The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 40,000 mark in intraday trading on Thursday, May 16, 2024. On Friday, the index closed above 40,000 for the first time ever.

There are a lot of assets and indexes that are hitting all-time highs in terms of dollars.  Perhaps the Dow breaking the 40,000 mark is representative of the major asset bubble of our time.

It is interesting to note that the Nikkei 225 index hit an all-time high earlier this year, also breaking the 40,000 mark briefly.  This was perhaps more notable because it surpassed its high that it hit back in 1989.  It put “buy and hold” at a whole new level.  Apparently, you just have to hold your stock index fund for 35 years and you will make some money.

The difference with the Dow is that it has never seen these levels before.  And going back in time, it was nowhere close.

In 1999, a book was published with the title Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market”.  The problem for the book is that it came out just before the stock market crash that began in early 2000.  Even though it was worse for the tech bubble and the Nasdaq, it hit all major U.S. indexes.  The book was predicting this milestone in the next few years (from 1999).

Perhaps the problem with the book is predicting a specific number with a timeframe.  If the authors had made the Dow 36,000 prediction with a 30-year time horizon, they would have been correct.

The reason that stocks tend to always go up over time is because of inflation.  You can always depend on the central bank to create more new money out of thin air.  This is what ultimately drives the market.  There will always been winners and losers in terms of individual companies and their share prices.  But as a whole, the market going up in the long run is mostly a result of monetary inflation.

This is difficult for people to understand, although investors typically understand that a loose monetary policy tends to be good for stocks.  If we lived in a world with little or no monetary inflation, then stocks as a whole would generally not go up.  Some would go up, and others would go down.

People would still invest in stocks because they would pay dividends.  Also, in a world of little monetary inflation, consumer prices would tend to go down as productivity increases.  You could hold stocks, make money off dividends, plus see the purchasing power of your money increase.  Who cares about capital gains if you are getting wealthier in real terms?

Dow History

Let’s go back to the market lows in 2009 after the financial crisis had hit in 2008.  The Dow closed on March 9, 2009 at 6,547.

In other words, in the timespan of about 15 years, the Dow has gone up over six-fold what it was at its low.  How does an entire index go up over 6 times what it was in the matter of 15 years?

Are these companies really worth 6 times more than they were just a decade and a half ago?  Apparently, investors are saying that they are.  Are these companies so much more profitable than they were?

This massive rise is due primarily to monetary policy.  Perhaps the low in 2009 overshot what it should have.  Just as a bubble goes past what is seemingly rational, the same can happen with a bust.

Still, that is an incredible rise in such a short time.  You could point to the Fed’s balance sheet, as it shows that it has increased about 8-fold from where it was in early 2008 to where it is today.

While consumer prices have certainly gone up beyond the Fed’s 2% annual target, overall consumer prices have not risen 6-fold like the Dow.  They haven’t even close to doubled in that 15-year timespan according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This just shows that we have a major asset bubble.  The Dow at 40,000 is symbolic of this Everything Bubble.

It probably won’t get to 50,000 without a major correction first.  We have had an inverted yield curve for well over a year now.  The financial media barely talk about this now.  With price inflation still stubbornly above 2%, it makes it difficult for the Fed to aggressively loosen its monetary policy.

I don’t think we are going back to Dow 6,500.  If it got that bad, the Fed would probably go crazy again with its digital money printing.  I can’t discount a 50% or more crash.  Dow 20,000 seems crazy right now.  But Dow 40,000 seemed crazy when it was at 6,500 in 2009.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers came in near or slightly below expectations.  The CPI rose 0.3% for April 2024.  The year-over-year CPI now stands at 3.4%.

The median CPI also rose 0.3% in April.  The year-over-year median CPI stands at 4.5%.

As this CNBC article indicates, “inflation eased slightly in April”.  Of course, it only eased in the sense that the rate was slightly lower than the month before.  But it’s not as if prices have come down.  They keep going up.  Prices are now 0.3% higher than they were from the significantly higher prices paid from the month before.

Even while some people celebrate price inflation coming down, it is still not close to the Fed’s 2% target.  And let’s not forget that the Fed said a few years ago that it would shoot for a 2% average over time.  If this were the case, we would need to see price inflation fall below the Fed’s 2% target, but we don’t hear about that average thing anymore.

The main sentiment coming out of the CPI report is that it has come down sufficiently that we can hope for a Fed rate cut in September.  The odds of a September rate cut went above 50% after the CPI report was released.

Markets React

In bubble world, all that matters is a prospect of looser monetary policy in the future.  Because inflation is seen as coming down, the market anticipates future rate cuts by the Fed.  It doesn’t matter to investors that the yield curve has been inverted for almost a year and a half.

On the news, just about everything soared.  US indexes, bonds, gold, silver, and even Bitcoin all went up significantly.

US indexes are at or near all-time highs.  The Dow Jones is very close to surpassing the 40,000 mark for the first time.

The irrational exuberance continues, and it is all built on the back of Fed policy and easy money.  Maybe this bubble will last long enough to get past the November elections.

It is still interesting that the Fed is even discussing a looser policy at this point when markets are roaring and the CPI numbers are still above 3% annually.  This means that Fed officials are not completely stupid.  They are aware of the risks here.  They know that a big crash of the Everything Bubble may be coming.  They know that some kind of a financial crisis in the somewhat near future is quite possible.

