Category: Silly Predictions

COVID-19: A Brave New World

“Because if just one of those things gets down here then that will be all!  Then all this – this bulls**t that you think is so important?  You can just kiss all that goodbye!” – Aliens

NEWT

I can’t stand people who are xenophobic.

Corona.  COVID-19.  There’s a catastrophe always lurking, but it’s never what you think.  But it’s always something.  Beer Flu.  Kung Flu.

Do you understand the magnitude?  Most people don’t.  I’m not even sure I do.

The last few nights here at Stately Wilder Mansion Redoubt have been especially enjoyable.  I took off some time last week, and plan on taking some time off this week, as well.  It’s a great time, especially if you’ve never read Poe’s Masque of the Red Death (LINK).

Rarely do things change so quickly:  we Wilders were preparing to go to a state-level event where Pugsley was going to compete.  Competing was an honor – it means that he was one of the very best in the state at competitive freestyle dramatic baking rhythmic knife combat.

The championship was cancelled – 6,000 people in the same place probably doesn’t make sense.  Why?  Mathematically I’m betting that at least one of the competitors or spectators would have been COVID-communicable.  6,000 would have been a wonderful place for one person to donate billions of virus fragments to thousands of others, just like one South Korean was responsible for over 1,000 cases.

batstew

Ahhh, panda.  So very tasty.  I like it with a side of bald eagle.

One of my friends and I were talking before the event was canceled and said to me, “John, it’s cancelled.  There is no way that’s going to happen.”  There was no uncertainty in his voice – it was clear he was 100% certain.  In my mind, I thought that somehow this event would sneak under the radar.  It did not.  And in retrospect, I found myself guilty of one of the chief sins of the universe:  thinking that normal can win in abnormal circumstances.  Thankfully, the penalty here wasn’t the usual penalty for such a sin:  death.  Okay, that was dramatic.  Mainly it’s feeling stupid.

Pugsley was disappointed since he had his katana sharp, his Hamlet memorized, and his recipe book tattooed on his left thigh, but cancelling the event was the right call.

The Boy was back in town for spring break, so the four of us Wilders are hunkered down in the basement as I write this.  The other three idiots have been taking turns invading my writing space playing a video game.  Thankfully, we like each other and have a reasonable supply of deodorant and soap.  If the soap runs low, I volunteer to try to make some out our fire pit ashes and the cat.

SOAP

But is it made from cat?

The Boy and Pugsley have been out into the world since COVID-19™ hit more than The Mrs. and I.  The Boy went back to his college on Saturday.  They say that the college will open at some unspecified time in the future, but sent a note out that maybe you should think about coming to get your stuff.  The Boy and Pugsley took a road trip for just that purpose.  While The Mrs. hasn’t had her job officially cancelled for the foreseeable future, I expect that will be the case.  I don’t expect either of the three of them to be required to be outside of the house in the month of March except for runs to Wal-Mart®.

TRIPS

Okay, it wasn’t that bad.  They didn’t even ask me for gas money.  Hey, have you guys seen my credit card?

My job?  It’s probably not directly required for the United States to keep going on a daily basis, so I could see myself being restricted to working from home unless I absolutely had to be somewhere to defuse a bomb or perform a circumcision an alien.  As it is, if I have symptoms of Corona, I can’t come back to work unless I’ve been cleared via a doctor’s note.  Assuming I can find one of the six doctors in the county, but, hey, I can sign a signature that might look like a doctor?  It looks just like an Ebola© virus, right?

I’ve really enjoyed the time at home.  It’s surreal, since as I listen to the Internet radio, I can hear everything crumbling as the news gets weirder by the day.  I dumped my 401k (the part that was in stocks) into the money market fund this morning on Sunday.  That means they’re supposed to dispose of it tomorrow.  But as the market is lock-limit down already, what does that even mean?  Can my money even find an exit point?

I’m betting the Fed dumps a trillion dollars, or maybe even two trillion into the market.

Tomorrow.

It’s that bad.  I hope I’m wrong, but I think it’s going to be October in 1929 bad.

COLLAPSE

Maybe this will work.  Seems stable, right?

It’s obvious that the world around us has already changed.  As we drove to Wal-Mart© on Friday for a scouting expedition, I looked at a parade of businesses that would soon be closed as I drove by them one by one on the street.

  • Move theater? Who’s going to go, especially since the movies are crap?
  • Diner frequented mainly by old people?   Old couples are going to be self-quarantined watching the Price is Right® until they welcome COVID-19 to escape each other.
  • Car dealerships?   I’d like to buy that new Jeep® Coronaâ„¢ Wagon.
  • Scented candle places? Okay, I’m not sure how they stay in business anyway in 2020, unless they launder meth money.
  • Insurance companies?
  • Laundromats?
  • Thrift shops?
  • The VFW?
  • Churches?
  • Bars?
  • Liquor stores?   Let’s not get crazy here.

People don’t really need those things.  Except for liquor stores.  From start to finish, what do people need in a modern society?  I left off Law Enforcement because they keep people I don’t like away from me.  Yeah, some of them are tools, but for the most part we really do want them around for a modern society.  Or, if we don’t have Law Enforcement, a lot more ammo.

HILLARY

But the FBI seems reluctant to stop them.  Even for speeding. 

And need is not for the basics of life, it is for the basics of life for a modern society.

  • Water
  • Transport
  • Grocery Stores
  • Electricity
  • Their Bank
  • Pharmacies
  • Internet
  • Gasoline/Fuels
  • Natural Gas

But each of these requires people going to work to make things happen.  The people who run the water system have to purify the water.  The farmers have to farm, ranchers have to ranch, and dairy owners have to, um, dairy?  The systems that provide water, milk, eggs, meat and corn are fundamental.  They keep us in Doritos® and salsa and Monterrey Jack™ cheese.

What will keep the system going?  The city water department needs chemicals, so we need a chemical plant to make chlorine.  But will we open the potato chip factory, or expect people can figure out how to cook potatoes?  Will we open the frozen food factory, or assume people can make their own pizza?  We move from a market economy to one where “shortages” are created based upon allocations – what’s the best way to minimize the number of people that congregate while minimizing the spread of CoronaChan?

I don’t know.   But I do know that some foods will be considered so frivolous or interpersonal contact intensive that good sense won’t let them be made.  Eating at a restaurant?  That involves additional people, from cooks to servers that are potential additional viral vectors.

BEAN

And as far as the tip, wash your hands.

What else don’t we need?  That’s a tough question.  Do we need the latest spring fashions shipped in from China?  Do we need the latest iPhone®?  Do we need Stephen Colbert?  Definitely not.  Heck, I’m not sure we need most of those things on any given day at all, let alone during a catastrophe.

And that’s just consumer products and a lame late night host.  How much gasoline do we need if we’re not travelling to and from work?  Not very much.  Lots of diesel is needed to move products in semi-trucks and on trains.  In the United States, about 9 million barrels (42 gallons per barrel) are used each day as motor fuel.  After Corona?

Three quarters of that?  Half?

This weekend I would have probably used 30 gallons.  Instead?  None.  Multiply that by millions of people, and gasoline demand is sunk.  Get ready for the lowest gasoline prices you’ll ever see in your life.  And, since we’ll not be transporting a lot of “stuff”?  The lowest diesel prices, too, and unlike the hoarded toilet paper, they’ll hit bottom.

ESSENT

Maybe there will be new markets???

I look at this from a standpoint that I’ve got some food in my house that I’ve bought for times just such as this.  I don’t owe much to anyone.  As I’ve indicated before, if you have money (and if money is still good, which may not be a given) you’re in for the buying opportunity of a lifetime.  Want an oil well?  You’ll never have a better chance at getting a good one, if you have money.  Especially the baby oil wells.  Contrary to popular opinion baby oil isn’t made from babies, but from toddlers.

But it’s the people who don’t have money that I’m concerned about.  The theater owner can’t keep the theater going if there are no butts in seats.  The diner waitress can’t make the payments on their car if they can’t bring plates filled with eggs and bacon with a side of biscuits and gravy to Grandpa Verne.  She depends on the tips that pay the bank for that car, since Virgil can’t hold a job now that he’s in the county lockup for fighting Clem again.

Most people depend on this week’s income to pay this month’s bills.  I’ve been there.  I lived several years of my life one month and one lost job away from bankruptcy.  Thankfully, now I can live without a month of income.  Most people can’t.

How does that end up?  It’s simple enough to say, “Well, let the banks take a hit on a month of payments.  They’re greedy and don’t need that money.”

But . . . it’s my money you’re talking about.  My money is in the bank.  How does Hells Wargo® pay me back if my money isn’t collected from the waitress and the theater owner?  For every transaction, there’s another party.  And if you have more money than zero, you’re impacted.  That money of yours that your bank has?  You loaned it to them.  And if the loans that they made don’t pay back?  What happens then?

Another system failure.  I’m expecting that the Federal government will just pony up several trillion to make it all go away.  They have a printing press, ink, and paper.  Why not?

INFLATE

It worked out okay for Zimbabwe and Venezuela, right?

From the best available information I’ve seen slowing down the WuFlu® isn’t enough.  It has to be stopped.  COVID-19® isn’t the flu.  All available data indicates that it is far more deadly, and far more contagious.

At the high end of mortality, it would kill up to 7,500,000 Americans, assuming half of the people in the US get it.  What else is a factor?  How quickly we get it.  If you want to live, having a ventilator will be an issue for some percentage, say, 5% of people who get it.  No ventilator for that 5%?  They die.  Mortality rate skyrockets without care – it’s the difference between as low as 0.5% (as observed in South Korea) to as high as 5% in overwhelmed countries.

My trigger for “not the flu” is 30,000.  That seems like a big number, but when you divide it by the number of people in America, it’s really not.  The flu (as near as we can see today) is a LOT less fatal.  And, unless I missed a day in kindergarten, 30,000 is a lot less than 7,500,000.

heaven

Okay, not me.  I have to write.  And I have HBO®.

But until we see how it pans out, I guess I get the big prize:  spending time with Wilders.  And I’ll enjoy spending time with each of them.

Except the cat.

Buy Gold? Is There a Downside?

“Calm down, Doctor.  Now’s not the time for fear.  That comes later.” – The Dark Knight Rises

gold

When I retire, I’ve discussed with The Mrs. that I just might become a gold prospector.  She doesn’t think that will pan out.

What’s happening right now in the financial markets is panic.  Panic comes from uncertainty.  This sort of thing was seen back all the way to the Japanese financial crisis starting in the late 1980’s.  Their banking industry was a mess.  Origami Bank folded; First Sumo Bank went belly up.  Even Bonsai Bank had to cut some of its branches.

We’re in a different place in the United States in 2020.  If I’m right, the world markets are just beginning their trip down.  I’m not sure that anything saves them at this point except for raw panic causing markets to plunge enough that Wall Street hedge fund managers have to consider the idea of flying commercial.

Different sectors will be impacted differently by the Coronavirus.  Bonus points if you understand that insurance companies make money by investing in stocks and such, and the insurance is just a way to get your money to invest to make profit, until you have a claim.  What do you think will happen when insurance companies start taking losses?  Extra credit:  what do you think health insurance companies will do when faced with huge numbers of patients that weren’t in their projections when they set their rates? There will be several pop quizzes as events unfold.  Eventually, though, the class is pass/fail.

