From The Fields

Lame-duck President Joe Biden has given Ukraine permission to launch U.S. made Army Tactical Missile Systems, ATACMS. These weapons can go 190 miles into Russian territory. Russian President Putin previously warned that introducing this kind of weapon into the Russia-Ukraine war would mean that Russia considers this a direct attack by the United States and that nuclear weapons would be considered as a response.

What the hell? Is this what Democrats consider a peaceful transfer of power? A possible escalation into WWIII before Trump can take office? Or, in their fevered imagination, do they believe that WWIII would prevent a transfer of power, leaving them ensconced in a smoking White House?

Trump has promised to end the Ukraine war on day one. How, We don't know. But we do know that just the pronouncement, plus probable shakeups at the Department of Defense not to mention the intelligence and alphabet agencies has struck abject fear into the hearts of those who have become very wealthy because of the military/industrial/intelligence/healthcare/education/climate change etc. complex.

It's not like Trump will have an easy four years. The Fed, whose contributions are like 90 % to Democrats, lowered interest rates by a half a percentage point in September, to goose the economy just ahead of the election. It didn't work to elect Kamala but it will undoubtedly contribute to inflation a couple years into the Trump administration. He'll get the blame. Karma from the lockdowns and ensuing mad money printing during the 2020 COVID. And as Mark Twain probably never said, "History doesn't repeat but it rhymes" In 1928 Herbert Hoover was elected. That was during the Roaring 20s, the first Fed created inflation. The stock market boomed until October of 1929. Then it didn't. Today we have asset markets priced at near all time highs. Inflation and Fed tightening to stem it are in the cards. Is a rhyme with the Great Depression likely? Probably, particularly considering that Trump is promising punishing tariffs similar to the Smoot Hawley tariffs that exacerbated the 1930s depression. Do you have gold to protect you from hyperinflation or depression? Bitcoin? Might be a good time to stock up.

I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

CalExit will continue. The voters of California have spoken. And they will get what they have voted for. Good and hard.

According to early election results iIt appears that many of the ballot propositions passed. They will cost the taxpayers of California more money. The only passing proposition that could possibly benefit taxpayers is Prop 36, which reclassifies some thefts under $950 from misdemeanors to felonies. Putting more shoplifters who steal $949.99 worth of merchandise in prison will raise prison costs. But it will probably benefit the public at large by keeping more thieves locked up.

Most of the rest of the propositions passed are going to cost the many taxpayers each a little more and benefit a select few quite a lot. Proposition 2 would raise $10 billion in bond money to build more new school buildings. The direct costs are borne by taxpayers. The indirect costs fall to students who learn more at private schools and their parents who would ultimately pay less for private education than they do for public education. The select few winners are building contractors and p[ublic education administrators and teachers.

Proposition 4 authorizes a $10 billion bond slush fund to pay for ill defined environmental benefits. Taxpayers lose a little bit each. Winners are the green new scam climate fear mongers who would spend a lot on climate "research" and the solar and wind companies and environmental consultants who are unable to compete on a level playing field.

Proposition 5 may be the worst of the lot. It reduces the majority needed to authorize local bond issues from two thirds to 55%. Even if you believe the local projects are good ones, the sane way to fund them is pay as you go, not adding bond interest which can make those projects cost several times what their cash price would be.
Taxpayers lose. Developers and lenders win. Luckily, this one seems to be going down to defeat.

Proposition 6 which was marketed as ending involuntary servitude in prisons. It means criminals won't even be required to pay in kind for their room and board. They are in prison for a reason. This just adds insult to injury. Everyone loses. Obviously taxpayers. But also prisoners who will be denied an opportunity to learn work habits and maybe even a marketable skill to use upon their release. And this one appears to be losing.

Proposition 32 raises the minimum wage. Winners are those low skill workers who manage to keep their jobs. Losers are those who will be replaced by robots or whose employers go out of business altogether. Econ 101 must still be in the curriculum somewhere. This one is losing.

Proposition 33 makes it easier for local governments to impose rent control. Winners are those lucky enough to rent in a rent controlled home. Losers are those who will be hard pressed to find a home at all because of the reduction in home building that always accompanies rent control. Good news. This is also going down.

