It is amazing how little attention this is getting.  The yield curve is heavily inverted and is sending major warning signs for the near future.  The short-term yields are higher than long-term yields, and I don’t remember ever seeing it this exaggerated.

The spread on the 2-year yield and the 10-year yield is about 77 basis points (4.46% vs. 3.69%) as I write this.  That is a huge spread.

Even more incredible is comparing the longest-term yield against the shortest.  The 1-month yield stands at 4.11%, while the 30-year yield stands at 3.74%.  This is a difference of 37 basis points.

The 10-year and 30-year yields are the lowest on the curve right now.

Treasury/ bond investors are willing to take a lower interest rate for 30 years than for 1 month.  Maybe the bond market is wrong on this one, but it is basically telling us to expect something along the lines of economic Armageddon.

This is barely being covered in any so-called mainstream news.  CNBC does cover the bond yield inversion to a certain extent, but there isn’t a ton of emphasis on it.  Maybe you can only talk about it for so long, but there is a lot more focus on individual companies and how they are innovating and investing for the future.

The yield curve is so out of whack that it is hard to make sense of it.  The only conclusion is that we are headed for some kind of depression next year.

I see the financial “experts” saying that we should expect moderate or slowed growth next year.  The perma bulls never predict a recession, which is why they are perma bulls.  Still, to be fair to CNBC, they do have some alternative voices on who are sounding the alarm, but probably not loud enough.

There is typically a lag from when the yield curve inverts to when the recession kicks in.  But unless the Fed goes crazy with money creation as it did in March 2020, there is no avoiding this major recession.  In fact, creating money and lowering interest rates will only prolong and worsen the inevitable.

The yield curve may straighten out before we actually see the recession kick in.  This is typical.  But it could still take a year to show up.  With the massive inversion and the Fed’s continued tightening, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the recession come earlier in 2023.

The Fed is still fighting the 8 percent price inflation that it created.  The Fed will likely raise its target rate again at the December meeting.  The Fed is aggressively raising its target rate in the face of a highly inverted yield curve.  This is the formula for a massive recession or depression.

The air is already coming out of the Everything Bubble, but expect it to get much worse.  The crypto market is largely the face of this speculative bubble, and there will be a lot more damage here.  But the decline in major asset prices – particularly stocks and real estate – will be felt the hardest by most people.

And with any bad recession, we should expect that unemployment will start to rise.  It has been an unusual time with companies struggling to hire people.  As businesses go bankrupt and consumer demand falls, the labor market will shift quickly.

It almost doesn’t matter what happens from here.  The economic recession or depression is baked into the cake.  The thing that will matter is how the government and central bank respond when it hits.

Instead of allowing a cleansing of the malinvestment and letting resources be allocated in accordance with consumer demand, they will likely interfere and prop up failing businesses and industries and inject more “stimulus” to try to cover up some of the pain.  This will only make it worse.

We really need a recession like the early 1980s where the Fed doesn’t fight it.  We need a liquidation of the malinvestment.  We need to allow the free market to operate.  Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening.

The good news is that consumer price inflation may come down, at least for a while.  Consumer prices aren’t going back to where they were a few years ago, but maybe they will stop rising so fast.  Prices of some assets may go back to where they were years ago, but not groceries.

The inverted yield curve is the number one indicator of a coming recession.  It is the big economic news that nearly everyone is ignoring.  You would be wise not to ignore it.

I was a follower of the Free State Project when it first began.  I never signed up as a committed member (I didn’t want to move), but I followed its progress and spoke about it favorably to others.  I still remember when they were debating which state to choose, and I remember when New Hampshire was ultimately chosen in 2003.

Here we are about 20 years later, and I have to question the progress and the strategy of the whole thing.  To be sure, I was a supporter then, and I still wish everyone well who is doing it.  I am just questioning the effectiveness of it, especially after the last three years.

I followed Harry Browne closely in the early 2000s, and I can recall that someone asked him about the Free State Project.  He questioned the whole strategy and correctly pointed out that many people don’t want to uproot their lives and go to a particular place.  At the same time, he wished them well and hoped that they would make progress.

