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Thanks, John Smith. 

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The Legacy of Carroll Quigley

The Professor and the President

“As a teenager I heard John Kennedy’s summons to citizenship. And as a student at Georgetown, I heard the call clarified by a professor I had named Carroll Quigley, who said America was the greatest country in the history of the world because our people have always believed in two great ideas: first, that tomorrow can be better than today, and second, that each of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so.”

When Bill Clinton spoke these stirring words to millions of Americans during his 1992 acceptance address before the Democratic National Convention upon receiving his party’s nomination for President of the United States, the vast multitude of his television audience paused for a micro-second to reflect: Who is Carroll Quigley and why did he have such a dramatic effect on this young man before us who may become our country’s leader?

Carroll Quigley was a legendary professor of history at the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University, and a former instructor at Princeton and Harvard.

He was a lecturer at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, the Brookings Institution, the U. S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department, and the Naval College.

Quigley was a closely connected elite “insider” to the American Establishment, with impeccable credentials and trappings of respectability.

But Carroll Quigley’s most notable achievement was the authorship of one of the most important books of the 20th Century: Tragedy and Hope – A History of the World in Our Time.

No one can truly be cognizant of the intricate evolution of networks of power and influence which have played a crucial role in determining who and what we are as a civilization without being familiar with the contents of this 1,348-page tome.

It is the “Ur-text” of Establishment Studies, earning Quigley the epithet of “the professor who knew too much” in a Washington Post article published shortly after his 1977 death.

In Tragedy and Hope, as well as the posthumous The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, Quigley traces this network, in both its overt and covert manifestations, back to British racial imperialist and financial magnate Cecil Rhodes and his secret wills, outlining the clandestine master plan through seven decades of intrigue, spanning two world wars, to the assassination of John Kennedy.

Through an elaborate structure of banks, foundations, trusts, public-policy research groups, and publishing concerns (in addition to the prestigious scholarship program at Oxford), the initiates of what are described as the Round Table groups (and its offshoots such as the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations) came to dominate the political and financial affairs of the world.

For the ambitious young man from Hope, Arkansas, his mentor’s visionary observations would provide the blueprint of how the world really worked as he made his ascendancy via Oxford through the elite corridors of power to the Oval Office.

The Conservatives Discover Carroll Quigley

Published in 1966, Tragedy and Hope lay virtually unnoticed by academic reviewers and the mainstream media establishment. Then Dr. W. Cleon Skousen, the noted conservative author of the 1961 national best-seller, The Naked Communist, discovered Quigley, and the serious implications of what Quigley had revealed. In 1970, Skousen published The Naked Capitalist: A Review and Commentary on Dr. Carroll Quigley’s Book Tragedy and Hope.

This was soon followed by None Dare Call It Conspiracy. This slim volume by Gary Allen (and Larry Abraham) provided the massive paradigm shift of grassroots, populist conservatives from mere anti-Communism to a much larger anti-elitist world-view.

Millions of copies of these books came into print, and the conservative movement changed forever.

Copies of Tragedy and Hope began disappearing from library shelves. A pirate edition was printed. Quigley came to believe that his publisher Macmillan had suppressed his book. Dr. Gary North, the esteemed writer well known to readers of LewRockwell.com, has an interesting discussion of these curious facts in the chapter, “Maverick ‘Insider’ Historians,” in his book, Conspiracy: A Biblical View, available on-line.

However some persons believe Carroll Quigley was simply amplifying earlier research in conservative authors Emanuel Josephson’s Rockefeller ‘Internationalist’: The Man Who Misrules The World, and Dan Smoot’s The Invisible Government, or that of the radical sociologist C. Wright Mill’s The Power Elite, which had outlined these same elite networks of power.

I disagree with that narrow assessment. Although there is much to disagree with in interpretation in Quigley’s book, the originality and titanic scope of the work cannot be doubted or disparaged.

In a book much praised by Murray Rothbard, author Carl Oglesby’s The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies From Dallas To Watergate, has a fascinating discussion of Quigley within a wider framework of American power politics and subterranean intrigue.

And in a volume hailed by Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, before he morphed from Trotskyist man of letters to Neocon mouthpiece, had some insightful musings along the line of Quigley in his Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies.

In the Preface to his book, The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, Quigley noted:

“I have been told that the story I relate here would be better left untold, since it would provide ammunition for the enemies of what I admire. I do not share this view. The last thing I should wish is that anything I write could be used by the Anglophobes and isolationists of the Chicago Tribune. But I feel that the truth has a right to be told, and once told, can be an injury to no men of good will. Only by a knowledge of the errors of the past is it possible to correct the tactics of the future.”

Although his book was written in 1949 it was not published until after his death in 1981. Ironically Quigley was correct concerning the contents of his expose’. As Murray N. Rothbard pointed out in his semi-autobiographical masterwork, The Betrayal of the American Right, the Midwestern voice of Old Right non-interventionism, Colonel Robert McCormick’s Chicago Tribune, published a contemporaneous series of hard-hitting muckraking articles in 1951 attacking what Rothbard described as “the Wall Street-Anglophile Establishment”: “Rhodes’ Goal: Return U.S. to British Empire,” “Rhodes Ideals Slant State Department Policies,” “Rhodes’ Wards Hawk Global Scheme in U.S.,” “Rhodes Grads Influential in Eastern Press — Aid British, Global Propaganda,” “Even Congress Not Immune to Rhodes’ Ideas,” and “OWI Propaganda Linked to Rhodes Men.”

And now President Donald Trump has publicly stated, on the record, his desire to fulfill the long-term, century old insidious goal of the globalist Anglo-American Elite Establishment, to become members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

The US joining the Commonwealth of Nations is the ULTIMATE BETRAYAL of an American First foreign policy.

The oldest goal of the Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table (the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House) in London and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York composing the Anglo-American Establishment in the UK and the USA is for the American government to join the Commonwealth of Nations. This was the birth of the “Special Relationship” of the modern New World Order globalist concept.

Donald Trump Suggests US Could Join British CommonwealthDonald Trump agrees to make US part of Commonwealth because he ‘loves King Charles’

President Donald Trump has suggested that he might accept an offer from King Charles to join the British Commonwealth. It comes after he said he ‘loves’ the monarch

So who composes the Commonwealth of Nations?

While you are perusing this list think of these nations’ totalitarian attitudes and egregious policies during the COVID-19 lockdowns and today regarding attacks upon freedom of speech, the rule of law, and lack of constitutional restraint toward respecting individual rights and liberties of their citizens.

What, in the name of God, is Trump thinking?

In The Old Days Life Was So Much Simpler

The “Special Relationship” (book list)

The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, by Carrol Quigley

Tragedy and Hope: A History of Our World in Our Time, by Carrol Quigley

UNION NOW / UNION NOW WITH BRITAIN (2 Vols) by Clarence K. Streit

Union Now, by Clarence K. Streit

The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda, by Michael Rectenwald (Author), Lew Rockwell (Foreword)

The post Trump Voices the ULTIMATE BETRAYAL of an American First Foreign Policy appeared first on LewRockwell.

A few weeks ago I published a long article on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, reviewing the available evidence on that notorious document of the very early twentieth century and attempting to evaluate its credibility and provenance.

My ultimate verdict was rather hum-drum. I concluded that the work was likely fictional, but probably reflected a widespread quiet understanding of the enormous hidden influence of Jewish groups across Europe, whether as bankers, political advisors, or revolutionaries.

A couple of generations earlier, the popular novels of Benjamin Disraeli, the very influential Jewish-born British Prime Minister, had made exactly that sort of claim, with a character representing Lord Rothschild explaining that a network of Jews operating from behind the scenes secretly dominated most of Europe’s major governments. These notions probably served as an important inspiration for the Protocols.

Around the time that the Protocols came to light, similar sentiments were widespread in even the most reputable circles. For example, Dr. David Starr Jordan, the founding president of Stanford University and one of America’s foremost public intellectuals, published Unseen Empire in 1913. In that work, favorably reviewed in the influential Literary Digest, he argued that a network of intermarried Jewish banking families had quietly gained financial control over all of Europe’s major countries and therefore exercised greater real influence over their government policies than did any of their various elected legislatures, kings, or emperors.

Indeed, the Protocols only began to attract widespread international attention after the top leadership of the Bolshevik Revolution was recognized as being overwhelmingly Jewish. That radical movement had seized control of the mighty Russian Empire in 1917, and then unsuccessfully attempted to do the same in the rest of Europe, with failed uprisings in Germany, Hungary, and other locations.

Although I thought that the Protocols had probably been fabricated, I noted that many very highly regarded contemporaneous sources had at least initially regarded it as the factual record of a Jewish conspiracy seeking to overthrow all of Europe’s Christian governments and ultimately seize control of the world. For example, I passed along the account of Douglas Reed, a leading Times of London correspondent of that era:

As Reed told the story, the Protocols first gained attention in 1920 when the document was translated into English by one of Britain’s top Russia correspondents, who died soon afterward. His employer, the Morning Post, was one of the oldest and most sober British newspapers, and its editor then drew upon his entire staff to publish twenty-three articles on the document, calling for a thorough investigation. The Times of London then ranked as the world’s most influential media outlet and it took a similar position in a long May 8, 1920 article, while Lord Sydenham, a foremost authority of that day, later did the same in the pages of the Spectator.

The series of Morning Post articles was entitled “The Jewish Peril,” and later that same year it was collected together and published as The Cause of World Unrest. This book was released in both Britain and America and included a very lengthy introduction by the editor, with the contents now easily available online. As I explained:

These articles repeatedly cited the works of Nesta Webster, a British writer who had published a lengthy historical analysis of the French Revolution a year earlier, and two of her personal contributions to the Morning Post series on the Protocols were also included at the end of the volume, while she may have more heavily contributed to the entire anonymous series…

The following year, Webster published World Revolution, her own much longer work on closely-related themes, describing the appearance and growth of secret, conspiratorial movements aimed at overthrowing all of Europe’s established Christian monarchies and replacing them with radical, socialistic governments. The author traced all of this back to the 18th century Illuminati movement of Adam Weishaupt, claiming that this project had gradually subverted the existing Masonic lodges of France and the rest of Continental Europe, then afterward used Freemasonry as the vehicle for its dangerous revolutionary plotting.

Although Webster argued that Jews had only been an insignificant early element of this conspiratorial movement, by the mid-nineteenth century they deployed their huge wealth to gain enormous influence in that project, probably becoming its leading force. She devoted much of the last chapter of her book to the Protocols, regarding its contents as an excellent summary of the secret plans of those subversive movements, whether or not the document itself was actually what it purported to be.

Based upon my own very mainstream historical reading, I’d always regarded talk of secret revolutionary plotting by the Illuminati, Freemasons, or any such similar groups as almost the epitome of crackpot lunacy, and I’d scarcely even heard of Webster, who had been the leading writer on such matters. However, I discovered that some of Webster’s prominent contemporaries had been very impressed with her scholarship and had reached somewhat similar conclusions.

The most notable example of such support for Webster’s research came from British Cabinet Minister Winston Churchill. Around the same time that the Morning Post was beginning its long series on the Protocols, Churchill published a major article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald that seemed to take a similar position on the dangerous plots of subversive international Jews, while singling out Webster for praise, especially noting her important research on the French Revolution.

• American Pravda: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review • January 20, 2025 • 12,800 Words

Although I’d barely heard of Webster, during the early decades of the twentieth century she seemed to have been a far more influential figure than I’d ever imagined, with her research apparently becoming an important source for the views and writing of Winston Churchill, Douglas Reed, and others. I also discovered that she came from a very elite background, given that her father had been a top figure at Barclays Bank, one of Britain’s leading financial institutions.

In 1924 she published Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, apparently summarizing her accumulated research on that controversial subject, and it included an Appendix sharply disputing the allegations of plagiarism in the Protocols that had appeared in the media during the previous couple of years. According to her Wikipedia entry, by then Hilaire Belloc, a leading British literary figure himself widely accused of antisemitism, had begun privately denouncing her as “antisemitic” and her work as “lunatic,” and she later became an active supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.

I carefully read her 1924 book and found many of its theories to be outlandish and very doubtful. She argued for the existence of a centuries old conspiratorial movement dedicated to the destruction of Christian civilization, with its earliest roots stretching back to the infamous Order of Assassins of the Middle East. According to Webster, some of the doctrines of that notorious Muslim cult had been absorbed by the Knights Templar, the very wealthy and powerful organization founded during the Crusades.

In 1307 King Philip IV of France had suppressed the Templars, arresting many of their top leaders, torturing them into confessions of Satanism, and then burning them at the stake, with the Pope officially disbanding the order a few years later. My history books had always claimed that Philip’s motive had probably been to cancel the large financial debts he owed to that organization while also eliminating a powerful political rival. But Webster argued that the charges of the French king were true, and the top leadership of the Templars had indeed become secret worshippers of Satan.

Furthermore, following the killing of its leaders and its general suppression, the surviving secret society had eventually become a founding element of the later Freemasonry movement in Continental Europe, retaining a distorted legend of the betrayal and murder of its top leader and a bitter antipathy towards both the Catholic Church and the French monarchy.

According to Webster, another very important strand in these secret societies dedicated to subverting established European order was Jewish Cabalism, which was a major root of the support for magic and supernatural rituals often found in those organizations.

Webster’s book included nearly 900 footnotes referencing various Medieval texts and scholarly histories of that era written in English, French, and German, as well as works on the origins of Freemasonry. But I lacked the knowledge and inclination to investigate any of that material. And although the Masonic movement was indeed quite influential during the 18th and 19th centuries, its 16,000 word Wikipedia article only contained a single brief reference to Webster as an anti-Masonic writer. There were also related articles on Masonic conspiracy theories and Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory that covered such topics in greater detail, but these failed to include any mention of Webster or her works.

So based upon present-day evidence, Webster came across as very much a fringe crackpot, someone whose research would hardly be taken seriously in respectable circles, with the favorable if very brief mention by Churchill being merely a puzzling anomaly. However, I discovered that this was actually not the case.

During the early 2000s, I’d spent a number of years building a content-archiving system that contained the near-complete archives of a couple of hundred of our leading publications of the last 150 years, and it proved very useful in obtaining a much more balanced evaluation of Webster and her works.

I discovered that a long list of her books were in that system, together with their contemporaneous reviews, and the latter demonstrated that although quite controversial, she had hardly been regarded as a fringe figure at that point. The New York Times, the Nation, and Commonweal had reviewed her books, as had such very influential publications of that era as the Saturday Review of Literature, the Bookman, and the Outlook. Leading academic journals such as the American Historical Review and Political Science Quarterly had done the same, while Foreign Affairs had noted and briefly described a couple of her books.

Some of these reviews, especially those appearing in liberal or leftist periodicals, had been sharply critical, challenging her “conspiratorial” reading of historical events in much the same way that modern day writers almost uniformly did. But she had also had her strong defenders as well.

For example, Wilbur Cortez Abbott, the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History of Harvard University, published a long and highly favorable 1920 review of her book on the French Revolution, which he characterized as “extraordinarily interesting” in his very first sentence. Although he went on to admit that her thesis was “not wholly new,” he emphasized that it had never “been worked out in such detail,” nor with such completeness. As a result, he said that the book must “be reckoned with by anyone who wishes to recognize and understand the springs of popular movements, then or now.” The long review in the New York Times also certainly accepted all of her research on the true history of that event as important and correct.

Academic periodicals were similarly mixed. The fairly brief review in Political Science Quarterly emphasized the “immense amount of contemporary material” she had brought to bear in support of her “most novel and astonishing interpretation of the great event of the eighteenth century. ” And although the discussion in the American Historical Review was rather negative, it still admitted that English publications had been “much impressed” by her book, explaining that the Spectator had declared it “a veritable revelation.”

This very wide divergence of verdicts on Webster and her works was emphasized several years later by Prof. Abbott, who opened his 1925 review on her Secret Societies book in the prestigious Saturday Review by declaring:

There is no person now engaged in writing history concerning whose work there is such sharp divergence of opinion as there is in regard to Mrs. Webster…she has been the object of more praise and of much more attack than almost any one since Macaulay. That circumstance is due alike to her choice of subject, her point of view, and her method of approach. Revolution is always an extraordinarily difficult topic for historical treatment. Its passions long outlive its events…the publisher who warned Mrs. Webster of the probable results of her labors observed to her, “Remember that if you take an anti-revolutionary line you will have the whole literary world against you.”

