Category: Inflation Nation

Wilder’s Black Friday Meme Sale, 90% Off!!!

“A present for my friends . . . at Thanksgiving.” – A Scanner Darkly

I guess she and Harry Potter never had a dry spell.

Tonight was a wonderful Thanksgiving, even though everyone has the same virus at the same time.  I’ve already had leftovers, and my wonderful family has learned one of the oldest lessons:  don’t engage Dad in a strategy game on a major holiday.  It is a cardinal rule, such as, “don’t get involved in a land war in Asia” which is (it turns out) exactly what they did.

So, tonight, we’re watching a movie, and I’ll probably be goofing with the family for the rest of the night.  As such, I’ve prepared a low-effort treat.

I collect memes throughout the year.  Some of them I batch into categories, and they form the backbone of posts about a specific subject.  Here, though is the Wilder Black Friday special:  memes that are on sale.  They are memes I collected but just haven’t used, and probably won’t use.

That isn’t to say that they don’t amuse me for one reason or another.  So, here it is, at nearly 90% off – the first-ever Wilder Black Friday Meme Sale.  Also, if you’re avoiding the malls and stores like we are, here’s our latest podcast.

Everyone, enjoy!

And here are the memes – starting with someone who didn’t get the memo:

 

The Potemkin Economy

“By noon, the submarines Ranger and Potemkin will have reached their designated firing positions. Within minutes, New York City and Moscow will cease to exist. Global devastation will follow, and a new era will begin.” – The Spy Who Loved Me

What do you call a reality show about people with lobotomies?  Mindless entertainment.

Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski is famous mostly for what he didn’t do, but more about that in a minute.  What Potemkin did do, starting in 1774, was conquer most of what is southern Ukraine, the Crimea, Moldova, and Catherine the Great a bunch of times.  The land he mostly took from the Ottoman Empire, but Catherine seems to have invited the conquest.  And apparently, Grigory didn’t do it right, because she made him do it again.  And again.

I mean a bunch of times.  Catherine had a succession of lovers that would put Kamala’s body count in 1992 to shame.  Okay, the summer of 1992.  Okay.  August of 1992.  Okay, August 11, 1992.  By noon

But when Potemkin wasn’t kicking Ottoman butt or . . . well, the other thing, what he did do was found city after city along the Black Sea coast.  You just might have heard of Kherson?  Yup.  Potemkin founded and named that city.  He was even buried there until Putin dug him up and took him back to Russia recently.  It’s certain he wasn’t the last Russian to retreat.

But mostly, we remember Potemkin for the phrase Potemkin Village.  Where did that phrase come from?

Why did the old lady fall in that well?  She didn’t see that well.

Catherine the Great, somewhere between lovers, decided to have a Lord of the Rings-type trip to go see what Potemkin was up to down south, and maybe have Potemkin put something in Mount Doom, if you know what I mean.

That was based on the idea that Potemkin had a lot of the Novorossiyan (approximately the southern area that Putin held before the Russians began advancing to the rear last month) villages built and rebuilt so that he could fool Catherine about how prosperous the area was.

Well, not really.  First of all, Potemkin didn’t have to impress Catherine, they’d known each other forever by this point, and she really liked him even though whenever they weren’t together they were boffing enough other people to make Paris Hilton blush.  What everyone does agree on is that Potemkin had folks paint some of the village buildings, and they did build a few fake ones, but those were mainly to show Catherine what the area would look like.

So, despite personal bravery, solid administration, building an entire fleet, and being a diplomat worthy of any of today’s age, we remember Potemkin for something he really didn’t do.  To be fair Potemkin was the guy that conquered most of the area that Russia and Ukraine are fighting for right now, so there’s a good argument that they should just give it all back to Turkey and be done with it.

Well, at least it’s a seasonal joke.

But it came to my mind when I started thinking about the economy we find ourselves in today – in many ways, it’s a Potemkin economy.  FTX®, that wonderful stealer of money and funder of Democrats?  It was a financial Potemkin Village.  There was nothing really there, ever.  A smelly-looking Millenial with his autistic girlfriend who is so homely that she makes Greta Thunberg look like an 8.5 and the rest of the crew literally printed their own virtual currency, and then grifted their way through piles of cash from nations and celebrities and even their own employees.

A Potemkin Village?  Sure.

And now Elon Musk is finding that his $44 billion toy, Twitter™ is filled with fraud.  First, there are fraudulent users.  We don’t have the full number of bots that Tweeted™, but it wasn’t a small number.

Second, there was an algorithm that was built to push the Leftist agenda by artificially drawing people’s attention to things they weren’t organically interested in.  As soon as Musk stopped the algorithm in Japan, for instance, politics stopped trending and anime and Godzilla© and sushi topped the list of things that Japanese people were actually interested in.

Third, the advertisers weren’t all they were cracked up to be.  Rather than being advertisers that were interested in, oh, say, advertising to customers, they’re fleeing the platform.  Why?  Because they weren’t interested in selling products, they were really interested in social posturing.  They’re leaving in droves – the economic engine of Twitter® appears to have been built on corporate virtue signaling.

Burgers.  Right.  That’s what they’re selling.

Fourth, the employees themselves seemed to be, at a ratio of at least 75%, useless people with a huge sense of entitlement.  How bad are these people?  They’re upset that they won’t have free food from in-house chefs.  They’ll have to pay for lunch.  Maybe they’ll have burgers?

As Potemkin himself might have said, “North Crimean Canal”.  Oh, sorry.  Potemkin might have told those disappointed Twitterites©, “Crimea River.”

There are more examples out there.  By definition, these Potemkin Companies look fine to casual observation until something breaks down.  Facebook© started as the darling of the Internet.  Then Zuckerberg decided that he’d spend the rest of his life staring out of the world through virtual reality, and spent $36 billion dollars on “the Internet, but with stupid goggles”.

Facebook® discovered a man was building a bomb.  The dilemma:  inform the FBI, or send him ads for digital timers?

Sure it makes sense to Mark who took the movie The Matrix as a how-to manual, but pretty much everyone else thinks it is . . . stupid.  But the scary thing for Mark is it’s making people look at what he really owns.  Some folks think it’s just the next version of MySpace©, because the teens have abandoned it and it now consists of businesses trying to sell stuff, mothers trading recipes for what to do with their children’s Adderall© for a quick buzz, and the NSA desperately trying to track everyone.

I guess Facebook© has a lot of servers and stuff, but is their model a Potemkin Company?

And how many other Potemkin Companies are sitting out there, in plain sight, but just not yet recognized?  My bet is that there are a lot, especially in the financial sector and tech sectors.  One principle that I’ve seen apply again and again is Wilder’s Rule #32:  what can be built really quickly can collapse a lot quicker.  If Zuck can make $100 billion in four years, he can lose it in four weeks.

The valuation of almost everything in our economy is subjective – it has value because we give it value.  Amazon™ was worth $180 last year at this time.  It was worth $99 yesterday.  It has gone down by half.  Amazon© has also announced that they’re going to lay off 10,000 employees in the next month.

Oops.  And what else might be a sign of a Potemkin Economy?

I’m sure it’s all legit, right?  Thankfully for the Ukraine, Russia sucks at war.

Valuations are built on emotion, and emotion is defined on how pretty something is.  Well, at least if we lose the Potemkin Companies and the Potemkin Dollar, we still have our relationship with Catherine the Great Kamala.

Oh, crap.  We’re in even worse condition than I thought.

Election? Worry About This Instead.

“We pay off the debt in buying the company with cash from its ongoing operation and by selling off pieces of the business.” – Barbarians at the Gate

Why do windmills love hard rock?  They’re huge metal fans.

Two characters were talking to each other in a Hemingway novel (The Sun Also Rises):

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said.  “Gradually and then suddenly.”

Irrespective of who has been in the White House, the debt of the United States keeps growing.  Gradually.  Okay, not gradually.  For the most part, the national debt has been doubling every eight years as Presidents keep spending money we don’t have to get re-elected.  Wait, why does this keep giving me flashbacks to my first marriage?

