"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.
In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats,
so you can know who you are, what you can rise from,
how you can still come out of it."
- Maya Angelou
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Thursday, April 23, 2026
"Above All..."
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. "
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"
o
"Cause even with good people, even with people that you can kinda trust, if the truth is inconvenient, and if the truth doesn't, like, fit, they don't believe it. "
- Marie Adler
"Get To Meijer Now! Massive Grocery Sales! One Dollar Items Everywhere!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 4/23/26
"Get To Meijer Now! Massive Grocery Sales!
One Dollar Items Everywhere!"
Comments here:
"Why 37% of Americans Can't Cover a $400 Emergency"
Full screen recommended.
Independent Financial Historian, 4/23/26
"Why 37% of Americans Can't Cover a $400 Emergency"
"In 1973, the average American worker had powerful financial shock absorbers: union wages with cost-of-living adjustments, guaranteed pensions, affordable fixed mortgages, and high-paying manufacturing jobs. Today, 37% of Americans can't even cover a $400 emergency. What exactly happened to the working-class safety net over the last half-century? Discover the 50-year economic history of how these financial shields were methodically stripped away and replaced with fee-driven financial products. We explore the four specific strategies that actually helped families survive the brutal inflation of the 1970s - and why mastering a skilled trade remains the last untouchable safety net in today's economy.
This video is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a financial advisor. Please conduct your own due diligence and consult with a professional before making any investment decisions. The video is based on publicly available research from multiple online sources; accuracy may change over time. AI was used for creating this video. Please do your own research, verify details with qualified professionals."
Comments here:
"Buyers Can't Take It Anymore, Housing Market Collapse Accelerating"
Full screen recommended.
Michael Bordenaro, 4/23/26
"Buyers Can't Take It Anymore,
Housing Market Collapse Accelerating"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Happening Now! 3.2 Million Repossessions"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 4/23/26
"It’s Happening Now! 3.2 Million Repossessions"
"The auto industry is undergoing a massive shift as the Federal Trade Commission cracks down on deceptive pricing practices, forcing dealerships to disclose full, all-inclusive vehicle prices upfront. Hidden fees like documentation charges, destination costs, and surprise add-ons are being targeted, with dozens of dealerships already receiving warnings and fines. This move could completely reshape how cars are bought and sold, eliminating one of the most frustrating parts of the car-buying experience. At the same time, a financial storm is building beneath the surface. Auto loan delinquencies are surging, and repossessions are on track to exceed 3.2 million - levels not seen since the Great Recession. With record-high car payments, rising interest rates, and extended loan terms, millions of Americans are struggling to keep up. In this video, Dan breaks down what’s really happening in the car market, why it matters, and what it means for your financial future."
Comments here:
18 Shocking Facts That Prove That The U.S. Economy Is In Far Worse Shape Than Most People Realize"
by Michael Snyder
"The economy has been the number one issue for U.S. voters for several years in a row, and it isn’t because things are good. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low, inflation is starting to accelerate once again, mass layoffs are being conducted all over the nation, and delinquencies and foreclosures are soaring. Nobody can dispute any of the facts that I am about to share with you. We have an enormous economic mess on our hands, and now the crisis in the Middle East threatens to plunge the entire global economic system into chaos in the months ahead. In other words, conditions are not good now and the outlook for the future is not promising at all. The following are 18 shocking facts that prove that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than most people realize…
#1 Consumer confidence in the United States has fallen to an all-time record low… Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday. The university’s headline index of consumer sentiment tumbled to 47.6, down 10.7% from the March survey to its lowest on record. Current conditions and expectations indexes also saw double-digit monthly declines.
#2 Student loan delinquencies have exploded to a level that we have never seen before…Student loan delinquency has climbed to roughly 25 percent of borrowers with payments due during the first year of the current Trump administration, according to new analysis. Researchers from The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers said the sharp rise in missed payments, nearly triple the pre-coronavirus pandemic rate, has pushed millions into default risk and lowered credit scores, warning of broader financial fallout for households and colleges facing higher nonpayment rates.
#3 The monthly cost of owning a home has risen to absurd heights… All in, the median monthly housing payment for an owner - including mortgage principal and interest, taxes, homeowners insurance, and estimated maintenance expenses - has ballooned to more than $2,800, a staggering 72% jump from $1,635 six years earlier.
