December 13, 2024

5 thoughts on “Asses&Villains: Where Did all of the Money Go?

  1. An excellent summary!

    KUDOS!

    On another note:

    CCM: Speaking to Newsweek, Mark Shanahan, an American politics expert who teaches at the University of Surrey in the U.K., said Harris “never really landed” her economic message during the presidential election campaign.

    ME: Because Kamala NEVER had an “economic message.”

    Just a bunch of pie-in-the-sky happy talk that was both insipid and devoid of substance, and if anything, her “policies,” such as they were, sounded like she took them straight out of the failed German Weimar Republic playbook that resulted in the ascension of the rug-chewing madman Adolph Hitler to power in 1933 after hyperinflation caused by printing money, as Kamalla was intent on doing to fund her program of national welfare, destroyed the German economy.

    As Britannica informs us:

    The rising cost of goods combined with a dramatic increase in the money supply created perfect conditions for inflation.

    Before World War I, the exchange rate was just over four marks to the U.S. dollar.

    By 1920 the value of the mark was 16 times less.

    It stabilized at 69 marks to the dollar for some months.

    The Weimar government was still in a position to get a grip on the economy; instead, it chose to print yet more money in order to pay the reparation debt.

    By July 1922 prices had risen by some 700 percent, and hyperinflation, with too much money chasing goods that were far too scarce, had arrived.

    The government had to print million-mark notes, then billion-mark notes.

    By November 1923 one U.S. dollar was equivalent to 1,000 billion (a trillion) marks.

    Famously, it was observed at the time, a wheelbarrow full of money could not buy a newspaper, while one German student recalled ordering a cup of coffee for 5,000 marks and then a second whose cost had risen to 7,000 marks in the brief time it took him to finish the first.

    Shopkeepers could not replenish their stock fast enough to keep up with prices, farmers refused to sell their produce for worthless money, food riots broke out, pensioners starved, and townspeople marched into the countryside to loot the farms.

    Law and order broke down.

    The German attempt at democracy had been completely undermined.

    Conspiracy theories sprouted, and extremist political views became acceptable as Weimar’s currency became valueless to the point of meaninglessness.

    Ultimately, hyperinflation enabled Adolf Hitler to gain power, rising along with the leaders of a coalition of extreme right-wing parties before gaining control of the movement.

  2. “Ultimately, hyperinflation enabled Adolf Hitler to gain power, rising along with the leaders of a coalition of extreme right-wing parties before gaining control of the movement.”

    It’s interesting that the Nazis, more formally known as the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers Party, is described as “right wing.”

    If the “left wing” is also socialist, does that make the entire spectrum of political ideology socialist? Where do conservatives, libertarians and anarchists fit in? Or are only various forms of socialism to be considered?

    1. “Socialism,” Piglet, is one of those words in the political lexicon that means pretty much anything that you want it to mean, and it is neither “right wing” nor “left wing,” both of which themselves are largely meaningless political terms, given there is no concrete nature to either, only characteristics.

      According to Wikipedia, right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, religion, biology, or tradition.

      Right-wing politics are considered the counterpart to left-wing politics, and the left–right political spectrum is the most common political spectrum.

      The right includes social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, as well as right-libertarians.

      The original use of the term “right-wing”, relative to communism, placed the conservatives on the right, the liberals in the centre and the communists on the left.

      Both the conservatives and the liberals were strongly anti-communist, although conservatives’ anti-communism is much stronger than liberals’.

      And that is how the Nazis, or as you correctly call them, the NSDAP or National Socialist German Workers Party, came to be called “right wing,” because in Germany in the time of Hitler, they were competing with the Communists for political power.

      According to basic high school history, here taken from Britannica, with the crash on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression, German unemployment figures shot up.

      Foreign trade was drastically curtailed, wages fell, and the number of bankruptcies increased daily.

      The Depression had immediate political repercussions, undermining the foundations of the republic and producing a notable increase in support for the extremist parties both on the left and on the right.

      Within two years the Nazis shot up to the first and the Communists to the third place among the German parties.

      To form the next government, Hindenburg selected Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party.

      Brüning had not previously held high office, and his first concern was to pass a budget.

