Month: June 2020

Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClearPolitics.com,

In the early 1950s, at the nadir of McCarthyism, the Cincinnati Reds baseball team was so fearful of anti-communist crusaders that it actually changed the team’s name. Overnight, they reverted to their original name, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, and then for several years became the Redlegs. The anti-communism was justified; the mob mentality was not.

Today, we are all Redlegs. This time, the repression is coming from the left.

It’s not just that a careless word can cost your job, it’s that people tremble in fear that they might say the wrong word. Today, as in the past, the loudest, most extreme voices claim the right to control speech and judge whether it is worthy of being heard at all. The giants of technology and media have either bowed to these demands or embraced them enthusiastically. The result, as in the early 1950s, is a shriveled, impoverished public square. Genuine debate is suppressed, even in classrooms, which should nurture informed discussion with multiple viewpoints. All too often they have become pipelines for indoctrination.

What’s wrong with this rigid groupthink?

First, it takes real problems, such as police misconduct or Confederate statues, and inflates them for political purposes. It vastly exaggerates their extent and gravity, mistakenly generalizes them (Ulysses Grant is not Stonewall Jackson), ignores significant progress in correcting old errors, calls any disagreement “racist,” and relies on intimidation and sometimes violence, not democratic procedures, to get their way.

The loudest voices say America and its history are fundamentally evil, that its institutions need to be smashed so they can be reestablished on “socially just” foundations. The mob and their fellow travelers will determine what is just. Who gives them that right? This arrogation of power and attack on public order will not end well.

The second problem is that America’s major institutions have been overwhelmed by these demands and have bowed down to them. Public trust has eroded in all America’s major institutions since the late 1960s. We now see the supine results. Instead of standing up to this swelling irrationalism and intimidation, they have appeased it—and sometimes embraced it. Predictably, appeasement has only fueled more extreme demands.

The rot began in America’s universities before spreading to mass media, cultural magazines, philanthropies, museums, and corporations. More and more parents are concerned that it now suffuses K-12 education. They don’t want a Pollyanna history, but neither do they want their children indoctrinated with a grim, doctrinaire view that America is an evil nation, incapable of reforming its own defects.

Universities have led this parade of self-flagellation. One reason is that so many administrators and professors agree with the mob demands. The second is that prudent faculty and staff know where the risks lay. Their careers would be endangered, perhaps terminated, by resisting the bullhorns and barricades. The smart career move is to affirm the most strident cries, publicly renounce your old (and now wrong) views, apologize on bended knee, and hope you will not be sent to the rice paddies to learn from the peasants’ wisdom.

Can anything be done?

Yes. And it should begin in universities, where so many of the problems began.

First, universities must publicly reassert the first principle of academic inquiry: free and open debate is essential to research and learning. Bad arguments should be rebutted with better ones, bad data and methods with better ones. How do we know which arguments, data, and methods are bad? Only through vigorous debate.

To understand why this approach is so crucial, ask yourself: Why is social science so dreadful in the People’s Republic of China and other totalitarian states? Because the “wrong” answers lead to dismissal, dishonor, and even death. Knowing that, the best scholars avoid those fields altogether. Even if their current views are approved, they might be forbidden tomorrow and these scholars will inevitably face political restraints in searching for answers to important questions. Those restraints and their consequences are well known. It is madness to impose them on ourselves.

In the midst of this full-scale assault on free speech, have universities issued full-throated defenses of open inquiry as the foundation of education? No. Hillsdale College in rural Michigan has done so, and perhaps a handful of  “Bible schools,” but they are rarer than Republican professors of English literature. What almost all universities have issued are vapid letters, reaffirming their commitment to “diversity and inclusion.” Many have said they will pump more money into those projects, which they have already sustained for decades. They say nothing about intellectual diversity, which they don’t consider diversity at all.

Stating principles of free speech and free inquiry is essential, but it is not enough. Sound principles must be reiterated, and they must be reinforced with best practices. Students, faculty and staff need to know the university’s commitment is more than an empty gesture. Before freshmen arrive on campus, they need to be told their university supports free speech and free inquiry and will not tolerate their suppression. These crucial points should be emphasized during Orientation Week. So, too, should the university’s commitment to enforcing the rules. Students accused of suppressing others’ speech should be accorded due process (which has long been missing on campus), but they also need to face consequences if they are found guilty. Otherwise, the principles are vacuous. Deans of students who don’t enforce these rules should become ex-deans.

