If you watch the establishment media, things seem rather rosy with the economy, as they almost always do.  It is surprising that some are admitting we may see a recession this year, but most of them are quick to say that it should be mild.

On the other hand, if you find alternative views, it is easy to find people who make it sound like the apocalypse is coming soon to a town near you.  I’m not saying that their predictions are impossible or that they definitely won’t happen.  At the same time, it is important to realize that life usually goes on.

As long as we don’t have an all-out nuclear war, life should go on, even if the economy is bad.  It will be a struggle for many, but most people living in a first-world country should be able to survive.

While I think a recession is inevitable because of past government and central bank policies, the economic future isn’t written in stone either.  It really is possible that we could have a hard recession that somewhat quickly (within a couple of years) turns around.

The 1970s were a rough period with stagnation and high inflation.  When Paul Volcker entered the Fed and allowed interest rates to dramatically increase, we saw recession for a couple of years in the early 1980s.  But the correction, which truly was a correction, was allowed to take place, and we saw relative boom times after that.

In other words, no matter how bad the economy may be, it is possible to have great economic times in the near future if the right policies are enacted, which mostly means getting rid of bad policies.

Sure, there is a misallocation of resources.  The correction is an attempt to correctly reallocate those resources in accordance with consumer demand.  Some of the wealth, or what was thought of as wealth, is destroyed.  But after a recession, the technology is still there.  The things we have learned should still be there.  The production capacity is still there.  So it is quite possible to recover quickly.  In fact, if there is minimal interference, it is likely that things will recover quickly.

From Rags to Riches

There is an even starker example than the 1980s in the United States.  Think about Japan and Germany after World War 2.  These two countries were close to obliterated.  When we talk about destroyed wealth, they literally had destroyed wealth in the form of buildings turned into rubble.

Luckily for the people there, the governments of Japan and Germany adopted relatively free market policies shortly after the end of the war.  And it followed that these two countries saw great prosperity after this time, in spite of the war devastation.

You can see many other examples of countries that became rich and prosperous after adopting free market policies.  Places like Singapore and Hong Kong became some of the richest places on earth.  Dubai is now a very wealthy place due to the lack of economic controls and taxation.  Despite what some think, it is not primarily due to oil.

Even China is an example of an impoverished country that rose up quickly after allowing some market policies to be adopted.  It is amazing what people will do and accomplish when they are allowed to flourish.

Japan and Germany were a mess after the war.  China, in 1980, was extremely poor due to the communist economy.  So these countries started at a very low point.

The United States is generally a rich country today.  It’s just that a lot of resources are wasted on the welfare and warfare state.  While some of the wealth that appears on paper may be fake (think of stocks and cryptocurrencies), a lot of the wealth we have is very real.  Americans generally enjoy nice houses, nice cars, and an overall good standard of living compared to much of the rest of the world.  I say that with the full acknowledgement that many families are struggling to pay their bills these days.

The point is that the United States of today isn’t going to be a rags to riches story.  It could be a story of rich to richer.

If free enterprise is just allowed to breathe a bit, it is amazing what entrepreneurs can do.  Even in our environment of regulation and high taxes, entrepreneurs and companies still find a way to satisfy consumer demand in many ways.  It is just more expensive for both parties than it needs to be.

If total government spending were cut by just 25%, and the worst of the regulations were repealed, we would see a boom unimaginable today.  We would see business activity soar, savings soar, and consumer goods getting cheaper and better over time.

We need to dramatically reduce the size and scope of the state, which also includes the Federal Reserve.  If the government stopped running up the debt, then the Fed wouldn’t have to monetize the debt to help fund the government spending.

There is no reason we can’t have the growth of the 1950s or the late 1800s with today’s technology.  It is amazing how much technology has advanced with a big presence of the state.  Just imagine how rich and prosperous we could be if we let economic freedom prevail.

I had the football game on the television when Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills collapsed on the field.  I quickly realized that this was not really a football injury.

I have seen concussions on the field.  I have seen players injure different body parts.  It doesn’t happen often, but there have been spinal cord injuries.

In the case of Hamlin, he actually stood up after the play.  After about a second or two, he just collapsed.  It was fairly clear that it was a heart issue.

I thought I heard Joe Buck say that Hamlin had received oxygen, but maybe he meant after his collapse.  I am unable to find a transcript of what exactly was said.

