Saturday, June 19, 2021
The Real Threats to Our Democracy
Electoral shenanigans and the abdication of judicial responsibility are the real threats to our democracy. Let the audits proceed.
In the Wall Street Journal of June 10, Peggy Noonan captured the kernel of the crisis of national division that afflicts America: Donald Trump and opposed perceptions of last year’s presidential election. Equitable person though Noonan is, she qualifies as a Trump-hater, whose invective against Trump has only escalated over time.
Noonan’s premise today is that any question about the 2016 presidential election is unfounded conspiracism, but that suspicion is growing, spread by “the Trump underworld—the operatives, grifters, and media figures around him . . . This lessens our faith in our systems . . . it leaves the GOP with an untreated cancer.” She holds that “QAnon is important” in propagating this fraud. She thinks that anyone who wasn’t appalled by the storming of the Capitol on January 6 has given up on democracy. Lingering concern about the fairness of the result is in itself an assault upon democracy. “The breaching of the Capitol happened because of a conspiracy theory: that the election was actually won by Mr. Trump but stolen from him by bad people.”
She makes no allowance for exactly the opposite view: that there is ample evidence that Trump was sandbagged in rigged voting and vote-counting in only six states, stonewalled by the courts, and defamed by a unanimous national political media: the courts couldn’t face overturning the election, and the media can’t accept the idea that it...
Biden’s Terror Strategy Defines Republicans as the New Terrorists
If you disagree with the Democrats, you’re a “domestic terrorist.”
As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, Joe Biden has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to fight Al Qaeda. Instead he’s going to fight other Americans.
The Biden administration’s newly released National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism mentions Al Qaeda only once in its 30 pages. Even though the FBI continues to break up Islamic terrorist plots against America, the document only defines Muslims as victims.
Just last month a Seattle Muslim convert was arrested. The convert had discussed driving a "semi-truck" through "the gay pride parade in downtown Seattle". Even though the arrest came shortly before the anniversary of the ISIS massacre at the Pulse nightclub, both Biden and the media ignored the potential plot and the fact that the Pulse shooting was Islamic terrorism.
“I wish to see the kuffar (non-Muslims) as I kill them, I want to strike terror in them and make Allah pleased for doing so,” the Seattle convert had boasted.
That same month another Muslim convert pled guilty to plotting to attack an Ohio synagogue and murder a rabbi. A third Muslim convert in Brooklyn was also sentenced that month for promoting terrorist plots against Americans. American converts to Islam are a major source of recruits for domestic terrorist plots. Despite that, Biden’s strategy ignores their existence.
In a flashback to the Clinton era, the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism claims that the only serious terrorist threats come from the militia movement and racists.
And the only racists whose existence the Biden administration will admit to are white racists.
Micah X. Johnson, a black supremacist who murdered 5 police officers in Dallas, is described as an “anti–authority violent extremist”. Racist and supremacist terrorism can only be practiced by members of the majority against “minority populations”. It can’t work the other way around.
Antifa is also rolled together into “anti-government”, a category that encompasses the militia movement, black supremacists, white anarchists, and everyone who isn’t a white racist.
Islamic terrorists, like the three in May, don’t even make the list.
The two categories, anti-government and racists, tell us little about the actual domestic terrorist threat, but a great deal about the Biden administration’s agenda for exploiting...
US Navy Punts on Building a Fleet to Compete with China
 |
| The Project 052D destroyer Giuyang of China's People's Liberation Army Navy in the Yellow Sea |
The 2022 budget proposal aims to increase future capability but misses the reality facing it today.
The Navy budget proposal released last month seems an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Not only does it fail to acknowledge the obvious dangers of the present day, it further defers making good on long-overdue commitments to meet the threats of tomorrow.
Take a look around. Russia recently conducted large naval drills around Ukraine. Chinese aircraft and warships are busily trying to intimidate Taiwan and bully Philippine fishermen in the South China Sea. All the while, Beijing assiduously has been expanding its navy at breakneck pace.
To meet these aggressive Chinese and Russian behaviors, the United States should push to recapitalize its naval infrastructure, invigorate lackluster shipbuilding, and build needed end-strength. Unfortunately, the Navy budget proposed by the Biden administration does none of this. Instead, it shunts money from the field to the lab (R&D increases 12 percent over last year while overall procurement drops 8 percent) and busies itself with re-education.
