Month: September 2025
Things Are Not Alright
“Hey, business is business. You use a gun. I use a fountain pen. What’s the difference? Let’s put it in my terms: you’re in a hostile takeover, you snatch us up for some green mail, but you’re not expecting some poison pill to be running around the building, am I right? Hans, bubby, I’m your white knight.” – Die Hard
When the S&P 500 and the moslems merge, you really won’t be able to talk badly about the profit. (all memes as-found)
A recent study shows that young people, those under 40, are souring on capitalism.
According to the poll from Rasmussen released just last week, a whopping 62% of voters aged 18 to 39 think the economy is unfair to their generation. In a massive change from the Cold War generations, 55% are open to radical redistribution of wealth.
The kids are not alright with the system that built the iPhone® and the Tesla™
I don’t blame them.
I remember when I was a kid, capitalism was the golden ticket and was counterbalanced by soulless, heartless communism. And capitalism seemed like a good bet. Work hard, play by the rules, and you could climb the ladder, get the house, get a couple of cars and a few kids, and put your mark on the world.
Now?
The entry-level jobs that used to teach kids responsibility, grit, and how to deal with a bad boss are vanishing faster than my hairline. Back when I was a kid, we had jobs that ended up building character. McDonald’s®? That was for teenagers flipping burgers and learning that the customer is not always right, but the manager is always yelling.
Today?
McDonald’s© is for the 65-year-old retiree who needs a discount on his Big Mac™ to supplement Social Security. Sure, they might hire a kid, but only if the kid is over 20 and speaks three languages.
What about delivering papers?
Ah, this was the classic bike-riding gig where you dodged dogs and learned about early mornings. That job went the way of the dinosaurs when people started asking themselves why they were paying for someone to deliver them a small part of the Internet each day. Now, the desperate 45-year-old single dad with a rusty van delivers what is left, because kids on bikes? They don’t have cars and some might even still live with their parents.
And do not get me started on mowing lawns for local businesses. Try that today, and you will run smack into child labor laws, OSHA regulations, and corporate insurance policies that make hiring a kid riskier than skydiving without a parachute. One slip on a wet lawn, and the business owner is sued into oblivion.
The kid jobs, the training wheels of the workforce, are all snapped up by oldsters or, failing that, illegals. Want to pick apples on a farm? Sorry, buddy, the illegals have that covered, and they do it cheaper than a robot, unless you’re talking about the Juan Deere™ 4000®.
Or how about construction?
Same story. Hammers and nails are handled by folks who crossed the border with the same speed as a Black Friday shopper looking for buy one get ten free corn dogs and if tu no habla español, you’re not getting the job because that’s all the crew speaks.
And trades? Welding, plumbing, even semi-truck driving? Recent reports show illegals are flooding those fields too. Remember that scandal last month where trucking companies were busted hiring undocumented drivers en masse?
Who let this happen?
The CEOs, of course. They lobbied for loose borders so Paco could make tacos and Sikhs with mustaches could create semi crashes. It’s like inviting wolves to guard the sheep, but the wolves are telling the sheep how great the quarterly profits are going to be.
Fine, let’s skip the blue-collar path. Go to college. When I was a kid, that was the advice everyone gave, and it worked. Michael Lewis, the author who wrote Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, and The Big Short, graduated from Princeton®.
With a degree in art history.
Yes, art history, not finance or engineering. Before you could say “Van Gogh’s other ear,” Lewis was trading bonds at Salomon Brothers, raking in millions. Me? I had multiple job offers right out of school, and this was during a downturn when the economy was flatter than Sunday morning’s beer. College was a great idea.
But what has happened since? College has morphed into a debt trap sold as enlightenment and a four-year climbing wall party. Tuition costs have skyrocketed since the 1970s. According to data from the College Board® the average tuition and fees at public four-year institutions have increased by over 1,200% since 1980 when adjusted for general inflation.
That is not a typo.
In 1970-71, the average cost for in-state public college tuition was about $358 in current dollars. Today? Tuition is over $10,000 annually, and that doesn’t include room, board, booze, or broads.
Private schools?
Forget it: they have jumped from around $1,700 to nearly $38,000. A year, which is like paying Ferrari® prices for a Yugo® diploma. Universities are pricing education like it is bottled water in the Sahara and packing that money up and giving it to GloboLeft professors that hate you.
