How to turn a recession into a Depression.

by

The Fed has confirmed that we are officially in a recession. The actual decline in GDP is higher, though. It is at least -1.6%

What caused the Great Depression? Amity Schlaes’ book “The Forgotten Man” suggests that Roosevelt’s “Regulatory Uncertainty” was a big part of the cause. How were businessmen supposed to plan when policies changed from month to month ? The Roosevelt “Brain Trust” could not decide what might work. Some were good ideas, like the CCC which took young men off the street, helped them get into condition and did many worthwhile projects. Some, like the National Recovery Association, were Fascism which was popular in the 1930s.

Now, we face a disastrous shift in the national focus to imaginary threats like Global Warming. This has become all powerful among politicians because none of them know any science and the science people have become dependent on government funding. Fear is a great driver of government money. Climate science has become a rich field through flogging the unskeptics with fear of global warming. It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence of global warming or any of the other alleged threats. The super rich, like Barack Obama, are still buying waterfront estates no matter what they tell their followers.

Here is a proposal that might help.

Central planning always fails, but the utopian visionaries implementing the plans cannot admit that they are at fault. A scapegoat must be found. As a leading example, when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture led to mass starvation, the official blame was placed on “saboteurs” and “wreckers.”

Our current-day analog is the centrally-planned replacement of our very large, inexpensive and highly functional energy system, mostly based on fossil fuels, with the alternatives of intermittent wind and sun-based generation, as favored by incompetent government regulators who don’t understand how these things work or how much they will cost. Prices of energy to the consumer — from electricity to gasoline — are soaring; and reliability of supply is widely threatened.

All of which brings our President forth to blame the current price and supply issues in the energy markets on anything but his own administration’s intentional efforts to suppress the functional fossil fuel energy. One day the scapegoat is Vladimir Putin; another it is “companies running gas stations,” who stand accused of price gouging.

One possible solution is to use the states as experimental laboratories.

With federalism in energy policy, we can have New York forging ahead with its “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” and California doing the same with its SB 100 — both of them seeking to eliminate fossil fuels from the generation of electricity, and then to force all energy consumers to use only electricity for their supply. Will that work? If New York and California are successful, they will be a model for the rest of the country to follow. Congratulations will be in order. If they fail relative to other states — that is, if they see energy prices soar, or frequent blackouts or shortages of needed energy — then it will be obvious to all that it was the green energy that failed, and not that there were “saboteurs” or “wreckers” or “price gougers,” who after all could have attacked the other states as well.

Well the Feds allow this? Probably not with the current regime in power.

Fortunately, the red states are not just going along with this kind of thing any more. This will be a critical battleground over the next five to ten years.

We will see after the election. Many Republicans are in thrall to the climate hoax.

54 thoughts on “How to turn a recession into a Depression.”

  1. It is generally accepted by at least part of financial academia, that to reign in runaway inflation, you need to set rates higher than the inflation number. That would mean setting it above 9% at this point, for America. Not gonna happen, they are already talking about how the fed will see reason when things get worse, and go back to QE to save the day.

    In Canada we are a little more hawkish, but still nowhere near the actual inflation rate. So its a depression incoming, as Mike has said. Buckle up. ;)

  2. One of the reasons the “individual states” approach to environmental and energy supply is that goods and services flow freely into both Cal and NY.
    If they’re desirous of doing without, they should do without.

  3. ” It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence of global warming ”

    Not sure what to make of it. THere are at least three problems here: whether there is warming, what causes warming, and what would be the effects for the economy etc. I can understand people having discussions about two latter problems, but to argue that there is no warming at all seems to me more than strange. Greenland has now blooming agriculture. My country has shifted zones of recommendation for the farmers, where what kind of crop can be raised. In last 20 years I’ve seen maybe three proper winters.

  4. szopen: “Greenland has now blooming agriculture.”

    Greenland had blooming agriculture nearly a millennium ago, during the age of the Vikings. That is why we still call the island “Greenland”.

