Countdown To Chaos

On Wednesday, while the broad stock market was getting shellacked, and companies like Everbridge, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Dynatrace were suffering double digit freefalls, something else was going on.  Gold and silver were also getting shellacked.

But it wasn’t all crash and burn.  First Solar, Rolls-Royce Holdings, and CoreLogic all notched double digit gains.  The dollar, as measured by the dollar index, gold, silver, and most stocks, was also up.  And something else was up too…

Most investors likely didn’t notice that American firearm manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Company managed to eke out a small return.  Why would they?  A return of 0.43 percent is nothing to write home about.

Nonetheless, we contend that Ruger’s modest gain in the face of a massive selloff is something that should get the attention of investors.  It’s something that should also get the attention of non-investors.  Guns are in high demand.  So is ammo.

Naturally, guns and ammo should be in high demand.  They are useful.  Sometimes they are especially useful.  And right now happens to be one of those times.

Without question something wicked is brewing.  Politicians, academics, and the media have been fermenting public divisions for decades.  Now a volatile cocktail of rage threatens to blow its top off sometime on or shortly after election day.  People are gunning up just in case the chaos – something more than things that go bump in the night – arrives at their doorstep.

What to make of it…

“Death to America!”

The weather may have cooled down.  But the populace still burns hot.  Factions and fanatics look for any excuse to destroy public usufructs.  And they don’t have to look far to find one.

For example, this week, following the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. in West Philadelphia, people went mad.  First they took to the streets.  Then they took to setting dumpsters on fire.  After that, they took to looting Walmart and other stores.

The main intent of Philadelphia’s violent mobs was not to protest the shooting of Wallace.  Rather, it was to get free stuff.  Flat screen TVs were particularly popular.

Here at the Economic Prism we don’t agree with theft of any kind…be it currency debasement, confiscatory taxes and fees, or mob looting.  But at least the mobs in Philadelphia were clear of their intent.  They wanted free stuff.  So they took it.

The mobs in Portland, Seattle, and Kenosha were of a different variety.  The Wall Street Journal offers the following distinction:

“‘Death to America!’ is a common refrain from antifa rioters from Portland, Ore., to Kenosha, Wis.  Children are in the streets calling for the country’s destruction while mobs of college kids trash public spaces, filming themselves as though part of a performance-art spectacle.  […]

“These acts of violence encapsulate five decades of neo-Marxist indoctrination in American schools, colleges and universities.  The left’s ‘long march’ through the institutions is all but complete.  […].  America’s young, especially those raised in middle-class or affluent homes, have been so brainwashed that they no longer notice how absurd it is to call for the eradication of their own nation-state, and to do so in the lingo of Iran’s mullahs.”

‘Death to America!’ is a hollow mantra.  Just what is it that these soft minded brats think they’re shouting death to?  The American republic has been dead since at least 1913.

Countdown To Chaos

A great boon for Washington was attained that year.  Honest and prudent statesmen offering small government and sound financial policies were forever rendered powerless.  So, too, the hallowed reach along the banks of the Potomac River where politics and money mix forever slipped into venality.  Democratic mob rule supplanted the limited government of a republic.

In the year 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified giving Congress the power to collect taxes on incomes.  That same year the states also ratified the Seventeenth Amendment, which established direct election of Senators by popular vote.  Then, before the year concluded, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was passed delegating the right to issue money from Congress to the Federal Reserve.

After the events of 1913, the American republic ceased to exist.  The federal government was given carte blanche authority to consolidate and centralize power.  Moreover, the federal government had the power to plunder the lives of its citizens on a grand scale.  That is, it had near limitless power to tax, borrow, spend, and inflate the currency.

The effects of the Sixteenth Amendment and the Federal Reserve Act are themes we commonly explore.  However, the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment are equally destructive.

In short, the Seventeenth Amendment allows the Senate to buy votes from their constituents in exchange for delivering federal money back to their districts.  This ensures the government acts to meet the collective demand for private security through public spending.  It also rewards political corruption and public graft.

These realities are not taught at universities.  They require self-study, independent learning, and deep thinking to uncover.  By this, shouts of ‘Death to America!’ by radicalized youth fall short of past grievances.

At least shouts of ‘Bread or Blood’ by rioters of East Anglia, Britain, in 1816, were clear in their rage.  Bread prices had inflated beyond wages.  Stomachs were empty.

Today’s ‘Death to America!’ rioter is unaware that the American republic is long gone.  Thus, what they are rampaging for is more of the policies that brought us to this disagreeable place.  Wealth redistribution and corruption are two of the fundamental canons of progressive socialism.  Throw a ‘woke’ hyper focus on race into the mix and progressive socialism can take a far more dangerous turn.

Perhaps next week’s election day will come and go without a hitch.  But with all the idiots on parade, this is highly doubtful.  The countdown to chaos is on.  Plan accordingly.

Sincerely,

MN Gordon
for Economic Prism

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