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In 1936, the Nazi dictatorship in Germany organized SiPo, or Sicherheitspolizei.

The move merged the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) and the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo, the criminal police). SiPo targeted political opposition to the Nazis, primarily communists and socialists.

In early 1941, the Wehrmacht chief of staff Franz Halder targeted unarmed socialists and communists. It used the Einsatzgruppen death squads to murder them.

“Entire hordes of communists are now being shot and hanged on an almost daily basis,” Second Lieutenant Peter Geissler of the 714th Infantry Division wrote home in July, 1941. 

“I cannot help feeling that the panic fear of the Western world of the term communism, this fear by which the fascists have so long maintained themselves, is somewhat superstitious and childish and one of the greatest follies of our epoch,” wrote Thomas wrote after the war. 

****

 Is Folly Emerging in America under the Rule of President Donald Trump? 

On October 8, the Trump administration held a briefing on Antifa, the autonomous and decentralized anti-fascist political movement. During this meeting, the MAGA influencer Jonathan Choe linked Antifa to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). 

“Another group right now that is behind antifa and working with antifa very closely based on the research that we have right now that we’re gonna give to you and your team are the Democratic Socialists of America,” Choe said. He argued that Antifa is part of what he called the “homeless complex.”

Video: White House Roundtable on ANTIFA

Trump considers his political opponents, who are primarily Democrats, to be not only socialists, but also communists, Marxists, fascists, and, most tellingly, “enemies from within.”

Last October, he said the

“crazy lunatics that we have—the fascists, the Marxists, the communists, the people that we have that are actually running the country…

Those people are more dangerous—the enemy from within—than Russia and China and other people.”

More recently, during a military conclave at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia, Trump insisted the United States is “under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform you can take them out.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Trump administration will use the same tactic it is using against Venezuelan fishermen, falsely accused of being “narcoterrorists.”

In short, murdering political enemies without arrest and due process. “Just like we did with cartels” Bondi said,

“we’re going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa. Destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We’re going to take them apart.”

Former US Navy intelligence officer and alt-right activist Jack Posobiec said during the roundtable that Antifa “has been going on for almost 100 years … going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany.” Posobiec appears to be saying that the anti-fascist movement aligned against Hitler and the Nazis was a bad thing.  

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Is Donald Trump Intent Upon Imposing Martial Law in America? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Bill Madden:

There are too many professionals like test, corporate and airline pilots, architects, structural engineers et al. claiming that important aspects of the 9/11 event could not possibly have happened as theorized by the 9/11 Commission.  The book: “Solving 9-11” by Christopher Bollyn documents a serious connection between the Israelis, the Mossad and 9/11.

If Israel were created to help our rulers conquer the world, 9/11 certainly could be a major factor.

See this.

 

The post 9/11: Still a Mystery appeared first on LewRockwell.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is already fighting a seven-front war. He is at war with virtually every country in the region. These are all wars of Israeli aggression. Not a single war is just; not a single war is defensive in nature. Now, Israel’s madman has opened an eighth front: war against the United States.

No, it’s not a war with missiles and bombs; it’s an all-out billion-dollar war using mass media, social media, paid influencers, major corporations and Jewish billionaires against the minds of the American people.

Public opinion of Israel has tanked worldwide. The maniacal, murderous ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people has sickened the conscience of the world. In Western Europe, people by the millions are marching in the streets against the Israeli apartheid state. And here in the U.S., Israel’s reputation is falling like a lead balloon. The only pro-Zionists left are mainly the Scofield-duped Prophetic Dispensationalists within evangelicalism.

Yes, Netanyahu is now turning his sights on evangelical Christians.

Israel To Spend Up To $4.1 Million on Propaganda Campaign Targeting American Christians 

The campaign will involve ads that spread a ‘pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian’ message and sending a mobile ‘October 7 experience’ to church parking lots.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry is planning to spend up to $4.1 million for a propaganda campaign that will target American evangelical Christians, a project that’s being sold as the “largest Christian Church Geofencing Campaign in US history.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on a federal filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that shows the Israeli ministry has hired a newly formed US-based firm, Show Faith by Works LLC, which will target churchgoers with digital ads that are explicitly “pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian.”

The campaign will also involve creating a mobile “October 7 experience” that will visit Christian colleges, churches, and events. The document says the experience will involve a custom-built trailer designed by “Hollywood experts,” virtual reality headsets, set pieces, and full-length TVs for an “interactive experience.”

The filing lists hundreds of churches in California, Texas, Colorado, and Arizona that will be targeted by the information campaign. According to an invoice, Show Faith by Works expects to receive $3.25 million from the Israeli Foreign Ministry over a five-month period and includes a potential additional $835,000 for equipment and expansion of the campaign.

The document, which was filed on September 27, says one of the activities of the campaign will be to “combat low American Evangelical Christian approval of the Nation of Israel.”

One of the goals of the campaign is to use “a combination of personal and professional outreach to the Christian Community, combined with digital targeting and social media outreach to increase positive associations with the Nation of Israel while linking the Palestinian population with extremist factions.”

The propaganda campaign targeting American Christians is part of Israel’s PR blitz in response to its significant loss of support among Americans due to its genocidal war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Another recent FARA filing revealed that Israel is paying influencers around $7,000 per pro-Israel post on social media.

(Source)

But the Israeli propaganda effort against America’s evangelical Christians gets even more sinister.

Investigative Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of The Greyzone Max Blumenthal reports:

Well, there’s a new Foreign Agent Registration Act document at the Department of Justice showing that a group of lobbyists who represent the State of Israel are planning a massive campaign targeting Christian churches around Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Denver. And these lobbyists, what they want to do is geofencing around the perimeters of these churches, so that when you walk in there with your phone, your phone begins to be targeted with ads promoting Israel, reminding you of the horrors of October 7th.

You will also be treated to virtual reality interactions where you can watch horrific scenes of October 7th on an Oculus. There will be billboard displays in and around church areas. And what they aim to do is actually digitally rope something like four to five percent of all U.S. Christians, at least initially, into an Israeli propaganda clockwork orange style megaplex, and then track their phones after they leave. It’s a $4.5 million deal right now, which will expand and which builds on another foreign agent deal in which Israel has contracted Brad Parscale, the former campaign manager of Donald Trump, to the tune of $1.5 million a month to contract influencers and to game the algorithms and LLM models of chatGPT and other AI platforms in favor of Israel.

Blumenthal further explains Netanyahu’s propaganda war in the U.S.:

Netanyahu has announced an eighth front to the war. In a meeting with U.S.-paid influencers for Israel, he basically signaled his intention to wage war on the minds of the American public and that America has become the eighth feeder of Netanyahu’s global war.

He openly called for TikTok to be purchased. So, it’s happening right before our eyes. This plan, this eighth front, just took control of an important legacy media property, CBS News, through the merger of Paramount and Skydance, the company of Larry Ellison’s (the Oracle billionaire) son David Ellison. In addition, David Ellison purchased The Free Press newsletter of self-described Zionist fanatic, former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss for $150 million. The investors behind Bari Weiss’s Free Press are some of the major AI tech warlords.

David Sacks, who is one of them, is in charge of AI and crypto policy for the Trump administration. So, if these investors made money off of Paramount’s purchase of The Free Press, then what we have here is a very clear conflict of interest because David Ellison has installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief now of CBS News.

So, the editor-in-chief has a major investor, apparently, who has a Trump administration role in basically gearing AI and crypto policy for Trump, in apparent violation of the Emoluments Clause {Article I, Section 9, Clause 8}. And she will produce coverage, presumably that’s favorable to her investor. This is a clear and explicit violation of CBS’s published code of ethics.

But more importantly, just panning out, this is part and parcel of an Israeli takeover of American media as Israel faces global backlash and a complete cratering of its support in the United States for its genocide and seven-front war in the region.

Listen to what Netanyahu himself said regarding his propaganda war on the U.S.:

We’re going to have to use the tools of battle. You know, the weapons change over time. You can’t fight today with swords. That doesn’t work very well. And you can’t fight with cavalry. That doesn’t work very well. And you have these new things, you know, like drones, things like that. I won’t get into that. But we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged. And the most important ones are on social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is TikTok. TikTok, number one, number one. And I hope it goes through because it can be consequential. And the other one, what’s the other one that’s most important? X.

Of course, all of this is aided and abetted by President Donald Trump. Trump has been an enthusiastic facilitator of all of Israel’s wars and assassinations. He provides a steady supply of military weapons with which Israel perpetuates and expands its murderous attacks around the region and its genocide in Gaza. Trump facilitates Israel’s propaganda war against the American people with his aggressive tactics against those who exercise the freedom of speech to criticize Israel. He personally paved the way for uber Zionists Larry and David Ellison to purchase TikTok, CBS, Paramount, etc.

And now Trump has turned his attention to the U.S. military, seeking to make it his personal Praetorian Guard.

According to the Trump administration, “we the people” are now the enemy from within.

Over the course of just one week, we’ve been bombarded with headlines about government shutdowns, a presidential directive aimed at blacklisting dissent, threats by Trump to deploy the National Guard into states he considers political opponents, the politicization of the military, tariffs that inflict economic pain on American consumers, and the administration’s unabashed embrace of graft and grift.

In the midst of it all, Pete Hegseth, the newly styled Secretary of War, compelled a sudden gathering of the top military brass for a costly $6 million exercise that amounted to little more than chest-thumping, propaganda and grandstanding.

With Hegseth at the helm of the renamed Department of War, calling for a new “warrior ethos,” the Trump administration is celebrating aggression and blind obedience over peacekeeping, honor and constitutional duty.

The Pentagon has been rechristened not as a fortress against foreign threats but as a machine for waging endless war here at home: Democratic cities will become military staging grounds; rules of engagement will be loosened to maximize “lethality”; and militarized police will be given a license to kill their fellow Americans.

This is not the language of defense. It is the language of aggression and occupation.

A standing army on domestic soil was precisely what the Founders feared. They lived under troops quartered in their towns. They knew what happens when government treats its own citizens as a hostile force.

Two centuries later, their fear has become our reality.

Methodically, a war culture has been transplanted from the battlefield abroad to the homeland.

With armored tanks on our streets, SWAT raids treated as routine, and citizens viewed as combatants rather than neighbors with rights, the results are predictable: abuse, eroded liberties, and the slow death of a constitutional republic.

This is the future we warned was coming: every city a potential conflict zone, every protest a pretext for deployment, every citizen a suspect.

Trump’s reckless call to use “dangerous cities” as military training grounds doesn’t just echo this dystopia—it completes the circle.

Under the banner of “war,” the government is giving itself license to treat the American people as the enemy.

And Trump, buoyed by the power of the presidency and his ability to use taxpayer dollars for his own grandiose plans—building ballrooms, hiring thugs with extravagant bonuses for arrests and roundups, erecting detention centers—is now attempting to bribe the military with over $1 trillion in spending in 2026 if only they will march to a dictator’s drum.

By waging endless wars abroad, bringing the instruments of war home, turning police into soldiers, criminalizing dissent, and making peaceful revolution nearly impossible, the government has engineered an environment where domestic violence becomes inevitable.

Be warned: in the future envisioned by the military, we will not be viewed as Republicans or Democrats. Rather, “we the people” will be enemies of the state.

(Source)

I have defined Benjamin Netanyahu as a maniacal madman. I truly believe he is just that. And from my understanding of Holy Writ, I believe him to be a demon possessed maniacal madman.

But what about Donald Trump? Is he a sociopath? Is he criminally insane? And if he is, who would tell us? I believe these are legitimate questions.

We all know that by the middle of Joe Biden’s presidency, he was a wholly demented man. For two years, America did not have a president. But the American people were subjected to constant reassurances that Biden was totally fit—physically and mentally. It was a lie! Democrats denied any incapacitation in Biden, even though they all knew he had lost his mind.

Now, it’s the Republicans’ turn.

It is obvious to every objective person that DONALD TRUMP IS NOT WELL.

Slurred speech, brain freezes, inability to complete sentences, ubiquitous indiscriminate, nonsensical verbal meanderings, fixation with excessive makeup, obvious schizophrenia and an almost inhuman capacity for narcissism are shouting to us that TRUMP IS NOT WELL.

Trump recognizes NO law. He has publicly expressed disdain for the Constitution. He has no respect for Congress or the judiciary. He truly believes that as president he can do anything he wants. He has zero empathy for human life. The precious innocent women, children and babies of Palestine mean absolutely nothing to him. He brags about murdering people on boats in the waters of Latin America that he has no idea who they are. Lawful due process never enters his mind. He deliberately and diabolically sets traps for civilian negotiators to be murdered by Israel.

TRUMP IS NOT WELL.

As with Democrats when Biden was president, Republicans continue to gaslight us and try to impugn or denigrate anyone who sees the obvious and is willing to say something. They are providing the same kind of cover for a madman as did the Democrats for Joe Biden.

NO DIFFERENCE.

Now, Trump is authorizing long-range missiles for Ukraine. He has sent a formidable fleet of warships and invasion forces off the coast of Venezuela. He is sending world war-type warships, men and material to the Middle East. The only reason for such military buildup is that Trump is collaborating with Netanyahu for a major attack against Iran.

Using Tomahawk missiles against Russia is an invitation for direct military conflict between Russia and the United States. A war in Venezuela invites war with China. An all-out war with Iran invites war with China (nuclear power), Russia (nuclear power), Pakistan (nuclear power), North Korea (nuclear power), Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.

And at the same time, Trump is militarizing civilian law enforcement within the United States and refers to American cities as “the enemy within.”

I tell you: TRUMP IS NOT WELL.

It’s not just Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump is also declaring war on the United States, its Constitution, its Bill of Rights, its laws, its independence, its liberties, its safety and security and its very existence.

A free America will not likely survive an additional 3¼ years with Donald Trump in the White House.

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

The post Benjamin Netanyahu—And Donald Trump—Declares War on the United States appeared first on LewRockwell.

The US has become, in effect, a military guarantor for Qatar. With Trump’s unprecedented Executive Order of September 29, 2025, Washington now “shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure” of Qatar as a threat to the US, pledging to respond with “military” measures, “if necessary”.

