“Fasten Your Seatbelts It’s Going To Be A Bumpy Night”

"Fasten Your Seatbelts It's Going To Be A Bumpy Night" was famously spoken by Bette Davis in the 1950 movie, All About Eve. By the way, it's a great movie.

I thought about that line and that we could replace "night" with "year", "economy", or "world". In fact, perhaps all can apply simultaneously. 

America, and by extension, much of the world, is in trouble. Rightly or wrongly, when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Of course, the Chinese are slowly but surely taking over the distinction. 

Many fail to appreciate that there are universal laws that are inviolable, whether we speak of economics or health. One of the fundamental laws is the Law of Cause And Effect. Every cause that is set in motion has a demonstrable effect. That effect then becomes the cause of another effect. So the cycle goes on and on. If we go backwards, we can come to a First Cause. 

For example, in religion, if we ask what caused the earth or the universe to be created, we may say that it was created by God. What came before God? Well, God was the first cause. When I was a child, I was told there was nothing before God.

Cosmologists today apply the same standard except that they use the theory of the Big Bang as being the First Cause––there was nothing before it.

In conjunction with cause and effect is the Law of Unintended Consequences. It's part of cause and effect, but the result is not anticipated.

In 1936 an, American sociologist Robert K. Merton wrote about "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action." One of these he described as the "imperious immediacy of interest." He meant that one can want something so much that the person can be oblivious to the potential consequences, even though the signs are there. He called this "willful ignorance".

Cause A:

Biden administration's war on oil. This war has four significant aspects: cancelling the Keystone pipeline from Canada, suspension of new federal oil and gas leases, higher drilling fees on federal land, and national climate change policies.

The immediate effect signalled to U.S. oil producers that the U.S. government wanted oil production curtailed. According to the economic law of supply and demand, the result was an increase in oil prices. In economics, like many other things, perception is everything. Oil futures have risen significantly under Biden due to a generally hostile attitude to oil.

The rise in oil prices––a cause––led to increased transportation costs due to high fuel costs and higher manufacturing costs as many products are derived from petroleum. The rises have got us to where we are; high inflation and now negative growth for the March quarter. A recession is looming.

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However, it's not only energy prices. The U.S. has been spending borrowed money like a bad drug addict. Cheap interest rates have lulled governments and individuals to borrow and borrow. The effect is enormous rises in house prices.

So, what started as U.S. policy toward oil has had a flow-on effect on other countries like Australia. We now have food price increases to the point where some people on the poverty line have to restrict what they eat to make ends meet.

Let's remember, the last time that inflation was out of hand was in the late 70s and early 80s. However, America was a manufacturing powerhouse then and had very little debt. Debt to GDP was 32% in 1980; today it's 120%. Battling inflation today is more problematic.

Another cause and effect mechanism playing out is the U.S. handing $30 billion to Ukraine. The U.S. is printing more money to do this. The result: more perpetuation of the war and more dead. Unintended consequences?

Cause B:

The Covid Policy Debacle

We can think of Covid Policy as having wide-ranging effects. Two causative factors were a) the lockdowns and b) the "vaccine" mandates. 

The use of lockdowns caused people to be hemmed inside their homes. This led to less exercise, decreased sun exposure, lower vitamin D levels, depression, frustration, increased drug and alcohol use, and more domestic violence. The lockdowns had the effect of reducing medical services, which undoubtedly led to deaths. I know of one individual who suffered a stroke because they could not be seen in time by a doctor.

With business closures and job losses, people had less money. The effect was curtailing spending and people having to sacrifice some essentials. At the same time, the result was that tech billionaires increased their net worth. This also had the effect of increasing their power.

The jab mandates resulted in job losses in conjunction with lockdowns, which accentuated the lockdown effects. The "vaccines" resulted in many people with adverse events, some dying prematurely. In addition, some of the adverse events necessitated hospitalization and increased medical costs with a whole sub-industry to treat vaccine-damaged individuals. Many doctors are seeing such patients.

Another effect is that some doctors have spoken out. This resulted in censorship and suspended licenses, all under the banner of disinformation.

We could go on and on with causes and effects, but what is the ultimate impact? A total transitioning of society where any crisis under the banner of an emergency is at the mercy of politicians who, at a whim, can issue totalitarian orders.

As Bette Davis stated, we are in for a rough ride. The obvious solution is to THINK before acting. Unfortunately, thinking about what could be unintended consequences has been lacking. Did anyone think, just maybe, that rushing out a poorly tested vaccine, manipulating genetics at "warp speed" might not be such a good idea? We shall see the long term ramifications of what we unleashed over the past two years.

Fasten your seatbelts!