When oil doubles and log prices don't... not sustainable for very long. But boy won't the elites be pissed when they can't find their hardwood products.
i know that rent regulation is greatly reviled in the happy fields of substackland. but market-rate rents mean in practice the wealthy--including overseas money--pricing normal people out of their own neighborhoods forever. this is a primary reason for what you note above.
i'd really like to see an in-depth discussion of this someday--not a theoretical one on why all price controls are bad.
Rent regulation is greatly reviled basically everywhere -- especially among economists. It may be the single economic issue that has the greatest consensus. (Obviously, that's not PROOF of anything, but when even NPR knows rent control is bad...........https://www.npr.org/2019/03/29/707908952/the-evidence-against-rent-control)
Cost of living is an incredibly complex issue, but major factors are (of course) supply and demand -- both of which are moving the 'wrong' way, though for different reasons.
People also use their homes as an ATM and don't want their property values to fall -- meaning they 'pull up the ladder' behind them. Of course, the issue they have is that once they've sold that house and made $X, they have to now find a place to live, which likely costs $Y + $X -- meaning you haven't actually gotten anywhere.
And of course we have the currency debasement that prints new cash for the banks, who will eventually buy up the homes we can no longer afford for pennies on the dollar.
So to 'solve' this problem would take a complex, multi-prong strategy that hurts the established players in the market and benefits people just starting out.
I won't hold my breath on that, though. So we get "jokes" like this:
Newlyweds In San Francisco Looking For Nice One Bedroom, Zero Bath Starter Tent
SAN FRANCISCO — Newlyweds Drew and Jessica Perry have begun searching in earnest across San Francisco for a nice, one-bedroom starter tent to begin married life together.
"Look, babe! This one has a zipper," said Mr. Perry. "Ah, but that blue one on the corner with the tarp ceiling has great curb appeal. It's so hard to choose!"
Although Mrs. Perry admitted she had dreams of securing a one-bedroom crackhouse with a half-bath, she quickly realized such luxury was out of reach with Mr. Perry's meager $400,000 annual salary. "I've had to change my perspective a bit, but I just keep reminding myself it's only a starter tent," said Mrs. Perry. "I'm still holding out hope there will be a toilet within a five-minute walk. Oh, hey honey! Look at this lean-to made entirely out of needles!"
something is terribly wrong when my grandparents of terribly modest means (my grandma had to work until she died of heart disease at 65) lived in a lovely apt. in a beautiful building that only the spawn of oligarches could afford to rent now.
And Biden, his minders, and the rest of the Democrats in Washington want the government to borrow and spend more money, which will only make the situation much worse.....
And then they tell us how wonderful the economic numbers are (after they finish faking them).*
* I wonder how long it will take before a government ‘internet misinformation task force’ of some sort will start “investigating” anyone who questions their official economic numbers......
I've seen photos of my terribly modest grandmother's house featured in magazine spreads featuring the oligarch living there now. Photos of property and home I have fond memories of childhood. Upgraded but essentially same structure and landscaping. In a high-fallutin magazine feature. Small, small home affordable for her modest means. On stunning property. That hit the jackpot after she passed. And the guy isn't even all that. His fortune maker is ok but not impressive. But he's well-connected with government contracts for completely unrelated products. That are highly lucrative internationally. Large revenues. Poached from taxpayers. In my Grandma's old home I grew up in. It's a wacky, wacky world.
Sort of like how Hollyweird made it too expensive for regular NM people to afford living in Santa Fe. Empress MLG gave them all kinds of incentives because she has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world. Except guns. You know how she feels about guns! In this state even dems have guns! What I heard was she's acting for the cartels because THEY don't want to run into guns. Eff her.
I'm learning some of the economics stuff from Jeffrey Hunter (writes for his own Brownstone Institute and the Epoch Times). I don't always agree with him but I wouldn't have caught on to a lot of the bidenomics BS if I hadn't read his columns. I knew FJB was lying but the enormous scope of the lying is beyond creative writing. It's more like a jump through the Stargate and ending up several galaxies away.
It's the same thing, the inflation thing. Those "money people" get the money first, when it's valuable. Then they spend it and that drives up prices, so normal people can't afford to buy homes. Then they print more money, driving more people homeless, and they rent you the houses instead. Eventually you'll own nothing and be happy. They are openly telling you that. The question is what are you or we going to do about it?
The issue with rent control is that the problem exists somewhere farther up the ladder. Yes, the thing you are observing exists. But it's driven by the free printing of more fiat currency, tied to nothing, and granted (until recently, sometimes at *negative* interest rates) to banks, who then get the most use out of it.
Without that effect, which has been going on since 1971, people could afford to build more houses.
yes. because this is one of the great life-destroyers of our time. the faux-viking breed-more-christian-white babies crowd, one might think, would see this as a crucial problem to be solved in order to ramp up them withering fertility engines.
I'm not sure it's even *fixable* now that people are culturally conditioned towards fiat currencies. But I'd love to hear ideas.
It should be noted just how apt the title "fiat currency" is.
"Fiat lux." "Let there be light."
"Fiat" is "As I will it so", effectively.
It exists because the government says it does, and it has value due to a ridiculous worldwide consensual hallucination granting it value.
It's the worst thing we ever let the government get away with, and that's even compared to letting them tax us for performing labor of our own free will.
It really is. It really, really is. It's the **primary** thing I resent my grandparents for not having done anything about. The "Greatest Generation" who lived through The Great Depression and won WWII, and supposedly "knew the value of a dollar", but didn't do a **GODSDAMNED THING** to fight the feds absolutely annihilating that value.
i think that the genuine prosperity of the '50s, coming after WWII which came after the depression which came after many people immigrating in poverty, made people maybe relax a little bit too much that the promised land (for many) had arrived.
I’m not seeing anyone comment from the perspective of the landlord. Investment property loans (residential) typically require 20% down, which is a large chunk of cash. Then the landlord takes on all the future risk of the property- vacancy rates, maintenance, upkeep, taxes, insurance, etc. AND needs a return on investment, else why take on the hassle (and they are a hassle). Rental properties aren’t charity; they’re investments with risk and reward. Rent controls for the investors would be equivalent to capping your return on the market. Should we do this for stock market investments, 401k’s and so on?
this is a basic problem and there are no idealogical solutions.
housing is a basic need. to be insecure in your dwelling--for *any* reason--is at the heart of much conflict and misery from the beginning of time for all species.
govt. housing is always lousy. but investing to make a big a profit as you can get away with is a crime against the dignity of human beings.
i noted during the rent moratorium during the acute phase of our plague era that no govt entities put a concurrent moratorium on the taxes and charges they extorted from property owners.
this is a hard, hard, hard problem. how can we make it less so?
