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Why People Hate Nick Fuentes

Posted by M. C. on August 7, 2023

I have never watched more than a combined total of 10 minutes of Nick Fuentes and may be entirely horrified by what he says. But I know this from those 10 minutes and from the scores of examples of hatred I’ve heard about him: he does not care what most people think of him.

The working class American male circa 1985 was much like that.

Now that man is a museum oddity. He is an outcast in society and an oddity to be observed from behind the safety of a display case.

By Allan Stevo

I think the thing I like most about Nick Fuentes is that he knows what it means to be free. He can’t be any more hated than he already is. At such a point, one stops caring, and it is beautiful how free one is able to behave at such a point.

The world needs people who will think freely. America, especially, needs people who will think freely. Thought is so stultified. It is better to be free and wrong than to be obediently etched into the system and right.

The thing is, people are seldom right when etched into the system. So, the proverb above, while true, is an unrealistic one since it does not describe the experience of most people. Etched into the system is almost a guarantee that you are going to be wrong. Being free and unencumbered in your interaction with other men gives you the opportunity to be right more often than a coin flip, and to enjoy yourself while you are taking that opportunity.

The thing people hate most about Fuentes — if they are honest with themselves, is that he does not bend the knee to them. He probably has a million ways he bends the knee to others in his life, just like most people, but he has a certain je ne sais quoi required of freedom that says, “I do not care what you think of me. I will continue to say it. I will speak even if no one is listening.”

The thing is, when one lives in such a way, especially in such a stultified era, many are likely to be listening.

To recap — 1.) by not caring, you are likely to live free, 2.) by not caring you are likely to be correct, 3.) by not caring you are likely to have the attention of many others.

It’s really not a bad deal — you accept the opprobrium of people who are harmful to you to care about, while getting the ear of those who will benefit the world by listening to you and living their own free lives.

There was a time not long ago in which this was called being normal.

I have never watched more than a combined total of 10 minutes of Nick Fuentes and may be entirely horrified by what he says. But I know this from those 10 minutes and from the scores of examples of hatred I’ve heard about him: he does not care what most people think of him.

And that probably makes him more free than 1-in-1000 or even 1-in-10,000 Americans.

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The British NHS More Resembles a Statist Cult Than Advanced Healthcare | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on August 4, 2023

The number of people waiting for treatment in England has reached unprecedented levels, with a backlog of 7.4 million—about one in eight of the population. Alarmingly, over 371,000 people have been waiting for over a year to receive treatment.

Meanwhile, very little coverage is given to the fact that the lockdown effects killed more people than covid, especially due to delayed treatments from the accumulated backlog. Instead of considering that the NHS’s inability to deal with the healthcare needs of Britain is a flaw in the system, NHS fanatics turn a blind eye.

https://mises.org/wire/british-nhs-more-resembles-statist-cult-advanced-healthcare

Jess Gill

The day after America celebrated its independence and its founding principles of self-governance and liberty, across the pond, Britain paid tribute to its values of collectivism and statism by commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Health Service (NHS). Children’s choirs sang “Happy Birthday” at a thanksgiving church service celebrating the NHS at Westminster Abbey. In attendance were the prime minister and the opposition leader, among others. The notion that the NHS is the closest thing the United Kingdom has to a state religion has never been truer.

However, behind the pomp and pageantry, the NHS is a god that has failed. The reality is that the NHS should be one of the United Kingdom’s biggest shames, as it constantly lets down both patients and staff while placing a substantial burden on the taxpayer.

The number of people waiting for treatment in England has reached unprecedented levels, with a backlog of 7.4 million—about one in eight of the population. Alarmingly, over 371,000 people have been waiting for over a year to receive treatment. The UK has significantly fewer hospital beds, doctors, nurses, CT scanners, and MRI units than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average. In addition, the UK has the second-highest rate of treatable deaths in Western Europe. How can anyone believe this system deserves to be eulogized?

Yet the NHS worshippers can’t admit that the system is failing as they hang on to the lie that the NHS is an example of socialism working. Instead, they turn to conspiracies, claiming the NHS is failing because the Tories are purposefully underfunding it to push privatization as a viable alternative. This is far from the truth: NHS funding is at record-high levels, above the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average.

The argument that the Tories are trying to privatize the NHS has been pushed by mainstream news outlets for over four decades, from the Times in 1980 to the Byline Times in 2023, who claim that this is all a move to transition to a US-style system.

Nevertheless, the truth remains that when compared to not only the United States but also the rest of Europe, the UK continues to exhibit a significant level of statism in its healthcare system. As Dr. Kristian Niemietz, head of political economy of the Institute of Economic Affairs, points out,

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They Just Outlawed Trucks

Posted by M. C. on August 4, 2023

No manufacture will invest money in anything new they won’t be allowed to sell in a few years from now.

That means no new engine designs. Or at least, very few. Especially as regards V8s, which is what powers most current trucks. Some will probably continue to be available – in very low numbers, at very high cost (due to their not being “compliant.”). The fines levied by the government will see to that.

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/07/31/they-just-outlawed-trucks/

By eric

The federal regulatory apparat – which has become an unelected legislature – has just decreed that there will be no new trucks by less than a decade from now.

“Decreed” in italics because that is precisely what has just happened.

No law was passed, but last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (note the blasé bureaucratic terminology; it is just an “administration,” ands yet it does a great deal more than merely administering) decreed that by 2032, new vehicles must average at least 58 miles-per-gallon.

As of today, there isn’t single new car available that can comply with this decree. “Comply” in italics to mark the outrageousness of the “administration” of such decrees, which no one in this “democracy” of ours ever had a chance to vote for – or against.

The only car that comes close to being able to “comply” is the Toyota Prius, a small hybrid – and even it doesn’t quite get there.

It averages 57 MPG.

How will trucks “comply” with a federal decree that requires them to average 58 MPG? The answer is – they won’t. Because they can’t. It is a functional impossibility. In order to be a truck, it must be capable of doing work – such as carrying and pulling heavy things. This makes trucks heavier – by a lot – than a small car such as the Prius. As an example, the Ford F-150 (not the electric version) has a curb weight of 4,465 lbs., notwithstanding that its body is made of aluminum. It has a steel frame – onto which the aluminum body is bolted. This is how trucks are laid out because it is the best layout for the type of work people expect trucks be able to do without breaking.

A small car like the Prius has an integrated body and frame – this is called a unibody – and it helps reduce weight; even so, the 2023 Prius still weighs 3,097 lbs. And it is a near-miracle that something that heavy manages to almost “comply” with the federal regulatory apparat’s decree.

But it required a hybrid drivetrain – in a small car – to get it almost there.

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US Military May Put Armed Troops on Commercial Ships in Strait of Hormuz

Posted by M. C. on August 4, 2023

The move risks a direct clash between the US and Iranian militaries

Your sons and daughters protecting the Iranian coastal waters from Iran

antiwar.com

by Dave DeCamp

The US military may place armed troops on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a move that would significantly raise tensions between the US and Iran, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

The idea would be to protect commercial vessels from being seized by Iran, but it could result in direct clashes between the US and Iranian militaries. The US has been steadily increasing its military presence in the Persian Gulf since Iran seized two tankers earlier this year, which was provoked by the US seizing a tanker carrying Iranian oil.

Using the pretext of sanctions enforcement, the US Justice Department seized the Greek tanker Suez Rajan in April and forced the ship to head for Texas instead of China as the US intended to steal the 800,000 barrels of Iranian oil it was carrying. But according to recent media reports, US companies are hesitant to discharge the oil because they fear reprisal from Iran in the Persian Gulf, and the Suez Rajan is stuck off the coast of Texas.

Five unnamed US officials speaking to AP said that no final decision on placing armed troops on commercial vessels has been made. They said discussions have been ongoing between the US and Gulf Arab nations.

The potential plan would involve US Marines and Navy sailors providing security for vessels that requested it. The US recently announced the deployment of an Amphibious Readiness Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) to the region, which typically consists of about 2,200 Marines and three amphibious warships.

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Republicans Miss the Point on Government Regulations

Posted by M. C. on August 4, 2023

But as Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) has well said: “These products already exist in the free market. Consumers should decide whether the upfront cost of a heat-pump water heater is worth the possible long-term savings. In many cases, the monthly savings never make up for the upfront cost of the equipment.”

What she says may sound good, but the fact is that Republicans have always dictated what Americans can think, such as when it comes to discrimination, or what Americans can smoke when it comes to marijuana, or what Americans can do with their money when it comes to gambling. Examples of their hypocrisy, in fact, are too numerous to mention. 

by Laurence M. Vance

First, they came for our incandescent light bulbs and gas stoves, and now, they are after our water heaters and dishwashers.The truth is, Republicans are okay with government regulations as long as they are not excessive.
[Click to Tweet]

Back in 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law the Energy Independence and Security Act. Among other things, it required greater efficiency for light bulbs, which effectively began the phase-out of the incandescent light bulb, with some exceptions. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has confirmed that it will now proceed with a ban on the manufacture and retail sale of most incandescent light bulbs. The DOE claims that incandescent light bulbs are inefficient and contribute to climate change. Discontinuing them “will save Americans nearly $3 billion yearly and substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions over 30 years” to the tune of 222 million metric tons, “an amount equivalent to emissions generated by 28 million homes in one year.”

