One last time for those who wish to listen this Monday at 8 PM Savannah Time at the discussion about T.K Thorne's Book here is the link:
Once again for those who wish to attend the Zoom presentation of T.K Thorne's book, Monday, June 21 at 8PM EST, this is the link:webinar graphic and attendee registration link -https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FtD3T3c2Qn-I-yLjG1jHSw for your email and social media networks.
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A photographic sunset from The Landings where we live.
. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties.
"They use him to keep crowds back," said one child.
"No," said another. "He's just for good luck."
A third child brought the argument to a close. “They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."
"They use him to keep crowds back," said one child.
"No," said another. "He's just for good luck."
A third child brought the argument to a close. “They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."
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Academia is chock full of radicals. Besides the mass media, they comprise one of the most radical organized group in America. They are busy indoctrinating the future minds of our nation and are engaged in turning our youth into haters and grumbling discontents.
Universities’ Gender Studies Departments Side with Hamas Over Israel
Gender Studies Departments at 130 colleges and universities across the U.S. have endorsed a call by the Palestinian Feminist Collective for feminists “to join the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
The statement blames Israel entirely for the conflict and does not condemn Hamas’ acts of terrorism or violations of women’s rights. It stops just short of a direct justification for Hamas’ terrorism and quest to destroy the state of Israel.
The list of Gender Studies Departments and related programs that endorse the call for feminists to ally with anti-Semitic jihadists can be found here.
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The dry rot has been setting in for decades. There is no particular date when America's decline began. I believe the period beginning with the Viet Nam War and the post '60's years are as good a starting point as any.
The keel for such was being laid earlier.
The defiance of authority, followed by the "Hippie Binge Craze" in conjunction with expanded drug usage became the "thing" along with free love and beads which were also defining features of the culture change. Each generation has it's own distinct and recognizable changes and shifts. The '60's were more or less cataclysmic and outdid the Roaring Twenties when songs, dress, music and drugs also became that period's defining rage.
In essence, each generation builds upon predecessors and depending upon the social climate at that time changes can run the gamut. The '20's were followed by The Depression. That experience served as an economic wet blanket and tempered the ensuing years. Then along came another war followed by another period that left the nation sobered as it sought to catch up with the abnegations associated with patriotic demands and material deprivation. Society's focus was of a more serious nature as education, marriage, children and getting a job preoccupied a large swath of the nation's returning population.
During this entire period fiscal restraint lost out to helping Europe recover became a necessity and our own neglected infrastructure needed attention and made demands on resource allocation. Eisenhower's presidency is noted primarily for tranquility and constructing the national highway system.
Government continued to make intrusions as it's girth expanded and involvement in our daily lives also grew but in a different manner. After all, the war made us more comfortable with an expanding/intrusive government. Then came the pent up feelings and somber mood associated with Vietnam; a war many questioned, opposed and, for the first time, America was on the losing side Consequently, resentment spilled over as contempt for authority became an acceptable form of expression. At the same time, black American involvement was disproportionate and their resentment also spilled over in ways reminiscent of the Civil Right's period. A cleavage between white youth ,who avoided the draft while blacks fought and died, became an evident divisive irritant.
If that was not bad enough, 3 American Icons were assassinated during this period, ie. JFK, MLK and RFK. More despair and disillusionment. Though, Johnson's Great Society was a generous and sincere effort to rectify past racial wrongs, if judged by it's intended goal, it was mostly a total failure and, as Senator Moynihan warned, did more harm than good. To this day, the failures of throwing money at the problem has become the heavy handed method/solution used by politicians and bureaucrats , because as Tom Sowell consistently points out, this benefits them more than the intended recipient black population as a whole.
Over the next succeeding decade , in retrospect, just about everything was tried and all we have to show for the trillions of welfare dollars is failure, heightened dissolution, anger and resentment. We even elected and re-elected a black president, because of his light skin, slick articulation and complete lack of accomplishments who made matters worse. Why? Because his philosophical background was in total opposition to that of our constitutional roots.
He left us with a transformed society that was neither "Great" nor functioning and the consequences to his own people laid the foundation for today's disastrous social conditions where the creation of intentional discord lurks behind and drives every solution and effort to pit citizen against citizen.
