The U.S. Supreme Court has made a lot of interesting and important rulings lately.  Some are good for liberty, such as the recent ruling involving Chevron deference.  This could be a long-term blow to the administrative state where bureaucracies make enforceable laws just because they were supposedly delegated the power from Congress.

Some rulings are not so good.  The Supreme Court basically punted on the question of whether it was appropriate for the federal government to pressure social media companies to censor content, which seems in clear violation of the First Amendment or the Tenth Amendment.  Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch – the three best justices for liberty – dissented on that one.

We also have the recent ruling regarding Donald Trump and his legal woes.  The Supreme Court ruled that the former president has partial presidential immunity if it involves actions related to his presidential duties.

I have my opinions about this case, but I am not really upset or happy about it one way or the other.  I think the ruling was a way to provide some justice to Donald Trump, whether that is right or wrong.

To be sure, the cases against Donald Trump are garbage.  In most cases, he didn’t actually commit any crimes.  For certain things, he may have committed a technical crime, but they shouldn’t be crimes and he is purposely being singled out for enforcement because of pure political reasons.  With that said, it is another question of whether the Supreme Court should have gotten involved.

I know that some Trump haters have gone to the narrative that it means the president can do whatever he wants.  Of course, in some ways, that was already true long before the court ruling.  They say that Biden could just order a hit on Trump and then claim presidential immunity.  But it would be hard to claim that he was acting as part of his presidential duties.  I think that’s why there was some nuance with the Supreme Court decision.

They wanted to provide some justice and immunity for Trump, but they also didn’t want to make it sound like they were giving dictatorial powers to the office of the president.

There is Already Immunity

It’s amazing how so many political issues and cases have gotten to the core of libertarianism in recent years.  This one case seems to be no exception.

Isn’t this one of the main complaints of libertarians?  Politicians can essentially do whatever they want as long as they don’t completely set public opinion against them.  They can do things that ordinary people can’t get away with.

This is even more true with the president.  The president can just murder people, and there is almost no chance there will ever be a prosecution.

If Trump could be legitimately charged with anything, it would be for war crimes.  He ordered the bombing of Syria.  He ordered the assassination of an Iranian official.  The same can be said for most other presidents through history, especially within the last 100 years.

Biden is helping to fund mass murder in Gaza.  He is funding the tyrannical regime in Ukraine and contributing to tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians needlessly dying.  When Obama was president, he had people assassinated, including Americans overseas.

But the powers-that-be will never prosecute Trump for war crimes.  They approve of these things.  If they went after Trump for any of this, then that would expose past and future presidents for their war crimes.

There was already presidential immunity.  This has been the precedent for a long time.  They get away with things that we can’t.

Perhaps this was part of the reasoning for the more pro liberty justices to rule in Trump’s favor.  The system is already corrupt and flawed, so we might as well stop the political persecutions of Trump.

Anyway, this is why I am not getting worked up over this particular case.  There is nothing new to see here.  Presidents get away with crimes all the time.  If anything, maybe this case will just waken a few more people up to this fact.

Since the disastrous “debate” performance (not from my view), there has been a rift within the Democratic establishment on whether Joe Biden should continue as the party’s presumptive nominee for president.  This is noteworthy because usually the establishment media (other than Fox News) and the Democrats in power are singing in unison, especially when it comes to something like this.

Just about everyone on the left has shown support for Joe Biden.  It’s never been because they love Joe Biden.  It is because they hate Donald Trump.  Some just truly hate Trump’s personality.  The people in power hate Trump because they see him as a threat to the status quo, which is a threat to their power.

The corporate press hasn’t exactly turned against Joe Biden.  They aren’t pointing out that he is a criminal.  But they are pointing out that he had a bad debate performance and that maybe he is not the best person to beat Donald Trump.

The sad, yet hilarious, thing about this is that the establishment people, including the corporate media, are questioning Biden’s cognitive abilities in terms of running for re-election.  They are purposely ignoring the bigger question in the room.  How is Joe Biden currently the president?

How is Joe Biden “running” the country?  They have assured us that the idea of there being a deep state is a right-wing conspiracy theory or that it simply means we have people in government who will do the right thing.  But if Biden is too demented to debate or run again, then who exactly is running the country right now?  Can we have a name or a group of names of the people calling the shots?  It sure doesn’t seem to be Biden.

If there isn’t a deep state, then there is at least a shadow president who is running the show.  Is it Jill?  Is it Hunter?  Is it Obama?  Is it Hillary?  When Biden signs an executive order, who is putting it in front of him to sign?  We know that it wasn’t Joe Biden’s idea.

I don’t like the idea of the president “running” the country, but that is the view of the establishment and, to some degree, the average American.  Biden still has 6 more months as president.  Shouldn’t the media’s concern be about who is running the country for the next 6 months?  Why is all of the concern about being who should replace Biden as the nominee in order to beat Trump?  It tells you where their priorities are and what they really believe.

Mutually Assured Destruction

Countries with nuclear weapons tend not to use them, especially against other countries with nuclear weapons.  Let’s hope this remains the case.  The reason, at least up until now, is an idea known as mutually assured destruction.  If you drop a nuke on another country, then you might get blown up too.  This makes even all of the politicians vulnerable.

The same theory operates to a certain degree in establishment politics.  Anyone who is heavily involved is invested in the game.  They have dirt against others, and others have dirt against them.

Biden is more than waist deep in dirt.  He has criminal activity going back a long way.  He has been using Ukraine as some kind of slush fund since at least the time he was vice president.

If there is a consensus in the establishment that Joe Biden has to go, then Joe Biden doesn’t have a real choice.  Unless he wants to blow up the whole system, he will quietly go into the night.  In return, the establishment will continue to cover up his crimes.

If Joe Biden is too demented to understand and Jill makes the decision to refuse to give up the nomination (let alone the presidency), then I’m sure she will be reminded that we wouldn’t want any leaks to the media about the “big guy” getting 10%.

Of course, Joe Biden is already on video saying that he threatened to withhold a billion dollars from Ukraine until they fired the prosecutor that was investigating the company that his son was working for.  The corporate media just doesn’t play it.  “Hey Jill, if Joe doesn’t give up the nomination, it would be a shame if the media started playing that clip for everyone to see.”

If Jill and Joe get the big idea to go full nuclear and expose the criminality of others, then it would be game over for them.  There might be a plane crash, or Joe might suddenly suffer from a more extreme health issue.

I think Jill and Joe would get the point.  He is senile and demented, but he is a career criminal.  He still understands the game.  If they want him out, then he will have to leave.

The only reason they would keep Joe Biden around at this point is if they truly think he is the best chance at beating Donald Trump.  I don’t think most people believe that any more.  For that reason, it is likely that there will be another nominee coming out of the Democratic establishment.

It actually worked really well for them.  They didn’t have to worry about a democratic vote with the people.  They didn’t have to contend with RFK Jr. getting the nomination.  They didn’t have to worry about someone mildly disruptive like a Bernie Sanders.  They will just get to pick Kamala or whoever it is without any fuss or campaigning.

The Nasdaq hit another milestone this past week.  On July 2, 2024, the Nasdaq closed above 18,000.  Unless there is a significant and quick turnaround, it looks like it will hit the 20,000 mark in the not-too-distant future.

With the Fed’s massive monetary inflation from 2008 to 2022, there is some justification for vastly higher stock prices.  When there is more available money, prices tend to go up.  This doesn’t just apply to consumer products like food and clothes.  It also applies to stocks.  In fact, sometimes the effects are more exaggerated with stocks, especially in today’s world where buying and selling happens with the push of a button and there are low or no trading fees.

Price inflation is not uniform, and it seems that stock investors have received a benefit from the inflation of the last decade and a half.

It is good to look back and see where this came from.  I remember wondering if the Nasdaq would hit the 10,000 mark in early 2020.  Then COVID hysteria hit and it looked like the market would be down, especially with some businesses forced to temporarily close or minimize business.  Instead, we saw a massive infusion of new money from the Fed, and stocks turned around quickly and started hitting new highs.

The Nasdaq first went above the 10,000 mark on June 10, 2020.  In other words, it has gone up 80% in about 4 years, and I already thought it was something of a bubble 4 years ago.

If we go back to December 2019, the Nasdaq hit the 9,000 mark.  You can see the Nasdaq milestones here.

So, in less than 5 years, the Nasdaq has more than doubled.  Have overall prices in other things doubled?  That’s not the case according to the government’s statistics on the matter.  Are corporate profits double what they were 5 years ago?  Are they expected to be that much higher in the future?  I am looking for some kind of justification other than loose money from the Federal Reserve.

The Original Tech Bubble

The really big Nasdaq bubble happened in the late 1990s.  The Nasdaq went above the 5,000 mark in March 2000.  It then fell for two and half years and went down to just above 1,100.  It was down about 78% from its peak.

To put it another way, the biggest tech bubble in history saw the Nasdaq peak at just above 5,000 and then lose almost 80%.  24 years after that peak, we are now three and a half times higher than the peak in March 2000 when it was a giant bubble.

If we measure from the low in 2002, the Nasdaq is now over 16 times higher from that level.  To be sure, the market probably oversold and overshot in the down direction during the bear market, but that’s not to say that can’t happen again.

What if the Nasdaq lost 78% this time?  From a level of 18,000, a fall of 78% would mean we would see the Nasdaq at 3,960.

Can you imagine right now seeing the Nasdaq go down below the 4,000 level in the next few years?  I don’t think most people can imagine the Nasdaq going down to 9,000 from here (a 50% drop).

Yet, if we are again in a massive bubble, why shouldn’t this be a good possibility?  It has been an amazing bull market in stocks for the last 15 years.  Maybe it will continue, even in the face of an inverted yield curve.  But we shouldn’t discount the possibility of a major downturn, and history shows us what is possible.

This isn’t a prediction of what will happen.  It is just a question for people to answer.  If stock markets fall by 50% from here, are you ok with that?  You don’t have to be happy about it, but will it cause you excessive stress or hardship?

