The economic elephant in the electoral fraud living-room

 

My article last Friday, titled "US politics have now become a war for survival - for both sides", has gone viral.  As of the time of writing, it's been directly accessed over 12,000 times, which doesn't include the thousands who've read it by visiting my blog in general.  Thanks to Instapundit, Western Rifle Shooters Association, and several other major blogs and aggregation sites for passing the word about it.

Given all that attention, it's not surprising that I've had a large number of responses from readers.  A common theme among many of them has been to ask, in so many words, "Well, if the progressive left has hijacked our national government, and is determined to ensure that they stay in power forever, we're basically powerless against them.  They control the armed forces, federal law enforcement, and the entire justice system.  We're doomed before we even start resisting!"

Not so fast.  The problem with being in power is that you have to get things done.  If you don't, and you lose the confidence of the people, they'll grow more and more agitated until they throw you out - at whatever the cost may be.  History is full of examples of that, not excluding the American Revolution itself.

What many politicians aren't thinking about is that our entire society is reeling under the impact of decades of abuse and misuse.  After World War II, as deficit spending became more and more rampant, our national debt went through the roof.

Our currency has been devalued until it's worth a tiny fraction of what it was a century ago - literally a few cents, and no, I'm not exaggerating.  "$100 in 1913 would only be worth about $3.87 today", as the graphic below illustrates:  and other calculations (taking higher-than-official inflation figures into account) would place it even lower than that.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view, and a background article, at Howmuch.net.

Note that the exponential fall in the value of the dollar closely tracks with the exponential rise of the national debt in the graphics above.  Makes you think, doesn't it?

James Kunstler points out that the current stimulus bill is effectively a loser before it's even signed into law.  Given our ongoing (and worsening) societal ills, it won't stop what's coming down the pike at us.

The Schumer-Pelosi gang looks exorbitantly proud of their legislative coup in the stim bill (and Mitch McConnell’s gang, too, which had to play along, or get tagged and cancelled as Dr. Seuss-like creatures of Grinchified parsimony). Obtuse, desperate, and stupid as these grandstanding politicians are, they all overlook the workings of entropy in these foolish expedients to keep the plates spinning in this performance-art economy. Namely: disorder. Everything is groaning and cracking out there.

One-time $1,400 handouts and even regular $300 unemployment subsidies won’t pay the mortgages or feed families very long, and every day there are fewer families bringing in anything close to that mythical $150,000. For many, it’s more like… nothing. The one-time bailouts of recklessly insolvent city and state governments and pension funds will only postpone their collapse. The varying guaranteed basic income schemes, enhanced child credits, advances on tax refunds, and other gimmicks would turn the former working class into sub-lumpenproles with nothing to occupy them but crime and vice. In fact, we already have a sizable underclass demonstrating exactly what you’ll get from enlarging the social group dependent on government support.

The only other question for now is when do the different population groups in this land explode in violence? The group loosely bundled as “Red” is angry enough with the ongoing insults of Wokery, failed rule-of-law, and abridgments of basic constitutional rights. The states where they dominate are likely to resist any more fiats by the federal government, like the imminent attempt to confiscate firearms. The “Blue” auxiliary armies are beyond their creators’ control. Antifa will be ready to rock-and-roll in the streets with good weather because so many young people have absolutely no prospects to thrive in the collapsing economy, and the streets have become their social space, with so little money for lattes and beers. And BLM need look no further than the Derrick Chauvin trial in Minnesota, starting today, for an excuse to resume its characteristic activities.

Does anyone seriously believe that the husk of Joe Biden will remain in office more than another few weeks? It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the mental mojo to work an authentic press conference, and surely not the customary address to a joint session of Congress. Even the news media may seek to know who is actually in charge of the executive branch before much longer. Pay close attention to events unspooling. Get ready for trouble. It’s coming every which way, from money to public order to rollicking spring weather.

There's more at the link.

The progressive left have seized control of a nation, and a society, that's already on an inexorable downward spiral.  Just look at those graphics above.  It's the truth.  It's where we are today, and the downward spiral has not stopped.  The dollar is still losing value, and thanks to our massive, overwhelming, unrepayable national debt (and the associated debt of states and individuals and corporations), there's no sign of that slowing or stopping in the foreseeable future.  President Trump tried to slow the decline, and did some very good things, but they're all being undone by the Biden administration as fast as it can:  and even President Trump was not able to stop the massive deficit spending that got us into this mess in the first place.

We're facing a combination of some or all of the following three factors over the next few years:

1. Asset value deflation (from their present, stratospherically inflated levels, which may rise even higher in the short term before reality bites);
2. Consumer price inflation (due to too many dollars chasing too few products);
3. Dollar depreciation (as the rest of the world realizes we're printing worthless currency, and seeks economic refuge elsewhere, the dollar will de facto see the decline of its international reserve currency status).

On the subject of the dollar, consider this opinion from a Swiss observer:

Central banks are now caught in [the] Sisyphean task of printing money to eternity.

