Realism and Romance

No, this is not about Valentine's Day.  A couple of days ago, Monty Pelerin talked about the change that is coming.  He linked to Simon Black's sovereignman.com, talking about the reality of capital controls.  Read it.  Skip what I have to say if you need more time.  Read it.

I didn't watch the SOTU speech because, as my nephew likes to point out, I am a Bad Man.  Look, I was really upset, like everyone else, back on September 11, 2001.  I made excuses for Bush, just like people are making excuses for Obama now.  I get it that we are on opposing political teams -- Cowboys versus Redskins.  But it is time for all of us to forget the romantic version of America and open our eyes to reality. 

Call it conspiracy.  Call it incompetence.  Call it whatever you want, the end result is that we cannot believe what we are being told.  The inflation rate is being doctored.  We all know that food prices in particular are skyrocketing -- not easing up, shooting up.  Packaging cannot disguise it at this point.  Our currency is being devalued at an accelerating rate.  The only reason it isn't looking worse is because the same thing is happening in Europe and now Japan has upped the ante even more.

Obama was re-elected because, despite his obvious corruption, lust for power, and incompetence, a whole lot of people in this country are desperate, desperate enough to turn their lives over to a dictator, if it comes to that, in order to eat and pay their bills.  The mass of Americans is not so different from the mass of Germans in the 1920s and '30s.  Please don't think I'm equating Obama or Clinton or Bush with Hitler.  These dolts are more like the Weimar Republic leadership that set the stage for Hitler.  That it was and is unintentional doesn't change the outcome.  And part of it is intentional.  These guys are delusional enough to think that more government control and the centralization of power will work out differently this time because they are different.  They are not.  It won't.   

Fernandez in Argentina is not going to start killing off Jews or some other pressure-relieving minority, but there is someone out there plotting, I have no doubt, to overthrow her regime, and that person could well be just such a dictator.  Moreover, there is no New America rising to thwart that.  Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- even if they manage to keep their economies on course -- are not about to become the new arbiters of liberty and justice.  The Middle East is descending into darkness and chaos, and there is nothing we can or are willing to do about it.  We let our own ambassador be brutally murdered, and our "leaders" respond with, "What difference does it make?"

I cannot imagine how Japan avoids a total collapse for more than a few months -- though the collusion of the various central banks may keep it at bay longer.  Much of Europe is spiraling down into an Islamic dark age as well as an economic collapse.  There is already a large segment of the U.S. population begging for the kind of destructive totalitarian measures Obama is pushing.  I thought the polls were manipulated prior to the election -- apparently they weren't.  We can no longer trust that a majority of our fellow citizens will come to their senses.  Don't forget that, back when we were a more sensible and virtuous people, Americans elected the odious, corrupt, and incompetent socialist Roosevelt four times.  

Reality.