Whatever the answer, it can’t be “tinker with the status quo”, just as it can’t be “burn it all down and start over”.
The answer is going to be like a major surgery—some things have to be removed, and others overhauled and rebuilt from scratch, while still others must be left intact. And if we do it wrong, either nothing will change, or the wrong things will change, or the right things will change in the wrong ways.
I would propose we start by acknowledging that we shouldn’t double down on anything that led us here, and start considering some things we’ve either rashly abandoned or never tried before.
One thing is certain: The specifics will matter. So before we start cutting, we’d better have a clear, well-reasoned idea of what we really need to do.
Not only premeditated but carefully orchestrated by our own intelligence community through their obscurity of funding for GOF research through the nefarious Fauci and ilk.
They flubbed the orchestration. If they were able to wait for a few other things, we would already have been in their planned digital prisons these past two years at least.
Yes and no, IMHO. I believe it was planned but was hurriedly implemented as an outsider who was not likely to go along with it was suddenly and surprisingly elected to a high office. I think they would have preferred several subordinate and supporting programs to have already been up and runny before the put this plan in to operation.
Yes. I pretty much knew all of this 2 years ago. Which is worse spending trillions during an emergency, or spending it over 10 or 20 years on something equally as stupid?
Most of the potential nominees for either side will be happy to waste Trillions $ on inefficient energy boondoggles. Take a look at this massive carbon capture boondoggle. https://summitcarbonsolutions.com/project-footprint/ I count 32 carbon capture facilities with hundreds of miles of steel pipeline to capture and transport CO2 emissions off of ethanol plants. How much do you think all of this costs, not to mention EVs, charging stations, and solar panel energy credits (almost all going to upper middle class income folks).
Not one person on that stage who served in government (all of them except for Vivek) has done a damn thing to cut any money serious money out of the budget. I won't consider voting for anyone who isn't talking about eliminating entire agencies or firing tens of thousands of federal workers.
Thanks for posting this. Would not have found it otherwise. I left the following comment on the author’s substack.
Thank you for the in-depth analysis of this catastrophic problem. There are points where I beg to differ, though not on the substance.
While I am greatly displeased at some of Trump’s decisions on covid, I believe the following is unfair.
“Extremely out of his depth, both scientifically and economically, Trump irresponsibly sponsored $6 trillion of CARES Act giveaways.“
Who among all the men who held the office of US President were known to be strong in science? “Economically”? I am against most if not all federal money give away programs, but if you force people to stay in their homes and not allow them to earn a living, you then must pay their bills. The solution, was to not lockdown.
My one other criticism of this piece is also, I believe, the strongest defense of Trumps decisions on covid; you as he, do/did not understand the breath of the problem. It ain’t just the US. Every nation with few exceptions, did as the US did. Trump’s decision to follow the bad advice to lockdown was reportedly greatly influenced by that fraudulent study from the UK that placed the likely number of deaths from covid astronomically high. Japan, where I live, resisted doing anything at all until pressure from somewhere compelled them to become the most highly vaxxed and masked and afterwards, the country with the highest case load and if I am not mistaken, deaths now too. My med school and nursing school are still requiring masks, some online only courses, social distancing and partitions between seats in the classroom, cafeteria and student lounge. My kids are still not allowed to talk during lunch time at school. Around half the population are still wearing masks. The “recommendations’ to wear masks was only rescinded May 8th of this year.
This devaluation of money is not a mistake. Neither is the destruction of most of the world economies. They are driving us to accept universal basic income and CBDCs. I believe this for three reasons. First, that is exactly what they have been saying they were going to do for a long time. We just didn’t take them seriously. Secondly, even a clock is right twice a day; when are the policies this people implement ever correct? They aren’t. This is all by design. Thirdly, if it was your goal to destroy the world’s currencies and economies, what would you do differently from what is being done?
