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.

For all of the problems with Donald Trump, from a libertarian perspective he seems to have all of the right enemies.  The most powerful and influential people who hate Donald Trump tend to be the worst people.  The problem is that some of his enemies do not come right out and announce it.  This is where Trump has a major problem.

Trump has some very good instincts, especially when it comes to politics.  When he entered the presidential race in 2015, he ran a very unconventional campaign.  Any typical campaign advisor would have advised him against doing and saying many of the things he did.

There were many times in 2015 and 2016 when various media pundits declared that some misstep or truth that Trump told was the end of his campaign.  I think some of them sincerely meant it.

Trump told a crowd in South Carolina that Jeb Bush’s brother lied us into war in Iraq.  Trump, referring to John McCain in Vietnam, said that real heroes don’t get shot down.  Of course, there was the video tape of Trump talking like a college boy about women, and there were many times Trump insulted other people.  Yet, his supporters didn’t care.  In some cases, they actually liked it because they saw him as someone who wouldn’t back down and would go to bat for them.  They would rather have a fighter who was on their side.  In other words, they were tired of the same old Republicans.

So, there is no question Trump has some good political instincts.  The problem for him is that his instincts are not good when it comes to assessing other people and whether they are on his side.  It is easy when it comes to Nancy Pelosi or Rachel Maddow.  It gets hard for him when it comes to people who don’t identify as leftists.

Turning on His Advocates

I have seen many cases where Trump has turned on people who are essentially in his corner.  He turned on Steve Bannon at one point many years ago, even though Bannon has basically been an advocate for Trump the entire time.

When Candace Owens was talking about Trump’s support of vaccines, Trump turned on her, and she said he was quite rude to her the next time she saw him in person.  Owens was actually expressing why Trump believed in vaccines.  She said he came from an older school of thought where the older generation was led to believe that vaccines saved many lives and were almost always beneficial.

She was actually defending Trump when she said this because she was explaining why Trump differed on this issue from many people in his base.  But because there was a disagreement, Trump took it as criticism and turned on Owens.

Let’s also remember in 2020 when Congress was ramming through trillions of dollars in spending because of COVID and the lockdowns.  Thomas Massie questioned the whole thing and requested an actual vote in Congress. Trump went on the attack against Massie and suggested that he should be kicked out of office.

Massie was simply doing what no other member of Congress was doing.  He was showing concern for the reckless spending.  This is what contributed to the high price inflation that we see now.  Massie wanted to look at what was being done and slow the whole thing down.  And for this, Trump attacked him.  Yet, Massie has generally shied away from directly attacking Trump and even defending him at times against his deep state enemies.

Trump seems to not understand that the people who are advocating for the American people and greater liberty are more his friends than anybody else, even if they don’t agree with Trump on many things.

I don’t agree with Trump on many things, but I will at least defend him against the craziness of the establishment.  He did not tell his supporters to invade the Capitol on January 6^th.  He should not be prosecuted for the fake crimes they are making up against him now.  It is obviously a coordinated effort to keep him from the presidency.  There are many things that Trump has said and done that were taken out of context.

Maybe Trump should stop worrying every time someone has an honest disagreement with him or differs on a particular policy.  Unfortunately, his ego gets in the way.

Not Recognizing His Enemies

The even bigger problem for Trump is that he doesn’t recognize many of his enemies and he actually puts them in a position to undermine him.  We can look at all of the horrible choices for people he put in his administration.  Maybe Trump feels like he has to play ball with the Republican establishment, but it gets to a point where it is ridiculous to surround yourself with people who hate you.

You can go down the list of names: Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray, and Bill Barr.  The list goes on.

These are all evil people that he put in high positions of power.  They used this power to undermine Trump while smiling at him and pretending to be on his side.  Again, this is just bad instincts.

There are also other people like Lindsey Graham who sometimes pretend to be on Trump’s side while they oppose him in almost every way, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.

I don’t think Trump has learned anything from his first term in office.  He will likely continue to put his enemies in positions of power.  Instead of relying on people like Rand Paul and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are not completely aligned with him, Trump will rely on his enemies just because they feed him the lines he wants to hear.

Trump is probably going to pick somebody bad as his running mate.  Instead of someone half decent like Vivek or Tulsi Gabbard, Trump will pick some war hawk like Marco Rubio or Tim Scott.  And then when that person backstabs him later on, he will act surprised.

