Trump’s Problems

Not voting for Biden is easy. Pulling the lever for Trump is another matter entirely. May 03, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Trump’s Problems SEAN RING Yesterday, I had a fascinating discussion with my esteemed friend Doug French. Doug, the President Emeritus of The Mises Institute and the acclaimed author of Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply and Walk Away: The Rise and Fall of the Home-Ownership Myth, always brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the conversation. Doug received his master’s degree in economics from UNLV, studying under Professor Murray Rothbard and Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In fact, both of them signed his master’s thesis, which was the first version of Early Speculative Bubbles. Doug is the most precise writer of anyone in the Austrian School. In fact, his style reminds me of Murray Rothbard’s crystal-clear economics writing. (Pro tip: Tom Woods recommends that people start with Austrian Economics by reading Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State first. Then, they should read Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, as it’ll make much more sense. This is excellent advice, and I wish I had done the same.) We’ll post that conversation on the Paradigm Press YouTube Channel soon. But something Doug said last night got my mind churning. Doug is no Trump man by any means. And yet, he was fair when I asked him who he thought would win this November. Biden’s Two Issues Doug said Biden has to convince the American people he can solve these two problems: Inflation For inflation, scolding the American people by saying they’ve never had it better won’t cut it. Minions like The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip writing puff pieces like “[What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data]( will only hurt Biden’s cause. As I’ve written before, if a product initially costs $1 and then suffers inflation of 10% the next year and 5% the year after, it will cost $1.16. All Americans see a product that costs 16% more now than it did back then. They don’t say, “Good job, Mr. President! You cut inflation in half!” (From 10% to 5%.) People inside the Beltway, especially the Fed’s economists and Congress’s reckless fiscal spenders, need to figure out how to introduce some deflation (lower prices) into the system, not just disinflation (prices going up at a slower pace). The Southern Border Yes, Trump didn’t build the wall. But Biden made the problem much worse by practically inviting people to travel through Central America and Mexico to hop the Rio Grande. Biden also tore down the wire fencing Texas put up. And when illegal immigrants were bussed up North, he did nothing to ease the situation for the natives. Though the mainstream media may suppress any notion Americans feel less safe with migrants, they do, and they’ll have their say in November. [ SELL-OFF WARNING ]( [The stock market is entering a cycle of HISTORIC manipulation.]( Prices have surged recently… But when this trend reverses – and trends always do… Millions of investors could be on the wrong side of [a historic “pump-and-dump”.]( That’s exactly what I believe is happening behind the scenes – Wall Street is propping the market up. And within the next week or two… I believe we are going to see a historic selloff. [Click Here To Learn Why]( [Click Here To Learn More]( Trump’s One Big Issue Abortion I must admit this surprised me. Doug said many people will travel to the polls to vote against Trump just on this issue. I find that utterly frightening. The question is this: will those voters travel far inside red states to vote against Trump? If so, we’ve got ourselves one hell of a horserace come November. Trump’s Other Big Issues These were the thoughts churning in my head last night. I think Biden is a clown and can’t believe people would vote for him (again!), but truth be told, Trump is lucky his base overlooks his glaring flaws. Here are five of them. Trump won’t cut spending. Trump is a spendthrift, himself. Ok, he’s nowhere near Biden’s level. But if people think he will morph into Bill Clinton in his second term, they are sadly mistaken. He’ll order the Fed to lower rates (though he doesn’t have the power to do so), and that’ll give him room to spend. Trump likes vaccines and lockdowns. The “my body, my choice” crowd from above has no problem forcing you to get a government-mandated needle, even if the vaccine is unproven. Oh, the irony. Germophobes like Trump still think they saved millions of lives with medicine that didn’t halt the spread of anything. Likewise, the lockdowns were a disaster of global economic proportions, and we’re still feeling the effects. But Trump, not Biden, initiated those lockdowns to flatten the curve. We must hope this never happens again. But if it does, we must fight it. Trump will try to politicize the Fed. The Wall Street Journal just ran a piece titled, “[Trump Allies Draw Up Plans to Blunt Fed’s Independence]( Let’s be honest: The Fed has never been entirely independent - [remember Arthur Burns?]