What if the Nasdaq falls 80%?  Are you ok with your current asset allocation if that turns out to be the case?  It isn’t a question of whether stocks will crash and by how much.  Nobody can predict that with any certainty.  The question is whether you are prepared for such a thing to happen.

Sometimes you have to look at statistics over a period of time to get a good picture of what is happening.  One of those things to take note of is the foreign holders of U.S. debt.  Many of the major foreign central banks buy and hold U.S. Treasury securities as reserves.  The U.S. dollar is still considered to be the world’s reserve currency, but for how long?

It is not easy to get completely accurate statistics, as even the Treasury has some seemingly conflicting numbers.  But the trend is unmistakable.

Using Treasury data that goes through April 2024, Japan has slightly increased its holdings from a year ago.  It is still well over a trillion dollars.

But the notable country is China, which several years ago held about the same as Japan.  China used to have over a trillion dollars in Treasury securities.  Now it is down to below $800 billion.

What is notable is just how slowly the reserves are going down.  Some months they increase slightly.  But the trend is definitely down.

This tells us that the Chinese central bank is not actively selling U.S. debt in any significant way.  It is probably just allowing some debt to mature and not rolling it all over.  Over time, this reduces its holdings.

Also note that the dollar has lost significant purchasing power over the last several years.  The value of a trillion dollars today is worth what about $800 billion would have bought you 6 years ago.  You could say that China is de-dollarizing just through attrition.

Why is China Moving Away?

If you want to know why China is slowly moving away from the dollar, the answer is Russia.

The Chinese see what has happened to Russia, especially with regards to sanctions and defaults imposed by the U.S. government.  They wisely don’t want the same thing to happen to them.

The U.S. has stiffed Russia.  You can point fingers to whomever you want over Ukraine, but the fact remains that the U.S. has broken financial contracts and stolen wealth from Russia.  This is a bad way to do business.

What if there is any dispute over Taiwan or even something more minor?  Will the U.S. government just default on all of the debt owed to the Chinese government?  It looks likely that that would happen.

Chinese officials are doing this in a wise and subtle way.  They didn’t pull the fire alarm and start selling like crazy.  That in itself could have led to more conflict with the U.S.  Instead, the Chinese are very slowly backing away from the dollar and becoming more independent from the chaos makers in Washington.  Who can blame them?

It is easy to not notice these things because it just happens slowly over time.  But it certainly appears that China is slowly moving away from the dollar.

Consequences

This means it will be harder for the Federal Reserve to sell its debt at lower interest rates.  It means that the dollar will continue to be used less and less for trade in world markets.  Other countries are realizing that there doesn’t have to be a reserve currency of the world.

Ultimately, at some point down the road, this will make it harder for the U.S. government to continue to run up massive deficits while maintaining low interest rates.

This is a problem for U.S. officials, including Federal Reserve officials.  It could be a problem for U.S. consumers when prices of foreign goods are more expensive.

The good news is that it will eventually put limits on U.S. government spending.  It sometimes seems that there are no limits and that it will just go on forever.  This will not be the case.

The first presidential debate of 2024 between Trump and Biden is in the books.  It is probably the last debate we’ll see between these two.  Either Biden’s people will refuse to debate again, or else Biden will get replaced.

The whole thing started with Biden walking out and looking like an old man.  He started waving to a crowd that wasn’t there.  From the very start, he tripped over his words and mumbled a lot.  If he was given drugs, it wasn’t the right dosage.  It’s not as if they wore off towards the end of the debate.  Or maybe no drugs can save him at this point.

He really sounded drunk to me.  I’m sure it was a drug other than alcohol, but he did sound drunk.  He showed the whole world that he is unfit to be president, even though everyone should have already known that.  In fact, Biden is unfit to work at a grocery store or to watch the neighbor’s dog.

I don’t like for his dementia to be the number one reason that he shouldn’t be elected again.  It is certainly a good and legitimate reason, but it isn’t the number one reason.  The main reason he shouldn’t be elected again is because he is a criminal.  Even though he is senile, it doesn’t erase his past criminality.

Biden is a war criminal who has continued to fund an evil Ukrainian regime that is killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians unnecessarily.  Biden tried to impose vaccine mandates on the entire country, which led to massive suffering.  Many people lost their jobs, had the stress of fearing a job loss, or were compelled to take a medical experiment that they didn’t want.

Biden is, of course, deep in corruption.  Ukraine is his slush fund where he funnels money.  His son was getting paid (and handing 10% over to the “Big Guy”) handsomely in exchange for his dad’s influence when vice president.  Joe Biden is a total criminal, and we probably don’t even know a tenth of it.

So, I didn’t feel sorry for him on the stage.  He has helped terrorize and ruin millions of lives, so I can’t feel sorry for his embarrassment just because he has some kind of dementia now.

Let’s move on to the debate itself.

Who Was the Winner and Loser?

The winner was Robert Kennedy Jr., who still has hope of pulling off an upset, even though he was excluded from the “debate”.  Trump was mediocre, but looked good compared to Biden.

