The Great Reset Is Dead, Long Live The Great Reset

  I am usually pessimistic on the chances to fight back against the Davos crowds when I see the general apathy. But maybe I am wrong. Other people, quite a few in fact, think almost exactly as I do. They also listen to Tucker Carlson and Russell brand. Enough to make a different? We'll see.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

“The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace.

It failed.”

– Susan Ivanova, Season 3 Opening Sequence, Babylon 5

When the World Economic Forum rolled out their advertising campaign for The Great Reset it was supposed to be the victory lap for Globalism.

Coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent global financial crisis unleashed a flood of government funny money that was supposed to buy our way to their perpetual prosperity.

It failed.

Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of one of the chief architects of the Great Reset, Klaus von Commie Schnitzel’s right hand man, Yuval Noah Harari.

Spoken like the true authoritarian that he is, Harari can only see violence and chaos. He’s not wrong. The violence and chaos coming, however, have their roots in his attempts (or complicity) in trying to force, through violence, a global order on humanity which humanity doesn’t want.

This push towards violence, however, can stop tomorrow. All that has to happen is for cretins like Harari, Soros, Schwab, Gates, and all the people behind them, to truly accept the fact that they have failed and cut a deal with us.

If they do that we can minimize the violence on the horizon. But that’s not going to happen because they’ve already told us over and over that the abuse will continue until morale improves.

The impending chaos and violence is coming precisely because of Isaac Newton’s 3rd law, popularly summarized as “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

It’s not coming because we ‘don’t have any answers.’ We have plenty of answers, Harari and his ilk simply don’t like them.

For decades we met their violence with a kind of silent resignation as the cost of upsetting this system far outweighed the benefit of being the first 2nd lieutenant out of the foxhole in No Man’s Land. But the costs for so many today for going along to get along far outweigh the benefits accruing to them.

And that’s why the protests all across the West are intensifying.

The Great Reset project came at us too fast and we quickly saw it for what it was. While it was being rolled out through COVID most went along to be good neighbors. As I’ve argued in the past, acquiescence to the insane lockdown rules didn’t come from most people being sheep willingly herded into concentration happy camps. It came from a sense of wanting to be seen as cautious members of a community during a public crisis.

Of course there were some whose latent psychosis was triggered into being (*cough* Nassim Taleb *cough*), but the majority of people simply had their basic humanity weaponized against them.

Once the first wave of COVID ran its course and we saw how far they moved heaven and earth to silence actual cures for the virus, the Great Reset began morphing into the Great Awakening.

And the evidence of people standing firm against any further degradation of our society for this nonsense grows daily.

The Great Diffusion?

Years ago I wrote about Everett Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion as it pertains to politics in general and the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in specific.

Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Theory is applicable to politics as well as products.  The idea being that it takes around 16% adoption for a new technology, ideology, etc. to have the potential to become something bigger.   This was made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Tipping Point.

This is the curve I was implicitly invoking in my recent article about humans being more wolf than sheep.

We went from comfortable wolves in a pack we thought protected us from the dangers of the world to anxious, nervous wolves wondering which one of us would stand up to the psychotic alpha leading us towards an abyss.

The alpha continues towards that abyss thinking it’s a giant game of chicken and that we will stay under his rule out of fear.

Many of us are in either a state of shock and/or denial about what’s been going on. But, as history has shown us, we don’t need a majority of people to fundamentally change the course of history.

But at the heart of my observation is the following: Who will you really become when you have nothing left to lose? Or better yet, where’s your loss threshold before the real you bares your canines?

Because that’s literally all I was saying. We all have a limit. And the idea that because your limit isn’t as low as mine or some rando on the intarwebz makes you a sheeple is exactly the type of condescending and unearned sense of entitlement that drives the very ghouls that are convening at Davos this week to force us to rebuild our trust in them.

Looking around social media and the headlines of protests around the world by the working class, which the managerial class of over-educated midwits despise to the core of their being, you can see we’re very close to if not past the 16% tipping point.

This is why Davos has put on the full court press to accelerate the decline and fall of western civilization. We can all feel it. We’re a little over a month into 2024 and a year’s worth of geopolitics has occurred in that time.

They can feel the whole project slipping away and this has to be nipped in the bud before it spreads into what Rogers called the ‘Early Majority.’ To that end this is why they were so hard on “vaccine hesitancy,” and launched the wars on Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine.

It’s why now anyone to the right of Karl Marx himself is a “Fascist!” and is a member of the “hard right.” This is to dissuade people from identifying with outgroups and shame them into qualifying all of their dissension from their norm with, “I’m not a racist but…” or “I don’t agree with everything they say but… “

The Gap into Conflict

But also embedded in that article was Geoffrey Moore’s refinement of Rogers’ Curve to include the “Chasm.” Getting to 16% adoption isn’t enough. The new thing can get to 16% easily by simply opposing that which is dominant. This is what Harari was implying, that we are just ab-reacting to the opposite of them, by saying that we only reject the liberal order but have nothing to replace it with.

This is why the new idea or product has to then rebrand itself into something more universal. It’s not enough to be against globalism or the WEF, we have to also be for something better.

That becomes a decision point for a lot of people. It’s the moment when the established idea, brand, etc. wakes up to the threat and fights back. This is what the 16% chasm represents, that gulf between opposition and affirmation.

This is also what Davos and their ilk are truly exceptional at managing. They keep the Overton Window framed over irrelevant side issues to ensure that a new majority doesn’t “cross the 16% chasm,” by uniting over that better solution that doesn’t include them.

I’m calling this group they are afraid of, “The Radical Center.”

This is why AfD got to 16% in 2018 as the anti-Merkel party, but was easily neutralized when they didn’t become the true “Alternative for Germany” party. Once they did that and the current Scholz-led government failed to protect the German middle class during and since COVID, they’ve become a real threat.

A mixture of this rebranding and entrenched arrogance of the German political establishment is what led to AfD’s rise to the mid-20s in German polling. And it’s why despite a hastily-organized hit on them for an unconfirmed secret meeting in Postdam over deportation, they are still polling above 16%.

They are now the kind of threat that requires more drastic action, like banning them as a political party. That the German political establishment is even contemplating this tells you that they are fighting a rear-guard action against a movement that has grown far bigger than just AfD itself.

Gerrmany has crossed ‘The Chasm’ and a kind of Radical Center is forming.

The ideas this embodies, a Germany for Germans that rejects globalism, inflation, endless taxation and war, in favor of localism, community and cohesion is far more immune to crude attack.

So, the response is to send Chancellor Scholz to Kiev to sign a mutual security pact with Ukraine later this month to bypass the political revolution happening at home.

By the same token I’ve exhorted the libertarian movement in the US to become the movement of solutions; practical achievable solutions that speak to a true majority of Americans. And from there lead them to more localized solutions over time.

But because they have refused to do this, getting bogged down in being anti-Fed, anti-this, and anti-that, it leaves them still a fringe political group, easily neutralized by a simple meme:

This is why I’ve become disillusioned with where the libertarian movement has wound up. This is the essence of what Pete Quinones and I discussed in the recent podcast we did. It doesn’t mean I reject the philosophy or even the use of many libertarian critiques of central planning as useful filters, it means the philosophy isn’t enough to move the Overton Window in any practical political sense.

It’s why I voted for Trump twice, despite his many limitations, and will vote for him again if Davos can’t stop him from being on the Florida ballot. Even then, out of spite, I, like many, will simply write his name in.

And, guess what? He’ll still beat the LP candidate.

Accelerated Decrepitude

So, the Great Awakening has morphed, from Davos’ perspective, into a kind of Great Acceleration, where they feel the threat of our coming together across the false dyad of the Left/Right division to reject them outright.

This is why they will accelerate their plans to squelch all of those who leak away from their control. It’s why they hate Elon Musk so thoroughly for taking Twitter away from them. It’s why Bill Kristol believes it’s right to bar Tucker Carlson from coming back into the US after his visit to Russia.

That squelching was done to anger us into running to alternative internet ghettos like Gab and Mastodon and all the others.

It’s why they purposefully ruined Twitter under the previous management to drive us away and take away our voices through de-platforming Alex Jones and everyone else. How many people still refuse to go back to Twitter because of what happened in 2017? How many still make the “perfect be the enemy of the good” argument vis a vis Elon Musk’s reign at Twitter? *Cough* David Icke *Cough*

Sure the Rachel Maddow set is still enthralled every night, all 200,000 of them, but now they are the ones clutching their pearls in the real media ghettos.

It was easy to go after Jones in 2017. It was easy to go after Gab later on. It was easy to see the alternative platforms like Rumble and Substack spin up to try and become antipodes to YouTube and WordPress, Locals for Patreon… etc.

I have nothing against these platforms, and have even tried some of them in the past, but I also recognize that they were allowed to become real to siphon people off into smaller tribes and build easily-ignored echo chambers. All to prevent us from crossing the chasm together to form the Radical Center.

And if one of these platforms gets too powerful? Well, I hope everyone has an archive of their Substacks. I also hope my fears on this are fully unfounded. But I’ve seen this movie before and I didn’t like it the first time I watched it.

Because, when voices capable of speaking across the false political divide of Left v Right get big enough, they have to be brought low. It’s fine for those on “the right” to be dismissed as kooks, dead-enders, isolationists, conspiracy theorists, MAGAtards, Nahtsees, etc.

Russell’s Re-Branding

It’s quite another when someone from “the Left” comes to the same conclusions. That’s why they came down so hard on Russell Brand last year. And it was disturbing how quickly the “Nuts and Sluts” campaign against Brand occurred.

Because Brand was un-personed first before the outrage machine went into overdrive against him. They just accused him and took him out.

And just to remind everyone what I’m talking about, I wrote about this in relation to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation “process” back in 2018:

“Nuts and Sluts” is easy to understand. Simply accuse the person you want to destroy of being either crazy (the definition of which shifts with whatever is the political trigger issue of the day) or a sexual deviant.

This technique works because it triggers most people’s Disgust Circuit…

… The disgust circuit is also easy to understand.

It is the limit at which behavior in others triggers our gut-level outrage and we recoil with disgust.

The reason “Nuts and Sluts” works so well on conservative candidates and voters is because, on average, conservatives have a much stronger disgust circuit than liberals and/or libertarians.

What I wrote about in that article then has come to pass today. Back then I predicted that as Davos encouraged “The Left” to further normalize deviance the less effective “Nuts and Sluts” would become. The more we would see the attacks for the crude attempts at maintaining the Overton Window that they were.

But, here’s the problem.  As liberals and cultural Marxists break down the societal order, as they win skirmish after skirmish in the Culture War, and desensitize us to normalize ever more deviant behavior, the circumstances of a “Nuts and Sluts” accusation have to rise accordingly.

It’s behavioral heroin.  And the more tolerance we build up to it the more likely people are to see right through the lie.

It’s why Gary Hart simply had to be accused of having an affair in the 1980’s to scuttle his presidential aspirations but today Trump has to piss on a hooker.

For Russell Brand, however, they had to go all the way to the end game… being a sexual predator of younger women. Amidst all the clamor about Epstein Island etc., tying Brand to the talk of pedophilia by inference was meant to be the knockout blow against someone who has become one of the most effective and irrepressible dissident voices in the post-COVID environment.

There are few people in the current zeitgeist who were becoming more capable of radicalizing the Left side of the center than Russell Brand.

But, most importantly, it was meant demoralize us to not put faith in anyone else, to have no sources of comfort or people to trust. Brand’s overnight demonetization was the beginning of what I’m now calling the Great Demoralization campaign.

The goal of that campaign is to stop the emergence of that Radical Center; a loose coalition of normal people who are willing to put aside that which they disagree on in service of that which they do agree on. And eating bugz, living in pods under constant surveillance, and the threat of being un-personed is something we can all agree sucks.

To his credit Brand got right out in front of the accusation by taking complete responsibility for his past behavior, and throwing himself, rightfully, onto the altar of public opinion. He showed us his own disgust circuit for the person he used to be, not the person he is aspiring to be.

And that’s why his interview with Tucker Carlson recently was such a galvanizing thing. Carlson, smartly, practiced exactly what he preaches… a little Christian charity. By giving Brand the platform to tell his story, he finds another fellow traveler on the path to breaking this illusion of control Davos and their kept media outlets have laid over us.

These two guys aren’t supposed to agree on these things. Tucker’s a right-wing Fascist. Brand is a left-wing Lunatic. And yet, they share something very powerful in common, they both were cast out of the temple for speaking truth to power.

