A Doubtful Beginning

Presidential gaffes, chattering class hacks and talk of bygone eras...

Joel Bowman, reckoning today from San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina...

Sometimes right. Sometimes wrong. Always in doubt.
~ A Bill Bonner “daily dictum”

You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, as Thomas Jefferson himself once noted. That lesson in mind, we approach the daily headlines with a skeptical eye, a furrowed brow, and a sense of humor at the ready, just in case. 

Yes, Dear Reader, when it comes to pomp and hubris, rarely does the mainstream news fail to deliver. No sooner has one hallowed rag made a stern proclamation than it is time for a retraction... a page-six correction... or a bald-faced denial. 

Long-suffering consumers of the popular presses will recall the following headline from a couple of months back: 

Why Joe Biden can’t do much to ease gas prices (CNN, Nov. 9, 2021).

Strange, then, that the very same (amnesiac?) author should pen this piece, a mere ten days later: 

Oil prices are finally falling. Thank China and Joe Biden. (CNN, Nov. 19, 2021)

Hmm... or how about this one, from The New Republic. In July of 2020, the magazine’s wily sages ran a piece on then-president, Donald Trump, unambiguously titled: 

The Most Corrupt President in US History (The New Republic, July, 2020)

Now, it is not for us to argue the claim... only to notice the paper’s right to say what it believes in its heart, if not its brain. That said, the least one might expect is to have that same courtesy - freedom of speech, including ‘of the press’ - extended in return. 

And yet, here is the very same outlet, hoping to have it both ways, just last month: 

Is Criticizing Joe Biden a Danger to Democracy? (The New Republic, December, 2021)

But perhaps we expect too much from the dusty old Fourth Estate. Gone are the days when this towering pillar concerned itself with “speaking truth to power,” to “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.” 

Such “highfalutin” talk belongs to bygone eras... those of Twain, Mencken, Hazlitt et al. Giants among men. 

It was, after all, Twain himself who quipped: Those who don’t read the news are uninformed; those who do are misinformed. 

Alas, today’s chattering class is populated by mere and fallible mammals, blundering bipeds who put their pants on one leg at a time, whose adrenal glands are as easily excited as their cerebral glands are arrested. 

Such citizens (standing... if not quite upright) have a tendency to err, too. As do their so-called “leaders.” 

Take the leader of the “Free World,” for example. Listening to the man speak, one could be forgiven for thinking Mr. Biden was being paid by the gaffe. 

Recall when he informed a town hall group in ​​Des Moines, Iowa, that “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” 

Who knew?

Or when, in 2020, he responded to a student who dared ask him a question at another town hall with a calm, statesmanlike, “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.” 

Then there was the time radio host, Charlamagne Tha God, told Mr. Biden that the African American community “had more questions” before casting its November votes. (As if “black America” were some kind of unilateral voting monolith?)

Then-candidate Biden, who was presumably on the show to drum up support among Mr. Tha God’s fellow black constituents, replied with a rather bizarre challenge: “You got more questions? Well I’m telling you, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” 

And who can forget the faint praise Mr. Biden offered his own boss, Barack Obama, as the latter was poised to become the republic’s first black president: “I mean, you’ve got the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.”

With friends like these, eh?

Of course, when it comes to politicians, we are not on the lookout for angels or deities. Mr. Trump was no Second Coming. Joe Biden’s speeches are certainly no Sermons on the Mount. And as for any similarities between Kamala Harris and the Virgin Mary, we leave it to our gentle readers to draw their own conclusions...

All that being said, a dose of humility would not go astray in the realm of human affairs. The original gadfly, Socrates, is sometimes said to have proclaimed, “All I know is that I know nothing.” 

‘Tis a common misquote. What he actually said was, “That which I do not know, I do not claim to know.” 

(At least, that’s what we think he said. It’s tough to know for sure, translation and time being as they are...) 

Point is, truth is as rare as beauty in this world, and at least as precious. Unlike beauty, however, capital-T truth does not depend on the eye of the beholder. It is not subject to opinion, in other words, to the whimsy of man. 

The sun either rises in the east and sets in the west... or it does not. Women have two X chromosomes... or they do not. Rampant money printing causes inflation... or it does not. 

In the end it is up to us, each of us, to work our way, as best we can, through the barrage of information confronting us daily. To ask questions. To remain skeptical. To challenge popular and prevailing narratives. And to do so with a sense of humor, in full knowledge that we will be wrong at least as often as we are right. 

In this way we promise to do our level best to adhere to Bill Bonner’s daily dictum, quoted above. That is to say, though we shall wonder, so shall we doubt. 

We are grateful to be joining Bill and his private research team for this latest adventure... and thankful to have you along for the journey, too.

On that note, we caught up with our old mate and Bill’s long time co-author, Dan Denning, earlier this week. 

In our brief conversation, Dan outlined what readers - new and old, faithful and unfaithful alike - can expect going forward from Bonner Private Research, including Bill’s daily missives, weekly alerts from Investment Director Tom Dyson, monthly analysis from Dan, and podcasts just like this one, from yours truly, below. Please enjoy…

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And now, an archive of Bill Bonner’s reckonings from the week past...

Untold Stories

This week, in the lull between Christmas and the New Year, we’re going to look at the major news stories from 2021 that the press either denied without bothering to look… or simply failed to report at all. One of the most important stories involved no more research than looking in the mirror. The corruption of the mainstream media was certainly worth a headline or two. 

No Questions!

The press dutifully and admiringly reported on the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, to which 38,457 delegates flew from all over the world. It noted that the participants had pledged to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees celsius… and that President Biden called climate change an ‘existential’ threat and promised to reduce US carbon dioxide emissions by 50%-52% by 2030.  

On The Hunt

Yesterday, the hunters arrived in the morning. They gathered in a barn, out of the wind… well bundled up in rubber boots, hunting pants, warm coats and scarves. There were about 30 of them when we got there. Some wore masks. Some had cigarettes dangling from their lips. A few, whom we knew, greeted us warmly. 

The Lolita Express

The press no longer reports the facts or raises its hand to ask the difficult questions. Instead, it recites White House press releases… passes along the latest politically-correct claptrap… and turns away from any story that might call into question America’s deciders or their elite agenda.  

The Year That Wasn’t

Can the US really shut off half its fossil fuel use by 2030? Experts say it’s impossible. Politicians say they’re going to do it anyway. What might go wrong? That was the question on the table at Thursday’s Zoom call for subscribers. It’s a question the mainstream media should have asked the 38,000 delegates to the US COP26 Climate Change Conference. 

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And with that, we will leave off our first BPR Weekend Communiqué. You have a New Year’s lunch to get to and we’ve got mountains to climb… literally. 

(Photo: The view over Lago Nahuel Huapi)

Your Editor at Large is spending the holiday season with his family here in San Carlos de Bariloche, a small town in the foothills of Argentina’s spectacular Andes mountains. The days are warm but the temperatures cool off considerably of an evening. Tonight, we’ll build a fire, enjoy a glass of malbec by the hearth with wifey, and look forward to 2022…

Happy New Year,

Joel Bowman

Editor at Large
Bonner Private Research