We would like to thank you all for tuning in each week whether here on our blog or on the podcast and hopefully we have been a positive addition to your lives in the past year. Here is your C Thomas Printer Cooperative Podcast 2022 wrap.
“Die hard is not a Christmas movie.” Bruce WillisGood morning, I’m Austerity Jones and I’m here with C Thomas Printer wishing you a Merry Christmas.
C Thomas: Good morning and Merry Christmas to you, it’s a shame that we have to start off today’s episode with fake news because Die Hard is definitely a Christmas movie, but that is only the second biggest mistake Bruce made, after letting Demi Moore go of course. Today is our last episode of the year and our first chance to do an annual recap.
We started the year with a nod to Kobe Bryant and his relentless search for greatness by looking back to his history and then we learned about how to handle difficult times with the grace of Ronald Reagan, and then Bill Russell taught us that to win at the highest level it meant sacrificing a bit of yourself. We discussed delayed gratification and practiced our skills in the Have More Grace Challenge. We have learned about inflation and the recessions and depressions of the past, we have learned about leaders of the past and how they reacted to similar circumstances, and we were able to see the results with the benefit of hindsight. We learned about bygone relics like duty and honor from Roger Staubach and the military academies. G Spot wrote us some poetry and told us some stories that don’t bear repeating. We saw the end of the queen’s long reign and we lived through the Liz Truss era.
The world is not quite the same as it was when we started almost a year ago now. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and the US has frozen Russia’s currency reserves. Directly or indirectly, this has led Saudi Arabia to begin an agreement to sell the Chinese oil in their currency, and marks a shift in the decades old petrodollar system. The stock and bond markets both had terrible years and portfolios are not as portly as they were a year ago. Interest rates have risen at an unprecedented rate. We started the year at basically zero and now we have zoomed past 4.25%. Nothing has broken in the financial system other than the hearts of crypto lovers everywhere as their alternative currency system has seen one exchange after the other melt down in fraud and Ponzi schemes. Through it all Bitcoin has dropped sharply but has been resolute in the last few months after the Terra Luna and FTX implosions. What is in store for the bitcoin maxis, we shall see. We have also had a few scares abroad as Sri Lanka had a financial and social implosion and the UK Gilt Market almost brought down the Pound Sterling.
We started Looking Backwards Looking Forwards in an effort to sort through the refuse that is filling our news. Being more informed about things that can affect our lives is probably just a bit more important than the dating lives of celebrities or which team’s multi-millionaire just broke his fan’s hearts by leaving for more money.
We got reacquainted with some old friends this year. Lieutenant Pete Mitchell call sign Maverick has become the oldest captain in the Navy, but he still knows his way around an airplane. We lost our Iceman, but their movie Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel 36 years in the making, lived up to the hype earning over a billion dollars. We watched Ross Chastain wreck a car and come out a winner, and Joe Biden wreck a bike and still have ice cream for dinner. Our president is still alive at 80 which is no small feat, and leading his party to a much smaller than expected midterm defeat. We have given our hope to Jerome Powell even though it is with tempered and low expectations. I hope all of our leaders have learned as much as we have this year, and I wish them good decision-making skills in the future.
At the beginning of every show we remind you of what we are trying to do: make you think, make you remember, and make you smile. We take that very seriously, well except our own maverick G Spot which doesn’t take anything seriously. We have covered a wide range of subjects throughout the past year, but I think my favorite takeaway was learning about Argentina in our four-part series. I spent a lot of time thinking about how their situation could be similar to ours and how it could be different. I remembered that much of their economy has been plagued by inflation and currency problems for as long as I can remember. I have also smiled whenever I googled Argentina and all the top results were about Leo Messi and their World Cup run.
Yet, I realized that I may have missed the mark on my analysis. I was only looking at Argentina with an economic lens. In my quest to find bad policies or government interference, I missed the thing that we should remember the most on days like today, the people. They have endured, they have had to sacrifice, some all their lives, due to these policies, but while money and financial stability is important, it is still just money. If we compare the United States with Argentina over the last 100 years, I believe that the US has been more successful monetarily, but I’m not sure that has translated into happiness for its citizens. Watching Argentina celebrate through each stage of the World Cup, I had an immediate reaction. It looked like 2016 when Trump won the election and it looked like 2020 when Biden won the election. The only difference is that they were all cheering, everybody and although we might be called the United States, I haven’t seen us that united about anything in a very long time. My hope is that we can learn from Argentina, because they looked truly happy. As Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoics once said “Happiness is a good flow of life” and the best way to do that is in pursuit of virtue. Perhaps we will have much to learn in the following year: from the past and from others like Argentina.
Lastly, I’d like to thank my co-pilot and executive producer Austerity Jones, who makes sure that our audience gets our episodes in a timely, readable, and audible fashion. Happy Holidays to one and all.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus AureliusThis week’s financial tip
Celebrate your Christmas with your friends and family. Today isn’t the day for that although I’m just saying the three wise men brought baby Jesus gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. There were no Us treasuries or crypto to be found.
On this date in history
246 years ago to be exact George Washington crossed the Delaware River and surprised the British Forces at Trenton, New Jersey.
Also born on this date
Baby Jesus was born.
If you are reading in the midst of a frantic attempt to buy a last minute or late Christmas present – remember term limits for sitting Congressmen always make a nice gift.