It is also important to note that Hamlin is not some 300-pound lineman.  He is a safety weighing about 200 pounds.  To be a safety, you have to be in really good shape.

So the media and “experts” can gaslight us all they want and say that he got struck in the heart at just the right time, but it is rather clear that this young man had heart issues going into the game.

A young athlete with heart issues isn’t impossible, but it does seem to be happening more often these days.  And if it is acknowledged that he had heart issues before that play, then I’m sure the gaslighting media will say that it was a long-term side effect of COVID or something else.  They won’t admit it could have been from the so-called vaccine.

I know some will say it is insensitive to bring up such a topic when a young man is fighting for his life.  But there is speculation all over the place on what happened.  So why is it just the vaccine skeptics who aren’t allowed to say anything?

If this incident happened because of the so-called vaccine, it is vitally important to know.  It will help put a stop to people getting any more boosters, especially young people.  This is exactly the reason that the powers-that-be want to shut us up and not discuss this.  They seem intent on pushing their vaccines, even if it is causing young people to die.

It is also important to know if this was a vaccine injury because people who got jabbed can then be screened for heart problems.  They can at least know where they stand and even possibly try remedies to reverse side effects.

Of course, it will also tell us that the people pushing the so-called vaccines are complicit in the genocide.  It will be especially bad for those who tried to mandate vaccination, as it appears to be a criminal act.  It was already a criminal act for government officials to force people to inject something in their bodies, but if that very thing was known to be a death sentence for some, then it implicates murder.

Joe Biden is the number one criminal, even if he has dementia.  He tried to mandate the shot for about 100 million people in order to keep their job.

A Turning Point?

There have been many celebrities that possibly suffered death or injury because of the jabs.  Some of the major ones off the top of my head are Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, and Bob Saget.  I can’t say for certainty with any one of them that it was the jab, but that is certainly what it looks like.

When Hamlin collapsed on the field, there were likely tens of millions of people watching.  It was rather clear that it wasn’t a football injury except in that his heartbeat and adrenaline would have been higher than normal.

If he is able to survive, it was especially lucky that it happened in a professional football game.  They have several doctors and an ambulance ready to go.  If this had happened in another activity, or even at practice, he probably wouldn’t have been revived.

We are now in a situation where people generally know what happened.  They know it was a cardiac event.  It is just a question of whether people can step outside of the gaslighting just long enough to realize with their own eyes and common sense that this didn’t happen because of a hit to his chest.

A new Rasmussen poll shows that over a quarter of Americans believe they know someone who possibly died because of the vaccines, and nearly half believe vaccine side effects have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths.  This would have been taken before the Monday night game.  This is quite significant.

If we get to a point where 60 or 70 percent of Americans think the COVID shots are deadly, then the game is up for the establishment.  It means that most people think Joe Biden is a complete liar.  It means that most people will no longer trust the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical companies.  It means that the government becomes, in many ways, illegitimate.

The government that is supposed to protect us and care for us (ha ha) is actually trying to kill us.  It is rather clear that these vaccines weren’t just a mistake.  It isn’t a matter of “oops, it isn’t as safe and effective as we thought”.  These criminals mandated the jabs, which were neither safe nor effective.

I hate seeing this quiet genocide.  Most people who get the shot do not suffer any noticeable side effects that last.  We don’t know the long-term effects yet, and hopefully there won’t be much.  But even if just one in a thousand people who get the jab end up prematurely dead, that is a massive number of people when you consider that a couple of hundred million Americans got jabbed.  Worldwide, it is probably at 5 billion, although there were different shots for different areas.

If “just” one out of a thousand people die because of the shot, that means that over 100,000 Americans have died or will die because of the shot.  I am not convinced that the number isn’t worse that this.  And again, we don’t know the long-term effects with cancer, autoimmune diseases, and heart problems.  We also have to acknowledge the vaccine injured who may not die but have their lives forever changed.

We can all hope that this young man survives, and we should also hope that if the vaccines are causing these injuries and deaths that have seemed to increase since 2021 that the large majority of people become aware.  The criminals need to be held to account, and we need to move away from the tyranny.

This will be one of my main themes for 2023. It is looking highly likely that the United States will enter a recession in 2023.

The yield curve is highly inverted at this point. When the yield on a 30-year bond is paying less than the yield on a 1-month Treasury, you know there is something wrong.

