Aggregatore di feed

Thanks, Andy Thomas.

The post The Plight of Gaza’s Christians appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

DW News

The post Marcus Aurelius: a Roman emperor as social media influencer appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

Emerald Robinson explains why Mike Lindell is not guilty of defamation in the lawsuit filed against him. The jury trial began on June 2.

See here.

The post Why Mike Lindell Is Not Guilty of Defamation in Election Machine Case appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: What is it about silver that makes it viable as a monetary metal—that is, something people actually use to store and exchange value?

Doug Casey: Let’s look at the definition of what makes a good money. There are basically six characteristics. A good money has to be durable, divisible, convenient, consistent, have use value, and some limit on supply. Using those six key characteristics, gold ranks first, silver second, and copper third. That’s why those three metals have been preferred money throughout history. They were superior to seashells, salt, cows, paper, and other commodities. In today’s world it makes sense to bring Bitcoin, which also satisfies those six characteristics into the mix.

So, to answer the question: Silver has always been a monetary metal, and it likely always will be.

International Man: Do you think gold functions better as money than silver—and if so, why? If not, why not?

Doug Casey: Gold is much scarcer than silver. It has an extremely high unit value. And its value relative to silver has increased throughout history. In the days of Ancient Egypt, gold traded at only three times the value of silver. In Rome, at the time of Caesar, the gold aureus was worth about 12 times more than the silver denarius. The US initially fixed the value of gold against silver at 17.5 to 1. Incidentally, fixing the value of any commodities—which fluctuate widely for many reasons—is always a bad idea. As of now, the ratio is about 100 to 1. The increase in gold’s value relative to silver is a trend that, with fits and starts, has been in motion for over 3,000 years.

It’s important to have an adequate quantity of money available for use in commerce. This was a problem in the early days of the US, when there was neither enough gold nor silver in circulation. Of course, the terms “adequate” and “enough” are rather arbitrary. That’s one reason why money itself should be strictly a function of the free market, not government. If there’s not “enough” gold or silver, more will be mined at a profit. When there’s too much, mining becomes unprofitable, and stops. Unlike government money, free market money is self-regulating.

Out of maybe 7 billion ounces of gold that have ever been mined, almost all is stored in vaults, safe deposit boxes, or worn as jewelry. Most is owned by governments and their central banks. It doesn’t circulate in any meaningful way.

Governments—including the US government—used to hold large amounts of silver in storage too. But now none do.

International Man: The long-term trend has been for silver to be demonetized and increasingly treated as an industrial metal. Do you see that continuing, and what are the implications?

Doug Casey: Let’s look at silver as an element. In the past, it was only used as jewelry. But out of the 92 elements, it’s the most reflective and the most conductive of both heat and electricity. There’s every reason to believe that silver is going to gain many more industrial uses over time because of these properties. It’s a high-tech metal.

A great deal of silver used to be consumed in photography and X-rays, until a generation ago, but it’s hardly used there at all anymore. Digital photography has nearly replaced it.

About 850 million ounces of silver are mined every year, and about another 150 million ounces are recycled. The available supply of bullion, therefore, is about a billion ounces—versus about 100 million ounces of gold. That’s roughly a ten-to-one ratio on the supply side, although most of the silver is “consumed,” whereas almost all the gold is added to inventory. Since 2019, silver has been in deficit. Roughly 150 million ounces a year have been taken from various stockpiles. That explains why its price has risen to a new base level in the $30 to $35 range, and done better than gold, percentage-wise.

And while we’re talking about silver’s unique qualities, it’s worth mentioning that gold also has unique metallic properties. It’s the most non-reactive of all metals; gold doesn’t oxidize. It’s the most ductile, meaning it can be drawn into the thinnest wire of any metal. It’s the most malleable, meaning it can be beaten into the thinnest sheet of all metals.

When people talk about gold and silver, they often treat them as if they were one metal. While they do share a lot of characteristics, they each have unique qualities. You’ll notice that, on the Periodic Table of Elements, copper (with 29 protons) is at the top of the file, above silver (with 47), and gold (79). The three metals are closely related atomically, as well as by their traditional use as money.

International Man: During times of monetary chaos and runaway inflation, people tend to rush into traditional forms of money—assets that hold value better than rapidly depreciating government paper.

Silver often sees a surge in demand during these moments, despite its limited monetary role today.

Do you see something like that happening again?

Doug Casey: I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’re heading into a massive monetary crisis. The dollar is going to lose value at an accelerating rate because of the US government’s profligate spending policies.

DOGE, which was an excellent idea, has failed; the deficits are going to rise from $2 trillion to $3 trillion. And when the economy takes a downward turn, the government’s tax revenues will fall, even while its obligations rise. I expect that within the next five years, we’ll see $5 to $6 trillion annual deficits.

That’s why bonds are in a world of trouble, for reasons we’ve discussed in the past. The stock market is grossly overpriced. Real estate is also in bubble territory, with large carrying costs aggravating the problem. The average guy is likely to rediscover gold, and especially silver.

International Man: Where do you see silver prices heading, and what do you think are the best ways to speculate on a rise?

Doug Casey: Both gold and silver are in major bull markets. Silver is the poor man’s gold. The average guy, who can’t lay his hands on $500 cash if he needs it, really can’t afford gold. But when he gets scared enough about what’s going on, silver will still be relatively affordable. The average guy will start accumulating silver as a place to hide.

I’ve accumulated silver for many years, just like gold. I’ve only bought it, never sold it. The problem with silver is that its unit value is so low, you’d need a vault like Uncle Scrooge to store a substantial amount. That’s not true with gold.

That said, everybody should have 100 ounces of silver coins. If you can, set aside a few thousand ounces as a savings vehicle. If the US government succeeds in destroying the dollar, many people are likely to prefer being paid, and buying and selling, with gold and silver coins. They’ll want something real and tangible, not a digital abstraction, or pieces of paper.

It really doesn’t matter how high the price of silver goes from a supply point of view. That’s because almost all new silver is a byproduct of mining other metals—gold, copper, lead, and zinc. To major mining companies, silver is only a nice bonus. Even at $100 it won’t have a material effect on their production plans.

Years ago, there was a Spokane Stock Exchange. It closed in 1991. Most people are unaware the US used to have a number of regional stock exchanges—Denver for oil, Salt Lake for uranium, and so forth. Scores of small silver stocks were traded in Spokane. From about 1960 to 1970, those little penny stocks went up by orders of magnitude. The boom was chronicled in a book called “Small Fortunes in Penny Gold Stocks.” The best one was Coeur d’Alene Mines, which went from 2 cents to $20. That kind of thing could happen again.

There are a few pure publicly traded silver companies now, and they’re generally very small-cap stocks. Institutions don’t own them, and few care about them. However, I think we’re going to see $100 or $200 silver in the next few years, and these stocks should catch fire. There used to be a whole class of investment advisors who published newsletters and made a living beating the drum about silver. They no longer exist. That tells me that silver is under-owned, nobody cares about it, and it’s going higher.

I consider silver stocks a superb speculation.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Silver: Money, Markets, and the Metal’s Role in the Coming Chaos appeared first on LewRockwell.

When you spend 30 trillion dollars that you do not have, it is easy to create an illusion of prosperity. In 1995, the nation was obsessed with the O.J. Simpson trial, “Toy Story” was the biggest movie of the year, the Sony Playstation made its debut in the United States, and Bill Clinton was in the White House. At that time, the U.S. national debt was right on the verge of crossing the 5 trillion dollar mark. Today, the U.S. national debt is sitting at 36.2 trillion dollars. That means that we have added more than 30 trillion dollars to the national debt in just 30 years.

