Beyond the Herald's Cry

In a country the size of the US, ‘the people’ are far too remote from Washington to have any real influence on it. That’s why state governments tend to do less harm than the federales.

President Ronald Reagan and Japanese Emperor Hirohito share a toast at the Imperial Palace, Source: Getty Images

Monday, July 1, 2024 

Bill Bonner, writing today from Poitou, France  

‘The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage.’ 

—Emperor Hirohito, after Hiroshima 

The situation last week did not develop to Joe Biden’s advantage. But what did anyone expect? Put an old man at a podium; he’s likely to dodder a bit. 

And so what? Biden was never more than a figurehead anyway. His only real role was as a ‘dog in the manger,’ making sure no one else, who might disrupt the scammy system, got to sit in the Oval Office. 

But last week’s debate was another one for the record books. America is already in the grip of the biggest, most costly experiment in monetary history... destined to prove, once again, that the authorities can’t be trusted with the power to ‘print’ money. Using this fake money, they pushed interest rates down to the lowest levels in five thousand years, well below zero... and crippled the economy with $100 trillion in debt. 

Included in that figure is $35 trillion of US government debt; this was Miracle Gro for the feds, allowing them to get way too big for their britches... and setting the US up for perpetual war and bankruptcy.  

And now, Joe Biden, has had his Big Reveal. They opened the door and no one was home.  

Inside Job

On the weekend, Americans were still reeling from the discovery that their President... the man with the nuclear codes... is senile. And as we guessed last month, the insiders are scurrying around to find a replacement.  

Let us pause to draw breath. White House honchos must have known that their man was not up to the job. They must have known that he would stand at the podium as an elderly mouth breather and make a fool of himself.  

They must have known that he couldn’t put together a coherent thought... that he would be confused and hopeless, standing in front of fifty million spectators... and make a laughing stock of himself and of the USA. 

Why did they do that? Why subject him to humiliation and scorn? Could they not have known... not have anticipated what would happen? 

Or did they set him up? Was the idea that he would make it so obvious that he was not going to be the actual president for another six months — let alone for 4 more years — that even he, through the accumulated fog of four-score years, could see that it was time to take himself off the stage?  

There’s no shame in getting old. That’s the way it works.  

And it wouldn’t be the first time a mental defective was in the White House. In October, 1919, Woodrow Wilson was on the toilet when he had a stroke. He fell over and hit his head. Thereafter, he was absent... unable to think or speak clearly. For the next year and a half, his wife and personal physician covered for him. They claimed he was fine... recovering from the flu, or from ‘nervous exhaustion.’ 

The nation was probably better off without him, anyway. Life went on as before. 

Astrologer in Chief

Later, Ronald Reagan was getting a little doddery in his second term. His wife, Nancy, turned to her astrologer, Joan Quigley, to help the president on key policy issues. Chief of Staff, Donald Regan, claimed that “every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance” by Quigley.   

Wilson had disgraced the nation with his meddling in Latin America. Then, after running for re-election as the man who ‘kept us out of war,’ he sent US troops to Europe, where more than one hundred thousand of them died. But the effect of it on the average citizen was probably modest. And Reagan’s team — famously minus our friend David Stockman — went on to ignore Reagan’s ‘small government’ promise altogether, and more than doubled US debt.  

In both cases, what the voters had asked for had nothing to do with it. 

And today, the problem is not that Biden is a cut-out... a puppet for the ruling elite. The problem is that the whole system is counterfeit. Democracy only works on a small scale.  “Beyond the herald’s cry,” as Aristotle put it, the elites take over.

In a country the size of the US, ‘the people’ are far too remote from Washington to have any real influence on it. That’s why state governments — with the exception of the biggest ones — tend to do less harm than the federales. 

Before 1971, the ‘power of the purse’ gave citizens some residual control over their government. Taxes are something that ‘the people’ understand. And a politician who raised taxes risked his career. But after the feds switched to fake, credit-based money, the insiders could print money and borrow it themselves -- spending without having to raise taxes.  

Then, the situation did not necessarily develop to our advantage. 

Regards, 

Bill Bonner