After the past 3 years of criminal malfeasance on the President’s part, malfeasance that has spread throughout “his” administration, it is time for all Americans to admit to the gross damage that inserting Biden as president has caused. Democrats have nothing to be proud of – and much to answer for – in the matters of the 2020 elections. The possibility that Biden was fairly elected dwindles almost daily. A fair observer should concede that Trump’s suspicion of unprecedented election fraud and wrong-doing is well justified. His frantic attempts to reverse the certifications of “votes” were justified actions of a chief executive officer. Unfortunately, there is neither time nor mechanism to expose distortions as grand and effective as those employed in 2020. January Sixth played out as the phenomenal political hatchet that certain rabid leftists and anti-Trumpers had only dreamed-of hitherto.
As a result of the various crimes and distortions of 2020, Joe Biden and a gaggle of idiots came into power, including for the third time, Barack Obama. Biden, it is clear, has neither the thoughtfulness nor mental capacity to contrive the policies his administration is following. He has never understood history. Neither has he ever judged the nature of foreign leaders properly, accounting for decades of poor decision-making through his Senate and Vice-Presidential tenures. Worse, he is personally weak, leaving him easily manipulated by stronger personalities like the aforementioned Mr. Obama. His declining mental sharpness places the United States’ existence as a world power at existential risk. Woe are we.
It is hard to isolate a single Biden failure to discuss, but it seems Prudent to consider the open borders policies he has fostered. One must ask oneself, “Why in God’s name would anyone with influence in the U. S. promote or favor or allow such policies?” There are two reasons that have been stated over and over in multiple ways, neither good for the USA: 1) Change the demographic majority of our population (white’s need not apply); and 2) Divide the U. S. against itself and weaken it economically. Accomplishing the first will install Democrats forever in power – priority 1 – and accomplishing the second will enable globalism to replace Independence. For shame. We can see a dozen other leftist, anti-American policies working toward the same goals in education, communications, medicine and constant erosion of religious thought, but none will achieve the two main goals as rapidly as Biden’s flood of 10 MILLION or more illegal entrants.
The premises under which Biden acted to carry out Obama’s long-time plan, derive from “Executive Orders,” and were illegal in and of themselves. An executive order by a president can, legally and constitutionally, impact only the executive branch in terms of how the LAWS, passed legislatively and signed into law by a president, shall be executed. An executive order may not prevent the faithful execution of the laws, or set them aside in favor of un-legislated directives put forth by a president on his or her own initiative. However, as Mr Obama is confident of, there are few remedies available in the case of a president’s abuse of power. The only one is “impeachment” in the House followed by conviction by two-thirds of the Senate – a never-accomplished set of actions. No Congress has yet had the political will to carry through an impeachment (allegation) to actual conviction, even when laws have been broken by a president. Hence, “Biden’s” open border policies have remained in place for more than 3 years despite the breaking of and failure of enforcement of, immigration laws.
Millions of words have been spoken and written about the unfolding tragedy and dangers of the failure to enforce our border and immigration laws… except two: “I’m sorry” (for damaging the Nation, the States and hundreds of communities), spoken by Joe Biden. Oddly, no State, even Texas, has yet sued the federal government for imposing costs on States and municipalities in the furtherance of illegal federal actions. Another suit could be filed in federal court concerning those same States and municipalities being forced to not enforce their own laws on behalf of their own citizens. Nor has Biden, himself, been impeached in the House. An illegal travesty continues unabated.
At some point, when the Chinese Communist Party dictates, there will be an horrendous terrorism event inside the United States, perpetrated by some of the thousands of Chinese who have walked into the U. S. and by some of the thousands of entrants from terrorism-sponsoring Muslim countries. Everyone will be upset and casting blame, perhaps even at Joe Biden, who will be long gone or oblivious when it occurs. When it does those Democrats who engineered the certification of Biden’s electoral vote count on January 6th, 2021, will finally offer two words about the open borders policy: “Who, ME?”
Amidst the anxiety, worry, fear and complete inversion of logic that comprises “Climate Change,” a sad failure of the heart is heard as gullible men and women who might create families, declare that they are afraid to bring children into this world which is doomed by the follies of pollution and fossil fuels. It should be a mental thing, but it’s not: it’s a function of gullibility that is divorced from clear thinking.
America cannot survive gullibility. Americans, more than citizens of any other nation, are OBLIGATED to study and understand the words, and the meaning of the words, and the philosophies supporting them… in our Constitution and other founding documents. The United States of America – those are words, too, and we are obligated to understand them just as clearly. Ours is a country with a role in history unlike every other. “United” tells us that we are OBLIGATED to share common laws and moral guidance. “States” tells us that our States are the structure of our nation, and our strength. Ours is not a national government, it’s a federal one, yet every scrap of legislation that Congress passes EXPANDS national power over the states and the people, when it should be doing only what the states cannot do for themselves. Words matter. Whoever – or whatever – attempts to change the meaning of words is announcing its willingness to confuse the polity and steal our ability to discuss, reason and understand.
What American voters have allowed, so far, is an administrative bureaucracy that makes itself appear to be so important – so vital to our ability to remain fed and comfortable – that threats to its power or existence, even of tiny slivers of it, are tantamount to Hitler’s Nazism. Minor interruptions, like temporary shutdowns until appropriations are approved by Congress, are described as imminent defaults on U. S. obligations and threats to every aspect of life from stocking grocery stores to providing health care and life-saving operations. Worse, a government shutdown is racist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist… and no one wants to be any of those things, let alone the whole country!
What illogical nonsense. Yet, that is the definition of our “democracy,” today. The “democracy” that we must impoverish ourselves to protect around the world, yet do our best to undermine, here, despite the fact that we are a Republic… that employs democracy.
Are your children gullible? Possibly. Once ideological teachers have taught our kids to believe untrue things, the pathways of gullibility are established. If a first-grader believes the United States was founded upon racism in 1619, he or she can be led to believe that gender can be changed. Pretty soon they’ll believe that their parents are a threat that cannot be told that their son or daughter is changing to daughter or son. So, now it’s better to hide truths from parents. We can’t survive gullibility.
Education, essentially dominated by government schools and unionized teachers and staff, is the fundament of culture and citizenship. Along with language, math, geography, civics, science and a second language, the success of our nation requires that our children learn about our history, our founding, the ideas behind the Constitution and how it works, and basic economics. Turning out students who cannot read – at huge expense – puts our nation at risk; filling their heads with untruths and radical theories of race and biology is the opposite of what parents – and our nation – need teachers to do. Yet, as schools fail to educate, teachers’ unions dictate policies to management that increase costs, compensation and staffing while reducing accountability for teachers’ lack of results. The incredible refusals to work and teach during “COVID” can never be forgiven.
Have we the intestinal fortitude to correct the direction and OWNERSHIP of our so-called “public” education system? Can we place the management of public schools back into the hands of those we elect to manage them? Or will we go to our graves with leftist, virtually communist teachers’ unions operating this huge fraction of our government for their own benefit… not for the advancement of our children? Government employees should be severely restricted in their abilities to influence elections. As it is, politicians charged with financial management of all departments rely on unions to get themselves elected. They (the elected) then “negotiate” with unions for pay and benefits. Those who are charged with representing citizens wind up basically representing only the unionized, public employees. What a debilitating economic farce. Will we continue this? Or are there politicians with the courage to break it up and restore fairness, balance and honesty to our republican form of government?
We are $33 Trillion in debt. Clearly the past 6 decades of “representative” government has failed to manage the people’s business. We are on the path to insolvency and economic ruin when that day comes that other nations will refuse payment in dollars. This is a system our “representatives” created in our name. Now we have a poop-head as president who has invited SEVEN MILLION or more new welfare recipients, many of whom are actual criminals and terrorist threats to our nation, to our people. Shame on him and shame on all of us who voted for him in 2020. We knew he was a fool from his 40 years of history in the Senate and his 8 years as Obama’s V. P. We knew he was a public policy and foreign policy idiot, yet we dutifully followed his party’s directions. Now, we’re the fools.
