Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

Globalism, Computer Chips, And Breast Implants

“Bart, the Internet is more than a global pornography network.” – The Simpsons

Biden shooting the Chinese Spy Balloon® is the only thing he’s done to fight inflation so far.

It’s all about the chain.

A global supply chain has some attributes.  Just like money is freely (in most cases) able to cross borders, in a global system labor can cross borders as well, without ever having to leave home.  People in (spins wheel) Bangladesh work for $0.0010 an hour sewing soccer balls?  If they’re as productive (per dollar) as having a machine and skilled operator in the United States do it, the work went to Bangladesh.

This is (if you’re in Bangladesh) probably a good thing since your alternative was farming spider webs or whatever it is that people in Bangladesh eat.  In theory, it’s good for the company that sells soccer balls, since they can (not saying they will, but they can) price them lower, and still produce a profit.  It also would appeal to the women who play soccer while their husbands are in the kitchen doing the dishes in Europe.

Why did the Italian join Tinder®?  He was provalonely.

But what it doesn’t do is help the highly-skilled guy who used to make them in a non-spider web eating country.  In fact, over time the knowledge of all the little tricks that are necessary to make soccer balls cheaply and effectively are lost as they’re transported to Bangladesh.

This might not be such a big deal when it comes to soccer balls, because you can (in a pinch) use the heads of your enemies for one, which would make soccer my favorite sport, ever.  But when it comes to things like computer chips, well, that’s a different story.  I believe it was the head of the Economic Advisors of George H.W. Bush’s White House who made the comment that he didn’t care if Americans were making potato chips or computer chips as long as they had a job.  Oddly, G.H.W. Bush hadn’t had had a job for decades, so, why not?

The question even I don’t know the answer to:  is this my last inflation joke?

Bush’s advisor was wrong.  While Americans were making potato chips, places like Taiwan Semiconductor were making computer chips.  Likewise, they were learning how to make them.  Knowing what’s on a computer chip is nice, but it doesn’t tell me about all the of the steps required to make structures that are so very small that we’re near the limit of shrinking chips because the of the size of the silicon atom itself.  Yeah.  It’s that complicated.  But, hey, we have Ruffles® instead of knowing how to do that.

Making chips of such precision took literally decades of investment, billions of dollars in research, and replicating it is very, very hard, unless you’re China and steal the secrets while putting “your people” in sensitive positions in corporations that do the work.  Oh, did I just describe every industry?

No, there’s an absolute advantage to making computer chips over potato chips.  Building computer chips takes knowledge but it also builds knowledge, some of which can result in additional, new businesses that make use of the technologies developed in building computer chips.  Imagine, a PEZ® dispenser a billionth of an inch (40 Newtons) tall!  This was what the Soviets dreamed of!

Speaking of names, because of inflation, Dollar Tree® will soon be calling itself Tree Dollar®.

It’s not just the high technology parts that go into nearly every appliance, car, and weapons system that is used in the United States, it also applies to commodities like sweet, sweet oil.  It also applies to rare-earth minerals, which China (currently) leads the world in production.

But rare-earth minerals aren’t all that rare – we have them in the United States, but don’t have active mines and refining processes.  Why?  It’s expensive to mine here (labor costs) and it’s expensive to mine here (environmental compliance costs).  So, it’s cheaper to ship the mining off to China and just let them do the dirty work since they (at least in the past) don’t seem to care about losing a few million people to escalators, building collapse, explosions, or whatever other dystopian nightmare you can imagine.

How does a mollusk hide from predators?  Clamoflage.

The downside of this global civilization is that it’s pretty tightly wound.  In most cases, companies don’t like to stockpile “stuff” so they have it delivered just when it’s needed and don’t have a big supply sitting in a warehouse.  When writing for a post a few years ago, I wanted to know how much grain was sitting in the silos near Modern Mayberry (which is near the silos that produced the grain).

The answer surprised me – the silos were nearly always one-half to two-thirds full.  Whoever is making the bread doesn’t want the wheat until they’re ready for it – they certainly don’t store it on site until it’s much closer to becoming a loaf.

COVID exposed the supply chain, and the panic response of the public.  Toilet paper was in short supply not because there wasn’t enough toilet paper, but rather because there wasn’t enough toilet paper capacity to produce 1,000 roles for every person today.

If I had a $0.05 for every bread joke I’ve told, I’d have a pun per nickel.

As warfare hits Ukraine and Israel (and maybe the wider Middle East) and as tensions rachet with China over the status of Taiwan, which just happens to lead the world in computer chip manufacturing, we’ll soon see if the globalism that we’ve faced is as fatal to the fate of nations as it was to so many million middle-class jobs in the United States.  When we (by default) import Bangladeshi labor along with the millions of illegal aliens that we destroy, we (by default, eventually) import the Bangladeshi lifestyle.

Pardon me, I need to research how to cook spider webs.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Are We At War? and Invaders

“Maybe we’re at war with Norway?” – The Thing

I’m sad, because 6:30 is the best time on a clock.  Hands down.

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  5. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  6. Open War.

Volume V, Issue 5

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 – At War Already? – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Invaders – 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 815 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

At War Already?

This month I had a post up titled 14 Signs Of An Unfree Country.  One of the responses I received is below:

It’s a very fair question, and one that deserves some thought and a response.

