On the brink.

From an Alasdair Macleod examination of inflation and monetary policy, among other things:

In summary, government finances started in this presidential election year with the largest deficit on record. We now have an economic disaster unfolding, driven not only by the COVID-19 lockdowns but by a confluence of a turn in the bank credit cycle and rising trade protectionism. It is no exaggeration to suggest we are on the brink of an economic catastrophe; a descent into an economic dark age. Not only is the budget deficit escalating to multiples of that expected as recently as last March, but there is no prospect of it declining at any time.^[1]

I believe what Mr. Macleod means by a "turn in the bank credit cycle" is the recent reduction in bank lending. One of the reasons for Fed stimulus is to ensure continued lending to forestall productive business bankruptcies and hence greater unemployment, but now it appears overall bank lending has turned down. Moreover, such recent lending as there is has apparently gone to financial enterprises as well as productive enterprises, and the "turn" is even worse than it looks because financial enterprises are being favored by the banks even under these circumstances and the decrease in bank lending to productive enterprises is consequently worse.

Mcleod's essay is long and intricate and not for the faint of heart, at least if you're not an economist. It's still worth your time as anything you read about monetary policy and economic lunacy is a good investment. I try to read most of these articles and still struggle to understand the interrelationships but occasionally a useful insight does land in my brain. Take my word for it.

My assessment as a rank amateur in these matters is that the Fed is in full panic mode and it will be a cold day in Southside Chicago when the Congress and the president address the core problems of the economy and the nation. Obsession with

• the lunatic BLM, AntiFa, structural racism, and the poeleece brutality canard;
• the absolute awfulness of white people and our culture;
• the doings of our, for some reason, mortal enemy Russia;
• the dire necessity to subsidize single motherhood;
• 
  the absolute imperative to import more foreigners to take American jobs, drive down wage levels, suck up welfare, and sluice their hostile, aberrant cultural attitudes into American society;
• military adventure in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Kosovo, and on the Russian border; and
• who should rule in Iran and Hong Kong and how

will continue unabated.

But, tragically, the core problems of our society will also be studiously avoided, to wit,

• the failure of the "civil rights" revolution as evidenced by the presence of a huge black underclass who will not accept responsibility for their academic, moral, and social failure, will blame the white man for their problems, will resort to riot, looting and arson at the drop of a hat, and will make whatever city, where they are a significant minority, unlivable and a reliable stronghold of electoral support for Democrat Party pathology;
• concentration of wealth and resulting plutocratic distortion of politics in favor of the elites' ignorant infatuation with "climate change," socialism, globalism, and population reduction;
• the inordinate influence of Jewish money in American politics;
• the participation of dual citizens in American government;
• the presence of tens of millions of un-deported illegal invaders inside the borders;
• rampant, suffocating monopoly;
• absurd media monopoly and consequent media corruption;
• a massive assault on free speech by media and tech giants;
• the existence of the clueless Federal Reserve Bank that has debased our currency and inexplicably sluices untold wealth into the hands of the private owners of the Fed;
• imperial overreach and arrogant interference in the internal affairs of other nations;
• 85 years of Supreme Court subversion;
• the universal condemnation of Joseph McCarthy and his well-founded efforts to expose the extent of communist infiltration of the federal government (which is ongoing);
• the destruction of the family at the hands of feminist and homosexual loons; and
• a corrupt and utterly unresponsive Congress.

The lockdown for the virus has been horribly destructive and certain webizens make convincing arguments that the economic destruction is deliberate and aimed at discrediting Pres. Trump, regardless of the cost to ordinary people.

That's just a sideshow to the overall Klown Kavalcade of political failure, however. America -- and the rest of the Western world -- have proven to be not up to the task of preserving our civilization or warding off deeply-rooted, house-on-fire stupidity and gynomania, though I repeat myself just then. It's the culmination of some three centuries of Western "thinking" that man can order human affairs better than God and in utter disregard of man's fundamental nature.

Remember the Fabian slogans? "Remould it [the world] nearer to the heart's desire" and "Pray devoutly. Hammer smartly." Or, stated differently, change according to the fatuous notions of a tiny group of intellectual twits. And purposeful destruction.

Wonderful. Remember Pol Pot? He wanted to return to Cambodia and create a "perfect" democracy. We all know how that movie ended. Yes, let's trust the heart's desire of morons. And devils. And, boy howdy, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes until the mask comes off.

Government anywhere on the planet has two fundamental duties and only two: preserve the nation from external and internal barbarian attack. Western man, in his profound mental and moral stupor, has managed to rid his understanding of the very notion of barbarism and so spends massive energy to pass off rape, riot, murder, looting, arson, bastardy, abortion, sedition, subversion, treason, and double parking as being nothing more than the fleeting annoyance of dandelions and crabgrass in the front lawn.

Having chosen self-delusion, superstition, and the flight from reason as his Prime Directive, Western man has set his course to his imminent meeting with Solzhenitsyn's "pitiless crowbar of events" and his (Western man's) vindication of the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin's observation that "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

Hang on, morons! You did H.L. Mencken proud.

Notes
^[1] "Prices Are Going To Rise... And Fast!" By Alasdair Macleod, ZeroHedge, 7/3/20 (emphasis added).