@Uncephalized
A friend who WAS an ardent Trump supporter just recently threw away the Trump flag she displayed in her front yard. DJT's latest baloney encouraging people to get the vex was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I agree with Tickerguy. Trump is done. The more he opens his big mouth the worse it gets for his supporters.

Trump should take a cue from Carter and Bush (1&2). Once they left office and shut up their popularity improved!

Augeries wrote..

Steve Bannon seems like a hell of a guy, and I wish he had more power. His interviews with Tim Pool, and another couple no-name youtubers, confirm to me that Bannon is actually a level-headed person with reasonable political standpoints. It is a crime that he was debased as "far-right", because I think the average American would be ready to support him if they could only hear what he has to say.

Pro: He's a Fourth Turner.
Con: He's a Goldman Sucks alum.

Con outweighs the pro.

Re foreign problems: The traditionally Russian provinces of the Donbass and Donetsk were given to the Ukraine by the Soviet butcher Lenin in an effort to have political allies. Same story for the Crimea, except it was given to the Ukraine in the 1950's by Khruschev to gain their support for his premiership after Stalin's death. Russian intelligence intercepted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's unencrypted phone conversation about who was America's choice to run the Ukraine after the US sponsored coup against the pro-Russian democratically elected president. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! The best choice according to Nuland was a fellow member of the Tribe of Ritual Penis Mutilators. Ukraine hasn't the natural resources of Russia for looting, but it has proximity to Russia. This proximity lends itself to pressuring Russia to be compliant with the demands of the USA. The USA has a long tradition of meddling in other countries business and no politicians who have paid a personal price in a war. Russia has competent leadership, but feels being painted into a corner. What happens when our economy stumbles? Danger Will Smith.
Who knows what will come out of the Ghislane Maxwell trial. Not much. The Epstein pedophile/blackmail op has so far been fairly well hushed up. Why should we expect anything different with this trial?
Should Lindsey Graham's usefulness as part of the controlled opposition come to an end, he may be caught with a dick in one of his bodily orifices and finally outed by the Ministry of Truth. It could happen.
We may have a shortage of opiates in the coming year. Don't throw away those unused Rx's.

Doesn't seem like Trump has a path forwards, especially if the vax issues finally blow up in the general public.

That said, the real focus is on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Harris is not qualified to be in her position, but there is only one way to remove her and that is through impeachment. And today the chances of her being impeached are 0%. Similarly for Joe, there is no way he is going to be impeached. I'm actually surprised he's lasted this long. He is likely a walking medical experiment for dementia fighting drugs and whatever else ails him.

Do the Republicans have the balls to impeach him in 2023? Maybe, but it could take a while. They are not organized like Pelosi was when she impeached Trump twice.

We are in the Biden-Harris shitshow for at least two more years, unless Biden suddenly drops dead of whatever. Then it is Harris who is a lame duck. Hillary Clinton will not be appointed to be President or VP, ever. That's just a wet dream of the feminists in journalism. R's might inform her of who they will allow and possibly could insist on an R to occupy the VP seat and that would set off national journalist outrage and antifa riots. Better to deadlock everything for 1-3 years depending on when Biden dies than it is to allow Harris to do anything except service the foreign dignitaries while on her knees.

@TG

I enjoy a bit of crystal balling so to speak. My comments for the board:

I agree the inflation won't calm. I mean, that's obvious. The clowns in DC won't stop spending, they have a track record that goes back decades at this point. Closely connected to that, I disagree that the Fed will do actual liquidty drains. They are committed to funding USG, end of story. If they can drain while keeping USG funded, well fine they'll do that, but the QE thing is such a large number I don't think they can. The easy way out here IMO is to blame COVID. We did this at my previous job as a repair tech; anytime customer is unhappy just blame COVID and they shut up. Parts late, not enough techs, whatever the delay to them, weeks, a month, just blame COVID or supply chains because COVID. And they just shut up and accept it according to my old supervisor. So... No drains. You can't afford bread because COVID, not because USG and the Fed Reserve are irresponsible and stealing via printing. No hyperinflation??? Hmm, ok I guess. How do we define that again???

If you buy inflation continuing and worsening, then the rest are a logical extension from there... Yeah stocks will puke. Yeah supply chains continue to get screwed since no one can predict costs. So yeah biz gets hit hard. Blue hives, yeah I'm rolling my eyes here. I'm just happy I didn't need a shotgun or any of those fire extinguishers I picked up. Yet.

