Creating havoc since 2006. Fair use is claimed for images on this site, but they will be removed (if owned) on request out of politeness. movingnorth@gmail.com
Just in the final process of finishing up a project that’s been years in the making.
All is well.
I’ll be taking a vacation from posting this week, and won’t even be putting up lame reposts as I’ve been about 360 weeks with doing posts three times a week (yes, that includes lame reposts, but not podcast posts) and am taking a week off, see you next Monday.
We will be doing the podcast on Wednesday, which is the funniest thing that you’re not currently listening to.
TTFN.
“That’s a bold statement.” – Pulp Fiction
A lion would never drive drunk. But a tiger would.
One of the problems with life in Modern Mayberry is that it often moves at a fairly slow pace. Especially in the time when an adult is focused on raising kids, the days tend to blur one into the next.
If your life is good, this isn’t really a problem. When I was younger, my life was spent going to weddings. Now that I’m older, more time is spent going to funerals. It is important to not get mixed up as to which you’re at, although sometimes “My condolences,” is appropriate at a wedding and I’d almost be willing to bet $20 that at least one person will say “Congratulations!” after my funeral.
However, in the event that I’m wrong, collecting on that bet might be a problem.
Maybe I’ll add bikini girls. Will that put the “fun” in funeral?
One thing that facilitates this blur is reading stuff on the Internet. One blogger I read (LINK) is giving up doomscrolling (or reading the unending list of negative stories that are available in the news) for Lent. I suppose you could leave him a comment, but you’d have to wait a few weeks to get a response.
But when it comes to doomscrolling, there are huge numbers of these stories available. The business model is simple: scary stuff attracts eyeballs, and eyeballs means revenue. As I look at my own past posts, I’m thinking that, even though I talk about a lot of scary stuff, that I’m mostly relentlessly positive. I can even recall a comment section or two where I’m called a Pollyanna because I’m so positive.
What do we want? Hearing aids. When do we want them? Hearing aids.
I can live with that. Being positive, being for things and knowing that, in the end it’s all going to work out keeps me positive. In most cases (most, not all!) the things I write about don’t make me angry, either.
Again, stress on the “mostly”. And I try not to get worked up about events occurring half-a-world away that I can’t control or even much influence. Things are what they are.
And, for most of us, things are generally pretty good on a day-to-day basis, even when things aren’t perfect. Even on a bad day, most parts of the day are good. The thing that gets us is built into the doomscrolling: spending time worrying about things that simply have not happened.
My friend wrote me a text that said, “What do you get when you mix a gullible person with an optimistic person?” I replied, “I don’t know!” He texted back, “Read it again.”
I write about the coming Civil War 2.0 not in hopes that it comes, rather to make people aware that it’s coming. Do I sit and worry about it daily?
No!
That would take away from the time I spend thinking about the Roman Empire.
In this moment, there are things that I could let bother me. However, I realize that letting them bother me gives them power over me when that’s the last thing I want. “Take not counsel of your fears,” is attributed to George S. Patton, Jr. I’m sure other people said the same thing in similar ways in the thousands of years that people have been saying things, but when Patton says it, well, it’s been said.
“Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” – GSP
If I let my fears fill me up, I live a life of fear regardless of if it’s a perfect 63°F, and I have a wonderful cigar, and a great book beside me while sitting in a comfortable chair.
I think fear comes to people as they age. I certainly saw Pa Wilder get more and more cautious as he aged. I could give a few examples, but it doesn’t much matter. I did notice. And when I saw the tendency to do it start to crop up in myself, at least I understood what was going on and I could choose to be cautious or choose to be bold.
I think, however, that as I get older it is precisely the time to be bolder. Life moves in a blur, and days stack up faster, so they should mean something. If I knew I had only a year? What would I do?
Something to make that year worthwhile. If a month? A day?
The shorter the time left, the more that boldness matters and the less caution should. If I only had an hour of my life left, you can damn sure bet I’d do something with it, as much as I could.
Oh, that’s Samuel L. Jackson, not the famous English dude Samuel Johnson. I guess that’s the Netflix® version of the quote.
But life is built on compound interest. The more I try to write, the better I get. The more I lift, the stronger I get. The time to start is now.
The actions should be bold. While my days may pass fast, the more I can do with them, the more I will do.
When I pass, what will be left are the lives I’ve touched, the children that I’ve raised, the ways I’ve made the world better, and the words that I have written. Since the restraining order dictates who I can touch, and the lessons to the children are mainly done, that leaves making the world better and writing.
Even a full human lifetime isn’t enough, because they are so very short. But I’ll make do. With the remaining decades (hopefully) of my life, how big a dent can I kick in the Universe?
I guess I’ll see. And I’ll smile some, every day. And enjoy that cigar, and book, and chair when I’m not being bold.
“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”
Streams will show up here at 9EST, that’s in less than 30 minutes! (and we typically pregame for five minutes, so it really starts up at 8:55PM)
Funniest News On the ‘Net.
In this episode:
“A major one.” – Fight Club
What did Kim call his yacht? His dictator ship.
