It’s all part of the great rhythm...the beat that goes on...and on...and on. Everything corrects. Everything regresses to the mean. From ashes to ashes...dust to dust.
Yes but lobbyists also got money for DEFENSE contractors and that means JOBS...and by the way the employees of those contractors pay taxes and the defense contactors pay taxes and SOME of that comes back to the feds and state governments that way. And JOBS matter as well as national security. And the YIN AND YANG....Bush41 opened up CHINA and that was BAD. CLinton followed and CUT DEFENSE IN HALF. BALANCED BUDGET BUT LOOSED THE DOGS ON WESTERN SOCIETY...i.e. COMMUNISM. And BUSH 43 FOLLOWED AND RETROFITTED SOME OF DOD.....then came Obama the Mombasa man and Liar fraud hypocrrite and son of communists literally and a Communist himself.
Geez......really communism is bad. Who won WWII - it was Russia. Why did Japan surrender.....not because of the nuclear holocaust but because Russia was coming and they prefer to surrender to the West. The Ukraine war would be here if the U.S. had the ability to stick to agreements it made - any agreement. But, no, they just can't. The Evil in the war is local in two places - Washington, DC and Israel. They are the ones committing genocide here, there, almost everywhere.
Regarding Global Warming: if it's real, human-caused, and a curse on us and future generations, as opposed to being an actual cycle in the lifespan of the planet, in which case there's nothing we did or can do, then the cause of the warming is from stuff we did 50-60 years ago, when we burned coal like no tomorrow, and had major pollution generators known as cars and trucks in the millions. But we "fixed" all of that. We quit using "freon" (dichloro-difluoromethane aka R-12). We clamped down on nasty coal and did all we could to clean up the process, scrubbers and the like, and we used computers and catalytic converters to clean up the automobile to become, comparatively, non-emitting, and we did ALL of this at great physical cost. So, IF we are suffering some kind of retribution from our own short-sighted behavior, it's now from something we did 50-60 years ago, or it's simply cyclical, and there's nothing we can do now, EXCEPT one thing: ADAPT. Inflate or die, yes, but even more so, adapt or die. And in the final analysis, it's all a dodge, anyway, because as Country Joe and the Fish famously sang, "We ain't got time to wonder why, Whoo! We're all gonna die." Best always. PM
Well......what to do? Cry? Sigh? Do nothing? Sell? Buy? Travel? Build a pit in the ground and HIDE? I dunno. You pick.
We look around and ask how did we get here? Many reasons and many presidents and many foibles and many unexpected returns and human events. But for me it started with the notion that PENSIONS were gone and companies announced them suddenly and we learned MANY were unfunded liabilities....LIES. And nobody went to jail and Obama bailed out the union at GM for committing massive FRAUD. And then we were told to invest ourselves and told another LIE that it would be better for us. But 99% of people had neither the wealth nor learned talent to do so. And so it went. For DECADES And bubbles appeared and WallStreet INVENTED derivatives and we were told as they DEREGULALATED that it was all okay ANOTHER LIE and who benefitted? WALLSTREET SCUM IN BIG TOWERS.....THE SEVEN DEADLY DWARFS WERENT DWARFS BUT GIANTS and then HEDGEFUNDS appeared like pimples and some failed but many gained and MANY scooped up FEES with mediocre results and who got fleeced? NOT THEM!
And some point to the great society of LBJ in 1965.....even black academics say that was BAD NEWS and they were far better off before it because it made black families work to eat and fewer children born out of wedlock than now.
And Vietnam....which followed the other debacle in Korea, which followed the disaster at YALTA and POTTSDAM and debt mounted, as bodies piled up and the public grew distrustful of its GOVERNMENT and then Nixon got whacked from office (though the sins were mostly venial) and THE MEDIA was catapulted to GOD LIKE STATUS (very very unworthy of that) and then the MEDIA EMPIRES grew....a LEFT WING BIAS....on and on.
Reagan came along and said we have to build up the MILITARY to fend off the Soviet Union and defeat Communism. HE defeated the USSR but CHINA AROSE and Communism went to bed but woke up AT HOME.
ALL OF THE ABOVE contributed to the DEBT.
So what do we do now? I dunno.
Bill is correct about the debt cycle and the BONDS COMING DUE and Bessent thinks he can outrun the bear with GDP growth and AI. Maybe maybe not. We shall soon ENOUGH.
Meanwhile Burns told Nixon to get off the Gold Standard to pay for Vietnam and other debts from LBJ. And he did. CREATING DOLLARS BACKED BY FULL FAITH AND CREDIT BUT NOT GOLD AND THEN EURO DOLLARS ENSUED WHEN THE SAUDIS CUT OFF OIL And WE AGREED TO SELL THEM WEAPONS AND TAKE THEIR STUDENTS AND TRADE WITH THEM...so the GREAT WASHING MACHINE APPEARED and now we have a HUGE problem.
I heard 25 TRILLION WAS THE END GAME. BUT NOW WE ARE APPROACHING 40 TRILLION? OH MY. We are bankrupt but the Treasury and Congress and the Fed keep it afloat and keep spending.....
CHINA STILL HOARDING GOLD and BUYING GOLD. PAY ATTENTION.
Iran war will end and soon. How? Not sure yet. Trump vexes me. I had my plan but he ignored me, a flea in the bleachers. He THOUGHT he could convince the remaining IRGC and Mullahs to negotiate. WRONG. They are zealots who desire THE END OF THE WORLD DONALD.
So bombs away and at some point they collapse buckle or are destroyed. SOON. VERY SOON.
China and Russia are ARMING IRAN meanwhile. UH OH.
What about the SUMMIT WITH XI IN DC? MIGHT BE OFF.
What am I doing? HOLDING MY INVESTMENTS AS IS gold silver cash and a few big tech for fun And PRAYING for Grands, Kids and MYSELF as I am not young *but younger than Mr. bill. and we all meet the CREATOR sometime. And HE ROLLS THE VIDEO TAPE ON OUR LIVES. UH OH.
I have CONTEMPT for FAUCI beyond measure. I was VINDICATED YESTERDAY. BIG TIME. AND GOT A LAST LAUGH ON A FORMER NEIGHBOR WHO WORKED FOR NIH AND FAUCI AND GOT GRANTS FOR A MAJOR SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY FROM HIM FOR RESEARCH And had a YELLING MATCH IN HER HOME (dual citizen from Brazil...another bone of contention with me) ABOUT ORIGINS OF COVID AND WHO FUNDED IT AND HOW IT GOT OUT.
But reminded that the 1977 Russian Flu epidemic also was a LAB LEAKED DISEASE and GOT OUT AND KILLED MILLIONS....DONT TRUST SCIENCE OR SCIENTISTS. EVER. BASTARDS.
I am not important. I am not a hero. I am just a simple man, retired professional who had an interesting career and ups and downs like most people and didnt make a lot of coin but am comfy and okay and also comfortable in my own skin. Life is uncertain and can be cruel.
The FIRES of FRANCE trouble me too. NOT GLOBAL WARMING from US but from the SUN and the earth itself burps and farts GAS from the oceans and causes oceans to heat up and then earthquakes and underwater volcanoes and so forth. BUT the FIRES Bother me. I hate to see them. HERE OR There.
And it was I who had a private panic attack when the debt crossed the $1 trillion mark in October 1981. I was convinced The End was at hand. It took over 200 years for the country to get to that point. 55 years later, we're knocking on Heaven's Door, to borrow a line, and still nothing... Best always. PM
Everyone reading this post today knows the answer, the story WILL NOT end well. The BPR readers are mostly older, have worked all their adult lives, and "I hope", have saved and invested over the years and have a rainy day fund. The question for all of us, you to Bill, Tom, and Dan, will our efforts survive us to the end? As for the grandchildren, the debt we have created and the ongoing interest will be a huge burden for their entire lives. I hope all of our readers will have something to pass on that will enable the grand children to have a rainy day backup fund to help them along.
the answer is print money out of thin air and then hyperinflation occurs....OR as we are seeing unfold the people elect communists who then transform the NATION and TRASH THE CONSTITUTION and GOVERNMENT OWNS THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND OUR MINDS HEARTS AND SOULS.
"What did it do with the money? What ‘investment’ of public funds did it make that would repay the loans?"
That's easy. They bought votes with it. It's what they do. Best always. PM
Yes but lobbyists also got money for DEFENSE contractors and that means JOBS...and by the way the employees of those contractors pay taxes and the defense contactors pay taxes and SOME of that comes back to the feds and state governments that way. And JOBS matter as well as national security. And the YIN AND YANG....Bush41 opened up CHINA and that was BAD. CLinton followed and CUT DEFENSE IN HALF. BALANCED BUDGET BUT LOOSED THE DOGS ON WESTERN SOCIETY...i.e. COMMUNISM. And BUSH 43 FOLLOWED AND RETROFITTED SOME OF DOD.....then came Obama the Mombasa man and Liar fraud hypocrrite and son of communists literally and a Communist himself.
