Bad Smells – Page 3 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: The Death Pact

“What in the hell is diversity?” – Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Yes, this is a real headline. No, that is not the Bee®. Yes, we are in Clown World, where having insane flight controllers is more important than, oh, your life.

All memes as found.

I still recall hearing the phrase “diversity is our strength”. Google’s® Trends™ only goes back to 2004, but it absolutely peaks in May of 2004. I think it must have been the Friends series finale, where Rachel is killed by a multicultural gang while Ross declares he is in love with Chandler.

(If any of that is wrong, I’m just making it up because I never saw an episode of Friends.)

Diversity is our strength is true when you’re talking about reinforced concrete, the steel protects it against tension, and the rock, sand, and cement keep it great for compression, which is why my car is made from reinforced concrete.

But “diversity is our strength” is just a mindless platitude. (Platitude comes from the Latin word “Plat” meaning “I can’t spell flat” and Greek word “itude” meaning, “I can’t spell iTunes®”.) Diversity is our strength could just as well be replaced with Pfizer saying, “People are our biggest asset” when, in fact, their biggest actual asset is the dozens of Congressmen they own.

Hey, it’s all the same, Jefferson, Washington, and Adams could all have been replaced with people for whom “seven” is a color.

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) is the new Affirmative Action (AA) – it’s simply a set of buzzwords that mean, “too many straight white men have jobs that we deserve.”

That’s it. Period.

Which jobs? Sanitation workers? No. No one is saying that there aren’t enough black sanitation workers, or that women are discriminated against in a 99.99% male-dominated field.

No. That’s not a job they want.

I think we need more cats writing about chess, since roughly the same number of cats play chess as women play NFL™ or college football.

What about the NFL® or the NBA©?

No. There is no one saying that the NFL™ has a discrimination problem because it doesn’t feature enough elderly disabled Asian women, even if they identify as trans. Why? Because people take the NFL™ seriously. And the NBA©? Doesn’t hit have a white person inclusion problem, as in they are underrepresented? And what about the “differently tall” population, or the Irish representation in the NBA?

No one is saying that, because white men are already minorities in those jobs. But in the NFL™ if there aren’t enough black coaches, that’s a problem. If there aren’t enough black quarterbacks, that’s a problem. Why? Because blacks want those jobs.

Silly. But mentally unstable air traffic controllers? Those are totally fine.

Thankfully, the Catholic Church is getting with the program. Next: Luigeusus.

Just like there is (maybe) one white cornerback in the entire NFL™, what about a position where . . . now stick with me on this, straight white males are the most qualified?

Not in the NFL©, but in the world?

That’s the problem. I mean, that’s the problem if the job is one that a Hispanic person wants. Or one that someone who has a bizarre sexual fetish wants. A big problem.

How big a problem is it?

Engineering is just filled with systemic and systematic and diastolic racism. That’s why so few minorities people of color (POC) are in STEM. What, Asians do fine and are overrepresented? Crap. I meant BIPOC – black and indigenous people of color. Damn Asians are always screwing up the con game, er, I mean, “push for equality”.

In the rush to get more BIPOC involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), I’ve heard that several larger universities that should know better have decided that they’d start recruiting STEM students from BIPOC candidates that don’t understand math. The odd thing is, if it’s a real science (biology, you’re looking pretty dodgy) it involves math where an understanding of calculus is the minimum standard.

And when it comes to diversity, why not diversity in safety? I mean, it’s been so boring for so long here in Modern Mayberry, wouldn’t the diversity added by atrocity make it all better?

Minimum. Mathematics are the tool, at every level, of people in STEM, unless you want bridges to fall down or airplanes to fall from the sky, or your Internet search history to be transmitted to your boss by “accident”.

Ahhh, yeah, that bridge in Miami that collapsed a few years ago? It was a triumph of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion since the women who designed it were of all colors of the rainbow. And Boeing’s problem with its software that crashed several of their planes?

Last I heard it was the result of offshoring the programming to inexpensive Indian programmers, which is cool, because it’s diverse, right? Good job Boeing®! I’m sure that you’re finding when one door closes, another opens. Often, in flight. But to have a plane that arrives at the destinations with all the doors closed wouldn’t be diverse, would it?

Thankfully, we now know that avoiding diversity is fascism.

And thankfully the FAA changed the Air Traffic Controller Test so that it was nearly impossible to pass as a white dude. Why? Because diversity. And now even mental stability is out the window. Guess I picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue if I wanted to work as an air traffic controller.

In one sense, the real problem is that the straight white men built and invented most of the technology that created this world that feeds billions of people and keeps several billion living in luxury beyond the dreams of any Caesar. It’s just so darn complex! I mean, it requires people to understand math and stuff to keep it going! It’s another problem that straight white men created.

But I’m sure that having people who don’t have the capability to do math becoming engineers and pilots won’t cause any problems, especially if that means that straight white men don’t get the job.

What a great goal. I mean, what could go wrong?

I mean, diversity is our strength, right?

At this rate, only the Democrats will be eligible to be air traffic controllers.

Purpose, Calculus, and the “Why” of Life

“As you will find in multivariable calculus, there are often a number of solutions for any given problem.” – A Beautiful Mind

When you take a calculus test, make sure you don’t sit between identical twins – you’ll never be able to differentiate between them.

Often as I go through my daily life, I have to step back and ask the question, “Why?”

“Why” is a really important question, but Sir Isaac Newton was focused in his science on “What”.

Newton figured out (to the best of available information and measurements possible at the time) a very large amount of the “What”. His equations of motion and gravity are really, really accurate, right up until the point where very large speeds (think how quickly illegals pass over our “border”) or very large masses (think your mother) change the game. Newton’s rules allow us to predict the orbits of most of the planets with precision.

This is all based on based on 1690’s tech, which your mother would have been familiar with.

He also designed a second Pink Floyd album cover that day, after he set his roommate on fire.

Gottfried Leibniz, though, was really focused on the “Why” question even though he and Newton discovered calculus about the same time.

For Newton, the “Why” was a given. Newton spent more time in study of the Bible than he did in study of nature or of economics (Newton was the Grand Baron of the Mint, or some such, and was really in favor of executing counterfeiters and people who clipped coins.

Like I always say, for every problem there is a very simple solution.

Leibniz wanted to go further and understand why gravity existed. Ultimately, that was a question that he couldn’t solve with the measurements available at that time, and we still really don’t have a good idea for the “why” of many basic features of the reality that allows us to make and enjoy PEZ™, watch movies, or sit in a hot tub.

Yeah, things like “time”, “inertia”, “why everyone likes Italian food”, and “why we are even here in the first place”. Those are things that are, so far, beyond the ability of physics and science in general to explain.

And that’s okay.

What kind of chicken did Leibniz order? He always Gottfried.

When I look at my own life, I often wonder “why” about a ton of different issues. I really believe that I’m fortunate in many ways that I really can’t understand the “why” of. I remember when teachers would tell me that my kids were smart, well, I’d feel proud.

Now? I realize that I had (almost) no impact on that, at all. They were born with it – as Rush Limbaugh (PBUH) used to note that he had “talent on loan from God.” When I first heard that, I thought it was braggadocio, but then realized that Rush was acknowledging that his way with words and skill at communicating, even his sense of humor were nothing for him to be personally proud of – they were on loan from God.

I get it now.

The events of our lives are like that, too. Some are random, and some have a deeper meaning that either is immediately apparent or is apparent at some future point in time. The random ones are just that, random. It doesn’t generally matter (much) if a leaf falls on the east side or the west side of my house – I can ignore them perfectly well on either side. It’s meaningless.

When a BMW® owner learns to drive, what car do they generally switch to?

