It Does Werf The Flammen – Page 3 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Some Signposts On The Way To Collapse

“It’s a growth economy, Gus. We’ve already made like, 500 rupee.” – Psych

What’s worse than rushing to the liquor store five minutes before it closes? Getting there thirty minutes before it opens.

For the most part, I like to have my posts be about a bigger, underlying principle. In my life, I have found the first thing I enjoy is making people think about life in a different way and examine new possibilities. The second thing is a never-ending stream of jokes. To be clear, I never tell jokes to amuse others; I tell jokes because they amuse me. They maybe Dad jokes, that’s why I save them in a Dadabase.

Tonight, however, I’m going to just enjoy our current economy, and just give some milestones on the current descent into whatever economic future that we’re creating in a relatively short post.

First up, is the idea that $100,000 isn’t a lot of money anymore:

How many Zoomers does it take to change a lightbulb? 100,000. One to change it, and 99,999 to throw the parade.

I kid, a bit. Zoomers certainly are the most fragile generation that we’ve ever produced, since when I was growing up trigger warnings was what Pa Wilder gave me if he saw my finger head towards one when I wasn’t planning on shooting. A safe space? That was the place that Pa had a safe.

As much as I’d like to bag on the Zoomers, it really is a rough world that they’re coming into, economically and otherwise. Most of the jobs are in the cities, and the housing costs there are ludicrous. I’d rent in the cities for longer than two months, but I only can afford to give up one kidney.

A policy of unpoliced and encouraged illegal immigration for decades has consequences? Perish the thought!

It’s not just housing which has become more unaffordable than at any time in history (at least in the cities). Cars have recently gone to silly levels – the latest average monthly payment for a new car is $716 for an average of 69 (hehe) months. The average loan amount is $41,445. The last three cars I bought (all used) totaled $45,000 or so.

To be clear, people don’t have to buy a new car. I haven’t bought a new car since 1997, all of mine have been used. The average used car goes for nearly $28,000, with a monthly payment of $526 at an interest rate of over 10%. Ouch!

I wonder if this app is the biggest cause of suicide for Tesla® owners?

While the next two items are from Canada, I wonder how far behind the United States is.

For those who aren’t used to metric, a kilogram is roughly two pounds, and a Canadian dollar is roughly a handful of rounded pebbles that you might collect at the bottom of a stream – I think it’s called a metric dollar.

It’s pretty bad in Canada. They could have had it all: America’s sense of freedom, British literature, and French cuisine. Instead? They got French immigration policy, Britain’s love of pointless bureaucracy, and American economic policy. And they’re paying for it, literally.

Thankfully, some folks are doing well in the economy. I heard a rumor that one person was taking dollars to buy diesel fuel from a European source, but instead bought it from a Russian source. Amazingly, when you make smart decisions like that, you can save a lot of money.

Me? I’ve seen corruption, bribery, blackmail, jealousy, theft, fraud, and deception firsthand. I’m never playing Monopoly with The Mrs. again.

To be fair, I will share that Russia has a new technological innovation that I can share, to at least partially offset all those leaked documents. The Russians have apparently developed a new technology that allows them to see with the vision of one of the most ruthless killers on Earth:

Remember when Putin said he didn’t have any plans to invade the Ukraine? I think he was telling the truth.

Again, this post is just is a different one, just a signpost on road that we’re on. I’d offer $100,000 for your thoughts, but it would be that Canadian metric money. What’s it called? A rupee?

Watch How Biden Uses This One Weird Trick To Turn The United States Into A Third World Country

“Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. He was an English Guy. He came to fight the Turkish.” – The Hollywood Knights

I asked for a book on oil, and the librarian suggested the non-friction section. (you’ll be able to figure out which are my memes in this post)

This has been a very consequential week in American history, and though I see the seeds of (hopefully peaceful) revolt that will eventually end in a restoration, the other seeds I see this week show that rough times are up ahead. I’ll discuss Trump in conjunction with Monday’s upcoming Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, but today I’ll focus on a much more momentous development: the Collapse of the Dollar Empire.

This week several major moves happened, all of which are negative for the United States. Heck, someone did a meme of this – I’d quote them, but I just found this info snippet without attribution:

If there was a children’s book of Joe Biden’s Very Bad Terrible No Good Week, well, this would be it, but knowing Joe it would have to be a scratch and sniff.

The United States has had several things going for it in the Post World War II era:

Lots of nuclear weapons,
A monopoly on PEZ® dispenser licensing in the world’s biggest PEZ™ market,
The premier military force in the world,
The premier economy in the world, and,
The reserve currency of the world.

The first one is self-explanatory. We even used that threat successfully several times, especially when Kissinger convinced the Soviets (with Nixon’s permission) that Nixon was unstable and often flew into rages and just might decide that he’d trade Moscow for the East Coast. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, the idea is to “act insane and have a massive nuclear arsenal”, or, as it is also known, “my ex-wife’s divorce strategy”.

The second one is just a reflection of the cultural dominance that the United States had. There were McDonald’s® restaurants calorie dispensing units around the world, but the most prominent foreign restaurant most Americans know is the International House of Pancakes®, which I assume is from Bulgaria or some place. Plus no one else could make Elmer Fudd™ PEZ™ dispensers.

They also don’t like tank tops.

The United States also had the premier military in the world. Period. We spent trillions of dollars emulating the successful bits of the Wehrmacht, so we were totally ready to fight World War II part II, if everyone agreed. Only one country wanted to play (Iraq) so we showed them what we could do if an enemy gave us six months to prepare along with the previously pre-staged equipment in Saudi Arabia. Not content with that L, they went for a rematch.

We also built the best economy in the world. Sure, it had ups and downs, and American cars manufacturers were stunned by Japanese quality in the 1970s, but we really did catch up, and by the 1990s were producing stuff that didn’t suck. We led in technological and information systems. By many measures, though, we peaked in 1973, and then the decline started. I might add that was around the time the Hart Cellar Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 started being felt.

Huh. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

They hated Trump, yet the lines didn’t form up to head south . . .

More potent than nuclear weapons was the economic policy of the United States – it was called dollar diplomacy. Since the Soviet Union’s idea of diplomacy was sending burly Russian women to show foreigners how to use diesel tractor made in Tractor Collective Factory 231 that had all the charm of a T-34 tank and all the reliability of something made by workers that considered a hammer a precision instrument, who were fueled on vodka and cabbage. Obviously, a foreign head of state could choose those cool tractors that weighed in at 34 tons (45 kiloliters). That presented a problem. In no country that I know (outside of the Soviet Union) could you trade a behemoth tractor that could double as a tank for hot chicks and booze.

