For those old enough to recall the 1970’s, the present economic turmoil looks a lot like the stagflation from fifty years ago. Just like a half century ago, we have a mix of inflation, economic stagnation and incompetent leadership in Washington. Joe Biden is not exactly Jimmy Carter, as Carter was an honest man, but like Carter, the public sees him as a man out of his depth. Like Carter, he wound up in the job due to a crisis within the political class over a previous president.
It is a comforting parallel for many people, because if the pattern holds, it means there is a Ronald Reagan coming after Biden. The saner elements in the ruling elite will rally to a sober minded governor who can withstand the progressive crazies. Many people are looking at Ron DeSantis as the man who can save the system. Trump running in 2024 could throw a wrench in the story, but maybe the ruling elite has a plan to get that element out of the script so the story can continue.
This problem with the script is a reminder that historical parallels are like all generalizations in that they are a starting point. They help frame the times to better understand the details. We know the general plot of one side of the comparison, so it allows us to infer things about the other side. From there we have a basis from which to analyze the present. In this comparison, however, the observable similarities have different direct and root causes.
For example, the current energy crisis is different from the crisis in the 1970’s, which was mostly driven by the currency war and an oil embargo. The collapse of the post-war currency arrangements not only gave us inflation, but it also created havoc in commodities, which are sensitive to currency fluctuations. The big driver was the Arab oil embargo over US support for Israel. The embargo was always a short term strategy to get a better deal from the West.
The present energy crisis is primarily systemic. Generations of mismanagement are finally showing up in the price. The United States was the largest exporter a few years ago, but then the government reversed course and exports have collapsed, making America a net importer again. Europe is smashing its energy system in an effort to make the Russians look bad on Twitter. There is more than enough energy to go around, but the system to distribute it is collapsing.
In the 1970’s, the solution to the energy crisis was to make a deal with the Arabs so they would end the embargo. There were lots of new energy schemes launched to take advantage of the crisis, but the final solution was a deal with the Saudis. This current energy crisis does not have a simple solution. In the West, energy policy has been corrupted by the same cranks who have corrupted the culture. It will take a revolution to fix that problem in order to fix the policy problems.
Systemic problems are also at the heart of the inflation crisis. In the 1970’s, the issue was the old fashioned Econ 101 problem. There was too much money chasing too few goods, resulting in inflation. This time, the issue is more about systemic problems in the global monetary system and in the global supply chain. This is where dumb people like to say, “it is as simple as…” and then finish with their favorite bromides from the Mises Institute, but the current inflation crisis is not a simple one.
For starters, the monetary system that was put in place in the 1980’s assumed a few things that are no longer true. One was that the excess dollars created by Washington would be absorbed and laundered by low cost counties. This worked while Asia had an infinite supply of cheap efficient labor. Extra dollars could flow into these countries as economic investment. The extra from developing countries would then return in the form of assets like treasuries and equities.
That system is breaking down for two main reasons. One is China is becoming a mature industrial nation, which means labor is no longer cheap. The Chinese understand this and they are shifting policy to encourage domestic consumption rather than focus on exports. All of a sudden, those extra dollars are no longer as welcome in China as in the past. Instead of returning as assets to America, they hang around the system chasing too few retail goods.
Another cause is the breakdown of the dollar system. The dollar itself is doing great, but the rest of the global currencies are not doing so well. Their strength has been pegged to the health of the system based on the dollar being the global currency. As this system shows signs of crisis, the weaker currencies are in free fall. The Euro, the secondary global currency, is falling sharply. Of course, the ruble is booming, due to the crackpot policy response to the war in Ukraine.
The point is the solution to the current inflation is different from what happened fifty years ago because the causes are different. In the 1970’s, the Fed could tighten the money supply, wring out inflation and force a corresponding correction in the system with a deep, but short recession. This time, simply raising rates will not be enough to address the inflation problems. It could also trigger a crisis in the financial system, which is built on the assumption of free money from the Fed.
There are more comparisons like this, but the bottom line is that the crisis of the 1970’s is similar to this crisis, but the causes are different. Back then, America was a healthy business in need of new management. The demographics were good, the social capital was still strong and the working population was young. More important, the ruling class wanted a strong America and saw it as their duty to deliver it. A few tweaks to the system would unleash the economic power of the country.
The current crisis is driven by different forces. This is an end of cycle crisis as the American empire reaches its terminus. Critically, the demographics are much worse, the productive population is old and the social capital has been spent trying to prove Mother Nature wrong for fifty years. More important, the ruling class is now populated by feckless grifters and ridiculous people. They see their duty as throwing fuel on the fire in order to prove how little they care about the country.
What this comparison between this crisis and that of fifty years ago reveals is that this crisis is different in nature. There are general parallels, but the underlying causes are vastly different and that means the results will be different. New management may walk through the door in the next election, but unlike 1980 they will be taking control of an enterprise that needs bankruptcy protection. It may even require a fire sale to clear out the unproductive segments at the top.
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The Reagan era ultimately gave us financialization, open borders, and tranny time. Yeah, conservatives have always talked a good talk about their values, but the truth is they won on economics and pressed the advantage, mostly abandoning morality for the market.
I guess they fixed what needed fixing but neglected what wasn’t yet broken. Trump was trying to replay Reagan in a way, obviously that wasn’t the answer. Now it seems like just about everything is broken. That’s good if the current elite get swept away. If not, we’re screwed. Either way, we’re in for more or less tragic times I’d guess.
I still maintain, though, the turnaround could be shocking under new management. People without deeply entrenched interests to defend, with the will to do the hard things to prove they deserve to lead.
Unfortunately, you usually have to hit the bottom before that’s possible, and it looks impossible before you hit bottom. But then, suddenly, it isn’t.
Looks like there are, “events,” occuring in Tulsa and two other locations today:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/police-respond-shooting-hospital-describe-scene-catastrophic
It’s obvious the regime really wants the 2A canceled ASAP, and they are going to keep staging these until they can just ram legislation through as they are doing in NY state.
Prep accordingly.
More guns than people last I checked, and a lot, maybe most, unregistered. Yeah, good luck.
They can change the law if it makes them feel powerful, anyone who stops to think can see right through it, and them. Emperor has no clothes.
It’ll be the same as the vaxx mandates: the Blue states will comply and see even more violence; Red states will just ignore them. Guns are here to stay. But expect more of these “events” in the run up to November.
instacuck is vying with scott adams as to who is the most desperate for their previous “analysis” to bear fruit. he is soiling himself with false reports of ukraine success/russian failure. just pathetic. anything to get the taste of coq au hebe out of his mouth, i guess…
Every Blue moon I will visit instacuck. The last time they had a post stating Russians were executing their wounded soldiers. Sigh. That is so retarded it sets a new standard. If the Russians did that it would completely demoralize the soldiers and would be a strong encouragement to duck and cover rather than fight. Of course it was written by a member of the tribe so projection I guess
I was out for beer earlier and saw that bud light has a lkjgfzq label design, you can donate $25 to help with the abuse “they” receive. It made me feel like it’d be a waste of time to care about the system, I hadn’t realized that I was somewhat white pilled but I’m back in the black…
Today’s word is “de-dollarization”…
meaning the action you take when one realizes he or she is a monetary sucker.
