Personally I don’t mind paying my share of the $40 billion for Ukraine assistance. I think they have captured our admiration and I wish we had a leader like they do You are also probably old enough to remember drills hiding under your desk in elementary school during the Cuban missile crisis
A deranged Putin recreating a USSR and overrunning Europe is a risk I’m willing to pay to stop
A $40 B is a drop in the bucket compared to other government programs with no ROI ..
"Didn’t Congress know that ‘the people’ have no interest in who misgoverns the Donbass?" Absolutely beautiful Bill! I laugh each time a Tribalist asks you this question, "please tell us how to get out of this mess we're in." The Tribalists are incapable of comprehending the answer; ditch the Tribalism. When Statolatry becomes your national religion you're society is doomed. This train has long since left the station. There's no fixing this mess and at this late stage what's the point. I think the Elites have come to the same conclusion; hence the great re-set. When the next generation starts picking up the broken pieces of our society they will have a very important decision to make; the State or Liberty. Hopefully, they'll be as smart and forward thinking as our Founding Fathers and choose Liberty.
First, you need to understand that, and I don't know who started it, that America has always needed a boogie man. Someone to point the finger at as the cause of our problems. As for the money to Ukraine, it has to go there so the politicians can go over and load their pockets and dribble out a few bucks to the unwashed in Ukraine. The whole system is soooo rigged against us poor country folks. I don't see much of this as political, though it is called that. It is pure evil. We are told this in the Bible that the war is in the atmosphere with principalities and kingdoms not of this world. The one thing that you can trace throughout history of the world is deceit and corruption. There are no truths flying around today. Only the Bible. You can live your life with a whole lot less stress when you realize this. And i ain't preachin'. Just sayin
67. Married 42 years. She’s a saint and 66. So I married a younger woman. LOL. Having lived full time on a 35 ft sailboat since 2011 we are used to a lot of quiet and solitude, with occasional moments of terror to keep the heart and brain functioning. Where we are looking there is little risk of encroachment, National Forest Land bordering 3 sides of the nearest town of 10,000. Getting off the boat is a tough decision and we could never ever go back to ‘city’ living. So the woods seems to be the correct thing to do.
It's hard to become a paying Subscriber (again) when your Company was charging my bank account an extra nickel here and there. Twice it was .75.
Luckily my bank alerted me that it was a foreign transaction and yes Mr. Bonner it's from you all. Now, I won't be a Paying member and will miss out on the writings of Joel. Bummer
Translated: Obummer promised to “fundementally change America.” In his 3rd term, he continues to do just that. He’s a bit behind, because ‘she’ was never supposed to lose. Trying to make up for the loss of 4 years in the 16-20 year plan to ultimately eliminate elections and make the US a Marxist country, governed by a cabal chosen by the UN. Which explains the hurried pace of our demise. Flooding the country with millions of illegals was supposed to be an 8 year or longer project. So it never became a noticeable crisis. But they are in a time crunch now. They need cheap labor, illegal votes, and infiltration and destruction of heartland communities. Not to mention multiple false flag shootings.
Bottom line: we are in a shitload of trouble.
It’s likely the absolute wrong time to buy real estate. But after more than a decade full time on our 35 ft sailboat we are starting to feel more vulnerable. Can’t store enough food. Can’t safely keep enough cash and PMs. We can spend 90 days in an anchorage but then reprovision becomes necessary. Having been fully self sufficient for a decade, except for the need to buy food and some fuel, we no longer have confidence that it can last. So the hunt is on for 20 defendable wooded acres where we can either buy or build a cabin. We have had about 4K in positive cash flow per month for 10 years. So we are in good shape. Now, if we can only find the property.
Lived aboard for 35+ years, but during that time bought the future 40 acres of rural Rocky Mountain retirement property. There are still deals, especially if you know how to live semi off the grid.
Here's some wrongthink for a Thursday :-) Putin and Russia will do more to assist Americans with retaining their National Sovereignty than the U.S. government.
This isn’t about “who misgoverns the Donbuss”. It’s about whether we allow war criminals to deliberately attack civilian targets like schools, hospitals and apartment buildings.
Who, exactly, are the war criminals? Does Zelenskyy deserve any blame for shelling the Donbas? Do Bush and Obama deserve war criminal status for killing upwards of 100,000 Iraqi civilians? Is that ok because they were Arabs, and this is white Europeans? I'm not trying to provoke or pull the race card, but attempting to clarify that our side does it too. We should have taken Putin at his word, and started a negotiated settlement while he was amassing at the border.
