You might say, “If the government can simply print or electronically create more money, as the Federal Reserve can do, then why doesn’t the Federal Reserve simply issue a good income for every single person in America — and the world, for that matter? Why not give everyone an income of $100,000 a year? Or even a million per year, for that matter?”

Now you know the answer. If the Federal Reserve did this, it would create a massive demand for goods and services that no market — especially in a world where people do not have to work — could create. With supply of goods and services LOW relative to the HIGH demand created by “free” money handed out by the government, you would get … massive hyperinflation. In other words, the currency would lose all its value.

On a smaller scale, this is what happened with COVID fascism and its aftermath. The government and media literally shut down the world, by scaring people (irrationally) into not leaving their homes for months. Understandably, the demand for most goods and services went way, way down since most people, during this time, weren’t doing things they’d normally be doing.

Yet the government escalated its “printing” or issuing of free money, rationalized as a “rescue package” — a rescue from a crisis of the government’s and media’s own creation! What you got was more demand for goods and services (thanks to free money) than the market (paralyzed by COVID restrictions for 2 years) could hope to provide.

Now you see the shortages, but you also see the inflation. Inflation and shortages are two early stages of the disaster when an economy starts to transition from a free market to a collectivist, socialist, Communist economy. It also happened in Germany’s Weimar republic, paving the way for the rise of Hitler in the 1930s.

COVID fascism and the mega-spending by government in its aftermath is an opportunity to better understand how economics works, why government control of the currency is dangerous, and what happens when you abuse that control of the currency for political reasons.

Other Communist/socialist countries have learned this painful lesson in generations past. Now it’s America’s turn. I doubt most will learn the lesson, sadly. As Biden has said, government needs to spend MORE, not less. If we do, hyperinflation (i.e., where the dollar becomes worthless) will literally destroy life as we know it.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Everything in America is premised on the assumption that the next generation will be better off than the present one. It has always been the case, from the beginning of the country.

But the country has always been free — or at least, free ENOUGH to ensure this progress.

Today, we have people in power openly and consistently dedicated to the END of progress. Unlimited spending by government leads to inflation — even hyperinflation, which will destroy everything. When your $100 becomes worth $80, that’s inflation; when your $1000 becomes worth nothing, that’s hyperinflation. We are on that path as we speak.

“Free” everything — medical care, college, child care, retirement insurance, disability insurance — may be desirable to lazy fools and guilt-ridden billionaires; in practice, it only leads to unlimited spending, which in turn leads to unlimited inflation. You can’t escape it. Everything costs something.

On top of it all the government has promised to eliminate fossil fuels and is on track for doing so. It’s impossible to conceive how destructive and life-threatening the end of fossil fuels will be for the billions of people counting on them for their very survival (to say nothing of creature comforts, like heat and ac, that now seem like basic survival).

On our present course, the next generation — meaning YOUR children or YOUR grandchildren — is NOT going to be better off than you were. In America, this will be a first.

If we stay with not just Biden’s policies, but the policies of the Uniparty (RINOs plus DemComs) currently in power, then the next generation is going to be a lot worse off than any American generation in a long time (if ever). Millions may even die.

Can people get this through their thick, brainwashed, leftist-adulterated skulls soon enough to reverse course? I don’t know for sure; but increasingly, I fear not.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Regulars here at Life’s a Beach! know that I describe myself as a cognitive therapist. Has an impressive scientific ring, don’t you think? But aside from sounding official, just what is it? People ask me, “Cognitive therapy is all well and good, and I’m fine with finding the nature of errors in my thinking. But what about the underlying causes of my problems?” Bingo! The error in this question proves exactly why cognitive therapy is important.

Cognitive psychology assumes that ideas are the cause of emotions. If your emotions are disturbing, they’re reflecting your disturbing thoughts. Think of emotions as sort of a printout of your beliefs and ideas – some valid and some maybe not so valid. So how do you know the difference? After all, illogical thoughts and contradictions can create some pretty misleading printouts.

The process of answering these questions is, in fact, the cure. For example, let’s say you’re afraid of snakes. Your fear stems from the belief that snakes could kill you. A closer look at the facts, however, reveals that while some snakes can harm you, many cannot. They also do good things, such as killing disease-carrying rodents, that might lead you to feel friendlier about them. And there are steps you can take to avoid contact with the harmful ones. The point is this: The root of your fear is your exaggerated belief that all snakes are harmful.

