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In Sunday’s episode of the Peter Schiff Show, Peter tackles the misguided optimism of the Federal Reserve, the dangers of escalating tariffs, and the troubling signs of entrenched stagflation. Peter takes a critical view of Jerome Powell’s policies, scrutinizes the logic behind rate cuts amidst ongoing inflation, and warns investors that Bitcoin will continue to falter in the coming economic environment as gold gains strength.

Peter begins by highlighting the alarming disconnect between economic data and Fed policy, recalling Jerome Powell’s flippant dismissal of stagflation concerns last year:

So first let me talk about the economic data, because all the economic data points to stagflation, and of course, I’ve been out in front of the stagflation scenario for a long time. I’ve been very critical of the Fed, Powell in particular, for dismissing stagflation. In fact, during his May press conference a year ago, 2024, so almost a year ago, May 1st, he was asked about stagflation, and then he kind of joked and he says, ‘I don’t know what people are talking about—I don’t see the stag, and I don’t see the inflation.’ That kind of made him laugh, and everybody else laughed. I pointed out on this podcast that it’s no laughing matter, because the Fed’s blindness to stagflation, and the comment that there’s no sign of stagflation, is going to go down like ‘subprime is contained’ and ‘inflation is transitory.’

As policy missteps compound, Peter points to the impending car tariffs as a prime example of misguided economic intervention, emphasizing that ordinary Americans will bear the brunt of higher prices:

So we got these car tariffs, which are going to significantly increase the price of cars in the United States. We’ve got these reciprocal tariffs, whatever they’re going to be, that are going to be announced on Tuesday. The market is bracing for this, but nobody is going to eat these tariffs but Americans. We’re going to be paying these higher prices. We’re going to have stagflation, and nobody is prepared for this.

The inevitable reality, he argues, will be a Fed forced into rate cuts even amid rising inflation—an environment disastrous for the U.S. dollar, but highly beneficial to gold. Peter remains consistent in his stance that Bitcoin, unlike a tried and true store of value like gold, will fail investors during this uncertain period:

Now, I think eventually they’re going to cut despite rising inflation. That’s the nail in the coffin for the dollar, and gold goes through the roof because that means real interest rates are plunging, but Bitcoin is going to go down. Like if we have a bear market in stocks, if stocks keep going down, Bitcoin is going to keep going down more. Gold is what’s going up, and just again, obliterating this whole narrative.

Explaining further, Peter warns of the unintended consequences of tariffs on inflation dynamics. Restrictions on imports don’t help the American consumer; instead, they magnify domestic inflationary pressures by reducing goods availability and leaving more money chasing fewer goods at home:

If we import less stuff from abroad because the prices go way up and we can’t afford it, the money that we used to send abroad stays here. And what does that money do? It bids up the prices of what’s here without all the goods coming in. So domestically, we have more money chasing fewer goods, and that puts upward pressure on prices, goods, and services. So domestic money supply means more of our inflation stays here, we don’t export it.

Finally, Peter voices his frustration with mainstream Republican cheerleaders who blindly praise policy moves without considering serious economic repercussions. He notes parallels between the current economic climate and the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, emphasizing the danger of partisan-driven cheerleading:

So much of what’s going on right now, it’s really bothering me to see all these Republicans just cheerleading everything Trump is doing, talking about how great it is. It reminds me of George Bush’s second term, you know, when they had the financial crisis, and I was going on all these shows that won’t have me on anymore. Now, I was 45 back in 2008, a much younger man. Time flies. But I remember all these guys on Kudlow and the Laffers—Stephen Moore is a friend of mine—but a lot of other people too, that were just cheerleading the Republicans. And I didn’t like it.

This originally appeared on SchiffGold.com.

The post Stagflation Is Here and the Fed Is Clueless appeared first on LewRockwell.

As I have previously documented, the United States is controlled by its billionaires and not by its public; we have an aristocracy not a democracy. (As I had mentioned there, “The breakthrough first study, in 2014, was brilliantly summarized and explained in a 6-minute video here.” It shows by means of graphs what the first study found. And all subsequent such empirical studies have come to the very same conclusion. The evidence is therefore, by now, clear and overwhelming, that America is an aristocracy — of wealth — NOT a democracy that authentically represents the public.)

Furthermore, a major international polling that compared in each of the individual countries the percentage of respondents who answered “Yes” to the question “Does your Government represent you, or not?” showed that in the U.S.-and-allied countries, the percentages who answered “Yes” were far lower than for the average country, and that all 11 of the lowest-scoring (or most dictatorial) countries on that list were in the U.S.-and-allied group. Who will know whether a given country is a dictatorship if the people who live there don’t know it? Will people who have never lived there know more about that? (Of course not.) And their answers to the question “‘In general, do you trust your National media?: Usually, To some extent, Not at all.” for the “Not at all” option, were higher than average for the U.S. and almost all of its allied countries. (However, residents in Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Philippines had the lowest score on that and the highest trust in their news-media. Are we, who don’t live there, better-able to answer that question for them than they are? I don’t think so.)