    The usual suspects have created their normal zone of confusion with deliberately loose language. They talk about “climate change” when they really mean “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming”. The two are very different. The long-term climate of Planet Earth has been continuously cycling for millions of years (“Ice Ages”, anyone?), and it is still changing today. The climate would continue to change if the human race disappeared. CAGW, on the other hand, is unscientific nonsense.

  5. The groundwork for what’s about to happen has been going on since the ’70’s at least. The fun part will be that it will be nothing like anything that’s ever happened before. Those that believe the worst that can happen is a replay of the Great Depression are living in a fantasy of optimism.

    The first difference is the insolvency of the federal and many many local governments at all levels from tiny water and sanitation districts to entire states. Returning to Amity Schlaes, this time here biography of Calvin Coolidge. In one of her episodes, Coolidge spends an afternoon on a Sunday if I remember right with one of his Cabinet Secretaries to cut something like $300,000 from their budget. there can hardly be a starker contrast between that sort of fiscal probity and the present. As a consequence, when the crash came, the federal deficit was small and getting smaller. Nothing like today.

    The other is the parallel change in household debt. At that time, home mortgages were not common nor were loans for cars and credit cards lay entirely in the future. Again, nothing like today.

    The canary in the coal mine is the housing and automotive sectors. The increase in interest rates is already stressing the housing market as payments increase drastically while home “prices” remain constant. The same is about to happen to cars. The math is simple, whatever the payment on a mortgage was at 3% will be nearly doubled at 6%. The only possibly saving grace is that with mortgage rates so low for so long, there shouldn’t be too many adjustable rate mortgages resetting. This won’t keep many homeowners from being far underwater but as long as they aren’t forced to sell for some reason or lose their income, most should survive. Of course both of those conditions become far more likely during a recession/depression.

    The insolvency of so many local governments puts the income of anyone living off a pension from one of those in jeopardy. We’ve seen some of that, we’re about to see a lot more.

    As the lady said; “Hold on tight, we’re in for a bumpy ride.”

  6. but to argue that there is no warming at all seems to me more than strange.

    OK I’ll give you 0.06 degrees.

    There has been no significant warming in the United States since at least 2005. Any claimed recent warming and impacts at specific places in the United States are isolated and indicate random variation rather than long-term warming.

    The “Little Ice Age” ended about 1850 and the earth has been slowly warming since then. Most of that warming ended around 1950.

    More on earth temperature here.

  7. As to warming – using temperature data from back in the days when thermometers were accurate to within several degrees, and use that as evidence of hundredths of a degree change….seems a bit out there.
    Also odd – putting temp. tracking devices in heat zones, like the top of tar roofs or inside cities.
    As for “How To”, electing idiots, poltroons, and ne’er-do-wells to office seems to be a big part of it.

  8. There’s only two problems with “global warming”. 1) it’s not global. Year by year some regions warm, while some cool, and some stay the same. Then later other regions do other things. 2) “Warming” isn’t particularly scary.

    So we must motivate the public by using the other names. Climate change. Climate crisis. Climate emergency. Climate catastrophe.

  9. @Mike K.

    In my country (Poland) the warming is about 2C from the 1950. The change is noticeable. The recent winter in Poland was THE warmest in the history of official records.

    I won’t discuss why it happened (nor your sources, which I consider unreliable to the point of conscious manipulation), because from experience the discussion is soon derailed (I stopped this fun activity when few years ago in one blog people were making fun of yacht circumventing northern passage, using false photos – failing to notice that the yacht, despite failstart, finally completed unprecented voyage).

    @Gavin

    Are you saying because in medieval times Greenland was green, and because now it becoming again greener, that means there is no warming? That’s some peculiar twist of logic.

    Because all I said that from several components of “global warming” “theory” the part about that warming is actually happening is undeniable. There was project once by physics from Berkely (IIRC) which was marketed to prove there is no warming, and then they have to grudgingly admit actually there is.

  10. If it were up to me, I’d attach this entire thread to David’s post on the slow death of serious online discussion as a prime example of just why.

    First: Whatever I believe about AGW, why should I bet the hour or so it would take to read through it on the infinitesimal chance of reading something I haven’t seen dozens of times already?