Obama corrupted some of the highest and most important profile agencies in his quest to allegedly repay America for it's sins. He dismissively operated with his pen and cell phone to legislate outside "The Founder's" intentions while spreading intimidation silenced the already "silent majority" who became fearful of being tagged racists.
These ingredients of discord were further buttressed by a weakened financial condition, the consequences of another misguided unwinnable and longest war in American History, the loss of domestic manufacturing and middleclass jobs , the rise of China as a technological and commercial force and outlandish , undisciplined budget busting spending. The anti-culture, colonial apologist seeds planted in America's various societal gardens began to sprout. Meanwhile, the progeny of this accumulated period of decades of anti-American preparations surfaced embracing many forms of accusations of racial bias even encompassing the very reason for why "evil America" was founded. As I write, anti-racial accusations continue spreading like wildfire penetrating education at all levels, law enforcement, personal relationships, corporate governance and throughout America's entire cultural fabric.
To make matters even worse, the Covid pandemic came along as chilling icing on an already baked cake of hatred. Rioting, destruction of public monuments, intimidation, corporate and government shake downs along with demands for reparations became contemporaneous cacophony as claims of police brutality rose. Today we are witnessing a flare of wanton killings, many aimed at "whitey." They are being driven by the mass media's continued pouring of biased ink on this volatile mix and financed by those who want to see America collapse. Corporate domination of the mass media no longer seeks honest reporting and journalists serving as ombudsmen but by entertainment and bottom line profits. Social technology has vaulted into a position of being freed of having their feet held to publisher status rules and are free to deprive, at will, anyone they so choose, even the president of "we the people."
One of the most important logs was a former president named Trump who did not fit the "elitist" mold. He was elected because "Neanderthal deplorables" rose in contentious opposition to surrounding events and a terrible opposing campaigner who espoused her deep distrust of the silent majority. Her political and personal history, baggage and arrogance also brought them to their feet, notwithstanding the fact the mass media aligned with the Democrat Party, which by now had become radicalized, and that did everything in their power to smear "The Donald."
As for "The Donald," his persona was a microscopic picture of the COVID Virus, in that, he had many attackable spores. From the day he and his beautiful to be, First Lady, came down the escalator his impeachment, like the keel of a ship, was being laid. Through four years of rancor he prevailed in bringing about needed change and doing so in the most unconventional, but mostly effective, manner. While his policies found favor his narcissistic and contentious personality was found objectional.
Whether the 2020 election was stolen or the rules, pertaining to elections, were purposely changed to make it more manageable to defeat Trump, we now have elected a disciple of Obama who, I believe, continues in the background manipulating America's destiny.
As I have often written, I do not believe America can reverse course employing conventional methods which, I believe, will not prevail. Perhaps the constitutional republic the "founding fathers" devised no longer works and/or no longer provides mechanisms worthy of self-correction. Too much toothpaste has been squeezed from the tube. New approaches, new thinking, new compromises and modifications must be devised, grasped and instituted by fresh political faces and leadership. Frankly, I believe a revolt is in the making but until revulsion reaches a level that brings this about matters can only worsen. I fear all the weapons will not remain holstered.
Because of my desire to shorten the length of this tome, I have purposely avoided discussing: politization of everything in order to increase the polarization of government control while reducing personal freedoms and the exercise of choice. Driving the current mania is character assassination techniques used to smear political opponents in the political arena, AKA Trump; introduction of politics in sports, despicable displays of anti-patriotism, re-introduction of reverse discrimination through affirmative action, attacks on religion, rise of anti-Semitism, increase of defining male and female anatomy , introduction of critical race theory nonsense, and many other anti-American indulgences and attacks on our traditional culture.
Nor have I gone into extensive commentary regarding the unsubtle but successful efforts to radicalize Democrat Party which had led to proposed legislative efforts to eliminate state control of elections guaranteeing their perpetual election, the packing of SCOTUS and other such dangerous Trojan Horse like efforts.
Time will tell whether my pessimistic views and attempt to drain the swamp will occur and, if so, succeed because POGO was right - "the enemy is us!"