One of the first issues discussed on the early Civil War 2.0 Weather Reports was the idea that Civil War 2.0 would likely not resemble Civil War 1.0 with opposing armies in uniform moving across open battlefields.  No, in my opinion there might be some military trappings, and some form of “regulars” on either side, but for the most part this Civil War will be very different, and a large part of the action will take place via individual and small, only loosely coordinated groups.

But the question remains – are we at war?

The January 6 prisoners would certainly say so.  The concept of justice for most of them has been a farce, they’ve been sent to prison in some cases for their political beliefs.  The Left fully castigated the GOP for releasing all of the tapes which showed much more of the reality – and causing the ridiculous Buffalo guy to get released immediately.

In some cases (at least!) the prisoners have been treated in conditions that the Left would normally call inhumane.  For the January 6 prisoners?  No indignity has been spared them.

And no indignity has been spared on the heritage Americans.  Our one virtue when it comes to the Left has been our ability to provide the backbone of the United States military.  Now that traditional military families are opting out since, well, the country hates them, the idea of a draft is now embraced by people who ran to Canada to avoid it when it didn’t suit them.

What about the sacred right to vote?  Well, again, that’s a sacred right only if you vote for the Left-approved candidate.  They absolutely oppose voting for anyone not on the Left, and, guess what?  While you were out keeping the economy going or serving our country, they infiltrated the governmental entities that count the vote.  California is even going to ban manual vote counting and mandate only machine counting be legal.

What about the people who are being humiliated by watching the history of their nation erased, statue by statue, name by name, and child by child as they are drip-fed estrogen from the age to three to be turned into weird abominations that will be consigned to a tormented life as neither man nor woman.

So, the legal system is a fiction, and the cultural situation is grim.

Violence is at a high, as well.  I keep warning people to get out of the cities.  The latest murders in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia of Leftist enablers provide a glimpse of the decline of those cities – they weren’t hidden like the everyday horrors of the average father or grandfather or child killed at random by groups of murderers who believe that they won’t be punished because they haven’t been punished for (in some cases) over 50 felonies.

Are we at war already?  If, like me, you live in a Red state?  No, not really.  Here in Modern Mayberry it looks a lot like it did thirty years ago, except for the rot that Leftism and globalism has done to the economy.

If you’re on the Right and live in a Blue state, or if you challenge in any manner the power of those who would rule?

It looks like that answer is, “yes”, they’re at war against you.

Violence and Censorship Update

There is no way on Earth that the United States was more racist in 2015 than it was in 1970.  Zero ways.  I would suggest that in 2008, when the United States voted in a black guy as president that would have ended that forever.  Especially since the 1990s in the United States were probably the least racist decade of any country on the planet, ever.  But the push is in:  everything is racist.  This is used, primarily to shut down actual discussions of actual problems.

Why would a Leftist leave a weapon on the battlefield after they’ve won the battle?  Elon Musk rustled all the jimmies when he bought Twitter®, um, X™.  So what’s the solution?  Stop anything Musk does.

Okay, this didn’t officially happen, but I’m thinking that most of his staff thought it:

Apparently selling soft drinks in Russia is bad:

As is using the word “female”.

But that’s okay, kids should be taken from their parents for any old reason.

And the press should just ignore the “why” of a story.

And also the “who” of a story.

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  Looks like Biden is going for the record.  Who says he never gets anything 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 up again, again slightly – I was expecting more during a long, hot summer.  I’m guessing that people don’t even notice it anymore.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, up.  I expect December to be a time when this starts to head upward, significantly.

Economic:

Economic numbers are swinging back down again this month, but I expect October will be a bit more interesting after earnings reports.

Illegal Aliens:

The border numbers are up only slightly, and I think that (shockingly) the government may just be lying or that the Border Patrol is being told to leave the illegals alone.  Why would I think that?  That’s what the next story is about.

Invaders

It is now abundantly clear that the people in Washington and New York now view heritage Americans as I view an infestation of rabid squirrels.  We’re pests.

The idea is to replace us with people who will work cheaply forever and are okay with living in a repressive regime as long as they have ramen and soccer on TV.  They want slaves.

The other part of this plan is increasing taxes and injecting feminism (and LGBT) directly into the brains of the youth to slow down birth rates.  They really don’t care what this does.  The elites can live anywhere that is nice.  They’ll live in the most favorable places with all the stuff they could imagine needing.

It’s also interesting that everywhere except for Europe and the United States that booting illegals out is considered “Tuesday”.  Even before Hamas went kinetic on Israel, they were getting ready to boot out any black people.  Probably to Europe, sure, but they were getting ready to boot them.  Can we have the same illegal immigrant (invader) policy as Israel?

Well, not with Biden.  They cut the razor wire because . . . ?  Who cares what the reason was.  The Border Patrol now just wants to get more immigrants in.  I call this the “Biden Plan”, but really it was also the Bush plan and the Clinton plan, too.

How bad is it?  A developer has created a base for over 75,000 illegals.  They live there, have gangs there, and sell drugs from there.  We know where this is.  If any administration was serious about this, the developer would be in prison, and the deportations would start . . . last week.  Instead?  We have a place where the laws of the United States don’t really apply and any illegal can settle.

We know where they are.  We’re doing nothing.  We are the carbon the globalists want to reduce, since we keep asking such inconvenient questions as our country is invaded.

And it’s not just Hispanics.  It appears that all of Africa is streaming across the border.

And why not?  Africa is growing at an astonishing rate despite having exactly the same ability to feed itself as a drunken toddler.

The upshot is that this will be the last generation of heritage Americans, ever, unless the tide changes.

But, it looks like Blue state people are (finally) waking up:

Which way, America?  The solution is, still, very simple.  When will we adopt it?

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much, Ricky!!

BAD GUYS

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1703658363542700433

https://twitter.com/i/status/1701238979557761319

https://twitter.com/i/status/1707364236077277309

https://twitter.com/i/status/1705460875472052712

https://twitter.com/i/status/1703043847037587892

https://twitter.com/NewportBeachNBT/status/1702853152276717830

https://twitter.com/i/status/1705623045254057994

https://twitter.com/i/status/1700257920112644268

https://tvpworld.com/73183231/us-three-leftist-activists-killed-in-separate-incidents-in-one-week

 

ONE GAL

https://twitter.com/k0ssed/status/1709252993512861804

https://nypost.com/2023/10/02/philly-motorcyclist-stomps-on-back-windshield-of-nikki-bullocks-car-video/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12588897/I-just-wanted-protect-kids-Fearless-mom-bravely-faced-biker-thugs-one-stomped-car-smashed-rear-window-children-5-2-backseat-speaks-out.html

 

GOOD GUYS

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12594639/Cody-Heron-motorcyclist-smash-windshield-Philadelphia-arrested.html

 

BODY COUNT

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4218666-ai-girlfriends-are-ruining-an-entire-generation-of-men/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12437519/Gender-affirming-surgeries-US-nearly-tripled-pandemic-dip-study-finds.html

https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Substance-Abuse-Estimates-by-City.jpg

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12484069/US-deaths-mortality-richest-countries.html

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-vaccines-causally-linked-to-increased-mortality-resulting-in-17-million-deaths-scientific-report-5499001?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=CFP&src_src=epochHG&src_cmp=CFP

https://twitter.com/dpinsen/status/1703540571598368901

https://twitter.com/i/status/1702400933928304652

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1706442804258296082
https://news.yahoo.com/many-people-mexican-drug-cartels-180057725.html

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/773022b3-8b34-4da0-850b-bfcaa8e7a28a_867x449.jpg?itok=ExPuHvoW

https://twitter.com/PaulHook_em/status/1706832820033692084

https://citizenfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/border-birth.jpg

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/1199417599/immigrant-population-us-foreign-born-census-bureau

https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-colony-ridge-the-fastest-growing-development-in-the-u-s-is-a-magnet-for-illegal-immigrants

 

VOTE COUNT

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fjustthenews.com%2Fpolitics-policy%2Felections%2Ffbi-denies-foia-request-docs-investigation-possible-nationwide-voter

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/09/22/google-search-engine-sways-millions-of-voters-in-one-direction/

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/09/25/whos-responsible-for-georgias-disastrous-2020-election/

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/bias-or-bad-search-engine-optimization-biden-challengers-nearly

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/05/zuck-bucks-grift-was-born-in-wisconsin-voters-must-ban-it-in-2024/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/now-we-have-proof-tgp-exclusive-massive-2020/

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fthemessenger.com%2Fopinion%2Fdemocrats-2024-magic-bullet-mass-mail-in-voting

 

CIVIL WAR

https://academic.oup.com/publius/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/publius/pjad035/7271459?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/9/7/sorry-trumpers-there-wont-be-a-us-civil-war-for-2024

https://thewire.in/world/america-is-on-the-brink-of-another-civil-war-this-one-fuelled-by-donald-trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/03/the-only-us-civil-war-will-be-a-war-on-democracy/51c6e488-4a54-11ee-bfca-04e0ac43f9e4_story.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-second-american-civil-war-has-begun/ar-AA1dS2tp

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4187490-republicans-just-cant-stop-calling-for-civil-war/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ray-dalio-says-mccarthy-ouster-another-step-away-from-democracy-and-toward-civil-war/ar-AA1hO2PG

https://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-greg-gutfeld-suggests-190456184.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/who-are-the-americans-who-support-secession/ar-AA1h4qrE

https://studyfinds.org/dont-trust-us-government-doomsday/

https://twitter.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1699596057678606451
https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1700996328799773109

Maybe The Kids Are Alright?

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” – Fight Club

The French love my generation.  They say it has a certain Gen X sais quoi.

I can see what’s going on, I really can.  To be fair, there are dozens of things, each day that I see that are signs of The Change.  In many ways, The Change has been coming for decades, and has hit us harder than old age has hit Madonna.

Many of the changes we’ve seen are negative.  I generally write about them on Mondays and Wednesdays.  But Fridays?  No.  Because despite of all of the negatives that I see, I am as certain as the outcome of a vote if a Leftist is counting it that we will win.

What does winning mean?  Well, it doesn’t mean that things will go back to “the way they were” – whatever that was.  We won’t see that because those times are gone.  The new good times will be different in many ways.  Some I can guess because they’re inevitable, and some I can’t even fathom.

No, winning means a place for freedom and families and the things we associate with virtue.  It doesn’t mean endless wealth, and it doesn’t mean endless amusement.

Why is Michael Jackson bad at bowling?  He’s dead.

The big reason that this cannot last is because the current trend is the most unnatural and unstable in the history of humanity, with a few potential exceptions here and there that only lasted for a few decades.