To be fair, it’s never fun to be the President who says, “Alright guys, I know the party has been awesome, but it’s time to stop spiking the punch with grain alcohol, I mean, look at Nancy – her liver must be 143 years old now and her husband is hammered.  So, let’s go home before we all have hangovers that will last for a decade.”

I found a twenty on the street, so I decided to do what Jesus would do:  I turned it into wine.

Debt is funny.  A little is hard to notice.  When I was first married with The Mrs., we bought a new car.  As in, a seriously new car, from a dealership and everything.  The monthly payment was okay.  So, a few months later, we bought a second one.  These weren’t expensive cars, perhaps (total cost) less than 1/3 of what we made in a year.  So, not Porsches™ and Lambos©.  Think:  small Nissan™ truck.

Ouch.  We weren’t bankrupt, but we were having to watch all our expenses each month.

When I paid the last payment for the last car?  Life was so wonderful.  And as debt dropped, we decided to not get into debt anymore (except for houses).  It was amazing.  That short-term pain and the little hangover that went with a debt moratorium only lasted a little bit.  Life was so much better afterward, and all it cost was half a dozen years of discipline.  And those were the last “new” cars we ever bought.

Did you hear about the guy in Mexico who drove his Audi® into a lake?  Quattro Sinko.

But on a national level, debt has been piling up.  It will destroy the country.  Some folks (Vox Day, for instance) has long pegged 2032 as the date when it all cracks up.  Me?  I called 2026 back in 2018.  I mean the United States?  Everyone could see the U.S.S.R. breaking up, heck, their flag only gave them a one-star rating.

I might be overly pessimistic, since inertia is powerful and the United States has trillions of dollars in inertia.  The first of the two factors that led me to that conclusion were the rising medical costs.  Eventually, if they keep rising, an aspirin at a hospital will cost $5,382 after insurance.

I wish that were a joke or an exaggeration.  The Mrs. went into the hospital earlier this year, and her COVID test was (allowed cost) $1,000.  It was negative.

What’s the difference between an art student and a large pizza?  The pizza can feed a family.

Yup.  Eventually, the costs of medical care – private, Medicare, and Medicaid are going to eat the entire budget.  We’ll become like a country that works all day for Band-Aids™ and Neosporin©.  Of course, that’s a ridiculous outcome.  People will stop going to doctors first.  And they are.  And our medical system is a mess (from a financial standpoint).

That, as I said, was the first problem.

The second one can’t be escaped – it’s the interest rate trap.  The problem is that the United States has been carrying huge chunks of its debt on short-term rates, having to roll it over every few years (on average).

I bought some dirt at high-interest rates.  I guess I should have avoided the loam shark.

The United States gets, generally, pretty favorable interest rates – at least when inflation isn’t running at near-record levels.  But what happens when, instead of 1% or less, the payments are 4% or more?

Interest on the debt doubles.  Take all of the soldiers, stealth fighters, rifles, artillery, missiles, MREs, and aircraft carriers, not to mention all the crayons that the military eats in a year?  The interest payments on the debt will be more than that.

As much as I’d love to blame the Leftists, this isn’t a Left-Right thing, mostly.  The healthcare crisis was started by Ted Kennedy (can’t turn away people who can’t pay) in the 1980s, but the Right has had plenty of time to fix it.  And they’ve only made “compassionate conservatism” while trying to make a “kinder, gentler country” their watchword while expanding medical programs and creating the worst Frankenstein monster yet – a non-private, non-public healthcare system.

Ted was an awful golf player.  He couldn’t drive over water.

And the spending?  The Right has spent as much (if not more) than the Left.  The biggest stop to that in my lifetime was when the Republicans in Congress pushed Clinton into not spending all the cash, and he agreed so he could get re-elected.

In the end, there are more things than just financial that are tearing the country apart, but financial is enough.  Angry, hungry people don’t really care who caused the hangover, they just want the pain to go away.  Regardless of how it’s done.

That’s how it ends.  Gradually, and then suddenly.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, Midterms Edition

“$10,000. Is that all it takes to be elected senator these days?” – Used Cars

If you’re eighteen, you’re old enough to vote, but not to drink.  But if an eighteen year old looks at the candidates, they’ll understand why the adults are drinking.

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

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same, though tensions may very well spike after this election.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Election 2022 – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – You Vs. The Deep State – 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 over 730 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.  Most of today’s memes are free-range, and not originals.  The crop was really good again this month.

Election 2022, Part II

The hype machine is up on the Left and in full swing.  I’m actually surprised at the amazing levels of hyperbole that are in swing.  Here are some examples:

Rob Reiner seems frightfully unhinged, like he might hurt himself.  As do the TV talking heads:

Bill Maher disappoints me.  I had thought that he was actually getting to the point where he was not the reflexive Leftist he was back in 2000.  Nope.  He occasionally talks more reasonably, but he’s as committed as any other Leftist.  Aesop (LINK), you were right.

How insane is the Left?  They’re running John Fetterman, a person slightly more capable of holding a conversation than a bologna sandwich for Senate.  When Fetterman was (rightly) attacked for not knowing the difference between a noun and a shoelace, the Left tried to paint Republicans as “able-ist” as in wanting someone who was able to say his own name without drooling.

He also looks like a Goomba® from the 1993 movie Super Mario Brothers.

Luckily, he has a growth on his neck so he can appeal to both Eagle® fans as well as Steeler® fans.

At least he helps Biden look good.

Because Biden looks like you know, the thing:

But Biden is all about scaring people, too, and so is his Chief of Staff.

The Left, though, is setting us up for more ballot shenanigans:

If you spend a few moments looking at the picture above, you’ll see that in most states, the independents break a little for the Right, and a little for the Left.  But if you look closely at Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of the independents plus some of the Republicans “voted” for Biden.  This is 100% certainty of the fraud that mail voting brings.  Will they cook the books this election?

Why wouldn’t they.  And, you’ll note, fences are going up in Washington D.C.  You can tell that a country is close to Civil War when the politicians live in abject fear of the citizens.

Violence And Censorship Update

Again, organized political violence has been fairly muted this month.  That’s good.  But the .GOV folks are scared – fences are going up all over Washington, D.C.  Even the FED has been surrounded.

In case there is rioting, Ron Paul has been busy.

Stephen Crowder, who broadcasts from a position on the Right, has been banned from his primary outlet, YouTube™, just in time for the election.  Why?  Don’t know.  YouTube©’s rules are vague, so you don’t know why they banned you even after they banned you.  This has a negative effect on free speech since people have no idea where the boundaries are, they stay as far back as they can.  This, in effect, allows even more speech to be banned.

Another person banned is David Icke.  He, however, is a British citizen that’s banned from visiting Europe.  Why?  He is listed as a terrorist.  What does he talk about?  How the elite are literal lizard people.  From watching him in a few videos, I think he sincerely believes that.  But he won’t be visiting any European countries anytime soon.

Reporter James Gordon Meek had his house raided in April.  He hadn’t been seen for months after resigning from his job.  He even skipped going to get an award for his reporting of the pullout from Afghanistan.  He was seen recently, though.  Why did the FBI raid a reporter and cause him to quit?

And there has been some good (potentially) good news with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter™.  If rumors are correct, it really has twisted a lot of knickers on the Left.  I don’t think Musk is on the Right, but he sure is messing with the Left, which might be enough.

How upset are they?  They want to see if they can keep him from running his toy.

The Usual Suspects are upset.  The “blue check mark” was the sign of an elite.  Now, anyone can have it.  The first price point was $20, but Elon quickly dropped it to $8.  This was hilarious, because people on the Left like, well, like Dick Durbin, who has no self-awareness, Tweeted® the below:

AOC was upset by all this, so much so that she quickly became the butt of jokes:

The ADL®, long known for tolerance of viewpoints they don’t agree with (yes, this is sarcasm), was quick to jump in with the Orwellian idea that, to have diversity of opinions, Twitter™ must ban all speech ADL© doesn’t agree with.

And, represented as a meme:

So, Musk started fact-checking.  The Left was upset that one of the first persons fact-checked was . . . The White House.  The White House was so embarrassed that they deleted the Tweet©.  Official Records Act violation, anyone?

