Check it out.

Antiracism as Religion

You can see from their faces, including Eddie Glaude’s barely suppressed pique, that none of MSNBC’s Morning Joe crew is ready for McWhorter’s IRONCLAD LOGIC.

Me?  I knew what to expect. The guy brings the HEAT.  But with no histrionics or hand-wringing.

Note that Glaude does not reject McWhorter’s argument but instead goes straight to WHAT-ABOUT-ISM.   As for Scarborough, you can see that he’s still QUITE CONSERVATIVE.

Meanwhile, there’s Mika, off to the left, looking like a deer in the headlights.

YEP, THEY ALL KNEW MCWHORTER WAS RIGHT!

As reported by Bloomberg.

Stephen Schwarzman, BlackRock co-founder:

“We’re going to end up with a real shortage of energy.

“And when you have a shortage, it’s just going to cost more, and it’s probably going to cost a lot more.  And when that happens, you’re going to get very unhappy people around the world, in the emerging markets in particular.”

Larry Fink, BlackRock chairman:

“Inflation, we are in a new regime.

“There are many structural reasons for that.  Short term policy related to environmentalism, in terms of restricting supply of hydrocarbons, has created energy inflation, and we are going to be living with that for some time.”

More Fink:

“We’re not focusing on long-term solutions, we’re not trying to change the world in a granular basis.

“We have these visions we could go from a brown world, and we could wake up tomorrow there’d be a green world. That is not going to happen.”

I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS AS I PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NONSENSE I READ IN THE MSM ABOUT HOW WE WILL FEND OFF CLIMATE CHANGE.  We won’t. 

But if we try to — along the foolish lines that are being promulgated, viz. WITHOUT AN ACTION PLAN grounded in a sense of INCREMENTAL REALISM — we’re going to have TOO LITTLE ENERGY and at a price FEW CAN AFFORD.

Bottom line: we will first have an energy shortage/inflation disaster followed by potentially disastrous climate change effects, some of which might have been mitigated if tackled in a PRACTICAL, INCREMENTAL WAY.

But, no — as with SOCIAL JUSTICE, CLIMATE CHANGE ENVIRONMENTALISM is a RELIGION, and all that’s not DOCTRINE is HERESY.

Still, Schwarzman and Fink have gotten VERY LITTLE WRONG.  And what matters is what actually happens.  Since what they see coming IS COMING . . .

JUST BOOK IT!

After all, we need EQUITY at any price, right?

NOT ACCORDING TO WALGREEN’S, I’D VENTURE.

Plus, there’s more to this piece than decriminalizing crime.

Check it out.

California Decriminalized Shoplifting under $950 — Guess What Happened?

An insider’s view of the Fed and markets.

DeMartino Booth also has a political angle which some will like and others not at all.  Me, I ignored it as I don’t see it as relevant. 

The TIGER WE HAVE BY THE TAIL is now DICTATING OUTCOMES.  The politicians will then try to rationalize whatever goes down.  But there’s almost ZERO CHANCE that viable solutions will come from either the RIGHT or the LEFT.

This is a two-part interview.

And here are my notes if you’d rather just read.  I’ve either repeated verbatim or paraphrased each of DeMartino’s most critical points.

The Fed and the Economy

• We have a slowing economy at pre-pandemic level pace against the backdrop of severely overvalued assets and rising inflation.
• World trade which is crucial to the health of the global economy is slowing.
• Junk bonds are producing negative yields when adjusted for inflation.
• We are in historical uncharted waters as per financial markets.
• The Fed let the inflation genie out of the battle.
• Will it taper?  It doesn’t like to at year end or when there are political/fiscal issues unresolved in the background.
• Rents are rising faster than at any time since 2005.
• Housing inflation is now bleeding into the CPI.
• The Fed may have to do a hurry-up taper in 2022 and start hiking interest rates.
• Yet, how can it tighten into an environment of zombie firms which are merely rolling over debt?
• Yet, it can’t hike rates when inflation is out of hand either.
• The idea of accelerated automation is not being sufficiently discussed.
• Meanwhile, corporate wages are out of control while workers make peanuts in comparison.
• Offshoring has accelerated in the last nine months.
• Our technological and vocational capabilities are not being passed on to the next generation as our education system is broken.
• The Fed made their own bed.
• The Fed has been running a Ponzi since the end of 2008.
• The insider trading problem within the Fed is a serious issue, and Powell may not be reappointed.
• But if Powell isn’t reappointed, it could spook the markets.
• A CBDC could deliver money directly and more efficiently to people.
• That there will be one is probably inevitable.
• The Fed doesn’t understand crypto and therefore doesn’t know how to regulate it.
• If threatened by it, the government at the Fed’s request, could always tax crypto to death.
• The district banks should be equally federal and their heads both independent and confirmed by the Senate.
• QE should be halted and debt wrung out.
• The Fed should not be allowed to enter financial markets, there should be no employment mandate, and inflation should not be allowed to go below 2%.