This instability is in our favor.  We can already see that the current boys in high school are fed up with Leftism and everything Woke.  They’re done with it.  They see that Leftism is poison.  They’re rejecting it.

One reason is simple – it’s in the nature of youth to rebel.  And, the Leftists having won so many battles are now The Man.  They’re the ones the boys are rebelling against, and it’s glorious.  The Leftists thought that when they took over and had the ability to control what went in the minds, that was the end of the story.

Yet, the Leftists still think they’re rebels working against the system when they manifestly are the system.  The boys in school can see that, and they react accordingly, completely making those Leftists spitting out the propaganda go crazy.  The Leftists are like like that guy who is in his forties and still is wearing his letter jacket because he wants the kids to think he’s cool.  Now, based on every picture I’ve seen of every Leftist, the word “cool” isn’t remotely the first word I’d use to describe them.  It’s not in the top 100.  In reality, they fall somewhere lower than “turd stooge”.

The Three Stooges can do anything.  They have Moementum.

This turns off the boys.  Now, the girls are another subject altogether because the feminist imperative to teach the gospel of avoiding consequences of actions at all costs seems to resonate with them.  In the turmoil to come, it’s the views of the boys that will matter the most.

The youth has also seen the fruits of Peak Leftism and are disgusted by it.  Just like Gen X was shaped by the time they grew up in, being latchkey kids that learned from an early age to be independent, Gen Z is learning lessons about not trusting the government.

Their pivotal moment (so far) was the insane combination of COVID plus the Fentanyl Floyd riots.  They see that their concept of “equal justice for all” has been tainted by racial politics to twist a system where punishment is based not on the crimes committed, but rather by the victim status of the alleged criminal.

Over three years, drug free!

How will that manifest?  I think it will manifest in a deep distrust of the justice system, and I think that it will lead to, ahem, extrajudicial endings to criminal cases.

They’re also viewing the world and seeing it fall apart with cops that are prevented from arresting mobs looting stores week after week.  As I believe white Gen Xers were propagandized to be the least racist generation in the history of humanity, I believe that white Gen Z kids will view race the same way black Gen Z kids will, with huge distrust.

The next thing in the mix is what hasn’t happened yet – the economic changes that are due.  Just as there is a distrust being built up in the justice and governmental systems, there will be a distrust of money being created out of nothing.  The system is going to, very soon, fail them in a spectacular way.

The economic changes will change them.  We’ll still be able to send billions to the Ukraine, but it won’t matter because a billion won’t buy a Happy Meal®.

In the Ukraine it’s called corruption.  In the United States we don’t talk about it.

Gen X was cynical.  Gen Z will likely be a force of nature.  If they aren’t the hard men, Gen Alpha will be.  We’re that close, folks.

The pendulum is swinging back, and will swing back with a vengeance.  We really have reached Peak Woke or Peak Clown World (honk honk!) and it’s here.  I’ll see the start of The Change, but likely won’t live to see the next Golden Age.

That’s okay.  I know it will be back, and I know this – there will be free men living on this world as long as there are men living on this world.  There are ups and downs, but nothing is finished, this isn’t over.

We will win because we are strong.  And we will win because for thousands of years we’ve been winning, and that won’t stop anytime soon, no matter how dark it looks outside right now.

Enjoy your day.  It’s dark out, but the ending to this story will be glorious.

The Big Short – The Next Step Down

“Our investment-strategy was simple. People hate to think about bad things happening so they always underestimate their likelihood.” – The Big Short

If you live in a haunted house, you’re not alone.

I watched The Big Short the other night.  It’s about the financial system and the shenanigans that led to the near collapse of the Western financial world, but presented with elements of light-hearted comedy, so, of course I enjoyed it.  And having Margot Robbie sitting in a bubble bath describing mortgage-backed securities, subprime loans, and credit default swaps while drinking champagne was genius.

The premise of the movie is that several groups of people figured out that the housing market was fraudulent, and that any human with a heartbeat (and, as described in the movie, at least one dog) could borrow enough money to buy a house.

Why not?  House prices only go up.

I’m no Margot Robbie, but when I’m naked in the bathroom, at least the shower gets turned on.

There have been many people who have done excellent pieces describing the sheer insanity of the housing market and the incestuous relationships between the lenders and rating agencies that kept the party going with cheap money far too long.  You can read them, but they don’t feature a picture of Margot Robbie in a bathtub.

In my personal experience, a bank that rhymes with Hells Rarmo offered me a loan for over six times my annual income with only my stated salary as the basis.  My response, “You know, I could never afford to pay that back.  Why would you offer a loan that big to me?”

“I know, but I’m required to tell you about it,” was the answer from the uncomfortable voice on the other end.  Even I could see the con from there, especially since they offered to lend me my downpayment.

The next home loan I got (after the collapse, in 2009) required enough personal information from me that I had to hire a proctologist to help me fill out the paperwork.

What’s a three-letter word that starts with gas?  Car.

The result of the Great Recession that followed was a retooling of the industry, bankers and people from the ratings agencies went to prison for fraud, and the government decided to create a system of sound money so these sorts of manias were tamed.  Okay, you can laugh now, because none of that really happened.

The government just shoved so much money down the throats of the banks that they got even richer for manipulating the system in ways that would make Al Capone’s scar twitch.