In the face of this inverted yield curve, the Fed is tightening its monetary policy to fight the inflation that it created. The Fed has been increasing its target federal funds rate, and it has been slowly draining its balance sheet.

The price inflation picture remains unclear for 2023. It is possible that consumer price inflation could come down quite a bit if we hit a hard recession, which will damper consumer spending and demand.

At the same time, it’s possible that we could see a major asset deflation without the rate of consumer prices for necessities coming down. For example, food may continue to increase in price in general, while the prices for stocks and houses are going down.

It is important to prepare ahead of time. If you wait until we are in the midst of a recession to change your lifestyle and your mentality, then it will be a much more painful time.

You obviously want to prepare with actionable things, to the degree its possible. You may not have much control over whether you lose your job, although even here you should try to make yourself indispensable to the degree possible.

If you have your own business, you want to take steps to reduce risk, particularly not being over-leveraged.

You also don’t want to have any personal debt that has a high interest rate. Of course, you never want this anyway, but it is especially important in a recession. In fact, you don’t really want to have any debt, if possible, other than maybe a low interest rate mortgage.

From an investment standpoint, you don’t want to be heavy in stocks, as they are likely to tumble overall. There are always a few individual stocks that do well anyway, but good luck picking them.

They say cash is king in a recession, and this is mostly true, as long as it isn’t an inflationary recession like the 1970s. No matter what, it is good to have some liquid funds on the sidelines, even when the currency is depreciating at 8% or so per year.

There are many actionable things you can do now to prepare, including reducing your overall spending. But perhaps the most important thing is to prepare mentally.

If you are cutting your spending, even by a few percentage points, and you are anticipating a hard recession ahead, then it will make it easier emotionally on you when it does arrive.

And if the recession never does arrive in 2023, then the worst case is that you will have deprived yourself of a few things and saved a little bit more money or paid down debt.

It is hard for anyone if they all of a sudden have to cut their spending by 10% or more. If you started by cutting even 2%, it will be much easier on you. It’s not just because you already started, but because you were anticipating hard times ahead. It is far less emotionally draining.

I know a major correction is coming. Maybe they (the government and the Fed) can somehow kick the can a little farther down the road. Either way, there will be a major adjustment at some point. It would be wise to prepare for what’s ahead. You can use the start of the new year to make some minor lifestyle changes.

As we close out 2022, the dollar price of gold is just above $1,800 per ounce. While the gold price has fluctuated a bit, it has actually mostly stayed within a narrow range.

Starting around the beginning of the 21st century, gold went on a bull market run for about 10 years. It has largely been uneventful since that time. There was a short-term bear market in 2015 and 2016. If you had invested in gold around 2011 near its high, you wouldn’t have seen much in the way of gains or losses in terms of U.S. dollars since that time, although the dollar has depreciated quite a bit in that time.

Precious metals, particularly gold and silver, is the only major asset class that isn’t in a bubble. While stocks, real estate, cryptos, and other assets have roared higher for the last several years, the metals haven’t done much.

Bonds are a different story. They are likely in an unsustainable long-term bubble, but they could still do well in 2023 if there is a deep recession and interest rates fall.

The yield curve is highly inverted as we close out the year, and a deep recession looks likely in 2023. This will have a great impact on all asset prices, including gold. It will also depend on the actions taken by central banks, and the Federal Reserve in particular.

We can fully expect that real estate and stocks will go down in 2023. The declines have already begun, and the decline in the Nasdaq has really begun. To be sure, in early 2020 I thought it was crazy that the Nasdaq was going to hit 10,000. I thought it was a bubble then. With the massive sell-off in 2022, the Nasdaq is now slightly above the 10,000 mark.

So the question may not be whether gold will go up in price in 2023. It is more a question of whether it will do better than most other investments, and I think the answer is yes.

In the 2008 financial crisis, gold went down. But it didn’t get hit as hard as stocks and housing, and it went back up rather quickly. The same thing could happen in 2023, especially if and when the Fed reverses course and stops its monetary tightening.

Dollar Strength and the Fed

One of the other factors to consider when looking at the gold price is the relative strength of the U.S. dollar. In 2022, the euro actually fell below the dollar, although it has gained back some of its losses at the end of the year.

But the overall strong dollar (relative to the other major currencies) has been a weakness for gold, at least for Americans. If you look at the gold price in euros, it is much stronger these days and not far off its all-time highs.