Thus, one hundred years ago a top Harvard historian writing in one of America’s most influential publications had repeatedly praised Webster’s research. But a century of relentless ideological pressure had subsequently marginalized her and her books to such an extent that they had become dismissed and almost forgotten as the conspiracy-nonsense of a fringe crackpot. This remarkable transformation has probably gone unrecognized by almost all of today’s mainstream academics , for whom Webster remained invisible.

Taken together, these appraisals by leading past scholars persuaded me to take her work seriously, especially her lengthy volume on the French Revolution that had so impressed Churchill.

Read the Whole Article

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While the financial press is attempting to cover Trump’s frenetic bipolar tariff policy, the ponderous commercial real estate market continues to deteriorate. Bisnow.com reports, citing CoStar, “US banks reported delinquencies hit 1.57 percent at the end of last year, a rate not seen since the fourth quarter of 2014.”

Putting a number to the percentage, “The 1.57 percent delinquency percentage means more than $47.1B of loans would have been delinquent at the end of the year,” writes Billy Wadsack for Bisnow’s Dallas-Fort Worth bureau. That’s an 88 percent increase from a decade ago.

Delinquencies in CMBS (Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities) are setting multi-year highs with $38B in arrears at year-end 2024, a 41 percent increase from the previous year end.

In the face of troubling news, those who work in real estate are taking a rosy view, as usual. James Robertson, Jr. writes in the latest Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, “Optimism in the industry is the highest it has been in eight years.” This industry he calls “illiquid and slow-moving” with cycles that can “drag on for years.”

There has been little transaction volume and sellers have held tightly to the valuations and cap rates experienced during days of ZIRP. Likewise, bankers have extended and pretended, hoping the never-before-seen low rates will miraculously return to lift all boats (and buildings).

Fitch Ratings’s Melissa Che told Robertson, “As more lower-quality assets, some of which have significantly deteriorated in performance, come to market and trade at relatively low prices, this may trigger an overall reset and further price discovery across various property quality segments.”

Distressed market sales nearly doubled to 6 percent in last year’s fourth quarter, according to Newmark Group, Inc. Banks are growing more impatient with loan extensions and modifications raising the amount of 2025 debt maturities to $957 billion from $659 billion from 2022. Newmark believes a third of CMBS loans fail to cover debt services.

Robertson focuses on bridge loans (REBLs) whose issuance ballooned in 2021 to $45 billion from less than $9 billion the year prior. Artis Shepherd of Patterson Capital, LLC told Robertson, “Bridge lending shifted around this time into a fairly aggressive product. Some lenders were offering credit at 80 percent-85 percent loan-to-value ratios and underwriting loans based upon proforma rather than actual net operating income.”

Shepherd goes on to explain that 2021 bridge lender’s loose underwriting included debt service coverage of just 1.0 or 1.05 to pro forma numbers rather than the traditional 1.25 DCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio). This has come back to bite lenders and REITs.

Borrowers whose loans are maturing must confront interest rates which are 300 bps higher than what they are paying. If they are paying at all. In Robertson’s piece he gives the example of the Starbucks Seattle HQ building. The current rate is 2.3 percent. However, the loan matures in August and Harsh Hemnani of Greenstreet told Robertson “If spreads and rates stay the same, it’s going to be somewhere around 5.5 percent. The owners will have to eat the difference. I think that pain is definitely going to happen.”

If Starbucks is your tenant, you take the hit. Owners with lesser quality tenants (or none at all) will likely walk away. Office properties are not the only problem. Overbuilding of multi-family projects has put pressure on rents. Community banks hold $629.7 billion in apartment loans with $6.1 billion being 30 days or more delinquent. This is the most since 2012 the tail-end of the Great Financial Crisis.

Researchers at the NY Fed are on high alert concerning the coming CRE maturity wall, believing banks are undercapitalized. “For example, regulators, credit rating agencies and providers of funding might scrutinize bank maturity extensions more closely, thus forcing banks to accept defaults rather than granting more maturity extensions.”

These defaults could lead to deposit runs and/or “trigger a wave of foreclosures or sales of loans in secondary markets, imposing fire-sale externalities on other intermediaries by depressing the market valuations of CRE debt and underlying CRE properties.”

Wall Street has a close eye on the banks with the Regional Bank ETF (KRE) having fallen 18 percent since hitting a high around last Thanksgiving. The President says his favorite word is “tariff.” As an ex-real estate developer, his least favorite is likely “maturity.”

The post Commercial Real Estate Is in Serious Trouble appeared first on LewRockwell.

In this incandescent juncture, what matters is off the record.

Let’s start with that phone call. The Kremlin readout is quite sober – but it does reveal a few nuggets. There is no comprehensive deal – yet – between Moscow and Washington. Far from it: we are just in the initial tentative stage of talking and talking about several interconnected dossiers.

President Putin gave absolutely nothing away. The agreed-upon pause on attacks on energy infrastructure – not energy and (italics mine) infrastructure – spells out as Putin imposing a stop on dangerous Ukrainian hits on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

That may be lost among all the Western hysteria; but there are two absolute conditions expressed by Moscow for anything in this riddle to start complying with objective reality – and not muddle along as a reality show narrative trainwreck:

1.“The settlement in Ukraine must take into account the unconditional need to eliminate the root causes of the crisis, Russia’s legitimate security interests.”

2.“The key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict should be a complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kiev.”

US special envoy Witkoff is spinning that ceasefire “details” will be ironed out on Sunday in Saudi Arabia. No matter the amount of shrieking, Kiev will have to accept it.

Putin-Trump did not spend over 2 hours just talking hockey, hazy Black Sea navigation prospects and a quite limited energy infrastructure missile strike one-month pause.

In this incandescent juncture, what matters is off the record. And that might as well have been Iran. And the prospect of serious Hard Rain fallin’.

I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

A certain psychopathological entity in West Asia is obsessed to ram all its opponents through the mouth of a graveyard. Putin must have had the chance to explain to Trump that Russia respects the UN Charter and abides by international law. Russia and Iran – top BRICS members – signed a comprehensive strategic partnership last January in Moscow. Russia provides detailed ISR/air defense/EW intel to Tehran.

A proverbially hysterical narrative now imprints the notion that Tel Aviv – courting Trump 2.0 backing – is ready to inflict airstrikes on Iran to “prevent it from going nuclear”. Tehran, as detailed by Ayatollah Khamenei, has no interest whatsoever in building a nuclear weapon.

There’s no way Russia will allow Israel – with crucial American backing – to wreak havoc on Iran. Even as Tehran is already capable to react to any attack, with devastating consequences. Without nuclear weapons – and even without Russian direct help.

Operation True Promise 2 – True Promise 3 is still on hold – had already demonstrated that Israel is absolutely defenseless against wave after wave of sophisticated Iranian missiles. Were the US under Trump 2.0 to be involved in a direct attack, all US military bases in West Asia would be incinerated, plus severe punishment to vassals hosting these bases. End result: oil prices skyrocketing, massive global economic crisis.

I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken

While the self-proclaimed peacemaker was on the phone polishing the newest iteration of his Art of the Deal, genocidal psychopathological Zionists with hammers a-bleedin’ were unleashing wild wolves on displaced newborn babies – huddling in tents ablaze in Khan Yunis.

And ten thousand EUrotrash talkers with their tongues all broken were mute on genocide but ready to erupt in shrieking delight pledging loyalty – and billions in funds – to the envoy of the former self-proclaimed Emir of Al-Nusra, a moderate head-chopper turned Hugo Boss-clad President.

All yelled a Eurovision-tinged Sieg Heil to the protégé’s mercenary “army”, duly backed by Qatari, British and European masters: ISIS-clad Salafi-jihadis, al-Qaeda remnants, assorted takfiris, Chechens, Uzbeks, Uighurs, a movable Terror Inc. on tour slashing Alawites, Christians, Shi’ites and even moderate Sunnis, facilitating the evisceration of Syria and the “donation” of large swathes of Syrian sovereign territory to Tel Aviv.

The Zionist SS Brussels Medusa von den Lugen gleefully showered the moderate head-chopper gangs – al-Qaeda R Us – with 2.5 billion euros. It was Qatar that pressured the European Commission (EC) to invite Jolani’s henchman turned Foreign Minister, Asaad al-Shaibani to the 9th Brussels Conference for Donors on Syria – even as at least 7,000 Alawites and Christians were being “slaughtered” by his goons, according to a Greek Member of the European Parliament, Nikolas Farantouris, who visited Damascus on March 8-9 and met, among others, with the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Near East.

In parallel the Exceptionalist “peace through strength” circus ringmaster – dubbed across vast swathes of the Arab street as “The Marmalade Moron” – brutally started bombing Ansarallah in Yemen, to force unbowed warriors to ditch their unwavering support for Palestine and wallow in submission.

Additionally, “Bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb bomb Iran” was back as the crypto-Beach Boys theme song, because in the end Tehran must by all means be turned into Syria, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Yemen: a pitiful Quisling Zionist regime.

The destabilized but not broken Axis of Resistance is fighting titanic, simultaneous battles against the Axis of Genocidal Zion on several fronts: the psycho-killers in Tel Aviv; the Jolani mercenary army in Syria, de facto ground troops of Israel, simultaneously supported, ideologically, by Zionist Arab regimes and assorted Salafi/takfiri Islamic outfits blessing the massacre against Palestinians; the Eurotrash liberal totalitarians, who are financing Jolani; and Washington/Pentagon-bombed Ansarallah in Yemen.

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of Ansarallah, made it all very clear in his March 16 speech:

“Our decision to support the Palestinian people, including our move to block Israeli maritime navigation, that clearly targets the Israeli enemy and no one else, is aimed solely at pressuring Israel to open the crossings, allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and put an end to the starvation of Gaza.”

So Ansarallah will not be broken – whatever the Empire of Chaos throws against them:

“The US is the one turning the sea into a battlefield, thereby directly impacting maritime navigation and global trade. Our decision was only targeting Israeli ships, and will now extend to US ships, but they are the ones who turn the sea into a battlefield and threaten maritime navigation. It is essential that all nations recognize who truly threatens international waters and the movement of ships.”

I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’

Compared to Yemeni courage, EUrotrash cowards might yearn, in their wildest dreams, to sound like thunder but are more likely to drown under a massive wave of irrelevance – to the sound of drummers whose hands are a-blazin’, bangin’ the Syria jihadi song. They shouldn’t even bother to whisper – because nobody is listenin’.

The batshit crazy Estonian chick with the IQ of an undernourished worm, masquerading as EU foreign policy chief, wants no less that 40 billion euros for “military aid” to country 404. Hungary, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal emitted a resounding “No”: after all none have even a sliver of that kind of money.

Even Germany hasn’t signed off on its own €3 billion pledge – although the accumulated dementia never stops: the future BlackRock chancellor is convinced that “Putin has declared war on all of Europe.”

No one on Trump 2.0 even bothers to address a word to the Estonian worm: yes, “nobody is listenin’.” Batshit crazy – and irrelevant.

For Trump 2.0, the whole EUro trash Cage aux Folles spectacle is irrelevant: from the €800 billion ReArm Europe military scam to the Macron-Starmer Dumb and Dumber politico double down, both clowns so eager to deploy 30,000 unsuspecting cannon-fodder items to country 404 when their “security” simply will not be guaranteed by Mama Pentagon.

The message is as stark as Hard Rain: you may not even qualify as a convenient tool for us anymore. At best you may be repositioned as a – rotten – basket of resources. You’re on the menu. Like the former Global South in the previous century. Now it’s your turn.

The imperial projections of a bunch of Hollow Men

The possibility remains that bombastic “peace through strength” Trump is trying to weave a web of deceit facing chess-master Putin while the EUrotrash set up a Syrian-style buffer – with European troops securing Ukraine’s most sensitive zones. All that would be masking the Zio-con axis, once again, revamping their obsession on “eliminating” Iran from the new Primakov triangle in BRICS (Russia-Iran-China instead of Russia-India-China).

According to this purely wishful thinking script, profiting from a “weak” Iran the Empire of Chaos would once again be reigning supreme in West Asia, manipulating energy prices to undermine Russia’s economy while compromising China’s energy security.

The key spanner in these proverbially childish works – a mere imperial projection – is that Putin is not trying to be part of the imperial club. Putin and several of the Security Council members in Moscow have accumulated piles of doctorates on Western deceit, coups, outright lies, blatant betrayals and hardcore geoeconomic sabotage.

Putin, Medvedev, Patrushev, Naryshkin, Lavrov, they all know that this war the current, breathless circus ringmaster is trying to end was always about breaking Russia, as well as containing China, and designed mostly as a Hail Mary pass to salvage the fast-declining Empire of Chaos.

And all that brings us to Spengler, as re-examined in this superb analysis, and to where Hard Rain is mostly gonna fall with no mercy.

When it comes to Europe, we are now dealing with Faustian men that don’t even qualify as T. S. Eliot’s hollow men, as “Europe has forgotten how to breed conquerors.” The Spenglerian metaphor for “the suffocation of a young civilization by the corpse of an old one” does apply. Yet Russian was never Faustian: more like Tolstoyan.

All of us who have been spending quality time in Russia after the start of the SMO do carry the feeling that it’s as if “the Third Rome was always waiting, biding its time, watching as Europe gutted itself on the altar of its own hubris.”

Now Russia seems to have shed “its Western skin”, turning to “its own roots – Eurasian, Orthodox, steppe-born.” I was personally overcome by this cultural/spiritual illumination not only in white nights in Moscow, Kazan or Vladivostok, but mostly while traveling in the black soil of Novorossiya – where the “rules-based international order” came to die.

The fragmented West is indeed trapped in a Baudrillard-style total simulation of its own making – while Russia is operating full tilt in objective reality. And indeed “this is why the West cannot win in Ukraine. It fights as a bureaucratic entity, not as a people. And Russia, for all its flaws, fights as a people.”

The current Hollow Men masquerading as Europe’s political “leaders” tough should not be underestimated. They will get their revenge – over their own European fellow citizens.

Cue to Christine “Vuitton” Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB): “The digital euro is more crucial than ever.”

Translation: all European bank accounts will eventually be transferred to the ECB. Now couple that with the proclamation by the Toxic Medusa in Brussels: “This month [March 2025] the European Commission will present the Savings and Investment Union. We will turn private savings (italics mine) into much-needed investments.”

Extra translation: it’s the private savings of European citizens that will be stolen and invested in 800 billion warmongering euros for Europe’s “defense” against the perennial “Russian threat”. Hard Rain – on each and every European citizen.

You may be asking why a beat poem structured as a psalm, composed on a typewriter in Greenwich Village in New York City in 1962, slightly before the Cuban missile crisis, by a 21-year old recently arrived from an industrial belt in Minnesota is telling our big story today of hubris and deceit. That’s the unconquerable power of Art.

I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number

Pellets of poison will be flooding the waters; souls may be forgotten – especially those of the Hollow Men; some – across the Global Majority – may be even resourceful enough to emerge from the depths of the deepest black forest; but most of all, as the executioner’s face remains quite well hidden, many will finally be able to see who he really is.

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

The post A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – From the West Down to the East appeared first on LewRockwell.

Impeachment would be too mild for the claque of Woke-activist federal judges attempting to nullify the executive branch with hectoring writs against any and all sorts of executive actions. If simply bounced off their benches, they could just take up new careers as NPR legal commentators or transsexual pole-dancers. Rather, what you’ve got here is an obvious seditious conspiracy, plain for all to see, orchestrated by the same legal Nosferatus as RussiaGate, the 2020 election, and the J-6 witch hunt.

The catch is, this time it is discoverable and subject to prosecution because the party running this legal insurrection no longer has its hands on the levers of power in the DOJ and the FBI as it did when they ran the aforementioned ops. And so, the mighty silence emanating from those two agencies just now should tell you something: namely, that cases are being carefully constructed to finally bring these despicable caitiffs to real and chastening law.

If you want to know one paramount reason for institutional failure in our country, look to the evil enterprise that calls itself “Lawfare.” It originated as a blog launched on September 1, 2010, founded by three key figures: Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney. Over time it evolved into an activist operation, The Lawfare Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to (cough cough) “Hard National Security Choices,” and run under the shady umbrella of the Brookings Institution.

The point of Lawfare is self-evident in its name: it is an instrument of warfare against a perceived enemy which, for the past decade, has been the political faction led by Mr. Trump, the once-and-current chief executive of the federal government. Mr. Trump is a danger to the bureaucratic arm of the federal government because he has defined it as a racketeering operation and moved decisively to end its depredations. Lawfare is the praetorian guard of the permanent DC bureaucracy, including especially its rogue intel actors, who function as enforcers for the Democratic party that largely staffs the bureaucracy.

Norm Eisen, a Brookings senior fellow, is the chief operational strategist for the Lawfare enterprise. He has been active in all its ops, capers, and mind-fucks since Mr. Trump came on the scene in 2015 vowing to “drain the swamp” (i.e., end the racketeering). Norm Eisen holds leadership roles in two subsidiary Lawfare orgs: States United Democracy Center and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Eisen’s broader connection stems from his history of orchestrating legal challenges against Mr. Trump — advising the Mueller investigation, drafting impeachment articles, and leading CREW’s 200-plus lawsuits in Mr. Trump’s first term.

Now, following the Biden interregnum, Norm Eisen leverages a network of nonprofits (ACLU, Public Citizen, etc.) and left-leaning judges to file hundreds of new lawsuits to thwart the MAGA clean-up effort under Elon Musk’s DOGE. Tax filings show that CREW’s funding, in part, comes from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Item: during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, CREW received $432,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from Newtek Small Business, which evolved into a financial holding company after acquiring National Bank of New York City in January 2023, rebranded as Newtek Bank.

The money-laundering through multitudinous foundations, NGOs, and “non-profits” is the essence of the Democratic Party’s racketeering mode in league with federal bureaucracies such as USAID that dispensed billions of dollars to a vast network of activist recipients. Translation: it provides salaries (often six-figures) to party foot-soldiers whose only duties are to move the money through the organizational layers and to be available for such party tasks as ballot harvesting, vote-counting, and organizing riots.

This is the mischief that Mr. Trump seeks to put an end to, and so he must be thwarted at all costs by those whose lifeblood depends on the ongoing rackets. The so-called “Resistance” alliance between the Democratic Party and the bureaucracy seeks to prevent reform by any means necessary. Since they no longer control potent executive agencies such as the DOJ and the FBI for intimidating and punishing their enemies, their only recourse is the federal judiciary and its officers of the courts, that is, lawyers and judges practicing Lawfare.

The federal judges are political appointees, such as John J. McConnell from the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, who was a personal injury lawyer (i.e., “ambulance chaser”) and major Democratic Party doner, giving nearly $700,000 to party causes, and serving as Rhode Island Democratic State Committee treasurer. Judge McConnell issued a wide-ranging restraining order against the DOGE-advised freeze of federal funding launched in February of this year. McConnell’s daughter, Catherine, is a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. See how that works?

Similarly, James Boasberg, a RussiaGate cast member, and as a presiding judge in the DC federal court in sixty J-6 cases. Independent journalist Laura Loomer alleges that Judge Boasberg’s daughter, Katherine, works for Partners for Justice (PFJ), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is dedicated to defending “criminal illegal aliens and gang members,” including opposing their deportation, and that it receives significant funding from U.S. government grants, such as those from USAID. Judge Boasberg notoriously issued a restraining order last week against the deportation of Tren de Aragua gang members labeled by the DOJ as a terrorist organization. See how that works?

Now, the difference between Lawfare and the practice of law is that Lawfare trafficks lavishly in lies to do its business in the courts and actual law practice is supposed to be dedicated to ascertaining the truth in matters that come before the courts. Lawfare is grounded in dishonesty — as is its main client, the Democratic Party. That is exactly why Judge James Boasberg went along with FBI Director James Comey’s false warrant applications in the FISA court that enabled the RussiaGate operation to do its dirty business. Thus, the grand orchestrator of the Lawfare enterprise as a whole, Norm Eisen, is a sort of Father-of-Lies.

Remember beyond all this sturm and drang stands an essential principle: the truth is sturdy and untruth is fragile. Like you, I am standing by to see what eventually comes out of the Trump DOJ in the way of cases that might definitively settle this mighty battle between Lawfare and the law.

Reprinted with permission from JamesHowardKunstler.com.

The post Judgepocalypse Now appeared first on LewRockwell.

Last week Peter joined Tom Clougherty, Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, to discuss his unwavering view of free-market economics, the enduring threats from misguided government policies, and the urgent need for economic reform. Throughout the conversation, Peter and Tom highlight the consequences of central bank intervention, the artificial distortion of markets, and the serious risks posed by escalating reliance on speculative assets like cryptocurrencies.

Peter starts by explaining that his skepticism of government intervention stems from correctly anticipating the 2008 financial crisis. Peter foresaw how reckless monetary policy by the Federal Reserve and the moral hazards created by entities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae inflated an unsustainable housing bubble:

I could see that we had a huge housing bubble that was unsustainable. But I also saw how the housing wealth was impacting the economy and how people were consuming more and saving less. And the whole economy was distorted based on the illusion of wealth that didn’t really exist. And I knew that there was a lot of fraud inherent in the mortgage market and the housing market based on the government’s involvement. And that I knew that eventually rates would rise, teaser rates would reset, housing prices would crash, and it would bring down the banks that financed it.

He emphasizes how mainstream explanations for the crisis wrongly blamed capitalism and private-sector greed. Instead, he squarely identifies central banks and loose monetary policy as the root cause of market distortions:

And the main reason was all the people that the government brought on to explain why we had a financial crisis, and of course they had no idea that it was coming until after the fact, they all blamed a lack of regulation, too much greed on Wall Street, not enough capitalism. My blame was the government itself. When George Bush made a speech early on, he said, ‘Wall Street got drunk.’ That was his rec, and I said, ‘Yeah, they were drunk, but where did they get the liquor?’ They got it from the Fed.

While Peter predicted the crash, he admits he underestimated the government’s willingness and ability to delay the inevitable crisis by inflating even larger bubbles. The result today, he warns, is a far more threatening economic situation that will dwarf the 2008 downturn:

The only thing I got wrong really was in my assessment of what would happen after the government made that mistake. I assumed that the attempts to reflate the bubbles would fail and that instead we would have a big drop in the dollar and a surge in inflation. That didn’t happen and we went on many, many years and the bubbles got so much bigger and not just real estate, stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies. I mean we inflated just this massive bubble and the debt rose to enormous levels way beyond anything that brought us down in 2008. The fact that we were able to kick the can down the road up until now and we’re still kicking it just means that the crisis that’s coming is going to be so much worse than the one that we had in 2008 because we didn’t get to solve the problems.

While appreciative of efforts to streamline the government, Peter challenges the notion that government can ever operate efficiently. Peter illustrates how only private businesses, driven by market competition and self-interest, can achieve true economic efficiency:

You can’t have a government that is efficient; efficiency is only found in the free market. If I own a business, I will be efficient because if I’m not, I’m wasting my own money. I have a lot of incentives not to waste my money. Plus, if I have competition and my competitors are efficient and I’m being wasteful, then they’re going to undercut me and I’m going to go out of business. You have market forces and self-interest that keep you from wasting resources.

He concludes by criticizing contemporary enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies, calling out the current administration’s promotion of digital assets as a misguided distraction from genuinely productive economic activities. He argues that promoting crypto merely props up what he sees as a digital Ponzi scheme:

The worst thing about it is he’s [Trump’s] been completely hijacked by the cryptocurrency industry. I mean this is a farce that his administration now pumps and dumps crypto and everybody is trading on insider information and making a fortune off of this. Meanwhile, he wants to make America great again, but he wants us to be the leaders in crypto. Why would we want to be the leaders in a digital Ponzi scheme or digital pyramid? Whatever money we waste on the crypto industry is money we can invest in productive investments, in real wealth creation.

This originally appeared on SchiffGold.com.

The post 2008 Set the Stage for 2025 appeared first on LewRockwell.

Almost every year, it seems a pandemic is hyped up. I would argue that’s because:

•They give federal agencies (e.g., the CDC) a way to justify their necessity and get Congressional funding.

•The media thrives off of hooking the public through fear and appeasing its sponsors (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry).

•It sustains a biodefense industry that uses fear to get a lot of money (e.g., 27.7 billion dollars in 2023) to “prevent” pandemics.

•Tackling many of the real health issues facing our country requires confronting the vested interests responsible for them and addressing the underlying causes of chronic illnesses in the country. In contrast, going to war against a disease is far easier and receives minimal pushback but allows the government to present the facade of safeguarding our health.

As such, we will frequently see a myriad of dubious pandemic preventatives be pushed on us (e.g., the mass slaughter of livestock, the newest “emergency” vaccine, or ineffective and unsafe antivirals like Tamiflu). However despite the pandemic failing to materialize or the preventatives failing to work, no one remembers, and before long the cycle begins anew.

Biodefense

In a previous article, I discussed how the biodefense industry regularly cultivates bioweapons in labs to “protect” us from them. Before COVID-19, this industry had been under great scrutiny as many within the scientific community were worried its risky actions could lead to a catastrophic lab leak. However, once SARS-CoV-2 leaked, the entire scientific establishment chose to double down on this research and label any insinuation lab leaks could occur “a conspiracy theory” or “a danger to science.”

Note: this characterizes Peter Hotez, who in 2012 secured a 6.1 million grant from the NIH to develop a SARS vaccine with the stated aim of responding to any “accidental release from a laboratory,” some of which was then used to fund gain-of-function research conducted by the leader of the Wuhan lab in 2017, but after people became aware of the 2019 lab leak, Hotez switched to denying lab leaks and attacking those who discussed them.

These leaks are alarmingly common and remarkably, the industry has not addressed it, as its funding is contingent on a threat continuing to exist (rather than it being eliminated).
Furthermore, many of these lab leaks are quite consequential such as:

• In 1950, the US Navy covertly sprayed “harmless” bacteria in the San Francisco Bay Area, causing infections and fatalities. Those bacteria then became endemic in the area.
• The Cambridge Working Group estimated in 2014 that potentially dangerous lab leaks occur, on average, twice each week in the US alone, and by 2018 this number had risen to an average of four times per week.
• Numerous fatal lab leaks involving smallpox and anthrax occurred in the US, UK, and Soviet Union.
• Lyme disease emerging next to a US government facility that was weaponizing the same bacteria.
• The 1977 H1N1 influenza pandemic being traced back to a lab leak.
• The 2001 Anthrax attacks in the US being linked to a weaponized strain found only in bioweapons labs.
• Numerous SARS lab leaks occurring since 2002, some of which led to broader outbreaks (and hence why Hotez applied for his vaccine grant).
• Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) actually emerging from chimpanzee research activities.
• Numerous disastrous veterinary pandemics have emerged from leaks.
• Some evidence suggests the current bird flu pandemic originated from a USDA lab leak.

Note: a more detailed list of consequential lab leaks can be found here.

Vivisection

One of the major sources of extreme and unnecessary animal cruelty is the animal research industry, which sacrifices over 100 million animals each year, frequently in horrific ways that have no scientific value whatsoever.

Vivisection (first used in 1707) describes the practice of cutting open animals with a central nervous system and has been integral to biomedical science. Since this was quite cruel, divided opinions emerged. One school believed medical science must be objective, rational, and dispassionate so it was unethical to be squeamish or sentimental about hurting conscious animals if that “advanced medical science,” while the other believed there was no ethical justification for knowledge gained from vivisection—highlighting the divide in medicine between doctors being technicians who inflicted “necessary treatments on patients” regardless of the suffering it caused and doctors being compassionate healers who made an effort to connect with their patients and their values.

While vivisection gained prominence in the 1800s, its advocates were so cruel they caused a widespread movement against it to emerge and numerous animal welfare laws to be passed. Nonetheless, vivisection persisted (with many of its medical advocates holding the same contempt towards the “anti-vivisectionists” as we see now directed at “anti-vaxxers”) and the opposition to it has become a forgotten chapter in our history.

This in turn touches upon one of the most important points those activists raised—many of the cruel (and often unnecessary) practices in modern medicine arose from the mentality that gave rise to vivisection, so a good case can be made it is in our own interest to eliminate this malignant foundation modern medicine rests upon.

Dangerous and Wasteful Spending

Following the COVID-19 lab leak, the White Coat Waste Project (WCW) discovered an effective way to stop vivisectionist practices by highlighting not only the cruelty involved but also how much money was being wasted on that risky research. As a result, WCW has repeatedly gotten many stories to go viral (e.g., Fauci spending millions on studies where beagles were restrained so they could be eaten alive by sandflies).

WCW’s work touches on a key point—the primary reason much of this research occurs is so that everyone can feed off the grants for it, not because it offers any value to society. For example I recently covered:

•A Colorado University constructing a bat lab to study dangerous infectious diseases which has been widely protested by the community (as they do not want a Wuhan in their backdoor—particularly since FOIA documents showed accidents happened there one to three times a month). However, since that University has received 393 million dollars from the NIH since 2014 and a 6.7 million dollar NIH grant for the lab, Colorado’s government has shut down all attempts to stop the lab.

•Hawaii (particularly Maui) deploying billions of lab-modified mosquitos (that leave unpleasant bites) to reduce mosquito populations, despite there being no evidence this approach works or is safe for the ecosystem. Like Colorado, despite widespread protest (and lawsuits) against it, Hawaii’s government has shut down all attempts to stop the program as over 33 million dollars in federal grants are financing it.

Fortunately, now that D.O.G.E. is auditing the U.S. government’s spending, many of these wasteful (or fraudulent) grants are being exposed, and it is quite likely this dangerous research will greatly decrease (particularly since the NIH just stopped sponsoring Universities from being able to pocket most of the funding for themselves).

Pumping and Dumping Vaccines

The annual flu vaccines have a rather poor track record as:

•It is frequently for the “wrong” strain, which beyond it not working, impairs the immune response to the circulating strain as the immune system is already locked onto the non-existent strain. As such, studies have shown flu shots make you more likely to catch colds and flus.

•The existing (and likely biased) evidence shows you have to vaccinate around 100 people to prevent one minor case of influenza, while the vaccine does not prevent influenza transmission, and does not affect influenza hospitalizations or deaths.

•At best, it has prevented influenza rates from increasing alongside a growing population:

Given this poor efficacy, the real risk of side effects from the vaccines (e.g., one large study found 37.8% of influenza vaccine recipients with an existing heart condition had an adverse reaction and 1.1% of recipients had a severe reaction), it’s quite questionable if America is making a good investment buying 150 million influenza vaccine doses each year.

Unfortunately, one of the most common grifts in this industry is to hype up the danger of a new disease, then have a new biotech company present a “cure” (or vaccine) for the disease and offer a large number of shares that investors eagerly buy up (spiking the price).

Once this spike happens, the original owners of the Biotech company will liquidate their existing shares (making a lot of money), after which, the stock typically crashes (as the product does not work).

Note: many of the deaths attributed to the flu are likely due to other causes, and as I show here despite flu having been the main focus of the CDC for decades, no one actually knows how deadly the flu is.

Read the Whole Article

The post Unmasking the Great Avian Influenza Scam appeared first on LewRockwell.

The readouts from the U.S. and Russian side about yesterday’s phone call between President Trump and President Putin has me concerned about the potential of another war in the Middle East.

The Russian readout has 674 words. It is quite specific about Ukraine issues. There is a two sentences paragraph about the Middle East:

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump also addressed some other international issues, including the situation in the Middle East and in the Red Sea region. Joint efforts will be made to stabilise the situation in the crisis spots and establish cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation and global security.

What those ‘joint efforts’ might be is not specified.

With just 227 words the U.S. readout is much shorter. There is much less on Ukraine. A whole one fourth of the readout is with concern to the Middle East:

The leaders spoke broadly about the Middle East as a region of potential cooperation to prevent future conflicts. They further discussed the need to stop proliferation of strategic weapons and will engage with others to ensure the broadest possible application. The two leaders shared the view that Iran should never be in a position to destroy Israel.

