John – Page 54 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Copper, Bikini Economics, And An Early Warning

“My hemoglobin is based on copper, not iron.” – Star Trek, TOS

Why didn’t they let the clown make iron? He smelt funny.

The current economic mess we’re in has often been discussed by economists. Let’s look at the word economist so we can understand what that word really means. Eco comes from the Greek “echo” meaning repeating sound and the Serbo-Croatian word “myst” meaning where gorillas hang out, therefore it means a bunch of gorillas repeating the same thing back and forth to each other on PBS® until it’s time for bacon-wrapped shrimp and cocktails at the faculty lounge.

Likewise, the economy has been hit by what the “economists” call an exogenous shock.

Okay, what’s exogenous? I could give another silly definition involving the X-Men® and confused gender identity, but exogenous really means coming from outside. In this case, it’s the current mess in Ukraine, and, most particularly, the sanctions that were put in place.

Typically, I’ve noticed that when people want to punish someone, the idea would be to pick something that would be negative for that person. But, once again, Biden has managed to play Brer Fox to and thrown Brer Rabbit straight into the briar patch – Russian income is up compared to previously. Normally when you punish someone, bad things happen to them.

Oops.

I could probably round up a group of drunken fraternity juniors at any college that still taught stuff (sorry Harvard®, sit down) what could over a round of beer pong come up with better sanctions than Biden and his staff threw together. And at the worst case, they’d come up with sanctions that were silly yet didn’t hurt the United States. I mean, Putin doesn’t really have hair, so we’ll have to table Chet’s idea to give him a swirlie. Besides, Chet is passed out now and Brad has a Sharpie® out.

What do you call someone kicked out of a frat? A has-bro.

It started predictably enough – the energy sanctions have already caused a fill-up event to cost so much that it gives the Lefties goosebumps. This is wonderful in their eyes. Why? It causes less use of pesky gasoline and electricity. Their ultimate goal is to create an economy that produces no carbon dioxide at all, being run entirely by $80,000 electric vehicles to take Leftists from the Starbucks® to their Pilates lessons.

How far are they willing to go? The Dutch have implemented a plan that requires their farmers to reduce their number of cattle by 30% by 2030. So, less of whatever the Dutch make out of milk. I wonder if they’ll take the same stance with gasoline? If so, how will Vincent’s Van Gogh?

Vincent’s Van won’t Gogh. And since the economy can’t work on good climate intentions something will have to break.

Vincent did some karaoke – he liked to sing blues. One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Ear.

Something to break? Let’s talk about the price of copper.

Copper is a very good conductor of electricity. It’s also a metal that is in demand when an economy is growing. Why? Copper goes in wire for houses – 43% of copper is used in building and construction. Copper goes in computers – 20% is used in electronics. Add in another 20% for cars and such – and that takes us over 80%. I’d bore you with more facts about copper, but it makes me break out in hives – I guess I have a metallurgy.

I went to Steve Jobs’ funeral, just to ask this: “Who is thinking outside the box now, Steve?”

Regardless, let’s look at what happens to the price of copper when the economy is overheating – in 2006, you can see the price of copper (from Macrotrends, LINK) shot up. Interest rates were low, and houses were being built on every flat piece of ground from San Diego to Orlando.

That was the result of an economy that was overheated. Copper popped up in price, and then collapsed.

Copper does that – and it leads. When interest rates were low and anyone who could fog a mirror could get a loan, then copper prices shot up back in 2006. As long as the boom held out, copper held out. When the market for houses finally collapsed, so did the price of copper.

So, that’s the history.

What about 2022?

It started with a spike. Why? Low interest rates and easy money made it so the housing market, even in sleepy little Modern Mayberry was hot. When I bought my house, there were houses that had been on the market for over 300 days. Three months ago, a house hit the market on Friday and was gone by Monday.

Now, I’m thinking it won’t be nearly so easy to sell in a small market. And copper indicates that it’s likely that construction demand is dropping. Not only that, but China, typically a big market for copper, cut its demand for scrap copper in the past week by 47% (according to the one source in broken English I could find). So, it’s no big surprise that copper prices are down over 20% since March.

So, I’m not sure Biden can sanction Russia any harder unless he comes to our houses individually, breaks our windows, impregnates our dogs, and sticks his thumb in the butter in the fridge.

Oh, crap. You don’t think I gave him ideas, do you?

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Misery Index Edition

“False Narrative!” – The Death of Stalin

Not all fairy tales start with “Once upon a time” – some start with “If Joe Biden is elected . . . . “

Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
Open War.

I’ve notched the Clock O’Doom up by one. Tensions have increased, significantly. The advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – The Narrative Collapses – Violence And Censorship Update – New Feature, Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – January 6 Goes Full Jussie – 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 700 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-weather-report-previous-posts/

The Narrative Collapses

Part of the requirements for Leftism to work is The Narrative. The Narrative is their story, told in their way. It is propaganda, and the object is to lead the public opinion ever Leftward, but just a smidge at a time. The problem, of course is that they lose patience.

I hope everyone had a great Juneteenth! I’m so glad it’s finally accepted as a holiday!

The Left has managed to use sympathy to convince the public of concepts that are ever more divergent from reality. Given time, it’s easy enough for people skilled in propaganda to twist public perception 180 degrees. A similar effort has gone on for decades in the Supreme Court to create new text where none existed, and essentially backstop authoritarianism.

Probably not the point George wanted to make. Oh, my!

The push too far this time was the kids. There was a time when teacher contracts included morals clauses, and they could be fired for being immoral. I recall reading a story of a teacher whose car was vandalized (by other teachers) because their license plate had the (state-issued) GAY three letter combination. Being gay and being a teacher wasn’t allowed. Period.

But in the 20’s America, teachers feel it’s necessary to become advocates for their LGBTP lifestyle. Oddly, parents have an issue with this, because 99%+ of parents aren’t LGBTP, and you have to be an extremely dedicated little Leftist to agree to let your kids be groomed.

Most people aren’t.

It’s amazing how the number of “trans” kids has gone from essentially zero to whole percentage points. Wonder why?

This is one area of narrative collapse – the economy (see Biden’s Misery Index, below) has proven the old statement correct – when the tide goes out, you can see who isn’t wearing a swimsuit, and Biden is naked. Ugh. Sorry. Bad metaphor, but it doesn’t get any better using Kamala or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer.

We now see how things are done when the Supreme Court can’t understand what a woman is. . .

This leads us towards Civil War – the Left becomes increasingly upset as their ideology is rejected – note the calls for leaving the Union on the Left since the latest abortion and gun rulings. If they can’t have it all, and if they can’t control everyone, they aren’t happy. The mere idea that someone might be free in Oklahoma or Wyoming or Indiana drives them crazy.

And you wonder why propaganda is against homeschooling?

