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“Martha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic.” – Fight Club
When I met The Mrs. I said, “Titanic.” She said that was a terrible icebreaker.
I worry that sometimes I talk too much about the downsides of workings of the economy and was asked, “What does it look like when things start to look better? What does it look like if it’s all going to be fine?” I know this might seem like rearranging the deck chairs to keep the Titanic from sinking, but, hey, let’s go with it?
These are great questions. Not as good as, “Would you like another beer?” but still very good.
These are also questions that could be political in nature (I might write more about that for Monday) but in this case I’m going to focus on the economy as much as I can, though it’s certain that political will slip in here and there – it can’t be avoided because we’ve got Joe all over the economy.
What will make things “fine” and how will we know when we get there?
If someone steals your booze, does that mean they’ve lifted your spirits?
First: Stop the infinite debt spending.
Several years ago I wrote about Modern Monetary Theory. In a nutshell, Modern Monetary Theory says that if you have a bill, pay it. If you don’t have the money, make it. The theory goes that there aren’t a set number of points in a game of football, so why should there be a set number of dollars in the economy. So, if you have a bill, pay for it.
This is an awesome theory only for a person that has the I.Q. of a Kamala/AOC lovechild. The worst thing about it is that it actually worked in the short term, which is the worst when it comes to an economic policy, because it gives lots of time for Bad Things to pile up.
What made it work is because the United States can pawn the piles and piles of dollars off to the world since everyone takes them because we have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers and everyone knows what happened to Saddam and Qaddafi when they decided they’d start taking gold instead.
I asked a friend if he wanted to hear about the Russian victory parade. He said, “No tanks.”
Eventually either the desire or ability to soak up the dollars goes away. When that happens, even for a short time, the inflation inherent in the system feeds back.
Can this go on forever? No. Should we, you know, maybe consider stopping it before we totally wreck the economy? If we do that, there will be a hangover and a tough political bill to be paid.
Will we? Yes. As Ben Stein’s dad said, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” That will be a very, very bad day if it’s not one of our choosing.
Also? Fiat economies have a worse track record than Fiat™ cars for reliability.
Second: Stop the Wealth Pump®.
I really enjoyed Peter Turchin’s book, End Times. In it, he convinced me (he also has data to support this) that one of the biggest failures of my lifetime is the priming of what he calls the Wealth Pump™. The really short version of this is that policies that would support concentration of capital in the billionaire class are enacted (for example: open borders) while policies that benefit the average worker (for example: strictly controlled borders) are ignored.
I dropped a piece of ice in the kitchen. I was upset, but then it melted. I guess it’s water under the fridge.
Turchin’s models have shown that the Wealth Pump™ everywhere and always leads to tremendous social turmoil. Even without the economic misery for the common man that the Wealth Pump© implies, the turmoil from the hordes of teeming illegals will create turmoil that will last lifetimes. But stopping the Wealth Pump™ is imperative.
Will Bezos and Soros owned Senators suddenly ignore the billionaire class they serve? At this point, not voluntarily. The bacon-wrapped shrimp and cool stock tips are pretty powerful to keep them in line.
Third: De-financialize the economy by putting out the FIRE.
Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate is called the FIRE sector of the economy. In theory, FIRE exists to serve the actual productive sectors of the economy that make actual things that people need like potatoes, beer, steak, PEZ™, shoes, rifles, books, and toilet plungers.
That’s the way it should work.
Instead, it’s a gambling economy filled with people who try to manipulate and tweak and profit without producing anything. The big oil squeeze of 2008? Rumor was that was a big investment bank trying to make a bet profitable on a short against a particular company. The investment bank didn’t produce anything useful except for profits. By manipulation.
I think FIRE might be more dangerous than fire.
Again, ask the Nancy Pelosi why her stock portfolio is so profitable, and ask why first term Senators do so well in the stock market. Or don’t. But it’s FIRE that’s the primary machine in the Wealth Pump™ and these create increasingly horrific schemes.
Examples? Everything is a subscription because it increases revenue and profits. Now it’s moving into video games: design a game once, sell a subscription to it so that people can’t play it again for free, but instead have to pay a monthly fee. It’s already moving that way for software.
And look into who is buying all the housing. It’s on FIRE.
