where there is no mandate and “practicing social distancing” and lining up for the experimental gene therapy in states which have been opened up.I say “More power to ya! Ain’t liberty grand!” Me? I just enjoy walking around bare faced (okay, except for the beard) and smiling at folks. Especially babies and small children. I love smiling at babies and small children.I don’t get to see my grandchildren and great-grandchildren nearly as.much as I’d like so I just “grandpa” other people’s. It’s fun!

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    • The dems will get crushed in the 2022 midterms if they do that. If they reopen and the economy comes roaring back then the midterms won’t be as bad

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      1
        • Maybe (insert pronoun here) lives in a contested district? I wouldn’t know if it’s legit or satire, TBH.

      • given that both parties are controlled from the same source, how does any election “crush” anything? trying to think where the dems ever got crushed about anything. they lose elections, sure, but they never seem to lose influence…

  34. Faith in the system and those running it is a ship that sailed some time ago. We’re in seriously uncharted waters and the “elite” have a damn angry tiger by the tail.

    How this all plays out is anyone’s guess, but it is pretty much guaranteed to be ugly. But hey, my 401k keeps hitting new highs and I’m feeling rich, so what’s a little inflation here and there? That’s for the peons to worry about (sarc)…

    24
    • We know how much of this will play out. They will find a distraction

      A ruby ridge, Waco scenario, or start a war

      They could go for the hate whitey twofer, attack Putin AND white MAGA voters simultaneously under the banner of fighting white supremacism

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    • It is an interesting thing the ruling class has done, and I think quite stupid. Machiavelli would be horrified.

      The ruling class tells their supporters that the country they rule is evil, racist, homophobic, and irredeemable. It was built illegitimately by evil, racist white men on the backs of the darker people.

      The ruling class tells those who do not support them that they are deplorable, backwards, evil people who need to be re-educated and/or snuffed out.

      When you combine the two, you have a populace that would not in any way be motivated to go to war for this ruling class, to help save them from some external crisis.

      Which means if and when that external crisis arrives, the ruling class will be well and truly fucked, and will likely attempt to take all of us down with them.

      30
      • I ask myself every day “I China or Russia conquered us, would we be worse off?”

        For Russia it’s a clear no. for China, it depends.

        21
        • Ohh it can get much worse, even under Biden. We whites are so damn spoiled and delusional we’ve forgotten just how murderous and brutal regimes can get.

          We already have Biden imprisoning MAGA peeps and torturing them. Nick Fuentes being turned into a nonperson and Trump lawyers being hammered by the DOJ. People losing their jobs for simply donating to the wrong cause. And Biden is just getting warmed up.

          We can bet on things will keep getting worse for team whitey. That is the only constant.

          • It’s hard for me to muster a lot of sympathy for Trump diehards. While I voted for him and thought his stated policies were good, it seemed obvious he was a con man and Intellectual lightweight. The Q-tards who fell into the cult of personality trap have been taught a valuable, albeit painful, lesson about the reality of politics, and the reality of politicians. If you aren’t willing to die or kill for a cause (or, more peaceably, work hard for years), it’s best to stay clear of it.

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      • I’m thinking they will stage a nuclear false flag to rally normies around the flag for a war with Russia, Iran, or China.

        • Goshdam. Here I was going to say they should nuke Desmoine.

          Not because it’s a bastion of Redhat Nazis or white supremacists or anything, but just because…
          well, it’s Desmoine.

      • The (((Samson Plan))) may well be launched using US nukes vs. Israel’s when the tribe’s options diminish.

    • We’re in seriously uncharted waters

      My friend, we were well into the part of.the map marked “Here there be dragons” by the end of the second week of March LAST YEAR! We’re so far off the map you cannot see the map from orbit! And to say that the people running the show don’t have a clue is insulting to honest people who genuinely do not have a clue!

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  35. Screw you, Z!!!

    Sob!

    O Great And Mighty Pumpkin, save us from these evil sinners, fornicators, and demons!

