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Providing transgendered children “puberty blockers” is currently one of the most controversial areas in medicine. Remarkably, little knowledge exists about the safety of these drugs (e.g., when I’ve asked liberal colleagues who support these drugs if they were aware of their dangers, they genuinely shared that they were not aware the drugs had any clinically significant side effects).

Given that hormonal blockers are amongst the most dangerous drugs on the market, I feel it is essential to bring light to the people who they have harmed, and the scandalous 40-year saga that has allowed them to be unjustifiably used for a wide range of medical conditions.

How Hormonal Blockers Work

There are various ways you can block the production of hormones in the body. Since the signal to produce sex hormones (e.g., estrogen and testosterone) begins in the brain, cutting that signal off mainly eliminates the body’s production of hormones. The most potent hormonal blockers, the GnRH agonists, work by overstimulating the brain’s GnRH receptors so that they become “burned out” and no longer respond to the natural release of GnRH in the body, thereby short-circuiting the body’s production of sex hormones (which in many cases is a permanent deactivation).

Note: A variety of different GnRH over-activators are sold, with Lupron, Vantas and Supprelin being the most widely used. Additionally, various drugs, such as Orilissa, instead function by directly blocking the GnRH receptor. Henceforth, I will focus on Lupron.

Testosterone, known to fuel prostate cancer growth, prompted extensive research into reducing its levels. Initially, countering testosterone with an estrogen analog called DES was promising. However, DES was withdrawn due to its severe adverse effects, which included harms to both the children and grandchildren of mothers who took it.

In 1984, a study compared Lupron (which chemically castrates males) to DES for advanced (likely fatal) prostate cancer, finding similar side effects and a slight increase in survival rates. This led to Lupron being approved as an alternative treatment for advanced prostate cancer despite FDA concerns about the study’s flaws and an incomplete understanding of Lupron’s metabolism.

Since that time, a myriad of additional dangers from the drug (e.g., an increase in fatal heart attacks or diabetes) have been uncovered, some of which suggest its reduction in prostate cancer deaths were due to it killing them from something else first.

Over time, Lupron’s usage has broadened beyond advanced prostate cancer to encompass various conditions, including advanced breast cancer, endometriosis, and fibroid pretreatment before surgery. Moreover, its off-label applications have proliferated, ranging from managing gynecological issues to assisting in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) protocols and chemical castration for sex offenders.

Hence, while these drugs were initially developed for men (i.e., prostate cancer), they are frequently given off-label to women. This, for example is why Lupron’s FDA insert states its only indication is for the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer, but it simultaneously warns against pregnant women taking it (even though it’s also used for egg harvesting)

In turn, despite having been on the market for decades, there is very little evidence to show these drugs actually benefit those who take them.

This hence raises the question—why on earth are these drugs so popular?

Selling Lupron

Lupron’s manufacturer faced a rather significant challenge—how could they get doctors to begin prescribing a hazardous and ineffective drug? They accomplished this through one of the most overt acts of physician bribery I’ve seen in American medicine.

Initially facing sluggish sales, Lupron’s manufacturer found a loophole in chemotherapy drug pricing, reformulating Lupron into a long-acting monthly shot for direct administration by urologists. This move allowed them to profit from marked-up prices, exploiting Medicare payments that soared to $1,200 per shot. Bribes and free samples were handed out to urologists to sweeten the deal, though this illegal practice eventually led to an $875 million fine.

The drug’s profitability enticed American urologists to adopt Lupron for increasingly benign prostate cancers, resulting in treatments costing nearly a billion dollars annually by the late 1990s. Medicare payments accounted for 40% of urology practices’ income. Medicare’s intervention in 2001 and 2003 led to reimbursement cuts, curbing Lupron’s excessive use and prompting a drop in inappropriate hormonal treatment rates for prostate cancer (leading to many urologists reporting their income had been halved).

Note: one survey found 53% of the urologists who did not believe prescribing Lupron benefitted certain prostate cancer patients still prescribed the drug to them.

Despite concerns about efficacy, Lupron’s profitability captured other medical specialties, leading to a surge in off-label uses, notably among obstetricians and gynecologists. This proliferation persisted despite poor data on Lupron’s efficacy for gynecological conditions and its exorbitant pricing, with patients often facing bills exceeding $10,000 for a single injection.

The significant markup on Lupron underscores questionable prescribing practices and raises doubts about the drug’s actual value. Patients experiencing adverse effects often encounter disbelief from negatively incentivized doctors, highlighting challenges in obtaining proper treatment and support. These issues underscore the need for greater transparency and ethical standards in pharmaceutical practices to safeguard patient welfare.

Lupron Lawsuits

Due to Lupron’s toxicity, many users have experienced severe and lasting incapacitation, leading to numerous lawsuits. This, in turn, may have deterred competitors from entering the market due to the substantial financial risk associated with potential lawsuits.

Despite numerous lawsuits against Lupron’s manufacturer and prescribing doctors, few have succeeded, even when cases involved clear harm caused by the drug being used for experimental or unapproved purposes. Many individuals injured by Lupron believe that the manufacturer’s extensive legal defenses (funded by the immense profitability of the drug), including alleged actions such as paying off judges or securing gag orders in settlements, make it nearly impossible to win a case. Consequently, many have struggled to find attorneys willing to take on their cases.

Lupron Toxicity

My longstanding interest in understanding pharmaceutical injuries has led me to conclude that Lupron is one of the most dangerous drugs on the market, based on the multitude and severity of reported injuries. Despite growing public pressure against Lupron in the late 1990s, efforts to collect evidence of its harm, such as the National Lupron Victims Network, faced obstacles and even disappeared mysteriously before publishing collected data.

In my research within Lupron support groups, I’ve found that women comprise the largest group of injured individuals, followed by those who took the drug to halt premature puberty, then men, and finally, transgender individuals. Many who took Lupron during puberty are experiencing adverse effects decades later, leading to concerns about similar long-term effects in transgender youth receiving puberty blockers. Notably, specialist reviews have highlighted the lack of controlled studies on Lupron’s use for early puberty or height enhancement, relying instead on expert opinion.

Some of the most commonly reported side effects of Lupron include:

• Significant decrease in bone density, leading to fractures and chronic dental issues such as teeth cracking and unexpected fractures even from minor stressors. This bone loss can occur rapidly and may emerge years after taking Lupron.
• Long-term or permanent damage to female menstrual cycles, with many experiencing failure to return to baseline ovarian function even one year after stopping Lupron. Other hormonal issues like permanent weight gain, abnormal menses, hot flashes, and vaginal atrophy are also frequent.
• Sexual dysfunction, with high rates of impotence reported in males and significant decreases in sexual desire, interest, and intercourse observed in some studies.
• Psychiatric conditions like depression, anxiety, severe mood fluctuations, dysphoria, rage, and suicidality are common after Lupron usage.
• Cognitive dysfunction, including memory loss and brain fog, is frequently reported, particularly among women receiving IVF treatments.
• Heart conditions like coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, strokes, and sudden cardiac death have been associated with Lupron usage, especially in men.
• A study of more than 3000 women found that 76.7% reported joint pain and severe pain throughout the body is commonly reported in support forums.

Because of Lupron’s toxicity, condensing the thousands of heartbreaking injury reports I’ve encountered into this article was incredibly challenging.

Note: the FDA inserts for Lupron (summarized here) reported recipients experienced dozens of severe side effects at rates ranging from 5% to 50% depending on the symptom.

WPATH

Evidence-based medicine was created so that harmful and irrational dogmas within the medical field could be overturned by scientific evidence. While this was initially helpful, the process gradually became corrupted as the pharmaceutical industry realized doctors could be made to believe only the “best” evidence should be trusted and the groups purveying the “best” available evidence (e.g., the premier medical journals) could be easily bought out.

A key part of the push to buy out the “best” evidence has been to create authoritative guideline committees that are tasked with evaluating the existing scientific evidence and coming to a consensus over what constitutes the best practice of medicine. This process is fairly easy to corrupt since the industry can simply pay off the committee.

Take, for example, the handling of COVID-19 treatments. Despite ample evidence supporting the efficacy of affordable options like ivermectin, America’s corrupt (Fauci-appointed) committee chose to only recommend ineffective but expensive treatments like Remdesivir. This pattern repeats in other areas, such as statin usage guidelines, where industry influence skews recommendations to benefit pharmaceutical companies rather than patients.

In the realm of transgender medicine, guidelines set by organizations like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) heavily influence medical practice. Their guidelines advocate for the use of puberty blockers, such as GnRH analogs like Lupron, in various scenarios:

• They recommend administering these drugs at the earliest signs of puberty in transgender children, arguing that early intervention provides greater benefits.
• Puberty blockers are suggested as a temporary measure for adolescents who have undergone some puberty changes but are hesitant about starting hormone therapy.
• They are endorsed for individuals distressed by their body’s menstrual cycles or penile erections, as these drugs alleviate such discomfort by halting menstruation and suppressing testosterone.
• In cases where males seek to achieve female hormone levels, puberty blockers are presented as a solution.
• While they acknowledge the dangers of the cheaper hormonal therapies, they consistently downplay and dismiss the dangers of the more lucrative GnRH analogs.

Those guidelines are troubling for multiple reasons. Due to recent public scrutiny, even more ominous information has come to light in the form of leaked internal documents and correspondence from WPATH.