In January of this year, the commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Rich Trumka, floated the idea of a future ban on gas stoves because they can cause indoor air pollution and contribute to climate change. House Republicans, joined by some Democrats, passed a bill recently to “prohibit the use of federal money to regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product” and to “block an Energy Department rule setting stricter energy efficiency standards for stovetops and ovens.”

Even some Democrats couldn’t handle these proposed regulations, like Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who has often been a thorn in the side of the Biden administration: “The federal government has no business telling me – or any American family – how to cook dinner. That’s why I’m proud to lead a bipartisan bill with @SenTedCruz to ensure Americans decide how to cook in their own homes.”

The DOE is now proposing as well more stringent efficiency requirements for electric water heaters: “The proposal would require the most common-sized electric water heaters to achieve efficiency gains with heat pump technology and gas-fired instantaneous water heaters to achieve efficiency gains through condensing technology.” The new standards will “save Americans approximately $198 billion and reduce 501 million metric tons of harmful carbon dioxide emissions cumulatively over 30 years — roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions of 63 million homes, or approximately 50 percent of homes in the United States.”

But as Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) has well said: “These products already exist in the free market. Consumers should decide whether the upfront cost of a heat-pump water heater is worth the possible long-term savings. In many cases, the monthly savings never make up for the upfront cost of the equipment.”

The Biden administration is also now targeting dishwashers. The DOE recently published a 255-page document proposing new energy-efficiency standards for dishwashers. The new standards will “save consumers nearly $3 billion in utility bill savings over the ensuing 30 years of shipments and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 million metric tons.”

But as the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ben Lieberman pointed out: “By the agency’s own analysis, the proposed rule would save consumers $17 over the life of a standard dishwasher, which it estimates at 15.2 years. That works out to $1.12 per year. Against this miniscule benefit is the very real risk of greatly diminished performance and convenience for consumers.”

Things are actually worse than they appear. 

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9 Reasons Why Gold Will Soon Replace Treasuries As The Ultimate Store-Of-Value Asset

Posted by M. C. on August 4, 2023

In short, we are on the verge of a paradigm shift in international finance as gold replaces Treasuries as the world’s premier store-of-value asset.

Then, gold skyrocketed from $35 per ounce to $850 in 1980—a gain of over 2,300% or more than 24x.

I expect the percentage rise in the price of gold to be at least as significant as it was during the last paradigm shift.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/9-reasons-why-gold-will-soon-replace-treasuries-ultimate-store-value-asset

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

In the age of fiat currency, the distinct concepts of saving and investing have become conflated and confused.

Saving is producing more than you consume and then setting it the difference aside.

Investing is allocating capital to a productive business to create more wealth. Investing has more risk—and potential reward—than saving.

Today, however, what most people think of as saving is actually investing.

That’s because most people take the excess of their production over consumption and put it into the stock or bond market.

Most people understand that it’s not optimal to simply hold fiat currency, which the central banks continuously debase. So they put their money into other assets, primarily bonds and stocks.

In other words, fiat currency and inflation have ruined saving for most people. It has forced them further down the risk curve into stocks, bonds, and other investments in a struggle to maintain their purchasing power.

However, there is no guarantee those investments will even keep up with inflation. But suppose they do. They will then be subject to a capital gains tax, even if it’s only a nominal gain, not a real one.

That means savers face the daunting task of not only keeping up with inflation but also outpacing the capital gains tax on the nominal gain just to maintain their purchasing power.

That’s made saving an impossible task for most.

Before the era of easy-to-produce fiat currency, people could simply save in money, which was either gold or a derivation of it.

There was no need for a dentist, construction worker, or taxi driver also to become a hedge fund manager to try to keep their head above water.

That’s how the fiat era monetized stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets that wouldn’t have otherwise been.

For example, 50 years ago, the market cap of all the gold in the world was roughly equal to the market cap of all the stocks in the world. Today, the market cap of gold is about 10% of the world’s equities.

It’s an indication of how capital that used to be allocated to saving in gold became allocated to the stock market instead.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a legitimate place for stocks, bonds, and real estate—there certainly is. It’s just that people would use them for investing—or, in the case of real estate, its utility value—and not as savings vehicles.

