I hate politics because politics is a game of who gets to use violence over others (i.e., participate in state activities). Yet, I am a bit of a political junkie.  It seems contradictory.  Even though we live in a world that I wish was vastly more libertarian, it is something of a game to me as well.

I haven’t been heavily paying attention to the presidential race up to this point because there isn’t a lot to analyze at this point.  I followed the Republican debates without Trump only because I was curious what would be said.  They were only interesting because of Vivek Ramaswamy.

It has been quite obvious that Trump is the easy frontrunner.  He has the support of a majority of the Republican electorate, which means he should easily get the nomination.

It was puzzling to me back in 2008 when John McCain took the Republican nomination.  It was less puzzling in 2012 with Romney, only because I had already seen what happened in 2008.  McCain got a plurality of votes in some of the primaries, but the numbers weren’t that impressive.  I remember seeing him get something like 30% of the vote, yet candidates just started dropping out of the race and assuming it was McCain’s.  I’m screaming at the television, “That means that 70% of the Republicans want someone else.”

I really followed closely in those days because of Ron Paul.  That’s what made it all interesting.  Even with Iowa, the media tried to ignore him.  When they didn’t ignore him, they often tried to smear him or dismiss him.  They did to Ron Paul what eventually didn’t work against Donald Trump in 2016.

Trump Victor

As expected, Trump easily won the Iowa Caucuses.  He received about 51% of the vote.  Ron DeSantis was in a distant second with 21.2%.  The horrible Nikki Haley, who is fully backed by the establishment, got 19.1%. Vivek got a somewhat disappointing 7.7%.

The results show Trump getting 20 delegates.  DeSantis got 9 delegates, and Haley got 8 delegates.  Vivek got 3 delegates.

This was an absolute clear win for Trump, no matter how the media or other candidates try to spin it.  The reason DeSantis and Haley haven’t dropped out yet is because they are banking on the deep state to take out Trump in some way.  If Trump lands in jail or is off the ballot or is unable to run for some reason, then each of them are hoping to step in.  In Haley’s case, she may even end up running outside of the Republican Party.

If Trump had to drop out right now, I think most of his support would go to DeSantis over Haley.  That’s the good news.

Vivek

Almost immediately after the results came in, Vivek dropped out of the race and announced his support for Donald Trump.  It may have been bad timing by Trump to attack Vivek for the first time just a few days prior.

I have thought all along that Vivek was trying to position himself as a possible running mate for Trump.  I doubt this is the direction Trump will go, although it would make me more optimistic about a Trump presidency if he did choose Vivek as a running mate.  The only realistic scenario I can envision that’s better is having Tucker Carlson.

There was a lot of theorizing that Vivek was trying to position himself as Trump’s backup in case Trump couldn’t run.  But that is obviously not the case now because Vivek dropped out.  If Trump is forced out for some reason, now there is just Haley and DeSantis to choose from.

Vivek’s showing of 7.7% in Iowa is probably indicative of where he stands nationally.  It is the more liberty-minded people who favor Vivek.  I think most of his supporters will go to Trump or to nobody at all in the Republican field.

This just means that Trump will get even more support and will be well above the 50% threshold.  I would imagine a good portion of DeSantis supporters would go to Trump if DeSantis drops out, but not as many as Vivek.  Most of the “never Trump” vote within the Republican Party is going towards Haley at this point.

I am thankful that Vivek ran.  He has a bright future ahead of him.  Maybe he will get a position in a Trump administration.  I think Trump could put him in there as press secretary just to be the media’s worst nightmare.

I have not been shy about pointing out Vivek’s flaws.  He has been bad on the issue of China.  He has been bad on Israel, although much better than all of the others.  He has been bad a few times talking about bombing Mexican drug cartels.  Still, overall, Vivek was a breath of fresh air.  He helped expose Nikki Haley, and he wasn’t afraid to take on the media.  He wasn’t afraid to point out the climate hoax or the Russia collusion hoax or point out that January 6^th was probably an inside job.

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Vivek and hopefully moving closer to libertarianism.

2024 – We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

Iowa was nothing compared to what is to come.  The biggest contest of 2024 is between Trump and the deep state.  The deep state includes the establishment media.

They are trying everything to keep Trump away from the presidency.  They want to throw him in jail.  They want to keep him off the ballots.  They will do anything they can get away with.

Meanwhile, we have no idea if Biden will actually be the Democratic nominee.  And if he isn’t, how will the powers-that-be replace him?  And who will be chosen?

We also have a bit of a wildcard with Robert Kenney Jr. running.  I wish he was still running as a Democrat to disrupt things there.  After the October 7^th attacks in Israel, I felt like the steam came out of the Kennedy campaign.  He repeated the establishment talking points, and he stopped going on alternative media outlets.  For that reason, he will probably be less of a factor than I originally thought.

We also have an economy that is anything but strong.  Middle class America feels the pain of price inflation, and the bubble economy could blow at any moment.

That is a lot going on just to get to the general election.  We have no idea what will happen once the results are counted or are being counted.  Will either side accept the results?

There are so many variables right now that are out of the ordinary that Iowa just seems bland to me.  Trump is the heavy favorite in the Republican Party.  In any other year, the other candidates probably would have dropped out.  But this is not a normal year.  The big stuff is yet to come.

Anecdotal evidence is not irrelevant.  If your own experiences are telling you something different than what others are saying, then you probably shouldn’t listen to what the others are saying.

