Bring Back the Sunday Collage!

 Many years ago, I began to focus on writing one good post every week.

Writing is often a trial-and-error event. We write some very good things, and we write some hideously bad things. Thus as our mood changes, the good writing becomes quite apparent to us and the bad writing is also revealed.

I note this on several blogs I read daily and weekly. Some are better than others. But what's obvious to me is that the writers have no ill intent. They are writing not because they are being compensated- they are writing because they love to write. 

So years ago, I wrote the Sunday Collage. The Sunday Collage was a collection of all my thoughts and observations during a week, like snipped pictures or images, that I had collected in my mind. Then I would gather those images and write about them here. 

It was perfect. One well thought out piece of writing each week. 

Once, I had some angry woman comment that I didn't even know what a collage was. Of course, I laughed at that- knowing full well that she was technically correct in many ways and also knowing she did not understand the temporal imagery of why I used the term collage. Thus I did not challenge her comment, although I am quite certain that I lost her as a reader. 

We all possess an ability to discern and feel something. We feel the time machine carry us back when we hear an old song. The pull of a photograph that stops time- for just a moment. We remember how we felt at that moment. That's the good stuff.

I remember how it feels. Now I just have to convey it in a way that matters.

Here then is a piece which I have always loved. From a little over 9 years ago.

https://thecivillibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/06/melrose-sunday-collage.html

A Sunday Soliloquy- Liberals Worship Words, Not Deeds

 Last week, I read a Mia Farrow tweet which immediately preceded a lightning bolt to my head and an "aha!" moment.

Farrow was bitching about President Trump and the language he uses. According to her, it was so abrasive that she would not allow her children to be in the same room as a TV broadcast featuring Trump.

Not one to simply separate words from a speaker, she went on an anti-Trump rant. That's when I had the "aha!" moment.

She wasn't bitching about low inflation, low gas prices, or a secure border- she was bitching about the language Trump uses.

This is what the democratic party has become. A mob of pussies hell bent on trying to make us use their silly ass pro nouns and words while they topple over our history.

I started applying my newly discovered Mia Farrow "aha" moment to everyone in my life. It was true. Liberals absolutely hate direct speech that they find offensive- because it does not agree with them.  

Conversely, they loved Obama with his cutesy little jokes. They were willing to forgive the fact that Obama refused to prosecute the thousands of fraud committing bankers who donated to his campaign. They were willing to forget the scandals. The deaths of Brian Terry and Christopher Stevens and 3 others- could not possibly be his fault.  

Because you see, Obama uses nice language. All of that collateral damage, well they reason, it was not his fault. He tells cutesy little jokes and reads carefully scripted speeches. 

Obama was in the same vein as Bill Clinton. Clinton did not sell us out to NAFTA or remove the banking laws that have protected us since the Great Depression. He said nice things and chuckled. So he messed around with an intern- we all know that happens. It was ok to get on national TV and lie to everyone- just be sure and do it nicely.

That's why they hate Trump. He uses direct, candid speech. No cute jokes or little smiles. He attacks anyone who attacks him. He gets personal. He calls people names. He tweets mean things. Same with Bush. He said some stupid things. Liberals lashed out at both of those Presidents.

Was it true in my personal life? Did I have the same experiences speaking with liberals? 

Absolutely. In fact, I could find very few exceptions. Liberals do not like to be challenged. They believe they possess the intellectual high ground. They see no merit in anyone that refuses to back down. You are supposed to inhale their words and opinion. Your words, if anything, cause them great angst.

That's why President Trump is hated by the left. It doesn't have fuck all to do with deeds or bringing jobs home or low inflation. They hate his speech. 

Of course, the conservative side loves Trump. We love watching a non career, no lawyer politician who gives us low gas prices, a secure border, a great economy. We love watching him give the middle finger to liberals, the media, and the swamp. We love watching him get his ass kicked, time and time again, and he just gets back up and fights some more.

We want deeds, not words. 

The Good Thief

 "Without God, all things are permissible." -from "The Brothers Karamazov."

Doug and I were brought together by circumstance. We were a couple of lost souls with a willingness to do just about anything. Both of us were sired by alcoholic maniacs, which is to say, our parents were obsessed with their own problems. There was very little energy left for raising children.

So that was our draw. You either get the "Leave it to Beaver" parents or you get ours. I like to think of it as the "birth lottery." A friend calls it the "ovarian lottery."

So you do the best you can. Whining about the birth lottery might explain your unpreparedness for adulthood, but it garners no sympathy.

And so it was that Doug and I stumbled through life and eventually came out on the other side. We very clearly remember our mistakes and we understand now, how it all came to be.

It's not with a fit of rage or jealousy that I examine the perfect lives of others. I am an inquisitor. When I discover the perfect ones, I examine their lives. Not to judge them harshly mind you, but to discover what winning formula was applied.

Time and time again, I saw the same recipe. A kind, religious upbringing. Two loving parents, or perhaps only one, committed wholly to raising the children. A strong sense of morality. A true sense of restraint when uttering critical observations. Empathy for others. Patience, tolerance, and understanding. Some sense of humility and a sincere sense of gratitude. An absence of anger.