If they didn’t believe these things, then there would be no need to even talk about lowering rates.  They would be insistent that monetary policy would be tight until we see a return of 2% annual price inflation.

In 2024, interest rates are still on the low side, historically speaking.  For this generation, they are on the high side.  Interest rates stayed close to zero for quite a while, so they may seem high now.

With the yield curve still inverted, a one-month Treasury bill is paying a yield of about 5.5%.  A 10-year Treasury is yielding about 4.5%.  Mortgage rates are now generally above 7% for a 30-year fixed.

What if you have debt?  With interest rates higher as compared to a couple of years ago, does it make sense to pay off debt?  Does it make more sense to invest the money?

There is not a clear answer on this entire question, but it helps to consider some variables.  The most important thing is what type of debt it is and what the interest rate is on that debt.

If you have credit card debt at 10% or 20%, it would almost always make sense to pay it down or pay it off if you have the money to do so.  There are always exceptions where you might need the money in the near future.  In this scenario, we are assuming you have a generally steady income and there are no extraordinary expenses coming up that you know about or extraordinary opportunities.

It is always good to have some kind of emergency fund, so you almost never want to drain your bank balance down to nothing.  When it comes to credit card debt, it can even make sense to dig into your emergency fund to pay it off.  If you unexpectedly lose your job and need to buy food, you can always use the credit card and go back in debt.

Even with other debt that has a high interest rate (say, 8% or above), it will usually make sense to pay it down, especially as compared to investing.  You can’t get a solid 8% return anywhere in this market unless you have a reliable business.  You might be able to get 8% or more, but those types of investments usually carry the risk that you will lose money.

So, even for student loan debt or car debt, extra money should go towards these things if the interest rate is higher than the yield on the 1-month Treasury (about 5.5%).

A mortgage is a bit trickier, but even here it would make sense to pay down a high-interest mortgage.  But you don’t want to take anything from an emergency fund because you are tying up the money you use to pay down a mortgage, especially if you are not close to paying it off.

Where to Invest?

It is almost never a good idea to invest in stocks or something else that has a decent chance to go down in value when you are carrying significant debt.  If you truly have a near-zero interest rate on some kind of debt, then maybe it makes sense to not pay it early.  But this is not the case with most debt, especially now.

Let’s say you have a car loan with a 4% interest rate.  You can currently earn a yield of approximately 5.5% in a 1-month Treasury bill.  These are about the closest things to a safe investment that exists.  There is the inflation factor, but that doesn’t matter in this example because we are talking about paying a debt with a fixed interest rate versus investing in a Treasury bill.  Inflation will only matter in this example if it impacts the interest rate on the Treasury bills.

In this scenario, it makes sense financially to pay the minimum on the car loan and invest the extra money in 1-month Treasury bills while continuing to roll them over.  Don’t forget you have to pay taxes on the 5.5% “profit”.  So, your return might only be 4.5%, which isn’t much of a difference.  In this case, I would probably just pay off the car loan because that little extra isn’t worth the trouble.

If the yield goes down below 5%, and your after-tax return goes down to about 4%, then it is no longer worth it to invest.  It may not have been worth the hassle at a 4.5% after-tax return.

It is possible the yield could go higher.  Then you could keep rolling over your Treasury investments while paying the minimum payment on your car loan.

Notice I never mentioned investing in stocks or real estate or Bitcoin or gold.  The reason I’m focusing on Treasury bills is because it is a guaranteed return.  You could invest in any of those other things and lose money, let alone not make enough to cover the interest rate on your debt.

Conclusion

There are a lot of nuances in this discussion.  It depends on the debt and the interest rates.  It depends on whether the debt is at a fixed interest rate or is variable.  It depends on your own financial situation and what you see coming in the future.

In general, it still makes sense to pay off most non-mortgage debt as quickly as possible unless you can get a higher return with a U.S. government Treasury bill or some kind of safe investment like a cd with your bank.  Even here, sometimes it just isn’t worth the trouble to go through it, especially after factoring in taxes.

The term “right” is probably overused.  It is certainly overused and abused when talking about having the right to someone else’s labor or property.  You can only have the right to a job or the right to have healthcare by forcing someone else to provide it.

Even when talking about liberty, the term “right” is still not usually the best word to use.  Your rights are only as good as what other people recognize, even if others are wrong.  You can say you have the right to bear arms or the right to free speech, but it doesn’t do much good if others don’t recognize those rights.

Just imagine someone in North Korea or Afghanistan yelling out that they have a right to keep their own property no matter what any government may say.  Maybe they should have a right, but that doesn’t make it so.  If the government and the rest of society don’t recognize that right, then it doesn’t mean much.  It is declaring what should be and not what is.

With that said, it isn’t so much a question of “Do students have the right to protest?” as it is a question of “Should students have the right to protest?”

Private Property Rights

In a free society, property rights would be respected.  There is some semblance of property rights in every country.  Even in North Korea, I assume you can own a toothbrush and not have to share it.

Unfortunately, in every country on the planet, there are also violations of property rights.  This doesn’t just mean being able to own a house.  It also means being able to retain the earnings from your labor.

In the U.S., most colleges and universities are a combination of private and public.  Most of them accept government funding in some way.  The government is also involved in its massive subsidization of student loans.

