Second Encore: Tomorrow

This was first posted in February of 2017. And then encored in 2020. Both times, it was one of the most-read posts I put up in either year. And it still strikes a chord with a lot of people. Which makes me wonder: is it the Ghost Of Christmas Past, or Christmas Future? Only time will tell. - A.

 

"Seven".
The earpiece crackled in Jake's ear from one of the handheld radios they were each tuned to. They'd picked up a couple of dozen surplused Motorola LE-only encrypted radios on eBay, and after a lot of work, Gene had programmed them all to use a normally unused simplex channel reserved for the authorities for tonight. All anyone else would hear was a brief bit of static with the factory encryption, but they still stuck to brevity codes.
Jake calmed himself. He knew the signs of buck fever, and he took a few moments to stretch his whole body, starting with his toes, and ending with his fingers. It wouldn't be long now, and he didn't want to be fighting adrenaline when the moment came.
The van he was in was non-descript. It was the twin of one belonging to a local business the next city over, and the plates on it would be back in the morning, with any luck at all. Inside was dark and quiet, but he could already hear the noise of the protesters as they moved down the main street, closing at the speed of a 6000-footed caterpillar, fueled by youthful exuberance, and a healthy amount of stupidity. Well, they were about to get a lot more education than what they'd gotten at U Cal, and he was happy to be a teaching assistant tonight.
He focused on the intersection, and checked over his gear one last time inside the darkened vehicle, as the sounds of yet another leftist temper tantrum grew louder by the moment.

"Six."
Jim, hunkered down behind a load of cardboard boxes in a van much like Jake's, sat at right angles to the intersection.
His weapon too was identical to Jake's: the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22, modified for tonight.
It had a frame optimized for grown-ups, with one of those evil pistol grips that gave the state legislature hissy fits, going back to the late 1980s. Also a high-cap magazine, which torqued them out even worse. In this case, picked up out of state on a visit to relatives, and driven back across state lines into what Jim referred generally to as "Occupied Territory". He had several more loaded and waiting next to the stock. Also present was a heavy barrel, making the thing a tack-driver out to the limits of the relatively weak cartridge. And under the heading of "in for a penny, in for a pound", both rifles had custom home-made suppressors screwed on at the business end. They wouldn't be truly silent, but inside a can, inside a van, a couple of hundred yards away from a herd of screaming protesters, would be as near as. Just to be on the safe side, Jim screwed an earplug into the other ear, the one without the earbud.
Jim hadn't been in the military, and he wasn't the shooter Jake, who'd been a designated marksman when he served, was. But a lot of patient practice and range time had made him plenty good enough. And using the little pop-guns tonight wouldn't tax anyone's abilities at all. He checked the bipod legs to make sure they were securely locked. If they had failed, he had a beanbag rest for backup.
And when they returned, the barrels used tonight would come off, replaced by factory barrels again, and the heavys would go on a fishing trip, after being reamed out with a hardened bit. No evidence, no traces.

"Five".
Gene spoke in a monotone voice familiar to anyone with long hours in a ham shack. He was the geek in the bunch. He'd found and programmed their radios, made sure everyone understood how to use them, and how to communicate.
There wasn't a leader as such, but he was older than the others by a decade or so, and after raising three teenagers to adulthood, there wasn't much that fazed him or ruffled his feathers, so he made, if not a Daddy to the group, a good Friar Tuck: a bit more mature, thoughtful, and worldly-wise, when it was needed.
He focused on his screen, and his fingers moved the controls to guide the drone slowly and deliberately. It was unregistered (of course), blacked out, and over the din of the demonstration, almost as silent as Jim and Jake would be, on the moment.
He followed the mob's progress as they moved towards the intersection where all their flyers and internet blather had helpfully pinpointed they would end their rally.
The police scanners indicated that, exactly as before, the town cops would be studiously ignoring the protest except for a token presence, and the campus cops were half a mile behind, doing about the same thing.
No roadblocks, so he and the others, in separate vehicles, would take separate, easy, and rehearsed routes out of Moscow-Near-The-Bay, and back to the quiet semi-rural small community they lived in an hour or so back up California's lush Central Valley.
Not so lush now, with dumping the agricultural water formerly set aside to feeding the world now going to a Sacto Delta baitfish to appease the whims of the idiots Gene was watching, and their elected Foole, long known as Governor Moonbeam.
Gene focused his attention on the drone's power supply. He had four of them, and had alternated them in series, swapping  hot batteries for the depleted ones, so he wouldn't lose visual on the herd. Other than a minute or two between coverage, it had worked flawlessly, until one of his drones had a hiccup, and had to be retired from the relay. The others picked up the slack, but he was glad he was able to recover it without losing one of his numerous toys. The mob was now crossing the fourth street from the target intersection.