But I’ve observed that little delays in my life, the “where did I put my keys” moments that slow me up getting out the door have several times saved me from getting into accidents. A small thing?

Certainly. But there are bigger ones that happen, too, things that are so unlikely to happen that they are effectively miracles – those have occurred far too frequently in my life for me to ignore. Yes, once you’ve lived through 10,000 or more days, 5,000 or more commutes, some unlikely stuff is going to happen.

But we all know the bigger coincidences when we see them – the events that occurred in our lives that, looking backward, were either omens or led to situations we never expected.

This leads, ultimately, to a contradiction in my life there is John Wilder who:

Tries to prepare all of the important things so that everything is covered, and tries to live a virtuous and Godly life,

And,

Sees the outcome of the planning slowing turning into a colossal mess and the attempts at being virtuous leading to negative personal outcomes and says, “Meh, whatever.”

It’s true – virtue and grace don’t guarantee economic success – soulless creatures like George Soros prowl the world like a Lovecraftian Monster, using their money to spread chaos and disrupt cultural traditions dating back thousands of years. And he’s rich. If Soros has even a single positive virtue, I have yet to hear of it.

Kamala got chosen as VEEP for her race and gender instead of for providing sexual favors – which might make it the proudest moment of her life.

There is a scene from that great classic of cinema, BASEketball, where the main character (Joe Cooper) has reached rock bottom, he’s been abandoned by his childhood friend, his girlfriend is filled with contempt for him and he’s being publicly vilified.

His boyhood friend, however, has gotten everything: public acclaim, money, and gets into a hot tub with a Playboy® playmate (they used to be girls).

Spoiler: Joe Cooper sticks to the path of virtue, and in the end, everything is returned to him.

That’s the way that, as humans, we want to see life work out, so the good guys win.

What happened to the Russian who told a joke about Stalin? I don’t know, either.

But it doesn’t always do that, and that’s okay – Soros will be rich until he leaves that money (along with control of dozens of Evil Foundations) to his son. I can’t change that, and I won’t be upset about it. It just is.

In the end, I’ll try to be like both Leibniz and Newton. Like Leibniz, I’ll work as hard as I can to try to understand the “why”, but like Newton, if I don’t get there, I’m good with that.

I mean, they were okay with your mom, so you should cut them some slack.

The Wilder Cure For Illegal Aliens

“Prime Minister Tojo, Senator Edwards, my fellow Americans and our millions of illegal aliens. It seems like only yesterday l was strafing your homes. Here l am today, begging you not to make such good cars.” – Hot Shots! Part Deux

What’s the difference between an illegal alien and E.T.? E.T. learned English and went home.

I remember in high school thinking about the Roman Empire. I chuckled to myself that the United States (clearly an empire even then) might fail but wouldn’t face the same challenges as the Roman Empire. Where, I wondered, would the barbarians even come from?

James O’Keefe is a national treasure. He’s amazing at pushing buttons on the Left to get them to react. His latest piece of journalism is below. WTWT. In this, Mr. O’Keefe begins to pull the curtain back on a huge infection and begins to make public things that were thought to be “fringe” conspiracies. Again.

In this particular case, Mr. O’Keefe went down to Arizona and followed illegal aliens (they’re not immigrants, they’re invaders) as they are housed at a shut-down school. The school, Ann Ott Elementary School, 1211 E. Apache St, Phoenix, is surrounded by chain link. From the looks of Mr. O’Keefe’s video, hundreds of illegal invaders are bussed every hour.

Where?

To the airport, so that the illegals can be forcibly injected into our society.

From the Google® Streetview™ capture in December, 2020, you can see the secrecy is already in place. Fabric covers the gates so passersby (you and I!) can’t see in to see what’s going on.

2020. This facility was in place during Trump’s administration.

If I leased a building to help people do illegal things, how long before I was in jail?

The rot is very, very deep.

Who is a part of this corruption and ongoing subversion of our country and its laws?

The International Rescue Committee©. Yeah, a shadowy NGO formerly linked with the CIA and headed by a member of England’s elite, and, oddly, has mostly been headed second generation immigrants throughout its existence in the United States. For many decades, the IRC™ was mostly fixated on people of Eastern European extraction. And that’s from their Wikipedia™ entry and their own page.

Why I don’t trust the second generation.

The IRC® gets (according to O’Keefe’s latest numbers) over $1.4 billion a year. That’s enough to provide $600 to every illegal caught and released in the United States in the last year. O’Keefe even found the receipts:

Wow, sooner or later that will start to add up! (from O’Keefe’s video)

This money, mainly, came from you. Places like the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services pour hundreds of millions of freshly printed dollars into IRC© so they can do exactly what they’re doing. None of this is a mistake.

The IRC™ is just one group. There are others.

Follow the money.

But the funding isn’t just a secretive organization being run in the background by foreigners – nope. The American Red Cross™ had a project manager there, too, and the place was filthy with Red Cross™ blankets. The American Red Cross® normally does a lot of stuff with blood, which is the main income. Over the years, it has also trotted to Congress to request funds to pay for disaster aid after events like Katrina.

Fair enough.

Silly to put your name on something proving you’re involved in human trafficking.

Want to bet that every bit of their aid in helping illegals break the law and transporting them across the country to transform us into a country that doesn’t resemble in the slightest the country we were born into? I’ve not done the research, but I’m betting the Red Cross© is neck deep in this, too.

Both of these organizations are working as fast as they can to inject as many illegal invaders into the United States as quickly as possible to the tune of tens of millions. AOC even said in her “big brain way” that the problem with undocumented illegal aliens is that they’re undocumented. It’s the same sort of 12 year old girl logic that led her to previously respond to a question on how the United States could pay for a neverending stream of socialist benefits: “You just pay for it.”

Real genius.

What AOC imagines when she things about illegal aliens. How did Elvis® get in there?

Why are there housing shortages? Illegals. Why are we printing billions and billions of dollars so that these people can live free while you and I work and scrimp to get along? And while we’re peppered first with advice to not have children, and then propaganda that we need hordes of illiterate people who don’t speak our language so that we can survive economically.

Because people like AOC and Black Rock® (Larry Fink is on the IRC© advisor list) like uneducated, often illiterate and criminal illegal aliens better than they like you and me. They like them better than they like homegrown Leftists, too, since the illegals are a group of compliant second-tier serfs that feed their businesses with cheap labor and, soon enough, will vote reliably for the Democratic Leftist Global Elite candidates. To top it off, these invaders are a net economic negative, costing far more than they produce in revenue.

Trying to import low-skilled, low-education labor to improve the economy is like trying to lose weight on an ice cream and beer diet. But, hey, it helps people like Larry Fink buy your house and make you homeless, plus they get the fun of watching you get evicted.

Okay, this isn’t what Larry looks like, but I think they caught his smile watching you suffer.

From today on, I will do the best in my power to boycott every company and charity that I can that supports this invasion. The Red Cross®? I’m done bleeding for them, even though I’ve given plenty of gallons of red stuff over time. As we find more of the groups that are doing that, well, I’m done with them, too. And if there’s a business that employs illegal aliens? Nope. Not doing business with them.

Oh, Red Cross®, you don’t deserve to be immortalized in a PEZ® dispenser.

I’ve written before that the solutions to nearly every problem are simple, we just have to get to the point that we are prepared to do them. They have to go home to their countries. Again, self-deportation is preferable, and can be accomplished with sensible regulations in about a month. Under the Wilder Plan© the main limitation on getting them out will be transport capacity, because, I assure you, they’ll want to leave, having no jobs, no benefits, no housing, the inability to buy at any store, and the threat of losing their children to orphanages if they don’t leave will provide quite a bit of incentive.

