The Slow-Motion Trainwreck of the US Economy
The tracks are out but we're gonna try to jump the cliff
From sea to shining sea, Americans are reeling from the effects of inflation, which has surged to levels not seen in decades. Gas prices have been hit with a triple whammy: The massive monetary inflation, Biden’s decision to cut the Keystone pipeline and other permits, as well as the war in Ukraine (and with it, Biden’s decision to stop buying Russian oil).
Needless to say, people are pretty upset.
This dude literally became the meme.
He’s not the only one who’s upset. Grandpa Brandon is also very angry. At you.
Where do all these stupid Americans get the idea that reckless government spending (enabled by reckless printing) causes inflation? Maybe they lived through the 1970s? Experience is a pretty fine teacher, most of the time.
But Biden not only lived through the 1970s, he was IN THE SENATE during the Ford and Carter administrations, when the effects of Nixon taking us completely off gold were felt. He was THERE during the oil crisis and gas shortages! And while Carter’s response was to attempt to make American energy independent, Biden is demanding we DECREASE our ability to create energy! While Carter was for raising interest rates to control inflation (and actually appointed Paul Volker, who did it), under the Biden administration the Fed just raised the interest rate a whole 0.25%, bringing it up to……somewhere between 0.25% and 0.50%. To fight inflation that’s either double digits or near enough not to matter.
Know who won’t have to worry about the effects of inflation? Congress, which just gave itself a 21% budget bump. (Fact-checkers are furiously reporting this isn’t a RAISE because it’s not going directly to the politician, but to the office budget of those politicians. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s a material difference)
So while we handled this problem in the past by building up our supply of energy and seriously raising interest rates, today we’re doing exactly the opposite. Because, after all, everybody knows the way to fight inflation is with EVEN MORE government spending! That’s why Congress just agreed to shovel another $1.5 TRILLION out the door. This funds government spending through — and I shit you not — September.
$1,500,000,000,000 for (not even) seven months of spending. I’d say that congress was spending like a group of drunken sailors, but drunken sailors are forced to stop spending when they run out of money. Sadly for the taxpayer, Congress doesn’t have that problem.
And somewhere in that $1.5 trillion, we’re sending roughly $15 billion to the Ukraine for ‘aid’. (Also starting a pool on how much of that ends up in the pockets of American politicians) Check out some of the ‘aid’ below:
We’re so humanitarian!
And while we’re overheating the printing press to pay for all this spending, the world is starting to signal that they’ve had enough of the dominance of the dollar, especially when it comes to oil.
Saudi Arabia appears to be sending a political message to the U.S. with reports that it will consider accepting yuan payments for oil sold to China, currency strategists say.
That………doesn’t sound great for the future of the petrodollar. But Bloomberg specifically tells us:
Dollar’s dominance seen under no threat for foreseeable future
Uh oh. Now I’m really worried.
The last couple weeks, Biden has been conflating gas prices with inflation (as if that’s the only increase we’ve seen instead of the most obvious) so he can blame ‘inflation’ on Putin, but we were spending crazy amounts on lumber months ago. Food prices were increasing months ago. The price of US-supplied natural gas is through the roof, and Putin has no impact at all on that.
This is what it looks like when the fake economy of being close to the literal money makers overtakes the real economy of people voluntarily trading goods and services. Why bother with customer service or quality when you can just bribe a politician to make your product mandatory, or to eliminate your competition?
The debt will be inflated away, and it’s extremely likely the looter class will grab everything they can while the house of cards tumbles down. It’s likely millions of people will be unable to continue paying for their homes and businesses, and the politically connected will use their newly printed cash to buy up the rubble for pennies on the dollar.
Next article, I’ll discuss how to protect ourselves and our assets in such a scenario.
Well, the propaganda's working. That guy blames Putin for the high gas prices as if (1) gas wasn't going up before Putin and (2) any foreign leader owes Americans anything, including low gas prices. And considering how our sanctions are affecting regular Russian people . . . at least his ApplePay account wasn't locked so he could actually buy gas.
I love your newsletter. You and El Gato Malo, Twitter's loss is Substack's gain.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s intentionally designed to weaken America. The only other explanation, in my opinion, is stupidity. But if that’s the case, how can Biden’s economic advisors possibly be so stupid?