I learned a new word today. I like to learn something new every day. So at least I don’t get all dressed up for nothin’.
The new word is Torschlusspanik. It is fear that time for action is running out. I assume the word’s roots are Germanic.
Everywhere I look fills me with torschlosspanik regarding the possibility of salvaging even a shadow of the American Experiment or even a civilized society.
I said two weeks ago that I would be working my way through a list of challenges that MUST ALL be met if we are to survive the coming demographic meltdown we face. Get them right and we come out the other end…well…okay. Get them wrong and we will make the ass pain of the meltdown infinitely worse.
I have a list of ten areas we need to focus on to buttress our nation and culture. I will touch on all of them in the coming weeks and months. Some are related and may be combined in podcasts. Others are a bit complex and need to stand alone, as was the case with the water lunacy in the American southwest. I spoke of that two weeks ago in a Podcast called To Get Water, “First, Kill All The Lawyers”. (No lawyers were harmed in the production of that podcast.)
I started the series with a regional water issue because, like all the other issues, it is critical for all of us. If we destroy productivity in the southwest, getting all the other things right won’t matter. The failure and needless suffering caused by it will be severe and multi-generational.
As an example of how issues may relate to each other, that water podcast also touches on the energy needs our country faces and the utter insanity of dotting the landscape with windmills as a solution. When I deal with energy specifically, I will likely bring forward podcasts dealing with the subject and add to them.
From whence springeth the panic (or panik)?
A damn good question. Thanks for asking.
If my year’s long assessment of America’s trends is correct, we’re already in trouble. Further, if Peter Zeihan’s warnings are valid, China is going to come unglued in about 3 years. In economic dog years, that’s about nine minutes from now. Across the board, and specifically in the areas this series will discuss, I see NO evidence that the United States is even remotely prepared for the event.
With China will go the concept we presently understand to be globalization. The Billy Bob’s, who think America should flip the rest of the world the middle finger anyway, have no idea what de-globalization even means.
So let me simplify the scenario to it’s most basic meaning. If it’s made of plastic and/or incorporates mid-level microchip technology, or has anything to do with medicine and the containers needed therein, you’re going to see a drastic shortage of it. If it carries your fat ass down the road on hydrocarbons or electrons, it will be very costly. If it carries large amounts of current on our energy grid, expect long, LONG blackouts waiting for replacement parts. If such conveniences and critical issues are the only things keeping our shockingly immature society from killing each other, we’re fucked. There are countless other ways to put it, and other areas of the economy and society to address. But that’s a good start.
Let’s touch on economics.
Last week Susan Kelly Garrett and I discussed a number of quotes. Two stood out in terms of defining the dreadful state of American society. If you’ve been with me for a long time, you’ve heard me rail about this subject. In my WordPress days this would have come under the heading Pedestrian Economics.
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." John Adams
Today, the most blatant example of our ignorance of which Adams speaks is our mindless, sheepish acceptance of the Fed and government spending. Even worse, most people do not know that we already have a government digital currency about to go into circulation.
Let’s talk about the currency. It’s called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). To the few who are actually listening, it is being touted as an official version of Bitcoin. It is no such thing.
Bitcoin is a decentralized, user acquired vehicle of exchange. I opine that it’s not a very good one. But its use is voluntary. The CBDC is a centrally controlled, programmable, utterly fluid imitation of currency. Very soon after the proving out of the system, your use of it WILL NOT be voluntary. And once you’re on it, your lives will be utterly dominated by the Fed and the governing class. Everything you buy will be documented. If you have a low ESG score1 your digital currency will be throttled, limited or even shut down to force you into compliance. And private gun ownership will go the way of the Dodo. It will be handled by algorithms. How do you feel about AI now?
And yet, the majority of people who are reading this don’t know it’s coming. Now that you all know, a majority will shrug and not lift a finger to change it. I hope at least some will write a blast at your representatives, state and federal, and tell them they are, by no means, to implement this monstrosity.
