Competence – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

How To Break A Society, Part II: Destroy The Family

“You can do anything, but never go against the family.” – The Godfather

Women are like the IRS: they won’t tell you what they want until you make a mistake. (memes as-found)

Picture this: A young guy in finishes high school, gets a factory job paying enough for a house, a car, and a stay-at-home wife. They pop out 2.5 kids (the .5 is for Kevin, who isn’t too bright). They go to church on Sunday, and the kids argue about whose turn it is to mow the lawn.

There is no prenup, no Tinder® swipes, no OnlyFans™ side hustle and no Facebook™ telling the wife that every other woman has it better. Just stability. Boring?

No. Enriching. But this isn’t 2026, it’s the standard from 1956 before the rot set in.

Today: That same guy’s grandkid is 28, drowning in student debt for that degree she got in degree in the Ethnography of Colonialism and its impact on Basket Weaving techniques of Amazonian tribes. She’s living in a pod with five roommates, and swiping right on profiles of 6’2”, six figure Chads, trading her youth to chase a fleeting thrill.

Are barbarians people who cut hair in a library?

Marriage? Ha! She’s living her “best life” on a carousel of dates with men that would never marry her, but sure would give her horizontal attention for an evening.

Kids? Such a constraint!

The idea is simple: everything is made of atoms, and those atoms are the smallest piece that makes up whatever it is we’re looking at. At the core of any society is an atom, too.

This isn’t the proton-neutron-electron kind. No, this is the atom of society, the family, a Dad, a Mom, and kids. Throughout all of recorded history, societies that crank out the next generation survive. The ones that don’t? They end up as footnotes in dusty history books.

The most stable setup? Dad in charge, Mom raising the rugrats, everyone pulling in the same direction. Young men get wives, which calms their inner caveman urges. Kids give them purpose beyond leveling up in Call of Duty®.

A society of married dads with skin in the game? They build. They invest. They don’t riot over pronouns. This setup is so rock-solid it’s baked into every enduring culture from Rome to the Amish. It’s also morally encoded. It’s True, Beautiful, and Good. The Bible talks about this from the earliest through the latest books, with not a single mention of gay marriage being stunning and brave.

I told a female cop she was stunning to get out of a ticket. Shouldn’t have added, “and that’s not even the booze talking.”

But since the late 1800s, there’s been a full-court press to dismantle the family.

Why? Because stable families are hard to control. Families don’t need government handouts or therapy apps because they self-regulate.

Enter the wrecking crew.

First?

Women voting. It sounds innocent and there’s a broad consensus in the United States that it’s a good thing.

“Equality!” the women yelled. But it fails for a simple reason. It’s based upon the concept that society’s basic unit isn’t the family, instead it’s the individual. Individuals don’t reproduce; families do. An island of just women in a few decades will produce an island where no one lives at all, and when the last two women die it’s nearly certain they wouldn’t have talked to each other in years.

I’ve said it before: if I was in charge, I’d restrict voting to folks with stake in the future. How about married men who are net taxpayers, wed to women under 35. This would produce serious elections with no pandering to cat ladies or trust-fund socialists. You could make the argument that married women vote rationally because, “Hey, low taxes mean more for the kids.” But unmarried women? They lean heavily toward anti-family voting, like funding endless welfare that rewards single moms over intact homes, endless immigration because refugees are like the children they didn’t have that they didn’t care for.

And they really get mad when you go to the library and put all the women’s rights books in the fiction section.

Continuing our trip back in history, hand-in-hand with suffrage came the push for contraception. The big push for legalization kicked off around 1914, right alongside the suffragettes.

Perhaps the reason that these old battle axes were in favor of contraception was because if sex meant that a man had the chance of being chained to one of them, they’d never get laid. Look at old photos of those gals, they were coyotes-ugly in corsets.

Regardless, the goal was decoupling sex from consequences. Fun? Sure. But families? Optional now. The Four Horsemen of the Family-pocalypse were galloping at around this time.

They consisted of: Women’s voting, spiritualism (because nothing says “stable society” like séances with your dead aunt), contraception, and free love.

All of these are profoundly anti-family.

The roots for these movements are as far away from True, Beautiful, and Good as you can get: they were ugly, communist, and family-hating. A generation after the 19th Amendment, Planned Parenthood® rebranded. Their pitch? Legal abortion and, later, the Pill. No kids? No family. Sex is all about fun.

People who casually use hyperbole are the worst.

Then Roe v. Wade in 1973 led to abortion on demand. “My body, my choice,” except the body inside isn’t yours, but hey, logic is optional in revolutions. The result? Millions of potential families and children vaporized before they started.

Add in the other sacrament of Evil: no-fault divorce. Marriage used to mean something and was difficult to get out of. Now? “Irreconcilable differences” means that divorces are on the menu. In marriages with college-educated women, over 90% are initiated by the woman.

Why? “I’m unhaaaaappy. Pay me.”

Disposable vows means meaningless commitment. Families shatter like dropped PEZ® dispensers.

And the cherry on top? Gay marriage. French historian Emmanuel Todd (LINK) called this the final shark-jump for Western society. It redefines marriage from a “procreation unit” to a “feel-good contract.”

Society’s now officially anti-family. Proof? Heritage Americans’ birthrate dipped below replacement. In 55 years, we went from a tight-knit nation of shared blood, faith, and language to a balkanized mess where the only glue is “we all breathe oxygen . . . mostly.”

Media’s been the propaganda arm on steroids for this anti-family movement. Hollywood has been anti-family at least since Archie Bunker first stepped on stage. Now? Every script’s a checklist:

All bad guys: White, straight heritage Americans.
Women: Kick butt like Rambo, but in heels. Physics? Who needs that?
Dads: Bumbling idiots who can’t tie their shoes without Mom’s help.
Moms: Boss queens running the show, because empowerment.
Kids: Precocious sexualized objects wiser than adults.
Traditional values: Mocked as uncool, if shown at all. Religion is shown only to show how evil it is. Children of the Corn, anyone?

It’s like Hollywood hired the Antichrist as script consultant and he became a network executive. Peak America was built on strong families.

Now? We’re force-fed “Modern Family®” as the new normal, where Dad is optional and kids are accessories.

None of this was accidental and every bit of it was engineered. The GloboLeftElite saw stable families as roadblocks. Families teach self-reliance, morality, and “no, you can’t have everything.”

My new hobby is going up to young women who are staring at their phones and asking if they’re my Tinder® date.

Government wants dependence: “We’ll be your family, citizen. Just vote blue and hand over your paycheck.” They splintered us with migration, welfare that punished marriage, schools that indoctrinate instead of educate, and a culture that celebrates “my truth” over “our future.”

The absurdity? We did this during our peak prosperity where we could have invested our wealth and energy to take us to the stars.

We were fat, happy, and gullible.

We were perfect marks for the con. “Break the old norms, women, they’re oppressive!”

Why do college-educated GloboLeftist women buy pit bulls? A lot of them go after their masters.

Now we’ve got fatherless homes breeding crime waves, women wondering where the good men went, and a birthrate that screams extinction event. A society without families is a house of cards in a hurricane.

Young men without purpose? They don’t create since there’s no reason to.

Women without kids? They adopt causes or cats.

Kids without dads? Statistics waiting to happen.

The bill? As I said before, it’s coming due, with interest.

17 Hilarious Things To Think About On Friday

“That’s just morbid thinking.” – Return of the King

Women are not good at multitasking. Just tell one to sit down and shut up and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a numbered listpost of random thoughts, so here it is. I spiced it up with memes, so here are 17 things to think about on a Friday.