And one last collapse of the narrative

I’m not sure I trust the SPLC to tell me if it’s day or night out . . .

The news continues – though this isn’t violence or censorship, it does show that the idea is growing monthly that people are ready to break up.

It’s weird that celebrities who are protected by people they hired to carry guns don’t want anyone else to have them.

Violence And Censorship Update

You may not have noticed it, since hardly anyone mentions it, but June was Pride Month. I’m expecting that July is Gluttony or Sloth month? Regardless, even Elon Musk noted that it was Pride Month:

Only one icon on my phone went all rainbow this year.

But that’s not violence or censorship. The biggest story this month was actually a positive against censorship (I think): Elon Musk has passed the latest test in his bid to take over Twitter®. This is notionally good. Musk has made noises in the past that would indicate that he would cease the blanket banning of Right opinions on the platform.

And, Twitter® matters. While there might be only tens of millions of active users, how often do you see a Tweet© discussed in a news story? It has amazing reach.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the sound I heard when Elon put out the bid for Twitter®.

New Feature – Biden’s Misery Index

Joe Biden has been the single largest Oval Office failure in my lifetime. Easily. How bad is he?

Well, Paul Krugman, the “economist”, predicted the “Biden Boom” – I have proof.

Think he’d like to walk that back?

That’s how it started. How’s it going?

Yes. The single worst economic performance of a President in my lifetime easily belongs to Jimmy Carter. That, for Joe Biden is a “hold my beer” moment. He can be bad at economics as well as international and social issues. Heck, under Biden and Carter Afghanistan was lost. At least Carter could use the bathroom outside of his Depends®.

But it’s not like his problems aren’t self-inflicted. They absolutely are:

It’s so bad, that even the Normies have it figured out:

Well, maybe not all the Normies.

So, the result is that we have the worst economy since the Great Depression. I even have the receipts. I made up a scale that combines gas prices, inflation, interest rates, and unemployment rates to quantify just how bad it is.

It’s horrible.

It’s set up so that if Joe Biden had just not screwed it up since January, 2020, he’d be at a score of zero. So, lower is better. You’ll note that it’s not at zero, but rather it’s at 14. Since it’s dimensionless (it’s based on how much the situation has deteriorated, so the interest rate has more than doubled) the scale on the side doesn’t have a unit. So we’ll call it a Kamala.

Joe is 14 Kamalas bad. Which is pretty bad.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real-time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence ticked downward this month. I think it has been muted because the Left has kept their dogs on a leash.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it went up more in June. I expect that to continue in July.

Economic:

Economic indicators keep falling . . . .

Illegal Aliens:

It set a new record. Again. An all-time record. Again. The border is, for all intents and purposes, wide open.

January 6^th Committee Goes Full Jussie

The January 6^thCommittee is a joke. As it can clearly be seen, there was actually no attempt to take over the Capitol. How can I make that statement? They didn’t take over. If there was any actual desire to take over the Capitol, it would have been taken over, and would have been occupied to this day.

The fiction that the Committee has tried to create is a simple one: that Donald Trump was looking to take over the government through non-Constitutional means. This was, obviously, not true. Why? It would have been the simplest thing for him to do that and cross the Rubicon. He didn’t. Trump likes to make deals, and I’ve seen no evidence that he did anything different than, well, be Trump on January 6.

Regardless, it looks like the Committee has nothing. And never will.

LINKS

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

BAD GUYS

https://twitter.com/Robertopedia/status/1535383099147689984

https://twitter.com/i/status/1534491331313250304

https://twitter.com/i/status/1537919366737539072

https://twitter.com/i/status/1538697774979481600

https://twitter.com/i/status/1534652069071790085

https://twitter.com/i/status/1533654704529588229

https://twitter.com/PrivilegeMaster/status/1534667795065085952

https://twitter.com/Geoffrey_Ford14/status/1533440144124137473

https://twitter.com/Geoffrey_Ford14/status/1533441413010038785

https://youtu.be/Fepz9VOKodw

https://twitter.com/i/status/1531651546735329280

https://twitter.com/i/status/1535957203902816256

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10890763/Moment-man-hurls-expensive-watch-fence-robbery-gang-leaps-car-LA-suburb.html

https://twitter.com/i/status/1535360238043406338

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/hunter-used-money-from-dad-to-pay-russian-prostitute/

https://twitter.com/AutonomyCola/status/1540422582352183298

https://twitter.com/crabcrawler1/status/1537809777526509569

GOOD GUYS

https://www.newsweek.com/prosecutors-make-first-move-break-antifa-cell-11-activists-charged-violence-1658008

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10953387/Burger-King-worker-says-hell-pay-grandkids-college-GoFundMe-soars-past-120-000.html

https://youtu.be/U6xlvHM6jYY

https://twitter.com/i/status/1540486945981227009

https://twitter.com/i/status/1531745842079711232

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/kyle-rittenhouses-lawyer-plans-target-042552489.html

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/07/because-the-ar-15-can-deter-a-mob/

And finally (!?!) : https://twitter.com/i/status/1537307558704300032

ONE GUY

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1537173291781312518.html

BODY COUNT

https://www.newsweek.com/yulin-dog-meat-festival-thousands-dogs-slaughtered-china-1713970

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2022/06/14/heat-stress-kills-estimated-10-000

http://endoftheamericandream.com/more-major-disasters-hit-u-s-food-production-are-you-prepared-for-what-comes-next/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10938929/U-S-say-intends-issue-rule-reduction-nicotine-levels-cigarettes-WaPo.html

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/09/zmgp-j09.html

https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-army-drops-high-school-diploma-requirement-as-it-struggles-to-find-new-recruits

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/charted-the-global-decline-of-fertility-rates/

https://crossroadsreport.substack.com/p/breaking-fifth-largest-life-insurance

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10895067/Doctors-trying-determine-young-people-suddenly-dying.html

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/doctors-baffled-by-a-mysterious-new-sudden-death-syndrome-killing-healthy-young-people/

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/young-people-dying-in-their-sleep

https://vdare.com/posts/homicide-and-motor-vehicle-accident-death-rates-through-2021

https://www.danielgreenfield.org/2022/06/in-blm-year-52-of-black-teens-who-died.html

https://twitter.com/PrivilegeMaster/status/1534667795065085952

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10941707/Powerful-new-campaign-shares-photos-taken-people-took-lives.html

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailydeaths

https://twitter.com/alabeaty/status/1534778472354177025

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/reports-deaths-covid-vaccines-cdc-vaers-data/

https://summit.news/2022/06/13/new-study-concludes-lockdowns-caused-at-least-170000-excess-deaths-in-u-s/

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/1287595-injuries-reported-after-covid-shots-vaccine-injury-compensation-programs-overwhelmed/

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2022/06/05/new-study-mask-mandates-associated-with-increased-covid-death-rate-n2608241

