One year ago today: April 6, 2018, $4,000, I was right.
Five years ago today: April 6, 2014, must read the robot part.
Nine years ago today: April 6, 2010, from millionaire to billionaire.
Random years ago today: April 6, 2007, $8,000, still my maximum.
Top story of the day, millennial madness. Six blades, count ‘em, six. Let’s see, not long ago I found a five-blader, so I think we all see where this is going. You know, this is not the first time I’ve run into this “more is better” mentality. When was I last at the Taj Mahal? I think it was in the early or mid-80s, back when international travel was fun and the dollar was a dollar. Both are distant memories, but on the way to the tomb, around 90 miles from Delhi, you cross a dusty red desert. I know I’ve written this before, but can’t recall if it was ever published on-line.
It reminds me of the time I was shopping at Sedano’s, a Florida chain, and found a package of a matching set of six identical cookie cutters. Shows you, some people just ain’t right in the head.
Another few spreadsheets later and each time I run into the same wall. This is not the time to be plunging into any kind of debt, and if you are in debt, you had better get the hell out of it. My formulas are standard money time-value, which does not account for ability to pay in the future. This country has been bankrupt for nearly 20 years. Most people who live here are deep in negative equity. They owe more than they can ever repay. I was 32 when RofR and I paid off our first mortgage, a rental property up in Montana. It was thus at a relatively young age I learned that paying off a mortgage does not free you the way a lot of people think it will. You are still tied to that house.
If I peer even five years ahead, thinks get shaky. I mean, how long before the countries buying our bonds wise up? Look what inflation is doing already. I’ll tell you what I think will happen per my calculations. The key element is to realize the 22 trillion in debt is just the public portion. The other 200 trillion is in the form of commitments. The purpose of government is more government, so they will eventually have to start using tax money to pay that down. Printing the money is the solution so far, but they can’t print 22 trillion. Since increasing taxes is political hari-kari, that means they will have to start taking the money from other programs. And the four biggest money pits are social security, medicare, welfare, and the military.
You see the problems with those institutions without even looking. Social security likes to maintain they will not be broke in ten years, but that is based on incoming tax dollars. What I’m saying is at some point the government may just have to stop paying old people and grab those tax dollars for the debt. America cannot survive without debt so there is a stop at nothing demand to keep friendly with any creditors. Myself, I will not suffer much since my lifestyle was never dependent on any one source. That, and there’s always my plan that things can never get too bad for me without causing widespread famine and panic amongst others.
One pack of hypocrites that I find hilarious is these parents who are so concerned about what the debt-ridden future holds for their children. Yet every one of them have credit cards, a mortgage, and car payments. Duh, people. As for medicare, that’s one of those intractable problems that will never go away, but it is the governments own fault for touching it in the first place. It’s a vicious circle, you bring in medical insurance, causing the rise of a hospital industry with no price controls, causing people to be unable to afford it, causing the government to have to subsidize health. People get old and die, but woe to any politician who suggests that should be left alone [to take its course].
At the hard drive factory.
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If entitlements end, it won’t be with a whimper. I’m saying since gradual withdrawal won’t work, there will come a day when they simply turn off the tap. As for the military, I’ve always said we if defend other countries, send them the bill. I heard a podcast a few months back from an energy expert designing thin film solar panels. He brought out a very interesting number. Noting that much of the military bill comes from securing the supply of foreign oil. If you add that cost to the price per barrel, gasoline is really costing you $15 per gallon.
Another sleeping dragon is the last three generations, X, Y, & Z. They’ve been living in their little cocoons of indoctrination where anything goes. They are sooner or later going to realize what a rotten deal they’ve been handed. In less than twenty years, they will be running this country, and if history repeats itself, those that rise above the mess are going to be the worst of radicals. The ones that come to their senses the soonest will have every reason to put the brakes on the whole system and to hell who suffers. So I ask, what happens when the natural leaders of those millions wakes up from the liberal-induced coma and decides he owes nothing to the octogenarians who twisted his mind?
While this is not the first generation that lived their lives in debt slavery to their overlords, this is the first one that denied anything was wrong. In the past you had constant peasant revolts, this time the system keeps the average person so caught up paying off debts that there is little energy left for forming radical cells. The problem now is that in America almost everything is priced so high most people cannot buy without some form of credit. It is those born into this nightmare that will rebel against it. Why should they pay for something they never borrowed and never used.
It might be said that they did benefit by being raised in a society of free food, entitlements, loan forgiveness, blanket protectionism, hiring quotas, bailouts, allotments, grants, and glossed over versions of any harsh facts. But that is too indirect and the world knows what happens when such people get their first taste of real power. Former generations were held back materially, these generations have been impeded by unrestrained liberal indoctrination. I don’t think the world has any examples of what happens when they find out the world isn’t so cute after all. Possibly, the pendulum has swung as far as it can toward the left.
This concludes your $20 magazine article, free for nothing today.
I had a nice 40 mile car trip through the city of Hermitage. Three weeks ago I had a hard time remembering which was north. Today I had a hard time finding some place to put money on my phone. I guess I know all the main roads to the north, since directly south is a massive reservoir I have yet to drive around. That’s the lake you see in most of the photos. It has been sunny and cool most of my stay, Trent reports Florida had a glorious March.
ADDENDUM
LibreOffice. I’d like to switch over to it but for one major problem. When saved in its native format, which has the suffix odt, the file cannot be opened with Word. Although LibreOffice will save a compatible version, when you reopen it, there is an error message that the file has to be recovered.
