Wealth – Page 10 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: National Divorce? Getting Closer.

“Dolores, I am making a citizen’s divorce.” – The Man with Two Brains

Big Alarm Clock is a conspiracy! Wake up people! (all non-regular memes are as-found)

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

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same. Again. This is moving sideways, but things can unravel quickly. The advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – The National Divorce – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Silly Season – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join over 740 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

The National Divorce

I remember reading about research a while back that (my fuzzy memory says) indicated that when a married couple didn’t want to have a divorce, one of the easiest things they could do was not talk about a divorce. I guess that would mean that the first rule of staying married club is don’t talk about divorce club.

Marjorie Taylor Greene brought up the issue in a big way:

It’s a stark question: do we want to stay married, or not. Folks on the Internet followed suit, with this poll:

The Internet is what it is, and a poll like that isn’t at all scientific. But 19,000 people (75% of respondents) were done. They were ready to get lawyers, and decide how we get to split up California and Virginia and who got alternating weekends with Michigan.

A much more scientific poll was done by Rasmussen® (more on them later in this Issue) and it emerged that a majority of Republicans wanted out. 47%, plus an 11% who might be in favor, but they wanted to know if they could still get Netflix™ off of Uncle Tim’s account it he were stuck in a Blue State before they made up their mind.

Leftists are never in favor of making anything smaller, since it lowers their power. Remember, it is Leftists who are on the side of international and world governments. I’m pretty sure they’d love to include Mars, too, since it’s Red. This is shown in the poll below:

Fully a third of all people (based on Rasmussen’s™ report) are ready to check out. That’s a lot. Although Gallup® wasn’t around to do a poll, most literature I can find seems to indicate that only 1/3 of the folks living in the Colonies wanted the Revolution, so 1/3 is a big, big number.

I’ll add in this other (entirely unscientific) poll:

Again, unscientific, but it shows that there are a sizeable number of folks out there who believe that soldiers would, if ordered, shoot on American civilians. That’s another scary thought, and perhaps feeds back into the idea that people would much rather have a peaceful exit rather than a violent one.

I read that this year’s CPAC (Republican fanboy convention) was poorly attended, and lacking in energy. And why not? The most fervent people in the Republican party are done, and don’t trust the vote, and don’t think that their votes may ever matter again.

Spiderman®, though, seems to have an opinion:

Violence and Censorship Update

Cancelling really isn’t government censorship, but it’s censorship nevertheless. Scott Adams, noted cartoonist and author, really rustled the collective jimmies of the Left. Rasmussen™ had a poll about whether it was “okay to be white” and 47% of black people indicated that it was either not okay, or they weren’t sure.

Scott has a YouTube® channel (still!) where he talks about whatever he wants to talk about. In this, he opined that if that was the way that black people felt, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be around them. The following cartoon describes it in such a way that Scott retweeted it:

The outrage was both predictable, even though Scott noted that many black people he knew called him up and said that his stance was completely reasonable. Mr. Adams’ publisher dropped him. Mr. Adams’ cartoon syndicator dropped him. Mr. Adams’ agent . . . dropped him. His new book, due out in the fall? Cancelled.

I don’t feel bad for Scott, he knew what he was doing, and he has tens of millions of dollars. But what is it about that simple narrative that makes the Left explode? I’ll cover that in a future post.

The Silence of the Adams

It’s not violence now, but Illinois has now decided that most crimes short of murdering someone and taking selfies with the victim are now non-detainable. Burn someone’s house? Out without bail. Kill someone while high? Out without bail.

Florida. Sigh. Why? They want to make bloggers who write about elected officials register if they make money for their efforts. Is this the single stupidest thing to come out of Florida since they elected ¡Jeb!?

The publisher of Roald Dahl is going through his books an removing whatever they don’t like based on political correctness. No more “ugly” or “fat” or . . . black. Paging Scott Adams . . . These “corrections” are showing up in people’s previously purchased e-books, too. This is why physical media is good. And why I have lots of books.

It’s not censorship, exactly, when programmers prevent A.I. from coming to conclusions based on fact, but it’s close. There are certain facts that are inconvenient, like boys have xy chromosomes and girls have xx chromosomes, so programmers prevent A.I. from talking about that. Elon Musk says he’s going to do his own, non-woke A.I.

When the trains carrying ethyl-methyl-death crashed in East Palestine, it was a story that was minimized until it couldn’t be. I follow stories like this that are under the news, and was aware of it within a few hours of it happening. But the news? No reporting on it, since it didn’t impact Baltimore and had the potential to make the Biden administration look even worse than it normally looks.

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again, and, like Kamala’s womb, this graph doesn’t eggs. Here’s a recap:

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence is still minimal right now. I’m betting it stays down until June at the earliest.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it was down a bit more. I think this is a conscious attempt to keep things together, Biden just came out in favor of “law and order”, because I think he saw it the show on cable.

Economic:

Economic numbers took a big dive this month, which surprised me. The numbers look fairly unstable from month to month, which still isn’t good.

Illegal Aliens:

The number took a big drop! Yay! Oh, it’s still higher than ever for that month. I’d say border is wide open, but we have no border.

So, when can we ask the Mexicans to leave?

The Silly Season

One way to deflect a story is to not tell it. The other way to deflect a story is to flood the media with, well, nonsense. My favorite this month? The Chinese Spy Balloon™. During World War II, the Japanese decided they would make Americans afraid. They launched 9,000 balloons filled with explosives at the United States. As near as I could find with an in-depth three-minute look, one exploded. Out of 9,000.

Ohhh, I’m so afraid.

I’m not sure what we’ve found out about the Chinese Spy Balloon©. I think that we’ll find out they were trying to check up on why Americans weren’t buying more extended warrantees based on those cell-phone calls. Since we haven’t heard anything, I’m think that it may actually have been a weather balloon. Regardless, they can solve their problem with just a little bit of camouflage that the United States would never shoot down:

Was this the story that they were attempting to distract us from?

It’s a scary one. Why do we need so may people? Why aren’t all the traditional people who would go into the military signing up? Oh, yeah. They’ve been told they’re racist. They’ve been told they have unearned privilege? They’ve seen the military force people to take the vaxx. And now they want them to sign up to fight?

