The dollar price of gold has hit another all-time high, this time surging past $2,300 per ounce.  I wrote an article on December 4, 2023 when it had gone above $2,000 and very briefly touched $2,100.

This means that gold has gone up about 15% over the last 4 months.  This is quite significant, even though stocks seem to do that with ease these days.

Gold is the only major asset that has not taken part in the Everything Bubble.  Stocks, real estate, and Bitcoin have all exploded in price over the last 5 years.  Bonds had done quite well up until a couple of years ago.  Perhaps oil hasn’t exploded in price, but that is a single commodity.  It is an important one, but it isn’t really representative of an asset class.

Here are my thoughts on gold’s current run and what to look for going forward.

Will Gold Join the Bubble?

• Gold is still not in a bubble.  This is what we should have expected it to do given the higher-than-normal price inflation.
• It should not be surprising if gold has a significant pullback from here.  It may or may not be very temporary.  But it has gone up so fast over the last couple of weeks that a pullback should be expected.
• Gold and mining stocks are finally catching up a little with gold.  They have mostly been in a bear market, even not keeping up with the price of gold.  It seems that these stocks have finally broken through.
• If we hit a recession, all bets are off.  Gold will probably pull back, but not nearly as much as stocks.  If and when the Fed quickly reverses course and starts adding to its balance sheet again (instead of trying to slowly drain it), then gold will likely be a good speculative bet at that point.  It is always a good insurance policy.
• It is interesting that there was one day this week where stocks and Bitcoin were both down in big percentage terms while the price of gold went up.  Bitcoin seems to be more correlated to the Nasdaq than gold, which is quite telling.  I believe it’s because Bitcoin and the Nasdaq stocks are quite speculative.  They are part of the casino game.
• Silver has finally gone up in price, but it is still way off the all-time high.  This is actually the place to speculate for investors in precious metals.  Gold is the rock.  It is more stable.  Silver has more potential to go multiples higher.  It also has the most potential to go significantly lower.  Central banks don’t buy silver.  They do buy gold.
• Maybe CNBC will finally start to show the price of gold more instead of constantly showing the price of Bitcoin.  As I’ve said, I don’t really blame CNBC for doing this, as they are just responding to consumer demand.

I have grown even more jaded with politics, if that was even possible.  It’s not that I’m bored with the subject, as I find it interesting.  It’s that I don’t trust anyone in political office or seeking political office to do the right thing.

To be sure, I am not someone who just throws up their hands and proclaims, “They’re all the same.”  They aren’t all the same.  This was shown during COVID.  Every governor was bad to some degree, but some were worse than others.

Still, I have entertained the argument that as long as we live in an unfree society, we should work within the system to the degree possible to make things better, even if it isn’t directly advancing liberty.

For example, let’s take the government schools.  Let’s say there are schools that are teaching kids that you can choose to be whatever gender you want in life and not even your parents can tell you otherwise.  I, personally, think this is quite destructive of society and children’s minds.  It is quite evil in many ways, especially in the harm it can cause children, whether the people teaching it know it or not.

I don’t want to be the libertarian who says, “Well, it’s better to let it happen so that others can see how awful the system is and we can abolish it sooner.”  I understand the argument, but I’m not sure it is correct.  First, we don’t really know that making things worse will lead to a better outcome in the longer run.  It is the same situation with a fiscal collapse.

Second, what about the individual child who has irreversible harm done to them?  This could be psychological harm or actual physical changes that are not reversible.  Am I going to give this person a lecture on the immorality of government schools when they are older?  That won’t do them much good then, even if it does resonate.

On the other hand, I don’t want to be a libertarian who comprises on everything in an attempt to make things just a little bit better in our corrupt system.

There has to be some kind of mix of trying to help the children of right now while simultaneously continuing to call for the abolishing of government schools.  Maybe there is an order of getting the federal government out of the way first and then moving on to the state governments, but even here I’m not so sure.

Government Property

Ron DeSantis has done some good things in Florida.  His opponents of the left like to smear him for banning books.  In most cases, DeSantis didn’t actually ban the books they are proclaiming that he did.  DeSantis did remove some pornographic material from government libraries, which includes government school libraries.  It is rather ridiculous to hear someone who says these things shouldn’t be banned.  It is like hearing a supposed free speech advocate saying that a teacher should be able to curse and say whatever they want in front of the third-grade class.

This wouldn’t be allowed in most private schools, and for good reason.  So, I don’t think it is unreasonable for a libertarian to say that as long as there are government institutions, there should be reasonable rules and etiquette that is standard in society.  I don’t think a homeless drug addict should be able to take up residence in the local library or a school classroom because they are “publicly owned”.