So what did we get for 30 trillion dollars?

We got the greatest party in the history of the world.

Over the past three decades, we have been enjoying an obscenely inflated standard of living that we did not deserve.

When the government spends money, it provides a short-term boost to the economy.  Those that get their hands on the money that the government spends end up using it to go shopping, repair their vehicles, eat at restaurants, etc.

If we could go back and pull 30 trillion dollars of extra government spending over the last 30 years out of the economy, we would be in a rip-roaring depression right now.

So for those of you that wish to avoid economic pain at all costs, you should thank our Congress critters for spending money like drunken sailors all these years.

But in the process, our leaders have destroyed America’s future.

We are broke, and we are absolutely drowning in debt.

The only way that we can meet our obligations is to go into ever larger amounts of debt.

Unfortunately, that cycle can only go on for so long before we reach a point where nobody wants to lend us money anymore.

If you have been paying attention to the bond market, you already know that there have been all sorts of red flags in 2025.

The clock is ticking.  But instead of getting our spending under control, Congress seems determined to ramp our spending up to a much higher level…

The package of tax-and-spending measures sent to the Senate, now officially called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, could act like budgetary wolf bait. It would add around $3 trillion to debt levels over the next decade compared with existing estimates and $5 trillion if certain temporary features were made permanent, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

For perspective, federal interest this fiscal year already will be more than the defense budget and more than Medicaid, disability insurance and food stamps combined.

If you are one of those that want to keep the party going for as long as possible, you probably support this bill.

But for those of us that want our children and grandchildren to actually have a future, we are absolutely horrified by what we are witnessing.

In fact, Elon Musk just called this bill a “disgusting abomination”…

Elon Musk is right.

Rand Paul has also spoken out against this bill, and he is right too.

What we have been doing to future generations of Americans over the past 30 years is beyond criminal.

It must stop.

If it doesn’t stop, it is just a matter of time before the entire system collapses.

We have been able to defy the laws of economics for many years, but now economic reality is catching up with us in a major way.

And even though we continue to spend giant mountains of money that we do not have, the illusion of prosperity that we have created is rapidly starting to crumble anyway.

This week, we learned that Disney is conducting “major layoffs”…

Major layoffs are underway Monday the Walt Disney Company, with several hundred employees impacted globally, Deadline has learned. The bulk of them are across divisions of Disney Entertainment, including marketing for both film and television as well as television publicity, casting and development. Also affected are Disney’s corporate financial operations.

Microsoft is even bigger than Disney, and they are conducting mass layoffs as well…

Microsoft Corp. cut hundreds more jobs just weeks after its largest layoff in years, underscoring the tech industry’s efforts to trim costs even as it plows billions of dollars into artificial intelligence.

More than 300 employees were told their positions had been eliminated on Monday, according to a Washington state notice reviewed by Bloomberg.

These latest layoffs by Microsoft are on top of the 6,000 job cuts that were revealed last month…

A Microsoft spokesperson said the latest headcount reduction is in addition to the 6,000 job cuts announced last month. “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the spokesperson said.

If you have a job that you value, hold on to it as tightly as you can, because a lot more people are going to be losing their jobs in the months ahead.

And that is really bad news, because we already have a major employment crisis in this country.

As I discussed the other day, nearly 1 out of every 4 Americans is “functionally unemployed” at this point.

Things are really tough out there right now.

In fact, things are so tough that Americans are eating meals at home at the highest level we have seen since the early days of the pandemic…

More Americans are cooking at home as growing economic concerns are forcing households to cut back, according to Campbell’s CEO Mick Beekhuizen.

Beekhuizen told analysts during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Monday that consumer sentiment continued to soften throughout the quarter, with shoppers becoming even more deliberate about how they were spending money on food.

“A key outcome is a growing preference for home-cooked meals, leading to the highest levels of meals prepared at home since early 2020,” Beekhuizen said.

One way or another, we are going to have to take our medicine.

Either our leaders will have to get our financial house in order, or the bond market will force us to change.

But no matter how it plays out, nobody can deny that the party is ending.

It was fun while it lasted, but everybody knew that the wild spending would eventually have to come to an end.

Needless to say, the adjustment to our standard of living that we will soon experience will be exceedingly painful, and our society is not prepared for that at all.

Reprinted with permission from The Economic Collapse.

The post 30 Trillion Dollars in 30 Years appeared first on LewRockwell.

Now that some total idiot in the Trump regime has green-lighted an attack on Russian strategic forces, John Helmer raises for Putin Lenin’s question, “What is to be done?” See this.

As I understand it, Washington’s attack on Russian strategic forces is grounds under current Russian war doctrine for Putin to push the button.  But Putin, unlike Lenin, is a balancer, not a person who acts.  Is Putin so desperate to avoid war that he is bringing war upon us?

There seems to be more awareness among Russian people than in Washington and Europe of the seriousness of the situation.  With too long of a wait, it eventually dawned on the White House that Trump must be disassociated from the attack, as otherwise the attack is easily interpreted as Washington’s declaration of war on Russia.  According to the White House announcement, Trump was not informed in advance of the attack on the Russian strategic bombing fleet, which in keeping with the treaty is kept lined up openly on air fields. One problem with this disavowal is that the Secretary of State or the Defense Secretary reportedly watched via the digital revolution the attack as it happened. So Trump’s government knew, but Trump didn’t?

What confidence does the attack on Russian strategic forces  give Putin that Trump is sincere about peace negotiations?

Why does Trump announce constructing a trillion dollar dome to protect the US from incoming missiles when the costless alternative is a mutual security agreement, a great power agreement, with Russia and China?  The answer is that the US military/security complex wants the money.  The dome will be useless, because hypersonic missiles on random jig-jag trajectories cannot be intercepted.  If Trump is the peace president, why not simply agree to a mutual security agreement?

Another problem with the White House’s disavowal is Trump’s competence as president. Let’s examine the implication of President Trump not being informed of an attack that under Russian war doctrine is sufficient to launch nuclear missiles against the United States and Europe.  How can it be that it is not in the hands of the President of the United States whether or not to undertake a military action that could initiate nuclear war?  Is this a sign of President Trump’s incompetence or of his irrelevance?

It is not only the White House that is making light of a stupid action that could have unleashed nuclear war, but also all of Washington, Western Europe, and the Western whore media, a collection of despicable people who lie for their living. We are facing an existential threat to the continued existence of life on earth and the idiot whore media is telling us about some celebrity’s concern with her sex life.

Putin’s government itself is making light of the attacks, describing both the attacks on the Russian strategic forces and the destructions of the two railway bridges as “acts of terrorism,” not acts of war.  Putin has accepted another humiliation in order not to abandon his false hopes for the “peace negotiations.”  Putin’s unrealism is likely to encourage ever more provocative acts against Russia.  Both the large circulation newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets and the military blog Colonel Cassad make the same point I have been making.  As long as the Kremlin refuses to accept that “the enemy is waging a total war, the purpose of which is the destruction of our country and people — and no peace talks will change this — the longer an adequate response is in coming, the more” provocations there will be.

From the beginning of Putin’s ever-widening, never-ending war over a few kilometers in the Russian provinces Communist officials assigned to Ukraine I have said that Putin’s unwillingness to use sufficient force to terminate the conflict would result in opportunities for the US and NATO to become involved in the conflict with their prestige involved.  Consequently, the conflict would spin out of control, which it came close to doing with the attack on Russian strategic forces.  

How many non-responses to provocations can Putin survive?  Are Russians so Westernized and brainwashed that they have no national pride?  Are they willing to be humiliated forever by leadership that declares red lines but always turns the other cheek?  Why is no one in the West concerned with these serious questions?  Is it because no one takes Russia seriously? Is Putin causing World War III because he has convinced the West not to take Russia seriously?

Washington’s neoconservatives might succeed in destabilizing Putin, considering all the help Putin is giving them, but will his replacement be an American puppet or a person of action capable of recognizing an enemy when he sees one?  No intelligent Russian would sacrifice Russian lives in order to make unrealizable peace deals with people determined to destroy Russia. On what grounds can Russians believe in any agreement with the West?  

If Putin is replaced by a Lenin, the Western World is over and done with.  Putin is a reasonable, rational, emotional stable person, not a warmonger.  The West should be supporting him, not pushing him into war.

We are watching the Trump regime fall apart. Elon Musk, one tower of strength, has left.  Russian strategic forces are attacked, and Trump doesn’t know about it.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services,  announces that the deadly Covid vax will no longer be recommended for pregnant women and healthy children.  The head of the CDC, a subordinate to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, gives the finger to his boss and announces that the Covid vax will be recommended for pregnant women and healthy children.  Robert Kennedy announces that no vaccines will be approved without tests, and the CDC approves Big Pharma’s vaccine without the tests.  

In other words, there is no Trump Administration in place.  The Establishment rules.  Trump and his government are irrelevant. Trump does the bidding of Israel and the military/security complex. Big Pharma, not Secretary Robert Kennedy, makes the decisions.  Elon Musk gives up and goes home.  The FBI director validates the unbelievable Epstein suicide narrative.  The Trump Justice Department has held no one accountable for the attempted frame-up of President Trump by the CIA and FBI.  Attorney General Bondi says weaponized law is halted, but as those responsible have not been held accountable, the Democrats will again weaponize law.  The media remains weaponized.

I warned that this would be the result.  I repeat what I wrote when Trump was making his comeback without opposition from the ruling establishment. The American Establishment decided to let Trump again be president.  The Establishment knew that they could use the judiciary, the civil service, and Trump appointees who would betray Trump for success in the Establishment.  I saw all of this in the Reagan administration with appointees, few being Reagan’s, betraying him for their advancement in the Ruling Establishment

The Establishment reasoned that the easiest way to eliminate “populist opposition” is to put their leader in the presidency, block him at every turn, thereby demoralizing his supporters. With their hope eviscerated, defeated people go home and accept whatever happens.

Trump was America’s last chance.  If he were a young Julius Caesar, he might have succeeded.  But like Julius Caesar, the Establishment was against him.  Trump’s entire government consists of Israel’s puppets.  They will do anything for Israel and little for America.  The Zionist Trump regime has again vetoed a UN Security Council resolution against Israel’s on-going slaughter of Palestinians by bullets, bombs, starvation, and disease.  War with Iran can still result from Iran’s refusals of Trump’s dictates that serve Israel’s interest.  We still await the problems that the Trump regime will create with China.

Dear readers, you can expect war.  No one in the Western World, nor Putin, has sufficient intelligence to avoid it.  It is just a matter of time.  

The post Lenin’s Question Is the Question of Our Time appeared first on LewRockwell.

Bishop Robert Barron recently appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show, in a wide-ranging discussion that covered prayer, evolution, AI, the New Atheist Movement, and about a dozen more topics. Naturally, the Catholic world was excited by a Catholic bishop—and one of our most well-spoken—appearing in front of such a large, and mostly non-Catholic, audience. How would he do? What would he say?

I was not immune from the excitement, but I admit I was nervous as well. You see, I’ve never been a Bishop Barron fanboy. I’ve even been a critic at times. In my book Deadly Indifference I detail my disappointment with Barron’s appearance on the Ben Shapiro Show in 2018. When asked point-blank by the Jewish Shapiro if he should become Catholic, Barron—the de facto Chief Evangelist of the Catholic Church in America—hedged and gave what I thought was a weak, ambiguous answer. I pointed it out as a tremendous missed opportunity, and I was worried something similar would happen on Carlson’s show.

That wasn’t my only concern. I think Barron downplays the problems in the Church significantly and unreasonably exalts Vatican II. Further, while I believe that Barron is orthodox in his beliefs, he skirts the line far too closely when it comes to the salvation of all souls, a tendency he shares with his hero Hans Urs von Balthasar. In an age when most people think everyone except Hitler goes to heaven and so there’s no point in following moral rules or the Church’s teachings in general, I don’t think it’s helpful to have a popular bishop speak as if he agrees with that sentiment.

Because of my willingness to publicly criticize Bishop Barron, I’ve often heard from his legions of supporters with messages that range from constructive criticism to outright attacks. I even had an employee of Barron’s reach out to me directly, lamenting that I’d dare “attack” the Great Bishop.

Yet through all my criticisms I’ve never doubted that he is one of our best bishops. In fact, it’s not particularly close—he’s clearly in the top 1% of bishops. I realize that the competition isn’t exactly fierce these days, yet his passion for souls is obvious, as is his willingness to speak out against the excesses and errors of our culture. Over the years I’ve encountered countless Catholics positively impacted by him, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. I even know a traditional religious sister who converted after listening to his works. Not many bishops, let alone many Catholics, can say they’ve brought more souls into a deeper relationship with Christ in his Catholic Church than Bishop Barron.

My criticisms of him, in fact, have been based in large part on my overall positive assessment of him. A sports fan is far more critical of the star player who makes an error than of the benchwarmer when he gets in the game and doesn’t produce. Much more is expected of the star player. And for better or worse, Bishop Barron is clearly one of our star players.

I’ve noticed in recent years that Barron has gotten more outspoken, and I wonder if it’s just because he has his own diocese now, instead of being an auxiliary who has to answer to an archbishop. I’m guessing the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo will make his voice even stronger. So in spite of my past criticisms, I was hopeful regarding what the bishop would say on one of the most popular and influential podcasts in the world today.

Read the Whole Article

The post In Appreciation of Bishop Barron appeared first on LewRockwell.

For years, Jake Tapper, the leading newsreader for CNN, has been very unfair to and very biased against Republicans in general, and to President Trump in particular.

Now, in an attempt to restore some of his lost credibility, he has written a new book with Alex Thompson of Axios about the Biden health cover-up.

He apparently is embarrassed and/or feels guilty about all he did in a very partisan way to try to keep a very unhealthy Joe Biden in office as president, but I will give him credit for now admitting to some extent how wrong he was. Of course, he is putting most of the blame on the White House staff.

I will not try to help Tapper in this personal campaign of his by buying his book. However, I have read and heard many things he has said and I have read some of the reviews.

He said: “Alex and I are here to say that conservative media was right and conservative media was correct and that there should be a lot of soul-searching, not just among me, but among the legacy media.”

In an interview with Piers Morgan, Tapper said the cover-up of Biden’s health by the White House, aided by Tapper and most of the national media, was “maybe even worse” than the Watergate scandal. In fact, he used those words three times in the interview.

He added: “It is without question and maybe even worse than Watergate in some ways because Richard Nixon was in control of his faculties when he was not drinking.”

In its story about Tapper’s book, the U.S. edition of the Daily Mail (a British newspaper), led this way: “CNN star Jake Tapper has been branded a ‘fraud’ and a ‘phony’ over his self-righteous rants about former President Joe Biden’s health cover up.”

The story said “many believe the journalist was complicit in Biden’s cover up” and added that early reviews “were quickly overshadowed by allegations that Tapper himself was part of the cover up and is now seemingly trying to rewrite history.”

The national media hated Trump so much that reporters were eager to jump on and exaggerate anything unfavorable to him and to emphasize anything favorable to Biden.

Tapper’s book apparently says that Biden’s inner circle “couldn’t believe how easily (the media) swallowed campaign lies” and how eager reporters were to say something Trump said was false.

Much of the mainstream media was doing everything it could to protect and promote Biden. They would never ask him tough questions or criticize him for not holding press conferences and for not having anything on his schedule.

In the summer of 2023, the New York Times reported that “people who deal with him regularly, including some of his adversaries, say he remains sharp and commanding in private meetings” and “he has at times exerted striking stamina.”

His two young press secretaries said at different times they were having trouble keeping up with him and that videos shown by Fox News and other conservative media were “deep fake.”

Yet, several months before the election, the Biden campaign tried to film a town hall meeting to use on TV ads, but they couldn’t use it because, according to the Tapper book, Biden “couldn’t put together coherent thoughts.” The book also said Hunter Biden was “effectively chief of staff.”

In a survey released on Dec. 30, 2023, Syracuse University’s School of Public Communications said the number of journalists identifying themselves as Republicans fell from 18% in 2002 and 7.1% in 2013 to only 3.4% in 2022.

I received my journalism degree in 1969 and worked as a full-time reporter for the Knoxville Journal, our morning daily newspaper, during my senior year at U.T. in 1968-69. I taught journalism for one year. In those years, newspapers felt it was important to have a separation between the news pages and the editorial pages.

They never would have allowed a reporter to use words like “obviously false” in what were supposed to be news stories unless some official made the accusation. Reporters were supposed to be reporters, not editorial writers, and especially not flunkies for one political party.

Finally, not only did they hide the truth about Biden’s health, but Tapper and the national media also pushed the story that Russia had aided the 2016 Trump campaign. After paying 18 very anti-Trump lawyers for two years and spending many millions of taxpayer dollars, they found no proof at all of this Russian hoax.

This article was originally published on Knoxville Focus.

The post Jake Tapper: Biden Cover-up ‘Worse Than Watergate’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

The American Revolution was the first step in a global upheaval that would do away with a system called monarchy, creating a new world of equality and freedom. On paper this sounds about perfect, n’est-ce pas, as our French friends say, but in actual fact a few years later the Haitians revolted and massacred the ones who didn’t agree with the revolutionaries, appalling democrats the Western world over. The French chopping off the heads of all people who knew which fork and knife to use at the table did not help democracy either. Nasty and bitter partisan elections have followed right here in these United States, not to mention South American ones, more often than not settled at the barrel of a gun.

In the year of our Lord 2025 the Donald is in the White House, having been duly and fairly elected last November. His supporters cheered his victory and called it unprecedented; his opponents jeered Joe Biden for having reverted to being a baby, hiding it, and refusing to give up his doll, the White House. Never mind. I have a question or two about the jeering, however.

“Something has gone wrong in this country, and I blame those lying activists calling themselves journalists for it.”

Where was this guy Tapper, at present shoveling the money into his bank account for coauthoring the book about Biden’s baby talk, when the republic was being run by unelected gofers of the baby president? Why didn’t he or his coauthor Thompson, both posing as journalists, reveal the truth about the baby residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? I’ll tell you why. Objective truth or fact is an alien concept for 95 percent of journalists, and both men preferred to see a baby dressed as an adult try to run the world instead of a blond, orange tough guy bloviating in Palm Beach. And both men had one thought in mind: to cash in on what they knew after the baby had finally been taken back to his nursery.

Back in 1972 the great American president Richard Nixon carried every state except Massachusetts, winning an unprecedented landslide in the process. Nixon had opened up China and the Soviet Union, had settled the war in Vietnam, and was leading America into the brightest of futures, but he had a mortal enemy—yes, you guessed it, the so-called fourth estate. Two infamously mendacious journalists, Woodward and Bernstein, in cahoots with the deep state and a hostile Congress, brought Nixon down in less than two years after his unprecedented triumph at the polls. These same mendacious hacks and their similes now refer to that disgraceful period as the golden age of journalism. It was nothing of the sort. A few so-called elites controlled the media and hired only those who played the game according to their rules. When President Nixon decided to go after them, they managed to get to him first.

Technology, needless to say, disarmed those who controlled us for so long, namely the lefty major newspapers and the three TV channels. So now little ole Taki can write in his little ole magazine Takimag the truth, and there’s nothing left-wing phonies running the Times or the TV channels can do about it. The “fabled era in the capital, when Presidents feared journalists” is truly over. As Sally Quinn, an old-time Washington gossipmonger and bottom kisser of the powerful, said last week, “Everybody is so disoriented and depressed and untethered.”

I don’t blame them. They’re so depressed about what 77 million Americans did last November that this Goldberg woman who writes a column for the Big Bagel Times is now blaming the great Elon Musk for 300,000 deaths of East Africans. Just think about this. These so-called journalists hate what 77 million citizens voted for, so Times columnists and reporters blame most deaths from cancer and disease on Musk and Trump. See what I mean, dear Takimag readers, when I say that these people calling themselves journalists is like career criminal George Floyd having a square named after him and being called a hero, with 27 million greenbacks being given to his family only because a policeman followed procedure and held him down? Something has gone wrong in this country, and I blame those lying activists calling themselves journalists for it.

Down in D.C. those phonies posing as objective truth tellers are up in arms because their Santa Claus, Jeff Bezos, has named an outsider, Will Lewis—and a Brit to boot—as head of The Washington Post. They want the legacy of Kay Graham revived, in other words the legacy of mendacity and the ability to bring down a president. Well, they might still get it, but this time it’s going to be harder. 77 million voters cannot be ignored by a small group of D.C. catamites. The same ones who call their paper a national treasure for having brought down a great president some fifty years ago.

Here’s what these bums posing as truth tellers did for us lately: denounced anyone sympathetic to Trump as a racist, bigot, or fascist. Dismissed millions of working-class people as numbskulls for having voted the wrong way. Used a vile and sophomoric tone against any Trump appointee, starting with Elon Musk. Hyperbolic fearmongering replaced any kind of balanced reporting of news. The monopoly that Trump haters hold in the media, however diluted by technology, still sets the terms of national debate. But the media landscape is expanding, and that fact alone is driving the lefties a bit balmy. The legacy media, as it’s called, instead of trying to play it straight for once, is reverting to type and claiming its entitlement. It ain’t gonna work. At least I hope not.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

The post Bad Press appeared first on LewRockwell.

The laughable “defense” review which posits that the UK can fight Russia and China simultaneously is not even the worst component of London’s increasingly delusional foreign policy. This includes the “Perfidious Albion’s” desire to ensure nuclear escalation in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. Namely, during a “Strategy of the Rook: UK interests in the Black Sea” panel at a recent Black Sea Security Forum in Odessa, British Colonel Richard Kemp (ret.) argued that the UK should “help” the Neo-Nazi junta to “restore its nuclear arsenal”.

The United Kingdom conquered approximately a quarter of the world during the heyday of its brutal colonial empire. The vast majority of UN member states celebrate their independence precisely from London, as history’s most prominent thalassocracy pretty much invaded at least 90% of the planet in its quest for total dominance. Nowadays, the UK is a second-rate power (at best), with horrible demographics, widespread moral degeneracy and societal decay, as well as a plethora of other domestic issues that urgently need to be solved. However, instead of focusing on that, London is still role-playing a superpower. Namely, the latest document on the strategic priorities of the British military states that it should focus on – wait for it – Russia and China. Yes, you read that right. The UK believes it can fight both (Eur)Asian giants simultaneously.

According to the Strategic Defense Review (PDF), the British military needs to be ready for a conflict against not only Russia and China, but also North Korea and Iran. The assessment posits that London is faced with “a new era of threat with drones, artificial intelligence and other technologies changing the nature of warfare more fundamentally than at any other point in history”. The document has around 140 pages and contains guidelines for the British military, with a particular focus on the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, the largest and most intense in the world since WWII. Moscow and Beijing were described as primary opponents (although the latter was formally deemed a “sophisticated and persistent challenge”). At the same time, Pyongyang and Tehran were both presented as so-called “regional disruptors” of the “Perfidious Albion’s” interests.

The team of authors was headed by George Robertson, life peer of the House of Lords and former NATO Secretary General in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They reiterated the need to increase military spending (expected to reach nearly $70 billion) to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and then 3% in the subsequent review. The review also touched upon the issue of the British military’s dwindling size, with a particular focus on reports that the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Treasury are at odds over the financing of such initiatives. Namely, the latest figures suggest that “the size of the Army has dropped below the target to the lowest level since the Napoleonic era and earlier, with the number of full-time trained soldiers at 70,860 on 1 April, down 2.3% over the preceding year”. In other words, the entire ground force of the British military would be unable to hold 100 km of a frontline.

In comparison, the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict has a massive frontline that’s at least 1,300 km long. How exactly could London hope to match Russia’s two-million-strong military with 70,000 troops, while also “deterring” China in the Asia-Pacific region is anyone’s guess. The report suggests that increasing the size of ground forces “by only 5,000 would cost well over $3 billion a year in extra pay, accommodation, kit and other resources”. However, what the UK doesn’t have a shortage of are admirals. Namely, it would be facing the Chinese Navy with its dwindling inventory that has more admirals than warships. Others, such as Peter Ricketts, a former national security adviser, argue that it would be best to “spend more on drones, cyber capabilities and artificial intelligence” and that “resourcing of 3.5% of GDP [for the military] would ultimately be necessary”.

Interestingly, the document also mentions plans for a “volunteer home guard to protect airports and other sensitive sites from drone or other unexpected attacks by hostile states and terrorists”. This is particularly indicative, as British intelligence services are among the most active in virtually all hotspots around the world, including NATO-occupied Ukraine. There are very serious indicators that the MI6 masterminded the plan to attack Russia’s strategic aviation, with the Neo-Nazi junta simply serving as cannon fodder. What’s more, British involvement in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict couldn’t possibly be more pronounced, particularly as its top military and intelligence officers have planned and even executed operations against Russia’s strategic assets, particularly the VMF (the Eurasian giant’s navy), with the obvious goal of eroding Moscow’s global capabilities.

The review panel also included General Richard Barrons (ret.) and Fiona Hill, a former Russia adviser to Donald Trump, who previously stated that “structurally, WW3 has already begun because the international norms of behavior have been eroded by Russia in Ukraine and by fighting in the Middle East”. Obviously, the political West’s all-encompassing aggression against the entire world is “just fine” and “doesn’t erode international norms of behavior”. The head of the panel, George Robertson, described Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as “the deadly quartet increasingly working together”. Unsurprisingly, there was no reflection on the fact that NATO’s perpetual (and simultaneous) belligerence toward the “deadly quartet” is the primary (if not the sole) reason for Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran to work together against a common threat.

Unfortunately, this laughable “defense” review is not even the worst component of the UK’s increasingly delusional foreign policy. This includes the “Perfidious Albion’s” desire to ensure nuclear escalation in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. Namely, during a “Strategy of the Rook: UK interests in the Black Sea” panel at a recent Black Sea Security Forum in Odessa, British Colonel Richard Kemp (ret.) argued that London should “help” the Neo-Nazi junta to “restore its nuclear arsenal”.

“Therefore, I think that part of this declaration [on strategic cooperation between the UK and Ukraine] should have been Britain’s commitment to develop tactical nuclear weapons. I know how expensive it is. This can <…> help Ukraine develop its own nuclear potential,” Kemp said, adding: “You can’t deter a nuclear-armed country without nuclear capability, and you can’t deter tactical nuclear weapons without strategic nuclear weapons. It’s meaningless. So I believe part of that declaration should have been a UK commitment to develop nuclear weapons [for Ukraine].”

He stressed that London possesses only strategic nuclear weapons and resorted to the usual criticism of the supposed “failure to deliver on past promises”, obviously referring to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which the UK was also part of and which pledged security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for its denuclearization and a neutral status. However, none of the panelists mentioned that this neutrality was broken by NATO expansionism and aggression. However, Kemp kept going with his deranged rant.

“Help in developing Ukraine’s own nuclear capability must be provided,” he insisted, adding: “Ukraine gave it up in return for supposed Western guarantees that were never realized. So I don’t think we should simply ignore the nuclear issue, which seems today to be swept under the carpet — and I think that is a mistake.”

In other words, the political West is ready to risk even a “limited nuclear exchange” that would destroy “only” Russia and Ukraine, thus eliminating Moscow as a geopolitical adversary. There’s just one “tiny” issue with this approach. Namely, the Russian leadership has repeatedly warned that such strategies are nothing but deeply unhinged wishful thinking that will never come to pass (or at least not without permanent consequences for the political West). Unfortunately, delusional NATO leaders still keep forgetting this.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

The post UK’s Insane Strategy of Fighting Russia, China and Giving Nukes to Neo-Nazi Junta appeared first on LewRockwell.

Will Rodgers once said, “It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.”

One way or another we have all been given this sage advice, and some of us have learned the lesson the hard way. Reputation is everything.

Except for Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs seems to defy reputation risk time and time again. The story of the 1MDB (Malaysian Development Berhad) scandal shows beyond much doubt, Goldman can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. If Goldman gets caught, it enters a deferred prosecution agreement, — as was the case with 1MDB — or pays a fine and then goes on its way as if nothing happened.

In the case of 1MDB, Goldman reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the feds in 2020, but until last week, its former partner and Southeast Asia chairman, Tim Leissner, stubbornly stuck around as annoying residue from the scandal.

Leissner pleaded guilty in 2018 to money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by arranging over $1 billion in bribes to officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to obtain lucrative underwriting mandates for Goldman.

Those mandates earned Goldman Sachs at least $600 million in underwriting fees. Leissner also vigorously ratted on fellow Goldman-ite Roger Ng, who received a 10 year sentence in 2023. Prosecutors asked for leniency, saying in a March 15 letter to the judge that “Leissner’s cooperation was of tremendous value and was central to the government’s ability to swiftly indict and successfully prosecute numerous individuals and entities involved in the 1MDB scheme.”

Goldman’s general counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, responded May 21 with a letter to the judge that argued against leniency.

Leissner’s serial lies, fraud and deception at Goldman Sachs continued from the day he first brought the transactions to the firm through the day he left. Mr. Leissner’s efforts in this regard are worthy of sanction, not praise.

Before sentencing Leissner, U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie asked Prosecutor Drew Rolle what he thought of the letter.

Hilariously, Rolle retorted that Goldman’s letter was “the equivalent of a getaway driver showing up at a cooperator’s sentencing and saying: ‘You know judge, we wouldn’t be in this mess if he hadn’t decided to rob a bank.’ ’’

Leissner wrote his own letter to the judge that, according to the Wall Street Journal, his crimes cost him his career, marriage and time with his children. More from the Journal’s account:

He apologized at his sentencing for his actions, saying they were driven by career ambitions. “If I could turn back time, I would and I would do so without hesitation,” Leissner said, choking back tears. “Unfortunately, that is not possible.”