In 2020, the television news was running a ticker on the screen of COVID deaths.  We had lockdowns and mass hysteria.  Yet, by the end of 2020, I didn’t personally know a single person who had died of (or with) COVID.  That’s not to say that people weren’t dying at all.  But based on my own experience, it was obviously not the horrible and deadly “pandemic” that was being claimed.

It doesn’t mean that things might not get really bad in the future.  It doesn’t mean that some people won’t die of the latest virus.  It’s just that the reality on the ground for me wasn’t matching the disproportionate hysteria.

The same thing goes for climate change.  I have no idea what the climate will do in the future, and I don’t think anybody knows.  But what the climate hysterics are saying is not lining up with reality.  Beachfront property is extremely expensive, and sometimes the rich climate hysterics themselves are buying it.  If the oceans are rising and are going to put a lot of land underwater, then why would anyone want to own real estate at or near the beach?

Sometimes observing the world around you can give you a better reality than what you are hearing from the so-called experts or hearing on the news.

A Trip to the Grocery Store

And so it is with prices.  I recently went to the grocery store.  I sometimes get a specific kind of organic peanut butter.  A few years ago, it was about $3.99.  It went above $4, but was still well under $5 for most of 2023.  In my latest trip, it was $6.89.  I don’t know the exact percentage, but it went up something like 50% from my last visit where I bought it, which was maybe three weeks before.

Maybe there’s a shortage of peanut butter.  I really don’t know.  I also noticed that jugs of bottled water had gone up a lot.  It was 86 cents probably about a year ago.  Now it is over $1.20.  Something like 40 cents doesn’t sound like a big deal until you figure out the percentage.  The price of the water has gone up nearly 50% in around a year.

This is ridiculous.  To be sure, some prices haven’t gone up much in the last year.  But I don’t know of anything that’s gone down except during sales or fruit when it is in season.

There is one thing I do know just from my own personal experience.  Price inflation at the grocery store is not around 3% per annum these days.  It is higher.  Most people I speak to agree.

The Latest Numbers

The latest CPI report was released showing the data for December 2023.  The CPI was up 0.3% for the month.  The year-over-year CPI now stands at 3.4%.  This was a little higher than expected.

The median CPI was up 0.4% for the month.  The year-over-year median CPI is now 5.1%.

I have long said that I don’t think the CPI numbers are useless.  I think they may be understated a bit.  Of course, it is impossible to measure it perfectly because different people buy different things in different amounts.  Quality and quantities change as well.

Still, I think the CPI is useful in looking at the trend.  The trend for 2023 had generally shown the rate of price inflation decelerating.

Despite the wording of some people, prices haven’t gone down at all.  The rate of price inflation has gone down.  But now, even that has stopped going down.  The CPI has now ticked upwards.

This doesn’t surprise me based on my own experiences.  It seems like almost everything just continues to get more expensive.

What Will the Fed Do?

Investors have shown great optimism because they saw a soft landing and a Fed that would begin lowering rates in 2024.  I don’t think the Fed is going to hike rates in 2024 unless the CPI really jumps higher.  But this latest reading could delay rate cuts by the Fed.

The markets haven’t seemed too bothered by the latest numbers, but who can figure the logic or illogic of moves in the stock market these days?

I think some people in the financial press got ahead of themselves and had already called the inflation threat as over.  Well, apparently the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.

This just puts the Fed in a harder position, especially if and when some kind of financial crisis/ recession hits.  If price inflation is still running high, it makes it harder for them to lower rates and create money like crazy.

It will be interesting to see the report that comes out in February for the January 2024 numbers.  Maybe this past month was just a blip.  But if the CPI numbers come in even higher for January, then the Fed is really going to have a tough situation to deal with.

I don’t know when this market is going to blow, but I don’t want to be participating in it when it does.

Libertarians shouldn’t favor democracy.  Democracy is not the same thing as liberty.  In some cases, they can be the opposite.  Democracy can lead to a lack of liberty.  It is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.  Or pick your favorite example.

Still, libertarians can have different views on democratic processes and the role they should play in government, if we are to have a government.

I, personally, have become less opposed to democratic processes in recent years because the ruling elite is so bad.  I would prefer democracy over the evil that is pushed upon us on a regular basis. The problem is that the ruling elite don’t actually follow democracy.  To them, democracy only counts if the people vote the right way, according to them.

We hear a lot about democracy these days.  Supposedly, democracy is on the ballot in 2024.  Supposedly, Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy.  Therefore, we need to remove him from the presidential race so that people can’t choose to vote for him.

You have to kill democracy in order to save it.  It’s like the establishment’s view on war.  You have to bomb Iraq in order to liberate the people there.

Removing Names from Ballots

So far, two states have declared that Trump won’t appear on the election ballots this year.  Those are Colorado and Maine.  These cases are likely to get heard by the Supreme Court.

It’s interesting that the Supreme Court has been more of a protector of liberty lately than a usurper of it.  There are many bad rulings coming from the Supreme Court, but when you compare it to the Biden administration (or whoever is running the show), then the Supreme Court looks pretty good.  It saved us from some of the most egregious vaccine mandates, and it saved us from the worst of the student loan bailouts.  Some of the reasoning isn’t great, but at least it is keeping dictator Biden somewhat in check.

There are other states talking about removing Biden from the ballot in retaliation.  Of course, Biden is a criminal in many ways, but I don’t necessarily favor this course of action.

