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Scary times could be just around the corner. To help you prepare for that we've invited our old friend Carol Roth to stop by and talk about her new book, You Will Own Nothing... because you don't have to be a parnoid prepper to be prepared for what's coming.
And, of course, James Lileks, Rob Long and Steve Hayward (sitting in again for the roaming Peter Robinson) cover the more immediate news coming down from the Summit - the NATO Summit, The Family Leadership Summit in Iowa (with Tucker Carlson presiding) and the Mickey Mouse Summit where Disney introduces a Latina Snow White and the Lone Dwarf while their CEO Bob Iger announces "that it’s not our goal to be involved in a culture war.” Say wut?!?
Opening sound this week: Tucker Carlson and former Vice-President Mike Pence clash in Iowa. (Blaze TV)
Hosted by James Lileks, Rob Long, and Steve Hayward, with guest Carol Roth
Discussion (24)
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Vladimir Putin announces "this was only supposed to be late winter military maneuvers."
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Hollywood writers on strike, "a three-hour tour."
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The reason you need "industrial policy" is because the Federal Reserve has been overdoing it since 1996, at least. We have too much finance and we don't make enough stuff. Also, trading with the Chinese mafia was quite possibly the biggest mistake any country has ever made.
Why does the Fed have to force any inflation when everybody wants the price of everything to go down and 90% of it does all of the time?
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Because inflation means they can pay back borrowed money with money that's worth less than what they borrowed?
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You have more credit expansion, which is great for about two or three decades. (Lending is easier under inflationary conditions, and very difficult under any deflation. You also can grow the government that everybody uses to steal from each other much easier.) Then you have to manage the side effects, including a debt to GDP ratio that gets out of control. We have welfare, Medicare, and Social Security, blah blah blah, but we don't manage it obviously.
Inflation is central planning, and we are too stupid to do it.
The only reason you need the opportunity for inflation, and an income tax is the possibility of war. Then you overdo it and we can't manage the side effects. It's all a great big fantasy. The whole system is rigged to require inflation. It's been like this since 1946 or 1971.
This is all one gigantic, foolish fantasy.
What is Carol Roth wrong about? Nothing. The assets are too high compared to the cash flows, and now the 10% and the government are going to own the 90%.
The second the Soviet Union fell, we should have switched to a half a percent deflation and made it work, even if we had to have a 10 year depression. Nobody has any foresight. They just use the government to steal from each other.
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