And Kathy Griffin was permanently suspended for pretending to be Elon Musk.  Ha!

I guess we know how some people feel about that . . .

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again.  I wonder if his new shipment from ACME will come in soon?

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence ticked slightly downward this month and the abortion backlash subsided.   Will November be spicy due to elections?  A cold front is coming through, so I’m betting not.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it went up a bit – will November cause a spike?

Economic:

Economic indicators did a dead cat bounce this month.  Inflation has caught up with the Market.

Illegal Aliens:

Illegals are eight (8!) times more this time of year than any time measured during the same month during Trump’s time in office, and close to an all-time record.

You vs. The Deep State

You are being lied to and controlled.  Not (only) by Google™ and Twitter© and Facebook®, but by all of those folks at the request of the government.  Yup, the DHS, the child of the drunken meetup between George Bush and every congressman except for Ron Paul, has decided that they will be the group that decides what information you are allowed to hear on the big social media platforms.  This is not me making this up:

This is how this shows up in a meme:

Sure, they’re private companies.  But being leaned on by .GOV to shut you up?  I have felt it.  I can tell you the month that this page was downranked (not a misprint) by Google™ leading to a major dropoff in traffic from search engines.  The biggest months of attack?  On the months I made the most fun of Joe.  But after a while, it no longer looks like a mistake:

It looks like they’ve been planning it. And thanks to Snowden, we know how deeply they’re hooked in with electronic communications:

They want it all:  to spy on anyone, at any time, and to control what information you are allowed to see and hear.  They’re willing to go to great lengths:

And if you wonder what they value, look at who gets sent to jail:

Oddly enough, we are winning.  There is no reason that the DHS would need to enlist the aid of companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars to have them restrict the flow of information to over hundreds of millions of people if we weren’t winning.  Yeah, I know they own the majority of the institutions in the United States, but they’re proving they know they don’t own our minds.  They’re scared.

Remember, this is in our hands, not theirs.  And that’s what scares them.

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

Huh.  Pre-Musk Twitter 404ed almost all of my Bad Guy links from private citizens by the end of October…

It’s almost like there’s suddenly a crime wave coverup ahead of an election or something…

These two are still up (for now – because they are from Blue Check TV news reporters?)…
https://twitter.com/i/status/1582472383910117377
https://twitter.com/KeeleyFox29/status/1585595820077977600

Good Guys
https://youtu.be/akXJ_yuE-Ek
https://youtu.be/XRkpMhuXmZU
https://twitter.com/BornAKang/status/1584054864178339840

One Guy
Firefighter tries to be a good guy at a convenience store…
https://twitter.com/KcDiscover/status/1582552334994796547
https://www.kmbc.com/article/independence-missouri-shooting-kcmo-firefighter-anthony-santi-charges/41693134

Body Count
https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/47/95
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/10/19/daniel-bobinski-interview-embalmer-says-blood-has-changed/
https://icandecide.org/v-safe-data/
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/the-mortality-rate-is-up-17-across
https://chaosnavigator.substack.com/p/80-young-canadian-doctors-died-suddenly
https://thepostmillennial.com/florida-surgeon-general-covid-mrna-vaccine-found-to-cause-84-increase-in-death-for-men-ages-18-39?utm_campaign=64483
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ob-gyn-laments-covid-jabs-massive-unprecedented-side-effects-for-pregnant-women-babies/
https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/25-percent-people-received-covid-19-vaccination-missed-work-serious-event-cdc
https://nypost.com/2022/10/22/san-diego-er-seeing-up-to-37-marijuana-cases-a-day/
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fborder%2F2022%2F10%2F12%2Fgraphic-mexican-cartel-gunmen-dump-4-human-heads-near-texas-border%2F
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/glock-switch-epidemic-may-be-rippling-through-americas-inner-cities
https://www.unz.com/isteve/fbi-blacks-made-up-60-4-of-known-murder-offenders-in-2021/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-undercounts-number-times-armed-citizens-thwarted-active-shooting-incidents-report?intcmp=tw_fnc

Vote Count
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-trump-election-fraud/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/06/bxwz-o06.html
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/jawdropping-fraud-systemic-ballot-harvesting-in-orlando-black-neighborhoods/
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2022%2F10%2Fdemocrats_are_aboard_the_big_data_emtitanicem.html
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2022/11/03/mayor-says-milwaukee-election-worker-fired-over-ballot-fraud/69616108007/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mail-in-pennsylvania-ballots-with-incorrect-dates-will-be-saved-not-counted-2022-11-02/
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/new-york-has-more-3-million-voters-lacking-proof-identity-analysis
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/10/17/election-oversight-complaint-error-pair-causes-undercount-in-elections/
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/10/17/election-oversight-complaint-error-pair-causes-undercount-in-elections/
https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/03/bombshell-texts-show-milwaukee-mayor-colluding-with-democrats-to-rig-2022-election/
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-voting-voter-registration-delaware-constitutions-da8ac023e52da4a78c2ccb110750f8aa
https://whowhatwhy.org/deep-state/what-donald-trump-got-right-about-voting-machines/

Civil War
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1588262127105703936
https://resavager.substack.com/p/are-americans-still-a-people
https://unherd.com/2022/10/how-turbo-wokism-broke-america/
https://niccolo.substack.com/p/no-the-usa-is-not-headed-towards
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jordan-klepper-civil-war_n_63574553e4b051268c57fda3
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/26/civil-war-mar-a-lago-violent-extremism/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/civil-wars-are-too-easy-to-start-just-ask-the-spaniards
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/08/oath-keepers-trial-evidence-civil-war
https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/10/14/donie-osullivan-civil-war-threats-extremism-zw-orig-contd.cnn-business
https://www.foxnews.com/media/bill-maher-paul-pelosi-attack-latest-cold-civil-war
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/podcasts/civil-war-belle-sebastian-narrated-articles.html
https://www.thegazette.com/guest-columnists/is-another-american-civil-war-possible/
https://currentpub.com/2022/10/31/how-to-avert-a-partisan-civil-war/
https://www.niskanencenter.org/americas-unfinished-civil-war-with-jeremi-suri/
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1278293.shtml
https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2022/10/23/a-chronic-civil-war-is-raging-on-in-us
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/politics/jan-6-civil-war-violence-what-matters/index.html
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/13/no-we-arent-headed-to-civil-war-00061696
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/civil-war-isnt-on-the-horizon-the-original-battle-never-ended/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/dixon-democrats-destroying-america-in-revenge-for-civil-war.html
https://americanmind.org/salvo/become-undraftable/

Groundhog Day, But It’s The Economy

“You like Japanese sake, Mr. Bond, or would you prefer a vodka martini?” – You Only Live Twice

The economy also depresses me.  That’s why I drink a gallon of water before bed each night – so I have a reason to get up.

First, I want to pop a signal flare on behalf of Big Country Expat.  He was bananated off of blogspot®, and now has a new home here (LINK).  So, if you were looking for BCE, he’s surfaced.  Expect more of these flares in the future, because more folks will be kicked off of platforms as time goes on.

Okay, back to the blogging.

Back in 2018, 2019, there were few reasons to post contemporary economic posts.  I could do what I like to do best, sit back, research, think, and give a few strategic thoughts on what I thought the future would bring.  There weren’t a lot of stories of an immediate nature.  That had been true (more or less) going back to 2010.  The motions in the markets were longer, and we could take the time to post the waves, print bikini-girl graphs, and talk about the problems that were coming.

Why is our economy like a strapless bikini?  It looks like there’s nothing holding it up.

Now?

It’s that damn movie Groundhog Day.  I have folders of graphs on economic doom that, in a normal year, where each would be the biggest story in months.  In 2022, those stories are coming out every week.  Germany collapsing and all of their people are going to be cold in the 2022-2023 winter?  Check.  Britain collapsing and the latest prime minister wants to (spins wheel) import 50 million illiterate immigrants that marry their first cousins because that’s what will fix Britain’s problem?  People literally saying, “Global thermonuclear war?  Bah, that’s not as bad as COVID®.