Biden was unquestionably the loser.  He will either go down in an epic defeat in November or he will be replaced.  There are already rumors about replacing him.

You have to wonder if this was part of the plan of the Democratic Party establishment.  They waited until after the primaries, but they held the debate earlier than normal.  These two aren’t even the official nominees yet, as the conventions still have to be held.  This now gives the option to replace Biden with enough time for someone else to come on the scene.

If this was the plan, perhaps it was foolish of Trump to debate Biden this early.  Maybe he should have waited until August or September to force the Democrats to make a choice before knowing Biden would make a total fool of himself.

In the debate itself, Trump was the winner by default.  Still, he wasn’t that great.  There was one point where the two men started arguing over their golf game.  We are on the verge of a massive war with Russia and Americans are struggling to afford groceries, but the two main presidential candidates are arguing over which one is better at golf.  I was just waiting for them to start arguing over who had a longer particular body part.

Biden said he got down to a 6 handicap.  Maybe that was a putt-putt course.  Biden was lying about almost everything he said when I could make sense of anything.  He was repeating some of the old lying talking points of the media about Trump (drinking bleach, calling white supremacists very fine people, etc.).  I am almost certain Joe Biden was never a 6 handicap in golf.

Biden Blunders

Biden told so many lies and so many ridiculous things, it is hard to know where to start.  I will just comment on a few.

At one point, they were talking about getting the black vote.  Biden said that he cut black child care costs in half.  Really Biden?  First, I didn’t know there were child care costs specific to black people.  Was it only for black children, or was that for everyone?  With the massive price inflation we’ve seen over the last 3 years, I find it hard to believe anything of significance went down by 50%.  What exactly did you do, Biden, to get black child care costs cut in half?  Do you have some source other than your non-functioning brain to cite?

Trump had to pander on this topic too, unfortunately.  Trump said that immigrants are taking black jobs.  I don’t want to get into a whole economic lesson here, but I didn’t know that black people owned jobs.  It was a far less stupid comment than Biden’s, but still not good.

On abortion, Trump was pretty good (not great).  He did say he wanted to leave it to the states, but then kind of contradicted himself.  On this issue, which you might think would favor Biden, he totally blundered it.  He started talking about a young woman who was just murdered by an immigrant.  Talk about handing your opponent a victory.

Biden, in reference to abortion, went on to talk about women “being raped by their in-laws, by their spouses, brothers, and sisters”.

WHAT?

Was Biden speaking from experience here?  When we talk about abortion, I’m pretty sure women being raped by their sisters isn’t really an issue, although in today’s world of transgenderism, I guess anything is possible.  Why is Biden talking about women being raped by their own family members?  Do we need to know something about his past?  This is all a bit troubling to say the least.

There were many other times where Biden had little substance and was just rambling and mumbling.  He was bailed out by the CNN moderators in one particularly bad episode when they said his time was up.

Trump Could Have Been Better

Trump came out ahead, but it wasn’t that great.  If he ends up facing a Biden replacement, he will need to step up his game.  Trump certainly had some good moments.  At one point, Trump said he couldn’t understand the last part of Biden’s sentence and that Biden probably didn’t understand it either.

If I heard correctly at one point, I thought Trump referred to Biden as “Brandon”.  It is funny to those of us who understand.

Trump was muddled as usual on foreign policy.  He says the Ukraine war will be over when he becomes president, but he implies that it will be because Putin and other foreign leaders will fear him.  Even though Trump has some good instincts at times on foreign policy, it is very frustrating to hear him.  He is afraid to speak too much truth and say that Putin will end the war in Ukraine if NATO doesn’t assist or arm Ukraine and if the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine are protected.  This is one area where Kennedy would have shined over Trump.

It was kind of funny listening to Trump talk about COVID.  At one point, he was wanting to brag about the vaccines and he shifted and said that he never imposed mandates.  At least he is listening to his base a little more on this issue than before.

I also thought Trump was weak on coming back on the Biden lies.  He probably needs to more clearly address some of these myths that the media has told.  Trump didn’t say neo-Nazis were very fine people.  He didn’t say to drink bleach.  He needs to expose these things as lies.  It is crazy that the Biden handlers told Biden to repeat these old lines at the debate.  But anyone who would consider voting for Biden would just believe them anyway.

Conclusion

CNN came out of this looking ok.  I’m sure Biden knew the questions in advance, or at least had a pretty good idea.  It didn’t do him any good.  CNN is obviously biased against Trump, but I think they put on enough of an appearance of being fair as was possible without really grilling Biden.

It should not be surprising if Biden gets replaced in the coming weeks.  The Democratic establishment can just pick their nominee (Gavin, Hillary, etc.).  No voting is necessary.  The party that likes to talk so much about saving democracy will never have a vote for their favored candidate.  Why put up with some annoyance like Bernie Sanders unnecessarily?

Trump is obviously the favorite to win at this point.  We can only guess what the deep state is going to pull.

Kennedy is sitting in the background as an alternative option.  I’m sure many people were disgusted by both men at the debate, which can only help Kennedy.  Still, the deck is stacked against Kennedy.  He has trouble getting on ballots as a third-party candidate.  He is shut out of the debates and most of the establishment media.