We’ll even offer free Pfizer™ vaxx on the way out, if they want it.

Hey, at least at that point they’ll really be refugees, rather than refugees that GO HOME FOR CHRISTMAS AND THEN FLY BACK HERE.

The result of the “everyone is an American” policy is a wrecked economy, political instability, and destruction of a country that formerly was one of the greatest the world had ever seen. Even people in Leftist strongholds are now aware of this problem, so I expect they’ll start to try to stash them in places like Modern Mayberry.

The barbarians are now here.

The solution is simple. While we’re at it? Arrest and jail every single person involved in this pipeline of misery for treason. After a fair trial. Then deport them to the country of their choice with the illegal aliens they so love.

We do this, or we Balkanize.

And I’ve heard the advice, “Never go full Balkans.”

Ye Olde Wilder’s Almanack of Things That Won’t In Thine Yeare of Our Lord 2024 Happen

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

I think Lady Macbeth wanted to walk her dog the other night. She kept yelling, “Out, damned Spot!”

Notes: No podcast tomorrow. Or the next week. I’m not going to push The Mrs. this week, and next week she has to go get measured for one of those plastic bubbles so she can live in one (just kidding, follow up visit and we probably won’t be home from Modern Mount Pilot by then, she’s getting better every day).

Second: if you’ve emailed me and I didn’t respond, please email me again. I enjoy and respond to every email sent to me (if I’m cc’d or bcc’d, no, but I read most of those). I found several in a spam filter today, and I apologize for not checking that since roughly 2007. I’ll check every week now.

Now, on to the show!

Last year I swapped out my idea of predicting the future. It appears to be harder. Now, I predict what won’t happen. It’s more fun, and I can pretty much bat 1.000 by doing that while making a few humorous points along the way. So, with that, here are my Wilder Predictions for What Won’t Happen in 2024™.

First: Ukraine won’t “win”. So far, the war in the Ukraine has been a disaster for everyone involved. Had Donald Trump been in office, this never would have happened. Donald is all about the deal, and had he been president at the time, Putin and Zelensky would probably have come together over a deal that would have been mutually beneficial, and trade would have probably been increased between the two, and there would have been hugs all around.

Really. That’s what would have happened. Biden could have shut this down with one phone call. Of course, the Left would have gone nuts, since a large part of their strategy is to pump the wealth out of the Ukraine directly into either their pockets or their campaigns. Ukraine is a country that makes the money laundering on Better Call Saul look like amateur hour, so I guess peace was never an option.

Still more credible than the official story.

Second, Israel and Palestine won’t be joining each other for dinner. Ever. Note: I don’t have a dog in this hunt. The following is an analysis, not a wish list. No matter what I feel, the writing is on the wall.

This is an existential crisis for both sides, and both are already in a diaspora so they can continue this fight wherever Jews and Palestinians (or Leftists) are in the same city. In the long term, nobody wants the Palestinians, even (and especially) the neighboring Arab states, so Israel wants to export them to Europe and the United States. I’m betting they all end up in Canada, or what future historians will call, “Gaza with Grizzlies.”

The Romans couldn’t invent algebra because X was always 10.

Long term for Israel, well, Israel is doomed, too. They’re surrounded by Islamist populations that will soon outnumber them 50 to 1. I anticipate another diaspora there, too. Maybe to Ukraine? Not sure anyone will be living there, but there will be plenty to mine. Or de-mine.

I think eventually the merged Facebook®/Al-Jazeera© will probably end up running Jerusalem.

Third, and I’m going out on a limb with this one: The US Debt won’t come down. Even though Congress and both presidential candidates will jaw about it incessantly, they won’t do anything, and I do mean anything to even slightly slow it down. Nope. It’ll increase faster than Taylor Swift can ruin a football franchise. Side note: I took my car to the mechanic because it was making a horrible noise. Turns out it was Taylor Swift on the radio.

Fourth, the 2024 Election won’t be free and fair. I know, I know, I’m playing with fire on this one. It’s clear that the Left mobilized every single trick they read on that Buzzfeed® article, Ten Crazy Things You Can Do to Steal An Election And They Won’t Stop You (You Won’t Believe Number Seven!). They even bragged about it in a Time® magazine article about how they conspired to do everything they could possibly think of to Make America Democratic Again, since it was clear that Joe Biden created as much enthusiasm with the American people as passing a kidney stone.

They stole the election.

I wish our elections were less corrupt, like China or Russia.

The biggest factor was in creating slop in the system. Early voting, that ensured that dead people would vote. Yeah, dead people. Some percentage of people who voted died after their ballots were cast, and not all of them were Friends of Hillary. So, dead people voted, and their ballots were just as good as yours.

Ballots were harvested, this is clear, we’ve seen people dropping off dozens and hundreds of ballots. Exactly as designed. Mail in voting? Why not? And early voting resulted in numerous cases (especially in Michigan) where the early vote was counted, even though the actual voter showed up at the poll and claimed they never requested an early ballot. They were given a provisional ballot. In a leaked recording of a Michigan training session, the provisional ballots were given out so people wouldn’t throw a fit. The provisional ballots of people who showed up in person whose votes were stolen were . . . discarded.

Making an election free and fair is easy:

Paper ballots only. California just outlawed paper ballots, so you know this is a good idea. The idea isn’t that we make the system so that votes are easy to count – the idea is that we make the system so only valid votes get counted. If you need more people and it’s important, hire them.
Same day voting, in person, only. Exception for the military – they vote where they are. If overseas, they vote on election day and the votes are counted right there and results transmitted to the precincts by 11:30pm precinct time. That day. All votes are counted by midnight. If not counted by midnight, they are discarded. If Detroit can’t figure out how to do that? Pound sand.
All votes, all voting boxes are counted and are on video every second and broadcast.
All vote counting takes place on video in full view.
Every voter sticks their hand in that blue stuff they cover bank robbers in. It’ll wash off. If you have a Smurf® hand? You can’t vote again. Oh, and you need I.D., even though the Left thinks that blacks aren’t smart enough to get one.

As I said, this won’t happen. Leftists want every vote counted so that they can just manufacture votes as needed. People on the Right want only valid votes counted.

Thanks to Biden, soon every American will be a billionaire! Of course, that’s what it costs for a Snickers®…

Fifth, suppression of viewpoints on the Right won’t stop. One of the key elements of control is the control of the ability to share ideas. That’s why the Left was the “Free Speech” party right until they felt they could spike the ball and start sending us to the GULAG. Blog views are down over most of the Right blogs, and that’s due in part to suppression of search engine traffic, which is a primary way that new readers find us – they stumble upon us while searching for a topic. If I were Vox Day I’d suggest we create a news and commentary search engine for the Right.

If only someone like Ricky would make one…

A bikini covers only 5 to 10 percent of a woman’s body, yet men are so polite they only look at the covered parts.

Sixth, Elon will not hit peak amusement in 2024. Good heavens, that man cracks me up. It’s really fun to watch him change positions over time, but not unusual. Why? They have to suppress our ideas because the Truth is inherently Right.

Seventh, no alien contact will happen this year, but it will be trotted out again and again – my bet is that in March and July or August or whenever Biden needs a distraction it’ll show back up in the news. It’s the ultimate shiny object to distract with. I mean, besides COVID.

Eighth: The RINO congress won’t suddenly become effective. This is a repeat for the last 27 years. Gingrich did a good job.

Ninth: Illegal immigration won’t be stopped, but may be (slightly) slowed. The Wealth Pump from the Elite demands it, and the ideology from the Left demands it.

If you filmed a superhero movie in Detroit, you’d have to use CGI to repair buildings.