Investors are taking the Fed seriously about tightening its monetary policy to get price inflation under control. Of course, the high price inflation is a result of the Fed’s previous policies, but the Fed seems to be the only major central bank that is serious about getting it under control.

Maybe that will all go out the window with a bad recession in 2023. It may go out the window if major financial institutions get in trouble. But for right now, the Fed continues to tighten in the face of an inverted yield curve.

The Fed is not going to reverse course just to save the stock market, at least as long as price inflation is above 3%. But if we have a deep recession and consumer demand plummets, it is possible that price inflation could go down significantly in the coming year.

If the Fed reacts and starts expanding its balance sheet again, then I believe gold will enter a new bull market. If the Fed just stops tightening but doesn’t move to an easy money policy either, then expect almost everything to go down.

But again, gold will go down less.

So even if gold isn’t going higher in 2023, what are your alternatives? I don’t recommend a large position in stocks or real estate right now. I certainly don’t recommend cryptos. Maybe some bonds are a good idea for diversification, but they have risks too.

That leaves gold and cash. I think gold is a great form of diversification right now. It may not shine brightly in 2023, but it may be the least bad option at this point for a good chunk of your portfolio.

If and when the Fed starts loosening again, then all bets are off. I expect gold to go higher, and I expect gold mining stocks will have the potential to go up in multiples of where they are now.

The ruling class have always been against the people, at least in the United States for anyone alive today. However, the ruling class are more exposed today for a variety of reasons.

Technology is likely the number one reason, as people can communicate and disseminate information almost instantaneously. We no longer have to rely on just the establishment news sources to get information (or disinformation).

There are other reasons as well. Donald Trump helped to expose the establishment. Sometimes it wasn’t on purpose. The Ron Paul presidential campaigns woke up a small segment of the population, and many of these people are still trying to spread the message of liberty. There is a stronger libertarian movement in the U.S. today than at any time in the last century.

The ruling class itself has overplayed its hand. You can see this with Donald Trump. They try so desperately to smack him down that they just look pathetic at times. They have also become more bold in their rhetoric and their actions, which have been especially evident since the COVID hysteria began in 2020.

Since the ruling elite are more exposed, they are also fighting back. They are digging in hard, and they are out to destroy those who threaten their power.

This is why online censorship has become so prevalent. The government and the powers-that-be would prefer that some people know they are censoring rather than risk information getting out there that would hurt them.

When something looks bad for the establishment, they are often choosing the lesser of evils. It is better for the establishment to have everyone just think that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered than to risk having him reveal any secrets. It is better for them to withhold documents on the Kennedy assassination than for people to find out what really happened.

More people are better informed today because they are paying attention and because they have alternative sources for information. This is a great risk to the ruling class, and they know it.

This makes it an incredibly opportune time to smack down the ruling class and to gain greater liberty. But it is also a very risky time because the ruling elite will not easily relinquish their power.

It will be incredibly dangerous for anyone to challenge particular individuals or agencies. If they are a threat to the ruling elite’s power, then they will be threatened and risk harm.

The best way to take down the ruling class and dramatically reduce the size and scope of government is to continue informing others and making them realize who their true enemies are.

If a majority, or even a sizable minority, are well educated and understand the benefits of liberty, then the people ruling over us will lose their power. They cannot rule for long without the consent of the people.

The social media companies have been engaging in widespread censorship, especially since COVID and the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.  It isn’t just conservatives and libertarians being censored.  It is really anyone who is going against the establishment narrative who is vulnerable to censorship.

There have been calls from some people for the government to regulate social media companies to ensure free speech.  This is completely wrong and anti liberty.  It is especially crazy to suggest such a thing when it is the government that is largely behind the censoring.

If the government played absolutely no role in censorship, it is hard to say what would be happening now.  Maybe we would still see widespread censorship just because it is seen as the culturally popular thing to do.  Chances are, though, there would be a lot less censorship coming from big tech companies.

Property rights should be respected, so libertarians should not ever call for government intervention to prevent a private company from engaging in censorship.  The problem we have is that there is already government intervention, and it is unlawful and immoral.

It was already obvious that the government was, at the very least, pressuring social media companies to censor or hide anything of significance that went against the establishment narrative.  With Elon Musk buying Twitter and releasing documents, we now have the proof that the FBI and the executive branch (at a minimum) have been telling Twitter what to censor.

It would be naïve to think that this isn’t going on with other major social media and big tech companies like Facebook and Google.