Meanwhile:
The New York Time's take on individual reactions
The New York Time's take on individual reactions
The American Renaissance Has Begun
In 1982, the economist Mancur Olson set out to explain a paradox. West Germany and Japan endured widespread devastation during World War II, yet in the years after the war both countries experienced miraculous economic growth. Britain, on the other hand, emerged victorious from the war, with its institutions more intact, and yet it immediately entered a period of slow economic growth that left it lagging other European democracies. What happened?
In his book “The Rise and Decline of Nations,” Olson concluded that Germany and Japan enjoyed explosive growth precisely because their old arrangements had been disrupted. The devastation itself, and the forces of American occupation and reconstruction, dislodged the interest groups that had held back innovation. The old patterns that stifled experimentation were swept away. The disruption opened space for something new.
Something similar may be happening today. Covid-19 has disrupted daily American life in a way few emergencies have before. But it has also shaken things up and cleared the way for an economic boom and social revival.
Millions of Americans endured grievous loss and anxiety during this pandemic, but many also used this time as a preparation period, so they could burst out of the gate when things opened up. After decades of slowing entrepreneurial dynamism, 4.4 million new businesses were started in 2020, by far a modern record. A report from Udemy, an online course provider, says that 38 percent of workers took some additional training during 2020, up from only 14 percent in 2019.
After decades in which consumption took preference over savings, Americans socked away trillions of dollars in 2020, reducing their debt burdens to lows not seen since 1980 and putting themselves in a position to spend lavishly as things open up.
The biggest shifts, though, may be mental. People have been reminded that life is short. For over a year, many experienced daily routines that were slower paced, more rooted, more domestic. Millions of Americans seem ready to change their lives to be more in touch with their values.
The economy has already taken off. Global economic growth is expected to be north of 6 percent this year, and strong growth is expected to last at least through 2022. In late April, Tom Gimbel, who runs the recruiting and staffing firm LaSalle Network, told The Times: “It’s the best job market I’ve seen in 25 years. We have 50 percent more openings now than we did pre-Covid.” Investors are pouring money into new ventures. During the first quarter of this year U.S. start-ups raised $69 billion, 41 percent more than the previous record, set in 2018.
Already, this era of new creation seems to be rebalancing society in at least three ways:
First, power has begun shifting from employers to workers. In March, U.S. manufacturing, for example, expanded at the fastest pace in nearly four decades. Companies are desperate for new workers. Between April 2020 and March 2021, the number of unemployed people per opening plummeted to 1.2 from 5.
Workers are in the driver’s seat, for now, and they know it. The “quit rate” — the number of workers who quit their jobs because they are confident they can get a better one — is at the highest in two decades. Employers are raising wages and benefits to try to lure workers back.
Second, there seems to be a rebalancing between cities and suburbs. Covid-19 accelerated trends that had been underway for a few years, with people moving out of big cities like New York and San Francisco to suburbs, and to rural places like Idaho and the Hudson Valley in New York. Many are moving to get work or because of economic distress, but others say they moved so they could have more space, lead slower-paced lives, be closer to family or interact more with their neighbors.
Finally, there seems to be a rebalancing between work and domestic life. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom expects that even when the pandemic is over, the number of working days spent at home will increase to 20 percent from 5 percent in the prepandemic era.
While this has increased pressures on many women, millions of Americans who could work remotely found that they liked being home, dining every night with their kids, not hassling with the commute. We are apparently becoming a less work-obsessed and a more domestic society.
In 1910 the educator Henry Van Dyke wrote, “The Spirit of America is best known in Europe by one of its qualities — energy.” That energy seemed to be fading away in recent years, as Americans came to move less and start new businesses less frequently. But the challenge of Covid-19 has summoned forth great dynamism, movement and innovation. Labor productivity rates have surged upward recently.
Americans are searching for ways to make more money while living more connected lives. Joel Kotkin, a professor of urban studies at Chapman University, points out that as the U.S. population disperses, economic and cultural gaps between coastal cities and inland communities will most likely shrink. And, he says, as more and more immigrants settle in rural areas and small towns, their presence might reduce nativism and increase economic competitiveness.
People are shifting their personal lives to address common problems — loneliness and loss of community. Nobody knows where this national journey of discovery will take us, but the voyage has begun.