Iran, not mentioned by the Russian’s, is mentioned in the context of nuclear (‘strategic’) weapons.

Iran seems to be the next item on Trump’s international meddling list.

Recently leaked documents point to major U.S. planning for a war with Iran. The suddenly renewed U.S. bombing of Yemen, despite no recent attacks by Ansarallah on international shipping, seem to be a provocation towards that:

Tehran has begun circling the wagons as a new phase is beginning in Trump’s foreign policies, with tensions rising steadily over the nuclear issue. The October deadline is drawing closer by the day for invoking the snapback clause in the JCPOA (2015 Iran nuclear deal) to reinstate UN Security Council sanctions will expire, and Iran’s enrichment programme, on the other hand, has apparently reached a point where it already has a stockpile to make “several” nuclear bombs, per the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran however has Russian and Chinese backing:

On March 14, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi hosted a joint meeting in Beijing with the Russian and Iranian deputy foreign ministers where he proposed five points “on the proper settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue”, which, for all purposes endorsed Tehran’s stance. It was a resounding diplomatic victory for Iran.

Interestingly, the Beijing meeting was timed to coincide with the conclusion of a 6-day naval exercise at Iran’s Chabahar Port with the theme of Creating Peace and Security Together between the navies of Iran, Russia and China.
…
Moscow has lately waded into the Iran nuclear issue and is positioning itself for a mediatory role potentially. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently came out against attaching extraneous issues (eg., verifiable arrangements by Tehran to ensure the cessation of its support for resistance groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria) to the nuclear negotiations. Lavrov said frankly, “Such a thing is unlikely to yield results.”

Before the renewed bombing of Yemen Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Lavrov had their own phone call. The short U.S. readout said:

The Secretary informed Russia of U.S. military deterrence operations against the Iran-backed Houthis and emphasized that continued Houthi attacks on U.S. military and commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea will not be tolerated.

It did not mention that Russia spoke out against it:

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in a readout on Saturday, stated that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Lavrov and informed him about the US decision to attack the Houthis. It said Lavrov, in response, “emphasised the need for an immediate cessation of the use of force and the importance of all parties engaging in political dialogue to find a solution that prevents further bloodshed.” Well, the shoe is on the other foot now, isn’t it?

Trump seems to believe that he can gain Russia’s support, or at least its neutrality, in a futile conflict with Iran, by offering to end the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.

Russia however seems to completely reject such plans.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post Trump Seeks Russian Support for War on Iran appeared first on LewRockwell.

It was 2005-ish when a loved one had me read an article from a man he called “The Honorable Ron Paul.” I had never heard of him. Though I had been involved in local politics, I did not care for politicians at the federal level.

Within three years, I helped organize local groups in support of Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential run, helped organize what was chronologically the first Tea Party gathering of the contemporary Tea Party movement, and then later even moved quite a ways away and upended my life in an effort to advance the goals of that campaign.

I would run for office myself on the same principles and would spend a great deal of time advancing them in small brushfires of teaching, advocacy, and activism. I watched the rippling effects of the 2008 Ron Paul campaign give birth to 1.) the Tea Party movement, 2.) the Bitcoin industry, 3.) the Trump 2016 campaign, and 4.) Trump presidency.

A Paulian Principle

Ron Paul had a principle he often followed as a Congressman. He would say that if others in Congress voted as he did, that the American people would have a Congress that promotes freedom. He was often the lone “no” vote. That did not stop him from being the lone vote.

Four years from now, Donald Trump will be one man in American history. We are not effective on our own. We are effective in whose lives we touch and who we inspire to do likewise. Accordingly, we may choose to be like the Ron Pauls of the world and the Donald Trumps of the world — men who sacrifice much in life in order to speak the truth and promote the truth.

I do not consider Donald Trump and Ron Paul to be perfect replicas of each other. I consider both to have run for President with a willingness to be Molotov cocktails for the American people to throw at their establishment class, to paraphrase Michael Moore’s 2016 movie TrumpLand.

If we recognize the role of such men when they stick their necks out there, and we appreciate that, then we must recognize our role in the situation as well.

A Troubling Trend

Over the past several years, millions of conservatives, libertarians, devout religious people, sensible moderates, sensible liberals, and other upstanding Americans moved from the state of California that I call home.

They, then, proceeded to do exactly what they did in California that helped turn California into a grade A crap-hole: nothing.

The most prosperous and resource-rich corner of the American Empire, the state of California, can legitimately be called a grade A crap-hole. Next to the largest body of water on the planet, California has a drought. Next to the largest body of water on the planet, the fire hydrants are empty. The list of comparable examples is long.

Your Disobedience Is Needed

I have done some nasty things in politics. I have burned do-nothing office holders who were rubber stamps for Newsom, but who would play nice in the media on Fox News. I have burned Republicans, so-called conservatives, and so-called libertarians.

It is not because they were bad people. It is because they refused to be anything but rubber stamps. They refused to use their role to act like they cared.

We live in a “just doing my job” era, yet we were handed a “jury nullification” country by our founders. Every individual has the right, the authority, and the power to nullify the unjust behaviors of the system in his own life. Often he is able to nullify far beyond his own life. Often he is able to even do a solid for another person by being willing to nullify in his own life.

That does not begin to take into account what one is able to do by seeking to be a good person as widely and as actively as he can.

We are a few weeks into a new presidential administration. It might not hurt if you did a few things in the name of freedom that caused others to call you extreme. It might not hurt if you did a few things in the name of freedom that made other people threaten to sue you. It might not hurt if you paid another person’s mortgage this month. Or if you left an obscenely large tip, or if you took a stranger out for a meal and told him your rough and tumble story of how Jesus has changed your life, or if you ran a serious bid for office against a petty tyrant that needs to be challenged.

The pen is mightier than the sword — it might not hurt if this the year you finally get that book out of you, a book that you can use to change hearts and minds. I will even help you with that. It might not hurt if this was the year that every member of your local board (of whatever topic or locality you care about), if this was the year that every one of them learned your name and what you stood for.

Your Local Public Servants Should Know You And What You Are About

I have stood before many right-of-center audiences in California and told them how ineffective of activists they are if 1.) they are not known by their local bureaucrats 2.) by their first and last name, 3.) to that point that their most pressing issues are known by the bureaucrat.

If that does not describe them, then they have no right moving from California to another place and claiming they tried.

Waving a few signs and yelling at a few meetings is hardly effective. If every single person on a board that you care about does not know you by name and exactly where you stand on key issues, then you have not even gotten into the water yet. You are still dipping your toe in, and pathetically so I might add, for the hour is late in our descent into tyranny and you seem to neither realize your level of responsibility nor your level of potential effectiveness.

There are only a few Ron Pauls. There are only a few Donald Trumps. The rest do not take things that seriously.

For The “Voting Doesn’t Matter” And “Voting Is Violence” Crowd

And let me pre-empt those who write me with things like “bless your heart, you still think voting matters,” or “How sweet, sugar, you still think Trump is actually not one of them.”

It is not about them. It is about you.

If you want more freedom, live a life that promotes freedom in all corridors around you. Yes, that includes knowing the activities and personalities affecting local boards that cover matters that are important to you. It includes supporting good guys with money and time and inviting them over for dinner and introducing them to other good guys who can help them. Have you ever invited a local board member over for dinner? Why not. They might not come, but you are going to suddenly have their ear in a way that you otherwise would not have, simply by asking. I am not just talking about the friendly members either. I am also talking about the guys who might not like you if they got to know you.

Who knows, they also might really like you if they got to know you.

Are You Tithing?

If you want to write me “voting doesn’t work,” please attach your thirty-year political resume to back up your opinion. I will put my resume against anyone who disagrees with me. Voting does work. And of course it does not stop with voting. If you think the few hours you spent researching candidates and the hour you wait in line to vote at oh-dark-hundred hours, three times a year makes you a candidate for a good citizen award, you are woefully mistaken.

That level of participation earns you an F. You suck as a good citizen if that is how you see your needed level of commitment. Freedom requires a tithe of your time and money from you. Your statist adversary recognizes this and tithes accordingly.

The Silent Majority

Meanwhile, droves leave California for other places that they will mess up with their silence and inaction.

And no one says to them “Dear upstanding citizen, you are the problem. You and your silent majority ways are the problem. You live in an era of considerable threat to freedom, and you walk through the snake-filled grass barefoot like nothing could go wrong.”

Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi are not the problem. You are the problem. They are making themselves and their friends into billionaires as an idle population lets them. Someone is going to play their role. It might as well be them.  And every great culture crumbles when someone agrees to play your role, the role of silent, all-knowing, inactive, wise one.

I have had dinner with you hundreds of times. I have been in your home thousands of times. I have talked to you on the phone thousands of times. I know you. I know how you think. I know how you justify your inaction.

I am here to say you are the problem.

A Problem With Focussing On Politicians

The more we talk about the Ron Pauls and Donald Trumps of the world and make it about them, the more we are likely to miss. The more we make it about how their example can be an inspiration to each one of us in our own lives, the more we are likely to grow.

What have you done for the cause of freedom lately? What have you done for the cause of freedom today?

Your tithe is needed.

Your ten percent of time each week. And your ten percent of your income.

And I am not even talking about you needing to bring down the Fed or to reform the tax code. If that is your calling, get to it. There are a thousand projects in the world around you, things that can truly change your life and the lives of others, things that can change the world around you as you know it. They are little ten-second endeavors and bigger ten-month endeavors. If you are serious about freedom, your tithe is needed.

If you are not serious, just say that to yourself and those around you. Just say the words, “I am moving to Florida because I am not that serious of a person. I will move away from Florida when that gets bad five or ten years from now, and will just seek out the easiest place to live that I can mooch as much out of before I move on with my life.”

If that is you, just say it. That’s okay. It will help both yourself and others have greater clarity for who you are and what you are about.

And if you have moved to Florida already, don’t feel bad. Just resolve today to stop doing nothing.

It’s Bigger Than The Presidency; It’s About Your Individual Life

The atmosphere has changed in America. It has changed even in cities such as San Francisco where I live. So much of the nonsense of just a few months ago, nonsense that has been dealt with for many years, was suddenly been deemed irrelevant and nonsensical. People started acting like grown adults again. Trump’s entry into the Oval Office did that.

That can be a four-year thing. Or it can be a thing that lasts much longer. That has little to do with who Trump’s successor is. It has a great deal more to do with how you conduct yourself in your life. Will you make this shift into a thing that encourages you further in the world around you?

That is a question each freedom lover should today be asking.

The post If We Want Trump To Matter We Need To Do Likewise, If We Want Ron Paul To Matter We Need To Do Likewise appeared first on LewRockwell.

In the United States my generation began reading Shakespeare’s plays in high school.  In universities you encountered Shakespeare in the core curriculum.  When core curriculums were abolished, English majors got further into Shakespeare and studied his sonnets.  It was the work that was admired and studied, not who Shakespeare might really have been. His use of language was studied and what his plays taught about the human condition.  Today if he is studied at all, it is likely to be his alleged homophobia, the extent of his alleged anti-semitism, his alleged racism.  In the US some universities exclude him from the curriculum.  As for England, what produced the interview below was the report that the English were decolonizing their great poet and playwright. 

In the interview I said that the attack on Shakespeare is just part of the decades old white gentile/Jewish intellectual attack on Western white gentile civilization.  It is an involved intellectual story that I have told in past times.  To keep it simple, the Enlightenment placed moral demands on society, but emerging science denied the existence of morality.  So how did the moral demands express themselves?  They expressed themselves in attacks on existing society for its lack of morality as exampled by colonies, slavery, class privileges, and so forth.

As time passed, liberals in England and later in the United States, originally just an adjunct of England, pursued reforms by denunciation of existing society, not by emphasizing past achievements and making a persuasive case for another reform.  So the practice of denouncing what exists became the avenue for progress.

The result is that denunciation replaced affirmation.  Without going any further with this story, the result over time has been to destroy the structure of belief in Western societies.  Without a belief structure, a society is weak, and every Western society is week.  Jean Raspail described the weakness in The Camp of the Saints in 1973.

For one example, in the United States, meritocracy has been eroded and undermined by the belief that meritocracy is a “white value” that serves white supremacy.  To compensate, “affirmative action” reduced white Americans to unconstitutional second class citizenship under law, and the regulations that imposed second class citizenship on white Americans were upheld by US Supreme Court rulings.  Affirmation action was institutionalized by the Jewish administrator of the EEOC, the regulatory agency responsible for enforcing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  The statutory language of the Act itself strictly and clearly prohibits university admission, employment and promotion quotas based on sex and gender. But thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his creation of regulatory agencies, one man in the EEOC, Alfred Blumrosen, had complete control over the meaning of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that Congress passed.  He ruled for racial and gender quoters that clearly were inconsistent with the statutory language of the Act and with the Constitution’s 14th Amendment mandating equal treatment under the law.  See my book, The New Color Line, Regnery, 1995.

Today the Democrat judges who are substituting their rule for the elected presidents’ rule, have ordered a halt to Trump’s stripping of transgender and various perverse persons’ extra-Constitutional rights.  The  identical Democrat judges never lifted a finger in defense of white Americans who were sidelined by special extra-Constitutional rights for blacks, females, and the sexually perverse, everyone of which was a violation of the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equal treatment.

The anti-American, anti-white Democrats, who describe traditional Americans who have family and religious values as “the Trump Deplorables,” have hardwired into the judicial system judges and prosecutors who have no respect for the US Constitution and the 14th Amendment.  With Democrat rule there is to be no equality under the law. In its place white heterosexuals who are labeled homophobic, racists, white supremacists, and transphobic are reduced under a DEI social system to second class citizenship whose rights under the US Constitution do not apply. 

White American intellectuals today in reality are identical to the white French intellectuals in Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel of Frances’s destruction by a French government so overwhelmed with racial guilt learned in universities that the French government refused to defend France from being overrun by immigrant-invaders. Once the immigrant-invader government was in power, the first law prohibited marriage between white French ethnics.  Soon this spread to all of Europe.The guilt-ridden French people were responsible for their own genocide.

What have we seen since this book was published in 1973 prior to the majority of people alive today?  Have we witnessed any attempts to restore the belief system that produced Western Civilization.  No.

Have we seen any reduction of attacks, not from foreign opponents, but internal attacks from our own intellectuals?  No.

How does a civilization survive when its belief system is destroyed?  It does not survive.

Why are universities, a major source along with the monopolized media of attacks on Western civilization, subsidized by dumbshit businessmen who want to exist beyond their life time with buildings named after them,  by parents who destroy their own retirement with tuition payments so universities can teach their sons and daughters to hate white people, by foundations of Ford, Rockefeller, Gates, and Soros, by advertising agencies promoting racially mixed marriages, by  US government agencies such as USAID, HHS, and so on?  Why was LGBTQ promoted by the Pentagon and corporate boards?

The attack on the West, the attack on Western civilization does not come from Russia, China, or Iran. It comes from the West’s own intellectuals, media, and education system. These are our real enemies along with the self-serving American Establishment.

As these anti-western voices control our opinions and options, how does the West survive?  Where can information come from?  How can it reach the people when truth tellers are dismissed at “conspiracy theorists,’ “white supremacists,” “anti-semites.”   

Shakespeare is just another white racist and France wants the Statute of Liberty back so that the immigrant-invaders overrunning France can be properly welcomed. How much more evidence do you need of the demise of Western civilization?  The only active religion in Europe is Muslim and perhaps some Satanic cults.

Karl Marx said that violence was the only effective force in history.  I have opposed this view, but Marx does have a case.

Today the US president is preparing more violence to be applied to Russia if needed to bring the proxy war in Ukraine to an end.  Trump is also preparing more violence for China and Iran should they not comport themselves with Washington’s interest.  But America’s real enemies are internal, as Vice President Vance said.  America’s enemies are institutionalized in US government departments and agencies, in Congress and the judiciary, in the corporations and Wall Street, in the universities and educational system, in the media.  These constitute a formidable enemy for a mere president.

Here is the On Target interview, a lighter experience than this essay.

The post The Demonization of Shakespeare Is Part of the Demonization of the West appeared first on LewRockwell.

Predicting the collapse of a country is like reading between the lines of history, economics, and politics. Some nations, however, are walking on thin ice, where even a small additional burden could lead to their downfall. In this article, we’ll explore 10 countries facing severe risks that could put them on the brink of collapse by 2027. Some of these might surprise you.

1. Lebanon: A country where nothing works anymore
Once hailed as the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” Lebanon is now in absolute economic chaos. Hyperinflation, currency collapse, and political corruption have brought the state to its knees. Ordinary citizens struggle to secure basic needs like food and fuel. Can Lebanon still be saved, or will it follow the fate of nations that fragmented into smaller entities?

2. Afghanistan: Taliban isolation and hunger
Since the Taliban regained power, Afghanistan has plunged into international isolation. Its economy is collapsing, people are starving, and humanitarian organizations cannot meet the overwhelming needs. If the situation doesn’t improve, the state risks fragmentation into territories controlled by armed factions.

3. Haiti: From freedom to a nation ruled by gangs
Haiti has been grappling with a crisis for years. With no functioning government, armed gangs dominate cities. Add to that natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, and you have a recipe for complete collapse. Can Haiti ever rise again?

4. Sudan: A nation in perpetual conflict
Sudan’s civil war between the army and militias is spiraling into catastrophe. Thousands are dead, millions are displaced, and famine looms large. If the conflict continues, Sudan could disintegrate into smaller regions controlled by local warlords.

5. Venezuela: From riches to rags
Home to some of the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela has been in freefall for years. Hyperinflation, food shortages, and mass emigration have devastated the nation. Could Nicolás Maduro’s regime fall, or will Venezuela remain stuck in this “frozen collapse” for decades?

6. Myanmar: A coup that crushed hope
The 2021 military coup plunged Myanmar into chaos. Protests, uprisings, and ethnic conflicts have become the norm. If the military junta doesn’t relinquish power, the country risks breaking into warring regions.

7. Yemen: A nation where survival is a battle
Yemen is the epitome of disaster. Its civil war between Houthi rebels and the internationally recognized government has raged for years. Millions suffer from hunger and disease. If the conflict isn’t resolved, Yemen could vanish as a functioning state altogether.

8. North Korea: Behind the curtain of isolation
Kim Jong Un’s regime appears solid, but what if it isn’t? Economic sanctions, famine, and a possible power struggle after his death could lead to an unexpected collapse. If that happens, the chaos could be unimaginable.

9. Pakistan: Battling economic and political storms
Pakistan is grappling with an economic crisis deepened by debts and political instability. Extremism, corruption, and worsening relations with neighbors could weaken the country to the point of losing control over its regions.

10. Somalia: A collapse that never ended
Somalia has been a failed state for decades. The terrorist group Al-Shabaab still controls large swathes of territory, while the central government remains weak. Without minimal international support, total disintegration seems inevitable.

Why Do Countries Most Of Time Collapse?
Normally, the collapse of a state is always the result of a combination of factors:

• Economic instability: Hyperinflation, overwhelming debts, or resource shortages.
• Political corruption: Weak governments unable to address crises.
• Civil conflicts: Wars, ethnic tensions, or regional uprisings.
• Climate change: Worsening conditions, natural disasters, and resource depletion.
• International isolation: Sanctions or loss of foreign support.

Read the Whole Article

The post 10 Countries That Will Collapse Soon According to Experts. appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to “shut down” the federal Department of Education, keeping the same campaign promise President Reagan failed to keep over forty years ago. The order goes as far in eliminating the department as the executive branch has the power to go without a successful bill in Congress, which created the department in 1979.

The purpose of the order is to transfer most of the administrative and management functions over public education back to the states while not decreasing or eliminating federal funding of education, including subsidies and guaranteed student loans. It is a good first step but does not address the massive economic distortions in the education industry created by federal financial interventions.

The order is not specific on which functions will be transferred back to the states or eliminated. It simply states, “The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Since Congress created the department in 1979 and the bill creating it was duly signed by President Carter, it cannot be formally abolished without a new bill passed in Congress and signed by Trump. Therefore, what functions, if any, the law permits eliminating or transferring to the states is unclear. The administration may decide to find out by trial and error.

Ironically, the order exercises a power it is theoretically written to eliminate: the use of federal funding as leverage to dictate to the states what they may or may not do in terms of how they manage public education:

“Consistent with the Department of Education’s authorities, the Secretary of Education shall ensure that the allocation of any Federal Department of Education funds is subject to rigorous compliance with Federal law and Administration policy, including the requirement that any program or activity receiving Federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology.”

This is based upon the conservative viewpoint that all affirmative action, including the newest branded under “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal civil rights legislation. It’s hard to dispute this since the thrust of all those laws is to prohibit the consideration of race, sex, or religion when hiring employees, granting admission to universities, etc. and the stated goal of DEI is to do precisely what the laws prohibit.

The problem with this is that a subsequent Democratic president could write an order requiring any educational institution receiving federal funding to have a DEI program and meet quotas for racial or gender categories. So, the order doesn’t really even attempt to abolish or reduce this aspect of federal interference in state and local public education.

Neither does the order affect the tremendous economic harm done by federal subsidization, especially the guarantee of student loans for college tuition. As I’ve covered in a previous podcast, this intervention has resulted in an absurd artificial rise in college tuition prices. Most of the money has not gone into hiring more teachers but rather to an explosion in the number of administrators in higher education. And, as Trump and other conservatives point out, this has not led to better educated students. Quite the contrary.

Even if the administration were successful in getting a bill through Congress to completely abolish the Department of Education and truly return public education to the states, it would not be a panacea for the ills of government schooling. While an electoral map may indicate more red states than blue states and one may be tempted to think that would translate into a more conservative perspective prevailing in public education in those states, it likely would not.

Even in the reddest of red states, almost 8 out of 10 of the teachers at public schools (almost 9 out of ten in elementary schools) are college educated women, the overwhelming majority white. As a recent survey shows, this demographic is drastically left of just about any other, including racial minorities and other white women. As has been the case since the dawn of the progressive era, sending your child to public school from Kindergarten through senior year high school ensures they will be immersed in left wing values throughout their formative years.

And we all know what happens when they get to the university level.

One shouldn’t assume that private schooling is much different. I decided twenty years ago that my child would be homeschooled based purely on the anti-capitalism I recognized in my own education, most of which was in private schools (I attended Catholic elementary school, high school, and college. Only my graduate work was done at a state school). This was before the Marcusean-Marxist revolution has fully infected the education system.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, there was never a time when education wasn’t primarily about instilling the “right” political values in children. Plato acknowledged this. So did Hobbes and Rousseau. Ironically, even Jefferson wrote a resolution to ensure his University of Virginia would indoctrinate students in his preferred Lockean libertarian principles.

Among the stated goals of the public school system constructed by American progressives was to “Christianize the Catholics” and promote other early progressive values. They have since swapped Christianity out for a new religion focused on environmentalism and racial “equity.” But it is not less religious or zealous.

The only true answer to freeing children from some sort of indoctrination is the libertarian one, to abolish mandatory schooling. Left to a free market where parents weren’t forced to send their children to school at all – the situation for about half of American history – many more educational choices would emerge that wouldn’t necessarily follow the regimented structure supported by liberals and conservatives alike.

It is no accident that a huge proportion of the the richest men in the world today dropped out of college or otherwise rejected the traditional schooling system. Neither did many of the founders acquire their education in a school setting. As John Taylor Gatto so eloquently reminded us, “schooling” and education are two very different things.

For Americans of the 21st century, education means unlearning the nonsense they were taught in school.

Trump’s executive order is a good first step in at least starting a conversation about government involvement in education, especially at the federal level. But there is a long way to go after that in freeing American children from left wing indoctrination.

This originally appeared on Tom Mullen Talks Freedom.

The post Trump’s Executive Order on the Department of Education Is a Good First Step appeared first on LewRockwell.

Zeynep Tufekci is a Princeton professor who writes regular op-eds for The New York Times. Her March 16 column, “We Were Badly Misled by the Event That Changed Our Lives,” generated no small amount of pushback. That was somewhat surprising, considering that just three years ago Tufekci was still being lionized as “consistently ahead of the curve” for pushing tougher responses to Covid.

That was then and this is now. The column is another one of those “Oops! Excuse meeeee!” pieces about how the elites misunderstood Covid and their response to it. As we mark the fifth anniversary of the great global pandemic shutdown, expect to see a few more “you know, we made a wee mistake” essays.

These were the people who were soooo clear about the “science” that we “deplorables” denied, the “science” on whose basis politicians mandated experimental vaccination and on which ecclesiastics relied to claim “charity” demanded we submit. Now, five years later, it seems many of those experts’ “certain” premises about Covid weren’t so certain after all. Tufekci’s mea culpa confesses we yet “may not know” the origin of Covid, but she is more willing to admit it may have been a Communist-Chinese-and-experimenting-gain-of-function-scientists’ lab leak.

As I said, social media reaction to Tufekci’s moderate breast-beating was severe. In my judgment, one of the best reactions argued that we should convene a national truth commission to establish clearly and to everybody’s satisfaction who knew what when. I’d endorse that, but I want to follow up with a specifically Catholic angle.

I have repeatedly called for Catholic discussion about whether the Church’s response to Covid was proper and what should have been changed. I argue that precisely because of the pope’s own image for the Church just before Covid. Prior to the pandemic, Francis was promoting the image of the Church as “field hospital,” an image that was supposed to illustrate his “welcoming accompaniment” leitmotif that seemed to downplay the need for conversion and metanoia. But, when the pandemic hit, the Church globally shut down. Public Masses or sacraments were not offered for months.

That response was evidence for me of the vacuity of the “field hospital” imagery. Real field hospitals do not strike tent in the middle of a battle. That’s when they’re most needed. Imagine a MASH tent closing down because the war is on and lots of people are dying. “We’re outta here…”

Now, 2020 was not the Church’s first pandemic rodeo. Church history is replete with examples of having to minister amid plagues, fevers, diseases, pandemics, and wars. There isn’t much history of the Church retreating from the scene.

Nobody, of course, wants to die; and early Covid presented all sorts of questions about what were appropriate or inappropriate responses. I won’t argue that. But engaging in “Monday morning quarterbacking” is not to reverse Sunday’s loss but to figure out how to win next time.

Again, when a real hospital faces a crisis—a localized disease outbreak, a mass casualty event, or some other crisis—it typically does what’s called a “postmortem.” A freewheeling discussion should ensue about all its procedures and protocols to identify what went well, what didn’t, and how to fix the mistakes that were made. That’s normal postcrisis procedure.

Except in the ecclesiastical field hospital.

In the five years since the start of Covid, when has the Church in the United States had a comprehensive discussion of “field hospital” response? Whether closure of churches for as long as happened in particular places was correct? Whether how we provided sacramental ministry—including Last Sacraments for the dying—was proper? Whether there were other ways to offer in-person, not “virtual,” liturgy and/or spiritual support? Whether the intersection of local public health policies and church regulations properly respected the Constitutional priority of free exercise of religion (especially when abortion clinics and casinos were “essential services” but churches weren’t)? Whether the Church’s response to those public policies at the time (legal challenges) and subsequently (legal reforms) has been adequate to address what hamstrung the Church?

Read the Whole Article

The post Covid Mea Culpas? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Powerful background discussion of the crucial context of the “Oswald in Mexico City” story as essential to the framing of Lee Harvey Oswald for the JFK assassination. David Atlee Phillips (“Maurice Bishop”) was the CIA’s chief of operations for the Western Hemisphere in Mexico City.

The post America’s Untold Stories: JFK Files: What 70,000 Docs Reveal — Plus Roberts vs. Trump, and Alien Enemies Act Showdown appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Haaretz.com

The post Israel, Not Hamas, Is Derailing the Gaza Cease-fire and Preventing the Hostages’ Return appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Middle East Eye

The post You would not see this on western controlled media appeared first on LewRockwell.

With the initial, unprecedented, landmark investigations and damning revelations of massive systemic and all-pervasive criminality, culpability, and corruption within the various federal departments and administrative agencies uncovered since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term in office in January, it is important to once again review and fully comprehend the factual record below.

Famed attorney Robert Barnes recently provided an exceptional in-depth retrospective history of FBI deep state corruption, politicalization, and weaponization from its inception to the present. This is an outstanding, must-see presentation before the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar.

End the FBI, by Ryan McMaken

And lastly an Establishment apologia or defense of the conventional narrative on Hoover and the FBI from an implanted deep state adjunct. Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. He worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency and is a graduate of Georgetown University. In 1994 he joined IRD to found its United Methodist project (UMAction) and became IRD President in 2009.

The post The “Legacy” of J. Edgar Hoover and the Systemic Corruption of the Federal Bureau of Investigation – The Case for Abolition appeared first on LewRockwell.

di Francesco Simoncelli

(Versione audio dell'articolo disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/cio-che-leurodollaro-ha-dato-leurodollaro-b23)

Ultimo saggio di questa serie che ci ha visto affrontare un viaggio alquanto complesso e che ha permesso ai lettori di entrare in una sequenza di temi ostici da trattare per la loro difficoltà, ma che sono stati asciugati il più possibile affinché potessero essere compresi anche dai non addetti ai lavori. Fino al 2022 era giusto criticare gli Stati Uniti per la loro posizione lassista in ambito monetario e fiscale, l'ho fatto anche io. Dal lancio del SOFR è cambiato radicalmente tutto, un'inversione di 180° rispetto al passato. L'importanza epocale di questo cambiamento è accuratamente descritta nel mio ultimo libro, Il Grande Default, è sufficiente dire qui che ciò permetterà di abbandonare il cosiddetto tasso di riferimento della FED e decentralizzare il potere della stessa nelle 12 FED regionali, tornando a un assetto che esisteva prima degli anni '30 quando la Grande Depressione aprì la porta all'escalation di interventismo economico il cui culmine è stato raggiunto nel 2020. È questo a cui porterà l'audit della FED.

Tale risultato, però, non sarebbe stato possibile realizzarlo senza che gli USA si sganciassero dal LIBOR e mettessero un freno alla creazione di dollari all'estero, come descritto nella Prima parte di questa serie. Infatti l'anamnesi dell'eurodollaro ci ha permesso di capire, poi, nella Seconda parte, che il cuore della creazione artificiale di dollari ombra è la City di Londra e nel tempo questo artificio è stato usato per consumare la ricchezza reale americana a vantaggio di tutti quei player esteri che usavano l'hub londinese per attingere indirettamente dalla stampante americana e salvaguardare i propri interessi. L'estremo dimenarsi degli inglesi in ambito geopolitico e politico da quando Trump è entrato in carica è dovuto al fatto che tutte le micce finanziarie conducono a Londra. Infatti la FED ha operato in territorio ostile fino alle scorse elezioni, barcamenandosi come meglio poteva per restringere la politica monetaria interna e operare un “damage control” nei confronti del Dipartimento del Tesoro a cui capo c'era la Yellen.

La cosiddetta “onda rossa” post-elezioni era propedeutica affinché si potesse restringere senza intoppi anche la politica fiscale del Paese, la quale, durante le precedenti amministrazioni, era stata usata per gonfiare, in particolare sin dal 1971, l'offerta degli eurodollari. La chiusura della USAID è stato il simbolo di questa necessità, dato che l'obiettivo adesso è ricostruire la credibilità e l'affidabilità degli USA; e possono farlo perché essi rimangono il Paese con il gradiente e la capacità di “autarchismo” più grande di tutti nel mondo, da punto di vista energetico, militare e industriale.

Remarkable admission from Bank of America (the first of its kind from a major bank): DOGE is desperately needed as the alternative is catastrophe.

"The global handoff from big government to the free market may prove slippery, but it seems necessary given large deficits and… https://t.co/55Xq9ORTTE

Inoltre la sua resilienza economica a fronte di un ambiente economico con tassi alti è superiore a quella europea, dove la BCE la settimana scorsa ha platealmente ammesso che il baraccone europeo non riesce a resistere nemmeno a un 3% dei tassi di riferimento. Se ci fosse stato ancora il LIBOR questa debolezza avrebbe infettato anche la FED e gli USA. La catalizzazione delle attenzioni nell'ultima settimana è stata principalmente per il pair EURUSD. Vi basta vedere la candela settimanale per capire che puzza lontano un miglio di manipolazione... e qual è il maggiore centro di intermediazione del Forex? In secondo luogo, poi, le attenzioni sono state accuratamente pilotate verso il selloff del marcato azionario statunitense. Del selloff del comparto obbligazionario europeo, invece, poco o niente... e qual è il maggiore centro di giornalismo finanziario?

Al di là dell'euforia per le dichiarazioni riguardanti il piano “faraonico” di spesa militare, cari investitori retail, qual è il piano per tirare su TUTTI gli €800 miliardi? La fiducia? La speranza? Oppure qualche altro vertice europeo? Tra l'altro, è questo il collateral su cui state puntando quando vi lasciate imbonire dalle pubblicità in TV sui BTP “patriottici”: le chiacchiere alle riunioni europee. Questa settimana ce ne sarà un'altra e vedrete che la risposta alle domande qui sopra non ci sarà. Se ne sentono di ogni su Trump ormai sulla stampa, proprio perché non sanno come attaccarlo/ricattarlo. Lui ha una visione. Perché? Perché è un leader. Putin ha una visione, perché è un leader. Xi ha una visione, perché è un leader. E questo mi porta a concludere che ci sarà una Yalta 2.0 dove questi tre leader troveranno un accordo sul commercio e sposteranno le relative attenzioni sul Pacifico. Gli investitori devono ficcarsi in testa che il mondo della “consensus policy” non esiste più; è tornato quella della “power policy”, dimostrato anche ieri con la retromarcia, coda tra le gambe, del Canada. E non è un caso che Europa, Canada e Inghilterra siano i player che si dimenano di più, visto che non hanno leadership (e questo era qualcosa che avevate letto in tempi non sospetti tramite la penna di Gary North). Come si farebbe, altrimenti, a perseguire un'unione politica, fiscale e obbligazionaria dell'UE se ci fossero leader carismatici in ogni stato membro? Ecco perché gente come Orban o Fico sono osteggiati. Una parvenza di leader, ma nondimeno una spina nel fianco per la classe dirigente europea.

Obbligazioni SURE, il veicolo finanziario Savings and Investments Union, l'euro digitale: sono il canto del cigno di una struttura di potere che si rifiuta di riconoscere la propria obsolescenza. Quando Trump ha detto a quell'imbecille di Zelensky che “non ha le carte”, si rivolgeva indirettamente a coloro che stanno dietro di lui. Le “carte” in questo frangente storico sono le commodity e l'Europa ne è carente per sostenere il grado di complessità socioeconomico a cui è abituata la popolazione media. Anche qui: come si faranno a sfornare tanti bei giocattolini militari senza materie prime? E anche se si dovessero trovare, come faranno gli altri settori industriali a operare correttamente e in accordo con prezzi reali di mercato in presenza di una domanda artificiale pompata ad hoc?

Il caos alimentato da Bruxelles e dalla City di Londra rappresenta l'ultimo strumento in mano alla cricca di Davos per non presentarsi al tavolo delle trattative a mani vuote. È per loro che sta suonando la proverbiale “campana del default”. La più recente riconquista di Kursk premette a Putin di presentarsi al tavolo delle trattative dicendo che se ieri voleva “A+B”, adesso può permettersi di chiedere “A+B+C”. È così che agiscono i leader. Se Trump può permettersi di dire che applicherà dazi del 200% sul vino francese e italiano, può farlo perché senza la leva dell'eurodollaro queste nazioni sono state svuotate della capacità di tenere in piedi la complessità raggiunta in ambito socioeconomico. Non è una questione di export, è una questione che i propri “vizi” (militari e diritti sociali) sono stati appaltati alla stampante monetaria ombra degli USA. Ora che quei rubinetti sono chiusi, Trump può fare leva su quel lassismo per raggiungere i propri obiettivi. È così che agiscono i leader. Ed ecco perché ha ripetuto che “l'UE è nata per fregarci”.

Infine, nella Terza parte, abbiamo visto come anche la BoJ è stata usata, durante l'era della ZIRP e del “consenso del sistema bancario centrale del mondo”, come ulteriore strumento di leva del mercato degli eurodollari e come la fine del carry tade sullo yen ha inciso sulla contrazione dell'offerta di dollari ombra. Più ho scavato, più ho portato alla luce una cruda verità: il potere di monopsonio dell'Europa si basava tutto su un'illusione, alimentata dal suo continuo attingere al mercato degli eurodollari a scapito del resto del mondo. Il colonialismo europeo e inglese non è mai scomparso, ha solo cambiato forma. E nel momento in cui questa illusione è scomparsa, il panico risultate ha iniziato a far salire il prezzo dell'oro come forma di assicurazione contro la volatilità dei mercati e, soprattutto, come metro di giudizio in attesa di un ritorno a una ponderazione dei rischi in sintonia con forze di mercato genuine. La conseguenza più importante è la corsa agli sportelli della LBMA. Non solo, ma ci sono altre tegole per la City di Londra.

Un'altra tegola per la City di Londra. Il LIBOR ormai è andato, una grossa fetta delle assicurazioni se l'è mangiata l'India e, sulla scia della seguente notizia, il prossimo tassello che perderà è il mercato del Forex.https://t.co/Pjko8OMbpV

Ed ecco, quindi, perché Bruxelles e City di Londra desiderano ardentemente che la guerra continui a tutti i costi.

Oggi vedremo che la salita del prezzo dell'oro è la più grande margin call della storia moderna ed è nei confronti dell'euro e della sterlina, non del dollaro. Quest'ultimo finalmente trarrà vantaggio dal Dilemma di Triffin, poiché è stato risolto nel momento in cui Bitcoin è entrato a far parte della strategia economica statunitense.

IL FRAPPÈ MONETARIO

I primi segni di stress del sistema monetario mondiale sono eruttati nel 2022, circa 9 mesi dopo l'entrata in scena del SOFR negli Stati Uniti e il loro sganciamento (definitivo) dal treno mondiale del coordinamento delle politiche monetarie. Da allora gli USA hanno dimostrato che era sostanzialmente il LIBOR, e quindi il dolore economico altrui, a trascinare in crisi il Paese e a forzare la mano della FED anche quando non ce n'era bisogno internamente. L'ulteriore prova di ciò è stato il fallimento di un trittico di banche di San Francisco senza maggiori danni all'economia statunitense. Invece c'è chi ha mostrato i suoi limiti senza supporto estero e ha iniziato a frammentarsi: l'Inghilterra. Il 28 settembre del 2022 la Banca d'Inghilterra è intervenuta per stabilizzare i mercati obbligazionari britannici, annunciando che avrebbe acquistato tutto il debito pubblico necessario per ristabilire l'ordine sulla scia di una crisi finanziaria innescata dai piani di riduzione delle tasse dell'allora Primo Ministro, Liz Truss. Dopo che gli interventi verbali erano falliti nei due giorni precedenti, la banca centrale ha avviato un programma di emergenza per acquistare “Gilt” e impedire che il caos si intensificasse.

Non solo, ma l'Inghilterra ha dovuto iniziare a fare incetta di titoli di stato americani affinché potesse usarli come garanzia per accedere al mercato pronti contro termine statunitense, il più liquido al mondo per i prestiti overnight e che dopo il 2019 accettava solo titoli obbligazionari americani, in modo da attenuare la crisi incalzante dei finanziamenti. Il venditore principale era la Cina: li vendeva per sostenere il cambio CNY/USD. Per fare concorrenza agli inglesi è sceso in campo il Giappone, ricoprendo il ruolo di succursale della FED in oriente. Infatti a supporto della Gran Bretagna sono intervenuti anche tutti gli altri suoi “satelliti” che vedete nel grafico qui sotto, nel tentativo di tamponare il sanguinamento di tutte quelle nazioni che hanno sofferto per la chiusura dei rubinetti dell'eurodollaro e di conseguenza la loro improvvisa incapacità di influenzare le linee di politica statunitensi. E da qui si capisce perché la Yellen ha fatto una sorta di QE tramite il Dipartimento del Tesoro e la politica fiscale degli USA è stata estremamente lassista, quello che Powell stava cercando di contrastare attraverso il ciclo di rialzo dei tassi d'interesse. Ovviamente quello che lui poteva “controllare” era la politica monetaria e il front-end della curva dei rendimenti, c'era quindi bisogno che arrivasse qualcuno alla Casa Bianca per mettere ordine anche da questo punto di vista e porre un ulteriore freno al flusso di dollari che finivano all'estero e venivano sottoposti a leva per gonfiare la loro offerta ombra.

Find more statistics at Statista

Le pressioni sul mercato inglese hanno costretto i fondi pensione a vendere titoli di stato per soddisfare le richieste di garanzia su posizioni derivate sommerse, o per ridurre l'esposizione dovuta all'incapacità di soddisfare le richieste di rimborso. La Banca d'Inghilterra agì per salvaguardare i fondi pensione, i principali detentori di titoli di stato a lunga scadenza e affermò che i suoi acquisti miravano a ripristinare l'ordine e sarebbe stato fatto “tutto il necessario” per raggiungere tale obiettivo. Il 23 settembre 2022 i rendimenti dei titoli di stato a cinque anni fecero registrare un aumento di oltre 50 punti base, il più grande salto giornaliero dal 1991; il 25 settembre i rendimenti dei titoli di stato a due anni salirono di 40 punti base, un'impennata paragonabile solo alle fluttuazioni osservate durante la crisi del 1992. La deviazione standard delle variazioni giornaliere dei tassi era di soli 5 punti base, quindi queste variazioni equivalevano a una tendenza che normalmente avrebbe richiesto mesi mentre allora ebbe luogo in un solo giorno. Le misure di emergenza continuarono per tutto ottobre e persino l'euro sprofondò rompendo la parità con il dollaro nello stesso mese.

Gli eventi di quel periodo possono essere ricondotti all'ennesimo esempio della cosiddetta “Teoria del frappè” postulata da Brent Johnson: un quadro di riferimento per comprendere come potrebbe verificarsi un default del debito sovrano, con oro, dollaro e azioni in ascesa mentre gli investitori si affannano per trovare sicurezza e liquidità. Il paradosso è la forza del dollaro in mezzo al caos finanziario, alimentato dal suo status di riserva mondiale. Mentre le altre valute si sgonfiano, così come le relative economie, il dollaro invece si gonfia. L'oro infatti ha raggiunto il massimo storico di $3.000 l'oncia come copertura contro l'incertezza, il dollaro rimane forte e le azioni stanno tenendo duro nonostante le turbolenze finanziarie.... e il frappè è servito anche nel 2025.

Per comprendere appieno le sfumature, dobbiamo ricostruire la storia del dollaro aggiungendo tutto quello che abbiamo appreso finora. Dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale il sistema di Bretton Woods rese il dollaro la star dello spettacolo: le nazioni europee spedirono il loro oro negli USA durante la guerra ed essi, alla fine delle ostilità, si ritrovarono a essere un punto di riferimento mondiale quindi l'oro rimase agganciato esclusivamente al dollaro (a $35 l'oncia) mentre altre valute del mondo si agganciarono a quest'ultimo. Parallelamente a questo sistema si sviluppò anche quello dell'eurodollaro, le cui prime tracce documentate apparvero negli anni '50: una innovazione finanziaria partorita dalla Midland Bank nel Regno Unito, la quale capitalizzò l'elevato costo del capitale nella Gran Bretagna del secondo dopoguerra. La capacità della Midland di prestare in dollari le diede un vantaggio competitivo, consentendole di partecipare al mercato forward prestando dollari e investendo in titoli di stato con rendimenti più elevati e intascare la differenza. Questa pratica creò le premesse per la crescita esplosiva di questo mercato dagli anni '50 agli anni '70, espandendosi al punto che oggi, nove dollari su dieci in tutto il mondo sono eurodollari. Stiamo parlando di una delle parti più opache e complesse del sistema finanziario moderno.

A differenza dei prestiti nazionali che possono essere influenzati dalle linee di politica delle banche centrali, i prestiti in eurodollari non possono essere gonfiati dai creditori. Questa struttura crea una domanda sostenuta di dollari al di fuori degli Stati Uniti, i cui numeri adesso si stima che superino i $400.000 miliardi ed eclissano i $36.000 miliardi di debito nazionale americano. Quando Lehman Brothers crollò il 15 settembre 2008, scatenò onde d'urto nel mercato offshore del dollaro ed esplose il differenziale tra i tassi onshore (OIS a 3 mesi) e offshore (LIBOR a 3 mesi), con questi ultimi che schizzarono alle stelle. Bernanke e Paulson dovettero darsi da fare per predisporre programmi di emergenza e impedire che il sistema implodesse. Arrivarono massicci salvataggi che sostennero l'intero sistema dei fondi del mercato monetario. I tassi furono tagliati in modo aggressivo e la FED raddoppiò la disponibilità di dollari tramite linee di swap. La rete di swap globale trasformò la FED nella banca centrale mondiale. 

Il 13 ottobre 2008 la FED andò oltre, annunciando linee di swap illimitate con tutte le principali banche centrali occidentali. Finì per prestare la sbalorditiva cifra di $3.300 miliardi in fondi di emergenza, con una bella fetta destinata a banche straniere e grandi aziende come Barclays, RBS e persino Toyota. Sebbene questi interventi stabilizzarono (temporaneamente) l'economia globale, non avvenne senza conseguenze: la FED era giocoforza diventata il prestatore di ultima istanza del mondo intero. La “Teoria del frappè” di Brent Johnson prevede che, man mano che la bolla del debito sovrano si sgonfia, la domanda di dollari si gonfia, facendolo rafforzare rispetto alle altre valute. Questo effetto di rafforzamento attrae capitali verso asset denominati in dollari, anche se i livelli di inflazione e debito mettono a dura prova le economie globali. La teoria suggerisce che, mentre molti asset potrebbero calare in questo contesto, il dollaro salirà, insieme all'oro, poiché gli investitori cercheranno rifugi sicuri dall'instabilità del debito sovrano.

Un gigantesco frullato di liquidità è stato creato dalle banche centrali globali con il dollaro come ingrediente chiave, ma se il dollaro sale di valore, questo frullato verrà risucchiato negli Stati Uniti, creando una spirale che potrebbe rapidamente destabilizzare i mercati finanziari. Il dollaro è il fondamento del sistema finanziario mondiale. Lubrifica le ruote del commercio e degli scambi globali: la disponibilità di dollari, il costo e il livello del dollaro stesso possono avere un impatto sproporzionato sulle economie e sulle opportunità di investimento.

Ma più importante del livello assoluto, o della disponibilità di dollari, è il suo tasso di variazione del livello: se si muove troppo rapidamente, allora i problemi iniziano a spuntare ovunque (i Paesi stranieri iniziano ad andare in default). Oggi molte persone sono convinte che sia il ruolo del dollaro sia il livello stia scendendo. Le persone pensano che gli Stati Uniti stiano stampando così tanti dollari che il mondo sarà inondato dai biglietti verdi, causandone la caduta del valore.

Sebbene sia vero che gli USA stanno stampando molti dollari, anche altri Paesi lo stanno facendo, quindi in teoria dovrebbe pareggiare in termini di valore. Ma il problema nascosto è la differenza nella domanda: ricordate che il sistema finanziario globale è costruito sul dollaro, il che significa che anche se non li vogliono, tutti ne hanno comunque bisogno e se avete bisogno di qualcosa non avete molta scelta.

Stiamo parlando di un'estensione del Dilemma di Triffin: esportare la valuta di riferimento globale a scapito della ricchezza reale del proprio Paese. Johnson evidenzia un futuro in cui la forza del dollaro e il valore dell'oro aumentano parallelamente, spinti dal crollo dei sistemi gravati dal debito e dallo spostamento verso asset stabili. Il motivo per cui questi due asset saliranno insieme è un sintomo del sistema eurodollaro basato sul debito in cui il mondo si ritrova intrappolato. Mentre i mercati del debito globale si frammentano, i debitori si precipitano alla ricerca di liquidità e ciò significa vendere asset rischiosi (es. obbligazioni e azioni) e correre verso porti sicuri (es. oro e dollari). L'ironia di questo sistema, come spiega Johnson, è che man mano che vengono prestati sempre più eurodollari, il carico di debito complessivo sull'economia globale aumenta, il che fa aumentare la domanda di dollari e assicura che la prossima correzione sarà ancor più severa. Nessuno sa quali sono le cifre precise quando si parla di eurodollari, o del debito denominato in eurodollari: queste metriche sono state considerate troppo difficili da misurare e la segnalazione è stata eliminata gradualmente a metà degli anni 2000. L'offerta di denaro M3, ad esempio, che includeva alcune misure in eurodollari, è stata eliminata nel 2006.

Una crisi del “frappè monetario” si presenta come segue:

Ma il vero rischio emerge quando altre economie iniziano a rallentare o quando gli Stati Uniti iniziano a crescere rispetto alle altre economie. Se c'è meno attività economica altrove nel mondo, allora ci sono meno dollari in circolazione globale che altri possono usare nelle loro attività quotidiane e, naturalmente, se ce ne sono meno in circolazione, il prezzo sale perché le persone inseguono quella fonte di dollari in calo. Il che è terribile per i Paesi che stanno rallentando, perché proprio quando stanno soffrendo economicamente, devono pagare molti beni in dollari e devono onorare i loro debiti che sono spesso anch'essi denominati in dollari.

Quindi inizia il vortice, o come mi piace chiamarlo il frullato del dollaro: man mano che il valore del dollaro aumenta, il resto del mondo ha bisogno di stampare sempre più valuta per poi convertirla in dollari in modo da pagare i beni e onorare il suo debito in dollari. Ciò significa che il dollaro continua a salire e in risposta molti Paesi saranno costretti a svalutare le proprie valute, quindi il dollaro salirà di nuovo e questo metterà a dura prova il sistema globale.

Come accennato in precedenza, nell'autunno del 2022 il valore del dollaro s'è impennato, cosa che ha iniziato a causare enormi problemi nel sistema finanziario globale. Un avvenimento, questo, alimentato dal ciclo di rialzo dei tassi da parte della FED annunciato a marzo di quell'anno, il più rapido della sua storia e che ha persino superato lo shock di Volcker dei primi anni '80. Il rialzo dei tassi è arrivato quando il resto del mondo era ancora sotto lo zero, soprattutto in Europa. Infatti il tasso di riferimento della BCE era di ben 100 punti base inferiore a quello degli Stati Uniti e, a un certo punto, il differenziale tra i tassi giapponesi e quelli americani aveva superato i 500 punti base. Ciò alimentò diversi carry trade: prendere in prestito in euro o yen e prestare in dollari, di fatto vendendo allo scoperto queste valute più deboli. Nel tempo queste pressioni si sono accumulate fino al punto che entrambe le valute hanno sostanzialmente iniziato un crollo al rallentatore e il “frullatore” è stato acceso.

Rialzare i tassi alla pari con gli Stati Uniti ha significato default diffusi, poiché sia l'Europa che l'Inghilterra sono fortemente indebitati, anche se in misura diversa, ovviamente. Non c'è opzione e nessuna soluzione fiat: nessun'altra valuta può usurpare l'Onnipotente dollaro. E questo Powell e i NY Boys lo sapevano: dopo aver brancolato nel buio per decenni riguardo le cause delle crisi negli Stati Uniti, finalmente avevano individuato nell'eurodollaro il colpevole principale. Potremmo definirlo un “super ciclo economico”, uno internazionale, che letteralmente ha posto sull'altare sacrificale della dissolutezza fiscale e monetaria la ricchezza reale degli USA. Un sistema, quello dell'eurodollaro, che per quanto abbia reso, all'apparenza, gli Stati Uniti e la loro relativa valuta i punti di riferimento mondiale, ciò ha significato altresì la socializzazione mondiale dei frutti della loro prosperità. Come ho spiegato anche nel mio ultimo libro, Il Grande Default, l'impostazione del LIBOR avveniva a Londra e questo significa che se emergevano criticità in quella giurisdizione, esse si ripercuotevano anche negli Stati Uniti... anche se questi ultimi avrebbero potuto sopportarle e superarle più agilmente.

Gli abusi del sistema dell'eurodollaro sono diventati talmente di ampia portata che il 2008 ne ha segnato la rottura definitiva. Troppa confusione, troppa ponderazione del rischio sbilanciata e troppo intorbidimento dei segnali di prezzo. La portata dei quantitative easing sin da allora ha cercato di rincorrere l'offerta di dollari ombra fino a quel momento creata e tamponare i buchi che apparivano qua e là nelle varie economie del mondo, incapaci però di sistemare davvero le cose. Un palliativo, non una cura definitiva. In quel frangente la Federal Reserve è diventata la banca centrale del mondo a tutti gli effetti, il cui unico scopo non era più il doppio mandato cui è sottoposta, bensì tenere quanto più liquido possibile il mercato degli eurodollari sia dal punto di vista monetario che fiscale... a scapito dell'economia interna. Ed è qui che fa acqua da tutte le parti la “teoria del dominio americano” tramite il dollaro e l'Impero militare: autodistruggersi non è lungimirante, né fisiologico, per la sopravvivenza sia della propria divisa che del proprio (presunto) Impero.

Attenzione, la mia tesi non è che gli USA fossero completamente eterodiretti a Londra e quindi scagionarli da tutte le colpe, ma che quest'ultima riusciva a influenzare (tramite infiltrati) aspetti importanti delle linee di politica americane affinché l'impero inglese potesse sopravvivere. Così come quello colonialista europeo, perché per quanto i colonialisti possano perdere il pelo non perdono il vizio. L'eurodollaro s'è dimostrato il guinzaglio perfetto, dal punto di vista economico, per usare un proxy e impostare/favorire un'agenda che veniva decisa oltreoceano. La narrativa che per anni è stata spacciata sulla stampa era una in cui l'Inghilterra appariva come una reliquia del passato in quanto a egemonia mondiale, mentre Washington era l'egemone di quest'epoca storica. Inutile dire che gli inglesi sono sempre stati maestri a sviare le attenzioni da loro: forniscono una corretta analisi dei problemi, ma poi si svincolano dalle relative cause scatenanti.

Ora è tornato il “frappè monetario del dollaro”, ma dopo l'entrata in scena del SOFR e lo sganciamento dal LIBOR, gli USA adesso hanno davvero il potere del dollaro nelle loro mani. Solo dal 2022 hanno ripreso il controllo sul proprio destino monetario e solo da allora hanno potuto avviare il ciclo di rialzo dei tassi più repentino della storia economica moderna senza preoccuparsi delle conseguenze. Perché? Perché i veri malati economici si trovano altrove: a Londra e a Bruxelles. Se l'economia mondiale la immaginassimo come un cesto della biancheria sporca, Washington sarebbe la camicia meno sporca di tutte. Ad esempio, la caduta delle varie banche commerciali a San Francisco non ha avuto alcun effetto sulle controparti newyorkesi; il selloff recente sui mercati azionari americani verrà compensato dalla diminuzione del deficit pubblico cosa che libererà risorse economiche affinché possano essere usate dal settore privato; le turbolenze commerciali verranno compensate dall'onshoring industriale e dalla rilocazione delle industrie europee; ecc. Sebbene il DXY abbia subito una breve flessione nell'ultimo mese (pensate poi dove viene intermediato il mercato dei cambi mondiale...), ciò è avvenuto dopo un anno record per il dollaro, in cui ha guadagnato quasi il 7% rispetto alle principali valute. La rupia indiana, ad esempio, è scesa a un minimo storico; lo yuan è stato svalutato progressivamente senza effetti concreti; ecc.

I problemi stanno emergendo anche dall'altra parte dell'Atlantico, poiché il Regno Unito è ora alle prese con un mix tossico di rendimenti dei titoli di stato in forte ascesa e una sterlina in rovina, una combinazione solitamente riservata ai mercati emergenti, non alla sesta economia più grande del mondo. I rendimenti dei titoli di stato sono saliti ai massimi livelli dal 1998, una triste pietra miliare che sottolinea lo stato precario delle finanze della Gran Bretagna. Questi stessi livelli di tensione finanziaria hanno costretto Liz Truss a lasciare l'incarico nel 2022. Gli hedge fund si stanno posizionando per un ulteriore calo della sterlina, segnalando un profondo sentimento ribassista e una mancanza di fiducia nelle prospettive economiche del Regno Unito. La sterlina è diventata un sacco da boxe per i mercati globali, trascinata verso il basso da passi falsi fiscali e dall'implacabile ascesa del dollaro. A nord l'economia canadese non se la passa tanto meglio. Il dollaro canadese si è deprezzato di quasi l'8% rispetto al dollaro statunitense nell'ultimo anno e i rendimenti obbligazionari sono in aumento. Il crescente divario dei tassi d'interesse tra Canada e Stati Uniti è un fattore chiave. Mentre la Federal Reserve statunitense li ha mantenuti alti, la Banca del Canada li ha tagliati sin da giugno dello scorso anno nel tentativo di sostenere un'economia in indebolimento. L'instabilità politica ha solo aggiunto benzina sul fuoco. Le recenti dimissioni del primo ministro Trudeau hanno momentaneamente dato respiro al dollaro canadese, ma l'incertezza sulla futura leadership canadese ha rapidamente invertito la tendenza. Questa combinazione di indebolimento della valuta, aumento dei rendimenti obbligazionari, incertezza politica e minacce commerciali da parte di Trump stanno creando un contesto difficile per l'economia canadese.

Tutto questo senza nemmeno menzionare l'elefante nella stanza: l'euro. La valuta si è indebolita notevolmente nell'ultimo anno e si sta avvicinando alla parità con il dollaro. L'Eurozona sta affrontando una serie di problemi, tra cui l'indebolimento della crescita economica, una crisi dell'immigrazione, alti tassi d'interesse e una crescente inflazione. A dicembre 2024 l'inflazione dell'Eurozona ha raggiunto il massimo di cinque mesi al 2,4%, alimentata dall'aumento dei costi dei servizi. La BCE ha tagliato i tassi d'interesse per sostenere l'economia nell'ultimo anno, dal 4% al 2,5%.

Ma ci rendiamo conto che questi saltimbanchi hanno concluso un vertice decidendo solo che “bisogna fare in fretta” e sono soddisfatti di tale risultato? Ma qui altro che parità tra euro e dollaro, la moneta europea sprofonderà ben al di sotto. Come si fa a non ridere quando dice che a fronte della nuova baldoria di spese, poi, però, bisogna tornare sulla via della rettitudine fiscale tenendo sotto controllo i conti pubblici? Ma davvero crede che le persone abbiano l'anello al naso e che l'etichetta “off-budget” possa far sembrare domani meno ingombranti gli squilibri fiscali? Quale percorso di sostenibilità del debito si può avere se quanto già fatto ha avuto i risultati devastanti attuali?

Questi sono spaventati a morte dal dollaro e della sua versione digitale di mercato, Tether. È un'alternativa credibile e affidabile affinché i risparmiatori possano sfuggire ai controlli dei capitali. Sono come le blatte nelle stamberghe che quando uno accende la luce nella stanza scatta un fuggi-fuggi generale. Forse non hanno capito che Tether è già sviluppato e funziona, mentre l'euro digitale deve ancora essere inaugurato. Non solo, ma ciò che li fa impazzire di più è che le aziende americane che operano sul suolo europeo possano usarlo per bypassare tutte quelle normative idiote (es. DSA, DMA, GDPR, Mica, ecc.) che servono solo a estorcere loro denaro tramite le multe. Ma questi sono morti (economici) che camminano. L'UE non esiste, è già morta.

In ogni caso, il “frappè monetario” teorizzato da Brent Johnson è vivo e vegeto: il DXY sale perché ciò che viene contratta è l'offerta di dollari ombra, dato che le varie nazioni del mondo non sono più capaci di usare a leva il mercato degli eurodollari. Senza il LIBOR per tenere sotto scacco la Federal Reserve, e quindi costringerla a stampare denaro in base alle necessità estere, e senza una politica fiscale espansiva che usava proxy come la USAID per mandare dollari all'estero, ci troviamo infine di fronte a una domanda genuina di dollari che seguirà le metriche interne dell'offerta di denaro. Certo, gli eurodollari ancora circoleranno, ma i rischi adesso saranno tutti di coloro che commetteranno azzardo morale e non più spalmati sull'economia americana. Ora il resto dei Paesi del mondo o guardano saltare in aria le loro valute, o intervengono utilizzando miliardi di dollari in riserve. Ciò si traduce in un dollaro più forte e in maggiori afflussi di capitali negli Stati Uniti.

Gli Stati Uniti possono adesso bere questo “frullato” a cuor leggero, senza doversi più preoccupare del Dilemma di Triffin.

LA FINE DEL DEFICIT STATUNITENSE DELLA BILANCIA COMMERCIALE

Il Dilemma di Triffin è risultato il difetto fatale del sistema di Bretton Woods: un paradosso che alla fine distrugge ogni valuta di riserva. Ma se fosse possibile risolverlo?

Il sistema di Bretton Woods fu istituito nel 1944 come sistema monetario internazionale progettato per fornire stabilità all'economia mondiale dopo le devastazioni della seconda guerra mondiale. Il dollaro statunitense era agganciato all'oro e le altre valute principali erano agganciate a esso. Il dollaro divenne la principale valuta di riserva mondiale e i Paesi membri accettarono di mantenere i tassi di cambio entro bande specifiche intervenendo sul mercato dei cambi. Anche il Fondo monetario internazionale e la Banca mondiale furono creati come parte del quadro di Bretton Woods per facilitare la cooperazione e lo sviluppo economico internazionale.

L'emergere di un sistema oro-dollaro fu guidato da una crescita insufficiente nell'offerta globale di oro per supportare l'espansione del commercio mondiale e della produzione: la scelta delle parità tra valute nel dopoguerra, che mantenevano basso il prezzo reale dell'oro e ne limitavano la produzione, contribuì a questa carenza. Inoltre l'URSS e il Sudafrica, principali fornitori di oro, furono considerati inaffidabili. Per colmare il divario tra domanda e offerta di riserve globali, i dollari divennero sempre più importanti, generati attraverso l'accumulo di crediti ufficiali a breve termine sugli Stati Uniti a partire dai primi anni '50. Ciò significava che gli Stati Uniti registravano costantemente deficit della bilancia dei pagamenti negli accordi ufficiali, accumulando passività verso funzionari stranieri senza un corrispondente aumento di attivi come l'oro. In sintesi, esportavano più dollari di quanti ne importassero. Questi dollari in eccesso erano registrati nel sistema globale in una moltitudine di modi: come depositi bancari in eurodollari, in linee di swap e come riserve in eccesso presso banche centrali straniere. Le aziende e i governi che accumulavano questi surplus avevano liquidità a disposizione che prontamente reinvestivano nel sistema finanziario nazionale, principalmente sotto forma di titoli del Tesoro USA.

Nel 1960 un economista belga di nome Robert Triffin tenne una presentazione di fronte al Congresso su quello che considerava un difetto fatale nel sistema monetario globale di Bretton Woods. Quel difetto divenne noto come il Dilemma di Triffin, o il Paradosso di Triffin, e, a suo dire, avrebbe distrutto Bretton Woods. Aveva anche previsto che questa contrazione delle riserve globali avrebbe portato a una crisi deflazionistica mondiale, che non si verificò, manifestandosi invece come un'ondata di inflazione che si abbatté sugli Stati Uniti e su gran parte delle economie mondiali.

Il dollaro è la valuta di riserva mondiale, ciò significa che sarebbe stato utilizzato nel commercio internazionale come riserva delle banche centrali per regolare le transazioni finanziarie e per prendere in prestito/prestare in dollari offshore (Eurodollaro). Tuttavia il resto del mondo mancava di un fattore cruciale: la capacità di generare dollari. Tutti hanno bisogno di commerciare, indebitarsi e risparmiare in una valuta CHE NON POSSONO STAMPARE (a meno che, come abbiamo visto, non si forza la mano della Federal Reserve indirettamente).

L'America si sarebbe trovata di fronte a un dilemma: soddisfare questa domanda o no? Se non avessero stampato, sarebbe emersa un'insufficienza di riserve globali, il commercio avrebbe iniziato a bloccarsi, le banche centrali non sarebbero riuscite a difendere la propria valuta sul mercato dei cambi e le banche non sarebbero riuscite a gestire i prestiti in dollari. Ciò avrebbe potuto causare inadempienze a livello di sistema e una crisi deflazionistica che si sarebbe diffusa da una nazione all'altra. Per evitare ciò gli Stati Uniti hanno avuto deficit persistenti delle partite correnti, inviando più dollari al sistema globale di quanti ne ricevessero indietro, per finanziare tutte queste necessità. A lungo termine ciò significa che gli Stati Uniti avrebbero stampato più dollari di quanto altrimenti giustificato dal rapporto di riserva rispetto all'oro. Questo rapporto sarebbe sceso sempre di più, finché non ci sarebbe stato un tale eccesso di dollari da innescare una corsa globale agli sportelli del dollaro stesso.

Ecco in sostanza cosa è successo. Mentre il mondo iniziava a globalizzarsi e la crescita del PIL nominale al di fuori degli Stati Uniti iniziava ad accelerare, sempre più dollari si accumulavano al di fuori del sistema finanziario nazionale. Nel 1965 il presidente francese Charles de Gaulle fece i calcoli e si rese conto che gli Stati Uniti avevano emesso molti più dollari di quanti fossero giustificati dal coefficiente di riserva di $35/oncia e iniziò a riscattare dollari in oro, come aveva diritto in base a Bretton Woods. Non era il solo, altre nazioni seguirono presto l'esempio. Iniziò una corsa alle riserve auree americane quando migliaia di tonnellate metriche di oro iniziarono a fuoriuscire dagli Stati Uniti.

De Gaulle stava facendo manifestare le conseguenze del Dilemma di Triffin, chiedendo persino il ripristino del gold standard. Così facendo, stava mettendo in evidenza quello che il suo ministro delle finanze, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, aveva chiamato “il privilegio esorbitante”, la capacità degli USA di gestire deficit della bilancia dei pagamenti e deficit fiscali e costringere il sistema globale ad assorbirne le ricadute. Le altre nazioni dovevano rimanere responsabili dal punto di vista fiscale e monetario e mantenere la loro valuta agganciata al dollaro entro il tasso di cambio ristretto, ma gli USA non avevano bisogno di farlo: ricevevano beni reali per una valuta che potevano stampare, alimentando la affamata macchina imperiale statunitense. Col senno di poi abbiamo scoperto quali appetiti stava sfamando questo meccanismo, ovvero quelli della City di Londra e del suo colonialismo sotto mentite spoglie, e probabilmente non è stato un caso che allora fu proprio la Francia a chiamare il bluff sull'oro...

Gli USA avevano avviato il sistema con un'enorme riserva di oro: circa il 50% di tutte le riserve auree estratte erano detenute dagli americani. La corsa agli sportelli del dollaro iniziò a prosciugarle fino a quando quella percentuale non si ridusse di oltre la metà. La crisi raggiunse il culmine nell'agosto del 1971, quando Nixon decise di chiudere la finestra dell'oro, congelando la capacità delle banche centrali e dei governi stranieri di convertire i dollari in oro. Così facendo, tagliò l'ultimo legame tra il dollaro cartaceo e la moneta reale sottostante: la capacità dei cittadini di chiedere oro in cambio di dollari era già stata vietata nel 1933 da Roosevelt. Naturalmente Nixon aveva promesso che questa rottura con il gold standard sarebbe stata temporanea e che una volta trovata una soluzione sarebbero tornati a una moneta sana/onesta. Tuttavia, ciò non accadde mai. Da allora fu adottato il sistema di cambio fiat e la situazione non ha fatto che peggiorare. Quella fu la prima vera crisi dell'eurodollaro e il cambio di paradigma fu necessario affinché lo schema Ponzi potesse essere traslato a un livello superiore, così come l'azzardo morale conseguente. Infatti il nuovo asset di riserva sarebbero diventati i titoli del Tesoro americani.

L'attuale consenso tra i macroeconomisti è la dottrina TINA: non c'è alternativa al dollaro. La Russia è un esportatore di materie prime e ha un surplus delle partite correnti, il quale dovrebbe essere trasformato in deficit per essere una valuta di riserva; la Cina ha un mercato dei capitali chiuso; l'India non ha un mercato obbligazionario sufficientemente profondo; il Sudafrica è politicamente instabile. Senza contare che nessuno dei BRICS ha uno stato di diritto sufficientemente buono. Come sottolinea anche Brent Johnson, gli Stati Uniti hanno mercati obbligazionari profondi e liquidi, stato di diritto, un sofisticato sistema finanziario e monetario e un esercito gigantesco per far rispettare il sistema del dollaro, fondamentalmente tutto ciò che si potrebbe desiderare.

L'elenco dei requisiti per una valuta di riserva è il seguente: 

1. stabile
2. sicura
3. riserva di valore
4. mezzo di scambio
5. ampiamente accettata
6. fidata
7. mercati profondi e liquidi

Bitcoin è ancora nella sua fase iniziale di crescita come valuta. Nel 2023 la capitalizzazione di mercato era di circa $720 miliardi e BTC veniva scambiato a $36.800. La volatilità è ancora elevata poiché le dimensioni del mercato implicano che quantità di denaro relativamente piccole possono spostare l'azione dei prezzi in modo sproporzionato rispetto ad altri mercati. Il test della “stabilità” lo fallisce... per ora.

Bitcoin è sicuro? È sicuro quanto la vostra capacità di conservare le chiavi private! Se possedete Bitcoin e tenete al sicuro il vostro seed, allora è sicuro. Probabilmente molto di più rispetto a quasi qualsiasi altra cosa: simile all'oro fisico, è un bene al portatore e una vera merce digitale. Non può essere rubato facilmente o censurato. Gli asset denominati in valute fiat, come abbiamo visto con il divieto per la Russia di usare la rete SWIFT, possono essere congelati o sequestrati; le transazioni possono essere inserite in una blacklist; si può essere censurati.

Bitcoin è la migliore riserva di valore mai inventata, persino superiore all'oro. Il metallo giallo aumenta la sua offerta di circa il 2% all'anno e nessuno conosce la vera quantità di oro esistente. BTC ha invece un programma di emissione determinato matematicamente e imposto dalla struttura della rete (consenso dei nodi e dei miner), garantendo che 21 milioni sia la quantità massima di bitcoin che può essere minata.

Per quanto riguarda il mezzo di scambio, svolge anche questo ruolo in quanto è molto facile da trasferire e la conferma delle transazioni richiede circa 10 minuti, ma è molto più veloce su Lightning Network, la soluzione di scalabilità di cui BTC ha bisogno per essere un mezzo di scambio per la vita quotidiana in una moderna economia digitale.

Per quanto riguarda la fiducia, Bitcoin ha successo anche qui, poiché utilizza crittografia di livello militare e dispendio energetico dei miner per proteggere la sua blockchain. Una forma inversa del Dilemma del prigioniero assicura che nessun singolo miner, o nodo, abbia un incentivo a mentire sulla validità delle transazioni, poiché creare falsi blocchi e transazioni richiede di essere esponenzialmente più fortunati con il passare del tempo e di spendere energia (e denaro) per farlo. Per molte ragioni, complesse e tecniche, attaccare la rete non è fattibile.

Mercati profondi e liquidi: anche qui ancora non ci siamo, ma man mano che BTC guadagna adozione globale, profondità e liquidità seguiranno, smorzando la volatilità e portando sempre più capitale nell'ecosistema. Simile all'effetto volano con le aziende di software, sempre più utenti (e stati) che adottano Bitcoin significano che il prezzo sale, la volatilità si smorza e l'adozione accelera in cicli di feedback positivi.

Bitcoin risolve il Dilemma di Triffin. Non lo evita, non lo mitiga: LO RISOLVE.

Il Paradosso si basa su diversi punti fondamentali, il principale dei quali è un attore centrale che emette la valuta di riferimento. Bitcoin NON è emesso centralmente. Non esistono confini per Bitcoin, nessun singolo nodo di emissione. Qualsiasi miner nell'intera rete può essere scelto per la prossima ricompensa di blocco. Una valuta di riserva neutrale, non emessa centralmente, libera di fluttuare, orientata alla privacy, è stato lo standard per secoli prima del sistema fiat. Lo stesso Triffin immaginò una soluzione al problema: la sua idea era quella dei DSP (diritti speciali di prelievo), un'unità di riserva emessa dall'FMI che si basava su un paniere di altre valute. I DSP non fanno nulla per mitigare i problemi di inflazione e svalutazione; inoltre sarebbero incredibilmente difficili da gestire. Immaginate di riscattare i DSP per le valute sottostanti e di dover andare in ogni Paese per riscuotere il denaro.

Con una valuta di riserva neutrale, i deficit o i surplus delle partite correnti delle singole nazioni sarebbero sempre in equilibrio (dinamico). Se un Paese spende più di quanto guadagna, alla fine è costretto a ricominciare a guadagnare (produrre). E se si verifica l'inverso, il surplus può essere utilizzati per il consumo. Bitcoin, quindi, risolverebbe anche tutti gli altri dubbi che i macroeconomisti hanno su di esso: si svilupperebbero mercati liquidi e profondi, il prezzo salirebbe esponenzialmente, l'adozione si diffonderebbe poiché le nazioni lo adotterebbero e inizierebbero a usarlo e a richiederlo nel commercio e nella finanza internazionale.

La riserva strategica statunitense ha come obiettivo finale quello di rendere Bitcoin l'hard asset per eccellenza che permetta di disintermediare definitivamente la nazione dal circuito dell'eurodollaro. Non accadrà dall'oggi al domani, saranno necessari passaggi intermedi obbligati. Innanzitutto il dollaro, così come il Paese stesso, dovrà riguadagnare credibilità e affidabilità. La sua forza è propedeutica a tal proposito: un dollaro forte all'estero e un dollaro debole in patria. A coadiuvare tale assetto c'è l'oro che viene sottratto alla LBMA e questo sarà l'anno del metallo giallo dato che rappresenta ancora l'hard asset storico che nei momenti di incertezza ha funto da rifugio sicuro; oltre a essere un barometro appropriato per un ritorno a una ponderazione del rischio reale e genuina. Diciamo che in una fase tumultuosa e incerta, la certezza storica dell'oro, pronta e disponibile, è una garanzia. Nel frattempo si permette che la capitalizzazione di mercato di Tether cresca organicamente. La digitalizzazione del dollaro, infatti, sta passando dall'ascesa di Tether come compratore di ultima istanza dei titoli del Tesoro USA; praticamente sta stabilendo una nuova consuetudine per prendere il posto della Federal Reserve, la quale verrà ri-regionalizzata nelle sue 12 branche regionali e verrà smantellato quell'apparato burocratico che è stato costruito su di essa da Roosevelt in poi. Ripple, invece, sta ottenendo attenzioni perché può essere strumentalizzato contro l'intermediazione del mercato dei cambi a Londra e sostituire il sistema SWIFT. Il momento di Bitcoin arriverà solo dopo che Tether avrà consolidato la sua presenza sui mercati come nuovo colosso, comprare titoli sovrani americani serve anche a sottrarli a quei player esteri che li usano per prolungare la vita al mercato degli eurodollari (es. Inghilterra, Canada, Europa). Ecco perché l'azienda di Ardoino sta diversificando anche in altri asset e molto probabilmente arriverà a essere un attore dello stesso peso di una JP Morgan, ad esempio.

Tra i suoi attivi, però, c'è anche Bitcoin e questo significa non solo digitalizzaione del dollaro ma anche una copertura fatta da un hard asset in quella che rappresenterà un'unione fondamentale per superare il sistema dell'eurodollaro, offrire un mezzo di scambio sano/onesto, un ambiente di mercato in cui domanda/offerta si incontrano genuinamente, un settore privato in grado di prosperare e resistere alle ondate di inflazione, la capacità di abbattere debito, deficit e spesa pubblica.

CONCLUSIONE

Quando ho pubblicato il mio ultimo libro, Il Grande Default, uno degli obiettivi era quello di documentare come gli USA stessero erigendo barriere intorno al dollaro per difenderlo dagli attacchi esterni tramite gli eurodollari. Il rinsavimento a livello di politica monetaria e fiscale serve a minimizzare questo rischio, non l'ha eliminato. Per quanto i player esteri adesso debbano interfacciarsi direttamente con la FED se vogliono dollari, esistono ancora scappatoie. Una di queste era il tentativo di intermediare i titoli di stato americani a Londra e scongiurato da Bessent lo scorso gennaio. Adesso se ne presenta un'altra tramite la Banca del Canada e l'emissione di titoli canadesi denominati però in dollari americani (siete sorpresi che sia arrivato sulla scia dell'elezione ad interim di Carney?).

Di norma il differenziale tra il tasso di riferimento della FED e quello della Banca del Canada è sempre stato di circa 50 punti base; oggi è di 150 punti base. L'obiettivo è quello di mettere in moto un carry trade tra il dollaro canadese e quello americano: riciclare il surplus commerciale canadese (capite adesso anche la narrativa di Trump sui dazi?) per pagare i coupon di quelle obbligazioni. Ma perché comprare questi titoli che rendono il 3% quando gli omologhi americani rendono di più? Perché possono essere posti come garanzia nel mercato pronti contro termine americano e quindi avere una via secondaria con cui accedere ai dollari. Un attacco diretto al SOFR. Inutile dire che il Canada ha la capacità di emettere questi asset perché, grazie la QE del Dipartimento del Tesoro quando c'era la Yellen, ha comprato una vagonata di titoli di stato americani che può usare come garanzia alla base di operazioni finanziarie del genere.

Carney, che sa come mettere in piedi facility del genere grazie alla sua esperienza nella Banca d'Inghilterra, e il Canada stanno diventando il proxy attraverso cui la City di Londra e Bruxelles possono avere un canale indiretto attraverso cui tornare ad accedere facilmente ai dollari, influenzare la politica monetaria della FED, avere un surrogato del LIBOR e finanziare le loro cattedrali nel deserto.

Gli USA non possono essere emendati da eventuali colpe per aver alimentato le mire espansionistiche inglesi, ciononostante sono questi ultimi coloro che hanno sempre avuto (dal punto di vista storico) il dente avvelenato contro la Russia e hanno impedito che essa avviasse una partnership con gli USA stessi. Ora gli inglesi possono finalmente essere tagliati fuori sia geopoliticamente che commercialmente, visto che il Mediterraneo perderà man mano la sua importanza a vantaggio invece del circolo polare artico (soprattutto ora che Suez è ancora inagibile). Chi ha molto da perdere qui è Londra, per tutti i motivi elencati in questa serie. Alla luce di tutto ciò, l'ironia più grande è se fosse la Russia a essere messa a guardia dell'Europa in un futuro non tanto lontano. Ma la cricca di Davos non cederà facilmente le armi e, in base alle ultime notizie provenienti dal Canada, sta creando la sua nuova base d'attacco da quelle parti. Cercheranno di resuscitare il mercato degli eurodollari perché hanno disperatamente bisogno di finanziamenti a buon mercato per tenere in piedi gli Stati sociali ipertrofici e non cadere sotto il peso delle enormi promesse fatte in precedenza. Nel frattempo cercheranno di impostare il campo di gioco per i cosiddetti perpetual bond, già una parziale realtà tra la Savings and Investments Union e le obbligazioni SURE che dovrà finanziare.

E voi, cari lettori, ricordate che la prima linea di difesa individuale è sempre la conoscenza e la consapevolezza per acquisire un vantaggio competitivo.

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

???? Qui il link alla Prima Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2025/02/cio-che-leurodollaro-ha-dato.html

???? Qui il link alla Seconda Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2025/02/cio-che-leurodollaro-ha-dato_01881802337.html

???? Qui il link alla Terza Parte: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/2025/03/cio-che-leurodollaro-ha-dato.html

Thanks, Johnny Kramer .

To protest Trump Rosie O’Donnell moved to a country that:
Is 95% White.
Has an official language.
Requires an ID to vote.
Is 75% Christian.
Illegals are not entitled to vote or social services.
Limits abortion to 12 weeks.
Has 12.5% corporate tax rate. pic.twitter.com/83pm9dXoTQ

— Eagle Wings (@CRRJA5) March 17, 2025

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