So, how does this figure into a discussion of deglobalization and demographic decline? And here’s what to look for. This will be touted as a measure to “HELP” you through ever worsening social and economic conditions brought on by the coming collapse of norms.
It won’t be, of course. It will be the means by which you are controlled. The only beneficiaries will be the governing class and those who own them - that would be the Davos/WEF Cult. They will continue to have the very best of everything. You will be limited to how many articles of clothing you can buy, how often and how far you travel, and what you will drive. They will have NO SUCH restrictions in their lives. They will plan how many people can go to medical school, trade school or basic liberal arts colleges.
How do I know these things will happen?
It is as certain as gravity. When you put ambitious or corrupt people in a position to tip the scales in their favor or control others, they WILL! These people don’t care about you. If they have made it to DC, they care about getting more. The easiest way to do that is through the use of the controls this technology will give them. They will take absolutely every measure at their disposal to gain for themselves and keep you in your place. That’s not even a “maybe”. If we don’t stop CBDC everything I mentioned and a gagillion other things I haven’t even thought of will be foisted on you.
And here’s the best part. All this will exacerbate the very problems caused by the deglobalization and demographic decline that they will be claiming to be dealing with. Don’t believe me? Do you still believe the Inflation Reduction Act was about inflation reduction? If you do, go away. You’re beyond hope.
If you’re still here, there is hope for you. Let’s gradually broaden the economic aspects of our argument here.
Government spending.
I don’t have to go too far into this. If you’ve gotten this far you already know there is too much of it and IT NEVER helps you, unless you are a powerful person in the special interest arena any particular government waste is touted to help with. The spending never works as advertised and only administrators of the waste pocket significant jing from the boondoggle.
Nuff said.
From the Adams quote: “coin, credit, and circulation.”
As much as I despise fiat money, that’s money not backed by a real store of value, like gold…it’s a far cry better than the CBDC. Nobody, not even the government knows how much cash I have in my pocket on any given day. They also don’t know what I wish to buy and there is no way to control who I hand that cash to and for what. There is certainly no one who can instantly change the value of that cash in a keystroke to prevent or change the value of a single purchase. So even fiat cash is better then CBDC.
How that money moves most efficiently for the benefit of the buyer, seller and society as a whole is through an unencumbered exchange of value. I want that candy bar more than I want this dollar. The seller wants my dollar more than he wants the candy bar. For him, the candy bar was an investment he’s about to benefit from. For me, it is a consumable that will provide me with the enjoyment I seek. In making the exchange we have contributed to the churning of wealth that keeps an economy healthy. Everyone involved, the store, the employees, the delivery guy, the candy factory, the wrapper maker and all the suppliers to the process have benefited.
Now multiply that by all the purchases made everyday of EVERYTHING, and you have a healthy economy. That is economics. This too is as certain as gravity. The basic laws never change.
It is when the government intrudes on the exchange in any way other than perhaps the prevention of fraud, that the exchange becomes less healthy and less productive. Uninvited parties not part of the exchange become beneficiaries of the exchange at a cost to me or the seller - more likely me.
People think what the government does to taxes, intentional inflation, lending laws, printing money, regulating merchants and manufacturers, etc, are the practice of economics. They are NOT! Those activities are acts of economic manipulation that ALWAYS run ATHWART the laws of economics.
Sometimes these things are necessary. Creating temporary social safety nets for citizens leaps to mind. TEMPORARY! We’ve tasked the government legitimately with defense, foreign relations and interstate trade. These cost money. But all these things, along with the innumerable actions government takes illegitimately, defy the laws of economics the way a glider defies the laws of gravity. But in the glider’s case the pilot is exploiting other physical laws. In the case of governments and dodgy corporations the actions are taken with only the support of a random desire.
And you can’t do any of it without risking disaster. You certainly cannot stay 3,000 feet in the air for an infinite amount of time. And you can’t tax, spend, borrow, print money and interfere with REAL economics without causing a crash, as certain as a glider running out of momentum versus air.
