“Whenever Corey and Trevor go out with Ricky and Julian, what happens? They come home crying. Dehydrated. Mysterious wounds. They won’t tell me what happened because they’re scared to death of those guys.” – Trailer Park Boys
And people say I have a dry sense of humor.
I remember hearing about dehydrated water as a kid – probably the first time was a joke from my science teacher in 7th grade. He also told us (I’m not making this up) drinking stories. He taught us that if you go out drinking when you have just donated blood, you get drunker faster. Who says that middle school science doesn’t teach important life lessons?
But the idea of dehydrated water as a product still got filed away somewhere in the six million neurons I have that are dedicated to 7th grade science. It’s filed somewhere between “don’t stare at the Sun directly through the telescope again Wilder” and “mercuric oxide might look like cinnamon, but it’s not as tasty.” And dehydrated water popped into my mind as I was preparing to write this post today.
Why?
The economy of the United States is dehydrated water at this point. The unemployment rate from Shadow Stats® is somewhere around 35%. Even the Department of Labor thinks the number of people that are unemployed is somewhere north of 20%. Heck, I heard a guy was upset about losing his job at McDonalds™ even though he worked for a clown.
The head of Old McDonalds® Farm is the CIEIO.
As I first predicted when the WuFlu was just coming over the horizon and the first lockdown hit, this is devastating to the economy. The difference between 2% growth year over year and -2% growth is enough to cause Washington D.C. to be as uncomfortable as a Joe Biden voter when Joe starts talking about how he thinks that JFK has the plan to save us from the Spanish flu.
I was not surprised by the quick action money shower from the .GOV folks. What did surprise me is that they used the occasion to juice the economy also by giving money to working people rather than just bailing out banks. Many people on unemployment are actually making more money on unemployment than they made when working, thanks to the extra $600 a week the .GOV folks are adding to their unemployment insurance check. Some could be making up to $50,000 a year. For not working. But Congress makes $174,000 a year for not working, so there’s still room for career growth!
But the .GOV isn’t just juicing the average unemployed worker. As noted in a previous post, the Federal Reserve Bank™ is engaged in “plunge protection” where money is strategically pumped into the stock market to keep it from crashing. That’s generally accepted. But now? The Federal Reserve© has been, for the first time in history, buying corporate bonds.
Bonds are really just loans. A company, say, Apple® decides it wants have more slave labor camps factories built in China. So, it calls up the Chinese partner, and says that it will pay. But since the cushions in Steve Jobs’ couch have been raided for quarters already, they decide to borrow money. You or I would have to go ask someone to borrow money from them. But Apple™ sells their debt in the form of bonds, or promises to pay the borrowed money back, plus interest.
When James Bond was offered a sandwich, he had a choice of ham or turkey. Of course he chose bacon, not bird.
Normally, Apple© would sell those bonds to places like pension funds and 401k’s. But in 2020, the Federal Reserve™ buys them. Yes. One of the most profitable companies in the world gets its debt purchased by the Fed®.
Why?
The stock market needs to be propped up, and so does the bond market. And after hundreds of millions of loan payments haven’t been made. Which of those loans are good? Where is the cash to pay the lender coming from? No one knows. No one wants to take a risk. Money is like me on a vacation day, it just sits there.
Markets are freezing up because the money isn’t moving, because the economy is freezing up. What the Fed® is doing is artificially injecting money into the market because the market has ceased to work. It’s like my can of dehydrated water – there’s really nothing in it. The joke is that you can add a gallon of water to the contents of the dehydrated water can to make a gallon of water.
The Fed® is adding billions of dollars to an empty economy and pretending that nothing’s wrong, that they didn’t just make an economy out of nothing. “Hey, instant economy. Just add money.”
Planes are different than an economy. Planes only crash once.
My prediction is that the extra $600 a week won’t go away, unless Congress wants the economy to crater even more before the election in November. Why? Since giving away money to people and companies that haven’t earned it is literally the thing Congress loves most in the whole world, I think they will. And I think they’ll ultimately manage to extend it. Probably for at least 100 weeks.
We’ve borrowed more in the first quarter than we spent in 2011. What’s a few more zeros on the national deficit?
But when I wrote that first post about the crash, I was (more or less) assuming we’d be done with the economic mess associated with COVID-Forever no later than July. I thought that people would, as much as possible, not go licking all the doorknobs that they see and the disease would run out of people to infect. Yay, normal summer. And given that, I still predicted at least five years to recover, but more likely a decade.