All in all, California voters have managed to add a whole bunch of new reasons for talented Californians to take their talents to friendlier states that are not California. That's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

I predicted over a year ago, on this show, that Joe Biden would not be the Democratic nominee for President this year due to his obvious mental decline. When he finally bowed out, I predicted that if the Democrats had an open convention to decide on their new nominee, they could win in November. I also predicted that if Kamala Harris was anointed by the Party elite, she would lose. And here we are.

Just last week I said that the vote was analogous to choosing between Mussolini and Lenin.and that I would vote for Chase Oliver, the Libertarian nominee. Well, Mussolini won. The good news is that Lenin lost. And I really mean that is good news. Fascism, personified by Mussolini and Trump, and Communism. personified by Lenin and Harris, are just two sides of the same authoritarian, dictatorial coin. Yes, Trump has dictatorial tendencies. The legacy media has been relentlessly telling us that for the last decade. What the legacy media and social media has not been telling us is that the Democrats as personified by Biden and Harris also have dictatorial tendencies. Look no further than the relentless censorship of social media for propagating anything other than the Democratic Party line under the banner of misinformation, disinformation or malinformation. Among the many pieces of true, factual and relevant information that were censored were, the origin of the COVID virus in the Wuhan lab. It was.That Anthony Fauci did not fund that lab. He did. That the COVID death rate would be catastrophically high. It was no worse than the 68 flu. That the rushed to market vaccines would prevent COVID. They didn't. That they would have minimal side effects. They did. That the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian hoax. It wasn't. That Joe Biden was fit as a fiddle. He wasn't. That the U.S. was not responsible for flowing up the Nordstream pipeline. It probably was. And I'm just skimming the surface.

Generally speaking the people who try to gain power either through fascism or communism are not much interested in the ideology. They are interested in gaining power. The ideology is a means. Donald Trump is an empty vessel regarding ideology. He successfully won two elections by catering to peoples' fear of immigrants and trade competition from Mexico and China. Kamala Harris is likewise an empty vessel on ideology. But one of her early childhood influences was probably her father who was an avowed Marxist economist. Her nod to price controls on groceries and subsidies to home buyers have roots in Marxist ideology. Whereas fascists appeal to fear, communists appeal to envy. They also appeal to the good will of people to help their neighbors. Hence, the slogan, "From each according to their ability and to each according to their need." That aphorism works fine at the family level. Infants are mostly needy and parents are mostly able. It also works at the tribal level where everyone knows everyone else. The threat of being expelled from the tribe keeps slackers working at least a little bit. But once the person-to-person bonds of knowing everyone are stretched too far, slackers quickly figure out that working is optional because the government will take care of them anyway. That is what ultimately leads to the downfall of socialism. But it takes a long time. Witness the Soviet Union and Communist China.

It's important to note that both fascist and communist dictators kill a lot of their citizens. 6 million were killed by Hitler in Nazi Germany Conservative estimates put the death toll in the Soviet Union and Communist China at 55 million.

Since there is little motivating ideology behind fascism besides fear of the other, fascist leaders tend to lose power relatively quickly. Since altruistic ideology is intrinsic to communism, communist leaders tend to hold onto power longer before losing it.

Dictatorial governments are bad. Since fascist dictators have historically had shorter rulerships than communist dictators, the only comfort I can take in the Trump win is that he leans fascist while Harris leans communist.

In full disclosure, I voted for Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Candidate. That was not because of any encouragement from the Libertarian Party of California which included Jill Stein, Cornel West and Robert F Kennedy Jr. as presidential candidates on its website...but not Libertarian nominee Chase Oliver.

That's this week' Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.

"Our democracy" is in danger if Trump is elected according to Democrats. They may be right. They would also be right in making the same charge if Kamala gets elected. Never mind that we are actually a Republic with democracy limited by checks and balances and a constitution to prevent a dictatorial majority from the third world one election, we get to rule in perpetuity syndrome.