And student loans? These are not your grandpa’s loans; they can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, making them worse than indentured servitude. We hand these toxic deals to our stupidest (young) people, and watch them drown in debt averaging $30,000 per borrower.
Oh, and the job market?
CEOs love importing infinity H-1B Indians to snatch tech jobs at slave wages, cratering salaries for Americans. Want to code?
Good luck competing with a workforce willing to live in vans down by the river. And if you are white? Navigate the DEI gauntlet first, where Indians hire their own and call you racist if you notice.
The CEOs? They love this, or it wouldn’t be this way. Period.
Capitalism is not a suicide pact. This version, devoid of morality and family focus, is exactly that: a thin veil over quarterly profits at the expense of everything else. Even small changes make a huge difference. Kentucky’s new shared custody law has already slashed divorces by 25 percent, just by making shared custody of kids the presumption. Imagine if we removed alimony, child support mandates that incentivize divorce, and welfare traps that break families?
That would be a real family-friendly policy, not this nonsense where the state plays dad and mom can divorce for fun and prizes.
And the CEOs?
If they knowingly hire illegals, ship them to jail. Let them flip burgers for real when they get out. If they push H-1Bs, force them to relocate to Calcutta, since that is what they are turning America into: a third-world call center with first-world prices.
So, why are kids turned off capitalism?
Because it has been hijacked by the very people who should be its stewards.
The Rasmussen poll nails it: 36 percent of young voters are struggling financially, and 76 percent want government to nationalize major industries if it means fairness. This is a warning shot that is leading to failing governments across the world right now, from Nepal to France to Argentina.
We can fix this.
Deport the illegals flooding jobs, kill the H-1B program, make college affordable again allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy so silly degrees won’t be financed, and prioritize families with rule changes that discourage splitting up.
Restore the dream where a kid can mow lawns, go to college without debt slavery, buy a house, and raise a family without the system screwing them at every turn.
Politicians ignore this at their own peril. The managers (the people) are yelling.
Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Mass Deportation Is The Moderate Position
“There may be no criminal charges, but I’ll see these files reach Calcutta with the advice you be deported as political undesirables.” – The Man Who Would Be King
A Russian acrobat was deported, and now our human pyramid doesn’t have Oleg to stand on.
- Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
- People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology. Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
- Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
- Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
- Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
- Open War.
Volume VII, Issue 4
Most memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”. I have kept the Clock O’Doom to 8., given the open support of criminality in Blue cities becoming clearer by the day with their own words. They feel the violence in Chicago and Baltimore and New York and Los Angeles is justified. Beware: the number can climb quickly. Right now (as of publishing) we are dropping below Level Rittenhouse and it looks like we avoided Level Rooftop Korean. For now.
My 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 – Mass Deportation Is Now The Moderate Position – Violence and Censorship Update – Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Imperial Presidency – 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 850 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.
Mass Deportation Is Now The Moderate Position
Finally, and after years of absolutely no one voting for the mass immigration, legal and illegal, native peoples appear to have had enough:
- enough of the violence and rape directed at them,
- enough of the migrant murderers,
- enough of having to work to pay taxes for freeloaders,
- enough of the being told they are racist for complaining about having to conform to customs and behaviors that range from bizarre to barely civilized,
- enough for having to support the children of other nations and being unable to afford their own,
- enough propaganda about how they should seek to be childfree and kill themselves,
- enough telling them that they should be happy to be replaced (even though that’s totally not happening and they should still be happy about if it was),
- enough government censorship,
- enough loss of free speech rights,
- enough of being told that their flag is racist,
- enough of being told that their economy can’t survive without cheap imported labor, and
- enough of having to become strangers in a country they were born in.
If this weren’t Western Europe being invaded by endless hordes of third-worlders, I’d imagine the GloboLeft would scream for arming the invaded, look at Ukraine. They’d be hounding Trump to air-drop in small arms and ammunition and declaring a no-fly zone, giving aid and intelligence to the partisan freedom fighters that were being displaced in their own country.
China, no friend to the West, is amused. Their projections are that the West will cease to exist in any shape of consequence by the year 2050 due to multiculturalism. And, they’re right. Balkanization will lead to a squabbling group of states and atrocities that make the current state of Gaza seem tame by comparison, but no one will be photographing it, because no one will care.