Are we patriotic enough – still – to make wiser, more sensible, economically aware choices about who will represent us American citizens and who will be our President, representing all of us and our country? Or, are we so gullible that we will again elect a caricature of a leader and toadies who claim to be our representatives? How many of our Senators and “Representatives” are receiving money or gifts of some sort from China? More than one, for sure. Why do we re-elect them and then cede them power in their respective houses?
American citizens are the most powerful people on Earth. We can affect both domestic and foreign policies of our powerful government. Yet we continuously give up our unique rights in exchange for not being called names, and we continuously re-elect relatively ignorant and corrupt people to both state and federal offices – people who soon give up representing we, the People, and then learn to represent their personal interests by cooperating with other corrupt “representatives” who have learned how to steal, legally. Whenever they actually face their voters, these worthies tend to represent the government to us rather than the other way around, explaining why this or that policy position that got them elected, cannot be accomplished.
Are we awake enough in 2023 to exercise our Constitutional rights and powers to put in place a legislature that will actually force the executive swamp to do the right things? How is it that we couldn’t even get the border closed with a threat to shut down the government? How is it that the Biden administration thinks it is “American” to force expenses upon the States in the breaking of federal immigration laws? We ARE gullible, but, are we crazy?
Most of what we hear on TV or radio about the big enemy: INFLATION, is only partially true, at best. Defeating that enemy, which politicians claim to be doing for their constituents, is impossible if we fail, sometimes on purpose, to understand the nature of it. Let’s examine the primary aspect, or feature, of Inflation: it is a tool of government, by which we mean, the federal government.
This is not to say that government intends to raise prices on commodities and goods and labor, but then, prices rising is not the definition of inflation, which is why much of what is spewed about “inflation”… is disinformation. Inflation represents only an increase in the money supply; along with the federal government’s sneaky mechanisms, there are only a couple of ways to expand the money supply, primarily banks, and banks can do so only because of federal regulations. Oddly, foreign banks and governments can ALSO expand the money supply, increasing inflation of the supply of dollars, not of wealth. When prices rise there are temporary bumps in wealth due to increased receipts and, often, fixed rates of interest on loans. So, there is a spotty increase in prosperity, but not for everyone. Inflation increases dollars, but each represents less wealth than it did even a few months, if not weeks earlier.
Only the federal government can “create” money. The Constitution charges the Congress to “…coin money, (and) regulate the value thereof…” In 1913 Congress shed that Constitutional responsibility – and authority – when it created the Federal Reserve Bank, which is a consortium of private banks with federally appointed “governors.” Legally, “The Fed” can loan money it does not have, to the government – it’s a neat trick. Of course, the Congress must approve expenditures and, when the government has no cash, it must approve borrowing “… on the full faith and credit of the United States …” to enable those expenditures. To LIMIT the degree of overspending, Congress created the ”Debt Ceiling” in 1917, streamlining the emission of bonds by the Treasury as World War I expenses mounted. With various changes and accommodations since, Congress has largely permitted the federal government to borrow whatever it can justify politically.
Since the Johnson Administration and the federalization of welfare and healthcare, the “Debt Ceiling” has proven to be not much of a ceiling, or limit, at all. As we approach $33 Trillion in federal debt, the debt ceiling has become merely a tool of negotiation, with the ultimate “threat” of “government shutdown.” With millions of people now dependent upon government handouts, it’s possible for those on the left to raise huge public, political outcry against a “shutdown.” All that conservatives can garner is some compromise on unrelated policies or spending changes, but never is there a reduction in spending or overall cut to the federal budget. It’s always an increase. The $33 Trillion is documented inflation. It’s not static, and it is expensive. When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the concept of interest costs to federal borrowing was supposed to keep borrowings small and temporary – that is, “paid back” to stop the interest costs. Today, the cost of interest on the national debt is well over $800 Billion – approaching the defense budget(!). The concept of limitation through interest obligations is out the window with the debt ‘ceiling.’ Our “representatives” have shown over many decades that they cannot be trusted with OUR money. How does inflating the money supply serve the interests of government?
On any given morning the value of all the dollars in the world is whatever it is. Let’s call it ONE (1). “Da Gummint” comes up with some cockamami plan to save the planet or forgive student loans or flood the country with 7 Million new welfare recipients… just saying. With the federal budget already overspent by 30% or so (financed by earlier borrowing) the president’s party dutifully files legislation to make everyone’s life better while enrichening donors to their party. It requires a new loan to enable the new magnanimity and, since all the loaned money (and tax receipts) authorized so far has been allocated, the “debt ceiling” must be raised. Eventually it is and a new $500 Billion or so is authorized and the loan made. The government spends the new dollars at a value of “1,” and target recipients do as well. Congress-people brag to their constituents about the wonderful benefits and bacon they’ve delivered.
Some of the money is used to pay current federal expenses of various kinds, including entitlements, and some goes to pay interest on this and earlier debts, now approaching THIRTY-THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, with an “F.” But, you ask, how does that cause the price of eggs to go up? Simply put, increased “prosperity” in consumers’ / buyers’ hands and bank accounts, puts stress on the marketplace: supply and demand. At first, sellers are happy – more people want more of what they sell, and… every seller is also a buyer.
Demand for eggs goes up as more people feel they can afford eggs, but, more significantly, large baking companies demand more eggs than a month ago because stores are selling more of their higher-priced goods. Egg producers need to expand production but it takes a while to do so. Large buyers bid up the price of eggs because they are determined to produce more crème-filled pastries to meet demand, and producers will accommodate their largest customers. Eggs go up in price for domestic buyers, too. Soon, a new equilibrium is attained and eggs stop rising in price from their new baseline, market price, but buyers of all kinds of things are spending dollars at a value of, say, .93, not 1.
Two hundred-million buying decisions, or more, are made every day based on relative values to buyer and seller. Prices are “driven” up as if every seller wants to be a more expensive supplier, but, in fact, most don’t: most want their value to appear higher to attract the next buyers’ ‘buy’ decision. But the seller’s “cost of eggs” has increased and he must pay the rent from his sales; he raises his prices, usually reluctantly. Everywhere you turn some “news” outlet is decrying “rising inflation,” when what they are talking about is “rising prices,” usually the CPI or Consumer Price Index. If there weren’t simultaneous DE-flationary forces at work, we’d be in real trouble.
Okay, then, what is a deflationary force? First and foremost, rising prices! It’s a sloppy, effective and painful way to absorb the extra cash created by inflation (of the money supply.) Government-generated inflation is done so without any connection to increased production or wealth; worse, it has no mechanism for debt destruction. Private, or economic inflation is tied to improved production, greater efficiency and, usually LOWER prices overall, another, positive, deflationary force: increased productivity and wealth. When “The Fed” sets ever-higher interest rates to “combat inflation,” it doesn’t put any meaningful brakes on government-generated inflation, but it does screw up economic inflation.
“Real” companies borrow money from banks when they are certain that a bigger plant, new production equipment, new delivery vehicles or better computerization, for examples, will enable the company to produce more for less, or at higher quality, or with such marked improvement that it opens new markets, or with such improved efficiency that waste is reduced and costs per unit are lowered. The loans involved come from banks that operate, by federal regulation, on the basis of fractional reserves. This, essentially, allows banks to lend out about SIX TIMES more than what they hold in reserves. That is, about 86% of outstanding loans are comprised of… wait for it: AIR. Every commercial or real-estate loan is mostly air. But! It’s generally fine. Why?
“Real” loans are made to people or businesses that have the credit-worthiness that predicts the “destruction” of that new debt. Those are what banks call “performing loans.” Depending on the nature of the loans and the financial standing of the bank, itself, “performing loans” are counted among “assets” of the bank and fractional reserve rules can apply to them, too! Simply stated, bank loans inflate the money supply. But it’s not like government / Federal Reserve inflation; “real” loans include mechanisms for 1)debt destruction; 2)increased WEALTH; 3)increased productivity and economic activity; 4)rewards for smart economic risk and honest, legal, work and growth. Smart, conservative banking is essential to healthy inflation.
The federal “system” of over-spending, over-borrowing and aversion to intelligent economics, is essential to economic weakness and political mendacity. See the difference?