Tenth: 2024 is not the year we lose. The spark that is at our core has existed since (at least, and probably before) the dawn of civilization, and started to burn brighter some 2024 years ago. That won’t change. Provided we don’t go full Revelation, we’ll exist until we go full Revelation.

This isn’t over. We’re not done. Take that to the bank.

2023: The Funniest Year-End Review You’ll Read Today, Probably

“Ten years I’ve been working in this town, that man never gave my food a good review.” – Psych

Why do skydiving companies get great reviews? Only the survivors rate it.

Every year here at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise, I like to end the year with a look back at how ludicrous and pointless that year was. 2023 is, so far, no different, but there’s still 11 days left for it to either get sillier or for them to indict Trump.

January 3

After 754 days of voting, a bloodletting, and an oath to the grim god Gorto the Nasal, Kevin McCarthy is elected Speaker of the House.

January 9

Joe Biden’s lawyer confirms that Joe had classified documents in his office, garage, closet, and several nuclear codes were stuffed in his Depends™. Biden’s lawyer contends, “It’s okay because he’s not Trump and we couldn’t read the nuclear codes because the ink was urine-soluble.”

January 24

Former VP Mike Pence notes that in a search, he found several classified documents, too, although his were wrapped around 30 pieces of silver. In related news, Pence announced the forming of his new heavy metal group, Judas Pence.

I guess Tom Brady and Robert Kraft both went to Florida for happy endings.

February 1

Tom Brady announces he will stop playing pro football and attempt to become Taylor Swift’s boyfriend or immortal, whichever is easier.

February 3

A train carrying hazardous chemicals derails in East Palestine, Ohio, causing mass evacuations and still not quantified environmental damage. As no Palestinians or Israelis were involved, it was quickly forgotten. Biden quickly uses the event to request more aid for Ukraine. BUT DON’T WORRY ABOUT OHIO – LOOK! – THERE’S A CHINESE SPY BALLOON!!!!!!

February 20

President Biden makes a surprised visit to Kiev. What makes it a surprise is that Biden thought he was just going out to get ice cream, Jack.

February 22

The “Three-Day Special Military Operation” in Ukraine enters day 730. Putin has since renamed it to “Special Military Operation Anniversary Tour.”

March 10

The FDIC announces that Silicon Valley Bank has been closed. Thousands of starlets awaiting surgery sigh in relief when they find out that Silicone Valley Bank is still open.

You didn’t think I’d pass that one up, did you?

March 10

Xi Jinping is re-elected president in China with a vote declared “fair and free” by the Democratic Party of the United States. “No evidence of anything wrong here, it looks like China has successfully defended their democracy, especially since Donald Trump wasn’t elected.”

March 15

The French raise the retirement age from 31 to 32 years of age. There are riots. The French surrender.

March 30

Trump Indicted on charges of “being Donald Trump”. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

April 4

Finland joins NATO, adding a +5 to the autism level of NATO.

April 24

Tucker Carlson is fired from Fox News™, since firing your most popular host and one of the most popular people on television for no particular reason is what networks do all the time.

Mayonnaise may be trying to kill me. At least that’s what Tucker’s sauces say.

April 25

Joe Biden formally announces he is Joe Biden, and will win the presidency in 2024 so he can “take over and build from the wreckage that the current president created, Jack.”

May 2

The Writers’ Guild of America goes on strike against Hollywood. They are nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize™ for stopping their crusade against good movies and humanity.

May 6

King Charles crowned. Meghan Markle immediately rushes the camera and notes that she’s not king because she’s black and that’s why people don’t like her.

Meghan Markle – the first woman to turn a prince into a frog.

May 9

Trump is found liable for sexually abusing a really unattractive female in the very plausible and not at all made up story about him pulling her into a dressing room in a crowded luxury department store because that’s where billionaires commit sexual assault against homely women. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

June 8

Trump again indicted on charges that he is, indeed, still Donald J. Trump despite Leftists wanting him to not be Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

June 18

The search begins for the submarine that had been taking people to go to see the wreckage of the H.M.S. Titanic in person. Critics say the submarine name, “U.S.S. Turning Millionaires Into Something With The Consistency of Library Paste” was probably not to blame.

June 23

The Wagner Group begins a march on Moscow, despite it being June and Prigozhin not having reservations. The march ends when Prigozhin is given several gift cards and a Happy Meal™ with a Transformers© toy.

June 29

The Supreme Court rules that colleges and universities can no longer discriminate against people based on their skin color. Harvard™ and Yale© announce an immediate initiative to bring in hair texture and tendency not to sunburn as a specific reason for admission.

I guess a guy in a wheelchair could be a sit-down comedian?

July 27

Hunter Biden’s plea deal sentencing the United States government to give Hunter Biden an apology and $23,000,000 for inconveniencing Hunter by stopping him from snorting coke off of hookers while taking naked pictures of himself falls through when OMIGOSH! ALIEN HEARING IN CONGRESS! IGNORE HUNTER! ALIENS! IT’S REAL I TELL YOU!

August 1

Trump again indicted on charges that, despite being warned, he is still Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

August 8

Hawaii wildfires break out, and Joe Biden immediately announces more funding for Ukraine to the tune of “a gazillion trillion”. For residents of Hawaii, Biden promises a “buy one get one free” coupon to Subway™.

August 14

Trump again indicted on charges that, he is “still breathing and stuff.” Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

August 23

Wagner Group leader Prigozhin is killed in a totally accidental and coincidental plane crash. Shards of shrapnel from a Transformers™ Happy Meals© toy are suspected to have caused the malfunction.

Is Prigozhin really the only one who didn’t see this coming?

September 14

Queen Elizabeth II is still dead. Meghan Markle announces that she has assumed a new form, Mega Markle, and will eventually usurp the throne after her dragons are full grown and that, “Those meanies are gonna be sorry!”

September 28

Dianne Feinstein passes away at the age of 1371 years old. She is survived by her great grandson, Count Chocula®.

October 3

Kevin McCarthy sacrificed to Gorto and removed as Speaker of the House in a mostly peaceful ceremony. Three weeks later, Mike Johnson of Louisiana is elected Speaker, after promising “gumbo, elephant rides, pantyhose, and hot sauce” for everyone.

November 8

The Vatican decides that the new basis of Canon Law is that “anything goes, and if it feels good, do it.” It is also announced that Holy Water is a dated concept, and will be replaced by “Holy Lube”.

I used to take dead raccoons with me when I traveled by air. It was my carrion luggage.

November 14

Xi Jinping visits the United States and San Francisco shows they can clean up crime and the streets, but only for a foreign communist ruler. I mean, you have to look good for him, right?

December 3

Venezuela decides, “What the heck, let’s go get some oil” and decides to invade Guyana. Venezuela’s sixteen-man army with six working helicopters quickly crashed after not being able to find Guyana, which was unaware that they had neighbors, since the Internet has yet to reach there and their number one television show is Seinfeld.

December 16

Senate aide allegedly has sex in the Senate. Senate Democrats say it’s okay and perfectly legal, since at least one participant is an illegal alien, and, besides, Democrats are used to screwing everyone.

Most years, I have to make up some silly stories. 2023? Every time I’m showing Donald Trump being indicted in the above list? He was indicted. Can you imagine the excited Lefty flop-sweat each morning at Stephen King’s and Rob Reiner’s house when they hear that Trump was indicted, again?

Here’s to the world being absurd – it makes The World’s Foremost Hugo™-Nominated Humorist writer’s job easier.

NOTE: If you sell something or write something and are a regular commentor, please feel free to link your stuff or site as long as it’s legal and tasteful – my choice there on the tasteful part. If we’re going to build our own future, we should buy stuff from each other (if we like the stuff).