The president’s proposal disappoints on several counts, starting with shipbuilding.
Last year, the Navy sought and got Congressional authority to make a cost-saving block buy of four amphibious ships. Instead of honoring that commitment, the proposed budget would purchase none of those ships—a move that would further complicate the shipbuilding industry’s efforts to remain solvent and undermine good faith with Congress.
Overall, this budget proposes a $2 billion cut to...
Democrats Seek to Slip Amnesty for Illegal Aliens in Infrastructure Deal
Senate Democrats are seeking to slip an amnesty for potentially millions of illegal aliens into an infrastructure deal and lobbying President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to support such a maneuver.
According to the Miami Herald, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is urging Harris to get behind a plan by Senate Democrats that would put amnesty provisions for illegal aliens into an infrastructure deal.
The Herald reports:
Sen. Bob Menendez pressed Vice President Kamala Harris in a private meeting this week to include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in legislation that includes the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal. [Emphasis added]
Menendez, who is a lead sponsor in Congress of President Joe Biden’s immigration agenda, made a “big push” to Harris on Tuesday to include the citizenship measure in emerging infrastructure legislation, according to a participant in the meeting. A spokesperson for the New Jersey Democrat confirmed that characterization.
…Menendez would like to see the immigration proposal attached to any bill that lawmakers and Biden decide to move forward, his spokesperson said. [Emphasis added]
Likewise, the Associated Press (AP) reported this week that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senate Democrats of the Senate Budget Committee are working on an infrastructure plan that would include giving amnesty to:
- Illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for the DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] program
- Illegal aliens considered “essential” to the American economy
- Illegal aliens enrolled in Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
“I am optimistic,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) told the AP of the amnesty provisions.
The Senate Democrats are seemingly taking marching orders for amnesty from corporate interests, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us which lobbies for an endless stream of foreign workers to take white-collar American jobs.
Last month, FWD.us hired a former assistant Senate parliamentarian to craft a plan for Democrats that would pass amnesty for illegal aliens through a little-known...
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, uh-huh
WANTED for a NON-FATAL SHOOTING: On 6/17 at 6:45 PM, in front of 1551 Sheridan Av in theBronx @NYPD44Pct, the subject in black shot a 24-year-old male victim multiple times about his body and fled on a scooter operated by the other wanted subject. Have info? Call us @NYPDTips.
We've got rats on the west side,
bed bugs uptown (Shadoobie, shattered)
What a mess, this town's in tatters,
I've been shattered (Shadoobie, shattered)
My brain's been battered,
splattered all over Manhattan (Shadoobie, shattered)
Shadoobie, shattered, shattered
What I say?
Shadoobie, shattered
Shadoobie, shattered
Shadoobie, shattered
This town's full of money grabbers (Shadoobie, shattered)
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, uh-huh (Shadoobie, shattered) (Shadoobie, shattered)
Facebook “Overwhelmingly” Being Used For Online Recruitment In Active Sex Trafficking Cases
A stunning new report ties social media platforms – the most prominent of which is Facebook – to “the majority” of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases.
The data was revealed in the Human Trafficking Institute’s 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report, according to CBS.
Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros said on CBSN Wednesday: “The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites. Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases.”
The report uses data from every criminal and civil human trafficking case that’s active. “This report actually looks at the last 20 years of trends in the federal government,” Boutros continued.
The report revealed that 30% of all victims identified in federal sex trafficking cases since 2000 were recruited online. In 2020, 59% of online recruitment in active cases took place on Facebook. 65% of identified child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were also attributed to Facebook.
Children accounted for 53% of identified victims in active criminal human trafficking cases in 2020, the report says, and a “large majority” of them were...
Dear Victoria's Secret: My Get Up And Go Must Have Got Up And Went...
Some sweat hog mama with a face like a gent
Said my get up and go must've got up and went
Well, I got good news: she's a real good liar
'Cause a backstage boogie set your pants on fire
Victoria's Secret Among Global Brands That Use Uyghur Muslims Forced Slave Labor In China...
Colorful Munich: Socialist Bundestag member experiences ‘diversity’ up close and personal
In the real world of multiculturalism, sooner or later pro-immigration politicians are also bound to experience "the party and event scene" as the German mainstream media euphemistically calls immigrant mobs wreaking havoc on society. The SPD [Socialist] member of the Bundestag Florian Post was one of them.
The multicultural society imposed by globalist politicians is increasingly proving to be wishful thinking. The effects of foreign and non-integrable cultures have become so noticeable that they can hardly be overlooked. The self-sacrificing hospitality and tolerance towards certain cultural groups have not had the hoped-for effects.
The SPD member of the Bundestag Post (40) criticized young “party people” who regularly cause problems at Odeonsplatz in Munich. Post told German tabloid Bild: “These are often young men with a migration background. But you can’t say that — but I don’t want to hide it!”
Around midnight, a “young man” threw a beer bottle on the pavement at the entrance to a courtyard garden. When Post asked him what that was all about, the man hit him in the chest with full force, the Bild reporter learned.
Bild has also revealed, belatedly, that migrants are the absolute frontrunners in sexual criminal offenses. And they are mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea. In addition, “leftist violence” has increased by an amazing 345,8 percent.
According to Bild: “Sexual crimes in trains and stations are mostly committed by migrants! This emerges from data from the responsible federal police, which Bild has exclusively … child abuse, rape, coercion, harassment, exhibitionistic acts and other crimes against sexual autonomy.”
In 2019, the federal police identified 693 suspects, 371 of them without German citizenship (53,5 percent). Most of the non-German suspects came from Romania, Syria and Afghanistan.
In 2020, 346 of the 621 suspects did not have a German passport (55,7 percent). Most of them came from Syria and Afghanistan. Between January and March 2021, 80 of 137 suspects were non-German (58,4 percent), most of them from Afghanistan and Eritrea.
“The proportion of non-German suspects is disproportionately high – and continues to rise” suggesting that only “swift asylum procedures and fast, consistent repatriations” would protect the population . Ultimately, “mainly rejected asylum seekers” made up “15 to 16 percent of the suspects in bodily harm or rape”.
An enormous increase in left-wing extremist acts of violence has also been seen in Germany. The number rose in 2020 by 34,3 percent to 1237 offenses. These include five attempted homicides and 423 assault offenses.
Bild noted a” high propensity for violence in left-wing extremism” and “numerous riots”. The number of trespassing offenses rose...
Numbers Don't Lie, Liberals Lie: A Real Look at Illegal Immigrant Crime
Liberals Make Rape Easy
For the party that supposedly supports women, Democrats make it really easy for rapists to enter the country illegally. Libs always fall back on certain talking points in regard to crimes committed by illegal immigrants. My favorite lib twist is, “They don’t commit as many crimes as Americans.” Maybe, but guess what? There are more Americans living here; hence, Americans commit more crimes. Guess who commits more crimes in China? The Chinese. Duh. The point is, if illegals weren’t here they couldn’t commit crimes here. Every crime you read about in this article is a crime that should not have occurred. All American children, women and men who were assaulted, raped, robbed, and beaten wouldn’t be victims of these criminals if the border was secure. Try as they might, libs can’t deny this reality. They’ll just call you a racist.
One Rape Is a Tragedy, 10,000 Is a Statistic
That’s a twist on what is rumored to be a Stalin quote, but it’s true. Does anyone care that Texas alone deported 2,000 illegal immigrants after they committed sex crimes from roughly 2012-2015 and convicted nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants for sex crimes against children? That’s 3,000 rapists in about three years. But liberals clearly don’t care about stats. Perhaps a more personal approach is necessary.
An illegal immigrant was arrested this month for raping an 18-year-old woman on a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. His 90-day visa expired several years ago. He’s been living in the sanctuary state of Massachusetts.
An illegal immigrant, who was ordered to be deported but wasn’t, was arrested for repeatedly raping a girl under the age of 14. He was living in the sanctuary state of California.
Two illegal immigrants were arrested in Maryland’s sanctuary, Montgomery County, early last year for raping two different 11-year-old girls. Eight more illegal immigrants in Montgomery County were arrested for sex crimes between July 25th, 2020, and Sept. 9, 2020.
Most rapists target women and young girls of their own race, so when libs turn a blind to illegal rapists entering the country, they are putting brown women and girls at risk. Many immigrants are brutalized before they even get here. But libs won’t actually admit rapists are coming over the border.
Money for Nothing
The price of keeping illegal immigrants in prison is astounding, and that’s not even counting the money spent to pursue, arrest, detain, and charge them in court. A 2005 government report states:
We estimate the federal cost of incarcerating criminal aliens—That’s just a drop in the sombrero. These numbers are from...