"Four."
Pete could barely hear his earpiece, turned up all the way, but he had the most dangerous job. He'd infiltrated one of the local bunches of miscreants some weeks prior, after the first riot. He wasn't one of their anarchists per se, just one of the multitudinous black-clad folks giving them cover.
He had several jobs.
First, on his way to the rally, he'd carefully dumped a couple of hundred pieces of wiped .22LR brass around the intersection; some in each direction, where later investigators would find it, for all the good it would do them. It had been collected off the ground and floor at half a dozen shooting ranges, separated by brand, and location. The consensus was it would look like between 4 and 8 close-in shooters, rather than just the two.
Second, he was the one with an interest in historical sabotage. Careful research on real manuals (not the tripe in The Anarchist's Cookbook, which he was sure had been written by BATFE to get amateur bomb makers to blow themselves up) and practice with real materials had taught him several time-honored ways of getting something to go up in flames or explosion, reliably timed, and without him being there to get the full effect in the face. Most, but not all of the materials would be consumed, making things that much harder for anyone looking into it afterwards, as he was sure they would. That's why after tonight, he wouldn't use that particular set-up again for some time, so as not to create a signature. And just for fun, the night before, he'd left enough parts and exemplars inside the garage of the witch organizing this event to see her off to a long odyssey through the federal courts and prison system, after one anonymous phone call. Life's a bitch, especially when you are one, he chuckled to himself as he salted the items among her possessions the night before.
Third, as the mob moved along, he would place his devices underneath several likely cars about a block behind the festivities, on both sides of the street. That mainly entailed tying his shoes a lot at the bumpers, and surreptitiously sliding his items under their gas tanks. Time and physics would do the rest, in about three minutes, once he set them in place.
Lastly, once he'd done that job, he was artillery.
He had a water balloon cannon ready to attach to poles on the sides of his pickup truck. Practice had taught him that he could hurl small-bottle Molotov cocktails a couple of city blocks with minimal effort, and hit minute of mob, in about thirty seconds. Three shots in 10 seconds, break it down, and then be gone in half a minute.
He was wearing the mob uniform black, head-to-toe: black combat boots, black baggy military-style cargo trousers, black long-sleeved t-shirt and black hoodie, with a black balaclava over his face, and black leather gloves with hard knuckles. On his back, a generic but sturdy nylon black backpack.
Underneath, hard soccer shin guards, knee pads, a cup, hard elbow pads, soft body armor, and lightweight HDPE Level III plates in a plate carrier. A homemade hard helmet shell under the balaclava. He would not be playing victim in the knockout game if he got confronted.
He also had OC spray, a stun gun, a cheap but sturdy full-tang knife, and a Glock 19 with several extra mags, as well as the CCW permit (from a more enlightened sheriff in the nearby county where he lived, but good statewide), to make him almost 100% legal. Well, except for the incendiaries in the backpack.
Like the others, he also had a generic camelback, a small IFAK, and a personal E&E kit, including colorful regular shirt and pants, maps and routes on a removable cell phone thumb drive that led to an alternate and contingency rendezvous, a burner cell phone with the battery removed, paper cash and change, energy bar, and a good plausible and backstopped cover story.
He was young enough to pass for a grad student, and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, hence his choice of assignment, but he was nobody's fool, and they all planned to get home quietly and safely, and had taken every precaution to make it so.

"Three."
Gene noted everything on the scanners normal, mob moving into position.

"Two."
Jake and Jim chambered the first rounds in their rifles, and stayed on their scopes.

"One."
Now it got hairiest for Pete, and as he entered the last block, he started dropping off his packages, pushing them well under gas tanks, and making sure to trip the chemical chain to start the ball.
The first two were easy, then he had to work his way quickly through the mob as it congealed, to get to the other side of the packed street, and his alley exit. The front end was in the target zone already.
"Target 1. Target 1."
"Target 2. Target 2."
"Confirm Target 1. Confirm target 2."
Jake and Jim both had eyes on the front of the herd in their crosshairs.
Pete pulled out his last timer, and shoved his package delicately along the asphalt under an SUV.
As he hit the alley and made his way along it, he gave the all clear.
"Thunder. Thunder."
"Confirm Thunder."
"Waiting for ignition."
As Pete jogged towards his truck, the chemical chain ignited his first package. A fire blossomed underneath a sedan on the far side of the intersection.
The drone confirmed it as the orange blossom grew.
"Ignition."
"Weapons close. Weapons close."
Two safeties were snapped off, and two pairs of eyes searched for targets.
A second package ignited, as flames from the first began to engulf the first car.
Pete got to his truck, jumped into the bed, and limbered the poles into place.
"Drone's off. Drone's off."
Gene guided his drone back towards his vehicle. When it was well away from the zone of interest, he dropped it to 100 feet, set it on homing, and turned on his burner phone.
He punched in a number, and a previously selected landline rang.
It was connected to a timer, and the timer to an Israeli-made cell phone jammer sitting in a phony generic utility box as camouflage, on the roof of a building on the near side of the intersection.
For the next 10 minutes, no one would be connecting any calls within 100 yards of the site. All streaming video from the riot stopped. Texts bounced to nowhere. No 911 calls would be going out.

The crowd pushed into the intersection, some of them cheering the fires they thought their own thugs had started.
"Shot out. Shot out."
Pete called the first of three launches of lit molotovs now arcing towards their target, labeled "to whom it may concern."
The first bottle bloomed into fire amidst the mob. There were screams; they weren't expecting this.
"Splash. Splash."
"Splash. Splash."
Both shooters confirmed the impacts.

Gene was recovering his drone; he closed the sliding side door as he made the call.
"Weapons free. Weapons free."
Inside the two vans, the shooters began plinking through their 25-round magazines. The rounds might kill, maim, or just leave a painful but survivable wound, but in less than half a minute, they were all on their way. Inside the vans, the rounds tick-tick-ticked off, and the brass went into catch-pouches.

The mob was careening around the intersection now. Panic set in with a vengeance as people started to go down. The herd started to stampede back the way they'd come when the first vehicle's gas tank went up with a "Whoompph!", and sent them in new directions. The third package ignited across the street, just as the last of three molotovs landed in the confusion and screaming terror, amplifying it.

"Rounds complete. Rounds complete."
Both shooters changed magazines, and began to send the second batch of 25 shots into the fleeing mob. They both aimed low; a lot of knees and legs were hit.
"Three, Tally Ho."
Gene was already on the road and outbound.
"Four, Tally ho."
Pete had dropped his poles, and was on his way out too.

"Winchester 1."
"Winchester 2."
Jake and Jim had gone through their second magazine apiece. They each dropped the hinged windows back into place and secured them there. The rifles were dropped into hide boxes, then covered with a couple of heavy crates.
"Two, Tally Ho."
Everyone waited breathlessly for Jake to announce he was rolling as well.
"One, Tally Ho."
Three other hearts started to slow down to normal.

NOW the idiots would know what a "WAR" was. None of the men driving away thought they'd like it very much in reality. And the authorities were still trying to figure out WTF had already happened. They wouldn't learn anything useful, though the anonymous call the next day that snitched out the organizer of the violence for cooking her own people "for the greater good" would come as a great PR boost, rather than their usual "we're investigating all leads" B.S.

The cards on their steering wheels led them to separate freeway entrances. After that, the routes were in their heads. Cruise control kept them driving at the speed limit. Radios were switched off. Each drove silently into the night. Behind, the screaming continued, and the nightmare for the protesters, and TPTB, was just beginning.

One hour later, the radios came back on.
They each checked in by number, and verified from different directions their primary rendezvous site was clear and uncompromised.
There, the rifle barrels would come off, the brass would be policed, and they'd switch to the cold license plates. 
The rifles were put back to original configuration. Jake took the weapons. Jim took the silencers, and the custom stocks.
Gene got the hot barrels. Pete got the brass.
Everyone changed clothes. Gene took these to an all-night laundromat.
The other three, in sweat clothes, hit the 24-hour gym next door, and took long showers, scrubbing every trace of residue from their bodies. Then they changed into their normal attire.
Pete took the hot plates back to the lot where the delivery vans they'd borrowed them from were parked, and put them back on without incident.

They drove home individually, at intervals, and by separate routes. Gene drilled out the barrels; next deep sea trip, they'd fall off the boat at night on the ride out. Jim cleaned and stashed the other parts, and Jake cleaned the weapons thoroughly. Pete took the brass home, where he pounded it into lumps of scrap with a sledgehammer, then shot off a bridge into the tule marshes with a slingshot.

And they all slept like babies.




This is entirely a piece of fiction. And a cautionary tale. Hopefully it stays that way, but I wouldn't put chips on that square. If it gets your panties all twisted, too fucking bad. Get over it.
It took about twenty minutes to type out, and I haven't even been thinking about this much.
If I can come up with this off the cuff, so can five hundred thousand other people. Some already have.
Bet your ass on that.
And if you're one of the erstwhile protesters, many of them wouldn't be as merciful towards you and yours as I was in this little tale. You ARE betting your ass on that, every time you show up for another piece of street theatre. And when it actually happens, 100:1 they'll see that YOU get the blame for it. Win-win.

So, contrary to all experience thus far, you all could grow the fuck up, knock your silly shit off, and just suck it.
Or keep pushing your luck.
Call the toss in the air, kids.
-A.

FedGov, Abbott, 25 Governors, And Every Media Outlet Are Full Of Sh*t

Don't take my word for it, based on years of firsthand eyes-on at the border.

Check out the video on X, shot on-location in Texas, showing you that this entire manufactured kerfluffle is just one giant bullshit scam, by both sides of the Uniparty:

Video Link

Multiple gates, 2 minutes' walk from Shelby Park, wide open, unmanned, unmonitored.

How much harder do peoples' noses need to be rubbed in this before the penny drops, and the lesson is learned?!?

Once you can see the hook, FFS, stop taking the bait.

There isn't going to be any "showdown" at the border, and Bozo Abbott knew that before he lifted a finger. He doesn't have to fold, and those other GOPe governors jumping out of the clown car have no worries either, because they're not doing anything to change things. They're only pretending to "do something". This is a PR flak's wet effing dream: all payoff, and no consequences. Pretending to do something is also the only thing government pulls off consistently.

Illegal immigration continues unabated, 24/7/365 from San Ysidro to Brownsville, and they're coming by the trainload every day. 

UPDATE via video on 2/1:

This is nothing but kabuki security theater, by the same people who gave you the unconstitutional Patriot Act and the @$$clowns of TSA instead of actual airline security, and killing actual terrorists.

Twenty-two years to get this lesson down, and people are still fucking it up by the numbers.

Give a holler when Abbott seals the entire TX border (Also Known As When Hell Freezes Over). Until that happens, this entire made-up fake-news hairball is all piles of bullshit, sprinkled with hopeium and fairy dust.

Change my mind.

Yakkity Yak

h/t Divemedic

Divemedic responds to the yappy pups who keep throwing out the "You first!" response to those of us who blog and talk about shoulds and oughts.

TL;DR: He's right, and they're wrong.

My detailed thoughts:

It's quite possible to both blog, and make concrete preparations. Most smart folks are doing at least the latter, which is better than nothing.

The problem is the shortage of thinkers and organizers (or people smart enough to listen instead of spew bile) who can't look past Step Two, and the yakkers and flakkers who think this is a one-step process consisting of either/or, who are probably doing neither to any notable degree, let alone working on any higher levels of The Pyramid.

You could look it up:

This embiggens.

[Word To Your Mother: It's a 22-step process, and you're not even functioning at Step 3 yet.]

Franklin and Adams spent the entire Revolutionary War wining and dining in France (Step 9 if you're keeping score at home), and all that talking and diplomacy got us was money, arms & munitions, and military support sufficient to gain our actual freedom. So imagine how stupid you sound when you denigrate people making your case in public to anyone listening.

When you notice someone brighter than you talking intelligently about "stacking up" some international support, pay attention. They're playing chess, and you're playing checkers.

Just don't hold your breath waiting for them, or any actual backing, to show up.

And for anybody dishing on those holding in-person training for those of you out there with exactly zero lifetime real-world military experience (that would be 97+% of everyone, according to Census data since 1975), unless you've got your own well-regulated platoon - that's 30+ pipe-hitters for Common Core grads - of Immortals trained, supplied, organized, ready, and standing by for pear-shaped society, you probably ought to re-think your own cleverness. They aren't getting rich doing it, and they're trying to do a favor for literal hordes of mostly ungrateful numbnuts, who don't know what they don't know. Tribes and greater are the only thing that's worked since before recorded history. Solo actors and family-sized units are a death sentence, since about 50,000 B.C. or so. But keep thinking you'll be the exception. Maybe God holds you in special esteem.

Most of the loudest whiners (who, so far, are not deliberate fed-poasting agents provocateur) are going to blow their load, fail, get pissed, and run to emulate Benedict Arnold when no one else wants to do things their way.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.

For those who have ears to hear.

Not Just No, But F&%# No!

 

From the Fluent Bullshit section of American Stinker today:

Actions that patriotic, freedom-loving Americans can take in this 21st-century civil war:

1) Use the tools provided by Act for America that allow citizens to easily contact their state and federal representatives about pending legislation that is being promoted by far-left Democrats.  Various legislators have indicated that it takes hearing from only 40–50 of their constituents to make a difference in critical votes on pending legislation.

Interviews with legislators indicate that many consider a note or call from a single constituent to be representative of 1,000 people.  Thus, a single citizen indeed is potent.

2) Form small groups of military veterans (and other citizen groups) to become active, vocal supporters of bona fide conservative political candidates.  Provide this same support for strong conservative candidates for local school boards and other education positions.  An example of a highly successful, activist veterans organization is American Veterans Vote in Virginia.

3) Parents and all citizens concerned about the education of America's youth need to insist on viewing the curricula that K–12 teachers are using to instruct students.  Challenge any race-based materials, sexual orientation and transgender indoctrination, and anti-American books and other materials being used.  Continue to appear at school board meetings to demand the end of any Critical Race Theory or derivative instruction being given to students.  If necessary, contact the No Left Turn in Education organization for potential advice/legal assistance.

Maybe you could make cupcakes for the "End Communism" bake sale,
 or fill some water balloons.

 

Paul S. Gardiner is a retired Army officer, Vietnam veteran, and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Alabama, and the United States Army War College.  He is hopeful that the information presented in this article will help motivate an army of heretofore uninvolved Americans to become actively involved in the current multi-front civil war against the American constitutional republic.  The freedoms and inalienable rights of all Americans must be preserved!

This sort of Pollyanna drivel and half-assed "let's don't really fight for anything" horsesh*t is why we lost the Vietnam War. Either Gardiner should know better, or he wants to lose like that again.

If you're going to fight this "civil war" the way you fought the War On Poverty, the War On Drugs, and the War On Communism, you're going to get the exact same results:

Rolled the fuck up, and shitcanned by Reality.

So either this wingnut doesn't want to win, or doesn't think it's an actual civil war. Thus, he's either evil, or stupid. There's no third option to choose there.

I'm surprised he didn't suggest writing a sternly-worded letter to the editor, holding a sit-in, or organizing a protest rally. Or maybe just shitting in your pants and hoping the smell will make the bad people go away.

If it's really a civil war, and you really want to win, half-stepping half-assed half-measures aren't going to get it done.

Half-hearted half-witted half-efforts won't succeed. Never have, never will.

It's going to take shooting m-----f-----s in the face. 

It may even be too late for that, but just like falling back and nuking the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. Stop grasping at straws, and casting about for anything but cold hard realities of what an existential struggle means for those involved in the contest.

How did partition and coexistence work in Korea? Vietnam? The United States Of America??

Tell the class how the Leftards have let you alone, to go about your lives peacefully, rather than trying to ram their agenda down your throat and up your tailpipe at every opportunity, and only move the needle in one direction, ceaselessly, relentlessly, and ruthlessly. Then tell me there's any other app for dealing with that.

They're taking away your prosperity, on purpose. They're taking away your very privacy, on purpose. They want to take away your livelihood, your independence, your ability to move freely, speak freely, and think freely. They're trying to destroy your family, seize your kids, and turn your own blood relatives against you. They want to starve you into submission, throw you into a deep, dank prison cell, and then, even if you submit, they want you dead, Dead, DEAD. They're not even shy about saying it, openly, repeatedly, out loud, in public, time after time after time.

The only thing that stops that is shooting enough of them in the face - maybe even every single, last one of them - until they stop doing that.

You're going to need hard-hearted, pipe-cracking sonsofbitches on your side. And George isn't going to do it. You're going to need to be Those Guys. And you're going to need someplace to do it from, and money, and food, and money, and water, and money, and secure, redundant comms, and money, and medical training and supplies, and money, and a laser-like focus, and money, and commitment like a kamikaze ninja, and money, and all the help you can get - both physical, and financial.

And you're going to need money.

Not fiatbux, or cryptofairytales, or digital imaginary currency that can be seized, frozen, or disappeared on a whim with a keystroke, but cold, hard cash you can get to at 3AM anywhere. How are you doing at that?

And then, you're going to need to start balancing the ledger until it tips. You're going to have to wade through rivers of blood, make mountains of skulls, and shed oceans of tears. You're going to have to go to the breaking point, and push past it. And then keep on doing it anyways, until you get your own life back, your country back, your way of life back.

Because if you don't do that, you're going to fail.

If you aren't willing to march the prisoners to the nooses in batches, you'll fail.

If you aren't willing to hack the last spark of Totalitarianism out of the body public, burn it with fire, kill its offspring at birth, and salt the earth from whence it sprang forth, it's just going to keep coming back.

People are bastards like that. But if you kill enough of them, they stop doing that. 

"Enough" may mean all of them. 

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of the costs. And it may be even worse than that. You may have to fight knowing the cause is lost, but fighting on anyways, with the only alternative being getting on your knees, lined up at a trench, and being killed for it. 

So please, let's stop dickering over the half-assed and half-witted half-measures, and let's stop giving any credence to those who do. They're either too stupid to talk about the coming fight, or angling to lose it by back-stabbing you for their own benefit, in the forlorn hope the crocodiles will eat them last.

Because it's really bad now. And things are only going to get worse, no matter what senile figurehead banana republic puppet they prop up to get there.

So, still piddling around with irrelevant bullsh*t? Thinking that's going to help?

Or are you steeling your hearts and minds to the inevitable, and making prudent preparations for that battle when it's joined?

This is the way:

Inflation, Redux

Poor Peter, over at Bayou Renaissance Man, had the temerity and unmitigated gall to point to last week's post here on Inflation, because he thought foolishly that I had explained things pretty clearly. Silly me, so too did I.

What we failed to account for was the irritated asses (I mean that in every possible sense of those words) of the Butthurt Platoon.

The ones for whom it's not wrong because it's wrong, it's wrong because *I* said it.*

Which is good, because Peter and I are not the only ones saying this.

Divemedic is apparently still butthurt because Alec Baldwin is still free, because he's legally and morally blameless, exactly as I noted, however much it pains him and sets his teeth on edge. Sorry, man. It's not what I'd wish for either, but I call it like I see it. Better luck next time.

But to his credit, he at least engaged the argument on the merits, and made a valiant effort.

Right up until he admitted that, no he wasn't in stocks and such anymore, and had converted all his investments out of the exact stock investment he was touting like a mofo for three posts, and had moved everything into real property, including *gasp*...PMs like gold. Because of looming INFLATION.

Geez, if only someone had suggested doing that, somewhere, where other people could see it, like, I dunno...maybe on a blog page??

And then, caught hand-in-the-cookie-jar, his brilliant retort was

"You are a fucking idiot."

 QED.

Game. Set. Match.

Clearly, me pointing out the obvious truth: that dollars, or stocks valued in them, were not a wise future repository of value, exactly as he had concluded on his own, some months back, was the last straw.

Mad props, man. Well-played.

Because the guy who gets check-mated and flips the board over in disgust always wins, right?

I'm a fucking idiot for stating the obvious truth that inflation has been the driving force for most, if not all, of the recockulous growth in stocks since 1932 others keep wanting to pretend is both normal, and perpetual.

Because back when money was stable and solid, 1% was seen as a good annual rate of return, for, oh, about a hundred and fifty years, back to the founding of the Republic.

For anyone who came here on the short bus, yet again, YOU COULD LOOK IT UP.

I even took the time to explain this, laboriously, in multiple comments at Peter's blog.

For the TL;DR crowd, here's the DK picture dictionary version:

IOW, to be a millionaire in terms understood in as recently as 1932, you'd need to have $89M now. ($89,501,150, to be precise.) But if you'd had as little as $11,000 dollars then, and simply converted it to gold, and buried it in your back yard, you'd be worth $1M now. But if you'd kept the cash in your pocket, and never spent a penny, that same $11,000 would be worth $122.90 right this minute. Next year, it might be worth $92.18. (Maybe even less than that.) 

That's INFLATION. 8950%, and counting, since 1932, in the U.S.

It also illustrates rather vividly the difference between what you have when you hold money, versus when you hold fiatbux, or anything valued in them.

That's why a $2000 car back when my old man made $10K/yr now costs twice as much, in real terms, at $40K when I make $100K/yr., ten times what dad pulled down. I'd need to be making $200K, just for parity with a guy in the 1960s with a high school diploma working a low-level purchasing job. BTW, the same job he had now? $77K/yr, top tier. The new car he could have paid for with 3 months' salary would currently take his modern counterpart six months' salary.

Inflation makes everyone a serf, working more and harder for less and less, every single year. As it's designed to do.

Let's be fair: People, like Divemedic, and most of the stock-enamored whiners commenting at BRM or anywhere else, are absolutely right in one respect:

Stocks can compound growth.

They are a great investment idea.

In 1940. Or 1970. Or even in 2001.

If, IF, IF you pick the right ones. And/or you die, or bail out of the market, before the bottom drops out.

If you acquired Ford, or Coca-Cola in 1920, you would have done okay.

If you'd picked RC Cola and Studebaker, not so much.

Index funds?

Suuuuuuuuure.

If we assume a stable sensible economy, with sound money (neither of which we've had since 1928), that will never, ever go tits up. Like it never did in Weimar. Zimbabwe. Venezuela.

Show of hands: How many people think the next 40, 30, 20, or even 10 years, financially and economically, are going to be anything like as stable, with the same sort of stock growth, as anytime in the last 80 years have been??

Beuller? Beuller...? Ferris Beuller?? Anyone???

What's the FIRST RULE OF INVESTING?

Don't believe me. Look at the people who bought shares of Sears, Pan Am, US Steel, RC Cola, for just a few examples. Or who invested with Lehman Bros., or in ENRON.

Literally anybody can pick stock winners in hindsight. Going forward, not so much.

You've seen this con before. It's called past posting.

You can read about it, or just watch The Sting.

Spoiler Alert: It pays off great for Henry Gondorf and Johnny Hooker.

Not so much for Doyle Lonnegan.

That's why he's called "the mark".

All I've suggested is that you don't be the mark. And that you check your calendar before putting your money down, and decide whether you're betting on the past, or the future.

The future for both fiatbux and stocks doesn't look so good.

But then again, no one's ever invented $15,000,000,000,000.00 in just a couple of years by pulling it out of their own ass before. Well, almost no one.

So, how did that work out?

Make that, "No one in the U.S." Or... hey waitaminute!

So consider your options, and then decide what to do, based on your own analysis.

After that, YOYO.

You're On You're Own.

This man is not your friend, (rarely ever has been)
but he does have a bridge for sale. Cheap.

If anyone has a quibble with any of that on the merits, have at it. Bring your calculator, and your history book. I put up the original post to make a point, not to make enemies. I've never been shy about good give and take, and as I've stuck to unassailable historical facts in this, I like my odds. But if you're just looking to display your amazing total inability to marshal facts and logic on your side of an argument, showcase your shocking lack of manners and abysmal upbringing, and flaunt your rhetorical shortcomings:

Who'da thunk common sense and stating the obvious would be such a hard sell, right?

*[Shout out to B:

Dude, you argue like a jealous little bitch. And I mean that clinically: bringing up imaginary past sh*t, and a continued inability to come up with any reason for your current hissy fit in the moment. We're not dating, we aren't related, and this is the only time I've mentioned you spontaneously in recorded history, because like Herr Steiner, my instincts about certain things are similarly infallible. My comments are unwelcome on your blog, which is entirely your prerogative, and you're utterly incapable of admitting when anyone points out where you've made an error (hey, I feel your pain), but much as it stings, you're not logical enough to examine the error without taking the correction as a personal slight. I hope that's not how you navigate and aviate, or you're going to have a shorter career at it than you'd have hoped, and end up landing into a mountain somewhere. And despite your shock, even I don't want that.

So please, get over the fact that your little blog isn't much of a draw, and either up your wordsmithing game, or just hold your peace. I'm living in your head rent-free, and that's all your problem and your choice, not mine. You're smart enough to fly planes, and wealthy enough to pay for them. Good for you. Sincerely. But that's not the global rarity you think it is, so either up your game, get used to a life of constant disappointment, or go out in that big wide internet, and just mind your own business in your little corner, without flinging sh*t you can't back up on other people's blogs because you can't control your impulses. It just looks catty and juvenile. Unless that look is what you were going for from the outset. If that's the case, You go, girl! But I'm still not interested in you, and my utter unconcern for your personal opinions of me cannot be measured with existing instrumentation. Scuttle back off to whatever it is you do, and we can both happily ignore each other endlessly, m'kay?]

Economics 101: Inflation

 

As related in ongoing conversations at SiG's blog , and Zero's, and multiple observations at bikini graphologist par excellence Wilder's blog, times beyond counting, far too many Americans understand Jack and Shit about how inflation affects everything they think they know about economics.

For those who need it, a simple refresher trendline graph:

This is also the trendline of space shuttle landing
glidepaths. Until we get to Columbia's last attempt.

How accurate is that graphic? I made it. It's dead-on, balls accurate.

At every point? No. It's a trendline, so only at the four points that matter:

1932, 1969, 1978, and five minutes ago.

In 1932, the US standard and NY open market price for an ounce of gold was $20.67.

It was largely unchanged (except for a decade-plus hiccup of post-Civil War inflation) from 1837-1933. (It was barely less than that, at around $19.39/oz, for another half century prior to that.)

By 1969, gold was selling for double that 20.67/oz price, meaning a dollar was worth half its former value.

By 1978, the dollar was worth 10¢ and less, when gold climbed above $206.70/oz.

In 2022, with the NY spot price at $1850/oz, a dollar is worth exactly 1.117¢ents. i.e. $0.011117 dollars.

(On the .Gov's graph at SiG's post, FedGov spokesholes are caught trying to bullshit the value of the dollar currently at being 5¢. 

They're off by 500%, and it hasn't been worth a nickel in actual terms since 2004. Government liars? Color me shocked.)

From 1932 to present, decoupled from actual gold backing, the Fed has stolen 98.9 cents on every dollar via inflation, by printing literal trillions of dollars of fiatbux, backed by nothing but love and kisses. The dollar bill in your pocket is worth less than its actual cost in ink, paper, and printing press energy to make. It's finely-engraved toilet paper.

Inflation of US dollars, over 90 years' time, stands at 8950%. It's at 918% since just 1970.

The prices for things you see rising are what happens over time, as other people and  countries realize they've been getting Monopoly money.

This has been done in Rome, England, the Confederate States, Weimar, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, among many other examples.

The results of such fiscal policy aren't outliers, they're the template for what happens when a country debases the coinage. Every. Single. Time.

Fiatbux dollars (nor pounds, marks, francs, yen, or pesos) are not money.

Money stores value. Those instruments are, and have been for all your lives, nothing but currency, not money. They are currently traded and accepted in lieu of money (hence the name).

Precious metals (gold, silver) are money.

1) Gold doesn't really go up; an oz of gold is a constant. Only fiatbux move .
2) These are trendlines, not annual price points.
See the actual annual averages for yourself: historical gold price

If you don't have any of either, you don't have money.

So FFS, stop thinking a 401K is money, or a stack of hundreds, or (ye Gods and little fishes) that Social Security or your pension from Spacely Sprockets are money. Those things are but promises of a money-like item, which may or may not actually arrive, and may or may not actually be worth anything when the time comes.

And between now and whenever you shuffle off this mortal coil, anything valuated in fiatbux is inflation's bitch, 24/7/365, forever.

What we call a "millionaire" today? That was the guy with only $11,000 in his pocket in 1930.

Canned food, bullets, fish hooks, super models, or even bags of bullshit (used as fertilizer) are commodities. They may be of incalculable worth, when fresh.

But exactly like readily inflatable fiatbux, all those things degrade over time, and their value declines. No one wants $100 worth of canned goods from 1935 now. Let alone $100 worth of Farah Fawcett or Betty White. Commodities of all types have a shelf life.

But an ounce of gold or silver from Caesar's time, or Hammurabi's, is the exact same thing as an ounce of gold or silver today.

You can invest in stocks, and get something that may hold value for awhile. Or it may not.

Ask the shareholders in Pontiac, Sears, or Pan Am about that.

The DJIA dumps stocks that tank, and grabs those that succeed, in order to preserve the illusion that stocks go up, individually, or on average. They do no such thing. The DJIA picks the winners after they win, and dumps them when they lose.

This is like playing roulette with a house that places its bets and gives its odds after the roulette ball drops. Good luck bucking that game over time. If you want to get rich in Vegas, or on Wall Street, it's easy: open a casino, and wait for the suckers to lay down their bets.

Neither the skyscrapers on Manhattan, nor the luxe hotels on The Vegas Strip, were financed with the profits paid out to other people who beat the game. They were financed with the dough left behind from suckers' pockets.

So spare me the ROI your broker (paid out of your pocket) assures you you're making on your 401K, or anyotherdamnedfoolthing. At best, over the long-term, you might keep near pace with inflation, unless you're incredibly lucky, and then GTFO with your winnings. Just like at the casino gaming tables. But unless you buy the winning Powerball ticket every week, you aren't investing well enough to beat the inflation of time until you retire if you keep playing the game. All elevators, even the stock market, go both ways, up and down; they do not go up endlessly, all the way to heaven, nor are they likely to go up 918% from your teens until you apply for retirement. But inflation already has.

Cash, while it remains of some worth, is always nice to have. But it won't be so in endless perpetuity. And it's only worth anything until it's not.

Have a cash float, yes. But understand that like anything else, it has a shelf life. And make your long-term plans accordingly.

You don't live in Weimar, nor Zimbabwe. 

Yet.