I don't remember what philosopher said that in every great culture which eventually disintegrates, the first thing to go is morality. I am a believer. I accept that no destruction of a culture can take place until you remove morality. When people are willing to take a moral stand, en masse, they cannot be broken. They will impose morality upon the others. There will be justice for those who deviate.

I accept this as true. I also accept that our society is breaking down.

So if you want to destroy a culture, you must first destroy Christianity and morality. You must destroy a rule of law, consequences, and justice. You deny moderation. Greed, under the guise of capitalism or materialism, cannot be satiated. People begin to covet vast sums of money, worship and emulate billionaires and become willing to discard any constraint in their own pursuit of material wealth. You must be fearful and lack moral courage. You tolerate poor performance and look the other way. As your leaders demonstrate this lack of morality, the whole thing begins to break down. Your culture is disintegrating. God and morality are inconvenient at first and then completely unnecessary.

I once asked Doug, "Does your father ever regret what he did to your mother?" Doug told me that at the ripe old age of 93, his father is "blissfully unaware."

My journey as well as Doug's journey I suspect- were backwards. We may have been born with a lack of morality but we acquired one. We accept that we made many mistakes, some terrible, and we must reconcile our stupidity, understand it, and never repeat it.

Like St. Dismas, condemned to die with Jesus on that long ago Friday, we accept what we are and what we have done. It took us 60 years, but we get it. We believe in Christ, we ask forgiveness, and understand that we are saved by grace and not by deeds. 

We practice acceptance. We can't stop what's coming.  

The Death of Norman Rockwell's America

This may or may not be an actual quote from Franklin Graham.

 Time is like a river.  You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.  Reverend Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville , Florida , when he said America will not come back.  He wrote:

“The American dream has ended." The first term of Joe Biden has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind.

 A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, government workers, union members, environmental extremists, the media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the “forever needy,” the chronically unemployed that do not want to work, illegal aliens and other “fellow travelers” have ended........Norman Rockwell's America.

You will never again out-vote these people.  It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away.  It will take zealots, not moderates and shy, not reach-across-the-aisle RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.

People like me are completely, politically irrelevant, and I will probably never again be able to legally comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired.

The Cocker Spaniel is off the front porch, the pit bull is in the back yard, the American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and the likes of Chicago shyster David Axelrod along with international socialist George Soros have been pulling the strings on their beige puppet and have brought us Act 2 of the New World Order.

The curtain will come down, but the damage has been done, the story has been told.

Those who come after us will once again have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to white guilt and political correctness.”

The Father of This Blog

 I ran across this clip today after arguing economics and money with some prof and his loyal following on Twitter.

What shocked me was that Milton Friedman used the term Frankenstein Government long before I ever saw this clip.

Indeed.

Is the U.S. Government Willfully Trying To Destroy Our Reserve Currency Status?

 It would appear so.

Many years ago now, I named this blog "Frankenstein Government." I did that as the United States Government, Hank Paulson, and a host of other cowardly government banker types helped themselves to a one trillion dollar taxpayer funded bailout.

Only in America of the 2008 variety, could you commit all sorts of felonies and fraudulent acts and escape prosecution thanks to Barack Obama. The minions grumbled a bit and then went away. Like they always do. 

On this day, in 2008, we were nearly 10 trillion in debt. https://www.usdebtclock.org/2008.html

Some 15 years later, we are now 32 trillion in debt. https://www.usdebtclock.org/

That cumulative cash burn smoothed out over 15 years is pretty close to 1.5 trillion a year. An enormous amount of spending, deficits, and debt accumulation. Now I don't want to get sidetracked here with "where did that money go" because we can't do anything about that. 

If you are a real numbers geek, you can look here at the Congressional Budget Office historical view of debt accumulation presented on an excel spreadsheet. https://www.cbo.gov/data/budget-economic-data#3

So the question soon becomes, how did we land here? Was it an accident or was it purposeful?

I can't escape the possibility that our leadership, Yale grads, Harvard grads, and the current bottom of his class Syracuse numb skull, practice absolute indifference. Of course, you don't sign these bills in a vacuum, you must have some congressional support before they reach your desk like the Inflation Reduction Act- which will do precisely the opposite of it's stated intent. Slammed through before the new Republican majority in the house could get sworn in.

But what if it's worse than that? What happens when we replace indifference with willfully deliberate? Or intentional? What if our leadership is willfully trying to destroy the dollar's reserve currency status? 

What if one world currency has always been the goal?

I simply can't escape the possibility that destroying the dollar has always been the goal of the world's elite. It's a concept I was first introduced to in the late 80's. You can't replace the dollar unless you kill it first. There is no better way to kill the dollar than by spending profane amounts, piling on debt, raising stagflation and inflation concerns which results in default or bankruptcy. As things reach crisis proportions- then suddenly we are introduced to some new form of currency. Perhaps it will even be digital. Citizens will be left no choice but to accept this new currency as penitence for our government's willful spending depravity. So kill the dollar. That may have always been the plan.