This makes it easy for the government (federal and state) to have a say about the policies on college campuses.  After all, they are “helped” by the government.  For any libertarian who supports school vouchers, consider this scenario applied to K through 12.

There is actually no correct libertarian answer on whether students should have the right to protest on campus.  It should be up to the owners and administrators of the school to determine the policies and whether protests are allowed.  Unfortunately, that “ownership” goes out the window when the government is involved.

Imagine a privately owned business where a group of employees decide to protest something.  They set up tents on business property and are chanting slogans as other employees go to their job.  Does anyone really think this would be tolerated for long?  In most cases, the employees would probably be told to go back to work or else be fired.  Some of them might just be fired without any chance to go back to their job.

I will acknowledge that there are faults in this analogy.  A college or university isn’t really producing goods and services the way most other businesses do.  They are providing a service to the students in exchange for money.  The students may be hurting themselves by protesting, especially if they aren’t going to class.  As long as they are not disrupting others from going to class, perhaps there is little harm in it.

Hypocrisy

Given that we do live in a statist world where the government funds higher education, it is interesting to look at current protests and how they are being handled.

Most of the protests are against the Israeli state.  They are protesting generally what they see as a genocide in Gaza.  Many of the protests have specific demands for their school, such as not investing in certain weapons manufacturers.  Still, the general sentiment is that they are against the mass bombing, killing, and displacement of the people in Gaza.  And they recognize that the U.S. government is largely funding this.

Despite what the media portrays, most of these protests have been peaceful.  They are not destroying school property or prohibiting others from going to class.  They are generally not using violence.  Most of the violence that has occurred has been after the police get there to break up the protests.

And to be clear, these colleges probably wouldn’t have attempted to break up the protests if it hadn’t been for pressure from the government.

It is hard not to contrast these protests with previous protests.  Think about the BLM protests and riots of 2020.  Cities across America were burning.  There was widespread looting of private businesses.  There was a lot of violence.

Yet, politicians and their establishment media talked about the right to protest while downplaying the rioting and massive property destruction.  In many cases, the police were standing down either because they were scared or they were told to.  It is a lot easier for police to take on a bunch of hippie liberal college students who don’t have any weapons and aren’t really looking for a physical fight.

In other words, it is ok to protest and cause major chaos and destruction as long as it fits the narrative of the establishment.  If you question the sacred state of Israel in its mass killing of civilians, then you must be silenced.  Sure, they will say you have a right to peacefully protest, but the government purposely makes it non-peaceful by sending in the police to cause conflict.

Whenever you have a lot of people in a movement, there are always going to be a few bad apples.  I’m sure there have been a few people who have damaged property and maybe even used a little bit of physical violence or unnecessarily getting in people’s faces.  I’m just saying that most of the people protesting really are peacefully protesting if you think they should have a right to protest on a school campus.  Yet, they are being handled more as rioters.

In 2020, there were peaceful protesters, but rioters were almost everywhere that there were massive protests.  Yet, the rioters were handled more like peaceful protesters as property was destroyed.

Again, it is impossible to not think that this is just hypocrisy.  The situations were handled differently based on the narrative of the protest and what was being protested.

Conclusion

In a libertarian society, the government would have no involvement in higher education or any education.  The policies of the schools would determine whether students had a right to protest on campus.

Given our non-libertarian world, we can recognize that these are legitimate protests and mostly peaceful.  The powers-that-be seem to be handling these protests in a different way from some other protests in the past.

I have no doubt there are some major leftwing lunatics within these protests.  Some of them say stupid things such as demanding food and water for themselves.  It still doesn’t make their main message of stopping the slaughter in Gaza wrong.

Most of the protesters are not protesting Jews, despite what some say or portray.  They are protesting the Israeli state and the U.S. funding of the Israeli state.  This is a big distinction.

It is also curious why some more establishment sources are saying that some of these people are paid protesters from the outside.  It is interesting that they fail to point this out with so many other situations.

Even if George Soros is helping to fund some of these protests, it doesn’t automatically make the message wrong.  Soros has his own agenda of stirring up chaos, but it doesn’t mean that the main message of the protests is wrong.

Libertarians should always encourage a separation of school and state.  But the fact that government is involved in “education” doesn’t change the message of the protests.  Libertarians should support protesting the killing of innocent people as long as the protest is peaceful and doesn’t infringe on the rights of others.

It has been reported that Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to speak at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington D.C.  Trump will speak on Saturday, May 25, 2024.

This has been met with some questioning inside the Libertarian Party and with some libertarians in general.  Some of it is not so much questioning the idea but downright hostility to the idea.

It is not surprising there is resistance.  There are many principled people inside the Libertarian Party.  Many of those principles vary, but some think you shouldn’t play ball with the establishment at all (even though the Libertarian Party is a political party).

Most libertarians will agree that Trump is quite non libertarian in many ways.  But then opinions widely differ on just how bad Trump is and how much he is part of the establishment.

It should be pointed out that supposedly an invitation was extended to Joe Biden to address the convention as well.  It isn’t clear if Robert Kennedy Jr. was extended the same invitation and if he has any plans on attending.  At one point, Kennedy seemed interested in seeking the Libertarian Party nomination – probably for ballot access – but his message hasn’t been all that libertarian since that time.