CORONA

I’d like to self-quarantine for, oh, 20 years or so?

We’re experiencing the economic dislocation brought on by the Coronavirus, it seems like a good time to talk about some basic principles.  As I’ve noted in previous posts, my expectation is that if we see a panic, that’s the time to buy assets.  Crude oil dropped to $30, and if that price stays for six months, oil rig hands will be begging to offload their Ford Shelby GT350® at bargain prices.  If it stays that low for a year?  Texas oil execs will be offering to sell you their $281,000 Lambo Hürącán Pérförmånté™ for a handful of magic beans.

Which brings us to gold.

I regularly correspond with several folks who are commenters here or fellow bloggers.  Feel free to drop me a line:  movingnorth@gmail.com.  While I look forward to being so big that I say, “I don’t respond to every e-mail but I read them all” and then whipping an unpaid intern while yelling “be funnier!” while I lay in a hammock in the shade not reading your email on the marble patio complaining that the pool’s too hot, well, that hasn’t happened yet.

But a man can dream.

time

The best thing about the future?  No more Bon Jovi.

Anyway, folks that write get responses, and some of them lead to lengthy conversations.  One of people is Frequent Commenter Ricky.  Ricky sent me a piece he was working on, and I thought it was brilliant.  With his permission, I’m using it as a jumping off point to make a few points about our current economy.  To the extent it’s not as good as his original, well, that’s on me.  I’ll give the intern “motivation” to be better with a few nights in The Box if you guys don’t like it.

Ricky used a metaphor of Back to the Future to explain how currency has moved relative to gold, but I’m going to mangle it right from the start, which is on me, not Ricky.  Let’s say that you were going to use the DeLorean® from Back to the Future to go back to the year 2000.  That’s a nice, round number.  Why 2000?  Well, you only wear underwear from Montgomery Wards®, and they went out of business in 2000.  So, if your tighty-whities are looking more like exclusive Swiss underwear since they are holier than St. Peter’s Basilica, it’s time for a new pair, and you should probably stock up.

So, off to Wards™, and let’s say you took $300 with you.  I mean, it’s not like there’s a Wards® in every timeline, right?

When you get to the mall, you find that there’s a nice coin shop right next to Wards©.  You stop in.  You see that you can buy, for $300, an ounce of gold.

wards

I hear these were featured in the 1983 Victor’s Secret® catalog, back when men used to just walk around the house proudly in their Wards™ underwear.

What?  Why would you do that, man!  You were after the gold standard of underwear, why settle for gold?

Because, with that same $300, you could buy an ounce of gold that in March of 2020 is worth $1675.  You could buy a LOT of underwear in 2020.  So, given the choice, what would you send back from the past?  An ounce of gold, or $300 in cash, or $300 in Montgomery Ward© underwear?

Of course, the underwear.  But if you’re like me, the number two choice would be the ounce of gold from the year 2000.

Ricky then asks the question:

If you could use that time machine to send yourself a gift in 2030, what would it be?

  • $1 million in cash?
  • Or $1 million in 2020 gold?
  • Or $1 million in underwear. Ricky is sane, he didn’t ask this question.

I can certainly come across a time when, if I bought gold, it would have been a bad investment.  On an inflation-adjusted basis, had I bought gold in 1980, I’d be at about a breakeven today – and a breakeven, even including inflation, isn’t a great investment.  But at least money wasn’t lost.  But that doesn’t mean that gold can’t be a losing investment:  had I sold that 1980 ounce in 2000, I would have lost about $1500 in today’s dollars.

Ouch.

80s

If these two married, it would be a constant fight over the hair products.

But why did gold peak in 1980?

The United States was a mess.  The market was a mess.  The Soviets looked unstoppable, as did inflation.  Air Supply was on the radio, until it was declared a terrorist organization in one of the best moves the Reagan administration ever made.  Gold looked like a good investment while the world looked like it was falling apart.

Would I buy gold today at these prices of $1600+ an ounce?  Probably not.  Would I buy gold in six months after the market had crashed and gold was around $1200?  Probably then.  When (if) gold hits $1000?  Certainly.  And platinum?  Hmmm.  That looks interesting.

The long-term trend is clear:  countries are attempting to devalue their currencies to make them more competitive, and this will increase as economic tensions increase.  The Fed will actively seek to lower the value of the dollar.  What does that imply?  That the dollar will continue to inflate away until it becomes worth much less.

japan

Ah, the good old days, when Japan was going to take over the world . . . . 

But an ounce of gold will still be an ounce of gold, even if we run into problems like Japan had, where Samurai Savings and Loan faced sharp cutbacks, and investigators found that Bank of Sushi was up to something fishy, and in the end customers got a raw deal.

Warning:  I’m an internet humorist, not an investment adviser.  Most mornings I’m wrong six times before I’ve even had my first cup of coffee.  I don’t plan to change any investment position in any listed commodity in the next three days, and haven’t made any changes in the last three days, mainly because I’m lazy. 

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, #10: Economy on the Brink?

“The reason I’m going to Santa Corona, Steve, is the worst thing that can happen there is that I run out of suntan lotion.” – Wonder Woman (1978)

clock10

This year, International Woman’s Day was on Sunday, March 8, which is when we moved the clock to daylight savings time.  So now they’ll complain that they only get 23 hours for every day, while a man gets 24.

  1. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  2. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  3. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.

The clock didn’t move this month for the second month in a row.  Will Leftist state governments support Antifa violence this spring and summer?

In this issue:  Front Matter – Violence and Censorship Update – Virginia:  Imposing Costs – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Civil War 2.0 in the Time of Corona – Links

Welcome to Issue 10 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.  Issue One is here (LINK), Issue Two is here (LINK), Issue Three is here (LINK), Issue Four is here (LINK), Issue Five is here (LINK), Issue Six is here (LINK), Issue Seven is here (LINK), Issue Eight is here (LINK), and Issue Nine is here (LINK).

Violence and Censorship Update

Generally, this section reports on either violence or censorship:  it’s one of the other.  This month, it’s both.  We’ll start with Violence.  Arthur (LINK) sent a link to a story that got some coverage – the attempted murder of people just because they supported the other side of the political spectrum.  To be clear – this man (LINK)was attempting to kill old people who were expressing support of President Trump.  Thankfully he was incompetent – driving wasn’t something they studied in Marxist theory class.

I’m amused when the Left talks about “Right Wing Extremist Violence®” because it’s generally either propaganda or a funding ploy by Lefty organizations to frack the pockets of liberal donors on the Coasts who want to be “doing something” to stop the Hate®.  At every level in the last four years, Leftist violence has greatly exceeded violence coming from the Right, and if you don’t believe me, I can point to a few congressman who were shot at (and shot) by a deranged Sanders supporter who might beg to differ.

antifa

The difference between a Leftist and a puppy is a puppy stops whining when it grows up.

As the country continues to unravel, I expect a significant uptick in violence from the Left.  If Bernie loses his shot at the presidency, I fully expect that the very first target will be the Democratic Party, with riots in Milwaukee at the Democratic National Convention.  Leftists hate the Right, but they hate mainstream Democrats even more (see links below).  And with enough practice, sadly, Leftists might become proficient at hurting people other than their parents.

Moving on to censorship, Leftists should be pleased that censorship is still in fashion.  Because there isn’t a comprehensive list of bans for YouTube®, I can only report what I’ve seen in the news or that were mentioned in passing by other sources.  Several Right-ish content producers were banned recently, and probably the most prominent one I know of is I, Hypocrite.

When I heard about the banning, I went to his Bitchute® site and watched the video he felt was responsible for his banning.  It was tame, mainly just him arguing that the Left-Right violence statistics as reported by another YouTuber™ in a debate were wrong.  He also spent a great deal of time criticizing his own debate performance and preparation.  It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in a typical political debate except he admitted when he was wrong and his opponent had a strong point.

Now his voice is silenced.

YouTube© has also started demonetizing channels that feature content that’s favorable to the Right, like Sargon’s channel.  Sargon’s biggest offense?  Dunno, having a keen beard?  I can’t seem to find anything offensive.  But demonetization is generally just the first step before deplatforming.

On the Twitter™ front, they recently permanently banned the news website ZeroHedge© for a tweet popularizing a story that the Coronavirus may have been a result of genetic engineering.  The most recent mainstream stories I’ve heard seem to confirm that’s an opinion that’s not out of the question.  So, a news story that’s (admittedly) fringe?  Instaban.  That may be one reason a “conservative” buyer is looking to shake up leadership at Twitter®.  I’m not certain that would change a thing, since most “conservatives” seem to care more about the opinions of the Left than either the truth or honest dissenting opinions to the prevailing Leftist opinions.  Crazier parties, right?

Virginia:  Imposing Costs

Last Weather Report, I wrote about the concept of imposing costs, as in the Right wasn’t imposing costs on the Left.  Here’s what I said:

. . . no politician had to pay any price for their support of the votes, nor do they feel that they’ll have to pay a price.  And, no, to be very clear, I’m not suggesting violence on them or any illegal action.  But what I am suggesting is that if they pay no personal price, they’ll never change.  What are legal ways to influence them? 

  • First – make sure that they aren’t re-elected. That requires organization and planning.  Oh, and voters.
  • Second – go through their histories thoroughly. Don’t blackmail them – find (legally) all of their dirty laundry and air it – imagine what Ralph’s browser history looks like.  Isn’t that a public record? 
  • Third – make sure that that people are rude to their wives and shun them at social functions. How will Governor Northam’s wife, Pam, feel if people tell her what they think of Ralph when she stops in to get a Starbucks®?   What if her public meetings were peacefully protested?
  • Fourth – remove their privacy in every public space. Park vans outside of their houses with billboards that advertise what a horrible person lives within – they’ve done this with Susan Collins in Maine, so it’s a tactic that’s fair game.  But the Geneva Convention does categorize playing Twisted Sister® 24/7 at their house a crime against humanity.

I’m sure that there are people who are far better at this than I am who can come up with dozens of legal ways to make a vote against Constitutional rights pretty uncomfortable. 

Well, someone did come up with a legal and peaceful way to make Virginia State Delegate Mark Levine, Leftist, uncomfortable.  Levine is the author of the bill to confiscate semi-automatic guns from law-abiding citizens of Virginia.  Brandon Howard, American, showed up in front of Mark’s house.  With a protest sign.  And a rifle.  Here’s a link to the story (LINK).

In no way did he use his rifle in a threatening fashion, but Howard did protest.

Delegate Levine’s panties got very much in a twist.  He immediately called the police, but was quite upset to find out that Mr. Howard had done nothing to violate the law.  Levine was quoted by the article by saying that “. . . if they cannot prosecute him (Howard) because of the way our Virginia laws are, well then that’s the advantage of being a lawmaker.  I intend to come back to Richmond and introduce legislation to make sure that anyone who threatens a lawmaker at the point of a gun and says I’m coming to your home with a gun unless you change your mind on legislation.  I want to make sure that person can be prosecuted.”