      He was unable to secure a majority in the Reichstag for his proposals, however, because the Social Democrats had combined with the Communists, Nationalists, and Nazis to make up the hostile majority.

      The elections were held in an atmosphere of public disorder for which the Nazis, with the organized violence of their brownshirted Storm Troopers, and the Communists were chiefly responsible.

      The results were disastrous.

      The impact of the Depression on German society was reflected in the sensational rise of the Communist and, more especially, the Nazi vote.

      Despite these results, Brüning decided to remain in office.

      He had to face the noisy opposition of the Nazis and the Communists, who attacked his government as unconstitutional and proceeded to reduce parliamentary procedure to a prolonged brawl.

      The Social Democrats, however, alarmed at the threat to the republic from the rising power of the two extremist parties, rallied to the chancellor’s support, although they were critical of the deflationary policy he was pursuing.

      Their backing provided Brüning with sufficient votes to defeat frequent motions of no confidence while he put his program into effect by presidential decree, but the measures introduced by the government failed to check the downward spiral.

      So as you see, the use of the term “right-wing: in the case of the Nazis had nothing to do with their socialism and everything to do with their staunch opposition to the left-wing Communists.

      And as you will recall from high school history, when he took power, Hitler went after the Commies big time.

      On assuming power in 1933 the first people the Nazis targeted for arrest and imprisonment were political opponents – primarily communists, trade unionists and social democrats.

      Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, was built in March 1933 to imprison political opponents.

      After the Reichstag Fire, Hitler saw a chance to get rid of what he considered the Nazis’ most immediate rival—the Communists—so he ordered the arrest of anyone with ties to the Communist Party.

      Within days, the Nazis had thrown 4,000 Communists and their leaders into hastily created prisons and concentration camps.

      By the end of March, 20,000 Communists had been arrested, and by the end of that summer more than 100,000 Communists, Social Democrats, union officials, and other “radicals” were imprisoned.

  3. With apologies to Carly Simon

    Kamala walked into the party like she was walking onto a yacht
    Her hat strategically dipped below one eye
    Her scarf it was apricot
    She had one eye in the mirror, as she watched herself gavotte
    And all the Democrats dreamed that they’d be her partner
    They’d be her partner and
    Kamala’s so vain
    She thought the song was about her
    She’s so vain (she’s so vain)
    I bet Kamala thought the song was about her
    Didn’t she, didn’t she?
    She tried to have us several years ago when we were still quite naive
    Well she said that we would make such a pretty pair and that she would never leave
    But blew her chance, dropped out of the race, and the rest is history!

    She had some dreams they were clouds her coffee, clouds in her coffee and
    Kamala’s so vain
    She probably thinks the song was about her
    She’s so vain, she’s so vain
    I bet Kamala thinks the song was about her
    Doesn’t she, doesn’t she, doesn’t she?
    Well I hear she went up to Saratoga
    And her horse naturally won
    Then she flew her Air Force II jet up to Nova Scotia
    To see the total eclipse of the sun
    Well she’s where she should be all the time
    And when she’s not, she’s with some underworld spy
    Or the wife of a close friend like Michelle Obama, wife of a close friend and
    She’s so vain

  4. So, chaos in Washington, DC!

    A senile, out-of-touch-with-reality Joe Biden, who occupies an executive suite in CLOUD CUCKOO LAND, a state of absurdly, over-optimistic fantasy or an unrealistically idealistic state of mind where everything appears to be perfect, is in charge of national affairs in Washington, D.C., as he contemplates his favorite Uncle Bosie getting eaten by cannibals during WWII after his fighter jet was shot down by blow-gun darts over some cannibal infested island out in the Pacific Ocean somewhere.

    His assistant president, Ka-Ma-La Harris, was just thoroughly rejected by normal, rational, straight-thinking American people as being presidential material in America today, which she clearly isn’t.

    The worthless Democrats are disorganized with NANCY Pelosi attacking poor old senile Joe Biden as the cause of the SPIN, CRASH and Burn of HARRIS/WALZ as the Democrats engage in a circular firing squad.

    And watching it all happen, Hezbollah took the opportunity to barrage Israel with a bunch of rockets this weekend!

    Who’d a thought it!

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