But then I thought about what would happen if most of the states removed either Biden or Trump from the ballots in the general election.  The primaries don’t seem to matter much right now because Trump has a huge lead for the Republican nomination, and the Democratic establishment of the “Democratic” Party will just pick the nominee on their side.

Let’s say that half the states just removed one candidate or the other.  This might actually be good for liberty.

At some point, it becomes so ridiculous, both sides will just say that they won’t follow the orders of the other side.  If Trump isn’t allowed on the ballot, then Biden (or whoever) isn’t the legitimate president to the red states. (I am generalizing here, and I understand there are more than two “sides”.)

This is how we get nullification, and ultimately secession.  If Trump just isn’t allowed to win because he is in jail or off the ballots, then the people in the red states will just declare that Biden isn’t a legitimate president.  They will just stop following his dictates.  They will demand that their governors not follow the dictates.  It ultimately has to lead to secession.

The only other alternative is that it leads to violence.  And to be sure, the violence would come from the federal government and the establishment powers.  They would use violence to enforce their edicts, and they would use violence to prevent secession (peaceful independence).  But even here, they are limited by public opinion.

This isn’t 1860s America any more.  I don’t think we are going to have a literal war like the misnamed Civil War.  I think there are a lot of military members who would refuse to kill their fellow citizens.

Conclusion

I know that 2024 is going to be a crazy year politically.  It will probably be a crazy year economically as well.  It is already crazy with a tyrant in the White House trying to throw his political opponent in jail.  The powers-that-be are united against Trump.  They will remove him from ballots if possible.  They will do anything they can get away with to keep him from the presidency again.  Imagine what they would do to an actual libertarian.

The good news is that there are far fewer people who trust the establishment and its media than there were just 5 years ago.  We need as many people in the liberty camp as possible.

The only peaceful and logical solution to the craziness is for secession or some kind of functional secession where the federal government has a lot less say.  If removing names off of ballots leads to this more peaceful outcome, then I am open to it.

In May 2016, when discussing the race for the Democratic Party nomination between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, I wrote the following with regard to ways Trump could attack Hillary Clinton:

“I think the next step will be to link Bill Clinton with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.  Clinton has taken repeated trips on his private jet.  Personally, I would be surprised if Bill Clinton isn’t a pedophile.”

I linked to an article in that paragraph.  The link is now dead (like so many things linked with the Clintons).  In 2016, almost nobody had heard of Jeffrey Epstein.  Yet, just because of a little curiosity and research, I knew about Bill Clinton’s close affiliation with Epstein and his crimes.

I have almost no resources or budget for research other than the internet.  Where is the establishment media on this?  There were no investigations by NBC or CNN that we know of.  In 2019, Project Veritas released a video of Amy Robach.  At the time, she was an ABC news anchor.  She wasn’t aware she was being recorded, but she said that they had the Epstein story three years ago that linked him to people like Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew.  Robach was frustrated that ABC spiked the story.

This is why the so-called mainstream media should never be trusted.  The people making the decisions at the top are evil.  If they weren’t evil, they wouldn’t get in that position.  They purposely distort news stories. Worse, they choose not to investigate or publish things that are damaging to establishment politicians and the establishment narrative.

COVID Hysteria

In March 2020, I could already see that COVID was being oversold, to put it mildly.  I knew the statistics about a 3 to 4 percent mortality rate were fake.  They were basing that on the sick people going into the hospital in China.

I did minor in math in college, but it doesn’t take a statistician to figure out that the numbers being spit out by the government, and repeated by the establishment media, were misleading at best.

It’s only because I had a little bit of curiosity and used a little logic that I figured out that COVID was not some great threat to humanity.  The reaction and totalitarian controls with COVID as an excuse were the big threat.  Even some so-called libertarians fell for it.

I am not a doctor, yet I immediately questioned the hysterical call for ventilators.  I didn’t trust the so-called experts.  I remember when Cuomo, then governor of New York, was calling for something like 40,000 ventilators.  I knew almost nothing about ventilators, but I had never heard of them as a treatment for a respiratory virus.  Why didn’t anyone in a position of power question this narrative?  It’s hard to say how many tens of thousands of people died because of this medical malpractice, to put it kindly.

At some point, you have to consider the fact that the powers in the establishment media are completely inept or they are evil.  While there may be some incompetence at times, I have to go with evil as the main source.  If they just weren’t that bright, they would still occasionally shine a light on something damaging to the establishment narrative.

Questioning Everything

The default position on everything should be to question the establishment narrative.  When a story comes out, it is best to take a deep breath and think things through.  Who benefits from this story?  Are there details that haven’t come out yet?  Does the narrative even make sense?

When I heard about the Jussie Smollett story, I instantly suspected it was false.  Some celebrity just happens to be walking alone in downtown Chicago in the middle of a winter night when he is attacked by MAGA Trump supporters.  Because when I think of downtown Chicago, I really think of MAGA country.  The whole thing was so ridiculous, yet the establishment media couldn’t help themselves because it pushed their anti-Trump narrative.  In this case, they may have been more stupid than evil.

The death of George Floyd is another incident.  On this one, I’m not sure if I got played a little bit at the beginning.  The videos that first came out were pretty damning against the cops.  Still, I was pretty sure that they weren’t trying to kill George Floyd, even if it wasn’t handled very well.  I was almost positive that it had nothing to do with race.  It was only later that I learned that the autopsy showed that Floyd likely overdosed on fentanyl.