The more they print, the more they need to print. When Sisyphus came to Hades, his punishment was to roll a big rock up a hill. Once he got to the top, it rolled down and he had to roll it up again and again and again.

And this is also the punishment that the Fed has received. As I pointed out in my article about the Swiss 16th century doctor Paracelsus, everything is poison, it is only a question of the dose. The US has for decades received a toxic overdose of “free” money and once hooked the only remedy is to continue to inject the poisoned patient (the US economy) with more of the same.

On the one hand, the Fed can never voluntarily stop the printing as this would lead to instant collapse of stock markets, bond markets and the financial system.

But on the other hand, the incessant printing also has consequences.

It will destroy the dollar and it will destroy the treasury market and eventually lead to inflation and hyperinflation.

Destroying the bond market means substantially higher interest rates which is something that neither the US nor the world can afford with $280 trillion of debt and rising fast.

There's more at the link.

The powers that be are going to have to cope with this - and there is no practical way to cope with it except to inflate the dollar to the point of almost complete worthlessness.  That's the only way in which our massive debts can ever be paid off.  Weimar Germany did it, as we saw a few weeks ago - and that gave impetus to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party government within a few years.  Precisely and exactly the same economic - and, possibly, political - effects can be expected here in due course.  Remember, over 40% of all the dollars ever created were generated last year, out of binary 1's and 0's in the Federal Reserve's computers.  They had no economic reality backing them up, just the "full faith and credit of the United States" - and that isn't worth nearly as much as it was.  We're on track to deficit-spend up to $5 trillion more during 2021, and possibly even more than that - all of it "created" out of thin air by the Federal Reserve.  That simply can't go on:  and, as economist Herbert Stein famously said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."

Sooner or later, those economic chickens are going to come home to roost.  Those who have illegally and illicitly stolen power in this country are going to have to cope with their effects - and they won't be able to.  There is no way they can handle the crisis that's coming.  (To be fair, President Trump wouldn't have been able to handle it either).  They can't even handle our present crisis.  All they can do is spew passionate slogans, and accuse anybody and everybody except themselves of being responsible for the mess we're in.  They don't have a clue, and they aren't likely to get one.

Instead, they'll look for scapegoats.  They'll blame President Trump, and the Republican Party, and the "deplorables", and whoever else they can think of.  They may try to "nationalize" private pension funds, and use them to pay off debt while instituting a "national pension" system - something that will galvanize millions of Americans into vehement and very active opposition, but desperation may drive them to it anyway.  They might get away with that for a short while, but if they can't produce solutions instead of slogans, sooner or later - and again, my money's on sooner - more and more Americans will become disillusioned.  They'll realize that the progressive left is "all hat and no cattle", to quote an old Texas saying.

When that happens, we're facing the potential for the complete collapse of our society's structures.  We could be facing the modern equivalent of a Bolshevik Revolution on the Left, and a White Russian movement on the Right.  Those caught in the middle, refusing to take sides, will be prey for both.  Will that happen?  Your guess is as good as mine, but I think there's a better than fair chance that it might.

Whatever happens, the US federal government is very likely to lose control over the situation in this country to an ever-increasing extent.  They can pontificate all they like, but that's the reality of Washington, D.C.  It's too cut off from the people of America, too isolated in its political ivory tower.  Its pronouncements will be increasingly irrelevant to the rest of us.  Any attempt to crack down using federal law enforcement is unlikely to succeed in most areas.  For a start, the Feds are spread far too thin to cope with every trouble spot, particularly if they encounter popular resistance.  Many States are likely to resist federal overreach, if necessary by empowering their own law enforcement agencies and officers to arrest those involved (something that's already beginning to happen).  There's also the long-standing traditional response of the American people to federal government overreach.  Look up "civil disobedience" and its long, long history.  We'll see more of it, of that I'm sure - and it may not be as peaceful as in the past.  (See also Athens, Tennessee, 1946.)

Those states with solidly founded governments will probably take over some central government functions by default - but they won't be able to replace the welfare system out of state revenues alone.  Those relying on federally-funded entitlement programs to survive, eat, pay rent, etc. are going to be S.O.L.  That might apply to those on government pensions, too, or dependent on government for medical care.

Because they can't solve the problem, federal politicians and administrators will almost certainly blame right-wingers for it, and stir up anger and resentment against them - a flashpoint for civil unrest, probably leading to an explosion in crime.  They may try to confiscate resources like food, etc. for "redistribution" - which will likely lead to resistance (probably of the kinetic variety) by those from whom they try to steal it.  Those states with precarious progressive-left governments will likely flounder even harder, and demand ever greater federal government bail-outs - but there won't be any money in the central government larder to give them, except increasingly valueless binary dollars that won't buy anything worthwhile.

The progressive left may yet rue the day that they stole the November 2020 election.  Their success means that they're now left to shoulder the responsibility for what's coming . . . and they don't have a clue how to handle it.  They're going to prove themselves completely incapable of solving the problem - and despite their efforts to deflect the blame, they're going to own it in the end.

President Trump and his supporters may yet have the last laugh.

Peter