Of course, they knew that Biden wouldn’t accept.  This is exactly why some libertarians are at least sympathetic to Trump.  His views are all over the place, but at least they differ at times from the official establishment narrative.  What other major presidential candidate of the last 30 years would be willing to address the Libertarian Party in this way?

It is not clear how the format will work and if any questions will be involved.  However, party members will share a list of their top ten issues with Trump in advance.  It will make it interesting to see if Trump sings a different tune on some things.

What is the Goal of the LP?

It is important to ask what the primary goal of the Libertarian Party is, or what it should be?  Your view of inviting Trump may be different depending on this answer.

Some people say that the goal of the Libertarian Party (LP) should be to elect Libertarians into office.  This, by itself, seems like a silly goal because it doesn’t say anything about who is getting elected to office.  The LP could get someone campaigning in favor of Marxism in office, but what kind of victory would that be?

Even if you were electing Libertarians who generally advocate liberty into office, what good would that do if they were ineffective while in office?  And that’s not to say ineffective in passing legislation but just in gaining anything positive for liberty in the long run.

If you are electing Libertarians into office while we don’t gain liberty now or in the long run, then that is no good.  Maybe it’s because the Libertarians are terrible at selling their message outside of their districts.  Or maybe it is because they give up on their principles once in office.  No matter what, electing Libertarians to office only matters if it is a net benefit to liberty.

I believe the real goal of the Libertarian Party should be to advance liberty in our society.  One avenue to do this may be to elect more libertarians into office.  That could be with the Libertarian Party banner or under some other banner.

The more probable strategy for success is educating others on the morality and benefits of liberty and using public opinion to get politicians to do the right thing.

We all know that the eventual nominee for president for the LP is not going to win the general election in 2024.  So, what is the point of running a candidate?  The biggest point I see is that the presidential candidate gets attention and is able to bring awareness to the party and the ideas of liberty.

The biggest success of spreading libertarian ideas from a presidential candidate was from Ron Paul in 2007/ 2008 and again in 2011/ 2012.  This is when he ran as a Republican.  But there have been presidential candidates on the LP ticket who have influenced voters to look at libertarian ideas.

What’s the Harm in Trump Speaking?

I see little downside for Trump to speak at the convention.  There is always a potential downside.  Most gains are made with some risk.

It is certainly possible that Trump gets on the stage and starts saying things that the audience doesn’t like.  It is also likely that there will be some kind of crowd reaction such as booing or head shaking.

It isn’t impossible to imagine Trump saying, “You people are really hard to please.  What do you guys get each election, like 1% or something, if you’re lucky?  I’m sure the smart ones out there will figure out that we need to defeat Biden and follow me.  I don’t care about the rest of you losers.  In fact, I am going to not pardon Julian Assange, and I’m going to increase the power of the Fed as soon as I get back into office.  That’s what you get for booing me.”

Ok.  So that probably won’t happen.  But you could maybe see a lighter variation of something like this taking place.  Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do.  What does the LP have to lose?  We’ll get another welfare/ warfare statist in the White House who doesn’t listen to libertarians?

I don’t believe the party should do wild and crazy things just to get attention and become relevant.  But a former president and the current frontrunner in the coming election is willing to speak at the Libertarian National Convention and possibly listen to libertarian concerns.  Why would you not have him?

Possible Good

This isn’t just a question of giving the Libertarian Party some relevance.  This is an actual opportunity to move Trump in a slightly more libertarian direction, even if it is just being 1% better.

You have to believe that something will come up about pardoning people who have not committed any crimes with victims other than the state.  Trump should be challenged on Assange and Snowden.  He should be challenged on Ross Ulbricht.  He probably doesn’t even know who Ross Ulbricht is.

Trump should know that there is a constituency that doesn’t want a welfare state and also doesn’t want any war with other countries.  He should know that some people don’t believe the U.S. government should be funding Israel, Ukraine or anybody else at all.  Maybe he will learn that it is possible to actually defund or reduce the budgets of some of the agencies that have actively opposed him since 2015.

If the only thing that comes out of Trump’s attendance at the convention is that he pardons Ulbricht or Assange, then that is one major step that libertarian pressure achieved.  It’s always possible that this small constituency influences Trump enough to end the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine or prevent a future war.

I’m not saying that it will happen, but that the upside seems to be far greater than the downside.  When it comes to U.S. politics, things are terrible the way they stand now.

Maybe nothing much will come of Trump’s appearance.  But if libertarians get an opportunity to be heard from the leading presidential candidate, why not take the opportunity?

It isn’t selling out your principles by being heard.  Nobody is asking any Libertarians to support or vote for Trump.  They don’t have to attend his speech if they don’t want to.  It is just a chance to influence someone who is heard by tens of millions of people and may again be in a position of political power.

It would be really interesting if Trump told the audience that if you live in a swing state to consider voting for him to get Biden out.  Again, Libertarian Party members, along with libertarians in general, could choose whether or not to listen to Trump on this.

I’m not sure Trump is wise enough to employ this strategy.  He wants everybody to vote for him.  I hope he realizes that the LP will be nominating their own candidate on that very same weekend that he will be speaking there.

Anyway, it is just another interesting political story in 2024 in the buildup to November.  We are only in May, and it hasn’t been boring so far.

