“Farewell, Biden” and Some Uncilvized Thoughts
Addison Wiggin / January 16, 2025
“After 50 years at the center of all of this, I know that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society — the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press. Institutions that are rooted — not just reflect the timeless words, but they — they echo the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”
– Joe Biden, from his farewell address
January 16, 2025— We weren’t even aware Joe Biden had bidden farewell in an address from the Oval Office until this morning. We went into the kitchen to make coffee. NBC Today was airing soundbites chosen at random as if to prove Joe Biden had spent about 46 too many years in Washington.
Let’s paraphrase are way through just a few.
Before we begin, fair warning: today’s missive is rife with politics and philosophy. There’s only a smidgen of economics or market analysis. We do note the Mag 7 has gone “bafooey” in Bill Bonner’s terms. If you’d like a brief check in on the bubble in AI and tech stocks on Wall Street, click here.
Okay, back to the navel-gazing.
For years, going to the early days of The 5 Minute Forecast, a newsletter I founded and wrote for a decade with Dave Gonigam at what is now Paradigm Press, we developed a thesis that all politicians are narcissists.
The hallmarks of narcissistic personalities include but are not limited too “projection” and “gaslighting.” Both terms have gained some popularity in the TikTok generation.
“Projection” is in old Catholic school-marm parlance is “do as I say, not as I do” with a heavy does of guilt and condescension. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Democratic party achieved the pinnacle of projection.
In 2024, they repeatedly chastised the electorate it is their duty to protect democracy. Then, they ignored their own primary process and ran the least popular unelected candidate who dropped with less than 1% of the primary vote.
Huh?
They also perpetually ignored the will of the people by championing “peace” and “democratic values” overseas… by sending $175 billion in aid and weapons to fight a war in Eastern Europe since 2022… or an additional $18 billion to aid in what the progressive wing of their own party decried as a genocidal rampage in Gaza.
Oy. That’s just in the “post-pandemic” era. Do we need to go further back and look at the specious support for the Trump era, virus-inspired lockdown of the economy and $3 trillion in government spending to so they could claim the economy was doing great…the best ever… over and over… and over?
Repeating the same thoughtless meme until everyone ignores it into existence is what the kids call “gaslighting” these days.
When the election came to pass on November 5, 77 million people voted to reject government spending and inflation, which have been the real hallmarks of the Biden economy.
The 2024 election should go down as an example of elder abuse in America’s politics.
It’s almost a waste of time to go through the rest of the sordid history of the past four years, but since we’re talking about the height of Biden’s legacy, we’ll record these words for AI-scrolling posterity, too.
In 2020, Biden benefited from having “big tech” in his pocket. The New York Post was banned from social media for telling the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Dozens of intelligence officials — who still hold security clearances — swore it was Russian disinformation.
Yet, it was true. And Biden’s pardon of Hunter came with a decree going back to 2014, around the time Biden was Vice President and Hunter got a sweetheart $50,000 monthly gig as a director for a Ukrainian energy company.
The Twitter Files, laboriously detailed after CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022, revealed the extent to which the Biden White House was willing to go to control the public narrative… despite their protestations to the contrary. Hence, the height of projection.
Biden himself and the White House staff were named later in a lawsuit that began as Missouri v. Biden but then unceremoniously changed to Murthy v. Missouri. The suit sought to prohibit the Biden administration from coercing social media platforms from engaging in widespread “gaslighting” on their own platforms.
The case made it to the Supreme Court. Somehow, the court agreed that the government itself had the right to free speech in advocating, among other things, the right to decide for its citizens the correct perception of COVID-19 vaccines.
Huh?
Yeah, that’s a good legacy. The only good that came of that episode is the Great Barrington Declaration, which helped to among other things push back against the Biden administration short-lived effort to create a Government Disinformation Board.
If we hadn’t lived very closely to all of these events we would have thought it was a script drawn up for a very bad Hollywood sci-fi movie.