At the same time, libertarians should continue to call for the abolishment of government schools and government libraries.  If we never state our ultimate objective, how can we ever hope to achieve it?  How can we ever get others to think the same thoughts if they don’t ever hear them?

Politicians, One Disappointment After Another

Just about everyone is a disaster in politics these days.  Ron DeSantis just signed legislation in Florida that bans social media for anyone under 14.  It requires parental consent for 14 and 15 year olds.  I’m glad that Ron DeSantis thinks he knows how to parent my children better than I do.

Is DeSantis worried that young minds are getting corrupted by social media?  Trust me, Ron, they are getting far more corrupted in the institutions called government schools that you will never advocate abolishing.  It is the babysitter for America.  It is the biggest welfare program for middle-class America.

DeSantis was already a disaster in his run for president.  His foreign policy was, unsurprisingly, horrific from a libertarian standpoint.  Now he has resurrected his authoritarianism in the state of Florida.  I am happy I lived in Florida through the COVID craziness because he was less bad than most other governors, but he still locked down.

There was one state that didn’t have statewide lockdowns, and that was South Dakota.  It’s hard to say how much of a role Kristi Noem had in this.  But even she has been terrible lately.

She is joining the anti-free speech movement in South Dakota by declaring it illegal to criticize Jews.  Actually, it might be much worse than this, as it could be interpreted as a crime to criticize the state of Israel.  So, the least authoritarian governor when it came to COVID has shown her authoritarianism in other ways.

In the presidential race, it is a total disaster outside of the Libertarian Party.  We already know that Biden is a criminal in almost every way, and virtually everything he does is destructive of society.

There was some hope that Robert Kennedy Jr. would be significantly better.  He is something of an old-school Democrat.  He seemed to be the only possible path to some normalcy in the United States in 2025.  We all know that if Biden or Trump is elected in November, there is going to be chaos no matter what.

RFK Jr. has been really good on Ukraine.  He knows the history well.  He seemed like an actual anti-war candidate.  Then Israel happened.  He has gone all-in on supporting the funding of Israel and the Israeli state’s mass bombing of Gaza.

He previously went on Dave Smith’s show and they argued about it for at least an hour.  RFK then proceeded to offer Dave the VP slot on his ticket.  Since Dave declined, RFK decided to go another route and choose Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.

So, instead of having a principled libertarian as his running mate, RFK decided to pick a leftwing lawyer who was briefly married to one of the founders of Google.  She really sounds like a woman of the people.

Trump is probably the least disappointing at this point.  Maybe it’s because he is always inconsistent in his views and I don’t have high expectations of him anyway.

Still, his inconsistent views are better than the consistent views of the authoritarians.  Trump doesn’t even make sense when talking about Israel, but at least it is something different.  He just says things like, “If I’m president, then things will be great.  We’ll make sure to bring peace.”

He won’t say that he will cut off all funding to Israel or Ukraine.  At the same time, he doesn’t repeat the establishment narratives.  So, there is at least a little hope that Trump will be better on these issues.  Of course, if he is elected and allowed to take office again, the establishment is going to stir up major chaos domestically, perhaps more than we have ever seen.

Conclusion

I will most likely vote for the Libertarian Party candidate in November, unless Trump picks a really good running mate like Tucker Carlson.  I encourage other libertarians to do the same, especially if they live in a solid red or blue state.

Regardless of what you think is the best political strategy (even if that means not participating), I think libertarians need to be reminded to often repeat and explain the libertarian position on any issue.  I write this to remind myself.

If the issue is immigration, education, welfare, war, or any number of issues, there may be some non-libertarian solutions on the table that nonetheless make our society a little better.  It is hard to deal with these problems in a statist world.  Do we support building a wall?  Do we support another state in Gaza to bring temporary peace?  Do we support telling teachers what they can and can’t teach in government schools?  Do we support setting aside money for Social Security even though it is welfare?

It’s one of those things where I can ask 10 different libertarians these questions and get 11 different answers.  There are no easy answers for libertarians within the realm of a statist society.

The important thing is to state your principles.  If you want the government to build a wall, you emphasize the importance of ultimately having property privately owned and having secure property rights.  If you want teachers to stop teaching destructive things to children, you still emphasize that government shouldn’t be in the business of owning and running education systems.

You can always emphasize the libertarian solutions within a libertarian world, even if you support some state measures in between in order to make society a little more civilized in the meantime.

It is unbelievable how we get accustomed to the new normal.  In this case, the amount of government spending compared to a decade ago is staggering.  And it was quite staggering a decade ago just how much the government – particularly the federal government – was spending.