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As I wrote several memos ago:
Why Left-Wing Anti-Semitism Should Matter to Non-Jews as Much as Right-Wing Hate | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Dov Fischer
My readers know that I do not whine. When I write about anti-Semitism, I am not wringing my hands or asking to change school curricula to teach tolerance nor to complain about “systemic this” or “systemic that.” That is not my cadence. I do not visit Holocaust museums or former Nazi death camps. That somehow resonates for others, not for me.
My attitude is that anti-Semites are evil and must be crushed. I do not imagine that, after 3,300 years of Jew-hatred, anything will bring it to an end, but it can be deterred by a generation, here or there. It will always be there. Nevertheless, when a Stalin or a Hitler is crushed, that is a good thing. When a Father Coughlin or a Louis Farrakhan or a “Black Lives Matter” is reduced dramatically in influence, that is a good thing.
The thing about anti-Semitism, though, goes even deeper. Jews are society’s “canary in the coal mine.”
Non-Jews make the mistake of their lifetimes when they ignore anti-Semitism. The hatred of Jews is different from all other forms of hate, and its proliferation augurs impending disaster for non-Jews, too. First, it has been going on for so long that it is part of the global Earth experience. Blacks are not hated as Blacks in Africa. Chinese are not hated as Chinese in China. Because Jews did not have a sovereign land these past 2,000 years, that contributed to anti-Semitism becoming global and planet-defining.
Beyond that, there is a certain objective craziness that comes with anti-Semitism. Talk to a right-wing Jew-hater, and he will tell you he hates us because all or most Jews are communists. But talk to a left-wing hater, and he will tell you he hates because all Jews are Wall Street capitalists. Renters complain about Jewish landlords, and landlords complain about their Jewish tenants. There is no rhyme or reason. They talk about Jews wanting to save money and looking for a bargain, but when I lived in Kentucky for a year and traveled through other American states with very minimal Jewish populations I still regularly saw TV commercials for storewide sales that aimed to draw the non-Jewish populations in for bargains.
Maybe the problem is that Jews are exactly like everyone else — only more so.
Jews are what we are because of anti-Semitism. I am unusually straightforward and honest, no baloney from me or hiding the ball. So I call ’em as I see ’em. If the world had left Jews alone, we either would have disappeared by now or just blended in as farmers. We would be farmers and coal miners like everyone else. But everywhere we went, we ran into craziness and eventually got expelled from countries — England in 1290, France in 1306 (by Philip the Fair!), Spain 1492, Portugal in 1497, the entire Arab Muslim world in the 1940s and 1950s. When a people get expelled often enough from enough countries, they eventually figure out that the stupidest thing they can do is to become farmers because, if there eventually is an expulsion, they won’t be able to take their assets with them. You can’t check in a farm as extra baggage at the airport. So that anti-Semitism made Jews into doctors and teachers because you can carry knowledge with you when they throw you out. It made Jews into diamond merchants and jewelers because, while you cannot carry a farm when expelled, you can carry some diamonds to the next country. It got Jews into international finance because, if you have a Rothschild here and a Rothschild there — thus Mayer Rothschild sent his five sons to five different cities: Vienna, Naples, London, Paris, and Frankfurt — one can move the money out of the country expelling the Jews over to another country welcoming Jews. Jews went into money-lending because Christian Europe in the Middle Ages banned Christians from lending money on interest to other Christians as per a law in the Torah (Exodus 22:24), but the economies still needed financing of and lending to businesses. Accordingly, the governments allowed Christians to lend on interest to Jews, and they compelled wealthier Jews to lend on interest to Christians.
When Jews came to America, mostly between 1881 and 1914, they had to find work as does everyone else. But there was enormous low-key subtle anti-Semitism (“Gentleman’s Agreements”) keeping Jews out of whole fields of endeavor. Hospitals would not allow Jewish doctors admittance privileges. Serious major law firms would not allow Jews, even Harvard and Yale law graduates, to practice in any area other than bankruptcy law. They did not want Jews at all, but they did need bankruptcy attorneys to represent their corporate clients’ interests as creditors or debtors, and the field of bankruptcy was deemed too unseemly for respectable Big Firm attorneys to touch, so they let Jews in for that. For that reason, there was a time that almost all bankruptcy court judges in certain cities were Jews. Likewise, Jews could not get serious jobs in banks. So newly immigrating Jews went into fields and industries that were newly emerging, that did not require immediate English fluency, and that offered enough jobs in manufacture and production, distribution, wholesaling, and retailing that they could employ parents, their sons, the fellows marrying the daughters and sisters, the uncles and aunts.