For the first time, with the exception of NATO’s Turkey, the US has formally committed to the defense of a regional partner in the Middle East (not Israel).

Expert Bilal Y. Saab argues that the move is “accidental” in the sense that it appears to have been rushed, even sloppy — but it is no less consequential for being so. The timing, indeed, suggests this military guarantee is less the culmination of long strategic planning, and more a reactive wager — a bold recalibration of US posture toward Qatar and, by extension, the Gulf.

I have long been writing about Qatar’s geopolitical relevance as a kind of magnified “small state” actor, so to speak — a diplomatic playmaker in a volatile region. In May I argued that Trump’s Gulf tour (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE) — notably excluding Israel — signaled a deliberate attempt to rebalance the intricate enough US-Israel relationship. Back then, I observed that while Trump’s gestures in the Gulf appeared transactional, they also served to subtly remind even Washington’s closest ally (Israel) that it cannot act unchecked.

The Gulf states, with their financial heft and mediation roles (especially in Gaza and sometimes even Ukraine), arguably offer more immediacy and leverage to Trump’s vision than Israel sometimes does. In that light, Qatar’s elevation to de facto protectorate status may be the logical next step in a broader pivot.

To be sure, Qatar is no newcomer to regional behind-the-scenes diplomacy. Already in 2021 I chronicled how the Qatari authorities in Doha, even during the Gulf blockade (2017–2021), maintained back-channels to Iran and Turkey, and later brokered reconciliations between the Gulf states themselves. Qatar’s ability to straddle Riyadh and Tehran, Ankara and Washington, is part of its diplomatic capital. In short, Qatar’ mediation portfolio has earned it outsized influence.

So, what explains Trump’s unprecedented guarantee? Several interlocking dynamics are at play, and the move cannot be reduced to theatrical one-upmanship.

First, the immediate trigger was clearly Israel’s September 9 missile strike on Doha, targeting Hamas operatives during ceasefire talks. The attack killed a Qatari security officer and jolted the diplomatic equilibrium. Netanyahu eventually apologized — urged so by Trump — with a phone call to Qatari Prime Minister bin Abdulrahman. But that was not enough. In short order, Trump signed the executive order, anchoring the apology in power. The guarantee both shores up Qatar’s mediation role (which the White House explicitly supports in the text) and deters Israel from repeat strikes against the Arab country.

Second, this move is emblematic of Trump’s Gulf tilt and his recalibration of Washington’s regional assumptions, especially regarding a reordering of the US–Israel axis. By empowering Qatar so overtly, Trump signals that Gulf states can secure more direct reciprocity from Washington than Israel might expect — a blunt message, but one consistent with his transactional foreign-policy mindset. The calculus goes: if Qatar mediates Gaza, Russia and Ukraine, even Iran channels, then binding it militarily ensures sustained alignment. This is underreported in most commentaries, but thus far the Qatari guarantee works as both shield and leash, so to speak.

Third, it is also a bet on deterrence as diplomacy. By elevating Qatar’s status through formalized defense guarantees, the US seeks to generate risk for any state considering strikes on Doha. That said, Saab’s critique deserves attention: a presidential Executive Order is easily reversible; it lacks congressional buy-in; and it arguably does not really commit the US in practice. Under scrutiny, the credibility of such a guarantee is thus questionable. If Israel bombs again, will the US confront it? If Iran or its proxies attack Doha, will Trump risk American lives? The absence of mutual obligations in the text is a striking omission too.

Fourth, this may be a signal to other Gulf powers eyeing guarantees. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has long sought a US mutual defense pact, especially in connection with normalization with Israel. Yet somehow Qatar got the prize first. Can Washington afford formal commitments to multiple Gulf states? That would be a recipe for strategic overstretch. Be as it may, Qatar becomes the test case in a way — the barometer for whether the US is ready to anchor regional security rather than outsource it.

At bottom, this Trump guarantee does reflect a broader shift: the Gulf has arguably become the center of gravity in Middle East geopolitics, and not just Israel. The United States now seeks to anchor itself more deeply in regional intermediation networks — and it would appear that little old Qatar, ever graceful amid turbulence, is its chosen vehicle.

Yet history reminds us: power is not just declared in paper, but enforced in presence. For this guarantee to be really more than a rhetorical flourish, Washington would need to translate words into posture: joint exercises, missile defenses, etc.

In the end, one should neither dismiss the surprise guarantee as impulsive theatre, nor accept it at face value as a solid treaty. Rather (as is the case with so many other things pertaining to Trump) one can see it as a bold gamble.

In this scenario, this moment  could mark the beginning of a truly new US-Gulf bargain: Qatar as military partner, mediator, and semi-shield — with Washington more tightly bound than ever in the Gulf chessboard. One should also expect further complications arising from an America-Israeli relationship that today is more complex than ever.

Source infobrics.org.

The post Qatar, Not Israel, Now at Center of Trump’s Middle East Strategy? appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: Historically, financial markets have often ended in euphoric blow-offs or painful crashes. Do you think today’s environment resembles past periods like the late 1920s, the 1970s, or the dot-com bubble?

Doug Casey: There’s an old saying in the market: “Money makes the mare run.”

The markets have tended to move much more radically since the Federal Reserve, the creator of money, was itself created. For generations, we’ve had a whole class of market savants, known as Fed watchers, who try to second-guess what Fed bureaucrats are going to do with interest rates, bank reserves, and money creation, because they realize that those things translate into market action.

Because of the Fed’s increasing importance, you can expect more radical moves than ever in the markets. Compare it to an elevator going up and down with a lunatic at the controls—which impresses me as a good analogy.

International Man: Some argue we could see a final, euphoric rally—a “melt-up”—before any collapse. What would need to happen for that to play out?

Doug Casey: A melt-up is not unlikely. Trump is actively trying to control the Fed by replacing its governors with sycophants who see things the way he does. In other words, print lots of money and manipulate for low rates. Trump wants the Fed to do what he tells them, despite the Fed’s theoretical independence. Of course, Fed independence has always been a fiction. But if he succeeds in dropping the pretense, we can count on a genuinely wild and crazy monetary policy.

The odds of a melt-up are high based on that, despite some extremely shaky and unsound fundamentals. Frankly, the government almost has no choice but to keep printing and suppressing interest rates. If they don’t, the economy is likely to have a catastrophic, deflationary collapse. They want to avoid that at any cost.

International Man: If there is a melt-up, do you see it being concentrated in specific sectors like tech, AI, or commodities, or across the broader market?

Doug Casey: By every parameter, the market is more overvalued now than ever before in history. How you play it depends a lot on your view of history, your own psychology, and your own skill set. But right now, mining stocks and energy stocks are super cheap.

Mining stocks are particularly interesting. They’ve been in a quiet bull market this year, starting from extremely low levels. Many of the smaller, obscure stocks have tripled and quadrupled, completely under the radar. Who knows, or cares, what companies with market caps of, literally, a few million dollars do? Even if they go up a thousand times from here, they still only be “small caps,” too tiny for major institutions to buy. Some of the big miners have gone up 50% or even doubled. Despite that, they’re still close to the cheapest levels they’ve ever been in history.

I’ve always been friendly toward small mining stocks for reasons I’ve explained in the past. But especially now, since they’re at the beginning of a gigantic bull market. The market hates energy stocks as well right now, and they’re the other place to be. Many have dividends—depending on whether we’re talking oil, gas, coal, or uranium—of up to 10% or 15%.

The way I see it, the stock bubble is headed there. Should you stay in tech, which has been in a humongous, unparalleled bull market for what seems like forever? There’s another old market dictum: “High tech, big wreck.” It’s especially true when the whole world is concentrating on it. These stocks are, to use a patented Trumpism, “at levels you can’t believe, that nobody’s ever seen before.”

International Man: On the other hand, what do you see as the biggest triggers for a market melt-down? Debt, geopolitical risk, currency crisis?

Doug Casey: You just named the Trifecta of the next financial panic.

Debt is created directly and indirectly through the Federal Reserve, most importantly with the reserve requirements of the commercial banking system. A sound banking system would operate on 100% reserves. A dollar someone deposits for 3% might be lent for 6% for a one-year term. End of story. In today’s world, where money can be created by the banks, a dollar can be lent, redeposited, and used as a reserve to create more money ad infinitum. It’s a daisy chain based on nothing. That’s on top of the distinction between time deposits and demand deposits being totally lost.

Unlike the 1929 collapse, there’s now a huge amount of mortgage, automobile, credit card, and student loan debt. None of these things were problems back in the late 1920s. Mortgages were typically for five years. There were no student loans. Cars were bought with cash. Credit cards didn’t exist.

And on top of that, add government debt, which was trivial back then. Debt is the major risk for a deflationary credit collapse. If anybody can’t pay, neither can the next guy. Down go the dominoes…

Number two: geopolitical risk. The big current catalyst is tariffs. Bear in mind that the amount of trade in the world today—in both relative and absolute terms—is vastly greater than it was pre-1929. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs made imports too expensive for Americans. Since the Europeans couldn’t sell to us, they couldn’t afford to buy from us. The result was corporate bankruptcies and massive unemployment. That compounded the deflationary debt collapse. It’s much more serious now than it was pre-1929.

We should, rather obviously, include war as a geopolitical risk. The Ukraine war isn’t over by any means. In fact, it’s clear that Europe, idiotically, is gearing up for a major war against Russia. The Israel-Iran war isn’t over, nor is the Israel-Palestine war. That wouldn’t matter, except that the US treats Israel as the 51st state. And maybe we’ll see some problems with Qatar, whose security the US has just guaranteed—oddly, just when nuclear-armed Pakistan is guaranteeing the security of Saudi Arabia. We have lots of overlapping treaty obligations, similar to what we saw before World War I. The same thing could happen again.

In addition, Trump is looking to launch an unprovoked attack and perhaps an invasion of Venezuela. The geopolitical risk today looks extraordinarily high, as the US looks for new tar babies to punch around the world.

Number three: the currency. The whole world sees the dollar as a hot potato; it’s an unsafe, depreciating asset. As the rest of the world uses the dollar less and less, for all the reasons we’ve covered in the past, it will lose value rapidly. Remember, the dollar, not soybeans or Boeings, is by far our largest export, and greatest liability. At some point, trillions of offshore dollars will come home to buy title to American assets, and that will create a giant political problem. It’ll be bad for everything—except the price of gold.

International Man: For the everyday investor who doesn’t have access to complex strategies, what should they be doing right now to prepare?

Doug Casey: This question merits a book for an answer. But what stands out to me right now is that everybody and his dog is in the stock market. And unbelievably, over a third of the stocks traded today are ETFs. Of every description, even ETFs on just one stock, using debt or options to internally leverage the moves in that stock. While they can be convenient, ETFs amount to a scam for Wall Street to siphon an additional 1% or so of fees per year out of the markets. Their existence is further proof of how overfinancialized the US economy is.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Coming Melt-Up or Meltdown—and How To Protect Yourself appeared first on LewRockwell.

The BLS has come out with another huge rug-pull on its nonfarm payroll count. And also, predictably, this has triggered loud blathering from both Wall Street and the White House on behalf of exactly the wrong conclusion.

To wit, we don’t need any more Fed rate cuts! And we don’t need a new eruption of money-printing, either, because the real cost of debt is already dirt cheap.

For instance, here is the inflation-adjusted Fed funds rate over the last four decades:

Since the turn of the century, the geniuses on the FOMC have pegged the real Fed Funds Rate at negative levels nearly 80% of the time. And even as of July 2025—three years after allegedly pivoting to inflation-fighting—the real Fed funds rate is only positive by 110 basis points. That’s far below real rates of 250 to 500 basis points, which prevailed before Greenspan went all in on money-printing in response to the dot-com bust.

Still, based on the blatant noise in the BLS’s “useless” jobs numbers, as they were described by even JD Vance, the rate cut chorus implies that the current skinny 110 basis points of positive return to savers and depositors is way too much.

Supposedly, the dire economic weakness implied by the BLS error confession means that the real cost of overnight money for gambling and other short-term purposes should be shoved back below the zero bound yet again in order to keep the economy from tumbling into the recessionary drink.

To be sure, another recessionary spell may well be underway. But for crying out loud—it’s not due to high interest rates. To the contrary, it is the easy-money fostered mountain of public and private debt—now totaling $103 trillion—that has ground economic expansion to a halt.

And we do mean a near halt. Industrial production, for instance, has been essentially flatlining since Q2 2023.

The truth is, the Fed’s elephantine balance sheet and interest rate-pegging regime are also still fueling dangerous financial bubbles and rampant speculation.

The Fed’s interest rate repression has so distorted the debt markets, in fact, that it has enabled the Wall Street nincompoop running the US Treasury to buy back tens of billions of long-term US Treasury bonds, of all things, and finance these purchases by issuing T-bills into the phony FOMC-controlled short-term money market.

What unfathomable insanity. There is no other way to put it.

So, yes, the good folks at the BLS have disappeared another 911,000 jobs for the year ending in March 2025. But so what?

After all, there is nothing new about the agency’s gross incompetence, given that this latest rug pull comes on top of the 818,000 jobs the BLS disappeared for the year ending March 2024 and the 306,000 jobs for the year ending March 2023 that also got a “just kidding” markdown. That’s 2.035 million jobs gone up in revisionary smoke during the last 36 months in the context of 12 material downward benchmark revisions in the last 20 years (versus only four material upward revisions).

Obviously, a lot more people should be fired than the hapless BLS commissioner who got canned by Trump a while back.

To wit, what’s not fit for purpose here isn’t merely the numbers crunchers at the BLS, but the 12-person monetary politburo at the FOMC, which has been foolish enough to make the monthly nonfarm payroll survey the be-all-and-end-all of the “incoming data” by which they supposedly macro-manage the entire $30 trillion US economy.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

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Many individuals I’ve spoken to believe Peter Marks is the government official most directly responsible for the entire COVID catastrophe, and those I know who directly interacted with him despise him. For that reason, six months ago, I published a detailed exposé of his conduct throughout the pandemic, both to highlight the systemic issues within our healthcare bureaucracy that must be fixed and to disincentivize other health officials from following in his footsteps. Since that time:

• Despite immense industry pushback, he was replaced with MAHA appointee Vinay Prasad

• Marks has made statements on the national media which display either a profound degree of ignorance of vaccines or a cult-like devotion to them, such as telling CBS the MMR vaccine absolutely does not cause encephalitis—despite this specific injury being one of the only vaccine injuries the Federal Government acknowledged as real and eligible for compensation when it created the the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
Note: the primary reason DMSO (a safe and affordable substance with remarkable therapeutic applications against a wide range of “incurable” ailments) never entered mainstream medical practice was because the FDA, feeling DMSO’s broad therapeutic potential threatened their control of American medicine, waged a multi-decade war against it despite widespread opposition from the public, Congressmen, scientists and physicians across the country. One journalist who interviewed the successive FDA commissioners throughout this saga was struck by how “lacking [they were] in solid information about the most spectacular and controversial drug of our time” and how often they simply quoted nonsensical misinformation the FDA had previously put out about the drug without a basic understanding of it—something I would argue also applies to Peter Marks.

• Yesterday, it was announced that Peter Marks had started working with Eli Lilly, where he will oversee molecule discovery and infectious diseases at Lilly. While his salary has not been publicly announced, the AI systems I queried said given the existing precedent, he would likely get 2-6 million this year (a big upgrade from his roughly $200,000.00 FDA salary)—and possibly much more (e.g. 10-15 million).

This understandably enraged the vaccine injured parties who directly interacted with Marks over the last four years, so I felt it was important to revisit exactly what Marks did and discuss the broader revolving door in regulatory medicine.

Note: last year, the FDA approved Eli Lilly’s anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (granting the application Fast Track, Priority Review, and Breakthrough Therapy designations). I showed in last weekend’s article, that these costly drugs do close to nothing (they may slightly slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease) while simultaneously creating a variety of severe symptoms including giving over a quarter of recipients brain bleeds and brain swelling—yet remarkably, safer and much more effective Alzhemier’s therapies have languished in obscurity.

Sociopathic Structuring

A frequent criticism of corporations (which I believe also applies to governmental bureaucracies) is that their organizational structure encourages sociopathic behavior. This is because members of these entities are shielded from legal or personal accountability for their actions, with any wrongdoings being attributed to the corporation as a whole. In contrast, the main form of accountability most members face is the pressure to advance the institution’s mission (e.g., make more money), leading to the proliferation of increasingly unethical methods to achieve that goal.

To illustrate, consider this quote from Peter Rost, a former executive at Pfizer and one of the few pharmaceutical leaders to speak out against the industry:

It is scary how many similarities there are between this industry and the mob. The mob makes obscene amounts of money, as does this industry. The side effects of organized crime are killings and deaths, and the side effects are the same in this industry. The mob bribes politicians and others, and so does the drug industry … The difference is, all these people in the drug industry look upon themselves – well, I’d say 99 percent, anyway – look upon themselves as law-abiding citizens, not as citizens who would ever rob a bank … However, when they get together as a group and manage these corporations, something seems to happen … to otherwise good citizens when they are part of a corporation. It’s almost like when you have war atrocities; people do things they don’t think they’re capable of. When you’re in a group, people can do things they otherwise wouldn’t, because the group can validate what you’re doing as okay.

In looking through what went awry with the COVID-19 response, while Fauci was commonly blamed for all that went amiss, I kept running into another less-known individual who, while hidden within the FDA bureaucracy, I believe was directly responsible for many of the mishaps that happened

This was because Peter Marks was:

•The primary person who covered up the reports of COVID vaccine injuries (and instead repeatedly told the world they were “safe and effective”).

•Kept on pushing the FDA’s chief vaccine scientists (who were very pro-vaccine) to accelerate and condense the approval timelines for the COVID vaccines (as those approvals were needed to legally implement Biden’s vaccine and booster mandates). Eventually, Gruber and Krause reported their were no more corners they could cut to further accelerate the COVID vaccine approvals, at which point they were removed from the COVID vaccine approval process and Marks took it over (at which point the unjustifiable approvals and mandates quickly followed).

As such, I felt Marks should not be in the agency and put together a detailed summary of his gross malfeasance at the FDA throughout COVID-19 in the hopes his abhorrent conduct could become widely known. Shortly after, Marks announced his resignation in a spiteful letter that concluded with:

I was willing to work to address the Secretary’s concerns regarding vaccine safety and transparency…However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not
desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.

This, in turn, prompted Robert Redfield (Trump’s 2018-2021 CDC director) to make a Twitter account to state:

Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner MartyMakary have the responsibility to build their own team at the FDA to move our nation forward. It was extremely disappointing to see Dr Peter Marks’ vindictive comments towards Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. in his resignation letter. I firmly believe RFK will be the most consequential Health Secretary in our nation’s history.

Note: Redfield, to my knowledge, is the only CDC director who went into private practice (he treats long COVID) after leaving the CDC (whereas in contrast most directors accept lucrative or prestigious positions following their tenure).

Following Mark’s resignation (which many news outlets claimed was forced), many news outlets attempted to paint him as saint and a victim of RFK’s “war against science”

This gushing coverage of Marks, in turn, I would argue was due to his background. Specifically:

• Prior to joining the FDA, Marks was an academic hematologist and oncologist with an “average and unimpressive publication history” (none of which related to vaccines, but one of which extensively discussed the global need for fully informed consent and stated “those that have only pretended to move [towards informed consent] will have the greatest difficulty”).

• Prior to joining the FDA, he’d also worked for several years the pharmaceutical industry (although oddly, no information exists online as to which companies he worked for—although one was likely Novartis).

• While at the FDA, he prioritized pushing through extremely expensive gene therapies (22 in total—most of which cost over half a million dollars), including some highly questionable ones (e.g., he overruled three FDA review teams and two top officials to push through a failed muscular dystrophy treatment which subsequently killed a patient).
Note: Robert Malone recently showed that Peter Marks was not qualified to be a senior regulator and had minimal knowledge or background in molecular biology, immunology or vaccinology (and worse still, repeatedly chose to overrule the FDA scientists who did).

• Marks was seen as a global leader in commercializing this field (e.g., he helped direct Germany’s national program to develop gene therapies, his resignation shook the entire sector, and following his resignation, large drops occurred in the stocks of key gene therapy companies).

Fake Empathy

Roughly a century ago, a new industry which combined propaganda, marketing and the emerging science of psychology was created by Freud’s nephew and rapidly took off because of how effectively it shifted public opinion. Since that time Public Relations (PR) has been continuously refined and this invisible industry has gradually gained a monopoly over pubic discourse and gotten a stranglehold on our society.

Since so many backwards policies (e.g., medical ones) originate from PR campaigns, I’ve thus tried to expose the common tactics this industry uses (e.g., having “experts” spam a persuasive soundbite across every media platform), as when you can’t see it, those tactics exert a powerful subconscious pull on the listener, but once you are able to see them, they become immensely transparent and you begin to see through so many of the lies that are fed to us.

Note: I have long found it immensely aggravating how often public figures (e.g., politicians) will successfully repeat PR lines you can tell they clearly do not believe what they are saying as there is no conviction behind their words and frequently they will subsequently say or do things which clearly demonstrate they did not mean what they’d said at the time). Likewise, I have always greatly disliked how when corporations do something evil and get caught, and it will puts out a statement which begins with “we are deeply saddened by …” and then somehow are absolved of their culpability for what happened

In my eyes, one of the most critical points to understand about PR is that the industry has made it much easier (and cheaper) to create a positive perception by paying a PR firm to do that than it is to earn the positive perception through one’s actions. Similarly, public policy has shifted towards policies being determined by whether or not a PR firm can sell them to the public rather than if the electorate supports them.

Note: much of the PR apparatus depends upon having a total monopoly over information (so that nothing can challenge the absurd narratives millions are spent to make be entrenched in our society). One of most profound shifts in our society has been the ability of information to freely diffuse across social media, thereby breaking the monopoly on truth which used to be afforded to those PR campaigns and allow contrary narratives which challenge the absurdity of many of these PR campaigns to rapidly disseminate and dispel those campaigns (e.g., I’ve had numerous times where this Substack successful dispelled a multi-million dollar propaganda campaign and since I am just one of many people doing that, it’s not financially feasible for traditional PR campaigns to continue to control the narrative).

Within medicine, one of the most common complaints patients have is that their doctors “don’t show empathy” towards them—a situation I believe ultimately results from the fact doctors have so little time with all the patients they see that the fundamental human capacity to be present to another’s experience gets overloaded and they instead default to interacting with their patient’s through an abstract script to get through the day.

In turn, while I sometimes come across individuals (e.g., doctors or politicians) who have the capacity to quickly be present to large numbers of people, normally the only viable solution to this problem is to spend more time with each person. Unfortunately, the current insurance payment scheme incentivizes those short visits (which I believe is incredibly shortsighted as many chronic issues can only be solved with longer visits that cost much less than the innumerable short visits that take their place).

As such, the medical industry chose to address this lack of empathy not by giving patients what they wanted (a doctor they felt connected to) but rather by creating the facade of empathy. This for example was accomplished by training medical students to robotically repeat “empathy statements” (e.g., repeating back what the patient said or stating “I’m sorry to hear that”), as in many cases, that indeed works.

Note: due to how profitable medical students are, there has been a proliferation of medical schools which has required gradually dropping the standards for admission (as our declining education standards has led to a lack of qualified college graduates). Because of this, the profession recently relaxed some of core graduation requirements such as their first board exams being switched to pass/fail and the pass/fail in-person basic assessment of clinical skills (where physician “empathy” was evaluated) being permanently cancelled due to COVID social distancing.

Most recently, I saw this on display in a viral video where a popular YouTube doctor (who’s taken a lot of pharmaceutical money) “debated 20 anti-vaxxers” and then received many variants of these two responses:

• “I am deeply impressed by the incredible empathy and compassion Dr. Mike gave these people.”

• “I cannot believe how moronic and misinformed those people were; Dr. Mike is a saint for talking to them the way he did.”

Conversely, after I watched it the following points jumped out at me:

1. Many of the people selected to appear challenged vaccination by promoting extreme and hard to defend views, thereby making it possible to make viral clips of their statements to smear all criticism of vaccines (whereas in contrast individuals with extensive familiarity on many of the topics were not invited so that Dr. Mike’s “expertise” could go unchallenged).

2. His responses typically were a mixture of standard vaccine talking points (e.g, all evidence of vaccine injury presented to him did not count because “correlation is not causation”) followed by “empathetic” statements.

3. Because of the smooth hypnotic pace he used, false statements that went unchallenged were peppered in such as:

• He asserted VAERS overreports vaccine injuries when in reality less than 1% of injuries make it into VAERS (as the government never wanted a publicly available injury database and once a law forced its creation, the government has worked for decades to undermine VAERS).

• He “compassionately” claimed the Federal vaccine injury compensation program existed to help individuals injured by vaccines and that they could sue a vaccine manufacturer if they were unsatisfied with the verdict—when in reality it is nearly impossible to have most injuries be acknowledged by that program and even harder to be able to sue a manufacturer outside of it).

• He argued that “vaccine immunity is superior to natural immunity” (which is false as vaccine immunity often creates a very narrow immunity pathogens rapidly evolve a resistance to). Then as people started to point that out, he pivoted to stating “vaccines do not put you at risk of infection like an actual infection so they are superior due to the lower risk entailed in become immune” and was not called out for moving the goalpost from efficacy to safety.
Note: there is also strong evidence vaccine side effects are often much greater than those from a natural infection (best demonstrated by how many more people have permanent complications from the vaccines than a COVID infection.

In short, his actions were a classic example of the (incredibly cruel) gaslighting many patients experience when, after being injured by a pharmaceutical, they are told the injury is entirely in their head. In some cases that’s done in a rude and confrontational way, but in many others, it’s instead done in a deceptive and compassionate manner which still traps you in the same box.

Note: one noteworthy fact about this doctor is that in addition to “combating misinformation” throughout COVID, he also used his large platform to repeatedly advocate for social distancing and mask wearing—but like many other proponents of that doctrine, subsequently got caught flagrantly violating it (in his case at his birthday party where he was maskless and tightly packed amongst women he’d invited—after which he essentially refused to apologize for his hypocrisy).

Read the Whole Article

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Israel continued to hammer Gaza with military explosives on Thursday despite the announcement of the first stages of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Israel always does this. When normal people get a ceasefire agreement they think “Good, this means we can finally stop fighting and killing.” Whenever Israelis get a ceasefire agreement they go, “This means we have to hurry up and kill as many people as possible before it takes effect.”

But it does appear that the killing and abuse will at least diminish for a time, which is an objectively good thing no matter how you slice it.

The first stages of the agreement reportedly entail a partial withdrawal of IDF troops, Israel’s starvation blockade officially ending, humanitarian aid being allowed into the enclave, and both Israel and Hamas releasing captives and stopping the fighting.

Drop Site News reports that according to Hamas sources, subsequent ceasefire phases will entail “No surrender, no disarming, no mass exile, but most of all a permanent end to the war.”

SCOOP: this is the agreement document between Israel and Hamas under the title “Comprehensive End to the Gaza War” – including the signature of the mediators. More details of my story – at @kann_news pic.twitter.com/1qGPGFck7q

— Gili Cohen (@gilicohen10) October 9, 2025

It remains to be seen if there will be any movement toward a lasting ceasefire beyond the first stage. When an agreement was reached late last year it never made it beyond the first phase and then the Trumpanyahu administration declared a siege and resumed the killing.

The far right members of the Netanyahu regime certainly seem like they don’t expect the ceasefire to hold.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement that Israel has a “tremendous responsibility to ensure that this is not, God forbid, a deal of ‘hostages in exchange for stopping the war,’ as Hamas thinks and boasts,” and that “immediately after the hostages return home, the State of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza.”

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued similar remarks, saying that he and his Jewish Power party will use their leverage to dismantle the Netanyahu government if it “allows the continued existence of Hamas rule in Gaza.”

Netanyahu himself has been studiously avoiding any talk of commitment to a lasting ceasefire, mostly limiting his public statements to the significance of freeing Israeli hostages.

Notice how it doesn’t say words like “ceasefire,” “withdrawal,” or “end of war.” pic.twitter.com/HqSWje4313

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 9, 2025

So there’s not a whole lot to feel optimistic about here. If the killing does stop on a lasting basis, it will be a pleasant surprise.

If it does, we can only surmise that the US and Israel calculated that the worldwide PR crisis created by the genocide was getting too severe to sustain, which would be a win for all of us. Trump has gone on record to say that “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back.”

Either that, or they calculated that they’re going to need all their firepower for a planned war with Iran. Which would of course be terrible for everyone.

We shall see. For now at least it will be nice for everyone to have a breather. If things really do calm down I’m going to do something I’ve never done in my entire writing career and try to take a full weekend off work to decompress. Focusing on a live-streamed genocide for two years takes a toll on the mind and body.

Here’s hoping for a better future.

_____________

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The Kremlin is urging American foreign-policy makers not to give Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles it can use to strike deep within the Motherland, pointing out this would directly implicate the U.S. Stateside noninterventionists worry their country may be catapulted into another hot war.

Giving Kiev missiles with a range of up to 1,500 miles will lead “to a new serious stage of escalation of the Ukrainian crisis,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday. Moreover, it “will not just send the confrontation into a downward spiral, but also cause irreparable damage to Russian-US relations,” since the missiles’ use is “simply impossible without the direct involvement of the US military.” She added that this would be a shame, especially since the two sides “have just begun to display certain elements indicating the resumption of a bilateral dialogue.”

According to reports from early this month, somebody with President Donald Trump’s ear convinced him that providing Ukraine with weapons and intelligence to strike inside Russia is a good idea. Trump personally signed off on the decision, per The Wall Street Journal. The rationale is that hitting Russia where it truly hurts, its energy infrastructure, will cripple its ability to fund the war. Energy, particularly gas and oil, is Russia’s primary revenue generator. India and China are its main clients. While Europe has significantly decreased its dependence on Russian energy, some analysis indicate that India and China have more than made up for those losses over the last few years. At the same time, the Ukrainians’ swarm of drone attacks on Russian oil refineries appear to be somewhat effective. The Russians are now importing gasoline from their neighbor and ally Belarus, The Moscow Times admits.

Trump the Peacemaker?

Trump is once again frustrated with the Kremlin. Despite holding several talks with and rolling out the red carpet in Alaska for Russian head of state Vladimir Putin, the war rages as intensely as it ever has. The two sides are lobbing drones and missiles at each other nonstop.

Trump insists his goal is to foster peace. His series of talks with the leaders of both nations, his hitherto refusal to level more sanctions against Russia, despite persistent pressure from American and European warhawks to do so, and his record of peace-brokering in other conflicts (news is breaking that his involvement has helped secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages) suggest the president genuinely seeks peace. But this latest decision, along with his refusal to completely halt all American aid to Ukraine, casts some doubt.

Before Trump met Putin in Alaska, Ukraine had warmed up to the idea of giving up territory, or “land swapping,” as Trump called it, particularly the area which is already occupied by Russia and is overwhelmingly ethnically Russian. But there has been no indication that they’re willing to give up on seeking membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This, the Russians have consistently contended, is the primary “root cause” of the war. As we have pointed out in several previous reports, this Russian grievance is legitimate.

Noninterventionists like Ron Paul and retired General Michael Flynn have criticized continued U.S. involvement in this war. Another group of people who would likely have opposed how the Trump administration is dealing with this situation are America’s wise early leaders.

The Founders on Foreign Folly

In our June 23, 2025 print issue, we republished an older article titled “Minding Our Own Business” in which we reminded readers of what three early American presidents thought about U.S. meddling abroad.

George Washington saw Europe as a region full of drama that does us no good to be ensnared in:

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns…. Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of any permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.

Then there’s the famous maxim from John Quincy Adams about the  problem with going half a world away to hunt down dragons:

America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own…. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.

And for those who remain unconvinced, here is what the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, had to say about getting involved in foreign entanglements:

Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe…. She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe.

In that same TNA article, we cited the prophetic words of essayist William Graham Sumner. Writing in regard to the Spanish-American War, Sumner predicted that a dangerous precedent had been set:

[E]xpansion and imperialism are at war with the best traditions, principles, and interests of the American people, and they will plunge us into a network of difficult problems and political perils…. The people … who now want us to break out, warn us against the terrors of “isolation.” Our ancestors all came here to isolate themselves from the social burdens and inherited errors of the old world…. What we are doing is that we are abandoning this blessed isolation to run after a share in the trouble.

This article was originally published on The New American.

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The reason war archives are withheld from publication for years after the war is over is that time is needed for court historians to instill in the minds of the population that the official narrative is correct and that any deviation from the official narrative is a conspiracy theory. The claim that the withholding of the actual facts is a national security matter is a complete lie. The war is over. The enemy is defeated. No “national security” is any longer involved.  But the facts have to be suppressed until a false explanation can prevail.

That Americans have swallowed false narratives time and again raises the question whether the American population is intelligent.

Recently I had a conversation with a normal Republican.  The media, which is hostile to Republicans, has nevertheless successfully set in stone that Putin and Russia are evil enemies seeking our destruction. When I explained the actual facts, he said that we had different opinions. In other words, facts are not facts. They are just opinions. So the official explanation has the same weight as the facts.

The media indoctrinated Americans that Putin invaded Ukraine as the opening gun of reestablishing the Soviet Empire. This has been the Western propaganda, and it has succeeded in preventing any focus on what the real issue is.

As I have stressed, when the real issue cannot be acknowledged, the opportunity for more misinformation is created, and war results from the inability to see clearly enough to make good decisions.

When facts are overwhelmed by propaganda,  it guarantees the failure of civilization.

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The President of the Unites States Donald Trump had demanded to be given the Noble Peace Price. But following that demand would have been disastrous for the already blemished prestige of the Noble. The government of Norway, which strongly influences the decisions of the Nobel Peace Price committee, was in a pickle:

With hours to go until the announcement of this year’s Nobel peace prize, Norwegian politicians were steeling themselves for potential repercussions to US-Norway relations if it is not awarded to Donald Trump.
…
Mr Trump has long been outspoken about his belief that he should be awarded the peace prize, an honour previously bestowed on one of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama, in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.

In July, Mr Trump reportedly called Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister and the former Nato secretary general, to ask about the Nobel prize.
…
The newspaper columnist and analyst Harald Stanghelle speculated that retribution from Mr Trump – if it were to come – could take the form of tariffs, demands for higher Nato contributions or even declaring Norway an enemy.

After some talks behind the scenes it was decided to give the price to a different person than Trump but with the very obvious intent to also satisfy Trump by furthering a major foreign policy aim of his:

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado who lives in hiding after attempting to run against President Nicolás Maduro.

Machado, 58, was recognized for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness” and “ever-expanding authoritarianism in Venezuela.”
…
She leads the Vente Venezuela opposition party, but was blocked from running as the nation’s president and expelled from office in 2014. She now lives in hiding and faces “serious threats against her life,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

The Trump administration has long aimed at ousting Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader of Venezuela. It has positioned its military assets around the country and is planing from regime change under false pretense:

Shortly after taking office, Trump declared Tren de Aragua to be a foreign terrorist organization that had “flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.” In July, the president ordered the Pentagon to target certain Latin American drug cartels. By August, there were eight naval vessels—including destroyers, a cruiser, and a littoral-combat ship—operating in the Caribbean Sea. By September, the first of four boats had been struck, and 21 alleged drug traffickers have now been killed. Last week, the administration sent a confidential notice to Congress signaling its intent to carry out more strikes. The campaign could extend inside Venezuelan territorial waters or include drone strikes inside its land borders, defense officials told us.
…
But it is far from clear that the ties between Maduro’s government and Tren de Aragua are as extensive as the Trump administration has suggested, or that they exist at all. Ronna Risquez, author of the book El Tren De Aragua, told us there was “no evidence” that Maduro leads gang or drug-smuggling operations; an internal memo from the U.S. National Intelligence Council arrived at a similar conclusion. It’s also not clear that Venezuelan drug operations, centralized or otherwise, are significant enough to merit the country being singled out as a threat to American lives. Venezuela is not a major cocaine or fentanyl producer. And even though most of the world’s cocaine grows in neighboring Colombia, Venezuela is also not a major transit hub.

Trump’s ‘anti-narco terrorist’ campaign is clearly aimed at regime change. This despite extensive offers by the Venezuelan government to allow the U.S. to profit from Venezuelan riches (archived):

Venezuelan officials, hoping to end their country’s clash with the United States, offered the Trump administration a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in discussions that lasted for months, according to multiple people close to the talks.

The far-reaching offer remained on the table as the Trump administration called the government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela a “narco-terror cartel,” amassed warships in the Caribbean and began blowing up boats that American officials say were carrying drugs from Venezuela.

Under a deal discussed between a senior U.S. official and Mr. Maduro’s top aides, the Venezuelan strongman offered to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to American companies, give preferential contracts to American businesses, reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and slash his country’s energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian and Russian firms.

That offer wasn’t enough for a greedy Trump:

The Trump administration ended up rebuffing Mr. Maduro’s economic concessions and cut off diplomacy with Venezuela last week. The move effectively killed the deal, at least for now, the people close to the discussion said.

The Trump administration did away with generous offer because it is confident that its plans for regime change will achieve a total domination over Venezuela.

The new Noble Peace Price laureate, María Corina Machado, plays a big role those plans.

Who is that lady you might ask. In July 2024 the NY Times published a friendly portrait of her (archived):

Ms. Machado, a conservative former member of the national assembly once rejected by her own colleagues, has not only corralled Venezuela’s fractious opposition behind her, but has also captivated a broad swath of the electorate with a promise for sweeping government change.
…
If the opposition wins, Mr. González, 74, will be president. But from Washington to Caracas, everyone understands that Ms. Machado is the driving force behind the movement.
…
She became a political activist in 2002, helping to found a voter rights group, Súmate, that eventually led a failed effort to recall Mr. Chávez. She was a darling of Washington — the U.S. government provided financial aid to Súmate — and became one of Mr. Chávez’s most detested adversaries.

But it wasn’t just the government that loathed her. Among colleagues in the opposition, she was often viewed as too conservative, too confrontational and too “sifrina” — Venezuelan for “snobbishly high class” — to become the movement’s leader.

She has said that the politician she most admires is Margaret Thatcher, the conservative icon known for her stubbornness and fealty to the free market. And Ms. Machado has long supported privatizing PDVSA, the state oil company, a move other opposition leaders say would put Venezuela’s most valuable resource in the hands of a few.

Machado, while on the U.S. payroll, was involved in a 2002 military coup attempt in Caracas:

Questions still surround Ms. Machado’s actions in 2002, when dissident military officers and opposition figures led a short-lived coup meant to oust Mr. Chávez. Ms. Machado was at the presidential palace during the installation of a new president, Pedro Carmona.

In the 2005 interview with The Times, Ms. Machado insisted that she and her mother were in the palace that day only to visit Mr. Carmona’s wife, a family friend — not to support the coup.

More recently, in a 2019 interview with the BBC, Ms. Machado called on “Western democracies” to understand that Mr. Maduro would only leave power “in the face of a credible, imminent and severe threat of the use of force.”

Machado even asked the Zionist war criminal Benjamin Netanyahoo for military support in a coup (edited machine translation) :

María Corina Machado asked the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, a military intervention in Venezuela, through a document posted on its social network X in 2018.
…
Machado described the military intervention of “power and influence” against the Venezuelan government.

“Today sending a letter to Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina, and to Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, to ask them to apply their strength and influence to advance the dismantling of the criminal regime in Venezuela, intimately linked to drug trafficking and terrorism,” she wrote.

In addition, the document points out that Machado was “convinced that the international community, according to the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, is called to give Venezuelans the support needed to generate the change,” a change of government.

Machado is still in cahoots with  (and likely still payed by) the U.S. to further regime change in Venezuela (archived):

[U.S. Secretary of State] Rubio met with five opposition figures in May who secretly fled to the United States in what he called a “precise operation.” He has praised the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, whom he called by her nickname, the “Venezuelan Iron Lady,” in a tribute this year.
…
Pedro Urruchurtu, an adviser to Ms. Machado, said in an interview that the opposition had developed a plan for the first 100 hours after Mr. Maduro’s ouster that would involve a transfer of power to Edmundo González, who ran for president against Mr. Maduro last year.
…
“What we’re talking about is an operation to dismantle a criminal structure, and that includes a series of actions and tools,” Mr. Urruchurtu said, adding: “It has to be done with the use of force, because otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to defeat a regime like the one we’re facing.”

The opposition’s plans include persuading other governments to take diplomatic, financial, intelligence and law enforcement actions, he said.

To recap – the Noble Peace Price committee is giving the price to an opposition politician in South America who is on the payroll of the U.S. government and has been involved in previous military coups attempts in her country. Her advisor is arguing for the use force to overthrow the government. Ms. Machado’s plan is to the sell out whatever Venezuelans have to the foreign empire that pays her.

The Noble Committee and Norway may, for now, have saved themselves from Trump’s wrath but the decision to award the price to Ms. Machado is another huge blemish to its record.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post Fearing Trump’s Wrath Nobel Committee Hands Peace Price To Regime Change Puppet appeared first on LewRockwell.

In 1918, the Austrian political scientist Joseph Schumpeter delivered a now-famous lecture titled “The Crisis of the Tax State.” The question he addressed was whether or not the First World War would bring about a destructive fiscal crisis for European states. Would the burdens of post-war debt and taxation threaten to destroy these states? Many at the time believed that it would be difficult or impossible to fiscally recover from the enormous debts and tax liabilities incurred by states during the war.

Schumpeter, however, concluded that the states of Europe would easily survive whatever fiscal strains might be caused by the war. After all, he noted, the states of Europe were well developed “tax states” by the early twentieth century. In the short and medium term, at least, the ruling regimes of Europe could essentially raise revenue at will, and the state organizations themselves thus faced no existential crisis. If the states of Europe did fail, he noted, it would be for some reason other than fiscal collapse, such as conquest or revolution. Nonetheless, “the hour will come,” he noted, that the drive to endlessly increase state revenues would eventually consume and destroy the private sector. But, in 1918, he predicted (correctly) that the day of reckoning was not yet at hand.

Now more than 100 years later, it’s clear that Schumpeter was right. No states collapsed due to an inability to raise taxes. As fiscal demands increased on states, it was not the states who suffered. The taxpayers, on the other hand, fared less well.

Unfortunately, Schumpeter’s conclusions apply to the modern-day United States as well. Like the states of Europe, the United States is now a full-blown “tax state” in that lawmakers of the central government can raise taxes with minimal political or institutional effort without meaningful legal resistance from any other domestic institution. Consequently, as the burdens of debt and upward-spiraling welfare costs continue to put pressure on the Treasury, the answer will be to simply raise taxes—and the taxpayers will absorb it.

Moreover, the history of modern democratic regimes confirms that interest group politics will ensure that spending continues unabated. In other words, given the lack of meaningful obstacles to accelerated taxation, there is no institutional or legal way out of this. The only way that the power of the tax state will be meaningfully challenged is through the dismemberment of the state through secession, or through outright dissolution of the existing state and the founding of an entirely new successor state.

The US Is a Tax State 

But first: what is a tax state exactly?

Schumpeter emphasizes that the reason tax states so easily endure fiscal pressures is the fact that tax states can so efficiently, with minimal friction, extract revenues from the domestic population. This is made possible by these characteristics of tax states, which are also characteristics of modern states in general:

1. Centralization: taxes are directly imposed by the central government. The central government does not rely on regional or local governments to collect taxes or enforce tax laws. (This does not preclude regional or local governments from imposing their own taxes.)
2. Unilateral power: The central government can raise taxes unilaterally. The central government’s legislature or executive has the prerogative to raise taxes on its own authority without the permission of any other sovereign within the state’s territory. Put another way, no regional or local government has the ability to veto a tax increase or legally prevent its implementation.
3. The central government freely decides how revenues are spent. Once tax revenues are collected, the central government spends the revenues in whatever manner is preferred by the central state’s legislative power.
4. Taxes are not fees or a payment for a service. Strictly speaking, a fee is a payment that is designed to fund a specific service, and only those who “benefit” from the service pay the fee. Tax “benefits,” on the other hand, are not tied to any particular service. Tax states are not legally held to any sort of reciprocal duty to spend tax revenues in a manner that benefits those who pay the tax.

The United States government fulfills all these requirements of tax states. In the United States, the Congress can raise direct taxes on the population at any time by simply increasing the income tax.  Recent experience has also shown that the US president can unilaterally raise import taxes to any level he prefers. This doesn’t even require a vote of any kind. And, should these taxes prove insufficient to meet the needs and preferences of the central government, the central government can borrow legally unlimited amounts of money.

Moreover, when more debt is needed, the central bank will often purchase some portion of the central government’s bonds to subsidize and push down interest rates on government debt. This process is made possible through monetary inflation, allowing the central government to extract revenue via monetization of debt and an “inflation tax.”

Throughout this process, no state or local government can legally prevent these tax increases, and no institution outside the central government has any say over how the dollars are spent. Nostalgic sentimentalists may try to console themselves with feel-good stories about the United States being a decentralized, federalist state under some alleged “rule of law.” But, when it comes to taxation, the United States is clearly a de facto unitary state.

The Rising Tax Burden 

This is good news for the American state itself. As federal spending continues upward unabated, the federal government will continue to have untrammeled access to more revenue. Where a tax increase in Congress cannot be had, the central government can simply turn to monetary inflation or to new tariffs, implemented via a “stroke of the pen” at the central bank or in the Oval Office.

For the taxpayer, however, it’s all bad news. Fiscal pressures on the central government will continue to mount, but there will be no discussion of austerity, spending cuts, or anything else that would actually lessen the spending obligations of the central government.

The exigencies of democratic coalition politics will ensure cuts will not happen. To cut spending on any major program would mean political suicide for many members of Congress and endanger critical fundraising needs for candidates and party organizations. Thus, there will be no substantial cuts, least of all to the largest federal programs that put the most pressure on federal revenues: Social Security, Medicare, military, and interest on the debt. There certainly will be no cuts to spending on interest on the debt—now topping a trillion dollars per year. To do that would be to prompt a sovereign debt crisis.

Instead, the central government will just keep going back to the well of taxation over and over, either through more ordinary taxes, or through an ever growing inflation tax. We’re already seeing this at work in how the central bank has already effectively abandoned its so-called two-percent target for price inflation. The official price-inflation rate sits at 2.9 percent, and the central bank is easing monetary policy. (If price inflation does go down at this point, it will be thanks to declining economic conditions, not to restrained monetary policy.)

What the Future Holds—and the Battle of Ideas

In the short term, economic booms and busts will come and go, but over the medium and long term, the true tax burden on taxpayers will continue to grow and grow. So long as most of the American population considers the US government to be a legitimate state, there will be no impediment to the state continuing to extract ever larger amounts of revenue from the domestic population.

Over time, this will lead to more and more impoverishment for the productive population, but what alternative will the taxpayer have? It is clear that democratic elections will not reverse the trend. If elections were any threat to this trend, we would have seen some evidence of it by now. Even with rising price inflation, rising import taxes, and historic deficits, taxpayers have shown little interest in cutting federal spending. Even among those voters who claim to be for fiscal austerity, most draw the line at any cuts that endanger their favorite federal programs. For example, “hands off my Medicare” is a favored refrain for those who pretend to care about cutting government spending.

There is no legal or institutional mechanism that will bring this to an end. Even as interest on the national debt soars, and as the requirements of federal social benefits continue to rise, the “answer” will simply be more debt and more taxes. If interest rates get “too high” the central bank will intervene with monetary inflation. This will lead to higher inflation, but this will allow the state to meet its political “obligations” with cheaper dollars.

Most of the taxpayers—few of whom understand why federal debts and federal spending increase price inflation—will be fine with this, and they’ll blame price inflation on greed or global oil prices. In short, the end game will likely look like something we witnessed in Latin America during the 1980s: ever increasing government spending coupled with runaway inflation. The state, however, will remain intact through it all.

The only way out will be through the dismemberment of the state through secession, or through the dissolution of the state—hopefully in a peaceful manner similar to that of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, no true opposition is likely to materialize until the middle classes and working classes have endured years of downward mobility. It will be only then that a critical mass of the population abandons its faith in the regime—a misplaced faith formed by decades of state propaganda and public “education.”

For those who actually value freedom, prosperity, and reining in the state, the best thing we can do right now is this: work to speed up the process of state disintegration by exposing the evils of the spending-inflation scam to a portion of the public large enough to force true reforms. As we say at the Mises Institute, “we learn economics to know how we are being ripped off.” Countless millions of taxpayers are being ripped off. But they still don’t understand how or why.

On top of this work, it is critical to ceaselessly work to undermine the public’s view of the American state’s legitimacy. No state that steals, inflates, and impoverishes on such a massive scale could possibly be considered moral or legitimate, or beneficial. As the collapse of the enormous and militarily powerful Soviet state showed us, the key to winning against the state is to increasingly expose how the state mercilessly exploits the taxpayers.

Ultimately, this is a battle of ideas.  As Ludwig von Mises knew, we can only win against state power if we first win in the battle of ideas.

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

The post The Crisis of the American Tax State appeared first on LewRockwell.

Underneath the patina of newsworthy slogans is a moral and intellectual sewer the size of the Serengeti. I am of course referring to The New York Times, and the hailing of a cold-blooded murderer as an American hero. The latest such outrage is about Joanne Chesimard, a black 78-year-old woman who died in Havana, Cuba, last week. The Times used her “revolutionary” name—Assata Shakur—as if she were some kind of black Joan of Arc. She was nothing of the sort, just a cold-blooded murderer of a state trooper in 1973.

I will not go on about this ghastly individual whom the left has turned into a kind of Robin Hood. Robbing banks, getting willingly laid rather a lot by black gangsters, and having absolutely no remorse for killing a married father and state trooper in cold blood might make her a heroine for the Sulzberger gang, but not for little ole me. She was scum, and she will rot in hell, God willing.

My point is that like her ideology, her assumed name was a contradiction in terms. How dumb must one be to take on the name of the oppressor? I’ll tell you, they have to be both dumb and blind. That includes a few rappers and many politicians of the left, and a jerk like her obituary writer for the Times called Haberman. (Known for the minute size of his willy.)

It is indicative of her ignorance that this Chesimard woman took the name Assata Shakur, an African or Arab appellation, in order to distance herself from her American roots. Many blacks in America tend to do that, especially sports stars, which only confirms my belief that God gives athletic ability with one hand and takes away brain cells with the other. It is as if Jews adopted German names after the war, and Palestinians took on Jewish names of late.

“How dumb must one be to take on the name of the oppressor?”

Let’s start at the beginning: Slavery was a universal institution that existed from the dawn of time, and across the globe, societies employed slave labor even as troops. Five thousand years ago Egypt, Greece, Carthage, and Rome practiced slavery. Farther south, Africans were busy enslaving other Africans and selling them to the Arabs and Romans. It is a fact that the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad legitimized slavery, but somehow this is not mentioned nowadays. Algerian and Tunisian raiders enslaved more than a million white Europeans between the 16th and 18th centuries.

The Muslim slave trade endured for fifteen centuries and transported 17 million slaves, mostly Africans. The European total of transported slaves was 11 million shipped across the Atlantic. Exploiting the West’s orgy of self-flagellation, the African Union has just joined the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in demanding reparations from Britain and from Uncle Sam. The Caribbean group wants 18 trillion greenbacks, the Africans a bit more.

Racism, exploitation, and oppression are words that types from down South use as often as Americans use the f-word. The trouble is, I read and know history, and their claims are as bogus as some Hollywood female breasts. As I stated before, Africans have been enslaving other Africans for centuries. They sold them to the Romans and to Arabs in 1563, a few years before any whites arrived on the Dark Continent. The Kingdom of Kongo (yes, spelled with a “K”) exported 4,000 to 8,000 slaves annually.

Three hundred years later, Oman Arabs ran slave plantations off the east coast of Africa. In Northern Nigeria, one of the largest slave societies equaled the number enslaved in the United States (4,000,000). African rulers virulently opposed British antislavery efforts. Unsold slaves were threatened with death. Yet American blacks today continue to adopt Muslim and African names, a bit like Jews adopting Adolf as their favorite first name, or Palestinians naming their newly born Bibi.

Joanne Chesimard adopting the name she did only showed her historical ignorance. As does the N.Y. Times again and again in its futile attempts to undermine American society.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

The post What’s in a Name? appeared first on LewRockwell.

You can call this bragging and don’t have to believe it. I got my start sorting the sublime from the repulsive at the tender age of seven. Hanging out at a slightly older boy’s house, let’s call him Mike, is when and where my standards erupted. It was the day that bloodthirsty intolerance for ugly expressions first got stoked.

The Herman’s Hermits song “Mrs. Brown You’ve got a Lovely Daughter” came on the radio. Our host felt that the Hermit’s needed accompaniment. He also seemed to believe his guests would be keen on it. My first impulse was to bolt. But the adult capacity to grin while enraged strangely came over me. The delectable snacks the mother of that house was known to lay out stopped a hasty exit from happening. It is absolutely degrading what a preteen will go through for a first-class pastry.

It’d be too cruel describing Mike’s stab at matching Scouse, Mancunian or whatever you call Peter Noone’s dialect crooning that sappy goo. Hearing “Daw-tuh” from the kid only once would bring violent emotions out of a baby-cuddly golden retriever. Dramatizing his noises busting moves extinguished any lingering traces of pity in an instant. There was a Tonka toy dump truck on the floor nearby; it looked perfect for the purpose of justifiable homicide. My brain already had a bit of a legal turn. One snag stood in the way of permanently silencing Michael. Without hearing from him themselves, could a jury be convinced of how justifiable, humane and necessary his elimination actually was? It was chicken, but I kept on grinning instead.

As years have passed, both my rationality and self-restraint have seriously eroded from those innocent days. Distance from the objects of my disgust is all that has kept me this side of the penitentiary. Society pays the price when the sensate among us cower in the face of artistic atrocity. The depravity has gone so far that aesthetic crimes against humanity are funded by governments in the name of enlightenment.

During the postwar renaissance somewhere between half and a full day’s pay – in a menial job – could place a teenybopper within fifty feet of a performing musical genius. Now, they fork out 6, 7 or 8 days pay for sounds resembling the kind Mike inflicted. And the people calling themselves critics keep cheering them on.

In 1975 a kid working an 8-hour shift at McDonald’s earned $16.80. For no more labor he could see Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones or Jethro Tull with money left for hot dogs and soda. Today, people with college degrees put in a full week, or more, for acts that may merit less than Tonka toy treatment but should certainly not go unpunished. When perv-formers go to jail for statutory, extortion or shooting each other, it is not necessarily their worst crimes being penalized.

As this is written the top five Spotified artists are Bruno Mars, Lady Gag-Gag, The Weaknd, Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish. Bruno will playing in Vegas. You can see him, from the next county, for $329. The Lady is on at Madison Square Garden at rates ranging from $456 to $5500. With those price ranges you can envision how far out of range the peasantry will reside – a good ear might not mind.  In 1975 you could almost touch the amps for ten bucks. Presently, with extra fees and taxes accounted for, it takes more than two days for even Californians toiling the trenches to be skied. Make that more than four in most other states. The conciliation is that amp static is only somewhat distinguishable from the “music.” In a decade, will anybody be streaming command performers from the reeking 20s of the early 21st century? People still crank up Patsy Cline six decades later.

If only the purge of pulchritude was restricted to the audio-sphere. It is easier today for a physically handicapped person to traverse a Japanese TV game show obstacle course successfully, than it is for an unconnected peon to get his script before a Hollywood producer or director. What do all these hoops and hurdles do for the cause of decent drama getting screened?

After falling asleep in the first one, going to John Wick: Chapter 4 was an act of time-to-kill desperation goaded by reviews like this from Collider:

It’s official – John Wick: Chapter 4 has taken the Keanu Reeves action franchise to new heights. At the time of writing, the film has become the top-rated film of the entire franchise as far as Rotten Tomatoes critics scores go – it’s also become the first in the series to crack the 90% barrier, currently sitting at 93% after a love-bombing from film critics.

Numerous other reviewers called it “unpredictable.” How many times do you have to head butt a sports arena wall without a helmet, like Gus Ferotte did in Jack Kent Coke stadium in 1997 with one, to find a guy doing cartwheels while making impossible pistol shots not moronic? We also hear of “plot twists.” Like what? Being found inexplicably while on the lam at every turn? Or surviving getting shot more times than both Bonnie and Clyde? Meanwhile, Wick’s foes run the gamut of occupations from desert sheiks to sushi slicers. How many chapters before a knitting grandma goes at him with her needles?

Elsewhere Denzel Washington intersperses actual acting, like in Roman J. Israel, Esq., with playing an unarmed codger crushing half-a-dozen athletic 25-year-olds training ordnance on him in multiple Equalizer inflictions. Screenwriters must spend all afternoon assembly lining these schlock-fests. For every time Robert McCall looks at his watch, watchers in theaters with functioning gray matter have look at theirs 3 more.

Of course, not all action flickery follows the same unpredictable routine. We are inundated with others where it’s family hit men trying to retire. Alas, those who live by the sword. Fortunately, they never lose their edges. It comes in handy as beleaguered heroes unpredictably vanquish forces the size of army divisions in finales. Imagine the frustration of script readers spiking treatments that so unoriginally fail to include this mandatory parting shot.

You might find the latest from Tom Cruise hard, if not an impossible mission, to sit through too. The first hour of the latest one features Ethan Hunt fawned over as the savior of mankind by everyone from the president on down. It’s like the slobbering of an Operating Thetan in the presence of L. Ron himself. Who needs supernatural superheroes when we’ve got Ethan Hunt? If he hasn’t matched every super-human deed of immortals yet, wait a few more sequels.

But what about serious drama? That’ll get us closer to brutal reality. The latest blockbuster in ’thinking man’s film,’ The Brutalist, has done a double layout with a full twist over the orca. It’s more of a ‘what were they thinking’ film.

Only a nincompoop asks why a world renowned architect leaves New York City to sweep floors in a Podunk furniture store. What fascist forces keep the land of the free from knowing who this junkie genius is? Pliant viewers are expected to walk in already aggrieved for wounded prodigies who might have to slug it out like those hideous common Americans. The film’s model, Marcel Breuer, never endured anything close. The filmmakers rely on the general dearth of erudition evident in themselves – and expected from audiences — doing this 180.

Deep in Penn’s Woods Lazlo Toth, the protagonist, works for Cousin Attila who has been Christianized by a shrill shiksa wife. She’s a catty Catholic whose Hitlerian Hebrew-phobia is soon revealed. What kind of woman, other than a nascent Nazi, has a problem when a guy misses the toilet by three feet? Put her name up there next to Irma Grese.

In the meantime, our hero is cheated out of his fee for remodeling a library by Harrison Lee Van Buren.  The gauche tycoon is later peer pressured by the smart set into liking the new space. He tracks down the man he stiffed for what turns out to be new, improved exploitation. After rescuing Laz from penury Van Buren introduces the architectural genius to society. What else could be next but a commission to design a multi-million dollar contract?

Then, true to form, the gentile town council pulls a fast one on a Holocaust survivor. The community center they’ve commissioned him to draw up must also fill the role of defining local faith. Lazlo brilliantly positions a skylight to shine a crucifix on the altar at noon. That’s a plot untwist necessary for anyone slow enough to have missed the message of exclusion viewers were hosed down with for the first 60 minutes.

The uncircumcised, who were often circumcised in the era, weren’t done with him yet. If Harrison junior can’t have Lazlo’s taciturnly traumatized niece … wasn’t there other prey in the family? When Sr. takes Toth to Tuscany pursuing marble comes the TMI moment from hell. The master builder succumbs to local revelry. Once all liquored up and staggering into the tunneled quarry is when old Harry makes his move. Like Simon Legree with Cassy, Van Buren will have his way with the servants. The next morning the sodomizee looks none the worse for wear and tear. He says “yes boss” quicker than Paul Newman blackjacked by Strother Martin. It comes as a surprise when Toth’s wife turns out to know hubby was raped. The audience didn’t even know Lazlo did. Going by the narrative depicted, did he really mind?

Aint’ that the West writ large? First they Holocaust him, then strong-arm his genius for callous Christianity and finally let him have it like a bitch-boy in the prison shower. Don’t commit the hate crime of thinking that doesn’t summarize US welcome of Holocaust survivors to a T. The only safe question is why Hollywood hasn’t confronted America with their collective guilt before now.

It is during the picnic where Harry Jr. can’t get his grimy paws on Toth niece Zsofia, when the brutal “truth” comes out. Putting Lazlo and family up and back in business, including him in Van Buren outings while providing opportunity no one else does … is really begrudgingly ”tolerating” the despised immigrant. Why, they’ve turned the Statue of Liberty upside down! Persecuted wunderkind’s only respite is a spike of euphoric horse in the arm.

It’s time to incorporate didactic messages from the enlightened. If you can’t find a way to be gay, black, trans, Jewish, Muslim, handicapped and female simultaneously … when’s the next Nuremberg Tribunal? It’ll be womanned by Joy Reid, Randi Weingarten and Al Sharpton. Calling out The Brutalist for being as inanely silly as it is, is quite verboten. We are expected to stand in awe …cuz finally we see what we really are.

Saying that there isn’t the vaguest resemblance in this tall tale to anyone’s experience ever misses the point. The audio-visual branch of the victim industry’s role eradicating hate entails manufacture of an ersatz reality coining more villains to hate. The notion that Lazlo Toth would be an object of homoerotic allure to a Daddy Warbucks like Harrison Van Buren is a shock to the senses. Whatever your taste or persuasion, that genuine plot twist would have kept Lot’s wife from looking back.

We’ve reached the point where you have to get really high to get high art. The pretentiousness of professional critics has weaseled its way into commerce. It can be costly telling clients that what they’ve been told about The Brutalist – and better believe to qualify as culturally hip — makes no sense. When prospects say otherwise it’s necessary to grin like I did at seven. Nobody wants to miss out on the treats.

The post Farce Gratia Artis appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump is ushering a “Golden Age” alright, just not the one MAGA voters were expecting. Instead of getting government off our backs, and no more wars, Americans have been saddled with warmongering on a daily basis, and a turbocharge of government spending, debts and inflation! Those people who want to protect themselves Trump’s reckless government policies are piling into gold and sending the price to new all-time highs.

The post $4,000 Gold — Not The “Golden Age” MAGA Voters Were Expecting appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tim McGraw wrote:

Hi Lew,

Mr. Kramer makes the mistake of equating money with happiness. And chemotherapy being less vomit-prone? Jeez, if you have cancer, you are in for a tough time anytime.

Happiness is subjective. I was happier in the 1950s to 1990s, even though I was poor. Now, I have money, but liberty is dying. Society is dying. Human interaction is dying. This world from 2001 on sucks! 

Money isn’t happiness.

 

The post Re: John Stossel: The myth of the good old days appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

OnePeterFive

 

The post The Rise and Rise of the Traditional Latin Mass Pilgrimage appeared first on LewRockwell.

 

 

di Francesco Simoncelli

(Versione audio dell'articolo disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/un-labirinto-di-aggiustamenti-interni)

Uno dei migliori insegnamenti che Hayek avrebbe lasciato in eredità era quello legato alla conoscenza di mercato. Quest'ultimo ha al suo interno una così grande mole di informazioni che è impossibile per un solo individuo, o un gruppo di essi, riuscire a padroneggiarla interamente. Nel bellissimo saggio, The Use of Knowledge in Society, questa lezione viene ribadita aggiungendo a corredo un altro aspetto: quello che gli individui possono fare è creare un filo coerente tra i pezzi di informazione che trovano sparsi e utilizzarli per fare impresa. Quando, poi, questi fili si intrecciano con quelli intessuti da altri, ecco che si viene a creare una rete che dà vita al famoso ordine spontaneo di cui lo stesso Hayek aveva approfondito l'esistenza aggiungendoci la teoria del capitale di Bawerk. Questa rete è replicabile e visibile in altri ambiti, non solo quello economico: Bitcoin, ad esempio. Anche in quello della divulgazione vale lo stesso principio e raccogliere informazioni intriganti/interessanti nel mare magnum delle idee è un compito alquanto arduo; i flutti presenti in questo oceano sono in gran parte confusionari e non permettono l'accesso a qualcosa di utile. La combinazione di idee, molto spesso, conduce a un vicolo cieco.

Occorre un lavoro di scandagliamento approfondito e un processo di trial/error altrettanto accurato. Quando avete letto nel mio ultimo libro, Il Grande Default, di come la cricca di Davos si fosse infiltrata a più livelli nelle stanze dei bottoni americane, avete avuto una chiave di lettura completa della situazione. Ne avete una parziale quando Trump parla in modo vago di “nemici interni”. Anche JP Morgan, ad esempio, aveva uffici in Europa, ma questo non impediva alle 17 banche europee di impostare il LIBOR e svuotare della ricchezza reale gli USA tramite il mercato dell'eurodollaro. Questo concetto è ancora sconosciuto ai più, anche a molti della Scuola Austriaca e seguaci della stessa, ed è grazie al mio manoscritto e al mio blog se in Italia è possibile approfondire questo tema. Non lo troverete trattato da nessun altra parte.

NOW - Trump: "We're under invasion from within." pic.twitter.com/HrY4tK43Ov

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 30, 2025

Fatto sta che una istituzione non è monolitica, così come non lo è uno stato. Entrambi sono costituiti da persone, che possono essere trasformati in asset... infiltrati. I confini nazionali servono solo a giustificare davanti agli occhi dei contribuenti il fatto che essi debbano essere spremuti per sostenere la nazione; esistono in realtà famiglie, interessi e gruppi di pressione che si spartiscono il diritto di governare un territorio. Negli USA sta prevalendo uno in particolare, che per amore di semplificazione chiameremo NY Boys, facendo valere le proprie ragioni anche all'estero avendo rimpatriato il controllo del dollaro offshore. Qui non esistono buoni o cattivi, ma solo interessi e alleanze/tradimenti. Per la gente comune, invece, solo occasioni per trarre vantaggio dalla corretta lettura di queste dinamiche.

Addirittura anche all'interno dell'FOMC esistono queste divisioni e sono state evidenti sin dal 2017, per chi sapeva dove guardare, quando Powell ha avviato il processo di riorganizzazione della nazione. Lui era uno di quelli contrari all'obiettivo del 2% d'inflazione come impostato da Bernanke e poi seguito dalla Yellen. Infatti è stato grazie a questo escamotage che entrambi sono stati in grado di applicare con relativa facilità la ZIRP e, quindi, permettere l'ipertrofia del mercato dei dollari offshore. Powell era dell'idea di seguire la linea di Singapore ad esempio: mirare alla banda di un tasso di cambio, non a quella dell'inflazione o del mercato del lavoro. A Jackson Hole, lo scorso agosto, ha praticamente cestinato la regola del “2% d'inflazione come obiettivo” (flexible targeting). Ciò avvalora ancora di più la tesi secondo cui la FED e l'amministrazione Trump, nonostante le scaramucce di facciata da dare in pasto alla stampa generalista per sviarla, stanno lavorando insieme per riformare la FED stessa. A tal proposito, a essere licenziata è stata Lisa Cook, non Powell.

Non è più una supposizione che, oltre alla rete tentacolare democratica che attraversa nazioni e raccoglie al suo interno movimenti violenti che possono essere "dosati" capillarmente, ne esiste una anche a livello finanziario. Scommettiamo a chi fa capo?https://t.co/sZOU3CaZ9G

— Francesco Simoncelli (@Freedonia85) October 1, 2025

L'obiettivo è cambiare il modo in cui la FED interagisce con l'economia e un primo passo in questa direzione è tornare a un'istituzione antecedente al 1935, anno i cui Roosevelt la trasformò nella realtà attivamente interventista di oggi. Non più un ente centralizzatore, ma uno con un ruolo sempre più marginale per ciò che concerne politica monetaria e fiscale. Mi spiego meglio. Con l'approvazione del GENIUS e STABLE Act gli Stati Uniti avranno un dollaro “interno” che avrà un certo prezzo e un dollaro “esterno” che ne avrà un altro di prezzo (superiore al primo, data la presenza di una commissione per il privilegio di usarlo). In questo modo l'economia interna sarà distaccata, o perlomeno di gran lunga meno influenzata, da ciò che accade esternamente. Il SOFR imposta i tassi d'interesse in base agli andamenti dei mercati del debito/credito statunitensi, non più internazionali. Lo stress finanziario, che in precedenza partiva dall'Europa e dal Regno Unito tramite il LIBOR, ha meno capacità di influenzare il resto del mondo e forzare una linea di politica coordinata a livello di banche centrali.

I salti mortali per conciliare l'economia interna con quella esterna possono essere abbandonati e concentrarsi sulla ricostruzione della classe media americana, fatta a pezzi dalla ZIRP e dalla progressiva finanziarizzazione dell'economia. La correzione di Wall Street sarà assorbita da Main Street ed ecco perché Trump ha solleticato i mercati con la retorica dell'abbassamento dei tassi: prima che potesse accadere questi ultimi dovevano essere convinti che ci fossero prove, che l'attuale amministrazione avesse davvero intenzione di rimettere a posto l'equazione fiscale della nazione. L'approvazione della Big Beautiful Bill è stato un passo in questa direzione, la politica commerciale un altro e la deregolamentazione/snellimento burocratico un altro ancora. I risultati non si sono fatti attendere, con buona pace di chi sventolava il feticcio della bancarotta.