But looking at the trendline on the graph I posted should give you some bone-chilling face-slaps of reality, if you haven't been paying attention until now.

UPDATE: Peter at BRM seems to think I nailed this. 

But the sting of butthurt in the comments from "investors" is scorching.

UPDATED UPDATE: It ain't just me telling you the truth. You can lead a fool to wisdom, but you can't make him think.

A Few Notes

 

Do we condemn anything that happened yesterday by those who marched on and took control of the Capitol?

Not one damned thing.

And we note that the only homicide occurred by the hands of Capitol Police, on an unarmed woman and military veteran protesting non-violently. Window-breaking, when last we looked, even in the federal code, is not a capital offense meriting the death penalty, let alone summary execution, and the mostly empty Senate Chamber is neither the President's occupied bedroom, nor the SAC NORAD Command HQ.

Dear law enforcement, from dog catchers to Attorneys general,

If you're not with us, you're with the Terrorists. The People, just like the Marines, are "no better friends, and no worse enemies". Your actions every day will mark you as one or the other of those to The People, whose Constitution you swore an oath to defend, from here on out, and there will be consequences to your choices. Harsh and permanent ones. We won't be locking you up, nor holding trials (except the drumhead variety), and we won't be taking prisoners, from here on out. You have now been properly negotiated with. You got away with "Just following orders" when you looked the other way for Leftard riots. Unlike them, we came in peace, but we're pleading with you, with tears in our eyes: Fuck with us, and we'll kill you all, and people will write about what happens for hundreds of years. You'll get one chance, and the consequences to you will be swift, eternal, and irrevocable. You want to try policing an entire hostile nation in the service of jackbooted thuggery and a banana republic oligarchy, and think you'll ever live to see a dime of your pension, think again. Choose wisely.

P.S. To the Capitol cop thug who fired that fatal shot: Go home and eat your gun, as a service to humanity. No, really. Just do it. You're already dead to us, so why not make it official by your own hand?

But permit, please, now that the bodies have cooled, a few brief observations on what didn't happen.

1) Non-violent protests assume a rational and reasonable foe.

You have neither. Non-violent protests get people shot by those willing to use violence. Imagine Gandhi in the PRC. Wait, you don't have to: Tiananmen Square ring any bells? Stop playing by Marquess of Queensbury Rules. This is war to the knife, knife to the hilt, and then gouging eyes and biting off ears. If you aren't ready for that, you're not tall enough for this ride.

2) A group with plans and leadership is an army.

You had neither. It was just a mob. Pointed by those unwilling and/or unable to step to the fore, sent into whatever awaited, blind, stupid, clueless, like sheep to a slaughter. All it ultimately did, besides showing the other side how pissed off we are, is provide a photo op and put a face to the baseless claims about Right Wing Extremism that you'll be beaten over the head with for months and years to come. (Unless we win, and get to write the history ourselves.)

3) "Everybody has a plan, until they get hit in the face."

Well, clearly not everyone has a plan. You didn't get hit in the face, and you still had no plan, other than presence. No plan for agents provacateur. No plan to exploit a runaway victory (because no one had thought even one step beyond anything). No media plan, no logistic plan, no medical plan, nothing. This was planned about as well as a trip to Disneyland. ("So we get off the freeway, park, and go inside. Okay. Then what? What d'ya mean???") So, yet again, despite half a dozen recent examples, no planning, at any level, about what to do if. If ANYTHING. No plan, for ANYTHING. Good, bad, indifferent. This was about as planned as a herd of sheep grazing in a meadow, and with as much forethought. So don't act surprised it turned into a modern-day Boston Massacre. That was what happened when patriots brought snowballs to a gunfight. You lot didn't even have snowballs. Huzzah! Or, as countless NCOs have told people, "Good initiative. Bad judgement." It doesn't make you less motivated, less brave, or less committed. Just stupid and thoughtless. Own that. For the umpteenth time. And knock that crap off, FFS.

4) Playing in the street is for stupid children. Stop being that.

Demonstrations are for optics. They accomplish nothing else. Even less with the monumental shortcomings in planning and leadership demonstrable in every event since anybody thought this dumbassery was a good idea. A few pointers:

a) You don't own the media outlets. In fact, they are entirely unsympathetic to everything you are, and represent.

b) You had no media plan.

c) You didn't have anyone, or any 500 people, expressly designated to document what you wanted to do, nor what you didn't want to do, nor what was done by people not you. So you handed the entire narrative, start to finish, over to your Enemy, before you even started out.

d) You had no plan on how to disseminate a message, before, during, nor after, nor even any wild idea what message you were trying to make, besides being an angry mob.

e) Stumble and bumble into being used as a photo op poster child for the Enemy in haste, repent at leisure.

You became a herd of brave and dedicated people on pogo sticks, clearing a minefield. How's that working out for you now?

5) "They'll see a lot of us, and see our anger, and then they'll suddenly start doing what we want them to do."

Um,...no.

That has happened exactly never. You either kill people and break things, and dictate terms with swords to throats, or you march into machineguns and die gloriously, stupidly, and pointlessly, but for a good cause. As if anyone ever respects suicidal fanaticism, beyond resolving to gun it down on sight. Achievement unlocked: Went full retard.

6) You're not the Leftards. Stop using their game plan.

The Media doesn't care about what you want. Hollywood doesn't care about what you want. The other side's politicians don't care about what you want. And your own (nominally) politicians don't care about what you want. Those last are fleeing you and your ilk at warp speed, and they can smell blood in the water 10,000 times better than any shark. Protest reindeer games only work when there's someone out there who sympathizes with you, or is at least uncommitted, but open to hearing you out. It's not 1967 any more. The country has stratified. Anything you say to yourselves is preaching to the choir. Anything you say to the other side is falling on deaf ears. Period. Full stop.

7) Stop pissing into the wind. You look stupid, you smell worse, and you're just annoying everyone.