Mr. Levine’s sense of irony must be broken to not see how his sense of having his rights violated would result in him writing a law to enable cops with guns to stop citizens from peacefully protesting in a way that he doesn’t approve of.  The research I saw indicates that Mr. Levine has a copy of the Constitution that he keeps in his pocket.  The only conclusion I can come up with is that Mr. Levine is illiterate?

This will not be the last time that costs are imposed on the Left as they try to restrict rights.  Assume as the Right gets as sophisticated and as active as the Left in this type of work, it will increase rapidly.

Hank Curmudgeon left a link (LINK) to this guide last month and suggested I print out this figure and include it.  I’ll just leave it here, since it seems to fit:

Insurg

Updated Civil War II Index

More graphs.  February was a kind month, but the seeds were set for turbulent months to follow.  In keeping with the journalistic standards of Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise, I’ll note that I did make sure that all pictures used resulted in no harm or mistreatment of any bikini, anywhere.

Violence:

violf

Up is more violent.  Violence remains steady.  My prediction?  Peaks in June-July-August as political violence coming from the Left peaks.  That may make a strange graph, but I’ll do my best to find a fitting match in a bikini if and when it happens.

Political Instability:

politf

Up is more unstable.  Instability skyrocketed with impeachment, and then got better before bouncing slightly this month.  Expect increased instability as we move to November, with August being secondary peak during and after the conventions, and bikini’s flash red.

Economic:

econf

Down indicates worse economic conditions.  The economic indicators began to turn in February.  Based on the way this index is calculated, it does not yet show the impact of the free-falling stock market, which (as of this writing) is limit-locked down on the early futures, with oil collapsing to the $30’s.  Expect March numbers to collapse, which is in keeping with the chaotic nature of the way her hair is displayed.

Illegal Aliens:

borderf

Down is good, in theory.  This is (thanks for the terminology correction, 1chota) a statistic showing border apprehensions by the Border Patrol.  One would assume we’re catching fewer because there are fewer to catch.  And those aren’t legs that last forever, since they obviously end in October.

Civil War 2.0 in the Time of Corona

It’s rare that a society devolves into civil war when everything is going along fine.  Part of the recipe for trouble is economic instability.  The second part is hating each other – and we already have that in place.  What keeps us from killing each other is the day job, and the fact that most of us have all of the Twinkies® and Ho-Hos™ and Strawberry Starburst Piña Coladas© that our sticky fingers and sugar addled brains can pay for with our nearly maxed out credit cards.

But then enters Coronavirus:

Ooh, my little viral crop, my viral crop
When you gonna give me quarantine, Corona
Ooh, you make my economy stop, my economy stop
Got stop the production line, Corona

Never gonna wash, cough it up, such a dirty hand
I always buy the TP, hoard the food that is canned
My, my, my, aye-aye, whoa!
M-m-m-my Corona

corona

The Boy did a fine job photoshopping this.  I guess he has the knack.

As I write this on Sunday evening, March 8, 2020, the stock market has already tripped a stop-loss trigger before opening.  Oil prices are collapsing.  The Everything Bubble is imploding.

What’s next?  If this economy follows every other collapse in recent economic history, job losses start soon.  Businesses collapse.  Banks?  They’re in the business of generating profits in good times, while having the government and taxpayers pay for the bad times.  This is, for some reason, referred to as the free market.

Economic recessions can happen when the economy has been growing too quickly, too long, or both.  Sometimes they end just because it was time.  Other times, an event occurs that causes the growth to stop.  Corona has the ability to be that event, and even if the economy was in peak condition, Corona could have started a recession.

Given a recession, the political landscape will be in turmoil.  On the Democrat side, I’m not sure that Bernie can get the nomination – that’s the conventional wisdom – and I dearly hope that’s right.  A hard Leftist leading a country in times of economic trouble always provides the worst solutions, and always prescribes more of the same solutions when they don’t work – it’s like a medieval doctor performing more bloodletting when the first bloodletting didn’t work.  It’s that we never did true bloodletting.

Joe Biden isn’t really certain what planet he’s on most days, and Donald Trump will go through him like a velociraptor in a room full of kittens.  President Trump’s recent tweet that “Biden will be tough to beat” was the 2020 version of “don’t throw me in that briar patch.”

joe

And that’s no malarkey, you frog faced bony soldier.

That’s my take – but the range of outcomes is so very wide with Corona, it’s nearly impossible to make a good prediction right now.  Give it two months.  Then we won’t have to predict, we’ll know.

Buckle your seatbelt – this definitely increases the odds of conflict happening sooner.

Links

link

Most are from Ricky this month . . .  enjoy!

NBC Misunderstands Boogaloo.  Probably intentionally.  But they can’t do math, so maybe not intentionally.

Clickbait on Boogaloo.  Strangely, no Antifa reports?

Salon admits that they feel their side is Leftist.

More Leftists Boogaloo afraid.

Progressive Magazine is worried that Ed Asner is worried about people on the Right having guns.  Or something.

Globalists want Trump out.

Daily Dot revisits Electric Boogaloo, adds even more stupid than NBC.

Doug Casey talks Fourth Turning.  Good read.

Vox Magazine thinks Identity Politicsis awesome.  But only for the Left, not for the Right.

Salon is ecstatic that Bernie is a symbol of people turning hard Left.

Must read:  Roots of the Divide.

The Left . . . looking for segregation.

What is an American?  Hint:  no one can agree.

The Week talks about Ross Douthat having a stupid opinion about the divide in America in a new book review.

Socialists hate the Democrats.  See, I told you.

Auntie Beeb writes about Sanctuary Counties in Virginia, still butthurt about 1776.

Michael Lind wants bigger government, more control.

 

The Coming Recession, Explained Using Six and a Half Bikinis.

“Well, just find yourself a man with a spotless genetic makeup and a really high tolerance for being second guessed and start pumping out the little uber Scullys.” – The X-Files

FIRST

After the next recession, most people will be on their feet in no time, after the bank repossesses the cars.

This wasn’t my originally planned topic. My originally planned topic was a discussion of PEZ® seed pricing mechanisms in 1850’s Great Britain, complete with discussion on how many orphans could be traded per bushel of finished PEZ™. Alas, I’ll have to return to that exciting topic some other time, since the world financial system seems to be imploding.

Okay, imploding isn’t the right word. And it really may not be as bad as it looks.

But today? It looks bad. Maybe not implosion bad, but I heard that some bankers had been discouraged. I guess they lost interest.

How bad could it be?

If it just stays at a financial level, the worst I would expect would be a W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 4 (Great Depression) in the United States, though it might hit a W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 5 (National Collapse) in China. You can read all about the W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Levels here (The Lighter Side of the Apocalypse) in an article praised by critics as “one of the best things ever written by a man with such questionable levels of personal hygiene, fashion sense, and grooming.”

In order to understand and guess at the future, let’s take a look at the past. The most recent past economic downturn was the Great Recession. What happened then?

sp500

As you can see from this chart, the S&P 500 experienced a big downturn right around the calf and knee area. Feel free to enlarge – just explain that the study of economics is really interesting.

Several things: first, lowered interest rates and the idea that anyone could and should get a mortgage led to a massive mis-investment in housing. Part of the cause were things called stealing and looting mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. I won’t go into technical details, but it was a way that Harvard® educated MBAs convinced themselves that a strawberry picker making $14,000 a year could afford a $720,000 mortgage (LINK). And, yes, this really happened.

Second, the world was awash in money after the Fed flooded the fields with money after the Dotcom Bubble. Where did that money go? Everywhere. Houses. And . . . oil. Oil prices skyrocketed during that time. Companies rented oil tankers and kept them full, sitting at sea, continually selling futures on the oil in the tanker. They made fortunes by pretending to sell oil. I know that sounds like I’m making an obscure joke, but no, that really happened.

The price of housing hit the financial system like a mousetrap on a cat’s tail. Or a cat with a mousetrap on its tail? Or . . . nevermind. People kept borrowing more on their houses as their houses appreciated. They spent that money on pickups and boats and child care and food and vacations. The people weren’t evil, but they thought that the value of their house could never go down, so the risk was small. Rational people, like bankers, were telling them this. Heck, some even invested in more houses so they could double or triple their magic ATM.

30year

This view of 30 year mortgage rates explains that there have been mortgage rates. Look closely, and you can see them.

Finally, one day the music stopped on the housing prices. Was there a cause in particular? Not really. But the market lost the one thing required to keep it afloat – belief. Every market rises as the beliefs of the participants overcomes the worry of loss. Wow, that sounded poetic and cool. But it’s also true.

In many ways, the stock market is a barometer not only of the actual underlying economic performance, but how people feel about the future. It keeps going up as long as people keep being optimistic and has proven to be a much better barometer of economic activity than the amount of leg hair I grow before each winter and then form into a nice, soft nest to sleep in when it gets cold.

crude

Crude oil prices had Exxon® jumping for joy in 2008!

One thing that brought the mood of people down in 2008 was the price of oil. In the midst of the recession that came from the housing bubble, the secondary oil bubble inflated. Prices increased more than double in a single year – from $70 per barrel to over $140 per barrel at the peak. Oil acts as a tax on everything to do with physical goods. To move a Tom Brady’s booty dinghy from where it’s made in by incontinent baboons in Romania to his rump mechanic in Massachusetts requires energy – energy from oil.

So that’s the “why” for 2008. How does that relate to today?

The Great Recession was brought about by an actual recession – things slowed down in the country because there were only so many houses that could be made. That’s different than today’s trouble. The stock market is tanking not because of a recession, but because the worry about Corona-Chan locking up the flow of physical goods from China. I wrote about that last week (Corona Virus, with a Slice of Recession?).

What have we seen so far?

stand

This was a pretty good miniseries documentary.

The stock market has decreased in value. In general, a stock price has two components – the first is the value of the factories and land and machinery that the company owns. This is boring, it’s like saying a Stradivarius violin worth less than a piece of firewood because the firewood weighs more – in the hands of a genius, the violin can make masterful music, though in the hands of my kids it just made me contemplate the positives of being deaf.

The second and often biggest component of value to a stock is the assumed growth of that stock. This is why older, boring stocks like Ford® are priced closer to the value of the assets they own – no one thinks that Ford™ will end up tripling in size in the next three years. There’s an ex-wife “tripling size in three years” joke, but I’m bigger than that.

But people do think that Tesla© can triple in size in three years. Therefore, people value Tesla™ more than Ford® even though it sells about six million cars a year and Tesla© sold only 370,000 cars in the last year. You’d think that Ford™ would be worth about 10 times what Tesla® is. But in reality, Ford© is valued at $28 billion, while Tesla™ is valued at $147 billion. Is Tesla™ really worth that much? That’s up to Tesla®. But give me $147 billion and I bet I could sell 380,000 cars a year, too. And they would be pretty neat ones and they wouldn’t look like they were designed by a third grader with limited imagination.

cyber

Elon took a lot of heat for the Cyber Truck design, primarily because it looks like something that no human would buy. Thankfully, Elon’s next advance will be robotic customers.

