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Since the first of September, the U.S. Navy has been blowing up small vessels off the coast of Venezuela. The current count is nine boats and approximately 37 dead. The U.S. government declares that these boats are an imminent threat to our country because they are operated by narco-terrorists. It appears no evidence was necessary.

The Trump administration has completely eschewed the legal requirements for due process or normal interdiction procedures. Sadly, due to the Global War on Terror, we Americans have tragically grown accustomed to our government assassinating people because they are merely suspected terrorists. Leaving aside moral issues, it is worth recalling that these actions are illegal under both domestic and international law.

First and foremost, these actions are in contradiction to the United States Constitution. Article I, section 8 clearly states that Congress shall have the power to “declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Article II, section 2 states: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” The president does command the forces, but only Congress can declare war—and Congress has not declared war against alleged “drug boats” in Latin America. These small boats 1,300 miles from the Florida Keys pose no emergency threat, and blowing them up is clearly an act of war.

Our cowardly Congress has appropriated many trillions of dollars for a plethora of wars since World War II. However, since 1942, they haven’t had the courage to take responsibility and actually declare war as the Constitution requires. Over the years, they usually haven’t even had the fortitude to refuse to finance wars with which they disagree. As a result of congressional unwillingness to exercise their mandated duties, the forever and failed wars have continued unabated. Congress does not want to be caught voting for wars which the public doesn’t want. Especially if the war becomes a failure, as is normally the case, they enjoy being free to say whatever the public wants to hear without the record of a pesky vote to contradict their dishonest rhetoric. To aid this ruse, the leadership tends to wrap the military budgets into big continuing resolutions or omnibus bills so there is no vote showing undeniable support for particular wars. The result: a win-win for duplicitous politicians and the military industry, but a big lose-lose for the American people and the poor American and foreign souls murdered and maimed.

The latest attacks and killings are also forbidden by article 2, section 4 of the UN Charter: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

Article 51 allows unilateral use of force only in self-defense against an “armed attack.” America is not threatened by small outboard motor boats more than 1,000 miles from our shores, and their mere existence in international waters, even if they are carrying drugs, certainly doesn’t constitute an “armed attack.” Off the coast of Venezuela there is a significant U.S. flotilla, which is fully capable of intercepting these small boats without having to obliterate them.

International Maritime Law (UNCLOS) article 88 states, “The high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes.” While drug interdiction may be permitted, the standard procedure is visit, search, and seize, not summary destruction.

Or consider the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted in 1998 and signed by the U.S. in 2000. This statute sets out the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes among other issues. In May 2002 Undersecretary of State John Bolton formally notified the UN secretary general that the United States “does not intend to become a party to the treaty.” (Anyone surprised it was John Bolton who made this submission?) The George W. Bush administration was prepping for the invasion of Iraq—and the other countries on the neocon hit list—so were looking to limit the liability for those illegal wars. Remember, Iran is the last on the list that hasn’t been wrecked to date.

In 1950 the United States voted to approve the United Nations Nuremberg Principles, several of which are relevant to the Trump administration’s military campaign in Latin America:

Principle III: “The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.”

Principle IV: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

Principle VI: “The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i). (b) War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder…” “…or devastation not justified by military necessity. (c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population…”

Back to domestic law: The 1981 Executive Order 12333 section 2.11 signed by President Ronald Reagan states, “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” This order has never been revoked.

When you consider the above, it is no surprise the admiral in charge of SOUTHCOM—the regional command responsible for Central and South America, their territorial waters, and the Caribbean—recently opted for early retirement.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Small Boat Attacks Are Illegal appeared first on LewRockwell.

Americans are so tired of being called “racists.”  This has been the Democrat party’s go-to rhetorical weapon for half a century.  Rather than debating policies on their merits, Democrat politicians just accuse their opponents of being Klan members and call it a day.  This is particularly galling since it is the Democrat party in the United States that fought a civil war to defend slavery and then established a Jim Crow system of enforced racial segregation that endured for another century.

Democrat party activists are always toppling statues of historic Americans accused of being insufficiently opposed to slavery centuries ago.  They try to “cancel” organizations whose long dead founders might have once said something politically incorrect by today’s standards.  Yet the Democrat party never has the courage to take a look at its own sordid history.  If it did, it would “cancel” itself.

Incapable of explaining why criminal illegal aliens should be permitted to invade American communities and devour limited welfare funds, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett argues without evidence, “This administration is racist. … We know that we have a racist at the top.  Everybody has decided it’s okay to take off their hoods and mask up as ICE agents.  It reminds me of the Klan.”  Given that most Klan members supported the Democrat party, you’d think Crockett would have some expertise on this issue.  She does not.  As with every other Democrat politician who plays the race card every single day, she mindlessly insists that anyone who disagrees with her hates black people.

Democrats — especially black Democrats — have done tremendous harm to the ongoing fight against racial hatred in this world.  To be sure, race hate is real, and it is the source of awful bloodshed around the planet.  Compared to parts of the Middle East, Asia, South America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, though, racism in the United States is nonexistent.  In much of the world, people really do scrutinize the shade of a person’s skin to determine whether that person is “entitled” to any rights, including the right to live.  People are sold like cattle, worked to death, and dumped into mass graves.  Democrat politicians largely ignore these realities because recognizing such horrors around the planet would expose their own charges of “racism” as petty, baseless, cynical, and exploitative.

In America, overt acts of racism are so rare that the Democrat party has been forced to lecture Americans about their “unconscious biases” for twenty years.  American society is so welcoming to members of every race and ethnicity that the Democrat party must argue that invisible “systemic racism” exists even when Americans can’t see it.  No matter how hard Americans try to prove that they are not racist, Democrats insist that they are.

By maliciously defaming good people as racists, Democrats give aid and comfort to genuine racists around the world.  The Chinese Communist Party enslaves minorities and engages in ethnic genocide.  Then its government-controlled news media publicly broadcast recordings of Democrat politicians, such as Congresswoman Crockett, explaining that the United States — not China — is the most racist nation in the world.  China’s government murders people because of their family heritage, expressed opinions, and religious beliefs.  Yet Chinese communists have a never-ending supply of real video clips from Democrat politicians asserting that President Trump is Hitler and that his Republican voters are Nazis.  Famous Hollywood Democrats, such as Robert De Niro, shamelessly call White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller a “Jewish Nazi.”  While actual genocide continues in communist China, its state-run media have no problem portraying the United States as racist, fascist, and savage.  The Democrat party’s vile, reckless attacks against Americans give the world’s most murderous racists plenty of cover.

Twelve years ago, the Academy Award for Best Picture went to 12 Years a Slave.  That movie tells the biographical story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery.  After living in bondage on several Louisiana plantations, Northup managed to escape with the help of friends and family from his native New York.  The movie deviates slightly from Solomon Northup’s own 1853 memoir in an effort to convey the violent brutality of slavery.  It is an emotional film that forces the audience to watch human beings enduring beatings, whippings, and other tortures.

When I first saw the movie, I expected a block of text to appear before the end credits that would address human slavery as it exists today.  After all, Northup’s story is particularly fascinating because he was born a free man and lived a happy life before being abducted and sold as a slave.  Both his original memoir and the 2013 movie relate his traumatic journey through the eyes of someone who is just as shocked by the experience as any American alive today would be.  His story, in other words, has a great deal in common with people around the world in 2025 who are kidnapped from their families, sexually abused, and trafficked as slaves.  It still seems strange to me that the Best Picture winner doesn’t conclude with an urgent plea for viewers to liberate the roughly fifty million human beings who live as slaves today.

Just last week, The Gateway Pundit published details of a “massive human trafficking and torture network” involving a Chinese crime syndicate that has “scammed, brutally tortured, drugged, and enslaved” thousands of South Korean citizens.  “Lured by fake employment ads and trafficked into Chinese-controlled criminal compounds in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar,” those who have been abducted are “beaten, electrocuted, drugged, and forced to work” under the threat of execution.  Survivors who have managed to escape have described “being forced to scam their own citizens online” while their “captors used narcotics and psychotropic drugs to suppress resistance.”  Enduring similar horrors as Solomon Northup did two hundred years ago, the South Korean captives are just one example of human slavery flourishing today.

Why do so few Washington politicians or Hollywood actors ever shine a bright light on modern-day slavery?  Presumably because they don’t want Americans to know that there are fifty million slaves around the world today.  They don’t want to expose the inhumane abuses that their Chinese Communist Party friends and financiers commit.  They don’t want to highlight Islam’s historic fondness for kidnapping and slavery.  They don’t want Americans to realize that Mexican and South American cartels abduct women and children, hook them on drugs, and traffic them as sex slaves across the United States.  They don’t want to draw attention to the inconvenient fact that tribes in Sub-Saharan Africa still openly buy and sell slaves today.

If Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett gave a damn about slavery, she would use her giant microphone to expose big business slavers around the planet who profit from human misery.  She would go on an hours-long floor speech demanding that the U.S. government target the scourge of human-trafficking.  She would call out the Chinese communists, African nations, and Muslim communities that enslave human beings.  Crockett does none of these things.  Instead, she calls Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Ku Klux Klan members and claims that President Trump is the most dangerous “racist” on the planet.

There is evil in this world.  It is ugly, brutal, and ruthless.  It steals boys and girls from their parents.  It rapes and tortures and murders.  It rips the innocence from those it abducts, and it laughs as it profits from unspeakable cruelties.  Slavery survives in 2025 because powerful voices refuse to speak about it.  Politicians such as Jasmine Crockett would rather pretend all white people are racist and that President Trump is America’s plantation master.  By telling those lies and ignoring those in bondage, she ensures that slavery’s horrors continue.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

The post Democrat Party Lies Protect Modern Slavery appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump, if you don’t quickly put down the Insurrections with deadly force, as required to protect your people, you will be fighting an army of Communists and illegal invaders in a Civil War! They will be led and protected by the traitorous officials in the blue cities and states. If you allow them more time to organize they will have at least a ten-to-one advantage over our military. You must put them down quickly and decisively. Under a wartime situation, you can deport illegals without consent of judges. Study President Lincoln’s lawful actions during the Civil War.

Federal law enforcement must determine who is funding the conflict and arrest them for treason. State and local officials who don’t support federal forces must be arrested for treason or dismissed. Most people don’t realize that the Federal Government is funding the Communists in the states, which is unconstitutional and insane. Communism only exists until it runs out of other people’s money.

The lives of patriots and federal forces can’t be put at undue risk to protect rioters. If insurrectionists, rioters or others threaten citizens with deadly force (rocks, fires, vehicles, firearms, etc) they should be put down with deadly force. If civilian authorities refuse to prosecute criminals, replace or arrest them or use military courts.

