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Say’s Law of Markets advances the self-evident truth that supply and demand are two sides of the same coin, meaning one can view economic output as supply as well as demand.  Demand is measured by what producers produce.  Supply is measured by what producers produce.

In a state of nature, one’s own economic demand is dependent on and measured by one’s production.  Survival requires people work to that end.  As civilization emerged producers began trading with one another, exchanging something they had for something they wanted.

Some people looked upon this activity and decided they could get what they wanted without working for it.  They saw a “free lunch” available for the taking.  Thomas Paine described them as “restless gangs” that “overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions.” Though he was speculating about how the “race of kings” originated, his characterization applies to any society ruled by force.

Under coercive rule, which characterizes today’s states, every producer is subject to having a portion of his output confiscated for support of the ruling class.  Though rulers usually assure its denizens the confiscation is necessary for their benefit, the fact that it’s coercive means people have no choice in the matter.  Unlike markets in which people trade as equals, states established a system of obedience to a ruling elite to get what it wanted.  To hide the nature of the relationship, the restless gangs adopted civilized-sounding names such as “contributions” and “government.”

Calling the bounty government receives “free” is somewhat misleading, since the criminality requires sustained, often convoluted effort in the form of propaganda, bureaucracies, police, and close relationships with major economic actors, as President Trump is doing.  Regardless of what might flow from government to its citizens, the arrangement is such that government’s revenue stream will only stop if it kills the golden goose.

Over time economies adopted money to facilitate exchanges — and that’s where theft reached sophisticated lows.

Money is the most marketable commodity, and commodities can be made to deceive.  When money originated from the market, people gradually traded in coins of precious metals.  A one-ounce silver coin might look the same as others, but if the mint diluted it with base metals it would be reflected in its weight.  The emperor Nero began the gross debasement of the Roman denarius in this manner. Coins minted before the fraud were usually hoarded in accordance with Gresham’s Law (“bad money drives out good”).

Notice, however, in a free market, meaning without Caesar’s decree, good money drives out bad, and the Law as stated is wrong.  As Gary North points out,  “The free market rewards producers of customer-satisfying products and services. The definition of bad money is money that the free market refuses to use.”  But government’s coercive nature violates free markets.  Caesar was getting something for nothing through a subtle form of theft backed by the threat of death.  Again, the loot stolen took significant effort on the part of the thieves and diminishes the accusation that it was a “free lunch.”

Today’s thieves

Caesar’s idea has matured into the suit-wearing leaders of today.  Currency debasement is no longer regarded as fraud, but as smart money management.  Banks as money warehouses or savings institutions have long practiced fractional reserve banking as if it were ethical business conduct.  Embezzlement?  Hardly.  When banks couldn’t meet the demands of a bank run, government often allowed them to stay in business without redeeming their depositors gold or silver coins.  If people hadn’t been stampeded into doubting their bank’s solvency, one argument goes, there would be no crisis.

But for most people today the idea of paper money as receipts for market-valuable coins is alien in the extreme.  And to government, that’s the way they want it.  When FDR issued Executive Order 6102 on April 5, 1933, forbidding Americans from hoarding gold, the separation of money from its receipts began, and the receipts became money itself.  Not that gold suddenly became worthless.  Only the government could hoard it, which it did at Fort Knox, where coins were melted into bars.  Since paper can be inflated at will, experts decided monetary inflation was needed to end the Great Depression.

Since at least 1755 when Richard Cantillon published An Essay on Economic Theory it has been known that new money enters the economy at specific points, not everywhere at once.  The ones receiving the new money first, such as government personnel, are able to spend it before prices rise.  People who receive it later are stiffed with higher prices.

Thus the Age of Inflation began with elites benefiting from the new money while the rest of the population remained oblivious as to why prices always rise, often blaming it on greedy capitalists with an insatiable lust for profits. To those getting money as it came off the presses this became government’s Holy Grail, the “free lunch” it had at last found.

It was Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, published in 1936, that provided the intellectual cover for government’s mandate for inflation.  Perhaps more than Keynes himself, it was his many influential disciples such as textbook king Paul A. Samuelson, Alvin H. Hansen of Harvard, and Keynes’ biographer R. F. Harrod that elevated his book to near-religious status.  Keynes’ straw statement of Say’s Law — supply automatically creates demand sufficient for full employment — was seen by policymakers as a flawed idea in an era of high unemployment.  It was time to discard Say so unemployment could be remedied by increasing demand, specifically government spending fueled by the printing press.  If people were out of work, have them dig holes and pay them with money they couldn’t redeem.

In Say’s formulation, as noted at the beginning, supply and demand denoted the same thing, production.  Production was the foundation of both supply and demand.  Government armed with fiat money could bypass production and essentially claim the output of others.  Some might call it a free lunch, others theft.

The post Government’s Eternal Longing for a Free Lunch appeared first on LewRockwell.

As the smoke clears in America, what kind of image greets a foreigner? Violence that makes international news nearly always has political worth. Anyone paying attention from abroad has got to see the similarity to sports team loyalties.

Fans who are on it, before grisliness online is taken down, can even resort to instant replay. The ubiquity of cameras has hyped up the game. What’s on a video gets exponentially more ink, blabber and outrage than any mere report can convey. One motion picture is worth millions of words. Much of the language is heartfelt, but, crass as it is to say, more of it is cashing in.

Mourning noises are expected etiquette, inaudibly though, you can almost hear the grief-casters thinking, ‘how does this work for us, how soon should waterworks cease and scorched Earth aggression begin?’

Restraint is generally the exception. Jumping the gun and pointing fingers before reliable facts are known has become the norm. That kind of haste stung in Jussie Smollett’s case. The newsmouths take no heed. They still squander what they see as opportunity, before any certainty arrives.

At the risk of taking sides myself, this needs saying: there are some differences between what are in fact ‘fan bases,’ however crude the term is right now, that should not go unnoted. Look at the coverage.

The newsy industry might tell us how misleading the visuals can be. Did anybody see the Kirkonians blocking traffic, torching town or making off with cases of the good stuff after the murder? If only Charlie had been resisting arrest at the time, riotousness could be fully condoned and justified.

Kirk’s murder has placed a recurring debate point upfront again. We keep rehearing the ongoing score. Partisan political violence is like golf – the lower for your side the better. Stats cited by Mehdi Hasan, The Washington Post, Dan Goldman and numerous others find the left wing consistently under par on the ideologically motivated homicide course.

Comparative figures blasted daily in podcasts have placed 333 out of 444 so-called “terrorist” killings between 2013 and 2022 at the feet of the “right wing.” The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report gives 179,301 as the number of murders over that period. 333 comes to 0.185721%, or about 1/500th, of the total. Dividing by 444 would not move things left of the decimal point. This leaves a susceptible observer with the, supposedly qualified, conclusion that nearly 179,000 murders can safely be ruled out as ideologically inspired.

Where then, would closer examination of individual cases take us? Presumably Dylan Roof and Peyton Gendron’s slaughters are counted among that 333. What about slayings like Iryna Zarutska’s? Does Decarlos Brown muttering about “white people” have any bearing? Does even asking this question in numerous instances of crime evoke “racist” hackles? The mere fact of ruling the demographics of crime, and criminal motivation, morally out of bounds gives rise to monsters like Roof, Gendron, Brown and many others in the first place. It gets worse. When the race of criminal and victim differ, why are editorial principles flexible? Media managers who stoop to switching standards must think they’ve speciated from lowly consumers. Marks that don’t fall for the con can be conveniently labeled “racist.”

A classic example of giving certain victims precedence over others occurred when Andrew Lester shot Ralph Yarl for ringing his door bell. A week later, Robert Singletary shot 6-year-old Kinsley White and her father William – one bullet grazing the mother – after a basket ball rolled into Singletary’s yard. The Washington Post had 3 front page stories – all mentioning race of the shooter in the headline – on Lester’s crime. Another opinion piece that Sunday did the same. A single page 2 story brought up Singletary’s act. The word “White” only came up because of the victims’ surnames. In the middle of that article both Yarl and Trayvon Martin got mention.

Is anyone naïve enough to believe these kinds of editorial priorities play no part in cranking up violent cranks? If whiteness is overwhelmingly prone to reach description in criminal narratives only when a Caucasoid does it, where does that leave the default? Have we reached a place where noticing that descriptive disparity can be characterized as “racist” in itself?

Around 75,000 murders between 2013 and 22, went unsolved. How reliable can the number 333 be in our understanding of a culprit’s “wing” in the clutter of unknowns about teeming criminal carnage? The subjectivity in judicial findings of “terror” came up again in a ruling on the Luigi Mangione case. New York Judge Gregory Carro found insufficient evidence of a motive to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government unit” as prescribed in statute. Should that have been left to a jury? Was similarly judicial fastidiousness applied in those 333 cases?

The reality is that journalistic, academic and political fads have been clouding precise and unbiased treatment of criminal behaviors for ages. Who takes it worse at trial and sentencing shifts with what’s in style at the moment. Laymen are expected to accept that present hot legal trends have finally got it right. People with any cool presence of mind know that human fates can swing wildly as emotions are stoked by polemicists with a mic. A potential upside of that is that anyone fearing punishment should be warier than ever about attacking others in a fickle human environment. The downside is that people inclined to act irrationally can be motivated witnessing literary, academic and legalistic absurdity.

I can no longer count how often claims that Tyler Robinson had “no known motive” have surfaced in both podcast and written media. What spurred the killer is as clear as what did it for James Earl Ray. The one’s making political hay out of Kirk’s tragic death search desperately for a “Raoul.” The axe-grinding industry’s greatest conflagrations are kindled with innuendo of a nefarious plot. Tragic events provide opportunity … to proclaim “they” were all in on it. Guilt, spewed out with a manure spreader, can gather a lot of political momentum.

Herschel Grynszpan killed Ernst vom Rath, but did no harm to Nazis plotting Kristallnacht. Victims of that pogrom might ask whose side Hersh thought he was on? There’s little telling where gratuitous violence may lead. Kirk’s demise has given Mehdi Hasan a new reason to bring up January 6, 2021 and half that magic number 666. Meanwhile, Marc Thiessen’s Washington Post column is titled “Yes, the left has a political violence problem.” In that article polling, which can be as lacking in precision as the “333,” has the “woke” coming off as the trigger happiest on the spectrum.

Anytime violence is prima facie political, reactions fall into place with eerie neatness. Ooh, how it hurt the grievance movement when Jussie Smollett got caught. And, golly gee, how others prayed that Jan 6 was an FBI false flag. Likewise, summer 2020 some still swear, was really the work of Proud Boys and allies. And, has Trump ever backed off his unsupportable claim that immigrants are rapey animals from Gehenna? Goebbels’ Sender Gleiwitz PR has become the inspiration for 21st century American factional exploitation. You might wonder if the diehards of either “side” find all bad news good.

Articles and books like “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,” by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, have often been criticized as hitting wide of the mark. It’s a strange comfort to some Americans to find the slander true. They’ll stick by the facts they like to believe. Others prefer that crossing into city limits is risking life and limb across the country – and refuse to accept stats on crime rates dropping. It’s hard for anyone gazing intently, not to see a desire by political sectarians for their opponents to be lynchers or cutthtroats. The crimes they pretend to abhor are TD bombs in the perpetual Super Bowl of political capital.

What might improve things is unequivocally literal description and properly weighted editorial allotment of copy. Criminal violence has the same consequences for the victim whatever his attacker was thinking. It often looks like the purportedly aggrieved, when violence happens against one of their own, were thinking “now we’ve got ‘em, run out the clock.” Placing coverage in order to “get” some faction or demographic is propaganda whatever the ideological motivation. Words aren’t violence but putting them in where they don’t belong, or subtracting them where they do, certainly fuels unwelcome outcomes.

If understanding what reality is is your goal you’ll always find yourself in the same place: wanting to know. If you already know you can find out nothing. Fans in the spectator sport of ideological carnage already know. “They” are out to get us and soon it’ll go so far we have to strike back. The chance that mediacrats will ever wise up to this reality doesn’t look good. They can find no hope in the proles.

The post My Terror Beats Your Terror appeared first on LewRockwell.

The drumbeats of war are no longer distant echoes, they are thundering across the Middle East, reverberating through global capitals, and shaking the foundations of the post–Cold War international system. What once seemed like speculative alarmism is now unfolding as a meticulously orchestrated geopolitical endgame, with Iran, Israel, and the United States locked in a high-stakes confrontation that promises to be anything but brief or contained.

Forget the so-called “12-Day War” of recent memory. Sources within defense and intelligence circles confirm that the next phase will not be a surgical strike or a limited retaliation, it will be a full-spectrum, decapitating campaign aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, military command, government officials, proxies and regional influence in stages of overwhelming blow. Yet this time, the calculus has shifted dramatically.

During the Trump administration, officials confidently claimed that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “bombed into the ground,” rendering them inoperable for years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his inner circle echoed this narrative, projecting an image of irreversible strategic victory. But that was then. What happened again? Is it because Iran refused to cooperate with IAEA? No, not at all. Today, Iran has signaled, unequivocally, that it will show no restraint this time around, Did Israel forgot it had to appeal to Trump to step in bring the last conflict to a close? No! They want Iran crushed. Should hostilities erupt, which will definitely do very soon, Tehran has made it clear it will not only retaliate against Israel but will also target U.S. military assets and interests across the region. Crucially, Iran has warned that any country hosting American bases used to launch attacks against it will be considered a legitimate target. This is not bluster; it is doctrine.

Netanyahu, besieged by domestic unrest, international condemnation over Gaza, and mounting protests from a global coalition critical of Zionist policies, is running out of time. Analysts suggest that opening a new front with Iran may serve a dual purpose: diverting global attention from the humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine while creating the fog of war necessary to escalate operations in Gaza with reduced scrutiny. In essence, a war with Iran could become the smokescreen for a final, devastating push in the occupied territories.

The scale of military mobilization confirms these intentions. Under directives linked to President Donald Trump and current Pentagon leadership, there has been an unprecedented surge in the deployment of heavy weaponry to the Middle East. Fighter jets, glide bombs, and—most tellingly—large consignments of gravity bombs have been moved into position across U.S. and allied bases. You do not transport such ordnance unless you intend to use it.

Even more revealing is the reactivation of Cold War–era protocols. The U.S. Department of Defense has quietly restructured command channels in a manner reminiscent of the War Department’s mobilization before World War II. The reason for the recent summons to generals and admirals worldwide, signaling a shift to war footing. Meanwhile, dozens of KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling tankers now sit in Qatar, assets that exist solely to enable deep-strike missions over Iranian territory. The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group looms in the Mediterranean, a textbook prelude to escalation. Meanwhile, the geopolitical chessboard is fracturing along new fault lines. The U.S. recently signed a sweeping defense pact with Qatar, declaring that any attack on the emirate constitutes a direct threat to American national security. This isn’t about Qatar—it’s about securing Al Udeid Air Base from Iran missiles, the largest U.S. military installation in the region, as a launchpad for operations against Iran.

Yet the U.S. arsenal is not without vulnerabilities. With SM-6 missile inventories critically low, planners are reportedly relying on old Tomahawk cruise missiles, subsonic, slower, and more susceptible to Iran’s increasingly sophisticated air defenses. This reliance on legacy systems underscores both urgency and strategic risk. With Iran signalling the readiness to use advance weapons integrated with air defense.

Iran, for its part, is far from passive. Intelligence from regional sources indicates Tehran has fortified its asymmetric warfare capabilities. Its ultimate trump card? The Strait of Hormuz. Just 21 miles wide, this maritime chokepoint handles nearly 20% of the world’s oil exports. Even a partial closure would send oil prices soaring past $200 a barrel, trigger global supply chain collapse, and ignite economic chaos from Berlin to Beijing. Iran doesn’t need to win militarily, it only needs to make victory unbearably costly for its adversaries. We see Kurdish quick supply of oil to the global market, an alternative move the West played, in the case of Iran oil blockade, but sources have said even Kurdish will not be able to serve that purpose.

Iran Executive Six Mossad Operatives

Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, has allegedly been orchestrating covert destabilization campaigns in northern Iran via Azerbaijan. But this shadow war suffered a major setback when six operatives were captured and executed, a stark reminder that Iran is watching, and ready.

Regionally, no nation can remain neutral. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi faces mounting pressure to act, as public outrage over perceived complicity with Israel grows. Pakistan, backed by China and possessing a nuclear arsenal it has declared “an Islamic deterrent,” stands ready to intervene if Israel crosses the nuclear threshold. Riyadh’s recent nuclear umbrella agreement with Islamabad is no coincidence, it’s a hedge against total regional collapse, to be on the safe haven of Western allies and Islamic State protection.

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state that refuses to be sidelined. Backed by robust Chinese financial and military support, Islamabad has quietly repositioned itself as a key deterrent in the Islamic world. Pakistani officials have reiterated that their nuclear arsenal is not solely for national defense but is, in their words, “an Islamic shield” available to any Muslim nation facing existential threat. While never explicitly naming Israel, the implication is clear: should Tel Aviv resort to nuclear weapons in a desperate attempt to “decapitate” Iran, Pakistan may not remain neutral. The mere possibility of nuclear escalation however remote, adds a terrifying layer of unpredictability to an already volatile equation.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, long straddling the fence between East and West, may soon be forced to choose a side as domestic unrest swells and opposition forces demand decisive action. The Iran-Israel crisis could be the catalyst that finally pulls Ankara off the sidelines. In a move that signals a dramatic shift in regional power dynamics, Turkey recently denied passage to an Indian naval vessel reportedly en route to support Israeli operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. This isn’t mere bureaucratic friction, it’s a calculated geopolitical statement. By blocking the warship’s transit through the Turkish Straits under the Montreux Convention, Ankara has effectively lifted a finger, not in aggression, but in assertion. It’s a quiet yet unmistakable declaration that Turkey will no longer serve as a passive corridor for military actions it opposes, especially those aligned with Israel during a period of escalating tension with Iran.

Meanwhile, the United States has placed its entire global military command structure on high alert. From CENTCOM to EUCOM and INDOPACOM, readiness levels have been elevated to near-crisis status. Commanders across all theaters are being instructed to maintain constant operational preparedness, not just for potential direct conflict with Iran, but for cascading contingencies that could erupt from the Middle East to the South China Sea. This synchronized posture reflects a doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance,” but also reveals deep anxiety within the Pentagon: the fear that a regional war could spiral into a multipolar confrontation.

The Houthis of Yemen are far from passive observers in the escalating Iran-Israel-U.S. crisis, they are active, and have confirmed they will go all out against Israel. Their are now capable, and increasingly audacious players reshaping the regional balance of power. No longer reliant on rudimentary rockets, Houthi forces have developed and deployed a new generation of precision-guided, long-range missiles and drones capable of striking deep inside Israeli territory with alarming accuracy and minimal warning. Intelligence assessments confirm these systems, some reverse-engineered with Iranian assistance, others indigenously engineered, can now bypass layered air defenses and reach Tel Aviv, Haifa, and even Dimona without significant difficulty.

More than a military capability, this advancement is a strategic declaration: the Houthis have made it unequivocally clear that any large-scale U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran will trigger an immediate and sustained campaign against maritime traffic in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. They have vowed to bring global shipping to a standstill, targeting commercial vessels linked to Israel, the U.S., or their allies. Given that nearly 12% of global trade and 30% of container traffic between Asia and Europe passes through this chokepoint, such a blockade would inflict immediate economic shockwaves worldwide, spiking insurance premiums, rerouting supply chains, and potentially triggering a second energy and commodity crisis.

This is not theoretical posturing. Recall how, Trump administration, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group was abruptly withdrawn from the Eastern Mediterranean after Houthi threats intensified, officially framed as the result of a “diplomatic understanding,” but widely known as a tacit acknowledgment of Houthi deterrence. The message was clear: even the world’s most powerful navy hesitates when asymmetric actors control critical maritime arteries.

Meanwhile, Iraq has taken a firm stance: Baghdad has formally declared it will not permit its airspace or territory to be used by any belligerent faction in a future conflict. This is a significant shift from past permissiveness and reflects growing Iraqi sovereignty concerns, public anti-American sentiment, and pressure from powerful Iran-aligned factions within its own security apparatus. Should the U.S. or Israel attempt to route strikes through Iraqi skies, they risk not only diplomatic rupture but potential retaliation from Iraqi paramilitary groups. Though Azerbaijan is on the side of the Israel, and it airspace open for Israel use, is also on the line of attack from Iran.

Now, as tensions surge again, the Houthis are signaling they will act as Iran’s western flank, tying down U.S. naval assets, stretching Israeli air defenses, and forcing Washington to fight a multi-front shadow war it never planned for.