And all indications are that the head-of-state in the U.S. and in each of its colonies (or ‘allies’) have public-approval ratings that are far below the global average; and, not only this, but two of the countries that the U.S. Government says are dictatorships and must therefore be ‘regime’-changed — Russia and China — actually have the two highest public-approval ratings for their head-of-state, which means that the U.S. Government wants to install a dictator there (because the given target-nation’s public are extremely supportive of their head-of-state, it would have to BE a dictator). And not only that, but on 22 August 2022, I headlined “NATO-Affiliated Poll in 53 Countries Finds Chinese the Most Think Their Country Is a Democracy”. That NATO poll found 83% of the residents in China said “Yes” to “My country is democratic.” It scored #1 of the 53 nations on this. U.S. was worse than average, and was tied at #s 40&41, out of the 53 nations, with Colombia, at 49%. Right above them was Saudi Arabia, at 50%. That’s what the NATO-affiliated poll found. (For some reason, they didn’t publicize it.)

What the political ‘scientists’ understand about democracy is nothing. Though the empirical ones perform an authentic contribution by their empirical findings (such as have been mentioned here), the theoretical political ‘scientists’ (the people who are supposedly trying to UNDERSTAND what the empirical findings in their field actually mean) are still operating on the basis of the opinions of philosophers, and this is to say they’re operating on the basis of opinions INSTEAD OF on the basis of the relevant EMPIRICAL DATA (such as these that have been linked-to here).

So, the field of political science is at around the stage of development that physics was at the time of Galileo, and that biology was prior to Darwin and Mendel. I do not consider this acceptable. But the practitioners do. Even the very definition of what “democracy” means is not yet determined — that word doesn’t yet have any concrete meaning in (doesn’t yet exist in the theory of) political ‘science’, except on a philosophical — i.e., opinion-based — foundation. I greatly respect Jeffrey Sachs and his outstanding empirical works in political science; and, so, on March 31st, I emailed to him

Eric, March 31st:

Subject: A political left that’s controlled by billionaires is fake ‘left’: hypocritical nazism.

Date: March 31, 2025 at 7:27:43 PM EDT

[The opening part of that linked-to article linked to documents that showed that in the U.S. and many other countries it is not the public that control the Government via elections, such as democratic theory alleges, but instead the billionaires who control the Government — the billionaires control the Government much like in former centuries the aristocracy controlled the Government, but now they do it by using different methods. That is the problem, and here was my proposed solution to it in order to be able to produce maybe an AUTHENTIC democracy. This is not a theory but ONLY an hypothesis now, and it would need to be tested:]

I would suggest that it [selection of the U.S. President] should be done by lottery (among all adults) for the legislatures, and that those [lottery-selected] legislators would then have the power to expel from their midst any of them that a two-thirds majority of them vote to expel, and that the entire body will, by majority vote, appoint judges, and will select as the head-of-state, one among themselves who has served in the federal legislature for five years or more. There would be no term-limits, and Parties would be illegal. There woud be no elections. The country would, over time, come to be ruled by professional legislators, who will not be competing against each other. Elections will be replaced by lottery-draws. There will be no “campaigns” to fund. Consequently, over time, the members of the legislature will come to know the strengths and weaknesses of each of the other members. All of the incentives that have caused America to be ruled by a tiny aristocracy of billionaires will have been removed. Just think of it: a country in which billionaires must adhere to the laws, and have no control OVER the laws. THAT would be a truly democratic revolution, even though the public would never vote. It would be a revolutionary revolution. Replacing elections with lotteries is the only way I can think of to get us out of the present situation in which Governments keep going from bad to even worse and are now — throughout at least the U.S. empire — incredibly atrocious. To anyone who opposes this, I ask “And what is YOUR proposed solution?” Whatever that ‘solution’ would be, will be far preferred by the billionaires, over what I have proposed here, which would end the “gravy train” of ‘the elite’.

This is my idea of a political left that’s NOT controlled by billionaires. And as for the political right, that has ALWAYS been representing ONLY the aristocracy — so, a ‘right-wing democracy’ is a self-contradiction: democracy can exist ONLY in a country that authentically has equality before the law — NO one is above the law (there IS no aristocracy).

Eric, April 3rd:

What did you think of my proposal to achieve democracy by replacing elections (voting) with instead a lottery-based system?

Jeff, April 3rd:

I didn’t have time to read your proposal, just the sentence advocating sortition rather than elections. My comments [I hadn’t received any comment from him about this matter; so, I don’t know what he was referring to there] were in response to that.

I do know what the problem is. I’ve been writing about “the problem” for twenty years and more.

Parliaments are better than Presidential systems. Direct democracies might work better than representative democracies. Or sortition, or no democracy. Take your pick. There is no magic in this. Aristotle knew that in 330 BCE. Every formal kind of government can be good or bad. What counts is the virtues of the citizenry.

