"19 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems"

"19 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve 

Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems"

by Michael Snyder

"Most Americans have absolutely no idea how we got into the mess that we are in today. The reason why the U.S. government is 36 trillion dollars in debt and our society as a whole is 102 trillion dollars in debt is because the system is performing exactly as it was designed. We have a system that was literally designed to create colossal amounts of debt. But if you ask most Americans about this, they cannot tell you what the Federal Reserve is or why it is at the heart of our economic problems. When Americans get into discussions about the economy, most of them still blame either the Democrats or the Republicans for our rapidly growing economic problems. But the truth is that the institution with the most power over our economic system is the Federal Reserve. So exactly what is the Federal Reserve?

 Most people would say that it is an agency of the federal government. But that is not entirely accurate. In fact, the Federal Reserve itself has argued in court that it is not an agency of the federal government. The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over our monetary system by the U.S. Congress. This privately-owned central bank has been destroying the value of the U.S. dollar for decades, it has run our economy into the ground, and it has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy and it acts as if it is not accountable to the American people. Yet the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have a dramatic impact on the lives of every single American citizen.

If you really want to understand what is causing our economic problems, it is absolutely crucial that you understand exactly what the Federal Reserve is and how it is systematically destroying our economy. Once you understand the truth about the Federal Reserve, you will view economic issues a whole lot differently. The following are 19 reasons why the Federal Reserve is at the heart of our economic problems…

#1 The Federal Reserve is the central pillar of our debt-based financial system. The way our system is designed, normally no money comes into existence without more debt being created. But this creates a huge problem, because when a new dollar is created, the interest that will be owed on that new borrowed dollar is not also created at the same time. Therefore, the amount money that is created is not equal to the larger amount of debt that is also created.

This is a Ponzi scheme that is designed to drain wealth from the American people and transfer it to the elite. Today, the amount of debt in our economic system is far, far, far greater than the total amount of money. The only way to keep the game going is to create even more money which creates even more debt.

#2 The Federal Reserve and the bankers have a monopoly on the creation of this debt-based money. In the United States today, the only people that can create money are the bankers. You cannot create money. You would go to jail if you tried. Even the U.S. government is not permitted to create money.Although the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to create money, the U.S. Congress has relinquished that power to the Federal Reserve. This gives the Federal Reserve an enormous amount of power.

If you pull out a dollar bill, you will notice that it says “Federal Reserve Note” right at the top. In the financial world, a “note” is an instrument of debt. According to Investopedia, a “note” is “a debt security obligating repayment of a loan, at a predetermined interest rate, within a defined time frame”. So is a “Federal Reserve Note” actually a “debt security”? Investopedia says that it is…"Technically, yes, a federal reserve note is a promissory note that does not pay any interest. It is defined as such because it states that “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private,” indicating a promise for the government and private citizens to accept and honor the note as legal tender."

Our financial system is nothing but a giant pile of debt. Ultimately, the entire system is designed to drain our wealth and put it into the hands of the bankers.

#3 The power of money creation and debt creation is in the hands of private banks – not the government. The Federal Reserve has claimed that it is an “entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects”. That sounds so reasonable, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve is a legalized banking cartel that is privately-owned. In fact, the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is. In defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve objected by declaring that it is “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

So if it is not a government agency, who owns the Federal Reserve? On the official website of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, we learn that the Federal Reserve Banks “are not a part of the federal government” and that private banks “hold stock in the Federal Reserve Banks and earn dividends”… The Federal Reserve Banks are not a part of the federal government, but they exist because of an act of Congress. Their purpose is to serve the public. So is the Fed private or public? The answer is both. While the Board of Governors is an independent government agency, the Federal Reserve Banks are set up like private corporations. Member banks hold stock in the Federal Reserve Banks and earn dividends.

#4 The Federal Reserve itself is not a profit-making institution. Rather, it is a tool that enables others to make obscene amounts of money. There are many that think of the Federal Reserve as an evil profit-making machine. But the truth is that the Fed itself wasn’t designed to make money. Rather, the system was set up so that others could make an obscene amount of money from all of the debt that the system creates.

If the U.S. government had been issuing debt-free money all this time, the U.S. government would likely not be spending one penny on interest payments. Instead, the U.S. government will spend over a trillion dollars just on interest on the national debt in 2025. This is money that belongs to U.S. taxpayers that is transferred to the U.S. government which in turn is transferred to wealthy international bankers and other foreign governments.

This is the magic of the Federal Reserve system. It is about getting the U.S. government enslaved to debt and using that debt to transfer trillions of dollars of our wealth into the hands of others. As interest rates go up, this transfer of wealth is going to become even more brutal.As you fill out your tax return this year, just keep in mind that vast quantities of our money is going to pay interest on debt that the U.S. government never needed to take on. There are some very happy people out there that are becoming fabulously wealthy at our expense. What a system, eh?

#5 The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine. As mentioned above, the U.S. government is enslaved to debt. So how did it get enslaved? Well, instead of printing up and spending the money that it needs, the U.S. government borrows it through the Federal Reserve system at interest. In fact, as noted above, the U.S. government cannot create a single new dollar without borrowing it. But each new dollar that the U.S. government borrows creates more than a dollar of new debt. As a result, the government eventually has to collect more in taxes than what it has borrowed. This phenomenon creates an endless debt spiral.

Is that not what we have in the United States today? In fact, you see this in almost every nation on Earth where a similar central banking system has been established. Did you know that the U.S. national debt is more than 10,000 times larger than it was 100 years ago? Back in 1910, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the national debt was only about $2.6 billion. Now we are more than 36 trillion dollars in debt.

The only way that the U.S. government can inject more money into the economy is by going into more debt. But when new government debt is created, the amount of money to pay the interest on that debt is not also created. In this way, it was intended by the international bankers that U.S. government debt would expand indefinitely and the U.S. money supply would also expand indefinitely. In the process, the international bankers would become insanely wealthy by lending money to the U.S. government.

However, things did not have to turn out this way. If the Federal Reserve had never been created, and the U.S. government had been issuing debt-free currency all this time, it is entirely conceivable that we would have absolutely no federal government debt at this point. Unfortunately, we are now trapped in a debt-based system. The U.S. national debt simply cannot ever be paid off. U.S. government debt has been mathematically designed to expand forever, and it has become a trap from which there is no escape.

#6 The Federal Reserve system is designed to cause inflation. As U.S. government debt expands at an exponential pace, it inevitably causes inflation. Most Americans believe that inflation is a fact of life, but the truth is that the United States has only had a major, ongoing problem with inflation since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.