It is necessary to introduce capital – and cash – into the economy. It’s called “liquidity.” There has to be enough money to borrow and enough to spend, but how much? Is there some federal agency or department that would ever add new liquidity in the right amounts and the right places? Absolutely not! Neither now or ever. Free enterprise capitalism pretty-much automatically introduces enough liquidity to enable growth, PROVIDED that the government isn’t competing with its citizens to do ever-larger fractions of the spending – and borrowing – in the economy, AND that conditions are not made politically acceptable for monopolies to form and distort markets, which is where we are, now.
The FED sets rules for banks, including what the fractional reserve rate is, and what the overnight interbank lending rate of interest is. They can chill a “too active” economy almost overnight. Income-Tax policies can interfere with even small investment decisions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can skew the quality of the mortgage market whenever politicians decide it’s time to buy votes from certain “underserved” demographics. That is, the government can skew normal buy-sell decision-making, hurting most while “helping” some.
Capitalism needs regulation; it’s human nature to get the most for the least if possible. Honesty should be enforced; integrity should be enforced; quality and purity should be enforced; contracts should be clear and honest, particularly in employment, one of the areas where politicians (most of whom are economic idiots) like to meddle for votes. Our public servants are failing to act as partners in the success, safety and comfort of citizens, which means conditions of honesty across all contracts, short and long, and across all elected and appointed offices. Otherwise, they act as the least trustworthy manipulators of the lives of citizens for the gain of… politicians and government.
Our economy – the actions of daily life, growth and advancement – has been turned into a competition with government to survive. We haven’t even discussed the credit-card “vig” we all must pay, now, to banking consortiums, nor the legalization of drugs. Surely ours is a form of “Democratcy” that we should export to other countries… God forbid.
Prudence wonders about whether America will resolve to solve its problems – actually stop nonsensical policies – reduce federal spending – let men be men and honor the majesty of motherhood… stuff like that. Questions abound. Why don’t we have a secure, tightly regulated border, all around? That’s one to which there doesn’t seem to be a good answer.
Why have we allowed about 7 MILLION illegal entrants over the past 3 years – unexamined adults and children, with unknown backgrounds and unknown useful skills – to pour into our country IN CONCERT with criminal drug and trafficking cartels? How do we propose to house them in a nation where housing costs are the highest in the world? How will we educate them in schools that are becoming a black mark on our society, in how many languages, at costs per student that are the highest in the world with the lowest quality of education results? What sort of a plan is there? Looks like there isn’t one.
How can a country that is 33 Trillion dollars in debt invite multiple millions of illegal migrants onto our welfare rolls? No good answer – or reason – here, either.
Americans are wondering – or should be wondering – how it is that our military is being reduced precisely when China’s military, especially their navy, is being increased at its fastest rate ever? Why are our soldiers, airmen and sailors being weakened by critical race and gender theories as Russia, China and Iran are growing as direct threats to the United States and our allies? For that matter, why weren’t the military leaders who engineered the stupid and dangerous abandonment of Afghanistan, fired and forced to answer for their stupidity and the preventable deaths of service members at Courts Martial?
Here’s a crucial, life-or-death question for Americans: Why did President Obama and, now, Joe Biden, fight so hard to help Iran become a nuclear power? Keep thinking…
How can the once-best medical system in the world allow itself to be compromised by a federal government agency that is financially beholden to pharmaceutical companies, to the point of dictating treatments and even outlawing viable treatment options(!)? How can that medical system allow licensed doctors, many who are recognized researchers, lose their licenses and positions – including having their research suppressed? How could it?
How could so many tens… no, hundreds of thousands of needless deaths of Americans be permitted, even forced, by the rotten collusions indicated above? How can we ignore the thousands of “sudden adult deaths” occurring among young, healthy recipients of mRNA injections? Why are those same being pushed down to 5-year-olds? Have we lost our minds?
We seem to have lost “America.” To some, the “some” that wish to eliminate America from the future, there is no good in any part of the United States because of slavery, a practice our nation sacrificed horrifically to end. The promise of freedom and individual sovereignty for which we also fought and sacrificed – a promise made to all who descended from our founding and which is enjoyed by all who wish to destroy America, now, is a promise based upon Christian sacrifice and faith in God. There is nothing coincidental that those same wish to destroy Christianity as they tear down America. When did we lose our courage to defend both?
Rubbing raw the memories of slavery is a process very similar to climate fear-mongering. The abiding purpose of both movements is never solution or even resolution of those supposedly existential threats to humanity: it is only to empower centralized, political control of humanity and its various nations and economies. Where is the American Constitution in all of this?
Lately we have taken to defunding police departments where they are MOST needed, in cities where crime has been the worst, and where normal people and commerce are being threatened to the greatest degree. There must be a good reason to do this in the minds and hearts of those who control those funds. Prudence cannot discern what it might be… unless, and it’s becoming less and less of a long-shot, those who advocate and promulgate those anti-police policies, are actively trying to destroy America, too. Evidently, they believe that the hollowing out of American cities – turning them into crime-ridden enclaves, will weaken America’s ability to defend itself when the final push to turn America communist, arrives.
The economic stress of “losing” the cities will also hasten the downfall of the nation. Cities are the engine of growth and strength; they are always attacked in war. George Soros and, now, his son, Alexander, have targeted American cities for collapse by financing District Attorneys who are radically opposed to bail, prosecution and incarceration of criminals. Capitalizing on the unfortunate death (not a murder, more a suicide) of George Floyd, Soros and other anti-American types in the Democrat party, fed so-called protests that mingled with brutal, destructive riots and demanded the end of policing as we knew it in cities. Some purpose is being served by what seems completely stupid.
The United States, Canada and Mexico sit atop the richest sources of carbon-based fuels on earth. With the right economics and politics, North America (and South America for similar reasons) could be energy-independent and wealthy, industrialized and CLEAN. Unfortunately, Mexico is nearly controlled by criminal cartels, Canada has slid into globalist socialism, and the U. S. has fallen sway to anti-scientific “climate-change” hogwash that leads us to sacrifice both freedom and wealth – and global influence – as well as our national sovereignty. For unfounded reasons, we can’t use the energy we own; we must buy it from hostile countries that obtain it less cleanly than we do, and ship it by the millions of tons in dirty ships. This dumb idea makes sense to a fringe element that benefits from battery-powered vehicles, solar panels and windmills. As with other, numerous life-changing trends and forces at work within the federal administrative state, government falsehoods are actively diverting our nation from its history and heritage. Why do we allow this?
Lithium-ion batteries, mostly controlled by China in terms of materials and manufacture, are being forced upon a public that doesn’t want them. Why? Because the government-types believe we need to want them. They don’t work well and they are toxic and dangerously combustible. This is all to reduce “carbon,” one of the key building-blocks of life on earth. There is a belief – an ideology – that claims that carbon-dioxide, the major product of breathing, is capable of such a massive “greenhouse effect” that it will destroy life on this planet, including raising sea levels 20 feet or more. People motivated by their faith in this concept are unable to consider that it is probably incorrect… and they are noisier than most of us, gaining political sway. They are forcing the switch away from our extraordinarily efficient gasoline-fueled vehicles and from the freedoms they enable. So, we are being forced – not encouraged, FORCED – to switch to less capable and less safe modes of transportation that cost more to operate… when they do operate. They do have slick electronics, but they are relatively useless except in very limited applications. Why do we, the People, permit our government to batter(y) us?
Our so-called Representatives have divested the Congress of most of its responsibilities. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, among other financial responsibilities of the Congress, states that “the Congress shall have the power… To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; …” Yet the same band of worthies created the Federal Reserve in 1913 and, in stages, slipped the “Fed” into a position of financing unlimited debts on the credit of the United States. Despite its supposed purpose of managing liquidity among banks and preventing financial crises, the Fed enables politicians to make economic promises that they generally do not understand the consequences of, knowing that there is unlimited funding available by “borrowing” from the Federal Reserve. The Treasury issues U. S. “bonds” of various maturities and the Fed “buys” them with money it doesn’t actually have. What could go wrong? Socialism… socialism devolving into communism… that’s what could and is going wrong. Why are the inheritors of the world’s greatest political and economic system allowing their nation to be stolen by socialist enemies… from inside?
