The new inflation numbers are out this morning and higher than expected. It is only a decimal point number, and not advantageous to those in power, so we expect not to hear much about it. “Worst in 40 Years!” didn’t get much play last week. We are on edge due to the looming election. We are determined not to be surprised by the October Surprise unless it is here and we missed it in the crisis thicket. We are thankful we have national law enforcement agencies on the case. With plenty of cash to pay for things not subject to investigation.

There was a flash yesterday that threatened to solve the mystery of the Pipeline bombing. The German authorities are said to be providing blankets to to keep the kids warm at school as the winter comes on without Russian-produced energy. The Experts from the Weather side of the house- our METOC Folks- assure us things will be cool in that part of the globe this month, and the real impact on Europe- and EU unity- will be stressed. Oh, the Mystery? Who blew up the pipelines on the floor of the Baltic Sea? There was a story that one of the four pipelines might have survived, and Mr. Putin might be able to turn on the flow of gas to Europe if he felt like it. That story lasted only a few hours, before it changed to “methane released could doom Earth,” but it provided a brief moment when things actually made sense.

That solution lasted only a few hours and we are back to a mystery of who did it. The other litany of trouble continues, complete with the threat that atomic weapons might be used if things “got out of control” in the “Special Military Operation” that seems to be so special that it was actually a mistake. There are other issues, of course. The big Party Congress in China is determining some big policies, including a third term for President Xi. Oil workers in Iran are joining the protests against the autocratic religious government, suggesting weakness in the Shia side of religious conflict. The North Korean machine blasting another assortment of Rockets in the general direction of Japan. And everyone struggling to conduct some extravagant financial business in a World Currency not under their control. Jaimie Dimon, charismatic CEO of JPMorgan Chase is predicting that the US and the global economy will be plunged into a recession by the middle of 2023. So, there is more excitement to come.

All of it has a general relation to the American elections coming up in only a few weeks. Some are saying it could lead to a global crisis, not that we don’t already have several. Buck the Economist had some thoughts about that angle, but they were complex enough that we didn’t fully understand it. That is hardly a novel circumstance, since we don’t really understand what happened to the US Congress. Back in some other Administration they outsourced our budgeting process to anonymous “Non-Profit” organizations to distribute. There is no oversight on the salary requirements by these invisible organizations which are not only not making a profit, but they are non-governmental and not subject to review. The other sweet deal was for Members to work hard all day making laws that stipulate some sort of acquisition and happen to mention the status to their loving spouses.

Apparently there is some good money to be made in knowledgable stock training.

It is fun to see it play out without any significant coverage. And pretty elegant as a means to take some of the skullduggery out of the spotlight. Members vote on bills that do the opposite of what the titles claim, and essentially make the corruption “legal.” In the old process, members had to introduce amendments for which they could, at some point, be held to account. Now, under the Continuing Resolution (CR) process, the taxpayer money goes out to fund the private companies through unaccountable but virtuous “grants.” The $80+billion for the Covid emergency that are so far “unspent” but available for valiant project is an example. The Public Sector organizations naturally, and freely, donate a unified amount of former taxpayer cash back to the Members who inherited the system. The Teachers Union got some visibility on how that works recently, but was not available for comment due to a fact-finding mission to Ukraine, where apparently the war has had an impact on keeping schools open.

There is more, of course, and part of it is how much more taxpayer cash can be shoveled toward valiant struggles against Russia. And there are those other valiant struggles we must support, but it is hard to figure out who is supporting what. The Money shows up in a morning press report when Congress is in session. They are on recess at the moment out of respect for Indigenous Peoples or Italians or somebody, but before they left, hung baskets of cash on the National Defense Authorization for next year amounting to $45 Billion- 5% of the biggest arms budget in the world- to do some valiant things in their home districts that have only a faint connection to Defense programs.

So here we are on this week, speeding toward an election in three weeks, wondering when or what the October Surprise is going to be. Time is getting short to make that play effectively, so we expect something else to appear dramatically in the partisan memes in play. There is a lot at stake, and it will be interesting to see how the issues play out. That is why we ensured we voted early, and based on the issues we understood before the surprises started.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com