Meanwhile, the regime has decided that the schools it funds can either brainwash kids with degeneracy, or those schools can just let the kids starve as with withholds lunch funding:
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/no-free-lunch-biden-admin-will-pull-meal-funding-for-schools-that-dont-comply-with-its-lgbt-agenda/
This is evil. Anyone who supports this agenda is evil.
Point taken, but I can’t help but view that as win-win.
Just 7 years after Obergefell lol. Back when the debate was hot, if you’d told anyone this would happen, and this quickly, they’d have thought you were nuts. Myself, reformed squish, included.
This is a win situation for us. Taking Fed money as a State is willfully giving up your power to them.
Meals are cheap enough and any excuse to tel the Feds to F Off is a good thing.
Also punishing rural states which this is intended to do pushes them to rebellion. Best if peaceful but if not? So be it.
with all the talk here about the “best” way to handle the (current) economic crisis it’s almost like you people forget who is in charge! you should be speculating on what is the worst possible response, because that is what president skid mark will inevitably go for.
My guess is open the borders completely but then give all the migrants welfare so they don’t actually do any work.
You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Hungus. I look at it more along the lines of halving the value of my money, halving the value of my home, $15.00 a gallon gas and $12.00 a gallon home heating oil.
Then ask myself, where will the above leave me and mine?
I tell my kids that the best currency now consists of SKILLS. Car repair, carpentry, roofing, plumbing, baking, cooking, must have ALL of them of a significant other that does. We already had 7-10 day long ‘blackouts’ here in the suburbs of a big city – so fuel on hand – as if these happen in winter you are in trouble. I can connect my generator to my boiler, and it can heat my home. I keep my tank at 400-500 gallons at all times.
On an on it goes. Yet, while YOUR point makes perfect sense to me, my Boomer friends are telling me about their cruises, investments, and all that useless folderol if things get WORSE. And what do we have to go on that they won’t?
von hungus, please.
kvhkvhkvhkvhkvh
I used to think Von Hayes was the last name of that Phillies(?) ballplayer, ie. His full name was Eddie Von Hayes or something, like Andy Van Slyke.
Pure Genius!
President Skid Mark. You can Depend on him to make a mess.
He’s not just President of the country, he’s President of all the incontinent.
Semi-OT:
You know it’s getting bad on the inside when lifelong America-hating political hack parasites like Ron Klain suddenly resign:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/report-bidens-chief-staff-exit-white-house-midterms/
The regime’s internal polliing must be absolutely horrific at this point.
This rat will run down a rope and board another vessel.
Some people think another Ronald Reagan will save the day. The original didn’t, for during his 2 administration’s was when industry in the mid Ohio Valley started dying. No fondness from this fellow!
This optimism from the 1970’s, though papable, is entirely missing today. Most know in their gut that tomorrow will be worse than yesterday, and will remain so until The Big Change.
But few still fathom that the required Big Change is the collapse of The Empire, for the system and Empire were born together and are inseparable. Most cannot comprehend that our needed change is the death of the only system they know.
The fallout will be quite ugly and many won’t live to see the other side. We just happened to be born late enough to be living in interesting times.
We all could have done something long ago and didn’t. May God save us and especially the young.
Excuse my moment of selfishness, but I did do what I could and ‘sacrificed’ a potentially comfortable and successful, or at least normal, life for it. In quotes because I would’ve hated every minute of it and hated myself for playing the game. Never really a question.
Decided I had failed after ‘20 and gave up. Now people are getting it, little if any thanks to my efforts. Yeah well.
I was sympathetic to the accelerationists, even considered it myself, but something about intentionally losing doesn’t agree with me. They were right, though! People will never get it until they get it good and hard.
I became successful in my long career but 20 years ago I knew the system in which I worked was one designed for failure. I still did my job and knew everything was a lie.
After years of existence in that system I became a total cynic and believe nothing I see from the MSM to the point I assume the opposite is the real truth. We’re at the breaking point and when the truth comes out, we will see an orgy of violence and chaos no one can imagine. Those days are coming and everyone’s life will be in grave danger as a daily point of existence.
“Yeah well.”
You can take the Z Man poster out of Terre Hill, but you’ll never take the Terre Hill out of the Z Man poster! 🙂
Reminds me of my glorious youth, it does!
One very big difference between the 1970s and now is that the elites were all white men who at least paid lip service to the Founders and the Constitution. Blacks, women and queers were largely curiosities. Carter would have never dreamed of appointing an M to F tranny as an assistant secretary of the HHS. Jews were influential, but with the exception of Kissinger largely in subordinate positions. It would have been unthinkable in 1976 to have a Jewish Senate Majority Leader who publicly states that Yahweh made him the “guardian of Israel” in Hebrew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh8rpFTVBuM
The white male elites if the 1970s fucked some things up, but they weren’t anti-American. Nearly all had military service. The media were at least partially honest and less partisan.
Today’s elites are a complete freak show of queers and trannies and Karens. Black politicians now routinely hold positions to the left of Eldridge Cleaver. Contemporary elites are literally unhinged from reality; they hold anti-scientific, anti-rational, and anti-sane positions that are untenable in the long run. The sum total of their experience is going to an exclusive college.
As a former officer on a nuclear sub, Carter wanted detente with the nuclear-armed USSR; today’s female nutjobs like Nuland want war with nuclear-armed Russia. Carter enforced immigration laws, today’s lunatics are deliberately flooding the country with Illegal Mexicans and Guatemalans and giving them welfare and drivers’ licenses. Carter wanted us to drive 55 to save gas; today’s climate change crazies are banning gasoline engines.
The demographics and the culture have changed so much in the past fifty years that contemporary problems are intractable. Unlike 1980, it is not possible to vote our way out of this.
In the 80s, the US was something like 80 to 85% white.
What are we at now? 60, maybe as low as 50%?
That is an enormous demographic shift in just over 40 years. Is there any historical precedent for this?
Palestine. Would be an example.
Hey, we bought the world a Coke. Feels great, doesn’t it?
If I were to talk to someone like Desantis – here are some ideas I would give him. What are your views on these ideas:
1) ban public masking of children
2) ban any jurisdiction/business for forcing someone to take a test for COVID
3) ban any business with the exception of a surgical setting from requiring masks on employees or patrons
4) force any business that sent there employees home for COVID to force them to come back
5) make all electronic/digital evidence inadmissible in court (I know this sounds like a liberal thing but I feel our privacy is being invaded)
6) ban employers from terminating someone based off of off-work activism
7) ban mandatory kill switches in cars
8) force businesses to allow for cash and coins
9) force auto manufacturers to have the option for cars without touch screens
10) force all new big box stores to be standalone and must have parking on all four sides
11) no new apartments outside of downtown areas should be more than two stories
12) ban third party investors from buying homes
You might want to re-think #6, as this would preclude schools from firing teachers who go out and burn everything to the ground with pantifa on the weekends.
There was a site that has since been taken down (it was done during Barry’s reign, go figure) and it allowed you to put a teacher’s name into it and you could see if they were involved in any nefarious activity. Not only in your state, but if they had done so anywhere else in the country.