What could be next?

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11761485/NYPD-release-images-four-brazen-thieves-staged-50-000-raid-Manhattan-Givenchy.html

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1628194739987046400

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1626367620151738375

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1626397252334809090

https://twitter.com/nofones2/status/1626369625314279426

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1626447147225718786

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1621965430930669569

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1628225095893131264

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1627464538609139714

https://twitter.com/762sfuxk/status/1626379421065134080

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11735803/Armed-intruder-left-critical-condition-shot-neck-homeowner.html

One Guy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11632047/Vigilante-killed-robber-Houston-restaurant-breaks-silence.html

Body Count

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11732497/More-48-000-Americans-committed-suicide-year-report-finds.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11711353/Seven-states-eye-legalizing-assisted-suicide-America.html

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

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/new-paper-an-estimated-13-million

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/is-coincidence-now-the-leading-cause

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11738179/Still-think-secure-Joe-Moment-500-Venezuelan-migrants-walk-southern-border.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11730363/Biden-preparing-mass-deportations-non-Mexican-migrants-Mexico.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11733577/Map-shows-14-million-Americans-live-5-miles-cancer-gas-emitting-plants.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11776999/The-blanketed-fentanyl-NINEFOLD-rise-deadly-opioid-use-western-US.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11701187/Zombie-Nation-Shocking-images-lay-bare-Americas-drug-crisis.html

Vote Count

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11761979/Kari-Lake-vows-Arizona-gubernatorial-defeat-state-supreme-court.html

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/02/08/maricopa-heat-maps-the-story-keeps-getting-worse/

https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/15/everything-you-need-to-know-about-democrat-gov-tony-evers-bid-to-overhaul-wisconsin-elections/

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/02/17/launch-of-campaign-to-repeal-ranked-choice-voting-draws-a-crowd-in-anchorage/

https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/fox-vs-dominion-discovery-docs-show

Civil War
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/keith-olbermann-calls-economic-civil-war-institute-gun-control

https://www.foxnews.com/media/olbermann-urges-blue-states-wage-economic-civil-war-red-states-starve-red-states-submission

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/internal-atf-docs-show-zero-tolerance-guidelines-shutting-down-gun-stores

https://www.carolinacoastonline.com/tideland_news/opinions/article_bec42134-ad30-11ed-979b-4365a8a67e62.html

https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/17/idaho-house-approves-talks-to-annex-oregon-counties/

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/lost-cause-2-0-desantis-and-republicans-inspired-by-racist-confederate-history-re-writes/

https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/newswire/gops-civil-war-republicans-confront-bitter-divide-no-clear-path-forward/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/06/megadonor-gop-richard-elizabeth-uihlein-00081267

https://www.reformer.com/opinion/columnists/nicholas-boke-what-would-a-civil-war-look-like-anyway/article_c6beefac-aca1-11ed-9fa4-d74d7a722a44.html

https://sundayguardianlive.com/world/will-2022-witness-american-civil-war-2-0-will-happen-2024

https://news.uchicago.edu/us-headed-toward-another-civil-war-william-howell

https://www.businessinsider.com/mtg-defends-call-split-up-us-says-civil-war-looming-2023-2

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/marjorie-taylor-greenes-national-divorce-was-the-civil-war.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-secession-civil-war/673142/

https://www.theringer.com/2023/2/24/23613267/emasculation-proclamation-civil-war-ii

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/project-veritas-has-forced-out-james-okeefe.html

https://hard-drive.net/hd/technology/ken-burns-releases-4000-part-tiktok-series-on-the-civil-war/

Discipline, Romans, And Spending All The Money

“That’s newspapers for you. You could fill volumes with what you don’t read in ‘em.” – The Green Berets

I decided never to jog with Marcus Aurelius. It’s always dangerous to run with Caesars.

Self-discipline is hard, but it starts with the smallest step. Even (the dead) Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in his book Meditations talked about how hard it was to get out of bed in the morning. Marcus talked about how warm and comfy he was under the covers, and how he’d like to stay there, curled up. In then end, though, he got up because he had responsibility to govern the Empire that was a bit more important than his desire to be comfy.

Me? There are some mornings I would have given up Gaul for another fifteen minutes. Okay, maybe not Gaul because of the food, but definitely Judea.

Marcus did the tough (maybe he had a hangover?) thing because he had a responsibility to millions of citizens to do his very best for them, and as nearly as I can determine, he took that seriously. Plus? It’s good to be the Emperor. I hear they didn’t have to wait in the drive through for Chicken McNuggets® and always got enough Hot Mustard™ sauce.

My advice? Never eat a Kid’s Meal at McDonald’s®. Their mothers tend to get upset.

The difficult part of discipline is that it requires, well, discipline. Getting good things in life is difficult – that’s why we work for them. And that’s why it’s called work. It’s tough. But when the seeds are planted, cared for, and weeded, then at harvest it’s time to reap the rewards. Discipline is like that. Heck, some sort of east Asian place that I can’t be bothered to look up has a proverb that says that, “A woman who marries a man who works hard every day will never starve.”

I don’t think that was China, because if it was China, they have been starving every century by the tens of millions, especially when they embarked on the Chinese Diet Plan called Communism. Maybe it was Puerto Rico? Or Applebee’s™?

Probably not. But I think it might have ended in a vowel, but not Y, because that’s sometimes only a vowel, and I don’t think that Asians use the same fonts.

So, if even a dead Roman can figure it out, why can’t we?

Some people want to ban Roman numerals. Not on my watch.

The latest bouts of fiscal insanity in the United States have made me think that none of them have read Marcus Aurelius, or maybe even can read. What triggered this post is the recent Supreme Court Case about ghosts. Oh, wait, that’s later. No, student loans.

Student loans in the United States are a particularly horrible thing that gives money to Leftist professors so that they can indoctrinate youth but the youth has to pay for it until they lose all their teeth or pay it off. I think that was in the terms and conditions of my student loans, but I can’t be exactly sure, since after I signed my name, they gave me $7,500. Duh.