These leaked documents from WPATH reveal concerning insights into their advocacy for puberty blockers in transgender care:

• They admitted uncertainty about the long-term consequences, essentially treating the use of blockers as a giant experiment.
• Acknowledged significant side effects in children, including permanent loss of libido or orgasm ability, and emotional developmental hindrances.
• Despite claiming reversibility, they knew Lupron’s effects were often irreversible.
• Children receiving blockers were deemed too young to grasp the risks, yet WPATH sought to start treatment as early as possible.

Given all the things I’ve seen the pharmaceutical industry repeatedly do to make money during my lifetime, very few things surprise me these days. Nonetheless, even I was a bit taken aback when I discovered through these documents that there has been a push to affirm “plural identities” (multiple personalities) within WPATH. In turn, there are numerous cases which have been presented at WPATH conferences (e.g., under the umbrella of UCSF—one of America’s premier medical institutions) where each personality of an individual with split personalities was assessed for its sentiments on beginning a gender transition and at least one instance where some of the personalities did not consent but the transition was nonetheless deemed “ethical” and proceeded.

Note: the origins of the puberty suppression experiment stemmed from transgender adults’ dissatisfaction with their transition outcomes and a theory that preventing puberty could improve their final appearance. While it was acknowledged this would lead to inappropriate interventions (e.g., for someone who later realized they didn’t want to transition), they deemed the potential benefit (e.g., a more feminine appearance later in life) outweighed that risk.

Read the Whole Article

The post Hormone Blockers Are Very Dangerous Drugs appeared first on LewRockwell.

1.) America: Freedom to Fascism — In 2005, the movie America: Freedom to Fascism came out. It was written, directed, and produced by a Hollywood producer who did not like what he was seeing in Hollywood or in America. It depicts the stranglehold that the concept of “Real ID” represents in American life. It is worth watching this very day if you have not recently watched it.

2.) Real ID is effectively a federal ID card. You will be uniquely identified in an easily searchable, widely available, federal database for the first time ever. Some will say, “If you are doing nothing wrong, what do you have to worry about?” The justice system has been weaponized. You only need to have the right bureaucrat pay too much attention to you for you to go from innocent to guilty.

3.) Some White Houses are worse — The process of mandatory Real ID has been advanced most by pro-efficiency advocates (and others) in the George W. Bush White House and in the Donald Trump White House. The Democrats have been much more lax about it.

4.) Yes, there are massive databases already, but… — Facebook has databases that include you. They are quite extensive. Lexis Nexus has databases that include you. They are quite extensive. The Social Security Administration has databases that include you. They are quite extensive. They are not as effective as you think they might be, so don’t let down your guard about data collection.

5.) Unique identifiers — Your social security number is a good way to track you and to use as a unique identifier. Your phone number is a better way to track you and use as a unique identifier. Both are imperfect. When non-essential database populators ask for your phone number, I recommend (212) 555-1212. They do not have a good single number for you.

6.) Thanks tech bros — There is not a very effective conglomeration of that information. There is not one central database. The prevalence of newly patriotic tech bros in Washington DC easily will likely come up with an effective way to combine databases. The Real ID is a possible solution to this problem, a problem I don’t want solved. For full disclosure, the people who most often use the term “tech bro,” would probably include me in that designation. I have helped found, build, and scale tech companies.

7.) Lots of inaccuracies — Beware of predictive programming that says to you “They already know everything about you, so what’s the use of protecting yourself.” That’s simply not true. Go find a private detective, or an OSINT professional, or a debt collector, or the assistant of a salesman who needs to make cold calls, all will tell you how hard it is to get accurate information about most people.

8.) Lots of crap — If you or I look at our own Lexis Nexus entries for example, we might find 10 or 20 allegedly unique identities who could be us. There are lots of big databases out there filled with crap.

9.) Your decisions matter. Don’t let them fool you — They really don’t know that much about you. They really, really don’t. There are very simple ways that they can known even less about you. I don’t care how much people claim that apps like Signal or Telegram are compromised. They get rid of 99% of the problems one can have with privacy. I don’t care how much people claim VPNs and TOR are compromised. If used right, they can make life much harder for most of those who want to know what you are up to. I don’t care how much some people claim Monero is compromised or how much Bitcoin oriented privacy tools are compromised or how much someone says cash is traceable. The use of these tools avoid many problems from people who wish to watch you.

10.) Duck Duck Go sucks (sort of) — Duck Duck Go helps make it less likely you will be tracked, but when it comes to censorship, Duck Duck Go is the absolute worst on the list, worse than Google, worse than Yahoo, even worse than the Bill Gates owned Bing. I illustrate that further in a research report I’ve written on the 11 worst internet search engines and the 2 best. That doesn’t mean to stop using Duck Duck Go. It means to always be studying and understanding the tools that you use.

11.) Freedom isn’t free — Constant study is part of the cost of living a more free life. Not everyone accepts that responsibility, so not everyone will get to live free. We live in an era in which the person who wants freedom can have freedom as long as he are willing to dedicate the resources or time and energy to that. Seldom does it even cost that much money. The rest of the population are living in a primitive state of techno-feudalism. You get to decide whether or not you will be a serf.

12.) A more important focus of efficiency — Because there is much information out there about you, in isolated databases, and because often much of it unable to be connected to you, it is important to be diligent about the information you provide to others. Do not long for a more efficient government. Long for your efficient attitude about living a more free life.

13.) Amusement — It’s fun watching the Department of Government Efficiency do their thing. Their press releases are funny. It’s amusing that someone is finally cleaning up some of that rubbish. Be careful confusing cheap laughs with core principles.

14.) More amusement — It’s fun to cheer things like, “Yeah, why are 40,000 people over 115 years old getting Social Security benefits!” But you know what, those millions of dollars are distractions from the fact that we have trillions of dollars of spending that the US Government shouldn’t engage in. Where does the constitution even say that it is okay for Social Security to exist? What happened to that question? Be careful when you are passionately agreeing with anything Sean Hannity is saying. There is a good chance that when you do agree with programming like that, that you are being misdirected from core principles.

15.) Twitter purchase makes sense — Elon Musk owns the largest satellite network, the closest thing to an interplanetary travel network, the most important electric car manufacturer, the most advanced brain chip manufacturer, sizable cryptocurrency portfolio, with tremendous influence over the cryptocurrency called DOGE, and the most important micro-blogging platform. His purchase of Twitter was an enigma to some. It should be no enigma. Nor was it altruistic. His purchase of Twitter was the missing link in that collection of companies. He is the best positioned person to bring an effective social credit system to the United States. Twitter is the platform that can best be used to link his companies.

16.) Are those Musk’s intentions? — Do I think he will do that? Do I think Elon Musk will usher in an American social credit score? I have no idea. As a man who seeks to live free, I am covetous of my freedom. You, too, may want to be. The details here listed in this entire piece of writing are not inconsequential and isolated. They need not be conspiratorial, either. They are worth noting. And your role in them is worth being attentive to.

17.) Many missed deadlines — May 7, 2025 all people are to have a Real ID to travel on commercial flights. The deadline has been extended many times. There are states that won’t be able to meet that deadline sufficiently for an efficient and smooth transition. Just poke around at DMV websites and keep an eye out for frenzied posts along those lines to answer that question of which states are not meeting the deadline.

18.) The only newsworthy point in this article — If the deadline stands, those citizens without their name in the federal ID database will be second class citizens unable to contract with commercial airlines. I’m not that bothered by that. Sometimes consequences are okay. The consequence is worth noting. Why the news covers this single topic and none of the other topics in this piece of writing is worth asking as well. Are you being well-served by a news source that only mentioned this one detail: “May 7, 2025 all people are to have a Real ID to travel on commercial flight”? That’s a question for you to answer.

19.) Red state v. Blue state — Red states tend to be have more efficient government and more obedient government. Obedient to whom? To perceived authority. That authority need not be legitimate, only perceived. Be careful in red states. They are better at putting the jackboot on the neck.

20.) Laxity around freedom — America has a population of slaves, not a free population. If we were handed a free country tomorrow, few of us would know what to do with it. It must be run. It must be managed. Freedom is not had without societal structure. We have an immoral people unwilling to do the hard work to live free. I do not mean to point a finger when I say that. The reality is that each person is likely lax in that area. You and I both probably have ways that we are lax in that area. Freedom is a direction and a mindset. It is not a destination.

21.) Leadership — In this period in history, America is generally-speaking poorly led. Leadership can have an impact on a people. We may change from a nation of slaves to a free people sooner than any of us realize. How are you, dear reader, rising to the occasion and embracing the opportunity by leading those around you? This is a question each on of us must ask ourselves.

22.) Slippery slopes are real. 

23.) Christianity — Christianity is the central non-governmental structure at the heart of American freedom. It’s remnants are the only thing keeping us from tyranny. Christian expression tends to be more free at times or less free and is certainly not homogenous. Commerce plays a secondary role. It too tends to be more free at times or less free. Those serious about living in a free country will be serious about upholding each of these two topics. I was once an atheist. Thankfully, I no longer am. Even in those dark days of abject atheism, I understood how much the Christian nature of America mattered to my well-being. Regardless of personal theological beliefs, there is no one who is a passionate advocate of freedom who should have any hesitation promoting these two notions as good for American freedom.

24.) The foundation matters — We must be very careful of any government not solidly built on those ideals. We must be careful of all government. Living lives solidly built on those ideals and crafting a government that upholds those ideals is how we get a government solidly built on those ideals.

25.) It’s amusing — It’s fun watching the Department of Government Efficiency do their thing. Their press releases are funny. It’s amusing that someone is finally cleaning up some of that rubbish.

26.) A better option — I don’t want a more efficient government. I want a sloppy, ineffective government walking around with its head in its rear end.

27.) Then what? — Once we have an efficient government, we will not know what to do with it. That is the present nature of the American population. That is also the nature of the freedom movement and the nature of conservatism. People just want to be left alone. That makes Trump (possibly) a four year reprieve from the tyranny. That means, whether he intends to or not, the Trump Administration is building a more effective and efficient enemy of human freedom. Our founding fathers understood that government is the greatest enemy of human freedom. If you read the US Constitution, you know that they invented a slow-moving inefficient government not an efficient one.

28.) Self-entrapment — I don’t know what happens next with Real ID. I know that Americans should not take a single step closer to more efficient government control over our individual lives.

29.) Be ungovernable. — I don’t know what that looks like in your life. I hardly know what it looks like in my life. This remains a useful principle to live by. Many reading this may have already gotten their Real ID. Recognize what you have done. Recognize that your every decision matters. Recognize your ability to impact your own life and the lives of those around you. And be ungovernable.

30.) Affections mean little — I like President Trump. That doesn’t mean in need to give the US government one more tool to enslave me with. Be cautious as you give government tools to enslave you with.

31.) It’s day 83 — Less than 90 days ago, you had a government that openly despised you. Is it really time to be Pollyanna-ish and compliant?

The post Some Reminders About Real ID — 31 To Be Exact appeared first on LewRockwell.

The move can only exacerbate America’s debt crisis, particularly after it reached $35 trillion last year and is expected to go over $40 trillion next year. Experts are warning that the latest increase in military spending will likely add at least another trillion to the already rapidly growing debt and that budget cuts are yet to affect the Pentagon, adding that the US military “does precisely nothing to defend the USA” and that it “exclusively interferes in other countries”.

Remember when President Donald Trump promised to make the US military “far more powerful, but for much less money”? Remember when he pledged to end the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours? Well, me neither. In all seriousness, we can always say that Trump is a politician and that truth or consistency are not exactly the defining qualities of any politician.

On the other hand, the Messianic Complex among many Trumpists is certainly concerning, as there’s little questioning of Trump’s policies. He’s most definitely a very polarizing figure. The vast majority of people are either his staunch supporters or have TDS (Trump derangement syndrome). This prevents a more objective view of his performance, both at home and abroad.

Namely, Trump is exposed to numerous interest groups, many of which have very diverging views on how America should be. The old Deep State sees him as the greatest threat to “Pax Americana” and wants him out at all costs (including through physical removal), while other interest groups think extreme measures are unnecessary and that simply influencing Trump’s decision-making is more than enough.

The latter seem to be leading the charge, while the remnants of the previous administration are engaged in largely pointless protests. However, despite superficial enmity between them, there’s a quite solid continuity in many policies of the two administrations. This is particularly true when it comes to foreign policy and financing the US military.

In the case of the former, the Biden administration’s crawling economic warfare against the European Union (primarily through the destruction of its trade with Russia while the US continued to buy critical commodities from Moscow and even resell them to Europe) has been augmented by Trump’s trade wars.

In the case of the latter, there’s a robust continuity with virtually every US administration in the last 35 years (at the very least). Namely, the consistent increase in American military spending is a clear indicator that the same people are making the final decision on this issue, regardless of who’s in power. The Trump administration’s latest announcement regarding the US “defense” budget effectively proves this is precisely the case.

Namely, on April 7, President Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon will get its first $1 trillion. Interestingly, what should’ve been breaking news was sidelined by global panic regarding the impact of new tariffs. In his usual manner of using superlatives, Trump said that “nobody’s seen anything like it”, adding that “we have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something we have to build, and we have to be strong”. It’s certainly commendable to see a government exercise “cost-consciousness”, with Trump employing Musk’s DOGE to be “the ultimate auditing organization”. However, giving a trillion dollars to the unaudited US military sounds like anything but frugality.

On paper, the administration has been adamant about cutting excess government spending, so this move doesn’t make much sense (unless all the auditing was designed to help find the money for the Pentagon). The logical conclusion is that Trump is exposed to the influence of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) just as much as any other president.

Hegseth was certainly happy with the arrangement, as evidenced by his announcement on Twitter/X where he thanked Trump and presented the development as something “fantastic for everyone”. It would be interesting to see what American taxpayers think about the fact that their money will be invested in more death and destruction instead of restoring America’s crumbling infrastructure.

As previously mentioned, the first official $1 trillion for the US military was only a matter of time, as the troubled Biden administration announced it two years ago, when it pledged to double the Pentagon’s budget. The latest increase is in line with this plan, as the actual US DoD spending has been well over $1 trillion for years (many of its expenses are distributed to other departments). In addition, the Biden administration’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was officially $895 billion, so the latest increase is nothing out of the ordinary and is in line with regular spikes in military spending with every US government in recent history. This certainly breaks the Trump administration’s attempts to present itself as “anti-establishment”.

In addition, the move can only exacerbate America’s debt crisis, particularly after it reached $35 trillion last year and is expected to go over $40 trillion next year. Experts are warning that the latest increase in military spending will likely add at least another trillion to the already rapidly growing debt and that budget cuts are yet to affect the Pentagon, adding that the US military “does precisely nothing to defend the USA” and that it “exclusively interferes in other countries”.

And indeed, Trump’s reshuffling at the Pentagon was largely political and never affected its financing. Worse yet, he also supports continued US aggression in the Middle East, where a war with Iran is looming. In addition, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wants to expand the US nuclear sharing policy.

This originally appeared on InfoBrics.

The post Here We Go Again – $1 Trillion for US ‘Defense’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Calculating How Long Your Food Stockpile Will Last

To get the total number of days your stockpile will last, you need to take the:

Total calories in your stockpile ÷ Calories your family needs per day

Let’s start with the top half of the equation.

Calculating How Many Calories You Have

Ideally, your pantry is well organized, making the process much faster.

But if it’s not…perhaps this will allow you to do so…?!?

Because you’re about to take inventory.

Yup. Just like ALL successful retail businesses do regularly.

Now you may ask, “Should I count EVERYTHING” on my shelves?

If it’s shelf stable and you replace it regularly, then YES, count it.

Sure, some items will fluctuate as you use them up and then buy more.

But a snapshot of the shelf life stable calories in your pantry is “close enough” …

Obviously count all freeze-dried foods, MREs, canned meats, and #10 Cans.

Also, don’t count ANY calories in your refrigerator or freezer.

Power outages make freezers highly vulnerable disaster appliances.

The only exception is if you have a robust backup energy plan or you are already living off the grid.

A robust backup energy plan means having a Power station (or a generator with a few weeks of fuel).

Otherwise, I DON’T count your refrigerated and frozen goods.

I used a simple spreadsheet for this to help make the calculations easy. Plus, I can sort and filter as needed later with a spreadsheet.

Start by making a few columns titled:

1. Food – Brand
2. Number of items (pouches, bags, containers)
3. Servings Per Container
4. Calories per Serving
5. Total Calories

Once you fill out an entire row with that info, multiply the “number of items” by the “servings per container” by the “calories per serving.”

This will give you the number of calories you have in your inventory for THAT specific food item.

Now, you need to be careful here.

I added the Brand to the first column because not ALL brands use the same servings/calorie info.

For example:

Separate Brands of canned beans may seem identical but often are not.

The difference can add up, especially if you have a lot of dried beans…

Now, IF the foods are the same, AND the info per serving is the same, you can put them in the same line.

Otherwise, if any of those numbers are different, add a new line item.

Now keep going and inventory everything that makes sense for you.

Once done, you should add up all the calories.

And now you know exactly how much non-perishable food you currently have.

This calorie number may seem massive if you’ve got a decent-sized stockpile.

Perhaps even a few hundred thousand calories, like 358,753 or something like that.

WOW. Massive, right? Not so fast…

Having your total calories may seem like an important number to know, but it’s not all that helpful…yet.

Why? Because it’s relative to the size of your family, right?

For example, 358,753 calories is a stellar long term food storage for a retired couple of 2.

But what about a growing family of 5? Not so much.

That’s why we need to figure out how many calories YOUR family consumes each day…

How Many Calories Does Your Family Need Per Day?

At first, this may seem like a difficult task, but with the proper tools, it’s easy.

You must figure out how many replacement calories each family member needs daily.

1. And this is NOT the same for males and females.
2. It’s also NOT the same for babies, kids, young adults, adults, or mature adults.
3. And it’s NOT the same for those who live an active or sedentary lifestyle.

You need to consider ALL 3 of these variables to make an educated guess.

The good news is I created a simple chart to do just THAT.

You can use this chart to determine your sex, age, and activity level for each family member.

Then add up each number.

The TOTAL is how many calories you’re family needs per day.

Now, THIS is a very good number to know!

This is the number you need to figure out how long your food stockpile will last.

Your Final Calculation

Take your total calories and divide by your family’s daily calorie requirement.

Viola! THAT new number is a very good approximation of How Long Your Current Food Stockpile Will Last.

Perhaps your number is 58.63 days?

That means you’re very close to having 2 months’ worth of food in your emergency stockpile.

Now, of course, you may be able to ration those calories a bit in a longer-term emergency.

But I don’t recommend “rationing” your calculation.

Why? Because I’d rather underestimate the duration of my stockpile by a few days and NOT the other way around.

Said another way, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised…

You now know how long you have before starvation begins after the grocery store shelves go bare.

Read the Whole Article

The post How Much Emergency Food Should You Keep at Home? appeared first on LewRockwell.

