Weimerica – Page 17 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

E, S, G: The Leftist War Against The Economy

“You dirty double-crossing limey fink! Those damn diamonds are phonies!” – Diamonds are Forever

Copernicus wondered where the Sun went at night. Then it dawned on him.

Let’s go on a thought experiment:

Pretend that, having conquered the colleges, having infiltrated the leadership of the military and being 95% of the members of most government agencies, and jetting from place to place on private planes, the Left wasn’t done. No, there was still one goal remaining, and it wasn’t finally getting a date or being able to benchpress more than the bar. Nope. The remaining group which they hadn’t managed to completely own was all of corporate America.

But how would they do that? I mean, the Left has a lot of money for taking over Portland, Oregon again and again, but that’s hardly a challenge nowadays. What if the Left decided that they wanted to only invest in companies that shared their political leanings, and create some sort of bogus reason to make other people do it, too.

Enter ESG.

What does ESG stand for, Entitled, Stupid, and Gutless? No, that’s Antifa®, silly. ESG stands for the three criteria that the Left wants to use to decide if a country or business is sufficiently Leftist: Environmental, Social, and Governance. That seems, at first blush, to be relatively safe. I mean, who wants a bad work environment? And social, well, maybe that means good customer service. And governance? Maybe that’s how efficiently the company is run?

Nah.

I got into Harvard®. You’d think they would have better security.

Not even close. So, ESG, does it really mean? I’ll quote from the fine folks at Harvard®:

The “E” captures energy efficiencies, carbon footprints, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, biodiversity, climate change and pollution mitigation, waste management and water usage.
The “S” covers labor standards, wages and benefits, workplace and board diversity, racial justice, pay equity, human rights, talent management, community relations, privacy and data protection, health and safety, supply-chain management and other human capital and social justice issues.
The “G” covers the governing of the “E” and the “S” categories—corporate board composition and structure, strategic sustainability, oversight and compliance, executive compensation, political contributions and lobbying, and bribery and corruption.

Certainly, there is some Mom and Apple Pie-level stuff in there. There has to be otherwise they couldn’t sell it. It’s not like people look at a company and say, “Gosh, I wish Google® was even more corrupt with their search results” or “I wish Facebook™ had done more to dishonestly influence the election by censoring even more news unfavorable to the Left”.

In his spare time, Mark Zuckerberg likes to do normal human things, like drink water, consume calories, update circuitry.

Most of the ESG metric, however, is right out of the Left’s playbook. The parts in bold above are things that, mostly, don’t have anything at all to do with actual profitability or performance of a company. How can I tell this isn’t serious? The Left isn’t going after the NFL®. Even though I haven’t watched a game in years, they keep playing the games. So let’s pretend the NFL© wanted to maximize its ESG score:

For instance, to improve its ESG, the NFL could focus on climate change by eliminating stadiums and all the wasteful use of gasoline to get to the games. There’s more:

They could reduce their carbon footprint by using all natural, sustainable cotton fibers instead of wasteful nylon in their uniforms.
They could have opposing teams take electric cars to the games.
They could replace the plastic in their helmets with sustainably harvested weaved plant fiber.
They could replace the uniform types of grass on the field by using native plant species. Think of it – in Arizona you could have cactus and sand instead of lush lawns (that use far too much water!).

That takes care of the E! What about the S?

Workforce diversity? The players on the team could easily be selected so that they strictly follow the demographics of the United States, including half of them being women, and some being senior citizens. The handicapped would need to be represented as well, and not just as placekickers like they usually do.
Pay equity could be easily taken care of by having no member of the team or of the management staff make a time more than 20 times what the guy selling sodas in the stands makes each season, which would mean the CEO pay would be capped around $80,000. And if the starting QB got money from promotions, he’d have to split it equally with everyone in the organization. Equity, after all.

Maybe he can put that on a slogan for the endzone?

That takes part of most of the S, especially after the owner is forced to give up 90% of his team ownership to random citizens of the world, so a Sri Lankan goat farmer can understand the joy of owning an NFL™ franchise.

What about governance? Well, we could appoint people from every country in the world to the board of each NFL® team. And no more cozying up to local, state, and federal officials for more tax bux.

So why don’t people talk about applying the ESG metric to the NFL™? It’s simple.

People take football seriously.

All of the nonsense the Left loves to spout falls apart when it comes to one, simple business that everyone can understand and easily see the idiocy of the ESG metric.

Sri Lanka couldn’t believe it was riot season already! They still had their “I support Ukraine” banners up.

In real life, Sri Lanka was ranked by ESG score. They scored a 99 in Environmental, an 88 in Social, and a 47 in governance. Sri Lanka is facing its “worst economic collapse in its modern history” according to some economist somewhere that you can Google® search for if you’re bored. But its ESG was so good, right? They only used natural fertilizer, and lowered their carbon footprint! They also were starving and had to import lots of extra food.

It’s that same environmental rating that countries like the Netherlands and Canada are chasing when they are preparing to mandate that their farmers have fewer cows and use less fertilizer. Both of those things, you see, hurt the carbon footprint and thus make the environmental score of the country go down. If it causes people to go bankrupt to buy Cheetos® or starve, I guess ESG is a way to make sure that everyone in the world has the same chance to be hungry, poor, or exposed to social unrest as the least developed nation. It could happen here. Oops. Forgot about Chicago.

It is happening here, at least with the ‘S’ part of ESG. Looks like we’ll have Equity soon with countries that riot over it being (rolls dice) Tuesday soon enough.

When he fires an employee, he fires an employee.

Because of this fantastic success at the national level, Wall Street™ is pushing ESG at the corporate level. The aptly-named Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock™ which currently controls over eight trillion dollars in investments is a big fan. Eight trillion dollars? That’s almost enough to buy two full tanks of gas in Biden’s America. Think a man who controls eight trillion worth of cash has some pull?

The aptly-named Larry Fink certainly does. Individual shareholders don’t vote, so the aptly-named Larry Fink’s eight trillion in stock probably controls two or three times that level of shareholder votes. Alone. The actual ESG rating process is so murky and subject to manipulation that the ESG for a company can be as fraudulent as Joe Biden’s hair plugs.

So, yeah, the Left has constantly used corporate America for funding, and now they’ve figured out a way to make business support whatever crazy policy that the Left wants to use to turn the United States into the next version of Sri Lanka.

Thankfully, he planted a tree to offset his carbon emissions.

The aptly-named Larry Fink has a private jet, and houses everywhere, and burns more carbon in a week than most people will burn in a lifetime. Won’t you please reduce your carbon footprint so he can continue to do this? I mean, it would up your personal ESG score . . . .

