Breaking Down The Coming $20 Trillion Debt Tsunami SB

Notes From the Field By Simon Black   January 17, 2024

Tony Fauci should be in a prison cell in Wuhan right now given how much responsibility he bears for destroying US government finances.  This guy was one of the chief architects of the hysteria that took over the US (and much of the world) back in 2020.

Yet he now admits, according to recent Congressional testimony, that his infamous six-foot social distancing edict “sort of just appeared” and was “not based on any data”.

But it was precisely those sorts of claims that prompted politicians to close schools and business across the country, and to pay people to stay home and NOT work.

The financial results of this insanity are clear; the US national debt increased by an unbelievable $6.5 trillion during 2020 and 2021. And while there is a lot of blame to go around-- politicians had ample time to find their intellectual courage-- Fauci is extremely culpable.

Do You Hear Alarm Bells Ringing? Neither Do I. And That’s A Huge Problem.

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  January 15, 2024

Do you hear alarm bells ringing? Neither do I. And that’s a huge problem.

It’s clear that just about everyone is ignoring what should be the biggest news of the day… an ominous milestone that may just signify the point of no return. I’ll explain--

Recent data published by the Congressional Budget Office show that, last year, “Discretionary Spending” in the Land of the Free totaled $1.7 trillion dollars.

Remember, “Discretionary Spending” is one of the three broad categories of federal spending; the other two are interest on the debt and mandatory spending.

Interest on the debt and mandatory spending (which includes programs like Social Security and Medicare) are like your monthly mortgage payment-- they get sucked out of the Treasury’s Department’s bank account every month. Congress doesn’t even debate or discuss those categories.

Avoiding The Next Inflation May Now Require A Zombie Apocalypse

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  January 10, 2024

Earlier this week, leaders from both major parties in the Land of the Free announced a grand bargain that, in theory, should avoid a government shutdown later this month.

According to their agreement, Congress will supposedly cap its ‘discretionary’ spending at $1.6 trillion for Fiscal Year 2024. That’s down from about $1.7 trillion in FY23.

So, yes, technically this $100 billion reduction represents about a 6% decrease over last year. And if we want to be even more cheerful about it, we could call it a 9% decrease on an inflation-adjusted basis.

If we’re being intellectually honest, that’s a step in the right direction for the US. A tiny, tiny, tiny step in the right direction.

How tiny, you ask?

Well, pretty much non-existent; the agreement to cut spending is an almost entirely symbolic gesture that won’t do much good.

Introducing the ‘Church of the Holy Deficit’

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  January 8, 2024

When Edward Winslow and his fellow passengers aboard the Mayflower set sail from England on September 16, 1620, they probably weren’t thinking about taxes or Social Security.

Most likely they were just hoping to stay alive long enough to enjoy their new-found religious freedom. Tragically, most of them did not. Many of the Mayflower passengers were adherents of a religious group known as the Separatists, who believed that that everyone should be free to pursue their own spiritual journey without interference from the church or state.

But that belief was literally illegal in England back then.

A Brief Recap Of America’s 2023 Fiscal Train Wreck

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  January 3, 2024

Jacques Turgot must have cried himself to sleep the night that he reviewed the French government’s annual financial report in early 1775.  The numbers were gruesome; France was so heavily indebted by the mid-1770s that the entire nation was on the verge of a major financial crisis.

But Turgot was smart. Borderline brilliant. So, if anyone could turn things around and restore France to its former glory, it was him.  Turgot was born in the 1720s when France was still the clear, dominant superpower in the world… wealthy, admired, and strong. But decades of overspending had created a massive national debt.

By the time he took over as Controller-General in the summer of 1774, the French public debt was so high that just making interest payments consumed most of the tax revenue.

A Rational Guide To America’s Exasperating Inertia

Notes From the Field By Simon Black   December 11, 2023

Rene Descartes probably wasn’t thinking about gargantuan budget deficits and a $34 trillion national debt when he published Principles of Philosophy in the year 1644. But his ideas absolutely fit the scenario today.

Up until that point in history, much of science and mathematics was still based on the 1,500+ year old theories of Aristotle and other ancient Greek intellectuals-- many of which were totally wrong.

Aristotle, for example, believed that a moving object required constant force to remain in motion. And this erroneous theory remained conventional wisdom well into the Middle Ages.

Shocker: World’s Biggest Bank CEO Hates Crypto

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  December 7, 2023 

Yesterday Senator Elizabeth Warren used a Wall Street oversight hearing to whine about cryptocurrency.

At one point, almost as if a well-choreographed football play, she passed the ball to Jamie Dimon — CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in the world — to “explain why crypto is such an attractive financial tool for terrorists, drug traffickers, and rogue nations?”

Charlie Munger’s Final Analysis Of America

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  December 6, 2023

It’s my sincere hope that I’m able to live both the quantity and quality of life that Charlie Munger had.

Even at age 99, he appeared vivacious and energetic-- as one Wall Street Journal reporter remarked after interviewing him back in September. Their session went four straight hours with Munger going nonstop the entire time without so much as a bathroom break.

I was reading that interview recently, and there was one thing in particular that Munger said which really stood out to me.

Some Clear Thinking About The Riots In Ireland  SB

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  November 27, 2023

On Sunday March 10, 1793, in the village of Pin-en-Mauges in western France, a prominent local textile vendor named Jacques Cathelineau was peacefully enjoying his Sunday afternoon, when five men suddenly appeared to deliver urgent news. Cathelineau could probably read their faces and knew what happened before anyone said a word.

By the spring of 1793, the French Revolution had been in full swing for nearly four years, and the entire nation was in chaos.  King Louis XVI and his family were executed two months prior, and the country was now being run by a faction of left-wing radicals under Maximilien Robespierre.