Eric, April 3rd:

You don’t “know what the problem is.” The problem is that authentic democracy (and Aristotle knew nothing of it, just like every OTHER philosopher has) does NOT require that the public vote and that elections be held — neither for Parliamentarians nor for Presidents. There is a BETTER way, and I described it in this passage, which you refused to read: [I then repeated to him the proposed solution that I had sent to him, which you’ve now read.]

Jeff, April 3rd:

I spend a lot of time on what you write, but I’m busy and don’t read everything that you write. I also don’t like a stream of insults or to be told what I know and don’t. I am writing in shorthand and if it’s not up to your par, so be it. I’ve studied sortition systems for decades. The idea is not new. The issues have been around for centuries. I’ve written books and articles about the corruption of the US political system. I’ve observed many excellent non-democratic systems as well. As for virtues of the citizenry, that’s not blaming the victims. It’s the central problem discussed by philosophers since Confucius, Mencius, and Aristotle. The dynamic relationship between citizens and rulers, and how virtues of the two interact.

Eric, April 3rd:

The discussion that we have had about this matter — which I obviously think is a crucially important matter, important for the history of ideas, and so forth — should be published as an article so that the public may consider it, without any further commentary [from us]. Both you and I have fully stated our respective views on it; and now is the time when I, as a journalist and the person who came up with this idea that you ignore, ought to present it to the general public for their consideration of it.

If you have any objection to this (my moving forward on it today), please tell me ASAP so that it can be done today; or else, if you want to add anything more to it, then I shall include that, so that you will have the last word in it, stated as fully as you wish it to be (in which case I shall be willing to wait for that if you will give me a specified time by which your final word on it will be emailed to me about the matter).

Eric, April 3rd: PS: I was NOT recommending a sortition system. I was recommending replacing elections, and voting, replacing them by the type of lottery system that I described. [By contrast, sortition systems can co-exist along with the holding of elections, sush as was the case in ancient Athens. I was hoping to get into that matter with him — the need to entirely eliminate elections, so that ONLY an unelected legislature will be voting. This wouldn’t exclude their selecting experts to advise them on particular issues, nor would it exclude their taking testimony from the public, but it would exclude the public from the decision-making — and this would be ENTIRELY NEW as a structure to achieve a truly representative Government. That’s what is new about this, but Jeff wasn’t at all interested even in reading what I had presented to him — much less in discussing with me the matter.]

Jeff, April 3rd:

No, please no. This was a private exchange. Not for publication.

Eric, April 3rd:

Then I shall have to paraphrase your statements and directly quote only key phrases from them. I shall explain in the article that you would not allow me to do more than fair-use quotations from you.

Jeff, April 3rd:

If you quote me in a private communication, I simply won’t communicate with you again. I was having a private exchange with you. No more. And hardly a detailed one. Do not infringe on my privacy, please.

Eric, April 3rd:

This is NOT a “private” matter. It is the most important PUBLIC matter that exists — How to Achieve a Democracy. Like I said in my “PS: I was NOT recommending a sortition system. I was recommending replacing elections, and voting, replacing them by the type of lottery system that I described.” You ignored my proposal. You misrepresented what it is. You now apparently want to censor-out from the public discourse our discussion of the most important public matter that exists. You are a public figure — not ONLY a private individual (which I am ONLY). You are furthermore one who is a recognized EXPERT on democracy. We were NOT discussing PRIVATE matters; and, so, there is no issue here that is private — the entire issue — 100% of it — is the mega-public issue of How to Achieve a Democracy.

You cannot have it both ways, Jeff — being the public figure that you clearly are — and whom I have ONLY PRAISED IN PUBLIC, many times — and refusing to so much as address IN PUBLIC your response to an entirely new proposed method to address the biggest PUBLIC ISSUE of them all, How to Achieve a Democracy. You are seeking to censor it, as being merely PRIVATE — which it is NOT. You are making an unfair request to me.

If you are not satisfied with the case that you made in our discussion of How to Achieve a Democracy, then can we just start over on the whole thing, after you finally HAVE gotten around to reading the proposed solution to it, that I had presented? I would be willing to go along with that if you give me a reasonably soon deadline for you to give me your carefully considered answer to my proposed solution — something that you consider publishable (since you apparently don’t think that your previous responses to it were). Indeed, I would be happy if you would do a much better job of it than you have so far done — and your new response would then be the only one that I will go forth with. (However, in that case, I cannot assure you that you will have the last word on the matter, because if you again bring up non-rellevant objections (such as sortition systems), I shall then need to point out — and will document — their irrelevancy to the problem at hand, which is SPECIFICALLY my proposed solution to the problem of How to Achieve a Democracy.

Jeff, April 3rd:

I do understand from what you write that I should not interact with you by email. My email to you was a few quick casual and friendly remarks while sitting at a dinner, not a prepared essay. As I said, I had not then (and still have not) read your proposal, nor am I debating it with you.