( - but at least the President couldn’t, by law, overrule a Fed Chairman. From [The Journal]( The group of Trump allies argues that he should be consulted on interest-rate decisions, and the draft document recommends subjecting Fed regulations to White House review and more forcefully using the Treasury Department as a check on the central bank. The group also contends that Trump, if he returns to the White House, would have the authority to oust Jerome Powell as Fed chair before his four-year term ends in 2026, the people familiar with the matter said, though Powell would likely remain on the Fed’s board of governors. It couldn’t be determined whether Trump is aware of or signed off on the effort, but some people close to the discussions believe the work has received the blessing of the former president. I’m not comfortable with this at all. Trump didn’t Build The Wall. He probably won’t. Trump didn’t sort this out in his first term. Biden made the situation far worse. Now, over seven million migrants have been encountered at the southern border during Biden’s administration. A paltry $5 billion would have done the job. Instead, the USG just sent $95 billion to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Ironically, Israel has a lovely wall on its southern border. Trump’s China tariffs will increase inflation. If China has been [passing fentanyl into the United States]( killing Americans, it’s unforgivable and should be met with the fullest force of the law, diplomacy, and self-defense. And if the tariffs are about that, fine. But really, this is a “we’re the hegemon, and you can’t have the crown” move. And while this seems like a normal play, it only hurts Americans. Just like those stupid sanctions against Russia. Wrap Up This November’s race may be closer than any of us realize. I still think Trump will win, but he needs to do so by the largest margin possible in case of any voting impropriety. Still, he’s got a few issues he needs to clean up. I’d love to see some humility from him so he can do it. Have a great weekend! All the best, Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening X (formerly Twitter): [@seaniechaos]( Rate this email Like Dislike Thanks for rating this content! Looks like something went wrong. Please try to rate again. In Case You Missed It… Lessons I Learned from New Jersey SEAN RING Sean Ring asked if I had an article for you, which works nicely because there’s something right up his old alley. That is, a couple of weeks back, Sean discussed [how he’s originally from New Jersey](. But eventually, he fled the Garden State to travel, work abroad, see the world, get married, and have a family. Now, Sean lives in northern Italy. So, Sean is gone, but New Jersey remains. And I just visited the place, meaning both the jurisdiction and the battleship of the same name; yes, I visited the old USS New Jersey (BB-62), a museum vessel usually berthed at Camden, except not just now. I had some business near Newark, so I flew over. And on the ground, I had a rental car, so I drove down to Philadelphia to see the mighty warship, currently in drydock at the Philadelphia Ship Repair facility, part of the North Atlantic Ship Repair Group. Right away, we have an investment lesson, if not a lesson about life, which is to seize your opportunities. And definitely, I’ve never seen a 55,000-ton battleship up on blocks in drydock. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I suspect, so I went on the [Battleship New Jersey]( bought my ticket, and packed my gear for an industrial site visit. Your editor at Drydock #3, Philadelphia Ship Repair company, with Battleship New Jersey in the rear. Note: There may be a few tour tickets left for visits later in May, but you should hurry if you want to see this ship from the underside, looking up. Let’s Discuss Battleships The Rude is mostly an investment-oriented letter, so I’ll offer economic and industrial-oriented comments as we proceed. But it’s all going to filter through the lens of battleships. Don’t worry, though; it’ll be fascinating. And I’ll show photos because I know how much our readers love photos. Image courtesy of Battleship New Jersey Museum, Camden, NJ. Battleship New Jersey is normally tied to a pier in Camden, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. There, it’s been a museum for over twenty years. On a clear day, you can look down and see the ship when you fly in or out, north of Philadelphia International Airport. Congress authorized the construction of the battleship in 1939, pre-World War II, because people back then knew that something really, seriously bad was coming down the line, and they had to prepare. The keel was laid in 1940 in the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which closed in the 1990s but is now reopened and under private ownership. So, from its birthplace to the present, we’re talking about the very same locale. Another way to state things is that the institutional Navy built the USS New Jersey when the government owned and operated big industrial facilities like shipyards. And yes, the Navy still runs what it calls “public shipyards,” e.g., Portsmouth, NH, Puget Sound, WA, and Pearl Harbor, HI. But these sites only repair ships and submarines, all of which are built elsewhere. Along these lines, it’s worth noting that