President-Elect Joe Biden – as declared by the corporate media – is picking his cabinet even though he hasn’t officially been elected president yet.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that Joe Biden actually takes office on January 20, 2021. Let’s also assume that he officially nominates Janet Yellen as the next Treasury Secretary as he has indicated. Let’s also assume that she is confirmed by the Senate.

Janet Yellen would become the first female Treasury Secretary.  She wouldn’t be the first Keynesian though.

Yellen already has the distinction of being the first female chair of the Federal Reserve.  She was nominated by Obama and was in that position from 2014 to 2018.

Yellen is known as an inflation dove.  In other words, she is more than happy to see the central bank create more money out of thin air to pay for things that politicians and taxpayers are not willing to pay for directly through tax collections.

However, when you look at Yellen’s record as Fed chair, she had the tightest monetary policy of any Fed chair since Paul Volcker if you use the Fed’s balance sheet as the measure.

The Fed’s target federal funds rate was already near zero when Yellen entered office, and while it stayed low, she did start the process of raising it.  Yellen oversaw the winding down of the last round of quantitative easing (QE 3) from the 2008 financial crisis.  For her remaining time in office, the base money supply was tight or perhaps even slightly deflationary.  In other words, her actions didn’t fit with her reputation.

It is important to acknowledge that there were also no economic or financial crises that occurred on her watch.  If she had been Fed chair in late 2008 or in March 2020, then I’m sure the story would be different.

What does this tell you?  It tells you that Yellen is going to go along with whatever the establishment is doing.  She will be accommodative when accommodation is necessary.

Yellen is an intelligent person despite being a Keynesian in economics.  She has some practice taking questions as Fed chair.  She is fairly well spoken.  In this sense, it makes her somewhat dangerous.

However, I also believe that libertarians and conservatives should not overplay their hands in criticizing Yellen.  Despite some rhetoric in her distant past, she is rather conventional. She isn’t going to be enacting the policies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unless that is the way the general establishment is headed.

Yellen is not an outright socialist.  She isn’t even Bernie Sanders.  She understands some economics, even if some of it is wrong.  She also gets some things right.  I think she understands that the Fed can’t just create money with total recklessness without there being some bad consequences.  Just the same, she understands that the federal government can’t run multi-trillion dollar deficits forever without there being bad consequences.

I was a little bit surprised at Biden picking Yellen for this position.  But it isn’t earth-shattering news because Yellen is going to oversee the Treasury department similarly to some other establishment Keynesian.

It’s certainly not good news, but it also isn’t horrible.  You can already see the way Biden is going to govern.  It will be establishment politics.  It will be a return to the status quo of early 2016 to the degree that anything deviated from that.  The deviation was mostly in rhetoric.  In terms of government spending, there has been no deviation except even more spending in 2020.

If banks or certain favored corporations get into trouble, we should expect more bailouts.  We should expect more spending on unemployment and perhaps stimulus checks.  We should expect proposals for small marginal tax hikes on high-income earners.

I am less certain about corporate taxes.  It is hard to imagine that Biden, or even Harris, would try to hike corporate taxes if the economy is still slumping.  This would be true even if the Democrats take control of the Senate.

The problem is that the economy is in major trouble right now.  We live in a tale of two worlds.  I saw this on Thanksgiving on television with scenes of long food lines.  There were cars stretched for miles.  But when I went out on Friday afternoon, the mall was packed.  I wasn’t shopping, but I was going out for dinner.  This was in Florida, which is more open than most other states, but it is indicative that many families are still doing rather well.

The stock market has done amazingly well.  I think it is a giant bubble.  The most amazing thing is that it is hitting new all-time highs in late 2020, even as new lockdowns and restrictions are imposed across the country.

Gold took a bit of a hit in November, but it is still much higher than it was this time last year. With Yellen looking likely as the next Treasury Secretary, I continue to be bullish on gold in the long term.

Assuming Trump leaves office, we may start to get a little pushback from Republicans in Congress on the budget.  However, even if there is a small scaling back from where we are, the government is still going to be running massive deficits.  If there is a stock market crash and a rise in unemployment again, then we will see even bigger deficits again.  Most of this will be paid for by the Federal Reserve buying debt with newly created money.

There aren’t a lot of certainties in life, but there are a few.  The sun will rise in the east.  Hillary Clinton will never be a libertarian.  And the Fed isn’t going to significantly reduce its balance sheet any time soon.  This is why gold is still a good bet, with or without Janet Yellen.

Yellen won’t be any more of a disaster than anyone else would have been under a Biden presidency, but she’ll still be a disaster.  Reckless government spending will continue.

You may want to ignore politics, but politics isn’t going to ignore you.  This statement should ring more true than ever for people in the year 2020.

People have different thoughts when the word “politics” is mentioned.  Really though, it all comes down to violence and the threat of violence.  It is usually a question of what degree of threats the state should impose.

For anyone who says that they aren’t interested in politics, you have to wonder if they realize that politics has dominated their life in 2020.  It certainly did in April when most people couldn’t go to the store unless it was a store that sold “essential” things (as deemed by governors and mayors).

It wasn’t a virus that caused all this.  It was politics.  People were fearful, so they granted their consent to be ruled over in a more heavy-handed way.  They were willing to give up liberty for the prospect of more safety.

If you thought it was bad as a consumer, imagine a small business owner who was shut down (by threats of violence) because the business was deemed non-essential.  It was probably essential for the business owner to put food on the family table.  But, according to the powers-that-be, the business owner’s hopes and dreams don’t matter.  His family’s well being doesn’t matter.  We have to protect people from a virus for their own good.  They are not allowed to decide for themselves how much risk they are willing to take.

Consent of the People

It was Ettiene de la Boetie in the 16^thcentury who said that all government ultimately rests on the consent of the people.  It does not mean you have to explicitly state your consent, but tacit consent in accepting conditions is enough.

In order to be free, people just need to withdraw that consent.

When you look at states within the United States, you can see some differences in approaching the virus.  A few states like Florida and South Dakota are fully open, with the exception of some local mandates/ regulations such as mask wearing.  Then you have states like New York and California where the governors and local politicians are trying to make life as miserable as humanly possible.

This is coming from the more authoritarian politicians.  The Democrat politicians are generally favoring harder lockdowns and restrictions, but most Republican politicians have been bad too.  It’s just that they have generally been less bad.

So your instinct, regardless of where you stand on the issue, is to naturally think that it is really important to elect the right people to office.

I have long-thought this not to be the case, although my mind has been slightly swayed in 2020. I live in Florida where Ron DeSantis has opened up the state.  Of course, he never should have shut anything down in the first place, and I was critical of him for this back in April.  But now that Florida is mostly open for business, I am quite thankful for living here.  A politician from the more socialist wing of the Democratic Party almost won the office back in 2018, and I’m glad he didn’t.  If he had won, I’m sure we would be more resembling Michigan or Illinois right now.

With that said, I still maintain that all power with politicians relies on the consent of the people.  Of course, if you are a lone individual in a sea of statists, you are going to be subject to their whims.  However, if you have a large portion of the population not willing to go along with these edicts, then it will be hard for any governor to enforce them.

It probably doesn’t even take a majority.  Anyway, there is a large percentage of the population that just kind of goes along with whatever society is doing.  Maybe they’ll talk to their family members or close friends about it, but they won’t have much of an opinion.  If everyone else is wearing a mask, they’ll wear a mask. If everyone else accepts shutdowns, they’ll accept shutdowns as long as they can survive.  If everyone else is coming out to socialize again, they’ll come out and socialize.

