The other day we ended a week-long hiatus by writing of delusion and denial holding sway locally, using Thunder in the Valley as an example.
Today, we spread the focus to the national and international.
Arguably the largest source of delusion, denial and a third D – distortion — is our own federal government. Not only elected officials, but often career bureaucrats also do their best to spew disinformation and gaslight the populace.
Their purpose would be to keep the population confused and consumed with infighting, thereby keeping them from questioning the pap they’re being fed by these self-proclaimed masters.
Also, there is a bit of inadvertent distortion to government actions as the matter of unintended consequences looms large.
Consider the whole COVID-19 example. It was a magnificent opportunity for elites to see just how far they could infringe on individual liberties of the population (sheep) before the people pushed back. I dare to say it went even better than they could have hoped. But, eventually, the masses tired of the hypocrisy and rebelled, thereby ending things such as stay-at-home dictates and maskhole mandates.
Shutting down the economy as part of this grand experiment required stimulus money be handed out freely along the way, the financial equivalent of a defibrillator’s shock that restarts a stopped heart.
Even those concerned about federal deficits gladly took the money and spent it rapidly. But that created a bulge in demand at a time when supply was constrained, producing the large unintended consequence of rising price inflation.
This has forced the Federal Reserve to act to rein in that inflation, by raising interest rates precipitously. The largest borrower on Earth is the U.S. government, which saw its interest costs to finance that mammoth debt skyrocket and bring us to the debt ceiling more quickly than anticipated.
Now the economy teeters, while stock markets skyrocket upwards, a strange contradiction, especially when the inverted yield curve is factored into the calculus. Traditionally, short-term interest rates are lower than long-term rates. That condition is reversed, historically an indication of bad times on the horizon.
By most measures, debt has ballooned in this country, despite all the free money. Credit card balances are at or near all-time highs, and delinquencies on such things as car loans and credit card payments are high.
Student loan borrowers will have their three-year freedom from the responsibility of having to pay on those loans end in September. I’ve seen reports that the average repayment amount is $300 to $500 monthly and, predictably, borrowers are screaming for relief.
As an aside, someone going to college who didn’t realize that a loan, by definition, meant the money must be repaid, probably wasn’t legitimate college material in the first place.
But I digress.
More intended consequences from the distortion, denial and delusion. People got used to not needing to report to a work place. I have several continuing examples on my street.
This has caused office buildings in major cities to sit partly, to mostly unoccupied. But the rents or mortgages still must be paid, often at higher costs as debts are rolled over at higher interest rates.
Already in cities such as San Francisco, there is a commercial property crisis as jingle mail – the practice of debtors simply mailing in the keys to the property to the lien holders due to their inability to pay – has become a common practice.
Walgreens, a national drugstore chain, reported bad earnings Tuesday due to the end of yet more government distortion, delusion and denial. The government has backed off on its maniacal demand that all accept the jab and so not nearly as many COVID vaccines or booster shots are being administered by Walgreens, leading to a massive drop in revenue.
Generally speaking, distortion, delusion and denial are being applied to the consumer, generally calculated as being 70 percent of the economy. On one hand, we have maxxed out borrowers and goods sellers to people in the lower socio-economic strata such as Dollar General reporting that their clientele is downgrading from buying at Dollar General, to looking for free stuff from food pantries and other charitable outlets.
Yet Delta Airlines on Tuesday reported mammoth demand and predicted the highest second quarter earnings in company history.
People are spending all they have plus some, in part trapped in the delusion that all is well and will be even better tomorrow.
Reality argues against that. But living in the real world is such a drag when it’s so easy to join the crowd living in delusion.
Sam Ross Jr's site 