——

Those were the communications. I was NOT seeking from him a “debate” but instead his thoughts about my proposed replacement of electoral voting-based ‘democracy’ which has never represented the public but always some aristocracy (of wealth) or else some theocracy (of a religion — which in the Soviet Union was Karl Marx’s philosophy) — replacement of the existing ‘democracies’ by instead the lottery-based system I described, replacing those voting-based ‘democracies’ — replacing all elections and all voting except inside the 100% lottery-based legislature. The very CONCEPT of what “democracy” means is at issue here. Is it NECESSARILY to include voting by the public? In all of the existing self-declared “democratic” U.S. colonies and the U.S., the myth is propagated that “because our Government is elected, it is a democracy” but ALL OF THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT THAT IS FALSE. These Governments do NOT represent the public.

When he said to me “The idea is not new. The issues have been around for centuries.” and then told me that he hasn’t read my proposed solution but knows that it is a sortition system — which it is NOT — then I knew that he simply isn’t seriously interested in the problem of how to achieve a democracy. When he said “As for virtues of the citizenry, that’s not blaming the victims. It’s the central problem discussed by philosophers,” I was stunned to find that he believed that the central problem in political theory is to inculcate ‘virtue’ (whatever that means) into “the citizenry.” He implicitly assumed there that the problems around us (the corruptness that actually controls our Government) are the citizenry, instead of the aristocracy that deceives, controls, and exploits, them (by controlling the Government, the media, and the elite universities and think tanks). When he said that “Direct democracies might work better than representative democracies. Or sortition, or no democracy. Take your pick.” he was alleging that democracy — a Government’s representing its public — isn’t even necessary in order to have a good Government. Of course, the alternatives to a democracy are a Government that instead represents either its aristocracy or its theocracy — a dictatorship. He was saying that it makes no difference: “Take your pick.” I was shocked. I had, I now recognize, erroneously thought that he, like I, is committed in favor of democracy and against dictatorship. Sadly, I was wrong. I had not previously understood him. Now I do.

He had not replied to that article I had sent to him, though he often has commented to me on others I had sent to him; so, I sought, on April 3rd, to ask him what his thoughts on it had been. Actually, I had thought that he would have found it to be more of interest than any I had ever sent to him and to which he had sent me comments, and so I was surprised that he hadn’t commented on this one.

Jeffrey Sachs is an internationally recognized expert on democracy. If he isn’t interested in replacing the existing fake democracies by a new form of Government that perhaps really WILL represent the general public instead of some aristocracy or theocracy (either type of dictatorship), then who WOULD be interested in it? I wonder.

Now that he has indicated to me that he isn’t interested, I invite comments on this problem from ANYONE, and especially from an expert on democracies (but one who — unlike Dr. Sachs — DOES recognize the need for radically new thinking on this vitally important public matter). (There is nothing private about it.)

We have ‘democratic’ Governments that are, and have been for decades, lying to their public about everything and especially about international relations and about their causing wars all over the globe, and how can a democracy be like this? I don’t think it can. Political ‘scientists’ think it can and is — that such war-mongering is basically a problem of a lack of “virtues of the citizenry.”

And, if anyone can explain to me why my proposed solution CANNOT work, then I shall welcome THAT type of input, also. Any way to IMPROVE my proposal will be especially heartily welcomed, from ANYONE. (However, I will not respond to any ad-hominem comments; ONLY to ad-rem ones.)

I can be reached at [email protected].

This originally appeared on Eric’s Substack.

The post My Proposal for How To Achieve a Democracy appeared first on LewRockwell.

For the first five months of the 2025 fiscal year, federal spending is coming in at the highest level ever. This is true even when we adjust for CPI inflation.

This largely reflects Biden-era spending since the current fiscal year began during October 2024, during the Biden administration. In 2025 dollars, federal spending for the current fiscal year so far has totaled 3.039 trillion dollars. This makes 2025’s spending total the highest ever and it’s coming in above the covid-era total (3.012 trillion) reached during the first five months of fiscal year 2021.

In nominal terms, the growth is even larger with federal spending so far this year coming in at about half a trillion more than the previous all-time high reached during 2021.

This data only covers the period through the end of February so it’s still too early to guess as to the full impact of any spending-cut initiatives coming out of the Trump administration. We do know that, in spite of many claims coming out of the administration, no significant impact can yet be seen in the federal spending data.

Revenue, however, has not been keeping up, so the high levels of spending has also driven ongoing growth in total federal deficits. For the first five months of fiscal year 2025, the federal deficit totals 1.146 trillion in 2025 dollars. That’s the second-highest deficit total on record. Only FY 2021’s total of 1.259 trillion was higher.

This number is likely to only get higher. In spite of much talk about spending cuts and tax cuts during last month’s debate over new spending legislation, the Republican leadership’s own numbers show that the Trump-approved budget under the Republicans will only increase each annual deficit further in coming years.

For this reason, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie noted he would vote against the Republicans’ proposed budget, and he pointed out that even the best-case scenarios assumed by Republican leaders would still produce a growing deficit and total growing federal debt.

