The government released the latest inflation data and the results were the worst we have seen in forty years. The retail number came in at 8.4% and the wholesale number clocked in at 11.2%. Of course, the retail number excludes the things that people buy, like food, fuel and housing. These numbers also rely upon the new math rather than old math used the last time inflation was an issue. By the old inflation standard, retail inflation is over 15%.
The political class is poleaxed by these numbers as they have been assured that inflation at these levels was impossible. Modern economic theory says that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. We now have top men in place to keep an eye out for this. They just need to manage the money supply to keep inflation under control. This assumption led the top men to assume inflation was transitory, the result of supply chain issues.
That should be the first red flag when looking at the economic data. Those top men that are supposed to have a handle on the money supply say they are as surprised as the rest of us that food has doubled in price. A month ago, they were talking about a series of exceedingly small rate hikes. Now they are talking about a series of substantial rate hikes to prevent inflation from going even higher. You get the sense that there is both panic and confusion among those top men.
One reason for this is the long period of historically low interest rates. What the Federal Reserve did forty years ago to tame inflation was remove money from the system by raising borrowing rates. The real creators of money are the banks, who create money through lending. By raising their cost of money creation, they create less money and the result is fewer dollars chasing goods. At its peak in 1980 the 10-year Treasury was going for 15% versus 2% currently.
In other words, getting rates back into the normal range means three or four times the current rates. The world is simply not prepared for such a thing. Think about what happens to the real estate market if rates simply double. Refinancing comes to an end and homes sales collapse. No one is trading out of their home with the 3% mortgage into a home with a 5% mortgage, at least not on purpose. This would be the new reality throughout the financial world.
The other problem with this approach is the massive government debt. The way government handles debt is not like normal people. They issue bonds, pay the holder interest, but never pay them off. Instead, they issue new bonds to pay off the old bonds and the cycle begins anew. Rolling debt like this works as long as the market for new debt looks like the market for old debt. If the Federal government has to start borrowing at two or three times the old rate, it is big trouble.
The other way the Federal reserve can tackle inflation is to sell its massive holdings of equities, treasuries and other assets. The latest balance sheet from the Fed says they are holding about $8 Trillion in assets. They can begin selling which removes cash from the system. Keep in mind that the value of the S&P 500 is about the same as the Fed balance sheet, so this is a powerful option. They added about a trillion in equities during Covid as a way to juice the markets.
Of course, this is not without consequences. If they liquidate that trillion in equities, they hoovered up during Covid, the market will go down. The tens of millions of retired people living on their investments will not be pleased. If they liquidate some of their $4 trillion in treasuries, those assets will lose value, which means the cost of borrowing by the government goes up. This is why monetizing the debt is like eating the seed corn during tough times.
Another problem for the Fed is the politicians have started a global economic war against the majority of the earth’s population. Exporting excess dollars to places like China, India and Russia is no longer possible. In fact, dollars are starting to come back to America in response to sanctions. When Washington declared war on the globe, the globe declared war on the dollar. At least in the short term, exporting extra dollars to the rest of the world is not a viable option.
This is why there is panic in Washington. Biden’s official approval rate is 40% and Congress has an approval rate of 20%. Now they are faced with grim choices that promise to be very unpopular. They can support a war on inflation that will result in a deep recession or they can let inflation rob the public. Worse yet, it is not all that clear the Fed can wage an effective war on inflation. Like a bug trapped in the spider’s web, they have nothing left but panic.
While the suffering of the political class brings joy to most everyone, this means normal people are going to suffer for an extended period. The gap between wholesale inflation and retail inflation says prices will keep rising. The war on the world will also put pressure on commodities like energy and fertilizer. That will put upward pressure on prices at all levels. Wages are not keeping pace, which means everyone is getting poorer by the minute.
When Joe Biden ran for office, he promised a long dark winter. Most people assumed he flubbed his lines, but it turns out he was telling the truth. The long dark winter of mismanagement and manufactured crisis now promises to extend into the summer and autumn. Worse yet, the people who created this mess are now tasked with solving it. It looks like the label for the Joe Biden regime will be the long dark winter of American decline.
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.
The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
Pingback: Aktuelle Artikel und Videos - Adpunktum
Not hearing much from MMT economist, Stephanie Kelton lately.
My favorite (ex) Lefty sums up today’s America well.
“Half the nation doesn’t believe anything it is told by those in authority and the other half revels in its reckless abuse of authority.”
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/youve-been-misinformed/
Kunstler. Another guy who gets it.
Who’s complaining about inflation? There are numerous ways to counteract it…like stop eating so much and driving so much. Be prepared since those numbers are likely to top 20% in the next year or two. There are going to still be major supply chain issues…they just take a while to work through the system. Shutting down the major port in Shanghai, which is 4 times larger than the biggest LA port, is not going to help.
So if all those “top men” in place are doing their jobs, whatever that means, then why all the trouble? It simple…most of those “top men” are academic theorists playing around with useless classroom theories. Now, that crock has come back to bite them big time. All the catering to the top 5% over the last 13 years is coming home to roost…for the other 95%.
Their solution will be to raise interest rates into the foreseeable future which will do not much of anything. Will we go back to the good old days where a savings account paid 4,5,6% interest? Hardly.
What will happen is that the government debt machine is going to face recycling that $30+ trillion debt into rising bond rates. This will add more to the deficit, perhaps over $1 trillion as the costs of refinancing increase. Of course, the government never pays down any debts and never will and all that extra cost will just be added in. The debt spiral will accelerate somewhat and if a recession becomes a reality, expect the leftist government to spend even more to try and save the vote in 2022 & 2024.
It’s going to be fun watching the leftists, democrats and socialists try and save their stupid ideals. Free everything for everybody is failing fast. The result could well be the end of America as we have known it by the early 2030’s. Do not expect the repubs and RINOs to make much difference. They are as lost as the leftist dems. The EU is already flushing Europe down the toilet and the leftists have their slimy fingers on the handle here too.
And finally, we will have something like fake birdy-flu to contend with. Oh yes, the scumbags are getting ready to unleash another fake pandemic to help destroy what is left of the world’s economy and financial system (so that the great reset can be ushered in by 2030)…which by the way features over $600 quadrillion in derivatives just waiting to implode when counter-parties fail to take responsibility for their investments as happened in 1998 (LTCM) and 2007-08 (housing/banking crises). Both times we came very close to an extreme financial meltdown.
Don’t worry, Musk is taking reservations for the coming rocket trips to Mars where a new civilization will be created and he will be crowned king.
A new civilization with Musk crowned king can’t be any worse that what we have now.
Maybe we can overthrow him as soon as we get settled, assuming he doesn’t control all of the oxygen and water and food.
Yikes!
Pingback: The Long Dark Winter – Understanding Deep Politics
I came back here one last time to read more comments and it is damn right appalling the whining I see here. You are all crying about price increases or what you call “inflation” whatever that is. There is a war we should be over there supporting on the other side of the globe and I have to listen to this?
We may be seeing the end of the covid plague also so there is much to be thankful for. My goodness.
“whatever that is”
lol
I couldn’t wait had to come back to see reaction. three downvotes for what I thought was obvious sarcasm. Lol
As a fellow poeposter, I promise you that I chuckled at your comment. Have an upboat!
How can we tell? There are people saying way dumber stuff than that on the internet.
We have entered a earnest and non-ironic age. I’m surprised a wright, the most reticent of species, hasn’t tumbled to this as yet.
So when are you shipping out?
You can’t be that subtle with sarcasm anymore. Too many people now use the very same words in earnest.
Every year hundreds of thousands of non-immigrant visas are granted/renewed to people that came here with no intention of ever leaving. Compound that with border jumpers. Now you’re dealing with adding more than a Boston or Salt Lake City every year: You’re adding a metropolitan Chicago. The notion that the housing market will collapse before the infrastructure that supports it is a few years off.
“A month ago, they were talking about a series of exceedingly small rate hikes. Now they are talking about a series of substantial rate hikes to prevent inflation from going even higher. You get the sense that there is both panic and confusion among those top men.”
And 3 months ago the Fed was (in some corners) boasting of “shock and awe” levels of rate hikes coming. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/23/investing/stocks-week-ahead/index.html)
That sort of talk was quickly tamped down for all the reasons stated above. But, it’s broader than housing. It’s cars. It’s college. Some of the biggest welfare queens in the US economy would suffer mightily if the Fed raises rates enough to quell inflation.
So here we are in April…and not much has happened.
Because what I said many years ago remains true today: The Fed is trapped. If they raise rates, the major low-interest-rate constituencies get crushed. If they keep rates low, the public gets crushed. Plus, there’s no guarantee that high interest rates will have the desired effect.
We had a World War 80 years ago that was ultimately settled by atomic bombs, yet the economy didn’t shut down.
Never shut down the economy.
In respose to this, the one guy in D.C. who should be dragged out behind the NIH and hanged – Anthony Fauci – went on TV last week to say that mask mandates should remain. And the CDC dutifully followed orders and extended the “public transport” mask requirement 2 more weeks.
They want us all dead.
The deception from Biden is that the Russia Ukraine war is the cause of inflation, his speech writers are trying hard to shift blame to Russia, and away from his failed policies. Biden today confirmed $800 million will go to Ukraine to fight a war that they have lost. How much does Zelensky pocket?
Here is Zelensky mocking America on video https://youtu.be/Z6a3Mbtchpw
Recent polling, government-friendly-media-polling, says nobody is buying the Putin excuse.
The Putin excuse assumes people weren’t noticing big inflation increases at the store throughout 2021. That’s understandable since government people break down into two shopping camps: those who send “the help” to buy food, and those who buy things and never look at the price because you don’t need to.
Government people are in one camp.
Those whose food is paid for by other people’s tax, and there is always more of that obtainable at the stroke of a pen and nudge from the enforcement arms.
Here’s my anecdotal observation from flyover God’s Country USA:
I have a large brood of mouths to feed, and being that cereal is overpriced toxic gut rot, I always opted to feed the youngsters eggs for breakfast. The best deal I found was the 60 pack bulk box at Wallyworld. Now, my memory is a bit faded, but I can recall paying $4-$5 for them during the height of the COVAIDS scam, and they were always in stock, however the 12 and 18 packs were scarce. Over time the price increased and as of early winter I could still get the 60 pack for $6 give or take.
About three weeks ago I was at the local wallfart and I noticed they had disappeared. Oh well, our local walmart may be at the lower end of the priority line as it serves a city of under 10k. A few days later I went about 25 miles over to the small city of about 30k to the Super walfart. I was a little perturbed when I found the same situation there, and that the sticker had gone up over $8.
Well, just a few hours ago I was back at the local wallyworld and was completely shocked. Not only was their no supply of these 60 count boxes, the sticker showed north of $13!
If that isn’t inflation, then what the hell is?
The government is extending the mask mandates to punish you for noticing that.
Learned helplessness in an animal is induced when the punishments appear random and no connections can be made for cause and effect, or when no action can seemingly affect the outcome in a predictable manner.
Inflation is a racist term. It’s “transitory price increase”
The carefully introduced Bird Flu may have some part to play.
Any guesses when the next Human Flu will be introduced?
My guess is July/Aug.
I seem to recall a little disagreement a couple months back about our present age being comparable to the weimar period…. Z made a crack about bipeds being the only point of comparison. But the degeneracy and social pathologies were the same, i countered. Others pointed out that inflation was low and the dollar was strong. Apologies, couldn’t help myself.
Oh and since i’m being a horse’s ass anyways. I.P. discontents is the correct word to use. Malcontent implies someone unhappy with any circumstances. Discontent is softer and means unhappy with present shitty circumstances.
On a more serious note. Bros I’m really worried.
I’m not really worried. The fact that I’m stocking up on wheelbarrows is sheer coincidence.
The realtors started targeting the neighborhood I grew up in (they called it blockbusting) around 1979 and was flooding it with “diversity” who did nothing but destroy the quality of life in the neighborhood. By 1980 it was coming to the street we lived on and by 81 my parents sold the house and had to buy a new one at a ridiculous mortgage rate. I was just a boy, but I think I remember them saying it was well North of 10% Luckily they were able to refinance a several years later. But for those several years, times were tough. Only my mother going into the workforce allowed them to pay.
