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Monday, July 14, 2025

"We Already Know The Solutions, We Only Lack The Will"

"We Already Know The Solutions, 
We Only Lack The Will"
by John Wilder

"I’m stuck in a conference room that smells like stale donuts and broken dreams. Okay, that sounds like a detective novel that ends up with the hot dame double-crossing the private dick over the insurance money and a bottle of bourbon, but that’s not this post. Really, it’s just a business meeting and the meeting is done. But since everybody in the building knows each other, the meeting is in the lingering phase where we’re solving all the problems of the world.

Apropos of nothing, I say, “You know, 37% of the elderly have been taken advantage of by foreign scammers.” I have no idea if this is true, but it’s very specific. I pause. “That means that there are 63% who are still available to be scammed, so if we’re not millionaires, it’s our own fault.”

The reality though, really does piss me off. Americans lost $12.5 billion in 2024. These aren’t just Nigerian princes with emails littered with the comical spelling errors, no they are also slick Mumbai call centers with intense marketing campaigns. I had heard an estimate (that I can’t find) indicating that upwards of 80,000 Indians worked in these call centers, all laughing as they entice American grandmas to go to Target™ to get gift cards.

It actually does make me quite mad. I lean forward, fed up. “The solution is and always has been dead simple. The NSA has these call centers mapped down to their curry orders and can tell you the last time Gupta changed his underwear. They know where they are. Trump could launch a BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile carrying 1,000 pounds of high explosive tomorrow into a call center. Turn it into rubble. Get on TV and say, ‘Another missile is on the way. Shut down the scam call centers.’

“When they don’t, another missile hits. Trump gets back on the TV. ‘Another one tomorrow. And the day after? We shut India off of the Internet and satellite communications. We mine the harbors. Your choice.’ The world would be stunned. The calls would stop.”

One of my friends said, “Well, that escalated quickly.” No, it didn’t. It was and is the obvious solution. It could stop tomorrow if someone had the spine.

Since Trump took office, he’s shown what spine looks like (with the exception of the Epstein papers). His border policies, travel bans, and tariffs weren’t just talk he did what he promised and got a rare federal budget surplus in June due to them. This is unlike every other empty suit before him who campaigned on “tough on (drugs, crime, illegals)” then promptly developed amnesia on day one in the Oval Office.

Our problems: drugs, terror, illegals, scams, and more all have simple fixes. The only thing missing is the will to implement the solution. We’ve got a laundry list of messes, and the solutions are the first thing you’d think of if you weren’t a spineless bureaucrat.

Drug Trafficking: Cartels pump fentanyl across the border, killing 100,000 Americans yearly.
Solution: Deploy the military to the border, treat cartels as enemy combatants. Drone strikes with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles slamming into stash houses or cartel overlord’s haciendas, streamed live by the White House at the top of each and every hour for a week, and I imagine that getting drugs across the border will be the least of the concern of what remains of the cartels. Repeat as necessary.

Terrorism: A stronger immigration screening policy and 9/11 would never have occurred.
Solution: Denaturalize radical aliens and ship them home. Make Somalians in Minnesota Somalians in Somalia again, and then sink any boat leaving Somali. Deport or detain without apology.

Illegal Aliens: Millions of illegals cost taxpayers $150 billion annually—schools, hospitals, welfare. Their foreign culture and zero desire to assimilate pushes the country onto the path of Civil War.
Solution: Arrest the CEO of any company employing illegals. Sentence for the C-Suite? A year for each illegal employed. Create Wilder’s Square Mile: a square mile, fenced camp on the border with Mexico. Illegals found will be dropped off there until processed, like an AirBNB® with no Wi-Fi. The border with Mexico is open, so they can leave if they want to. If the illegals don’t leave? Seize all of their assets – bank accounts, sneakers, cars, houses, anything they own is forfeit. End sanctuary cities with federal troops. One mayor in custody for insurrection, others comply.

Is all of this Constitutional? Well, most of it, probably. Thomas Jefferson set the precedent in 1801. Barbary Pirates, Muslim slavers and pirates from North Africa raided U.S. ships, enslaved sailors, and demanded tribute from our new nation. Jefferson, fresh in office, said “Enough, bitches.” Or something like that. But he had a secret weapon: Article II, Section 2 makes the president commander-in-chief to protect American interests.

Jefferson sent the USS Constitution to blast Tripoli’s ports, no Congress needed, and the Marines get a line in their song. By 1805, the pirates begged for peace, “Please, just don’t send more of those Marines!” All of the above echo Jefferson: act fast, hit hard, protect the Actual Americans. The Constitution’s fine with it; only spineless elites disagree.

Why then, do these problems persist? Here’s the dirty secret: the elites don’t really want to solve these problems. The solutions aren’t hard, literally your first instinct, the first thing you think of is the thing that will work. Drugs? Blow up a cartel. Terror? Sink a boat. Illegals? Deport ‘em, jail anyone who employs them. Scams? Missiles to Mumbai.

So, why aren’t these problems solved? In some cases, it’s because politicians are gutless and don’t want to anger India. I don’t care much about what India thinks, but that’s another post.

In other cases, there’s a collusion of the darkest motives of our political system. Illegals? The Chamber of Commerce crowd wants cheap labor to pluck chickens and make beds, wanting the TradRight to not take action. The GloboLeft love that the illegals swarm to states that vote Blue, and increase the number of members of Congress that come from, say, California.

The dame walks into my office – she’s got a pair of thirty-eights, and a pistol, too. I could smell perfume that cost more than I made in a month as she walked in. “John Wilder, I hear you’re a P.I. who . . . solves problems.” “I sure am, sweetheart.” I mean, I’ve found that you can solve almost any problem in the world with only three BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile carrying 1,000 pounds of high explosive."