    Futility squared: In the unlikely event that some lurker here has real influence, see above.

    Futility cubed: Whatever the developed world does in terms of emissions, China and India are emitting many times more with plans to increase further. They hold out the possibility of reducing this in consideration of a suitable bribe. The only value from this would be to see what explanation they would offer once the bribes had been paid and disappeared into myriad foriegn bank accounts with no change in emissions.

    And finally: Reality in the form of thermodynamics is about to assert itself regardless of maunderings of the supposed masters of the universe.

  11. @MCS that’s right. I am agreeing with everything. As I wrote, global warming is a set of few separate problems:

    (1) Is there a warming?
    (2) What causes warming?
    (3) What will be the effects?
    (4) How those effects will affect economy etc?
    (5) Assuming effects are bad, how to prevent them r deal with them?

    I am frustrated a lot of right wing pundits, even in my country, people I respect and read, seems to be fixated on (1) or (2), when it’s not clear (3) what effect will be and (4) whether those effects will be actually bad. And finally, if they are bad (Which I tend to believe _on a global scale_; locally I’ve read my country will actually benefit from warming) – then there are plenty free market friendly, perfectly reasonable solutions to it. Geoengineering is the way of the future, not some economical suicide as it’s pursued with maniacal zeal in e.g. Germany.

  12. Conservatives have finally learned through bitter experience that the moment you start arguing over the *magnitude* of an issue you have lost the entire argument to the Left. They will immediately, through various tricks such as improper invocation of Precautionary Principles, turn the debate into one about the magnitude of the required *response*, and bigger and more government is always advanced as the only solution to any problem.

  13. If you pick as your starting point any date that takes place after the end of the last ice age, then of course you will see a trend of temperatures going up. Unless you want the planet to remain locked in ice, this should be considered a good thing. We’ve just recently warmed up to the point found in the Eocene Optimum – in other words, we’ve been there and done that. None of the ’causes of global warming’ were in effect back then.
    Figures don’t lie, but liars certainly figure. Have you been watching the agencies slowly decreasing early temps while increasing current temps in their stats?
    As to the effects, looking at earth history – including all of the ice ages and warm periods, leads one to the conclusion that too many of the people saying “SOMETHING MUST BE DONE” are trying to put one over on us. Especially when they are flying all over the globe on their private jets and then taking their fleet of limousines to these conferences. As someone has said elsewhere “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when those who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.
    As for doing something – the most commonly provided answers are increased taxes and increased government regulation – these are not serious answers to the problem they claim exists. If they would set an example by giving up their private jets, yachts, and mansions they might be worth listening to. Until then they should be regarded as dictator-wannabes.
    I don’t know if you’ve seen the humor definition of ‘assume’.
    At this point, I’d say the biggest problem is the political pollution that has rendered any data/study as highly suspect; the signal-to-noise ratio keeps us from any meaningful conclusions.

  14. I am frustrated a lot of right wing pundits, even in my country, people I respect and read, seems to be fixated on (1) or (2), when it’s not clear (3) what effect will be and (4) whether those effects will be actually bad.

    You are assuming that the warming is real. There is considerable evidence that it is not. There is good evidence that NOAA has been “correcting” temperature records to emphasize warming by lowering older temperatures in the record.

  15. >The recent winter in Poland was THE warmest in the history of official records. <

    Europe better hope "global warming" is real. They're going to need it this winter.

  16. @mike k

    Do you know why such adjustments are necessary and why comparing raw data would be fraudulent? Are you aware of the effects of such adjustments on global temperature estimates, nor just in usa?

  17. Last year we in BC broke record temperatures, in some cases up to 10 degrees. We lost 1000 people and Litton hit 50 C and burned to the ground. Now a majority of BC is onside for anything we can do to make this serious climate change go away.

    In GB and Europe they are not doing well with a slightly lesser heat event and they can’t fly planes out of some airports as the runways are melting. Europe too will now be largely onside to doing something about this ongoing climate change.

