Lew Rockwell Institute

Peppered within this week’s headlines was President Trump’s on-again, off-again firing of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The key variable that is never mentioned, however, is that neither Trump, nor Powell have any idea what interest rates should be. Powell’s job shouldn’t exist in the first place. Markets determine prices; not the president, and not something called a “Federal Reserve Chairman.”

Get tickets to the Ron Paul Institute’s August 16th DC Conference!

More info here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blueprint-for-peace-tickets-1397170888739

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Click Here:

John Leake

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Tim McGraw wrote:

It might be one of the most expensive eminent domain purchases ($500 million) in US history. Airports don’t belong in the middle of cities.

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Thanks, Brian Dunaway. 

Wow. Just, wow.

Has there ever been anyone more predictable? But (if “everyone” is correct) it took Israelophilia, rather Israelomania, for him to be sucked into the event horizon.

He’s even willing to relegate his favorite word, “hoax,” to the infamous status of “conspiracy theory.”

In his Manichean cosmology, you are either on his side in ALL things, or you are weak and stupid and evil (all the same thing in his mind). The argument is often made in his defense that he only attacks if first attacked. Not in this stunning spectacle — he attacks his own base, who always gives him the benefit of the doubt — even now, not attacking, rather stunned and alarmed and confused. (Can we call this the first stage of grief: denial?)

Perhaps he’s so defensive not because he is being attacked, but because his client, Israel, is being attacked.

But he should be glad. If he thought about it for one moment, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Israel — the only reason he pretends to care about Israel is because he cares about what a large segment of his voters care about. If at long last the truth about Israel is too much even for the American voter to take, just maybe he won’t have to spend so much time kissing their ass and supporting a self-fulfilling prophecy that might be called Armageddon.

Zero Hedge

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Argentina’s “Libertarian” Revolution.

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We have been pretty critical for some of the more bonehead moves coming from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in these early days of the Trump Administration. She has staged some embarrassing cosplay “takedowns” of illegals and she inexplicitly spent her first Memorial Day as a Senior US Official – a day to honor fallen American soldiers – wailing at Israel’s “Wailing Wall” for some reason.

Nevertheless – and some may rightly criticize the slow pace of “progress” – the “easily excited” Homeland Security Secretary announced earlier this month that US travelers are no longer required to remove their shoes in order to board an airplane.

The shoe removal requirement in the first place was based on a dubious story that a foreigner tried to light his shoe on fire on an airplane flight in the heady “you’re with us or you are with the terrorists” days after the 9/11 “attacks.”

So thenceforth every grandmother in a wheelchair was suspected of being a secret al-Qaeda operative poised to light up her orthopedics – or perhaps colostomy bag – in the name of global jihad.

(The history of TSA is a history of total failure to “keep us safe,” but like all government programs the more you fail the more money you get.)

But yesterday we got a bit of cherished good news in that DHS Secretary Noem is considering lifting the equally absurd limits on the volume of liquids that travelers are allowed to carry on flights. To this point, travelers have been limited to 3.4 ounces per container to carry on the plane.

Anything more was obviously al-Qaeda.

How many 4.0 ounce contact lens solution bottles ended up in the trash to “protect” America from al-Qaeda’s planned takeover one can never know.

I happen to know, by the way. Dammit.

What would actual Americans who value our Constitution like to see? The end of TSA altogether. The government has no business even knowing who is boarding a private car or plane or locomotive. Either we are a free people or we are subject to governmental permission to travel within our country as was required by the Soviet “internal passport.”

Lots of Americans love to attack the “Chicoms,” but these same Americans seem to have no problem with the actual policies that such authoritarian governments embrace.

I would cheer for the end of a TSA that put its hands all over my then-13 year old daughter and then in retaliation for my objection to a Miss Trunchbull violation of my little girl seven years ago proceeded to attempt a live gender re-assignment maneuver on me which even the supervising Washington Metro Police Authority found to be outrageous.

Thankfully the heroic Rutherford Institute came to our rescue and unleashed their civil liberties lawyer team on TSA over the sick attack on my family. And TSA apologized!

So yeah, thanks Kristi. We are happy for that little trickle of freedom our government is so graciously returning to us. Now have a look at the Constitution and completely disengage from the business of Central Government regulation of travel.

Reprinted with permission from The Ron Paul Institute.

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International Man: Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” involves massive government spending—how do you see that impacting the already unsustainable US national debt, and is there any real distinction between that and the kind of spending we saw under Biden?

Doug Casey: It’s ironic that the “Big Beautiful Bill” has the same initials—BBB—as Biden’s “Build Back Better.”

I haven’t read all 887 pages of the bill. And I suspect very few Congress critters have either; it’s something only a lawyer or a lobbyist might do. But I have read analyses and summaries. It’s clear that it’s just a hodgepodge, a conglomeration of notions and pork. Nothing new, just like almost every other bill that’s come out of Washington, DC, for many decades.

There’s very little to recommend it if you’re concerned about freedom and prosperity. It’s essentially 887 pages of additional things you must do, and must not do, with penalties for non-compliance, and new taxes to fund it all.

Trump’s utter lack of a philosophical core is increasingly evident. I’ve come to the conclusion that, other than his entertainment value, troll-like sense of humor, and not being Kamala Harris, the only consistently good thing about Trump is his anti-woke stance. And he’s not anti-woke based on philosophical principle, but just because of his gut feelings.

The bill doesn’t just raise spending and taxes, it creates chaos, adding complexity through new mandates and cutouts. Typical of narcissists, much of what Trump does will wind up making enemies everywhere, for no good reason. But he doesn’t realize that. He’s what’s known as a bullshit artist. He thinks his glib words actually pull the wool over people’s eyes, when all they do is expose him as a shallow conman.

International Man: What should have the bill done?

Doug Casey: There’s no attempt to implement the findings of the DOGE, which uncovered immense amounts of fraud, waste, and corruption within the US government. DOGE could have changed the course of the US. But it turned out to be nothing but a shameless PR stunt. No wonder Musk quit in disgust.

Instead of adding to the deficits and total debt, which is what this bill does, I would have liked to see an outright default on the national debt. I realize that sounds like an outrageous, even ridiculous suggestion, because it would lead to the wholesale failure of the current financial system. So let’s explore a few particulars of the mad concept.

The Fed should be abolished. Gold should be reinstated as the national currency. About 90% of Federal agencies should be abolished. The “defense” budget should be decreased by 75%, instead of being increased to a trillion dollars per year. All US troops should withdraw from all foreign bases. The government should resign its membership in the UN, NATO, and scores of other clubs and treaties. All aid and subsidies of domestic corporations and foreign governments should cease… There’s a lot more, but that’s a good start.

Regarding the national debt, it effectively transfers wealth from the average taxpayer—who is already being devastated by currency inflation—to the wealthy individuals and institutions who own it. The debt will be defaulted on eventually, probably indirectly, through inflation. I simply believe it should be defaulted on directly. Insofar as a default can ever be honest, that’s the only honest way to do it.

Compare it to a 100-story building on the verge of collapse. It’s better to conduct a controlled demolition, with a warning, than wait for it to fall on everyone unexpectedly.

There are other reasons for a default, however. First, it would free future generations of Americans from being turned into serfs just to pay it off. Second, it would punish the people who have enabled the State by lending it money to fund all the terrible things it does, like fighting wars, enriching its lackeys, and expanding the welfare state.