So you ask, “How can learning about snakes address my feoar?” ntThis is the same as saying, “How can studying geometry help me to better comprehend geometry?” Granted, you might find geometry difficult, but what other way is there to understand something than to study it? You just need to be a bit more careful about studying our slithering friends.

People apply different rules to their emotions than they do to pretty much anything else. They employ reason when buying a car, or tiling a floor, or getting the best deal at a hotel. But when it comes to emotions, thought and study are the last things we think of. Some might say that it’s “simplistic,” but when I ask what they’ll do to figure out their feelings, somehow that’s mystical or mysterious. Well, it’s neither.

The vast wasteland of daytime TV (not to mention jokes about outdated Freudian psychoanalysts dozing in their chairs) have trained people to think that the underlying cause of their emotions is always family issues. “My mother treated me cruelly. As a result, I don’t trust others.” A competent cognitive therapist will not ignore that statement, but will certainly point out that that was then, and now is now. The question is, “What false ideas and beliefs do I carry with me as a result of the past that are now affecting me in the present?”

One of those mistaken beliefs could be that, “Everybody is like my mother and will therefore be cruel.” Not so. The world is full of all kinds of people. Some are more manipulative than your mother, and some are not. If human beings can train themselves to stop being racist, for example, they can certainly train themselves to treat people as individuals; some of whom are worthy of trust and some not. This can be done by taking risks, observing the results, and correcting the mistaken emotions based on those results.

Therapy essentially means change, and like any change, cognitive therapy is not always easy. But what’s the alternative? You can certainly change yourself without a therapist, but with a therapist you’ll get some guidance and direction. Either way, you’re changing your thoughts; hopefully for the better.

Your thoughts affect much of what you do and all that you perceive. The emotions and feelings that arise from these thoughts and perceptions give you the opportunity to use your mind to discover what they are, compare them to the facts, and then act on them – with or without a therapist.

Michael J. Hurd, Life’s a Beach

Lawless, totalitarian savages don’t care about Supreme Court decisions they dislike. We are still an occupied country.

The debate over abortion is not trivial; but it’s not the biggest issue today. We are dealing with bigger issues than that. Let’s start with leftists. Leftists run the culture. By “culture” I mean the media, the corporate world, the entertainment sector, the transportation sector, food, clothing — virtually everything. The left controls many state governments, all big city governments, and the entire federal government — except, it appears (for now), the Supreme Court.

The leftist reaction to two major decisions — one on guns, one on abortion — reveals their no-longer-hidden assumption: “If we don’t agree with it, it’s lawless. If we do agree with it, not only is it lawful — it may not be questioned in any way.” These are the assumptions of the crudest, most ruthless sorts of totalitarians. These are not merely authoritarians. These are the real deal — at least as bad as Hitler, Stalin and all the bloodiest totalitarians of human history. They mean business.

If you’re against abortion, you can take comfort, for a few minutes, that a few states will now outlaw it. But the bigger issue is how the left will respond. There will be riots in big cities run by leftists where the police will dutifully stand down, and the media will dutifully report, “Nothing to see here.” Dissenters will be censored on Facebook and elsewhere. We have seen it all before.

Ditto for the gun control decision handed down by the Supreme Court a day before. You can take comfort, for now, that the Supreme Court is exercising a robust defense of the Second Amendment. But RINOs and Communists in Congress have given our Communist, totally anti-Second Amendment “president” a bill to sign permitting and actively encouraging state and local governments the ability to arbitrarily determine “mental health” of citizens for purposes of taking their weapons of self-defense.

As horrible and unjust as the repeal of the Second Amendment would be (and this in effect repeals it), this is even WORSE. The precedent is now established in AMERICA that the government may arbitrarily decree that some are “mentally fit” for freedom while others are not “mentally fit.” This is PRECISELY what Hitler’s regime, Stalin’s regime, Cuba’s regime and all the other most ruthless, totalitarian regimes of history have done (and do in the present day). AND IT’S HAPPENING IN AMERICA.

So cheer Supreme Court decisions all you wish. We have much, much bigger problems on our hands. The left has won nearly all of the battles and they are winning the war. They will not tolerate even a single major defeat, much less two. If you think they were harsh during the peak of the (first) COVID fascism era, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I continue to maintain that today’s leftists are actually worse than the worst of Hitler’s and Stalin’s henchmen. Time will prove me right or wrong. But time is running out.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason