Generational Dynamics World View News

[Navigator]

Some thoughts on Trump and Musk.

I believe that Musk thought that Trump would do something to reduce government debt. He also knew that if he helped Trump, a lot (and he did), that Trump would owe him some favors. And he could get into the government to help reduce its spending, which is an existential threat to the overall economy. Musk has more or less sucked up to every administration, of both parties. He was very chummy with Obama. He built his empire on the back of government subsidies and contracts and tax breaks, and he certainly wanted to control what happened to those. I don't think that he anticipated the backlash Tesla would receive as a consequence of his support of Trump. His current backlash may, in part, be due to his needing to distance himself from Trump.

Trump is not a fiscal conservative. Far from it. Neither is the Republican Congress (as a whole). The "big beautiful bill" is as full of pork as any federal budget in the last 65 years (that is, since JFK). The reality is that there is no hope of solving the government debt crisis, and it just gets worse every year, dragging the rest of the economy down with it.

Radical fiscal action is needed, and it can only be done by congress. Yet it is politically unfeasible. The general public does NOT understand that there is a limit to how much the government can borrow, and we are well past that point. Take the now notable town hall in Iowa where people were shouting at their Senator that any reduction in Medicaid would mean that "people will die" (to which she replied "we are all going to die"). The logic of limiting how much should the government spend on someone is lost on the vast majority. Should the government spend $50M to save the life of someone (who, by the way, did nothing to earn such a benefit)? What if everyone needed that? Where would these funds come from? Far too many think the government can just "wave a magic wand" and take care of it all.

We passed the point of "no return" fiscally as a nation in 2009.

[FullMoon]

Instead of "CCP members" I should have said "anyone with any connection to the CCP", which is basically any student from mainland China. They all need to go. These people are not our friends. They are the enemy. They are doing everything possible to weaken us from within.

When war does come, it won't just include a loss of the electrical grid. They are planning to attack any kind of infrastructure and industry. The fungus plot was just showing that they will go after agriculture as well.

So preparation is not just for loss of electricity, it will be for a temporary disruption of just about everything that we take for granted that is conveyed to us by any kind of distribution. Gasoline, food, water, heating fuels, medicine. They will go about disrupting all of this.

It will be the"mutually assured destruction" that everyone feared during the Cold War. We already know that 60-80%+ population drop, some say 90%+ are expected. And we're probably set up and ready to do something likewise to them. That's probably why we're operating in the Cold War methodology with proxy wars ongoing, testing each other's weaponry and resolve. Because both sides can destroy each other WITHOUT nuclear weapons. But unfortunately our capable generation has passed and now we have people who apparently think they can play with fire during park fire season.

Instead of "CCP members" I should have said "anyone with any connection to the CCP", which is basically any student from mainland China. They all need to go. These people are not our friends. They are the enemy. They are doing everything possible to weaken us from within

The idea that maintaining economic and cultural ties helps prevent war is a good one. We can all agree that getting potential spies out of key industries and upgrading our security infrastructure specifically towards potential enemy operatives is critical right now. But MOST CCP connected people only on it for benefits and will be hard pressed to help a government that they themselves don't like.
And we have Alqaeda, Iranian, Russian and Chinese all walked across the border and have set up shop just like the drug cartels have. Any one of them can probably fly a little drone. Or better yet, just let it go with AI installed with a payload. If we keep prodding Russia, maybe they'll give up the START treaty and share some of their vast holdings of the good stuff terrorists could use.
We need a bit more tact in our diplomacy. Some kind of idea that war really is something that needs to be avoided at all costs. Because 80-90% population reduction changes everything. Maybe that's what some of the bunker billionaires want. All of us useless eaters out of the way....
Unless a huge solar flare(expected any time now) does the job for them.

[Navigator]

I certainly anticipate a very major war, the likes of which hasn't been seen for 80 years. But I personally don't think we are going to see a 50-60% or higher reduction in the world population.

I think that we are up for a high tech version of WW 1, very similar to what is going on in Ukraine, just on a much much larger scale. Loss of life will be significant. Even hundreds of millions, but that would still be a far cry from 50% of world population which is now around 8.25 Billion. Even a 1 Billion reduction in world population is only 12%.

Having said that, I think that we will only have a short respite after WW 3. Which I believe will act as a "final warning" to the world. After that I can certainly see nut jobs like Hitler/Stalin/Mao rising out of the ashes and engaging in widespread nuclear warfare. THEN we will see quite dramatic reductions in world population.

[spottybrowncow]

Andrew Branca, a lawyer specializing in self-defense (covered the Kyle Rittenhouse trial for legalinsurrection.com), also has a political blog.
I found his recent posting on the Trump / Musk feud to be enlightening. It's lengthy, and parts can be skipped, but it's actually quite entertaining in its entirety. He gives an excellent argument for supporting the Big Beautiful Bill, despite the pork. Reason? It would be the most powerful anti-illegal-immigration bill ever passed, and he states that illegal immigration, not the debt, is the current existential crisis for the U.S. During the campaign, Musk gave a very concise analysis of why the democrats were so anxious to move illegal aliens to the 7 swing states, so I'm a little surprised to see him break with Trump over this now. Possibly it's a result of Asperger's. After all, neither Trump nor Musk are "normal" in the usual sense, as "normal" people don't have lives quite like either of them.
As always, looking forward to hearing other GD members' comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35yjmDx_2Kk