Bureau of Prison’s (BOP) cost to incarcerate criminals and reimbursements to state and local governments under Department of Justice’s State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)—totaled approximately $5.8 billion for calendar years 2001 through 2004. BOP’s cost to incarcerate criminal aliens rose from about $950 million in 2001 to about $1.2 billion in 2004—a 14 percent increase. Federal reimbursements for incarcerating criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails declined from $550 million in 2001 to $280 million in 2004, in a large part due to a reduction in congressional appropriations.
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #689
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1389
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Friday, June 18, 2021
Motorcycle Rider Almost Gets Crushed By Semi Truck....
More Gif Giving:
When Your Limp-Wristed Attempt At A Punch Goes Afoul...
Animated Gif Collection #2 HERE
Animated Gif Collection #3
Animated Gif Collection #4
Animated Gif Collection #5 -OR- Motorcycles And Bulls Don't Mix..
Animated Gif Collection #6 or Bet She Lost Some Teeth...
Animated Gif Collection #7 -OR- This Is What Happens When You Fall Asleep While Driving...
Animated Gif Collection #8 -OR- Fish: 1, Dog: 0
Animated Gif Collection #9 -OR-Out Of Control Bus -OR-
Animated Gif Collection #10 -OR- How To Launch An Oil Truck Into The Air
Animated Gif Collection #11 -OR- Man That Must Have Hurt
Animated GIF Collection #12 -OR- This Is Brutal
Animated Gif Collection #13 -OR- This Guy Was Inches From DEATH!
Animated Gif Collection #14
Animated Gif Collection #15
Animated Gif Collection #16 -OR- Make It Rain!
Animated Gif Collection #17 -OR- THIS IS NOT HOW YOU KILL THE CHINESE CORONA VIRUS!
Joe Biden Fights Dementia -OR- Amazing Gif Collection #18
Georgia investigator's notes reveal 'massive' election integrity problems in Atlanta
Twenty-nine page memo obtained by Just the News cites double counting, insecure storage, "massive chain of custody problem" and a worker's threat to "f*ck sh*t up."
In a nationally televised interview in January, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger rattled off an impressive list of measures his state used to ensure the November election count was accurate. "We had safe, secure, honest elections," he declared to "60 Minutes."
That rosy assessment, however, masked an ugly truth inside his agency's own files: A contractor handpicked to monitor election counting in Fulton County wrote a 29-page memo back in November outlining the "massive" election integrity failures and mismanagement that he witnessed in the Atlanta-area's election centers.
The bombshell report, constructed like a minute-by-minute diary, cited a litany of high-risk problems such as the double-counting of votes, insecure storage of ballots, possible violations of voter privacy, the mysterious removal of election materials at a vote collection warehouse, and the suspicious movement of "too many" ballots on Election Day.
"This seems like a massive chain of custody problem," the contractor Carter Jones warned in the memo delivered by his firm Seven Hill Strategies to Raffensperger's office shortly after the election.
That glaring notation was written around 4:00 p.m. on Election Day, when Jones observed absentee ballots arriving at the county's central absentee scanning center at Atlanta's State Farm Arena "in rolling bins 2k at a time."
"It is my understanding is that the ballots are supposed to be moved in numbered, sealed boxes to protect them," he wrote, noting these ballots weren't.
He also feared the flow of absentee ballots seemed too voluminous. "Too many ballots coming in for secure black ballot boxes," he observed.
You can read the full report obtained by Just the News from the Secretary of State's office here:
File Unabridged Notes.pdf
Jones also raised concerns about the temporary workers brought in by a firm called Happy Faces to scan and...
Hunter’s Dip into the Art World Connected to ‘Weed Slut’ Lingerie Entrepreneur Zoe Kestan
Hunter Biden’s connections to the New York art scene reportedly go through lingerie entrepreneur Zoe Kestan, otherwise known as @weed_slut_420 on Instagram.
President Joe Biden’s 51-year-old scandal-plagued son is venturing into the art world, with Soho art dealer Georges Bergès, who reportedly has some ties to China, holding a private viewing for Hunter’s artwork in Los Angeles, followed by an art exhibition in New York in the fall. Hunter has reportedly been working on his art full time, and his pieces, Bergès told Artnet, will “range from $75,000 for works on paper to $500,000 for large-scale paintings.”