"Warning: Something Horrifying Is Coming"

Noam Chomsky Thoughts, 7/13/25
"Warning: Something Horrifying Is Coming"
"You're about to watch a 48-minute motivational and eye-opening speech in the voice and spirit of Noam Chomsky, exploring the dangerous crossroads America is facing today. This video will challenge your understanding, awaken your conscience, and empower you to rise against injustice. This isn’t just a speech - it’s a warning and a moral awakening. Through piercing insight and profound inspiration, the video explores the looming collapse of American systems, the media’s manipulation, the rise of repression, and the path toward spiritual and societal renewal. If you care about justice, truth, and collective action - you need to hear this."
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "Expect Anything! Trump To Make 'Major' Announcement"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/14/25
"Expect Anything!
 Trump To Make 'Major' Announcement"
Comments here:

"Yesterday, in my click- Markets a Look Ahead Video we covered A LOT. Well, it just got bigger. President Trump is about to make a MAJOR announcement after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finished his meeting with US special envoy Keith Kellogg. Trump says that the US will be sending “very sophisticated” weapons to Ukraine.

Multiple other factors developing… We are in convergence territory. We now have this major announcement from President Trump on Ukraine, compounded by trade was escalation. Trump’s looming 30–50% tariffs on EU, Mexico, Brazil and Canada are set to begin August 1st, if no deals are made. Markets are already wobbling on this. Expect volatility across industrials, autos, and consumer goods.

Banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo) report earnings this week. Also Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, ASML, Tesla. I fully expect expect heavily massaged numbers and forward guidance spin. Any weak reports may be blamed on “supply chains” or “uncertainty over tariffs.” We are being gaslighted and psychologically tested at every level. They will continue to try to confuse the real picture.

The Epstein  files meltdown… Expect a major distraction. The pressure to bury this is immense and with that, be ready for anything. This is not just about Trump… the Epstein network involves global elites, other politicians, royalty, corporate giants, judges, military brass. Expect more lies, and be mentally and spiritually ready for a shock event. Be ready for anything…"
- GM

"Epstein Was An Israeli Agent"

George Galloway, 7/13/25
"Epstein Was An Israeli Agent"
Comments here:
o
Excerpt: "Matt Smith: One of the things I was thinking about with the whole thing is: what does it take to make these people, who have impeached themselves publicly recently by making claims about evidence that existed - and who have been champions for this cause, for transparency around this for so long - but again, some of these people have now publicly impeached themselves, like Pam Bondi and others, to make this kind of U-turn?

It is such a drastic U-turn, it implies something really scary to me. Because I don’t think you do this for self-gain. I don’t think you can be bribed into destroying yourself like this. I think fear is the only thing that could possibly motivate someone to do this. So there is something they’ve been exposed to that is so scary to them that they are willing to destroy their whole sense of identity - their reputation - over it. Fear is the only thing I can even imagine that would do it. And it’s got to be fear that probably most of us have never experienced.

I try to put myself in that role, and I think maybe the fear of watching my children be brutalized in front of me might make me do this. But other than that, I just can’t imagine it. I really can’t imagine. So I think the implications are actually pretty frightening.

Doug Casey: Yeah. I don’t see how Bongino in particular can live with himself. It’s like overturning his whole persona. Everybody knows these people are lying. The question is: why are they lying? Fear, of course - I think you’re right. Because no amount of money would do it. These guys have plenty of money. Bongino and Patel can’t be doing it to maintain their crappy government jobs. They don’t need that. They don’t need money. By doing this and discrediting themselves, Patel and Bongino are going to be marked men for the rest of their lives. Public frauds.

What’s going on? What are the secrets that somebody is trying to hide? Could it be that Trump himself is implicated with what Epstein was doing? Or are there so many high government officials and billionaires that are so heavily involved in really disgusting things that it would overturn all credibility in the US government and the US power structure? This is a big deal."
Full article is here:
o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 7/10/25
"Was Jeffrey Epstein a Mossad Asset?"

"What dark secrets lie beneath Jeffrey Epstein's web of influence? From intelligence connections to political protection, this episode peels back layers of one of America's most disturbing scandals.

When Florida prosecutor Alex Acosta stated that Epstein "belonged to intelligence," it opened a Pandora's box of questions. We explore the compelling evidence connecting Epstein to intelligence operations – from his Saudi passport to his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of confirmed Mossad agent Robert Maxwell. The interconnected world of Epstein extends to surprising places, including ties to then current Secretary of State Tony Blinken's stepfather.

The political manipulation surrounding the Epstein case reveals troubling patterns across party lines. Trump supporters were promised explosive revelations about an "Epstein client list" that would expose corrupt elites. Instead, the administration has retreated, with Trump himself dismissing questions about Epstein while clear evidence of their relationship exists – including NBC footage of them partying together at Mar-a-Lago. Meanwhile, Democrats consistently avoided highlighting these Trump-Epstein connections during campaigns, suggesting neither party wanted full exposure of this network.

Most revealing is how figures like Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino, who once claimed the Epstein files would "take down Democrats," now occupy powerful positions in an administration that shows more interest in immigration enforcement partnerships with private prison contractors than in exposing elite corruption. The episode ultimately challenges listeners to question a political system where accountability stops where powerful interests begin. What secrets remain buried in the Epstein case, and what does it reveal about the true priorities of those in power? Listen now and decide for yourself."
Comments here:
o
o
“We know they are lying.
They know they are lying.
They know we know they are lying.
We know they know we know they are lying.
But they are still lying.”
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"Economic Market Snapshot 7/14/25"

"Economic Market Snapshot 7/14/25"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
o
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: creditequity valuationfunding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United Statesother advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Job cuts and much more.
Commentary, highly recommended:
"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
And now... The End Game...
o

Sunday, July 13, 2025

"Just Remember..."