If you enjoy a political show, the rest of 2024 will not be boring.

The Department of (In)Justice and the Biden people are evil to the core.  Yet, every now and then, we get something slightly good out of them.  It’s hard to say that a broken clock is right twice a day in this instance.  I’m sure that it wasn’t an accident or an act of good will, but sometimes the regime will do the right thing if it sees benefit in doing the right thing.

Julian Assange appears to be a free man.  This is assuming that the U.S. government isn’t pulling any dirty tricks here.  Assange was forced to give a guilty plea in order to get released from prison.

There are some people who are up in arms at the fact that Assange had to plead guilty in order to be released.  It is true that Assange is not guilty of anything except exposing the crimes of the state.  Still, I don’t think there is anyone saying that Assange shouldn’t have taken the deal.  If there are such people, they can’t legitimately speak on this because they don’t know what Assange has been put through.

The U.S. and British governments are still evil for what they have done to Assange for more than a decade.  This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate this news.  We can be happy for Assange and his family.  We can also be happy that our voices may actually make a difference if they are strong enough.

We can assume that the DOJ didn’t just let Assange go for moral reasons.  The people at the top didn’t do it because it was the right thing to do.  There was obviously some sinister reason for doing so.  To be sure, the Biden handlers must have known that this was going to happen and approved of it if they didn’t actually give the directives.

Possible Motives

Why would the Biden handlers and the DOJ release Assange?  I can think of a few reasons.

1. Perhaps they saw a political advantage in doing so.  They could appease the far left (who happen to be correct on this issue) by releasing Assange, while still getting a guilty plea as a warning sign to others who might do something similar.  It also eliminates any possibility of Trump coming out and saying that he might free Assange, even though he probably would have already said so at the Libertarian Party convention when he said he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.  I heard Judge Napolitano say that Trump was planning to free Assange when he was president, but he was persuaded otherwise by others around him.
2. Maybe the Biden people thought Assange could die in Belmarsh prison, or even worse, in U.S. custody.  He has reportedly not been in good health, which isn’t surprising given the conditions and lack of sun.  In the little video I’ve seen of Assange being released, he looked better than I thought he would.  Still, I can see why the U.S. government would not want to have to put on a trial for Assange, and I can definitely see why they wouldn’t want him dying in custody.  Public opinion would correctly blame the U.S. and British governments for his death.
3. By removing this as an issue, it keeps the left and libertarians from uniting on another issue against the regime.  It also takes a little bit of wind out of the sails of the Kennedy campaign.  Perhaps they see it as less chance that leftists and libertarians will go to Kennedy.  As much as the establishment hates Trump, I think they might actually hate Kennedy more.  They would rather have it as a two-way race between Biden (or his replacement) and Trump.

Where Does Assange Go From Here?

Regardless of the reasons, it looks like Assange will get to live in Australia and be free.  I hope he takes some time to regain his health and spend time with his family.  He has already sacrificed more than anyone can imagine.  If he never talks to the media and never does any kind of political activism again, I completely understand.

I actually hope that Assange doesn’t start back up in publishing state secrets that expose state crimes.  Maybe he won’t be able to help himself.  Still, he can let someone else take the next fall.

Assange should be celebrated as someone who is honest and someone who was trying to make our society better by exposing the evils of the power elite and those they direct.  The more people that understand that Assange is on the side of the good people, the more we will move towards a free society.

We are less than 5 months away from the presidential election, and it is surprising that the economy is not getting more attention.  If you are Joe Biden and his handlers, you can see why you wouldn’t want to put a lot of focus on the economy.  If you are the establishment media cheering for Biden or his replacement, you can understand why this topic doesn’t come up much.

It is far less understandable why Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. wouldn’t be making this the number one issue of their campaign.  To be sure, some of the problems we are facing today come from Trump’s time in office, but Joe Biden and his cheerleaders aren’t going to explain that one of the reasons we have high price inflation today is because of the Fed’s massive increase in the money supply in 2020, coupled with massive deficit spending.

A majority of voters already have their mind made up for November 2020.  For most, it will either be a vote for Trump or a vote against Trump.  The votes against Trump will be for Biden or his replacement.

Still, this election will ultimately be decided (assuming it is somewhat fair) by swing voters.  Sometimes it is just a matter of whether a voter is compelled enough to show up on Election Day.

It is understandable why candidates would play to cultural issues.  And issues such as immigration can be tied to domestic economic issues.  Still, when all is said and done, most Americans are just trying to provide for their family and have a little left over for some entertainment.

There are some people who are still furious over the COVID hysteria and the vaccine mandates.  These are distant thoughts for most people now, but not for the people who lost their jobs or who were injured from an injection that they were assured was safe and effective.  On this, Kennedy is the only one close to appealing to some people.  But it is still a minority of people, and most know that the criminals who put them through this will never be fully held accountable.  So even these people need to look forward and hope for a more prosperous future.

Acknowledging Difficulty

Some people just want acknowledgement of hard times.  Bill Clinton was not completely off when he would say things like, “I feel your pain.”  He may not have been sincere, but some people at least felt acknowledged.

Trump and Kennedy will certainly say that the economy is bad under Biden.  They will say that inflation is bad too, but they don’t dig much deeper than that.  It is a political mistake on their part.

The price inflation just in insurance has been outrageous.  Health insurance premiums were already bad from the Obama era and even before.  They have gone up so much that we are relieved if our employer says that health premiums are only going up 5% next year.  Unfortunately, it is 5% of what is already a lot.

Home insurance and car insurance have really skyrocketed in recent years.  Some people have seen their premiums go up by 20 or 30 percent in a single year.

Imagine someone who makes just $50,000 per year.  Between car insurance and home insurance, this person might have to pay an extra $1,500 per year compared to the year before.  If they are fortunate enough to get a 3% raise at work, all of this will be eaten up just by insurance costs.  That doesn’t account for the increased prices in food and other needs, let alone entertainment.

Living standards have declined in recent years.  The government economists and statisticians can show us GDP numbers or whatever they want, but Americans know that their paychecks just aren’t going as far as they once did.

When Kennedy is campaigning or is making an appearance on any podcast or show, he should be hammering this point home every single time.  He should be tying every issue (foreign policy, immigration, taxes, the environment) back to American living standards.  He should continually say that the American middle class is suffering at the hands of government.  If he wants any chance to win, this should be his message.

The same goes for Trump.  Maybe Trump will easily win anyway because virtually everyone knows Biden is a complete fool at this point.  Trump likes to talk about immigration.  It is understandable.  But there are many millions of voters out there who are even more concerned about how they are going to pay the electric bill and rent next month.  If Trump wants to get these people, he should acknowledge them.  He should let them know that he is sympathetic to their situation.

This was the advice I gave for the Rand Paul campaign in 2015 at the start of his brief presidential run.  He did not take this path and completely flopped.  Times are harder now than they were then.

The American people are tired of getting played.  They know they are getting the short end of the stick, regardless of what the “experts” say or what the statistics say.  There is no candidate acknowledging their pain.  Trump is probably the closest thing, which is probably why he is leading in the polls.

In a recent segment of the Dave Ramsey Show, there was a caller who had a net worth well over a million dollars and was working three jobs.  He is 40 years old and puts away $100,000 per year.  He said that he was terrified to live paycheck to paycheck.  This was not a joke, or at least I don’t think it was.

Before we get to Dave Ramsey’s comments, I just want to say that there is nothing wrong with living paycheck to paycheck if you have a massive net worth.  We typically hear criticism of living paycheck to paycheck because it is referring to people who have very little or nothing in savings.

If you have a million dollars or more in savings and investments, then living paycheck to paycheck is great.  It means you aren’t digging into your savings.  As long as there is some diversification, then the investments should grow, if anything.  By living paycheck to paycheck, you will be growing your net worth over time.

The caller said he was initially part of the FIRE movement.  That stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early”.  It was interesting that Ramsey’s cohost didn’t know what FIRE stood for.

The caller admitted that he wasn’t spending much time with his family.  Yet, he continued to work three jobs while obsessively saving money.  You’d think he could at least get up the courage to quit one of his three jobs.

I think the advice from Dave Ramsey and his cohost was generally good.  They knew it was a mental problem.  They told him to quit two of his jobs and to spend time with his family.  They said he could always go back to those jobs a year from now.  They rightly pointed out that he really wouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck, or at least not in the sense that was being portrayed.

The one interesting comment in the segment from Dave Ramsey that will get the most attention is when he said, “FIRE movement burned down.”  He said people were trying to do something that wasn’t sustainable.

(Watch at the 3:00 mark.)

Misrepresenting FIRE

This reminded me of when Suze Orman was on Paula Pant’s podcast several years ago.  When she was asked about the FIRE movement, Suze Orman said she hated it.  The problem is that Suze Orman was focusing on the “retire early” part of the equation.

This is why I prefer the term “FI”.  It shouldn’t be about retiring early.  It should be about getting to financial independence.  Maybe retiring early can be one option that comes with financial independence, but the focus should be on financial independence in order to have more options in life.

With this caller, he was misrepresenting the FIRE movement to a large degree.  It doesn’t have to be about being completely obsessive with saving money to the point of leading a miserable life and not spending time with your family.  What is the point of that anyway?  Why would you want to be completely miserable only for the possibility of finding happiness way down the road?

This guy had already achieved a good net worth at a relatively young age.  You could quibble whether he is already financially independent.  But he certainly has more choices than someone who has little in savings.  It is ridiculous for him to be working three jobs while not spending time with family.

If this man doesn’t change his outlook on life, he will never be happy.  He could get to ten million dollars (in today’s money) and he still won’t be happy.  He will find reasons to not spend quality time with his family.  He will find reasons to not be happy.

For many people in the FI movement, it isn’t about obsessively saving as much as possible.  It is about making intentional choices with money.  Sometimes it is just about not being stupid.

For some, it just means not being wasteful with money.  It doesn’t necessarily mean deprivation.  Instead of paying 3 dollars at the convenience store for a soda, maybe you could have bought a big bottle of soda for half the price and kept in the refrigerator at home.

It’s not even to say you shouldn’t pay more at times for convenience.  It’s just about being conscious about where your money goes and thinking about whether purchases are giving you value.

I think the stories about people obsessively saving and living a ridiculously frugal lifestyle are what get the headlines.  They make the amusing stories in documentaries.  You don’t hear about families who are living a fulfilling life while managing to put 20% of their income away and setting themselves up for financial success down the road.  These are the boring stories.  But these are real stories that do exist.  They may or may not call it working towards FI or FIRE, but that’s really what it is.

In conclusion, the advice given by Dave Ramsey and his cohost was good advice.  I think Dave Ramsey took an unnecessary cheap shot at FIRE because most people pursuing FIRE are not like the guy who called in.  There are people who are pursuing FIRE who are happy and spend time with their families.

I have been interested and paying attention to the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. presidential run since it began last year.  Despite having a name like Kennedy and being the nephew of a former president, he is a bit of an outsider because he doesn’t always stay in line with the establishment narrative.

Unfortunately, one area where he has fallen in line with the establishment narrative is with funding Israel. Since the attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, Kennedy has been in favor of the U.S. government funding and supporting the Israeli state, which would include the mass bombing of Gaza and the killing of innocent people.

Of course, Kennedy won’t quite put it in those terms.  He will say that Israel is an ally and that it has a right to defend itself.  But killing tens of thousands of innocent people is not self-defense, and he should know that.  This mass killing of innocent people is being funded largely by U.S. taxpayers.

Kennedy says he has been against American involvement in every war since World War 2.  But he can’t say that anymore because he supports American involvement in this war (although it is hard to call it a war because it is so one-sided in the use of force).

Before October 2023, I generally liked the things Kennedy was saying and emphasizing.  I still do to a large degree.  I could overlook his flaws and his leftist political instincts.  He was so incredible on COVID and helping to expose Fauci and the rest of the medical establishment.  He has also been really good when it comes to Ukraine.  He understands the history and that the Russian invasion there was anything but unprovoked.  I could overlook his leftism on certain domestic issues when he is good on foreign policy, medical tyranny, and privacy concerns.

Kennedy has also said he would drop charges against Julian Assange, and he would free Ross Ulbricht.  In fact, Kennedy’s speech in front of the Libertarian Party national convention was phenomenal.  I don’t know if he was just being a great salesman to the crowd, but even to recognize his audience and to give a speech accordingly tells me he is at least in tune with libertarian positions.

Domestic Concerns

I have heard some libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives express concern over Kennedy on domestic issues.  That includes abortion and welfare spending.

While I understand that Kennedy is not libertarian on many domestic issues, these do not concern me all that much.  He would probably be better than Trump on these issues, especially on economic issues.

With regard to abortion, Kennedy has seemed to change his positions, especially on whether late-term abortion is acceptable.  But from my standpoint, Kennedy would likely have little impact on the issue.  The Supreme Court has already overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue back to the states.  I don’t think Kennedy opposes this.  Anyway, even if he did, he would have to get some leftist judge on the Supreme Court, and I think a Kennedy selection would be much better than anyone Joe Biden’s handlers would ever pick.

On this issue, perhaps Trump is slightly better, but Trump isn’t exactly Mr. Consistency.  We never know for sure what we will get, but I don’t think Roe v. Wade will be reinstated because of a Kennedy presidency.

On spending, it is true that Kennedy believes, at least to a certain degree, in the American welfare state.  But so does Trump.  And Kennedy tends to sound more reasonable when talking about domestic spending issues.  He at least seems to acknowledge that things have a cost, unlike most Democrats and often many Republicans.

The only way the federal budget will be reduced any time soon is by cutting “defense” spending, which really means spending on the military and overseas adventures.  I’m not saying Kennedy would be successful in reducing military spending, but I think he is the only major candidate with a chance to do so.

If he were to actually cut all funding to Ukraine while winding down U.S. involvement in conflicts everywhere, this could actually reduce federal spending by at least a few hundred billion dollars per year.  It wouldn’t necessarily balance the budget, but it’s a big start.  Aside from the difficultly in having to go against the military-industrial complex, that is the place to start.  Nobody is going to start by cutting Medicare and Social Security.  That’s just not going to happen, politically speaking.

So, the only chance of cutting spending is to start with the Pentagon and all of the areas that constitute “defense” spending.  If a president isn’t willing to cut there, then there won’t be any significant cuts anywhere.

A Return to Sanity

I still haven’t completely ruled out voting for Kennedy, in spite of his bad position on Israel.  The support for funding Israel is bothersome not just for that conflict alone; it makes me concerned that he might fold on other foreign policy issues.

Still, I recognize that a Kennedy presidency might be the only way to give us a small return to normalcy.  In terms of the deep state, I think the cat is out of the bag.  We can never fully return to 2019 (pre COVID hysteria) or 2015 (pre Trump) again, and I’m not saying that should be our goal.  But maybe we can get to a place again where things aren’t completely insane.

