Livestream in less than 15 minutes!!!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUskuritR5P3BBJpOr5gzhg/streams
Month: February 2023
The End Of The Financial World? Maybe, But Who Cares?
“How can I think of romance when my bronchial tubes are collapsing?” – The Addams Family
How can I have a low credit score? The bank says I have an “outstanding” balance. (all memes today are “as found”)
Let’s talk about Michael J. Burry. Burry studied economics on his way to a pre-med decree at ULCA, and then got an M.D. at Vanderbilt. I think he got bored with medicine, and he decided investing was more fun than doing pathology, and 2000 started investing. Besides, I heard that when he did a report on a deceased patient that he put, “cause of death: autopsy” that people weren’t amused, but that joke still kills me.
By the end of 2004, he was managing $600,000,000 dollars, and had made returns of over 50% shorting the Tech Bubble when everyone still thought that Alta Vista® was worth more than a box of slightly melted Milk Duds®. In 2005, Burry started in reviewing the housing and, more importantly, the housing lending market. He saw it was all junk.
To be fair, I made the same observation at the time, but unlike Dr. Burry, I only made about $80,000 with a stop-loss on my own house from when I lived in Houston. In my case, it was a one-of-a-kind situation, worked like a charm, and it won’t happen to me again.
I made (or, in my case didn’t lose) $80,000. Burry made $100,000,000. Burry made that much personally. But, it really it took him a whole year to make that much. Burry also made his other investors more than $700,000,000 in profit at the same time Bernie Madoff was attempting to convince his investors that the money must be in his other suit. Or maybe he left it under the bed.
Burry cleaned out the market, Madoff cleaned out his investors.
Guess which one is Madoff and which one is Burry.
Also, Burry is a little ‘spergie like your ‘umble ‘ost, and also is a heavy metal fan. I think he and I would get along, except I’m sure his car costs more than my house. And The Mrs. has a shirt that she had autographed by Dimebag Darrell. I’m thinking I could convince her to sell it to Dr. Burry. For a particular car . . .
Also, like me, he has correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.
I’ll admit, I do tend to see the cracks. There’s a reason I say, “Better a year early than an hour too late” because I understand a fundamental principle of life as first noted by the stoic philosopher Seneca (and expounded upon by Ugo Bardi – LINK): things are only built slowly, but disappear quickly. A house might take weeks or months to build, but (I was advised by a firefighter) if my house has been burning for more than a few minutes, they show up to pull me, The Mrs., and Pugsley out and make sure that other houses next to mine don’t burn.
Destruction is more powerful than creation. This is a restatement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and just shows what any father knows – the lawn won’t mow itself.
But, I digress. Burry sees the larger patterns in the world, and his autism is a superpower in pattern detection. And he doesn’t like what he sees. In fact, he just posted this Tweet®:
There’s a new version of music called bubble rap. It sound’s a lot like pop.
Well, I wonder what he meant by that? I’ll turn it over to the philosophers at /pol/ to explain using GrugTalk®:
Why didn’t the caveman cross the road? Because he was dead before roads were invented.
The slightly longer answer than the GrugTalk™ answer is that this is the graph that shows the relationship between the S&P 500 and the Federal funds rate. Grug is right, sometimes line go up, sometimes down. And when things start to collapse the Fed® normally cuts the interest rate. But, of course, in 2001 the inflation rate was lower than Madonna’s current attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10.
Now? In late January, Burry had a one word Tweet©:
I sold my vacuum cleaner. It was just gathering dust.
I wonder what he meant by that? I don’t think we need Grug to translate. Sell. Burry is indicating he’s out. The first graph shows that the Fed™ rate is approaching levels not seen since before the Tech Bubble popped.
But I think it’s going to be much worse, because inflation is exploding. In 2001, life was better, and the real issue was the ludicrous level of optimism that caused money to flow into the tech sector. Of course, the solution from the Fed™ was to pump in tons of cash and free up lending. In the housing sector. So, this graph represents how Burry made a lot of money, essentially shorting the Fed™ as it poured dollars from the Tech Bubble directly into the Housing Bubble which led to the Great Recession.