Fourth: Rational housing valuations.
People need a place to live, and a pod won’t cut it, but houses are now big investments. Why? Because they need more profits to feed the Wealth Pump®. Housing prices returning to something a guy with a high school degree working a manufacturing job can afford is crucial, since that’s where families come from. Is it possible in San Jose? No. It’s possible in Modern Mayberry, but that’s because BlackRock© hasn’t started buying here.
Fifth: Space for humans and A.I.
I know that some are skeptical, but A.I. is already making hundreds of thousands of jobs obsolete. Running a backhoe? No. Writing articles? Yes. Things that are easy for humans, are hard for A.I. Things that are hard for humans (and thus draw a higher salary), are often easy for A.I.
Are expert-level programmers still required? Absolutely. But not as many, since an expert-level programmer acting in tandem with A.I. will have a tenfold increase in productivity.
Who loses? The “not as good” programmers who are now not required.
This has happened before in all sorts of industries. DJs on the radio began voice tracking decades ago. The average DJ makes minimum wage (average, some are highly compensated, most are not) but still the radio stations paid $20,000 to eliminate them because making the product cheaper is what they know.
ChatKGB: it asks the questions.
Automation increases profits, but it doesn’t lead to some sort of techno-utopia where we have three hour work days. People just lose their jobs. As profits have gone up, pay has gone down (relative to inflation) and work hours have gone up for salaried folks.
A.I. hasn’t hit in a big way, yet. It will. Making space for people is unlikely, but necessary.
That’s a summary of how we can tell if we’re going to pull out from the looming economic catastrophe, what it looks like if things are going to get better. I’ve started sketching out a few political things to show that things are going to be okay, and (like I wrote above) will likely show up on Monday.
So, like the Titanic, it looks like we might have a change in destination. But we’re making good time!
“Two minutes, tops. But it’s a tough two minutes.” – Reservoir Dogs
Finland has no border problems – no one can cross the Finnish line.
Volume V, Issue 9
All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.
This is a moving situation, and things are changing 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 – Governing War Structures – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Kabuki Border Theater? – 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 nearly 810 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.
Governing War Structures
In the aftermath of the Virgina Second Amendment rally a few years ago I had a realization about path to Civil War 2.0: organization will be very, very fast. I think I even wrote those words in the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, but I’m too lazy to look it up. Regardless, I’m going with a full “I told you so” about this one.
What’s gray, has spikes, and runs around a field? Barbed wire.
First: Texas wasn’t ordered by the Supreme Court to do anything. The Supreme Court’s decision was removing an injunction against the more or less worthless Customs and Border Protection (CBP) being able to remove razor wire that Texas put up, so the ruling doesn’t require Texas to do anything.
Second: If CBP is as bad at customs as they are at immigration, I’d expect that you could export nuclear bombs to Bulgaria.
Aside from that, the amazing thing was about how quickly a coalition of the Several States backed Texas. I was doing a podcast with The Mrs. and Mark and even as we were talking, more and more governors were saying that they stood with Texas in real time – state after state.
This was a big deal.
If at first you don’t secede, try, try again.
And it happened very, very quickly. This is the trigger to number 9 on the Civil War 2.0 countdown list, and it happened in less than 24 hours. The list is incomplete, since I’m certain more of the Several States would side with Texas if things went sideways, and places like Colorado and Illinois would mostly secede, leaving small islands of blue in seas of red. Kentucky? Yeah, they’d be in as well because of their pioneering spirit. In Kentucky, when your car breaks down? You build a house next to it.
Now there’s a slogan I can get behind.
The oppositional structure for Civil War 2.0 developed out of thin air on a single evening in January. There’s more to the story down below, but the lines developed amazingly quickly. I thought the real issue would be the Second Amendment, but illegal immigration managed to do what no other issue that the TradRight had could do: make everyone notice. The unending flood of illegal aliens (an absolute record this month, ever, as shown in the Civil War Index graph below) has been the catalyst.
Note to the FedGov folks, if you enforced the actual Constitution and kicked out the illegals, you could probably stop Texas from straying.
I do expect that (for reasons as noted in our second story) that the tension from this may fade, but the governing structures are in place, which places us firmly at two minutes until midnight.
