Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: It’s All Planned

“Did everything go as planned?” – Pulp Fiction

I had some chips at midnight on Saturday.  It was a snackrifice.

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

Volume V, Issue 10

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.

I’m keeping the clock at two minutes to midnight, probably will roll back next month.

In this issue:  Front Matter – All Of This Is Planned – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Border In Five Memes – 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.

All Of This Is Planned

When I look at the road we’re on to Civil War 2.0, it has not gone unnoticed that the enemy creating this isn’t outside the United States.  As much as the GloboLeft likes to call out Russia, others see things perhaps a little more clearly.

Nayib Bukele is the president of El Salvador.  What has he done for them?  He’s broken the back of organized crime, by this one crazy tactic:  arresting criminals and putting them in jail and getting gender ideology “contrary to nature, contrary to God” out of El Salvador’s schools.  He has a 90% approval rating from El Salvadorans, so of course the GloboLeft hates him.

What is the response of the GloboLeft?  Isn’t it obvious?  First is the rotting the minds of youth.  The map above should be clear enough – it’s a symptom of a plan coming together.

Although this is from Canada, it’s very, very clear that the agenda is simple:  they want the kids.  It has long been the GloboLeft’s desire to use propaganda to get children at their most vulnerable and split them from their parents.

Things like this idea are created to humiliate people.  None of that can make a “more green” planet since the energy used in the process more than offsets any “benefits”.  No, this is humiliation and dehumanization.

Canada, again, has show the goal.  They want to stop making any new roads outside of cities.  Live in a rural area?  No roads for you.  And, last I checked, Canada has a lot more rural availability than most nations outside of Russia.

Now they’re even giving TED® talks about how literally any sort of degeneracy is a sacrament.

And the lawfare is continual.  The New York  Soros GloboLeft Attorney General, Letitia James, is on a a tear.  Donald Trump is just the most prominent of her use of the law to destroy people.  Another target besides the new one listed above?  VDARE.  VDARE is a fairly prominent anti-immigration website that Ms. James has hit with amazingly broad subpoenas and is costing them tens of thousands of dollars – even though they aren’t in New York.  You can read more about that here (LINK).

She’s also gone against the NRA, suing them.  The important question:  why would anyone want to do business in New York?

So, Nayib Bukele is right.  It’s all being taken apart from the inside.

Violence and Censorship Update

Several readers have reported to me (via email) that they were unsubscribed or that their subscriptions are filtered out as spam.  FYI.  Might it be random?  Sure.  It might.

I’ll (mostly) let the memes speak for themselves.  Foreign stories are included as they often foreshadow attempts in the United States.

I guess this one involves both censorship and violence?

This one is especially fun:  Canada has a bill that punishes hate crimes, which can be reported anonymously, and that do not require evidence with huge fines and up to life imprisonment.

Crabs reading?  Forbidden knowledge.

People reading?  That’s racist!

Looks like the plan is working.

I thought they loved science?

If only they could be sent home to Make Eritrea Great Again.

Yeah, that’s the history of the top Google® executive in charge of A.I.

Looks like the New York Times censors . . . food.

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again.  Why?  The GloboLeft are economic geniuses, right?

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 this is the new American Dream?

Illegal Aliens:

Highest January.  Ever.

Also, other people are noticing:

The Border, In Five Memes

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762833481682264080

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762297111381455043

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762568451581681721

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762225168645059071

https://twitter.com/i/status/1610431809334149120

https://twitter.com/i/status/1763481437372567971

https://twitter.com/i/status/1761129463218139238

https://twitter.com/i/status/17636130393229273

https://twitter.com/i/status/1760862306005590149

Good Guys

https://youtube.com/shorts/tQGuha2gpQw?si=kjoLNVF2y0qd7wdE

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1759109053630800211

https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-worker-fired-shoplifters-retail-theft-fight-problems-2024-2

https://www.wtoc.com/2023/07/24/woman-gets-job-back-lowes-after-being-attacked-while-trying-stop-shoplifting/

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article285835356.html

One Guy

https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/02/28/louisiana-expands-gun-rights-for-self-defense-against-criminals-with-concealed-carry-bill/72765215007/

https://www.wowt.com/2024/02/09/nebraska-legislators-consider-bill-alter-self-defense-laws/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/2894180/arizonas-commonsense-self-defense-bill/

https://www.oxygen.com/kill-or-be-killed/crime-news/how-to-watch-kill-or-be-killed-an-oxygen-true-crime-series