I heard on the radio today that credit card debt had topped one trillion in the US. The average rate is now 28.93%. If gas prices spike because of war in the middle east....
It seems you like comparisons, so here's one for you.
In the early 1970's the US $ to South African ZAR was US$ 2 = ZAR 1
Yesterday the situation was ZAR 19.06 = US$ 1.
Thats what moving from the Gold Standard, to the US $ leaving the Gold Standard under Nixon in the mid 1970's.
It clearly indicates how currencies are now manipulated.
The theory of currency value manipulation is reinforced by the fact that the US$ has been reduced to only being used in 58% of global trade transactions, whilst China and Japan are dumping US bonds hand over fist, US debt is increasing and the bond market is collapsing, yet suddenly, a week ago, the value of the US$ increased.
Driven by What is the Question, as it certainly wasn't demand???
Decrease in value of ZAR relative to USD should have more to do with what happened to SA after certain policies were recinded, and even more so when UK and US withdrew support from the old regime, including putting SA under embargos until they changed policy due to outside coercion.
The question as to what increased demand is best answered by looking at the preceding six months of US economy. Did any decline stop? Did things start to improve? Did market confidence improve? And more fuzzy stuff like that.
There's a perfectly valid reason why "investment specialists" et c normally bat under what random mass guessing would yield. Well, there are more than one reason, really.
Kahneman did a study, included in his "Thinking: fast and slow", on economy and how people working in finance make decisions. If you haven't read it, I really recommend it as it's a real treat.
To a limited extent you comment is true, the US stabbed South Africa in the back, and then of course saw to that we got saddled with the ANC government we now have, in 1994 which has destroyed the economy, and the desire for investors to invest in South Africa, however it still doesn't remove the argument in regard to US artificial manipulation of currency values.
Because it was less than ten years ago that housing prices were half of what they are now, *in Albuquerque*, which is relatively known for having decent housing prices.
Right now same duplex is 3600. Which would still be half our income.
But we lived in Woodbridge.
Kids went to Irvine high the kids parking lot had better cars than what we had.
My kids thought we were poor. Wanted to know, dad why do we have the crappiest car in the neighborhood? My response, do you want to live where that's the best car in the neighborhood?
72k in '96 was still real money. (OK, maybe not in Irvine, I dunno.) in '07... well, less so.
I dunno. I was making 65 in '00, and make 95 now, but in '00, I rented an entire house for $500, and now I pay $925 for a one bedroom apartment that's half a duplex. No kids, but it's still a much larger chunk of my income, and I can carry $300 in groceries in one hand these days...
#1. "Best ways to become self sufficient and how we can really form communities that support each other." That. One way or another, this ship is headed for an iceberg. We have to know what we want to replace this rotting empire with, how to prepare, and what we can start building now.
We already know how to become self-sufficient. Start your own business. Proven for decades. I did it; I talked both of my daughters through how to do it. Best way to become self-sufficient and to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
In the case of societal collapse, there will be invasions of any safe and self-sufficient communities. Whatever is successful will be plundered or at least the target of the scavengers. In that sense, self-sufficiency starts to look a good deal like sovereign communities with lethal defenses.
*Differently* abled. And you can no longer refer to an injured athlete siting on the bench as being on the "D.L.". Not sure if you can still be on the "Down Low" though.
However, "I support Hamas" is perfectly acceptable to shout while walking past a synagogue...
Looking at your "trust in media" chart, I couldn't help but notice how trust shot up in almost a straight line between 2016 and 2018. Now remind me, what was going on at that time which would inspire a sudden wave of trust in an institution which had been in a death spiral for 2 decades?
Noticed that, did you? When I went over this info the other day, I pointed out that these 'trust gains' were almost exclusively made by Democrats during the Trump years -- when they were swallowing all the lies.
Go ahead and look again at the chart above. Pay special attention to the period after Biden assumed office. Trust in media has been nosediving for Biden’s ENTIRE TERM — but here’s Axios telling us that Biden made “trust gains” with the industry. Yet from the partisan data also available in the article, it sure seems like any “trust gains” were simply hardcore Democrats who “trusted” media stories during the Trump years. (The vast majority of those stories being false, it should be said.)
Yes, I had read that briefly the other day but it's been a hell week at work so I haven't had much time to engage.
One of the inflection points which doesn't really show on either of those graphs is the botched Afghanistan debacle. That was about 7 months into the administration and his approval ratings took a nosedive by the time it was over -- and never recovered. I would have thought there would be some correlation between approval ratings and trust in media as it's the media lying to you about what a terrific leader ol' Joe is (at least when he's awake) which drives those ratings.
His change of withdrawal date to 9/11 was the most transparent, rage-inducing, tone-deaf political stunt that I ever saw.
Not to mention he literally allowed the Taliban to regroup and mobilize during the Spring -- which is when Trump wanted to be OUT. (Snow in the mountains forces the Taliban to "winter in")
37% approval as of yesterday, and that's from the left-leaning Gallup. I'm taking this as a sign that we've passed Peak Democrat and it can only continue to decline from here on out. Has the light at the end of the tunnel been turned back on?
I think you need to handicap the parties somewhat though as the MSM has always tilted toward the donkeys. It was of course way more subtle back then, but the bias has always been there at some level.
Considering the hagiographic coverage of Biden, at least until very recently, imagine where the numbers might be if the media had any sense of accuracy and objectivity in reporting? He's spent more time in Delaware than D.C. and usually calls lid on the day by noon, while Trump famously sent out his hostile tweets at 1 AM -- after a long day of actually doing his job for the country.
I puzzle a lot about the TDS era. All of that hate and anger at one person? Was it because he was a real person speaking his thoughts, silly or not? Or was it because he might actually try to reform things which threatened the entire political apparatus? Perhaps when he was not stoking his own ego he was pointing out how poorly we have been governed? I suppose we all avoid change even if we must.