Tesla© has convinced people it is almost six times more valuable than Ford©. That’s what I call optimism. Or a con, but at least a con for a good cause (Elon Musk: The Man Who Sold Mars).

Since the stock market is based on optimism, this latest decline in February of 2020 shows that investors are shaken. The world hasn’t (yet) changed but the implications are now becoming concerning enough to cause the market to drop. Is this going to be a big drop, like in 2008, or another head fake?

I can’t be sure. But I do know that this seems like a good time to trot out what I learned the last time the economy went south.

Lesson One:

Market bubbles aren’t rational. Companies rise faster and farther in a bubble without regard to, well, anything. Uber®, which is basically “Taxi App” is worth $61 billion dollars, which is more than Elon Musk spends in a typical year on hair plugs. Uber© lost $8.5 billion dollars last year while generating tons of bad publicity because its founder is a douche and it treats drivers worse than Mongolian bull milkers. There are tons of companies just like Uber™, and all with an idea that they’ll “disrupt” segments of society. Essentially, disrupting involves an app, a smart phone, and booting someone out of a job. Some are, I assume, legitimate ideas that will be profitable in the future. Others are like GoPro™, which is (in Karl Denninger’s words) just “camera on a stick.”

I heard someone call this the Disruption Bubble, and it’s as good a name as any to describe the distortions and irrational money flows as everyone tries to find the next Amazon™, Facebook© or Google®. In a real panic, stupidly valued things like Uber® deflate, and deflate quickly. But companies that are really worth something will fall in value, too.

The best time to buy a company is when it is cheap. It will never be cheaper than when people are panicking like Godzilla® is hungry for Japanese take-out and orders Tokyo. Finding quality companies that are selling at a 90% discount is possible during a real panic.

Lesson Two:

When the market falls, investors have less money. But they still have bills. So what will they do? If this is like 2008, they’ll sell other things. What kinds of things? Cool cars will be cheap, but not everyone is in the market for a Lambo. But gold dropped, too. During 2008, gold went from $1000 per ounce to as low as $720.

gold

You can see the price of gold really drop around the shoulder area, and take off afterwards.

I can’t guarantee that gold will drop, but I’d be watching if you want to buy some – there might be a great opportunity to buy gold at a lower price than the current $1655 per ounce.

Lesson Three:

In past recessions, the interest rate that is charged for the 10 Year T-Bill generally dropped. Why? People wanted to get to a safer asset. That asset has generally been the dollar. The most likely candidates to replace the dollar were the Chinese whatever-they-call-it and the Euro. As China is now in the grip of Corona, it’s not a flight to safety. Every European country with a beach is thinking about dumping the Euro and exiting the EU so they can print wrapping paper and call it money, the Euro isn’t a great one, either. The Swiss Franc is kinda awesome, but they only make so many of those.

10year

Look closely and you can see that the Fed doesn’t have a lot of room to lower rates.

Nope. It’s the dollar. In times of economic uncertainty, the dollar will increase in value relative to other currencies. Does it make sense? Maybe? It seems that the world notices the Navy, Army, Marines, and all of those nuclear weapons and those make the banks in New York seem a bit more secure.

Expect that if this goes like 2008 for a while you can buy foreign stuff like a king. For grins I track the New Zealand dollar – it’s right now at its lowest value in five years. I bet it goes even lower soon, so sheep should be quite a bargain. Remember New Zealand’s national motto: “We’re not Australia.”

Don’t expect to find a great place to get a good yield anytime soon if Uncle Sam is paying less than a 1%, you’re not going to get even that good of a deal. Negative interest rates have already hit Europe, and there’s no reason they won’t hit the rest of the world. Investing in cash in mason jars buried in the backyard might be a good idea. Send me your map, and I’ll keep it safe.

Lesson Four:

No financial collapse looks the same. Each one of them is unique, and this one has been a long time in coming so, if it’s hitting right now, it could be really bad. Each of the above lessons might be wrong, so look for opportunities where you see them, not where an Internet humorist thinks they might be, no matter how charming and freshly showered he might be. Oh, if you have cash, it does no good if it’s in a bank that collapses. Just sayin’.

A friend of mine made the joke in 2008 that “when the tide goes out, you see who isn’t wearing a swimsuit.” There are vulnerabilities that very few people know about right now that will (in hindsight) become obvious in the days or years ahead. Just nod sagely and pretend like you expected it would happen all along. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Wildcards:

Desperate people sometimes do desperate things. As the Soviet Union collapsed, there was some small risk that an official decided he was better dead than not red, and pushed the button. That didn’t happen – in large part because by the time the Soviet Union collapsed, nobody believed in it anymore: it was as tired as Joe Biden’s campaign.

mankini

Okay, I’m sorry.

sorry

If China were to teeter near collapse, would they decide to launch a regional war to keep the people together so the nation didn’t collapse or fall into civil war? Hopefully not, but the chances of it happening are greater than zero. As you prepare for a world where there is a financial dislocation, don’t forget to prepare for a cultural dislocation as well. Buying food now when it’s cheap and easy to get doesn’t make you a hoarder – it makes you one less person who is drawing on system resources if things go bad. Preparing for bad times when times are good is a profoundly moral thing to do. But don’t forget to complain like everyone else.

Nobody likes a smug prepper.

Disclaimer:

Keep in mind, this is NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. I make fun of Johnny Depp and PEZ® and post pictures of girls in bikinis over economic graphs and am even writing this sober. Consult someone who has those credentials and maybe drinks martinis at lunch since that seems pretty swanky. Also, I don’t own any direct positions in any of the stocks discussed, and don’t plan on taking any positions in them (maybe ever), though I do own a Ford™ truck. I’m betting that maybe some of my 401k money is investing in, well, something and might include these stocks, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s just invested in magic beans?

The Lighter Side of the Apocalypse

“It’s the Apocalypse all right.  I always thought I’d have a hand in it.” – Futurama

spider

I make apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.

Wednesday’s are normally a day to talk about wealth, and when you’re prepping, what is wealth?  Is it gold coins?  Is it ammunition?  Is it beer?  Is it a paid off house?  Is it a decade’s worth of PEZ®?

In many cases when I go to other websites that discuss either economic or social dislocation I see people arguing in the comments section about the way to prepare.  In some cases, these arguments have even occurred here at this humble bastion of Internet civility and decorum.  All of the people arguing are right.

No, that doesn’t mean that John Wilder is out there awarding participation trophies for comments, far from it.  The problem is one of definition.  As Tolstoy said in Anna Kareninananana, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Each of the stunningly attractive and freshly washed (and waxed!) geniuses that comments here has an IQ that would put Joe Biden to shame.  Yet they disagree because they’re talking about different things – each apocalypse is unique in its own way.

charlie

Protip:  if you’re a mortician, tie all of the corpses shoes together – that way if we do have a zombie apocalypse, it’ll be funny.

Therefore, I’ve decided it’s important to talk about the W.I.L.D.E.R. Scale.  It’s like the Richter Scale for earthquakes or the Fujita Scale for tornados or the Joe Biden Scale for Lying Dog Faced Pony Soldiers.  But this one is better, because I came up with it.

Most importantly, what does W.I.L.D.E.R. stand for?  It’s the:

Wilder Index of Life Disruption and Economic Ruination.

See?  W.I.L.D.E.R.  No, wait . . . W.I.L.D.E.R.™  There.  That looks better.

The scale is broken up into a ten point scale, as described below.  Why ten?  Besides being my mental age, it also describes the number of fingers that I had before using a table saw.  It’s also metric.  So, all of you people who live in countries that haven’t nuked Japan (excluding the Japanese) can have this one in metric.  But you have to keep the soccer.

NOTE:  This is not a comprehensive financial guide or preparedness guide.  Depending on the W.I.L.D.E.R.™  level you’re preparing for, this is only the barest bones of a start. 

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 0:  All Quiet

Everything’s fine.  Life is good.  Life is projected to be good – you have a job, it’s fairly secure and has good benefits and it pays the bills, mostly.  Save money in your 401k, grill some burgers and watch the game.  Go back to sleep.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 1:  Local Slowdown

What is it?

A W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 1 is the lowest level of economic disruption – local job loss, minor and non-chronic civil .  It’s not great if you’re caught up in it, but it’s pretty mild.  There may be widespread local job loss – a factory was closed.  It’s not pleasant for those caught up in it, but the underlying economy outside of that local area is sound – you may have a longer commute, but you can get a job.

What to do?

Have savings.  Have minimal debt.  In many cases, you’ll be able to keep doing what you’ve been doing, but you might have a farther commute or reduced wages.  The nice thing about a Level 1 is that if you’re willing to move to a new city, chances are you’ll find something.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 2:  Regional Slowdown

What is it?

One thing that was more common in the past in the United States was a regional level of economic slowdown.  Entire areas would remain stagnant for periods at a time, sometimes years.  In the case of New Mexico, no one really knew it was a state anyway, so we’re not even sure if New Mexico has an economy.  As we have been in the “Boom Everywhere, All the Time” mode for the last 20 years (with the exception of that pesky Great Recession), the economy of the United States seems to be far less regional, but more centered in larger cities.

But regional economic slowdowns do occur – an example would be in the Oil Patch when the price of oil first goes up, and then collapses like my resistance to a steak on Friday night.  The good news is that when the oil price collapses, you can buy a small child in Oklahoma for the price of a cheeseburger.  Not a plain cheeseburger, but the fancy one with lettuce and tomato and onion.  Oklahomans have standards.

What to do?

Have savings.  Have minimal debt.  Have a realistic budget and know the difference between what’s really required and what’s nice-to-have.  Have a house that you can either sell or walk away from.  Be prepared to change careers – have an additional skill that people will pay you for if you have to change careers.  Be prepared to sell a kidney – grow an extra one or two if you can for a rainy day.

philoso

Philosoraptor.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 3:  National Recession

What is it?

Since World War II, most recessions have lasted, on average, a little less than a year.  Recessions mean that, broadly, the economy is shrinking.  Since the entire economic (and banking) system is based on continued expansion and growth, a recession typically kicks people out of work.  During a national recession it’s easier to drive drunk and text Shakespeare from memory while smoking weed than to get a raise.

Even though the economy “recovers” after a year or so, the failures and economic transitions that come from the recession linger in many lives for up to a decade – careers at failed businesses may not be viable anywhere.  If the entire factory is shipped to China, chances are slim that the Chinese will want to import people – it’s not like there are enough bats for everyone.

What to do?

If you are graduating from college, think twice.  People who graduate during a recession and take a job during the recession typically earn less for their entire careers.  Several of my friends went to graduate school instead of into the job market during a recession.  It worked out well for one guy – he became a dictator of a country in the Middle East.  He’s generous, too.  I heard that he last week at the bar he ordered shots for lots of his friends.

If you have a job – do what you can to keep it.  Pay down remaining debt, but understand what bankruptcy might mean if you don’t have six months (or more) of cash to cover expenses.  Stock weeks of spare food, if you can.  If you can’t, start making friends with neighborhood cats.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 4:  The Great Depression

What is it?