Farmers, The WEF, And An All-Bug Diet

“Bugs are a fairly common delusion among paranoids. Bugs, spiders, snakes, spiders. You haven’t had any snakes, have you?” – Bug

I tried to interview for a job at a stable. He asked me if I ever shoed a horse. I said, “No, but I did tell a donkey to ‘get the hell out of my house’ once.”

I thought the “you will eat the bugs” memes were somewhat exaggerated. It sounded nutty to me. To believe that, I would have to believe the entire structure of the world’s food production would have to be change so people would have to eat them.

So, how on Earth would that happen?

Let me explain. To start, we’ll have to go to the Netherlands. The Netherlands have, I have read, the tallest average height on Earth – I’m thinking because everyone short died in floods.

It turns out the whole bug plan is already in the works.

Why are the farmers protesting in the Netherlands? It’s because their government has indicated farming in the Netherlands must go. Where does the government want them to go? In the usual fashion, the government simply does not care. Family farms that have been in the hands of the same family for hundreds of years will cease to be.

The government, of course, won’t just go in and take the farmland. That’s too heavy-handed and costs too much money. Instead, they’ll smile and buy it from the farmers after they’ve nearly bankrupted them.

What do giraffes and zoning regulations have in common? They don’t exist in Texas. (an as-found meme)

Again, in typical government fashion, the government will bankrupt the farmers with regulations. In this case, the proposed regulations will reduce livestock numbers and fertilizer use so much that the farms won’t be able to produce enough food to make a profit.

Then the government can pretend they have no idea what is happening while a country that once had a unique farming that produced unique food, disappears. And while the unique aspect of food is important, that isn’t the scary bit. The scary bit is government making an entire critical industry disappear.

That industry just happens to support the things that are currently under fire: most farms are run by families. The Global Left hates families. Families imply a support structure outside of the state, and why would you need that support when no matter how many kids a woman might have by whatever number of “fathers”, government will gladly support them. That also explains another mystery: I knew there was a reason everyone here forgot Father’s Day this year.

I hope you guys were ready for that red pill. (an as-found meme)

Farmers are also notoriously independent. Sure, government has created massive subsidies for them, some direct (pay not to farm programs) and some not so direct (mandating ethanol in gasoline). But most farmers get up and work the farm, tend to the cattle, then head off to work a second job.

Farmers also know work, and long hours, and sacrifice. These are the things the government wants, but it wants it for itself, not for independent businesses. Farmers deal with reality, and, therefore, reliably vote for the Right, which is why the Left would be pleased to see individual farmers disappear off the face of every nation. Heck, Stalin killed millions in the Holodomor during the 1930s because he couldn’t stand individual farmers, and wanted to force them all into a collective.

If it were just happening in the Netherlands, I’d think, “Huh, Europeans going crazy. Again. Last time they did this we ended up with the metric system. Let’s hope they keep it at home this time.”

Making their money out of candy still makes more sense than French fashion. (also as-found)

But it’s not just the Europeans, it’s spreading. Where to, but that Stalinist enclave north of the border, Canada. Although I couldn’t find the details with a four-minute Internet search, I did find this: Trudeau, in meeting with provincial ministers said that he’s going to cut greenhouse gas emissions from Canada, and to do that, just like the Netherlands, Canada would also drastically reduce fertilizer use.

I wonder if this is why he announced that they’d be picking the guns up first?

Outside of destroying the livelihood of thousands of his own people, and destroying lives that have been dedicated to building Canada, these regulations will make sure that all the important World Leaders keep inviting Justin to all the best parties, and maybe this time they’ll not make fun of him like they normally do.

If people aren’t farming in the Netherlands or Canada, then what are they planning on feeding their people?

Bugs. Really. The propaganda has been huge to inject the idea into the consciousness.

And to think I didn’t even know they had nipples.

This has been the plan of the World Economic Forum™ (WEF®) since at least 2018, if not before. I’m not making this up, you can check for yourself (LINK).

The WEF© is trouble, because rather than being a weird club that holds a meeting and then gets drunk and plays ping pong, it appears to have inroads into most of the governments of the West. But thankfully, they’re benevolent and want the best for people, right?

Oh. Perhaps not. It looks like the WEF© really does want us to eat the bugs, and live in the pods. And here I thought it was a conspiracy theory. And the other thing the WEF™ wants?

For most of us to die.

Dang, this is enough to make me wish it really was a crazy conspiracy theory.

Student Loans, Death, And Taxes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what other powers does a king have?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Recall: Looking Back On The COVID Crisis

“You had a dishwasher box to sleep in? I didn’t even know sleep. It was pretty much twenty-four seven ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn” – Deadpool

One girl I dated in High School asked if she used too much makeup. I replied, “Dunno, depends on if you are trying to kill Batman.”

[Wilder Note: I’ve been meaning to dig this post out for a while, especially since something that WordPress did mangled a bit of the original with weird characters. I wrote it originally on March 25, 2020. This was meant as a prediction of what we’d see going through the ‘Rona. It has been wilder than even I would expect, and in many ways I think I undersold what we’d see. That being said, I’m not sure we’re done going through The Cliff phase and into Disillusionment. I’d love your feedback.]

“Great, now it’s the end of the world and we can’t get a new dishwasher,” The Mrs. actually said, after I finally relented that it would probably cost more to fix the dodgy old dishwasher than a new one would cost. Plus, the old dishwasher is stainless steel, so if it were a hundred yards away, it would make quite a nice practice target. I call that a win-win. Besides, Amazon® actually has them in stock, so I could theoretically have one by next week.

See? You can get quality appliances during the end of the world.

I started working from home yesterday, which was nice. When it was lunchtime, I wasn’t hungry, but I was nice and warm so I took a nap right in my home office which is also known as the couch. Good times. I do have a concern: The Mrs. slapped my heinie as I walked by and said, “nice butt” so I’m thinking of bringing this up with HR. I want to be treated as more than a sexual object. I mean, not much more, but more.

As much as you might be interested in my derriere, I really do want to talk about COVID-19 and get to the bottom of how the issue will progress in the coming months. While each crisis is different, they are all sort-of-predictable because in the end, people don’t change all that much, even though circumstances do. Certainly, we want to get this all behind us, in the rearview, so to speak.

Okay, I’ll stop. Seven synonyms for the posterior in two paragraphs are quite enough. I don’t want you to think I’m a bum.

But what is this pattern I mentioned? Here are, as near as I can determine, Eight Stages of a Crisis. This provides way in which each crisis can be evaluated compared to the others this is my modification of work originally done by Zunin and Myers.

This is like the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief, but with the apocalypse in mind. Why settle for one death, when you can have millions or billions on your mind? It’s so nice and cheery. The nice part of using this model is that you can gauge where we are in the current COVID-19 mess.

