This is not a direct investment post but just a blog by Patrick Jake O'Rourke, an American political satirist and journalist. However the upcoming presidential election is so important and profoundly influential in all the aspects of our life, including investment, that I think this one is a good opinion to share. O'Rourke's writing is also very entertaining and hope you also find it interesting and fun to read. Enjoy it!
If You Set Your Alarm for 2021...
How Bad Could It Be?
By P.J. O'Rourke
Dateline: January 1, 2020, still in bed, hiding under the blankets with my laptop.
New Year's Day – when the "Over" meets the "Hang." The two thousand-teens are over (thank God), and the two thousand-twenties (oh, God) dangle before us.
Last night, I had resolutions and solutions for the coming year. But the solutions turned out to be 80 proof. And I've already broken my resolution not to bet Michigan over Alabama in the Citrus Bowl. Today, my stirring hopes have turned into a pounding headache. The world (I've just peeked out from beneath the covers) looks grim.
Instead of trying to cheer myself up, I'm going to treat my melancholia homeopathically, in a "like cures like" manner, with a dose of contemplation about just how wrong things could go in 2020.
There's something oddly comforting about imagining worst-case scenarios. Maybe it's because if you have any imagination at all, you can usually imagine something much more horrible than what will really happen. Or maybe it's because we've all had that "silver lining" proverb drilled into us (never mind that silver prices have been somewhat sluggish over the past few years).
Anyway, here it is...
My Worst-Case Scenario for 2020
A left-wing Democrat beats Trump. "Progressives" and their pinko ilk sweep the House of Representatives. Democrats win a majority in the Senate.
Already, this makes my aching brow and upset stomach seem like minor problems.
But what would be the actual outcome of this worst-case scenario?
We'd have a president who's a ridiculous fool and is detested by half of America. Yes, yes, I know, lots of people say we have that already. But Donald Trump, even to those who loathe him, is undeniably entertaining and fun to make fun of.
There's nothing funny about Bernie Sanders. He's a sad, old, delusional crank shouting gibberish in the street. He belongs in a mental health facility, not a laugh line.
Elizabeth Warren is even less entertaining. She is a schoolmarm, and not the beloved "Our Miss Brooks" kind. Warren is the teacher who gives pop quizzes after lunch on Fridays, waits until 3 p.m. to announce the topic of 30-page papers due at 8 a.m. Monday morning, and assigns the complete works of Proust to be read by her students over spring break.
She is also the national know-it-all, universal answer-pants, and self-appointed authority on everything and its brother. She talks like an encyclopedia... except listening to her is less like reading all 22 volumes of the World Book and more like having them dropped on your ear.
So the Oval Office wouldn't really be that much different – just a lot duller. And, since all White House pronouncements will be either incomprehensible psycho-ward Marxist babble or so intensely boring that reporters will fall into a catatonic trance, there will be no news from the White House.
CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Times, NPR, and AM talk radio will have nothing to get hysterical about. The market for news media will shrink to about three people – Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And if AOC doesn't learn how to read and can't figure out how to work the channel changer, it will just be Nancy and Chuck.
The news media industry will collapse. So there's one silver lining right there. (And silver prices have seen an uptick since mid-December.)
With the collapse of the news media industry, we might even start getting some news again. Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen will have their jobs back at the Daily Planet. (Superman is sick and tired of disguising himself as Rachel Maddow.)
Meanwhile, in the House and the Senate, Democrats will be raising taxes sky-high. This would scare the heck out of me – if I were a patsy, a dupe, a ripe suck, or born yesterday. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92%. Do you think anybody paid 92% of their income to the IRS in 1952 or 1953? Crafting tax laws is a notoriously loopy process. And the salient quality of loops is... loopholes. What the House and the Senate will really be doing is making Christmas 2021 come on April 15 for tax accountants.
Democrats, unable to fund their mad profusion of spending projects with tax dollars because they drew the Laffer Curve upside down, will need to print even more money than we're printing already. (The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing may have to resort to Xerox machines at FedEx Office Print & Ship Centers.)
The value of the U.S. dollar will crash... But this, at least, will end our trade war with China. When a pair of chopsticks starts going for $39.95, China's not going to be raking in a trade surplus from us.
We'll have to make our own iPhones, but the upside is that instead of being tapped by Xi Jinping, they'll be tapped by the NSA... This is more patriotic.
Democratic devastation of the economy will solve the immigration crisis, too. In fact, it's Mexico that may have to build a wall – to keep hordes of Americans from rushing the border to get to somewhere offering better career opportunities, such as Guatemala.
Of course, U.S. markets will crash. But after 11 years of bull, we're prepared for some shit. And there will be plenty of opportunities to cash in quickly on buying blue-chip investments at poker ante prices due to the "Left-Turn Recession" of 2021 being the shortest on record. Because...
A blink of an eye is about how long the Democrats' control of the government will last. Democrats can't even control their own presidential nomination process. What's the likelihood of them suddenly taking the wheel of their self-driving "Detestla" political machine as it ploughs through the crowded crosswalk of national governance?
Once the Democrats have been elected, they'll realize what the rest of us already know from watching their debates and campaigns – they all hate each other.
They can't agree on anything. The Democrats could stand outdoors during Hurricane Dorian and argue about whether it's raining.
Although, to be fair – since President Trump thought Hurricane Dorian struck Alabama instead of the Bahamas – they're not alone in this. But comparing Democratic quarrels with Republican spats is like comparing the marriage of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes with the marriage of George and Barbara Bush.
The Democrats are a national exercise in packing the dog with the cat. The Democratic Party isn't a political party... It's the name of a den of thieves whose single point of agreement is that they want to break into the national cash register and swipe the booty.
When it's time to divvy up the swag, all hell will break loose. Leafy eco-conscious policies will wither and turn brown after organized labor takes its chainsaw to the Green New Deal.
Democrats will be in the doghouse with their low-income supporters when doubling the minimum wage sends tens of thousands of businesses into bankruptcy and America's 1.7 million minimum-wage workers are fired from 1.7 million minimum-wage jobs.
Calls for Universal Income will run aground when Rashida Tlaib realizes that 45% of that income goes to people wearing MAGA hats.
Free college tuition will come a cropper when everyone in the United States takes the Democrats up on it. Who wouldn't like to go back to college?... Keggers, tailgate parties, bong smoke clouding the co-ed dorms – plus riding our motorcycles up the stairs in our Animal House fraternities and getting John Belushi's 0.0 grade-point average.
Medicare for All will lose its luster when every single doctor in America moves to Tijuana to open a pill mill and play golf. (Greens fees are $42 at Tijuana's luxurious Club Campestre.)
And brace yourself for the fight over whether Hillary Clinton or Ilhan Omar should replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.
A sweeping victory by socialist Democrats in 2020 is the only thing on Earth that could make the kind of Republicans we have these days appear attractive. I mean, Mitch McConnell is going to look like Scarlett Johansson to voters. Expect a landslide GOP victory in the 2022 midterms with a veto-proof majority.
Then, we'll get a real impeachment. The House hearings and debate and the vote in the Senate will take a total of about 15 minutes. And the impeachment will include not only the Democratic president, but whoever got the wet smack second prize of being Vice President on the Democratic ticket.
Next in succession – our 47th President – will be whomever the Republicans elect as Speaker of the House, and, frankly, I don't care if it's Francis the Talking Mule. The "just-how-wrong-things-can-go" will be to hell and gone. And we can return to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Which is why I'm getting up and mixing myself a Bloody Mary...
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