Additionally, I have my own experiences in Japan which has maintained a cash based society longer than most. It is getting harder and harder to use cash in Japan as fewer cash registers in convenience stores and supermarkets accept it. More and more people are preferring to use various E currencies, my wife among them. I refuse to and thus do not receive the 5% to 10% discounts for doing so. Eventually, I will not have the choice. There are no “Cash Only” registers in the supermarkets we frequent but there are more registers that except many kinds of Emoney that do not take cash than do accept cash.
Now that Japan has opened its borders for the first time in over 3 years to tourists, we are flooded with visitors from abroad. For the first time in my experience going back as far as 1992 is Japan a cheap destination for most visitors from overseas as the yen is weak. Why? Because Japan as did the US “printed” huge sums of money to give (some) people it forced out of employment by our repeatedly extended and reimplemented lockdowns.
While cheap for visitors, it is not for we residents. I was shocked today that the cost of a pack of 10 eggs was 124 yen after tax. That is 30 yen less than two days ago and the first drop in their price I have seen since the panic started. They used to sell for less than 100 yen, the ones we get anyway. Saw gas at 194 yen per liter a couple of weeks ago. A little over ten years ago, when I was working at a location that I had to drive to get to, I received a huge pay raise to cover the then recent jump in gas to 130 yen per litter. Even at the near 200 yen per litter of gas, it is only this “cheap” due to government subsidies. Where is the money coming from? We were broke before we spent the massive amounts on the olympics which did not bring in much of any revenue as no spectators were allowed.
All, every single one, government policy by any government has the same foundational goal, utterly destroy its citizens ability to have even the slightest degree of independence from them. And with the covid panicked response, we are seeing a level of international cooperation never before seen in Human history. The unnaturalness of this fact is more than enough to alert all that this is coordinated and directed by an entity that is not bound by any nation’s borders.
The famous economist John Maynard Keynes said in 1919 essentially what you just outlined. Here are some excerpts "By a continuing process of inflation, Governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.." "There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of Society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.."
Infuriatingly accurate. The worst part is that the Rabid Left set about destroying education starting in the 1960s and they have won. Prior to 1960, ANYONE with a high school diploma could read Greek and Latin and would have understood instantly the bullshit and lies.
Now our kids can tell you about the 97 genders that like, totally, like, exist, duh, you bigot, while Chinese kids are drilling calculus. Oh, and like, it's like white supremacist to "believe" 2+2=4.
If we do not reverse this decades-long indoctrination, we'll become a failed state, living in balkanized areas of mutually suspicious fiefdoms. It will become literally impossible to drive from New York to Los Angeles unless you're in an armed, Mad Max convoy.
Consider why Social Security is the only govt program that actually works and is adored by people.
It is because the govt simply pays the monthly dividend, and does not get involved with micro
-managing the recipients. Everyone knows they paid into the system, so do not consider it a handout.
The federal government is not a solution to anything. Unfortunately, the US will continue its slide until the people wake up and begin voting to RESTRICT govt power, not expand it.
They out numbered him. I doubt there has ever been an executive that’s has had as much insubordination on day one as he. Actually, the more we learn it seems that it was more akin to mutiny.
Trump had every right and reason to expect that his direction were carried out, they were not. He had every reason to expect that both the House and Senate which at first were held by the same party that elected him would support him and not stand in the way and even subvert him and his policies. We all now know or should know that both houses of the Legislature and the Chief Executive have long been serving the same master regardless of party affiliation, until a complete outsider was elected as President. Now we are back were we were, ruled, not led.
Was there a nation wide lock down? My recollection is that he left it up the the States, which is arguably, the strict constitutionalists way of handling it. He did not allow federal shot or masking mandates (again if recollections are correct) but he did to my great disappointment, wear one himself for a while.
Do you think he does not understand know? We have a unique opportunity in him being president again. His personal survival and that of his family are solely dependent upon him getting back in and cutting out the rot. No one else is in such a position. All others will be forced into compromise as they have much to lose if they don’t. Trump losses nothing by not compromising but loses everything if he does. Given what they are putting him through, he is much more keenly aware of this than anyone else.