The Great Depression, and, to a lesser extent, the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the Stagflation of the 1970’s fit here.  These are much greater economic hits than a recession.  They are nationwide, and may threaten the economic collapse.  Expect extreme measures to get the economy working again, many of which will actually be counterproductive, but it’s government, so you expect that.  Banks will fail.  Weird things will happen to the money supply.

What to do?

If you have spare cash, this is the time to pick up great bargains.  As the Great Recession hit, the price of gold dropped significantly.  People who had debt but too many toys had to sell them – it was a great time to buy boats and cars and motorcycles and mistresses and admission for your kid at Harvard®.  Several stocks were selling at ridiculously low prices.

Why was this?  Money had dried up, so there were bargains everywhere.  Of course, I didn’t have enough money then to buy anything.  Except a house.  Before the prices collapsed.  (Spoiler – I got out of that house okay.)

Again, having no debt and cash to cover expenses is key.  Having a spouse who doesn’t work (but could) is also key – in a pinch, they can work, too, or you can sell their kidneys for buckets of wheat.

Diversify your banks.  Diversify how you keep your money – is one currency enough?  Desperate people will be desperate.  Be able to protect yourself and your family.

home

Hey, don’t laugh – I can almost buy two packs of gum in 2024 with the money in that picture.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 5:  National Collapse

What is it?

Governing structures cease to function in a meaningful way.  This is also known as “Tuesday” in most African nations.  Weimar Germany, and the late Soviet Union are examples.  They didn’t collapse in the same way – Weimar Germany collapsed in an explosion of hyperinflation.  The Soviet Union collapse was the collapse of an entire economic system, and now nobody knew who got to take the cow to the dance on Saturday.

What to do?

When nations collapse, their currency collapses.  This always happens.  In surviving any of those collapses, a pocketful of gold was more helpful than a pocketful of paper.  If the nation collapses, it can be difficult to predict the system that will replace it, but they generally are totalitarian strongmen who take over in the chaos after collapse.  The Soviet Union was a happy departure – as rough as it was on the former Soviet citizens, it could have been far worse.  Chef Boyardee was originally chosen as Gorbachev’s replacement, but they didn’t like that he called his secret police the Gazpacho.

Six months of food isn’t extravagant in a situation like this.  Some means of protection are mandatory.  Realize that changes could happen in a second, so plan.  Have friends.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 6:  Civil War

What is it?

The American Civil War, the French Revolution, and the Balkans War are examples of civil wars.  Civil wars are probably more vicious than any other type of conflict.  When the Germans started fighting the French and English in World War I, they weren’t really into it – they even stopped the war for Christmas in 1914.  But when the French finally snapped before the French Revolution?  They were ready to throw down like a rabid epileptic cat in a strobe light store.

What to do?

Moveable assets like gold or foreign bank accounts, a second passport, and lots of lead are preferred.  Be in a place (if you can) surrounded by like-minded people.  It helps if you’ve been there for years before trouble breaks out – being an outsider during a civil war isn’t preferred.  Have food – a year?  Have weapons.  Have a supply of necessary pharmaceuticals if you can.  Be aware that your side might lose the war.  What would that mean?  Oh, and don’t forget to floss.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 7:  International Collapse

What is it?

World War I and World War II are modern examples of this, but earlier examples include the fall of the Roman Empire and the late Bronze Age Collapse (~1200 B.C.) (LINK).  These are collapses that take down multiple nations and re-write borders and history.  They are cataclysmic, and are often followed by the mass movements of people, either as invading conquerors, or fleeing refugees, or in the 2010’s, fleeing conquerors and invading refugees.

target

Some things never change.  Image:  Lommes [CC BY-SA 4.0)]

What to do?

Be away from where the war is happening.  That may be more difficult than it says on the label.  All of the suggestions for Level 6 responses still fit, especially flossing, but finding a place not torn by conflict is exceedingly difficult.  Events have the ability to move very, very, fast.  If you’re in continental Europe, learning German is probably a good idea.  A year of food will likely not be enough.  Lead is recommended.  Gold may or may not help at all.  If you think it won’t, I’ll watch it for you.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 8:  Regional Extinction

What is it?

Regional extinction last occurred when the population collapsed after the Europeans brought disease to the New World.  Smallpox, measles, and high cholesterol (eventually) killed an estimated 90% of the pre-Columbus population through either disease or carryover effects.  That amounted to, perhaps, 10% of the world population at the time.

What to do?

Don’t eat bats.  Don’t welcome Spaniards.

mayans

I fell in love with a calendar.  Together we had a lot of dates.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 9:  Continental or Multi-Continental Extinction

What is it?

This hasn’t happened in recorded history.  There are some scientists that theorize that the supervolcano Tomba that erupted 75,000 years ago nearly eliminated humanity.  How close?  Genetic evidence indicates that it might have been as low as 1,000 breeding pairs of humans.  However, some people think those scientists are bunch of cotton headed ninny mugginses, and say that people were just fine – the restriction in genetic variation shows up because some people were MUCH better at propagating their genes, if you know what I mean.  Also?  Asteroids aren’t your friend.

What to do? 

Be lucky.  Wear clean underwear.  You cannot save enough food for this contingency – it may last years and the task will be nothing less than rebuilding civilization.  Read Lucifer’s Hammer for a lighthearted look at life after a Level 9.

W.I.L.D.E.R.™ Level 10:  Planetary Extinction

What is it?

Game over, man.

What to do?

Save money in your 401k, grill some burgers and watch the game.  Go back to sleep.

 

And there’s the W.I.L.D.E.R.™ scale.  Drop me an email or leave a comment if I missed something.

Virginia: How We Got Here, In Four Levels

“I’m branching out from self-loathing and self-destruction.” – House, M.D.

INCEPTION

How does Leo avoid getting his girlfriend pregnant?  Conception.

As I sit writing on the eve of the potentially fateful protest in Richmond, a reasonable question to ask is “How did we get here?”  Like Inception©, there are several levels of answer to that question, each deeper than the last.  Ah, Inception™.  Leonardo DiCaprio really had a dream job in that one.

The highest level answer is, “because an election was lost.” 

And this is true.  A single election has completed the transformation of Virginia’s government from one where there was representation on both sides to one that is under sole control of the Left.

It wasn’t a surprise to the Left.  On day one, the Left was ready to take advantage of their new power.  A slate of model gun control legislation topped their agenda.  Everything from banning semi-automatic weapons to requiring universal background checks to red flag laws was on the table.  Already several bills are moving through the legislature.  As of this writing, it appears the semi-automatic ban has been removed, but that won’t last long.

LION

Making guns illegal will stop all gun crime – that’s how we finally stopped everyone from doing drugs . . .

In addition to the anti-gun agenda, the Left is proposing a series of laws aimed at making sure that this is the final change of government that Virginia will ever see – I read about a bill that would move the governor’s vote from popular vote to a majority of the congressional districts.  As the districts will be gerrymandered, that assures a Leftist governor for ever and ever.  Also included was a provision to give Virginia’s electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote.  So, no popular vote for governor, and the people don’t get to vote for president at all.

Ain’t the Leftist version of freedom grand?

The second level is because the demographics of Virginia changed. 

I know that lots of people have arguments that “ENTER IDENTITY GROUP HERE” have more in common with the Right than the Left.  That might be true.  But the only group that reliably votes for the Right are people who might name their kids “Brandon” or “Logan” or “Sarah” or “Amanda.”  These people reliably want to vote for the traditions that created the United States, whereas many first, second, and even third generation citizens want to replicate the culture and country they left – including replacing the national currency with tortillas, which, the more I think of it isn’t that bad of an idea.

hands

A new study just came out that showed that people who want to commit murder just might ignore gun-free zone laws.

You might not like that it’s true.  You might have a fancy explanation why it shouldn’t be true.  But nevertheless, it’s true.  Immigration, urbanization, and being close to the Leftist center of power, Washington, D.C., has turned Virginia Left.

A third level is because it was planned. 

The election of Donald Trump was, perhaps, the single most traumatic thing to have happened to Leftists since, oh, the election of George W. Bush in 2004.  Which was nearly as traumatic as George W. Bush winning in 2000.  To think:  if only we had elected Gore president, polar bears would have not gone extinct.

What, polar bears are doing great?  Shhhhhh.

FRENCH

Not all of the systems on the Titanic have failed.  The swimming pool is still full.

But the cumulative result of this trauma is a push towards deeper Leftism, plus a push to get all of the state legislatures they can for the Left before the next census (LINK).  Why?  To gerrymander all of the congressional seats they can.  Also on the agenda for a repeat of what went on in Virginia?  Texas and West Virginia.

Perhaps the deepest and most basic level is because Leftists hate themselves, and herd with other Leftists.

Certainly not all Leftists are exactly this.  I know a few people that are committed and are on the Left and are that way for the understandable, rational reasons.  People, who, for instance, think our health care system is crazy and think the solution is more government.  I think our health care system is crazy, and think that the solution is less government.  I can understand their motives.  They can understand mine.  We have good conversations; fun arguments that don’t result in a desire to set up a duel with sabers at dawn.  Dawn is much too early for a duel.  If I’m going to die, I at least want a nap first.

But there are Leftists that hate themselves, and I think this is most of them.  You’ve seen them – people who expend amazing amounts of emotion on behalf of other people, like the white liberals who got upset about Speedy Gonzalez and had him pulled from Cartoon Network®, despite his popularity in Mexico:  “He was like a superhero to us….”

Leftists don’t feel bad just for others.  Any comment you can make about a Leftist (or someone they feel protective over) is interpreted in the worst possible way.  It’s as if every time someone used the term “guy” or “buddy” and men got amazingly upset.  Even worse, if people got amazingly upset because we were called “guy” and decided that they would step in and protect us poor men and stop badthinkers from calling us “guy” and get anyone who said that hateword fired from work.

Secretly, the Leftists believe that the identity groups that they protect are inferior.  Why else would they need to protect them and think up new terms for perfectly good descriptive words like “handicapped” or “secretary”?  It’s not like if we called handicapped people something else they could, oh, walk again?

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I think I saw this flag burning on video, and one of the Lefties managed to burn himself when molten drops of plastic from the American flag they were burning fell on his wrist.  He said it was the same burning feeling he got when he thought about getting a job.

How bad is it?  This level of moral relativism and “there is no truth” required by modern Leftism actually makes the assertion that all cultures are equivalent.  Certainly not – especially in outcome.  If you were to compare the culture of Japan to the culture of North Korea, you can certainly determine that the cultures are different, and that the Japanese culture is superior in nearly every way a culture can be measured.

The Left has made the nonsensical claim that women are physically equivalent to men, which I’ve seen from the Left to justify men competing in (and beating) women in high school track events.  Deep down, they create this ferocious level of defense because they know that a man who says he’s a woman isn’t, but yet have to justify the insane idea that they are.

I blame the dames and broads.

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If only I had time to put Greta Thunberg’s face on this meme . . . .

And the Left hates everything good, and pure.  It hates the family.  It hates the way the wind would blow through my long locks of shiny hair, I mean, if I had hair.  And, even though the United States has done plenty wrong in its existence, it’s a shining beacon of hope that people risk their lives to get to.  Leftists hate the heritage of America.  They hate Western Civilization.  They hate tradition.  They hate rationality.  As I discussed last week, the Left idolizes the profane, and treats it as if it were sacred (Why The Left Can’t Handle Reality).

Individualism and individual achievement is their kryptonite®.  Why?  They are afraid that they are inferior, afraid that they cannot compete.  Bernie has to solve these problems, because our typical Leftist doesn’t think they can help themselves because he is a loser.  He also thinks that the Identity Groups are inferior, and could never compete.  Leftist philosophy is built on envy of those who are strong, and greed to take what they have made.

And Leftists are sure that they will be found wanting if judgement is ever made.  Why?  Because they feel they are inferior and are of no real value to society.  Thus reason, science, grades, objective tests (like I.Q. and SAT tests), and norms of behavior are to be avoided in schools.  If a child acts out in school?  It’s not because of lousy parents.  It’s not because the child has a mental or genetic defect that makes self-control impossible.  No.  It’s society’s fault.

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So, now you know where participation trophies come from.

Thankfully, all of the millions of dollars we’ve spent on trying to solve the problems of “society” have led to the best educated and behaved children on Earth.  No?  Hmmm.  Must be society’s fault.

Leftists, however, will do anything to protect their group.  When someone on the Right commits a foul against Political Correctness, even decades in the past, they are disowned.  Yet there is no behavior that any Leftist feels that they should be held accountable for – which brings us back to Virginia.

The current governor of Virginia has allegedly committed offenses against racial political correctness to the point that, if he were on the Right, he would be shot into the Sun and his family sent to exile in northern Canada where an old liberal would be sent ‘round to kick them every week.

Why would this be so?

I said that Leftists are herd animals.  All humans seek the company of other humans – it’s normal, and belonging is the most basic need outside of food, water and oxygen.  But Leftists seek safety in the herd.  Again, the concept of individuality is hateful to them, so the collectivist action mimics that of the herd.  The result is they’d never sacrifice a member until he was nearly dead – the biggest fear of the Left is that they’d be judged objectively.

The result of this is that the Left is dangerous due to this self-loathing.  They’re like people who feel themselves to be inferior always have been – vengeful, spiteful, and hungry for power so that they can finally be someone.

So, that’s how we got here.

Civil War Weather Report #7: All Eyes on Virginia

“Who do you favor in the Virginia Slims tournament?” – Top Secret

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Don’t put in extra hours at the clock factory – they hate that.

  1. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  2. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  3. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.

I didn’t expect to move the clock up this month, but yet, here we are, and it’s all due to Virginia.  More on that below.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Violence and Censorship Update – Flashpoint Virginia –Updated Civil War II Index – Virginia and Rallies and Aesop – Links

Welcome to Issue Eight 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 II, on the first or second Monday of every month.  Issue One is here (LINK), Issue Two is here (LINK), Issue Three is here (LINK), Issue Four is here (LINK), Issue Five is here (LINK), Issue Six is here (LINK), and Issue Seven is here (LINK).

Violence and Censorship Update

Organized violence seems to be lower this month, as you’d expect in winter.  Or perhaps AntiFa® is just on a snowboarding trip to Colorado so they can get some dank weed?  Societal violence tends to drop as it gets colder, because people look stupid rioting in knit hats and parkas.  Well, people look stupid rioting in any weather, except for the South Koreans who have rioting down to a spectator sport.  South Koreans riot about, well, anything.  It’s like living in San Francisco, but with less poop.

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The Korean beef riots?  Udder madness.

YouTube® announced a change in the terms and conditions for video creators that would go into effect December 10, 2019.  The major change (of concern) was that YouTube© announced that they would delete accounts that, in YouTube’s™ sole opinion, weren’t commercially valuable.  There were several creators that I watch on a semi-regular basis that were quite upset – this was proof that YouTube™ was coming after them.  Several refuse to put controversial videos on YouTube® at all now – they save those videos for other sites, like Bitchute©.

As far as I can tell, most of these channels are still up and running.  Several that had been demonetized for political content even had monetization restored.  Like the end of the world in 2012, the dread YouTube® apocalypse is currently overdue.

Switching to Twitter©:  their most notorious purge in the last period was Danielle Stella, a candidate for congress running against that paragon of virtue, Ilhan Omar.  Stella’s offense?  She tweeted:

“If it is proven @IlhanMN [Ilhan Omar] passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged” – I agree with Ms. Stella, that hanging people who collaborate against the United States with foreign governments is a good thing.

But I will never trust her because of sage advice that my brother gave to me one afternoon while driving:  “Never trust a person who has two first names.  Like Scott George.  Or George Scott.”  He was proven right when George C. Scott stopped by our house and ate all of our mayonnaise.  Man, that man loved his mayo.

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I guess the decided they should see other siblings.

Twitter® has also admitted a practice they had long denied, but was obvious:  they shadow ban people – you can type away all you want, but no one is really going to see your Tweet™.  How better to control a populace than to let them think that “bad” opinions are ignored?

Flashpoint Virginia

Since Virginia has been changed from state controlled by the Right to a state where Leftists hold all major offices and control the legislature, the Left has had a great desire to spike the ball and exert complete control.  That control is focused on Leftist goals.  The first Leftist goal mentioned?

Elimination of many Second Amendment rights, including banning ownership, with no grandfather provision, of “assault” weapons.

It also goes much further, and bans parts of rifles the same way an entire rifle would be banned.  Outside of cloning Stalin, elimination of private gun ownership is a primary goal of the Left.  It is also a trigger on the Right, and this legislation couldn’t be more tailored to antagonize the Right if Rosie O’Donnell read it as an alarm clock message.

As political battles go, this gun ban is an uphill one, even for the Left.

What is unusual here is the reaction from localities.  More than 98 bodies (counties, cities, towns) as of this writing have declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries” – and have vowed to not cooperate.

The Attorney General (a Leftist) has issued an opinion that the counties can’t just ignore state law, they have to follow it.  Therefore?  The Governor (a Leftist) has requested $100 million extra for incarceration and $4 million for an 18 person gun ban team.

It’s not enough.

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Sometimes you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.  Like me in my first marriage. 

The Left owns all of the levers of government.  So what do the people that want to keep their rights do?

Form an opposing governmental structure.  Those are the Second Amendment sanctuaries.  Like it or not, these declarations are the first step towards a unified governing structure that opposes the Leftist government in Virginia.  For a civil war to occur, you have to have civil structures.  I had expected them to form along the lines of opposing state governments.

But the societal divisions in 2019 exist more along the rural/urban divide than the old northern/southern divide.  In my home state, it’s very (from a combined vote total) far Right, so my entire state would likely pitch in.  Given this new circumstance in Civil War 2.0, renegade counties make sense in a state like Virginia.  And despite anything the Attorney General might say, should a significant (20%?) percentage of Virginia’s population – an armed 20% of the population – decide a law isn’t valid?

The law won’t be valid.

Laws exist in the United States because we generally agree with them as a group.  Does everyone agree to all laws that are on the books?  Certainly not.  But when there is determined opposition to a law or group of laws (marijuana legalization, illegal alien sanctuaries, Second Amendment sanctuaries) an attempt to enforce the law will nearly instantly make the government look weak, ineffectual, and illegitimate.  And when that determined group takes over a legitimate arm of government?

We’re one step closer to war, and this is why I moved the clock.  The Left is moving quickly, and in Virginia, I think it’s still a very dangerous game of chicken.

I think they’ll end up blinking, and swerving off at the last minute.

Updated Civil War II Index

More graphs, with full bikini treatment.

Violence:

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Up is more violent.  Violence dropped a bit, and I imagine it will remain low for the winter, though it edged up a bit in December.  April and May will likely see increased incidents, assuming we end up okay in Virginia.  And assuming we don’t run out of suntan lotion.

Political Instability:

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Up is more unstable.  It skyrocketed this month.  Tension was high in the first place, but impeachment increased it significantly.  Don’t expect it to go down soon.

Economic:

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Down indicates worse economic conditions.  The economic indicators all were positive, and strongly so, in November.  It was a one month recovery.

Illegal Aliens:

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Down is good, since (in theory) ICE is catching fewer aliens because there are fewer people trying to get in.  The numbers are down this month, and if you put them in context, winter is normally a lower time for illegal immigration, which will pick up in the spring.

Virginia and Rallies and Aesop

There is a large pro-Second Amendment rally planned in January 20, 2020 in Richmond.  Since I started paying attention to such things, I’ve noticed something – that people on the Right don’t live in Washington, D.C.  Why we would go to protest there escaped me.  Statistics back this up – in 2016, nearly 95% of voters voted for Leftist candidates.

For a group of citizens that support the Right to try to protest in D.C. is silly.  Protestors in D.C. are in hostile territory.  From observation, cities attract Leftists.  The larger the city, generally the farther Left it is.  Richmond, Virginia is no different.  It voted nearly 80% for Leftists in 2016.  Richmond is hostile territory for the Right.

But yet the rally is planned.  Aesop over at The Raconteur Report has covered why this rally is a bad idea, in detail here (LINK) and here (LINK).  Read the comments, and also the links to previous posts that he suggests.

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Read it all before you attend – or before you organize.

Links

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Please leave links either in the comments below, or feel free to send me an email if you’re shy.  If you email me, I won’t say that the link is from you unless I get permission.

From McChuck.

From Glenda.

From Bob.

From Vote Harder, over at The Burning Platform:

From Ricky:

 

A Texas Church, Aesop, and the Future of Freedom

“I’m the plumber.  I’m just hanging around in case something goes wrong with her pipes.  (to audience) That’s the first time I’ve used that joke in twenty years.” – Horsefeathers

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“Why a four-year-old child could understand this report.  Run out and find me a four-year-old child.  I can’t make head or tail out of it.”

In a Texas church this weekend, the worst nightmare of the Left happened.  The only thing that could have been worse for the Left would have been a video of Bernie Sanders spending his own money.  A good guy with a gun (Jack Wilson) stopped a bad guy with a gun.  Part of what made it bad for the Left:  clear video evidence showed a good guy taking down a bad guy with a single shot.  To make it even worse for the Left:  the bad guy was a killer, shooting a pair of grandfatherly looking men in a room filled with grandma and grandpa types.

It was quick.  From the time the bad guy pulled his gun to the time the bad guy ceasing to . . . be was five seconds.  Five short seconds.  This was, perhaps, a final blow for the Left.  The idea that the police, who arrived very quickly (four minutes or less) should be the only ones with guns evaporated, especially since two church members were dead within three seconds.  A very well-trained citizen saved lives – how many we’ll thankfully not know, since he acted.

Not a cop.  A citizen.

Every Leftist commenter on the web that was trying to justify gun control in the wake of this tragedy couldn’t do so without defending the shooter as being somehow justified in wanting to rob the church.  The biggest problem in the eyes of the Left, perhaps, is that the churchgoers weren’t sufficiently Christian enough to quietly line up to be shot.  Texas is probably not the state for that.

What made the difference is that the good guy was able to ignore disbelief at the situation occurring right in front of him, and was able to react.  How could Jack Wilson do this?  He didn’t know exactly what threat he was going to face.  He didn’t even know if there ever was even going to be a threat.  But yet, he trained.  Dare I say it?  He was prepped.

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Ok, Zoomer.  (For the record, I’m neither.  I just like stirring things up.)

Jack Wilson scanned the churchgoers.  He was looking for data points.  He saw them and acted.

This week, Aesop over at The Raconteur Report posted his 2019 Quincy Adams Wagstaff Lecture.  It’s here (LINK).  RTWT.  As usual, Aesop writes excellent material – not only to ponder upon, but to act upon.  There are many wonderful points in it, and here is the opening:

Wherever you’re reading this, you’ve had unmistakable evidence that things aren’t going to go all rosy.  Perhaps ever again.  Perhaps just for a long dark winter of the soul, and/or of the entire civilization. There has been more than one Dark Age period in human history, and they will happen again.  You may very well get to see this firsthand, and experience life amidst it.  Howsoever long or briefly.

You’ve had a respite of some 37 months to get your metaphysical crap together in one bag, and use the time prudently.

If you’ve squandered that lead time, woe unto you.

This post made me think, which is dangerous.  At least that’s what my therapist says.  My therapist who says I’m “mentally creative” and “reality impaired.”  Thankfully, she’s imaginary, which really lowers her billing rate.  But what that post made me think most about was:

Mindset.

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This is what would happen if my imaginary therapist talked to The Mrs.  It’s funnier if you read the whole thing in a pirate voice, really.

Aesop mentions mental readiness, and that’s key.  The last 37 months have been, to put it mildly, an indication that we are headed towards a very uncertain future as the culture around us continues to polarize, as the monetary debt we face (all over the world) continues to mount, as soccer is still taken seriously as an international sport rather than a game for attention challenged three-year-olds, and as the international stability that was so hard won with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War dissolves.

I’m not trying to sell you on any one future, on any one fate, unless there’s money in it.  But I am trying to emphasize the start of your salvation:  your mindset.  If you believe that the world will continue in an unbroken, linear stream, I can assure you that you’re wrong.  We’ve had the precursor warnings of 9/11 and the Great Recession.  If I am correct, this decade will bring tumult of a similar, if not greater magnitude.

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Evacuate the women and children first!  Then we can solve this in silence.

You should believe this, too.  Not on a surface level.  This is a mindset.  Your daily decisions should take these future unknown and unknowable calamities into account.  Why?

Because if I’m right, and you’re prepared a week, a month, or five years before you need to be, you win.  Also?  Society wins, because the more people that are prepared, the better we come through the next crisis/shock.  If we were all prepared, a hurricane could hit the shore and the stores would still be full.  When we prepare, we manage to make sure there will be less stress on the system during an emergency.

The other way to help is with skills, and the longer the crisis, the more important those skills will be.  And, no, your experience in saving the Princess® in Super Mario Brothers™ doesn’t count.  At least my therapist says it won’t.  Real skills provide for a basic human need, like food.  During the Great Depression, people gardened and farms weren’t big factory affairs – they were much smaller Mom and Pop style farms.  Even though there was significant malnutrition, starvation deaths in the United States were minimal.

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He said his New Year’s resolution was 1920×1080.

More evidence?

One of the biggest enemies of seeing reality is seeing the world you think should be, not the world as it really is.  People look at Antifa® rioting and think, “They should be arrested.”  They aren’t.  What does that data point tell you?

The government of Virginia is threatening to take semi-automatic guns, dedicate a team to confiscating guns and the government should allow honest, law abiding citizens to exercise the right to self-protection.  But the government wants to take it away and make honest people felons.  What does that data point tell you?

Government debt today is at 106% of GDP.  During the worst of the Great Depression, debt was less than 50% of the GDP.  During the height of the Vietnam War?  Debt was less than 40%.  What does that data point tell you?

I can’t promise the cause of the next crisis.  But I can promise that it’s coming.  Cultivate the mindset.  It’s the first step.

The key is to avoid despair even though you see the world as it really is.

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.  I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet.  I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” – Marcus Aurelius Groucho Marx

I have been accused of being too cheerful from time to time throughout my life.  And I plead guilty – with a smile on my face.  Why?

First – I’m naturally an optimist.  I want to achieve the best, but I also know that there’s no fixed way the world should be.  There is just the way that the world really is today.  If I don’t let myself get upset at the difference between an ideal and reality, I sleep a lot better.  Does that mean I’m satisfied?  No.  I work with every fiber to change some things for the better, but I don’t let it wreck my life like a pink-hatted blue-haired creature of fluid gender when confronted with a person who had to ask what their gender pronouns are.

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The first two hours are rough.  Caffeine is my best morning friend.

Second – Life has been awesome for me.  I can think of a LOT of times that I thought it was ruined.  But each of those times resulted in a situation that was pretty good for me.  Am I worth $30 million dollars?  No.  But that’s probably for the better.  If I had that kind of scratch I’d probably make Elon Musk look like the model of public restraint.

Third – I’ll admit, there was a time (about a year ago) where I got a little gloomy myself. But as I looked around me, I looked at what we have done.  I realized that freedom has won here in the United States for hundreds of years against all odds.

There were 2.5 million people living in the 13 colonies in 1776.  That’s less than the population of Utah.  In that 2.5 million we had a Washington, a Franklin, a Jefferson.  Sure, Franklin in 1789 might have drank more than the state of Utah in 1989 all by himself, but there are men that are the equal to our founders, and they exist in every state.  You know they exist, too.  The tricorn hats and powdered wigs are a dead giveaway.

Always remember that there is a line.  If you look at them standing along the church pews, scanning the congregation to keep them safe, they look nice.

Heck, they are nice.  Until they cross the line.

Then they’re not nice.  Then they become good men.

So, to gently change Groucho:  The past we wish to cling to is dead.  The present that we have is generally not so bad.  And we have a future, even if we can only see it dimly now, even if its golden age is years or decades away.

Let us go and make it.

I predict: these are the funniest predictions for 2020 you will read in 2020.

“Predictions are hard.  Especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra

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Okay, some people do pretty good predictions.

Once upon a time I tried to do real predictions.  The big downside of real predictions is being wrong sometimes.  I’d much rather be wrong all of the time, like last year (Silly Predictions for 2019. Bonus? Golden Bikini Force.), so here are my stunningly incorrect predictions for 2020:

January

  • The Senate takes over the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. Because of poor ticket sales, the trial is cancelled, but people who had reserved tickets were given a 20% off voucher for the Nirvana® reunion tour.  I’d love to bum a ride with you guys – I’d call shotgun, but Kurt beat me to it.
  • Joe Biden suspends his presidential campaign for Black History Month© so small black children across the nation can have the opportunity to pet his wet leg hair. When informed that Black History Month is in February, Biden suggests to the reporter that they bare knuckle box, because he’s “tired of your stupid malarkey, 23 skidoo, Tippecanoe and Tyler too!  Cockroaches!”  Biden calms down later after getting some tapioca pudding and watching Price is Right®.
  • Hillary Clinton asks the question, “Do you want to play a game?”

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Chelsea calls Chardonnay “Mommy’s Monica Juice.”

February

  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg sees her shadow on Supreme Court day, assuring us of six more weeks of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
  • Tom Brady’s body reconfigures itself into a new form on national television during Super Bowl® LIV. His new body appears like a low slung muscular tank, and Brady “throws” passes by expelling the football explosively downfield from a brand new fleshy orifice designed by Bill Belichick, based on the anatomy of a platypus.  Sadly, this doesn’t help the Patriots© at all, since they were eliminated earlier in the playoffs and are not even playing in the Super Bowl™.
  • The New Hampshire Democratic primary is won by Kim Jong Un. Unfortunately, it was actually Hillary Clinton being mistaken for Kim Jong Un after her next round of plastic surgery.  Rumor is she was secretly pleased to be called Dear Leader instead of the usual nautical term, “Seaward.”
  • Brexit happens on schedule, but Boris Johnson’s hair stages its own Borexit and joins the Labour Party.

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I guess technically we’re all undead, but Ruth takes it to the next level.

March

  • Super Tuesday, a collection of 13 primaries is held on March 3rd. The top three Democratic finishers are Johnny Depp, Harvey Weinstein, and a resurgent O.J. Simpson.  Nancy Pelosi states, “We are so proud to have our Democratic values and inclusivity on display in these results.”
  • Patrick’s Day replaced by a new gender and religion inclusive holiday: “Buy Expensive Green Things and Drink if You’re Not a Muslim Day.”
  • Joe Biden again suspends his presidential campaign, noting that he needs to focus on saving lives by using his true talent – being able to detect diseases in women by holding their shoulders and sniffing their hair while standing behind them.

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“Don’t thank me . . . now.  Thank me later.  Want to play with my leg hair?”

April

  • Ralph Northam, governor of Virginia, is discovered eating living children on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion while in blackface. After calls for his resignation, he noted that it was, at most, a “youthful indiscretion.”
  • Ruth Bader Ginsberg develops a desire for human flesh much like Tom Cruise or Keanu Reeves, and soon appears to be no older than about 30.
  • A vortex connecting our dimension to another dimension containing hellish beasts is accidently opened by Pentagon scientists. This is almost exactly like the plot to the Stephen King novella The Mist, though not in a legally actionable way, at least according to my lawyer, Lazlo.

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“How could I make this worse?  Oh, yeah, I’ll go after the guns.”

May

  • Beto O’Rourke, while no longer a presidential candidate, decides to create an anti-gun organization, PistolsMakeScared (PMS®). He noted, “I really needed something to do while my wife has quality time with her boyfriends.”
  • France declares war on Canada on Tuesday morning. France surrenders to Germany later that afternoon, declaring Paris an open city.  The Germans refuse the surrender, indicating they can’t determine the number of troops required to defend France, since that’s never been tried before.
  • Australians will discover a spider that is the size of a cat, is as fast as a mongoose, has a diet of eagles and crocodiles, and is as poisonous as a middle school girl’s Instagram®. They name it “Dave.”

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Pictured:  Australian infant’s crib mobile.

June

  • LGBT Pride Month (June) officially replaced with LGBT Smug Condescension Months (June, July, August).
  • Elon Musk unveils a Kleenex® dispenser that automatically pops up a new Kleenex© every time you take one out at a base price of only $45,000. 25,000 people place a deposit, even though there’s a two year wait.
  • Chick-Fil-A® decides to start serving food on Sunday, adding hamburgers to their menu, and encouraging the worship of Satan as part of a new marketing campaign. “We’ve got to change with the times,” said their new spokesman, Lena Dunham.

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I mean if you have to choose between values and a tasty sandwich . . .

July

  • The Democratic Convention is moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Malmo, Sweden as the Democratic Committee considers it unfair that people outside the United States have been denied a vote. Greta Thunberg, noted school dropout, is nominated.  Her vice presidential nominee, Joe Biden, is quoted as saying, “I’m thrilled to be behind her.”
  • The Republican Convention is held in a hollowed out volcano somewhere in the South Pacific. Donald Trump is nominated as the presidential candidate, and in a surprise move, he is also nominated to be vice president.  “Job’s too easy.  And I need someone whose I can trust to be vice president.”  Trump also adopts a pure white Persian cat with a diamond collar.
  • The 2020 Summer Olympics® open in Tokyo. Bingo is not an approved Olympic sport, primarily because the Japanese are still a bit superstitious about “B-29.”

