Today On That's Fucked Up . . . .

 

I'm not even going into the open, unmitigated evil the Tangerine Latrine's administration is engaged in.  There's enough good info on that as it is.  Suffice it to say that if you believe ICE has not committed murders, plural, in Minneapolis, you are a lying, brain dead sack of shit, and I'm not interested in engaging with you.  In my unalterable opinion, ICE and Kristi "Razorface" Noem and Tom "Bagman" Homan and Greg "Mini Moo" Bovino and Kash "Deer in the Headlights" Patel are rabid animals who need taken behind the barn and Ol' Yeller'ed.

Along this vein, though, I just finished Ryan McBeth's YouTube from last night on the Pretti murder, and it was all I could do to keep my lunch down.  The man has completely whored out, and even his purely technical analyses are no longer to be relied on.  I unsubscribed so fast I think I damaged my mouse.

One last point here because no one else is making it.  The pistol the US Gestapo allegedly pulled off Pretti was a Sig Sauer P320.  This was the standard issue ICE sidearm until last Summer when it was replaced by the Glock 19 because of issues with "unintentional discharge" (Same issue many ICE agents undoubtedly have, but I digress.).  Interesting coincidence.

Moving on.  I was watching a financial commentator yesterday talking about Treasuries tanking because Europe is dumping them.  So far so good.  Then she brought up Germany's demand to have its gold reserves returned, and I went, yeah, that's a problem.  Then she took off her mask and said this indicated a return to gold-backed currencies.  Shit.  Another fucking brain dead goldbug.  These people are like cockroaches in the walls.  First, a bullion-based currency: 1) does not reflect how money actually works; 2) would crash the global economy; 3) would constrict the global economy to the level of about 1855; 4) would institute systemic, permanent deflation.  Second, the gold itself is not the issue in Germany's demand.  About 75 ago, Germany started acquiring gold to back the Mark because its economy was still too tattered to support it on its own.  Germany elected to store its gold at the New York Fed, just in case the Soviets got a wild hair and came storming through the Fulda Gap.  With the 1990s that stopped being an issue, but Germany said, "Hey, the US is stable, it's an ally, why not?"  This demand signals an end to that.  Germany no longer consider the US either stable or an ally.  And suppose we don't give the gold back?  So far only small potatoes Sweden and Denmark have dumped Treasuries, and that damned near wrecked the 30-year.  If Germany starts dumping (and France would join in, ostensibly out of "EU solidarity", but actually just for the sheer fun of it), it would get real ugly real fast.  And if Japan and China decide they need to follow suit to protect themselves?  Business Genius Trump will have successfully triggered American Economic Apocalypse.

Continuing on.  If there is one thing Trump is right about, it's that the US mainstream media are fake news.  They're just fake in the opposite direction Trump says.  There's plenty out there about the shit tsunami US news is, so I'm going to take you down a little, country backroad.  Having grown up on a farm, I've been reading Wallace's Farmer since I was a child.  It was founded by Henry C. Wallace, who was the grandfather of Henry A. Wallace, FDR's VP until FDR dumped him in favor of the safer, more Southern, more corporate Harry Truman (Truman left a lot of soundbites, but he delivered on effectively none of them.), and the last, significant, left wing candidate for president (1948, for those of you keeping score.).  The current Wallace's Farmer is just a corporate apologist shit pile, though.  This example is from its latest edition.  They're beating the drum for a new Iowa State University report saying only 30% of Iowa ag land sales are going to corporations.  Ahem.  Just from the article itself, I look at those figures and know that the 30% never comes back out of investor, while the 70% will come back around for them to have another crack at.  So every year more land shifts from operators to investors.

But I didn't stop there.  Because I'm one of those assholes who doesn't take other assholes at their word.  So I read the actual ISU report.  The first thing that stuck out was that inflation-adjusted land values were lower than 2015.  So hard assets are down, revenue is shitty because of Trump's trade wars, and all expenses are up a butt ton, but yeah farmers, you just keep ticking off that "R" on the ballot.

Then the ISU report made a couple of telling points.  First, they said their 70% group included farmers buying for investment.  You want to know what kind of farmer buys for investment?  A corporate farmer.  So part of the 70% is actually over with the 30%.  And then they broke purchases down by area.  And the best farmland areas in the state have majority investor purchases.  The media are telling you everything is fine, but you could empty a L'Oreal factory and not have enough lipstick for that pig.

Back to mainstream.  I watched a Marcus & Millichap webcast this morning, and my Gods were those brilliant, real estate experts leading a one-star shit parade.  Nothing to see here, citizens, don't worry about the lack of affordability, don't worry about the economy being propped up by nothing but data centers sucking up all the power and water, never mind the increasing income gap, pay no mind to the economic instability as the US gets relegated to pariah nation status, and above all, DON'T CONNECT THE DOTS.  It was like I was playing a tape of all the real estate con artists (er, excuse me, experts) right before the crash.

As Tom Paxton said in Twister, "We're goin' in!"