The latest budget proposal from the Biden handlers is for a total of $7.3 trillion.  That is just a ridiculous sum.  As usual, it is filled with corruption, waste, funding things that degrade our society, funding the military-industrial complex, and so much more.  But even if all of that money was being used in an attempt to help the American people, it would still be just an outrageous sum.

There are about 340 million people living in the United States.  If you take every man, woman, and child, that comes to over $21,000 per person.  That doesn’t include state and local government spending.  And a one-year-old baby isn’t going to be paying any taxes.

There are about 130 million American households.  That means that it costs the average household about $56,000 per year to fund the federal government.  Is your household getting $56,000 worth of “services” from the federal government?  The question answers itself.

To be sure, it is appropriate to say that all households ultimately fund the government.  Corporations pay taxes, but ultimately these taxes are paid for by employees, owners, shareholders, and consumers.  These are all individuals.

Imagine

I think back to Harry Browne’s book called The Great Libertarian Offer.  He proposed getting rid of the federal income tax.  He asked what you would do if you had an extra $10,000 per year.  Would you save more for retirement?  Would you take that vacation for your family that you always dreamed of?  Would you give money to your favorite charity and make a difference?

In today’s world, it might just mean paying off some debt.  Maybe it would mean homeschooling your children.  Maybe it would mean getting a new roof for your house.  It could be just taking the edge off of life and being more flexible.  It might mean less stress and anxiety for many people.

Of course, today’s numbers would be far bigger than $10,000.  Let’s say the federal budget were cut in half.  What would your household do with an extra $25,000 per year?  Some of that might come in the form of lower prices, but it would still be real.  It would be resources that the government wasn’t consuming and misallocating.

When Does This Insanity End?

Neither of the major parties is serious about getting any control of the federal budget.  They can’t even come close to a balanced budget, meaning one that doesn’t run a massive deficit.  The debt just keeps piling up.

To reduce the budget, or to just stop increasing it, would be politically impossible in today’s world.  The American people say they want less government and less government spending, but they almost never support the few people who say they want to make deep cuts in the budget.  The easiest place to cut would be in foreign affairs, but the politicians want to keep funding Ukraine and everything else under the sun.  Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough pushback yet from the American people.

I think the insane spending is going to end only when it can’t feasibly go on any longer.  The budget won’t be reduced politically, but it may be reduced because of the laws of economics.  It will come to a point that the debt just can’t go any higher because the government won’t even be able to pay the interest on the debt.  The only way they will be able to is by creating new money, which then will risk massive inflation.

There will be an end to this madness, but it isn’t going to come about in an orderly way.  It is going to be chaotic, and there will be quite a bit of pain associated with it.  But there is a lot of pain now for middle-class America anyway, so it is better that they hit the fiscal wall sooner rather than later.

We need a massive reduction in the size and scope of government, particularly at the federal level.  Only then will Americans see a significant increase in living standards.

The Federal Open Market Committee met this week and released its latest statement on monetary policy.  The Fed maintained its federal funds target range between 5.25% and 5.50%.

It is expected that the Fed will start cutting its target rate in June and have a total of 3 cuts in 2024.  This is in spite of price inflation remaining stubbornly above the Fed’s supposed target of 2%.

It is even more curious that they are expecting more growth than originally anticipated, yet they are still planning on rate cuts.  It’s not that we should believe the establishment narrative that the Fed needs to “cool” the economy when it gets “overheated”.  But the Fed’s own narrative now seems to contradict its other narratives.  If GDP is going to be higher than expected, and price inflation is still stubbornly high, then why is the Fed talking about rate cuts in the near future?

The only explanation I can see is that the Fed is terrified of a massive recession.  Some will probably speculate that they are doing it because it is an election year, but I really don’t think that is it.  That doesn’t explain why the Fed somewhat aggressively raised rates last year.

They really are looking for a Goldilocks scenario where price inflation isn’t too high but the economy is still roaring.

Financial Assets Explode

It is even more curious on the Fed’s rate cutting anticipation as the stock market hits all-time highs.  The S&P 500 has hit new highs several times recently, and it did so again after the Fed announcement.  The Dow is about to hit 40,000 for the first time.  Bitcoin has exploded to new all-time highs before having a bit of a pullback.  Even gold, where there has been no mania, is hitting new all-time nominal highs.  It has now breached the $2,200 per ounce mark.

So, let’s assess what’s going on here.

We are in a massive Everything Bubble where major assets are hitting new all-time highs.  Price inflation is still stuck above the 2% mark.  Meanwhile, the Fed is saying that it plans to lower its target rate several times this year.