The next set of presidential elections in 2024, may be our last opportunity to reverse at least SOME of the stupidity we have been borrowing for since 1963. It will be Prudent for Americans to reaffirm their Americanism rather than their adherence to any party, and vote accordingly, and not by mail – DON’T VOTE BY MAIL! It’s too easy to steal your vote or negate it. Show up and vote… for America.
Mr. Kevin McCarthy, ostensible Speaker of the House of Representatives of the People of the United States of America, in Congress, assembled, sans acclaim, is either confused or a compromised fool. In his one opportunity to negotiate anything with the ostensible President of those same United States, sans acclaim, McCarthy managed to scrape the crumbs from the dinner trencher of the Big Guy, nearly dislocating his RIGHT shoulder from patting his own back in triumph.
Not a word was said about the defense of America and her people, or about the open border that threatens us, all. Across the table from a documented criminal-President, McCarthy’s deep, deep concerns floated to the surface… of the Swamp – they were mostly air, after all… air-time, most accurately. His leadership was on brilliant display, however, as he led his party to, ummnnh… well, nowhere.
Where does the Constitution permit the FEDERAL government to impose costs – illegal costs – upon the States of the Union? Where does the Congress get the right to finance – BORROW to finance – the failure to follow U. S. law? How can the Congress be a party to FAVORING illegal aliens over U. S. citizens? Who, after all and in fact, does every sworn Member of the Congress of the United States of America work for and get paid by? By LAW?
The weakest President in Prudence’ lifetime has bested one of the weakest Speakers – excepting Paul Ryan, perhaps. Any Patriot must wonder why he or she still supports the Republican Party? Here is a President of very questionable electoral authority and ethics, whose only means of communication other than scripts on teleprompters, is to spin fables: outright falsehoods that spill from his untethered brain and mouth like han ds-full of nuts, too bulky to allow for chewing… or mulling slightly. Yet, not a word about the defense of our borders, our cities, our states, our citizens… or our very economy. Most tragically, there was nothing about reducing our debt.
One must wonder why McCarthy agreed to this charade. Is it simply, corruptly, to retain powerful “issues” with which to campaign? To retain power for these lowly appendages of the deep-state Swamp? Couldn’t get rid of Majorkas? Or Wray? Or, Milley or Austin?
When people from “both” sides are touting Victory, you know the “compromise” is a stinking pile of crap.
For some weird reasons: forms of moral communism, basically, sexuality has become a major element of elementary education and the business of thousands of men and women formerly respected as educators. One wonders why there has been a virtual explosion of sexual deviance and why America tolerates it, let alone cements it in place with illogical legal protections. The so-called LGBTQ+ “community” has shifted from seeking safety and tolerance to rabid dominance of culture and communications, and a legally enforced “right” to convert children to deviance in schools and elsewhere. This abrupt, new trend is a sign of sickness in a culture.
Normalization of homosexuality was the beginning to a societal tolerance of deviant sexuality, but by itself, neither virulent nor threatening to our core morality. Gay marriage, however, provided the breech in legality such that virulent deviance could force itself upon schools, society and families. Proto-Communists in the schools and teachers’ unions, perceived gender confusion as an excellent tool for dividing society and weakening families: a key process to create totalitarian control of society. How diabolically clever to choose as an “enemy” the widespread grasp of truth. What is the most damaging effect of this subversion?
To answer that we need to establish some moral – and spiritual – ground rules. It seems Prudent to reflect on life, itself. It is fundamentally spiritual, in the majoritarian worldwide view. There are too many “miraculous” events, large and small, that define, save and divert the lives of too many people to attribute everything to “luck.” Even cultures that place great emphasis on “luck” are dependent on something “spiritual” – forms of super-natural forces.
At the same time as “spiritual” beliefs or assumptions are at work, society, itself, must function for the maximum number of people. That means food, safety, comfort, property and advancement. All require stability and widespread agreement on rights and wrongs: ethics, courtesies and laws. People had to cooperate in trusted and trusting ways. The integrity and primacy of family units are essential, as are the education and acculturation of children. Those who would disrupt – to the point of replacing the structure and strengths of – a successful society, recognize that disrupting families is the first and most effective step. To some significant degree, those are people who are anti-spiritual, and in the case of America, anti-Christian in virulent ways.
Human sexuality, in nearly all family units, represents the creation of children, who are the descendants of that family line. Grandparents are as keenly interested in that process as parents are. Whatever interferes with conception, childbirth and acculturation of children, is striking at the essence of social success and of hope… for the future, one of those “spiritual” aspects of life. To the disrupters, sexuality, in the soup of hypersexualization of “Western” civilization, became a weapon against American culture.
“Gay” marriage was a move spurred by compassion. Once it had legal status, aggressive sex-weaponizers had a basis for demanding equal status in school settings: homosexuality now had to be taught along with heterosexuality, and not just about marriage. Heterosexuality is – and always has been – normalcy: mothers and fathers produce children; boys and girls are different in “normal,” predictable ways; growing up takes place in predictable, “normal” patterns with predictable responsibilities, that ought to respond to parental and societal expectations. The boundaries of ethics and law are equally recognized and predictable. Progress occurs as does advancement, in that individuals become more skilled, more valuable in the economies of families and communities… and nations, and more spiritual. Those formulas of cultural success are resilient, but only to a point. Feminism, a re-ordering of relationships between men and women, perhaps inadvertently, provided political power to legalize increasingly non-normal sexual practices. Gay marriage had opened the door a crack while a giant wedge of divisive realignment was poised, in the form of radical feminism, to jam it open to every form of deviant irresponsibility. Our culture has, so far, failed to recognize the danger lurking within the virulent move to get children to renounce their true selves – basically denying responsibilities inherent in their genders and roles in a healthy society. “Affirming” mental incongruities as more true than reality, has a very, very low rate of success. The web of lies we call “laws,” should be unraveled.
ELECTIONS
The majesty of United States’ citizenship is taught – if taught at all – through detraction and condemnation. Rare are the public, unionized schools where a deep understanding is gained by students, of the responsibilities imparted by our Constitution, Declaration and multiple other founding and originating documents and philosophies. Freedom is not a gift from our forefathers, except as a door to the future that we, American citizens are obligated to pass through as leaders for this world. We have the keys to progress, advancement and personal perfection in our hands; we have failed to implant it in the hearts of our children. For most of us, the closest we come to that responsibility is in our role as voters – authorized choosers of America’s leadership, authorized lenders of power to those we choose to hold it. That fundamental authority and power has been so corrupted as to be taken from us BY THE VERY PEOPLE we lend our nation’s representative powers to!
Some functions of democracy should not be computerized. The stealing of elections has become virtually part of the background humor of the United States, and it’s a part of history, most especially in large cities. The holding of public office in cities can, if manipulated successfully, provide great wealth and power over others. Those positions will be defended and fought-for. The rot of urban election theft has morphed, thanks to the mysterious wonders of computerized vote recording and tallying, into the theft of statewide and federal elections.
Voter lists are computerized and the printouts of those lists are available to official campaigns. So, too, are lists of deceased or moved-away voters, and those who are ineligible for other reasons. Fortunately for those who are willing to defraud the voting process, most of the ineligible voters are still listed among the names on the “voter” list. A moderately sly campaign functionary can arrange for persons to go to the polls and vote in the name of ineligible, but still listed, voters. It works, but is time consuming and risky. How fabulous to have a “pandemic” strike the nation during a federal election year! Resulting fears and medical ignorance (and mendacity) overrode legal and Constitutional strictures, enabling even more sly attorneys to win court cases allowing for “mail-in” ballots to “protect” voters from the scourge of COVID-19.
These mostly illegal changes under cover of a “national medical emergency,” were quickly stretched to allow ballot drop-boxes, official and unofficial, and then vote-harvesting from infirm voters, ostensibly. Sympathetic election officials allowed ever wider interpretations of “safety” and “every vote should count,” which included every ballot – licit and illicit. A handful of determined election fraudsters in mail-in states could, because of fellow-democrat fellow-travelers, sway tens and hundreds of thousands of invalid, but counted, “votes.” Even signature-match verification was disregarded in the interest of safety during a national medical emergency. Computers helped, of course, providing unmonitored curing of “erroneous” ballots with new electronic records. Damn the whole process.