No, what we need is a fighter and I have seen no one fight like he has had to in my 50 some years. He was not who I hoped to win the nomination 7 years ago. That was the first election I did not vote in. Living abroad and under threat of losing my passport due to illegally assessed fines, I did not want to pop up on the radar to cast a ballot for one who I did not think had it in him to fight and get things done. He is the only one I will take that risk for now.
The passport revocation thing in a nutshell. During O’s admin, just before the midterm election that would change control of the Senate from the dems to the repubs, the dem Senate tried to sneak in the provision to revoke or deny passports to any suspected of owing a certain amount to the US government. The Repubs in the house caught it in reconciliation and removed it. The Dems tried two times before the change over with the same result. There may have been more attempts including earlier, but these are the ones I know of. Once the repubs were sworn in to the Senate, I thought that was one fear I could put to rest for a while. Nope, a repub Senator resorted to some tricks that shocked me as much in their being allowed as did the fact that a repub was pushing something his party had thwarted the dems from accomplishing ate least 3 times recently. He failed twice (that I am aware of) but eventually succeeded and Obama signed it in to law. One of the tricks he pulled was to submit a bill but with the entire text swapped out for that of another bill. That means that voting records are useless because we have no idea what legislators though they were voting for; the bill as written that they had their staff go over or something else entirely that even one one their side changed completely at the last moment.
That shirts is several decades past it prime. If we only paid attention, we would have passed that line at least in the early 90s and most likely much earlier and acted long long ago.
Neither he nor Trump should ever again hold public office. AMEN.
Who do you think could change this?
RFK jr? Really. He is one of those who believes in ACC. Yes, he is right on a little but far far wrong on much.
Anthropogenic Climate Change, of man made climate change, if you prefer.
So the question becomes, how do we move forward?
Whatever the answer, it can’t be “tinker with the status quo”, just as it can’t be “burn it all down and start over”.
The answer is going to be like a major surgery—some things have to be removed, and others overhauled and rebuilt from scratch, while still others must be left intact. And if we do it wrong, either nothing will change, or the wrong things will change, or the right things will change in the wrong ways.
I would propose we start by acknowledging that we shouldn’t double down on anything that led us here, and start considering some things we’ve either rashly abandoned or never tried before.
One thing is certain: The specifics will matter. So before we start cutting, we’d better have a clear, well-reasoned idea of what we really need to do.
I fear it is far too late for anything other than burn it all down and rebuild it. They will take you out if you do not take them out first.
Not only premeditated but carefully orchestrated by our own intelligence community through their obscurity of funding for GOF research through the nefarious Fauci and ilk.
They flubbed the orchestration. If they were able to wait for a few other things, we would already have been in their planned digital prisons these past two years at least.
Thanks! This essay really gets to the debacle of the COVID reaction. It had to be premeditated!
Yes and no, IMHO. I believe it was planned but was hurriedly implemented as an outsider who was not likely to go along with it was suddenly and surprisingly elected to a high office. I think they would have preferred several subordinate and supporting programs to have already been up and runny before the put this plan in to operation.
Yes. I pretty much knew all of this 2 years ago. Which is worse spending trillions during an emergency, or spending it over 10 or 20 years on something equally as stupid?
Most of the potential nominees for either side will be happy to waste Trillions $ on inefficient energy boondoggles. Take a look at this massive carbon capture boondoggle. https://summitcarbonsolutions.com/project-footprint/ I count 32 carbon capture facilities with hundreds of miles of steel pipeline to capture and transport CO2 emissions off of ethanol plants. How much do you think all of this costs, not to mention EVs, charging stations, and solar panel energy credits (almost all going to upper middle class income folks).
Not one person on that stage who served in government (all of them except for Vivek) has done a damn thing to cut any money serious money out of the budget. I won't consider voting for anyone who isn't talking about eliminating entire agencies or firing tens of thousands of federal workers.