Guess some folks never learn.
This made Burry hundreds of millions of dollars as he profited from the tendency of the Fed™ to treat the symptoms and not the actual problems. However, given that our debt, inflation rate, and business risk are going up faster than a Chinese balloon. And then they’ll go down faster than a Chinese balloon.
My balloon elephant wouldn’t fit in the back seat, so I had to pop the trunk.
Now, to be fair, Elon Musk has characterized Burry as a “stopped clock” who is right enough times to make him a few hundred million dollars. Elon might have a point – as Burry and I wait for the cracks to form and Seneca to be proven correct, there’s a world out there, growing and moving. You can live life, but living it always on the defensive will end up in a losing ground strategy.
I think Burry is right, and I wouldn’t bet against him. But I’m also not going to spend to my life living in fear. It’s a mistake, and has probably cost me additional growth on what I have squirreled away for the future. That’s on me, and I refuse to feel bad about it, though if I were 20 or 30 I would be all in online.
As we get older, we often worry far too much about the destruction part of Seneca’s lesson, and forget about the creation, which is the important part of the story. We will have failures. Economies will collapse.
The world will recover. We will abide. But we cannot live in fear, nor in regret.
Unlike Madonna’s face.
Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Reprogramming and Coming Apart
“You did. Thirty-five years from now, you reprogrammed me to be your protector here, in this time.” – Terminator II
6:30 is the best time on the Civil War Clock, hands down. (all non-regular memes are as-found)
- Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
- Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
- Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
- Open War.
I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same. Again. This is moving sideways, but things can unravel quickly. The advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.
In this issue: Front Matter – The Reprogramming Time Is Danger Time – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Coming Apart – Links
Front Matter
Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join over 740 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.
The Reprogramming Time Is Danger Time
It has become almost humorous to watch the reprogramming of the NPC public take place in near-real time. I suppose it’s been there in the past (as in “W. is the most evil person ever”, circa 2000-2009) but it really became noticeable around the time Trump started campaigning for President. Sure, it was funny to watch, but his comments turned the triggered into deranged. Loosely, here are the main reprogramming events in the last decade. I may have missed a few.
You’d think that people would figure out to pretend not to be home.
- 2016 – Hate Trump, Comey bad (because of Hillary emails)
- 2017 – Hate Trump, Comey good because Comey fired (this reprogram took less than a week)
- 2020 – Hate Trump’s virus overreaction because China is good (Pelosi, et. al.)
- 2020 – BLM riots good (we had to burn the city to save it from racism)
- 2020 – Trump mRNA vaxx bad
- 2021 – Trump riots bad (January 6)
- 2021 – Biden mRNA vaxx gooder, only evil people don’t take it
- 2022 – Russia invades Ukraine, Ukraine good
- 2022 – (Reprogram in Progress) Maybe it was the Trump vaxx all along
- 2022 – Trump documents in office patrolled by secret service bad
- 2023 – (Reprogram in Progress) Biden secret documents in garage okay
- 2023 – (Reprogram in Progress) – Ukraine was good, but Taiwan more gooder
Now, each of these above viewpoints has been taken by folks I know for good reason, so just that a person had one or more of these views doesn’t necessarily make them an NPC. But a significant chunk of the American public can be easily swayed to believe absolute nonsense, as long as there was sufficient emotion behind it.
You can’t make a souffle without killing a few hundred million people, I guess.
Stalin said it best, that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths was a statistic, but he learned from the study of history – in 1789 in Paris, thousands of pamphlets were circulated among the rabble to get them fired up for revolution. The pamphlets were effective. Oh, wait, did I not give a spoiler alert?
Sorry for the spoiler, don’t lose your head.