There is a role here for university boards of trustees. They should not intervene in day-to-day academic decisions, such as tenure, but they should insist on basic rules supporting free speech and effective procedures to punish violations. Insisting on these rules and procedures is well within the scope of the university’s governing board. Indeed, it is their duty.

Second, individual teachers should be told they will be protected if they encourage debate and free inquiry in class. They need a “safe harbor,” even if some students don’t like what they hear, see, or read. University administrators need to give them that protection. You and I might be offended by D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” or Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will,” but they are important movies and perfectly appropriate to screen in some classes. Of course, students should be prepared for them and told why they matter. If some students would be traumatized, teachers should try to find ways to accommodate them. But it is no better to exclude important films for fear of political objections than to exclude Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs for fear of religious ones.

As an alternative to the malleable and weaponized “trigger warnings,” faculty could add to their self-protection (and students’ education) by including a statement of principle to their reading lists. They ought to say—and mean—that they never intend to hurt, insult, or denigrate any student or belittle any group. Rather, they intend to use their scholarly skills to illuminate these issues as best they can. They should add that, if some students disagree with a reading or interpretation, that is exactly what critical thinking plus free speech allows–and what indoctrination prohibits. What students cannot do is shut down legitimate class discussions, however strongly they might disagree. They cannot substitute feelings, epithets, or personal attacks for substantive arguments. Serious academic discussion is based on empirical evidence and theoretical conjectures, presented coherently and debated openly. Students should know these rules when the semester begins and told why they matter. If they disagree in principle, the university should have warned them not to come in the first place.

Third, state legislatures should insist that public universities adhere to the First Amendment’s protections for free speech and peaceful assembly, with the normal restrictions that apply to those freedoms. (No bullhorns in the dorms at 2 a.m., and no shouting down of invited speakers at any hour.) Like boards of trustees, they should not intervene in day-to-day university activities; that, too, would threaten academic freedom. But they should insist that university presidents and deans of students reiterate the importance of freedom of speech, explain its role in higher education, and avoid watering it down with qualifying statements implying “social justice” can override free speech. Social justice, like other important concepts, must be debated, not used as a “cone of silence” for discordant views. Legislatures, governors, and state boards of higher education have every right to demand clear principles of free speech and effective procedures to punish violations.

Whether the federal government should insist on similar principles and enforcement, and use federal funding as a lever, is a more complex issue. Worthy as the goal is, it is yet another step toward centralizing all decision making in Washington, crushing both federalism and civil society. That trade-off is worth a serious debate in its own right.

Whatever role Washington plays, universities need to act now, on their own, to reassert the core value of free speech in education. Free inquiry depends on free speech. These values are the bedrock of liberal education in democratic societies. Right now, that bedrock is being washed away in a tidal wave of irrational outrage.

One look at the latest economic data, conveniently summarized by the exploding Citi US econ surprise index, should be sufficient to convince most that the US is well and truly following a V-shaped recovery path.

Alas, nothing could be further from the truth because the current economic sugar rush is almost entirely a function of the massive government spending spree, a spree which in just over a month will be effectively over. As a result, as Bank of America writes, the economy is facing fiscal cliffs which could cause the recovery to disintegrate, with four particular areas of focus:

1. expiration of extended unemployment insurance,
2. the fading support from stimulus checks,
3. exhaustion of PPP
4. stress from state and local aid gov’ts.

In response, BofA expects another stimulus bill to be passed in late July to address some – but not all – of these concerns, and “instead of a cliff, we will likely be facing a hill.” That may be optimistic, because any stimulus would need to be bipartisan, and if the Democrats wish to crush Trump’s re-election chances, now is the time for them to push the economy into a depression with elections in just 4 months.

Will they do it? We’ll know in a few weeks, and certainly once the July 31 benefits cliff hits.

Until then, here is BofA on the likely fiscal cliff outcomes:

Fiscal: look out below

In the face of the shock from the COVID-19 pandemic, fiscal stimulus has poured into the economy. Washington has pushed in roughly $2.8tr of stimulus, equaling 13% of GDP while the Fed has expanded its balance sheet to $7.1tr. The rapid and forceful support on the policy front likely limited the downside during the recession and has helped to support the ongoing recovery. But we are now approaching a few “cliffs” which would prove painful if unaddressed. We see four areas of concern:

• Unemployment insurance (UI): the incremental $600/week is set to expire on July 31st. To put some numbers around this, at the current level of nearly 20 million people receiving unemployment insurance this would equate to a reduction in personal income of $48bn ($576bn annualized) or 2.7% of GDP.
• Stimulus checks are no longer rolling in: the majority of the tax rebates / checks were distributed in mid/late April. To date, around $270bn of the $290bn has been pumped in. We find that consumers quickly spent the additional cash which means a diminishing support to spending.
• Payroll Protection Program (PPP): of the $670bn allocated to the PPP, around 77% has been approved. The new legislation allows small businesses until the end of the year to allocate the funds (vs end of June previously) which prolongs the support from the program. However, the magnitude of the support is lessened given that the size of the program has not changed and it was initially designed to help small businesses get through a shock lasting roughly two months.
• State & local aid: the CARES Act allocated $150bn to state & local governments to be used for unexpected coronavirus-related costs. But this did not address the revenue shock state and local governments have experienced. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 29 states and DC expect FY 2021 general fund revenues to be lower than their pre-COVID projections. Without aid, these governments will be forced to make further cuts to employment and services.

Quantifying the impact

In Table 1, BofA groups the stimulus programs to date into major sectors. About 23% of the funds have been directed toward households to offset the significant strain on household incomes from massive job cuts. Moreover, if you include the required wage portion of the PPP loans, the household share of stimulus is over 40% of funds.

The good news is that these measures have worked. Personal income jumped 10.5% mom SA in April. An $879bn annualized decline in compensation was offset by a $2,999bn increase in transfer payments, of which $361bn was from unemployment insurance. Given that PPP was first getting underway in April BofA assumes it had little/no impact on labor income in April. If one nets out the boost from stimulus checks and unemployment insurance, personal income would have declined by 5.6% mom SA in April vs. the 10.5% reported increase.

In line with expectations, and the fading of a fiscal impulse, last Friday we observed a sizeable decline in personal income given that the boost from stimulus checks declined substantially compared to April. Looking ahead to June, BofA expects another drop in income as people shift back into the labor market from unemployment insurance. Given that the majority of those on unemployment insurance earned more from benefits than when they were working, the move back to employed will actually be a net negative for overall income. Indeed a recent paper (Ganong et al. 2020) found that roughly two-thirds of UI recipients are earning more than their lost wages.

The big question is what happens in August?

This will be the first month following the “cliff”. The current law calls for the additional $600/week to expire. Based on BofA’s forecast for the labor market, continuing claims in August could still be running around 16mn, up by nearly 15mn from the pre-COVID February levels. Assuming it is 16mn, the loss of the $600/week benefit would translate into roughly a $36bn drop in income in August, or a 2.3% mom decline.

The Payroll Protection Program (PPP) has also underpinned labor income. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has approved $516bn in PPP loans. Under previous rules, 75% of those funds had to go to payrolls over an 8 week period in order for the loan to be forgiven. As such, this would translate to $387bn in support for labor income, mostly in May and June. The law has since been amended such that businesses only need to use 60% of the funds for payroll costs over a 24 week period. However, no changes were made to the maximum size of the loan, which is the lesser of $10mn or 2.5x 2019 average monthly payrolls. While the changes will help businesses stay afloat as they deal with reduced demand, it also means that the support for labor income has been substantially reduced and spread out.

From income to spending

Clearly there has been a significant boost to personal income from stimulus. But now it is time to consider how this filters into the real economy via consumer spending. The biggest jolt to spending likely came from the stimulus checks. A paper from the Chicago Fed (Karger et al. 2020) found that in the two weeks after households received their stimulus check, they spent roughly 48% of it. Then spending fell back to normal levels. Based on analysis with aggregated BAC card data, the bank similarly found that the bulk of the incremental spending from the stimulus checks occurred over a 5-day period following receipt of the money.

Meanwhile, the path of consumer spending will be impacted by the trajectory for unemployment insurance. A paper from Ganong found that spending on nondurables declined by less than 1% while people were receiving UI, but at exhaustion dropped by 12%. Not extending the program would mean a 2.3% decline in personal income in August. Given the high propensity to consume out of unemployment insurance this would be a similarly sized hit to consumer spending in August.

