Biden, as president, is not to blame for the situation in Afghanistan.  Biden, as senator and vice president, is to blame.

Biden previously supported the war in Afghanistan and the many other wars in the region that were initiated by the United States.  He supported the continued funding of these wars, and he was never a vocal opponent of them.  Biden had always been a reliable part of the establishment.

Now that troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Taliban has quickly taken control over most of the country, Biden is getting some criticism from the establishment.  He is certainly getting a lot of criticism from the Republican establishment.  The war hawks are out for him right now.

Unfortunately, even the less hawkish conservatives are tending to go after Biden on this.  Trump and his followers are calling it a disaster, even though it was Trump who initiated the negotiations and drawdown.

I suppose there is an argument to be made that the U.S. should withdraw, but that Biden did not execute it well.  Maybe more people could have been evacuated first.  But even here, it is unclear.

Everyone knew there would be some chaos upon withdrawal.  It is inevitable.  The U.S. government has been occupying Afghanistan for almost 20 years.  It is the country’s longest war, even though it wasn’t technically a declared war by Congress.

Considering what has gone on there, the withdrawal actually could have been a lot worse.  There is still time for things to go really wrong in the days ahead.  Some violence was inevitable, but it is actually quite shocking that there hasn’t been more violence up to this point.

The Taliban doesn’t seem to be seeking revenge on everybody.  There may be a select few.  It seems that the Taliban is just getting people to surrender their firearms and their loyalty to the U.S., and they don’t seem to be harming these people.  They also seem to be allowing passage to the airport in Kabul.  Maybe they are just holding their end of the bargain until U.S. troops are completely gone.

We don’t know what has been done and negotiated behind the scenes.  But considering the almost 20-year war is coming to an abrupt end, it could be a lot worse.  There was no easy way to get out except to just leave.

I know the media is playing up stories about women’s rights and children walking to school.  I have no idea if little girls felt safe walking to school before October 2001.  I have no idea if they felt safe walking to school between October 2001 and now.  I have no idea if they will feel safe walking to school in the coming years.  I have no idea if they are going to school at all.

Maybe a few Afghanis who were loyal to the U.S. government will get to a better place.  They will likely be better off.  But some, at least the top dogs, may lose their life if they don’t get out.  It is hard to say.

There is little question that the U.S. war and occupation of Afghanistan harmed the country far more than it helped.  And it certainly harmed the U.S. with lost lives and trillions of dollars wasted.  I highly doubt that any terror attacks were stopped as a result of the U.S. bombing and occupying Afghanistan.

It is rather ironic that the U.S. spent 20 years there, and now they are leaving while the Taliban gains control of the firearms and equipment left behind.  The Taliban may be better armed now than they were in 2001, thanks to the U.S. taxpayer.

Let’s remember that the Taliban is not the same thing as Al-Qaeda.  After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government blamed Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden almost right away.  The U.S. demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan at the time.  The Taliban asked for evidence or some kind of assurance of a fair trial.  No evidence was presented.  Instead, the Bush administration just went to war.

Some people try to justify the war because Osama bin Laden was there.  They say that the Taliban was harboring him.  But the Taliban just wanted evidence before handing him over.  The fact that bin Laden was residing in Afghanistan when the attacks went down is meaningless.  All of the hijackers who committed the terror attacks on 9/11 were in the United States at the time (obviously).  Some of them were staying on legal visas.  Do we say that the U.S. government was harboring terrorists on 9/11?

In Biden’s speech, he referred to Afghanistan as the Graveyard of Empires.  It is really surprising that he used this term. By saying this, he was admitting defeat.  More importantly, he was admitting that the U.S. is an empire.

I have disagreed with just about everything of any significance that Joe Biden has said or done since becoming president.  This is the one thing I think he has gotten right so far.  It looks like he will finally end this tragic war and occupation.

Even a blind squirrel occasionally gets a nut.  People who favor peace should not be criticizing Biden on what is happening in Afghanistan right now.  We should be thankful that this war seems to be coming to an end, and we should encourage Biden to end the rest of the wars and occupations.

On August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon announced to the country that the international gold standard was completely dead.  He also announced wage and price controls and tariffs, but the price inflation problems had only just begun.

It is interesting that the announcement of wage and price controls, supposedly to control price inflation, came at the same time that Nixon was giving the green light to the Federal Reserve to create massive amounts of money out of thin air.

The Federal Reserve (the Fed), the nation’s central bank, was created in 1913.  Roosevelt outlawed the private ownership of most gold in 1933.  After the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944, gold was still redeemable for U.S. dollars by foreign governments.  So there was still some tie of the dollar to gold.

The Fed increased its money creation in the 1960s, and France, under Charles de Gaulle, started to demand gold in exchange for dollars.  In other words, de Gaulle called the U.S. government’s bluff.

If the U.S. had tried to keep its promises of tying gold to the U.S. dollar, then the government/ central bank would have eventually run out of gold.  So in order to stop this, Nixon just broke the deal.

Nixon is only to blame to the extent that he was part of the establishment and did nothing to oppose the system.  He just happened to be president when the Fed was rapidly expanding the monetary supply while losing gold.  What Nixon did was inevitable at that point.  Unless Congress had drastically cut spending and the Fed stopped printing, then there was no way for the U.S. to keep its promises of gold redeemability under the Bretton Woods agreement.

Once this last tie to gold was cut, it was a free-for-all for the Fed.  The Fed could print money (physically or digitally) without any restraints except for the prospect of hyperinflation.

The Fed did face runaway price inflation in the late 1970s.  Paul Volcker was put in as chair of the Fed to slam on the monetary brakes and retain the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.  The recession, or recessions, in the early 1980s was the last good cleanse of malinvestment that this country has seen.

Everything that happened in the 20^th century described above led to where we are right now.  This is how it is possible for the government to run trillion-dollar deficits on an annual basis.  This is how it is possible that the national debt exceeds the GDP.  This is how it is possible that the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has grown almost 10-fold over the last 13 years to over $8 trillion.

For this disaster, we can thank Wilson, Roosevelt, Nixon, and all of the other presidents in between and since that enabled this recklessness.  We can thank all of the politicians and bureaucrats who supported this corrupt system.  We can thank all of the American people who blindly trusted their public officials to do the right thing.

The Fed is still limited by the constraints of hyperinflation.  That hasn’t changed.  Therefore, unless the Fed is willing to risk hyperinflation, we are going to see a reversion to the mean at some point.

This will mean massive bubbles that will pop.  It will mean massive bankruptcies and deleveraging.  It will mean a tough adjustment for those living in a fantasy world of artificial bubbles.