The imported cultures coming into the West are fundamentally incompatible with the West. A group of 320 Africans killed 70 people on their boated headed towards Spain last month. Why? Witchcraft. Sure, I’m all for burning witches, but what chance is there that these sub-Saharan Africans or their descendants will ever enhance Spain? How long will the Spanish take this? The English? The Scots? The Irish? The Danes? Right now, the Poles are having none of it, and are outperforming the rest of the West. The GloboLeft Germans are frightened – having killed 6 or 7 candidates for AfD in the last two weeks, right before their election.
Based on what is obviously coming, the obvious conclusion is this:
Mass deportation is now the moderate position.
Violence and Censorship Update
Violence takes the center stage this month, as Germans on the “right” (they’d be center-left in the US) have been dying – specifically seven candidates right before the election.
Staying in Europe – a young Scottish girl defended herself against some (now arrested) alien invaders. Why is the mainstream media ignoring this story?
In the States, it appears that if you’re beaten up badly, the local politicians will say you had it coming.
And in other cities, the law is only a suggestion.
And, lawmakers themselves are avoiding their elected responsibilities:
Moving to censorship, Great Britain is trying to fight 4Chan.
A 4Chan anon notes that this is all part of the plan:
And games sellers are folding to financial blackmail to censor games from banks threatening to cut them off from banking:
Wikipedia® is a biased source, but some want it to be a controlled source:
Regardless:
Misery Index
The new Trump administration is shown in red. Results continue to be much better than Biden’s misery numbers as Trump’s policies apparently have been stunning at reversing the tide. We’ll see, as the long term trend is not good.
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 indicators are down slightly this month, again. Has Trump broken them?
Political Instability:
Down is more stable, and it went slightly up this month even though Democrats have never been more unhappy.
Economic:
The economy is up a bit this month, again. But the H-1B program still exists.
Illegal Aliens:
Still the lowest level since the Weather Report started. Remember, they care nothing for our country, nothing for our history, and only want money and political power.
The Imperial Presidency
I wonder how chapped Obama’s butt is every morning when he gets up and looks to see what Trump has done. Really, Obama started it, with his, “I don’t have the Constitutional authority to do it, but I’m doing it anyway” “stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool” executive orders.
Those were bad. I’ve never liked executive orders, since they seem to take the Legislative work and turn it over to the Executive. But the Executive writes all the regulations and Congress never reads them, because, I think, they don’t have enough time because they need to spend the evening eating bacon-wrapped shrimp at the lobbyist parties. So, the Executive has become more and more powerful.
Trump has decided, I think, that “I’m nearly 80, I’m not going to live all that long, I’m not going to be re-elected, they’re going to hate me anyway, so let’s put the pedal to the metal and see how fast this baby will go.” It’s probably never a great idea to put someone who is deep into IDGAF territory and who also has a really short time horizon in charge, but here we are.
It’s amusing, at least for now. Trump has greatly expanded the powers of the Executive, and no one outside of some foreign judges (who claim to be American) has tried to stop him, including the Supreme Court. I could go back in time and blame everyone from Teddy R. to Wilson on up, but, whatever.
It is what it is – the federal government has grown to massive proportions, and Donald Trump has become the Imperial President. It won’t be him, mind you, but the next guy, or the guy after that that will cross the Rubicon and become the “president” for a lot longer. The sort of power that is being unleashed is just the same as before Augustus seized final power in Rome, after Caesar (Trump) set the stage.
Buckle up, because it will be messy getting there.
