Force Fed

Feeding children is an immense responsibility.

Feeding children too often can make them forget what their own hunger feels like. Large portions lead to overeating. And giving food to calm a distressed child teaches them that unhappiness is a reason to eat.

Force-feeding is a crime of passion, driven by a parent’s desire to see a child eat; as with other crimes of passion, the perpetrator has lost sight of the loved one’s autonomy.
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat 

The plunge

As confused and childish Americans careen towards economic collapse and political tyranny, there is a new, but apparently logical, call for a novel but "temporary" measure that promises to ... make everything OK again ... restore the previous, healthy status quo ... put us back on the right track ... and whatever other comforting phrases you can conjure to try to dispell the harsh and judgment-laden lingering premonition that, perhaps, we have entered the initial stages of "reaping what we sowed" ... and are finally "getting what we deserve".

To relieve our fears, Mark Cuban proposes the following:

• All 128 million households should get a $1,000 stimulus check every two weeks [regardless of wealth or income].
  
• The stimulus checks would be only for the next two months.
• Recipients must spend the entire stimulus check within 10 days of receipt, or it expires ... “use it or lose it.”

This "force-feeding" proposal [albeit belated and desperate] is entirely consistent with long-standing American monetary policies under which the FED has [contrary to law] attempted to force Americans to stop saving and to mindlessly consume increasingly more of the earth's limited resources in a futile attempt to prop up elite ZOMBIE banks and corporations ... where the definition of zombie is "a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic" ... and where the magic is the FED's claim to financial alchemy that turns "fiat credit" into "real economy".

You see, much of our current economic system has already died in the real world sense that it is unsustainable [aka unjust, immoral, unnatural, corrupted, deviant etc.]. However, the FED and other central banks [as the faithful agents of the cabal of elites who "own" these dead bodies] wish to give the dead system the appearance of vitality so that the masses will continue to recognize and serve it. So they pump the dead bodies full of "fiscal blood" [ie. fiat credit] in hopes that the infusion will redden increasingly ashen cheeks and lips for awhile longer ... and reanimate the dead.

The catch

But there is a potential problem.

What if some Americans, jolted from their consumptive stupor by a series of crises, should try to retrace their steps down the road of grotesque and morbid debt-obesity in an attempt to find the turn-off [previously missed] that leads towards providential living [ie. consuming less than they produce and saving]? This regressive behavior must be stopped at all costs ... Americans must proceed [by force if necessary] with their continuous consumption.

The best way to do this is an unrelenting series of novel attempts to punish savers ... but to do it, if possible, in ways that are veiled to make compliance appear voluntary ... such as Cuban's proposal to give "free" helicopter $$$ [created from central bank fiat credit] to everyone to spend and to dare the providential soul to exercise restraint which would mean enduring the public [and private] shame of appearing to be [and feeling] foolish.

But there is a practical problem with Cuban's strategy. How can the elite-powers-that-be KNOW that the individual is consuming [or at least buying and wasting] enough? The central powers do not currently have sufficient timely and granular information about the individual to attempt to pursue Cuban's novel and enlightened strategy.

The hook

But not to worry ... what if the central authorities take complete control of local currencies by mandating a single block-chained digital currency by which they can control and monitor [no "crypto" here] every detail of every income and expense transaction of every individual in a dystopian world where real people and zombie institutions are forced to coexist? Why wouldn't that work just fine?

The difference

The fact that nobody can predict just when and how America will take its final [ie. irreversible albeit not necessarily last] step down the centrally planned financial road to serfdom does not mean we are not in grave and imminent danger. My sense is that we have already taken our "final" step ... and that we did it decades ago.

When he reminded us that "way leads on to way", American poet Robert Frost was famously reflecting on the difference a single step can make ... even though we do not realize it because there appear to be so many more steps ahead. We should stop and at least hear [if not heed] Frost's warning, but that is doubtful as we continue to pass beyond sight of both our heritage and our progeny.

All that remains is to embrace Mark Cuban as one of the modern host of entertaining [if not educational or edifying] prophets who tell us in increasingly novel [and perverted] ways what we REALLY want to hear ... that REAL consumption is not only virtuous but free ... and that REAL savings is not only foolish but evil.

These are rebellious people ... children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction. They say to the seers, "Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions." Isaiah 30

PS.

In case you are inclined to dismiss Mark Cuban as just another elitist lunatic, you may wish to consider this article in the Wolf Report ... "less terrible" will be the justification for complete monetary tyranny.

What’s Behind the Fed’s Project to Send Free Money to People Directly?
Wolf Richter • Oct 2, 2020