 

"Why Are Stores Closing In This Wealthy City? Retail Apocalypse Is Back"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 7/13/25
"Why Are Stores Closing In This Wealthy City? 
Retail Apocalypse Is Back"
Comments here:

"Alert: 24 Hours to Major Trump Announcement; 'NATO Missiles Will Rain on Moscow in August'"

Prepper News, 7/13/25
"Alert: 24 Hours to Major Trump Announcement; 
'NATO Missiles Will Rain on Moscow in August'"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "A Dream"

Full screen recommended.
Peder B. Helland, "A Dream"
"Beautiful Relaxing Music • 
Norwegian Nature & Violin, Flute, Piano & Harp Music"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Less than 500 light-years away the dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way. Top to bottom the frame spans about 2 degrees or over 15 light-years at the clouds' estimated distance. At top right is a group of lovely reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729, and IC 4812. 
A characteristic blue color is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The dust also obscures from view stars in the region still in the process of formation. Just above the bluish reflection nebulae a smaller NGC 6729 surrounds young variable star R Coronae Australis. To its right are telltale reddish arcs and loops identified as Herbig Haro objects associated with energetic newborn stars. Magnificent globular star cluster NGC 6723 is at bottom left in the frame. Though NGC 6723 appears to be part of the group, its ancient stars actually lie nearly 30,000 light-years away, far beyond the young stars of the Corona Australis dust clouds."

"The Heart of Humanity"

"The Heart of Humanity"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and we will come out the other side. The last thing most of us want to hear or think about when we are dealing with profound feelings of sadness is that deep learning can be found in this place. In the midst of our pain, we often feel picked on by life, or overwhelmed by the enormity of some loss, or simply too exhausted to try and examine the situation. We may feel far too disappointed and angry to look for anything resembling a bright side to our suffering. Still, somewhere in our hearts, we know that we will eventually emerge from the depths into the light of greater awareness. Remembering this truth, no matter how elusive it seems, can help.

The other thing we often would rather not hear when we are dealing with intense sadness is that the only way out of it is through it. Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and the faith that we will come out the other side. With courage, we can allow ourselves to cycle through the grieving process with full inner permission to experience it. This is a powerful teaching that sadness has to offer us - the ability to surrender and the acceptance of change go hand in hand.

Another teaching of sadness is compassion for others who are in pain, because it is only in feeling our own pain that we can really understand and allow for someone else’s. Sadness is something we all go through, and we all learn from it and are deepened by its presence in our lives. While our own individual experiences of sadness carry with them unique lessons, the implications of what we learn are universal. The wisdom we gain from going through the process of feeling loss, heartbreak, or deep disappointment gives us access to the heart of humanity."

"In A Nation Ruled By Swine..."

"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile - and the rest of us are f****d until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep."
- Hunter S. Thompson, "The Great Shark Hunt"

The Daily "Near You?"

Muncie, Indiana, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Each Must For Himself Alone Decide..."

Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
- Mark Twain

"Meredith's Letter To God"

"Meredith's Letter To God"
Posted on Quora

"Our 14-year-old dog, Abbey, passed away last month. The day after she died, my 4-year-old daughter, Meredith, was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so He would know Abbey when she got to heaven. I told her we could, and she told me what to write:

"Dear God,
Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her a lot. I’m glad you let her be my dog even though she got sick. I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and chase balls. I’m sending you a picture of her so you’ll know she is my dog. I really miss her.
Love, Meredith"

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith. We wrote, “To God in Heaven” on the envelope and added our return address. Meredith stuck several stamps on it, saying it would take many stamps to reach heaven. That afternoon, she dropped it in the mailbox at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had received the letter. I told her I believed He had.

Yesterday, we found a package wrapped in shiny gold paper on our front porch. It was addressed to "Meredith" in handwriting we didn’t recognize. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called "When a Pet Dies." Taped to the inside cover was the letter we had sent to God, still in its envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey and Meredith and this note:

"Dear Meredith,
"Abbey got to heaven safely. The picture helped, and I knew right away who she was. Abbey is not sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me, just like she stays in your heart. She loved being your dog. Since we don’t have pockets in heaven, I can’t keep your picture with me, so I’m sending it back in this book for you to keep and remember Abbey. Thank you for your lovely letter, and thank your mom for helping you write and send it. You have a very special mother. I chose her just for you. I send you my blessings every day, and I want you to remember that I love you very much. And by the way, I’m easy to find - I’m wherever there is love.
Love, God"

"This beautiful story is true."

"Uncoding Creativity in the Age of AI: What Makes a Great Poem, What Makes a Great Storyteller, and What Makes Us Human"

"Uncoding Creativity in the Age of AI: What Makes a Great Poem, 
What Makes a Great Storyteller, and What Makes Us Human"
By Maria Popova

"I once asked ChatGPT to write a poem about a total solar eclipse in the style of Walt Whitman. It returned a dozen couplets of cliches that touched nothing, changed nothing in me. The AI had the whole of the English language at its disposal  -  a lexicon surely manyfold the poet’s  -  and yet Whitman could conjure up cosmoses of feeling with a single line, could sculpt from the commonest words an image so dazzlingly original it stops you up short, spins you around, leaves the path of your thought transformed.

An AI may never be able to write a great poem  - a truly original poem  - because a poem is made not of language but of experience, and the defining aspect of human experience is the constant collision between our wishes and reality, the sharp violation of our expectations, the demolition of our plans. We call this suffering.

