184 thoughts on “Hard Times”

1. “Putting that aside, inflation is the second worst thing that can happen in an economy, the worst being deflation.”

   Canard. Deflation is the consequence of productivity gains. The reason they want you to think it’s so terrible is that it means they left money on the table. For anyone not a banker, deflation is wonderful. Your time preference means you are more likely to save it, someone else is going to borrow it to create some new product to try to coax some money out of your hands, or to make productivity improvements that will result in an even better future.

   A fair share of our problems are because of inflation — a penny saved is a nickel lost.

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2. I swear! I am not Ukrainian! I’m not even a bot, despite far too much education in Humanities, and living in LA. I’ve been married to the same great lady for almost 40 years, we have three kids and seven grandkids, and I really enjoy Scotch! I’m not a bot! I’m not a bot! Don’t block me!!!!

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3. Uncertainty over the Ukraine war is key to everything economic right now. In my line of work that’s the constant refrain from the international businesses I look at.

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   • Just wait until the US rail strike spools up on Friday.

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     • Wild Geese: I warned friends about said strike 6 or so weeks ago when I first heard about it, just prior the feds mandating a 30 day cooling off period. Instead, of course, things have heated up – quiet quitting, stagnant wages, and the remaining workers pushed beyond their limits re hours and shifts.

       There could still be some last minute intervention, but right now it looks as though it really will happen And the Cloud People appear supremely confident that they will solve the problem of freight movement through their verbal magic. I would suggest everyone else get their online orders in stat and make a trip to the grocery store.

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       • 3g4me

         Your comment sounds suspiciously like the climax of “Atlas Shrugged”. Iirc, Dagney Target was on a train and it stopped in the middle of the desert. The workers walked off into the night.

         At the end of the day, withdrawing consent is something the Cloud Folk are powerless to deal with. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it is powerful.

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       • 3g4me-

         Despite your consistently wise counsel all I have here are 3 or 4 months of buckets filled with starch and sodium. And a little bullion with some hand tools.

         The HVAC room off the garage here should serve as a good nuclear bomb shelter since it is surrounded by earth on three sides with the fourth side having a doorway that faces another cinder block wall 25 feet away that also has earth on the other side.

         Our friend Bartleby below is 100% percent about withdrawing consent.

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       • no, they know they cannot fix it. they want is starving and the economy crashed . haven’t you heard they are going to build us a new one. it will be better, ad they will own it all.

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4. The Hard Times won’t provoke the White middle class. But ambitious men of color.

   Take LA County. The LA County Board of Supervisors is at war with the Sheriff, Alex Padilla. The Sheriff’s Office is mostly working class Latinos who figure Law Enforcement is a good career. They don’t like getting shot by gang bangers released by darling George Gascon who through various connections with the LA Registrar of Voters got his recall dumped by challenging signatures. The Board backs Gascon and wants no cash bail, the Sheriff to stop arrest black gang bangers, and wants more not less Homeless (as each homeless person generates about $500 K in various local, state, ngo and federal grants easily graftable). The Sheriff has broadened his reach by acting to round up homeless in places like Venice, Hollywood Hills, etc. The Board meanwhile is trying to fire the Sheriff.

   Today, the Sheriff’s office raided nearly every Supervisor’s home in connection with a corruption probe. It is generally good practice for politicians who are corrupt (which is 100% of them) to be on the good side of the cops who can arrest them for corruption. The Board, such as Sheila Kuhl, failed that elementary lesson.

   Point being that there are ambitious Latino office holders in Law Enforcement that see opportunity in hard times to increase their patronage network BEYOND just Latino voters/employees to elements within the upper classes. As a way to move up — ambition did not cease because Klaus Schwab said to eat the bugs bigot!

   A variant of this happened in Sweden — various Muslim and African parties split off from the ultra-liberals to form their own parties advocating Sharia and basically privileged separatism.

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   • Correct, the Sheriff is Alex Villanueva, not Padilla, and Sheila Kuehl’s name was spelled wrong. My mistake. The investigation was over an outfit called Peace Over Violence, run by an associate of Kuehl’s who is also on the Civilian Oversight Board that has supposedly a supervisory role over the Sheriff and can impose sanctions, firings etc on his deputies.

     Kuehl was in her bathrobe this morning complaining to news crews about harassment. As the Deputies leisurely searched her house, with helicopters overhead. It was the funniest thing I’d seen on TV in years.

     Alex Padilla is the “other” California Senator. Sorry for the confusion.

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   • Sheriff Villanueva is set up to be a huge force to be reckoned with in California.

     The LA Sheriff is the largest Sheriff’s Department and 4th largest police force in the US behind NYPD, CPD, and just behind LAPD in terms of sworn officers, something like 9915 vs 9974 at LAPD.

     LASD also has a $3.3 billion annual budget, about triple LAPD’s annual budget. They also have their own SWAT team and military-grade helos.

     It’s known that LASD also has extensive ties to Latino gangs and organized crime.

     It doesn’t look like the Council folks have much in opposition.

     This doesn’t bother me all that much. Villanueva himself appears to be near conquistador-tier Latino. He was good on the Covid crap, steadfastly refusing to enforce illegal edicts like the face diaper mandates.

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     • If we’re going to have third world population that means third world problems and that means third world corruption.

       I’d much prefer third world corruption to nordic efficiency and dilligence in service of people who hate us.

       Sure Im a bad thinker but heres a hundred bucks officer Gonzales, maybe we forget the whole thing. Heres another hundred bucks, how about those “teens” that are harrassing honest folks disappear from the corner this weekend? Si senor?

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       • Exactly. I’ve bribed my way out of speeding tickets in Mexico for less than 30 bucks. They were more than happy to let me go on my way without a lengthy hassle.

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5. very very evil and very well planned and worldwide.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2t4u_tEefM

   the video is actually one of the most informative I have ever seen.

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6. Casey Jones told me that the problem with the railroads is railroad companies not increasing the capacity they reduced during the plague panic.

   Fuel costs have driven more business towards rail and the mismatch between scheduling and capacity is simply beyond what the workforce can overcome on a sustainable basis.

   Jones had no opinion on the likelihood of a strike but explained that the workforce is burnt-out and we may begin seeing mishaps, near-misses and minor accidents that will have a cumulative effect on the already overwhelmed capacity.

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   • I have to wonder if the inflation disparity is causing issues here. A union contract that tracks to government inflation figures is bearable when there’s a 1-2% difference between the propaganda numbers and the actual numbers, but it would get to be intolerable if it’s stretching in to the double digits.

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   • For the first time in my memory, I’m seeing frequent ads for employment with CSX. Railroad jobs used to be highly sought after. You basically needed to know someone. Not anymore.

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7. Regarding war reports from Ukraine, here’s a great quote by George Orwell in re: Spanish Civil War..as true now as it was then:

   Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relations of the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.

   I saw battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened.

   I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines”.

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   • Well Orwell would have been talking here about the War of Revenge for 1492.

     You wouldn’t seriously expect a Truthful retelling of events from the children of the father of lies, now would you?

     Republican women fornicated to death by Falangist automated masturbation machines?

     Republican men incinerated in Falangist crematorium rooms with wooden doors?

     It is to LOL.

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     • Like they say, there are three sides to every story – the winner’s, the loser’s and the truth.

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   • Interesting quote, but what possible relevance can it have to the glorious kherson offensive where Zelensky leading on his white charger so befuddled the russians that they immediately swallowed sunflower seeds and shot themselves with Javelin missiles while cursing Putin forever?

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8. WTF is going on with the internet today? Whoever is running the Ukraine bots is having an effing field day today. Quite a few of the usual sites I use for business are down. WTF is going on with the internet today?

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   • it’s not WTF , its WEF

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   • Ukie bots have been running wild everywhere and the odd part is that they are obvious. They don’t even pretend to be anything but. My experience with Freerepublic (getting banned about 2 minutes from joining) is that the bots are overwhelming discourse there and the non-bots are intimidated into silence for the most part. The Ukes can just scream Putin puffer or Russkie bot and the like it everyone else is silenced.