except for submarines, there’s very little design-build capability left in the Navy or anywhere else within the federal government. Heck, there’s a scary paucity within the government of what’s called “technical authority” over complex systems. Even program supervision and contract oversight are problematic. It’s why, say, SpaceX outdoes NASA. The Navy launched the hull of New Jersey on December 7, 1942, one year to the day post-Pearl Harbor. Then, the shell underwent about eighteen months of completion work in and out of Drydock #3, where she presently sits again for repairs. Important lesson here: Big, complex things take time to design, arrange for long-lead components, and then build and test. This pertains to battleships, to be sure; but the same idea also applies today, for example, to the politically mandated reboot of our nation’s energy grid and transport system. In other words, and not to put too fine a point on it, anybody who says that the U.S. (let alone the world) will somehow transition to, say, electric vehicles or be “net-zero” for carbon by 2035, or 2040, or even 2050 doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Meanwhile, if you think that your country will one day go to war, you should never stop planning for exactly that, and I mean planning over decades. Because wars require industrial facilities like shipyards, and much else. Plus, you need steel and other metals, plants that build machinery, and armies of trained workers who can do things like bend and shape materials, install pipe and wire and engines, and generally build ultra-complex systems of systems. Indeed, you don’t fight and win wars with a service economy. You fight and win wars with an industrial economy, because decisive military power is the first derivative of energy and industrial power. And de-energized, deindustrialized countries don’t win wars; they lose them. Ask a Ukrainian. Welcome Home, New Jersey! At any rate, after two decades of floating next to her pier in Camden, this is the year – 2024 – to bring New Jersey in for a drydock period, the first since the early 1990s. The idea is to remove the crud from the hull, take the paint off and get down to the bare metal, inspect for leaks or other issues like corrosion, and give the outside a new coating for the next thirty years or so. Perhaps of interest to some readers, the total thickness of several layers of marine-quality paint on New Jersey will be about twelve times what you have on your car. In late March, the battleship was towed down the Delaware River towards its temporary repair destination, carefully timed with the tides so as to move safely beneath a major highway bridge. No Baltimore-type accidents for this noble ship! Then, the engineers and marine architects pumped some nice, wet river water into the ballast tanks to trim the ship properly for moving into drydock. New Jersey pushed and towed, stern first, into Drydock #3. Fox29 screenshot. And definitely, there’s nothing easy about a parking job like this. Bring her in, and don’t bump into anything. Fox29 screenshot. Once the ship was parked, exactly and to the last inch over the top of massive concrete blocks, the drydock workers closed a cofferdam and then drained the water. The ship settled down onto new foundations for the maintenance period. Blocks carefully arranged to hold the ship along its keel structures. Courtesy USA Today. The timeframe and budget for all of this work is two months (April and May), at a cost of over $10 million, every dime of which had to be raised by the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial. That is, no U.S. Navy budget money went into the kitty for repairs. The museum is on its own. And to be clear, $10 million is a lot of money, especially when you don’t have it. So just the fundraising was a long process of asking, asking again, and asking some more. Indeed, the sale of tour tickets for the drydock is what brought in the last million-or-so bucks: that, plus selling hunks of scrap teak wood from the deck, and even tiny bottles of hull rust as souvenirs. Teak wood and bottled rust for sale; USS New Jersey. Down in the Drydock For the drydock visit itself, the trip to the base of the structure began with a walk down 150 concrete stairs. Down we go for 150 steps. BWK photo. Everything about this ship is massive, like the four manganese-bronze screws and the twin rudders that are each larger than a typical house. Twin rudders, with people for scale. Big! BWK photo. Here’s another view of those rudders, with the screws in the same view. [Biden out June 13?]( A former CIA insider just announced a disturbing prediction… Biden will withdraw as the Democrat nominee on June 13. [See his shocking evidence in this new report](. [This former CIA advisor says the Dems already have Biden’s replacement – a shadow candidate hand-selected to defeat Trump] [See full details HERE now](. [Click Here To Learn More]( Four screws, two rudders; everything about this ship is big. BWK photo. And yes, we walked beneath the hull, with 55,000 tons of steel overhead, but it was all sitting on those concrete blocks, with about a foot of wood on top of them, squeezed down to about nine inches. Your editor, crouching beneath 55,000 tons of steel. BWK photo. Looking up from the floor of the drydock, the ship itself looms high overhead, and that’s just the view to the main deck, with no topside structures visible in the picture. Grand Canyon of Battleship New Jersey in drydock. BWK photo. And no tour is complete without a shot looking straight towards the bow of this immense ship. Looking at the bow of the battleship from atop the drydock cofferdam. BWK photo. To end the tour, here’s a shot of your editor with the absolutely awesome, truly outstanding, endlessly energetic curator of the Battleship New Jersey Museum, Ryan Szimanski, star of many YouTube videos. To whom all battleship fans owe a debt of gratitude. Your editor with Ryan Szimanski, curator of the museum. BWK photo. Final Thoughts From bow to stern, and every inch in between (887 feet, 7 inches, per spec), a World War II era battleship like USS New Jersey was, in its time, one of the most complex machines ever built. Sure, in a military sense, battleships like this are obsolete now. They’re costly to operate, and we live in an age of hypersonic missiles. Still, the fact remains that whatever might be the standard of today, back then battleships were the pinnacle of human engineering. And in that respect, it’s no stretch to say that the ideas, attitudes and design philosophies that went into battleships remain timeless. That is, when you want to build difficult things and work at the very edges of knowledge and technical capability, you put your best people and resources into the project. You don’t skimp. Consider how only the very best materials and machinery went into a battleship: the best steel in the frames and plates, let alone the armor plate; the best electrical equipment; the best piping and steam systems; the best guns; the best of you-name-it. And, of course, ships like the USS New Jersey reflect phenomenal quality at every level, in terms of human skills that range from designers and naval architects to welders and countless other trades and crafts. And let’s dive even deeper into the industrial legacy of a naval program that gave the country a ship like the USS New Jersey. The hull that slid down the launch-way and cut water in 1942 was the culmination of a long march of technology, with deep roots that date back to the 1880s, if not before (long story). In terms of scale, it’s worth recalling that the Navy spooled up just this one battleship program (out of many other armaments programs) right before the war, beginning in 1939. Until the end of the conflict in 1945, the U.S. built six of these gigantic vessels: USS Iowa, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and two unfinished ships that were never commissioned, USS Illinois and Kentucky. This all happened in the late 1930s and early 1940s in a country with a population of about 140 million and an economy emerging from the Great Depression. So it’s not unfair to ask: Can the country do anything even remotely similar today? And if so, what sort of project might that be? And if not, then why not? What’s missing today? What has changed so profoundly in the past 80 years? What has the country gained? What has it lost? Deep questions, yes. But if you can wrap your head around issues like these, you’re well on your way to becoming one of the best investors ever to walk the waterfront, because you can see things that others have missed entirely. With that, I wish you well. Many thanks for subscribing and reading. All the best, Byron W. King for Rude Awakening P.S.: Okay, if you insist. More shots of the USS New Jersey entering into drydock. Fox29 Screenshot. And this: Fox29 screenshot. And finally: Big ship, eh? Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial. ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Rude Awakening e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Rude Awakening, feel free to [click here.]( Please note: the mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so do not reply to this message. We welcome comments or suggestions at feedback@rudeawakening.info. This address is for feedback only. For questions about your account or to speak with customer service, [contact us here]( or call (844)-731-0984. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized financial advice. We allow the editors of our publications to recommend securities that they own themselves. However, our policy prohibits editors from exiting a personal trade while the recommendation to subscribers is open. In no circumstance may an editor sell a security before subscribers have a fair opportunity to exit. The length of time an editor must wait after subscribers have been advised to exit a play depends on the type of publication. All other employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication or 72 hours after the mailing of a printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended in this letter should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company. Rude Awakening is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. Please read our [Privacy Statement.]( If you are having trouble receiving your Rude Awakening subscription, you can ensure its arrival in your mailbox by [whitelisting Rude Awakening.](