The Universe is vast, and it’s certain that there is life out there on other planets, in fact I’ve predicted that we’ll find it in my life time. I’m not sure if there is intelligent life out there, but if there is, I am certain that aliens are not vegans because they would have contacted us to tell us about that already. Besides, if the government tells me that aliens are real, in 2026 I’ll immediately think they’re lying.

The U.S.S. Gerald Ford was stationed with strike aircraft ready to attack Iran, and then their plumbing failed. To make repairs, they decided to stop off at the island of Crete, which makes this the first plumbing clog that has been fixed by adding Greece.

Some are applauding that an American-born Hispanic is now the leader of the CJNG cartel. I say that’s colonialism and am holding out until they have a trans or gay cartel leader.

Blacks are upset that a white guy said a word they don’t like at an awards ceremony. It is wonderful to see the oppressed multi-millionaire blacks responding to that oppressor man with Tourette’s syndrome with all the hate they can muster. Imagine if he had been dyslexic. He could have offended the redheads as well.

India has ordered its citizens to leave Iran immediately, proving that Iran has some advantages. Thankfully, if India orders them out of the United States, we’ll only need one train. Shhhh, nobody tell them there is no rail service to India.

The Andrew formerly known as Prince has proved that they even like to keep breeding close after railing his nephew’s wife (allegedly) before his nephew did, but it’s okay because she only did it for money back then. Did you hear about Meghan Markle’s tragic car accident? I think they have it planned for next month.

Gavin Newsom told a black audience that since he’s dyslexic, just like them, he can’t read. But if you ask Harvey Weinstein, Gavin’s wife sure can breed. Gingers can’t be reached for comment, but Gavin was quoted as saying he sure was hungry for some fried chicken and watermelon.

Cats have amazing self-esteem, nearly as high as a Millennial, though I’ve never seen a triggered cat in therapy for past trauma.

What does a GloboLeftist ask his wife after sex? “Is he going to go home now, or did you want me to make you two breakfast?”

I went on the DOJ website and when I wanted see one of the files, I got the creepy feeling that the DOJ is recruiting for Epstein.

Everybody is an arch-villain in at least one other person’s story. Make it count, and ex-wives don’t count. I say go big: alienate your children.

Kim Jong-Un is a pretty snappy dresser and probably has some pretty radical tattoo sleeves, but what happens when he starts to lift and take Ozempic®?

I’m just waiting for the wave of GloboLeftist parents killed in the middle of the night by their children. Why? Because think of the real estate opportunities!

90% of the GloboLeft’s political agenda is a series of sexual fetishes pretending to be a political party. The other 10% is self-loathing and tears of impotent rage.

Europe may be in the process of being invaded by violent Arabs and Africans and scheming Indians, but they sure can make bottle caps that don’t end up in the storm sewer.

People wonder if we will be able to communicate one day with an alien species. Some wonder if we will be able to communicate with animals. Me? I just want the Indian telemarketers to stop calling my cell phone.

Almost every problem existing in the world could be solved by sending people back to their home countries and by telling women “no” to most questions. Okay, technically that solves all the problems in Western countries and still leaves the third world as the third world. But when we tell the women, “no, that’s not our problem” then those problems will solve themselves. Or it won’t. But I wouldn’t know about it because we’ll have cut those countries off of the Internet.

How To Break A Society, Part I

“Half measures are the curse of it. A rational society would either kill me or put me to some use.” – Red Dragon

The Andrew formerly known as Prince.

Picture this: I leave my keys in the truck overnight. Windows down. Wallet on the dash. Next morning? Still there. Nothing missing, though a cat might have explored an empty burger wrapper. No viral TikTok™ of some “youth” doing donuts in my F-150®.

Absurd? No.

And not because Big Brother has cameras up the backside of every squirrel, but because back in the day people just didn’t do that crap. The neighbors would have known who did it. Moms would have heard about it at church, and the father of the kid would have heard about it from his boss.

Shame, accountability, and consequences work better than ankle monitors.

That was the power of societal norms. Invisible fences made of “What will people think?” And the Founding Fathers knew it. They told us so.

Benjamin Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention and some lady asked what they’d given us. “A republic,” he said, “if you can keep it.” Not “if the government keeps it for you.” Not “if we pass enough laws.” If you can keep it.

John Adams was even blunter in 1798: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

They weren’t kidding.

I shocked the postman by opening the door completely nude. I think what surprised him the most was that I knew where he lives.

Just like the Constitution, the libertarian dream only works when people self-circumscribe their own behavior. An 85,000-page federal code of regulations telling me not to steal if my conscience (and the fear of my neighbors shunning me like a rabid raccoon with diarrhea at a picnic) already does the job. The Constitution assumed a pretty genetically homogeneous people who spoke the same language, mostly went to the same church, read the same Bible, and agreed that punching your neighbor over a fence line was a last resort, not the premise of a YouTube™ video.

Some people broke the rules. Always have, always will no matter the civilization. But back then the system didn’t turn justice into a CBS® series lasting twenty years. The mean time from sentence to rope?

Often weeks or a few months, not the decades-long death-row vacation with three hots, cable, and taxpayer-funded lawyers we enjoy today. Were innocents sometimes executed?

Almost certainly.

But swift, mostly impartial justice beat the hell out of vigilante posses or letting killers out on technicalities to murder yet again. A society that can’t punish the guilty quickly loses the ability to protect the innocent at all.

I stand behind Alec. It’s safer than standing in front of him.

Fast-forward to post-World War II America. Streets were so safe kids rode bikes until the streetlights came on. Doors stayed unlocked. Factories hummed, wages rose, and the biggest scandal in most towns was somebody skipping the church potluck. Prosperity wasn’t just money: it was a stable and predictable life.

That bored the revolutionaries of the 1960s half to death.

They looked at this overwhelmingly safe, secure, prosperous society made of families in traditional family roles and said, “Nah, too square.” The GloboLeftist project kicked into high gear with the Great Society.

Lyndon Johnson and his crew didn’t just want to help the poor. No. They wanted to remake society. The guardrails of conformity had to go. Why? Because the norms of self-restraint, local reputation, and actual community stood in the way of central control.

Take lending, for example. Let’s say I wanted a home loan in 1955. My local banker didn’t just run a credit score, because they didn’t exist. He would have called my pastor: “Does Wilder show up on Sundays,? He does? Any rumors about his behavior? PEZ®, eh? That’s a bit odd.”

Local money stayed local. My mortgage would have literally been made from the savings of the people I saw at the grocery store. Or, rather that The Mrs. saw at the grocery store, since why would a married man go to the store?

Good families got a break if junior was speeding? Sure. Outsiders had to prove themselves? Absolutely. But it worked because everyone was playing the same cultural game.

If King Charles was anymore inbred, he’d be a sandwich.

Then came the 1960s and beyond.

Mass migration became deliberate policy. Civil rights were the noble public excuse, but the real play was splintering the old society so it could be replaced with something more compliant. Free association?

Gone.

You can’t choose who you hire or rent to without risking a lawsuit. Schools?

Prayer out, social engineering in.

Education standards?

Lowered faster than a politician’s principles.

Family?

Oh, boy.

Women used to save themselves for marriage. Even when I was a kid, that was still the norm in most places and led to more than one frustrating Saturday night.