     I’m beginning to believe that there must be bad news coming in the next couple weeks or else they wouldn’t be so frantic now. I do hope so, I’m tired of the Ukraine and Ukrainians.

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     • My YouTube feed has been overrun from the beginning of UkeFest22 with odd new channels that the YT AI overlords obviously want me to watch to convert me from what they regard as the Dark Side. One guy is claiming that the recent bulge in the Uke lines is “the end of Ruzzia”. Yes, he spells it “Ruzzia” I suppose making fun of the correct Russian pronunciation of the country (Россия) which is close to “Rassia”. Maybe the “z’s” are to sprinkle in a bit of Nazi flavor. Who cares really. Claiming that anything the Ukes can do is “the end of Russia” is, I’m sure, a nice creamy wet dream for would-be neocons and ruling elites everywhere. I do want to thank the Uke propagandists for keeping their style simplistic and old-school. It makes it easy to tune out but also makes me wonder who all these low-IQ stand-with-Ukraine-ians are? Freepers? That makes a certain amount of sense. Around here the bugmen are already peeling the Uke flags off their Teslas. Probably, the microchips in their heads have already told them that The Hive is now concerned with the election.

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       • Oddly enough there is a rabid bot Freeper who always spells it Ruzzia too. Those 8-10 at the most swarm the site and post from obscure new sources and from places like The Guardian that no self respecting supposed conservative would read. And they have time all day and night to post and swarm anyone who doesn’t agree 100%.

         At first I thought they were old boomers who never moved on from the Cold War but it’s become obvious that they are something else. I think they’re Ukrainian because of their sheer bloodthirstiness. I think I’ve read that Bandera was so crazed that even the German’s thought he was going too far.

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         • I have read of reports from the SS complaining of Ukrainian efforts in “J” eradication in Ukraine and elsewhere in overrun Russia. Not that the SS was sensitive to the plight of “J”, but that they feared the brutality would incite resistance and in the end be counter productive.

           Maybe there’s not been much change in the nature of these people?

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   • I remember innocent and naive moi, back circa maybe ten or fifteen years ago, who kept wondering why the NSA didn’t have border routers in place to stop massive foreign Distributed Denial of Service [DDoS] attacks on American web servers.

     Then I learned a few years later that most of the DDoS Bot Farms were in The Ukraine.

     Then I stumbled upon “200 Years Together, Chapter One, Before the 19th Century, From the Beginnings in Khazaria.”

     Then I remembered that we had to perform “Fiddler on the Roof”, not once, but TWICE, during my childhood: both in fifth grade, and again in twelfth grade.

     Then the lightbulb finally went off in the pea brain of muh thick hard-as-rock neanderthal skull…

     “Anatevka, Anatevka.
     Underfed, overworked Anatevka.
     Where else could massive DDoS Bot Farms be so sweet?
     Anatevka, Anatevka.
     Intimate, obstinate Anatevka,
     Where I know everyone I meet.”

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   • Bots quieted down a bit after Russians flooded the rear lines of troops near Криво́й Рог.

9. “We have been lying to ourselves about inflation since the 1990’s and it is obvious when you look at old bills. Pull out a cable bill from ten years ago and you see the difference. Food is probably twice what it was ten years ago.”

   We haven’t been lying to ourselves. It is the US government that has been lying to us. This lying started in earnest under Bill Clinton, where the way inflation was calculated was deliberately changed. It was changed so that a lower figure emerged, and this lower figure was used to keep COLA (cost of living adjustments) to social security recipients lower than they would have had a more authentic inflation rate been used. A side benefit is that the government can claim with a straight face that inflation is substantially lower than it is.

   I remember a discussion some of us were having a decade back when the consensus was that the official inflation rate reflected the increase in prices for maintaining a deteriorating standard of living — i..e., if the official inflation rate was 2% and our weekly grocery bill was $100, which included steak twice a week, then it was $102 a year later for a grocery bill that included hamburger twice a week and $104 two years later for a bill that included canned dog food twice a week.

   The site I use for realistic inflation calculation is shadowstats.com, maintained by John Williams. The site indicates that at the moment inflation is running at around 17% annually.

   If prices have doubled over the last decade or so, as you maintain, then using the “rule of 72”, annual inflation has been roughly 72/10 ~7% annually.

   Raising interest rates won’t do the trick of reining in inflation. It worked in a fashion in the early 1980s, with Paul Volcker at the helm, but it won’t work today. The real US economy was more robust and resilient then and the debt overhang (at all levels — government, corporate, and personal) far less onerous. The ruling class of this collapsing empire has painted the US into a corner and there’s no panacea for this. Hence the hysterical search for domestic enemies to paint as radical extremists. There are only two ways out: repudiation of debt and/or massive inflation (which amounts to the same thing). Either way the dollar is toast and the dollar is the mainstay of the US empire.

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   • This is a nice articulation of exactly my views. Anyone who believes the Phillips curve is an actual metric needs to remember that when Bank of Japan wasn’t hitting that rate, they simply stopped counting oil prices. Problem solved! Thus, the problem is much worse than officially acknowledged, and we can imagine much more disastrous in ending.

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   • The most obvious thing to factor into inflation, that is not included, would be housing. I’ve been looking at buying in a Red state lately and one of the shocking things is looking at the price history of the homes. You can find this on Zillow near the bottom of the listing. As an example, one place sold for $154,900 in 2016. It’s on the market right now at $369,900. Hmm… I wasn’t aware that wages had more than doubled in the US in the last 7 years. Of course they haven’t. This is a place in Idaho. People in that area actually work real jobs. This is approximately 12%-14% housing inflation.

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10. I doubt business likes 1% inflation. They want to bust loose and sing the praises of high prices. Profits look good during times of inflation.

    Meanwhile, the war in the Ukraine slogs on. Russia will win, of course. The only miracle is that the Ukrainians have held on as long as they have. With American aid, they can only postpone the inevitable. Russia will own the eastern third of the country and declare a “protectorate” over the rest — one more buffer against the West, which has invaded them twice in two centuries. Current trendlines suggest no third appearance, with the milquetoast reality among Western societies, but this does not matter to the Russians, who are almost preternaturally paranoid.

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    • “The only miracle is that the Ukrainians have held on as long as they have.”

      I hate to be a nay-sayer, but Russia simply cannot compete with American tech [especially USAF tech], neither now, nor in the near future.

      As long as Russia is fighting with 20th Century dumb weapons, and the USA is smuggling 21st Century smart weapons into The Ukraine, it’s gonna be a meat grinder for the poor Russians.

      If the Ukraine war has taught us anything [which 1991’s Desert Storm hadn’t already taught us], it’s that dumb weapons don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell when facing off against smart weapons.

      For the near future [at least the next five years], there are still enough Alpha Chad White males in the USAF, from the GWB & Trump eras, to make the trains [er, jets] run on time.

      OTOH, given the current trajectory, the tide will start to turn in the next decade, to favor the Russians, when e.g. the USAF [not to mention the USN & USMC] becomes overrun by sodomites, sapphistes, trannies and queeneshas, at which point the 2021 disaster in Kabul will start to look like a picnic by comparison.

      But that would be circa the 2030 to 2035 timeframe.

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      • You’re going to get some downvotes for that take. I know because I’ve argued something similar on here before. There is one variable you’re not taking into account though in regards to Ukraine: the massive amount of graft taking place. A lot of that money is getting funneled elsewhere or sold to other countries for cash. Not to mention that Russians are often hitting supplies before they get to the front. No where near all the weapons are making front lines, as even CBS found that maybe 30% are getting there.

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        • “You’re going to get some downvotes for that take. I know because I’ve argued something similar on here before.”

          Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t be a popular opinion here.

          I just don’t want my Russian Christian brothers, chug-chugging along like water buffalo in dumb tanks & dumb armored personnel carriers, being slaughtered by satellite-guided smart-missiles [possibly even with rudimentary real-time AI capabilities to distinguish targets].

          I do not want my Russian Christian brothers being slaughtered.

          And that’s what gonna happen if water buffalo try wallow their way through to mud to mount an attack on AI-driven weapons platforms.