My Blog

I originally started this blog using Blogger/ Blogspot, which are owned by Google.  At some point, I switched over to WordPress, which I actually don’t find that user friendly.  I also lost traffic when I switched, although some of that could have been my fault for broken links that were supposed to point back to my own posts.

I have used WordPress for quite a while now, and I can see the traffic.  It is far lower than it was when I used Blogger.  I have a small group of loyal followers who either get an email with my posts or check out my site periodically, but I still get some traffic referred from search engines.

I can tell you that I get almost no referrals from Google, which is the biggest search platform.  I get the most referrals from DuckDuckGo.  Maybe there are more libertarians or people searching for libertarian things on DuckDuckGo, but it shouldn’t be this imbalanced considering DuckDuckGo has a small fraction of the users as Google.

Interestingly, despite my many criticisms of Bill Gates, I do get some hits from Bing.  I get more from Bing than I do from Google.

I have no doubt that Google is censoring my posts because of what they say.  I have been a critic of lockdowns and COVID vaccines since the beginning of those things, and I have had my share of things to say about Trump (some positive and some not).

Google is hiding my posts on purpose because they go against the establishment narrative.  I used to get many hits coming from Google, even after I had switched to WordPress.  It was my primary source of traffic.  If you search for “libertarian investments”, you will probably find my site.  But if you search for words related to a post on the site, you probably won’t find it on the first page of Google results, if at all.

I’m just relaying this personal experience because it is indicative of what is happening.  The big tech companies are censoring content that goes against the establishment narrative.  And it is likely coming directly from the FBI or some other government agency.  Twitter wasn’t/ isn’t alone on this front.

Illegal Pressuring

Maybe this goes against the 1^St Amendment.  It certainly goes against the spirit of the 1^st Amendment.  But that says that Congress shall make no law.  And technically, Congress hasn’t made a law here except in that it funds the FBI.

If you want to look at the amendment really being violated, it is the same amendment that is violated almost all of the time.  The 10^th Amendment states that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States or the people.

There is no authority in the Constitution that grants any government agency the right to censor anyone, or to threaten any company to get them to censor anyone.

The people telling Twitter and any other companies what to censor are breaking the law.  They are committing a criminal act and should be prosecuted.  But the criminals are the ones in charge, so that isn’t happening.  We haven’t even seen an apology, let alone a resignation, from the head of the FBI.

Of course, Biden and company know what is happening and are in on it.  They are criminals as well.  They are trying to shut people up, and they are doing it by threatening the use of government violence.

The only thing that will stop this is a mass awakening by the public.  The good news is that more people are awakening to the evil establishment forces.  The ruling elite criminals are not just Democrats, which many Republicans are starting to realize.

Elon Musk didn’t really tell us much that we didn’t already know (for those paying attention), but it is proof.  And it has also awakened more people and put the discussion out there.  More Americans are losing faith in the system, which they should.  Now they need to withdraw their consent.

We are told to follow the science.  We are told that the data tells us to get vaccinated.  We were once told that it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated.  We have continually been told that the COVID vaccines are safe and effective.

Where is the data?  The placebo groups in the vaccine trials were told to go ahead and get jabbed because it was so important to be vaccinated.  So we have no control group from the vaccine trials, which was done on purpose.  We do have a control group in the tens of millions of Americans who were able to avoid the shots, but there is no tracking of the impacts (on purpose).

In a recent NBC “News” article, it says all of these wonderful things about the COVID shots in spite of their shortcomings.  Yet there are two sentences that make a surprising admission.

“Six in 10 adults who died of Covid in August were vaccinated or boosted, according to a report by KFF, a nonprofit health think tank.  And for the most part, vaccinated people don’t avoid infections or reinfections anymore.”

So the establishment mouthpiece of NBC is admitting that the majority of COVID deaths are people who are vaccinated.  Now, I understand the counterarguments quite well.  There are more people who are vaccinated than non-vaccinated. Amongst older people, there are an even higher percentage of people vaccinated, and it is mostly older people who supposedly die of COVID.

Still, what kind of “vaccines” are these?  Does this really count for being “effective”?  If the majority of people who die of COVID are vaccinated, then the vaccines are doing a lousy job of being effective.

My guess is that the rate of vaccinated deaths is actually much higher than what is being stated here, if for nothing else that we have been continually lied to.  There are other reasons to doubt the data as well.