Sadly, the U.S. dollar has lost about 99 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created. If the Federal Reserve did not exist, it is theoretically conceivable that we could have an economy with little or no inflation. Of course that would greatly depend on the discipline of our government officials (which is not very great at this point), but the sad truth is that our current system is always going to produce inflation. Federal Reserve officials try to keep the official rate of inflation in single digit territory, but they are not always successful.

#7 The Federal Reserve has decided to play bizarre games with our money supply. In a desperate attempt to revive the dying U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve has resorted to chucking gigantic quantities of money into the financial system. Remember how earlier I explained that normally whenever new money is created that more debt is created?

Well, in recent years the Fed has been resorting to a trick called “quantitative easing”. What “quantitative easing” means is that the Federal Reserve zaps massive amounts of money into existence out of thin air and injects it into the financial system. This has primarily been done by purchasing large quantities of U.S. Treasuries. But isn’t that “monetizing the debt”? Of course it is, and it is a blatant Ponzi scheme.

However, what is even more alarming is what this is doing to our money supply. Just look at what has happened to our monetary base since the later stages of 2008….

It was inevitable that this rapid expansion of our monetary base was going to cause horrifying inflation. Anyone that thought otherwise was just being delusional. Now we are in a cost of living crisis that has no end in sight, and most Americans still do not understand who is responsible.

#8 The Federal Reserve is undemocratic. What makes the central economic planning that the Federal Reserve does different from the central economic planning that communist China does? Sadly, there really isn’t much of a difference. Only in our case, the central planners don’t have to answer to anyone. President Trump cannot order the Federal Reserve to do anything. The Federal Reserve does not have to answer to Congress either. It has been called “our fourth branch of government”, and it is totally out of control.

#9 The Federal Reserve runs the U.S. economy. Most Americans want to blame Joe Biden or Donald Trump or the U.S. Congress for the state of our economy. But the truth is that it is the Federal Reserve that sets interest rates, it is the Federal Reserve that determines the size of the money supply, it is the Federal Reserve that sets the “target rate” of inflation, it is the Federal Reserve that determines if unemployment is too high or too low, and it is the Federal Reserve that watches over all of our banks. Yes, the politicians in Washington all have things to answer for as well. But the politicians in Washington do not have the direct power over the economy that the Federal Reserve does.

#10 The Federal Reserve favors the big banks. Not all financial institutions are treated equally by the Fed. The truth is that the big banks (particularly those in New York) are treated with great favor by the Federal Reserve. During the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve made over $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks and large financial institutions. Wouldn’t you like to be able to zap trillions of dollars into existence and loan it out to your friends at very favorable terms? Sadly, most of the “help” from the Federal Reserve always seems to go to the big boys. When “small enough to fail” banks need assistance, they are usually told to go sell themselves to one of the big banks.

#11 The worse the debt problems caused by the Federal Reserve become, the more money the IRS needs to collect from the rest of us. If the U.S. government could issue debt-free money, it is conceivable that we would not even need the IRS. You doubt this? Well, the truth is that the United States did just fine for well over a hundred years without a national income tax. But in the same year the Federal Reserve was created, a national income tax was instituted as well. The whole idea was that the wealth of the American people would be transferred to the U.S. government by force and then transferred into the hands of the ultra-wealthy in the form of interest payments.

If the Federal Reserve was shut down, it is entirely possible that we would be able to shut down the IRS as well. But the only way that the current system works is if massive amounts of wealth continue to be drained from the American people.

#12 The Federal Reserve creates artificial financial bubbles. When you look back over the last several decades, you will find financial bubble after financial bubble. So who created all of those bubbles? It was the Federal Reserve. The ridiculous policies of the Fed have wrought disaster after disaster and yet most of our politicians still will not even consider major changes to the Federal Reserve.

#13 The Federal Reserve is anti-free market. In a true free market system, the marketplace would determine what interest rates are. In a true free market system, the marketplace would determine which financial institutions survive. In a true free market system, artificial financial bubbles would be far less likely. But we don’t have a true free market system.

#14 The Federal Reserve tells the rest of the our banks what to do. Most Americans don’t understand just how much power the Federal Reserve actually has over our local banks. The Fed is the chief regulator of the banking system, and that is extremely unfortunate. The following comes from the Fed’s official website…"The Federal Reserve’s supervision activities include examinations and inspections to ensure that financial institutions operate in a safe and sound manner and comply with laws and regulations. These include an assessment of a financial institution’s risk-management systems, financial conditions, and compliance."

That paragraph makes it all sound so benign. But the truth is that the Fed can be quite tyrannical. For example, Fed officials once walked into one bank in Oklahoma and demanded that they take down all of the Bible verses and all of the Christmas buttons that the bank had been displaying.

#15 The people currently running the Federal Reserve pretty much have no idea what they are doing. You may have noticed that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has a very long track record of incompetence. Nearly every major judgment that he has made since taking over that position has been dead wrong. If one of us could go down the street and appoint the manager of the local Dairy Queen as the Chair of the Federal Reserve, it is very doubtful that person would do a worse job than Powell has done.

#16 Even though the Federal Reserve has such extraordinary power over the financial system, the American people are not permitted to examine their books. The Federal Reserve claims that it is regularly audited, but when some members of Congress attempted to push through a true comprehensive audit Federal Reserve officials threw a hissy fit.

The truth is that the Federal Reserve has never undergone a true comprehensive audit since it was created back in 1913. Whenever the subject of an audit comes up, the Fed keeps repeating the mantra of how important “the independence of the Federal Reserve” is. Sadly, Ron Paul’s proposal to audit the Federal Reserve when he was still a member of Congress ultimately failed. Instead, a very limited examination of Fed transactions that occurred during the global financial crisis was approved. So what did that limited examination reveal?

Well, the Federal Reserve was forced to reveal the details of 21,000 transactions stretching from December 2007 to July 2010. It turns out that the Federal Reserve was just handing out gigantic piles of nearly interest-free cash to their friends at the largest banks, financial institutions and corporations all over the globe. Many members of Congress were absolutely stunned by these revelations. So what would a more comprehensive audit reveal?

#17 The Federal Reserve has way too much power. If the Federal Reserve did not exist, we would not have an unelected, unaccountable “fourth branch of government” running around that has gotten completely and totally out of control. Today, global financial markets react instantly whenever a Fed official makes a public statement. And when the Fed hikes interest rates or monkeys around with the money supply it has a dramatic impact on all of us.