Voting is the only sacrament in democracy. We have allowed one party, basically, to corrupt voting and vote-counting to its benefit. In 2020 these factors may have accounted for more than 8 million illicit votes. It changed history and the resulting President is changing history more every day… not in good ways, at all.
How can this Jin be pushed back into its cave? How can every election be trusted again? What are the steps? It requires a certain amount of automation, but no actual computerization and no internet connections to aggregation points or to state elections offices or to anywhere else.
First, hand-marked ballots, only. Fill in the ovals or squares and let a machine scan them and count them. A total is reported for each office. Count the handful of write-ins, and pack up the ballots with a bar-coded wrapper. A certified police officer transports that bundle to the single aggregation point near the state capitol. There, that bundle is unwrapped and fed through a certified machine identical to the one in East Podunk that generated the draft, on-site total. The stack is run through the second machine and the totals compared. If they are exactly alike, the total is reported as final.
If the totals don’t agree the ballots are inspected by hand while monitored by poll watchers. The stack is scanned again in a free-standing, non-networked machine. At some point there will be two identical totals and that number is reported. The total time to complete these steps might be 2 or 3 days, but the totals will be trustworthy. Everything else that has been interjected into this process is bogus and serves only the convenience of government – and the purposes of the leftist party. Absentee ballots should be only that, with significant reasons to avoid personally casting one’s ballot.
There should be no “early” voting, except, perhaps, for 2 or 3 days. That will facilitate convenience without encouraging voting in ignorance of much of what might be exposed by the campaigns. If the Post Office is to be involved in any significant way it should be to deliver registered ballots that must be signed-for by the requestor. Then, ON A SPECIFIC DAY prior to Election Day, and involving no mail delivery on that day – perhaps a Saturday – Postal route personnel can pick up the ballots at the addresses to which they were delivered. No wholesale mailings to untrustworthy “voting lists” and no ballot harvesting.
If we fail to secure our elections we fail to deserve the blessings of liberty.
BUDGETS
The term, “Budget” is not used in the Constitution. Budgeting for government spending, however, is vitally important – it’s the only way to set a standard for the key functions of the Congress: raising revenue and appropriating it for legitimate government expenditures. There are thousands of words in the U. S. Code relating to the President’s obligations to provide dozens of kinds and titles of data about programs and expenditures included in the President’s submitted budget. Sadly, about three-quarters of “the budget” is considered permanent or “entitlements” or both at once, and therefore unchangeable by the people’s representatives, despite having been created by those same worthies on behalf of those same people. Technically, EVERY element in the budget may be modified or removed. However, virtually every aspect of federal expenditure has its own advocacy group, mostly political. With Congress’ primary purposes being re-election and not the “people’s business,” no part of the budget that could have a negative impact politically, will be touched, except to increase it.
With a $32 Trillion federal debt, a large fraction of the sub-chapters of the budget must be “touched,” cut or eliminated. They cannot all grow in every budget cycle, including payrolls, welfare entitlements pensions and other hot-button items. There is no reason to expect that the Congress as constituted and elected, is going to ever balance expenditures and revenues, let alone cut any one of them. The collapse of the U. S. economically is being led and accelerated by government debt and deficit spending. All processes of taxation and revenue accumulation have failed to enhance America’s economic strength of freedom, nor has it done very much to increase the prosperity of a majority of Americans. We feel like we’re becoming more wealthy, higher real estate prices and so forth, perhaps larger retirement funds, but our money is worth less every year and a lot of what we think we’ve gained is “balanced” by those trillions in debt. Most of us will not be ready when the decline becomes a rout.
Our wonderful – magical – Federal Reserve Bank was given vital power by Congress in 1913: to coin money and set the value thereof. Along with that sloughing off of Constitutional power, Congress also provided “the Fed” the magical power to loan money to the federal government, even when it doesn’t have money to actually lend. So, it lends air and charges interest on it. The federal government owes so much that it must borrow money to pay the interest on previous loans. That amounts to three-quarters of a trillion dollars this year. Only the most irresponsible presidential administration would run a greater-than-Trillion-dollar deficit in its budget in the face of this unprecedented indebtedness.
The history of the past 60 years has made the budget process of the U. S. federal government, an increasingly fraudulent exercise. The fraud is perpetrated upon the American people, in the main, but also on every holder of dollars in the world, as the value of each dollar slips downward, year by year… sometimes week-by-week.
Prudence would dictate a different course for our ship of state, but we won’t see that happen under Democrat control of the White House.
America is mired in at least 39 or 390 serious problems, but we’ve dealt with only 4 of those we’ve Prudently identified. Time is short. We must continue.
NUCLEAR POWER
Those who have submitted, mentally and emotionally, to the “green” cult, are uniformly opposed to so-called fossil fuels on the premise that carbon-dioxide is going to ruin Earth’s climate and cause the demise of civilization and of life, itself. That CO2 is the prime “green” component of the solar-driven oxygen cycle upon which all life depends, seems not to affect their thinking. Those same are virulently opposed to nuclear energy, the cleanest, least damaging source of electrical energy currently available. Something doesn’t make sense.
Green leftists always reference “Chernobyl” as the end of the argument against nuclear; if that fails, “Three-Mile Island” is expected to shut-up any pro-nuclear stragglers. Both of those supposed examples of what’s wrong with nuclear power plants, are non-sequiturs. Chernobyl, in particular, is an example, but it’s an example of how NOT to build a nuclear pile and of how NOT to run and maintain it. Rather than condemn the natural process of nuclear fission, opponents should correct their opposition to the technological stupidity the Soviet Union rewarded. Chernobyl would have been a big nothing had it been designed and built like, well, Three-Mile Island, actually.
Chernobyl was, technically, not in a containment structure as nearly all nuclear plants outside of the USSR were. That is to say, the weaknesses of the design and overall misunderstanding of the processes at various states of operation of their graphite pile reactors, make the Chernobyl-design power plants risky for mistakes and accidents under the best of circumstances. A long list of nuclear accidents at those plants was finally made public after the investigation into “Chernobyl” was completed. Some engineering traditions should not be permitted to operate or build nuclear plants.
Still, nuclear power plants have so many inherent advantages that it is foolishness to avoid making use of the continuously-improving technology that goes into their design and construction. The largest deterrent to nuclear power is fear, often fed by reference to bad technology, like that employed in Chernobyl-design plants and methods. New series III and IV plants are smaller, modular and 5 to 10 times safer than Three-Mile Island era plants, including passive safety systems. They’re also much less expensive to build and license. And, they are clean in both product and operating lifetimes up to 60 years and in eventual decommissioning costs and impacts. There is no “all-electric” future without massive, weatherproof generating capacity like what nuclear can provide.
TRANSPORTATION
Ours is a highly specialized and competitive global economy. Both commodities and finished products must move from points of origin to points of consumption; this is not going to change no matter how many “community gardens” are created, and it won’t change despite all efforts to go “carbon neutral,” either. Some tasks must be performed. Daily there are millions of them. Reducing the efficiency of completing those millions of tasks places huge burdens on society, the economy and on freedom. Forcing wholesale changes on how transport is performed… without a more efficient way to do it, is risky at best and foolish by definition.
We are in the midst of a green revolution, and we have been for over 100 years. From time to time wisdom has been applied through government regulation that has sped up the process of becoming more efficient and therefore cleaner in our consumption of energy to get materials and people moved from place to place. Increased mileage standards is one example, and automobiles are far cleaner and more efficient than ever, today. On the other hand, there are far more cars on the road than ever – in virtually every country – causing ever more gasoline, diesel and lubricating oil to be consumed while propelling substantially more “transport” per gallon or quart, and overall. For green evangelists there has been no progress at all – things are oh, so terribly worse because people insist on private, self-directed transport, and reject, for the most part, “public” transportation: too many cars, too many people driving cars.