Bonds in general and Treasuries in particular, became the “go-to” savings vehicles to store wealth in the fiat era.

However, I think that will change soon as bonds will be incapable of storing value in the face of financial repression.

With 2022 being the worst year for Treasuries in American history, the shift away from bonds has probably already begun.

That means a lot of the capital parked in bonds will be looking for a new home that functions as a better store of value.

Gold: Make Saving Great Again

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Yellow Trucking Goes Bankrupt, Thanks in Part to Onerous Labor Laws | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

We can never know for sure how Yellow would have fared if not for its battles with the Teamsters. Maybe the labor disputes only accelerated the demise of a company doomed by incompetent management. Or perhaps it would have integrated its acquisitions successfully in the absence of union pushback. Regardless, we can be sure that because of the destructive nature of coercive labor unions, Yellow went bankrupt in a manner that leaves you, the end consumer, a bit worse off.

https://mises.org/wire/yellow-trucking-goes-bankrupt-thanks-part-onerous-labor-laws

Connor O’Keeffe

On July 30, Yellow, one of the oldest and largest trucking businesses in the United States, ceased operations and moved to declare bankruptcy. According to reports, the final nail in the coffin of the ninety-nine-year-old business was a labor dispute with the Teamsters Union.

Yellow’s executives also deserve some blame, however. The trucking networks acquired in the 2000s and 2010s were poorly managed, delaying their integration. That said, when the company finally sought integration, the efforts were blocked by the union. The standoff sent Yellow into a dire financial situation which culminated in a dispute over pension payments in July.

The company sought to defer two pension payments to give executives breathing room to navigate the challenging financial situation. In response, the Teamsters threatened to strike, leading customers to flee to Yellow’s competitors. The company entered a tailspin which led to Sunday’s bankruptcy announcement.

Economic losses, and the bankruptcies they can bring, are crucial to the market process. As I highlighted in an article last month, they provide a very motivating signal that specific scarce resources ought to be used elsewhere to better meet the needs and wants of end consumers—which is the entire purpose of the economy.

But this is only true when losses result from voluntary choices made by consumers and producers. Coercive government interventions warp this process in ways that can only make consumers worse off. Firms may be protected from economic losses or put out of business because of government policy. Either way, when government intervenes in the economy, some resources are no longer being used to produce what consumers value.

But sometimes this line between a productive and unproductive economic loss is not obvious. Such is the case with Yellow. Economic losses that result from poor management decisions are productive in that they reallocate resources into the hands of managers who will more competently meet the needs of end consumers. But unions complicate things.

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Even the Aliens Are Boring

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

The most likely answer to many is this is just a larger-scale rollout of the usual False Flag template: a threat has emerged which we must counter. The template is worn at the edges because it’s been used so many times. For example, North Vietnamese gunboats fired on US Navy vessels, so we really had no choice but to launch a multi-year bombing campaign involving thousands of aircraft and military personnel that cost many their lives and squandered countless billions of dollars.

Never mind the “attack” was fabricated for PR purposes. It worked great,

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug23/aliens-boring8-23.html

Charles Hugh Smith

Everything is boring, even the aliens.

Sometimes truth is best revealed tongue-in-cheek, that is, in semi-serious banter rather than supposedly serious analysis.

Consider the recent flood-tide of “news” about extraterrestrial vehicles, a.k.a. UFOs and UAPs–(formerly Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, now Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, to include underwater phenomena.

Prolific podcaster (1,314 podcasts and counting) Tommy Corrigan and I tackled the UAP mystery–why are UAPs now an officially sanctioned “thing”?–in a free-form conversation, Aliens Are Boring (1:08 hrs).

As you can tell from the title of our podcast, the truth is the Powers That Be have managed to make the aliens boring. Rather than the “revelations” being “stunning” or “shocking,” the entire exercise was as boring as everything else the PTB manage.

Transforming what could be the biggest story in history into a boring committee meeting devoid of any real evidence is quite an accomplishment. As Tommy opined, what would qualify as “interesting” would be Presidents Xi, Putin and Biden appearing on stage together to announce a global consortium to deal with the alien presence, and video of recovered alien bodies and spacecraft wreckage.

Instead, we got a boring committee meeting with sworn testimony, i.e. a nothing-burger of rehashed pilot accounts from the New York Time’s 2017 report. 2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’

In a word, boring. Tic-Tacs, saucers, hovering lights, blah-blah-blah.