Body count back in the 1950s? Usually one, and it came with a ring and a white dress. Fast-forward one lifetime from the Great Society: sophomore year of college and some girls are racking up body count numbers higher than a Call of Duty™ leaderboard.

No-fault divorce, welfare that paid better for single moms than married couples, and a nonstop cultural drumbeat that “settling down” was oppression led not to the Great Society but the Great Breakdown. The nuclear family, once our bedrock, got nuked. Fatherless homes exploded. The Great Society didn’t cure poverty: it subsidized it while making dads optional and government mandatory.

My WIFI router is in the basement. You could say this post comes from a LAN down under.

Every facet of life got the treatment.

Religion was pushed out of the public square. “Under God” became hate speech. Local norms replaced by federal mandates. You couldn’t even form a private club without worrying about quotas.

The explicit goal?

Fragment the connections that made America 1960 a powerhouse. Replace them with government strings. Make people dependent on D.C. instead of their neighbors, their church, or their own character.

And it worked.

One generation. That’s all it took.

We went from “mind your own business but don’t be a jerk” to needing sensitivity training to say “good morning” without committing a microaggression. We went from “your reputation follows you” to “my truth” where accountability is optional and consequences are for white men.

The absurdity peaks when you realize the same people who tore down the norms now act shocked at the results.

“Why is crime up? Why are families falling apart? Why can’t we have nice things?”

Because they spent 60 years telling people the guardrails were bigotry. They replaced “don’t do that, people will talk” with “do whatever feels good, you slay, queen.” They swapped local bankers who knew your grandma for algorithms that approve loans based on your zip code, skin tone, and whether your social media likes the right causes.

A fragmented society built on ephemeral values: “my feelings, my identity, my government check” cannot magically produce the disciplined, self-restrained people who built the 1960 powerhouse. We can’t have a republic of free men when half the population thinks “freedom” means no consequences and the other half thinks the Constitution constrains the government too much.

The fall wasn’t accidental.

I ate in an all-you-can-eat Italian restaurant buffet. There were endless pastabilities.

It was engineered during a time of plenty, when people were fat and happy enough to believe the sales pitch. “Break the old norms, they’re oppressive!” Turns out the oppression was mostly keeping humans from doing what humans do when they’re not in a civilization and are left unchecked.

I don’t think we can keep the republic Franklin talked about from where we are. Adams knew the reason: paper and ink don’t enforce morality. People do.

Or they don’t. And when they don’t, the government is happy to step in with a smile and a 10,000-page regulation.

The norms are gone. The absurdity remains. And the bill?

It’s due, with interest.

The Next Default, Gold, Bras, and Confiscation

“The wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels but mithril.” – Fellowship of the Ring

Steel suppliers are facing high iron prices and low finished steel prices. They say it’s a terrible ore-deal.

What we call money was for the longest time gold. For . . . a long time, really. It has never quite been valueless and even jungle savages and pyramid builders (who had, I must remind you, no iPhones™ used it for trinkets because it was pretty.

But cash has gone to zero.

The phrase “Not worth a Continental” came about because the Continental Congress decided to print a lot of cash to fight the Revolutionary War. It worked, but the cash became valueless because they printed too much.

How bad was it?

Bad enough that a wheelbarrow of Continentals might buy you a loaf of bread, if the baker was using them to start his fire. It was a bad enough experience that the Framers of the Constitution tossed in the whole, “No State shall make anything but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

Then we went to gold because the Constitution said so. Gold worked for a while. There was a reset during the Civil War with the National Banking Act, which made paper “greenbacks” official tender. Lincoln needed cash to fund the Union army, so they cranked up the presses again. By war’s end, greenbacks were worth about half their face value, and people grumbled, but hey, at least the North bankers won.

I’m in shape for that, though. I exorcise regularly.

Then in the awful year of 1913, the Fed® was put into place, and the monkey business began anew. Another currency reset, first for World War I, where they suspended gold convertibility to print for the war machine. Huh. It’s like I’ve heard that before. When the value of the dollar started to increase in the Great Depression, Roosevelt came in and made owning significant amounts of gold illegal.

I mean, illegal for the plebs. Rich dudes could still own all they wanted, because, well, they’re rich. What don’t you understand about that, pleb? FDR’s Executive Order 6102 forced folks to turn in their gold at $20.67 an ounce, then he jacked the price to $35 overnight.

Instant 69% profit for Uncle Sam. Nice work, if you can get it.

Eventually, LBJ took all of the silver out of the money, too. In 1965, quarters went from 90% silver to clad junk, because Vietnam wasn’t going to fund itself. People hoarded the old real silver coins, and Gresham’s Law kicked in: bad money drives out good.

Finally, Nixon took the dollar off of the gold standard as a “temporary emergency measure” in 1971. Temporary, my foot. It was the final nail in the gold coffin, all because we were spending like drunken sailors on wine, women, wars and welfare.

Was there panic? Confusion? Market turmoil? Riots in the streets?

Nah. None of that happened at any of these currency resets. Partially because people are distracted. Back then it was Vietnam protests or bra burnings or Watergate scandals.

Despite the name, when I wore The Mrs.’, I couldn’t do any more than usual.

And, partially because people still had dollars to spend that were worth something, right? I mean, until the inflation of the 1970s hit. People adapted, grumbled, but kept chugging along because what else were we gonna do? Start a revolution over milk prices?

All of these resets, every single one of them, happened because the United States government (or its precursor) had spent way too much, had too much debt, and didn’t want to pay it. It’s the old, “Hey, let’s you and me split the bill. Half is fair right? I mean, I had the steak and lobster and you had a salad, so 50-50 works.”

Except you don’t get to object.

This confiscation is what gold (and silver) holders, real physical metal holders, now worry about: the government coming for their gold and silver.

I am here to tell you that will never happen.

Never.

What’s the zodiac sign for a donut? Torus.

Why bother with door-to-door confiscation when they can just make it painful to use? History shows they prefer the sneaky route. What will happen is, say, that .gov will tax people who sell gold at a profit at a huge rate. 70%? 90%? Heck, maybe 110% if they get creative with penalties.

And no one will care. Why? Well, rich people will have insulated themselves from this by offshoring those investments: think Swiss vaults or Cayman trusts. The tax will probably only apply to individuals (so those with corporations won’t care, they’ll just LLC their stack), and the people who don’t have silver and gold will think that anyone who had any silver and gold probably deserves such a high tax rate.

“Greedy hoarders,” they’ll say, while scrolling through their InstaFace© feed of dancing feminists.

That’s one way. What’s another?

Mandate reporting on all precious metal sales over, say, $100. Turn your local coin shop into a snitch for the IRS®. Or tie it to “anti-money laundering” laws, making grandma’s heirloom coins suspicious. It’s not confiscation; it’s just “regulation for your safety.

“You can sell your gold and silver. And dollars, even, into a new currency!”

And only into that new currency. This new currency will be great! We’ll call it a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). It’s like crypto, but now the Fed® controls it!

I have a friend who is half-Indian. His name is Ian.

What could go wrong?

Well, from the perspective of the Fed©, absolutely nothing. They can make your CBDC evaporate unless you spend it: like digital milk in the fridge with an expiration date enforced by big brother. “Use it or lose it, citizen!”

They can track every cent (oops) dime that you spend. Bought too much ammo? Flag. Donated to the “wrong” cause? Freeze. They can stop transactions they don’t like. “Sorry, no more red meat, your carbon score’s too high today.”

They can use it to create an activity profile: “John’s been buying survival gear again; better send the social worker. Have her bring cigars and scotch to calm him down.”

It will, of course, all be for your own good. It’ll stop crime. And money-laundering.

And those rich people! It will stop them. I mean, sure they’ll have the fancy estates in France and Bill Gates will own half of the farmland in the country and also own Picassos and Renoirs and Monets and Manets and a Chinese antibiotics manufacturer, but it’ll really get him.

Bill Gates caught a very strong STD: Herpules.

Us plebs? We’ll get the full surveillance package.

Boy, those rich people are sure going to suffer if we force them to use CBDC.

So, we can keep our gold and silver. It’s just a barbaric relic. And we’re awful if we want to keep it since it’s probably anti-patriotic or pro-colonialism (depending on who is in office) to keep the gold and silver, which should be safely stored.

In a Central Bank.

For your own good.

And the CBDC? That’s as good as gold. It’s not like the Continental at all. And, it comes with a new iPhone® app.

What a deal!

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Cloudy With A Chance Of Insurrection

“You didn’t think I’d risk losing the battle for Gotham’s soul in a fistfight with you?” – The Dark Knight

If a Somalian couple gets divorced in Minnesota, are they still brother and sister? (all memes and media except clock as-found)

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

Volume VII, Issue 9

Most memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”. I have maintained the Clock O’Doom at 9., given the open support of assassination and criminality by the GloboLeft and the increase in violence as well as direct interference with ICE and the insertion of the military into law enforcement. Beware: the number can climb quickly.

My advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – The Battle of Minnesota – Violence and Censorship Update – Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Bad and Good – 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 840 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

The Battle of Minnesota

Note: on a regular month, I save media as the month goes on to use for this update. Twenty or thirty is a normal month. This month? 180. So, this edition will draw heavily from those.

The Battle of Minnesota was very intentional from the GloboLeftElite. If I were to guess, the amount of money coming out of the state, a state that the GloboLeftElite salted with Somalians to ensure stays a vote and cash farm for the GloboLeft. Had all of this gone down in June of this year? I think we’d be in the midst of armed conflict right now in Minnesota, California, and possibly New York.

The Somalians were openly disrespectful of the dead lesbian.

Trump even Truthed® about the situation. But when you try to run over an armed ICE officer, he just might shoot back.

The response? Storm a church. That’s a sure way to bring sympathy to your cause.

Oh, and the next person ICE shot? Please make sure that he was sympathetic, a super nurse who only cared for people and wasn’t actively trying to bring about a violent confrontation.

And then, if you’re the governor, call up the Guard to potentially face off against ICE.

But then what happened? The communication channels used by the GloboLeft to command their useful idiots was breached. Uh-oh.

I don’t know if this is correct, but it may have implicated government officials?

And, shockingly, foreigners are involved against ICE:

But then, things changed:

And ICE was just ignored.

And the people? They still want the foreigners to go home:

Violence and Censorship Update

Remember, the New York Times hates you:

And some words may not be spoken:

And some things won’t be reported on:

And some they’ll attempt to make you forget, because obvious hoax is obvious:

And they’ll stop at nothing to make a loser a hero:

The next version:

The Netflix adaptation:

And they hate you:

And she was arrested. Shocking.

What do citizens have to fear from ICE?

At least I run an honest clock:

Making all your thoughts theirs.

Greenland attacked:

The Minneapolis police like Somalians more than they like Americans.

Tough talk from the pronoun crowd:

And I’d bet this guy has had a visit from the FBI already:

What is it with nurses in Minnesota?

Well, at least she lost that job.

And the City of Brotherly Love isn’t:

And the violence was spreading . . .

While the threats proliferate:

But only certain types of violence made the GloboLeft upset. Some were ignored:

Let’s see how things are going in Europe, which is what you get when GloboLeftism runs unchecked:

Well at least they punish the violent, right . . . oh . . .

Now, even the countryside is too white in Great Britain.

Misery Index

The new Trump administration is shown in red. Results continue to be much better than Biden’s misery numbers. The advance is at a near minimum, given the Fed®’s policy.

And we can afford eggs again.

Though Trump seems to want eternally high home prices.

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence indicators are up again this month, and, although they aren’t George Floyd-levels, you can see that from here. And there’s a lot of frustration:

Political Instability:

Down is more stable, and it went down slightly this month after the budget fight ended. And a lot of the “Elite” are now starting to lose jobs due to A.I., which will increase political tension quickly.

Economic:

The economy up just a smidge this month, but I think the bubble has some pretty grey hair and some other headwinds are on the horizon.

Illegal Aliens:

Still the lowest level since the Weather Report started.

Bad and Good

The Bad:

The Good:

LINKS

The links are again done by Ricky this month. Thanks, Ricky!

BAD GUYS

https://x.com/ExxAlerts/status/2012756374694895882
https://x.com/LevineJonathan/status/2009023254648807879
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2015941489516245223
https://x.com/Rightanglenews/status/2012977084440731734

GOOD GUYS

https://twitter.com/i/status/2009416434183458893
https://twitter.com/i/status/2009377264517984486
https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/2015260124932448533

ONE GUY

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/G-5K5Q9XUAEXXze.jpg?itok=QxAe4FgO
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ar-AA1VqQsY

BODY COUNT

https://www.army.mil/article/289904/army_encourages_soldiers_to_just_pick_up
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/12/nx-s1-5647761/ivf-fertility-motherhood-40s-cost
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/us/politics/census-2025-estimates-population-immigration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HlA.2S2B.yiS8JLm5K2F-&smid=url-share
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2012930482867257625

VOTE COUNT

https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/census-data-signals-deep-trouble-democrats-after-2030
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/we-must-pass-save-act-republicans-engage-serious-push-voter-id
https://x.com/IterIntellectus/status/2012220254504530043
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/G-zOZDYW4AAmuUM.png?itok=ne4Sv1lI

CIVIL WAR (OURS)

https://x.com/Schwalm5132/status/2015470661490057540
https://x.com/camhigby/status/2015093523733733474
https://x.com/camhigby/status/2015470423413047597
https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/2016575958644355539?s=20
https://apnews.com/article/bishop-ice-martyrdom-new-hampshire-b58050770e7d40e3247d0aa3b91fe0d2
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/us/federal-agents-law-enforcement-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DVA.ecVS.mLFgxVQnJHt6&smid=url-share
https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/01/07/minnesota-democrats-dangerous-neo-confederate-rhetoric/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-lawmakers-call-trump-arrest-walz-after-governor-warns-national-guard-move
https://fortune.com/2026/01/26/ray-dalio-trump-minneapolis-shooting-civil-war-debt-tinderbox/
https://alt-market.us/maybe-its-time-for-conservative-patriots-to-rally-in-minneapolis/
https://choiceclips.whatfinger.com/2026/01/19/nyt-says-civil-war-is-here-democrats-say-they-will-arrest-conservatives/
https://amgreatness.com/2026/01/29/slouching-towards-fort-sumter/
https://futurism.com/future-society/simulation-civil-war-games

CIVIL WAR (THEIRS)

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/alberta-sees-large-turnout-petition-separate-canada
https://x.com/albertaseparate/status/1885163587528020435
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/01/iran-revolution-protests-collapse/685578/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/world/middleeast/iran-how-crackdown-was-done.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HFA.USAQ.AtdNc0uQ7YVv&smid=url-share
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198

The Wilder Guide to Self-Reinvention

“Ultimately, anybody could crash on an island like this, and the idea of being surrounded by strangers and getting to reinvent yourself in some way is sort of readily identifiable.” – Lost

The NFL® has an obscure rule that players cannot own ducks or geese. Those are called “a personal fowl.” (all memes as-found)

Sometimes I’ve felt like I’m stuck in a sequel nobody asked for.

