Lew Rockwell Institute

Hubris & Pride are often used interchangeably, and though they are related concepts, they aren’t precisely the same.

Hubris derives from the ancient Greek word “hybris” (ὕβρις). In ancient Greek, “hybris” is indeed a form of pride. However, as Aristotle defined it, “hybris” is a transgression—such as a sexual crime— performed by the arrogant that causes a feeling of shame.

For example, in the Iliad, proud Agamemnon takes Chryseis, the daughter of the Trojan priest Chryses, as a prize after the sack of Lyrnessus. In his hubris, he gives no consideration to the girl’s feelings or to those of her father. Chryses, a priest of Apollo, tries to ransom the girl, but Agamemnon refuses, which results in Apollo sending a plague upon the Greek army. Agamemnon is thus forced to return Chryseis to end the plague.

The English word pride originates from the Old English word “prȳde,” meaning “bravery” or “pomp.” It’s an interesting association of ideas that brave warriors may ultimately become pompous warlords like Agamemnon who become guilty of hubris.

When the Greek monk (from Asia Minor) Evagrius Ponticus formulated the Seven Deadly Sins, he chose the Greek word ὑπερηφανία (hyperēphania), deriving from the Greek words “hyper” (above or beyond) and “phainomai”(appearance), which translates roughly as “gross overestimation of one’s value and abilities.”

When the Seven Deadly Sins were translated into Latin, the word “superbia” was chosen. Latin scholars considered this the sin of sins—the first and most demonic, and the sin that compelled the angel Lucifer to rebel against God and his creation.

In Christian theology, Lucifer, whose name means “Light Bringer,” was the most beautiful and powerful angel until his pride prompted him to revolt. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, he makes the flippant statement, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

In much of our ruling class—from the great IT companies of Silicon Valley to the labs of Cambridge, Massachusetts to the foreign policy “Think Tanks” of Washington, we see innumerable examples of talented and intelligent men and women who have—partly as a result of their undeniable success—gotten into the pernicious habit of grossly overestimating their value and abilities.

In our new book, Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality, we examine the history of the development of synthetic, mRNA and its reckless and hasty misapplication to producing gene therapy shots to immunize against a respiratory viral infection. This took us into a thorough examination of the related concepts of hubris and pride. As we note:

An apt example of the “Scientist Playing God” is the already mentioned Eldon Tyrrell in the 1982 science fiction film, Blade Runner. Risa Peoples, the daughter of screenwriter David Webb Peoples, was studying microbiology and taught her father about DNA replication. Tyrrell, whom the lead android playfully calls “Maker” and “Father,” references this in his explanation of how the lead android, Roy Batty, was created. The code of life consists of the trinity of replication, transcription, and translation. Replication creates identical DNA strands; transcription converts DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA); translation decodes mRNA into amino acids, forming proteins essential for life functions. While this is an endlessly fascinating field, the practical applications of it are still in their infancy. Anyone who claims that all potential outcomes of this experiment were understood is either delusional or lying or both.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

The post On Hubris & Pride appeared first on LewRockwell.

According to the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, prices rose by 2.7 percent over the past year, and by 3.1 percent when the “volatile” food and housing sectors are removed from the calculation.

Markets rose following the release of the CPI since the increase in price inflation was not as high as expected. This led to an increase in expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next month.

Of course, the CPI numbers are manipulated to understate the true rate, and effects, of inflation. One way this is done is by “Chained CPI.” This is where the government does not consider consumers impacted by price increases that make their favorite products unaffordable if there are affordable substitutes available – as if government bureaucrats can determine what is and is not an adequate substitute for a good made unaffordable by the Federal Reserve.

The official government figures do not take into account “shrinkflation.” This is when a business responds to price inflation by reducing product size and otherwise reducing a good’s quality. Shrinkflation makes it appear that consumers are paying the same prices but in fact they are paying more since they are getting less of the product.

Examples of “shrinkflation” include increases in the size of cardboard toilet paper holders by 25 percent. This allows toilet paper companies to reduce the amount of paper per roll while maintaining the same number of rolls per package.

Other examples of shrinkflation include using wider bottles with concave bottoms for liquid soap, thus enabling soap manufacturers to hide the 15 percent reduction in the amount of soap per bottle, substituting cheaper vegetable oil for dairy milk in chocolates, and substituting foam pool noodles with an “angel” hair noodle that contains 40 percent less material. Shrinkflation also exists in the airline industry. Ticket prices may have remained steady, or even declined, but travelers now must pay a fee for many “frills” ‘that used to be included with the ticket, such as baggage check-in, on-flight food and beverage service, and seat selection.

Those looking for evidence of how inflation is affecting Americans might want to stop looking at CPI reports and instead go on Tik-Tok and other popular social media sites. There they will find videos of parents highlighting the burden placed on the family budget by the skyrocketing price of school supplies. A survey by Bankrate found that 29 percent of family budgets were strained by the growing costs of school supplies, while a survey by Intuit Credit Karma found that 44 percent of parents were going into, or increasing, their family’s debt in order to buy their children school supplies. School supplies prices have even risen at big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target. Even Dollar Tree has raised some prices to over a dollar!

The reason so many parents are struggling to afford school supplies is not corporate greed, but the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies. The best thing Congress can do for America’s families is cut spending, thus reducing the pressure on the Fed to monetize the federal debt thus further weakening the dollar.

Congress should also reform the monetary system by passing the Audit the Fed bill and repealing all laws that discourage the use of competing currencies such as precious metals and cryptocurrencies. Sadly, even Tik-Tok videos of parents struggling to afford school supplies will likely not cause Congress to take these steps. Instead, the videos are more likely to cause Congress to renew efforts to ban Tok-Tok.

The post Another Reason To Ban Tik-Tok? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Some observers in the lead-up to last week’s meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage Alaska hoped that a dialogue might be established where the broader issue of creating a new European security model that would reduce tensions and make it unlikely that a conflict like Russia-Ukraine would be repeated. Both Trump and Putin came away from the three-hour plus meeting with positive remarks though little of substance, at least in terms of what they were prepared to reveal. Trump did indicate that the idea of a ceasefire had been sidelined in favor of further discussions for a comprehensive peace plan to end the war at the next bilateral talks in Moscow, but it has been suggested by critics that he was speaking only for himself personally. If he has come around to the view that a ceasefire will not work in the current context, he is probably correct.

If there is any hope for a peace deal a sine qua non would be territorial transfers demanded by Russia on the part of Ukraine. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected any such arrangement. Predictably, Zelensky and a group of supporting “European leaders” including the Netherlands Mark Rutte, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb are arriving at the White House on Monday to make their case for the continuation of the war. The European delegation is headed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is a near perfect, even enthusiastic, spokesperson for the hawk sentiments prevailing in parts of Europe.

Trump’s actual sentiments continue to be somewhat enigmatic and, as always, poorly articulated. It is widely understood that President Donald Trump is actively seeking to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize, even going so far as to boast falsely that he has already earned it “four or five times.” He has reportedly even called the Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg to ask how the polling regarding his candidacy is going, a grotesque faux pas but characteristic of what comes out of Trump’s head. Trump clearly fails to understand that seeking a peace prize while the United States is simultaneously actively supporting two major avoidable armed conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine while also removing existing restraints on development and deployment of certain weapons that are designed for nuclear war might be viewed by some as contradictory.

Those who are inclined to look to make excuses for Trump’s behavior while in the US presidency might be compelled to argue that Donald Trump doesn’t know any better and is therefore always inclined to act both impulsively and aggressively when in doubt, but the systematic withdrawal from Cold War agreements designed to make nuclear war avoidable during Trump 1 rather suggests that it is now policy de facto to make a catastrophic war easier to engage in to establish and maintain American global military dominance over adversaries like China and Russia. Total US military supremacy maintained by 850 overseas military bases to assert the national will globally is an aspect of the so-called “Wolfowitz Doctrine,” the unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance drafted in 1992 under President Bill Clinton for the 1994–1999 fiscal years published by neocons US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Scooter Libby. The doctrine still dominates White House strategic thinking, particularly as Trump has surrounded himself with neocons and is taking direction from the Israel Lobby both regarding the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Based on the document, US defense strategy aimed to prevent the emergence of a global rival and asserted US primacy and unilateralism. One of it primary instruments to dominate in Europe was the expansion of NATO into the former Eastern European states that made up the Soviet Union, something that US negotiators had promised not to do during negotiations with Moscow during the Soviet collapse in 1991-2. This expansion has been the principal cause behind the current war between Russia and Ukraine as Moscow views Ukraine under NATO as a grave national security threat.

The corresponding dismantling of post-World War 2 agreements that sought to control limits on nuclear developments as well as the nature and distribution of new weapons and potential unmanned delivery systems have unfortunately dramatically increased the possibility of a devastating nuclear war taking place. The number of nuclear armed countries has grown in spite of Nuclear Non-Proliferation policies, with North Korea, China, Pakistan, India and Israel all now having nuclear arsenals. Israel even has a plan to use the nukes if it is seriously threatened called the “Samson Option.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, located at the Keller Centre of the University of Chicago, monitors the movement of the minute and second hands on the so-called Doomsday Clock. It is now reporting that the second hand is closer to midnight than it has ever been, 89 seconds away, and moving in the “wrong” direction, towards inevitable armed conflict or even natural catastrophe. Reaching Midnight in this context could mean nuclear war, which could plausibly extinguish life on earth.

The United States is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy, which took place against Japan in early August 1945, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing at least 170,000 mostly civilians. My father was at that time an infantry sergeant on a troop ship located offshore of the Japanese mainland, part of a new Army corps, the Eighth Army, which was about to undertake an invasion of Japan’s main island. It promised to be bloody and the word among the troops was that Japan would put up a fierce last stand resistance. The American soldiers were consequently happy to hear that the bombs were used and the war had ended with an immediate Japanese surrender. More recently, however, historians have come around to the view that Japan was about to surrender anyway, which it did six days after the bombings, and it was a bad decision by President Harry Truman to authorize the use of the new and devastating weapon.

After World War 2, the Soviet Union, benefitting from the secrets stolen by the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spies in the United States, also acquired nuclear secrets and used them to become a nuclear armed military power, joining the US and Britain. The deployment of nukes subsequently became part of the tit-for-tat maneuvering that characterized the Cold War. The crisis came when Russia declared its intention to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the US and therefore capable of hitting targets anywhere in the US, as a deterrent of any possible moves by Washington to again invade Cuba. The move was also in response to US basing of nuclear missiles in NATO countries Italy and Turkey. It seemed that some kind of nuclear exchange was imminent when the leadership of the United States and the Soviet Union came to their senses. In 1962 President John F Kennedy and Chairman Nikita Khruschev agreed that playing nuclear risk was just not worth it and the Russians declared that their missiles would not be going to Havana and the US agreed that its Jupiter missiles would also be withdrawn from Turkey.

This led to other agreements to limit the likelihood that nuclear weapons might actually be used in a war. The most important agreement was the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 but which the US withdrew from in October 2018 during the first Trump Administration. The INF banned both nuclear and conventional land-based missile systems and missile launchers with ranges of 620–3,420 miles (“intermediate-range”) and 310–620 miles (“shorter-range”), meaning that the mobile missile systems could not be developed for deployment and possible use close to a country’s border where they might be capable of a devastating surprise first strike against the “enemy.”