Now it starts to make sense. Jews went to Hollywood because silent pictures were a new thing, and no one else had cornered the market to keep Jews out. Moreover, since the pictures were silent, audiences would not hear the Yiddish accents that would render gorgeous actresses and strikingly handsome male actors less sexy. To enhance the myth, Jews changed their names so that no one would know. Betty Perske became Lauren Bacall. Bernie Schwartz became Tony Curtis. Szmuel, Hirsz, and Aaron Wonsal became Sam, Harry, and Albert Warner. Jack rounded out the Warner brothers. Szmuel Gelbfisz became Sam Goldwyn, and he linked with Louis Mayer. (MGM’s Leo the Lion never changed his name.) Moses Harry Horwitz became Moe Howard; Louis Feinberg became Larry Fine; and with Moe’s brothers alternating between Samuel (Shemp) and Jerry (Curly), they became the Three Stooges. If not for anti-Semitism, they all probably would have become farmers.
Jews went into distilling bourbon because the Scots in Kentucky’s back hills did not aim to corner the market, as the German immigrants had cornered beer. Jews went into finance because, even though J. P. Morgan had no need for us, it was a field where any person with a good head for investing, and who had been excused from attending “woke math” classes, could open his own business, be weak in English but good with numbers, and do well.
So much of today’s American Jewish presence is traceable to the genteel Gentile anti-Semitism that forced entrepreneurial Jews into untested waters. No one before ever had made comic books, so some Jews went into that business and basically created and ran the comic book industry. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jews out of Cleveland, created Superman; Robert Kahn changed to “Bob Kane” and gave us Batman, and Stanley Martin Lieber covered his tracks by using the name “Stan Lee.” Same with much of the premium ice cream business. Reuben and Rose Mattus created Häagen-Dazs. Häagen-Dazs is not a city in Denmark or Iceland; it was a basement in the Bronx. Ben and Jerry did it in Vermont. Burt Baskin married Shirley Robbins, and he went into ice cream with her brother, Irv, in California. That’s how it worked. If American non-Jews had been more uniformly open, who knows? They all might have been farmers.
But that also is America’s greatness. This always has been a land of opportunity. It’s like a board game. The rules close off certain easy options, but you still can win if you get creative and think outside the box. You just have to aim for Park Place and Boardwalk and avoid getting sucked into Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues.
Isaac Wolfe Bernheim was a bookkeeper at a Paducah, Kentucky, whiskey distillery and figured out how they make the product. So he opened his own distillery and brought in other Jews. He figured the anti-Semites won’t buy bourbon called “Isaac W. Bernheim,” so he named it “I. W. Harper” for a Louisville horse trainer named John Harper. The five Shapira brothers — David, Ed, Gary, George, and Mose — saw it was a good business, so they opened their distillery. They knew the Jew-haters would not buy “Shapira Bourbon,” so they built on myths about a Protestant Pastor Craig who supposedly distilled bourbon and a Catholic guy. For the Protestants, they labeled some bourbon bottles “Elijah Craig,” and for the Catholics they labeled other bottles “Old Fitzgerald.” For Kentuckians in their locale, they played on a legend of supposedly the first man who ever distilled bourbon, and they slapped on labels that said “Evan Williams.” And then they covered all bases by labeling other of their product “Heaven Hill.” And to play it safe, they hired as their master distiller a guy named Joe Beam, Jim’s cousin.
The point is that all or a bunch of these guys would have been farmers if regular jobs had been open to them. Instead, just as so many Irish went into policing, and as Italians went into their fields, Jews found their way around because, like everyone else, they had families to support, and a century ago the government did not coddle anyone with welfare, food stamps, reparations, critical ethnic studies, woke math, or even social security.
The thing about anti-Semitism, though, goes even deeper. Jews are society’s “canary in the coal mine.” We just are. It is not an honor we covet; it just is what it is. We would be quite happy for someone to play that role. Coal miners would bring a canary into the mine with them because if oxygen would run perilously low in the mine, and if methane gas or carbon monoxide was rising perilously high, the itsy-bitsy canary would die in time for the unsuspecting miners to see and realize they better get out fast. That’s Jews. When people come after us, yes, they are focused on us. But that methane of Jew-hatred never stops with us. How many millions of Christians died as Hitler got his system for us in operation? World War II killed 70 million people. If they had dealt with Hitler in the mid-1930s, when he could have been crushed, that’s a bunch of lives and pain and destruction that could have been avoided. But people did not grasp that, even as Hitler busily was going after the Jews, it was like the methane going for the canary, and everyone else in the mine was next. And they sure were. Same with Stalin.
Same with Arab terrorism. When people saw Arab Muslim terrorists hijack an Israeli plane back in the 1970s, they felt bad for Israel. Poor Israel. Tsk-tsk-tsk. But they did not realize that they were next: “Uh-oh, there’s methane in the mine, and we better act quickly.” So they did not unite to stop Arab terrorism at its gestation. They still don’t get it, and they never will. If Israel under Menachem Begin had not taken out Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, Project Desert Storm and so much else would have been different and bad. If Iran ever gets the nuclear bomb, which would not have happened under Trump but definitely can happen under the policies of Obama and Biden, those weapons will not be aimed only at Israel but also at America and all of Europe. Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other Arab contributions to the world of terrorism may have begun as targeting the Jewish canaries, but give a kiss to Yasser Arafat the next time you are on a 45-minute TSA line at the airport because it starts by targeting Jews but never — ever — ends with that.
Today’s concerns include the occasional right-wing haters, like the ones who desecrated Jewish houses of worship on Sabbaths in Pittsburgh and Poway, California. Had Jesus been alive, he would have been in such a structure and would have been shot, too. But the much more despicable sickness of hate today in America stems from the progressive Democrats — the Anti-Semite of Color (AOC) from Queens, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Ayanna Pressley — and their enablers, the apostate Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota’s Betty McCollum, and two or three others. When they go after Israel, know that they are not going after Israel but after Jews. You can tell by the absurd double standards they impose on Israel that they impose nowhere else. And if and when they ever finish with Israel, their next target is America. As with Hitler, they can walk and chew gum at the same time, even if AOC is uniquely ignorant as grown-ups go. They now are working to take down and deconstruct our America, too — to defund the police, dissolve the southern border, destroy our education system, divide the country by racial identities, even as they simultaneously go after the Jews.
Do you smell the methane? Probably not. That’s why it takes a canary. Jews are the canary. I am a Jew. Take it from me: our America that we so dearly love, and that has given all of us opportunities unknown previously in human history, is filling up with methane.
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Are these Covid revelations factual?+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ross Rants:
Producer prices up 6.6% -highest jump in history. Oil is at a 2 ½ year high, and that cost flows into a variety of end products. Due to a new Covid outbreak in major ports in China, it is taking an extra 15 days to load ships. The producer prices will jump higher as a result. So much for transitory. Even the Fed now seems to be realizing that inflation is rising faster than they projected and they are at least talking about raising rates sooner. Most of us are a bit mystified by the bond yields declining when inflation is surging. Junk bonds yield below 4% in the face of inflation. That is opposite from how it is supposed to happen. Here are some thoughts. The dollar is declining so it is a reasonable trade for foreign investors to buy US Treasuries with their currency which gives them a better yield. Second, the Fed continues to buy bonds at a prodigious rate. For some perspective, the Fed bought 56% ($4.5 Trillion) of Treasuries issued since the pandemic. That is 76% of the cumulative federal deficit. It is clear that Fed is managing yields, and the true market value of bonds does not exist. The Fed and the White House have convinced a substantial number of economists and CFO’s that inflation is transitory. They need to do that in order to sell their proposed $6 trillion fiscal disaster to Congress and voters. High rates destroy their entire MMT theory that they can issue all this debt because rates are so low it makes no difference. I believe they are also pushing the transitory line to try to keep the public and companies from adopting an inflation expectation which in itself drives up inflation. Fully 50% of the US population was not alive when inflation died away in the early eighties under Volker. They don’t understand what it means to live with an inflation economy, and higher rates.