The most pernicious thing about student loans is that they live forever. I paid mine off in January, 2013. I paid ahead, but didn’t want to pay them off completely if the world ended in December, 2012 (which was a thing). Oddly, this is a true story, and illustrates how far I’m willing to take a joke.

But student loan forgiveness is just the tip of the iceberg. For the last five or so years of my life, the government (both Right and Left) has been like a fat girl who decides on a Tuesday night that the diet is over. That cookie dough? Sure. I can eat a tube or two. Covered in frosting. Oh, and I’ll just tidy up the frosting container so it doesn’t go bad. If you’ve given up, why not go all in?

The cannibal decided to go on a vegan diet. He found a family of them at Whole Foods®.

The government (again, both Right and Left) has decided that there is no limit. Every Tuesday for them is time to give Ukraine more money for . . . (spins wheel) dental x-ray infrastructure. Will $23 billion cover that? Sure, if it were just Ukraine, that would be one thing. But it’s not just that. Biden’s Build Back Better means that we’ll just burn cash to make us warm if we run out of oil.

If I seem a bit cynical, it’s because that at every single turn in my life, that I’ve seen fiscal discipline further erode, and money fly a bit freer each day. At no point have I ever seen (outside of Ron and Rand Paul) and politician say, “stop”. Apparently, when elected to Congress, the “spend money on everything light” blinks on the dashboard of their cars.

My dashboard keeps telling me “trunk is ajar”. Silly car. A trunk isn’t a jar.

There is no discipline. There is no pretending to have discipline. It’s all just comfy warm covers and Chicken McNuggies™ while every sense of fiscal discipline is overridden by another trip of the spoon int the Pillsbury™ chocolate frosting.

But that’s okay. I’m sure it will end fine. Where’s the frosting? I think I want to sleep late today. Oh, but have we spent enough money on Ukraine?

Is The End Of The Road Nearly At Hand?

“If they have him, and they can somehow piece the country together, get communications up, they’ll control everything; the Federal Reserve, the military.” – The Last Ship

Where does the Fed® hide its monetary mistakes? In debasement.

Pa Wilder was a banker, and when we communicated via a while back, I’d send him long-ish messages about most everything. One time, I broached the economy with him. As a small farm banker with more than 50 years of experience, he was familiar with the way the system worked.

When I first heard that the Federal Reserve™ wasn’t owned by the government, but by the member banks, I asked him. I figured he’d tell me, “Nah, John, it’s really owned by the government, aliens aren’t real, go back to sleep – we won the war.” Nope. He then went through how each member bank was required to buy stock in the regional Federal Reserve Banks (as I recall) with at least 6% of their deposits.

Whoa. His bank owned a tiny part of the Federal Reserve Bank®. Certainly not much, but part of it. The Federal Reserve Bank© is a private institution. It was the 1913 mechanism to get the politicians out of the economy. The Great Depression shows how well it worked.

What do you call a talkative Colombian? Hablo Escobar.

After World War II, there was a time of relative stability – Europe and Japan were shattered, and the United States had industry that was just waiting to stop making weapons and start making washers. The sudden influx of labor with the demobilizing G.I.s made a combination for economic growth. After they drank the bars dry and made a zillion babies.

Even with the added costs of Social Security, it worked. The economy was working so well that we could build an interstate highway system without breaking a sweat. The highway system even added to the economic boom by lowering the cost and time required to move goods, effectively shrinking the country.

However, every good party has to end. Johnson’s Great Society and financing for the Vietnam War out of “money we just made up” caused Nixon to end the last tether between gold and the dollar. Sure, the Fed® had been cheating about the amount of cash it had been printing, but when the bluff was called, Nixon had the option of sending all our gold to France or saying “just kidding”.

He chose the latter. I think it was a good idea, because it wasn’t like France was going to do anything about it, anyway. The result was the petrodollar – the idea that all international transactions in oil would take place in dollars. That also resulted in almost all transactions taking place in the dollar. The inflation of the 1970s was the result – it was before we figured out how to tax the world by printing dollars in a sorta responsible way.

If I had a dime for every time I didn’t know what was going on, I’d say, “Hey, where did all these dimes come from?”

So, people all over the world needed dollars, even though we were printing them like we were, well, the Fed™. As long as the Soviet Union existed, there was a counterbalance to the United States, so at least there was some check. But after they went tango uniform?

That’s when the responsibility completely ended, the cash was printed, and the instability really started.

The Dotcom Bubble was the first – fed by cash from the Fed® with no place to go. And then it tanked. So the Fed™ printed a few trillion bucks. That led directly to . . .

The Housing Bubble. You probably have heard of it.

But this was different – it actually lead to protests against the banks. A reprogramming was necessary – “put the bankers in jail” had to be stopped, because bankers like to use our money to buy themselves nice things like that tiny part of France where they don’t let Muslims in. Except the Saudis.

I read that photographers and art thieves both take pictures.

A reprogramming was needed – Occupy Wall Street™ had to turn to . . . something. That reprogramming of the Lefty rank and file was into “white people are awful” and it got the heat away from the bankers. And made movies suck.

Meanwhile, the money hijinks led to country after country having revolutions, from Libya to Egypt to Syria. Why? Because inflation in the United States (at that point) meant that people had to pay a nickel more for Cheetos®. In Egypt, that meant that one of the children had to be sold into medical experimentation.

The key to all of this was keeping the dollar as the key currency used in international transactions. To be clear, Russia was a big threat in this. Sure, Russia is ruled by corrupt folks who kill people who threaten them, but I can raise you a Jeff Epstein, a Hunter Biden, and Hillary.

The Russians certainly threatened all of this with Nordstream® and Nordstream II©. These pipelines pushed natural gas straight from Russia to Europe. Now, Russia could take . . . euros for gas. Dollar not required.

Watch a 10-hour movie? No. But have Netflix® break it up into 10 one-hour movies?

And scary. All the investment of the Left in Green Energy® led them to shut down nuclear power plants (Germany, I’m looking at you) and replace them with natural gas plants. And you see the results.

(hint: Ukraine and certain underwater explosions)

Now we find that we have a currency that’s becoming worth less every day, foreign folks are building ways to not take the dollar. So they need fewer of them. And want fewer of them in their pockets.

It doesn’t help that we’re in debt by (spins wheel) over $25 trillion bucks, the economy is distorted, and that Medicare® and Medicaid™ will soon cost more than Joe Biden’s hair plugs. And we’re going to double that in the next eight years, and double it again in the next eight. That’s $100 trillion dollars.

Does anyone reading this believe we can last that long?

Oops.

Pa Wilder said 20 years ago that he didn’t see how it could last. But many folks have gone broke by betting against the Fed™. That one day they can’t paper it all over?

Nah. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.

Want to win? Have a good wife.

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

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

So, it’s St. Valentine’s day. Again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has everything to do about money. Everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. No one.

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

Ugh.

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

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

Not pictured: The Mrs.

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

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

Hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Rigging The Game

“Coupons. Well, what a wonderful way to economize. Well, I could clip them and give them to my personal shopper.” – Frasier

The first symptom of COVID-19? Believing what the government says. (all memes this post “as-found”)

It’s a strange, new world. During my childhood, there was an active focus on one concept: we’re all humans, regardless of race. We should all be treated the same, and have the same rules. Sure, there were programs like affirmative action, but the primary impact of those was (for the most part) in making sure that minority candidates were considered for jobs. The rule (generally) remained that the most qualified person got the job. Meritocracy reigned.

I won’t pick the date this changed, because it’s been a continuum, a bit here, a bit there. But if you had seen the following headline in 1980 or 1990, I think the first thought of people would have been, “How can that even be legal?”

I was trying to think of a Bank of America® joke, but I lost interest.

The idea isn’t just at Bank of America®, it’s also at Wells Fargo™, too, you can look it up. The concept is that companies attempting to get their ESG (link to my previous post on this monstrosity here) score up are setting up programs like that. To be clear, any loan by any bank that’s not rooted in the ability of the borrower to repay is awful, and immoral. It’s also shenanigans like this that led directly to the 2008 housing bubble and Great Recession.

In a related story, I wonder if Pelosi shorted them yet?

If a country is searching for a solid economy, this isn’t it. If a country is looking to make actual equality the measure, this also isn’t it. If it were just this, it would just be (outside of being illegal) just a limited number of bad business decisions, but it’s not limited to just this.

How about electric cars? I mean, I’m as much into having children dig for toxic cobalt in the Congo so rich people in California can have electric cars and feel smug about it as the next person, but to create a tax incentive?

Seems a bit like we’re rubbing it in.

If Apple® makes an electric car, will it have Windows™?

Not to mention reparations. It’s odd that the people who want to abolish debt for people that borrowed money are also the ones that want to pay people for things that never happened to them. I guarantee that, no matter how much is offered it won’t be accepted.

Why? It will never be enough. Ever.

Another symptom of the Kleptocracy.

What about the Biden family themselves? Is their economy wrecked like they’ve wrecked the nation?

No. Joe went from $0 net worth in 2015 to $9,000,000 (latest info I could find) today. How’d he do that? I’m sure he cut back on Starbucks®. According to reports, Hunter asked a donor to set up a job for his “pled guilty to a felony for $100,000 credit card fraud for makeup” niece.

They agreed to hire this felon for $85,000 a year. She refused. She wanted no less than $180,000. To be fair, from the pictures it does look like she needs that much makeup.

Again, that’s small potatoes, when looking at the billions that have already been looted from the open checkbook that is the Ukraine.

The IRS called Hunter and told him he was being indicted for tax fraud. He hung up, and told his dad, “Ha! I don’t even pay taxes!”

And yet, there’s more! I’ll skip over the massive payments for illegal aliens to play computer games and stay in hotels at taxpayer expense while actual Americans are homeless and face bankruptcy to medical bills inflated by donor companies like Pfizer®. I’m sure that doesn’t make anyone mad.

What’s the difference between E.T.® and an illegal alien? E.T. learned English and wanted to go home.

In point of fact, what we are seeing is the looting of an economy. Our economy. I think it’s been going on for years, but the looting wasn’t so visible because it was papered over, literally. After the 2008 Great Recession, there wasn’t really any attempt to make the economy better, rather, the idea was to just keep printing money – Qualitative Easing is what they called, it, which was a fancy way to say that the money would be printed and buy up the weakest assets of the companies that the Fed® had desired to support.

Bank of America™ and Wells Fargo© were among them.

COVID-19 was the lynchpin, though. As the tide receded and undulated, we could finally see who didn’t have a swimsuit on. It turned out, it was most of the economy. Now, inflation. And, to top it off, eggs appear to be the 2023 version of toilet paper, so I guess this year that Halloween pranks will actually add value to the house.

It also looks like the plan that The Mrs. was brooding on, “let’s get some chickens that lay eggs” will finally hatch.

Maybe.

What do Green Eggs and Ham, Fifty Shades of Gray, and our economy have in common? They all make people who can barely read want to try new things.

Oddly, it gets even worse. Since 1988, the United States has paid $13 trillion in interest to . . . use its own currency – the government needs currency, the Treasury prints bonds, the Fed® creates cash, the United States owes interest and pays fees to the Fed™ member banks.

That’s weird, because the United States used to just issue its own cash. Without debt. Sure, if you print too much, that causes inflation.

Oh. I see we’re soaking in inflation. And the Fed® actively plans for inflation as a part of the business plan. I think there’s a pictograph that might explain things . . .

Chuck Norris mines cryptocurrency. By hand.

The looting can’t continue forever. And that’s a good thing. This made-up economy filled with economic nonsense that, at times, makes Lenin look like an economic genius, has a time limit. Merit will return, just as the Gods of the Copybook Headings have always predicted.

There can be no other outcome.

The Shape Of Things To Come

“This always happens, Oliver. Every time you open your mouth, somebody sticks a phone company in it.” – Green Acres

I think this cat might be chairman of the Fed®.

I heard a story once about an AT&T office, this was back in the 1970s or 1980s. There was a particular employee who the day crew would always see finishing up at the end of his shift, putting tools up, and getting the work set up for the day crew. They really appreciated him, since when they showed up, things were neat and ready to go. They thought he stayed late to do this for them.

There was also a guy on day shift crew. He’d show up early and prepare for work. He impressed the night shift crew, because he came in early, and was getting his work ready to go well before the day shift showed up.

Eventually, after about a decade (or so the story went) the day shift manager told the night shift manager how much he appreciated how old Steve stayed late to get things ready for them.

“Steve? He works day shift, and always comes in early, right?”

Ooops. Steve finally got caught after working forever a little over an hour a day, showing up “early” for one shift, and leaving “late” from the other.

So, he worked about 200 hours a year. For a decade.

I think he must have had a hobby. Maybe fishing.

I think it was Alexander Graham Bell who first said, “How in the hell did you get this number?”

In the news recently, the layoffs have already started at “big tech”:

Amazon®: 18,000
Alphabet® (Google™): 12,000
Meta© (Facebook®): 11,000
Microsoft® (Microsoft™): 10,000
Salesforce©: 8,000
HP™: 6,000
Twitter®: 3,700

That’s like 71.56 miles (4,259,400,000 cubic centimeters, and yes, Ricky, you can check the math) of people. It might be more cubic centimeters if they had a lot of carbs.

Some of these jobs are bogus, like the AT&T hour-a-day guy. I’ve enjoyed watching the Tiktok® videos of the PowerPoint® making drones with no technical ability. Typically, the drone shows up at work (if they’re not working remote) and has a free breakfast. Then they goof for a bit, have a meeting, do a free lunch. They indicate the lunch and breakfast are very tasty. Then they have at least one more grueling meeting.

Photons never take luggage to an airport – they’re traveling light.

And that’s it. From every one of the videos I’ve seen, the folks have no technical ability. Some don’t even work at all – one person complaining about being fired hadn’t worked since May of 2021, since they were on medical leave because of PTSD. What was the PTSD from? Her managers were “mean” to her.

I’m not making this up. She was shocked to be fired.

The other indicators are not good. Paul “the Internet will be as important as the fax machine” Krugman put out a graph just recently on Twitter®:

What’s up with Paul Krugman? Not his I.Q.

This is the single dumbest take I’ve seen since Custer said, “C’mon, man, how many Indians can there be? We don’t need those cannons.”

Krugman has artfully taken out the things that people have to buy from his super-good news.

Food,
Energy,
Shelter, and
Used Cars

This is a fantastic analysis for people who don’t eat, are immune to freezing, live outside, and don’t need to go anywhere or buy gas to go anywhere. It’s like asking Jackie, “Besides the car ride, how was your trip to Dallas?”

Why are prices of other stuff going down? Because people aren’t buying them because they have to buy food, energy, shelter, and used cars.

Duh.

And he kneaded that!

Behaviors are changing. Frivolous purchases are being limited. The recession indicators are significant from things like yield curve inversion, Modified Mannarino Market Risk Indicator (LINK) and the banks closing down entire units.

But thankfully Paul Krugman says it’s all going to be spiffy.

And, it will be. All of those cubic meters of people will end up doing something more important than making PowerPoints® and attending twenty-seven meetings about what shade of aqua and how many pixels to make the Google® doodle. Let’s face it – about 70% of Google® employees could be axed tomorrow and nothing would change. How do I know that?

That’s what Musk did with Twitter®. Most of the folks Musk fired added no value, and the ones he kept were elated to finally be able to do something of value for the company. The folks that were fired will certainly find jobs in the food service industry, become moms, or just sit on the couch at their Dad’s house curled up in a fetal ball of PTSD. I for one am happy, because we need better waitresses.

From the Tiktok® videos, it certainly looks like they know how to serve food.

I searched “Lost Medieval Servant Boy” but got, “This Page cannot be found.”

Some of the destruction that comes from a recession is good. It’s a reset, and it clears away silliness. The danger, of course, is the destruction that comes from a runaway recession. Small recessions clean. Large recessions/depressions? They can cleanse nations. Look what happened in the 1920s and 1930s around the world – entire governments were replaced.

Thankfully, I hear AT&T® is hiring. Night shift or day shift?

Both, please.

D’Oh, Canada: Showcasing The Leftist Plan So We Can Plan, Too

“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we… are the cure.” – The Matrix

Greta is the solution to climate change. Every time she’s on the TV, tens of millions of people shut it off.

Apparently, Justin Trudeau up in Canada needs to be reminded that in the movie, The Matrix, Agent Smith was the bad guy. Really. Check it out. Keanu Reeves fought him, and everything. For whatever reason, Canada (and Leftists in general) have adopted the idea that Agent Smith was their dude and the inspiration for their philosophy.

In two words, their philosophy is self-hatred (does the hyphen make it two words?) and power. I’ve established that again and again. It is why (really) I’m in favor of bringing bullying back. As a society we let losers do loser things, give them participation medals, and then after having zero incentive for self-improvement, they wonder why they’re not the head of the class.

I was bullied in school. I deserved it. I used it to get better, stronger, and faster. I’ve even seen communications between Leftists where they advise each other not to exercise because exercise leads them to become members of the Right.

God, I wish someone had bullied Justin Trudeau so that he would have developed into a man, rather than the corporate globalist man-child with no sense of identity and a sense of entitlement the size of Canada.

Okay, this is supposedly a Photoshop®. But, admit it, it wouldn’t surprise you if it was real. And this is my only original meme for this post. Rest are “as found”.

This brings us to Canada’s plan for self-immolation – “Just Transition”. Just Transition refers not to Justin finally admitting he’s transitioning, but rather the “teenager’s idea of a good plan because climate is scary” transition from fossil fuels to, well, they don’t really say. It can’t be too much solar, because, last time I checked, in the winter in Canada at northern latitudes, the SUN IS DOWN MOST OF THE DAY.

That probably doesn’t bother Sunshine Trudeau, since he will be in some mansion somewhere pretending to be Queen Victoria’s seat cushion. But I’m thinking that ordinary Canadians, the ones who have to deal with this nonsense and will either freeze or starve, might have an objection.