Another thing I would include on that list is taking a number of items e.g. Gun control, Immigration, Environmental concerns, Anything involving the “Commerce Clause”. and removing them from the purview of the courts to prevent the clintonistas & the obamunists from constantly putting the brakes on everything. The flip side of that would be to begin impeaching federal judges, however there are too many of them to conduct trials. I would have the congress impeach/remove maybe a handful of the worst, starting with ghettopotamous’s (abrams) sister and that mincing little pansy from HI who kept interfering with everything Trump did in his first year in office. Impeach them and take away their ability to practice law for at least five years.
I would also make a statement to the effect of any business in this country hiring illegals has exactly ten days to fire them all, or risk not only losing their business license, but having the govt seize all of their assets.
Last but not least, if your personal background includes things that would preclude you from obtaining a security clearance if you had to apply for a job in govt because you would be considered a national security risk, YOU ARE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED FROM RUNNING FOR PUBLIC OFFICE.
@Steve – I’m talking about at the state level. If these laws were passed in Florida – it would be a good thing. I’m not sure if these laws could be passed nationwide.
Forgive my rant then.
#6 is good but only lawful off duty activity should be protected.
DeSantis is no one’s friend. A perfect example of controlled opposition. That pic of him “preying” at the Wailing Wall wearing a beanie tells everyone who he is owned by and owes to, and it ain’t you or I.
Also, what a win that don’t say gay bill, which makes kiddies wait till 4th grade for the transgender curriculum. Based!
krustykurmudgeon: Your list reflects the liberal you’ve already described yourself to be. All your rules require MOAR government micromanagement and MOAR authorities to enforce. All the lists and new rules in the world will not work with AINO’s current toxic demographic sludge.
I am not sure what assets China shipped back to us. They shipped consumer products and industrial goods. They shipped dollars back by buying, “assets”. Real estate; bond purchases; public and private equities. In the meantime, to avert the day of debt reckoning, the US elite kept lowering interest rates to stimulate borrowing. That compelled the domestic (401Ks and in particular pension funds), and foreign money to chase yield farther and farther out on the risk curve. Are those assets so bid up in price relative to their ability to generate real returns that they are more liability than asset? In effect, it appears that the public/private-in-name-only financial managerial elite created a massive Ponzi scheme that went on for decades.
People here engaged in innovations like high performance porn web sites; endless social media (micro ad revenue), platforms, gourmet dog food websites masquerading as tech companies, “bespoke” liquor and facial hair products and more. Our most significant technological innovation was probably mass scale hydraulic fracking – an amazing and valuable achievement to be certain. Investment in that enterprise was goosed by artificially low interest rates. Those fields deplete fast and require a very high crude oil price to be profitable. There is ample energy – a huge supply to be sure. The elite seems determined to keep it in the ground or to consume it to build energy machines that consume more energy than they produce.
In any case, while it makes sense to dismiss the anarcho-capitalist fantasy land as non-viable, I think the Austrians at the Mises Institute have explained the root, not the sole, but the root cause of our structural financial problems. I have yet to see a more plausible explanation of the massive structural economic mess that has been created than the Austrian Business Cycle. The illusion of wealth created by borrowing from the future to avoid a serious and viable debt restructuring has permitted many other fantasies and delusions.
Worst of the delusions is the, “Energy Transition.” The top 10% and their children believe in it whole heartedly. That should scare us all. The Austrians are correct. Aside from the cost of carrying labor unions, a huge government and public unions and a huge military whose costs outweigh its benefits, the opportunity cost of engaging a huge segment of the population in non-productive activity and paying them to be unproductive, in many cases treasonous, is the crux of our financial and social ills.
To enter into the financial s^$% storm that we are entering and then to radically reduce the energy density and thus radically increase the cost and reliability of our energy system is a suicide mission. If the ponzi starts to torpedo the pension system and ravage the 401Ks, the top 10% may get shocked into quickly re-assessing their belief system. If this slowly unwinds and only the dirt people bear the brunt of this energy transition, then the shock that awaits us all when the great Tesla solar roof and battery backup fantasy falls apart for the Zoom class will be something to behold.
Price discovery is nothing more than the discovery of reality. The price of energy determines the price of everything.
“radically increase the cost” AND DECREASE “THE RELIABILITY of our energy systems”, I meant
“as Carter was an honest man”.
I’m not really sure a politician can be an honest man. Sure, he played one on TV, but this was back when the media still pretended politicians were honorable men. Now, nobody believes politicians are anything more than parasites and cancerous tumors.
Everything is relative of course, but in terms of regular people in office, JC is up there. Top ten. Bill Clinton would be #46.
So says the same people that give us the rest of our information.
Yeah, I call bullshit on Carter as “honest man.”
Just another self-righteous civil rights leftist; another manager of American/white decline. Didn’t he collude with Russia to try to beat Reagan in the 80 election?
And this bastard, hated by voters hung on decade after decade (because of media backing) to make himself a moral authority for fair elections the world over. I call bullshit on all of that. I’m sure his habitat for humanity was some sort of racket also.
Didn’t Reagan collude with Iran during the hostage crisis, delaying their release so he would look awesome?
Yes, yes he did. And after this introduction, he and his people gave us Iran/Contra.
Reagan – a man of firm principles!
The other big difference between now and the 1970s is debt.
In the 1970s, total debt (household, business and govt) to GDP for the US was ~135% with federal govt debt at ~25% of GDP. Today, total debt to GDP is ~270% with federal debt clocking in at 125% of GDP.
Global debt followed a very similar pattern. Indeed, global debt to GDP is the same as US debt to GDP.
For the reasons Z outlined, the world had forty years of falling interest rates and low inflation, the perfect storm to create a debt bubble. Unfortunately for the world, interest rates hit bottom in 2020 and structural issues (China maturing, end of cheap energy, end of globalization, etc.) will make inflation an issue again.
Due to the debt load, the world can’t afford positive real (above inflation) interest rates. However, it needs higher interest rates to slow inflation. Not a good situation.
The only way you slow inflation is reducing demand by tightening the money supply. But that lowers corporate earnings and govt tax receipts just as interest costs go up, causing the debt to increase or defaults, both of which cause their own problems.
The Fed is a walking a very fine line. However, the real problem is that there’s no solution on the other side because the problem is too much debt – both in the US and globally – and that’s not going away. It will be a drag on the world economy and potentially the cause of a serious meltdown until it the debt level is reduced.
But, here’s the thing, we may have passed the point of no return. At some point, the measures to reduce debt (public and/or private) actually cause the economy to go into recession. This, ironically, makes the debt to GDP worse because the GDP is falling faster than the debt.
It’s entirely possible that if by some miracle, the US govt and/or corporations attempted to reduce their debt or slow the growth to below GDP growth, their reduced spending could push the economy into recession, making the problem worse.
That’s exactly what happened to Greece in the 2010s. Now imagine the whole world going into a Greek-like depression at the same time.
The likely best case scenario is high inflation and negative real interest rates allow govts and business to reduce their debt to GDP to a more normal level. Sure, it totally screws over bond holders and workers, but it’s manageable.
The other scenarios are a debt default/deflationary bust similar to the Great Depression or a hyper-inflation default. Both of those are pretty nasty.