Geopolitical trouble: Yes, this is a given. All the Western powers are intent on destroying their domestic energy production, here and in Europe, and printing money, and buying energy overseas. Witness Biden killing off the Keystone pipeline and then promptly beg to OPEC and Russia for more oil. What a dope. Combine that with the fact there has been little investment of substance in American war fighting equipment. MRAPs are armored cars, you can't fight tanks in armored cars. Those are for occupation duty. The Army is still driving around in M113s from the 50s, Bradley IFVs from the 70s, and M1 Abrams tanks from the 90s... The Air Force is still operating B-52s from the 60s with no retirement plans, and they are buying more F-15s rather than F-35s now, which shows how much confidence they have in those things IMO, which are the only area where appreciable investment has been made. The rest of the defense budget has frankly been stolen IMO in various places, on sinecures for various toadies, and on bases in who knows where trying to manage the local warlord pissing matchs. The Strava leak was hysterical in showing off that last one, even Congress critters weren't aware on a bunch of these bases. Oh yeah, and who will show up for a clot shot for a chance to die for Brandon and his crackhead whoremongering son. When the trouble hits and they need real men, I'm going to suggest they send Hunter Biden, the smartest man Joe knows, along with a team of elite Russian hookers and as much rock cocaine as they can get, and see if they can't fuck the problem to death.

Ghislaine Maxwell: I disagree, this is the end of the story. She and Epstein belong to intelligence, and that means they will be told to clean up after themselves. And they will, she will go out like Epstein did in rather open and notorious fashion, nearly as obvious as polonium in her tea. That will be all the justice there will to be had in the world on this score unfortunately, everyone will just have to be satisfied knowing she and Epstein can't do any of this stuff anymore, and it should be a warning to anyone about trying to get into this game themselves. Those two have outlived their usefulness, however that gets determined, and now they are being put away IMO.

I really would like to see Biden out. Not because Kamala is better, but because she is different. A different Shakespearean dumb show, as I tire of the current one. I can't wait to see what she screws up on live television. Maybe she could proposition Putin or Xi on live TV, that's about where her best talent lies--and I'm sure whoever put her name in for the job originally knew that.

@Austin

"everyone vote RINO

maybe Jesus or Klaus come save you

hope you are offended"

Made my nite, sir or madam. Tu!

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A motion to adjourn and go fishing is always in order.
--me channeling Heinlein

Is the country ready for Kamasutra, a.k.a. the pro semenologist, to be POTUS? I'm guessing no, so they will keep shooting Joe up with embalming fluid to keep him in the big chair.

Great Ticker, I always enjoy new year's predictions.

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"The higher I go, the crookeder it gets." --Michael Corleone

With regards to real estate, we moved into our place December of 2009 pretty close to the bottom of the market crash. 12 years later the place is estimated at 2.1x our purchase price. I love our place but it's not worth the exaggerated price that is estimated.

I've been following some areas of AZ and I have been seeing prices drop as I believe there are people trying to cash out while they can. We're saving and waiting and will eventually pull the trigger to get to another state.

Hope everyone here keeps the powder dry and is ready to make the moves that they need/want to when the opportunity presents itself.

Death to the Covid Cult and may next year be better for all.

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Were never going to learn how safe the vaccine is unless we start giving it, and thats just the way it goes.
Dr. Eric Rubin, Harvard University

In addition to Karl's predictions I wonder two items:

• If Covid and future variants continue unabated, governments will get more Naziesque towards citizens, eg, see Australia, Germany, Austria, even England now.
  
• We will experience behaviors and events that will make one say "WTF?" in sheer disbelief of humanity's ability to lower the bar.
  

Humanity would be a great species if it weren't for people.

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Covid: Too many people scared of living and too many who fear dying.

I think the "Biden and/or Harris will resign soon" is nonsense, designed to get the right to become lazy (which they are good at) and not work that hard in the 2022 midterms.

With a vacancy at either post, the Dems lose the Senate majority since they no longer have the VP to break a tie. Think McConnell is going to just give the Senate back to the Dems? I don't think so.

If there is a vacancy after mid-year, I think the GOP will delay the VP vote until after the midterms when they have a lot more leverage.

If prior to mid-year, it is hard to see them delaying the VP vote by more than a few months.

I think the solution therefore will be a VP that blocks the Dems from controlling the Senate: in other words, a Democrat Senator from a state with a Republican governor to appoint a replacement (or not appoint one) until the next general election. Tim Kaine of Virginia fits that bill. Of course, the GOP would have to extract a promise that he wouldn't run for president in the future since an incumbent VP has a huge advantage.

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where do we go from here?

well, I'm sure KD will be at least 50% correct as usual.

inflation? fuck ya!

government fucked up? fuck ya!

liquidity drains? they've done it b4 so, fuck ya!

split the baby? no comment, fuck ya!

equity market? there is no spoon. fuck ya!

supply chain? really, fuck ya!

well if your still reading, fuck ya!

O ya almost forgot, FUCK TRUMP! fuck ya!

Re: real estate

It seems to me that all the helicopter money printed by last and current administrations ended up in the hands of some very VERY big players, which are gobbling up properties everywhere! I am not sure what is the plan there, but the prices in the last 6 months has been nauseating!

I saw 1.5M properties in the boonies (with water well and private sewer) being snatched within 24h of listing and closing at or above asking!

This will not end well when the Karens buying these will realize that isolated living is not what they signed up for. We shall see but I can tell that even the feds are scared of whats going on in REE and thats why they are pushing for an accelerated tightening next year.

The Detroit reference has been in my mind for months. All of the Blue Hive will continue to earn it, they never learn.
Sold the beach house this yr and hope to buy two homes after the dust settles. I have the patience of a rock, but then i may be wrong.