I’m not even making the above three stories up or exaggerating it in any way.  The Babylon Bee in 2022 has become non-fiction.  I’m expecting Joe Biden to pull a rubbery mask off his face and reveal himself as the old man who ran the carnival.  He would have gotten away with it, if not for those pesky kids.

So, this week I’m just going to rant.  On (spins wheel) vodka.  “Vodka, it’s not just for breakfast anymore®.”

Our economic system before the Federal Reserve™ was a mess.  Why, people had to have actual gold to back money.  And if a bank got sideways?  It failed.  Talk about incentives.

Gold wasn’t the biggest of the pre-Fed© sins, though.  Regional banking centers outside of New York were taking a larger and larger percentage of the banking market. That, my friends was a sin.  If there’s money to be made off of charging people interest, and a New Yorker isn’t involved, that’s treason.

The Federal Reserve™ Act essentially stopped the growth of banking outside of New York like Kanye West would be stopped from attending a Soros-family bar mitzvah.  But that pesky gold remained.  So, FDR confiscated it.  All of it.

What did Obama use for birth control?  His personality.

Why?  So he could immediately make the dollar worth less.  It was a con.  But one he sold because (smoke and mirrors) I have no idea.  Seriously.  Maybe it was the equivalent of the COVID® panic back then.  If the American public had stormed the White House when FDR stole their money, lynched him, and then placed statues of Eleanor Roosevelt’s face on each coast to ward off evil spirits I think we’d be a better country.

But we didn’t.

I’ll skip ahead to 1971.  There are plenty of things I could complain about in the decades between the 1930s and 1971, but I don’t think there’s enough vodka in the house (only a few gallons) and my liver has indicated that it can only take these utter financial rants about once a year unless I switch to wine or beer.

But, I tell my liver, we already drank the wine and we’re saving the beer for . . . hmmm.  Why are we saving the beer?  Shut up, liver.

Regardless of my weak organs, in 1971 Nixon booted the dollar off of any convertibility to gold.  That was because the French had figured out the game:  they saw how many dollars that we were printing and wanted us to give them gold instead of dollars.  Nixon saw right through that (thank you, vodka!) and just said, “We’ll print all the damn money we want to, or I’ll send G. Gordon Liddy to eat France.”

If you ever feel useless, remember this:  France has an army.

Of course, inflation followed.  Jimmy Carter was an awful president, mainly because he wasn’t aware of what happened, why it was happening, what he could do about it, or  . . . wait, this is sounding like Biden, but Carter was actually smart and relatively virtuous.

Then we sailed.  Interest rates were raised, stopped inflation, and after two decades of high interest rates the currency stabilized to the point gold prices dropped and the biggest problems the country had were Hillary killing people and Bill Clinton having sex with anyone else besides Hillary.

Ahhh, brings back memories of a sillier time.

Pressure though, was there to inflate the currency.  That was built in.  Social Security and Medicare

Hang on.  Need more vodka for this.  Be right back.

Social Security and Medicare require a growing economy.  They require more people working than those that are receiving benefits.  But tax policy and birth control and Hillary Clinton’s Abortion Clinic® (Motto:  No human is too old to abort©!) made it important to import people to pay for this stuff, especially if they’d vote (D) in elections.

That made the economy less stable, rather than more.  But the Federal Reserve© retained two controls:  printing money, and interest rates.  Heck, the Fed© should call it, “This One Weird Trick Allows Us To Print Money Without Printing Money.”

That one weird trick is low interest rates.  When people borrow money, it actually is inflationary.  I could go into detail, but each $100 you have in a bank can be loaned out.  So, if you put $100 in a bank, you think it’s there.  In reality, it has been loaned out, so you think you have your $100 at the same time someone else is spending it.  There’s more to it than that, but I’m running low on vodka and, last time I checked, you have the whole Internet.  I mean, none of it is as funny as this place, but, you know, I have to leave room for other folks.

If you ever try to do yoga drunk, that can put you in an awkward position.

But that brings us to the Great Recession.  The Fed™ and Congress wanted everyone to own a home, so they created massive amounts of money through the magic of low interest rates.  Poof.  Then everyone wanted to buy six or a dozen houses because they never go down in value.

Then it collapsed.

The problem with a debt deflation as the loans collapse is that the cash supply collapses even faster than the Fed© can print it.  That’s the Great Recession.  So, the Fed™ tried to smooth things out by “dropping money from a helicopter” – which is a direct quote from the Fed© chairman.

It worked.  Sort of.  When you do things like that, it distorts the economy in a big way.  You bail out banks, but cause other people to fail.  But those people aren’t congressmen, so, who cares, right?

Again, it worked.  Sort of.  The problems with Social Security and Medicare remain, and are getting bigger.  We’re pretending that those things aren’t happening, just like I’m pretending that having Kamala within a heartbeat of the presidency is something that Jefferson, Adams, or Washington would be cool with.

Then, COVID.  Solution?  Print money.  Now, we’re back to inflation.  The solution is simple:  raise interest rates to the point where they’re larger than Barron Trump.  But we can’t!  Back in the 1970s when we played this game the first time, we had functional manufacturing and the undisputed strongest economy in the world.  It still almost wrecked the place.

At least Barron will never have microaggressions.

We’ve run out of places to hide.  Admittedly, this nonsense has gone on far longer than I expected it could already.  We are living in a time and place where we’ll see more changes in a year than we normally see in a decade.  Heck, we might see weeks in the near future where we see more economic changes in a week than in a decade.

I’ll admit, I do miss boring at this point.  But, I still have you, vodka.

Civil War Weather Report: The Last Election?

“Messy thing, elections.” – Rome

If Democrats get their way, we’ll never have a long, protracted election count to learn who won again.  We’ll know before the election.  Besides, I’ve been told that if your election lasts more than 24 hours, you should call a physician.

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

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same, though tensions are certainly increasing.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Election 2022 – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – How It Starts:  Canada – 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 over 720 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.  Most of today’s memes are free-range, and not originals.  The crop was really good this month.

Election 2022

Since I’ve been a kid, each election has been framed as, “the most important in American history”.  As of now, the Left is looking to spike the ball and end any challenge to their power now and into the future:  they want to change the rules.

Well, at least we know who Hunter votes for. 

Right now, the Senate is the only roadblock to federalizing all state elections, by putting forward a slate of rules that make election fraud trivial.  Why wouldn’t the people on the Right cheat?  Well, first off, we’re not that organized.  It’s true.  I think it was Charles Péguy who said it:  “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom,” which makes sense.  And don’t think that the Left doesn’t make use of that fact.

WWWT?  (What Would Watterston Think?).

The result of this is that fair elections will cease to exist.  Me?  I want elections to be harder.  I’d love it if people had to graph an equation and name four consecutive presidents from the 1800s to vote.  As such, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to require an identification card to vote, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask someone to vote on a specific day and to have registered thirty days before.

Oh, and the legislation?  Apparently, it makes it illegal for states to remove dead people from the voter list automatically.  But what it does give them is control.  And the Senate leadership is willing to go all-out on this one, eliminate the filibuster, and ram this down.

Why not?  It gives the Left control, forever.

Always remember the stakes.

Violence And Censorship Update

Measuring violence in 2020 was pretty easy – a riot here, a murder there, and adding in the numbers was pretty straightforward.  Violence hasn’t dropped, it’s just become, well, boring.  There are thousands more murders, but they just look like normal crimes.  As cops don’t want to risk life in jail for stopping a drugged-out banana-buyer, many district attorneys have been bought and paid for by Soros to enact just the street violence we’re seeing today.  So, measuring direct political violence is hard.  I’m not giving up, just noting that the violence is still there, but just not as easy to track.

Russian Gas

A Russian Twitch® streamer had his account censored.  His transgression?  He had a live stream going from his house showing his gas burners on his stove on, continually.  I guess that made some people pretty hot.

Kiwi Farms

I’m not going into the really weird history of this website.  I’ve been there a couple of times, and it wasn’t for me.  That being said, it has been the subject of a full-court press by trans activists that want to have it shut down, and have been doing a pretty good job of getting it deplatformed again and again.  On balance, it was probably less dangerous than Twitter®, but it didn’t agree with the current norm.

