Jerome Powell, also known as Jay Powell, is the current chair of the Federal Reserve (the Fed).  He was actually nominated to the Board of Governors in 2012 by Barack Obama.  He became Fed chair in 2018 after being nominated by Donald Trump.

Joe Biden has now renominated Powell for a second term.  He still has to be confirmed by the Senate.

We should expect that Powell will easily be confirmed, but it will be interesting to see just who opposes his renomination.  It may be one of those situations where the harder core right wing and left wing vote together in opposition.  Meanwhile, you can fully expect Mitt Romney and Chuck Schumer to vote in unison in supporting Powell.

According to Biden and his supporters, Trump is the worst human being on earth, so it may be a bit curious why Biden would keep a Fed chair who was put in place by Trump.  It is probably because Trump heavily criticized Powell once in office.

Unfortunately, the reason Trump criticized Powell wasn’t for the right reason.  Although Trump mentioned a bubble stock market fueled by low interest rates (courtesy of the Fed) when he was running for office, the script changed quickly once Trump became president.  He then criticized Powell for being too tight with interest rates.  Trump didn’t want anything to risk his beloved economy and stock market boom (which was no longer referred to as a bubble).

Trump appointed a lot of bad people, and Powell is no exception.  With that said, he wasn’t the worst appointment either. I don’t necessarily think Powell was a Trump enemy like John Bolton, Christopher Wray, and even the fake Mike Pompeo.  Trump appointed a bunch of war hawks and criminals who made sure to stomp out any idea of world peace.

In this sense, Jerome Powell was better.  The Fed chair is not part of the president’s cabinet as many of the other appointments are, but the president obviously wants someone as an ally.  For Fed chair, it really probably didn’t matter who Trump appointed, as it would have been a Keynesian hack.  If Trump had nominated someone like Judy Shelton as Fed chair, the Senate wouldn’t have confirmed her.

With Powell staying on as Fed chair, it will be business as usual.  But it would have been business as usual even if it had been someone different.  This means that we will continue to see monetary inflation, interest rate tampering, and bailouts when deemed necessary.  It also means that Congress will continue to be subsidized in its deficit spending.

It should be clear by now that nothing is going to change at the Fed except when economic conditions change.  The price inflation numbers have certainly gone up this year, and most Americans are recognizing it.  How long will this be tolerated?

Although most Americans don’t fully understand inflation, I think many have a sense that the Federal Reserve, as central bank, has some kind of role.  They also sense that it is related to government spending, even if they can’t quite articulate it.

The only thing that will force the Fed to scale back (i.e., stop inflating) is significantly higher price inflation.  If we officially hit double-digit annual price inflation, it will be difficult for the Fed not to pull back.

This will mark the end of the stock market boom, at least for a while.  Maybe the stock market boom (bubble) is already coming to an end in anticipation of this.

If things go bad quickly, it will be interesting if Biden tries to pin the blame on Powell.

Trump nominates Powell, and then Trump criticizes him.  Biden nominates Powell, and then Biden criticizes him.

Of course, if the economy gets bad quickly, then Biden will be taking a lot of the blame as president.  His approval ratings are already in the tank even with the stock market hitting all-time highs.  Imagine if stocks fall 30% or more.  Biden’s wife may have to trick him to leave the White House with some ice cream and then quickly flee the scene with him.

Kamala Harris is the one person even more unpopular than Biden.  Maybe she can blame Powell too.  If she does that, Powell’s popularity may actually rise.

We’ll see if it’s possible to ever get someone somewhat reasonable back in the position of Fed chair.  For all of his faults, Paul Volcker was about as decent as you can get in that position.

If someone like Volcker came in now and did what he did, we would see the Everything Bubble pop in spectacular fashion.

There were probably a lot of Thanksgiving gatherings across America where family and friends discussed (or argued) politics.  In particular, the COVID vaccines and vaccine mandates must have been a hot topic since tens of millions of Americans are threatened with losing their jobs if they don’t get jabbed.

If what we are being told about the vaccine rates are true, and approximately 30% of eligible Americans are not considered vaccinated, then you can imagine that there is a divide in most large family gatherings.

Sure, if you go to a leftist city, then chances are good that everyone will be vaccinated in a group of 6 or 8 people.  Also, some of the hardcore vaccine enthusiasts may not invite unvaccinated family members for dinner.  I doubt it would be as true going the other way.

Hopefully, in most cases, politics wasn’t actually discussed during dinner.  If it is at all, then it should be light.  I think to stir up controversy while eating dinner is impolite.

To be sure, there are probably just as many households that didn’t have any major arguments.  I know several vaccinated people who don’t want to shove their ideas down anyone else’s throat, or in this case, stick it in their arm.

But inevitably, you are going to have some vaccine enthusiasts who will shame others and even suggest that it should be mandated by the government.

When this happens, it is important not to cede the moral high ground.  It is quite clear that the COVID vaccines do not prevent transmission.  The CDC director admitted this a few months ago.  So the only rational argument for getting vaccinated is to protect yourself.  The only selling point for the vaccines at this point, which is waning quickly (kind of like the vaccines), is that you will be less likely to become seriously ill if you do contract COVID.

So there is no good excuse for using force.  When the government mandates vaccines, they are using the threat of violence, which is how government does what it does.

With the attempted mandates coming from the White House, it is a threat of violence against employers.  You are not allowed to freely associate with your employer.  If the employer doesn’t obey and allows unvaccinated employees (or in some cities, unvaccinated customers), then the employer is subject to fines.  If those fines aren’t paid, then eventually men with badges and guns will show up to throw the responsible party in jail.

Even though government agents aren’t literally holding you down and pushing a needle in your arm, they are using the threat of violence.

This should be made crystal clear to those advocating vaccine mandates.  They are resorting to violence to get their way.

For this conversation, it doesn’t matter how many people have supposedly died of COVID.  It doesn’t matter how many cases there were yesterday.  It doesn’t matter if vaccines are really safe and effective.  What matters is the use of violence.

I know a lot of people who are against the vaccine mandates.  Many of them are against the vaccines themselves, as they do not think they are as safe or effective as what we’ve been told by the establishment media.  But I don’t know anyone who wants to use the threat of force to prevent another person from getting the shot.

I don’t know anyone who said that people should be forced to leave their house, even if they are scared of the virus.  They aren’t telling people that they have to go eat at a restaurant.

I also don’t know anyone who said that all mask wearing should be forbidden.  Most people on the pro freedom side are exactly that.  They want to be free to choose for themselves.

Aside from claiming the moral high ground, you can also appeal to people’s self interest.  Ask these questions of your vaccine-obsessed friends.  When your house is burning down, would you rather a group of unvaccinated firefighters show up, or none at all?  Saying that you want vaccinated firefighters to show up timely is not an option in this scenario.

Would you rather have unvaccinated truckers delivering goods to the store shelves, or would you rather they sit home unemployed on welfare?  And what price are you willing to pay?  If half of the food shelves in your grocery store are empty, is that worth it to fire a bunch of unvaccinated truckers?

When people use violence in order to achieve their goals, there are reactions and there are consequences.  There is no free lunch in the use of violence.  People advocating violence must be made aware that they are in fact using violence, and there are deep ramifications in society for the use of initiatory violence.

We are in an Everything Bubble.  It doesn’t mean that literally everything is in a bubble, but most major asset classes are likely in some kind of a bubble.  The two major categories are stocks (equities) and real estate.  If and when these two things pop, a lot of damage will be inflicted.  Tens of millions of Americans will feel the pain.

Then there are the new asset classes, if you can even call them that.  These are “things” that have been created in recent times that are being used for speculation.  Mostly, I am thinking of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The term cryptocurrency is a misnomer.  They certainly don’t serve as a currency.  Even the biggest player, Bitcoin, is not used as money in any widespread sense.  The few things that you can buy using Bitcoin are still priced in dollars or some other currency.  You just pay the conversion price.

Cryptos and NFTs are probably the biggest bubbles because most of these could go to zero.  It is a joke that all cryptos combined recently hit a market cap of over $3 trillion.  They are all just made up things.  You are owning a bunch of computer code.

There are now thousands of these cryptos, and most of them will eventually go bust.  They will go to zero or something close to zero.  In fact, all of them, including Bitcoin, will eventually reach this fate.  A bitcoin may still be worth something because of the few techie nerds who hang on for dear life.  It will become a novelty.  It’s kind of like how you can buy an old $100 trillion Zimbabwe note for a few bucks on Ebay.  It is a novelty to show off to your friends or to use as a homeschool lesson on money for your kids.

People who are heavily “invested” in cryptos and NFTs will be hit the hardest when the Everything Bubble pops.  But they don’t necessarily have the most in terms of wealth.  A 28-year old who put all $20,000 of his money into crypto to see it wiped out is in a better position than a 60-year old who is about to retire who sees their one-million dollar stock portfolio decline by 80%.

Before addressing stocks, it is important to mention that bonds may or may not be in a bubble.  If we have a deep recession without massive monetary inflation, then bonds might do well in the short run as investors seek safety.  So while bonds are probably in a bubble because of the Federal Reserve, they could be propped up for many years to come.  It certainly isn’t clear one way or the other.

The one asset class that probably isn’t in much of a bubble is certain commodities, particularly precious metals.  Gold and silver have not been terrible, but they have been terrible compared to other asset classes like stocks and real estate in recent times.

The Buy-and-Hold Strategy Works, Until it Doesn’t

There are many people who haven’t gotten involved in speculating in things like cryptocurrencies.  Or if they have, it has only been dipping a toe in the water with maybe 1 or 2 percent of their net worth.

Instead, they employ a strategy of buying mostly equities.  They follow the Warren Buffett advice of buying and holding index funds that invest in the broad U.S. stock market.  They don’t actually follow what Buffett did to get extremely wealthy.  They just follow his words.

Up until now, this strategy has mostly paid off as long as someone sticks to it.  There have been some major downturns such as 2000 to 2002, and again in 2008 and early 2009.  There was also a big, but very brief, downturn in March 2020.  But every single time, if you just held on long enough, you would recover any losses and then see big gains.

This strategy would not have worked in Japan starting in the late 1980s.  If you had invested in the Japanese market in 1989 near the peak, you would still be down in nominal terms today.  Over 30 years should certainly qualify as “the long term”.

In the U.S., every time there is a major dip in the market, it has paid off to just hold on.  Even better, it really paid off to buy more stocks with any cash sitting on the sidelines.

I saw people buying in late March 2020, and they weren’t doing so because they were predicting that the Fed would double its balance sheet.  They just figured that the market always goes up over a longer period of time.  And again, this has worked up until now.

The problem for most of these people is that they haven’t collected any substantial portion of their paper gains.  If you don’t sell, then did you really make a gain?

Yes, anyone can sell at any time.  This is particularly true today with online brokerage accounts.  When the market is open, you can sell almost instantaneously.  And with most stocks and mutual funds, there are plenty of buyers waiting.

The problem, once again, is that most people don’t sell.  I mean, why would you sell unless you plan to buy something else right away?  If the market always goes up, then it is better to be making money than not making money.  At least, that is the theory.

What if we have a stock market crash of 50%?  What if we have a market crash of 80%?  Worse than that, what if we have a major crash and stocks don’t recover any time soon?

As we saw with Japan, this isn’t an impossible scenario.  Even if we saw stocks fall by 50% and then slowly get back to where we are today over the course of 15 years, how is that going to sit with some people?  What about the people who were planning to retire in less than 15 years from now?

We have no idea how this is going to play out.  But at some point, if we don’t move into hyperinflation, there is going to be some kind of reversion to the mean.

When you consider that the Nasdaq has gone up more than 10-fold since the low in 2002, it should make you wonder when this will end.  Has our economy really seen such massive growth to justify these stock prices?  Is the American economy that much more productive today than it was, say, 10 years ago?

We just don’t know when it will all come crashing down.  In the meantime, more conservative investors will be seen as the losers.  And that will be true until it isn’t any more.

So we don’t know when this strategy of buy-and-hold stock index funds will come crashing down.  But we can be pretty certain that it will at some point.  And the higher things go now, the harder they will fall later.

Tens of millions of people are going to see their retirement plans ruined.  They will have to work longer than they expected.  They will have to save more than they expected.

They currently think there is a free lunch of getting an almost guaranteed return of at least 10% per year.  And if stocks drop, just buy more and then you can make 20% or more the next year.

This is unsustainable.  When it stops, it is going to be quite painful for a lot of people.

The U.S. economy will go on.  We will continue to see some productivity gains and technological breakthroughs.  But millions of individuals will have to adjust their lives and their living standards when their buy-and-hold strategy no longer works.

I have only praised Joe Biden once since him becoming president.  That was for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Of course, even with that, he (or his administration) managed to botch the operation of withdrawal.

Also, I think Biden was boxed in on the Afghanistan issue.  Trump had made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw in 2021.  The only two choices were to withdraw or face major violence.  Not withdrawing would have ultimately led to a major surge in troops and probably a much bigger disaster than what we saw.

Biden has been a complete disaster in every other way.  The worst thing he has done is imposing vaccine mandates.  But his whole administration is either incompetent or evil.  It is more corrupt and evil than incompetent, but there are elements of both.

At the same time, I don’t want to blame Biden or his administration for things that aren’t problems or aren’t his fault.  I cringe when I hear conservatives bashing Biden for being soft on China.  I don’t know what this means other than they think Biden should provoke war.

I mean, if Biden is doing corrupt deals with the Chinese government, then say this.  But I wouldn’t characterize that as being soft on China.

One of the latest things where conservatives are bashing Biden is on the topic of inflation.  When most people refer to inflation, they are talking about rising prices.  They aren’t talking about the Austrian school of economics use of the term to refer to an increase in the money supply.

So now we get to hear the term “Bidenflation”.  This is referring to the higher price inflation that most Americans are experiencing.

So is it fair to blame Biden for the price inflation that is running higher?  We aren’t quite at the levels of the 1970s yet, but we are getting a lot closer to double digit annual price inflation, even by the government’s own metrics.

A Nuanced Explanation

Ultimately, it is the Federal Reserve (the Fed) responsible for the price inflation, because it is the Fed that is responsible for the monetary inflation that makes the price inflation possible.  When the central bank more than doubles its balance sheet in a period of less than 2 years, it is not surprising when prices start increasing at a faster pace.  It may only be surprising in the sense that this didn’t happen after the Fed’s monetary inflation after the financial crisis in 2008.

If we blame the Fed though, we ultimately also have to blame Congress and the president.  Congress authorized the existence of the Fed as a monopolist central bank.  If the willpower was there, Congress could get rid of the Fed, or at least its monopoly power of controlling the money supply and setting short-term interest rates.  At the same time, let’s remember that the president nominates the Fed chair, which is then approved by the Senate.

Of course, there is no talk of repealing the Fed or even scaling back its power.  So in this sense, Biden is only responsible to the degree that every other president since 1913 has been responsible.

I do think Biden is more directly responsible in the sense that he and his handlers are promoting massive federal spending.  He is pushing these multi-trillion dollar bills on top of the already bloated budget.  We would have massive deficits without these additional spending bills.  Biden also pushed these expanded child tax credits so that he could get credit for sending tens of millions of checks to families.

(I encourage tax cuts, but these are child tax credits, which means that even some people who pay little or no federal income tax will receive money.  Also, since no spending is being cut, it is just rearranging who gets the money.)

To be sure, Donald Trump did the same thing.  If Trump were still in office, I believe that price inflation would be almost just as bad.  Maybe we wouldn’t have had these additional spending bills coming through, but the overall trend would be the same.

The stimulus checks started under Trump.   The massive lockdown bailouts happened under Trump.  The deficit exploded in 2020 when Trump was president.  I don’t think this would have reversed had Trump stayed in office.  Also, when Trump criticized Jerome Powell (Trump’s pick for Fed chair), it was because he wasn’t being loose enough with monetary policy.

Still, Biden is president now, and he is pushing the massive spending that is happening now.  This spending is inflationary because it is all deficit spending.  The money has to come from somewhere.  Either the debt is bought up by the Fed (through money creation), or it is bought up by other parties that could drive interest rates up.

The Fed has said it is now tapering, meaning it will create a little less new money than it had been doing before.  But if interest rates go up because other parties have to buy up some of the debt, then it is hard to imagine the Fed not stepping in and increasing its purchases (i.e., money creation).

So I think Joe Biden is partially responsible for the high price inflation that we are currently seeing.  I am glad that many Americans are blaming Biden just because he is such a destructive president.

At that same time, it is important to understand why Biden is partially at fault and that the Fed is the party that is actually creating the inflation.  If people don’t grasp this, then we will see more economic destruction in the future, with or without Biden as president.

After Aaron Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19, it was publicly learned that he was unvaccinated.  When previously asked if he was vaccinated, Rodgers answered that he was immunized.

What Rodgers said was kind of like what the establishment media does to everyone else when discussing most political issues.  It may have been factually correct, but it wasn’t truthful.

Rodgers missed a game because of his positive test and his status of being unvaccinated for COVID-19.  Due to NFL rules, he had to wait at least 10 days before returning.  If he had not been in the second-class status of the unvaccinated, he may have been able to return sooner with negative tests.

After everything came out, Rodgers did an interview over video, and he threw all of his cards out on the table.  He said he realized he was in the crosshairs of the woke mob and he wanted to tell his side of the story before being cancelled.  This was the reason that he wasn’t upfront about his vaccination status in the first place.

Rodgers said he didn’t need to investigate at least two of the vaccines and the criminal activities of the vaccine companies because he was already allergic.  The funniest thing Rodgers said was that if he had the flu, he would be playing on Sunday.

I caught a segment on ESPN of First Take, where the panelists in unanimity attacked Rodgers.  Michael Irvin seemed to take great offense at Rodgers saying he is a “critical thinker”.  I think Irvin wants to assure us that he is a critical thinker too.

Stephen A. Smith had to get all serious and call Aaron Rodgers a national embarrassment.  Smith criticized Rodgers for not being truthful over the summer.  About the only thing where I agree with Smith is that Rodgers was deliberately deceitful.  But I can fully understand why Rodgers did this.  It was because he didn’t want hacks like Smith who shill for the establishment to go on the attack against him.

Smith points out that Carson Wentz and Kirk Cousins aren’t vaccinated and they are still playing.  He asks if there is a witch-hunt against them, and responds to his own question that they are playing every week.

Hey, Stephen A., there’s a difference between a witch-hunt and not playing.  I recall seeing several stories of these quarterbacks being criticized.  I also know that the NFL gives them incredibly strict protocols that the vaccinated players aren’t subject to.

Then Smith says that your medical history is a private matter, but not with the issue of vaccines.  Why this one thing Stephen A.?  Is that because society has dictated to you what the one exception is when it comes to divulging your medical status?

The kicker for me is when Smith cites Kyrie Irving and says Kyrie deserves more credit than Rodgers because he manned up and cost himself money.  The joke here is that I have watched this show on ESPN one other time for longer than 10 seconds in the last year.  That one other segment I saw consisted of Stephen A. Smith relentlessly attacking Kyrie Irving for abandoning his team and not being a team player for not getting vaccinated.

If Rodgers had come out at the beginning of the season and said he wasn’t vaccinated and had no plans to get vaccinated, I’m sure the hack named Stephen A. Smith and all of the other attack dogs for the establishment would have been all over him at that time.

One Thing I Never Heard Mentioned

There was something I never heard mentioned by Stephen A. Smith or the ESPN panel.  In fact, in all of the stories I saw about Rodgers testing positive for COVID-19, with the exception of the interview with Rodgers himself, there was something I never heard mentioned from anyone.

I never heard anyone say, “We are praying for Aaron and his quick recovery.”

I never heard anyone say, “We hope Aaron gets better soon.”

I never heard anyone say, “I hope Aaron is able to survive his battle with COVID-19.”

Outside of the interview itself, I never heard anything to this effect at all.  That’s because nobody was concerned or even pretending to be concerned about his health status.

What kind of a pandemic is that?  There is this massive obsession to get everyone vaccinated.  Rodgers didn’t get vaccinated, and he tested positive for COVID-19.  But nobody was suggesting that he might die.  Nobody was suggesting that he was really sick and might have to go to the hospital.

Rodgers isn’t young by NFL standards.  He is 37 years old and will shortly turn 38.  But he is relatively young, and he is in incredible shape.  COVID, if that’s what he had, was nothing to him.  Why would someone like this want to get an injection with possible side effects, some of which are serious?  If he actually had COVID, then he has far greater immunity at this point than anyone who is vaccinated who didn’t have it.

How can anyone take this seriously any more?  Everyone should be left alone to make their own decisions.  It is especially absurd that young and healthy people have to overturn their lives due to a virus that is highly unlikely to inflict any serious harm on them.  It is especially criminal what is being done to children.

You can watch a college football game with a hundred thousand people packed into a stadium, but then your kid has to go to school with a mask on and stay in a bubble and not be near anyone else.  It is a joke.

This is why I don’t think a lot of the COVID hysterics are honest.  If they are honest, they are incredibly dumb on this issue.  Nobody was questioning the health status of Aaron Rodgers.  Even the dumb media forgot to do it.

If Rodgers had been vaccinated, they would have been sure to say that he has mild symptoms because he was vaccinated.  They never say that he had mild symptoms because he is in good physical shape.  They never mention that he had mild symptoms in the same sentence as him being unvaccinated.

I have long-thought that Aaron Rodgers is one of the most intelligent players in football with his decision-making on the field.  Apparently he is a critical thinker off the field too.  Does that bother you Michael Irvin?

The latest CPI numbers came out, and it isn’t pretty.  The CPI rose 0.9% in October 2021.  The year-over-year CPI now stands at 6.2%.

If you annualize that monthly rise in the CPI, then we are above 10% annual price inflation.  I’m not saying this is the case yet, but it is important to do the math and point out the obvious.

What’s really obvious is that the Fed’s 2% mandate is a joke.  We blew past that threshold many months ago, even using the government’s own statistics.

We might now be closer to the 1970s than the 2010s in terms of rising prices.  It is not surprising given that the Fed has more than doubled its balance sheet since February 2020.  Perhaps it is a little surprising only because the Fed created a lot of money after the financial crisis hit in 2008, but we never saw this kind of spike in price inflation.

The absurd thing is that the Fed is still creating money out of thin air.  They finally announced a taper at the last meeting, but that only means that they will inflate less than before.

When price inflation is on the verge of double digits, the policy should be to stop creating money, even from a more conventional standpoint.  Will the Fed finally stop its quantitative easing, or whatever it’s called now, when price inflation hits 15%?

There is a chance the Fed could lose some control.  This is more than just government statistics.  I think most people see the rise in prices when going to the grocery store.  If you are shopping for a car or a house, then you can really see the rise in prices.

All price inflation will impact different people to varying degrees.  Some people are on a fixed income, which can be especially painful.  Some people are in the market for a house or a car, which is a major expense.  It’s one thing to pay 10% more for a dozen eggs.  It is another thing to pay 10% more for a house or car.  Of course, the prices for houses and cars have gone up much more than 10%.

So we are entering something resembling the 1970s, except we have a senile idiot in the White House surrounded by a bunch of people intent on destroying civilization.  Meanwhile, the head of the Fed – probably soon to be replaced by someone even worse – is a Keynesian hack who sees no problem with continuing the inflation.

At this point, I would take a Jimmy Carter.  I would certainly take a Paul Volcker as head of the Fed.

I don’t know how much these people just don’t know what they’re doing versus how much they are trying to cause chaos.

I don’t think the Fed actually wants total chaos.  They don’t want to lose control of the dollar, or else it could ruin their own control.  I believe they think they can pull back at any time and save the dollar, just as was done by Paul Volcker.

Maybe they are right, but it is a high-stakes risk.  And even if they can save the dollar by slamming on the monetary brakes, the recession that follows will be one for the ages.

Almost everything is in a bubble right now except for gold and other precious metals.  I expect we will eventually have a reversion to the mean.

This means that either gold will go up a lot or everything else is going to fall hard.  It could be some combination of the two.

On Tuesday, November 2, 2021, there was a clear signal sent by voters, particularly in Virginia and New Jersey.  The message is that a majority of people don’t support the leftist agenda, which is epitomized by the Biden White House.

In Virginia, some of the cultural issues really got the headlines.  There’s little question that Terry McAuliffe’s comment that parents shouldn’t get a say as to what their kids are taught in school probably swayed a few votes.

If you listen to CNN, then the reason the Republicans won statewide races in Virginia, particularly the governor’s race, is because the voters are a bunch of racists.  If you listen to some of the other corporate media, you may hear a few suggestions that it had to do with education and some cultural issues.

One thing that doesn’t get much mention is that some people voted the way they did because of COVID hysteria and vaccine mandates.  While most Republican governors were awful the last 19 months, the Democrats were far worse.

If you lived in a state with a Democrat governor, then you lived under lockdowns and mandates.  You probably continue to live with some restrictions.  If you lived in a state with a Republican governor, you probably had less time with lockdowns, with a few exceptions.

The White House is now pushing vaccines (by force) onto most Americans.  They aren’t literally kidnapping you and sticking a needle in your arm.  Instead, they are threatening your employer and saying that you must get jabbed or you aren’t allowed to work.  It is pure authoritarianism.

If the last 19 months has done something positive, it has shown some people (those who care to look) that the authoritarianism comes more from the left.  More people are also realizing that they can’t trust anything coming from the establishment and its media.  They also can’t trust any of the so-called experts.

There’s no question that the recent election was a total rebuke of the totalitarianism coming from the left.  So what does the Biden White House do?

More Vaccine Mandates

A couple of days after the election, OSHA finally released its rules telling all companies with 100 or more employees that they have to require vaccination or weekly testing.  The rules are less stringent than those on federal contractors, but it is especially egregious because these are supposed to be private companies.  (Federal contractors are private companies too, but they get at least some of their revenue from federal contracts.)

The White House simply didn’t care about the backlash.  They saw that voters were upset on Tuesday, but they went forward with their plans as if nothing had happened.  As I’ve said, it’s like they are trying to destroy civilization.

I could blame it all on Biden, but this obviously requires some support from the populace.  Also, we know that Biden isn’t devising these plans.  He is just the face signing the orders.