Bad government, bending to the political pressure of “green” acolytes, responds by forcing people to pay for and to switch to public conveyance, and then fails to render it clean, comfortable or safe. Worse, public transit doesn’t go to every place where people need to go, and it never will. Government then considers how to force people to go to where public transit does go, imagining “model” communities that may never exist. There are clean, electric alternatives, but so much money and political force has been committed to “public transit” that alternatives are now less likely to be considered than if government went back to being wise, again. [See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/07/20/a-home-on-the-beach/; or https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2016/07/10/automotive-economics-and-freedom/.]
Battery magic seems to many, especially to “green” proselytes, to be cleaner than those awful carbon-based fuels; we should all shuck our internal combustion engines and switch to battery-powered vehicles. Bad government is listening to them and is virtually forcing car manufacturers to make more magic cars and fewer reliable ones. The ads are impressive. Batteries, themselves, are dirty products to make, both physically and politically. A person changing from gasoline or diesel to battery power has to drive upwards of 60,000 miles before the ecological cleanliness of an “electric” car starts to improve upon that of an internal combustion model. The only advantage of lithium-ion battery-powered cars is that the filth of mining and tailings, processing and effluents, unsafe mining (including child labor) and ecological disruption and pollution… well, it all happens in other places, out of sight of “green” Americans and others. Right in our neighborhoods things are pollution free! Forcing indigenous people off of their ancestral lands in South America is meaningless to us: they’re not OUR indigenous people about whom we care very deeply… very, very deeply. Improvements to Communist China’s manufacturing base and our long-term dependence on it for parts and replacement batteries, should keep China from ever damaging relations with the United States… so that’s good, too.
No matter how much cleaner internal combustion engines become, it is – and will never be – clean enough; only perfection is barely adequate in the business of planet-saving. So, in partnership with an entirely anti-American regime, the “green” (actually Red) movement has twisted our economy to the point of throwing away phenomenal manufacturing and servicing skills and technology, as well as discarding remarkably and increasingly efficient electric generation in favor of windmills and Chinese solar panels. Soon, there will be millions of used cars rusting away as planet-saviors force the end of internal-combustion cars and trucks and the adoption of battery-powered replacements, while limiting the number of “licenses” to sell gasoline… or refine it… or transport it, making continued use of gas or diesel power a little more awkward and unreliable than even severely limited-range electrics are and will continue to be.
Ultimately, (see “only perfection” in the preceding paragraph) owning and driving personal vehicles will become so troublesome that only grossly expensive “public” transportation will be able to provide a modicum of mobility. Personal freedom and sovereignty that Americans have invented the technological means to enjoy, will be lost forever. After that there will be millions of battery vehicles that no one wants or can sell, and will find difficult to recycle. Everything will be approaching perfection.
IMMIGRATION
For many nearly forgotten reasons the United States of America has for over 230 years been the most attractive nation and place for people from every nation to emigrate to. Americans, themselves, no longer understand (or are taught) why this could possibly be. Today education appears to include – is compelled to include – every tawdry mistake anyone in our history ever made. Worse, to complete a communistic circle, the effect of those mistakes is to absorb and render null and void, every great idea and action of those same people. The net effect of this twisted lens of American history is to grow up blaming your country for every problem in the world, rendering the existence and founding of it indefensible. As a result, fewer and fewer people do defend it… at least from inside the country… even as more and more people flee their home countries and sneak into, well, HERE.
Actual sovereign nations, however, have laws to govern and, basically, restrict entry to their jurisdictions. Nations are defined by their borders. The United States is defined by both borders and ideas of freedom and individuality – not by groups or identities, but by individuals, individual responsibility and equality under the law for – every – individual. For the past 65 years or so, we have turned our backs on our unique and majestic ideas, and dispersed the gold of citizenship as millions of people who don’t want to become Americans flooded to the insides of our borders.
Barack Obama was the first president who actively modified immigration practices if not policies, to try to change the demographics of the United States. Democrats had been dreaming of pushing white America into the minority category since Teddy Kennedy, an avowed socialist (and idiot). They couldn’t get it rolling any faster during the Clinton administration, but things started moving under Obama. He was probably the first president who seriously does not like the United States or its Constitution. Trump, obviously, was an unexpected speed bump in the race to change races. Biden, on the other hand, knows only two speeds in that race: “flat-out” and “stupid.” Some FIVE MILLION illegal aliens from over 100 countries have walked in to the U.S. since the 2020 votes were “certified.” About a million of those never even checked in with the Border Patrol, preferring to sneak in with various subterfuges planned, including serious drug-dealing and, for some hundreds or thousands, terrorist crimes.
Biden is hard to pigeon-hole. A patriotic observer is hard-pressed to declare him merely sloppy or foolish, when the very next day he might be presented with greater evidence of Biden’s treason toward his own nation. Breaking, or failing purposefully to enforce U. S. laws, which enables the entry of enemies to our nation, is exactly what President Biden has been doing since taking office… and it’s treasonous. That treason has come in many flavors, primarily these two: entry of those seeking to execute criminal activities including terrorist acts, and entry of those transporting deadly narcotics with intent to distribute. That fentanyl kills 10’s of thousands of Americans – mostly young men, but certainly not exclusively – one would think might wake up Americans to the crime of making its importation easier!
The importation of people is also a crime. Mexican cartels, who control drugs across Mexico and across the U. S., have found a new billion-dollar industry in the trafficking of people into the U. S., especially, by a factor of 10, since the Biden administration took office. For all of the cooperative police work – DEA work – between Mexico and the past 5 administrations, the flow of drugs, now including abundant fentanyl, has not slowed. Where there once were 5 or 6 cartels there may be 15 operating in every Mexican state and every U. S. state, as well. They’ve become more violent in Mexico, causing record levels of homicides, destroyed families and widespread official corruption. At the same time, with the cooperation of Chinese chemical suppliers, they are partners in at least 100,000 deaths in the U. S. from fentanyl overdoses.
President Biden commits treason against his own country in other ways, often by providing “aid and comfort” to our enemies. It’s subtle, but definite… well, subtle except for scuttling Afghanistan. According to sworn congressional testimony, Biden demanded immediate withdrawal despite the advice of military advisors, including the abandonment of Baghram Airbase and more than $7 BILLION in weapons, ammunition, aircraft, including some high-tech personal and tactical hardware. The Taliban, of course, has never been an ally of ours or friendly toward America or Americans in any way. They’re enemies, Joe, you dope. And we armed them to the teeth, abandoned real allies to danger and death at the hands of the Taliban. We could have retained Baghram and much of our equipment, and we logically should have regardless of costs. So, militarily, why did we do things the way we did? What on Earth was the headlong, damned stupid rush?
It seems Prudent to realize that we abandoned all of our work because China wanted us to. China didn’t want us to maintain a base so close to their border. China is happy to see us shoot ourselves in the foot – it saves them the trouble. They have invested many millions into the Biden family; our retreat was a return on investment by a factor of a thousand percent. When we look at all the players and pressures involved in 20 years of U.S. actions in Afghanistan, only the U.S. acted like an idiot, against its own interests. Treason, thy name is Biden.
When China is invited to “help” the United States eliminate drug abuse, and elections are “temporarily” suspended to get a handle on “crime,” it will be too late to rid ourselves of the gaggle of assholes from the Obama and Biden regimes.
So many words and only 3 more issues discussed. Prudence says stop here, wait for the next.
Currently we seem to be as concerned about inflation and the “consumer price index” as we are about any other nationwide issue. “Inflation,” of course, refers only to the inflation of the money supply, something that is only partly affected by the actions of people in the day-to-day economy… what we call, “Main Street.” This reference is usually juxtaposed to “Wall Street,” where the wizards of finance operate at, supposedly, an entirely different level of economics than the rest of us. Though Wall Street money machinations are more arcane, they are not so very different from the decisions we all make regarding the presence or lack of “money” and the affordability of things we’d like to buy.