In its effort to combat homelessness, Los Angeles County and the city itself and other cities in the county will spend more than $2 billion dollars this year on its 70,000 or so vagrants.

That works out to be about $30,000 per drooping head.

And that does not include the state’s direct funding of anti(?)-homelessness programs or the food stamp and Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California) and direct cash and Social Security disability and other benefits that total up to about another $24,000 a year.

And that does not include the value of the free rent provided to hundreds of people in a number of “permanent supportive housing” facilities, including those that have been recently built at a cost of between $700,000 and, in Santa Monica,$1 million dollars per 600-square-foot studio apartment unit.

Amazingly, in LA and throughout the state, spending on solving homelessness has more than doubled over the past decade or so. What else pretty much doubled while all this money was being spent? The homeless population.

Obviously, no real dent has been made in the problem – the number of homeless people has only increased and, still, three or four homeless people die on the streets of LA every day.

The problem has only grown as the funding has grown – not in any way a coincidence and if you are wondering about the chicken and egg situation, don’t bother: the spending has essentially preceded the rise in the number of homeless people.

More homeless, more money…for the massive homelessness industry that has metastasized in California over the past decade.

The industry – made up of catastrophically, almost comically, inept theoretical non-profits that continue to fail miserably but pay staff very well, political cronies, and actual relatives of the government officials doling out the money – has done very well and made quite a bit of bank off of the suffering of others.

That, however, may finally be put under the microscope with the developments of the past week or so because people in a position to make changes have actually begun to notice the problem.

Well, it’s hard not to. An audit of the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) – a joint agency of the city and county that is rapidly crumbling – showed the agency really couldn’t explain explain where billions of dollars went.

It got spent, of course, but no one seems quite sure on what; an audit of the state’s homelessness programs found a similar issue, again ranging into the billions of dollars.

Well, at least one expenditure is a certainty: $2 million dollars to a “non-profit” operated by the husband of erstwhile LAHSA chief Va Lecia Adams Kellum.

Before resigning, Adams Kellum said she was not part of the expense’s approval, absolutely did not recall approving the expense, let alone signing the check. Trust me.

Adams Kellum – hired in 2023 as a “change agent’ – was a close ally of Mayor Karen Bass. She advised her directly before and after the election and Bass’s daughter worked at the non-profit Adams Kellum ran before being hired to run LAHSA.

From an LA Times story on the appointment:

Getting a Bass ally into this role does potentially signal a change in the city’s orientation and attitude toward LAHSA — one that views the agency less as an obstruction that should be circumvented and more as one that can aid and augment the resources that city government is already putting forward.

Public officials and services providers — even harsh critics of LAHSA — indicated broad excitement over the appointment, stemming mostly from Adams Kellum’s work in various communities on street homelessness.

“It seemed like the most hopeful time to make change because as all of us have said, the key is the city and county working together,” Adams Kellums said.

Last week, the county pulled out of LAHSA after which Adams Kellum resigned (rather embarrassingly, actually – in defending the agency she was not even recognized as a fellow government person but relegated to the “public comments” period when all the crazies speak…and she had her mic cut off.)

And the other funder of the agency – the city – is almost about to do the same thing and pull out.

Now, fewer levels of bureaucracy are always a good thing, but the idiots who have run LAHSA over the past years will almost certainly be picked to run the separate programs (doncha love civil service protections?) and do not have to worry about soon becoming a client of the city and/or county.

Another nightmare for the homelessness industry is Judge David Carter, who sits on the federal bench and has been trying to act as somewhat of an overseer of the programs since a lawsuit was filed about five years ago (fyi – back then, the homeless lobby loved him because he ordered more beds be created, options given, etc. Now, not so much.)

As part of this effort, he ordered an audit of LAHSA. It did not go well.

In fact, it was so bad that when he asked various and sundry LA area officials to show up in his courtroom to explain themselves, they didn’t turn up (Bass eventually wandered in but said essentially nothing.) As to LAHSA’s efforts, the judge said this:

“If they were going to do it, they should have done it, or they should have given you a road map now of … how they’re going to do it.”

In fact, the audit was even more worser – the judge openly wondered about whether he should put everything into receivership and essentially run everything himself.

But even more importantly worser than the implosion of LAHSA (by the way, it had an overhead budget of about $400 million alone) is the announcement from the new SoCal federal prosecutor Bill Essayli.

He has announced a federal criminal investigative task force to try to figure out the incestual rat’s nest that is LA’s (and California’s) anti(?)-homelessness funding systems.

Note – the question mark after “anti” has been intentional both times it has been used, because the people that pay their mortgages “fighting” homelessness would not be able to do that if they actually solved the problem.

“Taxpayers deserve answers for where and how their hard-earned money has been spent. If state and local officials cannot provide proper oversight and accountability, we will do it for them,” said Essayli, a Republican and former State Assemblymember who was appointed to his post by Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi last week.

The Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force will “investigate crimes related to the misappropriation of federal tax dollars intended to alleviate homelessness” in the Central District of California, which covers an estimated 20 million people across seven counties.

Along with reviewing federal, state and local programs that receive federal grants and funding, the task force will “investigate fraud schemes involving the theft of private donations intended to provide support and services for the homeless population,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

As the entire homelessness industry has been operating in the netherworld of political grease, outright graft, and devastating failure, Essayli’s new effort must have many poverty plutocrats shaking in their well-heeled boots.

This originally appeared on The Point.

The post LAHSA Oopso appeared first on LewRockwell.

The following is the Introduction to my new book, At the Lost and Found (Clarity Press).

My dear mother, who had an artistic temperament that tended at times toward the sentimental, liked to call me a contrarian. She was right. I think she liked but feared this inclination of mine that started in childhood. It no doubt has many roots, some of which an artful reader may sense in the essays in this book, for while I have written about the lies and coverups of the ruling elites, I have tried to do so in a self-revelatory way, even in the writing where it is couched in pure artifice.

I have always felt that conventional life was a provocation because it hid more than it revealed; that it harbored secrets that could not be exposed or else the make-believe nature of normal life would collapse like a cardboard set. That people were performing for some invisible director that they couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize. I always wondered why.

There is nothing profound in this tendency of mine, except the powerful force of it throughout my life. Like everyone, I was ushered onto this Shakespearean stage and have acted out many roles assigned to me but always with the inner consciousness that something was amiss. Everyone seemed to be playing someone, but who was the player? Who was I?

Because I grew up in a large literate family where our sizable bookcase was filled with great literary classics, I have always loved to read. I noticed early on that the great writers focused on this performative nature of social life, and this strengthened my burgeoning artist’s eye. I particularly remember the family set of Mark Twain’s books that drew me in this direction, his humorous ways of puncturing social hypocrisy.

My writing was born within all my reading, including my grandparents’ large and colorfully illustrated volume of Arabian Nights that I would sneak a peek at from time to time. Then there was my father’s witty storytelling where he would regale me with his improvised tales drawn from the metaphoric well of Pinocchio’s theatrically duplicitous adventures.

By the time I was a young man, my mind was a vast store-house of words, phrases, metaphors, tunes, memorized lines of poetry, etc. that sometime I could consciously recall but that often would just pop up like jack-in-the boxes to startle and amuse me. This has continued throughout my life – even as I never tried to remember it all and even tried to forget much of it. My forgettery has always been my faithful servant.

I am telling you this for a few reasons. One is that I have noticed that many writers seem afraid to reveal who they are or what motivates them to write. They hide the personal side behind a false objectivity. This is especially true for writers whose focus is political and involves public and cultural affairs, as does much of mine.

I think of Thoreau’s words: “We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking.”

And that person, with all their hopes, dreams, desires, politics, ambitions, personal relationships, predilections, habits, faith, despair, etc., informs their work, no matter how seemingly authoritative and objective it may sound. What that person wants from writing or any art is a fair question, just as it is the core existential question for everyone: What do you want and why? What are you seeking by doing what you are doing? What is your goal?

Readers want and need to know something (not everything) about the person whose hand pens the words they are reading. It is a normal human response to ask, “Well, where is this person coming from; what’s in it for him?”

It is banal to say that one has learned so much from so many others, but it’s very true in my case. Not just the living but all those who have preceded me and whose words and creativity have become part of who I am, my memories, all that I have read, heard, seen, and forgotten but emerges when I write, in ways I realize or not.

It is mysterious; it happens through osmosis, but in the end one hopes the result is creative and new and that the writing is a place of epiphanies.

I admit that I am possessed by language and that it precedes the content of what I write. Maybe words possess me. I don’t know, nor do I care. I just know it’s so. So the mélange of the wide-ranging and free-wheeling essays that result, their multifarious styles and content, fits with my contrarian personality that seeks to do both astute political analyses and art in luminescent words and sentences that pulsate. I think of them as beyond a cage of categories and intertwined lovers.

I wrote the essays in this book between late summer 2019 and 2024. The topicality of many will be apparent, but I hope you will find in them more than contemporary relevance. I hope you will find me, Ed Curtin, one man who lived through these strange and disturbing years and responded in his own way. One man whose core concerns are essentially no different from the serious contrarian poets, writers, journalists, philosophers, musicians, painters, and artists throughout world history.

There are those who are trying to mechanize us all, to eliminate passion and will, to transmute love into a chemical and hate into a biological aberration. They seem to be succeeding, but they will fail. One reason I have written these essays is to oppose these scoundrels and their ilk who kill and wage endless wars against innocents around the world. Another is to try to create something that will delight and last a little while. I believe that writing is my vocation and that I am answering a call, and if there is any credit due, it is beyond me.