@Mannfm11

Quote:

USSC: I'm more worried about their mandate decision, which rests somewhat on the same concept as abortion. Telling me I have to take a jab, but we are going to uphold abortion rights don't even belong, in the same thought pattern. I think they uphold the state laws, while banning outright deprival. There should be a cutoff allowed. Seems Roe was the first trimester. There are a lot of choices available to women prior to conception. There is a lot of time to figure out, if sex caused one, before 3 months. A lot of genocidal people will pay for one. We have filing times for income taxes.

I think the clot shot mandates will lose at the Supreme Court simply because OSHA/CMS/etc don't have the authority to issue them. Read the decision against the eviction moratorium, and all you have to do is cross out "CDC" and replace with "OSHA", and they can pretty much copy that decision. Except these mandates are on much thinner ice since they effect more people AND the Senate is on record voting against the OSHA mandate. I think it is 6-3 against, and maybe they even take down "Chevron deference" too.

As for Roe, this court seems very deferential to states rights. Not only did they refuse to issue a stay on the Texas law, but they also did not issue any stays on the state clot-shot mandates for medical workers.

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@Aztrader

Quote:

Get your Beretta gun now because they are going up about 13%....

Not impressed with their quality nor customer service. I spent an hour once on hold on their "help" line.

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Quote:

Businesses can tell the government to screw goats and shut down, refusing to comply with mandates by refusing to operate. How long does DC or any other city or state survive without food, fuel, power and similar?

Add in the employees decide to take advantage of sick outs and vacationing in place. The business can be pro Brandon but the workers, even if it's just 15-20% at a manufacturing plant, can cause havoc.

I finally realized just how much of an impact where I work has globally and the impact on the supply of a certain part of the food chain. It would not look good in the grocery stores if the above happened. The idea of redundant co-manufacturing sites taking over is hilarious. They can't handle the job now at less than 5% of the lbs.

@Lavelle : RE Helicopter money:

Carole Roth's thesis in "The War on Small Business" is that it is facilitating asset purchases by Black Rock and similar big whales to drive the WEF's plan that: "You will own nothing and be happy"

https://www.c-span.org/video/?512991-1/t....
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5785....

One prediction I have for next year is horrific famine in Africa brought on primarily by supply chain problems and inflation due to the failed China virus response.

I think, sadly, many more will die from that than the "pandemic" itself.

China will try to capitalize on this by feeding them (or more accurately, feeding factions loyal to China in an attempt to leverage power).

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I don't know how the stock market keeps going up in 2022 when...

Nike just indicated a week ago that its down 20% in china year o year. This apparently is a result of chinese consumers favoring their own brands over USA. So when does Apple, Tesla have the same problem?

The other problem is USA consumer being whittled down by stimulus and savings evaporating leaving only charging up the credit card remaining. What saves Nike etc after that?

Houses that we've been looking at for our daughter go "Pending" within two hours of the post on Realtor.com. Then disappear completely within a day, as the offers apparently are accepted.

Ask prices are 300-400% what they were in 2016; purchase prices are higher as the bid wars factor in.

Even the realtors think it's insane.

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Father forgive me for the times I craved a place at a table that you would have flipped.

Per @Keenan's post, the housing bubble is not over. It is going to take a different form, according to the WEF "plan."

These sociopaths will NOT be constrained by bond markets. They write the rules, and will move the goalposts...including bond markets....for as long as they can escape with a bag of loot (i.e. Social Justice lending/renting).

That which cannot continue, will not. Otherwise, the USSR would have been sustainable. Attempts to evade reality will continue until they cannot. How this looks, nobody can say, other than it will not be pretty.

Do what you can to prevent it coming to high speed lead injections. Prepare, in case it does. Peace.

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Be nice, until it's no longer time to be nice.

HINT: That time is now.

The current occupant of the V/P office isn't even legally qualified to be in that position. You need "both" parents to be Natural Born Citizens, and both of Harris's parents are NOT Natural Born Citizens, therefore Natural Born Citizenship was not "legally" passed to Harris and she is NOT legally eligible for the V/P or Presidency.

[face plant into palms of hands]

I forgot, the Constitution doesn't matter any longer, nor the Rule of LAW.

I agree with all the political commentary and predictions.
My big question is to the strong position against hyperinflation. I recently read a couple books on Zimbabwe's experiences and they were very sobering. I'm just wondering if the US is "too big to fail" along those lines, or else why will the inflation not go parabolic? I definitely see it continuing to go up, my question is as to why not hit hyper status...

The question regarding real estate when things go south (and they will) is while Blackrock, Gates, et al allegedly "own" all sorts of property - can they defend that ownership? Especially on a large-scale basis? A few dedicated and resourceful folks all over the country would give lie to the alleged ownership, cause you don't own what you don't possess and can't defend.

@Elkad

Quote:

I still think they'll go full Weekend At Bernies with Biden trying to get him to the 2yrs+1day mark.

Why is getting him to the 2-year mark important?