          “Theirs not to make reply,
          Theirs not to reason why,
          Theirs but to do and die.
          Into the valley of Death
          Rode the six hundred…”

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      • It’s generally conceded by even the Pentagram that Russian EW is superior to ours. How much superior is in doubt but they are ahead in that respect.

        Also remember last year, I thiink it was, that a USN destroyer was intruding on Rissian territorial waters in the Black Sea and was overflown by a Russian EW plane. The plane was able to shut down all the defense systems on the destroyer and maybe everything else too. It was not a lesson learned apparently.

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      • I think you’re conflating two conflicts here – one hypothetical. One would be a direct conflict between Russia and the US. Clearly the airpower-heavy US would win assuming it could get its aircraft into the theater of operations. The conflict in the Ukraine though is quite different. Russia is actually playing the role of the US in Desert Storm. They have air superiority and advanced weaponry while Ukraine has a lot of Soviet-era junk. The Russians actually have plenty of their own 21st century weapons now too. Putin plows a lot of Russia’s oil profits into a gigantic and quite modern defense industry. It’s the Ukes who are trying to cope with modern Sukhoi fighter bombers using Soviet era weapons. Direct ground conflicts between the two armies are a more even match but the Russian strategy has been to utilize their artillery advantage and air superiority to grind down the Ukes from a distance.

        Western weapons could level the playing field somewhat but as The Greek mentioned, most of the the supplies from the West are not getting to the front, either due to graft or Russian interdiction (perhaps using some of their supersonic cruise missiles to hit the stuff practically at the Uke border).

        The final factor is the sheer incompetence and lunacy of most of the West’s leadership allowing Russia to stand by and watch as the US-led “allies” fire one round after another into their own foot. Are Europeans seriously cucked enough to freeze this winter so that trains full of weapons can plow through the snow on their way to the Uke oligarchs’ dachas? Eventually even Germans tire of unlubed anal rape.

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        • You guys need to do your research. They have plenty of smart weapons. Several models of cruise missiles, laser guided bombs and arty. Anti satellite missiles, etc. You don’t need smart weapons to blast men in trenches.

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      • “If the Ukraine war has taught us anything [which 1991’s Desert Storm hadn’t already taught us], it’s that dumb weapons don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell when facing off against smart weapons.”

        This is obviously why the US has succesfully conquered Iraq and Afghanistan and rules them both securely to this day.

        New technology means there is no such thing as morale any more and our job program mercenary trannies and shaniquas can easily defeat men fighting for their actual nation on their home turf.

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      • Smart weapons that work and smart weapons that can be replaced. Both seem not to be completely at hand. Military doctrine and weaponry—if I read correctly—are for short, decisive wars. Therefore, smart weapons are stockpiled in anticipation of such. Part of the last “aide to Ukraine” package, was $20B to replace diminished stockpiles of those smart weapons you beam about.

        For example, the Javelin Anti-tank missile. Reports I’ve read is that we had drawn down at least 30% of our reserves. However, the contract let to Raytheon can not even be started for months and possibly not filled for years. This is from the CEO who stated the production lines no longer exist, nor are all the parts available. Raytheon is in my city of Tucson. I know a number of the engineers there, but have not discussed this with them at this point. If I do, I’ll let you know more.

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        • “I know a number of the engineers there, but have not discussed this with them at this point. If I do, I’ll let you know more.”

          Thanks.

      • The fundamental question of war is logistics. Smart weapons are nice IF they are in the hands of trained soldiers, and you have enough weapons and soldiers. Given that supply chains are breaking down and the vast majority of fighting age men are unfit for duty, simply having superior tech is unlikely to be enough for victory, particularly if domestic unrest occurs due to inflation. Winning a war isn’t merely a question of troop numbers, or technical ability. It’s ultimately a question of how much strength can be violently imposed on an opponent, and technical superiority is a small component of that. The American war machine, for all it’s technical prowess, is sclerotic and underpowered, and that’s a very important characteristic, not be ignored in favor of tech specs.

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11. My opinion (worth nothing – therefore free) is that this inflationary cycle will not even have a hard landing. I believe that it will actually accelerate to hyperinflation and crash in a manner unprecedented. This serves the purpose of 1) Killing old people (my god – how many will freeze in Europe this winter) 2) Ushering in a new global basket currency 3) Enable complete governmental totalitarian control.
    The causes is that this inflationary process has been occurring as long as the Fed has existed, but it will likely snowball in the near future (maybe months, maybe decades). Too many nexuses used to prop up the fiat system are under tremendous strain and will eventually break.
    To clarify, I do not necessarily believe that this crashing economy is on purpose. But it will be seized by wicked people like George Floyd on crack (the concerted and unified news push – not the man – he was already on it:). They will blame inflation on Russia and national banks.
    We, the average prole, will have no choice but accept a new parameter: handouts from the government as essential to exist (akin to WWII rations – but for everything) but with mandatory compliance of “optional security measures”. Sure, you do not have to follow every rule the government gives, but then you will receive nothing and starve to death. Social media unpersoning, the “stimulus” handouts, the tax credits, are all dry runs for the top to bottom restructuring on government subject relations, one where inflation is so bad procuring goods will be the only real drive, and that will be regulated and controlled based on compliance.

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    • the Fed is led around by the nose by Blackrock. they even use blackrocks Aladdin supercomputer program .
      this vid is lays out the interlocking ownership of all the corporate entities that lead back to BlackRock, state street , and vanguard .
      this is why the government dances to their tune too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2t4u_tEefM

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      • The question surely arises that is there really such a thing as the Fed (apart from on paper)?

        • here you go trumpton , the real financial string pullers
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2t4u_tEefM

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      • I completely agree on Blackrock. I just know that the idea of a global cabal is off-putting to many, so I fudged my response and made it happenstance rather than purposeful. Completely spot on miforest.

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12. Ok top of everything you said about inflation and food, they’re largely stopping enforcement of crime, because equity and such. Tucker did a good segment on it yesterday. So far it’s largely been contained to the cities. If things get really bad thought, the blacks will start moving on to the middle class white suburbs. Then things will get interesting. Nothing will change until crime and poverty starts showing it’s head in the posh elite neighborhoods.

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    • Nothing will change until whites self organize outside of the existing institutions.

      They are living in a dream world where their enemy will somehow stop pushing the boot on their face if they just take it some more.

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      • The illusion of being able to duck the boot is powerful. Everyone, left and right, reflexively says that fascist Germany was worse than Stalinist Russia. This is despite massively higher body counts attributed to Stalin. When I push them on why they think this way, it boils down to this: Communist/authoritarian regimes offer the illusion that you can keep your head low, and avoid the gaze of your overlords by obeying. With fascist Germany, it was largely, you’re either part of the tribe or not.

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      • And white identity must develop before organization has a raison d’etre.

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      • Well said sir, but they’re all busy watching TV.

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    • The Greek: I read the moaning of the left coast residents in Portland and Seattle about the crime and drugs now on their front doorstep, and how they feel forced to move, and I just laugh. They won’t learn, of course, but it’s still pure schadenfreude to see them getting what they voted for, good and hard.

      Most people remain utterly convinced that Deshawn will continue to rob and pillage only in his hood. But the decay is already spreading – I’ve read enough reports of suburban gas stations and grocery store parking lots being targeted. It will spread, and faster than most people expect, while they’re waiting for their EV to recharge.

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13. “A suddenly panicked middle-class, still not happy about the 2020 election or the behavior of the elites, might start looking around for something a bit stronger than Trump and his one-liners.”

    Your hope feeds on meager fare. They won’t defend their children. Maybe grilling means more to them than their children, but I don’t think so.

    One thing that is fascinating to me is how if you criticize the tribe, people instinctively get suspicious about the motives of the person doing the criticizing. But these very same people never apply that to themselves or their children. Like, maybe the people proudly proclaiming Whites must be “eliminated” and are responsible for every evil in the world, might just not have the best intentions. Not only will they not become suspicious of the people saying it, they’ll get suspicious of YOU for pointing it out. Have they internalized it? Do they secretly want their children to be “eliminated?”

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    • They are not real people, they are NPCs receiving instructions.

