Thursday, 1 June 2023 — South Melbourne

By Brian Chu Editor, The Daily Reckoning Australia

[7 min read]

Dear Reader,

Earlier this week, WA Premier Mark McGowan announced he’s quitting politics.

Many of you remember that he was behind one of the most restrictive border policies in the country. These policies ruined families and businesses, notably the mining industry that relies a lot on ‘fly-in, fly-out’ workers.

Now you wonder why he’d quit so abruptly. After all, the media lauded him as a hugely popular premier in his state, which they highlighted in their polls.

McGowan told the public in his address that he was ‘exhausted’, suffered from ‘many sleepless nights’, and ‘excess worry about things’.  

What’s interesting is that McGowan’s reasons for stepping down from the state’s top post echoed that of former NZ Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern, who resigned in mid-January this year, citing she no longer ‘had enough in the tank’.

Now on the surface, this seems like a nothing burger.

They’re tired and want to focus on their own lives and family.

Nothing to see here.

But if you ask me, that’s just a cover story to divert your attention.

Let me take you on a deeper dive so you know what’s at play.

Today’s hard-line leaders are not so tough

If you go back a few decades and study examples of the longest-serving leaders (many of whom were tyrants and despots), they weren’t made from the same mould as the ones today.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’d rather have today’s tyrants than those of the past.

But we’ve seen a few who’ve ruled with an iron fist over the last three years. Now they’re stepping down claiming exhaustion or a desire to spend more time with family.

Come again?

Exhausted after a few years of presiding over a state of emergency, which they happily extended continually?

Was it not energising enough for them to enjoy high approval ratings and a fawning media praising every policy they implement that strips the people of their freedom?

How about winning re-elections with a stronger margin?

I wonder whether back in the day the thought of quitting due to exhaustion crossed the minds of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, China’s Mao Tse-tung and his nemesis Chiang Kai-shek, Cambodia’s Hun Sen, Former Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito, Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

Or even Türkiye’s current President Recep Erdoğan, who narrowly won re-election over the weekend and is onto his third term— his 20^th year at the top job. Those who follow the news in Türkiye know that running that country with its myriad of problems is no simple feat! But we don’t hear a hint of fatigue from President Erdoğan!

No dismounting off the tiger

I don’t buy this ‘exhaustion’ reason at all.

The psychology behind wielding power doesn’t line up.

There’s an old Chinese saying, ‘It’s hard to dismount from a tiger after riding it’.

Fact is, when you’ve consolidated power, you’ve upped the ante. You’ve made your enemies and crossed the Rubicon. You can’t afford to relinquish power for fear of retribution.

During the pandemic, many of these leaders wielded extraordinary emergency powers and rode roughshod over their country’s constitutional and legal framework. Not only that, but they also implemented policies that hurt many businesses and the general public.

In turn, they made powerful enemies.

This will worsen as people wake up and realise the façade of the health measures and science used to back these policies.

The tide has certainly turned against those in charge who ran with these directives and implemented measures on society without exception or leniency.

Has McGowan’s hard-line policies and grandstanding come a-haunting him at night?

Some of you may’ve lived through the hard-line policies that McGowan imposed on WA in the past three years.

The heavy-handedness of McGowan’s border closure to both domestic and international travellers, and the vaccine mandates that included heavy fines on non-compliant individuals and businesses, caused even the Sydney Morning Herald to publish an article in late October 2021 criticising him for infringing individual rights and liberties.

During the vaccine rollout, McGowan was vocal and often criticised Australians as well as leaders of other states for not pushing as hard as he did. In response, he was accused of playing politics.

McGowan has also publicly stated his reason for such harsh measures was to ensure the success of his plans to mass vaccinate the population.

The numbers are starting to turn against him. The recent data shows that while the official proportion of the state’s population getting the vaccines is the highest in the country, the cases and deaths are rising once more:

I wonder whether these are the ‘many things’ causing McGowan sleepless nights. After all, he entrenched himself heavily on this to the point where he painted himself into a dark corner.

The unintended consequences of ruined businesses and devastation to the way people live are now mounting. I believe the resentment and outright hatred will soon follow.

The wheels of justice turns slow…

If you look at the list of the leaders who epitomise medical tyranny, it seems many have already stepped down.

NIAID Director Dr Anthony Fauci out.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky out.

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson out.

NZ Prime Minster Jacinta Ardern out.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner out.

Now add McGowan to the list.

So now we wonder, who’s next?

VIC Premier Dan Andrews or QLD Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk?

Or Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

The globalists’ pyramid scheme is collapsing

If you haven’t noticed, the globalists are shedding power and losing influence each day.

Their top-down centralised system of ruling the people through control of the monetary system, national governments, multinational corporations, and various institutions seems to be facing public rejection at every step.

In the past, it was possible to use the mainstream media to ensure that the people are getting their facts from these ‘trusted’ outlets. However, as Twitter fell to Elon Musk, that changed everything. The alternative media also launched its assault by exposing the mainstream media’s biased and slanted coverage, backing their claims with sound analysis and proof.

While they try to cling to power by appealing to their incumbency and tenure, it’s clear that the people are fed up.

Many elites and their agents see the writing on the wall. Some are stepping down from their positions. Others are caught in humiliating scandals of corruption and sexual abuse.

None of this tells me that they can prevail.

While we continue to contend with government corruption, policies that benefit the extremely rich, social transformation aimed at changing our lifestyles, and the possibility of being confined within a small region for the sake of humanity, let me remind you to be of good cheer.

Not because none of this will happen. But because the clock is ticking for them.

They know it. This is their last grasp before they all fall.

God bless,

Brian Chu,
Editor, The Daily Reckoning Australia

By Bill Bonner Editor, The Daily Reckoning Australia

Dear Reader,

‘Fascism is capitalism in decline.’

Vladimir Lenin

We watched an interview last week with Robert Kennedy Jr, now a candidate for president.

His answers were good. But on one subject, he seemed to be caught off guard.

‘You’re from one of the richest families in the US’, began the examiner. ‘What do you think of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal of a wealth tax to reduce inequality?’

‘I don’t know…I’d have to look at that,’ said Kennedy.

In the next few words, we’ll do some looking too. 

Primary trends

For the benefit of new readers, we take a much broader view than most investment research firms. We look for the deep currents in markets — and history — that help to explain the curious things we see on the surface. As far as your wealth is concerned, it is being in the right place at the right time — not being smart — that really matters. Had you been born in the US after the Second World War, for example, you would have lived through the most remarkably cushy period in human history. And had you caught what we call the ‘Primary Trend’ in the US stock market, after 1982, you could have put your investment portfolio on autopilot and enjoyed 40 years of growth.

And yes…like the smell of turmeric in an Indian restaurant, there’s a whiff of fatalism hanging over our pensée. Because, once you discover the primary trend, you see that it is part of a larger pattern — a chapter in a longer story…a piece of a bigger puzzle. The story, of course, has a beginning and an end — it doesn’t matter what you think or what you want. The puzzle…well…it is what it is.     

Which is why all those ‘opinion’ pieces you read in The New York Times and elsewhere are nonsense. We need to do this…you need to do that…Biden should do this…Putin should do that — as far as we know no significant Primary Trend has ever been interrupted by the conscious efforts of well-intentioned meddlers. The deep currents ignore the surface chop.

‘Army talks’

But let’s begin looking at the issue from the perspective of a series of 1943 War Department pamphlets entitled ‘Army Talks’. It was propaganda, of course, designed to help soldiers see things the way the Pentagon wanted:  

‘We’re the good guys, because we favour democracy.

‘They’re bad guys. They are fascists.  

‘Got it?

‘For the benefit of soldiers who may not get it immediately, the thought shapers at the Pentagon went on to describe fascism as “government by the few and for the few…the people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run people.”’

A regular theme of ours has been the way in which the US Government has degenerated since the Second World War, especially after 1971. It has become an ‘Empire of Debt’, as we put it on one of our book covers. As we will see, debt favours the few, not the many. Meanwhile, growth rates have gone down…along with virtually all the markers of a robust, free, healthy society — wage gains slacked off, productivity dropped below zero, and debt soared far beyond the real economy that supported it. Over time, the US has come to look more and more like a ‘fascist’ regime itself. Laws were passed. Regulations, taxes, exceptions, tariffs, sanctions, penalties, and prohibitions were imposed. And more and more…legislation, taxation, monetary policy, foreign policy — all seemed to be done for the benefit of the few with paid lobbyists, not for the benefit of the many without them.

Inflation, for example, falls much more heavily on the middle classes and the poor than on the rich. The rich spend less of their income on consumer items. And their assets — property, bonds, stocks — tend to rise with inflation.

Inflation is not just something ‘that happens’. It is government policy, a way of financing excess government spending. It begins as debt. Then, since it cannot be repaid, it is inflated away. That’s why a ‘deal’ on the debt ceiling was a foregone conclusion. Both political parties wanted to continue borrowing and spending without limit. It didn’t matter that ‘the people’ would be much better off if the government squandered less of their output.

The many and the few

The wars, too, pay off for the insiders. We invariably lose them, but our weapons and kick-butt attitude are still a source of pride and prejudice to the masses. They salute our ‘warfighters’ at football matches, without troubling themselves about what or whom they are fighting. The real gains, however, go exclusively to the few — the know-it-alls in think tanks, the empire builders in government agencies, the weapons suppliers, and the politicians who get campaign donations, speaking fees and retirement sinecures from them.

Ms Warren is a politician too. Where does she fit into the US’ 40-year-long primary trend (rising stocks, bonds, and debt) or into its 50 years of ‘financialisation’? What role does she play in the US’ 100 plus years of empire-building…or its 20 years of decline?   

She aims to solve what she says is a problem — the rich are too rich. They should share their wealth with the rest of us by means of a tax on their wealth. Of course, there is plenty of firepower aimed at them already. Their income is taxed. Their real estate is taxed. Their purchases are taxed. Their estates are taxed. A tax on wealth is just another addition to the arsenal. And she may or may not succeed in getting it passed. Will it matter? Or is it — like the debt ceiling — just more political theatre?  

Is Ms Warren working for the many…or the few?

Tomorrow…we keep looking.

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For The Daily Reckoning Australia