Last March, Silicon Valley Bank® failed. In a big way. Because the people who deposited money in the bank own things like yachts and senators, well, they escaped with hardly a haircut. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation® (FDIC™) normally ensures deposits for $250,000 per account holder. In this case, they decided, nah, what the heck, we’ll make sure that Roku® and Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry don’t lose a dime.
Ironically, today the Internal Revenue Service sued the FDIC© for $1.45 billion in back taxes they say that Silicon Valley Bank™ owed when the FDIC© took it over. Sure, it sounds like on part of the government is suing another part of the government for play money made up by the (non-federal) Fed™ but the FDIC™ is supposedly independent and gets its money from the member banks.
Which are members of the Fed™. Which prints the cash.
If this sounds as incestuous as a Hapsburg family stump, well, it is. And of course I’m going to go with a fresh meme about the Hapsburgs, because that’s what all of the cool kids are doing today.
A Hapsburg walks into a bar, the bartender says, “Why the long face?” The prince says, “Generations of inbreeding.”
The root cause of the Silicon Valley Bank™ failure is that they lent money for long periods at low interest rates. When interest rates go up, those loans aren’t worth a lot, at least to the bank. Right now, my mortgage has a lower interest rate than I’m getting in checking.
Silicon Valley Bank™ looked at all the crappy loans they had, and did the math, and found out that they were worth less than zero. Even worse, their bigger depositors heard (because depositors who own senators seem to get advance notice) and started to pull their money out.
Since those folks had friends, they told them. Soon enough, everyone wanted one thing – they wanted their money out of Silicon Valley Bank™. Rational people realized that if this was a problem at Silicon Valley Bank©, it was a problem everywhere.
Silicone and silicon – electrical engineers know the difference – no one trusts them around silicone.
In a thought that gives central bankers and senators cold sweats (after the previous night’s booze wears off) is the idea that people lose faith in the banking system. Oddly, this wouldn’t be a problem if we used money made out of gold and silver, but since ours is just as much a fantasy as thinking that diversity enriches us all.
So, there’s a problem that’s impacting literally every bank. Some big ones have failed, but thankfully Duchess Markle still has her cash so she can get enough publicity to hide from commoners like me. What’s the solution?
First, pay off everyone so no one is scared and Oprah doesn’t have to fly commercial with mere mortals. Second, flood the system with money. If a bank needs cash? Wheelbarrows of it?
Give it to them.
Thankfully Congress took a break from sending your tax dollars to Ukraine to bail out Oprah.
Last year, banks were paying 0.10% or so for crappy checking accounts. This summer, rates started shooting up, so I snuggled into some CDs that paid a lot more than my mortgage cost. Then, last month, I got a call from my bank where I set up the CDs.
“Mr. Wilder? You have money in other banks, right? If you deposit (a few thousand) dollars from accounts outside of your accounts with us into savings, I can give you a 4.5% rate on checking and savings.”
What????
If there’s one thing I know about banking, is that bankers are not generous except to themselves, senators, and Oprah.
I check with him, drove to the nearest branch of Major Bank™ in Mt. Pilot, and tossed a few thousand in. Could I take it out later?
Sure!
I am informed this is funny because horses often live in stables, so this would be a violation of California’s work safety laws.
I started wondering about this, but soon enough came up with the answer: when I make a deposit in the bank, I’m making a loan to the bank. And if they’re offering me nearly 5% for just parking cash at their place, that means . . .
I’m their best alternative for a loan. Me. John Wilder. Enough so they paid a dude to call me and ask.
Yup, it’s just that simple. And they called me to ask me to make a loan, and offered to pay me over four times what I was making on my cash to make that loan. Reading a bit further, it turns out the way that the Fed™ shoved money down the collective throats of the banks was through the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP).
BTFP loaned money to the banks, and the banks deposited the money at the Fed© to make a profit on the difference.
Yes, the Fed© created the BTFP, loaned the money to the banks who then deposited the money . . . at the Fed™. I’m not making this up. As of March 11, 2024, the Fed© will no longer be making more BTFP loans at those sweetheart rates. All new loans would be made at the same rate the bank gets paid by the Fed©. The gravy train, or at least this gravy train, is over.
That’s what the Fed© said in January, 2024.
When did I get the phone call wanting to borrow a few bucks from Major Bank?
January, 2024.
Since when do I believe in coincidences? And it was weird, it wasn’t a lot of money that I needed to deposit, but I think they were looking to get bigger players than tiny John Wilder.
But at least they’re not insufferable idiots . . . oh, too soon.
And that’s the rub. If banks are looking to borrow cash from me, how bad are their balance sheets?
Dang, I’m worried! Will Prince Harry have enough money to travel the world for 45-minute meetings with his father? Will Oprah be able to afford more caviar?
And, maybe I should take up loan sharking. Maybe I can buy my own yacht, bigger than Prince Harry’s and I’ll sail past him, and look down on him, and try to give Harry that condescending look that appears to be his Resting Prince Face.
And I’ll write a rock song about it.