China and Russia have moved swiftly to bolster Iran’s defensive and offensive capabilities. Just weeks ago, Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow formalized a trilateral defense cooperation treaty, cementing what many analysts now describe as an “anti-hegemonic axis.” Intelligence reports confirm the delivery of advanced air defense systems, electronic warfare suites, precision-guided munitions, and even satellite intelligence-sharing protocols to Iran. These aren’t symbolic gestures; they are force multipliers designed to deter, delay, and if necessary, inflict unacceptable costs on any coalition attempting a strike on Iranian soil.

Disturbing intelligence assessments suggest the United States could exploit the chaos of an Iran-Israel conflagration to launch a simultaneous “law enforcement” operation in Venezuela, framed as a renewed “war on drugs” but functionally serving as a strategic diversion. By igniting a secondary crisis in Latin America, Washington could flood global news cycles with narratives of cartel violence and narco-terrorism, effectively drawing public attention and journalistic scrutiny away from military actions in the Middle East. Such a tactic would mirror historical precedents where secondary conflicts were used to mask primary geopolitical maneuvers.

The once-celebrated 21-point U.S.-Israel coordination framework for Gaza-Palestine now lies in tatters. Both nations are reportedly suspending other regional operations to concentrate entirely on what insiders refer to as “the Iran phase.” Military preparations are complete, with activation windows reportedly opening as early as late October. The urgency is palpable—and deeply political.

And behind it all looms a deeper, more insidious agenda. Critics warn that this manufactured crisis could serve as the final domino in the so-called “Great Reset”—a global power consolidation masked as emergency response. In the wake of economic shock, governments may fast-track Central Bank Digital Currencies, enforce universal digital IDs, and implement programmable money systems under the guise of “stability” and “security.”

Together, these developments reveal a world no longer governed by unipolar dictates but fractured into competing spheres of influence, shadow alliances, and covert red lines. Turkey’s blockade, Venezuela’s vulnerability, Pakistan’s nuclear posture, and Israel’s media machine are not isolated events, they are interconnected nodes in a global crisis architecture. What unfolds in the deserts of Iran may well echo in the boardrooms of Beijing, the corridors of Ankara, the slums of Caracas, and the digital feeds of billions.

This is more than a regional war in the making. It is the birth pang of a new world order, one defined not by treaties alone, but by who controls the narrative, the oil, the data, and ultimately, and the so called truth.

This is not merely a regional conflict. It is a battle for the soul of the 21st century, a clash between multipolarity and digital authoritarianism, between sovereignty and surveillance, between chaos and control.

The world stands at a precipice. The 12-Day War was a prelude. What comes next may redefine or dent civilization itself.

This article was originally published on Ultimate-Survival.

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Lew,

This should shock and alarm anyone who loves liberty and the Constitution and hates despots and tyranny. 

American Thinker

The post “Invasion From Within”: Trump’s Plan to Use the Military in U.S. Cities appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, David Martin.

DC Dave

The post The Story of Charlie Kirk appeared first on LewRockwell.

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Click here:

Eugyppius

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______________________________________________________________________________________

di Thomas Kolbe

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/la-bce-interrompe-il-ciclo-di-allentamento)

La Banca Centrale Europea ha raggiunto la fine del suo ciclo di tassi, intrappolandosi proprio in quei problemi che aveva contribuito a creare. A Sintra tutto questo era praticamente nascosto dietro una facciata di chiacchiere.

La conferenza annuale, appena a ovest di Lisbona, è utile alla BCE tanto quanto Jackson Hole lo è per la Federal Reserve. È un momento per fare il punto della situazione, guardare al futuro e collegare la politica monetaria dell'anno precedente a una narrazione più ampia. Per la presidente della BCE, Christine Lagarde, questa narrazione è facilmente riassumibile: dopo otto tagli i tassi ora si attestano al 2%, l'inflazione si aggira intorno all'obiettivo del 2%, l'occupazione nell'Eurozona rimane stabile e una nuova crisi del debito non è all'orizzonte.

Questa è stata l'essenza del discorso della Lagarde a Sintra, concepito per trasmettere un messaggio unico: tutto è sotto controllo. Persino incertezze come la volatilità commerciale dell'era Trump, gli sconvolgimenti geopolitici, o il crollo dell'industria tedesca non dovrebbero far deragliare la rotta prefissata dalla BCE. Dopo lo sconquasso durante i lockdown, la situazione è ora considerata normale: i mercati “oscillano” attorno al loro equilibrio. Nel gergo delle banche centrali: hanno trovato il “tasso neutrale”.

La chimera di un tasso neutrale

Il “tasso neutrale” è il Santo Graal del misticismo delle banche centrali. Quando i policymaker si sentono sicuri e le campagne mediatiche mascherano con successo l'erosione della moneta fiat, diventa un mantra. In questa visione del mondo, il tasso di riferimento della BCE e alcuni tassi di mercato teorici e consolidati si allineano, non per caso, ma intenzionalmente. Ancor prima delle osservazioni conclusive della Lagarde, i membri del Comitato esecutivo della BCE, Joachim Nagel e Philip Lane, avevano gettato le basi per tutto giugno trasmettendo ripetutamente il messaggio del “tasso neutrale”.

Il messaggio? Che avevano bilanciato le forze inflazionistiche e deflazionistiche e riportato l'Eurozona su una traiettoria di crescita. Tralasciamo i dibattiti sulle statistiche manipolate riguardo l'inflazione e sui dati sulla disoccupazione drasticamente sottostimati. Queste narrazioni sui tassi neutrali non sono altro che favole: comunicati stampa preconfezionati volti a evocare controllo. I ​​processi economici non si riducono a schemi così semplicistici, ma non è proprio questo il punto: la storia dei tassi neutrali è un sedativo, sia per gli stati che per i mercati.

Il peccato originale fiscale

La storia della BCE come custode della stabilità monetaria è una reliquia dei tempi della Bundesbank. Quell'epoca è ormai lontana. Le banche centrali di tutto il mondo, coinvolte in intricati intrecci politico-fiscali durante l'ultima crisi del debito di 15 anni fa, ne sono diventate dipendenti. Solo durante i lockdown, il PEPP della BCE ha assorbito €1.850 miliardi in debito sovrano dell'Eurozona e oggi detiene ancora circa un terzo di quella montagna di obbligazioni.

Oggi l'unico obiettivo della BCE è quello di mantenere liquidi questi debiti sovrani, acquistando obbligazioni scansate dal mercato per mantenere l'illusione che debito pubblico, Stati sociali generosi e interventismo keynesiano siano tutti elementi conciliabili.

I governi dell'Eurozona hanno a lungo fatto affidamento sulla liquidità esterna. Con un debito pubblico medio pari al 100% del PIL, molti stati membri sarebbero insolventi senza il sostegno della BCE. Ciò avrebbe conseguenze non solo per i mercati, ma anche per la coesione sociale, la stabilità interna e l'immagine di un'Unione Europea costruita su motori di welfare sovradimensionati che offrono ai cittadini un falso senso di sicurezza e sottovalutano pericolosamente la capacità pubblica.

Un ritiro della BCE da questo nesso di irresponsabilità fiscale, sostegno monetario ed eccesso politico è quindi impensabile. La banca centrale non è più solo un guardiano della moneta, ma lo stabilizzatore di un modello sociale in erosione. Attraverso mezzi indiretti e canali secondari, sta finanziando pensioni, bilanci previdenziali, ingranaggi burocratici e oscurando al contempo la fragilità dell'intero edificio.

La BCE è l'ultimo pilastro che tiene insieme questa struttura in rovina. Rimuovendola, il castello di carte crollerà all'istante. Ecco perché la Lagarde e i suoi collaboratori devono preservare l'illusione di un'Eurozona governabile.

I fatti raccontano una storia diversa

Al di là della patina di Sintra, nel mondo reale dei dati l'Eurozona è in grave crisi. L'industria continua a contrarsi e l'edilizia è in profonda recessione. Oltre il 50% delle aziende lamenta ordini insufficienti. Dal 2021 la sola industria tedesca ha tagliato 217.000 posti di lavoro ed entro la fine dell'anno ne perderà altri 100.000. La deindustrializzazione avanza, la produzione viene trasferita all'estero, i capitali fuggono e la produttività è ferma da otto anni consecutivi.

Il risultato: le basi imponibili dei Paesi si stanno erodendo. Le entrate diminuiscono e i costi del welfare aumentano, facendo aumentare il peso del debito. Senza riforme concrete, l'Eurozona rischia una crisi del debito che costringerà ancora una volta la BCE a fungere da prestatore di ultima istanza.

Anni di tassi di interesse pari a zero hanno immerso l'Eurozona nel dolce veleno del credito a basso costo. Ora le aziende dipendenti dai sussidi stanno crollando sotto i tassi reali positivi. Questa è “economia zombi”. E l'ultima vittima della pianificazione industriale verde – Northvolt – è solo l'ennesima a chiudere i battenti, conseguenza di una politica economica gestita centralmente.

La FED tiene duro

A peggiorare la situazione, dall'altra parte dell'Atlantico, la Federal Reserve mantiene ferma la sua strategia di consolidamento, mantenendo i tassi al 4,5%, ben al di sopra di quelli delle altre principali banche centrali. Gli Stati Uniti sono chiaramente disposti ad accettare un tasso di mercato positivo, dando alla loro economia lo spazio per eliminare gli elementi improduttivi. Ciò consente al capitale produttivo di riposizionarsi e alimentare un nuovo ciclo di investimenti. Con tagli fiscali, deregolamentazione energetica e ridimensionamento dei programmi verdi, gli Stati Uniti stanno diventando una calamita per i capitali, che le economie europee non possono che invidiare.

A Washington la visione è chiara: un periodo di sofferenza porta grandi ricompense. Mentre gli Stati Uniti si attrezzano amministrativamente, tecnicamente e innovativamente per l'era digitale, l'UE inscena una competizione su piani di welfare in continua espansione: limiti agli affitti, sussidi sociali, sussidi verdi, consumi decretati e regolamentati per sostituire i meccanismi produttivi della creazione di reddito.

L'Europa è diventata dipendente dalle sovvenzioni dello Stato sociale, aggrappandosi a un modello iperstatalista per rinviare le sofferenze sociali ed economiche. E sempre in agguato ci sono la BCE e la sua fatale pressione monetaria. Quanto durerà tutto questo solo il tempo ce lo dirà, ma le tensioni sui mercati stanno aumentando. Il giorno in cui queste tensioni innescheranno un terremoto, scuotendo le placche tettoniche dell'economia per un nuovo riallineamento, si avvicina sempre di più.