But understand that the NPC reprogramming is critical to the plan. It’s been done for hundreds of years, and is crucial to the plan. The big question is this: what will be programmed in next?
Looks like some old programming here that we need to fix.
Violence and Censorship Update
Best way to not get Pfired™? Don’t be Evil.
Pfizer®. We can start with Pfizer™. Project Vertias© sure did.
I do like what O’Keefe has done with Veritas™, and the Pfizer™ work has been outstanding. But what happened? YouTube™ censored at least some of his work. If I were a congressman, I would certainly like to investigate how much Pfizer™ pays YouTube© for ads. Just sayin’.
I’m sure these were peaceful, less fiery looting, but, hey, Nike™ is 100% off!
Riots in Atlanta, where people burned things, used explosives against cops. National news level? Zero. Of course, we all know that if any of these people had ever owned a “Make America Great Again” hat, the news would have been broadcast like the breathless screeds about FBI agents getting together and pretending to be extremists and talking about stuff they’re never going to do. But it wasn’t. Version 20 of “If only the tables had been turned.”
Want to decrease nationalist extremist events by 99%? Disband the FBI.
And then it came for speech. I had been expecting this for a long time. What’s allowed? Only things that agree with the Narrative of Freedom is Slavery. Carry on, and note this is a sign of things to come.
Thankfully I identify as a BFYTW-American.
Biden’s Misery Index
Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .
Yup, up again, and, like Kamala, this graph doesn’t include eggs.
Updated Civil War II Index
The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.
Violence:
Violence ticked ticked slightly downward this month, again, due (my guess) to suppressing the Atlanta riots and the Memphis riots fizzling when it turned out that the wrong people did the beating. I’m betting it stays down until March-April at the earliest.
Political Instability:
Up is more unstable, and it was down a bit more. I think this is a conscious attempt to keep things together.
Economic:
Economic numbers took a big dive this month, which surprised me. The numbers look fairly unstable from month to month, which isn’t good.
Illegal Aliens:
Record numbers at this time of year. This is intentional. I’d say border is wide open, but we have no border.
Coming Apart
I’ve written these Civil War Weather Reports for years now, and I can’t get away from one thing: we’re coming apart. The Right is essentially in the same place, but the Left is moving farther and farther left, faster.
This is usual when the Left senses victory. The Leftist Singularity (I don’t recall who to owe this to, or I would credit them, I think it might have been from the wonderful Jim’s Blog (LINK)) is what always happens. When the Left thinks they have won, they keep swimming Left, faster and faster, creating a whirlpool that sucks in everything around, again, just like Kamala.
Wonder where the Leftists get those ideas?
And that’s what’s going on now. In no sane world do we go from “recognizing gay marriage” to “we must give your child puberty blockers in anticipation of removal of their genitals” in less than ten years. That’s not normal, and it’s nothing less than an amazing change, and in a country of several hundred million people, it couldn’t have moved any faster.
The attack is the same attack that the Left always uses, attempting to normalize behavior that is far beyond the norm, and then recasting anyone who would push back as bigoted.
The targets of the attacks from the Left are often the same, too – the most frequent is the atom of society – the family. Families are the basic building block of civilization, and have been since Grug first knocked Gorga over the head and drug her back to the cave to make babies.
I wonder what the alternative is?
The Left hates families almost as much as they hate God. Er, the Christian God. In their mind, all other gods are the result of dimwitted (often brown) people who need to be pandered to and talked to like they are pets. But families are the first targets.
Why?
Because it works. Leftism has ripped the family apart through the use of things like welfare and no-fault divorce and divorce-rape of men. The idea is that Progress for Leftist women can come via destruction of the family for Fun and Profit and Games and Prizes. Imagine how this works when multiplied by race and class?
Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned . . .
Look around, and see it – the culture is coming apart. The coming Civil War isn’t going to be an accident, since it’s already on someone’s schedule.
LINKS
As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!
Bad Guys
https://twitter.com/AntiWhiteWatch1/status/1621364216400875520
https://twitter.com/nofones2/status/1622052359638597640
https://twitter.com/762sfuxk/status/1619953007403352064
https://twitter.com/TheBadBeaner/status/1621879581526433792
https://twitter.com/Trip655944670/status/1620326035538710528
https://twitter.com/AntiWhiteWatch1/status/1621751069754773505
Good Guys
https://national.fop.net/report-shot-killed-20230201
https://www.firearmsnews.com/editorial/fbi-underreport-defense-gun-congress-testimony/467858
https://twitter.com/CrazyVidKid/status/1620485775312953344
https://twitter.com/Dream_andFuture/status/1617568584296984576
One Guy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1611864541436203013
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63548
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63540
Body Count
https://twitter.com/EricMMatheny/status/1620038409510359041
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/statistics.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613867152335065092.html
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/is-coincidence-now-the-leading-cause
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11628235/Whats-baby-bust.html
https://infonomena.substack.com/p/whered-all-the-workers-go
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/truckers-positive-drug-tests-up-18-in-2022
https://cis.org/Bensman/United-Nations-Hand-Out-Hundreds-Millions-Cash-USBound-Immigrants-2023
https://www.statista.com/chart/20326/mexicans-non-mexcians-apprehended-at-southern-us-border/
Vote Count
https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/11/ranked-choice-voting-keeps-rigging-elections/
https://mynorthwest.com/3782915/rantz_dem_election_security/
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/01/12/missouri-v-biden-more-stunning-developments/
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/02/pennsylvania-republican-mail-voting-00071713
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/arizonas-maricopa-county-investigate-election-day-printer-issues
https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1617657224851230720/photo/1
Civil War
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/proud-boys-expecting-civil-war-before-jan-6-witness-says/
https://andrewmtanner.medium.com/partisans-driving-america-to-divorce-9b7a1b28aba2
https://www.futurity.org/podcast-united-states-civil-war-2855282/
https://time.com/6222633/second-civil-war-us-how-to-avoid/
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-next-civil-war-begins
https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/29/anarchy-american-style/
https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/08/a-rendezvous-with-rwanda/
Never Lose The Battle For Your Mind
Bah! Your planet doesn’t deserve freedom until it learns what it is not to have freedom. It’s a lesson, I say!” – Futurama
What did they call George Washington’s teeth? Presidentures.
“So, John, after I explained it, do you agree with me?” asked Captain Assholay.
“No, no I don’t,” I responded.
He looked frustrated.
The other details of the conversation were and are relatively unimportant, but the boil down to those two sentences. The fact that the person asking the question was my boss is pertinent, since, well, Captain Assholay was (years and years ago) my boss.
As bosses go, I’d rank the Captain near the bottom of the ones that I’ve had. I think he was borderline retarded, and I can say that word because it’s my blog, and I’m bringing it back.
One of my previous bosses was a man that reportedly lost the family fortune by punching a punter for the Green Bay Packers® who sued him and won because he couldn’t play anymore. I guess punters are fragile. On another occasion (while drinking) he mentioned that he threatened a witness in a felony trial so he’d leave the state and not be able to testify.
Captain Assholay? Worse than that guy.
Alternate caption: “Well, Forrest, there’s cheddar cheese, fried cheese, cheese sticks, cheese curds, cheese slices, cheese doodles, melted cheese, cheese dip (continues for three days) . . . that’s all the cheeses I know.”
But these two sentences encapsulated the relationship I had with Captain Assholay – his question was whether or not I would change my opinion. I would not.
Neither would I lie about it.
I’ve followed a fairly simple pattern in my life: when I’m working for someone, if they ask me to do something that is within my capabilities, and it’s not illegal, immoral, unethical, and doesn’t conflict with my values, I do it. Even if I don’t like it. Even if it sucks. That’s why it’s called work, and not a hobby.
This, though, was different. In this case, I was asked to conform my thoughts and agree with my boss. If he told me to do something (again, nothing illegal, immoral, unethical, and not conflicting with my values) I would do it. But the space he doesn’t own is in my head.
To me, agreeing with the Captain merely because he was my boss is something I couldn’t and wouldn’t do. I’ll hold my tongue. I’ll support silly things. But my mind?
I own it.
My other friend makes wigs. It doesn’t pay much, just enough toupee the bills.
I’m not sure Captain Assholay understood that. Heck, I’m not sure he had the capacity to understand it. But it’s not my job to raise him. One (much better) boss of mine had a saying, “Right or wrong, the boss is the boss.” That is true, and soon enough, we ceased working together.
I don’t send him Christmas cards. Okay, I don’t send anyone Christmas cards, but if I did, I would not send him two cards. My joy in thinking about him is that I do know that karma is real, and that the German word for empathy is schadenfreude.
Even though I’ll enjoy (at some point) hearing about his sudden but inevitable downfall, that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is about the latter part: there are things other people can buy from me. My time.
But they can never, ever, buy my soul. They can never buy my integrity. They can never buy my values.
He also joined a poetry club. So far he’s made some ashtrays and a nice vase.
Life is about a series of compromises. Anyone in a long-term relationship realizes that. In fact, I’m pleased that The Mrs. has learned that if I promise to fix something around the house, I will, and she doesn’t need to nag me every six months until I actually get it done.
I couldn’t lie to the Captain. Why?
I’ve given that some thought. One idea might have been pride, but that’s not it. I’m not much about things like that – the last time I washed one of my cars was sometime when Clinton was president. So, that’s not it.
It was deeper. And I look to my growing up, and the stories. Would the heroes I read about have yielded? Would Alexander? Would Patton? Would Richard Dawson?
No.
While I will render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, there are things that are simply not for sale, and never will be. I will face the world that is being born knowing that.
“All I want for Christmas is Gaul.”
I don’t recall exactly where I read it, but the difference between the Mafia and Leftists is that the Mafia doesn’t care if you agree with them, as long as you pay. Leftists? You must pay, and you must agree, and you must humiliate yourself if you ever disagreed. They will settle for nothing less.
The only answer is to never give in.
Ever. Understand where the line is, and never, ever let it be crossed. Even if you aren’t religious, understand that the battle is for your soul.
And you will be tested.
And you are not alone.
I saw my ex-wife get hit by a bus, and thought, “Man, that could have been me,” but then I remembered I don’t know how to drive a bus.
And that is the first step and the final step of winning. If you don’t compromise, there will never be a one-way trip on a train. Be free: never give the space in your head, never give up your values or virtue.
Especially not to Captain Assholay.
Nagasaki, AI, and Wilder Singing – Livestream in Less Than 10 Minutes!
Livestream in less than ten minutes!!!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUskuritR5P3BBJpOr5gzhg/streams
(LINK)
Rigging The Game
“Coupons. Well, what a wonderful way to economize. Well, I could clip them and give them to my personal shopper.” – Frasier
The first symptom of COVID-19? Believing what the government says. (all memes this post “as-found”)
It’s a strange, new world. During my childhood, there was an active focus on one concept: we’re all humans, regardless of race. We should all be treated the same, and have the same rules. Sure, there were programs like affirmative action, but the primary impact of those was (for the most part) in making sure that minority candidates were considered for jobs. The rule (generally) remained that the most qualified person got the job. Meritocracy reigned.
I won’t pick the date this changed, because it’s been a continuum, a bit here, a bit there. But if you had seen the following headline in 1980 or 1990, I think the first thought of people would have been, “How can that even be legal?”
I was trying to think of a Bank of America® joke, but I lost interest.
The idea isn’t just at Bank of America®, it’s also at Wells Fargo™, too, you can look it up. The concept is that companies attempting to get their ESG (link to my previous post on this monstrosity here) score up are setting up programs like that. To be clear, any loan by any bank that’s not rooted in the ability of the borrower to repay is awful, and immoral. It’s also shenanigans like this that led directly to the 2008 housing bubble and Great Recession.
In a related story, I wonder if Pelosi shorted them yet?
If a country is searching for a solid economy, this isn’t it. If a country is looking to make actual equality the measure, this also isn’t it. If it were just this, it would just be (outside of being illegal) just a limited number of bad business decisions, but it’s not limited to just this.
How about electric cars? I mean, I’m as much into having children dig for toxic cobalt in the Congo so rich people in California can have electric cars and feel smug about it as the next person, but to create a tax incentive?
Seems a bit like we’re rubbing it in.
If Apple® makes an electric car, will it have Windows™?
Not to mention reparations. It’s odd that the people who want to abolish debt for people that borrowed money are also the ones that want to pay people for things that never happened to them. I guarantee that, no matter how much is offered it won’t be accepted.
Why? It will never be enough. Ever.
Another symptom of the Kleptocracy.
What about the Biden family themselves? Is their economy wrecked like they’ve wrecked the nation?
No. Joe went from $0 net worth in 2015 to $9,000,000 (latest info I could find) today. How’d he do that? I’m sure he cut back on Starbucks®. According to reports, Hunter asked a donor to set up a job for his “pled guilty to a felony for $100,000 credit card fraud for makeup” niece.
They agreed to hire this felon for $85,000 a year. She refused. She wanted no less than $180,000. To be fair, from the pictures it does look like she needs that much makeup.
Again, that’s small potatoes, when looking at the billions that have already been looted from the open checkbook that is the Ukraine.
The IRS called Hunter and told him he was being indicted for tax fraud. He hung up, and told his dad, “Ha! I don’t even pay taxes!”
And yet, there’s more! I’ll skip over the massive payments for illegal aliens to play computer games and stay in hotels at taxpayer expense while actual Americans are homeless and face bankruptcy to medical bills inflated by donor companies like Pfizer®. I’m sure that doesn’t make anyone mad.
What’s the difference between E.T.® and an illegal alien? E.T. learned English and wanted to go home.
In point of fact, what we are seeing is the looting of an economy. Our economy. I think it’s been going on for years, but the looting wasn’t so visible because it was papered over, literally. After the 2008 Great Recession, there wasn’t really any attempt to make the economy better, rather, the idea was to just keep printing money – Qualitative Easing is what they called, it, which was a fancy way to say that the money would be printed and buy up the weakest assets of the companies that the Fed® had desired to support.
Bank of America™ and Wells Fargo© were among them.
COVID-19 was the lynchpin, though. As the tide receded and undulated, we could finally see who didn’t have a swimsuit on. It turned out, it was most of the economy. Now, inflation. And, to top it off, eggs appear to be the 2023 version of toilet paper, so I guess this year that Halloween pranks will actually add value to the house.
It also looks like the plan that The Mrs. was brooding on, “let’s get some chickens that lay eggs” will finally hatch.
Maybe.
What do Green Eggs and Ham, Fifty Shades of Gray, and our economy have in common? They all make people who can barely read want to try new things.
Oddly, it gets even worse. Since 1988, the United States has paid $13 trillion in interest to . . . use its own currency – the government needs currency, the Treasury prints bonds, the Fed® creates cash, the United States owes interest and pays fees to the Fed™ member banks.
That’s weird, because the United States used to just issue its own cash. Without debt. Sure, if you print too much, that causes inflation.
Oh. I see we’re soaking in inflation. And the Fed® actively plans for inflation as a part of the business plan. I think there’s a pictograph that might explain things . . .
Chuck Norris mines cryptocurrency. By hand.
The looting can’t continue forever. And that’s a good thing. This made-up economy filled with economic nonsense that, at times, makes Lenin look like an economic genius, has a time limit. Merit will return, just as the Gods of the Copybook Headings have always predicted.
There can be no other outcome.