Again, the point here is to question any narrative that is fed by the establishment media.  You should question alternative media too, but the average person doesn’t get sucked in as easily by something they saw on TikTok or social media or heard on a podcast.

It amazes me that people get duped over and over again by the same charlatans.  Even when they realize that they were duped, they still fall for it again the next time.  “Well, they may not have gotten everything right with COVID, but surely this story has to be right.”

Where I’ve Changed

I have been a libertarian for over 20 years now.  I had libertarian tendencies when I was a child and young adult.  When I was in my 20s, I started following Harry Browne, which made me more of a hardcore libertarian.

My biggest interest has always been in economics and the financial markets.  It is just part of my personality.  But economics is no longer the big issue for me politically.  It is certainly very important, and I like to write about it, but it isn’t the big thing I use to judge people and how they would be in office.

I would much prefer someone who opposes war and the national security state than someone who is sound on the minimum wage.  I would prefer someone who is sound on all of the major issues, but foreign policy is more indicative of someone’s character in a lot of ways.

Sometimes it isn’t even foreign policy but an opposition to the deep state.  If someone is sound on economics but doesn’t have a hardcore opposition to the establishment, then they are no good for me, especially on a federal level.  Maybe they would be fine on the city council.

When it comes to the presidency, it is useless to be good on economics but bad on other issues.  Even if the person really does believe in a more free market economy, it won’t do any good if they are fighting wars and funding the evil intelligence agencies.  Does anyone really think that Nikki Haley will cut spending as president?  She will need all the money she can get to fight wars and run a world empire.

Even using the case of someone who doesn’t stress foreign policy or the national security state, I would prefer the person who does and somewhat gets it right.  Larry Elder briefly ran for president, but he was shut out of the debates.  I wish he had been in the debates.  I like the guy when I hear him, and he tends to be very good on economic issues.  The problem is that I sense he has no hatred or even concern for the deep state.

As bad as Trump is on economics, I would probably prefer a Trump presidency in many ways over a Larry Elder presidency, even though Elder is thought of as a libertarian.  Elder would likely not oppose the deep state.  With Trump, at least there is a chance of him exposing some of the lies and evil that goes on.

On the Israel/ Gaza conflict, there are some libertarians who vocally oppose the indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, as they should.  Some conservatives will say, “How can you align yourself with these leftist whackos?”

And to be sure, many of them are leftist whackos, and I wouldn’t say some of the things they are saying when it comes to Israel.  But some of them are saying good and rational things too.  My retort is, “How can you align yourself with Nikki Haley, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton?”

I would much rather align with AOC on an issue than Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley or Joe Biden.  AOC is completely stupid when it comes to economics, despite her supposed degree in the subject.  I also think she is purposely inflammatory, and she knows she is exaggerating when she talks about how climate change will destroy the planet in 10 years.  Still, I think she has at least an ounce of good in her, and I would much rather align on an issue with her than any of the establishment creeps.  I disagree with Joe Biden and Mitt Romney on almost everything of any significance, and they come from a place of evil.

The Enemy Within

In conclusion, I think being sound on economics is very important.  But the most important thing is not trusting the establishment.  Understanding the minimum wage didn’t do much good in 2020 when you were locked in your house because of a virus that the media told you was really bad.

The number one thing people must learn is that the establishment is evil.  They are doing things that are opposed to the average person’s interests.

I hate it when I hear conservatives talk about how China is doing this or that, or that China is our biggest threat.  This is completely wrong, and I don’t even understand this way of thinking.  It is obvious that the U.S. government is by far the number one threat to the people living in the United States.

If we are ever to make great advances towards liberty, the majority of Americans must lose all faith in the establishment media and U.S. government officials.  They can figure out the minimum wage stuff later on.

Since I am a student of Austrian school economics, I understand that predictions are impossible, or at least they are impossible to guarantee they will come true.  Just as economics depends on human action, nearly all future events depend on human action.

Still, there are some things we can predict with much certainty, even if there isn’t a 100% guarantee.  For example, I could predict that Hillary Clinton will not be running for the Libertarian Party nomination for president.  That is about as close to 100% guarantee that you can get.  It is like predicting that the sun will rise in the east.

There is a prediction for 2024 that I can make that is almost certain.  2024 is going to be a chaotic year.  This definitely includes politically in the United States.  It will most likely include the economy and investment markets as well.

Politics

My prediction is that Trump will get the Republican nomination for president.  With much less certainty, I predict that he will win the general election in 2024.  And when I say “win”, I mean he will actually take the presidency in January 2025.

I give this maybe a 50% chance of happening.  It is like betting on a football team to win the Super Bowl at the beginning of the season.  The favorite to win it all will usually have less than a 50% chance because there are so many teams (32 in the NFL).

In this case, there are many different scenarios that could play out.  Biden may or may not be the Democratic nominee on the ballot in November.  It depends on his health.  It depends on how fast his brain deteriorates.  It depends on whether the establishment decides to toss him out.  It may also depend on how much cover he can get for all of his criminal activity in Ukraine and in general.

If Biden is tossed out of the race (it won’t be his choice), then there are many variables on who will be the nominee.  Still, to a certain degree, they will have to run on the coattails of Biden.  I will discuss the economy in the next section, but the economy will also play a big factor in the election.

With Trump, there are many variables as well.  He seems like an iron man, but it is always possible he could have health issues.  It is possible he could be legally (illegally) removed from ballots.  It is possible the powers-that-be try to eliminate him in the worst way (think 1963).