I am now more in the Harry Browne camp on this subject, especially after COVID hysteria and the recent elections.

The Republican governor in New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, was reelected.  He isn’t a particularly good governor, especially given what happened in 2020 with lockdowns.  It is better than the people of New Hampshire putting in a Democrat, but it’s too bad that the liberty lovers couldn’t get someone from the Republican Party with a more pro-liberty streak in there.

The really disappointing part from the election is in the U.S. House and Senate.  Democrats hold both House seats and both Senate seats from New Hampshire.

I am no fan of most Republicans in Washington DC, but how does the home of the Free State Project manage to elect all Democrats to Congress?  It means a majority of the voters are ok with vaccine mandates, lockdowns, funding for war in Ukraine, student loan bailouts, and all of the other chaos coming out of the Democratic Party.

Perhaps a lot of Free Staters choose not to vote for the lesser of two evils or to vote at all.  At the very least, you would think they would have had some influence by now on the rest of the population.

This was one hesitation I had about the whole thing early on.  I wasn’t sure how residents of New Hampshire would feel about liberty lovers “invading” their state and pushing their politics, even though their ideas consist mostly of getting politics out of people’s lives.

Even worse than the recent elections is the reaction to COVID.  New Hampshire wasn’t particularly bad compared to other states, but it wasn’t great either.  It wasn’t South Dakota.  It wasn’t even Florida, which did have lockdowns in April 2020 but fully opened up in September.

One would think that having a small but decent percentage of the population who consider themselves pro liberty to have had a big impact on lockdowns.  Maybe they did have an impact and it would have been worse than it was.  But it had to have been disappointing for Free Staters to do all that work and end up being locked in their homes because they were deemed non-essential.  New Hampshire should have been showing the way for the rest of the country.

Instead, it was left up to South Dakota (a conservative state) and Florida, which had a governor smart enough and brave enough to quickly realize his errors.  DeSantis had a brief period of acting as dictator, but was heavily opposed by the establishment in later 2020 for daring to open up Florida.

Where was New Hampshire?  Still waiting for advice from Fauci on what they could and couldn’t do?

A Natural Progression to a Free State

In Florida, Ron DeSantis won the governor’s race with nearly 60% of the vote.  Four years ago, he just barely won the election for governor.

This is for a mix of reasons, but most of them point back to COVID hysteria, or lack of COVID hysteria.  Some people who didn’t vote for DeSantis in 2018 (me included) voted for him this time.  It was a reward for being one of the better governors and not locking us down (much).

There are also a lot of people who moved to Florida since that time, and some of them moved specifically to get away from COVID hysteria.  They wanted to go to a state that was open where their kids could go to soccer practice and they probably didn’t have to get a jab to keep their job.

Anyone moving from California to Florida in 2020 or 2021 because of COVID was not going to be bringing leftist politics with them.  It was quite the opposite.

Maybe only 1 or 2 percent of the current population of Florida moved in the last couple of years because of COVID hysteria, but you can bet that almost every one of them voted for DeSantis.

One thing where my mind has changed from 2020 is the importance of politics.  I have long-believed that educating others on the benefits of liberty is the most important thing for libertarians to do, and I still believe that.  However, I underestimated the importance of having the lesser of two evils in office.

DeSantis is not a libertarian, but I realize that Florida would have been in lockdown well into 2021 if he had not won in 2018.  Florida also showed the way for other states to follow.

I also saw how the greater of two evils was bad with Joe Biden as president.  We have gotten vaccine mandates, student loan bailouts, war in Ukraine, and all around chaos.  Courts have struck some of it down.  Biden and company just shrug it off with no consequences and move on to the next dictatorial edict to destroy Western Civilization.

A majority of the people of New Hampshire evidently didn’t care about all of the chaos coming out of Washington DC.  They voted for more chaos.

The people who are part of the Free State Project are generally good people, and they have committed a lot for the cause of advancing liberty.  I don’t live in New Hampshire, so I don’t know what progress has been made.  I would encourage them to do an assessment on the effectiveness of their strategy.