The FOMC released its latest statement on monetary policy.  As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve will maintain its current federal funds target rate between 5.25% and 5.50%.  The market is expecting two rate cuts later this year, but that can change easily depending on what happens with the economy.

Jerome Powell had a press conference afterwards.  It is mostly bureaucratic talk.  Powell generally plays it safe and parses his words.  During the small part of his press conference I heard, Powell was asked a question about how the upcoming election impacts the Fed’s decisions.

Powell assured us that the Fed doesn’t look at politics and only is concerned about the economy and how it impacts the American people.  He said you can look at the transcripts of past meetings, and it is clear that the Fed does not make decisions based on politics.  But why does this mean anything?  Of course they aren’t going to outwardly say anything in a recorded meeting about playing politics.  It doesn’t mean there aren’t conversations off the record, and it doesn’t mean that individuals aren’t factoring politics into their decisions inside their heads.

Powell is one who shows very little emotion.  Yet, when he was answering the question and assuring the reporter that the Fed doesn’t make decisions based on political elections, he seemed to have a smirk on his face.  This doesn’t automatically mean that he was lying, but it was interesting to note.

While the media tends to focus on the direction of interest rates, there was an interesting part of the policy statement where things changed.

Decelerating Monetary Deflation

Up until now, the Fed had been reducing its balance sheet by $95 billion per month, at least according to previous meeting notes.  That was $60 billion in Treasury securities and $35 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBSs).  Despite what anyone was saying, the Fed was in a mode of monetary deflation going back to 2022 when price inflation became a major problem.

Maybe some of the words of Fed officials are dovish.  Maybe interest rates in a free market would be higher than what the Fed is currently allowing.  But in terms of the base money supply, the Fed has been engaging in deflation.

This isn’t stopping yet, but it is slowing.  It is kind of like price inflation.  Price inflation hasn’t stopped, despite what anyone says.  Prices in general are still going up.  They are just going up at a slower pace compared to before.

And so it is with the money supply.  Monetary deflation hasn’t stopped, but the Fed has slowed it down.

According to the Implementation Note with the FOMC statement, beginning on June 1, 2024, the Fed will roll over maturing Treasury securities that exceed $25 billion per month.  In other words, the Fed will allow a $25 billion per month reduction in Treasury securities instead of $60 billion.  The MBSs will continue to roll off at $35 billion per month.

To sum it up, that means the Fed will reduce the base money supply by up to $60 billion per month in total instead of $95 billion per month.  It could be less if there isn’t that much maturing debt in a given month.

To any individual, these are massive amounts of money.  They are relatively small compared to the Fed’s balance sheet that currently sits near $7.4 trillion.  It has come down from a peak just below $9 trillion.

It is doubtful that the Fed’s balance sheet will get much below $7 trillion at this point.  Even though markets have generally been booming (not counting recent weeks), a deliberate policy of monetary deflation eventually brings the party to an end.

I think the central planners know this.  It doesn’t matter what rosy things Powell has to say.  They know that there is a significant risk for a deep recession and some kind of financial crisis.

Why else would they begin to reduce the rate of monetary deflation?  They are admitting that price inflation is still stubbornly above their 2% target rate.  Wouldn’t they keep draining the balance sheet at the previous pace if inflation is still a problem?

The reason is because they are scared of a massive recession.  They are scared that the bubble will burst.  They don’t care if the stock market goes down 10%.  They do care if the stock market goes down by 70% accompanied by a major financial crisis.

Conclusion

The Fed is finally in a tough position.  They were able to get away with massive monetary inflation after the 2008 financial crisis.  Price inflation never got out of control until 2022.

Now the Fed has to play a balancing act of not allowing price inflation to spike back up while also not allowing a major financial crisis.  The only reason they are in this position is because of previous Fed policy.

Even though monetary deflation will be slowed down, it is still monetary deflation.  Mises taught that even a reduced rate of monetary inflation can bring on a bust.  In this case, we still have monetary deflation.  The Everything Bubble could go bust at any time.  And in spite of what Powell says, he would probably prefer that to happen after the election in November.

Congress and Biden recently renewed FISA and warrantless spying.  In fact, they actually added a provision to require every company that provides internet-related services to assist the NSA.  Now the government can tell people to spy and they are not allowed to say anything.  According to the legislation, it seems it would make it legal for the government to instruct your cable guy to spy on you and prohibit him from saying anything.

There is great danger to our liberty with the surveillance state.  It’s not just that the government spies on you.  It’s also that is makes it nearly impossible for any kind of significant reform against the deep state.

The government is collecting billions of emails and text messages, probably in any given day.  The problem for the tyrants is that it is information overload.  They are dealing with so much data that most of it will go unseen by anybody.  Of course, it might not be pleasant for those who are being closely surveilled.

It makes a mockery of our justice system.  The powers-that-be in the federal government can destroy just about anyone that they are determined to destroy.  They could probably destroy Trump, but since he is so well known, they have to do it more delicately.  It seems strange to say because of these blatant attempts to get Trump on anything.  But I do think some of the elitists recognize the danger of just outright killing Trump or throwing him in jail on frivolous charges.

Anyone in favor of liberty should obviously be against government spying, particularly warrantless spying. There shouldn’t be people still around who believe in the myth that it is all to stop terrorism.  Of course, the government will define a mother going to a local schoolboard meeting as a terrorist.  They will define anyone who opposes certain official narratives as a terrorist.  So, by the government’s own definitions, perhaps they really are spying to stop terrorism if by terrorism they mean anyone who threatens the tyrannical powers of the deep state.

