I never could have predicted what happened in the year 2020, so perhaps making predictions is futile. However, predictions aren’t only for fun.  They also don’t necessarily have to be accurate to be useful.

One thing that Harry Browne wrote about in his book Fail-Safe Investingwas to take predictions and test them against your portfolio.  In other words, if you read a good article that seems plausible, predicting a stock market crash in the near future, you don’t have to base your decisions on whether it will be true.  You need to base your decisions on whether you are prepared if it does come true.

The same would be the case for a lot of scenarios.  If someone is predicting a new great depression, or a monetary crisis, or massive inflation, or a spike in interest rates, or all of the above, you should look at your portfolio to see if it will hold up if the person’s predictions come true.

The same goes for life.  While your investment portfolio is important (if you have one), your overall quality of life is even more so.

So when we talk about predictions for the coming year or the different possibilities, you can derive benefit whether they come true or not.  It is best to ask yourself if you are prepared if one or more things does come true.  This preparedness applies mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially.

Politics

My first prediction is that Joe Biden will take office on January 20, 2021.  I know that Trump and many Trump supporters are still contesting the outcome.  I have little doubt that there was significant election fraud in the big cities in swing states.  This is especially true for Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. There were also a lot of unlawful changes made in states prior to the election regarding mail-in ballots.

I know there will be objections in the Senate coming up.  I know some Trump supporters have laid out a path to victory. But the entire establishment is against Trump, and I don’t think he has the structure in place to overturn the currently reported votes in the swing states.

If I am wrong and Trump ends up staying in office, then all bets are off the table.  This would change everything.  There would be mass rioting.  There would be a doubling-down on the virus hysteria, if that’s even possible.  So if something happens over the next few weeks where Trump is actually victorious, then prepare for total chaos.  I give it less than a 5% chance though.

Assuming Biden takes office, I don’t think he’ll last long.  How many people are cringing every time he is live on camera? He can’t get through more than a couple of minutes without sounding stupid or lost in space.  I don’t see how he will give a coherent State of the Union address, but maybe they’ll drug him up and he can surprise me.

They’ll let Biden take a spin on Air Force One and take some nice family pictures at the White House. Maybe they’ll let him meet briefly, in a controlled environment, with a few foreign leaders.  Overall, they’ll try to limit Biden’s time speaking in front of a camera to as little as possible.

It’s hard to say if he’ll last a year or a couple of years.  I highly doubt he will last for the full four years.  I give it a better than 50% chance that we will see a president named Kamala Harris.

When the time comes, Biden will graciously go before the cameras and state that he is stepping down due to health reasons or family reasons.  I’m just not sure whether it will happen in 2021.

COVID-19 Hysteria

When I listen to other libertarians or conservatives who believe the coronavirus story is largely propaganda (hyped up by the media), I hear two main possible outcomes, assuming Trump leaves office.

The first outcome is that the lockdowns and restrictions continue, or even get worse, as long as enough people permit them to happen.  The governors and mayors have newfound dictatorial powers, so why would they let them go?  Politicians love power, and they gained tremendous power in 2020.  They will continue to make the virus sound as bad as possible and keep people living in a state of fear.  When people are fearful, they are easier to control.

The second outcome is that Biden gets into office and makes a few token moves.  He’ll “ask” everyone to wear a mask for 100 days. If anything, this might lead to less mask wearing out of rebellion, but he’ll attribute any improvements to his policies and the vaccines.  They can easily change the sensitivity of the PCR tests, thus driving the positive cases way down.  After a few months in office, with the end of winter (which is typically the end of flu season), Biden can declare victory over the virus and we can start going back to a normal (pre March 2020) life.

Both arguments are plausible.  They are both reasonable for a libertarian to make.  I originally thought the second outcome would happen, but it has surprised me just how extensive the lockdowns have been.  It is true that these politicians love their newly acquired power.  At the same time, there are going to be fiscal budgetary problems with state and local governments.  They will get some bailout money from the federal government, but at some point they will want to start collecting tax money again where it previously was.  It would also look bad for Biden if everything just gets worse for the next several years.

My best prediction here is that it will be a combination of the two scenarios outlined above. I think Biden will issue a few orders to make it look like he’s doing something more than Trump.  He will continue to tout the vaccines. Over time, the restrictions will be loosened.  Some states will loosen quicker than others.  But we aren’t going back to pre March 2020 any time soon.  The mayors and governors will keep a hold of their power.  They will generously allow 50% capacity at some establishments, or something like that.  They will ease the burdens on small business owners, but they will not completely go away in many places.

I expect the mask hysteria to continue for a long time.  It is a form of obedience.  When someone wears a mask, it demonstrates that the person is an obedient citizen.  They are listening to “the science” (i.e., the establishment media).

I wish I had better news here.  I feel fortunate to live in Florida.  If you live in California or New York, you should have already made your exit. People’s lives are being ruined. Many people are depressed. Kids are having their childhood robbed of them.

The Economy

I have been predicting a crash in stocks for too long now.  The bubble has expanded bigger than I thought would happen. I already thought it was a bubble in late 2019.  After massive lockdowns for much of 2020, with hundreds of thousands of small businesses closed and millions of newly unemployed people, stocks are booming.

Well, the big stocks are booming.  This has caused the indexes to go wild.  The heavily weighted stocks (think Amazon and Apple) have a major impact on the broad market.  There’s no question that tech stocks have benefitted from the lockdowns, at least in the short run.

But the rise in stock prices is beyond ridiculous at this point.  I expect a massive crash at some point, but we don’t know if it will happen in 2021.  I expect it will, but you never know with the Federal Reserve right now. The Fed’s balance sheet grew by over $3 trillion in 2020.  If the new money keeps flowing, then it could keep the stock bubble going for a while longer.

Going back to Harry Browne, it isn’t a question of whether stocks are about to crash any day now. It is a question of whether your portfolio is prepared in the event that they do crash.  I know some people are going to get burned badly.  I cringe when I hear people talking about putting a big chunk of money in Tesla, or even in an index fund.  I also cringe when I hear people getting into Bitcoin for the first time.  This is another major bubble.

It is best not to get swept up in the mania.  If you want to gamble, you should set aside a small amount for speculation and use only that.  I still recommend a permanent portfolio, or something similar in nature.

I think interest rates will stay low as long as price inflation expectations remain relatively low.  I do believe we will see price inflation pick up at some point, but it is hard to say how much of it will be reflected in the CPI statistics.  Right now, much of the new money created by the Fed is being used to bid up stock prices and housing prices in the suburbs.

Assuming Trump leaves office on January 20, 2021, he may look back later on and be thankful. I think the economy will be a mess over the next four years.  I don’t expect a complete collapse, but there will be rough times ahead for tens of millions of Americans.  There are already rough times now, and it will get worse for many.

The government continues to spend recklessly.  It doesn’t matter who is president.  It doesn’t matter which party controls Congress.  The deficits keep going higher.   The debt keeps going to new ridiculous levels.  The consequences of this and the lockdowns have only begun.  The next four years will be tough, and it won’t be fun for the president. We will likely see some kind of financial crisis and/ or massive price inflation scenario.

Control Your Own Destiny

Regardless of what happens this year, you can only control what you can control.  You can predict everything right, but it won’t matter if you don’t prepare for it.

I do believe that one’s mentality plays a major role in dealing with crisis.  While the events of 2020 were surprising to me, they didn’t catch me completely unprepared.  Sure, I could have owned a bit more toilet paper back in March, but I was relatively calm in the face of it all.  I saw through the propaganda from the beginning, which helped my state of mind.  I saw so many people panicking and living in major fear.  My main fear was the reaction of society.  I wasn’t afraid of a virus though, so I didn’t have that hanging over me as so many others did.  This was a great benefit.

While there are tough roads ahead, and we should fight for our liberty, it is especially important just to take care of yourself and your family.  And the more freely that you can live your life, the more impact it will have for others.  You can be an example for others on not being afraid and being mentally prepared for tough times.

Here’s to a better 2021 than 2020.  I will remain optimistic and realistic at the same time.

At the beginning of 2020, I was expecting a recession this year and an interesting presidential election.  We technically got those things, but it sure played out a lot differently than I expected. We got more than was bargained for.

In March, we saw the establishment eliminate Bernie Sanders from contention of the presidency. The Democratic Party establishment gave the typical accusation that the Russians were helping Sanders, and Sanders weakly responded saying that there would be no Russian interference on his watch.  Sanders showed himself, once again, to be a tool of the establishment.

The other establishment candidates dropped out right before Super Tuesday and rallied behind Biden. They followed their orders dutifully.  Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race because too many of her supporters may have gone towards Sanders.

Sanders got played again.  This time, the Democratic Party put its hopes in Joe Biden, a now 78-year old lifetime politician who can barely string two coherent sentences together.  But the powers-that-be only needed a figure that would represent the anti Trumpers.  Nobody actually voted for Biden.  They voted against Trump.

The Democratic primaries got almost no attention after Super Tuesday.  In early March, the coronavirus hysteria began.  It is still amazing how fast life changed for everyone.  Even more surprising is that we have to wonder if some of it is permanent.  I live in open Florida where you still feel like you’re in a hospital when you go to the grocery store.

The Hysteria Begins

The coronavirus hysteria (not the coronavirus) is the biggest story of the year.  The biggest consequences now and down the road are the loss of liberty and the economic devastation.

There are tens of millions of people in poverty who have been pushed back even closer to the brink of starvation because of arbitrary government rules in response to the coronavirus hysteria.  This is especially the case in third-world countries.  But even in a relatively wealthy place like the United States, there are millions of newly unemployed people and hundreds of thousands of small businesses that have closed down.  With all of the new debt and monetary inflation piled up in response, the economic devastation will be felt for years to come.

We were told originally that there was a 3 to 4 percent mortality rate, or some close variation of that.  I knew it was a lie right away.  It was coming from the same lying media that lies about wars and lies about almost anything political of significance.  It was also easy to spot the lie because they were using bad statistics. They were simply counting the people who died divided by the number of people who tested positive.  But early on in China, the people testing positive were the people who were already really sick.

But the establishment had its handpicked experts of epidemiologists and scientists to say what they wanted them to say.  These were the only opinions that mattered according to the corporate media, and they wanted to make our lives as miserable as possible, especially given that Trump was still president.

Things have only gotten more insane since that time with nearly everyone walking around with a mask on.  I see toddlers with a mask on.  I see people driving alone with a mask on.  I see people walking outside with a mask on.  It’s pure stupidity or virtue signaling or both.

Protests and Riots

Then came the end of May and the death of George Floyd.  For a brief period of time, the coronavirus didn’t matter any more.  I thought that would be the end of the coronavirus hysteria, but I underestimated the stupidity and gullibility of people.

If you left your house for anything deemed “non-essential” from mid March to mid May, then you wanted to kill someone’s grandmother.  But when thousands of people were protesting and/or rioting in the streets, there was no longer a threat to grandma.  It was ok because it was for social justice.  It was for something really important.  In other words, according to the corporate media, it wasn’t important for a business owner losing their business, or a worker losing their job.

The rioting, burning of buildings, looting, and other destructions of property went on for many weeks or more in the big cities.  In many cases, the police were told to stand down.  The people trying to defend their property were often labeled as the bad guys.

After a while, the rioting started to look somewhat bad for the left.  So it stopped in enough time before the election while Biden and his establishment media tried to flip the script.  It was really the Trump people who wanted rioting and chaos.  The left wanted peace and harmony.  It’s hard to make this stuff up.

The Establishment Media

In the lead up to the election in November, the establishment media did everything it could to cover for Joe Biden and make Trump look as bad as possible.  It wasn’t anything new that the media was trashing Trump for anything it could find.  The amazing thing was that the media was just flat out ignoring major stories.

The biggest story was that of Hunter Biden and his infamous laptop.  It would be understandable if it just exposed Hunter Biden as a creep and nothing else.  Of course, the media wouldn’t ignore such a story about one of Donald Trump’s children, but at least it would be somewhat understandable.  But the information basically showed that Joe Biden knew everything that was going on and was receiving kickbacks from foreign countries for doing favors while vice president.  Now that the election is over, it’s no surprise that Hunter Biden was already under investigation and the media will make mention of some of his troubles.

The biggest story here though is not Hunter Biden or even Joe Biden.  The biggest story is the establishment media’s total cover up of anything that could possibly hurt Biden’s chances of winning.

Election Chaos

The election itself was no surprise.  The establishment took control over the swing states to the degree it was possible.  Many rules were changed in the name of coronavirus safety (that seems to be a theme now). Mail-in ballots allowed for more voting and more fraud.

On the night of the election, the swing states just stopped counting their votes.  Then, in the early morning, the vote “counting” resumed.  This was particularly the case in the major cities in swing states (Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Atlanta).  When people woke up Wednesday morning, it all of a sudden looked like Joe Biden would win. He pulled off a miracle.

Trump is still not conceding and is looking at any possible avenue to overturn the media’s anointment of Biden as president-elect.  The drama will continue into 2021, as will the lockdowns and the mask hysteria.

The country is even more divided at the end of 2020 as it was at the beginning of the year. It is more divided politically, and there is also a divide with the assessment of the coronavirus and the lockdowns.

Lockdowns Have Consequences

Again, I believe the biggest story is the loss of liberty and the economic consequences that are still to follow.

Governors and mayors have been given the power to shut down businesses on a whim.  They can pretty much make anything up that they want to now.  They can do it all in the name of public safety.

It could be the continuation of COVID-19.  It could be a mutated form of it.  It could be a new virus.  It could be climate change that is going to put us all under water in 5 years according to the “experts”.  You better follow the orders of your rulers if you want to be safe.

Then we have the fiscal disaster.  State and local governments are in trouble with their budgets, even more so than they were a year ago.  They are being bailed out to a certain degree by the federal government, but there are limits here.

