It's both but not often presented like this, keep this quote in mind:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C.S. Lewis
The busybody Lewis describes is optimizing around some moral outcome. The outcomes are bad, it's intentional so we think of it as evil but it's not quite. Take Germany and energy, their policy is suicidal, it will wreck the third world (which can't compete for energy except coal, can't compete for fertilizer (derived from natural gas), and can't compete for food). Germany's under investment and killing of morally incorrect energy (nuclear, fossil fuels) aside from being impossible, is counter productive to their own aims (carbon free/neutral energy) because now they need to retreat to COAL which is worse than natural gas from a carbon perspective.
It's evil in the sense they have ignored every other variable (including feasibility) which has had predictably bad out comes, not just for Germany but the rest of the world. The myopia of having such a narrow goal, without consideration to other considerations is a derangement, which looks like incompetence but it isn't. The people in charge very competently marched towards their ill-fated goals.
The problem is people avoiding or otherwise unable to see reality, which is orthogonal to competency or malevolence. Competently moving towards wrong goal under wrong/false beliefs to the exclusion of other factors is z coordinate here. In so far as it is evil lies in not acknowledging/accepting/dealing with reality or being unwilling to course correct from bad policy. It's kinda of like my tweet here (https://twitter.com/BowTiedIT/status/1538693830496616449).
What's worse is there is a lot money to keep people focused on the wrong areas that Are dead ends. I think a tight monetary environment will force bad ideas to fall away. Renewables (and evs) simply can't replace the energy sector, we don't have the ore(s), supply chains, manufacturing, ect to do it. Worse, compared to nuclear and fossil fuels they loose on efficiency, further their usefulness is very localized (they don't make sense in MOST places on earth). The only way they made any sense is in a low cost of capital environment where you could arb the difference with low interest rate loans. Solar panels have a useful life of like 20 years which they get less efficient over time, from an energy perspective they have a 5 to 1 pay back ratio, meaning they take the energy it takes to make them is 5 x what they will produce in 1 year. Add in a loan to pay for it which will be like 7 years, and the true roi is like 10 years or half its useful life. Thats in a low cost of capital environment, what about when a consumer loan for them is 8 or 12%? Leasing? why bother that's break even at best. (DoombergT on twitter/substack has done great work showing why green tech is a loser at scale, so has peter ziehan.)
The list of derangements goes on, and no one here needs the list any way. Eventually pain will force change, as it Always does. (NFA) If you see a structural sector of the economy counter positioned to reality, go long on reality winning eventually.
Are all externalities included in calculations? For example what’s the healthcare cost of smog in cities etc. Durability of electric grid if neighborhoods have their own solar setups etc. Reduction of geopolitical worries do to decreased reliance on middle eastern and Russia oil.
My personal belief is that this is a result of Rahm Emmanuel’s phrase: “never let a crisis go to waste”. They didn’t specifically plan the events as they played out. But their goal of a Great Reset was why they implemented all their policies. Rising gas prices are a feature, not a bug, for example.
Is it worth it to dwell/try to find out whether is malice vs stupidity?
Can knowing the answer make me better positioned for the future?
Maybe assigning evil makes predictions of the slippery slope type easier (and they really do happen), but is it mentally healthy long term?
Maybe is all stupidity + result of the wrong dominant philosophy/culture? Can we make similar predictions (worst outcome probable - people in power do really not think in terms of 2nd, 3rd order consequences)?
No one in government is competent enough at macro-assessments to have actually been able to plan this. It was all obvious consequences of their actions, but "government economist" is a bigger joke than it is a legitimate profession.
Most politicians are little more than barbarians who treat the pyramids, colosseum of Rome, and Mausoleum at Halicarnassus as little more than fancy quarry's for cheap stone. They are incapable of seeing these things as treasures of the past and are only self-interested. A politician is the same. How can I benefit myself and my associates as quickly and easily as possible? That is the only concern they have. The virus and the lockdowns were simply an opportunity, and the vast majority of politicians, being only in it for themselves, took every single opportunity presented to them.
We can blame them, but we also should blame ourselves. These are the people we voted for. A common looter smiles and shakes a few hands on TV and we gave them the reigns. Democrat, or Republican; you can find examples on both sides that supported the theft, as well as you can find minorities on both sides that tried to stop it. Our fault. We voted for this, now it's best that we find our own way out of this, because we most certainly can't vote our way out. Sovereign citizen is the only escape path. I believe that as countries begin to realize that they must compete for citizens and tax income that they will look at the crypto economy and do their best to be as attractive to the crypto economy as they can in order to have it move in to their country. I do believe that countries will compete for us. If not countries, then states, if not states, then counties, if not counties, then we will build our own space. No doubt, a space will be made for us, one way or another.
All planned by 'elites' or whatever you choose to call the people behind the scenes manipulating the strings. Covid 'pandemic' (I use this term loosely) was used as a tool to institute mail in voting which allowed these people to place their desired candidate into office. Also another way of further dividing useful idiots who think Repubs/Dems have any differences and actually give a shit about anything other than retaining their status and benefits.
Covid was over-used so the news cycle pivots to war in order to take attention away from rolling out GBDC. I wouldn't be surprised if it's being used to launder tax payer funds either. Mid-term election year so I'm quite sure they'll roll out manufactured outrage concerning gay rights, racism, firearm laws, monkeypox, whatever, etc. Problem being that inflation is hitting people really hard and they're not responding to what normally works.
Managed decline. Trump forced the globalists to have to speed up efforts and what was to be accomplished over 10 years needed to get done in 3-4. Masks are fully off and now it’s a battle of economic populism vs global Masters of the Universe for control
Also add paying people not to work for 2 years + vaccine mandates causing resignations/firings, refusing to invest in domestic oil production at time of tight supply, and reckless sanctions on Russia backfiring and exacerbating inflation.
Leaning towards incompetence.
They think they're doing "the right thing", but so out of touch they think the destruction they're causing is a "transitory" sacrifice for a "better" future.
A side effect of extreme wealth gained through grifting the public.
There is a large psychological impact here from the roller coaster. I am meeting men (primarily) who feel lost and see no path to prosperity. They thought leverage would lead to riches, but it led to ruin.
While that is bleak, and bad for humanity, there is a clear benefit for those who can maintain a long-term POV. The fundamentals of Bitcoin remain the same. The competition is going to drown itself with drugs and metaphorical cheesecake (and maybe even some physical cheesecake and maintain the obesity epidemic).
Less competition, cheaper BTC. What more could someone realistically ask for, assuming they are able to position themselves correctly (cashflow positive and ready to buy assets)?
For the working class, people are not willing to work for the same wages as 2 years ago since their living expenses have gone up, no one wants to do a shitty job and still not even make enough money to get by. Companies also don't have enough money to pay them more. It looks like a cycle of max pain is on the horizon
Not sure we’ll ever know but guessing that the outcome was a mix of varying degrees of influence, morality, judgement, and incentives.
The human tendency to follow the authority figure and peer pressure kicked in. In hindsight, tales are weaved to create the narrative that best suits the tellers bias, some narratives closer to the truth than others.
Bottom line TLDR = tons of BS, misdirection, poor judgement, gas-lighting, mis-information, and incompetency
Both, incompetent at being extremely evil. The plan was extremely evil but missed the resiliency of a free people who were warned of what was to qome , incompetence in dealing with this piece will be the downfall of the evil and rise of the free.
It's both but not often presented like this, keep this quote in mind:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C.S. Lewis
The busybody Lewis describes is optimizing around some moral outcome. The outcomes are bad, it's intentional so we think of it as evil but it's not quite. Take Germany and energy, their policy is suicidal, it will wreck the third world (which can't compete for energy except coal, can't compete for fertilizer (derived from natural gas), and can't compete for food). Germany's under investment and killing of morally incorrect energy (nuclear, fossil fuels) aside from being impossible, is counter productive to their own aims (carbon free/neutral energy) because now they need to retreat to COAL which is worse than natural gas from a carbon perspective.
It's evil in the sense they have ignored every other variable (including feasibility) which has had predictably bad out comes, not just for Germany but the rest of the world. The myopia of having such a narrow goal, without consideration to other considerations is a derangement, which looks like incompetence but it isn't. The people in charge very competently marched towards their ill-fated goals.
The problem is people avoiding or otherwise unable to see reality, which is orthogonal to competency or malevolence. Competently moving towards wrong goal under wrong/false beliefs to the exclusion of other factors is z coordinate here. In so far as it is evil lies in not acknowledging/accepting/dealing with reality or being unwilling to course correct from bad policy. It's kinda of like my tweet here (https://twitter.com/BowTiedIT/status/1538693830496616449).
What's worse is there is a lot money to keep people focused on the wrong areas that Are dead ends. I think a tight monetary environment will force bad ideas to fall away. Renewables (and evs) simply can't replace the energy sector, we don't have the ore(s), supply chains, manufacturing, ect to do it. Worse, compared to nuclear and fossil fuels they loose on efficiency, further their usefulness is very localized (they don't make sense in MOST places on earth). The only way they made any sense is in a low cost of capital environment where you could arb the difference with low interest rate loans. Solar panels have a useful life of like 20 years which they get less efficient over time, from an energy perspective they have a 5 to 1 pay back ratio, meaning they take the energy it takes to make them is 5 x what they will produce in 1 year. Add in a loan to pay for it which will be like 7 years, and the true roi is like 10 years or half its useful life. Thats in a low cost of capital environment, what about when a consumer loan for them is 8 or 12%? Leasing? why bother that's break even at best. (DoombergT on twitter/substack has done great work showing why green tech is a loser at scale, so has peter ziehan.)
The list of derangements goes on, and no one here needs the list any way. Eventually pain will force change, as it Always does. (NFA) If you see a structural sector of the economy counter positioned to reality, go long on reality winning eventually.
Are all externalities included in calculations? For example what’s the healthcare cost of smog in cities etc. Durability of electric grid if neighborhoods have their own solar setups etc. Reduction of geopolitical worries do to decreased reliance on middle eastern and Russia oil.
My personal belief is that this is a result of Rahm Emmanuel’s phrase: “never let a crisis go to waste”. They didn’t specifically plan the events as they played out. But their goal of a Great Reset was why they implemented all their policies. Rising gas prices are a feature, not a bug, for example.
Questions I ask myself:
Is it worth it to dwell/try to find out whether is malice vs stupidity?
Can knowing the answer make me better positioned for the future?
Maybe assigning evil makes predictions of the slippery slope type easier (and they really do happen), but is it mentally healthy long term?
Maybe is all stupidity + result of the wrong dominant philosophy/culture? Can we make similar predictions (worst outcome probable - people in power do really not think in terms of 2nd, 3rd order consequences)?
"Questions I ask myself:
Is it worth it to dwell/try to find out whether is malice vs stupidity?"
No. But it was worth every Goddamn second of my life studying the Physics of : Clown cars.
I just work on myself and my projects everyday. I'm human and am prone to mistakes and fatigue.
Whether this is all evil or not, I rather not think about it.
No one in government is competent enough at macro-assessments to have actually been able to plan this. It was all obvious consequences of their actions, but "government economist" is a bigger joke than it is a legitimate profession.
Most politicians are little more than barbarians who treat the pyramids, colosseum of Rome, and Mausoleum at Halicarnassus as little more than fancy quarry's for cheap stone. They are incapable of seeing these things as treasures of the past and are only self-interested. A politician is the same. How can I benefit myself and my associates as quickly and easily as possible? That is the only concern they have. The virus and the lockdowns were simply an opportunity, and the vast majority of politicians, being only in it for themselves, took every single opportunity presented to them.
We can blame them, but we also should blame ourselves. These are the people we voted for. A common looter smiles and shakes a few hands on TV and we gave them the reigns. Democrat, or Republican; you can find examples on both sides that supported the theft, as well as you can find minorities on both sides that tried to stop it. Our fault. We voted for this, now it's best that we find our own way out of this, because we most certainly can't vote our way out. Sovereign citizen is the only escape path. I believe that as countries begin to realize that they must compete for citizens and tax income that they will look at the crypto economy and do their best to be as attractive to the crypto economy as they can in order to have it move in to their country. I do believe that countries will compete for us. If not countries, then states, if not states, then counties, if not counties, then we will build our own space. No doubt, a space will be made for us, one way or another.
All planned by 'elites' or whatever you choose to call the people behind the scenes manipulating the strings. Covid 'pandemic' (I use this term loosely) was used as a tool to institute mail in voting which allowed these people to place their desired candidate into office. Also another way of further dividing useful idiots who think Repubs/Dems have any differences and actually give a shit about anything other than retaining their status and benefits.
Covid was over-used so the news cycle pivots to war in order to take attention away from rolling out GBDC. I wouldn't be surprised if it's being used to launder tax payer funds either. Mid-term election year so I'm quite sure they'll roll out manufactured outrage concerning gay rights, racism, firearm laws, monkeypox, whatever, etc. Problem being that inflation is hitting people really hard and they're not responding to what normally works.
Managed decline. Trump forced the globalists to have to speed up efforts and what was to be accomplished over 10 years needed to get done in 3-4. Masks are fully off and now it’s a battle of economic populism vs global Masters of the Universe for control
THE GREAT RESET 🤡 ESG
One of the best summaries out there.
Also add paying people not to work for 2 years + vaccine mandates causing resignations/firings, refusing to invest in domestic oil production at time of tight supply, and reckless sanctions on Russia backfiring and exacerbating inflation.
Leaning towards incompetence.
They think they're doing "the right thing", but so out of touch they think the destruction they're causing is a "transitory" sacrifice for a "better" future.
A side effect of extreme wealth gained through grifting the public.
There is a large psychological impact here from the roller coaster. I am meeting men (primarily) who feel lost and see no path to prosperity. They thought leverage would lead to riches, but it led to ruin.
While that is bleak, and bad for humanity, there is a clear benefit for those who can maintain a long-term POV. The fundamentals of Bitcoin remain the same. The competition is going to drown itself with drugs and metaphorical cheesecake (and maybe even some physical cheesecake and maintain the obesity epidemic).
Less competition, cheaper BTC. What more could someone realistically ask for, assuming they are able to position themselves correctly (cashflow positive and ready to buy assets)?
Hell yeah.
For the working class, people are not willing to work for the same wages as 2 years ago since their living expenses have gone up, no one wants to do a shitty job and still not even make enough money to get by. Companies also don't have enough money to pay them more. It looks like a cycle of max pain is on the horizon
Great post as always.
Not sure we’ll ever know but guessing that the outcome was a mix of varying degrees of influence, morality, judgement, and incentives.
The human tendency to follow the authority figure and peer pressure kicked in. In hindsight, tales are weaved to create the narrative that best suits the tellers bias, some narratives closer to the truth than others.
Bottom line TLDR = tons of BS, misdirection, poor judgement, gas-lighting, mis-information, and incompetency
Are college degrees the socially acceptable/politically correct proxy closest to actual IQ testing?
The only thing I don't agree with, in this post, is when Bull wrote that it is June but feels like a year. No it does not.
It feels like 2 years.
Both, incompetent at being extremely evil. The plan was extremely evil but missed the resiliency of a free people who were warned of what was to qome , incompetence in dealing with this piece will be the downfall of the evil and rise of the free.
Its just plain stupidty IMHO.
We live in an age where people do what they FEEL is right rather than doing what they THINK is right.
Reality will never bow down to your feelings.
We might be heading into a dystopian future but at least the memes are hilarious.
Extreme Greed combined with Ignorance and a disregard for any consequences is all you need.
No secret council of lizard people, just a demented old fool and thousands of greedy people using any opportunity to get rich at any cost.