If Trump is alive and well when the general election comes in November, I do think he will win.  There is the variable of election fraud, but election fraud would be more difficult this time around.  Also, if the margin of victory is great enough, election fraud becomes much harder to decide it all.  You can only change or add so many votes in the big cities of the swing states.

Bad News No Matter What

The bad news is that no matter who wins in November, there will be total chaos.  If Biden or Biden’s replacement wins, then the party of chaos will continue the chaos.  It will give Biden or whoever the green light for more executive orders, more wars, and more illegal activities.  If you think the vaccine mandates, Ukraine spending, weaponization of the “Justice” Department, and attempts at student loan forgiveness was totalitarian, wait until another 4 years.

If Trump wins the presidency, then the establishment will continue the chaos in every way possible.  They will continue to make up stories about Trump.  Maybe they’ll resurrect the Russia collusion hoax.  Maybe they’ll go for another two impeachments if they can get a few Republicans in the House to openly turn.  You can be sure that the deep state will be working overtime to make everything as chaotic as possible.

Who knows what they will try?  It could be another war, which is especially scary.  It could be another virus.  It could be climate change.  It could be race riots built on the riots of 2020.  It could be many things all at once just to see what works best.  You can be sure that the power elite who are threatened by Trump disrupting the status quo and occasionally telling the truth will do everything they can to disrupt Trump and punish the 80 million or so people who voted for him.

If Trump is prevented from taking office in some way by the establishment, those 80 million people are not going away.  They will become more radicalized and defiant.  The tensions will only increase.

And if Trump does take office and everything is thrown at him, it will again just make his supporters that much more aware of the evil people in Washington DC.  It will make them more defiant.

No matter what, it is going to be total chaos.  You can’t prepare for what exactly that will entail, but you can prepare mentally that there will be chaos.  You can also prepare financially to a certain extent.

Economics and Investments

2024 could be the year that the Everything Bubble finally implodes.  There was an inverted yield curve for all of 2023 while the Fed hiked its target interest rate.

Even though the Fed will likely stop hiking rates, it is probably too late to do anything to stop the coming recession unless the Fed has an excuse to take drastic action as it did in March 2020.

The rate of price inflation may finally come down to 2% or less with a recession.  That is the good news.  That will be the only good news that most Americans see.

Stocks are likely to get hit hard.  Housing prices are likely to come down.  This could benefit new buyers.  Gold is a hedge against uncertainty, but it also tends to go down in dollar price when there is a recession.  I expect something similar to 2008/ 2009 where it goes down briefly until the Fed starts pumping in new money again.

Bonds are tricky, but a recession will probably bring yields down, which means the price of bonds will go up.  This may or may not be temporary depending on the Fed’s reaction.

Again, these are very hard predictions to make because there are so many variables.  Just the Fed’s initial reaction to a downturn will mean a lot.

A bad economy is going to hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans.  Even though the White House doesn’t have that much control over the economy, that is the party that typically gets blamed.  It really is the fault of Congress too for spending so much money, but I won’t be sad to see Biden get blamed because he is such a disaster.

As the late great Harry Browne taught, you can’t predict the future, but you can prepare for it.  With financial investments, I still recommend at least a portion go into something like a permanent portfolio.

Harry Browne also wrote that you shouldn’t ask if a particular scenario will happen.  You should ask if it can happen, and if it can happen, are you prepared for it?

These predictions are useless unless you do something with them.  You should at least mentally prepare.  But if you prepare for political chaos and hard economic times ahead, you should be concentrating on paying down debt, having an emergency fund, having extra items stored (remember toilet paper), and being in good health.  Even if everything is miraculously great in 2024, you can’t go wrong with those preparations.

In 2023, the establishment/ deep state did everything they could to destroy Donald Trump, the national debt grew a lot bigger, and Joe Biden became more senile.  Oh wait.  That could be the year in review for any time since 2015.

2023 has been a wild ride, yet most people agree that 2024 is going to be wilder.  This includes politics, economics, and whatever plans to destroy Western Civilization that the power elite have in mind.

Exiting COVID Hysteria

2023 marked a return to somewhat normal after three years of virus hysteria.  It is nice that life is somewhat back to normal for most people, but it is also a bit disturbing that the tyrants who wrecked our lives for three years have not suffered many consequences.

Novak Djokovic got his revenge on the COVID tyrants.  After being banned from Australia, he returned in 2023 to win the Australian Open.

In May 2023, the United States (i.e., the Biden handlers) finally permitted non-vaccinated foreigners to enter the country.  Djokovic returned to the U.S. Open and won that title in 2023, even as Moderna was a sponsor of the tournament.

There are still a few hysterics out there who wear masks and are on something like their 9^th shot.  The good news is that it is a low percentage.

If the establishment is going to whip up hysteria and use it as an excuse to terrorize the citizenry, they probably won’t be successful again doing it with a virus.  Even a climate change emergency is not looking promising for them.

Unfortunately, one trend that did not stop in 2023 was overall excess deaths.  The life expectancy in America is going down.  Whether this is due to COVID shots, environmental toxins, diet, or some combination of things, it is something that isn’t being talked about much.  It is a very big deal though, as people are generally dying much earlier than they should be.

Politics

While Joe Biden insists that he is running for president still in 2024, the Republican debates in 2023 gave us some entertainment.  They also gave us some painful moments.

Trump never attended a debate, which was a wise choice.  Every candidate on stage was bad except for Vivek Ramaswamy, who is becoming almost the backup to Trump.