Foreign leaders therefore adopted the “take the Yankee money” attitude, because mistresses need more than what the Soviet tractor lubrication manual could provide.

The really weird and cool side effect of this dollar dominance is we could just print as many of these things as we wanted, send them overseas, and people would send us stuff. Heck, that was too much work, so we invented a computer payment system so that we could pretend we printed dollars, send people a receipt, and they’d send us booze, cars, compact disc players, and, well, anything. I hear cocaine was popular in the 1980s.

I’m no rube. I saw Scarface.

I was disappointed the first time I saw Scarface – he didn’t really know anything about scarves.

But there was one little, tiny thing that made the dollar so prominent. Oil.

That brings us to Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal. He got along okay with the West, hated commies, and tried to modernize (somewhat) Saudi Arabia. Faisal also led the Oil Embargo of 1973 and 1974 (related to U.S. support of Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War). This generated a lot of money for the Saudis as well as economic chaos in the West.

Oddly, Saudi king Faisal was, um, ventilated by his American-educated nephew in 1975. And the new Saudi King agreed to buy and sell oil only in dollars.

Huh. Surely those things weren’t connected?

Likewise, through the 1980s, the Saudis sold lots and lots of oil cheaply at the request of Reagan to bankrupt the Soviet Union, make the dollar triumphant, and leave the United States as the sole superpower.

If Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg had a kid, would it be called Slush Puppy?

One major reason the dollar was the reserve currency of the world is that it was the only currency that oil was bought and sold in. It became the de facto settlement currency because of that and the highly developed financial systems that made the transfer of billions of dollars effortless and easy.

That’s the history lesson.

In 2017, one of Trump’s first official visits was to Saudi Arabia. They even had that weird moment where they put their hands on a glowing glow to power up some sort of Saudi CIA that would help fight terrorism. Relations were good.

In two years, Biden has conducted a stunning array of foreign policy missteps that has unwound all of the work done since 1973. One of the powers of the dollar as a weapon is that if you use it, maybe it isn’t so important, and if people feel really threatened?

I wonder if we’ll start calling our sanctions “Special Financial Operations”?

They’ll create a system where it won’t hurt them. Russia’s a case in point. Regardless of how their military is doing (I don’t trust either side to analyze this one) their economy really hasn’t been hurt in this conflict. It was hurt in 2014, but they planned for the disruption, and from the reports I’ve recently seen, they’re doing fine. For Russians, which wasn’t much to start with.

The point that Biden missed (and that your humble correspondent picked up on immediately) is that Russia doesn’t need dollars since they make their own stuff, with the exception of tracksuits, iPhones®, and porn. They can figure out how to make new Vodka-Pepsi® or Vodka-Starbucks™, but the world still needs their grain, fertilizer, oil, and natural gas.

Biden has done the near impossible in a little over two years as Resident of the White House.

He’s pushed China closer to Russia.
He’s pushed Saudi Arabia closer to Iran.
He’s created a situation where large-scale trades are going to be conducted in currency other than the dollar on a regular basis.
He’s drawn the Strategic Petroleum Reserve down levels not seen since 1984.
He’s working on maximizing inflation while spending everything possible.

In Saudi Arabia, all the bike thieves say, “Look, Ma, no hands!”

But Joe has shown that a previous statement by Barack Obama to be correct:

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”

And he’s got 581 more days to the election. And we’ve got 656 days until the next inauguration.

Deflation? Inflation? All I Want Is A Good Steak.

“Oh, my God! The automatic pilot! He’s deflating!” – Airplane!

I went to see a hedge fund manager at work and punch him in the face. And then get a Quarter Pounder®.

Welcome to the next step down. But how is this going to go?

First, there are signs that this will lead to more inflation than a Kardashian’s butt experiences in an entire season of whatever crap they’re doing on TV. Here are some signs pointed towards inflation:

It’s inflation season. That comes right after blowing up Russian pipeline season, duck season, rabbit season, duck season, rabbit season, and train derailment season.
$2 trillion (a number no doubt made up because it sounded good to whatever political appointee approves these things) of newly printed cash has been allocated to “stabilize” the banking system.

When Bernie Madoff stole his investors money, the Fed® didn’t backstop the investors, even though they couldn’t keep up with the compounding interest of Madoff’s lies. That was deflationary. But backstopping all bank customers, everywhere?

That’s more inflationary than Stormy Daniels, umm, attributes. I heard a rumor that half of Oprah’s money was in Silicon Valley Bank®. She got very upset when she thought that Elon Musk would be the only remaining African-American billionaire.

Everyone needs a backup. Mars is Elon’s planet-B.

The latest announcement from the Fed® on their plans to stop inflation sounded desperate. I imagine that Janet Yellin would offer to learn poll dancing if she thought it would lower inflation. I think that might work, since never in the history of mankind have so many dollar bills jumped back into pockets than when Janet walks on stage.

What about things that indicate that deflation might be around the corner?

During the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank™, it sounds like all of their bondholders and shareholders got vaporized. So, at least $15 billion and probably closer to $30 billion in cash was vaporized faster than a hoagie at Oprah’s house.
The stock market is down. When the market goes down, the money doesn’t power a secret spaceship, it just disappears like my biological father did when my biological mother got pregnant.
When interest rates go up, housing prices go down. Why? People buy houses based on borrowed money, and higher interest rates don’t increase the amount of money that they pay at (spins wheel) the PEZ™ factory. Nope, it just makes the house payment more expensive, unless the price of the house goes down. This is deflationary, because right now housing value is vaporizing like crack at Hunter’s place on a Saturday night.

The Chairman of the Fed® thought he was a magician, but he had chocolate on his shirt. He thought he had Twix® up his sleeve.

Here’s another, weird, example.

While I was writing this, The Mrs. walked by my secluded writing spot in the sitting room, and asked me, “Hey, want a steak?” I had a scotch already, so, that’s perfect!

“What answer do you expect me to give you?” She cooked the steak. This was a perfectly marbled ribeye, an inch and a half thick. She seared the sides, and it let out a gentle “moo” as I cut into it.

What did that ribeye cost? $12 a pound.

Why?

Well, there’s been a drought in prime cattle country. Cattle gotta drink.

The Mrs. and her brother own the better part of a buttload of land. The year before they got $6,000 for the hay. They fertilized. After Russia invaded the Ukraine, fertilizer prices spiked. They decided to just grow whatever grew and not spend the $3,000 to fertilize it.

They made $6,000 for the hay, same as the year before even though they had half the hay this year.

Sorry if that joke was corny.

For cattle farmers, growers, leaders, ranchers prices went up, but what they got for a cattle didn’t. Therefore? In March of 2023, I can get a pound of the best ribeye ever to grace a cast iron skillet for $12, whereas two Double Quarter Pounders With Cheese™ would cost me . . . $12.

This is not a hard choice.

In 2024 or 2025, though, I expect that same beef to cost double or more. I’ve been nagging my brother in law to get some cattle.

Why?

I like steak way more than the crap they serve at McDonald’s®. So, in some places, there is deflation right now.

Houses.
I read today that there are several projects in Vegas that just received stop orders because the financing fell through. If a project is a good idea at 1% interest and 2% inflation, it may not be a good idea while skydiving with a bag of loose change as your parachute.
Plans that don’t have financing. In an inflationary environment, a plan that doesn’t have financing is as useful as a waterproof towel.

There’s also been a rush towards our border of illegals that are desperate to come to a horribly awful and racist country. Is this inflationary, or deflationary?

Inflationary. Illegals do take jobs that are low on the pay scale, so that strawberries are 0.03% cheaper. Is that deflationary?

Can we call Transformers® Carmen?

No. It’s inflationary. Illegals do make things like strawberries, lettuce, and cocaine cheaper, but they do actually cost about $10,000, each, for every year that they’re here for things like welfare, schools, roads, etc. So a family of five? Costs everyone at least $50,000 per year.

Where does the cash come from?

That’s the genius! We print it!

So, inflation or deflation?

Yes.

Our currency is going to zero, probably sooner than many might anticipate. What will go up? In 2023, not cows. But in 2025? Yeah, nearly certainly.

Some things will come down – I can’t predict them all. But the Fed™ will never stop printing. Their choice is this:

Increase rates and blow up banks, the stock market, and house prices.
Keep rates the same and blow up the currency.

The current plan.

The currency is toast. So is Biden’s chance at re-election. This time next year? I expect that we’ll see all of the above in full motion. I predicted in 2018 that 2025 we’d see a big breakdown, and I’m not betting against that now. Biden will likely go down as the single worst resident of the White House in history.

I only hope that this complete economic and societal breakdown will finally rid us of the scourge of Kardashians. At least then it will be worth it.

Silicon Valley Bank? You’re Soaking In It.

“Why don’t we pretend he didn’t die? Just for a bit . . .” – Weekend at Bernie’s

Why can’t Ray Charles drive? He’s dead. (Outside of this one, memes are “as found”)

On March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was walking to work, since Rome was declared by Gretanius Thunbergium to be a “walkable city” because she was concerned about the sweat of galley slaves and horses making the oceans too salty, thus enraging Neptune, the god of the sea.

This particular day was a good one in Rome, and the bright warm Sun shone down on Caesar as he made it to the Senate. Caesar loved the Senate, since all of the Senators were really cool and he loved hanging out with them to watch the gladiator games every Sunday.

Then, on arriving at the Senate? Caesar was stabbed in the back by raising interest rates, and, with his last, dying words, he said, “Please, take this salad dressing, and remember me by it. Oh, and name a way that babies are born after me. And Kaiser and Czar might be cool titles for kings in the future.”

Okay, that might not be exactly what happened. But you can’t prove it wasn’t, because it’s not on YouTube®.

But interest rates have been a thing since long before even Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, took the throne, and then became a human pincushion. And they’ve been gumming up society both before then, and also since then.

Last Friday, on March 10, a curious thing happened – the 19^th largest bank, Silicon Valley Bank, went tango uniform. To paraphrase Python, Monty:

“It’s a stiff. Bereft of life. It rests in peace. If you hadn’t backfilled the coffers with Federal Reserve® notes, it would be pushing up daisies. Its metabolic processes are now history. It’s off the twig. It’s kicked the bucket. It’s shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible. THIS IS AN EX-BANK.”

How, exactly, does a Norwegian blue parrot bank die so quickly?

The truth is, it has been dead for a bit. I’ll explain. You can get explanations of this elsewhere, but none of them will be as funny, since that’s what my job is.

When banks take in money, they have several options of what they can do with it. They can bury it in Mason® jars in the back 40, they can loan it to other people, or they can park it in an investment. Back in 2008, the big financial crisis was that the loans were to people that could never have paid the money back. I was offered a guaranteed approval home loan on a house (with zero down!) that was ten times my income.

“Why would you offer me that? I could never pay that back?” was my response.

The loan lady sighed audibly over the phone. “I know, but I’m required to tell you that.”

It’s like they never learned anything.

So, part of the problem in 2008 was that the loans were junk because some folks said, “I could use a pool surrounded by marble columns with a champagne fountain built out of PEZ™. I’m in!” even though they only made $32 dollars a month. They even had a name for these loans – NINJA – “No Income, No Job”.

These banks also gambled with the cash of the average depositor, investing in champagne PEZ© fountain manufacturers. Hey, how could they lose?

Oh, yeah. Things don’t go up forever. So when they end? It gets ugly.

The response to that by the Fed® was to use a cash cannon and barrage the banks. The idea was this, the banks would soak up the cash to paper over the bad debts, and if they had extra cash, they’d park it at the Fed™. Essentially, the Fed™, working with the banks, made sure that the bankers could keep getting big bonuses, not face criminal charges like the average small-town banker might if he stole the cash from the deposits to pay for his 4.5 out of 10 mistress and trips to Vegas.

It’s like there are different rules for you and I.

Nope. They got to keep their penthouses, private jets, and bimbos. In order to keep this nonsense so it wouldn’t implode, the one thing the Fed™ had to do was keep interest rates low. If the Fed© had tried this in 1975, or 1985, or 1995, the world would have punished it by driving the value of the dollar down (faster), cratering purchasing power and the economy.

But after 2008, there was no other big power. Japan was a basketcase, Europe was still the Jekyll an Hyde level continent, with Western Europe mainly concerned about how many “Syrians” they could import, and Eastern Europe mainly working out how to make more potatoes so they could make more vodka. Roads? Why?

That left the United States as, amazingly, still the only kid with a currency anyone trusted, even though we were spending like a sixteen-year-old with dad’s credit card.