But even if we trust this data, it is not a good selling point for the vaccines.  And it is also the wrong overall measure.  The question isn’t whether the vaccines make you less likely to die of COVID.  The question is whether the vaccines make you less likely to die.  And this is the big missing statistic.

It actually goes beyond death too.  You can have a vaccine injury that does not necessarily result in a premature death but does result in a reduced lifestyle.  Let’s say I am told that a vaccine will reduce my risk of death by 50% for something that kills 1 out of 10,000 people.  But if I take the vaccine, there is a one out of a thousand risk of an autoimmune disease or partial paralysis of my body.  I would probably choose not to take the vaccine.

Still, even if we just use death as a measurement, we have to look at the overall mortality rate.  In the Pfizer trial (see page 23), more people died in the vaccinated group than in the non-vaccinated group, yet they hailed it as a success because there was one less person in the vaccinated group who died of COVID.

If a vaccine saves you from one thing but kills you anyway, then what’s the point?

It is very hard to get overall mortality statistics out of the CDC, but we know that there has been excess mortality since 2020.  The excess deaths in 2020 can be explained by COVID, or more likely, the mistreatment of people who tested positive for COVID.  The lockdowns and the fear of the virus could have also contributed to premature death for some.

So how do you explain that deaths were even higher in 2021?  Insurance companies have reported a spike in deaths since 2021 for younger (working age) people.  Wouldn’t the number of deaths go down with a working vaccine?

It is actually probably worse than this because some people died prematurely in 2020, which means the death rate should have gone down from there.  Think of it this way.  In 2020, you have a person who is 85 years old.  He gets COVID and goes to the hospital.  He is put on a ventilator and dies.  If he hadn’t gotten COVID and been put on a ventilator, maybe he would have lived to be 87.  But since he died in 2020, he can’t die in 2022.  So that is one less death for 2022 because it happened earlier.

Yet, in 2021, and probably in 2022, we are still getting excess deaths.  But nobody seems to want to talk about this except for the hardcore vaccine skeptics.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of the people who have died in the last 18 to 22 months were vaccinated as compared to the rest of the population.  It would be particularly interesting to know about younger people.

But we won’t see these statistics come out of the government or the pharmaceutical companies.  They don’t want them to be known for a reason.

The FOMC released its latest statement on monetary policy.  The federal funds target rate has been hiked by another 50 basis points, while the balance sheet continues to drain slowly.

This is all in the face of an inverted yield curve, which is the best predictor of a coming recession.

You probably don’t need to be an expert in Austrian school economics to understand that there is major economic trouble ahead.  Still, it doesn’t hurt to invoke the face of the Austrian school, Ludwig Von Mises.

Mises wrote:

“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.  The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”

The Fed had a very loose monetary policy from 2008 to 2014.  It looked like we were going to get a recession in 2020, but then COVID hysteria happened, which gave the Fed an excuse to more than double its balance sheet again in a short period of time.  This delayed the recession.

So why doesn’t the Fed just delay the next recession too, and do the same thing again?

As Mises explained, eventually it ends up in what he called a crack-up boom.  This means that there is some form of hyperinflation and the currency is destroyed.

I have long held that the Fed is not likely to engage in hyperinflation.  We can get relatively high price inflation like we see now, but the Fed doesn’t want to destroy the dollar.  That’s why we see the Fed tightening now.

Even if the Fed didn’t tighten, we would still eventually see a major recession.  Mises pointed out that even the slowing of the rate of growth of the money supply will eventually be enough to bring on the correction in the malinvestment.

But we are in an environment where there is major malinvestment from previous Fed actions, and now the Fed is raising interest rates and draining its balance sheet, even if slowly.  The yield curve is heavily inverted, yet the Fed continues to tighten.

The theme for the rest of this year and 2023 will be to live like we are in a recession.  This is the best way to prepare for a recession.  You should try to lower your spending, even in the face of price inflation, and you can hopefully set aside some extra money.

But the most important aspect of living like we are in a recession now is that it prepares you mentally.  You will not be as disoriented when the recession does hit, and you are less likely to make a stupid mistake.  It will also be less difficult for you to cut back since you have already cut back.

The recession is likely to hit hard in 2023.  Maybe the worst won’t be until 2024.  But unless the Fed drastically reverses course, there is a recession on the horizon.  Even if the Fed does reverse course, it probably won’t be enough to stop it at this point, unless they do resort to mass inflation.

