Illiberal World Disorder
Backstabbing, kettle-calling, glasshouse-residing stone throwers, and plenty more...
Joel Bowman, reckoning this Sunday from San Martin, Argentina...
We returned home late Tuesday afternoon to discover a horrific scene had unfolded in our kitchen. There was blood everywhere. [And here we issue a polite trigger warning to sensitive readers...]
Caesar: The Ides of March are come
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone
– Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene I, by Joan Shakespeare’s eldest brother
One wonders, given the geopolitical backdrop of late, whether present day statesmen, consuls, emperors and dictators are likewise looking over their respective shoulders, waiting for their own “Et tu, Brute?” kind of moment.
Every nation has its oligarchs, of course, its state-fed cronies. In Russia, as in Europe and America, the elites surround their leaders like Roman senators, a ready smile on their face... and a dagger beneath their toga. When power is but one frail heartbeat away, every “surprise!” must begin to look like an opportunity, every stairway like an accident waiting to happen, every helicopter ride like a promotion in the making.
If only one of those circling, carrion-craving #2s could muster a little extra motivation...
And what’s this? Over on the continent, mega-rich Ruskies are watching their super yachts being plucked from the marinas, their soccer teams yanked from the field and their bank accounts frozen cold, much to the undisguised applause of plebeian workers, indignant deckhands and revolutionary “intellectuals” throughout the enlightened west.
For all we know, the oligarchs stole their loot fair and square. “No matter,” say their opposite numbers in the Illiberal World Disorder. “We’re stealing it back.”
And so they did, imposing “individual sanctions” on private citizens. What about due process, you ask, about the rule of law, the right to a fair trial and other, hallowed tenets of Western Civ: 101?
After all, isn’t that what separates “us” from “them,” the learned from the barbarian, the chardonnay sippers from the vodka sluggers? The fact that we don’t go around, willy-nilly, expropriating private property, assassinating journalists (we’ve read our Politkovskaya, too) and carrying out gruesome, mass executions?
That’s for other dictators, right? Like the Saud Dynasty, which beheaded 81 people just last Saturday, about half of whom for having taken place in “anti-government” protests more than a decade ago, in which they (Muslims from the Shiite minority) dared to ask for greater participation in the political process. You’ll recall this house of tyrants as the one that ordered the hit on Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi-born, US-based Washington Post journalist who walked in to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, back in 2018... and never walked out; the very same royal family that Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited just this week, pleading for more oil and gas to make up for all the hydrocarbons now not flowing from heavily sanctioned Matushka Rossiya...
Because… dictators! Amiright?
You know, dictators like Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, whom president-elect Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. unequivocally condemned back in January, 2020...
Indeed, the Biden administration denounced Maduro’s ruthless regime as recently as March 3, 2022, when it extended its executive order declaring his dictatorship a threat to US security and the region.
Of course, that was a whole 48 hours before the very same administration sent a delegation of senior officials to the decimated socialist sh*thole to try and refill some of those emptied oil and gas lines. By all accounts, Sr. Maduro (one of Mr. Putin’s pals, incidentally), appeared positively chuffed by the overture. Mr. Khashoggi’s former employer, The Washington Post, carried the story:
“The flags of Venezuela and the United States were there and they looked nice, the two flags, united as they should be,” Maduro said. “I thought it was very important to discuss, face to face, issues of maximum interest to Venezuela and the world.”
So you see, dear reader... all’s fair in love and war, as the saying goes. As for money and politics and the grubby nexus where the twain do twine? Well, that’s another matter entirely, which brings us to this week’s feature essay...
Illiberal World Disorder
By Joel Bowman
Many are the “isms”and “ocracies” that have suckered otherwise polite and private individuals into the ghastly realm of public folly. Socialism... communism... corporatism. Theocracy... autocracy... “representative” democracy. Each has its particular allure, its attendant trade-offs, and its own unique stench.
Over the course of a somewhat peripatetic life, your editor has enjoyed the mixed fortune of having observed a number of these and other political arrangements up close.