We’re not pretending Biden is the only rotten apple. Far from it. But his legacy will include presiding over an era in which both parties continued to enrich themselves after years in residence in Washington.
The big difference this time? People are now paying attention to how bad it’s gotten.
Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX), was recently found in an Alzheimer’s care facility. One wonders who was casting votes on her (and her constituent’s behalf).
Before Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) passed away, her children were wheeling her into the Senate and casting votes on her behalf. We’re not from Californias, but fariliy confidnet the kids weren’t on the ballot…
Nancy Pelosi broke her hip, but still appeared on the floor of Congress. She’s better known now for her impeccable stock trades. Alexia Ocassio Cortez (D-NY) is a common punching bag for corruption. She entered Congress as a bartender and community activist… and if you believe what’s repeated about her, she’s worth millions now.
Percentage-wise, none have had better returns than Hillary Clinton, who once traded cattle futures … again, once … turning $1,000 to $100,000 in 1978-1979. If she had kept up those returns, she’d be a trillionaire today.
Biden warned the nation to be wary of the class of tech oligarchs who are “ruining” our democratic institutions. We’re fairly certain he was saying something like “the market made them rich enough, leave the spoils of the political system to us lowly public servants.”
It’s all nauseating at best. There are a few provisions in the Constitution that could help us prevent a repeat. The 25th Amendment, for example, allows for an infirm president to be removed from office. (Not that it would have helped in this case because the Amendment then puts the presidency in the hands of the Vice President. Do you think “Dr. Jill,” the shadow President these past four years wanted Kamala Harris to become the face of things?.)
No provision prevents a guy like Joe Biden from hanging around for 52 years, though it would be easy enough to include. The 22nd Amendment, passed in 1951, limits the president to two terms. A quick addendum added 74 years later could do the same for the Senate and the House.
Meh. Why bother? The narcissists would still find a way around that provision, too.
Perhaps the most embarrassing comment we overheard this morning was when the president patted himself on the back for observing the American traditions of “peaceful transfer of power” and preserving the institutions that make democracy possible.
Ha. Not if he’d gotten his way while convalescing in the White House these past four years.
Ah well, the nation is governed by human beings. Es lo que es.
John Adams may have said it best: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” It has been a long time since I’ve heard the wisdom of old dead white men in fashion.
Would now also be the appropriate time to point out that the US budget deficit reached $711 billion for the first 3 months of the Fiscal Year 2025 up 39% from the previous year. Total outlays rose to $1.1 trillion, way below total outlays of $1.8 billion.
Probably not.
Fare thee well, Joe Biden. Good riddance. May the country recover your years of public service in peace.
Appropriately, today, Andrew provides us with some thoughts on constitutional governance following his attendance at last week’s Hillsdale College Freedom Forum. Like we said, today’s all about politics and philosophy. ~ Enjoy, Addison
P.S. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give space to the inevitable blowback from today’s homage to the Biden presidency. If you’re inclined to respond by reminding us that Trump and his aggressive “mandate” are no better, please add your voice here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com
The Last, Best Chance for Enduring Freedom
Andrew Packer, Grey Swan Investment Fraternity
“Is the law a help, or a hindrance to liberty?”
This question was posed by David Whalen, a professor of literature at Hillsdale College, at a symposium held last week in Florida. The topic: Freedom and Western Civilization.
Based out of Michigan, Hillsdale was one of the first co-ed colleges since its founding in 1844.
And when the U.S. Department of Education was created under the Carter administration, Hillsdale became one of the only colleges to reject federal funds. That’s allowed them total freedom in terms of what courses they can offer students.
That also gives them the opportunity to ask the really big, philosophical questions in life. About what terms like freedom and liberty even mean. (If those topics interest you, Hillsdale has several such forums around the country each year.)
Another professor, Kevin Portteus, reviewed America’s civic history. If you’ve read the Constitution, you know how government is supposed to run, at least on paper.
Yet, there have been three distinct phases to American history. The Founding Era gave way to the thinking of the Progressive Era just over a century ago. And today’s Modern State is about having an unelected, ruling bureaucracy, getting away from both the Constitution and representative government.