Got gold?

Gold Remembers, So That You Can Forget

You will never, ever make money by owning gold because that's not the purpose of owning gold. 

In practical terms, you must sell the good currency (gold) to buy the bad currency (US dollar) before it can be used. Gresham's law in reverse. Whether that's 1200 an ounce or 2000 an ounce makes no difference. Gold simply represents how much the currency has been debauched. Gold holds steady while the US dollar flops around like a fish on the riverbank. As the dollar rises- as it has been doing recently because of rate hikes- gold's value goes down. When rates go down and money is sloshing around everywhere- the value of gold goes up. It has always been that way.

That's the way gold moves in the short term. Longer term...

Gold has a US dollar inverse relationship. It sniffs out dollar debauchery and moves accordingly. It is the perfect barometer. Gold was 35 bucks an oz in 1971. It is 1830 bucks in 2023. That 5000% rise over 52 years represents the lost buying power of a dollar via inflation and excess money printing. If you owned gold during that timeframe, you haven't gained anything, you have simply maintained your buying power relative to the collapsing value of a dollar.

Last week, out of the blue, an old friend of mine asked me how much gold I had. It wasn't the quantity part of the question that intrigued me, it was the purpose of the question in the first place.

The vast majority of people, and I am talking in the 98% range, have no idea where money comes from and are completely clueless as to why anyone would want to own gold. They simply don't understand.

People snicker because they haven't faced the disaster of being wiped out financially by a government working in concert with a central bank. Not only that, but they have normalcy bias. 

It has never happened before, therefore it can't happen. That's what they think.

Today I read a remarkable piece of writing that happens to mirror my thoughts with absolute precision. The author nails the heart of the matter. https://goldswitzerland.com/powells-gettysburg-moment-the-usds-waterloo-todays-open-madness/ The FED will raise rates, which strengthens the dollar, until they can no longer raise rates trying to kill the "inflation" they caused. We refinance half of our debt annually. Can you imagine the interest expense of 17 trillion at 7%? About 1.2 trillion.

Oh yea, and that other 17 trillion financed long term at 4% or so? About 700 billion. Altogether and very quickly, we are going to pay about 1.9 trillion a year in interest expense. 

The CBO's best case is 1.4 trillion a year in interest expense. Experience has taught me two things about the CBO. They are always best case forward looking and they are never correct. They always underestimate (and get the drum roll please) new wars and new legislation which always occur on top of higher rates. Here's the latest from them and it ain't rosy. Remember, this is best case! https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-02/58848-Outlook.pdf

What is the world going to look like in 10 years?

It's going to suck. The IRS will be trying to steal everything they can get their grubby hands on. That's why they hired 87,000 new IRS agents. The politicians know what they have done. The hints are there. All you have to do is pay attention.

There will be a huge buying opportunity for gold and it will come soon. Gold will collapse as the economy collapses. People will rush out of markets as they are getting fleeced. They will dump their assets into anything safe with a return. Time deposits.

Commodities will collapse as demand collapses. At some point in that 2 year period gold will find new lows. I think sub 1180 is possible and maybe sub 1000. This will be a time when our GDP gears grind to a halt. Demand for goods and services will be gone. People will be out of work. They will not be paying taxes. Annual deficits will soar. Gold mining will cease because gold prices will have sunk and miners cannot effectively make money mining with low gold prices. Gold will be on sale. 

I think the government may try to steal individual retirement accounts. 

When things are so bleak- that's the moment to pounce. I cannot tell you when that will be- all I can assure you of- is that it will happen. I do not know the depths we will plumb this time as we try to spend our way into prosperity once again. I don't see anyone buying our debt. We are a terrible credit risk. If you fail to buy gold at that bottom- you will be priced out.

While people struggle to get by, you will know the future. The FED will restart the free money train all over again. They will slash rates to near zero, time deposits will evaporate, the U.S. will quite probably lose reserve currency status. The price of everything (inflation) will skyrocket. 

Demand for gold will also go supernova- to the extent that- you may not be able to get your hands on it. Dealer premiums will soar. If you didn't buy at the bottom you sure as hell can't buy at the top.

I can envision a day when a few ounces of gold may settle a mortgage debt. Gold remembers. The FOFOA blog.

Halfway through the interview, I ask him where does he see the price of gold reaching in the days to come. “Well, I don’t see gold’s trajectory being typical of what you’d expect to see in a bull market… And I expect that physical gold will be repriced somewhere around $55,000 per ounce in today’s purchasing power. I have to add that purchasing power part because it will likely be concurrent with currency devaluation,” he replies.

Meet FOFOA, an anonymous blogger whose writings on fofoa.blogspot.com, have taken the world by storm over the last few years. In a rare interview – one of his preconditions was he’ll not be photographed — he talks about paper money, the fall of the dollar, the coming hyperinflation and the rise of ‘physical’ gold.