Body Count

https://twitter.com/MakisMD/status/1754830517986566210

https://thehighwire.com/editorial/why-are-young-adults-having-more-heart-attacks-the-level-of-denial-is-stunning/

https://newsone.com/playlist/black-men-boys-who-were-killed-by-police/item/5

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2024-02-13_11-38-28.png

https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PRRI-Jan-2024-Gen-Z-Draft.pdf

https://twitter.com/noble_x_x_/status/1758149565251784710

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68244963

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-81749d7c-d0a0-48d0-bb11-eaab6f1e6556

Vote Count

https://twitter.com/eyeslasho/status/1757461240421449806

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1759305508584882680

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevada-identifies-voter-history-errors-on-website-fixes-underway-3003358/

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/02/11/data-specialist-presses-georgia-look-voters-cast-ballots-wrong-jurisdictions/

https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/08/exclusive-see-the-grave-markers-of-long-dead-residents-listed-on-michigans-voter-rolls/

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/elon-musk-is-right-and-the-ny-times-is-wrong-about-illegal-voting-by-non-citizens

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2023-review

https://heartland.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Feb-24-2020-Election-Analysis-vWeb_Final.pdf

Civil War

https://uproxx.com/movies/civil-war-alex-garland-details-february-2024-update/

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/02/could-united-states-be-headed-national-divorce

https://www.themirror.com/news/politics/cpac-donald-trump-voters-warn-355149

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/texas-is-spoiling-for-a-civil-war/

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kristi-noem-war-texas-border-standoff-1234960568/

https://www.wired.com/story/russia-disinformation-campaign-civil-war-texas-border/

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2024/01/27/the_geopolitics_of_world_war_iii_1007840.html

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/comes-thermidor/

About Last Week

“I’d better call my housekeeper.” – Independence Day

The Mafia just started a new online banking system:  PayUpPal®.

So, this will be just a general housekeeping sort of post, and it will be shorter than usual.  I do try to make these posts mainly not about “me”.  I’m fairly uninteresting, but if I have a funny thing that happened to me, well, I’ll share it.  Mostly, I like to write about ideas and their implications and how they combine to create and change the world we live in, so writing about me is far less interesting than that.

Monday, normal stuff will be back, with the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report.

First, thank you (sincerely!) for all the well wishing in the past week.

I almost fell down one at night – I couldn’t see that well.

Second, I’d like to stress that, in every sense, the last week that I took off from blogging was really one of the best weeks of my life – not the “not blogging” part, but the “finishing the project” part.  I really like writing the blog because it helps me work out questions that I have.  I sometimes return to the same topics as my understanding increases, or sometimes just because I think I’ve found a better way to get my point across.  The Mrs. says, “Just take off your hat and everyone will see your point,” but I still keep writing.

And to the point of “blogging or not” I only promised to keep writing (about four years ago, I think) until the end of March 2024.  I’m going to keep going.  I found that during the week-long hiatus, I was always thinking about how to fit something I read or heard or talked about with The Mrs. into a post.

The result was, when I got back to writing, that it felt like a hand going back into a well-worn baseball mitt, one that’s perfectly broken in that snaps shut around a fly ball, where your fingers fit into the nooks and crannies they made over the years.  It felt like I was doing what I needed to be doing.  In that, the vacation was instructive – the desire to write is still there and won’t be turned off casually.  I mean, unless there’s a lot of PEZ® and cigars.  I can be bribed.

I came in second place in a Fidel Castro lookalike competition.  Close, but no cigar.

That’s good, because putting out 3500 plus words a week on multiple topics with a minimum of 18 memes a week, well, that takes some time. Sometimes, the topic is easy and “closes” well, like Monday’s.  Sometimes, it’s harder, and I have to fight to get the paragraphs together in a good sequence.

Oddly, some of the ones that I thought were my best stuff got a “meh” reaction and some of the ones I thought, “well, at least it’s finished” have gotten the strongest positive reactions.  That actually doesn’t bother me, because the results are in your hands.  I mean, if the person who got the idea judged it, communism would have been rated top notch.

Just goes to prove what grandma always said, “If you’re having trouble writing a blog post, the secret is just to put a nearly naked hot chick in a bikini in a meme or make a fart joke.”