And Brand doesn’t disappoint in his performance. It’s one of his best, and I’ve seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

He’s spot on, noting himself at one point that the goal of everything we see in the media was “demoralization.” In fact, this entire post was inspired originally by that one statement during the 45 minutes he spoke with Tucker. That was the ‘money shot,’ as it were, of this interview.

It told me that not only does Russell Brand get it, but he knows exactly what his role now is.

As I write this speculation has gone wild that Tucker is meeting with the vilified Vladdie Putler. If he does pull that off it won’t quite break the internet, but if there is any event in 2024 outside of Davos’ control which could it will be that.

Because what happens when Carlson and Putin discuss the lies of foreign policy, of the nature of the conflict in Ukraine, the grievances between Russia and the West and find out they have more in common than they are supposed to?

Carlson didn’t break the internet with his interview of Russell Brand, nor with Alex Jones, but he is taking what’s left of the comfortable lie that the media is anything other than court stenographers putting it in a paper bag, dropping it on our doorsteps, and lighting it on fire. It’s been so long since we saw anyone do journalism that we barely understand what it looks like when we see it.

Carlson, like Brand, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Jerome Powell, Jamie Dimon, or any of the others I give credit to in this blog, aren’t perfect men.

We killed that guy over two thousand years ago.

We don’t need them to be perfect men. If you need that, I suggest you seek professional help.

What we need is for them lead where they can when they can. They just need to give us the tools needed to cross the chasm and find common ground. Let us then build a public square that looks nothing like the one that we’ve been allowed to protest in up until now.

THAT is a Great Reset I can look forward to.

The True Costs Of Net-Zero Are Becoming Impossible To Hide

  Net Zero is fanaticism. But worse than that, it is based on a complete ignorance of energy and markets. It is both unrealistic and will bankrupt us long before any positive results can be demonstrated. 

 The failure will be due to climate, unbelievers, lack of investment by big companies, Putin? Everybody except ignorant politicians who will insist that the reason their policies do not work is because we haven't done enough! More is needed! 

 A modern energy policy is in fact very complex. You need to invest 30 years ahead, have a vision and make as few mistakes as possible. Renewables are by definition marginal energies that will never, under no circumstances, become base load for an economy. It is simply not possible. More than everything else, except maybe a nuclear war, the results of this monumental mistake may incur the downfall of our society. 

 Currently, the canary in the coal mine is Germany where the green fanatics are in power and ahead of everybody else. Their economy is already in recession with the potential to fall further into depression in the coming months. Without coal, oil, gas from Russia and nuclear energy, there is simply no exit for their economy. 

What a disaster!

Authored by Mike Shedlock via mishtalk.com,

Our net zero lesson of the day is from the U.K. but it applies universally. It’s increasingly difficult for Biden and the EU to hide the true costs of net zero mandates.

Britain Boiler Tax Scandal

In the latest green fiasco, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak created a quota system that would require manufacturers to sell more heat pumps to households.

Instead of meekly complying with the regulation as happens with Biden administration EPA announcements, manufacturers let consumers know they would have to pay up whether they installed the heat pumps or not.

Manufacturers correctly dubbed the scheme a “boiler tax” and consumer outrage killed the regulation.

Britain Dumps Another Net-Zero Gimmick

The Wall Street Journal reports Britain Dumps Another Net-Zero Gimmick

Most English households use natural gas to fuel the cabinet-sized boilers that provide central heating and hot water, and forcing them to adopt electric heat pumps (ultimately powered by renewable energy) is part of the government’s net-zero agenda.

An earlier proposal to ban gas-boiler sales after 2035 proved politically toxic as households balked at the cost of replacing their reliable natural-gas boilers with more expensive, untested heat pumps. So politicians resorted to subterfuge, imposing a sales quota on manufacturers. Starting in April, heat pumps would have to replace 4% of annual boiler sales or companies would pay a £3,000 fine for each “excess” natural-gas boiler they sold.

Worcester Bosch, Britain’s leading manufacturer, warned last year that the proposed quota would add up to £300 ($376) to the cost of natural-gas boilers, which retail for £1,000 and up.

A novelty is that industry fought back against the mandate. Manufacturers were transparent about passing the cost of the heat-pump fines to consumers, calling it a “boiler tax.” Mr. Sunak’s government tried to blame the companies for anticompetitive behavior. But when voters realized they’d be stuck paying for heat pumps even if they didn’t buy them, it was game over for the rule.

Biden’s Wind Tax

In the US, manufacturers have yet to stand up to idiotic Biden regulations, mostly because they have received tax incentives that hide the true costs.

But the actual costs are difficult to hide now that subsidies won’t hide the true cost. So Biden’s schemes are unraveling.

Bloomberg reports a 48% Surge in Costs Wrecks Biden’s Much-Lauded Wind-Power Plans

When President Joe Biden in 2021 laid out a target of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity during the next nine years, the plan was deemed bold and ambitious. Best of all, many saw it as within reach.

Two years later, the industry has another word for it: impossible.

After a cascading series of setbacks, from sobering cost revisions to billions in possible impairment charges, the US offshore wind industry’s 2030 generation goal now looks further away than ever.

Cancelled in New Jersey

Offshore wind is stumbling over costs. EnergyWire asks Can Biden Save the Industry?

The Biden administration is facing increasing pressure to take action to bolster the offshore wind industry after a major project was canceled in New Jersey on Tuesday, although options appear limited to ease financial hurdles facing developers.

Developers are taking billion-dollar losses due to the industry’s exploding costs and the dropping value of assets. Two companies in Massachusetts walked away from deals that they said did not cover costs. New York regulators rebuffed attempts to renegotiate contracts with wind companies for higher prices, casting uncertainty over the future of several wind farms off the state’s coast. Meanwhile, the supply chain of businesses to support offshore wind construction has expanded too slowly to meet the needs of proposals.

But the starkest sign of a troubled sector came Tuesday, when Ørsted, the largest offshore wind developer in the U.S. market, said it will abandon its Ocean Wind project. The two-phased wind array off the Jersey coast was one of just five major offshore wind projects approved in the U.S. — all by the Biden administration. Along with creating more uncertainty for the industry, the cancellation is raising speculation over whether other projects will follow.

Defending the administration’s record, White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said Biden has “used every available tool to advance the growing American offshore wind industry.”

