All posts by Jim

Left HS before report cards came out. Enlisted in the Marines for four years. By the time those years were over, I was hooked - they had me for life. Spent nearly ten years as enlisted. Received a Silver Star, Bronze Star w/V, Purple Heart as a Sgt during first RVN tour. Upon returning to the State's received a combat commission to 2Lt. Retired after 36 total years as a Colonel. Book follows my career, but is more about the heroes with whom I served, the great mentors I had, and the leadership principles they instilled in me.
Current Events, Recent Posts

Rac-nophobia —

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— six boats, thirteen Marines, and an attitude

Returned last night from the only Marine reunion I attend — the RACPAC. If you know not of whom I speak, shame on you as you’ve not read “The Book.” If you have but don’t remember, go to chapter 46 and refresh. This one was special as Lt Tim Armstrong USMC was there for the first time, but he is now Col, USMC (Ret). What a joy it was to see Tim again. Anyway, it was, as always, a grand time to see these Marines again; it’s always great joy to see how every one of them turned out, not a dammed liberal among them!!! All very successful in their afterlife, especially the young enlisted  Marines who were not careerists, but chose to take their hard learned knowledge to the civilian world and succeed!

I’ve often asked myself over the years since retirement, especially every September as I fly to Virginia Beach, what did I do to deserve to serve alongside such giants of our Corps. As my coxswain and I were cruising down the Appomattox  River one sunny afternoon, he asked, “Popeye, can you believe the Marine Corps is actually paying us to do this ?” Of course, my reply was, “No Crazy I can’t, but they sure are!”  Having said that, do not dismay as this was a grueling and very demanding eighteen months with no guidance from MCDEC or HQMC, often working under arduous weather conditions and usually six and sometimes seven days a week. And here they are in all their glory.                     Lord, what memories!!

 

 

 

 

 

Now to the sad state of affairs of our once great nation. Another good one from my friend Greg; thanks Greg, I love your missives, and so do my followers.

By: G. Maresca

Hooking off the jab

In the sweet science, a skilled pugilist will be able to hook off their jab. The same holds for COVID era politicians and their obsession with vaccine mandates and boosters.

President Biden leads the mandate vaccine charge yet allows tens of thousands to pass through the southern border daily who have not been tested let alone vaccinated.

Initially, “if vaccinated, you are not going to get COVID,” has devolved to “people who got vaccinated remain at risk.” Infections are increasing among the vaccinated as a plethora of evidence highlights how the vaccine’s efficacy is waning.

For those who were vaccinated but plan to refuse the booster shot will find themselves back at square one because COVID is here to stay, just like any other influenza virus.

Quite the bioweapon China unleashed.

Democrats politicized COVID by refusing to acknowledge that China covered up and lied about the virus. They then used the pandemic as an excuse to lockdown the country and change election rules.

A study from the University of California San Diego highlighted how the vaccine’s effectiveness dropped from 94% in June to 65% in July with a 19-fold increase of those already vaccinated. Israeli data said Pfizer’s vaccine went from a 95% effectiveness to 39% by July. Apparently, Delta is more contagious but less lethal, according to English data and runs at 0.2% ⸻ the same as the seasonal flu. The CDC said those vaccinated who contract COVID have as high a viral load in their nasal passages as those who are unvaccinated.

It is not the unvaccinated that are driving COVID’s mutations.

In February even NPR reported, “vaccines can contribute to virus mutations.”

National Institutes of Health chief Francis Collins’s blog ridiculed a study his agency financed that said by December 2020, at least 100 million Americans were infected – five times the official count.

The pro-vaccine army that permeates government, the pharmaceutical industry and the mainstream media have cross-pollinated into a universal censorship android that prevents any information that conflicts with their narrative and balance sheets. They conveniently ignore the adverse health conditions and deaths resulting from the jab.

Texas is being sued by the Biden administration to protect a woman’s right of choice to an abortion. Yet, when it comes to a woman’s right to choose to vaccinate – forget it. It is only a choice when it can stop a baby’s beating heart.

Cells from an aborted fetus were used to test and produce the vaccine. Biden’s support of abortion only manifests itself in his vaccine mandate.

If this is about saving lives, access to every resource should be a given. The leftist media ignores or simply denies that Hydroxychloroquine has any efficacy in treating COVID when it has. Moreover, natural antibodies are a nonfactor even though studies say they provide greater immunity, both in breadth and duration. For those with immunity, vaccination is unnecessary and potentially grievous. However, there is no money or control in natural immunity underscoring how this is not about health care.