Suffering is the price we pay for a consciousness capable of love and the loss of love, of hope and the devastation of hope. Because suffering, like consciousness itself, is a full-body phenomenon - glands secreting fear, nerves conducting loneliness, neurotransmitters recoiling with regret - a disembodied pseudo-consciousness is fundamentally incapable of suffering and that transmutation of suffering into meaning we call art: An algorithm will never know anything beyond the execution of its programmed plan; it is fundamentally spared the failure of its aims because failure can never be the successful execution of the command to fail.

We create - poems and paintings, stories and songs - to find a language for the bewilderment of being alive, the failure of it, the fulness of it, and to have lived fully is not to have spared yourself.

In his exquisite reckoning with what makes life worth living, Nobel laureate Elias Canetti captures this in a diary entry from the late spring of 1942. Under the headline “very necessary qualifications for a good Persian storyteller,” he copies out a passage from an unidentified book he is reading: "In addition to having read all the known books on love and heroism, the teller of stories must have suffered greatly for love, have lost his beloved, drunk much good wine, wept with many in their sorrow, have looked often upon death and have learned much about birds and beasts. He must also be able to change himself into a beggar or a caliph in the twinkling of an eye."

A generation before Canetti, the philosopher-poet Rainer Maria Rilke articulated the same essential condition for creativity in his only novel, reflecting on what it takes to compose a great poem, but speaking to what it takes to create anything of beauty and substance, anything drawn from one life to touch another:

"For the sake of a few lines one must see many cities, men and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to partings which one has long seen coming; to days of childhood that are still unexplained, to parents that one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was a joy for someone else); to childhood illness that so strangely began with a number of profound and grave transformations, to days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars - and it is not yet enough if one may think of all of this. One must have memories of many nights of love, none of which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor, and of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, closing again. But one must also have been beside the dying, one must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the fitful noises."

Couple with Carl Jung on the relationship between suffering and creativity, then revisit Annie Dillard on creativity and what it takes to be a great writer and Oliver Sacks, writing thirty years before ChatGPT, on consciousness, AI, and our search for meaning."

"How It Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "None of Us are Safe! Shocking Danger on Our Roads"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/13/25
"None of Us are Safe! 
Shocking Danger on Our Roads"
"Shocking revelations about the foreign truck crisis are putting all of us at risk! In today’s video, we’re tackling pressing issues affecting road safety, American truckers, and how recent decisions are making our highways more dangerous. With over 876,000 foreign trucks allowed into the U.S., many without meeting proper driving standards, the consequences are staggering. From unsafe practices to skyrocketing costs for everyday goods, this crisis impacts everyone. I also dive into stories of fraud, rising unsold home numbers, and even a wild "speed roommating" trend. It's a jam-packed episode you don’t want to miss. "
Comments here:

"Most Ignorance..."

"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. 
We don’t know because we don’t want to know."
- Aldous Huxley

"Arizona’s Homeless Crisis 2025: Skyrocketing Numbers & System Collapse"

Full screen recommended.
Street Stories Homeless, 7/13/25
"Arizona’s Homeless Crisis 2025: 
Skyrocketing Numbers & System Collapse"
Comments here:

"Fear, Corruption, and the Coming Collapse of the American System"

"Fear, Corruption, and the Coming 
Collapse of the American System"
by Doug Casey's Take

"Matt Smith: All right. Good morning, Doug. Lots happening these days. I’d love to get your take on - I think starting with the Epstein case. Case closed, apparently. What do you think? What’s going on?

Doug Casey: Well, where to start on this thing? It’s so ultra disappointing, so embarrassing, and so serious that it’s hard to figure out where to begin. But it’s been obvious to me, from watching these things, that this could only end very, very badly. And it’s shameful the way Bongino and Patel - who made a point of saying how honest they were and how they were going to reform things - have just backed off and said there’s nothing there. And then this woman - Bondi. That was equally inexplicable. She says she’s got all this stuff on her desk, ready to go, and it turns out she doesn’t have it after all. There’s clearly corruption here. It’s very bad.

And it occurred to me how similar this might be to the famous Dreyfus case in France, around the turn of the 20th century. I became, to use a French phrase, a cause célèbre, and overturned the government. This has got the potential to do the same thing.

Matt Smith: One of the things I was thinking about with the whole thing is: what does it take to make these people, who have impeached themselves publicly recently by making claims about evidence that existed - and who have been champions for this cause, for transparency around this for so long - but again, some of these people have now publicly impeached themselves, like Pam Bondi and others, to make this kind of U-turn?

It is such a drastic U-turn, it implies something really scary to me. Because I don’t think you do this for self-gain. I don’t think you can be bribed into destroying yourself like this. I think fear is the only thing that could possibly motivate someone to do this. So there is something they’ve been exposed to that is so scary to them that they are willing to destroy their whole sense of identity - their reputation - over it. Fear is the only thing I can even imagine that would do it. And it’s got to be fear that probably most of us have never experienced.

I try to put myself in that role, and I think maybe the fear of watching my children be brutalized in front of me might make me do this. But other than that, I just can’t imagine it. I really can’t imagine. So I think the implications are actually pretty frightening.

Doug Casey: Yeah. I don’t see how Bongino in particular can live with himself. It’s like overturning his whole persona. Everybody knows these people are lying. The question is: why are they lying? Fear, of course - I think you’re right. Because no amount of money would do it. These guys have plenty of money. Bongino and Patel can’t be doing it to maintain their crappy government jobs. They don’t need that. They don’t need money. By doing this and discrediting themselves, Patel and Bongino are going to be marked men for the rest of their lives. Public frauds.

