When I was a lad, the Cold War was still humming along as it had been for decades. Even as a child, I had a strong sense of what was going on and what I felt was right and wrong. I perceived my native United States as a place of individual freedom and open choices. I perceived the USSR as an evil prison housing hundreds of millions of poor souls who were under the thumb of an oppressive government. When Reagan described them as “An Evil Empire”, I was in total agreement.
What was particularly nauseating to me was how the Soviet government would shameless and persistently lie to its own people. They would always offer assurances that everything was under control, everything was going to plan, and everything was going to be fine. They were able to sustain that lie from 1919 until 1989, but then it all came crashing down. At the time, it seemed the world had finally come to its senses.
In the present, my feelings have changed along with the times. Once the figurative iron curtain was lifted, it seems that instead of the former USSR become more like the USA, the USA has instead become more like the USSR. More specifically, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have become a new kind of Politburo, and the “tools” that Powell constantly refers to were, back in the day, called “Party Organs.” The financial dictatorship in the U.S.:
- Changes laws and regulations at will;
- Says one thing and does the exact opposite;
- Endlessly assures the public that everything is going to be just A-OK, so butt out
I grew up with a deep and abiding love for the United States of America. Now I have learned to view it in the same light as I used to see the Soviet Union. It is dishonest. It is deceitful. And it is evil to the core.
And, thus, we are forced to wait again. Forced to wait for the FOMC’s nonsensical, always-wrong projections. Forced to wait for whether they pivot, pause, or pander. Forced to wait for Powell’s laughable mewing about how everything they do is for the American people and in their service. Forced to wait for all his horseshit to be done and for Leonid Brezhnev to rise from the dead and applaud.
Then we can trade again.