Another Just Transition that probably wouldn’t surprise Canada.

The plan itself contemplates that at least 200,000 Canadians will lose their jobs, which will certainly hurt the back bacon and Elsinore Beer prices. These 200,000 Canadians are in the energy industry. What will replace that?

Don’t know. This Just Transition plan, again, has nearly zero actual thought by adults who have more than a single functioning brain cell. It is built on those old Leftist thought patterns: self-hatred and a desire for power. Why would people need light and heat?

Alberta is not a hot girl who has daddy issues and is thus a stripper with a heart of gold, but rather a Canadian province. I guess that means admitting I’ve been in Alberta sounds a lot less dirty when I put it that way. But Alberta does have a heart of gold, because they’re pushing back, hard, against the nonsense coming out of whatever town where Trudeau lives. Ottawa? Heck, I thought that was a river mammal. Turns out Ottawa is where the bad things come from in Canada.

Maybe it will work this time?

Canada planning to destroy its own economy just to gain good boy points and score some additional chicken tendies at dinner isn’t unusual under the Trudeau leadership. The main problem with Canada is that it doesn’t have an actual constitution with a bill of rights that puts a brake (no matter how fleeting) on tinpot dictators with delusions of godhood exercising their will.

Looks like Justin’s dad had the same idea.

Alberta, however, seems to have had enough. The nice part of Canada is that they haven’t yet had a Civil War, and it would appear that the individual provinces seem to be able to tell the national government to go to, well, Ottawa. Or at least the subject hasn’t been settled by armies yet.

It’s not just energy, it’s food, too. We’ve seen the protests in the Netherlands. Why? They want to shut down the farms. Why? To stop climate change. Canada has promised to do the same thing. Look it up, search, “Canada nitrogen” – and I remember when I thought Canada Dry® was a national menace.

I’m not making this up:

And this a consistent Leftist theme:

Why do they want to shut down the use of fertilizers? It’s not climate change, it’s food. The Mrs. once read a story of a party in Washington, D.C. At this party, the writer noted that he had a conversation with a Leftist. I’d give you a source if I recalled it, but it was several beers ago. “Too many people on the planet, by several billion,” the Leftist said.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Well, we will practice food restriction.”

“So, you’re telling me that the Leftist plan is to starve to death billions of people?”

They were silent when the bald fact was put to them like that. So, yeah, Justin is working to ruin the economy of Canada. But he won’t be sad if millions starve, in fact, that’s the plan. I’m not sure Justin is smart enough to figure that out, since I’m pretty sure he’s just a lapdog of below-average I.Q. who wasn’t bullied enough as a child.

Canada has, unwittingly, provided people in the United States with a viewpoint of what the Left intends. Watch closely. And pray for the Canadians who will oppose this, in Alberta and elsewhere.

Hopefully, the folks in Alberta are very good at dealing with rats.

And remember, Agent Smith is the bad guy. And he lost. And the Leftists will lose, as they always have in history. But I’ve never said that any of this will be easy.

Related:

Ricky sent me this video, and I can’t recommend it enough. A few “s” bombs, but otherwise it should be required viewing from elementary schools on up.

Brilliant speech addressed to our ‘woke’ youth fighting #climatechange by Konstantine Kisin. pic.twitter.com/mFS8w0t2ip

— Brandon Taylor Moore (@LetsGoBrando45) January 14, 2023

The Most Dangerous Thought Of The Day

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” – Fight Club

Amber lost the lawsuit to Johnny Depp to the tune of $15 million. I guess she’s now deep in Depp.

One thing that I like to do is test ideas. Sometimes, like PEZ® and velvet Elvis posters, the idea is a classic of Western Civilization. Other times, like communism, communism, and communism, the idea is horrible. Others? Others are a kludge that we’ve made work. Or the idea is just the system that we have.

This post will test an idea that just might be the most dangerous one I’ve ever shared.

An idea that has been with us for most of recorded history is the concept of interest rates. The idea is simple – I borrow $10 today, and next year I give back $11. The extra dollar is the fee I pay for borrowing the money. There are records that compound interest was charged by the Sumerians back even before your momma was born, back in 2,400 B.C. They even had the math to accurately calculate it. Area of a circle?

Nah.

How much you owe me? That’s easy as pie. But not as easy as a nearly 22/7 pies, I guess.

Sorry, that joke was irrational.

Regardless, interest rates have been with us a very, very long time. And they have been vexing us for just as long. The good properties of interest are that it allows for people who don’t have money to get it, which they like. It allows people with “excess” money to get something for having the money, which they like.

There are some pretty significant downsides. Let’s take a simple example: There are several people on an island after a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour.

There are 10 ounces of gold on the island. I need to borrow them because, well, I have no idea. Assume it involves me trying to get to Mary Ann’s coconuts. Whatever.

A year later, the person who lent me the 10 ounces of gold wants 11 back. But there aren’t 11. I default. I default because there is a limit on the currency. This simple example shows that, in a society where interest exists, eventually there must be either a default, or there must be an inflation of the money supply.

I guess there’s a reason The Mrs. buys coconut shampoo?

This leads, inevitably, to a series of booms and busts. It also leads to, over time, a greater and greater concentration of money (or cash) in the hands of those who actually do nothing more than have the cash. In our society, these people often just print the cash, unbacked by anything, like it’s some amazing Sumerian money magic.

I hear the ladies love a man in cuneiform.

Thus, the financial sector, through the use of interest, both (over time) gains control over society through the concentration of capital. The golden rule? He who has the gold, makes the rules. In this case, the Federal Reserve® (which is not federal, and doesn’t have reserves) is actually owned by the member banks. So, the banks own the Fed™. Which makes the rules.

As I said in a previous post, there has been a concentrated effort to remove the political from the economic, and the economic from the political. Sure, Congress passes $1.7 trillion spending bills so we can send lots more money to the Ukraine, but who finances all of these shenanigans?