Pessimo giorno per gli "smemorati". Dopo essersi strappati i capelli per la "catastrofe" del rollover del debito americano, si stracciavano le vesti per i deficit della BBB che avrebbero mandato in bancarotta il Paese. Indovinate un po'? La revisione del CBO segna un surplus. https://t.co/jSHk6JD1dM

— Francesco Simoncelli (@Freedonia85) September 18, 2025

Con tassi lievemente più bassi, ora, è possibile mettere una pezza a uno dei mercati più importanti per la classe media americana: quello immobiliare. “Aggiustare” i prezzi delle case in modo da rapportarli agli stipendi pagati, affinché i giovani possano uscire dalle case dei genitori, creare nuovi nuclei famigliari e infine ricostruire il “sogno americano”. Ecco perché sarà fondamentale la IPO riguardante Fannie Mae e Freddie Mac, questo li porterà entrambi fuori dalla conservatorship e li farà tornare entrambi in profitto rivitalizzando il mercato dei mutui trentennali americano. Fannie e Freddie sono la nona compagnia più profittevole al mondo, solo l'anno scorso hanno fatto registrare $29 miliardi in commissioni e Obama le usava per finanziare l'Obamacare: immaginate ora cosa potrebbero fare se portate fuori dall'alveo pubblico e liberalizzate, soprattutto se fondi pensione e agenzie di assicurazione possono investire e tirarci fuori rendimenti decenti. Se ci aggiungiamo anche la rimozione della Supplemental Leverage Ratio e la liberazione del capitale bancario immobilizzato (parliamo di circa $5.500 miliardi in riserve in eccesso) che doveva essere detenuto nei loro bilanci come ulteriore garanzia a supporto dei titoli di stato americani (l'asset più liquido e affidabile al mondo dal 2022), le banche americane ottengono un vantaggio non indifferente rispetto alle controparti europee e la concessione di prestiti diventerà più facile.

Per quanto JP Morgan e Solomon Bank siano state le voci più forti nel sostenere questa causa, non significa che vogliano tornare a giocare d'azzardo sui mercati e far perdere le tracce di un qualsiasi confine tra investment banking e reserve banking. Significa principalmente tornare ad avere un margine netto d'interesse attraverso la loro attività principale: concedere prestiti. Gli strati aggiuntivi di burocrazia applicati dal Dodd-Frank Act hanno costretto le banche americane a concentrarsi fondamentalmente sul settore finanziario, incapaci di fare soldi col margine netto d'interesse. È questo che le banche dovrebbero fare: prestare soldi al 6%, dare il 3% d'interesse ai depositanti e trattenere per loro il restante 3%. Invece di analizzare il gradiente di rischio di un'azienda a cui concedere un mutuo, sono state indirizzate lungo la strada dell'ingegneria finanziaria e della finanziarizzazione dei loro bilanci (e indirettamente a quella di Main Street). Senza contare che anche le regole di Basilea 3 hanno rappresentato dei legacci importati alla profittabilità delle banche americane, mantenendo competitive le loro controparti europee. La zombificazione degli istituti di credito americani ha rappresentato un costante drenaggio di risorse, tramite la burocrazia, oltreoceano. Così come la raffica di norme di conformità a livello commerciale ha costretto il resto del mondo ad adattarsi agli standard normativi europei (assurdi), allo stesso modo ha funzionato la normativa bancaria; e non scordiamoci i tentativi multipli di trascinare in una guerra cinetica gli USA in Medio Oriente o in Ucraina. Cos'è che non fa notizia sui media generalisti, però? La crescita dei salari, i quali rispetto all'anno precedente mostrano, sebbene timidi, segni di ripresa. Ma per avere un quadro completo della situazione bisogna aggiungere anche un grosso cambiamento che sta avvenendo a livello di movimenti nei posti di lavoro. In sintesi, i colletti bianchi, i cui lavori sono scoppiati grazie agli strati di burocrazia posti sulla nazione, hanno esercitato una sorta di effetto crowding out nei confronti dei colletti blu: spostare un foglio sarebbe diventato più profittevole di creare un bene di consumo. E carriere del genere hanno significato mutui, bonus e tutta una serie di agi garantiti da un lavoro che non aggiungeva niente alla ricchezza reale, anzi col tempo l'ha sottratta. Un processo del genere non poteva far altro che “appaltare” al resto del mondo la manifattura, il settore secondario, a fronte di un progressivo affogare nel debito. Dollari uscivano ed entrava ciarpame di qualità progressivamente inferiore, ma i debiti rimanevano. È così che l'ipertrofia del mercato dell'eurodollaro ha tenuto in piedi la City di Londra e, come sottoprodotto, anche Bruxelles a scapito di Washington.

L'inversione di questa tendenza deve avvenire con gradualità e in modo organico, nonostante Trump volesse (apparentemente) forzare la mano a Powell. I numeri della disoccupazione non sono allarmanti perché è in atto un mutamento delle condizioni professionali negli USA, coadiuvato dalla R&S nel campo dell'IA, il quale permetterà di ricreare una sostenibilità effettiva nel mondo del lavoro. Parallelamente a ciò corre il binario degli investimenti esteri, la cui barriera all'ingresso sarà il possesso di titoli del Tesoro americani: oltre a far pagare al resto del mondo gli eccessi che ha contribuito a creare negli USA in passato, l'acquisto di titoli sovrani americani rappresenterà il biglietto d'ingresso al mercato più liquido, affidabile e profittevole del mondo. La cosiddetta “idraulica” del sistema finanziario americano viene così resa un asset nel bilancio della nazione. Ma non finisce qui, perché la tokenizzazione di questa classe di asset permetterà agli investitori non solo di scommettere sulla riorganizzazione del Paese ma anche su singoli progetti (industriali, ad esempio) in modo da ottenere un doppio rendimento.

Di conseguenza anche se Powell è “lento” nell'abbassare i tassi di riferimento, la progressione di questi eventi puntellerà il settore immobiliare mentre la classe media cercherà di uscire dal pantano di stagnazione creato ad hoc da una classe dirigente del passato intenzionata a svuotare la nazione piuttosto che a farla prosperare. Pensateci: se il vostro scopo è quello di saccheggiare un posto per mandare i proventi altrove, ciò non riuscirà a conciliarsi con una crescita sostenibile, nel tempo, di suddetto posto. Perché? Legge dei rendimenti marginali decrescenti. Se invece il vostro scopo è quello di spartire il bottino della nazione tra gli “amici degli amici” in patria e voi stessi, sarà decisamente più facile lasciare qualcosa anche al resto della popolazione. La felicità, relativa, di quest'ultima la incentiverà a chiudere un occhio sul resto delle scorribande ai piani alti. Perché? Legge dei rendimenti marginali acceleranti. Se prima del 2022 i partner commerciali degli USA erano tali solo per prenderne un pezzo, adesso è finalmente un rapporto paritario. Infatti quello che non capiscono gran parte degli Austriaci è che una volta tolto di mezzo lo strato di normative scritto dai nemici degli Stati Uniti e applicato da un Congresso di traditori, il mondo cambia letteralmente e diventa irriconoscibile.

IL CENTRO DEL LABIRINTO

Aggiustamento interno e poi aggiustamento esterno. Nel primo caso si tratta di ridare “speranza” a un'intera generazione, forse due, di americani che durante l'amministrazione Biden sono stati letteralmente privati di una qualsiasi preferenza temporale orientata al futuro. Guerre all'estero, inflazione e disoccupazione sono stati gli elementi principali del declino della classe media; l'amministrazione Trump “è stata chiamata” a risolvere soprattutto questi temi riducendo gli sprechi all'estero e aumentando gli impegni d'investimento internamente. Qualsiasi correzione non avviene senza dolore economico: può essere attenuato, ma non può essere cancellato. Questo a sua volta significa che la riorganizzazione del mondo lavoro non ci sarà senza scossoni iniziali che dovranno trovare successivamente un nuovo equilibrio; i numeri grigi che abbiamo letto di recente sono influenzati non solo da questa tendenza, ma anche dalla regolazione dei flussi migratori. L'effetto di ciò si sta già sentendo a livello immobiliare, dove gli affitti hanno smesso di correre ad esempio. Secondo le ultime stime ce ne sono altri 18 milioni circa in circolazione entrati nel Paese illegalmente grazie alle politiche migratorie lasche dell'amministrazione Biden e, inutile dirlo, l'effetto deflazionistico che avrà questa tendenza (espulsioni o incentivi monetari per andarsene) andrà a contrastare quelli inflazionistici ancora derivanti dallo stimolo fiscale del Build Back Better della precedente amministrazione.

Parallelamente al mondo del lavoro corre la politica commerciale, dove i dazi non solo non stati inflazionistici mentre invece hanno portato vitalità nelle casse del Dipartimento del Tesoro. Infatti hanno un effetto temporaneo su prodotti specifici, sempre che non sia il produttore/distributore a volerne assorbire l'impatto, ma soprattutto generano un gettito interessante per il governo americano. Questo significa che se Trump dovesse essere avvicendato da una presidenza democratica nel 2028, difficilmente verrebbero aboliti (così come la precedente amministrazione Biden non ha abolito i dazi sui prodotti cinesi). Se ci aggiungiamo anche che la Big Beautiful Bill avrà un effetto positivo sul bilancio federale, allora abbiamo di fronte un sentimento popolare/elettorale tutto sommato positivo nei confronti dell'attuale amministrazione.

Pessimo giorno per gli "smemorati". Dopo essersi strappati i capelli per la "catastrofe" del rollover del debito americano, si stracciavano le vesti per i deficit della BBB che avrebbero mandato in bancarotta il Paese. Indovinate un po'? La revisione del CBO segna un surplus. https://t.co/jSHk6JD1dM

— Francesco Simoncelli (@Freedonia85) September 18, 2025

Gli aggiustamenti esterni sono quelli più problematici, invece. Gli europei non possono permettersi di perdere la guerra in Ucraina perché significherebbe una caduta libera per il progetto UE e l'euro, visto che verrebbe a mancare la disponibilità di materie prime/risorse finanziarie (es. asset finanziari congelati nelle banche europee) che sono attualmente in Russia e che sono estremamente importanti per sostenere la credibilità del sistema bancario dell'Eurozona. Devono per forza andare avanti, quindi, ma non hanno affatto i mezzi per farlo se non attraverso gli Stati Uniti che però non vogliono affatto essere coinvolti in una guerra cinetica. Uno degli ultimi messaggi dati da Trump a tal proposito è possibile parafrasarlo in questo modo: “Volete che questa guerra continui a tutti i costi? Bene, allora li pagherete VOI questi costi. Se la NATO si vuole muovere verso un conflitto diretto allora noi vi venderemo le armi, ma ce le pagherete in anticipo”.

La domanda è: con cosa le pagheranno? Dal punto di vista energetico l'UE è in grossi guai: il petrolio al largo della Gran Bretagna è praticamente impossibile da estrarre causa burocrazia e tasse, e la Norvegia è sostanzialmente un circuito a sé stante. Dal punto di vista finanziario l'UE è in grossi guai: la fonte da cui accedeva a finanziamenti facili, il mercato dell'eurodollaro, viene prosciugata dalla FED; dopo l'entrata a pieno regime del SOFR, o si comprano titoli del Tesoro americani per accedere alla liquidità in dollari oppure si chiede una linea di credito (swap) alla FED... ma solo se si è ritenuti “degni”, come l'Argentina ad esempio. Infatti le politiche commerciali servono anche a questo: determinare chi è “amico” e chi non lo è. In questo modo l'accesso alla liquidità in dollari non sarà negato, ma arriverà con clausole come ad esempio una commissione d'accesso per usare la valuta più affidabile, credibile e necessaria al mondo. Questo scenario per l'Europa significa doversi preparare a sostenere dei costi, sia per la difesa sia per il comparto bancario/monetario/economico, che sottoporranno a forti pressioni al ribasso la moneta unica e accentueranno ancora di più la fuga di capitali verso gli Stati Uniti da parte di risparmi europei destinati al macello se resteranno nell'UE.

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Tutto rimandato all'anno prossimo... forse. Fanno ridere poi queste inchieste della stampa generalista, proprio perché mancano consapevolmente il punto. Qual è? Non sanno come fare.https://t.co/TMq4btZssw

— Francesco Simoncelli (@Freedonia85) September 29, 2025

Prima di una crisi del debito sovrana, la valuta che successivamente imploderà sale nel mercato dei cambi. Infatti l'Europa ha bisogno di liquidità in euro sia per pagare i salari, sia di liquidità in dollari per tenere in piedi tutti i suoi carry trade. Come ricordato in tempi non sospetti, il mondo si ri-dollarizza quando il DXY scende dato che la pressione di acquisto/vendita del dollaro viene di poco superata da quella d'acquisto dell'euro ad esempio.

È una giostra che può andare avanti fin quando esistono riserve in dollari da cui attingere, fino a quando qualcosa si rompe come a Hong Kong o a Singapore. Questi due hub sono da sempre stati una fonte non indifferente di dollari offshore, ma difendere ancoraggi del genere è diventato arduo da quando non esiste più il LIBOR. L'Autorità monetaria di Hong Kong, ad esempio, mantiene un differenziale di 25 punti base sul suo tasso di riferimento rispetto a quello della FED, il che significa che è stato impostato un carry trade da sfruttare. A sua volta stiamo parlando di un differenziale di 50-60 punti base tra i T-bill americani a 30 giorni e i loro omologhi di Hong Kong. L'HIBOR, la versione di Hong Kong del LIBOR, è stato appiattito fino allo 0,5% a maggio e da allora è rimasto lì: qualcuno sta vendendo dollari a sconto a Hong Kong. E visto che stiamo parlando di una colonia inglese da tempo immemore, tutti i sospetti ricadono sulla City di Londra.

CONCLUSIONE

È passato un anno da quando ho pubblicato il mio ultimo libro, Il Grande Default, e uno dei temi trattati in esso era il motivo per cui Stati Uniti ed Europa sono ai ferri corti. Tutto ciò che avete trovato nel mio manoscritto ha rappresentato una narrazione prevalentemente in linea con quanto osservato finora. Lo studio del sistema dell'eurodollaro, le sue criticità nel passato e l'origine del suo controllo, mi hanno permesso di avere una proverbiale “finestra sul futuro”. Quest'ultima affaccia su un presente, adesso, in cui l'UE viene costantemente costretta ad accettare il ritiro sulle proprie sponde da parte degli USA; qualunque deviazione da questa linea di politica verrà accolta da un'azione uguale e contraria fatta di power politics.