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/06/03/iso-drug-similar-to-fentanyl-but-20x-more-potent-finds-way-into-florida/

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/06/14/18/59067297-10916371-image-m-12_1655228811361.jpg

VOTE COUNT

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/public_surveys/2000_mules_documentary_s_message_resonates_with_voters

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/convincing-77-believe-2000-mules-20m-have-seen-it

https://www.theepochtimes.com/facts-matter-may-16-2nd-state-featured-in-2000-mules-issues-subpoenas-for-the-names-of-ballots-mules-and-funding-ngos_4470123.html

ttps://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/bombshell-ex-dominion-employee-has?s=r

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/06/06/cisa-advisory-report-admits-voting-machine-vulnerabilities-denies-exploitation/

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-georgia-election-2020-a746b253f3404dbf794349df498c9542

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/something-stinks-in-colorado

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/06/29/predetermined-algorithms-source-of-widespread-election-fraud-in-arizona/

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/exclusive-fulton-county-gets-busted

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-house-rep-pleads-guilty-ballot-stuffing-dems-five-elections

https://www.delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=4611

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/23/yes-biden-is-hiding-his-plan-to-rig-the-2022-midterm-elections/

https://www.scribd.com/document/577278421/Justice-for-Sale-LELDF-Report#download&from_embed

CIVIL WAR

https://twitter.com/williams_paige/status/1541434138011570183

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-astonishing-implications-of-schedule-f/

https://www.newsweek.com/white-supremacists-convicted-training-civil-war-michigan-1708056

https://www.foxnews.com/media/media-targeting-trump-aides-testimony-civil-war

https://nypost.com/2022/06/14/squad-rep-bowman-warns-of-civil-war-if-gop-takes-midterms/

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/06/14/rep-bowman-warns-of-civil-war-if-gop-wins-in-november-n2608677

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/30/poll-americans-guns-against-government

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10876733/More-HALF-Republicans-believe-U-S-heading-civil-war.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-half-of-americans-now-predict-us-may-cease-to-be-a-democracy-someday-090028564.html

https://www.theepochtimes.com/is-the-united-states-headed-to-another-civil-war-or-another-great-awakening_4524035.html

https://andrewmtanner.medium.com/the-capitol-riot-doesnt-matter-f0b232d00a30

https://andrewmtanner.medium.com/the-american-divorce-is-an-unstoppable-force-b981edacb6f2

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2022/05/when-should-we-be-worried-about-civil-war-barbara-f-walter/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10934819/Texas-Republicans-push-referendum-secedng-U-S.html

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/group-declares-open-season-on-pro-lifers-gives-ultimatum-now-the-leash-is-off/

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/20-pregnancy-centers-in-the-us-have-faced-pro-abortion-attacks-since-leaked-roe-opinion/

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/06/15/beyond_the_kavanaugh_scare_dozens_of_incidents_targeting_pro-lifers_nationwide_837247.html

https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/two-versions-america-efforts-reverse-roe-v-wade-proves-second-civil-war-already-underway/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/14/supreme-court-civil-war-00039543

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/26/second-civil-war-us-abortion

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/another-war-states-coming-abortion-rcna35566

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/26/america-is-more-fragile-than-the-left-understands/

ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS

https://www.youngmoney.co/p/time-alive

target-042552489.html

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/07/because-the-ar-15-can-deter-a-mob/

Thoughts On Independence Day, 2022

“My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the Rebels.” – Clerks

Where was the Declaration of Independence signed? At the bottom, silly.

Independence Day is just around the corner, and I’ve got the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report scheduled for that day, so I thought I’d give a few thoughts about one of the most cherished ideas in our history: Independence.

Independence was the life blood of our new nation. I think people were genetically (and sometimes judicially) selected for it. The people that came here looked around Britain and said, “You know what, I’d much rather be in a wilderness surrounded by hostile natives. Oh, and I’ll gladly cross an ocean in a dangerous journey that will take forever, and I’ll never see the land of my birth again.”

It’s one thing to do that yourself, but these dudes convinced their wives to come, too.

Leaving everything you know and love is not normal, but Duncan McWilder left Scotland before the Revolutionary War was over to come on over here. I don’t know his story, but as I trace his children across generations, not a one of them settled in a place where life was easy – in fact every one of them headed for the frontier (as it existed in their time) and pushed outwards.

They raised heaven knows what in Virginia and Alabama. They tamed Texas. They built the railroads. The homesteaded in New Mexico. Portions of the family were west of the Rockies in 1860. Not a single day was spent in a life in on easy mode. They built this country with their sweat, their tears, and over the bones of their wives who died in childbirth and their sons who died of fever and war.

None of it was easy. The hard choice was something else:

Independence.

But they had one thing in their mind – they bowed to no man. I feel safe in saying that should my forefathers have met any king or potentate that walked this Earth that not a single one of them would have bowed. They would have stood straight up, looked him in the eye, and thought to themselves, “You’re nothing but a man like me. And no Wilder bows to any man.”

When people mention to me that I am the beneficiary of “white privilege” or any other such nonsense, I laugh. My ancestors fought in Europe, twice, in the last century. They fought here at places like Shiloh and Manassas Junction. They fought at places like Valley Forge when the dark winter nearly doomed a nation yet unborn. I stand at the end of a line of brave men and women who looked on a new and fresh continent, not with fear, but with determination. They wouldn’t bend their knees even to their countrymen. Why?

Independence.

Life was never easy. But I look back onto that line of my ancestors and know – they made the hard choice, the choice to be free. They gave up comfort and, likely, material success to have control of their own destiny. Rather than submit, they pushed farther out – into danger. Wolves aren’t a problem now. Why not?

My ancestors (along with many others) killed them. Grizzly bears used to be in nearly every State. Not now. Why? My ancestors (along many others) killed them. They braved the cold, the heat, the snakes, the (now dead) bears, and the (now dead) wolves. Why?

Independence.

I’m not alone here, either. If you’re reading this, there’s a near certainty that you came from a long line of Big Damn Heroes® yourself. They carved a nation out of their heroism, their success, and, yes, their failure, all chasing the same dream.

Independence.

I’ve met billionaires, movie stars, sports stars, and rock stars. I hold none of them in contempt. And I hold none of them as my better. I had several times that I could have sworn fealty and abandoned my integrity and had greater success.

I never would. To do so would have been shameful to the memories of those that came before me. So, I never will. Why?

Independence.

I am not alone. The United States was a magnet for hard-headed men of principle that were looking for nothing but that chance to be free, to be independent, to live their own lives.

In 1900, my ancestors would interact with the Federal government whenever they got their mail. That might have been infrequent, at best, out on the frontier, out in the places where they might be lucky to see mail once in a month.

