The Minsky Moment (And Way Off the Gold Standard)

By Carl Nelson

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” (Heb Stein) This “stop” would be a Minsky moment – which is basically when all of the bullshit catches up with you. Over the past four years especially, we have been wading hip deep in the stuff (lies) and there’s been a terrible stench of fraud. So the smart money has it that we are nearing a Minsky moment right about now, and, in fact, the whole country may be situated on one (the crapper).

“The term “Minksy Moment” comes from the work of Hyman Minsky, (b.1919-d.1996), an American economist best known for his work on financial instability and economic cycles. …

His Financial Instability Hypothesis laid out a brutal truth: periods of economic stability encourage reckless risk-taking, and stability itself becomes the breeding ground for instability. Under Minsky’s framework, financial systems evolve from prudent, hedge finance to speculative finance, and ultimately to outright Ponzi finance. As the cycle progresses, more and more of the economy becomes dependent on continued expansion and borrowing to stay afloat. And when the music stops, the whole system collapses.”

– “A Minsky Moment for Government After Years of Bidenomics”

As for other matters, like politics, I’m reminded of the freewheeling days of the “love generation” of the 60s & 70s and a remark made much later in her life by the cultural critic Susan Sontag about the politics of her rebellious youth. They were just having fun is the thrust of what I remember of the remark. And that it didn’t occur to them that they might actually break something.

Following the thrust of Minsky’s hypothesis, it occurs to me (and surely others) that our politics and culture are also suffering from Minsky crises enough to make Swiss cheese of the social fabric. If government generated growth is a lie, so is it that pure emotional expression, or pure thought divorced from life are discredited, as is politics when divorced from the people. As Tip O’Neil opined, “All politics is local.” Indeed when the polites ‘citizen’ is no longer included, it is no longer politics – it’s rule. Ideas and actions which have no soil in them bear no nutrition. Their politics can’t support a polity. They will support only tyranny. And so it is with art and culture.

Earthiness is the gold standard of a culture. Gender fluidity is a concept without earth. Sex is earthy as it gets. The further from this gold standard a culture proceeds, the more claims are based on fiat speculation and eventually fraudulence, undermining the very language itself. Eventually this process produces a Supreme Court Justice nominee, tasked with parsing the most critical and intricate of legal arguments, who cannot define what a woman is – even though being one herself. Where words are the essence of the matter, how can such a Justice be expected to explicate difficult Constitutional issues intelligently?

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” – Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Indeed.

I would suggest her testimony, in the confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson regarding her inability to define what a woman is, would seem to define a perfect Minsky storm at a collective judicial, cultural and political intersection.

Banning cows based on their carbon based flatulence, or the British mandating of including the equivalent of “beano” in their feed, would represent another environmental Minsky moment. Cows have been roaming the world for millennia. In earthy lingo they are a gold bar.

“Unhinged” is the final stage of a Minsky moment. Arresting citizens for praying opposite a Planned Parenthood Center, or a two year sentence given an elderly man for hurtful words shouted in England, who committed suicide while interned, would comprise a small number of the unhinged actions of corrupt judiciary on both sides of the pond.

            DOGE is uncovering Minsky moments daily in the governmental financials. For example, a survey the government was billed a billion dollars for which required the answering of ten questions and could have been done through Survey Monkey for ten thousand, according to Elon Musk. The VA was paying 380K/ month for “minor website modifications” that “are now being done internally by a software engineer, in about 10 hours a week. Then, of course, there is USAID which has funneled aid to our enemies and so corrupt that it has been shut down.

A couple other examples:

“Hart also cited the $238,000 the CDC spent on solar-powered picnic tables which, by the agency’s own social distancing rules, “should have sat unoccupied,” he said.” – Daily Caller, https://dailycaller.com/2025/04/08/doge-subcommittee-hearing-solar-picnic-tables/

And another:

“Specifically, the DOGE team uncovered that the USIP had paid out $132,000 to Mohammad Qasem Halimi, who served as Afghanistan’s former Chief of Protocol and was a member of the Taliban. But that wasn’t all – they also funneled a staggering $1.3 million to the Al Tadhamun Iraqi League for Youth.” – Cole Harrison, Patriot Journal

            In health terms, babies are still being booster vaccinated for Covid, though they are in no danger from the virus, but in proven danger from the ‘vaccine’.

In education, Minsky moments have been going off like popping corn. For fun go to The Grievance Studies Project Website https://newdiscourses.com/grievance-studies-project/ and take a glance at the ludicrous papers which have gotten published in established academic publications. Read the editor’s responses. For fun, read some to be released. Examples are:

“Fat Bodybuilding” / Who are They to Judge?: Overcoming Anthropometry and a Framework for Fat Bodybuilding.

“Dog Park” / Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon.

And as for where the public position on religion rests, I will share this cartoon:

The Minsky Moment would seem to undermine the Progressive position that a properly regulated society (even if it were best) is possible – except as a platform for excess. All of these Progressive creations from Social Security, to the creation of the Federal Reserve, to a managed economy through Keynesian economic theory, to the Welfare State and the social safety net programs such as unemployment insurance, workers disability, Medicaid, and a slew of other government programs, to support for the arts and free educational opportunities would all seem to create the baseline stability from which the Minsky moment germinates and blooms, like a bacterial colony in a Petri dish.

It would seem a stable political system must be more organic, like the regenerative farming movement where they use no chemicals, no vaccines, no subsides; something like no till farming and native prairies, where the unusual is but a small percentage of the native population. Prairies endure due to their depth invested in the earth, like the tip of an iceberg is kept upright by the ballast below.

“Prairie plants are like the icebergs of the plant world: we can see part of them on the surface, but their real scope can only be seen below ground.

While traditional turf grass has roots that stretch around 2 inches deep, the roots of native prairie plants can dig up to 15 feet! These roots not only hold the plant and soil in place, but they allow the plant to prosper through above-ground disturbances like fires.” – “Native prairies: their benefits and how to establish them.” (from above source)

In the social realm, it would seem traditional Jewish religion holds a position something like the prairie grass, which has been trampled, burned, suffered drought and flood – in short all of the abuse the natural world can offer – and yet sprouts each spring anew. Likewise, has the Jewish religion, by clinging to its religious rites and celebrations, by keeping track of its generations (genealogy), survived so many tyrants, exiles, genocides and captivities.

So governmental action, it would seem to me, should best be allowed as a small intrusion on the naturally regulating polity. In this manner prudence is rewarded, civilization endures and the catastrophic effects of bubbles and blisters are avoided. The society and culture retain their roots in the gold standard of dirt. And a society, as a whole, doesn’t get “above its raisin”.

Everything Ends Up in a Ditch

It was assumed that building a more fair

and more prosperous country for everyone

would create an ever more stable society –

but just the opposite seems to have occurred.

The end of history appears to have appeared,

the problems ascertained, the final truths enshrined,

which leaves me, especially, here

waving my oars.

 

“Nothing good can last.”

Maybe this would be a good time

to break for the fridge, prepare a sandwich,

stop off to pee (and wash my hands, too)

before rushing back.

 

As the revolution apparently

is being broadcast

on all the major news outlets,

24/7. As the whole country

disowns itself in a collapse.

– Carl Nelson‘s latest book of poetry titled, Strays, Misfits, Renegades, and Maverick Poems (with additional Verses on Monetization), has just been published. To have a look at this and more of his work please visit Magic Bean Books.