Same plot, same villains, same scriptwriters, same predictable ending where the hero, me, ends up in the same place where the movie started. All of it happened, and all of it changed nothing.

Reinvention sounds like one of those self-help buzzwords peddled by people with suspiciously not-grey hair, perfect teeth, and look like they smell vaguely of Lemon-Scented® Pledge™.

Me? I’ve lost most of my hair, have okay but not perfect teeth, and more often smell of cigar than citrus. I’m not selling you anything. Except songs. And you can listen to all of those for free. But if reinvention is done well, it changes everything, which should be no surprise because it’s in the name.

I’ve reinvented myself a time or two. Switched careers, changed habits, even moved across state lines once. It’s never as glamorous as the brochures promise. I have never yet experienced a slow-mo training montage with Eye of the Tiger blasting in the background. More often it’s like grinding through a B-movie script where the director keeps yelling “Cut!” because I flubbed the line again.

Plot twist: it was really Freddy Kruger™ that killed Martin Luther King, Jr. After all, he had a dream . . .

In the changes I’ve made, however, I have learned more than a few things. First, real reinvention demands a brutal assessment of what’s True, Beautiful, and Good and how that differs from what I see in the mirror. People, me included, want to believe pretty little lies whenever they can. Real assessment is required.

If it isn’t hitting at least three out of three of the True, Beautiful, and Good criteria, why bother? I try to take stock without mercy.

Is it True?

Does it square with reality, or am I kidding myself?

Is it Beautiful?

Does it create something worthwhile, or is it just pumping out more plastic widgets for the landfill?

Is it Good?

Does serve a higher purpose, or is it just vanity?

If the answer’s a resounding “meh,” to any of these three, it’s not worth the effort. If I lie to myself here, the whole reinvention turns into a farce.

Would you like three alternative punchlines?

Hollywood peddles a different script, of course. Change is always Good™, wrapped in a rom-com bow. Picture the uptight stuffed-shirt. Khakis pressed, 401(k) maxed moping through life until a random crazy hot chick crashes in.

She’s got purple hair, a tattoo of a dreamcatcher, and a backpack full of “experiences.” She drags him to a rave in the desert, teaches him to juggle fire and smoke weed, and poof, he’s ditching the corner office for a food truck.

Roll credits, cue the indie soundtrack. This is celebrated as a modern goal.

Reality check: I’ve crossed paths with more than a few random crazy hot chicks.

Positive contributions? Slim to none. All the experiences rhyme, though: a whirlwind of chaos, pain, and stories that start with “So there I was…” and end with lawyers or bail money.

Random crazy hot chicks didn’t reinvent me, they just rearrange the furniture in my life until nothing fits.

Real change doesn’t need a manic (or maniac) minx catalyst.

She keeps sending mixed messages.

It just needed me to stare in the mirror and decide the current plot sucks.

Change itself?

That’s the bonus, the change is immediate.

Change happens now, effects come with time. Flip the switch.

Boom, reinvented. The results take time. The bigger the change, the more patience required for the results.

That’s why urgency is my ally. Time multiplies effort like compound interest, and the old saying goes: When’s the best time to plant a tree? The best time to start is 20 years ago. The next best time is now.

Silly me, I would have thought the next best time would have been 19 years ago, but maybe I missed that day in Arbor Academy.

The message, though, is clear. Act now, act deliberately. Not in a panic but with a purpose. Delay, and I’m just leaving Future Me a bigger debt.

Which brings us back to the noun. The what. I had a boss that would always slow me down with this one simple question: “What do we want the outcome to be? Start with the end in mind.” Again, the criteria for me is simple. Is it True, is it Beautiful, is it Good?

Also, how I frame the change dictates the ending and the success or failure. Any change that constantly demoralizes me is doomed. If I have an end state in mind, and I’m not there, I’m failing. Right?

No. Remember the montage. Starting the montage is the success. You’ve gotta have a montage.

Seriously, though, my mind rebels against endless punishment. Why should I keep showing up if every step feels like defeat? For me, I often measure effort rather than outcomes. Build a habit of study, and not measure myself against the end. Even a little progress (if the change is big enough) is what I’m looking for. Patton put it perfectly: “A good plan executed now is better than a perfect one executed later.”

My dudes, attitude is everything.

There are exceptions: any positive reinvention that energizes me? That’s the winner. It creates a feedback loop: my effort sparks momentum, my momentum delivers wins, my wins fuel more energy. These can even be bits of the montage, if you will.

Quick wins? I grab them whenever I can. I’m wired for routine. Once a habit locks in, it’s tougher for me to break than to keep. Like autopilot, I set the course, and it flies itself. Your mileage may vary, but for me, momentum is king. Get the ball rolling, and inertia works for me, not against.

I’ve learned to not wait for a muse. She’s probably off with that random crazy chick anyway. Just consistent action.

At its core, reinvention isn’t about morphing into someone else. It’s honing the best of who I am, aligned with Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Brutal honesty spots the flaws, urgency launches the fix, energy sustains the burn, and time polishes the gem. When it clicks? It’s worth every sweat drop, every dawn patrol, every skipped shortcut.

Whenever I am at a crossroads I always stare into a bowl of rice, hoping to find a grain of truth.

I’m beginning to think the only bad ending is the one where I don’t change. Oh, and all of the Disney® movies since 2017 or so. They all suck.

Land of Confusion

“I know what you mean, Blair. Trust’s a tough thing to come by these days.” – The Thing

Pretty soon they’ll just cast a bird. I can see it now, “Heron of Troy”. (all memes as-found)

I’m old enough to remember the song Land of Confusion coming out. It was from Genesis, which really should have been named “Phil Collins and some other white GloboLeftist dudes.” The video was and is hideous. It was intentionally hideous. I rewatched it again before writing this and ended up regretting it. If there is place for the True, Beautiful, and Good, well, brother, that video wasn’t it.

Okay. I assure you, this isn’t a review of a forty-year-old video, but rather the phrase that comes to my mind as I write this particular post. The world is really into WTF territory, a true Land of Confusion.

What’s going on? Is it time to start drinking heavily?

The largest product launch in the history of product launches is going on. Of course I mean Artificial Intelligence. A.I. has distorted everything, and I mean everything in our economy. There is (in my humble opinion that is more often wrong than right) no particular reason that the stock market should be doing as well as it is. A double Snack Wrap© meal with some fries and a drink costs $8.00.

The Dalai Lama went to Vegas last year because he loves Tibet.

That’s two tortillas, some Official Chicken Product®, a sauce, some shredded lettuce, potatoes deep fried in estrogen-laden oils, and, if you’re lucky and made the right choice, water or coffee. I guess this is an example of fake money for fake food.

Wouldn’t a bit a of steak be better? Even a little bit?

Gahhh! I keep wandering. Like I said, Land of Confusion.

If you really do a deep dive into the main prophet of A.I., Sam Altman, I assure you that you’ll become concerned that Sam is managing a trillion-dollar business with the potential that, if it fails, to lead to another Great Depression. But, hey, if it succeeds, there’s a 20% chance that humanity might be erased like mosquitos in a pup tent.

