Even Pat Buchanan starting to feel the impending financial doom


Posted On: Saturday - May 1st 2021 1:25PM MST
In Topics: 
  Pundits  Preppers and Prepping  Economics  US Feral Government  Inflation  Zhou Bai Dien



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I have a lot of respect for Pat Buchanan as a former Americans-first politician, a statesman, a counter-stupidity talking head, and a good writer. As a pundit that still works with a mid-20th century mindset (OK, sometimes late-20th century), he has me not reading his columns regularly anymore. Peak Stupidity wished him well on his 80th birthday 2 1/2 years back, but we also pointed out (earlier post) that his optimism and continued belief in political civility in America show an ancient mindset, that is unfortunately not "viable". From the 2nd link above:
He writes about political strategy as in how many votes "we" get if this happens, and what the Senate rules are with the "nuclear option" having been set up by the D's, and it's gonna work against them .. blah blah. OK, you DO know how all this works better than a lowly Peak Stupidity blogger, Pat, but listen, things are not as civil politically as you are used to, and they are quickly getting even less civil. The rules don't matter to the cntrl-left, and most of the people we think are on our side are not on our side. I have not seen ANY political legislation/ruling/whatever go in the RIGHT direction since the EARLY 1990's, Pat! The elite have been getting what they want, one way or another.
His latest column, at least as I pre-judged from the title, may have me reading again. In Biden Bets the Farm—To "Change the World", Mr. Buchanan seems to see the financial doom that the Bai Dien Administration is trying to accelerate (not necessarily purposefully, as he's just a senile puppet) with another FDR/LBJ style projectile vomit of Socialist spending.
After enacting a COVID-19 relief package of $1.9 trillion in March without a single Republican vote in Congress, Biden proposed a jobs and infrastructure program of $2.2 trillion. He has now added an "American Families Plan" of another $1.8 trillion.
Holy cow, that's $5.9 Trillion. They - after all, it's Congress who passes it - are spending Trillions in the way that only a few decades ago 10's of Billions were spent. (That the total New Deal spending of 9 decades back was $50 Billion or so tells us how far the US $ has fallen.) Mr. Buchanan compares Biden to the 2 biggest Socialist Presidents of last century:
While Biden's $6 trillion in total spending is spread over several years, it represents a claim on the nation's wealth equal to 30% of GDP—a figure comparable to FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society.
Oh, it's not just over one year, though, so ... Sure, but this is additional spending, above the always about 1/4 extra-outlays-to-income budget will run. (We just showed the '19 budget pies this past Tuesday.) This adding of another 6 Trillion bucks on top is getting even the usually staid Pat Buchanan worried. If Buchanan sees doom for the country, I should already have gotten into my vehicle with the bug-out bag!
One hundred days into his term, our oldest president is seeking to become a transformative progressive president in the FDR mold, and he is betting his presidency he can bring it off.
Later in the column, Mr. Buchanan reverts to his usual self and relates the prospect of this damaging the midterm elections for the Blue-squad, as per LBJ* in 1966, then many more Red-squad Presidents were elected, etc., etc.,.. No man, this is not 1966, 1986, or 2006. Things don't work like this anymore. The GOP doesn't fight, they are too scared of being called names to get elected on principles, and they will be cheated against anyway. This political stuff is about over, Pat.

I put a comment in under a Steve Sailer post today to ask Ron Unz to think about including a prepper columnist on his well-working site. The chance of Mr. Unz reading (especially my stuff!) is only 10%, I'd guess. I'd really like to see some of that on his site due to my liking the commenting system so much. If Ron Unz can host the total Mao-sack-hanging Commie Godfree Roberts, I don't think the hosting of a prepper or two is too much to ask.

Pat Buchanan doesn't cut it as a prepper, but he sure comes off a bit worried in this column:
During the runoff races for the two Senate seats in Georgia last year, Sen. Chuck Schumer blurted, "Now we take Georgia, then we change the world."

That is an apt description of what is going on. Biden, Schumer and Nancy Pelosi mean to use the window of opportunity their slimmest of margins on Capitol Hill have provided them—to "change the world."
What will this change consist of? There'll be much higher taxes (skipping up a paragraph in the column):
Biden proposes to raise the U.S. corporate tax by one-third to 28%, raise the personal income tax rate to 40%, double the tax on capital gains to 40%, and raise death and inheritance taxes to effect a greater equality of wealth in America.
I know, I know, it'll hit the big guys that need to be hit. It's not really just who gets hit. The money has to still come from somewhere. Inflation is about to get much more serious. It's numbers like $6,000,000,000,000 EXTRA that get me into a financial planning panic.

Really, I've done well more than I believe 95% of middle-class Americans have done to be prepared, but, I don't know - it's time to up our game here.

Yeah, it'd make me feel a lot better to read a regular prepper columnist and good commenters along with it. Do you read here, Ron Unz? Forget everything I said about you. All is forgiven.


* This was, in fact, very much like one Steve Sailer post (can't find them easily) of a few weeks back, making me wonder if Pat reads Steve. Mr. Sailer had the same attitude of which I tried to disabuse him of, that it's all just the continuing politics of the nation ... goes back and forth ... all is well!

Comments:
Moderator
Saturday - May 8th 2021 6:28AM MST
PS: Alarmist, I just came across a 2 week old Audacious Epigone thread on the vaccine and enjoyed reading the comments - especially our Mr. Smith's, ones from "Barack's secret account..." and J.R. Ewing.

Just as with lots of A.E.'s posts, I hate to tell him all the time, but I think most polling data is pretty worthless for making decisions on or even discussing things. Upon reading that interesting whole thread, I noticed that only a handful of comments of the well over 100 referenced the bar graph at all.

I am very surprised at AnotherDad's being so vehement about the vax. That JSOM guy, well, yeah, he's a hothead, but he's on our side (says he invented the "face diaper" term, so I give him credit for that). It's guys that come across so, so knowledgable that can't come up with simple arguments against common sense, like "That would be Telling" that do set off my sense that they are trolling. Is he an epidemiologist or does he just play one on the internet. I never got him to even admit that it might not be the best decision for even a healthy 25 y/o woman who may get pregnant some time soon to skip the jab. Yeah "That would be trolling."
The Alarmist
Monday - May 3rd 2021 9:54AM MST
PS

Thanks for the shout out. It’s a shame iSteve lives in such fear. I’ve cheated death on at least seven occasions, and I still get my comorbid older ass out and shake hands and hug friends and family ... if they are up to it. As for praising the so-called vaxxes, only idiots or those under mass hysteria would willingly take a relatively untested technology on an experimental emergency authorisation from companies that had no prior approved examples of that technology because it killed too many animals upon which it was tested.

JSOM can be a bit of a hot-head from time to time, but I don’t find his comments offensive, even when he says old folks like me can snuff it. The real troll in iSteve’s and other threads is “ “That Would be Telling.”
Moderator
Monday - May 3rd 2021 5:29AM MST
PS: Mr. Anon and Alarmist, I appreciated both of the two of you making great comments on that Steve Sailer vaccine thread. I was going to write nothing, but I just got pissed after a while, and I did want to get that new term of mine, Ronatard, out there.

I mean, I figure Mr. Sailer was just sick of "Je Suis Omar Marteen", who does tend to just mash the TROLL tag with abandon and is a bit unreasonable. Mr. Sailer's use of that silliness about being scared of the needle is just some trolling of his own, I reckon.

I was surprised by some of the commenters, such as AnotherDad. It's none of that guy's business whether I take a jab of something experimental, when, after all, I've been exposed to people from all over the world since forever and wore no face mask until I was forced to early last summer.
Mr. Anon
Sunday - May 2nd 2021 11:29PM MST
PS

"Mr. Anon, with regard to the bureaucrats I used to deal with at a very large company I worked for, I'd tell people "we'd come out way ahead if we paid their salaries, plus enough quarters for them to play pool at the pool hall all day instead of having them here holding everything up all the time.""

Where I work, they put the kibosh on employees spending their work days sleeping, managing their retirement portfolios or their side businesses, or doing their extra-curricular acitivities like scouting. A pity, as now those sorts of people "work" - which inevitably means getting in your way.

"If we just burned the cash, wouldn't that be non-inflationary, though?"

Yeah, maybe. I may have gotten that wrong. I'm not an economist - I work for a living.
Moderator
Sunday - May 2nd 2021 6:50PM MST
PS: JR Ewing, welcome to this blog, and thanks for the comment. All my 3rd-party votes over the years haven't done squat either. We are not voting our way out of this mess.

Mr. Blanc, yeah, that's one of the lines that still shows that old mentality of Mr. Buchanan's - "betting his Presidency". These people are well beyond thinking of these small details. They (at least figure they) have it wrapped up, as if they were Chairman Mao and his Long March crowd in 1949.

Mr. Anon, with regard to the bureaucrats I used to deal with at a very large company I worked for, I'd tell people "we'd come out way ahead if we paid their salaries, plus enough quarters for them to play pool at the pool hall all day instead of having them here holding everything up all the time."

If we just burned the cash, wouldn't that be non-inflationary, though?
Mr. Anon
Sunday - May 2nd 2021 1:08PM MST
PS

"Yes, the "politics as usual" thing is very off-putting. Even more so because so many voters believe in it too."

It's a failing of the Boomers and the Silents (like Mr. Buchanan) and the "Greatest Generation" before them, although they're mostly all gone now.

Boomers can still watch "Band of Brothers" and whatever other Greatest Generation War-Porn that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks concoct, and think "what we need are men like that again", oblivious to the fact that they happily villify men like that for every other thing they ever did other than fighting in WWII - for being racist, sexist, homophobic, yada, yada, yada. They don't realize that the America, and the Americans, portrayed in those nostalgic teleplays are dead and gone. That America no more exists than does the Assyrian Empire or the Viking Colong in Vinland. It's over. Let it go.

But Boomers will never cotton on to this. Some of the Xers are more aware of this reality.
Mr. Anon
Sunday - May 2nd 2021 1:00PM MST
PS

"Mr. Buchanan seems to see the financial doom that the Bai Dien Administration is trying to accelerate (not necessarily purposefully, as he's just a senile puppet) with another FDR/LBJ style projectile vomit of Socialist spending."

I liked that: "projectile vomit of socialist spending". Quite apt.

It isn't just the amount of money their conujuring out of thin air and spending. It's what they intend to spend it on: subsidies to useless parasites (college students), turning middle-class Americans into welfare-state clients, etc. For the most part, it would be better if the government just piled up bales of cash and lit them on fire. The inflationary effect would be just as bad, but they would do less damage to society.
MBlanc46
Sunday - May 2nd 2021 9:24AM MST
PS Betting his presidency? That seems to presuppose that the Dems believe that things could actually go wrong. My guess is that they believe no such thing. For them, the Millennium has come, They have finally achieved complete, permanent power in DC*. For them the future will be one triumph after another. A multicultural paradise on Earth has finally been established. Peace, harmony, and prosperity will reign forever (as soon as the evil white nationalists are seen off). Amen.

* That power soon will allow them to take power in the states, as well. Don’t think that you’re going to be exempt just because you live in Wyoming.
JR Ewing
Sunday - May 2nd 2021 7:18AM MST
PS

Yes, the "politics as usual" thing is very off-putting. Even more so because so many voters believe in it too.

"Well, the party I usually like did this one thing I don't like, so I guess my only alternative is to vote for the other guys who will do these thousands of things I don't like, but there is no other choice. It's their turn. That's just the way this works and it's my duty to vote for one or the other. Then I can vote for my guy again in four years."
Dieter Kief
Saturday - May 1st 2021 6:08PM MST
PS The Dollar and the Euro - is this a race to the bottom or both currencies?
The Dollar lost lately to the Euro - that might be a little deceptive for Europeans.

Does somebody around here know a cold and dense summary/overview (with a few info-graphics too) of the actual monetary situation with regard to Asia, Europe and the US?
Moderator
Saturday - May 1st 2021 3:51PM MST
PS: Yeah, and that expression used to be "a billion here, a billion there ... pretty soon ...." Inflation, even in the field of cynical sayings.

I say we peg the US dollar to the Zimbabwe dollar now, before it's too late!

Yes, we have to buy something, but I have a hell of a time committing to a location, so far. We're working on it. Thanks for the link, Alarmist.
The Alarmist
Saturday - May 1st 2021 3:17PM MST
PS

A trillion here, a trillion there ... soon, you’re talking phoney money. How long before the USD and the old Zimbabwe dollar achieve parity?

If you have any fiat in the bank, now is the time to buy a small farm ... if you can still find one. Uruguay is looking good ... why do you think I watch all those hot spanish-speaking weather babes?

A good read: https://www.theorganicprepper.com

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