Goldman Sachs has paid over $5 billion in fines and settlements, including $2.9 billion in the U.S for a deferred prosecution agreement on criminal charges and $2.5 billion to Malaysia as well as a guarantee to recover at least $1.4 billion in stolen assets to settle the fiasco.

In 2018 the New York Times reported that in 2012, then-Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein met privately with the “mastermind” of the scheme, Malaysian national Jho Low, despite numerous concerns raised by Goldman Sachs compliance staff about Low prior to the meeting.

The meeting between Mr. Low and Mr. Blankfein, described to The New York Times by three people familiar with it, shows the expanding scope of a scandal that is rocking Goldman. Federal prosecutors are examining the 2012 meeting as they conduct a criminal investigation of the bank, two of the people said. And the existence of a face-to-face meeting between Goldman’s chief executive and the man accused of being at the center of a sprawling fraud undercuts an argument the bank has made: that its problems stem from the actions of a small number of rogue employees.

Goldman spokesman Jake Siewert stated that “Mr. Blankfein does not recall any one-on-one meeting with Mr. Low, nor have we seen any record to suggest such a meeting occurred.”

Low, who remains at large, introduced Goldman’s Leissner and Ng to various corrupt Malaysian government officials, including Malaysian Prime Minister Razak Najib.

Leissner and Ng then siphoned more than $1 billion from the bond sale proceeds to pay bribes to the corrupt Malaysian and United Arab Emirates officials, not only for these lucrative bond deals but also to try and secure an even greater score, bringing Malaysian national energy companies public. The funds raised for 1MDB were supposed to go for various infrastructure projects in Malaysia. Much of the debt was sold to the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Fund and other state-controlled concerns.

Leissner and Ng skimmed approximately $115 million for themselves, Leissner $80 million and Ng $35 million. Leissner used his haul to live large, buying among other things a $15 million yacht, part of the Inter Milan soccer team and a Beverly Hills mansion.

Read the Whole Article

The post Nothing Stops Goldman Sachs appeared first on LewRockwell.

• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared plans to establish a “Jewish Israeli state” in the occupied West Bank, explicitly rejecting international calls for Palestinian statehood.
• French President Emmanuel Macron urged European nations to take a stronger stance against Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, threatening sanctions over the humanitarian crisis and advocating conditional recognition of a Palestinian state as a “political necessity.”
• Katz announced new illegal West Bank settlements as a direct response to Macron, framing the move as a security imperative and vowing Israel would not bow to international threats.
• Katz accused Macron of waging a “crusade against the Jewish state,” dismissing claims of a Gaza aid blockade as “blatant lies” and alleging France was “rewarding terrorism” by pushing for Palestinian statehood.
• The Israeli Foreign Ministry linked Macron’s stance to Hamas’ approval, implying alignment with Israel’s enemies, and vowed defiance: “Do not threaten us with sanctions… The State of Israel will not bow its head.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has declared that Tel Aviv will establish a “Jewish Israeli state” in the occupied West Bank, rejecting Palestinian statehood in a defiant response to international pressure, particularly from France.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently urged European nations to take a firmer stance against Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Macron warned that France could impose sanctions if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza persists. He then suggested that recognizing a Palestinian state, under certain conditions, is “not only a moral duty but a political necessity.” France is reportedly considering such recognition ahead of a UN conference co-hosted with Saudi Arabia in mid-June to outline a roadmap for Palestinian statehood while ensuring the security of Israel.

As a response, Katz promoted new illegal settlement projects in the West Bank as a direct rebuke to Macron.

“They will recognize a Palestinian state on paper and we will build the Jewish-Israeli state on the ground. The paper will be thrown in the trash can of history and the State of Israel will flourish and prosper,” the defense minister said in his speech on May 30. Referring to the territory by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria, Katz framed the expansion as a security imperative: “This is a historic moment for settlement in Judea and Samaria, which will bolster it as Israel’s protective wall, and will also strengthen security in this region.”

Katz framed the policy as a “crushing response” to those seeking to “harm and weaken our hold on this region.”

“Do not threaten us with sanctions because you will not bring us to our knees. The State of Israel will not bow its head in the face of threats. We are a people with a long and glorious history. We will stand tall and continue to lead the State of Israel on a safe and strong path, until victory,” he said. (Related: Israel declares major LAND GRAB in West Bank.)

Katz accuses Macron of launching a “crusade against the Jewish state”

Aside from rejecting Palestinian statehood, the Israeli Foreign Ministry escalated tensions further by accusing France of launching a “crusade against the Jewish state.”

In a post on his official account on X, Katz dismissed Macron’s claims about the humanitarian aid blockade in Gaza as “blatant lies” and accused him of ignoring facts.

“The facts do not interest Macron. There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie. Israel is currently facilitating the entry of aid to Gaza through two parallel efforts,” he posted, pointing to nearly 900 aid trucks entering Gaza this week and the distribution of over two million meals in four days through the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Fund.

Read the Whole Article

The post Israel Vows To Annex West Bank, Rejects Palestinian Statehood Amid Rising Tensions With France appeared first on LewRockwell.

The New York Times has just published one of the most insane headlines I have ever seen it publish, which is really saying something.

“Gaza’s Deadly Aid Deliveries,” the title blares.

If you were among the majority of people who only skim the headline without reading the rest of the article, you would have no idea that Israel has spent the last few days massacring starving civilians at aid sites and lying about it. You would also have no idea that it is Israel who’s been starving them in the first place.

Who keeps shooting and killing starving Palestinians during “aid deliveries”? Who starved them in the first place? pic.twitter.com/IljdDFmuT6

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) June 4, 2025

The headline is written in such a passive, amorphous way that it sounds like the aid deliveries themselves are deadly. Like the bags of flour are picking up assault rifles and firing on desperate Palestinians queuing for food or something.

The sub-headline is no better: “Israel’s troops have repeatedly shot near food distribution sites.”

Oh? They’ve shot “near” food distribution sites, have they? Could their discharging their weapons in close proximity to the aid sites possibly have something to do with the aforementioned deadliness of the aid deliveries? Are we the readers supposed to connect these two pieces of information for ourselves, or are we meant to view them as two separate data points which may or may not have anything to with one another?

The article itself makes it clear that Israel has admitted that IDF troops fired their weapons “near” people waiting for aid after they failed to respond to “warning shots”, so you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened here. But in mainstream publications the headlines are written by editors, not by the journalists who write the articles, so they get to frame the story in whatever way suits their propaganda agenda for the majority who never read past the headline.

We saw another amazingly manipulative New York Times headline last month, “Israeli Soldiers Fire in Air to Disperse Western Diplomats in West Bank,” about the IDF firing “warning shots” at a delegation of foreign officials attempting to visit Jenin.

This was a story which provoked outcry and condemnation throughout the western world, but look at the lengths the New York Times editor went to in order to frame the IDF’s actions in the most innocent way possible. They were firing into the air. They were firing “to disperse western diplomats”—like that’s a thing. Like diplomats are crows on a cornfield or something. Oh yeah, ya know ya get too many diplomats flockin’ around and ya gotta fire a few rounds to disperse ’em. Just normal stuff.

It’s amazing how creative these freaks get when they need to publicly exonerate Israel and its western allies of their crimes. The IDF commits a war crime and suddenly these stuffy mass media editors who’ve never created any art in their lives transform into poets, bending and twisting the English language to come up with lines that read more like Zen koans than reporting on an important news event.

It’s impossible to have too much disdain for these people.

__________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my mailing list, social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

The post Zen and the Art of New York Times Headline Writing appeared first on LewRockwell.

On Monday’s Episode of the Tucker Carlson Show, Carlson interviewed Catholic Bishop Robert Barron, largely to discuss topics related to the election of Pope Leo XIV. Most of the interview is unremarkable for our purposes here at mises.org, but at one point, the discussion touched on the problem of usury and the modern financial economy.

Usury has long been a topic of confusion and imprecision among those interested in learning the history of Western political thought vis-à-vis market economics. It is often presumed that Christianity’s historical prohibition on usury would, if applied consistently, prohibit money lending in exchange for any compensation paid to the lender. We often call this compensation “interest” in modern speech.

This was indeed the context around the usury discussion as presented on Carlson’s show, and, unfortunately, neither Bishop Barron nor Carlson demonstrated much knowledge of the topic. Barron seemed to assume that the usury question has not been sufficiently addressed in recent centuries, and implied that the topic is now ignored as a result of pressure from capitalists. As we will see, this is not the case. The topic has not been ignored in recent centuries.  Nor does does the prohibition of usury necessary proscribe the collection of compensation for making loans.

The Barron-Tucker Discussion

Carlson begins the discussion by asking Barron about “loaning money at interest.” Barron responds that “the Church has been against it from time immemorial”—presumably because of the prohibition on usury. He then goes on to say that a non-specified “transition” happened which changed the thinking on the matter. Barron almost immediately sidesteps the issue, however, and goes into a general discussion of market economics. Overall, Barron appears to imply that the “transition” on the topic was some sort of concession to modern industrial capitalism, and Tucker appears to be (rightly) dissatisfied with this explanation.

Barron likely shifted the discussion on this topic because it is an obscure one, and he probably has not read up on the topic lately. Few have. If we do look more closely, there are at least two key points we can make on the topic. The first is that Church thinking on usury clearly does not forbid a lender from receiving compensation for making loans. The second is that this is not a new idea, and it is certainly not any kind of concession in the wake of industrialization or the advent of modern financial markets. Rather, the idea that lenders can be compensated for their loans goes back at least to the Middle Ages. Moreover, there has never been any clear universal, doctrinal prohibition on receiving compensation for lending money. While some regional councils in the first millennium prohibited this for laypeople, the general consensus was against clergy receiving compensation for lending money.

Usury vs. Interest vs. Money Loans vs. Compensation for Lending

The reader may have noticed that I keep using the phrase “compensation for lending money” rather than “loaning at interest.” This is because once one delves into the history of the debate over usury, one quickly finds that there is seemingly endless debate over the proper definitions of terms like money, interest, and usury. This is to be expected when we’re talking about concepts that have changed over more than twenty centuries.

For example, the debate over usury is colored very much by the fact that the understanding of what money is has evolved significantly over time. Two thousand years ago, when the money economy was miniscule, money was assumed to be only a store of value and used overwhelmingly for immediate consumption only. This is why so much ancient thinking about money in this context focuses on the idea that charging interest essentially takes bread out the mouths of the poor. Moreover, since the money economy was so primitive, and there were so few avenues for lending and borrowing money, it was also assumed that lending money inflicted very little opportunity cost on the lender.

These conditions, tied to a specific time and place, are what have us the general view of usury: the act of lending out money but demanding back more than the value of the money in return. In the ancient world, it was thought that this was unfair and exploitive because it was thought that the value of money did not change over time, and doing without money for a time imposed little opportunity cost on the lender. Modern observers of money, of course, will scoff at these assumptions, but it was all far more plausible in, say, the fifth century BC or the first century AD.

Centuries later, however, writers on usury began to see that money could be used for purposes other than consumption. Consequently, these writers began to think of usury more carefully as interest charged specifically on “non-productive loans.” Money was increasingly lent for productive purposes, like building structures, rather than for simple consumption.

By the Middle Ages, it was admitted that it was abundantly clear that loans were often made in a way that could not possibly be characterized as exploitive. Moreover, as the complexity of the economy grew, it became impossible to maintain that lending money did not involve a significant opportunity cost for the lender.

As a result, it became difficult to argue that morality required that a borrower be able to demand a loan while providing nothing to compensate the lender. By the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas described how the lender was giving something up to make loans, and thus basic justice required compensation. Theologian John Finnis summarizes some of the situations where lenders were entitled to compensation:

(1) Share of profits in joint enterprises. If I “lend” my money to a merchant or craftsman on the basis that we are in partnership [societas]…so that I am to share in any overall losses or profits, my entitlement to my dividend of the profits (as well as to the return of my capital if its value has not been lost by the joint enterprise) is just and appropriate.

(2) Recompense or indemnity [interesse] for losses. In making any loan I can levy a charge on the borrower in order to compensate me for whatever expenses I have outlaid or losses I have incurred by making the loan. And the terms of a loan can include a fee or charge which is payable if you fail to repay the principal on time, and is sufficient to compensate me for the losses I am liable to incur if the principal is not repaid on time.

In contrast to an ancient agrarian economy, the developing economy of Aquinas’s time presented many risks and costs for lenders. Thus, potential for serious loss and financial ruin from a deadbeat borrower required some way for defraying the potential for financial misadventure. Finnis also noted that by Aquinas’s time, markets were already beginning to develop a “price” that represented the risk and opportunity cost that accompanied these loans. This “price” would generally today be called an “interest rate.” In any case, we can clearly see in Aquinas’s work that thinking on usury and its applicability had to change to fit changing knowledge about the nature of money and lending.

Gradually, then, the idea of what was fair and just for both parties in a lender-borrower relationship began to change. For example, the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517) stipulated that lenders could morally collect enough compensation to “defray the expenses of those employed and of other things pertaining (as mentioned) to the upkeep of the organisations.” The Council forbade the collection of “excess” compensation in the form of profit, but it was clear that compensation for lending was, in and of itself, not usury. Notably, however, no clear objective was offered for what constituted “excessive” compensation.

Again, in 1745, Pope Benedict XIV condemns usury, precisely defined, but notes that

By these remarks, however, We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles—which are not at all intrinsic to the contract—may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract. (Emphasis added.)

Given all this, it is not at all clear that the development of thinking on usury is some kind of concession to modern industrial capitalism. Collecting compensation for the act of lending money was already established as potentially necessary and beneficial by the thirteenth century, well before the development of industrial capitalism. Thus, the implied historical claims about the “transition” on usury in Barron’s remarks on the Tucker Carlson Show are questionable.

Rather, one could certainly argue that thinking on this matter has been fairly consistent for at least 800 years.

For an illustration, one might consult the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia which states:

Is it permitted to lend at interest? Formerly … the Church rigorously condemned the exacting of anything over and above capital, except when, by reason of some special circumstance, the lender was in danger of losing his capital or could not advance his loan of money without exposing himself to a loss or to deprivation of a gain. These special reasons, which authorise the charging of interest, are called extrinsic titles. (Emphasis added.)

We see here simply an extrapolation of Aquinas’s work in the thirteenth century. In part, the underlying thinking here is that fairness and justice requires that neither side exploit the other. To demand loans that place the lender in a risky position without compensation is not fair or just.

The phrase “extrinsic titles” as mentioned in the Encyclopedia entry is also a key to understanding how “compensation for lending money” is properly viewed in this context. For Aquinas, and for many later commentators—including those writing textbooks on the topic—this compensation for the lender was not interest, strictly speaking, because the compensation was not directly tied to the money being lent. That is, in a case where a lender was collecting some sort of indemnification or compensation for risk and potential loss, the compensation was “extrinsic” to the money itself and was, in a way, a type of restitution or insurance to the lender for a risky service provided.

This laborious discussion over precise definitions nonetheless continues in modern books. This can be seen, for example, in Thomas Higgins’ ethics textbook from 1949 in which he states:

When the lender of money suffers no detriment in making a loan, he is entitled to nothing more in justice than the return of the money lent. Should he incur loss because of parting with the money lent, he is entitled to compensation for that reason but not because of the loan itself. This title to redress for loss sustained is extrinsic to the loan. Today, money, or rather its modern equivalent, credit, is truly a capital good capable of producing further wealth. Therefore a person who parts with money on a loan loses a chance for profit, and because money lent today is genuinely risked, money may in good conscience take advantage of legal rates of interest.

Again, we see in Higgins the same themes that show up in Aquinas, and later in Benedict XIV.

This is not to say that the economic theory here is sound. It’s not. Higgins’s description of money as a capital good is just one example of his problematic understanding of money.

Nonetheless, Higgins’s discussion—from the standpoint of ethics and moral theology—on lending, money, and usury helps to illustrate the historical reality of the development of thinking on usury. It is not the case, as the Barron-Tucker discussion implies, that all “lending at interest”—as commonly understood—is usury. Nor is it the case that Christian theologians simply chose to look the other way as a means of pleasing the parties of industrial capitalism. Rather, the development of thinking on usury reflects changes in the nature of money and lending over time. These changes mean views of justice and fairness change as well, and new explanations had to be sought in a world where lending money commonly imposes real costs and risks on the lender.

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

The post Why Lending Money (at Interest) Is Not Usury in the Modern World appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Poles are the latest Europeans to send the message that they want their storied nation to be sovereign and socially conservative. Political newcomer and former boxer Karol Nawrocki was officially declared president-elect on Monday.

Voter turnout was the largest since the election following the collapse of communism in 1989, at nearly 72 percent. Nawrocki defeated Warsaw’s leftist mayor Rafal Trzaskowski by a margin of less than two percent, with 50.9 percent of the votes.

Nawrocki’s victory is a blow to Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal, pro-European Union government. While the Polish president doesn’t have the power to create policy, he can veto legislation. And since Tusk’s government doesn’t hold a three-fifths parliamentary majority, Nawrocki, like his predecessor, will likely make use of that power.

Trump Endorsement

Nawrocki’s victory is being attributed, at least in part, to the most visible politician in the world. The Wall Street Journal reports:

He got what was perhaps his biggest boost from more than 4,000 miles away, when President Trump gave him a nod of approval.… Trump’s backing might not have been the deciding factor in catapulting Nawrocki to Poland’s presidential palace, but it gave him an edge in a tight race. At a time when Trump-styled conservatism has faltered in other recent elections such as in Canada, Australia and Romania, it found fertile ground in Poland and helped Nawrocki as he was looking to establish a political identity.

Milan Nic, a senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told the Journal that a May 1 meeting between Nawrocki and Trump generated a photo of the two together that boosted his political value. “Among everything that came out of Washington, the photo with Trump was the most important for Nawrocki — to make him look credible,” according to Nic.

Nawrocki also received an endorsement from U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who told attendees at Poland’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on May 27, 2025 that he needed to be the next president.

Background and Political Views

The Law and Justice Party tapped Nawrocki as its candidate six months ago. He is a Polish historian and an expert on communism and wrote his doctoral thesis on Poland’s anti-communist resistance. He reorganized the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, where he was born. Nawrocki is president of the Institute of National Remembrance, which conducts research on modern Polish history and investigates crimes committed during the Nazi and Communist occupations. He is a former amateur boxer and soccer player.

His campaign promises included economic and social policies that benefited Poles over other nationalities. Like those who make up other European populist movements, his supporters want stricter immigration laws contrary to the ones imposed by the European Union.

Nawrocki will likely to block the current government’s pro-abortion and LGBTQ agenda. Tusk wants to introduce civil partnerships for same-sex couples and dial back Poland’s near complete abortion ban. Poland’s Catholic demographic, which includes Nawrocki, comprises an overwhelming majority of the nation’s population.

Not a Globalist

While Nawrocki‘s former opponent supported the prime minister’s vision of a Poland perfectly aligned with mainstream Europe, Nawrocki believes Poland has given enough of its autonomy to the Eurocrats in Brussels. In addition to opposing the suicidal migration policies EU globalists have leveled across the continent, he also opposes their climate change policies.

When it comes to Ukraine, which Poland shares more than 300 miles of border with, he supports sending weapons. But he doesn’t support sending Poles. He signed off on party platform objectives that included not sending Polish troops to Ukraine and keeping Kyiv out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for fear that it would draw Poland into a war with Russia.

Poland, which already has the largest military in the EU, will spend about five percent of its GDP on defense, the most of any NATO nation. Tusk has said that by year’s end, he’d like for every Polish man to have military training. Nawrocki, by all indications, supports a strong Poland.

Globalists aren’t happy about Nawrocki’s victory. Armida van Rij of Chatham House told The Washington Post, “Voters are presented with a really stark choice: either rules-based liberal democracies or MAGA-esque ethno-nationalist types of leaders.” Borys Budka, a member of the European Parliament, told Reuters that he believed the PiS aimed to “overthrow the legal government,” adding, “This may be a big challenge for the government, which will be blocked when it comes to good initiatives,”

Nationalist Trend

Nawrocki’s victory is the latest in what has become a crystal-clear pattern of anti-EU, nationalistic populism boiling over in Europe. Despite the blatant skullduggery that has emerged and tried to keep this rising political tide at bay, Europeans are undeniably rejecting globalism and the engineered liberal values that have been imposed on them.

The watershed moment when the dam began breaking was, of course, in 2016. Not only did Donald Trump pull off a shocking victory in the U.S. elections, but the people of U.K. voted to leave the EU because they sought to regain control over their nation’s policies. Ever since, populism has become more pronounced in nation after nation in Europe.

France

In France, Marine Le Pen’s brand of nationalism was such a threat that they torpedoed via an obvious act of lawfare removed from any semblance of legitimacy her entire candidacy. In Germany, the rising popularity of the nationalist Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) endangers the globalists’ grip on one of the most important EU nations. The statists there are getting so desperate that they’re on the precipice of banning the entire party.

Read the Whole Article

The post Nationalist Wins Polish Presidency After Nod From Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Ginny Garner.

Information Liberation

The post Rep. Thomas Massie: End All US Military Aid to Israel Now! appeared first on LewRockwell.

. . . in Vietnam, India, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Serbia, UK, Ireland, Dubai, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Uruguay and invest in America instead?  That is after all his stated purpose in starting an international trade war.

The post Will President Trump End or Sell Off His Ongoing Real Estate Ventures . . . appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Zelensky On The Ropes? With Guest Philip Giraldi appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

The post Doctor, Insurance Company, and Big Pharma make more money to make you sick appeared first on LewRockwell.

Mark Levin was at the White House today, lobbying for war with Iran. To be clear, Levin has no plans to fight in this or any other war. He’s demanding that American troops do it. We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, he and likeminded ideologues in Washington are…

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 5, 2025

The post Tucker Carlson on X: Mark Levin was at the White House today, lobbying for war with Iran appeared first on LewRockwell.