But none of that is going to happen. I only mention these things for your intellectual amusement. Maybe John Hunt and I will do a novel about the way a default would sort out. But we’re behind schedule on “Terrorist,” the 4th in the current series. So, one thing at a time as we watch the ongoing collapse of Western Civ…

Another bad thing about the big buffoonish bill is that it’s a distraction from the corruption exposed in the Epstein matter. Trump has said he doesn’t want to hear any more about Epstein. I expect he will, however. It should be the biggest scandal since the Dreyfuss affair in France at the turn of the 20th century.

International Man: Trump’s bill includes a $1 trillion allocation for defense spending and provisions that appear to expand the President’s authority.

Does that signal a trend toward militarization and centralized power under the guise of economic or national security?

Doug Casey: Absolutely. I’m surprised that there’s not wholesale outrage at the fact that it increases annual defense spending to a trillion dollars a year, when, in fact, military spending could and should be cut back radically. This is further proof of how supine and degraded the average American has become.

For one thing, it funds the so-called “Golden Dome,” which we analyzed in some detail last week (link).

In addition, it designates about $170 billion to ICE and border enforcement. While sending illegal migrants back where they came from is a good thing, as with all government agencies and actions, the extra agents that are hired will never be fired. The 100,000 new detention beds contemplated by the act will remain long after Trump is gone. They will just be repurposed by the Democrats. The government will continue growing like a cancerous self-licking ice cream cone.

The bottom line is that the bill directs a lot more power and dollars toward the State, and in no way cuts back the State. Americans may not like the migrants, but I suspect they’re going to like thousands of new ICE agents checking to see if their “papers are in order” even less.

International Man: When comparing Trump’s spending to Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, do you see any meaningful differences in their impact on the economy, or is it simply two sides of the same inflationary coin?

Doug Casey: The main difference between them is who gets the pork and the rhetoric that surrounds it. For instance, there’s a section in the bill reinforcing farm subsidies, which—depending on various conditions—slop from $30 to $60 billion per year to farmers, as if they were hogs. Nothing new, these egregious subsidies have been around for many decades. They’re welfare payments. In addition to corrupting farmers, they necessitate the Department of Agriculture (DOA), which employs 100,000 bureaucrats.

Anything the DOA does that’s useful would be done by entrepreneurs. This bill just further cements industrial agriculture in place and makes the survival of family farms even more difficult.

You might also consider the $1,000 “Trump accounts” for kids. Trump loves anything with his name attached to it. But it’s a bad idea. It gives the public the idea that Trump is giving them something for nothing, and gets them in the habit of receiving stolen goods. Needless to say, a new agency will have to be set up to monitor the accounts. Maybe the amount should be raised to $10,000 or $100,000. Then Trump could claim he was creating a whole generation of multimillionaires.

International Man: Do you believe the spending surge under Trump, including this bill, will help normalize trillion-dollar deficits, and what does that mean for the US dollar going forward?

Doug Casey: Forget about trillion-dollar deficits. That’s far in the rear-view window. We’re looking at three, four, and five trillion-dollar deficits. That’s after the multi-trillion-dollar tax increase through tariffs.

Also, the BBB has almost no reference to deregulation. It’s just another tax, spend, and borrow bill. The additional chaos it causes might immanentize the financial eschaton that we’re facing. I’m not talking about ten years or even five years from now. I think it’ll happen within Trump’s term.

And the Republicans, worthless as they are, will be blamed. I couldn’t care less about them, but because they’re somehow associated with free market values, those values will also be blamed. In 2028, therefore, the chances are excellent that the lefties will be elected. Even assuming that Trump serves out the remainder of his term, which I think is in doubt. Things could get seriously out of control.

I’m afraid that Trump is acting much like Roosevelt did in 1932. Few people know that when Roosevelt ran for office, he ran on what amounted to a radical free market platform. His proposed policies were almost libertarian in nature, as a reaction to the horrible statist and dirigiste policies of the benighted Herbert Hoover, who’s always falsely painted as a free market guy. After Roosevelt was in office, he instituted something close to socialism in the US.

I think Trump—who’s always been an egomaniac—is turning into a megalomaniac. The man never, ever, admits he’s wrong. That’s very dangerous. It’s scary.

For a while, because Kamala was defeated, it looked like Morning in America. But unfortunately, morning only lasts six hours.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

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Gates is financially backing the development of sun-dimming technology that is aimed at reflecting sunlight out of Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a global cooling effect.

Before a total tally on the body count from last week’s deadly flood in Texas has been completed, many Americans are raging against the machine, claiming a government conspiracy to manipulate weather patterns.

Just days after America faced the Independence Day flood, prominent political voices were quick to proclaim that the weather event was the result of scientific tampering. In other words, over 100 Americans were “murdered” as opposed to killed during the storm.

MAGA congressional candidate Kandiss Taylor is facing backlash after spreading ‘conspiracy theories’ about the deadly flash floods along the Guadalupe River in Texas. Taylor, who is running to represent Georgia in the House of Representatives, posted on X: “Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.”

“This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation,“ she added. “If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder. Pray. Prepare. Question the narrative.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once blamed the 2018 California wildfires on “Jewish Space Lasers,” says she plans to introduce a bill that would make weather modification a felony in U.S. “I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity,” she posted on X. “It will be a felony offence.”

Greene said she had been researching weather modification “for months” and that her bill bans individuals from practicing geoengineering or cloud seeding, and imposes a $100,000 fine and five-year prison sentence.

The Critical Thinking Dispatch echoed Greene’s grim, conspiratorial views when it wrote, “The deadly Independence Day floods weren’t natural – they were engineered. During this catastrophic event, the Guadalupe River rose nearly 30 feet in under an hour. At the same time, some locations endured approximately four months’ worth of rain in just four hours. How could this happen? The answer lies in a sinister truth: weather warfare has been deployed against American citizens.”

Much of the current controversy on geoengineering technologies focuses on the political lightning rod known as ‘climate change,’ where Democrats are much more susceptible to the belief that human activities are responsible for burning down the planet than are the Republicans. Thus, whenever a major weather catastrophe occurs, like the one in Texas, Democrats will scream in one voice that human beings must trade in their carbon monoxide spewing vehicles for electric cars, while Republicans scoff at such apocalyptic conclusions.

Although the field of geoengineering may seem like a very modern development, it has actually been going on for almost 150 years. For example, the first patent describing a method of producing rainfall was issued to Louis Gettmann back in 1891. In 1920, Paul Weiss patented a process and device for creating intense artificial clouds and fogs, and in 1924 Charles Miller created a mist dispersing compound. More than 200 patents were issued for weather modification and geoengineering technologies between 1890 and 2014. Since 2014, information on issued patents in this category has not been disclosed.

Thus far, the application of these and many other geoengineering technologies have been reserved for rather benign things, such as ensuring clear weather during national celebrations. For example, in China, before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2008, it rained on the outskirts of Beijing, and during the ceremony itself, but there were no clouds over the capital. In addition, fog dissipation is carried out in aviation to improve the safety of aircraft landing, in agriculture to increase precipitation and increase yields.

According to an academic study entitled “Impact of Weather Change technologies on global Security,” Olena Shevchenko and Kira Horiecheva revealed that “the only confirmed military use of climate change technology to date is Operation Popeye by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. As a result, a threefold increase in precipitation and the duration of the rainy season were recorded.

The authors concluded that “this operation showed the danger of using technologies for influencing the weather.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association says it does not modify the weather, nor does it fund, participate in or oversee cloud seeding or any other weather modification activities. NOAA’s objective is to “better understand and predict Earth’s systems, from the bottom of the seafloor to the surface of the sun.” NOAA is required by law to track weather modification activities by others, including cloud seeding, but has no authority to regulate those activities.

But given the extreme skepticism that the American people hold for their government institutions, such denials will only serve to reinforce the ‘conspiracy theories’.