How Do We Get Reform?

Perhaps the even bigger problem is that is makes it almost impossible to achieve significant reform in this area without the whole system blowing up.

There are some people who enter Congress who actually want to do the right thing.  The power inevitably goes to their head, but it doesn’t make everyone in Congress completely evil.  The problem is that they can’t reform the system even if they wanted to.

When you think of Epstein island, it wasn’t just a child sex trafficking ring.  It was a blackmail scheme.  There were rich and powerful people who go caught up in it.  At that point, they always had to play ball with the establishment.  Otherwise, their lives would be instantly ruined.

It is a joke that nobody other than Epstein and Maxwell have faced charges over this.  The Department of Justice had no problem rounding up over 1,000 people who were on Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021 and prosecuting them, yet they just can’t seem to find anyone guilty from Epstein’s island.

Trump appointed Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor.  Acosta originally oversaw the easy treatment of Epstein (the first time) in 2007/ 2008.  Acosta said that he was told not to go any farther with Epstein because he belonged to “intelligence”.  Why is nobody from Congress demanding that Acosta testify and explain exactly who told him that?

The people in Congress are terrified of the intelligence agencies.  As Chuck Schumer accurately said about Donald Trump, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

There are many evil people in Congress who don’t want the right things for the country.  But there are some who aren’t evil but are not able to confront the intelligence agencies and the spying state.  What’s worse than someone in Congress who is in on the evil is someone in Congress who is afraid to confront the evil.  With the latter, it shows little hope of ever reforming the system for the better because there is nobody in there who can be replaced with someone who will do it.

Imagine if a group of people in Congress put forth legislation to abolish the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA.  How long would it take for at least some of these members of Congress to find themselves in trouble with the law?  They would be facing the Trump treatment.  Who really wants to go through that?

You can see the problem here.  How do we ever rid ourselves of this evil if there is barely anybody willing to face it?  It is completely understandable why nobody wants to take on the deep state.  It is called self-preservation.  We see what happened to Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.

If it was just a matter of getting rid of some corrupt congressmen, that would seem like a doable task.  How do we get rid of the deep state characters who are truly evil who will punish anyone who threatens their power?

Conclusion

It’s not that there is no hope for the future.  There are ways for the evil people in power to at least lose power if not brought to justice.  The only real hope is that a large percentage of the population becomes aware of the evils being perpetrated upon them.

In 1985, it looked like the Soviet Union would last for a long time.  Yet, in 1989, it started to crumble.  A couple of years later, it ended.  Miraculously, it ended peacefully for the most part.

The worst of the criminals of the Soviet empire were never made to pay for their crimes.  Some of them probably went off into hiding with a lot of money.  But at least they lost power.  Sometimes a system can seem unbeatable even though it is not sustainable.

We can’t rely on people with political power to remove power from the tyrants.  But if enough people stop consenting to the system, it is possible to get changes for the better.

If you are an American, there is a lot to be pessimistic about with the state of the country.  Some will say it’s time to get out of America while you can.  America has seen its peak, and it’s time to move on to greener pastures.

How is America doing?

Perhaps it is like the old joke, “How’s your wife?”  Answer: “Compared to what?”

America has a lot of problems.  The national debt is beyond ridiculous.  The government at all levels spends almost half of our income.  The U.S. government spies on American citizens and has weaponized the “justice” system against dissidents.  They are trying their best to censor speech that goes against the official narrative.  The wars and interventions overseas continue.  And all this while the culture degrades with more crime, more homelessness, and a sizable portion of the young population thinking they need to choose their gender.

How is America doing?  Compared to what?

There are many reasons to get out, and they go beyond the reasons listed above.  Still, the grass is always greener on the other side.  There isn’t a place on earth that doesn’t have major problems.  And some of them are quite similar to what we see in America.

Getting Your Priorities Straight

All people are different.  Therefore, different people will have different priorities.  This even goes for libertarians.  You could have two libertarians who want a free society but want very different things.  Maybe the first guy just really wants to be able to legally do drugs.  The second guy hates drugs but doesn’t want to pay any taxes.  They should make their choice of where to live based on their priorities.

If you want to do drugs, you aren’t going to move to Singapore.  But if you want to open up a business and pay less in taxes, maybe Singapore is a good option.

If you want low crime, maybe you want a place like Switzerland.  But then you have to consider its high cost of living and also that it may be hard to get residency there.

If you want to homeschool your children, then you probably don’t want to go to a place like Germany or some other place where it is illegal or very difficult to do.  If you care about owning a handgun, then you probably want to stay away from Canada.

Of course, there is just the lifestyle too, which doesn’t always have to do directly with liberty.  Some people want city life, even if it is more expensive, while others want a rural setting.  Some people want to ski, while some people prefer a tropical paradise.

The point is that it is hard to tell anyone that they should move out of the U.S. if they seek greater liberty.  It depends on the subjective preferences of each individual.  Some people would have trouble surviving on the food served in certain countries.

The Good Old U.S.A.

It is easy to criticize the U.S., or more accurately, the U.S. government.  Of course, just about every government is highly corrupt.  The problem in the U.S. is that Americans are very wealthy (comparatively speaking), so the U.S. government has a lot of resources at its disposal to cause chaos and destruction.  The good news is that Americans are still able to retain some of those resources to fight back.

In spite of the U.S. government, there are many positive things Americans have that most foreign countries don’t.  You still mostly have the right to bear arms in the U.S.  We like to credit the 2^nd Amendment, but it is really that we have a culture of being armed.

In the U.S., it is mostly legal to homeschool with very little oversight.  The bureaucrats might not like it this way, but there are so many homeschooling families now that it would be hard to make it illegal at this point.

The U.S. still has a certain rugged individualism left in the culture that doesn’t exist elsewhere.  There is also an entrepreneurial spirit that doesn’t exist in many places.  Even though there is a massive welfare state, a rags-to-riches story is still looked upon positively.  Those with great wealth are not generally demonized.  Perhaps the elitists who have great wealth who try to rule over us should be demonized, but that’s another subject.

Even though the U.S. government tries to tell Facebook, Google, and establishment media sources what to say, they cannot control everything.  They are trying to ban TikTok, which will likely just backfire on the establishment as it enrages tens of millions of people.  The more they try to censor, the more we hear from people like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson who do not want to repeat the establishment narratives.

There is no doubt a great fight of good against evil.  The good news is that more people have awoken to the evil that is out there.  Many conservatives no longer trust the FBI and the CIA.  Many are questioning foreign policy and the military-industrial complex.  This is positive news.

There seems to be more fighting than ever, but that is because Americans are not obeying as much as they did a generation ago.  If the hostage doesn’t put up a fight with his kidnapper, then everything looks peaceful from a distance.  When the hostage puts up a fight and is about to escape, then things can look very unpleasant from a distance.  They are quite unpleasant, and in some ways, it would be easier for the hostage to go along.  But when people are pushed enough, sometimes they “enough” and no longer obey.  We may be entering that stage.  It won’t be a pleasant time, but the risk may be worth it to gain liberty in the future.

I was recently in Fort Myers Beach, Florida for a short time.  The beach on the Gulf of Mexico is beautiful.  One thing I did not expect is just how much the city is still recovering from Hurricane Ian, which was just short of being a category 5 hurricane when hitting shore.

There were many condos and apartments on the beach that were vacant.  The windows were boarded up if there were windows at all.  The hurricane hit in September 2022.  Over a year and a half later and they are still not even close to being back to normal.

There was massive flooding, as well as wind damage.  All of the buildings I saw on the beach that weren’t new would have been underwater during the storm, or at least the entire first floor would have been.

I spoke to someone who lived just north of Fort Myers.  He said that houses that had a certain amount of damage had to be torn down and rebuilt to new code.  In other words, you could have a house that could be fixed for far less than the cost of a new house, but it won’t get fixed.

The government has the building codes that have to be followed, but the insurance companies are really part of the determination.  It wouldn’t make sense to pour $50,000 to fix a house and then have another storm come along and do the same damage again.  I don’t know, but I expect new houses have to be built on stilts or be raised somehow to not get flooded in the main living area.

Some people think that the government building codes are good and necessary.  But this is just government hopping on board the parade.  If anything, government distorts things by often subsidizing insurance for places being built in high-risk areas.

Strict building codes in the United States are only possible because of the wealth that Americans have.  When there is an earthquake in a third-world country, you see massive devastation.  Sometimes there are thousands of people dead.  In the U.S., you might have just a few deaths from a similar incident.

You could implement these strict building codes in a third-world country, but if they were strictly obeyed then almost nobody would have a place to live.  It wouldn’t be possible to build houses to a strict code with the lack of capital.

In a free market economy, insurance companies would set the standards.  They wouldn’t be willing to insure a house made out of sticks near the beach.  In addition, a mortgage company wouldn’t be willing to lend money to someone using a stick house as collateral.  You would be free to buy land and build a stick house, but it’s not likely anyone would loan you the money to do it, and nobody would give you insurance.

Voluntary Action

One of the problems with government interference right after a disaster hits is that it is typical to have so-called anti price gouging laws.  In other words, sellers are not allowed to sell products for what they are worth in the market.

If you have a shortage of bottled water and generators, the last thing you want to do is prevent sellers from raising prices.  You need higher prices to help meet consumer demand.  You want to give buyers an incentive to conserve, and you want to give sellers an incentive to direct more supply to that area.

As with anything, the only role of government should be to protect people’s lives and property from aggression.  If there are evacuation orders, they should be voluntary.  They technically usually are voluntary.  It’s just that you won’t get emergency services during the storm if you are in trouble.

It is probably difficult to get contractors after the storm is over and the recovery begins.  You think about this one small area, and all of a sudden there is a massive increase in demand for roofers, plumbers, electricians, and other contractors.  Again, if you allow higher prices, it gives incentive for workers to go to that area.

It was kind of sad to see the place so long after the storm hit.  It was a beautiful day on the beach, and I even spotted a dolphin swimming near shore.  So, it was mixed emotions.  There was one building that looked nice that was occupied, probably with tourists.  I have no idea if it was a new building or if it was fixed up from the storm.  I was just surprised how many buildings were still sitting empty.