It is a very cruel world, as events over these last few years have confirmed. It is hard to wake up in the morning and hear the news. It leaves one with a sense of lostness that must be fought. The spirit of resistance can be found in many places, including poetry and song. I often remember the words of a poet that my mother had memorized and liked to recite, William Wordsworth, whose romanticism flows in my veins as well. He ended his great poem “Intimations of Immortality” thus: “Thanks to the human heart by which we live,/Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,/To me the meanest flower that blows can give/Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

Nietzsche was right about writers when he said their work is a personal confession, “a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir.” No doubt this is true for me.

Finally, I hope that in reading this book you will find the words of Yuri Zhivago in the novel of death and resurrection, Doctor Zhivago, by the great Russian poet and novelist, Boris Pasternak, echoing in your mind. As he contemplates being possessed by the mystery of inspiration while writing poems, Yuri writes this: “Language, the home and dwelling of beauty and meaning, itself begins to think audible sounds but by virtue of the power and momentum of its inward flow.”

Since Zhivago means “living” in Russian, it is my wish that these essays live in your memory like the sound of music deeply felt, the same inward flow I felt when writing them.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

The post At the Lost and Found appeared first on LewRockwell.

Apparently sound money has no meaning for those controlling the money supply, which is purported to be in the hands of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve System.  Sound money and states don’t get along, neither do sound money and banks.  About the only people who would benefit from sound money are people who use it to buy groceries or pay for their kids’ education.  And those who save for rainy days and expect it to be there and worth something when they need it.

But if we don’t have sound money what is it we’re using?  It goes by the name of fiat money — paper or digits without economic value in themselves.  Gold has various non-monetary uses, such as jewelry, technology and medicine.  Fiat money?  In some cases it’s been a source of poignant  creativity.  Photos from the German hyperinflation of 1923, such as a lady wearing a dress made from nearly worthless currency, entertains onlookers while trying to remind them of a tragedy.  (At one point 4.2 trillion marks equaled one American dollar.)  Insanity at this level is only possible when the state shows up with legal tender laws, thereby forcing market participants to accept its depreciating currency. If money holds the potential to control resources or acquire property, then fiat money, even if it loses value by the hour, qualifies as a medium of exchange.

Aside from occasional excesses such as in Weimar Germany, should we care whether money is sound or not?  People who sit on the FOMC are well-qualified academically and many have banking and investment experience which in some cases is global.  Surely they know what’s best for the economy and whether interest rates need adjusting — notwithstanding their Smith-Hayek “conceit” and generations of evidence to the contrary.  In past years one of them has even been sympathetic to a gold standard — Alan Greenspan, author of the insightful 1966 article “Gold and Economic Freedom,” who served as Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006.

Greenspan, in fact, was more than sympathetic.  In discussing the Fed’s monetary policy of the 1920s, he slammed the “paper reserves” the Fed used to augment gold deposits, which “nearly destroyed the economies of the world.”  His article was brilliant and original in many respects, condemning deficit spending as “a scheme for the confiscation of wealth” and that without “the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.”  But his comments on the banks’ practice of fractional reserve banking leaves me wondering if he actually understood it:

Individual owners of gold are induced, by payments of interest, to deposit their gold in a bank (against which they can draw checks). But since it is rarely the case that all depositors want to withdraw all their gold at the same time, the banker need keep only a fraction of his total deposits in gold as reserves.

Lost in his explanation is any distinction between demand deposits and time deposits, though he could hardly be faulted for not mentioning it.  Thanks to a series of rulings beginning with Carr v. Carr 1811 UK a banker was no longer considered a custodian or bailee in any deposit contract, obligated to return the funds deposited on demand.  The law made the banker a debtor, and though required to “repay the principal” the deposited money was his “to do with as he pleases.” (Foley v Hill and Others 1848).

The distinction between a warehouse bank and a loan bank was thus discarded over time.  Banks own the money you deposit and it immediately becomes subject to bank-lending multiplication.  As with any debtor they may or may not have it when you claim it, though the public counts on it being there at all times.

In the UK, MP Douglas Carswell introduced a bill in 2010 aimed at ending fractional reserve banking by declaring there would “henceforth be two categories of bank account: deposit-taking accounts for investment purposes, and deposit-taking accounts for storage purposes.”  If enforced, this transformation would eliminate the maturity mismatch between assets and liabilities and force credit expansion from real savings only.  The public would need to be aware that a time deposit was a loan to a bank, with the usual risks it entails.  Banks would operate without legal privileges, the one thing they have sought to avoid through a fiat system of central banking and deposit insurance.  The Carswell bill, of course, did not progress beyond its first read and lapsed soon after.

(The bill had an innocent-sounding title: To prohibit banks from “lending on the basis of demand deposits without the permission of the account holder.”  Banks could argue that the bill would force them to charge a fee that account holders could avoid by granting permission to lend their deposits in exchange for “free” banking,  Banks could promote their spotless records in recent times and claim depositors had nothing to gain and something to lose by withholding permission.  To the public whose money would constitute the deposits, granting permission would seem a no-brainer — though the British public might know better.)

Tricks of the (government) trade

Article IX of the Articles of Confederation says

The united states, in congress assembled, shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective states . . .

Nowhere is there a mention of paper money, the abuses of which led to Shay’s Rebellion and helped excite interest in a Constitutional Convention.  One might hope the Constitution would clear up the matter.  James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 44: “The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, is withdrawn from the states, on the same principle with that of striking of paper currency.”

The Constitution, following Madison’s comments, says in Article 1, Section 10: “No State shall… coin Money;  emit Bills of Credit;  make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…”. States, therefore, could not print their own money or make anything other than gold and silver coin legal tender.  But the door was open for Congress to authorize or forbid issuing paper money.  Subsequent court cases (particularly Knox v. Lee, 1871) settled the matter, giving Congress the power to issue fiat money even in peacetime.

Conclusion

Is sound money today a political possibility?  Mises defined sound money in chapter 21 of his Theory of Money and Credit:

The sound-money principle has two aspects. It is affirmative in approving the market’s choice of a commonly used medium of exchange. It is negative in obstructing the government’s propensity to meddle with the currency system.

Franz Oppenheimer defined the constitutional State this way:

Let us give the mechanics and kinetics of the modern state a moment’s time.  In principle, it is the same entity as the primitive robber state or the developed feudal state. (p. 124)

Both Mises and Oppenheimer are right. We are ruled by thieves, and sound money is no advantage to these looters.  The road to a true sound money economy will require a collapse of the political institutions obstructing it.

The post Is Sound Money Politically Impossible? appeared first on LewRockwell.

In 1997, a group of future members of George W. Bush’s administration co-signed onto the “Project for the New American Century.“ The statement of its core principles declared:

“we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.“

In the following years, the Bush administration in the Middle East occupied Iraq using fabricated allegations of its development of weapons of mass destruction and in the following years attacked other Middle Eastern countries.

In 2023, the U.S. Republican Party published a book titled “Project 2025,” outlining its policy agenda for the 2024 presidential election. The 922-page book mentioned China 483 times. It stated:

By far, the greatest danger to the security, freedom, and prosperity of Americans is China… China seeks to achieve a dominant position in Asia and, based on that position, global dominance. If Beijing succeeds in this goal, it could dramatically undermine America’s most fundamental interests, including restricting U.S. access to the world’s most important markets. Preventing this from happening must be the highest priority of U.S. foreign and defense policy… It is no longer certain that America holds an information and technological advantage. China’s progress and intense focus on emerging technologies have, in some areas, shifted it from a near-peer competitor to likely surpassing the U.S… The United States must ensure that China does not succeed… U.S. defense strategy must clearly identify China as the top priority for American defense planning.

The Chinese threat to American global dominance was undoubtedly on President Joe Biden’s mind already when he insisted on rejecting Russia’s demand for Western guarantees that Ukraine would not join NATO. He was fully aware that this would provoke Russia into attacking Ukraine, dragging it into a war where the U.S. and its allies could support Ukraine and strip Russia of its status as a world power. In doing so, he completely disregarded the fact that parts of Ukraine identified with Russia and have no desire to join the EU or NATO.

The Russia-China alliance had been obstructing the U.S. from completing its domination of the Middle East and its oil reserves, which were vital to much of the industrial world— if the USA controlled those reserves, they would control as well the countries importing them for their industry. To finalize this plan and weaken the Russo-Chinese bloc, the U.S. needed Russia’s defeat in Ukraine to pave the way. That’s why Joe Biden rejected Moscow’s demands for Western assurances against NATO expansion, which would have prevented NATO nuclear weapons from being stationed within a 10-minute flight from Moscow.

He knew this would push the world to the brink of global war, but he gambled on the hope that, after weakening Russia, the U.S. could eventually subdue China as well. However, Russia-China cooperation has severely complicated this American ambition. Russia began gaining the upper hand in the Ukraine war, and the hope of a U.S. (and EU-backed) victory over the Russo-Chinese bloc has been fading.

The new U.S. President, Donald Trump, therefore decided to shift America’s strategy—turning the U.S. war against Russia and China into a U.S. and Russia alliance against China. However, the only chance for this strategy to succeed was to cede at least the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine to Russia, block NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders with Ukraine, and thus eliminate the threat of Russia losing a nuclear war with the West. In other words, it meant preserving Russia’s status as a global power—a status the U.S. had been undermining through its actions in Ukraine. With this goal in mind, Donald Trump initiated negotiations with Russia.

Russia, likely weary of the conditions China had imposed in exchange for its support, entered the talks with a dual risk: it could lose Chinese backing but also held out hope that China might unconditionally increase its support. If Russia were to lose China’s support, it would become an easy prey for the U.S.

Vladimir Putin announced on April 1, 2025 that his most esteemed guest at the celebrations for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II would be Xi Jinping. He invited him to the celebrations, stating that he would prepare for him a “nice and rich” program and that he would be “our main guest,” and that he planned to discuss mutual relations and cooperation in international organizations, including the UN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS.  This indicated to both Trump and Xi Jinping that Putin could still return to an alliance with China. The continuation of the conflict between the alliance of Russia with China against the alliance of the USA with the EU posed a dangerous threat of a world war.

Ukrainian army captured two Chinese soldiers on April 8, 2025, who were fighting in the Russian army. In the face of such an alliance, the EU, in conjunction with the USA, and possibly Great Britain and Australia, has no hope. A global conventional and subsequently nuclear war between these factions could only destroy life on this planet.

The ideal solution for all parties involved would be to reach an agreement, instead of a world war, to end the struggle for global power by creating a democratic United Nations, where decisions regarding potential military interventions against aggressors would be made by a majority vote of states, and military organizations like NATO, which attempt to seize global power for one state or a group of states, would be abolished.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post America’s War Against China appeared first on LewRockwell.

Nick Eberstadt is a political economist and Harvard grad with lots of accolades and many academic accomplishments. He has also written a number of excellent books, one of which I was delighted to learn confirms my long held views about America’s flight from work. The book is called Men Without Work, and it was first published in 2016 when Nick first began to see a shocking number of healthy men in their prime working years, exit the workforce. Today, the number of able-bodied men who have affirmatively elected to not work is north of 7.2 million. These are not men who can afford to support themselves. Many are addicted to pain medication. Very few—according to their own responses in exhaustive surveys—contribute to their household or to their community. They do not attend church, and they do not participate in civic organizations. They do not exercise. What they do, mostly, is play. As Nick explains in this episode, these men spend an average of 2,000 hours a year on screens.  

I was fascinated by our conversation…and troubled. We have nearly 7.6 million open jobs in this county, and no one seems willing to do them. Nick has the courage to spell it all out, and I encourage you to watch. It’s worth your time.

#podcast #usa #work mikeroweWORKS—My foundation is giving away $2.5 million in trade scholarships. Apply by April 17:

https://mikeroweworks.org/scholarship/

The post Why Are Healthy Men Exiting The Workforce? | Nick Eberstadt #274 | The Way I Heard It, with Mike Rowe appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tulsi Gabbard says the long-suppressed RFK and MLK Jr. files are “ready to release,” igniting a new wave of interest in the intelligence community’s secrets.

Join Mark Groubert and Eric Hunley on this Free-form Friday episode of America’s Untold Stories as they dig into what might be revealed, and how Gabbard’s “hunters” are putting pressure on the FBI and CIA for more.

Plus, Trump orders the DOJ to investigate former DHS official and “Anonymous” op-ed writer Miles Taylor, calling him guilty of “treason.” Will the deep state finally get exposed?

We also break down the bizarre case of a Catholic school teacher who admitted to sleeping with a student—then blamed her husband for “neglect.”

And in a fiery update to the Seth Rich saga, attorney Ty Clevenger files to hold the FBI in contempt for ignoring court orders to release records.

From celebrity scandals to government secrecy and everything in between, this is one Friday you don’t want to miss.

The post America’s Untold Stories – Gabbard Drops Bomb: RFK, MLK Records Coming in Days appeared first on LewRockwell.

“I, Pencil.”

The post Elon Musk Tweets Milton Friedman Explaining Leonard Read’s Famous Essay, appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Jay Stephenson. 

Doug Murray presented himself as if he’s a superior member of society during this debate and was extremely condescending to both Joe Rogan and Dave Smith. And every time he got cornered, he resorted to the William F. Buckley debate tactic of using big words and overemphasizing his English accent. Rogan has mostly avoided the Israel issue on his show, but I predict that will change after this debate.

The post Neocon flops during debate on Rogan appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Antiwar.com 

The post Another Failed 20-Year War: America vs. Somalia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Huff Post

The post White House Confirms Trump Is Exploring Ways To ‘Deport’ U.S. Citizens appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

The Vigilant Fox

The post Yale Study Quietly Confirms COVID Vaccine Nightmare appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, W. T. White.

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Said Donald Trump, happy as a child with his new favorite Christmas toy, celebrating the bloating of the federal bureaucracy with even more money taken from the pockets of American consumers through tariff taxation.  No wonder Elon Musk thinks Peter Navarro, Trump’s mercantilist tariff advisor, is “an idiot.”

The post “We’re Taking in $2 Billion a Day!” appeared first on LewRockwell.

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/come-gli-inglesi-hanno-inventato)

La maggior parte dei patrioti concorda sul fatto che stiamo combattendo qualcosa chiamato “globalismo”.

Ma di cosa si tratta?

Innanzitutto è un'invenzione britannica.

Il globalismo moderno nacque nell'Inghilterra vittoriana e fu in seguito promosso dai socialisti fabiani britannici.

È ormai il sistema di credenze dominante nel mondo odierno.

George Orwell lo chiamò Socing.

Nel suo romanzo, 1984, Orwell predisse un futuro in cui l'Impero britannico si sarebbe fuso con gli Stati Uniti per formare l'Oceania, un superstato guidato da un'ideologia malvagia chiamata Ingsoc (abbreviazione di Socialismo inglese).

La distopia di Orwell si basava sulla sua conoscenza dei reali piani globalisti.

“Federazione del Mondo”

Con l'espansione del potere britannico nel XIX secolo, il dominio globale sembrava inevitabile.

Gli amministratori imperiali elaborarono progetti per un mondo unito sotto il dominio britannico.

La chiave per far funzionare tutto questo era unire le forze con gli Stati Uniti, proprio come descritto da Orwell nel suo romanzo.

Molti anglofili negli Stati Uniti erano più che entusiasti di aderire a questo piano.

“Siamo una parte, una grande parte, della Grande Gran Bretagna la quale è destinata a dominare questo pianeta [...]” affermava con entusiasmo il New York Times nel 1897, durante i festeggiamenti per il Giubileo di Diamante della Regina Vittoria.

Nel 1842 Alfred Tennyson, che presto sarebbe diventato il poeta ufficiale della regina Vittoria, scrisse la poesia “Locksley Hall”. Immaginava un'età dell'oro, fatta di pace, sotto una “legge universale”, un “Parlamento dell'uomo” e una “Federazione del mondo”.

Le parole di Tennyson prefiguravano la Società delle Nazioni e l'ONU. Ma egli non inventò questi concetti, si limitò a celebrare i piani già in corso tra le élite britanniche.

Generazioni di globalisti britannici hanno amato la poesia di Tennyson come se fossero le Sacre Scritture. Winston Churchill la elogiò nel 1931 come “la più meravigliosa di tutte le profezie moderne”. Definì la Società delle Nazioni un compimento della visione di Tennyson.

Imperialismo liberale

Un altro leader britannico influenzato dalla poesia di Tennyson fu il filosofo John Ruskin.

Nella sua prima lezione a Oxford nel 1870, Ruskin elettrizzò gli studenti dichiarando che il destino della Gran Bretagna era “regnare o morire”, ovvero governare il mondo o essere governata da altri.

Con queste parole, Ruskin diede vita a una dottrina che presto sarebbe stata conosciuta come “imperialismo liberale” — l’idea che i Paesi “liberali” dovessero conquistare quelli barbari per diffondere i valori “liberali”.

Un aggettivo migliore sarebbe “imperialismo socialista”, poiché la maggior parte delle persone che hanno promosso questo concetto erano in realtà socialisti.

Ruskin si definì “comunista” prima che Marx terminasse di scrivere Il Capitale.

Secondo Ruskin, l'Impero britannico era il veicolo perfetto per diffondere il socialismo.

Il socialismo di Ruskin era stranamente mescolato all'elitarismo. Esaltava la superiorità delle razze “settentrionali”, intendendo con ciò i Normanni, i Celti e gli Anglosassoni che avevano costruito l'Inghilterra. Vedeva l'aristocrazia, non la gente comune, come l'incarnazione della virtù britannica.

Ruskin era anche un occultista e (secondo alcuni biografi) un pedofilo. In questo senso, le sue eccentricità assomigliavano a quelle ancora di moda in certi circoli globalisti odierni.

Il Trust di Rhodes

Gli insegnamenti di Ruskin ispirarono una generazione di statisti britannici.

Uno dei più devoti seguaci di Ruskin fu Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902). Da studente universitario, Rhodes ascoltò la lezione inaugurale di Ruskin e ne scrisse una copia, che conservò per il resto della sua vita.

In veste di statista, Rhodes promosse aggressivamente l'espansione britannica. “Più del mondo abitiamo, meglio è per la razza umana”, disse.

Nel suo testamento Rhodes lasciò una fortuna per promuovere “il dominio britannico in tutto il mondo”; il consolidamento di tutti i Paesi di lingua inglese in un'unica federazione; e — nelle stesse parole di Rhodes — “il recupero definitivo degli Stati Uniti d'America come parte integrante dell'Impero britannico”.

Tutto ciò avrebbe dovuto portare alla “fondazione di un potere così grande da rendere in futuro impossibili le guerre e promuovere i migliori interessi dell’umanità”, concluse Rhodes nel suo testamento.

Pertanto la pace mondiale sarebbe stata raggiunta attraverso l'egemonia britannica.

Negli anni Novanta dell'Ottocento la maggior parte dei leader britannici era d'accordo con Rhodes.

La tavola rotonda

Dopo la morte di Rhodes nel 1902, Alfred Milner prese il controllo del suo movimento, fondando gruppi segreti chiamati “Tavola Rotonda” per fare propaganda a favore di una federazione mondiale di Paesi di lingua inglese.

In ogni Paese bersaglio, compresi gli Stati Uniti, i membri della Tavola Rotonda reclutavano leader locali affinché fungessero da “caproni di Giuda”. Un caprone di Giuda è un animale addestrato per condurre gli altri al macello.

Infatti la Tavola Rotonda stava conducendo le persone a un vero e proprio massacro. Ci si aspettava una guerra contro la Germania. La Tavola Rotonda cercò impegni da ogni colonia di lingua inglese per inviare truppe quando sarebbe giunto il momento. Australia, Canada, Nuova Zelanda e Sudafrica acconsentirono.

La prima guerra mondiale spinse il mondo verso la globalizzazione, dando vita alla Società delle Nazioni.

Tutto questo fu voluto; un progetto britannico.

Generazioni di scolari hanno imparato che Woodrow Wilson era il padre del globalismo, ma gli “ideali” di Wilson gli sono stati propinati da agenti britannici.

Una guerra per porre fine alle guerre

Il 14 agosto 1914, solo 10 giorni dopo che l'Inghilterra aveva dichiarato guerra, lo scrittore H. G. Wells scrisse un articolo intitolato “La guerra che porrà fine alla guerra”. “[Q]uesta è ora una guerra per la pace [...]”, scrisse, “mira a un accordo che ponga fine a questo genere di cose per sempre”.

Wells ne pubblicò una versione in formato libro nell’ottobre del 1914 e aggiunse: “Se i liberali di tutto il mondo [...] insisteranno per una conferenza mondiale alla fine di questo conflitto [...] potrebbero [...] istituire una Lega per la pace che controllerà il globo”.

Wells non inventò l'idea di una “Lega della Pace”, stava semplicemente promuovendo la politica ufficiale britannica. Wells era un agente segreto del War Propaganda Bureau britannico (noto come Wellington House).

Agenti britannici alla Casa Bianca

I leader britannici capirono che la loro Lega per la pace non avrebbe mai funzionato senza il supporto degli Stati Uniti. Per questo motivo l'intelligence britannica fece sforzi particolari per penetrare nella Casa Bianca di Wilson, il che si rivelò sorprendentemente facile.

Il consigliere più vicino a Wilson era il “colonnello” Edward House, un texano con forti legami familiari con l'Inghilterra.

Durante la guerra civile il padre di House, nato in Gran Bretagna, fece fortuna come forza di blocco, barattando cotone con munizioni britanniche per armare le truppe ribelli.

Il giovane Edward House e i suoi fratelli frequentarono college inglesi.

Mentre consigliava il presidente Wilson, il colonnello House lavorò a stretto contatto con le spie britanniche, in particolare con Sir William Wiseman, il capo della stazione statunitense per il Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) britannico. House, Wiseman e Wilson divennero amici intimi, trascorrendo persino le vacanze insieme.

L'idea di una “Lega delle Nazioni” venne da Sir Edward Grey, ministro degli Esteri britannico. In una lettera del 22 settembre 1915, Grey chiese al colonnello House se il presidente potesse essere convinto a proporre una Lega delle Nazioni, poiché l'idea sarebbe stata meglio accolta se proveniva da un presidente degli Stati Uniti.

Quando Wilson partecipò alla Conferenza di pace di Parigi nel 1919, Wiseman e House erano lì accanto e guidavano ogni sua mossa, insieme a una schiera di altri funzionari britannici e statunitensi, tutti impegnati nel programma globalista e molti dei quali direttamente legati alla Tavola Rotonda.

La “relazione speciale”

L'ex-ufficiale del SIS, John Bruce Lockhart, in seguito definì Wiseman “l'agente di influenza di maggior successo che gli inglesi abbiano mai avuto”. Lo storico britannico, A. J. P. Taylor, scrisse che “lui [Wiseman] e House resero realtà la 'relazione speciale'”.

Molti storici sostengono che la “relazione speciale” tra USA e Regno Unito iniziò solo dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale, con la creazione della NATO e dell’ONU. Tuttavia Taylor sottolineò che i semi della “relazione speciale” furono piantati prima, alla Conferenza di pace di Parigi nel 1919.

A Parigi i funzionari degli Stati Uniti e del Regno Unito concordarono segretamente di coordinare la politica, in modo che entrambi i Paesi agissero come un'unica cosa. Per facilitare questo piano furono creati due think tank, Chatham House (Regno Unito) e il Council on Foreign Relations (Stati Uniti).

Con grande dispiacere dei globalisti britannici, il Senato degli Stati Uniti si rifiutò di unirsi alla Società delle Nazioni. Ci volle un'altra guerra mondiale, e il talento persuasivo di Winston Churchill, per trascinare infine gli Stati Uniti nel governo globale, tramite la NATO e l'ONU.

Winston Churchill, padre del globalismo moderno

La visione di Churchill del governo globale era stranamente simile a quella di Cecil Rhodes e della Tavola Rotonda. Churchill invocava un'“organizzazione mondiale” sostenuta da una “relazione speciale” tra i Paesi di lingua inglese.

Il 16 febbraio 1944 Churchill avvertì che, “a meno che la Gran Bretagna e gli Stati Uniti non si uniscano in una relazione speciale [...] nell’ambito di un’organizzazione mondiale, ci sarà un’altra guerra distruttiva”. Di conseguenza l’ONU fu fondata il 24 ottobre 1945.

Tuttavia l'ONU non era sufficiente. Cecil Rhodes e la Tavola Rotonda avevano sempre sostenuto che il vero potere dietro qualsiasi governo globale dovesse essere un'unione di popoli di lingua inglese. Churchill ripeté questo piano nel suo discorso sulla “cortina di ferro” del 5 marzo 1946.

Churchill avvertì che l'ONU non aveva “forza armata internazionale”, o bombe atomiche. Gli USA dovevano quindi unirsi alla Gran Bretagna e ad altri Paesi di lingua inglese in un'alleanza militare, sostenne Churchill. Nessun'altra forza avrebbe potuto fermare i sovietici.

“Associazione fraterna dei popoli di lingua inglese”

Churchill affermò che “l’organizzazione mondiale” era inutile senza “l’associazione fraterna dei popoli di lingua inglese. Ciò significa una relazione speciale tra il Commonwealth e l’Impero britannico e gli Stati Uniti”.

Le parole di Churchill portarono al Trattato NATO del 1949 e all'accordo “Five Eyes” che unì gli sforzi di intelligence di USA, Regno Unito, Canada, Australia e Nuova Zelanda. Passo dopo passo, Churchill ci avvicinò sempre di più al superstato globale che Orwell chiamava Oceania.

Autodefinitosi “anarchico Tory”, Orwell odiava il comunismo sovietico. Se avesse voluto, avrebbe potuto scrivere 1984 come una specie di Alba Rossa britannica, con l'Inghilterra che gemeva sotto l'occupazione sovietica. Ma non era questo il suo messaggio.

Orwell mise in guardia da un pericolo più vicino a casa: i globalisti britannici e il loro piano per un'unione di Paesi di lingua inglese guidata dall'ideologia Ingsoc.

Per molti aspetti, il mondo in cui viviamo oggi è il mondo previsto da Orwell.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

International Man: President Trump recently imposed sweeping tariffs on much of the world, dubbing it Liberation Day.

Trump declared: “It will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day we began to make America wealthy again.”

What’s your take?

Doug Casey: The left constantly calls Trump a liar. And frankly, things like this are why. It’s not that he lies more than a typical politician, or even lies intentionally. It’s that his use of words is so hyperbolic, so estranged from reality, that it makes him seem like a liar. It’s intellectually dishonest—dishonest, period—to falsely label something. It’s bizarre that Trump thinks his potentially catastrophic tariffs should be called Liberation Day.

The fact is that tariffs are taxes paid by the importer of goods. The money mostly goes out of the pockets of the buyers and, perhaps, to some limited degree, the sellers. It’s 100% certain that tariffs are a tax, and the money goes 100% into the pocket of the State.

Supply chains between countries have become so complex that there are very few items that are—or even could be—manufactured completely within any one country. Production of everything will drop worldwide.

Trump’s tariffs will both increase prices and cause shortages. They don’t, however, cause inflation. Inflation is caused strictly by an increase in the money supply. Tariffs don’t increase the money supply, but they do cause higher prices and a lower standard of living for both the buyer and the seller. Just as bad, as a tax, tariffs result in more dollars in the hands of the State.

The US imports something on the order of $3 trillion annually. Perhaps Trump thinks that a 10% tax will result in $300 billion of revenue for the government, and a 20% tariff will yield $600 billion. But this is incorrect because the higher costs will reduce the amount of trade proportionately. Not only can’t tariffs solve the government’s deficit problem, they’ll make it worse.

He says that the main object of the tariffs is to force investment in the US. And, of course, that may happen to some degree. He’s forgotten that when the US was prosperous before 1971, it never needed foreign investment. But it’s as if we trade Cadillacs to Guatemala in exchange for their bananas. Since they sell more bananas to us than we sell Cadillacs to them, it causes a huge deficit in their favor.

So let’s put a 100% duty on bananas. Problem solved. Guatemalans sell many fewer bananas, but now they can’t afford to buy any Cadillacs at all. Everybody gets hurt—banana producers, Cadillac producers, and most particularly, the people who use those products.

Trumpers will counter: “Well, the tariffs that we threatened to put on Colombian coffee forced their government to accept some refugees.” True, that worked. You can push around a small country, but you can’t push the world around. You can’t even push China around because China is the producer, and the US is the consumer. In the real world, those who produce things are in the driver’s seat, not a country that prints up fiat currency to enable its consumption.

I can’t be sure what Trump is really trying to do. He says things one week, then contradicts himself the next. And he does it constantly. Perhaps he wants to see the whole world go to zero tariffs, but I doubt it. He’s essentially a mercantilist; he seems to believe he can force the whole world to run a trade deficit with the US. He thinks trade is a “win-lose” proposition, and the whole world is “ripping off” the US. He must feel the Guatemalans are ripping off the US on bananas, for sure.

If his object is to get the world to zero tariffs, that would be great. But that’s not his object. And it won’t solve the huge and growing trade deficits that the US has had since about 1980. He might ask himself why the US had huge trade surpluses in the decades before 1980 when, coincidentally, the dollar was very strong. But he won’t. He’s not an introspective guy.

More likely, as the world’s economy declines, burdened by government debt, currency debasement, regulations, and taxes, Trump’s gigantic tariffs will make things much worse. The Smoot-Hawley Tariffs of 1929 made things much worse, causing unemployment both here and abroad. Trump’s tariffs are much higher, and trade is vastly more important than it was in the 1930s. They’re very, very bad news.

International Man: The Trump administration views the dollar as dangerously overvalued, blaming it for America’s deepening economic imbalances.

Is weakening the US dollar a path to prosperity?

Doug Casey: This is further proof of Trump’s economic ignorance. Although I hasten to add that whatever he does, it’s almost certainly not as bad as what would’ve happened if Kamala had been elected.

Since 1971, the German mark, which basically was transformed into the Euro, has risen from 25 cents to 1.25 to the dollar and Germany’s trade surplus increased even as their currency quintupled in value. The same thing happened with the Yen, which increased in value from 360 to about 100 to the dollar. So much for “currency manipulation.”

The immediate and direct effect of devaluing your currency is that it reduces prices to foreigners so they can buy more. The profit of manufacturers, therefore, seems to go up. But it’s an illusion since profits only go up in terms of devalued currency.

Every country should want a strong currency. A strong currency allows it to buy foreign technology and raw materials, which it can’t do with a weak currency. A strong currency encourages saving, and the building of capital. A strong currency makes for a stable country, which makes for the confidence you need to invest domestically. It also allows foreign investment on advantageous terms.

A weak currency is not worth saving. It hurts domestic savers, makes capital accumulation difficult, makes the import of foreign tech unaffordable, leads to social instability, and discourages business and investment. A weak currency encourages debt and speculation. Keynesian and Marxist economists have these things completely backward.

Trump says he wants a weak dollar. One reason why is that the US is buried under many trillions of debt, and a weak dollar might appear to help the situation. But it won’t. Trying to inflate it away subtly amounts to theft. If a weak currency led to prosperity, then Zimbabwe and Argentina would be the most prosperous countries in the world.

International Man: What lessons can the US draw from Argentina’s experience with tariffs, protectionism, and a weakened currency?

Doug Casey: It’s well known that Argentina went from being one of the most prosperous and wealthiest countries in the world a hundred years ago, to turning into a total economic disaster with Peronist policies—which prominently included a weak currency and high tariffs.

The Argentine government put on tariffs to protect domestic industries. The result was that domestic industries were able to get away with crappy and overpriced products that were uncompetitive in the world market. Argentines suffered a much lower standard of living for many years as a result of the tariffs put on by their government. They put themselves under embargo with high tariffs, and that’s what Trump is promising to do with the US.

Furthermore, investors tend to stay away from countries where the rules can change arbitrarily, which was a major reason why Argentina got little investment. The same could happen to the US. The US has historically been better than most countries, but Trump’s protectionist and weak dollar policies could change that. Worse, if the economy goes sideways, the Democrats could be re-elected. That’s a scary but real prospect. Hopefully, Trump’s efforts at domestic deregulation will succeed as a counterbalance.

International Man: If Trump truly wanted to revive American industry and boost the economy, what could he actually do?

Doug Casey: Trump would radically and permanently reduce the size of the State. DOGE is great, but you don’t want to just make government more efficient. DOGE needs to pull most of it out by the roots and sow Agent Orange where it grew.

He would radically cut taxes, but that can only be done if he radically cuts spending—which seems unlikely. He would radically cut government borrowing because when the government borrows in the market, it only drives interest rates higher or sells its debt to the Fed, which debases the currency. But since spending is unlikely to be cut—especially as the Greater Depression unfolds—neither will borrowing.

A gold currency would kill inflation—but that’s impossible unless gold reprices to $30,000 or more.

He should stop threatening foreigners. Trump has this strange idea that foreigners are ripping off America. Saying and believing things like that only creates antagonism. He’d do well to follow Thomas Jefferson’s dictum—be a friend to all but an ally of none. It doesn’t matter if Israel wants the US to bomb the Houthis and Iran; it’s not in our interest.

Trump has said, “We are going to charge countries for doing business in our country, taking our jobs, wealth, and a lot of things that they have been taking over the years.”

It’s just factually untrue and goes a long way toward turning the world into an antagonist or even an enemy.

International Man: The stock market has tanked since Trump introduced his tariffs. What are the investment implications of what comes next?

Doug Casey: Small countries selling to the US can be intimidated and will do as they’re told. But large countries like China will put on counter tariffs. He can expect that the shelves of Walmart and other retailers in the US will be emptied as Chinese goods no longer enter the US.

The funny thing about this is that at the same time as Trump is creating more distortions by putting on tariffs, which always make things worse, DOGE is getting rid of distortions. While DOGE is excellent, it will necessarily hurt businesses that were profiting from those distortions.  So businesses can expect bad news coming and going, as it were.

I can’t help but be very pessimistic about the stock market as the Trump regime creates chaos. Some of that chaos is wonderful and intentional, like destroying DEI, ESG, Wokism, and the WEF-approved world order. Other things will be collateral damage. What things? Those are what Donald Rumsfeld—if anyone remembers him—called unknown unknowns.

And two things that markets don’t like are chaos and lots of unknown unknowns, which is why I continue holding gold.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Trump’s Tariffs and the Coming Economic Fallout appeared first on LewRockwell.

These headwinds will persist for the next decade or two.

The stock market is rallying hard after a brutal sell-off–not an uncommon occurrence. As we savor our winnings in the ship’s first-class casino, it’s not a bad idea to step out onto the deck and gauge the weather.

There are headwinds. Not zephyrs, not gusts, just steady, strong headwinds.

1. Presidents Trump and Xi view each other an as existential challenge to the future prosperity of the nation they lead. Neither can afford to lose face by caving in, and each has a global strategy with no middle ground.

2. Global trade / capital flows are all over the map. Uncertainty is the word of the moment, but perhaps the more prescient description is unpredictability: if enterprises have no visibility on the future costs of trade, commodities, labor and capital, they have little choice but to avoid big bets until visibility is restored.

3. The American consumer is tapped out. Credit card charge-offs are rising, auto loan defaults are rising, air travel is faltering–there are many sources of evidence that consumers–especially the top 20% households whose spending has propped up the economy–have reached financial and perhaps psychological limits.

4. The Reverse Wealth Effect is kicking in as stocks and other assets roll over into volatility and potential trend changes into declines rather than advances. The top 10% who own the majority of income-producing assets and risk assets are seeing $10 trillion of losses followed by recoveries of $5 trillion. Swings of such magnitude do not support confidence in the stability of current valuations or offer visibility on the odds of future capital gains.

Just as enterprises must respond to poor visibility by reducing risk, households respond to increasing volatility and unpredictability by reducing borrowing and spending. Stable gains in asset valuations fuel the Wealth Effect, encouraging consumers to borrow and spend more because their wealth has increased. The Reverse Wealth Effect triggered by losses, volatility and low visibility encourages reducing risk, borrowing and spending.

5. There will be no “save” by the Federal Reserve or massive new Federal fiscal largesse. Tariffs and reshoring manufacturing are inflationary, so the Fed no longer has the freedom to create a few trillion dollars out of thin air to juice risk assets. The federal government’s borrowing-and-spending spree threatens the integrity of the nation’s currency and economy, so the the unlimited checkbook has been put in the drawer.

6. The two decades of deflation generated by China has ended. Central banks could play in the Zero-Interest Rate Policy sandbox because inflationary forces were all offset by the sustained deflationary forces of China’s export machine and credit expansion. Now every economy, including China’s, faces inflationary tides from a number of sources.

7. The sums required to rebuild America’s industrial base will pinch speculative borrowing and consumer spending. Now that both the Fed and the federal government are restrained from borrowing and blowing additional trillions, private capital will have to be enticed into long-term investments in Treasury bonds and reshoring. The ways to incentivize long-term investing rather than consumption and speculation are recession and deflating asset bubbles. Both re-set expectations, risk appetites and incentives.

Everyone with direct experience of manufacturing and supply chain networks is telling us that reshoring will be a costly, long-term project, requiring the rebuilding of the entire ecosystem that’s been lost to hyper-globalization’s offshoring and hyper-financialization’s predation.

Read the Whole Article

The post A Decade of Headwinds appeared first on LewRockwell.