Who would he assassinate for a Klondike® bar? Apparently Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The Warning

This is the opening stage of a crisis. It may be short, as in 9/11, or it may be a slow-motion collapse like the gradually increasing troop buildups and mobilizations that led to World War I. Everyone wanted to stop it, but no one was sane enough to say no. The Warning before the first Civil War was literally decades in length.

In the current COVID crisis, The Warning came during and just after the December impeachment. With the focus of the country elsewhere, who cared about the flu? We don’t trust the media very much. Why? They don’t seem trustworthy. Example: when Trump shuts down air transport to China, CNN® says it’s racist. When China shuts down air transport from the United States, CNN™ says it’s a wise and prudent move by China’s benevolent leadership.

In a world where CNN© and the Chinese government have similar levels of credibility we tend to forget the ending to the story of the boy who cried wolf: in the end, the wolves really attacked.

How did they not see this coming?

The Event

The Event is generally not long, but it can be. It’s the Shot Heard Round the World at Lexington and Concord in the Revolutionary War. The Event is when the rules change forever, and nothing can ever make the world go back to the way it was. It’s the spark that lights the fire. When people look back, everyone can see The Event.

Nothing is ever the same afterwards. The Event changes everyone that it touches, and often ends up changing systems permanently. It is disruptive. It may not be the reason that everything fails, it might just be a small event toppling an already unstable system. In a crisis like 9/11, the event is obvious and instant. COVID-19 has led to a slow-rolling avalanche across the economy. Was it poised for a fall anyway? Possibly.

As a longer cascade, what will be The Event that history will use to remember COVID-19?

In one of my more frightening thoughts: what if we haven’t seen The Event yet?

I’m not sure he’s koalafied to make that decision.

Disbelief

When things have changed, and changed drastically, people refuse to believe it. When the power is out because a tree fell on the power lines, I will walk into a room an automatically flip the light switch. Why? Habit, partially. But there’s a part of my mind that is existing in Disbelief, perhaps, that doesn’t believe that the power could ever be gone.

Disbelief isn’t a coping strategy, and it’s not an attempt of the mind to protect itself, at least in a healthy person. It’s more inertia. You’re used to the world being a certain way, and when it isn’t, part of your mind isn’t quite ready to process it.

This might be an overreaction. COVID-19 might be no worse than the flu. But that isn’t explained by the reactions we’ve seen so far from places that got it earlier than the United States. Italy is locked down. In two weeks, we will know more. In a month, I think, we will have certainty.

In order to calm panicked customers, Wal-Mart opened up a second register.

Panic

At some point, the mind is confronted with the new reality and forced to accept it. But the rules are new, and unknown. What to do? One could take a deep breath, and review the situation and think logically or? One could Panic. Panic is easier, and doesn’t require a lot of thought.

Panic is the natural reaction when your brain realizes that it has done zero to prepare for the new reality. So, what to do? Buy staples as required to build up the stockpile you’ve accumulated over time? Or buy 550 cans of Diet Mountain Dew®? Or just buy toilet paper, because everyone else is and you don’t know what to do or have any independent thought? Toilet paper purchasing is Panic.

Not all heroes are able to walk. I mean, some gained 400 lbs on the couch.

Heroism

While the Panic is ongoing, the first glimmer of Heroism starts to show. Brave men and women working in the medical field are the first signs of Heroism. Donald Trump talking with Al Sharpton to address the problems he sees is Heroism is realizing that there is a greater good, and that sacrifice is required. Heroism is embodied throughout the response to the crises where a few have an opportunity to save many, and where enemies put aside squabbles for a time because it’s the right thing to do.

There was a family story: Grandma Wilder went during World War II to weld Liberty ships at the Alameda Ship Yard. She would regularly get things sent to her from her mother who lived in the country in the middle of Flyover. Needles were rationed in San Francisco, but not in Flyover. Sugar was rationed in San Francisco, but not in Flyover. Why ration needles and sugar? To build common purpose, so even people not piloting P-51s or jumping out of landing craft at Iwo Jima could feel like they were doing their part. To be fair, rationing was necessary in wide segments of the economy, it wasn’t a fake, but it did help bring everyone together.

Right now Heroism is going on, and we aren’t even asked to do anything more than to sit down and watch Netflix® unless we’re keeping vital industries going. Here’s a link to Aesop’s place that shows the quiet heroism going on out there (LINK). Read it all.

I read the other day that coyotes are about 10 miles an hour faster than road runners. My entire childhood was a lie.

The Cliff

Keeping order requires energy. Some part of the energy of the system is put into keeping order. In a time of significant social cohesion, like World War II, the United States didn’t face The Cliff, even though virtually every other developed nation did. Instead, the energy that the crisis took was replaced by people working together.

Most of the time in a real crisis, however, there’s The Cliff. I wrote about it here: Seneca’s Cliff and You.

We have not fallen off The Cliff. Is it certain that there is one? No. But every single leader, elected or appointed, is acting like it’s there. I believe we will see it. The new normal will grow from events moving quickly. Already at Wilder Redoubt, we’ve had nothing but home-cooked meals for the last week, with a couple of store-bought sandwiches being the exception.

Will home-cooked food, family dinners, and homeschooling be the legacy of COVID-19?

I expect that we’ll see The Cliff soon enough. How deep will it go? As I’ve mentioned before, no one knows. The worst case is that the economy crashes through levels to Great Depression era lockup in two weeks or so. Only 40% of Americans are able to absorb an unexpected $1,000 expense. 80% are living paycheck to paycheck, and those paychecks just stopped.

Dead.

Going first will be car payments. The average monthly car payment is $800. Me? I’d sell you my daily driver for just two months of that, so expect car finance companies to seize up like an ungreased stripper pole. But the businesses that employ those people aren’t much better off. The best restaurant in Modern Mayberry came pretty close to closing down shop six years ago, but pulled through. The second best restaurant didn’t survive. There will be cascading failures as the debts owed from one business to the next go unpaid, and this won’t just be for small businesses. I feel confident saying that several businesses with 10,000 or more employees will go bankrupt. Overall loss to the economy? 40% of the GDP this year?

Is there a better case? Sure. We contain COVID-19 in a month or so, and then call it good. We only lose 10% to 20% of our GDP this year, and government pumps five or six trillion dollars into the economy to juice it back up. That’s the best case. And that’s just in the United States.

I’m not kidding, that’s how deep The Cliff is. If we’re lucky.

Something, something, Dark Side®.

Disillusionment

After the fall, things suck. We had heroes, but the time for Heroism is over. Disillusionment sets in when things don’t snap back to normal. Things will seem rosy, only for failure to crush hope. The more government “helps” during this phase, the worse recovery will be. Roosevelt “helped” so much during the Great Depression that he extended it for years.

But politicians will take drastic steps, because they can’t help themselves. The length of time Disillusionment lasts? Months to years.

Some re-assembly required.