Ron Paul once told MSNBC that he is convinced that the Federal Reserve has actually become more powerful than Congress…“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress.”

#18 The Federal Reserve is dominated by Wall Street and the New York banks. The New York representative is the only permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, while representatives from the other regional banks rotate. The truth is that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been the most important of the regional Fed banks by a very wide margin, and in turn the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has always been heavily influenced by Wall Street and the major New York banks.

#19 The Federal Reserve has brought us to the brink of economic collapse. If the Federal Reserve had never been created, the American people would not be so enslaved to debt. Nobody can deny that debt is at the very core of our economic problems. U.S. consumers are drowning in debt, state and local governments are facing horrific debt problems from coast to coast, and our federal government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.

We are living in an absolutely massive debt bubble, and when it bursts the world is going to experience financial chaos like it has never seen before. Things did not have to turn out this way. We did not have to adopt a debt-based financial system, and we did not have to allow the bankers to enslave us with debt. But that is what happened.

Sadly, most Americans and the vast majority of our politicians are still clueless about these issues. In 1922, Henry Ford wrote the following…“The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.”

Hopefully this article will help people understand our debt-based financial system a little bit better. Until we fundamentally change our system, many of the economic and financial problems that we are currently experiencing will never go away. The borrower is the servant of the lender, and by allowing ourselves to become enslaved to debt we have become the servants of the international banking system. Not only that, we have also sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery.

Thomas Jefferson tried to warn us about this. He believed that when the government borrows money in one generation which must be paid back by future generations it is equivalent to stealing…"And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

In fact, Thomas Jefferson said that if he could add one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a ban on all government borrowing…"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing."

Where would we be today if we had chosen to listen to Thomas Jefferson? The amount of government debt that we have racked up is a great evil. We have stolen the future away from our children and our grandchildren. We have put them in a position where they will spend the rest of their lives paying off our debts to the bankers. We owe it to future generations to fix the problems that we have created. That is why so many of us believe that it is time for the U.S. Congress to shut down the Federal Reserve. Our current financial system is a complete and utter failure and we need to start over."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

o

"JFK's Executive Order 11100 Abolishing the Federal Reserve"

The Daily "Near You?"

Troy, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Never Regret Anything..."

 

"You Think..."

“You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence. But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive.”

~ Wendell Berry

“The More Laws, the Less Justice”

“The More Laws, the Less Justice”

by Brian Maher

"This past weekend we entered a local park hard upon the Chesapeake Bay. At water’s edge stood several head of fishermen. Each extended a line to pluck aquatic beings from the “immense protein factory” - as H.L. Mencken labeled the fruitful Chesapeake Bay. All was peace.

Of a sudden a vehicle of the Maryland Natural Resources Police came pulling up. From it emerged an officer of the same authority. He was armed as any other policeman is armed - with a sheathed firearm. Why does an officer of the Maryland Natural Resources Police require a firearm? The answer is somewhat dark to us. Yet let it pass.

Your Papers, Please: The officer descended upon each of the assembled fishermen, one by one. He was in search of papers. That is, he was in search of fishing licenses. That is, he was in search of permission slips from the state of Maryland. A man may not fish the Chesapeake Bay without one.

By some miracle of God they each possessed the required documentation. Some had to abandon their rods and withdraw to their vehicles to secure it. Yet each had it. To be certain: This was not a hostile affair. The officer appeared to be a pleasant, even affable fellow. He gabbled with each potential felon. “Hey, how’s it going? Beautiful day for fishing. Any luck?” So on and so on. Et cetera, et cetera.

You Can Keep Your Dinner: The interrogated men responded with equal affability. They did not appear the least irritated, flustered or annoyed. Both officer and fisherman exchanged multiple laughs and guffaws. At one point the officer took a fisherman in tow and both men withdrew to the police vehicle. From it the officer retrieved a ruler. He stretched a captured fish out upon it. The fish evidently met specification. It was no youth of child-rearing age. The man could keep his dinner - and escape a fine.

Eventually this officer of the Maryland Natural Resources Police abandoned the scene… and drove off… we imagine to the next fishing spot… in quest of some felonious hellcat fishing without official grant.

The entire incident passed without incident. The lines remained in the water and the fish came out of the water - with no additional interruptions. No one was clubbed, no one was jugged. In fact, the officer extended the fishermen high respect. They in turn extended him high respect. If all police encounters were so peaceful policemen would not bear billy clubs and firearms.

One Question: Yet we emerged from the incident with a question: Why should a man require the state of Maryland’s permission to lower a fishing line into the water? Your editor has not fished since he was perhaps 12 years of age. He did not require documentation. He was never approached by an armed policeman demanding to see it. He was merely exercising his rights as a somewhat lunatic and murderous 12-year-old fish hunter.

We understand the authorities may wish to regulate the commercial fishing fleets. We do not abhor or detest conservation - and commercial fishermen may at times yield to temptation. Their vision at times may fail them. The juvenile eight-inch fish they cannot legally haul aboard appears 16 inches to them. Many would work the dockside scale to a favoring calibration… downward… if they could pull off the caper.

But a solitary fisherman casting an individual rod? Who may - if fortune favors him that particular day - pull up two or three unfortunate fish? It is of a different character. We do not believe this man requires permission… at least in the absence of very rigid and demonstrable justification. To our knowledge flounder lack all presence upon the endangered species list.

Land of the Free: Each of the fishermen from the abovesaid incident was Hispanic. Their English was accented. In some cases, very heavily. Did they require fishing permits in their countries of origin? We do not know. Perhaps none require them. Perhaps some require them. Perhaps all require them.

Yet it makes no nevermind. These men are presently camped within the United States - the land of the free - at least in verse and in theory. Should they not fish in freedom… without documented permission from the state of Maryland… or any other united state?

More Laws, Less Justice: “The more laws, the less justice,” said the old Roman Cicero. We are convinced beyond all convincing that this ancient was correct.

The United States Code of Federal Regulations ran to 16 pages in its 1936 debut. Today the thing runs to some 70,000 pages - each singly spaced and finely printed. That is, today’s law list is 4,375 times thicker than 1936’s law list. Has American justice expanded with it? Is the 2023 United States 4,375 times more just than the United States of 1936?

To ask the question is essentially to answer the question. A decent man can scarcely put in one single day without fracturing half a dozen laws. On dark days the same man may fracture a full dozen.