Ron DeSantis never should have run for president this time around.  He has damaged himself greatly.  He has been particularly bad on foreign policy.  The areas where he showed some promise (like anti COVID hysteria measures) have fallen flat.  He could have at least gone after Trump on the vaccines, yet he has completely failed to generate any kind of spark.

Thanks to Vivek, Nikki Haley has been exposed as the establishment shill and war hawk that she is.  She is like a dumber version of Hillary Clinton.  While the establishment has decided to prop her up over DeSantis, she is still a long way away from Trump in the polls.

DeSantis did get to debate Gavin Newsom, which may have helped DeSantis a bit.  It certainly hurt Newsom and his prospects for 2024.  It was surprising how ill-prepared he was for some of the hard questions.

We’ll have to wait and see in 2024 if Biden is actually the candidate for the Democrats.

They got rid of Robert Kennedy Jr. from the Democratic Party.  He made some initial waves and then decided to run as an independent.  Kennedy was quite strong on COVID issues and Ukraine.  Unfortunately, when the conflict in Israel and Gaza came up in October, Kennedy fell right in line with the establishment narrative. Perhaps it is no coincidence that he hasn’t been seen on a lot of alternative media since that time.

In the Libertarian Party, Dave Smith decided not to run for president, presumably for family reasons.  A former Marxist professor named Michael Rectenwald has stepped into the race.  Rectenwald has made a full conversion to libertarianism and is probably the best candidate out there.  There are other good candidates running in the Libertarian Party as well.

We also saw Kevin McCarthy ousted as Speaker of the House.  He was replaced with Mike Johnson, who claims to be a Christian.  His Christianity and his previous rhetoric in favor of smaller government has been put to the test.  So far, Johnson has failed that test.  We can always hope that there will be some positive changes on the margin.

Meanwhile, Trump has been indicted 4 different times.  The establishment is desperately trying to throw him in jail or do whatever it takes to keep him off the election ballots in 2024.  They need to destroy democracy in order to save it.  Trump needs a good insurance policy as his running mate.

Outside of the U.S., we saw the election of Javier Milei in Argentina.  No matter how successful Milei is at reducing the size and scope of government in Argentina, it is encouraging that he was elected on a libertarian platform.

Foreign Affairs

The war in Ukraine rages on.  The U.S. empire is determined to prop up Ukraine at the expense of the Ukrainian people.  The U.S. is standing in the way of any negotiation or peace talks.  If the U.S. government announced a promise to not expand NATO into Ukraine and that ethnic Russians in Ukraine should have some autonomy, that would probably be enough to get Russia to withdraw.  But the establishment and the military-industrial complex don’t want that to happen.

Unfortunately, a new war started on October 7, 2023 when there were terror attacks inside of Israel.  The tragedy in Israel quickly turned into tragedy in Gaza, where the Israeli government has flattened buildings and killed something like 20,000 or more people.  It probably isn’t accurate to even call it a war at this point because it is so one-sided in the use of force.

For some reason, many of the same people who criticized U.S. involvement in Ukraine all of a sudden cheer on U.S. involvement in Israel.  It has helped clarify who some people really are.

Every now and then, leftists like AOC get things right.  This is one of those times.  She is actually more honest than the swamp dwellers.  So, if you are concerned about taking a similar position as AOC when it comes to Israel, you should be more concerned about taking the same position as Joe Biden, Nikki Haley, Hillary Clinton, Lindsey Graham, and George W. Bush.

Economics

The yield curve has been inverted for the entirety of 2023.  This is a long time for an inversion, where long yields are lower than short-term yields.

The Federal Reserve continued to hike its target rate in 2023.  Mortgage rates briefly hit the 8% mark.  This has caused housing activity to plummet.  People don’t want to buy because of high prices and high mortgage rates.  Sellers don’t want to sell because they want to keep their low fixed-rate mortgage.

Price inflation, at least according to the government statistics, cooled in 2023.  It has still not come down to the Fed’s 2% target, but the rate is lower than in 2022.  Still, certain things like car insurance are really hitting Americans hard as wages lag behind the increasing prices.

In March, Silicon Valley Bank failed.  The Fed stepped in for a bailout, which is perhaps a sign of what is to come.  The main issue for the bank is that it was loaded up on bonds.  When interest rates go up, the value of the bonds goes down.  Even a seemingly conservative strategy is proving to be risky.

Other than the short period after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, the Fed has continued a policy of draining its bloated balance sheet.  So, while the rate hikes have appeared to stop, the base money supply is gradually contracting.  It’s still looking like there is a major recession ahead.  If it becomes apparent before November 2024, that will surely only hurt Biden and the Democrats.

Conclusion

There are probably many major events that aren’t covered here.  These are just some of the things that I’ve discussed on this blog throughout the year.  As I started this article, 2024 is promising to be much crazier than 2023, and there wasn’t exactly a shortage of headlines in 2023.  Stay alert and prepare for some chaotic times ahead.

To all of my readers, have a very Merry Christmas.

2024 is going to be a crazy year politically. It will probably be a crazy year economically. Even with the chaos, life usually goes on.

Take the time this holiday season to be around those you love and to recognize the blessings in your life.

We can wish and pray for a more peaceful world to come. The first step is to set a good example for others. We all need to be reminded of this from time to time.

Merry Christmas!