New Zealand

I’d prefer Kiwi Farms to what’s going on with the Kiwis in New Zealand.  New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Ratty McRatface, er, Jacinda Ardern, has come out against freedom and free speech.  Her takeaway quote:  “How do you tackle climate change if people don’t believe it exists?”  Also, I believe that she is now looking for a block of cheese to gnaw on.

Facebook®

I missed this one last month – Facebook© has banned the hashtag #diedsuddenly because, well, it is forbidden to question the safety of a “vaccine” developed in a few hours and delivered in an experimental manner using technology never before implemented on a wide scale.  I mean, what could go wrong?

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again.  And I wonder when Biden will determine that begging isn’t a strategy?

 

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence ticked slightly downward this month and the abortion backlash subsided.   Will October be spicy due to elections?  I’m betting not.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it dropped a bit more – wait until October – it might be big.

Economic:

Economic indicators shot down this month.  Inflation has caught up with the Market.  Not good.

Illegal Aliens:

For the first time in the last year, I can’t say that It set a new record for this time of year.  But it was close.  Must still be hot out.

How It Starts:  Canada

In my opinion, the real reason that we haven’t been in a Civil War yet is we lack a unifying reason.  Canada might just have found one:  guns.  In the United States, I’m not going to say that we’re fond of guns, but it really is built into the national DNA.  From Lexington and Concord to last weekend, Americans love shooting guns.  Why?

Freedom, I guess.  And I’d also toss out that the founding stock that are ancestors of a majority of the people in the country were a bit wild.  This selected for people who sought freedom.  If that was the case, and if attitudes are genetically handed down, people who came here to be free passed that down genetically.

In Canada, however, there is a bill up that would restrict guns immensely – one summary indicated that you could no longer transfer handguns from one owner to anyone else, and that buybacks would “intensify”.

These buybacks are always sold on the basis of “safety” but we all know what the real goal is.

But in Canada, in the Prairie provinces, they’re having Nunavut.  Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan are preparing to nullify this gun grab.

There is even talk about them leaving Canada altogether, which would be awesome.  Then you could go from the tip of Alaska down to the toe of Florida and be in a free country the whole way.  I’m pretty sure that we could get along, since they speak the language, like hockey, and make okay beer.  Oh, and combine them with the Red States in America?  We have most of the oil, most of the food, and most of the guns.

Sounds like a winner.

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/DionLimTV/status/1574542273773117440

https://youtu.be/ghMb9xHU31s
https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1572360002798485504

https://twitter.com/i/status/1566119675758624771

https://twitter.com/i/status/1566815458254376961

https://twitter.com/citizens_sanity/status/1566131407654715394

https://twitter.com/i/status/1569726738355339266

https://twitter.com/eclipsethis2003/status/1568009704877719552

https://twitter.com/ProfanityNewz/status/1567724993412304897
https://youtu.be/YULQKb68FHM

https://youtu.be/VWCTlcczmOo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hET1H6RZVwQ

https://twitter.com/StokingFreedom/status/1570412128200171521

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2022/09/26/philadelphias-story-worse-than-waah-waah-at-the-wawa-n499096

https://breaking911.com/get-in-the-closet-suspects-in-virginia-home-invasion-caught-on-camera/

https://twitter.com/MemphoNewsLady/status/1567748252992212992

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/memphis-mayor-blasts-facebook-streaming-mass-killers-early-release-4-our-fellow-citizens

https://heavy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/305915336_3142177816113006_7925894570550381876_n.mp4?_=1

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1565566842365624320

https://twitter.com/conservmillen/status/1572192397018234888

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1572110371946901506

https://youtu.be/gNARbEgwkkI

 

One Guy

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1566887635217514498

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-teenager-shotgun-takes-down-two-home-invaders-one-escapes-1741782

https://twitter.com/i/status/1567525359352180737

 

Body Count

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/

https://gehweb.ucsd.edu/wp-content/uploads/CalVEX-09.06.22.pdf

https://www.unz.com/jtaylor/more-murders/

https://www.realclearwire.com/articles/2022/09/28/opioids__work_hidden_scourge_sapping_the_economy_855616.html

https://www.sofx.com/these-kids-are-dying-inside-the-overdose-crisis-sweeping-fort-bragg-rolling-stone/

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/09/the-u-s-army-has-a-fentanyl-problem-thanks-to-mexico-and-china/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/09/07/oath-keepers-members-include-hundreds-of-elected-officials-police-and-military-personnel-leaked-list-suggests/?sh=3ee6cb0c5389

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/oath-keepers-data-leak-unmasking-extremism-public-life

https://www.theepochtimes.com/adults-aged-35-44-died-at-twice-the-expected-rate-last-summer-life-insurance-data-suggests_4711510.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge

https://www.theepochtimes.com/more-than-half-of-babies-toddlers-surveyed-had-systemic-reaction-after-covid-19-vaccine_4707948.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=cfp

https://goodsciencing.com/covid/athletes-suffer-cardiac-arrest-die-after-covid-shot/

https://archive.ph/MoP0V

Vote Count

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoMfIkz7v6s

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1571351490165350402

https://youtu.be/bqBnp2AdH7Y

https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/have-chinese-spies-infiltrated-american

https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/fbi-conceals-chinese-infiltration

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-demonizes-maga-republicans-dems-spent-million-pro-trump-candidates-win-primaries

https://scheerpost.com/2022/09/05/chris-hedges-lets-stop-pretending-america-is-a-functioning-democracy/

https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-class-warfare-eat-the-rich-sentiment-and-what-happens-next/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/delaware-judge-rules-vote-by-mail-law-unconstitutional-cannot-be-used-in-november

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/florida-watchdog-groups-allege-mail-ballot-and-voter-roll-violations-2020-2022

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/08/snap-voter-data-republican-democrats

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pennsylvania-county-sued-over-illegal-ballot-drop-box-usage-captured-camera

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pennsylvania-county-sues-dominion-voting-systems-over-severe-anomalies-2020-election

https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-grassroot-election-integrity-movement-sweeps-battleground-states_4740686.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=CFP

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/09/27/jovan-hutton-pulitzer-election-day-ballots-may-have-been-inserted-in-maricopa-county/

https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/facebook-spied-on-private-messages-of-americans-who-questioned-2020-election/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11213581/Congress-age-senate-house.html

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022%2F09%2F12%2Fdoj-refuses-to-release-biden-administration-plan-to-intervene-in-2022-midterm-election%2F

https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1

https://spaceworms.substack.com/p/bribing-voters-is-getting-out-of

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-speech-had-it-all-backward-fascist-democratic-party-trump-ideology-america-jan-6-democracy-11662161065?mod=djemalertNEWS

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/01/politics/election-workers-officials-harassment-kentucky-texas/index.html

https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-virginia-election-official-indicted-on-corruption-charges

 

Civil War

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1566522380280889347

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63335
https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/is-trump-pushing-civil-war

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/20/1124142684/some-compare-todays-political-divide-to-the-civil-war-but-what-about-the-1960s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/05/why-ive-stopped-fearing-america-is-headed-civil-war/

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/09/can-we-drop-the-silly-idea-that-america-is-heading-for-a-civil-war

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/08/30/sarah-vowell-one-civil-war-was/

https://dailymontanan.com/2022/09/09/a-maga-led-civil-war-thats-not-going-to-happen/

https://nypost.com/2022/09/07/kathy-griffin-slammed-for-saying-republicans-will-start-a-civil-war/

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-civil-war-horizon

https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/capehart/steve-phillips-on-how-we-win-the-civil-war/

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/greg-gutfeld-melting-pot-together-civil-war-isnt-possible

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/no-doomsday-bunker-not-a-single-gun-if-the-us-really-is-heading-for-civil-war-im-stuffed

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202209/mistrust-misinformation-and-the-possibility-civil-war-in-america

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/09/05/barbara-walter-civil-war-trump-doj-rehtoric-sot-nr-vpx.cnn

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3647063-can-civil-war-happen-again/

https://www.wired.com/story/the-end-of-roe-will-spark-a-digital-civil-war/

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/the-risk-of-a-new-american-civil-war

https://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/editorials/2022/09/toward-a-second-american-civil-war/

https://www.msnbc.com/the-mehdi-hasan-show/watch/just-how-close-is-the-u-s-to-a-civil-war-148895813806

