It is grey and cold here in Paris.
Mon Dieu! The government here is even more absurd than in the US. French president Macron says he will ‘emmerd’ those who don’t have the vaccination. We’ve seen that translated as ‘piss off’ or ‘mire in excrement’. A better translation of emmerd is probably something like to ‘make your life miserable’.
But imagine — what kind of society is it in which one group tries to make another group miserable?
In a healthy, consensual democracy, like a healthy marriage or a healthy business, nobody has a monopoly on the truth…and nobody gains much by trying to bully and threaten others. People didn’t need to be forced to take the polio vaccine, for example. When we were in grammar school, polio was still a terrible disease…and the vaccine kept us from getting it. COVID, on the other hand, is not a threat to most people and the vaccines don’t keep you from getting it anyway.
The Washington Post:
‘The omicron coronavirus variant will infect “just about everybody” regardless of vaccination status, top U.S. infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci said Tuesday.’
Does vaccinating everyone really make sense? The issue deserves a contrary argument and an honest discussion. It is opposition that reveals the best way forward, not submission. One side puts forward an idea. The other lets him know what a moron he is. From this exchange of ideas and opinions, a consensus emerges.
But without the yang, the yin spins out of control…without the immovable object, the irresistible force is lost in space. Alas, in France as in the US, the elites conspire to suppress alternative opinions…and the servile press asks no questions. Instead, it gives out the party line. Voters either go along…or else!
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Back in the US…
Who asked any questions as the Fed lowered interest rates below the level of consumer price inflation? Who objected when it ‘printed’ more than US$8 trillion of new money since 2000…or raised the alarm as the feds added more than US$23 trillion to US debt?
And now…inflation is officially running at a 7% rate. Romaine lettuce, reports Bloomberg, is 61% more expensive than it was a year ago.
A CNN headline: ‘Analysis: “It’s getting worse every time”: Inflation concerns could spell trouble for Democrats’.
At today’s inflation level, if you buy a 10-year US note, you get a real yield of about MINUS 5%. Put in US$1,000. A year later, you’ll have US$950.
Alert readers will notice that this is not a good way to build wealth. You can’t lose money on an investment and make it up by doing more of it. You have to do something different.
Which is why yields on the Fed’s benchmark bond — the US Treasury 10-year note — are rising. Investors are looking for the exits.
And if yields continue to rise, which seems likely, it creates a big problem for borrowers. They will have to refinance their mortgages…their bonds…and their loans…at higher rates. (30-year mortgage rates hit 3.45% yesterday, the highest since March 2020. They were 2.65% a year ago.)
Which is when they are likely to wonder if borrowing was such a good idea in the first place and whether — when the Fed was getting the whole economy hooked on ultra-low interest rates — someone should have said something.
Nobody did.
Instead, the great and the good — seeing the coast was clear — went right along. And the whole system, with no real opposition or means of correction, became self-serving and corrupt.
The press acted as if Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell knew what they were doing…Congress became a sinecure for partisan hacks…the rich counted their money…(US$30 trillion in stock market gains since 2009)…the public was addled by Facebook and the evening news, punctuated by one scary distraction after another…and the printing presses at the Fed ran night and day (no need to raise taxes…or borrow honestly from savers!).
And now…the entire elite establishment locks arms in favour of more money and power for itself…at the public’s expense, of course…
…and what can stop it?
Regards,
 |
Bill Bonner,
For The Daily Reckoning Australia
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