Yes, we are very close, but Biden backed down because he realizes that on the FAFO graph, he’s pretty close to the FO section.
Does this make him scared enough to pee his pants? Depends.
The federal government has to push so hard because it feels that its power is becoming more tenuous. Yes, this tension may fade and after two more months I’ll back down the clock of doom, but this is an amazingly large step.
There have been others.
Missouri would be in trouble except for:
Violence and Censorship Update
I’ll (mostly) let the memes speak for themselves.
As God is my witness, I never knew convicts could fly.
And people say there isn’t a perfect woman.
Looks like Canada is behind enemy lines now.
If I X’d® this, I’d be in jail now. So why isn’t Soros? Oh, yeah, he’s a billionaire who hates America.
Think he wants to put up the Statue of Oppression?
What’s a sensitive event? Whatever Google® says it is.
I wonder if Australia realizes this will just make all the edgy kids get swastika tats?
Canada, are you doing okay? Looks like you haven’t figured out the whole “laws” thing.
Biden’s Misery Index
Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .
Yup, up again, but only slightly. Does it matter after the damage has been done?
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 is flat. Winter is in, and riots aren’t as fun in galoshes.
Political Instability:
Up is more unstable, and it is slightly down.
Economic:
Economic numbers did a slight dive. I wonder if it’s because they caught this guy?
Illegal Aliens:
The most, ever, in the history of the country. For all time.
Kabuki Border Theater?
PIERRE
The Texas border confrontation has been in the news bigly. Is it real? Follow this (LINK) from a Texan (courtesy Aesop) who says that just a mile from the confrontation spot that the border is wide open. Wide open, but perhaps slightly inconvenient.
Does this matter?
Yes, it matters.
Absolutely. The border simply does not exist in 2024. Anyone can walk across at any time, any place, and be rewarded with cash, prizes, airfare to anyplace in the nation, and free room and board. It’s in New York. It’s in Boston. It’s everywhere.
What’s a radical Leftist’s favorite font? Sans sheriff.
The GloboElite get cheap labor. The GloboLeftists s get free votes and power. Oddly, they even share that.
Remember to call a doctor if your election vote counting lasts more than four hours.
But, hey, I hear that they’re close to an illegal immigration vote in Congress!
LINKS
As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!
Bad Guys
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751673864524894408
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744577621319667964
https://twitter.com/i/status/1747837919312687268
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744180313876574264
https://twitter.com/tecas2000/status/1752757658161926364
https://twitter.com/TheWatcherDaily/status/1727684087245132251
https://twitter.com/tecas2000/status/1754194250638508470
https://twitter.com/i/status/1753461857124323462
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752897020560379985
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740256698781360200
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741324539265532308
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741890761845608774
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741106761984057418
https://twitter.com/ShootInUSA/status/1747178759730671934
Good Guys
https://news.yahoo.com/shootout-jewelry-store-oaklands-fruitvale-030731425.html
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1748054072215703703
One Guy
https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/controversy-at-etsu-over-kyle-rittenhouse-as-guest-speaker/
https://www.newsweek.com/kyle-rittenhouse-republican-gun-control-ar15-1866056
Body Count
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/soldiers-killed-jordan-names/
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/10/army-sees-sharp-decline-white-recruits.html
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/24/us-military-stretched-too-thin-to-deal-with-threats-report-says/
https://www.heritage.org/military
https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-longer-top-level-fighting-070000553.html
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1747835202985185509
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/blood-clots-embalmers-report-mid-2021-covid-vaccines/
https://studyfinds.org/childless-millennials-parents/
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1750650452105179630
Vote Count
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1691812817798566281
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presidential-election
https://indivisible.org/groups
Civil War
https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/p/greg-abbott-and-the-invasion-of-the
https://ijr.com/gen-flynn-constitution-literally-allows-texas-engage-war-southern-border/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12954689/Texas-independence-vote-court-ballot.html
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2023-12/dec-2023-cgvs-defending-democracy.pdf
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/americans-are-fighting-for-control
https://news.yahoo.com/endless-civil-war-americas-160-013209995.html
https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Famgreatness.com%2F2024%2F01%2F08%2Fa-culture-in-collapse%2F
https://indi.ca/why-civil-war-is-too-good-for-america/
https://off-guardian.org/2024/01/31/discuss-is-world-war-3-really-on-the-horizon/
“That’s good, because she’s a predator.” – Fight Club
I walked into a bar in 1987. The bartender said, “Hey, the party is in the back.”
I had started doing these more or less in order by year. It’s a retrospective, and it has nothing to do with box office – it’s me going through the movies of the year and picking the ones I like. They are in no order. One thing about these movies – 1987 seems to be a year when the videocassette was fully in bloom, and many of these movies had a much better life on VCR than they did at the local movie theater.
Again, these are in no particular order, but one thing struck me as I went through the list: this is the strongest list, by far, of any year I’ve done, with amazing, inventive time. Only two of the movies on this list are sequels: Evil Dead II, which was a remake; and House II (which was entirely different than the original House), and both were far more comedy than horror.
Movies were better then. Much better.
1987 might have been Peak Movie.
Outrageous Fortune: Yes, Bette Midler is annoying, but so is Shelley Long, and both are hilarious in this movie about actresses who get involved in a spy caper. This movie marks the movie regeneration of George Carlin, whose career had been sitting in a dumpster until this.
Mannequin: Kim Cattrall really can’t act. Andrew McCarthy’s main acting skill was his hair. It didn’t really matter in this amazingly stupid movie about a mannequin that comes to life only with Andrew McCarthy is alone with it. That’s it. Silly. Stupid. Cheap to make. And fun.
If your wife was a one-legged mannequin, could you stand her?
Lethal Weapon: Shane Black was the writer of this movie (more about him later) and it cost $15 million to make and hauled in $120 million before VHS revenues. It was the origin of buddy cop movies and was from the time when Gary Busey made money by acting, and not acting strange and before Mel discovered tequila. Helmets on motorcycles, kids. Helmets.
Evil Dead II: It’s not really a sequel, it’s a re-make of Evil Dead. The horror levels are fairly low, and the special effects are really quite good given the $75 budget they were working with. To describe this movie? Lovecraft meets the Three Stooges® and Bruce Campbell with a chainsaw hand.
Raising Arizona: The cover to this movie sucked, but I had seen nearly everything else in the video store, so I popped down my $2.00 to rent it (Be Kind, Rewind!) and cracked a cold one in front of the TV. Wow. I was not expecting that. The Coen Brothers did a great job making a comedy about kidnapping children through the eyes of a convenience store robber. By the end of the credits, I was hooked, and the last line made perfect sense. No studio would take a chance on a movie like this today, because it doesn’t make fun of families.
The Secret of My Success: A smart kid just pretends to be an executive and makes the company successful instead of doing the mailroom job they hired him for? Micheal J. Fox was born for this role. He was witty and quick, and Helen Slater was totes adorbs. Did the movie change my life? Yes. I used this idea to start working at a company without being hired and it resulted in a hostile takeover, but thankfully I got probation and can still own firearms.
I never asked A.I. to put in “East Asians” but I guess it decided that Chicago gangs in the 1930s were ruled by Fu Manchu?
The Untouchables: David Mamet’s first writing credit from this list, and Brian De Palma? Amazing work. The big bad guy was Capone, the good guy was Eliot Ness. Inexplicably, Sean Connery was tossed in, because he needed something to do because he wasn’t making Highlander. Historically accurate? Of course not. Wrap up the whole, big story in two hours? Yup, including baseball bat management techniques.
I just asked for ponies.
Predator: I was driving along on a cool night, when I decided to stop at a drive-in movie theater. Yeah, those existed once upon a time. The title of the movie looked sketchy, but Arnie was in it, so, maybe it wouldn’t suck. OH MY! It was one of those great times when I was shocked by how utterly perfect the movie was in every respect. Accurate? No. Perfect? Yes. From the opening credit to the nuclear explosion, it was a perfect movie. Shane Black, proving he’s a perfect human, didn’t write it, but played a one of Dutch’s guys. A perfect movie.
Spaceballs: A silly movie, but I saw it in 70mm, back when theaters used film. 70mm is probably not necessary for a Mel Brooks comedy, but, hey.
Oh, my, what sort of cannibalistic ritual did the A.I. plan for Kevin?