What’s going on? What are the secrets that somebody is trying to hide? Could it be that Trump himself is implicated with what Epstein was doing? Or are there so many high government officials and billionaires that are so heavily involved in really disgusting things that it would overturn all credibility in the US government and the US power structure? This is a big deal.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I think it’s a really big deal. And I think it shows what we’re really dealing with here. Because I don’t know what exactly would be revealed by revealing all the Epstein stuff, but the motivation of the people who are willing to destroy themselves in order to cover it up implies something insidious, something dangerous, something scary - probably something beyond our comprehension.

Doug Casey: It must be that. And haven’t these people thought this out a little bit? It’s really simple. Patel and Bongino - I don’t know anything about Bondi—but if you double back like this, it’s obvious that you’re being intimidated or lying. What did they think was going to happen? So it must be that they’re being threatened on a really serious level. That’s the only thing I can figure.

Matt Smith: That’s the only thing I can figure too. So, the other thing - I have basically just a whole list of random news items. I think maybe they’re connected, maybe they’re not connected, but I think they’re interesting. I want you to comment on them.

The second one is that the US Army Corps of Engineers is active today in essentially rebuilding a whole bunch of Israeli defense structures. You know, it’s not just that we’re sending weapons. It’s that that we’re actively involved. The US Army Corps of Engineers is actually rebuilding infrastructure to accommodate the Israeli Air Force’s new refueling aircraft and helicopters, as well as constructing new headquarters for their 13th Naval Commando Unit, and numerous other projects. This is costing billions of shekels, and it’s all according to official documents from the US Army Corps of Engineers published online.

Doug Casey: Well, perhaps this relates in some way to the Epstein scandal. Why is Israel, in effect, being turned into the 51st state—and treated even better than a state? The money that’s being directed there—couldn’t the Army Corps of Engineers be helpful to the Carolinas or Texas instead?

Israel is getting a lot more attention than actual states in the US. This is frankly criminal. Look, I’ve never been anti-Israel per se. It’s just another nation-state. I understand why the Jews started it, and all that. I get it, and I’ve always been sympathetic, especially since I’m not sympathetic to the Muslim world. But this? What’s the matter with Trump? He looks like he’s under Netanyahu’s thumb.

Maybe it ties into the whole Epstein thing. Because apologists for Israel - like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro - are rabid. They’re frothing and drooling at the mouth when anything is said that might possibly be counter to Israel’s interests. Wait a minute - who are they working for? What’s going on here?

Matt Smith: And in addition to that, we have Trump’s announcement that we’ll be sending more weapons to Ukraine.

Doug Casey: Yeah. Got to continue the war. A pointless war. It should be completely obvious to everybody that Russia is going to win. Instead of ending the war Trump is making it much worse. Everyone has forgotten the reason they invaded is because they were provoked.

Trump is continuing the war at great expense. Young men are getting killed and maimed pointlessly. It’s crazy. You can’t justify it. You can’t rationalize it. Just like you can’t rationalize attacking Iran - a country on the other side of the world that’s never done anything to the US - just because it helps the Israelis. This isn’t our problem, but we’ve made it a much bigger one by getting involved.

There are lots of other problems in Trump world. Like the fact that there have been no indictments handed down, and there should have been by now. There have apparently been no investigations on anything, although I’ve heard they’re supposed to be starting something on Comey. It looks like DOGE is dead or dying. Musk has quit in disgust. That was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Trump regime.

Matt Smith: Well, maybe it goes back to our first point: that there’s something out there scaring the hell out of enough people that they’re willing to do things that shock us all, perhaps. And incidentally, my friend from Ukraine - she lives in Kyiv - told me that a lot of the recent Russian attacks there have targeted recruitment centers. These are the conscription centers, and apparently, there was a lot of praise among some people in Kyiv over that. But some officials came out and denounced it as treasonous to be happy about the destruction of those recruitment facilities. Just a side note, but it shows what happens to a country in a state of war. It becomes a very dangerous place to live.

Doug Casey: Yes. The rumors have been floating around for some time that it’s not just recruitment - they’re actually sending out press gangs to round up anyone who looks like good cannon fodder on the front lines. And with the nature of warfare now, “cannon fodder” is the right term. With drones advancing in technology almost weekly, if you’re a soldier on the front lines you’re dead meat.

Matt Smith: Yeah, it’s awful. The next thing that stood out to me - among everything else that’s happening - was this big press announcement today by the former governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem. And this is great news: apparently now, in TSA it’s no longer necessary to take off your shoes.

Doug Casey: That’s good. It means flying won’t be quite as degrading. But I suppose you’re still going to have to take off your belt and everything else.

Matt Smith: Yeah, and still go through screening. And if some alarm goes off, or you’re randomly selected, you still get the pat-down by some agent of the state. So yeah - it’s still not good. But this is what’s being trumpeted as progress, I guess, for the American people.

The other thing that seems totally unrelated - but I think it’s noteworthy - is that over the weekend, there was this incredible anti-gringo sentiment. Really, riots or protests in Mexico City. And I don’t know if these things are organized - it seems like most of these big groups are organized by someone, you know, Soros types to sow discontent - but it just shows that the world is becoming a lot less friendly and a lot more risky across the board. And I don’t know if you saw any of those signs, but they were saying things like “Kill a gringo,” “Gringo go home,” all that kind of stuff. Pretty nasty environment.

Doug Casey: Apparently this was all in Mexico City. I’ve been to Mexico City a couple of times in recent years, and it never struck me that there were a lot of gringos there. If you want to find gringos in Mexico, you go to San Miguel de Allende - full of gringos - or better yet, down to Cabo, which is absolutely full of them. No protests there. Why in Mexico City, of all places? Who could care enough about a few gringos running around in a city of 15 million? It doesn’t make any sense.

Matt Smith: Yeah, it doesn’t. But I think it’s just another sign - like, I don’t think these big movements are organic. Just like BLM wasn’t organic. Just like Antifa seems inorganic. It seems to me there’s another effort to divide people, to create conflict. And this is one that - at least for Americans living abroad - you have to be aware of. You have to be aware of it. You’d think, of all people, Mexicans could see the comedic irony in “Gringos go home” when the US is full of tens of millions of Mexicans.

Doug Casey: I know. Don’t these people have any self-awareness at all? Which, of course, leads me to believe that there’s some group that’s trying to create chaos. And I think you were getting into this. The fact that foreigners, Canadians and certainly Europeans, really don’t want to come to the US anymore. It feels like an unfriendly place. Your electronic devices might be searched, you could be forced to unlock them and show what’s there. And if they don’t like it, maybe they’ll do something to you. Maybe they’ll throw you in a prison for a few days while they sort your papers out.

This has happened to several Canadians already, which seems really out of line. Everything considered, if I were a foreigner, I wouldn’t want to come back to the US. In fact, as an American, I’m not sure I want to go back to the US. The summer’s still young, and things could still get wild and woolly.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I’m not going. And with the new requirement - if you’re applying for a particular type of visa, I think it’s just a visitor or educational visa - you now have to unlock all your social media accounts. And in the statement, as I understand it, it didn’t just say list all your social media accounts - it said unlock them. Which makes me think that Palantir is already hard at work and has probably identified you and all your accounts, and they just want to make sure it’s all visible. And if you don’t fully disclose, they can drop you into a Kafka-esque nightmare, where they accuse you of not disclosing everything, and now you’re really in trouble.

And there’s this other thing going on - this hasn’t gotten national news, and I don’t know why, because it’s a huge deal - there are coordinated attacks on ICE agents by armed, masked, body-armored, well-armed, apparently leftist groups that are unhappy with the deportation agenda. You can just see this escalating in wild ways as it continues. And the budget for ICE grew 800% in the “Big Beautiful Bill.” It’s now something like nearly $75 billion - up from around $8 billion.

Doug Casey: That’s a gigantic increase in budget. And even that is dwarfed by the $200 billion increase in the military budget. Further proof that the “Big Beautiful Bill” is just a tax-and-spend bill. That’s really what it is - and it’s not in any way improving the freedoms of the average American.

I wonder if Michael Yon could be right when he says that many thousands of the illegal migrants are actually surreptitious military agents who can be activated at the right time. It’d be shocking to imagine there wouldn’t be some of them in there. If you run an intel agency somewhere and you see an opportunity - “Hey, now’s our chance to slip some in” - you’d almost be abdicating your duty not to do it.

Matt Smith: If, for instance, I were running a foreign intel agency and I wanted to create chaos in the US, I might tell some of my guys already here to track down ICE agents - not hard to find - and assassinate them. At that point, the US government would have to strike back. And since they don’t know who did it for sure, it becomes a dragnet and a lockdown for everyone. That’s a good way to do it.

Doug Casey: Yes, agreed.

Matt Smith: Another thing, for years there’ve been these citizenship-by-investment programs. And I think you were really the instigator of a lot of that thinking. These programs let you essentially buy a passport as a backup option. But now they’re under a lot of scrutiny. These passports are potentially losing their ability to travel visa-free to the EU and the US. They’re considering proposals like mandatory 30-day residency requirements and other changes to try to assuage the concerns of larger state blocs. I think these programs are dead. I don’t think they’ll work anymore - if they ever really did. They just won’t work now.

Doug Casey: Yeah. I think the idea of, in effect, renting a citizenship so you can travel - is flawed. Every passport says right on it that it’s the property of the issuing government. It’s not actually yours. It can be taken away at any time.

These rental-country options were okay when there were only a few and it wasn’t a big deal. But now it is a big deal. There are a lot of them out there. And you’ve got to admit, many of these microstates, like all those tiny Caribbean countries… why are they recognized as real governments? Like, come on. They have the same votes in the UN General Assembly as the US or China or the EU? And I speak as someone who doesn’t believe in nation states. Not that the UN serves any useful purpose. In fact, it’s a negative influence and should have been disbanded years ago - just like NATO.

Travel documents that you buy issued by these countries - they’re going away. I still think everyone ought to have a second or third passport or citizenship, but getting one from these little Caribbean microstates? That’s on its way out. You’re probably just wasting your money.

Matt Smith: Maybe with a country like Turkey, where they still have a program - it’s more expensive, but at least it’s a bigger state with some real heft. They can’t be bullied around the way a place like St. Kitts can.

Doug Casey: That’s right. Turkey is a real country. You’re right - they can’t be pushed around.

Matt Smith: So maybe that’s still a valid option. But if nothing else, getting a legitimate residency outside your home country—I think the imperative is growing. And if you don’t have one, I’d do some work to get it. Some of them are easy to get. Mexico, for example. Although, I’m personally a little concerned about the spreading anti-gringo sentiment there.

Doug Casey: The US government is a problem everywhere. I noticed you’re not at your usual station for our calls. So - where are you today?

Matt Smith: I’m in Brazil today. I’m in São Paulo. Just wanted a little warmer weather, a bigger city environment, better shopping. I can get my full blood panel done here - which I like to do regularly for preventative health - for about $150. It costs me over $2,000 to do the same thing in the US. And it’s easier to do here than in Uruguay.

It’s cheap, too—very affordable for that kind of stuff. And the cuisine in Brazil is different from the Spanish-speaking countries, which is a nice change as well. We had Peruvian last night and Thai for lunch yesterday. I mean, I love Uruguay - it has many redeeming qualities. A broad palate is not one of them. You know, they like certain things, and you don’t get much that survives beyond that very well. So that’s also kind of a - well, it’s a good opportunity. Not that it matters that much, but it’s nice to have when you can get it.

