As We Go Marching

“Most activists and survivors... know the loudest, most hyperbolic garbage…” ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ March 6, 2024  |  [Sign Up]( As We Go Marching “Most activists and survivors... know the loudest, most hyperbolic garbage will rise to the top if left unchecked. Enough people in charge either don't understand, don't care, or are part of the problem.” ― Zoe Quinn [Special Reminder: In case you missed our late-day announcement yesterday, [The Real October Surprise]( The Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge [here](. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, please keep an eye out for your new benefits.] Dear Reader, March 6, 2024 – Yesterday, members of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize. The administration is appealing. Maybe it won’t happen. But the idea of unionizing is in vogue.  As we noted on numerous occasions, 2023 was the “year of the strike”... most notably in Hollywood (writers and actors), the car biz (United Auto Workers), and in the health industry (Kaiser Permanente, Walgreens, and CVS). Keeping score, sociologists at Cornell University recorded a record-topping 466 strikes and a handful of work stoppages last year nationwide. More than half a million people walked out on the job. The number increased to 539,000, up 141% from the year before. In late February, workers in “the rideshare and food delivery” industry, like Lyft, were bitching, as reported by Reuters, that the platforms were taking “disproportionate sums from their fares as fees and hurting their earnings.” Those protests began just as Uber, the largest freelance cab service, saw its earnings hit a record high — but only after announcing a $7 billion share buyback program. Usually people throw down their tools, when they’re fed up with the man. They see their employers getting fat and happy while they have to deal with inflation or some threat to their industry… both out of their control. Unionizing and taking action is an attempt to win back some of that control and dignity. And maybe afford a new pair of Never Surrender High Tops. Forget about innovation, disruption, or the capital required to start and run these businesses. If the workers can ignore the risks and sweat of a start-up or the legal apparatus and centralized bureaucracy of a gigantic corporation… well you can, too. Empathize with them… vote for politicians who support their causes. CONTINUED BELOW... >>ADVERTISEMENT<< Biden to Replace US Dollar? Thanks to President Biden’s Executive Order 14067, a former advisor to the CIA and Pentagon predicts the 3rd Great Dollar Quake has begun. The first was Roosevelt confiscating private gold in 1934. The second was Nixon abandoning the gold standard in 1971. Now, Biden’s plan could pave the way for “retiring” the US dollar. Your dollars could soon be confiscated – or made worthless. [Click here to see how to save your investment and retirement accounts](. It’s not at all what you think. CONTINUED... There’s a pattern to collective bargaining going back centuries. When the economy isn’t doing much to help the everyman make ends meet, he tends to his point finger and identify, however vaguely, who’s blood should be drawn. Not coincidentally, random violence, petty theft, and mass shoplifting seem to all get a boost during tough times, too.  In the United States, there was vigorous union activity in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Then again in the 1970s when inflation roughly resembled what it does today. Still you have to admit, the strikes of 2023 don’t hold a candle to the populism of the 1930s. The Nazis in Germany… they knew how to organize. The nationally syndicated columnist John T. Flynn, a member of what’s now known as “the old right,” wrote a “marvelous little” book called As We Go Marching during World War II. In it, he tried to describe the populist activities of his day. Particularly, those that led the world to war. Flynn argues that fascism had no particular connection to the Germans themselves, nor was there anything in the Teuton spirit that made them especially susceptible. Instead, he points out that the creed was largely developed by an Italian opportunist, Benito Mussolini. It was the hefty Italian who figured out the main parts — including the glorious theatrical elements. The Germans merely added their own corruptions and attached a peculiarly vicious policy of persecuting, and later exterminating, Jews. But it is Flynn’s description of the economic circumstances in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the fertile soil in which fascism took root and flourished — that caught our attention. Italy went to war against Turkey in September 1911. The war was over 12 months later and soon forgotten by everyone. But the impulse that drove the Italians to war in the first place was the focus of Flynn’s attention: “The vengeance of the Italian spirit on Fate was not appeased.” Instead, it whetted the appetite for glory. And once more glory did its work on the budget. But once more, peace—dreadful and realistic peace, the bill collector, heavy with her old problems—was back in Rome. The deficits were larger. The debt was greater, and the various economic planners were more relentless than ever in their determination to subject the capitalist system to control. Perhaps they should have lowered interest rates. Or pressured China to raise its currency. Any policy initiative, no matter how pathetic, could be considered. As Flynn puts it: “Out of Italy [as out of America currently] had definitely gone any important party committed to the theory that the economic system should be free.” Italy had dug herself into a deep hole of debt. Between 1859 — when the centralized Italian state came into being — and 1925, the government ran deficits more than twice as often as it ran surpluses. Politicians, who depended on giving away other people’s money, found themselves with little left to give away. “All the old evils were growing in malignance,” writes Flynn. “The national debt was rising ominously. The army, navy, and social services were absorbing half the revenues of the nation. Italy was the most heavily taxed nation in proportion to her wealth in Europe.” Of course, there followed many episodes of financial risorgimento and many pledges to put the books in order. None of them stuck for long. Italian politicians were soon making promises again. When grand promises must be fulfilled, debt creeps higher and so does the resistance of taxpayers and lenders, especially from conservative groups. “Hence it becomes increasingly difficult to go on spending in the presence of persisting deficits and rising debt,” writes Flynn. “Some form of spending must be found that will command the support of conservative groups. Political leaders, embarrassed by their subsidies to the poor, soon learned that one of the easiest ways to spend money is on military establishments and armaments, because it commands the support of the groups most opposed to spending.” Military spending gives an economy the false impression of growth and prosperity. People are put to work building expensive military hardware. Assembly lines roll and smokestacks smoke. Plus, the spending goes into the domestic economy. Americans, for example, may buy their gewgaws from China, but their tanks are homemade. Military adventures not only seem to stimulate the domestic economy; they also goose up popular support for the government. Soon, “it was a time for greatness…” as Flynn describes the approach of war. War, Giovanni Papini raved, was “the great anvil of fire and blood on which strong peoples are hammered.” There was a time when kings, princes, and emperors ruled the world. Back then, the people knew their place. But in this new, modern world, it became necessary for rulers to appease the masses with various programs designed to fool them into obedience. Armed with ballots, everything seemed possible. So it goes, Addison Wiggin, The Wiggin Sessions P.S. A Google Trend report shows a curious factoid. Searches for the phrase “World War III” spiked in January 2017 to its highest level since Google began publishing trends in 2004. The surge was propelled during one week in which then-president Donald Trump launched nearly 60 missiles at Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack; sent a Navy strike group up the Pacific closer to North Korea; and dropped the nation’s largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan against ISIS. I would have thought the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2020 would have caused a spike. And it did. But less than a quarter of its apogee as compared to that busy week in 2017. Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to The Wiggn Sessions delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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