    Now in places to the south, a great deal of the middle east is on the edge of being uninhabitable.

    Its getting hotter all over the place. Say it ain’t so Mike. ;)

  18. Well Penny, I recall that heat event in BC last year. At the time, it was reported in the news as the hottest temp. spike since a similar event in 1898. But still a bit lower.

    It ain’t so Mike. Happy now?

  19. Really.

    “Canadian record for highest single-day temperature on 27 June, with 46.6˚C. It was the first temperature above 45˚C ever recorded in Canada.”

    Now that’s official but there are records of 50 C in that town at around that time.

  20. Are you aware of the effects of such adjustments on global temperature estimates, nor just in usa?

    Yes, I am very aware of fraudulent temperature records. Some of it is heat island effect but some is simple dishonesty.

  21. @MIke K
    So you aren’t. You can argue the methodology. You can argue adjustments should be done in other way, you can argue their magnitude. If you would point flaws in methodology – that’s fine and respectable! But if someone just posts raw data this is either ignorant or dishonest. Your link does not discuss the issues involve with raw data – so yes, this link is either ignorant or dishonest.

    For starters, the temperatures were in past taken in different time of day, which means they cannot be directly compared. Location of stations sometimes change. The amount of shadow they get from the trees may change. Cities expand. Indeed, heat islands are one of the reasons adjustments are being made. The heat islands were big part why Berkeley study took place, because they initially were convinced no other guy ever thought about that problem before – I remember how much this was trumpeted by people I discussed with – and then they quietly announced, actually data is correct. After that Berkeley guy and their study stopped to be darling of the sceptics.

    In fact it’s true that it nearly impossible to correct the raw data to make it 100% perfectly comparable, so – as usual – all you can do to is trying to make estimation the best way you can and ask others to comment.

    The raw data, BTW, globally without adjustments shows more warming.

    I discussed with the sceptics some ten years ago, maybe more. In fact I was a sceptic myself, until I met actual climatologist, not activist (because activists are idiots and just repeat nonsense). My main lesson is that there is no point of discussion, because I would waste hours and hours reading scientific literature to discuss one point, after which someone would say “this is fraudulent”, ignore it, bring some youtube video which would take hours to understand and debunk, and then would bring some other point, which would again require hours and hours of reading to debunk.

    EOT, Mike.

  22. “For starters, the temperatures were in past taken in different time of day, which means they cannot be directly compared. Location of stations sometimes change.”

    Exactly, if they cannot be compared, then comparing them is pointless. All the hand waving in the world won’t change bad data into good data.

    Locations have changed. Specifically, from quay side in harbors to, usually, post offices, to rail stations, to now, airports. A survey in the U.S. reported that about 20% of observing stations actually conformed to the standard requirements for a weather station. Almost all were too close to buildings, often in the air stream from air conditioners, often on or directly adjacent to paving. The standard calls for stations to be in an open area about the size of a football field covered with controlled vegetation like mown grass, no trees, bushes or buildings within more than 100 feet in any direction, housed in an enclosure of a standard size and shape, covered in two coats of a very specific white wash. Few if any comply.

    Oceanic data is even more poisoned as measurements went from being taken with a thermometer lowered over the side of sailing ships, usually, every four hours as part of filling out the ships log to data recorders measuring the temperature of incoming cooling water. You need to understand that just the passage of a large ship raises the temperature of the water around it.

    It’s only been in the last few years that satellites have been able to measure air and water temperature over wide, untraveled areas.

  24. If the historical data is really that badly corrupted, you can’t just fix it. And since the “corrections” are being applied by people who “know” that the answer is that the planet is significantly warming, their utility to “prove” that it’s warming is exactly zero.

  27. Szopen: “The raw data, BTW, globally without adjustments shows more warming.”

    The measurement of “Global Temperature” is very difficult — but that is not the heart of the challenge for proponents of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. The real issue is determining what part of the asserted temperature rise is natural and what part is anthropogenic. To make things worse, the splits are not limited to 0 – 100%.

    It is absolutely indisputable that the climate of Planet Earth has been fluctuating naturally for billions of years. There is geological evidence of Ice Ages and post-Ice Age warming. There is historical evidence, such as the desertification of North Africa and England swinging from growing grapes in Roman times to the Thames freezing in Victorian days.

    Let’s stipulate that Global Temperature is currently increasing at a rate of 1 degree per century, just for the sake of illustration. How much of that 1 degree is due to human versus natural influence — 0.9 degrees? 0.5 degrees? 0.1 degree?

    But it gets much worse. The planet is still rebounding from the last Ice Age and the Younger Dryas. Perhaps the natural rate of increase is 3 degrees per century, and the human impact (though things like jet flights in the stratosphere) is -2 degrees per century — resulting in the stipulated 1 degree. The reverse would also be possible, since some geologists argue that the Earth is due to enter another Ice Age, and perhaps human influence are mitigating that unstoppable cooling.

    The rotten foundation of the Climate Alarmists is that we have no reliable way of distinguishing any human impact on global climate from the undeniable natural fluctuations.

  28. so yes, this link is either ignorant or dishonest.

    You are about to get your wish as Biden may declare a “climate emergency” today. I think you said you were in Europe so your experience may differ. The “climate models” were manipulated by those pushing the warming scam years ago. None of it is trustworthy. Most of the alterations of temperature recording have been modified in ways that support the warming theory.

    Current plans include switching the protein in our diet from meat to insects. Cow farts, you know. Netherlands has already begun, hence the protests.

  29. A “climate emergency” declaration would be an empty gesture, designed to appease the crazies. Same as their pushing to declare a “public health emergency” and somehow make abortion on demand legal again, or whatever they thought it would mean.
    The GOPe is showing their worthlessness, as always, thinking (probably correctly, alas), that they can just cruise to victory in November by not being Democrats. Where is the massive public hyping of the idiotic statements of Mayor Pete yesterday? Does anyone not terminally online know he said that the high gas prices are a great reward for rich people who have electric cars? Chuckie and Nancy give press conferences nearly every day, whether in the majority or minority, as far as I can tell, and where are the GOP leaders? They’re all pitiful.

  30. A “climate emergency” declaration would be an empty gesture, designed to appease the crazies.

    Brian, read that CTH article. The regulatory actions authorized by this “emergency” would resemble the destructiveness of the Covid “emergency.” Maybe the Supreme Court could stop it but they may not wish for another controversial decision for a while.

  31. @Gavin Longmuir

    All you say is true and I feel forced to say – sorry, because from all my previous interactions with you I expected something rather more hostile. I already have written that for me problem is manyfold and believing in one part does not entail necessity to believe in other. However, I think about this as about insurance. There is a probability that something bad might happen. Maybe then I shoudl invest a bit to prevent that possibility.

    The question is that WHAT to do to prevent the possible problem – and again, the mere possibility is enough to wonder whether we should do or can do anything. It does not mean supporting leftist agenda. I’ve already written that there are much better solutions, starting with more nuclear power (which is opposed by greens, wonder why), investing in research on geoengineering (again, surprisingly oppose by the left) or sequestring CO2 . The problem is that since the problem became tribal issue, the question of WHAT to do became dominated by leftist answers.

    @Mike K.
    The above should be enough as the answer. The fact I think there is warming (and moving climate zone in my country seems to be real to me), that I think we are as in “we, humanity” are responsible does NOT mean I think the climate change will be in any way catastrophic. In fact, I am very irritated by un-scientific mob in case of XR, which misrepresent science and presents vision of future unsupported by even the most pessimistic prognosis. In some of the scenarios I thnk my country will actually gain from the warming.

    But I _do_ accept the non-trivial possibility of negative changes, not necessarily because of some runaway scenario with miniscule probability (you know, the one based on highly speculative hypotheses and in which string of theoretically possible events would cause Earth to be inhabitable only around the poles), but because of speed of the changes and the multiplicating the effect by forcing some fraction more people to move into my country, which I doubt I could prevent given the utter idiocy of almost all political parties in my homeland.