It is well-known that most members of Congress do not support the concept of “America First” and they hate Trump for it. This is because it would interfere with their illegal business partnerships with the Zionist Jewish Lobby and others. It is reported that most members of Congress hate President Trump; Democrats admit it and Republicans lie. Citizens must vote those who don’t support “America First” out of Office!

As an Economist, I can say that we must terminate all Foreign Aid and deployment of troops overseas. We just can’t afford these expenditures. In a time of insurrection, we must have the troops and equipment in America for our survival. It must be understood that every conflict in last 80 years was for the sole benefit of the Military Industrial Complex and bribes to members of Congress. We lost every war; there were no Constitutional Declarations of War, and we lost 105,000 military dead. Not a single war was for national security. The American people buried their dead and endured a much lower standard of living because of these wars. If you can’t tolerate sacrificing your children and life blood to the Deep State and their minions in Congress, Vote the “America First”-hating Congress out of office!

Due to our oceans, the United States can’t be invaded. It can only be defeated by Weapons of Mass Destruction or from within. Therefore we have absolutely no reason to be involved in conflicts in any other country for any reason. There is nothing in our Constitution to authorize meddling in other countries and using the resources of our people for the benefit of other countries.

There is no question that Israel’s Muslim neighbors did despicable things to the Jews, but there is ample evidence that the Jews earned this hatred every year since its founding in 1948. But the point is that it is none of our business…except that the Zionist Jewish Lobby controls Congress.  Everybody knows this. This must end.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk has started a religious revival in the United States and questioned how Christian Evangelical Churches could support Zionist Genocide and Jews as the “Chosen Ones” when Jesus Christ condemned them.

In many previous articles, I have stated that if we would mind our own business without Foreign Aid or troops deployed overseas, we would have the American Dream and unlimited prosperity. This would still be true if not for the Treason of the Democrats aka Communists and the two-faced Republicans for allowing more than 20 million illegal invaders into America. These invaders must be deported quickly at great cost, regardless of the cost or opposition by a corrupt Congress. The Deep State aka Parasitic Super-Rich Ruling Class aka wealthy families and their minions in government say we need illegals to do work that Americans will not do. Of course this is true IF you pay Americans more not to work than they could earn working. In short, we must deport the illegals and terminate government benefits to those who can work but don’t.

Businesses that hire Illegals do so because they can pay them less because government benefits make up the difference. This mindset is faulty and causes major problems in society.

President Trump, please remember how the Democrat aka Communist army of Antifa and Black Lives Matter burned down our inner cities in 2020 when you trusted local officials to do the right thing but theydidn’t. Please don’t make the same mistake again.

I detest most members of Congress because they don’t support “America First” or President Trump. My friends feel the same way. Everybody should, or all is lost.

The post President Trump, You Have a Very Limited Time To Put Down Insurrections With Deadly Force Before It Is a Civil War! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Do you remember when we were told that the “Reagan deficit” was going to destroy the economy?  In the past two and one-third months ending October 15 the US national debt increased by $1 trillion.  That is five times greater in a mere 71 days than David Stockman’s exaggerated “$200 billion annual deficits as far as the eye can see” that he falsely attributed to President Reagan’s tax rate reduction. 

In light of the $38 trillion US national debt, why is Washington financing Israel’s wars and the war against Russia in Ukraine?  The weaponization of the US dollar with sanctions and asset freezes and confiscations has resulted in a decline in the percentage of international transactions accounted for by US dollars.  Similarly, the dollar’s use as foreign central bank reserves is declining.  If the dollar loses its role as reserve currency, the interest rate needed to finance the massive US national debt would rise precipitously and absorb the entire revenues of the government.  

American power depends far more importantly on the dollar’s role as reserve currency than it does on the War Department budget or winning wars for Israel and Ukraine. Trump’s war on Putin is driving up oil and other prices that are main drivers of inflation.  Trump’s war on China might deprive the US economy of rare earths, thus halting production of essentials.  It seems to me that the cost of American hegemony is going to be America’s destruction. 

The gold and silver markets have already seriously depreciated the value of paper fiat currencies and their debt instruments.  China is in the process of substituting gold for US Treasuries as central bank reserves.  As China is a huge holder of US debt, the adverse consequence for the dollar is obvious. 

The US economy faces massive unemployment from AI and robotics.  State and local governments have large bills from the subsidies they have institutionalized for immigrant-invaders.  Inflation, officially understated, is eating away at the living standards of Americans.  A very dark storm is gathering, and our President is pretending that he owns the world.

The post President Trump Needs To Turn Attention to Our Problems appeared first on LewRockwell.

According to several recent news reports, the two major Trump foreign policy shifts last week are the handiwork of Marco Rubio, the President’s Secretary of State and (acting) National Security Advisor. As with all neocon plans, they will be big on promises and small on delivery.

First up, according to Bloomberg it was Rubio who finally convinced President Trump to take “ownership” of the US proxy war on Russia, and for the first time place sanctions on Russia. Up to this point President Trump chose to portray himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. But with this move against Russia’s oil sector he can no longer credibly claim that this is “Joe Biden’s war.”

The Trump move followed a confusing few weeks since the Trump/Putin Alaska summit in August. After that meeting Trump dropped the neocon position that a ceasefire in the Russia/Ukraine war must occur before any peace negotiations. It was a sign that Trump was looking more realistically at the war. He also said he did not think Ukraine would win, which is pretty obvious.

A surprise call to Putin the day before Ukrainian president Zelensky was to arrive in town just over a week ago reinforced that position and Zelensky left Washington empty-handed. He was seeking Tomahawk missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.

Then out of the blue President Trump last week announced through his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the US would be sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies until Russia declares a ceasefire in the war before negotiations. That won’t happen, but what it does mean is that Rubio and the neocons have successfully gotten Trump to step on the escalation escalator. That is what they always do. It will be much harder to back down now.

At the same time the US Administration was jumping deeper into the Russia/Ukraine war, a long-time neocon dream was suddenly back in play. Although in Trump’s first term a “regime change” operation was attempted against Venezuela, it failed spectacularly. But the neocons have long dreamed of overthrowing the Venezuelan government – they almost got their way back in 2002 – and suddenly after several weeks of extrajudicial murder on the high seas in the name of fighting the drug war, President Trump announced that land strikes on Venezuela would begin soon.

He did mention that he might brief Congress on his plans for war on Venezuela, not that Congress can be bothered to care much one way or the other.

The neocon old guard that still dominates Washington foreign policy is taking a victory lap. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was on the Sunday shows beaming over the conversion of “no regime-change wars” President Trump to “regime change wars” President Trump.

The Saddam Hussein WMD factories of 2002 have become the Nicolas Maduro cocaine and fentanyl factories of 2025 and once again the neocon war lies are amplified by the US mainstream media and transmitted to the American people. A new disaster is in the making. The “global war on terror” has been rebranded the “hemispheric war on narco-terror” and the US military industrial complex is rubbing its hands in anticipation of a windfall.

After John Bolton’s disastrous stint in the first Trump Administration, promises were made that the second Trump Administration would be neocon-free. Instead, the neocons are back. Unless President Trump wakes up soon, the neocons will destroy his second term…and maybe the country.

The post The Rubio Doctrine: Neocons Are Back! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Those charged with terrorism for supporting Palestine Action will have no jury in trials limited to 36 minutes each, with prison sentences up to six months. These are the plans for Starmer Courts for mass trials of anti-Genocide protestors.

The plans are devised by Justice Michael Snow. He is the epitome of judicial prejudice. When Julian Assange appeared before Snow in the first hearing after being dragged from the Embassy, Snow called Assange a “narcissist” even though Assange had said nothing but to confirm his name, and no evidence had been led.

Snow has now decreed that those 2,000 people charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act with supporting Palestine Action, will be tried in batches of five at the rate of ten people a day – giving 36 court minutes for each defendant. This is a farce, a spectacle of mass show trial. The 36 minutes includes both prosecution and defence cases and cross-examination.

At a scheduling hearing on Wednesday, one of the accused, 72 year old Deborah Wilde, objected that these trials would be far too short to present a proper defence.

Snow snapped back “I’m satisfied that the time is sufficient. I am not going to give more time. Your only remedy is the High Court”.

As I am sure Snow realises, ordinary people cannot afford to go to the High Court. The worrying thing is that the trials will be held before judges including the appalling Snow, with no jury.

Here is the relevant part of Section 13 of the Terrorism Act.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this draconian legislation is that arousing suspicion is actually the offence. It does not matter if the suspicion turns out to be well-grounded or not. The suspicion could be totally wrong, but if you aroused the suspicion on “reasonable grounds” in a policeman’s head, you are guilty.

It is an offence of strict liability. Your intent is not considered; you may have been most concerned to stop a Genocide, or to oppose the destruction of free speech. Judge Snow and his ilk will not care. They only want to know if some half educated cop suspected you of supporting a terrorist organisation. There is no jury to whom you can explain your actions – and which would be highly likely to sympathise.

I have seen it, as an offence of strict liability, likened to possession of Class A drugs. But actually it isn’t. The correct analogy would be a crime where the offence was arousing a suspicion you possessed Class A drugs, whether you actually had any or not.

The experience of watching 2,000 upstanding citizens, most of them elderly and many of them infirm, hustled through this slaughterhouse queue of mass justice and into prison, with little opportunity to defend themselves, will be a defining moment in the UK’s headlong slide into fascism.

The best available way to fight this ridiculously unjust process which has been directly opposed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, by Amnesty International and by Liberty, is through the legal challenge to an absurd and oppressive law. This is being done in both England and Scotland, which are separate jurisdictions. I am the “petitioner” in the Scottish case.

There are precedents for different decisions in the different jurisdictions. The Scottish courts found Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament illegal; the English courts, legal. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided in favour of the Scottish courts. It is also possible that Palestine Action should simply operate legally in one jurisdiction and not the other – the law is frequently different in the two countries. The rationale of the legal case is explained here.

We desperately need funds. We now have a crowdfunder which pays money direct to the legal team. I understand that most people of goodwill have donated and donated to numerous causes in these terrible times. If you cannot donate, please help by spreading the crowdfunder.

This article was originally published on CraigMurray.org.uk.

The post 36 Minute Trials and No Jury – Starmer’s Fascist Mass Courts appeared first on LewRockwell.

Following the announcement of the impending summit with President Putin in Hungary, President Trump declared that the summit with the Russian President on Ukraine would be a “waste of time” on the grounds that “Russia is pursuing territorial ambitions that make a peace agreement with Ukraine impossible”.

He then proceeded to summon NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to the White House, wherein he conveyed his decision to withhold the provision of US Tomahawk missiles to Kiev at that particular juncture.

This decision was precipitated by the perceived impracticality of allocating a substantial amount of time to train the Ukrainian army in the utilisation of such missiles. Concurrently, the US lifted the key restriction on the use of long-range missiles supplied by other NATO members to Ukraine, while NATO conducted the Steadfast Noon nuclear warfare exercise directed against Russia in Europe under US command. In response to the aforementioned events, a Strategic Nuclear Forces exercise was conducted in the Russian Federation. President Putin observed this exercise via video conference.

One example among many: that of the fast-growing German Rheinmetall, which is integrated into the US military-industrial complex through American Rheinmetall Munitions.

Rheinmetall has announced its intention to supply Ukraine with an electronic system designed to enhance the combat capabilities of the German Leopard tanks that have already been supplied to Kiev. The production and integration of this system is carried out by the Italian subsidiary of Rheinmetall, Rheinmetall Italia SpA, at its headquarters in Rome. In Italy, Rheinmetall has established a facility dedicated to the assembly, testing and production of warheads for kamikaze drones. The series is being produced at full speed. The plant is operated by the Italian subsidiary RWM Italia at its sites in Musei and Domusnovas in Sardinia. Rheinmetall is collaborating with the Israeli manufacturer UVision Air Ltd. on this project. It is evident that these Italian-manufactured kamikaze drones will be utilised by the Israeli army in attacks against Palestinians in Gaza, as well as in other operations primarily conducted in Libya, Yemen, and other regions.

Trump has imposed sanctions on Russian oil companies, representing the most stringent measures yet taken by the US against the Russian energy sector. It is evident that these sanctions are favourable to large US oil and gas companies. The European Union is participating in this operation, which has decided to completely block the import of Russian natural gas in three stages: from 1 January 2026, it will be forbidden to sign new contracts; short-term agreements already in place must end by 17 June 2026; and long-term agreements by 31 December 2027.

It should be noted that the aforementioned proposals have met with opposition from the countries of Hungary and Slovakia. Concurrently, Italy’s Edison entered into an agreement with Shell, securing the procurement of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) for a duration of 15 years. In consideration of the marked disparity between the price of gas in the US and that of gas in Russia, it is evident that consumer gas prices for households in Italy are rising.

The United States and the State of Israel are contemplating a plan to divide the Gaza Strip into two separate zones: one to be controlled by Israel, the other formally by Hamas pending its “disarmament”. This was announced at a press conference in Israel by US Vice President Vance and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The plan is to immediately start “reconstruction” in the Israeli-controlled area, according to Trump’s plan to transform Gaza into a luxurious “Riviera of the Middle East”.

The Palestinian area, de facto controlled by Israel, would remain in its current situation: the Palestinian population would be locked there in a scenario of destruction and deprivation that would continue the genocide.

President Trump confirmed that Australia will obtain nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and the United Kingdom, indicating a strategic focus on deterring China and Russia.

Concurrently, he signed an agreement on rare earth minerals with the Australian Prime Minister at the White House. The AUKUS submarine agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States could cost Australia up to $235 billion over the next 30 years. The governments of the United States and Australia have announced their intention to invest in excess of $3 billion in critical minerals projects over the forthcoming six-month period. The recoverable resources in these projects are estimated to be worth $53 billion.

The US Department of War expressed its intention to invest in the construction of an advanced gallium refinery with a capacity of 100 metric tonnes per year in Western Australia. Gallium has several military applications, primarily in high-tech electronics such as radar and satellite communications. The material is also used as an alloy to stabilise nuclear weapons components and in aluminium-gallium alloys for the production of hydrogen bombs for thermonuclear warfare.

The original source of this article is Pangea.

The post War and Business. Peace Negotiations Are ‘A Waste of Time’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

It might succeed in terms of optics, but this won’t make any substantive difference in reality.

The US’ latest sanctions against Russia, the first under the second Trump Administration, are intended less as a weapon against the Russian economy and more as a means of weaponizing energy geopolitics in a bid to break apart BRICS, especially its Russia, India, China (RIC) core. This assessment is based on India and China’s close trade ties with the US in spite of its respective 50% and 55% tariffs on them, their continued rivalry despite their incipient rapprochement, and their triangulation with Russia.

In the order that they were shared, India’s and China’s trade with the US is much larger than their trade with Russia, but Russia importantly supplies a significant share of their energy. While neither wants to pay more for oil, however, the overall costs of the US raising its tariffs on them as punishment for defying its latest sanctions as well as the secondary ones that could be leveled against those of their financial institutions that facilitate this trade might be even more. This could arguably compel them to reconsider.

As for the second point, being in better graces with the US than the other is with it serves their interests vis-à-vis one another since neither wants to risk the scenario of their rival teaming up with the US against them, which could have strategic implications. They might therefore calculate that they have more to lose by defying the US in pursuit of lower oil prices and retaining closer ties with Russia if the other doesn’t too so it’s better to comply. This amounts to a weaponization of the prisoner’s dilemma.

Building upon the above, the last point is that each might have accordingly calculated that their rival won’t obtain better ties with Russia at their feared expense so long as both of them informally comply in part (key qualifier) with the US’ latest sanctions, which each might do in spite of publicly criticizing them. As it turns out, they were already decreasing purchases of Russian oil even before the sanctions, with India’s dropping 14% from August to September and China’s 8.1% in the first nine months of the year.

No matter how compelling these points might seem, nobody should assume that India and/or China will totally stop importing Russian energy, let alone right away. There simply isn’t enough supply on the market right now for them to do so. Even if others ramp up production, those two might still only gradually wean themselves off of Russian energy, which would then likely be sold at an even steeper discount to incentivize them to retain some purchases. Everything will therefore likely balance itself out.

Nevertheless, the US could still highlight India’s and China’s reduced imports under duress (the first’s confirmed by its top buyer and the second’s only reported) to debunk the BRICS myth of them all (especially RIC) working in harmony against the US, which Trump has complained about before. It doesn’t matter that such information warfare would have no tangible effect on global processes since all that’s important to Trump is the perception of the US having broken BRICS’ (and especially RIC’s) unity.

On that note, Russia’s special operation wouldn’t be curtailed even in the political fantasy that India and China soon dump its energy for good since the Kremlin has a big enough war chest to keep financing its side of the conflict for at least the next few years, though this might come with some opportunity costs. The takeaway is that the US is indeed weaponizing energy geopolitics in a bid to break apart BRICS, which it might succeed with in terms of optics, but this won’t make any substantive difference in reality.

This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

The post The US Is Weaponizing Energy Geopolitics in a Bid To Break Apart BRICS appeared first on LewRockwell.

In Wednesday’s episode of The Peter Schiff Show, Peter concentrates on the fallout from gold breaking $4,000 and what that means for the dollar, monetary policy, and crypto. He ties the metal’s surge to the structural consequences of the dollar’s reserve status, calls out surprising admissions from big-name financiers and former Fed officials, and argues that Bitcoin’s “digital gold” story is unraveling.

He opens by noting how the media finally pays attention once a price gets headline-grabbing, even if they miss the deeper story about why gold is rising:

Well, it’s been one week since I did my last podcast and when I did my last podcast, it was also on a Wednesday and what prompted me to do it that day was the fact that it was the first day that gold broke 4000 and there was a lot of media attention. And of course, they missed the bigger picture as to why gold was at 4000 and what it pretended. But they did cover it. The media had pretty much ignored gold all the way up to 4000. But when it got there, all of a sudden it was a bit of a story.

He then explains why $4,000 gold is more than a price milestone — it’s a symptom of deeper reliance on the dollar’s special role and on fiat money creation:

And this probably has even bigger implications for us than going off the gold standard did either for them or us, because our entire economy, our entire way of life over that time period has evolved to become dependent on the dollar’s reserve status, dollars that we can create out of thin air. Not that we have to back by gold or anything. We just conjure them into existence. And we use those dollars to buy consumer goods that we don’t produce. So we get to live beyond our means.

He highlights how even mainstream bankers are conceding that gold’s run is not a trivial matter, pointing to Jamie Dimon’s blunt acknowledgment:

Probably one of the most significant admissions that I’ve heard was from Jamie Dimon, who is a highly respected guy. And Jamie Dimon was quoted as saying gold can easily go to 10,000. And I agree it can easily go to 10,000, and it very well will go to 10,000 and a lot higher than that. But here is the more significant aspect of the Jamie Dimon quote. Jamie Dimon said, quote, “This is one of the few times in my life, it’s semi rational to have some gold in your portfolio.”

Peter also recounts an extraordinary candor from a former Fed chair, using it to question the credibility of official narratives during crisis periods:

But no, that’s not what Ben Bernanke said. He said, and I, I’m not making this up. He said, well, you know, to be honest, I really couldn’t speak my mind back then because I was part of the, the, the Bush administration. And so I had to maintain the narrative that the administration, you know, was advancing, which I, you know, I couldn’t believe that he said this. So basically Ben Bernanke’s excuse for why he was so wrong wasn’t that he got it wrong and that he wasn’t smart.

He reminds listeners that any praise for Alan Greenspan must be honest about Greenspan’s own warnings on gold and loose policy, and he calls out commentators who dismiss the metal today:

So if you’re going to praise Alan Greenspan, you can’t just selectively praise him. You can’t ignore what he said about gold. So what would Alan Greenspan say today in the face of $4,000 gold? He wouldn’t dismiss it the way Scott Bessent is dismissing it. He would say $4,000 gold means monetary policy is much too loose because Alan Greenspan said $400 gold meant he was too loose.

Finally, Peter pivots to crypto and argues that gold’s rise is actively puncturing the narrative that Bitcoin is a superior store of value — a point listeners in the crypto world should take seriously:

The people in crypto, I think, have already lost a ton of money. They just don’t know it yet. Gold is not just pricking the dollar bubble. It’s pricking the Bitcoin bubble. The whole false narrative that Bitcoin is digital gold is being destroyed right now. Bitcoin is in a major bear market; it is down by more than 25%. 

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

The post Gold Pricks the Bitcoin Bubble appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Adam Dick 

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

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-costo-nascosto-dellistruzione)

Il modello universitario europeo è spesso visto come un trionfo della società moderna. Senza tasse universitarie esorbitanti, con un debito studentesco minimo e la promessa di pari accesso, sembra la soluzione ideale. In Paesi come Germania e Francia gli studenti pagano solo una piccola quota amministrativa, in genere tra i $200 e i $500 all'anno, rispetto ai costi di iscrizione esorbitanti degli Stati Uniti o del Regno Unito. Molti ricevono anche aiuti finanziari sotto forma di borse di studio che non devono essere rimborsate, o prestiti a basso interesse in base alle necessità.

Ma dietro le promesse di equità e opportunità si nasconde un sistema che troppo spesso è rigido, sovraffollato e poco stimolante.

Nonostante l'accessibilità, la realtà di doversi orientare in queste istituzioni può far sentire gli studenti come se fossero solo un numero in una gigantesca macchina burocratica.

Quando l'istruzione è accessibile a tutti, le università si riempiono. Le aule sono sovraffollate e il contatto personale con i professori diventa raro. In molti Paesi europei è normale frequentare le lezioni con centinaia di altri studenti. C'è poco spazio per discussioni, feedback, o persino domande.

Ti siedi, prendi appunti, vieni promosso o bocciato. Sembra più una catena di montaggio che un luogo di apprendimento. E i numeri spiegano il perché. Nel 2022 l'Unione Europea contava 18,8 milioni di studenti, circa il 7% della sua popolazione totale, iscritti all'istruzione terziaria. Negli Stati Uniti circa  19,1 milioni di persone si sono iscritte all'università durante l'anno accademico 2024-25. Oltre a cifre di iscrizione simili, sia l'UE che gli Stati Uniti hanno reso l'istruzione superiore ampiamente accessibile. Nell'UE, dove le tasse universitarie sono spesso infime o fortemente sovvenzionate, l'istruzione superiore viene ampliata per accogliere la maggioranza. Nel 2022 il 44% dei cittadini dell'UE di età compresa tra 25 e 34 anni aveva completato un corso di laurea, rispetto al 50% negli Stati Uniti.

I due sistemi differiscono nella struttura. Ciò che li distingue non è il numero di studenti, ma il modo in cui viene erogata l'istruzione. Le università europee tendono a basarsi su lezioni di grandi dimensioni, percorsi di studio rigidi e una limitata competizione istituzionale. Il risultato è un modello costruito sulla fredda efficienza piuttosto che sull'individualismo. Le istituzioni statunitensi, al contrario, operano in un ambiente competitivo e decentralizzato, con una gamma più ampia di strutture accademiche, inclusi college più piccoli e una progettazione dei programmi più flessibile.

Quando l'istruzione superiore è dimensionata per servire quasi tutti, come in gran parte d'Europa, si rischia di barattare la profondità con la capacità di elaborazione e la personalizzazione con la comodità amministrativa. Alla fin fine funziona lo stesso, ma a costo di trattare l'istruzione meno come un percorso e più come un processo burocratico.

A causa di questa scala il sistema si basa fortemente sulla standardizzazione. I programmi sono progettati per soddisfare le esigenze della maggioranza, il che significa che spesso non lasciano spazio a chi pensa o impara in modo diverso. Questa rigidità non inizia all'ingresso dell'università. In Paesi come Germania e Francia gli studenti vengono indirizzati verso percorsi accademici, o professionali, già a partire dagli 11 o 12 anni. Se non si viene inseriti nel percorso giusto in quel momento, le possibilità di accedere all'università in seguito possono ridursi drasticamente. Di conseguenza quando gli studenti accedono all'istruzione superiore sono già stati incanalati in un sistema che limita la crescita personale, la sperimentazione e le seconde possibilità.

Questa rigidità produce qualcosa di più profondo della semplice frustrazione. Crea una cultura del conformismo. Ci si aspetta che gli studenti seguano il percorso ufficiale, finiscano in tempo e non facciano troppo rumore. Fallire o impiegare più tempo per laurearsi è visto come una debolezza, anche se il processo di tentativi ed errori è essenziale per un apprendimento autentico. L'idea di esplorare diverse discipline o di fermarsi a riflettere è raro che sia incoraggiata. Il successo si misura in base all'efficienza con cui si completa il programma, non in base a quanto si scopre su sé stessi o sul mondo.

Di conseguenza la creatività si perde. Gli studenti che vogliono correre rischi, provare cose nuove, o porre domande scomode finiscono per trovare scarso supporto. I professori spesso non hanno tempo per fare da mentore ai singoli studenti. Gli studenti hanno una scelta limitata su cosa studiare, o come affrontarlo. In questo sistema l'obiettivo non è ispirare, ma produrre.

Ora confrontate tutto questo con sistemi in cui la competizione e la scelta sono più centrali. Negli Stati Uniti gli studenti possono scegliere liberamente il proprio percorso di studi, cambiare indirizzo, o persino prendersi del tempo libero senza penalità. Nel Regno Unito le università competono per accaparrarsi gli studenti, spingendole a offrire programmi più innovativi e un insegnamento migliore. Questi modelli sono tutt'altro che perfetti, soprattutto in termini di costi, ma spesso offrono più spazio alla crescita personale, al pensiero indipendente e alla libertà accademica.

Non si tratta di un invito a ripristinare tasse universitarie elevate. L'istruzione dovrebbe essere accessibile, ma l'accessibilità da sola non garantisce la qualità. Il modello europeo spesso rinuncia alla flessibilità in favore dell'accesso; è costruito per servire tutti allo stesso modo, il che significa che fatica a servire bene chiunque.

Non è sempre stato così. Con l'apertura delle università europee al grande pubblico nel XX secolo, l'esigenza di efficienza portò a strutture rigide e programmi di studio standardizzati. Quello che un tempo era un sistema per pochi privilegiati divenne una catena di montaggio per milioni di persone. Per contestualizzare il concetto per i lettori americani: la maggior parte degli studenti europei paga meno di $500 all'anno in tasse universitarie. A titolo di confronto, mentre le università statunitensi hanno una media di oltre $38.000 all'anno, la maggior parte degli studenti americani frequenta istituti più accessibili, con tasse universitarie statali che si aggirano in media sui $10.000 in quelle pubbliche e sui $3.000 nei community college.

Prendiamo ad esempio la Svezia. Molti studenti non iniziano l'università prima dei vent'anni, in parte perché il sistema offre pochi incentivi a iniziare prima. Una volta iscritti, i percorsi accademici sono stretti e cambiare direzione è difficile.

In Italia gli studenti spesso rimangono all'università per molti anni. Non perché siano eccessivamente curiosi o appassionati, ma perché il sistema è obsoleto e lento. I tassi di abbandono sono alti e le lauree hanno scarso peso nel mercato del lavoro.

E in Francia alcune delle scuole più prestigiose non fanno affatto parte del sistema universitario pubblico. Le Grandes Écoles sono a pagamento, più selettive e offrono un'istruzione più personalizzata. Ironia della sorte sono considerate migliori proprio perché non seguono il modello “libero per tutti”.

La verità è che la vera libertà educativa significa molto più che eliminare le tasse universitarie. Significa permettere agli studenti di esplorare, fallire, cambiare e trovare la propria strada. Significa incoraggiare l'innovazione e premiare la curiosità. E sì, significa permettere ai sistemi di competere ed evolversi.

Il sistema educativo europeo è motivo di orgoglio, ma quest'ultimo non dovrebbe impedire le riforme. Dobbiamo porci domande più difficili: stiamo costruendo istituzioni che siano davvero al servizio degli studenti, o stiamo semplicemente creando macchine che trattano tutti allo stesso modo?

Se l'istruzione deve preparare le persone al futuro, allora dobbiamo assicurarci che i nostri sistemi siano sufficientemente flessibili da crescere con essi. Quando si forzano tutti a conformarsi allo stesso schema, si rischia di distruggere proprio ciò che rende l'istruzione potente: la capacità di pensare in modo diverso.

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

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Murray Rothbard’s view of the origins of World War II has an important lesson for us today. Many people today think that a non-interventionist foreign policy is unrealistic.  Neocons always cry out “Hitler!” if you resist their demands for all-out war. “Hitler openly avowed his plan to conquer the world in Mein Kampf! How can you ‘isolationists’ ignore that!” Rothbard had a simple answer to this.

He said that history doesn’t follow a predetermined plan. Historical actors respond to events as they occur in time. They may have ideas about what they want to do, but once something actually comes up, the situation will have many details that they didn’t anticipate, and they will have to react on the spur of the moment.

He found support for his view in a book written by the British historian A.J. P. Taylor in 1961, The Origins of the Second World War. In a memo written for the Volker Fund, he said: “The central theme of Taylor is simply this: Germany and Hitler were not uniquely guilty of launching World War II (indeed they were scarcely guilty at all); Hitler was not bent on world conquest, for which he had armed Germany to the teeth and constructed a ‘timetable.’ Hitler, in brief, (in foreign affairs) was not a uniquely evil monster or daimon, who would continue to gobble up countries diabolically until stopped by superior force. Hitler was a rational German statesman, pursuing — with considerable intuitive insight — a traditional, post-Versailles German policy (to which we might add intimations of desires to expand eastward in an attack on Bolshevism). But basically, Hitler has no ‘master plan’; he was a German intent, like all Germans, on revising the intolerable and stupid Versailles-diktat, and on doing so by peaceful means, and in collaboration with the British and French. One thing is sure: Hitler had no designs, no plans, not even vague intimations, to expand westward against Britain and France (let alone the United States). Hitler admired the British Empire and wished to collaborate with it. Not only did Hitler do this with insight, he did it with patience, as Taylor excellently shows; the legend (that perhaps all of us have accepted in one degree or another), is that Hitler annoyingly created one European crisis after another, in the late 1930s, proceeding hungrily onward from one victory to another; actually, the crises naturally arose, were developed from external conditions (largely from the breakup of the inherently unstable conditions imposed by the Versailles-diktat), and by others, and which Hitler patiently awaited the outcome to use to his and Germany’s advantage.”

Of course, Rothbard didn’t doubt that Hitler was monstrously evil. But he thought it was a mistake to infer that an evil person or regime must have an aggressive foreign policy.

The first step in Hitler’s alleged master plan was the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, but in fact this wasn’t planned. Hitler had reached an agreement with the Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, with Schuschnigg violated. As Rothbard explains: “Schuschnigg, was happy to conclude a Gentleman’s Agreement with Germany, in July 1936, in which he acknowledged that Austria was a ‘German State,’ and agreed to admit Nazis as members of his government. In return, Hitler acknowledged Austrian ‘sovereignty,’ and contentedly believed that Austria was now a kind of subordinate state to Germany and that the Austrian Nazis would gradually, and peacefully, gain control of Austria. This, indeed, was the rational thing to expect from such an agreement. No coercive Anschluss or dramatic marching of German troops was contemplated.”

But then Schuschnigg precipitated a crisis and only then did Hitler act: “Schuschnigg, in effect, repudiated the voluntary Berchtesgaden Agreement of February 12, 1938. Suddenly, after two years of rational appeasement, he decided on a ‘tough’ line; he decided to hurl a challenge to Hitler by dramatically announcing an Austrian plebiscite on Austrian independence, to be held almost immediately.”

In like fashion, the next step in Hitler’s alleged master plan, the takeover of Czechoslovakia, also came about by accident. “The Germans living in the Sudetenland wanted action: they were not responding to Hitler’s orders: The Germans were particularly unhappy at being plunged from co-partners in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to sufferers under the Czechs. The Anschluss electrified them, and the Czech crisis was on. [Czech President Eduard] Benes deliberately provoked the Sudeten Germans into demanding a transfer to Germany and not just autonomy, frontiers.”