“Wall Street” is a combine of INTERNATIONAL money manipulators, and they are tied to many governments, especially that of the United States, where finance involves multi-Billions and even Trillions of dollars; financing shopping centers, small businesses and residences is not their particular concern. They, like Federal socialists, are delighted to mess with 10’s and 100’s of thousands of mortgages, including selling “options” and “futures” contracts based on their supposed flow of billions and hundreds of billions of future mortgage payments – delighted, that is, until their phony financial instruments caused the destruction of several of their own pack, like Lehman Brothers. At that point, thanks to their financial entanglements with “our” federal government and governors, they felt free to compel the taxpayers of America to bail them out. Otherwise, they’re just like us.
In either case, “money” is defined as instruments of real worth or value: a dollar once was exchangeable for a dollar’s worth of silver or, in theory, of gold. People – and banks and governments – around the world, recognize precious metals and true weights and purity thereof, as items of intrinsic value. Right now, the “dollar” bill we are familiar with is no longer even tied to the United States directly; it is a “Federal Reserve Note” that the U. S. Federal Government declares must be accepted as “legal tender” for all debts public and private. But, all you can get at a Federal Reserve Bank (neither federal nor a reserve) in exchange for a one-dollar Federal Reserve Note is another Federal Reserve Note. So, our “currency” today is only “tender,” not actual money. Others accept it in exchange for real goods and services and as long as this is true we can function economically.
Our good and trusted Representatives, however, legislating in “The People’s House” on our behalf, have decided over many decades to spend more “money” than we can actually afford to pay in taxes. Our Federal “budgets,” such as they have been since 1960 or so, have been out of “balance,” now accumulating some $32 Trillion of DEBT, which has placed an obligation on the backs of all of us, thank them very much. This occurred at an accelerated rate over the past two years of the Biden administration and the last year of the Trump administration, thanks, ostensibly, to a COVID-19 pandemic, and this has both distorted our employment, wages and sense of responsibility, and caused tremendous INFLATION of the money supply. Well, actually, it’s not money that it has inflated, but our “legal tender” or “currency.” Keep in mind that it is not “money” that gets inflated – that supply only grows by the quantities of goods and fixed assets that increase thanks to PRODUCTION of those goods, goods that have intrinsic value. That “intrinsic value” is the closest thing to “money” that we have.
Unfortunately, as fascistic leftists shut down our economy and started paying newly locked-out workers to stay home as their jobs evaporated, PRODUCTION, oddly enough, declined! Suddenly we had trillions of new bits of legal tender floating around with fewer goods – or SERVICES – available to buy! This logically caused prices to rise. That’s not “inflation,” regardless of how often we call it that, it is PRICE INCREASE derived largely from supply and demand. In our foolishness we lowered supply while we multiplied demand. Indeed, our decades-long transfer of production to China, where it was also restricted by COVID (including screw-ups in the supply chain, keeping what products were made out of our marketplaces) made our own inflation-generated price increases even worse. Anyone who calls rising prices, “inflation,” is simply ignorant. The Federal Government and the current administration are the most frequent mis-staters of what “inflation” is, but it helps to confuse – or lie to – the American people, one of which is always a Federal goal.
Consequently, President Biden and his tight tether to the truth, loves to claim that “inflation” has “come down” for the past 6 consecutive months. How wonderful that sounds, as though his spendthrift administration were responsible for improving the economy for average folks. But what is reality? Do Biden’s truths have any congruence with reality?
Prices are still high and getting higher. What does Biden’s claim of slowing “inflation” have to do with that? Well, when we recognize what his “inflation” really is: price increases, Biden is patting himself on the back for slower price increases. Swell. What he hopes to obscure is the painful fact that all the price increase that has already taken place IS STILL THERE, and those prices are STILL GOING UP, just a little slower. That is not a victory. Factually it is a sloppy admission that the pain he has inflicted on Americans with his dumb-ass policies is as bad as ever and getting worse. Congratulations, you old dope.
Add to the damage being done the fact that the rate of price increases (so-called inflation) is no longer honestly stated to begin with, thanks to Federal political calculations, since they no longer include ENERGY or FOOD! What a hoax. That lets the Department of Commerce claim that “inflation” is only 6 or 7 or 8 percent, when it’s actually 12 or 13 percent! People might really vote against someone who presided over an economy with 13 percent inflation (whatever that is). As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
So, Prudent readers, inflation isn’t the same as price increases, but it is a significant cause of them. It isn’t something people cause; it is a tool of government that performs as a relatively slow devaluation of the currency. Unfortunately, that is the same legal tender that we, all, depend upon for affording our means of living. Don’t vote for politicians or erstwhile “leaders” who willingly devalue the money you have earned and the wealth you have accumulated over years. Who the Hell do they think they are, to steal from every citizen? Indeed. Check out: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2022/08/21/the-inflation-chronicles/
“Beijing, China – December 27, 2011. Young soldiers marching in the Forbidden City.”
Forty years ago a local newspaper asked its readers about the coming millennium and what each thought would be the great progress, or major changes, that might be made in the next century. Prudence wrote back – long before she realized how Prudent she was – that the next 100 years would be based on China and everyone’s reaction to or accommodation of, China. In the mid-‘80’s the United States was feeling pretty good about itself: strong, prosperous, winning against the Soviet Union and mostly at peace. People were proud of being American.
Starting with the Carter administration, followed by a period of clear thinking in the Reagan administration, and then under full steam in the Clinton administration, the United States has followed policies that have enriched and built-up Communist China. Carter changed our policy regarding Taiwan’s independence. Clinton accepted millions of “campaign” funds from Chinese sources and weakened restrictions on technology transfers. It was a transfer from the “Loral Space” corporation that enabled China to accurately launch and control missiles. Supercomputer technology was allowed to transfer in the late ‘90’s, after overriding Defense Department objections and rules. A lot of money moved toward the Clintons during the two presidential campaigns; dozens of Chinese operators accepted plea deals or fled the country to avoid prosecution. Almost singlehandedly, Bill Clinton – with unknown levels of action by Hillary Clinton in the background – relinquished U. S. superiority in missile and space technologies, perhaps 20 years or more of advantage over the Chinese. Everybody has a price… well, not everyone, but definitely that couple does. It is beyond the scope of Prudence’ recollections to plumb the extent of influence selling through the Clinton Global Initiative: Hillary’s bribery laundering mechanism.
For more than a century the “West” treated China as a football, kicked around and taken advantage-of by multiple European countries and by the U. S. Communism, starting with the Soviets and spreading aggressively, finally began to focus American attention on the most populous country. Japan went to war in China long before it attacked Pearl Harbor. Their presence and brutality solidified the division of China into Nationalists and Communists China suffered as many as 20 million deaths and multiple millions of other casualties. The uneasy alliance of the Nationalists and the Communists against Japan held until Japan was forced by the U. S. to retreat. The corrupt Nationalists, saddled with terrible, deadly decisions they had made during the war with Japan, wound up with their only “friends” being the U. S., who protected them as they fled to Formosa Island, later called Taiwan, a de-facto independent nation, but only because the U. S. maintains its “defense” of Taiwan.
China has matured under communism, but, thankfully, large fractions of the population still understand when they’re being tyrannized, as recent demonstrations have shown. Unlike Americans, Chinese citizens are acutely aware of their government’s lies and how dangerous acquiescence to Communist dictates actually is. Americans seem to be divided over whether one recognizes government lies or accepts them as true. The latter are largely Biden voters and, earlier, Obama voters. They also become very angry when events like the 2020 elections are questioned, probably out of fear that the questioners may be right. Fortunately, every “good work” President Biden has done has reinforced their belief that he really did earn the highest presidential vote total in history. China is actively and fairly successfully taking advantage of this American gullibility: enough trade and McDonald’s restaurants can convert anyone into an honest ally.
America has a bad habit of absorbing the first blow… even telling its adversaries where to land it and then, how to obtain American financing for their expenses. It’s not clear that we will rise up and demand victory over our enemies in the absence of a Pearl-Harbor-like attack. Such it is with so-called climate change and the Paris Accords that are a guilt-laden means of extracting reparations from us while we hurt ourselves economically to save the planet. We are not alone in the west in cutting our energy use, raising its costs and reducing our productivity and prosperity, all to reduce CO2 emissions.