Very good post, but you’re missing the biggest and most important component: Cheap Energy, debt can’t grow without it. Its like fertilizer 😉
Because of this, the excess number of people on the planet because like debt. This is why they need a die off.
“The other scenarios are a debt default/deflationary bust similar to the Great Depression or a hyper-inflation default. Both of those are pretty nasty.”
Really its just the same thing, too much money but not enough to buy anything, or not enough money to buy anything but plenty on the shelves. Who gets punished, the prudent or the reckless? I think we all know the answer to that based on recent history.
The simplest way to explain our predicament is like yeast in a dish of sugar or this is a good way to think about it:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2003-11-22/st-matthew-island-overshoot-collapse/
The US trade balance was also much better in the mid-70s.
Just look at this plot:
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/trade-balance-deficit
You can see it’s about even until 1976, then it starts to waver negative in the 80s, then recover from a 1987 low to a nearly even state in the early 90s.
Then, it falls off a cliff around 1997, never to recover.
The same applies to US government tax receipts versus outlays:
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/federal-receipt-and-outlay-summary
You can see how they alternate between reasonable deficits and surpluses until the early 70s or so. Then things really go into large deficits during the Reagan and GHWB years.
The claimed surpluses at the tail end of the Clinton years and the beginning of the GWB years a partially due to the end of the Cold War and partially due to creative accounting, who knows the exact percentage.
The US has to run trade deficits. It’s part of the system, part of being the global reserve currency.
Since energy is priced in dollars, we have to run trade deficits with countries that import a lot of energy, which, of course, are countries with large manufacturing sectors. The petrodollar ensured that 1) the US would run trade deficits to supply the world with dollars and 2) that the US manufacturing sector would be the part of the economy to take the hit.
Having the global reserve currency means that the US gets to live above its means, but it’s also means that our manufacturing sector is greatly diminished.
But look on the bright side; by undermining the manufacturing sector, they also kneecapped the trade unions in that sector. In return, the Uniparty came increasingly to depend on government-based unions – federal, state and local, and critically teachers’ unions. Instead of hard-nosed bargaining between manufacturers and their unions that struck some sort of compromise, they traded for essentially untouchable, and usually increasing numbers of, members who got pensions directly backed by the government, and these members lobbied relentlessly for more and more money, as well as unhinged leftist social policies. Such a deal, eh?
I think those numbers are just bullshit. If you follow the federal debt over time, 1961 or 62 was the last year there was ever a reduction year over year in the debt. They were probably just combining social security which ran very large surpluses at the time. But the government spent all the money.
If we were running small surpluses on average, there wouldn’t have been 70s inflation, especially in the early 70s. All the spending of the 60s caught up with the government in the early 70s. Remember there was Vietnam (wars are always highly inflationary), the Apollo program, food stamps, section 8 and projects, welfare etc in the 60s.
They tell the same lies with the “Clinton surplus” which never actually existed going by the year over year national debt increases. It’s accounting fraud.
You seem to be confusing the Budget Deficit. which has been present and growing since 1958, and the Trade Deficit: the excess of imports to exports.
“The likely best case scenario is high inflation and negative real interest rates allow govts and business to reduce their debt to GDP to a more normal level. Sure, it totally screws over bond holders and workers, but it’s manageable.”
There is a way around this. I would combine high inflation with positive real interest rates, and add a reverse income tax that replaces all government welfare. This has the added benefit of shunting people into productive activity, because only people who work will get the benefit of the money multiplier. Economic power accrues more to ordinary people and less to corporations, banks, and Wall Street.
Further constraining Big Finance’s power is the fact that in the new monetary regime, capital will be very difficult to raise. Only the strongest, most profitable companies will be able to sell stock on public exchanges, and only the most credit-worthy institutions will be able to obtain loans.
It’s a virtuous circle of anti-globalism. Finally, the whole thing should be incrementally wound down over a period of ten years, at the end of which we place the currency back on the gold standard.
“This time, simply raising rates will not be enough to address the inflation problems. ”
From what I understand, this is not even possible this time. AFAIK, back in 1980, the vast bulk of the national debt was in 30 year treasuries. Today, a large portion of the debt is in short term bills. If they even went to half of where it went in 1981 (over 20%), if 1/2 of our 30 trillion dollars in debt matures and needs to be re-issued, that’s a trillion and a half in interest payments. All the banks would go insolvent (they are holding long term low interest paper on RE which will collapse with high interest rates). Probably more than 1/2 of American homeowners will be “upside down” in their home (owe more than it’s worth). Though long term rates wouldn’t go up as much, they would be high enough that buying a house even at new lower prices would be very expensive. My own family moved and bought a different house in 1981. The mortgage was huge. They had to refinance several times over the next 20 years.
The fed said earlier they were going to do 2 50bp rate hikes to fight the inflation. This is retarded. Even the fake under stated official inflation rate is over 8%. As I understand it, you have to raise rates above the rate of inflation, otherwise your interest income cannot offset the principle being eaten by the inflation and you lose money lending it to anyone at a rate lower than inflation.
“Even the fake under stated official inflation rate is over 8%.” Isn’t it strange how all the items you actually purchase have increased in price by more than 8%? The BLS calculations were changed in the late 90s to drive down the official inflation measure, implementing circular calculations like changing product weightings for high/low inflation items (substitution effect), trying to filter out product improvements, and swapping out home prices for esoteric comparable rent calculations. The obvious beneficiaries are the politicians, who can claim their policies are working, and who then can use the money saved by paying out less in real social security payments to fund their various grifts.
I think they also don’t count food and energy in the headline inflation numbers.
My favorite 90s era change is the hedonic adjustment. Using this method, things that get more expensive in Walmart are actually cheaper in BLS. I recall an example of how a TV went up like 30% in the store year over year. But it had some new “feature” that the old model didn’t have and so it was as if the TV dropped from 199 to 179 or something instead of showing the increase to 259. Or if a computer goes up in price, but comes with more useless software you will never use, it’s “as if” it was marked down 20%, even thought it actually went up. These adjustments are always favorable. If the build quality drops like a stone, but the headline features “improve” the quality is ignored and feature drives the BLS price down.
The sad thing is, this stuff is EVERYWHERE. None of our numbers reflect reality. This all compounds over time.
Back in the totally made up “Clinton surplus,” there were surpluses going out as far as the eye could see despite the fact the debt increased every year of the Clinton presidency. . Or how in the spring of 2008, despite already being months and months into a recession (since the 4th Q of 2007), nobody could even see it coming. When all the numbers are fake, you really are blind. It’s like building a house with rubber rulers.
John William’s Shadowstats strips out the bogus changes made to the inflation numbers back to 1980- Carter’s last year.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
His views on the official measurements are here.
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement
Great. Just as I become too old to do much more than go for long walks, take naps, and drive the grandchildren around, it’s time for a revolution. Talk about timing. I wanted this scenario in the nineties, not now. I’m going to call my congressman…
The final line is key. The solutions of the 70’s can only take place in a country without a massive debt overhang that we currently have. A Federal bankruptcy (that’s called something else) is necessary. Several states and municipalities would naturally follow. This would allow for a regime of high rates to repair the misallocation of resources.
However, it’s more complex than just rolling over the debt into hundred year bonds. It would begin an era of limited budgets with poor financing options. It would also mean an asset bubble that not only pops but assets like real estate would be undervalued for awhile. When peering into the nothingness of our underlying economy, it would mean a depression beyond belief. Would the fat diabetic drug addicts called the American people be able to handle it? Would they put down their Jack and Cokes and brainstorm just how they will make ends meet in this new environment? What will become of the n-words, who won’t even have the brain capacity to survive? Will they mass chimp out?
The solutions are pretty simple when you boil it all down, it’s the reaction to the solutions that would be, in my opinion, historical. Politicians would likely hear loud and clear, from all sides, “give us out money! now!” The calls to flood the system with more money would be overwhelming.
But that’s just it… the “solutions” are not simple, they are horrifying. The results would be worse than anything Americans have ever endured outside of war.
We have 2 generations now of our brightest all having been educated in subjects where there are already too many people. Every smart kid wanted to code or be a professor or a lawyer. We would have to start by educating a generation to make the machines to make products. All of these young people working at tech start-ups that are not viable need to lose their jobs. Maybe we can send home all the Indians we’ve been bringing in to take more traditional tech jobs? i don’t know.
All that real estate (buildings) is gone too. We tore down factories and then built suburban strip malls.
We have spent all of our time since the early 70s dismantling the economy and building the economy we have now.
A large portion of people now live off of taxes or regulations in one form or another. These people number in the millions. Many millions.
The pain of dismantling this system and building back a new one will not be short or minor. All of the changes that would need to happen take time and money. The economy was not dismantled in months and will not return in months. It will probably take decades. The Boomers will be instantly impoverished. No social security and all their assets will drastically drop in such a scenario.
I’m guessing most of the states would go bankrupt along with most of the large cities.
The worst part is America is not filled with Americans anymore. We have a large mestizo population numbering in the 10s of millions that we didn’t have in the 30s.
I just don’t think America could deal well with the kind of reform you are talking about. Things would be far worse than Russia post Soviet collapse.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. They’ll still get Social Security….it’ll just but a box of crackers and maybe a cup of coffee. They’ll still get their Medicare, but it’ll buy a plastic bag and some sleeping pills to take themselves out. The Soviets were accustomed to a clunky society that deprived them. When it fell apart they already had the networks to move goods and services in the black market. We, on the other hand, are far more ill prepared and diverse. It’ll be like the flags on the show Survivor. Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.
OK. I was assuming in your scenario that the federal government went bankrupt. I just assumed that bankruptcy would be honest and the entitlements would go away.
SSI, by law, automatically “adjusts” for inflation. I believe last year it added 6%. I expect more again this fall. Whether that adjustment algorithm is sufficient for “real/current” inflation may be argued, but it won’t be a crackers and coffee amount. However that adjustment simply moves the insolvency crisis up. I expect, we’ll hear new estimates in the mid 2020’s soon. Then, by law SSI drops down to “dollars in = dollars out” mode, which was estimated at about a 25% haircut, prior to curry inflation.
Medicare is another story, it really is broke. Part B plan goes up every year and keeps track (surprise) with SSI increases, thereby robbing Peter to pay Paul. Folks will see less of the current inflation pushed SSI increase than they think.
In a hyperinflation scenario, the benchmarking to inflation doesn’t matter.
They raise it 20,000% on Jan 1 to keep up with last year’s inflation. But by March, your whole check can only buy a 2 liter of Coke.
SS was probably already a major driver if inflation got to that level. But then when they inevitably start benchmarking on shorter time spans, it becomes the sole driver.
The fundamental and inescapable problem is that all the accounting fraud in DC doesn’t change the fact that commensurate production has not preceeded SSI consumption.
Why might real production fall to that point? For all the reasons outlined in posts above: replacement of productive with the Gibs PoCs, permanent offshoring of capacity, debt-deflation depression etc.
No one has experienced 20000% inflation except perhaps Zimbabwe. Argentina has experienced 50% inflation for nearly a decade—they still pay pensions and keep them increasing. Living is unpleasant, but somehow the people survive.
Tucker had an economist on his streaming platform awhile back that basically said they are going to try to inflate their way out. Peg interest rates and let inflation run.
Similar to the period right after world war 2.
But we no longer have the same demographics nor are we the only economy still standing in the world after WW2.
China, India, Russia, and Europe if they ever break free of their dingbats will have something to say about our massive debt.
I strongly believe that that’s what they’ll do. The problem is, we’re no longer the industrial powerhouse of the world. We’re de-industrialized. We’re not going to dig our way out with our outlet malls. We’re not going to grow the economy with new Netflix subscriptions. The middle class will be vaporized. The economy is so misaligned right now it can’t handle that.
JR, define the middle class.
If we use wealth quintiles, the only folk with $$$ (wealth) are in the top quintile—and really the top 10%. The middle class is a already vaporized, they just don’t know it.
Living paycheck to paycheck is not the “American Dream”, it’s the American “Nightmare”. At least a slave in Ancient Rome was assured room and board. Hell, half the above commentary has been regarding the threat that SSI and Medicare will becoming useless (insolvent) and the other half of comments that we need to plan on going it *alone* into that “good night”.
Paycheck to paycheck means the majority of us will work until we break down and die in poverty. That’s medieval shit at best and really not what I signed up for.
I’m not ready to concede the point about bromides from the Mises Institute. I don’t think Murray Rothbard dealt in bromides, and Human Action, Mises’ masterpiece, seems accurately to describe the economics of human behavior.
A sharp restriction of supply, an equally sharp reduction in money supply unbridled by any sort of currency peg and zero elasticity of supply/demand, imposed by dictatorship sufficient to prevent all but a miniscle black market, could make Paul Volker look like Alan Greenspan. It would mean a severe but short lived depression with terrible hardship accompanied by massive social dislocation and political upheaval so the idea is a non-starter.
Still, the Misesians aren’t superficial or simplistic. True enough, Peter Schiff has been saying “some day…” for ages, but “some day” will come and, at that time, the broken clocck will be proven correct.
Agree.
There are some people who are reflexively dismissive of things they can’t understand.
The Reagan Administration also put the industrial economy in its coffin and began the orgy of the financialization of our economy and basically mortgaged the family farm for what we have now, a digital financialized economy.
The digital economy in its current form combined with the sexual revolution does not provide leverage for family formations and high birth rates.
It’s possible that bringing back some industrialization combined with technology and a digital economy could give us a well functioning nation.
Just not with the current demographics and leadership.
It’s time for a fire sale of our current system and new construction.
Cue Steely Dan’s “Everything Must Go.”
Dedicated to Severian. Maybe we can drag him to SD kicking n screaming.
hehe he would like them if he knew where they got their name from…
If you want a window onto the decadence of the Carter years, go listen to Gaucho from beginning to end.
The industrial economy was already fading before Reagan took office. By the late 1970s/early 1980s the steel industry was starting to bleed jobs in the East and Midwest (I went to college with two guys whose fathers worked at Wisconsin Steel Works in South Chicago. One day in March 1980 they showed up at the plant and it was padlocked shut and their paychecks bounced. They spent years fighting to get back pay and pension money). The Big Three were losing market share (Chrysler nearly went belly up in 1978-79, and as bad as Chrysler was, Ford was bleeding even more red ink) and closing plants. And that’s just two industries I can think of off the top of my head.
But you’re correct that Junk Bonds and Merger Madness took over the economy and sped the process along. While bringing heavy industry back to the US would help create jobs, the namby-pamby Greenies and Leftists (but I repeat myself) would never let those dirty, icky factories return to foul Mother Gaia and employ deplorables. 🙄
Very important. While the trend didn’t reverse during Reagan’s terms, it’s not like on January 21, 1981 the bottom fell out of the manufacturing economy. Things had been getting steadily worse for nearly a generation.
Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, NY tossed thousands of people out of work in 1983, decimating the Buffalo economy, but things had been going south in the rust belt for long before that with the steel industries of the conquered Axis powers resuming competition.
Where the Reagan people failed was in focusing on finance and not manufacturing. What was our industrial policy during that time, apart from the usual bromides?
Industrial policy? What madness might that be? That sounds like something (shudder) only Communists would have.
So no, the ideological blinders were on, and the changing world industrial balances as Europe and Japan recovered, and the Third World, and in particular, China became a presence were completely scorned as a basis for planning for a realistic – multipolar – world. Besides, there was all of that easy money to be made through leveraged buyouts, and crating up and shipping all of the production machinery to cheap labor markets. Hey, labor arbitrage will save the day, right? Strip mining the economy at the behest of (((Wall Street))) was the plan. These were the Smartest Guys In The Room, after all.
I don’t know where people get the idea that the US was a net exporter of energy in the recent past. Every single year of the Trump and Obama presidencies, there was a large gap between the amount of oil we consumed and the amount we produced. The small amount of natural gas exports could in no way make up for that large deficit. The US has not been an exporter of oil on net since well before I was a born and I’m in my 50s.
US oil peaked in 1970 at about 10MB/D and dropped steadily until Obama came into office when we produced about 4MB/D. It shot up during the Obama years and Trump years and once again hit about 10MB/D. But our consumption never dropped to anywhere near 10MB/D. I don’t think it ever got below 15 in recent years.
I read in the press all the time about how we were net exporters. I don’t know where they get this idea. This data is easy to find. There are both international and American bodies that report this data. Sometimes they say we were net exporters of gasoline. But that’s a refined product and doesn’t really mean anything.
The US also hasn’t had a positive trade balance since before i was born. Think of it as the “national credit card”.
Positive trade balance? I have a negative trade balance with both the supermarket and the saloon down the street. In fact, neither one of them buys anything at all from me. But there are occasions when I’d rather have a steak or a glass of beer rather than the inedible and undrinkable pictures of deceased politicians in my pockets. It doesn’t bother me a bit to make the trade.
But you run a positive trade balance with those to whom you sell your product – simple manual labor to judge by the intellectual rigor of your comment.
Look at both sides.
The lie was peddled in the Obama years and sustained by Trump during his time. Kind of like the unemployment numbers, which are totally fake. So neither party will call bullshit, because they both peddled the lie.
This brings to mind someone like victor davis Hanson. Seems much of his analytical shortcomings come from being so stuffed with historical knowledge like a cluttered attic that he can’t move anywhere without bumping into a piece of old furniture. And ultimately he can’t escape his own attic and seems fearful of what he might find outside.
Nice little analogy there Falcone.
True. And to VDH you can add all the other conservatives who are still stuck in the 80s. They don’t realize that it’s a whole different ball game now and that the Bolsheviks are inside the gates and not on the other side of the river Nieman.
Two other differences.
1. In the 1970s, wage and price controls produced the gas lines still seen in news footage of the time. We don’t have that, just higher prices.
2. The Soviet menace focused everybody’s mind on getting America back on track. Today, even China is not seen as threatening in the same way.
The other very important reality was back in the 70s the gas shortages were regional. They never affected us down in Florida.
And this brings to mind so much of the other stuff that supposedly is a feature of American history and life. Just a more personal example. But you always hear in the media how Italians were discriminated against blah blah blah. Maybe that was true. In say the northeast. But it was never true where I come from, and I never heard anything like it until I got older and nationalizing the northeast media became the norm.
Moral of the story: anything that comes out of the national media is often a load of garbage.
Condemning the past is a vital part of the post-Marx culturalism. In the post war years, the Jews got the ball rolling by reimagining themselves as victims of oppressions in the early 20th century. The whole country club thing was an invention of the post-war years. Italians and Irish climbed onboard with their own claims. The No Irish Need Apply stuff was turned into Jim Potato laws. The Italians made Sacco and Vanzetti their heroes.
None of these claims hold up to scrutiny. Jews never faced any real discrimination. The Irish and Italians faced the same disdain as everyone else got from the ruling classes. The war ended all of it. They remain useful is conditioning whites to hate their parents and grandparents, so the post-Marx culturalists repeat the stories. Black identity politics and sexual politics complicates matters, so these ethnic claims are losing their power. A straight Jewish guy is just another cis-white male from the perspective of the new class.
I think the 6m who died in the Holocaust might disagree slightly with your claim that “Jews never faced any discrimination”. Cue the “Holocaust is a hoax” comments.
Blazingly obvious that I was referring to America, but thanks for proving my point.
Reply to Z below: no problems. We’re here, and we’ll survive your comments. Shalom!
If you think things are bad now with the high gas prices, just watch what happens if Americans get the idea that gas will for some reason be rationed. In the best of times, Americans on average drive around with less than a 1/2 a tank. That has probably dropped in the last 6 months due to the high prices. This would drain the system dry. The whole system is closely matched to demand. Nobody wants inventory. I suppose the good news is that most people will have a full tank of gas and that would lighten the burden of getting the system full again.
We can’t ration either. Back in the early 70s, I am pretty sure all of the states had laws against people pumping their own gas (either way, it was the norm to have full service). Attendants pumped the gas. There were odd and even days. We can’t do anything like that now because it’s all self serve. Even if they printed and mailed rationing books, how could it be enforced?
I have no doubt that our leaders are stupid enough to try price controls or rationing if it came to it. Of course, none of this would apply to them.
“We can’t do anything like that now because it’s all self serve. Even if they printed and mailed rationing books, how could it be enforced?”
Hell, during WW2 there was a thriving black market in gasoline, meat, coffee, anything the government rationed. Not everybody participated in it, but enough did to keep it financially rewarding.
Tars: My husband thinks the “E” on his dashboard gas indicator means “enough.” (I stole that from someone else, but it’s extremely apropos.) Routinely drives on fumes, insisting “I can still go another 12 miles before running dry.” Needless to say, this drives me nuts. I never let my tank get below half. Of late I fill up even before that.
One very small ‘blessing’ of rising gas prices has been my husband filling up more often (before an assumed price increase). Although for whatever reason, gas prices here in DFW got ridiculously cheap for Memorial Day (ca $4.14 – $4.19 a gallon) and haven’t gone back up yet.
It’s really not feasible (nor safe) to store gas here in a garage that routinely hits 100 degrees in the summer. Of course, most of self-reliant and sustainable living is unfeasible in the ‘burbs and the summer. Yet another reason to move to rural climes.
I must admit to filling my tank(s) no more than every 80-100 miles—really a top off. However, this is because I’ve become somewhat of a prepper—not because of fear of shortages—which are real. Have a neighbor who changed his diesel tank out for *90* gallons under the truck. He’s set to hit the Canadian border with a few Jerry cans tossed in the back. I’m envious.
their favorite bromides from the Mises Institute
Uber monetarist Milton Friedman and many others also believed that enpixelating money, the modern equivalent of Septimus Severus’ diluting Roman gold coinage with base metals, is really the only cause of monetary inflation. The money creators have been helped along by cranks like Warren Mosler and Stephanie Kelton and their “Modern Monetary Theory”, which posits that the state can’t issue a bad check, and that all sovereign funds, those used to pay taxes, the nomenclatura and the military, are legitimate as well as legal.
It’s forgotten that in the earliest years of the country there was no national currency. American trade was carried on with Spanish, British, French and other precious metal coinage. People shied away from paper money. Ecuador, which adopted the US dollar as its own currency in 2000, could be in for a rude awakening.
Also remember that in the 1970s, you could buy a nice home for like $30,000. Near Chicago and not in the ghetto. And you could go to university for $3,000, the same price as a Datsun.
Fast-forward 45 years and you got all the same problems, but everything is expensive to boot. Vamos revolución!
Also if you had saved money, you could simply park it in the bank and get a good rate of return. In this market, there is nowhere to hide from 8% inflation.
Residential real estate so far has been a refuge from the high consumer inflation
But you’re still stuck because of you can’t find anything to replace it where you come out ahead
Glorified prison asylum we live in, and Biden’s the warden. And we got Fauci performing experiments on us. And then we have all the screaming crazies roaming the halls, and men turning into women.
There has got to be a better way. Here I am in complete agreement with TomA. The collapse is the cure.
Rising Property taxes and higher repair costs are eating into any appreciation you get in your home also.
I have an investment property. Finding reasonable repair is difficult.
Ah for the days when a savings account actually PAID interest. CDs too. 😒
im getting 1.2 on a one year at capital one
So what is the probability that a messiah (DeSantis?) will be elected president, accompanied by a sufficient number of uncorrupted senators and congressmen, to enable a course correction and get the country back on its feet? If you are addicted to the Comfort First Imperative (and otherwise a fat slob with low motivation), you will chase this pipe dream regardless of the odds. If you are still worth your salt, chances are that the Stasi will have already disarmed you and placed you in a detention camp before the 2024 pretend election occurs.
Analyzing and prognosticating changes nothing. Getting fit, improving your aim, and disappearing into nobody status will keep you vertical through the collapse and serve you well as the natural world of evolutionary fitness selection resumes post-collapse.
You do know what you’re asking, right? There’s no going back after the line is crossed.
I do like this, however. From Gab:
“Instead of asking me if I’m willing to die for my freedoms and liberties, start asking those traitors if they’re ready to die trying to take away other people’s rights and freedoms.”
No, but they’re just fine paying others who are willing to die trying to take away your rights and freedoms.
Word is PMCs are posting merc positions paying $30k/month to go fight in Ukraine with their elite alphabet soup Unicorn Briga(y)de.
I think I’d want more money to be the thick red paste on the ground in a Russian soldier’s tik tok video.
“There’s no going back after the line is crossed.”
I’m not sure what you mean by that statement. Bongino frequently makes the same assertion as if it was a metaphysical certitude.
If you came home one day and found a group of thugs raping and assaulting your family, and you then acted to stop them (presumably in permanent fashion), would you then go across the street and start attacking your neighbors? Or would the focus of your response be limited to the bad guys only? Methinks the latter. No one is suggesting that the cure should become a berserk, indiscriminate, and irrational rage of violence against innocents. That is what the jackboots do.
Anyone who thinks this will be sorted via DC is insane. The problem is that no matter who the GOP puts in the WH, the entrenched leftist life long bureaucrats and agencies will block them at every turn. Trump’s catchphrase was “You’re fired!” but he never had the guts to make a clean sweep of all the DS garbage in Jan 2017.
First, DC is the epicenter of the cancer that is killing the country, so that makes it an important focus of problem solving.
Second, if you’ve read any of my posts, you know that I do not consider RINOs to a be a solution to anything.
Third, I’m guessing you are British because of your use of the word “sorted” in your comment. I’m a big fan of using obtuse verbiage to describe the cure. You get a gold star for obtuseness. Yes, the disease cells should be “sorted” out.
On the demographic issues, Ramzpaul did a video within the last couple of weeks about how Japan really doesn’t need more children because their cities are already overcrowded and they don’t need that many people. He neglected to mention the population distribution by age graph of Japan almost looks like an inverted pyramid. They are headed for a sharp population decline and are under significant pressure to start taking in third worlders to reverse it like has happened in the rest of the world.
Not only are developed nations not producing enough of their own children to keep functioning at a high level, the ones they are producing tend to range from mediocre to a drag on society. There is little evidence anyone among world elites has thought seriously about these problems beyond assuming globalism will make everything work out alright.
“and are under significant pressure to start taking in third worlders to reverse it”
What they need is deflation of both the debt and the population.
Reality is trying to tell them (us) something about limits and growth.
Demographics is a tabu among the ruling class. Afghanistan population increased from 18.mill til 38.mill in the 20.years the west was there. 40% of is food was imported when the west left. Food shortage quickly become a problem and Taliban now get aid from the west. When the “Arab spring” broke out due to increases in wheat prices in 2011, Egypts population was 84.mill. Today it is 25.mill higher. They will not talk about it because they have not solution to it .
“They will not talk about it because they have not solution to it.”
Well, actually, the nearly all-white Davos class does, I just wish they wouldn’t include their own people in that final solution.
We’re the Talented Tenth of the planet.
I mean, we’re 1/10th of world pop, why do the rest need our spaces so badly?
“under significant pressure to start taking in third worlders to reverse it”. because this has worked so well everywhere it has been tried. sorry to tell you thjs, but you are a normie.
I am not advocating for that, but some people in Japan are and they are getting pressure from the “international community.” They are trying to do it in a controlled way, good luck to them in doing that without gutting their country. I would encourage them to promote a higher fertility rate for their own people.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/23/japan-immigration-policy-xenophobia-migration/
Oh, the audience certainly noted the “under significant pressure” part.
Weird. I see the word “xenophobia” in that Foreign Policy link. No agendas there, eh?
The -phobia suffix has to be one of the more nefarious linguistic manipulations of the modern century.
LOL, the irony is they’re not completely wrong with literal definition of “xenophobia”. The Japanese are an incredibly insular, even shy, people.
To the best of my information, Putin’s Russia has been working that policy. If one has a rational national policy, one needs good demographics, strong educational/cultural institutions, and to be as near as possible to autarky, and then one can be set without a large population.
But Russia, despite whatever faults it may have, is a serious nation, having to hew the line, finding what works, and sticking to it. They are making life uncomfortable for their “educated” useless eaters; if they are encouraged to leave, well so much the better.
The contrast with the bloated, corrupted, and morally/socially adrift West is stark.
Oh hell, there’s local politicians in Kanagawa who are “support Ukraine” types. That has replaced corona as the big news item here. Nobody cares about it. Same with immigration. Nobody really wants it. Views could be changing among the younger crowd, of course. But I have noticed a few things that make me hopeful globo homo might not destroy the Japs. Namely, woke here really does mean go broke. Gap, Old Navy, and a couple of other foreign clothing chains all did the diversity advertising around the same time – my favorite was when Gap used some skinny frizzy-haired ugly black girl for their building banner ads; this girl looked was one fugly hood rat. A few months later they pulled the ads and downsized. Old Navy is largely gone, Gap will probably be liquidated before too long. Another factor that gives some hope is that current world doom-and-gloom view is based on current trends. Simple fact is the world stage is changing and stuff is realigning; namely the United States may not be in the position in the future, possibly the somewhat near future, to keep pushing this crap.
Here’s an idea I came up with:
Have some high schoolers “book” one another for marriage with the idea that it has to happen within the next 20 years. So you can go see the world and party for awhile but you’ll still have someone waiting for you when you’re ready.
“Overcrowded” is somewhat loaded term there. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, etc., all these classically East Asian cities all carry an ancient stereotypes of being like hive societies of teeming masses of bodies pushing up against each other with barely any room to move. Reality is a lot of places in the later 20th century built upwards and the Japanese in particular utilized apartment and condominium blocks while having a long cultural evolution to living in (for the most part) harmony in quarters on a string of islands. The Tokyo city wards (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, etc) are quite crowded, but Paul is somewhat off the mark in his description.
It always amazes me how we white folk go on about population replacement and immigration but then refuse to do the obvious thing that would guarantee our future presence: have children. But, of course, that would involve giving up our selfish lifestyles and our fancy vacays.
White folk could have children—if incentivized for it. Problem is how to simultaneously disincentive non-Whites from their higher birth rates.
Steve: Yes, the White birth rate needs to increase, but we are not going to outbreed the yellows/browns/blacks. When the third world population falls by perhaps half, a more realistic balance will be restored.
The Japanese response has been the development of the worlds best robotics industry.
Given the choice the between a Guat and a supercharged Roomba, they made the right choice,
Sometimes, at this point in the decline of empires, you get a strong man dictator.
Whatever happens, it will be interesting to watch. And at my age I have no dog in the fight.
Break out the popcorn and sit back for the spectacle.
His name was Lincoln. Now we get Honorius.
From google, Encyclopedia Brittanica:
“What is Honorius known for?”
“Honorius, in full Flavius Honorius, (born September 9, 384—died August 15, 423), Roman emperor in the West from 393 to 423, a period when much of the Western Empire was overrun by invading tribes and Rome was captured and plundered by the Visigoths.”
We are in that phase. It is just a feminine version of it. Instead of a man with a mustache it is light-in-the-loafers types and single women dictating policy from behind committees and bureaucracy. There is nothing democratic about America. That is just a show to hide reality.
the Lizafication (with a “Z”) of America!
A friend of mine who teaches in an elementary school in a “refugee resettlement” hell hole shared an interesting experience. Another teacher asked her third grade class to take out their books. A recently arrived afghan kid told her “you are a woman and I am a man. You cannot tell me what to do.”
If only someone would say that to Pelosi, AOC, and so many others.
And that boys and girls is why we should not take in non-White refugees into our midst.
That kid is closer to the truth than our current society.
Wouldn’t hurt to have a 1000 CEO’s like E. Musk writing memo’s saying “Pretend to work somewhere else” while ending the “work from home” ridiculousness.
Instead we have companies who obsess over their ESG rating (Environment, Social (LGBTQ+), Governance (political fad causes/diversity in high positions).
Even though it clearly guts the core mission of the business.
CEO’s grift as much as anyone now; mature businesses take their cues from political leaders who couldn’t run a lemonade stand.
The only reason you had stagflation in the 70’s was because we had defaulted on our debt. What do you think the arabs selling the oil would rather receive, Gold or pieces of paper with dead presidents on them? The only reason you had the 80’s was because the debt ceiling (private and public) had been breached and could be expanded enormously which it did. The world went along because the soviets were on their last leg and what else were you going to do? This ain’t the 70’s, now you have to major countries who seem to have been planning for this and are creating an alternative.
Clearly the answer was dollars. They wanted dollars and that is why they agreed to the petrodollar scheme. That guaranteed them lots of dollars.
The embargo was due to no more gold being sent for oil, the solution via kissinger was protection and dollars. Protection being the most important part, the dollars were just a bit of sweetner.
Protection meaning 30 year gold futures contracts, paid for in dollars, now well past their expiry date.
Not sure about the 30 year gold futures contracts, but i also believe US oil production peaked in the early to mid 70’s, but correct me if i’m wrong.
A tecnical detail that stuck with me, I doubt it’s relevant to the better informed arguments made here.
Plus, those futures are bound to be rolled over, I don’t know enough about banking, metals, and currency forex to intuit the power shifts.
The “protection” was literally the protection of the House of Saud .
They were given a guarantee that they would not be overthrown.
Let’s not forget the military aid and bases that went along with those dollars.
Ah. Now you’re talkin’.
I was going to say something about their plucky little half-brother next door, but then, I still have no idea why the pluckiest nation gave away the Sinai oil fields to Egypt in the Peace Deal. No figuring these alien fellows out, sometimes.
They also got protection from Uncle Sam, its not a bad deal for both sides, but like everything it won’t last forever
1945 led to 1971: The plebs fought the war and were given a good deal by the men who led them. A good job, a good pension, a good deal.
1971 led to where we are now: The unions were busted by Volicker (but not .gov unions, curiously enough) and good wages were substituted with cheapish credit. The jobs went to China and Mexico which kept the prices down and the illusion of prosperity alive.
Now is either going to lead to the greatest tyranny ever known to man or thunderdome.
“Now this leads to thunderdome” may be the coolest meme ever
…because it’s true
OT: Today, Denmark votes on whether to abolish our exception a common EU defense policy so we may send our bois out to police former French colonies and such.
Upvote to send some 1783-energy Denmark’s way.
Like the Finns, the Danes appear to be succumbing to this madness sweeping the West. It is sad to see.
We’ll see. The last three EU referenda returned a fuck you to the globalists. Though this time, they allowed mail in ballots, ominously, and a lot of the anti-EU Boomerwaffen is dead.
The government campaign has been to essentially ignore the whole thing, hoping that people forget about it and stay home on the sofa. They’ll tell you that you’re paranoid for suggesting that Brussels would even want an army they could dispose of without asking anyone democratically elected: it will never happen.
When asked, their argument is: “it makes no difference one way or the other, so you might as well vote yes.” That’s exactly the same sales pitch they offered at the last three EU-referenda, so I’m cautiously optimistic.
Lordy. What will it take to get the Danes to go a-viking, again.
Really, one could call them the progenitors of the West, since their ships put the Saxon in the Anglo-Saxon.
(And from there, those ships went on to cross all the deep blue seas.)
What will it take to get the Danes to go a-viking, again.
If it’s going to be Ursula von der Leyen, I’m immigrating to Sweden.
The vikings were the forebears of the Kiev-Russo slavs, throw in a few marauding Asiatics for the high cheek bones and you’re done.
Although I resemble the expression, ya gotta love “Boomerwaffen”.
Well said Felix, good luck to the Danes.
Thanks, and godspeed to you and your people.
Exit polls say 70% yea.
I’m converting to Islam.