Now we’re going to have the same thing right at the tail end of the second housing bubble in a row and millennials who can’t afford it and where all the Millennial women are already in the workforce.
Tars: Bring the White birth rate down to zero. It’s all according to plan.
No one else is having kids either.
Whites are at 1.6 or so
The Latino birth rate is declining faster than the White did and its now near par (1.8 or so)
Black fertility is 1.9
Asian Fertility 1.5
The only group at replacement are Pacific Islanders and some partially opted out groups like the Amish, Mennonites and various super fertile religious types.
If the goal was getting rid of Whites its not very effective either. It gets rid of Leftists well enough but the more Conservative typically the more fertile even now.
I think what happened is we hit an efficiency trap. Capitalism as configured requires growth but growth is no longer possible anywhere so the rich strip mine the economy putting money into things people must have.
Housing despotism rather akin to hydraulic despotism
“Black fertility is 1.9”
Thank god for legalized abortions.
More blacks were aborted than birthed in NYC.
The smart play by the Fed for their QE bucket would be to just let the assets roll off as selling them would result in huge losses since they would be offloading them into a higher rate environment. Denninger noted that debt creation works both ways, that for each cut you get “that much more” debt, but for each increase you get “that much less” and thus even a Fed rate of 3% would probably be enough to quell inflation. While he thinks the Fed will strive to crush inflation, I agree with his critics that the Fed would like just like an inflation rate that is slightly less noticeable, but with so little room for error he might turn out to be correct via accident.
Ultimately inflation can be quelled with a 2008 style asset implosion. But then what? Look at what happened during Covid with all those PPP loans, etc. Congress will catch the falling knife with even more outlays. It will be a political crisis. Politicians will be inundated with “I’m starving to death” e-mails and calls. The problem isn’t really the Fed or the Congress. It’s us. A society totally incapable of survival without government largesse. Especially with our shiny new demographics. A N word produces as much as that can give him a mud hut and a trench in which to defecate. Anything more comes from our benevolent society. But what if even half of whites are now N words? And all kinds of Pacific Islanders now. Hard to get lazier than a Samoan. Maybe a Somalian. We have them all. We’re a Star Wars bar scene of the world’s trash. Their very survival depends on the sweet nectar of the state. Those with a work ethic and even half a brain can survive. But that may not even be the majority.
You’d be surprised at how their work ethic improves when it comes to home invasions, muggings, and flash mob robberies.
“We’re a Star Wars bar scene of the world’s trash”
What a magnificent image! It even surpasses ‘Open Air Talmudic Bodega’. Don’t mind me if I steal that one. 🙂
Only half of their balance sheet is treasuries. The mix of that is unknown to me, but my guess is it is mostly 10-year stuff purchased recently. If the choice is raisin treasury rates or depressing the stock market, the Fed will pick the latter, so they will probably start to unload equities. That said, they are probably waiting for the political side to tell them they have a fall guy in place to take the pain of a recession.
My worry is that the fall guy will be a hot war. Which would be the craziest thing they could possibly do. But looking at Diane Feinstein….
Lindsey Graham and similar grotesqueries popped up in Taipei today, so you may be onto something.
Maybe I just not cynical enough, but unless the govt is outright lying (always a possibility), the fed doesn’t own any equities. It’s mostly treasuries (~$5.5 trillion) and mortgage-backed securities (~$2.5 trillion).
Also, that they’re hoping to make Putin the fall guy.
I think they were buying and backstopping pretty much everything back in late Feb to mid March 2020. One of the reasons (along with helicopter cash) the market did nothing but go up from there on.
Didn’t they convert a lot of that QE debt to long term bonds during Operation Twist? I seem to recall they were selling 40 year bonds during that time.
I have heard we still have a lot of short term debt now. That is where a rise in interest would kill us.
I read this morning Sri Lanka has defaulted on its foreign denominated debts, presumably mostly Dollar denominated debt. This is the deflation everyone talks about. But wouldn’t it be strange to have both monetary deflation and retail inflation at the same time? I wonder if it is even possible. Everyone thought stagflation was impossible and a contradictory term until it happened.
You could have shrinking money supply alongside increased monetary velocity, which would look a lot like what you describe.
Which would be bad.
It’s entirely possible. Inflation, as the term is used by the government, simply means increasing prices. Domestic price levels have essentially two variables: domestic production and money supply. Foreign default of dollar-based debt will have no impact on domestic inflation. Furthermore, if domestic production drops faster than the money supply contracts, it’s also possible to have an inflationary environment even if the government is trying to combat it. Right now, domestic production is in decline across the board (particularly in agricultural output), and the backlog of imports because of clogged ports is essentially a closed relief valve. Even without increasing money supply, inflation would be inevitable and nasty, but as it is it’s going to be unconscionably dreadful.
The Fed is in a bind. Strange that they just put a riot fence around the Eccles building last week in D.C., since the majority of the country doesn’t even know what they do or how they do it. Putting a riot fence around a building that looks important but no one knows what they do is peculiar. Maybe, when the sad “Putin price increase” rhetoric from the Whitehouse fails to launch, in desperation the Dems will say “The bank did it!” The Republicans will try to keep the focus on Biden saying the Alzheimer’s patient did it!.
In reality Congress did it. Congress appoints Fed officials and all spending packages begin in the Congress. What? They would have had a backbone and stand up to them saying no more profligacy? Not in this lifetime. That’s like the book keeper of a wh-ore house standing up to the Madam who owns the place. Ultimately, we’re getting what we voted for.
Ultimately the Fed is in a bind because you can’t get something for nothing. Even politicians of the 80’s knew that as they would wring their hands over the latest trade deficit, becoming more unbalanced with each year. Then the Clintonian era happened and a new generation was in town. One that believed their own hype. Asking questions like “what is money anyway?” The ultimate deconstructionists. Well, 30 years later we’re going to get a good hard lesson in what’s real and what’s not, as people have to buy real groceries and pay real utilities, and fill their cars with real gasoline.
If we count on politicians not taking the blame, the searing spotlight will eventually be cast on the Fed. Ultimately, when businesses go bankrupt, it’s not the debt itself that did it, but the cash flow, usually involving the servicing of that debt. While the government won’t technically go bankrupt, the cash flow issues will be one for the ages. Expect desperate, confiscatory tax increases in a couple years. This is now half of our economy, so it will affect everyone from the community college clown on a grant to the defense contractor, to the Shaniqua on WIC and everyone in between, as inflation rages in the background.
” Ultimately, we’re getting what we voted for.”
True…except we didn’t.
Filed under ‘Rise of the Machines’.
“Terminator’s” ‘Skynet’?
No.
‘Dominion’.
In fairness, inflation was probably baked in as soon as the Federal Reserve responded to the shutdowns with money-printing. You are getting what the blue state voters voted for. And maybe what supporters of Powell-appointing Trump voted for.
I just hope the American public learns that “Shaniqua” isn’t the primary cause of the enormous taxes in the US, especially if they have these “cash-flow” problems you’re talking about.
“Karen” employed by the government is a far larger burden than “Shaniqua” ever will be. “Shaniqua” gets chump change. Granted, she unleashes her kids on us, but other than that, really she’s not the problem. “Karen” not only gets a 6 figure salary for life, but she works full time to put additional costs on us. We pay “Karen” a large salary to think up new regulatory burdens that cost a fortune to comply with. While “Shaniqua,” if she bothers to vote at all, will vote Democrat, “Karen” not only votes Democrat, but she writes them a check too. “Karen” shows up for all the p*ssy marches, gay parades and BLM riots.
Agents of the state should NOT be allowed to either vote or give money (or anything of value like time) to political causes. People employed by the state at any level is probably the single most reliable voter Democrats have. Near 100% turnout and near 100% Democrat.
That true, but Shaniqua will burden us with many dysfunctional and dangerous offspring. That needs to be in the equation. Maybe K=(Sn + Nn). We need to solve for Nn to find the equivalence.
Exactly. We shouldn’t base these comparisons solely on the relative impact to our Economic God.
Offspring that Karen will make much hay “caring” for,
“Agents of the state should NOT be allowed to either vote or give money … .”
The state should not have its fingers in every pie.
These agencies and their employees should not even exist.
There’s no political solution. It will all have to burn, whether by spontaneous combustion or with some help and encouragement.
‘“Karen” employed by the government is a far larger burden than “Shaniqua” ever will be.’ ”
I can’t agree. The primary thing wrong with Karen is that she watches the View and CNN. She believes that Zolinski is a folk hero, and that her recent bout with COVID might’ve killed her, except for the fact she’s triple vaxed. She believes that diversity is our strength because she’s sheltered from the worst that diversity has to offer. Karen is only doing what plenty of women have done throughout the ages — acting in a way that society deems appropriate. Karen would probably be a lovely person, if not for the nonstop (((propaganda))) that has turned her against her own people.
In contrast, Shaniqua produces nothing lasting, except more Shaniquas and DeShawns. Her people are the reason that Florida beaches are no longer safe, that Detroit is no longer Paris of the West, that our schools have to be dumbed down, and that countless nice families have been forced out of their homes to avoid crime and dysfunction.
Hating on Karen is easy. It takes no guts, especially now that it’s fashionable to hate on white women. But Karen isn’t the real problem. She’s a symptom of the problem.
And hey, last I looked, we have plenty of Shaniquas working in government jobs, too. Been to the DMV lately?
Everybody misses the whole point on the issue of women in society.
I don’t disagree with the blog entry you linked. But I find it far more “offensive” that an Israeli citizen who has sworn an oath to the state of Israel is in our Senate vs the woman question.
Prager did a good piece on modern women-link at bottom.
He posits:they’re a wreck, the left led them there and continues to take advantage of their innate nature to gaslight and brainwash them. them to further despair.
I don’t know what is worse, the single childless career women jumping from one poorly informed hate-stimulated cause to the next poorly informed hate stimuluted cause or that of her counterpart with children. That single mother “raising” her children with her second post-marriage live-in (she’s moved on from her husband/children’s father but for his monthly check so that this dumpster fire remains subsidized.) that become more dysfunctional than she is.
Pragers piece here: https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/13/what-the-left-has-done-to-women/
John Knox got it right in his 1558 or so little work: “First Blast of The Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women”.
Available on Amazon, for now in the Kindle Edition for free.
This is all Finklethink. Get people divided over details and miss the bigger picture. What tribe of people have orchestrated and produced these results? This isn’t the argument we need to have. We need to focus on who is responsible for BOTH karen and shaniqua.
Its Jewish Power and their Shabbos goyim.
>It looks like the label for the Joe Biden regime will be the long dark winter of American decline.
So that makes Biden a metaphor for America, no?
This is exactly why he was necessary. They needed an octogenarian white man losing his faculties to remind everyone that the age of white Americana is over. “Make America Great Again” was too optimistic and too implicitly pro-white and it freaked the cloud people the F out. There can be no obvious correlation to whiteness creating prosperity or high-trust cultures. It is an extremely tall order, but the only competent white, or kinda-white people allowed going forward will be women, gays, and younger “spicy” Latinos like Ocasio-Cortez. There will be no more younger Joe Bidens or even Trumps/Reagans/Bushes because there simply can’t be. (Really it’s very bad, because competent white men don’t want to be in government anyway).
Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » The Long Dark Winter
I think it’s extremely important for people to remember that the last 80 years or so of economic prosperity for the middle and even lower classes in the west are unprecedented. For most of history, life has been hardscrabble for 90+% of the people. Even in Western Europe, there were uneducated agricultural people who were seen as “peasants” until mid-20th century. Mass public education in the west has largely shifted things so that these poor people aren’t as dependent upon the land as they used to be and are just as likely to live in urban centers barely making ends meet, but ultimately their circumstance has created an illusion of “progress” that can disappear just as quickly as it came.
I firmly believe in that good times create week men and week men create hard times cycle. We have had it far too good for far too long and the pain is going to be much worse when it all comes crashing down.
I apologize for misspelling weak. Jeez. I need a personal editor.
The problem is all the complexity we take for granted is insanely expensive and in an urban society no money means no babies.
This means no new suckers, no consumers, no family formation and no way to afford the complexity. You’ve engineered your own collapse do to lack of talent and demand starvation
China is going down this route, the economy there is imploding and rural villages are still immured in poverty. So the solution is to build larger hub cities and go more urban.