What I saw during the run up to the disaster is that the economic taint (heh heh, I said taint) from the housing bubble spilled everywhere.  The place I noticed it first was that waitresses became worse.  Why?  During the bubble, everyone upgraded their job, and good, smart waitresses became, (spins wheel) mortgage brokers and realtors.  The mark of a really good economy is crappy customer service.

She don’t lie, she don’t lie . . . romaine.

I wrote a couple of weeks back about how I can see this happening in restaurants locally here:

The Invisible Recession

People are hurting, and the first thing to cut are the luxuries.  Some people take eating out at McDonald’s© as a luxury versus heating up leftover lasagna, and now they’re bringing the lasagna.  Garfield® would be proud, but McDonald’s® rarely makes money from cartoon cats.

Add in gasoline prices that are so high they make prescription drugs look cheap, and the squeeze is here.  CarMax© just recently announced that they’ve taken a 10% hit last quarter in number of cars sold.  People don’t buy cars when they’re worried about choosing between day-old lasagna and a McChicken™ sandwich.

At least one of you will enjoy this one.

The biggest tension in The Big Short came from the fact that the guys who saw the fraud went all-in.  In one case, Micheal Burry put $1.3 billion into “insurance policies” that would pay multiples of the invested amount if the mortgages bonds started collapsing the way that Burry was sure that they would.

Burry made a $1.3 billion bet, and on top of that, he had to pay monthly premiums in the millions to keep the policy in force.  Yet, even as the housing market started to fail, the housing bonds weren’t failing.  If those bonds didn’t start falling Burry and his fund would be buried.  John Maynard Keynes famously said that “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent,” proving that he was at least occasionally right.

Economics jokes are like bank bailouts.  Most people don’t get them.

They did fail, and Burry made his investors rich, just in the nick of time before his fund became insolvent.  Burry (according to rumors) ended up making over $800 million during the financial crisis.

All this brings us to where we are today.  I might be wrong, but what I’m seeing everywhere I look are people that are at the end of their rope.  The reason?  Because we never took the pain and we didn’t clean up the financial system and make it a servant rather than a master.

But I have a plan.  Maybe Margot Robbie could explain our way out of this one?

Leftists: They Hate You

“Right, right. Somebody said “alien” she thought they said “illegal alien” and signed up.” – Aliens

I got involved in a discussion about illegal aliens.  That conversation went south pretty quickly.

“My feeling is they should open it-the border, let everybody pour in, and then the answer which is, well then there will be all these problems.  Yes, there should be.  It shouldn’t be so great here, is what I’m saying, in America.”  That’s a quote from Louis, C.K., the “comedian”.

After having read a bit about him, I’m pretty sure that Louis hates himself deeply.  But he also hates you.  A quick Internet search shows him with a net worth of $35 million, which shows you don’t have to have a billionaire to be as big a tool as Bill Gates.

The bigger idea is that this is the way that most Leftists think, on those rare occasions a thought occurs to them.  As I’ve addressed before, Leftists think more highly of people the farther away they are from themselves up to and including rocks:  Leftism Is A Death Cult That May Kill Us All.

Here’s yet another example:

White Leftists have a self-loathing problem.  And they hate themselves for it.

This graph shows something pretty amazing.  Most groups prefer their own company.  Most black people like to hang around black people.  Most Asians like to hang around Asians.  But white Leftists?  The reflection of their self-hatred is so great that they actively dislike being around other white people.  Now, I could understand that if you were Chelsea Clinton, but, as shown by every other racial group since the dawn of history, it’s abnormal and dysfunctional.

Those are the people who are in charge of the border right now.

Wonder why we’re taking on illegals like Johnny Depp attracts women with low self-esteem?  It’s because the Left hates the United States because they either despise it, or feel guilty.  So, their solution is to take it over, loot it, remove the things that created wealth in the first place, and still pretend it’s the United States.

And Biden’s first term could just as well be Obama’s third term.

The situation, however, appears to have finally reached the breaking point as illegals are swamping the southern border in numbers greater than at any time in history.

To be clear, these aren’t refugees, they’re economic migrants that are coming here because their country sucks.  They’re being enticed to take this journey indirectly by the United States government through the money they give to NGOs that feed the illegals, give them money for and during the trip ($800 a month, I hear), and set up showers and beds and transport.  That’s our government – the only things it does really well are the things that harm its actual citizens.

When the illegals get here, they aren’t a net economic benefit.  They actually increase housing costs, depress wages, and are causing government welfare costs to skyrocket because the jobs they get don’t pay for the public costs that they create.  Expanding the economy by bringing in more immigrants is like improving your financial situation by taking on more debt.

Oh.  I just remembered how the Feds deal with budgets.  Never mind.

What do Bernie supporters call their roommates?  Mom and Dad.

Even Leftists like Louis C.K. are sometimes inadvertently honest in their utter lack of care for the United States.  I’m sort of sad that the U.S. government shutdown didn’t happen.  If it had, the U.S. Border Patrol could have stayed home and let illegals in, rather than just hang out by the border and cut razor wire to let illegals in.  We’ve reached the point where we’d have fewer illegals if the Border Patrol stayed home.

Since the illegals have started leaving Texas, though, Biden went from Trump’s “Remain in Mexico plan” to, “Put the illegals in Red States where we could swap the vote” to “Remain in Texas” as the illegals converged on Blue Cities and are costing billions and even Leftists there are starting to come to their senses.

As the economy falters (it is, more on that on Wednesday, probably), and as the unending streams of illegals continue to surge into the United States, my bet is that the tolerance for illegals will soon drop as jobs disappear and the charmed life they live with subsidized food and housing makes a mockery of the conditions of the average American citizen.

Mexicans were upset about the wall, but it looks like they’ll get over it.

In many places, the result will be the expulsion of (at least) illegals as people cease to want them to be around.  I would predict that this will not end well.  And I predict that many of the illegals will wish that they had never come to the United States as it will become increasingly hostile to them in many regions.  The failure to stop these mass migrations will end the way it has every single time in history – with fire and pain, all because we didn’t have the courage to send them back in the beginning.

Me?  I think that Louis C.K. shouldn’t have it so great.  He should have to take about 750 illegals into his house, feed and care for them, and then tell me how he doesn’t like things.

Louis hasn’t invited illegals into his house.  He hasn’t given his money away.  Like any good Leftist, his generosity is overwhelming.  At least until it comes to spending his own money or inconveniencing himself in any way.

And he still hates you, and doesn’t see why it should be so great here, in America.

Opinions. A Small Book Review. Bad Jokes.

“That’s right. And if I think that Kirk is a Denebian slime devil, well, that’s my opinion, too.” – Star Trek, TOS

I’ve found that telling pizza jokes is all in the delivery.

Opinions.

Marcus Aurelius (dead stoic guy with a crappy son) said, “It never ceases to amaze me: we love ourselves more than we love other people, yet care more about their opinion than our own.”

I was talking with a friend about opinions today. Which opinions matter?

Well, if a toddler had an opinion, I’d generally disregard it because, like Joe Biden, they poop themselves and can barely string a coherent sentence together, even if you spot them a verb.

Toddler opinions generally don’t matter to me. And I never feel bad making fun of toddlers because, just like students in Baltimore government schools, toddlers can’t read.

Are chubby babies heavy infantry?

Okay, toddlers are out. Not that toddlers are always wrong, even they can see that I’m bald, for instance. Bald, however, is not an opinion. But try explaining that to a toddler, those drooling idiots with their Cheerio® encrusted fingers.

When I hear an opinion, I generally don’t accept it at face value. I try to filter it.

First, does it matter? Most people have opinions about most things. And most of those opinions don’t matter, really, to anyone. I don’t care about what anyone’s favorite color is. When The Mrs. wanted to paint my study, I didn’t really care about what color The Mrs. picked, as long as it’s not purple – I hate purple more than blue and red combined.

I don’t, however, let The Mrs. pick my cigars. My opinion on them matters, really, only to me and the company that I buy them from. I mean, when I looked up “how to light a cigar” on a search engine, I got 70 million matches. I might be interested in your opinion on good cigars, and might even try one, but it won’t change my world.

Can a cigar box? No, but a tin can.

The second filter is whether I can do anything about the opinion. If it passes the first filter, of “it matters” then I ask if I can do anything about it. This is a bigger question – I do have opinions on things I can’t do anything about. But as I go through life, I’m finding that often I have the ability to do things I never thought possible, like live in a country at the edge of civil and nuclear war with a president that has a dementia patient meth addicted son. So, there’s that.

I often find that, when I really try, that things I thought impossible were, in reality, really not that hard if I put my mind to it and dedicate myself to them. Of course, to really dedicate myself, then I face the risk of failure. Failing is tough, but it’s worth it on something that really matters.

I wonder why Ma Wilder always said “Embrace failure,” when she gave me hugs.

So those are the two big filters on whether an opinion matters to me.

The other opinions are opinions about me. I’d like to say that the opinions of people about me don’t matter, but I’d be a liar. I actually enjoy it when I troll people Leftists on X™ and they start frothing at the mouth. I guess you could call X© my troll booth.

I keep seeing Cthulhu memes, but I’m disappointed because all I ever see are the Old Ones.

But when people I respect share that opinion, well, I listen. And I run it through the filters.

This was a short one, and it’s also time to mention I just finished reading Hans Schantz’s latest book, The Wise of Heart. Full disclosure, I did get a review copy. I enjoyed it, as I have the other works of Mr. Schantz – especially the first book of his trilogy, The Hidden Truth.

This particular book was fully funded on Kickstarter®. When Kickstarter™ found out that it was a take on Leftist sex politics that didn’t follow the Leftist line, they kicked Hans off. He was fully funded (and then some) on FundMyComic©. Reminder – the people who run most tech companies hate you. Anyway, if you want, you can buy it at Amazon© (LINK) or other places. I get no compensation either way.

Like I said, I enjoyed it. But that’s my opinion.

The Kids Aren’t Alright: Mental Health

“Who is Poppy Adams? After graduating Harvard Business School, Adams was briefly held for serious mental health issues before disappearing without a trace.” – Kingsman:  The Golden Circle

Every day I tell my family I’m going out for a jog and then I don’t.  It’s my longest running joke.

FYI – minimal humor and memes in today’s post due to subject matter – it just didn’t fit.

We’ve driven the kids nuts.

I don’t necessarily mean you or I, but the change in society has caused a great decline in the mental health of the kids.  It really started showing up in 2009 or so, when the emergency room visits for kids started a sharp uptrend.  The kids (ages 10-19) were going to the hospital due to self-harm spiked by over 60% in a single decade.