When Laws Justify Injustice: A man can “miss the forest for the trees,” as the popular expression runs. Well, a nation can miss the forest of justice… for the trees of laws. Vast injustice can - and in fact often does - parade as justice because it assumes the color of law. A government goon (bureaucrat) can cite this regulation or that regulation as the warrant for actual injustice.

You request examples? An Oregonian was jugged 30 days for collecting rainwater on his property. That is because the state of Oregon operates under the theory that it owns the rain that falls on it. Thus an Oregonian requires a government permit to collect and hold rain. It is the law. Yet is it just?

Law Run Amok: An Arizona man was fined for holding religious meetings in his residence. Officials cited fire safety. The man subsequently came into compliance. Officials proceeded to inform him that he required exit signs above the doors and safety ramps outside of them. Their fines ran to $12,000. It is the law. Yet is it just?

In Vermont it is illegal to deny God’s existence. You may or may not be a fool to deny God’s existence. Yet are you a criminal to deny God’s existence?

Meantime, you violate federal law if you sell wine with a label harboring the word “Zombie.”

Don’t You Dare Call It Ham Turkey! There exists a meat product known as turkey ham. Within the United States it is illegal to peddle turkey ham with a label of “ham turkey.” Nor can the words “ham” and “turkey” appear in differing fonts. They must be identical. If you do not comply you have acted contrary to the laws of the United States. And you will face the attending punishment. Here we cite but some examples. Others multiply and multiply. Yet these are the laws that “govern” us.

What It Means to Be Governed: And as we are fond to observe: To be governed, noted 19th-century philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: "Is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded… registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished… drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed… repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored."

The more laws, the less justice. This past weekend… however minor in appearance… we witnessed its reality…"

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

"Robed Radicals"

"Robed Radicals"

by The ZMan

"One way to look at the last ten years is as the struggle of the United States to finally close the books on the Cold War and the 20th century. The reason Trump exists, and the managerial system has reacted in such a violent way toward him, is that he represents the end of the conditions that made it all possible. The return of a strong executive and the normal functioning of government is the end of the managerial system and everything around it.

The comparisons to the late Soviet times are compelling because the Russians went through a similarly violent process to escape their own managerial system and the ideology that controlled it. Like the Soviets, America is now run by old people trapped in the past, lacking the talent to adjust to new realities. Like the Soviet system, the American system barely performs basic functions. Like the Soviets, American political actors can only break things.

That last part is important. Reform by its very nature calls into question the legitimacy of current processes. The reason for reform is that the system is not working to the satisfaction of the users, so it must be changed. Good reformers, however, do not attack the core logic of the system, but focus instead on the parts of it that implement that core logic to maintain the legitimacy of the whole. Maybe it means new people or possibly changes to parts of the system.

Reforms in the late Soviet period undermined the core logic of the Soviet system, resulting in poorer outcomes. We see the same thing in America. The response to Trump in 2016 by conservatives and their party only served to sap the legitimacy of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Trump started as a vanity candidate, but by January of 2016 he had become the champion of the party voters against the ossified party leadership.

Similarly, the behavior of the media cratered trust in the media. Their efforts to cajole, convince and intimidate people into going along with the managerial class eroded all trust in the media. By the end of Trump’s first term, trust in the media had collapsed to the point where only regime toadies trusted it. The same could be said for the people it was defending. Trump won in 2024 because the main tools of his enemies had been delegitimatized by his enemies.

We are now seeing another phase of this as district judges claim authority over vast parts of the executive branch. The last month has seen these inferior court judges claim to have power over the hiring and firing of personnel, the budgets of executive agencies and the conduct of foreign policy. A judge just ordered the military to enlist mentally unstable people. To stop the future, the managerial class is now destroying the credibility of the courts.

Public trust in the courts was already at a nadir because of the abuses we saw in the Obama years and then the Biden years. When the court ruled that mandating medical insurance was right there in the constitution, the rule of law took a sharp turn into absurdity, but when the Supreme Court ruled that two men sharing rent and bed is the same as your parents, then trust in the law was in free fall. It only got worse in the Biden years with the lawfare against Trump supporters.

What we are seeing from the courts now is the breaking point. No one would dare poll on it, because they fear the result, but there is certainly a majority in favor of the Trump administration telling the courts to pound sand. The whiffs of Sulphur the usual suspects are always sure they detect are not real, but rather they are the floral aroma of Caesarism in response to the reckless behavior of the courts. When the rule of law fails, the people always choose the rule of men.

While this may feel like a positive omen, there is another lesson from the end of Soviet Russia to keep in mind. Russia at the end of communism was a poor country, but a lawful country. It had rules that the people tried to respect. It then entered a period where it was a poorer country and a lawless one. When trust in the system collapsed, trust in the rules collapsed with it. It was only when a new elite emerged to impose a new system and new rules that lawfulness returned.

In other words, this dip into lawlessness we are seeing could very well portend a general descent into lawlessness. Like post-Soviet Russia, we could very well be entering a period where we get poorer as the rule of law collapses. Unlike Russia, America is not a homogenous society with a thousand years of history. America is a diverse country which is a polite way of saying it is a collection of people who would just as soon not share a country with one another.

If the elites backing Trump’s reforms wish to avoid a terrible end to their reform effort, they are going to need to deal with these hothouse radicals on the bench who cannot grasp the danger of their actions. The challenge, as with all reforms, is in dealing with the problem while not undermining the legitimacy of the system. These judges think they are heroes defending the system against the monster, when in reality they are a cancer threatening the last functioning part of the system.

It is not an easy task, which is why most reform efforts fail. In the end, it turns out to be easier to scrap the old and replace it with something new, but the problem is no one can predict who will win and who will lose in that process. It is why the reform is always the safe choice, despite the dismal record. It promises predictable winners. If today’s reformers want to be winners, then these judges need to be made into losers, without making the rule of law a loser as well."

- https://thezman.com/

"Alert! Ceasefire Fails! UK Govt. Prepares Nuke Command Bunker; France WW3 Stockpiles!"

Canadian Prepper, 3/19/25

"Alert! Ceasefire Fails! UK Govt. Prepares 

Nuke Command Bunker; France WW3 Stockpiles!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"World War 3 Is Already Underway: The Battle for the World Order"

"World War 3 Is Already Underway: 

The Battle for the World Order"

by Nick Giambruno

"Yuval Harari is a key advisor to Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He recently stated that if Trump were to become president again, it "is likely to be the kind of death blow to what remains of the global order." While I have a deep philosophical disagreement (to say the least) with globalists like Harari and Schwab, understanding their perspective offers valuable insight.