So you really only need a minority of people to resist peacefully.  It has to be a substantial enough minority though to overwhelm the other minority that is vocal about hard lockdowns (or whatever political issue it is).

Let’s circle back to the lockdown states.  Are California and New York residents under hard restrictions because they have Democratic governors who are quite authoritarian?  To some degree, yes, but it may be more correlation than causation.

The reason that these people are in office in the first place is because there is a large segment of the population in those places who are statists.  They demand government action in most areas of their life.  So they get it good and hard.

As Frederick Douglass said, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

In other words, it isn’t the governors of California, New York, and other lockdown states who are enslaving the people in those states.  It is the people themselves.  They are enslaving themselves.

Now I understand this does no good for someone who lives in one of these places who wants liberty. But even here, the issue isn’t electing the right person to office.  The issue is convincing enough of the people around you to oppose lockdowns and other restrictions on liberty.

This is obviously frustrating, to say the least, for libertarians.  But we also do have to look in the mirror and make sure we are doing what we can reasonably do to inform others.

Liberty Classroom

There are limitless resources available thanks to the Internet.  Still, if you are looking for ways to expand your knowledge about liberty and find out the things they didn’t teach you in school, one great resource is Tom Woods’ program called Liberty Classroom.

I have to say, Tom was a little wishy-washy on the issue of the virus back in March.  He wasn’t clear on how serious it would be and if any of the panic was warranted.  But this is why it is important to have libertarian principles.

Even if you thought the virus was as bad as the media made it out to be (or you still think that), it should be clear to any libertarian that the state is not the solution.

By the end of April, Tom had become one of the leading voices of reason with regard to the virus.  He has pointed out the misleading statistics.  More importantly, he has become a voice for those who have suffered greatly from the lockdowns and restrictions.  He has pointed out that living life is not just about avoiding death.

Tom has done a few speeches on this topic.  Combined, a couple of his YouTube videos have reached well over a million people.

Staying on top of the virus debate is important because reactions to the virus have impacted our lives so greatly in 2020.  At the same time, we shouldn’t neglect the overall cause of liberty. While the center stage issue now is the virus and the lockdowns, we don’t know what will take center stage next.  It could be another war.  It could be massive inflation in reaction to all of the economic wreckage that has been brought to us.

No matter what it is, it is important to have a good knowledge of history, economics, and other topics that provide a good foundation for libertarian principles.

If you are interesting in becoming a subscriber to Liberty Classroom, Tom offers really great discounts during Black Friday weekend.

If you order through my affiliate link, you can get a bonus from me in the form of financial education.  Just send me your receipt (geoff@libertarianinvestments.com) after purchasing through my link, and you can ask me for financial advice, as long as it is not legal advice.  We can have an email conversation about your financial worries or anything else.

You can ask general questions or personal questions with as much detail of your own financial picture as you care to divulge.  Questions can range from investment choices, to handling debt, to preparing for future economic uncertainties.  I will give you thorough responses to your questions as my bonus for ordering through my link.  It doesn’t matter what level of membership you order through Liberty Classroom.

While people around you float by in a sea of ignorance, you can be sure that you aren’t part of the problem.  You deserve the education that you surely didn’t receive in school.

As I write this in late November 2020, I am assuming that Joe Biden will become president on January 20, 2021, even though Trump is still contesting the outcome of the election as called by the corporate media.  I am also assuming that Trump will not start any new wars in the next two months, even though I know this is still a possibility.

If there are no new wars in the next two months and Trump leaves office, he will be the first president in at least 4 decades who didn’t get the U.S. involved in a new major war.

To be clear, I have been quite critical of Trump for his handling of U.S. foreign policy. He has surrounded himself with war hawks, many of which are leftovers from the previous Bush administration. Trump has been unable to end the continued wars overseas, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.  While troop reductions are a step in the right direction, they are not complete withdrawals.  He has continued to allow bombs to be dropped on foreign countries

I have been quite critical of Trump with his policy towards Iran.  Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, which is one of the few decent things done by the Obama administration.  I believe that all sanctions should be removed from Iran. Also, the U.S. government’s assassination of an Iranian official was immoral and quite dangerous, and we are lucky that did not lead to a broader conflict.

There have also been interventions in other places, such as Venezuela.  The U.S. government tried to execute a coup there, but it failed.  It is good that Trump did not try to up the ante there.

Trump campaigned on an America-first platform.  I would prefer a strictly non-interventionist approach, but Trump’s policy was an improvement.  Trump has actually made the Republican Party less hawkish than it was five years ago.  This is a good thing.

Trump’s foreign policy is very inconsistent.  However, this is a vast improvement from what we have seen over the last several decades.  I don’t want a more consistent foreign policy if the default position is always more war and more intervention.

A Long List of Wars

You can see a list of the U.S. wars and conflicts on Wikipedia.  There are other sources with an even bigger list.  For example, the Wikipedia list avoids many of the covert operations and attempted coups.  Ukraine is not on this list, even though the U.S. government did assist in a coup during the Obama administration.  This was just before U.S. politicians and its corporate media were criticizing Putin for supposedly annexing Crimea.

If you look back at the last 40 years, the two Bush administrations and the Obama administration (Mr. Peace Prize) are the worst.  There were smaller conflicts under Reagan including Lebanon, Grenada, and the bombing of Libya.  The best you can say about Reagan is that he kept the peace with the Soviet Union, and there were no total disasters as we’ve seen in the Middle East wars and occupations of the 21^stcentury.

Bill Clinton saw conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.  There were also missile strikes in Sudan (Monica missiles).  This isn’t widely recognized, but there was continued bombing in Iraq during Clinton’s time in office from the first Gulf War.

It should be clear though that there has been almost no peace at all over the last 100 years or more.  Even during the Carter administration, there were conflicts going on.  It’s not as if the U.S. had a non-interventionist foreign policy at any point.

The first Bush administration gave us the first Iraq War.  There was also an invasion in Panama and a disaster that started in Somalia.

The second Bush administration gave us Afghanistan and Iraq War 2, which was really just a scaling up of the war started under his father.  These are wars and occupations that continue to this day.  They have been complete disasters and have led to widespread problems in the overall region.

The Obama administration gave us Libya, Yemen, and Syria, which have all been devastating for the innocent people living in those regions.  As mentioned above, there were covert operations in Ukraine. There were also conflicts in Africa and troop surges in the Middle East.  Obama was a complete disaster for foreign policy regardless of what you might hear from the corporate media.

Obama 2

I see no reason why a Biden/ Harris administration would be any different from Obama.  Biden will go along with whatever his handlers tell him to do.  Since one of his handlers is essentially the Pentagon, we can see where that will go.  Harris is an authoritarian and is similar to Hillary Clinton.  She would thrive on going to war and using her power if and when she becomes president.

Biden and Harris were bragging in the campaign that several people from the previous Bush administration were not supporting Trump.  They and some other Republicans were supporting Biden for president. This was supposed to be a talking point against Trump.

I saw this as a positive for Trump.  If someone like Colin Powell is supporting Biden and is anti Trump, that tells me something right there.  This is the man who went before the United Nations and knowingly sold a bunch of lies about Iraq weapons of mass destruction in order to go to war. Powell is a criminal.