COVID conveniently removes the spotlight from the Afghanistan debacle, while Democrats would love to extend COVID through an unverifiable 2022 midterm mail-in ballot election. Initially, boosters were needed after eight months, then five, and arguably now for just susceptible groups like the elderly. With so many different versions and timelines, it is no wonder what the government and politicians say has no meaning.

Just months ago, Biden said he “would not demand that it be mandatory.” However, in Biden’s recent COVID vaccine mandate address, he flipped-flopped declaring: “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.”

Since Biden is so impatient, perhaps he should resign.

Patience with Biden’s poor decisions from Afghanistan to the southern border is what is truly “wearing thin.” Apparently, unable to help himself or the nation, Biden compounded the issue by rejecting the Constitution he swore to uphold saying, “This is not about freedom or personal choice.”

Mandates are not only unconstitutional but polarizing and inherently un-American.

Mandates underscore how the left’s default position is always force.

What happened to unifying the country? Biden would rather lay blame while mandating vaccine compliance or lose your livelihood.

If it is your prerogative to jab your way into oblivion, knock yourself out.

Originally posted 2021-10-05 16:02:26.

Current Events, Recent Posts

China VS U.S.

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Received the following from a highly resected Brother Marine referred to as “Mustang,” which many of you know what that moniker means. Anyway, I don’t watch TV except Netflix and Amazon Prime. Would enjoyed watching this episode however. Enjoy and thank you Mustang, it is definitely blog worthy! Really there isn’t much to enjoy as it is all so true and scary as hell.

 

“Real-Time” host Bill Maher closed his show Friday night by sounding the alarm on China’s growing dominance over the United States. Why are Americans sleeping?

 

We aren’t sleeping, we are spending our time teaching and assisting little boys how to become little girls! And, if we aren’t busy doing that we have the Sec of Defense, responding to an order from the ‘commander’ in chief, designing stylish new uniforms for pregnant ‘soldiers’.

 

“You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are such silly people. And Americans are all silly people,” Maher began the monologue, alluding to a “Lawrence of Arabia” quote.

 

Do you know who doesn’t care that there’s a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China,” he said. “All 1.4 billion of them couldn’t give a crouching tiger flying f— because they’re not silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”

 

Maher acknowledged that China does “bad stuff” from the concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims to its treatment of Hong Kong. But he stressed, “There’s got to be something between an authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all.”

 

“In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in 5G and pharmaceuticals. Oh, and they bought Africa,” Maher said, pointing to China’s global Silk Road infrastructure initiative.

 

He continued: “In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has none. We’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009 but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies. We are such silly people.

 

“Nothing ever moves in this impacted colon of a country. We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it with each other, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road, and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn’t kick in for 10 years,” Maher explained. Then the half-assed bill is forgotten.

 

“China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it.”

 

The HBO star cited how it took “ten years” for a bus line in San Francisco to pass its environmental review and how it took “16 years” to build the Big Dig tunnel in Boston, comparing that to a 57-story skyscraper that China constructed in only “19 days” and Beijing’s Sanyuan Bridge, which was demolished and rebuilt in “43 hours.”

 

“We binge-watch, they binge-build. When COVID hit Wuhan, the city built a quarantine center with 4,000 rooms in 10 days and they barely had to use it because they quickly arrested the rest of the disease,” Maher said. “They were back to throwing raves in swimming pools while we were stuck at home surfing the dark web for black market Charmin. We’re not losing to China, we LOST. The returns just haven’t all come in yet. They’ve made robots that check a kid’s temperature and got their asses back in school. Most of our kids are still pretending to take Zoom classes while they watch TikTok and their brain cells fully commit ritual suicide.” Our teachers unions are finding every single way to keep themselves on the payroll, but keep students out of the classrooms. WAKE UP AMERICA! That means ALL of YOU.

 

Maher then blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, accusing him of degrading school standards by eliminating merit and substituting a lottery system for admittance to schools for advanced learners. Our country is going down the toilet.

 

“Do you think China’s doing that, letting political correctness get in the way of nurturing their best and brightest?” Maher continued. “Do you think Chinese colleges and universities are offering courses in ‘The Philosophy of Star Trek, ‘The Sociology of Seinfeld,’ and ‘Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse’? Can this be real? Well, let me tell you, China is real. And they are eating our lunch. And believe me, in an hour, they’ll be hungry again.”

 

A somber message, isn’t it? But, where is Maher wrong? I guess the good news is that unlike the Chinese our young people have free text messaging and iPhone games.

Originally posted 2021-09-29 15:16:37.

Current Events

$1.00 = $0.95

1 Comment

This post may be too hard for some to swallow without some Economics background, but I consider it important enough for my followers to be prepared. I received the following from a trusted Marine brother who runs an investment business in NC. Rik and I are usually on the same page on everything “Economic” because we are both “supply siders” and also “Monetarists.” Won’t get into any Economics BS to explain what that means in layman’s terms as it would only confuse the issue more than it already is. Having said that I totally agree with the article; we are already seeing the start of it. As of this instant, my total portfolio has lost 3.56% in the last month, and I firmly believe it will continue, while inflation is sits and waits for the right time to make itself known to every American. Keep it up Joey  and we will be a bankrupt country while the FED, most of whom are not supply siders fiddle.

 

 

 

 

Your cash will lose at least 5% of its purchasing power in the next year

Posted: 24 Sep 2021 05:03 PM PDT

Earlier this week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced that the real yield on dollar cash and cash equivalents is likely to be -5% or less over the next 12 months. Yes, your cash balances will lose at least 5% of their purchasing power over the next year, and that’s virtually guaranteed. So what are you—and others—going to do about it?

Assumptions: This forecast of mine optimistically assumes that 1) the first Fed rate hike of 25 bps comes, as the market now expects, about a year from now, and 2) the rate of inflation slows over the next 12 months to 5% from its year-to-date rate of 5.9%. Personally, I think inflation next year likely will be higher, if only because of the delayed effect of soaring home prices on Owner’s Equivalent Rent (about one-third of the CPI), the recent end of the eviction moratorium on rents, and the continued, unprecedented expansion of the M2 money supply.

I’m a supply-sider, and that means I believe in the power of incentives. Tax something less and you will get more of it. Tax something more and you will get less of it. Erode the value of the dollar at a 5% annual rate and people will almost certainly want to hold fewer dollars than they do today.

I’m also a monetarist, and that means I believe that if the supply of dollars (e.g., M2) increases by more than the demand for dollars, higher inflation will be the result. We’ve already seen this play out over the past year: the M2 money supply has grown by more than 25% (by far an all-time record) and inflation has accelerated from less than 2% to 6-8%. Massive fiscal deficits have played an important role in this, but so has an accommodative Fed. Between the Fed and the banking system, 3 to 4 trillion dollars of extra cash were created over the past 18 months. At first that was necessary to supply the huge demand for cash the followed in the wake of the Covid shutdowns. But now that things are returning to normal, people don’t need or want that much cash. Yet the Fed continues to expand its balance sheet, and they won’t finish “tapering” their purchases of notes and bonds until the middle of next year. That means that there will be trillions of dollars of cash sitting in retail bank accounts (checking, demand deposits and savings accounts) that people will be trying to unload.

If we’re lucky, the inept and feckless Biden administration will be unable to pass its $1.5 trillion infrastructure and $3.5 trillion reconciliation bills in the next several weeks. This will lessen the pressure on the Fed to remain accommodative, but it’s not clear at all whether it will encourage the Fed to reverse course before we have a huge inflation problem on our hands. Non-supply-siders (like Powell) view an additional $5 trillion of deficit-financed spending as an unalloyed stimulus for the economy. Supply-siders view it as a virtually guaranteed way to increase government control over the economy and thereby destroy growth incentives and productivity.

Amidst all this potential gloom, there are some very encouraging signs, believe it or not. Chief among them: household net worth has soared to a new high in nominal, real, and per capita terms. Also, believe it or not, the soaring federal debt has not outpaced the rise in the wealth of the private sector.

Today’s interest rates are relative to inflation. Terribly low! In normal times, a 4-5% inflation rate would call for 5-yr Treasury yields to be at least 4-5%. yet today they are not even 1%. The incentives this creates are pernicious: holding cash and/or Treasuries implies steep losses in terms of purchasing power. That in turn erodes the demand for cash and that fuels more spending and higher inflation.

The growth of the non-currency portion of M2 (currency today is about 10% of M2). Currency in circulation—currently about $2.1 trillion—is not an inflation threat, because no one holds currency that they don’t want. The rest of M2, just over $18 trillion, is held by the public (not institutions) in banks, in the form of checking, savings, and various types of demand deposits. For many, many years M2 has grown at an annual rate of 6-7%. But beginning in March of last year, M2 growth broke all prior growth records. The non-currency portion of M2 is about 25% higher than it would have been had historical trends persisted. That means there is almost $4 trillion of “extra” money in the nation’s banks. This extra money has been created by the same banks that are holding it: banks, it should be noted, are the only ones that can create cash money. The Fed can only create bank reserves, which banks must hold to collateralize their deposits. Today banks hold far more reserves than they need, so that means they have a virtually unlimited ability to create more deposits. And they have been very busy doing this over the past 18 months.

For most of the past year I have been predicting that this huge expansion of the money supply would result in rising inflation, and so far that looks exactly like what has happened. People don’t need to hold so much of their wealth in the form of cash, so they are trying to spend it. But if the Fed and the banks don’t take steps to reduce the amount of cash, then the public’s attempts to get rid of unwanted cash can only result in higher prices, and perhaps some extra spending-related growth. It’s a classic case of too much money chasing too few goods and services. And Fed Chair Powell has just added some incentives for people to try to reduce their cash balances. He’s fanning the flames of inflation at a time when there is plenty of dry fuel lying around.

Now for some good news. The evolution of household balance sheets in the form of four major categories. The one thing that is not soaring is debt, which has increased by a mere 20% since just prior to the 2008-09 Great Recession.

With private sector debt having grown far less than total assets, households’ leverage has declined by 45% from its all-time peak in mid-2008. The public hasn’t had such a healthy balance sheet since the early 1970s (which was about the time that inflation started accelerating). Hmmm….

In inflation-adjusted terms, household net worth is at another all-time high: $142 trillion.

On a per capita and inflation-adjusted basis, the story is the same. We’ve never been richer as a society.

Total federal debt owed to the public is now about $22 trillion, or about the same as annual GDP. It hasn’t been that high since WWII. So it’s amazing that federal debt has not exploded relative to the net worth of the private sector. As I’ve shown in previous posts, the burden of all that debt is historically quite low, thanks to extraordinarily low interest rates.

Gold prices are weak today because the market is anticipating higher short-term interest rates. Gold peaked when forward interest rate expectations were at an all-time low. Why? Because super-low interest rates pose the risk of higher inflation. With the Fed now talking about raising rates (albeit sometime next year, and very slowly thereafter), gold doesn’t make as much sense because forward-looking investors are judging the risk of future inflation to be somewhat less than it was a few years ago.

 

S/F

Rik

Originally posted 2021-09-28 10:45:55.

Book News

Commercial Break

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LOL, Sorry, but it’s time for a commercial break for this old man. SMILES. I hope you don’t mind, but need to do this every now and again — haven’t done it so far this year.

If you have not read THE BOOK yet, shame on you. LOL Great reviews on Amazon, but don’t buy there, it’s a rip off. Am currently working with another publisher to perhaps have it republished. I do; however, have several hard covers I bought from the previous publisher before I dropped them; they were ripping me off! If you are working on a book and are thinking of going POD (Publish On Demand), it would behoove you to talk to me first so I can give you some warnings to help you avoid the problems I experienced. Meanwhile I would like to sell the ones I have.

Remember, it is not a autobiography except that it follows my career from a delinquent HS kid to retiring thirty-six years later simply for organizational purposes. It’s more about the great mentors and leaders I experienced. I mention the good, the bad, and even the ugly –I pull no punches, which is why it will never appear on CMC’s reading list LOL. I sell the hard cover for $35, [personally inscribed and signed, AND if it is for a military person (past, present or future), I eat the $4.35 postage. Contact me at sgt-b@comcast.net or click on “Buy the Book” to the left and I will contact you for information so I can personalize the inscription. Thank you for bearing with me during this short commercial break. 

Below is a picture of the back of the dust cover on hard back copy. A great gift for a Marine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Semper Fi, Jim

Originally posted 2021-09-23 11:21:08.