Hunter’s gateway into the art world appears to be connected to Zoe Kestan, “the lingerie entrepreneur who is better known by her Instagram handle @weed_slut_420,” as Artnet reported last year:
For a period in 2018, Biden could be seen stopping by art openings and parties on the Lower East Side, and attended a runway show for the hip downtown fashion brand Lou Dallas. Sources said that many of his art-world connections came through his relationship with Zoe Kestan, the lingerie entrepreneur who is better known by her Instagram handle @weed_slut_420. In addition to modeling her wares on her account, where she has nearly 75,000 followers, Kestan is also an artist whose Polaroid snapshots have appeared in group shows with Bernadette Van-Huy, Danny McDonald, and Sam Pulitzer. She has also appeared on the controversial podcast Red Scare, hosted by art critic Anna Khachiyan and actress Dasha Nekrasova, and modeled in runway shows during London Fashion Week. (Reps for Kestan and Biden didn’t get back to us.)
There’s also some concrete leftover evidence of Hunter’s brief wade into the water of downtown art studios and gallery openings. Sources say that, being circulated around the downtown gallery hub of Dimes Square like samizdat, are images of oil paintings of Hunter Biden—that is, images of paintings of all of Biden with nothing left to the imagination—made by another local artist who has asked dealers to not reveal her identity. We’ve yet to get a hold of the depictions of Hunter in the buff or a lead on that painter’s identity, but rest assured: we will keep you posted.
However, Hunter’s new venture has sparked growing concerns about the potential for pay-for-play corruption in light of the fact that the buyers will remain anonymous, and the shadowy nature of the art world is a notorious avenue for money laundering. Last year, a bipartisan report by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that “secrecy, anonymity, and a lack of regulation create an environment ripe for laundering money and evading sanctions” in the art world.
“Given the intrinsic secrecy of the art industry, it is clear that change is needed in this multi-billion dollar industry,” the report determined.
Hunter Biden’s past money-making ventures — specifically his international business dealings with Ukraine and China at a time when his then-vice president father was the point-person for U.S. foreign policy with those countries — furthers these concerns, according to Breitbart News senior contributor and Profiles in Corruption author Peter Schweizer.
“Hunter Biden was repeatedly hired and given deals by foreign entities that he was clearly not qualified for in the hopes of getting favors from his father,” Schweizer, president of Government Accountability Institute (GAI), told Breitbart News. “It is not a stretch to believe that foreign entities will pay for or commission his works of art at inflated prices to...
He warned Apple they were too dependent on China but Apple didn't listen
The NY Times describes Doug Guthrie as “one of America’s leading experts on China’s turn toward capitalism.” Guthrie got a Ph.D. from Berkeley and then taught at New York University. In 2014, Apple hired him for his expertise on China. And he spent several years trying to warn the company that China was changing and Apple was vulnerable:
China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, was leaning on Western companies to strengthen his grip on the country. Mr. Guthrie realized that few companies were bigger targets, or more vulnerable, than Apple. It assembled nearly every Apple device in China and had made the region its No. 2 sales market.
So Mr. Guthrie began touring the company with a slide show and lecture to ring the alarm. Apple, he said, had no Plan B.That last link goes to a story the Times published last month about Apple’s decision to effectively hand over data on all of its customers in China to the CCP.
“I was going around to business leaders, and I’m like: ‘Do you guys understand who Xi Jinping is? Are you listening to what’s going on here?’” Mr. Guthrie said in an interview. “That was my big calling card.”
His warnings were prescient. China has taken a nationalist, authoritarian turn under Mr. Xi, and American companies like Apple, Nike and the National Basketball Association are facing a dilemma. While doing business in China often remains lucrative, it also increasingly requires uncomfortable compromises.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the data is safe. But at the data center in Guiyang, which Apple hoped would be completed by next month, and another in the Inner Mongolia region, Apple has largely ceded control to the Chinese government.Those compromises had to be made because China has a lot of leverage. Nearly all of Apple’s products are manufactured and assembled there. It’s also Apple’s 2nd biggest market after the US. Refusing to play ball with China could decimate the company. And according to Doug Guthrie the company still has no plan B. It is almost entirely dependent on China.
Chinese state employees physically manage the computers. Apple abandoned the encryption technology it used elsewhere after China would not allow it. And the digital keys that unlock information on those computers are stored in the data centers they’re meant to secure…
Mr. Cook often talks about Apple’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy. But to stay on the right side of Chinese regulators, his company has put the data of its Chinese customers at risk and has aided government censorship in the Chinese version of its App Store. After Chinese employees complained, it even dropped the “Designed by Apple in California” slogan from the backs of iPhones.
As is often the case these days, people commenting on these stories display a lot of common sense that people like Tim Cook appear to lack:
All American companies need to pull out of China; it would be the best thing for America and the rest of the “democratic” world. Our money continues to support the Chinese government and their suppression of Tibet, Taiwan, and many of their peoples.Maybe a complete withdrawal isn’t possible but it’s not hard to understand the impetus. We’re funding China’s rise and it’s crackdown on human rights, complete with a system of prisons in Xinjiang. If we’re not thinking hard about how to get out of this position, we really ought to be. Another one:
I’ve never understood why investment (and travel, etc) allowed in China and other communist countries while we continue our complete boycott of communist Cuba. What is the difference? China is a lot more “dangerous” to us than Cuba.
The following should appear in every article on this and related subjects: The United States considers China to be engaged in genocide against their Uyghur population, which includes forced labor for foreign companies (which can be difficult for foreign firms to track). How we can be doing such volumes of business with China while they are violating any and all human right against the Uyghurs is beyond me — we will hold our heads in shame, one day, as we should be doing now.How long before China just changes the names on the factories and cuts the legs out from under...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #688
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1388
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Preparing for Hyperinflation Starts With Brushing Your Teeth
The more you can fix, repair, and maintain now, the less you will have to spend when prices are soaring.
Now, assume for the sake of discussion that the Federal Reserve is serious about a long-term inflation target of two percent. Assume that the recent five percent inflation is both real and, left unchecked, a long-term condition. If the Federal Reserve wants to curb inflation, it will need to raise interest rates to get ahead of the five percent inflation. That means that the service on the new $20 trillion of treasuries issued in 2022 will go from between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent to around seven percent.
Historically, a modest interest rate increase would not be sufficient to reverse inflation but let’s assume the Fed starts conservatively. The difference between paying two percent on $20 trillion and seven percent is an additional $1 trillion a year. If interest rates go up to just seven percent, the federal government will need some combination of spending cuts, increased taxes, and increased borrowing to pay the additional interest on the debt. If we eliminated our entire defense budget ($705 billion), we would still need an additional $300 billion just to pay the new interest obligations every year.
Everybody knows a day of reckoning is coming. Google searches for articles about “inflation” have surged. A number of prognosticators have begun to urge Americans to make heavy bets on inflation hedges such as bitcoin or gold. Institutional investors appear to be attempting to corner the market on residential homes. Will the Fed just let inflation rip or will it impose the kind of austerity that Greece went through? We really don’t know the answer.
Conventional wisdom holds that moving cash into gold, real estate, and cryptocurrency will protect wealth from hyperinflation. Maybe. But maybe not. Because the coming crisis might not just be an inflation problem. It might also be a huge liquidity problem as interest rates skyrocket.
Anything that depends on debt to support purchase prices, such as real estate, might move lower as buyers lose purchasing power in direct proportion to the rise in cost of borrowing money. You may regret that big fancy house if the housing market crashes again.
In my opinion, the biggest problem for the average American will be cash flow as Americans get crunched between higher taxes and higher costs. Without some cash set aside for emergencies, Americans facing sudden unexpected costs could be forced to borrow at higher interest rates or pay tax penalties to withdraw from retirement accounts.
So rather than borrowing against my house to buy some crypto, I’m thinking smaller. Instead of trying to catch the latest financial craze, I say work on your cash flow. Find a side hustle like a part-time job. If you can learn a trade such as welding or plumbing, that skill can help reduce the costs of owning a home. Then stay current on maintenance of your car, your house, and yourself. Oil changes and tire rotations might seem boring. But they reduce the likelihood of a sudden catastrophic expense.
But for my money, nothing beats good dental maintenance. Emergency dental work can be painfully expensive and is often not covered by insurance. Brushing with flouride toothpaste has one of the best cost-benefit ratios of any daily routine. Additionally, a little light exercise—including some safe exercises to strengthen your back—can delay or prevent a...