On February 25, Massie posted on X/Twitter that “The GOP budget extends the 5 yr. tax holiday we’ve been enjoying, but because it doesn’t cut spending much, it increases the deficit by over $300 billion/yr. compared to letting tax cuts expire. Over 10 years, this budget will add $20 trillion to US debt.”

The GOP budget extends the 5 yr. tax holiday we’ve been enjoying, but because it doesn’t cut spending much, it increases the deficit by over $300 billion/yr. compared to letting tax cuts expire. Over 10 years, this budget will add $20 trillion to US debt.pic.twitter.com/JZ2tDoTHI6

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 25, 2025

The rosy predictions for future deficits, as is usual for government budget claims, assumes there will be no recession in coming months or years, since a recession would lead to falling tax revenues and a ballooning of federal debt.

Massie was also dismissive of the Republican leadership’s claims that the GOP congress would cap discretionary spending and then spend at the rate of inflation after that. “That has never happened,” Massie correctly noted.

Massie also explained that much of the Republican plan is built on spending and deficit cuts “over ten years.” For anyone who is actually paying attention, however, it’s clear that these ten-year plans for spending and deficit reduction are little more than smoke and mirrors. “ After all, no Congress can bind a future congress to any budgetary plan. Congress, at any given time simply spends as it wishes. Thus, Massie concludes that “Anything beyond the third year [in a ten-year budget plan] never happens” He’s right.

As it is, the federal government continues to hurtle toward a 40-trillion-dollar debt total. Although the Trump administration touts its efforts to cut spending via the elimination of some relatively minor government departments, the fact remains that cuts to unpopular discretionary spending is not enough. To make cuts to popular programs like defense spending, Social Security, and Medicaid. Needless to say, this is unlikely to happen.

The post Federal Spending in 2025 Is on Track To Be the Highest Ever appeared first on LewRockwell.

As a prepper, I’m continuously looking for “intel” that can help me be more self-reliant and a better protector of myself and my family.

Truth is, it’s all around us – but often invisible to those who are blind to see the subtle lessons that real life makes available for us.

Take Venezuela for example…

By now, it’s become one of the most humorous (or humorless) comments ever suggested on national television…

Trump’s debate comment about Haitian immigrants “eating dogs and cats” – thrown out as political “fear-porn” – first shocked, and then amused, a head-scratching American public.

But while many may laugh at this shocking statement as “extreme” and residents of the Springfield, OH town deal with the fallout of the political theater, the background to this concept is more real than most even know about.

You see…

Eating Dogs And Cats Isn’t A “Culture” Thing – For Venezuelans During Their Economic Collapse, It’s Been A “Forced Survival” Thing, And…

Here’s What The American Public Will Never “Get” About Doing The Unthinkable When Your Life Is On The Line… 

It’s no secret that Venezuela has been a petri dish for observing the various stages of “collapse”.

Once an oil-rich country, a combination of factors – including poor leadership, government corruption, and economic mismanagement – triggered a downward spiral that began in 2010 and has affected the life of the average Venezuelan on all levels…

• More than half of Venezuelans didn’t have enough income to meet their basic food needs.
• By 2021, 95% of the population was living in poverty
• 77% of these lived under extreme poverty
• 20% of Venezuelans (5.4 million) had left the country just to find a way to feed themselves and their families

Chants of “We are hungry!” echoed through the streets of Venezuela and in front of barren supermarkets.

People resorted to hunting dogs, cats, pigeons, and anything they can capture in order to put food on their family’s table.

Delivery trucks were stopped at rogue checkpoints and looted for the food and other supplies they contained.

There were even verified reports that citizens were “hunting” zoo animals as these wild beasts started to waste away behind the fences of public attractions that could no longer care for these animals.

In our modern society where hot meal is just a cellphone call away for a fast delivery, extreme poverty and hunger is a foreign concept for most Americans.

It’s easy to say what you “would” do under such extreme circumstances – but the fact is, you don’t know, until you HAVE to know.

And Venezuelans know what this life looks like…

By 2017, Almost 75% Of Venezuela’s Population Had Lost An Average Of Over 19 lbs Due To Lack Of Food!

The ultimate end-result for Venezuela’s collapse comes down to “survival” at its most basic nature.

Food at supermarkets went from insanely expensive… to scarce… to gone.

Looting of grocery stores pharmacies, shopping malls, and food delivery trucks have become common as food supplies have dried up into a state of emergency.

And while looting grocery stores has been “accepted” by the citizens, stealing from individuals has turned violent.

In one case, a man who was caught robbing fellow citizens was the victim of “mob justice” when passers-by beat him and set him on fire before police could arrive.

Not only is this a stern warning sign that hard times are ahead… but it also gives you a glimpse into how people, governments, and “security” will react in the absence of basic resources.

Now, if you’ve made it this far in the story, you may be thinking that this could never happen in the good ‘ol US of A, right?

