Fiscal Faceplants & Firewood: Doom, Debt, My Whiskey Neat with a Side of Liver, Some Fava Beans in Truffle Bourdeaux Demiglace Sauce: Musings from the Alpine Outlaw, Bear Mountain’s Machetes, Markets, and Madness Pyromaniac

Fiscal Faceplants & Firewood: Doom, Debt, My Whiskey Neat with a Side of Liver, Some Fava Beans in Truffle Bourdeaux Demiglace Sauce: Musings from the Alpine Outlaw, Bear Mountain’s Machetes, Markets, and Madness Pyromaniac

Picture this: the world’s crumbling faster than a soufflé in a hailstorm, and here I am, high above the wreckage, perched on Bear Mountain like some deranged prophet with a penchant for fiscal sadism and a love of firepower that borders on sexual. I’m sipping Hibiki 18 neat—because anything less in these circumstances would be an insult to what remains of dignity—and I’m contemplating the apocalypse like a sociopathic dinner date with Hannibal Lecter. Yes, my friends, fiscal collapse is the main course, but we’re pairing it with liver, fava beans, and a truffle Bourdeaux demiglace sauce. If Rome is burning, I’ll be dining like Caligula, insane, amused, and armed to the teeth.

You see, the markets aren’t just crashing—they’re twitching, convulsing in their final throes like some poor bastard who just realized the steak knife wasn’t for cutting beef. No, no—this is the part where the suits on Wall Street realize they’re on the chopping block, squirming under the blade of a machete-wielding maniac disguised as Jerome Powell. They thought they could print their way out of this mess, flood the world with fiat like a frat house drowning in Everclear. But there’s no escape. The game is rigged, the house always wins, and the U.S. Treasury is playing Russian Roulette with six bullets.

I split firewood with the precision of a surgeon carving up a bloated cadaver of debt. Thwack. Another log splits. Thwack. Another dollar dies. It’s poetic, really. The financial world, cracking like the wood beneath my axe, while I stand here—stoic, cold as the snow-capped peaks of the Alps, watching it all burn with the detached amusement of a serial killer at a gallery of his finest work.

It’s not enough to understand the collapse—you have to savor it. Like a fine meal, you must appreciate the textures, the flavors of impending doom as it slides down your throat with that whiskey burn. This isn’t your average recession, folks; this is a feast of destruction, a banquet of madness.

When the going gets weird, as Hunter S. Thompson wisely noted, the weird turn pro. And brother, I’ve turned pro. You don’t watch a system devour itself unless you’ve got the stomach for it—and I’m here with an appetite fit for a goddamn warlord. So while the rest of the world stumbles through this financial hellscape, begging for mercy and bailout packages, I’m up here on Bear Mountain, stacking gold, loading mags, and sharpening my machete. A man has to be prepared—if not for the wolves, then for the bankers.

Speaking of preparation, I’ve recently added to my collection. There’s nothing quite like the feel of cold steel in your hand, a firearm that could blow a hole through a cow at 100 yards. My latest toy? The S&W 500 Magnum—a hand cannon that makes Dirty Harry’s .44 look like a cap gun. And when you’re dealing with a world as insane as this one, you need guns, guns, guns. This isn’t a world for the meek; it’s a world where the man with the biggest arsenal wins.

The thing is, it’s not just the economy that’s falling apart—it’s the whole damn system. Debt ceilings, fiat currencies, bureaucratic incompetence—it’s a three-ring circus of stupidity, and I’m the ringmaster watching the clowns crash into each other while I light a cigar with the last $100 bill worth anything. And just to prove a point to myself, to really drive home the absurdity, I’m heading outside now to shoot my S&W 500 Magnum into my wretched typewriter buried under two feet of snow. Why? Because even my tools of expression need to feel the wrath of fiscal ruin. Stay hard, stay armed, and remember: in the end, all that’s left is firewood, whiskey, and the cold comfort of your trigger finger. 

—Bear Mountain Rancher, signing off from the edge of the world —Bear J. Sleeman