However, by extending the program, the unemployment rate is also likely to be stickier as people have an incentive to stay out of work. Indeed, a recent analysis from the CBO found that if the program was extended as is through the end of the year then 5 out of 6 recipients would earn more on unemployment than they would if they were to return to work. They estimate that while this may boost GDP this year it would be a drag on growth next year. If the program was instead allowed to expire, presumably the unemployment rate would fall faster and more people would return to work. However, even with greater engagement in the labor market, income would still decline given that unemployment insurance is more generous and many workers will find challenges returning to the workforce.

The state and local stress

In addition to the impending “cliff” for household income, many state and local governments are facing a concerning revenue outlook as they move closer to the start of FY 2021. According to CBPP (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), initial estimates of the revenue impact from the COVID-shock indicate that state revenue could drop in FY 2021 by more than it did during the Great Recession. States will be forced to tap into their rainy day funds first before ultimately making cuts to spending to offset the revenue shortfalls, as they are required to balance their budgets. Indeed, governors in Ohio, New Jersey and Georgia have already asked state agencies to prepare for sizeable cuts to spending. Indeed state & local government have already started to cut jobs – in the April and May employment report, state and local governments shed nearly 1.6mn workers.

Congress to take action in late July/early August

Republicans and Democrats are at odds over whether to extend the expanded unemployment insurance program for obvious reasons. The Democrats in Congress generally advocate for a full extension as was passed in the HEROES Act but Republicans are resisting, arguing that the generosity of the program has discouraged a return to work. A middle ground may be a smaller dollar amount (perhaps $250-300/ week) with back-to-work bonuses that will create an incentive to return to the workforce.

On state & local aid, the HEROES Act called for close to $1tr in relief. While this number is unlikely in our view, a bipartisan bill proposed by Senator Cassidy (R-LA) and Senator Menendez (R-NJ) proposed in May would allocate $500bn in aid to state and local governments. The ultimate number will likely be nearer to that number than the amount from the HEROES act.

There has also been some talk of another round of stimulus checks with President Trump affirming “Yeah, we are” [going to do another stimulus check], and White House Economic advisor Larry Kudlow saying that a second round would likely happen but be more targeted. While this also showed up in the Dem’s HEROES Act, some Republicans in the Senate (Sen. Toomey (R-PA) and Sen. Cornyn (R-TX)) have voiced opposition to another round recently. Republicans have generally raised concerns that stimulus checks are not the most efficient way to target those who are most in need.

The White House has also been calling for other measures such as a payroll tax cut and an infrastructure package, although neither of these are likely as the payroll tax cut would only help those who still have a job while an infrastructure bill is unlikely to be tackled until after the election.

In summary, after July 31 the US economy is set to fly off a fiscal cliff that could be just as painful as what happened in late March/April unless there is a bipartisan agreement in Congress on trillions more in fiscal stimulus. The clock is now ticking.

Editor Max Wiethe joins managing editor Ed Harrison to discuss the latest developments in markets, macro, and coronavirus. Max and Ed examine how the US is currently dealing with the virus and whether that means the nation is par for the course or has “gone off the reservation” as compared to other countries. They also talk about the risk factors that could put a highly volatile market over the edge, consider the longevity of US outperformance, and explore the current market rotation. They wrap up their discussion by sharing their thoughts on the latest video on Real Vision Essential and announce a special edition of the Daily Briefing on Friday as the U.S. observes Independence Day.

Authored by Veronique de Rugy via The American Institute for Economic Research,

I am always amazed by the faith that people have in government. Scour the newspaper any day of the week and you will read stories detailing the many failures of the federal, state, and local governments or agencies, and of their stupendous ability to commit the same mistakes over and over again. Yet these agencies are the one that people turn to in times of troubles or needs.

Astonishing.

Take the June 26th edition of the Wall Street Journal. There you’ll find a piece on how the Small Business Aid program has a significant fraud risk, according to the Government Accountability Office. That’s unfortunate for a program riddled with implementation problems that leave many small businesses unable to apply, while many large ones had no problems getting one of the available small-business loans.

And then there’s the report about how the IRS paid $1.4 billion in stimulus payments to dead people. That’s correct: dead people. According to the report, “The IRS, which was trying to get the money out quickly, didn’t use death records from the Social Security Administration as a computerized filter in the first three rounds of payments, according to GAO.”