I sincerely wish them well, and I do hope they succeed in bringing much greater liberty to New Hampshire.  With that said, if they don’t see much progress, it may be time to cut their losses and put their efforts somewhere else to greater use.  Maybe they will all have to move to the same city in New Hampshire to have a libertarian town or city within a statist state and a statist country.  Or they could just move to Florida and help make it better.

A missile flew into Poland killing two civilians.  There were almost immediate accusations that it came from Russia.  There were also quick calls saying that Poland is a NATO ally, and therefore must be defended.

The Russian government denied the accusations, and it was discovered quickly that it wasn’t a Russian missile and that the missile came from Ukraine.

For the first time since the war in Ukraine started, the U.S. government actually retreated with its rhetoric.  Maybe the crazies in the Biden White House actually don’t want a full-fledged nuclear war after all.

The implications were that if Russia had attacked Poland, that means that the U.S. is obligated to go to war with Russia because it is a member of NATO.

The U.S. government and the establishment media have actually had to acknowledge that this missile did not come from Russia.  It came from Ukraine.

But if Ukraine attacked Poland, doesn’t that mean that the U.S. government has to defend Poland and go to war with Ukraine?

I am being a bit facetious, and I don’t want any war from any side.  But it is an illustration of the hypocrisy and criminality coming out of Washington.

Ukraine will say it was an accident.  But they weren’t admitting to it when Zelensky was trying to up the ante and drag the United States further into the war.  The coverup itself is a criminal activity.

But how do we even know it was an accident?  Ukraine wanted to blame Russia for a missile attack on Poland so that they could drag the U.S. into direct combat (instead of just pouring in tens of billions of dollars).  If the Ukrainian government will lie about who fired the missile, then it wouldn’t be hard to believe that they purposely fired that missile and that it wasn’t an accident.

A Biden/ Deep State Slush Fund Dries Up

It is amazing how so much of the corruption coming out of Washington DC ties back to Ukraine.  Ukraine itself seems like a giant slush fund for the Biden family and the ruling elite in the U.S.

I think Trump’s instincts were correct when he was trying to get information out of Ukraine, which he was later impeached for.  The problem is that Trump was talking to one of the criminals (Zelensky) who was involved in all of the money laundering.

Right after the midterm elections this year, where the Democrats did better than expected, we found out that FTX is going bankrupt.  FTX was considered a major company as a cryptocurrency exchange.

A lot of information is coming out quickly on FTX, but you probably won’t hear the details on CNN or NBC Nightly News.

FTX was a lot more than a Ponzi scheme, although it certainly was that.  It appears that it was a giant slush fund for Biden and company.  This could include some Republicans within the establishment.

FTX donated millions of dollars to deep state politicians in the United States.  But we are also learning that Ukraine “invested” a nice sum of money in FTX.  And where did Ukraine get that money?

So let’s spell out what likely happened here.  Congress, with the support of all Democrats and most Republicans, has authorized tens of billions of dollars to go to Ukraine.  And, of course, Biden has approved this.  It will soon be over 100 billion dollars in total.

Ukraine takes the U.S. taxpayer money and funnels a portion of it into FTX.  FTX then takes a portion of that and funnels it to the campaigns of the establishment politicians who can be counted on to support more funding to Ukraine.

I don’t even know if there is technically anything illegal about it, but it is certainly criminal.  And this is all used to support the oligarchs in the U.S., the oligarchs in Ukraine, and to continue a war with Russia that is only harming the innocent people of Ukraine.

So it looks like FTX was just a giant slush fund that funneled U.S. taxpayer money to the campaigns of the people who are spending U.S. taxpayer money.  The Ukrainian government and FTX were the middlemen.

You’d think they would have had a more indirect trail.  At least when the Clinton family did their money laundering schemes, they would set up a bunch of different third-party companies and foundations to make a more complicated trail.

Anyway, this is how the deep state operates now.  They figure that the so-called mainstream media will cover for them (and they aren’t wrong), and that they can get away with almost anything.  The latter part has yet to be determined.

The deep state is getting sloppy though.  Now Biden is calling for another $37 billion for Ukraine.  These are insane amounts of money.  Now that FTX has run off with investor money and U.S. taxpayer money, it’s time for another middleman.  When the new funding is approved for Ukraine, I’m sure some of that will be poured into some other company or foundation for them to run their criminal activities.