The Munich Conference settlement allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland, after that the Czech state collapsed: “Benes saw this, and skipped the country, from then on to proclaim against ‘appeasement’ from a safe sanctuary. The Poles moved in on Tesin; the Hungarians, bitterly smarting from the Versailles-like Treaty of Trianon, moved in. Finally, the Slovaks, taking their cue, declared their much yearned-for independence. The Czechs, turning tough yet once more, prepared to march on Slovakia, whereupon Hitler recognized Slovak independence, to save Slovakia from the Czechs and Hungarians. The Czechs were now left with their own true section of Bohemia; surrounded by enemies, and faced with a Hungarian threat, Hacha, president of the Czechs, again voluntarily sought an audience with Hitler, and requested Hitler to adopt Bohemia as a protectorate. And yet, the world again saw this as a ‘betrayal’ of Munich, German ruthless invasion of a noble, small country, etc. Again, Hitler had not bargained for open invasion, but only for slow, evolutionary disintegration of Czechoslovakia; events again presented him with (overly) dramatic gains.”

The last step in the alleged master-plan was the invasion of Poland, but once again Hitler had moderate goals until the Polish government forced his hand: “[Polish Foreign Minister Josef]Beck, though initially allied with Germany, elected to stand alone, a Great Power, triumphantly defiant of both Germany and Russia, taking a resolutely ‘tough,’ firm line against anybody and everybody. And as a direct result, Poland was destroyed. Hitler’s “demands” on the Poles were almost non-existent; as Taylor points out, the Weimar Republic would have scorned the terms as a sell-out of vital German interests. Hitler at most wanted a ‘corridor through the Corridor’ and the return of heavily-German (and pro-German) Danzig; in return for which he would guarantee the rest. Poland resolutely refused to yield ‘one inch of Polish soil,”’ and refused even to negotiate with the Germans, and this down to the last minute. And yet, even with the Anglo-French guarantee, Beck clearly knew that Britain and France could not actually save Poland from attack. He relied to the end on those great shibboleths of all ‘hard-liners’ everywhere: X is ‘bluffing’; X will back down if met by toughness, resolution, and the resolve not to give an inch. As Taylor shows, Hitler had originally not the slightest intention to invade or conquer Poland; instead, Danzig and other minor rectifications would be gotten out of the way, and then Poland would be a comfortable ally, perhaps for an eventual invasion of Soviet Russia. But Beck’s irrational toughness blocked the path.”

Rothbard sums up the lessons we can learn from Taylor’s book in this way: “There are two further, amplifying general observations of importance which I am moved to by this scintillating book. One is the perniciousness of the typical ‘hard line’ mythology, a mythology that has been especially beloved in the United States and Great Britain. It is a mythology that has consistently failed and consistently plunged these ‘great democracies’ into one war after another. This is the mythology of conceiving the enemy as, not only a “bad” guy; but a bad guy cast in the mold of Fu Manchu or someone from Mars. The bad guy is out, for some obscure reason, to conquer the world, or at the very least, to conquer as much as he can keep conquering. This is his only goal. He can be stopped only by force majeure, i.e., by ‘standing firm’ on a ‘tough line.’ In short, while irredeemably evil, the Bad Guy is a craven at heart; and if the noble Good Guy only stands his ground, the Bad Guy, like any bully, will turn tail. Rather than Fu Manchu, then, the Enemy is a Fu Manchu at heart but with all the other characteristics of the Corner Bully, or of a movie Western. ‘We’ are the Good Guys, interested only in justice and self-defense who need only stand our ground to face down the wicked but cravenly bluffing Bad Guys. This is the almost idiotic Morality Play in which Americans and Britons have cast international relations for half a century now, and that is why we are in the mess we are today. Nowhere in this Copybook nonsense is it every conceived that (a) the Bad Guy might be afraid of our attacking him (But Good Guys never attack, by definition!); or (b) that the Bad Guy might, in his foreign policy demands, have a pretty good and just case after all — or at least, that he believes his case to be good and just; or (c) that, faced with the defiance, the Bad Guy might consider it loss of self-respect if he backed down — and so two war. Let us all give up this childlike game of international relations, and begin to consider a policy of rationality, peace, and honest negotiation.

“The second general observation is that Eastern Europe seems to have been the cockpit — and in tragic folly — of every major war of the twentieth century: World Wars I and II, and the Cold War. Eastern Europe, as I have indicated above, is a land of many teeming nationalities, almost all small and divided. The reality of Eastern Europe is that it is always fated to be dominated by either Germany or Russia, or both. If East European politicians are to be rational, they must realize this and understand their fated subservience to one or both of these two Power; and, if there is to be peace in Eastern Europe, both Germany and Russia must be friends.

“Now don’t misunderstand me; I have not abandoned moral principle for cynicism. My heart yearns for ethnic justice, for national self-determination for all people, not only in Eastern Europe but all over the world. I am a non-Ukrainian who would like nothing better than to see a majestic independent ethnic Ukraine, or of Byelorussia; I would to see and independent Slovakia, or a just settlement, at long last, of the knotty Transylvanian question. I still worry over whether Macedonia should properly be independent, or should be united to their presumably ethnic brothers in Bulgaria. But, to paraphrase Sydney Smith’s famous letter to Lady Grey, please let them work this out for themselves! Let us abandon the criminal immorality and folly of continual coercive meddling by non-East European powers (e.g., Britain, France, and now the U.S.) in the affairs of East Europe. Let us hope that one day Germany and Russia, at peach, will willingly grant justice to the people of East Europe, but let us not bring about perpetual wars to try to achieve this artificially.

“I cannot refrain from quoting Smith’s famous passage, so a propos is it “I am sorry for the Spaniards — I am sorry for the Greeks; I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranny; Baghdad is oppressed; I do not like the present state of the Delta; Tibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all these people? The world is bursting with sin and sorrow. Am I to be a champion of the Decalogue, and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and happy? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid that the consequence will be, that we shall cut each other’s throats. No war, dear Lady Grey! — No eloquence; but apathy, selfishness, common sense, arithmetic! … ‘May the vengeance of Heaven’ overtake the Legitimates of Verona! But in the present state of rent and taxes, they must be left to the vengeance of Heaven. … There is no such thing as a ‘just war,’ or, at least, as a wise war.”

Let’s do everything we can to absorb the lessons Rothbard taught us about how World War II began!

The post Murray Rothbard and World War II Origins appeared first on LewRockwell.

Iran’s national security is severely endangered by Israel and the United States, and there has long been speculation as to whether Russia will be involved on the side of Iran if yet another invasion is made against Iran by the U.S. and/or Israel. Apparently, that speculation is now over, because Russia has finally committed itself to defending Iran against the countries that seek to destroy it.

“Andrei Martyanov: It’s All OVER! Iran & Russia Go FULL FORCE to WIPE OUT All Threats”

23 October 2025

That conversation about the Middle East starts at 32:14. Martyanov argues that Putin did not at all sell out to the former leader of ISIS and of Al Qaeda in Syria, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, when that jihadist leader, for the first time ever, met with Putin at The Kremlin on October 15th, but instead Putin agreed to provide Jolani’s Syria protection against further Israeli encroachments upon Syrian territory. If this is true, then Putin is even more joining with Iran against Israel than before. Martyanov makes some rather startling allegations that Putin has decided to go all-in to protect Iran against Israel.

Here is the report from Iran’s Borna News on October 23rd:

——

https://borna.news/en/news/1938/iran-and-russia-at-the-heart-of-the-new-order-a-strategic-response-to-western-hegemonys-decline

https://archive.ph/ybQ4a

“Iran and Russia at the Heart of the New Order: A Strategic Response to Western Hegemony’s Decline”

2025/10/23

In the face of the accelerating decline of unipolar hegemony and the intensification of Western sanction pressures, the relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation has entered the phase of a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” This deep convergence is no longer a temporary or purely tactical reaction, but a high-level political decision whose ultimate goal is the engineering of a new, multipolar world order and the strengthening of decision-making independence at the heart of Eurasia.

Tehran – BORNA – In an era where the international system is witnessing fundamental transformations, shifts in the centers of power, and the gradual decline of traditional Western hegemony, concepts such as “strategic partnership” and “interest-based alliances” are undergoing redefinition. Amidst this, the relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, as two independent and influential powers in the Eurasian expanse, has transcended the level of conventional bilateral cooperation. This partnership is evolving into the backbone of an emerging regional and global new order, fundamentally built upon multilateralism and independence in decision-making.

Recent statements by senior officials of the two countries, especially the explicit emphasis by “Dmitry Peskov,” the Kremlin Spokesperson, that “Iran is our partner, and our relationship is developing very dynamically” and that “we are ready to expand cooperation in all fields,” are not merely a diplomatic courtesy or a temporary tactic. Rather, they serve as a clear manifesto for a new era of deep convergence.

Dimensions of the Partnership: A Multi-Layered Convergence

The dynamic nature of these relations manifests at three core levels, challenging all analyses that dismiss this cooperation as purely tactical:

Horizontal Expansion and Comprehensive Cooperation: This level signifies the extension of cooperation across all fields. The wide spectrum of activities ranges from complex military and technical cooperation to mega-economic projects like the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and from security coordination in counter-terrorism to cooperation in energy, cultural, and scientific exchanges. This comprehensiveness not only suggests the resolution of past hesitations but also indicates an acceleration in the implementation of these collaborations.

Vertical Deepening and Strategic Partnership: The relationship has moved beyond ad-hoc coordination to the level of long-term infrastructural investments. Iran’s full accession to organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS Plus alongside Russia has elevated the strategic depth of the relationship from a transactional nature to a stable regional and global partnership.

Resilience to Sanctions: This dynamism has emerged precisely amidst the most intense foreign pressures against Tehran and Moscow. This clearly demonstrates a shared political will to neutralize Western pressures through the deepening of bilateral cooperation. This resilience is practical proof that these relations are not contingent upon the approval of Western powers. The partnership is a deliberate choice to de-link their economies and defense capabilities from Western financial and security architecture.

Engineering the New Order: Pillars of Collaboration

The commitment to a new order is fundamentally supported by tangible, high-impact cooperation in key sectors:

A. Strategic Economic Infrastructure: The INSTC Catalyst

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) project holds vital importance, transcending its purely commercial value. This corridor, which spans continents and connects the port of Mumbai in the Indian Ocean to St. Petersburg in the Baltic Sea, is not merely aiming to reduce transit time and costs compared to the traditional Suez Canal route; it is a long-term geopolitical commitment. The two nations view the INSTC as a strategic artery that will not only boost their bilateral trade volumes—which remain below potential—but will fundamentally reshape global supply chains, bypassing Western-controlled maritime routes. Iran and Russia are jointly investing in and developing this crucial multimodal artery (rail, road, and sea) to establish a strategic leverage against hostile Western strategies and secure resilient economic development. This initiative positions Iran as the central transit hub in the region, demanding significant shared investment in railway infrastructure, customs harmonization, and digital payment systems to ensure its seamless operation. The successful activation and expansion of the INSTC are direct steps towards creating an economic counter-pole to the Western global financial system.

