It’s amazing how the narrative shifts.  Or maybe I should say, how the science evolves.

This article from Politico is a trip into bizarro world, where the political left is now trying to blame Donald Trump for pressuring the FDA to authorize the COVID vaccines on an accelerated timeline.

Should we laugh or cry at this news?

Perhaps this is a test to see if anything here sticks.  It’s like when politicians want to enact some draconian edict, so they push out a few rumors to see what kind of reaction they get.  This tells them whether they are pushing too hard and too fast.

I think a slim majority of Americans see the COVID vaccines as mostly a disaster.  They fully understand just by being awake in their lives that these “vaccines” do not stop infection or transmission of the thing they are supposed to prevent.  The best that can be said now is that they lessen the illness if you do get COVID, but that is highly disputable at this point too.

At this point, these are still the original vaccines that were supposedly designed to stop the original COVID.  They are completely worthless at best at this point, and they are harmful to some.  Of course, they are not worthless to those who are profiting and gaining power from their widespread use.

While a majority of Americans see that they aren’t effective, there is a small but significant percentage who are realizing that they aren’t safe either.  Most people seem to know someone who had a significant adverse reaction to the jab.  The question is whether they actually noticed or acknowledged that it coincided with the jab.

When talking about investments and speculations like Bitcoin, there are HODLers.  They HODL (hold on for dear life).  The same goes for the COVID jabs, except this is more of a religion than an attempt to make money.  No matter how much evidence is before their eyes, they continue to repeat the official narrative that they are safe and effective.

Now that the political left is trying to push a narrative that Trump rushed the vaccines, we have to wonder if they are going to try to blame Trump for what is to come.  Are they worried about more and more people coming to the conclusion that these so-called vaccines are a complete disaster?  Or are they just accusing Trump of anything that could possibly stick, as they have done for the last 7 years?

There is also the possibility that this is an attempt to divide Trump supporters.  Trump supporters are accused of being some kind of cult, yet about half of Trump supporters are against the COVID jabs.  That isn’t much a cult.

Candace Owens has questioned Trump’s devotion to the vaccines.  Alex Jones is now saying that he is inclined to favor DeSantis for president because DeSantis is speaking out against the vaccines (up to a point).  Jones is warning Trump to get out in front of this and to own up to his mistake.

Is Trump Evil, or Was He Duped?

For those who aren’t happy with Trump’s stance on the COVID vaccines, there is some disagreement about his intentions.  Was Trump simply duped by the establishment (much like he was duped about COVID in general)?  Is Trump aware that the vaccines are bad but doesn’t really care?  Or is Trump recognizing that the vaccines may not be so good but has too much of an ego to admit any wrongdoing?

Personally, I lean towards the last option.  He has had a lot of pushback from his supporters, so he can’t claim ignorance any longer.  I don’t think he wants to ever admit he was wrong on anything, as he sees it as a sign of weakness that will only help his enemies.

In this case, I think he needs to admit he was wrong.  At the very least, he needs to acknowledge that many of his supporters are not supportive of the COVID vaccines and that everyone should have the right to make their own personal decision.  If he does that last part, it may or may not be enough to keep his supporters.

I think Trump does bear some responsibility for the vaccines, even if he was duped.  This is what happens when you lack principles.  If he were a libertarian, he would have opposed government intervention.

Instead, Trump pushed to fund the pharmaceutical companies, and it is probably true that he did put political pressure on the FDA to authorize them quickly.  Incidentally, this didn’t even work, as the FDA waited until just a few days after the election to announce the wonderful COVID vaccines.

After that, Trump touted the vaccines and how his Operation Warp Speed gave them to us.  Trump wanted credit for the vaccines.  But be careful what you wish for.

Changing Realities

With all of that said, it is a joke that anyone from the political left is accusing Trump of rushing through the COVID vaccines.  I suppose they are trying to walk a fine line and say that Trump pressured the FDA, but thankfully our professional experts went through all of the proper protocols despite his pressure.

These people count on the American people to have extremely short memories.  In some cases, they are right to count on this.

It reminds me of 2020 when these people were cheering on the riots (sorry, mostly peaceful protests) in cities across America.  Once they settled down and the election was getting closer, they talked about how Trump was not upholding law and order.

There are also massive contradictions everywhere that you aren’t supposed to notice.  The CDC has changed its guidelines to say that the vaccinated and unvaccinated should not be treated differently at this point, yet there are still mandates all over the place.  This includes a mandate that prevents non-U.S. citizens/ residents from entering the country unless they are vaccinated.

This latest attempt to blame Trump for any shortcomings of the vaccines will hopefully just make more people mad.  I remember when Biden said that if you get the vaccine you can’t get COVID.  I remember when he said that if you are vaccinated that you can’t die.  (He literally said this.  It wasn’t that you couldn’t die of COVID, which is also a lie.  He said you couldn’t die.)

I remember Biden telling America that his/ their (speaking on behalf of the vaccinated, apparently) patience was wearing thin.  And I certainly remember the day when Biden announced that most of America would face the choice of getting the shot or losing their ability to make a living.

These people are truly the scum of the earth.  I don’t think there is one single politician in DC on the left who opposed these totalitarian vaccine mandates.  Yet, they now have the gall to blame Trump and say that he pressured the FDA to rush them through?

These are truly evil people.  I don’t say the same about Trump.  Maybe Trump is evil, but I really don’t know.  He doesn’t seem to hate my guts, but maybe he’s a good actor.

