Thursday, May 14, 2020

Turkey Leftovers



As my aunt would remind us, "If you don't finish it all, it just keeps coming back!"
















Yesterday was the most important part about looking at how you fared at an individual level: what did you do, what should you do, and what will you do? I hope you take the time to analyze your own situation, and improve your position.

Now I want to consider the broader implications, and complications, of the current, and ongoing situation.

We already talked about wider casualties of this pandemic, and the fact that even if this thing dematerialized (and no, faithful tinfoil-hat fucktards, this wasn't an illusory pandemic, much though you gnash your teeth at that reality) overnight, like it couldn't, things will not, and probably not ever, be "like they usedta be". The 2020 you woke up to on New Year's Day this year is gone forever, and that world will not be seen again, probably not in your lifetime.

Wrap your heads around that, and start behaving appropriately to that information.

There might not have been many Kung Flu cases in North Dakota, or Alabama, or Mississippi, and only localized problems in Texas and Louisiana, but the departure of the oil business for the next several years, particularly the fracking fields, will change economies in all those places for a decade. Those oil boom jobs? Gone with the wind. Oh, btw: oil was one of the few bright spots in places like Venezuela until Chavez and Maduro, and Mexico until this year. Their industries will be hurting perennially for some time too, which merely increases pressures in both countries going forward. The economic refugees normally pouring across our southern border non-stop for a generation will not abate in perpetuity absent a large, high wall.

The decline, death spiral, and/or outright crash into a smoking hole of several other sectors, both short- and long-term, bodes poorly for the overall economic outlook. Entire restaurant chains are announcing, essentially, "F**K it; we quit." in the face of slow-roll-outs for re-opening. They will, quite simply, never be back. Smaller enterprises (we have friends in this boat) have done the math, and won't be re-opening again either. Maybe in five or ten years, but not this one.

That has upstream effects: on bankruptcy filings, commercial rentals, mortgages on them, lenders, financial services, and the DJIA. Which then proceeds to the Fed, the Congress, and ultimately, you and your paycheck and bank account, if you have any of that left.

Meanwhile, only Bitch McConjob and the Republican Senate stand between Nancy Alzheimer's and spending your grandkids' inheritance, not like a drunken sailor on liberty, but like one on acid, meth, and crack. The latest Porkculus III (or IV? Or V? I forget...) attempt to pack Socialism's Wish List into every crisis is D.O.A., but like the penguins of Antarctica, they will simply keep coming, until we can flip the House back to something less insaniac.

If the Senate and/or White House were to be lost this time around, you should be loading magazines and bandoliers, because the next stop will be Weimar at warp speed. (Remember that when someone tells you voting doesn't matter at all).
Followed, inevitably, by one of the updated forms of socialism originally begun under the branches labeled National, and International.


"Jaw, jaw, jaw, is better than war, war, war." - Winston Churchill
 
"There never was a good war or a bad peace." - Benjamin Franklin

Both men knew whereof they spoke, firsthand. Fight, tooth and nail, to avoid open warfare on your continent. But if it comes anyway, despite your best efforts, stop at nothing to win it. The results for those who fail at both end up in an open trench, just beyond the crematoriums.














A farmer in the Alsace Lorraine, Belgium, etc. could have done quite well, in 1914, or 1939, with simply the means to bunker under the south forty for five years, with a sack of Swiss francs and silver for his re-emergence. Just saying.

Work to get out of any debt whatsoever, as quickly as possible. Diversify your savings from just fiat bux. Multiple currencies and precious metals (PMs) would be wise. (And get it the hell off the grid, and out of the system!!! It's too late when your bank folds, or the .GOV seizes all pension funds and 401ks to pay the tax bill, i'n'it? Think they'll "never do that"? See yesterday's essay.) So would tangible assets. Arable land, potable water, renewable food sources. A man with a cow, a bull, a flock of chickens, a feed lot, and a few acres will never want, and a little more than that will always be an income, even if it's barter or black market. You can raise chickens in part of a garage and back yard, btw.

Getting the hell away from large population centers entirely would be a better long-term plan, but as I'm not yet there myself, I understand those without the ability to do so presently. It is nonetheless a goal to work towards, with a will and a purpose. I am.

You have just witnessed a concerning dress rehearsal for worse things, in recent days. And as we've all seen, morons gonna moron, and tyrants gonna tyrant. Plan for both contingencies, widespread and long-term, and be prepared beyond a continuum that only has "Suck it up" and "Open fire" as options. Life is a fader switch, not a light switch. The problem with false dilemmas is that you may never get to the point where "it's time to shoot the bastards", but yet be far worse off than you are now, for weeks, months, or years, nonetheless.

Prices for some things (gasoline, e.g.) will drop. Then the inflation, driven by the Porkulus Spendomania bills, will kick in, and shortages will begin, and they'll rise again, precipitously. (Usually, just after you've taken a pay cut.) Make prudent plans. Expect chaos.

This pandemic is liable to continue, in fits and starts, all the rest of this year.
The Second Wave of it may be a robust boom, or a bust, but it's still a likely thing.
I think it's going to blossom and wither in a kaleidoscope of places, at varying times, and varying intensities. And I would put a vaccine in the Nice To Have category, but my pessimism about getting one, or its efficacy, runs to between 90-100%, at this point.

And if you think this wimpy little virus was the only pandemic possible, or likely, in the rest of your lifetime, I have a bridge for sale, cheap. Everyone has seen how utterly hapless, helpless, hopeless, and brainless both TPTB, and Joe Average, were for this one. (Not to mention the idjits running healthcare, generally or specifically, anywhere on the planet). We simply aren't prepared for this, and probably never will be. People in any group are comprised of too many Gilligans to get it right anywhere, for very long. Singapore and Korea thought they had a handle on things. Now, not so much.
Island dictatorships fare slightly better, but only if they stay completely isolated, with draconian rules and tabs on the populace, indefinitely. Anyone else that looks good now is most likely either lying about numbers, or dancing on the beach ahead of the tsunami. Or both. The common component of every pandemic is hubris. Ask China or NYFC. Human nature in that respect has not changed since Edgar Allan Poe wrote about it fictionally in 1850.

You can't fix that, nor should you worry overmuch about it. Prepare to cope with smart, half-assed, and/or bog-stupid responses, and you'll be fine. You'll also get all three, at different times.

In short, you just had nearly three fat years of boom. I hope you enjoyed them, and made the most of them. You are now looking at lean years of bust, and the buildings aren't done bursting into flames and collapsing yet. Some of them are just getting warmed up, in fact.

Get used to bare spots in grocery aisles. Make sure your masks are comfortable, and plentiful, because they'll be a thing for some weeks to months. Don't be surprised if there are retreats on opening up, as well as advances. And mind the falling casualties, both actual, and metaphorical, they will continue for the next few years.

The Titanic sank in a couple of hours. The economy, being somewhat larger than a modest ocean liner, can be expected to drag things out commensurately longer.

But however long it takes, it's always more fun to watch from a lifeboat, than from the deck.

19 comments:

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

Weimar heh not even close this time. I would scream at the federal reserve if it would do any good. The are their own judge jury and executioner.

If you do chose to scream at your politicians add to that end the Fed. The are printing trillions out of thin air because they can and the bankers get it all. I used to hate President Andrew Jackson because he invented ethnic cleansing on my ancestors. (Trail of Tears) The I learned he abolished the last created federal reserve so I cut him some slack these days.

Food may be available in the future but I cannot afford 20 dollar loaves of bread and my wheel barrow to haul cash to the store will be working manual labor overtime in the AO keeping things growing and fertilized.

Weimar - when they print trillions out of thin air backed only by faith in times like these barter town will be our only option.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

PS. The Fed will be buying mortgage backed security junk bonds starting any day. They will also start buying stock ETF funds under one of their newly created plans. Buying stocks is not in their mandate, imagine that. Take a guess who will be making the recommendations of what to buy. Heh, Blackrock. Oh and this all occurs with that newly printed money. Today Dow down 300 finished up 300 whooda thunk it with another 3.5 million unemployment claims last week reported today. Over 30 million claims in just 8 weeks. You and I are paying all of them an extra 600 a week as well.

FredLewers said...

The government WILL DIG THE HOLE DEEPER. THEY WILL DIG THAT HOLE AS LONG AS THEY GRIP THE ECONOMIC SHOVEL. Now's the time to eat rice and beans so you can put all your spare money into critical preps. I think now we have an idea about how is going to play out. Incremental collapse. No zombies. No EMP. Just a gradual decline in quality of life with intermittent pockets of worse. The good old days are gone.

Tucanae Services said...

"So would tangible assets. Arable land, potable water, renewable food sources."

Yep. My grandfather was a celery farmer. His guidance was "Any politician can steal a bank account (he lived thru the depression). Nobody yet has stolen a field crop. That looks like work so they will pass."

Tucanae Services said...

There is one event that would be worse than the current plandemic -- loss of reserve currency status. What most don't know is that approximately 2/3rds of the USD is floating around anywhere OTHER than the CONUS. So if the reserve status is lost all that USD comes home. The $1 can of beans is now $3 in a matter of days.

George True said...

"Nobody yet has stolen a field crop."

Au contraire, mes ami. During the Holodomor in the Ukraine, the Soviets did precisely that. They went farm to farm, and stole everything that was edible, leaving the farm families that produced it exactly nothing. Millions of Kulaks starved, which was a feature not a bug. It was intentional genocide.

I will leave you to ponder whether or not any of our domestic Commies in government are capable of such actions.

chewbacca said...

This. Unless you are armed to the teeth, the horses will keep coming. Are we really willing to kill, over and over, to keep what is ours? Kill neighbors as well as strangers?

Matt Bracken said...

"Flu-bro" morons really need to get up to speed on how bad catching Covid can be for your long-term health.

You won't be much of a special operator, or even a surviving bugged-in "gray man" with ruined lungs and kidneys, so bad that you get winded walking across the room, and need dialysis to stay alive.

Virus Survivors Could Suffer Severe Health Effects for Years
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/covid-19-s-health-effects-can-last-long-after-virus-is-gone
May 12, 2020

More than one million people around the world have been deemed recovered from the coronavirus, but beating the initial sickness may be just the first of many battles for those who have survived.

Some recovered patients report breathlessness, fatigue and body pain months after first becoming infected. Small-scale studies conducted in Hong Kong and Wuhan, China show that survivors grapple with poorer functioning in their lungs, heart and liver. And that may be the tip of the iceberg.

The coronavirus is now known to attack many parts of the body beyond the respiratory system, causing damage from the eyeballs to the toes, the gut to the kidneys. Patients’ immune systems can go into overdrive to fight off the infection, compounding the damage done.

While researchers are only starting to track the long-term health of survivors, past epidemics caused by similar viruses show that the aftermath can last more than a decade. According to one study, survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, suffered lung infections, higher cholesterol levels and were falling sick more frequently than others for as long as 12 years after the epidemic coursed through Asia, killing almost 800 people.

SARS infected 8,000 people. With more than 4 million -- and more every day -- infected by the coronavirus, the long-term damage to health could strain social safety nets and health-care infrastructures for years to come as well as have implications for economies and companies.

The prospect led Nicholas Hart, the British physician who treated Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to call the virus “this generation’s polio” -- a disease that could leave many marked by its scars and reshape global health care.

“What these chronic issues ultimately look like – and how many patients ultimately experience them – will have huge implications for patients, the doctors who treat them, and the health systems around them,” said Kimberly Powers, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is developing models on the virus’s spread to inform public-health efforts.
[More at link]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/covid-19-s-health-effects-can-last-long-after-virus-is-gone

Avalanche said...

Bear Claw Chris Lapp wrote: "I used to hate President Andrew Jackson because he invented ethnic cleansing on my ancestors. (Trail of Tears)"

Solipsism! (look it up!)

"Me me me, my people, my ancestors... it's only MY people who have ever suffered!"

(What are you? A liberal?!)

Have you never studied history?! What do you think all those "kill the men, women, children, and animals of the field; and salt the earth so nothing ever lives there again" were ABOUT in the Bible if not "ethnic cleansing"? (Notice too the Middle East is trying to do that still! All parties in all directions!) Have you never read any Roman, Greek, Sumerian histories, Norse sagas, Chinese or Japanese histories -- ANY -- history at all?

Read any modern day not-in-the-news? Noticed the mexicans 'ethnic cleansing' the blacks out of Compton? Somali blacks 'ethnic cleansing' Whites out of Michigan? Hmong 'ethnic cleansing' everyone out of wherever they end up? Humans -- hell, primates! -- have been aggressively "ethnic cleansing" other groups since humans first stood upright.

But ooooh, YOUR specific little group of people who were unable to fight off a larger and/or technologically more-advanced group of other humans? And a hundred+ years later you're still carrying hurt and anger, as if your people were the ONLY ones on the planet to lose? (Pretty special badge you've got there, Indian boy scout! Dyah want applause or more money from the winners?)

"invented ethnic cleansing on my ancestors"

What crap! Why are you spreading lies like a democrat? (Or a commie! -- Oh wait, same thing...)

The 100% most important thing in trying to handle any problem is to ACCURATELY DEFINE the problem! By describing your people's history as if it were the-one-and-only, you are obfuscating reality and trying to claim specific "special" status for yourself, your family, and your people.

Aesop, here, is trying to accurately describe our current and oncoming problem(s). Yeah, I recoil too and think: "oh, he has GOT to be exaggerating!" Except I have too much medical and historical knowledge about epidemics, pandemics (esp. 1918), virii, and the oncoming tsunamis of death to just blow him off as hysterical and fear mongering. (Terms used to deprecate Aesop's CLEAR backing for his *projections*, right? PLANNING involves projections! The "known unknowns," yes? WAKE UP!)

Because he is not writing one or two posts every day (yeah, I know Aesop, sleep is surprisingly important for your health: STAY healthy! I need you out there!), I keep looking for more. I'm reading my way back through his blog. I was reading yesterday back around the ebola stuff. "Everyone" in Western civilization has forgotten ebola. It has NOT gone away, it is NOT controlled, the 'vaccine' that makes so many forget about it is NOT good enough: it's coming too! (God help us!) I had to quit reading, because LIKE Aesop, I can project several oncoming futures -- what, do you think this pandemic was one-and-done!?


We're in the midst of the PLANETARY catastrophe from this single, not very deadly, pandemic wave -- with its visible, tangible accompanying death, destruction, and economic ruin (govts will govt, badly!); to be followed by massive massive migrations across the planet, leading to MORE death and destruction -- can you not see it coming?! -- with very likely even more of all those dreadful 2nd, 3rd, 4th effects in the SECOND wave to come!

And you're whining about a historical "ethnic cleansing of my people"?!

Matt Bracken said...

I hope everybody will read both the above article and this one:

‘False Dawn’ Recovery Haunts Virus Survivors Who Fall Sick Again

May 1, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-01/-false-dawn-recovery-haunts-virus-survivors-who-fall-sick-again

It had been over a month since Mirabai Nicholson-McKellar was infected with the coronavirus, and the 35-year-old filmmaker thought she was on her way to recovery. Then the shortness of breath came back, followed by chest pains.

A visit to the emergency room and a second test for Covid-19 gave another positive result. Just three days earlier, she’d been cleared by health authorities in Australia’s New South Wales state, and was allowed to end her home quarantine after going 72 hours without symptoms.

“When is this going to end? I think about that constantly,” she said of the twists and turns in her health. “Am I still contagious? How do I know if I’m not contagious?”

Her experience adds to a growing number of reports of patients appearing to have a reactivation of symptoms, testing positive again, or even potentially being reinfected. Such incidents don’t align with the generally accepted understanding of how virus infections work and spread.

False Dawn
This so-called false-dawn phenomenon is puzzling health experts as they try to come to grips with the mysterious pathogen that emerged only five months ago. Solving the puzzle will inform a broad range of challenges, from the development of an effective vaccine to how soon governments may be able to safely end lockdowns and allow normal life to resume.

[More at link]

Knightsofnee said...

Synthetic not zoonotic
Low antibody response
Weak herd immunity

Old NFO said...

Glad I got out of the rat race and now live in small town Texas.

Grandpa said...

B.C. Chris... the "fun part" for us "essential workers" is that those at home are making almost $1100 a week to stay home, while we go and work for 1/2 that.
Nice planet

Grandpa said...

chewie, you need to make your mind up about this. Many already have. "This... is mine. And no, you cannot take it"

Unknown said...

Avalanche, where did that tirade originate about "woe is mine only?" He simply stated two facts as facts. What was not stated is the reason the Jackson Admin. removed the Cherokees from their lands. The Cherokee were developing very quickly technologically and had their own written language and grammar.

The claim was gold was found on Cherokee lands and the U.S. needed the gold. The fact was a railroad was proposed by merchants who always wanted something for nothing and the Cherokees wanted at least a residual for the railroad trespassing on their lands. The rest is history.

When I was in my twenties, the health professor and coach urged us to become physically fit and encouraged us to reach peak physical fitness as soon as possible. It worked.

I have been to every Rona hotspot in this country and I am either immune, or physical fitness and nutrition plays a big part of not being taken down by the infection.

Grey Fox said...

[quote]Avalanche, where did that tirade originate about "woe is mine only?" He simply stated two facts as facts. What was not stated is the reason the Jackson Admin. removed the Cherokees from their lands. The Cherokee were developing very quickly technologically and had their own written language and grammar.

The claim was gold was found on Cherokee lands and the U.S. needed the gold. The fact was a railroad was proposed by merchants who always wanted something for nothing and the Cherokees wanted at least a residual for the railroad trespassing on their lands. The rest is history. [/quote]

The Cherokee were only one of many peoples displaced under the Indian Removal Act, and were not even the first to be removed- the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and (eventually, most of) the Seminole were also part of the Trail of Tears. Any explanation for why Jackson did what he did needs to take that into account...

Michael said...

Pre-coffee thoughts please read all and ponder a bit, thanks.

Interesting history lessons here. Any take away for the current "Indians" or Deplorables or whatever the current Kulak term of the new overlords the Socialists?

Friends we are ALL in the sights of an out of control government that ignores the checks and balances intended by those that revolted against the King of England.

Maybe a rereading of the Declaration of Independence is in order and an honest look at what is going on RIGHT NOW?

COVID19 is a problem, as Aesop said we needed to flatten the curve to get resources and testing done and not crash the medical system. We needed to ID the most defenseless to COVID19 and protect them. But NOW what? The Socialist Madmen are USING this situation to crash our whole country.

It's not the Indian Removal Act going on today it's the "Modern Monetary Theory, the Fairness Police Actions and other nice ways to say what was yours is OURS. Spending Trillions to "Give us" less than 2% in the form of Stimulus Checks is making us into even deeper in debt slaves as well as cheap Bread and Circuses to OBEY. The Socialists are CONDITIONING us to accept "Free Money and TV and Obey".

And judging from the many failures of Socialism as well as that famous quote from the Pigs of Animal House "ALL Animals are EQUAL, SOME Animals are MORE EQUAL than others" our skulls maybe used as paving for a Socialist Airfield.

Folks IF this small but mildly dangerous COVID19 "Disaster" over stressed your Preps (which INCLUDES Mindset-Attitudes-Can DO) WHAT do you think will happen when there is smoke on the streets and the power-internet-electronic banking-credit cards and all your Electronic Lifestyle is GONE or used as a CONTROL device of the Socialists running this madhouse we call Government?

Is Boogaloo a brand of Butt hurt cream or what? Listening to all the divisive chatter in this thread and all I can hear in my mind is the Socialist LAUGHING at how easy it is to divide the non-socialists into self defeating broken groups.

Or a Pogo said "We have met the Enemy and he is Us".

Aesop said...

"Never let a crisis go to waste." - Rahm "Dead Fish" Emmanuel

John said...

10/10.
-JW