A General Happy Mediocrity Prevails

The historian is bound to bring out the high points and crises of the national story... But the everyday lives of simple citizens must not be ignored simply because they were uneventful. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ December 1, 2023  |  [View Online](  |  [Sign Up]( A General Happy Mediocrity Prevails “To a hungry person, every bitter food is sweet. When the preferable is not available, the available becomes preferable!” ― Israelmore Ayivor , “Right at the end of his life,” writes Paul Johnson in his thousand-page tome, A History of the American People, “Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet giving advice to Europeans planning to come to America.” This note came long before Europeans thumbed their noses at the United States for our cheeseburgers and tangerine tyrants. CONTINUED BELOW... POWERED BY CRYPTO 101 MEDIA DeFi Protocol Posts $19M Profit During Bear Market One DeFi protocol posted $19M in profit during one of the biggest crashes the crypto market has ever seen. And now, this crypto coin is set to soar in the coming months. You can get in before 99% of investors even know about it… [Just click here for instant access to the #1 Coin for 2024.]( CONTINUED... One might say Franklin had an easier product to sell… Johnson continues: Franklin said it was a good place for those who wanted to become rich. But, he said, it was above all a haven for the industrious poor, for nowhere else are the laboring poor so well fed, well lodged, well clothed and well paid as in the United States of America. It was a country, he concluded, where ‘a general happy mediocrity prevails’. It is important for those who wish to understand American history to remember the point about ‘happy mediocrity.’ The historian is bound to bring out the high points and crises of the national story... But the everyday lives of simple citizens must not be ignored simply because they were uneventful. This is particularly true of America, a country specifically created by and for ordinary men and women, where the system of government was deliberately designed to interfere in their lives as little as possible. This sentiment is repeated in many a politician’s rhetoric. We know though that for all the table pounding and flushed cheeks there is no explanation for inflation, bad money, and the decades long routing of middle class prosperity except for political malfeasance. We are of the camp that the problem of bad money began in 1971, when Nixon—“that drunken lunatic,” as the late Henry Kissinger candidly called the Republican President—unpinned the American dollar from the international gold standard, single-handedly launching a new era of monetary policy that would shape the world’s economic order to this day. The nature of this new money was one of “fiat” decree. It proved difficult to maintain balance in the 1970s, when Volcker and his apostles were forced to raise interest rates beyond common sense and understanding… And it proved impossible to keep in check when Greenspan and his successors were then forced to pump money into the system a decade later—policies we know as an “inflate or die” theory of money. Now we are dealing with another hard swing toward a new era of monetary policy. One hallmarked by higher interest rates for longer periods of time… the infallible drum of inflation, the very-real fear of stagflation, and the ever-present and ominous threat of a “hard landing.” All the while the middle class is forced to hang on for dear life. Franklin’s concept of a “happy mediocrity” feels less and less achievable by the minute. First the dream of American prosperity deferred… Now, we can barely claim mediocrity without keeping our heads above the watermark. “…. prices are going down…families are seeing lower prices on everyday items from gas to groceries,” dictates White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, attempting to “turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse,” as David Stockman put it in his Contra Corner newsletter.  Just because Jean-Pierre, and Biden himself, repeat it over and over, doesn’t make it so. In fact, on November 5, 2023 even NBC news was trying to make sense of the “jumbled mess” that is the current administration’s effort to brand—and sell—the president’s eponymous economic plan. “Bidenomics,” Peter Nichols writes for NBC, “is a term that mystifies Americans and confounds even its namesake. ‘I don’t know what the hell that is,’ Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia earlier this year.” For good reason, the reality for most people doesn’t resemble what the administration claims is a success. Compared to January 2021, gas prices are up by 45% and grocery store prices have risen by 20%. And that’s not the half of it—countless everyday items have risen by equivalent amounts in less than four years. The list goes on. Numbers since January 2021, for example, spin a different narrative: - Household rents: +18%. - Grocery items: +20%. - Airfares: +21. - Used cars: +23%. - Electric utilities: +24%. - Vehicle maintenance and repair: +27%. - Gasoline: +45%. Stockman takes the reigns: Needless to say, shrinking household purchasing power is not unique to Sleepy Joe’s tenure. Just since the turn of the century, the purchasing power of the dollar has been reduced by 45% cumulatively during the tenure of four different Uniparty presidents. This purchasing power loss amounted to 2.7% per annum under George Bush, 1.7% per annum under Obama, 1.9% under Trump and 4.2% under Biden to date. To be sure, the underlying culprit is the Federal Reserve. During this 23-year period its balance sheet has soared from $590 billion to a recent peak of $9 trillion. That computes to a money-printing rate of 13.1% per annum—an out-of-this-world figure that is self-evidently incompatible with non-inflationary prosperity and constitutes an affront to every historical notion of sound money. The Fed’s defenders in Washington and its acolytes on Wall Street argue that a rising inflationary tide of 2.0% per annum lifts all boats. Capitalism doesn’t require inflationary central bank policies to achieve robust levels of economic expansion. It needs savings and investment in productive goods. For instance, there was essentially zero inflation between 1870 and 1913. Yet real GDP boomed by nearly 4% per annum during that 43-year period, which is nearly triple the annual rate of gain (1.5%) since the year 2000. Moreover, the last thing you can say about the kind of relentless cumulative inflation depicted by the purple line in the chart above is that it is even-handed among income classes and economic sectors. CONTINUED BELOW... POWERED BY DEMISE OF THE DOLLAR CONTINUED.. We’ve written about [The Great Complacency](. The idea is not unlike Benjamin Franklin’s “happy mediocrity,” in theory. The difference, we think, is wherein the agency lies. The Great Complacency is a fault of the American government; as middle class citizens of a fiat regime, the average person is reduced to little more than a generator for economic value. “Karl Marx was right about one thing,” Bill Bonner writes in a piece this morning. “There’s a difference between people who work on the assembly lines and the people who own them. About $20 million of difference, per family,” he continues. “That’s the 21st century gap between what the average non-asset owner gained from his wages and what the average member of the asset-owning elite 1% gained.” Franklin’s “happy mediocrity” suggests a more valid pulling one’s own self up from the bootstraps, placing the ability in the hands of the “industrious poor” and not on the reliance on highfalutin monetary politics. Moving into [the election year of 2024]( the “general happy mediocrity” is exactly what’s in peril. So it goes, Addison Wiggin The Wiggin Sessions P.S. “The Republicans can infight all they want,” writes in reader Ransom Frank G, “but if the democrats stay in power for another four years, I seriously question how much of America will still be functional enough for anyone to govern.” Our missives this week struck a nerve. You can read our most piquant by [clicking here]( [Anyplace, Anytime Cowboy]( “This is not political, this is blatant tyranny! This is shredding the Constitution!” reader Jeannette E exclaims. “This is life free or death as slaves! Someone—or something—lives and the other one dies… literally.” There’s more where that came from. Next week, we’ll take a look at some of the comments in conversation with our evolving themes. Plus, a closer look at the surveillance state and its malignant bending of “the narrative” with Brownstone Institute founder, Jeffrey Tucker, on The Wiggin Sessions. Stay tuned. POWERED BY CRYPTO 101 MEDIA [Secret to 'Rapid Retirement' Hiding in Plain Sight?]( The biggest opportunities going into 2024 won't be found in Bitcoin or Ethereum. The coins that the brightest crypto investors are buying up like CRAZY are coins known as 'Altcoins…' The team at Crypto 101 believes they could pave the way for early investors to a 'Rapid Retirement.' Outlined in their new guide, "The Crypto Retirement Blueprint", is a plan for individuals to ride the upcoming crypto wave and retire quickly in wealth and comfort. [Click here now for instant access.]( 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. To end your The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions, feel free to [click here.]( Please read our [Privacy Statement.]( For any further comments or concerns please email us at feedback@wigginsessions.com. 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