They want your back taxes, and will fine you for late payment. You can't make this stuff up.



Onward and upward,
airforce

For New Yorkers, it's not so easy to find a mayor that doesn't suck. He's not the first NYC mayor indicted on corruption charges.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Grocery Rationing Within Four Years

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

There is a lack of public comment and debate about Kamala Harris’s call for price controls on groceries and rents, the most stunning and frightening policy proposal made in my lifetime.

Immediately, of course, people will reply that she is not for price controls as such. It is only a limit on “gouging” (which she variously calls “gauging”) on grocery prices. As for rents, it’s only for larger-scale corporations with many units.

This is nonsense. If there really are national price-gouging police running around, every single seller of groceries, from small convenience stores to farmers’ markets to chain stores, will be vulnerable. No one wants the investigation so they will comply with de facto controls. No one knows for sure what gouging is.

Don Boudreaux is correct:

“A government that threatens to punish merchants for selling at nominal prices higher than deemed appropriate by government clearly intends to control prices. It’s no surprise, therefore, that economists routinely analyze prohibitions against so-called ‘price gouging’ using exactly the same tools they use to analyze other forms of price controls.”

As for rental units, the only result will be fewer amenities, new charges, new fees for what used to be free, less service, and a dramatically reduced incentive to build new units. That will only lead to a pretext for more subsidies, more public housing, and more government provision generally. We have experience with that and it is not good.

The next step is nationalizing housing and rationing of groceries because there will be ever fewer available.

The more the betting odds favor Kamala, the stronger the incentive to raise prices as high as possible now in anticipation of price controls come next year. That will provide even more seeming evidence for the need for more controls and a genuine crackdown.

Price controls lead to shortages of anything they touch, especially in inflationary times. With the Federal Reserve seemingly on the verge of cutting rates for no good reason – rates are very low in real terms by any historical standard – we might see wave two of inflation later next year.

Here are real interest rates historically considered as they stand. Do you see a case here for lowering them?

Next time, however, merchants will not be in a position to respond rationally. Instead, they will confront federal price investigators and prosecutors.

Kamala is wrong that this will be the “first-ever” ban on price gouging. We had that in World War II, along with rationing tickets on meat, animal fats, foil, sugar, flour, foil, coffee, and more. It was a time of extreme austerity, and people put up with it because they believed it was saving resources for the war effort. It was enforced the same as we saw with covid lockdowns: a huge network enlisting state and local institutions, media, and private zealots ready to rat out the rebels.

Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. It claimed broad powers to manage all production and consumption in the US. On January 30, 1942, the Emergency Price Control Act granted the Office of Price Administration (OPA) the authority to set price limits and ration food and other commodities. Products were added as shortages intensified.

And yes, all of this was heavily enforced.

In case you are doing the math, that’s a $200,000 fine today for noncompliance. In other words, this was very serious and highly coercive.

Technology limited enforcement, however, and black markets sprung up everywhere. The so-called Meatleggers were the most famous and most demonized by government propaganda.

What happens when the government restricts meat consumption?

During World War II, food rationing led to significant changes in consumption habits in the United States.

Adults and children over 12 were limited to 2 lbs of meat per week, which was monitored through rationing… pic.twitter.com/goCU1FGMnD

— Meat Head (@markeatsmeat) February 20, 2024

In a nation with more agriculture in demographic proximity, people relied on local farmers and various methods of bartering goods and services.

Years went by and somehow people got through it but production for civilian purposes came to a near standstill. The GDP for the period looked like growth but the reality was a continuation and intensification of the Great Depression that began more than a decade earlier.

There are fewer people alive now that recall these days but I’ve known some. They adopted habits of extreme conservation. I once had a neighbor who simply could not bear to throw away tin-foil pie pans because she had lived through rationing. After she died, her kids discovered her vast collection and it shocked them. She was not crazy, just traumatized.

How would such a thing transpire today?

Look at the program SNAP, the new name for food stamps. For those who qualify, the money goes into a special account managed by the federal government. The recipient is sent an EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card, which is used like a credit card in stores. It costs taxpayers some $114 billion a year, and works out as a huge subsidy to Big Agriculture, which is why the program is administered by the Department of Agriculture.

Transitioning that program to the general population would not be difficult. It would be a simple matter of expansion of eligibility. As shortages grow, so too could the program until the entire population would be on it and it would be mandatory. It could also be converted into a mobile app instead of a piece of plastic as a fraud-prevention measure. With everyone carrying cell phones, this would be an easy step.

And where could people spend the money? Only at participating institutions. Would non-participation institutions be entitled to sell food, for example, at local farmers’ co-ops? Maybe at first but that’s before the media demonization campaigns come along to decry the rich who are eating more than their fair share and the sellers who are exploiting the national emergency.