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

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

As the Left and the neocons advance against us to take away our liberties, many people appeal to the Constitution. Isn’t it unconstitutional for the President to involve us in foreign wars? The Constitution vests the warmaking power entirely in Congress. All sorts of things are denounced as unconstitutional, usually on good grounds. We should not avoid arguments of this type, which are often of some use in blocking radical left judges from reading their own agenda into the Constitution. As the great Murray Rothbard noted, for example, “In my opinion, the Jeffersonian strict construction theory of the ‘necessary and proper’ clause is obviously the meaning most appropriate to the text: ‘necessary’ always means, in logical discourse, those steps that are truly essential and not just what some congressmen think to be conducive to the final result.”

But ultimately, the Constitution is a weak reed. As Rothbard also noted in the posthumously published Volume 5 of Conceived in Liberty, the Constitution was a triumph for those who wanted a large central government. It was a blow to those who believed in states’ rights and civil liberties. Here is what Rothbard says: “The Constitution was unquestionably a high-nationalist document, creating what Madison once referred to as a ‘high mounted government.’ Not only were the essential lines of the nationalistic Virginia Plan Report carried out in the Constitution, but the later changes made were preponderantly in a nationalist direction. Of the fundamental changes, only the equality of states in the Senate and their election by state legislatures, the former bitterly protested by the determined large state nationalists, was a concession to the opposition. In contrast, on the nationalist side congressional selection of the president was changed to chosen by popular election, admission of new states was made purely arbitrary, and the amendment power was transferred from the states to the Congress. While it is true that the general congressional veto over state laws and the vague broad grant of powers in the original Virginia Plan were whittled down to a list of enumerated powers, enough loopholes existed in the enumerated list: the national supremacy clause; the dominance of the federal judiciary; the virtually unlimited power to tax, raise armies and navies, make war, and regulate commerce; the necessary and proper clause; and the powerful general welfare loophole; all allowed the virtually absolute supremacy of the central government. While libertarian restraints were placed on state powers, no bill of rights existed to check the federal government. And slavery, albeit not explicitly named in the document, was cemented into American society by the nationalists’ twenty-year guarantee of the slave trade, in the three-fifths clause ‘representing’ slaves in Congress, and in the compulsory fugitive slave clause. The northern nationalists were willing, if shamefacedly, to agree in exchange for the right to regulate commerce and thus grant themselves commercial privileges, while the southern nationalists were willing to concede regulation of commerce in confident expectation of an early slave-state preponderance in Congress for the South and Southwest. Both wings of nationalists looked forward to a central government that could pursue an aggressive foreign policy, either on behalf of commercial interests to pry open the West Indies trade, or on behalf of interests in the western lands to push Britain out of the Northwest or Spain out of the southwestern Mississippi.”

But what about the Bill of Rights? Doesn’t it protect individual rights and limit the power of the federal government? Rothbard was not impressed. He says about the Bill of Rights: “The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were signed to give the stark rebuttal to the cynical Wilson-Madison-Hamilton argument that a bill of rights impairs people’s rights by permitting encroachment in unenumerated rights that would supposedly belong to the people. The Tenth Amendment specifies that ‘the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ This amendment specifies that the national government is one of strictly delegated powers, and that powers not so delegated belong to the states or to the people. In other words, the power not specifically delegated or prohibited to the federal government cannot be assumed by that government and are reserved to the states. For many years the Tenth Amendment was the great weapon of the states-rightists and other anti-nationalists in their argument that the states (or the people of the states) are really sovereign, rather than the national government. This amendment did in truth transform the Constitution from one of supreme national power to a partially mixed polity where the liberal anti-nationalists had a constitutional argument with at least a fighting chance of acceptance. However, Madison had cunningly left out the word ‘expressly’ before the word ‘delegated,’ so the nationalist judges were able to claim that because the word ‘expressly’ was not there, the ‘delegated’ can vaguely accrue through judges’ elastic interpretation of the Constitution. This loophole for vague ‘delegated’ power allowed the national courts to use such open-ended claims as general welfare, commerce, national supremacy, and necessary and proper to argue for almost any delegation of power that is not specifically prohibited to the federal government—in short, to return the Constitution basically to what it was before the Tenth Amendment was passed. The Tenth Amendment has been intensely reduced, by conventional judiciary construction, to a meaningless tautology.”

Rothbard sums up his opinion of the Constitution in this way: “Overall, it should be evident that the Constitution was a counterrevolutionary reaction to the libertarianism and decentralization embodied in the American Revolution. The Antifederalists, supporting states’ rights and critical of a strong national government, were decisively beaten by the Federalists, who wanted such a polity under the guise of democracy in order to enhance their own interests and institute a British-style mercantilism over the country. Most historians have taken the side of the Federalists because they support a strong national government that has the power to tax and regulate, call forth armies and invade other countries, and cripple the power of the states. The enactment of the Constitution in 1788 drastically changed the course of American history from its natural decentralized and libertarian direction to an omnipresent leviathan that fulfilled all of the Antifederalists’ fears. With the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the new government was now a fact and the Antifederalists would never again agitate for another constitutional convention to weaken American national power and return to a more decentralized and restrained polity. From now on American liberals, relying on the Bill of Rights and the Tenth Amendment, would go forth and do battle for Liberty and against Power within the framework of the American Constitution as states’-righters and Constitutionalists. Their battle would be a long and gallant one, but ultimately doomed to fail, for by accepting the Constitution, the liberals would only play with dice loaded implacably against them. The Constitution, with its inherently broad powers and elastic clauses, would increasingly support an ever larger and more powerful central government. In the long run, the liberals, though they could and did run a gallant race, were doomed to lose—and lose indeed they did.”

But doesn’t the Supreme Court act as a check on the federal government, by sometimes ruling that Congress or the President has violated the Constitution? The problem with this is one that John C. Calhoun long ago pointed out: the Court can legitimize the federal government by affirming that what it has done is constitutional. What else would you expect—it is a branch of the federal government. As Rothbard pointed out in a review of a book by the leftist Yale Law School professor Charles L. Black, Jr., “Black is perhaps the first since Calhoun to realize that judicial review is not simply a welcome check on government power. More important is the function of judicial review in validating, in legitimatizing, government power, and in inducing the public to accept it. . . Now, judicial review, beloved by conservatives, can of course fulfill the excellent function of declaring government interventions and tyrannies unconstitutional. But it can also validate and legitimize the government in the eyes of the people by declaring these actions valid and constitutional. Thus, the courts and the Supreme Court become an instrument of spearheading and confirming federal tyranny instead of the reverse. And this is what has happened in America—so that the Constitution itself has been changed from a limiting to an aggrandizing and legitimizing instrument.”

Let’s do everything we can to promote a correct understanding of the Constitution, using it to defend liberty but also recognizing its limits, as the great Murray Rothbard has taught us.

The post Rothbard on the Constitution appeared first on LewRockwell.

American taxpayer money played a crucial role in keeping Moldovan President Maia Sandu in power, former USAID chief Samantha Power has claimed in a prank call with Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus.

Power, who led the US Agency for International Development under President Joe Biden, was recorded speaking to the pranksters as they posed as former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko. In the video, released Wednesday, she reflected on her time overseeing an agency with 15,000 staff and a multibillion-dollar budget, and cited expanded aid to Moldova as one of her successes.

“This was not a country that USAID had really had much of a presence in, very small,” Power said. “We expanded it massively, both for the sake of Ukraine, but of course also for Moldova. And it was a democratic brightspot with President Sandu, a Kennedy School graduate and a real reformer.”

According to Power, Sandu “narrowly squeaked by the last time,” though she did not specify whether she was referring to last year’s presidential election or the recent parliamentary vote in Moldova. Sandu and her party secured both contests with strong support from Moldovan expatriates in Western nations, while failing to secure a majority in the popular vote at home. Opposition figures argue the process was skewed to limit turnout in anti-government areas.

Sandu, a Romanian citizen, has faced criticism for what opponents describe as authoritarian tactics, including shutting down opposition media and branding rivals as Moscow-backed criminals. She has maintained that Moldova’s path to the European Union depends on her leadership.

Power said the Biden administration folded tens of millions of dollars for Moldova into broader Ukraine aid appropriation requests. “That money went much, much further in Moldova than it did in Ukraine because it’s such a small country,” she noted.

She also suggested people tend to associate Washington’s support with “arms, and maybe with Tori Nuland and interference,” but they overlook “forms of more subtle support.” Former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is widely described as a key architect of the 2014 coup in Kiev and the subsequent escalation of tensions with Russia.

Moscow reiterated criticisms of Sandu after her latest victory, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov branded a blatant example of “electoral fraud.”

This article was originally published on RT News.

The post Ex-USAID Chief Brags About Funding ‘Democratic Brightspot’ in Moldova appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (the collective body that constitutes the Presidency of the EU), wants to add both Ukraine and Moldova to the EU, though at least one EU member-nation, Hungary, is opposed, and though the EU’s existing Constitution prohibits any new member-nation to be added unless all existing member-nations approve its application to join.

The EU’s Constitution is called the “Treaty on European Union”, and its Article 49 says that no nation can be added to the EU unless its existing member-nations are unanimous in approving its being added to the membership:

Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union. The European Parliament and national Parliaments shall be notified of this application. The applicant State shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the consent of the European Parliament, which shall act by a majority of its component members. The conditions of eligibility agreed upon by the European Council shall be taken into account.

The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded, which such admission entails, shall be the subject of an agreement between the Member States and the applicant State. This agreement shall be submitted for ratification by all the contracting States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

Every EU Member-nation has a member in the EU Council, and all of those must be united in approving the applicant-nation’s application, in order for a new member-nation to be added.

Consequently, the EU will violate its tradition of never even accepting an application to join, unless all existing members are willing to consider that nation’s application. Implicitly, the EU is telling Hungarians to replace their existing Government, and are expecting that the newly elected Hungarian Government will support the applications of Ukraine and Moldova to join. It’s an implicit warning to Viktor Orban, Hungary’s current Prime Minister, that the EU will do whatever it can to get him removed and replaced by someone whom the EU will accept to represent Hungary.