One common reaction to these two stories is that Congress was rushing, everyone was panicking, and pundits were clamoring that we must go big or even bigger than big. But if that’s the problem, how to explain the $137 billion in improper payments made in 2018? For the record, this staggering level of improper payments happens every year. And then there’s the fact that we can’t even measure how many improper payments take place in the Department of Defense because that agency fails its audits on a regular basis—hence no one really knows where all the money goes. Yet here we are, always trusting the same government to somehow do better this time around.

On that same page in the Journal you can also read how “Battered U.S Wine Importers Brace for Higher Tariffs.” As the Journal reports, “The U.S. Trade Representative’s office, which imposed 25% tariffs on wine, cheeses, olives and other products from the European Union in October, is now considering raising levies to 100%, citing a lack of progress in negotiating a settlement and eliminating subsidies for Airbus SE.” Never mind that the president has finally hinted that he knows full well that Americans—the same Americans who have nothing to do with the Boeing-Airbus dispute—are paying the tariffs.

Yet, President Trump, and pretty much everyone in the Democratic Party, happily contributes to this new protectionist wave. Sadly but predictably, barely anyone in the Republican party is pushing back against the president and his protectionism sidekicks, Peter Navarro, Robert Lighthizer, and Wilbur Ross.

Scanning further down the page of the Wall Street Journal report you learn that thanks to government-imposed lockdowns, “140,000 Businesses Listed on Yelp are still Closed Because of Covid-19 Pandemic.” Depressingly, you read, “A large minority of that set, 41%, has shut for good, according to Yelp.” 

It is not surprising: businesses cannot be kept closed for months and then survive having done nothing. Yet many states haven’t reopened fully in order to allow businesses to survive by reorganizing their activities to keep consumers and employees safe. 

That’s in spite of the academic evidence that lockdowns were a mistake. In fact, upon hearing that the number of cases—which as Don Boudreaux points out is quite different from the number of deaths— is increasing, some states are now announcing that they’ll pause reopening. 

Yet, the fact that the number of cases will go up as the economy reopens was fully expected since as a share of the population few people have actually been exposed to the virus. If a rising number of cases is reason enough to stop everything – reason enough to again coerce the economy and life into deepfreeze – while we await a vaccine quickly that might, or might not, arrive, what do we think is going to happen?

Governors around the country should end the lockdown and give businesses a shot at saving their businesses by reinventing some of the ways they serve their customers. Full reopening is no guarantee at all that consumers will come back quickly, of course. 

New data confirm what we already knew; namely, that many people did not wait for the governments to lock down the economy to stay home and shelter in place. Such fear-based behavior contributed much to the economic collapse. That means that most consumers will be careful and watch out for their health and that of others without government decrees telling them to do so this time around too. But at least give consumers and businesses a chance to find what works for them once the economy is reopened.

I conclude with a report from the Washington Post. One is about Trump’s refusal to encourage people to wear masks. This, of course, comes on the tail of Dr. Fauci’s admission that he had intentionally misled the public about the usefulness of wearing masks so that they could be directed to health-care professionals.

And here is Fauci explaining how and why he lied:

“He also acknowledged that masks were initially not recommended to the general public so that first responders wouldn’t feel the strain of a shortage of PPE. He explained that public health experts “were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply.” 

It’s interesting that Americans started wearing self-made masks long before this Fauci admission showing that maybe they were buying it. However, for the most part, Americans continue to trust Fauci. David Henderson, though, does not.

Seriously, reading the newspaper on a daily basis should make everyone question government’s intervention in our lives. But based on the support for both a populist protectionist Republican like Trump and his Democratic opponent for the presidency, Joe Biden, it doesn’t. So what are we to do?

I believe we should continue fighting the battle of ideas because when we are deep into the mess that both parties, and their underlying ideologies, are creating, some people will look for answers and for solutions outside the state. As Milton Friedman once said, “That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.” 

I take that task seriously.

Finally, I certainly feel obligated to intellectuals of the past who have fought for our freedoms in what were arguably even more depressing times. For that reason, I dedicated my professional life to answering Friedrich Hayek’s call to action that

“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage…. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.” 

This, I believe, is why we continue fighting.

