Bad Guy Rising

A new enemy on the horizon, plus updates from life up in the Andes...

(Source: Getty Images)

Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Salta, Argentina... 

Here’s the latest from Bloomberg:

China Warns US Risks Catastrophe With Moves to ‘Contain’ Beijing

China’s new foreign minister warned that soaring US-China tensions risk blowing past any guardrails in the relationship, showing that divisions between the world’s biggest economies are becoming more entrenched.  

“The US claims that it seeks to outcompete China but does not seek conflict,” Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Tuesday at his first news briefing since taking office late last year. “Yet in reality, its so-called competition aims to contain and suppress China in all respects and get the two countries locked in a zero-sum game.”

Let’s continue scanning the horizon, searching for the dust of an approaching ‘cluster.’ Like Apaches on the warpath, trouble may be headed our way. Today, we look at the warpath itself.

Wokish Crime and Time on the Vine

First, a brief update on life in the far Andes. Here, in the 1990s, the government gave the “originarios” permission to go on the warpath against local landowners. The land itself has changed hands peacefully for the last 400 years – or ever since it was conquered by the Spanish conquistadors.

The ‘originarios’ say they do not recognize the titles issued by the Spaniards, going back to the 16^th century.  And thanks to recent attempts to protect indigenous culture, squatters can declare themselves “originarios,” and they can’t be put off your land. There being a lot more potential ‘originarios’ than landowners, the local politicians, the police, and the courts, tend to take their side…especially when they are in conflict with a foreign, absentee landowner. So, while the government recognizes our title to the land, it doesn’t stop someone from fencing off part of it and building a house for himself.

But all is quiet…at least in our part of the pre-cordillera. The main trouble-maker on our ranch went to the police and charged us with theft (we moved some roof beams, illegally stored on our land….thus making it harder for her to put up another illegal house)…and with “gender violence,” a new, wokish crime leveled at men, just because they are men, and widely regarded as a joke.  

We counter-charged her with trespassing, squatting and so forth. All a waste of time.

The woman is living, unauthorized, on our land (one of many illegal residents!)…in a house built illegally. As a single mother (her companion, Carlos, drowned in a suspicious accident 2 years ago) she gets money from the government.  

But now, it looks like the trouble-maker made trouble for herself.  

“She’s so annoying to everyone,” reports Gustavo, our foreman, “that she’s made enemies of the other originarios. Everybody is hoping she’ll just move away.”

The bigger problem for us is that too many calves die. More about that anon.

The Fin del Mundo

But apart from the ‘originario war.’ And, of course, the periodic droughts…the dead calves (10% of the births)…and losing money every year…

…life in the valley goes on. It rained this year. The grass is high. The cattle are fat. The grapes are ripening.

Normally, the grapes are harvested at this time of year. But a late frost delayed the budding out. Now, we have to worry that an early frost will destroy the grapes before they are ready to pick.

So, let’s go back to something easier: Bad Guy Theory (BGT). It’s the lamebrain idea that some people are good and others are bad. Naturally, we Americans are among the good ones. And since we are good guys, we can do what we want.  Then, ‘bad’ things (blowing up an important pipeline, for example) magically become good.

Arguably, since WWII, no nation has done as many bad things as the US. We have that on the authority of a report from China. Patrick Lawrence reports:   

“U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils” is a thorough, carefully organized inventory of Washington’s imperial conduct, evidently written by one or more ministry officials who has or have done considerable reading and homework. While it is focused on the decades since the 1945 victories in Europe and the Pacific, in its indictment of U.S. policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean it reaches back to the earliest decades of our republic. For a taste of the tone, this from the opening section:

In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.” Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion.

Heaven and Hell

The US is the only country to ever use a nuclear bomb – against civilians, no less. Twice. It has invaded 32 different countries (since WWII). It has meddled in foreign elections, assassinations, murders, coups d’etat – you name it.  When it comes to ‘bad guy’ goings on, the US is Number One.

Of course, all this was done by the ‘good guys,’ so it was done for a good reason, even if it didn’t always turn out so good.

Even at home, America’s shining goodness is a little tarnished. The US puts more people in jail than any other major nation. At more than 600 people per 100,000 in the hoosegow, the US locks up twice as many of its own people as Russia, and five times as many as China.

(Soon, we predict, BGT will be used at home to lock up even more people. That was the real significance of Biden’s strange ‘red light speech.’ His aim was to turn his rivals from worthy opponents into “bad guys.”)

As the world’s good guys, we don’t need to leave it to God to determine who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell. We can decide for ourselves.

And now, the press…the intellectuals…the feds…the whole Establishment – have designated a new bad guy du jour: China. 

Stay tuned…

Regards,

Bill Bonner