      They are instructed to traumatize their children and tolerate them being muzzled, poisoned and sodomized, and they obey.

      Even the lowliest animal protects their young, but NPCs are below this.

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      • Saker had a post that mentioned Asch conformity: 5% will call a stone water if everyone else does it, 25% will tell the truth regardless of peer pressure, and 70% of people will go along to get along some of the time. I’m surprised at 25%. The 5% need to be committed to the loving tender care of 3g4me’s Summer Camp ‘o Fun, Truth, and Reconciliation.

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        • I’ve heard about experiments where they hire a bunch of actors and put them in a classroom with 1 experiment subject. Then they will draw things on the chalkboard and at first, the actors chose the right drawing. Then, they switch it up. They’ll draw a 10inch line a 6 inch line and ask which is longer. All the actors go before the actual subject. They all claim the 6″ line is longer than the 10″ line (as an example). A scarily high percentage of subjects will take the cue from the actors and say the 6″ line is longer. They will not believe even their own eyes.

          I’m glad I’m just not built for this conformity. Though it does have its costs.

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          • It will cost you *everything*—but never your integrity. Simple choice for you Tars.

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      • Right on trumpton. You forgot to mention that they mutilate their children (gender reassignment). Wickedness.

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    • they let their daughters tits get lopped off in 6th grade , and their sons be catamites for the “drag” rulers . they will not resist anything

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14. “Poor people accept that they may have to stand in line for food, but middle-class people loath the idea of it. It is why we hide food banks from the middle-class, so they are not freaked out about it.‘

    Tell me about it. In my berg, the poverty groups have opened up a *drive through* for food and meals pickup. Heretofore, they used to serve bums with back packs and shopping carts. Today, families in *cars*! No one—at least in the media and government—sees this as “odd”, much less foreboding, which is certainly why much of this problem metastasizes.

    I’m doing fine thank you, but when those cars begin to show in my neighborhood…?

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    • Back during Covid, I noticed a line of cars around a suburban school on one of my rides. The school was closed and the area had little traffic, which is why I rode there. Curious, I checked it out and it was a food give away. People drove into the school bus turnaround, popped their trunk and a box of food was placed inside. The laziest soup line ever.

      My hunch is that they do this so people can pretend they are not in a food line. It also prevents people from chatting in line about who and why they are there. They are using middle-class shame to keep people from organizing. Think about the evil behind such scheming.

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      • Consider the contrast to the 1930’s breadlines, where men used to dress in their Sunday best in order to appear respectable amidst the shame of a handout.

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        • Ah yes. In the bygone age when men possessed honor, cared about respectability, and were capable of feeling shame. Insane Clown World has vaporized all that.

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          • Yep, that would be my father. A Blue collar worker all of his life, but when I cleaned out his closet he had well over a dozen suits. In his world a man was never too poor not to wear a suit. That made him the equal of any man on the street.

            4

      • Must confess my wife did this during COVID. At our income range and racial make-up there is not a prayer of getting “gib”-one from the empire, so when a friend said that all you had to do in order to avoid part of a grocery bill for a week was show up early to the school she was over there.

        21

        • Good for you. I mean it.

          We pale-faces get nearly nothing in gibs even as our taxes keep everything running. Other groups have no shame in lining up for freebies. If we don’t join the line, we’re nothing but suckers.

          10

        • During early days of Covid closure, folks dropped off hot meals and groceries for wife and I. I said “what the hell”? Wife, as always, corrected my manners and graciously accepted. But it went down hard.

          Looking back it’s laughable, but it went down hard at the time. Never was I ever in receipt of “charity”. Hell, I don’t even use a senior discount. Those things are probably good for those in need, but come now—me? There is no less needy person in this town. Wife however realized that one has a responsibility to the giver in these matters. She’s a bit more advanced.

          2

15. “We have been lying to ourselves about inflation since the 1990’s and it is obvious when you look at old bills.”

    Who is “we,” kemosabe?

    9

    • Presumably people who don’t file tax returns that guarantee a refund.

      7

    • We is me—at least. What I believe it might have been less lying, and more keeping pace—wage wise. If your mouth and nose are above the water level, you don’t panic as much as you watch the water rise. But when you need to hop up and down to get a breath, you know your screwed—BUD trained Seals excepted.

      12

      1

16. It’s been an orgy out there for a while, totally out of control. I wonder if a gradual deflation is possible. I’d expect a seizure, not just a hangover.

    It’s interesting, too, how this started when the last legitimate check on GAE went down, and how things are reversing course as that same nation rises back up. E. Europe pulled along willy nilly and Germany caught in the middle again, or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Crazy how that works, at any rate.

    7

    • Poland ran along predictably (being the imperial protectorate de facto), Chech Republic it seems, was pulled more forcefully by its comprador government. The result are the Prague protests.
      Germany tries to balance, but public opinion manipulation into Team Ukraine along with green madness makes it hard for Scholz to maintain autonomy. All hope is with traditionally americano-sceptic France that could repeat Sarkozy’s peace-brokering in Georgia. The problem is, GAE invested too much in that conflict and Georgia was the aggressor in 2008.

      6

      • You’re in Poland aren’t you? The one thing I’ve noticed since Europe got flooded by the gutter trash of the Ukraine is that generally they have made themselves hated wherever they go. Entitlement, crime, violence and everything else. I’m sure that the native sex workers are being forced out of business too.

        4

        • We’ve been on the receiving end of increasing Ukrainian immigration since 2014. First thing is most of them WORK (women included) and that’s used to depress the wages. The other thing, many older ones have post-soviet mentality making them lousy workers. Younger ones are often more hardworking eager learners and often tie their future with Poland. Even since before 2014 we have had a steady influx of Ukrainian students either legally or by defrauding Polishman’s Card system. That’s how I personally know quite a number of them. Those are often aspiring European liberals who often told me plainly that they see no future on Ukraine (even after Maidan). Other than that, Polish men found their sexual market options expanding.

          As for the gutter trash, they have always been there, but used to be usually quietly deported via hiring companies that brought them in. Banderists are the biggest problem in eastern Poland in cities like Lublin (major university city).
          Today it’s a bigger problem since we have been overrun by war flood and many ukrotrash found their way back or jumped further west. They also became a massive strain on our social and public services. Unless they’re off-loaded further west, anti-ukrainian sentiments are going to grow one war hysteria dissipates.

          3

    • Hyperinflation or mass expropriation. “Soft landings” only happen with high iq YT male pilots. Our “pilot” messes his drawers and doesnt know what day it is, and there are only harridans and girly-men in the copilot slots.

      26

    • John Mearsheimer (and others) have written some great books on international politics.

      Every country that can (few, and rare) aspires to be a hegemony, because it assures survival in an anarchic world. But the any one entity get, the more nervous their neighbors become and they’ll seek alliances to push back against the hegemon.

      Which explains the reluctance of most of the world to join the US in it’s “dominate eastern Europe” aspirations.

      Bipolar and multipolar powers are the historic norm, and we’re heading back to that state of affairs rapidly.

      15

      • Thank God for that. This current iteration of globalism needs to end.

        15

      • Well, the global refusal to join The Current Thing (ukraine edition) isnt so telling. “Let’s start a land war with Russia” used to be an idiom denoting someone had gone “full r-tard”

        10

17. It was similar here with monetary policy. NBP (Polish central bank) president also acted like Burns and now we’re facing the prospect of stagflation. In his case he was likely pressured by party higher-ups who ran the policy of credit expansion which means many borrowers are in for a rude awakening, thus the ruling party is stalling until the elections. Of course Putin is guilty of everything from lack of coal (first EU country to embargoe import) to gas (predictably refusing to pay in rubles). Ofc the opposition cannot undermine the pro-ukrainian policy so we’re stuck with blaming “bad management” instead of idiotic strategy and reckless geopolitical moves.

    I’m surprised that the Zblog is being ukro-bombed. Must have found its place on a list of every “russian sock” disinformation site usual suspects compile. Each blog post can gather up to 200 comment so maybe the comment traffic attracted them. On the other hand I’m being assaulted on YT with video recommendations about glorious Kherson Offensive so it may be a blanket internet bombardment campaign.