The issue Democrats want you to forget is that a democracy, however constructed or limited, needs free speech to function properly. And Democrats are saying the quiet part out loud. They oppose free speech that they disagree with. Former Democratic Senator, Presidential candidate and Secretary of State, John Kerry speaking to the World Economic Forum said, “But, look, if people go to only one source, and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer it out of existence,”

Former Presidential spouse, Democratic candidate for President, Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in a CNN interview said she wants to get rid of Section 230 which protects internet platforms from being sued for what users of the platforms say. She said, "If the platforms... don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control".

Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are also calling for weakening Section 230. But don't worry, Freedom of Speech is an equal opportunity target. Donald Trump wants to repeal Section 230 also.

It's really not necessary. As the Twitter Files convincingly demonstrated, during the Biden/Harris administration, Federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies from the FBI to the Department of Homeland Security to the National Institutes of Health, got the various platforms from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube to crumple like cheap suits under the implied threat of more onerous regulation.

And it's not just in the United States. In Ireland, Britain, Brazil, Australia and elsewhere, there are serious government efforts to drastically limit free speech.

This reporter has felt the effects. Prior to 20, my posts on Facebook received hundreds of likes and shares. After I started posting serious questions about the government's narrative on COVID, my posts mysteriously stopped being reposted. Incidentally, most of my posts criticizing COVID policy turned out to correctly identify the lies we were being told by the same government that was censoring me.

Yes, democracy is at risk in this election. But, more to the point, free speech is at risk no matter who wins. And without free speech, democracy, any variety of democracy, becomes a dead letter.

That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week. If I make it past the censors.

The Republican and Democratic parties have traded constituencies. The Democrats used to be the party of the laboring class and less educated. The Republican party used to be the party of the well-educated suburbanites. No more. Under Trump Republicans are targeting their message to the working class with messages of fear of immigrants and the miraculous ability of tariffs to rebuild America's industrial might. Democrats are using the abortion issue to strike fear into the hearts of college educated suburban women and claims of Republican racism to virtue signal their bona fides as supporters of "our democracy"..

Let's examine the issue of tariffs.The main argument for tariffs is that they will protect American businesses from competition from foreign rivals and increase jobs domestically. They will do that. But in economics there are always trade offs. With tariffs there are at least four. One, importers to the United States will increase their price to the consumer to cover at least a portion of the cost of the tariff. Prices will rise. Two, domestic producers will raise their prices to match the price of imported goods. That raises prices to the consumer. It also allows for either higher profits for the domestic producer or allows them to become more inefficient. Or both. Three, foreign countries will retaliate by enacting tariffs on exports from the United States. The sales volumes of U.S. exporters will go down offsetting the increased sales volumes of protected industries. Jobs gained in protected industries are washed out by job losses in exporting industries. Four, there are some things that are just naturally more efficient to produce overseas. Bananas come to mind. Yes, we could produce bananas in a greenhouse in North Dakota, but they would probably be a tad more expensive than bananas imported from Costa Rika.

The other danger is that countries will be more likely to go to war. Trade and war are mutually exclusive. We tend not to try to kill our customers. Countries that trade together tend not to go to war with each other.

Historically this is demonstrated most obviously by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Enacted at the beginning of the Great Depression it was intended to, in today's sloganeering, Make America Great Again. Instead it extended the depression at least a decade and contributed to the tensions leading to World War II.

More pertinent is the Trump campaign's claim that the President can unilaterally enact tariffs, He can't. The Constitution clearly states that Congress has the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises." Unfortunately, just like in regulatory law, Congress has given away its power on taxes. In 1962 it gave the President power to lay tariffs on imports that affect national security. In 1974 Congress gave the President the power to act in cases of unfair trade practices.So, in practice, the President can unilaterally impose tariffs. Trump did. Biden/Harris did not reverse any of the Trump tariffs. As a result, consumer prices will be higher. Tariffs are effectively sales taxes on imported goods. The chance of war will be higher. Exporters and their employees will be hurt. Protected American industries will benefit, at least in the short run. And the defense industry will be helped.

Voting Democratic or Republican isn't going to change anything. Libertarian, anyone?

That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.