#4 Foreclosure filings were way up in 2025, and so far in 2026 we are 26 percent above last year’s pace…A fresh wave of foreclosures is sweeping across the United States, with more than 118,000 homes caught up in the crisis in just the first three months of 2026. It is a grim omen – with echoes of the run up to the 2008 Great Recession – that financial pressure is mounting for thousands of families. New Attom data shows 118,727 properties were hit with a foreclosure filing in the first quarter – up 26 percent on the same period last year.
#5 The number of Americans that cannot pay their credit card bills in full each month has reached another record high…More than 111 million people could not pay off their monthly credit-card bills in full at the end of last year, marking a new record, according to new estimates from consumer advocates. That’s roughly 2 million more people unable to pay in full compared to the end of 2024, they noted. These card holders now owe banks more than $1 trillion - and most are inching closer to maxing out their credit lines, according to researchers at the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, and Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit group that advocates for borrowers.
#6 As the cost of living soars, people are pulling money out of their 401(k) plans at a record rate in a desperate attempt to make ends meet… More Americans are digging into their retirement savings because of financial emergencies. Last year, a record 6% of workers in 401(k) plans administered by Vanguard Group took a hardship withdrawal. That is up from 4.8% in 2024 and a prepandemic average of about 2%, according to Vanguard.
#7 Food prices continue to escalate, and the price of coffee has more than doubled since 2019…A 16-item basket of groceries made up of staples like eggs, bread, and meat - no truffle cheese in our cart - rang in nearly 43% higher in March compared to the same month in 2019. A few key categories are behind the rise: Coffee prices have more than doubled since the pandemic, while beef prices have soared more recently.
#8 For the first time ever, the price of a pound of ground beef is now higher than the federal minimum wage in many parts of the country…The cost of a pound of ground beef has hit a major threshold. Depending on where you shop, the grocery staple likely costs more than the federal minimum wage. Money analyzed ground beef prices at seven of the most popular grocery chains across the U.S., finding that 1 pound of the typical 20% fat ground beef costs between $6.49 and $8.96. Organic, grass-fed and leaner varieties tend to cost much more. On the other hand, the federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 per hour.
#9 The Federal Reserve is telling us that 42.5 percent of recent college graduates were underemployed at the end of 2025… Historically, college graduates have tended to find jobs faster and experience lower unemployment than workers without a degree. But recent data suggests it’s now harder to find a job that fits your skill set once you graduate.
According to the Federal Reserve of New York, 42.5% of recent college graduates (aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher) are underemployed as of December 2025 — the highest rate since October 2020. Underemployment refers to working in a role that underutilizes your skills, usually at a lower wage or in a part-time position.
#10 We continue to see retailers close locations all over the nation at a staggering rate. For example, Grocery Outlet has announced that they will be permanently closing 36 stores… Grocery Outlet – the California-based retailer famous for selling products at steep discounts – says it will close 36 stores nationwide as part of a sweeping restructuring plan designed to improve profitability. The company revealed the move while reporting its latest financial results, saying it had conducted a ‘strategic, financial and operational analysis’ of its entire store network.
#11 Not to be outdone, Papa John’s has announced that they will be closing approximately 300 restaurants… Pizza chain Papa John’s said it plans to close hundreds of underperforming restaurants in North America by the end of next year. “We have identified approximately 300 underperforming restaurants across North America that are not meeting brand expectations or lack a clear path to sustainable financial improvement, as well as locations where we can effectively transfer sales to a nearby restaurant,” Papa John’s Chief Financial Officer Ravi Thanawala said last week during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
#12 One of our “too big to fail” banks has decided that now is the time to cut about 2,500 jobs… Morgan Stanley is slashing about 3% of its global workforce - roughly 2,500 jobs - across its key divisions, as the Wall Street giant realigns priorities amid a banner year for profits, sources familiar with the matter have told The Post. The cuts hit the Ted Pick-led lender’s investment banking, trading, and wealth management units, the people close to the situation said.
#13 EBay will be conducting yet another round of layoffs. This time around approximately 800 workers will get the axe… EBay said Thursday it is cutting about 800 roles, or 6% of its workforce, in the latest round of layoffs at the e-commerce company. “We are taking steps to reinvest across our business and align our structure with our strategic priorities, which will affect certain roles across our workforce,” an eBay spokesperson said in a statement. “We are grateful for the contributions of the employees impacted and are committed to supporting them with care and respect.”
#14 At one time Wendy’s was doing great, but in 2026 it will be permanently shuttering hundreds of locations…Fast-food chain Wendy’s will shutter 5% to 6% of its stores nationwide in the first half of 2026 as part of an ongoing downsizing plan. Interim CEO Ken Cook first told investors in a Nov. 7 quarterly earnings call that the company would be closing a “mid single-digit percentage” of its nearly 6,000 locations nationwide.
#15 Meta, the parent company of Facebook, apparently intends to let nearly 8,000 employees go in the very near future…Meta is preparing to cut thousands of jobs as early as next month, with deeper layoffs expected later this year, according to a report. The tech giant intends to slash roughly 10% of its global workforce - or nearly 8,000 employees - in an initial round of cuts on May 20, sources told Reuters. The company is also planning additional layoffs in the second half of the year, though details including timing and scope remain unclear, the outlet reported.
#16 From coast to coast, thousands of supply chain workers have been told to hit the bricks in recent weeks…A wave of layoffs across U.S. supply chains - from EV battery plants and auto parts factories to warehouses and rail terminals - has affected nearly 4,000 workers in recent weeks, according to company announcements and WARN filings across multiple states. Recent WARN filings and company announcements show job cuts across at least a dozen companies in states including California, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Alabama.
The largest layoffs in the recent wave are coming from the automotive and industrial supply chain. SK Battery America said it laid off 958 workers - about 37% of its workforce - at its electric vehicle battery plant in Commerce, Georgia, citing shifting EV demand as automakers reassess production plans.
#17 According to Newsweek, the following list of companies have all announced layoffs during the month of April…
Blue Shield of California
Zenith Logistics
Perdue Foods
ERN Services
Boston Electrometallurgical Corporation
First Brands Group
GEODIS
MicroVision
IPIC Theaters
Goulet Trucking
CJ Logistics
L3Harris
Supernal
Heritage Bank of Commerce
Angel City Brewery
VCA Bay Area Veterinary Specialists
Monroe Operations
Meteor Creative
Viskon-Aire Corporation
C3.ai
Safari West
Main Street Sports Group Cincinnati
Raley’s
Koppers
Wells Fargo
Lucid Group
Hornblower Cruises and Events
Charles River Laboratories
Wescom Financial
Bluum USA
CHS Northwest
Catalent
Liberty Dental Plan
GXO Logistics
#18 The total unfunded obligations of the U.S. government have now reached a staggering total of 130.12 trillion dollars… On March 17, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury quietly released the federal government’s fiscal year 2025 financial report. Buried in its tables is a number that should dominate our national conversation – but doesn’t: Total federal obligations now stand at $130.12 trillion.
That figure is not a rounding error or a political talking point. It is derived from the government’s own accounting – combining the reported negative net position (driven largely by bonded debt) with the present value of projected shortfalls in major social insurance programs. Yet public debate continues to revolve almost exclusively around the much smaller figure of Treasury securities outstanding.
There is no way that anyone can spin the facts that I have just shared with you to make them look good. So if conditions are already this bad, what will things be like six months from now if the Strait of Hormuz is still closed? We really are in unprecedented territory, and the truth is the economic conditions could easily get a lot worse during the months ahead."
Bill Bonner, "Vengeance, Thy Name Is Virginia"
"Vengeance, Thy Name Is Virginia"
by Bill Bonner
"To me belong vengeance and recompense;
their foot shall slip in due time."
- Deuteronomy
"Yesterday, a visit to the doctor took us to a waiting room with this sign attached: photo above. Gosh, we hope it doesn’t come to that...but you never know. Meanwhile, returning to our usual beat, Dan comments on how Virginia went from being a sovereign state to becoming a Deep State.
From 2006 to 2014, Abigail Spanberger was a CIA officer. She was elected to Congress in 2018. Suddenly it was the Democrats that were the party of National Security...having taken over the intelligence complex in the Obama years.