My first high school girlfriend was like a super spicy burrito.  It hurt when she left me.

That being said, writing takes time.  It takes less time as I work harder to get better, but it still takes time.  In the best-case week, it’s still more than a dozen hours.  Add in the other stuff I have to do, and I often skip sleep to finish a post.  But less so recently, since I’ve found a way to use some otherwise non-productive time to shift a large chunk of the writing to time I used to waste.  So, overall, less missed sleep most weeks in 2024.

Third, I’d love to tell you more about the project I finished!

But I can’t, at least not right now because I haven’t figured out how to write it up in the right way.  Again: it was all positive, and everyone is healthy, all relationships are intact and strong, and exactly zero bad things happened.

The things I learned, of course, will ultimately make it into the blog.

Do British people call monkeys who share an Amazon™ subscription “prime mates”?

Fourth, to be clear:  despite all of the gloomy stuff I write, I am exceedingly positive about the ultimate outcome.

Of everything.

I do not pretend to know that path that, ultimately, will lead to victory.  But I do know that the true, beautiful, and good are very, very powerful and rarely lose for long.  The true, beautiful, and good exist today.  They will exist tomorrow.

Horrible things will happen, have happened – things we don’t, can’t understand.  I wish I could explain them all.

I can’t.

That is above my ability and is in His hands.  But I promise everyone reading this that He does exist because I’ve seen too much in my own life to believe anything else.  Norman Vincent Peale, who I believe was the lead singer of Mötley Crüe, once said, when asked about the afterlife gave an amazing analogy:  imagine a child in the womb.  Unbothered.  Moisturized.  Happy.  In their lane.  Focused.  Flourishing.  Then the pain hits, the squeezing, and the light, so bright, the air – for the first time air hitting my lungs, and who let that cat in here?

This movie is why I’m married now.

I can scientifically show, six ways from Sunday, that there is no way that you are randomly here in this place and time.  None of this is an accident, and there is a purpose, a much deeper purpose.  I didn’t write your part of the script, so I don’t know your part, but I do know:

We all play a part in it.  Our part.  And I believe yours is probably more important than mine, so what are you going to do with it?

Me?  I’m just lucky I get to write for the greatest audience in the world.

You.  That way I get to take partial credit for the great stuff you’re going to do.

Okay, post about me is over.  No homework for the weekend, enjoy yourselves, kids.  Wait for the bell!

See you back here again on Monday.

Kardashians And The Cult Of Growth

“A future of economic growth, freedom, and happiness.” – Robocop

I had a hen who wanted to study economics.  She was something of a mathemachicken.

“The economy grew at an annualized rate of 4.9% in the third quarter of 2023.”

And my response:  so what?

There is a Cult of Growth in the world.  In the United States, at least, that growth was literally in the DNA of the young country – there was lots of space and it was only filled with some pesky Indians who didn’t have a lot of resistance to smallpox or lead, some buffalo, no zoning, and lots of empty land to build Blockbuster Video® stores.

So, off my ancestors went.  The idea was simple – fill the country from sea to sea with farms and businesses, eventually mines and mills and railroads and factories and highways.  No one really planned it, and there weren’t economists reporting on unemployment figures to Rutherford B. Hayes.

What does the “B” stand for?  Babebandit.

The growth that the United States experienced was amazing, and it was real.  People built those farms and businesses and mines and railroads and factories and highways.  That sort of growth allowed the creation of amazing wealth and prosperity because it was enduring and built upon itself.  In those decades of growth, the United States experienced not diminishing returns but increasing returns as the steel mills fed the oil boom which fed the creation of the automotive industry and interstates.

Add in a few thousand nuclear weapons, and this growth of actual productivity and wealth production allowed the country to achieve tremendous national prosperity during a time of relative safety.  Some would maintain that this prosperity peaked in 1973, but when you look at the relative availability of exceedingly cheap “stuff” – it was probably later than that.  Perhaps a good case could be made for the 1980s when Blockbuster Videos™ roamed the land like a great majestic beast, spewing properly rewound videotapes and Raisinets® to all.

Regardless of when that exact date is, it is likely past.

Your momma is so old she rewinds Netflix® videos before logging off.