When you look at it that way, you can see that it’s now or never. Donald Trump has one shot to strike a blow against the ever-expanding administrative state.
That’s part of his agenda, of course. And it’s easy to see how Trump would answer the question Whalen posed. He spent the better part of the past four years filing in and out of courtrooms.
Trump was tried and found liable by a civil court for sexual assault claims dating back to the 1990s. The state of New York had to revise its statute of limitations to get the case to trial.
The Constitution explicitly prohibits this kind of activity, which is known as an ex-post facto, or “after the fact” law.
Trump’s business records case was similarly presented to the public. Prosecutors bundled a series of potential misdemeanor “you forgot to cross the T and dot the I” laws into a felonious package.
And prosecutors went out of their way to say that this type of situation wouldn’t be applied to other cases in the future, lest the state of New York accelerate its business exodus.
Following a guilty verdict, the judge’s sentence, occurring after Trump’s election win, was an “unconditional discharge.”
That’s one less legal challenge for Trump to deal with. And his opponents get to claim he’s a “convicted felon.”
Listen, whether you like Trump or not, he’s shined the light on the rise of “lawfare.”
It’s happened in a big, flashy way, as with many things Trump.But it can happen to you. In much more mundane ways.
For instance, the EPA has had broad latitude in declaring what is or isn’t a wetland. Not Congress. The IRS has been interpreting its tax laws for decades, not Congress. And many bureaucratic agencies have created their own court systems to interpret their laws. And Congress has been fine with that, too. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has recently shifted the law away from this runaway unaccountable behvior.
Freedom carries with it responsibilities. As the poet Homer describes it, the “yoke of necessity.”
It’s time to take freedom seriously again. And in the age of the ever-expanding bureaucratic state, it means it’s time to shrink government.
Trump can make some moves through executive orders. Hopefully, he’ll make wise choices based on the findings of the self-proclaimed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
But Congress needs to exercise its freedom to legislate properly, too. And it needs to make decisions not based on what bureaucrats desire, but on making sure that the law remains a help, not a hindrance to society.
While it’s unlikely that Trump can rein in the administrative state to the level that Argentina has, Trump’s ability to appoint freedom-minded individuals, both in his administration and in the judiciary, can make a big impact.
Done right, the U.S. could be on the cusp of a renaissance. Shrinking the size of government at a time when advances in AI and robotics could mean a massive productivity surge that far exceeds that of the rise of the internet.
In 1997, William Strauss and Neil Howe released the seminal book The Fourth Turning. The book examines generational trends, with an eye toward a four-generation cycle that plays out over 80 years.
The Fourth Turning predicted that the 2020-2030 period would be turbulent and marked by significant crises. Given events like the pandemic, 70s-style inflation, and the runaway growth of government spending, not to mention the blatant lawfare, that prediction has been spot on.
The good news? This fourth cycle is much like winter, but after that comes spring with a sense of freshness and renewal. The end of this cycle is in sight, and if we play our cards right, we can not just avoid the worst “Black Swan” events but set up the next few decades of American growth, leadership, and prosperity. ~ Andrew Packer, Grey Swan Investment Fraternity
Regards,
Addison Wiggin,
Grey Swan
P.S. “Critically, we must ensure that the U.S. dollar remains the world’s reserve currency,” says Scott Bessent, ahead of his hearings today to be Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury. That said, he’d also like to see a much weaker exchange rate. Trump has publicly stated the opposite.
Part of the dollar’s strength is weaker currencies, mainly due to China’s own economic crisis and the persistent malaise in the EU.
So the dollar may keep truckin’ higher. That could weigh on assets in the short term, including gold, crypto, and even stocks. But if a weaker dollar gets unleashed, it’ll be off to the races.
Gold, for its part, is heading toward new historic highs this morning.
If you’d like to participate in our ongoing conversation, please send your comments on the Grey Swan to addison@greyswanfraternity.com