La consensus politics era solamente una scusa per permettere all'UE di insinuarsi nell'ordine mondiale e diventarne il punto di riferimento, sacrificando nel contempo gli Stati Uniti. I New York Boys hanno preso in mano le redini della situazione americana e hanno fatto ricorso a tutta la loro influenza territoriale per arginare questo assalto e con l'elezione di Trump è partito il contrattacco.

Le principali pedine geopolitiche sono state schierate: Giappone in Asia, Israele/Arabia Saudita/Azerbaijan/Armenia in Medio Oriente, Polonia/Italia/Grecia/Turchia in Europa. Alla Gran Bretagna, invece, verrà dato l'onore delle armi in cambio del ritiro/neutralità dalle sue zone d'influenza attualmente caratterizzate da conflitti e la resa di qualsiasi pretesa sul Canada. Chi viene estromesso dal rimodellamento del mondo di fronte al gigantesco cambiamento di rotta di Washington è il “nucleo” dell'Europa: Francia, Germania e Belgio/Olanda principalmente. Ecco perché sono propenso a pensare che l'UE si frammenterà lungo questi confini e si verranno a creare 2 (o forse più) Eurosistemi. Già adesso la BCE è praticamente un pro-forma, dato che le singole banche centrali nazionali non hanno mai smesso realmente di impostare/influenzare la politica monetaria delle rispettive nazioni attraverso i pronti contro termine.

Alla fine della fiera sono 3 i centri di potere nel mondo: Washington, City di Londra e Vaticano. Bruxelles, Francoforte, Parigi, ecc. non sono pervenute.

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Today, millions of Americans say that they believe that the United States is on the verge of a major economic collapse and will soon be entering another Great Depression. But only a small percentage of those same people are prepared for that to happen. The sad truth is that the vast majority of Americans would last little more than a month on what they have stored up in their homes. Most of us are so used to running out to the supermarket or to Wal-Mart for whatever we need that we never even stop to consider what would happen if suddenly we were not able to do that. Already the U.S. economy is starting to stumble about like a drunken frat boy. All it would take for the entire U.S. to resemble New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina would be for a major war, a terror attack, a deadly pandemic or a massive natural disaster to strike at just the right time and push the teetering U.S. economy over the edge. So just how would you survive if you suddenly could not rely on the huge international corporate giants to feed, clothe and supply you and your family? Do you have a plan?

Unless you already live in a cave or you are a complete and total mindless follower of the establishment media, you should be able to see very clearly that our society is more vulnerable now than it ever has been. This year there have been an unprecedented number of large earthquakes around the world and volcanoes all over the globe are awakening. You can just take a look at what has happened in Haiti and in Iceland to see how devastating a natural disaster can be. Not only that, but we have a world that is full of lunatics in positions of power, and if one of them decides to set off a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon in a major city it could paralyze an entire region. War could erupt in the Middle East at literally any moment, and if it does the price of oil will double or triple (at least) and there is the possibility that much of the entire world could be drawn into the conflict. Scientists tell us that a massive high-altitude EMP (electromagnetic pulse) blast could send large portions of the United States back to the stone age in an instant. In addition, there is the constant threat that the outbreak of a major viral pandemic (such as what happened with the 1918 Spanish Flu) could kill tens of millions of people around the globe and paralyze the economies of the world.

But even without all of that, the truth is that the U.S. economy is going to collapse. So just think of what will happen if one (or more) of those things does happen on top of all the economic problems that we are having.

Are you prepared?

The following is a list of 20 things you and your family will need to survive when the economy totally collapses and the next Great Depression begins….

#1) Storable Foo

Food is going to instantly become one of the most valuable commodities in existence in the event of an economic collapse. If you do not have food you are not going to survive. Most American families could not last much longer than a month on what they have in their house right now. So what about you? If disaster struck right now, how long could you survive on what you have? The truth is that we all need to start storing up food. If you and your family run out of food, you will suddenly find yourselves competing with the hordes of hungry people who are looting the stores and roaming the streets looking for something to eat.

Of course you can grow your own food, but that is going to take time. So you need to have enough food stored up until the food that you plant has time to grow. But if you have not stored up any seeds you might as well forget it. When the economy totally collapses, the remaining seeds will disappear very quickly. So if you think that you are going to need seeds, now is the time to get them.

#2) Clean Water

Most people can survive for a number of weeks without food, but without water you will die in just a few days. So where would you get water if the water suddenly stopped flowing out of your taps? Do you have a plan? Is there an abundant supply of clean water near your home? Would you be able to boil water if you need to?

Besides storing water and figuring out how you are going to gather water if society breaks down, another thing to consider is water purification tablets. The water you are able to gather during a time of crisis may not be suitable for drinking. So you may find that water purification tablets come in very, very handy.

#3) Shelter

You can’t sleep on the streets, can you? Well, some people will be able to get by living on the streets, but the vast majority of us will need some form of shelter to survive for long. So what would you do if you and your family lost your home or suddenly were forced from your home? Where would you go?

The best thing to do is to come up with several plans. Do you have relatives that you can bunk with in case of emergency? Do you own a tent and sleeping bags if you had to rough it? If one day everything hits the fan and you and your family have to “bug out” somewhere, where would that be? You need to have a plan.

#4) Warm Clothing

If you plan to survive for long in a nightmare economic situation, you are probably going to need some warm, functional clothing. If you live in a cold climate, this is going to mean storing up plenty of blankets and cold weather clothes. If you live in an area where it rains a lot, you will need to be sure to store up some rain gear. If you think you may have to survive outdoors in an emergency situation, make sure that you and your family have something warm to put on your heads. Someday after the economy has collapsed and people are scrambling to survive, a lot of folks are going to end up freezing to death. In fact, in the coldest areas it is actually possible to freeze to death in your own home. Don’t let that happen to you.

#5) An Axe

Staying along the theme of staying warm, you may want to consider investing in a good axe. In the event of a major emergency, gathering firewood will be a priority. Without a good tool to cut the wood with that will be much more difficult.

#6) Lighters Or Matches

You will also want something to start a fire with. If you can start a fire, you can cook food, you can boil water and you can stay warm. So in a true emergency situation, how do you plan to start a fire? By rubbing sticks together? Now is the time to put away a supply of lighters or matches so that you will be prepared when you really need them.

In addition, you may want to consider storing up a good supply of candles. Candles come in quite handy whenever the electricity goes out, and in the event of a long-term economic nightmare we will all see why our forefathers relied on candles so much.

#7) Hiking Boots Or Comfortable Shoes

When you ask most people to list things necessary for survival, this is not the first or the second thing that comes to mind. But having hiking boots or very comfortable and functional shoes will be absolutely critical. You may very well find yourself in a situation where you and your family must walk everywhere you want to go. So how far do you think you will get in high heels? You will want footwear that you would feel comfortable walking in for hours if necessary. You will also want footwear that will last a long time, because when the economy truly collapses you may not be able to run out to the shoe store and get what you need at that point.

#8) A Flashlight And/Or Lantern

When the power goes off in your home, what is the first thing that you grab? Just think about it. A flashlight or a lantern of course. In a major emergency, a flashlight or a lantern is going to be a necessity – especially if you need to go anywhere at night.

Solar powered or “crank style” flashlights or lanterns will probably be best during a long-term emergency. If you have battery-powered units you will want to begin storing up lots and lots of batteries.

#9) A Radio

If a major crisis does hit the United States, what will you and your family want? Among other things, you will all want to know what in the world is going on. A radio can be an invaluable tool for keeping up with the news.

Once again, solar powered or “crank style” radios will probably work best for the long term. A battery-powered until would work as well – but only for as long as your batteries are able to last.

#10) Communication Equipment

When things really hit the fan you are going to want to communicate with your family and friends. You will also want to be able to contact an ambulance or law enforcement if necessary. Having an emergency cell phone is great, but it may or may not work during a time of crisis. The Internet also may or may not be available. Be sure to have a plan (whether it be high-tech or low-tech) for staying in communication with others during a major emergency.

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The US – that powerful nation standing for peace, self-determination and liberty – as Charles Hugh Smith discusses, is a spectacle, an artifice, a lie.  Smith refers to Guy Debord’s 1967 book, and Debord’s subsequent Comments on the Society of the Spectacle.

Debord seems to have completely anticipated my life as a child of the Cold War and adult participant in the rise of the executive warfare state. What’s more, he explained it:

The society whose modernisation has reached the stage of the integrated spectacle is characterised by the combined effect of five principal features: incessant technological renewal; integration of state and economy; generalised secrecy; unanswerable lies; an eternal present.

The constructs in which we operate provide for endless intellectual challenges, often taking us down deep rabbit holes.  But rabbit hole or not, all of us are living and producing within a simulated liberty, accompanied by – to paraphrase Debord and Smith – hyper-complex technological systems, unitary and ahistorical governments, and all-encompassing state and techno-narratives created to replace the humane and silence humanity.

We are fascinated by what we see on our screens – in Gaza, in Ukraine and now Venezuela, even in the Pacific.  Yet, we must have been getting a snack when the plot twisted and the peace and America First campaign morphed into Tomahawks to Kiev, brutal US-assisted genocide in Gaza, the US Navy blowing up fishermen and other civilians in international waters at will, without consequence.

The media summary of the latest Gaza flotilla was pure Hunger Games-style pablum: “It was the first time since Israel imposed a naval blockade on Gaza’s waters in 2009 that an unauthorised humanitarian mission has reached closer than 70 nautical miles from the territory.”  What is an ‘unauthorized’ humanitarian mission?” Apparently they’re quite common, as we saw with Bush 43 and Katrina, feeding the homeless, and even Peanut the Squirrel.

The current idiotic fiascos – NATO’s Ukraine and Israel’s expansionist murder spree – have been curiously unwinnable, and even more curiously, unstoppable.  Trump complained he didn’t understand how difficult it would be to end these wars. The vast majority of countries represented in the United Nations probably agree with Trump on this point – why can’t the stupidity and inhumanity just be stopped (ideally by the US government simply ceasing to fund them)?

Complex systems invariably illustrate path dependency, and authoritarian human herd management requires a complex system. The human cattle chutes created to distribute aid (and bullets) by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – led by Zionists who work for the IDF, as former employee Lt Col Tony Aguilar explained – are a vivid example of the very limited options these complex state systems are capable of producing.

States are defined and measured by how they use the tools of war against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Israel, a state engaged in an ever expanding civil war, is an excellent example. Land owners displaced and brutalized since 1948 rebel against those who displaced, and then subjugated, them.  To prevail, Israel built a western-inspired military and intelligence apparatus, with Zionist wealth, subterfuge and relentless Western enthusiasm for Euro-colonialism’s last gasp in the Middle East.  The result was decades of increasingly focused apartheid, punctuated by mass punishment and ever more frenzied ethnic cleansing.

Since 2013, Ukraine has experienced civil war, egged on and facilitated by a US/NATO search for meaning, and expanded military practice ranges. Ukraine and Gaza both serve as testing grounds for newer weapons, technologies and tactics as well as for broad-based narrative control, manipulation of emotion in siphoning GDP away from citizens and into global war industries without valid national security interests or democratically declared war, and development of AI and secret mathematical algorithms to create popular support for state objectives, and silence those who might question them. Debord’s “eternal present” is a goal largely achieved in the West – and strongly resisted in the rising East and South. Perhaps that explains everything.

Washington has been actively participating in these civil wars, with electron and bomb, political lies and narrative maintenance. Americans watch, discuss, are entertained and frightened by them, from afar. We have already paid for our tickets, the actors, directors, studios and advertising. Federal Reserve money creation, government accounting malpractice and the 35% state toll on everything we make or do means we are invested, without our consent or even the common courtesy of a prospectus telling us that past success is no guarantee of future results.

Has the next American civil war started yet?  If civil war can be defined by the militarized command, control and exploitation of one part of the state or society by another, it’s been going on in the US for a long time.  The McLean House in Appomattox exists as historical marker rather than end-point.

The good news is that path dependency of the state ultimately ensures its demise.  Ukraine’s backers “are trapped by their own contradictions: a war they cannot win but dare not end, a financial burden they cannot sustain but fear to drop.” Trump’s Nobel-Peace-prize-clock-is-ticking demand for unconditional surrender of Gaza to Israel, couched as a peace agreement, is the price of path dependency. To have “peace,” Trump and Netanyahu have “only” one option – to rain down hell like no one has ever seen on the one and a half million surviving Palestinians on the strip.

In Israel’s case, endless militarism, racism, territorial expansion and failing to fact check their own propaganda has broken their budget, gutted their economy, increased their dependence on geriatric Christian Zionists, and ruined the Zionist promise of a safe place for Jews in the world. The US government, Israel’s ugly golem, faces similar global contempt, in no small part for demonstrating to everyone the incompetence of its expensive weapons systems, the lack of courage of its civilian and military leadership, and the disorganized unraveling of the US military empire, which does not win, place or show in races of state technology, logistics, energy, or diplomacy.

But, Palantir, you say, and all of the commercialized Hasbara here in the US? And what about the unconstitutional uses of the military and the posse comitatus experimentation conducted by DC and the brainiacs who run it?  I suspect these are jagged responses to ongoing civil war, rather than preparation for it.  Path dependency and history both tell us the state is rarely prepared for foreign wars, and even less so for domestic ones. It is typically late to the party, and always inappropriately dressed.

State minders over-estimate the power of government-curated diversion and circuses, and overlook a copious by-product of the “eternal present” of Debord’s integrated spectacle.  This by-product is boundless cynicism, fostering disbelief of the state, renewed interest in human connectedness and inspiration outside the state, and a thousand naturally occurring forms of civil disobedience and smiling anti-authoritarianism.  The civil war is ongoing, and Trump sits astride a state that is reacting, as states tend to do, far too late and with one path-dependent hand tied behind its back.

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