At the same time, there is already a large body of evidence that government institutions, in cooperation with academia and the world of business are actively developing and experimenting with geoengineering technologies. In fact, just google Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ name into the search field and it becomes clear that somebody is twisting the truth.

Gates is financially backing the development of sun-dimming technology that is aimed at reflecting sunlight out of Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a global cooling effect. The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, launched by Harvard University scientists, aims to examine this solution by spraying non-toxic calcium carbonate (CaCO3) dust into the atmosphere — a sun-reflecting aerosol that may offset the effects of global warming.

Incredibly, none of the scientists involved in this experiment can say with any certainty what the results will be, a bit like when nuclear bombs were first tested. But some have voiced their worries with the tinkering of Earth’s atmosphere.

“There is no merit in this test except to enable the next step. You can’t test the trigger of a bomb and say ‘This can’t possibly do any harm’,” said Nicklas Hällström, director of the Swedish green think-tank WhatNext?

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

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Do you feel financial stress on a regular basis? If so, you are certainly not alone. As you will see below, a new survey has discovered that more than two-thirds of the entire country is feeling “anxiety and depression” due to financial stress. The cost of living is totally out of control, and it is absolutely crushing the middle class. Earlier today, we learned that the official rate of inflation has gone up again. Apparently it was the largest increase in five months, but I don’t put much stock in the official government numbers because I know how much they have been manipulated. In fact, the formula for calculating the official rate of inflation has been altered dozens of times since Jimmy Carter was in the White House, and every time they change the formula the goal is to make inflation look lower than it actually is. To me, what really matters are the prices that we are hit with on a day to day basis, and those prices have been skyrocketing.

I am old enough to remember when summer vacations were actually affordable.  Gasoline was under a dollar a gallon, and you could stay at cheap motels for less than 20 dollars a night as you drove across the nation.

But these days even a vacation that lasts for just a few days can put you deep into debt…

After stepping off the plane in Nashville, having paid far more than expected for your flight, the rental car desk awaits.

Four days with a Toyota Camry costs $670. A Starbucks coffee on the way to the hotel is another $7.

Your budget hotel somehow costs $500 for the weekend, breakfast not included. Eating out for dinner means the day’s spending is comfortably into four figures.

Who can afford that?

Summer vacations have become a thing of the past for much of the population, and that is extremely unfortunate.

Of course the cost of just about everything else has been rapidly rising as well.

Let me give you some examples.

For the past five years, U.S. home prices have been rising at a pace of almost 10 percent a year…

Over the past five years, U.S. home values have increased by roughly 8–9% per year on average, while over the past ten years, they’ve risen about 6–7% per year on average. In other words, national home prices saw an exceptionally rapid climb in recent years, far above historical norms.

I can understand why so many young people are so frustrated right now.

The average price of a home in the United States has now risen above half a million dollars.

But they keep telling us that inflation is low.

Give me a break.

Health insurance has also been getting a lot more expensive…

Average monthly premiums for families with employer-provided health coverage in California’s private sector nearly doubled over the last 15 years, from just over $1,000 in 2008 to almost $2,000 in 2023, a KFF Health News analysis of federal data shows. That’s more than twice the rate of inflation. Also, employees have had to absorb a growing share of the cost.

The spike is not confined to California. Average premiums for families with employer-provided health coverage grew as fast nationwide as they did in California from 2008 through 2023, federal data shows. Premiums continued to grow rapidly in 2024, according to KFF.

Who can afford a monthly health insurance premium of $2,000?

In the old days, they would call that “highway robbery”.

And don’t even get me started on the price of food.

There was a time when some Americans would actually purchase dog food to eat in an attempt to cut costs, but now even the price of dog food has soared into the stratosphere…

The average unit price of dog food was $5.78 in 2021, but last month the figure was $8.42.

Rising food prices are the number one reason why the number of Americans facing food insecurity has nearly doubled over the past four years.

Anyone that actually believes that things are “fine” is simply not living in reality.

Things are so bad that approximately one-fourth of the U.S. population is now using “buy now, pay later” loans to pay for everyday living expenses…

A growing number of consumers are taking out “buy now, pay later,” or BNPL, loans to cover everyday living expenses, data shows, a sign of the precarious financial state facing many U.S. households.

A quarter of Americans now use BNPL loans to pay for groceries, up 14% from last year, according to a recent survey from LendingTree. The personal finance firm also found that more people are using such financing to pay for clothing, technology and housewares.

Of course once those companies get you hooked, they will hammer you with high interest rates.

But many Americans are just desperate to find a way to survive from month to month.

According to one recent survey, almost 70 percent of the population is feeling “anxiety and depression” because of their finances…

Americans are feeling increasingly uneasy about their financial future.

Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) say financial uncertainty has led them to feelings of anxiety and depression, according to a recent survey from Northwest Mutual — an 8-percentage-point increase from 2023.

Other surveys have come up with similar results.

For example, here is one that found that “65% of middle-income Americans believe their income has not kept pace with rising expenses”…

Middle‑income Americans are still adjusting to a higher cost of living and ongoing financial pressures, according to the latest Primerica® U.S. Middle‑Income Financial Security Monitor (FSM). The survey finds that 65% of middle-income Americans believe their income has not kept pace with rising expenses — a sentiment that has remained remarkably consistent for more than four years, highlighting the challenges families feel as prices outpace paychecks.

“Middle‑income families are making tough decisions every day to cover the essentials and save for the future, and it continues to shape how they perceive the overall economy, with many feeling less confident and more cautious about what lies ahead,” said Glenn J. Williams, CEO of Primerica. “That makes it even more important for families to seek sound financial advice. A financial professional can help families find the money in their budgets, reprioritize expenses and build a realistic path to save for the future. Even starting with a small amount can make a significant difference over time.”

And that same survey discovered that 80 percent of middle-income Americans rate the economy poorly…

Middle‑income Americans continue to rate the economy poorly. More than three-quarters (80%) rate it negatively — a figure that has remained consistent over the past year. Amid ongoing economic uncertainty, a strong majority (83%) say they want to take steps to protect themselves financially for the long term — yet only 36% are actually doing so.

A lot of people get upset with me when I write like this, but it is the truth.

We really are experiencing the kind of long-term economic decline that I have long warned about.

If you are feeling constant stress because of the state of your own personal finances, I want you to understand that there are tens of millions of other Americans that are in the exact same boat.

Decades of very foolish decisions have brought us to this point, and the American people should be very upset at those that are responsible for bringing this crisis upon us.

Reprinted with permission from The Economic Collapse.

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If we borrow all of tomorrow’s prosperity to spend today, there won’t be any future prosperity, there will only be penury.

The developed nations share many of the same sources of stagnation:

1. Demographically, their cohort of retirees drawing government benefits is expanding with no end in sight while their workforces are shrinking;

2. Their models of funding government programs institutionalized 50, 60 or 70 years ago no longer provides enough income to cover government spending;

3. As their populations age, demand/consumption is stagnating as older people spend less on everything other than healthcare, and the cohort of younger people getting married and starting families is in steep decline;

4. Attempts to stimulate consumer spending via central bank/state stimulus are now increasing inflation, crimping both household and state spending as debt service costs rise;

5. Institutionalized processes that worked in the “boost phase” of economic growth are now hindrances as following established processes are the focus rather than adapting to get results;

6. The expedient “solution” to soaring demands for government spending (healthcare and retirement programs are now a third or more of state expenditures) is to fund spending with borrowed money–selling government bonds which then increases the nation’s sovereign debt and the interest that must be paid on that swelling debt;

7. The low-hanging fruit in the economy have all been plucked, and while there are high hopes for an energy transition and AI, there are no guarantees these will boost productivity enough to generate the growth needed to “grow our way out of debt;”

8. The proposed solutions are all forms of financial engineering–lowering interest rates, introducing stablecoins, etc., all intended to lower the cost of borrowing from the future to stimulate “growth” today in the hopes of “growing our way out of stagnation and debt.”

Richard Bonugli and I discuss these core issues in our podcast The Challenges of the G7 world (33 minutes), issues which boil down to one basic question: is pulling the levers of financial engineering enough to “grow our way out of stagnation and debt,” or are more fundamental reforms required?

The key to “growing our way out of stagnation and debt” is to boost productivity. In the podcast, I refer to Total Factor Productivity, which is an attempt to “capture the ‘secret sauce’ of how an economy or business produces more output with the same or fewer inputs.”

This ‘secret sauce’ includes efficiency, technological innovation and the cultural-social foundations which are often overlooked in conventional economics–for example, “free markets” only function in high-trust societies.

If we’re squandering money borrowed from the future on superfluous consumption, is this enough to “grow our way out of stagnation and debt,” or is this expansion of debt to fund unproductive consumption actually increasing the stagnation and debt?

As a generality, the developing world has more favorable demographics and a more positive growth profile as there is still a relative abundance of low-hanging fruit in terms of infrastructure and ways to increase productivity that can be developed with prudent investments of capital and labor.

Read the Whole Article

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As Peter Schweizer noted in a short report for the Hoover Institution on Christmas Day 2000, twenty-five years ago the United States was “spending less on defense as a percentage of GNP than anytime since the Great Depression.”  That all changed nine months later when the so-called “peace dividend” from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was reinvested in a “Global War on Terrorism.”

Eight trillion dollars later, and what do Americans have to show for their sacrifices in blood and treasure?  The Taliban is in control of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is in control of Syria, an apologist for Islamic jihad is about to become mayor of New York City, and a pro-Hamas contingent of lawmakers wields too much power in Congress.

In an article that resembles an obituary for U.S. foreign policy during the twenty-first century, writer Daniel McAdams dryly observes in the headline, “‘Global War on Terror’ Is Over.  Terror Won.”  That’s quite the gut punch for everyone who lived through 9/11 and its aftermath.  Yet it’s hardly inaccurate.

A quarter-century after Islamic terrorists murdered three thousand Americans, politicians are more concerned about “Islamophobia” in the United States than providing adequate care for veterans who confronted Islamic barbarity head-on.  The hurt feelings of those who risked nothing to defend the homeland matter more than the damaged bodies and minds of those who risked everything.

The significance of 9/11 has been so watered-down that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar remembers it only as a day when “some people did something.”  For the victims we lost, their families, members of the military who fought and died on the global battlefield, and the families of those servicemembers who never saw their loved ones again, that “something” was — by far — the most consequential event in their lives.  Now it’s just an opportunity for foreigners who become members of Congress to guilt-trip white people for their imaginary “privilege.”

After 9/11, everybody insisted that we left our guard down and somehow brought the tragedy upon ourselves.  If we had only continued spending on defense at the same high levels that we had been spending since WWII, then we could have prevented the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.  That was the supposed lesson.  It didn’t matter that we were still spending more than every other country in the world; as soon as we cut back on Cold War military spending, we suffered another surprise attack.  We were vulnerable, everyone agreed, unless we rededicated tax dollars toward huge military budgets.

Everybody in the defense sector got big buckets of money after that.  Weapons manufacturers, research and development firms, intelligence think tanks, and foreign policy consultants made out like bandits.  The FBI got new domestic surveillance powers.  The Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration came into existence.  The CIA positioned itself once again as the unofficial quarterback of the U.S. government.  Unelected bureaucrats, in other words, became much more powerful than they were before 9/11, and the defense industry started cashing much bigger checks.  All the institutions that experienced a diminishment of clout and prestige after the Cold War found their clout and prestige supercharged in the post-9/11 world.  That’s a pretty sobering reminder that some people always benefit from tragedy.

How did the American people make out?  Not so well.  In return for a foreign attack on U.S. soil, American citizens lost any claims to their privacy.  The Patriot Act (apparently already written and ready to be signed into law as soon as a sufficient emergency could justify its passage in Congress) birthed the modern national security surveillance State.  Americans lost control over their bank records, phone calls, text messages, and emails.  It became common to hear politicians justify this loss of personal privacy as a trifling matter for Americans with nothing to hide.  On 9/11, foreign terrorists murdered U.S. citizens; after 9/11, the U.S. government murdered the Fourth Amendment.

Americans also saw the accelerated migration of foreign nationals into their local communities.  Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama seemed to agree that American citizens were responsible not only for prosecuting a “Global War on Terrorism” but also for resettling “refugees” from newly occupied territories into the United States.  The end result has been a confusing and disruptive injection of multiculturalism this century.  Had Americans known that defending their way of life would involve importing millions of foreign nationals with a different way of life, many never would have supported post-9/11 wars in parts of Asia and Africa and across the Middle East.

Effectively, the U.S. government responded to the worst attack since WWII by going to war for two decades, tearing up parts of the Constitution, and undermining Americans’ shared culture.  Those politicians and bureaucrats in D.C. who have seen their powers expand this century believe the enormous costs in lives and dollars are justified.  Those industries that profit from endless war have had much to celebrate.  For many Americans, however, the butcher’s bill from this century’s military conflicts has not been pretty.

Right now the drumbeat of war is growing louder.  U.S. and European interests see Ukraine as an expendable chess piece in a larger NATO-led war against Russia.  As the death toll in Europe rises, Western war-hawks continue to demand that every last Ukrainian man be press-ganged into service.  I have made no secret of my contempt for those who insist that Ukrainians die in this war when they are not permitted to vote for elected representatives or even to dissent publicly from the government currently hanging onto power through martial law.  There is nothing “democratic” about this Ukrainian dictatorship.

I dislike the Council on Foreign Relations types who lick their chops over the possibility of defeating Russia and dismantling its enormous territory into more digestible parts.  I dislike the BlackRock vultures that can’t wait to gobble up the region’s natural resources while making trillions of dollars from government-subsidized rebuilding projects across the war-torn terrain.  I dislike the bloodthirsty loudmouths, such as Lindsey Graham, who speak of war as if it’s a playground game.  I dislike the Machiavellian politicians (particularly in Europe) who see the War in Ukraine as a convenient distraction from the exorbitant energy costs of “climate change” communism presently destroying Western economies.  I dislike those who would risk miscalculations between nuclear powers over former Soviet lands whose peoples largely identify as Russian.  I dislike those who prefer that Russian and Ukrainian Christians kill each other rather than seek peace.

Before we ratchet up the slaughter in Europe and expand the Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine into something even more devastating than it already is, consider how much we’ve sacrificed this century.  The “peace dividend” following the Cold War didn’t even last a decade.  When the United States committed itself to a post-9/11 “Global War on Terrorism” for the next twenty years, we watched our Bill of Rights and culture slip away.  Whether one thinks the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth their costs, those costs will look minuscule next to the butcher’s bill that will come due in a full-out war between Russia and U.S.-NATO.  Those European and American parents who believe that their children will never be drafted into service should remember that Ukrainian parents once believed the same thing.

There is an abyss before us.  If we fall into it, we will lose ourselves.  The madness will be bloody and awful, and we will be lucky to see it through.  War takes everything.  It robs everyone.  I pray that we can avoid it.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

The post War Takes Everything appeared first on LewRockwell.

It’s so funny how Trump has stopped even pretending to be a populist. As soon as he was re-elected he was just “Yeah okay so Israel comes first and forget everything I said about free speech and the Ukraine war is continuing and there will be no Epstein investigation, fuck you.”

It has long been obvious to anyone with half a brain that Donald Trump is just another Republican swamp monster playing on public discontent with the status quo to win votes and support, but it is genuinely surprising how completely he has stopped pretending to care about fighting the deep state and sticking up for ordinary Americans as soon as he got back into office. He’s just dropped the populist schtick entirely and is giving the finger to anyone who complains.

The president has been aggressively and repeatedly demanding that his entire base shut up about Jeffrey Epstein and move on after years of MAGAworld fixation on the story, bizarrely going as far as claiming that interest and attention on the Epstein files was a concoction of the Democrats. He is doing this even as his Department of Justice releases a video which it claims disproves conspiracy theories that the sexual predator was murdered in his prison cell — but the video is edited and missing minutes of footage.

NEW: Metadata from the “raw” Epstein prison video shows approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of two stitched-together clips. The cut starts right at the “missing minute.”https://t.co/akGXqznId6

— WIRED (@WIRED) July 15, 2025

This happens as the Financial Times reports that Trump is now encouraging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to ramp up deep strikes into Russian territory and asking whether it would be possible to hit Moscow. This would be the same President Trump who falsely promised on the campaign trail that he would end the Ukraine war in “no longer than one day.”

After pledging to restore and protect free speech in the United States, Trump has been aggressively stomping out speech that is critical of the state of Israel and its genocidal atrocities, scoring yet another win for government censorship on Tuesday with Columbia University’s announcement that it is adopting the IHRA definition of “antisemitism” which conflates criticism of Israel with hate speech against Jews, in accordance with the wishes of the Trump administration.

After promising to “restore peace, stability, and harmony all throughout the world,” Trump has bombed Iran, poured weapons into Israel and Ukraine, backed Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its numerous acts of war against its neighbors, slaughtered hundreds of civilians with a savage bombing campaign in Yemen, and conducted dozens of airstrikes in renewed operations in Somalia, all while leading the nation into the era of official trillion-dollar Pentagon budgets.

In 2023 Trump proclaimed that “if you put me back in the White House… I will totally obliterate the deep state.” In 2025 he’s advancing pretty much every longstanding deep state agenda in the book.

Trump: “I will totally obliterate the deep state.”

Crowd goes wild. Many Americans now understand the enemy isn’t Russia or China. The enemy is the US deep state oligarchy that weaponizes intelligence services, bribes politicians and controls the media.pic.twitter.com/t8UluiBi2t

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 5, 2023

Every single part of Trump’s platform where he could have claimed to be standing up for the little guy against the powerful has been completely flushed down the toilet in the first six months of his second term, leaving only a standard George W Bush Republican in its place. If you wanted tax cuts for the rich and cruel treatment for immigrants then Trump is still your man, but if you were hoping he’d benefit ordinary Americans or do anything to drain the swamp in Washington he’s just peeing on you and writing a wall of text on Truth Social explaining why the pee is actually rain.

Which again should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. No real change will ever come from either of America’s two power-serving major parties.

But what’s so funny is people are probably just going to fall for it again. Trump’s base is very upset about the Epstein thing and many of them might actually abandon Trump himself, but you know next election cycle someone like Tucker Carlson or JD Vance will run on his platform and these suckers will swallow it hook, line and sinker. I actually said this on Twitter the other day and got multiple people telling me that actually Tucker Carlson getting elected would be a major blow to the deep state, so you know they’re already primed for it. They can’t wait to fall in line behind the next phony Republican populism scam.

Whatever. People will be fed whatever slop they keep asking for. The lesson will keep on repeating until it is learned.

__________________

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I write this from Athens, the birthplace of the only democracy that worked to perfection because it was the selective type. Actually I am fifteen kilometers north of the city, in a wooded area where the well-heeled spend their summers to escape the city’s heat. It is the place where I was born. And every time I set foot here, Fotis, Kostas, and Stavros come to mind. Kostas and Stavros were my father’s chauffeurs, while Fotis was the night watchman of our Athens house. All three were slaughtered during the Communist uprising against the state in December of 1944. The reason for their death was that they worked for a rich capitalist, my old man. Fortunately only Stavros was married, and his wife and daughter remained employed by us for the duration.

Which brings me to the point I wish to make this week: Long before those two non-gentlemen—Marx and Lenin—seduced the public with their lies, the tradition of noblesse oblige reigned supreme. Those with privileges cared about those without. This went on since feudal times, when the lords of the manor took responsibility for those who did not enjoy their advantages. After the bloody Russian revolution, with butchers like Lenin and Stalin at the helm, the principle of relieving poverty by the state became a commitment to removing all wealth inequality, except for those in power, that is.

“Like physical traits such as beauty and strength, we can never be all alike.”

My first memories of my father coming home after the war and immediately having to fight the Communist uprising are still very fresh. Old Dad had shut down his factories while Greece was occupied by the Axis powers, but the Commies nevertheless went after them and burned them down because they were capitalist tools. Just as the three young men who were murdered for working for a capitalist were. But the Reds did not get us, because my father fought back, shooting down the raiders with a submachine gun he had brought back from the wars with him. (The three young men were caught outside our house while taking a break.)

Eighty years on, things are much better, as democratic governments have assumed responsibility to protect all citizens from dire poverty. The system means well, but the outcome, especially of late, is counterproductive. The problem is that of the welfare state. It wants total equality—except for those who make the rules, very similar to the Commies back in the bad old days—an impossibility, a mirage, like doing away with physical ugliness, disease, or even death.

This mirage is what has bankrupted France and soon Britain, and has undermined the capitalist creation of wealth. And it persists despite proof of failure, with slogans such as “A fair society means abolishing all inequalities of wealth.” This bull, needless to say, does not pass muster in America. Over here one gets out of life what one puts into it, although some of our African-American cousins insist their ancestors worked for nothing, hence they should reap the rewards 200 years later.

In Europe nowadays, being on welfare is preferred over working for a minimum wage, the unemployed numbers swelling every year as thousands of African immigrants arrive by sea at the old continent. The corrupt and dysfunctional European Union has paved the way to Europe’s demise with laws such as the above mentioned, but dissenting voices against this most corrupt of bureaucracies are few and far between.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: A British female by the name of Whitney Ainscough makes more than 500,000 pounds per year through social media posts advising people on how to exploit welfare rules. She relates buzzwords and correct answers to her paying readers on how to be awarded more benefits; 25- to 34-year-olds are the largest group of claimants.

So, abolishing all inequalities of wealth is not only a mirage, it is the biggest con I know of. It makes Madoff’s Ponzi scheme a mere bagatelle. The blood-soaked Commies sold this to the unaware, and the socialists persist in conning the public with it. But like physical traits such as beauty and strength, we can never be all alike. The Commies who murdered the three young men who worked for a living have no excuse for living, at least as far as I’m concerned. And the joke as always was on them. My father lived happily to a ripe old age, and so have I. Capitalism does not go down that easy.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

The post The Reality of Inequality appeared first on LewRockwell.

For the entirety of my life I have believed that without justice there is no security and no life.  Justice is more important than national defense, education which today works against justice, and even health.  Justice is based in love, which is why injustice is hated. The problem of our time is that we live in injustice, not in justice.

In the 1980s and 1990s I began reporting on specific cases of injustice. There were the frame ups of child care centers, parents, and grandparents accused of sex abuse of children. I played a role in exposing some of the frame ups, especially the Wenatchee child sex abuse orchestration.  When legislators create a new statute, prosecutors find a way to make hay with prosecutions that boost their all important conviction rates.  When they passed a law that a man could be guilty of raping his own wife, that created a new avenue for women to get rid of unwanted husbands. 

The asset forfeiture laws created an entirely new range of offenses for which an American could be dispossessed of his assets despite the fact that he or she had committed no crime.  Police agents could commit a crime by holding a drug sting on your property and then steal your property for “facilitating a crime.” Your car could be confiscated if you picked up a hitch-hiker who had drugs in his possession.  And so on endlessly.  If you were stopped by police and searched and had more than $100 cash, your money was regarded as intent to buy or sell drugs and could be confiscated.  There were more cases than I could report.

In 2000 my research associate and I published with a division of Random House a book that the publishers titled, The Tyranny of Good Intentions. It sold well for a serious book and a paperback edition followed.

The book establishes many things.  Perhaps the most important is that justice has been subordinated to prosecutorial success.  Prosecutors want high conviction rates, which they get with coerced plea bargains.  Judges love plea bargains, the self-incrimination of which they never challenge because plea bargains clear their courts from time-consuming trials.

I thought the book would have a large impact.  A federal appeal court  cited the book in a ruling, as did a federal district court. And there may have been others of which I am unaware. However, as both the left and the right are committed to using law to get someone, the book did not resonate with the legal profession.  

To be honest, today the justice system should be called the Injustice System, because injustice is what it produces.  Injustice is the product of the system because prosecutors and judges are unconcerned with innocence and guilt.  The prosecutors’ concern is a high conviction rate, easily secured with coerced plea bargains.  The judges’ concern is a cleared court docket. According to official statistics, 97% of all felony cases are settled with plea bargains.  Consequently, the police and prosecutorial evidence against a defendant is never tested in court.  Obviously, defendants and defense attorneys regard juries as tools of prosecutors and understand that the risk of a jury trial is extremely high and that a jury conviction brings a worse sentence than a negotiated plea.  In other words, few defendants expect the system to deliver justice.

As the “justice system” is loaded against justice, this gives power to evil people and to psychopaths.  Any charge they bring will be seen by prosecutors as another conviction.

Let me give a recent example. A man happily married to a woman for 27 years was accused 5 years ago by his wife’s son from a former marriage of sexually abusing him 20 years ago.  The woman has stuck with her husband, not with the son, who has animosities against his stepfather.  No one in the family believes the charges.  

The accused has spent 5 years fighting the charges and the family’s assets have been exhausted with the approval of the family.  The lawyer of the accused has bled the family dry, and then told the accused to plead guilty to a 12 year sentence or otherwise it would be life. 

The accused, abandoned by his attorney, was given 24 hours to self-incriminate, which is what a plea agreement is.

The “evidence” against the accused is a recorded telephone call between the son and the accused.  The son accuses the stepfather of sexual abuse.  The accused, acquiescing to pleas from his wife to try to bring her son back into the family, said that he apologized if he had been less than a perfect stepfather and that the family would welcome his return.  According to the prosecutor, the stepfather’s apology is an admission of sexual abuse, not a general apology for somehow having failed in some way as a parent.

The lawyer of the accused knew of the call for 5 years and did not tell his client of its status as evidence against him until he pressed his client to accept the plea deal.

The accused had an expert analyze the recorded telephone call.  The expert was able to show that there were 16 minutes missing.  These were minutes when the accused took exception to the accusations.

Confronted with the expert evidence, the judge said he would listen to the expert’s report but would nevertheless allow the truncated conversation to be used as evidence.

There you have it.  This is American justice today.  It can happen to you tomorrow.

The injustice is not limited to the stepfather.  The injustice extends to the wife who is left devoid of resources and without a husband.  In twelve years, both will be elderly. Indeed, the entire family is being punished.

Every day more scientific reports appear showing that the Covid “vaccines” are killing and injuring large numbers of people, and that government agencies and medical organizations deceived the public about the “vaccine” risks and prevented effective treatments in order to maximize vaccination.  Yet nothing is done about these enormous crimes.  Instead, the “justice system” focuses on coercing people into self-incrimination.  This is not a society that can ever be made great.

The post Ambition Has Prevailed Over Justice appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Donald Trump doesn’t want the support of anyone who continues demanding the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. That appears to be the message he broadcast in a surprising Wednesday morning social-media diatribe, reinforced by comments he later made at the White House.

Trump characterized the recent flareup brought on by supporters who are angered over the Justice Department’s June 7 Epstein memo as a Democrat-induced “SCAM.” The memo concluded that Epstein killed himself, that there is no client list, and that no “credible evidence” that he blackmailed powerful people exists. The conclusions ignited a firestorm of backlash, most prevalent among his supporters.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, after nine days of persistent criticism, the president accused  his “PAST” supporters of buying into “bullsh*t.” Then he broke up with them, saying:

Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!

This is insane. Trump is calling Epstein the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax”….
Epstein was sex trafficking children. That was NOT a hoax. Trump wants this to go away. Why? This is disgusting behavior. pic.twitter.com/fNIVh36vhP

— Natalie F Danelishen (@Chesschick01) July 16, 2025

“Stupid People”

Trump doubled down later in the day during a White House meeting with Bahrain’s prime minster and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. He referred to those demanding more information as “stupid people” doing the Democrats’ work. He lumped the Epstein “hoax” with the legitimate Russia collusion hoax and the Hunter Biden 51 intel agents propaganda saga.

BREAKING: TRUMP IS ON A TOTAL POLITICAL SUICIDE MISSION!

Trump: “I call it the Epstein hoax.”

“It’s all been a big hoax. It’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans, and foolish Republicans fall into the net… They’re stupid people.” pic.twitter.com/Ai0aAjslQH

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) July 16, 2025

Unclear Position

Why exactly the president claims this to be a hoax is unclear. Epstein was a convicted pedophile. When he died in jail, he was being held on allegations of sex trafficking.

Former Trump national security advisor General Michael Flynn published a social-media post on Wednesday addressed to the president. Flynn prefaced his message with the disclaimer that his criticism came from someone “with the utmost respect and deference to you for all you’ve withstood.” The he said the obvious: The Epstein saga is not a hoax. Echoing the main reason so many are demanding answers, Flynn said transparency was important in order for “a modicum of trust to be reestablished between our federal government and the people it is designed to serve.”

Flynn also pointed out the main reason so many people want answers:

It is NOT about Epstein or the left. It is about committing crimes against CHILDREN. If he were part of an intel operation known or run by our CIA (shame on them) and those responsible MUST be held accountable. If there is another country involved, then shame on them as well. If there are elites inside of our country that committed crimes against CHILDREN (shame on them) and they MUST be held ACCOUNTABLE.

He concluded by recommending that he gather his team and “figure out a way to move past this.”

.@realDonaldTrump I hesitated to write this however, with the utmost respect and deference to you for all you’ve withstood (few know it better than me what the “deep state” can do when they want to turn on a person). The EPSTEIN AFFAIR is NOT about who killed him or if he…

— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) July 16, 2025

Trump himself has said — on multiple occasions — that the Epstein files should be released. In June 2024, Fox & Friends host Rachel Campos-Duffy asked him if he would declassify the Epstein files. Trump said, “Yeah, I would. I guess I would,” he said. His response, however, also included some trepidation. He said afterward that he might not “because you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.”

A few months later, however, in September 2024, podcaster Lex Fridman told Trump it was “very strange” that a list of “clients” who went to Epstein’s island wasn’t known, to which the president replied, “It probably will be [made public], by the way, probably,” adding, “I’d have no problem with it.”

High-ranking members of the Trump administration, including Vice President J.D. Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi have also made public comments in support of releasing the files. Bondi told Fox News in March that a “truckload” of evidence from the Southern District of New York office had arrived at, presumably, main FBI headquarters, and “everything is going to come out to the public” because “the public has a right know.”

The video compilation contrasts the administration’s positions now versus not too long ago.

Remember when the Trump admin kept promising to release the Epstein files? No? We’ve got you. Watch this supercut.

And make sure to subscribe to Zeteo for more: https://t.co/X3GkKbDl2z pic.twitter.com/qdnIZsTLLP

— Zeteo (@zeteo_news) July 8, 2025

Why the Change?

The administration has, obviously, changed its tune. And most critics suspect the story coming out now is nonsense. It not only contradicts public comments made by the very people who are now insisting there is nothing more to see, but piles of research put together by some of the most capable journalists and researchers.

The million-dollar question is: Why?

The Trump administration’s position is creating a rift and alienating supporters. It may even result in political fallout in the 2026 midterms. What forbidden information is worth all that?

Trump has proven incapable of making this story disappear. The administration’s brazen attempt to convince the public there is nothing to see in the Epstein files has only added more fuel to the fire. But, perhaps, it’s the vile acts at the center of the saga that keep this going. The public needs to know if powerful people are raping children and getting away with it. And if so, those people need to be brought to justice — no matter who they are.

This article was originally published on The New American.

The post Trump Calls His Supporters ‘Stupid People’ for Demanding Epstein Files appeared first on LewRockwell.

Cultures and civilizations go through cycles. Over time, many civilizations and cultures have risen and then fallen. We who live in painful times like these do well to recall these truths. Cultures and civilizations come and go; only the Church (though often in need of reform) and true biblical culture remain. An old song says, “Only what you do for Christ will last.” Yes, all else passes; the Church is like an ark in the passing waters of this world and in the floodwaters of times like these.

For those of us who love our country and our culture, the pain is real. By God’s grace, many fair flowers have come from Western culture as it grew over the past millennium. Whatever its imperfections (and there were many), great beauty, civilization, and progress emerged at the crossroads of faith and human giftedness. But now it appears that we are at the end of an era. We are in a tailspin we don’t we seem to be able to pull ourselves out of. Greed, aversion to sacrifice, secularism, divorce, promiscuity, and the destruction of the most basic unit of civilization (the family), do not make for a healthy culture. There seems to be no basis for true reform and the deepening darkness suggests that we are moving into the last stages of a disease. This is painful but not unprecedented.

Sociologists and anthropologists have described the stages of the rise and fall of the world’s great civilizations. Scottish philosopher Alexander Tyler of the University of Edinburg noted eight stages that articulate well what history discloses. I first encountered these in in Ted Flynn’s book The Great Transformation. They provide a great deal of perspective to what we are currently experiencing.

Let’s look at each of the eight stages. The names of the stages are from Tyler’s book and are presented in bold red text. My brief reflections follow in plain text.

1. From bondage to spiritual growth – Great civilizations are formed in the crucible. The Ancient Jews were in bondage for 400 years in Egypt. The Christian faith and the Church came out of 300 years of persecution. Western Christendom emerged from the chaotic conflicts during the decline of the Roman Empire and the movements of often fierce “barbarian” tribes. American culture was formed by the injustices that grew in colonial times. Sufferings and injustices cause—even force—spiritual growth. Suffering brings wisdom and demands a spiritual discipline that seeks justice and solutions.
2. From spiritual growth to great courage – Having been steeled in the crucible of suffering, courage and the ability to endure great sacrifice come forth. Anointed leaders emerge and people are summoned to courage and sacrifice (including loss of life) in order to create a better, more just world for succeeding generations. People who have little or nothing, also have little or nothing to lose and are often more willing to live for something more important than themselves and their own pleasure. A battle is begun, a battle requiring courage, discipline, and other virtues.
3. From courage to liberty – As a result of the courageous fight, the foe is vanquished and liberty and greater justice emerges. At this point a civilization comes forth, rooted in its greatest ideals. Many who led the battle are still alive, and the legacy of those who are not is still fresh. Heroism and the virtues that brought about liberty are still esteemed. The ideals that were struggled for during the years in the crucible are still largely agreed upon.
4. From liberty to abundance – Liberty ushers in greater prosperity, because a civilization is still functioning with the virtues of sacrifice and hard work. But then comes the first danger: abundance. Things that are in too great an abundance tend to weigh us down and take on a life of their own. At the same time, the struggles that engender wisdom and steel the soul to proper discipline and priorities move to the background. Jesus said that man’s life does not consist in his possessions. But just try to tell that to people in a culture that starts to experience abundance. Such a culture is living on the fumes of earlier sacrifices; its people become less and less willing to make such sacrifices. Ideals diminish in importance and abundance weighs down the souls of the citizens. The sacrifices, discipline, and virtues responsible for the thriving of the civilization are increasingly remote from the collective conscience; the enjoyment of their fruits becomes the focus.
5. From abundance to complacency – To be complacent means to be self-satisfied and increasingly unaware of serious trends that undermine health and the ability to thrive. Everything looks fine, so it must be fine. Yet foundations, resources, infrastructures, and necessary virtues are all crumbling. As virtues, disciplines, and ideals become ever more remote, those who raise alarms are labeled by the complacent as “killjoys” and considered extreme, harsh, or judgmental.
6. From complacency to apathy – The word apathy comes from the Greek and refers to a lack of interest in, or passion for, the things that once animated and inspired. Due to the complacency of the previous stage, the growing lack of attention to disturbing trends advances to outright dismissal. Many seldom think or care about the sacrifices of previous generations and lose a sense that they must work for and contribute to the common good. “Civilization” suffers the serious blow of being replaced by personalization and privatization in growing degrees. Working and sacrificing for others becomes more remote. Growing numbers becoming increasingly willing to live on the carcass of previous sacrifices. They park on someone else’s dime, but will not fill the parking meter themselves. Hard work and self-discipline continue to erode.
7. From apathy to dependence – Increasing numbers of people lack the virtues and zeal necessary to work and contribute. The suffering and the sacrifices that built the culture are now a distant memory. As discipline and work increasingly seem “too hard,” dependence grows. The collective culture now tips in the direction of dependence. Suffering of any sort seems intolerable. But virtue is not seen as the solution. Having lived on the sacrifices of others for years, the civilization now insists that “others” must solve their woes. This ushers in growing demands for governmental, collective solutions. This in turns deepens dependence, as solutions move from personal virtue and local, family-based sacrifices to centralized ones.
8. From dependence back to bondage – As dependence increases, so does centralized power. Dependent people tend to become increasingly dysfunctional and desperate. Seeking a savior, they look to strong central leadership. But centralized power corrupts, and tends to usher in increasing intrusion by centralized power. Injustice and intrusion multiplies. But those in bondage know of no other solutions. Family and personal virtue (essential ingredients for any civilization) are now effectively replaced by an increasingly dark and despotic centralized control, hungry for more and more power. In this way, the civilization is gradually ended, because people in bondage no longer have the virtues necessary to fight.

Another possibility is that a more powerful nation or group is able to enter, by invasion or replacement, and destroy the final vestiges of a decadent civilization and replace it with their own culture.

Either way, it’s back to crucible, until suffering and conflict bring about enough of the wisdom, virtue, and courage necessary to begin a new civilization that will rise from the ashes.