Huh, wonder when YouTube® will ban people for this?

Oh, the Left is already trying to censor people. Nevermind.

I like the cut of his jib.

Not now. The COVID world created the Trump/Biden policy of “How can we spend more money today?” Contrast that with China’s “No body count is too high” policy, and, oddly, the world began to trust the United States less. Add in Biden’s incoherent policy of a.) letting wars start and b.) pushing away allies like the Saudis, and now we live in a world driven by chaos.

And we’ve lost the trust of the world.

So, the banks still do the same three things with the cash deposited in their banks: Mason™ jars in the backyard, loan it, or invest it. Last time, the banks invested in whatever crap floated in the window. That was silly.

The banks thought they had cracked the code: this time, they invested in U.S. Treasury Bonds.

Yay! That’s what a sober person would do, right?

Well, maybe. But when a bank buys a 10-year bond that has an attached interest rate of 0.08%, and the stated inflation rate is 6%, the value of that 10-year bond craters. Interest rates go up? Bond values go down. It turns out Silicon Valley Bank™ had some of these bonds. How many? Enough to wipe out all of the shareholder and bondholder (yeah, they bought and sold bonds) value. And it’s not limited to them. Here’s the take on the unrealized losses of the biggest banks in America:

Losers in 1901, Losers in 1921, Losers in 1929, Losers in 1937, Losers in 1945, Losers in 1948, Losers in 1953, Losers in 1957, Losers in 1950, Losers in 1960, Losers in 1969, Losers in 1973, Losers in 1980, Losers in 1981, Losers in 1990, Losers in 2001, Losers in 2007 . . . Oh, wait, the banks didn’t lose anything, it was just regular people.

The FDIC insures deposits to $250,000. Except when (reportedly) Oprah had half a billion in that particular bank. Turns out that the United States blinked: “You get all your money, and you get all your money, and you get all your money,” because Oprah is more important than you and I.

Two other banks have failed already. You can see that some of their CEOs were serious people only worried about the welfare of their depositors.

Yup, the “adults” are in charge.

This will not result in an immediate run. The Fed® and the Treasury will continue to backstop the banks because to do otherwise would collapse the system. They even say so. Valuing assets “at par” means at what the banks paid for them. I own a car from 2003. In Fedspeak® that asset would be valued at the initial purchase price, despite the fact that it has one light-second worth of miles (kilopascals) on it. Here’s proof:

See? I’m a respected journalist. Besides, I believe I am the VERY FIRST person to note that the reserve ratio had gone to zero. You can check it out. This will help my lawyer if I’m ever sued. (Serious about the very first part.)

The Fed™ is screwed. They want to keep Biden in office, which requires low interest rates and a booming economy and no inflation. But to lower inflation, they have to jack up the interest rates far above the rate of inflation. Biden cannot be re-elected. Period, unless there’s a global war.

Nah, people would never buy a war started due to economic issues.

Ooops. I’d say sorry, but this is already in the playbook.

Me? My bet is this can keeps rattling around causing damage for several months. Six or seven? Maybe. Eventually, the Fed® is going to figure out that they can’t paper over this mess.

In the meantime, the cash for businesses will dry up, and the only people that can borrow money will be those that don’t need it. New projects? They’ll be cancelled unless the company has the cash or it will ruin them if they don’t stop. New housing? Forget it. The housing market will collapse, (it already is) and the costs of new stuff to make new are so high that no one can afford it, forget the interest rate.

People will stop eating dinner in a restaurant. We already have.

No, the Ides of March won’t be the end. But you can see it from here. While you can, enjoy the nice walk on a sunny day.

And Neptune? He’s always been a whiney bitch. Ignore Neptune.

Funny Lessons From The Franco-Prussian War in 2023

“By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William the Second I pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution.” – The African Queen

The Kaiser never smoked weed, because he had no idea where Fort Wenty was.

In high school history, I’m pretty sure that the Franco-Prussian War was never mentioned. Or, if it was, it was in World History when I was a freshman. That was my first class, and the teacher was the head basketball coach. His typical procedure was to tell us to read the chapter or watch a film. There were a lot of films. Then, he would wander down to the locker room, where he would make use of the coaches’ bathroom.

Coffee does that have effect.

I don’t remember the coach talking about the Franco-Prussian War, but, then again, through two semesters I don’t think he spent more than 10 minutes a day in the 45-minute class. Perhaps he needed prunes?

Recently, though, I saw a documentary about the Franco-Prussian War that I found to be fascinating. It’s long -6 hours, 8 minutes and 52 seconds, according to YouTube®, so roughly as long as Hunter Biden goes in a typical day without photographing himself with hookers and drugs.

The reason that this war happened was fairly simple – the French wanted to fight the Germans to look good with an easy win, and the Germans were, well, Germans, and invading France is as German as bratwurst, panzers, or invading Poland.

I think the blue could also stand for “reliable allies”. (meme as-found)

Napoleon III was Emperor of France, and his wife (really!) wanted to fight because she wanted to make sure that the country was united around her husband and son, so he’d inherit a kingdom strongly behind him.

Germany had other ideas, and Bismarck (the dude, not the ship) was trying to unite all the German countries. Hmm. I’m sensing a pattern here. But Otto von Bismarck’s goal was to turn Wilhelm from King into Emperor, or Kaiser. Bismarck was determined – you could say he was on a Kaiser roll.

It surprised no one when war broke out. The Germans reacted as Germans do – troops showed up at the right time in the right place and weapons, ammunition, food, and other stuff was already there, waiting for them when they mobilized. At the time, one person noted, “It is as if every cow knew which pot it was scheduled to be cooked in.” Or something like that. I’m not looking it up at 1:38 am.

Why do Germans drink beer? To convince them mating is logical.

The French reacted as French people do. Rather than go someplace logical, like toward the enemy, troops had to go to where their regiment was located. If you were right next to Germany, and your unit was in Algiers, you’d have to go to Algiers to get with your unit, and then go back as a unit to the site of the war.

Yeah. It doesn’t get better for the French. The war started on July 19, and by September 2, the Germans had captured Napoleon III and over 100,000 dudes. In previous years, this would be it. And, in fact, after Napoleon III had fallen into German hands, he was sent with his butlers and support staff to a fancy mansion to hang out.

War of king versus king was like that in that time and place.