The only interesting aspect of the the whole charade is the question, why now? The question, cui bono, to whose benefit?, remains unanswered. Who benefits from the distraction or the narrative?

OK, we get the PR cover story. The American public deserves to know,National Security is at stake, and so on. But what’s the real motivation? Who benefits from this stage-managed emergence of weird stuff that’s been ridiculed and dismissed by the Powers That Be for 75 years?

The most likely answer to many is this is just a larger-scale rollout of the usual False Flag template: a threat has emerged which we must counter. The template is worn at the edges because it’s been used so many times. For example, North Vietnamese gunboats fired on US Navy vessels, so we really had no choice but to launch a multi-year bombing campaign involving thousands of aircraft and military personnel that cost many their lives and squandered countless billions of dollars.

Never mind the “attack” was fabricated for PR purposes. It worked great, as it always does. The public rallies around vastly increased “defense” spending and skeptical inquiries are derided as “unpatriotic” / dangerous to National Security.

Due to its over-use, the public is finally wise to the template, and so how much traction this rollout of the alien threat to National Security will have is not yet visible.

Until the public gets to see the alien corpses on ice and the shattered spacecraft bits, it’s a non-starter.

Further down the “truthiness” chain, we ask: why are the aliens as boring as everything else? Tommy and I discuss the possibility–again, tongue-in-cheek–that the Powers That Be are themselves so bored by their control of all the machinery of the modern world that they decided to unleash the alien wild-card as a rare “what the heck” moment of freedom from the demands of controlling everything, just to see where it goes.

Humans habituate rather quickly to ceaseless hysterical crises. The crises pile up and we tune out. Those generating the crises for the benefit of various players start realizing the endless crises are slipping inexorably into the same boring trough as entertainment, “news”, AI (LLMs, blah-blah-blah), economics, politics and the rest of the tightly controlled narratives.

Where’s the outrage”? It burned out long ago. There’s nothing left but the mind-dulling, hyper-boring derangement of channel-surfing and the social-media / TikTok / Only Fans scroll of repetitive rubbish. Crises, shmises, give me something new.

Sorry, there isn’t anything that’s actually new–it’s just the same old tired frenzy of crisis, over-acting, existential threats, secret cabals, terrorists who hate our freedoms, tricked-up statistics, phony exposes, celebrity apologies, blah-blah-blah, all intended to spin the money-maker, our attention, the polite word for addiction.

We habituate to stimulus of any kind, even the addictive variety. Just as the Ibogaine dosage has to be constantly increased to get the same effect, until there’s no effect at all, the Powers That Be have to constantly increase the dosage of crisis, frenzy, drama, threats, thrills, fake exposes, etc. to keep the narratives functioning as intended: distracting, deranging and fragmenting the increasingly burned-out, bored audience.

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How Lockheed’s $7.9B stock buyback bonanza is paid for by you

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

The arms industry titan pockets billions a year in federal contracts then turns around and uses it to enrich its shareholders.

Bolstered by new sales related to the War in Ukraine, the company seems committed to continuing the use of buybacks. In their most recent release of financial information, Taiclet said that they “are confident in our return to growth and ability to reward our shareholders over the long run with reliable free cash flow per share expansion and cash deployment.” 

Written by
Brett Heinz

The value of Lockheed Martin’s stock grew by 37 percent last year, representing an incredible financial gain for investors in the nation’s largest military contractor.

This spike was hardly the result of changing market conditions, however: the S&P 500 ended the year with growth of -20 percent. Instead, this growth came from stock buybacks. In 2022, the company bought back more of its own stock than in any other year in its history: $7.9 billion, equivalent to 12 percent of its sales income. 

According to Lockheed’s 2022 annual report, 73.5 percent of the company’s sales last year were to the U.S. government, most of which were for the Department of Defense. In other words, if these buybacks come proportionately from the different revenue streams of the company, U.S. taxpayers underwrote $5.8 billion in Lockheed buybacks. 

This is without including Foreign Military Sales, roughly another 19.2 percent of the total, which are sold to foreign governments through the U.S. government.

When contractors who receive most of their money from government sales issue buybacks, it is ultimately taxpayer dollars being redirected towards shareholders’ pockets. Data from Lockheed Martin’s annual reports suggests that company outdid itself in 2022, offering its investors a record level of taxpayer-backed buybacks equivalent to the prior four years combined.

This isn’t a new phenomenon.

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NATO Failed To Weaken Russia — So Just Make China The New Enemy? – Colonel Douglas Macgregor

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

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