Born into a Lucky Country/Nanny State (Australia), we soon decamped to a Constitutional Monarchy/Jilted Empire (England), then to a Constitutional Republic/Corporatocracy (the USA), followed by an Authoritarian Theocracy/Squabbling Brotherhood (United Arab Emirates), a Paper Democracy/Dragon Snack (Taiwan), a Federal Republic/Kleptocracy (Mexico), a Democratic Republic/Narcocracy (Colombia) and, of course, our present country of residence, the Constitutional Ineptocracy of Argentina...
...with plenty of other “isms,” “ocracies” and rolling catastrophes along the way.
One of the upsides of living like a primitive nomad is that one gets to compare and contrast systems more sedentary folk might take for granted, to see the world with childlike (many would say childish) eyes. Like someone who has stumbled out of a bizarre religious cult, only to discover there is a world outside polygamy, virgin sacrifices and ritualistic cannibalism after all, we gaze upon each new and shiny political arrangement with equal parts awe and disbelief.
It goes without saying that all cultural mythologies have their saints and their sinners, their high priests and priestesses, their martyrs and their knaves. Civic religions are no different. There are hymns (anthems) to sing and icons (flags) to salute, along with holy (oil) wars to be won and heathens to be converted (to democracy).
Our beat here, even on the (Christian) Lord’s day, is mammon. Naturally, therefore, we look to the man who sets the price of credit in search of modern day miracle making.
And here comes Jerome Hayden Powell, head of an institution that, as far as we can tell, is essentially the governmental equivalent of a T-shirt cannon loaded with rolls of $100 bills.
“Now, go forth and multiply!” says he, aiming clumsily into the crowd while nodding toward his 12 Reserve Bank disciples. (Surely there is a Judas among their ranks, no?)
But what kind of monetary shepherd is this? And at what holy roller church does he genuflect and sermonize? Far from protecting the purity and sanctity of the flock, the Federal Reserve System has seen to the destruction (through inflation) of its primary charge, such that the dollar has lost upwards of 98% of its value since the Fed’s decidedly maculate conception, back in 1913.
Currently, the world’s reserve currency is eroding at a rate of almost 8% per year, with nothing but the goodwill of its enemies and Zeno of Elea (see the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise) standing between it and crucifixion. That “official” number puts inflation at the highest level in forty years.
Of course, if one were to calculate the CPI rate the way they did back in The Year of Our Lord 1990, as John Williams does over at shadowstats.com, that number jumps up to over 11%.
And going back to the 1980 methodology (when inflation was last “officially” this high), you get a rate approximately double what the fibbing feds are feeding you... but probably much more in line with your own, anecdotal experience.
In order to “get ahead” of inflation, Mr. Powell must bring some good ol’ fashioned fire and brimstone to the pulpit. Earlier this week, he stood before his congregation and announced that it was time for some repentance, to render unto Caesar, to embark on the “most aggressive rate tightening in decades,” according to the wise men over at Bloomberg.
Alas, as Bill reminded us this week, the microscopic 25 basis point raise came as expected, raising the real (inflation-adjusted) key rate from around MINUS 7.7% to MINUS 7.5%. If all goes to plan, and nothing jolts the rock-solid, totally shock-proof global economy (ahem...), the fed will keep raising rates until it hits... wait for it... MINUS 5% by the end of 2023.
“And for my next trick,” Mr. Powell might well have added, “I shall turn this gold into lead... and this wine into water!”
But perhaps we shouldn’t single out Mr. Powell for ridicule. He is, after all, only the second-wealthiest member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. And besides, he’s ringed by pinheads, lunatics and power mongers. It’s hard to soar like a dove when you’re surrounded by pigeons.
Given the opportunity, the entire caste of enlightened elites and western oligarchs are every bit as ruthlessly self-serving as their antagonists behind “enemy lines.” Witness Mrs. Hilary Rodham Clinton, proving that, when it comes to identifying real war criminals, it helps to know a thing or two about the job description.
Some of us are old enough to remember when, back in 2011, during then Madam Secretary’s tenure, it was NATO forces that were doing the bombing. Whoops!
And then again, in 2016, when a US-supplied bomb was used in an attack on an MSF hospital in Yemen. Oopsie!
Wait? Is that the same Saudi that...? With the mass executions and the dead journalist and...? With Boris and the oil and...? Yep. That’s the one.