Indeed, the world order is undergoing a profound transformation. I’ll delve into that shortly, but first, some crucial context. It’s important to recognize that world orders are nothing new. World orders have long been the frameworks through which major global powers set the rules of the game. They define the structure of international political relations.

Thinking in terms of world orders requires zooming out entirely—taking the geopolitical view from 40,000 feet. On a smaller scale, it’s similar to how the most powerful criminal organizations in a city—such as mafias and street gangs—form agreements to divide their activities and territories among themselves. Eventually, though, these arrangements always break down, leading to violent power struggles until a new agreement is reached, reflecting the shifting balance of power. A similar dynamic is at play with the most powerful countries, world orders, and world wars. You can think of World orders as epochs—distinct historical periods marked by evolving global power structures.

Peace of Westphalia (1648 to 1803): This agreement ended the Thirty Years’ War and established a framework for European international relations for over two centuries by maintaining a balance of power among major European states. The Peace of Westphalia involved the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, and various German territories. This world order persisted until the Napoleonic Wars disrupted the balance, necessitating a new international arrangement.

Congress of Vienna (1814 to 1914): The military defeat of Napoleon I led to this world order, which cemented Britain as the dominant global power. The Congress of Vienna set the foundation for European politics until the onset of World War 1 in 1914.

Treaty of Versailles (1919 to 1939): The victors of World War 1 established this world order, introducing institutions like the League of Nations. However, it collapsed when Germany, Italy, and Japan sought to overturn it and impose their own world order during World War 2.

The Current US-Led World Order (1945 to Today): The victors of World War 2 created the current world order with the US as its leader. This system includes institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund—all headquartered in the US. This world order has largely been unipolar, with the US exerting significant influence over international policies and decision-making. The graphic below (click to enlarge) maps out the timeline of recent world orders and world wars, offering a clearer perspective on their evolution—and where we may be headed next.

World War 3: Total war between the world’s largest powers has historically reshaped the international order, defining past world wars. In that sense, the Napoleonic Wars could be considered a world war before the term was even coined. However, with the advent of nuclear weapons, total war between today’s largest powers—Russia, China, and the US—would mean nuclear Armageddon, where there are no winners, only losers. That scenario remains a possibility, even if no one wants it, but it is not the most likely outcome.

World War 3 is unlikely to take the form of a direct, kinetic war between the US, Russia, and China. Instead, the conflict is playing out on different levels—proxy wars, economic wars, financial wars, cyber wars, biological warfare, deniable sabotage, and information warfare. In that sense, World War 3 is already well underway, though most fail to recognize it. Russia, China, and their allies are seeking to reshape the US-led world order that has been in place since the end of World War 2.

While they resent US dominance, both Russia and China hold a position—albeit a subordinate one—within the current system. They have permanent seats on the UN Security Council and are members of key international institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO. Unlike Germany and Japan in World War 2, Russia and China do not appear intent on completely overturning the current world order. Doing so could invite nuclear Armageddon. Instead, they aim to shift the balance from a unipolar US-dominated system to a multipolar world where they wield greater influence.

The conflict is playing out just below the threshold of direct military conflict. Nevertheless, it is a high-stakes struggle among the world’s major powers to determine the future world order—just as in previous world wars. This is World War 3. It’s happening right now and unfolding rapidly. In fact, World War 3 has been ongoing for over a decade. While WW3 lacks an official starting date, two pivotal events in 2013 and 2014 signaled the beginning of this global struggle between Russia, China, and the US to reshape the world order.

The first was the rise of Xi Jinping in March 2013. It quickly became evident that China was no longer content with being a junior member of the US-led system. Instead, Beijing sought a role commensurate with its power—at minimum, equal to the US, if not the world’s dominant force.

The second was the US-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014, which led to the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian government and its replacement by a pro-US administration. Ukraine is Russia’s most vital neighbor—both culturally and strategically. Slavic nations, including Russia, trace their heritage to the Kievan Rus’, a federation of tribes centered in present-day Ukraine that existed from the late 800s to the early 1200s.

Ukraine is also of immense geopolitical value. For years, US strategists have pursued the idea of integrating Ukraine into NATO, a move that would significantly weaken Russia’s military position and further isolate Moscow—an appealing prospect for those favoring a unipolar world. After the 2014 coup, Moscow became convinced that the US was determined to bring Russia under its control. In response, Russia saw no choice but to push back—primarily by aligning with China and other nations to shift the world order from unipolar to multipolar.

I believe these two events marked the beginning of a global struggle among the most powerful nations to reshape the international order—World War 3. Since then, the conflict has only escalated and may soon reach a tipping point that changes everything."

- https://internationalman.com/

"How It Really Will Be"

Dan, I Allegedly, "The Feds Are Watching You - New $200 Rule"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 3/19/25

"The Feds Are Watching You - 

New $200 Rule"

"Big changes are here! In today’s video, I’m breaking down the new $200 cash transaction rule that’s making waves, especially in select Western counties. This isn’t just a small tweak—it’s a massive shift in financial oversight designed to crack down on suspicious activities. But what does this mean for everyday transactions, and are YOU being scrutinized? Let’s talk about how this impacts small businesses, rural communities, and even your personal finances. Plus, I’ll share some critical tips on avoiding scams, staying safe online, and even a cautionary tale involving Gmail and credit card fraud.

We’ll also dive into why experts are forecasting a stock market crash and what’s happening with small business sentiment, insurance chaos, and energy-saving strategies you can use to stay ahead. Whether it’s about watching your wallet, cutting unnecessary expenses, or preparing for the unexpected (like a power outage), this video is packed with information you need to hear."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Judge Napolitano, "Col. Douglas Macgregor: Will US Attack Iran?"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/19/25

"Col. Douglas Macgregor: Will US Attack Iran?"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "FED Day, And We Are Out Of Time. Expect Anything To Allow The System To Inflate - We Lose"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/19/25

"FED Day, And We Are Out Of Time. 

Expect Anything To Allow The System To Inflate - We Lose"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

John Wilder, "Trump’s Recession: Aimed At The Left"

"Trump’s Recession: Aimed At The Left"

by John Wilder

"We are witnesses at the biggest collapse of a political movement since the fall of the Soviet Union. As then, it was a GloboLeftist organization bent on world domination. In this case, it’s the infestation of the GloboLeft mind virus in Western Civilization The collapse is not yet complete – the liberation of Europe and Australia/New Zealand is still in the future, but I have hopes that will happen for reasons I’ll outline below, as well as the hope that was rekindled in me when I heard Rosie O’Donnell had moved to Ireland.

