It's Monday morning here in March 2024 as the more typical temperatures have set in. I talked to someone who just got back from Florida and had to remind him that the weather has been overall so mild. Of course weather is fickle in Minnesota.
One thing that seems a constant is how MAGA stays in our faces. The new thing to hash over on this Monday is the "bloodbath" comment. Once again there are so many apologists out there for what the orange man says. These people know full well there is a scary aspect to Trump when he speaks this way. If society could just settle into a consensus over how the orange man is a truly bad person, we'd all be fine. We could move on. Wouldn't that be a tremendous blessing?
Of course it does not happen.
Of course it does not happen.
The underpinning
As is always the case, big money influences the tenor of the conversation. You might say there are puppetmasters. And so we have, in my educated view, the top one percent or even a fraction of the top one percent pulling strings and for what reason? It is clear to me.
The popular commentators are not going to come out and describe things the way they are. Glenn Beck will sit down with his microphone and spend three hours today trying to make the orange man look heroic and for his critics like Nancy Pelosi to look tremendously stupid. Stupid, vain, cowardly - I could go on about the characterizations offered by such people. It got old a long time ago.
The people in the stratosphere with their wealth know that Trump will seek maximum power as president. A prime focus for these people is the Federal Reserve. The financial media seems literally to scream continually about how the Fed needs to take interest rates lower again and quickly.
Background: The Internet has whittled down our attention span and made us impatient. Call it a reflection of "instant gratification." Failure to defer gratification is supposed to be a trait of poor people. But my, those in the rarefied air with their wealth simply must have rock-bottom interest rates at all times! It "juices" their short-term gains, pushes them to the next higher rung on the ladder. Which is what life has become for these people.
"Can't get enough."
Isn't this a defect that our Lord has instilled in us? Us sinful creatures? Does any one person really need a billion dollars? We used to think differently about these matters. Think about the days when the Peace Corps was launched.
I have no doubt that people are incentivized by the profit motive. But my point is that it has become too much, a matter of excess which we as sinful human beings have caved to. To illustrate, just back off a little and try to sensibly characterize Donald Trump as a national leader. He most surely is a leader, what with leading in polls for being in power again. It is most surely "in the cards."
I have friends who try to dismiss such talk. I don't know what they are really trying to tell me, that we shouldn't waste our thoughts continuing to try to react to Trump? They all smile. So if the fraction of the one percent gets its way, helps the orange man become president again, then sits back and watches as he literally seizes control of the Federal Reserve, you're OK with that?
The Fed is not a daily talk show topic. I assure you that its moves have tremendous consequences. Interest rates are the vehicle for trying to hold inflation down. Frankly we all ought to be troubled by inflation.
Remember 2008?
We can think back to 2008 and realize that the proper remedies were never implemented for the so-called "financial crisis." This may underlie the adversity we are now dealing with. We allowed the financial crisis to be "papered over." A skeptical David Stockman referred to the crisis as "the Blackberry crisis."
And where did all the free market advocates of Wall Street turn when they began panicking with their "Blackberries?" Well where do you suppose? The government? Well yes. Well, who else was going to help them?
As a true free market advocate I would have liked to see things play out the way they should have. Put simply, let the chips fall where they may. Free market capitalism, right? But the big operators, the heavy-hitters, were not good with that. They did realize there had to be a sacrificial lamb, so it was Lehman Brothers. Related, Bernie Madoff was revealed to be a scoundrel and so the heavy-hitters trotted that all out to try to prove that Wall Street really is a wholly ethical place.
And now the richest element is trying to get Donald Trump through the obstacle course of getting back his seat in power. They don't care if he supports Russia and Putin. Their eye is on the prize of Trump taking over "the Fed." Get the short-term heroin fix of lowest possible interest rates again.
"QE" was seen as an aberration at the start. Holy cow, it has turned into the norm.
Interest rates exist for a reason.
Commentators in Trump's first term speculated on whether Trump could indeed influence or take over "the Fed." Because they went back and forth on this, we deduced that there was a possibility. Powell could be terminated "for cause." Well you know what Trump could do with that little detail. He'd say the Fed is ruining the country with its policies. Therefore, "cause."
A dictator would want control of everything. And if there's resistance, a "bloodbath?" That is what we are all pondering this morning in America. And the Glenn Becks of the world, Fox News et al. are so predictably quick to try to turn the barge around with Trump, to make his statements look defensible. And just as important for them, to make Trump's critics look like absolute hopeless fools. On and on it goes.
And my friends seem to think it's pointless to bring it up. Yet many of them would vote for Trump again. Our congressperson Michelle Fischbach will probably not let up in her support for the truly wannabe dictator. It appears she would be good with a violent overthrow of the U.S. government. So bizarre, because for most of my life, political conservatives had a defining quality of wanting American life to be peaceful and settled. This was even if they didn't get their way all the time. Now they're good with the "bloodbath" comment.
Isn't now the time for the likes of Fox News to start showing some intelligent reservations? The GOP had the chance to simply nominate Nikki Haley. This should have been "her time." Maybe she'd lose in the general but she'd emerge as the prime conservative spokesperson. Instead we'll have Trump who could inspire his followers to commit heaven-knows-what.
Trump wants Liz Cheney in prison. And we have learned to never bet against Trump. The very richest Americans are working in subtle ways to bring him back, because of what a return to "QE" would mean for their fortunes.
How much money is enough? God created us with such human limitations, vanity, short-sightedness and greed. And we all more or less follow along now. Well I'm not. But many local people would dismiss me out of hand. Hope you enjoy seeing your grocery bills doubled.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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