    EVERY fiat currency in human history has eventually collapsed – usually with catastrophic consequences. This may not be the moment, but when you couple recent events with the fiscal policies of the last 5 decades… it won’t be much longer. We’ll see what happens when the state mandated rent and mortgage forebearances fall away. I am betting a good chunk of our economy will fall with them.
    Shower us with your favour, Great Pumpkin – and piss be upon our economic enemies. You infidels know who you are!! I call for a fartwa on your wretched lives!!!

    16
    • What’s different this time is the extreme interconnectedness of the global currencies, it’s practically a de facto global currency. That being said, the chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, once one of the major players is forced to walk away from their obligations it’s “game over” on that decades long experiment (even though in the short run the remaining players may get a boost).

      12
      • I think you’re right ES, and that interconnectedness is what has kept this zombie economy alive and staggering along. Under old world economics it would have undoubtedly collapsed decades ago…

        6
        1
    • EVERY fiat currency in human history has eventually collapsed – usually with catastrophic consequences

      Sounds like a pretty apt description of the “Great Reset” to me. Or did I miss something. I’m so I may not live to see it but if I do live to see the start of it I may have to roll up my sleeves, grab the shotgun and get all Menkin on some local Democrats and/or media talking heads. From.what I’ve read about death by starvation, suicide by cop.doesn’t sound half bad. You know?

  36. I’d have more trust in Bananarama running the economy than our totally legitimate overlords. It’s going to get really fun when Riot Season starts…

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  37. “The people animating the corpse of Joe Biden…”

    Imagine the cutting-edge pharmacology involved…

    27
    • It probably resembles Z’s description of “people frantically turning things on and off”
      “Here take this pill… wait crap, no take this one!”
      “Here drink this liquid! Now take this injection, and sip down that pill… oh shit, wait.”

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    • Imagine the cutting-edge pharmacology involved…

      Nah. Biden’s a muppet. A really, Really, REALLY creepy muppet!

    • Whatever they are doing works pretty well. I was really surprised he gave a SOTU and didn’t flub it. I have to think that this can’t be maintained for much longer because the deterioration doesn’t stop.

      and to be honest, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving piece of shit. His whole family is one sick twisted mess of sociopaths and grifters.

      • Damn. Every time I see a video from the 80s or 70s it makes me feel sad for what I will never experience… A city full of normal white people with hot blonde girls everywhere, free of diversity except a few blacks.

        I will never forget the future that they stole from us. And I aim for (and believe we will achieve)!something even greater in due time.

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          • The most striking girl I saw in Europe was a Croatian redhead who was studying dance and didn’t drink at all.

          • Northern Italy is not too bad, especially the north-east. But I meant mostly the post-communist countries.

        • Don’t sweat it, B. I was there. The 80s were nothing like the videos. Think “demo version” vs “delivered”.

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          3
          • They were still pretty damn fun. Girls, cars, music, politics… All were a lot better.
            (Really the mid-80’s to mid 90’s)

            12
          • The thing though is the retrograde culture. In the mid-eighties I’d see pictures of people in the mid-sixties and it ranked right above seeing pictures of cavemen (“They hadn’t even been to the moon yet, and even then they had to use slide rules!”) with the thinking being “if we were cavemen just twenty years ago, imagine where we’ll be 20 years from now“.

            Of course “now” when I see pictures of people in the ’50s, I mean even older than the already “ancient” pictures from the ’60s, it’s…distressing. Those people in the pictures threw “that” away for “this”. I can’t imagine anyone would look at pictures from 2000 and think any progress has been made, anyone sane at least.

            10
          • The Wedding Singer? They were JUST like The Wedding Singer.

            Wild, stupid, and FUN- and MTV ruled the world. Mega-babes galore. White Young American Women were gor-geous!

        • When I was a kid, you had to go to the county seat and look for black people if you wanted to see one. There were a few Puerto Rican families outside of the ‘city’, but they were prevalent inside it. Everyone else was white, and largely blue collar. As things have become more bourgeois and suburban around the county, they’ve also become markedly more diverse. I am convinced the love of money is the root of it all.

        • Talleyrand said anybody born after the French revolution will never know how sweet life could be. I say anybody growing up after the 1980s. That Orlando 7/11 time capsule video circa 1987 takes me back to those halcyon days like the smell of iron-on.

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