So when I see the war hawks lining up to support Biden, it tells me all I need to know.  It will be back to business-as-usual under Biden.  The Pentagon will be in full control with the military-industrial complex.  It’s not that they ever completely lost control, but Donald Trump was a major irritant to their plans.  He was a threat to the status quo because he sometimes dared to tell the truth and point out the obvious.

Since Trump has converted many Republicans to at least being less hawkish, it would be nice to see an anti war alliance with the political right and political left.  But we know how that goes.

The hard left that claims to be anti war should have cheered on Trump whenever he sought to withdraw troops or have a less interventionist foreign policy.  But they hate Trump so much that most of them couldn’t possibly praise him for anything.  They would rather have war than to form any kind of alliance with Trump supporters.

It will be interesting to see if the hardcore Trump supporters go back to being war hawks themselves.  I’m hoping that Trump and his Twitter account keep his supporters in line here.  Again, it’s not that Trump is great on foreign policy, but he is better than most other Republican politicians who are part of the establishment.

If for some crazy reason Biden actually proposes reducing intervention in some country, I hope the Trump supporters will back him in this circumstance.  Again, we know how that goes.

The one other factor in all of this is the economy.  The spending at the federal level is beyond ridiculous.  It was already ridiculous going into 2020.  The deficits are absurd, and there is almost no talk of reducing spending.

For this reason, it will be hard for the U.S. to get involved in yet another major conflict. While the Federal Reserve can print money (digitally speaking), there are limits at some point.  Taxation and inflation can only go so far, especially when hundred of thousands of businesses across the U.S. have had to shut down in 2020.

I know that Biden/ Harris will fill their cabinet with a bunch of horrible people.  Trump did this too, but Trump himself was the one who prevented them from being out of control.  When there are a bunch of war hawks in the Biden administration, Biden and Harris aren’t going to reel them in.  Biden will have essentially zero control anyway.

It was nice to have a few years without any new major conflicts or wars.  We’ll see what happens with Biden/ Harris, but it doesn’t look promising.

Prior to 2020, there was already a great divide politically, particularly within the United States. It has all been ampliphied in 2020 with the election and with the reactions to the coronavirus.

You can see the divide almost everywhere.  You can see it by the vote totals in the election.  You can see it on Facebook, although I believe the anti Trump forces tend to be more vocal.

Now you can see it with the way people are living their lives.  Some are trying to live their life while doing their best to ignore society around them.  In other words, they try to do the things they were doing prior to March 2020.  Others do what they are told (by the people they listen to and trust) and mostly stay at home.  If they venture out, they will mask up and do their best to avoid any gatherings.

One of the controversies (for anyone paying attention) to the presidential election surrounds mail-in ballots.  While it is odd that so many of the swing states seemed to stop counting or stop reporting votes in the middle of the night after the voting ended, it does make sense that the mail-in ballots went heavily for Biden.

Many of the Trump supporters certainly didn’t want to use mail-in ballots because of the potential for fraud.  But more than that, Trump voters were less afraid to go vote in person on Election Day.  Biden supporters – or more accurately, anti Trump supporters – were far more likely to vote by mail.

This makes perfect sense because the anti Trump people tend to be more terrified of the virus. But why is this so?

I believe it can be summed up easily.  The anti Trump people listen to and believe everything that the establishment media tells them to believe.  The Trump people, for obvious reasons, don’t trust most anything coming from the establishment media.  So when the media tells you how horrible and dangerous the virus is and that you must obey your orders, the anti Trump people are more likely to obey.

Of course, it isn’t 100% clean like this.  I don’t trust the establishment media at all.  When it comes to important things, I tend to believe the opposite of what they say.  Most libertarians should be in this camp, although I know a few people who identify as libertarians who somehow believe virtually everything they’re told by the corporate media.  Still, even within the libertarian camp, those who don’t trust the media at all tend to be more sympathetic to Trump, even if they would not call themselves Trump supporters.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has gotten a little attention lately.  As he is imposing hard restrictions (particularly partial lockdowns) on the people of California, he was caught going to a dinner party.  He also apparently lied, saying it was held outside, and then pictures were released showing it was clearly inside.

Newsom said he was within guidelines, but he sort of apologized for not setting a good example.

Wouldn’t this just destroy any credibility he had with the people of California?  Are they even aware that this happened, or are they protected from this news in their bubble?  I have to imagine that with social media (despite attempts at censoring) and local new outlets, most Californians would have to know this happened.  They would also have to know about Nancy Pelosi visiting a hair salon inside without a mask or her having to cancel a dinner she was going to host for incoming representatives.

Why would the people of California continue to listen to these people?  Why would they continue to obey their orders?

There is certainly some outrage over the hypocrisy of these people.  But the hypocrisy is not what bothers me the most, and that isn’t what should bother the people of California the most.  They should be most bothered that they are being lied to.

Obviously, Newsom, Pelosi, and others issuing these edicts or recommendations to lock down do not believe what they are saying in terms of the virus.  Gavin Newsom was not worried for this life by going to lunch with a group of people outside of his family.  Nancy Pelosi, who is 80 years old, isn’t worried about dying of the coronavirus when she is walking in a hair salon without a mask.

Yet, these people will easily ruin your life.  They will shut down your business.  They will force you out of your “non-essential” job.  They will tell you not to see your family for Thanksgiving.  They will tell you that your kids can’t play sports and see their friends.  They will willingly wreck the lives of millions of people all based on a lie.  They don’t believe they are helping anyone.  Otherwise, their actions would not show us breaking their own rules.

Two Worlds of Media

I am fond of the idea of panarchy, where people get to choose their own government.  Maybe we should have a world where people get to choose their own media, and this can be their own reality.

A few days after the election was over, the corporate media called the whole thing for Biden. They just started calling him President-Elect Biden, even though the vote counting hadn’t finished, Trump hadn’t conceded anything, and there were many allegations of election fraud. The media just mostly ignored Trump and reported on the situation as they saw it.

There has been a little bit of forced coverage lately, but still not much.  Of course, any coverage there is assures us that this was the most secure election in history.  (How could anyone possibly know that?)

I was wondering if we could just separate and live in our own realities.  There is actually widespread agreement when it comes to government education, Social Security, massive deficit spending, etc. These are things that most Trump supporters and most anti Trump people agree on in terms of the big picture. So all of that can continue on (unfortunately).

What if the establishment media just tells all of its listeners that Biden is officially president?  On January 20, 2021, they can show his inauguration.  He will do it in an inside and controlled environment.  There won’t be any people except a few family members and a Supreme Court justice to swear him in, all in the name of staying safe from the coronavirus.

Biden will be the president for the establishment media followers.  Meanwhile, the alternative media reports that Trump has successfully proven election fraud and Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin have all gone red.  Trump has been reelected and stays in the White House.

For Biden, his handlers purchase a piece of property near his home in Delaware.  They make a look-alike Oval Office.  They might have to get a few white columns with a green lawn for some outside photographs.  Biden can report to his people from the Oval Office or the lawn.  He can even name his cabinet.

Biden could even meet with a few foreign leaders.  Trump will just say that he is ramping up his America-first policy and doesn’t need to meet with these people.  Trump can go to North Korea for diplomatic relations, but this will only be covered by alternative media sources.

It will be like The Truman Show.  The Trump supporters just need to keep their mouths shut about it if they accidentally watch NBC Nightly News.