You can see how this all unfolds, and none of it is implausible. Only a few years ago, governments around the country canceled gatherings for religious holidays, limited the numbers of people who could gather in homes, and banned public weddings and funerals. If they can do that, they can do anything, including the rationing of all food.

The program that Harris has proposed is not like other matters that she has flip-flopped on. She is serious and repeats it. She spoke about it even during the debate with Trump but there was no followup or critique of the scheme offered. Nor does such a crazy plan require some legislation and a vote by Congress. It could come in the form of an executive order. Yes, it would be tested by the Supreme Court but, if recent history holds, the program would be long in effect before the Court weighed in. Nor is it clear how it would rule.

The Supreme Court in 1942 heard the case of Albert Yakus, a Boston-based meat seller who was criminally prosecuted for violating the wholesale beef price ceiling. In Yakus vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled for the government and against the meat-selling criminal. That’s the existing precedent.

Nor does all this have to unfold immediately following the inauguration. It can happen as matters become ever worse following anti-gouging edicts and when inflation worsens. After all, a presidency that believes in central planning and forced economic austerity would last a full four years, and the coercion could grow month after month until we have comprehensively enforced deprivation by the end, and no one remembers what it was like to buy groceries at market prices with their own money.

I wish I could say that this is an outlandish and fear-mongering warning. It is not. It is a very realistic scenario based on repeated statements and promises plus the recent history of government management of the population. There is likely another wave of inflation coming. This time it will meet with a promise to use every coercive power of government to prevent increases in prices on groceries and rents.

What if voters actually understood this? What then?

Keep in mind the main legacy of the Covid years: governments learned the fullness of what they could do under the right circumstances. That’s the worst possible lesson but that is what has stuck. The implications for the future are grim.

Doom Is the West’s Future

By Paul Craig Roberts


September 16, 2024


As I said would happen, Putin’s refusal to quickly win the conflict with Ukraine has widened the conflict into the beginnings of WW III.

Putin himself now acknowledges this fact. In response to a journalist’s question about the consequences of what appears to be a US-UK decision to permit missile strikes from Ukraine deep into Russia, Putin said:

“The Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites. This is the first point. Craig Roberts, Paul Best Price: $11.80 Buy New $18.86 (as of 07:22 UTC - Details)

“The second point – perhaps the most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.

“Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.

“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement – it will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.

“This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

My comments are as follows:

Putin has been at war with NATO since the 2007 Munich Security Conference when Putin announced that a multi-polar world was replacing Washington’s uni-polar order. In other words, he threw down the gauntlet to the neoconservatives and their agenda of Washington’s hegemony.

Putin possibly did not comprehend how determined neoconservatives are about hegemony, as a hegemonic agenda undoubtably seems unrealistic to Putin. He did not foresee that his challenge would lead directly to Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government and move to make Ukraine a member of NATO.

Once Washington had Ukraine, Washington began building a large Ukrainian army with which to embarrass Putin by suppressing the Donbas Russians. Putin was like a babe in the woods. For eight years while Washington built a Ukrainian army, Putin put his trust in the Minsk Agreement and remained unprepared for the easily predictable war on the horizon.

When Putin was finally forced to intervene, he did so in a foolish way that guaranteed increasing Western involvement, and by never enforcing any of his red lines now has his back to the wall and cannot ignore NATO/US missile strikes into Russia. Finally, he is forced to acknowledge the truth: “the United States and European countries are at war with Russia.” If Putin had been realistic instead of lost in liberal delusions, the war that seems ready to break loose could have been avoided.

As the cautious Gilbert Doctorow wrote four days ago, “a Third World War fought at least initially with conventional weapons is now just days, at most weeks away.” And this is just the Ukraine scene. Another major war is brewing in the Middle East. Whether or not war is that close, Doctorow’s point is well taken. War can’t be far off when the US and UK governments are discussing firing missiles at Russia.

As I wrote two or three days ago, “as talk has been forbidden, war is now a certainty.” Unlike during the Cold War, the West no longer has independent foreign policy experts. With very few exceptions, such as Scott Ritter, Mearsheimer, Doctorow, and myself, the Western “foreign policy community” speaks with one voice: “US good, Russia bad.” That’s about it. Those few of us who are independent of think tanks and university faculties funded by the military/security complex and neoconservative foundations are labeled “Russian agents/dupes” and worse. We are gradually being criminalized. Scott Ritter on his way to a conference in Russia was taken off the flight by the Washington Gestapo. His passport was confiscated, and his home was invaded. Currently, charges are being made against Americans accused of cooperating with “Russian disinformation,” by which is meant reporting a fact or expressing an opinion that is inconsistent with the official narratives.

As one thoroughly experienced with the 20th century Cold War, I know that talk between Americans and Russians was the solution, not the problem. When talk is defined as the problem, as Washington defines it today, war is the result.

And that is where we are headed. Even the cautious and understated Doctorow sees in Washington an “insane recklessness” that threatens life on earth. What is the point of it? Ukraine’s fraudulent borders while our own go undefended? Roberts, Dr. Paul Craig Best Price: $7.49 Buy New $15.31 (as of 10:30 UTC - Details)

Americans, Europeans, Russians, indeed the entire world need to understand that in the government in Washington there is not one ounce of intelligence or integrity. The American president is senile. The National Security Council is a collection of morons. Not a single one of them has achieved any distinction other than being a mouthpiece for the military/security complex. The military’s officer ranks have been purged to make room for sexual perverts, women, and “racial minorities.” The notion among conservatives that the US military is going to save us is laughable. The military is tamed with fangs pulled and has been forced to accept zero promotions for white Americans until the military has achieved in the officer ranks “equity” for sexual perverts, women and “racial minorities.”

The ruling establishment is determined to install their puppet Kamala in the White House. She has always prostituted herself to move ahead, and now is her big chance. Unless Democrats get a surprise from Trump winning in blue states, the 2024 election will be stolen in the swing states exactly as it was in 2020. Indeed, as local news reports have made clear, many of the theft mechanisms used in 2020 have been legalized. It is now legal in swing states for the Democrats to steal the election.

When the election is stolen, what will Americans do about it? Nothing. They will accept tyranny before they will fight.

Fighting requires belief, but Americans’ beliefs have been destroyed by decades of liberal/left “education” that has undermined Western civilization by presenting it as a racist, misogynist scheme of exploitation of women and “minorities” by white supremacists. White kids go to taxpayer-financed schools funded by their parents to learn that they have been born into the wrong body and that they, their parents and grandparents are racists who owe reparations to “suppressed minorities.” They are being prepared to pay an additional round of taxes to those declared to be their victims. They are being sexualized at an early age and prepared for pedophiles.

We must be honest. This is a correct portrayal of America and the entire West today. Every Western government is on the side of immigrant-invaders against the ethnic citizens who comprise the countries.

Now, tell me, how can a social, political, belief system this weak go to war with real people such as Russians, Chinese, Iranians? They cannot.

The only future the Western world has is Doom.

Immigration Crisis On Display In Springfield, Ohio: It’s Not Just About Haitians Eating Pets

The news cycle has been dominated for the past 48 hours by stories and counter-narratives of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio seizing and eating residential pets, including ducks and other wildlife seized from public parks.

While the legacy media has yet to find any evidence of pet consumption that it’s willing to accept, there are some much larger issues regarding the crisis that has been created in Springfield through the importation of nearly 20,000 Haitian illegals.

Former Ohio State Representative Kyle Koehler has sounded a warning regarding the consequences that have followed the Biden administration’s policy that gave temporary protected status to more than 100,000 Haitian migrants, including those relocated to Springfield.

🚨🚨 BREAKING:

Former Ohio State Rep. Kyle Koehler (@repkoehler) has made SHOCKING revelations about the illegal Haitian crisis in Springfield, Ohio during a recent speech.

1.) The Haitian illegals in Ohio are given $600-$1600 per month on Debit Cards through the Refugee Cash… pic.twitter.com/aWDyVcx7b3

— Evan Kilgore 🇺🇸 (@EvanAKilgore) September 9, 2024

Among the concerns raised by Koehler are the strain on the local school system with more than 1,600 non-English speaking students now enrolled and Haitian refugees who are 20 years old being placed Freshman High School classrooms with 13 year old kids.

Koehler also voiced concern over an individual who is renting his 63 homes to the relocated Haitians for as little as $250 per month, with 20-25 individuals living in each home.

Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) has also weighed in on the controversy, saying that he too has heard from Springfield residents complaining that pets and wildlife were being abducted and that health services are being severely strained by an influx of individuals with communicable diseases like TB and HIV.

In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.

Do you know…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 10, 2024

The community of 60,000 residents is clearly facing serious issues related to the open border policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

And while political leaders and legacy media strain at the gnat of whether sufficient proof exists that pets are being eaten, they have no problem swallowing the camel of the other unpleasant realities that take place when Third World norms displace local culture.

It’s understandable that citizens are asking their civic leaders, “Where does it end?”

🇺🇸 Springfield City residents are aggrieved by the mass importation of Haitian immigrants into their city:

“They’re in the park grabbing our ducks, by their neck, and cutting their head off and walking off with them, and eating them!” pic.twitter.com/SoUCXcJrQp

— VoxPopuli (@vpopulimedia) September 8, 2024



A sober look at the destruction Haitians have caused in Springfield


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXSRtelW0AEAVmV?format=jpg&name=small

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXVC-NrbgAAZSCy?format=jpg&name=small