The people who wanted to mandate vaccines on the population are seriously deranged and evil people.  I have no sympathy for them.  Even for the ones who were simply duped, they should never have any position of authority or power ever again.  It was immoral to try to mandate anything, even if you truly believed it was safe and effective.

Anyway, I am happy to make this an issue.  Trump does bear some responsibility.  But those on the left who are calling out Trump bear even more.  I want the COVID shots to be an issue that people don’t forget about.  It exposes the evil of these people in power.

Joe Biden, as king, has declared student loan forgiveness of up to $10,000 (or more) for those making under $125,000 (or $250,000 for couples); except it isn’t really forgiveness, because the lenders aren’t forgiving anything.  They are just being paid by other people.

While most debate the logic or illogic of such a move, there isn’t a lot of talk about where Biden gets the constitutional authority to do this.  Supposedly he is using COVID emergency powers as an excuse, but Congress is supposed to authorize spending.  And to be sure, this is spending and potentially inflationary.

College and student loans are just another area in life where the government has its hands all over the place and has made a disaster of things.  In a free market, the government wouldn’t be backing student loans.  This has served to drive up the price of education (if that’s what you want to call it) while sinking people into debt.

We hear about how we need government regulators to protect people from predatory lenders.  But in a free market, lenders have an incentive to not let people get in over their heads.

In the housing market, which has its share of government interference, at least there is collateral backing up the loans.  Even if someone takes out a loan for $190,000 for a $200,000 house, then the buyer has some stake in it.  As long as the price doesn’t drop, then there is $10,000 in equity, plus the closing costs that were put in.  If you default on the mortgage, then the lender gets the house.

With student loans, what is the collateral?  Even if your degree isn’t in gender studies, what is to stop someone from taking out a big loan and defaulting right after finishing school?  That is why the bankruptcy laws are different, and it is very hard to discharge student debt.

In a free market, lenders would be very careful to ensure they get their money back.  They also wouldn’t lend $200,000 for someone to get a degree in cultural studies.  Even a potential doctor would have to show some credentials of likely becoming a doctor.

So the whole thing is a mess created by government.  Still, people voluntarily made these decisions to take on student loans.  Maybe it’s unfair, but it is more unfair for someone else to pay for those bad decisions.

Irrational Anger?

I have been surprised how divisive this issue quickly became.  The more outspoken people in this case are those who oppose this move.  I’m sure someone who has student debt who will benefit is secretly cheering.  Maybe they even recognize that it isn’t fair, but they’ll take what they can get.  They know they are getting the short end of the stick with other government policies.

I completely agree with all of the people who are angry and many of the reasons being given.  It is unfair.  Some people gave up vacations and nice cars in order to do the responsible thing and pay off their loans.  Some people worked through college to minimize or eliminate the need for loans.  Some people chose not to go to college and now get to pay for those who did.

Even though there is an income cap, it is quite high.  I can imagine a couple making $200,000 per year combined who get this loan forgiveness (maybe for both of them), while the plumber down the street has to pay for part of it.

Still, with the amount of money Congress has wasted and committed this year alone, it is funny that people are so outraged.  I mean, at least here some people are getting some relief.  It is a transfer of wealth.  When $50 billion is spent on Ukraine, it is going to weapons manufacturers and corrupt politicians in Ukraine.  Yet, there is less outrage there.

I see this with my kids.  It is very important to both of them for everything to be fair between the two of them.  If one of them gets one cookie and the other gets two, then one of them will be yelling that it’s not fair.  I’m not sure if this ever changes, even as adults.

It wouldn’t matter if the kid down the street got three cookies.  It certainly doesn’t matter to them that there are starving children in Africa or Asia.  They compare everything against each other.

So it goes with Americans.  It is something in human nature.  If their money goes off to some corrupt country overseas, then everybody in America is seemingly getting screwed equally.  But when you favor one group over another, then all heck breaks loose.

Don’t get me wrong here.  I am glad that some people are really upset over the whole student loan bribe.  It isn’t even fully partisan.  There are some Democrats who are irritated who made good decisions in not taking on debt or paying it off responsibly.

If Joe Biden thinks this will favor his party in the midterm elections in November, I think he is mistaken.  It might have irritated as many or more people as it helped.

The U.S. dollar and the euro have hit parity.  You can now exchange one U.S. dollar and get approximately one euro.  You have to go back almost 20 years to see this.

There was one point in 2008 where exchanging a euro would get you over $1.50.  That just shows the massive drop that has occurred.

So why is the dollar so strong, especially considering that price inflation was recently above 9%?  Should we be bullish on the dollar?

It is first important to recognize that we are comparing fiat currencies to each other.  They are all controlled by a central bank, which are controlled by government.

It isn’t so much that the dollar is good.  It’s just that the other major fiat currencies are so much worse.  That goes in particular for the yen and the euro.

The Chinese yuan is rather meaningless in comparison to the dollar because it still isn’t freely floating.  The euro and the yen are openly traded.

The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are creating money out of thin air like crazy, just as the Federal Reserve has done for the last 14 years.  But at least the Fed has stopped it (for now) to fight the price inflation that it caused.

The U.S. also has the luxury (if you want to call it that) of being the world’s reserve currency.  This is slowly fading, but it still holds true.  That is a reason that it surprises me a little that the dollar has been strong even against the horrible euro.  With the sanctions, and what is essentially a default against Russia, it’s curious why more foreign countries aren’t dumping dollars like there’s no tomorrow.

Russia dumped most of its U.S. treasury holdings a while ago.  They were wise to do so.  Japan and China are still the major foreign holders of U.S. government debt.  I think the Chinese government is incredibly naïve for doing this.  The fact that the Chinese central bank is still holding almost one trillion dollars of U.S. debt tells me that there must be something to the theories that Biden is working hand-in-hand with the Chinese government.

Then again, it must be every president.  It’s not as if China was dumping its holdings when Trump was president.  It makes you wonder if all of the bluster is real, or if Chinese officials are really that naïve.

Chinese officials have to see what just happened with Russia.  The U.S. government, of all entities, didn’t like Russia going into another country.  So they placed heavy sanctions and basically stiffed the Russians out of money they were owed.

If something more goes down with Taiwan, why couldn’t the U.S. government just stiff the Chinese of their one trillion dollars in holdings?  To ask the question is to answer it.

But apparently what has happened with Russia hasn’t been enough to sink the U.S. dollar.  It is still king of the major fiat currencies, at least for now.

Ironically, the U.S. government’s intervention in Ukraine has hurt Europe far more than anyone.  The Europeans are obeying their U.S. masters and shooting themselves in their collective feet.  As energy prices soar and people get ready for a potentially brutal winter, the Russians seem to be doing far better than the Europeans.

The European version of socialism isn’t working out too well.  The people there tolerate far more than Americans, although we can acknowledge that a few places such as Hungary are doing comparatively well.

There are more protests in places like Germany and France than we see in the United States.  But they have a lot more to protest.  For the horrible lockdowns and vaccine mandates that have happened in the United States, it has been even worse in other “first world” countries.

It is rather sad to see the decline of Europe.  I think that’s yet another reason why it’s important that the U.S. get through this time of increasing totalitarianism and find liberty again.  We need to set an example for the rest of the world.

Economically, it is going to be really tough times ahead for much of the world.  I think Western Europe will have it particularly rough.  The euro is just one of many canaries in the coalmine.  Americans won’t have it easy, but it will likely be better than most of Europe.

Many years ago, I wrote a small e-book titled “Should You Pay Down Your Mortgage?”  I lay out the arguments for and against paying down additional principal on your home mortgage.

I still consider most of it relevant today.  One thing that has changed is the tax laws.  There are far fewer people today who will itemize deductions on their tax return and get a benefit of deducting the interest portion of mortgage payments.  Anyway, I always thought this was a bad argument for not paying down a mortgage faster, and it was a really bad argument for taking on a bigger mortgage.

I am somewhat in the Dave Ramsey camp when it comes to a home mortgage.  I think it is generally better to pay it down and eventually pay it off.  You don’t get rich by paying interest to a bank or financial institution.  You get rich by collecting interest.

We are now in a situation where price inflation is higher than most people’s mortgage interest rate.  We are told that it doesn’t make financial sense to pay down a fixed-rate mortgage in an inflationary environment.

I don’t fully accept this argument.  You are still paying interest.  It doesn’t seem to make sense paying down a mortgage with a 4% interest rate when price inflation exceeds 8% annually.

But the question isn’t whether price inflation is higher than your interest rate.  The question is whether you can get a better return on your money than the 4% interest rate.

In a high inflationary environment, nominal interest rates tend to go higher.  In our world today, we have highly negative real interest rates.  You might be able to get 2 or 3% nominally buying Treasury bills or bonds.  If you could get, let’s say, a 7% return investing in a U.S. Treasury bill, then it would make sense taking the extra money you have and putting it there rather than putting it towards paying down the principal on your mortgage.

Don’t forget you will owe taxes on your “gains” on that 7%.  I put “gains” in quotes because it is still below the price inflation rate.

There are many legitimate reasons for not paying extra on your mortgage.  One obvious reason is that you simply can’t afford to do it.  It is also relevant how much liquidity you have.  If most of your net worth is tied up in your house equity and in retirement accounts, and you don’t have much money in the bank, then it is better to save up for a good emergency fund before tying it up in a mortgage.  The exception might be if you are close to paying off your home mortgage and can eliminate that expense from your life.

I have laid out those reasons before, but I just want to address an argument that may be unique to our time.  I am in this situation.

I refinanced at a perfect time.  It was in late 2020/ early 2021.  I have a 2% fixed rate on a 15-year loan.  2% is just ridiculously low, and it was at or near the bottom of mortgage rates.

I have not made any extra payments, and I really don’t plan to make any extra payments.  The rate is so ridiculously low.  Even though I am paying out a very small amount of interest, it seems that any extra money could be put to better use.  I really probably can get a better return elsewhere, though I understand that there are no guarantees in life.

Even with the incredibly low yields, I can still do very slightly better right there now.

Also, in this time of higher inflation, my mortgage payment is my one predictable expense each month.  It doesn’t change.  The property taxes may change, but the actual principal and interest don’t change.  Sure, I would rather not have it at all, but it doesn’t make sense to dump anything extra towards it at this time.

This is why personal finance is so personal.  If I had a rate of 4% or higher, I might be more apt to throw a few extra bucks at the thing each month.

I won’t say that I’ll never pay extra.  Times may change.  Maybe we’ll go into some kind of a deflationary depression where rates go to zero or near zero.

Or maybe in 10 years or so I will have so little left on the mortgage that it might make sense to write a check (metaphorically speaking) to get rid of the thing.

But if you have a 2% rate or something similarly low on your mortgage that is fixed, it probably doesn’t make sense paying it down unless you just have a lot of money sitting in the bank doing nothing.

I’ve been asking my conservative friends whom they would rather see as the Republican nominee for president in 2024.  Trump, DeSantis, or someone else?

I had one person tell me DeSantis.  The other few people didn’t give me a direct answer, although one said he might prefer Trump because he would rather see DeSantis stay as governor of Florida.

If Trump wants to run and is not prevented from running by the deep state, then I think it is Trump’s nomination to have.  The polls seem to reflect this.

If Trump runs, then I don’t think DeSantis will run.  He is smart enough in this respect.  In fact, I don’t even know if DeSantis wants to become president.  He has a young family, and his wife just got through a battle with cancer.

DeSantis also knows how brutal the establishment really is.  He faces down the evil people every day, but I do think he knows it will be amplified greatly if he runs for president.

When you run for president and you are a threat to the establishment, you are actually putting your life in danger.  Even your family is not safe.

I have been saying for almost 7 years now that the reason the establishment hates Trump isn’t just because of his mean tweets and his brash personality.  The problem is what he is saying.  Trump exposes (sometimes inadvertently) the corruption and criminality of the ruling elite.

If Trump decided not to run (or couldn’t run) and DeSantis stepped in, then you better believe that the establishment and its media will hit DeSantis hard.  Just as they did to Trump with the Russian collusion hoax, they will make stuff up about DeSantis.

If Marco Rubio or Mike Pompeo get the Republican nomination, they don’t have to worry.  The establishment will dish out some criticism, but they would be happy with these types of candidates.

I don’t think the Republican Party is going back to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  I mean that metaphorically.  I don’t think Mike Pence would go anywhere if he runs.  It is possible that an establishment Republican could get the nomination if there are no other options and the person pretends as if they are a fan of Donald Trump.  This is the kind of game that someone like Pompeo has played.

When you look back at Trump’s presidency, is it any coincidence that the people who found themselves in legal trouble are the same people who were sympathetic to a less interventionist foreign policy?  Think about that.

So if someone like DeSantis ran for president and somehow got elected, you can just imagine the chaos.  You will quickly see that the chaos wasn’t about Donald Trump.  It was about what he represented.

DeSantis has been bolder in Florida with some of his appointments than Trump was as president.  If DeSantis surrounded himself by people who were not in bed with the establishment, you can only imagine how brutal things will get.  If his whole cabinet consists of anti establishment people, you could see the Department of “Justice” trying to convict the entire administration.

And just look at what has happened to Trump just because of his rhetoric.  Imagine if Trump had threatened to disband the intelligence agencies as Kennedy did.  Imagine if Trump’s policies were more reflective of some of his rhetoric.

This is where we are in 2022.  The establishment has been exposed.  And because of that, it has become even more dangerous.

I once read an analogy of the empire being like an animal.  Maybe it was Lew Rockwell who made this analogy.  Imagine an elephant or a rhino or a bull inside of a house.  That represents the empire.  The animal gets wounded and starts thrashing about.  It is injured.  It could even die one day.  But it is going to cause a lot of chaos and destruction as it thrashes about with its injuries.

I don’t want to see DeSantis run for president because I live in Florida.  I have no idea how he would be on foreign policy.  I fully understand he is not a libertarian.  But he does get a lot right, and he does have courage.

I don’t really want Trump to run again unless he is more disciplined this time.  I want to hear him talk about tearing up the intelligence agencies and the deep state.  I want to hear that he will appoint people who don’t hate him.  I want to hear that his son-in-law will have nothing to do with his next administration.  I want to hear that he will pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.  I want to hear that he will fire all of the top people at the CDC and FDA who have caused so much grief and havoc over the last several years.  I want Trump to promise that he will repeal all vaccine mandates imposed by the federal government on day one of him taking office.

Otherwise, it will just be a show about Trump’s personality and all of the supposedly wicked things he has done.

One thing I know for sure is that 2024 will be one for the books.  It may top 2016 and 2020 in terms of entertainment and chaos.  It will be a dangerous time, but I am cautiously optimistic that better times are ahead.

It seems as if the Democrats in Washington are purposely trying to destroy Western civilization.  It is a bizarre thing to watch.

Almost everything that Biden does is destructive.  I don’t know what is in Biden’s head, if anything, but his handlers – the people calling the shots – are purposely trying to cause chaos and destruction.  I can’t fully explain it either.

I like to compare this time to when Bill Clinton was president.  I think Clinton is a criminal in many ways.  He was always in politics for the power and money and the personal pleasure it brought him.

But the corrupt and criminal things Clinton did were to generally further his own personal gain.  It was understandable in terms of incentives.  Clinton also wanted to be liked.  He was a smooth talker.

Therefore, even though he probably had socialist tendencies, he was really a politician above all.  This turned him into something of a populist.  He wasn’t purposely trying to destroy anything unless there was some kind of advantage that it gave him.

After two years of Clinton, we got a Republican-controlled Congress, and times were actually somewhat sane.  I don’t give Clinton a pass on the wars he started, but even those were minor in comparison to what was to come.  In terms of the federal budget, it was the closest thing we had seen to a balanced budget in a long time, and we haven’t come anywhere close since then.

Now we have to deal with the destroyers of civilization.  This can include rioting, purposely encouraging illegal immigration, reckless spending, surveillance, and vaccine mandates.  To be sure, I understand that not all of this is new, but it has been put on steroids.

I don’t vote that often.  When there is a House or Senate race, I don’t usually vote for either one.  I will only vote Republican if I think the person is outside of the Republican establishment.  I will vote for DeSantis for governor this November.

I don’t trust most Republicans at all.  With that said, I hope that the Democrats get absolutely trounced in November.  I would like to see the Republicans get a majority in the House by 50 or more seats.  For all of the destructive policies, particularly of the last two years, a strong message needs to be sent.

I have little faith in most Republicans, especially those in Washington DC.  But there are a few good ones, and it has gotten better over the last several years.

I would take a Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) over almost any Republican in Congress in the past, or even today.  Even on foreign policy, she is decent, and she is certainly outside the Republican establishment.

The big difference maker with someone like MTG is that she has courage.  She will stand up and say what needs to be said.  This is a quality that is often lacking in politicians.

The Power of Congress

I actually think that Congress cedes too much power.  Out of the three branches of government, Congress has become the weakest.  The executive branch (the presidency) is the worst and the most destructive.  The courts are generally bad and overstep their authority, but at least there are a lot of judges, so it isn’t all bad.

Congress is supposed to have more power to keep these other branches in check.  Instead, Congress has seemed to delegate a lot of its authorities, and most of that is unconstitutional.

All of these alphabet agencies under the executive branch shouldn’t be writing rules and regulations.  It is up to Congress to make the laws; not to delegate them out.

That’s how we get stuck with the administrative state.  That is how we get stuck with tyranny.

Imagine the power that the Republicans could exercise if they take control of Congress.  And when I say “power”, I mean the power to scale back everything that Biden and his destroyers have done.

Congress controls the power of the purse.  Funding is everything in Washington DC.

The FBI just raided Trump’s house, and it seems obvious it was purely political.  It is more intimidation and criminality coming out of the FBI.  They purposely have laws so that they can be enforced only against those who do not obey the establishment.  They can prosecute almost anybody for anything if they really want to.

I hear some Republicans calling for an investigation and even for reforming the FBI.  Let me tell you that there is no reforming the FBI, or the CIA, or the NSA.  They should all be defunded.  That should be the Republican position.

What above vaccine mandates?  Biden can’t enforce these without the alphabet agencies.  The Republicans can withhold all funding from the CDC, the FDA, and other agencies that are imposing these mandates.  That’s a quick way to get them repealed.

What about “green energy” and all of the horrible rules being imposed on car companies?  The executive branch is trying to shove electric vehicles down our collective throats.  How about we defund the EPA?

With every rule and regulation, there is some enforcement agency.  How about the Republicans take the major ones first?  By withholding funds or threatening to withhold funds from agencies, they can overturn Biden’s entire destructive agenda.

The problem is that you need Republicans who actually want to do this and are willing to take a stand.  I think the more radical (i.e., principled) Republicans in Congress need to make these suggestions and hopefully the citizenry will start pressuring bad Republicans.

Mitch McConnell isn’t going to do anything principled or right unless pressure is brought down on him to do so.  But we’ve seen some more establishment Republicans losing in their primaries, which is a good sign.  It is a signal that more will come if Republican politicians don’t start voting the way their constituents want them to vote.

This is where it is important to let your voice be heard.  Most people in Congress have no principles.  But if they hear from enough constituents on a particular issue, they can be swayed.  They will stick their finger in the political wind.  They will march with the parade.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers were released for July 2022.  The CPI was flat for the month, while the year-over-year price inflation has gone down to 8.5%.  It was expected to come in at 8.7%.

The less volatile median CPI came in at 0.5% for July, while the year-over-year median CPI increased to 6.3% (previously 6%).

The 8.5% CPI is certainly an improvement from the 9.1% year-over-year number that was reported the previous month.  But now for the bad news.

First, overall consumer prices aren’t going down.  The rate of price inflation may be decelerating, but it’s not as if you are going to see prices again that resemble what you saw a year or two ago, especially when you look at food.  Perhaps some asset prices like real estate and stocks will see price deflation, but your grocery bill probably isn’t going to go down any time soon.

In fact, your grocery prices continue to go up.  That is the second piece of bad news with this report.  The primary reason the rate came in flat for July is because gas prices fell quite a bit.  This is good news if you drive a lot.  But notice that the decline in gas prices didn’t lead to a decline in the CPI.  It only offset the rising prices of things, especially food. Actually, the price inflation for food is going higher even more than it was previously.

Now we move on to the third piece of bad news, and this is the big one.  While we may have hit peak price inflation for now, this likely signals that we are in for a big recession.

The Federal Reserve was expected to hike its target rate by 75 basis points (0.75%) at its meeting in later September.  Now, with the slightly lower-than-expected CPI numbers, the odds have shifted.  A 50 basis point hike seems more likely now.

This is why the stock market roared higher on Wednesday.

But the Fed is still in the mode of hiking rates and very slowly reducing its balance sheet.  This is in the face of a bond market where we are already seeing a somewhat inverted yield curve.  The spread between the 2-year yield and 10-year yield has been quite significant, with the 2-year yield coming in higher at 40 basis points or more.

I expect we will see an inversion of the 10-year yield and 3-month yield soon.  You can also compare the 30-year to the 1-year and see that investors are willing to take a lower yield for a 30-year bond than for a 1-year Treasury.  This seems absurd unless you consider that a severe recession is on the horizon.

Gold and other precious metals have not done particularly well in the face of high inflation.  It seems to be the only asset class that isn’t in a bubble.  Contributing to this is the strong U.S. dollar.  The dollar is only strong in comparison to the other more horrible fiat currencies.

The bond market and the gold market are indicating that we should fear a recession more than future price inflation.  They are telling us that there is going to be a massive correction.

I am not talking about the possible recession from two straight quarters of negative GDP.  I know there is a debate about the definition of a recession and whether we have been in one in 2022.

If we are in a recession now (or just got out of one), it will be nothing compared to what is coming.  These are very hard times for middle class America because real wage rates are going down with the high price inflation.

However, unemployment is very low.  And despite a tough year so far for stocks, the market indexes are still way above where they were a couple of years ago.

If we are in a recession now, it is mild compared to what will be.  I am talking about a recession coming where unemployment jumps higher, major companies are filing for bankruptcy, and stocks are going down 50% or more.  Also, I am less certain on this, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see housing prices fall by 25% or more.

There will be another CPI report before the next Fed meeting.  In the meantime, I am watching the yield curve to see if we get a bigger inversion.  As of right now, I think a hard recession in 2023 is likely.

Alex Jones was recently ordered to pay in excess of $45 million in punitive damages over his assertions that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.  This was on top of the $4.1 million he was ordered to pay for actual damages.

Aside from the fact that it involves Alex Jones, it is a somewhat bizarre case.  The judge issued a default judgment over Jones due to his supposedly willful noncompliance with the discovery process.

Perhaps part of this could be blamed on Jones’ attorneys, but it is rather odd that a defendant can just be found guilty like that.

Alex Jones and his company InfoWars are known for conspiracy theories, which sometimes means just questioning the official narrative put out by the establishment media.  It is important to point out that if you put Jones’ record up against Biden, Fauci, and the COVID hysterics in government, Jones has been far more accurate.

Oh wait.  Am I going to get into legal trouble for making such a claim?  Is this tarnishing the reputation of Biden and Fauci?  Is it putting them through personal pain?

If this Alex Jones case is any kind of precedent (and why shouldn’t it be?), then free speech in America is going to its graveyard.

Alex Jones was one of the first people to be banned by social media companies.  Most people didn’t care because they weren’t Alex Jones, and they weren’t fans of Alex Jones.  Once the social media companies had gained some acceptance for this censoring, it became easier to censor anyone who questions the official establishment narrative on COVID, Ukraine, or anything else.

I can tell you that the judgment against Jones is at least a hundred times worse than him getting censored by social media companies.  At least when the social media companies censor, it is just on their platforms.  They didn’t throw anyone in jail or bankrupt someone for posting anti-establishment narratives on Twitter or Facebook.

Why did parents of Sandy Hook children take this to the court system?  It was obviously for money.  Oh wait, I take that back, because I don’t want them to sue me.

If they were concerned about their reputation, why didn’t they go on Alex Jones’ show to set the record straight and provide some evidence that the shooting was real and that their children were victims?

But the real problem isn’t that the parents sued.  The real problem is that the justice system (more like injustice system) allowed the suit to go forward.  Then it turned into some kind of a kangaroo court.

Oh wait.  I don’t want the judge in the case to sue me for reputational damages.  I better not say that.

So let’s think about the kind of precedent this whole thing sets.

You better not challenge the official narrative of the 9/11 attacks.  The families of the victims might sue you and bankrupt you.

You better not question vaccine safety.  The workers at the pharmaceutical companies might sue you for defamation.

You better not criticize Joe Biden when he says that if you take the vaccine, you can’t die.  Biden might sue you for defaming his character.

Basically, you better accept every single government narrative as the official word.  If you don’t do this, then someone will feel hurt by it.  Someone can sue you.

Oh, and it doesn’t even matter if they are lying.  All that matters is that the establishment says that they aren’t lying and that you are lying for questioning it.

It doesn’t matter if you think Alex Jones is obnoxious.  It doesn’t matter if you think what he did was mean-spirited.  This isn’t what this is about.  This is about shutting people up.

If everyone is afraid of being sued for questioning a narrative, then the official narratives will get questioned a lot less.

So just shut up, obey your orders, do as you’re told, and you won’t get sued into bankruptcy through our “justice” system.

My son has been on a kick lately of watching Mr. Beast on YouTube, and I have caught my fair share of videos now.  Mr. Beast is a young guy who has about 100 million subscribers on YouTube.

As the money rolling in from his YouTube ad revenue has expanded, Mr. Beast has expanded the amount he spends on each video.  Sometimes he does challenges for people where he gives away insane amounts of money.

It has also been common for Mr. Beast to just randomly give money and expensive things away to people.  He bought all of the cars at a used car dealership and was practically giving them away when people came to shop for a car.  Mr. Beast and his friends also drove for Uber and gave cars away to their customers.

Some of the people get quite emotional.  Imagine getting an unexpected check for $10,000 or getting a free car when going to the car dealership.  There are many people struggling financially where this kind of thing makes a profound difference.

There was one video where one of Mr. Beast’s friends had a very minor car accident in a parking garage.  There was a minor scrape on one of the cars that was parked in there.  They waited all day until the owner of the car came out.  They told the guy what happened and said they felt bad.  They gave him $9,000 in cash on the spot.  The guy said his car isn’t even worth that amount.  He actually felt bad taking the money.  Maybe he won’t feel bad later on when he realizes that this is what Mr. Beast does.

Mr. Beast has also been known to go into stores and buy all of the merchandise in the entire store.  He has no problem spending $100,000 or more.  He’ll typically donate the items to a food bank or some kind of charity store afterwards.  While it might be aggravating for a customer who walks into the store afterwards and finds everything is gone, it does provide entertainment and most of the stuff is donated.

An economist might ask: Is this the most efficient way to help people?

My answer is, probably yes.  The reason it is efficient is because it is providing entertainment for tens of millions of people while also randomly helping people.  If Mr. Beast made videos where he interviewed people and reviewed their financial situation to see how deserving they are of money, it might get rather dull quickly.  And without the views on YouTube, there wouldn’t be money to give away.

There was one episode where Mr. Beast and his friends had a $100,000 bowl of ice cream.  He actually sort of apologized at the end of the video because he knows some people will say it is wasteful.  He said he makes some videos like this so he can keep his channel going strong and to bring in more money so that he can give away even more in the future.

He also talked about certain videos where he doesn’t run ads because some people will comment that he shouldn’t be running ads for certain content.  But he said that it kind of makes more sense to run ads because it enables him to be even more generous to other people.  Still, I guess he doesn’t want to hear it from his critics.

Mr. Beast is touching lives and making them better, but he is just one man with a team, and they can only do so much.

Think about the numbers.  If he gave away $330 million, that would be about one dollar for every American.  In other words, it would make no difference.  It also wouldn’t be very entertaining to watch people get surprised with a gift of one dollar.

When you watch people get surprised with a gift for $10,000 or $50,000 for winning a crazy competition, it means something.  It is emotional for the person getting the money because you know it makes a meaningful difference in the person’s life.  It is more entertaining to watch.

Good Money and Evil Money

When I was watching Mr. Beast, I thought about people with greater wealth than him who end up doing damage with their money.

If you have a businessman or entrepreneur who is getting rich by providing a demanded service in the open market place, then this is a sign of the person benefitting others.

Think about Jeff Bezos and the many tens of billions of dollars he is worth.  Most of his net worth is from his main enterprise, which is Amazon.  Amazon has made the lives of hundreds of millions of people better.  Most people I know shop at Amazon.  It is amazing that you can order something from your house and see it appear at your door a day or two later.  And it oftentimes is at just as good of a price as you would find going to a store (if you can find it all).

Amazon has also benefitted many small business owners who can sell their products online.  It also makes it easier that you can use Amazon’s services so that you do not have to individually ship your products.  You can send them all to the Amazon warehouse and they will take care of it for a fee.

And let’s not forget about authors.  Amazon started as an online bookstore.  It has enabled authors and would-be authors to have a platform to self-publish books.  In fact, Amazon can just print your book and deliver it whenever someone orders one.  The author doesn’t have to handle anything once the book is digitally uploaded.

I have no idea where Jeff Bezos stands politically, but I do know he gets his share of criticism.  I would much rather him spend his money on yachts than on buying failing newspapers that spread propaganda.  I would prefer it more if Bezos kept making Amazon better or making other businesses in the same model that benefit so many people.

Then there is someone like Bill Gates.  Almost everyone with a corporate job uses Microsoft.  There may be some arguments to be made that Gates got rich by using patent and copyright laws to his advantage.  I also have many issues with Microsoft and the Windows platform.  But I also have my share of praise for certain software like Excel and Word.

Of course, the main problem with Gates isn’t the money he has made from Microsoft.  The problem is that he uses that money for evil purposes.  He seems like a mad scientist.  He is a massive funder of the W.H.O., and we know he is a big pusher of vaccines.  He has also had some crazy plans for supposedly mitigating climate change.  Whether he is a crazy depopulationist trying to kill off a large portion of humankind or not, he is still using his money for evil purposes.

What if Bill Gates were just like Mr. Beast but on a bigger scale?  He could actually be helping people.  If I had a few billion dollars to give away, I’m pretty sure I could find more effective ways than giving it to a corrupt organization that supposedly is in the business of public health.  I can’t think of anything more against public health than the W.H.O.

Unfortunately, Warren Buffett fell into the trap of donating to the Gates Foundation.  I have no problem at all with giving money away, but the Gates Foundation pushes Gates’ crazy agenda.  They aren’t giving away free cars to people as far as I know.  I don’t even think they are providing food and drinking water to children in Africa.  Instead, they are trying to inject people all over the world.

Even if you think vaccines are great (they aren’t), it isn’t a lack of vaccines in Africa that make them unhealthy compared to the West.  It is the standard of living.  People in Africa need economic freedom.  From that, they will get a better standard of living, better sanitation, and less disease.  They don’t need more vaccines.

It’s important to realize that there are many wealthy people who do not have bad motives.  They do not want to depopulate the earth or to control the actions of others.  They may enjoy the power of having money as far as being free to do what they want, and that is fine as long as they aren’t doing harm to others.

Many people obtain great wealth and they don’t know what to do with it.  They may feel guilty because they became so wealthy, even if they did put in a lot of work to obtain it.  Sometimes it is the ones who feel guilty who do the most damage because they get involved in causes that the establishment tells them they should be part of.

For the wealthy people out there, whether you feel guilty or not, be more like Mr. Beast.  If you aren’t going to use your money to expand your business and benefit the human race in that capacity, then find ways to give it away without doing too much damage.

I already knew this before, but 2020 and beyond has made it more clear to me.  There are a lot of intelligent people who can sometimes be stupid.

I saw two adults today pushing a stroller outside.  The couple was presumably the parents of the child in the stroller, so they were on the younger side.  It was in the 90s outside and bright and sunny.  The two adults were wearing masks, and it isn’t allergy season.

They might as well have been wearing a shirt saying, “I am an idiot.”

Even if you “follow the science”, it is a rather elementary fact that you don’t have to worry about contracting a virus when outside in the hot sun.

We’ve seen the COVID hysteria since March 2020.  There are intelligent people who wouldn’t know logic if it smacked them on the head.  It doesn’t matter what you say to them or what evidence you show them.  They will just believe whatever Fauci tells them, or the CDC tells them, or CNN or NBC tells them.

I think that is where it is hard for people.  Because if you start disbelieving what these people tell you, then it opens the whole narrative up.  It means there is a concerted effort for these people to lie, or at the very least to not seek the truth.  It shatters your entire worldview.

I don’t understand how people are still believing in the so-called vaccines, let alone the vaccine mandates.  You’d have to be living under a rock not to see that these so-called vaccines are useless, at best.

Even if you ignore the tens of thousands of reported deaths to VAERS, and the hundreds of thousands of vaccine injuries (which are likely vastly understated), you are still left with supposed vaccines that don’t stop transmission or infection.  If anything, I feel like I know more people who are vaccinated who have tested positive for COVID, but maybe it’s just because they are more likely to get a test.

Whenever we see one of these rare breakthrough cases (ha ha), we always gets to hear the obligatory line.

“I have COVID, but luckily I’m vaccinated or it would have been much worse.”

This is a completely unprovable statement that has been spoken too many times to count over the last year.

It’s like in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis when the Federal Reserve created trillions of dollars out of thin air and the federal government spent trillions more in deficit spending.  We hear that if they hadn’t reacted like this, it would have been much worse.

Obedience and Intelligence

I was recently watching an old episode of Cash Cab.  It is a game show in New York City.  When people get into the cab, they say where they are going.  Then the party lights come on and they are told they are in the Cash Cab.  They have to answer trivia questions to win money on the way to their destination.

I don’t know how much editing was done for this show.  Maybe they had some people get into the cab and completely bomb on the questions and these episodes just never aired.  I really don’t know.

If it is just one person in the Cash Cab, it is usually pretty tough to win unless it happens to be a short drive.  If you get three or four people, the odds increase quite a bit.

Still, I am quite impressed by the knowledge of the man on the street.  Maybe it tends to be a better-educated class of people who ride in taxis in New York City.  The episodes I was watching were at least 10 years old.

New York City is considered very liberal (i.e., politically leftist).  I happen to have some friends who are still in New York, and they are on the conservative side.  But the majority, especially in or near the city, are on the left.

So the people I saw on Cash Cab were really very smart when it came to answering trivia questions.  And they aren’t just pop culture things.  It isn’t like watching Jay Leno do a man on the street interview where the people sound dumb.

My guess is that a majority of people on Cash Cab have a college education or higher, and they are also on the political left.  Again, this is just a generalization.  They are also quite smart at answering a wide range of questions.  Yet these are some of the same people who will wear a mask outside in the sunshine.  They will also dutifully get their vaccines and boosters and whatever else the CDC tells them to do.

I shop at both Publix (a grocery store) and Walmart.  The Publix clientele tends to be a little higher financial class even though the two stores are near each other.  I will find more people wearing a mask in Publix.

(For the record, I never once wore a mask at Walmart or Publix, and I was never questioned about it.)

So the people who have less formal education and who probably couldn’t tell you where Ukraine is on a map are the ones who are less obedient.

Why is this the case?

It is easier to train a smart dog.

I heard this from Dave Smith, who was quoting Michael Malice (who incidentally was once on Cash Cab).

I have an intelligent dog.  He doesn’t put anything in his mouth other than his own toys or his own food.  I can put hamburgers on the edge of the table (about eye level to him) and he won’t touch them.  He might get his nose close to sniff.

He doesn’t want to get in trouble.  He doesn’t like being yelled at.  He rarely gets in trouble any more because he doesn’t do any of the things that have gotten him in trouble before.  He is very intelligent.  He is very obedient.

It is good for a dog.  It is a bit more dangerous for human beings.

The problem is that they are being too trusting.  They don’t want to show skepticism.  They lack a certain curiosity.  And if they did realize that they were being lied to, they probably wouldn’t have the courage to stand up.

I think some people want to be seen as sophisticated.  They want approval from others.  They want to fit in with their peers of intelligent people.

Of course, they are not intelligent when it comes to dealing with certain logic.  They can’t see with their own eyes that the vaccines don’t work.  They can’t figure out that locking down society has greater harms than the virus they so irrationally fear.

Again, it would shake their entire worldview.  It would mean that just about everything NBC Nightly News has told them is a lie (or at least not the full story).

This is all generalizing, of course.  We know dumb people who are obedient to the virus hysteria.  And we know very intelligent people who do not buy into all of the virus hysteria.

The otherwise intelligent people who have bought into the hysteria from day one and continue to accept the establishment narrative are sensitive to their reputations.  This is why ridicule is an effective means of getting at them.

I am not saying to ridicule your relative on Facebook.  But you can certainly ridicule Biden and Fauci and the other lying liars who are in positions of power.

The more these people are ridiculed and mocked, the more it wears at the otherwise intelligent people who don’t want to be seen as unsophisticated.  They have already gotten worn down to a degree.  They need to feel like a tiny minority if they continue to hold their irrational and immoral views regarding COVID and vaccines.