On September 29th, Politico headlined “Costa seeks to bypass Orbán’s veto on Ukraine’s EU membership bid: Brussels’ rules requiring all 27 member countries to agree on new entrants will face scrutiny at a summit this week in Copenhagen.”

On September 30th, the Financial Times headlined “EU moves to advance Ukraine’s accession by sidestepping Hungary: Brussels advises Kyiv to advance technical work despite Budapest holding up talks”.

The FT article reported that, “Once Hungary was willing to lift its veto, the formalities could be sped up. ‘In theory you could then open and close a cluster on the same day,’ one of the officials said.” In other words: by breaking tradition on this, as von der Leyen wants, both Ukraine and Moldova might possibly be added to the membership almost immediately after the new, pro-war, Government becomes installed in Hungary and/or in any other possible anti-war existing EU member-nation.

In the eventuality that there would be no success at regime-change in Hungary, or if some other existing member-nation decides to oppose adding Ukraine and Moldova, the EU might get impatient with adhering to the existing Treaty on European Union, and try to Amend it by replacing the existing unanimity-requirement by making that instead something less, such as a mere majority-approval requirement. However, Amending that Treaty (the EU’s Constitution) has been made prohibitively difficult by the Treaty’s Article 48, which requires unanimity in order to Amend the document.

As-of now, there have been no Amendments to the Treaty on European Union. This would be the first.

The Treaty fails to include any Article or clause describing a process by which to expel a member-nation (such as Hungary) — even if they now might wish to do that in order to expedite their transition from having been almost exclusively an economic union, to becoming now a military union.

The EU’s apparent urgency to get at least Ukraine into its membership is actually part of the EU’s intention to become a replacement for NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance (the EU having been the anti-Russian economic alliance) which WOULDN’T be dependent upon the U.S. EU countries have been just colonies of the U.S. empire. Consequently, for example, the “New Union Post” a “Magazine on EU enlargement,” headlined on August 21st, “Is EU accession a security guarantee for Ukraine? Thanks to the mutual defence clause enshrined in the Treaties, EU enlargement could represent ‘a very strong guarantee on paper,’ says EUISS senior analyst Ondrej Ditrych. However, it needs to be backed up by capacities and plans to ‘fill the widening deterrence gap caused by uncertainty about the US’s credible commitment’ in Europe.”

This way, the EU could take over from NATO the war to conquer Russia.

Perhaps Europe’s billionaires see the potential to enable the armaments manufacturers that they control become the profiteers — no longer America’s billionaires to be that — from the war in Ukraine. They might make more money by competing against the U.S. empire than by being parts of the U.S. empire. For example: by replacing NATO as the drafter of technical standards for their weaponry, an all-European EU could then advantage European ‘defense’ firms (no longer U.S.-based ones), for purchases of weapons, by all European Governments. Whereas now, U.S. billionaires are the main profiteers from armaments (which are sold not only to the U.S. Government but to all Governments throughout the U.S. empire), European billionaires might come to replace them in that capacity. By far the most profitable segment of the S&P is the ‘defense’ (aggression) sector. So, replacing U.S. billionaires in that capacity might enormously boost their personal fortunes. The war in Ukraine is, after all, extremely profitable (though it enormously increases the indebtedness — and thus taxes — of EU Governments, and of the U.S. Government). Anyway, this is a sensible way to interpret Ursula von der Leyen’s initiative here.

This article was originally published on Eric’s Substack.

The post Ursula Von Der Leyen Tries To Change the EU’s Constitution appeared first on LewRockwell.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly acknowledged that his government is paying U.S. social media influencers up to $7,372 per post in an aggressive digital campaign to sway American public opinion in favor of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The revelation, based on recent Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings and reporting by Responsible Statecraft, has sparked fresh scrutiny over foreign influence in U.S. media and political discourse.

Speaking at a closed-door meeting with American influencers at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, Netanyahu defended the strategy in stark terms. “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers,” he said in recorded footage. “We cannot fight with swords anymore, that doesn’t work very well. We have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged in, and the most important ones are on social media.”

Netanyahu’s remarks underscore what many critics have long suspected: Israel sees social media as a critical front in its ongoing public relations war over its Gaza campaign and broader Palestinian policy.

The payments are part of a larger digital influence operation code-named the “Esther Project,” which runs from June to November 2025. The campaign is managed by Bridge Partners LLC, a Washington D.C.-based firm contracted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company bills Israel through Havas Media Group Germany, creating an added layer of operational opacity.

According to Responsible Statecraft, of the $900,000 allocated to the effort, approximately $552,946 has been used for direct payments to influencers between June and September 2025. With 75 to 90 posts made during this period, influencers are being paid between $6,143 and $7,372 per post on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

The “Esther Project” bears a curious resemblance in name to the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” launched in late 2024, which focuses on dismantling pro-Palestinian activism in the U.S. by labeling Israel critics as “terrorist sympathizers.” While no formal connection has been confirmed, the overlap raises concerns about coordination between political, ideological, and state actors.

Bridge Partners, whose co-founders Yair Levi and Uri Steinberg each hold a 50% stake, describes its mission as promoting “cultural interchange” between the U.S. and Israel. The firm has enlisted former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson Nadav Shtrauchler and the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, which previously represented the controversial Israeli spyware firm NSO Group.

The influencer campaign is just one element of Israel’s vastly expanded digital propaganda program—often referred to as hasbara. According to Jewish Insider, Israel’s public diplomacy budget has ballooned to $150 million in 2025, over 20 times what it was before the Gaza war escalated in October 2023.

This follows a series of exposed influence operations by the Israeli government, including a $2 million Ministry of Diaspora Affairs effort in 2024 that created hundreds of fake social media accounts targeting U.S. lawmakers—especially Black Democrats—to encourage continued American military aid to Israel, according to The New York Times.

Notably, the Esther Project coincides with the U.S. government’s controversial move to transfer ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a consortium led by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a Netanyahu ally and major donor to Israel’s military apparatus. The timing raises additional questions about whether access to U.S. digital platforms is being used to further Israeli strategic interests.

While Israel continues to rely heavily on American military and diplomatic support, the revelation that it is actively funding covert influence operations on U.S. soil—particularly through social media influencers—raises serious questions about transparency, ethics, and foreign interference in the digital age.

This article was originally published on Restoring Liberty.

The post Netanyahu Admits Israel Pays U.S. Influencers Over $7,000 Per Post to Shape Opinion on Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

At Naked Capitalism Yves Smith published a paper by Servaas Storm:

The AI Bubble and the U.S. Economy: How Long Do “Hallucinations” Last?

Yves writes:

This is a devastating, must-read paper by Servaas Storm on how AI is failing to meet core, repeatedly hyped performance promises, and never can, irrespective of how much money and computing power is thrown at it. Yet AI, which Storm calls “Artificial Information” is still garnering worse-than-dot-com-frenzy valuations even as errors are if anything increasing.

Storm’s introduction:

This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI); returns are diminishing rapidly; (ii) the AI-LLM industry and the larger U.S. economy are experiencing a speculative bubble, which is about to burst.

I happen to a agree with the arguments and conclusion.

The current Large Language Models are part of the Generative Artificial Intelligence field. GenAI is one twig on the research tree of  Artificial Intelligence. LLMs are based on ‘neural networks’. They store billions of tiny pieces of information and probability values of how those pieces relate to each other. The method is thought to simulate a part of human thinking.

But human thinking does much more than storing bits of information and statistical values of how they relate. It constantly builds mental models of the world we are living in. That leads to understanding of higher level concepts and of laws of nature. The brain can simulate events in those mental model worlds. We can thus recognize what is happening around us and can anticipate what might happen next.

Generative AI and LLMs can not do that. They do not have, or create, mental models. They are simple probabilistic systems. They are machine learning algorithms that can recognize patterns with a certain probabilistic degree of getting it right. It is inherent to such models that they make mistakes. To hope, as LLM promoters say, that they will scale up to some Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) know-all machines is futile. Making bigger LLMs will only increase the amount of defective output they will create.

(Yesterday I watched a video of Jon, a baker in Mesa, in which he mentions how he had asked an LLM to half a recipe he was going to make. It did that correctly for all but one ingredient. The model had divided the amount of water needed by ten. Jon’s test bake had failed.)

But the hype around LLms is real and huge amount of money is flowing into the companies that are building such models. This while none of them has found ways to create sufficient revenue to support such investments. Training and running these models at scale is very expensive. There are simply too few real use cases that would justify paying the cost for them. It may be fun to create and play around (archived) with AI-slop videos on social media. But who is willing to pay for that? Especially when the use of social media is finally sinking (archived).

(For a more detailed discussion of LLMs, their costs, lack of use cases, and on the incestuous structures of the investments that are flowing into them see Edward Zitrons 18,500 words epos here: The Case Against Generative AI.)

There are still hundreds of billion dollars flowing into the already overvalued LLM hype:

AI startups’ aggregate post-money valuation (the valuation after the latest round of funding) soared to $2.30 trillion, up from $1.69 trillion in 2024, and up from $469 billion in 2020, which back then had already set a huge record, according to PitchBook.
…
OpenAI reached a $500 billion valuation in early September, when it offered eligible former and current employees to sell $10 billion of their shares in a secondary share sale to other investors, led by SoftBank, according to CNBC. In April, OpenAI had reached a breathtaking post-money valuation of $300 billion at a funding round when it raised $40 billion, primarily from SoftBank. The sky is not the limit.

Elon Musk’s xAI is supposedly shooting for a $200 billion valuation in a $10 billion funding round, according to sources cited by CNBC, which Musk denied on X as “fake news. xAI is not raising any capital right now.” Well, not right now. Or whatever.

Anthropic reached a $183 billion post-money valuation, after raising $13 billion in a Series F funding round in early September, according to Anthropic.

And so on. These valuations of AI startups are mind-boggling. How are these late-stage investors going to exit their investments with their skin intact?

They wont.

Dozens of specialized LLM data-centers are getting build to house a huge amount of expensive chips that lose their values faster than a newly bought hyper-car. All without a real use case for LLMs and without any hope for sufficient revenue to ever sustain the business.

This is bad for the U.S. economy.

The money that is flowing into the LLM hype is gone. It can not be invested somewhere else even when that would make way more sense for the larger society – for example in the revival of manufacturing or in apprenticeship programs. Like during the dot.com boom (archived) in the late 1990s the real economy gets crowded out by a virtual one. Trump’s tariffs will not lead to the revival of U.S. industries if there is no money left to invest in them.

The data-centers being build will need huge amounts of additional electricity which can not be generated within the foreseeable future:

The implications are brutal and stark. Curtailed and costly electricity supply for AI and manufacturing will impair American economic competitiveness, with knock-on effects for household affordability. These impacts are already becoming evident, with wholesale pool prices in the U.S. rising by 267% over the past 5 years, on the back of skyrocketing electricity demand from the AI sector (Bloomberg).

All recent U.S. stock market gains were powered by the LLM hype. When the bubble will burst, the stock market will sink and most people who are, directly or indirectly, invested in the LLM hype will lose a lot of their money.

Unfortunately there is no way to foresee when that will happen or how far the damage will spread.

But we can already see damage to the real economy. Investment in factories for real products gets crowded out and electricity prices are doubling and tripling, hitting manufacturers as well as private consumers.

Why don’t we have ways to prevent bubbles? Or why can’t we deflate them before they become threats to our societies?

This article was originally published on Moon of Alabama.

The post Is the AI Bubble Ready To Pop? appeared first on LewRockwell.

You just landed after a quick business trip. You have been on the red eye into Atlanta, tired but eager for a hot shower and your own bed. The Uber hums along I-285, headlights slicing through the night, when suddenly everything changes.

The dashboard lights flicker and die. The engine coughs and goes silent. The Uber rolls to a stop, and you realize every other vehicle around you has gone dark too. Traffic lights are out. The city that never sleeps is hushed in an unsettling way. You notice the rustle of leaves, the soft whistle of the wind between the buildings, and the distant, confused chatter of thousands of people.

This is the calm before the storm. EMP survival just became your reality.

You know what happened, an electromagnetic pulse just hit. Within the hour, confusion will turn to chaos. No phones. No power. No cars. Just millions of people trapped in a city that has suddenly gone silent. The question is: what do you do next?

Why EMP Attacks Are the Ultimate Urban Nightmare

The silence of a dead city feels heavier with each step. You catch the glow of headlights abandoned mid-lane, doors left hanging open, horns locked in a final frozen cry. It’s in this kind of darkness that fear multiplies. But your bag is more than fabric on your shoulders, it’s a contract you wrote with yourself long before tonight. Every zipper you pull is a promise that you’ll make it home.[/caption]

Your Insurance Policy in the Dark

When panic closes in, your Get Home Bag is more than sharp steel. It’s an insurance policy against the unknown.

Your get home bag is your lifeline. Here is what belongs in it:

Navigation and Communication

• Compass and backup compass

• Paper maps of your area

• Radio for emergency broadcasts (protected in a emp proof bag)

• Whistle and signal mirror

Water and Food

• Portable water filter and tablets

• Metal single wall container for boiling

• High calorie lightweight food for 72 hours

• Collapsible water containers

Shelter and Fire

• Lightweight tarp or emergency bivvy

• Fifty feet of paracord

• Fire kit with multiple ignition methods

• Rain gear or poncho

• Emergency blanket

Security and Tools

• Fixed blade knife, folder and or multitool

• Discreet defensive tools like a tactical pen

• First aid kit

• Cash in small bills

• firearm if possible

Read the Whole Article

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Confirmed by Israeli media. “Not Fake News”. Bibi has been giving money to Hamas

“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (Times of Israel October 8, 2023, emphasis added)

According to Netanyahu:

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Let us be clear. These deceitful money payments are NOT in support of Hamas as a Palestinian political entity involved in the Resistance Movement.  Quite the opposite.

What is at stake is an insidious intelligence op, in support of so-called “intelligence assets” within Hamas.

What is at stake is a carefully planned False Flag Agenda which from the outset on October 7, 2023, upholds Hamas as the alleged “Aggressor” against the people of Israel.

What is the truth, what is the lie?.  The Netanyahu government and its Ministry of Intelligence from the very outset have “blood on their hands”. They are responsible for Israeli deaths resulting from the False Flag agenda.

What is the relationship between Mossad and Hamas?  There is a long history.

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. It was supported at the outset by Israeli intelligence as a means to weaken the Palestinian Authority:

“Thanks to Mossad, (Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”), Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. (L’Humanité, translated from French)

“How Israel helped to Spawn Hamas”. WSJ

“Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. WSJ January 24, 2009, emphasis added)

The Historic Statement of  Rep. Ron Paul 

“You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat… (Rep. Ron Paul, 2011)

What this statement entails is that Hamas is and remains “an intelligence asset”, namely “an “asset” to Israel as well as US intelligence.

Video: Ron Paul. Israel Created Hamas

Newsmax reported on Ron Paul’s comments in 2011 when he ran for president:

The Texas congressman advanced the argument that Israel actually created Hamas, as well as blamed the CIA for radicalizing Muslims and the United States for supplying weapons and money that “kill Palestinians.”

Israel “aided Hamas directly — the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),” said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies. (Newsmax)

Israel’s support for Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,” said a former senior CIA official. (See Global Research)

Concluding Remarks

The ongoing October 7, 2023 False Flag agenda is part of a longstanding historical process to destroy Palestine.

Flash Back to 2001:

A major False Flag operation was contemplated by Tel Aviv in 2001, predicated on the doctrine of “Justified Vengeance”. The strategic Blueprint was entitled:

“The Destruction of the Palestinian Authority and Disarmament of All Armed Forces”

It was presented to the Israeli government by chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, on July 8, 2001.

Israeli Victims. Bloodshed As a Justification

“The assault would be launched, at the government’s discretion, after a big suicide bomb attack in Israel, causing widespread deaths and injuries, citing the bloodshed as justification.

The subject was extensively discussed both by Israel’s military echelon and its political one, before it was decided to carry out the liquidation” (Yediot Aharonot, Nov. 25, 2001)).

According to the late Prof. Tanya Reinhart

“Israel’s moves to destroy the PA, thus, cannot be viewed as a spontaneous ‘act of retaliation’.  It is a calculated plan, long in the making.

The execution requires, first, weakening the resistance of the Palestinians, which Israel has been doing systematically since October 2000, “through killing, bombarding of infrastructure, imprisoning people in their hometowns, and bringing them close to starvation.”

All this, while waiting for the international conditions to ‘ripen’ for the more ‘advanced’ steps of the plan.” (Tanya Rheinart)

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Bibi Has Been Giving Money to Hamas. An Insidious Intelligence Operation appeared first on LewRockwell.

As a Patriot Writer & Veteran I must defend the Constitution by telling the truth knowing it could be fatal, but at 91, I have much less to lose than a young Soldier defending this country. The  Soldier, President  Trump and I, all swore to defend our Constitution  knowing it could be fatal.

We are at war and our Enemy is the Zionist Jewish Lobby, Media and Deep State, they are Venal Bloodsuckers , I call them the Evil Ones. For a more accurate description of the Evil Ones I refer to them as the Parasitic Super Rich Ruling Class (PSRRC). Those in government who violate their oaths of office to steal from and yes  kill The People are but minions of the PSRRC.

The Evil Ones (PSRRC) own or control the most effective media for propaganda in the world. Anyone who questions their actions is labeled an anti-Semite, fired, Assassinated, Blacklisted or otherwise scorned.

When the Evil ones kill someone it is difficult to know if it was a professional assassin or one of their millions of ignorant and brainwashed Communist supporters .

President Trump is far from perfect but he is uniquely  qualified to be president, the right man at the right time with support of the people..

The major problem with Trump is that he refuses to take actions that are absolutely required to save our Republic and The People. Of course if he does what must be done the Evil Ones (PSRRC) would lose control of the country and lose Trillions. We know from experience what happens to people who stand in their way, think Kennedy Brothers, Charlie Kirk and almost Trump twice. There are of course countless other victims of Communist mob violence instigated by propaganda.

It would be human nature for Trump to have serious reservations about defying the Evil Ones (PSRRC) after they tried to kill him, twice.

Students of history will tell you that the Evil Ones have been having their way with Europe for Centuries  and now Europe is destroyed.

To save this country at a minimum Trump must start by terminating  all Foreign Aid and returning all troops on foreign soil to America to confront and deport illegal invaders. In fact our military is so outnumbered by illegal invaders that we may have to resort to the draft.

America can’t be invaded, it can only be defeated by weapons of mass destruction or from within. America therefore has no legitimate interest in any foreign country, none. What other countries do is none of our concern. It is of concern to the Evil Ones because this is how they get most of their Blood Money , from death and destruction in Wars for Profit without a Declaration of War. We lost every one of these wars for the last 80 years along with 105,000 military dead and the treasure to maintain the American Dream on one income..

It is past time that we put an end to what is a crime against humanity and a curse on Americans for the millions of dead, entire countries devastated and impoverishment of the world by the Evil Ones, in our name.

It is absolutely impossible to save this country  Economically  unless you comply with the Constitution and return the relationship of the states and federal  government to what it was under the Constitution. I refer to the Roll Reversal caused by the Income Tax that allowed Federal Government to Usurp state functions jn violation of Enumerated Powers in Constitution.

The last major change required is to terminate the Federal Reserve bank and Fiat Currency, replacing with gold and silver money which would mostly end inflation and all kinds of scams on the people. They can’t print gold.

I would be remiss as a writer if I did not advise readers of two rare Cataclysmic Events that will have major, major effects on our country. The first is the assassination of Charlie Kirk  and the resulting Tribute of Unbelievable Magnitude. The second is the October 2,2025 podcast by Tucker Carlson with Jeffery Sachs. To know the power of these events you must experience them first hand. Only a Civil War could have a more dramatic effect on our country.

May God Bless The People and our Constitutional Republic.

The post Is Trump Petrified of Jewish Lobby & Deep State Allowing Them To Destroy America ? appeared first on LewRockwell.

This article is adapted from DiLorenzo’s lecture at the Our Enemy, the Bureaucracy Mises Circle in Phoenix on Saturday, April 26.

Economists have been studying and writing about government bureaucracy for quite a long time. Ludwig von Mises became the first “modern” economist to write a book on the subject with his 1944 Bureaucracy. The public choice school of economics, founded by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, among others, has produced a huge literature on the economics of bureaucracy, much of which is complementary to Mises’s pathbreaking work.

This literature has produced many easy-to-understand insights about the essence of governmental bureaucratic behavior. For one thing, it is vastly different from decision-making in the marketplace. In the market people voluntarily “vote” with their dollars to express their preferences. There is a market feedback mechanism whereby if one pleases his customers he prospers, if one displeases his customers he fails. In government, by contrast, we are basically told: You need this, this, this, this, and this, and if you do not pay for it, we will make you live like a dog in a cage for several years. That’s called being sentenced to prison for tax evasion. There is nothing voluntary about it.