From once a month, we’ve moved to all the time. When my alarm goes off in the morning, it’s driven by electricity that comes from power plants regulated by the EPA. I go to the bathroom where I brush my teeth with toothpaste approved by the FDA, and then into the shower where the valve is regulated by the Consumer Protection Agency and water regulated by several government agencies. I then get in the car (approved in different aspects by several government agencies) fueled by gasoline . . . and the number of agencies in that chain just to get gasoline is amazing.

The biggest difference between then and now are the massive cities. Our cities are huge and complex and anonymous. Here in the country, you can configure your life to deal only with the people you see at work and the people that you see at the store, in the city there are people everywhere.

And the chances you’ll see a random individual again in a context so that you’d recognize them?

Nearly zero.

Thus, cities are an environment where people are anonymous. Anonymous people aren’t responsible for their actions – they exist outside of the constraint of society. Be rude to someone because your day isn’t going well? Whatever. You’ll never see them again. They’re not a part of your group, your tribe.

That anonymity might sound like Independence, but it’s not – it actually leads to the worst of tyranny – rule after rule because poor manners in an anonymous setting lead to rules about how tall a lawn can be. And if you don’t follow that rule, and don’t pay the fines associated with breaking it?

People with guns will take you to a concrete box and keep you there. So, cities don’t sound very free to someone like me.

On the other side of the equation, small towns provide accountability without resorting to the law.

A city slicker moved to Modern Mayberry and didn’t pay a plumber because of a disagreement. What are the odds any other plumber will even return his calls when something goes wrong? Or any contractor? Heck, even I know the story, so I’m giggling thinking about them making phone calls when they need to get their septic tank pumped.

Without anonymity, there is responsibility. It will be a tough lesson for the city slicker to learn. I remember that lesson every time I go to dinner and see the same waitress for the twentieth time. They are responsible to me as a waitress, and I am responsibility to them as a customer.

In my small town, I have responsibility. My forefathers had independence, but they also had responsibility. If they succeeded, they succeeded. If they failed, they failed. If they died because of their foolishness? They died.

The lesson is simple: independence isn’t freedom from consequences. Independence is being free to choose. Living with those consequences is the result.

We sit here at the edge of a new world that is struggling to be born out of the old world that we lived in. Will we choose independence and responsibility?

I know what my ancestors would choose.

The Economy – At Seneca’s Cliff?

“Well, what do you expect to find? A story about a guy who drove his car off a cliff in a snowstorm?” – Misery

Why don’t the sounds of pigeons echo? A coo sticks.

I have written before about Ugo Bardi’s (Living Italian Economist) theory that he called Seneca’s Cliff. Seneca’s Cliff is a restatement of something Seneca (Dead Roman Dude) philosophized about. It was a simple idea: stuff gets built only slowly. But when it comes down? It comes down all at once, like falling off of a cliff, hence Bardi calling it Seneca’s Cliff.

A house is a good example of Seneca’s Cliff. A house is built over time – in most cases it takes several months to build one. But if there’s a fire, that same house can be burned to the ground in a manner of minutes. There are exceptions, of course: in a Mexican neighborhood in Canada, the house might be saved by a hose, eh.

Race car backwards is . . . race car. But race car sideways is . . . James Dean.

So, that’s Seneca’s Cliff. I wrote about it myself back in the day, when I was trying to write a novel. It started, “The world had been a web . . .” This is a metaphor that has always stuck with me – the web of interconnections required to maintain society as we know it.

The world is a web. As I write this, I’m writing it on a laptop that was built halfway around the world, with components and materials sourced on nearly every continent. Dude, I got a Dell®, but the Dell™ came from everywhere.

When everything works, that’s great. People communicate with each other through price and supply and demand and produce things like computers and cars and wedding rings and beer and PEZ® and the burrito that Amber Heard ate before she left a “grumpy” in the bed.

Believe all women? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve Amber Heard.

Unfortunately, we’ve been working at a world that’s based in efficiency, too. Efficiency is nice if you’re a company that’s trying to put together a lot of iPads® or Funko Pops©, but in reality efficiency sucks.

Why do you have two lungs? Two kidneys? Two bellybuttons? Because those are really, really important. I have a buddy who lost 90% of his lung capacity in one lung due to the flu back in ’92. Guess what? He conducts a full life like it never happened. He coached a wrestling team, and rides bicycles long distances.

When something is important, you don’t want an efficient system, you want an inefficient system. This is why the water department can make more water than it needs to.

What does Ghislaine Maxwell and July, 2022 have in common? Neither of them will see August.

But our global systems, at the top level, are efficient. We don’t produce 10% extra oil. We don’t have that capacity. In spring and fall we generally have plenty of excess electricity generation, but tell me how summer looks? Lots of spare capacity?

No, not so much. Sure, there are substitutes for lots of things – we can have Wheaties® instead of Rice Krispies™. But in the end, we have to produce enough food to feed 7.96 billion people, and enough energy to grow the food and move it from place to place as well as make clothes and iPods© and pantyhose.

If Biden made dumpsters, they’d be called trash can’ts.

But this means that we’re in a world where there is simply less food because there is less energy, and also because war took out production of a significant amount. This was added to by the Biden sanctions on Russia. They are strange sanctions, indeed. So far their result is that it actually resulted in more cash going to Russia every month. Oh, higher prices on energy mainly to Europe and the United States. The shortages we’re seeing now in food, which will soon become much worse will have an even larger impact.

It has already created stress in the developed world. But in fragile places, like most of the Middle East and all of Africa, food prices will increase to the point where many of the poorer governments will simply cease to exist as the revolutions start. The last time this happened, mass migration into Europe was the result. It’s possible that this time, violence will be exported to Europe, as well.

I hear that Miley Cyrus will star in a remake of Silence of the Lambs as Hannibal Montannibal.

These are the conclusions if things go well, based on where we are now. From everything I’ve seen, we’re not on the trajectory of things going well. The capital markets are slowly failing in the West. Why? All the spending from the decision to print all the cash to paper over the previous holes in the economy that were caused from all the cash printed to paper over the holes before that is a game we can’t play anymore. The holes are too big.

The delicate web that keeps goods moving is stressed now, and strands are missing, putting a greater strain on the whole web. It took hundreds of years to build up this economy.

How fast will it fall down Seneca’s Cliff?

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Special Rural Edition

“He’s that distinguished-looking gentleman with the casual wardrobe and darling rural accent.” – The Beverly Hillbillies

Modern Mayberry just got a factory that makes television accessories. I guess that makes us a remote village.

This isn’t a main Civil War 2.0 Weather Report – that will be next Monday, on schedule. Consider this one a “special edition” since I’m sure we already have plenty of fodder for the regular weather report.

So, back to the opening snippet that u/humble_na_miner described as “Lol how to get shot, a thread.”

I’ll reproduce u/ripitthrowaway’s amazing strategy that he came up with in case it’s too hard to read in the post above. I normally try to inject humor, but since his (I’m guessing) words are funny enough, I’ll just quote him verbatim:

The radical Christians are found in the rural areas. Their towns are defenseless, they have almost no cops and their firemen are volunteers. They have to borrow cops and firemen from neighboring jurisdictions miles away in order to handle anything big. And they think they’re safe out there. Forget burning cities, cities are on our sides. It’s time for the rural areas to feel the heat.

You show up 100 deep in every rural town in a 50 mile radius intent on revolution, you’ll crash their system and make them pay.

And if you think I’m kidding, I’m dead serious. This was caused by backward ass rural conservatives operating out of a Christianized worldview (even if they’re not Christian, they’re heavily influenced by it), they were the ones who voted for Trump in ’16; those disillusioned redneck/white trash/blue collar (to quote a country song) types who flipped massively for the GOP. Punish them. Punish their towns. They say “BLM burned the cities to the ground,” I say, “let them see firsthand what I’s like when a community is truly burned to the ground. They want a civil war? They should have been careful what they asked and voted for.”

I’m not the organizing type. But maybe someone who is can organize that. Start in a certain state in the Midwest often called “the south’s middle finger to America.” It’s literally what the south would’ve looked like if it wasn’t reconstructed.

First, wow. I know it’s just one idiot, but I’m sure that there are others who share the sentiment. What is the message, exactly? “Let’s form a band of roving marauders to burn down their barns and property and shoot anyone we feel like. That will show those rural folk what savages they are.”

Not my meme, but, well, accurate.

Second, this is a threat to destroy the lives, property, and community of people whose only crime is not being an idiot Leftist. To be clear, Modern Mayberry has values that are closer to 1982 than 2022, mostly. People still go to church. Kids behave themselves at parks. We’re not shooting each other because (spins wheel) it’s Saturday. In fact, people aren’t shooting each other at all except for the once a twenty-year domestic dispute gone really bad.

Why aren’t we shooting each other? Because thieves know that if they try to do much more than nick a bike or a lawnmower things will go very, very bad. Why? That’s the next point.

Third, I’ll let Skeletor® answer:

Not my meme, but, I think they have no idea how rural people would react to being burned and shot at.

They have zero idea what rural America is like. Not every house is armed, but I’ll bet that most houses have a lot of guns – I am certain that there are more guns than people, and the cops? They live here, too. There’s also a lot of ammo. And more food than they can imagine, because we grow it here.
Grandpa, who you have to help up to the range because he was wounded in ‘Nam? He can shoot a 2-inch group at 400 yards. When he practices his long-range shooting, he can reliably hit man-size targets at 1000 yards. Grandma, who makes a great macaroni salad for the church social, would regret doming a pink-haired Leftist with her husband’s wheel gun, but she wouldn’t hesitate.
Also, we know and help each other. That’s why we don’t need a lot of cops. If you’ve only been here a decade, you’re still the new kid in town. Many families have gone to the same high school for three generations – and that’s because that’s when they built the “new” high school building.
There aren’t choke points – I can think of dozens of ways that I could flank, surprise, or otherwise ruin the day of someone who set up a roadblock – because I know all the ways around the roadblocks.
It gets very dark here. We know where everything is. They don’t.

Fourth, these are the people who are planning this:

You may not be able to see it, but his guns have little orange caps on the end – at most they’re airsoft guns. I don’t even think that rates a “he’ll put an eye out”.

My level of fear at Leftists invading Modern Mayberry:

But what caused this rage? I call it:

The Tennis Shoe of Sadness was caused by Roe versus Wade being overturned. We mined a lot of salt out of the gun ruling by SCOTUS, so why not mine some salt out of this, too?

I’ll start with an A.I. generated picture:

If you can’t read it, it was generated based on the prompt: “Clarence Thomas breaking into an abortion clinic at night to use their toilet and not flush.

So, Count Dankula is a Scottish comedian. And there are a lot of dumb people on the Internet. That vote.

Now we know who is responsible for January 6 . . . though it’s odd the same people that are investigating January 6 are also vowing to resist the Supreme Court.

I was certain that they taught math in Europe . . .

People are even thinking of leaving Texas . . .

I’m sure the Texans are very, very upset.

Maybe this is why the Lefty girls like The Handmaid’s Tale so much?

Always remember, the Left eats their own, too.

Remember, never be afraid of Big Brother – that’s where all of their power comes from.

Over 50 Thoughts About The Supreme Court’s Second Amendment Decision

“The spice salt must flow.” – Dune, probably all of them.

When my enemies are in pain, I never rub salt in their wounds. That would be adding in salt to injury.

Why salt mining? Because it’s fun and profitable to mine the salt from the tears of the Left.

I have carefully curated memes and Tweets® about the recent Supreme Court victor on the Second Amendment. Why? It’s Friday, and we should celebrate. Yes, I know about the Senate bill that passed, but I think this is fundamental.

And more fun. So, these are as-found, on the ‘net. They aren’t quite in random order, take the first two, for instance . . .

I think we fought a war about something similar?

Sounds like a feature, not a bug.

Funny how that freedom thing works? You can see that every day here in Modern Mayberry.

Sounds like someone needs a nap.

I’m sure with strict gun laws, NYC is safe?

Oops.

I worry about a woman with a dangerous assault uterus.

Muskets? I’m thinking she doesn’t understand what she means . . .

Why, yes, I think that British-born and educated billionaires are exactly who I want to lecture me on my rights. Again, didn’t we fight a war over just this? Here’s my response to Mr. Rothschild:

Preet, phone home.

Get Woke, Go Broke: Disney Princess Edition

“I woke up on the floor of some Japanese family’s rec room, and they would not stop screaming.” – Anchorman

I knew that Disney® was broke when they wouldn’t give R2-D2™ a brother, only a transister.

As is probably obvious now, I like movies. I think that they can convey complex ideas, and can exemplify that which is best in all of us. When done properly, they provide a shared mythology that replaces the stories that we used to tell each other around the fire after a successful mastodon hunt. They would sometimes even sing songs, I mean most people who killed a mastodon are in the mood for some Hairy Elephante.

Movies can be subtle propaganda. Certainly, looking back there were large elements of mainly harmless propaganda added into the media that I watched growing up – trying to convince me to eat properly, brush my teeth, get enough sleep, and not start a criminal drug trafficking gang.

Data Point Number One is a Hollywood® movie that certainly has more wholesome values built-in, Top Gun: Maverick. Going as far back as the first Top Gun, the idea was fairly simple: America and Americans were trying to be the good guys. We were brash, we took Polaroid® pictures of Russian pilots, and we had shirtless, sweaty volleyball playing . . . dudes?

Well, at least Kenny can get spare parts if he has a footloose.

Okay, they did make some mistakes in the original. But it was nationalist. It focused on excellence. And the latest version has some of the same notes. Amazingly, people seem to like feeling good about their country and seeing excellence in action. Top Gun: Maverick will end up making over a billion dollars.

So, mainly wholesome. Sure there were some less wholesome parts built in there, but I’m still planning a post on propaganda. Some of the propaganda has been awful, and lately, it’s been worse. Hollywood® has recently been all-in on propaganda, and not the good kind.

That brings us to . . .

Data Point Number Two is Lightyear. Disney® movies used to be a bastion of wholesome values. Parents. Kids. There would be a conflict, but the end would almost always be resolved in a way that showed the importance of values. Disney©, however, has decided to showcase a family arrangement of two lesbian moms. This is a lifestyle that would have been:

Not legally enforceable across the country a decade ago,
Widely shunned two decades ago,
Subject to a visit from Child Protective Services thirty years ago,
Ruled out either of the lesbian moms to be able to work as a teacher forty years ago, and
Caused them to be burned as witches fifty years ago, though my timing might be off a bit on that one.

Jeff Epstein tried to give Hillary a high five, but she left him hanging.

Now? It’s a lifestyle being celebrated as normal in a Disney® film. To most parents (remember, it takes an actual woman and an actual man to make a baby, even in 2022) it’s not the propaganda that they want to have in the minds of their little kids. I did the math, and (to the best I can find) 0.14% of kids were being raised by lesbian moms.

Add in people who are hard Lefties who buy their kids Transition Flakes™? That’s your Lightyear audience.

Thus, it’s no surprise to me that the film failed. Lightyear has greatly disappointed the folks at Disney® due to its poor financial performance. People are simply declining to pay money to take their kids to become indoctrinated with the Latest Thing®.

Disney™ seemingly doesn’t care is actually blaming the audience, from some interviews I’ve seen.

I hear AOC met her boyfriend on Tinder®. That must have been awkward.

It’s not just Disney®, though they’re the absolute worst today. I’ve noticed that most movies made after, say, 2018, are awful. It’s not just Coronachan, either. It is the movie content. I don’t know if all the screenwriters suddenly became activists after Trump was elected, but the movies became awful.

How? They became drenched in Leftist propaganda. If it were just that, it might be interesting entertainment. But Leftism screws everything up. Character development doesn’t exist, because Strong Woman can never, ever be inferior to Man, even if Strong Woman just started piloting starships and Man has been piloting them for decades. Oh, and she’s stronger, too. And can beat anyone but another woman in a fight.

I wonder why they didn’t call her Mary Sue?

Yawn. It’s not even interesting, and combined with the bales of propaganda that gets thrown in, it just turns into a poorly written script that ends up making a movie that’s not very interesting. What are the stakes when the hero is perfect from the first moment of the movie?

It isn’t just movies. Books started to get infected with the same nonsense even before movies did. For a time, I stopped reading fiction because the books ceased being enjoyable. I thought it was me. I thought that I had grown up, and science fiction has lost its appeal because I’d grown out of it.

Then I picked up an older book, (Lucifer’s Hammer, by Niven and Pournelle) and was happy to find it wasn’t me – it was that science fiction books started sucking, and for exactly the same reason. Leftism kills everything that it touches.

I’ve noticed that most larger businesses don’t seem to care. Star Wars® (another Disney© product produced some of the weakest, worst content ever. Why? Retreaded stories and a protagonist that wasn’t interesting because she was already the Best Ever® at everything. Disney stock wasn’t impacted.

Until now.

If you pour root beer into a square glass does that just make it beer?

It has lost about half of its value since last year, with over $170 billion in market value lost. This started before the big market slide with the Biden Bust.

The Unraveling

“Since when can weathermen predict the weather, let alone the future?” – Back to the Future

I knew a lady who loved mushrooms, she was a fungal.

The unraveling continues. In one sense, what’s happening is predictable. Looking back in history, while not everything happens in the same way, things very much rhyme. That’s why certain aspects of the current financial collapse are very, very familiar.

The Fed® still has enough influence that it can stop a snowball. Can the Fed® stop an avalanche? Not so much. They may have some tricks to push the day of reckoning down the line if it isn’t off the rails. Again, like a presidential election, it’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

If it were merely a financial problem, the actions might be enough. But it’s not just financial.

Other problems include extreme societal decadence. Decadence is a strong word. When I was a kid, it was applied to places like the late Roman Empire, or Willy Wonka’s® Chocolate Factory™ where those Umpa-Loompas wore those scanty tight outfits.

But when people take kids – elementary-age kids – to Pride®©™ parades that contain actual nudity and sex acts between adults, and then suggest putting hormones into five-year-olds because they pretended to cook in a pretend kitchen one day, you know that this is the point where God told Noah, “Get the boat,” and told Lot, “Tell everyone to wear sunglasses – I don’t care if it’s night.”

“Oh, and Noah? Put some lights on the boat. Floodlights.”

Whatever fetish sex act that any individual wants to do “because it’s Thursday” now seems to take the place of virtue. Replacing actual virtue with temporary individual passions is exactly what every single functioning society in history has avoided to in order to remain functioning. When people follow passions that are productive, like building rockets, they add to society. When people act on passions counter to virtue?

Those passions consume and destroy society. Period.

We don’t live in a world where “if it feels good, do it” can ever be a policy that lead to a productive society. At some point, we must be guided by virtue, we have to have a shared vision for a future, and a shared desire to build. Can you imagine a single event that would bring us all together again?

I can’t. We have to have that shared vision – if nothing else, to survive. Do we have it?

What’s the best way to avoid significant radiation exposure? Don’t bomb Pearl Harbor.

We do not. We are divided. The idea of a selfless devotion to duty seems to have (in many places) evaporated. Cops are supposed to put themselves into danger to save the innocent – that’s the only reason we put up with the rest of the nonsense that they get up to. If they have changed their motto from “Protect and Serve” to “Hide Until We Can and Give Traffic Tickets to People That Don’t Scare Us” then they’re not much use.

Globalism is likewise something that sounds good, but isn’t. I can understand the need for some places like, say, deserts to import grain and Alaska to import medicine and export oil and good vibes. But can someone tell me that we’re in a better and safer position as a country now that we depend on far-flung nations for things. When I talked to The Boy about careers, the advice I gave him was simple – don’t do anything that someone can do over the Internet. If you do, you’re competing with a job with millions or billions of people.

We have reached the stage of cultural collapse. I’m in favor of capitalism – but amoral capitalism is different. When capitalism is allowed to meet any need, the result isn’t good. Like any system, it needs boundaries. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Why can’t the Democrats use the 25^th Amendment on Biden? They can’t count that high.

Freedom needs boundaries. Freedom needs responsibility. Liberty, real liberty, requires obligation for stability. Otherwise? It descends into chaos.

So, we’ve established that we’re in a difficult place. The things that we depended upon are slowly slipping away. The economy is in a very precarious place, culturally we’re shattered to the point that not even another 9-11 would bring us together. The difficulties that we see from here on out won’t serve to bring us together, they will bring us apart. How about the economic difficulties related to just high fuel prices alone?

The Lefties love it, even as it destroys our economy. Heck destruction of the economy might even be the point.

But stresses have consequences. If I drop an orange, it will fall. If we destroy an economy, it will fail. Some parts of it will be predictable: interest rates going up will make housing prices go down. Simple. We can talk about other correlations on Wednesday (feel free to bring up more below).

I dated a homeless girl once – it was nice, after the date you could drop her off anywhere.

The one thing that I can tell you, is what comes next won’t be like what came before. The problems that we have rhyme with the problems of the past, but they’re not the same. During the Great Depression, we were at least (mostly) homogeneous as a country. Now, not so much.

The end state is tied to the initial conditions. And the initial conditions of the Great Depression were greatly different than they are today, so there’s no way that we’ll see the same results. And things will never go back to “normal” because we simply cannot go back in time, and there isn’t any such thing as “normal” nor any time period which is “normal”. They will be different.

What we have, though, is the rhyme. It won’t allow us to predict perfectly. But it will allow us to see, dimly.

It Came From 1982

“The Alan Parsons Project is a progressive rock band in 1982. Why don’t you just name it ‘Operation Wang-Chung’?” – Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

A hipster asked me if I liked Indy films, “Sure, I loved The Last Crusade.”

The last time I did a movie list, I did a list based on an entire decade: the 1990s. It was an interesting list, but Aesop made a comment I’ll paraphrase because I’m too lazy to look it up to get the exact quote: “If you did the 1980s, you’d break the Internet.”

And he’s right. The 1980s were, very clearly, a much better decade for movies than any decade since. Before? Probably. There are great movies before and after the 1980s, but I think this was peak movie.

Why? In the 1980s it was very much Reagan’s country: “It is morning in America.” People were starting to feel optimistic after the recession, and people were starting to feel proud again. The movies of the period reflect that. Also, Hollywood® was able to experiment – it didn’t have to get a blockbuster because it invested $600,000,000 in a movie. No, it could do stupid, cheap movies. It could do daring movies. And that let it do exceptional movies. I’m picking 1982, because, like Aesop warned: I don’t want to break the Internet.

Why 1982? Because when I got into the hot tub tonight to smoke a nice Rocky Patel Decade Toro cigar and prepare to write, a video about my favorite movie from 1982 showed up. The following are a list of eighteen movies from 1982 that were better than most movies that show up today. For the most part, they’re in alphabetical order because, again, I’m too lazy to rank them.

But number one for me from 1982 has got to be:

The Thing.

But at least they’ll have lots of pasta to eat down there: penguine.

I had always loved John W. Campbell’s work, and The Thing is one of his best films. No, it doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test where it has women talking to each other. There are no women in the movie. At all. And it kicks ass, so I’m beginning to think the Bechdel Test shows me what movies will suck.

The film featured all practical effects – and that made them more visceral, in some cases literally. Kurt Russell in a beard losing a chess game against a computer and then tossing scotch into the computer from his nearly infinite supply of J&B®. And the result? One of the best action/horror/science fiction movies. Ever. It was considered a flop at the time, and now is considered one of the best movies of all time.

See? That’s why I love the 1980s.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Burt Reynolds. Singing about whores, in a movie about LaGrange, Texas, which if I believed ZZ Top®, is just filled with whores. With Dolly Parton? No, there’s nothing particularly good about this, but, someone in Hollywood thought it was a good idea.

Blade Runner. Stark. Grungy. Set a few years ago. Everyone was sweaty. Also? Everyone likes this movie more than I do – probably my least favorite Philip K. Dick movie. Bonus? I had a girlfriend who I convinced that she was actually a robot. Dick move? No, a Philip K. Dick move.

This movie begs the question: did they have blow driers in ninja school?

The Challenge. Scott Glenn and Toshiro Mifune in a movie about an American who fights ninja-style with office supplies, and, no, I’m not making that up. Utterly awesome. I believe I am the only person on the continent who liked this movie.

Conan the Barbarian. You’ve all seen it. I had read Conan stories before I saw the movie – I was not particularly impressed, but I had to mention this movie. It featured Arnold after he learned to read, but before he learned to act.

Eating Raoul. The best movie about cannibalistic infidelity for profit I’ve seen. It’s also the only movie about cannibalistic infidelity for profit I’ve ever seen.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Little needs to be said about this classic – carrot eating would never be the same in the cafeteria again in 1982. Plus? Sammy Hagar jamming.

Doesn’t anyone knock?

Firefox. Clint Eastwood stealing Soviet jets because he could think in Russian. Special effects don’t hold up, but still fun.

First Blood. Sly making the best Rambo movie before they started to get silly.

Night Shift. There are some actors that should stick to comedy. It may not be a popular opinion, but I think Michael Keaton is one of them. What is it about 1982 and whores? This movie has the lighthearted subject of a morgue turning into a brothel.

An Officer and a Gentleman. It’s like Top Gun, but no flying. Why would you watch this movie? Because you have nowhere else to go.

Poltergeist. The movie that led to making it a law that if you moved a cemetery for a housing development, that you had to movie the bodies, too. Go to the light, Carol Anne!

What do Italian ghosts eat? Spooketti.

Porky’s. This movie was a series of sketches combined with bad jokes and nudity, and those are the redeeming bits. Gets bad when the plot gets in the way. Paging Michael Hunt.

Rocky III. Sly was busy in 1982. But this movie was a good sequel, and probably better than you remember.

Silent Rage. A Chuck Norris movie. It’s not a great movie, but it’s an awesome movie. I know that makes no sense, but neither does this movie. It’s really my favorite Chuck Norris movie – science fiction with karate.

Yup, sittin’ around without a shirt and with my cowboy hat on. Ahhh, 1982, we miss you.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This is the sequel that saved Star Trek. Star Trek the Motion Picture was a dud. This was not. It was the best Star Trek movie, ever. It had the joy and exuberance of the best of Star Trek TOS, plus a worthy villain and a chess game in space combat. There has been no Star Trek after this that has been nearly as good, and probably few before this.

Tootsie. The Mrs. loves this movie. Me? Once was enough. Bill Murray was my favorite part of this one.

The World According to Garp. This was the best Robin Williams movie, period. I read the novel, and this was a movie that could never, ever be made today.

Young Doctors in Love. Excellent movie that’s nearly unavailable today. Also, taught me how to easily test for diabetes.

Yup, that’s just one year in the 1980s, picked nearly at random.

Good times.