What was once achievable on a single income now requires (in many cases) two incomes.  People of the past always thought that new labor-saving devices would accrue benefits to the worker, and we’d see a two- or three-day work week.  Instead, we see people working more hours for less (relative) pay.

Why is that?  I mean, the economy grew, right?

Yes, it did.  But the way the economy grew, fueled by illegal aliens contributed to lower wages.  The argument could be made that that the economic activity, the growth from these added workers helped everyone.  Well, no.  Illegals are certainly a net negative when everything is accounted for – welfare, roads, schools, medical care, voting GloboLeft, and Kardashian body hair.

I think she’s got so much plastic in her that if she swims it’s technically littering.

And the “growth” that we saw in many cases was the productive bit of the economy being hollowed out and shipped off overseas.  Why?  Because regulation increased in the United States (it never goes down) and it was easier to start and run a factory in Malasia than it is in Maine.  And if iMegaCorp® can ship the factory over and increase corporate profits by 2%, they’ll do it.

Why?  They’re owned by the people who make bad growth.

What’s bad growth?  Well, the financial sector.  It should be set up not as a casino or a place where the businesses make money selling money.

Growth is not always good.  And it’s not always desirable.  Let’s take an example:  if I decided I wanted to gain a pound of weight next week, the healthy way to do it would be to put on a pound of muscle through exercise.  But the easy way to put on a pound would be to pound some beers and milk shakes.

I believe her pronouns are HerShey.

The United States could do the same – we could increase the size of the economy by producing more and better cars or computers or flat panel displays, or bulldozers.  Or, we could increase the size of the economy by ChaseCitiFargo™ charging extra fees on overdrafts and GoldmanBlackRock© buying a company, loading it up with debt that it can’t pay, and then selling it piecemeal for a 15% profit.

One of these makes a more productive society.  The other is the equivalent of two people selling a house back and forth for 10% more each time and talking about all the wealth that they created.

So, not all growth is good, and not all increased profit is increased wealth.  One economy can make stuff, the other just makes magical made-up profits.  I’ve made the argument for some time that China’s economy is fine.  It is.  They know how to make stuff, so they are fundamentally more stable than the United States because the growth in China wasn’t in financial shenanigans, it was in productive stuff.

Did you know it’s illegal to water your plants in China?  It causes the microphones to rust.

Does China have all sorts of debt?  Yes, yes they do.  Have they produced a lot of suspect crap in the past, especially for internal consumption?  Yes, yes they have, and probably still do.  Doesn’t matter.

Their economy isn’t based on “growth” that occurs only on paper, and only due to paper even though people smoke in China to get fresh air.

They don’t worship the Cult of Growth.

Do I want to live there?  Nope.

Again, there’s good news – this system can’t last, so it won’t.

The ride, however may be bumpy . . . as we get to rebuild it – on healthy growth this time.

Feminism: The God That Destroys

“Bullhorns are a core principle of eco-feminism.” – Futurama

Why are the books on Dwarf Rights on the top shelf?

The GloboLeftist use of power can be objectively observed to be feminine.  To put it bluntly, GloboLeftism is feminism.  One way this is especially apparent is the tactics that the GloboLeft uses – it uses the tactics of gossip, the swarm, and ostracization of those that it deems unworthy.

If you look carefully at how the GloboLeft attacks, it follows that pattern.  Gossip against an enemy, a swarm against that enemy, and finally the ostracization of that enemy.  With men, the way to solve a problem is simple – get up, get a hammer (or other appropriate tool, like a much bigger hammer) and solve the problem.  Or fail.

If necessary, and the problem is big enough, get a friend.  If that’s not enough, go build better tools and recruit more friends.  Or a brigade.  Or tanks.  Or an army.  Or take this newfangled flight and build jet engines to fight at the speed of sound and play with the fundamental forces of nature to create a miniature star to cause your problems to evaporate.

Simple.  Okay, not simple sometimes.  But it is direct.  This is how men historically kept other men (and other tribes) in line, just various sizes of hammers.

I hope that joke didn’t catch anyone by surprise – I don’t want to be convicted of involuntary man’s laughter.

Women, however, use the gossip/swarm/ostracize technique naturally to keep the group members of other women in line.  I’ve seen it.  When women are together in a group and they split away from the main group, they begin the gossip to keep other members in line or to pull them down.