It’s almost as if they want the biggest asset implosion in history.  “Hey, we’ve loaded this building with dynamite and gasoline and it hasn’t blown yet.  We should just pile up some more dynamite.  I’m sure it will be fine.”

Rate Cuts With Monetary Deflation?

There is one contradictory thing about the Fed’s policy itself, aside from what was mentioned above.  The Fed is talking about rate cuts in the future, which will return us somewhere close to real zero interest rates (adjusted for inflation).  But the Fed is still deflating.

The Implementation Note that goes with the statement still says that the Fed will reduce its holdings of $95 billion per month.  That’s $60 billion of Treasury securities and $35 billion of mortgage-backed securities.

Why is the Fed deflating its balance sheet while simultaneously implying a coming rate cut?  Now that the Fed pays interest on bank reserves, apparently it has no problem implementing this seemingly contradictory policy.

It’s hard to say how long this bubble will keep going, but apparently the Fed wants it to last a bit longer.  Maybe they anticipate a Trump victory and want the whole thing to come crashing down on his watch.

When the markets are roaring like this, it draws people in.  They don’t want to miss out.  It seems like it will just keep going higher.  Almost everyone is ignoring the inverted yield curve because it has been inverted for over a year and nothing has happened.

And nothing will happen, until it does.

Electoral politics in 2024 is not going to lack excitement, if that’s the right word.  Well, it won’t be boring.  But the primaries have been boring.  The major party nominees were basically already in place at the beginning of the year.

It was obvious that Joe Biden would be essentially unopposed in the Democratic Party.  The establishment made sure of that.  If Biden isn’t the nominee, it sure won’t be decided by the electorate.  It will be decided by the party elite and announced around the convention.

Trump was obvious for other reasons.  There were Republican debates, but Trump wisely didn’t participate.  Even though some of the media tried to create some drama and give it coverage, it was rather clear at the beginning of January 2024 that Trump was the easy favorite for the nomination.  This is why it was foolish for DeSantis to ever try this year.

There is more drama within the Libertarian Party, as it really isn’t clear who will get the nomination.  There was talk about Robert Kennedy Jr. trying to get the nomination, presumably for ballot access, but that isn’t likely to happen at this point.  Plus, there probably aren’t a lot of libertarians within the party who would be willing to compromise on RFK, as he obviously isn’t a libertarian.

There are happenings in the arena in politics that will certainly impact the general election.  The powers-that-be are trying to throw Trump in jail, or bankrupt him, or do anything they can to keep him off the ballot.  They are quite determined to try anything to keep him away from the White House again.

But it is interesting that another piece of political drama that has popped up is that of the running mates.  I have said that I will not vote for Trump if he picks someone establishment as his running mate.  I will consider voting for him, even though there are many areas where I disagree, if he picks someone that the establishment opposes as much as him.

Anyway, aside from the question of whether Biden gets replaced this summer, perhaps the biggest political drama over the next few months will be the picks for vice president.  If Biden remains the nominee, then Kamala Harris will likely remain the nominee as his running mate.  It would be difficult politically to throw her aside at this point.

Vice Presidential Contenders

One name that is supposedly on Trump’s consideration list is Tulsi Gabbard.  It is interesting that I have also heard her mentioned as a possible running mate for RFK.  It seems unlikely that the same person would be mentioned as a possible running mate for two different presidential candidates in the same race.

If Trump picked Tulsi, it would give me some assurance that there is hope for a less interventionist foreign policy.  Tulsi is no libertarian when it comes to foreign policy.  She has her issues.  But she is seemingly far better than what we have gotten over the last many decades from major party nominees.

It is hard to believe that Tulsi was running as a Democrat just 4 years ago.  In fact, she is the one who took down Kamala Harris in the debates.  I don’t think Kamala is looking forward to a rematch in a vice presidential debate.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Trump is going to pick Vivek Ramaswamy or Tucker Carlson or anyone like them.  I think Tulsi is probably the best we can realistically hope for.  Any establishment pick like Tim Scott will just tell us that Trump didn’t learn anything from 4 years in office and that he will continue to surround himself by people who hate him.

Even more interesting than Trump’s contender list is RFK’s contender list.  RFK appeared on Dave Smith’s podcast and offered him the spot.  Then they argued for over an hour about Israel and Gaza, and then RFK proceeded to repeat his offer to Dave.  It looks like Dave Smith has declined the offer because of their opposing views on the Israeli state.

Next, we heard that Jesse Ventura and Aaron Rodgers are on the short list for RFK.  This is encouraging in some respect because it shows the RFK is still running a somewhat anti-establishment campaign in spite of his position on supporting funding for Israel.