    10

    • The Ukrainian public relations offensive is impressive. Obviously, much of it is done in Washington, London and Brussels, but you have to give Zelensky credit too. He knows how to do agit-prop better than most.

      20

      1

      • He is an actor. He is good at playing a role.

        17

        • One only wishes his chosen role was elder statesman, rather than political pawn of GAE.

          5

        • We don’t know if the average Ukrainian is even buying his performance. But he is definitely playing a role, which requires a costume.

          4

          • Yeah. I think I prefer Castro’s costume. Zelensky’s looks like my garage mechanic.

            2

      • He certainly knows what clicks with the western audiences, although the “alpha stud” PR he received there is… disturbing to say the least.

        10

      • The PR seems very subtle and well organized.

        On the front page of YT when I view it approximately 50% of the thumbnails are either blue and yellow, or dominant blue with a surrounding or adjacent thumbnail of dominant yellow.

        The shades are very close to the Ukraine flag in nearly all of them.

        The videos are on many different topics, but the dominance of the color combination is very striking.

        4

18. All hail blessed Ukraine and her not at all corrupt or self-serving people. Please pay $xxx billion Joe Bucks to the brave and valiant government who are fighting the evil, stinky Rooskies. Help now before Putin completes his sinister plan of killing Ukranian orphans and destroying all infrastructure.
    Also, follow me on Onlyfans for private messages and virtual back-rubs.

    21

    • Don’t forget the incubators. Russians is stealing incubators and shipping them back home. This must be stopped!

      16

      1

      • I heard the Russkies fired on our navy, unprovoked, in the Tonkin Gulf. They also dynamited the USS Maine, and torpedoed the Lusitania, they have yellow cake and WMDs, and they fired on Fort Sumter.

        15

        • all true, saw it with my own eyes…

        • In 1917 Tsaritsa Aleksandra said, “Pust im yedem zholtim tortim!” (Let them eat yellow cake!) This depravity, which has been transmitted to Putin, was the unacknowledged trigger of the October revolution.

          2

        • Was it over when the Russians bombed Pearl Harbor?

19. The Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law on 16th August. The inflation numbers are from August too. It’s not possible for the act to have any effect on August numbers.

    That being said, it’s not going to have any positive effect on inflation at all. It’s just a bullshit Orwellian name for a big spending law.

    28

    • The Inflation Reduction Act was a payoff to all the politicians and their donors who know they are about to get booted in November. Since there was nothing to lose, they looted the treasury.

      15

    • Do we even know if the words “inflation” and “reduction” even mean what they used to mean? With all of the redefinition of words lately, I can’t keep up.

      3

20. In spite of the fact that figures like Powell and Yellen can’t quite put their finger on the causes and remedies for the inflation problem it’s actually quite simple. If the amount of money in circulation (or in this case enpixelated) increases, the value of each unit of money decreases. When the government creates money to buy aircraft carriers and subsidize unwed mothers it makes each dollar worth less than it was before. There’s no relationship between inflation and supply and demand because if a demand increase drives prices of something, say halibut fillets, up, with a stable amount of money the price of other items will fall.
    The first great organized inflation was that engineered by Roman emperor Septimus Severus (145-211 AD), who called in all the Roman money, melted it down, added base metal to the pot and re-minted many more denarii than had originally gone into the pot. Historians feel that this may have been one of the more significant reasons for the eventual collapse of at least the western Empire.
    The fiat money system of the US and most other countries survives for two reasons. First, the government can theoretically never become insolvent because it can always create new money. This new money must be accepted by the proles because only it can be used to pay taxes. The by-product, inflation, is a minor concern to existing government as long as people are willing to accept for their daily purchases.

    21

    • Black markets will/do develop. In Zimbabwe, the country continued to function, but the “currency” for transaction was Euro’s and Dollars. Hence the latest ploy of adding some gold to coined money. Not sure such won’t happen here if things spin out of control. You want funny money for your taxes, fine. I’ll buy it from the local (underground) money exchange. Such “exchanges”—all illegal—thrive in crapholes like Argentina and Venezuela where they inflate their money.

      16

21. if my memory is correct mustache man bad showed up in a collapsed economy, social degeneracy and a growing threat from communists. the current tune sure sounds similar

    50

    • Mustache Man got five years for the Beer Hall Putsch, while people on our side have gotten that for wandering around buildings in D.C.

      The only way a strong-man will gain power is through a parallel political structure, basically a mafia that functions better than D.C. in giving people goods and services.

      31

      1

      • I disagree…

        The only way it happens is if right wing authoritarianism comes about. I do not see a non-violent way for that to happen. Too much of the USA land mass is insane and believes men can get pregnant and that black criminals are deities. There is no fixing them other than through a forceful removal, I’m afraid.

        4

    • My fear is we end up with goatee man (or bushy mustache man) rather than mustache man.

      4

22. We are going to live through what the Austrians have best analyzed and described. What you describe Z is what Peter Schiff calls, “The Fed’s Monetary Roach Motel.”

    I am already way to chatty in this forum, so I will try and keep it brief. The government’s inflation measures are a lie. In fact, the managerial state’s biggest big lie has been that debt creates prosperity. They hide inflation in their numbers and the inflation that goes into, “asset” prices, is celebrated as real wealth creation. Even if at face value there were 2% inflation, compound that over a decade and you are talking about a significant loss of capital. They’ve been doing this for 45+ years.

    We are going to lurch back and forth between deflationary episodes and massive spending projects to “reflate”, “the economy.” They will give out money to their cronies and try and create employment. One of their big projects is the energy transition. Unfortunately, they will replace inexpensive, reliable energy sources and machines, with expensive, unreliable energy machines. This is a monkey wrench unprecedented in human history piled on top of a debt fueled ponzi scheme that is unprecedented in human history. Of course, then there is the race war, the boomer age out with pensions funds levered to the hilt … …

    Position your portfolios to capitalize on the lurches. De-risk yourself from chimp outs. Strengthen your ties with people who love you and who are reliable. The Managerial State has succeeded in their dream – to be significant; to be a disruptive; to change the world. In doing so, it has prepared a banquet of consequences in this age of the foodie that won’t age well on Instagram.

    25

    2

    • Asset depreciation via $$$. Here’s an example which I found interesting. In very short abbreviation. The show “Pawn Stars” had a guy who wanted to sell his “restored” 1933 Packard. Car sold for $3000 in 1933 depression era. The guy’s car was rated at 85-90% restored. Wonderful example of the era. Old guy was bugging out of the economy and asked to be paid in *gold* coin, American Gold Eagles. Caught my interest.

      Thinking about it, the Packard was/could be bought for 150, $20 gold pieces in 1933. He was offered something like $240k by the Pawn shop. They counted him out (IIRC) 120 or so new Gold Eagles.

      Note the new Gold Eagle contain 1 Troy oz of pure gold, whereas the 1933 era Gold Eagle was in the neighborhood of .9675 Troy oz. So the value of the car changed from $3,000 to $240,000 in dollars, but in gold not so much. 😉

      18

      • Gold was revalued in 1933 from $20 to $35/oz. So 33 is a bad year for this. Still, your point is well taken about the inflation.

        Since 1913, with the exception of the few years of the depression where the dollar got stronger because of deflation, the Dollar has been on a steady downward decline. Basically every single year. Some years were really bad, like close to 50% bad.

        If you do a good job, car restoration is largely a loosing proposition. I follow a guy on youtube called “Cold War Motors” who does restorations along with other mayhem. He has restored a 1960 Fury and it’s taken like 4 years. His goal with it was to have it look like a well preserved example, not a full restore. He’s a professional body man. If he added up the hours he has into it, it costs more than he could ever get for it. That’s before 2 additional parts cars and all the miscellaneous parts he had to buy. After all this work, it still has the un-rebuilt poly in it and an un-rebuilt transmission. The interior is not back to factory specs either. This is why there is so much tomfoolery with the so-called “flippers” and why they cut so many corners. That last 15% is really, really time consuming.