Let’s hope that the Fed doesn’t reverse course so that we get the lesser of two evils.

The latest CPI report came out today and showed that consumer prices overall rose just 0.1% last month in November.  It was expected to be 0.3%.

The year-over-year price inflation still stands at 7.1%, which is obviously well above the Fed’s supposed target of 2%.

Stocks responded well on the news in the morning.  Perhaps investors are expecting the Fed to be a little less hawkish on inflation going forward, although more rate increases are expected.

Even if the Fed stops increasing its target rate after the December meeting, I don’t think there is any stopping the coming recession.  Unless the Fed responds at least as aggressively as it did in March 2020 when it began the more than doubling of its balance sheet, there is no stopping the economic pain coming in 2023.

And if the Fed did something crazy to stave off a recession, it would only make things worse in the long run.

The yields are highly inverted right now, which is the best warning sign of a coming recession as there is.  Meanwhile, the Fed is still raising rates and slowly draining its balance sheet in the face of a highly inverted yield curve.

I don’t think people are processing just how bad things are going to get.  We already have situations of shortages.  Debt continues to go higher not just for government, but for families as well.  With the high price inflation, real wages have been going down, but the tax bills aren’t going down with them.

Middle class America is already hurting, and that is with a relatively low unemployment rate.  While a recession might ease consumer price inflation, there will also be a massive asset deflation.  Stocks and real estate have already hit some turmoil, but it is likely to get much worse.

Once the recession becomes evident, people will start tightening their belts.  This will cause business activity to slow down greatly, and we will see a massive shift of resources in the economy.  This will cause greater unemployment, and it will cause many company bankruptcies to the extent that the government doesn’t bail them out.

Most businesses are not some kind of money laundering scheme like FTX, but it doesn’t mean they don’t get sucked in to the bubble economy and over invest.  The companies that are overleveraged will have trouble paying their bills.

I expect stocks to get absolutely hammered in 2023.  I also expect housing prices to generally go down, but they also may be more responsive if the Fed reverses course on its monetary policy and starts inflating again.

While the government sends tens of billions of dollars off to the money pit of Ukraine, middle class Americans suffer and will continue to suffer.

It is best to start living like it is a recession now.  Then the adjustment won’t be as hard.  Many Americans will be in for a shock when the good times stop rolling next year.  I think many are already starting to face reality, but they just don’t fully believe it yet.  They have seen their purchasing power decline, but they don’t believe that it will continue or that it will get significantly worse.

If you live like you are in a recession now, then you will be more mentally prepared when the recession actually hits.

For those who have opposed COVID lockdowns and mandates, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has been something of a hero, at least for many.  Some people don’t know or forget that DeSantis actually did lock down Florida in April 2020.

Luckily, he realized his mistake quickly.  I have no idea how much of it was political instinct and how much of it was a genuine appreciation for liberty and common sense.  By September 2020, Florida was completely open and the only mandates left were some mask ordinances from county/ local governments.  Most of the rest of the United States still had major restrictions at the state level.

When I became aware of a lockdown in Florida in late March 2020 (set for April), I was referring to DeSantis as Dictator DeSantis to my friends and family.  I wrote an email to DeSantis and the mayor where I live.  I recently came across those emails, which are almost identical.

Here is a copy of my email to DeSantis on March 31, 2020.  I am only leaving off my personal information at the end. Everything else is word for word.

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Dear Governor DeSantis,

With all of the fear surrounding the coronavirus, there have been major business shutdowns, stay-at-home orders, and other measures taken by government officials at all levels.  I am absolutely opposed to any such measures from the government, whether it is at the federal, state, or local level.  If people feel they are at risk, they can voluntarily stay at home and isolate themselves from others.  Just because there is fear of a pandemic, it does not entitle anyone to become a dictator.  That includes mayors, governors, and the president.  I urge you to resist calling for any more government shutdowns and to immediately repeal those shutdowns that were already ordered.  This is for the sake of liberty and our economic future.

Sincerely,

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As you can see, I was firm, but relatively polite.  I have no idea if this had any impact at all.  But I know that some politicians just need some encouragement at times to do what is right.  Sometimes they need to hear from others to gain enough courage to do the right thing.

I feel fortunate to have lived (and continue to live) in Florida during a time of hysteria, panic, and government totalitarianism.  I realize how much better my family and me had it compared to others.