I’ll call it Smirk on the Water.
“Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character, or the Aristotelian unities.” – Addams Family Values
But the Terminator® drew the line at upgrading to Windows 10®. He said, “I still love Vista©, baby.”
As I mentioned last Wednesday, I worry that sometimes I talk too much about the downsides of workings of the economy. Today is about politics and culture. This stemmed from a friend who asked, “What does it look like when things start to look better? What does it look like if it’s all going to be fine?”
These are great questions about politics and culture as well as the economy. Not as good as, “Hey, want another steak, Mr. Wilder? Is the hot tub the right temperature, Mr. Wilder? More PEZ®, Mr. Wilder?” but still very good.
The economy is important, but the cultural and political are more importanter.
What will make things “fine” and how will we know when we get there?
First: The Great Replacement Must Stop.
It’s rather hilarious that the media, when describing the TradRight’s complaining about being replaced in their own country, say that it’s a conspiracy theory. But when they describe the obvious demographic replacement, celebrate the “end of a white majority”. This is taking place in the United States, Canada, and in Europe. Canada and France seem to be the worst of the lot, and I’m hearing of a pushback of the local people to being raped and killed. But Trudeau seems to be running on the “import rapists and murderers” platform, so we’ll see how that works out for him.
Trudeau’s wife left him (true story). She caught him screwing all of Canada.
This requires two things, starting with people in the West having incentives to have children. Incentives determine outcomes – if we have incentives for married couples to have children, they will. If we want more people, we should start with our own. The future belongs to those that show up, and if we create a society where women work to the point of infertility making PowerPoints®, well, that’s not a good consequence.
The other step that must be taken is that the throngs of illegals must be stopped and reversed. If they’re so awesome economically, they should stay home and Make Guatemala Great Again. Even GloboLeftists in big cities are getting it – the illegals are economic locusts and are a huge net negative because they’re here not to create, but to consume.
The GloboLeftElite, however, are making the economic case that the influx of will lead to a more prosperous America, while a recent economic study shows that just the millions we let in recently will decrease wages for over a decade.
I wonder if my friend with anxiety joined a cartel, if he’d go see a psychiatrist because of Hispanic attacks?
Over a decade. Moms vote for TradRight, because they have skin in the game. Single women vote for the GloboLeft because they want to avoid responsibility – all fun, no consequences. This explains every aspect of the GloboLeft’s plan from no-fault divorce to abortion to welfare.
Second: Unity Must Return.
We’re at each other’s throats. The GloboLeftists® like nagging, like inching their goals forward. When they get a goal, they have to pick a new, more ludicrous goal. They’ve had their best successes in sex-related issues: Drag Queen Story Hour? I mean, if they wanted to donate their time to help the elderly in nursing homes, probably not an issue. But, no, they have to take it in front of the kids and into girls’ locker rooms.
Maybe drag queens can give Joe the help he needs.
The TradRight is more like Pa Wilder. Pa Wilder rarely (almost never) participated in punishing my brother John and I (yes, his name is also John, since they figured it would save on monogrammed clothing). But when Pa Wilder did get up out of the easy chair to intervene? It was serious. The chair would stop rocking, and then we knew that we’d gone too far. I think the chair has stopped rocking – the GloboLeft has gone too far.
It turns out that not only is Diversity not our strength, it’s tearing us apart. The GloboLeft have been doing everything they can to pick apart the things that made America great and have succeeded in creating a country where Trump inhaling makes GloboLeftists complain that he has destroyed the atmosphere by breathing out carbon dioxide.
I’d love to sit in an ocean of orange carbonated water. It’s my Fanta®-sea.
This has destroyed society in many ways. Were Targets™ targets in the 1980s for rioting mobs? Nope. Did Carter see mobs of youths destroying convenience stores for free stuff, then complaining when those same stores close down? Nope. The rule of law must return – and that will require unity.
The GloboLeft loves diversity, because unity is inherently the place of the TradRight.
Third: Return of Industriousness.
This isn’t (necessarily) the fault of “people who don’t want to work” which is the meme. In reality, there are so many rules that simply didn’t exist decades ago. Kids setting up a lemonade stand? In many locations, it’s illegal. It violates health regulations. They’re not collecting sales tax. They don’t have a business permit. They’re operating a business in a residential area.
What lesson, exactly, is that teaching the kids? That the only economic activity permitted is that sanctioned by the state, in a location allowed by the state, and following state rules that may or may not impact safety or quality but that must be followed, just the same.
The impact is that industry is shipped off to countries that don’t have the same number of rules, or, in many cases any sort of rules at all. In many cases it’s minimal gain. I read one article that manufacturing the iPhone® in the United States would cost about $10 more due to labor costs.
$10. But Apple® decided to keep making it at places where they have to have anti-suicide nets.
What do you call a group of newborn sheep tumbling down a hill? A lambslide.
Americans have always wanted to make stuff that’s valuable, sell it, and make the world better while they make a few bucks as profit. As I’ve written about endlessly, the conversion of our economy to one dominated by making paper profits off of fake money doesn’t feed anyone, but sucks profits from people who are trying to actually make stuff.
