Along with the crisis in Ukraine, another surge of COVID-19 and the emergence of monkeypox, rampant inflation and a persistent shortage of supplies and qualified workers, now you have something else to worry about: China’s imminent invasion of Taiwan.

You can’t print your way to prosperity – but they’ll keep on trying despite the lessons of history and common sense. Even while the White House and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen deny the reality of a recession, they can’t deny inflation, and the government is now trying to fix the problem with more of the same.

When the data doesn’t support your position, just move the goal posts. That’s the tactic of the recession deniers: career politicians who can’t afford to acknowledge what’s obvious to every hardworking American, so they just change the definition of “recession” and hope for the best.

Complaints about rampant inflation are common and understandable, but not new by any means. Echoes of today’s dollar woes can be heard throughout history, and Rome’s millennia-old experiment provides a snapshot of how print-and-spend policy can ruin even the most powerful empire’s economy.

Without energy, there is no civilization and our way of life ends abruptly. The current government might not acknowledge this as it doesn’t conform to a particular agenda, but the data doesn’t lie and painful realities will always take precedence over ideology.

When it’s time to buy, you won’t want to. This old financial-market saying has been true for generations of investors, but lately the “time to buy” principle is being tested by multiple cataclysmic events, all seemingly conspiring to push amateur traders out of the markets.

Approval of the American people isn’t everything, but it is something. When a commander-in-chief doesn’t have the support of the citizens, trust vanishes and the constitutional tenet of “by the people, for the people” is superseded by agenda-seeking and executive orders.