Stocks continue their sharp decline that began yesterday. Interest rates are on the move higher, and the dollar is down again. Gold is up.
Most notably, rates on 2-year Treasuries have moved up 69% (!) since September from 1.254% to 2.116%.
Everyone knows what I’m rooting for. Let’s bankrupt the US government and be over with it already. I do feel bad for any generally conscientious person who lives off the government dole though. They’re going to be hammered hard.
In a world where yetzer hara (the evil inclination, AKA evolutionary biology) exists, it is best to accept its existence and live your life accordingly, rather than wishing it didn’t exist and living your life as if it didn’t.
Considering how deep of a rock I live under, I was actually surprised by the story of some doctor named Nassar (already a name I don’t like so much a la the Egyptian politician who murdered thousands of Jews) who sexually abused a bunch of female gymnasts that he was supposed to take care of as doctor of the US Olympics team. My wife is a gymnast so I take this a bit more personally than most.
The guy started out by abusing these girls under the guise of medical examinations. As a male, I can understand, though not tolerate, why a man would sexually abuse a young girl. And because I can understand it, theoretically speaking, I understand what is needed to stop this evil most effectively.
What is to understand? Women will not be able to understand it, but men reading this post will understand it very easily. Imagine that you are either an invincible alpha who can get any girl he wants, or that you are a beta and have been rejected all your life, from middle school all the way to age 40. Either you can get sex whenever you want and it’s not emotionally fulfilling, or you never had emotionally fulfilling sex because you can’t get much sex at all, never been validated as an attractive male, or your marriage is only a settled affair and your wife is dominant and you submissive and unfulfilled and you feel emasculated. Many many feel this way. Not all men with these kinds of lives become abusers, because some have very strong yetzer tov. Some, a very minor percentage, do.
Any male can theoretically have either kind of life.
Any mother (yes mother, because they make most of these sorts of decisions in actual reality) of any child should know this, and should absolutely forbid their children from being in a room with any male, unaccompanied, in any situation whatsoever. You can hope and wish and want men to behave differently and think that this is this is the “right thing” or the “feminist” thing or whatever you want, but that will not protect your children or yourself. It just won’t.
If you, a parent, allow your child in a room alone with any male at all ever, regardless of professional titles or anything else, you are absolutely negligent.
In our old neighborhood we had a girl who would come to our house every so often to hang out and play with our kids. She was 8 or 9 or so, our girls were babies or toddlers. One day my wife told me that the mother of this girl forbade her from coming over when my wife was not present in the house. At first I was slightly offended. Who would possibly think I was a child abuser? And then I accepted it and was happy about it. She’s being responsible and careful and I’m a male. I got it. No problem. Be a parent. She doesn’t know who I am and she should take no chances. It just makes sense.
No child above the age of 3 should go into any room alone with a male who is sexually mature, period, end of story, that’s it, for any reason, even medical. They should always be accompanied by a family member or 100% trusted friend, always. This is why Halacha defines sexual maturity for girls at age 3 and boys at 9. Because Chazal knew and understood the depravity of men, even the best men. Most of us control ourselves without all that much trouble. Those of us with happy marriages control ourselves better than others.
But if you are a parent, it is best not to deny that we all evolved from primitive creatures (sorry frummies), and that the instincts of these primitives are still inside us in our reptilian brains. Culture prevents most of us from doing anything abusive. But not all.
Just be careful and assume all men are pigs. ALL men, without exception, literally.
Bitcoin is crashing today, along with all cryptocurrencies. I’m not “happy” because I like bitcoin. It’s crashing today because of Asian legal worries. Eventually, all cryptocurrencies will be outlawed entirely. All of them, except government cryptocurrencies. Those will be inflated continuously and purchases using them will be tracked entirely.
Gold cannot be outlawed because it has too much support as a thing that exists in reality over time. Cryptocurrencies can be outlawed entirely because they are new, and have little support outside of core grassroots cryptoenthusiasts. If you’re playing for collapse, which I am, the play is gold, not bitcoin. All cryptocurrencies will eventually go to zero as global government bankruptcy gets closer. Only hard assets with an intrinsic market value based on use value will be worth anything. Cryptos will be firewalled and pushed into black markets at best. Those who trade them will be termed monetary terrorists and the biggest of them will be those who use cryptocurrencies for contract killing, taken to court in public trials and portrayed as if everyone who owns any amount of bitcoin makes their living killing people.
Obviously, the vast majority if digitial currency owners are innocent people who do nothing wrong whatsoever. But they will not be portrayed that way. Be very careful.
Mdirash Rabba Breishit, Toldot 64:2 – Chazal seem to recognize the difference between high prices and a bona fide shortage. A shortage happens only when buying and/or selling at the market price is forbidden by government. If prices are mandated by government to be lower than the market price, a shortage will develop when more buyers than sellers are willing to exchange. Some buyers will not find what they want. At the market price, the amount of buyers and sellers equal out.
The Midrash here is discussing the famine that Yitzchak tried to escape from. God told him to stay in Israel and not to go down to Egypt like his father:
Is it not taught that one may not leave the land [of Israel] unless two se’ahs of wheat are being sold for a selah? Rebbi Shimon says when does this apply? When there is no wheat to by. But if there is wheat available, even one se’ah for a selah (meaning twice the price as above) one may not leave the land. Since Elimelech left the land he was punished, in that he and his sons died.
If food is very expensive in Israel, it isn’t sufficient reason to leave. But if there is a shortage and you can’t buy what you’re looking for, then you can leave. Nafka mina bewteen high cost of living and real shortage of goods due to economic intervention. Without government, there are no shortages because price always finds market level.
Took a look at the futures this morning and the S&P, Nasdaq, and the Dow all spiked down together with the dollar index and bond futures. The long term treasury ETF (TLT) is down close to 1% in premarket. Gold is up close to 1%.
When stocks, bonds, and the dollar index are all down together with gold up, that’s a gold flag. The end game will see gold flag after gold flag for weeks at a time.
What is happening with cryptocurrencies now will happen with gold. If bitcoin can move from $1,000 to $20,000 in 8 months, gold can, too. Except with gold, I believe it won’t go back down after it spikes. Cryptocurrencies will all go to zero if they ever become a popular medium of exchange because government will blame a falling dollar on bitcoin and the rest, outlaw any business from accepting any digital coins and game over, but gold will keep going up.
This is just one gold flag. Let’s see if it maintains itself and if it repeats again tomorrow.
Once price inflation hits 3-5% by government indexes, I believe the final stages in dollar hegemony will begin.
The Jewish Libertarian 