You want to get 100,000 people together to do something? Fine. If you're going to go, go big, or get back on the porch. Bring your rifles, surround the Capitol, (which means plan out all the exits, and blockade them too, starting with the subway tunnels they'd use to escape you) and tell all comers that you want the traitors handed over at once, and start trying and executing them on the porticoes, on national television. Shoot any motherfuckers who resist you, and any motherfuckers, inside or out, who point guns at you. In the face. Be prepared for a lot of casualties, on both sides. But if you're not willing to do that, because it's massively against the law, (and believe me, it is, yuuuugely), you're not patriots, you're just pussies. 

Storing guns, arming militias, and fortifying the heights around Boston harbor in 1775 were also criminal acts. Hanging offenses, treason, and insurrection, according to no less than the King of England and all the colonies at the time, which was not mere idle boasting on his part. But you haven't got the courage of your convictions colonial townspeople and farmers had, or you wouldn't have tried to win this thing by waving teddy bears at cameras. Own that, too.

8) You pissed your pants yesterday, for all the good you did, or might have done. And now you look foolish, clueless, and naive. Which you were. And your pants are wet.

Sh*t happens. Get back up, change your pants, and don't f**k things up next time. There will be a next time. Probably the first of hundreds, if not thousands, of such skirmishes. Yesterday was a start, not an end. Learn the lessons you keep booting out your asses, and stop doing that. Photo ops and "statements" are for impotent @$$clowns. Don't be that. If you thought you were going to win a bloodless coup by holding your breath, turning blue, and stomping your feet like toddlers throwing a tantrum at the supermarket, it's past fucking time you grew up, including a spine and a set of functional balls.

This is going to be hard. People died yesterday, and all on our side. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!: Even in the movies, Robin Hood had to kill half a dozen @$$holes on Prince John's side to make the point that he was serious, and wasn't to be trifled with. If you haven't wrapped your head around that reality, and come to grips with what's got to be done to get your country back, STFU, chop your dicks off, turn in your weapons, and either learn to sing Leftist love songs and eat soyburgers, or line up for the boxcars right fucking now, and stop wasting the time and goodwill of better men than yourselves.

No one, least of all this blogger, is mad at you or blames you for yesterday's events. But the Amateur Hour silly-ass b.s. has to stop, now. The time for impotent gestures and photo ops is over. You're either in the fight of your lives to win, including the killing and dying that course necessarily entails, or you're just a bunch of LARPing jackholes.

Decide. Stop pissing yourselves while you dither, and try and take the moral high ground without inflicting or taking casualties. This isn't the playground, and what's to come requires the resolve that took Hamburger Hill, not the kind that wins in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese, or plays childish games where no one's keeping score.

Grow the fuck up, and get on with it. Be adults, and do manly things.

Get busy winning, or learn to love losing.

You aren't going to regroup, and out-vote them harder next time; that option is closed off forever now. Come to grips with that harsh reality.

What are you going to do about that...??

And nota bene that any whiny bitching, pissing, and moaning in Comments will be regarded as the poster saying "Cuck! Cuck! Cuck-a-doodle-do!" Suck it up, Buttercup.

Wounds My Heart With A Monotonous Languor...

You. SOON. Is that a good look for you?

"If...If...

We didn't love freedom enough. And even more - we had no awareness of the real situation....We purely and simply deserved EVERYTHING that happened afterward."

Those words ring down through all time. And they really do wound my heart with a monotonous languor. And yes, I chose that phrase a-purpose. Capice?

Sound familiar, people? You don't feel like you understand what's really happening?

You don't love freedom enough to stand up for it at the only chance you're ever going to get, consequences be damned? Burglars and despots rarely send out appointments. It's come-as-you-are. Ready or not. You think you're going to magic your way out of that date?

If so, you can expect to deserve the same EVERYTHING that Solzhenitsyn and his fellows received. In spades.

Too harsh? Try it in a lighter vein:

"We're afraid! We might get in trouble!"

Well you can just kiss my ass.

I don't care if you puss out. I don't care if Trump even throws in the towel. (And I don't think he will, but even if he did, it wouldn't matter.) This ain't about him, nor simple partisan shoving at the trough. It's about the entire idea of America. You're willing to wimp out on that? Enjoy your boxcar ride, and see what coloring inside the lines gets your Quisling ass down the road.

There isn't going to be another chance in 2022, 0r 2024. Or EVER.

This was the last election where you had a shot.

I repeat:

This was the last election where you had a shot. There will never be another.

There won't be another free election in your lifetime, for anyone who reads this, unless this gets addressed, and I mean but now.

Not in a minute, next week, end of the month, nor 6 months, not in a year, not in NeverNeverLand fairytales somewhere down the road.

This month and next. By them. Or by you. Or, please God, by Us.

And the absolute final expiration date on that is Jan. 20, 2021. At noon, EST.

That's the absolute Go To Hell date.

If TPTB won't fix it before then, they have no reason to fix it, ever.

And they won't, nor show any sign of doing anything other than ignoring you, wholesale.

And if they don't do it RFN, what're you gonna do about it?

Vote at them?

That's risible, and derisible, simultaneously.

Any fucktard sumbitch talking about "regrouping" and "continuing on forward" for "next time" that hasn't factored in ropes, bullets, and napalm in their calculus is talking out their ass.

There isn't going to BE a "next time".

That outcome was the whole point of THIS time.

"Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."

Absolutely god-damned right.

That's the message, delivered with precision, clarity, and finality.

If you don't get that, in your bones, you're self-selecting to be collateral damage.

And about you, if you wallow in that amidst your self-pity, IDGAF.

"This could never happen here. We're a democracy." - Venezuela, 1998

Nobody is coming to save you. This ain't the movies, and you ain't John Wayne.

Why? "Because we're here, lad. Nobody else. Just us."

If you have a leader, follow them.

If you don't, BE one.

If TPTB go through with this, if they think they can brazen the theft of an election, a presidency, and an entire country, simply because they don't care about what it costs them, there's but one answer to that.

In the absence of orders or direction from higher authority, find someone or something Communist, and destroy it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That's going to be the Prime Directive for some good time. Count on it.

If...if...

IF you love freedom enough.