Geez......really communism is bad. Who won WWII - it was Russia. Why did Japan surrender.....not because of the nuclear holocaust but because Russia was coming and they prefer to surrender to the West. The Ukraine war would be here if the U.S. had the ability to stick to agreements it made - any agreement. But, no, they just can't. The Evil in the war is local in two places - Washington, DC and Israel. They are the ones committing genocide here, there, almost everywhere.
It never changes!
Jim
Regarding Global Warming: if it's real, human-caused, and a curse on us and future generations, as opposed to being an actual cycle in the lifespan of the planet, in which case there's nothing we did or can do, then the cause of the warming is from stuff we did 50-60 years ago, when we burned coal like no tomorrow, and had major pollution generators known as cars and trucks in the millions. But we "fixed" all of that. We quit using "freon" (dichloro-difluoromethane aka R-12). We clamped down on nasty coal and did all we could to clean up the process, scrubbers and the like, and we used computers and catalytic converters to clean up the automobile to become, comparatively, non-emitting, and we did ALL of this at great physical cost. So, IF we are suffering some kind of retribution from our own short-sighted behavior, it's now from something we did 50-60 years ago, or it's simply cyclical, and there's nothing we can do now, EXCEPT one thing: ADAPT. Inflate or die, yes, but even more so, adapt or die. And in the final analysis, it's all a dodge, anyway, because as Country Joe and the Fish famously sang, "We ain't got time to wonder why, Whoo! We're all gonna die." Best always. PM
Global warming advocates-another reason to raise taxes on every thing.
Indeed! "And the politicians say, 'More taxes will solve anything.' And the band plays on." from "Ball of Confusion" (1970)
"What we did 50 60 years ago"
Add 80 100 years ago cant forget WWI WWII. we solved that problem too with, more wars of course.
When this story ends, the government of the people, by the people and for the people probably won’t be thinking about what’s best for the people.
Well then the story must have ended.
This post brings to mind the refrain from June Carter’s song, one of her husband Johnny Cash’s greatest hits:
I fell into a burnin' ring of fire
I fell down down down
And the flames went higher
And it burns burns burns
That ring of fire
That ring of fire
Amen. I am/was a huge fan of Johnny Cash.
Well......what to do? Cry? Sigh? Do nothing? Sell? Buy? Travel? Build a pit in the ground and HIDE? I dunno. You pick.
We look around and ask how did we get here? Many reasons and many presidents and many foibles and many unexpected returns and human events. But for me it started with the notion that PENSIONS were gone and companies announced them suddenly and we learned MANY were unfunded liabilities....LIES. And nobody went to jail and Obama bailed out the union at GM for committing massive FRAUD. And then we were told to invest ourselves and told another LIE that it would be better for us. But 99% of people had neither the wealth nor learned talent to do so. And so it went. For DECADES And bubbles appeared and WallStreet INVENTED derivatives and we were told as they DEREGULALATED that it was all okay ANOTHER LIE and who benefitted? WALLSTREET SCUM IN BIG TOWERS.....THE SEVEN DEADLY DWARFS WERENT DWARFS BUT GIANTS and then HEDGEFUNDS appeared like pimples and some failed but many gained and MANY scooped up FEES with mediocre results and who got fleeced? NOT THEM!
And some point to the great society of LBJ in 1965.....even black academics say that was BAD NEWS and they were far better off before it because it made black families work to eat and fewer children born out of wedlock than now.
And Vietnam....which followed the other debacle in Korea, which followed the disaster at YALTA and POTTSDAM and debt mounted, as bodies piled up and the public grew distrustful of its GOVERNMENT and then Nixon got whacked from office (though the sins were mostly venial) and THE MEDIA was catapulted to GOD LIKE STATUS (very very unworthy of that) and then the MEDIA EMPIRES grew....a LEFT WING BIAS....on and on.
Reagan came along and said we have to build up the MILITARY to fend off the Soviet Union and defeat Communism. HE defeated the USSR but CHINA AROSE and Communism went to bed but woke up AT HOME.
ALL OF THE ABOVE contributed to the DEBT.
So what do we do now? I dunno.
Bill is correct about the debt cycle and the BONDS COMING DUE and Bessent thinks he can outrun the bear with GDP growth and AI. Maybe maybe not. We shall soon ENOUGH.
Meanwhile Burns told Nixon to get off the Gold Standard to pay for Vietnam and other debts from LBJ. And he did. CREATING DOLLARS BACKED BY FULL FAITH AND CREDIT BUT NOT GOLD AND THEN EURO DOLLARS ENSUED WHEN THE SAUDIS CUT OFF OIL And WE AGREED TO SELL THEM WEAPONS AND TAKE THEIR STUDENTS AND TRADE WITH THEM...so the GREAT WASHING MACHINE APPEARED and now we have a HUGE problem.
I heard 25 TRILLION WAS THE END GAME. BUT NOW WE ARE APPROACHING 40 TRILLION? OH MY. We are bankrupt but the Treasury and Congress and the Fed keep it afloat and keep spending.....
CHINA STILL HOARDING GOLD and BUYING GOLD. PAY ATTENTION.
Iran war will end and soon. How? Not sure yet. Trump vexes me. I had my plan but he ignored me, a flea in the bleachers. He THOUGHT he could convince the remaining IRGC and Mullahs to negotiate. WRONG. They are zealots who desire THE END OF THE WORLD DONALD.
So bombs away and at some point they collapse buckle or are destroyed. SOON. VERY SOON.
China and Russia are ARMING IRAN meanwhile. UH OH.
What about the SUMMIT WITH XI IN DC? MIGHT BE OFF.
What am I doing? HOLDING MY INVESTMENTS AS IS gold silver cash and a few big tech for fun And PRAYING for Grands, Kids and MYSELF as I am not young *but younger than Mr. bill. and we all meet the CREATOR sometime. And HE ROLLS THE VIDEO TAPE ON OUR LIVES. UH OH.
I have CONTEMPT for FAUCI beyond measure. I was VINDICATED YESTERDAY. BIG TIME. AND GOT A LAST LAUGH ON A FORMER NEIGHBOR WHO WORKED FOR NIH AND FAUCI AND GOT GRANTS FOR A MAJOR SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY FROM HIM FOR RESEARCH And had a YELLING MATCH IN HER HOME (dual citizen from Brazil...another bone of contention with me) ABOUT ORIGINS OF COVID AND WHO FUNDED IT AND HOW IT GOT OUT.
But reminded that the 1977 Russian Flu epidemic also was a LAB LEAKED DISEASE and GOT OUT AND KILLED MILLIONS....DONT TRUST SCIENCE OR SCIENTISTS. EVER. BASTARDS.
I am not important. I am not a hero. I am just a simple man, retired professional who had an interesting career and ups and downs like most people and didnt make a lot of coin but am comfy and okay and also comfortable in my own skin. Life is uncertain and can be cruel.
The FIRES of FRANCE trouble me too. NOT GLOBAL WARMING from US but from the SUN and the earth itself burps and farts GAS from the oceans and causes oceans to heat up and then earthquakes and underwater volcanoes and so forth. BUT the FIRES Bother me. I hate to see them. HERE OR There.
I pray for Peace but prepare for War.
God bless.
"$25 trillion was the end game."
And it was I who had a private panic attack when the debt crossed the $1 trillion mark in October 1981. I was convinced The End was at hand. It took over 200 years for the country to get to that point. 55 years later, we're knocking on Heaven's Door, to borrow a line, and still nothing... Best always. PM
Everyone reading this post today knows the answer, the story WILL NOT end well. The BPR readers are mostly older, have worked all their adult lives, and "I hope", have saved and invested over the years and have a rainy day fund. The question for all of us, you to Bill, Tom, and Dan, will our efforts survive us to the end? As for the grandchildren, the debt we have created and the ongoing interest will be a huge burden for their entire lives. I hope all of our readers will have something to pass on that will enable the grand children to have a rainy day backup fund to help them along.
Jim Marshall
Bill poses a great question: How and when will the US of A's profligacy end?
At some point, enticing foreign nations to lend us money to bridge the shortfall between our nation's tax receipts and its spending won't work.
What then? And wither the dollar?
I recall a line from an old song by Chicago: "Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anyone really care?" Best always. PM
the answer is print money out of thin air and then hyperinflation occurs....OR as we are seeing unfold the people elect communists who then transform the NATION and TRASH THE CONSTITUTION and GOVERNMENT OWNS THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND OUR MINDS HEARTS AND SOULS.