She becomes governor of Virginia last year. Republicans angry with Trump stayed home. Once in office, the governor and her cronies introduce a mid-census redistricting map that changes Virginia from a 6-5 state in the House to a 10-1 Democrat state... all the districts now originate in Arlington and Alexandria...where the bulk of well-paid Federal employees reside. The new map was passed by a referendum 51-49%. A circuit court judge has ruled the referendum unconstitutional and invalid. The case is off the Virginia Supreme Court. Democracy!
This is probably best understood in context. In summary, what goes around, comes around...and kicks you in the derriere. Republicans sought to give themselves a boost by redrawing electoral maps in Florida, Texas and North Carolina. Their feet must have slipped; Ms. Spanberger proved that both parties can play that game.
Donald Trump went further, trying to stretch federal power to control elections. There is absolutely no justification for it in the Constitution. Elections are left to the states. The feds have nothing to do with them.
Trump ignored the Constitution, proposing to create a national voter database - to be managed by the Post Office. But therein hangs the horror of Democratic Revenge. Trump greatly expanded White House power. Instead of waiting for Congress to discuss, debate and vote on a new law, he issued ‘executive orders’ - many of which were monumentally important. Some got us into wars. Some cost trillions of dollars. Some made huge changes to the world’s commerce. He fired off 255 of these edicts so far in his second term, as of April of this year. And now, whoever takes his place will have much more ammunition than his predecessors.
A Democratic victory in the House, in November, will turn The Donald into a lame duck. And then, House committees will have a field day...especially as Trump enters his 80s...making him look like a corrupt, doddery old fool. And it could get worse. A giant anti-Trump snapback in ’28 could result in a Democratic landslide.
Trump might save himself and his party by bailing out now...getting a pardon...and letting a more ordinary fellow - Vance - bring an air of calm and stability back to the nation. Then, he might have a good chance of winning in ‘28. The alternative - a Democratic resurgence - will be a time to settle scores. A time for retribution. Pay backs. Vengeful Democrats may be eager to scrub out any vestige of the Orangeman.
But here’s the critical part: they will use their newfound power as Trump did - to punish their enemies, further their own pet projects and buff out their own authority. Don’t expect more than a token revival of trans or DEI issues. They’ve seen that they are widely unpopular, even with traditional Democratic groups. And they are not critical to holding and wielding power.
Instead, our new Caesars will follow in the footsteps of the last one. Trump pushed for tax cuts on tips, Social Security, veterans, and overtime. He promised ‘dividend checks’ and ‘warrior dividends,’ stimmies, tax refunds and Trump accounts. How long will it take the Democrats to add a new Universal Basic Income to the giveaway list? And how long will it take them to approve big budgets for the Deep State’s key industries - the Pentagon and Homeland enforcers - as well as increases for Social Security, Medicare, affordable housing, and kindergartens? One thing you can count on: the decline of the degenerate empire will continue."
“I once saw a snake having sex with a vulture,
and I thought, It’s just business as usual in Washington DC.”
- Jarod Kintz
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
"Alert! War Will Restart In Days, It's Going To Be Much Worse"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 4/22/26
"Alert! War Will Restart In Days,
It's Going To Be Much Worse"
Comments here:
"The Times, They are a Changin'... and Changin' and Changin'"
"The Times, They are a Changin'...
and Changin' and Changin'"
by David Haggith
"President Trump redefined his indefinite ceasefire today to a definite 3-5-day timeframe, if 3-5 days can be called definite. Yesterday the schedule was “until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” Now it’s 3-5 days.
It happens that 3-5 days is also just the right timeframe for the arrival of the third US aircraft carrier to the gulf region. The USS George HW Bush will be back on the prowl within hunting distance of Iran’s shores by this weekend. So, the now more defined Schmeasefire extension may have just been a tactical retreat to get ready for the next round in the Iran bakeoff … or it may just be enough time for Trump’s indigestion from his last TACOfest to settle down so he can eat more TACO.
