Hate Crimes III

Imbalanced budgets, one-sided coins, empty tanks and ignorance of the past...

(Source: Getty Images)

Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Poitou, France...

Most of all [at times like this], perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

~ C. S. Lewis

The Committee for a Responsible Budget:

Deficit Tops $1.7 Trillion As Interest Rates Surge

After declining in recent years due to the pandemic ending, the deficit is now back on the rise, totaling $1.7 trillion in 2023 and more than double last year’s when you exclude the President’s now-overturned student debt cancellation and timing shifts. At a time when the economy is growing and unemployment remains near historic lows, this should have been a time to reduce deficits in order to help us better prepare to respond to future economic downturns or foreign crises.

There are always convenient justifications for why we should borrow more – it is important, it is an emergency, it will pay for itself, trying to pay for it is just too hard. Those justifications are precisely what got us to this moment where our debt is dangerously high and growing, and economic and national security conditions leave us exceedingly vulnerable. We must change course.

US Targets

What we think we are witnessing is a total failure on the part of the American elites – Congress, the Biden team, the New York Times, Ivy League universities…the whole kit and caboodle of the Establishment. Together, they cannot control their spending. But that’s not the worst of it.  

US military spending now exceeds the military budgets of China, Russia, the UK, France, India, South Korea, Germany, the Ukraine, Japan, and Saudi Arabia – combined.

And let’s look at the payoff from some of that military investment. Remember that $5 trillion or so spent to turn the Middle East into a model pro-American democracy? Here’s the latest, TheCradle:

'We will target US bases if Washington intervenes': Iraqi resistance

Iraqi resistance faction Kataib Hezbollah issued a stern warning on 11 October, threatening to strike at US bases in Iraq and surrounding areas if the US intervened in the ongoing war between various Palestinian factions and Israel.       

They, alongside other Iraqi groups and religious leaders, have voiced strong support for the Palestinians as they continue Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.  

The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) has also voiced support for the Palestinians.

But as you’ve figured out, it’s not Katib Hezbollah, the PMU, Hamas, Iran or Russia that will bring down the US empire. It’s its own elites. Unless they are brought under control, the US faces bankruptcy, inflation, war and political chaos.  

One-Sided Coin

Hate crimes are part of the picture. How can you cut the military budget…when there are “human animals” and “savages” on the loose in the Levant? And trying to remain calm…calling for a ceasefire…and looking at the rights and wrongs on both sides of the conflict – according to the White House – is “repugnant” and “disgraceful.”

The role of the elite is not only to balance the budget, but also to provide balance and moderation in public affairs. When the lynch mobs appear, the elite are supposed to urge restraint and dignity…to help people see ‘the rest of the story’ and to build consensus towards a civilized outcome. But here’s White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre:

“There are not two sides here. Not two sides.” 

You have to decide whom to hate, in other words. There are no “good people” among anti-semites, vaccine deniers, Russians, conservatives and the white male patriarchy; so says the mainstream press. In the US today, hating out-of-favor groups is almost compulsory.

To The Sword

And in Israel, don’t bother looking for ‘good people’ in Gaza. The Netanyahu government promised security…protection from the Arab untermenschen. Having failed, it must now demonstrate its bona fides by putting the bad people to the sword—backed by the world’s biggest war machine. Elizabeth Murray:

In early 2010, one of Washington DC’s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: “It’s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.”

Outside of the homeland, hate crimes are known as “war.” Huns…Japs…Terrorists…Iraqis…Vietcong…Serbians – all were portrayed as ‘bloody, thirsty animals.’ Even the SPCA wouldn’t protect them. Instead, good citizens of apparently sound mind and body, egged on by their elites, said farewell to farm and families…and set off on the latest crusade – fully intending to kill them.

Hate crimes, on the individual, private level, are rare. But they are used to justify exorbitant military spending. And the US – led by its degenerate, corrupt and incompetent elites – makes them a matter of public policy.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

Joel’s Note: Meanwhile, as the global elites convene in war rooms around the world, inking lucrative arms deals with leading “defense” contractors and deciding which “lawn to mow next,” everyday taxpayers are feeling the pinch at home...

Inflation data in the US came in hotter than expected for the month of September, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, released this morning. Here’s Investor’s Business Daily:

Consumer prices rose 0.4% for September, higher than the 0.3% estimate, with an annual increase at 3.7%, also hotter than the 3.6% forecast. Core inflation held steady, up 0.3% for the month, in line with estimates, with a 4.1% rise in annual prices that also matched expectations.

Meanwhile, initial unemployment claims edged up to 209,000 vs. 207,000 in the previous week.

That figure – 3.7% – might not sound like a lot...but it’s a fair whack above the Fed’s so-called “target rate” of 2%. Especially after one of the steepest rate hikes in living memory. And if recent history is anything to go by, we may well see the data quietly “revised” higher in the coming weeks anyway. (Check your local page 6s...or watch this space.)

What else is pushing prices higher? 

“That nice deflator of lower gasoline prices is letting up,” observed Bonner Private Research’s macro-analyst, Dan Denning, in a private email to our group this morning. “Turns out emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve right before another Middle East war isn't exactly going to lead to lower energy costs.”

September figures for the SPR show stocks at around the 351M bbl mark, down significantly from their highs of 656M bbl back in 2020... right before the Biden administration slurped up 300M barrels in the lead-up to the November, 2022 midterm elections. 

Result? 

“War and inflation,” concludes Dan. “We got 'em both now.”

For BPR members following along with our Trade of the Decade (a specific oil and gas play), that’s up 121% as of Tom’s latest update, yesterday...and with a good seven years to run. If you’re not already receiving all our paid content, find a subscription plan that works for you and join us today...