The GloboLeft loves big corporations, whatever they may be, because it makes individuals helpless. The GloboLeft hates industriousness because it creates people who are self-sufficient.
I could go on (and I imagine I’ll see plenty of additional adders in the comments) but I see it this way: the only way to a sane economy, a sane culture, and a sane political environment is through the big discontinuity of pain that’s coming due in the next decade.
But until then? Bring on the PEZ®, steak, and hot tubs!
“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – The Matrix
What happens if they try to get a new actor to play John Wick? Keanu leaves.
This is a repost – I’ve got family business (nothing bad, everything’s okay) that’s going to keep me away from the keyboard – I’ll be back Monday!
The movie The Matrix is a classic. Too bad they never made a sequel or three. I’m sure they would have been fantastic. Imagine taking the adventures of Neo™ beyond that big battle with Mr. Smith®!
Regardless, The Matrix did include several ideas that have made their way into the main stream, and stayed there. The biggest, perhaps, is the idea of The Red Pill and The Blue Pill. In the movie, Neo© is given the choice of taking The Blue Pill, which will allow his version of reality, the things he knows, to remain, even though they are founded on pretty little lies.
I’ll admit, The Blue Pill is attractive. It’s comfortable. But it is, in the end, a lie. I imagine that since you’re here, lies aren’t the thing that motivates you and more than they motivate me.
If Bill Cosby had played Morpheus, I think he would have pushed the blue pill.
The alternative is The Red Pill. The Red Pill is the The Truth. The problem with The Truth is that it’s ugly. The world we want to believe in is in The Blue Pill, because those lies speak to us so clearly. When I first took the Red Pill on a particular subject, I felt betrayed. Here was an entire line of propaganda that I had been fed since I was a child – it was a part of my base programming.
That’s the problem with The Red Pill. Once I took it, I began to question everything. Like a potato chip, you can’t have just one. And once I began looking, I found even more to question. That was difficult, because I had to reevaluate where I was wrong. And what ideas I had were built around those incorrect ideas.
The Red Pill is demoralizing. It’s not pleasant to have to reevaluate basic beliefs, especially those that comforted me and that I now know are wrong. In part, this website is about that. It’s looking at the things I think I know, and trying to distill what is true. On more than one occasion, a post was nearly complete when I found an inconvenient fact.
In algebra class, people always thought I was plotting something.
That meant I was wrong. That meant my post was wrong. In one sense it sucks because it kept me up later to write something else. But it never upset me, because I had learned something new, and was a bit closer to The Truth.
A key to getting through The Red Pill is to embrace The Truth, and improve. However much. A little each day is enough.
I suppose you could call that The Green Pill. Or, for weightlifters, The Iron Pill.
So, which one makes me The Hulk if I’m angry?
It’s the idea that instead of being upset that the world isn’t the way that I want it to be, I don’t focus on that, at all. Instead, I try to focus on improving myself. Not a lot, just a little each day. Can this post be better? Can I get stronger? Can I get in better shape? Can I learn another useful skill?
Life is nothing without difficulty. There is no honor in fighting weak opponents. I mean, I could spend my day boxing three-year-old kids. But my arms would get tired. Unless there weren’t that many, or if they were all especially weak three-year-olds. Like vegan-weak.
No, for a victory to have meaning, the challenge must be sufficient. It would have to at least be boxing six-year-olds. Or, maybe helping the world, or even one person, see what they normally would never have seen.
I had a globe on my desk, and met the guy who made it. It’s a small world.
I have to have a quest. The grander, the better, and I even live with and am comfortable that I won’t live to see the ultimate impact that I have on the world. That’s fine with me. Small pushes, over time, change the world.
Never let The Red Pill get you down. The real choice, even in a world gone mad, is to keep our virtue, and never to give up in making ourselves better, and to improving what we can, even if it’s only a little.
The Red Pill is difficult to swallow, but it is a gift, and victory in finding and spreading The Truth is the challenge that fuels me, and is way less tiring than fighting either endless streams of toddler or endless streams of Agent Smith.
Dang. Sure wish they had made a sequel to The Matrix.
Streams will show up here at 9EST, that’s in less than 30 minutes! (and we typically pregame for five minutes, so it really starts up at 8:55PM)
Funniest News On the ‘Net.
In this episode:
“Martha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic.” – Fight Club
When I met The Mrs. I said, “Titanic.” She said that was a terrible icebreaker.
I worry that sometimes I talk too much about the downsides of workings of the economy and was asked, “What does it look like when things start to look better? What does it look like if it’s all going to be fine?” I know this might seem like rearranging the deck chairs to keep the Titanic from sinking, but, hey, let’s go with it?
These are great questions. Not as good as, “Would you like another beer?” but still very good.
These are also questions that could be political in nature (I might write more about that for Monday) but in this case I’m going to focus on the economy as much as I can, though it’s certain that political will slip in here and there – it can’t be avoided because we’ve got Joe all over the economy.
What will make things “fine” and how will we know when we get there?
If someone steals your booze, does that mean they’ve lifted your spirits?
First: Stop the infinite debt spending.
Several years ago I wrote about Modern Monetary Theory. In a nutshell, Modern Monetary Theory says that if you have a bill, pay it. If you don’t have the money, make it. The theory goes that there aren’t a set number of points in a game of football, so why should there be a set number of dollars in the economy. So, if you have a bill, pay for it.
This is an awesome theory only for a person that has the I.Q. of a Kamala/AOC lovechild. The worst thing about it is that it actually worked in the short term, which is the worst when it comes to an economic policy, because it gives lots of time for Bad Things to pile up.
What made it work is because the United States can pawn the piles and piles of dollars off to the world since everyone takes them because we have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers and everyone knows what happened to Saddam and Qaddafi when they decided they’d start taking gold instead.
I asked a friend if he wanted to hear about the Russian victory parade. He said, “No tanks.”
Eventually either the desire or ability to soak up the dollars goes away. When that happens, even for a short time, the inflation inherent in the system feeds back.
Can this go on forever? No. Should we, you know, maybe consider stopping it before we totally wreck the economy? If we do that, there will be a hangover and a tough political bill to be paid.
Will we? Yes. As Ben Stein’s dad said, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” That will be a very, very bad day if it’s not one of our choosing.
Also? Fiat economies have a worse track record than Fiat™ cars for reliability.
Second: Stop the Wealth Pump®.
I really enjoyed Peter Turchin’s book, End Times. In it, he convinced me (he also has data to support this) that one of the biggest failures of my lifetime is the priming of what he calls the Wealth Pump™. The really short version of this is that policies that would support concentration of capital in the billionaire class are enacted (for example: open borders) while policies that benefit the average worker (for example: strictly controlled borders) are ignored.
I dropped a piece of ice in the kitchen. I was upset, but then it melted. I guess it’s water under the fridge.
Turchin’s models have shown that the Wealth Pump™ everywhere and always leads to tremendous social turmoil. Even without the economic misery for the common man that the Wealth Pump© implies, the turmoil from the hordes of teeming illegals will create turmoil that will last lifetimes. But stopping the Wealth Pump™ is imperative.
Will Bezos and Soros owned Senators suddenly ignore the billionaire class they serve? At this point, not voluntarily. The bacon-wrapped shrimp and cool stock tips are pretty powerful to keep them in line.
Third: De-financialize the economy by putting out the FIRE.
Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate is called the FIRE sector of the economy. In theory, FIRE exists to serve the actual productive sectors of the economy that make actual things that people need like potatoes, beer, steak, PEZ™, shoes, rifles, books, and toilet plungers.
That’s the way it should work.
Instead, it’s a gambling economy filled with people who try to manipulate and tweak and profit without producing anything. The big oil squeeze of 2008? Rumor was that was a big investment bank trying to make a bet profitable on a short against a particular company. The investment bank didn’t produce anything useful except for profits. By manipulation.
I think FIRE might be more dangerous than fire.
Again, ask the Nancy Pelosi why her stock portfolio is so profitable, and ask why first term Senators do so well in the stock market. Or don’t. But it’s FIRE that’s the primary machine in the Wealth Pump™ and these create increasingly horrific schemes.
Examples? Everything is a subscription because it increases revenue and profits. Now it’s moving into video games: design a game once, sell a subscription to it so that people can’t play it again for free, but instead have to pay a monthly fee. It’s already moving that way for software.
And look into who is buying all the housing. It’s on FIRE.
Fourth: Rational housing valuations.
People need a place to live, and a pod won’t cut it, but houses are now big investments. Why? Because they need more profits to feed the Wealth Pump®. Housing prices returning to something a guy with a high school degree working a manufacturing job can afford is crucial, since that’s where families come from. Is it possible in San Jose? No. It’s possible in Modern Mayberry, but that’s because BlackRock© hasn’t started buying here.
Fifth: Space for humans and A.I.
I know that some are skeptical, but A.I. is already making hundreds of thousands of jobs obsolete. Running a backhoe? No. Writing articles? Yes. Things that are easy for humans, are hard for A.I. Things that are hard for humans (and thus draw a higher salary), are often easy for A.I.
Are expert-level programmers still required? Absolutely. But not as many, since an expert-level programmer acting in tandem with A.I. will have a tenfold increase in productivity.
Who loses? The “not as good” programmers who are now not required.
This has happened before in all sorts of industries. DJs on the radio began voice tracking decades ago. The average DJ makes minimum wage (average, some are highly compensated, most are not) but still the radio stations paid $20,000 to eliminate them because making the product cheaper is what they know.
ChatKGB: it asks the questions.
Automation increases profits, but it doesn’t lead to some sort of techno-utopia where we have three hour work days. People just lose their jobs. As profits have gone up, pay has gone down (relative to inflation) and work hours have gone up for salaried folks.
A.I. hasn’t hit in a big way, yet. It will. Making space for people is unlikely, but necessary.
That’s a summary of how we can tell if we’re going to pull out from the looming economic catastrophe, what it looks like if things are going to get better. I’ve started sketching out a few political things to show that things are going to be okay, and (like I wrote above) will likely show up on Monday.
So, like the Titanic, it looks like we might have a change in destination. But we’re making good time!
“Two minutes, tops. But it’s a tough two minutes.” – Reservoir Dogs
Finland has no border problems – no one can cross the Finnish line.
Volume V, Issue 9
All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.
This is a moving situation, and things are changing 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 – Governing War Structures – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Kabuki Border Theater? – Links
Front Matter
Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 810 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.
Governing War Structures
In the aftermath of the Virgina Second Amendment rally a few years ago I had a realization about path to Civil War 2.0: organization will be very, very fast. I think I even wrote those words in the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, but I’m too lazy to look it up. Regardless, I’m going with a full “I told you so” about this one.
What’s gray, has spikes, and runs around a field? Barbed wire.
First: Texas wasn’t ordered by the Supreme Court to do anything. The Supreme Court’s decision was removing an injunction against the more or less worthless Customs and Border Protection (CBP) being able to remove razor wire that Texas put up, so the ruling doesn’t require Texas to do anything.
Second: If CBP is as bad at customs as they are at immigration, I’d expect that you could export nuclear bombs to Bulgaria.
Aside from that, the amazing thing was about how quickly a coalition of the Several States backed Texas. I was doing a podcast with The Mrs. and Mark and even as we were talking, more and more governors were saying that they stood with Texas in real time – state after state.
This was a big deal.
If at first you don’t secede, try, try again.
And it happened very, very quickly. This is the trigger to number 9 on the Civil War 2.0 countdown list, and it happened in less than 24 hours. The list is incomplete, since I’m certain more of the Several States would side with Texas if things went sideways, and places like Colorado and Illinois would mostly secede, leaving small islands of blue in seas of red. Kentucky? Yeah, they’d be in as well because of their pioneering spirit. In Kentucky, when your car breaks down? You build a house next to it.
Now there’s a slogan I can get behind.
The oppositional structure for Civil War 2.0 developed out of thin air on a single evening in January. There’s more to the story down below, but the lines developed amazingly quickly. I thought the real issue would be the Second Amendment, but illegal immigration managed to do what no other issue that the TradRight had could do: make everyone notice. The unending flood of illegal aliens (an absolute record this month, ever, as shown in the Civil War Index graph below) has been the catalyst.
Note to the FedGov folks, if you enforced the actual Constitution and kicked out the illegals, you could probably stop Texas from straying.
I do expect that (for reasons as noted in our second story) that the tension from this may fade, but the governing structures are in place, which places us firmly at two minutes until midnight.
Yes, we are very close, but Biden backed down because he realizes that on the FAFO graph, he’s pretty close to the FO section.
Does this make him scared enough to pee his pants? Depends.
The federal government has to push so hard because it feels that its power is becoming more tenuous. Yes, this tension may fade and after two more months I’ll back down the clock of doom, but this is an amazingly large step.
There have been others.
Missouri would be in trouble except for:
Violence and Censorship Update
I’ll (mostly) let the memes speak for themselves.
As God is my witness, I never knew convicts could fly.
And people say there isn’t a perfect woman.
Looks like Canada is behind enemy lines now.
If I X’d® this, I’d be in jail now. So why isn’t Soros? Oh, yeah, he’s a billionaire who hates America.
Think he wants to put up the Statue of Oppression?
What’s a sensitive event? Whatever Google® says it is.
I wonder if Australia realizes this will just make all the edgy kids get swastika tats?
Canada, are you doing okay? Looks like you haven’t figured out the whole “laws” thing.
Biden’s Misery Index
Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .
Yup, up again, but only slightly. Does it matter after the damage has been done?
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 flat. Winter is in, and riots aren’t as fun in galoshes.
Political Instability:
Up is more unstable, and it is slightly down.
Economic:
Economic numbers did a slight dive. I wonder if it’s because they caught this guy?
Illegal Aliens:
The most, ever, in the history of the country. For all time.
Kabuki Border Theater?
PIERRE
The Texas border confrontation has been in the news bigly. Is it real? Follow this (LINK) from a Texan (courtesy Aesop) who says that just a mile from the confrontation spot that the border is wide open. Wide open, but perhaps slightly inconvenient.
Does this matter?
Yes, it matters.
Absolutely. The border simply does not exist in 2024. Anyone can walk across at any time, any place, and be rewarded with cash, prizes, airfare to anyplace in the nation, and free room and board. It’s in New York. It’s in Boston. It’s everywhere.
What’s a radical Leftist’s favorite font? Sans sheriff.
The GloboElite get cheap labor. The GloboLeftists s get free votes and power. Oddly, they even share that.
Remember to call a doctor if your election vote counting lasts more than four hours.
But, hey, I hear that they’re close to an illegal immigration vote in Congress!
LINKS
As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!
Bad Guys
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751673864524894408
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744577621319667964
https://twitter.com/i/status/1747837919312687268
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744180313876574264
https://twitter.com/tecas2000/status/1752757658161926364
https://twitter.com/TheWatcherDaily/status/1727684087245132251
https://twitter.com/tecas2000/status/1754194250638508470
https://twitter.com/i/status/1753461857124323462
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752897020560379985
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740256698781360200
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741324539265532308
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741890761845608774
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741106761984057418
https://twitter.com/ShootInUSA/status/1747178759730671934
Good Guys
https://news.yahoo.com/shootout-jewelry-store-oaklands-fruitvale-030731425.html
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1748054072215703703
One Guy
https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/controversy-at-etsu-over-kyle-rittenhouse-as-guest-speaker/
https://www.newsweek.com/kyle-rittenhouse-republican-gun-control-ar15-1866056
Body Count
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/soldiers-killed-jordan-names/
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/10/army-sees-sharp-decline-white-recruits.html
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/24/us-military-stretched-too-thin-to-deal-with-threats-report-says/
https://www.heritage.org/military
https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-longer-top-level-fighting-070000553.html
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1747835202985185509
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/blood-clots-embalmers-report-mid-2021-covid-vaccines/
https://studyfinds.org/childless-millennials-parents/
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1750650452105179630
Vote Count
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1691812817798566281
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presidential-election
https://indivisible.org/groups
Civil War
https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/p/greg-abbott-and-the-invasion-of-the
https://ijr.com/gen-flynn-constitution-literally-allows-texas-engage-war-southern-border/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12954689/Texas-independence-vote-court-ballot.html
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2023-12/dec-2023-cgvs-defending-democracy.pdf
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/americans-are-fighting-for-control
https://news.yahoo.com/endless-civil-war-americas-160-013209995.html
https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Famgreatness.com%2F2024%2F01%2F08%2Fa-culture-in-collapse%2F
https://indi.ca/why-civil-war-is-too-good-for-america/
https://off-guardian.org/2024/01/31/discuss-is-world-war-3-really-on-the-horizon/
“That’s good, because she’s a predator.” – Fight Club
I walked into a bar in 1987. The bartender said, “Hey, the party is in the back.”
I had started doing these more or less in order by year. It’s a retrospective, and it has nothing to do with box office – it’s me going through the movies of the year and picking the ones I like. They are in no order. One thing about these movies – 1987 seems to be a year when the videocassette was fully in bloom, and many of these movies had a much better life on VCR than they did at the local movie theater.
Again, these are in no particular order, but one thing struck me as I went through the list: this is the strongest list, by far, of any year I’ve done, with amazing, inventive time. Only two of the movies on this list are sequels: Evil Dead II, which was a remake; and House II (which was entirely different than the original House), and both were far more comedy than horror.
Movies were better then. Much better.
1987 might have been Peak Movie.
Outrageous Fortune: Yes, Bette Midler is annoying, but so is Shelley Long, and both are hilarious in this movie about actresses who get involved in a spy caper. This movie marks the movie regeneration of George Carlin, whose career had been sitting in a dumpster until this.
Mannequin: Kim Cattrall really can’t act. Andrew McCarthy’s main acting skill was his hair. It didn’t really matter in this amazingly stupid movie about a mannequin that comes to life only with Andrew McCarthy is alone with it. That’s it. Silly. Stupid. Cheap to make. And fun.
If your wife was a one-legged mannequin, could you stand her?
Lethal Weapon: Shane Black was the writer of this movie (more about him later) and it cost $15 million to make and hauled in $120 million before VHS revenues. It was the origin of buddy cop movies and was from the time when Gary Busey made money by acting, and not acting strange and before Mel discovered tequila. Helmets on motorcycles, kids. Helmets.
Evil Dead II: It’s not really a sequel, it’s a re-make of Evil Dead. The horror levels are fairly low, and the special effects are really quite good given the $75 budget they were working with. To describe this movie? Lovecraft meets the Three Stooges® and Bruce Campbell with a chainsaw hand.
Raising Arizona: The cover to this movie sucked, but I had seen nearly everything else in the video store, so I popped down my $2.00 to rent it (Be Kind, Rewind!) and cracked a cold one in front of the TV. Wow. I was not expecting that. The Coen Brothers did a great job making a comedy about kidnapping children through the eyes of a convenience store robber. By the end of the credits, I was hooked, and the last line made perfect sense. No studio would take a chance on a movie like this today, because it doesn’t make fun of families.
The Secret of My Success: A smart kid just pretends to be an executive and makes the company successful instead of doing the mailroom job they hired him for? Micheal J. Fox was born for this role. He was witty and quick, and Helen Slater was totes adorbs. Did the movie change my life? Yes. I used this idea to start working at a company without being hired and it resulted in a hostile takeover, but thankfully I got probation and can still own firearms.
I never asked A.I. to put in “East Asians” but I guess it decided that Chicago gangs in the 1930s were ruled by Fu Manchu?
The Untouchables: David Mamet’s first writing credit from this list, and Brian De Palma? Amazing work. The big bad guy was Capone, the good guy was Eliot Ness. Inexplicably, Sean Connery was tossed in, because he needed something to do because he wasn’t making Highlander. Historically accurate? Of course not. Wrap up the whole, big story in two hours? Yup, including baseball bat management techniques.
I just asked for ponies.
Predator: I was driving along on a cool night, when I decided to stop at a drive-in movie theater. Yeah, those existed once upon a time. The title of the movie looked sketchy, but Arnie was in it, so, maybe it wouldn’t suck. OH MY! It was one of those great times when I was shocked by how utterly perfect the movie was in every respect. Accurate? No. Perfect? Yes. From the opening credit to the nuclear explosion, it was a perfect movie. Shane Black, proving he’s a perfect human, didn’t write it, but played a one of Dutch’s guys. A perfect movie.
Spaceballs: A silly movie, but I saw it in 70mm, back when theaters used film. 70mm is probably not necessary for a Mel Brooks comedy, but, hey.
Oh, my, what sort of cannibalistic ritual did the A.I. plan for Kevin?
Adventures in Babysitting: Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first: I am no longer dating Elisabeth Shue. She’s much older than I am, and I decided the relationship would never work. Also, I hope to meet her one day. The director, Chris Columbus, didn’t have enough to do after discovering Hispaniola, so he decided to take up movies, with some small success in movies you may not have heard of, like this one and Home Alone.
If only the cop was Elvis.
RoboCop: Cop lives. Cop gets shot. GloboLeft ruins a city on purpose to get Power and Profits®. Cop gets reanimated into a robot. Cop falls in love. I’m having a hard time determining if this isn’t a documentary. Regardless, it stars Peter Weller, who got bored with acting and decided to become a college professor – RoboProf. Seriously, he’s a professor, and probably the second coolest academic on the planet.
Summer School: Nothing could make me not love this very stupid movie. Mark Harmon is a loser teacher who has to teach summer school to a group of loser kids. There’s a dog. Harmon falls in love with Kirstie Alley before she became the size of a refrigerator. Odd note: I have talked to a person who gave me first person testimony that Kirstie Alley was *at least* a decade older than official sources claim.
More accurate than you might guess.
No Way Out: Sean Young was really hot in this movie, so hot that the crazy might have been worth it. Kevin Costner continued his domination of 1987 with this second big movie of 1987. It was a great movie. Spoiler alert: You’d never guess that Will Patton was actually Godzilla®.
House II: The Second Story: As I said above, House and House II have zero in common except that both were covered by building codes. There is nothing at all logical about this movie, and it is about as scary as the Building Code Commission Agenda. It’s silly. It’s fun. It’s nothing that Hollywood would make today.
Amazon Women on the Moon: Another rental. I had no idea what I was in for. As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, late night television was great because 5th graders can’t get dates legally because they can’t drive. This is a very, very underrated movie. On a $5,000,000 budget, it produced a box of candy cigarettes and some shiny stones as revenue. Why? Gosh, manslaughter charges against the director (on another movie) for starters. Watch the part “Son of the Invisible Man” for amazing chuckles.
Now with 100% more PEZ®.
Real Men: John Belushi died, so the world left us with Jim. Jim? Not so bad in movies like this. Is it serious? NO! It’s a 1980s comedy with John Ritter.
The Princess Bride: An utter classic in every respect, as long as you can ignore that Rob Reiner and Mandy Patinkin (huge GloboLeftElite) were involved. It cost $16 million. Box office was $31 million. Cultural impact? Huge. Much bigger than that amount. I read the book (got it from those little book order things that they gave out at school) before the movie came out. We need more giants in film.
“As you wish . . . ” and I wish there was more Elvis.
House of Games: David Mamet’s second spot on the list. Mamet is actually (sort of?) on the TradRight now. Annnnnnyway . . . this movie is about conmen and con games. I saw this one on HBO® or Skinemax® and was surprised at the tight plotting and especially liked Joe Mantegna’s acting, even if his name is too long and has too many vowels.
Prince of Darkness: One of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trio. This movie involves alternate dimensions and the Ultimate Evil all rolled into one, complete with Susan the radiologist (glasses) and Alice Cooper. It is a horror movie, so if you don’t like those, it’s a skip. Carpenter at his best.
Arnold needs to pump some iron . . . looking like a girly man.
The Running Man: I thought this movie was pretty schlocky when I originally watched it back in the day. Sure, it was fun. Then I rewatched it with one of my boys and he said, “Dad, this movie is amazing! Why don’t they make them like this now?” Indeed.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: John Hughes, Steve Martin, and John Candy make THE Thanksgiving movie. ‘nuff said.
Overboard: Kurt Russell as a down-on-his-luck widowed carpenter who convinces amnesiac rich heiress Goldie Hawn that she needs to do the laundry and make the chicken tenders in order to reach mini-golf nirvana. Amazing.
How good was 1987? I skipped Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Why? It was a downer.
1987 was filled with riches compared to the corporate, soulless, paint-by-the-numbers stuff we see today. What movies do you love that I left out?