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cbs-star-reporter-major-garrett-fears-were-on-the-brink-of-civil-war

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/another-american-civil-war-take-heed-or-take-cover-204583

https://www.newsweek.com/civil-war-may-have-already-begun-msnbc-host-says-citing-maga-violence-1739679

https://macdailynews.com/2022/09/27/bill-gates-were-going-to-have-a-hung-election-and-a-civil-war/

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/25/remembering-hate-speech/

https://roycewhite.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-joe-biden

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2022/09/04/conservatives-explain-how-i-am-a-threat-to-the-very-soul-of-this-nation-in-powerful-thread-making-biden-look-even-worsea/

https://summit.news/2022/09/07/poll-majority-believe-bidens-maga-extremists-speech-a-dangerous-escalation-in-rhetoric-designed-to-incite-conflict/

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/09/05/f15-vs-ar15-bet-on-the-guys-with-the-guns-n2612609

The Economic End Of Europe

“I don’t get history. If I wanted to know what happened in Europe a long time ago, I’d watch Game of Thrones.” – Community

Why do communist governments always fail?  They cease the means of production.

(Memes today are mostly as-found.)

The handling of the war in Ukraine will go down as a historic blunder, rivaled by only a few events in history:

  • Archduke Franz Ferdinand deciding to go cruising down the road in his ragtop,
  • Socrates, who in his last words said, “I drank what??” (thanks, Real Genius), and
  • The forming of the band U2®.

The Western World had already been rocked by the response to COVID-19.  The economic shenanigans required to keep the economy on life support had been bad enough.  The entire debt-based currency system had been lurching back and forth more than Hillary Clinton after quality time with a bottle of gin and her “Madame President” scrapbook.

And bad things are going around in Switzerland, as we’ll see below.  And big trouble may lie ahead for Great Britain:

In truth, the recovery from the Great Recession hadn’t created any real structural changes.  The primary mechanism for preventing utter economic collapse was printing bucketloads of cash and shoving it into the faces of the banks so that they didn’t fail in a catastrophic and sequential fashion.  It isn’t the only time that irresponsible decision-making was rewarded with buckets of greenbacks, but let’s not dwell on Hunter Biden.

Where are we now?

Europe is facing an energy drought – one that (unless Russian gas shipments are resumed fairly quickly) will result in lowered economic output.  How bad?  Some have said, “Great Depression bad.”  The precursors of this can be seen in the cracks we see developing economically:

If the Pope commanded the cash be transferred electronically, would that have been a PayPal® order?

Now, one thing I do know:  religions are really, really good about keeping their eye on their cash.  I wonder if there was some reason that the Pope was wanting this financial move?  Was it because he like making Papal airplanes?  Or, was it because someone had tipped him off?

Why can’t the Pope be cremated?  He’s still alive.

People are betting that Credit Suisse® to fail.  They’re also betting that Deutsche Bank™ will fail.  Why?  When banks lend money to people that can’t pay it back, well, unless the Federal Reserve© comes around to stuff the banks full of cash, they fail.

So, COVID-19 hits, governments around the world print cash, but nothing is physically broken.  We can (sort of) pretend that the world is fine, and whistle through the graveyard and hope that we can squeak out another year of wild naked greased PEZ® parties, elephant rides, and pantyhose for everyone.

Then, Ukraine.  As I’ve said before, with a sane president capable of making good decisions, this would have been solved with a few phone calls, some Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and maybe a few coupons for 50%-off shrimp at Red Lobster™.  Nope.  Biden escalated all of it.

And, again, maybe (probably not, but maybe) in a world with an economy that had underlying actual strength, Biden could have pushed it just like he did and not cratered the entire economy of the West.

But he did.  And now the consequences cannot be avoided.  Interest rates are shooting up.

How high?

Oh, surely we aren’t in a real estate bubble.

Oops.  But at least the international community isn’t panicking.

Oh, they are?  Well, at least Biden hasn’t sold off our energy reserves in a naked bid to influence the 2022 election. 

Oh, he did?  Well, at least Biden has a good understanding of how energy markets work, and how supply and demand sets prices.

Oh.  Well, I guess that’s really scary.  Thankfully, no one is messing around with the fundamentals of reality.

Huh.  I guess my dog just quit.

Well, at least The Mrs. and I had a serious talk about the bedroom.

All foolishness aside, if Europe has an energy drought that lasts three years or more (one of the latest estimates I’ve seen) the results will be as devastating as a war.  Economies need jobs to produce wealth so people can have wild naked greased PEZ® parties, elephant rides, and pantyhose for everyone.

And, despite the magical thinking of some people on the Left, free anything (not just healthcare) isn’t free.  Someone, somewhere, has to work for it to pay for it, otherwise it’s slavery.  Which, I think, is fine for Leftists, because they never imagine themselves the slaves.

But I have faith, faith that the Swiss will save us.

The Swiss have a long and proud history.  This history goes back to at least 1307, or so the legend goes, to William Tell (the guy who shot the apple resting on his kid’s head).  In fact, William Tell and his son were in a bowling league, but the records of what team they were on are now lost to us.  We will never know for whom the Tells bowled.

The Biggest Shock: Energy

“Oil, Butt-Head. It’s oil. We’ve struck oil.” – Beavis and Butt-Head

I caught my bread moving to the music on the counter the other night.  I guess it was a bun dance.

We’re 30 months past the start of the ‘Rona outbreak.  Sure, it doesn’t seem like that long, but in many ways it seems so much longer, like being forced to watch Amy Schumer talk to Chuck Schumer about cheese.  What happened, due to the reaction to the ‘Rona, was one of the biggest supply shocks that the world has ever seen.

When the ripples of that shock moved from country to country, things broke down.  The world, at that point just before the pandemic was an amazingly efficient machine.  It was wonderful at taking oil and turning it into important things, like Pringles®, hairspray, and cell phone cases.

But, I said that the economy was efficient – that means that all of the parts were needed – there were few wasted factories, and, few wasted workers.  We lived in the greatest abundance that the world had ever seen.  This abundance was so deep that world hunger was a solved problem.  For the first time ever, there were more people in the world that were overweight than hungry.

This was a brief moment in history.  In medieval France, for instance, the peasants would spend all winter in bed in a semi-hibernation to conserve food.  I guess I just described me at 2:30pm on Thanksgiving, except I’m sleeping off food.

I guess the most popular Christmas song at mental hospitals is, Do You See What I See.

But back to Thanksgiving, what were they giving thanks for?

Having food.  Even now as the events still unfold in slow-motion, the loss of abundance is looming.  Shortages begin to stack up.  A friend tried to buy a pickup, but was told it would be at least six months for it to arrive.  He bought a different one.

The price increases we’ve seen are a symptom of that lack of abundance – we had shortages because we were finally paying the price for the efficiency of the system – we had shortages of everything except for cash.  The powers that be decided to try to paper over the economic problems by flooding the world with that cash, which made people feel better, temporarily, but then led to the shortages we’re still seeing.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine?  It’s an example of yet another stress to the systems of the world.  Food.  Fertilizer.  Oil.  And a big one as far as Europe is considered?  Natural gas.  The folks in Europe might need to re-learn how to huddle together for warmth during winter.

I’d tell you how to make an oil well, but it’s really boring.

Abundance came from that finely tuned system.  What many don’t realize is that abundance comes mainly from abundant energy.  That energy is used everywhere.  It’s powering my computer and your computer (or phone) and the car that took me to work and the harvester that brought up the corn to feed the cow that became a steak on my plate last weekend.

Oddly, the Left thinks that by pretending that a new, renewable power will spring into existence, that it really will.  That hasn’t happened, or if it did, the power grid certainly isn’t showing it.  Widespread blackouts weren’t a feature of my youth – they’re an annual occurrence now, since the system is now overtaxed.  It’s gone from resilient, with a capacity that is sufficient for nearly any situation, to one that is regularly broken.

There was a blackout in New York City.  People were stuck on escalators for four hours.

Our history of abundance is dependent entirely on our mastery of energy.  There are 7.97 billion people on Earth today.  My estimate, based on history, is that without the current intensity of energy use, the Earth could support somewhere between 250 million and 500 million people, tops.

Energy is the key for all of that.

Oil is prone to, well, run out.  Frakking has provided a very significant way to expand reserves, but conventional oil peaked back in 2016.  The oil time, “drill it and pump it” is declining.  Frakking can provide a respite, but even those resources are limited.

The choices that lead to a real future, though, are few.  Of actual technology that exists and provides sufficient energy to power a civilization, nuclear energy is key.  I’d love to suggest fusion power, but sadly, the only version of fusion that we have on Earth exists in very short duration, high-energy pulses, often designed for delivery by intercontinental missiles.

But fission does exist.  It’s expensive to produce new fission power plants, but they last for decades.  Are there downsides?  Certainly.  Nuclear waste isn’t great, but I hear it’s still better for your than corn syrup.  And residents near Chernobyl can count on one hand the seven reasons why a nuclear meltdown is a bad idea.

But I never trust people from Chernobyl.  They’re two-faced.

We actually may be struggling to return to abundance for decades, and I don’t think we’ve fallen nearly as far as we will.  The supply disruptions started by the ‘VID and continuing through the Ukrainian War will continue, and will swing farther and farther out of control.  This will put pressures on people and increase conflicts, both inside countries and between countries.

Those could be huge, massive wars.  But as long as I don’t have to listen to Amy Schumer talk to Chuck Schumer, about cheese, it’ll be alright.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: They Hate You

“Hell, you boys is in the occupied territory. You’re 40 miles behind enemy lines. That’s smack dab in the middle of World War III.” – Red Dawn

Why do angry clocks only tok?  They’re tiked off.

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

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same, though tensions are certainly increasing.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Naming The Enemy:  You – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Shocks To The System – 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 over 710 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.  Most of today’s memes are free-range, and not originals.  The crop was really good this month.

Naming The Enemy:  You

Since Biden was sworn in, the relationship between citizens and the government has fundamentally changed.  Trump was like a game show host.  Biden is like a character from a Stephen King novel, and not one of the good ones.

The sheer hate shown by the Left, though, has replaced every bit of pretend love.  Biden has set himself up not as the President of the United States, but, at best, the President of the Democratic Party.  And that party, as well as all of the Left has let the mask slip.  How far?  This far:

Yes.  That is a governor of a state, indicating that people who live in the state she is supposed to represent, should move.  Admittedly, she looks like she’s auditioning for the role of Morticia for the “couldn’t get a date in high school players”.  But since she (presumably) hasn’t (yet) Cuomo’d her staff, well, she’s the governor.  And she hates you.  You are her enemy.  She has made that clear.

And so did Biden’s press secretary:

Merely voting for the “wrong” candidate makes you the enemy.  You, too, can be a “threat to our democracy” if you don’t vote the way that Big Biden wants you to vote.  I’m not sure why that upsets them, since the voting isn’t how they win elections, it’s the counting that wins them elections.

But I guess it sets you up to be an extremist.  What’s an extremist?

Anyone who doesn’t believe what (they) the Leftist “majority” believe.  Simple, right?  Don’t like chocolate?  Extremist.  Think that owning guns might be a right?

Extremist.  Biden even said so.  Again.  Last summer, he threatened his own citizens.  Apparently, he liked the results so much that he did it again.

I think Joe might have forgotten something:

But, seriously, he really, really, might have forgotten something:

And I thought he was on Ukraine’s side?  But, regardless, he has this really weird view on weapons, and I think it can be summarized by this one meme:

And all of this nonsense was before his ill-advised 1930’s totalitarian aesthetic national speech.  What did he want to talk about with his background that would have been appropriate at a May Day parade at Red Square in 1936?

Well, he had a lot to say.  About inflation?  No.  About Russia?  China?  Ukraine?  The energy crisis?  The economy?  No.  Really just about how much he really, really hates anyone on the Right.

People on the Left were quick to join in:

 

So, you’re the Enemy of the Left.  Congratulations!  But I’m not so sure about Biden’s comments . . . .

Violence And Censorship Update

Just like the segment above, I had more censorship this month than I can work through.  In many cases, it is actively impacting writers like me, with (apparently) Google® doing quite a bit to throttle traffic.  This is nothing new, but as far as I can tell, it’s accelerating and becoming more brazen at all levels.

But on the bigger stage, “Gays Against Groomers” was shut down.  The person running “Libs of TicTok” was doxed as well, but still maintains their presence.  Why shut them down?

I’m guessing a narrative violation, since “Groomer” is now officially a hate word.

But that’s just a Twitter® account.  It’s not like big tech is actively trying to shut down speech from the Right, is it?

Odysee® has been threatened by Apple® to not allow their app in the Apple© Appstore™ unless they strip voices on the Right from their content.  Odysee™ has, so far, told ‘em to buzz off.  That normally works pretty well until they come after the bank accounts.  Which they will.

The FBI has done its best to join in:

Remember, the FBI searched Barron Trump’s bedroom before they searched Hunter Biden’s.  And they leaked photos of Trump’s place, but not photos of the Epstein investigation.  That probably tells you all you need to know about how political the FBI is.

But at least big tech is doing this on its own, right?

No.  They colluded with the Biden Administration on a regular basis on “what to censor”, which in any real world would be a big deal.  But who controls what’s on the net?  Big tech.  The idea that independent voices can get a large following is something they’re working desperately to control.

They’re trying to understand why you would avoid taking the science juice into your veins.  Testing and actual data are too much to ask.  Keep in mind that one statistic I saw showed that 44% of pregnant women who were in the science juice trial miscarried.  And that it’s still recommended for pregnant women.

Even Bill Maher, who is no real friend to the Right, is stunned at the hypocrisy.  Me?

Not so much anymore.

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again.

 

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence ticked upward this month, though not to previous levels.  I think it continues to be muted because the Left has kept their dogs on a leash.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it dropped a bit.  We’ll see what impact Biden’s speech has.

Economic:

Economic indicators ricocheted down this month.  Not promising, but this is a strange election season.

Illegal Aliens:

It set a new record for this time of year.  But it was down.  Must still be hot out.  And Elon had something to say, too.

Shocks To The System

When the Russians invade Ukraine, I was mainly worried about the impact of losing the things that Russia and Ukraine made that would impact the outside world – things like wheat, or fertilizer.  I really didn’t expect the West to collectively decide, “breathing isn’t important” and cut off their own oxygen.  They did.  Natural gas is very important to the European economy, and without it, whole segments of what they produce have to get shut down – like COVID-level impacts, but because they decided not to buy natural gas.

Oops.

Whether intentional or not, it certainly has given a lot of data about shock testing of the economy of Europe:

Now it’s created such imbalances in the European energy market that electricity bills are skyrocketing.  How do girls decide who they’re going to date?

Collectively, the governments are deciding that they want the ability to do (spins wheel) whatever they want to do in response to the crisis.  Really.

Meanwhile, electricity shortages are showing up elsewhere.  In Colorado, I think users got a credit for installing the remote-control thermostat plus an annual payment ($25?) but lose the ability to choose how warm their house is.  Not horrific, but a sign, potentially of stresses to come.

As the interest rates go up, another stress goes up, too.  Housing prices drop and the housing market starts to lock up.  We’ve seen this before.

Economic stresses, especially energy stresses, have the ability to be incredibly destabilizing to a society, pushing it from near war to over the edge.  Beware as the economy falls apart.