If you’ve ever seen The Truman Show, the character played by Jim Carrey finds his way out at the end. He realizes that he is living in a false reality.  I can just picture a Joe Biden supporter accidentally finding a website and realizing he’s living a false reality.  “I had a few of my conservative friends try to tell me something about the media lying a few years ago, but I didn’t believe them.”

Ok.  So I am obviously joking about this whole thing of living in two different worlds.  But when you think about it, we are not that far from that reality now. There are two different worlds. There are two different sets of people who don’t just believe different things.  They believe the opposite of each other in many cases.

We are already somewhat in that world in terms of the coronavirus.  There is one side that sees the whole thing as a sham.  At best, they see the coronavirus as a bad flu season. Then there’s the other side that sees it as a pandemic that is wrecking our society.  But it isn’t a pandemic of a virus that’s wrecking our society.  It is the fear brought on by the establishment media.

Mark Twain reportedly said that it is easier to fool someone than to convince him that he has been fooled.  I can think of no better time than 2020 to illustrate this point.  Of course, in order to illustrate this point, you have to convince someone that they have been duped.

There are two worlds. There are those who believe everything they are told by the establishment media, and there are those who believe almost nothing they are told by the establishment media.

There are many moving parts in an economy.  There are forces pulling in opposite directions.  This is true when it comes to price inflation and price deflation.

There are the forces of the central bank, which in the case of the United States is the Federal Reserve.  The Fed controls the overnight lending rate for banks, which impacts interest rates.  The Fed controls the money supply.  Then you have the daily actions of millions of people.  In the case of the U.S. dollar, it is more like billions of people.

It is like a constant tug-of-war between inflation and deflation.  Sometimes one side gets a little extra help in pulling their way. However, it is amazing that price inflation, at least as measured by the government’s CPI numbers, has stayed in a relatively narrow range since the 2008 financial crisis.

The Fed has been able to expand its balance sheet drastically, then hit the brakes, then go again, and so on.  Yet, the reported consumer price inflation has remained close to the 2% mark.

I understand that there is much dispute about the government’s numbers.  It is impossible to measure price inflation exactly, and it will be different for different people because we don’t all buy the same things in the same quantities.  Still, while I think the numbers may be a little understated, I don’t think they are that far off, and the trend shows that it is fairly steady.

Even if a 2% CPI really meant 3%, then it means that the CPI has stayed somewhere around 1% and 3%, despite the wild fluctuations (mostly upward) in the balance sheet.  Of course, asset prices have been more of a roller coaster, especially when you look at real estate and stocks.

This relative tameness is just what the Fed wants.  It means it is getting away with its tricks.  The Fed has managed to create $6 trillion out of thin air since 2008 with relatively low price inflation.  Although it has done great damage in redistributing wealth and misallocating resources, most people do not blame the Fed for stagnant living standards.

The Current Numbers

The latest CPI data was released for October 2020.  The CPI came in at zero percent.  The year-over-year CPI is at 1.2%.

I find the median CPI is more stable and probably more accurate.  That came in at 0.2% for October, and the year-over-year median CPI is at 2.5%

This has been typical, where the median CPI runs above 2% and the CPI runs below 2%.

Meanwhile, the Fed’s balance sheet has seemed to slowly resume its climb upward.  It is now well above the $7 trillion mark.  This is quite astounding.

Despite the unprecedented lockdowns in 2020, stocks are booming and hitting all-time highs. It doesn’t make much sense that they are booming because of news of a vaccine while many areas are imposing new lockdowns or restrictions.

The only explanation I have is that the Fed has created a lot of new money out of thin air in 2020, and a lot of this money went directly to people in the form of stimulus checks and unemployment checks.

A Look Ahead

So what’s in store for us in 2021?

Let’s see.  We still don’t have an official president-elect despite what the media claims.  This could be a source of chaos in December and leading into January.

We have the continued threats of lockdowns imposed by governors and mayors.  If Biden becomes president, then we have the threat of some kind of an attempt for a national lockdown.  Biden’s advisors think it’s just fine to make everyone stay at home for 4 to 6 weeks.  After all, the Fed can just create more money and hand it out.

It is lost on these people that the Fed doesn’t actually create food or medication or oil or any household goods.  You can send everyone checks, but it won’t mean much if there is nothing to buy.

I believe there remains a major threat of a stock market crash.  When it finally comes, it will probably come hard and fast. I am not advocating shorting the market right now, or at least not in any substantial way.  It is hard to fight the trend right now.  But you should be well diversified out of stocks.

I think there will be a continued struggle between price inflation and price deflation.  I think the economy is going to get worse before it gets better.  Sure, it would help if all government lockdowns ended and the threats of government lockdowns ended.  But we shouldn’t expect things to go back to the way they were in February 2020.  It is already way too late for many thousands of businesses that have permanently shut down.

When things get tight again, people are going to stop spending on non-essential things. This will be another round of tough times for businesses to say the least.  This will be deflationary.

However, in reaction, we should expect the Fed to keep digitally printing new money.  This will be a pull for the inflation side.

I expect the inflation side to eventually pull hard enough that we see price inflation much higher than we have seen any time in the last decade.  Maybe we’ll eventually see something like the 1970s again.  In the short term however, I tend to think we will continue to see relatively tame price inflation due to economic fears. If people are so fearful that they aren’t spending much money on non-necessities, then this will bring prices down.

I expect that prices will rise for essential goods (as determined by consumers, not by the state).  In other words, we could easily see a scenario where the prices for haircuts and car stereo systems are going down, while prices for food and toilet paper are going up.

I am still bullish on gold over the next several years.  I believe it is important to have gold and gold-related investments as a form of wealth protection.  There will be ups and downs, but I believe there will be more ups than downs.  Plus, it is somewhat like an insurance policy.

Even in a more deflationary situation in which gold goes down, the Fed is gong to step in and overcompensate.  So if gold goes down significantly in price, it probably won’t stay down for long.

I also don’t think you can go wrong by buying extra household goods that you can store and will use in the future.  This can include things like toilet paper, paper towels, spices, shaving cream, razor blades, soap, shampoo, and canned goods.  It is doubtful that any of these things will be cheaper one year from now.  And after what we saw in March and April, it’s not a bad idea to have some extra supplies on hand.

The only certainty at this point is uncertainty and chaos.  I hope Americans can stop the slide into authoritarianism. We are going to have to deal with economic problems ahead no matter what.  The best you can do is to prepare for yourself and your family and to be an advocate for liberty when people are looking for answers as to what happened.

Even though the 2020 election is far from over, the media has anointed Joe Biden as the president-elect.  The corporate media is just declaring it so, and they are mostly ignoring any claims by the Trump campaign or anyone else that the election is under challenge.

Biden has already set up a coronavirus task force.  More accurately, Biden’s handlers have set up a coronavirus task force. We are already hearing more about a possible national lockdown and a national mask mandate.

The leftist Naomi Wolf said that she might not have voted for Biden if she knew he was considering more lockdowns.  This is laughable.  Maybe she is more honest than most other leftists, but she has exposed herself as incredibly naïve at best.

What next?  Is someone going to say they wouldn’t have voted for Biden if they had known that he doesn’t favor smaller government?

Now that Biden has been declared the next president, the half of the country who hate Trump are celebrating.  For now, the rioting and looting in major cities has mostly stopped.  There was some action the night of Election Day when it looked like Trump might take it.  But now that Biden has been declared the winner by the establishment and its media, the rioting has stopped and there are calls everywhere for unity.