The other thing—this relates to the economy. I listened to you talk on another podcast about the economy and the state of things, and what could happen from here. One thing of note - it’s not hugely substantial - but the M2 money supply, which just means the money supply continues to be printed, although there are lots of ways to measure the money supply.

And, you know, these are US numbers, and you can’t trust any government numbers. But officially, the money supply continues to grow - 19 months in a row now - still expanding. That means there’s still inflation. According to the official numbers, it’s expanding at 4.5% year-over-year, which isn’t terrible, but still, we grew the money supply by 30% during COVID. So yes, this is better - but I think it’s a sign that inflation is the only way they think they’re getting out of this game, economically. One of the things they asked you was: Is there any way out? Is there any way out of the economic troubles the US faces? And I’d just like to ask you the same question.

Doug Casey: Well, if I were the president of the US - in other words, if I were Trump - what would I do to stop the country’s decline? It would take radical action to reduce the size of the government. Trump is not doing that. The action he should take would be devastating to large parts of the economy - the parasitic parts. Is it possible to pay off the national debt without destroying the value of the currency? Yes, but I think they want to pay it off with pocket change by making the dollar worthless. I think that would be the worst alternative. But it’s the one we’re following.

Matt Smith:
Yeah. That seems to be the path.

Doug Casey: Listen, I’ve said in the past that I’d consider something as radical as defaulting on the national debt. And people say, “Well, how can you do that? The banks would fail. Insurance companies own a lot of bonds. It would be a daisy chain of problems. People couldn’t get their money out of the banks because the banks wouldn’t be there,” and so on.

Well, I suppose. But I always like to look at the bright side, as you know. And the bright side is, if you defaulted on the national debt your children and grandchildren can avoid becoming indentured servants to pay it off.

Default on the national debt - and yes, I know it sounds outrageous, ridiculous, un-American, all those things - is going to happen one way or the other. But if you defaulted on it, all the real wealth in the world would still exist. The factories, the farms, the businesses, the technologies - they’re not going to vanish just because the creditors are stiffed. Governments do it all the time because they’re essentially criminal enterprises. And it would punish the cronies who’ve been enabling the State, with its wars and gifts to the political class. The currency at that point would shift to a commodity like gold, maybe supplemented by Bitcoin. All the real wealth would still be there. It would be a boon for the average guy..

Matt Smith: It would mostly punish - well, isn’t most of the debt now not even owned by foreigners? Maybe it’s 50/50? About half foreign-owned, half American entities - banks, insurance companies, pension funds?

Doug Casey: I think the breakdown is overwhelmingly domestic, not foreign. The people who own US government debt have, in effect, been financing the terrible things the US government has been doing. They’re codependent with it. One of the reasons to default on the debt: it would punish the groups that have enabled all the terrible things the US government has done. So yeah, we’d be freeing up the next generations. We’d be punishing the people who have been financing the US government. It would also enable taxes to be radically decreased, because at the same time you’d have to abolish lots of government agencies.

As outrageous as it sounds, if you defaulted on the debt honestly -  insofar as any default can be “honest” - as opposed to gradually and dishonestly through currency debasement, it’s the better option. I once had a collection of worthless currencies and defaulted government bonds. They make interesting decorations. So that’s my solution. But this is all just academic speculation. They’re not going to default on it overtly.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I think the argument against defaulting honestly is that it would really hurt a lot of Americans too - pension funds, retirement accounts, insurance companies, and so on. And so the argument for doing it dishonestly is that you avoid the pain for people here and now - by putting the burden on future generations. But that’s a lie, because the truth is the standard of living has been destroyed in America. The middle class is shrinking dramatically. People are suffering. And the amount of inflation they need at this stage is way higher than this four and a half percent.

And we’re going to get much higher inflation than this in order to get out of it. I mean, my best guess is you’d have to devalue the dollar - effectively, compared to something like gold - by about 90% from here, just to have any chance of inflating your way out. And in that case, everyone in the here and now gets destroyed anyway - including the retirees, the people with pensions, insurance companies, and everything else. Isn’t that true?

Doug Casey: Yes, it is. But worse things have happened. Look at what happened to Germany during World War 2. Look at what happened to Japan during World War 2. Their real wealth was actually destroyed—obliterated and burned down. That wouldn’t be the case in the US.

It’s hard to do this gradually, on a gradient. This is a mistake I think Milei has made in Argentina. He should have defaulted on the Argentine national debt, because it’s not nearly as central to the standard of living of the average Argentine as the US national debt is to Americans and the world at large. He should have done that. He didn’t. Now he’s stuck with an albatross around his neck. But I don’t want to nitpick with Milei, because he’s made tremendous improvements. Still, that would have been my suggestion.

Is there any way out of this thing gradually? Well, I guess it’s possible - but you’d have to radically cut back US government spending and abolish a lot of agencies. That would allow you to cut taxes, which would generate more money to pay off the debt. But like I said, I’m against paying off that debt at this point.

Matt Smith: And you’d have to radically increase the growth rate of the US, too, at the same time.

Doug Casey: Right. Well, you would - by getting rid of regulations and by eliminating the debt service. Of course, the economy would grow and expand. But at this point, it’s funny - foreigners are still investing in the US, as risky as it is. That’s because it’s the best place they can think of. Other places have even more problems than the US. Europe, for example, is a genuinely sinking ship. I still think the European Union is going to break up - catastrophically. I wouldn’t put a nickel into Europe right now as a long-term investment.

Matt Smith: I can’t recall the exact statistics, but there’s some measure of the amount of assets owned by foreigners in the US, and that number has been going down substantially over the last few months. They’ve been pulling capital out of the US - maybe out of concerns about what Trump might do, or other things. So they are finding other places to put it. Maybe it’s in gold. Maybe it’s in their local markets. I don’t know.