The Wealth Pump In America – Two Examples

“We wounded this place, it’s our duty to close her wounds, it’s the least we can do to show our gratitude for all the wealth she’s given us.” – Treasure of the Sierra Madres

Time is wealth – I found out that a fresher kidney costs more than one that’s a week old. Also, never try to donate more than three at a time – they ask a lot of questions.

I read this week that the UN Climate summit (LINK) is offering food that included smoke wagyu burgers, Philly cheesesteaks, and BBQ at the summit. This same summit is expected to tell people that they can’t have meat anymore because, you know, climate. It’s almost like there’s a double standard . . .

The nice thing about spending the time reading books like Turchin’s End Times is that it gives a new filter to view the events that we’re seeing around us. This filter, or model, is useful because it allows the events of the world to be reviewed in relation to the model.

Peter Turchin’s End Times: There Be Dragons Here

Turchin actually presented two major models: Elite Overproduction, and The Wealth Pump. While both are important to a civilization beginning to dissolve, the one I’d like to focus on today is The Wealth Pump. Part of the wonderful part of a model, is that it can predict what’s going to happen, and explain the otherwise unexplainable.

Never get married on Mt. Everest – it’s all downhill from there.

Let’s take a look at the first strategy: feminism. This came on board starting as far back as the 1800s. Why? It was good business. More women making financial decisions meant more customers. To this day, that’s the case – women make more purchasing decisions than men.

Mission accomplished.

The next idea was to mobilize women into the workforce. It took two world wars where women went from making babies to making welds on Liberty Ships to test the theory. In the 1950s, though, those darn women went back to homes, and were making babies in the biggest baby making event the world ever saw.

That wasn’t good for business, and, thus feminism.

Chuck Norris had COVID. For breakfast.

Feminism has had a long, horrible past. In modern-ish times, the biggest example was the Spanish Civil War. The first things the commies did was make abortion legal and to abolish marriage. Oh, sure, they killed a lot of priests and nuns, but the focus was on splitting apart the family.

Why?

So women could be more productive in the economy. This is the weird place where The Wealth Pump and commies are in complete agreement: women shouldn’t be at home making babies, women should be at work making PowerPoints® and tractors in Glorious Tractor Collective Number 171. Women aren’t loving members of a family, who have the job of creating compassion in their families while the men instill duty and honor.

Nope. There are decades of propaganda convincing women that being a mother just wasn’t enough – it was beneath them. The latchkey generation (mine) was based on the thought that Moms should do whatever and find themselves because . . . reasons. Although my parents didn’t divorce, millions of other families were ripped apart by that abomination.

When stoners divorce, do they get joint custody?

Yes. Divorce is bad. Sometimes it is justified, and that requires fault. But no-fault divorce made it a game show based around fun and prizes for women – they still initiate 80-90% of divorces. Combined with the government welfare for women using a uterus as a clown car, this creates a society of children who have no real family. Also? They have no real sense of duty or honor.

But, hey, we have tons of women who are making wonderful PowerPoints® on how to exclude white guys from jobs without looking like they’re excluding white guys from jobs. And those women weren’t making babies. Certainly, The Wealth Pump requires cheap labor, so that brings us to:

Immigration.

The hordes of immigrants that have been coming to this country, both legal and illegal have been in unprecedented numbers. The American public overwhelmingly is done with this level of immigration – they don’t want it. Why was Trump’s three-word slogan – “Build the wall” so effective?

Because people want a damn wall. In many places, they look around at their country and see it doesn’t resemble at all the country they were born in, and they’re tired of it.

The wall might work. China built one, and they have nearly zero illegal immigrants.

Yet, it continues. The Democrats crave it like a junkie craves whatever junkies crave after heroin. I think they crave drooling, which would explain why they like Joe Biden.

The Republicans have and continue to be the “sure, but not so much” party since, well, forever. Reagan signed in the first big amnesty in the 1980s. Why? Because the wealthy folks demanded it.

Why?

Because all the women were making PowerPoints® doing whatever it was that women did in business in the 1980s, The Wealth Pump demanded this: cheap labor. Women had been cheap labor, since they could run typewriters while the men did the real stuff. But when women wanted to move up the corporate ladder and computers allowed people other than women born with the typing-gene to type, The Wealth Pump demanded that we have cheaper labor.

Thus?

Rather than pay a slightly higher wage to people picking strawberries, it was way easier to have illegal people pick lettuce and tomatoes and strawberries. They couldn’t complain, or they’d get booted out of the country. Rather than pay actual Americans to pick (or invent picking machines) it’s much easier to have a labor class in this country with no ties to this country and work for less.

Gardening is complicated – someone suggested I try manure on my strawberries, but, ugh, I’m sticking with whipped cream.

Except these Wealth Pump-encouraged people also get free health care for their children, free schooling for their children, and career paths that receive priority over the people born here. When you add it all up, these actually end up sucking much more money out of the system than they provide in economic benefits to the country. This analysis doesn’t even come close to adding in the societal costs in lower trust and increased crime.

Here we have the ultimate irony of The Wealth Pump – it creates more wealth for the operators, while it sucks the money out of the entire country.

But, hey, Bezos has a new tramp with lips so inflated that he could use her to transport Amazon™ packages if he inflated them with helium and a yacht that can land his helicopter. And eat all the beef he wants, even though it’s time for you to get in the pod and eat the bugs.

I mean, it’s your duty to those that benefit from The Wealth Pump.

The Only Thing You Need To Read Today: Wilder’s End Times Book Review: The Face Of The Crisis And The Aftermath

“If that’s the end of time, I got a front row seat with a big tub of buttered popcorn and a greasy half-live chicken leg.” – Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

A guy on a tractor just drove by yelling about the end of everything. I think it was Farmer Geddon.

I think that Turchin has proven that, at least in some circumstances, he can show when trouble is coming. Again, I’d like to see his database and understand in greater detail how it works, but if you look at

Every elite scrambling for position,
Every mechanism possible being found to extract another dollar from a consooooomer so that the Wealth Pump can be fed, and
the current graph of the interest payments that the United States will have to pay sooner rather than later, it’s clear:

There Be Dragons Here.

How the crisis unfolds, however, is dependent upon the structure of society itself, according to Turchin. “ . . . we cannot understand social breakdown without a deep analysis of the power structures within societies.” Turchin even notes this about Barbara Walter: “This is where the analysis by Barbara Walter in How Civil Wars Start often becomes woefully inadequate, and sometimes outright naïve.” He skipped the part where she eats lead paint chips with her avocado toast, but, hey.

Give Turchin his props: he’s calling out mass immigration and stupid academics. I think he might be especially fun to hang with after a few beers.

This is what A.I. thinks Turchin and I having a beer would look like. Guess I’ll have to dig my mortarboard out.

But back to power structures. Big Government is scary enough, but when Apple® or Google™ is holding the leash, it becomes even scarier. I like capitalism, but what we have here is called by Turchin “Plutocracy” but I like the more common (in our circles) name of Kleptocracy. That’s what it is, really.

Societal power is now, really, in lockstep with the Kleptocracy. It has created this weird amalgamation of Leftist/Communist/Corporatist power. At this point, Turchin attempts to analyze the power structures of the United States to guess at what the future might bring, noting that his work is, “nowhere near advanced enough to achieve such a feat of modeling.”

Honesty.

I love it.

I’m going to take an aside here based on comments I’ve had so far in this series of posts. It isn’t communist or socialist to question the rules put in place by the Kleptocrats to pump more money to them. We haven’t had true laissez-faire capitalist system in this country since the 1880s, at least. Huge corporations are not laissez-faire – they’re government creations, and to be against them isn’t to be against capitalism.