Rebuilding

This is the other side of The Cliff. Whereas, as Seneca said you go down a cliff pretty quickly, you only build up slowly. Rebuilding the economy will take years. If we do it right, we’ll build a stronger economy, less dependent upon foreign supply lines, that guarantees freedom while preserving the traditional values that built the wealth in the first place.

If done poorly? The system is controlled, oppressive, and coercive. Leaders matter, but the quality of the citizenry to fight back against the system is even more important. Rebuilding takes years, and by my best case scenario, four to eight years.

So, I guess I’ll get a jump start on rebuilding. Dishwashers on the Internet. Amazing. My only problem is that there’s this lady at work who keeps making suggestive comments and touching me all the time. Just a few minutes ago, she told me that she expects me to share a bed with her! They always told me not to get my honey where I got my money, but what happens when you work at home?

The End of COVID, And Mining Salt From Leftist Tears

“That’s the saltiest thing I ever tasted, and I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt.” – Futurama

Think they were crying at CNN® when they wrote that headline?

The CDC® has just sent out the word: Corona-Chan is over. The ‘Vid is over, served its purpose, finished, and, whereas last year Joe Biden wanted everyone who wouldn’t submit to the Vaxx fired, well, now it is over.

Done. Doesn’t mean that at certain places that they still can’t fire you for not having been Vaxxed, but it’s starting to look a bit silly.

There are, apparently, a group of people that have looked on the ‘Rona as one of their base sacraments, nearly an item of worship.

The CDC is my shepherd; I shall not want.
It maketh me to inject mRNA: it leadeth all men with slight fevers to quarantine.
It affirmith my gender: Biden leadeth me in the paths of inflation for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Drumpf, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy heckin’ science and stimulus checks, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of Cheeto Hitler: thou anointest my hair with unnatural colors; my electric car runneth over people.
Surely virtue signaling shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Corona forever.

Except, not. I’m thinking with midterm elections coming up, just like Biden declared victory on inflation, he can declare victory on the ‘Rona. And here in Modern Mayberry I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen anyone in a mask. It’s simply not a thing anymore. Oh, yeah, several vaxxed folks I know have had the ‘Rona. Shocking, that:

But, the Left simply cannot fathom a life without one of their fears, it’s like they’re in some weird, inverted sense, comforted by their fear. Their reaction is telling, so, without further ado, I’ll let them (mostly) tell it in their own terms.

Warning: some of the language is a bit salty – they’re pretty butthurt about this one.

Let’s start with Reddit®

Surely things are better at Twitter©.

Ouch. Guess not. Well, I’ll let them speak (mostly) for themselves. Enjoy mining the salt from the Leftist tears! See you Monday!

My response:

‘

Trump: The Symbol and Symptom of the End

“I’ve come back. Give me a drink, Brother Kipling. Don’t you know me?” – The Man Who Would Be King

I guess I should be sorry about telling all those the bad yolks now.

Wednesday is usual the “wealthy” part of Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. Why? Because it starts with W.

Duh.

But I can’t this week. I normally like to talk to the deeper issues, the longer trends, and those timeless aspects of the human condition. There is more than a little evidence that we’ve been, in one way or another, been two sides fighting for thousands of years across a gulf between two factions. One is open, and the wellspring of Western Civilization.

The other is one that, for lack of a better allusion, is best represented by the worst aspects of Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings (reprinted at the end of this, because it’s old enough that Disney® doesn’t own it, it’s wonderful, and it’s True) – that implacable urge to move away from those values that emphasize what is Good, Beautiful, Right and True to placate what Kipling called “The Gods of the Marketplace”. It is a battle that provides humanity amazing wealth, meaning, and prosperity when The Gods of the Copybook Headings win.

Spoiler alert: The Gods of the Copybook Headings always win.

One signpost in the road downward is the raid on Donald Trump. The word that people are using is “unprecedented” and they’re using it for a reason. It is unprecedented. As I went upstairs a moment ago, the news on the radio was insisting that Joe Biden had “no idea” what was going to happen.

The Mrs. remarked, well, it starts with “Bull”. You get the idea. If Biden didn’t know about this, then the system is horribly broken. If he did, the system is horribly corrupt.

What’s Biden’s favorite musical group? The Who?

Do I believe a former president should be above the law?

I certainly do not. But unless the FBI® found a dead stripper or a live boy in the safe, it ain’t enough. As much as the Clintons were corrupt and literally stole items out of the White House, there was no real push to have them arrested. Sure, Bill was impeached, and sure, because he perjured himself he could no longer practice law. That was about it.

And I’m okay with that. Even Nixon, who took part in a conspiracy and looked like, well, Nixon, was pardoned. Why?

Because Nixon was politically neutered and could never take part in the public sphere again in any consequential manner. He was humiliated enough that the Left could enjoy it. Bill was humiliated, but (unlike Nixon) was he decided he’d try to bilk millions (and bimbos) out of those that wanted to buy influence with his political machine.

What toothpaste did Nixon use? Colgate®.

It is clear that every president since (and certainly including!) FDR has likely committed multiple felonies in office. It’s our system. Some, because they were not good guys. Some simply because there are more felonies on the books than hairs that were implanted in Biden’s head. The Federal way is now the way that the Soviets liked it – as Lavrenty Beria, former head of the Soviet NKVD and GULAG architect extraordinaire said, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Now, Trump.

In every case during his presidency, he has been the boogie man for the Left – the man that gives them I accidently killed John Wick’s dog-level night sweats. Why?

I’m not sure. Even though he couldn’t build a wall, Trump certainly upset the apple cart. Perhaps his singular achievement as president was to return the Supreme Court into a court that could actually read the Constitution in plain English again. The Constitution was written the way it was, for common men. It was written that way so that nearly every man in the United States could read it and understand the plain language. I mean, today they’d do it with angry cat memes, but you get the picture.

Given hundreds of years, the language was buried in a stream of emanations and penumbras such that what was clearly the written language of the Constitution became ignored in favor of piles of case law that in some cases twisted the original meaning nearly 180°. The Fourteenth Amendment, so beloved by the Left, turned a series of prohibitions on Federal activity into a prohibition on activity by the Several States.

When Ma Wilder caught me with a copy of the Constitution, I told I only read it for the articles.

Why is this important?

Because it became a weapon of the statists, of those that would become globalists to use as a club so that the centralized government that the Founders feared could be put in place. Now every Federal law could be pushed into the Several States with impunity. Horrible Federal bureaucracies could be put in place. I remember reading that OSHA (which regulates workplace safety) was challenged in court by a company in Maine.

The company in Maine argued that they only worked in Maine, digging a hole for people who lived in Maine, in Maine. What business was it of a Federal Administration that sounds like the noise I make when a cigar ash hits my bare chest? Why did anyone care that the Maine hole didn’t match what a government rule written in Washington D.C. said?