The federal government is running deficits at an unprecedented pace.  The Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet by over $3 trillion this year, and we are nowhere near done.  The stock market has resumed its massive bubble after a brief down period in March and April.

There is going to be a massive depression or massive price inflation, or maybe both.  There are going to be massive defaults. The federal government’s defaults will mostly come in the form of depreciating money.  Sure, you’ll get your Social Security checks and your pension, but it won’t be worth much.

Some Optimism

From a libertarian standpoint, there is a little bit of good news out of all this.  Some people don’t buy all of the hype, or they at least don’t accept the lockdowns.  There are many people who should be more sympathetic to a libertarian message than before.  This should be especially true for small business owners.

Homeschooling has only increased in popularity, and the schools are seen more as daycare centers than learning centers.  While I was hoping for even more parents abandoning the government schools, at least we are headed in the right direction.

The same goes for college, where many people are realizing that they are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for a mediocre education.  In many cases, it is more propaganda and brainwashing than it is education.

Even in the corporate world, many companies have realized that their productive employees can work just fine remotely.  Many will keep it this way.  They will save money not having to lease as much expensive office space.

I think the world needs to hear a principled libertarian message.  It is ripe for it.  This doesn’t mean defending restaurants by saying that outdoor dining doesn’t really spread the virus.  It means defending small businesses by defending the concept of private property rights and freedom of association.

The world needs to hear the message of liberty.  The rulers rely on the consent of the people.  If the general population no longer accepts the fear and hysteria, or at least accepts that the government can’t do anything good about it, then the support for the rulers will collapse.

The lockdowns and other restrictions are completely unnecessary and anti liberty.  They can only exist because enough people allow them to exist.  This is the message that needs to be told in 2021 and beyond.

In typical Trump fashion, he caused quite the ruckus on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning when he suddenly came out with somewhat opposition to the spending bill coming out of Congress.

It looked like it was a sure thing the day before.  Now that the election is over, Congress was able to agree on what they call a COVID-19 relief bill.  Others refer to it as a stimulus bill.

In typical Congress fashion, the $900 billion monstrosity was paired with an annual spending bill of $1.4 trillion.  This is a good way to sneak in a lot of extras for the lobbyists, especially when it is well over 5,000 pages.

Trump himself detailed some of the expenditures.

When money is going for gender programs in Pakistan, it might be a sign that there’s a problem.

I already wrote about the $900 billion portion.  It is largely a bailout of state and local governments.  Even the unemployment benefits and small business handouts are a bailout for the lockdown states, as these states are suffering disproportionately due to their own stupid policies.  I guess you could say that elections have consequences.

When I first discussed the bailout bill, there was no direct stimulus provision.  That has been added to this latest bill in the form of $600 payments for adults and $600 per dependent.  There are income limits that apply.

Trump is opposing this bill largely because he says that the stimulus is too small.  (Did you really think he would oppose it on moral grounds?  Did you think he would oppose it because it isn’t pro liberty?  Still, I’ll take what I can get.)

It is telling though that Trump is also pointing out the massive pork in the bill.  Some of the things are obviously very bad and should be evident to the average guy on the street.  All of the money going out in the form of foreign aid is ridiculous.  I think most people from any political party would agree here.  Now that Trump is less than a month away from leaving office, is he finally attempting a slight draining of the swamp in terms of spending?

Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue on Tuesday night was about the “relief” bill.  He listed many of the atrocities and even called out Lindsey Graham.  I have a feeling that Trump saw this or had wind of it beforehand.  If Trump is getting his information from Tucker Carlson, he could do a lot worse.  Sure, I wish Carlson were more libertarian on economic issues, but he is far superior to most other pundits in the corporate media.

I don’t know where it will go from here, but I’m glad Trump is giving us some more entertainment before leaving office, which I expect he will in less than a month.

Do the Math, UBI Makes More Sense

We’ll forget for a moment about the annual $1.4 trillion portion of the spending bill. Let’s just focus on the $900 billion.  A small part of that includes the $600 direct payments.

What if you just took all of the money and gave everyone living in the United States an equal amount?  There are about 330 million people in the United States.  That means it would be close to $3,000 per person.

If we use the round numbers above, it would be $2,727 per person.  This includes all children too.

That means, for a family of four, they would receive $10,908.

Imagine if they had sent direct payments with the original $2 trillion stimulus.  A family of four would have received over $24,000 the first time, and then another $10, 908 with the $900 billion.

So if all of the “stimulus” or “COVID-19 relief” spending had been divided up equally and sent out directly, a family of four would have received over $35,000 in 2020 alone.

Sure, there would be no business bailouts.  There would be no additional unemployment benefits from the federal government (there would still be state unemployment).  But if every person received at least $8,500, wouldn’t that have gone pretty far for most people?

It wouldn’t have discouraged working as much as the additional unemployment benefits did. And it wouldn’t have encouraged state and local governments to continue with brutal lockdown policies knowing that many businesses would get bailed out.

Don’t get me wrong here.  I am not an advocate of a Universal Basic Income (UBI).  It is anti liberty.  It is a violation of property rights.  It is a redistribution of wealth.  It is inflationary.  And to some degree, it is a misallocation of resources.

But here is what I am saying.  A UBI would be preferred to a typical spending bill coming out of Congress if it is an “either/ or” thing.  If the government is going to pass $3 trillion in spending legislation this year, most people would be far better off if the money were just divided up evenly and handed out directly to everyone.  It wouldn’t be fair, but it would be fairer.  It wouldn’t be a good use of resources, but it would be a better use of resources than sending money to Pakistan for gender studies.  It would even be better than using the money to bail out businesses.

Whenever you hear about the government spending another trillion dollars, just think of it as $3,000 for every individual.  If you have a family of four, just think that a one trillion dollar spending bill could have just meant $12,000 sent directly to your family.  If people would do some simple math, they might realize how bad they are getting ripped off.

I consider myself to be a radical libertarian.  Sometimes the word “radical” is seen as bad, but that depends on what you are being radical about.

If your child were kidnapped, would you “radically” demand a return of your child?  Or would you take a more “moderate” approach and request that you be able to see your child part of the time with certain restrictions applied?

The same goes with radical libertarianism.  I won’t apologize for being a radical.  I am radical in my philosophy of non-aggression.  I am radical in that I want peace and prosperity.  I am not demanding just somepeace and someprosperity.  While I may cheer some moves in the right direction, it doesn’t mean I accept that as the final result.  I will continue to promote all peace all the time, even if I know that won’t happen today and maybe never.

If you accept a certain level of authoritarianism, then don’t be surprised if you get it. This has been made especially clear in 2020.

The only way to beat back the lockdowns, restrictions, and other tyrannical measures that have come in 2020 is through radicalism.  I don’t mean radicalism necessarily in terms of taking action.  I mean radicalism with regard to what we are willing to accept.

We don’t need a large portion of the population to turn into radical libertarians in order to reverse all of the lockdown measures of 2020.  But we do need a large portion of the population to become radically libertarian on this one issue.

Let me give an example of how being a moderate can really hurt the cause.  A week or two ago, I was watching a California restaurant owner being interviewed on Fox News.  At that time, it had recently been announced that outdoor dining would no longer be allowed in many parts of California.

The restaurant owner stated that he understood why indoor dining had not been allowed.  But, he said, he had made accommodations for outdoor dining and he was following the protocols put in place by the governor. He said it wasn’t fair to ban outdoor dining and that his business was at risk of failing with the new shutdown.

I have heard similar stories from other restaurant owners.  I hear statistics about how very few coronavirus cases have been traced to restaurant dining.  I hear about how other businesses are not treated the same, or how an outdoor dining tent was allowed for another group of people.

I’m sorry, but this misses the point.  While I feel empathy towards these business owners, I also get really irritated with some of them.  I was particularly irritated when this one restaurant owner said he understood and accepted why indoor dining should be closed (by the state).

This business owner was signing his own death certificate.  He was making an argument in favor of the state’s lockdown powers, and I don’t even think he understood what he was doing.

This is the problem with too many people.  They try to compromise.  They try to be a “moderate”.  They try to sound “reasonable”.  That is what this guy was doing.  He was trying to sound reasonable.  But in the process, he was conceding the worst aspects of the whole thing. He was saying it is ok for the governor to control his business, as long as the measures put in place are reasonable.  But I’m sure the governor always can come up with a reason that is logical in his own mind.

The guy should have said that he owns the restaurant and that it is his property.  As the property owner, he should have the right to do as he pleases with it, whether that includes outdoor dining, indoor dining, or anything else.

I have talked about the issues of discrimination and voluntary association before.  I was a big critic of the state telling a baker that he had to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.  It had nothing to do with being for or against gay people.  It had everything to do with property rights.

I have also said that a property owner should be able to discriminate on any basis.  This includes race, sex, religion, age, or anything else.  There should be no interference from the state.  It’s not to say that there might not be consequences from customers, but the law itself should not prohibit discrimination.

The reason is because of property rights.  It is the property owner’s right to use his property as he pleases, so long as he is not using aggression against others.

This is really the only defense against the lockdowns.  It is a violation of property rights and voluntary association.  If someone is fearful of the virus, they don’t have to go to a restaurant.  If a restaurant owner wants to close all dining, that is his business. If he wants to be completely open, that is his business.  It is up to customers on whether they want to go there.

I think statistics can be useful.  They can be useful in persuading others that the virus is not nearly as serious as they have been led to believe.  They can be used to show that lockdown countries or lockdown states are not necessarily any better off in terms of lower coronavirus cases or deaths.

But even here, they should be secondary arguments.  The primary argument should be one of liberty, which includes property rights.

When a restaurant owner argues that the coronavirus hasn’t been traced much to outdoor dining, then he is conceding his own property rights.  Because the implication is that if tracing did show outdoor dining to be a problem, then it would be ok for the governor or other state officials to shut down outdoor dining.

This is why many libertarians have been frustrating to listen to in 2020.  It is why the Libertarian Party presidential campaign was so ineffective.  They should have been making a clear case for property rights in the face of lockdowns, even if it is more of a state issue than a federal one.  It was the federal government recommending the lockdowns in the first place.  While there may have been some mild criticisms here and there of the lockdowns, they were weak and seemed almost secondary.

There are hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States alone that have been shut down this year.  They need a voice. They need an example.  These business owners should all be libertarians by now.  They should be against government licensing now more than ever.  They should be against any state interference in business in any way so long as there is no aggression.

This is the moment libertarians have been waiting for.  People need a voice.  We have the right message that will resonate with people.  It does not lie in “moderation”.  We need radicalism more than ever.  We need a radical defense of liberty.  We need a radical defense of private property rights.  No business should be locked down for any reason ever so long as that business is not aggressing against anyone else.  This message needs to be repeated over and over again.  Even the business owners themselves need to hear it.

I saw reference to “Party Like It’s 1999” on CNBC on the morning of December 18, 2020.  They weren’t talking about a Prince song. They were talking about the boom in stocks.

I don’t know, seeing this caption, if there is irony there or not.  Was the implication just that stocks were booming?  Or was there an implication of a massive bubble ready to collapse?

I remember the tech boom of 1999 quite well.  All you had to do during that time was put a dot com after your company name and try to get it to go public.  Many of these companies boomed, even without having ever made a profit. Some of them barely had any revenue.

The tech boom in stocks came to an end in 2000.  Stocks in the Nasdaq plummeted.

It should be noted that the boom in technology never came to an end.  The ridiculous stock prices came to an end at that time. The profitable companies (or future profitable companies) survived.

Amazon

Amazon was part of the tech boom of the late 1990s.  It had started out as an online bookstore and quickly grew into the everything store.  While the stock price had its time of falling, the company moved ahead and the stock price went forward with it.

By the way, I had owned Amazon stock back then.  I believe it was actually my worst investment decision ever, looking back. The bad decision was in selling. I don’t remember exactly when I sold, but it was sometime in the 2000s.  I saw an old statement and I figured out that if I hadn’t sold, it would now be worth somewhere in the low six figures.  This was off an investment of maybe one to two thousand dollars.

Even though the profit margins are extremely low for Amazon, the massive volume makes it a profitable company.  There is some justification to its sky-high stock price.  It is important to note though that Amazon has benefitted consumers more than anyone.  We can talk about the billions Jeff Bezos has made.  We can talk about the many people who have become millionaires selling products on Amazon.  But there are hundreds of millions, maybe billions, who have massively benefitted from Amazon.

Consumers don’t always get cheaper prices, although that is one benefit.  It is a measuring stick for comparing prices and delivering competition.  Most of all, it has become a place of convenience, especially with the fast delivery.

Anyway, Amazon is the outlier.  I have no idea where its stock price goes from here.  But it has been a big beneficiary from the events of 2020, especially with many small businesses having been forced to close.

Nasdaq Up 42%

The other headline on CNBC that morning was that the Nasdaq is up 42% this year.  This would be ridiculous in any year.  It is especially ridiculous given what has happened in 2020.

The main thing that seems to matter in 2020 is the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet (which has skyrocketed).  The Nasdaq stocks have boomed more than other stocks because the lockdowns don’t impact tech stocks as much.  If anything, like the Amazon example, it has seemed to benefit some companies.

But we are at a point where nothing makes sense.  We have seen massive unemployment in 2020.  We have seen record deficits.  We have seen hundreds of thousands of small businesses shut down. And we were already at near record highs in stocks at the beginning of this in early March.

What the market is telling me is that the events of 2020 are good for stocks.  I don’t see how this can be true in the long term. Stocks investors are saying that the Fed’s massive monetary inflation has no ill effects.  It is all positive for corporate profitability.

Some people are spending more on Netflix and Amazon.  They are at home more and want entertainment.  Some people have more disposable income because they aren’t commuting to work and they aren’t going to the nail salon.  But on the other hand, you have millions of people who are now unemployed who previously weren’t.  You have many millions of more who have seen a reduction in pay or a reduction in hours.

I find it hard to believe that the events of 2020 are good for corporate profitability overall. Of course, this is assuming that profitability even matters, which it doesn’t seem to matter much these days.

However, there tends to be a reversion to the mean.  Profitability doesn’t seem to matter now, but if companies ultimately become unprofitable, this eventually gets reflected in the stock price. There is a reason we call them bubbles.  They aren’t supposed to make sense.

I wrote a post in January 2020 wondering when the Dow would hit 30,000.  I wondered the same about the Nasdaq hitting 10,000.  Once stocks started to fall in March, I didn’t think it would happen this year.  I was completely wrong.  It is incredible that the Dow has broken the 30,000 mark.

With the Nasdaq, not only did it break the 10,000 barrier, but it is now about 27% above that barrier.  I thought it was a bubble before it hit 10,000.  What we have now is a mega bubble.  There is a lot more to the Nasdaq than just Amazon.

When this thing blows, it is going to be devastating to a lot of people.  It could happen quickly too.  It takes a lot more time to inflate a balloon than it does to watch it pop.

The Fed will likely respond to such a crash with even more money created out of thin air. Believe it or not, there are limits here too.  We may get to see those limits.

Many of the lockdowns have not ended in the United States.  Some places are locking down harder.  This can’t be good for business overall.  We have barely begun to see the economic devastation.  It is hard to imagine that major corporations will not be caught up in this devastation. Stock prices can’t go up forever. At some point, we are going to see the correction of a lifetime.

With the approval and coming release of vaccines for COVID-19, there are questions on what the proper libertarian stance should be on this vaccine and vaccines in general. There is also a question of whether libertarians (or anyone else) should get the vaccine.

From a libertarian standpoint, it should obviously be voluntary on whether to get the vaccine or any other vaccine.  It is a personal decision.  Whether or not it is a good idea is a different matter.

There are a few self-identified libertarians out there who will argue that the state can compel vaccination because walking around unvaccinated can be seen as aggression. This is a major stretch at the very least, but I believe it is flat out wrong.

If you are walking around without a vaccine, then this is not aggressive behavior.  If you are sick and contagious and walking around trying to infect others, then this would be considered aggressive behavior. It is a little more questionable if you are sick but not purposely trying to infect anyone.

Even here though, a good libertarian stance would argue for strong property rights.  If most property is owned privately (i.e., not by the government), then it really becomes a question of the property owners’ policies and voluntary associations.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that every storeowner has to have an explicit policy for everything. We do rely on social norms. When you walk into a store, you don’t need a specific invitation.  The “open” sign is understood.  You also, hopefully, don’t cut in front of someone in line at the register.

If you walk into a store and sneeze on people on purpose, there may not be a specific policy against this.  But you will be infringing on others, and the store manager will likely throw you out.

The hard thing we are facing now with vaccines is that there is a threat of having your life made difficult if you are unvaccinated.  For instance, Ticketmaster has already suggested requiring vaccination to attend a concert or other event, or to get a negative COVID test right before the event.

It is not hard to imagine that the airlines might require something similar.  It is not hard to imagine many major corporations following suit, especially when corporate executives are quick these days to do the politically correct thing and to stay on the good side of the establishment.

As a libertarian, I don’t legally object to a company requiring vaccination in order to do business there.  I will personally object and complain, but I don’t want the government to force a company to not require vaccination.  Of course, if the government got involved, we know which side it would come down on.

The big problem is that the government is influencing these businesses to take these types of actions.  It is not all that different from mask policies.

Even worse, the government is heavily involved in many of these industries.  Again, we need to return to private property rights. If the government didn’t own and control so many things, then this would not be as much of a problem.

The government is heavily involved in medical care in almost every way.  So it is no surprise that hospitals and other medical facilities are likely to require or highly encourage vaccination.  The same goes with airlines.  In the realm of schooling, most schools are government-run and government-funded.

Even in industries where the government has less control, the threat still looms.  Every legal business is licensed by the state. If you are a hardware store owner, are you going to announce that vaccinations are unnecessary?  Are you going to say to your employees that you don’t recommend getting a vaccine?  You will be lucky if you can just ignore the vaccination issue. Again, threats loom.  This is more true now than ever after we have seen that governors and mayors can just deem your business as “non-essential” and shut it down without even going to the legislature.

So the root of the problem isn’t vaccination.  The root of the problem is a lack of respect for property rights.  It is a problem of government at all levels being able to interfere with businesses.

Vaccine Safety and Efficacy

Now there is the question of whether it is wise to get vaccinated.  There is certainly a lot of skepticism, which is good. I only wish there had been that much skepticism about the hyping of the dangers of the virus from the beginning.  I wish there had been more skepticism about the wisdom of locking down society.

It’s interesting that there are no clean political lines when it comes to getting a vaccine.  The vaccines are coming out on Trump’s watch, but they were announced after the election.  So some Trump supporters favor the vaccine because Trump is touting it and because they are coming out while he is still president.  But much of the left also favors the vaccine because they are being approved after the election, which seemingly takes a lot of the political element out of it.

Libertarians tend to be the most consistent in not wanting to get the vaccine, but I have definitely seen exceptions here as well.

With regard to Trump, I think he has just been bad on this issue.  With the overall issue of the coronavirus, Trump has been better than Biden just because Biden has been so horrible.  At least Trump admits that there are tradeoffs and that we can’t lock down society for a long period of time.  As he has said a few times, we can’t let the cure be worse than the disease.  Of course, from my perspective, the cure became worse than the disease on the first day of lockdowns back in March.

When Trump was elected in 2016, there was talk of him setting up some kind of vaccine safety committee to be headed by Robert Kennedy Jr.  This would have been a hand grenade thrown right at the FDA, the CDC, and the entire pharmaceutical industry.  This is why it never happened.

I suspect the hysteria over COVID-19 was greater than it would have been had Trump not been president.  He got suckered. He went along with Fauci and all of the establishment medical hacks.  He originally bought into the idea of lockdowns.  In this sense, he deserved to lose the 2020 election, even if fraudulently.

At this point, I’m not sure how much worse things could get under Biden in terms of the COVID hysteria.  He can implement a 100-day mask mandate (or request), but maybe that will just make the Trump people a little more defiant.  Right now, almost everyone wears a mask because they are obedient citizens. At the very least, they feel societal pressure to conform.

Trump continues to push hard for the vaccines.  It certainly makes no sense based on what he was saying in 2016. Unfortunately, many Trump loyalists are going to listen to him on this one and take the vaccine.

My personal recommendation is to skip it.  It may be hard for some people, especially if their job depends on it. If this is the case, then my best recommendation is to stall for as long as possible.  At least give it a little time to see if there are major side effects being experienced by a significant percentage of people. But don’t rely on the corporate media for this reporting.

Just the fact that the establishment and its media are promoting these vaccines so hard gives me reason to stay away from the vaccines.  They lie about weapons of mass destruction.  They lie about climate change.  They lie about Russian interference in the election.  If they’ll lie about all of this, why wouldn’t they lie about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine?

Also, I just don’t believe the narrative about COVID-19.  Even if you believe the death count, which you shouldn’t, it means that really old people and really unhealthy people mostly die from (or with) it.

If you are relatively young and healthy, then there is no reason to be vaccinated.  Your risk of bad side effects from the vaccine is likely much higher than your risk from the actual virus.

If you are elderly or if you are in poor health, then you probably shouldn’t be injecting vaccines into you that will likely just serve to further weaken your immune system.

These are just my opinions.  If you disagree, you are free to take the shots.  Of course, I wish that others had respected my rights and the rights of others to live our lives as we saw fit this year.  If you thought you were at high risk for the virus, then nobody was telling you that you had to leave your house.  But for those of us willing to take the risk (supposedly), we should have been allowed to voluntarily associate with others.

The other major problem with these vaccines is that they all come about with government funding. The U.S. government has spent billions of dollars already, which means that the taxpayers have paid for them. Again, we get back to a lack of property rights, although a few billion dollars is nothing these days.

However, the government funding and approval create even more moral hazard.  It takes away market competition.  It gives a false sense of security when the FDA approves a vaccine and declares it to be within its safety guidelines.  And these vaccines coming out now were obviously rushed, and there was far less stringent testing than normal.

It would not surprise me if the coming vaccines just cause a new wave of illness.  Maybe the illnesses will be blamed on the coronavirus.  Maybe they will be ignored.

One thing I do know is that it would have to get pretty bad for any establishment news sources to report on it.  You will have to rely on alternative media, which you should probably do anyway.

My best hope is that the vaccines don’t really do much of anything but they are used as an excuse to say that the coronavirus “pandemic” is now under control and we can start opening up the economy.

Actually, my best hope is that everyone wakes up and realizes they have been swindled since March 2020.  But I’m trying to be realistic here.

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has slowed down since its unprecedented rise from March to May 2020.  However, it is still rising, even if relatively slowly.

When you look back at the year 2020, there are a lot of incredible things to look at.  The hysteria over a virus is the most incredible thing, especially considering that the overall mortality in the U.S. for this year will not be all that different compared to previous years.

In regards to the reaction, I’m not sure what is more surprising – the fact that people so easily gave up their liberty to government, or the fact that many people have isolated themselves from friends and family.

It is still amazing what has happened in the last 9 months.  It is hard to believe that governors and mayors across the country were able to close down hundreds of thousands of private businesses just on their own word.

With all that has happened, it is easy to be distracted and not look at the many economic consequences.  For those who actually consider the economic costs of the shutdowns, we tend to focus on the unemployed and the many companies that have been put out of business, as well we should.

Still, even if all government lockdowns and restrictions ended tomorrow, we would feel the economic consequences for many years to come.

With all of the unprecedented things happening, it is easy to ignore the Fed’s balance sheet. It has now grown by over $3 trillion since the beginning of March.  We may be somewhat numb to it, given the massive expansion after the 2008 financial crisis, but it doesn’t mean it won’t significantly impact us.

While stocks started to crash in March and April, things reversed rather quickly after the Fed showed it would do whatever was necessary to bail out everyone.  We saw unemployment payments to people that exceeded the salary they had been previously earning, while most Americans received “stimulus” checks regardless of their employment situation.  The checks certainly did stimulate the stock market.

The Fed dropped its target federal funds rate to near zero, eliminated reserve requirements, and expanded its balance sheet by $3 trillion.  While that may be music to the ears of stock investors, it shouldn’t be music to the average middle class American who will eventually pay for all of this in the form of higher prices and a lower standard of living.

It’s quite amazing how bullish stock investors are.  Stocks were hitting all-time new highs when news was being announced of the possibility of effective vaccines.  I wouldn’t bet any money on these vaccines, as it could all go bad rather quickly if and when people start reporting bad side effects.  As with the government lockdowns, the vaccine cure is likely to be worse than the disease.

But even if these vaccines will provide the miracle cure to open up the economy again, these announcements of effective vaccines were coming at the same time that many cities and states were imposing stricter lockdowns.  So the stock bulls just shrug off the new lockdowns, but cheer the vaccine news.  The new lockdowns in places like California will put the final nail in the coffin of many small businesses, but that seems to be irrelevant to the bulls.

Price Inflation

Meanwhile, the latest numbers have come out for the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  The CPI rose 0.2% in November 2020, while the more stable median CPI came in at 0.1%.  The median CPI, year-over-year, is actually trending down a little.

I have to hand it to the Fed.  They have been able to get away with a lot without moving the overall price inflation numbers much.

The Fed’s massive monetary inflation is hurting us severely by allowing Congress to spend recklessly and by allowing a major misallocation of resources.  But since it isn’t showing up in the CPI, they are basically getting away with it.

One of the main problems with the CPI right now is that it doesn’t show us that necessities are tending to be more inflationary than more luxury items.  Governors and mayors determined what was essential, so it’s funny the Fed doesn’t discriminate on this basis as well.

If haircuts and pedicures are non-essential, then does it really matter if prices for these things have stayed flat or even gone down?  Prices may be really stable, or even down, for luxury services, for certain electronic items, and for rent in Manhattan.  But for most people, their basic necessities of food and medical care are going higher in price.  In most areas outside of some big cities, housing prices are also going up.

So while the CPI tells you that inflation is no problem, it seems to be a problem for many people when prices at the grocery store for some items are going up by 5% or 10% or more in the matter of months.

Since there is talk of more stimulus (bailouts) and almost no talk of worrying about deficits, we should expect the Fed to continue to expand its balance sheet in order to fund a good portion of the deficits.

It is hard to imagine that stocks can just keep going higher while the reported price inflation stays in check.  Something has to give. We are living in irrational times. The human race is completely irrational with regard to listening to the powers-that-be over a virus.  There also seems to be irrationality with regard to new stock market highs in the wake of economic devastation.

As Keynes said, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.  So in that sense, it is hard to bet against the trend right now.

But there is a saying that when things can’t go on, they have a tendency to stop.  I don’t know what we’ll see first – a stock market crash or a spike in price inflation.  I am expecting one or the other.

In 2020, it would have been more profitable to invest in the Nasdaq than to invest in gold.  But past performance does not indicate future performance.  In these turbulent times, I’d rather stick with something more secure. When stocks eventually fall, I believe they will fall hard.

I have written quite a bit in 2020 on the coronavirus.  I think it is justified because the reaction to the virus is the number one issue facing most Americans, at least politically speaking.

It is still amazing to me how easily people all over the world just gave up liberty because the powers-that-be told them to be afraid of something.

I had a Facebook friend the other day, who is a leftist in California, say that we need to do what’s necessary.  It was in reference to more lockdowns in the state.  I didn’t reply, but I wanted to say, “Spoken like a good little serf.”

I haven’t believed much of anything about this virus that has come from establishment media sources.  If they’ll lie about stuff to get us into war, it surely is not beneath them to lie about the dangerousness of a virus.

I knew we were being lied to in March, and not just because of the sources.  They were saying it was a three to four percent mortality rate in China.  It was a completely flawed statistic.  They took the number of people who died divided by the number of people who tested positive.

Back in February and March, there was not much testing.  The people being tested in China were the really sick people, most of whom were going into the hospital.  So of course 3 to 4 percent of them were dying.  The people tested were already really sick.  This is not how they calculate the mortality rate for the seasonal flu.  The denominator is not the number of people who tested positive for the flu. It is a projection.  It is an estimate.  They didn’t do this with the coronavirus.

I am not an epidemiologist or any kind of a scientist.  I am not a statistician, although I was pretty good at statistics in high school and college.  But I could figure this out without much thought.  Are you telling me that nobody else in the corporate media could have pointed this out?  Or was it too inconvenient of a fact to point out?

And then the CDC changed guidelines for coding deaths.  If you were diagnosed with COVID-19 or were suspected of having COVID-19 and then died, then you died of COVID-19.  Again, that’s different from the way the seasonal flu has been handled and calculated in the past, and I already thought that was an overstated number.

Proper Language

The whole thing is a giant tragedy for the human race in 2020.  Many millions of lives have been destroyed.  If you count severe hardship and poverty, it is probably tens of millions or hundreds of millions.  As bad as Americans have it with the lockdowns and hysteria, it is a hundred times worse in third-world countries where the people have very little wealth to fall back on.  When they get shut out of a job, they can’t feed their families that night.

The use of language has been infected as well.  I keep hearing almost everyone refer to this as a “pandemic”.  It may be a pandemic of ignorance, but there is no pandemic regarding a virus.

I don’t know anyone personally who has died of the coronavirus.  I barely know anyone who knows someone who has died of it. Most of the people who supposedly die of the coronavirus are people who typically die.  They were elderly people and people with severe health problems.

The United States has a population of about 330 million people.  You can always find an example of somebody dying of something. There are many thousands of deaths that occur each year with no explanation.  That explanation is now coronavirus.

The people who have supposedly died of coronavirus are a good sample of people who typically die.

So I refuse to use the word “pandemic” in this context, unless it is in quotes.

I hear it from people frequently.  “I couldn’t travel this year because of the pandemic.”  “I didn’t get to see the concert because of the pandemic.”  “I lost my job because of the pandemic.”

I refuse to say anything like this.  I will say that I couldn’t travel because of the hysteria.  I will say that I didn’t go to the concert because it was cancelled.  I will say that someone lost his job because of the lockdowns.  None of this is because of the “pandemic” because there is no pandemic.

If everyone who has the common cold or has recently had the common cold were marked as dying of the common cold if they died, then you would have an equivalent “pandemic” of the common cold.  There are almost 3 million Americans who die every year.  Some percentage of those people had the common cold or recently had the common cold at death.  It doesn’t mean they died of the common cold.

I also despise the inaccurate use of language in blaming the virus for things that were caused by humans.  For example, “I was temporarily laid off from my job because of COVID.”  No, you were laid off from your job because of the hysteria and likely because of lockdowns by the state.

It is especially frustrating when people on “our side” use this type of language because it plays right into the hands of the fear mongers.  It is not easy because of the things we hear every day, but you should make a conscious effort to be accurate in your language.

What’s Next?

I don’t know what 2021 will bring.  I assume that Joe Biden will be president.  I don’t know if the virus will magically disappear.  I hope that’s the case, but I’m afraid that politicians have gotten a taste of this new power that they will not easily relinquish.

If people are willing to give up their livelihood because of what a few handpicked “experts” say, then what will be next?  Maybe they will try the global warming/ climate change theme again and tell everyone they must obey all orders or else the oceans are going to flood the continent in the next 5 years.

Since the coronavirus worked so well and is so hard to prove its existence, maybe they will just come up with a new virus.  The symptoms will be tiredness and anxiety.  If you have anxiety, then you probably have the virus.  You should probably stay home and take your marching orders.

Maybe the next panic will come from the vaccine coming to supposedly quell the current panic. But if people get sick from the vaccines, then I’m sure it will be blamed on something else.  Again, maybe it will be a new virus or a mutated form of the coronavirus.  They could make up anything at this point.  As long as it is said by NBC Nightly News, then half the population will believe it.

It doesn’t matter what ridiculous thing I say.  What has happened in 2020 is ridiculous.  It is perhaps the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race.

I went to the park over the weekend and there was a family playing basketball outside, and they were all wearing masks.  There were other people on the play equipment wearing masks.  This wasn’t virtue signaling.  It was pure ignorance.

People have gone insane on the things they are saying and the things they are doing or not doing. They are allowing elderly relatives to die alone because they don’t want to risk the chance of giving them a virus.  The few really old people that I know don’t want to be alone.  They want to experience life right now because they don’t have much life left on this planet.

Children are being emotionally traumatized.  In some cases, they are having to give up time with friends.  Many of them have had sports or other activities taken away from them.  It is ridiculous and cruel at the same time.

This is why it is important to live your life the best you can given the circumstances.  I recently had lunch with three other guys. We shook hands.  We didn’t wear masks.  This is now somehow seen as reckless in the year 2020. To me, it is normal.

People need to get jealous of you.  They should see other people living their life.  They should see other people not living in fear.  I believe that is the only way to defeat this giant hoax that is bringing so much misery to people all over the world.

The “state” has won the battle in 2020.  The people not living in ignorance need to fight back by not complying with the madness when possible.  The most important thing you can do is to live your life, even if those around you are only trying to avoid death at all costs.  Let them live in fear with their so-called science.  You can live your life.

Some of the so-called moderates in the U.S. Senate have come up with a new stimulus bill.  The price tag is a mere $908 billion. In 2020, this doesn’t seem that big.

If you divide it by the number of households in the United States, this will put a different spin on the whole thing.  908 billion divided by 128 million (approximate households) is just over $7,000 per household.

But before you get too excited, don’t expect a check for your household in the amount of $7,000. In fact, if you are not unemployed or a business owner, your portion should equal approximately zero. Or maybe more accurate, your portion will be -$7,000, since you’ll still have to pay for it in some way.

When people talk about “moderate” politicians, it usually just means they favor big government on all of the issues.  In the case of domestic spending, it is no surprise that Mitt Romney would favor massive spending that largely goes to corporate interests and other governments.

Here is a list of the breakdown of the $908 billion proposal.

Notice that there is no direct “stimulus” check.  While I abhor the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), at least I derive some benefit out of it.  I get some of my own money back.

If this legislation goes through, I will get no benefit out of it whatsoever.  Most other Americans can make the same claim. Instead, it is just more massive spending that will be mostly paid for through Federal Reserve monetary inflation.

Perhaps the worst thing about this legislation is that it is the ultimate moral hazard.  It will only encourage more lockdowns and restrictions coming from state and local governments

The Lockdown Bailout and Federalism

Take a close look at everything in this bill.  Virtually every piece of it will disproportionately go to states with heavier lockdowns.

The bailouts for state and local governments is the obvious piece.  This will just bail out governments that have vastly overspent and find themselves in a major hole.  This is an obvious moral hazard.  It will allow these state and local governments to continue on, at least for a while, with reckless spending.

But look at the other 2 major pieces of this legislation.  There are major supplements for unemployment benefits, and there are handouts for businesses.

These will disproportionately favor the lockdown states.  These are the states that have put more small businesses under or on the brink of being under.  These are the states that have put more people out of work.

So if state and local governments can lock down and not feel the fiscal consequences of doing so, they are likely to do more of it.

The state of California is locking down hard again.  Like almost everywhere else, the state budget and the local government budgets will be pinched.  They will have a reduction of tax collections while at the same time having more welfare to hand out.  But if the governments are being bailed out, and their victims are being partially bailed out, it gives California a pass to continue the lockdowns and restrictions.

Meanwhile, in a state like South Dakota that has stayed mostly open, it will have to help fund the bailout of California.  South Dakota isn’t going to have as high of a percentage of unemployed people and failing businesses.  The people of South Dakota will have to help pay for the lockdowns in other states.

There aren’t many positive things in 2020, at least politically speaking.  One positive though is that we have seen a certain degree of federalism.  Even though the federal government has promoted the hysteria and recommended lockdowns, it was left up to state and local governments to impose them. I am happy to live in Florida, which is one of the few states open for business now.

This bailout legislation helps to destroy some of that federalism.  While I will continue to be happy to be in Florida, it is rather disgusting that I will have to pay for the actions of the tyrants in places like California and New York.

This is why the issue of states’ rights is so important.  It isn’t really the states that have rights.  It is the people residing in those states who should have the right to not have to pay for the idiotic policies endorsed by the people in California and New York. 

I fully understand that there are many people in California and New York who don’t endorse these lockdowns, but it is up to them to work to change the policies or to move out of those tyrannical states.  The people of Florida and South Dakota should not have to support this tyranny.

I can only hope that some politicians who call themselves conservative Republicans will stand up to this.  There were barely any standing up to the enormous spending back in March and April.It is important to oppose these bailouts not just for fiscal reasons, but also because it is a form of moral hazard.  These bailouts will just encourage and enable more lockdowns in the future.

President-Elect Joe Biden – as declared by the corporate media – is picking his cabinet even though he hasn’t officially been elected president yet.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that Joe Biden actually takes office on January 20, 2021. Let’s also assume that he officially nominates Janet Yellen as the next Treasury Secretary as he has indicated. Let’s also assume that she is confirmed by the Senate.

Janet Yellen would become the first female Treasury Secretary.  She wouldn’t be the first Keynesian though.

Yellen already has the distinction of being the first female chair of the Federal Reserve.  She was nominated by Obama and was in that position from 2014 to 2018.

Yellen is known as an inflation dove.  In other words, she is more than happy to see the central bank create more money out of thin air to pay for things that politicians and taxpayers are not willing to pay for directly through tax collections.

However, when you look at Yellen’s record as Fed chair, she had the tightest monetary policy of any Fed chair since Paul Volcker if you use the Fed’s balance sheet as the measure.

The Fed’s target federal funds rate was already near zero when Yellen entered office, and while it stayed low, she did start the process of raising it.  Yellen oversaw the winding down of the last round of quantitative easing (QE 3) from the 2008 financial crisis.  For her remaining time in office, the base money supply was tight or perhaps even slightly deflationary.  In other words, her actions didn’t fit with her reputation.

It is important to acknowledge that there were also no economic or financial crises that occurred on her watch.  If she had been Fed chair in late 2008 or in March 2020, then I’m sure the story would be different.

What does this tell you?  It tells you that Yellen is going to go along with whatever the establishment is doing.  She will be accommodative when accommodation is necessary.

Yellen is an intelligent person despite being a Keynesian in economics.  She has some practice taking questions as Fed chair.  She is fairly well spoken.  In this sense, it makes her somewhat dangerous.

However, I also believe that libertarians and conservatives should not overplay their hands in criticizing Yellen.  Despite some rhetoric in her distant past, she is rather conventional. She isn’t going to be enacting the policies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unless that is the way the general establishment is headed.

Yellen is not an outright socialist.  She isn’t even Bernie Sanders.  She understands some economics, even if some of it is wrong.  She also gets some things right.  I think she understands that the Fed can’t just create money with total recklessness without there being some bad consequences.  Just the same, she understands that the federal government can’t run multi-trillion dollar deficits forever without there being bad consequences.

I was a little bit surprised at Biden picking Yellen for this position.  But it isn’t earth-shattering news because Yellen is going to oversee the Treasury department similarly to some other establishment Keynesian.

It’s certainly not good news, but it also isn’t horrible.  You can already see the way Biden is going to govern.  It will be establishment politics.  It will be a return to the status quo of early 2016 to the degree that anything deviated from that.  The deviation was mostly in rhetoric.  In terms of government spending, there has been no deviation except even more spending in 2020.

If banks or certain favored corporations get into trouble, we should expect more bailouts.  We should expect more spending on unemployment and perhaps stimulus checks.  We should expect proposals for small marginal tax hikes on high-income earners.

I am less certain about corporate taxes.  It is hard to imagine that Biden, or even Harris, would try to hike corporate taxes if the economy is still slumping.  This would be true even if the Democrats take control of the Senate.

The problem is that the economy is in major trouble right now.  We live in a tale of two worlds.  I saw this on Thanksgiving on television with scenes of long food lines.  There were cars stretched for miles.  But when I went out on Friday afternoon, the mall was packed.  I wasn’t shopping, but I was going out for dinner.  This was in Florida, which is more open than most other states, but it is indicative that many families are still doing rather well.

The stock market has done amazingly well.  I think it is a giant bubble.  The most amazing thing is that it is hitting new all-time highs in late 2020, even as new lockdowns and restrictions are imposed across the country.

Gold took a bit of a hit in November, but it is still much higher than it was this time last year. With Yellen looking likely as the next Treasury Secretary, I continue to be bullish on gold in the long term.

Assuming Trump leaves office, we may start to get a little pushback from Republicans in Congress on the budget.  However, even if there is a small scaling back from where we are, the government is still going to be running massive deficits.  If there is a stock market crash and a rise in unemployment again, then we will see even bigger deficits again.  Most of this will be paid for by the Federal Reserve buying debt with newly created money.

There aren’t a lot of certainties in life, but there are a few.  The sun will rise in the east.  Hillary Clinton will never be a libertarian.  And the Fed isn’t going to significantly reduce its balance sheet any time soon.  This is why gold is still a good bet, with or without Janet Yellen.

Yellen won’t be any more of a disaster than anyone else would have been under a Biden presidency, but she’ll still be a disaster.  Reckless government spending will continue.