The Fed®. Look in your wallet, and pull out some cash – it says “Federal Reserve Note®” – not United States Dollar. A difference. Congress doesn’t print the cash – the Fed™ does. And the Fed© has to print more of it each year, because people keep getting charged interest.

This leads to cyclic bouts of inflation and/or currency default due to the accumulated debt. The Great Recession of 2008 was brought about because of a debt-fueled housing spending spree that collapsed.

What car does the Chairman of the Fed® drive? A Fiat™.

So, what happens if . . . we don’t allow interest to be charged?

It’s a big thought. And the world has had interest rates for a long time. In Imperial Rome, they varied from 5% to 25% depending on the time and on what was being invested in, and there are records of just the same sorts of credit crunches as we see today. And also the need for the Romans to take their silver coin, the denarius, and turn it into a mainly base-metal coin by the end of the Empire.

But I’m not alone in speculating about what would happen if we stopped charging interest. Aristotle himself (and not the Aristotle who makes the gyros at the fair during the local harvest festival in Modern Mayberry) had the idea that it shouldn’t exist because, heck, I’ll let him tell you:

“The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”

I’m not sure if Aristotle was upside down on a used goat that he bought, but what I think he’s trying to say is this: the act of lending money creates no value. If I buy a building and build a PEZ® factory, the PEZ™ factory either makes a profit or makes a loss. If it makes a profit, that’s one signal that it has created value for society. It has employed people to make a wholesome product that, when consumed in moderation, is harmless. If I can make a profit doing that, I’ve created value in society.

If I lend money? Not so much. My singular objective is only the profit from making money.

It takes an infinite amount of Zenos to screw in a light bulb.

How would such a world work? Perhaps people combine to lend money to businesses based on the idea that they might create value (and thus a profit) and take the gain in their money from that value created through the business? People combine to finance a business for a purpose, and thus gain.

No interest required.

How about a house? Why would I loan money, absent interest, on a house? Perhaps the payment could be based on the assessed value (thus making the loan an investment, rather than a loan). If the value goes up, the payment goes up. Down? Payment goes down.

This would put skin in the game for the banks, and they would have a vested interest (pardon) in making sure that the investment was good. No incentive for the housing crisis. Payments linked to . . . value created.

Car lending? Yeah, that’s harder, since that is a declining-value asset. I’m sure that it could be figured out, since I’ve already solved tons of loan issues with the two solutions above. I’ll leave solving the car loan problem to the class. Oh, and the student loan problem, too.

I hear that $221 million in student loans were canceled. Those lucky seven people!

It can be done. It has been done. Oddly, I think it would result in a freer world where, rather than focusing on ways to, uhm, view people as assets to extract value from, people would be forced to seek to provide value for their fellow man. Making happy customers.

Think of it as a thought experiment. A dangerous one that would change who has power in this world.

See, I told you this was my most dangerous post.

The Energy Problem: No Outlet

“Imagine it, Smithers, electrical lights and heaters, running all day long.” – The Simpsons

If Dyson® releases an electric car, I think they’ll suck.

This is the next in an occasional series of posts about the economics of energy.

There was one headline from the last few weeks that has really amused me. The Swiss, makers of cheese and hot chocolate let folks with electric cars know: don’t charge them until spring. Instead, they suggested the Swiss citizens continue to use their diesel and gasoline cars.

Electric economy?

No.

In fact, we’re far from that. Again, the electricity has to come from somewhere. Wind is great, when the wind is blowing. Oh, and Lefty environmentalists are against it because it kills bats and birds. Hydroelectric? I love hydro power, except the number of new dams that can be built is approximately zero, since the environmental permitting process and protests don’t allow that.

Solar?

No.

Investing in solar energy won’t happen overnight.

Here is where I have to bring in the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested. Not dollars. Energy. The idea is simple, if I eat a food that takes more calories to digest than it provides me in available calories that I can use to smoke cigars and think of PEZ®.

If I eat a food that takes me more calories to digest than I get, I’ve invested more energy than I get out of it, and the return is negative. If the price of oil is a bazillion dollars, and I invest more Btus than I can get out of that oil, it’s the same idea. Regardless of the dollar price, if the energy price is too high it will simply make me poorer in terms of energy that I could use.

Solar, in the best case I can find, is about a 10 to 1 rate of return on energy returned from energy investment. The most recent number I saw is 2 to 1. That means, over the whole lifetime of the solar cell, it produces twice as much energy as it takes to make it, ship it, install it, and junk it.

Sounds great, right?

No.

Like a Dyson®, it sucks.

I think if coal is so bad for the environment, we should just burn it all.

Coal is about 30 to 1, even with stringent environmental controls on soot and sulfur and nitrous oxides. Natural gas is about the same. Hydro is 35. Nuclear (by the most recent estimate I’ve seen) is 75, though I think that’s optimistic.

But nuclear isn’t 2. And it isn’t 4, like wind turbines.

Where, exactly, is that energy coming from?

And how are we going to get it to houses? The grid in California can’t take a typical Tuesday in summer, so how is it going to power all the air conditioners and all the PEZ® mines and incubators and tent cities and, on top of that, all the cars?

I tried to sell a tent company to investors. It was difficult to pitch.

It simply won’t. Even now it’s so overtaxed that some summers the electric companies release more energy in forest fires than they do in electricity.

We look for efficiency in the world and are taught a mantra – efficiency is good. The power companies around the country and even in Switzerland have heard that. They have enough power generation and transmission capacity for most days. But not every day. That wouldn’t be efficient.

Mathematicians don’t ever get blackout drunk. They know their limits.

Why not? Most days aren’t peak days. To build that extra capacity in generation and transmission means spending money. And that isn’t efficient. It’s more efficient (and better for the bottom line) to have a series of brownouts and blackouts.

It is.

That’s the way it is, today, with all of the gasoline-powered cars. Imagine a decade into the future with all the Tesla® and Edizzon™ and Voltaire© new-model electric cars, and a grid that goes down when it’s 89°F (34 megajoules) outside. Finally, the achievement of a full socialist worker paradise – everyone has equal-opportunity HVAC with the people living in tents under the overpass.

Does anyone, I mean, anyone still think that controlling energy has anything to do with climate change?

