postcards from the florida republic: An independent and profitable state of mind.
My wife, daughter, and two dogs are now heading north.
Up through Sarasota and Tampa - the names you know - and through the names, you don’t: Hill N’ Dale, Bushnell, Orange Heights. Next, to the largest city by area in the Lower 48: Jacksonville, and then across the Florida-Georgia Line, the frontier and psychic barrier of the Florida Republic.
Then (sign of the cross) into the madness that is America…
I Shouldn’t Have Read the News Yesterday… I Feel Like a Fool!
We’ve learned what we already knew about America over 48 hours.
We didn’t want to admit it. Or see yet another example of the inescapable truth of what that other Republic’s overlords will do.
For power. For money. For self-preservation. For the thrill…
You’ll remember how some high school kids were untouchable when they got in trouble. You knew them. They played varsity sports, or their parents were close with the principal, and that’s just how it was.
I don’t think it’s much different for American politicians and their families.
There’s clearly two-tiered justice for tax evasion; a two-tiered system for gun charges; a two-tiered system for money laundering… All you need is the right last name… Failing that, donate to the right cause, or align with the correct ideology – even if that ideology defies all common sense and logic you were taught.
And, lest you get the impression I’m singling out on particular political family, this would be a good time to make sure I’m absolutely clear: It happens on both sides of the aisle. Whether your political “dynasty” is Democratic or Republican, the two tiers are right there.
And I want to be equally clear that this isn’t some new aberration, some mutant development in recent history. It’s been going on for decades…
But as a citizen, you don’t want reminders of it.
Most of us realize it at some point or another - I’ve known for 25 years. It’s mind-numbing. You could largely ignore corruption. You could shrug: “That’s the way it is.” Now your nose is buried into it, like a dog’s face into a rug stain.
It makes you wonder… What other nations in the free world would put up with this?
When these things happen in Switzerland or Sweden, referendum votes are instant. Entire parties are swept – maybe “flushed” is the better word – out of government in hours.
Here… nothing happens. They lie and get away with it; an almost criminally credulous mass media accepts excuses at face value. The massive clump of agencies, bureaus, departments, divisions, and commissions that is the bureaucracy makes it easy to steal and get away with it.
Thanks a lot.
It makes decent people feel like idiots for having a moral code. Why have we spent so much time doing things the right way?
“Because it is the good and right thing to do,” we say as someone laughs while redistributing our money - taking a cut first - and then debases our wealth with a money printer and huge deficits.
Yet no one with power or access does a damn thing about it.
You see, there’s money and power in protecting the status quo.
We’re at a point where corruption is now politicized, even defended. They say, “You weren’t upset when so-and-so did it!”
Yes, we were.
On both sides. And if we’re at the point where “it’s okay when our guy breaks the rules,” there isn’t much left of a system to defend anymore. It was the system that once helped make this nation so great.
This is what happened to once-wealthy nations like Argentina. In 1913, it was one of the richest countries on the planet; wealthier than France, Germany, and Spain.
110 years later, the country is an economic basket case – a land of two tiers.
Argentina has different exchange rates — one for the political class and one for the commoner. The nation erodes the currency over and over with inflation, and politicians use the “official” foreign exchange rate to avoid inflation’s sting.
The rest of the population? Well, they’re too busy trying to do things the right way. But more than half the nation works for the government. What incentive is there to rebuild the place?
Venezuela had four exchange rates in 2016. Access depended on where you fall in the political hierarchy. They’re back to two.
Doesn’t it feel like this will come to the U.S. soon? Can’t you see these miserable fools – once they debase our currency and our morale – extending their two-tier system to our currency?
Meanwhile, my tax compliance costs will surge this year because I have one small foreign investment. I plan to be compliant.
I’m doing everything I should to ensure the IRS knows I intend to follow the law when I eventually sell my stake in the company.
If I check a box wrong… if I miscalculate an exchange rate… or carry a number wrong… the taxman will come down on me like a ton of bricks. Misery awaits.
And then you read yesterday’s news? That was only a reminder – just the latest in a long string of cases.
The reality is that it doesn’t matter when it is in America.
You could’ve read this three years ago… 11 years ago… or even 20 years from now, and you’d feel the same way if you were paying attention to what’s happening at any given moment.
Consider this proof…
Portrait of an Artist
Seventeen years ago, I wrote my first novel.
I never published it.
The plot centered on criminal drug trafficking and rampant migration across the Arizona-Mexico border. That was in 2005.
A catalyst of the story was a poem written by a protagonist who departed the U.S. for a period after he grew exhausted by what he witnessed in Washington. That poem was written in the character’s fictional life in the late 1990s.
It was a nod to Hunter S. Thompson, but the protagonist wasn’t
based on the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas author.
The character was based on Craig Vetter, my Northwestern magazine writing professor. Vetter was a friend of Thompson in the 1960s and always pushed me to write with a faster, more aggressive slant to my editorial.
He refused to ever give me higher than a B+ on any assignment.
I reread that poem last night…
It’s about the lack of people doing the right thing in Congress, calling out corruption… working to fix the system… or just having a basic code…
And as I read it, I feel a reminder that nothing changes.
It’s one reason why I came to Florida… For that mental escape.
The Men on the Hill
at the set of the star, when each pass down Our Hill
to a plate ever gamely and cup overfilled
the men, they forget, the source of their fare
it was those in small towns where cupboards grow bare
now ignored to provide allies’ weight in pork
they carve with the tongue, to drive us to forks
there are men on the Hill, who sneak and conspire
to cohort with Brutus and lead to new choir
there are men on the Hill, denying their fault
as they deepen the wounds and scourge them with salt
there are men on the Hill, not just one, nor one team
confuse his ambition with one country’s dream
a cry comes each voice, are there men on this hill
to stand by the cupboard, risk political life killed
you are safe on this Hill, for the process is rare,
that another ascend to relinquish your chair
on the hill is a hush – now a cast of the blame
now a finger is wagged, to preserve masters’ fame
but fall to the side, when the masses erupt
for power is fickle as power corrupts
are there men on the Hill? each street cries fervent
to answer this call as public servant
are there men on the Hill, stand up if you will
a hush…
a hush…
there’s no man on Our Hill.
-30-
So, I can’t say it’s the best poem in the world; I was 24 years old when I wrote it.
But I feel many of the same emotions today as I did back then, and those feelings make even more sense now.
Perhaps I’ll revisit that novel as well… as one would visit an old friend. It could offer quite a window back into my youth.
I’ll send more correspondence from Baltimore…
To your wealth,
Garrett Baldwin
Florida Republic Capital (Available on Substack)
PS: A quote… my favorite.
“I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.” - James Joyce, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
About the Author
Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.