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/LAPDHQ/status/1560387842873757697

https://twitter.com/i/status/1554292158684794882

https://twitter.com/i/status/1565820292827586561

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1558877210231984128

https://breaking911.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/XRdD_4cG-ZgMyeke.mp4?_=1

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1562787749291106312

 

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1554279913519136769

https://twitter.com/i/status/1556399786948976640

https://twitter.com/i/status/1565078355267170304

https://youtu.be/NuenlBlzPPg

 

Body Count

https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/BcIggWPF0Th-png__700.jpg

https://www.unz.com/jtaylor/more-murders/

https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-08-19-usa-has-3rd-most-murders-in-world-subtract-five-democrat-cities-189th.html#

https://vdare.com/articles/41-black-on-white-homicides-home-invasions-including-a-boat-invasion-really-are-a-thing-july-2022-another-month-in-the-death-of-white-america

https://www.fairus.org/press-releases/border-security/fair-analysis-49-million-illegal-aliens-have-crossed-our-borders

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/16/report-44-percent-of-pregnant-women-in-pfizer-trial-lost-their-babies-fda-and-cdc-recommended-jabs-for-expectant-mothers-anyway/

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/08/19/correction-eleven-mrna-subjects-suffered-spontaneous-abortions/

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/you-are-25x-more-likely-to-be-injured

https://expose-news.com/2022/08/09/1-in-246-people-die-shortly-after-covid-vaccination/

https://expose-news.com/2022/08/09/mortality-rates-lowest-among-unvacinated/

https://twitter.com/i/status/1555940645985890305

https://twitter.com/backtolife_2023/status/1562718083747196928

https://www.skirsch.com/covid/HealthcareStories.pdf

https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1563848349777887234

https://twitter.com/afshineemrani/status/1564000788107513856/photo/1

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/this-one-graph-tells-you-everything

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/do-you-know-how-many-people-have

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/in-memory-of-those-who-died-suddenly-4f6

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1562529247826165760

Vote Count

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/29/what-is-to-be-done-2/

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/what-i-learned-at-the-summit-of-truth

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/los-angeles-soros-da-gascon-recall-fails

https://www.12news.com/article/news/politics/elections/decision/some-pinal-county-election-precincts-run-out-of-in-person-ballots/75-93414e02-3830-4979-8153-48c7c5af69f8

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/08/16/ny-citizens-audit-finds-hidden-infrastructure-in-voter-rolls/

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/georgia-secretary-of-states-office

https://nationalfile.com/mail-in-ballots-from-2020-discovered-at-baltimore-usps-facility/

https://twitter.com/bennpetersen/status/1554672205472022529

https://youtu.be/dwbzDr1WrOQ

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/recent-features/when-mules-go-ballot-trafficking/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/13/california-san-bernardino-secession-november-election

https://twitter.com/loganclarkhall/status/1562942569876946947

https://www.valleynewslive.com/2022/08/10/fargo-school-board-votes-7-2-no-longer-recite-pledge-allegiance/

 

Civil War

https://www.unz.com/isteve/who-drove-the-great-awokening-the-news-media-or-academia/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/29/us-civil-war-fears-poll

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/americans-are-too-pampered-and-neurotic-to-fight-a-civil-war/ar-AA10BUHx

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/civil-war-2-0-not-on-techno-totalitarians-watch/

https://www.journal-news.net/are-we-headed-for-a-civil-war/article_5c22ca4c-5b81-5874-bbc0-7171035458b0.html

https://amac.us/are-we-headed-for-a-civil-war/

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/17/civil-war-porn/

https://unherd.com/2022/08/americas-tribes-are-ready-for-war/

https://www.governing.com/now/no-america-is-not-on-the-verge-of-a-new-civil-war

https://www.theonion.com/conservatives-explain-why-they-are-preparing-for-a-civi-1849414130

https://www.foxnews.com/media/civil-war-here-thanks-maga-mob-msnbcs-tiffany-cross

https://www.businessinsider.com/new-us-civil-war-wont-look-like-last-one-historians-2022-8

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-supporters-want-a-civil-war-after-fbi-raid-of-mar-a-lago-2022-8

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-07-27/fear-of-a-second-us-civil-war-ignites-debate.html

https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2022/8/11/23301922/republicans-are-rooting-for-a-civil-war-mona-charen-column

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/trump-supporters-tiktok-civil-war/

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3591492-the-gathering-political-storm-in-america/

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/republicans-join-in-with-white-nationalist-attacks-and-civil-war-threats/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d39zq/trump-supporters-civil-war-fbi-search-mar-a-lago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-america-is-in-such-a-mess-gvb25p0tj

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/how-when-do-we-come-together-again/

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/08/msnbc-host-civil-war-is-here-with-republicans/

 

In Summary….

https://twitter.com/i/status/1557482526536515584

https://twitter.com/raqrockyjones/status/1557756532221218817

Student Loans, Death, And Taxes

“I’ve got Doctor Euthanasia’s home number for that eventuality.” – Absolutely Fabulous

They should thank their student loans – I don’t think they could ever repay them.

I had another theme picked for today, but that’s okay – it can wait for a few posts. It’ll keep. But when I heard that Joe Biden was planning on relieving up to $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers that make less than $125,000, I was astonished.

The late genius P.J. O’Rourke described exactly this situation:

“I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.

“Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”

First, $10,000 doesn’t sound like all that much, right? Further, that would wipe out entirely all the debt from about a third of the borrowers. So, I pulled out my calculator. A third of 45,000,000 is 15,000,000 people, who presumably vote. Assuming that their average debt . . .

That’s $90 billion. Ugh! Some people work a whole year and don’t make that much money. I checked the numbers again, and was, like, um, that’s right. So what about the other two-thirds?

I assumed that some of them made more than $125,000 a year – Biden’s cut-off for his “gift”. I decided to play it conservatively – assume that only 25,000,000 people would get the full $10,000 airdropped into their lives. That’s another $250 billion.

Altogether, that’s $340 billion. $340,000,000,000.

This is an astonishing sum for someone to just give away as free money. And forget the moral hazard associated with doing this – paying debts is honorable, especially when everyone else is required to. You’re not a loan.

I guess someone didn’t get the Barbie® they were looking for from Santa Biden.

But since (spins wheel) at least Bush II (and you could argue Nixon was on the bandwagon, too), the competition by presidents of either party has been to shovel the most money out the door to people as fast as they could in year two of their presidency to juice the economy so all the cylinders would be pumping when their next election hit. And since they only have two terms, who cares what happens then?

People vote in favor of good economies, so a good economy going into the 2024 election will help get votes.

Originally, that $340,000,000,000 bought a lot of nonfat vanilla lattes on the way to Introduction to Feminist Non-Binary Ancient Indigenous Australian Literature 201 at good old We Have A Climbing Wall University. I’m betting that $340,000,000,000 will buy a lot of votes from the graduate-level baristas that took that class.

What will be the result of all of that extra cash floating around the economy?

It does look like it will be tax free . . . but I’m betting lots of those folks wouldn’t cheat on their taxes, I mean, what kind of example would that be for their 23 dependents?

It’s hard to tell. Normally, I’d say almost certain inflation. I think that even Biden is dimly aware that all of the previous inflation has destroyed the housing market – sales are down over 20% from last year. That destroys a lot of value. And if the market drops?

The bigger question is this: giving a single politician the unilateral authority to make multibillion-dollar decisions on a whim is madness. It turns the executive into a king, handing out largess to whoever he feels like. I mean, if Biden remembers.

But what other powers does a king have?

The power of death. And that’s in play up in Canada.

3.3% of deaths? Those are rookie numbers, Canada!

They are rookie numbers, and Canada is doing its best to pump them up. Remember, coffee is only for closers. And Canada wants to be a closer. Read a headline the other day – a Canadian veteran has PTSD. Doctor’s suggestion?

In Canada, if you’re feeling suicidal, apparently the authorities want you to get help. As in someone to help you kill yourself.

Yup, Canada suggested he run away to go live on a farm where he can run and play, like all those goldfish I had as a kid. Except in this case, if you go to a doctor because you have a cold, they’ll suggest, without you asking, if you want to have a dirt nap instead. Okay, not a cold. But PTSD.

I can’t imagine why they’re suggesting that. Perhaps it’s because it’s cheaper to bury someone than to give them “free” healthcare?

Suicide? That’s the last thing I’d ever do.

Oddly, it turns out that when people have goals, values, and the prospect of a decent life ahead of them, euthanasia is an idea that doesn’t sound so good.

Except to them. And if it’s you dying.

Huh, somehow they no longer sound like Santa. Because? He isn’t real. If you want to know how they really feel, re-read the Tweet® above.