Well Warrior, think again…

Read the Whole Article

The post Extreme Starvation Triggered Food Lines Miles Long… appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Western Journal

The post IRS Receives Report Detailing ‘Sufficient Grounds’ for Gates Foundation to Lose Tax-Exempt Status appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

A tutorial in “ How To Decimate Humanity”.

The post The UK Is a Sociopathic Fascist State appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Gail Appel.

Loomer Unleashed

The post The 2014 Sinister Symbiosis of Hunter Biden, Metabiota,CIA,DoD, Ukraine,Africa appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Ben Bartee

The post Trouble in MAHA Paradise? RFK and Trump Teams Allegedly at Odds Over Measles Response appeared first on LewRockwell.

Saint Hillary and the Religious Left, A Classic Essay by Murray N. Rothbard

The post Saint Hillary and the Religious Left appeared first on LewRockwell.

Due to policies by the governing class, the United States military has been delibertly weakened and with the abysmal failed withdraw of our troops from Afghanistan (the death of empires) the image of the United States has been faltering. The image of GOD is still a white man, Either Santa Claus with a sweet bubbly effervescent coca cola giving you a feel good to prey upon your emotions to get you to buy into the FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE whose image is of GOD a white man General George Washington, who’ll sacrifice himself and his family to set us FREE or the image of CHRIST on the cross. Whom we’ll sell off for our shekels, blame it on the state take HIS name in vain and blame HIM for all our ills. Right now with the monetary system and the collapse of the clown show in this family circus. It was deliberately planned out. I could name names and show you the plan and go through the HIStory, but the current plan is with NAFTA the US military jointly trained with soldiers from 3rd world nations here in the US and in their home country and then the “elite” went to jointly train in Israel. Then those soldiers were allowed to immigrant into the US and receive sweetheart deals for education and to make businesses. Then they allowed for the free flow of their hard earned dollar to be sent home and to facilitate the rest of their family coming in. Meantime the monied class use this to prop up wall street and the war machine. The Goal from China who thinks and plans in 100 year increments is to remove from the US the finest of Fruits and the Intelligences that create and produce and to render us obsolete, collapsing the United States FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE, then all the foreign nationals here in the United States, will switch teams to who ever holds the gold so they can eat, and they’ll wear the UN blue hats, to control what is left. China and Russia have both allegedly been buying and storing gold and they are planning on bringing back a “gold” backed state owned cryptocurrency with digital and societal social credit scores to keep everyone in line and turn us into chattel slaves. They use the division of gender, sexual orientation and the individuals own belief in whatever faith they hold to divide and conquer us. I don’t know what else to do. Because all trade wars end up in shooting wars, and wars good for business, but with the coming forced bankruptcy and collapse of USA, Inc which we’ve enjoyed and lived high on the hog with thanks to the sacrifices of all our family members that came before us.

The post A House divided will always fail appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.

NY Times

The post U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Tim McGraw.

The post California Governor Newsom’s Plan to Destro on the Eel River and Destroy Communities appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks Andy Thomas.

The post Zionism Is Rebellion Against God appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Kevin Duffy:

Hi Lew,

About a month ago, Howard Lutnick said on CNBC: 

“Tariffs do not, do not, do not create inflation! Money printing creates inflation. China has the highest tariffs in the world. They don’t have inflation.”

Last year China had a trade-weighted average tariff rate of just 3%.  (See here from trade experts at the Cato Institute)

How do we explain this? 

A. Lutnick is right and the Cato trade experts are wrong. 

B. This is hyperbole meant to sell the tariffs.  All’s fair in love and trade wars. 

C. Lutnick is ignorant of the facts. 

D. Lutnick is just another lying politician. 

The problem is that this isn’t an isolated case with the Trump economic team.  It’s a pattern.  Some might call it a design flaw.

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Click Here:

Eugyppius

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Thanks, John Frahm. 

Breitbart

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Once upon a time, in a land far away, lived a man, a man who believed that he, alone among all men, was anointed by God.

In fact, this man believed he was God. This man took it upon himself to organize and lead a great and holy crusade, a vast and powerful movement of the oppressed and victimized. This movement had a powerful symbol – the rainbow.

This man and his select group of followers would redefine everything in the world in which they lived, from the most basic human relationships such as marriage and property, to the ultimate question of whom would live and whom would die. But this story is not some lost fanciful legend or children’s fable. It is one of the most profound lessons in history.

The ideas of this man and his followers are not confined to a remote dustbin of the past, but are very alive today. They have impacted the world (and continue to impact our world) such as few ideas before or since. Such ideas have consequences. Are we prepared to face them?

Some observers believe the Twelve Articles that emerged from the German Peasants’ War outweigh the character flaws of Müntzer and the principles of Anabaptists. Müntzer may have lit the fuse, but it was a fuse rolled by Martin Luther. They assert Rothbard makes some critical accusations about SOME Anabaptists including Müntzer, BUT Rothbard also notes that most Anabaptists were anarchists of various degrees. In retrospect, The Twelve Articles set forth the foundations of our freedoms later enshrined in the Bill of Rights and other human rights many today still don’t enjoy around the world.

