Knocked off my feet, a little.

Last week was Thanksgiving week.  The kids were out of school for a full week.  

And it occurred to me, last week, I hadn't heard from one of my best friends in a while.  Last time I heard from her was toward the end of October.  So I checked her FB page to see if she had a lot of stuff going on (if not, I was going to call her).  

Found out she'd passed away right after I'd talked to her last.  

I knew it was coming.  She'd been fighting metastasized inflammatory breast cancer for the past nine or ten years.  It had spread into her ribs, spine, skull, and brain.  And wasn't responding to treatment any longer.   

I'd been praying for what was best for her and for her son.  I can't imagine this was what was best for her son, but she'd been in a lot of pain for a while.  

Not all of it physical.  

She'd married into a local group of polygamous Mormons about fourteen years ago.  I told her at the time that I didn't think her intended spouse wanted her for anything other than leverage to keep custody of his step-grandchildren (guess who proved right).  And then, right about the time she pushed things into a good health place for her, her husband decided to bring in a second wife...and refused to support her in round two of cancer fighting.  

I hold him partly to blame for her recent fight--she'd fought the beast into remission once, and spent three years cancer free before it came roaring back and took her.  I think that the stress of the so-called "sister" wife playing seraglio politics (and my friend REALLY didn't want to, and was open to a plural marriage of equals); a running fight with the step daughter, the step-grandkids, and their social worker; and an unsupportive spouse suppressed her immune system enough that...this time, the cancer won.  

So yeah, I'm grieving.  I'm grieving, I'm angry, and I'm off-balance.  

And it's really made me angrier with my mother.  It's really hard to catch inflammatory breast cancer before it spreads.  Mom didn't have inflammatory breast cancer.  She just...made the choice to not bother having it dealt with while it was small, and isn't bothering to try fighting it now because she didn't want to deal with the cancer die-off symptoms. 

Inflated

Ugh.  Sometimes I hate being clued into what's going on.  

As a housewife/primary budget keeper/main shopper, I pay attention to things.  Very, very close attention.  And, being a housewife to someone whose primary training was in economics, I understand what I'm seeing when I see it.  

Right now, I'm seeing the consequences of multiple decades of economic retards running the money supply, exacerbated by two or three years of dribbling morons piddling in the pile of stupid-ass decisions.  

In brief: the Federal Reserve is supposed to be keeping their thumbs on the scales to prevent stagflation like we saw in the 1970's from happening again.  It's supposed to be adjusting the interest rates on lending to prevent too much money from chasing too few goods to drive prices to where the everyday family isn't able to deal.  

It...hasn't.  It hasn't done that for years.  Decades, even.  

Holding the interest rates down was one thing.  Holding them down then printing money? 

Yeah.  Really, really bad.  

They did that.  Exactly that.  Several times.  Most recently during the fauxdemic. 

And then they decided that it was a BRILLIANT idea to go full-turnip on the green shit.  Both in STOPPING oil production, slowing refining, and in slowing/stopping reliable and relatively inexpensive electricity production.  

Which...is having a noticeable effect.  Already.  With a colder and nastier than normal winter forecast for a lot of the country.  

So.  Inflation.  It's happening.  On everything.  They're admitting around 8%.  

I'm saying that's bullshit.  

In 2020, I bought ten pounds of chicken leg quarters for $4.90.  This year, the ones I bought were around $10 (little bit over, when I bought them).  That's double.  More than.  

In 2020, a box of 5 dozen eggs was around $5.  Now?  Close to $18.  

Lentils.  Something that a lot of people don't know exist, much less what to do with, but were a cheap staple when I was growing up.  In 2020, a bag of lentils was $0.98.  The last bag I bought was $1.48.  

Those price increases aren't 8%.  That's not even 8% per year.  

And don't get me started on how much other needed foodstuffs and materials cost.  

I was raised in a welfare/food stamps household.  Where my mom had...about the same level of understanding of economics: "They should set price ceilings on these things!  They cost too much, and people can't afford them!"*

I did not understand--not for a long time, with a lot of simple explanations of what I was seeing--how supply and demand worked to set prices.  I didn't understand how interest rates worked.  I didn't understand how fiat currency worked (here's a hint: by trust, which is not being lost so much as willfully discarded by the twat-brained waffle-heads in charge).  

I learned.  Because I don't like being poor.**  I didn't want to be poor.  