Honestly, I wouldn’t hire Sam Altman to manage a Taco Bell® in Modern Mayberry, but I guess that fast talking, double-dealing (according to Musk) and just plain greasy-seeming guy is the kind of person that we want to turn the economy over to.

If a robot commits a robbery and it’s caught after the battery dies, will police have plans to charge the suspect?

We’re riding the edge. And this sort of inflation on the bubble of reality has led to other inflations. Silver is following the classic signs of a bubble. But unlike A.I., silver is real. What’s real? Well, whenever I have a question like that I just leave it to old Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China):

Egg Shen: “(You) can see thins no one else can see. Do things no one else can do.”
Jack Burton: “Real things?”

Egg Shen: “As real as Lo Pan!”
Jack Burton: “Hey, what more can a guy ask for?”
Egg Shen: “Oh, a six-demon bag!”
Jack Burton: “Terrific. A six-demon bag. Sensational. What’s in it, Egg?”
Egg Shen: “Wind, fire, all that kind of thing.”

At this point I feel like Jack Burton. I’m just looking for something real. And silver is real. I can pick it up, feel its density, hear it go ‘ping’ like silver does, and give it to my sons when I die.

But silver went up. Then it went down. I hear rumors that a certain bank dumped all of its short positions when silver hit its recent low. Will it pop up in the next week?

I have no idea.

I’m not sure I care.

I’m just tempted to but a contract and go for delivery and show up to a COMEX® warehouse in a rented car from Budget™ and pick up 340 pounds of silver for the grins that would give me and then play Snake Plisskin from Escape From New York trying to get out of, well, New York where most of the COMEX vaults are.

The most famous human who bounces is that Irishman, Rick O’Shea.

The price of computers is also exploding. Why? Well, A.I., silly. Bill Gates (who the Epstein Files would indicate might have had to get rid of a nasty case of some Indonesian junk that’s going ‘round) has said, nah, man, why do you have a computer at all?

The idea, I think is to make computers like the one I’m typing on to be unaffordable. On one hand, I can see that if A.I. can do the calculations to weaponize the DNA from warts to infect humans into violent zombies or hack into the Pentagon instead of running a screensaver that might be a problem.

And yet . . .

A personal computing device has been available to me my entire adult life, and having my information in my house, on a hard drive I own is normal to me. Having to depend on the Indians running Microsoft® to not dump a tikka masala or a curry into the server and bring down my posts, family memories, and also kill Mabel’s life support in the ER in Cleveland doesn’t seem like the best idea.

Honestly, keeping Indians away from everything seems that way, but YMMV.

Then there’s Hollywood®. It appears that the only thing they want to create is unmitigated racist crap. Yes, racist. How else do you explain the cast for the latest Troy® movie, which features a black woman as Helen of Troy.

Here’s the take of one wag on X®:

What’s the difference between Syria and Detroit? How you get stoned.

A black woman as Helen of Troy? That’s bad. It’s not only bad, it’s offensive. It is, again, the opposite of the True, Beautiful, and Good in every single sense. And if the opposite of the True, Beautiful, and Good is Evil, well, there you go. And Zendaya (yes, that poor dog-faced girl Zendaya) playing . . . Athena. You know. A god. And Zendaya is a Midwest 5/10 on a good day.

Sigh. Land of Confusion. Again.

The most non-crazy item I’ve seen this week is Elon Musk saying that he’s thinking about putting a million data centers in orbit for creating A.I. processing. At least they won’t be subject to Sanjay dumping his sambar into the SanDisk® and stopping sanitation in San Francisco.

Oh, too late. Have you seen San Francisco?

Imagine how insulted Elon’s girlfriends feel when he says they look like a million bucks.

When Elon is fantasizing about putting a million of something into space is the most sane item of the week so far, it should tell you something.

When I read the headlines, I think back to my New Year’s resolution: drink more water.

So far, with the news in January, I’ve only gotten to: drink more.

Silver: What’s the deal?

“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” – The Empire Strikes Back

Am I the only one still trying to forget Game of Thrones?

Today, we’re diving into silver like Scrooge McDuck® into his money vault, mainly because I think it tells a much deeper story about wealth and reality. Silver prices have doubled since April. More than that, really. But who’s counting?

What’s causing this?

First, the dollar is worth less. Not worthless, though I think anyone checking in from the time the Fed® started back in 1913 would disagree. No, that delightful dumpster fire comes later, probably around the time Tim Walz starts quoting Marx in his next speech.

But worth less? Absolutely. Inflation is like a bottle of Everclear® showing up at a high school kegger. You know it shouldn’t be there, but everyone is enjoying the party so much that no one wants to pour out the booze. And, no one has poured out the booze. People just keep showing up with more and more booze. And by booze, I mean printing money.

Everclear© eventually turns brains into goo, and the Fed® is turning our money into an unsightly goo. That’s okay, because who needs actual value when you can just ctrl+p your way to prosperity?

Silver’s price jump isn’t because silver suddenly got sexier; it’s because greenbacks are now less than a dime a dozen. Okay, not a dime a dozen, but a silver dime is from 1960 is worth $7.87 at $110 an ounce silver.

I have a dime in one hand and a nickel in the other. What am I? Broke.

I know, I know, there is nothing new here. Rome. Weimar Germany. Zimbabwe. Venezuela. History’s a harsh teacher, and not one of the hot ones that just graduated from college that was a hot blonde with long hair that drove a Trans-Am® while I hummed Hot For Teacher in the back row of the classroom in 11^th grade English.

Sorry, that was oddly specific.

Second, a driver of this rise in silver prices is A.I. A.I. is in everything now, including French’s® Classic Yellow Mustard™, at least according to the label. But silver is in computer chips, solar panel, and chemical catalysts. Industry actually consumes the stuff at a rate of 680 million ounces per year. Yes, that’s a lot, being a bit more than an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine or the weight of cash exported by Somalians from Minnesota each week.

Everything’s fine, though, right? We’ve been doing this forever.

Not so fast, Pat Sajak. The dragon has entered the chat. No, not George R.R. Martin. He’s the walrus. By dragon, I mean:

China.

Dragons don’t explode, but a dino might.

They’re the primary refiner of silver according to some sources, though I’ve been unable to back that up with a source I really trust, so take that as a “trust me, bro” type of number. Recently, though, China looked around and they do control about 15% of silver production and third of the industrial supply goes through China.

On January 1, China changed its rules. It will only license exports to specific companies for specific uses. No more “hey, buddy, can I get a pallet of silver for my Etsy® jewelry shop?”

Nope.

Remember that old Lenin quote where he said that the capitalists would sell the commies the rope to hang the capitalists?

We’re living it.

We outsourced everything except Learing Centers to China because China did it cheaper: rare earth mining and refining, silver mining, manufacturing, bad fashion choices. You name it.

“Why get all sweaty and dirty when we can push paper instead?” was the attitude. So, we traded factories for finance, blue collars for spreadsheets. Now, the know-how’s gone east, poof, like a magician’s rabbit.

Entire industries vanished from the U.S.

Health is wealth. Don’t believe me? Check out the prices of fresh kidneys! (meme as found)

This is the bill coming due for all that cheap Walmart® crap from China. We’re paying premium now, and it won’t just be in dollars it will be in our international standing and living standard.

Third: it’s the paper. Silver’s price used to be all about paper: silver futures, silver options, the whole Wall Street silver casino. Sweaty guys in New York could bet on silver in Hong Kong without ever touching it. It’d never come within 5,000 miles of their Manhattan condo.

