In Tuesday's reckoning we argued with our tongue plastered to our cheek that a libertarian dictator may best serve the United States at this time.
That is because the stability of the American constitutional order, a fantastic virtue when the nation is in whack, becomes a vicious vice when the nation is out of whack.
In our telling the nation is presently out of whack. And the inefficient governmental structure forms a tremendous barrier against the required re-whacking.
Certain readers took... exception... to our wry and impish seditions.
Here reader D.M. raps us very sharply upon the knuckles:
We need more taxes on idiots that think we need a dictator. Anyone that thinks that is out of touch with the idea of representative government and that it costs money and THEY are obviously not paying enough.
Just so. Yet how much money should representative government cost?
Should it cost $6.8 trillion as it did in fiscal year 2024?
This representative government of ours borrowed $1.8 trillion to keep the show going.
If representative government costs $6.8 trillion, the represented the American taxpayer should jolly well pay for it honestly.
He should not obtain representative government on credit. And he should not pick the shallow pocket of your idiot editor to fund it.
The business is rascally, the business is swinish.
Next we come to reader J.B. From him we learn:
We don’t need a dictator. We need a few honest and courageous representatives in the Congress to listen to Ron Paul. We need to cut the warfare/welfare budgets.
For that we need to reform our campaign finance laws. Citizens United has to be repealed. We need more transparency about money going to the campaigns. Plutocracy no more!
Then, we need to institute term limits to all our elected officials including the Supreme justices. No gerrymandering: Let voters select politicians and not the other way around.
Last not least, end the filibuster, which wasn’t in the Constitution and came much later. Once all that is done, watch how nimble and effective our government can become!
And hell may one day form an ice sheet.
Finally, we come to reader LP:
Read some history sometime. Your arguments are some really stupid s**t. I am unsubscribing.
We do not know the history to which LP refers.
Yet what history sketches brilliant futures for a nation groaning beneath a debt-to-GDP ratio of 122%?
That must borrow $10 billion each day to keep it in funds... and cannot balance its books?
The histories we have read autopsied deceased empires such as Rome and Spain.
We have observed worrying parallels in the present American condition.
And in our estimation the Grim Reaper has the American empire in sight.
The tap on the shoulder may not come tomorrow. The demise itself may be a protracted, languishing affair.
Yet we fear the American empire is headed for hospice.
LP is of course free to unsubscribe from our s**t. We encourage him to do it in fact.
Reading our s**t would prove an endless source of frustration. And we do not wish frustration upon anyone.
We wish him peace.
Much of our pessimism springs from our pessimism about the United States dollar.
The dollar has represented a central pillar of the American Empire because it has been the world's primary reserve currency.
But as Jim Rickards shows you below, King Dollar's reign is nearing its end.
And with it in our estimation will go the American Empire.
The Daily Reckoning