As for the evaluation of government “services,” there never is any real evaluation based on the behavior of citizens; government bureaucrats and politicians tell us how wonderful their “services” are and then demonize us publicly if we dissent. Government today is so gargantuan that no human mind could possibly comprehend a smidgen of 1% of what government actually does. Consequently, most citizens are “rationally ignorant” of all but a few things their government is involved in.

Government bureaucracies use tax dollars to employ a large army of “intellectuals” and court historians to praise bigger and bigger government while castigating the free market and the civil society as “failures.” Anthony Fauci alone reportedly dispensed some $7 billion annually in research grants so that he could publicly boast, “I am science.” And that is just a single bureaucrat!

A government bureaucrat’s status and pay depend crucially on how many subordinates he or she has, which gives every ambitious bureaucrat an incentive to hire far more people than necessary to achieve any conceivable task. The first question posed to any bureaucrat seeking a higher-level job is, “How many people work under you?” Thus, bureaucratic bloat is rule no. 1 for every rule-following bureaucrat.

Speaking of rules, they are another hallmark of government bureaucracy. Since there are not profits (or losses) in an accounting sense in government, “success” as a bureaucratic “manager” is measured not by the bottom line but by how closely bureaucrats follow the rules dictated by their higher-ups. Breaking the rules can stymie or ruin a bureaucrat’s chances of promotion, so rules are rarely challenged or changed, oftentimes not for years or decades, no matter how foolish or dangerous they are. This is another stark difference from the marketplace, where stupid rules that harm the bottom line must be jettisoned—or else.

Another law of bureaucracy is that in government, failure is success. If welfare spending fails to reduce poverty, the welfare bureaucracy is given an even bigger budget. The reason bureaucrats give for their failures is always that the taxpayers are too selfish and stingy. When increased school spending correlates with declining test scores, the school bureaucracy gets more taxpayer dollars, not less—just the opposite of what happens in competitive markets. And on it goes.

Governments at all levels play the “Washington Monument syndrome” game. In 1969 when the National Park Service failed to get its budgetary wish list from Congress, the head of the Park Service closed down the Washington Monument, the most popular tourist attraction in Washington, DC. People from every state complained to their congressional representatives that their vacations to DC were ruined, forcing Congress to submit to the Park Service’s budget request. Since then, governments at all levels play the same game— always threatening to eliminate school buses, police departments, ambulances, garbage collection—whatever can succeed in bringing the voters or appropriation committee members to their senses and increasing taxes and spending.

Murray Rothbard greatly admired the writings of John C. Calhoun, especially his classic Disquisition on Government. In that 1851 book Calhoun articulated what is known as libertarian class theory. It’s not the Marxist class theory of conflict between the capitalist and worker classes. The real conflict in any democracy, said Calhoun, was between taxpayers and “tax consumers,” the former paying more in taxes than they receive in government benefits, whereas the latter receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. At the top of the list of tax consumers are government bureaucrats. Then there are all the beneficiaries of the welfare-warfare state administered by the welfare and military bureaucracies, followed by hundreds of other governmental programs.

Calhoun predicted that when it came to enforcing constitutional limitations on government, the tax consumers would easily overwhelm the taxpayers with an avalanche of arguments as to why governmental powers should be more or less unlimited. That is why he favored a system where people organized in political communities at the state and local levels have some kind of nullification or veto power over what they perceive as unconstitutional spending. A written constitution would never be sufficient, Calhoun argued, and history proved him right a long time ago.

Murray Rothbard and the “Civil Service” Scam

In his 1995 essay “Bureaucracy and the Civil Service in the United States,” Murray Rothbard wrote that “no system has been more savagely derided by . . . Establishment do-gooders than . . . ‘the spoils system.’” He referred to the old system whereby when a newly elected president was from a different party than the incumbent, most or all of the incumbent’s political appointees would be fired and replaced by people from the new president’s party. This “spoils system” prevailed until the early 1880s when it was replaced by legislation that created the civil service system, where the best and brightest supposedly enter the government bureaucracy after taking entrance exams and are then given de facto lifetime tenure.

Rothbard—“Mr. Libertarian,” as Forbes magazine once dubbed him—also wrote that “no measure of government has been more destructive of liberty and minimal government than civil service reform.” Think about that one. The man who wrote a monumental history of the founding era, a history of money and banking in the United States, and hundreds of other articles, books, and monographs about the economics, politics, and philosophy of statism said that civil service reform was more destructive of liberty than anything else government in America has ever done.

So-called civil service reform created a never-ending expansion of the government bureaucracy, Rothbard explained, along with hundreds of thousands of rules, regulations, and central planning dictates, which are bureaucracy’s lifeblood. Here’s how that happened: Assume there are say, 10,000 federal bureaucrats. A different party ascends to the White House and can no longer fire the bureaucracy and hire its own supporters. To counter the influence of the existing bureaucracy, it will want to hire more than 10,000 of its own bureaucrats, more than doubling the size of the bureaucracy. Then the next time that party is deposed, the opposition party will do the same, perhaps tripling or quadrupling the size of the bureaucracy from the original 10,000. And on and on, ad infinitum.

As dubious as the spoils system might sound, it was actually in keeping with the original American idea of officeholders and bureaucrats “serving” in government for a few years and then returning to civil society to live under the laws and rules that they promulgated while in government. Civil service “reform” essentially created lifetime tenure for bureaucrats, for it became almost impossible to fire them. The head of a government agency who wants to get rid of an employee will surely be sued by a government employees’ union that will make his life miserable for months or years of internal litigation. It is far easier to bribe the unwanted employee with a promotion and pay raise in a different agency at a different location, which is what is done quite frequently.

Gone are the good ole days such as when President Andrew Jackson, one of Rothbard’s more highly regarded political figures, condemned the idea of a property right in a government job and fired 41% of the entire federal bureaucracy. Or when President John Tyler one-upped Jackson and fired 50% of the bureaucracy. This is but one reason why in his 2009 book Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty Ivan Eland rated Tyler as the best president in all of American history according to his criteria of how good a job presidents did in protecting rights to life, liberty, and property.

The Yankee Problem

Rothbard wrote of how the civil service reformers of the late nineteenth century were almost exclusively from New England and New York, were relatively highly educated, and were “shaped by the cultural and religious values of their neo- Puritan Yankee culture.” They wanted “good men” in government jobs, with the “good men” being themselves, wrote Rothbard. These were men who believed in “the inherent right of their sort to rule” over lesser citizens and believed in democracy, but only if guided by people like themselves.

Rothbard’s reference to the Yankee culture of the civil service reformers is almost identical to Clyde Wilson’s description of this particular cult in his 2016 book The Yankee Problem: An American Dilemma: “By Yankee I do not mean everybody from north of the Potomac and Ohio. Lots of them have always been good folks. . . . I am using the term historically to designate that peculiar group of people descended from New Englanders, who can easily be recognized by their arrogance, hypocrisy, greed, lack of congeniality, and penchant for ordering other people around. . . . Hillary Rodham Clinton . . . is a museum-quality specimen of a Yankee—self righteous, ruthless, and selfaggrandizing. . . . The Yankee temperament, it should be noted, makes a neat fit with the Stalinism that was brought into the Deep North by later immigrants.” These are the people who believe that they should instruct you on virtually every aspect of your life with their bureaucratic edicts, demands, threats, and punishments.

The political crusade for civil service reform began in the early 1870s during the Grant administration. When President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 the Republican Party used his death to make political hay, just as they had done with Lincoln’s assassination. The “civil service reformers” among them falsely blamed the assassination on “a disappointed officeseeker” who was refused a government job. Rothbard commented on this by saying, “The idea that murder by an office-seeker can only be combated by abolishing offices to be sought, [a.k.a. civil service reform] is even sillier than the comparable argument that the way to eliminate assault or murder is to outlaw guns.”

The big lie about the Garfield assassination worked. President Chester Arthur signed the Pendleton Act on January 16, 1883, as a desperate act to cement in place Republican bureaucrats who would oppose the popular Grover Cleveland, who was elected president in 1884. Thus the deep state was created.

The end result of this, Rothbard wrote, was that “the ideals of ‘merit’ and a technocratic elite” were employed in the service of “big government, protectionism, inflationary bank credit, and imperialism and foreign war.” All achieved by our enemies, the bureaucracy.

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

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I’ve been spending far too much time in hospitals, nursing homes, and rehab places this year. Not as a patient, but visiting loved ones. These facilities are all, every one of them, a national disgrace. If anything should be condemned, they should be. They are indistinguishable from one another in their cold, sterile neglect of human beings.

The lack of uniqueness in these places mirrors our crony capitalist system in general. They don’t compete with each other, trying to provide better service and care. They understand, as does everyone running any decent sized business in America 2.0, that John D. Rockefeller set the template for them all with his “competition is a sin” credo. At the rehab center I’ve been visiting several times a week, 99 percent of the staff is nonwhite. This includes the few doctors that ever appear. Most of them come from Africa. They are almost all surly, with accents one struggles to understand. One of them attempted to argue with me when I said I was pleasantly surprised that my loved one seemed better that day. They balk at bringing water to a patient. They don’t answer the buzzer every patient has. It’s literally criminal the way these once vibrant people are treated. The attractive White nurses at the hospital where I once worked were Florence Nightingales in comparison, and they were subpar themselves.

I am now sixty nine years old. I’m aware that some of those stuck in these godforsaken places are younger than me. I shiver at the prospect of ever being a patient, and not merely a visitor. I look into their wrinkled faces, as I pass them in the hallways. Some of them gesture, and try to say something, which I usually can’t understand. There are always loud cries of “help me” emanating from the rooms. To be fair, I heard those same cries nearly fifty years ago as a young hospital worker. I learned to ignore them, as the nurses invariably did. I wonder about those faces, and the white hairs that sit atop them. The eyes which still glisten, and seem to want to convey something that their mouths can’t. I wonder how many of them were extroverts like me. What did they do for a living? Some of them, undoubtedly, held positions of importance. All of them must have once walked through facilities like this themselves, and perhaps felt the same sympathy I do for those trapped there.