Again, it being France, the first thing they did is declare a Republic, their “Third” – (they’re now on their fifth). Having seen what happens to French Empresses when things go south, Napoleon’s wife snuck out in the middle of the night and snuck away to England, which was thrilled to have a French person around they could make fun of.

I hear that Chinese probes are still doing stuff on the dark side of the Moon. Seems shady to me. (as found)

So, France’s army was shattered, surrendered, or besieged. Two weeks later, Paris was surrounded by Germans. The war had been as polite as war could be up to now, and the French armed forces had been as effective as an army of kittens attacking a velociraptor. The logical thing to do would be to surrender.

What the Germans were asking for was Alsace and Lorraine, two provinces that France had for a couple hundred years or so, but about 90% of the folks there spoke German as their primary language. The new French Republic was fairly scared that surrendering those provinces would make them look bad, so they refused. To be fair, the French wanted to annex a bunch of German land, too, but didn’t have the chance since they suck at war.

Their armies shattered, Paris surrounded and besieged, the French didn’t surrender. One thing I noted was that when it was a war of one king versus another, as noted above, war was, while still awful, not personal.

When the Republic was formed, it was no longer a war of one king against another – it was a war of the people of France versus Germany. The fact that the Germans were in France wasn’t really the fault of the Germans, both sides had wanted the war, and the French had, in fact, crossed into Germany before the Germans gave them a full hammerlock.

Hulk had to deal with anxiety about his career. I guess you could call it wrestle-mania.

Regardless, at that point individual French citizens fought harder after losing their Emperor, Napoleon. At first, this surprised me. But it’s categorically different when people fight for something they own – they fight harder and longer. Since they were untrained, poorly armed, and poorly lead, the effort was even less effective than the Afghanistan army, circa 2022.

The Siege of Paris lasted for four months and ten days. In 2023, the average supermarket in the average city holds enough food for three days. The average house has that same amount. After a week, people would probably be fairly hungry, and would trade anything but their cell phone for a bag of Cheese Doodles® or High Fructose Flakes™. In Paris of 1870, they didn’t run out of wine until late December, and I’m not sure the French have ever figured out that they could drink water.

Oh, wait, they did start drinking the water, leading to multiple epidemics that cost almost as many lives as the war itself.

Apparently, it’s now illegal to drink wine, shave, brush my teeth, and take a nap. Driving is awful in 2023.

Eventually, the French agreed to an armistice, and, being France, they immediately had a communist revolution, but only in the cities, primarily in Paris. This wasn’t a repeat of the French Revolution, since in this case, very few people were harmed, fewer than a thousand French dead. Oh, and up to 20,000 communists, but they don’t count. It also proves that the only war the French can win is against other French people.

The big reason that I’m writing about the Franco-Prussian War is that illuminates several things that are still important or true in 2023:

Governments have and still create wars to keep themselves in power.
The French are awful at war.
One big loss can destabilize an entire country if the people are demoralized.
I guess there’s a reason the French don’t drink water.
People fight harder when they have ownership, even if what they’re fighting for isn’t worth it.
I don’t have nearly enough storage food.
Commies always either gravitate to, or are made by cities. Another good reason to avoid them.

I’ve always loved history. Perhaps that’s why they ask the question about what’s the difference between a bad* basketball coach and a constipated owl – the coach can shoot but not hit.

*He was actually a pretty good basketball coach.

Want to win? Have a good wife.

“Are you drunk?” “It’s my birthday. Again.” – The Experts

I ate an abacus – it’s inside what counts.

So, it’s St. Valentine’s day. Again.

For this year, I decided to go into the deeply romantic box of ideas, and got The Mrs. a bottle of scotch. Not great a great bottle of scotch, because that’s what I always give her for Christmas (saves on thinking, gents). Well, this wasn’t a great bottle, but it was also not something you’d use for lighter fluid, either.

Not that The Mrs. won’t drink lighter fluid (don’t ask me about that story!), but because The Mrs. sounds like Kim Carnes afterward. Anyone else but me listen to Bette Davis Eyes and not think “Marty Feldman Eyes”?

Regardless, here is why I enjoy my time with The Mrs. As a part of our conversation, we discussed the evolution of modern warfare from the United States Civil War, and World War I. In it, I brought into play the idea that the Germans had totally melted the minds of the French.

Why do French ghosts smell so bad? They are covered in sheet.

Why? Let’s go back to the Franco-Prussian war. Not Franco-American®, because there were far fewer Spaghetti-O’s® back in 1870. And Chef-Boyardee™ was still Chef Notbornyet. Sorry for the digression – it turns out that I bought The Mrs. some scotch, but she bought us some wine. And by us, I mean me and her, not you and me and her.

Our conversation wandered, and I pointed out the reason the French were such wussies was because of the Franco-Prussian war. It seems, the French had a far superior rifle, the Chassepot (pronounced “frog hat spinner” because the French don’t even pretend that letters have meaning). This means that the German soldiers had to attack (they’re Germans, they’re always attacking) for 200 yards (17.3 kiloPascals) while being shot at with relatively accurate rifles before their rifles could shoot back.

You’d think this would mean an easy French victory. Nah. The Germans were surrounding Paris within weeks, because, always remember the first dictum: the French can only win a war in which all of their opponents are French.

Then, The Mrs. demanded (on Valentine’s Day) that we watch either a documentary on WWI or All Quiet on the Western Front (new version, which I had not seen yet). I bring this out not for any other reason than to brag. Chocolates? Flowers? Nah. Scotch. Rom-coms? No. The Mrs. demanded we watch a war movie. It’s like Christmas and we talk about the geopolitics of WWII and The Mrs. demands we watch Patton. Again.

I found a corpse along the road with no arms, head, or legs. The local police are stumped.

This isn’t entirely bragging, since this is Wednesday and we’re supposed to talk about money. How do war movies, moderately priced scotch, and romantic discussions about warfare have anything to do about money?

It has everything to do about money. Everything.

Women can make or break a marriage. Modern societies, especially in the United States, give women an out, and incentivize them to break up marriages for fun and profit. Don’t believe me? Here’s a Tweet® from a Twunt©:

When I first read this, I thought it was sarcasm. It’s not. I feel sorry for her wine and cats.

Yeah, she said that. It’s an awful sentiment that an elected official could say that and remain in office. I’m beginning to understand why they burned witches at the stake, and becoming much more amenable to that idea. After a fair trial, of course. I’m not suggesting that South Dakota do summary executions, but I am suggesting they bring back witch burning.