LINKS
BAD GUYS
https://x.com/i/status/1952491475666878745
https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1954189984594092107
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1956137380995588439
https://x.com/i/status/1951772080359473416
GOOD GUYS
https://x.com/TheImmortal007/status/1955711189293654316
https://x.com/i/status/1955639211685765450
https://x.com/billysandytodd/status/1957566944753701169
ONE GUY
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/08/01/another_armed_civilian_saves_the_day_153123.html
BODY COUNT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/trans-people-us-data
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/
https://cis.org/Report/Overall-ForeignBorn-Population-Down-22-Million-January-July
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/12/ice-receives-100000-applications-patriotic-americans-who-want-help-remove-murderers
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Trumps-Federal-Layoffs_03-web.jpg?itok=r8mse-D1
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/The-American-Workforce-in-2002-v.jpg?itok=HdYKJcPT
https://classsolidarity.org/billionaires/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fewer-young-adults-reaching-adulthood-milestones-census-report/
https://www.newsweek.com/less-religion-less-babies-declining-birth-rate-2110254
VOTE COUNT
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1960686967273738382
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1956450577593848041
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/us/politics/democratic-party-voter-registration-crisis.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fk8.l6c4.j2Uq_wX_yelU&smid=url-share
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/22/mail-in_ballots_need_to_go_153204.html
CIVIL WAR
https://modernity.news/2025/08/16/british-army-colonel-civil-war-is-coming/
https://off-guardian.org/2025/08/10/stirrings-of-rebellion-in-unhappy-britain/
https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/14/who-has-been-busy-destroying-democracy/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-device-data-reveals-exactly-who-showed-white-house-protests
https://forwardobserver.com/color-revolution-a-strategic-assessment-2025-2028/
https://archive.is/VYDs2
https://archive.is/MKs8n
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-essay-hoping-military-would-stand-up-trump-draws-fire-social-media
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2025/08/18/what-is-the-democrats-endgame-n2661929#google_vignette
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pentagon-plan-would-create-military-reaction-force-for-civil-unrest/ar-AA1KmDsZ
https://www.newsweek.com/campus-guardian-angel-school-shooting-drone-2106792
It Should Have Been . . . 1970s
“Does your physical disability preclude you from coming to the point?” – The Eiger Sanction
In 1970, baseball pitcher Doc Ellis pitched a no-hitter while stoned on LSD, which is less impressive when you realize that in 1970 all the batters were on LSD, too.
The Oscar® is, after piles of cash, the biggest award in Hollywood™. It is when the industry votes on who they feel is the best of their very, very visible profession. Oh, sure, the people who influence more lives, like the guys who invent ways to clean water or manage the building of the interstate highway system get awards, but those are ignored because illegal aliens hadn’t made driving spicey again.
I’ve decided that I’d go through the decades (at least a few of them) and start comparing who won the Oscar™ versus who I think should have won for both best picture and best actor. Since Hollywood® now thinks that men are exactly the same as women, I’ve decided to skip the best actress and just name the one I think is hottest.
After going through all of the movies of the 1970s, they sucked. The 1970s was a dismal, joyless decade of crappy movies, for the most part, which is why my “It Came From . . . “ series is done going backwards into the past.
All movies are from the ones I’ve seen. There are a lot of movies I haven’t seen from the 1970s, and I’m probably better off for that.
Here we go:
1970
Best Picture: Patton. Biopic of, perhaps, the greatest tactical Allied general of World War II.
Should have been: Patton. Reason: I like tanks.
Best Actor: George C. Scott, Patton. Perhaps the best choice possible of someone who could play Patton.
Should have been: Donald Sutherland, Kelly’s Heroes. Disagree? Always with the negative waves, man. Plus, still has tanks.
Hottest Actress: Sandra Dee, The Dunwich Horror. Especially in that one outfit.
1971
Best picture: The French Connection. Didn’t see it because I don’t like the French.
Should have been: Dirty Harry or Vanishing Point (Tie). So hard to choose, so I decided I didn’t have to.
Best Actor: Gene Hackman, The French Connection.
Should have been: Kurt Russell, The Barefoot Executive. A very reserved performance from Kurt Russell of what should have been a long string of Oscars™.
Hottest Actress: Jill St. John, Diamonds are Forever. Honorable mention: The “more buoyant than her sister” Lana Wood (also Diamonds are Forever) in her role as Plenty O’Toole (named after her father).
1972
Best Picture: The Godfather. A movie that came together perfectly for Francis Ford Coppola and is now one that many view as one of the best movies ever made.
Should have been: The Night Stalker. This made-for-TV movie featuring veteran actor Darren McGavin about the exploits of a plucky Chicago newsman is simply more fun.
Best Actor: Marlon Brando, The Godfather.
Should have been: Ned Beatty, Deliverance. What goes on in the mountains, stays in the mountains.
Hottest Actress: No entry. I looked. Dismal. 1972 was probably the nadir for hot chicks in Hollywood©.
1973
Best Picture: The Sting. Long documentary about how people develop allergic reactions to insect venom that I saw in health class. I’ll pass, thank you.
Should have been: The Exorcist. Long documentary about Rosie O’Donnell’s childhood.
Best Actor: Jack Lemmon, Save the Tiger. No idea what this even is.
Should have been: Clint Eastwood, High Plains Drifter. Yeah. Guns. Dynamite. Retribution from beyond the grave. Yeah.