So much for long term thinking from China. This just means less children in a society where in a few decades rapid population decline will hit already ahead of schedule. No wonder they are in a COVOD panic. The work force is dying off
Ultimately I think modernity has doomed itself and like a wounded animal will lash out , hopefully without nukes.
The survivors will be those who have a resilient local community that is fairly self sufficient It might not be pleasant for 2222 to be horse and buggy but at least it will be a human society
Thanks
You reminded me to plan something special for February 2nd next year.
“Theoretically it should work.” Which is the highbrow version of “hold my beer.” Most of the problems come about because reality refuses to conform to the theoretical. Take money for example, no matter how you slice it, it’s not a real thing, it’s an agreed upon medium of exchange, and it is entirely theoretical. When one side of any agreement refuses to accept your medium of exchange what value does it have? Zero. Similarly, debt, it’s an agreed upon fiction that you will give me something of value now for something of value I expect to have in the future.
Once the underpinnings of the agreed upon transactions are disturbed things start to go by the wayside. This is what we really face. Our rulers have so distorted the meaning of things that people are left with a high degree of uncertainty about any transaction, and that’s a death rattle.
I’ve offered this advice many times before, and will continue to do so.
If you have large holdings of dollars, to the largest extent practicable, convert those dollars into goods and services that you actually do or will need. Does the house need a new roof in two years? Buy it now. Time for a new car maybe? Assuming you will be able to use them, how much canned or other non-perishable foods can you store realistically? Other household supplies, usually with long storage life? Own a business? How about stockpiling for it?
Taking on debt: perhaps an option. Time to buy a house? Mortgage rates won’t stay at 5% forever. If you can borrow cheaply, perhaps do so. This requires careful judging of the tradeoffs, unlike the “no-brainer” to spend depreciating money for real goods and services that you will need anyway.
Everyone needs to keep some cash on hand, of course, I’m not giving investment advice,but “cash” and bond funds may not do well in coming years. That doesn’t mean put all your money into gold and silver, but you might consider positions in those too.
Point: the dollar is not getting more valuable. If the official inflation rate is claimed to be 8%, you can rest assured that the rate is quite higher than that.
Pay now, or pay more later. The choice is yours.
Mr Rubber, meet Mr Road.
Z, one small correction: the Fed balance sheet doesn’t contain equities. It’s mostly USTs and mortgage-backed securities. It did buy some highly-rated “junk” bonds — say BB – during Covid but through the mechanism of high-yield ETFs. that said, your broader points are sound.
“Z, one small correction: the Fed balance sheet doesn’t contain equities”……
so far as we know haha…
hahaha, good point!
That’s what Blackrock is for
Sandmich got it I think. All heads of the same hydra.
The end of the dollar as the worlds reserve currency will be the best thing to ever happen to this country. 99.999999% of the woke shenanigans that comes out of the Imperial City of Washington D.C. is funded by debt, and that debt is funded by printing “money” and then exporting our inflation. Will there be a lot of pain during the transition? Absolutely.
Why do women vote socialist? Women work for the government. Why not vote yourself a pay raise? It’s free money after all.
This is assuming that the majority of the population has not already been sufficiently trained. I know the rejoinder is, Wokeness will go away when their stomachs rumble. Perhaps, but have we ever considered that perhaps wokeness is a tool to train people to be unable to respond to crisis appropriately? Maybe wokeness allows the foul hand of TPTB to remain untouched, while they use the white demon as a straw man, a straw man where they will lay all the blame.
I would put it thusly: A reasonable reaction to a crisis requires a reasonable population. I think we lack that.
“I would put it thusly: A reasonable reaction to a crisis requires a reasonable population. I think we lack that.”
We certainly do, but reasonable individuals will make reasonable decisions. And apparently, whether anybody likes it or not, we are about to undergo a culling of the herd. The sensible and cool-headed should come through all right. The rest of the population will find its own historical level.
I don’t look forward to it.
In domesticated herds, culling is pretty much random, or complete. The only characteristic that survives a culling is utility, not personality or wit. You don’t cull a fertile ewe, but you definitely cull a troublesome ram.
Sometimes unreasonable is just as good.
A lot of problems in this country could be solved by piling the right bodies high enough to see from the Tiangong or ISS
Like TIP I don’t look forward to it but needs must.
Maybe instead of trying to run off to Monticello 2.0 or LARP as Cinnicinatus maybe trying to grab some power is better.
Good ends are preferred but as – Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury
put it Revenge T’ain’t much, certainly. But t’ain’t nothing, either.
“ Think about what happens to the real estate market if rates simply double. Refinancing comes to an end and homes sales collapse. ”
Collapse is a big scary word. Collapse as in stop, no. Here in AZ, thanks to CA and other Blue States, the majority of home sales are cash—not mortgage. My first home purchased was at a mortgage rate of 13%! That could be done today as well with employed, two income young families. Also, there were adjustable mortgages at that time, stating at “teaser” rates of 4-5% and readjusting at five to ten years (IIR0). There were also balloon loans, but those I have no experience with.
Then of course is the looming push against private home ownership with large companies buying large stockpiles of homes. Those homes would become the new “rentals” which folks would have available.
you have to have an all cash buyer, to sell your home in the first place. home prices will crash, as they did back in the early 80’s when mortgage rates got as high as 18%. volume of sales will also collapse. funny enough, seems like chinese RE is crashing already…
I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the unrest in Shanghai is to suppress angry Chinese real estate investors that have watched their investments literally crumble away.
It seems logical because we know the Chinese have been papering over issues in their RE markets, and I want to say there have been several high profile incidents and near-misses.
I don’t there’s a good reason to assume these issues wiil reverse or begin trending up anytime soon.
Depends on where the mortgage rates settle. As stated, in the bad old days—40 years ago—my interest rate was 13%. That timeline is what the reports today claim we are approaching and Z-man refers to. There will certainly be a slowdown, but collapse? As in stop?
You make assumptions on facts not in evidence. The first is that mortgage rates will rise so high as to eliminate the entry market. Second is an assumption of typical mortgage offerings—you ignore alternatives. Many became available at that time.
There are a lot of “unknowns” here, far too many to make any prediction of collapse. But a slowdown, sure. We’ve had those before however and they are not pretty.
The math will work out for the buyer as they purchase on payment, not price, i.e., the prices for homes will need to come down accordingly. For sellers though, it doesn’t work out quite so great. One reason why in ’08 people just abandoned the home they couldn’t sell.
“Depends on where the mortgage rates settle.”
Interest rates and asset prices are a see saw, thats all you really need to understand. What were asset prices 40 years ago when you had your 13 percent rate? So for 40 years rates have been going down (mainly with help from the FED and .gov) and they can’t go any lower, so where do they go? UP and its going to be an elevator and not an escalator like the last 40 years. They’ll pop, high and then we’ll get the crack up boom.
If most people consider their home the largest savings account they have, and you’re working towards a future of everybody but your buddies owning nothing and liking it, what do you do to housing prices? Run them up to extremes, all the while raising property taxes, then crash them down into the gutter. Suddenly the homeowner doesn’t have the “equity” in the house they thought because the market only wants to sell at the price they bought or lower.
Not to mention if Boomers bought houses in the 70’s and 80’s at 50 to 100k that led the millenial generation. But now the millenial generation has been in a housing bubble since it got out of college and the houses that boomers bought at 50 to 100k are now 300 to 500k. Wages haven’t really gone up with asset prices, women have been taught that being a slave to a corporation makes you a strong woman and men are evil. What does this do to family formation? If your goal is to reduce the population wouldn’t it make sense to get men and women to hate each other? Just another iteration of divide and conquer? Its funny, we went of gold in 71, Roe vs Wade was argued in 71. Limits to growth, which essentially explains the situation we are in now came out in 72 and Roe v Wade was ruled on in 73. So honest money goes out the door, a study group says we’ll run out of plentiful resources around the year 2000 and a year later abortion is made legal. Things that make you go hmmmmmmm
If your goal is to reduce the population wouldn’t it make sense to get men and women to hate each other?
Wouldn’t it make sense to promote LBGQT? Its all connected folks and the reason some commenters here think its just stupidity is because they’re looking at it thru the lens of a normal person who would never consider killing people for power and money.
This is a general reply to everyone in this thread: I was a homeowner, and my family and I moved and sold our house. We are renting now. We live in a rural but prosperous area, and I cannot fathom purchasing a house now. I am having daily thoughts on the see saw of rates versus the mortgaged amount. I cannot imagine that the prices of houses can continue spiking, but perhaps they will. Who know? Scary stuff.
Someone remind me when feminism really took off? What decade was it? Who is the women that was created with being a founder and she had connections to the CIA? Things that make you go hmmmmmm
https://allthatsinteresting.com/gloria-steinem
The demolition of society continues. I know I put a lot up about the WEF, but you really should watch this . The guy talking is the chief technical advisor for the group. this is short, and if it doesn’t scare you , I don’t know what will . https://www.brighteon.com/b02e43b7-fcfc-49bc-9b66-c882e6c51621
It’s interesting to note that Klaus Schwab, who is said to be smiling when the guy said “poor people will die, the rich will live”.
Isn’t that guy in his late 80’s?
How much longer does he have that he would be pleased.
Does he have an elixir of youth?
Weird that a bunch of old asshats want to burn the world down.
How do you know they don’t have a way to extend their life?
The certainly seem to think so.
“How do you know they don’t have a way to extend their life?
“They certainly seem to think so.”
They might have more than that.
It’s puzzling how they are shutting down *all* energy sources even though they know that there are no alternatives at present and for many years to come.
How will they run their total-surveillance state and the internet of things and their transhumanism and all the rest of it without an *unfailing* supply of electricity?
Unless they *do* have an unfailing supply.
When Nicolai Tesla died in somewhat mysterious circumstances in a NYC hotel room in 1943, *somebody* came into possession of all his notes.
Did that include his knowledge of an inexhaustible supply of electricity for the whole world, free of charge?
Who has those notes?
Is it the same people who embezzled 20+ trillion (with a T) dollars from the Defense Department?
Or did Tesla destroy those notes?
If not, and if somebody has them, who are those people?
Good questions. I wish I knew the answers.
All the adrenochrome and fetal blood will not extend their life past its natural time.
The current “pathways” for life extension senolitics, stem cell replacement, telomere enhancement aren’t anywhere near human trials
Really psychopaths are unable to contemplate their own mortality
Worse folks like these are sin thralls. Caution this is a bit woo, gathered from Rudolph Steiner etc
Of the three Greatest Sins
Lust, Domination and Spite the last is the worst and the one that rides them the most.
I must die so I shall while I live revel in the death of others especially the innocent.
Satan’s little helpers all
miforest: What’s equally scary is how few people truly understand the evil and malice aforethought behind everything that’s happening today. They see an unusual confluence of events, or coincidences, or accidents, or forces of nature. But in addition to the hive mind of people with identical motivations acting individually rather than in directed concert (i.e. “It’s not really a conspiracy), there does exist a true force controlling the hive. It may be a cabal rather than a single queen insect, but its presence is evident in so many areas.
That anyone could speak of the rich being ‘exempt’ from death by ‘freeing’ humanity from the ‘organic realm’ and not be considered criminally insane is what ought to scare people. That these people matter-of-factly describe human bodies and minds as the great ‘product’ of this next stage of evolution is what ought to horrify people. That anyone would actually WANT to ‘live forever’ via ‘brain-computer interface’ is merely a technological variant of vampirism.
Medieval depictions of Satan don’t really frighten people these days. But I look upon the visages of creatures like Klaus Schwab and Yuval Harari and I see evil and darkness way beyond death.
“That anyone could speak of the rich being ‘exempt’ from death by ‘freeing’ humanity from the ‘organic realm’ and not be considered criminally insane is what ought to scare people.”
Schwab was recently photographed with a bust of Lenin on his bookshelf. Some see irony. I see cognitive dissonance. All the loose talk about surviving nuclear war is part and parcel of this same unhinged mindset. We are dealing with outright madmen pulling the strings. The good news is probably half of them will be dead, as in physically dead, in five years, many not by natural causes. The bad news is they intend to take out as many innocents as possible with them.