In other words, if you look at the crashes and panics dating back to 1780 in this country, you’ll find that each panic/crash had its genesis in the actions taken by government, seen as acts of “economics”, trying to fix the previous panic/crash. Sometimes they just double down on what caused the previous crash, as they’ve been doing since 2008. That bill is coming due, and right soon.
Similarly, a constant state of inflation is ONLY created by a central government and no other force. Natural inflation (ya know, real economic reality) only effects sectors and markets based on the scarcity or availability of goods and services in those sectors and markets.
Constant artificial inflation and market “fixes” are all akin to trying to fly a glider infinitely with no expectation of consequence. The present regime is trying to do that with an elephant strapped to the glider.
Then the cronies make it all worse.
"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
Napoleon Bonaparte
There is no greater scoundrel, in the world of economics, than the government crony. And our country is now swimming in them. Our legislators no longer write the laws they pass. If a law involves more than a pittance of money, it is written by a private company or a union or some other leech. Lawmakers now vote them up or down without even reading them. And there is no greater crony than the Federal Reserve.
I could go on for days on this subject.
To be certain, Napolean was thinking about the Rothschilds when he wrote the words in the quote above. And his assessment of the most powerful cronies is 100% true, right through to today. They do not think of country and borders and national identity like you or I do, if they even consider them at all.
The Rothschilds didn’t. The father would be in France financing French armies while the son was in England financing the British. Meanwhile an uncle would be in another country financing those who would take advantage of the unrest between the French and the Brits.
For people like the Clintons, Soros, Klaus Schwab, Al Gore, the Bidens, Mitch McConnell, Bill Gates, the Obamas, Valerie Jarett and any other creature of the Davos Cult, borders and tradition and patriotism are illusions maintained for the Great Unwashed. It’s a handy concept to keep you pliable and usable. Corporations are the same. Their loyalties lie with the dollar. International Corporations are supposed to be that way. In people, it’s perverse.
That such creatures lack a motherland has been exacerbated by post war globalization. The radical control they now seek is intended to protect them and their wealth and comfort.
The Davos Cult wants to create a new kind of globalism, not based on voluntary trade and free markets, but one based on THEIR needs and desires. They have planted their drones in corporate board rooms throughout the world, especially in the West. As their ESG, digital currencies and their concepts of total control take root through business and governments they will gain more and more power.
As we said, borders will just be an illusion2. You will be told you still live in a representative republic. But you already don’t. You, the citizen of the United States, already live in a top-down, authoritarian state. Laws don’t originate in the legislature. They originate in board rooms and in offices of opportunists, tarted up to be social crusaders and “non-profits”. They write the laws. The most powerful in your central government then negotiate the finer points for THEIR OWN gains, and the rest of the legislature is told to vote up or down. Reliable holdouts like Murkowski or Manchin are good at picking up the crumbs and make a good show of looking democratic.
Further, laws are not written with the good of the productive citizen in mind. That WOULD be a good republican concept.3 They are now being written to wall off or even eliminate the concept of a productive, engaged citizen. The entire thrust of American governance is about collecting more and more centralized power. What do you think ESG is? Why is the President of the United States now being pranced out to disparage working, productive citizens with such nakedly hateful venom? Why is violence by the collective being tolerated - winked at - while you are being warned of a fantasy, right-wing, white supremacy threat to democracy?
The answer is - you are being played. You are being conned. And it’s working. Our colleges are infested with angry, young, indoctrinated freaks who now go batshit crazy at the first mention of anything that doesn’t conform with the Borg/central government’s propaganda. Racism, which for decades remained only in the fantasies of the Billy Bob’s and the Al Sharptons of the world, is now a problem again - because the people I speak of here WANT IT TO BE A PROBLEM. THEY NEED IT TO BE A PROBLEM. It keeps them in business, gives them more illusions and shiny objects with which they distract you.
We’ll get beck to the money presently. But in furtherance of their goals, the Davos/WEF power freaks need multiple victim classes to keep us fighting among ourselves, while otherwise being good, obedient little proles when it comes to their governance.
And all this is brought to you by Modern Monetary Theory!