The economics of the love in 2023 are heavily skewed against those who would love. In my mind, love is the glue that holds the atom of civilization together. That atom? The family. And no matter how you slice it, there is no world where two women or two men can have actual children, so they cannot form the nucleus of the family. Unless cats are children.

The economic incentives right now are against child rearing. It’s amazing to see the number of criminals with no fathers in their lives. It’s amazing to see the number of children coming from “blended” (i.e., divorced parent) families. Here in Modern Mayberry, about (Pugsley’s guess) 65% of the kids come from intact, two-parent families.

In my mind? That’s a number that’s amazingly low. Sure, I was adopted, but I was adopted into a family where my Mom and Dad had been married for 26 years before I was adopted and The Mrs. family was stable for 61 years until The Mrs. father passed on. Sure, my family had ups and downs, but their marriage was approximately as stable as helium or the Democrat’s hold on counting votes. Neither of Ma Wilder or Pa Wilder needed nor wanted surprises.

What they call Frodo if he had lost a leg instead of a finger? A Hoppit.

Today? Husband won’t agree to a new dining room table? Divorce him. Most divorces are initiated by women. Because? They’re unhappy. I understand that’s a reason, but it’s not a good reason, since, until the caffeine kicks in around 11am each day, I’m unhappy, too, and you don’t see me firebombing Dresden.

But those are the women who even bother to get married. There’s a deeper pathology here.

What incentive to men use to improve themselves, to work harder, to get into shape, to earn money?

The prospect of wife and family. If that isn’t there, why bother? It’s easier to eat Cheetos® and play Call of Duty™: Ukraine™ on their PS3©. I’ll admit that this isn’t an attractive mate, but is it any different than a 34-year-old women who has had sex with 143 guys? Women think their value shouldn’t be based on the number of sexual partners they’ve had, but, dudes, who wants to own a pair of shoes owned by 143 other dudes?

Yeah. No one.

The structure of incentives is important. Right now, men are incentivized to eat Cheetos™ and play vidya games. Right now, women are encouraged to have sex with all the men, and then try to find someone after they’ve gone had sex with all the men, gone to graduate school, lost their fertility, and bonded with wine and cats.

Ugh.

Economics is about incentives. Give incentives to women to not marry and then divorce at the slightest provocation? Men will turn into Tostito® munching morons. It’s simple. And then both will be sad. The 45 year-old wine aunt? She’s not happy, she’s just out of options. The 30 year-old man-boy?

He’s just looking for a wife, children, and to make a place in society. That’s it.

Not pictured: The Mrs.

I’ll say this again – my Gen X road was easier than the Zoomer and Millennial kids. A young man faces women that are hostile. That turns him into a man that’s not prepared. If I might make a modest proposal, let’s bring back shame for women. And let’s bring back pride for men.

Seems like a fair deal. And, honestly, the best St. Valentine’s Day present that they could have. Unless their wife demands they watch a war movie before sending them out to smoke a Rocky Patel® cigar in the hot tub so they can finish watching the documentary about the Franco-Prussian War after having a few glasses of wine and scotch.

Hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Elections And Narratives

“False Narrative!” – The Death of Stalin

When he was four, Pugsley asked, “Daddy, why do people make up things that their children have said for social media? Isn’t it just inherently dishonest and indicative of inability to construct a compelling narrative themselves? “

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

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same, though tensions may very well spike after the power outage in early December. 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, Part III – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Anything In Defense Of The Narrative – 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 740 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 III

The entire premise of a society with elections is that the ballots are fairly cast, and fairly counted. It is not that every vote should count, it is that every valid vote should be counted.

Votes should be rejected. If the election was on Tuesday and the votes shows up on Wednesday? Nope. Dead on election day? No vote for you.

This is why I’m against early votes.

Each vote should be in person.
Each vote should be on election day (with provisions for absentee votes for military and those that cannot be in the state with a written excuse).
Votes should be on paper.
Ballots should be equipped with security so that I can’t take them to the copier and make dozens more.
The ballot casting and watching places should be open for anyone to observe.
Counting should be done by midnight on election day, at the latest.
Any vote not counted before midnight is void.
Identification required for a valid vote, along with proper registration.

Sort of simple, and implied. But for whatever reason, every point above is controversial. But only by the Left, because, historically, they have cheated. Sure, the Right has cheated, but the Right typically is less organized and has way better jobs than counting ballots.

The result?

2022 was certainly tampered with. “Dr. Oz” was a horrible candidate, but didn’t look like a mentally-challenged fictional murderer, Slingblade. And Dr. Oz could speak in complete sentences.

If this stands, the Left is slowly going to take over all the mechanisms that make a free and fair election possible.

Everyone welcome Senator Fetterblade.

However.

The Supreme Court is potentially taking a case with huge ramifications: the idea is that the Constitution means what it says, that the responsibility for setting up elections is with the legislatures of the several states. Not courts. Not the governor. The legislatures, and it’s not reviewable.

If so, this is big – it keeps the federal hand out of the cookie jar of state elections and the states just have to deal with bribery, fraud, and corruption. We’ll see.

Violence And Censorship Update

As usual, censorship has been the biggest front. In most of Civil War 2.0 Weather Reports, the trend has been that censorship has been on the increase from multiple fronts. November has seen a small victory as Elon has rustled jimmies all through the Left.

How much? They want him dead:

And if they don’t want him dead, they want him hauled up before a Senate committee to answer stupid questions from geriatric windbags who had their feelings hurt:

But Elon has made journalists seethe. How? He’s taking away their beloved Blue Checkmark© because it turns out, there might have been some shenanigans about how some of them got the Mark©.

I guess they’ll have to check their blue (check) privilege:

In serious news, it appears that several tax preparation software packages sent back email, income, and refund information straight to Facebook®.

Oh, and your phone? The FBI issued “a general warrant” for data on anyone near the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Never happened before. Justified based on (seriously) COVID.

The Left will stop at nothing to turn data against you. Remember, your phone is a tracking and listening device, and if it sees something, it says something.

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again. Thanks, Brandon. It sucks that there are so many Kamalas.

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 upward this month. Unless there are more blackouts, I’m betting it stays down until March-April at the earliest.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it went up a bit – November didn’t cause a spike, and I’m not seeing a lot in the next two months to cause increased instability.

Economic:

Amazingly, I think people have become used to the inflation. Wonder what a rail strike would do?

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. This is a repeat comment, because the border is wide open.

Anything In The Defense Of The Narrative

I’ve been aware of Graham Hancock for decades. He’s a journalist/writer who has been focused on history for quite a while. Initially, his work was pretty normal – writing about hunger and AIDS and poverty. But then? After a three-year hiatus, he published Fingerprints of the Gods, about the evidence that supported a civilization that predates all of recorded history.

Oddly, at least at one place, he was correct. Göbekli Tepe is a site in Turkey that predates the “first civilizations” in Mesopotamia (about 5,000 years ago) and ancient Ur (6,000 years ago) and even your momma (8,000 years old). Göbekli Tepe is about 11,500 years old.

Hancock was at least partially right. Here, after his book was published, was the evidence of a civilization older than the oldest one we knew of. By nearly 6,000 years. They were moving big stones, and getting together. There is pretty significant evidence that they were making beer, too, so they can’t be all bad. Hancock even has a Netflix© special about his work.

Sure, you say, “That’s interesting, John, but this is the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report not a Netflix® special.”

And that’s the point. The entire reaction from the Left has been silly over this. Despite being proven correct on some of his conjectures, Hancock has been attacked ferociously in the media.

Why?

I have only one guess: there is a single narrative on anything. An attack on any “established fact” can’t be tolerated. At all. So, if “science” says something, it simply cannot be disputed. I think this is, at least partially, a reaction to the COVID nonsense where Leftists pulled in the virtue signaling idea that “This House Believes In Science” when the truth is science isn’t a belief – it’s a system for discovering truth.

Nothing is off limits in real science, but the Left has to censor any idea that challenges the mainstream. Evidence? How about Canada?

Well, Justin Trudeau has put himself fully in favor of protests, except when it comes to protests against him.

Strangely, there are rumors that the people who carried a flag very popular in Germany in the 1930s during the recent Trucker’s Protest was a government agent.

Here’s the person in question, carrying the freshly purchased, just unfolded out of the sack flag. Not at all suspicious.

The idea is to paint absolutely everyone who disagrees with The Narrative as evil. No matter what part of The Narrative that’s questioned. And they don’t see the irony.

Thankfully, Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped to be the “disinformation Czar” earlier this year has a new job. Working for foreigners.

Since this doesn’t challenge The Narrative, this is fine. In fact, noticing things that challenge The Narrative is Badthink. I’ll just leave this here:

And we wonder why the nation is falling apart . . . .

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1590858149162274816

https://youtu.be/h_cvFEfpU3g

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1597808974295728128

https://twitter.com/i/status/1591160541829300224

https://twitter.com/i/status/1596490454245089282

https://twitter.com/i/status/1596592437127917568

https://twitter.com/i/status/1591179759228444674

https://twitter.com/i/status/1597196379725914112

https://twitter.com/i/status/1599182109780119554

https://twitter.com/i/status/1596308757151043585

https://twitter.com/TheFilthyTimes/status/1595826090035253248

https://twitter.com/i/status/1590745057224642576

https://twitter.com/i/status/1598109618483625984

https://twitter.com/i/status/1598837217140477955

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1592284803944288256

https://twitter.com/i/status/1597452016305205250

One Guy

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63470

Body Count

https://summit.news/2022/12/02/new-federal-data-shows-73000-illegal-immigrant-gotaways-in-one-month/

https://www.statista.com/chart/28644/rate-of-homicides-that-go-unsolved-in-the-us/

https://www.amren.com/videos/2022/11/latest-interracial-crime-stats/

https://vdare.com/articles/about-28-black-on-white-homicides-including-a-5-man-massacre-suppressed-by-the-new-york-times-october-2022-another-month-in-the-death-of-white-america

https://summit.news/2022/11/18/video-thermal-drone-footage-shows-army-of-illegals-entering-u-s/

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/world-premiere-died-suddenly/

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1590083864558727170

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/share-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status-30-jurisdictions-in-the-u.s.-september-2021-to-august-2022-age-18-and-over.png?itok=s40nRW3J

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/covid-deaths-skew-older-reviving-questions-about-e2-80-98acceptable-loss-e2-80-99/ar-AA14DLdb

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

Vote Count

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/SBF%20democrat%20donor_0.jpg?itok=MS58Rkl8

https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/120/617/428/playable/9fec9ca3968f76ad.mp4?_=2

https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/112322_SocialistWatch2022_3.pdf

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1597400282253922305.html

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/heres_how_they_did_it_realtime_election_fraud.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1590446073213952000.html

https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/voting-doesnt-win-you-elections

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fradio%2F2022%2F11%2F14%2Fexclusive-shawn-steel-ballot-harvesting-california-republicans-must-adapt-or-die%2F

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2022%2F11%2Fwith_this_obstacle_in_place_republicans_cant_get_the_white_house.html

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/04/cocktail-parties-that-could-define-democrats-00064560

https://newschannel9.com/news/local/walker-county-man-convicted-of-voter-fraud-sentenced-to-25-years-da-says

Civil War

https://newrepublic.com/article/169141/its-elites-vs-base-coming-republican-civil-war

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/republican-civil-war-trump-mcconnell-scott

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-civil-war-trump-desantis-midterms-1758558

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-infighting-starts-democrats-also-face-revolt-new-york-midterm-election-1758810

https://hayspost.com/posts/1c6d7c57-df36-4a9a-af45-a4a144702552

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2022%2Fnov%2F06%2Fhow-close-is-the-us-to-civil-war-barbara-f-walter-stephen-march-christopher-parker

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/is-a-civil-war-brewing-in-america/ss-AAZBzFn#image=2

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11385903/Ex-CIA-staffer-claims-Christian-white-men-primed-start-civil-war-America.html

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-brink-civil-war-survey-highlights.html

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/has-next-civil-war-already-started-205967

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2022/11/30/how_the_next_civil_war_begins_585926.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at-protests-across-america-guns-are-doing-the-talking/ar-AA14zpif

Beyond Civil War

https://www.wired.com/story/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-dark-ships/

https://www.newsweek.com/leaked-fsb-letters-russia-putin-nuclear-war-weapons-ukraine-1762695

https://time.com/6228466/nuclear-war-risk-daily-issue-biden/

https://larouchepub.com/other/2022/4947-what_would_happen_if_a_nuclear.html

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.