If Trump wins the presidency, we are going to just get more made-up things from the establishment and its media.  It will be more of the Russia hoax, but probably with some other issue.  It will be a distraction while Trump doesn’t actually do anything substantial to weaken the deep state.  The one thing Trump does well to weaken the deep state is by helping to expose it.  But it’s not as if Trump is defunding any of the many agencies who are out to get him.

If Biden or a Biden replacement wins, this will just give a green light to cause even more chaos than what we’ve been given for the last three and a half years.  Biden’s handlers, for whatever reason, are trying intentionally to destroy our way of life and our civilization.  They are pushing for deadly vaccines.  They are pushing for little boys and girls to have sex changes.  They have weaponized the “justice” system.  They are trying to shut down all dissent that goes against their narrative.  They are just an outright evil group.

If a Kennedy administration can give us a little bit of sanity, maybe it can buy us some time.  Maybe the libertarian movement can build up enough to overcome all of this with a little more time.  There are far fewer people who trust the state today than there have been in many generations.  This is generally a good thing, but the establishment knows it is vulnerable.  The wild animal that rules over us has been wounded, and it has become very dangerous.

I wish Kennedy would at least soften his position on Israel.  If he would, I think I could let go of my other areas of disagreement with Kennedy and vote for him.

Kennedy may be our hope to return a little sanity while getting someone with an ounce of integrity in the White House.  I could possibly vote for the lesser of evils if I knew it would give us a more civilized society for 4 years.

Kennedy needs to revise his position on Israel quickly.  He at least needs to say that the U.S. government shouldn’t be funding Israel as long as the Israeli state is recklessly bombing civilians.  Kennedy needs to give more speeches like the one he gave at the LP convention.  If he does this, he can be the protest vote against the system in 2024, and he might even have an outside chance to win.

It was a double dose of financial news on Wednesday June 12, 2024.  I can’t remember the last time this happened, but the CPI numbers and the FOMC statement were released on the same day.

The CPI for May came in flat, which was slightly better than expected.  The year-over-year CPI stands at 3.3%

The median CPI came in at 0.2%.  The annual change for the median CPI now stands at 4.3%.

You could look at this news in different ways.  As most of the headlines read, price inflation is coming down.  (Actually, they don’t usually use the word “price”, but I do for accuracy.)  It is clearer to say that the rate of price inflation is coming down, even as prices continue to rise.

On the other hand, even though the rate of price inflation is coming down and came in lower than expected, prices are still rising in excess of 2% per year.  I would contend that any inflation created by a central bank is not good, but I quote the 2% number because that is supposedly the Fed’s target.

If the price inflation rate has been well above 2% for a couple of years now and it still hasn’t fallen back to that level yet, why would the Fed even be discussing rate cuts?  Wouldn’t they want to get the rate of price inflation down below 2% before cutting rates?  And what ever happened to the Fed looking to average 2% over time?  If they were still following this policy, then they would want to see an extended period of inflation below 2%.

FOMC Statement

The market fully expected the Fed not to touch rates (i.e., the federal funds rate).  Therefore, the fact that the CPI numbers were released in the morning did not impact the Fed’s policy statement.  It would have been more interesting if it wasn’t at all clear what the Fed would be doing and then a surprise CPI number came out.

I assume that the FOMC statement is prepared more than a few hours before it is released.  So, it would have to be a pretty drastic and unexpected CPI number to change the statement.

In this FOMC statement, there wasn’t much new at all.  The federal funds rate stays the same for now.  There is now anticipation of only one Fed rate cut for the remainder of this year.

The Fed will continue to reduce its balance sheet holdings.  It will be at the reduced pace that was announced at the previous meeting.

The Fed continues to play Goldilocks – not too hot and not too cold.  The problem is that the price inflation rate remains above 2% while we have had an inverted yield curve for about a year and a half.

If the severity and length of the yield curve inversion is indicative of the severeness of the next recession, then we are in for a whopper.  This is why predictions of a 25 basis point cut in the federal funds rate is just about pointless.  It can all change so fast if we hit another financial crisis.

U.S. stock market indexes continue to roar to all-time or near all-time highs.  The higher they go, the harder they fall.  Maybe this isn’t quite as true as it once was with the people running the Federal Reserve now.  They would probably find it more than acceptable to start another round of quantitative easing (money creation) even if price inflation hadn’t officially fallen below 2% yet.

The Fed will return to QE to save the bond market or to save the financial/ banking system.  The Fed is not going to intervene because stocks fall 20 or 30 percent.  But stocks could ultimately rebound like they did in 2009 because the Fed is willing to supply easy money to a distressed financial system.

This time around, the Fed does not have as much control of the dollar as it did in 2008/ 2009.  Not only is price inflation higher, but the dollar is starting to be rejected more by foreign countries, particularly big players like Russia and China.

Either way, I expect stocks to fall hard in a recession.  The big question is just how much the Fed will intervene to bail out the big players, particularly the banks.  If and when that time comes, we can reassess to see if stocks are a good buy.