Back to the money. Whatever your currency, backed by value or fiat, when handled with sober responsibility it is still a viable exchange of value. Money is a concept invented to keep us from killing each other and creating order out of chaos. And it works among honest people. Even fiat money works…until it doesn’t.
When you create a situation where people can wreck a system for their own gain, some people absolutely will. By taking us off the gold standard4 the ruling class quickly learned that there was no problem they couldn't tamp down by cranking up the printing presses.
Of course we’ll have periods of high inflation. But if you are the guy gaming the system, you can still live large. They don’t care about citizens! They don’t care about YOU!
By creating this moral hazard of funny money, we put the powerful in a position to print all the money THEY WANT by devaluing the money YOU HAVE. They make the hundreds or thousands you live on less valuable while keeping themselves, and the officials they own and the “non-profits” who do their grunt work, awash in BILLIONS. That’s not how a healthy free market, in a healthy free society works. That’s cronyism.
This cronyism hit new highs with our demographic peak5 around 2019. But as populations and global trade decline, you will see these creatures kick their cronyism into high gear. At a time when we need to grease the wheels of free markets everywhere to keep what we can of the system we built, these creatures will inflate currency and try to centrally plan everything with an eye toward gaining more wealth and power.
And the concept announced in academia a few years ago will be their weapon of choice. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This is the laughably mindless assertion that you can print, borrow and spend all the money you want and it won’t do any damage.
Certainly, it won’t hurt the governing class. They always move money and investments, and create exemptions and carve-outs in ways that protect them from their own laws and executive over-reach.
But the creation of currency and mindless spending can only NOT hurt every citizen if the value of EVERYTHING is dictated by the government creating the funny money. Perhaps that will be the aim of CBDC. They will decide the value of what you buy by manipulating the digits. But that would make the Regime even more Stalinist than they are now. Piss off the wrong bureaucrat or insult the wrong protected class and your auto parts will become untenably expensive, or you’ll find your purchasing power cut in half. Because it CAN be done, IT WILL BE DONE.
C’mon, you’re not going to say, “Oh, they would never do that!” Yeah, right. Pull the other one, it plays jingle bells.
MMT is the economics of choice for the Davos Cult and their members throughout out our dysfunctional government. It will be the tool by which they carry out all the policies I’ve detailed before, and they have stated explicitly; limited travel, limited food supplies, limited clothing purchases, limited energy consumption, limited electronic purchases. All these limitations will be on YOU, certainly not THEM! Mark my word. You heard it here first.
One of the first dominoes to fall will be car and truck purchases. By a date certain, dictated by the Cult, the government WILL cut off any digital purchases for even used vehicles. If it isn’t a coal powered car, you won’t be permitted to buy it. Leave aside by that time we will have seen all the flaws in the EV tinker toys and have no fix for them. It will be EV all the way.
All the while, they will be building an ever more worthless dystopia FOR YOU to live in, while they continue to enjoy the best of everything.
Have you read Animal Farm?
Make Orwell’s short work the first book recommendation in this podcast. The evolution, man to pig, it complete. The Davos Cult are the final manifestation. They are the new pigs without doubt.6 I'll leave a button at the end of the text.
The UK Library defines the book as a commentary on Soviet Communism. It was not. Neither was 1984. Both were cautionary tales warning the West that it was slowly creeping toward the same sick existence.
And how will the final slide to totalitarianism, we’ve been moving toward since FDR, be completed? Using ESG and MMT. If you let these things go any further than they’ve gone so far, you will render yourself powerless against the Cult/Governing Class.
ESG is an abuse the government saddles us with. If you don’t know, the acronym stands for Environmental, Social and Governance as described by the ruling class. If your carbon footprint is too big, that’s points against. If you don’t have your employees putting their stupid preferred pronouns on their business cards, that’s a no-no. If your board isn’t made up of the government-prescribed racial/gender (fluid)/idiot mix, you get dinged for that to. And the rating system is already in place. Banks who benefit in the hundreds of billions in tax dollars already consider ESG in loaning money to companies based on their rating. It’s a bullshit protection racket.7
There is no value-added here. In fact, all areas where ESG is imposed suffer a direct loss of value without exception. BUT, they now have EFT’s (investment instruments) you can use to buy stock in companies who make money helping other companies COMPLY with the protection racket. That scam centers on getting you to BUY INTO the scam. And don’t worry, Mommy Government will always manage for you to see a return.
Meanwhile, the Fed, at a time when fiscal responsibility is the most critical it has ever been, is printing money, creating a bullshit digital currency, and your government is borrowing and spending that money. All of it is being done to fill the crony trough. There is NO HOPE of EVER seeing a return on this money. And it is all being done under the aegis of MMT.
So there’s your economic cesspool in one essay. And it is occurring when we face the unraveling of the system that has been in place since WWII. That system is on life support. The government and the crony class are the new pigs who will stand in the way of this country getting through the demographic melt-down in a reasonable way.
There are countless other details behind all this, of course. For more browse this Substack all the way back to 2013.
If you want to fight back, go to the Energy Revolt. I’ll leave a bunch of buttons for that at the end of the text.
The second book recommendation will be Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlette. I wish I had the authority to mandate it. The PDF is free. There will be a button for that as well, also not a paid link. Again, it is an easy read and will give you a better understanding of how the world works than a university econ class. Remember, they preach the Ivory Tower manipulation of sound economics - NOT real economics.
Understand these two books and you will understand what is coming. Research the international demographic decline and you will then understand how the people I have lambasted will only aggravate the pain and suffering the decline will bring upon us. And if you don’t have a foreboding sense of torschlosspanik by now, you have a comprehension problem.
A sound free market will pull us through the meltdown in better shape than the rest of the world. A centrally planned economy will destroy what we have left to survive as a free and civilized society.
Doubt me not! And read the books!
Find your books, PLUS find ways to support and grow the P4B using the buttons below.8 And don’t skip the footnotes.
ESG our version of Social Credit Score the Chinese totalitarians use to control their proles. It is also THE tool the Davos Cult is pushing hard to fully implement for the exact same purpose. It already exists on a corporate level. That’s why you see American Corporations going all loony woke. They are trying to get their S and G scores up. They already spend billions, if not tens of billions, in E (Environmental) compliance, making everything you buy more expensive.
National borders no longer exist in the United States - for slave-labor illegals. If you are a productive, law abiding member of society, you need to continue to put up with the illusion. You’ll see in a future post why that will be suicide for the Davos Cult and for us.
For those who don’t know the difference, small “r” - republican is a responsible member of a free society, not a member of the GOP - big “R”.
The concept that your money was actually something that had value in a vault that one nation or another guarded jealously IN THEIR NATIONAL INTEREST, made that store of value, in this case gold, a stable element. It kept the gyroscope spinning and upright despite the buffeting of business cycles and occasional unrest. We went off of it ostensibly because their wasn’t enough gold. That’s bullshit. In reality, we went off of it because the powerful were lazy and wanted to erase the concept of borders and national interest.
There is still lots of gold in the banks of the Federal Reserve. If you had dollars, it used to be YOUR gold. Who owns it now? That’s right! The people who now see YOU as an object, put here to keep THEM comfortable and wealthy.
But now that things are about to get dicey, the cronyism is about to explode to keep these people in the lifestyle they've come to expect. And it will be on your backs.
Now, that was a spoiler. But read the book anyway. My spoiler won’t matter. The associated button is not a paid link.
These banks are the same scam artists who get billions of your tax dollars to put up windmills. They keep a BIG chunk and doll out what’s left to the actual windmill builders. If not for the scam, no one would be building windmills or solar farms. Because NO ONE wants them.
For readers who have been with me for a while, in creating an ESG “industry”, I think we have finally found what is as close to what Robert Reich calls a zero-sum transaction; actually paying someone to help you hurt the value of your company based on arbitrary nonsense from Mommy Government.
P4B is compensated for purchases made through buttons below the line.
Time Is Not Our Friend!