It was like playing poker at a casino where people kept trading IOUs. Nobody cashed out their IOUs for the real chips. The market was dominated by speculators, hedge funds, a particular big bank, and day traders who treated it like a video game.

This was profits without product. But oh, how the tables have turned.

Now, the game’s gone real-world, and folks are demanding delivery. Warehouses are being sacked like a Domino’s Pizza® after Weedfest© in Colorado. Empty shelves, frantic calls, bummed out hippies, the works.

(as found)

Take Samsung©, for instance. Reports say they hopped on a plane, jetted to Mexico, and straight-up bought out the silver supply from at least two mines for the next few years. No matter what it costs, they’ll buy it all, plus front the company the cash to get capacity up to snuff. That’s not hyperbole; that’s desperation with a corporate jet.

Why? Because silver’s a tiny part of their widgets: phones, TVs, fridges. But it’s an essential part of their widgets. The recipe calls for it, like flour in a cake. Skip it, and the chip in the phone won’t work. Redesigning? Yeah, maybe. That takes time, money, and R&D. The engineers would be pulling all-nighters, and all of a sudden the coffee market is impacted.

It’s far easier to pay $100 or even $200 an ounce. Even at $200, it’s just a buck or two per gadget. Compare that to shutting down production lines, which would be a corporate catastrophe. They’re going to buy the silver. Sure, there’s a breakeven, and it will vary by use: I saw one as low as $134. Less silver jewelry will be made. Werewolves will go unhunted.

Finally, the biggest risk for most people reading this is that it shines a spotlight on the made-up money system for what it is: made-up promises, ink on a ledger or magnetic bits on a hard drive. Silver, gold, copper, lead, corn, PEZ®, that’s real. It’s tangible, you-can-hold-it-in-your-grubby-paws stuff and eat it our swim in it if you’re Scrooge McDuck©. Fiat currency? It’s money conjured out of a belief system, a collective hallucination we’ve all bought into since LBJ printed bucks for Vietnam and Nixon got called on our “gold-backed” bluff by the French.

Hmmm, which one? (as found)

The dollar has been floating on faith ever since, like Wile E. Coyote™ before he looks down. But now, with silver spiking, the fall is in sight. People want assets, not abstractions. It’s the ultimate vote of no confidence in the dollar downsizing derby.

Is silver in a bubble?

Beats me. Maybe.

Maybe not.

Is the dollar in an anti-bubble and collapsing first in slow motion and then all at once?

Beats me. Maybe.

Maybe not.

Silver could crash tomorrow or double by next month. But my gut says $20 or even $50 silver is in the rear-view mirror, except for after a deflationary collapse temporarily crushes it. I think it has vanished like cops without tattoo sleeves or the McDonald’s® Dollar Menu™ where something on the menu actually cost a dollar.

It’s just gone.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

But, hey, what are you worried about? Chuck just showed up with more Everclear®! Party on!

Disclaimer: I write funny things, and you should know that by now so this isn’t investment advice or fashion advice or love-life advice. Think for yourself and do your own research and stop copying me! Teacher, he’s copying me!
Disclosure: I do have a position in silver that I’ve had forever, and bought (literally) about a hundred and thirty bucks more today in my IRA, which might have been stupid, but, whatever. If you think this article will move the international silver price, you’re stoned.

The Invasion of the Industry Snatchers: Patel Motels and the Trucking Singhularity

“Get someone else to run your scams.” – The Shawshank Redemption

My brother wanted to play cowboys and Indians. I got out my six gun cap pistol and he bought a motel. (all memes except the Motel 6® meme are as-found)

Let’s talk about India.

Again.

Over decades, Indian immigrants (legal and illegal) have created a real-life version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but instead of pods, it’s Patels. And Singhs. If capitalism is a game, Indians are using cheat codes, and nobody’s hitting the reset button because, Heaven forbid, someone calls foul and gets labeled a bigot.

Let’s start with the motel mafia, aka the Patel Hotel-Motel Cartel. Back in the 1940s and ’50s, Indians from Gujarati (I think that’s how someone with dyslexia spells guitar) kicked things off in California, leasing rundown single-room occupancy joints in California. Back then, only 100 Indians (total) a year were allowed into the United States. Now, I think that’s the minimum amount of Indians that enter a Costco® within 10 minutes after it opens each morning.

Thanks to the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, starting in the 1960s, the Patels could begin to chain-migrate everyone back in the village, and boy did they ever.

During the 1970s inflation crisis, American motel owners had to dump properties like bad dates because people couldn’t afford to travel. Kind of like fast food today, eh?

If I fell for a tech support scam, am I and Indian giver?

Enter the Patels. They snapped up distressed motels for peanuts, often with family loans, because banks and insurers wouldn’t loan them cash because, you know, scammers. According to Mythosnoir’s Substack® (LINK), at a fire marshal convention one year, they claimed that Patels set fire to their motels and submitted phony claims. It’s a long read, but interesting.

I’ve seen one Patel submit a phone claim (and this in 2022) so I’m pretty sure it’s not an exaggeration. Their response was to form their own insurance company.

But how does the scam work? One Patel buys a motel, brings brothers, cousins, uncles, and the village goat-herder in. They work for below market wages and live in the crappiest rooms in the hotel because it’s all in the family, and everyone’s dreaming of their own Patel Motel and no one is paying income tax because why would you report it like a rules-following rube?

Then, the first Patel sells to another Patel at a markup, rinse and repeat.

It’s a closed loop: be a Patel, buy from a Patel, hire Patels, get loans only for Patels from a bank owned by . . . a Patel. Oh, and often with Small Business Administration, you know, .gov, funding.

Today? Gujaratis own over 60% of U.S. hotels, and Patels snag 80-90% of motels in small towns.

Be very afraid.

Mythosnoir also indicates that, if Indians got 50% of the hotel SBA loans, that’s $7.5 billion fronted backed by you and me.

That’s not capitalism; that’s a clan economy plopped into America’s free market like a Bollywood dance number. And I said that the Patels own the banks. They do. Enter the “State Bank of Texas®”, was founded in 1987 by Chan Patel (of the Mumbai Patels).

Chan’s kids Sushil and Rajan (fine American names, those) in top spots. Want to make a bet on the ethnic composition of the bank? I tried to check, but their web presence was a website that looks like someone based on an old Geocities® fan page for Gillian Anderson filled with 404 links. It was designed in 2015-2018 and I checked half a dozen of their listed locations, and none of them were still owned by them.

Odd.

I had to.

And the other odd thing is that these Patel Motels around here never seem to have many guests. I’m not accusing, but hotels have seen fraud cases, from tax evasion to flipping schemes netting millions to money laundering. It would be nothing for human traffickers or actual drug cartels to meet up with motel Patels.

Zoom in to Augst, 2025 when ICE and the FBI arrested five Indians.

Kentakumar Chaudhari (a/k/a Ken Chaudhari), 36, Elkhorn, NE
Rashmi Ajit Samani (a/k/a Falguni Samani), 42, Elkhorn, NE
Amit Prahladbhai Chaudhari (a/k/a Amit), 32, Omaha
Amit Babubhai Chaudhari (a/k/a Matt), 33, Omaha
Maheshkumar Chaudhari (a/k/a Mahesh), 38, Norfolk, NE

The crimes? Allegedly:

trafficking people into forced labor where they worked at hotels for low/no pay,
sex trafficking,
keeping them in roach infested rooms,
fraudulent visas schemes,
smuggling Indians into the United States,
transporting illegals to Washington for to get fraudulent driver’s licenses,
extortion,
and using the hotel network for protecting not the Patel cartel but the actual cartel’s drug trafficking.