PG V, I try to separate the common man from our rulers. We are a staggering great nation, whose people ALWAYS step up to help other countries in need. The incidents you mentioned, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, were the horrific results of us being attacked first, and wanting to deliver a coup de grace to save our guys' lives. Our involvement in the Middle East (Afghanistan) should have been swift and decisive. We had Osama cornered in Tora Bora, but dithering allowed him to escape. That should have been the end of it, or at the very least, been limited to elite units carrying out stealthy missions, not regime change. Why can't we understand that basing troops in Saudi Arabia was blasphemous to them? The strongmen that we took out or attempted to take out, kept the lid on the pot of their own turbulent religious factions. We topple these dictators without a plan for what happens next. Some societies can't handle or don't want democracy. As much as we'd like to, we can't solve every problem. I can suggest further reading on this very topic. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman."
Well, no, supporting head-chopping ISIS groups in Syria (renamed "moderate rebels") is now. Killing in Somalia for absolutely nothing that threatens the US is now. Russia's response to the US overthrowing Ukraine's democratically elected government and the subsequent shelling of civilian targets like schools, hospitals and apartment buildings by the US-installed Ukrainian government is now.
Don't get me wrong. I totally agree that any military action is barbaric and pretty much war itself is a crime. But in this case, I think Russia is waging a purely defensive action (in defense of ethnic Russians in the Donbass). If Biden and company weren't throwing gasoline on the fire with billions of dollars worth of military aid, it would already be over with. Of course, the big guy is getting his cut, so I think that explains a lot.
As usual, in my opinion, Bill (& Dan) have definitely accurately described the madness we are embroiled in. And like Ken’s comment below mine, I feel so alone…
PG V, I have to disagree a bit with your take on the war in Ukraine. We are neither stopping Russia from its original objective, securing a land bridge to Crimea, and punishing Ukraine's leadership for the Orange Revolution and ending the indiscriminate Ukrainian shelling of the Donbass, nor are we hurting Putin economically. What we have done successfully is cause a worldwide crisis in food and energy. Why haven't we insisted on a negotiated settlement, brokered by Turkey? Instead, we continue to enrich the war machine here, harden our enemies, and give pause to our allies concerned about an out of control idiot (Biden) using our economic might to try and cripple an enemy (who's people did nothing to us). We have also achieved the unthinkable--driven Russia, China, and India to form an economic bloc that happens to involve over half the world's population. They will also usher in their own currency, partially backed by gold, causing our fiat paper trash to be next to worthless. As an aside, but related: Libya's Ghaddafi was taken out by NATO because he was going to issue a gold backed "pan African" currency. Not unknown to us, Russia (#1) and China (#2) have been quietly buying gold for decades. I believe this is their moment to collapse the petro dollar regime that has dominated the world's economies since '74.
There was an attempt for a negotiated settlement in 2015 with the Minsk agreement which died a quick death. Putin has no interest in negotiating with Ukraine as he does not even recognize Ukraine as being a legitimate country so any agreement would have been like the Kremlin's promise in January that they were not going to invade.
The Ukrainians have shown that they are willing to fight and have made the Russians pay a very heavy price in men and material with the arms we have provided them to date. We need to make sure that the Ukrainian military has what it needs to reclaim the lands lost since February and negotiate with the Russians from a position of strength not weakness.
We should be thankful that the Ukrainian military is bleeding the Russian military dry. Had this been an easy victory for Putin I have no doubt he would be looking at sending his armies into the Baltic states or into another Eastern European country. With the Baltic states and most of eastern Europe being in the NATO alliance we would have been faced with either WW3 or fracturing the alliance if Article 5 was proven worthless.
The upside in all of this is between Ukraine, China, shipping backlog, chip shortage and fertilizer/wheat etc etc, we see the system for the past 50 years of outsourcing most of our manufacturing and vital products has come back to bite corporate America in the azz.
Looks like the chip industry is leading the way in coming back to America.
Hopefully more industries will follow.
Samsung building $17 billion chip plant in Texas.
Intel building $20 billion chip plant in Ohio.
US Steel building $3 billion steel mill in Arkansas.
Ford/ S. Korea building a $5.6 billion EV and battery factory in Tennessee .
Envision AESC, a Japanese company building a battery plant in Kentucky.
You could not be more right. Our leadership allowed this off shoring, which has led to the hollowing out of this country. These companies can't build these plants fast enough.
Wow, common ground for a change. I'd be willing to pay more for stuff if it means Americans have decent paying jobs and don't need the government (and my taxes) to subsidize their lives. I'd also be good with some inflation if it means we're not dependent on oppressive regimes and dictators to make critical items like medicines.
I agree. It seems FDA had something to do with Baby Formula shortage. How does FDA monitor or assure that Baby Formula from Mexico meets USA standards? I am glad I don't have any small babies. If the baby's mothers are unable to breast feed, they should seek "wet nurses" for their babies. I am sure there are many women that would step up to the plate and earn extra income as a wet nurse. Nice cottage industry. Just saying! Florida Jimmy.
In my view, it would not be, if we had an honest currency. Regardless of inflation/deflation, our currency has lost 98% of its purchasing power since '71.
Worth it to get jobs back in the USA. Speaking of jobs, News Media says, "390,00 jobs added". Be nice to know the breakdown. How many government jobs compared to private Industry jobs? Just saying! Florida Jimmy.
We could go back and forth respectfully, but to understand this complex situation, I would recommend "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?" featuring John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago. Pretty brilliant, interesting speech. Made 6 years ago, but lays out the causes. Worth a listen.
What, in your opinion, is wrong about libertarian ideas? They are the only group which proposes to protect the little people from the psychopathic predation of the ruling classes, their millions of dimensions of theft, slavery and all else that is terrible. Just how can you read Bonner's brilliant missives and learn anything?
Bill, thank you so much for connecting the dots. I feel so enlightened when I read your work, but in terms of My Fellow Americans, I feel so alone.
Personally I don’t mind paying my share of the $40 billion for Ukraine assistance. I think they have captured our admiration and I wish we had a leader like they do You are also probably old enough to remember drills hiding under your desk in elementary school during the Cuban missile crisis
A deranged Putin recreating a USSR and overrunning Europe is a risk I’m willing to pay to stop
A $40 B is a drop in the bucket compared to other government programs with no ROI ..
Bill, Our 535 idiots in Washington D.C. are their own Asses and its insult to Donkeys and Horses to call them otherwise.
"Didn’t Congress know that ‘the people’ have no interest in who misgoverns the Donbass?" Absolutely beautiful Bill! I laugh each time a Tribalist asks you this question, "please tell us how to get out of this mess we're in." The Tribalists are incapable of comprehending the answer; ditch the Tribalism. When Statolatry becomes your national religion you're society is doomed. This train has long since left the station. There's no fixing this mess and at this late stage what's the point. I think the Elites have come to the same conclusion; hence the great re-set. When the next generation starts picking up the broken pieces of our society they will have a very important decision to make; the State or Liberty. Hopefully, they'll be as smart and forward thinking as our Founding Fathers and choose Liberty.
First, you need to understand that, and I don't know who started it, that America has always needed a boogie man. Someone to point the finger at as the cause of our problems. As for the money to Ukraine, it has to go there so the politicians can go over and load their pockets and dribble out a few bucks to the unwashed in Ukraine. The whole system is soooo rigged against us poor country folks. I don't see much of this as political, though it is called that. It is pure evil. We are told this in the Bible that the war is in the atmosphere with principalities and kingdoms not of this world. The one thing that you can trace throughout history of the world is deceit and corruption. There are no truths flying around today. Only the Bible. You can live your life with a whole lot less stress when you realize this. And i ain't preachin'. Just sayin
Don Harrell
And I thought WAPO posters were crazy.
67. Married 42 years. She’s a saint and 66. So I married a younger woman. LOL. Having lived full time on a 35 ft sailboat since 2011 we are used to a lot of quiet and solitude, with occasional moments of terror to keep the heart and brain functioning. Where we are looking there is little risk of encroachment, National Forest Land bordering 3 sides of the nearest town of 10,000. Getting off the boat is a tough decision and we could never ever go back to ‘city’ living. So the woods seems to be the correct thing to do.
It's hard to become a paying Subscriber (again) when your Company was charging my bank account an extra nickel here and there. Twice it was .75.
Luckily my bank alerted me that it was a foreign transaction and yes Mr. Bonner it's from you all. Now, I won't be a Paying member and will miss out on the writings of Joel. Bummer
some good intelligent, comments here...
Translated: Obummer promised to “fundementally change America.” In his 3rd term, he continues to do just that. He’s a bit behind, because ‘she’ was never supposed to lose. Trying to make up for the loss of 4 years in the 16-20 year plan to ultimately eliminate elections and make the US a Marxist country, governed by a cabal chosen by the UN. Which explains the hurried pace of our demise. Flooding the country with millions of illegals was supposed to be an 8 year or longer project. So it never became a noticeable crisis. But they are in a time crunch now. They need cheap labor, illegal votes, and infiltration and destruction of heartland communities. Not to mention multiple false flag shootings.
Bottom line: we are in a shitload of trouble.
It’s likely the absolute wrong time to buy real estate. But after more than a decade full time on our 35 ft sailboat we are starting to feel more vulnerable. Can’t store enough food. Can’t safely keep enough cash and PMs. We can spend 90 days in an anchorage but then reprovision becomes necessary. Having been fully self sufficient for a decade, except for the need to buy food and some fuel, we no longer have confidence that it can last. So the hunt is on for 20 defendable wooded acres where we can either buy or build a cabin. We have had about 4K in positive cash flow per month for 10 years. So we are in good shape. Now, if we can only find the property.
Lived aboard for 35+ years, but during that time bought the future 40 acres of rural Rocky Mountain retirement property. There are still deals, especially if you know how to live semi off the grid.
Here's some wrongthink for a Thursday :-) Putin and Russia will do more to assist Americans with retaining their National Sovereignty than the U.S. government.
Russia winning is bad for Davos, and by extension globalization and the NWO. Therefore I am left with no choice as to whom to support.
Bad for Davos=good for the 99.99%
This isn’t about “who misgoverns the Donbuss”. It’s about whether we allow war criminals to deliberately attack civilian targets like schools, hospitals and apartment buildings.
Who, exactly, are the war criminals? Does Zelenskyy deserve any blame for shelling the Donbas? Do Bush and Obama deserve war criminal status for killing upwards of 100,000 Iraqi civilians? Is that ok because they were Arabs, and this is white Europeans? I'm not trying to provoke or pull the race card, but attempting to clarify that our side does it too. We should have taken Putin at his word, and started a negotiated settlement while he was amassing at the border.
PG V, I try to separate the common man from our rulers. We are a staggering great nation, whose people ALWAYS step up to help other countries in need. The incidents you mentioned, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, were the horrific results of us being attacked first, and wanting to deliver a coup de grace to save our guys' lives. Our involvement in the Middle East (Afghanistan) should have been swift and decisive. We had Osama cornered in Tora Bora, but dithering allowed him to escape. That should have been the end of it, or at the very least, been limited to elite units carrying out stealthy missions, not regime change. Why can't we understand that basing troops in Saudi Arabia was blasphemous to them? The strongmen that we took out or attempted to take out, kept the lid on the pot of their own turbulent religious factions. We topple these dictators without a plan for what happens next. Some societies can't handle or don't want democracy. As much as we'd like to, we can't solve every problem. I can suggest further reading on this very topic. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman."
You mean like Iraq, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria …
That was then, this is now
Well, no, supporting head-chopping ISIS groups in Syria (renamed "moderate rebels") is now. Killing in Somalia for absolutely nothing that threatens the US is now. Russia's response to the US overthrowing Ukraine's democratically elected government and the subsequent shelling of civilian targets like schools, hospitals and apartment buildings by the US-installed Ukrainian government is now.
Don't get me wrong. I totally agree that any military action is barbaric and pretty much war itself is a crime. But in this case, I think Russia is waging a purely defensive action (in defense of ethnic Russians in the Donbass). If Biden and company weren't throwing gasoline on the fire with billions of dollars worth of military aid, it would already be over with. Of course, the big guy is getting his cut, so I think that explains a lot.
