15 April 2022

SHORT TAKES AFTER AN ABSENCE

INFLATION: I am so sorry that I turned out to be right about inflation, (https://www.georgesarant.com/2021/12/funny-money.html) which will only get worse before it gets better, for the simple reason that it is now on everyone’s mind and incorporated into selling and purchasing decisions going forward. When I first wrote about it there was little sense of its imminent presence, and we were told that it was “transitory” by the “experts.” But now that we are all fully conscious of it, the effects are compounded, and it will build on itself the way it did in the 70s.  The damage that has been done by bad policies cannot be undone overnight, and we will likely face another recession before things level out. Mind you this is an entirely man-made phenomenon due to an incompetent administration that has been wrong about everything and is fully responsible for engendering it from a rock-solid, stable period created by the previous administration; and no, it’s not Putin’s fault.


UKRAINE: I still believe what I wrote regarding the ultimate demise of the Putin regime (https://www.georgesarant.com/2022/02/how-tough-guys-fall.html) which will ultimately come to pass, due to the disastrous invasion of Ukraine. That is the bright side; the dark side is the possibility that he may become totally unhinged, say the hell with everything, and take the whole world down with him in a nuclear catastrophe. We would then be reliant on the good sense and decency of Russians tasked with implementing this to disobey.  But otherwise we are witnessing the self-destruction of the geographically largest country in the world, a culmination of chronic bad government. 


Our eyes have clearly been opened by exposure to the Ukrainian reality. Beforehand I think many of us had a vague picture of some sort of drab, post Soviet region, along with Chernobyl, etc. Instead what we now see is a beautiful city, and a heroic people, many of whom speak English better than many Americans these days. Again, tragically, this too could have been avoided if we had a different administration. 


INDIVIDUALS AND HISTORY; It should be clear now that it is individuals that matter in life, from the uniqueness of each and every one of us, to those at the pinnacle of power. If someone with the humane instincts of a Gorbachev had been in charge of Russia instead of Putin, how different things would have been. Instead one malevolent actor holds the whole world hostage. Or, suppose the Ukrainian leader was someone who, in the face of danger, absconded, in a pattern going back to the Byzantine Emperor facing the Fourth Crusade up to the last President of Afghanistan, resulting in the collapse of the government? Fortunately for the Ukranians, Zalinsky was the man who instead held things together. 


There are no grand “causes,” no “laws,” no great “theories” governing history. There are only events and individuals, and how they respond to them. There are endless “if only-s” throughout history that would have resulted in completely different outcomes given different players. We need only think of the virtually miraculous accomplishments of Washington, without whom this country would not exist. Or our present sorry state under a grossly incompetent administration of old radicals going off the rails. 


THE ROTTEN LEFT: It should be crystal clear now the extent to which we have been subject to a morally bankrupt Left, that across the board destroys everything it touches. Think simply of any interest group online, and how often they ruin things by injecting politics into subjects that have no connection with it, or how our media have been corrupted, education system destroyed, biological facts rejected, endless racializing of everything, language itself purloined, etc. because they view all aspects of life as political, while the rest of us live in the real world. Look tellingly, at the reaction to Musk buying Twitter and restoring free speech, which they cannot abide, in keeping with their ongoing censorship because they cannot bear to hear anything that conflicts with their warped world view. This repressive reign must end and true freedom be restored to all our institutions or we are doomed. 






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