B. Advanced Military and Technical Cooperation

The signs of this strategic partnership are particularly evident in sensitive areas, especially military and technical cooperation. Recent remarks by Iranian officials regarding Russia having “no limitations on military and technical cooperation with Tehran” complete the picture. It has been emphasized that the trend of Iran-Russia cooperation is growing in all fields, and the existence of crucial foundational agreements, such as the 20-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Document, transforms these relations into a strategic partnership rooted in mutual trust and a long-term vision.

These collaborations, particularly following the expiration of arms restrictions under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, have acquired new dimensions. Moscow explicitly frames its defense and technology cooperation with Tehran within the bounds of international law and bilateral commitments, viewing it as a step toward strengthening Iran’s defensive and deterrent capabilities. The equipment imported is primarily in the areas of air defense, aerial defense systems, and cyber technologies, aiming to enhance defense capabilities in modern, electronic warfare. This technical and defense collaboration is not limited to mere arms trade; it often involves co-production agreements, technology transfer, and shared training programs, significantly enhancing the defensive autonomy of both nations against potential external aggression. This depth of cooperation signals a shared commitment to regional security that is independent of—and often in defiance of—Western security frameworks.

Diplomatic Alignment and Countering Western Non-Compliance

In the realm of diplomacy, Russia’s stance on the JCPOA aligns profoundly with that of Iran. The Kremlin spokesperson, in noting the “very complex situation” surrounding the JCPOA, explicitly identifies the unconstructive position of the European Union as the factor that exacerbates the crisis. This position re-emphasizes that the current crisis is not one of Iranian nuclear activities, but a crisis of Western non-compliance and broken promises.

This position is a key element of the joint strategy to dismantle the legal and political foundation of Western pressure. By supporting Iran’s legitimate rights and rejecting the notion of “excessive pressure on independent Iran,” Russia undercuts the Western narrative of isolation.

Furthermore, Moscow’s firm support for Iran’s national sovereignty and its rejection of any unlawful pressure has not been merely verbal, but has been demonstrated in the diplomatic arena. Russia’s resolute standing alongside Tehran in the UN Security Council against the West’s erroneous interpretations of Resolution 2231 and attempts to re-impose sanctions is a powerful political tool and a testament to this commitment. This diplomatic alignment ensures that Western attempts at multilateral pressure are frequently paralyzed, allowing the bilateral relationship to flourish outside the shadow of global hegemonic oversight.

The strategic relations between Iran and Russia are not a short-term, tactical deal; they are a joint investment for a more stable and just future in the region and the world. This partnership is a natural and intelligent response to a changing global landscape. The message is clear: the era of unilateralism and the imposition of will has ended, and Iran and Russia, as two strategic and pivotal partners in Eurasia, will play a key role in engineering a new world order based on multilateralism and shared security.

——

MY COMMENTS: Martyanov explained the military details of this new relationship between Iran and Russia.

Also on October 23rd, Trump, for the first time ever, publicly stated that there is a possibility that the U.S. Government will cease supporting Israel. Trump told TIME magazine:

TIME: You told Netanyahu you will not allow him to annex the West Bank. There are still forces in his coalition who are pressing for it. I’m just wondering what, what are the consequences if they move forward?

TRUMP: It won’t happen. It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can’t do that now. We’ve had great Arab support. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.

Trump will allow Israel to exterminate the Gazans (with American weapons), but will NOT allow Israel to declare the West Bank to be Israeli territory. Apparently, this is the policy of the heads-of-state in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and UAE. And Trump represents them, even if this will mean that the U.S. will abandon Israel. Whether Trump really means this is questionable; many people think that Israel controls America, not America controls Israel. Furthermore Trump routinely lies, and he routinely reverses his prior policy; so, he has no coherent policy. But anyway, this is what he promised on October 23rd

This article was originally published on Eric’s Substack.

The post Russia Now Commits Itself To Protect Iran. appeared first on LewRockwell.

While diplomats labored to produce the Dayton Accords in 1995, then-Secretary of Defense Bill Perry advised, “No agreement is better than a bad agreement.” Given that Washington’s allies in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw are opposed to any outcome that might end the war in Ukraine, no agreement may be preferable. But for President Trump, there is no point in equating the illusion of peace in Ukraine with a meaningless ceasefire that settles nothing.

Today, Ukraine is mired in corruption, starting at the very highest levels of the administration in Kyiv. Sending $175 billion of borrowed money there “for however long it takes” has turned out to be worse than reckless. The U.S. national sovereign debt is surging to nearly $38 trillion and rising by $425 billion with each passing month. President Trump needs to turn his attention away from funding Joe Biden’s wars and instead focus on the faltering American economy.

President Trump should make it clear that the Biden administration’s determination to help build a Ukrainian military establishment designed to wage offensive war against Russia rather than engage in the diplomacy necessary to avoid it before 2022 was a serious strategic error. Washington’s European allies are fundamentally wrong when they insist that Moscow had no right to challenge an existential threat from NATO on its border. Without the decades-long project of transferring technology, advice and cash to Ukraine, the threat to Russia in Ukraine might not have emerged.

President Trump’s recent decision to reexamine the wisdom of shipping Tomahawk missiles for use in Ukraine is a step in the right direction. Just as Washington has legitimate interests in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin, it is time for Washington to recognize Moscow’s legitimate national security interests in regards to Ukraine and NATO member states in its own backyard. It is also time for Europe and the U.S. to realize that stability in the region is of everyone’s interest, and that means not encouraging, through endless war, a failed state in Ukraine.

Hopefully, President Trump was finally briefed on America’s missile inventory. His reticence to send Tomahawks that cannot operate without American mission planning and execution suggests that he and his staff may have also asked for the status of more vital missile systems such as the family of Standard Missiles. The exact numbers for the American missile inventory are unknown, but President Trump should demand detailed answers.

It’s also vital for him to understand that regardless of how much pressure he exerts on America’s defense industrial base to increase production, timelines for delivery will not change much. Wars are fought with precision strike weapons. The side with the most missiles on hand at the outset stands an excellent chance of prevailing. The side with too few will lose.

American military power is in a state of decline that will require a decade or more to reverse. In pursuit of true military strength, President Trump should not conflate the eagerness of his senior military leaders to comply with his policies or ideas as evidence of loyalty, professionalism or agreement. In Washington, DC, there is never a shortage of sycophantic, blowhard generals and admirals whose own experience with real war is at best at a cocktail level of familiarity.

General Christopher Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, achieved notoriety when he stated in June of this year that U.S. and NATO Forces could capture Russia’s heavily fortified Kaliningrad region “in a timeframe that is unheard of.” Perhaps, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or President Trump welcomed these statements. Emotions often play a larger role in national decision-making than they should. However, generals who publicly broadcast claims of military supremacy should be treated with skepticism. It has happened before.

After the outbreak of the Korean War, Major General (MG) Dean, the 24th Infantry Division Commander, insisted that his men “had merely to make an appearance on the battlefield and the North Korean People’s Army would melt into the hills.” According to the historian Max Hastings, when the North Koreans attacked Dean’s division, the resulting rout “resembled the collapse of the French Army in 1940 and the British at Singapore in 1942.”

General Paul Harkins, the American Commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam, confidently predicted victory for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in its war with the Viet Cong by Christmas 1963. Described as an “American General with a swagger stick and cigarette holder,” General Harkins simply reported the defeat of South Vietnamese forces in the Battle of Ap Bac during January 1963 as a victory. Harkins understood the message Washington wanted to receive and he delivered it.

Read the Whole Article

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Reports that critical race theory is over have been greatly exaggerated. CRT is very much still around, although it has been so discredited since some states took measures to ban it that few social justice activists, if any, will now admit to being critical race theorists. They know that describing themselves as critical race theorists will not be favorably regarded, and so they will often deny that there is even such a thing as CRT. This makes them even more dangerous, because they continue promoting the destructive tenets of CRT disguised as social justice. It may therefore be helpful to consider in more detail what is meant when an argument is described as CRT.

A helpful analysis is offered by Jeffrey J. Pyle in his article “Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theory’s Attack on the Promises of Liberalism,” published in the Boston College Law Review. For context, as readers might expect from a Boston law review, the author is broadly sympathetic with the aims of CRT but believes it has failed because, instead of aligning itself with the principles of liberalism, it attacks the foundations of liberalism. Pyle believes the “race-crits,” as he calls them, have erred by being so irrational that even their sympathetic liberal friends are reluctant to help them. He complains that the excesses of the race-crits “alienate potentially helpful whites.” He adds that “my disagreement with race-crits has less to do with their long-term goals than with their diagnoses and solutions.” If they would only avoid these errors, they might have more white allies. Thus, as reflected in the title, his main aim is to defend liberalism from the CRT attack:

“Critique,” however, never built anything, and liberalism, for all its shortcomings, is at least constructive. It provides broadly-accepted, reasonably well-defined principles to which political advocates may appeal in ways that transcend sheer power, with at least some hope of incremental success. Critical race theory would “deconstruct” this imperfect tradition, but offers nothing in its place.

Keeping that context in mind, Pyle’s analysis is nevertheless very helpful for purposes of identifying CRT. To be clear, the aim here, in drawing upon his analysis, is not to “debunk” or “debate” CRT but to outline its main attributes for purposes of identifying a race-crit when you encounter one in the wild.

Racial Subordination

First, CRT is always concerned with some form of “racial subordination.” The main blame for subordination is not placed on anyone in particular, but on what are often described as institutions, systems, or structures.

CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.

As Pyle explains, race-crits believe racism “lies at the very heart of American – and Western – culture.” Racism is pervasive and immutable, and “everyone is either an ‘outsider’ or an ‘insider,’ a ‘victim’ or a ‘perpetrator’” of racism—not necessarily through anything they have thought, said, or done, but based on the status they occupy in the system. Race-crits “view American society as a zero-sum conflict between powerful white males and powerless minorities.” How do the race-crits know this? Well, knowledge is “socially constructed,” so they know this by having constructed a theory that explains it. As their knowledge is derived from their theory and not from empirical observation, the truth of their tenets is not dependent on any objective evidence or proof. They believe all knowledge is “inherently subjective, contingent and immune to objective evaluation.” Further, all knowledge derived from the application of this theory is “autobiographical and group-based.” Race-crits see “objective evaluation” as merely the subjective preference of white people or—if performed by black people—the subjective preference of the black face of white supremacy as reflected in the infamous “Uncle Tom.” For example, Clarence Thomas is described by Derrick Bell in his article “Racial Realism” as follows:

The addition of Judge Clarence Thomas to that Court, as the replacement for Justice Thurgood Marshall, is likely to add deep insult to the continuing injury inflicted on civil rights advocates. The cut is particularly unkind because the choice of a black like Clarence Thomas replicates the slave masters’ practice of elevating to overseer and other positions of quasi-power those slaves willing to mimic the masters’ views, carry out orders, and by their presence provide a perverse legitimacy to the oppression they aided and approved.