You can’t make this stuff up.  You could write a book or produce a movie with this script and it would seem like too much of a fantasy.  People wouldn’t believe that they could do this right before your eyes and keep getting away with it.

Donald Trump is quickly losing support.  He is losing his base.  He has not lost it all yet, but he will soon find himself alone if he doesn’t change quickly.

This has little to do with the midterm election results, or at least not directly.  The establishment media declared Trump the big loser from the election, as some of Trump’s candidates lost, and the Republicans overall came up short of expectations.

To be sure, Trump only shares a little blame for what happened in the election.  Perhaps his endorsement of Dr. Oz was not the best choice, but Trump did have some decent candidates who won.  J.D. Vance in Ohio is somewhat libertarian leaning, and he won the Senate seat there.  Kari Lake was an impressive candidate, even if she comes up short in Arizona where proper vote counting seems not to be a priority.

The establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell are more responsible for some of these Republican candidates coming up short on Election Day.  These people did as much as possible to sabotage the so-called MAGA candidates without doing so directly.  They certainly did what they could to not direct money to close races with Trump-endorsed candidates.

So I think there is a little blame that Trump deserves for the underwhelming election performance by Republicans, but I think it is minimal.

The problem with Trump is that his ego is finally getting in his own way to an extent that he is imploding before our very eyes.  He is attacking anyone who hurts his feelings or may potentially challenge him in the future.  He is attacking anyone of significance who is offering some mild criticism or constructive criticism.

Trump Unnecessarily Attacks Ron DeSantis

Before the election, Trump was already going after DeSantis.  He called him Ron “DeSanctimonious”.  This was completely wrong, especially right before the election.

After DeSantis won by a landslide in Florida, Trump upped the ante.  He sees DeSantis as a threat for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.  Trump called DeSantis an average Republican governor.  Trump says that he is the reason that DeSantis ever became governor.  Even if this is true, it is completely unnecessary and almost irrelevant at this point.

The howler came when Trump criticized DeSantis for locking down Florida.  It’s true that DeSantis did institute lockdowns in April 2020.  DeSantis quickly realized his mistake and reversed course.  By September 2020, Florida was completely open, while most other states still had lockdowns or significant mandates.

The biggest joke is that Trump recommended these lockdowns, and Trump had Fauci and Birx at his side throughout most of 2020.  Trump even criticized Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, when he relaxed restrictions in the late spring of 2020.

Trump was a total disaster when it came to COVID.  The best you can say about him is that he isn’t Biden.  But Trump, like most of his presidency, had the wrong people at his side.  In fact, he had the people who most opposed him.  If Trump had realized his mistake (like DeSantis) early on and corrected course, I would have more praise than criticism for him on this issue.  But instead, Trump was completely duped by the COVID hysteria, and he played into his enemies’ hands.

And now Trump wants to criticize DeSantis for COVID lockdowns?  What next?  Will Trump blame DeSantis for allowing Florida to provide COVID vaccines?

If there is one thing to criticize DeSantis for regarding COVID, it’s that he listened to Trump in the first place.

Trump Goes After Candace Owens

In this video, Candace Owens explains why Trump went after her.

Candace Owens has becomes quite popular amongst conservatives, and I see a bigger libertarian streak in her every time I see her.

As she explains, she questioned Trump on the vaccines, but she thought their disagreement was from a place of good faith.  When some people went to Owens wondering if Trump was just being a shill for big pharma, she said that Trump comes from a different generation where they grew up without the internet and they were told that all vaccines were great.

While she has a strong disagreement with Trump on the vaccines, she was actually defending Trump on this issue to a certain extent.  She was saying that he is coming from a position of good will, and the vaccine companies aren’t just bribing him.

So Trump reads an article (or maybe just the headline) and gets the message that Candace Owens says that Trump is too old to understand the internet.  Again, she was actually trying to defend him, but Trump has too big of an ego to understand this or to accept any mild criticism or disagreement.  So the next time they see each other in person, Trump is rude to her.

Unless Trump apologizes to Candace Owens (which we know won’t happen), I don’t think he will win back her support.  And she isn’t the only conservative who Trump has gone after lately.