For some reason, we haven’t seen rioting and looting coming from the Trump supporters who mostly feel like this election is being stolen from Trump.

If rioting and looting is your thing, the only hope is that Trump can flip some of these swing states through court actions and recounts.  If things start to flip for Trump and the media has to cover it, then we could see a return of the “mostly peaceful protests”, as described by CNN.

We Won, You Unite

We just spent four years hearing about how Trump is the worst human being ever.  We had four years of the establishment trying to overturn the 2016 election.  We have had four years of Trump supporters being called racists, white supremacists, stupid rednecks, deplorables, etc.  Now that Trump has lost (as told by their media), it is time to unite.

What I am going to say next, I say with the full understanding that Trump has surrounded himself by mostly establishment people, and many of Trump’s policies have been favorable to the establishment.  However, Trump has been mostly opposed by the establishment (the ruling class) for his rhetoric and for sometimes pointing out the truth.

When you have state violence or any kind of violence, there will never be unity.  There may be the appearance of peace, and there may be the appearance of unity, but the threat of violence binds it all together.

It is possible to have a society where everybody is brainwashed and willingly goes along with every state edict.  The ruler or rulers are probably not brainwashed in this situation, as they have an understanding that they rely on the cooperation of those they rule over. They know they have to be seen as legitimate.

Here is what unity really means: Follow the instructions given to you, and there will be no problems.  Be a good citizen and obey, and you can live in peace.

If you had visited the Soviet Union during its existence, you probably would have seen unity. People would have agreed with the party line.  If you got really close to someone and they trusted you, it’s possible they would have confided that they questioned the whole system, or at least parts of it.  But nobody would ever day say this publicly.

Guns can be quite unifying, depending on your definition of unity.  If someone enters a bank and pulls out a gun and tells everyone to get on the floor, you will likely see great unity in action.  As long as nobody tried to fight back, you will see unity.  You may even see peace in the sense that there is no actual shooting.

The bank robber could even tuck away his gun.  As long as everyone cooperates and nobody lunges for the gun, then everything is fine, at least according to the bank robber.  As long as you cooperate, nobody will get shot. There will be “peace”. There will be “unity”. Nobody will say a bad word about the bank robber.

The bank robber could say that he has two partners hiding in the next room.  If anyone tries to make a move, there might be trouble. The bank robber might be able to put away his gun or even just not have a gun at all and walk freely around the bank.  He can have the full cooperation of the people without even having any partners hiding the next room, just as long as the people in the bank believe he may have partners in the room next door.

Whenever you hear the word unity with relation to politics, think about the worst dictatorial regime ever in existence.  Think about everyone marching in lockstep.

The Previously “United” States of America

Some people wish things would go back to the way they were, politically speaking.  This is particularly true for the ruling class. In terms of state regulations and lockdowns dealing with the coronavirus, I wish things would go back to the way they were.

In terms of politics though, I really don’t want to go back to the way they were.  We are told that people were more civil before. I would contend that people were more obedient.

Prior to the web as we know it today, one was mostly dependent on a few television stations for the news.  They mostly repeated what the others said.  This is where most people got their information.

The difference between today and then is that there is much more information.  Sure, there is a lot of bad information too, but at least people who are searching for the truth can search in many places and get many varying viewpoints.

The reason there seems to be a lack of unity today is because there are more people questioning the actions of the ruling class.  They aren’t being as obedient as they once were.

The 70 million plus people who voted for Trump are not being obedient.  They didn’t do what they were told to do.  These people have a gripe with the system.  The system has failed them in some way or they recognize the injustices of the system.  They know the corporate media is lying to them.  They know that the ruling class does not care about them and is willing to harm them.

Why do you think that pro Trump people are less likely to wear a mask and stay locked up in their house?  Why do you think the anti Trump people are so enthusiastic about mask wearing and social distancing and “staying safe”?  It’s because the pro Trump people do not believe most of what the establishment media tells them to believe.  Sometimes they believe the opposite.

The unity in politics is the same as the unity in mask wearing and social distancing.  Just obey your orders good citizen and everything will be fine.  You will have peace and civility as long as you do exactly what you are told to do.

I personally do not want to go back to the way things were.  This means that people would just accept whatever they are told. They will obey their state rulers and not question authority.  They will allow the ruling class to do what they do best.

Assuming that Trump leaves office in January 2021, his 70 million followers do not go away. There will be no unity. There should be no unity.

While 2020 has been a disaster in many ways, my hope is that the whole system will be seen as less legitimate than it was before.  My hope is that there will be calls for decentralization and nullification.

There are peaceful options.  People can go their separate ways and live in actual peace.  One of the first steps in this is not being united.

Although the results of the 2020 election are not final, it is not too early to assess the Jo Jorgensen and Spike Cohen campaign representing the Libertarian Party (LP).

One person’s success is another person’s failure.  In the case of a long-shot presidential campaign, I don’t think not winning, by itself, can reasonably be called a failure.  Everyone, including Jo Jorgensen, knew she was not going to be elected president.

While the final numbers aren’t in yet, Jorgensen looks to have received a little over 1% of the total vote. In some states, her total did fall below 1%.  Since the turnout was high, her vote total will be around 1.8 million.  This is the second strongest finish for an LP candidate in terms of vote totals, second only to Gary Johnson in 2016.

This is well short of the nearly 4.5 million votes received by Johnson in 2016.  Unlike some other libertarians, I don’t consider the 2016 LP campaign to be a success.  It was a success if you are just trying to get a lot of votes.  But I consider success to be converting others towards libertarianism, or to be moving the needle towards liberty in some way.

I don’t think there were many libertarians created in 2016 because of the Johnson/ Weld ticket. I did hear one person once on a podcast say he found libertarianism because of Gary Johnson, so I can’t say he converted nobody.

Of course, people have different definitions of what it means to be a libertarian too.  I’m sure Johnson created a few “libertarians” who consider themselves fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I have come to despise that definition.

I don’t know that I have the most perfect and precise definition of what it means to be a libertarian, but I think the LP pledge does a pretty good job of it.  It says, “I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

Unfortunately, after all is said and done, I doubt that Jorgensen and Cohen moved the needle much towards liberty.

I have been somewhat critical of both of them.  I think they are both decent people.  And to be sure, I believe this was the best LP ticket since at least 2004.  But after getting mildly excited after the nominating convention, it all went out the window quickly.

2020 – A Different Kind of Year

I think, in many ways, this was a tough year to run.  A large portion of the electorate loves Donald Trump.  A large portion of the electorate hates Donald Trump. And while Trump is far from libertarian on most issues, he is somewhat anti establishment in his rhetoric. Therefore, I think it would have been tough for Jorgensen to get over 2% no matter what she did.

I believe this also made it tough to get media appearances.  But she didn’t get zero coverage either.  She was on Kennedy’s show on Fox Business. She was on some podcasts that have relatively big audiences.  But the few times I saw her or listened to her, I just don’t think she had a big impact.  She was the opposite of Donald Trump, in a bad way.  She wasn’t bold.  She wasn’t confident.  She certainly didn’t come across as a fighter.  And if you are going to have a personality like this while running for president, then you sure better be principled and bold with your policy proposals.

While 2020 is a tough setup in many ways, it was easy in others.  There have been riots across the country in big cities at the same time that people and businesses have been locked down due to the hysteria over a virus.

There were tens of millions of people forced out of work.  A lot of those people are back to work, but some of them aren’t. And some of them are back to work at lower pay.  Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of businesses that are closed down for good.  They couldn’t survive months of being forced to shut down.  Worse, they didn’t know if and when they would be allowed to continue with business as usual, meaning business as usual prior to March 2020.

You can’t get an easier libertarian and populist issue at the same time.  It is also current.  It has been the number one issue for most people since March.

Now, one could argue that it isn’t a federal government issue because it was governors and mayors who officially shut things down.  But, the recommendations were coming out of Washington DC.  And Biden is still talking about locking things down and having a national mask mandate.

Jorgensen and Cohen should have been hitting hard on this issue saying that we need to defend private property and voluntary association.  It should have been issue number one in every single interview.  If the subject wasn’t brought up by the interviewer, then change the subject in your answer. The unemployed and the small business owners need a voice.  Jorgensen could have been that voice.  She could have converted thousands of small business owners towards libertarianism for life.  These people must despise the government for ruining their livelihood and their dreams.  They need an advocate.

Instead, they had to settle on Trump.  Trump was wishy-washy on the whole thing.  He got duped into the whole coronavirus hysteria in March and was never able to fully recover.  By the end of the campaign, Trump was at least saying that we need to move on and not let the cure be worse than the disease.  It was better than Biden who was still threatening more lockdowns. I believe this was a giant mistake by the Jorgensen campaign and the LP for not hammering away at this important issue.

I went through Jorgensen’s Twitter feed a couple of times just to see what she was saying (or whoever was running her Twitter account).  I agreed with most of what was being said, although I didn’t always agree with the emphasis on certain things.

I believe the biggest blunder, which happened not that long after the nomination, was Jorgensen (and to a lesser extent, Spike Cohen) trying to appease the far left.  She was attending Black Lives Matter (BLM) rallies.  As I joked after the election results were coming in, I guess Jo didn’t reach out to BLM hard enough.

There was one particularly bad tweet where Jorgensen said, “It is not enough to be passively not racist, we must be actively anti racist.”

With that, she probably lost a few hundred thousand votes.  I doubt if this gained her one vote from the left, but it alienated a lot of libertarians who were tired of the rioting and the over exaggerations of systemic racism.

Jorgensen should have been reaching out to Ron Paul-type people.  I should have been an easy vote for her, but she lost my vote. I still considered it at the end, but I didn’t want to reward her terrible campaigning and her mostly terrible message.

If she is that weak in a campaign and feels the need to pander to the social justice warriors, then I can’t imagine how weak she would be as a president.  She would end up being less anti establishment than Trump.  She probably would have folded over to the military-industrial complex in a heartbeat.  I don’t know this for sure, but I get that sense.

I don’t think there was anything wrong with making some common ground with some of the protesters.  Sure, preach the LP message of ending the federal war on drugs.  But it was ridiculous to do what seemed like pandering with the expectation of winning any of these people over.

Spoiler

There have been articles since Election Day blaming the LP for giving us Biden or for giving us a toss-up in the Senate.  The Jorgensen vote total covered the spread in several states.  In other words, if all of the Jorgensen voters had voted for Trump instead, then Trump would have won certain states that he otherwise may not.

I don’t think the LP should be criticized for this, but I also don’t think the LP should brag about it.

If the LP brags about this, it just makes Trump Republicans madder.  They will be less likely to ever consider the LP in the future when someone other than Trump is running.

At the same time, it isn’t fair to blame the LP for what happened.  Most people who voted LP wouldn’t have voted for Trump or Biden (Republican or Democrat).  And for those who would have, it would have been split.  I can’t even tell you if Trump or Biden would have benefitted if there had been no LP candidates.

The biggest accusation is coming out of Georgia, where the LP candidate for Senate got about 2% of the vote.  One of the Republicans just missed the 50% threshold, which means there will be a run-off.  It may not matter in the end though. Anyway, if most of those LP voters were supposed to go Republican, then the Republican in the race shouldn’t have any problem winning in the run-off election.

Education

I think it is good to have an LP.  Not all libertarians feel this way.  There was progress made this year.  Again, I believe Jorgensen/ Cohen was the best ticket since at least 2004. Maybe we can get a more radical ticket with a better message in 2024.

I believe the main purpose of the LP should be education.  We have to change hearts and minds.  That is the only way to move towards liberty. Donald Trump has done some good in educating others, sometimes inadvertently.  He has helped expose the evil deep state.  He has also shifted the Republican Party on foreign policy to being less interventionist than before.

Assuming Trump has to step down in January, the LP should be reaching out to Trump supporters. It won’t be easy, but I think it would be easier than trying to recruit anti Trump Democrats.

I know many in the LP say that the LP needs to win political offices.  They say that you can only change things by electing liberty candidates to office.  But I believe they are putting the cart before the horse.

You have to convert people to libertarianism first.  Otherwise, it will do no good.  Ron Paul in 2007/ 2008, and again in 2011/2012, converted more people than anyone else, probably ever.  Harry Browne recruited many people in his LP campaigns in 1996 and 2000. I actually became a radical libertarian because of Harry Browne.  But I didn’t start following him closely until after his 2000 campaign.

We aren’t going to achieve greater liberty by putting the “right” people into office except to the extent that they will help spread the word.  You have to have a strong base of support from the people. Even a libertarian president would find it difficult to enact bold and lasting change without the consent of the people.

With this standard in mind, I give low ratings overall to the Jorgensen/ Cohen campaign of 2020. I don’t think they changed a lot of hearts and minds.  They were better than the last three LP tickets though, which probably just moved us backwards.

You can see that most of the people who voted for Johnson in 2016 did not go on to vote for Jorgensen. There was no move towards liberty by Johnson/ Weld.  They received a lot of votes by LP standards, but there wasn’t much else to show for it.

I hope that people in the LP learn this lesson.  Unfortunately, I fear the opposite will be learned.  Some will say that Jorgensen/ Cohen didn’t do as well because they weren’t high profile enough.  Therefore, they’ll conclude that we need to recruit former politicians, even if they don’t follow all of the libertarian principles.

I don’t care about electing the “right” people.  I don’t care about having a respectable showing.  I don’t care about candidates who garner media attention, unless they are going to preach a principled libertarian message.  We need to educate others on the benefits of liberty.  Only then can we make strides towards a more libertarian society.

There are no official results yet for the presidential election, but the corporate media has called it for Joe Biden.  Biden has addressed the American people as the president-elect (according to the corporate media).

There were a lot of people up on stage with Biden, and he wasn’t wearing his mask the whole time. It looked like a super-spreader event to me.  I think Kamala Harris coughed up some coronavirus on Biden just in case he somehow makes it longer than a few months.

Actually, I think Harris and company will allow Biden to take some pictures in the Oval Office and sniff the hair of some interns.  Biden will be allowed a few months to fly around on Air Force One.  Maybe he’ll be given a year if he can stay somewhat coherent.  Eventually though, Biden’s handlers will come to him and let him know that it’s his time to step down.

This is all assuming that Biden is inaugurated on January 20, 2021.  Trump has something else to say about that.  Trump is claiming that he won by a lot. There are many claims of fraud, which I have no doubt many are true.  The problem is that Trump is challenging these things in court. The courts, at least to some extent, are part of the establishment.

Trump has almost no power in the courts, in the media, with other politicians, and most others with any kind of voice.  Sure, there are the 70 million or so Americans who voted for Trump, but they voted for Trump because they felt they have no voice.  Trump is their voice.

So while I think Trump will fight hard and drag this thing out, I believe Biden will become president in 2021.

Trump is not going away.  His 70 million supporters are not going away.  And his hardcore supporters aren’t going back to the Bushes or Romneys of the world, at least with any enthusiasm.

The Trump haters see Trump as a bully.  Trump’s supporters see Trump as a fighter.  They see him as an advocate.  They see him as a voice that had previously been lacking. They see him as their middle finger to the system and ruling class that has screwed them.

I don’t know that anyone can replace Trump.  He is an alpha male.  The only one who comes anywhere close right now is Tucker Carlson.  For the next 4 years, Trump and Carlson will heavily influence the hardcore Republicans who are anti establishment.

I have been somewhat impressed lately by Donald Trump Jr.  I don’t know that he can be as commanding as his father.  But Donald Trump has opened up a can of worms that isn’t going away.  I don’t even think his supporters will accept Mike Pence in 2024.  They might vote for him over Kamala Harris, but you aren’t going to see 50,000 people show up for a Pence for president rally.

I’m mildly optimistic with regard to a Biden presidency.  He is not going to be seen as legitimate by almost half the country.

When Biden addressed the nation the night before the corporate media called it for him, he said he has a mandate for the economy, the coronavirus, climate change, and systemic racism.  I’m not really sure how Biden could say he has a mandate for anything.  Even with the vote totals as they stand, the race was extremely close in terms of electoral votes.  Meanwhile, tens of millions of people believe there was fraudulent counting in the swing states.  That doesn’t sound like much of a mandate to me.

My hope is that the coronavirus soon goes away.  Maybe Biden will put in a few token measures without fully locking down the country.  Anyway, I would like to see him try to lock down the whole country.  That would sure speed up the idea of state nullification.

My best guess is that Biden will do something minor and then they will declare that the coronavirus has been defeated.  Well, that’s my hope.  I know that politicians do no easily relinquish power, and governors and mayors have gained a lot of power.  This is the thing that most concerns me.

I am not too concerned about socialized healthcare.  I know Trump was saying that Biden is controlled by AOC and the far left. As podcaster Dave Smith pointed out, Biden will be controlled by Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon.

Trump, for all of his faults, is the first president since at least the 1980s to not start a new major war.  He still has a couple of months, so anything is possible.  But I am afraid Biden won’t continue this trend.  With the economic mess we are in, maybe it will actually put some restraints on the military budget.

It is hard to believe the voter turnout for this election.  Even if there was fraud, the voter turnout was incredibly high. Maybe some of this is due to the convenience of mail-in ballots.  Much of it is due to Trump, both for and against.  Almost nobody actually voted “for” Biden.  They were voting against Trump.

If the vote totals currently showing are anywhere near accurate, Biden has received by far the most votes in U.S. history in one election with over 75 million. Trump will hold second place for the most votes ever at about 71 million.  This exceeds Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Trump’s vote total exceeds his own total from 2016 by about 8 million.  This is a story in itself.

Anyway, it looks like this wasn’t much of a pandemic since voter turnout was so high.  The way the coronanvirus has been covered, you would think voter turnout would be way down due to so many dead Americans.

The next few months won’t be boring.  Aside from all of the legal fights and recounts that are likely to occur, there’s no telling what Donald Trump will do.  I really hope it isn’t just entertainment only.  I hope he does some good things for the cause of liberty.  He should withdraw more troops from Middle East wars.  He should pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.  It would be nice if he would declassify more documents related to things like 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination.  There is much more that he could do, but he probably hasn’t been told a lot of top-secret information that could be damaging to the establishment.

Biden is about to turn 78.  Trump is 74. Trump will be 78 in 2024.  I can already hear the calls for Trump 2024.  Or maybe they can get Tucker Carlson to run.  Please don’t give me Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, or anyone like these people.

Trump is far from being a libertarian, and he has many bad qualities.  But it is important to recognize that he is different than previous politicians.  Trump has rattled the establishment like never before in modern history. That is why the establishment had to make sure that Trump was removed.  Let’s not forget though that Trump still has Twitter.  He is likely going to have a lot of free time beginning on January 21, 2021.  He isn’t going to go quietly into the night.

As I write this, the presidential results are in limbo.  With all of the stories coming out about ballot funny business, this could go on for a while.  Will it be Biden or Trump?

It is looking more likely that it will be Biden.  Either way though, there are some things that will go on, including the divisiveness.  What will also go on are the deep state and the administrative state.  This includes the Federal Reserve.

The Fed concluded its latest meeting with the latest statement on monetary policy and a press conference from Jerome Powell.  There is basically no change in the Fed’s policy except for a few changing words that don’t mean much.

The Fed is going to keep its target federal funds rate near zero for a long time to come.  If price inflation remains relatively tame, it could be for many years.  Meanwhile, the Fed’s balance sheet remains near its all-time high, which is nearly $3 trillion higher than it was at the beginning of the year.

The price of gold went up big today, while the 10-year yield has fallen back from its rise last week. The U.S. dollar has been down.

There are some things that will not change regardless of who is president on January 21, 2021. The federal government will continue to spend recklessly with trillion-dollar deficits.  The Fed will continue to help fund these deficits and do the bidding of the big bankers and the politicians.

The stock market has been up big during this election turmoil.  This is a bit curious given that stock investors tend to not like certainty.  However, there was a big sell-off the week before.

On Tuesday night, when things were looking half decent for Trump early on, stock futures were up. Trump’s performance was unexpected for anyone who actually believed the polls.  As things started to shift towards Biden on Wednesday, stocks continued to roar.  It has made little difference to the stock market.  Historically, it doesn’t seem to matter which party is in the White House.

Perhaps stock investors were happy that it was not a “blue wave” for the Democrats.  It was apparent early on that the Republicans have a good chance of retaining a slim majority in the Senate, while the Democrats lost some seats in the House but will still retain a majority.  So no matter who gets the presidency, there will be some gridlock.  There won’t be much gridlock in terms of federal spending, but there won’t be any wild tax hikes or nationalized healthcare.

As I’ve said in the lead-up to the election, I think there is major economic turmoil ahead.  I’m not sure if it will be a deep recession/ depression or if it will proliferate with significantly higher price inflation.  We could also get something resembling the 1970s with stagflation.  The good news, if Trump doesn’t get the presidency, is that Biden/ Harris will have to deal with these problems.  Blaming Trump will only work for a year or so.

I continue to be bullish on gold in the long run.  I am going to watch the inflation numbers closely.  I am a little less certain with gold mining stocks, as they do present significant risk if we go into deep recession.  However, I do think that gold stocks offer major potential if you are willing to accept the risk.

My next few posts will likely be political in nature.  If there are any major economic developments though, I will be sure to comment.

I write this on Election Eve, and I don’t know what name I’m marking on my ballot for president tomorrow.  This is a first for me.

It’s somewhat ironic because I follow politics very closely.  I read a lot about what is going on.  I write about it.  I have a love/ hate relationship with politics.  I hate it because I despise the use of violence for political or social goals, which is really what politics is all about. I love it because I find it entertaining, perhaps in a sick sort of way.

I consider myself very informed, but most people who don’t have a similar philosophical outlook would probably disagree.  They would call me ignorant or brainwashed.  They can’t grasp their own ignorance or brainwashing.