Donald Trump is highly likely to get the Republican nomination in 2024.  Even if he is removed from the Colorado ballot and a few other states do the same thing, he will still be the nominee.  As long as Trump is alive and healthy, he is going to be the nominee.

2024 is going to be a complicated year, to put it mildly.  The power elite are trying to do everything they can get away with to stop Trump from taking the presidency.

There are many angles to criticize Trump from a libertarian perspective.  But no matter what you think of him, he has all of the right enemies.  The power elite who despise him the most are the most evil and dangerous people in our country.  They hate Trump because they see him as a threat to the status quo, i.e., their protected status as the establishment.

One of Trump’s major decisions in 2024 will be who he picks as his running mate.  It is safe to say that he will not be going with Mike Pence this time around.

Even though the vice president doesn’t seem to do much, this is an incredibly important pick for Trump.  If Biden or some other establishment Democrat is the nominee for the Democratic Party, it won’t make much of a difference who is picked as the running mate.  It will be an establishment figure who parrots the establishment narrative.  Kamala Harris is interchangeable with a lot of other people.

There are two major reasons this matters for Trump.

A Life Insurance Policy

The powers-that-be will literally do anything to stop Trump.  They make up stories about Russia collusion.  They will indeed try to rig the election to the degree it is possible.  They will smear Trump in every way.  They are trying to throw him in jail to keep him away from the presidency.  After all that, there is only one option left.

It isn’t 1963 anymore.  We have the internet.  So, it isn’t as easy to get away with assassination.  But we can’t discount the CIA and other so-called intelligence agencies trying.  They are evil enough to do it, but they will likely only try in a last-ditch attempt if nothing else works.  Even at that, there are video cameras (smartphones) in almost everyone’s pocket, and there is a free flow of information that didn’t exist 50 years ago.

The best protection for Trump is to have someone as his vice president who is even more feared by the establishment.  If Trump picks Tucker Carlson or Vivek Ramaswamy and gets elected, he becomes much safer.  If he picks Alex Jones, the establishment would actually cozy up to Trump at that point to make sure he stays at the top.  Trump should just avoid being in the same place as any of these people.

If Trump picks some establishment figure, then the establishment will really want Trump out.  They will continue to try impeachment, jail, or anything else that might work.

A Signal of a Second Term

The other important reason for picking a vice president that is somewhat radical in favor of liberty is that it is going to tell us what a Trump second (non-consecutive) term will look like.  One of the biggest faults of Trump in his first term is that he surrounded himself by people who hated him.  The few decent people were conveniently prosecuted by the feds.  It’s funny how that works.

If Trump is going to have another term of surrounding himself with people like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, then I have little use for him.  He is still probably better than Biden, but that’s not saying much.  If Trump actually wants to take on the deep state, he can’t surround himself by the deep state.  He appointed all of the wrong people in almost every area last time.

Anyone who was associated with the Bush regime should be instantly taken out of consideration for Trump’s administration unless that person has repented in public.

In fact, if Trump wants to get to the presidency, he probably needs to understand this.

Losing Support

Perhaps this is a third reason that Trump’s VP pick is so important.  It goes along with it being a signal for what’s to come in a second term.

There has been some talk about Trump picking Nikki Haley as his running mate.  We have no idea if Trump is actually considering this.  I heard Tucker Carlson say that if he picks Haley, Tucker will not only not support Trump, but he will actively oppose him at that point.

Trump would lose support from a lot of MAGA people and libertarian-leaning conservatives.  Vivek has taken Nikki Haley down in a big way and exposed her for the corrupt and evil person that she is.  If Trump picks her, he will doom his own candidacy.

I can say personally that I would actively oppose Trump at that point.  I, of course, would never vote for Biden either.  If Trump picks Tucker or Vivek, there is a decent possibility I would vote for him, even if the Libertarian Party has a great candidate.

Even if Trump picks someone like Tim Scott or even DeSantis at this point, I would not support Trump at all.  It would just show that he learned nothing from four years in office.

I can say that I am basing my support for Trump on his pick for vice president.  It is going to tell me whether he figured anything out from his previous time.

There are many books that have been written on building wealth or getting rich.  Some are claimed as hidden secrets, and others are common sense.

You can find all different kinds of advice, such as:

• Save 10% or more of your income.
• Invest in low-cost mutual funds.
• Buy real estate and let renters pay off your mortgage.
• Start a business and invest all of the proceeds back into the business at the beginning.
• Get a good education and move up the corporate ladder.
• Diversify your assets into many categories and watch it grow.

You can probably think of many more.  There are many different philosophies on how to build wealth.  One thing being right doesn’t make another thing being wrong.

There are some people who worked in a corporate job and steadily invested in a 401k and built wealth over time using compounding returns.  There are some people who focus on entrepreneurship and are able to build a business that generates a great income.  There are some who actively invest.  There are some who use real estate and leverage to build wealth and income.

These different things have all worked for different people.  There is one common thing between all of these strategies.  I recently heard Dave Ramsey offer this advice, and I don’t always agree with Dave Ramsey.  I don’t agree with him on his dislike for buying gold.  I strongly agree with this piece of advice that I heard him offer recently.

Do This One Thing

So, what is it?  What is the advice from Dave Ramsey?  It is this:

DO SOMETHING!

That’s right.  If you want to build wealth, then do something.  Take some kind of positive action.  It doesn’t mean to be reckless.  It should still be done with some planning and intention.  But when it comes down to it, you need to do something.  And there are many people in this world who don’t get around to doing much of anything.