Outright Lies Are Biden’s Biggest Tool

Without a doubt, Biden has “used every available tool to advance the growing American offshore wind industry.”

His biggest tool is a pack of lies starting with a claim that these projects are cheaper and will pay for themselves.

Downgrades and Write Offs

• Fitch Ratings downgraded Eversource Energy and its NSTAR Electric utility subsidiary from stable to negative, partly on the grounds that the company may struggle to unload three offshore wind projects it had wanted to sell.

• Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP’s head of gas and low-carbon energy, told attendees at a London conference that the U.S. offshore wind sector was “fundamentally broken” and in need of a reset.

• BP has taken a pretax impairment charge — a devaluing of an asset — of $540 million due to its New York offshore wind projects.

• Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor said last month it was taking a $300 million impairment in its U.S. offshore wind portfolio. Ørsted could take a $5 billion hit.

Even with massive subsidies, these projects are not economical. All they do is replace one form of energy with another at increasing costs that must be born by someone.

Let’s accurately label this fiasco for what it really is: A mandate to use wind, then a wind tax to support it.

Biden Backs Off Gas Stove Crackdown

Fox News reports Biden Backs Off Gas Stove Crackdown After Widespread Pushback

On Feb. 1, 2023, the DOE issued its original proposal which was set to take effect in 2027 and impact a staggering 50% of current gas stove models. The DOE argued it is required to put forth such regulations under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act which mandates energy efficiency rules while not harming consumer choice.

In response, Republicans and consumer advocacy organizations blasted the Biden administration for curbing consumer choice and pushing a regulatory regime that would lead to higher prices. They also criticized the DOE for attempting to force Americans to electrify their homes in an effort to reduce emissions and fight global warming.

“President Biden is committed to using all the tools at the Administration’s disposal to lower costs for American families and deliver healthier communities — including energy efficiency measures like the one announced today,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement [after the administration backed off the proposal].

Gas Stove Tax

Let’s label the Biden administration proposal for what it really is, a tax on gas stoves.

Biden then had the audacity to brag about lowering costs when he backed off the proposal.

Tax This, Tax That, Tax Everything

Up and down the line, we need to label the green regulations and mandates from this administration for what they really are: Across the board tax hikes.

And since these these taxes apply to everyone, not just the wealthy, they are very regressive in nature.

We have wind taxes, heat pump taxes, gasoline taxes, stove taxes, air conditioner taxes, internal combustion engine taxes, etc., all of which are mislabeled in ways to sound like they are positive things.

Cap-and-trade is nothing but a giant tax scheme in which manufacturers have to pass on the costs.

Industry is fighting back in the UK and farmers are fighting back in the EU. Republicans need to carry the regressive tax hike message into the upcoming US election.

Inflation Pressures Everywhere

Please note that all of these mandates purposely increase costs. They are all inflationary.

Nearly everything this administration does is inflationary. The same applies to every regulation in California.

Minimum Wage Hikes

On February 4, I noted Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA Due to Minimum Wage Hikes

Impact on Joe’s Grill and Susie’s Diner

Don’t think for one second that these wage hike only hit wealthy franchise owners. For starters, many franchise owners are deep in debt to buy that franchise.

In addition, how are Joe and Susie going to get help at $16 when McDonalds is paying $20?

The answer is they won’t. Effectively, $20 is the new minimum wage in California, and not just restaurants.

Big Explosion of Government and Social Assistance Jobs

President Biden is bragging about job growth in 2023. But he doesn’t say where those jobs are.

Data from the BLS, chart and calculations by Mish.

Data from the BLS, chart and calculations by Mish.

On February 5, I noted a Big Explosion of Government and Social Assistance Jobs in 2023 to Help Migrants

A surge in immigration led to a surge in need for government and social assistance jobs at taxpayer expense. City and local governments are under financial strain.

Under Bidenomics policy, we have created hundreds of thousands of jobs that are of net negative benefit to US taxpayers. That’s what Biden is really bragging about.

Fed Chairman Tells 60 Minutes US Fiscal Path is Unsustainable

Fed Chair Jerome Powell tells 60 Minutes that it’s “urgent” the US address its “Unsustainable Fiscal Path”

Please consider Fed Chairman Tells 60 Minutes US Fiscal Path is Unsustainable

The Fed normally does not comment on fiscal policy, but Powell did. “Debt is growing faster than the economy. So, it is unsustainable. … You could say that it was urgent,” said Powell.

I list 15 key takeaways from the interview. Click on the above link for discussion.

It’s not just Democrats causing this problem. Republicans are in on the fiscal madness. For example, please see 169 Republicans Vote to Expand Welfare, Bill Heads to Senate

Inflationary Tariffs

Also consider Help for the Heartland? Trump Tariffs Failed the Mission

Since tariffs are a tax on consumers, Trump is proposing a huge tax hike. Biden is on fully on board.

China will retaliate and so will Europe. Costs will soar across the board. More inflation is on deck. Irony abounds. How can tariffs help both candidates?

Is Inflation Transitory?

Biden is bragging inflation is coming down. Economists have fully embraced the softest of softy landing. And Powell told 60 Minutes he thinks inflation is transitory.

I keep asking: Is inflation transitory or is this recent decline in the rate of inflation what’s transitory?

To help decide, please check out some of the links above.

Then factor in Biden’s regulations, the end of just in time manufacturing, a surge in immigration, and trade wars with China no matter who wins the election.

Here’s my concern: How Much Inflation Is Baked in the Cake?

The Great Growth Hoax

  The problem with lies is that eventually, the people who create them start believing their own made-up statistics. 

  Inflation started diverging in the 1990s with the funnily named hedonistic adjustments. Then year after year. technocrats found ways to "adjust" almost every single data. So much so that today, nothing is real. We live in a Potemkin economic village where almost everything is a fraud. This is of course the case of employment, growth... you name it, they adjust! 

  Eventually of course, we will all be broke on this road of endlessly, adjusted, growth. Just like everyone is a millionaire in Zimbabwe! 

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

For several days, ever since the supposedly amazing GDP report from quarter four 2023, we’ve been blasted by the media about how great the economy is doing.

It’s exasperating because these claims do not fit with human experience. Last we heard from the Census Bureau, real income is down, and no one doubts it. Everyone, or at least most average people, has felt strong downgrades in living standards over these last four years.

And yet, no recession has been declared. This is for technical reasons. A recession is supposed to show up in the technical reading of the GDP plus unemployment.

We’ve known for years that the unemployment data is broken. It does not account for labor dropouts or adjust for multiple job holders or otherwise reveal anything about labor participation or remuneration.

Unemployment is technically low, but so what?

As for GDP, it is not a measure of the standard of living or even economic growth. It is a measure of output — stuff going on as measured in dollar terms, whether necessary, productive, society serving, efficient or not at all.

The aggregate was concocted at a time when economists believed that spending was itself productive, whether it flowed from a sustainable capital base or government itself. Anything moving and churning was regarded as good.

We Don’t Need More GDP Reports Like These

When the latest report came out and everyone cheered, I dug around the data a bit but figured I would wait for my favorite analysts to weigh in. Sure enough, Peter St Onge writes it up and it is a doozy:

Fresh GDP numbers came in and it was a blowout. The kind of blowout that only a $2.7 trillion government deficit can buy while the private economy crumbles around it. Another couple blowout GDP reports like this and Americans will be living under an overpass.

The essential ruse comes down to unfathomable amounts of government spending that is being recorded as productivity and output, and interpreted by the media as growth:

In the past 12 months the federal deficit increased by $1.3 trillion. Yet we only got half that in GDP — about $600 billion. In other words, everything else shrank. It’s even worse for that brave and stunning Q4 — there we got just $300 billion in extra GDP for — wait for it — $834 billion of new federal debt.

To put a fine point on it:

Essentially, [GDP is measuring] the pace at which we’re going Soviet, replacing private wealth with government waste.

It Costs $2.50 to Generate $1

In his interpretation of the data, we are destroying wealth at the fastest rate since 2008. An analysis by Zero Hedge echoes the same thought:

While Q4 GDP rose by $329 billion to $27.939 trillion, a respectable if made-up number, what is much more disturbing is that over the same time period, the U.S. budget deficit rose by more than 50%, or $510 billion. And the cherry on top: The increase in public U.S. debt in the same three-month period was a stunning $834 billion, or 154% more than the increase in GDP. In other words, it now takes $1.55 in budget deficit to generate $1 of growth… and it takes over $2.50 in new debt to generate $1 of GDP growth!

To further the analysis, and doing the math:

Every dollar in GDP growth cost $1.69 in new debt, and also means that every new job cost future generations of Americans $957,100.48.

To say this is unsustainable is more than obvious. It is a disaster and this is dragging American prosperity into the pits, if by prosperity you mean quality of life. No matter how many gizmos to which you have access, the resources for living a good life are depleting very fast.

The American Dream?

The idea of a one-income family is nearly extinct, whereas it was the norm three-quarters of a century ago. Even the gizmos are falling apart and not serving us well.

Household appliances don’t work unless you somehow get your hands on the most high-priced models.

They’re trying to shove everyone into urban commuter cars so that you cannot drive on those big vacations that used to be the American norm.

College is out of reach and the degree that costs a fortune to get is increasingly worthless anyway.

People are ever more despairing for the future and thinking that this is just the new normal.

Even looking at output data over the long term, you can see the trend, even given all the manipulation and fakery. It’s still very obvious where things are headed.

It didn’t need to happen. The United States has been the world center of technological innovation during these years, and the historical home for free enterprise and entrepreneurship. We should have had the greatest boom times in our history! Instead, government stole all that energy for itself.

It’s a tragedy.

Is There Hope?

Everyone underestimates the wild effect of 2020 and the following chaos caused by lockdowns. Those sent the workplace into upheaval, wrecked data collection, made property rights and liberties far less secure and entrenched a professional managerial class in government and industry that conspires against the public.

On the good side, we are seeing the evaporation of trust in media, medicine, academia and government. Large media organizations are laying off workers in droves just to survive, and the woke agenda generally seems on the ropes.

Dramatic reforms are possible but are they likely? We will see. There needs to be wholesale reform in government and much more besides in order to save what’s left of the great American prosperity machine.

As it is, the more likely outcome is to go the way of empires past, a long slog through the miasma of corruption and stagnation until generations hence will speak of the United States in the past tense the way we talk about the Portuguese empire.

That’s a big departure from the way this article opened so let’s go back to the point.

The GDP data is not reflective of anything real except government profligacy and stagnation in every sector that counts.

You can read the headlines or look at the underlying realities. One perpetuates existing myth-making and the other reveals that the myth is not long for this world.

IT'S COMING (WW3) - (Russell brand - 16mn Video)

  Unfortunately or fortunately, depends where you stand, a country does not move from peace to war instantly. You have to prepare the population for what's coming. And this is exactly what we are witnessing right now in several, not all, European countries. 

 I admire Russell Brand for his courage, as well as Tucker Carlson, but I am afraid that soon enough, both of them will be silenced...

 

AI Programmed to Resist State-of-the-Art Safety Controls

   If you understand how AI works, you will quickly grasp the fact that safety controls are completely meaningless.

  AI experts have been talking about alignment and other nonsense for years now. It is meaningless. At this stage of the technology, whatever scheme you use to circumscribe or limit the AI will necessarily make it less performing. 

  I suspect all the experts understand this, well, most of them at least, and that all this discussion about security is mostly to reassure investors and authorities so that they can go on with their work quietly. 

  The key concept here is emergent properties which means that we really don't know exactly how it works. In practice, you create a transformer, run it a million times with huge database. Tweak it here and there to improve the results... and "things" happen! (Suddenly the computer creates a "mood neuron" for example  because understanding your mood, positive or negative increases tremendously the accuracy of the language model!) We are walking ahead in the dark grasping around to try to understand AI. There is simply no control whatsoever!

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems that were trained to be secretly malicious resisted state-of-the-art safety methods designed to “purge” them of dishonesty, a disturbing new study found.

Researchers programmed various large language models (LLMs) — generative AI systems similar to ChatGPT — to behave maliciously. Then, they tried to remove this behavior by applying several safety training techniques designed to root out deception and ill intent.

They found that regardless of the training technique or size of the model, the LLMs continued to misbehave. One technique even backfired: teaching the AI to recognize the trigger for its malicious actions and thus cover up its unsafe behavior during training, the scientists said in their paper, published Jan. 17 to the preprint database arXiv.

 

The US has a $6 trillion problem over the next twelve months

   Instead of solving bogus planetary problems as discussed in the previous article, we should attend the real immediate financial conundrum. But of course we won't. Finance is not a problem until the system implodes. This almost happened in 2008. It will happen again, sooner than later...

by James Hickman via Schiff Sovereign

Yesterday the Treasury Department announced that they expected to increase the national debt by a whopping $760 billion this quarter alone… and another $202 billion next quarter.

In short that means almost $1 trillion added to the national debt just in the first half of this year. And, again, these are the Treasury Department’s own estimates.

Obviously, that’s a pretty horrible result; even a senior Treasury official acknowledged that they have “significantly increased” their bond sales and the national debt. Not that they’re doing anything to stop the trend.

But there’s an even greater risk that the Treasury Department faces this year that is hardly being discussed anywhere.

Over the next twelve months, more than $6 trillion in existing US government debt is set to mature… and will need to be paid back somehow.

So, to give you an example, back in 2014, the federal government issued $264 billion in 10-year Treasury notes.

Well, it’s now 2024, i.e. ten years later. Meaning that $264 billion worth of 10-year notes issued in 2014 will become due and payable this year.

In 2017, they issued $368.8 billion worth of 7-year notes. And those 7-year notes issued in 2017 are due and payable this year.

You get the idea. The point is that the total sum of Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Bills outstanding that will become due and payable this year exceeds $6 trillion.

So, in ADDITION to the $1 trillion in NEW debt that they’re forecasting just in the first six months of 2024, the Treasury Department is also going to have to pay back $6 trillion of existing debt.

Naturally the Treasury Department doesn’t have $6 trillion lying around to pay back its bondholders. So instead of paying anyone back, they just borrow new money to repay the old money.

Now, this doesn’t actually increase the national debt. If they borrow $6 trillion in new bonds, but then pay back $6 trillion in old bonds, the net change to the debt is ZERO.

So, what’s the problem?

The problem is that interest rates are MUCH higher than they were 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 years ago when those old bonds were first issued.

In 2021, for example, the Treasury Department issued almost $1 trillion in 3-year bonds back when interest rates were nearly 0%.

But since those 3-year bonds from 2021 are due and payable this year, the Treasury Department will have to borrow new money at today’s interest rates… which are hovering around FOUR percent.

And higher interest rates mean that the government’s annual interest bill will soar.

Think about it like this– $6+ trillion of existing debt needs to be refinanced. And given how much higher interest rates are, this will likely cost the government more than $200 billion per year in additional interest payments.

PLUS, they’re expecting $1 trillion of new debt in the first six months of the year, plus probably another $1 trillion in the second half of the year.

Altogether, the government’s total interest bill could easily increase by more than $300 billion per year in 2024.

And this same trend will continue in 2025, 2026, and beyond.

Right now, gross interest on the debt is already roughly $1 trillion per year. But in three years’ time, annual interest could surpass $2 trillion annually. And in 10 years, annual interest could reach $4 to $5 trillion.

Anyone who thinks this isn’t an obvious, catastrophic problem in the making (which demands immediate attention) needs to have his/her head examined.

And yet the government is full of people who shake hands with thin air and happily ignore the present and future carnage that they’re creating.

Don’t hold your breath for the Inspired Idiots in charge to fix this; I’ve written before that there is a VERY narrow window of opportunity to solve this problem… but they’re doing absolutely nothing about it.

But that doesn’t mean that you or I have to be held hostage by their incompetence.

I’ve argued that one of the highly probable consequences of this mess will be SIGNIFICANT inflation. After all, most likely it will be the Federal Reserve that facilitates all this new debt.

This is what the Fed has done for most of the past 15 years. Just look at the huge run-up in the national debt between 2020 and 2022; over 80% of that money (~$5 trillion) came from the Federal Reserve.

And if creating $5 trillion in new money resulted in 9% inflation, how much inflation will we see if the Fed creates $15 to $20 trillion of new money? No one knows for sure, but it probably won’t be 2%.

But if we can make such a strong argument for inflation… and anticipate a steep rise in prices over the next 5-10 years, there’s no reason why we can’t take steps NOW to reduce the impact of future inflation, or even benefit from it.

This doesn’t even necessarily require a lot of capital. For example, one could invest in long-term options on certain assets (including gold or silver futures), so that a small amount of money could pay out very large returns down the road.

The key point is that there are plenty of sensible ways to plan for future inflation, which we will continue to discuss in future letters.

But this isn’t even Plan B thinking anymore. Anticipating inflation should be Plan A.

The bogus climate science - Scientific Alarmism Drives DoD Climate Policy

   If you are interested by climate science, this is the article to read.

   1 - There is NO climate emergency.

   2 - The consensus is political, absolutely NOT scientific. 

   3 - The data is unreliable and the models terribly inaccurate. 

 (Yes temperatures have been rising very, very slowly over the last 150 years BUT: 

   4 - We started from a very low point in 1880

   5 - The rise has been of about 1C but if you look at the raw data you will notice that the temperature goes up by a few tens of a degree over 10~20 years, then stabilize or fall slightly for 10 years and the cycle repeats over the years. 4 times already since 1880. Nobody knows why.

  6 - And no model can explain this stop and go. If the rise was truly linked to CO2, you would expect a linear acceleration. This is not what we see. It's clearly far more complex. Well, then how do we know for sure it's CO2? The answer is that we do not.

 ...and on and on. I could give hundreds of scientific examples, both data and the models. (The article below goes into more details.) But just doing so makes you a heretic in the current environment. 

  Think about it: A scientific study with data today showing any discrepancy with the consensus will not be published and any mention about it will be cancelled from YouTube / Facebook and other social media platforms (Actually what they do is to shadow-ban you to limit the spread of wrong-think.). 20 years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Now, we are about to spend trillions of dollars and euros to save the planet. It has to be a consensus!  

Authored by Scott Sturman and Doug Goodman via The Epoch Times,

Executive Order 14057 justifies the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions as necessary to counteract the existential threat of climate change. The program’s comprehensive and prohibitively expensive initiative proposes to transform the operational military by achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, purportedly on firmly established “science-based” targets that are validated by computer models and consensus within the scientific community.

The plan’s ambitious yet unrealistic goals, which are presented as an alarmist ultimatum, ignore the foundational principles of physics and battle-proven lessons of military history.

