The Battle for Trust

Today, in the midst of what can only be described as a nearly apocalyptic stream of recent events [including COVID-19], announcements and actions in the world, the US Federal Reserve boldly promised something we intuitively know is not good ... it will immediately create [from thin air] and deliver [indirect and indirectly] unlimited and unending amounts of money in the form of fiat credit to everyone who needs a loan ... which includes using that new money to buy up financial assets [including stocks and bonds] of all types from all sorts of parties in complete violation of the law ... to save "us" from economic collapse. Does this sound right to you? Does this sound pleasing to you? Do you want to believe it? After all, won't it help? How can it hurt?

The Fed's unrestrained lawlessness, implied for decades, has been suddenly unmasked by the unanticipated exigencies of  COVID-19. Indeed, it is the essence of the "Greenspan put" subtly promised by "the Maestro" himself but gladly inherited, zealously reaffirmed and serially expanded by Bernanke, Yellen and now Powell. Indeed, one worshipful commentator [who advocates for an even more uninhibited "modern monetary theory"] has called the Fed's unprecedented and brazen declaration "a bridge to the other side of an act of God" ... think about that ... the Fed can now neutralize God.

Nevertheless, in spite of the ECB's Draghi's proud utterances or, perhaps, out of some sort of final act of respect for reality, deference to the rule of law or desire not to alarm the public, the financial powers that rule monetary, fiscal and economic life in America have thus far refrained from such blasphemy in a nation that has "In God We Trust" printed on its money.

But no more it seems. Have we reached the end of FA Hayek's "road to serfdom" ... is what lies before us a finally and fully undisguised tyranny? The questions that remain seem to be

• how long the general public will continue to trust in the unrestrained oppression and guile of the Federal Reserve and
• how long nature [and nature's God] will allow such a misplaced trust to preserve the tattered shreds of normalcy before they fall away to reveal something we did not anticipate and do not want.

We have, perhaps, been conditioned and are now obliged to believe the lie that will usher in what must come ... to our complete and utter ruin.

The Consequences of Trusting in Oppression and Guile

I hope I am wrong. But if I am not ... to those with second thoughts who, in the coming hours of extremis, cry out "God help us", let's pray He does not reply, "I tried ... but you would not." Is 30:15