Trump is so smart when it comes to some things, it almost seems impossible that he could be this dumb when it comes to knowing his friends from his enemies.  Sometimes your best friends are the ones who tell the truth and don’t always pretend like they agree with you.

Dave Smith – comedian, podcaster, and libertarian – debated Chris Cuomo on May 31, 2024.  The primary topic of debate was COVID and the information that was being put out by Cuomo during his time at CNN.  They also touched on other political topics.

The debate was held by Patrick Bet-David (PBD) on his show.  It aired live in front of an audience.  Given the feedback from the audience during the debate (laughing, clapping, and a few people shouting things out), you could tell the audience was filled with Dave Smith supporters or those who were more sympathetic to his views.

When Dave talked about the debate on his own show after it happened, he said that Cuomo appeared very uncomfortable going into it.  He said Cuomo showed up just before they were set to begin and that his demeanor was quite somber.

It was interesting how much research Cuomo did on Dave going into the debate.  He said so during the debate.  So, Cuomo knew what to expect, but it didn’t do him much good.

Patrick Bet David was more on Dave’s side, although he was respectful as a moderator and let Cuomo talk.  I supposed someone who might defend Cuomo would say it was unfair that the host of the show was more on Dave’s side.  But PBD and his crew were there to show clips in real time when something came up.  If Cuomo hadn’t lied so much during the debate, maybe that wouldn’t have hurt him so much.

One example is when they were talking about the drug Ivermectin.  Cuomo seemed to be denying that he had been making fun of people taking it because it is horse medicine.  During the debate, the PBD crew ran a clip of Cuomo and Don Lemon on CNN at the time laughing about taking horse medicine.  Cuomo then shifted his tactic and said that he was talking about using the animal version of it and not the human dose.

Cuomo just doubled down on his lying.  Dave pointed out that with Joe Rogan’s resources, that it was pretty obvious Joe Rogan was getting his Ivermectin in a human dose from a doctor and not a veterinarian.

It was one thing after another, and Chris Cuomo was taken to school for three hours.  I don’t know what he had to gain by doing it, especially since he didn’t flip sides.  Cuomo had previously admitted to PBD that he was taking Ivermectin for “long COVID” and he also warned of possible side effects from the vaccines.  This is what sparked the whole debate in the first place.

When Cuomo was asked during the debate if he would apologize for some of the bad information he put out during the hysteria of COVID, he refused.  He said he didn’t intentionally put out any bad information, and he didn’t have any intent to harm anyone.  He also, quite bizarrely, said that Trump never apologizes and that issuing an apology can only hurt you when it comes to politics.

Dave – The Best Person for the Job

Chris Cuomo is one of the main faces of shilling for the establishment during COVID.  He was on CNN giving frequent interviews to his brother who was the lockdown governor of New York at the time.  Andrew Cuomo was perhaps the worst and most tyrannical of all governors during COVID, and that is saying quite a bit.

This was such a great moment for Dave and really everybody who is still angry at the whole COVID regime for trying to wreck our lives.

I wouldn’t have picked anybody else to go head-to-head with Cuomo other than Dave.  He has the unique combination of knowing the issues well, being principled, and being able to deliver his message.  I think Dave’s time as a comedian makes him incredibly effective at delivering his message, even when it is a serious message.  And in this debate, although Dave had a few funny moments, he was quite serious.  He said on his show that he was angry at Cuomo for continuing to lie during the debate.

One Thing I Would Have Addressed and Stressed

With that said, there is one point I would have brought up and emphasized more.  Dave exposed Chris Cuomo as a liar, which was perhaps the most important thing.

But even if Cuomo had just gotten some things wrong during COVID and they were innocent mistakes, there is still a major problem.  Even if Cuomo had decided to apologize, it would have only been worthy in one instance.

It isn’t just the lying alone that is the problem.  It isn’t just getting some things wrong (Cuomo got almost everything wrong on COVID).  The problem is that he advocated the use of force to impose this bad information on the whole country.

The government uses force in many ways.  Just about everything the government does is backed up by the threat of force.  That is what makes it a government.  Aside from the taxes collected to fund the likes of Fauci and the three-letter agencies and possibly the gain-of-function that brought us COVID, the funding of the pharmaceutical companies, and the censorship put in place by the government, there were two primary acts of force in play during COVID.

One was the lockdowns, which were technically put in place mostly at the state level, although it was being encouraged at the federal level.  The other primary show of force came in 2021 when Biden imposed vaccine mandates on the majority of the working population in order to keep their job.

Cuomo and most of the rest of the establishment media went along with this stuff.  In fact, they were essentially advocating it and promoting those who were doing it, such as Chris Cuomo’s brother.

So even if you get something wrong, there is no excuse for ruining people’s lives by advocating government force.  If all of these measures had just been recommendations and not mandates, then I don’t think people would be so furious.

If it was just, “Well, COVID turned out to not be as serious as we originally thought and doesn’t impact children much, so I guess we shouldn’t have been so hysterical at the beginning.”, then that would have been fine if there had been no lockdowns and vaccine mandates.  If people had been free to get their own information and make their own decisions, then we wouldn’t be where we are today, with a lot of people still rightfully angry at what was done to them and their loved ones.

The advocation of government force is ultimately the main problem.  It’s not the only problem.  If the government and its media talk about how great the vaccine is and it turns out to not be safe and effective, then that can certainly do a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people.  But the mandates are what made it 10 times worse.  It is the coercion aspect that makes it so horrible.

So, Chris Cuomo can say that he just got a few things wrong and that the experts got a few things wrong, but this does nothing for me.  This just tells me that you have learned nothing and don’t intend to learn anything. Or perhaps it just tells me that Cuomo and the rest of the shills during COVID are immoral people.

The next thing that comes along (climate change, war, whatever), Cuomo won’t stop and say, “You know, I got some things wrong on COVID and advocated government lockdowns and mandates that didn’t turn out so well.  Now that we are in a climate crisis, I am going to learn from that and say that the government needs to stay out of it and let people be free.  Even if we do have a climate crisis, we shouldn’t take away people’s liberty.”

That’s the problem.  He would still advocate the same immoral policies as before.  He would just now want to do a better job of getting the “right” information before doing so.  But he thought (or pretended to think) that the vaccines were great at the time they were being pushed so hard.  If he was wrong then, what’s to prevent him from being wrong again.

Again, the biggest problem is helping the regime in using force against the citizenry.  Even if Cuomo does understand some of the mistakes and bad information that was put out during the height of COVID, it does nothing for me or the many millions of people whose lives were turned upside down or who have been vaccine injured.  He has not owned the fact that it was immoral to impose lockdowns and mandates on the population.

If Cuomo or anyone else wants to apologize for COVID and have it mean anything, it has to be an apology for advocating the use of force against people.  It can’t just be an apology for getting some things wrong.

Conclusion

Thank you, Dave, for being such a great advocate of liberty and taking down one of the bad guys who tried to ruin our lives.

Chris Cuomo looked quite uncomfortable in that chair trying to defend his previous positions.  He comes across as someone who wants to be liked by the general public.  That puts him in an awkward position now that he is in the world of podcasting and alternative media.  He isn’t in his CNN bubble any more.

Dave said on his podcast that Aaron Rodgers approached Dave at an event (I believe it was the next day) and complimented Dave on his performance at the debate.

This debate was as much of a therapy session for people as anything.  It also shows that this is still an important issue for people going into the 2024 election.  RFK Jr. would be wise to listen.

Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. both spoke at the Libertarian National Convention over the Memorial Day weekend.  Joe Biden was also invited by the Libertarian Party, but unsurprisingly did not accept.

I listened out of order.  I watched the Trump speech first.  I later listened to Kennedy’s speech.  It seemed like they didn’t take place at the same event in front of the same crowd.  To be fair, the crowd might have been a little different, as I’m sure some of those who attended Trump’s speech did not attend RFK’s speech.

With Trump’s speech, there is background noise during the entire thing.  Some of the videos were shaky, which is probably the fault of the people running the event, but the video of Kennedy seemed better, so it is not clear what happened there.

Trump’s Content and the Reactions

Trump’s speech was mostly filled with boos.  The crowd was hostile and rude to Trump.  There were certainly some Trump supporters there and others who had certain sympathies with him, but the loud boos and talking are going to prevail in this situation.

It is understandable that a Libertarian crowd will be somewhat hostile to Trump, but it would have been nice to show a little more respect and at least let him talk.  You can express your discontent for the really bad parts and then let him continue.

It was also a bit confusing for outsiders, which probably includes many Trump supporters.  Trump said something about staying out of foreign wars and the crowd booed.  I saw comments in one of the YouTube videos with several people wondering why libertarians were booing at that.

I understand the reason, but it is not so obvious to those outside our circles.  The reason people were booing is because Trump’s comments do not reflect what he actually did as president.  This is the man who surrounded himself with people like Nikki Haley, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo.  Trump continued support for wars in Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  He bombed Syria.  He ordered the assassination of an Iranian official.

The sad thing is that Trump was probably the best president in terms of foreign policy in at least a generation.  He didn’t start any new major wars.  He may have entered office with the best of intentions.  I don’t know.  But he was still bad.  His comments were hypocritical.  That’s why the crowd expressed disapproval, but I think it would have been better optics to only boo the parts where Trump was saying things that were bad or incorrect.

Of course, there were probably many Libertarians there with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).  They wouldn’t think through the optics and the message that the hostile attitude was sending to others watching.

The one high point of Trump’s speech was when he said he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. You could also visibly see “Free Ross” signs in the crowd in many of the videos.  This was Trump’s safe play to the crowd, and it got a lot of positive cheers.

This was the safe play because Ross Ulbricht isn’t hated and feared by the state as much as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.  Ulbricht set up a website that was partially used for activity that the government deems illegal, particularly buying and selling drugs.  Snowden and Assange actually exposed corruption and criminality of the state.  So, it is much easier for Trump to pander to libertarians by saying he will commute (not pardon) Ross.

On this topic, it was a good play for the Libertarians in the crowd to emphasize their desire to free Ross.  That’s because it was something they could get out of Trump.  I don’t think signs saying “Free Assange” would have done any good, at least with changing Trump.

When I first wrote about Trump speaking at the LP convention, I said that maybe something good will come out of it like this.  If Trump does end up getting elected and taking office, there is a good chance that Ross will be freed from prison.  For this reason alone, it is good that Angela McCardle (Libertarian Party chair) was able to get Trump to attend.

Overall, the speech was a disaster for Trump.  He is not accustomed to this kind of environment.  He is usually speaking in front of big crowds that love the things he is saying.  If he had to do it over, I’m guessing Trump wouldn’t have gone.  He should have just sent Vivek as a representative, who spoke well in an informal debate at the convention.

It was hilarious when Trump had to take his shot at the Libertarian Party saying that they can just be happy with their 3% if they don’t want to vote for him.  Of course, that 3% is the reason that Trump and Kennedy were there.  They both need every little percent they can get.

The Biden handlers knew not to show up because almost all libertarians dislike Biden and his policies.  In addition, Biden is too mentally incapable of persuading anybody of anything.  His support relies solely on other people’s hatred for Trump.

The Libertarian Speech from Kennedy

The speech from Kennedy was completely different.  I almost have to wonder if he consulted with a hardcore libertarian to help write the speech that he gave.  There was just one time that I heard someone yell from the crowd.  Kennedy calmly said that he would be happy to talk to anyone afterwards.  Other than that, I heard nothing but applause.

Kennedy’s speech was written for libertarians.  He talked about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  He mentioned the 9^th and 10^th Amendments, which is music to most libertarian ears.  He said he would pardon Snowden and drop charges against Assange.  He spoke of rights and how the government is not authorized to take them away.

It was hardcore libertarian in almost every way.  There was one time when he mentioned reforming an agency (instead of eliminating it), so it wasn’t the perfect speech.  But I was extremely impressed by his knowledge and how deep he went.  Most conservatives wouldn’t have been able to articulate or even understand the things Kennedy said.  Even if he had someone help him with the speech, I am impressed that he was in tune enough to get that help and speak the words that he did.

At the end of the speech, he said that we (Kennedy and the Libertarians) don’t agree on everything, but we need to be united against those who don’t understand what America is supposed to look like.  Overall, it was an amazing speech.

Of course, Kennedy didn’t address the issue of Israel and its bombing campaign in Gaza.  He didn’t mention his support of U.S. funding for that particular conflict.

With the nomination of Chase Oliver at the convention (the really bad part of the convention weekend), I have nobody to vote for.  If Kennedy would just soften his position on Israel, I could probably overlook everything else in terms of flaws and vote for him.

If Kennedy were to govern half as good as his speech, I would vote for him.