I do think that we have the idea because a system has worked in the past that it just needs tweaks. That is simply not the case – our system has brought us to where we are today. Simple actions like having end-by dates on corporations, turning senators back to state-appointed positions, abolishing all Federal income tax and getting the primary funds for the central government from tariffs . . . radical ideas. But we have to stop the wealth pump, and true libertarians should be all over this because domination over liberty from a corporation is no different than domination over liberty by a government.

End of digression. Back to the book.

Why did the libertarian cross the road? “Am I being detained?”

The most common outcome, Turchin notes, is that lots of elites (and wannabes) simply realize they can’t be elite anymore. Obviously, this will be uncomfortable for many, many professors who now have to work 40 hours at Starbucks™ instead of handing out worthless anthropology and ancient Japanese literature degrees.

This doesn’t happen gradually. It happens when the University closes. As we’ve discussed before (link below on Seneca’s Cliff), things are built only slowly, but collapse in an instant. The extreme case, which is now very, very much on the table is that the elite positions (and some of the wannabes) are eliminated as a result of Civil War 2.0.

The Economy – At Seneca’s Cliff?

Who will lead that war? Probably someone on the fringe of the current Elite who is angry. Why from the Elite? They have connections and power that allow them to put together a credible alternative power structure fairly quickly. Examples from our history?

George Washington was as rich and famous as Elon back in the day, and it wasn’t a bunch of poor dudes that ran either the Union or the Confederacy.

Of course, an alternative is to shut down the Wealth Pump. I mean, it will be shut down one way or another, but if it’s done before things are in a ditch, it might be better, though I’m fairly certain the first wheel went into that ditch back before 1990. Turchin notes that he thinks if we shut the Wealth Pump down now, well, that turns Elites into radicals in big numbers and will result in an even bloodier war.

Astrophysicists started a radical protest group: Black Matter Lives.

From his study, the growth of violence and instability isn’t linear – it builds on itself like an epidemic – Turchin calls this the “virus of radicalism”. Turchin notes that: “As long as the power of revolutionary groups is less than the power of the state’s coercive apparatus, the overall level of violence can be suppressed to a low level.”

They want to stop the signal. But there’s one lesson that even the Soviets learned: you can’t stop the signal.

Why do the Elite so desperately want your guns? It gives the average American citizen a real veto over intolerable actions by the government. This is why the Left and Levis™ jeans want to take your modern sporting rifle: it makes you a more compliant consoooomer. And if they get the 2^nd Amendment, the 1^st won’t be far behind, because ideas like these are dangerous.

This explains all the effort in censoring places like this one. The ideas here are dangerous, and oh, so sexy.

Turchin’s “everything as-is” scenario shows “an outbreak of serious violence during the 2020s and, if nothing is done to shut down the (Wealth P)ump, a repeat every fifty to sixty years.” Civil wars are what turn radicals into moderates – von Clausewitz wrote about this centuries ago. Wars are won when the will of the people to fight is erased. Places like this one keep spirits high, and attack those whose goal is the destruction of our freedom and way of life.

I honestly hope Joe Biden gets better. And recovers from his dementia, too.

Who else have they attacked?

Turchin, writing before Tucker Carlson was fired, said, “Carlson is interesting because he is the most outspoken antiestablishment critic operating within the corporate media. Whereas media such as CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post are losing credibility, among the general population . . . Carlson is growing ever more popular.”

Now that, my friends, explains it all, and Turchin’s comments show the real reason Carlson was silenced, and Turchin notes (as I have opined in some places) that Tucker is the real nucleus of the Right.

Trump’s real sins had nothing to do with January 6, it had to do with him not starting wars and actually trying to stop immigration, which the Wealth Pump requires.

What does Turchin say that history tells us (p. 223-4)?

In 2/3 of cases, most of the Elite stopped being elite.
In 1/6 of cases, the Elite was “targeted for extermination.”
“The probability of ruler assassination was 40%.”
75% of cases “ended in revolutions or civil wars or both.”
In 1/5 of cases, “the civil war dragged on for a century or longer.”
60% of cases led to “the death of the state.”

Grim. Really, really grim.

We are at the brink of a civil war. I’ve been saying that for years now. One branch of my family moved to the United States from Germany in 1890 because they saw a massive European war coming. They left 25 years too soon.

Seeing what’s coming isn’t hard. I can tell you the future in some instances. If I walk out in front of a speeding bus, I’m going to die. It’s not clairvoyance, it’s happening to us, right here and now. Just as my family saw the European war that would known as World War I coming, I am certain that we are on the steps to Civil War 2.0.

It took a lot to get this picture out of the A.I. – I can get the A.I. to draw everyone from Seinfeld, but it draws the line at Morgan Freeman.

I also cannot stress enough that Civil War 2.0 isn’t my wish, this is the data and there is, at this point, nothing anyone can do to stop it. I believe the road ahead will be more terrible in some locations than many can even imagine. I do still believe that on the other side, the torch of Liberty will still be burning brightly in a new world where what is True, Beautiful, and Good will be recognized as such. Why? Because in the end, Liberty wins, despite all of those who would try to steal it away – it burns in the hearts of all who I would call men, and is loved deeply by all of those who I would call women.

Which does not include Barbara F. Walter and her fat, lead paint chip eating face.

It’s a rare book where I put it down, look at the conclusions, and say, “Damn, I wish I had written that book.” Turchin brings it home. If you like reading non-fiction and are a regular at Wilder Wealthy and Wise, I recommend you read this one, though Turchin sucks at adding memes to his work.

The Funniest (And Most Enlightening Book Review You’ll Read This Year) End Times by Peter Turchin, Part 1

“The end time has come, not in flame, but in mist!” – The Mist

I once had shoes that had Velcro® closures. I mean, why knot?

I recently completed the book End Times by Peter Turchin. I have recently done a review of How Civil Wars Start by Barbara F. Walter (not that Barbara Walter, some other commie bimbo), and by comparison Ms. Walter’s book is a badly drawn crayon sketch of Donald Trump by a mildly developmentally disabled child who was born of the copulation of two stoned Leftists and raised on a diet of Trotsky and lead paint chips.

Her book was bad. Turchin, who I imagine is also Left-leaning, was (mainly) able to keep his political opinions out of the book, and produce something useful and as even-handed as he could make it, what with having to go to fancy university parties with the Leftist intelligentsia who are globalist and communist at the same time, because, reasons.

Going back in time, Turchin predicted in the early ‘teens (2010, I believe) that the decade beyond 2020 was going to be rough. This was based on an actual computational model, where he took various social factors, smashed them into a computer, and cranked out a slip of paper that said, “Beyond Here, There Be Dragons.” To be fair, his model seems to have some predictive capacity, though I have yet to find a place to tinker with it, but I’ll bet Ricky can track it down if anyone can. A .pdf that has a flavor of the model is here (LINK).

The XXX Files are a completely different subject.

His description of the model starts with one of the things that leads to collapse: Elite Overproduction. In this context, you pretty much know who the elite are. Donald Trump is one, and so are the Clintons, and the Obamas, and thousands of other wealthy, socially connected people who have political power. Per Turchin, only 9 presidents of the United States weren’t 1%ers, and before 1850, all of the presidents were elite and wealthy types and probably had exceptional hats, since they didn’t have other cool things to buy back then.

Turchin breaks down political power into four types:

Coercion – Do it or else. Leftists love this. Think AntiFa® or the “new” Army.
Wealth – Let’s face it, rich dudes rarely do jail time, and where exactly is Epstein’s client list and why can’t you see it?
Bureaucracy – You own the organization that provide services or do stuff – think the IRS or the DMV.
Ideology – This includes CNN® and Harvard™.