Hottest Actress: Mariana Hill from High Plains Drifter gets the nod – she is also Norman Schwartzkopf’s cousin, so, more tanks.
1974
Best Picture: The Godfather, Part II. Some people like it even better than the first one making it even more classic-er.
Should have been: The Man with the Golden Gun. Bond putting a midget in a basket so he can bang hotties? Yes.
Best Actor: Art Carney, Harry and Tonto. Seriously? Who voted for this crap?
Should have been: Sean Connery, Zardoz. Any actor that can wear that orange jockstrap for an entire movie and not laugh wins.
Hottest Actress: Susan Penhaligon, Land That Time Forgot. Not a lot of competition this year, and she looked great struggling against that quicksand.
1975
Best Picture: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Revenge fantasy where a Native American kills a white guy in the end.
Should have been: The Eiger Sanction. Clint Eastwood, spies, mountain climbing, double crossing, murder.
Best Actor: Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Should have been: Kurt Russell, The Strongest Man in the World. It should have been Kurt’s year, with this poignant portrayal of a victim of science gone mad.
Hottest Actress: That girl at the beginning of Jaws, but I think she was an acquired taste.
1976
Best Picture: Rocky. Tale of a bum who became a boxer. I can play the theme on a bass drum.
Should have been: Rocky or The Outlaw Josey Wales. I’ve seen Rocky two times, I think. I’ve seen The Outlaw Josey Wales about twenty, because when I flipped through the channels, regardless of where it was in the movie I’d watch it.
Best Actor: Peter Finch, Network. Sure, I’ve seen the same clip, but that’s all I’ve seen.
Should have been: Sylvester Stallone, Rocky. His perfect movie.
Hottest Actress: Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Logan’s Run. Close second? Jennie Agutter, Logan’s Run.
1977
Best Picture: Annie Hall. Crap.
Should have been: Smokey and the Bandit. Not crap.
Best Actor: Richard Dreyfuss, The Goodbye Girl, meh actor in crap movie.
Should have been: The Car, The Car. A much better actor with a much better range than Dreyfuss, since during The Car’s scenes, you could hardly tell he was a 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III, which is pretty impressive acting.
Hottest Actress: Marilyn Chambers, Rabid. The Ivory Snow™ girl grown way up. Way up.
1978
Best Picture: The Deer Hunter, a how-to video on how to win at high-stakes Asian gambling.
Should have been: National Lampoon’s Animal House. Animal House was unique, in that it was a comedy that had a plot, yet the comedy never overwhelmed the plot until the end, and the writers gave up.
Best Actor: John Voight, Coming Home. The world did not need this movie. I don’t have anything against Voight personally, since he’s never hit me up for that $20 I borrowed from him.
Should have been: Tommy Chong, Up in Smoke. It’s amazing what life a Shakespearean-trained actor at Julliard and former astrophysicist Tommy Chong can bring to a role. Or in this case a rolled joint.
Hottest Actress: Annie Potts, Corvette Summer. Another rough year, I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find Annie.
1979
Best Picture: Kramer vs. Kramer. Kramer vs. Kramer was used to normalize divorce to a public that still regarded it as skeevy. Plus? Boring. It would have been better if it were just Michael Richards from Seinfeld arguing with himself for two hours.
Should have been: Alien, Apocalypse Now, The Jerk, literally anything but Kramer vs. Kramer.
Best Actor: Dustin Hoffman, Kramer vs. Kramer. Watching Kramer vs. Kramer made me wish that I could ask Dustin “Is it safe?” for a few hours.
Should have been: Angus Scrimm, Phantasm. Being the Tall Man was an understated role, all he had to do was be evil while the evil dwarves and spike-spheres had to do all the hard work.
Hottest Actress: Bernadette Peters, The Jerk. It was her or Sigourney Weaver in Alien, so I went with cute over space underwear.
Movies got (generally) better and women got hotter as the decade went on. Still, a far weaker decade than we’ll see when (in November) we get to the 1980s where the women were hotter and the movies were better. Oscar®? He still missed most of the best movies and performances, since even though movies were better, the voters of The Academy™ were stuck getting high on their own supply. Your take?
Podcast: Listen Because There’s No Better Way To Spend 43 Minutes And 39 Seconds.
Intro at about 4 minutes, 30 seconds.