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – H.L. Mencken

After writing a particularly depressing article where I come to a logical conclusion, based upon the factual evidence of all previous Fourth Turnings, I always wonder whether I’m being too pessimistic and peddling doom, like many of the clickbait websites. The conclusions I reached at the end of my last two articles were particularly gloomy and made me wonder whether I was going too far. I thought maybe I was too pessimistic and my predictions of civil chaos and global disorder were overblown.

“A failure to meet the challenges ahead with bravery, grit, good judgement, adherence to our Constitutional principles, and a fair amount of luck, could lead to a defeat from which we will never recover. No one knows how and when the climax of this Crisis will play out, but the acceleration towards our rendezvous with destiny is in motion.” – Fourth Turning Accelerating Towards Climax – May 10

It just so happened I published my last article on May 24, predicting a 2nd Civil War. I figured we might have a couple years to prepare, as there is likely five to ten years  before this Fourth Turning reaches a climax. Little did I know a black man with a long criminal background, high on fentanyl and resisting arrest in Minneapolis, would be killed by a white police thug named Derek Chauvin, who had seventeen complaints against him over his illustrious career, on the day after my article was posted. Oddly, it seems this murder will be our Fort Sumter/Pearl Harbor of this Fourth Turning.

“I know the Deep State (The Party) has no intention of relinquishing power and has no interest in our well-being or what is best for future generations. They are consumed by greed and an unquenchable thirst for power. They won’t blink in sentencing millions to a death sentence. It will require guile, guts and guns to defeat this entrenched vicious enemy. Voting for a different faction of the Party will not change our path or our fate. Only determined resistance using whatever means necessary and a willingness to sacrifice our lives for the sake of our children and grandchildren, along with a good bit of luck, can give us a chance to defeat The Party.

Our choice is to continue to accept beatings from the Captain and consent to their vision of the future – a boot stomping on our faces forever, or a 2nd Civil War. I didn’t say the choices were good. But that’s the unpleasant truth.” – What Would Cool Hand Luke or Virgil Hilts Do? – May 24

The death of George Floyd, if it had not been caught on video, would have been a two-paragraph story on page fourteen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Instead, his death was used by numerous political factions to ignite a worldwide firestorm of protests, riots, looting, murders, and wholesale destruction of businesses and neighborhoods. His elevation to sainthood by the left-wing media, left wing politicians, and race baiting hucksters like Al Sharpton has been nothing but a coordinated attempt to further destabilize the country and bring down Trump.

The virtue signaling by corporate CEOs worried about profits, left wing Hollywood egomaniacs, sports figures who think their opinions matter, and the Silicon Valley social media titans of allowable speech, has been a pathetic display of pandering and kneeling before BLM thugs and ANTIFA terrorists.

The last month has been a surreal concoction of lawlessness, battles in the streets, political cowardice, mainstream media malfeasance, and an almost incomprehensible descent into madness. While normals watched events play out on their TVs in disgust and bewilderment, since they were still locked down by politicians who gleefully encouraged protestors (aka rioters) to spread coronavirus, three funerals for George Floyd (JFK got one) somehow devolved into BLM and ANTIFA terrorist activities across the globe.

Then the propaganda machine kicked into high gear peddling a false narrative about systematic racism destroying the country, as weak-kneed white leaders began kissing the feet of Sharpton and his race baiting loyalists. The utter falsity of everything we are seeing, hearing, and being told by “experts”, “journalists”, and politicians is breathtaking in its audacity. But at least the stock market is up.

Our second Civil War is underway, except only one side is fighting. At first, it seemed like the initial protests against police brutality were spontaneous, but it became immediately obvious political operatives used this incident as an opportunity to inflict their Marxist ideology upon the nation, with the support of left wing media outlets and opportunistic Democrat politicians, who saw this as another opportunity to undermine the Trump presidency.

Anyone who questions the narrative is immediately condemned as a racist, with the leftist mob out for blood, figuratively by trying to get them fired, or literally by physically assaulting them and their businesses. When identical protests/riots blossomed in Democrat controlled urban paradises across the U.S. and then in foreign capitals in Europe, it was clear there was big money bankrolling this effort to undermine traditional society and destroy our two hundred and thirty one year culture of liberty and freedom.

Those mysterious pallets of bricks appearing at riot central in every Democrat controlled city in America didn’t deliver themselves. Whatever peaceful intent some protestors may have had was hijacked by centrally coordinated organizations hell bent on destroying the moral and ethical foundations of our country.