Where do psychics shop? The Seers® catalog.

In Turchin’s view, there are specialists at each level of political power. The big problem for people is when these folks are present in too large of a quantity and get bored and have to do something else. In 2016, we had a billionaire (Trump) running against someone worth in excess of $120 million (Hilldabeast). In no way was this usual, but later, billionaire Michael Bloomberg jumped into the race. Why? Bored, I guess. Most billionaires let other people do their fighting for them – like George Soros or Emperor Palpatine. But I repeat myself.

The key problem is that there are more elite people who want power than there are available chairs. That’s always the case to a certain extent, but with tens of thousands of Harvard© and Stanford™ and Dartmouth® grads fighting for elite positions in every facet of the coercion, wealth, bureaucratic, or ideological elite, well, this starts to drive instability, per Turchin. Per me, there seem to be a lot of people who have no connection whatsoever with anyone but themselves and their elite cocoon of friends with the same ideas and no-fat decaf pumpkin-spice lattes.

Turchin later goes on to talk about how the British killing off tons of French nobility during battles around 1400 to 1450 actually helped France to have a much more stable political period because there everybody had stuff to do other than try to overthrow the king or kill their brother or eat snails and smoke cigarettes while wearing berets and carrying baguettes of bread everywhere.

I once saw a baguette in a cage. I guess it was bread in captivity.

Yes, in the coming years at least half of the elite will either die or cease to be elite and have to drive Yugos® or Ford Escorts™ while working at JCPenney’s©.

There just aren’t enough chairs in the inner circle to go around.

So, we’ve got too many elites, which is one of Turchin’s factors that lead to societal breakdown. What else leads to problems? Turchin calls the next one, “Popular Immiseration” – bluntly, when life sucks for the common person. Another term for this is Bidenomics. Economic power of workers is disappearing, wages are going backwards when it comes to purchasing power, and jobs are more uncertain and awful.

To be fair to Biden, this was the trend even before he was selected, and was really the feeling that ushered in Trump. Trump was and is a reaction to the crapfest that the economy has turned into, and is more or less predictable. In 1956 Trump would have been a joke candidate, in 2000 Trump was a joke candidate, but by 2016 Trump was taken seriously because, to a large proportion of Americans, life is slowly becoming more miserable, daily. The needed someone, anyone, to listen to them and stop the nonsense that the Left (and, to be fair, the Chamber of Commerce Right) is shoving down their throats. Mittens Romney was just the same as the Left in his goals, he just used a different phrase to get there.

The last thing the American people wanted was ¡Jeb! To give an example from another period in American history that was in crisis, Abraham Lincoln was another joke candidate that fell into a period where he could be elected.

I guess Mary Todd Lincoln said to Abe that day, “Would it kill you to take me to a play once in a while?”

Turchin discusses Lincoln’s election not in terms of slavery, but in terms of economic misery combined with lots of rich dudes. Turchin adds in that the failing financial health of a country adds to this, lowering the legitimacy of the state.

These factors, Turchin notes, in every case that they’ve covered, always reach a breaking point within 200 years or so. This is in line with Strauss and Howe in The Fourth Turning and the theories of the unfortunately named Sir John Glubb:

End of Empires, PEZ, and Decadence

It’s here that the Turchin takes a bit of time to discuss the nature of the American Empire, circa 2023. American power, he notes, isn’t based on religion. It likewise isn’t based on a militaristic history – although we’ve elected generals as president, the power of the American Empire is and always has been commerce. We sent trade ships in the 1800s across the world. Genghis Khan didn’t create his empire with trade, he created it with the sword and the horse and by having sex with half of the women in Asia. While the English used liberal amounts of gunpowder creating their empire, “I say, old chap, what are those Boer people doing sitting on our gold and diamonds?”, they were a commerce-based empire as well.

Me? I was upset when I got a pack of sticky playing cards for Christmas – I found them difficult to deal with.

I’d agree with Turchin – American power has been economic and, like the British before us, created an economic empire. The wealth from that economic empire thus created the ability for us to have really cool tanks and planes and aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons. No bucks? No Buck Rodgers.

Since it has been economics that created the empire, it’s economics that fuels it today: America is built on economics, and the biggest controllers of that are . . . rich people. As much as I’m in favor of capitalism (which is a lot) I can see that a system where the rich people get to make the rules is gonna suck for everyone else.

Turchin calls this the “Wealth Pump” – it’s the idea that the rules are set up not for the common citizen, but for the really rich dudes. What are some of the components of this Wealth Pump?

Keeping a surplus of workers so that wages are lower. Unrestricted illegal (and legal) immigration? It’s perfect to keep wages down.
What happens when we are need other workers than the illegals? Let’s cut all trade barriers so that a programmer in the United States has to compete with a programmer in Bangladesh. There won’t be any consequences from that, right?
Larger companies that have greater pull – Steve Jobs said, before he died, obviously, that he couldn’t make Apple® again – there were too many barriers in place. Many don’t realize that large number of “consumer” or “environmental” regulations are actually welcomed by large businesses – they’re a barrier to entry and competition.

This is what the Wealth Pump looks like.

That the impact of the Wealth Pump is misery is a given. While (once upon a time) I was a libertarian, I’ve since moved on from that, as they’ve moved farther in support of this wealth pump. Freedom doesn’t come with mere economic freedom, and it doesn’t come from only from freedom from government coercion. Does it, in the end, matter if it is a group of elites in government or a group of elites at Google™ is the one censoring you to preserve the wealth pump?

Thus ends the first part of this review. More to come. I’m not sure if it will be one or two more posts, but we’ll get through it.

I’m a trained professional. Unlike paint-chip-eating Barbara F. Walter.

(FYI, when I get this finished I’m posting a link to it at Turchin’s blog. He’s got a better book contract, but I’ve got more readers.)

Two Types Of Society. There Is Proof We Have A Choice.

“There are two types of people in this world: people who like Neil Diamond, and people who don’t.” – What About Bob

A man threatened me with a coffee cup and stole my wallet. I guess I got mugged.

There are two types of cultures. One of them looks a bit like this:

I was walking in Silver Dollar City® more than a decade ago. It was spring, and Silver Dollar City™ was an amusement park where we could take the kids and visit attractions, and even though they weren’t even teenagers, there were plenty of rides for them.

As we were walking through the park, a young blonde man of 18 or so ran up behind me. It wasn’t a sprint, but the easy strides of a high school football player in top shape – like Michelle Obama, the kid looked like a linebacker. “Sir, sir!”

I turned around. “Yeah, how can I help you?”

“You dropped this.”

What did Mike Tyson say to Vincent van Gogh? “Are you gonna eat that?” (meme as found)

The kid handed me two $20 bills. This is unusual, since normally I have to at least pull up my shirt for anyone to give me $40 so I’ll put the shirt back down.

I stuttered, “Th-thank you!” I felt in my pocket, and, sure enough there were two twenties that must have followed my hand out of the pocket like a structured thought sneaking out of Joe Biden’s head.

The blonde kid smiled, waved, and ran off before I could even offer him a fiver for his honesty. And, thinking about it, he might have been offended if I offered him money. I know I’ve turned cash down before for similar acts of honesty or help.

You don’t do it for the reward. You don’t do it for the glory. You don’t do it for the free shrimp and talcum powder. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. Period.

That’s one type of society.

This type of society functions pretty well. The prices (back then) at Silver Dollar City™ were much lower than at other attractions of a similar nature that I’d been to. The park itself was clean and tidy, and every local business was polite. Did they want our dollars? Sure they did, but they were great about wanting to come by them honestly. They wanted to earn my money.

That’s the way that Modern Mayberry is, mostly.

Sheriff Taylor retired to a farm, so he could see Barn every day.

