Mainstream Media Is Flat Out Lying To Us About The Economy"
By Michael Snyder
"How many times have you heard the mainstream media tell you that the economy is doing just great in recent months? Personally, I have seen the word “booming” used over and over again to describe the economy, and it makes me sick. The level of gaslighting that we are witnessing right now is off the charts. Millions of Americans are sleeping in their vehicles, thousands of businesses are failing all over the nation, and most of the country now believes that the American Dream is no longer attainable. If this is what a “booming” economy feels like, I would hate to see what would happen during a “recession”.
I totally understand why the mainstream media is gaslighting us. They want us to believe that everything is fine so that we will vote a certain way in November. They have an agenda, and they are pushing it really hard. But what they are telling us simply does not match up with reality. The following are 7 signs that the mainstream media is flat out lying to us about the economy…
#1 Survey after survey has shown that the economy is the number one concern for American voters during this election season. If the economy was in good shape, we would not be getting results like this…"The economy was still the top issue for 26 percent of voters, per the poll. Threats to democracy and extremism came in second at 22 percent, and immigration was third at 13 percent."
#2 At this point, the economy is in such rough shape that even Dollar General customers seem to be running out of money…"Dollar General shares tumbled Thursday after the discount retailer slashed its sales and profit guidance for the full year, suggesting its lower-income customers are struggling in this economy. Shares of the retailer, which caters to more rural areas, tumbled 25% after the earnings report."
#3 When the U.S. economy was actually booming, Big Lots was thriving. Sadly, today’s economic environment has been very hard on the retail chain and it is now teetering on the brink of bankruptcy…"Discount home goods retailer Big Lots is reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy after years of falling sales. The beleaguered chain may seek Chapter 11 protection within weeks, according to Bloomberg, if it is not able to find investors. The Ohio-based company runs around 1,400 stores across the US, after closing hundreds of locations earlier this year."
#4 Needless to say, Big Lots is far from alone, because the number of businesses that are filing for bankruptcy has reached dizzying heights…"According to statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, annual bankruptcy filings totaled 486,613 in the year ending June 2024, compared with 418,724 cases in the previous year. Business filings rose 40.3 percent, from 15,724 to 22,060 in the year ending June 30, 2024. Non-business bankruptcy filings rose 15.3 percent to 464,553, compared with 403,000 in the previous year."
#5 According to Zero Hedge, several regional Fed business surveys just fell even deeper into contraction territory…"‘Four more years’ is not the message being heard from the regional Fed surveys this week as the Philly, Dallas, and Richmond business surveys all slumped deeper into contraction…"
#6 As I discussed yesterday, approximately two-thirds of the entire U.S. population no longer believes that the American Dream “is still alive”…"Only about a third of U.S. adults believe the American dream is still alive, a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll published Wednesday found.
A survey of 2,501 people conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute twelve years ago found more than half of respondents believed the American dream “still holds true,” but now only a third feel that way, according to a recent WSJ/NORC poll of 1,502 adults. The study also found an increasingly large gap between people’s economic goals and what they think is actually attainable - a trend that was consistent across gender and party lines, but was especially common amongst younger generations."
#7 Last, but certainly not least, total household debt in the United States has soared to a level that we have never seen before…"A quarterly report published this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on household credit and debt found that between the first quarter of 2021 and the second quarter of 2024, credit card debt surged 48.1% while household debt — which includes mortgages and auto loans — rose by 21.6%. In dollar terms, credit card debt rose from $770 billion in early 2021 to $1.14 trillion in the most recent quarter, while household debt increased from $14.64 trillion to $17.8 trillion in the same period."
Yes, there is a small segment of society that is still doing really well. Thanks to the unprecedented intervention that we have seen in the financial markets in recent years, they are still able to live the high life while most of the country suffers.
But while stock prices continue to set new all-time highs, much of the nation looks like a horror show. For example, just consider what has happened to Pine Bluff, Arkansas…"A small Arkansas city suffering from severe population decline and economic turmoil has become so abandoned that properties are on offer for as little as $400. Pine Bluff, a bleak metro that saw its population drop from 49,000 to 41,250 residents from 2010 to 2020, made headlines this month after being panned in a YouTube documentary from Abandoned Atlas. In the movie, filmmaker Michael Schwartz said witnessing the city’s decay ‘shocked’ him, saying: ‘It seems like every time I turn a corner, there is another abandoned home or building left behind.’
The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us has never been larger than it is right now. The next time you walk past an abandoned store that has been boarded up, just remember how much the mainstream media has been lying to you.
The next time you walk past someone that is sleeping in a vehicle, just remember how much the mainstream media has been lying to you.
The next time you walk past someone that is hooked on drugs because they have lost all hope, just remember how much the mainstream media has been lying to you.
Our communities are falling apart right in front of our eyes, our economy is falling apart right in front of our eyes, and our entire society is falling apart right in front of our eyes.
So don’t let the mainstream media fool you. The economy really is moving in the wrong direction very rapidly, and it won’t be too long before even they are forced to admit the truth."
"America’s bubblicious economy will soon hit another milestone of sorts - -the $50 trillion mark with respect to the market value of owner-occupied residential real estate. At the present moment, this figure (purple line) stands at $46 trillion (Q1 2024), which is nearly 2X its pre-crisis level of $24 trillion in Q4 2006. It’s also 8X its level when Greenspan took the helm at the Fed ($5.6 trillion) after Q2 1987 and a staggering 51X the $900 billion value of all owner-occupied homes when Tricky Dick did the dirty deed at Camp David in August 1971.
Needless to say, neither household incomes nor the overall US economy have grown at anything near those magnitudes. For instance, nominal GDP is up by 24X or less than half the gain in housing values since Q2 1971. As a consequence, the value of owner-occupied housing relative to GDP has climbed steadily higher over the last 50 years:
Market-Value of Owner-Occupied Housing As % of GDP Since 1971:
Q2 1971: 79%.
Q2 1987: 117%.
Q4 2006: 172%.
Q1 2024: 175%.
Market Value of Owner-Occupied Real Estate And % Of GDP, 1970 to 2024
Here’s the thing. The US economy was downright healthy in 1971. During the 18 years between 1953 and 1971 real median family income rose from $38,400 to $62,700 or by a robust 2.8% per annum. So the fact that residential housing represented only 79% of GDP at that point was not indicative of some grave deficiency or structural malfunction in the US economy.
Indeed, when you note that real median family income rose by only 0.8% per annum during the most recent 18 year period, or by just 29% of the 1953-1971 rate, you might well conclude that it would have been wise to leave well enough alone. Not only was the main street economy prospering mightily, but it was being accomplished with honest interest rates owing to Fed policy that was constrained by the Breton Woods gold exchange standard and also by the sound money philosophy that prevailed in the Eccles Building during the William McChesney Martin era.
As shown below, the 10-year UST benchmark rate during that period exceeded the CPI inflation rate by more than 200 basis points most of the time, save for brief periods of recession. Yet the US economy thrived, real living standards rose steadily and the residential housing market literally boomed.
Inflation-Adjusted Yield On 10-Year UST, 1953 to 1971
The subsequent period between 1971 and 1987, of course, was racked first by the double digit inflation of the 1970s and then the brutally high nominal interest rates that issued from the Volcker Cure during the first half of the 1980s. But by 1986 consumer inflation was back to just below 2% and heading lower, thereby paving the way for interest rates to normalize to a low inflation economy.
But the new Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, had other ideas. Namely, the notion that "disinflation" as opposed to no inflation was good enough for government work; and also that the Fed could actually improve upon the jobs and income performance of the main street economy via what he labeled the "wealth effects" doctrine. That is, if the Fed kept Wall Street percolating happily and the stock indices rising robustly, the increased wealth among households would kindle capitalist animal spirits, thereby fueling enhanced spending, investment, growth, jobs and incomes.
Notwithstanding Greenspan’s mumbling and opaque messaging, what he was doing actually amounted to monetary humbug as old as the hills. He launched an era in which real interest rates were pushed steadily and artificially lower to the zero bound and below on the theory that rates well below what would otherwise prevail under honest supply and demand conditions on the free market would elicit an enhanced level of economic growth and prosperity.
It never happened on a sustained basis, of course, because below market interest rates only cause an accumulation of above normal debt levels in the public and private sectors alike - along with widespread economic distortions and malinvestment on main street, unsustainable leveraged speculation on Wall Street and, at best, the swapping of more economic activity today for reduced activity and higher debt service tomorrow.
In any event, the inflation-adjusted benchmark US Treasury rate marched virtually downhill for the next three decades, ending deep in negative territory by the early 2020s. The ill-effects were widespread throughout the economy and in this instance turbo-charged by the deep tax preferences for home mortgages. So the inflow of cheap debt into the residential housing market was massive and sustained.
There is no mystery as to why: Economic law says that when you subsidize something heavily, you get more of it. And the implicit Fed subsidies depicted in the graph below were heavy indeed.
Inflation-Adjusted Yield On the 10-Year UST, 1987 to 2024
Needless to say, economic law had its way with the residential mortgage market. Big time. Household mortgage debt (black line) had stood at $325 billion or just 50% of household wage and salary income (purple line) back in 1971. But by the peak of the subprime borrowing spree in 2008-2009, mortgage debt had risen by 33X to nearly $11 trillion.
Consequently, the mortgage debt burden soared to 170% of household wage and salary income before abating modestly during the period since 2009. But the point is, the Fed’s severe interest rate repression during that period caused a financial arms race in the residential housing market - with ever more debt pushing housing prices ever higher.
In short, it wasn’t the free market or even steadily rising, albeit more slowly growing, GDP that caused residential housing values to go from 79% of GDP in 1971 to 175% of GDP at present. Instead, it was a sustained, fiat credit fueled tidal wave of housing price inflation—a financial torrent that bestowed large windfalls on earlier period buyers (i.e. Baby Boomers) while progressively squeezing later comers and income and credit-challenged households out of the so-called American Dream of home ownership.
Indeed, the housing inflation tsunami was by no means an equal opportunity benefactor. One study based on the Fed’s periodic survey of consumer finances, in fact, showed that between 2010 and 2020 upper income households, defined as those having an average income of $180,000, saw their collective housing investments rise from $4.5 trillion to $10.3 trillion. That was a 130% gain in just one decade!
By contrast, the housing investment value held by lower income households, defined as having an average income of $29,000, rose from $4.46 trillion to, well, $4.79 trillion. That’s a piddling gain of just 3.5%, which amounted to a double digit lost when you account for the 19% plus rise in the CPI during the same 10-year period.
Household Mortgage Debt and Mortgage % of Wage and Salary Income, 1971 to 2009
To be sure, the Fed heads were not explicitly trying to redistribute wealth to the top of the economic ladder, although that’s most surely what happened. Instead, the whole theory of interest rate repression was that it would stoke a higher level of spending and investment than would otherwise occur, and especially so in the residential housing sector.
Needless to say, no cigar on that front. Residential housing completions per capita and residential housing investment as a % of GDP have been heading relentlessly southward every since Nixon rug-pulled the dollar’s anchor to gold and unleashed the Federal Reserve to foist monetary central planning on the main street economy.
As depicted by the black line, for instance, residential housing investment as a percent of GDP dropped from 5.7% in 1972 to just 3.9% in 2023. The only deviation from this steady downward trend was in 2003-2006, which is to say the very interval during which Bernanke’s first experiment with 1% money fueled the subprime mortgage and house price inflation disaster.
In fact, the chart below paired with the first one above with respect to nearly $50 trillion value of homeowner occupied real estate tells you all you need to know about the folly of Keynesian central banking. To wit, artificially cheap money does not stimulate higher levels of real output and income over time; it merely causes existing assets to be bid-up and inflated in the secondary markets.
In turn, the systematic and relentless inflation of existing assets confers windfall gains and losses on the public in an entirely capricious manner but with the perverse effect of redistributing wealth to the top of the economic ladder. The Fed’s entire financial repression model is therefore not only pointless and ineffective - it’s profoundly iniquitous, too.
Per Capita Private Housing Units Completed and Residential Investment % of GDP, 1972 to 2023
Free speech is all very well when a nation is young and prosperous.
It’s a different matter when you have $35 trillion of debt...
and the worker/dependent ratio turns sour; what to do then?
by Bill Bonner
“The desire for gold is not for the gold.
It is for the means of freedom and benefit.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Poitou, France - "Gold is telling its story. Reuters: "Gold prices gained around 1% on Thursday, fueled by strong expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September with investors focusing on U.S. inflation data for further insights on the potential size of the cut. Spot gold rose 0.9% to $2,524.45 per ounce."
On the surface, it is a strange time to cut rates. Stocks are at a tippy top - more valuable (nominally) than ever before. At nearly two times GDP, stock market capitalization is flashing a giant ‘SELL’ signal. House prices too are soaring. And total US debt is at $99 trillion - sixty times higher than it was when the country switched to its credit-money system.
By all measures, the economy suffers from too much credit... not from too little. But deeper down, there is a good reason for the Fed to cut rates. With so much debt, it needs inflation. It wants inflation. It must have inflation to ease the debt burden. Otherwise, the bubble economy will deflate and die.
The dollar has lost 98% of its value since 1971, measured by gold. The big question now is how and when it loses the rest of it. But let us pull back to get a broader view. What is the ‘rest of the story’ that gold will tell? Free speech, for example, is all very well when a nation is young and prosperous. It’s a different matter when you have $35 trillion of debt... and the worker/dependent ratio turns sour; what to do then?
Already, journalists, UN weapons inspectors, writers, activists, former British ambassador Craig Murray, former member of Congress Tulsi Gabbard, and many others report that they are being stopped at airports, visited by the FBI, added to ‘terrorist’ lists. Why? For the first time in US history, the young do not expect to be richer than their parents. GDP growth rates hug the floor like victims in a mall shooting. The ratio of workers to retirees began at 41 to 1 in 1945... and now is down to 2.8 to 1. But it’s worse than that.
There are now 167 million people in the US who don’t work. And guess how many do work? 167 million - almost exactly one worker for each non-worker. US debt service is already costing the nation more than ‘defense’... and will soon rise to more than Social Security payments too. Promises can’t be kept. Benefits and services will have to be cut back. How can the elites silence critics and keep the masses in line? Inevitably they turn towards ‘hard power’ - lockdowns... censorship... sanctions and bombs.
But many suspect this is merely a pretext because Europe is also imposing speech controls on other media platforms. Elon Musk might want to watch out too. Thierry Breton, European Commissioner, made a threat to Musk, just before his live interview with Donald Trump. The WSJ: “Amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events, including live streaming” might “generate detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security,” he warned. He added… that regulators will “not hesitate to make full use of our toolbox... should it be warranted to protect EU citizens from serious harm.”
The WSJ comments, earnestly: "Trust in government is declining in democracies around the world, and leaders don’t help themselves or their countries when they blur lines between criminal conduct and speech they find offensive."
But the megapolitics of the situation point to a different interpretation. Suppressing challenging ideas and opinions actually does help leaders stay in control. Faced with fines or jail time, intelligent people keep their mouths shut.
Apparently, France intends to give Durov the Assange treatment. Julian Assange had been hiding out or in jail for the last 14 years before he was sent back to Australia recently under a plea deal. His crime? As founder of WikiLeaks, Assange gave whistle-blowers a place to blow their whistles. What next? We don’t know. But our guess is that gold’s tale will be more like "1984" than "The Sound of Music." Sure to be a page-turner."
Dana Bash: “You’ve been Vice President for three and half years.
The steps that you are talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?”
Kamala: “I’m very proud of the work we have done.”
"She was speaking, you understand, but the main thing you noticed was the musical quality of her voice: sonorous, resonant, like one of the more obscure woodwind instruments, an alto clarinet or a basset horn, producing a sound like unto creamy dressing over the familiar word-salad of iceberg lettuce.
It would be ungentlemanly to bang on the particulars of Kamala Harris’s CNN interview performance, so I’ll proceed. The nocturne was 18-minutes long, all that survived from the 41-minutes CNN actually recorded, so you might wonder a little about the notes not played. The leitmotif throughout was “my values have not changed,” meaning, disregard any dissonance you might detect in the velvet honk of my voice. Mind the significance of the passage of time, not the music, Altogether, as nocturnes should, it had a soporific effect.
And now candidate Kamala Harris will go back to hiding on her campaign bus, which makes a different statement than, say, hiding in the basement a la “Joe Biden,” 2020. It’s the difference between going nowhere fast and going nowhere at all - though both concepts apply to the condition of the USA during the four years of “Joe Biden” (loved and revered by his comrades in the Party of Chaos, who threw the president under the very bus Kamala is hiding in).
Did you think Kamala would still be rising on the joyful billows of hot air that blew out of the Democratic Convention? Like so many of the magic tricks in the party’s repertoire, that one was a spoof of artificial levitation, to give the appearance of something holding up, like, say, the US economy, when there is actually nothing underneath. Nothing real, that is. What’s giving the economy its appearance of loft has been “Joe Biden” pouring government money into scores of party-connected NGOs as pure grift. The main effect of that is the inflation that everybody notices. Meanwhile, nobody gets hooked up to promised broadband and only eight EV charging stations get built for $7.5-billion allocated to the Department of Transportation.
The current prank, though, is to artificially pump-up Ms. Harris in the polls in the attempt to justify the coming ballot fraud to be executed two months from now, as engineered by election lawfare maestro Marc Elias, now on the Harris campaign payroll. That is, an effort to obviate any apparent discrepancies between actual poll numbers and harvested ballots flooding in at two o’clock in the morning on Nov 6.
As it happens, Ms. Harris’s poll numbers have begun to sink the past week, as the tactic of hiding the candidate from the press has backfired. As of August 29, Nate Silver has her chance of winning down at 42.7 to Mr. Trump’s 56.7. Voters have begun to notice that the candidate represents nothing except whatever happened the past four years in Biden-Land - which is to say, open borders, war for the sake of arms profiteers, flagrant censorship, inflation, cratering business activity, and overt DOJ political persecutions. Martin Armstrong, for instance, has estimated Kamala Harris’s true polling number in the ten percent range. Yikes.
So, what was the net effect of the CNN interview with Ms. Harris? It couldn’t have helped. They had to get her out of hiding, considering the significance of the passage of time in an election campaign. Even the in-the-tank news media was starting to complain about her holing-up on the bus. Dana Bash was surprisingly harsh at times when the veep confabulated about her plans to “fix” America’s problems, like asking, “Why haven’t you done that already?” The answer was the bizarre, “We can do what we’ve accomplished so far.” Roger that.
You’re probably wondering: how Mr. Trump will play this? He’d best be polite about it and assume that the voters can see and understand the obvious: that the Democrats have put up an especially inadequate candidate who can’t explain away the fiascos of the past four years. He doesn’t have to rub in so hard that it seems cruel. His own policy intentions are a quite clear alternative to four years of hoaxes, pranks, trips, gaslighting, and grift. Installing Ms. Harris without any input or votes from the party rank-and-file was about as desperate an affront to “our democracy” as anyone could imagine, like something straight out of the old Soviet politburo, picking an Andropov or a Chernenko. Mr. Trump should remind audiences of this at every opportunity if the Democrats keep yapping about “our democracy,” which seems to be all they’ve got.
Something is slip-sliding out there, perhaps the solidarity of the news media. Even The New York Times dissed Kamala Harris - Bret Stephens called her interview “vague and vacuous” the day after. One thing you have to give CNN credit for: they didn’t show a whole lot of Kamala Harris cackling in her trademark manner - to cover that mental vacuum. The cackle has been getting very mixed reviews, anyway, when you disconnect it from the fake “joy” trope. Maybe a laugh-riot is what’s in the missing 23-minutes that CNN edited out of the 41-minute recording."
"Iran Gets Nukes Amid Fears Of All-Out War With Israel?
UN Agency’s Bombshell: ‘Just 2 kg Short Of…’"
The International Atomic Energy Agency has raised alarms over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, revealing a significant increase in highly enriched uranium. The IAEA report stated Iran's stockpile has grown to 164.7 kg, nearing the threshold for nuclear weapons. It further added Iran remains just 2 kg short of the uranium needed for four potential bombs.
"In today's vlog, we are at Aldi and are noticing some strange price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices as it is getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
"Russian Typical Shopping Mall (Under a Football Stadium)"
"Take a tour of the most unique shopping mall in the world, situated under a Russian football stadium, the VTB Arena in Moscow. Russia has the only shopping mall in the world under a football pitch. What does a shopping mall in Russia look like?"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars. The colors in this remarkably deep composite image clearly show the star forming galaxies with a blue tint and galaxies with older stellar populations with a yellowish cast.
The sharp picture spans about 3/4 degree across the cluster center, corresponding to over 6 million light-years at the cluster's estimated distance. Diffraction spikes around brighter foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy are produced by the imaging telescope's mirror support vanes. In the cosmic vista many galaxies seem to be colliding or merging while others seem distorted - clear evidence that cluster galaxies commonly interact. In fact, the Hercules Cluster itself may be seen as the result of ongoing mergers of smaller galaxy clusters and is thought to be similar to young galaxy clusters in the much more distant, early Universe. "
“There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries. The story had never made sense to him as a boy. It did now.”
"Imagine a world where our distant ancestors, even before Homo sapiens, built wooden structures with amazing skill. Believe it or not, scientists in Africa have just found the oldest known wooden building—dating back nearly half a million years. And that’s just the beginning! We’re about to explore ancient wonders from Greece to Japan that might change everything you thought you knew about early humans."
"Hidden deep in the Himalayas, is Mount Kailash. It's a place where many people believe the gods live. But besides its high peak and holy reputation, there's a mystery hidden within its old rocks that has puzzled both scientists and spiritual thinkers for ages. Recently, a brave group of explorers and scientists set off on a journey to uncover Mount Kailash's secrets. What they discovered inside astonished them, making them rethink everything they believed about history, rocks, and spiritual beliefs. What secrets lay dormant within these ancient walls? Could this discovery hold the key to unlocking the secret of Mount Kailash's sacred significance across millennia?"
"All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
- Joseph Epstein
○
"George Harrison knew something most of us didn't and still don't: there is a reality beyond the material world and what we do here and how we treat others affects us eternally. As he sings in "Rising Sun":
"But in the rising sun you can feel your life begin,
Viewer Comment: @brotherofiam: "The normal tool that the FED would use to fight inflation is to raise interest rates. But if the FED raised interest rates it could not afford the debt, and things would blow up. The destruction of the job market is the only tool now that can be used fight inflation. No work, no pay, no money, no buying of goods. If goods do sell at current price, prices are lowered. Inflation kept in check, at the cost of the workforce."
"We're diving into the harsh truth: Are we entering another depression? With the growing economic challenges and rising concerns of the "Working Poor," the signs are hard to miss. From the struggles of businesses like #HomeBuilders and #NAR, to the #TheFed's impact on inflation, we're exploring whether our current trajectory mirrors the 1920s. #Zelle#Venmo#Chargeoffs#Banking#Allegedly#Paypal"
"I Went to a Russian Holiday Village for the Weekend"
"Join me on a weekend trip to Provincial Russia. I was lucky to be invited to a Russian holiday village in the Kaluga Region of Russia, 3 hours from Moscow. This Holiday Village has everything you need for an amazing getaway."
"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told- and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."
"Inertia is a human frailty. Too often, we go along to get along. We conform. Because of this, those who claim authority can get most of us to do their bidding if it comes with a plausible justification and is only incremental. We get nickel-and-dimed to death, the death of a thousand cuts.
Back on April 5, 1933, His Majesty, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), had a pen and a telephone. So he issued Executive Order 6102, which made it a federal crime for Americans to own or trade gold anywhere in the world. There were some minor exceptions for some jewelry, industrial uses, collectors’ coins, and dental gold, but the vast majority of the gold had to be turned in. My father instantly understood what was going on and he didn’t like it. “They’re going to devalue the dollar!” he predicted.
Roosevelt didn’t give much time to comply either. The deadline was May 1. And if Americans did not comply, they faced criminal prosecution under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. Scofflaws were looking at a fine of up to $10,000 (1933 dollars, about a third of a million dollars today) and up to ten years in prison.
My parents made the conscious decision to become outlaws. At every possible opportunity for the next three weeks (and substantially longer), my parents followed Gresham’s law (“Bad money drives out good.”), not federal law. They spent paper and collected gold. My father was a dentist, so he could own some dental gold, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to covert as much paper into gold as possible. So he gave his patients discounts for payment in gold. “Sam,” a neighbor who was a banker, also helped collect gold for himself and my parents. They would repay his help later when they periodically ‘laundered’ gold for him and themselves.
Even after the deadline, gold still kept coming in. Mostly it was from people who didn’t have the time or the inclination to turn in their gold to the government. However, many feared prosecution and were happy to deal with my parents instead of FDR. Plus they got a better deal.
So where did they launder their tidy little nest egg? Why, “South of the Border, Down Mexico Way,” of course. Mexico had no Executive Order 6102. My mother was born in the mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico, and spoke fluent Spanish. She and my father loved traveling though the backwaters of Mexico. At first, they traveled alone, and later, after my brother and I came along, the whole family (including the dog) would go exploring in the land of mañana. (Somewhere there is a picture of me, age one, sitting on a portable potty, experiencing my first-ever bout with “Montezuma’s revenge.”)
My parents carried whatever gold they intended to sell, stashed in the car or on their person. The usual routine was to go to the section of town where casas de cambio were found. (Think of it as the “Street of the Money Changers.”) My mother – all 5’1” of her – would go down the street and show a gold double eagle to every money changer at every kiosk and storefront. In Spanish, she would ask, “How much will you pay for these?” When she found the best price, she would give my father the high sign. He would join her and they would conclude the deal. Sometimes the gold was theirs, sometimes, Sam’s. Sometimes they got pesos and sometimes dollars, depending on what they needed at the time. So, the ‘illicit’ gold paid for a fun trip and got converted to ‘clean’ funds for themselves and Sam. What’s the crime in that?
And the Beat Goes On…My family never showed much respect for government laws, per se. No victim, no crime, even if the government disagreed. The general ethical belief of the Sandfort family was pretty much in harmony with the Golden Rule. It had worked for cultures and religions for thousands of years and it worked for us. That was our law. Man-made laws either adhere to the Golden Rule (don’t murder people, duh) and so are unnecessary, or they violate it, such as “The War on (Some) Drugs,” so they were nominally complied with, ignored, or circumvented.
So, when wartime laws said that a seller had to follow certain rationing rules to sell his own products, many buyers and sellers simply conspired to make their own decisions. When my parents needed and could afford a new car for business, the local Chevy dealer was happy to ‘cook the books,’ take their money, and give them a new sedan.
Later, when my family traveled in that car and others, my mother would prepare food for us to eat as we drove. We stopped only for gas… and the agricultural inspection station at the California state line. Of course, we had items that we were required by law to declare, but if you hide them in your backpack or under the car seat and lie, you can save a lot of time and keep from having to throw away perfectly good food.
And then there was the time we smuggled a live Mexican iguana in a cigar box, but don’t get me started…"
"With each passing day, the Middle East inches closer to a full-scale, devastating war. Multiple regional powers are involved, each being pushed by its own internal and external pressures further away from peace.
The situation intensified following the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, prompting a fierce response from the Israeli military. Palestinians continue to insist on a return to the 1967 borders and the establishment of their own state with East Jerusalem as its capital, while Israel refuses to make these concessions. Tensions remain high, severely complicating any attempts at a diplomatic resolution.
Some Western officials, however, particularly in the US, claim that a ceasefire agreement is imminent, and optimism about these statements is buoyed by Iran’s restraint in not yet retaliating for the assassination of Hamas Politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, 2024. Iran seems to be holding back, perhaps in hopes of stabilizing the region.
However, there are forces within and beyond the region that continue to exert a destructive influence, seemingly unaware that their actions could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the collapse of several states, and disastrous consequences for the entire world.
This is precisely what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed during a press conference on August 27. He expressed the view that some parties involved in the Middle Eastern conflict are not interested in a resolution. According to him, these parties prefer to continue the hostilities, betting on potential changes in the global political landscape. Lavrov noted that it appears some of these actors are deliberately maintaining violence to achieve their political goals.
Lavrov also highlighted the connection between the situation in the Middle East and political processes in other countries, particularly the upcoming election in the US. He suggested that the Israeli leadership might be hoping for changes in American policy that would reduce international pressure on Israel concerning its military operation in Gaza. The foreign minister expressed concern that these expectations could delay a resolution of the conflict.
Furthermore, Lavrov stressed that Russia, like many other countries, condemned the terrorist attacks that occurred on October 7. However, he pointed out that a response involving collective punishment of the civilian population violates international humanitarian law. He criticized approaches that cause suffering to innocent people and exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe. Lavrov paid special attention to statements by Israeli military officials who claim there are no civilians in Gaza, suggesting that all its residents are terrorists. He called this rhetoric dangerous, noting that it further inflames tensions.
In recent weeks, negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas have failed to produce any concrete agreements on a ceasefire. While the talks in Cairo were described as constructive, no agreements were reached. This situation illustrates that, despite the efforts of the international community, the parties to the conflict are not yet ready for peace.
Why is Iran holding fire? The recent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, a prominent leader of Hamas, has raised numerous questions about Iran’s response, given its longstanding support for Palestinian resistance groups and the fact that the man was killed in Tehran. Iran has yet to strike back against Israel, which at first glance might seem surprising. The reasons for this restraint lie in Iran’s strategic interests and its desire to avoid a large-scale conflict.
First and foremost, the Iranian leadership understands that a war with Israel could have catastrophic consequences. The situation in the Middle East is already highly volatile, and an open conflict involving Iran would only exacerbate the crisis. Furthermore, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, a representative of the reformist bloc, is focused on normalizing relations with the West. The primary reason for this is Iran’s dire economic situation. In 2024, the Iranian economy continues to face significant challenges: Inflation has reached 40%, unemployment has risen to 15%, and the national currency continues to depreciate. Under these conditions, Iran is not interested in a war that could further undermine its economy and increase social tensions within the country.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly expressed a willingness to negotiate a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal) under fair terms. These statements indicate that Iran is pursuing diplomatic solutions and recognizes the need for international cooperation. Tehran is aware that the outcome of a war with Israel, backed by NATO, is unpredictable. Thus, the delay in responding to Israel’s actions is more of a political tool than a sign of weakness. Iran seeks to use this pause to exert diplomatic and political pressure on Israel and the US to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.
If a ceasefire is reached, Iran could claim that its wise policy led to the cessation of hostilities, marking a political victory for Tehran in its confrontation with Israel. This would allow Iran to improve its international image and strengthen its position in the region without the need for military engagement.
On the other hand, Iran has not officially ruled out retaliating against Israel, which creates a certain level of informational and political pressure on the Israeli authorities and public. This stance by Tehran has fueled growing discontent among the Israeli population regarding the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, exacerbating internal tensions. This leads to political instability in Israel, which plays into Iran’s hands as it seeks to weaken its main regional adversary without direct military confrontation.
Thus, Iran is playing a complex game, trying to avoid direct military conflict while simultaneously increasing its influence and pressure on Israel and the West through diplomatic and political maneuvers.
Why Netanyahu won’t end the war if he can help it: The administration of Netanyahu finds itself in a challenging situation both domestically and internationally. Declining support at home and insufficient backing from the West, especially from Washington, are pushing Netanyahu toward continuing the conflict. Ending the military operation in Gaza at this stage could be a political blow to his government.
Domestically, Netanyahu’s approval ratings are falling. The public is weary of the prolonged fighting and the uncertainty brought on by the unstable situation in Gaza and other fronts. Meanwhile, in the West and particularly in Washington, Netanyahu is not receiving full support. The administration of US President Joe Biden has taken a more restrained stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is reflected in its attitude towards the current Israeli leadership. Netanyahu is banking on the return of Donald Trump to the White House, hoping this will improve his situation.
Netanyahu is confident that with Trump’s return to power, his domestic standing would be bolstered, and Israel’s position in the region would become more secure. During Trump’s first term, relations between the US and Israel only strengthened. Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and imposed additional sanctions, increasing pressure on Tehran. It was also under Trump that the Abraham Accords were signed, through which Israel normalized relations with several Arab countries. All of this created favorable conditions for Israel in the region.
Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet is determined to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, as evidenced by a recent Knesset resolution passed by a majority vote. In the view of Netanyahu and other right-wing forces in Israel, the establishment of Palestine poses a threat to the existence of the state of Israel. Therefore, they oppose any attempts to create an independent Palestinian state and are willing to use all means necessary to prevent it.
Even if Netanyahu temporarily reduces the intensity of the military action in Gaza and agrees to a temporary ceasefire with Hamas to free hostages, this will not signify the end of the conflict. It is likely that Israel will intensify military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon or even resume strikes on Gaza. To secure his interests and ensure his strength, Netanyahu needs Washington’s support, both financially and militarily.
Thus, under Netanyahu’s current government, the war is likely to continue. This is due to the need to maintain domestic political support and leverage the geopolitical situation to strengthen Israel’s position in the region. In these circumstances, ending the conflict does not align with the interests of Netanyahu’s government, and he will likely continue to escalate tensions until he secures the necessary guarantees of support from the US and reinforces his standing at home.
The Axis of Resistance is a shaky one: Recent reports have surfaced about growing disagreements between Iran and other members of the ‘Axis of Resistance’, a coalition of various groups and organizations that oppose Israel and its allies. These divisions are believed to stem from Iran’s ambiguous response to Israeli actions, which has led to a deterioration in the positions of groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis (Ansar Allah).
The situation surrounding Hezbollah continues to escalate. In recent weeks, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have significantly intensified. Mutual shelling has become more frequent, and several high-ranking Hezbollah members have been killed in Israeli attacks. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his associates find themselves in a difficult position, as their failure to respond to Israel’s actions could further weaken their standing within Lebanon.
Hezbollah is currently facing challenging times, as Lebanon has been mired in a deep political, economic, financial, and energy crisis since 2019. Amid this crisis, Hezbollah’s political influence is waning and the organization is losing public support. If Hezbollah fails to achieve military successes like those seen during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, its position within the country may weaken even further, threatening its continued existence and political influence.
A similar situation is unfolding in Yemen, where the Ansar Allah group, known as the Houthis, also faces internal challenges. Although the Houthis have strengthened their position through anti-Western and anti-Israeli rhetoric, the prolonged war and crisis have depleted the country’s resources and its population. If the Houthis do not remain consistent in their actions and fail to demonstrate their ability to resist external adversaries, their popularity and internal support could significantly decline.
Amid rising tensions and instability in the region, the risk of conflicts escalating through the actions of non-state actors, such as Hezbollah and the Houthis, increases. Iran, which is unlikely to engage in direct warfare with Israel, will probably use its proxy groups for retaliatory actions. However, this strategy also carries significant risks, as there is no guarantee that Iran can stay out of a large-scale regional war that could engulf the entire Middle East.
Thus, the current situation in the region remains highly unstable, and the future of the Axis of Resistance, as well as regional security in general, depends on the ability of these groups to adapt to changing conditions and maintain unity in the face of common challenges.
Everything has spiraled out of control: The situation in the Middle East remains extremely tense, and it seems that wider conflict has become inevitable. The Israeli authorities feel compelled to continue military actions, believing this necessary for survival and protection against threats from various groups within the Axis of Resistance. At the same time, these groups find themselves in a similarly dire position, needing to respond to Israeli actions to maintain their influence and political support within their own countries. Mutual hostility and distrust fuel the escalation, creating a vicious cycle of violence.
Attempts to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means face significant obstacles, as neither side is willing to make compromises. Israel seeks to maintain its security and territorial integrity, while members of the Axis of Resistance refuse to abandon their goals and strategies. Both sides rely on force as the primary tool for achieving their interests, making peaceful negotiations nearly impossible under current conditions. The lack of trust and willingness to engage in dialogue only exacerbates the situation, turning it into a protracted conflict with unpredictable consequences.
At present, the conflict has become part of a global transformation of the world order. It seems that no one is capable of preventing further escalation, as events in global politics unfold spontaneously, beyond the control of individual states and international organizations. The existing crisis in the world order has led to an uncontrollable wave of chaos and conflicts that have engulfed various regions around the world. Amid the weakening of international norms and rules of order, every state and political actor is trying to minimize its damage, reacting to events as they occur.
Thus, the current instability in the region reflects a broader issue related to the global transformation and changes in the world order. In the absence of effective international mechanisms for conflict resolution and growing distrust among key actors in the global community, the future of the region remains uncertain. The conflict we are witnessing now is just one of many flashpoints around the world, and its development will depend on the ability of the international community to adapt to new realities and find ways to coexist peacefully."