Prior to the US withdrawal, there were claims from both sides that there had been violations by the other side in terms of what the treaty allowed. When Trump ordered the government to withdraw from the INF treaty, it claimed Russia was in violation through its development of a new highly sophisticated ground-launched cruise missile. Russian officials responded that the missile had a maximum range of only 298 miles, making it legal. Russia replied that there was a possible US violation of the INF treaty through its establishing its own Aegis Ashore missile defense systems that were based in NATO members Romania and Poland, close to the Russian border. The US systems use highly mobile Mk-41 vertical launchers, which can accommodate Tomahawk missiles. The US under Trump would not negotiate with Russia and there was some speculation that the reason Washington had withdrawn from the INF treaty was so it would have a free hand to deploy its intermediate-range missiles near China. Russia responded by proposing that the over the limits INF missiles be banned in Europe only, but Washington never discussed and never accepted the compromise offer.

Russia has responded to what it sees as the continuing US provocations, like the development of the new highly mobile missile launcher named the “Typhon.” The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on August 4th which declared that: “With our repeated warnings on that matter having gone ignored and the situation developing towards the de facto deployment of US-made intermediate-and shorter-range ground-based missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry has to declare that any conditions for the preservation of a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar arms no longer exist, and it is further authorized to state that the Russian Federation does not consider itself bound by relevant self-restrictions approved earlier.” The Ministry decried how the “formation and buildup of destabilizing missile potentials in regions adjacent to Russia, [is] creating a direct, strategic threat to the security of our country… Russia’s leadership [will respond] based on an interdepartmental analysis of the scale of deployment of US and other Western ground-based INF missiles.”

To avoid a war that might become nuclear with devastating consequences should rightly be a major issue up for discussion at the next bilateral meeting in Moscow and whatever develops thereafter. The Trump Administration’s inept moves in the past to increasing US national security by discarding agreements intended to remove or at least mitigate the threat of large scale or even nuclear war should be considered in its broader context beyond Ukraine and Russia to include the Middle East where Israel is “secretly” nuclear armed. The INF Treaty could be viewed in the same fashion as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement to monitor Iran’s nuclear enrichment program to keep it from becoming a path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. Developments since Trump withdrew from the program in 2019 in his first term in office suggest strongly that the subsequent attacks on Iran by both Israel and the US have if anything increased the likelihood that the next Iranian government will seek to weaponize nuclear capabilities through a hidden program, only this time they will not do so while under IAEA inspection status, they will do it in secret. Hardly a good outcome, but when one is considering developments with both Russia and Iran, it is unfortunately true that what has been broken without regard for the consequences can no longer be easily mended. It would nevertheless be a gift to the human race to attempt to do so and if Donald Trump truly wants his Nobel Peace Prize a good place to start would be by ignoring the Europeans and Zelensky in the lead up to the next bilateral meeting in Moscow. Peace in Eastern Europe to include limits of weapons, possibly to establish a model that could be copied in the Middle East, would be the best “deal” that America’s president could ever make.

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

The post Will ‘Peace’ In Ukraine Also Bring a New Détente? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Alaska was not only about Ukraine. Alaska was mostly about the world’s top two nuclear powers attempting to rebuild trust and apply the brakes on an out-of-control train in a mad high-speed rail dash towards nuclear confrontation.

There were no assurances, given the volatile character of US President Donald Trump, who conceived the high-visibility meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. But a new paradigm may be in the works nonetheless. Russia has essentially been de facto recognized by the US as a peer power. That implies, at the very least, the return of high-level diplomacy where it is most needed.

Meanwhile, Europe is dispatching a line-up of impotent leaders to Washington to kowtow in front of the Emperor. The EU’s destiny is sealed: into the dustbin of geopolitical irrelevance.

What has been jointly decided by Trump, personally, and Putin, even before Moscow proposed charged-with-meaning Alaska as the summit venue, remains secret. There will be no leaks about the full content.

Yet it’s quite significant that Trump himself rated Alaska as a 10 out of 10.

The key takeaways, relayed by sources in Moscow with direct access to the Russian delegation, all the way to the 3-3 format (it was initially designed to be a 5-5, but other key members, such as Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, did provide their input), emphasize that:

“It was firmly put [by Putin] to stop all direct US weapon deliveries to Ukraine as a vital step towards the solution. Americans accepted the fact that it is necessary to dramatically decrease lethal shipments.”

After that happens, the ball swings to Europe’s court. The sources specify, in detail:

“Out of the $80 billion Ukrainian budget, Ukraine itself provides less than around $20 billion. The National Bank of Ukraine says that they collect $62 billion in taxes alone, which is a hoax; with a population around 20 million, much more than one million of irreversible battlefield losses, a decimated industry and less than 70 percent of pre-Maidan territory under control that is simply impossible.”

So Europe – as in the NATO/EU combo – has a serious dilemma: ‘Either support Ukraine financially, or militarily. But not both at the same time. Otherwise, the EU itself will collapse even faster.’

Now compare all of the above with arguably the key passage in one of Trump’s Truth Social posts: “It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.”

Add to it the essential sauce provided by former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev:

“The President of Russia personally and in detail presented to the US President our conditions for ending the conflict in Ukraine (…) Most importantly: both sides directly placed responsibility for achieving future results in negotiations on ending hostilities on Kiev and Europe.”

Talk about superpower convergence. The devil, of course, will be in the details.

BRICS on the table in Alaska

In Alaska, Vladimir Putin was representing not only the Russian Federation, but BRICS as a whole. Even before the meeting with his US counterpart was announced to the world, Putin spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. After all, it’s the Russia–China partnership that is writing the geostrategic script of this chapter of the New Great Game.

Moreover, top BRICS leaders have been on a flurry of interconnected phone calls, leading to forge, in Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s assessment, a concerted BRICS front to counteract the Trump Tariff Wars. The Empire of Chaos, the Trump 2.0 version, is in a Hybrid War against BRICS, especially the Top Five: Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Iran.

So Putin did achieve a minor victory in Alaska. Trump: “Tariffs on Russian oil buyers not needed for now (…) I may have to think about it in two to three weeks.”

Even considering the predictable volatility, the pursuit of high-level dialogue with the US opens to the Russians a window to directly advance the interests of BRICS peers – including, for instance, Egypt and the UAE, blocked from further economic integration across Eurasia by the sanctions/tariff onslaught and the accompanying rampant Russophobia.

None of the above, unfortunately, applies to Iran: The Zionist axis has an iron grip on every nook and cranny of Washington’s policies vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic.

It’s clear that both Trump and Putin are playing a long game. Trump wants to get rid of the pesky two-bit actor in Kiev – but without applying old school US coup/regime-change tactics. In his mind, the only thing that really registers is future, possible, mega trade deals on Russian mineral wealth and the development of the Arctic.

Putin also needs to manage domestic critics who won’t forgive any concessions. The desperate western media spin that he would offer freezing the front in Zaporozhye and Kherson in exchange for getting all of the Donetsk Republic is nonsense. That would go against the constitution of the Russian Federation.

In addition, Putin needs to manage how US business would be allowed to enter two areas that are at the heart of federal priorities, and a matter of national security: the development of the Arctic and the Russian Far East. All that will be discussed in detail two weeks from now, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Once again, follow the money: Both oligarchies – in the US and Russia – want to go back to profitable business, pronto.

Lipstick on a defeated pig 

Putin, bolstered by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – the undisputed Man of the Match, with his CCCP fashion statement – finally had ample time, 150 minutes, to spell out, in detail, the underlying causes of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) and lay out the rationale for long-term peace: Ukraine neutrality; neo-nazi militias and parties banned and dismantled; no more NATO expansion.

Geopolitically, whatever may evolve from Alaska does not invalidate the fact that Moscow and Washington at least did manage to buy some strategic breathing space. That might yield even a new shot toward respect for both powers’ spheres of influence.

So it’s no wonder the Atlanticist front, from Europe’s old money to the bling bling novices, is freaking out because Ukraine is a giant money laundering mechanism for Eurotrash politicos. The Kafkaesque EU machine has already bankrupted EU member-states and EU taxpayers – but anyway, that’s not Trump’s problem.

Across Global Majority latitudes, Alaska displayed the fraying of Atlanticism in no uncertain terms – revealing that the US seeks a meek Europe subjugated to the strategy of tension, otherwise there’s no EU military surge, buying billions worth of over-priced American weapons with money it doesn’t have.

At the same time, despite covetous US oligarchic private designs on Russian business, what Washington’s puppet masters truly want is to break up Eurasia integration, and by implication every multilateral organization – BRICS, SCO – driven to design a new, multinodal world order.

Of course, a NATO surrender – even as it is being strategically defeated, all across the spectrum – remains anathema. Trump, at best, is applying lipstick on a pig, trying to craft, with trademark fanfare, what could be sold as a Deep State exit strategy, toward the next Forever War.

Putin, the Russian Security Council, BRICS, and the Global Majority, for that matter, harbor no illusions.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

The post What Really Happened in Alaska appeared first on LewRockwell.

The government lies about almost literally everything, except perhaps what time it is – and probably it would lie about that, too, if it served the government’s purposes. So why do most of us believe that inflation – the waning buying power of the money we’re forced to use by the government – is what it says it is?

Here’s what I know and so can attest to:

When I was a high school kid back in the ’80s, I worked part-time at McDonald’s. The minimum wage back them was $3.35, which meant that an eight hours shift put just shy of $27 in my pocket. Actually, less – because that’s gross. Even high school kids earning minimum wage get FICA (Social Security) and other federal taxes “withheld” as the government likes to style seizing some of the money you’ve earned before you even get to hold it in your hand for a moment.

Anyhow, I recall working two weekend shifts as well as a a couple of afternoons after school, so something like 24 hours a week. This grossed me about $80 per week. The interesting thing to me, as I recall those days, is that I was able to buy gas for the Omacar – the name given my rusty but trusty ’78 Camaro and things like a set of Keystone Classic mags and glass pack mufflers for it, too. My friends were able to do similar and we “cruised” on Friday nights, hanging out in the parking lot of the McDonald’s where I worked part-time, after school and weekends.

We could easily afford to eat at McDonald’s, too.

I think about those days and wonder how managed to afford the gas we burned as we cruised around on Friday nights and never mind the mag wheels and glass packs for our V8 powered old cars. The Omacar had a 21 gallon tank, much larger than the tank of the typical late-model anything that isn’t a huge SUV (such as the Chevy Tahoe I recently reviewed) or a big truck. Most new/late-model cars and crossovers carry about 12-15 gallons of gas.

I remember that if I had $10 in my pocket, I could buy half a tank of gas. That half-tank took me about four hours to earn working for the Clown. A week’s worth of working part-time for the Clown earned me enough to keep gas in the Omacar and have enough left over to buy speed parts, such as glasspack mufflers, a set of headers and so on after a few weeks of working and saving up to buy them.

Such teenage affluence seems inconceivable to me today. The minimum wage is now just shy of five times as high, but it doesn’t seem to buy as much as $3.35 per hour did back then. How many teenagers today can afford to spend $60 on a tankful of gas for a V8 hot rod working part-time for the Clown, even if they’re being paid $15 per hour? I have not seen any V8 hot rods owned by teenagers parked at the McDonald’s in let’s just say a long time.