        8

        • Yeah, but those are the details which lose a person’s interest in the “moral” of the story—which is that regardless of a few points here or there, the Packard inflated perhaps a dozen times—easy—in dollars. Whereas, only a small percentage in gold. Gold of course often being used as a hedge against runaway inflation, not necessarily an investment vehicle, but a hedge in troubled times. The point of the restore percent was to illustrate that the Packard was pretty much in the same condition as new and comparable to a 1933 model, but allowing you to consider such in your comparison if you’d like.

          1

23. I’ve taken to walking around my rural community and introducing myself to local farmers. I tell them that my wife is a FP MD, and to call on me if they have one man on a two man job. That’s my headspace.

    25

    1

    • Very sensible! We all need to draw our communities together, because we will need community to deal with what is likely coming…

      3

24. Why are the Ukrainian bots bothering to bother you? I thought you were fringy with just a few hundred readers. Maybe you’re the Zuck in disguise and we’re your likes.

    I had a home mortgage at 14% back in the Volcker years. When the rates dropped to 11%, I went to the bank seeking a refi. “At you’re income, you can’t afford 11%.” I countered, “Then how come you aren’t foreclosing since I presumably can’t afford 14%?” I got a blank stare. This really happened, but I’m not surprised. J.M. Keynes said something like, “Markets can remain irrational longer than we can remain solvent.”

    32

    • Our first mortgage was during those years, a bargain at 13%…but we got the house for half of what it was worth a few years on…

      5

      • With inflation at 13%, your capital loses halve its purchasing power in 5 years…

        3

        • Yep, in those years I remember people *running* to buy—if they had cash and credit—I was perplexed (translate extraordinary naive). I asked a friend why he bought at current mortgage rates, he replied “Last year houses went up $5,000. I’m not losing that again this year”.

          Now I understand exactly what he meant. In an era of depreciating money, you transfer your assets from cash to commodity, such as real estate.

          8

          1

          • I get people wanting to park their money, but I don’t get why real estate. The cost of entry keeps going up, and developers keep building, but these days new store fronts sit empty and residential developments take years to fill up when they used to be sold faster than they could be built. So much of this crap sits empty, yet they still build, as if we’re China of a decade ago with piles of cash to blow. What’s the endgame of that? Are they banking on another bailout?

            I’m kind of dumb on economics, so I’m inclined to think I’m missing something, but it looks nuts to me, looks like everybody just assumes a bailout now.

            4

          • So thats backwards. In deflation, $1 is worth more tomorrow than it is today, so you want cash-money. Inflation, you want assets and not cash. Maybe typo by compsci?
            As for why real estate: gotta sleep somewhere, right? If rents are on a rocket bc inflation, you want to fix those costs: pay today’s price with tomorrow’s dollars (which are worth less). The greater the inflation, the stronger that push. Sure, you’re losing your shirt to the bank, but better than losing your pants AND shirt to the landlord. Plus, the inflationary upward force on the real estate price is a buffer to inflation just eating all your money’s value.

            4

          • I think I get hung up on the math, meaning even if you take into account all of the recessions and financial crises of (pick your timeframe), we’re in the steep part of the curve. Irl these things don’t go to infinity, and my gut tells me to stay the hell away from it.

            For instance they’re building regular development houses in the $500k range in these parts. That’s about 10 years’ salary around here. 5 years ago it was $350k or so, years before that, $275k, maybe. Meanwhile wages are flat by comparison.

            Don’t see how that ends well for anybody. I’d rather live out of my car for a while and be ready to jump in at the bottom than get wiped out at the top, but I am dumb about these things. Do tptb have another bandaid, or are they out?

            4

          • easiest way to become a millionaire is to buy 250k worth of real estate and wait 20 years.

            1

          • No, I think I’m correct, but confusingly expressed. Depreciating money, is money that’s “losing” its value as compared to hard assets. In other words, it is economic “inflation” as we’ve discussed. “Appreciating” money is that which has more purchasing power as assets it can buy are becoming less costly—which we call “deflation”

            Anyway, my apologies, but thanks for really reading the damn comment and responding. 🙂

            1

    • My parents did the same thing. They bought a home in 1981 and the rate was really high. They got the re-fi around 1990.

      Volcker lead directly to Greenspan and his awful policies. A policy of stimulation was easy when the rate started at over 20%. Then the bubbles started. Serial bubbles are unheard of in history. Once one bubble happens, it drives all the weak players out. People get burnt and learn their lesson and stay out of the market. That’s what happened in the 30s. People largely stayed out of the market until the 70s. Not today. We just blow serial bubbles and nobody blinks, at least not yet. But today, with the youngest boomers being 58, it might be another story.

      8

      1

    • I think Z has a lot more readers than most of us realize. Not counting the Fpoasters….

      1

25. I have to say I’m flummoxed by all of this. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act should have thwarted the rise. It’s right there in the title of the bill , Inflation Reduction!

    Only other solution is to get rid of old people and their stupid memories of past times and economic affected lifestyles. That and the fact that most younger people are more diverse and dumber.

    35

    • “Only other solution is to get rid of old people and their stupid memories of past times and economic affected lifestyles.”

      Once again The Simpsons offer us a solution:

      Homer: Marge, please, old people don’t need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.
      Marge: Homer, would you please stop reading that Ross Perot pamphlet?

      Mmmmmmmmmm, old people nutrients. 🤤

      13

      • Except as usual, “the usual suspects” reverse the ideology of those that would experiment on and murder senior citizens, as demonstrated in NY for example. A related thought, I could not understand at the time why Republicans allowed the propaganda machine to define them as Red, it came out of no where and was the exact opposite of the natural representations as established by a century of practice in symbolism and vexillology. It’s easy to see now though that it was preparatory to declaring war on the White constituency of the Republican Party, which of course the elected representatives of the party are in on.

        10

        • Although it seems to work well with the red pill/blue pill metaphor – red being reality, blue being fantasy/delusion/illusion (take your pick).

          2

      • “Soylent Green, it’s made out of people!”

        5

    • the vax is getting rid of the old folks , and a lot of middle aged and young athletes too.

      2

26. Interesting about the Ukrainian bots. Notice we don’t hear about Ukrainian interference in our politics! I wonder if it’s being coordinated out of Ukraine or out of Washington DC.

    24

    • Probably DC. Washington is running the war on the ground now. It is the worst kept secret in Ukraine.

      50

      • Yup.

        Here’s the clip of the merc with the Southern accent in Iyzum for those who haven’t seen it:

        https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/9639?single

        2

        4

        • “ Here’s the clip of the merc with the Southern accent in Iyzum for those who haven’t seen it:”

          You link took me to a page demanding my phone number.

          No Thanks

          2

          • Oops, the link will only work if one has the Telegram app installed.

            Did not intend to create this sort of confusion.

            1

      • The D.C.-run offensive is amusing. Do they really think they can milk the Ukrainian conflict for more than one additional big cash infusion/Northern Virginia-Maryland politician stimulus program? It seems it, thus the big push and over-the-top propaganda about victory just around the corner for the plucky Ukrainians.

        Lots of dead people is how D.C. makes megabucks and apparently it is lucrative enough to send out bots to sites that see this as the grift it is.

        20

        • From a public relations perspective, the Ukrainian offensive in the north was a huge success. They grabbed some land and got to grab a lot of headlines. Presumably they expect new rounds of cash and weapons as a result. The trouble is the weapons stock is getting thin, so who knows?

          18

          • Depends what you mean by success, Z. Sure, it grabbed a lot of headlines and got the usual idiots braying. But in reality, what does it do? It just gets the neo-cons and Ukies to dig even deeper into their rabbit hole of delusion. This is a war they can’t win.

            5

        • Jack-

          They appear to believe they can milk the Ukraine situation for quite a bit more cash.

          Think of it as war on the installment plan.

          5

          • It’s a war spent on your credit card.

            6

      • Instead of a gruff general with a big face and a stogie running the ground war, I’m imagining a guy with tattoos and a vape pen using a MacBook

        16

      • Yes, reportedly 1/3 of the UKR army in this counteroffensive was mercs and NATO troops….The gloves come off the Russian military in 3..2..1.,.