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In this episode:
- On This Day
- Jackass of the Week
- Conversation Street
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- ThinkRealFast
- I Heard It On The X
Cash, Hot Chick Memes, And Gold
“Good night, sweet maiden of the golden ale.” – The Fellowship of the Ring
She got pulled over, and the cop asked, “Whose car is this, where are you going, and what do you do?” Her answer: “Mine.”
The economy is currently a carnival funhouse rollercoaster: interest rates are climbing like a squirrel on espresso, the Federal Reserve® is promising cuts, and the U.S. Treasury is issuing bonds 30-year bonds that are paying a higher interest rate than they have since the 2008 crash.
Meanwhile, central banks around the world are ditching those same Treasuries and buying gold, and the kids? They can’t get jobs.
I think we might want to buckle up, because this carnival rollercoaster might be bumpy.
The U.S. 30-year Treasury yield hit 5% today, a level not seen since the 2008. You’d think with the Fed™ signaling rate cuts, yields would chill out and drop like the mood of the Prime Minister when he’s confronted with all those pesky English and Scots he hasn’t replaced yet.
Nope. Interest rates are spiking like a 35-year-old guy who identifies as a middle school girl volleyball player.
What’s gray, has spikes, and runs around a field? Barbed wire.
Why?
The Treasury is flooding the market with bonds to finance a national debt that has ballooned to $37.3 trillion. The Treasury issues the bonds, and buyers (think mutual funds, foreign central banks, and the Fed® itself) are supposed to snap them up. The problem is, supply of these bonds is growing faster than a vegan’s tears at a butcher shop.
When nobody wants bonds because there are so many of them, they’ve got to sweeten the deal with higher yields or make the Fed© buy them. People don’t trust the future value of the paper, so they require a higher interest rate to take it. That’s basic supply and demand. But here’s the kicker: the Fed’s® still printing money like it’s auditioning for the “irresponsible German bank” part in a Weimar Republic reboot.
The U.S. money supply (M2) is growing at about 5% a year, pumping roughly $1 trillion into the system annually. With bonds looking as appealing as a moldy sandwich, where’s the money going?
My maid doesn’t get tired, she gets sweepy.
Two places: gold and stuff. Real stuff, like oil, copper, or steak.
Central banks aren’t idiots, despite what their hairstyles suggest. They’re dumping Treasuries and hoarding gold like it’s the last Twinkie® in a zombie apocalypse. Gold prices are up 2% the day after Labor Day (for you foreigners, Labor Day is the one day in the year that women are legally allowed to give birth in the United States).
Why? Gold remains a hedge against chaos, and with geopolitics shakier than a Jenga© tower on 9/11, it’s no surprise. Central banks from China to Switzerland are stocking up, signaling they trust shiny metal more than Uncle Sam’s never-ending stream of Everlasting Gobstopper© IOUs.
Then there’s oil. Prices are climbing reflexively, at a time when oil prices (and gasoline prices) normally go down a bit due to the end of northern hemisphere summer driving season. When cash is flooding the system and bonds are a hard pass, investors pivot to tangible assets. Gold doesn’t default. Oil keeps the trucks moving.
Treasuries?
They’re only as good as the government’s promise not to go crazy and fill piñatas with them. With deficits soaring, that promise is starting to sound like a drunk uncle swearing he’ll “pay me back next week”.
But the blindfold helped, they said.
Rising rates are usually bad news for stocks. Why? Companies live on debt. That cheap borrowing fuels expansion, stock buybacks, and those swanky CEO jets. When rates climb, borrowing costs spike, squeezing margins like a python on a parrot. Every S&P 500 company has a line of credit, because if they’re not in debt, some Wall Street shark will swoop in, use the company’s own assets as collateral, and buy it out faster than you can say “beveraged luyout.” Higher rates mean higher hurdles for profits, and markets hate hurdles more than a couch potato hates a 5K.
Yet, the market’s been elastic, bending without breaking because most of those dollars printed end up in the hands of the companies that make up the S&P 500. The S&P 500 is near all-time highs, shrugging off tariff tantrums and rate spikes like it’s no big deal.
But markets are funny: they stretch until they snap. This time, I’m sure it’s different. (Cue the Seinfeld laugh track.) The last time everyone thought markets were invincible, we got 2008. Don’t bet on “different” when history has proven to have a mean right hook.
One pirate I know got his hook at the second-hand store.
But at least unemployment is low, right?
Sure, if you’re a boomer with a corner office. The headline rate is 4.2%, but for 16- to 24-year-olds, it’s over 10%. That’s not “low”; that’s a generation stuck flipping burgers since 60% of new college grads aren’t employed. The “quits” rate—how often people ditch their jobs—is at a five-year low, meaning kids aren’t leaving because they know there’s nothing else out there.
A soft labor market plus rising rates? That’s a recipe for stagflation, not growth. No wonder Gen Z’s more interested in crypto scams and video games than climbing the corporate ladder.
So, where’s this economic rollercoaster headed?
The Fed© is in a bind. They’re being pushed to cut rates to juice the economy, but inflation is still hovering near 3%, and it’s flexing upwards.
Keep printing money, and inflation could roar back like a drunken ex with a cell phone at 2am. Raise rates too fast, and you choke the economy, spiking unemployment and tanking stocks. Meanwhile, the Treasury is issuing bonds like they’re piñata stuffing, but buyers are scarce. Foreign central banks own $8.7 trillion in Treasuries, but they’re pivoting to gold because it’s the only central bank holding that’s appreciating.
This all points to a reckoning.
Printed greenbacks are flooding in, but it’s not going to bonds—it’s chasing gold, oil, and maybe that Bitcoin your nephew won’t shut up about while not yet fleeing from the S&P 500, who will end up getting the cash anyway.
Superman® does have a cousin without superpowers. Poor Norm-El.
Markets might keep bending, but history says they will eventually break. It could be a slow bleed, like the stagflation of the 70s, or a sharp crash, like 2008. Either way, the government is spending like a toddler with a sugar high and a credit card, and the bill will eventually be paid by the borrower.
Or the lender.
I worry that we might be seeing an economic rollercoaster, but that’s still better than the most powerful carnival ride: the merry-go-round.
It has the most horse power.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. You would be foolish to trust me for financial advice, since I have taken my own advice many times and based on the results I consider myself a sketchy source on my best day, so you should talk to someone who knows more about it than an Internet humorist, even though I’m currently sober. Currently. As far as you know.
Living In The Past: The World War II Hangover
“This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the First World War. It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee.” – Pulp Fiction
Iran is stuck between Iraq and a hard place.
Every group has a story that defines them: the myth, the memory, the moment that crystallizes who they are and what they value. For Christians, it’s the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the ultimate sacrifice and triumph of life. For the Chinese, it’s the Century of Humiliation, a wound that fuels their drive for global dominance. For Three Stooges® fans, it’s the seismic shift when Shemp replaced Curly, forever splitting the purists from the heretics, and don’t even get me started on the anti-Curly, Joe Besser.
But for too many groups the Second World War is the foundational story, a crucible that forged their modern identities. And for most, it’s a scar that still festers, shaping their worldview in ways that are often more curse than blessing like the time I found a genie but didn’t get a wish because I rubbed him the wrong way.
Let’s start with the United States.
For the United States, WWII cemented the idea that big government is the ultimate and best problem-solver and has our best interests at heart. The war effort, which would have cost $4.1 trillion in today’s dollars, mobilized industry, science, and bureaucracy like never before, birthing the military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about. I hear JFK was going to work on that, but they changed his mind.
Biden’s final executive order: “Purple crayons will now taste like grapes.”
The lesson of the war was simple: if you throw enough tax dollars and central planning at a problem, you can save the world. Never mind that the failed New Deal had already disproved this; WWII made it gospel. Blacks can’t read? Throw money and central planning at it. Poor people keep doing the things that made them poor? Throw money and central planning at it. Women complaining about . . . whatever? Throw money and central planning at it. The result of all this was the United States giving DEI grants for difficult tasks, like breathing.
The war also taught Americans that war is noble when the British say so. Pearl Harbor was the trigger for the entry of the United States, but Britain’s pleas for aid via Lend-Lease pulled us into Europe’s mess for the second time in a generation. Post-1945, the U.S. embraced its role as the world’s foremost military power and world policeman, from Korea to Kabul, with a budget to match, spending trillions to give democracy to those that don’t care about it.
Another lingering ghost: the myth of the “Greatest Generation,” implying every war since is just as righteous, no matter the cost in blood or treasure. This is the same generation that voted in all of Johnson’s Great Society crap, and the generation you can thank for the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act of 1965. Our victory in World War II blinds us to overreach, ballooning debt, and the erosion of liberty at home as the state grows ever fatter.
