The State Of Our Crisis

Who thinks Zhou Baidan is equipped to be POTUS? One thing polling tells us for sure: The average American doesn’t think he is. It’s not just that they disapprove of his policies—they don’t think he has the wherewithal to do the job, the mental acuity. If he ever had it, which I very much doubt. World leaders? I’m quite sure they’re totally on board with those average Americans.

Which brings us to an interesting topic—one we’ve referenced repeatedly, and which is brilliantly discussed at The American Thinker today. The Dems are in the mother of all dilemmas. They can’t get rid of Zhou because … Kama Sutra, who is hopeless.

The basic idea of the AT article is that the Dems find themselves in this position because someone thought it was a bright idea to have Zhou promise to have a black female VP. The immediate problem then became what black female could they pick who wasn’t named Stacey Abrams? Bingo—Kama Sutra, liked by the Obamas.That solved the problem, they thought, of 2020—let the problem of 2024 (when Kama Sutra might be in the running for the presidential nomination) take care of itself some other day. Now, however, it turns out that 2021 has turned into the real problem. Things in general are rapidly turning to sh*t—politically, economically, socially—and the Dems are stuck with Zhou, and they daren’t even think of pulling a 25th amendment move—even supposing the GOP would help them get that through. It’s a great read:

The unsolvable Democrat dilemma

Unfortunately, this isn’t just a dilemma for the Dems. It’s increasingly a dilemma for the nation and the world.

Here are a few economic headlines that should give pause for thought. Remember, the US economy matters. In a presentation that I’ll link to later, Danielle DiMartino Booth makes a number of observations in that regard. First she’s under no illusion that the rest of the world is oblivious to the decline of rule of law in the US—and therefore the decline of the perception of the US as a safe place to invest. Foreign investment in the US, she says, has dropped from about a third to the low 20s of percentage points. And yet, she says, the UK and the EU are in an even worse position. So—the headlines, just to make the point:

UMich [Consumer] Sentiment Survey Collapses To 11-Year-Lows, Inflation Expectations Surge

A Record Number Of Americans Just Quit Their Job, As Job Openings Surpass Unemployed Workers By A Record 2.8 Million

The "Transitory" Debate Is Over: Persistent Inflation Just Hit The Highest On Record

There are reports that the Zhou regime has finally realized that they’d better try to do something about the price of gasoline—other than laugh about it. If they think they can turn this economy around quickly or get people to forget all their other problems that way, well, we knew they weren’t in touch. To show how clueless they are, someone in the regime let Kama Sutra answer reporter posed questions, like, what to do about inflation? Her response was that the regime can lick inflation by having the government spend more money. Really.

Americans always focus more on trouble at home rather than abroad. There are two oceans separating the US from all those troublesome foreigners, after all. But troubles abroad are likely to intrude on the consciousness of Americans increasingly in the months to come. Part of that, of course, is because troublesome foreigners are flooding across the border—and we don’t even really know who they are.

But another aspect of this is that the regime seems recklessly oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world—including China and Russia—have become very much aware of the disarray not only in the regime’s inner circles but also within the Deep State. And that includes the military. Just a few days ago I wrote about Putin’s Russia challenging NATO at the Polish border with Belarus. Well, that situation hasn’t improved:

Russia Deploys Paratroopers To Belarus After Blasting Increased NATO Reconnaissance In Region

Please note this:

On Friday the Kremlin said it's observed NATO increasing air reconnaissance flights over the Black Sea, according to defense sources cited in Interfax and TASS news agencies. 

"In the past 24 hours, several reconnaissance planes were detected above the Black Sea. There is no more doubt that the United States is exploring the region as a possible theater of war," TASS cites Russian officials as saying.

Got that? Putin is saying, If you think there’s no price to be paid for provoking us in the Black Sea, we have lots of ways to strike back. The linkage of the two issues is direct and explicit.

And please don’t ask me what Boris Johnson is smoking:

UK Deploys Troops To Poland To "Fortify Border Fence" With Belarus

Where’s the US in all this? 

EU Official Calls US Warships Near Russia's Coast "Clearly" An Unncessary "Provocation"

Of course it’s a provocation, and of course it’s unnecessary. But it’s totally of a piece with our largely clueless Russian policy since the end of the Cold War. Our policy is to deny that Russia has any strategic interests that extend anywhere in the world beyond their immediate borders. And our policy in action involves attempting to enforce those limits with active provocations right up to those borders, through meddling in the internal affairs of Russia’s neighbors (up to and including sponsoring coups), through ever increasing sanctions, and through military pressure. This approach is terribly misguided, counterproductive, and reckless, and has next to no prospect of success. And it comes at a time when our own polity is on the point of unraveling.

Now, with all this going on, here is a link to the Youtube of Danielle DiMartino Booth’s presentation of the overall state of investing in the US economy. I know nothing about these matters—much of it went totally over my head—so that’s the best I can describe her presentation. However, her constant refrain is: In our current crisis “economics is politics”. She makes a major point that Mitch McConnell is very determined on the debt ceiling issue and this is a fulcrum for so much else going on in our increasingly dysfunctional economy. She ends with this thought. The Republicans, she says, are determined to retake the House and Senate in 2022. She believes they are so determined that they will stop at nothing—including allowing the stock market to correct itself. As in, fall through the basement. 2022, she says, could end up looking like a game of patty cake—or something like that.

The video is 43 minutes long, including some Q&A. If you have a background in investing, maybe the details will interest you. If you’re like me, on the other hand, you can listen for the overall thrust of what she’s saying—especially about inflation, the housing market, and employment—as well as for occasional nuggets on what it all means for politics and international relations.

At any rate, the bottom line is the US is approaching a day of reckoning. What can’t continue, won’t. DiMartino Booth even hints at the possibility of a hot war to resolve world leadership, which the US has badly bungled since the end of the Cold War.