    And again, the fact I accept this possibility means I can accept something could or maybe even SHOULD be done, but I am emphatically AGAINST the current policies, which I deem immoral, ineffective and sometimes even countereffective (wind energy is not only not ecological, but in production leaks gas whose name I forgot who has magnitude more “warming” properties that CO2). Nuclear power and geoengineering is the proper way, not crushing economies of Europe because capitalism is bad, or something.

  32. A great many more people now see the seriousness of the problem we face. Most of Europe and certainly a great deal of Canada, now have experienced heat, they had never seen before.

  33. Not to mention obviously the one politics we should implement to prevent more warming is the reduction of immigration from the south (because African moving from his country into say Germany increases drastically his so called “carbon footprint”). Again something absent from the solution set, because left dominates the whole discussion

  34. “The regulatory actions authorized by this “emergency” would resemble the destructiveness of the Covid “emergency.”

    You mean the pitiful effort, among the worst in the world, that killed over a million of your people?

  35. Mike: I’m confused why we should think that the federal courts, with the guidance just received by our robed masters on the Supreme Court that the EPA can’t just make any sweeping decrees it wants to but that Congressional action is required, would let the White House just make any sweeping decrees it wants to, because they say there’s a “climate emergency”?
    Yes, They have done, are doing, and will continue to do, insanely stupid and destructive things. I just don’t see a “climate emergency” declaration as being anything of any significance. What have they failed to do so far that this would let them do?

  36. Szopen: “Nuclear power and geoengineering is the proper way ..”

    On that, we are in substantial agreement. If we think of the range of possibilities for which we should be prepared, it is quite possible (some geologists would say overdue) that the planet enters the next Ice Age — and we will need lots of power for heating. And if we enter an unprecedented period of anthropogenic warming, we will need lots of power for cooling. Either way, nuclear power would give us the flexibility we need.

    Look on the bright side. China is engaged in a massive build-out of nuclear power plants. Russia also is building nuclear power plants, as — quite tellingly — are some oil exporters such as the United Arab Emirates. Europe has sadly screwed itself, and North America is swirling around the same plug hole, but the human race will continue to go forward! At least, the smart parts of the human race.

  37. the lockdowns did what they intended, not what was the advertised purpose, they crushed small businesses, empowered the mega corporations, enabled them to steal the elections,
    created a class of neurotic people, who were willing to accept a dubious therapeutic marketed as a vaccine, that has serious side effects,

  38. I don’t see how anyone can fail to be a conspiracy theorist when shortly after They destroyed the global economy, They started talking about “Build Back Better” in literally every single country, and that that nutter Klaus Schwab had been using that slogan for years. That wasn’t some organic, natural thing.

  39. Fidel JR is apparently deadset on following the lead of the WEF in destroying Canadian agriculture. The truckers had to be smashed so that no one gets any bright ideas about protesting again.
    https://torontosun.com/news/national/trudeau-pushes-ahead-on-fertilizer-reduction-as-provinces-and-farmers-cry-foul
    Provincial agriculture ministers are expressing frustration with the Trudeau government over plans to effectively reduce fertilizer use by Canada’s farmers in the name of fighting climate change.

  40. “plans to effectively reduce fertilizer use by Canada’s farmers in the name of fighting climate change.”

    Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Etc.

  41. I don’t see how else to view these moves except what that Dutch farmer said in an interview, They want to take the farmer’s land. They want to ruin their businesses and take their land. Must be Bill Gates and pals think farmland is too expensive to keep buying at current prices, and want more of it effectively seized and just given to them.
    As to the further conspiracy theory that They actively want mass starvation, I’m not willing to go quite that far. Yet.

  43. As to the further conspiracy theory that They actively want mass starvation, I’m not willing to go quite that far. Yet.

    I will. I refuse to accept that the Davosie are ignorant of the end results of the policies they are attempting to force upon the world, especially after the example of Sri Lanka.

    Combined with the unfolding catastrophe of the covid non-vaccines I see no reason to give these folks any benefit of the doubt.

    They hate us and want us dead.