Allegedly. Over half a million in cash and “illicit drugs” whatever those are, were also reported as seized. The Patel hotel flipping scams? I didn’t make it up. Feds nailed Indians for $35 million in fake SBA loans for hotels (link below).

Three Indian-Americans indicted in over $35 mn loan fraud scheme

What a model minority!

The same sort of thing happens in trucking. Sikhs, mostly Punjabis, and seemingly all named Singh (as in every Singh-al time) control about 20% of the U.S. industry nationwide, and up to 40% on the West Coast. The crimes tied to them is milder, just vehicular homicides, drug trafficking (I mean, it was on 309 pounds of cocaine, just a dab), meth trafficking, organized cargo theft rings, etc.

Yup, a model minority through and through.

Like Patels, it’s chain migration: one gets a CDL, brings his family, they drive for low pay to “pay dues,” then start fleets. It’s just one Singh after another.

So, like the Patel bank, they loan only to themselves, and probably pay no taxes on the interest. I mean, they’re great credit risks as drivers, with CDLs obtained through cheating and little to no English. Why would you need to know how to safely drive a truck or read road signs to carry 80,000 pounds down the road at 80 miles per hour (Guptas per Gigawatt)?

Shortage or not, unqualified drivers kill.

These aren’t isolated incidents. It’s a broad pattern. Immigrants form closed societies, exploit high-trust laws like SBA loans and chain migration, undercut natives with cheap in-group labor, and capture markets because they’re not paying taxes. No diversity hires for them: it’s all clan.

Capitalism? Nah, this skirts antitrust, labor laws, tax laws and immigration rules.

Enforcement? Zilch. Call it out, and you’re “racist.” Meanwhile, American workers get squeezed. These economic empires siphon wealth into ethnic enclaves, not the broader economy. High-trust societies like ours assume people are going to engage in fair play, but low-trust immigrants will do anything to game the system.

I am glad I only made one joke about body snatchers. I didn’t want to get carried away.

The Clock Ticks: Make It Matter

“I’m not dead yet.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I told The Mrs. I wanted to be cremated. She made an appointment for next Tuesday.

Scott Adams shuffled off this mortal coil this week, and that event got me thinking about the big D: death. Adams, the Dilbert author who turned office satire into a cultural touchstone for nerds like me, left me thinking about his legacy. Adams wasn’t just a cartoonist; he was a man who rewired how we see persuasion, hypnosis, and the Clown World® we call reality. His passing was foreshadowed, but when it happens, the inevitability of it doesn’t make it better.

That’s Adams, who has left us, but there’s a contrast in George R.R. Martin, still kicking (for now). Today (my today, not yours) I read an interview where he whined at a fan who had asked if he was going to finish his Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones to most people) before he died. To his face. Martin griped about this confrontation.

“I’m not dying,” he grumbled, as if that’s the point.

George, buddy, hate to break it to you and subvert your expectations, but you are. So am I. So is everyone reading this post.

We’re all dying, right this second.

Tick-tock, the clock doesn’t care if you’re an author with $120 million in the bank lounging in Santa Fe while some flunkies sand off your bunions with sandpaper made from diamonds or a blogger hammering keys in the Midwest who ran out of beer last weekend. Every breath is one closer to the last.

Why did the skeleton go to the party alone? He had no body to go with.

We have an end date stamped on us like milk, but the Universe keeps the label hidden. Could be tomorrow in a freak duck attack (hey, it happens), or decades from now after a life of quiet desperation that had no more impact on the world than a potted fern.

The point? We’re terminal from day zero. I think Adams knew this; he talked about it in his books, framing life as a series of systems to hack for maximum output.

Martin? He’s procrastinating his way through what could be his magnum opus, letting plot threads dangle like cat toys. Ignoring the reaper doesn’t make him go away, it just wastes the sand in my hourglass.

In our rush to the grave, have we forgotten the miracles? Yes, miracles. Not the flashy water-to-wine kind. I’m not good at those. But what about the everyday wonders that make existence sparkle? Bite into a ripe strawberry straight from the plant. The explosion of sweet yet tart on my tongue?

Phenomenal.

Or cracking a cold beer after mowing the lawn on a scorching day, sweat dripping, the pilsner hitting like a high-five from my guardian angel. Crisp linens on a freshly made bed, sliding in like you’re royalty in a five-star hotel are another feast for the senses.

These aren’t mundane bits of life: they’re tiny miracles, proof the universe isn’t all entropy, Indians, Somalians, and taxes. We take these amazing things for granted, missing the point. We get one shot on this merry-go round. Enjoy it.

I tried to organize a hide-and-seek tournament, but it was a complete failure. Good players are hard to find.

Even I, the mighty John Wilder sometimes get bogged down in the daily grind. Bills, deadlines, that endless loop of work-eat-write-drink-sleep-shower-rinse-repeat. It’s easy to zombie through days, forgetting the biggest miracle and gift of all: being alive. Heart pumping, lungs filling, neurons firing symphonies in my skull. We’re stardust animated by the Great Cosmic Spark, yet we whine about traffic or the price of eggs.

Adams would call this a bad frame.

Zoom out.

Reframe.

Boom. The mundane becomes amazing magic. Martin’s dragons and ice zombies are cool (I mean the first three seasons with all the hot naked chicks), but they are pale imitations next to the real epic:

Life, unfolding heartbeat by heartbeat.

Here’s the kicker: we have a choice. Every. Single. Day. That next moment? It’s yours. Infinite power in that moment. No matter if you’re chained to a desk, stuck in traffic, or lounging on a yacht (I see you, Elon), that sliver of time belongs to you. You get to choose to squander it on despair, or seize it like a Spartan grabbing a Persian neck at Thermopylae.

Adams seized life. He didn’t just draw funny strips; he changed the United States. He changed the entire national conversation on politics, race, and the matrix of media manipulation. Some X™ dweeb (responding to me) called him a victim of the woke mob after his cancellation.

Victim? Please. Adams knew the game. He poked the bear on purpose, shifting Overton windows at scale.

I asked my dog what’s two minus two. He said nothing.

Martin? He’s the flip side. He hit the jackpot with Thrones, turned his fantasy story into a cultural juggernaut, then found himself unable to stick the landing.

Hell, he hasn’t even landed, and almost certainly never will now. It’s way more than a decade and his books are not only unfinished, they will never be finished by him. His writing chops are leagues above mine (I’ll admit it), but finishing an epic like that?

Nah. He’s got time left, but he’s squandering it on forgettable side quests while the sand runs out on the hourglass? That’s the opposite of Adams’ hustle. One built empires of influence; the other built a throne of delays.

There’s hope, though. If you want to change the Universe, it’s likely that you still can. You think, “I don’t have an audience.” True, but Adams started with zero. Sketched in a cubicle, built it strip by strip. Me? I peck away at the laptop, hoping to nudge minds.

Tomorrow, what can you do? Write that book. Start that business. Mentor a kid. Plant a tree. Convince an Indian to move back to Mumbai.

Make the most of every second.

Death’s coming, but until then? Make it matter.

Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts.

Adams left a blueprint: hack reality, persuade boldly, point out and mock the absurd. Martin’s a cautionary tale: don’t let potential rot.

Me? I’m typing this, hoping it sparks something in you. The clock ticks for us all. Use it wisely.

You’ve got one life. Make it matter.