There is evil and there is evil. These hideous freaks and monsters are the extra strength version.
Does anyone get a weird scientology vibe when they hear this Schwab weirdo speak?
Absolutely, because there is a quasi-religious energy running through the Woke, green, race grievance, alphabet soup, transhumanist, Covid, and globalist cults.
The WEFs got kicked oit of the scientologists for being mental.
“The WEFs got kicked out of the scientologists for being mental.”
And THAT took some doing!
A combination of Scientology and LARPING as Dr. Evil in AUSTIN POWERS, except they aren’t really LARPING. That clip, incidentally, could have been ripped right out of Hammer Studio’s THE SATANIC RIGHTS OF DRACULA, it is so kitschy.
sadly most of the people I know have their whole worldview defined by the media . some are MSNBC/CNN/ABC/CBS libs , another bunch are FOX news/Glen beck /ben shapiro civ nats . but they all are total clay in the media hands . ight now they are both screaming ” Evil Putin” with equal enthusiasm.
They just can’t get their head around the idea that the “elites” are organized and working to a plan. I send simple introductory videos like this to them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omGd7NNzjBk and they won’t even watch them.
that video above is a good starting point for the uninitiated .
BTW , the utopian “city ” the WEF is pushing will in real life be what Shanghai is today.
It will be airport security always and everywhere.
Every shop, every public building, all transport (even your own), in your house.
It will just creep into your life and most people will not even remember when it was not so.
Trumpton-
They will add some kind of fee or tax to every checkpoint that must be paid in CBDC.
We’ve reached the end of the road. For forty years, the world kept increasing debt to GDP, both public and private. They could do this because 1) debt/gdp started at reasonable levels; 2) interest rates kept falling; and 3) inflation was subdued.
That’s why Cheney could say deficits don’t matter and, magically, be right.
However, we now have 1) high debt/gdp; 2) interest rates hit zero; and 3) inflation is back.
The West is trapped. How this plays out is anyone’s guess, but we’re rapidly reaching the point where debts matter again. Powell keeps trying to channel his inner Volker, but the country’s debt to gdp was ~130% in the 1970s. It’s ~270% now.
The West is addicted to cheap money. There’s no easy way for a heroin addict to get clean. It takes time and pain. The same will be true here.
debt jubilee. only good idea the hebes ever had.
Yeah, except that would be more welfare for the rich and upper class than anything.
“debt jubilee”
That’s what the Great Reset is, although they don’t call it that.
ALL debts are to be canceled and that’s where “you’ll own nothing and be happy about it” comes in. And by the way, “you’ll own nothing” includes your own clothes.
But once again I have to say that *all* of this stuff depends *absolutely* on an *unfailing* supply of electricity. And we don’t have that. And “they” have already made absolutely certain that there ain’t gonna be no unfailing supply of electricity.
Therefore, there will be no Fourth Industrial Revolution. They have shut down oil pipelines. The Germans–the GERMANS!–are shutting down their nuclear power plants. California has already made it law that *all* trucks operating in California must have engines that meet the emission standards of 2010 by January 1st–roughly eight months from today.
Shanghai is the world’s busiest container port BY FAR, and it is already shut down IN FACT if not “officially.”
There’s not going to be enough electricity for their Great Reset or for their Fourth Industrial Revolution or for their transhumanism or any of the rest of it.
And even that presupposes that the the whole world goes along with the program, which is not going to happen.
These are evil *and* stupid people.
It’s not a bad idea. Compound interest is certainly the most powerful force in the financial universe. Once you get it on your side, you become invincible. Once it’s against you, your situation is hopeless.
Once interest on the debt outstrips one’s ability to pay it, the game is over. The lender starts to acquire more and more assets as lenders default or pay more and more of their income, leaving them with no money for anything else.
At some point, the economy doesn’t function because the wealth is so concentrated.
This is actually a natural process. Wealth naturally concentrates until the system collapses either due to revolution or economic depression. A debt jubilee resets the system in a more orderly way.
All valid and good points. Allow me to put a dab of whipped cream and cherry on top 🙂
The fatal flaw in compound interest is the usually unstated assumption that it can continue forever. But that’s impossible in the real world, whether a bank balance or the population of amoebae in a pond. The real world imposes limits to everything.
Over very long periods of time (centuries, millennia) it can be shown that a trivial amount, say one dollar, even at 1% interest would grow to absurd amounts, like all the world’s wealth. This was true even in the olden days when money was actually gold or silver or (theoretically) limited to a fixed supply of same. Always existed the risk (usually realized) that the coins would be debased until little precious metal remained and/or ratio of gold holdings to paper would be changed, or ultimately abandoned entirely. In fact, what I’ve described above is a perfect description of what the United States has done to its money since 1933.
As you note, wars, revolutions, collapses and other mishaps are Nature’s way of clearing the books. Whether it’s a deflationary crash, a runaway inflation, a jubilee or some other form of write-off, it’s the system finally acknowledging that the old debt is worthless and let’s stop pretending. And then something resembling sanity is restored, and the centuries-long process begins all over again 🙁
Note that “savings” are a debt in kind (a loan owed to me by the bank) which is why savings are wiped out in a debt jubilee as well.
Yeah, people are always surprised to learn that their money at the bank isn’t actually “their” money. It’s a loan to the bank to do with what they please.
karl, look at this . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omGd7NNzjBk . they will own everything. they are not going to say “keep your stuff, we forgive your debts” it will be ” you can’t pay for your stuff, so we take it all as settlement. ” and you will work in the equivalent of a Chinese phone factory just to get clothes, bug meal , and a slab in a open dorm to sleep on.
That would require the willing cooperation of everybody in the world, which is not going to happen.
And first and foremost, it would require the wiling cooperation of all the police forces in the world, and that, too, will not happen.
You mean like locking a billion people in their homes off and on for 2 years?
Its actually from Babylon and other cultures not the Hebrews who adopted it.
You overlooked one option. The addict can die. Not, perhaps the preferred choice, but one that must be stated as a possibility.
In drug and alcohol addiction, the awful truth is that less than half, perhaps way less than half of addicts truly stay “clean.” This is true even for the relatively soft drug alcohol (yes, it’s a drug). Borrowing a line from AA literature, most addicts can only look to a dismal future ending in jails, institutions or death Perhaps all three.
Accurate statistic are hard to come by, not for the least reasons (perhaps valid) that it might discourage sufferers from seeking help and/or cut into potential profits. Can you imagine the rehab industry honestly saying “Addicted to hard drugs? Well, you’re basically fucked, the odds are against you ever kicking the habit. Even so, why not spend tens of thousands of dollars of your, or your insurance company’s, or your family’s, money on our thirty day inpatient program and give it a try?”
The analogy to the deaths of monetary systems and economic upheaval is, of course, imperfect. But to the best of my knowledge, no nation has ever truly given up debasing its currency before it went to zero.
I don’t think the ruling class is in a panic about inflation at all. To the contrary, the looming financial crisis plays right into their hands.
There is no “traditional” solution to the problem based on sane classical liberal economic theory. They cannot raise interest rates very much, and they cannot cut government spending. When the Fed attacked inflation by raising interest rates in 1980, the total national debt was $900 billion. Today it is $30 trillion and the ANNUAL deficit is $3 trillion.
What they are going to do is totally crash the system and then the people will have no choice but to give unlimited power to the people in the government who fucked things up in the first place. Can’t afford gas? Good. You can ride in Pete Buttigieg’s electric government bus. Can’t afford a house after the housing market collapses? Live in a solar-powered government apartment. No job and no health care benefits? UBI and socialized medicine. Stock market crashes and your 401(k) gets wiped out? They’ll seize it and convert it to digital currency. All of it will fit nicely into the Green New Deal.
The Great Depression provided the biggest excuse for massive government growth in history — the New Deal, Fabianism, Stalinism, and National Socialism were all based on the premise that the government was going to give you what you “need” in exchange for total power.
They WANT a massive crash. It’s part of the plan. They’re not even going to try to fix it, they are going to step on the gas to crash it, just like Obama and his mentor Alinsky wanted. The COVID hoax was the first step in the process.
And Joe Normie will beg the government to make him whole after he loses everything. He’ll still have his porn and his football and his weed, so he’ll own nothing and be happy.
I generally go with the idea that such schemes are giving them too much credit. There is nothing to stop them from enacting their grand plans as it is, so there’s no need to crash the system they depend on themselves. They don’t have any more of a grand plan than Mao did with his “backyard foundries”: it just makes good press.
I’ll be the first to agree that there are conspiracies. But that’s always the case. Many of them are not even strictly criminal, nor secret, which usually are two attributes of a proper conspiracy. E.g. the Marxists, the Socialists, the Communists were not secret with their general goals. Nor is the The Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the WEF, Bill Gates, or whoever your boogeyman is. Now, it’s no doubt true that secret meetings occur and much information remains hidden. But my point is that most of these groups have been quite open about what their intentions, at least stated intentions are.
I must agree with Sandwich however: Thinking that all these grand schemes will succeed seems to be granting too much credit to the Deep State and/or villain of the day. That such schemes are often at odds with what Reality is able, much less willing, to supply, alone dooms most of them to failure.
Of course, the True [Conspiracy] Believer will merely say that people like Sandwich and me are either dupes or actively complicit in the clever plans of the Deep State. They just want us to believe they are fools, when really they are playing 4-D chess. 🙂
I do not believe at all that there is some sort of secret conspiracy. Even the Bilderbergers and the WEF are totally open about what they want.
My point is simply that a massive economic crisis is the perfect excuse to grab power. The New Dealers did not form a conspiracy, they just wanted carte blanche to to whatever the “Brain Trust” thought was appropriate — regardless of what that archaic “Constitution” said. The Fabians were not a conspiracy, they just used the privation of a protracted war to get what they had always wanted when it ended in 1945. The National Socialists were pretty open about what they wanted, after all they campaigned and won in democratic elections. The crisis of Weimar and of Versailles gave them an opportunity to implement their program.
In industrial urban society, when there is a massive economic crisis, people cannot simply return to the farm and plant a few more acres to feed themselves. They have no choice but to grant government whatever power it demands to “solve” the crisis.
From the perspective of the politician, then, a perpetual or profound crisis is ideal, because is serves to maximize his power.
Are they dumb enough to think they want to be Kings of Hiroshima after the big kaboom?
Ruling in hell relies its meaningful existence.
” … and then the people will have no choice but to give unlimited power to the people in the government … .”
Great post. Well-expressed–and horrifying.
But it is simply not true that the people will have no choice. We might face a dilemma, where all choices are equally bad, but the people *will* have a choice.
Now, as you correctly point out, they might make stupid and self-destructive choices–they almost certainly will–but millions of people worldwide simply will not go along with the program.
And the power grid is not defensible.
So although the choices available might be unattractive, there will still be choices. And plenty of committed people everywhere will make those choices, however unattractive they be.
Nearly everybody reading this will live to see “them” torn to pieces in the streets. Or shot to bits like Mussolini. There’s no way around it.
I take exception to that last item about the culprits being torn to pieces in the streets. I know quite a few people in high-end security who occasionally work for people such as you describe and their clients biggest concern is self-preservation.
To that end, they are constantly refining their “escape plans”, should things go sideways and while our fellow Americans might be able to grab several local functionaries of theirs, I doubt we will be able to get our hands on Bloomberg, or Schwab and tap dance on their windpipes while sampling a 70 year-old bottle of single malt from their prized collection. Although I don’t see Bloomberg having anything like that laying around. In fact I think a better punishment for him would be forcing him to single-handedly wash the entire array of dinner dishes from a Christmas Eve dinner at Mar-A-Largo. Until the day he dies.
If civil disorder were to get bad enough, no retreat would be safe. Imagine a major nuclear exchange or a true civil war. A rich man’s fortress or island enclave, well provisioned might last for days, weeks or months. But in nearly all cases these are not self-sufficient entities. Thus, by definition, they have finite life spans. In the most dire scenario, the best you could hope for is that you buy some time before IT comes for you. If not barbarian raiders, then the Grim Reaper in his many guises 🙁
History presents many examples where the barbarians overran the castle butchered the prior residents unless they were lucky enough to flee, and then partook generously of whatever was left behind.