As usual, in my opinion, Bill (& Dan) have definitely accurately described the madness we are embroiled in. And like Ken’s comment below mine, I feel so alone…
PG V, I have to disagree a bit with your take on the war in Ukraine. We are neither stopping Russia from its original objective, securing a land bridge to Crimea, and punishing Ukraine's leadership for the Orange Revolution and ending the indiscriminate Ukrainian shelling of the Donbass, nor are we hurting Putin economically. What we have done successfully is cause a worldwide crisis in food and energy. Why haven't we insisted on a negotiated settlement, brokered by Turkey? Instead, we continue to enrich the war machine here, harden our enemies, and give pause to our allies concerned about an out of control idiot (Biden) using our economic might to try and cripple an enemy (who's people did nothing to us). We have also achieved the unthinkable--driven Russia, China, and India to form an economic bloc that happens to involve over half the world's population. They will also usher in their own currency, partially backed by gold, causing our fiat paper trash to be next to worthless. As an aside, but related: Libya's Ghaddafi was taken out by NATO because he was going to issue a gold backed "pan African" currency. Not unknown to us, Russia (#1) and China (#2) have been quietly buying gold for decades. I believe this is their moment to collapse the petro dollar regime that has dominated the world's economies since '74.
There was an attempt for a negotiated settlement in 2015 with the Minsk agreement which died a quick death. Putin has no interest in negotiating with Ukraine as he does not even recognize Ukraine as being a legitimate country so any agreement would have been like the Kremlin's promise in January that they were not going to invade.
The Ukrainians have shown that they are willing to fight and have made the Russians pay a very heavy price in men and material with the arms we have provided them to date. We need to make sure that the Ukrainian military has what it needs to reclaim the lands lost since February and negotiate with the Russians from a position of strength not weakness.
We should be thankful that the Ukrainian military is bleeding the Russian military dry. Had this been an easy victory for Putin I have no doubt he would be looking at sending his armies into the Baltic states or into another Eastern European country. With the Baltic states and most of eastern Europe being in the NATO alliance we would have been faced with either WW3 or fracturing the alliance if Article 5 was proven worthless.
I have a bad feeling it's not going to work out that way. MSM is already dripping out articles that paint Russia controlling the Donbas.
The upside in all of this is between Ukraine, China, shipping backlog, chip shortage and fertilizer/wheat etc etc, we see the system for the past 50 years of outsourcing most of our manufacturing and vital products has come back to bite corporate America in the azz.
Looks like the chip industry is leading the way in coming back to America.
Hopefully more industries will follow.
Samsung building $17 billion chip plant in Texas.
Intel building $20 billion chip plant in Ohio.
US Steel building $3 billion steel mill in Arkansas.
Ford/ S. Korea building a $5.6 billion EV and battery factory in Tennessee .
Envision AESC, a Japanese company building a battery plant in Kentucky.
You could not be more right. Our leadership allowed this off shoring, which has led to the hollowing out of this country. These companies can't build these plants fast enough.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1101505691/short-term-profits-and-long-term-consequences-did-jack-welch-break-capitalism
Thanks for that. Looks like an interesting read.
Wow, common ground for a change. I'd be willing to pay more for stuff if it means Americans have decent paying jobs and don't need the government (and my taxes) to subsidize their lives. I'd also be good with some inflation if it means we're not dependent on oppressive regimes and dictators to make critical items like medicines.
I agree. It seems FDA had something to do with Baby Formula shortage. How does FDA monitor or assure that Baby Formula from Mexico meets USA standards? I am glad I don't have any small babies. If the baby's mothers are unable to breast feed, they should seek "wet nurses" for their babies. I am sure there are many women that would step up to the plate and earn extra income as a wet nurse. Nice cottage industry. Just saying! Florida Jimmy.
Don't lose sight of the fact that on-shoring will be highly inflationary.
In my view, it would not be, if we had an honest currency. Regardless of inflation/deflation, our currency has lost 98% of its purchasing power since '71.
I agree, but that's not the world we live in. The off-shoring was a short term fix to address our policy of continuous inflation.
Worth it to get jobs back in the USA. Speaking of jobs, News Media says, "390,00 jobs added". Be nice to know the breakdown. How many government jobs compared to private Industry jobs? Just saying! Florida Jimmy.
We could go back and forth respectfully, but to understand this complex situation, I would recommend "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?" featuring John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago. Pretty brilliant, interesting speech. Made 6 years ago, but lays out the causes. Worth a listen.
Agreed. I would say unknown, probably leaning conservative. What he discusses transcends personal politics.
What, in your opinion, is wrong about libertarian ideas? They are the only group which proposes to protect the little people from the psychopathic predation of the ruling classes, their millions of dimensions of theft, slavery and all else that is terrible. Just how can you read Bonner's brilliant missives and learn anything?
For me, I hope he never changes, common sense politics prevails.