Current Events

Beware of Halloween Spooks

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Hello followers. I hope this missive finds you and yours in the best of health and staying safe. My bride and I returned from our getaway to St. Lucia very early this morning. Truly a relaxing place for the late twenty to late thirty crowd. For the early eighty crowd, not so relaxing; glad I purposely did not bring my Hearing Aids. Not quite my genre of music; in fact, it was unbearable. However, the place is so large and dissected in such a way we found a quiet pool away from all that. Anyway, we both had a great time, lots of fun in the sun.

I arrived home to find an excellent treatise by Greg on the current state of the economy in this once vibrant and glowing country of sane people. And as usual, I totally concur with all he states. It is coming folks. For those living off their 401K’s beware!! I and most who think like me have been selling for the past several weeks, and I shall continue during the ups and downs of Wall Street. I shall also do some selective buying, but inflationary companies, which are many, will not be on my sought-after lists.

The highlights in red within Greg’s treatise are mine.

October Instincts

By: G. Maresca

The Executive Director of JPMorgan Chase admitted that the stock market’s “biggest nightmare periods have tended to be October. You go back to obviously the crash in 1929, but the 1987 crash, and in 1989… was in October. You tend to have these October moments.”

Financially most are feeling pretty good as brokerage accounts never looked healthier and home prices are over-the-top. Over the past year, the S&P 500 has closed at new, all-time highs over 50 times and in so doing has created the illusion that the market only rises.

This results in taking more chances when investing.

The K-shaped economy and booming stock market underscore that Main Street and Wall Street are at a major disconnect. Many dismiss the growing rate of inflation, the unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve’s nonstop money-printing and increased debt believing that the dollar today is worth the same as it was last year.

It’s not.

The duality of low interest rates and those stimulus payouts have devalued the dollar. Thanks to inflation and time, savings in fixed investments like CDs, bank accounts and money markets lose purchasing power. With yields registering next to nothing, where are investors expected to put their money?

As a result, savers seek more risk in order to obtain better returns leading to a stock market that is cooking and overvalued. Increasing stock prices coupled with a mushrooming federal debt is a brick road paved over with inflation.  As the Fed continues easy-money policies, the market will continue higher as the infusion of cheap dollars rules the day.

Most bankers, brokers, and politicians understand that these bouts with inflation are what economists call: “The Money Illusion.” It is when one’s wealth is measured in how many dollars they possess, rather than its purchasing power.

Among investors, the Money Illusion breeds risk taking and heightened speculation. It’s like watching a skilled magician work his stagecraft. It looks and appears amazing and impossible, but it is not at all what it seems.

Low interest rates did, in fact, rescue the market. The Fed slashed short-term interest rates to near zero at the onset of the COVID-19 debacle and bought large purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds making dollars discounted. In so doing, The Fed propped up not only the bond markets, but stocks, too.

Many are in denial about what is truly happening throughout our financial system. To paraphrase writer Upton Sinclair, it’s difficult to get someone to look when their getting paid depends on not looking.

Adding to the illusion is that 40% of all U.S. currency in circulation has been printed since March 2020. Few comprehend the effects of so many trillions in our financial system. The Case-Shiller Index which measures home prices has risen 18.6% for the year, up from a record 16.8% the month before. The index is the proverbial rat in the financial mine that brings with it a healthy dose of inflation.

Financial storm clouds are forming as the economy experiences labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, rising prices, and increasing inflation. With too many dollars chasing too few assets, the good times won’t last forever.

One out of every four companies are on life support because of low interest rates. With rates near zero, and with inflation rising, The Fed cannot afford to keep them low forever.

Bankruptcies are on the horizon.

The federal debt continues to grow as trillions crowd the government’s balance sheet with the debt literally growing by the second. Inflation does to a degree keep the debt somewhat manageable. However, as inflation rises, Social Security, and other assorted fixed incomes like pensions will see their buying power shrink even further.

Eventually, a significant tax increase will hit all Americans hard and below the belt – regardless of income.

Rising stock prices are great, but when easy money begins to create social, political, and economic turmoil, something is seriously amiss. A White House which believes that global warming, systemic racism and COVID are our greatest threats, does not possess the foresight and wisdom to comprehend what is economically occurring.

The laws of economics cannot be repealed, no matter what one’s wishful thinking may be.

As October looms, consider this a heads-up.

Postscript: Beware of the ghouls of October, they are coming, meanwhile many Americans keep chasing those soon to be negligent goods and, to paraphrase Mack the Knife , “Spending like a Sailor.”

Originally posted 2021-09-20 14:39:12.