I haven’t written anything in over a month because I’ve been trying to decipher the truth about this coordinated effort to destroy the underpinnings of our civilized society. Just as the impeachment scam was ending and the Russiagate conspiracy was about to be revealed as a coup attempt engineered by Obama, Biden, Comey and their band of Deep State minions, the Covid-19 pandemic conveniently engulfed the world in fear, with medical “experts” declaring millions would surely die unless we closed the global economy and sheltered in our basements.

These “experts” convinced Trump to destroy the economy, with 46 million Americans having to file for unemployment, and the true unemployment rate soaring above 20% (not the BLS lies of 13.3%). All this for a virus that will not kill 99.97% of the U.S. population and will kill only .5% of those infected. If Democrat governors had properly locked down nursing homes the deaths would have been cut in half.

When the Covid hysteria looked like it was subsiding, with cases, hospitalizations, and deaths declining, all of a sudden we became a racist society requiring every white person in America to kiss the feet of oppressed blacks (black unemployment was at an all-time low prior to the Covid plandemic). White people who never owned slaves had to bow down and apologize to black people who had never been slaves.

Martin Luther King’s dream of living in a nation where people would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, had suddenly devolved into a nation where white people were required to beg for forgiveness from self-appointed black debt collectors because a bad cop killed a black felon, high on fentanyl.

The demands of BLM and ANTIFA are incoherent, laughable and designed to never be met. Paying trillions in reparations to people who were never slaves and getting rid of police in the urban ghettos, where black people murder black people at an astounding rate, might be two of the dumbest ideas in the history of ideas. But this fake racism crisis is just another excuse to consolidate power into the hands of the ruling class.

None of what is happening in this country is a bottom-up grassroots effort, but a top-down coordinated attempt to seize power by unelected wealthy men who operate in the shadows. Sadly, the general public doesn’t realize how they are being manipulated by those in control. Edward Bernays explained it clearly in 1928, and with the advent of social media corporations using their platforms for evil, controlling the masses and herding them in the direction chosen by the controllers has never been easier.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.

Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Propaganda

I’ve never been a big fan of current day policing, with their bloated ranks, no-knock raids, militarization at the behest of the military industrial complex, shaking down the public for government revenue, and using their unions to protect bad cops. In civilized regions of the country, the police are virtually unnecessary. But, in the Democrat run urban shitholes, where the agitators are screeching for defunding the police, cops are the only thing keeping those cities from becoming a living hell.

The looting and killing would become the norm. We already have real world examples in Baltimore and Chicago. When a few bad cops were caught on tape killing black men the reaction was to pull back from the worst neighborhoods. They are now lawless kill zones. Blacks murdering blacks by the dozens is completely ignored by BLM because it doesn’t fit their narrative of being oppressed by the white man.

The attempt to extinguish history by pulling down statues of historical figures and renaming buildings, military bases and schools, under the guise of defeating racism, is once again laughable in its infantilism. The overwhelmingly white domestic terrorists destroying public property, with the unresponsive consent of Democrat mayors across the land, couldn’t answer ten basic questions about U.S. history, but they are the judge and jury of what constitutes racist monuments?

Again, you need to step back and ask yourself, why weren’t these monuments pulled down in the 1960s during the Civil Rights protests or during the eight years of the Obama presidency? It’s because those at the top believe it is in their best interests to create civil strife and havoc at this time. They know emotional issues like racism and fear of invisible viruses are the way to keep the masses distracted and at each other’s throats.

Having escaped my basement office for a week at the Jersey Shore last week, a semblance of normalcy and reality crept back into my life. Reality is not what you see on the boob tube and on twitter. We are a country of 330 million with approximately 127,000 deaths “with Covid-19”, and 43% of those were from nursing homes. Over 30% were from NYC metropolitan area. Other than a few other Democrat controlled urban havens like Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Philly, the rest of the country has been mildly impacted by this virus. The hysteria is unwarranted.

The corporate media has purposely given the impression the entire country was experiencing rioting and looting. Again, a few thousand paid agitators got to perform on camera for the new reality TV show called Pretend to Destroy America in order to Defeat Donald Trump. Loving a good reality show, Trump has played his part with the bible holding walk through the rioters. Once the ratings for this show began to decline, back to Covid Will Surely Kill You.