I have written before about my first house, which I bought back in the mid-1990s in Northern Virginia for $155k. Today, that same house would list for more than $600k, according to my realtor friend who sells similar houses in the same neighborhood. Now, here’s a way to more accurately measure what they’re lying to us about.

When I plug what I paid for my first house into the government’s so-called “inflation calculator,” it says that $155k back then is equivalent in cost to just shy of $315 today. Whey then is a house like my old house a $600k house today? What accounts for the nearly $300k difference in cost?

Channeling the Church Lady: Could it be . . . inflation? That is to say, the waning value of what a dollar buys today vs. yesterday?

It sure seems that way.

Eating at McDonald’s has become a kind of near-luxury dining experience that the parents of today’s teens are having a time paying for. How many 17-year-olds can afford a $40 bag of fast food? How many can afford a car, at all? How many adults can afford their first house? If the stats are correct – about the average of first-time home buyers being well into middle aged – then the answer is not many.

Yes, they are lying to us, again.

As Dr. Evil used to say, it’s what they do.

This article was originally published on Eric Peters Autos.

The post Are They Lying to Us About Inflation? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Later today U.S. President Donald Trump will meet the (former) Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski to talk about the results of last week’s summit between Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. As a result of that summit both sides declared that the war in Ukraine must be ended with an all-encompassing peace agreement. That again will require for Ukraine to give up on certain territories and to become a neutral country.

Zelenski will try to induce Trump to return to his previous position. Trump had earlier demanded an immediate ceasefire from Russia at the current frontline. But after trying he had found that he had no way to achieving that. Trump had to agree to Russia positions because there was no other way left to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump is notoriously prone to change his position from one talk to another. This time however I believe that he will stick to his agreement with Putin.

Zelenski will be told to file for peace with Russia under whatever condition Russia will demand from him.

After the talk with Zelenski Trump will have a meet and greet with a bunch of European premiers, chancellors and presidents. They want the war to continue which requires to keep the U.S. involved in it.

Their main talking point and request will be a ‘security guarantee’ for Ukraine which, they say, will require U.S. involvement and backing.

Being asked about it during an interview Trump’s Russia envoy Stephen Witkoff gave a polite response:

“The United States is potentially prepared to be able to give Article 5 security guarantees, but not from NATO — directly from the United States and other European countries,” Witkoff said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview.

The meaning of “is … potentially … prepared … to be able … ” in this context must be translated into “No way that’s gonna happen!”

Two years ago I had already discussed the question of security guarantees for Ukraine:

The Ukraine is now obviously losing the war. It will soon need to sign a capitulation like ceasefire agreement with Russia.

But who or what can guarantee that any such agreement will be held up?

NATO membership is no longer an option.
…
A direct full security guarantee from Washington to Kiev is also impossible. It would create a high likelihood of a direct war between the U.S. and Russia which would soon become nuclear. The U.S. will not want to risk that.
…
Russia’s might makes even an attempt of an Israel like security guarantee for Ukraine too costly for the U.S. and thereby simply impossible.

There is only one country in the world that can guarantee peace in Ukraine and the security of its borders. That country is Russia!

But any such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.

That is simply a fact of life Ukraine has had to, and will have to live with.

Alastair Crooke suggests (video) that the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine will follow the outline of the Istanbul Agreement negotiated in March 2022 between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine, under pressure from the West, had at that time refrained from signing it.

The Istanbul Agreement did include security guarantees (emphasis added):

The agreement assumes:
…
2. Possible guarantor states: Great Britain, China, Russia, the United States, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Israel. The free accession of other states to the treaty is proposed, in particular the Russian Federation proposes Belarus.
…
4. Ukraine does not join any military alliances, does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents, and conducts international military exercises only with the consent of the guarantor states. For their part, the guarantor states confirm their intention to promote Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.

5. The guarantor states and Ukraine agree that in the event of aggression, any armed attack on Ukraine or any military operation against Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States, after urgent and immediate consultations between them (which shall be held within no more than three days), in the exercise of the right to individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will provide (in response to and on the basis of an official request from Ukraine) assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack, by immediately taking such individual or joint action as may be necessary, including closing airspace over Ukraine, providing necessary weapons, using armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.

Any such armed attack (any military operation) and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall cease when the Security Council takes the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

The mechanism for implementing security guarantees for Ukraine, based on the results of additional consultations between Ukraine and the Guarantor States, will be regulated in the Treaty, taking into account protection from possible provocations.

Again:

… such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.

So yes, the Ukraine can have ‘security guarantees’. But the conditions of those will be set by the main guarantor – which has to be Russia.

Trump seems to have understood that. How long will it take those European ‘leaders’ to get it?

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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A totally transparent blatant lie has been turned into a truth throughout the Western world.  The lie is that Russia invaded Ukraine.  I will provide the factual history which is easy to verify.

When Washington overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 and installed a puppet, Washington relied on the Banderites to push the government into hostility with the Russian settled areas of Ukraine, areas such as Crimea and Donbas, that originally were part of Russia.  Whether or not the Banderites, followers of Stepan Bandera are neo-Nazis, they are certainly hostile to Russians.  

The conflict in Ukraine began in 2014 with street assaults on Russians in Donbas and government attempts to ban the use of the Russian language and other prohibitions placed on the Russian areas.  These street assaults soon grew into artillery attacks on Donbas towns and occupation of Donbas territory by Ukrainian militias sporting Nazi insignia.  To protect themselves, Donbas formed into two independent republics–Luhansk and Donetsk–and formed paramilitaries to defend themselves. 

In 2014 Donetsk and Luhansk voted overwhelmingly to be reabsorbed into Russia like Crimea, but Putin refused.  Instead, Putin relied on the Minsk Agreement, which Ukraine and the independent republics signed, and which Germany and France were supposed to enforce.  The agreement, sponsored by Russia, kept Donbas in Ukraine but provided some autonomy, such as independent police and courts to protect the rights of the Russian inhabitants. Putin naively relied on the Minsk Agreement, which the chancellor of Germany and president of France later said was used to deceive Putin while the US built and equipped a large Ukrainian army.

By late 2021 this army was prepared to invade Donbas, much of which was already under Ukrainian occupation, and forcibly reincorporate Donbas into Ukraine without any autonomy.  Faced with the abuse and possible slaughter of Russian people, Putin and his foreign minister Lavrov tried during December 2021-February 2022 to obtain a mutual security agreement with the West that would exclude Ukraine from NATO membership and contribute to mutual security by normalizing relations between Russia and the West.  The Biden regime, NATO, and the EU flatly refused.  The conflict followed this refusal.

Seeing the writing on the wall and unable to avoid it, Russia gave official recognization to the Donbas republics.  This allowed Donetsk and Luhansk  to request Russia to come to their aid, which Putin did at the last minute eight years too late.  As Russia was invited into Donbas, Russia did not even invade Donbas, much less Ukraine.

Putin designated the Russian intervention a “special military operation” limited to clearing Ukrainian troops from Russian areas.  Seven months into the military intervention on September 30, 2022, Russia reincorporated the Russian areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson into Russia.  The ground fighting has been limited to clearing Ukrainian troops from territory that is again part of Russia. 

Ask yourselves how and why did the truth get replaced by a lie? The answer is that those who profit from war provide the war propaganda.  

Now ask why does it matter?  The answer is that propaganda is a barrier to understanding and to a peaceful diplomatic solution to a conflict that can easily spin out of control into a wider war.

The propaganda that the evil-dictator-war-criminal-Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the first step in reconstruction the Soviet Empire places restraints on Trump and Putin’s ability to put East-West relations on a less dangerous footing.  Already the Western whore media is screaming that Trump is selling out Ukraine, that Trump is selling out Europe, that Trump is putty in Putin’s hands.  These and other such ignorant slogans will be used by the Zionist neoconservatives and US military/security complex to drive wedges between Trump and his supporters.  Americans have been indoctrinated to think of Russia as the enemy for 75 years.  The belief is institutionalized.  

Progress toward peaceful relations requires truthful reporting and correction of established beliefs that are false.  Can this be achieved when the well-placed neoconservative supporters of US hegemony are defending their interest, and the military/security complex is determined to protect its power and profit? Trump can expect little help from the media.  Naive Russians should not get carried away with their hopes for an accommodation with the West. Powerful barriers are in the way of Russian hopes, and Russians have no means of removing the barriers.  It is doubtful that Trump does.

Now ask yourselves a final question?  Why is it PCR who is making the case for common sense and for truth?  Why isn’t it the US foreign policy community, the Kremlin, the Chinese, the Russian media, the Western media, the German government, the British government, the government of India?  Why aren’t Trump’s supporters making the case?  I am only one voice easily shouted down as a “Putin agent/dupe” by the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, NPR, BBC, MSNBC, NY Times, Wall Street Journal,  The Guardian, and the rest of the whore media and a plethora of internet sites sponsored by war-mongers.  The normalization of relations between the West and Russia will take many voices. Where are those voices?  

Note: The whores at the BBC and the rest of the presstitute media incorrectly report that Russia’s restoration of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to Russian citizenship is illegal.  The restoration of Russian citizenship is completely legal under the international rules of self-determination.  There is no effort on the part of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to return to Ukraine.

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From Chapter 4 of my book, Write like they’re your last words

Ray Kurzweil is a name you should get to know thoroughly, particularly his law of accelerating returns.  He’s achieved world fame for a number of reasons, two of which are his highly accurate predictions and his exponential view of technology.

Living with exponential trends is confounding because they mimic linear trends in their early stages then suddenly shoot skyward.  As Kurzweil often describes it, “If I count 30 steps linearly I get to 30.  If I count exponentially, 30 steps later I’m at a billion.  It makes a dramatic difference.”

Here’s the point: Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, but we experience it linearly.  If two points on an exponential curve are close  enough, the experience of moving from one to the other will seem linear.  Thus, our expectations and projections about the future are often based on the wrong scale — linear instead of exponential.

(Linear versus exponential: Linear growth is steady; exponential growth becomes explosive.  Source: The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology [2005], Ray Kurzweil)

As Kurzweil explains in The Singularity is Near [emphasis mine in all extracts],

Exponential growth is seductive, starting out slowly and virtually unnoticeably, but beyond the knee of the curve it turns explosive and profoundly transformative. The future is widely misunderstood. Our forebears expected it to be pretty much like their present, which had been pretty much like their past. Exponential trends did exist one thousand years ago, but they were at that very early stage in which they were so flat and so slow that they looked like no trend at all.

If Kurzweil is correct then before the middle of this century technology will reach a point he calls the Singularity, where the rate of change will be explosive.  The rapid pace will still be finite, but it will seem infinite to biologically unenhanced humans.  As he explains:

The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.

If these prospects leave you uneasy you’re not alone.  Kurzweil, though, sees this state of affairs as a goal worth reaching.

All the machines we have met to date lack the essential subtlety of human biological qualities. Although the Singularity has many faces, its most important implication is this: our technology will match and then vastly exceed the refinement and suppleness of what we regard as the best of human traits.

Why do I mention all this in a book about writing?  Because you will be writing in Kurzweil’s world.

There are many high-IQ people who are in agreement with Kurzweil but who nevertheless talk about the future as if technology were an irrelevant consideration.  Political commentators especially have been speculating on presidential candidates for 2020 and 2024, as if the world will be essentially the same then as it is now in late 2016.

Maybe, maybe not, but the trend is clear: As technology advances individuals gain increasing control over their lives.  They’re not as dependent on the ones above them as the ones above them think they are.

If anything is clear about the 2016 presidential election it is the failure of the Establishment to push their favored candidate into the White House.  How did this happen?  A technology known as the Web.  As Gary North wrote in 2013,

What is going to shape the thinking of the American electorate is access to the Web, which enables people to read in-depth stories that interest them, and which interest people of similar perspectives. The social media will determine which news stories are read, not a handful of news screeners at the four major television networks. . . .

Technology is poised to redefine life-as-we-know-it.   There are numerous books that advance this outlook in great detail, among which are:

Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology,

The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,

Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization,

Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.

And more recently,

The Singularity is Nearer

How to use AI (for Real People)

And putting technology in an economics context,

Human Action: Scholar’s Edition.

Technological change is coming at us in ways that resonate with science fantasy.  Nothing short of a global calamity will stop it.

You might be familiar with Moore’s Law and how it’s driving technological development.  It is and it isn’t.  Let’s clear this up.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, published a paper in which he noted that the number of components on an integrated circuit doubled every year.  Since the cost of the integrated circuit would remain roughly constant, we would get twice the speed and twice the circuitry at the same price.  Though later revised to every two years, Moore’s prediction has proven to be remarkably accurate and is known eponymously as Moore’s Law.  Kurzweil gives us a sense of what this means:

When I was an undergraduate [in the late 1960s] we all shared a computer at MIT that took up half a building.  The computer in your cell phone is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful.  That’s a billion-fold increase in price/performance of computing since I was an undergraduate.

Many observers predict Moore’s Law will end within the next few years, and with it we’ll see tech development slow from a sprint to a walk.  But as Kurzweil frequently points out,

It is important to note that Moore’s Law of Integrated Circuits was not the first, but the fifth paradigm to provide accelerating price-performance. Computing devices have been consistently multiplying in power (per unit of time) from the mechanical calculating devices used in the 1890 U.S. Census, to Turing’s relay-based “Robinson” machine that cracked the Nazi enigma code, to the CBS vacuum tube computer that predicted the election of Eisenhower, to the transistor-based machines used in the first space launches, to the integrated-circuit-based personal computer which I used to dictate (and automatically transcribe) this essay.

He thinks the sixth paradigm of computing will be modeled on the structure of the human brain:

Chips today are flat (although it does require up to 20 layers of material to produce one layer of circuitry). Our brain, in contrast, is organized in three dimensions. We live in a three dimensional world, why not use the third dimension? The human brain actually uses a very inefficient electrochemical digital controlled analog computational process. The bulk of the calculations are done in the interneuronal connections at a speed of only about 200 calculations per second (in each connection), which is about ten million times slower than contemporary electronic circuits. But the brain gains its prodigious powers from its extremely parallel organization in three dimensions.

There are many technologies in the wings that build circuitry in three dimensions.

As he writes in The Singularity is Near, it is specifically information technology that is growing exponentially.  But this is far from a limiting factor:

We see information at every level of existence. Every form of human knowledge and artistic expression– scientific and engineering ideas and designs, literature, music, pictures, movies– can be expressed as digital information.

Nanotechnology represents the intersection of information technology with the physical world.  By controlling the structure of matter at an atomic level, nanotechnology will launch a revolution in manufacturing, including factories on a desktop.

We no longer expect just our dinner from the marketplace.  We expect better lives and are willing to pay for them.  Competition and market demand are driving technological development.

At this writing Uber is operating self-driving car service in Pittsburgh and Arizona.  As mentioned earlier, tech billionaires are funding research to discover ways to arrest and possibly reverse aging.  Within the next 20 years we will likely see a computer as human-like as anyone you know, only a million times smarter.  New methods of production based on atomically precise manufacturing will raise the poorest of the poor to living standards far beyond those of the developed world today, and with less ecological impact.

Moore’s Law will stall, but the exponential progression of technology will continue as long as civilization survives.

Pay attention to technology.  It’s paying attention to you.

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President Trump campaigned on getting the United States out of the Ukraine War on “Day 1”. It is now Day 211. The President continues to refer to the war as “Biden’s War,” but how many days must pass before it becomes “Biden & Trump’s War”? It’s time for President Trump to do what he should have done on Day 1 … Get America out.

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Many people wish they could have met a great figure in history. What would it be like to talk to Newton, to Tesla, to Shakespeare? Those of us lucky enough to know Dr. Ron Paul don’t have to speculate. We know one of the truly great figures in American history, the best Congressman we have ever had. I have known him for decades, and I’d like to tell you something about him as a person and about his achievements.

I had the rare honor of serving as Ron Paul’s congressional chief of staff and observed him in many proud moments in those days, and in his presidential campaigns.

Ron urged his followers to read and learn. Countless high school and college students began reading dense and difficult treatises in economics and political philosophy because Ron encouraged them to. Ron’s followers, meanwhile, were curious enough to dig beneath the surface. Is the state really a benign institution that can costlessly provide us whatever we might demand? Or might there be moral, economic, and political factors standing in the way of these utopian dreams?

It’s very hard to build up an army of young people intellectually curious enough to read serious books and consider ideas that go beyond the conventional wisdom they learned in school about government and market. It’s hard to build up a movement of people whose moral sense is developed enough to recognize that barking demands and enforcing them with the state’s gun is the behavior of a thug, not a civilized person. And it’s hard to persuade people of the counter-intuitive idea that society runs better and individuals are more prosperous when no one is “in charge” at all.

Yet Ron accomplished all these things.

As the person who reached more people with the message of liberty than anyone in our time, Ron has also taught us how that message can and must be spread. I want to talk about some of these lessons.

First and foremost, Ron is a critic of the warfare state. The subject of war cannot, and should not, be avoided.

Ron is not a pacifist – an ancient charge against those who oppose constant war. He believes in the right to self-defense, but he does not believe in the initiation of violence, whether by private criminals or the state. He is a man of peace and the golden rule, in his private life and his policy.

The war in Iraq, which was still a live issue when Ron first ran for the Republican nomination, had been sold to the public on the basis of lies that were transparent and insulting even by the US government’s standards. The devastation – in terms of deaths, maimings, displacement, and sheer destruction – appalled every decent human being.

Yes, the Department of Education is an outrage, but it is nothing next to the horrifying images of what happened to the men, women, and children of Iraq. If he wasn’t going to denounce such a clear moral evil, Ron thought, what was the point of being in public life at all?

Still, this is the issue strategists would have had him avoid. Just talk about the budget, talk about the greatness of America, talk about whatever everyone else was talking about, and you’ll be fine. And, they neglected to add, forgotten.

But had Ron shied away from this issue, there would have been no Ron Paul Revolution. It was his courageous refusal to back down from certain unspeakable truths about the American role in the world that caused Americans, and especially students, to sit up and take notice.

Worried about the budget? You can’t run an empire on the cheap. Concerned about TSA groping, or government eavesdropping, or cameras trained on you? These are the inevitable policies of a hegemon. In case after case, Ron pointed to the connection between an imperial policy abroad and abuses and outrages at home. While still in his thirties, Murray Rothbard wrote privately that he was beginning to view war as “the key to the whole libertarian business.” Here is another way Ron Paul has been faithful to the Rothbardian tradition. Time after time, in interviews and public appearances, Ron has brought the questions posed to him back to the central issues of war and foreign policy.

Inspired by Ron, libertarians began to challenge conservatives by reminding them that war, after all, is the ultimate government program. War has it all: propaganda, censorship, spying, crony contracts, money printing, skyrocketing spending, debt creation, central planning, hubris – everything we associate with the worst interventions into the economy.

But Ron Paul permanently changed the nature of the discussion on war and foreign policy. The word “nonintervention” rarely appeared in foreign-policy discussions before 2007. Opposition to war was associated with anti-capitalist causes. That is no longer the case.

In exposing the fraudulent American foreign policy debate, Ron exposed an overlooked truth about American political life. The debates Americans are allowed to have are ones in which the real decisions have already been made: income tax or consumption tax, fiscal stimulus or monetary stimulus, sanctions or war, later war or war right away. With debates like these, it hardly matters who wins. Ron pulled back the curtain on all of it. Ron kept insisting that there was no real foreign policy debate in America because all we were allowed to do was argue over what kind of intervention the US government should pursue. Whether intervention itself was desirable, or whether the bipartisan assumptions behind US foreign policy were sound – this was not even mentioned, much less debated

Of course, Ron applies his wisdom to the current war between Russia and the Ukraine. In contrast to brain-dead Biden and his gang of neo con warmongers, he urged us to stay out of it. Likewise, he wants us to avoid a confrontation with China. We can have friendly relations with both China and Russia, and neither country threatens us. Why provoke a war that could lead to the nuclear annihilation of the world? As Ron said in a recent article, “’War is a racket, wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: ‘A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.’”

Let’s look at the other key issue in Ron’s congressional career. After he suspended his 2008 campaign for president, he gave an extraordinary speech. No focus groups urged Ron to talk about the Federal Reserve. No politician had made an issue of the Fed in an election in its 100-year history. Stick to the script, the professionals would have said: lower taxes and lower spending, the monotonous refrain uttered by every Republican politician, who typically has no interest in carrying through with either one anyway.

Here again, had Ron adopted conventional political advice, he would have forfeited these historic moments and the Ron Paul phenomenon would have been greatly diminished, if not compromised altogether. Yet Ron pointed to the Fed as the source of the boom-bust cycle that has harmed so many Americans. His dogged insistence on this point got a great many Americans curious: what, after all, was the Fed, and what was it up to? An unlikely issue, to be sure, and yet it was his willingness to talk about it that in my view helps to account for much of his fundraising success. There was a small but untapped portion of the public that responded with enthusiasm to Ron’s very mention of the Fed, and they wanted more.

Of course, it’s not enough just to get rid of the Fed, essential as that is. We need sound money, and for Ron, following Mises and Rothbard, this means the gold standard.

In 1982, Ron Paul served on the U.S. Gold Commission to evaluate the role of gold in the monetary system. In fact, the Commission was his idea. It was carrying forth a promise made in the Republican platform.

Ron couldn’t pick the members, so from the beginning, the deck was stacked. The majority was dominated by monetarists, who saw gold as too scarce and paper as just fine. Ron Paul’s team was ready, however, with this marvelous minority report.

Rarely has a dissent on a government commission done so much good!

The result was The Case for Gold, and it was the greatest result of the commission. It covers the history of gold in the United States, explains that its breakdown was caused by governments, and explains the merit of having sound money: prices reflect market realities, government stays in check, and the people retain their freedom.

The scholarship and rigor impressed even the critics of the minority. Ron and Lewis Lehrman worked with a team of economists that included Murray Rothbard, who was the main author, so it is hardly surprising that such a book would result.

I am convinced that historians, whether or not they agree with him, will continue to marvel at Ron Paul for many, many years to come. Libertarians a century from now will be in disbelief at the very notion that such a man actually served in the US Congress of our time.

One of the most thrilling memories of the 2012 campaign was the sight of those huge crowds who came out to see Ron. His competitors, meanwhile, couldn’t fill half a Starbucks. When I worked as Ron’s chief of staff in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I could only dream of such a day.

Now what was it that attracted all these people to Ron Paul? He didn’t offer his followers a spot on the federal gravy train. He didn’t pass some phony bill. In fact, he didn’t do any of the things we associate with politicians. What his supporters love about him has nothing to do with politics at all.

Ron is the anti-politician. He tells unfashionable truths, educates rather than flatters the public, and stands up for principle even when the whole world is arrayed against him.

Of course, Ron Paul deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. In a just world, he would also win the Medal of Freedom, and all the honors for which a man in his position is eligible.

But history is littered with forgotten politicians who earned piles of awards handed out by other politicians. What matters to Ron more than all the honors and ceremonies in the world is all of you, and your commitment to the immortal ideas he has championed all his life.

It’s Ron’s truth-telling and his urge to educate the public that should inspire us as we carry on into the future.

Little did he know that those thankless years of pointing out the State’s lies and refusing to be absorbed into the Blob would in fact make him a hero one day. To see Ron speaking to many thousands of cheering kids, when all the while respectable opinion had been warning them to stay far away from this dangerous man, is more gratifying and encouraging than I can say. I was especially thrilled when a tempestuous Ron, responding to the Establishment’s description of his campaign as “dangerous,” said,” you’re darn right — I am dangerous— to them.”

Even the mainstream media has to acknowledge the existence of a whole new category of thinker: one that is antiwar, anti-Fed, anti-police state, and pro-market. The libertarian view is even on the map of those who despise it. That, too, is Ron’s doing.

Young people are reading major treatises in economics and philosophy because Ron Paul recommended them. Who else in public life can come close to saying that?

No politician is going to trick the public into embracing liberty, even if liberty were his true goal and not just a word he uses in fundraising letters. For liberty to advance, a critical mass of the public has to understand and support it. That doesn’t have to mean a majority, or even anywhere near it. But some baseline of support has to exist.

That is why Ron Paul’s work is so important and so lasting. And what is even more amazing is that Ron Paul continues to be a great leader and educator at an age when most people have long since retired. Throughout his 80s, he conducted a podcast and wrote a weekly column, and although he has just turned 90, he gives no signs of stopping. Many of his devoted admirers joined him in a wonderful birthday party at his ranch, and Tulsi Gabbard paid eloquent tribute to him. Let’s do everything we can to spread the teachings of this great American and hero!

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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are about to make decisions that could radically alter the trajectory of human history.  When they meet in Alaska on Friday, the stakes will be incredibly high.  If they are able to agree to some sort of a deal, the world will rejoice.  But if the meeting goes badly, there will be immense pressure on western leaders to militarily intervene in Ukraine in order to prevent Russia from taking as much territory as it wants.  At the moment, Russian forces are moving forward quite rapidly.  If negotiations can stop them, western leaders will be thrilled.  But if talks fail, the conflict in Ukraine will dramatically escalate, and that will put us dangerously close to nuclear war.

On Wednesday, President Trump was asked about what will happen if the Russians do not agree to end the war.

President Trump responded by warning that there will be “very severe consequences”…

US President Donald Trump promised “very severe consequences” on Russia if its President Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to end his war in Ukraine during the two leaders’ meeting on Friday.

“There will be consequences,” Trump just said during an event at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Asked if that meant new sanctions or tariffs, Trump demurred.

“I don’t have to say,” he said, adding only: “There will be very severe consequences.”

This was not a wise thing to say just before such an important meeting.

As I have stated over and over again, threatening the Russians will not work.

If Trump insists on making threats, it will backfire severely.

The Russians have already said that they are willing to end the war, but they want certain things in return.

Of course what the Russians have proposed is not acceptable to the Ukrainians or to our European allies at all, and that is not likely to change any time soon.

A virtual conference that included Trump and leaders from all over Europe was held on Wednesday, and President Trump felt that it went very well…

The president joined a call earlier on Aug. 13 with Zelenskyy and European leaders, two days before Trump’s one-on-one summit with Putin in Alaska. Trump is trying to push Moscow into a peace deal that Kyiv and its allies fear will include the loss of significant territory seized by Russia in its three-year war on Ukraine.

“I would rate it a 10,” Trump told reporters on August 13 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “Very friendly.”

Zelenskyy was in Berlin for the virtual conference hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that included the leaders of Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, the European Union and NATO. Vice President JD Vance was also expected to join the portion that included Trump.

Following the virtual conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made it exceedingly clear where our European allies stand…

The German leader said Ukraine would need a seat at the table if peace was to be reached in Ukraine, and that he told Mr. Trump he would speak to him after his Alaska meeting with Putin.

“We want to make sure that the right chronology happens: that there is a ceasefire and that there is an agreement that is discussed after that,” he said. “A legal recognition of Russian ownership of this territory cannot happen. There have to be robust security guarantees. The sovereignty of Ukraine has to be respected. Negotiations have to be part of a larger transatlantic strategy, and has to be part of necessary pressure on Russia.”

Merz added, “If there is no movement on the Russian side, we and the U.S. have to put more pressure on Russia. President Trump knows this position and largely agrees with it, and we had a good conversation with each other.”

Merz obviously does not want a peace agreement to happen, because there is no way that the Russians are going to agree to any of that.

The Russians are not going to give one inch of the territory that they have taken in the five provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea back to Ukraine.

In fact, the Russians want Ukraine to hand over all of the territory that the Ukrainians are still holding in those five provinces.

If Ukraine is not willing to hand over all of that territory, Russia will simply take it.

That is the Russian position, and they see no reason to compromise because they are clearly winning the war.

When asked about Trump’s suggestion that there could be some “swapping of territories”, the Russians made it very clear that this is a non-starter…

Russia pointed to its constitution in response to a remark by U.S. President Donald Trump that there would likely be a “swapping of territories” in a deal to end Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Trump is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday to discuss a peace deal. Territorial control is a key issue. Russia has seized about a fifth of Ukrainian land in the east. Ukraine controls no Russian territory.

Asked about Trump’s suggestion that Russia and Ukraine could swap land, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexei Fadeev said at a news briefing on Wednesday that there was “no need to even invent anything territorial.”

“The structure of the Russian Federation is enshrined in the Constitution of our country,” Fadeev said, originally in Russian. “That says it all.”

The Russians also want Ukraine to be permanently banned from joining NATO.

This is something that the Ukrainians and our European allies are adamantly against.

So I have no idea why so many pundits think that a deal is possible, because the two sides are not even in the same universe when it comes to what an acceptable deal would look like.

Ahead of the meeting on Friday, the White House has been trying to play down expectations…

“This is a listening exercise for the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Aug. 12. “This is for the president to go and to get a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.”

I give Trump credit for being willing to sit down with Putin.

The window of opportunity for a peaceful solution is almost closed, and so let’s hope that this last-ditch effort is successful.

Because if it isn’t successful and we get to the “very severe consequences” phase, that will have massive implications for all of humanity.

20 years ago, if someone told you that a day would come when the only thing standing between us and nuclear war would be Donald Trump, would you have believed it?

But here we are.

The meeting in Alaska on Friday really will be one of the most important events in modern history, and the fate of our society is hanging in the balance.

Reprinted with permission from The Economic Collapse.

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According to- abcnews.go.com: Beyond the banking world, a parallel universe of shadow banks has grown in the form of hedge funds and money market funds. They’re outside the reach of conventional financial regulation, prompting authorities to plan introducing new rules to prevent the obscure sector from triggering a new financial crisis. But in doing so they risk drying up an important source of funding to banks and firms. 

In the financial world, there is a narrow divide between heaven and hell. Frenchman Loïc Féry realized this when he was 33. He was a rising star in the banking world, managing the trade in complex loan packages for an investment bank. According to his business card, he was the bank’s “global head of credit markets.” But then one of his employees gambled away about €250 million ($317 million), and suddenly Féry was without a job.

In any alternative media space, you are sure to find much talk about US dollar dominance, as well as optimistic forecasts of its imminent decline. This is also true in the radical right, where nationalists pine after an end to US imperial hegemony and the rise of a more multipolar world.

Often though, this hope is little more than wishful thinking, with unlikely challengers to US power much overhyped. This is especially true concerning US dollar hegemony, a topic that is ripe for misunderstanding at the best of times.

It’s important to keep in mind that people have been forecasting the decline of the dollar ever since it attained its status as global reserve currency. As far back as 1960, the economist Robert Triffin was warning of an “imminent threat to the once-mighty US dollar”. Understanding the reason for Triffin’s pessimism, and why it turned out to be misguided, is crucial to understanding today’s global monetary system and the enduring dominance of the dollar.

Triffin’s concerns were more informed than most: his “Triffin dilemma”, as it came to be known, highlighted an inherent problem with a country’s national currency also serving as the reserve currency of choice for the international system. The country supplying the world with the reserve currency has to produce a surplus of money, thereby creating a trade deficit. In other words, the supplier country needs to be continually losing money to fill up the reserves of other countries and make the currency a low-risk option to hold as a reserve. But if the supplier country becomes too indebted to the rest of the world in this scenario, then its currency ceases to be such a low-risk asset, and that’s the dilemma.

After World War II, the US sent lots of dollars abroad through the Marshall Plan, military spending, and the American middle-class importing lots of foreign goods. So how did the domestic US dollar get around Triffin’s dilemma? It didn’t.

Enter the Eurodollar

Triffin’s dilemma was especially a problem for the US dollar because it was backed by gold. After all, what would happen when the world needed more dollars than US gold reserves could back? Much like the kind of collapse that would happen if everyone tried to withdraw their money from banks at the same time, the whole system faced implosion if the US could not keep its foreign dollars backed up with gold.

The standard story is that this problem was resolved in 1971, when Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods international system and finally decoupled the US dollar from gold. But by this point, private banks had already long replaced gold exchange and quietly adopted a new form of exchange, extricated from any reserves or real currency, this was a truly global, offshore economic system outside the purview of central banks. This was the Eurodollar system. In this context, “Euro” is used as a synonym for “offshore” rather than referring to actual euros. So, the Eurodollar system is the shadow, offshore money system denominated in US dollars.

No one is really sure of how the Eurodollar system emerged (more on that later), but by the late 1950s there had been a huge growth in US dollar deposits in European banks, mostly in the City of London. With pre-war practices, these deposits would have been remitted to the central bank or deposited to the banks’ accounts in the U.S., but gradually, banks began to use these dollar deposits to issue loans denominated in US dollars. By 1959, the economist Paul Einzig reported that

The Eurodollar market was for years hidden from economists and other readers of the financial press by a remarkable conspiracy of silence. I stumbled on its existence by sheer accident in October 1959, and when I embarked on an enquiry about it in London banking circles several bankers emphatically asked me not to write about the new practice.

Britain’s economic goal of making London a center for international financial capital manifested in deregulation and comprehensive secrecy protections; this gave the city a competitive edge against other European countries, and put it and its web of British offshore territories at the very centre of this emerging system.

Since the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, Britain has undergone a great experiment. Economically, the UK became the exemplar of neoliberalism in Europe. Politically, the UK has quietly transitioned to a postnational state, undergoing one of the greatest demographic transformations in the West.

As the Eurodollar market exploded, it became the lifeblood of the global economy, quickly fulfilling a need banks had for an international currency system. Banks could now transact rapidly and efficiently across countries and continents without the need of a physical currency, an innovation that helped unleash economic activity. The Eurodollar system functioned like an early cryptocurrency, existing as a digital ledger and communications network rather than a traditional currency.

Driving the global economy is a kind of bankers virtual currency, created by and used to satisfy the demands of banks, a series of claims and liabilities exchanged between banks to meet their monetary needs. How can you travel to Indonesia and make an instant withdrawal from an ATM, withdrawing from your local bank back home? Only with a vastly complex and efficient communications network connecting the global banking system.

The Eurodollar was the emergence of this system, and central banks have little control over it. For all the scare-mongering from libertarians about “Fed money-printing”, it is international bankers — outside the regulations of the US Federal Reserve — who are the ones in control of creating the US dollar supply on international markets. Big commercial banks create Eurodollars using the offshore system without the backing of the Federal Reserve. This is done through fractional lending, where dollar deposits are used as collateral to loan out a higher amount of dollars.

Again: private banks create money out of thin air by creating debt

Discovering money creation rests with private banks is a revelation that tends to shock people and send them into a state of denial — surely the state would not outsource something this fundamental to private actors.

But don’t take my word for it, a source as good as the Bank of England wrote in a report titled “Money creation in the modern economy” that:

Most of the money in circulation is created, not by the printing presses of the Bank of England, but by the commercial banks themselves: banks create money whenever they lend to someone in the economy or buy an asset from consumers. And, in contrast to descriptions found in some textbooks, the Bank of England does not directly control the quantity of either base, or broad money. Of the two types of broad money, bank deposits make up the vast majority – 97% of the amount currently in circulation. And in the modern economy, those bank deposits are mostly created by commercial banks themselves.

So international bankers have created a shadow money system, with the Eurodollar system functioning as a kind of “dark energy” of the global economy, ever-present but unseen, something which the US Federal Reserve or any other central bank can do little to control. In fact, no one even knows how much money exists in the Eurodollar system, with estimates measuring it in anything from tens to hundreds of trillions. As the economist Fritz Machlup once told a meeting of his colleagues:

We don’t even know enough about the Eurodollar market to say that it should be controlled.

If you want to visualise what this shadow money system looks like, this is an attempt at illustrating all the instruments involved in the supply of the US dollar:

Still confused? You’re not alone. If this illustrates anything, it’s that the federal reserve and central banking is just a small part of the story. This enormously complex web developed over decades through private institutions, satisfying the need for a truly global money system unconstrained by national barriers.

But in the process of decoupling the dollar from Federal Reserve reserve control, bankers have given themselves the power to create unsanctioned and unregulated money. This translates to enormous power to override national government’s monetary policy and fulfill many of the roles most people assume central banks and their governments are handling:

Because Eurocurrencies give private financial institutions the unrestricted ability to expand the availability of a particular currency, the country whose currency is the target of the Euroinstrument no longer has exclusive control over its money supply.

…

Furthermore, the lack of reserve requirements on Eurodollars creates a potentially infinite money multiplier, potentially leading to an infinite degree of inflation, all without the input of the Federal Reserve or the U.S. Treasury. Thus, the power to control the number of dollars (or dollar-equivalent instruments) in the market has been taken out of the exclusive control of U.S. authority and diffused among foreign banking institutions.

Discussion around economics is still heavily focused on central bank monetary policy and government programs like Quantitative Easing, which helps maintain the illusion that it’s still accountable, elected representatives with the final say.

It’s understandable we are biased to focus on government institutions: it has always been understood that monetary sovereignty is a prerequisite for political sovereignty. But it is now clear that governments have quietly surrendered a great degree of monetary sovereignty to the private interests running the international banking system — one of the most significant and revolutionary political changes ever, yet one hardly discussed.

It’s shocking to discover the scope and influence of this system, and to discover everything presented here has been out in the open for years, strangely ignored or overlooked by popular economists, financial analysts and politicians alike. Yet some esteemed economists like Paul Einzig and Milton Friedman did identify and study this system, and both also wrote of a grand “conspiracy of silence” by the global banking cartel to hide its existence. Since most economic analysis still ignores it, we are left with an always partial view of how the economy functions.

Read the Whole Article

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Pressure on Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve continues to mount as both Wall Street and the White House demand more easy money to keep asset price inflation accelerating ever upward. These inflationists also hope that easy money-policy will somehow reverse the current stagnating trend in employment. In recent months, both President Trump and the usual Wall Street outlets have insisted that the Fed reduce the target policy interest rate to ensure that stock prices and real estate prices continue to skyrocket ever upward.

This is the last thing ordinary Americans need right now. Yes, continually rising asset prices are good for firms and individuals who already own large amounts of assets. These people have been pushing for lower interest rates for decades now, because lower interest rates function as a subsidy for asset owners and fuel rising asset prices. Moreover, since the late 1980s, with the Greenspan put, the Fed’s commitment to manipulating interest rates ever downward has been a boon for Wall Street hedge fund managers and investment bankers.

On the other hand, ordinary people have done less well. As home prices have spiraled upward—fueled by loose monetary policy (i.e., low-interest-rate policy) housing has become increasingly unaffordable for first-time homebuyers and middle-income families.

The politicians, pundits, and lobbyists who now advocate for the Fed to lower the target rate are basically advertising that they couldn’t care less about whether or not ordinary people can afford to buy a home. By this way of thinking, all that matters is that the wealthy asset owners get more of their low-interest subsidy and “number go up”—specifically the S&P 500—for Trump and his Wall Street allies.

Moreover, if the Fed pushes for lower rates right now—which requires more money creation from the FOMC’s open market operations—then the Fed will be “loosening into inflation.” That is, the Fed will be adopting looser, more inflationary monetary policy at the same time that there is an upward trend in price inflation. Not only are CPI and PPI prices accelerating again, but the US is in the midst of a meltup with the S&P 500 near all-time highs, with gold, crypto, and more all ripping to new highs. This is not an economy with too little liquidity. This is an economy with trillions of dollars from the covid-era mega-inflation still sloshing around the economy.

Jerome Powell is hardly a hard-money guy, and his claims that Fed policy is “restrictive” right now, must be viewed with extreme skepticism. Of course an inflationist central banker like Powell would say that his policy is restrictive even when it’s not. But Powell also fears undermining Fed legitimacy by triggering price inflation reminiscent of the 1970s—or even reminiscent of 2022 when CPI inflation hit 40-year highs. The general public in America already knows that it’s creaking under the weight of 25 percent inflation over the past five years, with no relief in sight. Powell likely knows that a return to 2022-style inflation would present significant political problems for the central bank, and he’s motivated to avoid that.

PPI and CPI Increases Show Price Inflation Isn’t Going Away

New numbers from the Federal government’s own official reports suggests that Powell and the Fed are rights to be concerned.

On Thursday, the BLS released a new report showing that producer prices surged in July. The producer price index (PPI) rose by 0.9 percent, month over month, during July. That’s the largest MoM increase since March of 2022, and it’s the seventh largest increase in PPI in more than fifteen years. The year-over-year increase in the PPI also rose to a five-month high, rising by 3.3 percent, year over year.

Moreover, the BLS’s CPI report for July shows that the year-over-year change to the CPI rose again in July to 2.7 percent. The YoY CPI has now risen three months in a row. Measured month over month, the CPI has risen four months in a row, with the CPI up by 0.2 percent from June to July.

Taking all this together, we find price inflation is headed upward and not back to “the two-percent goal” as Fed economists have long insisted. Even worse, current trends suggests that the economy could be headed toward stagflation with prices stubbornly trending upward, and employment trend stagnating or worsening. A recent analysis from Bloomberg noticed this unfortunate situation:

So, with Trump and Wall Street beating the drum for even more monetary inflation, what should the Fed really be doing? The answer is: “nothing.” The last thing that regular Americans need right now is a Fed loosening policy just as CPI and PPI inflation are accelerating. And the last thing regular Americans need right now is rising home prices. Moreover, the Fed shouldn’t even be targeting any specific level for short-term interest rates—or long-term interest rates either. The Fed should simply allow markets to determine interest rates, and if that leads to rising interest rates, that will simply illustrate what a sham current interest rates are under the influence of incessant Fed meddling. Moreover, if the fed simply refrains from manipulating interest rates—which, again, is done partly with newly created money—then monetary inflation may finally be truly restrictive and consumers might finally get some relief in the form of price deflation.

Of course, we’ll also hear from the usual inflationists that a lack of Fed-fueled liquidity would lead to a worsening employment situation. Unfortunately, we’re likely to get that one way or another at this point. After more than fifteen years of “quantitative easing,” and more than a decade of ultra-low-interest-rate policy, the US is in the midst of an unsustainable “everything bubble.” This leaves us with two choices: keep the bubble going with more monetary inflation, which will mean more upward spiraling prices and unaffordable housing. Or, the Fed could step back, and allow the market to actually function, which will mean the bubbles will pop. That will lead to temporary unemployment and economic disruption. But it would also finally give regular people a chance to actually move into truly productive, non-bubble lines of work, and acquire assets at normal, non-bubble prices.

Unfortunately, the latter options will be opposed at every turn by Donald Trump, Wall Street, and the Central Bank cabal. Let’s hope that somehow, some way, they fail.

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

The post The Last Thing We Need Right Now Is a Fed Rate Cut appeared first on LewRockwell.

Some readers might recall a year ago the internet was in an uproar about a commencement speech given by Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker at Benedictine College, a private Catholic liberal arts school in Kansas. The speech went viral due to his denouncement of abortion, Pride Month, COVID-19 lockdowns and the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion.

However, it was his comments on women in the workforce that really put a twist in the panties of the leftist media:

“I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you, how many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your career…

Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

“I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother…”

Leftists were enraged and attempted to cancel Butker. The problem was that cancel culture was in steep decline and the activist mobs had already lost much of their previous influence. More than DEI, more than ESG, more than CRT or the LGBT movement, leftists are most protective of feminism. It is, in a way, the “mother” of all other progressive propaganda movements in America.

As I have noted in the past, there are many Marxist and globalist ideologies focused on social engineering, but the first and perhaps most dangerous in the US is feminism. It’s not a coincidence that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their Communist Manifesto in February of 1848, and feminism traces its roots directly to the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, held in July of 1848 (many of the women involved in the event would go on to express ties to socialism, including Fabian socialism).

Feminism was originally predicated on the idea that women should have access to the same legal rights as men. This was achieved many decades ago, yet activists continue to demand more privileges as the movement seeks to justify its ongoing existence. This begs the question: What is the real purpose of feminism?

In my research I recently stumbled across an article titled “Global 7 Billion: Half A Solution From Ted Turner” published by Forbes Magazine in 2011. For those who are unaware, Turner has been deeply involved in the globalist population control agenda prescribed by the Club of Rome and the UN since the 1970s. Turner publicly called for population reduction on a number of occasions and admitted that he thinks that an 80% decline in human beings would be ideal.

This agenda was launched in the name of “man-made climate change”, which has been thoroughly debunked as fraudulent (see my articles on the lack of correlation or causation between carbon emissions and temperatures in long term climate history, as an example).

Turner made it clear that population control primarily targeted women through increased access to contraception and abortion (the obvious), but one comment in the article stood out immediately. Forbes notes:

“There’s never a golden bullet to a systemic problem such as this, but the closest thing that does exists is not contraception provision, it is girls’ education.

Educating girls enables them to see and enact opportunities outside of childraising, and once they have other options they become much more likely to reach for the birth control after 2.5 children, just like their Western counterparts (often in direct contravention of patriarchal and religious doctrine — which education empowers them to resist)…”

The article goes on to argue that the educational focus on girls over boys is not unfair, but an act of historical correction for previous injustices (reparations). For any DEI agenda, abandoning meritocracy in order to enforce“fairness” requires that we subsidize one group over another. Feminism is no different.

Women today outnumber men in college admissions because colleges deliberately overlook male applicants (often with superior merits) and give female applicants special preference. Beyond that, women are more likely to be given grants and scholarships. Scholarships specifically designated for women number in the thousands, while male only scholarships number in the dozens.

In the business world, women are once again given special preference due to subsidies. State and federal governments have established numerous grants (Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) Grant Program), programs and tax deductions (like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit) for companies that hire more women.  ESG related initiatives (funded by globalists) were the greatest driver of women-centric hiring, with companies getting access to a number of loans and incentives in exchange for a hiring focus on women and minorities. There are no such programs or incentives specifically for hiring men, especially white men.

The disparity is undeniable – Most women can only “succeed” in the working world when they are propped up by governments, NGOs and corporations seeking government payouts.

And, as Ted Turner and Forbes assert, this is by design. The longer women stay within the educational system and the more they are pushed into the workforce, the more likely they are to take contraception and the more likely they are to reject traditional relationships and not start a family. As a bonus, the longer women stay in the current far-left academic environment the more they can be indoctrinated with feminism and the less they will want to have children anyway.

In other words, feminism is primarily about population control and it is proving to be wildly effective. Within the next five years, 45% of women ages 25-44 will be single and childless. Western population growth is in steep decline and by the next generation there will be a societal crisis with the elderly greatly outnumbering the young.

We need to start asking hard questions as a civilization, and this is where we come back to Harrison Butker and his commencement speech in Kansas. In an open minded, liberal and “democratic” society we’re not supposed put limits on personal freedom. For around 70 years America has functioned on an “anything goes” playbook (the liberal playbook). If it feels good, do it. Don’t let “the man” hold you back. But this philosophy is not working, it’s destroying us.  It turns out that gender roles are actually important.

What can we do about it? I suggest adopting a principle that weighs costs vs. benefits when it comes to women in the workforce. Not just women as a group, but individual women and their potential. I call this the “Butker Principle”.

The Butker Principle requires that women consider the advantages of the career they are pursuing and ask: “Is my job more valuable to the world than raising a healthy family?”

Is she working in STEM improving important technologies? Is she saving lives as a doctor or nurse? Is she providing a service that most people cannot provide? Does she own and operate a business that is creating jobs? Or, is she working as an HR representative taking mindless complaints from other women who should be at home?

Furthermore, we need to ask: “Can a man do the same job better?”

If so, then a man should be in that position providing greater value and greater productivity. At bottom, there are not many women in many fields of expertise that are offering the world more than if they were simply nurturing children to become better adults in the future.

This might sound like the kind of “greater good” argument the political left is known for, but I would point out that the greater good for leftists is always the worst case scenario for everyone else. We’ve had many years to observe the effects of feminism on our society and it is a clear net negative. The “greater good”, in this case, is to simply correct that mistake.

We must also consider the economic benefits if most women were to leave the labor pool. For example, the larger female workforce has saturated markets and throttled wage growth over the years. You want to know why almost 70% of American families used to be able to live on a single income in 1970 and that number has dropped to 25% today? Inflation is not the only factor.

Wages are about supply and demand, like anything else. Women flooded into white collar and retail environments and gave corporations a massive gift – Not only could these conglomerates keep wages low because of too much competition, they could also get subsidies for hiring females and making them feel independent (relying on big daddy CEO is apparently independent while relying on a husband is not…).

Beyond driving down wages, single women also eat up a large portion of the US housing market (more than illegal immigrants). The extra demand throttles supply and drives up home prices and rent payments. Imagine if just 20% of working women left the labor pool and abandoned single life – The housing supply would skyrocket and prices would drop dramatically. Women could save the economy simply by not taking up space.

This is not to say that there are not women out there doing great work. I’m sure there are many, but again, if we were to examine the situation case by case I think we would find that the majority of women are not working in jobs that are more important than building a family. The Butker Principle must be applied to save our nation, to save the nuclear family and to save the psychological health of the west.

Women have been conned by feminist propaganda into believing that they can have it all – They think they can pursue a stunning career in which they receive endless accolades and applause. They think they can gain masculine power and financial parity and they think they can have a family whenever it suits them. This false assumption has led many women to waste their 20s struggling for “boss babe” status and missing out on their prime years finding a husband and building a home.

To be sure, liberals (and many libertarians) will argue that if a woman wants to waste her life away working in a meaningless office job instead of having kids, then that is her right. I probably would have said the same thing twenty years ago but history is not kind to people who ignore the hard data. The west is decaying at a rapid rate and drastic measures need to be taken.

Does this mean forcing women to stay home? In a way, yes, but not by erasing their freedom to work. Rather, the solution may be as basic as returning to meritocracy in business environments. How? By canceling all government incentives and educational scholarships specifically for women of child bearing age. And, by eliminating affirmative action laws that push companies to maintain a female labor quota, specifically Title VII and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972.

In other words, level the playing field back to the days before second wave feminism and let women compete. Most will not be capable, which means they will be forced to temper their expectations and fantasies, find a man, have children and, God forbid, become happy housewives. What a tragedy that would be…

To summarize, the Butker Principle is meant to defeat an agenda that was set in motion over a century ago to undermine western civilization, drive down wages and artificially suppress the population. The poisonous fruits of that agenda are now widely visible. Some of the people involved in the early movement might have had good intentions, but this is ultimately irrelevant. The results are the results, and feminism is a disaster for everyone except the globalists and the corporate oligarchy.

The fastest way to end feminism is to end the majority of female participation in the jobs market. It’s the only solution that makes sense.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

The post The Butker Principle: Is America Better Off Without Women in the Workforce? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The ostensible purpose of the U.S. war on drugs is to prevent Americans from getting their hands on illicit drugs and ingesting them. Think about that for a moment: The entire drug-war apparatus and the massive militarized drug-war police state exist for the purpose of preventing Americans from possessing and ingesting unapproved substances that they wish to possess and ingest.

I consider that amazing.

Let’s divide American drug consumers into two broad categories: those who are addicted to drugs and those who simply use them because it makes them feel good.

In either case, why is the federal government so hell-bent on preventing all these people from consuming what they want to consume?

I think the government’s response would be that drugs are harmful. Okay, let’s concede that point. Such being the case, being addicted to harmful drugs is clearly something bad. The addict is essentially committing slow-motion suicide. Even if he doesn’t die, his health is severely and adversely affected. Oftentimes, the addict is unable to hold a job and goes broke.

But in the final analysis, isn’t it up the drug addict to seek treatment, such as with an organization that is comparable to Alcoholics Anonymous? Does it really do the addict much good to try to deprive him of his drugs with the war on drugs? Anyway, as we have seen for decades, the drug war doesn’t really deprive anyone, including addicts, of drugs. It just makes illicit drugs more expensive in the black market. Not surprisingly, the addict then resorts to such crimes as theft, robbery, and burglary in a desperate attempt to get the money to purchase drugs on the black market.

The recreational drug user is simply using drugs for his own personal reasons. He’s really in no different position than someone who drinks liquor or wine on a periodic basis. It makes him feel good. Sure, it might be harmful to his health in the long run but he’s willing to take that chance. Why is that any business of government?

Are there people who die of “drug overdoses”? Sure, but the dark irony is that many of them who die of a “drug overdose” do not die of an actual “drug overdose.” Instead, they die from consuming corrupted drugs that are sold on the black market, which officials incorrectly label as a “drug overdose.” So, the war on drugs is responsible for those deaths. With drug legalization, drug users would be buying non-corrupted drugs from pharmacies or other reputable businesses.

Again, though, given that all these drug users are voluntarily wishing to consume drugs for whatever reason, why is it necessary for government to prevent them from doing so through the criminalization of possession and through the criminalization of production and distribution?

Could the reason simply be that the government has an interest in keeping Americans healthy? If so, why is that the role of government? Governments are supposed to be the servants, not the masters. Servants have no business determining what their masters do to seek happiness, even if what their masters are doing is harmful or destructive to themselves?

There is a much bigger, more fundamental reason for the war on drugs. That reason is control, which, of course, means the destruction of individual freedom. The war on drugs not only sends a message that the federal government is the master and the citizens are the servant, it also enables the federal government to maintain massive control over everyone in society. Control is what the drug-war police state is all about.

Every drug-war police-state measure has ever been adopted has failed to achieve their ostensible goal of preventing American consumers from getting their hands on drugs and ingesting them. Yet, every such police-state measure has increasingly expanded the control of the government over the citizenry. After all, when a new police-state measure, such as asset forfeiture or mandatory minimum sentences, fails to achieve the ostensible goal, it’s never repealed. Instead, it remains intact and more police-state measures are simply added on top of it.

The reason that federal officials are now redefining the war on drugs as a “war on terrorism” is so that they can get the military involved in what is really a criminal offense. In other words, more control — in fact, the totalitarian type of control that comes with the militarization of society. This “war on terrorism” policy is, of course, music to the ears of the national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — because it enables that part of the federal government to better solidify its control over the American people.

Notice something important: They never “win” their war on drugs but they are forever using it to expand their control over the American people.

I would be remiss if I failed to point out another big reason for the drug war — there is a huge federal bureaucracy that has become dependent on the drug war. I’m referring, of course, to federal judges, federal prosecutors, DEA agents, and all the clerks and administrators who receive generous taxpayer-funded salaries to play their part in waging the war on drugs. There are also those federal officials on the take. And then there is the CIA, whose drug-war income would cease with drug legalization.

Control and money. That’s what drives the war on drugs.

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The post Why the Drug War? appeared first on LewRockwell.

If Moscow previously relied on treaties and ‘playing normal’, now it relies on unpredictability, interconnected fronts, and a balance of threats.

Another round of negotiations between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian leadership? A meeting between Witkoff and President Putin is now imminent. At the same time, General Keith Kellogg has been in Kiev. This comes as Trump’s so-called ‘ultimatum’ is set to expire – although Trump himself casts doubt whether the sanctions that may follow might not ‘bother’ Putin at all.

Has anything changed – beyond Russia’s accelerating advances across the extent of the contact line?

In one sense, nothing has changed. The Russian position remains as set out by President Putin on 14 June 2024. Has the U.S. position changed? No.

Earlier this month, Trump ‘whisperer’ General Kellogg suggested that the U.S. deploy all of its ballistic-missile submarines to see whether Putin was “bluffing”. So there you have it: Kellogg continues to believe that Putin is ‘bluffing’. It seems that the Kellogg faction in Team Trump simply cannot either hear or assimilate what Putin has been telling them since June 2024 (‘root causes are what matters’).

For Kellogg, et al, pressure on Putin alone is what will bring the Kellogg ceasefire.

The Chair of Russia’s Federation Committee on International Affairs Grigory Karasin, a senior Russian negotiator, laid out the situation very clearly: “All the emotions now dominating the media space – with all these statements and references to big names, such as Trump – should be taken calmly“, Karasin told Izvestia:

“There will be contacts with him [Witkoff] that will reveal what the United States actually thinks, not for the public eye – about the absolutely destructive role currently played by the European Union countries, which tightly control the Zelensky regime. All of that will be discussed. I believe that following these contacts, we will at least know everything of substance. Therefore, we must remain patient, composed, and resist emotional responses”.

It seems that, from the Russian perspective, the purpose is to fully understand the U.S. framework of limitations within which Trump operates.

It is within this ‘limitations’ context that Trump’s comments about having two Ohio class nuclear submarines “cruise the coast” of Russia must be understood. He and his close adviser Kellogg’s statements on submarines reflect a miscasting of the role of second strike submarines –they must lie silently, and undetected, on the ocean floor, and absolutely not be flaunted in full view!.

But in Trump’s case, his silly comment was perhaps designed more for domestic effect. Trump is under multiple pressures. He is entrapped by metastasizing Epstein allegations (with more shoes set to drop reportedly).  And like a number of past U.S. Presidents, he is trapped by Israel – whether by the web of donors and big money interests, or be it, like Clinton, by more salacious and damaging threats.

Sensing weakness, the Republican Old Guard led by Mitch McConnell and Senator Graham espy an opportunity to weaken the MAGA constituency, and return the GOP from its populist flowering to its traditional ‘Country Club’ uniparty leadership.

A powerful Senate committee has voted – with strong support from both Democrats and Trump’s fellow Republicans – to send a spending measure that includes $1 billion of support for Ukraine to a full vote in the Senate, despite the Administration having asked Congress to eliminate such funding in its defence budget request.

Separately, Republican Senator Murkowski and Democrat Shaheen, both members of the Appropriations Committee, have introduced a bill that would provide $54.6 billion in aid to Ukraine over the next two years. (The Murkowski-Shaheen bill faces a stiff struggle to become law).

Trump, of course, had campaigned on the platform of no further funding for the Ukraine war to his MAGA base. Should the $1 billion measure pass, his MAGA supporters – already infuriated by what they claim to be an Epstein cover up – will feel a further betrayal.

No President can afford to appear that he is being steamrollered by Congress, not least over a key campaign promise. He (or she) must seek to dominate Congress, and not become its cat-paw – especially as the Senate furore for sanctions is all about blocking Trump’s way to strategic normalisation with Russia.

It may be that Trump’s ‘sub-deployment’ statement therefore was made more for Congressional ‘effect’ – to foreground his ‘tough’ approach towards Russia, and to imply he has other tools, beyond sanctions, (on which he is a sceptic).

That – the Ukraine impasse – however, is not the end to Trump’s woes, and to his shackles. The Israeli ‘Judea’ (the Settler, Messianic) Establishment has rebuffed Witkoff’s attempts to stop the genocide and starvation of Gazans. The images of famine are hurting Trump, who according to Hebrew language Yedioth Ahronoth, citing sources close to Netanyahu, claims that Trump has given a green light for a strong military operation (as long as negotiations have reached a dead end). “Matters are heading towards complete occupation of the Strip – and, if this does not suit the Chief of Staff, let him resign” is the blunt advice from the Netanyahu entourage.

The Gaza war is recasting American politics, especially among young Americans (and Europeans). Trump recently warned a Jewish donor that his base are coming “to hate Israel”. Trump’s base is scattering away.

After a massive backlash to the Trump administration’s cutting of federal emergency funding to cities and states that boycott Israel, the DHS was obliged to update its memo to remove the Israel boycott prohibition. The order now only applies to DEI and immigration violations. The MAGA base increasingly see ‘Israel First’ policies as a betrayal of the ‘America First’ campaign pledge.

So, per Grigory Karasin’s analysis, “contacts with Steve Witkoff should reveal the true position of the U.S. [its constraints and limitations], in contrast to the loud statements coming from the White House on the run-up to the expiration of the “resolution deadline” for the Ukrainian conflict – and the introduction of new anti-Russian sanctions”.

Witkoff, on the other hand, is likely to be probing for any flexibility in Russia’s stated position, and to explore the possibility for the imposing of deadlines for reaching agreements with Kiev. Moscow supports a fourth round of Istanbul talks. The media frenzy, the missile sub flap, are all part to typical Trumpian pressure tactics ahead of negotiations.

The reality that the frenzy hides, however, is that Trump has few cards with which to escalate pressure on Russia (weapons inventories are exhausted) and resort to longer-range missiles would raise a clamour amongst the MAGA that Trump is taking America to WW3.

What Trump really needs is something to protect himself from Senate pressures that threaten to tie him into never-ending sanctions and Ukraine funding escalation – something that at least portends an end to conflict within a reasonable timeline.

Is that possible? Doubtful. Kiev seems to be on a slow fuse self-destruction. It is too early to see who might emerge from the turmoil.

Paradoxically, Trump’s Ohio Class ‘cruising of Russia’s coastline’ taunt – though absurd – has given Moscow the pretext to propose something that has long been on President Putin’s ‘Drawing Board’:

Russia officially announced its withdrawal from the self-imposed restrictions under the moratorium on the deployment of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles (INF Treaty), justifying this by the actions of the U.S., which long ago deployed similar systems in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, thereby violating the status quo. For the first time, Russia officially points out that the threat of American INF missiles comes not only from Europe but also from the Asia-Pacific region.

At the level of formal logic, Moscow’s lifting of the moratorium on INF deployment is nothing more than a symmetrical response to prior escalation by Washington. But on a deeper level, Russia is not just ‘responding’– it is creating a new strategic architecture in the absence of international restrictions. And among other things, it has serial production of theOreshnik in its hands, as well as a direct ally, North Korea, in the Asia Pacific region.

This paradigm shift is intended to be strategic. Whereas Moscow previously relied on treaties and ‘playing normal’, now it relies on unpredictability, interconnected fronts, and a balance of threats.

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

The post Russia Seeks To Comprehend Fully the Various Constraints on Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

H.E. Gideon Sa’ar
Foreign Minister
Government of Israel
August 9, 2025

Dear Mr. Minister,

I write to you following your speech at the United Nations Security Council on August 5. I attended the session but did not have the chance to speak with you following the session. I want to share my reflections on your speech.

In your speech your failed to recognize why almost the entire world, including many Jews such as myself, are aghast at your government’s behavior. In the view of most of the world, with which I concur, Israel is engaged in mass murder and starvation; you would not have known it from your speech. You failed to acknowledge that Israel has caused the deaths to date of some 18,500 Palestinian children, whose names were recently listed by The Washington Post. You blamed all the mass murder of civilians by Israeli forces on Hamas, even as the world watches video clips every day of Israeli forces killing starving civilians in cold blood as they approach food distribution points. You lamented the starvation of 20 hostages but failed to mention Israel’s starvation of 2 million Palestinians. You failed to mention that your own prime minister worked actively over the years to fund Hamas, as The Times of Israel has documented.

Whether your oversights are the result of obtuseness or prevarication, they would be a tragedy for Israel alone were it not for the fact that you attempted to rope me and millions of other Jews into your government’s crimes against humanity. You declared at the U.N. session that Israel is “The sovereign state of the Jewish people.” This is false. Israel is the sovereign state of its citizens. I am a Jew, and a citizen of the United States. Israel is not my state and never will be.

Your language about Jews in your speech betrayed the gulf between us. You referred to Judaism as a nationality. This is indeed the Zionist construct, but it runs counter to 2,000 years of Jewish belief and Jewish life. It is an idea that I and millions of other Jews reject. Judaism for me and for countless others outside of Israel is a life of ethics, culture, tradition, law, and belief that has nothing to do with nationality. For 2,000 years, Jews lived in all parts of the world in countless nations.

The great Rabbinic sages of the Babylonian Talmud in fact explicitly proscribed a mass return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, telling the Jewish people to live in their own homelands (Ketubot 111a). Sadly, the Zionists undertook massive campaigns including financial subsidies and scare tactics to induce Jewish communities to leave their own homelands, languages, local cultures, and relations with their fellow inhabitants to draw them to Israel. I have traveled throughout the world visiting nearly empty synagogues and vacated Jewish communities, with only a few elderly Jews remaining, and where these few remaining Jews insisted that their communities once lived in peace and harmony with the non-Jewish majorities. Zionism has weakened or put an end to countless vibrant communities of our co-religionists around the world.

It is an ironic fact that when Zionists convinced the British Government in 1917 to issue the Balfour Declaration, the one Jew in the Cabinet, Sir Edwin Montagu, strenuously objected, stating that he was a British citizen who happened to be Jewish, not the member of a Jewish nation: “I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion.”

In this context, it’s also worth recalling that the Balfour Declaration states clearly and unequivocally that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Zionism has failed that test.

Your government is committed to the permanent occupation of all of Palestine and stands in violent, unrelenting opposition to a sovereign State of Palestine. The founding platform of Likud in 1977 hides nothing in this regard, declaring openly that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” To accomplish this, Israel demonizes the Palestinian people and crushes them physically, through mass starvation, murder, ethnic cleansing, administrative detention, torture, land seizures, and other forms of brutal repression. You yourself shamefully declared that “all Palestinian factions” support terrorism.

Your counterpart at the U.N. Security Council session, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour, declared just the opposite. He stated clearly: “The solution is ending this illegal occupation and ending this disastrous conflict; it is the realization of the independence and sovereignty of the Palestinian state, not its destruction; it is the fulfillment of our rights, not their continued denial; it is respect for international law, not its trampling; it is the implementation of the two-state solution, not a one state reality with Palestinians condemned to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid.”

Israel stands against almost the entire world in its endeavor to block the two-state solution. Already, 147 countries recognize the State of Palestine, and many more will soon do so. One-hundred and seventy U.N. member states recently voted in support of the right of the Palestinian people to political self-determination, with only six opposed (Argentina, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Paraguay, United States).

Your presentation utterly neglected the powerful “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State solution,” issued by the world community at the High-Level International Conference on Implementing the Two-State Solution held on July 29, 2025, just one week before your own speech at the U.N. Security Council. Saudi Arabia and France co-chaired that high-level conference. Arab and Islamic nations all over the world called for peace and normalization of relations with Israel when Israel abides by international law and decency in line with the two-state solution. Your government rejects peace, because it aims for domination over all of Palestine instead.

Israel holds on to its extremist position by a slenderest of threads, backed (until now) by the United States but by no other major power. We also should acknowledge a major reason for the U,S. backing until now: Christian Evangelical Protestants who believe that the gathering of the Jews in Israel is the prelude to the damnation or conversion of the Jews, and the end of the world. Those are your government’s allies. As for overall American public opinion, disapproval of Israel’s actions now stands at 60%, with only 32% approving.

Mr. Minister, the global revulsion you cited is against the actions of your government, not against Jews. Israel is threatened from within by zealotry and extremism that in turn bring worldwide disapprobation of Israel by Jews and non-Jews alike. The great threat to Israel’s survival is not the Arab nations, the Palestinians, or Iran, but the policies of Israel’s extremist government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The two-state solution is the path—and the only path—to Israel’s survival. You may believe that nuclear weapons and the U.S. government are your salvation, but brute power will be evanescent if Israel’s grave injustice toward the Palestinian people continues. The Jewish Prophets taught again and again that unjust states do not long survive.

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey D. Sachs

This article was originally published on ScheerPost.

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