Elon Musk | Antonius Aquinas

Outgoing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has apologized (sort of) for the Biden administration’s failure to reign in the U.S. financial house and presiding over an increase in trillions of dollars in debt for the nation. According to Tyler Durden, writing for Zero Hedge, Yellen said at a Wall Street Journal organized event in December:

I am concerned about fiscal sustainability and I am sorry that we haven’t made progress . . . . [T]he deficit needs to be brought down especially now that we’re in an environment of higher interest rates.*

A little too late – don’t you think, Janet?

Yellen was Federal Reserve chairman from February 2014 to February 2018 and, before that, served as vice chairman under Ben Bernanke. She was replaced by President Donald Trump with Jerome Powell.

Yellen, as do all Fed officials, reiterated the point that the central bank remains “independent” to pursue its mandate of full employment and price stability.

This is nonsense like most of what she has said over the course of her long and disastrous career. Instead of independence, her move from Fed chair to Treasury secretary is a striking demonstration of just how political the Fed and the nation’s entire monetary and financial system truly is.

Nevertheless, she continued to espouse the hypocrisy:

I see from my own experience is that countries perform better – they have not only inflation performance – but real performance in terms of job creation and growth is also stronger when a central bank is left to use its best judgement without political influence.

Under Yellen as Fed chair (the direct subordinate to Ben Bernanke), and as Treasury secretary, it has been estimated that the U.S. debt skyrocketed to the unfathomable amount of $15 trillion. Yet, it is only when she is about to depart her post that Yellen is lamenting the Biden administration’s efforts to reign in the debt. In fact, there were none.

Besides the debt, the interest on it under Yellen’s watch stands at $1.2 trillion yearly, which is now the second-largest federal expenditure only topped by Social Security. In her mea culpa, Yellen ignored this ticking timebomb.

One of the non-sensical reasons that Yellen often gave to justify massive U.S. borrowing was that interest rates over the past decade had been historically low. She argued that the federal government should take advantage – and did – of the low-interest rate environment.

Economic nincompoops like Yellen apparently didn’t understand that interest rates were low because the Fed was artificially suppressing them through currency debasement.

Recklessly borrowing for this reason would be similar to a drunk refusing to sober up because liquor prices had fallen to all-time lows. Yet, this is what a secretary of the U.S. Treasury espouses for monetary policy. Worse, few in the financial press or Congress, where Fed officials routinely testify, are ever questioned about such a dangerous idea.

Most sensible people, if given the chance, would ask: “What would happen to the debt and interest on the debt if rates would go up?” The United States may soon see this unpleasant reality come to fruition.

Sadly, Yellen’s replacement, Scott Bessent, who was a business associate of George Soros, is an “easy money” advocate, as is Trump, who continually badgered Fed Chairman Powell during his first term for not cutting interest rates.

It will be interesting to see what actions the new Treasury secretary will take if the long-anticipated debt crisis arrives. More likely than not, the second Trump administration will follow the monetary policies of the disgraced Janet Yellen.

*Tyler Durden, “Janet Yellen ‘Sorry After Presiding Over $15 Trillion Increase in US Debt.” 13 December 2024 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/janet-yellen-sorry-after-presiding-over-15-trillion-increase-us-debt

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The destructive demographic effects of the leftist social engineering schemes of the past century are now being felt in the latest federal data on the precipitous decline in U.S. birth rates. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control shows that the fertility rate among U.S. women has fallen to 1.62 births per woman in 2023, which is the lowest recorded rate since the government began keeping such statistics in the 1930s.

Buried in the media reports is the drop off in white women’s fertility rates, which fell some 3% from last year and stand less than the national average. Asian women and white women have equal reproductive capacities. The fertility rate is an estimate of the number of babies a woman would normally have in her lifetime. A rate of 2.1 births per woman is needed for a generation to replace itself.

While this demographic trend has been in motion for quite some time, the explanation for the fall in reproduction by the news media and think tanks devoted to the subject have largely missed the mark.

In its coverage of the story, The Wall Street Journal’s Jennifer Calfas and Anthony DeBarros cited such factors as “women establishing fulfilling careers,” and that they have more access to contraception.* The most fertile child-bearing group – young women – are putting off motherhood because they are uncertain about the future and are “spending more of their income on homeownership, student debt and child care.”

The reasons that The Journal and other commentators give to explain the decline in birth rates are the consequences of what took place in America and the Western world decades ago. Leftists had always wanted to break down and corrupt the traditional family. A splintered and dysfunctional family structure would be less likely to act as bulwark against its agenda.

One of the ways to accomplish this was to get women out of the household and into the labor market, as working and career women would have fewer opportunities to have children.

The feminist movement was more than just the attainment of “equal rights” for women. Its main objective was to lead women out of the home and away from their traditional roles as mothers and homemakers. The record drop in birth rates demonstrates how well this plan has been accomplished.

Besides the disruptive impact on family life and its size, working women are also an indication (and a much better one than government statistics) that living standards have fallen over the generations despite what the financial press has maintained about the economy. Some 50 to 60 years ago most women did not work, one income could sustain a family and even larger families at that.

Now, due to the dramatic increase in the cost of living – mostly due to the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policies, D.C.’s unbridled lust of spending, and massive corporate bailouts and subsidies – real incomes have fallen. For most couples, it takes two full-time jobs to sustain a household which today is a lot smaller than earlier generations.

While the financial argument has merit, the most important factor has been the establishment’s relentless push to justify and make appealing the idea of working women. This arrangement has led to countless conflicts between the sexes in and out of the workplace.

Of course, this is not to say that women should be prohibited from the labor market or do so on a part-time, informal basis. Some, out of tragic circumstances, need to work or some may not be cut out for motherhood, but this should be the exception to the norm.

While anti-immigration voices have rightly focused on the cultural and political altering impact of mass illegal immigration, there has been less emphasis on the fundamental change of women’s role in society. Such neglect is probably due to a reluctance to take a moral position and appear chauvinistic or misogynistic. A healthy birth-rate model could offset the influx of unwanted immigrants.

Recently, Elon Musk wrote that “Any nation with a birth rate below replacement will eventually cease to exist.” When confused New World Order types like Musk recognize the seriousness of population collapse, it is time to worry. Yet, Musk and others do not understand the essence of the problem.

Without a reordering of society to its natural state and restoring the family as a fruitful and nurturing institution for child rearing, a demographic nightmare is in store for America and the Western world.

*Jennifer Calfas & Anthony DeBarros, “Fertility Rate Falls to a Record Low Amid Social Shifts,” The Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2024, pp. A1-A2.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com