Is Blogging On the State of Affairs A Bad Idea Now?

This seems like a time when keeping your head down and your mouth shut is advisable. There are epic things going on with markets, society, and human cohesion in general, however it is almost impossible to comment on any of them while remaining apolitical or PC. So just some tidbits: Europe and Japan have destroyed their bond markets and real capital formation by those governments via institutional-scale debt purchases will not happen at these paltry rates. In Europe, the move to digitize money in order to trap it in the banking system is moving forward, along with designs on capital controls in order to keep it from fleeing the continent.

Obviously, when policymakers move their aims from trying to stimulate and otherwise encourage base economic growth along with new capital formation over to merely trying to trap and hang-onto existing capital, they are playing a very short term game that will lead to economic decline longer term. But that is what they are doing and the ECB has been pushing the Euro’s strength based on this argument that digitization will give it support. All I will say regarding European politics here is that a green new world agenda is playing significantly into directing capital resources at a time when they should be directed towards supporting solvency and budgetary adequacy. The IMF is inundated with applications from countries asking for relief. All this still points to an eventual flight from government assets to private ones, particularly to the stock market and real assets as investors increasingly lose confidence in governments. However, the imposition of capital controls, among other factors, may delay and inhibit this.

The economic lockdown and its ongoing social aftermath have caused supply chain disruptions resulting in shortages in food and other commodities. This will lead to more commodity inflation. As for what next year holds, there are too many macro uncertainties now to say. Where I live, one of the most obvious trends on the street is the horde of people buying guns now and their distrust of state government, social institutions, and of other people. They are taking personal responsibility for the safety and security of their families and property. Rather than attempt to comment on the general state of our society now, I quote the opening of Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’. He reminds us that no matter what our problems are, it is better that we try to work them out together peaceably and voluntarily rather than give away our powers and liberties to government so that it can do that ‘for us’ – by force:

“SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil ….

….For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man
would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.”

Most people in our society still prefer to work things out and to make their station in life in a free market economic system where all transactions and employment arrangements are bilaterally voluntary. If those people embedded within all the fractionated grievance groups in our society could find one another and start to dialog, with the agreement to really try to understand and to never castigate the other, that would not be a bad thing.