Thus are the stages of civilizations. Sic transit gloria mundi. The Church has witnessed a lot of this in just the brief two millennia of her time. In addition to civilizations, nations have come and gone quite frequently over the years. Few nations have lasted longer than 200 years. Civilizations are harder to define with exact years, but at the beginning of the New Covenant, Rome was already in decline. In the Church’s future would be other large nations and empires in the West: the “Holy” Roman Empire, various colonial powers, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French.  It was once said that “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” Now it does. As the West began a long decline, Napoleon made his move. Later, Hitler strove to build a German empire. Then came the USSR. And prior to all this, in the Old Testament period, there had been the Kingdom of David, to be succeeded by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

The only true ark of safety is the Church, who received her promise of indefectibility from the Lord (Matt 16:18). But the Church, too, is always in need of reform and will have much to suffer. Yet she alone will survive this changing world, because she is the Bride of Christ and also His Body.

These are hard days, but perspective can help. It is hard to deny that we are living at the end of an era. It is painful because something we love is dying. But from death comes forth new life. Only the Lord knows the next stage and long this interregnum will be. Look to Him. Go ahead and vote, but put not your trust in princes (Ps 146:3). God will preserve His people, as He did in the Old Covenant. He will preserve those of us who are now joined to Him in the New Covenant. Find your place in the ark, ever ancient and yet new.

This article was originally published on Ultimate-Survival.

The post The Eight Stages of the Rise and Fall of Civilizations appeared first on LewRockwell.

To anyone unfamiliar with the US foreign policy, this certainly sounds like a rather strange interest in a minuscule area that very few people can pinpoint on a map. However, it makes perfect sense, especially when considering the fact that Trump appointed Tom Barrack. It goes to show that Washington DC’s foreign policy is constant and system(at)ic, regardless of the administration. The multipolar world is certainly taking notes and working on a counter-strategy.

The South Caucasus always played a critical strategic role, whether in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or nowadays. Every superpower (whether historic or present) sought to control this volatile region, as it offers unprecedented power projection capabilities. It connects Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, enabling those who control it to dictate how energy and transportation projects will be implemented (or not). Ever since the unfortunate dismantling of the Soviet Union, various regional and global powers have been trying to establish a foothold in the area, particularly by appeasing the oil-rich Azerbaijan. For the United States, its allies, vassals and satellite states, the South Caucasus was a way to further destabilize Russia, particularly in the neighboring North Caucasus, an area wholly within the Eurasian giant, but highly diverse in virtually every sense of the word (ethnicity, religion, culture, etc).

The political West sought to exploit this in order to destabilize the area, particularly through simultaneous support for Islamic radicalism and ethnic nationalism on the one hand, and the extremist neoliberal policies on the other. Unfortunately, there was very little Moscow could do during the 1990s, as it was still trying to reconsolidate itself and prevent further territorial erosion within the Russian Federation itself. After President Vladimir Putin took over, this long-awaited process was finally set in motion, with the Kremlin ending the foreign-backed Chechen War and later intervening in Saakashvili’s Georgia. However, the issue of Armenia and Azerbaijan remained, a frozen conflict up until 2018, when the infamous Nikol Pashinyan (Armenia’s own Saakashvili, just worse) was installed after a NATO-backed coup. His unprecedented betrayal of not just Artsakh (better known as Nagorno-Karabakh), but Armenia itself is pushing the unfortunate country toward destruction.

Pashinyan’s anti-Russian, pro-Turkish and pro-NATO policies have resulted in a strategic disaster for Yerevan, which is now surrounded by enemies on virtually all sides, with the Sorosite regime simultaneously cutting ties with both Russia and Iran, the only two countries in the region that have any interest in making sure Armenia continues to exist. However, Pashinyan has other plans and is actively trying to appease not just Turkey and Azerbaijan, but also the political West, which couldn’t possibly care less what happens to Armenia.

Ankara and Baku are now using Yerevan to connect through its Syunik region. The two Turkic allies refer to it as the Zangezur corridor. For Turkey, controlling this area means that it can finally establish a land bridge with its ancestral lands in former Soviet Central Asia, which is feeding into Erdogan’s delusions of grandeur and fueling the country’s volatile ideological mix of Neo-Ottomanism, political Islam and pan-Turkism.

Although this is a far bigger bite than Ankara can chew, the US-led political West fully supports its aggressive expansionism, primarily because it knows this will inevitably lead to Turkey’s strategic clash with Russia, as well as Iran and China in the long term. Namely, NATO believes that Turkic peoples, whether within Russia or in Central Asia, can play the role of Ukrainians, but actually worse, as these areas are effectively what geopolitical experts call “Russia’s soft underbelly”.

The US-led political West believes that these areas of the former Soviet Union should be destabilized, causing a domino effect that would eventually disrupt Moscow’s counteroffensive in NATO-occupied Ukraine. Simultaneously, the area could also be used as a base of operations against both China and Iran. Beijing’s Xinjiang is particularly vulnerable in this regard, as it has a significant Turkic (specifically Uyghur) population that’s expected to coordinate with Ankara.

In addition, there’s also the question of Iran’s historical province of Azerbaijan, which is a major target for Azeri irredentists. It should be noted that far more Azeris live in Iran’s Azerbaijan than in the homonymous former Soviet republic to the north. However, Baku’s potential ambition to carve up the area and take northwestern Iran for itself is stifled by its small size and the sheer power of Iran. Not to mention that Moscow and Tehran have very close ties and a mutual interest in preventing NATO expansionism in the South Caucasus.

This is precisely why the US is so insistent on moving into the region, more specifically through the aforementioned Zangezur corridor. According to the Middle East Eye, Washington DC seeks to take over the planned transport corridor “in an effort to advance long-stalled diplomatic negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan”. The most prominent proponent of this is US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack.

During a press briefing on July 11, he confirmed America’s interest in the highly contested region. This is effectively the smoking gun of what many independent authors (myself included) have been warning about for years, particularly when it comes to letting Turkey into organizations such as BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). Ankara’s role as the US/NATO’s “Trojan horse” in the South Caucasus and Central Asia is quite evident to anyone willing to take a simple glance at the geopolitical situation.

Namely, the plan to encircle Russia with hostile nations from Northern Europe to Central Asia is slowly being set in motion, with the goal of not only destabilizing the Eurasian giant, but also forcing its leadership into a corner that would inevitably result in a violent reaction. In other words, the political West wants to see Russia maintain a level of constant strategic paranoia that the US can use to further break up the country.

This is pretty obvious to the leadership in Moscow, which is why it seeks to use its resurgent military power to prevent such a scenario. This is precisely why Washington DC is in such a hurry to implement the so-called Zangezur project. The 32-km-long corridor remains a major point of contention between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as they hold diametrically opposite views on how this should be implemented, with the former refusing to give up control over the territory.

“They are arguing over 32 kilometers of road, but this is no trivial matter. It has dragged on for a decade – 32 kilometers of road,” Barrack told journalists during a briefing hosted in New York, adding: “So what happens is that America steps in and says: ‘Okay, we’ll take it over. Give us the 32 kilometers of road on a hundred-year lease, and you can all share it’.”

To anyone unfamiliar with the US foreign policy, this certainly sounds like a rather strange interest in a minuscule area that very few people can pinpoint on a map. However, given everything analyzed in this text, it makes perfect sense. Considering the fact that Trump appointed Barrack, this goes to show that Washington DC’s foreign policy is constant and system(at)ic, regardless of the administration. The multipolar world is certainly taking notes and working on a counter-strategy.

Source infobrics.org

The post US Now Openly Seeks To Encircle Russia Through the So-Called Zangezur Corridor appeared first on LewRockwell.

You asked.

Ron Paul answered!

Enjoy the latest #AskRonPaul — End The Fed, Tariff Turmoil & Global Peace in Pieces

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Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

The post We have always been at war with Eastasia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

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