When a big enough transgression occurs, they swarm against the offender.  Then they kick them out of the group.  In smaller tribal groups this behavior was probably entirely necessary to keep the peace.  Many of the historical tribal punishments were directed not at adulterous men, but adulterous women.

Why?  Men have the key, and women have to have the lock otherwise the fighting and killing start.  Also of note, is that in every point in history up until the modern society, women depended on men for their power – so women had to rule over women to keep the worst female impulses down.

What do you call a letter from a feminist?  Hate male.

Back in the day, the worst case for a woman was to be shunned and shamed and denied resources.  Being denied resources meant (in many cases) death for the woman, and her children if she had them.  This is the core feminine fear, and is the basis for society today.

This was why, of all the crazy things developed by the commies, that feminism was the worst, because it preys upon a core fear.  The result is that feminists have done everything that they can possibly figure out to remove any consequences for their action as feminism took hold.  Examples?

  • Abortion made the defining hallmark of real femininity, having kids, an option.
  • No-fault divorce was next – having an affair no longer meant that a woman was liable in court for her actions – now divorce could happen just because she was tired. But that wasn’t enough – women needed cash and prizes for leaving the marriage:
  • Community property and child support followed. That was fine for high-status females.  But what about poor females?
  • Well, for them we need welfare and Aid For Dependent Children so they can have as much irresponsible and unprotected sex as they like.
  • I’m generally not in favor of slugging women, but domestic violence laws have made men guilty until proven innocent, with many jurisdictions requiring an arrest if the police are called out for domestic violence. But even that isn’t enough:
  • Making fun of Lizzo because she’s the size of a school bus is now “fat-shaming”. And making fun of a woman who had sex with all of Wyoming is now wrong and called “slut-shaming”.

All of these are intended to insulate a woman from the consequences of her actions and choices.  No society on Earth can afford this for long, because the consequences of insulation of consequences are what we see around us.

  • Rampant criminality because removing consequences should apply to everyone, up until they commit murder.
  • Declining birthrate as women avoid having children and having families until they’re at the point that having more than one or two for them is impossible.
  • Lower than optimal family formation is happening because women are skipping the family to become the drunk wine aunt that makes PowerPoints® for a living but can’t get a “good” man to commit.
  • Lower than optimal family stability, since there are no consequences, women can monkey branch from one man to another and this be accepted.
  • Sentimentality as a basis for public policy rather than rationality – i.e., illegals are viewed as individuals in pain rather than a contagion that will turn the Untied (it was a typo that I thought I’d leave) States into the average of Venezuela, Eritrea, Cambodia, and the Congo.
  • Degeneration as all consequences for anything sexual are removed as sex becomes the new sacrament for the feminist religion – note that in any argument with a member of the GloboLeft® they’ll soon drop a sexual insult.

Name something that goes better together than “Wilder” and “procrastination”.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

Oddly, feminism does the opposite of what it says on the label – it either turns women into cut-rate men, making them unhappy tramps who “settled” but still thinks she deserves a Chad because she slept with fifty Chads.  Conversely, it deprives them of family, making them unhappy drunk wine aunts by having them chase a career so they could be complete women that don’t need no man.  In fact, keeping women unhappy is better for the GloboLeftElite because it keeps women dependent on feminist ideology and makes them defend it all the more.

Go figure.

What African country do neckbeards hate the most?  Chad.

The reason this all was available was because we have amazingly abundant resources and could pay for it out of the spare change that we had from printing money.

The good news is that this can’t last.

To be clear:  I really like women.  And I know that women are different than men.  I know that this might be heresy at places like Harvard™, but it’s true.  Women add to society, but when they’re in unmitigated charge of society, it just creates a big mess like the one we’re seeing now.  The future needs women, acting like women, in families, making children that are worthy of being called men and women, which can only be made by the atom of society – the family.

The future won’t be the feminism of the GloboLeft – it’s a cancer.  And the methods that it uses gossip/swarm/ostracize aren’t ways of solving the problems that we have right now as the resources of the eternal summer end – that’s when the only real solution is the solution of men – get a tool and fix it.  The only real question is what form that solution will take.

Will it take a miniature star to fix it?

What did fatman say to little boy?  “Nuke, I am your father.”

Finishing A Project

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.

Be Bold. Life Is Too Short For Anything Else.

“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.”

The Funniest Post You’ll Ever Read About Bank Failures And Yachts

“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.