First, why is the GloboLeft collapsing? They were winning and on the cusp of winning in a “forever” way. They had the institutions: colleges, the educational establishment, the foundations, congress, the military leadership, big business, and most of the court system. And yet it is all unravelling at a rapid pace. Again, why?

First and foremost, it’s because the GloboLeft want to lose. They have always placed themselves in the role of the “plucky resistance” to power. Note that when the latest "Star Wars"™ trilogy came out, the GloboLeftists at Disney© wrote it as if "The Return of the Jedi" never existed.

If there’s one thing that GloboLeftists love to do, it’s use either Star Wars® or Marvel™ movies as a metaphor. How many times did you see the GloboLeft flocking around some strained X® metaphor where Donald Trump was Thanos™? Yeah, a lot.

But while the behavior of the GloboLeft is based on pure hatred, however, that hatred is mainly a hatred of themselves. This hatred has made the GloboLeft the champions of everything that a Death Cult would want.

Want proof? Their actions speak more loudly than the reeeeeee of a feminist on a slut walk:

• Throwing themselves in front of traffic as a form of protest, daring drivers to run over them. This is not something that a person who has any desire for self-preservation does.

• Treating abortion as the highest of sacraments. Women have aborted more children since 1972 than every death ever in every war, and people march for it. Yay death!

• Wanting to have Zero Population Growth©, at least in white populations living in traditionally white countries.

• Wanting to destroy all of society so that it can be decarbonized. You know, because wanting to burn it all down is a healthy emotion.

• Welcoming invaders from the cultures in the world that are the most different and share the least with their own culture as if this is normal and good. This is because people who live in Somalian Sharia states and Colombian Cartel communities are just the same as the people from Modern Mayberry.

This is because GloboLeftists blame those people and things closest to themselves, first. This happens in roughly this order:

• Themselves, which is why nearly half of GloboLeftist women have a diagnosed mental disorder.

• Their family, which is why they so often have gone no-contact over the smallest of slights.

• Tradition, which makes them welcome anything alien and degenerate, and reject principles that have worked for humanity for thousands of years.

• Their country, which they want to watch be either destroyed or burned to the ground.

• Their race – how many white girls Xeet© “I hate all white people” or some variant phrase? By definition, does this mean that white girls hate white girls the most?

• Their species. Why else do they want to destroy us so the world can heal? What would solving Global Warming Climate Change matter if humanity wasn’t there to enjoy it?

Trump made this visible to the Normies. The silly positions of the GloboLeft are now on display for everyone to see. Men are women? Truth is a lie? Strength is weakness? Perhaps one of the most telling moments for the GloboLeft was a single line in Trump’s recent address to a joint session of congress: “We didn’t need new laws [to stop illegal aliens], all we just needed was a new president.”

The GloboLeft hasn’t figured this one out yet, either. They’re currently working on “messaging”. What is messaging? It’s an attempt to effectively package their positions so that they can be communicated to the voters, but it’s as useful to them as lipstick is useful to Rosie O’Donnell.

I’ll give them this bit of political advice, for free: It’s not the message that’s wrong, it’s the ideas that are wrong. The people have rejected them, and are overwhelmingly rejecting them. The pretty little lies they tried to peddle: 

• Men are no different than women,

• Chinese are no different than Indians who are no different than the French,

• Being a woman is something anyone can be,

• Spending ourselves to prosperity is a reality, and

• The United States should be the one paying to stop AIDS in Africa, rather than letting Africans figure what causes it.

This comes with change. One of those changes has and will be in economics. I believe that Trump is, right now, working to create a very selective recession, and that recession is among the GloboLeft. Will it ensnare folks on the TradRight? Certainly, it will. But I’d imagine that 96% plus of the employees at USAID™ were so GloboLeftist that they woke up in the morning mad that the communist famines haven’t started yet.

The cuts in the Education Department won’t actually impact education in the United States, but it will end up with thousands of people who were committed to getting that LGBT+ message out to the kindergartener set losing jobs and having to consider how they can positively impact society. Ha! Just kidding. They’ll try to figure out a new grift.

This recession will end up, I believe, breaking the back of inflation while gutting those jobs that the GloboLeft death cult infested. DEI is disappearing, and I, for one, can’t wait until I’m driving in a major city and see some blue-haired beast holding a sign that says, “Will make you hate the white race for food”. 

Hmmm, who will pick those crops after the illegal aliens are sent to the El Salvadoran prisons?

I can only guess, but I think there is a chance that we’ll have a much brighter economic future with GloboLeft defanged. Is there a long, long way to go in the long hike toward our inevitable victory? There is. And it’s not time to set up camp just yet. I, for one, don’t want to stop until the very ideas that were at the heart of the GloboLeft have been so reviled that children cry when they hear about their excesses. Oh, and Ireland? You can keep Rosie O’Donnell as our gift. Unrelated: the last witch burning in Ireland was on March 15, 1895."

-https://wilderwealthywise.com/t

Bill Bonner, "The Landfill of History"

President Elect John F. Kennedy Jr. meets with Harvard history professor 

Arthur Schlesinger on January 9th, 1961 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"The Landfill of History"

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "Yesterday came more evidence that you can’t protect your way to success. From the news wires: "China’s energy and auto giant BYD has announced an ultra fast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the pumps. BYD, China's largest EV maker, said Monday that its flash-chargers can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes, similar to the amount of time needed to fill a fuel tank. It plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China….Sales of battery powered and hybrid vehicles jumped 40% last year."

You can seal the borders…and tariff everything that crosses…but that won’t stop competitors from coming up with new and better products. WECB: "China Has Developed a Revolutionary Steel Production Method 3,600 Times Faster Without Using Coal." "A breakthrough in steel production is reshaping the industry and bringing hope for a greener future. After more than a decade of research, a team of Chinese scientists has developed a new process that’s not only 3,600 times faster than traditional methods but also eliminates the need for coal. This innovation could transform the global steel industry while significantly reducing carbon emissions."

And here’s more…AutoJosh: "Ford CEO Claims That China Is Ten Years Ahead Of The US In Battery Manufacture"

CoinTelegraph: "US tech exec warns China is ‘a decade ahead’ on quantum."

AI Upload: "Ex-Google CEO warns that China is a decade ahead on AI."

EV News: "[China’s] BYD dominates Brazilian EV auto market with 71.4% share."

Electrek: "BYD is ‘just getting started’ in Europe with plans to triple its EV market share."

Team Trump can erect a high wall to keep the foreigners and their products out. But trade and innovation will go on around it. The remarkable thing about Trump’s trade war is that there is no real enemy to have a war with. Trade barriers have been coming down for the last 50 years. Worldwide, the weighted average tariff imposed by our top 31 trading partners is just 1.85%. Take out India, and it goes down to 1.6%.

Donald Trump has regaled the nation with stories of the Canadians ‘ripping us off for years’ with tariffs of 300% on US dairy products. That is a provision of the trade agreement negotiated by the Trump administration itself in its last go-round in the White House. But the high tariffs are only triggered if US exports rise to a threshold level…that they have never reached. Instead, most of America’s exports to Canada arrive duty free. Not exactly something to get worked up about.

Trade is a win-win deal… voluntary and cooperative. The idea is to trade your output for products that are cheaper and higher quality than you can make on your own. You come out ahead. So does the seller. Tariffs are win-lose…they’re political, a way of taking something away from someone else. The goal is to make those better, cheaper products more expensive so local, crony enterprises can rip off consumers with inferior products at higher prices.

Trade wars make no sense for dynamic, growing, confident economies. But History has her own purposes....Late, degenerate empires must end up on the landfill of history. Wars – even trade wars -- help them get there."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Major Price Increases At Walmart"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 3/19/25

"Major Price Increases At Walmart"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "People Are Losers, It Will Only Get Worse"

Jeremiah Babe, 3/18/25

"People Are Losers, It Will Only Get Worse"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Sprawling emission nebulae IC 1396 and Sh2-129 mix glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds in this 10 degree wide field of view toward the northern constellation Cepheus the King. Energized by its bluish central star IC 1396 (left) is hundreds of light-years across and some 3,000 light-years distant. 

The nebula's intriguing dark shapes include a winding dark cloud popularly known as the Elephant's Trunk below and right of center. Tens of light-years long, it holds the raw raw material for star formation and is known to hide protostars within. Located a similar distance from planet Earth, the bright knots and swept back ridges of emission of Sh2-129 on the right suggest its popular name, the Flying Bat Nebula. Within the Flying Bat, the most recently recognized addition to this royal cosmic zoo is the faint bluish emission from Ou4, the Giant Squid nebula."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210723.html

The Poet: David Whyte, "Sometimes"

“‘Sometimes’: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte’s

Stunning Meditation on Walking into the Questions of Our Becoming”

by Maria Popova

“The role of the artist, James Baldwin believed, is “to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” This, too, is the role of the forest, it occurs to me as I walk the ferned, mossed woods daily to lose my self and find myself between the trees; to “live the questions,” in Rilke’s lovely phrase – to let the rustling of the leaves beckon forth the stirrings and murmurings on the edge of the psyche, which we so often brush away in order to go on being the smaller version of ourselves we have grown accustomed to being out of the unfaced fear that the grandeur of life, the grandeur of our own untrammeled nature, might require of us more than we are ready to give.

Those disquieting, transformative stirrings are what the poet and philosopher David Whyte explores with surefooted subtlety in his poem “Sometimes,” found in his altogether life-enlarging collection “Everything Is Waiting for You” (public library) and read here by the poet himself as part of a wonderful short course of poem-driven practices for neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” meditation toolkit (which I can’t recommend enough and which operates under an inspired, honorable model of granting free subscriptions to those who need this invaluable mental health aid but don’t have the means).

“Sometimes”

“Sometimes

if you move carefully

through the forest,

breathing

like the ones

in the old stories,

who could cross

a shimmering bed of leaves

without a sound,

you come to a place

whose only task

is to trouble you

with tiny

but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere

but in this place

beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what

you are doing right now,

and

to stop what you

are becoming

while you do it,

questions

that can make

or unmake

a life,

questions

that have patiently

waited for you,

questions

that have no right

to go away.”

- David Whyte

- https://www.brainpickings.org/

"The Greater..."

"The greater our knowledge increases,

the greater our ignorance unfolds."

- John F. Kennedy

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

“Sigmund Wollman’s Reality Test”

by 
Robert Fulghum

“In the summer of 1959, at the Feather River Inn near the town of Blairsden in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. A resort environment. And I, just out of college, have a job that combines being the night desk clerk in the lodge and helping out with the horse-wrangling at the stables. The owner/manager is Italian-Swiss, with European notions about conditions of employment. He and I do not get along. I think he’s a fascist who wants pleasant employees who know their place, and he thinks I’m a good example of how democracy can be carried too far. I’m twenty-two and pretty free with my opinions, and he’s fifty-two and has a few opinions of his own. One week the employees had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two wieners, a mound of sauerkraut, and stale rolls. To compound insult with injury, the cost of meals was deducted from our check. I was outraged.

 On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk job around 11:00 P.M., and the night auditor had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen to get a bite to eat and saw notes to the chef to the effect that wieners and sauerkraut are on the employee menu for two more days.

That tears it. I quit! For lack of a better audience, I unloaded on the night auditor, Sigmund Wollman.

I declared that I have had it up to here; that I am going to get a plate of wieners and sauerkraut and go and wake up the owner and throw it on him. I am sick and tired of this crap and insulted and nobody is going to make me eat wieners and sauerkraut for a whole week and make me pay for it and who does he think he is anyhow and how can life be sustained on wieners and sauerkraut and this is un-American and I don’t like wieners and sauerkraut enough to eat it one day for God’s sake and the whole hotel stinks anyhow and the horses are all nags and the guests are all idiots and I’m packing my bags and heading for Montana where they never even heard of wieners and sauerkraut and wouldn’t feed that stuff to the pigs. Something like that. I’m still mad about it.

I raved on this way for twenty minutes, and needn’t repeat it all here. You get the drift. My monologue was delivered at the top of my lungs, punctuated by blows on the front desk with a fly-swatter, the kicking of chairs, and much profanity. A call to arms, freedom, unions, uprisings, and the breaking of chains for the working masses.

As I pitched my fit, Sigmund Wollman, the night auditor, sat quietly on his stool, smoking a cigarette, watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman. He’s got good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job – gave him intellectual space, gave him peace and quiet, and, even more, he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he wanted to – all the wieners and sauerkraut he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that, there’s nobody around at night to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he dreamed of such a time. The only person he sees at work is me, the nightly disturber of his dream. Our shifts overlap for an hour. And here I am again. A one-man war party at full cry.

“Fulchum, are you finished?” “No. Why?” "Lissen, Fulchum. Lissen me, lissen me. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s not wieners and kraut and it’s not the boss and it’s not the chef and it’s not this job.” “So what’s wrong with me?”

“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good night.” In a gesture combining dismissal and blessing, he waved me off to bed.

Seldom in my life have I been hit between the eyes with a truth so hard. Years later I heard a Japanese Zen Buddhist priest describe what the moment of enlightenment was like and I knew exactly what he meant. There in that late-night darkness of the Feather River Inn, Sigmund Wollman simultaneously kicked my butt and opened a window in my mind.

For 40 years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I’m ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks: “Fulchum. Problem or inconvenience?”

I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Good night, Sig.”

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/

"The Blind Indifference..."

 

The Daily "Near You?"

South Jordan, Utah, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"What Can We Know?"

"What can we know? What are we all? 

Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, 

with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Gregory Mannarino, "We Are Out Of Time! Expect More War. The Economy Just Got Worse"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 3/18/25

"We Are Out Of Time! Expect More War.

 The Economy Just Got Worse"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Attritional Drone War"

"Attritional Drone War"

by The ZMan

"Prior to the start of the Ukraine war, it was assumed that the Russians, if they desired, could quickly smash the Ukrainian army. Russia is a big country with a big army and Ukraine is not as big, but few understood that it had a big army. At the start of the war, it had an army of 350,000, with a similar number in reserve. Fewer anticipated the hundreds of billions in NATO weapons and money. Everyone, including the Russians, expected a short war, but instead it is a long war.

One main reason for this is technology. The Russians badly miscalculated how the war would unfold, but they also failed to adapt to new technology, specifically the use of drones in frontline battles. Their first taste of drone warfare was the Bayraktar TB2 drones supplied by the Turks to the Ukrainians. This is a medium-altitude long-endurance vehicle that allowed the Ukrainians to precisely aim their artillery at Russian formations, as well as directly attack those formations.

The Russians have proven to be quick learners. They rushed to embrace the new technology and have now taken it in directions few anticipated. First person video drones are now the primary weapon in the Russian arsenal, used to not only attack Ukrainian men and material, but used to shape the battlefield. This new use of drones came to the fore in the Ukrainian Kursk offensive, which concluded last week with a stunning Ukrainian defeat.

The “Kursk incursion” as the Ukrainians called it, was an attack across the Russian border to gain control of the nuclear facilities in the Kursk region. There is a nuclear power plant there and a storage facility for nuclear weapons. It is unclear what weapons, if any, are stored there, but Ukraine wanted to gain control of it as well as the power plant for the purpose of nuclear blackmail. The Russians would either surrender or Ukraine creates another Chernobyl.

The Russians managed to stop the Ukrainian offensive, but instead of it becoming a stalemate or requiring the Russians to spend men and material to keep the Ukrainians bottled up, it became a killing field for Ukraine due to the Russian use of drones to police every square meter of the region. The air over the Ukrainian formations was full of drones twenty-four hours a day. Any effort to move men and material at any scale was detected and attacked by drones.

To understand how drones are now used by the Russian army and to a lesser extent the Ukrainian army, this Turkish YouTube channel provides video of drone attacks with a AI generated voice over. There are three things to notice. One is that the drone operators can fly these things into the tightest of spaces. This allows them to hunt for assets inside of buildings and hidden in wooded areas. These things are like a swarm of birds that have cameras and explosives.

The other thing is they can now operate at night. This is a Russian innovation that Ukraine has not matched. Russian FPV drones have night vision and infrared cameras, so they can spot men moving around at night. The “solution” to constant drone surveillance during the day was to move men and material around at night, but now there is no hiding from the drone swarms after dark. In Kursk, the Ukrainians were under twenty-four-hour surveillance and attack.

The third thing is the drones are essentially networked together either through the tether to the drone operators or through the over-the-air system. Fiber optic drones rely on a fiber optic cable to communicate with the operator. The operator is then connected to the Russian command and control system. The effect is that the drones in the sky have created a twenty-four-hour-a-day information space over the battlefield. This massive data collection system is then used to anticipate changes.

These parts of the evolving use of drones all came together in the stunning rout of the Ukrainians in the Kursk region last week. The Russians could accurately predict where Ukrainian men and material will be at all times, so they could plan the stunning move through the gas pipelines to put troops behind the Ukrainians in Sudzha. They could also be ready for when the Ukrainians reacted to hit them with drones and drone-controlled artillery and glide bombs.

Kursk has become a model for drone attritional war. Filling the sky with networked suicide and surveillance drones is the first step. This prevents the enemy from gathering their forces for an attack. Instead, they are required to spread out and hide everything from the ever-present drones. The next step is to use the drones to shape the activity of the enemy in order to create an opportunity. The final step is to use the drones as part of combined arms assault on the enemy.

Of course, the same rules apply to the attacker. Even though the Ukrainian drones are not as good and numerous as the Russian drones, they still have lots of them, which means the Russians must disperse their resources as well. The battle for Kursk quickly turned into two armies spread thin across a wide area in order to avoid becoming an easy target for drones. This is why it took seven months for the Russians to dislodge the Ukrainians from the area.

To understand how this changes war, imagine if two armies are only equipped with long bows and crossbows. One the one hand, the longbowman can attack any grouping of men on the other side and vice-versa. Everyone must hide in buildings and underground bunkers. On the other hand, small assault groups of crossbowmen go out to hunt the enemy in close quarter assaults. Once they secure an area, more men come into to take up positions.

This is the battlefield in the drone age. Tanks and armored personnel carriers still operate, but they are easily spotted by drones. Even those equipped with electronic warfare countermeasures are vulnerable. Often, they are simply used to transport men on a one-way trip. As soon as the vehicle is disabled by the drone, the men scatter before the drones finish off the machine. Armor is often just an expensive delivery mechanism for small groups of men.

This is why the Ukraine war drags on. On the one hand, the Russians are unwilling to lose men and machines on big assaults due to the threat of drones. On the other hand, they have adapted the new technology to slowly hunt small groups of Ukrainians and individual pieces of equipment. Since Ukraine is fixated on holding territory, this attritional drone war lumbers along at a snail’s pace. In Kursk, the Ukrainians lost about four hundred men a day to these small-scall attacks.

We are, of course, at the cusp of drone war, but it is not hard to imagine how this could change the nature of war. At the start of the technological revolution, technology was the great dis-equalizer. It gave America a massive edge over the rest of the world in terms of military power. Now, at the end of the technological revolution, technology is becoming a great equalizer. Cheap drones are turning expensive, high-tech weapons into liabilities and returning war to a battle of men and wits."

- https://thezman.com/