The Federal prosecutor didn’t even refute the argument. The administrative (not Constitutional) judge in this case ruled against the guy from Maine, since the judge said, “they have a phone and use the mail” so they’re engaged in interstate commerce.

Really. It’s a nonsense ruling, like you’d see in Alice in Wonderland but involving people who hated their lives but who were just “doing their job”. In 2022, for the first time in my life, this sort of nonsensical reasoning is being challenged at the Supreme Court level.

Go ask Hunter, when he’s at the mall.

And they hate Trump for it. They hate him with every fiber of their being, even more than they hate Vladimir “Putler” or people who don’t take the vaxx or people who would deny teachers the right to indoctrinate kindergarteners into the world of S&M. They hate it more than they hate people who won’t kill their babies.

For that, Trump must be punished.

Is it rational? Not at all. They’re willing to destroy the Republic for that, because they want to destroy the Republic anyway. There are those on the Right that are accelerationists: anything that brings on the actual shooting war with the Left should be embraced. On the Left, there are accelerationists, too. Anything that can pull down another statue, anything that can pervert another value, anything that can make the legacy of the United States die is to be saluted.

Really. They hate it so very much, and Trump has been an inconvenient speedbump along the way.

So, their most fervent fantasy is Trump in an orange jumpsuit, whereas the most fervent fantasy of the Right was Hillary being an impotent drunk wine aunt staring from the outside in at a party she could never be a part of. Sure, the crowds at the Trump rally chanted “Lock Her Up” but what they really wanted was her humiliation.

The Right got it, and then some.

Hillary tried to sell her soul to Satan to become president, but Satan responded and said that was like Bill trying to sell his virginity.

Perhaps that was what drove them over the edge into insanity. Again, they want the destruction of the United States, so, they’re cool with that. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I’m not really sure what bizarre fantasy plays in their heads as they contemplate the collapsing economic system and the utter lack of any shared goals or morality. Perhaps it’s a rainbow, though I doubt they’ll understand that the only actual consequence that they can really have is one that will lead to. But Rudyard Kipling understood it, every bit of it.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘The Wages of Sin is Death/’

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die.’

The Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: The Divide Grows

“We can take whole by force what they propose to divide.” – Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

The book I ordered about clocks finally came in. It’s about time.

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. Tensions are still high. 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 Divide – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Growing Farther Apart – 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 700 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

The Divide

One thing that hasn’t changed, at all, since Biden was installed in the White House is that the tension hasn’t dropped. It’s a matter of Team Blue being in charge, and is looking at every way that they can stick it to Team Red. It’s not a new story, but it is a continuation of a fundamental divide in the country, about nearly everything.

When Donald Trump allegedly tossed hush money to a tramp, it was nearly grounds for impeachment. Joe Biden allegedly funds tens of thousands of dollars for Hunter’s periodic chemical and biological safaris?

Not a word. So, it’s an offset, right?

Not really. The Left has a deep hold on the institutions of this nation, who will, apparently, actively run cover for the Left, no matter what they do. Which institutions? Not big ones. Just the FBI and the major news media. The mere fact that CBS® is now running the story that the Washington three-letter agencies are all-in for Biden shows that the Left is getting ready to ditch Biden, or at least sending him a warning. I mean, it’s not like he’d notice.

The cultural divide is far worse that that would indicate, though. Let’s take the children. No, really, that’s the slogan of the Left: “Let’s take the children™.” They want them desperately, and are dedicated to doing whatever they can to indoctrinate them. Case in point:

As near as I can tell, this defines a lot of what’s going on with kids, but it’s not just schools, it’s media as well. There is a reason they want unfettered access to kids – it’s not about education, it’s indoctrination. What proof?

Imagine what the world would look like if teachers were secretly trying to make kids moral and Christian. The ree and cry would come from the usual sources, and then all the Left would dress up in Handmaid’s Tale outfits and pretend the United States was near to becoming a theocracy when it is farther than it has been, ever and the danger to kids isn’t coming from the Right. And the biggest fairy tale is coming from the Left:

Violence And Censorship Update

First, the Left wants to create conformity, and make sure that if your opinion differs, that you’ll feel left out. Their bots are Legion:

So, your opinion isn’t valid. But neither was the past opinion of the Left, if it was inconvenient. Left is always the direction of the Censor. And one of the biggest goals of the censor is not only to censor your current views, but it’s also to censor their past views. Why?

Because only the current view is valid. If the past view (for example) was that it takes an actual man and an actual woman to get married, why, that view is very uncomfortable now. So, any view that contradicts the New Truth® is forbidden. And when people try to use your own views against you? That’s hate speech, right?

It was Winston Smith’s job in the novel 1984 to make facts inconvenient to the Left disappear from the record. That job continues: the Left cannot accept the idea that the economy of the country is in very bad shape – and is in a technical recession. It hasn’t been long enough for Google® to take the previous definition down:

But at Wikipedia®? The Leftist editors are all too happy to change the definitions in near real-time just to make the Left happy. They do it for nothing but Good Boy™ points.

I think Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There had it right:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master: that’s all.”

Biden’s Misery Index

Last month’s inaugural edition inspired Aesop (LINK) to come up with his own version.

That’s a lot of Kamalas!

But when we look at the reason behind the graph, it’s simple: this is the pain associated with a planned Leftist transition.

Here’s the current graph. I suppose the good news is that even though things are getting worse, they’re not getting worse as fast as they were?

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence ticked downward again this month. I think it continues to be muted because the Left has kept their dogs on a leash.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it dropped a tiny bit in June. Elections are coming up – I’m wondering if we’ll see more?

Economic:

Economic indicators ricocheted upwards this month. Looking at the reasons: the markets stopped falling, the interest rates stopped shooting up – this is related to the Misery Index being slightly less awful. This is an instantaneous look, and things aren’t as awful as they were last month.

Illegal Aliens:

It set a new record for this time of year. But it was down from last month, for the first time in ages. Must be hot out.

Growing Farther Apart

The first story was the divide – the second is that the divide isn’t getting better. People are making choices to move to areas that match their ideology. And what about the people there?

They’re ready to check out. Red State Secession (LINK) conducted a poll at the end of June and released the results at the beginning of July. The result?

People are talking about breaking up. In the eight states they polled, (HI, TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, and SC) the results were fairly similar: They felt that if California were to want to leave the Union, that 56% felt there should be no penalty, 41% felt that there should be economic sanctions. Only 5% were willing to use military force to keep California in the Union.

The numbers were pretty similar if Texas wanted to leave. Texans, on the other hand, were ready to go to the next level. 69% of voters want to hold a referendum on separating from Texas, including a majority of Democrats and independent voters.

In Arizona (not part of the study) you can see that the Democrats don’t much care for the United States, either:

And the showing of a Revolutionary War flag on a coffee cup. It wasn’t me, even though I own one myself, which I bought at a United States National Park:

People are sorting themselves based on ideology, as long predicted:

And I’ll leave this Tweet® for the last word on how close we are to being one country:

Sounds like someone is a bit butthurt?

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1544768644244049920

https://twitter.com/i/status/1542746999245549568

https://twitter.com/i/status/1545705450703912960

https://twitter.com/i/status/1546007176002408449

https://twitter.com/i/status/1546000131744759808

https://twitter.com/i/status/1545917339467661312

https://twitter.com/CrimeWatchMpls/status/1544240651734228994

https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1543577251681390597

https://youtu.be/SVDWQv5lWPM

https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1553032236760535041

https://youtu.be/Vz4r8nNWOHA

https://www.foxnews.com/us/video-shows-utah-child-4-shoot-police-outside-mcdonalds-drive-thru

https://www.revolver.news/2022/07/the-hidden-agenda-behind-new-york-times-desperate-ray-epps-puff-piece/

https://www.insidebidensbasement.org/

Good Guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7q00OczIU

https://twitter.com/iamyesyouareno/status/1550500701465452545

https://twitter.com/i/status/1544337951332655110

https://twitter.com/i/status/1545874643994787840

https://twitter.com/Tr00peRR/status/1544619495100145664

https://youtu.be/ELDO8tJx0iY

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/off-duty-correction-officer-hailed-hero-after-shooting-man-who-pointed-gun-crowd

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fourth-of-july-mass-shooting-richmond-virginia-thwarted-police-tip/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississippi-teen-hailed-hero-helping-rescue-girls-officer/story?id=86300178

https://abcnews.go.com/US/93-year-man-shoots-home-intruder-fends-off/story?id=85991432

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article263351778.html

https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2022/07/even-if-it-saves-but-one-life.html

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcrimeresearch.org%2F2022%2F07%2Fuber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting%2F

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2022/07/27/10-times-a-good-guy-with-a-gun-saved-lives-n2610406

One Guy

https://heavy.com/news/elisjsha-dicken/

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/us/eli-dicken-indiana-mall-shooting-bystander/index.html

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/special-reports/greenwood-mall-mass-shooting/armed-citizen-was-not-the-only-one-with-a-gun-at-the-greenwood-park-mall-shooting-the-first-victim-killed-had-one-too-indiana-elisjsha-dicken/531-e5f3c8db-8f58-4c62-b8b0-acaab48ec4d1

Body Count

https://youtu.be/aakhNFhbhWk

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1550526039234908164

https://thepostmillennial.com/52-shot-in-new-york-city-over-july-4-weekend

https://news.wttw.com/2022/07/05/68-people-shot-8-killed-shootings-across-chicago-over-july-4th-weekend-police

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chicago-4th-july-weekend-violence-160718752.html

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63182

https://www.unz.com/article/28-black-on-white-homicides-counting-white-hispanics-middle-easterner-unspecified-juveniles-etc-june-2022-another-month-in-the-death-of-white-america/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10976437/How-Californias-legal-cannabis-dream-public-health-nightmare.html

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

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/in-memory-of-those-who-died-suddenly-17d

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/vaccinated-english-adults-under-60
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/will-physicians-ever-speak-out

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-safe-and-effective-narrative

https://twitter.com/ElectionLegal/status/1549833362919112704

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/color%20map.jpg?itok=NWg8Tskj

https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx

Vote Count

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/voterga-uncovers-massive-election

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyc-election-sites-had-no-republican-ballots-primary-election

https://dnyuz.com/2022/07/05/on-conservative-radio-misleading-message-is-clear-democrats-cheat/

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/07/07/poll-majority-of-americans-believe-midterm-elections-will-be-tainted-by-fraud/

https://www.kawc.org/news/2022-07-04/biden-administration-to-sue-arizona-over-law-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-to-vote

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-biden-donald-trump-wisconsin-supreme-court-05166e3f3ef970b5cde8ac15cd30e18b?taid

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/07/01/u-s-supreme-court-takes-case-that-could-impact-future-elections/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-case-voting-rights-experts-say-bring-chaos-elections-rcna34033

Civil War

https://news.gallup.com/poll/394202/record-low-extremely-proud-american.aspx

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10971195/A-QUARTER-Americans-say-ready-arms-against-government.html

https://www.science.org/content/article/half-of-americans-anticipate-a-us-civil-war-soon-survey-finds

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/07/03/americans-divided-civil-war-unlikely/7767742001/?gnt-cfr=1

https://mises.org/wire/avoid-civil-war-learn-tolerate-different-laws-different-states

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

https://dnyuz.com/2022/07/02/spurred-by-the-supreme-court-a-nation-divides-along-a-red-blue-axis/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/on-the-campaign-trail-many-republicans-talk-of-violence/ar-AAZTYhP

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/07/11/are-we-looking-at-another-civil-war-n2609990

https://thecarousel.substack.com/p/theres-gonna-be-a-war-in-montana

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/31/the-civil-war-that-is-here-and-the-one-that-may-yet-come

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/04/50-year-attack-right-wing-corporate-forces-leading-us-back-towards-civil-war

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/a-president-asking-for-civil-war

https://www.businessinsider.com/civil-war-expert-barbara-f-walter-us-heading-toward-insurgency-2022-7

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/jeff-sharlet-on-the-martyrdom-of-ashli-babbitt-and-whats-to-come

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/experts-make-case-for-the-ar-15-only-defense-in-civil-war

Progress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6tOAafAJCA

White House Insider Scoop: The Economic Plan

“Television? My God! If they could market that in pill form, Switzerland would be plunged into a recession.” – Absolutely Fabulous

“Old McDonald had a farm . . .” sang the cheerful repo man.

Note: there’s some meta content at the end on recent site issues at the end of all this. Apologies for any issues. I know that the subscriber stuff didn’t work on Monday, but I have faith it will today. If you’re not a subscriber, I suggest you tempt fate and subscribe in the box over there to the right . . . .

This past week in the economics side of the world there has been a recent dust-up. The generally accepted definition of a recession is that there are two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. I’m not sure exactly how they measure that, but I assume it’s by throwing a bunch of chicken wing bones from the Buffalo Burnin’ Hot® Pizza Hut™ wings into the air and seeing if they fall in a pattern that is pleasing to Gorto, god of the Great Charts of Giza.

Or maybe not. That sounds pretty high-tech for an economist, since it might involve higher economics like counting.

But at least it’s more scientific than how economists judge if there is a recession or not.

Regardless, the White House has suggested that the same definition that’s been used since, oh, I was knee high to Farrah Fawcett-Majors (which wasn’t bad, I’m thinking) is no longer operative. Nope. Now (according to Wikipedia®) recessions only occur when the National Bureau of Economic Research©, a privately held group, says so.

When will they say it’s so?

Probably years after the recession has occurred, and probably then only if it’s something the Left want’s to see.

Winston Smith would be proud.

I can’t help, though, wondering what the conversation was like in the White House when they discussed the horrible economic data that showed there was a recession, or at least what would have been called a recession in every year every except for 2022.

I hear homeless horses never get married. It just isn’t a stable relationship.

Joe Biden (BIDEN): “I’m really glad you all could join me this wharngm *cough* smaglerpump. Anyone have a steak? Oh, wait, can’t eat ‘em. Gets stuck the dentures, you see *wet phlegmy cough*.”

Biden takes dentures out to show group.

Kamala Harris (HARRIS): “Wow! I could have used that trick!”

Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen (YELLEN): “Mr. President . . . .”

BIDEN: “Oh, is Barry back? I think I’m sitting in his chair.” Jill Biden (DR. JILL) kicks BIDEN.

BIDEN: “Ow! What??”

YELLEN: “Pardon me, uh, Joe. The recent economic data had come back, and it’s not good. From a technical standpoint, and primarily due to our plan, er, bad luck, er, Putin, we’re showing that the economy of the United States is contracting.”

It could be worse. Gas could be really expensive. Oh, wait.

BIDEN: “Does that mean the baby is close? I think I’m hoping for another boy. I’d like to name one Hunter. What a pure and noble name. No way a man with such a strong name would become a degenerate dissolute drug addict who hires ladies-of-the-night.”

YELLEN: “What?”

BIDEN: “Whores, we used to call ‘em. Street-walkers. Strumpets. *Long series of coughs.* You know, loose women?” Pause. “I mean that. Do you know any loose women?”

YELLEN: “Pardon me, Mr., um, Joe. What I’m trying to tell you is that the economy is a mess. Prices are shooting through the roof, and where we once saw labor shortages due to paying people to not work, now we’re seeing companies starting to lay off people, and demand dropping. Not at all good. It’s what we economists technically call a recession.”

BIDEN: “Recession? What will President Carter say about that when he gets back from Camp David? That’s no good at all. We simply can’t have a recession. We need ideas, people!”

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken (BLINKEN): “Heh heh, we could send that crazy witch Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. That would distract people. Heck, maybe no one would notice that the price of gasoline requires them to ‘donate’ a kidney to get a fill-up.”

Joe wanted Hunter to slow down on his cocaine habit – he said, that Hunter had to draw a line somewhere.

Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin (AUSTIN): “Great idea! We could send over some aircraft carriers. We’ve got dozens of those. Really pump up the tension.”

Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas (MAYORKAS): “And import Nicaraguans. Perhaps sixty million of them. They don’t vote.”

Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg (BUTTIGIEG): “Dr. Jill, what are the first symptoms of monkeypox again?”

DR. JILL: “Pete, I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m the kind of doctor that people have to call “doctor” because I insist they do.”

BUTTIGIEG: “Oh, what was your thesis title?”

DR. JILL: “Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs.” (J.W. note: this is really the title.)

Vanilla Ice is both more vanilla and more ice than Jill Biden is a doctor.

ALL, except BIDEN, who looks confused: Laughter.

BIDEN, looking at DR. JILL: “Missy, are you new here? I could use a sandwich. But nothing too tough. Dentures. See?” Pulls them out to show her.

ALL, except BIDEN, who looks confused: Laughter.

DR. JILL exits.

BIDEN: “Well, now it’s just us guys. Anyone want to watch a porno? My son Hunter,” long pause “sent me this one. Shared it to me on FacePlant®.”

YELLEN and HARRIS glance at each other.

BIDEN: “So, what’s the plan? I mean we have this regression, I mean digression, er, um, digestion.”

YELLEN: “Mr. Pr . . . er, Joe, it’s a recession.”

BIDEN: Agitated. “No, it’s not! It’s not a recession until Obama says it’s a recession!”

All look at each other in stunned silence.

YELLEN: “That’s perfect. We pretend we’re not in a recession. Just say it isn’t one.”

All nod, except Biden, who is staring vacantly toward the ceiling at a point near the opposite corner.

Chief of Staff Ron Klain (KLAIN): “It’s decided. I’ll mobilize the usual folks. CNN®, the New York Times™, the Washington Post©, and oh, yeah, I’ll mobilize our trolls. Let’s put the old definitions down the memory hole. Start with Reddit® and Wikipedia™. In a couple of weeks, let’s see if we can’t have Twitter© ban anyone using the r-word.”

Meeting adjourns. BIDEN remains seated, looking uncomfortable.

BIDEN: “I was told there would be ice cream.”

Now, the meta content. On Monday, I normally get a copy of the post delivered to my inbox for a couple of reasons: the first is to show that the software worked. Since it’s worked nearly 800 times, I was surprised it didn’t. The second is to make sure the content showed up.

On Monday, that didn’t happen. Why? I’m still not sure. I went to the website and saw that the website itself was down. Why? Still not sure. It turns out that I’ve been fighting the hosting company of the site for the better part of four calls (over three hours of time) and it seemed like everything they did made things worse.

I think it’s all working now, though. Let me know if the RSS or any other component isn’t working.

Our Financial System: It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

“So, I am to receive thirty percent for finance, for legal protection and political influence. Is that what you’re telling me?” – The Godfather

Hunter was so stoned he ate a kid’s meal at McDonald’s® yesterday. The kid’s mom was not happy.

I am a fan of capitalism, mostly. Over time it has proven to be the single best way to have people contribute. It gives them a reason – if they do well, they gain more. By combining lots of people competing fairly, the entire world gets wealthy enough to afford a full tank of gas. How we split it 8 billion ways is up to us, I guess.

It’s simple – with capitalism, people don’t try to get more of the cake, they make the cake bigger. Or they make more cakes. And it’s all voluntary, unless it’s for a gay person. I’ve been told that baking cakes for gay people is the one thing in capitalism that’s not optional.

Capitalism is so excellent that it (along with several thousand nuclear weapons) was the primary weapon that allowed the United States to not become fragmented into places like Collective Farm #1701 in the Nebraska Oblast of the Greater Soviet Union.

I saw a the Davis twins at my high school reunion. Those two sure looked the same!

However, there is a problem with pure capitalism.

Morality, or more specifically, the lack thereof.

I used to be a complete libertarian, and I thought that, generally markets would take care of any imbalances over time. They don’t. What has happened is that the economy has been warped.

When I graduated from college, I didn’t really have the vocabulary to describe the way that I felt about it, so I said, “I really don’t want to work for a financial company, I want to work for a company that makes something.” At 21, that was about all I could come up with to describe it.