Wherein I Use Greek Mythology To Show How Screwed We Are

“Would Homer cut away from Odysseus’s journey just as he was being enticed by the siren’s song?” – BoJack Horseman

My lack of knowledge of Greek mythology is often my Achilles’ Elbow.

We’ve reached the Scylla and Charybdis stage of our economy.

Scylla was, in Greek mythology, a six-headed monster that was probably less scary than the average half-dozen Congresscritters, and certainly less dangerous.

Charybdis was a whirlpool that sucked inside everything that got close to it three times a day, so it was pretty much exactly like Kamala Harris.

The idea is that if you’re between Scylla and Charybdis, life is on the edge because there are dangers on either side. When Odysseus tried to sneak between the two, he lost six crewmembers, one to each head of Scylla. Thankfully they didn’t go too close to Charybdis, since Kamala has a mean-looking canker sore, and some gifts last forever.

Trying to thread the fine line between Scylla and Charybdis: that’s where our economy is now.

Could it be that the Odyssey is just a made-up excuse by a husband as to why he’s ten years late?

As inflation rages through the system, every minute that we have an interest rate well below the rate of inflation, inflation is being fed. To quote Joe Biden from January 24, 2022, “It’s a great asset – more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.” You can tell he’s excited to Build Back Better!

Oddly, it’s not inflation in everything. Some items are starting to deflate now. Houses, for instance. The price of a house is tied to the interest rate – the more interest wrapped into a monthly payment, the fewer the number of buyers that can afford or qualify for a loan. And in Biden’s America® people have to qualify for more important things, like a Quarter Pounder™ or a tank of gas.

But back to home loans: fewer people qualify? Less demand. Less demand? Lower home prices.

When we moved to Modern Mayberry in the middle of the Great Recession, some houses had been on the market for longer than 350 days. These were decent houses, but there just wasn’t any demand. Recently, as people began to take my advice and flee the cities, houses disappeared off the market in days here in Modern Mayberry. With all the city folk moving in, at least I know what a hipster weighs: an Instagram®.

One hipster I knew poured water from an ice tray into his beverage. He liked ice before it was cool.

Now? Interest rates for mortgages are going up, so demand for houses will be going down. Eventually, the market for houses will go back to where it was when I got here. That’s okay, I never expected to walk away from Stately Wilder Mansion with a single dime of profit. For me, a house is where I live, not an investment.

So, interest rates up, housing prices down. Simple.

Also, interest rates up, stock prices down. For the last decade, stocks have been just about the only game for people who were trying to keep up with inflation. This was a continual pressure upwards on stocks. Now as interest rates go up, there are other options.

Traditionally, there was (this was something I read in an article a long time ago) a formula showing the value of a stock in relation to the interest rate: Maximum P/E=20-Prime Rate. That meant, with an interest rate of 0%, a stock was at fair value with a Price to Earnings ratio of 20. Likewise, if the interest rate was 10%, the fair market P/E would be about 10.

Obviously, it’s such a one-dimensional analysis that it was made back when “digital computing” meant counting on your fingers. There’s no way I’d suggest anyone use it to pick stocks (nor would I suggest taking the advice of an Internet humorist on any investment advice no matter how witty, charming, and handsome he might be), but it does show how the relationship between interest rates and stock prices and earnings was thought about once upon a time. But it summarizes the same idea – interest rates up, stocks down.

I bought some speakers. At least that was a sound investment.

Heck, it even led me to a never-fail way to manipulate individual stocks: if I buy a stock, it goes down.

There are other impacts, too. For instance, it makes debt harder to pay back for people around the planet. If Egypt owes money to ChaseAmericanFargo™ Bank and the interest rate is variable, that means that Egypt will have to start selling items to pay back New York, or London, or Beijing. Heck, the British would already have the Pyramids, but they wouldn’t fit in the British Museum

More money to the banking centers? Less money for chow for the Egyptians. We saw this exact scenario play out in the Arab Spring in 2012. Expensive stuff caused people to go hungry and then hungry people with no hope do what they always do when they can’t watch Netflix™ and buy Twinkies©.

They swap out the government. The new boss looks a lot like the old boss in Egypt, and it’s exactly the same boss as it was in Syria. Some things don’t change. If it’s bad enough, it also craters the economies in South America and, even Canada might have its assets frozen. Or, more frozen.

How did Kamala get her cold sores? She dated Herpules.

But when the interest rates go up, it’s not just the government in Egypt that gets squeezed. The current debt in the United States is $30.5 trillion. The total US debt, including personal debt, student loans, credit cards, and I.O.U.s to me from that one guy that owes me $20 is about $91 trillion. (All numbers from usdebtclock.org)

When the interest rates go up, the payments on interest go up. That means less money available for everything else. When last I looked, the mandatory payments the Federal government were as much as or more than the amount of money that they took in. That means that printing more money is now the only way the system can work. It’s like having a tobacco cessation class with a two-cigar minimum.

That leads to the difficult bit – the hall of mirrors. If we don’t raise interest rates, and raise them quickly and raise them high enough, inflation will devastate the economy. If we do raise them, interest payments will freeze the economy and dry up all the PEZ®, pantyhose, and elephant rides the government buys daily. We are in a classic trap, but it is a trap entirely devised by the Fed® and the politicians working long-term problems on short-term incentives.

By attempting to push back the moment of financial reckoning by any means possible, we’ve created a failure that is much, much larger. If we would have let financial companies fail in 2000 and 2008, and fixed the structural problems with Medicare, perhaps, just perhaps we wouldn’t be here today.

But we are.

How bad are things?

Again, people have been trying to gauge when things in the stock market are out of whack – Gregory Mannarino came up with a market risk index that he called the Mannarino Market Risk Index, which was modified by Nobody Special Finance into the Modified Mannarino Market Risk Index. You can watch the video on what makes it up here (LINK). It’s only twelve minutes, and it’s pretty simple. The MMMRI is simple, but it’s still quite a bit more sophisticated than the 20=P/E-Interest rate formula from back in the Stone Age. The summary is of selected past MMMRIs is:

Black Monday (1987), MMMRI 234
Dotcom Bubble Pop (2000), MMMRI 208
Great Recession (2008), MMMRI 169

Right now?

You can find tracking information on MMMRI here (LINK) on Mannarino’s website.

Yup. MMMRI is screaming loudly that the stock market is really, really messed up. But you knew that. Things are broken, and they’re breaking faster as things go downhill. So, whatever you do, don’t buy canned goods and storage food and precious metals and PEZ® and ammo. Nope.

I’m sure that the team of Biden and Harris along with Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, (who had no idea that inflation was even a problem) or Jennifer Granholm, Energy Secretary, (who said that high gas prices are “a very compelling case” to buy an electric car) will be here to help us charter a safe course between Scylla and Charybdis.

Oh, wait, Biden and Harris are Scylla and Charybdis.