Tag: blowing smoke

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EXISTENTIAL IS BIDEN’S FAVORITE WORD

Lawyers and politicians are often accused of “blowing smoke.”  Which  means they talk in circles or use words that sound erudite, but no one really understands.  All with the hope of diverting the listeners  attention away from a serious concern.  Sometimes, they like to explain away difficult situations by saying something is an “existential” crisis.  Existential  is Biden’s favorite word.  But does anyone know what it actually means ?

Existential is Biden's favorite word.ord. He says these people are having an exi
Existential is Biden’s Favorite Word. He says the Afghan’s are having an Existential Crisis.

Why couldn’t he  simply say, “The Afghan people are scared to death they’re going to get killed by the Taliban? ”  Yeah, they’ve got an existential crisis, all right. Many of us have existential problems.   Like, when your house goes up in flames, or you get hit by a train.  You start to wonder if you’re going to keep on living.   If you survive, someone may ask how you’re doing.  Would you say you’re going through hell?  Or simply respond that you’re having an existential crisis?

Actually, I think Biden  copied the expression from Obama.   As an example, in a 2014 speech to West Point Graduates. Obama said  “We don’t face an existential crisis, We don’t face a civil war. We don’t face a Soviet Union that is trying to rally a bloc of countries that could threaten our way of life.”

That sounded fairly impressive.  Very intellectual –calm, cool and collected.  It must have been reassuring to the people in the audience. .  Only things didn’t turn out so well, since our country has been on the brink of a civil war for the past few years.

Overall, I think the expression is used in an effort to gloss things over.  We unenlightened  human beings  are  admonished not to worry—it’s just an existential crisis.  Which means there’s nothing can  be done.   The ultimate cop out.

Existential is a pretty hi-falutin word . If you look it up on the internet, you’ll see it  has different meanings. While it’s defined  as  a concern about existence, it’s also described as: ” a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe, and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.”

Confused?  No wonder existential is Biden’s favorite word.

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FREE MONEY IS NOT FREE

Back in the Hippie Days of the late sixties and early seventies,  there was a saying: Free Love is not Free.  This was in response to a society that had embraced the concept of free love.  Living together without marriage, which had once been scandalous, was now accepted as the norm.  But the older generation wagged their finger and warned against so much sexual freedom.  They had a point, because unmarried women still kept getting pregnant, and there was an explosion of STDs.  Today, we have a new type of freedom to worry about.  A government that’s borrowing wildly to print money, writing stimulus checks every few months, and rewarding those who choose not to work with generous unemployment benefits.  But it seems we’re about to learn our lesson:  Free Money Is Not Free.

Have you been to the grocery store lately?  Supposedly, prices have increased a mere 5%.  I don’t know who’s pumping out those figures, but here’s an example: A month ago, I could buy a low calorie frozen dinner for $2.29 cents.  Today, that same product was on the shelves with a price tag of $3.59.  At the home improvement store, floor covering  I bought last year has increased from 54 cents a square foot to 89 cents.  To me, these and numerous other price  increases are closer to 40%..  All this free money has pumped up demand, creating a scarcity for goods and services..

Free Money is not Free. The feds don't know what will happen with inflation
Free Money is not free. The feds are blowing smoke when they say high inflation will not last.

I don’t know where the fed is coming from.  First,  Secretary of the Treasury,   Janet Yellen. says inflation is “good” for the country.  Then, she’s comforts us by predicting that it’s only temporary and prices will soon go back down.  I say this lady is blowing smoke , along with Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.     They  are basing their predictions on events that occurred in previous administrations.  None of them have ever been though a pandemic like COVID-19, and they have no more idea of what is going to happen to prices than you and me. .

 As a matter of fact, I think the average, middle class consumer has a better handle on the future of our economy that they do, because we’re driving to appointments,  going to grocery stores, and  buying home improvement items on a day to day basis.  We, the ordinary tax payers are paying more for everything because all this free money has created such a high demand.  Eventually, taxes will go up to pay for the free money , and so will interest rates.  Ordinary people will find they are struggling to pay their bills every month. Many businesses will fail and unemployment will increase.

According to Fortune Magazine,  “The economic lockdown, and the gigantic new spending enacted to combat it, brings the day of reckoning far closer. By borrowing multiple trillions at a pace never before seen, the U.S. is endangering the sterling credit that makes Treasuries and the dollar the safest of havens for global investors. It is likely that within the next decade, the U.S. will need to impose monumental tax increases. What America’s leaders aren’t saying is that it’s the middle-class Americans working today, the autoworkers, nurses, and deli owners, and not just their future generations, who’’ll foot most of the bill.”

Free Money Isn’t Free.