These Aren’t Republican Primary Debates

If Trump thinks his path to the Republican nomination and the White House is by fighting with his base, he is misjudging.  Or to use a Trumpism, he is misjudging “bigly”.

In 2015, Trump could get away with attacking “Low Energy Jeb”, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz”, and “Lil’ Marco Rubio”.  It was effective partially because many of these people were seen as establishment candidates.  More importantly, he was running against them for the Republican nomination, and many of these words came from debates.

DeSantis has not announced that he is running for president in 2023/ 2024.  I don’t even know if he wants to be president.  He has a young family, and he was just re-elected governor in Florida.

If Trump is running – and I am pretty sure he is – DeSantis might just choose not to get involved.  He will stay on standby just in case Trump is indicted, or he has health issues, or something else crazy happens.

I have read some diehard Trump supporters criticizing DeSantis for not speaking up right now.  They say he could put a stop to all of the fighting by announcing that he won’t be running for president.  But why is this DeSantis’s responsibility?  Trump could stop it all by just not attacking.

If anything, this makes it more likely that DeSantis will run for president this time around because more Republicans are going to start to favor DeSantis over Trump.  Trump is doing this to himself.

DeSantis was campaigning hard and just won re-election.  As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t need to say anything.  If Trump wants to hang himself, then go ahead.  Why interrupt someone when they are making a fool of themselves?

The Republican primaries have already started in Trump’s head, but he is overplaying his hand.  He should have kept quiet on DeSantis until DeSantis actually announced a run for the presidency (if that were to happen).  Even then, Trump’s criticism of DeSantis shouldn’t have been from a harsh place.  Trump could sell his message just by saying that the establishment (i.e., the ruling elite) fear him far more than they fear DeSantis, which is probably true.

If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said that Trump was the big favorite to be the Republican nominee in 2024.  After Trump’s two-week implosion, I give him 50% odds at best, and that is only if he wises up.

The establishment has been trying to take down Trump for the last 7 years.  They have tried almost everything.  Yet Trump has done to himself in the matter of 2 weeks what the establishment couldn’t do to Trump in 7 years.

This may be the tragic downfall of Trump.  I have my many criticisms of the man, but I didn’t want to see him go down like this.

I want to see the ruling elite be further exposed and for the country to have a big shift towards peace and greater liberty.  I don’t care if this happens through Trump, DeSantis, or someone else, or no particular person at all.

I do think Trump has been good for liberty with respect to exposing the establishment and also awakening many Republicans on foreign policy and civil liberties.  I don’t think this will be rolled back, even if Trump falls hard.

It’s too bad Trump has gone down this road of self destruction, but the exposure of the evils of the establishment will not fade away.

With all of the election news, there was also economic news this week with the release of the October CPI report.

The CPI rose 0.4% in October 2022, while the annual rate now stands at 7.7%.  The less volatile median CPI rose 0.5% in October, and the year-over-year median CPI remained at 7%.

The consumer price inflation report was a little better than expected, and investors cheered.  It is important to note that price inflation is still going up at a significant pace.  It is just going up at a slightly slower pace than before.

Food prices continue to go up.  When you go to the grocery store, your prices overall will continue to go higher.

Still, with this mildly good news that price inflation seems to be retreating a little bit, stock investors went wild.  The bulls came out in full force, probably expecting that the Fed will stop its tightening sooner rather than later.

The Dow went up by about 1,200 points on the day.  This was a monster rally in the face of uncertainty and concerning economic issues.

On the same day that the CPI numbers were released, the bond market went crazy too.  But it went crazy in a way that should make the stock bulls feel very uncomfortable.

The yields in the bond market point to even bigger trouble ahead, despite what the Fed might do.  Long-term yields plummeted in just one day, while short-term yields stayed around the same.

In other words, the yield curve further inverted from what it already was.  The 10-year yield fell 30 basis points to 3.82%.  The 3-month yield finished the day at 4.28% on November 10.

There is now a 46 basis point spread between the 10-year yield and the 3-month yield.  So while stocks soared on Thursday, the bond market is saying, “Hang on a minute.”