I mean, European stocks have gone up recently. So it seems like that shift is happening. The US is no longer the go-to destination for travel, for investing your money. Those things are degrading over time, aren’t they?

Doug Casey: Yes. And it’s no longer the beacon of freedom that it once was. People are very suspicious of it now. Foreign governments and institutions don’t want to hold the hot potato of US government debt denominated in dollars. On top of that, citizens don’t want to keep their capital in their own countries either, where they’re subject to the depredations of their governments. So, if you’re a productive person or a productive company - where do you go in the world? I think the options are becoming more and more limited.

Matt Smith: Yeah. I don’t know where they’re putting that capital, but the foreign outflows are definitely happening. We’ve been putting it in gold. And gold, as we speak, is around $3,350 per ounce - very close to its all-time high. But as you’ve pointed out, if the dollar were to be redeemable at a fixed rate with gold, it would need to be priced at $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, even $50,000 an ounce. Who knows what the number is?

Doug Casey: Wouldn’t you say that in order for us to inflate our way out of the debt, whether or not we eventually fix the dollar to gold, we’ll end up in the same place?

Matt Smith: Exactly. If we were to inflate our way out of the debt, that would necessarily mean gold would have to rise compared to the dollar. - to that kind of level.

Doug Casey: I think so. Even though gold is reasonably priced right now relative to everything else - you’re right. The one thing I think is certain is that the average guy - the people in the lower classes, the middle class, even part of the upper middle class - they’re the ones who are going to be hurt. It’s not the guys really at the top who are going to get hurt. They have the political connections. They get the money first. They’re wired in. They’re going to do fine. As the dollar is inflated out of existence, it’s going to hurt the average American. There’s no way around it.

Which is why default would be better. It would cause real losses. It would cause some bank failures, and who knows what the knock-on effects would be - but the piper must be paid at some point.

Matt Smith: And another bright side of defaulting on the debt is that people would say, “God, I’ve got to cut back on living on credit. I’ve got to cut back on consumption. I’ve got to start producing things and building assets.” That’s what causes a boom - when people say, “Enough of this lying around. I’ve got to start doing something.”

Doug Casey: I’m all for that. But it’s unlikely to happen that way, because of the way the government is going - but that’s what should happen. It would be better after, admittedly, a period of chaos. The markets have to be cleansed of ingrained distortions.

Matt Smith: What do you think of Trump’s tariff ideas? He said something yesterday about putting a huge tariff on copper. Did you hear that?

Doug Casey: Yes, and copper went up about 10% or 15% overnight. I haven’t checked the copper stocks I own to see if they’ve responded yet. The problem is that Trump is acting like a schizophrenic. He’s completely unpredictable. Many of the things he does are just totally irrational - almost psychotic. It makes it impossible for businessmen to plan. He can change things overnight - this or that - and your whole plan goes out the window.

Matt Smith: Yeah, it’s impossible. The guy’s turning into a disaster, I’m afraid. It’s not just that he’s an egomaniac. It’s not just that he can never admit he made a mistake. He’s turning into a megalomaniac.

Doug Casey: I’m a bit afraid of the guy - and I say that as someone who was glad he won instead of Kamala.

Matt Smith: Yeah. My gladness in that regard is definitely fading, because now we’re looking at what Trump did versus our fears of what Kamala might have done. She’s inept - maybe she wouldn’t have done much at all. I don’t know. Still, if I voted - which I don’t - I probably still would have voted for Trump. But at this point, we’re comparing fears of Kamala with the actual realities of what Trump is doing, and it’s not great. He talks about wanting to bring back manufacturing to the US, especially under this BBB bill - not “Build Back Better” but “Big Beautiful Bill.” They’re both triple-Bs, ironically.

Doug Casey: Funny coincidence.

Matt Smith: Yeah. The bill is mostly focused on military-related things. But it becomes impossible to plan any kind of new manufacturing when the price of copper might go up 500%. How does that work? You can’t rebuild America if you can’t even build a cost structure to plan around.

Doug Casey: Of course, Trump would say, “Well, we can mine copper in the US.” Yes, we can - if we can find a big enough copper deposit, then raise billions to develop it, and understand that it’ll take 10 years before cash flow starts - if it ever starts.

Matt Smith: Well, I heard our buddy Frank Giustra is looking for great projects in the US to help support this. Frank is smart, and it’s good that he’s focused on it. But even then, it takes a long time to turn anything around.

Doug Casey: Exactly. And who wants to make a multi-billion dollar investment when chaos could overturn everything tomorrow morning? One of the key components to real progress is the rule of law - stability. Without stability, you can’t plan or build anything meaningful.

Matt Smith:
Yeah, I agree entirely. It’s a wild time. And when you look at all these seemingly unrelated factors together - what’s your overall impression?

Doug Casey: We’re in for tough times. I really think so. I still believe there’s a possibility of a genuine civil war in the US - not like the “unpleasantness” from 1861 to 1865. It’s not going to look like that. It’s going to be more like an informal guerrilla war.

Matt Smith: And we might be seeing early signs of that already, with these targeted attacks on ICE agents.

Doug Casey: Entirely possible. Like I said, if I were a malefactor running a foreign intelligence agency - one of the many countries that don’t like the US and want to weaken it - that’s exactly the path I’d take.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I agree.

Doug Casey: And I’ll add - since the seasons are opposite here in the southern hemisphere - when it’s cold and snowy in the US, you can escape to South America, where it’s warm and balmy.

Matt Smith: That’s right. October is actually a very pleasant month in Uruguay. A great time to be there.

Doug Casey: Absolutely.

Matt Smith: All right, we’ll leave it there for today, Doug."