What happened to the Romanovs in 1917 is instructive.
Disagree. How much security did Saddam and Gaddafi have? Security can be breached or bought off. These people are already on the kill list of millions of people. They will face justice.
And Ghaddafi was a lifelong military man and Saddam an experienced revolutionary leader.
They lived in literal fortresses and had entire battalions of die-hard loyalists at their disposal, over which both had gained competent operational and tactical leadership through lifetimes of experience.
Neither Claus Schwab nor any other billionaire collapse enthusiast can hope to come close to attaining that level of security, demonstrated as still inadequate, for themselves or their families.
If the elites are so insane as to be actively trying to collapse the existing order, the drivetrain that now puts their power to the wheels will be destroyed along with everything else, including in many cases themselves.
This. They’re loaning themselves infinite money in its last few moments of utility, using it to buy up all the land, then they’ll stick the consequences to the last free men left.
They’ll replace cash with digital currency because it can be deleted. Today, when they print themselves new money, it increases the money supply. Bad. But what if they could delete their enemy’s money as quickly as they create new money for themselves? That’s the beauty of centralized digital ledgers. No more need to steal money via inflation… just transfer it from the Narrative Violators du jour and pride themselves on sticking the pain to “those oligarchs”.
Just look at what has been done by the West very recently to Russia. Sanctions and seizure of assets, even by people who perhaps have no connection to supposedly evil Russia except by nationality. It’s purely arbitrary, “legal” in the sense of some emergency powers perhaps. Also hardly the first time. Been done against Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, drug lords and terrorists. In the “old days” such actions were only taken in the most extreme cases, maybe a formal declaration of war. A salient point then: today they are done more or less arbitrarily, by often obscure officials, for nebulous ends. Rule of law less respected.
Yes, a CBDC or other encroachment is just the “democratization” of such authoritarian measures. Witness Canada’s “emergency” freezing or seizing of little guys’ assets — for the crime of driving trucks and blaring horns in their imperial capital. Welcome to anarcho-tyranny. In the ruling elite’s favor? No problem, do what you want! Fell out of favor? Too bad! The laws are just words on paper; they won’t protect you now.
The risk of having one’s assets arbitrarily seized is so catastrophic that systems making a habit of that kind of piracy will be outcompeted by nearly any viable alternative, including and especially barter.
Year or two, most of em will be dead from the smallhat shot. Who the fuck will be left to run the gears of America. The Nose shot themselves in the foot, trying to hide the fact they stole all our money/ Fuck them, bring on Armegeddon, let’s see whose still standing.
Heh. A good piece.
Imagine if I started my country, ClownWorld, and sought to raise funds from my woke populace. I decide to offer the people the chance to invest 20,000 clown dollars in my woke government, and offer an annual yield of 4% (800 clown dollars) of the face value to be returned to the investor annually (I also promise to repay the face value after 10 years, but I’m woke so might renege).
Now, my country sure is big, and there seems to be a lot of money and people floating about, and lo! I get 10 million investors, which means my average yearly obligations are now 8 billion clown dollars. In paid interest.
8 billion clown dollars of interest alone. I better hope that annually my population does some actual, meaningful, productive work that I can tax. If they don’t, then I need to think of some scheme to generate this money…
Anyhow, you get the belaboured point: just paying off the interest and getting away with it forever seems to be very possible in a highly scaled and complex society. This is to say nothing of the other ways that governments get money.
I used to think this sort of stuff cannot go on, but it looks like it’ll be a while before such a system comes crashing down, if at all. Imagine just the interest payments made by Western countries… crazy.
Think about this. We have a fractional reserve banking system in which banks lend money which they create out of thin air at a ratio somewhere between 9:1 or 30:1 (depending on the type: S&L, commercial, investment, etc.), the “1” in the equation being the money they have on deposit. Now think about the difference between lending all that money to industries involved in mining/manufacturing/agriculture vs. the kind of money going to finance nail salons and amusement parks. This country is doing way too much lending to businesses which create no new wealth. We’re on a sugar high. We’re like the moron who borrows money in order to take his family on a vacation.
Couldn’t agree more about FRB. But how did it all get started? And why did people put up with it? What percentage of their reserves are US banks even required to hold? Are they required at all?
Whatever the reasons historical, people seem to accept it now. When I first learnt about FRB, I thought that’s crazy – but it sure happens and people sure as hell like the consequences. Well, the immediate ones at least.
One question banging around in my mostly empty skull of late has been that of recessions. Is it possible that our system can only kick-the-can endlessly because of the scale of our financial system? Perhaps when one economic sector is doing well, another does badly. Then the good one goes bad, but another sector comes good. The net result is that some parts are in recession and some aren’t?
Is this the reason I have seen many small businesses close exclusively because The Shamdemic; but on the macroscale things seem like they were? Who knows? I certainly don’t.
“Who knows? I certainly don’t.”
Nobody understands economics. Nobody can; economies are too complex, consisting, as they do, off billions of individuals making personal choices all the time.
It’s tinkering with an organism that is too complex to understand that has got us into this mess.
For that matter, that’s why medicine has become the grotesque racket that it is. The idea of the human person as an organism has given way to the notion (I won’t call it an idea) of the human person as a machine.
That’s why all the medical “specialties” nowadays. The body is not an organism; it is a machine. That’s why these specialists go on learning more and more about less and less until the know everything about nothing.
It’s why the allopathic medical establishment is so jealous of its prerogatives that they have been able to make it a crime punishable by hard prison time and enormous fines for “practicing medicine without a license.”
And what *is* “practicing medicine without a license”?
It’s whatever they say it is.
Once the world and the human person came to be regarded as machines rather than as living organisms of stupefying complexity, we were doomed to arrive at our present predicament.
And it’s going to get a great deal worse. The “just-in-time” distribution system assures that. We are watching it collapse now.
But not being content with that disaster-in-the-making, “they” have also decided to wreck the payments system worldwide.
I don’t think human history has *ever* seen stupider or more incompetent political leaders.
As Zman has pointed out on numerous occasions, democracy selects for stupidity, incompetence, and corruption.
My question remains what role will Russia and China play in a multi-polar world? What will America become when it cannot militarily force other countrys to trade using the dollar?
Will we get pieces and pieces of our freedom back as the govt will no longer be able to afford as big of a police state?
Will we be Cuba with nuclear weapons, driving our 30 year old beaters as long as possible because we don’t want and cannot afford the EV truck with 120 mile range between charges?
“I used to think this sort of stuff cannot go on, but it looks like it’ll be a while before such a system comes crashing down, if at all.”
We have been watching the collapse in real time since August 2019.
Here are some reliable stats:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/the-supply-chain-crisis-will-worsen/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/north_america/walgreens-rationing-baby-formula/
And plenty more.
The collapse is well-advanced and getting worse. We are watching it in real time.
How docile will any population be and remain as they watch their own children starve?
The revolution is well underway. The revolution takes place in people’s hearts and minds. The shooting comes *after* the revolution. There are a LOT of angry and well-armed people out there.
And no, FedGov does *not* have the power to suppress the population. They can’t put down riots in San Francisco with troops in Pennsylvania. *All* of that must perforce be local–on the scene.
Will the High Sheriffs of all 3000–plus counties in AINO tyrannize their local population in May and then ask those same people to re-elect them in November?
And how many such law-enforcement officers are there? Nobody knows, but Nancy Pee was on the phone to the Pentagon during the “insurrection” telling them that they (her and her partners in crime) could not trust the national guard units at their command, and demanding regulars from the Pentagon. And the Pentagon told her to go suck and egg.
It is all coming down. Nobody is in control of anything. Events have now gained their own momentum and must move to their logical conclusion, whatever that is.
Orange Frog: Oh, they’ll keep the financial plates spinning for a good while. The only thing I believe will truly stop them are the facts of biological reality, whose very existence they deny. As Zman noted, there aren’t a lot of airline pilots wading across the Rio Grande. The ‘elites’ are convinced they can retain a fully functional world with nothing but machines and brown mystery-meat drones to keep it running, and perhaps a small handful of White helots. Note I make no mention of a constant and reliable supply of electricity, because that would be an assumed natural byproduct of said machines, drones and helots. And the great planners are also convinced their biological research will render increased consanguinity among themselves a moot problem. They’ll be eternal, enormous inorganic brains whereas the ‘brawn’ of the world – mere chaff to be blown off to the dustbin of history.
I don’t know how many of us will survive to see it all come crashing on the rocks and shoals of reality, but I do believe it will happen. That we and our progeny may all perish first is what they count on and we’re trying to prevent.
“top men”.
How dare you assume their gender!
and what about bottoms?
Are these the same top men that where supposed to study the Arc of the Covenant?
I see what you did there.
The economic dark times coming will be a thesis on why democracy doesn’t work. As our host mentioned, all of the necessary solutions are going to be deeply unpopular and cause some pain before things get better. This is why neither party will be able to take them to their required lengths. The average low IQ, low information voter will be upset at less gibs and will vote politicians back in that turn the money printers back on. Even now, with things rapidly getting out of control, we’re spending untold amounts of money supplying arms to Ukraine in a war that’s not ours, and Biden and Schumer are closer than ever on forgiving all student debt ahead of the midterms to try and bribe away the red wave. All of the indicators are here for the end of the GAE.
It’s worth noting also that it’s not just growing “socialism” that’s making government spending balloon, as the republicans would have you believe. The amount of graft and corruption in the empire has become unsustainable. Even compared to the more socialist European countries, the cost of public projects is outrageous. Stossel had a good video on this comparing the costs to build highways, bridges, and railroads in European countries compared to America. I mean, California was paying $200 million per mile for the scrapped train project from San Francisco to LA. There is no shame in these cloud people, and no sense of service or duty to the country.
“There is no shame in these cloud people, and no sense of service or duty to the country.” And I say, right back at ’em.
“The average low IQ, low information voter will be upset at less gibs and will vote politicians back in that turn the money printers back on.”
You’re almost certainly right abut that. But that can lead only to one thing: the breakup of the country.
There will be events in between point A and the End point, but the problems are now myriad and multiplying both in scope and in complexity, such that there is no political solution. So the country will not survive in its present form.
Good post.
A good thing in my book.
It’s all about remaining in power for the cloud people. Expect to see the border explode in the coming months. Even after the successful election fraud of 2020, the progressives and their GOP operatives will ensure the demographics change enough to where they won’t have to cheat.
When things go really bad in a few months, the media will go in full battle mode as state operatives and blame it all on Trump and their most reliable GOTO “”white supremacy”. Then half the voting base (at least half) will eat it up and desperately attempt to show their piety.
Gosh darnit, your comment is all too real for me this early in the morning. I might have to put some hard stuff in my coffee.
They will always cheat when possible—as in close elections with poor polling safeguards. Increasing demographics just makes the job easier. Where I am located, no substantial changes to a broken voting system have been implemented. Indeed, the system is about to get worse as the County is about to do away with voting precincts in favor of centralized—and reduced—voting “stations” in “selected” locations.
No longer will you drive a short distance to your local school or church to vote with your neighbors. Expect this move to eliminate the few remaining die hards that refuse to “vote” by mail—and then it’s all over.
“No longer will you drive a short distance to your local school or church to vote with your neighbors. Expect this move to eliminate the few remaining die hards that refuse to “vote” by mail—and then it’s all over.”
This is another development that assures the breakup of the country. Some states and localities will do what yours are doing. Others will not–and have already taken major steps to ensure election integrity.
And the states–and probably even portions of states–will not continue together in the same polity.
Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter is the greatest threat to regime media control EVER. Let’s put it this way: the Ruling Class will blow up the world before they relinquish control of messaging in even one corner of their media domain. Musk is far from being a dissident, so imagine how they’ll treat those of us who are. For all of Steve Bannon’s bluster about the coming fight against the oligarchy being “a long, hard slog”, I imagine it’s going to be worse than that.
Götterdamn-it-all: Bannon’s showing his age in more way than one. It’s not 1917 or 1941 and we’re not facing trench warfare or years of fighting for acreage and city blocks, and it’s not 1920 when the Juice began their long march through the Academy and the Media.
We truly don’t have the time for any sort of ‘slog.’ Reflect on the pace of change over the past decade and tell me with a straight face and all sincerity we have even until 2032 to somehow pull things together.