1 – Each community had the right to choose and dismiss its minister instead of having one appointed, and this minister should preach only from the Bible, not from church liturgy.
2 – The church tithe should be used to pay for a community’s minister, and any surplus used for the poor of that community instead of going elsewhere.
3 – Every peasant should be recognized as an autonomous being equal to any lord in the eyes of God.
4- Peasants should be allowed to fish, hunt, and make use of their own land.
5- Peasants should have access to the forests and be allowed to harvest wood for hearth fires or for their trade, such as carpentry.
6 – Daily labor should conform to the demands previously set for peasants prior to the enactment of new laws.
7- Compulsory labor should be abolished as it is unchristian and was never agreed to by the peasantry.
8 -Excessive rent for fields should be abolished as many peasants wind up working only to pay rent.
9 – Laws should be made more equitable so that all are equal before it and no one gets harsher or more lenient treatment for the same crime.
10 – Fields and meadows previously owned by the community, which have been taken by nobles, should be returned.
11 – The ‘heriot’ – inheritance tax – should be abolished as it leads to the poverty and suffering of widows and orphans.
12 – If any of the above demands are not in accordance with scripture, they will be removed only after the scripture is explained clearly and the article is shown to be in error.

(Below is the Peasants’ War Panorama, a monumental panoramic painting about the Peasants’ War entitled Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany by the Leipzig painter and art professor Werner Tübke . It is housed in the Panorama Museum , a specially constructed building complex on the Schlachtberg near the small Thuringian town of Bad Frankenhausen at the foot of the Kyffhäuser Mountains . The work was created between 1976 and 1987, originally to commemorate the German Peasants’ War and the peasant leader Thomas Müntzer. With an area of ​​1722 m², it is one of the largest panoramas in the world.)

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“Economics, in its most elegant form, is the study of cause and effect.”—John Rogers, Voting in Context: A Brief Economic History of American Politics

In 1933, people thought the world was ending and urged government to do whatever it could to relieve the pain of the Depression. In compliance thereof, FDR issued Executive Order 6102 on April 5, 1933 “forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States.”

Note the word, “hoarding”—a word with a negative tinge, suggesting the person hoarding is deliberately restricting supply for personal advantage. (See “The Virtue of Hoarding”). For many it summons the image of an anti-social miser. No one wanted to be branded a miser, especially by a president as beloved as FDR. Hoarders of gold, which was synonymous with owners of gold, were allegedly causing harm, therefore, hoarding had to stop.

What harm did hoarding cause? It was preventing government inflation of the money supply. Inflation would cause prices to rise, which the government thought was a good thing, especially in the current deflationary environment.

FDR commanded Americans to deliver their gold “to a Federal Reserve Bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System” on or before May 1, 1933. Not exactly a long lead time, but this was an emergency. Civilization’s money since King Croesus of Lydia (modern Turkey) ordered gold coins struck around 550 BC was suddenly no longer doing its job.

Fed Amendments

Since 1917, when the US plunged into the Great War “over there,” government and the Fed were doing everything they could to take gold, and therefore, gold redemption, out of the public’s hands. As Benjamin Anderson reports (p. 87), an amendment to The Federal Reserve Act in 1917 required member banks,

…to carry all of their legal reserves as deposits with the Federal Reserve banks, their own gold and lawful money held in their own vaults no longer counting as legal reserves. This made it possible for the member banks to turn over all their gold to the Federal Reserve banks, receiving in return either deposit credits or Federal Reserve notes . . . (emphasis mine)

The amendment had two purposes: (1) concentrate gold and gold certificates in Federal Reserve Banks; and, (2) encourage non-member banks to join the Federal Reserve System. About the latter, Anderson says the response was “gratifying.”

By keeping gold in Federal Reserve Banks and distant from everyday transactions, Americans were getting a taste of the fiat system headed their way.

A Revised Charter

Both the First and Second Banks of the United States were chartered for 20 years, and when the time came for renewal Congress voted to end them. The Fed originally had a 20-year-limit on its existence as well, but in its case it had a track record:

Since the System began operations, economic growth had been rapid. Interest rates had been stable. Financial crises had been contained. Recessions had been short. Recoveries had been rapid. Gold reserves had risen. The Federal Reserve Note . . . had become one of the world’s leading currencies. Banks in the United States had become increasingly profitable and internationally prominent. The world economy, in contrast, had experienced a decade of doldrums following the First World War.

Not mentioned in this sterling account was the “forgotten” depression of 1921, in which unemployment exceeded that of the Great Depression and “wholesale prices plunged by 36.8 percent, consumer prices by 10.8 percent and farm prices by 41.3 percent.” Unlike the government-Fed remedies of the Great Depression, this one was cured quickly by a laissez-faire approach.