This has recession written all over it, and the Fed isn’t even done tightening yet.  Consumer prices are still rising at 7.7% annually according to the government’s own statistics.  The Fed will be tightening to get inflation under control (that it created) in the face of an oncoming train in the form of a recession.

If you are still heavily invested in stocks at this point, you should take the gift from Thursday and sell.  Stocks are going to have their big up days, but it is going to be more down days in the year ahead.

There was no massive red wave of Republican victories across the United States on Tuesday.  It was a mixed bag overall, but there were definitely winners and losers.

As I write this, neither major party has a clear majority in the House or Senate.  It looks like the Republicans will get a very slim majority in the House.  In the Senate, it looks like Georgia is headed for a runoff, which will favor the Democrats.  It will probably end up being 50/50 in the Senate, which means that the Democrats will get the deciding vote with Harris as vice president.

As I write this, there is still only 67% reporting in the Arizona Senate race and the Arizona governor race.  There is only 77% reporting in the Nevada Senate race.  In some California House races, the reporting totals are well under 50%.  This is almost a full day after the polls closed.

If you don’t want accusations of fraud and “threats to our democracy”, then maybe you can report all of the vote totals in a timely manner.  But obfuscation and confusion is the name of the game.

The Winners

Unfortunately, despite losing seats in the House, the Democrats are in the win column because it should have been so much worse.  This will only embolden the party of chaos and destruction, which means the American people as a whole take a loss.

It’s not that I think the Republicans would have been great in any way, but they would have been a roadblock to Biden and company’s destruction agenda.  Hopefully the Republicans will at least get a majority in the House so as to slow things down and create some gridlock.

On the Republican side, Ron DeSantis is the huge winner, along with the state of Florida.  DeSantis went from getting about 50% of the vote in 2018 to getting about 60% this time around.  He absolutely crushed his opponent.  He won by 1.5 million votes.

In fact, all of Florida did well for Republicans.  It is at least encouraging that DeSantis was rewarded for the being one of the few governors who locked down the least during COVID.  The only one who beats him on that front is Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who also had a big victory.

It looks like Florida is a red state now, and it is largely owed to DeSantis.  There were a lot of people who moved to Florida in the last 2 years to escape the craziness.  From personal experience, I can tell you that I did not vote for DeSantis in 2018, but I voted for him this time.  I know DeSantis is not a libertarian, but I wanted a strong message sent that COVID lockdowns and mandates are not acceptable.

For the Senate, I ended up voting for the Libertarian Party candidate and not for Marco Rubio.  I actually would have voted for Rubio if I thought he was in any danger of losing, only because I want the Republicans to have a majority in the Senate.  Or more accurately, I want the Democrats to lose the majority in the Senate.

The Losers

I already mentioned that the American people in general are on the losing side from the election (whether they know it or not).  They will be the ones suffering from inflation, government spending, the threats of war with Russia, the threats of more COVID mandates, and all of the totalitarian tactics being thrown at them by Biden and company.

Aside from the American people, I think Donald Trump was the big loser on Tuesday.  If you think about it, DeSantis did not seek Trump’s endorsement.  He did not want Trump out campaigning for him in Florida.  It would have only hurt DeSantis.

Trump had a victory with J.D. Vance winning in Ohio.  It is still not clear what will happen with Kari Lake in Arizona.

Trump completely bombed with his endorsement of Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, who went down to a guy who makes Joe Biden look articulate.

Trump made two huge errors leading up to the election because he can’t control his own ego.  First, he took an unnecessary swipe at Ron DeSantis.  He referred to him as “Ron DeSanctimonious”.

Second, Trump announced that he would be making an announcement on November 15.  So while the headlines weren’t blaring that Trump is seeking the presidency in 2024, he was saying this without directly saying it.

This was right before the mid-terms.  This could only hurt the Republicans across the country.  Of course, we don’t know what impact it had, but it doesn’t look good.

2024

With Trump candidates not having a great showing in the election, and with DeSantis coming out looking great, you have to wonder how this will impact the next two years.

It is becoming clearer to Republicans who support Trump that DeSantis is more likable and more polished than Trump.  And if Trump is going to pick a fight with DeSantis because he sees him as a threat, it just looks bad for Trump.  He looks insecure, which he probably is.

As a Floridian, I would rather see DeSantis stay as governor.  I would like for libertarians to put some mild pressure on him to improve things in Florida.

I think DeSantis will stay on the sidelines for a while and watch what happens.  He will see in the coming months how much momentum Trump has within the Republican Party.  He will get a sense of whether he should enter the race for the presidency.

DeSantis has some appeal to independents that Trump doesn’t have.  I think Tuesday night showed this.

Trump is 76 years old now, and the establishment is out to get him.  Of course, they will be out in full force to get DeSantis too if he runs for president.  But Trump’s future is not certain at this point, and I think DeSantis will be ready to step in the presidential race should anything change.

I don’t think Trump is lost at this point, but he definitely took some punches on Tuesday night.  If he keeps misplaying his hand, he will find that DeSantis has become the leader of the Republican Party.

Emily Oster, writing for The Atlantic, has suggested that we just declare a pandemic amnesty.  If you want the full side of her story, you’ll have to read it for yourself.

She tells a story from April 2020 when her family went hiking.  At one point, another child got close to her then-4-year-old son, and he yelled, “social distancing”.

Oster then writes that these precautions were misguided and that outdoor transmission was rare.  She then declares, “But the thing is: We didn’t know.”

But the thing is, Emily, some of us did know.  And we weren’t even doctors or scientists.

You didn’t need a PhD in virology to tell you that a virus doesn’t typically transmit outside.  You also didn’t have to be an expert statistician to realize that even if you did contract COVID, it was less harmful than the flu for younger people.

(I say that with the caveat that it became more dangerous for those who sought medical treatment, as the Emily Osters of the world would advocate that you be put on Remdesivir and a ventilator.)

It sounds like Emily might have to ask for amnesty from her son one day.  He was only 4, and he was yelling “social distancing” to another child.  I wonder where he learned that.  Now that he is likely full of mRNA and spike proteins, I’m sure Emily has taught him to be less paranoid about a virus that was no threat to him whatsoever in the first place.

Emily is suggesting that we just put everything behind us and call it a day.  Who cares about the lockdowns, the beatings, the beratings, the closed businesses, the lost jobs, the fear instilled in so many people, and the vaccine injuries?  Oh well, let’s just declare a truce, now that me and my cohorts have ruined your life.

In her article, Emily said that we lacked definitive data on the efficacies of the vaccines.  She then declares that, “The mRNA vaccines have won out.”

So she wants some kind of amnesty, presumably for herself and those on her side, yet she is still spreading misinformation.  What is your definitive data, Emily, that says mRNA vaccines have won out?  Is it the tens of thousands of deaths reported to VAERS?  Is it the fact that they don’t stop transmission or infection?  Or is it that they greatly weaken your immune system over time?

How can we declare an amnesty when you haven’t even come close to reaching the truth yet?

An Amnesty From Violence?

I think there are times when it is best to agree to disagree and just move on.  And sometimes one side was wrong and the right side doesn’t have to rub it.  Sometimes people do just make mistakes that should be forgiven.

Of course, when someone makes a mistake, they should usually issue some kind of an apology or admission of being wrong before there is forgiveness.

But the COVID policies of the last 2 and a half years go way beyond this.  It would have been one thing if we had just been sold hysteria over a virus and people had been unnecessarily fearful.

The biggest problem is that many of us didn’t buy into the hysteria, and we wanted to live our lives as normal, but we were not allowed.

The “experts” in Emily’s camp were advocating all of the bad government policies that put a boot on our collective throats.

Most people were told they had to stay at home except for “essential” activities.  Businesses deemed “non-essential” were forced to shut their doors or be punished.  If they tried to defy, then people with guns would show up to tell them to obey or else.

We were forced to wear masks in many places because of government orders.  We were forced to fund bailouts for those being impacted by the lockdowns.  We were forced to fund research and development of vaccines, and then more money to market them.

And the big topper is that many millions of Americans were forced to get injected with these so-called vaccines or else lose their livelihood.

Was Emily and company ever advocating on my behalf saying that I shouldn’t have to get a needle in the arm or lose my job?  Was she saying that vaccination should be strictly voluntary?