Jesse Ventura literally had a show on conspiracy theories, including an interesting one where he met some lady who warned about the government trying to cull the population with vaccines.  He would be a good insurance policy for RFK.

Talk of Aaron Rodgers doesn’t even seem to make sense.  He is still playing football.  I don’t think he can continue to play for the Jets and run a campaign.  I see the appeal of having him, and the two share similar skepticism of vaccines.

I like Aaron Rodgers, which is partially why I hope he doesn’t get into politics.  If he is forced to take certain political positions, I will probably like him a lot less.

It is also interesting that as soon as his name came up, some establishment hack accused him of saying that he believed the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.  It is complete hearsay.  I think this was a shot across the bow for Aaron Rodgers.  If he gets into a presidential race, he is going to face relentless attacks from the media.  He should definitely be prepared for this if he does decide to accept an offer to run with RFK, but that is looking highly unlikely now.

Conclusion

I think RFK is going to pick an interesting running mate no matter what.  He really does fear for his life, and rightly so.  The best protection is finding someone at least as anti-establishment as him.  Still, we don’t know if RFK will be allowed in the debates, even though he is polling around 10%.

Trump’s VP pick will be interesting initially.  It will tell us whether he might actually change anything of significance other than rhetoric.  I think Tulsi would actually be a decent pick, as at least it would give us some hope for reducing the American empire overseas.

There is no Biden pick.  The only pick is coming from the establishment and whether they decide to keep Biden out there as the nominee.  He is deeply unpopular.  They will go with whomever they think has the best chance at beating Trump, whether fairly or not.

The legislation attempting to ban TikTok in the United States is unconstitutional, immoral, and tyrannical.  It is a violation of property rights and free speech.

The Biden regime has done many bad things.  This legislation would probably make the top 5 list of bad things done by the federal government since January 2021.  The funding of wars, killing of innocent people, and vaccine mandates were worse.

This legislation to ban TikTok is considered to be bipartisan.  Whenever anything is called bipartisan in Washington, it means it is bad for the average American.  This is no exception.

Every single person in Congress who votes in favor of this legislation should be voted out of office.  It is an egregious violation of the rights of Americans.  In the name of national security, it forces the sale or divestment of TikTok by Chinese holders or else the app/ website will be banned in the United States.  It has been pointed out that the Chinese ownership (not the Chinese government) is a minority stake in the company, not that it should matter.

You can look at a list of the votes in Congress.  All of the tyrants who support this legislation should be tossed.  There are disappointments like Lauren Boebert and Anna Paulina Luna, who voted “yes”.  They should be tossed.

Some of the people considered more right wing and left wing voted the right way.  Some notable “no” votes are Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, Barbara Lee, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Some of the reasoning behind voting “no” was not necessarily the correct reasoning, but at least they got the vote right.  It is hard to speak of property rights and free speech directly when you don’t typically make these arguments with all of the other horrible things done in Washington.

This legislation will not only impact TikTok, but it gives something close to a blank check to the president to ban any app or website that could be considered under the influence or control of a foreign entity.  For this reason alone, all Republicans should have opposed this legislation.  All we hear from the establishment Democrats is that this or that person is under the thumb of Putin.

With this legislation, it is not at all out of the realm of possibility that the president could get rid of Twitter or Rumble or any platform hosting anyone who supposedly spreads “Russian disinformation”.  The president could effectively ban people like Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson.

National Security?

TikTok is especially popular with young people.  Some people have the false impression that TikTok is just people doing little dance videos.  Maybe it started out this way primarily, but it has become a huge platform for communication and conveying information.  Like any platform, some information is more informative and accurate than other information.

Even if the Chinese government had access to information coming from TikTok, how is this a national security issue?  What are they going to do with an American’s email address after signing up?  Or is the Chinese government going to use information based on the viewing habits of the American people?  And what exactly will be done with this information that is any different from YouTube or Facebook or Google?

Actually, the companies other than TikTok are a far bigger threat to the American people.  These are the companies that the federal government controls.  And that is just the point.  Biden and company can tell YouTube and Facebook to censor vaccine misinformation or any other information (i.e., information that is likely true that opposes the establishment narrative).  They don’t have this control over TikTok.  That is the key behind all of this.

It is rather rich coming from the criminals in Washington that China may use information from TikTok to harm our national security.  It is the National Security Agency (NSA) that collects all of our information including text messages and email messages.  It is the NSA, FBI, CIA and other agencies that collect our data and use it against the American people.

The Chinese government never told me that I would lose my job if I didn’t take an injection in my arm.  The Chinese government doesn’t take nearly half of my money every year.  The Chinese government doesn’t read my emails and text messages.  Maybe the Chinese government does that to the Chinese, but that is the business of the people in China to deal with.  The big threat to Americans is the U.S. government, particularly the so-called intelligence agencies.  They are the criminals who commit crimes and injustices against the American people.

National security is the excuse to attempt to ban TikTok.  The problem for the American criminals in Washington isn’t that TikTok is partially owned by Chinese companies.  The problem for the criminals is that they can’t control it, and they can’t control the information that is coming out of it.  A teenager on TikTok might actually learn that the COVID “vaccines” aren’t safe and effective.  They may learn that the U.S. helped foment a coup in Ukraine in 2014 that led to the current war.

Property Rights and Free Speech

At its core, this is an issue of property rights and free speech.  The two are often intertwined.  Any legislation targeting a particular person or company is almost always bad.  This is a violation of property rights.  The owners of TikTok should at least have their day in court.  If they are jeopardizing national security, then the government should have to prove their case against TikTok.  Of course, there is no case based on the talking points being repeated by the establishment.

The establishment figures in Washington don’t like that the internet is wide open.  They don’t like that they can’t fully control it.  They used to have a near monopoly on information, as the big newspapers and media outlets would mostly repeat the establishment narrative.  They would keep any debate within a narrow range.

The federal government has had influence on social media companies.  It was already known, but it became more known with more proof after Elon Musk bought Twitter.  The government was giving instructions to the social media companies on what should be allowed and what should be banned or not show up in people’s search results or feeds.

Political Fallout

The one piece of good news from this is that there may be a strong backlash.  In some ways, I hope that TikTok isn’t sold and that it is actually banned from the U.S.  It is going to anger tens of millions of people.

Sure, I wish the COVID lockdowns, vaccine mandates, the national debt, and wars had sparked rage in these people.  Still, it’s better late than never.  We naturally get more upset at things that directly impact us.  The majority of young people who are on social media use TikTok.  They like TikTok because they get the content that they want, and it isn’t censored.

My hope is that there is a campaign to dethrone every single member of Congress who voted “yes” for this legislation.  They should also dethrone Biden who has promised to sign the legislation.

It is interesting that Trump, while president, threatened to ban TikTok, but then dropped the issue.  Now he has reversed course and said that he doesn’t really favor this legislation.  It is all in good Trump fashion, but at least he has a pulse on the people.  I think he at least understands that it isn’t a popular move.

I want young people to understand that this isn’t just a matter of having their favorite social media app taken away from them.  It is a violation of property rights.  It is a violation of free speech.  It is a fight against the criminals who are residing in Washington DC and ruling over us.  They are the enemy.  It isn’t China.

The latest consumer price index numbers came out for February 2024.  The CPI was up 0.4% for the month, while the year-over-year stands at 3.2%.  This was a little higher than expected.

The median CPI also came in at 0.4% for the month.  The year-over-year median CPI now stands at 4.6%.

It’s interesting that the market is expecting a rate cut by the Fed in June, even though price inflation seems to be a stubborn problem.

CNBC ran an article detailing some of the specific price increases.  The most unbelievable thing is the rise of 20.6% in vehicle insurance.  Of course, it may not be unbelievable if you’ve had to pay it lately.

Some food prices and items are actually down.  Others are up.  A few other notable things are rent (up 5.8%) and motor vehicle repairs (up 8.5%).

This is why it is significant.  These few items make up a huge chunk of a middle-class American budget.

If you don’t own a house and you rent, imagine if you paid just $1,000 per month in rent last year.  Now it is up 5.8% or $58 per month.  That adds up month after month.

If your car insurance was $1,000 last year, now it is up 20.6% or $206 per year.  And if you have a vehicle repair that would have cost $2,000 last year, it now will be 8.5% higher, or $170 more.

These may be very conservative numbers for some people.  Rents are much higher than $1,000 per month in most cities for anything livable.  Many renters are probably paying an additional $1,000 or more extra per year.

So just the cost of driving your car and renting your apartment may have gone up $1,500 for the year.  If you make $60,000 per year and get a 3% raise in pay, that is an increase of $1,800 per year.  After taxes, that barely covers the expenses to drive and rent your apartment.  We haven’t even started considering food and other items.

Bidenomics

This is why it is a joke that Biden or any of his handlers would be even attempting to brag about the economy.  There are some people who will actually try to justify the state of the economy by saying that the stock market is up and housing values are still high.  The higher housing prices only price out those who don’t already own.  There are few people who are selling and making a good profit to then only rent (at higher prices).

The stock market may be nice for some people with a 401k plan, but that doesn’t apply to some people.  And for others, it doesn’t do them any particular good right now, as that is their retirement money and they may not even be able to access it.

For most people, they just see their expenses going higher and wages not keeping up.  This is the true state of the economy, and it is hard to trick people into believing that they are doing well when they aren’t.

Even if a recession doesn’t officially hit before November 2024, it is hard to imagine Biden being reelected with this disaster of an economy.  It is curious why Republicans who were running for president did not emphasize this issue.  They could have easily acknowledged that average Americans were getting the short end of the stick.  Instead, they were too busy assuring us of their allegiance to Ukraine.

Most people have quietly moved on from COVID.  There are still a few fanatics who preach vaccines and COVID safety, but luckily there are few of them.  There may be some who still endorse COVID protocols reminiscent of 2020 through 2022 and are silent about it.  The reason they are silent about it is because it is too embarrassing to preach it any longer.  Most people will shake their head or laugh at them.

There is a large percentage of the American population who endorsed the lockdowns and vaccine mandates. We can’t be sure if it was a majority because there is always a segment of the population who accept government directives even though they may not explicitly endorse them.

Still, regardless of the percentage, it was probably somewhere around half the country that largely accepted the COVID tyranny.  Most of them have moved on.  They don’t say much at all.  If the topic comes up and they have to say something about it, they will usually say that we didn’t know as much about the virus at that time.

This is not true because it was known in March 2020 that it was mostly old people and people with major health problems who were dying of COVID or supposedly dying of COVID.  I can’t speak as much for what happened outside of the U.S., but I can say that many Americans who supposedly died of COVID were people who probably would have died soon anyway.  And for the younger or healthier people who supposedly died of COVID, it seems they actually died of deadly hospital protocols.

There was still mass hysteria in 2021.  Many states still had strict protocols, and this is also when the vaccine mandates showed up.  But in 2021, it was quite obvious that this was not the killer disease that it was originally portrayed to be.  So, I don’t buy the excuse that “we” didn’t know a lot about the virus back then.  Many people did know, but they were dismissed as whackos or conspiracy theorists.

Still, there is a bigger factor in this whole thing than knowledge that I have a problem with.

Compulsion

Most people won’t admit they were wrong.  It is a hard thing for humans to do.  There are a few people who will admit that they didn’t quite get things right though.  There is an even smaller percentage who will apologize or at least say that maybe the other side got things right.  Some are more genuine than others.

But even if someone apologizes for getting things wrong, this isn’t good enough for me.  I won’t accept this apology.  The problem is that these people advocated for the use of government force to keep people in their homes and to mandate a medical injection in order to keep their job.

There may be an extremely tiny percentage of people who got things wrong on COVID, and perhaps were hysterical about it, but did not advocate for the use of any government force.  I may not fully trust the judgment of these people now, but I could accept an apology from them if they just say they got some things wrong on COVID.

However, for most of the people who do admit getting things wrong and offer some sort of apology for getting things wrong, they advocated for the use of force.  Are they offering an apology for using force, or are they offering an apology for not understanding more about a virus?

The same goes for the vaccine mandates.  Are they sorry for mandating the vaccine, or are they sorry for not believing people who questioned the safety and efficacy of the so-called vaccines?

I don’t want an apology because the vaccine didn’t work.  I want an apology because force was used.

I won’t accept an apology from someone who is merely saying they got some of the facts wrong.  That means they will just make the same mistake the next time.  They will be willing to use government force again in the future.  They just want to make sure they get their facts straight before using force.  Of course, they probably thought they had their facts straight three years ago.

The lesson of this whole thing isn’t that the vaccines were not safe and effective as sold.  The lesson should be that force never should have been used.  Biden should be in prison for threatening to fire approximately 100 million people if they didn’t get jabbed.  Any politician, bureaucrat, or media figure who supported these mandates should be shunned from society.  They should never be in a position of power ever again.

The problem in 2020 through 2022 wasn’t that people got the facts wrong on COVID and vaccines.  The problem is that they were willing to use the force of government to impose their way on other people.

The price of gold in dollars has broken above the $2,100 mark and closed at its highest level ever this week (in nominal terms).

The price of gold is not near its all-time inflation-adjusted high, even using the government’s price inflation data.  The price of gold briefly went above $800 in early 1980.  Using the BLS CPI inflation calculator, you can plug in $800 in January 1980.  44 years later, that has the same buying power as $3,171.

This is probably understated, if anything, but it shows that gold could still surge a lot higher if we get into another gold-buying frenzy.  And that is at today’s level.  There is no telling how much the Fed will inflate in the future to service the massive debt and support the financial system.

This isn’t a prediction that gold is going to surge above $3,000 per ounce any time soon.  It is just to show that it is possible.

Up until now, we haven’t been in any kind of a gold bubble, unlike most other asset classes.  It is quite surprising that we haven’t seen the price of gold go up with worries about price inflation.  Stocks have gone up a lot.  Real estate went up a lot until the last year or so.  Bitcoin is booming again.

Gold has risen, which is evident by it hitting an all-time high, but it has moved slowly.  It tends to make a move, then maybe pull back a bit, and then trade in a somewhat narrow range for a while.

It wouldn’t be surprising for the same thing to happen here, but if I could say for sure, I would be extremely wealthy playing the futures market.

Gold has simply not been part of any speculative bubble.  It has gotten little attention over the last many years.  This is noticeable by watching CNBC during the day.  You can see the three major indexes constantly updating.  You can see the yields a little less frequently.  You can see the price of Bitcoin frequently enough.  The price of gold appears once in a while.

There seems to be something wrong in a world where the price of Bitcoin is popping up more than the price of gold on a television station that primarily follows the investment markets.  I am not blaming CNBC.  They are actually probably responding to consumer demand.  There are more people interested in the day-to-day movements of Bitcoin as compared to gold.

Will Gold Stocks Finally Follow?

Gold stocks have done rather poorly over the last several years, even with the price of gold going higher.  The costs of mining, just like the costs of most things, have gone higher.  But the price of gold hasn’t exploded as might be expected in a relatively high price inflationary environment.

Couple this with a lack of enthusiasm in the gold market, and gold stocks have generally underperformed. This could all turn around quickly, but it would have to be with a sustained rise in the price of gold.

Buying gold stocks, gold mutual funds, and gold ETFs is a rather high-risk proposition, but it could come with high rewards when investors and speculators finally pile in.

Of course, investing in the broad stock market seems like a high-risk proposition these days too.  But it doesn’t feel like it to most people because they are accustomed to stocks just going up in the last decade and a half.  Every time there is a decent pullback, the bull market resumes.

The Fed has been in tightening mode for a couple of years now, and the yield curve has been inverted for well over a year.  Yet, investors seem to have little fear of a recession or a major pullback in stocks.

If we do finally get a deep recession, we shouldn’t expect gold or gold stocks to do well in the short run.  They may do well if the Fed starts creating massive amounts of new money out of thin air.  The price of gold will probably hold up better than most stocks in general, but we may have to wait for more Fed funny money before we see a dramatic surge in gold and mining stocks.

It isn’t easy to be a good parent.  Most parents hope to teach their kids to be respectful and productive human beings.  They hope to equip their children to be independent adults.

You can tell your kids things until you’re blue in the face.  What you say may or may not stick.  If you really want to teach something to your kids, the best way to do it is to set a good example.

You can tell your kids not to smoke, but if they ever see you smoking, then there is a good chance they will follow.  You can tell your kids not to curse in public, but if they hear you doing it, then they are likely to follow your example.  And good luck telling your kids to eat their vegetables if you don’t have a serving on your own plate.

And so it goes for teaching others the benefits of liberty.  You can talk all day long about the latest government boondoggle.  You can do your best to explain good economics.  But often the best way to exert your libertarian influence is to simply just set a good example.

Setting Examples

During COVID hysteria times, I didn’t wear a mask anywhere unless I was explicitly told.  I remember walking around Publix (the grocery store) and being the only person not wearing a mask.  While it might have made a few people mad, I hope it inspired some others to be brave and also not wear one.  (The Publix employees were always very kind, and I was never once questioned about not wearing a mask.  I can’t say the same for Whole Foods.)

You can preach all day long about how the government shouldn’t be involved in education.  But if you actually homeschool your own children, it will show others that it can be done.  They might even talk to you about it and explain their fears of doing it.

The Best Example

The best way to set a good example is to just be a good person.  Also, it helps to be a somewhat normal person.  Some libertarians like to act as outcasts of society, and it is certainly their right to do so.  But it doesn’t do any favors for selling liberty.

It’s ok to fit in to society in many aspects, even if you believe in a minimal or no state society.  You aren’t selling out your libertarian principles by watching the Super Bowl or enjoying a concert at your local park.  In fact, the more you fit in, the more likely that others will listen to you when it comes to your politics (or maybe I should say anti-politics), as long as you aren’t overbearing.

There are many great things in our society in spite of a massive state.  We should embrace those great things and join others in embracing them, even if those other people are not completely on our political team.  You may find you have more influence when you embrace these things and generally are a happy person.  Other people want to be around happy and friendly people, and that is how you will have the most influence.