RE:RE:RE:RE:Lessons From the Movie The MatrixChad123 wrote: Experienced wrote: Quintessential1 wrote: Oddly enough for the people on the left it seems to them that the right supporters are the ones taking the blue pill as they do not want to face the reality of man made climate change.
A good economy will mean nothing when half of the world is on fire and the other half is under water.
The real reality is there is no red pill or blue pill and all of these considerations are important.
We can't have super sky rocketing debt and we can't have man made climate change increasingly costing us more and more money through natural disasters and famine.
It is never black and white or in this case, red and blue.
Experienced wrote: When I look around what is happening around the world and especially in the United States and periodically watch the US cable networks, it all reminds me of the 1999 movie The Matrix.
Just like the movie, it is very difficult to determine what is reality and what isn't.
It reminds me of the scene where Neo is offered a red pill or a blue pill by Morpheus. It seems to me that most left wing politicians have taken the blue pill.
The problem that I am facing in terms of making investment decisions is that while I believe I have taken a red pill it may not be doing me any good as long as most people are living in the fantasy world provided by their blue pills.
In this fantasy world, traditional signals to determine appropriate action such as the level of government debt, inflation, supply chain issues, productivity, growth in the money supply etc go out the window and are for intents and purposes meaningless. Without these yardsticks it is very difficult to make intelligent decisions.
One can only hope that more people wake up and realize that they need to take a red pill.
One thing that history has proven since the dawn of time is that the longer it takes for sanity to return the greater and stronger the adjustment will be once things get back to reality. How long it takes for this to happen is anybody's guess and for my part I don't have a clue but just in case I have hedged my bets by carrying above average levels of cash in my portfolio.
The thing is that the proposals in the US for the 1.5 trillion and the 3.5 trillion plus the 5 trillion already spent have very little if anything to do with climate change. I have actually done somethin I doubt most people haven't done - I actually read the bill for the 3.5 trillion to see what was in it.
Basically the bill provides for a fundamental shift in the US to a socialist society and one that it is dependent on the Government. Pretty much anyone in the US with a pulse will get a handout and it also includes billions of additional Government funding to manage all these new spending activities (big government). If these measures are enacted then will certainly be the need to continue them with ever greater spending and budgetary deficits.
When I look at it from this lens this is the basis for my earlier post about the red and blue pills. if they were spending 3.5 trillion on climate change then your views about the pills would be well taken.
and then you have Biden shouting that the Republicans need to get out of the way and let the demoncrats do the right thing and raise the debt limit. Hehehe
These people really don't give a rats a$$ about anyone and will stop at nothing to get their agenda done. Do they really think they will stay in power forever by trying to buy votes?
Do they not understand that Socialism depends on Captiolism to get its funds......
The funny thing is that the debt ceiling talk is just a bunch of B-S.
The Federal Reserve has said that it will continue to buy the US budgetary deficit. The Fed collects the interest payments from the US Government for the debt purchased and under the Federal Reserve Act, the Fed is obligated to return any excess income over it's operating expenses and dividend payment to its member banks (6% per annum on their shares) back to the US Treasury Department. Currently the amount debt the Fed owns far exceeds its operating costs and so any additional budgetary deficit incurred by the US Government is actually interest free.
What this means is that as long as the Fed keeps buying the US debt it doesn't matter what the total debt actually is. The Dems could spend a 100 trillion and it wouldn't cost them a dime more in interest.
Where the tire hits the road is that all this spending increases inflationary pressure which is a hidden tax on everyone. The rub here is that the Government keeps changing how it calculates the inflation rate to get a smaller number and so anyone whose wages are tied to inflation falls further and further behind and faces a continuous erosion of their standard of living.
The idea that Dems have that they can pay for it by taxing the rich is total fiction. First the proposed new spending on top what has already been spent for COVID dwarfs the existing tax revenue. To get anywhere close to paying for it they would have to have a 100% tax rate on the rich. France tried something like this a few years ago and backed off because all the rich people in France said they would move to Germany and so the tax revenue would actually decline if they did that. This goes to your point about socialism needing capitalism to pay for itself.