Nope. States are re-locking down right now. States that never experienced the devastating deaths caused by the nursing-home stuffing Governor Cuomo set up in New York are seeing cases rise.
>Uh-oh.jpg
When large segments of the economy simply disappear, you can’t simply replace them with money. In the end, money has real purposes in the economy:
- Money provides incentives for good behavior, like starting successful companies and saving. Blowing it all on Three Stooges® videos from Amazon™ is probably not the best investment strategy I ever had.
- Money provides an allocation of resources throughout the economy without central planning – it’s a way to allocate the productive energy of the economy without a team of Central Politbureau Commissars picking and choosing winners and losers. Congress hates How can you get votes if you don’t mismanage the economy?
- Money provides ways for people to trade for “stuff” without bartering. I could trade your (for example) a vast quantity of Beanie Babies® for a pickup truck. But then you’d be stuck with all of those Beanie Babies™ and have to trade them for the goat milk and pantyhose that you really need. Unless you can milk Beanie Babies© and then use their skins for leggings?
She was upset when the prices crashed. I tried to tell her she’s not worthless – her kidneys are worth a lot on the black market.
But money isn’t the economy – money only has value if everyone believe in it. You can’t just give everyone money and expect that good things will happen. At some point, people need to make things. And people need to believe that money has value.
You can’t grow plants with Brawndo©, you can’t fight crime with a macaroni duck, and you can’t rehydrate an economy with money.
But the Fed© is trying to do that. Not grow plants with Brawndo®. But make an economy work by sprinkling money on it.
The next phase of our economic crash, however, is default. Unless the Fed© keeps rehydrating, eventually people will stop paying back money – it will be a Cashpocalypse – borrowers won’t have money, and lenders won’t get paid. But that’s okay, we can simply have the Fed™ just shower the money onto both of them?
The French, of course, had to jump on the Cargo Cult bandwagon, so they called it “Special Cargo Cult”, or S-Cargo for short.
In the 1940s, massive amounts of men and material flowed into the South Pacific so that we could beat the Japanese back from Australia so it could be handed over to the Chinese in the 21st century. Several cults known collectively as “Cargo Cults” formed. One speaks about their deity, John Frum, or, as I prefer to think of it, John From Wilder’s house. (Seriously, they think the name of John Frum came from “John from America”.)
The idea behind these Cargo Cults was that if the natives built symbolic airstrips and symbolic airplanes out of bamboo (or whatever they had) then the flow of cargo that the American and British armed forces brought in would resume. Then? Perfect prosperity. Hurray!
The Fed™ has become infected with the idea that the economy can be summoned. That’s the definition of a Cargo Cult.
Sadly, I have bad news. It won’t work. It can’t work.
You can’t make an economy by rehydrating it with money. But you can regress an economy. And you can destroy the belief in the money you’re flooding the system with.
Just because it’s gone exactly the way I’ve thought it would and told you it would, don’t mind me. In all seriousness, I could be wrong.
But I could be right. What then?
Have some water on hand?
Came for bikini.
Am dissapoint.
Monday. At least four.
We have problems mentally grasping just how desperate the current situation is.
Shadowstat says unemployment is at 35%? It’s worse. Try 47.2%.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/close-to-half-of-all-working-age-adults-in-the-united-states-do-not-have-a-job-right-now
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/06/11/USAT/71f0c329-fc9a-42c3-a8ba-335d54cfa54b-061120-Jobless-ONLINE.png
COVID-19 getting under control? 2.6 million confirmed US cases in the last 90 days only means the remaining 325 million Americans are yet to be infected, and probably soon – what, you think the infections are just suddenly going to stop because we all got tired of staying indoors watching Netflix? The operative word is “when”, not “if”. We ain’t even at the 1% level yet of what is going to happen on COVID impact to our citizens.
The national conversation has not even said a word yet about how much all this COVID-19 medical care is costing. The American health care system is being systematically destroyed. We are gonna remember Obamacare oh-so-fondly in 2021. Whatever Medicare-For-All wacko payment scheme Washington finally implements to cover the COVID-19 health care wreckage is not gonna be pretty.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-coronavirus-is-devastating-us-hospitals-which-will-lose-200-billion-in-revenue-by-the-end-of-june-2020-06-11
Meanwhile, the guns keep coming out. The latest BLM incident is in Provo, Utah –
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1278001442620489729
which according to the US Census, os exactly 0.8% black…
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/provocityutah
And to top it all off, they’re wanting to make Captain Kirk of Star Trek bisexual. Madness, I say, madness. Sigh.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/15/star-trek-captain-james-kirk-bisexual-strange-new-worlds-discovery-daniel-richtman-cbs/
We have problems mentally grasping just how desperate the current situation is.