Meanwhile, the Jersey Shore was filled with people going to the beach, jogging, bicycling, fishing, eating out, enjoying live bands, and strolling on the boardwalk. There were some mask wearers, but the majority were unmasked. People were friendly and not fearful. The black people, Hispanic people, Asian people and white people all cohabitated on the beaches and boardwalk with no violence, animosity or racial strife. This is because there is no racial strife among normal people not pushing an agenda or attempting to create discontent for a profit.

The vast majority of Americans just want to go about their lives in peace, earning a living, and enjoying their free time with friends and family. But the competing factions within the bigger Deep State umbrella have chosen to use average Americans as pawns in their game of power and rent seeking. The demographics of the protestors, overwhelmingly white, 25 to 50 years old and democrat, either reveals them as having only goal of bringing down Trump or proving their degrees in gender studies has left them with no critical thinking skills.

Watching leftists turn on each other, destroying their own cities, railing against policing policies in cities run by Democrats for the last five decades, tearing down statues erected by Democrats, and declaring resistance against the party which actually freed the slaves, keeps me riveted with anticipation for their next ironic choice. Seeing Hollywood elitists getting ruined over old tweets or blackface skits is delightful.

Watching one of the worst presidents (Democrat) in U.S. history, Woodrow Wilson, have his name dragged through the mud as a racist, is also enjoyable, but his far worse offenses included the introduction of the personal income tax, dragging the country into World War I after campaigning against doing so, and the ultimate treasonous act of creating the Federal Reserve.

Jerome Powell and his merry band of digital money printers are the real story. The financial system was already seizing up as we entered 2020 and the Fed was already in emergency mode, keeping the patient alive with QE4 being pumped into the veins of Wall Street banks and hedge funds. The pandemic and subsequent economic shutdown provided the perfect cover for the Fed to generate ten trillion dollars out of thin air to rescue their owners and the corporate interests who benefit from their largesse as first in line for the newly printed fiat.

The plebs were thrown $1,200, while small business owners had to beg borrow and steal to try and survive. Mega-corps have either thrived or have been resuscitated by the Fed. Propping up zombie corporations and eliminating the creative destruction of capitalism has destroyed the concept of free markets. The big get bigger, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

The Fed has created the largest wealth gap in U.S. history and bears responsibility for the approaching civil war and eventual financial collapse of our debt saturated system. The money (debt) creation doesn’t actually benefit the 1%, but the .1% – funneled directly into their ever increasing bank accounts.

The entire stock market rally has been driven solely by the Fed’s $3 trillion increase in their balance sheet. The Fed balance sheet has “fallen” from $7.2 trillion on June 4 to $7.1 trillion today. Is it a just a coincidence the Dow hit its rally high of 27,572 on June 8 and has fallen to 25,015 as of Friday? Of course not. The Fed was being roundly ridiculed by well respected investment icons for creating the greatest bubble in history, so they stopped their expansion.

Now the shit is hitting the fan. The Fed needs a new Covid-19 lockdown as an excuse to fire up the printing presses again. The Democrats need another lockdown to keep the economy in depression until November 4. At least half the nation isn’t going to buy another lockdown narrative, as pandemic deaths keep hitting new lows. The exoneration of General Flynn and the investigation by Durham into the coup attempt has the potential to set off a new set of fireworks.

A decade’s worth of history has happened in the first six months of this year. The next four months are likely to be even more eventful. An election taking place during a civil war has only occurred once in history – 1864. The right has not taken the bait thus far. Whether this is a wise choice is to be determined. If the left continue to purposely destroy cities, ruin the economy, while utilizing mail ballot fraud in winning the presidency and Senate in November, the right will be angry they allowed that to happen.

I don’t see either side accepting the result on November 4. The real violence will get going before the inauguration in January. Martial law and blood being shed in large quantities is now more likely than not. Throw in a resumption of the stock market crash and this Fourth Turning will really intensify. We’ve reached the boiling point and those controlling the temperature are still turning it up.

The resolution is uncertain, but it isn’t looking positive. Defeating the forces of darkness will require courage, strength, hardness, love of liberty, and a certain amount of luck. If you aren’t prepared for what’s coming, then start preparing now.

“It does not take a majority to prevaill… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams

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