Flirtin’ With Disaster, And By Disaster, I Mean Nuclear War

“A four-alarm fire in Downtown Moscow clears way for a glorious new tractor factory, And, on the lighter side of the news, Hundreds of Capitalists are Soon to Perish in Shuttle Disaster.” – Airplane II: The Sequel

Hillary tried to sell her soul to the devil to be elected president, but the devil declined, “Can’t do it, you don’t have any collateral.”

The big story in the news is the hurricane about to hit Florida. If it were about to hit Detroit or Baltimore, it might add a few billion in value to those cities, but alas, it looks like it might create damage beyond anything ever seen by man – it might muss Tom Brady’s hair. It also reminded me that I’m hungry, since I accidentally typed “burricane” twice before I got it right – my mind must be on burritos. Or maybe it’s prophecy – that a hurricane-sized burrito will hit Tampa?

That’s (the hurricane, not the burrito) the story in the news, however, I think the much bigger story is buried. Or it was buried.

Russia makes most of its money by shipping natural gas, oil, fertilizer, and wheat out to the world. It imports tracksuits, cell phones, and gold chains. As I’ve covered before, what Russia imports is silly, but what it exports is crucial. The cheapest way, by far, to export oil is in the hair of a Russian or Italian. But they don’t do so well at moving natural gas, so people build big holes called pipelines.

Really, that’s all a pipeline is. It’s a hole. As tempting as it is, I’m not going to make a Kamala Harris joke. And you can bury it like they do most places, you can put it on stilts like they did in Alaska, or you can even have it under the sea.

I hear that part of the ocean is haunted, so Germany might be getting super-natural gas.

As the Europeans have come under more political pressure to stop adding CO₂ to the atmosphere, they’ve moved away from coal. They’d like to move to entirely renewable energy sources, but last I heard those only exist in sufficient supply to power a technological civilization in the dreams that Greta Thunberg had in the womb as her mother engaged in one too many vodkas while riding rollercoasters on sleeping pills.

No, in 2022 Europe is powered by fossil fuels. Sure, there are some renewables, and the French built a lot of nuclear power plants. But the desire for power has increased exponentially to keep up with civilizational growth. Concentrated energy is also a multiplier, it allows a person or a company or a nation to do far more. With natural gas, a German factory can build all the Volkswagens® and bratwurst and lederhosen that the world needs. Without it? The production is (if they’re lucky) one percent of the powered production.

Time zones are confusing. It’s September 28 in Europe, September 29 in Australia, and 1953 in Moscow.

Russia was the biggest single supplier of natural gas to Europe, providing 45% of the needs. Nord Stream© was one such pipeline, and it took the route of going on the seabed from Russia to Germany. Why? One reason was that it avoided having to pay Poland, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries that never visit this blog for “transit rights” through those countries. For example, if Russia wanted to send gas through Ukraine (natural gas, not sarin) then Russia would have to pay Ukraine for the right to do so.

They say they saw Bubbles in the water after the explosion . . .

As such, the Poles and the Ukrainians hated Nord Stream®. But, it was successful. And the Germans loved it. Besides Austrians in the 1930s, what can all Germans agree on? That they like the Nord Stream© and Nord Stream II ™ projects. It lowers the price of energy for them, and makes it less likely that they’ll be held hostage by the Poles (hint, the Poles are still a bit miffed at the Germans and the Russians). The Ukrainians hated it most of all, since it looked like those projects alone would end up costing them over $4 billion dollars a year in transit fees, and it also lowers their political power to hold Russia hostage at the expense of European countries.

And some people have paid dearly for that . . . .

That brings us close to today. The United States has always opposed any of the Nord Stream projects. Why? First, if Europe is divided, the United States has one less group to be concerned with on the world stage. Almost as bad as a united Europe is Germany and Russia on good terms. Combine Germany’s economic powerhouse with Russia’s raw materials? That’s a threat that gives the State Department bad dreams.

Wasn’t she in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest?

This probably explains 90% of what went on in Ukraine, and the other 10% involves Hunter. Could Biden have de-escalated the conflict? With one phone call, yes. But it’s going now, and there reaches a point where even I’m concerned – and that’s the crippling (it can be fixed, but how bad is the damage?) of Nord Stream™ I and Nord Stream® II.

My dad can fix it. He’s got the ultimate set of repair tools.

Why would the United States do that? Well, the biggest reason (that I can think of) is that it makes it so that Germany can’t back out of the sanctions when winter gets cold and prices start to be amazingly high and there just happens to be this nice, big straw filled with natural gas that they could suck on all day to be warm.

Note: this is supposed to be a satire account.

How do we know that people knew this was going to happen? Well, there are reports the CIA told Germany an attack was imminent. And there’s this little matter of the British pound collapsing right before the incident. And, there’s the little matter that an explosive was found next to the original Nord Stream© not too long after Russia took Crimea back in 2014. The detonation wire was cut, so whoever was getting ready to blow up the pipe had changed their mind (cough) Obama (cough). The fact that this happened even before we know the results of the Russian referendum?

Do you think the Ukrainians would meet this result with Jeb!ulation?

Do I think that Germans will freeze to death? Probably not many. They may clear-cut forests, they may shut down industry for February and March, and they might make it against the law to heat your house in any way other than having a chubby girl in corduroy pants rub her thighs together as a space heater. On an economic scale, Frequent Commenter Ricky noted, it might devastate Germany’s economy even more than 9/11 did ours.

But now they can’t pick up the phone and call Putin and say, “We miss heat. Er, you. Please turn it back on. Here are rubles.” That option is gone, and that’s why I’m certain that it wasn’t the Russians who did this: why destroy your best bargaining chip? And, no, it’s not shoddy Russian construction – the companies that made the pipe and built the line are the best in the world, not Yuri’s Pipeline By Mail Company.

Even the Polish know the score . . .

And I thought it was Joe Biden, not For Bidden.

So the United States did it. Biden even told us that he was going to do it. I’m not sure he remembers he did it, but he did. It’s even on video, and he looks rather lucid (for Biden) during the speech.

The thing that scares me is this: if I were Russia, I’d take this as a rules expansion pack: undersea pipelines are now fair game. And the ones that feed Europe from Norway are mighty vulnerable. This, more than anything, just ups the level of tension and ensures that what started as a property dispute keeps escalating. And escalating. And escalating.

In Minecraft, of course.

And one thing I learned from Tom Clancy movies?

Hmm. Good advice. I’ll even add this bit:

Frequent Commenter Ricky also noted that I get to be the first person to make fun of the next stage in escalation toward a nuclear war. So, I’ve got that going for me.

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.