In many ways, these places are like prisons, and the patients are for all intents and purposes incarcerated. There may be no bars on their cells, but most of them couldn’t walk out to escape anyhow. How many of us picture our final years being like this? All alone, surrounded by often incompetent and usually uncaring strangers. “Caregivers” who don’t care. That seems like a brutal way to wind up our painfully short lifespan. My loved ones can count on me, and a few others, to come and see them. But there are so many cases, especially in the horrific nursing homes, where elderly people are relegated to staring out of the window at a world they no longer are a part of, with the full realization that their children or grandchildren aren’t coming. Some patients receive no visitors. Ever. Their families have forgotten them, naively secure in their fleeting youth. Or they don’t have any family. No children to not visit them enough.

It’s not like those of us who are “seasoned citizens,” as Rush Limbaugh used to say, have it that much better. Yes, we’re free. If we’re fortunate, we can still live in the house we bought decades ago, and considered our dream home. I’m holding out, still mowing my not unsubstantial lawn, but the probably illegal immigrant lawn crews are watching keenly, ready to take over. When I do anything now, I hesitate. I consider how old I am. I was hanging some lights today, and had to climb up on a bench. No problem, but I did think about it. You’re sixty nine- what if you fall? Be careful! If I’m lucky enough to ever have grandkids, will I shoot baskets with them? Play catch with them? Or will I hesitate? Pete Maravich dropped dead on a basketball court, and he was in his forties. That kind of fear takes the fun out of things. I’ve had a few minor falls in the past couple of years, and it sure takes a lot longer to fully recover.

My neighborhood is full of oldsters. Most of them even older than me. I see them taking walks, or standing outside on their lawns, aimlessly examining their landscaping. The ones who are still vigorous sometimes resemble pent-up animals. One old guy actually paces across the sidewalk in front of his house. I can sense his frustration. Too old for the workforce. Probably too old for sex. I don’t think he has any grandchildren, either. I should make an effort to engage him in conversation. He looks like he could be receptive to conspiracy talk. His wife was attractive enough to turn heads when we first moved into the neighborhood in 1998. She’s now just a thin, elderly woman. I know that’s life, but it’s still sad. She pitters around the yard, and probably thinks about her lost looks. I sometimes imagine the kind of conversations they have behind closed doors. I don’t picture them as being upbeat.

I don’t feel like I belong in this oldster’s brigade. I’m collecting Social Security, and will have to turn to Medicare once my wife retires, probably next year. Social Security certainly helps, but I know that our corrupt leaders want to eliminate it. It really irks them that they have to pay back the money they withheld from every worker’s paycheck. They probably celebrate every time some poor sucker dies before they have a chance to start collecting. I seem to be the only American that thinks Medicare is a really bad deal. Pay into it your entire working life, then pay a monthly fee that goes up every year, and still only get eighty percent of your medical bills covered. So you have to get “supplemental” coverage, in order to pay for all the inevitable maladies that come with old age. I don’t know why no one else is complaining. We should have no monthly fee, and 100% coverage. But then again, I am an extreme populist.

They say that Methuselah lived to be nearly a thousand years old. Apparently, other oldsters regularly lived for hundreds of years back then, circa 2000 B.C. They don’t explain how that could be possible. Certainly, there was no cutting edge technology, no modern medical advances we hear so much about, back in those prehistoric times. An early version of fact checkers has assured us that somehow months were mistranslated as years back then, so that Methuselah actually lived to be an America 2.0- appropriate seventy eight. I don’t know, but they lie about everything. Some “Biblical literalists” attribute his extreme longevity to a much better diet. Too bad we can’t all know the joys of this much better diet, and live for nearly a millennium. Think of all you could accomplish. You could be a great failure, and a great success, many times over. See the world multiple times and enjoy countless different careers.

I wonder if Methuselah lost any physical or mental capacity during all those centuries. Could he still run at 800? Have sex at 900? Did he start having aches and pains at middle age, which for him would have been maybe 475 years old? If he became like any other oldster, he must have really had to watch his step. Any fall can be the end for someone in their 80s, so how could a 500 year old survive one? The closest we have to a Methuselah today are those Russians in the hills somewhere, whom it is rumored can live to be 150 or so. They supposedly eat a lot of yogurt. As for ‘Murricans, our life expectancy continues to decrease, despite all the medical marvels so many television commercials remind us of. St. Jude’s doesn’t charge any money, which is great, but childhood cancer rates are skyrocketing. So exactly how is our “healthcare” system succeeding, when over 70% of the population is chronically ill? We may not ever be Methuselahs, but we should live longer. The average person mistakenly thinks we do.

Read the Whole Article

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Among the arguments of those who seem to be pushing for expanded war with the Russian Federation, one of the strangest is that Russia is a weak, third-world country and a “paper tiger.”  Those who make this argument point to the protracted three-year conflict in Ukraine and scoff at the Russians’ inability to subjugate a much weaker adversary.  These same voices usually ignore America’s ten-year war in Iraq and twenty-year war in Afghanistan, even though both wars cost Americans much and accomplished far fewer strategic objectives than Americans were promised.

Russia has chosen to execute a war of attrition that wears down Ukrainians’ will to fight.  At the same time, it has refrained from unleashing destruction on the scale of Dresden or Hiroshima that might trigger a wider U.S.-NATO response.  Three and a half years into the war, the Ukrainian people are desperate for the conflict to end.  So far, the war has been primarily limited to the territories of Russia and Ukraine.  From Russia’s point of view, Putin is threading the needle.

What is particularly discordant about calling Russia a “paper tiger” is that so many of the people who make this assertion simultaneously warn that Russia is preparing to conquer all of Europe.  In one breath, Senator Lindsey Graham, special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, or former secretary of State Hillary Clinton describes Russia as a backward country whose nuclear capabilities pose little threat to the United States.  In the next breath, these same voices argue that Russia intends to reconstruct the Soviet Union and envassal the nations of Europe.  Online commenters mock the Russian bear as having no real teeth but then insist that France and Germany will soon see Russian tanks in the streets.

It is true that Russia has a smaller population than the United States or the combined countries of the European Union.  With a hundred and fifty million citizens, though, it is still one of the largest nations — by population — in the world.  By landmass, Russia controls nearly twice as much territory as the second largest country, Canada.  For centuries, Japan, China, France, the Turkish Empire, and the United Kingdom have attempted to take parts of Russia for their own, yet Russia has endured.  Even after a century of suicidal communism and post–Cold War chaos, the Russian people share a common identity that is as strong as anywhere else in the world.  Russia is a nation of people who actually define themselves by their ability to endure hardship.  While “woke” Westerners cry about pronouns and celebrate victimhood, most Russians are preparing for prolonged war.

Those who belittle Russia as no real threat to the superior military of the United States often dismiss its nuclear arsenal.  With as many warheads as the U.S. and the capability to deploy them by air, land, and sea, Russia remains a deadly foe, regardless of its relatively low per capita GDP.  Russia’s new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile can reportedly deliver six warheads (each containing six submunitions) at speeds exceeding Mach 10.  Although Western analysts have a range of views regarding the Oreshnik’s effectiveness, it is a hypersonic weapon potentially capable of reaching all of Europe without interception.

Those who do not fear the fallout of a U.S.-Russia war seem to think Russia would be foolish to use nuclear weapons because doing so would guarantee its annihilation.  For those who think this way, I would pose this question: If American sovereignty were one day threatened, would we refrain from using nuclear weapons?

Such a scenario might seem unrealistic right now, but our world is rapidly reshaping into a multipolar one.  India (our ally/competitor) and China (our adversary/enemy) are home to three billion citizens.  Should those two countries put aside their historic differences and ally against the United States in the coming decades, the size of our military forces might be small by comparison.

Although the U.S.-controlled financial system has given America the wealth to exert power across the globe, there may come a day when that same system crashes and we find ourselves in economic straits.  Whereas China and India have grown their industrial and manufacturing sectors over the last three decades, the U.S. has offshored its most critical industries.  We are now reliant upon those who will one day challenge American hegemony.

It is not so difficult to imagine a time when America’s lethal military infrastructure remains the only deterrent keeping predators at bay.  If America were ever pushed into a corner and its existence were at stake, would we hesitate to use the worst weapons in our arsenal to beat back those who threaten us?  And if we would use them under duress, why would we expect any less from the Russian Federation?

There is an idea that has long been discussed in the august lecture halls of the West’s diplomatic houses.  It concerns a desire to break Russia into a dozen separate nations.  Using the same “divide and rule” tactics and strategies that have been employed since ancient times, the West would like nothing more than to foment public rebellion inside Russia.  Pulling such a mission off would be the magnum opus among the West’s numerous information warfare-driven “color revolutions” this century.  Dissolving Russia into a dozen states would allow the United States and the European Union to play them off each other, exploit their natural resources, and keep them geopolitically weak.  Every few years, some retired head of state or diplomatic heavyweight has one too many glasses of wine and acknowledges that a post-Putin world provides the ideal opportunity to carve up all of Russia.

What would we do if our enemies were so bold as to begin carving up the lands of the United States?  I suspect that many of us would fight to the death.  We should expect the Russian people — who view themselves as part of a historic civilization — to do the same.

I have become less optimistic that war with Russia can be prevented — primarily because U.S., European, and Russian officials all appear to be confirming that things will get worse.  Speaking from a summit in Copenhagen days ago, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán warned that “the E.U. has decided to go to war” against Russia.  Elaborating, Orbán described the situation as “serious” and said that “outright pro-war proposals” are being quickly advanced.

Meanwhile, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen accuses Russia of using drones, sabotage, and hybrid warfare to divide Europe and describes Russia as Europe’s “primary enemy.”  European politicians are hyperventilating so much about phantom Russian drones that Munich’s airport even shut down because some people saw mysterious lights in the sky.  European leaders are shoveling paranoia and hysteria to the public on an industrial scale (while “green”-energy regulations kill the rest of their industries).

Speaking at the Valdai International Discussion Club last week, Russian president Vladimir Putin said Europe’s “ruling elites … continue to whip up hysteria” and stated soberly that “all NATO countries are fighting us, and they’re no longer hiding it.”  He mocked the idea that Russia had any intention of attacking NATO but assured listeners that Russia is prepared for a larger war.

Similarly, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov recently observed, “NATO and the European Union … have already declared a real war on my country and are directly participating in it.”

Finally, Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin — a man whom some call “Putin’s brain” — recently penned an essay in which he concluded that “we cannot avoid a big world war,” that “monstrous trials await mankind,” and that what’s happening “now will seem like child’s play compared to what is ahead.”

Europe wants war.  Russia is ready for war.  War it will be.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

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