It’s not to say I am free from ignorance or brainwashing when it comes to politics.  It happens to some degree to everyone. But I understand what is happening.  I understand that there are evil people who want to use power over others, which especially includes those in politics.

I also understand the position of others.  Most non-libertarians cannot accurately describe my libertarian philosophy.

I don’t live in a libertarian bubble.  I read many articles and listen to podcasts and watch videos with libertarian themes.  But I am quite aware of the differing views on issues.  I occasionally watch the news because I can’t help myself.  It is somewhat of a curiosity sometimes just to see what brainwashing the masses are getting.

So I don’t know whom I’m voting for.  Or more accurately, I don’t know if I am voting against someone or something. I am not voting against Trump, as most people voting for Biden are really doing.  It could be Stalin with a D next to his name and the anti Trump people would vote for him.

Donald Trump

If I vote for Trump, I am not really voting for Trump.  I am voting against everything I despise in politics.  I am voting against the establishment.  I am voting against the establishment media and the lies.  I am voting against today’s culture.  I am voting against political correctness.  I am voting against all of the mouthy celebrities who don’t have a clue.  I am also, presumably, voting against a greater evil in Joe Biden and, even more so, Kamala Harris.

Trump has a lot of problems.  From a libertarian standpoint, he has even more.  His understanding (or lack of) economics is horrible.  His foreign policy is generally bad because he surrounds himself with establishment war hawks, and Trump sometimes feels the need to act tough.  So the wars and foreign interference continue on.

However, Trump is better on these issues than Biden and Harris.  Trump is the first president in many decades to not start a new major war.  It shouldn’t seem like that great of an achievement, but we really haven’t seen relative peace in a long time.  If Biden (or worse, Harris) gets in, we could see more war in the future. Of course, we could with Trump too, but the chances seem greater with Biden.  Biden and Harris are bragging about how they have the lying liars from the Bush administration supporting them.  In other words, they have the full backing of many of the people who lied us into war in Iraq.

I am tempted to vote for Trump because I think he has a shred of honesty and decency in him. I know he has a big ego, and I know he has a lot of flaws.  But to get someone with some honesty in the presidency is a big achievement. There is always a chance that he might do something good.

Trump has been bad on the coronavirus and lockdowns, but not nearly as bad as other politicians. He has an advisor (Scott Atlas) who has been quite critical of the lockdowns and overreactions.

There is always a chance that someone like Tucker Carlson does a story on the atrocities in Yemen and how the U.S. is helping to fund and support the atrocities.  There is a chance Trump will see the story and do something about it.  There is little chance of this happening with a Biden or Harris presidency.

There are many compelling reasons to mark my ballot for Trump.  However, I don’t generally keep my voting a secret, and I don’t want to defend every stupid thing Trump does for the next four years if he is reelected.  I also don’t like voting for the lesser of two evils unless there is a big difference between the evils.  In terms of rhetoric, Trump is much different.  But I’m not as sure about his policies.

There is also reason to hope that a Biden presidency could actually improve some things. Maybe the coronavirus will magically go away with a Biden election win.  Maybe we can see some civility again, only because the left will stop being quite so uncivil.  Maybe we will see a reduction in rioting and looting.  I know this angers some Trump supporters by saying it because it sounds like I am giving in to the mob.  It’s like they’re saying, “You better vote Biden in, or we are coming to a city near you to burn it down.”  But it’s not my fault the American people have allowed all of this nonsense to happen.  I just want some of the old normal back.

I also believe that we have really tough economic times ahead.  If the Republicans can maintain the Senate, we could be just as well off with a Biden presidency, especially if he takes a lot of the blame for the problems.  With Trump in there, we will hear a lot of blame put on capitalism, even though Trump’s policies are not generally pro free market.

Anyway, I’m not going to not vote for Trump just because of the way he might be portrayed or because the mob might settle down if Trump leaves office.  But I am also not as fearful that life will not go on as many Trump people are.  They are really scared of the prospects of a Biden victory.

Jo Jorgensen

I don’t have a lot to say about the Libertarian Party’s nominee.  I was mildly excited when Jo Jorgensen became the nominee.  I have not voted for a Libertarian Party presidential candidate since Michael Badnarik in 2004.

Jo has been disappointing to say the least.  She hopped on board the political correct movement and sent out praise to BLM.  She sent a message on Twitter saying that it is not enough to not be racist.  Instead, you should be actively anti-racist.

Aside from a few of her politically correct things, there isn’t a lot where I really disagree with her.  The problem is that she doesn’t show a lot of enthusiasm, and she doesn’t stress the important issues.

I understand that the lockdowns came from governors and mayors, but the federal government has had a lot of input on the coronavirus, which has mostly been bad.  Jo should have been speaking out hard against the lockdowns.  She should have been an advocate for the tens of millions of people whose lives have been turned upside down due to government lockdowns and restrictions in response to hysteria over a virus that is no more than the flu to most people.

I could vote for Jo as a protest vote, and I haven’t completely abandoned the idea.  But on the other hand, I feel like she has not earned my vote.  She has done almost nothing to promote the cause of liberty that I can see. She got very little attention in the media, which isn’t all her fault, but some of it is.  She should have reached out to all of the Ron Paul people from 2008 and 2012 instead of trying to suck up to the hard left.  I don’t understand what she was thinking. It is just another year of a disappointing LP candidate.

Write-In

My most likely vote will be a write-in candidate.  Maybe I’ll vote for Ron Paul again.  I sometimes leave my ballot blank for certain races, but I don’t want to do that this time for the presidency.  I don’t want to open up my ballot for possible fraud. It would be too easy for someone to fill in a bubble.  I mean, I hope it’s not easy, but you never know.  I would rather it be unmistaken that I am choosing not to vote for anyone on the ballot for the presidency.

This is the easiest way to vote because I never have to defend my vote except for people who are mad that I didn’t vote for one of the major party candidates.  But I don’t have to defend the bad things that someone is doing.

I live in Florida, which is an important swing state.  In that sense, my vote matters.  But I know the chances of the election coming down to one vote in my state are essentially zero.  Even if it did come down to one vote, then I’m sure there would be enough fraud somewhere to make it not come down to one vote.

It’s still amazing that the 2000 election came down to a few hundred votes in Florida.  Of course, 2020 has been one for the record books, so you never know.

The election results will be entertaining if nothing else.  If Trump wins, then I get the entertainment that I got this time four years ago.  I get to watch the entire establishment media sit there with a look of shock, and I get to hear them still not understand that they are part of the reason that Trump gets the support that he gets.  If you think 4 years ago was bad, wait until this time.  Anyone with Trump Derangement Syndrome is going to have their head explode.

If Trump loses, I don’t think we are going back to the pre Trump days.  As I wrote in my last post, Trump still may be the leader of the Republican Party, and the 60 million or more people who vote for Trump are still out there.

I heard Donald Trump Jr. in an interview the other day, and I was more impressed than I thought I would be.  He was saying that Trump’s supporters are sick and tired of Republicans getting into office and folding over like Paul Ryan.  He said that these Republican politicians are going to have to answer to the voters in future elections.

Anyway, I don’t know how this whole thing will turn out.  There are a lot of Trump haters out there.  There are also a lot of Trump lovers, as can be seen by the tens of thousands of people showing up to each rally he holds.  In the meantime, I’ll make my final decision on which candidate (or non-candidate) I’m voting for by the morning.