Personally I thought it was because Trump was in a position to reveal all the FBI fuckery surrounding the 2016 election. (What we now know as Crossfire Hurricane)
They are STILL hiding vital info, even after Trump ordered it declassified.
I voted for #5, but "how do we move forward?" is as important. I worry that in much of the U.S. a noticeable slice of the population will be masking indoors permanently, drug deaths (fentanyl, heroin and so on, not prescription drugs) will not decline below a high plateau, and no one in government in California, New York, etc., sees a real problem with this.
I agree. I picked “convince others” because it’s difficult to see how we can move forward without first getting people to change how they think. Getting rid of the a**holes as it were.
GDP/capita is usually more useful, if blunt. One always need to check it against all the other measures - even household spending is too blunt, it needs to broken down into types of households and types of spending to be useful and to do that takes quite the effort and access to data sources.
Gov'ment spending can be an asset. It depends on what it's spent on, and why and what the real effect was.
Building a new modern harbour to increase efficiency and make cheaper the transporting of goods for businesses f.e. when no one business could afford it on its own (or those that could are loathe to make the investment).
The above of course run into the same problems as the wel-known welfare trap does on the micro-level, but that wasn't the point: once built, the harbour is an asset, not an expenditure.
Or an expenditure that is an investment in an asset (to keep the adherents to austrian and Chicago-schools of thought quiet).
It boils down to the reality of it of course: if health care expenditure is allowed to be put down as an investment in assets (hospitals, equipment, staff), it becomes very tempting to not break down said expenditure to see if that asset's increase in cost/value simply is due to top-loading the whole thing with admin-staff, communicators, DEI-officers and other useless things (we had a working example in class of a greek hospital in Athens, with a combat squad-sized group of gardeners on the payroll - only, no garden and no plants in evidence...).
What a way to start the day, thinking of economics! Bleh, I feel like I need a "Crying Game"-shower.
Anyway, I voted Hollywood, in case that's important later.
Maybe this is the brick wall at the back of the stage?:
The federal government collected $5.0 trillion in revenue in FY 2022. Our current debt plus unfunded liabilities is $130,000,0000,000,000 trillion. In other words; think about owing TWENTY SIX TIMES MORE (with compounding interests) than you make annually. If someone were to start today, it would take 75 years to pay that down if you cut your budget by 7% every year, during that time, and/or get an annual raise that will leave 7% more disposable income.
That's a tits up, no shot, tight spot. Nobody seems to notice this, even though the math is easy. While we're whistling past the graveyard, the "scenery" will be wheeled out and replaced with a Hellscape.
Way back when covid started up, my friend was watching and I was explaining how what J&R was doing in season 2 was the "playbook". At the time, I thought that the "final step" of currency replacement would be a bridge too far and they would instead "soft reset" by printing trillions.
Now, I'm not so sure that complete replacement is off the table.
Last I checked, it was on Netflix, but that was a few years ago. The show got 1 full season, got cancelled after the cliffhanger finale, but a fan-driven campaign brought it back for a shortened season 2.
Then they made some comics that further the story, but they're getting harder to find.
For added hilarity, pay attention to the plot about privatizing security, ala Blackwater. This was during the Bush years, so the idea that government would use an emergency in order to quash your rights was A VERY TERRIBLE THING.
Not only is this profligate spending artificially driving up the GDP and lulling the clueless into a consumer-driven stupor, it is driving up inflation thereby increasing the cost of servicing that growing debt. I think the term Death Spiral might apply here. From a First World nation to a Third World one in a single Presidential term.
All one needs to do is look at the current state of financial affaits across the US, with declining personal income, rising interest rates, personal debt levels spiraling out of control, forclosures and the repossession of vehicles spiking to know that the Fed's report on a consumer spike in the purchasing of reacreational vehicles to be nothing but Bullshit, accompanied by a spike in prescription drug sales, which most probably makes sense if those drugs were Anti-Depressants, or maybe those brand new IQ lowering drugs, that help to to swallow Government Propaganda!!!
Last month the Fed was telling you, that there was a sudden spike in consumer spending on gas/ vehicle fuel, healthcare products and electronic goods, and anyone with more than half a brain would ask, why these items, what would drive a sudden spike across the country in these very same, specific goods???
More likely an attempt to draw attention away from the runaway debt train, and collapsing treasury bond market while they extract a last +-$ 110 billion for everybody else except the US, before the financial collapse sets in.
After that they will simply print money, increasing the magnitude of the disastrous situation and inflation, with the excuse being that it is essential for US survival, and to ward off fictionary attacks by Russia and China.
Tax returns plus people buying larger quantities in the areas of the US that risks harsh winters?
We've seen that here some years, that when winter seems to come early (right now f.e.) and indicators point to raised prices on fuel et c, people outside the major cities stock up all at once.
We're barely a hundred households in the village nearby, but everybody's got a car (or more than one - one normal car and one terrain-capable) so if all of us buy 100L of petrol and 100L of diesel each the same week, that'd show an immediate spike.
Could it be something like that on a national scale?
Think again about that happening on a National scale, and the probability of everyone opting to do the same thing in the same month, of August.
Surely some would then have reacted later, and purchased in September, yet September shows no such thing, in fact September shows increased spending on Recreational vehicles.
Not really, no. I feel confusticated, because such spikes are either lemming-like behaviour from consumers or statistical artifacts. You know, the "we forgot to add in all these things into the normal tracking and tallying tables so Tommy'll just put all of them in now - it'll look like a spike but Frank is putting a footnote in so people can see why it's a spike" - and then some journalists "forgets" to mention the footnote when reporting.
There were no special events or anything then? Nothing like the Covid TP-scare or something?
Most of those in Congress and the Senate are lawyers, too dumb to understand the nuances of economics and finance.
If they were competent and capable in regard to economics and finance, they wouldn't be approving the spending of money on futile projects the way they do, and the US wouldn't be $33.5 Trillion in debt, so they swallow whatever the Fed puts in front of them, and move on, not having the capacity or desire to analyse it.
One has to question if this is intentional and basically a form of Propaganda, or merely the Incompetence of the Fed due to PC hiring.
To my mind it's intentional to make people think that despite the crashing bond and stock market, all is A-okay, and possibly to stall the stock market crash, which is inevitable given that its too late to stall it, since it is a lagging indicator of trouble.
I don't know if I'm interpreting the last paragraph of your comment correctly, but if you are implying that the Chinese are involved, it is not so.
The Chinese are most definitely running in the opposite direction, dumping everything US$ related, and have been since 2018, as they don't want to be nearby when the shit happens.
China has already established a payments system in parallel to SWIFT, knowing that when the financial collapse comes, everything will grind to a halt, so they need to have something in place, of course it also serves their de-dollarisation program, which the BRICS+ countries are moving toward.
The only BRICS+ member not benefitting from BRICS+ is South Africa, due to the internal policies of our Revolutionaries who have been in power since 1994, and have spent their time destroying the economy rather than building it.
We often just have to laugh at their Socialist, bordering Communist policies, goven that the Russians dropped Communism like a hot potato in 1991, and China converted to a Capitalist style driven economy around the same time, having discovered that Communist economies are bound to fail, so we don't know who our ANC government is attempting to emulate.
GDP government spending counts. Exports count. When a foreign government gives money away it counts. When that foreign government who get money buys weapons that counts towards GDP. If we give Ukraine $1 and they buy a weapon we count it as $2
Simulation Commander has done good detective work on the government's GDP lies. GDP and government spending just happen to be the same. What a coincidence.
That GDP measures spending and not productivity has allowed leftists to tell lots of lies, as I point out in my post on GDP.
Leftists say, "...blue states have a GDP of $11,1 trillion while the red states have a GDP of $5.6 trillion... " to show that leftists are more productive.
In reality, that stat only shows that leftists spend more. And they spend $billions that is transferred to them by the government, which gets it by printing it, borrowing it, and taxing the productive people in the "red" states.
I've only been doing it for a few days and am not going to go back into the other million posts to change it, but I realized that when I link an old article, sometimes people re-start a conversation. I think this will be more likely if they see the comments that sparked the conversation initially.
I think I was simul-curious about some comment u made in a Bill Rice substack and signed on. If not from/by Kane, within CFP open thread I've popped in a link to this lovely Screaming substack. ❤️
ps:
Aggregator = Aggrieved Alligator ?
They all end up pushing to sell themselves to someone with agenda ... A la Drudge
The WEF captured MSM has to be turned from the Dark side. The citizens of Duckville who rolled up their sleeves gladly have to see what's behind the curtain and how they have been abused.
just to remind everyone that, say, 55 years ago young people with only a hs education could manage to live at least a lower middle-class life.
in my first domestic bliss situation, i could cook a dinner for two with a dollar's worth of ingredients.
my monthly rent now is half of my annual salary back then. something might be wrong somewhere.
Now it takes two people, both working full-time jobs AND being frugal, to even have a CHANCE to build up any savings.
And what do we do when the industry our family business is in is destroyed by this economy? Looking at starting over at age 50... ugh ugh ugh
Fucking bullshit, is what it is.
I guess we shouldn't be surprised, i mean we've been told we were NON-ESSENTIAL DEPLORABLES, after all.
When oil doubles and log prices don't... not sustainable for very long. But boy won't the elites be pissed when they can't find their hardwood products.
Exactly. I was going to say something similar.
Their world will come crashing down once they can't get their hands on their little new thing what-nots at the trendy new stores.
Savings🤔???? All gone thanks to jab mandate. Looking forward to when we can all scream in person😂💖
i know that rent regulation is greatly reviled in the happy fields of substackland. but market-rate rents mean in practice the wealthy--including overseas money--pricing normal people out of their own neighborhoods forever. this is a primary reason for what you note above.
i'd really like to see an in-depth discussion of this someday--not a theoretical one on why all price controls are bad.
Rent regulation is greatly reviled basically everywhere -- especially among economists. It may be the single economic issue that has the greatest consensus. (Obviously, that's not PROOF of anything, but when even NPR knows rent control is bad...........https://www.npr.org/2019/03/29/707908952/the-evidence-against-rent-control)
Cost of living is an incredibly complex issue, but major factors are (of course) supply and demand -- both of which are moving the 'wrong' way, though for different reasons.
People also use their homes as an ATM and don't want their property values to fall -- meaning they 'pull up the ladder' behind them. Of course, the issue they have is that once they've sold that house and made $X, they have to now find a place to live, which likely costs $Y + $X -- meaning you haven't actually gotten anywhere.
And of course we have the currency debasement that prints new cash for the banks, who will eventually buy up the homes we can no longer afford for pennies on the dollar.
So to 'solve' this problem would take a complex, multi-prong strategy that hurts the established players in the market and benefits people just starting out.
I won't hold my breath on that, though. So we get "jokes" like this:
https://babylonbee.com/news/newlyweds-in-san-francisco-looking-for-nice-one-bedroom-zero-bath-starter-tent
Newlyweds In San Francisco Looking For Nice One Bedroom, Zero Bath Starter Tent
SAN FRANCISCO — Newlyweds Drew and Jessica Perry have begun searching in earnest across San Francisco for a nice, one-bedroom starter tent to begin married life together.
"Look, babe! This one has a zipper," said Mr. Perry. "Ah, but that blue one on the corner with the tarp ceiling has great curb appeal. It's so hard to choose!"
Although Mrs. Perry admitted she had dreams of securing a one-bedroom crackhouse with a half-bath, she quickly realized such luxury was out of reach with Mr. Perry's meager $400,000 annual salary. "I've had to change my perspective a bit, but I just keep reminding myself it's only a starter tent," said Mrs. Perry. "I'm still holding out hope there will be a toilet within a five-minute walk. Oh, hey honey! Look at this lean-to made entirely out of needles!"
something is terribly wrong when my grandparents of terribly modest means (my grandma had to work until she died of heart disease at 65) lived in a lovely apt. in a beautiful building that only the spawn of oligarches could afford to rent now.
Yes. It's called "debasement of the currency."
And it's accelerating.
“Yes. It's called "debasement of the currency."
And it's accelerating.”
And Biden, his minders, and the rest of the Democrats in Washington want the government to borrow and spend more money, which will only make the situation much worse.....
And then they tell us how wonderful the economic numbers are (after they finish faking them).*
* I wonder how long it will take before a government ‘internet misinformation task force’ of some sort will start “investigating” anyone who questions their official economic numbers......
you got a year's worth of writing right now then, don't ya?
I've seen photos of my terribly modest grandmother's house featured in magazine spreads featuring the oligarch living there now. Photos of property and home I have fond memories of childhood. Upgraded but essentially same structure and landscaping. In a high-fallutin magazine feature. Small, small home affordable for her modest means. On stunning property. That hit the jackpot after she passed. And the guy isn't even all that. His fortune maker is ok but not impressive. But he's well-connected with government contracts for completely unrelated products. That are highly lucrative internationally. Large revenues. Poached from taxpayers. In my Grandma's old home I grew up in. It's a wacky, wacky world.
People making that "buy a mansion in Arkansas" choice is another significant part of why houses here are so stupidly expensive now... :-/
Sort of like how Hollyweird made it too expensive for regular NM people to afford living in Santa Fe. Empress MLG gave them all kinds of incentives because she has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world. Except guns. You know how she feels about guns! In this state even dems have guns! What I heard was she's acting for the cartels because THEY don't want to run into guns. Eff her.
I'm learning some of the economics stuff from Jeffrey Hunter (writes for his own Brownstone Institute and the Epoch Times). I don't always agree with him but I wouldn't have caught on to a lot of the bidenomics BS if I hadn't read his columns. I knew FJB was lying but the enormous scope of the lying is beyond creative writing. It's more like a jump through the Stargate and ending up several galaxies away.
It's the same thing, the inflation thing. Those "money people" get the money first, when it's valuable. Then they spend it and that drives up prices, so normal people can't afford to buy homes. Then they print more money, driving more people homeless, and they rent you the houses instead. Eventually you'll own nothing and be happy. They are openly telling you that. The question is what are you or we going to do about it?
The issue with rent control is that the problem exists somewhere farther up the ladder. Yes, the thing you are observing exists. But it's driven by the free printing of more fiat currency, tied to nothing, and granted (until recently, sometimes at *negative* interest rates) to banks, who then get the most use out of it.
Without that effect, which has been going on since 1971, people could afford to build more houses.
then this is a prime issue that we--the collective jellyfish brain of substackland--should consider tackling with a vengeance.
I'll add it to the questions for next time?
yes. because this is one of the great life-destroyers of our time. the faux-viking breed-more-christian-white babies crowd, one might think, would see this as a crucial problem to be solved in order to ramp up them withering fertility engines.
Yes, this.
I'm not sure it's even *fixable* now that people are culturally conditioned towards fiat currencies. But I'd love to hear ideas.
It should be noted just how apt the title "fiat currency" is.
"Fiat lux." "Let there be light."
"Fiat" is "As I will it so", effectively.
It exists because the government says it does, and it has value due to a ridiculous worldwide consensual hallucination granting it value.
It's the worst thing we ever let the government get away with, and that's even compared to letting them tax us for performing labor of our own free will.
It really is. It really, really is. It's the **primary** thing I resent my grandparents for not having done anything about. The "Greatest Generation" who lived through The Great Depression and won WWII, and supposedly "knew the value of a dollar", but didn't do a **GODSDAMNED THING** to fight the feds absolutely annihilating that value.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
And our parents let them take over the education system.
i think that the genuine prosperity of the '50s, coming after WWII which came after the depression which came after many people immigrating in poverty, made people maybe relax a little bit too much that the promised land (for many) had arrived.
I’m not seeing anyone comment from the perspective of the landlord. Investment property loans (residential) typically require 20% down, which is a large chunk of cash. Then the landlord takes on all the future risk of the property- vacancy rates, maintenance, upkeep, taxes, insurance, etc. AND needs a return on investment, else why take on the hassle (and they are a hassle). Rental properties aren’t charity; they’re investments with risk and reward. Rent controls for the investors would be equivalent to capping your return on the market. Should we do this for stock market investments, 401k’s and so on?
this is a basic problem and there are no idealogical solutions.
housing is a basic need. to be insecure in your dwelling--for *any* reason--is at the heart of much conflict and misery from the beginning of time for all species.
govt. housing is always lousy. but investing to make a big a profit as you can get away with is a crime against the dignity of human beings.
i noted during the rent moratorium during the acute phase of our plague era that no govt entities put a concurrent moratorium on the taxes and charges they extorted from property owners.
this is a hard, hard, hard problem. how can we make it less so?
It took from 1972 to 2013 for my rent to go from $145 to $930. Retired in 2013 and rent doubled in that time bc now rent is based on market.
It's BS.
Live in Cali and every time we tried to purchase there were multiple offers and always outbid. They want us all serfs to the land owners.
quite ordinary people want ridiculous profits on their properties too.
I heard on the radio today that credit card debt had topped one trillion in the US. The average rate is now 28.93%. If gas prices spike because of war in the middle east....
Inflation no chance
To increase finance
Bills pile up sky high
Send that boy off to die
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
New screamers theme song?
LOVE IT.
People with a HS education could *buy houses*.
you should've seen the co-op apt. my parents bought in 1955 for about $1400.
55 years ago our dollars were worth a helluva lot more than today
Historically since fully going off the gold standard, we double the money supply roughly every 11 years (9% real inflation).
This means that for every dollar in existence on 9/11, there are now roughly FOUR dollars in existence.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
This matches with the calculation I did recently, that factoring in inflation, I make about 83% of what I did fresh out of college back in 2000.
55 years ago a swedish crown was worth the same as a swiss franc.
Today, it's something like 1/14th of that.
It seems you like comparisons, so here's one for you.
In the early 1970's the US $ to South African ZAR was US$ 2 = ZAR 1
Yesterday the situation was ZAR 19.06 = US$ 1.
Thats what moving from the Gold Standard, to the US $ leaving the Gold Standard under Nixon in the mid 1970's.
It clearly indicates how currencies are now manipulated.
The theory of currency value manipulation is reinforced by the fact that the US$ has been reduced to only being used in 58% of global trade transactions, whilst China and Japan are dumping US bonds hand over fist, US debt is increasing and the bond market is collapsing, yet suddenly, a week ago, the value of the US$ increased.
Driven by What is the Question, as it certainly wasn't demand???
Decrease in value of ZAR relative to USD should have more to do with what happened to SA after certain policies were recinded, and even more so when UK and US withdrew support from the old regime, including putting SA under embargos until they changed policy due to outside coercion.
The question as to what increased demand is best answered by looking at the preceding six months of US economy. Did any decline stop? Did things start to improve? Did market confidence improve? And more fuzzy stuff like that.
There's a perfectly valid reason why "investment specialists" et c normally bat under what random mass guessing would yield. Well, there are more than one reason, really.
Kahneman did a study, included in his "Thinking: fast and slow", on economy and how people working in finance make decisions. If you haven't read it, I really recommend it as it's a real treat.
To a limited extent you comment is true, the US stabbed South Africa in the back, and then of course saw to that we got saddled with the ANC government we now have, in 1994 which has destroyed the economy, and the desire for investors to invest in South Africa, however it still doesn't remove the argument in regard to US artificial manipulation of currency values.
People have much higher expectations.
It can still be done.
I did it in Irvine CA. with five kids.
On 72 k a year.
When?
Because it was less than ten years ago that housing prices were half of what they are now, *in Albuquerque*, which is relatively known for having decent housing prices.
From 96 to 07
Half of income went to housing.
In 96 our rent was 1800
In 07 it was 2200
Right now same duplex is 3600. Which would still be half our income.
But we lived in Woodbridge.
Kids went to Irvine high the kids parking lot had better cars than what we had.
My kids thought we were poor. Wanted to know, dad why do we have the crappiest car in the neighborhood? My response, do you want to live where that's the best car in the neighborhood?
"...do you want to live where that's the best car in the neighborhood?"
😹 ~ ROTFL
My kids didn't think I was funny
They didn't realize the depth of the comment.
If it didn't make them think, perhaps you've planted a seed...
Hah. Good response. ;)
72k in '96 was still real money. (OK, maybe not in Irvine, I dunno.) in '07... well, less so.
I dunno. I was making 65 in '00, and make 95 now, but in '00, I rented an entire house for $500, and now I pay $925 for a one bedroom apartment that's half a duplex. No kids, but it's still a much larger chunk of my income, and I can carry $300 in groceries in one hand these days...
How much is your car note ?
$0! For as long as I can keep the one I've got running, and hopefully longer than that, if I can buy another reliable one for cash.
I mean, I'm not *drowning* for sure. But... I'm not going *up hill* either.
If I'm making 83% of what I do now in another 25 years, and there's no retirement to be had... well, that's not a sustainable curve.
#1. "Best ways to become self sufficient and how we can really form communities that support each other." That. One way or another, this ship is headed for an iceberg. We have to know what we want to replace this rotting empire with, how to prepare, and what we can start building now.
We already know how to become self-sufficient. Start your own business. Proven for decades. I did it; I talked both of my daughters through how to do it. Best way to become self-sufficient and to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
I was reading this more as how to be self-sufficient in the event of societal collapse. Living off-grid, producing your own goods, that sort of thing.
Same
In the case of societal collapse, there will be invasions of any safe and self-sufficient communities. Whatever is successful will be plundered or at least the target of the scavengers. In that sense, self-sufficiency starts to look a good deal like sovereign communities with lethal defenses.
Self-defense is certainly part of it!
How do an additional 3.5M disabled people of working age help an economy? Asking for an idiot named Jason Furman...
Diversity is our strength!
*Differently* abled. And you can no longer refer to an injured athlete siting on the bench as being on the "D.L.". Not sure if you can still be on the "Down Low" though.
However, "I support Hamas" is perfectly acceptable to shout while walking past a synagogue...
Instead of the DL, call it the DHH, in honor of Damar "Heart attack" Hamlin
Looking at your "trust in media" chart, I couldn't help but notice how trust shot up in almost a straight line between 2016 and 2018. Now remind me, what was going on at that time which would inspire a sudden wave of trust in an institution which had been in a death spiral for 2 decades?
Noticed that, did you? When I went over this info the other day, I pointed out that these 'trust gains' were almost exclusively made by Democrats during the Trump years -- when they were swallowing all the lies.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/those-doing-it-are-busy-proving-it
Go ahead and look again at the chart above. Pay special attention to the period after Biden assumed office. Trust in media has been nosediving for Biden’s ENTIRE TERM — but here’s Axios telling us that Biden made “trust gains” with the industry. Yet from the partisan data also available in the article, it sure seems like any “trust gains” were simply hardcore Democrats who “trusted” media stories during the Trump years. (The vast majority of those stories being false, it should be said.)
Yes, I had read that briefly the other day but it's been a hell week at work so I haven't had much time to engage.
One of the inflection points which doesn't really show on either of those graphs is the botched Afghanistan debacle. That was about 7 months into the administration and his approval ratings took a nosedive by the time it was over -- and never recovered. I would have thought there would be some correlation between approval ratings and trust in media as it's the media lying to you about what a terrific leader ol' Joe is (at least when he's awake) which drives those ratings.
His change of withdrawal date to 9/11 was the most transparent, rage-inducing, tone-deaf political stunt that I ever saw.
Not to mention he literally allowed the Taliban to regroup and mobilize during the Spring -- which is when Trump wanted to be OUT. (Snow in the mountains forces the Taliban to "winter in")
I'm just waiting for some of that abandoned armament to show up in Lebanon or Gaza.
Or Texas.
"Fast and Furious 2"
Wait...that's already been done.
37% approval as of yesterday, and that's from the left-leaning Gallup. I'm taking this as a sign that we've passed Peak Democrat and it can only continue to decline from here on out. Has the light at the end of the tunnel been turned back on?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/513305/democrats-ratings-biden-slip-overall-approval.aspx
Getting dangerously close to the partisan bottom. What did Bush get down to during his second term? 27% or something?
Yup. 25% in October of 2008 as the economy imploded and the GOP alternative being presented was McCain/Palin.
https://news.gallup.com/interactives/507569/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx
I think you need to handicap the parties somewhat though as the MSM has always tilted toward the donkeys. It was of course way more subtle back then, but the bias has always been there at some level.
Considering the hagiographic coverage of Biden, at least until very recently, imagine where the numbers might be if the media had any sense of accuracy and objectivity in reporting? He's spent more time in Delaware than D.C. and usually calls lid on the day by noon, while Trump famously sent out his hostile tweets at 1 AM -- after a long day of actually doing his job for the country.
I puzzle a lot about the TDS era. All of that hate and anger at one person? Was it because he was a real person speaking his thoughts, silly or not? Or was it because he might actually try to reform things which threatened the entire political apparatus? Perhaps when he was not stoking his own ego he was pointing out how poorly we have been governed? I suppose we all avoid change even if we must.
Personally I thought it was because Trump was in a position to reveal all the FBI fuckery surrounding the 2016 election. (What we now know as Crossfire Hurricane)
They are STILL hiding vital info, even after Trump ordered it declassified.
I voted for #5, but "how do we move forward?" is as important. I worry that in much of the U.S. a noticeable slice of the population will be masking indoors permanently, drug deaths (fentanyl, heroin and so on, not prescription drugs) will not decline below a high plateau, and no one in government in California, New York, etc., sees a real problem with this.
I agree. I picked “convince others” because it’s difficult to see how we can move forward without first getting people to change how they think. Getting rid of the a**holes as it were.
GDP/capita is usually more useful, if blunt. One always need to check it against all the other measures - even household spending is too blunt, it needs to broken down into types of households and types of spending to be useful and to do that takes quite the effort and access to data sources.
Gov'ment spending can be an asset. It depends on what it's spent on, and why and what the real effect was.
Building a new modern harbour to increase efficiency and make cheaper the transporting of goods for businesses f.e. when no one business could afford it on its own (or those that could are loathe to make the investment).
The above of course run into the same problems as the wel-known welfare trap does on the micro-level, but that wasn't the point: once built, the harbour is an asset, not an expenditure.
Or an expenditure that is an investment in an asset (to keep the adherents to austrian and Chicago-schools of thought quiet).
It boils down to the reality of it of course: if health care expenditure is allowed to be put down as an investment in assets (hospitals, equipment, staff), it becomes very tempting to not break down said expenditure to see if that asset's increase in cost/value simply is due to top-loading the whole thing with admin-staff, communicators, DEI-officers and other useless things (we had a working example in class of a greek hospital in Athens, with a combat squad-sized group of gardeners on the payroll - only, no garden and no plants in evidence...).
What a way to start the day, thinking of economics! Bleh, I feel like I need a "Crying Game"-shower.
Anyway, I voted Hollywood, in case that's important later.
Maybe this is the brick wall at the back of the stage?:
The federal government collected $5.0 trillion in revenue in FY 2022. Our current debt plus unfunded liabilities is $130,000,0000,000,000 trillion. In other words; think about owing TWENTY SIX TIMES MORE (with compounding interests) than you make annually. If someone were to start today, it would take 75 years to pay that down if you cut your budget by 7% every year, during that time, and/or get an annual raise that will leave 7% more disposable income.
That's a tits up, no shot, tight spot. Nobody seems to notice this, even though the math is easy. While we're whistling past the graveyard, the "scenery" will be wheeled out and replaced with a Hellscape.
Does CRUNCH make a sound if nobody's "listening"?
Ever seen "Jericho"?
Yes. Exactly.
Way back when covid started up, my friend was watching and I was explaining how what J&R was doing in season 2 was the "playbook". At the time, I thought that the "final step" of currency replacement would be a bridge too far and they would instead "soft reset" by printing trillions.
Now, I'm not so sure that complete replacement is off the table.
The playbook is always thrown out when you're desperate and on tilt.
They rode the debt driven GPD growth pony for 2 decades too long.
So they will trot out WAR as their new pony.
"Look, everyone its a pony"...
No, but I'm intrigued. IMDB brings up multiple titles. Which is this?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805663/
Last I checked, it was on Netflix, but that was a few years ago. The show got 1 full season, got cancelled after the cliffhanger finale, but a fan-driven campaign brought it back for a shortened season 2.
Then they made some comics that further the story, but they're getting harder to find.
It's on MAX. Sounds very interesting. If the two of you are calling it out, it must be worth the watch!
Edit: not MAX, Paramount+ I miss the days when it was just "channel 4, 5 or 7".
It was the best show on TV for a brief time.
For added hilarity, pay attention to the plot about privatizing security, ala Blackwater. This was during the Bush years, so the idea that government would use an emergency in order to quash your rights was A VERY TERRIBLE THING.
Not only is this profligate spending artificially driving up the GDP and lulling the clueless into a consumer-driven stupor, it is driving up inflation thereby increasing the cost of servicing that growing debt. I think the term Death Spiral might apply here. From a First World nation to a Third World one in a single Presidential term.
Spiral Down Joe.
Exactly. As Tucker points out it will be ABRUPT.
Wait until Americans wake up one day, and don't have a chicken in every pot or a car in every garage.
That might make them angry if it's a surprise to them.
Poor people are used to being poor.
Non-poor people who find themselves poor take it much harder.
Yeah it may feel like they skipped fighting for their dinner, and went straight to fighting for their lives.
And perhaps they will literally have to fight for their lives.
People don't behave well in zero sum games.
I wonder how they'll feel about that when they find out the elites and The State left ZERO in the zero sum game?
Games Over.
They aren't calling this the "Hunger Games" for nothing.
You're on fire
They can have my Benz when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
But they'll have pot in every pipe, and that will keep them numb enough not to care.
"Dude, where's my EBT card?"
Lmao.
We'll call that the Big Bong Theory.
Best line of the month!
Sublime.
We need more immigrants, from Caribbean nations and Africa. Those groups start new businesses at far higher rates than native born citizens.
All one needs to do is look at the current state of financial affaits across the US, with declining personal income, rising interest rates, personal debt levels spiraling out of control, forclosures and the repossession of vehicles spiking to know that the Fed's report on a consumer spike in the purchasing of reacreational vehicles to be nothing but Bullshit, accompanied by a spike in prescription drug sales, which most probably makes sense if those drugs were Anti-Depressants, or maybe those brand new IQ lowering drugs, that help to to swallow Government Propaganda!!!
Last month the Fed was telling you, that there was a sudden spike in consumer spending on gas/ vehicle fuel, healthcare products and electronic goods, and anyone with more than half a brain would ask, why these items, what would drive a sudden spike across the country in these very same, specific goods???
And that's just with day-to-day living. What happens when that person has a medical emergency or even a car breakdown?
Military action, IMO.
More likely an attempt to draw attention away from the runaway debt train, and collapsing treasury bond market while they extract a last +-$ 110 billion for everybody else except the US, before the financial collapse sets in.
After that they will simply print money, increasing the magnitude of the disastrous situation and inflation, with the excuse being that it is essential for US survival, and to ward off fictionary attacks by Russia and China.
They would have assassinated a non-democrat for this. Whether he was Trump or not.
Don't you mean, they would have saved Our Democracy(tm) from a non-Democrat?
That is tantamount to saying that Pol Pot was a champion for Democracy.
The reference to the US Democratic party and the word Democracy, cannot be used in the same sentence, as they are Juxtaposed terms.
Tax returns plus people buying larger quantities in the areas of the US that risks harsh winters?
We've seen that here some years, that when winter seems to come early (right now f.e.) and indicators point to raised prices on fuel et c, people outside the major cities stock up all at once.
We're barely a hundred households in the village nearby, but everybody's got a car (or more than one - one normal car and one terrain-capable) so if all of us buy 100L of petrol and 100L of diesel each the same week, that'd show an immediate spike.
Could it be something like that on a national scale?
Think again about that happening on a National scale, and the probability of everyone opting to do the same thing in the same month, of August.
Surely some would then have reacted later, and purchased in September, yet September shows no such thing, in fact September shows increased spending on Recreational vehicles.
Does that make any sense to you???
Not really, no. I feel confusticated, because such spikes are either lemming-like behaviour from consumers or statistical artifacts. You know, the "we forgot to add in all these things into the normal tracking and tallying tables so Tommy'll just put all of them in now - it'll look like a spike but Frank is putting a footnote in so people can see why it's a spike" - and then some journalists "forgets" to mention the footnote when reporting.
There were no special events or anything then? Nothing like the Covid TP-scare or something?
This wasn't a journalist reporting, this was the official Fed report.
Well that's certainly cause for an "Oh crap"-reaction then - I take it no-one in position to do so have bothered to ask the Fed about the spike?
I mean, if there really are party-political motivations behind manipulating data and reports not only to the public but to decision-makers...
Well, it doesn't get worse than that, it really doesn't. That's chinese levels of corruption if that is so. (I'm speculating, obviously!)
Most of those in Congress and the Senate are lawyers, too dumb to understand the nuances of economics and finance.
If they were competent and capable in regard to economics and finance, they wouldn't be approving the spending of money on futile projects the way they do, and the US wouldn't be $33.5 Trillion in debt, so they swallow whatever the Fed puts in front of them, and move on, not having the capacity or desire to analyse it.
One has to question if this is intentional and basically a form of Propaganda, or merely the Incompetence of the Fed due to PC hiring.
To my mind it's intentional to make people think that despite the crashing bond and stock market, all is A-okay, and possibly to stall the stock market crash, which is inevitable given that its too late to stall it, since it is a lagging indicator of trouble.
I don't know if I'm interpreting the last paragraph of your comment correctly, but if you are implying that the Chinese are involved, it is not so.
The Chinese are most definitely running in the opposite direction, dumping everything US$ related, and have been since 2018, as they don't want to be nearby when the shit happens.
China has already established a payments system in parallel to SWIFT, knowing that when the financial collapse comes, everything will grind to a halt, so they need to have something in place, of course it also serves their de-dollarisation program, which the BRICS+ countries are moving toward.
The only BRICS+ member not benefitting from BRICS+ is South Africa, due to the internal policies of our Revolutionaries who have been in power since 1994, and have spent their time destroying the economy rather than building it.
We often just have to laugh at their Socialist, bordering Communist policies, goven that the Russians dropped Communism like a hot potato in 1991, and China converted to a Capitalist style driven economy around the same time, having discovered that Communist economies are bound to fail, so we don't know who our ANC government is attempting to emulate.
When you've lost the huffers . . .
I didn't vote on a question because they are all good. I'm really interested to see how this turns out.
"Even the Huffers are seeing straight"
I wonder how many of your readers got the reference without searching for it? (Damn. My kingdom for a Beavis and Butthead emodicon)
Didn't "Huffer" use to mean "glue sniffer"?
Nostalgia moment: when the biggest worries was kids were sniffin' glue and using it as hair-gel... sigh.
GDP government spending counts. Exports count. When a foreign government gives money away it counts. When that foreign government who get money buys weapons that counts towards GDP. If we give Ukraine $1 and they buy a weapon we count it as $2
Simulation Commander has done good detective work on the government's GDP lies. GDP and government spending just happen to be the same. What a coincidence.
That GDP measures spending and not productivity has allowed leftists to tell lots of lies, as I point out in my post on GDP.
Leftists say, "...blue states have a GDP of $11,1 trillion while the red states have a GDP of $5.6 trillion... " to show that leftists are more productive.
In reality, that stat only shows that leftists spend more. And they spend $billions that is transferred to them by the government, which gets it by printing it, borrowing it, and taxing the productive people in the "red" states.
Yup.
Debt-driven GDP growth is not growth, but just debt.
Difficult to pick between #1 and #5.
Aren't they 2 sides of the same coin?
I don't think so. #1 is more about the stuff you can do to prepare for yourself/family, whereas #5 is specifically about convincing others.
Ah, I see. Makes sense.
I didn't notice. I have certain busy stacks set for new first. Otherwise I might miss something because threads happen.
I approve.
I've only been doing it for a few days and am not going to go back into the other million posts to change it, but I realized that when I link an old article, sometimes people re-start a conversation. I think this will be more likely if they see the comments that sparked the conversation initially.
Also
When your article gets picked up by an aggregater.
Which BTW is where I find all my stackers there or Warroom.
Not sure I've had that happen, but I know Bill Rice gets onto CFP every now and again. Maybe they list me but don't tell me?
That's how I found you I'm sure.
Revolver runs a lot of stacker articles
Oh! Good to know :)
I think I was simul-curious about some comment u made in a Bill Rice substack and signed on. If not from/by Kane, within CFP open thread I've popped in a link to this lovely Screaming substack. ❤️
ps:
Aggregator = Aggrieved Alligator ?
They all end up pushing to sell themselves to someone with agenda ... A la Drudge
i toggle back and forth.
GDP up 4.9%. Grocery prices up 50%. There's some fuzzy math going on...
SC - econometric falsity has been pernicious for eons, as the grammar of persuasion attests Mr. Mulder.
The WEF captured MSM has to be turned from the Dark side. The citizens of Duckville who rolled up their sleeves gladly have to see what's behind the curtain and how they have been abused.