Markets

• Fiscal policy has screwed the small business owner.
• Zombie companies should not be kept alive.
• Everything now hinges on the debt ceiling.
• The child tax credit runs out at the end of the year.
• Once stimulus money dries up entirely, the debt ceiling debate gets ugly, and the social spending bill negotiations end less than satisfactorily, more money will be pumped into the system and, most likely, go directly to individuals.
• Yet, Joe Manchin will never allow it on the fiscal side.
• And if it doesn’t happen at all, it will make for an extremely weak economic top-line.
• There’s nothing that can be done to hide revenue declines.  At the very least, we’ll see an earnings recession.
• The hope of continued fiscal stimulus plus continued money creation is what’s levitating markets today.
• If the economy falters, the Fed won’t taper but rather increase QE.
• At the same time, Congress will pass more stimulus going into 2022.
• In which case, markets may stay levitated.
• If not, Treasuries and gold will be the best hedges against a meltdown.
• Income inequality is an economic issue, not just a social issue.  It stifles both growth and innovation.
• There will be a price for all of this stimulus and money creation.
• UBI is not the answer.
• One in four new houses is now purchased by an investor group.
• We’ve taught people not to save.

Or — TO BE HONEST — the EXTREME LIKELIHOOD  of OUTRIGHT FAILURE.

These are Chicago’s numbers — though they’re similar in ALL inner cities — and reflect a population 83% black or Hispanic.

So, let me get this straight. We want to eliminate standard tests, the correct answers in math, high performance high schools and college admissions tests.

And at the same time, WE NEED TO COMPETE WITH CHINA which has FOUR TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE and employs rigorous educational and testing standards.

HAVE WE LOST OUR MINDS?

 . . . and Those Still Fattening

Another breathtakingly informative Peterson podcast.

Shellenberger, a journalist and lapsing liberal, was once among the most vociferous advocates of renewable energy.  He has since REASONED that the GREEN ECONOMY envisioned by fervid environmentalists will never come to pass.

In this video, Peterson and he get into that and and many other related challenges.  As is usually the case with a Peterson podcast, it’s well worth your time.

By the way, you don’t have to agree with either Shellenberger’s or Peterson’s positions — though they’re mostly in agreement — to benefit.  In fact, there’s much here for many to rebut.

Here’s a sneak preview, and I’m paraphrasing:

• Shellenberger:  Studies have shown that environmentalism is depressing and bad for mental health.
• Shellenberger:  Much of the push for renewables is being driven by a kind of APOCALYPTIC ENVIRONMENTALISM — itself a kind of religious movement that’s filling a DEATH OF GOD vacuum.
• Peterson:  When the religious impulse is denied, it infects things political.
• Shellenberger:  Compassion has gone crazy, and in it’s attempt to help victims, has only led to a greater sense of victimization.
• Peterson:  We cannot create our own values.
• Shellenberger:  The Left sees the system as inherently EVIL.
• Shellenberger:  Solving environmental problems gets in the way of ALARMISM which is more environmentalists’ ACTUAL GOAL.
• Peterson:  Nietzsche believed that the DEATH OF GOD signaled the COLLAPSE OF THE HIGHEST UNIFYING VALUE.
• Peterson:  Environmentalists see environmentalism as something that embodies the HIGHEST IDEAL.
• Peterson:  Anti-capitalism is a terrible contamination of the environmentalist movement.
• Shellenberger:  There is both an underlying nihilism and power drive to the environmentalist movement that seeks total, system-wide reengineering as opposed to more doable incremental improvements.
• Shellenberger:  There is a relationship between compulsive sustainability and the DENIAL OF DEATH.
• Shellenberger:  Vegetarians consider eating meat as the contamination of their bodies with the essence of death which then triggers fear of their own death.
• Shellenberger:  Coal-produced prosperity NOW will result in people having fewer kids which will reduce FUTURE POLLUTION.
• Shellenberger:  The anti-nuclear movement couldn’t eliminate nuclear weapons, so it attempted instead to eliminate nuclear power plants.
• Peterson:  We need to learn how to prevent unwarranted apocalyptic thinking.
• Peterson:  There’s this unexamined notion that there’s some safe route.
• Shellenberger:  The Right turned the free market into a kind of god.
• Peterson:  With few exceptions, Republicans can’t talk to young people.
• Peterson:  The right path forward for conservatism is linking responsibility to meaning.
• Peterson:  You need meaning to counter the DEPRESSIVE APOCALYPSE.
• Peterson:  We need a community, we want it.  It’s not optional.
• Shellenberger:  Progressives are outraged by what they see as victims of the system.
• Peterson:  Progressive outrage is a manifestation of fear of domination by the GREAT FATHER.
• Peterson:  Fear of mortality is the negative aspect of the GREAT MOTHER.
• Peterson:  Progressives want to be the best mothers possible.  But in doing this, they risk the devouring aspect of INFANTILIZATION.
• Peterson:  We’ve never seen what FEMALE TOTALITARIANISM would look like.
• Shellenberger:  Progressives describe homeless street-addicts in a way that INFANTILIZES them.
• Peterson:  How much do you protect?  How much do you encourage?
• Shellenberger:  Police and social workers must learn how to work together.

GET THE PICTURE?

EXTREMELY PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION.

Of the nine cities in bubble territory, six are in Europe, two in Canada and one in Asia.

Take your pick.

. . . That Cannot Last.

From Charles Hugh Smith: