Wake Up, America!

Fools are put in many high positions.

Ecclesiastes 10:6

By Dr. Jim Ferguson

When did it begin? I'm not talking about the banking collapse, Biden's latest crisis. We've come to expect a weekly crisis from the sock-puppet president, his progressive handlers, his incompetent Cabinet and Congressional Democrats, as well as squishy RINOs.

Recently, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders nailed it. In her response to Biden's January State of the Union address, she described our choice: we either choose normal people, or we embrace the crazies.

It is obvious what crazy now looks like. We are living with the results of a broken election system and a media manipulated electorate which gave us an impaired POTUS and Fettermans. Apparently, the First Lady has chosen "crazy" by honoring, not a woman on International Women's Day, but a trans dude from Argentina. I cringed – as did Biden's Secretary of State Blinken – when he had to kiss the dude.

With the failure of multiple banks in the last few weeks, I thought of a memorable line from Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises. The character, Mike, is asked how he went bankrupt. He replied, "Gradually and then suddenly." Perhaps bank regulators and Biden's clueless Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, should have been paying more attention to the balance sheets of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank rather than claiming climate change a danger for the banking industry.

I am not a financial wizard. I'm just a doctor with a modicum of common sense. I read widely and I'm not afraid to consult trusted experts when I'm out of my league. Last week I discussed the SVB collapse with several trusted investment bankers. What follows is my layman's explanation or hypothesis for the bank failures, the opening question of this essay. My hypothesis does not justify theory status, which mandates objective testing. Nor does it rise to the status of an immutable law which has stood the test of time. My hypothesis is based on my own research, common sense and the track record of liberal progressive Democrats.

So, when did our "bankruptcy" begin? We could go back to the Frankfurt School communists who fled Europe after WWI and brought their Marxist critical race theory to American universities like Columbia, Harvard, etc. (Focus essay May 16, 2022). Or we might begin with the Baby Boomers who did not want their kids to struggle. So, eventually God was evicted from public discourse (the Warren court), and all our children would get a trophy (equity). But I'll be pragmatic and begin with the Housing Bubble in the George Bush years.

Democrats passed Barney Frank's and Chris Dodd's legislation which mandated "red line" housing loans in disadvantaged neighborhoods to people incapable of paying back the bank loans. The worthless loans were subsequently "bundled" and sold as junk bonds which led to the 2008 financial crisis. The government had to step in with taxpayer dollars to prevent a financial collapse, a catastrophe they had orchestrated.

It's hard to keep track of events with the 24-hour news cycle where one crisis is quickly replaced by the next. Becky and I complement each other, but she does not fancy history as I do. A friend asked how I keep events straight, especially historical timelines. Ancient raconteurs used the memory technique of attaching events and dates to familiar places, like one's house plan. The metaphor of a Christmas tree may be helpful. Boughs provide the framework for ornaments. Similarly, I hang historical events on the timeline of creation anchored by key dates. My timeline uses BC (before Christ) and AD (after Christ's death) because Jesus was the most important person and event in humankind. However, in modern terms, Becky and I now often consider events as PC or AC (pre-Covid or after-Covid).

So fast forward to 1/2020 when the China virus spread to the world. Our country went into a shutdown which was supposed to be for two weeks, but lasted for years. Instead of sheltering high risk people, our titular leaders kept everything shut down and decimated the economy. To try and fix their mess the government began to print and spend money to pump up the economy. Through four rounds of quantitative easing (a euphemism for money printing) and Keynesian expansionary fiscal policy, additional trillions of dollars of government debt were racked up. Remember, when money supply increases, more dollars are chasing the same or fewer products and inflation results. Even a doctor can understand this.

Inflation makes your dollar worth less, so to counter inflation the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates (many say far too rapidly) to dry up the money supply. However, rapidly raising interest rates caused the bond market to tank and this is what killed SVB. The bank was rich in investor capitol ($189 billion in the last three years) and bought bonds apparently without considering the consequences of rising interest rates. SVB was very woke and gave $73 million to BLM and related causes. Apparently, woke causes were more important than banking because the bank had no financial risk management chief for much of the last year and only one banker on their board of directors.

But don't worry, Biden is coming! SVB was full of good liberals who donated to Democrats and espoused woke and DEI philosophy (I prefer the DIE acronym). As a result, Uncle Joe just bailed out his techy donors and the Democrat ATM with your tax dollars through a manipulation of FDIC insurance. As a result, future poorly run banks will be protected – as long as they tithe to Democrats. In so doing, Biden effectively nationalized the American banking industry.

And while everyone is distracted, Biden just attacked the 2nd Amendment with another executive order which will limit the purchase of guns by law abiding citizens. It will do nothing to stop criminals' access to guns because current laws already prevent felons from buying a weapon. And the executive order is another step toward a national gun registry and confiscation.

People want to be safe. President Trump gave us a secure border. Biden destroyed it. Democrats and Biden denigrated and defunded the police and crime has become rampant. I have a licensed carry permit, but now Biden is further endangering my personal safety.

The radio comedian Earl Pitts used to end his broadcasts with, "Wake up, America!" You should.

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