  44. the modern incarnation was richmond valentine, (who matthew vaughn not made an african america, but insinuated that obama would collaborate with him, to devastating impact) who wanted to cull the population, through violent outbreak, previously drax and stromberg were the 70s version of moguls who loved nature over people

  45. Brian: “I don’t see how else to view these moves except what that Dutch farmer said in an interview, They want to take the farmer’s land. They want to ruin their businesses and take their land.”

    There may very well be a “They” with an agenda — but most of the dumb Dutch politicians and even dumber Canadian rulers are just … dumb! They are like junkies, always seeking a newer high, regardless of the damage they are doing to their systems.

    Once these empty-headed followers of fashion had dragged homosexuals out of the closet, that got boring. Thus, they turned to the transgendered. And once they have mainstreamed that, they will probably turn to praising pederasty or bestiality.

    In the same vein, whining about carbon dioxide is so 1990; time for something new! So the thought-leaders are now demonizing nitrogen. Only 90 more elements to disparage and they will have made a clean sweep of the Periodic Table!

  46. Xennady: Yeah I’m not going to argue it too strongly. They’re communists, and mostly would be fine with mass extermination, but for most of them I think it’s something they’re willing to do, not their goal.

  47. Like I was saying, they had to crush the truckers to set the precedent that no dissent will be tolerated.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/OttawaPolice/status/1550850969650470914
    We are seeing some farm equipment enter the city.
    We want to remind everyone that in Ontario, you cannot drive farm equipment on a Highway like the 417 & 416 unless there is no other access to the farmland you are working on, and the land must adjoin to a 400-series Highway.

  48. Preview of coming attractions.

    The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is scheduled to deliver their calculation for the second quarter (Apr, May, June) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on July 28, next week. The calculation is essentially the total value of all goods and services generated within the U.S. economy, minus the value of exports received.

    CTH has predicted the people within the BEA research group [SEE HERE], ie those who make the determinations of GDP, will circle the statistical wagons and generate something akin to a positive 0.5% GDP figure for Q2.

    July 28 is the day. We’ll see if the BEA is honest,

  49. People have predicted they’d suppress inflation numbers the past few months too, but there’s only so much you can polish a turd…

  50. I have to read The Forgotten Man again. Or I should say, try to reread it. I thought it was su puff of facts – so dense that it was wearing me out.

    Which sounds funny to be sure. But I got the feeling – 1/4 way through – that Roosevelt did as much damage as help.

    To me the ignorance of things economic among politicians – the people making our policies – is breathtaking. Biden blaming the service station owners is just one example. They have absolutely no basic foundation.

  51. Those of us old enough to remember “WIN” whip inflation now, see an example of something incredibly stupid. Unless we’re a politician, in which case we see something that just wasn’t done right.

    When you look at China, the newest development is that people caught up in the ongoing bank collapses are suddenly finding that the “health app” on their phone has turned red which means they can’t travel to the bank or go to work or leave their apartment. Remember that this sort of app was proposed for here and imagine just how long it would have taken for the Brandon administration to figure out how to use it for their purposes.

    It’s almost surreal to watch the videos of the bank protests in China. A large croup of protesters sitting quietly with banners unfurled when suddenly a bunch of thugs in white shirts and black pants runs up in a mass and starts beating on the protesters and the police show up to start hauling them away. For the most part, the protesters just passively take it because they know that the thugs are actually police and that fighting back will get them in more trouble. You have to wonder if there’s not going to be some sort of breaking point.

  52. “You have to wonder if there’s not going to be some sort of breaking point.”
    Their government starved 50M people to death within living memory and that wasn’t a breaking point, so no, I don’t think such a thing exists. Certainly a bit of money in a bank isn’t going to be it…

  53. Well, here in the Land of the Free, the regime has been holding people who peacefully walked through the People’s House in solitary confinement for over a year, beating them up, and driving them to commit suicide. A complete abnegation of the principles on which the US was founded. And we have not reached our “breaking point” either.

    There is a Biblical quote about the mote in your neighbor’s eye versus the beam in your own which is perhaps relevant.

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