But San Francisco? Wow.

I haven’t been there in almost a decade, but the pictures I’ve seen recently show a city that’s not in decline. It’s in free-fall. In Modern Mayberry I always lock my car doors because it’s a habit from living in big cities. In San Francisco? People don’t lock their cars.

People don’t lock their car doors (and many leave their trunks open) so prospective thieves can see that there’s nothing to steal without breaking the windows of the cars to rummage around themselves. The people have surrendered to the criminals.

Porch pirates are everywhere in SF, and steal whatever they can. People live on the streets in tents, and often defecate and do drugs in public, because, why not?

San Francisco is also leading the nation in stores disappearing or locking up all of their items. Why? Because mobs loot the stores, in broad daylight. If the thief is caught, they’re immediately released. The only solution for a store that wants to be in business is to sell you the item, go get it from a locked room, and then give it to you after you’ve already paid.

Want to watch Mad Max: Fury Road in the most realistic way possible? Go to San Francisco.

Lefties, I’m sure, have plenty of theories for why San Francisco is like this. White privilege. Institutional racism. Failure to provide mental health services. Lack of reparations. It’s Wednesday. Spin a wheel and pick an excuse. But every one of them is a lie. And I can prove it.

How?

Go look at the streets today where President Xi of China will be when he travels San Francisco. The homeless are gone. Crime is gone. The streets aren’t covered in poop and needles and Disney™ products.

If the city of San Francisco can do that for Xi, it means that they can do it. Even Governor Gavin “Plastic Man” Newsom said the quiet part out loud:

“I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town.’ That’s because it’s true.”

A poll was taken by California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office which asked whether people who live in California think Illegal immigration is a serious problem. 29% of respondents answered: “Yes, It is a serious problem. 71% of respondents answered: “No es una problema seriosa.”

Guess he wants to impress people that don’t live there.

San Francisco doesn’t have to be like it is.

The only reason that San Francisco is a horrifying dump is because people want it to be a horrifying dump. As I’ve said before, the solution is obvious (We Already Know The Solutions). Criminals need to value the gain they make from a crime less than they fear the penalty for when they get caught. That’s it. The equation is simple.

We know exactly what we need to do to solve almost any problem. And, as is on display right now, the Powers in San Francisco know exactly what solution is required to solve this problem. But they don’t, or at least limit the solution to times when world dignitaries visit – the effort for just common people is too much.

I wouldn’t worry about it. It was a he said/Xi said situation.

Why, exactly do they allow a kleptocracy to fester in California?

They don’t like guns. Guns have been the great equalizer
They will ruthlessly target and destroy common citizens who defend themselves or their property because in their minds only the State should be able to wield force to protect itself.
There is no punishment of the criminals, because they’re a favored voting group.

Probably the biggest reason is this:

They want the people to be scared. They want the people to feel helpless, as if there’s nothing they can do and they don’t care how much money it costs you. They want to use this to get just a little more power.

That’s it. The reason for the kleptonomics on the street is because it serves those who could fix the problem.

Does It Seem Like Everything Is Falling Apart? It Is.

“Don’t come apart on me, Frank.” – Scrooged

What makes a good tongue-twister? That’s not easy to say.

The story of the 20^th century was one of things coming together.

Part of it was based on technology – the world shrank as successive technologies made communications, typically mass communications, easier and quicker. The world went from letters carried over land to telegrams to telephones and then radio and television. Information that previously took weeks to get out, could now go out to millions nearly immediately so we could all know how tough Meghan Markle had it last weekend.

With this communication, the model was simple: one to many. One person could have their ideas spread out to literally everyone. In the Soviet Union, radio versions of Stalin’s speeches could be broadcast instantaneously to every person with a radio in the Soviet Union, though those radios were powered by large industrial tractors produced in Tractor Collective Number 323 that weighed 17 metric tons.

With the advent of this communication, it became feasible to run an actual empire, in real time. Things started clumping together because the span of control allowed it, and the size of empire was useful. The Soviets started collecting satellite states like they were Hallmark© Christmas ornaments, and so did the NATO nations.

What does the blue in a communist flag stand for? Food.

Europe itself clumped together into the EU, which, oddly, was exactly the plan of an Austrian art-school reject. Up until the 1990s, clumping together was all the rage. There was strength in being together, and it was also strength in the titanic war without weapons between two competing ideologies: Western Capitalism versus Eastern European and Asian Collectivist Communism.

Some have said (and I would have argued, incorrectly, in the past) that technology is neutral. It is not. Technology absolutely changes the equation between the types of governments that can exist. Take, for example, weapons:

To be really good with a sword takes a lot of practice. I assume this because I watched a lot of movies where people learn to be good swordsmen and people always seem to get older in the montage. Beyond that, the suit of armor that a knight had to have was really, really expensive? How expensive? More than “hot dog at an NFL® game” expensive, it was completely unaffordable unless you had a manor and a bunch of dudes growing stuff for you. And, if you had it, those dudes couldn’t really do anything to you when you were out and about.

Which Knight was chosen to build the Round Table? Sir Cumference.

Freedom, in this case, belonged to those who had armor. That equation changed over time, and it’s a real reason I like firearms. I can go in a store and buy a close copy (or in some cases much better stuff) than the United States Army gives to the rank-and-file soldier. Remember, “military grade” is the code word for the cheapest stuff that they could buy that might do the job.

Anyway, as long as millions of Americans are as well armed as the average infantry soldier in our army, we are free. Round us up and try to put us in concentration camps like they did in Australia during the recent pandemic? Not going to happen because, well, all the guns. It doesn’t even take a montage to learn how to use a firearm.

Mao may have been ugly and smelled bad, but he knew something very true: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Why does the Left want to take away guns? Because they want power, and as long as you have weapons that equal theirs, they cannot make you do whatever it is that they want.

Robespierre, Trotsky, and Mao walk into a bar. There are no survivors.

But that’s a digression. Technology allowed the flourishing of really large empires, mainly due to information management and that “one to many” communication model. Being together in these combinations allowed two sides to fight each other.

Until they didn’t.

The biggest failure of Soviet-style communism wasn’t the socialist part, but the collectivist part. Capitalism in the West simply out produced them, but the collectivist mindset wasn’t really “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” That sounds spiffy, but in reality it became, “From each according to how little work they could get away with, to each according to how much they could milk the system for.”

I asked A.I. to make the workers lazy. Boom, the cell phones show up.

This collapsed. I think it was a coincidence that it was just as the Internet began to flourish, but the Internet has changed the entire way that communication can flow. The old model was “from one to many” while the new model is “from many to many”. Not everyone has an equal voice, but ideas now flow freely.

This is what puts the panties of Those Who Are In Power into a wad – they have lost control of the Narrative. It’s also going to be the story of the 21^st century: the time when things dissolve.

We’ve seen it start with Brexit. Brexit would never have happened under the previous mode where the only options were the options from TPTB. In this case, the people rose up, and said no. Of course, in the case of Great Britain, TPTB decided to keep the unending flow of illegals headed there, because the last thing they want to reward were people from Great Britain deciding their own destiny.

I wonder if Departugul will be next? Or will it be Polend?

It’s too late to put the genie back into the bottle, however. We see strains on NATO where vastly divergent incentives have weakened that alliance, and I see similar strains on the EU right now, where countries like Poland and Hungary are being ostracized for not wanting to become minorities in their own lands.

Likewise, we see the pressures of division putting strains on the United States. Every reader here is a part of that, since you regularly partake in ideas that are not approved by those who would have you live in pods and eat bugs and give up your arms. For the greater good, you know.

The story of the 20^th century was of coming together. Our story, right now, is of things coming apart.