Fed love prevailed, however, and knowing its charter would expire in seven years, Congress on February 25, 1927 passed the McFadden Act, one clause of which modified the Fed’s 20-year limit to allow it to exist until and unless Congress dissolved it. The Fed had been rechartered “into perpetuity.”

With government and the Fed under fire for its failures during the first years of the Depression, this one change may have kept it alive during a Democrat administration that began in 1933, one year before the Fed would have been up for renewal by original statute.

Fiat Money Frees the Printing Press

With the people’s gold stolen and locked up in Fort Knox, what became of the money Americans used?

In a 2002 speech, Fed chairman and former gold advocate Alan Greenspan told his audience,

. . . in the two decades following the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, the consumer price index in the United States nearly doubled. And, in the four decades after that, prices quintupled. Monetary policy, unleashed from the constraint of domestic gold convertibility, had allowed a persistent over-issuance of money.

Decades earlier, in a famous 1966 article, Greenspan concluded with these words, slamming government for spending wealth it was stealing from future generations:

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.

Today, the fiat Federal Reserve note is worth about three percent of its value in 1913, while gold—if you own some you might want to hang onto it—has maintained its value.

With gold in the news and DOGE prying into government agencies, the bullion depository at Fort Knox—considered the world’s largest gold reserve—was certain to be checked out. The coins surrendered by Americans are now bars—big heavy chunks of gold of little or no use for everyday commerce.

So if Trump and company visit Fort Knox and find that “America’s” gold is still there, will Musk face the cameras and say, “This is your gold” to the public as he did recently in an X post? And if he does, will he or Trump propose returning it to the American people?

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post Who Owns the Gold? appeared first on LewRockwell.

On April 2nd, Reuters headlined “US officials object to European push to buy weapons locally”, which means that Trump’s demand for Europe to increase greatly its ‘defense’ spending is, indeed, part of his plan to keep the boom in the U.S. stock markets going. This needs to be understood in the relevant context:

Though none of the mainstream press reported the fact in 2017, Trump started his Presidency in 2017 by making the biggest armaments-sale in history: $400 billion in U.S.-made weapons to Saudi Arabia over the next ten years, which would keep the by-far-most profitable segment of the U.S. stock markets — the ‘defense’ sector — booming, and therefore keep American billionaires (whom those corporations benefit enormously in every possible way) continuing to grow their personal fortunes at a much faster clip than the U.S. economy itself grows (which has been quite sluggish — below the global average for all countries); and, this way, the fortunes of billionaires will continue to thrive even if the U.S. economy doesn’t (as has been the case now for at least the past 25 years).

Right now, Trump is promising to stop America’s apparently ceaseless creation of, and participation (such as in Ukraine) in, foreign wars, but he isn’t reducing — and is instead actually increasing — America’s ‘defense’ (aggression) expenditures while cutting virtually everything else (the federal expenditures that don’t help billionaires); and, in order to do this beyond the 2027 end-date of his $400 billion weapons-sale to the Sauds, he is trying to get America’s colonies (‘allies’), such as Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc., to increase their armaments-purchases from American firms such as Lockheed Martin — the firms whose sales-volumes are especially important to America’s billionaires, the people who control the U.S. Government. This is why he doesn’t want Europeans to grow their own ‘defense’ industries.

If a European nation will allow foreign (especially American) billionaires to benefit from its sharp increase in armaments-purchases, this won’t hurt ONLY their own domestic billionaires, but it will ALSO be sending those manufacturing jobs to America and thereby boost America’s economy at the expense of the local economy. For Trump to be requesting them to do that is to insult not only that country’s billionaires but also its residents.

This is not the only reason why NATO might soon break apart. For example: Trump is determined to take Greenland for the U.S. Government — to expand the U.S. to include Greenland. However, polls show that around 85% of Greenlanders are opposed to that, and Trump is also saying that if they won’t willingly comply, then he will do it militarily. Greenland is a Danish colony, and Denmark is a part of NATO. If the U.S. invades Greenland, then how will other countries in NATO feel about that? It would present the U.S. blatantly as aggressor against a NATO member-nation — the very nation that had previously been supposedly their chief protector. What would this do to NATO?

The U.S. Congress is, according to the U.S. Constitution, supposed to be the ultimate determinant of whether or not U.S. military forces invade another country; but, so far, there has been prevailing silence from Congress about Trump’s threat against Greenlanders and even Danes — not the outrage that would prevail if America were still governed under its Constitution.

We are entering the twilight zone. Will it turn out to be the end of the U.S. empire — the end of the largest empire in all of world history? It could — especially if Congress remains silent about what has been happening. The longer this silence continues, the deeper into it we are getting.

This is certainly a weird moment in world history. Of course, ultimately, NATO will end, but the question is when and how. NATO had started on 25 July 1945 as a sentiment and resulting decision by Truman, and was then born in 1949, but is probably near its end now, and the public don’t know it because lots of ‘history’ that has been told in The West is false.

This originally appeared on Eric’s Substack.

The post NATO Is Breaking Apart appeared first on LewRockwell.