The Economics of National Demoralization

Thousands of petty emperors have been revealed to have no clothes [Gilder's Daily Prophecy] August 18, 2021 [UNSUBSCRIBE]( | [ARCHIVES]( Bezos’ NEXT Big Project Revealed! This nondescript warehouse is hiding a [BIG secret of Jeff Bezos…]( One that could disrupt a $1.32 trillion industry… And lead fast-moving investors to a potential fortune — As soon as September 7th 2021. [Just click here for all the details](. [Warning] Do you enjoy receiving Gilder's Daily Prophecy? Please [Click Here Now]( so we know to continue sending you Gilder's Daily Prophecy for free! The Economics of National Demoralization [Jeffrey Tucker]Dear Daily Prophecy Reader, Retail spending dropped hard in July, fully 1.1%, following several months in which economic hopes were buoyed by public spending on everything from cars and clothing to homes. The latest data signals a reversal. In every area. And it’s not just in retail sales; it’s a reversal in hope for recovery generally. This news stunned nearly all prevailing forecasters, who only last month had predicted continued progress, not regress. The prevailing theory here comes down to the media’s new favorite word: Delta. The new variant, the new demand for booster shots (zero data on the need!), new restrictions, and a new generally bad mood are dragging everything down, they say. Even trillions in stimulus cannot stimulate people who are afraid, depressed, and avoiding risk. There is a reason the University of Michigan’s early-August report shows consumer sentiment plunged to a ten-year low. This news of the retail drop comes a day after Americans were forced to process a terrible reality. Twenty years of war in Afghanistan was a waste. They were lying the whole time. There was no chance that our chosen new government could lead the country without full military occupation forever by American troops. The US stepped away and the Taliban came back as if following spring break. No question that as a national experience, we are entering into a new era of general disillusionment, with everything from political leadership to foreign policy leadership to media experts to all experts generally. It’s hard to name even one area of public life in the US today that seems to count as a success in which people can feel some measure of pride. To be sure, Americans have been good sports for the last couple of years, taking all the bad news on the chin and ready to give it another go the next day. Not even the lockdowns could finally drain people of their optimism. The change of leadership in Washington offered some hope. That hope has now turned to realism: Biden’s popularity generally is sinking ever lower, and on specifics from economics to immigration it is falling faster than retail spending. Where are we headed? For those old enough to remember the pre-Regan days, this feels oddly 1976ish. Deliberate Sabotage The stagflation and malaise of the 1970s was a result of deeply ignorant economic policies. It swept through the country in ways that shocked the ruling class, as if they had no idea what the results of their actions would be. Had they known better, they surely would have avoided this mess. Or so we believe. When, for example, Nixon shut the gold window, he imagined that he was shepherding in the greatest monetary system in history, a complete fiat system with flexible exchange rates between countries that could be managed beautifully by technocrats. The end result was exactly what the economists at the time said would be impossible: an inflationary economy stuck in recession with high unemployment. The aggregates did not behave the way the Keynesian theorists had promised for many decades. Economic forces presented something entirely new and unexpected, even if the dissidents had predicted it all along. A generation watched and learned. Less than a decade later, a corrective regime came along to stabilize money, deregulate enterprise, and reduce taxes to inspire entrepreneurship. What’s happening to the United States is similar but different. Everything happening now is a deliberate choice. The Covid shutdowns were specifically designed to crush economic activity in the name of public health. The trillions in money/credit creation by the Fed were constructed to substitute for real economic activity. The limits on travel and trade were intended to do precisely that: limit travel and trade. In that sense, they worked perfectly. They also raised up a new class of public managers sporting public-health credentials, as if their schooling in a narrow area, but without any tested experience in doing anything entitled them to have full control over people’s lives. They did their work, and then the opportunists at the Fed and the US Congress seized the day, creating and spending trillions in a desperate attempt to paper over the egregious failings. [New Federal Rule could change America forever.]( Ex-CIA Insider Has a Stark Warning About Biden's "Recovery" As a former advisor to the CIA and the Pentagon… It gives me no pleasure to give you this [stark warning](... but I have to do it nonetheless. Anything else would be grossly irresponsible... Put simply, Joe Biden's widely touted post-pandemic "bailout" is doomed. In fact, I've uncovered three ticking financial time bombs that could derail America's "recovery." [You can find my full message about these grave warning signs here.]( [Copy of Official Approval Enclosed (tech)]( Messes Everywhere The chasm that separates the news on TV from reality on the ground is growing by the day. The prices at the pump tell the real story. So do the prices at the grocery. The housing shortage is hitting many regions of the country, and it is not just for buying a new house. Rental properties are soaring in price, and many people cannot even get in the door due to the Biden administration’s moratorium on evictions. These days landlords are extremely cautious. A near-perfect credit score is a bare minimum for gaining approval for anything. No owner of a property can afford the risk that any tenant will take advantage of the now-legal ability to skip out on paying without consequence. The longer this moratorium continues, the more the rental sector is going to itself enter into crisis. Nor can the Supreme Court save us from this mess. The Court already ruled that the CDC’s moratorium does not pass legal muster, but allowed it to continue anyway on grounds that it is temporary. It turned out (of course) not to be temporary, and the Biden administration was happy just to ignore the court decision. This is utter lawlessness practiced by the high legal executive in the land. The willful ignoring of courts suggests rule by power and not law. Another Perfect Storm It’s all quite amazing to witness the coming together of all these forces at once: total loss in foreign policy, rising inflation, shortages of essentials, economic dislocation across many sectors, an unprecedented explosion of public debt, an immigration crisis at the border. It’s not all Biden’s fault but the new administration has shown no willingness to understand what is happening, much less do anything positive in the direction of fixing this. The only hope at this point is a complete regime change in the US, but that is at least 14 months away to get started, another two years after that to consolidate. In the meantime, the economic mood will surely sink further as national demoralization sets in. That means less investment, restrained consumer spending, less business expansion due to the labor shortage, the growing strain on public budgets at all levels, and ever more pressure on the Federal Reserve to pump up the money to keep the illusion of prosperity alive. In such times, what can one really trust? Public channels of information stand discredited after so many months and years of propaganda. Thousands of petty emperors have been revealed to have no clothes, and so certainly cannot be trusted to say what’s true. The information you need to understand the world is being distributed samizdat now that major social media companies and big media have signed up to be willful distributors of government-approved messaging. Access to truth is ever harder to come by. It takes some digging. Also in such times, people cling to institutions that are less subject to manipulation by public authorities. This explains the latest excitement over Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, about which I’ve written here many times. The timing of the renewed interest is also ironic: in the 1970s, people found safe haven in hard assets. Crypto wasn’t around then but it is now, and it is more exciting for people than the hard assets of old. I avoid making price predictions but I will tell you that my many friends in the industry have never been more exuberant about their decision to lean into this sector. Just as they expect worsening economic times – maybe far worse than we can imagine – they expect big moves by year’s end. Regards, [Jeffrey Tucker] Jeffrey Tucker 9/15/2021: The Beginning Of The End For Smartphones? September 15, 2021, Apple could make the biggest announcement in their company history. It could mark the end of the current smartphone era… as they launch the beginning of something even bigger. [Click here for a shocking glimpse into the future… and see how you could profit](. 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