Thanks for posting this. Would not have found it otherwise. I left the following comment on the author’s substack.
Thank you for the in-depth analysis of this catastrophic problem. There are points where I beg to differ, though not on the substance.
While I am greatly displeased at some of Trump’s decisions on covid, I believe the following is unfair.
“Extremely out of his depth, both scientifically and economically, Trump irresponsibly sponsored $6 trillion of CARES Act giveaways.“
Who among all the men who held the office of US President were known to be strong in science? “Economically”? I am against most if not all federal money give away programs, but if you force people to stay in their homes and not allow them to earn a living, you then must pay their bills. The solution, was to not lockdown.
My one other criticism of this piece is also, I believe, the strongest defense of Trumps decisions on covid; you as he, do/did not understand the breath of the problem. It ain’t just the US. Every nation with few exceptions, did as the US did. Trump’s decision to follow the bad advice to lockdown was reportedly greatly influenced by that fraudulent study from the UK that placed the likely number of deaths from covid astronomically high. Japan, where I live, resisted doing anything at all until pressure from somewhere compelled them to become the most highly vaxxed and masked and afterwards, the country with the highest case load and if I am not mistaken, deaths now too. My med school and nursing school are still requiring masks, some online only courses, social distancing and partitions between seats in the classroom, cafeteria and student lounge. My kids are still not allowed to talk during lunch time at school. Around half the population are still wearing masks. The “recommendations’ to wear masks was only rescinded May 8th of this year.
This devaluation of money is not a mistake. Neither is the destruction of most of the world economies. They are driving us to accept universal basic income and CBDCs. I believe this for three reasons. First, that is exactly what they have been saying they were going to do for a long time. We just didn’t take them seriously. Secondly, even a clock is right twice a day; when are the policies this people implement ever correct? They aren’t. This is all by design. Thirdly, if it was your goal to destroy the world’s currencies and economies, what would you do differently from what is being done?
Additionally, I have my own experiences in Japan which has maintained a cash based society longer than most. It is getting harder and harder to use cash in Japan as fewer cash registers in convenience stores and supermarkets accept it. More and more people are preferring to use various E currencies, my wife among them. I refuse to and thus do not receive the 5% to 10% discounts for doing so. Eventually, I will not have the choice. There are no “Cash Only” registers in the supermarkets we frequent but there are more registers that except many kinds of Emoney that do not take cash than do accept cash.
Now that Japan has opened its borders for the first time in over 3 years to tourists, we are flooded with visitors from abroad. For the first time in my experience going back as far as 1992 is Japan a cheap destination for most visitors from overseas as the yen is weak. Why? Because Japan as did the US “printed” huge sums of money to give (some) people it forced out of employment by our repeatedly extended and reimplemented lockdowns.
While cheap for visitors, it is not for we residents. I was shocked today that the cost of a pack of 10 eggs was 124 yen after tax. That is 30 yen less than two days ago and the first drop in their price I have seen since the panic started. They used to sell for less than 100 yen, the ones we get anyway. Saw gas at 194 yen per liter a couple of weeks ago. A little over ten years ago, when I was working at a location that I had to drive to get to, I received a huge pay raise to cover the then recent jump in gas to 130 yen per litter. Even at the near 200 yen per litter of gas, it is only this “cheap” due to government subsidies. Where is the money coming from? We were broke before we spent the massive amounts on the olympics which did not bring in much of any revenue as no spectators were allowed.
All, every single one, government policy by any government has the same foundational goal, utterly destroy its citizens ability to have even the slightest degree of independence from them. And with the covid panicked response, we are seeing a level of international cooperation never before seen in Human history. The unnaturalness of this fact is more than enough to alert all that this is coordinated and directed by an entity that is not bound by any nation’s borders.
The famous economist John Maynard Keynes said in 1919 essentially what you just outlined. Here are some excerpts "By a continuing process of inflation, Governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.." "There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of Society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.."
Infuriatingly accurate. The worst part is that the Rabid Left set about destroying education starting in the 1960s and they have won. Prior to 1960, ANYONE with a high school diploma could read Greek and Latin and would have understood instantly the bullshit and lies.
Now our kids can tell you about the 97 genders that like, totally, like, exist, duh, you bigot, while Chinese kids are drilling calculus. Oh, and like, it's like white supremacist to "believe" 2+2=4.
If we do not reverse this decades-long indoctrination, we'll become a failed state, living in balkanized areas of mutually suspicious fiefdoms. It will become literally impossible to drive from New York to Los Angeles unless you're in an armed, Mad Max convoy.
The idiot sheeple voted for this bullshit.
Consider why Social Security is the only govt program that actually works and is adored by people.
It is because the govt simply pays the monthly dividend, and does not get involved with micro
-managing the recipients. Everyone knows they paid into the system, so do not consider it a handout.
The federal government is not a solution to anything. Unfortunately, the US will continue its slide until the people wake up and begin voting to RESTRICT govt power, not expand it.
I like this, and would like to see a bullet-point list of the highlights cycled on Twitter every day.
They out numbered him. I doubt there has ever been an executive that’s has had as much insubordination on day one as he. Actually, the more we learn it seems that it was more akin to mutiny.
Trump had every right and reason to expect that his direction were carried out, they were not. He had every reason to expect that both the House and Senate which at first were held by the same party that elected him would support him and not stand in the way and even subvert him and his policies. We all now know or should know that both houses of the Legislature and the Chief Executive have long been serving the same master regardless of party affiliation, until a complete outsider was elected as President. Now we are back were we were, ruled, not led.
Was there a nation wide lock down? My recollection is that he left it up the the States, which is arguably, the strict constitutionalists way of handling it. He did not allow federal shot or masking mandates (again if recollections are correct) but he did to my great disappointment, wear one himself for a while.
Do you think he does not understand know? We have a unique opportunity in him being president again. His personal survival and that of his family are solely dependent upon him getting back in and cutting out the rot. No one else is in such a position. All others will be forced into compromise as they have much to lose if they don’t. Trump losses nothing by not compromising but loses everything if he does. Given what they are putting him through, he is much more keenly aware of this than anyone else.
No, what we need is a fighter and I have seen no one fight like he has had to in my 50 some years. He was not who I hoped to win the nomination 7 years ago. That was the first election I did not vote in. Living abroad and under threat of losing my passport due to illegally assessed fines, I did not want to pop up on the radar to cast a ballot for one who I did not think had it in him to fight and get things done. He is the only one I will take that risk for now.
The passport revocation thing in a nutshell. During O’s admin, just before the midterm election that would change control of the Senate from the dems to the repubs, the dem Senate tried to sneak in the provision to revoke or deny passports to any suspected of owing a certain amount to the US government. The Repubs in the house caught it in reconciliation and removed it. The Dems tried two times before the change over with the same result. There may have been more attempts including earlier, but these are the ones I know of. Once the repubs were sworn in to the Senate, I thought that was one fear I could put to rest for a while. Nope, a repub Senator resorted to some tricks that shocked me as much in their being allowed as did the fact that a repub was pushing something his party had thwarted the dems from accomplishing ate least 3 times recently. He failed twice (that I am aware of) but eventually succeeded and Obama signed it in to law. One of the tricks he pulled was to submit a bill but with the entire text swapped out for that of another bill. That means that voting records are useless because we have no idea what legislators though they were voting for; the bill as written that they had their staff go over or something else entirely that even one one their side changed completely at the last moment.
We do not vote ourselves out of this.
In a nutshell why we are where we are; no one cares enough to spend the time to learn.
That shirts is several decades past it prime. If we only paid attention, we would have passed that line at least in the early 90s and most likely much earlier and acted long long ago.