Emily and company put us through absolute hell for more than 2 years.  There have been many lives ruined due to the fear, the lockdowns, and the vaccine mandates.

Virtually all government action involves the initiation of violence or threat of violence.  You may not see the violence, but if you disobey, it is there.

If someone sticks a gun in your belly and demands your money, what would your reaction be a year later if he asks for amnesty?  Maybe you could forgive the person.  Maybe you could show some grace.  But it doesn’t mean there are no consequences.

You Want Amnesty?

If Emily really wants amnesty, I am willing to consider it for her under a few conditions.

First, admit that you were wrong and vow to never spout off again about something you don’t know about.

Second, find another job where you aren’t influencing others because you got almost everything wrong.

Third, take a vow that you will never again advocate the use of force (including government force) ever again for any political or social goals.

If you do that, I am willing to show you some grace and leave you alone.  Although just remember that some of us wanted to be left alone in 2020 and 2021 from people like you, but you wouldn’t permit it.

For anyone who was COVID fearful but was against using government force in imposing their views, I am willing to move on.

But if you were advocating the use of violence to impose your will on others, I can’t just forgive and forget without there being any consequences for your actions.

The FOMC raised its target federal funds rate this week by 75 basis points.  This is being done by the Federal Reserve to fight the inflation that it created in the first place.

While the Fed is indicating that it could slow down in its tightening depending on economic data, the fact remains that price inflation is still high, even according to the government’s own statistics.

I have said that the only things that will get the Fed to reverse course before inflation is under control is for bank failures or major turmoil in the bond market.  The Fed is not going to reverse course just because we are in a recession or the stock market is dropping.

If and when we enter a recession, it is possible that prices will come down.  Or perhaps more accurately, prices will go up at a slower pace.

But what happens if we enter a hard recession with price inflation still raging at 7 or 8 percent?

The Fed has not faced a situation like this since the 1970s and early 1980s.  We know how that one went.  The Fed, under Paul Volcker, engaged in a tight money policy with high interest rates in order to get price inflation under control.  It also drove the economy into multiple recessions.

While the official inflation numbers were higher at that time, so were interest rates.  Right now, we have a situation of very negative real interest rates, even after the Fed hikes.  Price inflation is still vastly exceeding long-term and short-term rates.

Another difference between now and the late 1970s is that the debt is far worse.  The official debt, not including unfunded liabilities, sits at $31 trillion.  As interest rates go higher and some of this debt is rolled over into higher interest debt, the interest payments for the government (i.e., the American taxpayer) will surge.

We also have about 14 years of extremely loose monetary policy.  The Fed exploded the money supply after the 2008 financial crisis hit, but we never had the consequences of significantly higher consumer prices until recently.  So we have a lot of misallocated resources that are going to correct at some point.

On top of this, the yield curve is inverted.  The 3-month yield is now higher than the 10-year yield.  The 2-year yield has been higher than the 10-year yield for several months, and it now sits over 50 basis points higher.

So the biggest recession indicator has been triggered, and the Fed is raising rates and reducing its balance sheet with this going on.  There is little doubt at this point that there will be a recession in 2023.

After an incredibly strong month for the Dow in October, stocks resumed their fall this week.  We should expect a lot of volatility going forward, but I think the damage to stocks has only begun.

The Everything Bubble has reached its peak and has started to fall.  It may be a fall for the ages.  It is also incredible because just about every asset class has seen a bubble at once.  The only major exception I can think of is precious metals.

This means that your wealth is not really safe anywhere.  The best you can do is diversify and stay out of debt.  I still recommend a permanent portfolio setup, although even that will see its down days.

The name of the game right now is wealth preservation.  If you have something saved up, try to keep it.

I think there will be opportunities to make money down the road when everything gets beaten down.  I’m sure there really will be bargains when there is blood in the streets.

If the government resumes creating money any time soon, then that could change the whole game.  But I don’t expect it in the next several months unless major financial institutions get into trouble.

For now, prepare for a major recession ahead.  If the Fed reverses course, then it will be time to look for more speculations in mining stocks and other assets.