Shadowstat says unemployment is at 35%? It’s worse, depending on how you define “unemployment”. Try 47.2%.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/close-to-half-of-all-working-age-adults-in-the-united-states-do-not-have-a-job-right-now
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/06/11/USAT/71f0c329-fc9a-42c3-a8ba-335d54cfa54b-061120-Jobless-ONLINE.png
COVID-19 getting under control? 2.6 million confirmed US cases in the last 90 days only means the remaining 325 million Americans are yet to be infected, and probably soon – what, you think the infections are just suddenly going to stop because we all got tired of staying indoors watching Netflix? The operative word is “when”, not “if”. We ain’t even at the 1% level yet of what is going to happen on COVID impact to our citizens.
The national conversation has not even said a word yet about how much all this COVID-19 medical care is costing. The American health care system is being systematically destroyed. We are gonna remember Obamacare oh-so-fondly in 2021. Whatever Medicare-For-All wacko payment scheme Washington finally implements to cover the COVID-19 health care wreckage is not gonna be pretty.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-coronavirus-is-devastating-us-hospitals-which-will-lose-200-billion-in-revenue-by-the-end-of-june-2020-06-11
Meanwhile, the guns keep coming out. The latest Black Lives Matter incident is in Provo, Utah…
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1278001442620489729
…which according to the US Census, is exactly 0.8% black…
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/provocityutah
And worst of all, John talked about the economy with no bikini graphs. At least I can do something about THAT:
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/style/story/designer-launches-trikini-beachwear-design-complete-matching-bikini-70657609
Trikini! Ha!
Saw an older lady driving, by herself, in a car.
Wearing a mask. I guess her Buick won’t catch it?
My son and I went out to our long-time family barber for our first haircuts in about three months. We had to make an appointment and cover our faces, and the barber had to keep hers covered, too. I mentioned that we might have stayed away longer, but thought that if we did, we might get locked out again (even though all of the trends are good here in urban Maryland). She said that if we had to lock down again, she’d go out of business. I told her to ask the landlord: “If you throw me out, who’s going to take my place? If I can’t keep going here, with 30+ years in a good location, what makes you think that anyone else can afford to pay your rent?” As we left, I paid her for the haircuts, and for the three cuts that we missed during the shutdown (so, a 130% tip). As I explained “I still got paid, and saved money by not commuting. Why shouldn’t you get paid?”
If you can, support small local businesses. (I pay $5/dozen for eggs from a local farmer, and return the empty cartons for refill; they cost $0.20 to $1 each, depending on package size).) In the back of my mind, I’m hoping that my long-time relationship might evolve into a ‘will work for food’ deal if the MHTS (manure hits the spreader).) But we never did spend much at restaurants, and we’re not going to start now.
I’ve been out hand-pollinating my butternut squash this morning. If I had to push the bees out of the way to do so, I wouldn’t bother, but I haven’t seen any working the squash yet. Butternut squash is one of the most storable home-grown foods I know of. I’ve kept one for over a year (in a cool basement) and still judged it “edible”. The seeds can be saved for planting in future years, too. Beets and carrots can also be “stored” in the ground where they grew, but only through one winter. In spring, they’ll use that stored energy to put up flowers and seeds, and the roots are then not worth eating. Kale can be harvested through the winter, here. (The theme for today is: how are we going to Feed our Family during the Future Financial Foul-up?)
I worry about food a lot, too.
I like butternut squash. An average one is maybe three pounds. That’s right at 1400 grams, and so will have around 630 calories, mostly carbs.
https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Squash%2C_raw%2C_butternut%2C_winter_nutritional_value.html
The average man burns 2000 calories per day, which is 730,000 calories per year. About the same amount of calories as in 1200 or so butternut squash. Hope you have a big root cellar.
In comparison, $150 will buy you the same number of man-year carbohydrate calories in the form of seventeen 25-pound sacks of granulated sugar at Wal-Mart for $8.88 each. Fat / protein calories are around ten times more expensive – if you do the math, you need around $1625 worth of Spam to keep a man alive for a year. Get it while you, er, can.