But, did you know, China, in the Paris “accords,” agreed only to top out its estimated peak CO2 emissions by 2030? Did you know China will still be building coal-fired generating plants until then… or that it will bring on line more coal-fired plants in 2023 than the U.S. has altogether? All the Western industrialized nations COMBINED don’t emit as much CO2 as China does, now – by about HALF – yet we are flagellating ourselves with ideological restrictions on energy use, restrictions that won’t change the temperature of the Earth by one whit, 80 or 100 years from now. What in God’s name are we agreeing to? And, why? Is it just to make it easier for China and its Communist tyranny to de-construct the U. S. while they become the dominant economy and military power?
We, Americans, the conscientious ones, at least, tend to look for good in everyone. It is a weakness that could, one day, leave us under tyranny. China has brought to bear numerous weapons of “war” that are daily undercutting America’s strength, alliances, economics, education – right down to kindergarten and throughout higher education – Chinese millions and billions of dollars are buying our philosophies. Surely we don’t expect education establishments that bend to woke demands from young, unaccomplished students, with speech codes and lists of allowable pronouns, to stand up for America against China, do we? We must wonder why the Biden administration cancelled enforcement of reporting requirements for universities to reveal how much in foreign grants and investments they accept. We know that the University of Pennsylvania, for example, created the “Penn-Biden” center – sort of a think-tank – with tens of millions of Chinese dollars. Following his vice-presidency, Joe Biden was paid nearly $1 Million for a single speech / seminar in at least one year. That’s a nice gig… makes one wonder how they chose Joe Biden to pay that high fee to for little work. Perhaps they were paying for the opportunity to review classified documents that Biden stored there.
Without American technology, China would be a much smaller economy and far less militarily developed. Yet our own tax policies made it profitable to move manufacturing to China and then ship the products back to the U. S. Unfortunately, China doesn’t allow manufacturers to operate unless they share their technology with the Chinese. This form of unfair trade practice soon produced planes and weapons that look a lot like the latest developments inside the U. S. We are not smart about our relationship with China. Sadly, many, many people in permanent government are satisfied to get paid off by China no matter what the cost is to our security. Chinese spies make certain to get close to a number of House and Senate members to keep legislation dormant that might put a stop to Chinese intrigues.
Whew!
When one reads or hears enough bad news about the international stupidity the White House, Intelligence agencies and our State, Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security and even Transportation departments put forth for policy in the name of the American people, it’s enough to depress even the sunniest of optimists. Then we look at our solid-looking cities, highways, airports and shopping centers and we try to imagine that no one could ever defeat us or ever force us into subjugation. After all, this is such a nice country and such nice people, nobody would even try to take us over… we’re the United States of America for Heaven’s sake! Still…..
Still, China is a serious, uncompromising threat to the nature and value of the United States. What can the individual American do? First, learn the truth of The Biden administration’s relations and relationships with China and its dozens of tentacles that are reaching directly into our government, business and financial institutions, for indeed they are. Then prepare yourself and as many as you can influence, to vote against those who ignore or accept or even encourage greater business connection to China. If you get to speak to an elected official, locally, state-level or federal, ask what he or she is doing about disassociating our nation and economy from China and from the Communist Party of China. Ask about the crucial products that we depend upon that are sourced only from China. What is she or he going to do to change that? We still have enough power and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Our historic weakness toward China is a genuine grievance.
Then, publicize what you have learned about that official’s position and encourage all you can to VOTE for America First policies. What? There’s some better policy than America First? Are you nuts?
Predictions are generally not very Prudent uses of mental energy. Every new year period yields predictions from financial experts, various historians, and, practicing their strong abilities to follow trends, politicians. Politicians are no more intelligent than 99% of the polity they claim to lead. Their skills are no greater than roughly that same percentage. They DO have unusual experiences, having agreed with their own ethics and advisors of various sources, to get involved with politics, campaigning and the miasma of half-truths and virtual untruths that “politics” seems to require in order to gain majority support.
Prudence is very close to a man who ran for office in the 1980’s. One of the most common questions directed to him was, “Why do you want to get mixed up in this stuff?” His strong beliefs about where his state government was off kilter didn’t really answer that question. In its simplest terms, it was almost, “Why would you want to become a cesspool adjuster?” Hard to answer.
One must multiply the paltry and rotten problems of one state by ten times or twenty, to appreciate the corruption of the U. S. Congress and the “swamp” it finances. Where does that leave us in the matter of predictions?
One of the most prescient observations, which sadly became a clear prediction, was from Scotsman, Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. …” It would be difficult to fashion a more succinct description – warning – of the political history of the United States. Having just watched the querulous assignation of the Speakership of the House of Representatives to Kevin McCarthy of California, and appreciating the truth of Tytler’s observation-prediction, some fresh predictions are now become Prudent.
Much of the battle for the speakership involved demands from actual conservatives to cut federal spending, even holding it to 2022 levels (a very low bar for measuring success), which would be a departure from the profligacy of recent decades of lies and spending. In other words, what those 20 or so conservatives promised to win elections is a departure from the direction of the past 7 or 8 administrations. Based on his history of “working across the aisle,” as though that were a mark of wisdom to be celebrated, McCarthy’s instincts would not have led him to run the house, its committees or the budgeting process, such as it is, along those lines. His history in the house, and some of his comments on hot issues, indicate that McCarthy acted as much in service to his party position as to hard principles. He supported Trump and criticized him. He voted for and against what might be considered “liberal” legislation. He has been more steadfast in opposing Biden-supported spending plans.
This all leads to both speculation and prediction. Not even Prudence can discern the innermost motivations of a politician, so trying to predict what the McCarthy-led House will actually do on specific issues is not likely to be useful. However, it seems Prudent to predict that some of the 6 holdouts who led the opposition to McCarthy, will face retribution, regardless of any promises from the new Speaker. The Speakership brings a lot of power, both administrative and political… plus a fatter paycheck; threats to that power will be punished.
Further, any motion to “vacate the chair,” now makeable by a single member, will never result in a change in speakership. Accepting this new rule seems like a major concession by McCarthy, but it will prove hollow.
A lot of heat will be generated from “oversight” investigations by several committees. Will any dishonest Biden administrator, of which there are several, actually be impeached or forced to resign? This is unlikely, despite the substantial law-breaking and lying to Congress that has transpired. Will anything substantive come from an investigation into Hunter Biden’s and presidential brother, Jim Biden’s, nefarious foreign influence-peddling over the years Joe Biden was Vice President? This appears to be a slam-dunk, but is also likely to be mostly heat, not light. There may be some sort of resolution passed by a slim majority in the house, but no impeachments.
Can the House, alone, force Biden to close the southern border? Theoretically… and according to the Constitution, Congress’ control of the “purse strings” can be used to propose “revenue”-raising legislation, taxation and borrowing and the like. All such must arise in the House. In addition, the ability for the Executive branch to draw moneys from the Treasury is dependent upon Congress’ passing of appropriating legislation to that effect. Amidst all the horse-trading and dealing done between the House and Senate, let alone in each House, the likelihood of targeted restrictions on expenditures in order to control or punish any executive department or agency for bad behavior, lying to Congress or various malfeasances, is quite small. It would be a watershed event, in practice, and seems doubtful in Prudence’ view.
It is more likely that specific appropriations might be voted for the purpose of closing the border and other needful actions, but, barring the willingness to perform quick impeachments, those directions given via appropriations can be “slow-walked” by the “swamp” for the duration of an administration.
Ultimately, in order to impose its will in any meaningful way, the “Republican” House will have to endure a government “shutdown.” In our lifetimes there has been very little political stomach for accepting the slings and arrows that are always directed at Republicans for such a “crisis.”
The pressure in Washington, within the deep state, certainly on Capitol Hill and, to our detriment, within the so-called Biden administration, is to send money from the Treasury out to thousands of programs that reach millions of Americans, buying their votes in the process. Along the way we may adequately defend the country, but that is becoming more questionable as “woke” nonsense infects the military establishment.
Can a couple dozen conservatives in the House actually change the direction of our decline? May God make it so… otherwise, let’s all be prepared to defend our nation, economy and border.
