A war in Eastern Europe identified difficulties and vulnerabilities that led to shortages across a slew of industries. From natural gas, to oil, to food, to water, to supply chain constrictions which led to difficulties acquiring microchips, which contributed to further constrictions, and so on, and so on, etc., etc. – a true snowball. Then there’s the issues with getting access to fertilizer inputs, which saw exports being halted even as far back as fall of 2021; before any of that war stuff kicked-off.
Do you remember?
Pepperidge Farms Remembers…
My point is…how many of these issues have been met with solutions? Any?
Natural gas saw the NordStream pipeline getting sabotaged, so no, that’s not a solution. We got lucky with a flood of natgas from the drilling operations in western New Mexican , so that’s good. We’ve seen a radical walk-back in countries’, companies’, and civilians’ positions on ESG virtue-signaling with the admission of natgas and nuclear to be included as “green energies” after claiming that they were the opposite. So at least there’s that. But how many projects have been started to produce more natgas or build modern nuclear power plants? I haven’t seen any.
How many solutions have we seen arise for solving the trade congestion issues? While the sector has undoubtedly done a stellar job of working out the kinks, we’re certainly not out of the woods yet. With the tensions between China & the USA over matters of chip production and the Taiwan territory only continuing to slowly ratchet-up, the future for trade looks destined for a reshuffling and rebalancing. Meaning there’s a likelihood for more congestive cycles in the future.
What about the fertilizers? Farmers can make-do with temporary limited fertilizer supplies for about a year or two, as they can benefit from some residue of the fertilizers laid the year prior… with potential to stretch it out a second year (maybe?). We’ve seen good developments in the planning to provide solutions for fertilizer, but no triggers have been pulled yet.
What has been done rapidly? What has been done unilaterally in response to difficulties afforded these last few years?
The Only Thing They Care About Is Money
Financialization… and…money printing.
Zero real solutions have been acted upon, aside from printing a historic amount of dollars, and then rushing to the aid of banks that had blunders in decision-making because they bet that the Federal Reserve wouldn’t hike as high, or as fast, as they have. As if the Bank of England situation wasn’t bad enough a few months ago. All because the market and the mob cannot handle letting fools and failures get their just rewards. When you fail in nature, you tend to experience some pain.
What has been the most recent financialization? The Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) allows for banks, credit unions, and savings associations to receive a 12 month loan by pledging treasuries, agency debt, or MBSs. There is the option for additional forms of assets to be pledged but would require approval. The problem?
This program, as identified by Senator Lankford, has created an incentive mechanism that results in the migration of funds from smaller local and community banks into “The Big Four”; JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BoA), Citibank (Citi), and Wells Fargo (Wells); of which accounted for 50% of all US banking assets in 2022.
So, in the interest of preventing contagion amongst the banking system and in the interest of ‘preventing a bank run,’ the unproductive class have produced a program that simply encourages a bank run towards the Big Four instead. Rather than a bank run that results in funds being withdrawn and held in-hand in the form of cash, or redistributed to any bank of the individual’s choosing, a magnet has been placed squarely in the laps of The Big Four. Resulting in a further consolidation of power into these institutions, that have been deemed ‘too big to fail,’ which presents many issues for the consumer in the long run. While this is a boon to those companies and individuals that saw their business capabilities hindered for a brief time, I’m afraid this will prove to be a massive failure in the long-run. The kind of failure that will be recounted on historical documentaries many years and decades into the future.
This is the kind of incentive mechanism that I detailed in my last substack, titled “The Real American Conspiracy: Stupidity & Greed, A True Idiocracy” (which I was lucky enough to have featured with my friends over at Bombthrower.com as well as ZeroHedge). We are dealing with a system that is moving to defend its seat(s) of power rather than work with the innovative solutions that may disrupt the way things are done currently, which would provide boons to efficiency, productivity, and value in exchange for such disruptions.
Solutions-Focused Execution
We have a lot of issues coming to a head here… and unfortunately the reality of the situation is that we have to move to attack these problems with solutions all at once. We have to start building nuclear reactors and increase access to natgas with the aim of providing reliable and cheap energy. We have the moves to begin producing more fertilizers domestically (in America), but that’s only a band-aid, we need more farmers attempting the regenerative agriculture scheme as devised by David Montgomery. We need a rethink of the American education system, which is failing to produce children of quality critical-thinking capabilities and skills. Of which develop into individuals that only seem capable of running to “Daddy Government” to fix their problems and coddle them from risk or danger. We need more young men and women going into trade schools so that we can develop the solutions. We need to stop being lazy and attempt to actually understand the policies that our elected politicians claim. We need to hold these individuals accountable for not keeping their word. And we for damn sure need to start punishing bankers that do stupid sh*t with taxpaying citizens’ money.
And lastly, we need more of everybody to be taking accountability for their livelihood and their well-being. We have a population of radically unhealthy individuals; over 30% of the population is diabetic, with massive percentages of individuals hooked on SSRIs, anti-anxiety, and ADD/ADHD medications, with continually worsening outlooks on the other chronic metabolic syndromes and diseases such as heart disease.
Each and every one of us can do our part to bring these solutions to the forefront. Many of us are already playing a role in the sectors that can produce the solutions, but this will not be enough. We each need to take charge in seeking education in the areas of our lives where we know we need change or improvement. Even if it’s only 10-15 minutes of reading on an area of your life you want to improve, those are minutes better spent than doom-scrolling the feeds of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter. Or, to put it another way, every dollar and every minute dedicated to your own improvement is an investment in yourself and your capabilities which has a much greater ROI than the very same spent on consuming alcohol on a regular basis.
I personally have taken up the mantle, after many years of (likely foolish) reluctance, I have started up my own coaching & personal training business. It’s been difficult and wildly uncomfortable but it is fascinatingly rewarding. This is the heart of American Spirit. Daring to swing for holistic happiness is the exceptionalism that so many of my peers in the United States have forgotten. This is the land of opportunity. We each get the privilege and the opportunity to play a role in righting the path that this population is set on currently. What’s sad is that our resident citizens have lost sight of this…thank God for our immigrant population. They are the strongest portion of the United States that actually stand to defend the real freedom and opportunity that our fine country provides.
Chase down your passions, become capable, become valuable, become strong, become wealthy. Every individual that produces their own wealth in America strengthens America as a whole.
— We are not the boats that rise & fall with the tide. We are the tide. Lifting those around us is merely a side-effect of our own success. —