So I learned.  Slowly, because my talents don't like in those directions, but I learned.  

I am no longer poor, because I understand--now--what behaviors and choices were keeping me mired there.  

It's the same ones driving the over-educated idiots running things in DC.  "We have money; we have to spend it!  Before it disappears!"  

We are not going to be able to fix this.  We're looking at Keynesian economics in a nutshell, there.  This is what is, normally, taught in econ/finance in modern universities.  By "smart" people.  Not one of whom understands what they're actually looking at.  "The data's not supporting the hypothesis; we need to spend harder and faster, because we're not doing enough to save us all."  

Their inflated opinion of themselves and their theories have blinded them to the fact that there's a hole in the bottom of the boat, and instead of plugging it, they're drilling it bigger (and adding more, besides).  

They really ought to be beat to death with copies of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics.  

*No, not a good idea.  That way lies full-on shortages.  

**There's a difference between being poor and being broke.  And it's all in attitudes and behaviors.

I don't believe you.

The midterms were yesterday.  There's a lot of people scratching their heads, today, wondering what happened.  See, they expected to see a solid Republican majority take over both the house and the senate.  And it hasn't happened.  

I never expected it.  Because I expected what happened.  It was signaled out loud for months, damn it.  The opposition--the Democrats--started months ago bleating about abortion, bleating about this, that, and the other. Issues that they hold near and dear.  Things voters don't care about, especially not in comparison to the ability to put food on the fucking table for their children.  

I do not believe that the Democrats won.  I do not believe that they can.  Not with the majority of America as angry as they are, and about the things they're angry about.*

I do not believe Fetterman took the seat over whats-his-face, the quack holisitic medicine twat that turned on the President who campaigned for him.  

I do not believe they took any district that was not a 100% inner city vote, and that would have been close, because people are that angry.  

And this is Bitch McConnell's fault.  And Lindsey Graham(nesty).  And the fault of every lizard that's been there, squatting in DC with a camouflage R, for my lifetime.  You surrendered to the fucking enemy.  You're quislings.  

Oh I know they're going to be gaslighting us as hard as they can.  "It was a fair election."  "You're just sore losers."  "We won, so the people want what we're going to give them good and hard."  

No.  

I do not believe you.  I don't believe the media.  I don't believe the results.  

Tell you what.  If you want my buy in, redo the whole election.  Tomorrow.  Paper ballots only, in person voting only, with a drivers' license or state ID required to vote.  And do not give me that bullshit about disenfranchising minorities--every last one of them has an ID.  Because they have to to have a bank account, to buy their smokes, their liquor.  They have the fucking ID.

Even with California's fucking retarded "yes, undocumented immigrants can get a drivers' license."  I'll accept that.  Because I'm pretty sure that even the illegals don't want what Democrats are pushing.

IF, and only if, the results match what they're waving around, will I believe they won.  

Until then, I just...don't.  

Ladies and gentlemen, we no longer have a legitimate federal government.  We have a criminal cabals of liars, killers, rapists, and thieves attempting to rule over us.  

I cannot tell you what to do about it.  I don't even know what to do.    

But this won't last forever.  I believe that.  I know that.  Because it can't.  This is the land of the odds, of the unruly who do not go along.  We are not Europe, and this is not a democracy.  This is a representative republic, where we, the people, now lack representation.  Because our voices have been stolen.  Or silenced. 

I can't predict what's going to happen.  I can only grit my teeth and hang on, can only pray, can only try to get my children safely into adulthood.  

The only things I can predict?  Things are going to get a lot harder.  And then it's going to get truly ugly. 

Edit: Welcome, Instapundit readers!  Glad to have you drop by. 

*Americans are angry about inflation.  They're angry about their paychecks not going as far as they were.  They're angry about energy prices going up because green shit doesn't produce, and they're angry about being cold over the winter.  They are not angry about abortion being made illegal altogether in some states, and restricted in others--the average American doesn't want to kill babies, and is quietly grateful that they don't have to come out in the open and make that stand.  They are not angry about police brutality--they're angry that they're not safe from criminal brutality, and the left just made it worse in my state by legalizing pot for funsies and allowing people with "pot convictions" to get their convictions overturned.  No, Americans aren't angry about what the Democrats care about.  Well, no, they are, but not in the way the Democrats want them to be--they're angry that this is being forced on them.