A Wiser New Year
What will 2023 look like? Will there be changes? Or will it be a continuation of the same old conspiracy theory nonsense, compulsive political lies and deception, and the Trump era of deeply partisan and personal divides. Will we as a nation finally wise up and do away with the same tired, regurgitated paranoiac talking points such as:
Hunter Biden’s laptop as a right wing Horcrux — A Harry Potter ‘Horcrux’ was an object in which a Dark wizard or witch had hidden a fragment of his or her soul in order to become immortal … as long as the object remained.
Door-to-Door’ Gun Confiscations — One of the defining features of patriot/militia subculture is an obsession with firearms. Patriot groups stockpile them, train using them, and, perhaps most of all, worry about losing them. Any attempt to restrain their gun rights is viewed as the thin-edge-wedge of a New World Order crackdown.
The so-called “Open Southern Border” — Congress has failed to agree on how to address immigration challenges for years, leaving many policy questions up to the courts and several executive branches to answer and neither Trump’s nor Biden’s administrations have been able to curb the influx of immigrants decisively. Yet the southern border remains closed to nearly all people. Despite claims of “open borders,” the Biden administration continues to rapidly expel most people encountered at the border.
The link between government spending and inflation. The answer, roughly, is yes and in other cases, no. — The 2022 inflation spike followed two major federal spending programs under two administrations. The first, the CARES Act, passed in March 2020, and the American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021. Collectively, these initiatives aimed to minimize the economic devastation of COVID-19. While experts have credited these acts with possibly preventing a recession, economists have also found that their passage correlates with an unusual spike in inflation. By providing extra capital to households, economists note, consumers were able to go out and spend money they wouldn’t have had otherwise. In turn, this increased consumer demand, pulling up prices due to supplier shortages. When government activities inject more capital into the economy, consumers have more to spend, which can increase demand. If suppliers fail to meet rising demand, they may hike prices, leading to inflation. Yet many European countries provided far less assistance to their economies when COVID-19 hit. However, these countries are also staring down the double-barrel of low supply and inflation ranging from 2.5 percent to nearly 80 percent. That suggests that supply chain issues and other outside factors, rather than government stimulus, have boosted inflation.
Recent research shows that over 70 percent of Americans now get news content via social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Case in point the top-performing link posts by recent U.S. Facebook pages are from:
1. Dan Bongino
2. Ben Shapiro
3. Breitbart
4. Dan Bongino
5. Ben Shapiro
6. NPR
7. Fox News
8. CNN
9. Fox News
10. Fox News
Fake news anyone? Of course, almost every press outlet is privately owned, and also driven by profit. So there’s that.
Hopefully the year 2023 will indeed be an historic year during which our U.S. citizens will turn things around and do what is best for America and start using their brains to research facts and truths instead of conspiracy theories and cult following ideals.