Oh, and there was also that time that NATO bombs hit that hospital in Belgrade... and when the US military was caught bombing hospitals in Viet Nam... and Somalia... and Grenada... and Afghanistan... and that time Mrs. Clinton’s husband ordered the bombing of a medical factory in Sudan. And when Mrs. Clinton’s bossman bombed that wedding, instantly turning it into an mass funeral...
Or when the CIA was exposed specifically targeting rescuers and funerals with Predator and Reaper drone strikes, all the way back in 2012. From The Bureau of Investigative Journalism:
[R]esearch by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.
But don’t let all that make you feel squeamish, dear reader. “Our” elites have a handle on these delicate geopolitical situations. Witness the Speaker of the House, the permanently startled Nancy Pelosi, explaining the situation in the Ukraine with all the finesse of an intoxicated nurse lancing a boil with a chainsaw.
(We did have a clip of Madam Speaker reciting a poem by Bono on St. Patrick’s Day... but we recognize there are limits to indecency, even in this rough-n-tumble Sunday Sesh space. Masochistic viewers can indulge themselves here, if they must.)
Returning to the realm of money, this is the very same speaker who, just last week, assured us that government spending does not, in fact, increase the national debt or lead to inflation...
...and who felt the need to include “dark chocolate connoisseur” in her Twitter bio, as if to reassure the seal-clapping proles in the cheap seats that she’s still, contrary to popular rumors, almost entirely made out of human being.
In the age of backstabbing, black pots and glass houses, there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around, both behind “enemy lines” and within them. And when it comes to love and war, politics and money, it truly is as Yeats said:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Finally today... the Fatal Conceits Podcast is back!
But first, by way of introduction, a quick note on the filthiest F-word of them all. Yes, Dear Reader, it's time to clear the air, to free our minds of confused conflations, messy misnomers and nomenclatural non sequiturs.
Once and for all, let's get our latin f-words straight. Herewith a handy trifecta, all commonly confounded...
Fiat: By decree; let it be done
Fallacia: Deceit, trickery or stratagem
Floccinaucinihilipilification: The action or habit of estimating something as worthless
For example, "To indulge in floccinaucinihilipilification by labeling Bitcoin as 'fiat' would be tantamount to flagrant fallacia."
Why? Because, whatever else Bitcoin is - and it is many things - it is not fiat.
It is not assigned value "by decree." Whatever value it has (according to the capricious whims of the free market) it has by consent... the very opposite of authoritarian decree.
Bitcoin has no state... no board of directors... no central bank. It threatens no violence... claims no authority... and issues no mandates. You are free to use it... or not.
In short, it has no "decree-er."
So let us call Bitcoin a bubble, if indeed we think it is one... let us label it a fad, or a farce or a fancy flim-flam... or any other f-word that springs to mind... but let us not call it what it is, in fact, not: fiat.
That way, we can cheerfully reserve the foulest f-word of them all for the government-issued, state-decreed abomination most deserved of it: that rapidly inflating paper in your wallet.
And that brings us, somewhat circuitously, to this week's podcast. A few days ago we caught up with British investor, comedian and (according to his own twitter bio) “internet odd-job man” Dominic Frisby.
A keen Bitcoin enthusiast himself, Dominic was kind enough to share his thoughts on the “money of the Internet,” as well as gold (including his take on China’s REAL holdings), plus commodities in general, the situation vis-a-vis Russia/Ukraine and perhaps most importantly of all, why state-approved comedians just aren’t funny.
Download and listen to the entire episode here... or simply read the transcript at the same link...
As always, feel free to vent your spleen in the comments section below and, of course, to share our work with friend and enemy alike.
That’s all from us for another week. Tune in again tomorrow, when Bill returns with his regular missives...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
Mr. Joel Bowman you have a very great mind Sir. This is another fabulous write and you're so on it. Bill has such a great team! Just when I thought I'd miss the Rogue.... wow this was a smart move. The Sunday Sesh is a highlight. We do all know that Trump's wife is from Venezuela....right? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the doom to America is......
You have a unique ability to expose the absurdities of the current world with wit and sarcasm. Very similar to Michael Tracey and of course, Bill. Keep it coming…