I just finished reading and participating in a Musk and Twitter discussion elsewhere. There perhaps was no consensus, but mine and several other participants might be summed as follows:
We cheer on Musk as anyone, if for no other reason than he is challenging the Woke status quo and apparently is giving fits to the foaming at the mouth liberals in media. There is a certain entertainment value to watching a liberal pundit metaphorically flopping around on the floor, clutching his chest, gasping and turning blue. 😀
Many of us remain dubious of his motives. After all, here is the world’s wealthiest man. Much of his wealth was and is directly derived from projects that are the darling of the Green/Woke/Liberal/New World Order. Not the least are solar electric power generation, battery storage, electric automobiles, electronic payment systems and so on. Much of his wealth comes directly from government subsidy. By his wealth and influence alone, one might well suspect him of having numerous Deep State connections. As such, a skeptic can only wonder if he doesn’t have some hidden motives with his current bid for Twitter.
” … the media will go in full battle mode … .”
IFF there’s an unfailing supply of electricity. And IFF there’s enough for the broadcasters *and* for everybody’s TV set.
But suppose somebody decides that should not be allowed to happen?
Can we all agree that when the fed raises interest rates and investment firms like Blackrock and Tricon (Canadian) who’ve been overpaying for huge blocks of US single home units with highly leveraged cheap money and inevitably go bankrupt when home prices crash, there’s NO BAILOUTS?
And maybe jail time for CEOs? (A man can dream)
No it’s all Putin’s fault and things will go swimmingly once Russia, China, and India are defeated and all your kids are gay….
I suspect BlackRock and Co. will snap up even more real estate as the Dirts thrown out of work default. But, yes, the lesser Clouds will take a direct hit and implode.
have a look at this jack, they got plans for more than real estate. https://www.brighteon.com/b02e43b7-fcfc-49bc-9b66-c882e6c51621
That’s totally not psychotic, but it does illustrate the intended endgame.
“I suspect BlackRock and Co. will snap up even more real estate as the Dirts thrown out of work default.”
In conditions like that, I don’t think courts would be operating or, if they were, that they would be able to enforce any judgment that they might make.
If we get to the point–and the prospect is very real now–at which there is no distribution system and no payments system, I don’t see how any sort of courts or police could even exist.
It doesn’t seem realistic to me to expect millions of people to accept homelessness and hunger just so that fat cats and speculate in real estate. And anyway, if the Dirts are out of work, who are the renters?
It’s true, nevertheless, that millions of people did submit to such gross injustices during the 1930s. But the country very nearly fell to Communism at that time, and the country was a FAR different place, with a FAR different population that had FAR different expectations from their government.
That’s not the case now.
Anyway, I think we are going to find out.
Whether it will work or not, think “warlordism.” Blackrock will have its own means of dispute resolution and subsequent enforcement. We’ve seen that in recent history when private trusts used Pinkerton to settle labor disputes.
Antifa requires backing of the State, but something along those lines will be deployed.
To be clear, I agree the die is cast and things are moving to a head. The Clouds very well may lose–I’ll even venture they likely will lose, but how many of us are taken down with them?
Probably.
They’re not going to like it when Congress or the President wave their magic wand and declare a “rent holiday” due to the depression, or the regulations that are going to come in the form of a “Renters Bill of Rights”.
You will find that will only apply to small landlords and just focus on those evil individuals who have 2 or more homes.
Large companies will obviously be exempt.
that’s going to be lit. people will start squatting in corporate homes, or burning them down. blackrock is doomed, and i could not be happier.
The lit-est part will be watching grifters like Sharpton trying to explain to Shitavious and Shanika why they shouldn’t burn their Blackrock-owned homes.
“Blackrock, sheeeit, it’s Whiterock, motherfucka,” Shitavious said, filling his Molotov cocktail with leftover Maddog 40/40.
Excuse me, but his name is Shitquan and he drinks Mad Dog 20/20. Get it right.
40/40 is the extra strength, grape drank stuff.
Even pure alcohol while flammable, would not make good combustible for a Molotov cocktail. Most types of drinkable alcohol won’t even light on fire until you get well into the 100+ proof ( > 50% ethanol) range. All malt products, wines and even a surprising number of “hard liquor” are, for all practical purposes, non-flammable.
I know from experience. Not because I’m a WW I era anarchist, but because I was a little pyro with his chemistry set when I was growing up. 😀
Jail is too good for the banksters, Blackrock et al. We’re going to get medival: breaking on the wheel, maybe even bring back the Brass Bull.
Maybe for the Opening Bell on wall street, we can tie a metal strap to the Banker of the Day, toss him/her in boiling oil, and let xhir’s death throws ring the bell to open the markets!
“Can we all agree that when the fed raises interest rates and investment firms like Blackrock and Tricon […] inevitably go bankrupt when home prices crash, there’s NO BAILOUTS?
“And maybe jail time for CEOs?”
An interesting thought experiment.
My guess is that it would depend on the general “landscape” at the time such an event might happen. If things are not desperately bad, and if we see what we have been trained to expect–that the criminals go unpunished–then frightened people might prefer not to rock the boat.
But if things are bad and people are wretched, I wouldn’t expect courts even to exist or, if they did, to be able to enforce their decisions.
In that case, I’d expect “people’s justice.
Never fear, good people. Soon, Biden will release our strategic reserves of seed corn. See? Problem solved.
Top. Men.
Weimar a hundred year ago, anyone?
You should give the Austrians some credit even if many Austrians are libertarian: Rothbard on the banks, von Mises’ “crack up boom,” even the annoying Peter Schiff. Also Glenn Greenwald’s substack yesterday had an interesting piece on who benefits from sensorship and the Ukraine war.
Why would the world fork out for Fed assets like equities and treasuries? How will purchasers recover the value of what they invest? Debt defaults crash non-material asset values even while, as you pointed out, a replay of 2008/2009 housing crisis looks to be in the works. Add to that misery the coming trans-Asian BRI and the petroruble or some such alt debt-and-settle currency. The pols and their rigged elections will likely do fine and we, Orwell’s proto-proles, may, sadly, look to take our frustrations out on each other.
“censorship.” Interesting typo though.
The Austrians get most things right about the economic matters, with a few exceptions. Probably the most glaring is how they completely deny the benefits of companies creating monopolies to snuff out competition. I mean, FFS, look at the long history. Socially they get things wrong as well. They’re generally ardent open borders advocates. Workers are replaceable gears in the supply and demand machine. No difference between an African pigmy and a native born white. No regards to social cohesion or credit either.
The biggest mistake they make the: labor is relying on ceteris parabis and not coming to grips with the reality that ceteris is almost never parabis in the real world that humans live in.
“The biggest mistake they make the: labor is relying on ceteris parabis … .”
Exactly.
Things are changing all the time, and there is no reason to expect the future to be nothing more than an extension of present conditions or even trends.
And at the risk of beating a dead horse, I repeat: electricity.
With all due respect you guys are missing the point of the “ceteris parabis” concept. In any scenario in the real world there are a multitude, sometimes infinite, possible variables. If you know anything about multi-variate statistical analysis then you understand that in order to focus in on the one or small few variable to be measures you must simplify the equation a bit to get any meaningful result. So, the assumption of ceteris parabis is applied in order to measure those meaningful variables, knowing full well that you are eliminating a multitude of other factors that all have minuscule R2 values however if left in, just equates to noise that downs out any real measurable correlation. That’s the point of ceteris parabis, which is often taken too literally (clearly the case here).
My statistics and operational analysis classes were decades ago and I only hazily grasp what you’ve said. Even so, allow me to offer perhaps another view, one not even requiring such math knowledge.
In a sense, over the last few centuries math allowed science to discover much about the world, including human activity (e.g. economics.) Computerization (something that was my field) of course greatly amplified that power, but it also greatly increased the risk of error. This last possibility is often overlooked. Nobody likes to admit they might be wrong. Or to state the issue another way: computers give enormous power to do for example, data mining or statistical analysis. Many factors (independent variables) may be discovered? But which are critical? Totally irrelevant? In between? The sciences sometimes do, but sometimes don’t help to distinguish between those.
A contrived example might be: Imagine that in the 1960s, detailed surveys of American lifestyles showed that successful, fully employed families had a color TV in their home. The children, for the most part, went to school, got good grades and graduated. Many ended up going to university, etc. Teams of researchers determined that the less privileged, Blacks in the ghetto, Feather Indians living on the reservations, White Trash living in shacks in the Appalachians, just needed a brand new Philco, RCA or Magnavox Color TV set. Millions of TVs were shipped out and distributed to the poor. Yet little or no improvement was found in the lives of the people.
Now, you may think my example ridiculous and indeed it is. But I submit to you that there are numberless examples just as risible. The only difference is that the real world examples will be much more complex but often just as misguided.
The underlying assumption: “If all else remains equal…” but that is rarely the case.
Austrians rightly believe the any monopoly in the market will inevitably disintegrate under natural market forces. As a company grows larger the internal overhead of the company becomes so intrusive that costs are driven up compared to a hungry start-up. Additionally, larger companies have a tendency to rest on their laurels in terms of product innovation (see: Apple). Assuming that the monopoly has no government protection in the form of taxes and regulations (things that disproportionately affect small/medium sized businesses) eventually the smaller companies will offer a better product at a cheaper cost, and the consumers will start buying from them instead of the monopoly. That’s the theory.
But, as you rightly implied, this isn’t really what happens in real life. The Board members get chummy with government officials via social networks, bribes are exchanged, and regulations passed that the corporate monopoly can survive but snuffs out the start-ups. You are additionally correct in that this model does not take into account individual human capital, and that “big L” Libertarians foolishly support open borders in a vain attempt to stick to their idealism. Trust me, I’ve pressed numerous big-L’s on this subject and you can always tell they’re lying thru their teeth when they say these things, but still feel the need to stick to their “ideals”.
Keep in mind that Austrians are economists, not politicians. Many people get that confused and take their beliefs at face value as their strident political stance; or, conversely, criticize others on the basis of this set of beliefs. Remember, as our esteemed author frequently states, economics is but a tool.
sadly youre probably right . they will set us at each other
The only criticism I’d offer is literary. I recently re-read “1984” and ironically the Proles are virtually unaffected by the machinations of the government’s “Outer Party” and “Inner Party.” I’m too lazy to look up a quote, but the gist of it is that the Proles’ world consisted mostly of menial labor, relatively stable but austere food and housing, and few recreations beyond drink, gambling and gossip. Beyond the livestock-like treatment and subsistence level existence, to which they were adapted, they suffered little at hands of government, beyond random deaths due to an enemy missile.
Your “proto-Prole” comment would be a bit more accurate stated as this: The Party was the sole ruler and individuals of the inner or outer party might simply disappear for no apparent reason. The victim might resurface, now fallen from grace or
perhaps rehabilitated. But other times never heard of again, they would be erased from history. All to suit the Party’s current needs and wishes. Orwell’s dystopian vision shows a monolithic, eternal government, totally unified. The only true (?) opponents were Eurasia and East Asia, who never directly appear in the story. Also absent in “1984” is any mass round-up of Proles. Presumably this had happened in the revolution. The vision, then, of a never-ending dictatorship, the boot stamping on your face forever meme. 🙁
If there’s any good news, it’s probably that no system will stand forever, no matter how brutal.
Our groceries cost more because diesel fuel is five bucks a gallon. We could start to fix things right now if we resuscitate the US oil and gas industry. Reinstate the Trump policies of three years ago, open the pipelines, and encourage domestic drilling and exploration.
Veeze: While fuel costs have significantly contributed to the increasing cost of groceries, there are numerous other factors involved (fertilizer, feed, bad weather/poor harvests, etc.). We ought to resuscitate the US oil and gas industry regardless, but that wouldn’t be ‘green’ and it would provide jobs to blue-collar White deplorables. Thus it will not happen. Prepare to run your vehicle with Unicorn farts and eat fairy dust.
I’m not so sure about that. I mean, yeah, it’s not good. But I worked for a while doing mathy stuff for a big delivery company and the fuel share of cost is pretty low. The big drivers of cost are capital and labor.
Louisiana crawfish is now $19 per pound (cleaned tail meat) vs $12 a few months ago.
Quit your bitchin—just switch to lobster. 😉
things could be worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgn9fAymS2g&ab_channel=MovieQuotes
scene from Raising Arizona: “when there was no crawdad…”
Enoch Cade: The Vietnamese in America are merely demonstrating that they’ve mastered the arts of democracy and capitalism.
I belong to a book club, and the very modest restaurant where we have been meeting for years recently raised their prices by 100% across the board.
Doesn’t seem to have hurt their business one whit. But our local and state economies are in good shape. We ignored the Chinkypox except for the two weeks to flatten the curve.
A lot of these problems go away with cheaper energy costs, ideally produced domestically.
Thankfully the ruling class has finally started speaking to the needs of the American people. As it’s spring again, my neighbors have started grilling once more, and it gives us a chance to play catchup and pick each other’s brains. No one’s worried about the price of goods, or the skyrocketing cost of gas, or the fact that teachers are trying to convince children to have elective mastectomies or castrations that will leave them looking like cancer sufferers. Likewise, the fact that thousands of people willing to shoot each other over the outcomes of cockfights are pouring in daily from across the Southern Border isn’t much of a concern. My buddies Earl and Bocephus only want to talk about the Donbas, or shoot the breeze about the autonomy of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. That’s the real issue in flyover country. If you see your neighbor’s son overdosing on fentanyl because he can’t get a job and he’s constantly indoctrinated to think he’s evil because of the immutable characteristic that is the color of his skin, your first thought is going to be, “I hope my tax dollars go to purchase the latest laser-guided surface-to-air manpads to the irregular forces holding out in Kiev.” My buddies have even replaced their Calvin peeing on a Ford decals with little Azov Battalion bumper stickers. Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have their fingers on the pulse of the American people. This is going to end well.
May I state that this was simply a pleasure to read. I particularly loved the cancer survivor observation and the stakes of cock fighting. Awesome!
Sounds like you live in a neighborhood filled with Redditors. Where I live in Flyover Country, no one who isn’t intensely online gives two shits about “the Ukraine”. Everything I hear is about gas prices and the rising costs of food, cars, and housing.
You are correct that Joe Normie doesn’t have the time to appropriately consider the consequences of CRT, unrestricted “immigration”, or tranny groomers, but for people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and fill their tank with $10 of cash at a time, inflation is *the only* issue on their minds.
That’s been my experience as well, Mr. Generic. Those glued to conservative talk radio or their counterparts on Twitter/social media are all down with the Ukrainians, but even they are losing interest and moving on to the next Big Shiny Thing.
Mr. Generic: I wish to God there was some way to direct charity solely to White people. Until I can direct who my giving goes to support, I will continue to trash things before I donate food, clothing, or money to anyone in AINO.
Well 3g, it is easier than you think – just stop outsourcing your morality to the immoral. If you give charity, find a person in need and help them out. Pay for some white mother’s groceries, buy the tank of gas for the white working man on the pump next to yours. Giving money to an intermediary so you can avoid seeing the people you are helping is so pharisitical I am surprised you can stand the thought.
hilarious. made me laugh. thank you.
“… little Azov Battalion bumper stickers.”
I wonder if our ruling ‘elites’ have enough cognitive capability left to understand that ALL of the consequential masculine energy in the Ukraine conflict is nationalist. Azov ‘nazis’ and their likeminded aren’t fighting FOR Globohomo, Inc. They are fighting for their own people, having cut a very unwise deal to serve as shock troops for internationalist oligarchs in an attempt to separate themselves from East Slavic civilization. Those being destroyed in Mariupol are the spear point of a larger movement which is a manifestation of their people’s nationalism. It isn’t going away.
I expect that the political lines Putin will impose will correspond mostly with the ethnolinguistic distributions. The EU is getting stuck with these people, essentially former non-voting colonists who they will be compelled to make voting citizens of their civilizational realm. How will the EU deal with these people? More dark humor on the horizon ….
i want Azoz Battalion action figures!
“More dark humor on the horizon ….”
The euro is circling the drain now. The EU won’t survive what is coming soon in Europe.
It’s starts at the periphery and moves inward.
So there is some good news, then?
The Quake-was-good-game Party is all in, doubled down, gender-bent etc. on Ukraine Democracy Now BAMN. It seemed so demented to me as the funhouse-mirror reflection of the luxury-belief behavior I expect from Berkeley progressives, about Palestine or Mumia Abu Jamal or some nonsense, but then, they do always tell me on The Daily Wire about how “The left won the culture war” — sure, whatever. I can see that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. I’d prefer however, them just to quote instead Robert Duvall’s war cry in “Network” about the ratings, “We’ve got a big, fat, big-titted hit”
I don’t believe that this mess is primarily caused by foolishness.
How could they be THAT foolish? Anyone who took basic economics in high school would understand what the consequences of these policies would be.
No, i think we are in this mess because it was intentional. The race baiting, the attacks on the family and normal traditional mores, the national debt, the attack on Christianity and free speech, open boarders, unequal justice…and on and on, no, there is a plan.
This is intentional. The intent is to replace Western Civilization with something browner, poorer, and under complete control of an elite corps of evil, godless globalists.
I go back and forth. It certainly has the effect of redistribution via strip mining the White middle and working class’ wealth and providing it to a new, more compliant electorate. On the other hand, these Regime people are retarded. Tough call, maybe both. It certainly seems the hyper political Treasury Department is going with the former, the Fed fighting against it. Burrowed in the Fed as an asset buyer is Larry Fink, who wants the inflation to continue and the redistribution train to roll on, and he criticizes his purported boss, Jerome Powell, for upping interest rates.
This is where I regularly chime in with, Maybe the regime people are not the leaders. I agree that they are absolutely vile morons, but I also do not believe they are the top of the food chain. Real power is the ability to cloak yourself in this era when previously private lives are de facto public. Look for the people who have the power to stay out of the controlling public eye.
I agree with that take.
Yes, I’d be inclined to agree – at least in a ‘democracy’ such as ours. This is made even easier by the fact that it is hard to pin the blame on people in a ‘democracy’. I mean, who do you blame for wetbacks slinking across the border? The voters? The border patrol guard who tries to stop them? The President? His advisors? Axl Rose?
Of course, in some un-democratic setups many public figures do seem to have been the center of power. The most obvious examples are Schicklgruber and Jughashvili, who seemed to be figures inspiring terror and awe amongst their subordinates; often in such a manner that the lengths said subordinates would go to to kiss their arses were epic.
I got a call from my tax accountant yesterday letting me know I owe an egregious amount of money (five figures) for a new tax that goes to an organization I despise (Portland Metro) to entice even more vagrants, bums, and assorted miscreants to the already decimated area. And I no longer even live in that idiotic state! It’s retroactive you see.
I’ve met some of the characters running that particular grift. They aren’t stupid and know exactly what they’re doing. It’s incredible how quickly they dismantled that city.
Peabody: That’s insane. Hopefully this theft is ‘retroactive’ for only this year, and afterwards they can’t get their claws on any more of your money.
If you no longer live in Oregon, is there the option to simply ignore them? I know almost nothing about tax law, but unless you still have assets in that State, is there a possibility that one State cannot levy assets outside its borders?
Not offering legal advice, merely wondering if yours is an opportunity to tell a bureaucrat to kiss your ass, a rare pleasure indeed not to be missed.
It’s like the indoor mask mandates in Philadelphia we’re less about health and more about re-normalizing face coverings so Antifa and BLM can start burning down cities for another summer prior to the fall elections.
Nice city you have there. Shame if it should vote R.
Those groups are being brought back to further drive the, “we need mail-in ballots now!” narrative.
Messy, on-site voter intimidation at the polling places is no longer needed.
“I don’t believe that this mess is primarily caused by foolishness.
How could they be THAT foolish? Anyone who took basic economics in high school would understand what the consequences of these policies would be.”
Never ascribe to malice what which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Yes, you would think educated, logical people would weigh the pros and cons of each decision they make and try to decide a path that either causes the least amount of harm or benefits the greatest number of people.
You would be wrong, as human nature shows ignorance and arrogance are a toxic mix.
I sadly believe we are being ruled directly and indirectly by a group of people who “Want what I want NOW and I’d BETTER get it NOW!” And some of these folks think they are rich enough that nothing will ever harm them.
“Yes, you would think educated, logical people would weigh the pros and cons of each decision they make … .”
“Educated” meaning “their minds trained in government schools”?
Then I would expect exactly what we see.
These people have also been taught to abandon common sense. Not that they had any to abandon, or they would never have swallowed the egalitarian swill that they have.
Common sense would have told them that pursuing a hands-off economic policy was the only sensible course of action since it is their tinkering with the economy that has wrecked things.
The economy is too complex for anybody to understand, and common sense would have taught them that, too.
But they had to tinker with things beyond their ken *and* ours so that they could buy votes, the lifeblood of democracy.
We sold our soul for the false god called “democracy.”
Now the piper demands to be paid. And he *will* be paid, even by those who never danced even a single step.
“Never ascribe to malice what which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
I am pretty sure a malicious person coined this phrase.
“Nothing?” “Ever?” 😈
Its important to distinguish between foolishness and unintelligence. Intelligence simply refers to how quickly someone’s brain can process stimuli. Foolishness refers to the deliberate choice to make shallow, short-sighted, selfish decisions, and being unwilling to consider costs, tradeoffs, or unintended consequences. Foolishness is evil because it’s a choice to blind one’s self to seeing all sorts of things. Our nominal leaders will be surprised by the problems that arise because they chose not to see them coming. “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
John Williams Shadowstats comes closer to the truth.
I N F L A T I O N – FLASH (Apr 13): The still-published original Finished Goods Producer Price Index series hit a 47-year high (since 1975) year-to-year inflation rate of 15.9% in March 2022, while the current Final-Demand Goods PPI-FD series (created in 2009) hit its all-time (13-year) high of 15.7%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Z, this is a reply from Citizen of a Silly Country to a comment I made yesterday. It sounds about right and is somewhat of a distillation of your column today. If you get the chance, is this kind of/sort of your take:
“Historically, govts have always choosen to inflate away the debt rather than going the default route.
My guess is that the West will attempt to use the playbook from the 1940s, i.e., financial repression – inflation while holding real yields negative. Heck, they’re doing it right now.
The problem is that we’re not the same country as we were in the 1940s. In the 40s, we had good demographics, very low private debt, a cohesive society, capital controls, very good real GDP growth, and a govt that held down spending to keep deficits well below nominal GDP growth.”
Again, that seems right, and would explain the panic. If correct, the balancing act is between a revolution and how much economic oppression can be imposed without it.
And they changed Regulation Q! So we can look forward to forced IRA/401-k savings in US Treasuries for “the protection of the public”. No more of this Robinhood foolishness………
While it seemed inconsequential as outrages go, Gamestop showed exactly how “free” the markets are. The bottom line in that incident is Tribe members weren’t able to profit handsomely enough so upstart young day traders were put under federal investigation.
Gamestop showed equities are not meant for the little Gentile guys, and Dirts owning 401ks simply is not acceptable. Those have been low-hanging fruits ripe for seizure for some time.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the govt used 401k money to buy treasuries. But they could do it very quietly.
For example, I think that it was around ten years ago (not sure) but a seemingly small regulation change had massive implications. Basically, 401ks had to offer index funds and then later, they made the default pick target date funds which are just a collection of index funds.
This meant that huge amounts of money started to automatically flow into index funds, primarily the S&P 500 index and Barclay’s bond index. There’s reasonable evidence that this is distorting the market.
Regardless, if the govt makes govt bonds the required “safe” holding for target date funds and/or required target date funds to hold more in bonds, it would effectively push billions of dollars a month into the treasury market.
A stealth bail-in that has already occurred would not surprise me in the least.
The other terrifying aspect of the current financial system is that overnight repo has skyrocketed to $2 trillion nightly.
South Park said it best:
“…aaaaand….it’s gone.”
“The other terrifying aspect of the current financial system is that overnight repo has skyrocketed to $2 trillion nightly.”
Jerome Powell announced in August 2019 that the Fed was opening a special repo market window for foreign central banks. The FedRes had become the world’s lender of last resort.