You can talk about investing in stocks or bonds or gold or fine art.  But if you never actually take the step of setting aside money and investing it, then you aren’t going to get anywhere.

You can research real estate on Zillow all day long and figure out where the housing prices might be a good deal.  But if you never actually buy a piece of real estate, then all of your research isn’t going to be profitable.

You may try to start a business and fail, but it usually isn’t that big of a deal if you don’t sink too much money into it upfront.  It is worse for the person who thinks about a business constantly and never actually tries to sell anything.

Doing Something in Any Area of Life

This advice of just doing something doesn’t just apply to building wealth.  If you want to get married, you have to do something.  You can’t just sit at home and wait for the perfect person to show up at your door.

If you want to write a book, sit down at your computer and write a chapter.  Set aside a schedule.  If you write one chapter per week for 6 months, then you can have the draft of a 26-chapter book after 6 months.  If you talk about it and never do it, it won’t get written.

If you want to gain a particular skill, you have to start practicing it.  There may be some methods of practicing that are better than others.  But the most important thing is to start doing it.  You can and should make adjustments along the way.  But you can’t make adjustments unless you start doing it.

Just Do It

Nike was on to something when it came out with this slogan.  There is something to be said for just doing it.

Again, this doesn’t mean being reckless.  It doesn’t mean taking all of your money and “investing” it at the roulette table in Vegas.  You should still think things through and plan for roadblocks.  You just can’t let the hurdles you think of stop you from doing something.

If you think of a roadblock that scares you, then think about a way around it.  Think of a way to minimize your risk while still doing something.  Or think of some kind of a variation that takes away the roadblock and allows you to make progress.

Stephen Covey talked about 4 quadrants:

• Important and Urgent
• Important but Not Urgent
• Not Important but Urgent
• Not important and Not Urgent

It is the “important but not urgent” quadrant we are talking about here.  It isn’t urgent that you start putting 10% of your money into a retirement account, especially when you are in your 20s.  But it is important.

So many people in this world just fail to take action.  They could take a few minutes out of their day to do something important that isn’t urgent.  When you do this in life, you usually get compounding results, just like building wealth.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) released its latest monetary policy statement, which is the last scheduled one for 2023.  As was widely expected, the Fed will keep its target federal funds rate the same, between 5.25% and 5.50%.

This came one day after the CPI numbers were released.  Consumer prices rose by 0.1% in November 2023, and the year-over-year came in at 3.1%.  The median CPI rose 0.4% for the month, while the year-over-year median was up 5.2%.

The biggest news that came out of the FOMC meeting is that they expect at least three rate cuts in 2024.  Fed officials must be rather confident that consumer price inflation will fall to 2% or less in the near future.

Remember that a few years ago, the Fed was saying that they wanted to average out to 2% inflation, although they never gave a time period.  Considering that we got close to 10% price inflation over a year ago and still have not returned to 2%, they should be wanting several months below 2% for an average of 2%.  But maybe all of that averaging stuff – which is never talked about anymore – only applied when prices were rising at less than 2% according to their data.

When Jerome Powell was asked about recession possibilities in his press conference, he gave a diplomatic answer and said that it is always possible that a recession could be coming.  He then said it is unlikely we are currently in a recession, which wasn’t really the question.  The question was whether we should expect one.

I think Powell is trying to not make the mistake of Bernanke and others who dismissed such warnings leading up to the financial crisis in 2008.  Powell knows that the Fed’s tightening is likely to lead to a recession, but he won’t say so directly.  But he also doesn’t want clips played back at a later date with him saying that there won’t be a recession in 2024.

New Bubble Highs

When the FOMC released its statement and the market digested that rate cuts were more likely next year, financial markets boomed.  Stocks went up.  Bonds went up.  Gold went up.  They all went up a lot.

The Dow surged past the 37,000 mark and hit a new all-time high.  It is hard to believe that this Everything Bubble is still going.  It is even harder to believe that the Dow just hit a new high after the yield curve has been mostly inverted for all of 2023.

The only thing that changed is that the Fed is admitting that there may be more rate cuts next year than what they originally indicated.  But the reason they are expecting to cut rates (the federal funds rate) is because the economy will be weak.  If the bubble implodes and we hit a new financial crisis, you can expect more than 3 rate cuts of 25 basis points.

The Fundamentals Didn’t Change

We already knew the Fed would likely return to a loose monetary policy if there was any kind of deep recession or financial crisis.  The Fed’s admission of more possible rate cuts next year is more of an admission that there is trouble ahead.  They aren’t just being generous to stock investors.

The yield curve is still inverted.  In fact, it just became more inverted after the FOMC announcement because long-term yields fell.

Perhaps the bigger thing that is being ignored is that the Fed is still draining its balance sheet by about $95 billion per month.  It is still indicated in its Implementation Note.  The CNBC article linked above does mention it too, and it says that there is no indication the Fed is going to stop this portion of its policy tightening.

The stage is still set for a massive recession.  Meanwhile, the bubble in the investment markets just got bigger.  The faster they rise, the harder they fall.

The damage has already been done.  It was done in 2020 and 2021 with the massive expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet.  You could say it goes back to 2008 with that massive expansion.

It’s not that the Fed’s tinkering doesn’t matter at all now.  You can see the impacts just from the FOMC’s statement.  But the massive misallocation of resources has already happened.  The Everything Bubble is already there as a result.  The only question is how long they can keep it going and how hard it will ultimately fall.