Institutional Land Investment
Having a nation of yeoman was a particularly important part of maintaining a free Republic according to Thomas Jefferson. He noted that, “the small landholders are the most precious part of a state.” With this sentiment, I must agree. And, I would contend, that the Jeffersonian take is indeed the American Conservative take.
President Donald Trump has jumped on the bandwagon of the 50-year-mortgage. This is a terrible idea. The first and most apparent reason for understanding this as a bad idea is that California has already implemented it. The United States, as a whole, is suffering from crippling housing costs, California is the State with the worst presentation of this illness by far. Whatever monetary piolicy dealing in housing presented by California should be avoided if merit and outcomes are your guiding light.
The second, and more important, reason for avoiding a 50-year-mortgage is that Thomas Jefferson would have waged war against you for such a move. We have an unemployment issue in this nation, and we have a welfare reliance issue in this nation. We also have institutional ownership of unused lands. Jefferson viewed land ownership as a natural right.
“Wherever in any country there are idle lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.” - President Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson advocated for the division and selling of public lands to individual landowners rather than to larger land prospectors and corporations. He fought for smaller parcel sizes in the Land Ordinance of 1785, but the passed legislation held parcel size at 640 acres presumably for managerial and surveying considerations.
Having fought a war against the ostentatious British royalty and aristocracy, Jefferson had particular disdain for those holding significant wealth being involved in challenges to governmental strength. This is a display of his devotion to the Republican form of government limited by a Constitution.
“I hope we shall crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
At this time, institutional investors own an estimated 3% of the single family homes in the United States - due to pricing pressures many are being held empty awaiting a buyer. This is happening while individuals and families sit around collecting food stamps. Idle lands and unemployed welfare recipients are not a great combination. Black Rock and Vanguard are in the housing and REIT market. Black Rock owns Invitation Homes and Vanguard provides one of the larhest REITs ($VNQ) for access to this market through the market. Berkshire Hathaway is so involved that we see rental signs peppered throughout the nation bearing their name and logo.
When the Constitution was ratified in 1788, it rendered many of the prior Confederate laws inoperable. A new land law was required to sell public lands. Hamilton - employed as Secretary of the Treasury at that time - wanted to sell the lands for top dollar in unlimited quantities to the extremely wealthy. Pennsylvania Congressman Gallatin argued that small farmers and individual landowners be accommodated as well. A compromise between the two views was struck by Congress in the Land Law of 1796. The law allowed lands to be purchased for $2 per acre in unlimited quantities, and the fees would not be due for a year. This allowed the wealthy to purchase large tracts of land, while the less wealthy could purchase smaller tracts without needing to pay up front.
Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian viewpoints are still in conflict to this very date.
Where others wanted to make way for prospectors and speculators, Jefferson wanted to ensure land ownership of actual settlers. This is an extension of self-government. Jefferson, further, was wary of both unending property taxes and financial instruments backed by property. He viewed such levies as elders being unnecessarily burdensome upon future generations. Jefferson himself knew the effect of these instruments. Jefferson’s father-in-law accumulated massive debts. When he passed, a decision was made to divide the estate between Jefferson and his brothers-in-law, as such the responsibility for those debts passed with the properties onto the younger men thus encumbering them and their estates. Jefferson was on paper one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, but he was made poor by these debts. For this and other reasons Jefferson is quoted as stating, “The Earth belongs to the living.”
The longer the financial instrument, the worse the problem. Mortgages burden one’s heirs with one’s decisions thus creating a sort of serf class through financial instruments. Taxes are of the same effect: the decisions of a past Congress burden today’s landowners with unending payments to a master where a failure to pay the tax results in the forfeiture of the land. Forfeiture of land is a chief and well-understood cause for war. This is obvious, as self-governance is almost wholly predicated upon land ownership. Jefferson urged that we remove the ability to contract multi-generational financial burdens as “it would bridle the spirit of war”.
Jefferson always privileged self-government over the desires and passions of institutions. This is the American Conservative way and it should be preserved and protected by whoever claims himself an American Conservative.
Definitions
Yeoman - a person who owns and cultivates a small farm; from the English commonlaw class of freeman below the Gentry.
Reading
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0420-0001
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/history/chap1.htm
https://fee.org/articles/principle-interest-thomas-jefferson-and-the-problem-of-debt/
Jobs numbers
Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs. Thousands of jobs are being terminated on a monthly basis. The jobs numbers for the past 2 years are casting a shadow of uncertainty over the nation.
We were warned about this. Last year, before the election, the leader of the Teamsters (even a broken clock may be correct twice a day) said there are millions of open jobs that no one will take. He then explained that he predicted in the next few years, millions of jobs will be terminated and that we need to retrain people to transition before they are laid off. Mike Rowe addressed this problem in a series earlier this year. A multitude of employers are trying to entice people to make a career change and join up, but no one responds. As predicted, the open position number has hovered around 7.5M for over a year now and shows no signs of changing. Looks like the new jobs are staying while the old jobs are going.
When Trump was elected and folks were busy celebrating, I was busy trying to get folks to develop reasonable skills for the future. I knew MAGA had to step up to fill the void if we were to make America successful during this Presidency. Few have answered the call. We are supposed to be conservatives: We are supposed to represent individual freedom, merit, and responsibility. Instead, there is a lot of othering and collectivist blaming. If you are going to go down that road, you might as well identify yourself as a Leftist.
People are stuck in their ways and refuse to make changes when it is good for them. As conservatives, we need to stand on individual responsibility and get the work done - irrespective of the past. Changing is hard. But as the saying goes: "life is change and death it's alternative." Adapt or die.
Mamdani
Mamdani might be the son of wealthy elites. He might have been born somewhere else. He might still have a slight accent. He might look a little different. He might have customs you don't know or understand.
He is still a New Yorker. Y'all keep taking shots and he keeps ducking. You can't win this on bullshit. He out worked you and that's how he won, simple. The Democrats were too busy whining about Trump and talking about who gets to use bathrooms and locker rooms; the Republicans were too busy group chatting collectivist nonsense about race and religion. You both lost in NYC and a socialist won.
Mamdani worked. He was everywhere taking photos, making videos, partying, chatting it up, actually being a New Yorker and being in New York. When asked about his first trip outside the country in a debate, he said he wasn't taking one and he would stay in the city - the ONLY candidate in that debate to give the America First response was a socialist, not a Republican, not a Democrat. The Republicans and Democrats said they would be on the first flight out to Israel.
Mamdani talks about taxing the wealthy. Most people don't understand New York, so they missed the point. What the people of New York heard was that these companies based outside the city - all over the world - are taking money out of the city to their respective headquarters. Taxing them would keep the money in the city. He met Trump's capitalist version of America First with his own Socialist version of America First... All this while the Democrats and Republicans were talking about bathrooms, blacks, and Jews. They were out-worked by a socialist who can't put 135lbs up on the bar. It's fucking embarrassing.
This isn't a hard problem to solve. The major parties in NYC didn't get played, they're just too stupid to know what people voted for. The lazy, unrealistic view of politics that lacks nuance is dying. People are hungry for more than talking points and repetitive slogans.
In Texas the same is coming. Texan politicians are largely complacent. They recite the same punchlines. They give the same, washed up speeches. They shake the same hands they shook last year never coming to the parks and cafes where We, the People, frequent. We are lucky to have Brian Harrison here in Ellis County, but how many like him are in Texas government.
Get out. Block walk. Talk to your neighbors. Learn and sell your preferred candidates. We can take this back, but a Republic requires the people to participate. Participate or lose it all to socialists.
Crypto as Loan Collateral
Crypto Briefing wrote a report about JP Morgan Chase ($JPM) accepting crypto as collateral. I have tried to speak with people about it; most folks have no idea what this means. This is a watershed moment in digital asset marketability.
Margin loans are loans that institutions provide to individuals who own traditional assets, such as stocks, bonds, and ETFs. The loans are collateralized by the assets and are typically used to provide liquidity in fiat without selling the underlying assets. For example, if you own $10,000 worth of stocks and need $1,000 to cover an expense, you can take a margin loan instead of selling 1/10 of your holdings. Usually, these loans are taken at very low interest rates, which makes them attractive compared to capital gains tax. Historically, crypto assets are not eligible for margin loans. There are a few specialized institutions that provide this service, but none of the traditional institutions have to date.
$JPM offering a crypto-collateralized loan service is a giant step toward institutional acceptance of crypto. This is good news for folks who use crypto as a hedge against fiat and traditional finance, and bad news for those who use crypto as an escape therefrom. Institutional reliance upon $BTC and $ETH means institution-level regulation is just around the corner. We’ll see what the future holds.
Workforce AI
There were some leaked messages out of Amazon discussing how to replace around 600,000 jobs with robotics and AI. Some say blue collar work is looked down on these days. Others say otherwise. Some people got all up in a tizzy about this due to a lack of knowledge.
I believe the current iteration of workforce robotics is a direct result of the attack on masculinity. Men don't want to just pick what they are going to do, do it without need for thanks and admiration, and leave everyone the hell alone. Everyone wants a ticker tape parade for being part of society. I do not believe the jobs are looked down on, but they are not sought after by our young men either. This is made evident by the fact that there are a multitude of unemployed men and a multitude of job openings - they ain't up and at ‘em. Young men are all trying to do fancy jobs that let you collect a paycheck while sitting on your ass skinny af, rather than doing hard labor that requires strength and grit.
I think it is more of a forced shift toward automation than a total removal of blue collar jobs - at least in the near term. What's happening currently is a push to lessen the burden for hiring not a push to eliminate what presently works. In other words: Amazon plans to not hire 600k workers rather than planning to layoff 600k workers. Also Amazon corporate denies the claim; they say one team is gaming this out to see if it works and no decision has yet been made.
We know the AI workers are not as good as humans. We are working hard to make AI better, but we know it is not a reasonable near-term target. Today's major issue is the availability of workers. People are not willing to do warehouse labor anymore. The USPS, Amazon, FexEx and other fulfillment companies feel the burden the hardest. There has been a shortage of warehouse workers and truckers in this nation for 3 decades. If people won't step up to the plate, we have to put a machine in there.
No company wants to buy a $10million worth of robotics (plus a support contract with an engineering firm) to do a blue collar job - it isn't cost effective. Even a unionized workforce is cheaper than an AI workforce. They want to buy AI if it is their ONLY option. Further, if they buy the machine, they are locked in - there is no going back. The sunk cost into robotics would be a strong driver toward the future use of robotics.
I used to do warehouse work. Real warehouse work for a real don't-give-a-fk-about-your-safety company. It's not surprising that people don't want to do that, but we all want to buy the products that result from that work. If we keep buying, who is going to produce if we don't step up and do it?
Lazy
I have been lazy; contented; involuntarily compliant. This is unacceptable. Last week, We, the People, took a tremendous loss. Charlie Kirk was an inspiration, and for that, we shall remain eternally grateful. He was never lazy; never contented; never involuntarily compliant. He lived his faith each and every day. More of us need to do so; for, our time might be short.
I am pledging an oath here and now to stay engaged, involved, and working for my children’s future and their children’s thereafter. My discipline shall be turned toward the work. Last night, I was welcomed to the YGOP of Ellis County. The energy in the room was palpable. We were thick with faith and constitution. They allowed me a few minutes of their time to speak.
Many folks have asked me privately what I think about the assassination. The upshot is that I do not want to leave a world for our posterity where folks take lives when a microphone is available for discussion instead. That world sounds treacherous; it sounds like hell.
Why does this one feel different?
Mr. Kirk’s death hits different from the others. I have heard this many times from independent people. I think this is simple. He was not President. He was not a Legislator. He was not a Judge. He was not a billionaire CEO, the director of a Super PAC, or some other position of power. He was just a person with a microphone. If he was a target, so are you. If you speak, if you write, if you podcast, you are a target.
This is no longer a battle of flesh; this is a battle of spirit. No longer is death the punishment for a physical violation. Now, to our enemies, death is punishment for thought and faith. This is why this one feels different. It is different - fundamentally, radically, and spiritually different.
How did we get here?
I have no idea how we got here - I can surmise, I can speculate, I can hypothesize - I can only offer a limited view of our socio-political ills. Worship and Sacrament have declined, and so with them have morality, values, comfort, and stability.
Atheists consistently give credence to Judeo-Chrstian values. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Kurt Vonnnegut (all self-proclaimed atheists) have expressed admiration for the value and belief system presented by the Judeo-Christian line of faiths. The latter even stating, “If what Jesus said was good, and so much of it was beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not? If Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.”
The only people who find no use in the faiths of our founders are those who want a life of kingship, dominion, and powerlust. If one has nothing to worship, one begins to worship oneself. Humans will eventually have a crisis of morality, and if one worships oneself and makes the wrong choice, one will surely make a subsequent wrong choice. Down the line of wrong moral choices lies a demon. Without a solid moral foundation outside oneself, in adulthood, one becomes the very demon every child fears.
Without Worship and Sacrament, we are a nation without an absolute morality. We come a nation of self-worshippers - a nation of demons.
What can be done?
We speak. We carry the message. We inspire the next person. Even atheists understand the moral and societal supremacy of the Judeo-Christian line of faiths when followed. Jesus walked the land, met people where they were, and taught them. He was not a preacher, but a teacher. We need to teach; we need to provide adequate support and opportunities for the lessons of our forebearers to permeate the culture and restore this nation and its citizenry to moral clarity. There is no time like the present, and there is no people like our people. It is incumbent upon us to get to WORK.