        18

        • Serious countries would seek a peaceful resolution. The United States and its satrapies are not serious countries at this point. The infusion of foreign fighters, which is sort of like a half-assed version of what the Afghans did against the Soviets, likely will lead to more damage and deaths from bombing campaigns, which Putin has thus far avoided (he apparently doesn’t want to have to pay for the reconstruction; Russian currency printers don’t go “brrrr” all the time). This offensive may have been partially effective but the primary purpose is to keep Western money flowing “to the conflict” and to prepare their populations for more sacrifice.

          This is single-handedly the most cynical grift I’ve seen D.C. run and that is saying something. The rump West WANTS Putin to step it up just enough to keep the gravy train running a while longer.

          24

          • Are they stupid or are they deliberately trying to provoke WW3? Bonus question: if they get WW3, do they really believe they will be safe in their NZ bunkers?

            6

        • Russia is not responding at all.

          The Russian telegram merc channels are wondering WTF is going on. One even called their defense minister a traitor for refusing to commit more troops to the front, or even mount an offensive to disrupt the new Ukranian deployments.

          Ukraine is now shelling into Russia, and nothing happens. Zelensky and his entire cabinet swans into Izyium (which is within Russian artillery range) and nothing happens, no re-enforcements are being funneled up to the lines despite massing troops on the other side, and the trains are running troops and heavy equipment to the front just fine with no sustained attacks on the electrical grid.

          The war appears to be completely something different, and it seems Russia is playing an active part in moving the losing narrative forward.

          Perhaps its always been to set up the EU implosion and create a massive Ukraine army for use against countries other than Russia.

          Maybe its just me but now an army as big as NATO with all of Europe’s weaponry and Europe left with no industry to make any for itself seems to have other possibilities.

          5

          • I am coming around to the argument that the Russians are in the midst of a great rethinking of the war. They had drawn down in the northeast. The Ukrainian offensive met little resistance on the ground and the Russians pulled out what they had left and just used air power. Why they did this is a mystery.

            The decision to attack the power grid is also an odd move. They should have done this on day one, but for reasons that are not all that clear they refuse to take this step. Similarly, they should have been attacking transportation infrastructure in the north and west. Put enough in roads and rail lines and the flow of weapons stops.

            The answer here may be that the Russians are about to transition into a different approach. They have secured Luhansk and most of Donetsk plus most of Kherson. They may be looking at securing the remain bits of these areas and then settling in to defend them for as long as it takes.

            10

          • @zman

            I know this sounds odd.

            But it starting to strike me that Ukraine will be the most powerful country in Europe in a short time, and Europe will have no industry or arms left.

            The previous months of Zelensky addressing all the parliaments on a big screen as if they were junior partners, the constant ministers jetting up to meet him and the re-organizing of all politics in Europe around Ukraine support makes me think the EU will sort of nominate him as the new President of Europe and the Ukie army will be used to quell all the native dissent.

            Russia appears to be setting this up by its own baffling inaction. Maybe they get to keep Donbass and the Russian ethnics as the payoff.

            6

          • The thing that is bothering me is all the threats and warnings about crossing red lines, that never amount to anything.

            The Russisans are starting to sound like Trump did during his presidency with all his Threats and bluffs that were always called with Trump in the end doing nothing but “monitoring the situation”.

            The GAE is just going to ignore any further threats and “red lines” the Russians offer.

            This is very dangerous, because it going to encourage the GAE to be even more aggressive right up to the point nukes are flying.

            4

          • Bit anti-climactic if the anti-Christ turns out to be a slovenly former third rate Jewish comedian from eastern Europe. I expected a little more pizzazz.

            4

      • Hard to square “massive competence due to secret NATO help” in Ukraine with this news from Lagos on the Chesapeake, Inner Harbor Edition:

        Danish Training Ship collides with newly commissioned US Navy USS Minneapolis-St. Paul last Sunday.

        Can’t confirm, but supposedly the Danish training ship was all crewed by women.

        The Skipper of the USN ship would normally be in for a world of trouble, but, you know. Diversity. He’ll be fine.

        What the heck is going on in the Navy?

        https://news.usni.org/2022/09/12/danish-training-ship-hits-lcs-uss-minneapolis-saint-paul-in-baltimore-harbor

        6

      • The entire Ukraine male conscript army of 800k is now a Janissary army for the west to use against Russia.

        4

      • Washington running the war is great news for Russia. US has an amazing string of expensive L’s against any and everyone they chose to fight going all the back to… the last time Russian people actually won the war for them.

        8

27. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Hard Times

28. A couple years ago refinance rates were something like 2.6 percent for 30-year mortgages for people with solid credit. After rates are increased, we’re going to be looking at over 6%, and it’s only going to get higher. It doesn’t take a mathematician to calculate that buying a new home is going to cost far more, and tightening interest rates more has a good possibility to crash the housing market.

    For people using their mortgage as a personal piggy bank, as well as the new push to sell mortgages to the usual suspects, we might be looking at another mortgage bailout package. Think things are bad now, wait until the feds decide to bail out Blackrock.

    24

    • Houses prices are falling around here, which never happens. Proximity to Washington means the region is recession proof. Even so, I see lots of price cuts in the listings. The other thing rising rates will do is clobber the sale of existing homes. people will not upgrade from their current home when it means upgrading to a 7% mortgage from a 3% mortgage.

      25

      • The price of the home is a function of interest rates. The 30 years of cutting rates to a real rate less than zero pushed home prices up. Boobus celebrated low interest rates by massively pushing up the principle on his home. He counts his riches by how much his home price inflated. He hasn’t thought through that when he sells his home the prices of everything around him will have gone up too. Net Zero baby!

        This is the dumbest top 20% professional class when it comes to basic economics in the history of the world.

        21

        • That and home price fluctuations of 20% or more. Interesting that the average Joe runs out of the stock market with a downturn like that, but considers his home as something of special value in the market that will never precipitously decline.

          2

      • Yes, but the flight from the increasingly dangerous cities also influences prices and availability…

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        • True. Demand is a factor in those in-flow and out-flow regions.

          The wealth effect of the stock market is another factor. In the end, they will choose inflation. The pension funds are heavily invested in stocks and private equity whose ultimate success depends on selling the company onto the next stage of the IPO conveyor belt; after most of the future value was already extracted. 401Ks are by definition in on the stock market. Interest rate manipulation won’t suffice in this set of innings. I think they are going to start buying assets and handing out money. It will be fun to see if they keep doing it with “whites to the back of the line” or “whites not eligible” stipulations.

          The Managerial Regime had it easy when they were just hatching chickens and grabbing tigers by the tail. We’ll see how well they fare at managing roost landings and extreme hunger and irritability.

          4

          1

        • In the post-apocalyptic Main St. USA boulevard of Gary, Indiana, the only building still in use is the large Soviet block welfare / judicial building. That, and the black biker gang club.

          Politicians like this. They drive out anyone who might blink at them, leaving only welfare dependents who vote for the gibs in perpetuity- since they’re the only ones who can bear living there.

          Thus, the politicos have a permanent sinecure, with the gang providing an economy and police force.

          We saw this with desegregation of the schools. Suburbs sprang up as middle class refugee camps.

          Now, with the American Spring- the flood of “economic refugees” across the southern border- the hyperliberalized crime policies make sense.

          They will drive out last of the middle class into Red refuges, vacating the Blue cities. All those “refugees” will be happy to repopulate the emptying cities, a la Paris, Malmo, or London. It will all be normal conditions to them.

          This is how you conduct war without weapons. The purpose of war, even by wolves or owls, is to take territory.

          Witness California, the state that gave us Reagan the Republican.

          8

          • Ah, yes : Gary Conservatory of Music, Gold-medal Class of aught-five.

          • Multiethnic and even more so multiracial democracy is just tribal raiding parties formalized with paperwork and in slow motion. (cribbed from someone here … don’t remember to whom credit is due)

            1

      • I wouldn’t be too surprised if the real estate market in Lagos has a lot to do with White Flight. Boomers and older Xers recall the late 80’s and probably see that roaring back and staying; aint no Guilianni gonna fix it this time.
        Here in the mountain region, tract homes with lot sizes in square feet, new construction have gone from “starting in the 400s” to 500s to 600s now in the last 3 years. If there is a down-tick, it has so far only been in 7 figure custom homes.

        13

        • Where you are seeing the market top is in the distant exurbs and with the million dollar plus houses. Now is not a great time to sell your McMansion. Two points on a $350 loan is not so bad, but it stings on a million dollar note.

          In the exurbs, it could be the topping out of work at home. If you work from home, then living in Frederick, but “working” in DC is no bid deal, even if you have to go to the office once a week. I have been looking in West Virginia and I am now seeing lots of price cuts.

          14

          • We have a neighbor. Well, the house anyway that is a McMansion so to speak. It is up the street on the corner. Been driving past it for years. It was built a couple of decades ago by a rich, retired Chicago couple. They actually gave it a name and all know it by the name. Now if you can name your estate, you’ve got it made, right?

            Well perhaps not so much. It turned over yet again just a few weeks ago, $1.7M. The home and out buildings were initially built for $7M (IIRC).

            8

          • Neighbor just went under contract at 1.2mm. The other listing (1.8 list) went down to 1.7. Not exactly the bottom dropping out here.
            The local blue metropolis is going full-on crazy, but real estate inflation there has been so high that they’re seeing less financing; aint no 20% down here. When your $300k suburb home sells for $650k, the new place’s 1+mm price tag isnt so out there. But, we’re one of the “white hot” regions on realtor’s “heat maps.”

            2

      • As the housing market goes, so goes the economy. New homes sales are falling off a cliff. That means builders stop building and people stop buying all kinds of things (durable goods) to fill those new houses – refrigerators, ACs, etc.

        It’s not looking good for the economy. We may yet get inflation under control, but only because we go into a recession.

        10

      • People dying from vaccinations are putting houses on the market, you won’t see that on the news.

        1

    • A site I’ve read for a long time is the Housing Bubble Blog. The guy who runs it and the commenters predicted that the bubble would burst back in 2007-08. Good info here from all over the world, along with the comment section.
      http://housingbubble.blog/

      4

    • Larry Fink’s on and off advisory role to the Fed almost guarantees Blackrock will be deemed too big to fail. But make no mistake, Blackrock is failing and bleeding green. The question is whether the United States is too big to fail.

      Fink has helpfully acted as a Fed critic while serving as a key advisor–nice work if you can get it. Fink’s main gripe, of course, is the increase in interest rates. Near-zero interest rates and high inflation have been the digital robber barons’ best friends for decades now, and parting is sweet sorrow. Inflation keeps the peasants in their place, which is a nice side effect for the gentry.

      The irony is that unlike the Seventies, Powell is very constrained in what he can actually do. He would make Volker look like a piker in a nanosecond if it weren’t for the amount of debt that has to be serviced and the utter fragility of the economy. What would the actual prime rate be if actually based on the market? Fifteen percent? Twenty percent? Larry Fink intends that to remain a mystery until he gets ready to hike out for his bolt hole in Auckland or Tel Aviv.

      15

      • Fink’s Wiki doesn’t paint a picture of a great business man. The Clinton-Bush-Obama era business all-stars, seem to all be guys who collected their first wad of cash by selling a loser at bubble peak to some old-economy late comer.

        Fink’s resume is not impressive. It seems like it is one initial success and then dismissal after massive losses and then building a firm off of government connections.

        Maybe that is why the ruling class wants to destroy our culture. They look at Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, Ford and the thousands of other businessmen who created great wealth by financing and producing great things. The Finks, Diamonds, Cubans, Blankfeins … … are giant nothings in comparison. Perhaps it isn’t just the rabble that seethes in resentment, but the vulgar money accumulators whose genius is for building government bolstered, zero-sum wealth transfer enterprises.

        As you say, he has a palace in Tel Aviv and friends in China who he will bankroll with what he looted from America. I am sure he has a lot of company that includes DJ D over at Goldman.

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29. It should be remembered that high inflation lasted for 9 years in “the 70s”. From 1972 – 1981. So if this is a replay, we could be in for many years of high inflation.

    5

    • At peak inflation in the 1970’s my grandfather bought a long-term 10 year C.D. with some sort of ludicrous interest rate like 10-11 percent. Made out like a bandit. Looking at C.D. prices now and they are something like 3%.for a five year C.D. Ridiculously weak.

      It’s basically impossible now to stem the tide of inflation, no matter where you put your money. Talk about a rigged game for anyone who wants to save.

      13

      • You can invest in I-Bonds. You are allowed to buy 10k per year per SSN in your household over the age of 18. Right now, the rate is locked in at 9.62%. Next year, it is likely to be higher. That is the best I’ve seen so far.

        1

    • It is called the bullwhip effect. You get a run of inflation, which pushed down demand. That slows inflation and increases inventory build, which triggers price cutting. Demand returns and inflation returns. It is like a spring, but it just keeps going like this unless the Fed takes drastic measures.

      13

    • Maybe the ghost of Gerald Ford will return and help us WIN – Whip Inflation Now.

      7

      • Yeah, but this inflation….seems potentially much worse. I remember Nixon’s wage price freeze when inflation hit 4%! And as Z-man astutely noted, the computation was different then. Use the old computation and we are now easily in double digits.

        4

        • They were’nt 30 trillion in the hole in the 70’s.

          3

      • There was also a commercial back then “Don’t Be Piggy” that showed some average folks except they had pig snouts and gave some grunts as the narrator implied that people who overpaid for things were being “piggy”, and thus responsible for inflation. Can’t find it on youtube though.

        1

30. No drinking water in Mansfield Ma over the last week.

    Z, I know it’s a stretch but maybe the future is already here in Massachusetts and not just in far away and “diverse” places like Lagos?

    13

    • if we have, say, 20 million illegal immigrants in this country, that means there are 20 million more toilet flushes each day at 1.3 gallons apiece=26 million gallons, then there are say, at least 10 million more showers at 3 gallons each=30 million gallons, then there are at least 5 million more loads of laundry at 2 gallons per load=10 million gallons, then there are say, 5 million more loads of dishes being washed at 2 gallons per=10 million gallons, then there are say, 3 million more vehicles being washed at 2 gallons each=6 million gallons, plus about 1 gallon each drinking water for 20 million new people total is approx. 100 million more gallons of water being used PER DAY.

      5

      • Yes, water is the resource that is taken for granted until such time as it either gets real tight, or vanishes altogether. Out west for instance, or in Europe where rivers are really low.

        So glad that our rulers have seen fit to put such a hurt on yet another vital resource through jamming as many low-skilled immigrifts on as as possible.

        2

31. Another indicator of the cluelessness of the ruling and managerial classes is how Wall Street was shocked that the inflation reduction act didn’t reduce inflation. Even a cursory look at the act should have made it clear that reducing inflation was not the purpose of the act.

    Biden handlers need to redefine inflation like they did recession. Inflation is only when the CPI increases by more than 20 percent year to year. Boom! Winning!

    10

    • Biden was talking about *his* success a couple months ago when he compare inflation *month to month*—in the *same* year—and found only a 1% increase! The man is so stupid and demented as to defy belief. Aside from missing the normal year over year standard (within a given month), he failed to compute that a 1% monthly increase extended over a year is *12%* (actually more)!

      The sad part of the whole situation is that he got away with it—the American populace being on average even stupider than he. We are all demented these days. 🙁

      8

      • Soon they may start labeling the understanding that we have high inflation as science denial. They seem to have already tried calling it Russian disinformation but, even as dense as the rulers are, realized that didn’t fly

    • The sole purpose of any “act” from the regime is to wage war on normal whites. That is it. There is literally nothing else.

32. invisible Hitler army is angry over inflation
    —
    Or over crime, or over social degeneracy, etc., but yeah, I wish…kinda. If they spent as much time trying not to munge stuff up quite as badly as they do looking for “invisible Hitlers” they wouldn’t even have to worry about “invisible Hitlers”.

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    • But, but, it’s who they are! You wouldn’t want to deny them their Truth, whatever the hell that is today.

      2

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