On October 18, 2019, the pandemic simulation “event 201” was held in NYC.
In January 2020, the Bank of Japan announced that it would buy Japanese gov’t debt “limit.”
Covid was first announced in the press that same month.
Among the many problems with running the 1940s game plan is, as I mentioned, private debt is also very high today.
While the preferred method of dealing with debt for govts who control their own currency is inflation, those entities that hold debt in someone else’s currency only have the choice of paying off the debt or defaulting.
Sri Lanka is defaulting now because their debt is in dollars. Greece defaulted years ago because its debt was in Euros.
But you know who also holds debt in someone else’s currency: businesses. Joe Blow Trucking Company can’t inflate away its debt. If interest rates rise faster than gross income, Joe Blow Trucking Company is in deep shit. Remember, companies can’t artificially hold down their interest rates below the rate of inflation. They don’t have their own fed.
And, of course, inflation hammers the working class, which seems to be in no mood for it.
The 1940s playbook is going to be far, far harder to run this time around. They’ve been running it for one year and while it has worked (debt to GDP went from 130% to 122%), things are already starting to break. I find it hard to believe that they’ll be able to do this for another five or six years.
OTOH, what’s the alternative? Cut spending and raise taxes. Even if Congress would approve such a plan, it’d likely push the economy into recession, making the problem even worse.
We’re in a bad spot. The whole world has too much debt – public and private. It has to be dealt with because interest rates can no longer fall and inflation is back, both of which start to make the debt matter.
Just to echo, the scheme (QT to hold down government financing rates, but high rates for everyone else) would just destroy private debt in exchange for public. This would work to hold the government’s head close to the water line, but eventually they’d run out of private debt to destroy to offset government spending inflation and the cycle will resume. With the resulting collapse in tax revenue I doubt such a plan would even buy them a whole election cycle, but, that doesn’t put it beyond the realm of possibility.
The problem with the govt backstopping the economy and the markets is that it puts the govt into the game. What happens if people lose faith in the govt?
The govt is the last line of defense. When you throw those troops into the battle, you better win.
How high can govt debt to gdp go? No one knows. No one wants to find out. Once you hit that number, very bad things start to happen.
“I doubt such a plan would even buy them a whole election cycle, but, that doesn’t put it beyond the realm of possibility.”
Nobody is in control. They may think they are, but they are not.
Events have gained their own momentum and must now run to their logical conclusion, whatever that may be.
Everything now is just a kind of show. I *think* the (((neocons))) goaded Russia into war as at least one act in this show.
Seminal questions and homework assignment.
Why is it that a short faggy Jew masquerading as the figurehead for a Nazi gang can persuade tens of thousands of white Christian men (including more than a few alphas) to die on his behalf? How sick does a society have to be in order to allow this abomination to go on for nearly a decade? Rather than commit genocide against it own people, why won’t these white guys get rid of the little shit that is the source of their misery? How can a man be a man and defend his wife and children against all harm, but ignore the puss-filled chancre that infects his community? Why is Normie’s ass so fat and why is he addicted to Starbucks latte? Why does he not know how to change a tire or chop a cord of wood with a long handle axe? When is enough enough?
> Why is it that a short faggy Jew masquerading as the figurehead for a Nazi gang can persuade tens of thousands of white Christian men (including more than a few alphas) to die on his behalf?
If you’re talking about the Ukrainian conscripts, it’s easy why they fight: They will be shot in the back by the Azov member if they attempt to desert.
For the Azov volunteers, they aren’t dying on Zelenskyyyyy’s behalf at all. They are dying on behalf of their own nihilism, which is a direct result of a hopeless life and raw, unbridled hatred of Russians. From our perspective it looks as if they are not acting in their own self-interest. But from their perspective, their “interest” is finally having the opportunity to murder their Russian-speaking neighbors.
Do you want to be the guy who murders his neighbor just because? Or only kill when it’s tangibly justified and necessary as a last resort? If you’re a conscript and justifiably concerned about being shot in the back, how is it that the Nazi still wakes up the next morning? He’s got to sleep sometime.
“Do you want to be the guy who murders his neighbor just because? […]”
Ask Abe Lincoln.
Exactly! We like to joke about Lincoln, but he really did tap into a lot of the same sentiment. The Yankees talked up “abolition” to paper over their bloodlust with a moral imperative, but much of the Civil War can be explained by northern politicians exploiting the desire of Yankees and European immigrants to murder “those evil southerners” whose acknowledgement of basic human biological differences was an affront to their “Enlightenment” values.
I can’t tell if you’re being tongue in cheek, or if you’re serious and just not very bright. If you are serious, then you really should have noticed by now that most people, if given the choice, will choose leisure instead of work, and will therefore go along with whatever system maximizes their leisure and minimizes their work. In short, most people are lazy, and will be as lazy as they can afford.
Is affluence-borne laziness an excuse to become a limp-wristed coward? Is laziness worth not being able to look in the mirror?
What you on about? I didn’t say it was a good excuse, only that it’s patently obvious most people are lazy, in answer to your questions. You seem to be really struggling with accepting that lots of people are lazy. It’s not exactly a secret.
Which country are you speaking about?
US, UK, France, Germany ?
Anywhere on the planet, when a man self-castrates, he should just finish the job and slit his own throat. Just existing as a coward is a bad example for others.
So what, besides cowardice, has prevented you from being the “bolt from the blue” you’re always LARPing about?
” … when a man self-castrates, he should just finish the job and slit his own throat.”
That would be ideal, but few things–if any–are ideal.
What you describe is a shame to a man of honor, but how many of those are there in the general population? Not many.
Because our population is 320-odd million, there are probably a few million such men in AINO. I expect them at some point–let’s call it “the breaking point” or “the moment of maximum danger”–to do what such men will always do.
It’s important to keep in mind that revolutions take place in people’s hearts and minds. The shooting comes *after* the revolution.
The revolution is going full speed right now. The shooting will come later–at the moment of maximum danger; at the breaking point.
We just have to wait until “the time” arrives. When it does, it will be organic, and nobody will have to point it out. It will come at the kairotic moment. These things cannot be rushed.
government does have a way to solve the effects of inflation, raise their wages. They have done recently and will continue.
Oh, you mean the rest of us?
Well, our slimy politicians will do what all slimy politicians do – attempt to deflect the blame for their idiot policies in a desperate ploy to keep the pitchforks at bay. It’s Putin’s fault, sheeple. He’s the reason for your pain and suffering. In addition, we’ve got a bridge to sell you…
One of the more mystifying things I have noticed about our current situation is that the employment market is tight. Big companies have tons of jobs they can’t fill and there are help wanted signs up everywhere. Sooner or later this craziness has to affect the labor market.. I am just not learned enough to predict how or when.
I think we have a huge labor problem. Airline pilots are not floating over the Rio Grande. Decades of reckless immigration polices have diluted the labor pool.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-11/prime-age-male-employment-remains-below-historical-levels
Apparently, 5 million prime working-age men are missing from the labor force. They cannot all be hiding in Nick Fuentes’ basement or at Antifa meetings.
I would love for you to write an essay on this topic because it is one of the biggest problems/conundrums of our era.
They are all dead of side effects.
America has its own version of the hikimori. Heh. And they’re not necessarily black, either.
What? They are not seeing us “their best”?
Nah, the newest paper americans are all busy becoming nurses, doctors, engineers, and accountants.
We also do not graduate folks in the types of fields employers want/need. We are a stupid lot—regardless of race.
I have thought that the labor shortage is one of those pretend shortages like the Wall Street Journal used to talk about. I recall they wrote a piece worrying about the shortage of labor in the hotel industry. Now, if I remember right, the free market has a solution for just this sort of problem. But when I looked at the wages of hotel workers, whaddya know! no increase. So, they were lying.
My guess is that what we are seeing with all these stories about not being able to find workers willing to do the work (at the wage rate the business would prefer to pay), is a years-long fight to keep the returns to capital (broadly interpreted) high. My guess is that some of the supply chain problems we observe have to do with fewer competent people willing to play a rigged game. The solution, which was always to import more workers, is not as effective as it used to be.
sounds like the underground economy is where all the “hiring” is taking place. most low level jobs are hideous now, and not worth taking at any pay rate being offered. imagine working at some fast food place for $12/hr and dealing with crazy customers, ass hole managers, and a fascist corporation!? not to mention the innately shitty nature of food industry work.
12 an hour? Heh. Ads around here are 15+ per hour for fast food. You shop around, you could do $20 an hour for flipping burgers. Insanity.
Yep, $17-19 for fast food here. However, cut a buck off for each of the last two years due to inflation.
The Great Resignation is real.
Anyone who managed their money halfway decently since the mid-90s Internet boom has enough savings and equities income to walk away from the workplace for the time being.
There is something going on with public health, as analyzed here using state of Massachusetts data:
https://coquindechien.substack.com/p/c19-vaccine-the-cause-of-causes?s=r
The problem is the anomaly they claim is not large enough to explain the lack of workers. It is also small enough for TPTB to ignore as unworthy of any investigation or explanation.
Pertinent to me, as my company is now hiring.
For a mid-level role that pays well, in a sector where there are, in fact, large numbers of jobs, we have had… 2 peoples CVs put to us. Now, the agency that handles the CVs for us probably shunned a few more, but for just two to get through? Hmm…
And guess what colour they are? The first note I made about the most recent candidate was “has very brown skin”.
But yes, from a man who is up to date with demand and supply in his sector, there are a lot of jobs out there. What the devil is going on?
My place of employment is having a hard time finding workers too. In fact I’m looking for new employment, and I’ve sent out resumes over the last two months and I’ve gotten very few replies. I used to get replies, positive and negative, within a week or two, on at least half the resumes I sent out. Now I don’t even get the negative ones in good time. Is there an HR shortage too? Or am I stupidly revealing my racial identity on the application form?
the job descriptions are too intimidating for the average worker to consider. My job description, when I was getting ready to retire and they advertised for my replacement, made it sound as if you needed a degree in business administration and 5 years experience, when in fact I could have trained in a week a person pulled off the street to do what I actually did. But HR-sigh—
“Or am I stupidly revealing my racial identity on the application form?”
Could be your race–or your age.
Companies prefer utterly unreliable young people to reliable people over 50 or 60. They probably tell themselves that that has to do with longevity with the company, or something equally ridiculous, since the days of loyalty to employees is long gone.
But they will take a stupid and unreliable kid over reliable oldsters every time.
Anyone vibrant and/or female that can fill out an Excel spreadsheet has corporate opportunities raining down like manna from heaven.
Just say on your resume that you’re a non-cisgendered transitioning polysexual human of diverse race. If you show up for the interview as a white male in a three-piece and are called on it, just say you identify as those things. if the employer remains skeptical, point out that lying is a disability and you are, in addition, thus handicapped. 🙂
It’s pretty simple. Highly skilled boomers and late GenXers close to retirement were forced to choose vax or get fired, while others were paid to not work. After not working for awhile, they learned to enjoy it.
In my last paid position when some innocent person asked what I did for work I replied more or less: “I’m honest enough to not call it ‘work.’ More accurately, I’m paid to be in an air-conditioned room forty hours per week.” 🙂 Eventually I was laid off. I found I had a pot of money sufficient to not have to work and to be able to pursue my own dreams (within a budget of course.) And so the true Layabout was born.
Now I’m the first to admit that I’ve had a rather easy life. Even so, I saw so many people who seemed to work long hours, oftentimes at pointless tasks, that I honestly thought to myself: “I would rather live in a shack and subsist on bread and water than put up with the bullshit that so many of workers endure.” Now all the toys and other stuff that go along with “the good life” are fun to have, but only up to a certain point. I’m not ready to survive on a bowl of rice, two robes, and days spent meditating in the hut, as Buddhist monks did and apparently still do. But I believe they were onto some good ideas.
zman, you mentioned real estate prices dropping; what other asset classes (that cloud people hold) will be hit by the biden economy? because causing his own inner party pain, has got to be a trigger for his immediate removal.
That’s a good question. I suspect the real estate will be cratered temporarily so the Dirt folks will lose property that will be quickly snapped up by the Clouds.
I want say classic cars, but thinking about it that demographic is more the UMC, not-quite-Cloud people than actual Clouds.