The good news is that Congress, at some point, will be forced to scale back.  It will mean a lot of broken promises for a lot of people.  It will mean some tough times.  But this is what happens when you allow power to be exploited with few limits.

While it hasn’t been pretty, things have managed to hold up for 50 years.  I don’t think this game can keep going for another 50 years.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers were released for July 2021.  The CPI rose 0.5% for the month.  The year-over-year remained at 5.4%.

The median CPI went up 0.3% for the month, while the year-over-year median CPI rose slightly to 2.3%.

If you add up the increases over the last 6 months (0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 0.6, 0.9, 0.5), you get 3.8 percent.  If you compound it, it is just slightly higher than 3.8.  So just based on the last six months, annualized price inflation is running close to 8 percent.

The CPI number came in line with estimates, so there was not a dramatic impact on the markets one way or another.  Some of the analysts are celebrating because it finally did come in at the estimate, whereas in months past the actual inflation rate was exceeding expectations.

Now they can say that the rate of inflation is coming down.  But here’s the problem.  Prices are still going up, even if the rate of increase itself came down slightly.  Prices still increased another half a percent over one month.  If you were spending $1,000 per week in June, then you were spending $1,005 in July for the same things.

However, your weekly spending on the same lifestyle isn’t going back to $1,000 per week.  And it isn’t staying at $1,005.  It will keep going higher, even if the rate of price inflation decreases some more.

This is the trick when people talk about inflation, particularly in the financial media.  Even if price inflation is “transitory”, it doesn’t mean prices are going back down to where they were.  They will just continue to increase, except at a slower pace.

Of course, I don’t believe that higher price inflation necessarily is transitory, unless the Fed is going to seriously cut back on its monetary inflation.

It’s not clear how the Fed is going to scale back.  Congress just passed a giant infrastructure bill, and Biden just proposed trillions of dollars more in spending on expanded “free” stuff.  This is on top of the trillion-dollar deficits that are already happening.  If Congress is going to continue to wildly run up the debt, then who is going to buy the debt if not the Fed?

Let’s add to the equation that the market mania (stocks, cryptocurrencies, real estate) is all propped up from easy money and artificially low interest rates.  If the Fed pulls away the easy money, it will all come down like a house of cards.

The only reason that the Fed will significantly tighten is to avoid runaway inflation.  For that reason, seeing higher price inflation may be good in the long run because it will force the Fed’s hand, which in turn may force Congress to tighten up a little bit.

Think of the economy as a sick person.  The easy money keeps pumping pain relievers to make it feel good.  But the problem is that you don’t recognize the illness.  The sick person needs to show symptoms in order to treat the illness.  The price inflation is the beginning of showing symptoms, which are needed as a signal.

Of course, the Fed could ignore the symptoms and just up the dose of the pain relievers.  But this cannot go on forever, even if it seems today like it can.  As Mises said, you eventually end up with a crack-up boom, which really is hyperinflation.

The everything bubble is eventually going to pop, and it is going to pop hard.  If price inflation doesn’t get too out of control in the coming months, then the bubble may still have room to get a little bigger. 

If you said in 2019 that government was getting too close to authoritarianism, then you were labeled paranoid.  Then came lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in 2020.

If you said in 2020 that the coronavirus may have been manufactured by humans and leaked from a lab, then you were labeled a crackpot conspiracy theorist.  Now it seems quite probable that something like this did happen, and it was likely funded by Fauci.

When people were warning about vaccine passports in late 2020, you were a paranoid, crackpot, conspiracy theorist.  Now it is becoming a reality in many countries, along with the most populous city in the United States.

The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, has decreed that there will be something like a caste system in the Big Apple.  If you are unvaccinated, you will not be permitted to dine in restaurants, to go to a comedy show or a play, or to partake in the many other cultural activities that New York has to offer.

At this point, it looks like you will be permitted (per de Blasio) to buy groceries and drugs at the drug store.  But hey, anything is subject to change.

Not that having an actual law would make this any better, but it is telling that the mayor can just snap his fingers and lay down tyranny like that.  After all, he is the elected dictator.

While New York City does have a reputation these days for being rather left politically, this will set a precedent for elsewhere.  It is incredibly important that people fight back, including those who are vaccinated.

Think of it as defending free speech.  You don’t have to like what someone else is saying in order to defend their right to say it.

If this edict is imposed and is not quickly overturned, I hope that New York City goes down hard.  It hurts me to say that because I grew up on Long Island, about an hour from the city.  Although I would typically go into the city only a few times per year, I have some great memories from there.

As Frank Sinatra sang, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”  Perhaps that’s truer now than ever for New Yorkers.

I think the people who are there should fight hard against this.  But if they can’t win, then they should jump ship.  The small businesses in New York have already been hit hard from last year with the lockdowns and the crazy (and ever-changing) restrictions.  If even 20% of the population there refuses to get vaccinated, then these small businesses and other venues are going to suffer.

The Nazi Analogy

I understand that the Nazi/ Hitler analogy is overplayed.  I understand that some people take offense to it, or at least pretend to take offense to it.  But if you aren’t going to learn from history, then you really do deserve to repeat it.

The unvaccinated in the United States are not being rounded up and sent to concentration camps.  The unvaccinated are not being murdered in a holocaust.  This is not my comparison right now.

I want to make the comparison so that we don’t end up in a situation where unvaccinated people are rounded up and sent to concentration camps.  Are you going to call me a crackpot conspiracy theorist for even suggesting this?  See the first three paragraphs at the top.

I am not making an analogy to Nazi Germany in 1940.  But I am making an analogy to Nazi Germany in the mid 1930s.

The Jews became second-class citizens.  In fact, it was even said that they were spreaders of disease.  Does that sound familiar?

It wasn’t just the government oppressing Jews.  It had to be sold to the rest of the population.  The people who became stooges for the government assisted in the demonization.

We do not want to go there in the United States of America.  Even if you are vaccinated, you don’t want to go there.  You will live under this tyranny too, even if you aren’t the direct target at this moment.

I am trying to make comparisons to mid 1930s Nazi Germany so that we don’t end up like 1940 to 1945 Nazi Germany down the road.

The state and its corporate media are working their propaganda hard.  They are trying their best to get everyone jabbed, or to blame the unvaccinated for the ills of society.

They may not actually want every single person to get vaccinated because then it would ruin their narrative.  Who would they blame for a spike in cases?  Who would they blame for the next pandemic, whether real or not?

Blaming the Underclass

The elite and their stooge followers now have their narrative that the spike in COVID cases is all the fault of the unvaccinated.  They don’t address that some of the most vaccinated countries (the U.S., the U.K., Israel) are the same countries experiencing a spike in what they call the delta variant.

It is also interesting that the CDC changed its mask guidelines, yet again, because vaccinated people can also spread the virus.

If you take the CDC at its word, and the vaccines truly do lessen the symptoms of COVID, then the logical conclusion is that it is the vaccinated people who are spreading the virus the most.

If you feel sick, then you are likely to stay at home and rest.  If you have a full virus load but don’t really feel sick, then you are out and about, spreading around the virus inadvertently.

So even if the vaccines “work” as advertised (which they don’t), you would need the entire population to be vaccinated in order to stop the spike in COVID cases.  But even this fails since many vaccinated people are testing positive for COVID with symptoms.

The argument being made is that if everyone would just sacrifice for society and do what they are supposed to do, then everything will work out.  Aside from this being incorrect, it is also incredibly naïve or dishonest.

It reminds me of the same arguments in favor of socialism.  If everyone would just do as they’re told, then there won’t be any issues and the system will work.

That shows an immediate flaw in the system because it is impossible that everyone will just go along and do as they are told.

When you use violence or the threat of violence, it has a tendency to create some resistance.  That’s true whether you are talking about a socialist economy or a vaccine mandate.

Discrimination

Considering that the political left likes to talk about discrimination, especially when there isn’t actually discrimination, it is interesting that most leftists are cheering on the discrimination when it is against a class of people they don’t like.  In this situation, they will defend private property rights for businesses that discriminate against the unvaccinated.

Of course, it is just supposed to be the redneck Trump voters who are too stupid to get vaccinated.  But the establishment is largely ignoring the fact that there is a comparatively high percentage of black people who refuse to get jabbed, for whatever reason.

Where is the left defending civil rights in New York City?  People who oppose the war on drugs correctly point out that it disproportionately hurts the black community.  What about in New York City, when a disproportionate number of black people are refused admittance into restaurants and comedy clubs?

Bill de Blasio is an evil tyrant.  He should be ridiculed at every moment possible.  He should be shunned from society.  Restaurants and movie theaters should refuse to serve him.  He has completely wrecked New York City, and the people there have permitted it.  He should go down in history as another Hitler who never quite gained total power.

I have heard some critics of vaccine passports correctly point out that if you give the government power over your medical decisions in this case, then the politicians will expand this power in the future, and we may be subject to even more tyrannical edicts down the line.While I certainly agree that it is concerning that governments may seize even more power in the future, I am concerned about now.  The tyranny is already here.  New York City is the trial balloon for the rest of the country.  T

Occasionally, I watch clips of Dave Ramsey.  I have been critical of him at times with his investment advice, along with his hatred of gold.  However, I think he is good on a lot of things, and I believe he has helped a lot of people.

If someone with little knowledge about money management went looking for good resources, I think Dave Ramsey is a decent place to start.

Ramsey is known for his 7 Baby Steps.  They are as follows:

1. Save $1,000 for your starter emergency fund.
2. Pay off all debt (except the house) using the debt snowball.
3. Save 3-6 months of expenses in a fully funded emergency fund.
4. Invest 15% of your household income in retirement.
5. Save for your children’s college fund.
6. Pay off your home early.
7. Build wealth and give.

The last step is rather general and vague.  Many people in the financial independence (FI) or FIRE community are somewhat critical of these steps, and the last one can really leave you hanging.

While many FI people got started with Ramsey’s baby steps, they say that it leaves a lot to be desired, or it is just too elementary.  A lot of people pursuing FI are already at or near Baby Step 7, possibly having skipped some steps, but they are still a long way off from achieving FI.

If you have achieved, or mostly achieved, the first 6 steps, then you are in pretty good shape, at least compared to most Americans or anyone else in the world.  If you are age 65 and just finishing step 6, then maybe you aren’t in good shape, but it depends how long you have been doing Baby Step 4.

Once you get to Baby Step 7, it isn’t really much of a “baby” step at that point.  It is a rather giant leap for many to get to where they want to be.

With evolving laws and possibly high inflation on the horizon, it is interesting to go through the seven steps to see if anything should be updated.

Baby Step 1

Starting right off the bat with Baby Step 1, I think $1,000 is too little.  I understand that this is really for people who are in debt.  You are supposed to accumulate $1,000 before tackling the debt pay off.  The amount is purposely set low to give a sense of desperation on how important it is to pay off debt fast.

So part of me really likes this, because I think having debt (especially credit card and other high-interest debt) is a terrible thing in most circumstances.  People should see this as an emergency that needs to be tackled immediately.

However, in today’s world of rising prices, I think $1,000 is simply too low for some people.  If you are 22 years old with no kids and living in your parents’ garage, then $1,000 is fine.  But if you are 30 years old with two kids and a house, then having $1,000 only is not wise.

If you are 30 with two kids (or any age) and you have $10,000 in the bank with $20,000 of credit card debt, I don’t know that I would recommend using $9,000 to immediately pay off some of the debt.

Life happens, and you don’t know what unexpected (or expected) expenses will pop up.  If you go down to $1,000, you better make sure that you can put $9,000 back on your credit card in case of an emergency.

What happens if your water heater breaks?  What if you have an unexpected medical bill?  What if your car needs an expensive repair?  If you can put all of this on a credit card, then maybe it’s fine.  But you do have to be responsible, especially when others are dependent on you.

Ramsey’s baby steps have been around a long time.  $1,000 isn’t what it used to be.  Inflation is resulting in our money buying less.  I think this amount needs to be a little higher, and it also depends on your personal situation.

Baby Step 2

I have little disagreement with Baby Step 2.  The only caveat is that you may not need to prioritize paying off really low-interest debt ahead of everything else.  Again, there are nuances.  But I don’t think the passing of 20 years changes anything for this step.  Even in a world of higher inflation, you should still pay off your debts.  You don’t know when things will change.

And as I frequently say, you don’t make money by paying interest.  You make money by earning interest.

Baby Step 3

With Baby Step 3, I don’t think any updating is needed.  If your expenses have gone up due to inflation, then the amount will go up.

Going back to Baby Step 1, maybe it should say “Save one-month of expenses for your starter emergency fund”, instead of a dollar amount.

Baby Step 4

With Baby Step 4, I don’t think it needs to be updated because of inflation.  But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend putting 15% into government-designated retirement funds like an IRA or 401k.  I think this locks up a lot of your money, and the government imposes rules on being able to withdraw it (if you can withdraw it at all right now).

I think you should contribute to a 401k up to an employer match.  I also think a Roth IRA can be a good idea, especially for younger people with lower incomes.  But it is probably a good idea to have some wealth sitting outside of retirement accounts, even if it is still intended for retirement.  You also never know if the government is going to change the rules regarding retirement accounts.

Baby Step 5

For Baby Step 5, I believe this needs to be updated.  I don’t think parents are obligated to pay for their children’s college education.

Aside from this, it is important to recognize how much our world is changing and continues to change.  With many of these colleges and universities, it is more about propagandizing these young adults than it is about preparing them with skills for the real world.

In today’s digital world, more and more companies aren’t just looking for college degrees.  They want skills that will make them more productive.  You don’t need a college degree any more to be successful.  Plus, some people decide that they would rather do contracting work or own their own business.

There is also a possibility that the government, in its quest for more socialism, ends up passing legislation to provide “free” college, or at least partially paid-for college.

If you want to save for your children’s college education, then just put the money aside in a non-retirement account, and you can always use it for something else.

Baby Step 6

For Baby Step 6, I have always been an advocate of paying off the mortgage on your primary residence under the right conditions.  Even in a world of inflation, I don’t think you can go wrong doing this.  If anything, this could be higher on the list for me.  It could be done in conjunction with contributing money towards retirement (Baby Step 4).

Baby Step 7

With Baby Step 7, I don’t disagree with it.  You are really building wealth with all of these steps.  It is so broad, it is hard to disagree with it.

If anything, I think steps could be added after this (or before).  For people pursing FI, they will focus on reducing their reoccurring expenses so that they can save more.  If they can keep those expenses down, it will also mean less savings are needed to achieve FI or retirement.

Overall, I think Ramsey’s baby steps are a good place to start.  There is a lot of nuance in there though, so they shouldn’t necessarily be rigidly followed unless you really need that discipline.

When it comes to money management, I think Dave Ramsey is a great place to start.  I still wouldn’t follow what he says when it comes to investing advice.

When we talk about price inflation, it is common to sympathize with consumers.  After all, we are all consumers (buyers of goods and services), unless you live a really secluded life somewhere.

When you go to the store or the gas station and see prices have gone up, it means less money in your pocket (or bank account).  It means that, ultimately, you will have less to spend on other things.  With so many people struggling to get by, it is right of us to sympathize with the average consumer.

However, consumers aren’t the only ones who have issues with price inflation, particularly higher rates of price inflation.  Companies and business owners have to deal with inflation, not only in determining what prices to charge, but also in planning for the future.

It is already a challenge to be a business owner.  You have to guess at what consumers want and are willing to pay, and then you have to execute in doing it.  You also have to deal with government taxes and regulations.  When you add inflation into the mix, it just makes making a consistent profit that much more difficult.  This is especially true for business owners who have significant input costs.

If you own a furniture store, you have to either build the furniture or buy the furniture from someone else before selling it.  Most people don’t build their own, but even here there are input costs, as you need the materials to build.  Whether you are ordering your goods from China or from across town, it adds a great deal of uncertainty not knowing what you are going to pay for your inventory next month.

Also, if costs start to increase significantly, you don’t know if it is temporary (or transitory in Fed speak) or if they will continue to go higher.  You have to decide how much you want to raise your selling prices, if at all.  Just because you, as a business owner, are experiencing higher costs, it doesn’t mean your customers will necessarily pay higher prices.

Even if you are a business owner without a lot of input costs, inflation can still cause havoc.  Think of a massage therapist.  There still might be some input costs, and the person may feel the need to raise prices as a consumer, just to keep up.  But again, there is no guarantee that people will be willing to pay more for a massage, even if the price is the same in real terms.  If they are paying more for gas and groceries, it might be the monthly massage that gets cut out of the budget.

Again, there is already a great deal of uncertainty about what your customers want and what they are willing to pay.  When you add rising prices to the mix, it really becomes something of a guessing game.

Retirees and Future Consumers

People who are already retired are in a difficult position with rising prices, especially if they live on a fixed income.  Even a fixed income that adjusts for inflation may not actually keep up with the higher cost of living.  The cost-of-living adjustments often understate the actual increase in price inflation, and the adjustments can often lag behind.

This is why it is important to have a well-diversified portfolio that is properly hedged for significant inflation.  While stocks can provide some hedge over the long term, there can be periods of high inflation where stocks do not necessarily perform well.

There is also another class of people who have to deal with the issue of inflation, and that is future retirees.  You could also count these people as consumers, but they are future consumers.  They are trying to figure out how much they will need to save and invest in order to retire with the living standard they desire.

It is already difficult to plan for retirement.  Just like being a business owner, it takes some amount of guessing.  You don’t know how much money you will be earning from now until retirement.  You don’t know what unexpected expenses you may incur.  Most of all, you have no idea how much of a return you will make on your investments.

Now add price inflation into the mix.  When you started planning for retirement at age 25 (hopefully), you thought maybe you would need a million dollars, plus any pensions and Social Security.  Now, 20 years later, a million dollars isn’t looking like it’s going to be enough because prices have increased so much.  Now you think it might be closer to 2 million dollars.

But in another 20 years when you are retired, what if you need 4 million dollars?  Or what if prices have gone up five-fold in that time and you need 10 million dollars?  Are your investments going to get you there?

Even in a world where price inflation is 2% (the Fed’s supposed target), that still means that prices will double approximately every 36 years (using the Rule of 72).

This illustrates just how much damage the Federal Reserve does.  When you give the government or central bank a legal monopoly over a fiat currency where money can continually be created, then it is going to mess with everyone.  Money makes up at least half of nearly every transaction in our world.

Protecting Against Inflation

Monetary inflation redistributes wealth, and it causes a massive misallocation of resources.  There are many different groups that get impacted, but nearly everyone suffers with a standard of living that is lower than what it should be.  It is doubly difficult for those trying to plan a retirement and for those who own and operate a business.

There isn’t a lot you can do, but you can at least try to protect the purchasing power of the wealth that you have already accumulated.  This is why I recommend the permanent portfolio, or something similar in nature.

I have heard criticisms of the portfolio from both sides.  Those who are terrified of inflation say you shouldn’t have 25% in bonds and 25% in stocks because these will just lose purchasing power.

There’s another side that says you are crazy if you put 25% in gold and gold-related investments.  This makes me think that the portfolio is just about right.

If we experience a period of really high price inflation, then gold will likely do much better than the inflation rate, thus making up for any losses in purchasing power from the bonds and cash.  I’ll also point out that with cash (really, cash equivalents like a money market fund), you will likely start to get a higher interest rate, even though it will lag behind the inflation rate.

On the flip side, having a lot more than 25% gold without bonds and cash can leave you vulnerable to recessions and market crashes.  We aren’t likely going to see decades where prices keep rising at an astronomical rate.  The artificial business cycle will likely play itself out, which will include periods of recession and disinflation.

The permanent portfolio is not perfect, but nothing is in this uncertain world.  It is the best thing I’ve found that will protect against all of the major economic environments, while also providing long-term growth.

This post may contain more questions than answers.  Some of the questions are rhetorical, but some of them are legitimate that I do not have the answers to.

Since at least March 2020, we have been continually lied to about COVID-19.  But it doesn’t always mean we know what the truth is.

We were lied to at the beginning when the claim was being made that the virus had a mortality rate of 3 to 4 percent.  They knew it was a lie, and those who didn’t know didn’t care to investigate.  They were taking the death rate based on confirmed cases, which at that time were mostly the sickest people who were being tested.

We were lied to about the PCR test.  Fauci himself even admitted that running the test above 35 cycles (amplifications) was unreliable, even though the FDA said to go ahead and run it at 40 cycles or higher.

We were lied to with “two weeks to flatten the curve”.  The whole point of shutting nearly everything down was supposedly to slow the spread so as not to overwhelm the hospitals.  When most hospitals were mostly empty, the narrative changed, and it was about saving any life at any cost, even though the lockdowns themselves were costing lives.

We were told that there were no treatments for COVID-19.  We were told to stay at home, social distance, wear masks, and do everything possible not to spread the virus.  We were never told by those in the establishment what to do if you actually contracted the virus.  You were just supposed to stay at home and then go to the hospital if you get really ill.  Then you would likely be put on a ventilator to die.

There were never any suggestions on how to treat someone who contracted the virus, unless you explored alternative media.  Although some doctors reported success with zinc and hydroxychloroquine, and later ivermectin, these treatments were either ignored or ridiculed.  The FDA, CDC, or any major corporation had no desire to actually do real studies to determine how effective these treatments are.  If there were any treatments, it might prevent the FDA from giving emergency authorization for vaccines.  It might also mean that fewer people would want a vaccine.

Right after the election in November 2020, the FDA authorized new messenger RNA vaccines for SARS-COV-2.  Since then, I can’t remember a harder push for anything coming out of Washington DC or the establishment in general.  The powers-that-be have been pushing harder for this vaccine than we have seen in pushes toward war or welfare programs.

The Biggest Villains

I know several people who identify as libertarians who are continually promoting the vaccine.  They will say that they don’t favor forcing people, but they will favor almost anything else that compels people to take a vaccine.  They will never raise an objection to the government spending billions of dollars developing, distributing, and marketing the vaccines.

My biggest curiosity is that the people who are pushing the vaccines the hardest are people that libertarians should trust the least.  Wouldn’t this raise a red flag?

Think about the people with national notoriety who are pushing vaccines the hardest.  It is people like Biden, Bush, Gates, Fauci, Newsom, and Cuomo, along with the establishment media.  These are the loudest voices for the vaccines, yet I consider them to be some of the most evil people on earth.  I am just waiting for John Brennan and Hillary Clinton to start a speaking tour to promote vaccines.

Wouldn’t this cause a libertarian to pause at least?  It’s not to say that some evil people, or just people who generally get things wrong, can’t get something right.  There are talking heads on television who share similar criticisms of Bitcoin as I do, but I don’t agree with them on many basic points of economics.  Still, I don’t see them obsess over this one thing.

But for Biden, and Gates, and Fauci, and some of the most totalitarian governors out there, they are absolutely obsessed with people getting vaccinated.  They continually make claims that the vaccines are safe and effective.

But these people love power, and they generally hate people.  Are they really trying to save humanity by pushing vaccines?

It is possible they may just happen to be right on this one thing, but you can see why I would be skeptical, especially when they are so obsessed over pushing this agenda.

It is also curious that Fauci apparently lied about funding gain-of-function research for coronaviruses (making viruses more deadly and contagious to humans), yet he is perhaps the biggest pusher of the vaccines.  Is he trying to make up for past mistakes, or is there something else going on here?

The Delta Variant

I have no idea if this delta variant is real.  And if it is, what is going on with it?

If you watch any news on television, you will hear that cases are spiking, that the delta variant is really contagious, and that it is a pandemic amongst the unvaccinated.  I am willing to concede that all of these things may be true, although I really can’t know because of how often we have been lied to.  I know that statistics can be manipulated to fit a narrative.

I have already explained that the CDC is making it almost impossible to count a vaccinated person as a so-called breakthrough case.  They are using two different standards for those who are vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated.

The only reason I grant the possibility that there really is something going on right now is because of personal experience.  I know several people who have tested positive for COVID-19 over the last several weeks.  I have probably known more people personally who have tested positive over the last month than I knew of in the previous 17 months.

In most cases, it is like the flu or a severe cold.  I have no idea if this is the delta variant.  It could just be the flu going around too.  I live in Florida.  I got the flu in July of 2019.  I had a fever for several days, but of course nobody made a big deal out of it then.

I know from hearing from healthcare workers that the hospitals are busy.  There have been exaggerated reports about them being at capacity, which I don’t think are true, but it does seem that they are busier than normal.  Supposedly most of the COVID patients are people who are unvaccinated.  I have no idea if they ask this question when the patient is admitted, so I can’t completely trust what I am being told.

It is also reported that there are younger people who are severely ill, and in some cases dying, from COVID.  The people I know who have tested positive recently are generally middle-aged people (30s, 40s, and 50s).  I don’t think any of them ended up in the hospital though.

Unbelievably, these hospitals are still sticking COVID people on ventilators.  I have no idea why, except for cynical reasons.  I heard about someone (not someone I know) who was actually coming off of a ventilator.  If that’s the case, that is the first example I have heard of someone being taken off a ventilator without dying.

If all of the reports are true, then it does seem that something is going around, and it is largely impacting those who did not take the jab.  I wonder if Fauci released a virus after the vaccine rollout in order to embarrass those who refused to get vaccinated.  (I am half joking with this comment, although I can’t discount any conspiracy theory at this point.)

Why is it that the countries that have been the most heavily vaccinated (the U.S., the U.K., Israel) are those seeing some of the biggest spikes in cases?  Yet the unvaccinated are taking all of the blame.

This coincides with the CDC issuing new mask guidelines, which suggest that vaccinated people can spread the virus.

Is it possible that people who are vaccinated don’t exhibit symptoms but then go around spreading the virus to others?  After all, they wouldn’t know to stay home because they don’t feel sick.  This is actually what the CDC was saying last year when they were telling everyone to stay home.  They said that you might still transmit the virus even if you don’t feel sick.

There is also the possibility that the virus mutated because of the vaccinated.  If that’s the case, it would have likely been better off to never have any vaccines and to let younger people get the original virus, which didn’t seem to have much impact on young and healthy people.  Now we supposedly have this new variant that seems more contagious than the original (although likely less deadly).

If it becomes widely thought that vaccinated people can spread the virus (unknowingly) to others, then this will just cause both sides to dig in more.  The vaccinated will say it wouldn’t be a problem if everyone just got vaccinated.  The unvaccinated will say it wouldn’t be a problem if nobody got vaccinated.  In a way, both sides could be right.

Side Effects

The latest push by Biden, along with the new CDC guidelines, is somewhat changing the subject.

Even if one concedes that the vaccinated are much more well protected against the virus than the unvaccinated, it doesn’t mean that everyone should get a vaccine for COVID.

This is another lie/ cover-up that has occurred since the beginning of the vaccines.  There is little data on the side effects, including serious injuries and deaths, from the vaccines.  This data, to the extent it exists, is being hidden.  It is not being reported or investigated as with other things.

We have the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), but it has many problems.  It involves a bureaucratic process to report an adverse event, and the data is clunky.  You can download it and look for yourself, but it is raw data that doesn’t give a good picture of all of the possible side effects.

There are reasons to be critical of VAERS from all sides.  First, many people have never heard of it.  In the past, it was said that only 1 to 10 percent of actual vaccine side effects were reported to it.  My guess is that it was closer to 1 percent than 10 percent.  But since the COVID vaccines get so much attention now, it could be closer to 10 percent now than 1 percent.

If you look through some it (which is overwhelming), you will get a sense of how clunky it is.  The problem, as with everything else the FDA and CDC handle, is that they purposely don’t investigate things.

There are some people who are 85 or 90 years old who died after getting a COVID shot.  When you have over 100 million people in the country get vaccinated in a span of about 6 months, you are going to get a certain number of people who would have died during that time anyway.  You also would get a certain percentage of people who would suffer an adverse health event regardless of the vaccine.

On the other hand, I suspect most people don’t correlate an adverse health event with the vaccine, so it never gets reported, especially if there is a delay.  If it happens within a day or two of the shot, then it is more likely to be correlated.

Hank Aaron got the shot and died a couple of weeks later.  We have no idea if he died prematurely because of the COVID jab.  I know of other people who died after getting a jab, but the family members simply don’t think it was from the COVID shot.  It doesn’t even cross their mind.

The problem, again, is that we just don’t know.  This should be investigated.  There could easily be studies going on right now.  There are people who wanted to be vaccinated and got vaccinated.  There are people who didn’t want to be vaccinated and didn’t.  There are millions of people in each group of varying ages.

Are people who were vaccinated dying at a greater rate than those who weren’t?  Are there people going to the doctor for ailments in greater numbers amongst one group or another as a proportion of that age group?

If 80% of those older than 65 have been vaccinated, and 20% haven’t, let’s compare the two groups to see if there is anything there.  Maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t.  But we have no idea because the ones promoting the vaccines don’t want to know.

Conclusion

Maybe the delta variant is the boy who cried wolf.  Maybe this really is the time we should be concerned, yet many have let their guard down because the boy (the CDC, FDA, the media, the politicians) has been crying wolf for 18 months now.

From a personal standpoint, there is no question that a lot of people are getting something similar to the flu in my area.  But for most of these people, it really is just like having the flu.  We’ll see in the coming weeks if the reported deaths increase substantially.

I have to guess that vaccinated people are helping to spread it.  If over half the adult population has been fully vaccinated, plus a small percentage who previously contracted the virus, then we already should have been near herd immunity.

This tells me that either this really is a new virus, or the vaccinated people are unknowingly helping to spread it.  If there is no long-term immunity and the vaccines don’t work, then we really are in trouble, especially with the mentality that nearly everyone has adopted.

There have been bad flu seasons before, but people weren’t freaking out all over the place.  You don’t want to get the flu, but it doesn’t mean you stop your life for it, unless you really are in the small minority that would be in a dangerous situation if you did get the flu.

I’ll return to my original question.  Why are some of the most evil, conniving, and power-hungry people on this earth the same ones who are supposedly so concerned for the human race that they spend most of their time pushing these new experimental vaccines?

I can’t answer the question, but it is a question that should be thought about.  What is their motivation to see nearly the whole population get the jab?

When Bitcoin first came about, and then gained popularity, there were certain arguments made by Bitcoin proponents on why Bitcoin would be successful and eventually be used as a form of money.

The main arguments were these:

1. Low or No Transaction Costs
2. Privacy
3. Limited Supply of Bitcoins
4. Acts as a Replacement for the Dollar

News recently came out that Amazon posted a job for someone to research and develop a case for Amazon pursuing a cryptocurrency payment system.  On this news, Bitcoin spiked up in price.

Amazon is a trillion-dollar company, and a job posting, for presumably one single job, sent Bitcoin soaring.  This absurdity rivals a tweet from Elon Musk.

Let’s just say that this comes to fruition and Amazon does actually start accepting Bitcoin.  How will this be possible, and what will be the ramifications?

Let’s run through how this pairs with the original arguments in favor of Bitcoin, plus some other things to consider.

Low or No Transaction Costs

It isn’t clear that this will happen will Bitcoin.  It seems that the idea of no transaction costs was more theory than reality.  If someone wants to buy a five-dollar pair of socks on Amazon, there better not be any transaction costs involved with using Bitcoin or else it doesn’t make any sense.  You don’t have to pay a fee to your credit card company in order to use your credit card to buy a product on Amazon.

Privacy

If you buy something from Amazon and it is shipped to your house, does it really matter what form of money you use when it comes to privacy?  There is no privacy.  In fact, you don’t really want privacy.  If you buy a defective product, you want to be able to return it.  Bitcoin does nothing for us in terms of privacy when we are talking about Amazon.

Limited Supply of Bitcoins

The supply of the number of bitcoins is limited.  This makes it different from the dollar and every other fiat currency issued by governments and central banks.  This is the best aspect of Bitcoin.  Unfortunately, this one feature doesn’t legitimize it as a form of money.

Acts as a Replacement for the Dollar

While there are many reasons to criticize the U.S. dollar and the Federal Reserve that creates them out of thin air, it doesn’t mean that Bitcoin or any other cyrptocurrency should replace the dollar just because someone brought it into existence.

The dollar was originally backed by gold, and the government pulled that backing away over time.  The dollar is legal tender in the United States.  That is the money that is used for buying, selling, making contracts, and paying taxes.

Speaking of Paying Taxes

How is Amazon going to collect bitcoins when you are supposed to pay a capital gains tax on any gains made in terms of dollars?  Maybe Amazon can figure it out for its books, but is the federal government really going to be ok with people transacting in Bitcoin without reporting to the IRS?

If you buy a fractional share of a bitcoin for $1,000 and it goes up in dollar value to $2,000, then you have made a 100% return on your money (your dollars) once you get rid of that share of a bitcoin.  If you use it to buy something on Amazon, that would be the equivalent of selling it.  So if you buy a $5 hat on Amazon with, then using this example, you will owe capital gains taxes on $2.50.  It’s as if you bought $2.50 of Bitcoin and sold it (by buying from Amazon) for $5.00.

I’m getting confused just typing this, and that was a pretty easy example.  Again, I ask whether the government will let people get away with massive buying on Amazon without reporting any of it for taxes.

Actual Pricing

As with anything, Amazon will not actually sell any products for Bitcoin.  It will accept payments in Bitcoin (if the rumor comes to fruition), which is not the same thing.  Everything in the U.S. will be priced in dollars, and there will be a conversion rate to Bitcoin.  The price in Bitcoin will constantly fluctuate based on the price of Bitcoin in dollars.

Therefore, Bitcoin is not serving as money.  Nothing is actually priced in Bitcoin.

Who Will Use Bitcoin to Buy Things?

Maybe some people will use Bitcoin to buy something for the novelty of it.  But the people who own Bitcoin are mostly doing so as a speculation to make actual money (i.e., dollars).  There are some hardcore Bitcoin people who think it will revolutionize the world and that it will become the primary form of money in our world.  But if they really think this, or if they just think that the dollar price of Bitcoin is going higher, why would they get rid of it to buy things on Amazon?  They would use dollars.  They would hold Bitcoin for when it becomes more valuable down the road, unless they have all Bitcoin and no dollars in their possession.

It’s Still Computer Code

Bitcoin is still nothing.  It was created out of thin air much the same way that dollars are created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve with a computer screen entry.

Gold acted as money for thousands of years because it was seen as having value in itself.  It was used for jewelry and for many industrial purposes.  It has all of the qualities that make up a good form of money.

Bitcoin is computer code.  You can’t hold it.  You can’t do anything with it except hope that someone else will want it too.  The blockchain technology may be great and have great future potential, but owning Bitcoin doesn’t mean you own the blockchain technology.  Bitcoin is facilitated by the blockchain.  There is a major difference.

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies that have been created out of thin air.  Bitcoin just happened to be the first that got any attention.

Bitcoin is not money, and it never will be a form of money.  It will never be a medium of exchange on a wide scale.  It will not be widely used for everyday transactions.

It is a speculation.  In an environment of loose money and low interest rates, people are trying to make a quick buck. Bitcoin provides that opportunity with massive volatility.

The rumor that Amazon may accept Bitcoin as a form of payment is noise.  It may or may not happen.  It is speculation, and it has already been denied by Amazon.  But it gives a reason for speculators to drive the price up again in hopes that they can make an easy profit in U.S. dollars.

In my last article, I wrote about how the high distrust Americans have for the corporate media is a positive sign for liberty.  I certainly wish there was more distrust than there is, but there is now a sizeable portion of the population who believe very little of what is coming from the so-called mainstream media.

I typically make reference to the “corporate media” or the “establishment media”.  On the other side is the alternative media.

Most of television and newspapers (to the degree they still exist) make up the corporate media.  These are mouthpieces for the establishment.  They will not deviate much from the official narrative, whether it is war, climate change, COVID hysteria, or any other issue that involves a high degree of money and power.

Radio is mostly part of the corporate media, but it is not as clear-cut.  There is a lot of conservative talk radio, which deviates from the official narrative on some things.  There are also many local shows that may have deviations, but these of course do not have large audiences.

Most alternative media comes from the web.  Google, Facebook, and Twitter are part of the establishment media to a certain extent in that they try to control the narrative.  But their platforms are largely built on the dissemination of information.  So trying to censor certain speech is in conflict with their original goals and successes.

All of the major establishment outlets also have a presence on the internet, so this is not to say that the internet itself is alternative media, because on many sites you will just read or hear the same things repeated as if you were watching television.

But most of the alternative media is found on the internet.  You can find almost anything you want to find with a little digging.  If you start with a search engine, you can eventually find websites that offer an alternative view to the official establishment narrative.  If you start with Google (as opposed to something like DuckDuckGo), it may be more difficult, but you will still find trails to other sources.

This also isn’t to say that alternative media sources are always right.  They are frequently wrong.  Hype sells, and there is a lot of hype.  But if you can parse through the information, you can come out with something resembling the truth.

If there are a hundred different theories or explanations on some event or some issue, then one of them is probably right.  Maybe a handful of them are mostly correct or somewhere near the truth.  The problem is deciphering the information.  But at least it is out there now.  Thirty years ago you didn’t have this resource available.

Television – An Echo, Not a Choice

If you get your news from television, it is essentially an echo.  Even the local news will mostly echo the establishment narrative.  With the political correctness of today, it is probably worse than ever.

The only slight alternative on television that is widely available comes from Fox News.  And even here, it is mostly a handful of shows.

I watched Fox News quite regularly about 20 years ago.  In the run up to the Iraq War (the 2003 version), I became more of a hardcore libertarian, while Fox News became more hawkish on war.  There was very little pushback from anyone on the network against Bush and his wars.

I watched a little bit through the years when they weren’t discussing foreign policy.  It was the only place on television that I could at least get a conservative take on things.  When it came to some issues of economics or just criticizing Democrats, I could get on board.

When Trump came into the spotlight, Fox News actually improved a bit.  His popularity forced Fox News to cut back on the hawkish rhetoric when it came to war.  I know some of the people there couldn’t stand Trump (and still can’t), but they were essentially forced to take a slightly less pro war stance in many instances.

The best thing that ever happened for Fox News and its viewers was the departure of Bill O’Reilly.  Tucker Carlson took his 8 PM Eastern time slot, and he hasn’t looked back.  I don’t think the executives at Fox News ever expected Tucker to be like he is, but it has served his audience well.  He easily has the best ratings, which makes it almost impossible for Fox News to get rid of him now.

I’ll occasionally watch a few minutes of Fox and Friends in the morning just to see what is being discussed.  I can typically tolerate it as long as they aren’t talking about foreign policy.  Still, other than criticizing Democrats, they don’t break too far away from the official narrative.

I also watch a little bit of Gutfeld at 11 PM, which is a relatively new show.  It is a mix of news, opinion, and comedy.  It is mostly conservative opinion, but there is some quasi libertarian opinion in there too.  The show had Dave Smith as one of the guests for the hour, so that is saying something right there.  They are certainly willing to deviate from the official narrative.

At 9 PM is Sean Hannity, and at 10 PM is Laura Ingraham.  I haven’t watched (or listened to) Hannity in a long time.  I don’t know of anyone who does watch him, even amongst my conservative friends.  They will watch some of Tucker’s show though.

I do not typically watch any of the shows in the 8 PM to 11 PM lineup, but I do catch segments or clips on the internet.  Tucker is the best.  Even though he will occasionally criticize libertarians, most libertarians I know appreciate what he does.  He constantly challenges the official narrative, whether it is on war, COVID hysteria, vaccines, climate change, or a host of social issues.  He is a choice, not an echo.

I have to say that I have also been somewhat impressed with Laura Ingraham.  She has always been a conventional conservative in my book.  I do remember her introducing Ron Paul at an event one time, and she was gracious about it.

The few times I have tuned into her show or seen clips of her show on YouTube, she has been great.  She is still a conservative, and I’m sure I would disagree with her on many issues, but her show really does challenge the official narrative at times.  I have seen her have on many doctors as guests who are questioning the COVID vaccines and really questioning a large part of the COVID narrative.

I don’t ask for shows to give me exactly what I want to hear.  I ask for shows to give me alternative views.  I ask for shows to give me differing points of view.  I ask for shows to make things interesting, and to even get me to ask more questions.

Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham get props for providing alternative views and good journalism.  Gutfeld gets some props for providing some entertainment while also allowing some straying from the establishment narrative.

Some of my conservative friends have had it with Fox News.  They prefer NewsMax or One America News (OAN).  But they will still give props to a few shows on Fox News, just as I have.  Usually they are most favorable towards Tucker Carlson.

If I turn on my television using only the cable box, Fox News is the only station where I have a chance of finding some kind of alternative narrative from what I would hear on every other network.  So for all of its faults, I give some props to Fox News.

Americans do not generally trust the media.  I wish they would trust the media even less than they do, but there is far more skepticism in the United States than most everywhere else in this world.

I have read and heard some people who come from a pro-liberty position who lament the fact that there is so much distrust in the media.  They are coming at it from the standpoint that the American media is really bad, which is bad for America.

For some reason, they see it more as a negative that American trust of the corporate media is at or near its all-time low, and it is lower than in other countries around the world.  The implication is that the American media is worse than in other places.

I see this as very positive news, at least for America.  It is the majority of people in other countries who are the suckers.  The media in Canada, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere are generally no better than the corporate media in the United States. It’s just that more Americans aren’t buying the propaganda.

The American establishment media has seemingly gotten worse in the sense that they don’t even try to present more than one side of a story.  They also just more easily make stuff up.  When they pushed for war in the past, they would at least try to cover themselves and get experts and reports that provide an excuse for going to war.  The media spent over four years going after Donald Trump and just making things up, like Russian collusion.  There was absolutely no basis for some of the things being said, but they would just run with it anyway.

Again, I see this as a positive.  I understand that many people buy into the propaganda.  There were way too many that bought into the COVID propaganda, and they too easily allowed tyrannical measures imposed from politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government.

Still, when compared to the rest of the world, America is the bastion of liberty.

I have also heard pro-liberty people lament that there are massive protests in Europe and other places against the COVID regime, while Americans stay at home.  This is because America is a freer place.  In France, they are threatening to throw people in jail if they go to a restaurant or movie theater without a vaccine passport.  If that happened in the United States, you better believe there would be mass protests in the street.  The reason this level of tyranny is not being imposed is because there are too many Americans against it for the politicians to get away with it.

When American distrust of the corporate media is this high, it doesn’t mean they just aren’t getting news.  It doesn’t mean that they have no idea what is going on in the world.  It means they are finding alternative sources for their news.  This is positive for liberty.

Free Speech

While political correctness is taking its toll, America is still the land of free speech.  You can say almost anything, as long as you aren’t threatening violence against others (even though politicians threaten violence all the time).  There is certainly a threat of being “cancelled”, but Americans, in most cases, do not face prosecution for speaking out against the government.

This is why it is important to speak out and be heard.  The more you speak out, the more that others will follow.  There is safety in numbers.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about using Hitler and Nazi analogies.  I know it is a common tactic to compare whatever or whomever you don’t like to a Nazi.  But because you are able to do this, it makes it less likely that we will become Nazi Germany.

We aren’t Nazi Germany because people point out similarities to Nazi Germany.  If you wait until you become something really resembling Nazi Germany, then it is too late to resist at that point.  I can’t emphasize how important this is.

The French never should have let their government get so far as to be threatening prison for anyone going to a restaurant without a vaccine passport.  They didn’t draw the line in the sand early enough, so now they are faced with ultra totalitarianism.

I think this would be almost impossible to implement in the United States.  The establishment and its media funded the vaccine makers and are funding the marketing campaign.  The vaccines are being pushed hard from every corner of the establishment.  The corporate media has done its part in trying to smear those who don’t want to take a vaccine.  Yet, about half of the American population hasn’t been vaccinated.

Maybe you could see these draconian and totalitarian measures taken in a place like Los Angeles or San Francisco.  But it isn’t going to be widespread.  If Biden tried to implement a nationwide vaccine passport just to go to a restaurant, there would be massive protests and disobedience.

When the CDC dropped its recommendation for mask wearing (for the vaccinated) a few months ago, part of it was to try to coax people into getting vaccinated.  But it ended up just resulting in a majority of people not wearing masks any more.  Even if a store says that you don’t have to wear a mask if you are vaccinated, most aren’t going to be checking with customers to verify the vaccination status.

I believe another reason the CDC changed its mask guidelines is because people were slowly starting to get rid of them.  It would look worse for the CDC if they kept saying everyone needs to wear a mask while more and more people stop wearing them.  It would just serve to show that a lot of people don’t really care what the CDC says.

While the virus hysteria and the lockdowns were disappointing in 2020, I am optimistic that it has awoken more people.  We are almost at a point where half the country just doesn’t believe anything of substance coming from the corporate media.  There is a growing percentage like me where they automatically assume the opposite is true until proven otherwise.

There has always been media propaganda.  The fact that it is so over the top now shows the desperation of the establishment.  They are losing control of the narrative, so they are doubling down.

The prospects for liberty are greater in the United States than anywhere else, particularly among major countries.  The high distrust in the corporate media is a positive sign for liberty in the future.