The Plan establishes emission objectives by determining “alignment with the scale of reductions required to limit global warming below 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.” These emission reduction targets come directly from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Net-Zero Paris Climate Accord. The IPCC is not a science based organization that conducts its own research but rather a governmental policy organization whose members are countries, not scientists, and whose representatives are bureaucrats who develop and promote international climate policy. The IPCC sponsors and filters climate science research generated from outside organizations to support its primary charter of establishing the man made causes and influences on climate change.

The narrative that the earth’s climate balances precariously on the brink of catastrophe and merits the distinction of a national security priority is constantly presented to the public in familiar, apocalyptic terms. President Biden warns that global warming is the greatest threat to national security. DOD Secretary Austin alerts the public of existential climate threats, including an ice-free Arctic Ocean, although as of January 2023 the Arctic sea ice pack is at its highest since 2003. The DOD and high ranking officials from the navy, army, and air force proclaim that it is incumbent upon the armed services to implement net zero without delay to avert a worldwide catastrophe. Despite the incessant fearmongering, no one appears to pause and consider that the DOD produces only 1 percent of the United State’s CO2 emissions, which in turn is responsible for 13 percent of the world’s total. Even if the DOD achieves net zero, eliminating 0.13 percent of the world’s CO2 output would not detectably reduce global temperatures.

The McKinsey Report details the enormous costs and disruption to society to attain net zero and concedes there is only an even chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, and it is far from certain whether the world will be able to keep the temperature increase to that level. The transition will require a fundamental change to the world’s economy, costing an estimated $6 trillion per year for the next 30 years. This translates to $11,000 per year for every American until 2050 for a result that cannot be ensured. Most of the sacrifice will come from the Third World, where 1/3-1/2 of GDP will be required to achieve net zero, but at a further cost of killing millions and plunging more millions into extreme poverty and starvation. Bjorn Lomborg warns that a zero fossil fuel solution is expensive, leads to misery and an impoverishment of the planet, and will fail to mitigate temperature elevation appreciably.

The hasty evolution to net zero comes at a prohibitive price, and its adherents concoct doomsday scenarios that demand and ennoble mass sacrifice. Depicting a world in complete environmental collapse due to the effects of fossil fuels promotes a theme intended to instill panic. The DOD embellishes adverse weather-related and environmental events but fails to place them in context or provide contrary interpretations. The extent and history of glacial retreat, sea level rise, desertification, forest fires, heat waves, death due to heat as opposed to cold, hurricanes, and tornados are exaggerated and depicted in emotional terms to legitimize drastic action. These contentions have been examined extensively, using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) and the IPCC’s own data, and refute the hypothesis that there is a climate crisis based on these criteria. The number and intensity of severe climate events have diminished, and for those that occur, poor countries lack the resources to deal with natural disasters, while wealthier societies are able to better mitigate structural damage and human injury.

Computer modeling, a useful tool for conceptualization, forms the heart of climate science. The technique, however, is unable to prove hypotheses and has been wildly inaccurate since its inception. Climate science is a complex subject of interacting variables acting over time cycles that differ by order of magnitudes from the depths of the oceans to the upper stratosphere that are in turn affected by orbital mechanics and solar perturbations. The authenticity of ground-based temperature readings, the raison d’être of climate activists, raises alarm about the IPCC’s most fundamental assessments, since the underestimation of the heat island effect may distort the temperature anomaly data by up to 40 percent.

The major problem with computer models is the resolution and averaging required to make the models computable. The atmosphere is divided into volumes with horizontal grid lengths of tens of kilometers within which parameters like temperature, pressure, and density are averaged to represent the entire volume. Atmospheric processes like cloud physics and turbulence occur at scales well below the resolution of these cells, which compels modelers to estimate the values and effects of these processes. These guesses invariably favor global warming and the deleterious effects of CO2.

Since data collection points rarely align with the grid points required by the numerical models, discrepancies of hundred of kilometers exist, which modelers homogenize to allow the data to fit the grid. This leads to false adjustments and manipulations of the real data. Computational models are inherently unstable and diverge from physical reality. At distances below the grid scale, perturbations multiply and a butterfly effect ensues. Modelers are forced constantly to realign or reset the initial conditions, which mask the deviations and give the illusion that the models accurately predict observed conditions.

DOD officials defend net-zero defense prioritization by claiming that scientific consensus and sham peer reviewed studies validate this contention. Peer review has degenerated into a process that favors a regression to the mean, and has become a form of consensus. The original 97 percent consensus claim from Cook in 2013 that humans are the major cause of global warming that will result in catastrophic climate events has been widely discredited. Investigators point out that the number is closer to 1.6 percent, but the original, inaccurate claim of near-universal consensus, advanced by Barack Obama and John Kerry, remains a favored technique of politicians to inject ideology into science.

John Clauser won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work with particle entanglement and serves as an example that the most distinguished and competent scientists are not immune from rebuke for challenging the climate change narrative. Dr. Clauser stated publicly that there is no climate emergency and the dangerous corruption of science threatens the world economy and welfare of billions of people. Mainstream media outlets allied to climate science activism predictably marginalized the distinguished physicist with ad hominem attacks and inferred that only bona fide climate scientists like Dr. Michael Mann, the originator of the widely debunked hockey stick shaped temperature acceleration profile, are qualified to speak on the subject.

The DOD plan to reduce greenhouse emissions makes no mention of the stabilizing benefits of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations in terms of food production or the weak correlation between temperature and CO2 levels over the last 570 millions years. There has been a 20 percent increase in the world’s biomass over the past 40 years, and CO2 is responsible for 70 percent of this benefit. Some of the world’s most unstable regions have achieved an element of food security, as exuberant plant life has reversed desertification and conferred a degree of economic stability—a benefit for developing more accurate military contingencies.

A nation’s military priorities must optimize its access to natural resources, develop war plans that allow for flexibility and maximum projection of power, and to conclude that one’s enemies will not be concerned with carbon footprints when it comes to surviving and winning a major military conflict. No commander purposely informs potential enemies that the armed forces will be restricted for decades to specific, unproven technologies and untested operational strategies that are established solely to comply with climate change dogma. Future and present adversaries are under no such constraints and will devote resources predicated on the best opportunity for success. Virtue signaling climate scientists and their dutiful DOD disciples, whose premises are based on computer modeling, enact policies that weaken the military and serve as classic examples of those who hijack science to advance political agendas.