Don’t get me wrong here.  Biden is fully responsible for the criminal acts that he is engaging in.  Even if he is something of a stooge, he is the person who is the sitting president, and he is the one issuing the orders, even if someone else is telling him what to say.

I don’t know when the madness will end.  You would think that major economic disruptions would do it, but again, it seems that Biden’s handlers actually want destruction.

Something has to give over the next few months.  There are tens of millions of people who are being given an ultimatum.  It isn’t going to go well.

Don’t listen to the media.  They are 100% gaslighting the people right now.  There is very little talk of the vaccine mandates that are causing havoc on our society.  It should be the number one story on the news every night.

The media just tells you not to pay attention.  Only pay attention to what they are telling you.  The crowd isn’t chanting “F**k Joe Biden.”  The crowd is chanting “Let’s Go Brandon.”

Now that the crowd really is chanting “Let’s Go Brandon”, the media will tell you it’s something else.  Or they will just try to mute out the crowd on television.

The establishment media:

“The Democrats didn’t lose in Virginia because of lockdowns and vaccine mandates.  The crowd isn’t chanting anything about Joe Biden.  Those deaths and injuries are all related to COVID and can’t have anything to do with vaccines.  The COVID cases may still be bad with widespread vaccination, but they would be even worse if there were no vaccines.  Just keep believing everything we tell you.  Listen to the experts (our experts).  Follow the science (our science).  Wear your mask, get your jab, and keep being an obedient citizen.”

The FOMC released its latest monetary policy statement.  There was a unanimous vote to keep the target federal funds rate near zero.  However, it was also announced that a tapering will begin.

The Implementation Note instructs the following:

• Undertake open market operations as necessary to maintain the federal funds rate in a target range of 0 to 1/4 percent.
• Complete the increase in System Open Market Account (SOMA) holdings of Treasury securities by $80 billion and of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) by $40 billion, as indicated in the monthly purchase plans released in mid-October.
• Increase the SOMA holdings of Treasury securities by $70 billion and of agency MBS by $35 billion, during the monthly purchase period beginning in mid-November.
• Increase the SOMA holdings of Treasury securities by $60 billion and of agency MBS by $30 billion, during the monthly purchase period beginning in mid-December.

In short, the Fed will keep inflating, but at a slower pace.  It has been adding (creating money out of thin air) $120 billion per month to its balance sheet.  It will slow down the money creation by adding “only” $105 billion starting this month, and then $90 billion starting in December.  We don’t know after that.

So the monetary inflation will go at a slower pace than before.  We’ll have to see if the Fed gets to a point where no monetary inflation is taking place, or if some other event will happen before then.

The other notable thing is that the statement says, “Inflation is elevated, largely reflecting factors that are expected to be transitory.”

This was a change from the September 2021 statement that said, “Inflation is elevated, largely reflecting transitory factors.”

In other words, it seems that the Fed is now hedging its bets.  We can’t be sure that price inflation is transitory, but it is expected to be (according to our government models).

Maybe Jerome Powell and company had to stop and put some gasoline in their cars.

The Everything Bubble

With the release of the statement, stock market indices closed at record highs in the United States.  A little bit of tapering apparently isn’t going to stop this party.

The everything bubble goes on, which includes stocks, bonds, real estate, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs.  I will note that when all of this comes crashing down, bonds might do well in the shorter term, as they can be seen as a safe haven.

The cryptocurrencies have to be the most absurd aspect of this everything bubble.  While crashing real estate and stocks will hurt more people, the crypto portion of the bubble has to be the poster child of this nonsense.

It isn’t just about Bitcoin any more.  There are thousands of cryptocurrencies now in existence, and some of them are just going up in price because it is part of the latest craze.  It could be because of a unique name or because of a tweet from Elon Musk.  There is absolutely no utility from these cryptocurrencies other than to try to make money from the next sucker.  This is not to say that the blockchain and other technology used for cryptocurrencies don’t have utility.

Perhaps it is ironic that the original idea of Bitcoin and other cyrptos was to be a competing currency against the Fed’s dollar.  Yet, it is the Fed’s crazy inflation that is propping up these ridiculous cryptocurrencies with easy money.

The Fed has provided the money and the casino, so people feel like they might as well play the game as long as they are there.  You try to make a quick profit (in dollars) before the money dries up.

The Fed is cutting back on the money creation, but the money is not exactly drying up yet.

We live in strange times.  In many ways, it is true that politics is downstream from culture.  This is why I stress the importance of education (not schooling).  When more people are educated as to the benefits of liberty, then the politics will change.

While I think some progress is being made on that front, it sure hasn’t changed the politics yet.  I’m hoping the politics isn’t too far behind.

There are tens of millions of Americans who are absolutely furious at Joe Biden and the corporate media that covers for him.  It isn’t just a matter of them disapproving of the job he’s doing in a poll.  I really mean they are furious.

My neighbor commented the other day that she couldn’t think of any other president who has had such a direct impact on her life.  I had been thinking that same exact thing earlier in the day.

The president can have a very direct impact on people in other countries when starting a war.  That is the worst thing someone can do.  You can’t get any worse than directly killing people.  But the truth is that, for Americans, war doesn’t directly impact most people.  The small percentage of people who go to war are directly impacted, but that is it, except for those close to them.  For everyone else, it is just watching the television and seeing what is happening.  Your taxes or purchasing power may be impacted, but the war itself is just one of many things that impacts that.

Maybe there are a few people out there who really get bothered by a hike in income taxes of 2 or 3 percent, but I don’t think it’s many.

In 2021, tens of millions of people are dealing with vaccine mandates, and many of these people have to choose between a jab and their job.  This is a direct result of orders coming down from the White House.

This applies to most federal government workers and all federal contractors.  It is also supposed to apply to all companies that employ 100 or more people, but there has been no formal directive on this yet.  There are some companies that are trying to implement mandates even though they are not yet legally compelled to do so, but it is still a result of what is coming out of the White House.

While Trump Derangement Syndrome impacted many people (some severely), there was an easy cure.  All you had to do was turn off the television and social media.  If you didn’t hear the latest news, then you would have no idea what Trump’s latest obnoxious tweet said.  And it likely had absolutely no impact on you whatsoever.

But in 2021, you can turn off your television set, but it doesn’t mean you won’t get a notification from your employer saying that you must be vaccinated or lose your job because they are following directives from the White House.

Devastating Impacts

While it looks like the White House is backtracking slightly, saying that the December 8^th deadline to be vaccinated is “flexible”, it still makes one wonder why this is happening.

Biden is now one of the least popular presidents of all time at this early of his presidency.  The man has only been in office just over 9 months, and he is absolutely despised by half the population.  So much for him being a uniter (as if anyone actually believed those words).  If anything, he is uniting people against him.

I don’t think it is actually Biden calling the shots, as he is too incompetent and senile at this point.  Still, he is the president, so he takes full responsibility.  Given this, it is still curious as to why his handlers seem intent on destroying civilization.

It sounds strange and conspiratorial to use those words, but I don’t know what else to call it.  Just about everything the White House does these days is stupid and destructive.  And when it seems not to be working, they just double down on it.

Now they are looking at throwing tens of millions of people out of work because they won’t take their shot in the arm.  Meanwhile, there is already a massive shortage of labor and goods due to the destructive policies coming out of Washington DC and the Federal Reserve.

I have never been a fan of Bill Clinton.  I think he is a criminal, and he certainly used his office for many criminal and corrupt activities.  But when Clinton was president, he also wanted to be liked.  He was something of a populist.  He actually wanted a good economy, or at least the appearance of a good economy.  He may have been doing bad things, but he wasn’t trying to destroy civilization.

I don’t think Biden and all of his absurdities are sustainable.  But it is still terrifying because Biden and his handlers seem to have no limits.  They are just an out-of-control machine intent on destroying things and wrecking people’s lives.  Maybe this can be corrected with the 2022 congressional elections and the 2024 presidential election, but by then I’m not sure how much there will be left to save.

The coming months are scary with millions of people facing job losses because of mandates.  Add on top of this widespread shortages and the possibility of significantly higher price inflation.

I feel like something has to give.  We are going to descend into a much worse tyranny, or else we are going to fight back the beast here.

The chants of “Let’s Go Brandon” seem to be getting louder and more widespread.  It is more than just Biden, but Biden is the front man, so he should be held responsible.

The left will toss Biden aside when it is convenient, but he is the one right now who is signing these unlawful and immoral executive orders.  If he is removed from office, then his replacement should get the same treatment until these mandates and other disastrous policies are removed.

The defenders of liberty must beat back these destroyers of civilization through persuasion, disobedience, and any other peaceful methods.  All of the absurdities must be pointed out to those who are not in full opposition to the ruling class.

We need chants of “Let’s Go Brandon” to be so loud and widespread that the man just resigns in shame and goes into hiding for the rest of his pathetic life.