Adventures in Babysitting: Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first: I am no longer dating Elisabeth Shue. She’s much older than I am, and I decided the relationship would never work. Also, I hope to meet her one day. The director, Chris Columbus, didn’t have enough to do after discovering Hispaniola, so he decided to take up movies, with some small success in movies you may not have heard of, like this one and Home Alone.
If only the cop was Elvis.
RoboCop: Cop lives. Cop gets shot. GloboLeft ruins a city on purpose to get Power and Profits®. Cop gets reanimated into a robot. Cop falls in love. I’m having a hard time determining if this isn’t a documentary. Regardless, it stars Peter Weller, who got bored with acting and decided to become a college professor – RoboProf. Seriously, he’s a professor, and probably the second coolest academic on the planet.
Summer School: Nothing could make me not love this very stupid movie. Mark Harmon is a loser teacher who has to teach summer school to a group of loser kids. There’s a dog. Harmon falls in love with Kirstie Alley before she became the size of a refrigerator. Odd note: I have talked to a person who gave me first person testimony that Kirstie Alley was *at least* a decade older than official sources claim.
More accurate than you might guess.
No Way Out: Sean Young was really hot in this movie, so hot that the crazy might have been worth it. Kevin Costner continued his domination of 1987 with this second big movie of 1987. It was a great movie. Spoiler alert: You’d never guess that Will Patton was actually Godzilla®.
House II: The Second Story: As I said above, House and House II have zero in common except that both were covered by building codes. There is nothing at all logical about this movie, and it is about as scary as the Building Code Commission Agenda. It’s silly. It’s fun. It’s nothing that Hollywood would make today.
Amazon Women on the Moon: Another rental. I had no idea what I was in for. As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, late night television was great because 5th graders can’t get dates legally because they can’t drive. This is a very, very underrated movie. On a $5,000,000 budget, it produced a box of candy cigarettes and some shiny stones as revenue. Why? Gosh, manslaughter charges against the director (on another movie) for starters. Watch the part “Son of the Invisible Man” for amazing chuckles.
Now with 100% more PEZ®.
Real Men: John Belushi died, so the world left us with Jim. Jim? Not so bad in movies like this. Is it serious? NO! It’s a 1980s comedy with John Ritter.
The Princess Bride: An utter classic in every respect, as long as you can ignore that Rob Reiner and Mandy Patinkin (huge GloboLeftElite) were involved. It cost $16 million. Box office was $31 million. Cultural impact? Huge. Much bigger than that amount. I read the book (got it from those little book order things that they gave out at school) before the movie came out. We need more giants in film.
“As you wish . . . ” and I wish there was more Elvis.
House of Games: David Mamet’s second spot on the list. Mamet is actually (sort of?) on the TradRight now. Annnnnnyway . . . this movie is about conmen and con games. I saw this one on HBO® or Skinemax® and was surprised at the tight plotting and especially liked Joe Mantegna’s acting, even if his name is too long and has too many vowels.
Prince of Darkness: One of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trio. This movie involves alternate dimensions and the Ultimate Evil all rolled into one, complete with Susan the radiologist (glasses) and Alice Cooper. It is a horror movie, so if you don’t like those, it’s a skip. Carpenter at his best.
Arnold needs to pump some iron . . . looking like a girly man.
The Running Man: I thought this movie was pretty schlocky when I originally watched it back in the day. Sure, it was fun. Then I rewatched it with one of my boys and he said, “Dad, this movie is amazing! Why don’t they make them like this now?” Indeed.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: John Hughes, Steve Martin, and John Candy make THE Thanksgiving movie. ‘nuff said.
Overboard: Kurt Russell as a down-on-his-luck widowed carpenter who convinces amnesiac rich heiress Goldie Hawn that she needs to do the laundry and make the chicken tenders in order to reach mini-golf nirvana. Amazing.
How good was 1987? I skipped Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Why? It was a downer.
1987 was filled with riches compared to the corporate, soulless, paint-by-the-numbers stuff we see today. What movies do you love that I left out?
Streams will show up here at 9EST, that’s in less than 30 minutes! (and we typically pregame for five minutes, so it really starts up at 8:55PM)
Funniest News On the ‘Net.
In this episode:
