Time to Panic!
By P.J. O'Rourke
The first lesson we learn from Porter and the other wise men at Stansberry is: "Don't panic." Stick to your plan. Be calm. Stay cool.
Oh, the hell with it!
If ever there was a moment to flip out and get hysterical, this is it.
The 2016 election campaign is in a death spiral. Donald Trump is shooting himself in the foot while his foot is in his mouth. Hillary Clinton is on record as being willing to say and do anything to gain the kind of absolute political power in America that no one has had since King George III.
Things may go as wrong as they can go. (Certainly nothing that has happened in this election cycle indicates things can't go that wrong.)
One political party might wind up in complete control of all three branches of the U.S. government: the executive branch, both houses of the legislative branch, and, what with Supreme Court vacancies to be filled, the judicial branch as well.
No matter what your politics are – and no matter if you don't have any politics – turning America into a One-Party State is a terrible idea.
There go your checks (except for the big checks you'll be sending to the IRS) and there go your balances (especially those in your investment accounts).
How bad can things get?
Really, really bad.
How high could taxes go? In 1954, the federal tax rate for income greater than $200,000 was 91%. That's the kind of thing that can happen in a One-Party State. Never mind that the One Party in control at the time was supposed to be pro-business. Ike was president, and Republicans had majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
How dizzying could inflation become? In Germany during 1921 and 1922, the inflation rate was in the tens of thousands of percent per month.
Germany was a developed country with smart central bankers. Inflation rates have been even worse in third-world countries. And maybe America is turning into one – judging by the kind of election we're having.
Framed on the wall in my office, I have a reminder of what can happen with government-controlled fiat money. It's a banknote from Zimbabwe in the denomination of $100 trillion. If you had one when it was issued, I believe you could, if you rushed to a bar fast enough, buy a beer with it.
How awful could the Supreme Court be? It has been awful before. From the beginning of our republic until 1864, the Supreme Court maintained that slavery was constitutional. The Supreme Court would go on to allow the enforcement of discriminatory Jim Crow laws until the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954. And famed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. voted with the majority to let states forcibly operate on "undesirables" to keep them from having babies. Holmes upheld the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, saying "three generations of idiots are enough." (I'm glad he never met my family.)
We're going to get a Supreme Court packed with appointees who think the Constitution gives the federal government the power to make anybody do anything it damn well pleases.
Even the supposedly conservative Supreme Court of President Obama's first term ruled that the government could force everybody to buy health insurance. What will the government make us all buy next?
Maybe we'll all have to buy a cat. Nothing against cats, but I have three large dogs who love to chase things. My house will be a wreck. Also, my three large dogs are mostly toothless. When they catch the cat, the cat is going to tear them to shreds. My vet bills will be through the roof.
Although, by then, Hillary will have passed the "Affordable Veterinary Care Act" and we'll all have to buy pet-care insurance.
If the government can force us to buy things, then the government can force us to sell things, too. The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 required every individual in America to surrender all of his or her gold and gold certificates to the U.S. Treasury. In return for the gold, the Treasury paid individuals $35 per ounce in U.S. currency. That's $624.32 in 2015 dollars – about half the spot price of gold as of this writing. The government's confiscation of gold wasn't reversed until 1975.
If you have any gold, maybe you had better quickly turn it into dental fillings and tooth crowns. The government won't go around prying the teeth out of people's mouths. Or will it? We'll find out when the "Affordable Dental Care Act" is passed.
But we won't need any more "Affordable Care" acts. Medical treatment of every kind will be completely free in the new One-Party State.
How will doctors get paid? Poorly. Won't this cause a doctor shortage? Nah. The government will quickly call "alternative-medicine practitioners" into service – herbalists, homeopaths, phrenologists, tribal shamans, yoga instructors.
Get ready to have your appendix removed by an aroma therapist cutting open your abdomen with a healing crystal.
Will things really get this bad?
No, probably not. Our nation – and the free market for which it stands – has always shown a remarkable ability to bounce back from rotten politics, crummy politicians, and lousy government rules and regulations.
When the sun comes up on November 9, we'll do it again.
But nothing is wrong with having an anxiety attack in the meantime. Sometimes panicking is cathartic. It gets the fear out of our systems.
The results of the 2016 election won't turn out to be as horrible as we were afraid they were going to be. And we'll feel relieved. We'll say, "It could have been worse."
Then we'll roll up our sleeves and get to work repairing the damage that politics has done to our nation.
Regards,
P.J. O'Rourke