For girls it was worse – it spiked nearly 100% – doubling in that time period.  The rates of depression doubled in that time frame as well.

What I’ve seen when I talk to kids is that many, many of them have huge anxiety issues.  Many are on psychoactive drugs.  Many are visiting therapists regularly.

I look back to when I was that age, and I’m not sure I knew even a single Gen X kid who was seeing a shrink.  I’m sure that it wouldn’t have been something they’d have shared, but it was a school, so that would have gotten around.  Also, as far as I know, there was only one girl on any medication, and as I recall there had been some significant family tragedy.

Suicide?  Only one kid tried it in the decade I spent in that age group.  And I knew a lot of kids.  But, to be fair, something like 30% of kids with mental health issues drop out of school so I never would have seen them.  However, the numbers really do show that this is certainly the most mentally ill generation in the history of the country.

What’s changed?

Luxuries are available today that would have boggled the minds of my generation when we were growing up.  Kids today can talk to anyone, anywhere, at any time.  Listen to any song.  Watch concerts of their favorite bands.  Yet, with all the information, connection, and amusement available, something is horribly wrong.

My first guess at a major factor is a simple one – the iPhone™ came out in 2007.  Given two years for smart phones to become more or less everywhere among the teen set, that correlates pretty well to the start of the increase in mental issues.

The designers of social media and games aren’t stupid – they absolutely manipulate the way the apps work to make the user addicted.  “Someone read my FaceGram© or InstaSpace® and liked it!  I’ll go check and see who it was!  I Tweeted®, er X’d™.  Did someone repost it?”  The system is designed to make sure there are small, frequent doses of dopamine kicked out by whatever is in the human brain that kicks out dopamine.

This shorter-term focus, the smaller “bite size” ideas make something that was typical decades ago, like reading a book, seem like forever.  Not being able to tune out and relax can’t be good.

Social media also has another insidious function – it is designed so people show off only the glamorous and nice things that happen to them.  Who spends a lot of time posting about their pain, and sorrow?  In the end, it makes a certain segment of the population feel that everyone is doing great except for them.  Me?  With my friends we spend as much time talking about the rough bits in our life as we do the great things.

Online friendships are also shallower, so the real bonding that kids get when they’re on adventures is lost.  Add in that porn of the vilest types is available to most any kid with a phone?  How are they not messed up in ways that no other generation has ever been?

2009 was also the dawn of Obama.  Obama started defending traditional marriage and ended in full Pride® mode.  Gender confusion wasn’t really something that was very big when I was growing up, except for Dee Snider.  Now people are talking about transitioning toddlers, and somehow these people are being taken seriously and not being strung up on telephone poles.

To be sure, not all kids are a mess, but enough are that there’s a very big problem – I’ve seen one statistic that 44% of high school students feel persistent sadness or hopelessness.   That’s a big number – I do think that, perhaps, the kids see some of the same things coming that we do – I do know they look at the economy and think, perhaps correctly, that they’ll never do as well as their parents.

I’m not sure how to fix those millions of kids that have already passed through their teens and are now in their 20s.  From the outside, the one thing I’ve seen with most psychiatrists/psychologists is that they never really cure their patients, they just keep coming back, week after week to pay for the therapist’s BMW®.  And I’m exceptionally skeptical of many psychoactive drugs.  Yes, I know that some of them work very, very well for certain conditions with a physical cause.

What now?

The solutions to preventing a lot of these issues in the first place are fairly simple, but a big step for many:

  • Religion gives life a greater meaning. I’m pretty sure it’s not a coincidence that as church attendance declines, mental health problems increase.
  • Be involved.
  • Technology control (i.e., limit the damn phones), especially for young girls who seem to be more impacted.
  • Remove the gender confusion – homeschooling or a decent religious school would be good options.
  • Make sure they learn skills that allow them to be useful. Start small, and build up.  Don’t coddle them or walk them through every step.  Make them work for it.
  • Make sure the boys are involved in sports, especially if they don’t want to be. Get girls involved in something like 4-H or the church youth club.

The Zoomers (Gen Z) have had a tough time of it, and this will be another factor (along with their horribly messed up dating and sex lives) that is already impacting the economy.

Let’s not screw up another generation.

14 Signs Of An Unfree Country

“Keep working on the window if we’re ever going to regain our freedom.” – Star Trek TOS

The homeless voted for Obama.  They heard he’d bring change.

I hadn’t heard of Benjamin Carlson until today.  I had another post that I was planning on doing, but when the perfect content presents itself I become as flexible as a Romanian Olympic® gymnast whose parents are watching from the GULAG breakroom.

Carlson wrote about his time living in China as a journalist.  The title for his X® thread is, “What can an unfree society teach you about freedom?”  In it there are 14 lessons that he learned in China.  He’s now warning us about them, for, I guess, reasons.

All the bolded bits are Mr. Carlson’s words.  The other bits are mine, since I want to give Mr. Carlson credit, but don’t want anyone to think he endorses any of my interpretations, opinions, or bad jokes.

  1. People will adapt to oppression sooner than they will rebel.

That is true of a compliant people.  The makeup of heritage Americans is anything but compliant – to come across an ocean to hack a life from trackless wilderness is mostly the opposite of compliant.  Different people came here for different reasons, but the big takeaway is a lot of us have oppositional defiant disorder, but the good kind.