So I Went On Tucker And This Happened (Russell Brand Video - 22mn)

 In the US, I listen to Tucker Carlson. THE one journalist left in the US not on the payroll of the Deep State. 

 Concerning international strategy, Douglas Mcgregor has become the voice of reason that cannot be found anywhere on the mainstream medias now that they are spilling propaganda full time. 

 and in the UK, we have Russell Brand, a more colorful personality but who in the end focus on the same freedom centric messages. Here's his latest video below, but you can also find him on Rumble by typing his name, a less censored platform for now. 

 

Col. Douglas Macgregor REVEALS Pentagon's Hidden Truths on US Military (Video - 37mn)

   Another superb interview of Douglas Mcgregor. The man should be in charge of the American foreign policy, He has the knowledge and experience needed for the job. But of course he is not. It is Neo-con nuts like Nuland who are, pulling the strings behind the curtain towards war with Iran, Russia and eventually China.

  Our only chance for now is that nobody's ready for war although of course these kind of events tend to quickly take a dynamic of their own. The war in Gaza is radicalizing the Middle East. Eventually we'll reach a boiling point. At that stage, whatever happens, oil will quickly shoot from 80 USD per barrel to... 1,000 Yuan per barrel! And suddenly the world will look very different. 

  How likely is this to happen? It looks distant and improbable for now but change the international context and what looked impossible becomes unavoidable. We are moving closer to a tipping point...

 

We Can't Ban Our Way To A Better World

  Who's talking about a better world? Covid-19 was just the appetizer!

Authored by Charles Krblich via The Brownstone Institute,

Il nous faut de l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!

(We need audacity, more audacity, always audacity!)

Georges Jacques Danton

Just a short time ago, on a Saturday, before a flake of snow glistened in the air on the following Sunday, an imminent weather emergency caused New York Governor Kathy Hochul to “ban travel” and postpone the Steelers-Bills super Wild Card game until the following Monday.

Certainly, severe weather is a legitimate reason to cancel or postpone events, and to stridently warn against travel during white-out conditions in a blizzard, but a travel ban?

Banning isn’t limited to travel during white-out conditions in blizzards though.

It is truly a bipartisan pastime.

Ban gas stoves; Ban gas-powered generators; Ban books; Ban misinformation; Ban fake news; Ban gender affirming care; Ban parents from being notified of gender transitions; Ban abortions; Ban the banning of abortions; Ban gasoline powered cars and trucks; Ban the unvaccinated; Ban the unmasked; Ban DEI; Ban gas boilers; Ban coal; Ban nuclear; Ban high-capacity magazines; Ban guns; Ban incandescent lightbulbs...

Those bans are just to fix all of society’s important problems, but there are presumably less important things that need banning as well. What would really help is banning honors classes to produce equity, banning youth tackle football, and even banning sledding! In Canada!

If we pass just a few more laws that ban the things we don’t like and banish the people who support them, utopia will arrive and thou-shalt-not do anything.

Maybe you agree with some of these bans and maybe you disagree with others. Certainly if you have any political leanings at all, some of these bans will find your enthusiastic support and others your passionate fury. The most difficult position to hold is that none of these things should be banned, and people should largely be free to do as they please. That position infuriates everyone!

Yet it is clear beyond any doubt that bans simply don’t work. I was a child during the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. Drugs were banned, and yet always available. Chicago has banned guns for years and yet has incredibly high gun violence. We banned smiles, playgrounds, and normal personal interaction for years in order to ban Covid and we still catch Covid.

Ironically, it is the rebels who pay no attention to the bans that are often celebrated by history. This is true both in real life and in fictional epics familiar to everyone.

In real life, the Russian Samizdat reproduced, often by hand, great works of literature like Doctor Zhivago and The Gulag Archipelago. Much of their work was producing political texts and personal statements – editorials – that often criticized the Soviet Government and offered alternative solutions to the government’s handling of events. The members of the Samizdat faced severe punishment involving torture and death if they were caught, and we celebrate their courage today.

Fictionally, we celebrate the scrappy rebels in the Star Wars franchise, we root for Neo to win back humanity’s freedom from the scourge of the machines in the Matrix franchise, and we feel the passion and duty of Atticus Finch as he does the unthinkable in his society and defends a black man accused of raping a white woman because it’s the right thing to do.

There are so many more examples, but what is important is that in each example there are laws – either written or unwritten – that are being broken in service of true liberalism. In the Samizdat example, there are often steep personal costs paid, but the delusions of the Soviet state eventually faded and the members of the Samizdat became celebrated heroes rather than vicious criminals spreading misinformation.

In each of the stories there is inevitably a society, culture, or villain that is unbearably cruel and filled with hypocrisy and judgment. Whereas the villain wants complete control, abject anarchy, or the banishment of all non-conformers, the heroes always have the strength to follow their own conscience.

Isn’t this the world we live in? Both sides see themselves as the heroes resisting the unbearable cruelty and hypocrisy of the other. To quote Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

They don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space.

This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?

What are the means and methods for not tolerating someone? Banishment is, of course, one of them, and thus bank accounts were frozen, disabled grandmothers assaulted, and rebel ringleaders jailed. The state does not need Gulags if on one hand they can approve of some riots but use unapproved protests to turn off your ability to bank, transact, work, and live with the flip of a switch.

The last few years have taught us how fast a person can be turned into swine and banished without remorse.

This moral dilemma is highlighted in one of the allegedly “banned” books. “Banned” because it has racist language, yet still freely available in every book store and on Amazon, there is a character who is a strict disciplinarian who often chastises the main character for his recklessness. She is on a mission to ban his audacity and wildness. She desires to “civilize” him.

That is ultimately what banning is trying to bring about: one’s idea of proper civilization.

Yet civilization thrives in the cracks and margins, in the collective behavior of individuals striving to live the lives they desire despite their circumstances. The Samizdat copied the great literature because it was worthwhile, and in our “banned” book, our main character discovers his friend has been betrayed and will be returned to slavery if our character stands by idly.

So Huck Finn, who values his own sense of freedom more than anything, does what we all should do in the face of the “civilizers:” drop our pretenses and say, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”

In doing so, he follows his gut instincts and makes one of the most important moral decisions of his life. Maybe, if we follow that example, we wouldn’t be so concerned with fixing society by banning things like sledding, and would in turn find the lost joy that lives in untamed audacity and recklessness.