My friend’s grandfather killed six Germans on the beach at Normandy. It’s not as heroic as it sounds: he did it last week.
Moving across the sea to Bongland, where they have a big tower that goes “Bong” every hour, Britain’s WWII story is one of defiance. The “stiff upper lip” against Hitler’s bombs during the Blitz, with Churchill’s speeches rallying a nation under siege. But the war’s cost, $120 billion in debt, 450,000 dead, cities like London and Coventry in jumbled rubble all askew like Yorkshireman’s teeth, broke the back of the Empire.
The foundational lesson twisted: instead of pride in survival, Britain internalized a twisted guilt, spinning off colonies that weren’t quite ready to govern themselves like India and Nigeria faster than you can say “Commonwealth.”
Worse, the “we’re all in this together” myth morphed into a masochistic anti-colonialism, where importing millions of non-British migrants became a moral crusade to atone for empire, starting with the H.M.S. Windrush bringing hundreds of non-British to Great Britain to keep wages down. The result? A cultural identity crisis, where “Britishness” is now a dirty word, and cities like London are less British than Bombay was in 1850. The war taught Britain to survive, but it lost its soul. But, hey, think of all the great food!
Stop spreading the lie that moslem women have to wear the hijabs. It’s their choice – they can also be stoned to death.
Germany got it the worst, or wurst: their national policy became self-hatred. Germany’s WWII story is Hitler and defeat, a double blow that turned national pride into a mortal sin and Hitler into a replacement for Satan. The war toll of German death and destruction: 5.3 million military deaths, 2 million civilian, cities like Cologne and Dresden reduced to rubble or ash was compounded by the framing of Germany as the sole reason for war.
The foundational lesson? Germans can’t be trusted with power or tanks or a sense of humor. Post-war, this bred an anti-nationalism so intense it’s practically policy. Germany’s “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (reckoning with the past) demands eternal penance as if this was a racial punishment where current Germans who in no way were responsible for World War II have to take the blame.
Foot fetishes are on the rise in Germany, probably because of the smell of defeat.
The result? Immigration surged, with 20% of Germany’s population now foreign-born, often seen as a way to dilute the “German” identity that led to 1939. The war’s shadow stifles dissent: question migration or EU mandates, and you’re a Nazi and your entire political party might be banned. This self-hatred paralyzes Germany’s ability to act decisively, even as its economy stagnates and its culture frays.
For Russia and/or the Soviets, World War II was the triumph of the iron fist. For the Soviets, the Great Patriotic War was proof the Soviet system worked. Despite 27 million deaths (8.7 million military, 19 million civilian), the Red Army’s push to Berlin showed that the sheer scale of production of hundreds of thousands of crappy tanks and endless conscripted bodies could crush any foe. Stalin famously removed seat padding from the T-34 after finding the average lifespan of a T-34 in combat was only a few minutes.
The foundational lesson they learned? Central control, especially when done with brutality, gets results. Stalin’s paternalism became Putin’s playbook: the state over individual, quantity over quality. Post-war, the USSR’s occupation of Eastern Europe and refusal of Marshall Plan aid cemented this mindset. Even today, Russia’s drones are glorified T-34s—cheap, mass-produced, barely competitive, but there are thousands of them. The war’s myth of invincibility fuels Moscow’s paranoia and aggression, from Ukraine to cyberwars, while its economy limps along on vodka, oil, duct tape, and nostalgia.
I guess those are all tank tops?
World War II was a cataclysm. 70-85 million dead and borders were changed as if they were drawn by a hyperactive kid with an Etch-a-Sketch™. For the U.S., it birthed a bloated state and a messianic complex. For Britain, it turned pride into shame. Germany traded nationalism for self-loathing. Russia doubled down on authoritarianism. And, although we didn’t go into it, World War II is the singular foundational event for modern Jewish people, which is why they treat it with religious reverence and questioning any aspect of their narrative is treated as heresy.
The U.S. got off the lightest: our homeland unscathed, our economy booming post-war, but we’re chained to the idea that we must police the globe for some reason. For the others, the scars are deeper, twisting their cultures into knots of guilt, paranoia, or apology. These foundational stories aren’t just history, they’re shackles.
Maybe it’s time to write new stories, before the old ones drag us all into another war, or the anti-Curly returns?