But that doesn’t get them into Congress (except for a handful) and it doesn’t get people invited into fancy parties and offered media access.  But still, many people reject petty oppression, and are willing to stand up against it.  New Mexico’s recent utter rejection of a wine-aunt governor blatantly violating all the Constitutions she said she’d uphold made me smile.

I have a guess that at least part of the desire to import the unending hordes of illegal aliens at a breakneck pace is related to the desire to have a much more compliant people – people who come here for the give-me-that’s and whose idea of America has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with a parasitical relationship where they benefit.  They’re used to oppression and okay with it, they just want to be comfortable.

What’s ET short for?  So he can fit in the spaceship.

  1. The most effective censorship is first legal, then social, then internal.

Legal censorship is difficult in the United States, though the government has several cases against Trump that rely on him having opinions they find “problematic”.  Social censorship means that certain ideas can’t really be expressed.  Ever wonder why the comment section of the online newspapers mostly disappeared?  The last thing they want is people realizing they’re not alone.  This causes social censorship to fail.  At least among people who can read.

Lastly is internal censorship, when the Truth is so obvious that everyone sees it, yet everyone is afraid to say anything.  Not that I’d mention an election or anything . . . .

  1. A repressive system makes selfish behavior rational.

Look at the looting that is pervasive across Leftist cities.  Why?  Because laws are only to be enforced against people on the Right.  Therefore?  Free Air Jordans™.

I heard he was going to take another stab at marriage.

  1. Ruining 1 person who threatens the regime sends a message that will be heard by 10,000.

People broke stuff on January 6, and some used violence.  But the vast majority were just dudes walking around the Capitol Building.  Yet the harshest penalties are being used against them, including inhumane conditions in prison.

Why?  See point 4. above.

  1. If you can limit the words people use, you can limit the thoughts they think.

Why do you think they demand that calling someone an illegal alien be banned?  Why do you think they want to call a baby a fetus?  Why do you think they want to call anything “gender affirming” care?

They want to change the dialogue, and that means making the words you use socially unacceptable.  This is never ending, and will continue until the word “bad” is replaced by “double-plus-ungood”.

What is the most macho musical instrument?  The MANdolin.

  1. Even decent people will choose to be blind if seeing injustice would hurt their interests.

Why do most cops go-along to get-along?  Yeah, this, but it’s not just cops – any location where people close ranks to avoid scrutiny is suspect.  What happens when the entire country looks that way because there are people you can’t criticize?

  1. If the government lies, many will still accept it as true because of the authority of the office.

This is becoming less true in the United States – look at the pushback on COVID.  I think the trust level has dropped.  Yet, still, 20%-40% of the citizens of the country will believe whatever they’re told by Joe Biden and Stephen Colbert.

  1. Destroying a people’s cultural & religious identity, severing them from their history, punishing their defenders, and making them ashamed of who they are, is a brutally effective way to annihilate a threat.

When Thomas Jefferson’s statue is removed by New York City, and they’re thinking of bringing down all of the George Washington statues and the people who founded the United States are being vilified?  Yeah.  It’s already in full swing

  1. The goal of an unfree system is to protect itself by transferring your distrust of the state to fellow citizens.

According to the Left, Catholics and “White Supremacist” groups are the greatest threats to the United States, despite being responsible for fewer deaths than a Chicago Labor Day weekend.

If only they would have played the national anthem, everyone at the BLM® riots would have sat down.

  1. In an unfree society, the wealth and privileges amassed by politicians become state secrets.

Elizabeth Warren makes $174,000 a year, but her total earnings were $1.36 million last year.  Bill Clinton was broke in 2000, but has at least $90 million today, excluding his Foundation.  Why don’t people know this or care?

  1. If the government shows it has your interest at heart, many are happy to trade freedoms for it.

I’m sure everyone can give plenty of examples.  One lesson I learned is that when people want to give you something, that’s generally because they want something in return.  To be clear, this doesn’t always have to be manipulative, since if after I feed Pugsley, I typically want him to take the trash out after I remind him three times to do it.  I think the three times is just because he wants me to feel like I’m part of the process.

When the government gives, it wants control.

  1. Corruption corrupts everything.

If 10% for the Big Guy is the norm, why shouldn’t everyone take a cut?  Corruption corrupts, and it takes time and relentless effort to root it out.

  1. Even politicians who fight like dogs will protect one another against the people.

The Clintons and Obamas sure look cozy with the Bush family.

My doctor told me I had a healthy prostate.  I was deeply touched.

  1. History must continually be rewritten to serve the purposes of the present.

I’ve touched on this on countless posts and touched on this above.  The history has to be changed from the glorious story of a proud people taming a continent.  The truth has to be replaced with a cursed and infected lie so that the political needs of the Left can be met.  It has to be universal – on television, movies, the Internet, YouTube®, and anywhere people go.

Orwell saw many of these and they’re in his books, 1984 and Animal Farm.  Carlson, I’m sure, has read these and also experienced them.

Just like we are beginning to experience them now.

I could have written much more, but I think I’ll leave it up to you to add in comments about Mr. Carlson’s points.  The good news is you don’t have to be a gymnast to appreciate it.  Besides, I’ve heard that the Eastern Europeans are now into Olympic® boating events.  I guess they’re in row-mania.