If there is no such thing as objective analysis, what happens when one person’s subjective knowledge meets that of another? In that case the role of the adjudicator is simply to identify who represents the “perpetrator” group. Since all knowledge is identity-based, if someone from an oppressor group (or an Uncle Tom) challenges any argument put forward by an “oppressed” person, that amounts to an attack on the identity of the oppressed. As Pyle explains, “Questioning the race-crits’ grip on reality, then, is not just disrespectful, it is oppressive.” Disagreeing with race-crits is always “deeply racist.”

White Supremacy

The second key indicator of CRT is the role played by “white supremacy” in explaining all political, social, and economic problems. As Lew Rockwell has observed, the Marxist theory “of the substructure, or base, and the superstructures of society” has been loosely incorporated into critical race theory to explain the role of white supremacy in racial oppression:

The critical race theory about the “white supremacy inherent in culture” is much the same. The base for the theorists is race relations. These theorists believe that the oppressive white class has constructed society to necessarily maintain a power dynamic over the nonwhite classes. Political achievements, no matter how much they may benefit racial minorities, belong as part of the superstructure, and thus they must be some protective shell over the true social dynamics.

Pyle points out that even Martin Luther King “colorblindness” is deemed in CRT to be “racist” because it forms part of the powerful “white supremacy” superstructure. CRT, being an explicitly collectivist theory which holds that “we can achieve real freedom only collectively, through group self-determination,” understands freedom and justice as the dismantling of white supremacy. Similarly, CRT approaches the regulation of free speech as a matter of constraining white supremacy. The speech of oppressors “is not speech, but ‘conduct’ which ‘constructs the social reality that constrains the liberty of non-whites because of their race.” Merit, likewise, is “just another culturally- and racially-contingent means by which whites replicate their own hegemony.” Black racism is benign because it is “not tied to the structural domination of another group” and, therefore, absolute free speech applies to black people. When black people speak, all speech is free speech. When white people speak, that is white supremacy which is “harmful conduct.” Nor can race-crits be accused of hypocrisy or double standards—as they see it, the standards applied to black and white are not meant to be the same in the first place. Indeed, the idea that law should vary based on racial identity is central to CRT. We are now at an impasse in which rational debate is impossible, because rationality itself is “white supremacy.”

How is this impasse to be resolved? Pyle explains that race-crits believe the problem cannot be resolved: “Racism, to race-crits, is all-pervasive and all-controlling; nothing can be done.” In any case, racism is often unconscious and invisible, being embedded as it is in the prevailing systems and structures, and what cannot be seen cannot be resolved. All that can be done is to get perpetrators to pay a penalty to their victims for causing them harm: “Accordingly, judges should not question whether the perpetrator had racist motives, but should focus only on the harm done to the alleged victim.” As moral guilt and responsibility are collective, the odd individual member of an oppressed group who might dissent from this outcome is irrelevant in determining the group interest. Given the emphasis in CRT on being “critical” and insisting that there are no solutions to racism, CRT is above all a destructive ideology—all it seeks to do is “critique” the system, point out harms to the races it favors, and dismantle Western civilization.

The post How To Recognize Critical Race Theory appeared first on LewRockwell.

You can bet the 12 purported geniuses on the FOMC have never looked at the graph below.

It shows that for all their wild-ass money printing in recent years, the US index of manufacturing output stands at 101.39, which is nearly 5% below the level reached on the eve of the financial crisis in December 2007.

That’s right. The US manufacturing economy has been shrinking in real physical terms for the past 18 years, notwithstanding the fact that during that interval the Fed has printed nearly $6 trillion in brand, spanking new money that it snatched from thin air.

So something big and bad happened after the Fed went all in on money-printing in response to the stock market meltdown in the fall of 2008. After all, during the 28 years between 1972 and 2000 the very opposite occurred. Manufacturing output in the US rose by nearly 150%, which translates to a 3.3% growth rate per annum.

Yet there is no mystery as to why manufacturing output abruptly went flatter than a board after the Financial Crisis. To wit, the mad money-printers in the Eccles Building simply inflated the bejesus out of the US economy at a time when what was urgently needed was a stern deflation of an already inflation-bloated industrial sector.

Here’s the thing: the price of a Pilates studio session or dentist visit is mainly driven by supply and demand balances in local markets, but with today’s shipping and communications technology, the manufacture of durable goods is subject to ferocious global competition.

Indeed, when you look at the current fully loaded (for fringes and benefits) wage rates among major foreign suppliers, it is no wonder that the output of US-manufactured goods has flatlined.

Average Fully Loaded Manufacturing Wages Per Hour in 2024:

• Vietnam: $3.50
• India: $4.50
• Mexico: $5.00
• China: $6.00
• S. Korea: $20.50
• Canada: $22.00
• Japan: $28.00
• UK: $30.00
• EU-27: $32.50
• USA: $44.25

Well, for crying out loud! What’s the mystery?

The USA has priced itself out of the global manufacturing market, which is exactly why America has been running chronic and massive trade deficits that reached the staggering annual level of $1.2 trillion in 2024. Indeed, the collapse of America’s trade balance has been relentless over the last 30 years, with the deficit rising by 10X, from $10 billion to $100 billion. Per month!

And, no, POTUS, foreign trading partners did not suddenly turn into ever-worsening unfair trade cheats in the last three decades. The cause of the plunging line below is domiciled on the banks of the Potomac, not in foreign capitals.

The vast gap between US manufacturing wages and those of our major trading partners has been building relentlessly since the early 1990s, when Greenspan put the Fed in the monetary central planning business. Back then, the fully loaded US manufacturing wage was about $18.50 per hour, meaning that it has risen in nominal terms by 2.4X since then.

However, owing to the Fed’s relentless pro-inflation policies, the CPI index has risen by 124%, meaning that in 2024 dollars, the 1992 fully loaded manufacturing wage was $41.10 per hour.

Accordingly, workers who managed to keep their jobs gained barely 7% over one-third of a century from all of the Fed’s pro-inflation money printing, even as the ever-rising level of nominal US wages made blue-collar workers a sitting duck in global markets.

Again, for want of doubt, see the gaping fully loaded international manufacturing wage levels in US dollars shown above.

Of course, the Fed’s fanboys on Wall Street say not to worry—productivity gains will offset the nominal wage gains. That was partially true for a few years during the technology-driven productivity boom of the 1990s, but no more. Since 2007 unit labor costs in US manufacturing have soared by +53%, which exactly coincides with the deep plunge in the US trade deficit in goods after the turn of the century.

In short, what America really needed from the early 1990s onward, as the China export machine and its worldwide supply chain came to life, was zero inflation at worst and ideally a spell of price, wage, and cost deflation to offset the vast ballooning of US production costs after Tricky Dick Nixon severed the dollar’s link to gold in August 1971.

Between that date and mid-1992, the general price level in the US rose by 250%, and now stands at 700% above its June 1971 level. Is there any wonder, then, that the US has priced itself out of the global manufacturing market?

Of course, this sheer monetary insanity is justified by the Fed on the grounds that inflation is good for prosperity, at least to the extent of 2.00% annually, year in and year out.

Except there is not a shred of historical evidence or sound economic logic to justify the Fed’s sacred 2.00% target. It’s just a handy excuse for running the printing presses at rates which please the gamblers on Wall Street and the Spenders in Washington.

Industrial production is the heart of the modern economy and the main source of sustainable gains in real output and living standards. Even a half-assed assessment of the world in 1990 would have told any honest and capable monetary central planner that wringing out some of the 250% increase in the domestic cost and price level that had accumulated since Camp David was imperative if the US was to remain competitive in global markets.

Alas, the Keynesian fools who took over the nation’s central bank under Greenspan’s leadership cooked up a closed bathtub style model of the US economy, and conferred upon themselves the Keynesian mission of keeping “aggregate demand” full to the brim via low interest rates and massive injections of fiat credits into the nation’s financial markets.

That was a drastic error from the get-go, but the money-printing gospel is of such convenience to both ends of the Acela Corridor that this cardinal pro-inflation error rolls forward unquestioned by both wings of the UniParty.

Accordingly, with inflation stalled at more than 3.0%, when it should be zero or negative, the Fed has again sung the Einstein Chorus. That is to say, these “insane” apparatchiks seem to believe that doing the same thing over and over again—even after 700% inflation—will finally generate a positive outcome.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The post How the Fed’s Money Printing Broke American Industry—and What Comes Next appeared first on LewRockwell.

In the global chessboard, Beijing will keep stressing the power of the “multilateral trading system.” As in the absolute opposite of Trump 2.0.

Four days in Beijing. The fourth plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was really something to behold.

Methodology matters. What happened these four days is that delegates debated and then adopted “recommendations” leading to China’s 15th Five-Year Plan. A communique then laid out the basic vectors to be tackled. The full plan will only be known in detail next March, when it will be approved by the notorious Two Sessions in Beijing.

So let’s get straight to the point: this is how China works, meticulously planning everything in advance, with clear targets and meritocratic supervision. The – metaphorical – terminology does allow some leeway: everyone is aware of the “high winds, rough waves and raging storms” ahead – domestically and internationally. But “strategic resolve” won’t waver.

Key vectors for the Beijing leadership include “strengthening agriculture”, “benefiting farmers”, and “achieving rural prosperity” – side by side with progress with “people-centered new urbanization.”

In the global chessboard, Beijing will keep stressing the power of  the “multilateral trading system.” As in the absolute opposite of Trump 2.0.

Major targets for the 15th Five-Year Plan are quite clear. Among them: “advancements in high-quality development”; improving  “scientific and technological self-reliance”; a quite Confucianist “notable cultural and ethical progress across society”; and “strengthening the national security shield.”

In a nutshell: the Chinese leadership’s top priority is to build “a modernized industrial system”. As in a productive – not speculative – mixed economic system driving rural, urban and tech development.

Towards an ultra-high-tech “unified national market”

There have been so many practical, graphic examples across China of what has been achieved so far. Last month, I was privileged to see first-hand the socialism with Chinese characteristics surge in terms of sustainable development of Xinjiang . Xinjiang is now an IT hub and a leader in clean energy – exporting to the rest of China.