In my view, the Fed and the White House are wrong. Maybe inflation will moderate its growth in 2022, but the economy is just in the early stages of roaring growth, supply chains in the rest of the world remain a mess as Covid outbreaks continue in Asia, and the EU is still well behind the US in getting its economy fully in gear. Then we have the government paying people to stay home and forcing employers to raise wages in order to hire people. Those higher labor costs are not going away. Workers are not going to take pay cuts later. The housing market is far behind in meeting demand, and will remain so for another two years at least. The question is, where is the top in prices, and are we in the start of a bubble when interest rates do rise. Lumber prices may have tumbled in the past two weeks, but they are still very high. There is still a vast shortage of trained truck drivers, and that will not improve for a long time, causing logistics costs to stay high. Now that people are back to eating out, food costs will remain high as restaurants gear up. In short, the things causing commodity and logistics costs to be high are not going away for a long time, and so as the months tick by, people start to adopt an inflation expectation, and that pushes everyone to buy now before the price rises even more, which just drives up demand, which drives prices further up. This is not rocket science.
The Fed cannot continue to buy bonds forever at the current rate. At some point they have to signal a taper, even though they need to keep rates low to keep the debt service for the US government in a barely manageable level. One saving grace is it appears the Dems do not have the votes to shove through their vast spending bills. It is now going to be very hard for Schumer to shove through the infrastructure bill now that there is a bipartisan bill in each house that is way less than the White House wants. The more time that goes by, and the more GDP grows at 7% or more, the far less likely they can sell their excessive spending plans. Voters are starting to understand why this is bad policy as they see gas and food prices materially increase. Those price increases are a direct tax on low and middle income workers and the Republicans can tie the two together. I believe the White House will be forced to dramatically reduce their spend plans, and they will get little if any of a tax increase pushed through. I don’t believe there will be a cap gains tax increase, a minimum 15% corporate tax, nor the end of step up basis. Those hit the guys with the checkbooks too hard, and in the end it is always all about campaign contributions. The closer we get to 2022 the less likely tax increases will happen. I may be wrong, but this is my view. We will know by August. The ten year will likely end 2021 close to 2.0% and could be higher. It is all up to the Fed.
Hotel Revpar is still 17% behind same time in 2019 but rates and occupancy are rising very fast. Book now or you will be paying a lot more and might not get the dates you want. Just don’t expect any service when you get there, like having your room cleaned every day, or getting fresh towels after a day or two
Some of my readers object to my views about crypto, and feel I do not understand crypto. I agree, I am no expert, but some things are true. None of the crypto is a currency despite El Salvador, Elon Musk, and the mayor of Miami. Elon says Tesla will again accept crypto and up it goes. That is not a currency, nor will it ever be. It never will be anything more than magic money backed by nothing and valued only on what speculators are willing to buy it at, or are seeking to sell it at. Nothing more. Crypto is not blockchain. Blockchain is a very real technology that crypto relies on. but one is not the other. One day there will be sovereign digital currencies which is very different than the crypto magic money that is traded today. It may be that once sovereigns start to issue real digital currency, then today’s crypto will plummet in value as the FBI gets better at raiding the crypto holdings of criminals who thought Bitcoin was safe to take.
Israel has a new government, but for how long is very uncertain. Israeli politics is always very messy, and chaotic, and the chance of holding the new coalition together for long is low. I have no idea how this plays out over the next year, but calm and stability is not going to happen even with new attacks by Hamas or others.
Omar is a blatant anti-Semite, and a disgraceful member of Congress. It is equally disgraceful that Pelosi just brushes off this latest comment claiming Omar “clarified herself” and Omar is a “valued “ member of Congress. Disgraceful. BS, Pelosi likely told her what to say then covered for her so the squad does not get into an uproar since Pelosi needs their votes. It was Pelosi who refused last year to pass the anti-Semite resolution. So much for the Dems being against hate speech and anti-Semitism. Can you imagine what Pelosi would have said if a Republican had said the same things. It is OK to be anti-Semitic, but not make any sort of comment about blacks. The fact that Omar, who disparages the US, remains on foreign affairs is a testament to how useless and disgusting Congress really is. We have someone who we took in as a refugee, but now makes outrageous negative claims about the US, and is on that committee, or even in Congress is absurd.
Months ago I said I had not given up on America because once the soccer moms got pissed off they will revolt. And now they have. The indoctrination of the kids has gone so far off to the left that the moms are revolting. Turning Point USA is also rallying the troops by the thousands to go out to get local school boards to reject critical race theory. We are just at the start of the revolt, and it is spreading fast as parents find out what their kids are being told and indoctrinated with. No politician wants a mass of angry soccer moms. You might also notice that major corporations have gone more quiet about voting laws, and now Lockheed is under attack for trying to indoctrinate very senior executives with radical anti-white male garbage, as is the Pentagon. The pushback is underway. They messed with the little kids, and that always creates an emotional backlash. Add to that, crime is out of control in most Dem cities run by left wing Dem mayors. Crime is now the main issue in the NYC mayoral race. If Eric Adams wins, then you know the backlash is underway. Adams was a cop for over 20 years.
So let me understand this. Now that I am fully vaccinated and it is June, I can go anywhere, and do anything, but when I was similarly fully vaccinated in March I had to wear a mask and distance, and I could not go many places. Truth was, nothing changed as to my status. I could have enjoyed the same complete freedom from edicts in March as now, and been just as safe since I had been vaccinated. You can argue that in March not many people were vaccinated so they needed the restrictions, but the more we find out, the more that was bad policy. In FL we proved it. Now we find out that not only did Fauci lie to Congress about funding the lab, but he had secret communications with Zuckerberg to censor the information about the lab being the source. This is going to get much more ugly as the truth comes out. While everyone is saying we can’t be certain, it is clear to me that the lab is the source, and the FDA, WHO and CDC and the US press covered it up. They listened to Fauci and did anything they could to try to discredit Trump before the election. The independent research now proves that hydroxychloroquine actually was an effective treatment to lessen the effects of Covid to a material degree. To those who claimed it was a Trump concocted worthless treatment, you can now eat your words. In the end Fauci, and the press, and others, did a massive disservice to the country by quashing truth, and by covering up the true source of the virus and what China really did to spread it. Ordering total lockdowns will be proven to be the deadliest advice anyone ever gave. This was the worst, and deadliest scandal in American history in my view. Death from heart disease was up 30,000 in 2020 from where it should have been, and from diabetes it was the worst death rate in 20 years. Just proves what a great policy the lockdowns were a massively deadly idea. Now the G7 asking WHO to do another investigation is like asking the fox to determine who killed the chickens. Classic traditional political swamp way to not resolve a major problem, but make it appear you are doing something..
Here is another one sent to me by a reader. We give away free food to 46 million people on food stamps, but if you go to a national park they tell you do not feed the animals as it makes then dependent on getting free food instead of having to be self-reliant and forage (work) for it on their own. Animals ae expected to work to eat, but not humans.
I am not persuaded by the statements from the G7 about China and Russia. Issuing some general statements is not taking action. Letting Russia build Nordstream is action, but in the very wrong direction. How the left and Germany are good with Nordstream, which is a massive gift to Putin, and then thinking a few bland statements has any effect is ridiculous. Biden hands Putin a massive gift of Nordstream, and then says he is going to act tough with Putin. That is a sick joke. Two things -Putin said a couple of weeks ago things would get uncomfortable for the US-Colonial and JPS happened and Biden did not even blame Russia. Several EU leaders objected to hard language against China re forced labor so we can expect nothing to happen regarding China. Biden and his team do not seem to understand that in the end the EU is not going to do anything. Trump understood that we can’t rely on Europe to really back us up when it comes to real action. Have you noticed that almost whenever Joe walks off the plane, or goes anywhere, Jill is there tightly holding his hand guiding him. As he stepped from the plane to the stairs, he looked like an old man with his caretaker. Watch how Jill seems almost always present when Joe moves from place to place. It will be days, or weeks before we know what happened with Putin
Next up is Biden further releasing some sanctions on Iran to show them we mean well. Stupidity does not begin to describe this. All it showed Iran was they have Obama 3.0, and they will be able to roll Wendy Sherman again.
In case you missed it the murder rate in Portland is up 800% in Q1. Violent crime per 100,000 in Seattle is 60% higher than the national average in 2021. Defund the police is proving to be a wonderful benefit to violent criminals.
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