FYI, the average EBT benefit is around $250 per month or $3000 per year. Not that a plastic EBT card will buy much in the grocery area of a burned out and looted Wal-Mart or Target…
So, you’re saying that I need to eat about three whole squash per day? (1200/365) With or without the seeds?
Butternut squash has vitamins and minerals that such classic storable foods as pasta, beans, rice, and sugar do not. The durability of wheat (and similar grains) may have been crucial to the development of civilization: that which can be stored can be taxed-in-kind and gathered from elsewhere in the Empire. A sensible pantry has a variety of foods for balanced nutrition which keeps your team healthy while the competition struggles with rickets and scurvy. Also, you might buy enough sugar to last X months, but if you can’t buy more, you probably can’t produce any yourself.
I try to tip very well when we go out to eat. Those people are getting the short end of it right now, too.
We are in a tough situation . . .
Which is a natural segue into this interesting article I read recently…
https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-russian-scientists-that-starved-to-death-in-a-room-full-of-food-925efac4f2d
Great link! Didn’t know the Putin/Leningrad story, either.
I hope ya’ll enjoy your pallet and tar paper shack when the balloon goes up… I wonder how many shovels and hoes have been bought lately? You can grow food if you dig…
It will be a time of chaos. Nothing can be taken for granted.
It takes more than digging to grow food. Obviously, you need crop seeds, which were in short supply this Spring. (I grew most of my garden from saved seed.) You need good soil, which can take years to develop. My home was built on a former gravel and sand mine (open pit), so after they were done building, they scattered a little topsoil, a little grass seed, and called it good. When it’s dry, I can balance my whole weight on the point of a shovel that penetrates no more than an inch. But when it’s damp (after I loosen it with a pick), I can sift out the stones and blend in compost, and herbs and veges are growing well in those well-worked plots. (Not only that, but I’ve partially paved a bike trail with the stones left over after I landscaped the foundation of my house.)
And you need water, and sunshine. Sunshine might seem too obvious, but houses and trees throw shadows. And, finally, you need a way to protect your crops against hungry animals.
Duh… Are you Captain Obvious in another persona?
We are in a real predicament aren’t we?
The balance sheets in the quarterly / annual reports reflect the trivially printed currency unit valuations, they usually don’t reflect the real underlying assets, their condition or capabilities.
Making ourselves slaves through increasing debt bondage trivially generated by the Federal Reserve at really low interest rates doesn’t really seem like the way to live our lives.
I think we need to individually evaluate our own capabilities and see how they match against the biggest problems we face.
The most pressing problem seems to be the leftist insurgency, with the economy coming in at a close second, followed by SARS-2, and normal life is in there somewhere. Ah, there it is, priority #4.
And as companies face tough times, they often “burn the furniture” by not investing in maintenance and capital improvements. We’re building a bow-wave of problems throughout the economy . . .
[Trigger warning! This post refers to “slaves”, but in a context which does not include the enslavement of African people in North America. That’s not what it’s about at all. Really.]
“Making ourselves slaves…” might be an improvement, compared to the more likely outcome of starving alone in poverty. In the Bible, Genesis, the people of Israel (some of them) migrated to Egypt to avoid a famine. While there, they gradually sold off their flocks and property, and eventually themselves, and they survived (as an oppressed people for who knows how many generations) until Moses led them back into Palestine.
“Making ourselves slaves…” assumes that, somewhere, there are resources to be tapped, but they’re controlled by folks that aren’t us. When there are just too many mouths for the resources, there’s no reason to hire (or enslave).
The stock market is a holographic image of an economy. It’s not real. The idea that you can nuke millions of businesses simultaneously, digitally print some bandages and all will be well is a dangerous delusion. Stop following coke addled psychopathic pedophile “officials” take your face tampon off and live! This op was a psy op to end all psy ops. Your mask is like wearing a chain link fence hoping to stop a gnat and therefore it’s purpose is to judge sheep from sheep dogs. Do not comply now or ever. You are free! You will need to fight to stay that way so if you can’t pull your maxi pad off your face how the fck do you expect to stay free? Follow the arrows….they lead to the long cattle fence…..stay six feet apart……..the arrows lead down the chute………
Around here, zero masks in evidence on July 4 at the fireworks.
Stay out of cities.