Thankfully, I’ve spent more time out in the world and have come to understand what I was trying to say so inelegantly back when I was young. Here’s what I’d say today: “I don’t want to work for a company that’s a vampire leaching off the economy by providing nothing.”

Still better than Goldman Sachs®.

And that’s what a lot of the economy of the country has become. It’s led by companies that don’t fundamentally produce anything. Black Rock® financing private investors who bought hundreds of thousands of houses across the country is a great example of this. Why? To turn renters into profit centers.

They were creating no value for society, instead their entire idea was to turn a necessity – a place to live – into a profit center and create no value in doing so. And that’s the segment of society that’s increased – finance, real estate, and insurance. We make less stuff, but spend more time and effort on the segments of society that only leach off the cake, not make it bigger.

I hear the Vatican started an online bank. They call it Pa-Pal®.

I won’t argue that banking isn’t important as a way to store and fund money, but banking isn’t the purpose of the system. Banking, insurance and real estate are services to make food, to make cars, to make radios, to make planes, to make movies, and to make plants that make PEZ® dispensers.

Why is it like this?

The short answer is: because we let it be like this.

The long answer is that, since they had lots of money, they bought enough bureaucrats and legislators and judges that they changed all the rules of the game in their favor. And we let them do it.

The good news is that it wasn’t always like this. And there’s no reason that it has to be like this.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of blogs go off the rails when the writer comes up with a complex system that will be the one and only true system that will get the world out of difficulty. Uh-uh. Not this guy.

But throwing light on the problem is important, because after the system collapses (and it is collapsing) we should recognize the reason that it is collapsing and not let it get back like this again. Ever.

The signs are clear. Look at Boeing® – offshoring an entire industry to teach China how to make planes so China could learn to make planes so they could . . . make planes. I’m not sure exactly what Boeing™ makes anymore, but when they decided that having everyone else make all the parts instead of them was a good idea, they ceased to be a plane maker and began to be . . . a vampire.

Looks like Boeing® hired the Wrong Brothers?

Boeing© isn’t all the way there, but you can see it headed that way. They want the profits without making the plane. They have ceased to be a plane maker, and will take any profit that they can at any time. In a search for profits, they have lost their sense of self.

I believe there’s an old statement that covers this situation very well – “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” And I think that particular quote covers a lot of the issues that we have as a country right now.

So, I guess if we have a vampire problem, we have a lot at stake.

Collective Punishment: It’s The Plan Of The Left

“Could be race memory stored in the collective unconscious. I wouldn’t rule out clairvoyance or telepathic contact either.” – Ghostbusters (’84)

Reminder to Leftists: the Geneva Convention is not a checklist.

One of the things that I was raised with was the idea of individual responsibility. That didn’t come from society – it came from Ma and Pa. If I drew on the hardwood floor under the bed in ink I’d blown out of ballpoint pens? Like a dozen ballpoint pens?

It was on me. And when it was found, it was my responsibility to scrub it until the ink came off. I could add in another few dozen things I did, but what parent doesn’t remember coming home and seeing the family photo collection curling up because their six-year-old thought he could make bigger copies by stretching them in water? I mean, it worked in the darkrooms on the TV shows. I mixed in all of the cleaning chemicals under the sink because it seemed odd that the pictures weren’t stretching.

And those are not the worst examples of my behavior – not even close.

I once told a joke about the Hindenburg. It didn’t land well.

For society as well, that seemed to be the rule. While groups might have different attributes, if someone broke a law and was convicted, they didn’t send grandparents and children and uncles and nephews to jail – they sent the guy who broke the law to jail.

Certainly, families may have felt shame, but the person who did the crime did the time.

That is so deeply ingrained in me that it took me quite a while to understand that viewpoint is no longer the default in Western Civilization, but rather it is on its way to becoming a quaint anachronism. What’s replacing it?

Collective guilt. You can see that nearly everywhere, and the 1619 Project®, the BLM™ and reparations movements, anti-Christian movements, and others are proof. Reparations: people who did no wrong paying people who weren’t injured 150 years ago.

When Elizabeth Warren canceled her presidential campaign, it wasn’t the first race she had to leave. (meme not original)

The theory is rather simple – every person related to someone who did something in the past is guilty. The idea is that groups are collectively sinful and must be punished collectively. This is certainly not an idea that is enshrined in the West. Oh, sure, the town of Mudstinklebottom was been put to the torch because the Earl Hootertinkletwerp of Snottlyford was not amused because his trousers weren’t pressed properly. But these examples of collective punishment are rightly viewed as atrocities, not a “how to” guide.

And I wasn’t at a single one of them. And neither were you. As I wrote last week, no one alive should feel even the smallest amount of The Guilt® that is featured on display every day in our world.

But yet, the statue of Thomas Jefferson has to come down because the things he did, which were considered normal back in 1780, are now realized to have been morally abhorrent. The genius of the man, the founding of the University of Virginia, drafting the Declaration of Independence, and inventing sno-cones can’t be thrown aside based on the moral lens of 2022.

I named my daughter after Thomas Jefferson. About 250 years after.

The real idea for the destruction of American (and Western) history loops straight back to the tactic collective punishment. Dismantling the heroes of a civilization, the men and women who saw farther and did more is just part of the punishment – and more on that in a minute.

The Left hates Western Civilization and wants to bring it down. The Guilt is simply one of the tools of the Left, in order to have the battle end even without a fight. It’s demoralization, and it’s part of the playbook. But it is intended on a collective basis. Who is the guilty party? Based on what I know of my readership, if you’re reading this, you can nearly be assured that the coming collective punishment is intended for you. And this collective punishment is indeed a tool of the Left. If you’re not familiar with the Left’s regular use of collective punishment, here’s a taste from your humble author (LINK).

But news of the broom really swept the nation.

Because, as I’ve written before, the aim of the Left is to win before the first battle is joined. To do that, they have to make us hate our past. Why?

In order that the enemy (us) will accept collective guilt. Again, I’m a poor test subject because I feel zero guilt about you can’t effectively punish a people if they have pride in their past, and pride in themselves. If every American was evil, and the country was founded on that evil, then everything the country has done since then must be evil, too, right?

Sadly, there are many Americans who have utterly fallen for this concept. They blame themselves for actions that they have never taken, for thoughts they have never felt, and for crimes that they have never committed. And the Left wants to take down, to erase all of it.

I’m working less at the cat shelter – they reduced meowers.

Why? Because they believe, deeply, in collective guilt, and the West has been tried and convicted as far as they are concerned. The sentence, if they can carry it out, is death. As has been said before, the Left hates you and wants you dead.

Yes, I still believe in individual responsibility and individual guilt – Ma and Pa Wilder certainly taught me that. So I guess most of the Leftists should have individual trials. And individual punishment.