I heard that there were restaurants that used shipping containers to serve food.  I also heard that a new Margaritaville restaurant had opened up.  There were some shops that were open.  There was definitely activity, so it’s not as if the city is dead and not coming back.  Farther inland was busy.  If you were far enough inland to avoid significant flooding, then this is the big difference maker.  It is usually the difference between a livable and unlivable house.

The nice thing to see is people coming together.  We talk about voluntary action of people exchanging goods and services using money.  The reality is that when there is a disaster, people do come together and help each other.  They will give up their own time and resources in many cases to help their neighbor.

Conclusion

There are always disasters in life.  Government interference usually makes them worse.

It is possible for government to direct money to disaster areas.  This may or may not help.  But this has never made sense to me because there are many people who suffer tragedy who get nothing.

Why did the families of the victims on 9/11 get money?  This almost seemed like an admission of guilt from the government.  But it was to show how much politicians can care with other people’s money.  You could die of a disease or an accident, and your family isn’t getting anything from the government.  You depend on insurance and charity, if anything.

In spite of government, it is good to see people come together on a voluntary basis and make things better.  The hurricane gets covered by the news media well when it happens, and then everybody not in that area forgets about it.  The people in Fort Myers Beach haven’t forgotten.  Some of them have moved to other areas.  But there is still a spirit of recovering and getting back to normal with buildings that will be stronger than before.  This would have happened without building codes.

Now that Mike Johnson has been Speaker of the House for nearly 6 months, it might be a good idea to take a look at how he is doing for liberty.  In Johnson’s case, perhaps it is more accurate to say that we should take a look at how he is doing against liberty.

I wrote a post on October 27, 2023 titled “Will A New House Speaker Make a Difference?”  It’s hard to say for sure at this point if it has made any significant difference, but so far the answer seems to be “no”.

Mike Johnson is a total neocon.  He pretends to be a Christian and uses his religion to promote more war and U.S. government intervention overseas.  He is now fully in support of funding Ukraine (i.e., more war and death in Ukraine).  He is, of course, fully on board supporting the funding of Israel and its mass bombing campaign against the people in Gaza.

Just like Nikki Haley, who claims to be a fiscal conservative, Johnson is not a fiscal conservative.  How can you be when you want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on war?  Is there ever an ending to funding overseas adventures for these people?  The question answers itself.

Johnson can pretend he’s a fiscal conservative like Haley, but it means nothing.  It is just a lie.  The deficit is completely out of control, but Johnson keeps supporting the massive spending coming out of Congress.

Johnson has now helped pass an extension to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  This allows the government to spy on people, including Americans, without a warrant.  At this point, you could say that Johnson is bad on every single important issue.

Dump Johnson

Rand Paul recently said that he’s not sure if there’s a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and Democrats being in charge.  I’m not so sure at this point either.

Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a warning to Johnson about the possibility of removing him as Speaker, just as they did to Kevin McCarthy.  So far, Johnson has seemed to ignore any warnings and continues on his statist ways.

Johnson has more leverage at this point than McCarthy did.  Are the Republicans really going to toss out Johnson now for another statist?  They also risk losing the Republican majority.

The Republicans in Congress are mostly either stupid or evil.  Some of them are both.  They expelled someone in their own party because he lied, yet Santos was probably more honest in a sense than most people in Congress.  Why would they stupidly get rid of someone who voted with them?  Perhaps it actually benefits someone like Johnson who can use it as leverage to keep in power since the Republican majority is so thin now.

When Thomas Massie opposed removing Kevin McCarthy as speaker, I couldn’t quite figure out why he had that position.  I could understand his position from a strategic reason, but I still thought it was better to toss out a statist even if he is replaced by another statist.

I have to admit at this point that Massie was probably correct, strategically speaking.  McCarthy is terrible, but I don’t think he would have been any worse the last 6 months as Johnson has been.

It will be interesting if Matt Gaetz and company try to get rid of Johnson.  I have a feeling Gaetz is ready to give up.  He took a lot of heat for standing up against McCarthy, and now we have another tyrant in the position.  I’m sure there are days he just shakes his head in disbelief.  It’s not that Gaetz is a libertarian, but he is certainly more pro liberty than most of the people in Congress.

It is interesting that, as Marjorie Taylor Greene threatens to vacate Johnson from his position, Donald Trump is defending Johnson.  This is not a good sign from Trump.  This is where he was at his worst in his 4 years as president.  He supports people who are authoritarians.  When Johnson one day stabs Trump in the back, he’ll get angry and act surprised.  It kind of shows how naïve Trump can be at times.

It is easy to say that Trump is just a statist himself, so of course he supports Johnson.  But then why do most of these statists oppose Trump?  Some of them pretend to be on Trump’s side until it is convenient to not be.  This is a bad sign for Trump that he learned nothing.  His running mate will probably also be a statist who will eventually turn on Trump.

Conclusion

Mike Johnson has been a total disaster.  I knew he was bad news from the beginning, but even I underestimated just how bad he would be.  I thought he would at least throw a few bones to the more pro freedom wing of the Republican Party.  Instead, he has thrown a lot more bones to the Democrats and the establishment in general.

2024 is already going to be one for the record books just because of the presidential election and the deep state’s attempt to stop Trump.  Now there is congressional politics in there too.  It seems unlikely that Johnson will hold onto his position for long.  The Republicans may lose the majority anyway because they believe in self sabotage.