*I am not sure whether to give Bill credit for his prescience or set him on fire.  Being that’s across the country for me and in lock down in an insane state (A lock down instigated by the new class and the media apropos nothing much), I suppose I’ll have to go with the first. We are in a pitched battle for survival and we must hope that G-d looks after fools, drunkards and the United States of America – SAH*

It Is Later Than You Think by Bill Reader A Blast From the Past from 1/22/2019

“We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.

Others might fall, not we, for we were wise—

Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will

We let our servants drug our strength with lies.

The pleasure and the poison had its way

On us as on the meanest, till we learned

That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.

Neither God’s judgment nor man’s heart was turned.”

-Rudyard Kipling—”The Covenant”

 

It is only lately—and, I think, in conjunction with many others on the Right—that I have properly ascertained both the magnitude and the severity of the threat we as a civilization face. I choose my words carefully, here—as a civilization. Not just as a nation, but all of us in the broader western world. We have all fallen prey to something pernicious. And it is both exactly what Glenn Reynolds discussed in his USA Today column here—and then again it is something slightly different.

I’m not seeking to present anything new to you today. I will consider myself to have done well if I present what you already know together, without the soporific effect of lengthy times between stories, or the calming effect of great distances. This is not about the future. I am not even sure it is about the present, though I remain optimistic. But see it, and judge it, for yourself— and recognize it for what it is, because I’m lately afraid our time is much dearer than we’d suspected.

It is later than you think.

The world’s seven largest economies, in ranked order, are the US, China, Japan, Germany, the UK, India, and France. Traditionally, China, Japan, and India are considered Eastern nations. Therefore in a practical sense—and probably also, arguably (albeit at more length than I care to go into; I have bigger fish to fry), in a pragmatic and philosophical sense— the heavyweights and current stabilizing poles of the Western world, writ large, are the US, Germany, the UK, and France.

It would be troubling for me to write that there had been a coup in any of these. Yet increasingly it looks like there has been a silent coup—or certainly an attempted one, at all events—in all of these. Not because of grand conspiracy, but because of a kind of monoculture among what Glenn Reynolds refers to above as “the new class”. They are easy to identify, by their smug certainty that they know better what ought to be done with and for you than you yourself do. And they are beholden—as often as they can possibly make this so— to nobody, and are guided by nothing except their doctrinaire beliefs in what might charitably be called academic Marxism, and might more aptly be called simple totalitarianism.

Angela Merkel was the bellwether. Guided not by the desires of her citizens, nor by any apparent concern or understanding of its ramifications, but solely because it was pleasant to pretend that Germany could accommodate them, she opened Germany’s borders to vast hordes of impoverished denizens of the third world. As tends to happen with people imported from backwater nations using absolutely no filtering process to guarantee they are even aware of their host nation’s values— let alone support said values— they brought the cultures of their native motherlands along with them instead (not that this is topical in any way). And on New Years Eve, in 2015, “For all of Germany, police estimated in a document leaked in 2016 that 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and that at least 2,000 men were involved, often acting in groups”. These crimes, largely by ‘men of “Arab or North African appearance”,’ were the gratitude Germany got for its attempt at grandiose humanitarian aid.

A heavy price was borne for Merkel’s arrogance, though Merkel herself remained comfortably distant from what she caused, as is usually the case in these “for your own good” schemes. Her only meaningful punishment is that she is not planning to seek re-election as leader of the CDU or Germany—and even still, she fully intends to stay chancellor until 2021. Though not before making German politics decidedly more—interesting. In 2017, along with her ouster, suddenly the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was a significant force, and her own party was on the back foot—to her shock and dismay. Her citizens chose the “wrong” answer, and the international press was sure to tell everyone as much. (As an aside: the “quality” reporting in the US and UK makes it utterly impossible for me to tell whether AfD is actually a concern in its own right, or just a correction to an overwhelmingly idiotic decision by the ruling party. Insofar as the MSM can’t tell the difference between Trump and Hitler and have reportedly been axing foreign correspondent positions for years, I tend to assume that the AfD would get called Nazis purely for holding stances the Left disagrees with. Actually being German is just icing on the cake. By the way, to any leftists reading, here’s a hint: Hitler probably wouldn’t even recognize Israel—given that a lot of the radical islamic groups in the middle east were originally funded by the Nazis in part because they both hated Jews. He would therefore be decidedly unlikely to favor Israel over “Palestine” by moving his embassy to Jerusalem. Oh, and he probably wouldn’t be Grand Marshall in a Salute to Israel Parade. But I digress. On the other hand, 2017 is also the year “Mein Kampf” got back on the German bestseller’s list, and you can spin that how you like, but it doesn’t strike me as a good sign. I would love it if someone who is near Germany could weigh in with their thoughts in the comments.)

Turn now to the case of Brexit. In a complete surprise to the British elite, a referendum on leaving the EU came back showing that the British don’t like absentee landlords from the rest of the continent telling them what to do. This had recently become especially important since, well, Germany had just attempted to commit suicide by taking a massive overdose of immigrants.

Now the EU was telling the rest of its members that it was no fair not also attempting suicide, and immigrants should be able to move freely into England from Germany. Not that the British press said it this way. No, the British press, curiously, decided to frame their opponents as being “anti-immigration”—which they say in roughly the same way you or I might say “satanist”—thus demonstrating that between Germany and Scandinavia, professional leftists the world over don’t really have a problem with rape, as long as the victim is a blond white chick.

Moreover, the elite in Britain were outraged, since many of their close personal friends happen to be absentee landlords from the rest of the continent, and their favorite hobby to bond over is making up absurd things and telling people to do them. Think of it as “Simon Says”, except to stop playing you have to emigrate—and you have to wait for Simon to say you can emigrate.

But, driven by a resolute belief in the power of democracy, they boldly decided to: not comply with the result. The people, you see, had once again gotten the “wrong” answer. So the British elite dragged its feet, and the EU threw an outright tantrum which made it easier for them to do so. (Not that the EU doesn’t have its reasons—England leaving is an existential threat to the EU, since it essentially destroys the current “rob from the rich and give to the dysfunctional” model it operates on by taking a massive cash source away. If you wonder why the EU is trying to rob Britain blind in Brexit “deal” negotiations, it’s because they can’t afford not to.). This culminated in a “deal” by Theresa May that was so ass-backwards many people think it was intentionally designed to be broken—and it went down in flames by a massive margin. The rest of this story hasn’t even been told, yet, but the smart money is that Britain’s elite is going to try to push another vote on Brexit, and this time encourage people, by hook or crook, to choose the “right” answer.

Say, do you notice a pattern?

Well, how about this story, one you know well. The MSM, to give the First Woman President (TM) the best possible chance, openly prayed for the person they considered the worst, most back-number conservative candidate, to run against her.

And when they got him—good and hard, as you might say—they proceeded to attempt to destroy him the way they’d always done with Republican candidates. EG, they called him Hitler (I always wonder how many Leftists who instantly played the Nazi card on Trump even remember that we endured probably six solid years of the “Chimpy McBushHitler” slander from them, personally, before Trump was even a major national candidate. If the Republicans could nominate Anne Frank to a major position, the Democrats would trip over themselves to call her literally Hitler—and a gender traitor, to boot.)

Trouble was, first, they didn’t factor in that they were still running one of the most unlikeable people on the planet—a person whose tagline rapidly became a single derogatory term for opponents, “deplorables”—that applied, essentially, to everyone from far right to moderate middle.

Secondly, they assumed that running footage of Trump discussing his beliefs and campaign promises would hurt him. To be honest, to the extent that I was skeptical of Trump at the beginning, it was because: A- Given that he was from New York and had pictures taken with virtually every notable Democrat you can imagine, I didn’t think he believed in or would even attempt his campaign promises; and B- I was partially caught up in the media response on the right, from outlets like National Review that, in retrospect, I think were themselves mostly people who couldn’t bring themselves to doubt there had to be fire behind the massive MSM smoke-bomb, and later felt they’d be seen as inconsistent if they changed their minds.

But for anyone else who was in my boat, I can’t imagine that seeing what Trump actually said was especially off-putting. There are things like tariffs I’m not in love with—but most of the platform is solid. Tax reform, an emphasis on border security (of any kind, actually, compared to the import-a-voter Left), reforming (rather than, as the single-payer advocates like Hillary would have it, further deforming) healthcare, deregulation, taking the boot off the face of American energy producers—there’s a lot in there that most of the right and many in the middle can agree on. Meanwhile, Hillary “Adult Fun Camps” Clinton basically offered European governance, except more corrupt. This rather extreme position, the MSM explained, was “moderate”, and they estimated that Hillary had a 99.9999999% chance of winning, with the remaining 0.0000001% being their estimated odds of her being tragically hit by a meteor.

But insofar as this was about five months after Brexit, where it turned out that even Britain had had enough of European governance, this went over about as well as you’d imagine.

Actually, it went over worse. Hillary Clinton went from impossible-to-lose to impossible-to-win so fast it had much of the  MSM exposing their true colors that very night. You remember the tears and shocked faces?

That alone should have put middle America on notice about media bias. And to the Democrats, this seemed like some kind of terrible miracle. I’ve talked about that before, and I won’t belabor it now, but I suspect that’s in part because the upper echelons of Democrats know they rig the game in their favor.

And if you don’t think they know it, first, I offer the examples of Arizona and Florida in the 2018 midterms. And second, I offer the very first bill the new House brought to the floor. And third, as an extension of their, shall we say, morally challenged ways, note the willingness to use the FBI on a fishing expedition against Trump, starting before the election and continuing, now, a full two years in. I’d say there’s very little that shows off to better effect that they want to win at all cost.

Because there patently isn’t any there, there. There never was any. At best it was about using Russia as a convenient excuse to find something, anything, real, with which to take down Trump and thus reverse the election results. At worst, they didn’t even want something real. They may well have simply wanted a string of tantalizing accusations that would then be immediately disproven. Note the unending barrage of Headlines in 30 point font and retractions in 6 point font a week later (if, indeed, any retraction materializes at all), which the media collectively calls “ethical journalism”. In fact, look at what has happened this very week—as we saw a “bombshell” about Trump so stupid it was dissolved by Mueller’s office within a day, followed by a “bombshell” about catholic school-kids disproven by more extensive video evidence than a murder on a movie set, some of it taken by the professional protesto— I’m sorry, I mean “victim”, himself. “You can bury a person just as effectively with potting soil, as you can with real dirt. You just need to buy enough of it,” is the new MSM motto.

And what is all of this ultimately for? Why do it?

Because you, American voter, chose the “wrong answer”. And your elites are here to “educate” that tendency out of you. But first, they need to violate a ton of laws, and take us well into banana republic territory (What else do you call government officials, many from the last administration, rebelling against a duly and legally elected leader and actively fighting everything he does, exactly? Contrary to what the Left likes to say, that is extremely ordinary behavior—from Leftists, no less—in those lovely South and Central American countries that are so well run, we need a wall in part to keep their people from coming into the US en masse. What it is not a legitimate part of, is the tradition of Western Democracy.).

Not because they want to, you understand. If you had simply surrendered like good boys and girls and submitted to your rightful masters, they could have done everything they wanted without breaking any laws. It was you, ungrateful peon, who forced them to use extra-legal means to continue upholding the status quo, and only because they are deeply #principled are they continuing to doggedly fight to ensure your rights are abrogated for your own good. And by the way, as with the EU in Brexit, the Left is fighting Trump tooth and nail because he’s threatening their nest egg.

They know that people from South of the border vote Democrat. If at all possible, the Democrats would like to integrate them into their welfare web (Because on closer inspection, it’s oddly reliable how the “safety net” seems designed both to trap people and make them prey to eternal predation by Democrats. One might begin to suspect LBJ knew what he was about, no?), and keep them voting Democrat for, well, forever. People call them out about flip-flopping on their stances, but of course in their mind they haven’t flip-flopped at all. They were willing to support border security only when there was virtually no chance of it being enforced. That’s why the Trump administration has noted that there are extant laws calling for barriers on the Southern border pre-dating his administration, which were curiously unenforced. Now that there’s a chance of border security being enforced, the Democrats are openly opposing it. But their position is consistency itself.

The only thing that changed is that before they were lying to keep you happy, and now you ungrateful oafs have forced them to acknowledge their actual beliefs.

And so, after all that, what do you do with a place like France? Macron, by all accounts, is only the proximal cause in a long string of abuses on the French people—and more specifically, its middle class.

You see, in pursuit of various personal goals—forcing people into carpooling and mass transit, environmental posturing, good old fashioned money and power—apparently France’s elites have, for some time, been enacting increasingly insane laws that benefit themselves while inconveniencing the populace. At some point, a tipping point was reached, and the people of France donned yellow vests and started protesting—say have I heard this song before? Sounds like it’s being done by a French cover band. At all events, the French government—apt students of history that they aren’t—have responded in the way any reasonable oligarch would: they’ve started talking about banning unsanctioned protests. Yes, this will go well. Obviously. How could it possibly not?

The people of France were successfully talked out of voting for Le Pen, but, mon dieu, they have still somehow fallen backwards and now, malheureusement, have picked the “wrong” answer. It is up to their betters in the elite class to make this gauche and ill-mannered display impossible by outlawing it, because outlawing behaviors the government dislikes has an excellent historical record of causing them to vanish, especially when those behaviors include protesting said government.

But you appreciate that, while we can laugh at this because it’s better than crying, it’s a sign of something deeply unhealthy and vastly widespread?

Every pillar of the Western world, it seems, has revealed itself to be infected with an extremely dangerous political class, formed of people who believe implicitly in rule by the enlightened, by the right people, even while mouthing obfuscating lies about “democracy”.

They believe in populism until someone plays the game of populism better. They believe in democracy, the more direct the better, as long as they think they’ll be in power under it. But mostly what they believe in is power.

The rest is window dressing. They are aristocrats in modern suits, and the government changes around them, but they remain the same. They believe in grand, stupid, and impossible visions that benefit them, and actively harm their people, and pursue them to the exclusion of all else. Oh, certainly they are the “new class”.

But they are more than that. They are a sign that Western Democracy has unofficially become Western “Democracy”. Now that the opinions of the people—in Germany, in England, in the United States, and now in France—have become inconvenient, the governments are finding they would like to dissolve the people and elect another. And they will do anything to achieve that end—”we let our servants drug our strength with lies”. France and England sound poised to commit to these brave new social experiments in their own ways, and the US won’t be far behind if the Democrats ever get enough funding to run a few more fraudulent investigations.

So look around you, while you still can. The sun is high in the sky. The last day of rule by the people—by the actual people, rather than by a “bolshevik” (literally, majority) minority— is half gone already. We’ve all been living in a very pleasant world, but it’s one that’s enabled us to relatively disregard politics, and that has let some very unsavory characters slip in while we were living in a dream. “The pleasure and the poison had its way”.

It is later than you think.

I have said before that I am unsure whether America will have another civil war, even though many of her people are—foolishly, to anyone who has seen one— spoiling for one.

The factors are myriad, but king of them all is geographical emulsification and the lack of clear battle lines. I’ve been trying, for ages, to think of how that might change. Now, I realize, it won’t.

What’s happened in France and is happening in Britain has made me realize that the conflict is fundamentally between normal people who are getting pissed on, and people who sympathize with—and often someday hope to become—the unelected or unremovable power brokers who are pissing on them.

I know of no true historical model for a civil war in a country that looks and acts demographically like America does now.

But—as Angela Merkel learned, and as I suspect France will soon discover—history is wall-papered, end to end, with examples of leaders uninterested in the well-being of their people who eventually faced deposition of one form or another.

I pray that somehow, the leaders of America allow the peaceful and existing processes that could allow that to happen to advance unabated. It will take surviving a bitter old guard and defanging a particularly idiotic new guard of Democrats. It will take acknowledging earnestly that whole departments of our government, just like our press, have largely fallen into the hands of people who hate the nation and its people, and re-evaluating our goals on who to elect and what to do in elected office from that perspective.

But we must rise, face the day, and try. It is later than you think—and getting later. Because, I maintain, part of America’s ability not to become the bloody quagmire that France did during its revolution was down to the people it was revolting against being on the other side of an ocean.

I think we are— all Western nations, and we, no exception— more at more risk than I had initially thought of our own French revolution, and that’s a thing we decidedly do not need, and a place we decidedly do not wish to go. The name might survive—but I fear that nothing else of value in our country would.

I woke up today filled with probably unwarranted optimism.

This happens so very rarely that I’ve come to believe it’s a gift of sorts.  And perhaps more.  You see, I’ve always had the embarrassing gift of “sensing” the future. I’m not laying claim to any paranormal ability with this, note. It’s just if you spend your evenings going over the news everywhere, and if your rational self is prone to pessimism (being rational and the nature of the world being what it is) at some point your subconscious takes over and starts communicating with you via hunches.

I loved the scene in Friday where the boss has Friday spend her time immersing herself into what we’d now call the internet, and then calls her in the middle of the night to ask her the answer to questions to which she should have no response, and she answers…. accurately.

My mind is a tug of war between lived experience — I’ve seen the movie of descent into (greater) socialist madness before — and my subconscious. When they both agree it’s a bad bad thing.

I still expect this fall to be tight, because too many things have been smashed with a hammer for it to be otherwise.  And that of course will put the election at risk of falling to the socialists.  On the other hand, my subconscious woke up singing.

Part of this is, I suppose, that I have cleaned out and tagged (and got rid of expired) emergency storage food, and found I have an extra, unopened #10 can of eggs, which, as those who’ve used it know, can last forever.  I’ve also a lot of freeze dried vegetables, and like the potato chip people I will make more. And I have two gallon cans of olive oil on order.  All of which adds up to: we’re not going to starve. If push comes to shove, we can survive on soup and bread — we have a lot of almond and coconut flour — for a long, long time.  What’s more, we have peanut butter to put on the bread. A LOT of peanut butter.  Which even my husband refuses to put on the tuna, which we also have more of than I expected.  However, we have a can of egg whites, and tuna soufle, or quiche is a thing.

Knowing this is a great comfort. Not that I expect the shelves to be bare — well, not now — but I do expect the occasional hiccup.  And while I don’t have the food to survive Venezuela — so please let’s not go there, kay thanx — for years and years and years, I do have the food to paper over gaps.  In fact I’m kind of impressed at how much we have already laid by, though of course I’m not just sitting back and waiting.

IF I’m grossly wrong and we come out of this in a V shape, i.e. if our ascent is as steep as the sudden drop off on stopping, I’ll take most of the laid by food and donate to the firefighters’ in Manitou and their Christmas program, because you see, almost twenty years ago, when we found ourselves unemployed and scrambling JUST before Christmas, they delivered two massive boxes at our doorstep, which saw us through the three months of scrambling till we had solid footing again. I keep meaning to return the favor, but yeah, either through being very tight at that time OR through being very busy, we’ve yet to manage it.

First I should say the last time I had this counter-intuitive  counter-rational feeling that everything would be all right was after the election in 2012. And I attributed it to “Can’t live with fear forever.”  If you go back over that year, you see the hope — real hope not the cheap glitter of hope ‘n change take hold slowly, that it would all come out all right after all.  But I had trouble working through it, because, well… you know, I don’t believe in magic.  And I knew the damage that has been done to this country, and the depth it went to.

And yet, looking back and considering the insanity of Pierre Delecto, it’s entirely possible the best man won. And that the damage done by an open enemy of our country in the presidency was less than what a false and deluded friend would have done.

Let’s remember it was a republican — but a statist — who set us up to be screwed by China for decades, something that no democrat could have managed, no matter how much they wanted to. (OTOH they would have rolled over and waved their paws for Russia, so in the end, in that one too, maybe the best man won.)

Thing is, we don’t see parallel worlds, and though we can tell how bad things turn out here sometimes, we can’t tell how badly they’d have turned if what we wanted came to pass. I.e. if the rational part of our brain had guided the future.

So, what’s my gut feeling today? (Note I’m not saying any of this is right. Only that my gut is right a disturbing number of times. At least more than my brain.)

Today my feeling on the lockdown is that BGE is right. The states will open up and everything will be back to normal within the month. Pence has already seeded this by saying that he expects all this to be behind us by May 25.

And yep, it will be at first slow, then very fast. (I mean BGE makes his living predicting the behavior of masses of people, right? So he’s probably right.)

The leftards and the media (BIRM) will try to hold on to their doom reality show, but if the open states don’t all succumb to Wuhan lung rot, it’s going to get harder and harder.

With any luck this opens people eyes to their governors and their proclivities.

But I’m also getting a sense that the president is going along with the insanity because it suits him.  I mean, what have we seen from him before?  The Democrats “corner” him and suddenly find that they gave him everything he really wanted.  It’s president B’rer Rabbit forever.

There are things happening that frankly wouldn’t be possible without the crisis. Not only is the border getting sealed, but we’ve somehow convinced Mexicans that the US is more dangerous. (SMDH. Who’d have believed it?)

Drug traffic has fallen like a rock, particularly international drug traffic.

And meanwhile our president, who has always done a ton of things behind the scenes is now, under cover of this massive reality show the left staged, frantically undoing the damage of a century of centralization and attempts to plan the economy.

Look, I’m not saying he’s a conservative (neither am I, except in the sense that I’m to the right of Lenin. Most of “severe conservatism” seems to be using the right boot, rather than the left, to stomp on your trachea. And honestly, these days “severe conservatives” are globalists, which is a disease, not a cure.)  I’m not saying he’s a Libertarian (again, these days, neither am I, except in the sense the founding fathers were.)

What I’m saying is that the president was (and is) a businessman.  He knows better than most how hampered, chained down and bogged down the economy is. How it’s a miracle that the US remains the power house of the world after importing so many “planned” ideas from communism since WWI (and accelerating.)

I think, ladies, gentlemen and small furries, that he saw this emergency as “don’t let a crisis go to waste.”

I hope he judged right, and that he turns the corner just in time, before popular sentiment turns against him, but while he can free the economy as much as possible right now, and set us on a path to free it more.

There will still be trouble, such as the loss of airplanes.  And there will be riots and issues in major cities, because, you know, the shortage of drugs will allow some number of addicts to get over it and recover and build their lives, but others are going to go crazy.  (Well both of those were mounting problems, that needed to be resolved. This is a sudden change, but perhaps what emerges is better. At least now we know the governors who were perfectly willing to put their populace under house arrest, cannot refuse to “violate the civil liberties” of dangerous crazies infesting every city and terrorizing law abiding citizens.  Yes, politicians, but in this case I mean the homeless.)

And maybe, just maybe, if B’rer Rabbit judges his landing in the spiney JUST right, he can get jobs to relocate to the US, can get us to stop giving our best jobs to what amounts to foreign slave labor, and can unchain the giant as much as he can be unchained in (hopefully) two terms.

Consider how well we did with just the removal of some hampering. Imagine what Americans will do if the chains of regulation that have accumulated since Woodrow Wilson are removed. You ain’t seen nothing like us yet! I imagine we’ll surprise even me.

And then there’s schools and colleges.  They’re going to lose a lot of audience. Given what they’ve devolved into, that’s not bad.

Hollywood and traditional publishing, too, either will have to do some creative thinking very fast or take it in the shorts.  Since they’ve spent most of their creativity for decades into how best to screw creatives, I predict the result will be ugly. And I’ll coast down the river of their tears in an innertube, with a bucket of margaritas by my side.

Look, indie is fine. And Hollywood? Well, I’m sure some indie moviemakers not raging leftists will find a path of opportunity soon. I’m keeping fingers crossed.

IF my gut is right — and do you know how rarely my gut is OPTIMISTIC?  Most of the time its optimism is “It could be worse.” — we’re going to come out of this insanity better than ever, and will actually have a massive Summer of Recovery.  It won’t be blared from the headlines, but honestly, people still know their circumstances.

Was this ideal? None of it was ideal. But you roll with the punches you’re given.

Look around you. There should be a lot of new opportunities.  If rumblings I’m hearing are right, there will be great opportunities in your field soon, no matter what your field is.

Be not afraid. Sure. Stockpile some tuna and some peanut butter and some bread fixings. Because you never know.  And there will be rough patches. Sometimes VERY rough patches, depending on where you live.

And let’s hope there’s some plan to explode the ridiculous and ever ballooning vote fraud around election time, otherwise we’re STILL screwed.  But I have some (slim) hope that’s true.

Build under, build over, build around. Most of you are creative, odd, and see the opportunities other people miss.  Go to it now. Your time has come.

*My apologies to BGE for getting this up so late. It’s been an odd morning. It’s still a very important thing to get out there. – SAH*

The Chinese Matter – by BGE

In November 1971, not long after the Nixon administration ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold, then Treasury secretary John Connally told his counterparts during a G10 meeting that “the dollar is our currency, but your problem.”   Despite the Bretton Woods era being long gone, this remains true today.  The US Dollar is the world’s reserve currency and this simple fact is the root of our “Exorbitant Privilege” and a primary reason that China’s huge holdings of US Treasuries are their problem, not ours.

Certainly, China could dump their holdings or choose not to take up the waves of Treasuries coming on to the market, but only at the cost of completely wrecking their economy.  The logic of tyrants is not the logic of a free society, but even a tyrant must ensure that those who maintain him in power are fed and well-oiled or he ends up dead, often messily. Wrecking the Chinese economy, which is weaker than popularly believed, would damage those on whom the tyranny depends for support. Crucially, this includes the Army and Intelligence functions whose senior officers have become rich through state-owned corporations.

Finally, it might not work as intended.  The conventional wisdom seems to be that China’s dumping US treasuries would cause interest rates to increase (bond prices move opposite to rates; high rates mean low prices and low rates mean high prices,) thus driving up US interest payments and, in classic mercantilist fashion, wrecking US exports and giving China comparative advantage through a weak renminbi.  Certainly, it would produce a couple of interesting days on the markets but, unless a new reserve currency emerges, a return to economic normality would also mean a return to the dollar shortages that existed up to the day the world hunkered down.  That there was, and will be again, a shortage of dollars may seem paradoxical, but it is very real and arises from the dollar being the world’s reserve currency and China faces the largest dollar shortage of all.

So then, what is a global reserve currency?  Simply put, a global reserve currency is a means of exchange for world trade.  Before the war, it was gold and silver, since the war it’s been the US dollar.  The world needs dollars to intermediate global trade.  The more global trade, the greater demand for dollars.

To give an example, a Swedish export firm is selling product to a Japanese import firm, delivery in three months .  The Japanese firm doesn’t go out and buy Swedish Kronor, rather the Japanese firm goes to its bank and buys a Eurodollar deposit maturing in three months.  The Japanese bank sells Eurodollars forward for three months for kronor to the Swedish firm’s bank, who provides Kronor to the Swedish firm.  (this example and several that follow come from Jeffery Snider at Alhambra Investments.)  While this seems unnecessarily complicated,  scale and liquidity make it routine and much more efficient than the Japanese firm trying to find someone who is selling Kronor.

The key here is the notion of the Eurodollar.  A Eurodollar is simply a dollar liability outside the United States, mostly in London and Tokyo.  The term arose during the 1970’s as oil producers put the proceeds of oil sales into European banks outside the control of US authorities.  These banks, and this includes the overseas parts of American banks, began to use these deposits as funding for US Dollar lending and the money multiplier allowed the supply of dollars to increase immensely while the US money supply need not change.  This seemed to overcome Triffin’s Dilemma, the conflict of interests between short-term domestic and long-term international objectives.  There’s a catch, which we’ll come to later.

Let’s turn, then, to China.  Dollars flow into China through investments and the proceeds of merchandise trade.  China ships goods to the United States and is paid in dollars provided through the Eurodollar system.  The Peoples Bank of China (PBC) ends up with a lot of them and buys US Treasuries.  At the same time, the PBC issues Chinese currency, the renminbi.  The renminbi is not a convertible currency,  it’s essentially domestic scrip.  China has few natural resources and needs to import most raw materials.  For that they need dollars.  Since no-one outside China wants renminbi, it is not a stretch to say that the Eurodollar is the Chinese currency, as it is for most countries world-wide.  Europe, the UK, and Japan have large enough internal markets that their currency has value apart from the dollar, but for China and the rest, no.  For international trade you need the dollar.

This is power, this is hegemony, this is the exorbitant privilege that d’Estaing spoke of.  The military might of the US helps keep it in existence and the productivity of the American economy makes it credible, but it’s the power of the dollar that keeps ally and enemy in line.  The United States can do what other nations cannot and there’s little the other nations can do about it.

We’ll return to China, but first let’s return to the Japan/Sweden example.  The banks perform two key intermediate functions here, first is facilitating trade between currencies (here Kronor and Yen) the second and more important is time.  Delivery is in three months and the bank has done what is called maturity transformation.  They have taken money today for delivery three months from now.  Maturity transformation is the fundamental social function of bank’s always and everywhere.  They borrow short and lend long. This is by nature unstable and, when coupled with leverage, the cause of all banking crises, but it is the key step that allows strangers to trade at a distance and its benefits have long outstripped its cost.

Now the catch I mentioned above.  Money and Banking textbooks begin with the notion that policy makers decide on money supply and execute through some sort of reserve ratio, either to gold or deposits with the central bank.  It isn’t that way and hasn’t been for a long time.  The money supply is limited only by the balance sheet capacity of the participating banks and the balance sheet capacity is limited by the amount of good collateral available.  The Eurodollar market is funded by something called a Repurchase Agreement or repo.  Essentially, a money market fund lends money, usually overnight, to a financial institution secured by collateral.  Before 2008, a great deal of the collateral was prime commercial paper, which included (e.g.,) mortgage obligations.  Since then,  only first world government bonds will do.  This is why German or Japanese bonds can have negative interest rates.  The banks do not hold them to earn interest, they hold them as collateral to meet the margin call when BofNY Mellon comes calling. For dollar loans, only US treasuries will do and there’s not enough of them to meet all the calls on them.  This is the dollar shortage I spoke of.  Triffin’s Dilemma is alive and well.

Chinese firms need dollars to buy raw materials today for delivery for dollars in the future.  For this, they go to Chinese banks who borrow short and lend long.  The key difference is that both the borrowing and the lending are in dollars not renminbi and the borrowing is usually off-shore. The big four Chinese banks used to have a surplus of dollar assets over liabilities (around $125B in 2013,) but have had a deficit since the end of 2018.  They have huge, mismatched short-term liabilities that they need to roll over continuously and their counterparties require US Treasuries as collateral.  The only source of this collateral is the US Treasury holdings of the PBC.  Were the collateral to be insufficient the banks would have to reduce their lending or, potentially, call loans in, which tends to lead to rolling defaults.

China was an economic basket case before the Wuhan Flu.  Debt to GDP ratios had skyrocketed and there was a great deal of over capacity in the system.  All numbers out of China are suspect, but the reported GDP growth rates were a function of growth in leverage not growth in productivity.  They had reached the Ponzi finance stage that Minsky described. They resemble Japan in the early 1990’s where demographic weakness and excessive leverage blew a bubble that the Japanese economy has not fully recovered from almost 30 years later.  The key difference is that Japan was rich and China is not and Japan had accumulated genuine capital through their innovation and reputation for quality.  China does not innovate, it steals, and has squandered what little reputation it had.

The rot in China is concentrated in the state-owned conglomerates.  These state-owned firms are hugely inefficient and there is massive over-capacity.  They have built empty cities, bridges to nowhere, railroads that don’t work, and hospitals that fall down.  Their products are shoddy where they are not actively dangerous.  The contaminated virus tests and PPE that fall apart when touched are recent examples of Chinese build quality.

These firms are owned by the state, but the returns go to highly placed state functionaries including high ranking military and intelligence officers.  They have become rich and powerful and are the constituency that Bloomberg spoke of when he said that Xi had to “satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.”   The common people of China are no concern to Xi, but he must look after those who maintain him in power.  This is the logic of tyranny.

Thus, to Xi’s dilemma.  To work off this over capacity and maintain his power, China must increase exports, since, as a centrally planned state, it cannot burn off the excess since doing so would lead to a crisis in the regime.  They cannot increase exports because there was excess capacity throughout the world in the period leading up to the crisis and that excess capacity has increased since.  Oil futures have never “sold” at a negative price before.

With all that has gone on, who will buy and who would buy from China?  If they cannot export, they face collapse since they are all highly leveraged, in dollars so the central bank cannot simply print money.  What they can do is horde US Treasuries and buy as many as they can to shore up the state-owned industries.

Were they to fail, the collapse would roll through China destroying the middle class and possibly leading to famine in the provinces.  Xi does not answer to the people, but he does require the military to fire on the crowd if necessary and the military must count on its soldiers, or at least its sergeants.  They backed the regime at Tiananmen Square, but it is not clear what they would do if called on to fire on a crowd when their people back home are starving.  Famine has been the cause the removal of the mandate of heaven from many a Chinese emperor and could well be again.

So, China is very weak and the biggest risk to the rest of the world is error, either on our part or theirs.  Regarding our part, we really must question how far China’s corruption is embedded in our political, business, and media institutions.  We must also question why our politicians seem hell bent on destroying the economy.  Stupidity and fear are usually sufficient explanations for folly, but at the very least we should question whose interests are being served and why.

For China’s part, the biggest risk is human error.  There is a logic to tyranny, but tyrants are human and humans are not always logical.  Tyrants also rule alone and there is very limited resilience in a centrally controlled economy.  Lastly, the Chinese are often degenerate gamblers.  As drink is to the Irish, gambling is to the Chinese.  Xi is a tyrant, no-one is likely to tell him the truth since the truth might get the messenger killed, rather they will tell him what they think he wants to hear and he has been gambling not knowing the true odds and, thus, making mistakes.  His handling of the virus has been disastrous and he is making a very bad mistake in Hong Kong.

I mentioned above that there are two sources of dollars for China, investment and the proceeds of merchandise trade.  Much of the foreign investments come into China through Hong Kong since, under the one country two systems agreement, you could get your investments out of Hong Kong.  The risk was seen to be much lower.  No more.  By crushing dissent in Hong Kong, China risks losing a large portion of their dollar funding.  What price ego?  If they lose their dollar funding, where will they get oil or any of the other things they would need to make war

So, while China seems strong, it is weak.  Its economy is very shaky and Xi’s gambling could wreck it and cost him his life.  The US appears weak but is strong and that strength is why the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency.  The US economy before the current stupidity was a function of two things, the first is productivity, the US worker continues to be the most productive in the world.  The second is demographics.  The US had an “echo-boom” as its baby boomers had children.  Europe didn’t, Japan and Korea didn’t, China put in the one-child policy and managed to produce a slow-moving demographic disaster.

Precipitous action by China either through dumping their treasuries or invading Taiwan would be disastrous for them and fatal for Xi. The world runs on dollars and the demand for them is still higher than supply.  The only risk to is our politicians and I truly believe they are also gambling not knowing the odds.  We must defend our liberty and, if we do, all will be well.

Noli Timere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we start hearing reports of entire dairy herds, refined for generations being sold for hamburger, of entire herds of pigs being slaughtered and buried, and as our chickens are not coming home at all but being destroyed at the peep stage, all because of strangle points in distribution, it is time to ask: Has any other nation ever done this to itself in history?  And has any nation done this to itself without an open civil war.

And I can’t imagine any other country — except those who are blindly following our example — doing this for so little reason.

Looking at democrat governors running around proclaiming only vote by mail in their state, it’s easy enough to know what they get out of it — i.e. the chance to never be voted out again. Dictatorship for life — but why does the president continue to go along with it? Even when he, himself, called attention to the facilitation of fraud by that method of voting. (Which among other issues, when combined with motor voter (the poison pill that Clinton introduced to the American system of elections) allows untold numbers of foreigners to vote themselves bread and circus at the American tax payer’s expense. This is I am sure what Newsom is counting on both with his “bailout” to illegals and his changing of his state election laws to all vote by mail.  Again, I am telling you, no state that goes all vote by mail ever elects anyone who challenges the left.  Btw, Pennsylvania has done that too, so Trump might already have lost the election.) And yet the president keeps going along with the insanity and listening to the “experts” even as Americans get more and more fed up. And frankly, if he doesn’t see it, he should pay attention. Because the media won’t report it it doesn’t mean it’s not happening, as he should know from his election.  No, I have no idea why he’s sleep walking through this and frankly I’ve considered everything from his being drugged to his germophobia interfering with his rational thought.  Yeah, I know the press also keeps feeding him polls that say how much people approve of being locked in forever, but does he not remember Hillary Clinton had the election walking away, according to the same polls.  Frankly, all that he has keeping him from falling into an abyss right now is that none of us wants the left-now-calling-themselves-socialists-but-really-communists to take full control.

Which brings us to what the left thinks it’s doing, besides stealing the election and taking down Orange Man Bad.

For some time now I’ve had the suspicion, not just from their politicians but from their artists that the left has absolutely no clue where food comes from, or how difficult it is to get it from the fields and barns to the average urbanite’s table.

It’s not just their continuous yapping about sustainable this and sustainable that, and local sourced whatevers (a fine thing in California, but in Colorado which is frozen six months a year, and arid the rest, local sourced is a luxury for very wealthy people.) It’s the fact that they routinely create worlds that make no sense whatsoever.

Having been indoctrinated into Marx and — most of them — raised at a level where they never had to worry about missing a rent payment or a utility bill, they literally seem to think of a job as an imposition, a form of exploitation.  Some dastardly “capitalist” takes their fine mind, honed in the best Gender Studies texts in the universe, and makes them spend eight hours a day proofing, or filing, or doing some other form of distasteful work.

In their minds, this is not necessary, and they’re not contributing to the prosperity of the nation.  No one is. If the farmers stopped farming, food would just magically appear in the grocery stores, or something.

We can see this in Occasional — very Occasional — Cortex’s insistence that we come out of lockdown and go into general strike, because of course the freedom to go to work is not freedom.  This is why the press keeps insisting that the demonstrations of Americans who want to go back to work are being “financed” by plutocrats on the right. This is why they think that the entire country can have a rent holiday for months and nothing bad will result. (Like, you know, the landlords having their properties foreclosed for lack of mortgage payment.)

And this is why they don’t understand supply chains, nor that meat packing plants cannot have “social distancing” inside them and continue functioning at maximum capacity, nor that when farmers slaughter vast parts of their herds, there is no coming back from that, because you cannot breed cows, or pigs, or hatch chickens fully grown.

I HOPE for the sake of America that we have enough “give” in the system that we won’t see outright FAMINES in the richest country the wold has ever seen.  I’m starting to have doubts, and I’m planning accordingly.  Plan you accordingly as well.

As for the rest of the world? You’re on your own, and I’m sorry to say you might not even have America to kick around anymore. Those fervid wishes you expressed for decades, that we’d be as socialist as you are?  Well, Americans do everything bigger and better, even ruining themselves, and I hope you enjoy it.

You won’t even get a lot of tourism from us, because our airlines cannot keep maintaining their entire — already very aged — fleet of airplanes and are already sending a lot of them into permanent retirement. Which will make flights more expensive because — something else the left never got — when something it’s scarce its price goes up.

I don’t think the left sees any of this, or if they do is dimly and in a positive — for them — light.  They think that a lot of us will die. In their fantasies, it is always their political opponents who die, not the vast numbers of useless, young, neurotic urban voters who support them.  They think to usher in the Green New Deal with no cows, and less flying, and–

And they’re insane.  They’re as insane as communists always are who think that destroying a functioning system will usher in THEIR revolution and paradise.

I recommend P. J. O’Rourke’s Eat The Rich as an introduction to economics because it’s funny and relatively painless.  However, I also recommend John Ringo’s The Last Centurion for an introduction to what happens when you forcibly stop America, the turbine of the world economy.

I will also remind all the democrats thinking the end game is to steal elections and this will hold forever that their experience is with a relatively prosperous, well-fed country where the citizens can travel to other states when your state has gone insane. (And alas bring their mentally deficient voting patterns, but that’s something else.)

When the country is hungry — this will be a very hard winter — and there are actual people in distress (not the phony baloney distress that the dems have used forever, gathered from messed up studies) well… I don’t think you’ll like what you get.

You see, you miscalculated. Europe could have almost a century of playing with socialism and not starving, because it was being protected and to an extent fed by America for all that time.  Fed? Well, sure. While we didn’t outright ship food to them, we produced such a vast surplus it was easy enough to feed the world at a discount rate.

Those wheels will come off.  And people are going to get angry. Really angry.  And sure, the younger ones might voice socialistic bullshit, but honestly, those will be the WEALTHY younger ones, who are going to be very shocked their Marxist bullshit shield doesn’t protect them.

As I said last week, I don’t know what comes next. I know what I’m seeing now, particularly with the president remaining stuck in how cautions we have to be as we re-open, is not filling me with confidence.  The stage is set for a sh*tshow where we could get anything.

Anything, that is, except socialism or communism for any long period of time.  Why? Because they can’t kill enough of us fast enough (though they’ll try.) And socialism and communism throughout the world — sorry guys — only survived for any length of time with America’s tacit support.  Yeah, I do know the calculations of the cold war. I lived through it. But the fact is the USSR would have starved and probably rebelled if it weren’t for us feeding them. Same for every other communist country.  We’ve enable China’s fascism by making them most favored nation.

Well, congratulations leftists. Above I should have mentioned that this is not exactly self-inflicted.  This was a masterly move in the cold civil war, whether or not at the behest of the left’s Chinese masters, who knows.

What we do know is that they’re owed congratulations.  They captured the brass ring and brought a command economy to America.

And we’re all — everyone of us — going to feel it this winter and over the years to come.  At a guess it will be ten years before we can take food in the stores for granted, let alone all the stuff that used to be made in China thanks to the left’s very real greed for profits and disdain for free men and women.

I’m hoping — and willing to work for — America wins this and the fifth column is the one who hurts most in the flames they created.

From now on, throw nothing away. I had two large bags for donation to Goodwill, but they won’t be going out. Most cloth is made in China.  I’m also looking at discount fabric on line.  If you can get books on things like how to make clothes, and anything else you might need.  Store what food you can. Don’t throw that busted computer away, but see what you can cannibalize, and if it can be made functional with a different operating system (though replace it now, while the parts are available.)

This winter is going to be very very bad.  Depending on how much our local dictators strangle the local economy, it would be earlier than winter.

You guys are smarter than the average bear. Find ways to prepare including essential medicine.  I’m engaged in a mini-campaign of making sure my family will survive this. The least of my efforts is the Victory garden, because I SUCK as a gardener.

Oh, yeah, if like me most of your money is made on line and by virtue of computer work: get batteries. I doubt power will go out completely, but extra batteries for your laptop can be charged and held ready if it becomes erratic.

And yes, in the middle of this I’m going to continue slogging out fiction (and articles) because that’s ultimately my best contribution to society.  And hell, people will need distraction.  So, tend your garden, make your bed. Take care of what you can. Prepare to survive and have those you love survive.  And keep perfecting whatever marketable skills you have.

Meanwhile stay aware of what is going on.  At some point I need programmers for a project, and it’s great that they’ll be unemployed and willing to work on spec, right (Spit.)  No, it’s not, but it might help us get out of this.

We will make it through this.  We will survive.  When the elections are massively rigged in November and the left’s spokeszombie or wicked Uncle Bernie win?  Well, the left will find out that hungry and angry people don’t roll over like a contented and fat populace does.  (And btw, I haven’t even mentioned what this is doing to health care, to trucking, to just about everything imaginable. We were sitting pretty to survive decoupling from China, but now we’ll be so screwed.)

Their imagined utopia won’t materialize.  They won’t like what comes next. Because after this the media will have lost all their power, and Americans will have seen what happens when you believe “experts” and “models.” They’ll have felt it.

And hey, chances are all of us will also be much leaner. (Wry.)  The Chavez diet plan works like a charm.

Be not afraid.  Prepare as well as you can — knowing my readers that will be about 120% more than needed — but don’t stay locked in fear and despondence.

The left is crowing all over this is their chance to institute their “plan” for the world.  But remember they don’t know where food (or anything else) comes from.  While all of us, if not in training or profession stand in solidarity with the sons of Martha. We know things must be done, beyond the consciousness raising session. And we’re not Chinese. Or Russians.

Make sure the poison pill they’re feeding us ends their illusions.  Stay alert for opportunities to do well and to change things: when the wheels come off there are great opportunities for smart and creative individuals.

They want to destroy the Republic. Don’t let them.

Sursum Corda. You are our best weapon.

 

Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn.

A short story of banishment and magical intrigues.

Cecily had been a lady-in-waiting. Exiled to Clearwater — for her health — after she angered Queen Blanche, she has nothing to do but wait.

Until an ambassador is sent there, for his health, and Cecily finds that the court intrigues reach farther than she had known they could.

I HAVE A STORY IN THIS. VERY SURPRISINGLY, MY SECOND EVER WORLD WOKE UP FOR IT. MAYBE THE TRILOGY WILL BE WRITTEN NEXT YEAR?

When Valor Must Hold

Fifteen tremendous authors. Fourteen extraordinary stories. One outstanding anthology.

It is a time of high adventure! A time for noble men and women to say “No!” to the evils that will befall their families and friends if they don’t rise to the task at hand. If their valor doesn’t hold, civilization will fall.

Fifteen authors have spun fourteen tales of hateful wizards, treacherous seas, and scheming foes. Of times when ancient evils roamed the Earth, looking for souls to claim, and dark prophecies foretold what would happen if the Evil Ones were allowed to succeed. This anthology has all of this and more.

When Valor Must Hold focuses on heroes worthy of facing such enemies. A tiny brownie stands up to a massive ogre. A mother races to protect her children. A hunter chases raiders. A guardian serves his king. Heroes lead forces into battle against overwhelming odds. There’s even a goblin trying to save his people by stealing dwarven rum.

Inside are fourteen fantastic stories of enemies testing the valor of heroes great and small. If their valor should fail, they will lose far more than their lives.

Will their swords shatter shields? Will their magic shine forth? Or will they see their homes and families perish when they fail? Step inside and find out!

 

 

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: SPADE

 

*For the previous chapters, please go here. These are posted first draft, as the brain dictates to the fingers which are remarkably stupid. Eventually it will be cleaned up and fixed just before page is made secret/taken down and the book is published. At that time I will take lists of typos or volunteers to proof read. For now, it’s written in a hurry, usually an hour before it goes up. And, let me remind you, it’s free – SAH*

Shadow (continued)

Albinia was not stupid, or at least no more stupid than anyone else.  At least from reading novels and listening to Mama’s stories of Mama’s own youth, Al thought she might be rather cleverer than the common run of people.

But right now all her belief in her excellent intellect amounted to nothing.  What a ridiculous situation to be in.

She recognized what the monster was, of course — any half trained witch would do so, and she  was a little more than half trained — he was a Gather.  Gathers were creatures created entirely by a spell, and formed of the nearest, most abundant material.  She should possibly be happy that the creature had been made of the pervasive coal smoke that permeated the city and not, say, from the equally pervasive stone used to make the buildings.  Or perhaps from people, she thought, as that too was abundant in London. She shivered.  She was not absolutely sure if Gathers would collect people, should they be directed, say, to the middle of a crowd.  She was sure, however, no people would survive such an experience.

Her arms aching, getting increasingly cold this high, where the wind blew with an extraordinary chill, she returned to her impossible predicament.  The problem with this is that, while she knew very well how to form a Gather, and therefore was absolutely capable of un-forming it, to dissolve this one meant to fall head first into London.  And die. There was no way in that short space she would have time to say a spell to break her fall.  But her arms hurt, where she held on to Lord Michael, and she was cold, and she was sure wherever the Gather was taking them it could be no good place.

Just as she thought that, she heard Lord Michael shouting, “Miss Blackley!”  As he spoke, he reached out his arms, and held her in turn. “You should not have held on to me. My family would have given you hospitality. There is–”

It occurred to Albinia, and what a time to think of it, that not only had she been very forward and rude in holding on to a man she barely knew but that he might very well think she was trying to trick him into marriage.  She had some idea that mama and her friends had tried such tricks when young, and even though she didn’t know much of society, she knew they were wrong.

“I couldn’t let you be taken alone. The creature is probably evil. And you’d saved me before,” she shouted back.  Her voice was not very loud, and he looked back at her, and she could see he was trying to make an attempt to understand.  Just as she thought this, she saw his lip twitch in amusement and didn’t know why.

“I thank you,” he said, his voice very formal.  But she could tell he was upset.

 

The Tower

Michael had never understood why people fell in love. It seemed an extraordinary thing to happen, that suddenly upended all your thinking and all your plans for the future. A very uncomfortable thing, too, since he couldn’t imagine marriage would be very comfortable, forever having to consider another person in your plans.  Bad enough that one had siblings whom one had to consider and plan for.

And of course he was not falling in love with Al–  Miss Blackley. For one, he barely knew her.  And for another, he wasn’t quite sure what falling in love was like. When Caroline had come back from her adventures in fairyland, it had all been about how Akakios gave her flutters in her stomach and made her mouth dry.  Michael had thought that it might be successfully treated with a purgative and some bleeding, but when he’d told Caroline that, she’d punched him.

However, now, being carried by a smoke Gather over the city of London — and what a spectacle it must be. He could almost hear the shouts from the people below — he realized that while he still did not have any intention to fall in love, he could almost understand why people did.

Not only was Al quite beautiful — well, maybe not conventionally beautiful, but he found her very pleasing to the eye — but also she was the bravest girl he’d met since his sister Caroline.  Ridiculous, of course. What did she think she could do to save him from someone who had sent this large a Gather was quite beyond him. And she must know, from the spelled boat, that he was quite a competent magician himself.

But of course she had not thought of that. She had simply charged in to protect him. Which was beyond stupid very endearing.  He held on tighter to her, her warmth welcome, and did a minor spell so he could speak without having to shout, and be heard too.  “I have no idea where it is taking us.”

“Nor I,” Al said. “Though I can’t believe something that broke into your brother’s house can have good intentions towards us.”

“No,” Michael agreed. “And it is quite stupid too. Because he must know that the moment he stepped away, my brother would be called there would be quite–”

At that moment he stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because everything must stop in the In Betweener.

He did not even know you could take any Gather through the In Between, and he held his breath — not that it made any difference, since you couldn’t breathe in the sheer nothing of the place, and hoped that the creature, such as it as, had enough purpose to be able to drag them through and to wherever it had come from.

This of course resolved the problem of how the smoke Gather had dared to break into the house of the prince consort, let alone how he intended to get away with it.

You could track people through the In Between. Unless where they landed was time dislocated or indeed a parallel universe, he would be found. Sooner, rather than later.

But the finding would take time.  And Michael had learned, long ago, that there was only one reason for someone to take him and delay pursuit, but know they could not evade it.  That reason was undoubtedly murder.

Oh, sure, there were times when kidnappers wanted money, but the son of a duke and brother of the future prince consort, from a family with extraordinarily high magic would be too high a prey for that. If all they wanted was money there must be far less dangerous people they could kidnap. And with more to give.

And also kidnappers would need to be reasonably sure they could extract money before the victim was found. No such thing here.

So the only reason they could have for kidnapping Michael in this fashion was because they wished to kill him, and perhaps disappear into the multi-verse before they could be traced.

The idea was obscene, and he felt his stomach clench in a ball of ice as he realized he’d brought Albinia, an innocent, into this perilous situation.

Just as he thought that they came out of the In Betweener, and the Gather was now taking very large strides in fog over the tops of a seemingly endless green forest.  In the far distance, he could see a stone tower, but in the fog he couldn’t even tell if it was a functional tower or just ruins.

Why would anyone want to kill him? People might have vendettas against his brothers, both very important people, or even against his father, though his father was vanished and officially dead. But why kill him?

The Gather was moving lower.

“Do you think we could survive the fall?” Al asked, showing she was in the same point in her thought.

He shook his head.  And then why they might want to kill him came to mind with a startling clarity.

He had never paid much attention to Seraphim’s job as the Royal Witchfinder.  The position entiled going to other worlds and rescuing people from where magic might be forbiden.  But Seraphim said onne had to be careful. Loathing magic per se was not a bad thing, if most people in the world were without magic. Because magic practicioners, given their immense advantage, could do very bad things indeed.  One of which was gather power through virgin sacrifice.  And those  sacrifices seemed to work better with a person of high birth.

The Gather was now at a point they could jump and perhaps even survive the experience.  Feeling cold all through, with a cold that had nothing to do with what appeared to be a pleasant, cool morning in this universe, he frantically assembled the spell that would drop the Gather.  As he clamped it on the creature, he had a feeling it would fail, which meant the magic making it was immense.

“Hold,” Al said, before he could pull the final twist that would cause the Gather to– well probably not to do much, given his insufficient power.  “I will help.”

On top of his she threw her magic, which he was surprised to find was quite powerful.

And then she pulled the piece holding the creature together.

It sounded exactly like a balloon out of which air had been let: a long prolongued whine of air excaping.  And then it came apart, suddenly, in a noxious smell of coal smoke.

And they were falling.

Michael fell to the branches of a tree, managing to shift position just enough to land solidly on his behind.  It rattled his brains, nonetheless, which must explain why the first thing he did, as soon as his head cleared was to look around and yell “Al, where are you?”

Negative Oil – by BGE

All sorts of impossible things happen all the damn time on Wall Street.  Negative interest rates? Pay for the privilege of lending money, crazy talk.   Well, right now you would pay Germany 0.436% per year for the privilege of lending them money for ten years.  There’s a good reason for this, but it seems mad.  On Monday, 20 April 2020 the price of oil, or to be accurate May 2020 WTI, went negative.  At one point, you would be paid $38 to take a barrel of oil off a desperate speculator.  How did this happen?  Well, there are real supply and demand reasons that prices are low — the lockdown, Saudi Arabia vs Russia – but the reason they went negative is that we are talking about paper oil not physical oil.

I’m not an oil guy, or a commodities guy, I’m a credit guy, but futures are ubiquitous in the markets.  When we speak of oil prices we are not speaking of what you pay to take possession of a barrel, we are talking about a benchmark futures contract price. Futures are financial derivatives that oblige the buyer to buy or sell some underlying asset at a predetermined price and date.  They can be contrasted with options, which are financial derivatives that give the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell.  There is a futures market for just about anything that is delivered in the future: corn, oil, pork bellies, stocks, bonds. Futures are standardized, trade on exchanges, and are regulated by the CFTC. There’s a thing called a Forward, which is like a future, but is traded over-the-counter with custom terms and conditions.

Futures are used by sellers (e.g., oil producers or farmers) to hedge the price of an underlying asset to prevent losses from a decrease in price.  They’re  used by buyers (e.g., airlines) to prevent losses from a future increase in price.  They’re used by investors (I’m going to call them investors since the distinction between investment and speculation is in the eye of the beholder,  like scholar) to speculate on the direction of prices, either up or down, using leverage.  If you ever “locked in a rate” on a home mortgage, you’ve basically entered into a futures contract (ok an option.)  Essentially, the hedger is transferring the future price risk to the speculator  This is a zero-sum financial transaction, but not a zero-sum social transaction, since both sides gain.  The hedger benefits from the locked in price and the speculator benefits from, or is damaged by, the volatility.

There are a couple of terms that you need to know.  The spot is the price of a fixed quantity of an asset delivered at a specific place, right now.  Backwardation is when the futures price of an asset is lower than the spot and is often a sign that investors expect the price to fall over time.  Contango, a word much loved by word nerds  is when the futures price is higher than the spot and can be a sign that investors expect prices to rise but is usually associated with the cost of carry (e.g., storage, spoilage.)  Markets tend to be in contango, but prices usually converge to the spot as the contracts approach expiration.

Contango can be weird.  It can cause a bet on rising oil prices into a loss, even though prices increase, if it is steep enough.  Not long ago, contango in oil was so severe that investing in the front month created a 15% monthly headwind.  Oil had to go up more than 15% for you to profit.  Some financial advisors will tell you to include a small commodities position to “hedge your life.”  Good advice, but the ETF’s available to the average person won’t work because of contango. Caveat emptor.  I’ll come back to this since it’s a contributor to the negative prices.

Last bits of background.  Most investors are not interested in delivering or receiving the underlying asset.  What they’re interested in is profiting on the changes in price. Thus, most contracts are closed before expiration, which is usually the third Friday of the month, but May 2020 WTI closed on Monday.   These contracts usually contain a provision to roll the contract forward.  Most investors buy on margin. That is, they use borrowed money.  The initial margin  can be only a few thousand dollars to control 1000 barrels of oil.  If the position starts to lose money, the broker will ask the investor for more money to cover the loss. If the investor doesn’t do so fast enough, the broker sells out the position and the investor has to make up any loss.  This is called the maintenance margin.  These, and the notions of limit up and limit down, which I won’t cover, are key things that make futures very volatile.  The position doesn’t have to move very much to cause large losses.

To oil. Most people think the price they see in the papers is the price of oil.  Nope, there is no “price of oil.”  Oil has different grades, different storage requirements, different everything.  A barrel of oil delivered in NY Harbor is different from a barrel of oil delivered in Bahrain.  A barrel of oil from the North Sea is very different from the sludge you get from Mexico and Venezuela.   What you see in the papers is the price of the “front-month” oil futures contract trading on the NY Mercantile Exchange for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate grade oil delivered on a specific date at Cushing, Oklahoma.  Phew. This is the US oil price you see in the papers. You might also see something called Brent Crude, which is the same sort of thing for North Sea oil.  There’s something called spot, but it isn’t very important to the markets. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) collects weekly spot and future prices from all over the world, so you can see what this means if you’re interested.

Demand for oil has collapsed because of the lockdown.  At the same time, OPEC has been breaking up and Saudi Arabia and Russia entered into a mutual destruction pact to increase production.  The conspiracy theory is they did it to wreck US production since the US becoming a net oil exporter is the most important strategic event since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  We don’t have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, we just have to be able to close it.  In any case, there’s oil sloshing about all over the place.  Tankers are sitting fully loaded  and Cushing, OK is about 2/3 full.  It’s very difficult to turn off an oil well and, if they have no place to put it, they’ll have to burn it off.

Let’s go back to two things from above.  First, most of the trading in oil is done by professionals who buy or sell the futures contracts themselves all day every day.  However, there are also Oil ETF’s, that allow an investor to buy into this market without being a professional.  They are derivatives of a derivative in fact.  Nothing wrong with this per se, but there had been a large flow of funds into these ETF’s by individuals and hedge funds.  A pro will hedge his position, but the ETF’s have tended to be one-way bets.  Second, these ETF’s tend to invest in the nearest date contract, in this case May 2020, which expired on Monday.

There are all sorts of monkeyshines around expiration dates as the traders try to shove the prices around.  In a leveraged trade small changes can lead to big pay-offs.  Some of that was in play here, but what we had  was what is called a “crowded trade” where there are too many people who have made the same bet.  If that bet goes wrong, you get a rush toward the exits and, occasionally you get the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire.

There were a lot of outstanding long-contracts and those holding them had to either take delivery or sell the equivalent amount of oil, (i.e., pay someone else to take it.)  There are few buyers of oil, that’s what dropping prices mean, so selling was difficult to impossible and the investors typically have no ability to take delivery – space in Cushing does no good to a trader in NY.   The pro’s knew this, so they shorted the contract, driving down the price and forcing the longs to sell at still lower price, which caused a spiral down in price.  You might have heard of a short squeeze, this is a long squeeze and contango gone wild.

At the end of the day none of this really matters. This was a problem in paper oil, not oil. Some hedge-funds lost money and some got wiped out, we’ll see over the next couple of days. But, Brent didn’t do this, shares in Exxon barely budged on the day and are up today and the June 2020 WTI contract is selling for about $15.   Once the lockdown ends and demand returns the storage issue will ease and this will become a Wall Street legend like the day the Hunt’s tried to corner the market or the Crash of ’87.  It does illustrate the only eternal Wall Street wisdom, no-one knows nothin, and is  an object lesson that you should always understand what you’re buying.

Caveat Emptor

 

 

 

 

Healthcare Charlie Foxtrot  by Scarlett Doc

Since social distancing interventions have been implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19, many industries have faced significant changes in the way they function.  Some businesses have been temporarily shuttered.  Others continue to function with work-from-home initiatives.  Still others remain open with significant operational changes.  While these changes have been implemented with the goal of ‘flattening the curve’ to limit impacts of the virus on our healthcare system, blanket expansion of these interventions into the healthcare system may be causing more harm than good.

Much like the rest of society, the healthcare system has been modified to shift emphasis to essential services, while limiting services deemed nonessential.  Many outpatient offices have closed or switched to tele-health visits exclusively, lab and imaging centers have stopped taking non-urgent appointments, and non-emergent surgeries have been cancelled or postponed.  As a healthcare worker whose social circle is dominated by other healthcare workers I have been privy to the impacts of these changes on a variety of patients, and the potential downstream effects are concerning.

For example, multiple cancer patients have had their post-chemotherapy tumor resections postponed until after the various ‘shut-down’ directives are lifted.  Prompt tumor resection following chemotherapy reduces chance of tumor recurrence and improves long term outcomes.  Delaying resection could prolong chemotherapy treatments – which result in immunosuppression in addition to multiple other side effects – and ultimately lead to increased risk of infection, worse outcomes, increased healthcare burden, and increased morbidity and mortality.  Patients presenting with lumps and bumps that may be cancer have had diagnostic biopsies postponed – early identification and treatment of cancer is vital to prevent spread of tumors to other organs.  For patients being discharged from the hospital after surgery, treatment for life-threatening illness, or psychiatric stabilization, locating appropriate follow up is more complicated now.  Many offices are not taking new patients, and those who are often offer only tele-health visits.  Close follow-up with monitoring of vital signs and at least a targeted physical exam is important to prevent complications and readmissions.

The patients falling in the uncertain land between routine follow up and emergent care are also encountering difficulty accessing appropriate care.  Uncomplicated injuries such as a broken arm or torn ligament can often be managed in person at an outpatient orthopedic or primary care office, and imaging can be done at an outpatient imaging center.  In states and counties with stay-at-home orders in place, these outpatient services can only be accessed in person with an order from an emergency physician.  As a result, other-wise healthy patients are being diverted to the emergency room, where they are more likely to be exposed to infections such as COVID-19.

If the emergency physician doesn’t place a referral for an orthopedist and imaging, patients are often left in the lurch of delayed care.  Non-life-threatening acute injuries, without appropriate and timely follow up can become chronic injuries that require more significant intervention when finally addressed, take longer to heal or heal incompletely, or can become complicated by infection.  This translates to increased morbidity, increased mortality, preventable complications and increased healthcare utilization.

For patients who can get in to see a provider for an orthopedic injury, many will require occupational or physical therapy to help restore function and prevent muscle atrophy.  Occupational and physical therapists are important not only for patients recovering from broken bones – their interventions can reduce pain and improve function for patients with chronic and soft tissue injuries, stroke and other neurological injuries, and patients recovering from surgery.  These types of therapy often require hands-on assessments and use of various tools (weights, resistance bands, balance balls, etc.) that are shared between patients.  Due to the high risk of infection and the non-emergent nature of the care, these therapy offices have almost entirely closed across the country.  While not immediately apparent, patients who don’t receive timely access to this follow up intervention can suffer from delayed restoration of function, increased morbidity, decline in quality of life, and an overall increased burden on the healthcare system.

While many patients receiving routine follow-up care may find themselves mildly inconvenienced by closed outpatient offices, there is a minority who are disproportionately affected.  Many effective medications require regular monitoring of labs to prevent adverse outcomes and help attain and maintain therapeutic levels of medications.  Clozaril, for example, requires lab draws as often as once a week.  It is an antipsychotic that, while very effective, can cause significant damage to the immune system.  Regular lab monitoring and strict reporting requirements have produced a system that closely monitors patients for this severe outcome and forces intervention if it develops.  Restrictions have been temporarily lifted to allow patients to fill their scripts without labs, but the system is there for a reason, just like monitoring guidelines for other drugs and illnesses exist for a reason – to prevent negative outcomes and catch problems before they land a patient in the emergency room.

In closing down healthcare indiscriminately, we have created delays in care that is known to reduce negative outcomes down the road.  Delays in non-emergent care place patients at risk for increased complications that can result in more office visits, more emergency room visits, decline in quality of life, and increased morbidity and mortality.  The appointments and surgeries that are being postponed will still be there when stay-at-home restrictions are lifted, in addition to the routine burden on the system.  These delays will catch up to us. The healthcare system moves at a constant, rapid pace, and we just stopped the factory for over a month.  A month of follow up appointments. A month of surgeries. A month of therapy appointments. A month of new but non-emergent injuries. A month of labs and imaging. A month of acute complications of chronic illnesses. A month trying to avoid overwhelming our system with one illness. I think we will find when things open again that instead of being overwhelmed with one illness, we will be overwhelmed with all of them.

In addition to delaying care, we are putting healthcare staff out of work.  Hospitals and offices can’t afford staff they aren’t using and therefore have been implementing furloughs, mandatory PTO, and letting staff go.  Hopefully those nurses, techs, CNAs, doctors, ARNPs, PAs, CRNAs, etc., will still be around when we need them, otherwise facilities will be even less equipped to accommodate the increased demand that will develop when we open again.

In sum, the effects of halting care for over a month will reverberate for years – first in the surge of appointments that will likely exceed non-emergent capacity, then more chronically, with the illnesses that worsened or the increased complications from surgeries, supportive treatments, and diagnostics withheld. I don’t know that the chronic effects will be as marked as the acute, but the longer this shut-down goes on, the worse it will be.

These outcomes could be mitigated if we opened up healthcare prudently.  Sure, keep the at-the-door screenings.  Continue to limit the number of visitors in the hospital and companions at appointments.  But also, take a page from grocery stores and reserve early morning appointments for elderly and immunocompromised patients who are most at risk for infection.  Transform our waiting rooms to resemble pediatric waiting rooms with separate areas for patients with possible communicable infections as opposed to patients coming in for routine follow-up care or orthopedic injuries.  Where this can’t be done effectively, modify outpatient schedules with specific times for ‘sick’ and ‘well’ visits.  Educate patients about appropriate use of masks, gloves, hand-washing, and hand-sanitizer, and make these available in the waiting area and throughout offices.  Continue to utilize tele-health visits for appointments that don’t require a physical exam, and employ medical device companies to outfit our patients who require regular monitoring of blood pressure for example with the appropriate equipment to monitor from home and communicate these values with their providers.  Put our physical therapists, occupational therapists, lab technicians and imaging technicians back to work, with extra time between appointments to clean equipment properly.

Shutting everything down comes at a future cost, but we also can’t resume business as usual.  Many of these operational changes will benefit patients not only in limiting transmission of COVID-19, but also influenza and other communicable diseases that are omnipresent.  We should have been doing these things before COVID-19, but we can’t go back, only forward.

 

 

I consider this a very unlikely scenario, but not impossible. What is the way back from, say, Venezuela?  Do they even remember how to be free?
A subtitle of this would be “Teach your children well.” If we we go down for the long count, we can only hope that our grand kids or great grand kids will fight where we didn’t and bring back America.

Something like this was the deep background of the DST world, before the scientific glam. Now, take heart, since I first wrote that under Clinton.  And we’re not — knocks on head — there yet.

Keep going.  This is a very scary possibility but about as unlikely as the Pie in the Sky one. Take no counsel of your fears.

Someone said the future is a boot stepping on a human face forever.  They omitted saying that the past is that too. Heinlein pointed out that misery and poverty is the natural state of the human race and the “good luck” respites come when the individual is given freedom. But they usually don’t last.

It started with Winnie the Flu, and looking around and wondering why everyone else had gone mad.  Shockingly even a lot of people who were smart and whom you’d have considered rational and freedom lovers went all in on the side of the lockdown, and swore it was all justified, even though the rules made no sense and most of them had nothing to do with disease.

Not only were the numbers visible to anyone and you didn’t need a mathematical genius to see the virus was nowhere as deadly as advertised — not in a first world country — there was the obvious insanity that the New York City subway continued running through this, New Yorker’s ability to travel was unimpaired, despite being a hot spot, but New Yorkers screamed at everyone wanting to re-open the economy and save us from famine. Or the fact that most large cities had policemen enforcing draconian locked-at-home measures, while the homeless roamed more freely than ever, congregating in empty sidewalks and parking lots and — how strange — still alive and unharmed.

BUT the few people who screamed about this were dismissed as “denialists.”  Apparently denialists of the end of the world.

And the government band played on.

And the two weeks turned into a month and a half to three months lockdown, destroying businesses, livelihoods, lives, and disrupting many supply chains including those for food. The fact people were confined in the house, watching TV 24/7 and that TV was non stop doom porn didn’t help.  It never occurred to anyone that if TV could dramatize everyone under 80 who died, it was because there were so few of them.  Instead people panicked.

Bizarre abilities were attributed to the virus, including of flying 17 feet and hanging suspended in the air for hours.  Like the original research that prompted the order on six feet distance, this should have the additional “in laboratory circumstances. And if humans breathed aerosol.”  While there’s water vapor in your breath, you don’t BREATH water particles large enough to have the virus in them. And short of a sneeze or something similar you don’t breath 17 feet out. But people believed this. And didn’t realize “virus” is a viral load so small it couldn’t infect anyone.

There were protests, but a lot of states clamped down on them, and as things reopened the protests died down.

And the virus returned in the fall, and the hype and panic started again. In a transparent bid to recrash the fragile rebuilding to win the elections and get power, the media servants of the left party started the “We’re all going to die” drum.  And people obeyed.

There was a “temporary” lockdown in November and in the all vote by mail the left party won a stunning victory that might or might not have more votes than logical or plausible.

But people were too scared, some of the virus, some of the already precarious conditions. Too busy trying to find food.

The unlocking in December was trusted-people first.  And in the aftermath — because the virus was so bad, you see — strict tracking of every citizen was instituted. Strict social credit too.

Want to keep a blog, or talk on your phone more than peer-to-peer one person at a time? Your social credit has to be perfect.

No one knows how many people died the winter of 20/21 or how many by famine and how many by bullet.  Many a hunter in the woods, accidentally uncovers a mass grave, but if he knows what’s good for him, he doesn’t talk, and when the police who track the phone he must carry later ask what he saw, if he knows what’s good for him, he saw nothing.  With a few years of staying silent, he might be trusted again.

And he has to be trusted. Everyone does. Otherwise buying necessities is impossible. They’re so scarce anyway.  And having a job is a privilege. Receiving your dole if you don’t work is a privilege too.

There are occasional rebellions, attacks on important people. Or at least that’s the rumor. But it’s never reported.

If you manage to kill someone important on camera, you just sealed a death warrant for everyone you know. And the viewers, if they’re smart, will forget.

Periodically, if the rulers sense something particularly unsettled, they might lock down an entire region. It’s always a “virus.”

After 2028 they stopped bothering with the elections.  We don’t know why power changes sometimes, only that the new face shows up on TV and nothing changes.

But we’re living. More or less.  Most people live.  We’re told people abroad aren’t that lucky.  of course, no one not cleared has gone abroad in a long time.

Maybe some day someone will rebel in the name of freedom again, but food is so scarce, and even talking of how things used to be will get your ration card pulled.

So, all we can do is dream.

 

Before I begin, I want to make clear you guys understand I consider this one and the next one the most unlikely scenarios.  Even more so than pie in the sky.  And that this one is almost impossible to write, because the possibilities for “where do we go next” are endless.  This one is not impossible, though.

I also want to point out, as always, that what we see is a combination of all of them, and varying WIDELY among states.

This one took me a long time to think through, so another thing I want to make clear is that once the rocket goes up for the boogaloo, EVERYTHING is on the table.  Everything?  Everything. From a complete break up of the US (though that will take time, because right now the population is too mixed) to a Napoleon figure who buys us a temporary respite and might actually form an “American Empire” depending on internal pressures at the time, and how bad the rest of the world is, to well… the other side of winning. Which is the last scenario, only in that one there’s no boog.

And whatever the result is, even if order is ever restored, you’re probably going to lose everyone who is now 55 and older in the next five years.  Both because we’re not really good to go running around the mountains with various weapons, and because we’re more susceptible to viruses and illnesses that always accompany war. (Always? Always. They’re a symptom of disruption and bad nutrition.)  BUT mostly because our life expectancy as humans hasn’t changed that much without more or less constant intervention. Remember Shakespeare was “very old” at a year older than I?  Yeah.  Without the thyroid meds, I’d — if still alive — now be unable to keep a coherent thought for more than two minutes. Frankly, I was already there, I just could force it, but it took a lot of effort.  A LOT.  And at any rate, I’d probably have died of a heart attack by now.

A lot of us have this sort of thing. It’s honestly not a big deal. It’s not a life-or-death thing if you can get one tiny, little, cheap pill a couple of times a day.  However, failing that, your life expectancy is markedly shorter. That will leave what comes after in the hands of people under that age.  Most of whom have no clue what the US or the Constitution mean, by design of the lefties.  Remember that.

So, with that — the third best option….

It was around June the rocket went up.  No one was quite sure what caused it, because it didn’t happen in JUST one place, but seemed to happen everywhere in the space of a week.

About half of the nation was open for business then, but there were lags, one of them being getting hospitals open again.  (Operating on a tight margin, a lot of them were unable to come back from the lock down anyway) another one being getting food to the stores regularly.  The glut of beef caused by the slaughtering of dairy herds that farmers had trouble feeding, led to a lack of milk, which in turn, started turning into a lack of meat, as the glut ran out.

Worse was the fact that the lock downs were increasingly crazy and inconsistent.  And that some states opened up, then closed down tight after ten new cases hit the hospital.

Someday when there is enough leisure and money somewhere to study the matter, someone will discover the true, first trigger to armed insurrection.

Was it when New Jersey, for the upteenth time blocked a protest and started arresting protestors?  Was it people protesting the closure of their local hospital being shot on by state guard in another state?  Was it the food riots in Chicago? Or the subway riots in New York City?

Figuring it out is more complicated because the media never reported these until it was everywhere at once.  People woke up one morning to find out the nearest large-ish city was burning, there were shots nearby, and large, angry mobs in the street, and your nearest highway was bound to be blocked.

They did the sane thing and hunkered down, this time for cause, turned on the TV — mostly showing governors assuring people everything was all right — and waited for things to calm down.

They didn’t.

As chaos deepened, everything descended to rumor and confusion.  As those who had seen these situations before warned, you’re never aware of how messy things will get, until you find yourself in the middle of it.  You can’t tell what a mob is, even if you happen to be on their side, and they’re likely to go for you or not…. on a minute’s decision.  All the crunchy cons, who dress like hippies, are as likely to get hit by a conservative armed group as are hard lefties who dress like hippies. It’s all on the look.

We are in the tenth year of the rebellion.  You’d think it would have burned out by now, but there is just enough coherence and order to keep food on the table — sort of — most places.

Yes, the US army has engaged, but no one is even sure on what side.  The answer is probably “on all”.  We believe they are trying, most of all, to restore peace, except there is very little left.  And a conventional army always has trouble with guerilla warfare.

Ordinary Americans still live, through this.  Those who can work from home, if home is in a safe place and they can find a market for their work.  And you remember how you hit the net during a snow storm, to find out what streets were safe to drive on? Same thing. Only it’s with gunfire and explosions as the risk.  Informal networks, both of neighborhood and on line also communicate when food is available and where.  You might even be able to find your local doctor, who is often operating way outside his specialty and with no materials but is better than nothing.

The possibility of driving to the grocery store and finding yourself in the middle of a pitched battle is always there.

Some small towns are fine, operating normally — as normally as it’s possible under this — but they are very careful whom they let in.  You have to be known or known to someone.  Big cities, not one is quite sure.  People still seem to be living among the burned out hulls of high rises, and there is even some sort of work going on.

There are reports of insane dictatorships in some states, and some parts of big cities, but no one knows for sure. It might be fiction.

“Journalists” and big media were the first casualties, either killed or simply ignored until they disappeared.  We won’t say they didn’t deserve it.

There are rumors of a force marching on Washington DC to capture it and make some sort of order. Some people say it is the US military itself. Other people… well, reports vary.

Orders are given periodically purporting to come from the government, but since everything comes through informal networks, it’s impossible to be sure.  We thought they had a network just for this?

This can’t go on forever.  Right now, what’s happening is people leaving places they feel are hostile to join either family or their ideological brethren.  That too is an order of sorts. The population is choosing territory.

But ideologies are confusing.  Apparently younger people never learned much of what the republic was founded on.  The one thing we fear is that this is lost forever.

Those of us who were science fiction fans when this started keep saying that at this point Starship Troopers is a best case scenario.

And it could be worse.