Then there’s the tech accomplishments of Made in China 2025, launched 10 years ago, and already placing China as tech leader in at least 8 of 10 scientific fields. Plus key programs that many Chinese themselves don’t know about, with particualr emphasis on the 973 Program and Project 985.

The 973 Program, launched way back in 1997, is the National Basic Research Program aiming to get a tech/strategic edge in several scientific fields – especially the development of the rare earth minerals industry. The program definitely elevated China to the top in terms of global science competitiviness.

Project 985 was launched in 1998 to develop a select group of top-tier universities to world-class level. Hence the emergence of Tsinghua, Peking, Zhejiang, Fudan and Harbin Institute of Technology, among others, as world leaders in engineering, computer science, robotics, aerospace, including key breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing and green energy. Ivy League and Oxbridge? Forget it: the real deal is Chinese universities.

Another key project is the G60 Science and Innovation Corridor,  connecting nine cities in China’s Yangtze River Delta. These cities contributed nearly 2.2% of global (italics mine) manufacturing value-added only last year. That’s China’s strategic economic planning driving tech progress – in effect.

At a press conference, Central Committee officials pointed to some basics obviously totally ignored by the fragmente West, but not by large sectors of the Global South. Especially the fact that Five-Year Plans are regarded as one of China’s key political advantages.

The formulation of the next plan, as usual in China, includes suggestions from all echelons of society. Market drivers from now on necessarily include computing infrastructure, intelligent driving and smart manufacturing. And predictably, up to 2035, there will be special emphasis on quantum tech, biomanufacturing, hydrogen, nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence and 6G, not to mention AI.

Conceptually, China will focus on its immense domestic market: what is defined as the “unified national market”.

A key emphasis was made on Beijing’s drive to combat “involution”: that is the intra-industry competition that has caused problems to several Chinese sectors.

On thorny US-China relations, Central Committee officials were adamant: the focus will be on “dialogue and cooperation” rather than “decoupling and fragmentation”. Well, both sides are meeting in Malaysia as we speak, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. Prospects for a wide-raing trade deal though are slim.

How to understand the evolution of the Chinese political system

The key takeaway: the 15th Five-Year Plan will concern the 2026-2030 period. Beijing wants to reinforce everything that was accomplished so far, with a crystal clear long-term focus: achieve what is defined as “socialist modernization” by 2035.

Based on what I personally saw in Xinjiang last month, compared to my previous visits (the last one had been over a decade ago), there is no shadow of a doubt they will do it.

It’s crucial to examine how two top Chinese academics explain the evolution of the Chinese political system. Relevant sections are worth quoting at length:

“While the traditional system was not immune to change, the goal of these changes was to maintain the status quo, preventing ‘revolutionary’ change. After the Han Dynasty, the policy of ‘abolishing all schools of thought and upholding Confucianism alone’ ideologically suppressed any factors that could catalyze major political change. Confucianism became the sole ruling philosophy, and its core purpose was to maintain rule. The modern German philosopher Hegel argued that ‘China has no history.’ Indeed, for thousands of years, from the Qin Shihuang Emperor to the late Qing Dynasty, China experienced only a succession of dynasties, not a change in fundamental institutions. Marx’s concept of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ aligns with Hegel’s ideas. Chinese scholars such as Jin Guantao also have this in mind when they use the term ‘superstable structure.’ One can argue that this reflects the vitality of the traditional political system, or that China lacked structural change for thousands of years.”

“The current political system is quite different, primarily because the Enlightenment firmly established the concept of progress: that society can progress, and that progress is endless. From Sun Yat-sen’s revolution to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party and then to the Communist Party, generations of Chinese people have pursued change, sharing the same goal: to transform China and achieve progress. During the modern Enlightenment, the Confucian individual ethic that sustained the old system was subjected to the most radical criticism and attack. However, while the old ethic is no longer viable, various political factions lack a consensus on what the future holds. What kind of change does China need? How should it be pursued? What is the purpose of change? Various political forces hold divergent views.”

What the Chinese Communist Party has done, the two scholars  argue, is in fact quite revolutionary, going for radical change: “This is the socialist revolution it has pursued since its founding, using revolution to overthrow the old regime, thoroughly transform society, and establish an entirely new system. Naturally, this also leads to the various contradictions facing China today, most notably the conflict between traditional Confucian philosophy and Marxism-Leninism. The former is focused on maintaining the status quo or adapting itself for survival, while the latter pursues endless change.”

“Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese Communist Party has accelerated its transformation from a revolutionary party to a ruling party (…) One thing is clear: if a political party governs simply for the sake of governing, it will inevitably decline. This is evident in the history of communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as in the historical and current experience of Western political parties that calculate their legitimacy based on votes.”

“After reform and opening up, the Chinese Communist Party redefined its modernity, aiming to achieve the original revolutionary goal of resolving the problem of ‘universal impoverishment.’ However, while redefining modernity, the Party also strived to preserve the ‘revolutionary nature’ of the ruling party (…)  In terms of economic development, GDP-oriented economics played an invaluable role, transforming China’s ‘poverty socialism’ situation in just a few decades. By the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, China had become the world’s second-largest economy and the largest trading nation, with per capita GDP soaring from less than $300 in the early 1980s to $6,000. More importantly, China lifted nearly 700 million people out of absolute poverty.”

The conclusion though is inescapable, and it is ineherent to the way Beijing is framing its political evolution now: “The Chinese Communist Party needs to redefine its modernity by reaffirming its mission, emphasizing its original aspirations, and reviving its revolutionary nature.”

After all, as the two scholars note, “in China, political parties are the subject of political action, and this action is not simply about survival and development, but about leading national development in all aspects (…) The ruling party must proactively define its own modernity through action, pursuing and achieving its own modernity. By constantly renewing and defining its modernity, the ruling party can maintain its sense of mission in leading social development while constantly renewing itself.”

There could hardly be a sharper summary of why socialism with Chinese characteristics is in a class by itself when it comes to translating political decisions into sustainable development targets. Complement it with Hong Kong billionaire’s Ronnie Chan’s succint analysis on the inevitability of the rise – again – of China.

The counterpoint is China ceasing to be the Pentagon’s key priority. Circus Ringmaster is essentially being forced to concede the global strategic competition to China. Forget about “winning” a tech/trade war on China – especially after the rare earth Sun Tzu move.

Meanwhile, the containment dogs bark while the Chinese Five-Year caravan strolls on.

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

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One never know how serious Trump’s ‘leaked’ plans are. Their purpose often seem to be solely to increase pressure on opponents, to move things into a direction he likes. If that does not work the plans may just be discarded. Or may, just may, be carried out.

Trump considering plans to target cocaine facilities inside Venezuela, officials say – Politico

President Donald Trump is considering plans to target cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes inside Venezuela, though he has not yet made a decision on whether to move forward with them, three US officials told CNN.

Outward signs on Friday pointed toward a major potential military escalation, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordering the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier strike group currently stationed in Europe to the Caribbean region amid a massive buildup of US forces there. Trump has also authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.

The president has not ruled out taking a diplomatic approach with Venezuela to stem the flow of drugs into the US, two officials said, even after the administration cut off active talks with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in recent weeks.

Venzuela is, as Politico points out, not known for drug trafficking. It does not have ‘cocaine facilities’. But it does have the largest oil reserves in the world. That has always made it a target for a U.S. regime-change operations.

But Venezuela is also a huge country double the size of Iraq with a mountainous and often densely wooded countryside. The U.S. military is unable to invade, occupy and control it.

But what the U.S. might want to try in Venezuela is a variant of the Israeli plan for Iran.

A decapitation strike killing President Maduro and the military leadership accompanied by a bombing campaign to take out air defenses and primary defense units. Meanwhile the CIA and special forces will have to work on the ground in Caracas to organize local thugs for an assault on the main government sites and radio/TV buildings.

As soon as those are captured the U.S. selected regime-change puppet, as identified by the Nobel Peace Prize committee, can declare herself president.

The rest is just media work. Unless – and that is a big question – there will be some real resistance.

The Venezuelan Bolvarian movement can motivate its youth to resist the U.S. coup even a well planned operation may end up like the Bay of Pigs.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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At some point capitalism lost the ability to give us new things that we need and started giving us new things we don’t need, and now it’s giving us new things we never needed and don’t even really want.

Nobody needs all this generative AI crap. We were doing fine with online search functions and the ability to write and make art for ourselves. Only the most shallow and vapid of individuals find any appeal in the idea of talking to a chatbot like a companion, consuming “art” generated by a computer program, or letting the technology of some plutocratic megacorporation do their thinking, researching and expressing for them.

The economy is now balancing on a giant bubble of a fledgeling industry that is already underperforming expectations and hitting points of diminishing returns on multiple fronts, all while being really bad for the environment. And it doesn’t improve anyone’s life in any meaningful way.

Nobody asked for this.

And it’s not like people aren’t asking for things; capitalism just doesn’t have the ability to give them the things they are asking for. World peace. Affordable housing. Good health. Fast and efficient public transportation systems. Solutions to the various environmental catastrophes that status quo human behavior is driving us toward. The ability to have our needs met without spending all our time at work. Care for the needful. General human thriving. These are not demands that a system driven by the pursuit of profit for its own sake can supply.

When capitalism first showed up it delivered plenty of new things which people had a need and a desire for that weren’t available under previous systems like feudalism. The greatly increased material abundance and explosions of scientific and technological innovation ushered in with the dawn of capitalism caused human quality of life to improve by leaps and bounds.

But now we’re at a point where that just isn’t happening anymore. Things have stagnated, and we’re starting to backslide. People are getting dumber, sicker, lonelier, and more and more miserable. And the profit-driven systems we live under have no answers, besides throwing increasingly shitbrained technology at us so we can distract ourselves from how fucked up everything has gotten.

We are being driven into dystopia and annihilation by systems of our own making. We’re meant to be the smartest species on earth, but we locked ourselves in our invention — a self-reinforcing labor camp that makes us miserable — and then we get all huffy when people dare to question if it’s the only way of doing things. Literally every other species is smarter than us. Amoebas are having a better time of it.

This will change when humanity replaces capitalism with something better, in the same way we replaced feudalism with the superior system of capitalism. I don’t know what that system is going to look like, but it’s going to have to involve a move from a model that is driven by competition to one that is driven by collaboration. That’s the only way humanity will be able to channel all its brilliance toward the immense project of overcoming all the obstacles we now face as a species, along with all terrestrial organisms.

Until then, all we can do is try to help awaken as many of our fellow humans as possible to the reality of our circumstances. Use every means at our disposal to teach people how dire our plight is, how deceived we’ve been by the propaganda and indoctrination of the empire we live under, how sorely change is needed, and that a better world is possible. Once we get enough eyes open, we’ll have the numbers to force things to change.

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