Even if there were a magical energy source (unicorn hair? Obama sweat?) that provided electricity better than sweet, sweet fossil fuels, the investment in the grid in the United States to keep the current standard of living using electric cars would be more than Biden spends on anti-senility drugs and the Ukraine, combined, in a month.

It’s a lot. And that’s ignoring the cost to build the treadmill that Obama would have to run on and the Obama-sweat power generators. Investment of this type takes decades. Decades where we haven’t spent the money – not only in California, but everywhere. Because, instead of wanting resilience, we wanted efficiency.

The end result is this: the Swiss are right. Electric cars are not, in any foreseeable future, the answer. See? You can always trust people who make great cheese and hot chocolate. Heck, I just got a Swiss flag for my collection, and that’s a big plus.

Remember, never give up. Share this with someone who might need it.

Predictions – What Won’t Happen in 2023

“In that time, I have something to say. How long before the Halkan prediction of galactic revolt is realized?” – Star Trek, TOS

I just read that it’s the law that if it’s raining in Sweden you have to have your headlights on. How am I going to know if it’s raining in Sweden?

This is the first post of the year. That feels like so much responsibility. It feels like I have the weight of the fate of 2023 on my shoulders. Of course, 2020, 2021, and 2022 have been Godzilla-level disasters, except that whoever does the lip-syncing didn’t get Joe Biden quite right.

But just before I started writing, I had an epiphany. Many writers write about things that will happen, but here’s a list of things that I think won’t happen. Of course, I can’t guarantee any of this, but I’m feeling pretty good about this list. Remember, of course, I thought Zeppelins were a good idea. Oh, sure, you’re expecting me to make a Led Zeppelin pun, but I’m just going to Ramble On instead.

Here’s the first thing:

Western Civilization isn’t done. At all. The construct and values of Western Civilization are under attack, but the roots turn very, very deep. How deep? They run deep before Christianity (I am a Christian), and deep as Greece and Troy and the Yamnaya people before them. This is not the last time the song of Achilles will be sung, nor is it the last time that Caesar will be praised.

It’s not even close. The medieval cathedrals may cease to exist, but the spirit that created them is not done. The blood that created them still pulses in the veins of many on Earth.

No, Western Civilization isn’t done. And it won’t be done for a very, very long time.

I downloaded a copy of the Iliad, but had to delete it. It was full of Trojans.

This is, perhaps, the most important message that I can ever send. The blood of my father and his father, and so on, goes back into time. I do know this: the reason there is a phrase, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” exists is because, a son is like his father. There are many sons who are out there, who are not happy with the situation. The idea of the Left is that they’ll be pushed over.

They won’t. Push other cultures too far? Cities burn. Push Western Civilization too far?

Continents burn. The fight necessary to extinguish Western Civilization will make World War II look like a garden party.

Here’s the second thing:

We haven’t yet hit peak Elon Musk amusement. He’s the first person to “lose” $200 billion in a year without missing a beat, and he’s simply not done stirring the pot.

Here’s the third thing:

There is only so long that the Federal Reserve® can print cash and pretend it’s money. It has been nearly fifty years, which is a really, really long time in dog years that Nixon quit pretending that the dollar was backed by gold. The dollar immediately shrank in value, but remains relatively strong when compared to most currencies around the world even though I’d prefer to have a dollar’s worth of gold from 1973 than a dollar printed in 1973.

The strength of the dollar won’t end in 2023. But it’s closer to free fall every year. Right now, the confetti that the Federal Reserve™ presents as money is still good. But when the people in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe and Senegal and Laos won’t take it? The dollar will be toast.

My go-to on Asian currency is a local Spanish language show. I guess it takes Juan to know Yuan.

And yet, the world hasn’t stopped taking the dollar that we print from paper. Why? The United States has a wicked large navy and about a zillion nuclear bombs. I’ll note: Iraq decided to take Euros for oil.

Oops. Guess we need to replace Saddam.

Libya decides to take gold for oil.

Oops. Guess we need to replace Ghaddafi.

Since Russia will take gold for oil, and China will swap their money for oil…?

The good news?

The dollar won’t end in 2023.

The bad news?

In 2023. No promises after that. And I might be wrong, so keep some silver, gold and lead around.

Here’s the fourth thing:

The Beatles won’t reunite. Unless Paul starts eating bacon and Ringo takes up alligator wrestling.

Who is the drummer for the Australian Beatles cover band? ɹɐʇs oƃuᴉp

Here’s the fifth thing:

Biden won’t get any smarter. And neither will Hunter, though I’m sure tons of the cash shipped to the Ukraine will get recycled back into Hunter’s drug habit. Good news! It won’t be long until he loses another laptop.

Here’s the sixth thing:

Movies won’t get any better in 2023. The best movie in 2022 was approximately the same movie as the best-grossing movie of 1986. Yup. Top Gun: Maverick was a good movie. Nearly exactly the same level of good as Top Gun. Avatar: The Way Of Ego was from the same person who brought you Aliens. Which was the fifth best-grossing movie in 1986. It isn’t getting any better in 2023.

What do they call James Cameron when he’s not working? James Cameroff.

I am somewhat amused. The very, very best movies of 2022 were a faithful remake and a pale imitation of two of the best movies of 1986.

Wow.

1986 was, observably, and quantifiably better than 2022 in every way possible. If you’re thinking that in 2023 Disney® will stop putting out movies that show why kid-touching is a good thing or feature a Disney® princess played by some 372-pound guy named Todd? Not happening.

Yeah. Mass media is really dead. And in 2023 it will be a dead cat bounce. Maybe. It depends only on how many Tom Cruise movies are coming out. Who could have predicted that Scientologists would be more sane than Leftists?

Sure, there will be some movies that will be okay. If one movie in 2023 is better than any movie I’ve ever seen? I’ll cover my nipples in opossum grease and sandpaper my eyebrows.

The Opossum Sanitation Company had a unique concept on recycling.

Here’s the seventh thing:

We’re not done. This isn’t over.

I’ve been using this as an irregular tagline for years. And I mean it.

We’re not done.