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We now know what Paul Tibbets would do for a Klondike Bar®.

August

  • Google® is found to be censoring ______, ______ and _____, and working with Facebook™ and Twitter© to also censor _____. It is feared that the election might be impacted because ____ ____ ____, ____ and ____.
  • Elon Musk unveils an electric reusable coffee mug – he calls it Teasla©. Initial claims are that it is autonomous and can be used for both hot and cold liquids.  It also requires the new Teasla™ Supercharger, which can recharge it in 70 minutes using a 50’ by 50’ solar power array costing only $25,000.  The mug weighs 43 pounds.

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(Pssst – it’s in the trunk.)

September

  • For the second straight year, September is again cancelled by general consensus.

October

  • Two televised presidential debates and one televised arm wrestling contest are held. The planned presidential MMA bout is cancelled when Greta Thunberg tests positive for high levels of testosterone.  She is furious, “How dare you assume my gender?  You have ruined my fight plan.”  She then proceeds to spend all of her campaign funds on a live commercial showing her eating seven pounds of mashed potatoes (no gravy) in one sitting while scowling at the camera.
  • Gormongous, Ruler of the Dark Empire, emerges as a dark horse third party candidate after having emerged from the Pentagon’s dimensional experiment earlier in the year. “Everyone can be an American,” he hissed through clouds of sulfurous vapor.  The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that his alternate universe was “technically America” so he was a valid candidate for president, despite him being seven stories tall and covered in an exoskeleton made of material from neutron stars.

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Never take potatoes from a testosterone-raging Swede with fetal alcohol syndrome.  It’s a rule I live by.

November

  • The 2020 presidential election is held on the third. California immediately protests because the Electoral College now has fraternities, and no one asked California to join one so she could go to that cool Kappa Sig kegger and maybe hook up with Montana.
  • Donald Trump wins both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Democratic candidate Greta Thunberg says, “That is not enough – it makes a mockery of our democracy.  You must also defeat me in a best-of-seven game of Jarts®.”
  • Joe Biden celebrates his 78th birthday.  His hair and teeth turn 22.

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Many a G.I. Joe® experienced a fatal chest wound to Jarts™.

December

  • Santa Claus is now required by the 9Th Circuit Court of Appeals to be race, gender, and species neutral when used in any public school setting. Ironically, this has the effect of making most kindergarten pictures of NuSanta™ highly accurate.
  • Gormongous, Ruler of the Dark Empire, decides that he will use the fame from his presidential run to launch a top tier tequila as well as a chain of animal shelter/fast Asian restaurants in the Midwest.
  • Ruth Bader Ginsberg looks down on the lights of the city at night from her perch at the top of the Washington Monument. She smells, senses, and sees the life below her.  The life that she drains, person by person, to prolong hers.  Then . . . a target.  She aims her bat-like wings to take her quickly down the side of the monument, and then to strike.  Ahhh, fresh blood.  Ruth feels the gravity drawing her down as she leaps . . . .
  • National Park Ranger Report, 12/22/20: Bat killed by hawk near Washington Monument.

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To all:  Happy New Year!

Happy Penultimate Day 2019, and the Biggest Story of 2019: Society Unravelling

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it sounds damn saucy, you lucky thing!  I know some fairly liberal-minded girls, but I’ve never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or for that matter, been given any Norman tongue.” – Blackadder The Third

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If we have a boogaloo, let’s hope it’s a short one.  I’ve got a dentist appointment next Thursday.

If you’re reading this on Monday, December 30, congratulations!  It’s Penultimate Day!  This is the holiday that the Wilder’s celebrate every December 30.  Why Penultimate Day?  Back on December 30, 2012, The Mrs. wanted a new cell phone.  We drove an hour and a half south to a Best Buy® (the nearest place that sold cell phones) and then didn’t buy a cell phone.  After that, we ate at Olive Garden® and drove home. 

I think this was, perhaps, the disaster foretold by the Mayans that ended their calendar in 2012.  As is inscribed in ancient Mayan on the calendar:  “When the pale people from the north can communicate no more, and instead decided to eat a tasty pasta dish, perhaps with fresh-grated Parmesan cheese (say when!), that shall be the end of time.” 

Or my translation may be off.  Regardless, we are now celebrating our seventh straight Penultimate Day, and as you read this I might be not buying a cell phone, or perhaps having some sort of bottomless salad and breadstick combination at Olive Garden©.  Olive Garden’s™ motto is “when you’re here, you’re family©,” so I borrowed $50 and decided I’d never pick up when they call and insult them behind their back.

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Remember, when you’re here, you’re part of the Olivegarchy.

You can join in on Penultimate Day, too.  Simply go to a place that cells cell phones that is south of your house.  Then, don’t buy one.  Finally:  eat Italian food.  Sure, that’s not the purist version and you might be burned at the stake later for heresy, but, you know, Italian food.

My Penultimate Day post is also the post that I use to look back on the year to talk about the biggest story of the year.  In 2017, it was the verified UFO video from the military (Penultimate Day and The Biggest Story of 2017), in 2018, it was the loss of trust in our society (Happy Penultimate Day 2018, and the Biggest Story of 2018: Societal Trust).  The 2017 link comes with a (very) short story that I wrote in a Marriott® bar.

In 2019, the main story is the unravelling of society.

The main stories in all of the news is about that unravelling this year.  And it’s not just in the United States:

  • Brexit/Boris Johnson in Great Britain.
  • Yellow Vest Protests in France.
  • Hong Kong Protests in Cleveland.
  • Impeachment.
  • Left and Right Polarity.
  • Your family at Thanksgiving.
  • AntiFa® violence in mom’s basement.
  • Popularity of Stories About Impending Civil War in the United States.

We know trouble is coming.  The topic I’ve written about that’s gotten more views than any other this year has been Civil War 2.  How divisive is society today?  In an example of whistling past the graveyard, a hypothetical future conflict has been referred to as Civil War 2:  Electric Boogaloo.  This has shortened over time to just Boogaloo.  This is, of course, is a tribute to that classic of Western cinema Breakin’ 2:  Electric Boogaloo, a 1984 film about breakdancing that I’m sure you all have seen.

Deciding that they’d like to prove my point about the unravelling of society and the Left being a bitter, humorless bunch of that make the people at the DMV look like a jovial group of partygoers, members of the Left have decided that even the term “Boogaloo” is nearly hate speech.  Yeah, I’m not surprised, either.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats wrote the above as the opening of a song for the band Iron Maiden®.  Sadly Bruce Dickenson rejected it on the grounds that all of the members of Iron Maiden© took a vote and decided that they would all be born sometime in the future when guitars were just a bit more electric but yet not too boogaloo.

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Yes, Iron Maiden did an 18 minute metal song about a poem written in 1798.  And it was glorious.

Instead, Yeats settled for using those lines for the opening of his poem The Second Coming a hundred years ago in 1919, and during this time he was writing about what he saw as an unravelling:  an unravelling of science, an unravelling of governmental structures, and an unravelling of heterogeneous communities.  He looked back at the deaths caused by the pointless World War I and its deformed stepchild – the Russian Revolution, and saw an ending of one world, and the birth of the next.

These destroyed structures were built on speed and modernity.  What did Yeats see replacing the modern world?

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Kardashians are planning on acknowledging their Wookie heritage in a new reality show.

Yeats continued with a vision as ugly as a Kardashian in a swimsuit:

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

What did Yeats see replacing the modern world?  Mysticism.  Power.  Blood.  He was right.  1919 was crappy, but the 20th Century was about to get a whole lot worse.  He concluded:

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yup.  Creepy.  And Iron Maiden definitely should have recorded this, whether they were born or not.

Yeats’ vision is what we are living through again right now – the ending of one age, and the beginning of another.  This crisis cannot be driven by food shortages.  There is more food now than at any time in history.  It cannot be wealth – there is more individual wealth in the nations experiencing tumult than at any point in their histories.  It cannot be my hair.  My shiny scalp?  Sure.  Not my hair.

Certainly there are problems – I think that the people the Z-Man (LINK) calls the Dirt People (which almost certainly includes every reader of this blog as well as your constant writer, me) are experiencing an economy driven by and for the Cloud People (the Deep State, the Financial Elite).  Regardless of who you voted for in 2012, you knew that Mittens Romney and Barry Obama were on the same team, and it wasn’t your team.

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This might be where the Z-Man got that meme – at least it was the first thing I thought of.  And it explains sky-high real estate costs . . . .

In the end the reactions we’re seeing in society in 2019 (Trump and Brexit) are just that – reactions to a society that has gone too far Left, too fast.  Leftists never realize that all they have to do to enact their Socialist Utopia® is wait.  Instead, they smell the blood of the Right in the water and decide that it’s time to end the waiting.  Right now!  Because after making the conscious decision to borrow $375,000 for a degree in cooking, they now know that college (and those vacations to Europe on spring break!) is a right and should be free.

What do Leftist want?  Complete control.  When do they want it?  Now.  Impeachment is a technique for power and control, not enforcing the law, since at no point has anyone been able to articulate a law broken by Trump.  Nixon?  Conspiracy to commit a break-in.  Clinton?  Perjury.  Trump?  I still haven’t heard about a law that he broke that isn’t some sort of fashion or etiquette rule.

Trump is not a savior.  Trump is a symptom.  The Leftist reaction to Trump is yet another symptom.  And the inability to wait for an election that is less than a year out is yet another.

The Right is never the instigator of issues like this – there is a reason the Right is called reactionary – it reacts to the Left.  The Right just wants history to stop.  The Left wants change, and will look for any time to work for it – especially when society is functioning well.  The Left is like a wife who sees a fully functioning family, home mortgage nearly paid off, 20 years until retirement and says, “You know what?  Things are going well.  Let’s burn it all down.”

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As long as Stella gets her groove back, that’s all that’s important, am I right?

And the change the Left wants is never gradual – it is Revolution™.  The Left wants to destroy the existing social orders and replace them with Leftism.  As we’ve seen in the past (Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Mangos and A Future That Must Not Be), Leftism always ends in a bloodbath, either as those on the Left kill everyone to the Right of them, or a cagey leader like Stalin kills all of the people to the Left of him.

This is the context we see ourselves in today.  All time high on the stock market, and all time high (excepting 1859) on the polarity seen in the United States.  We are splitting apart.

How does this end?  I think, if past trends for America have been true, there will be freedom.  America may not look like it does today – I think I’d actually bet money that it won’t.  There will be significant changes, and I think it will be very difficult for Washington D.C. to impose its will on Michigan, Montana, or Missouri if the peoples of those states are unwilling.

This is the last post of the ‘teens – my next post will be in the Tumultuous, Turbulent Twenties.  Remember folks, you heard that here first.  But you won’t hear it here last – I’m pretty sure the centre cannot hold . . . but neither will my belt, not after all of those free breadsticks.