Iran stopped two cargo ships from skirting the bend in the Hormuz to escape the gulf today by firing upon them. At the same time, it skirted the US Navy with dozens of oil-laden ships of its own by going dark, turning off their transponders. Apparently that simple trick worked. Most were on their way to market from Iranian ports but a number of the tankers were headed into Iranian ports to reload - all the exact kind Trump said he would completely stop.
Donald Trump’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is unraveling after dozens of Iranian vessels secretly slipped past US surveillance, even as the regime tightened its grip on the critical oil passageway by attacking three tankers.
Approximately 34 Iranian oil tankers have slipped through the blockade, with 19 vessels exiting the Persian Gulf past Trump’s navy and another 15 ships entering from the Arabian Sea toward Iran, according to the Financial Times. Six of those tankers were smuggling Iranian crude oil totaling 10.7 million barrels, estimated to be worth approximately $910 million in revenue for the regime…
This all happened despite President Trump declaring the barricade a “tremendous success.” So much winning it is hard for the Prez to announce it all as quickly as it isn’t happening. You have to get the news in before the news comes out that it didn’t, or you’ll never have the chance to brag about it.
Definitive victory hard to find: I noted yesterday there have been no goal successes in Trump’s war with Iran. Objectives in this war have always been as clear as the definitely indefinite deadlines and indefinitely definite extensions of those deadlines. We have more on that in another article today:
An army of yes men, in thrall to Donald Trump’s shifts of temper and short attention span, is hampering any prospect of peace with Iran. And with the president’s indefinite extension of a ceasefire [now more definitely indefinite] being announced on Tuesday, a day after he threatened to resume bombing, the White House’s claims of success are running out of road, insiders say.
In the past 48 hours alone, the US president claimed that a deal was “close”, before then saying it was out of reach. Typifying the confusion, JD Vance, the vice-president, was still at the White House, after Trump said on Sunday that his deputy was heading to Pakistan for talks with Iranian negotiators… “No one in the administration seems to know what’s going on. What the plans are. What we’re even aiming for now. It’s all just a giant clusterf... and there’s zero accountability, either,” a Trump-world source told The Telegraph.
Even Trump’s closest aides are struggling to keep pace with his updates on Truth Social, which have generated a lot of noise but no discernible diplomatic progress…Having long passed the “four to six weeks” he said the war would take, the constant mixed messaging and exaggerated claims about a deal point to one reality: there is no clear plan. What once looked like a calculated campaign to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb has deteriorated into daily updates with no consistency.
Part of the problem may be due to the war’s religious mandates as cast by the prophets of presidential profits: Pete Hegseth, the defense war secretary, has framed the combat operations as divinely sanctioned, repeatedly invoking religious rhetoric removed from pragmatic tactics or war doctrine. The president has even claimed that Hegseth does not want the war to end, telling journalists, “Pete didn’t want [the war] to be settled”, and that he was one of the first to throw support behind the initial bombing campaign.
Indeed, Pentagon Pete and his Priesthood of Apocalypse have been telling soldiers that the purpose of the war is to bring on Armageddon so Jesus will return sooner. (See “The President’s Prophet and the Pentagon’s High Priest Predict ARMAGEDDON!”)
An objective like that might explain why it is hard for the Trumpkins in the White House to pin a timeframe on the war or its various deadlines because, as people often quote from the prophets, “No man shall know the day nor the hour” of Jesus’ return. There could, therefore, be a number of extensions needed along the way to keep realigning the times of the man in the Pentagon with the time of God.
The president, of course, is a skilled author of chaos. “His posts are what are causing the chaos,” the diplomat said. “It’s good and bad but the bad has major effects. Behind every single tweet there is a reason for posting, often at the stock market.”
Many of the time changes in this war seem to have aligned much better with the timing of massive bets in the stock market, as has been reported now several times, leading to an investigation on insider trading in the White House. Trump says one thing about a deadline, and stocks trade one way. Then he makes a surprise announcement a day or two later, changing the deadline, and that sends stocks careening in the opposite direction. The one thing that has operated like clockwork is that, each time, about fifteen minutes before Trump posts his major reversal, hundreds of millions of dollars in bets are cast in favor of the market reversing, which it always does. These have been great trades for those with the privilege to make them.
Maybe that is why the war is being fought as it is. It’s great for swinging the market wildly and betting on the swings right before you know the next announcement is coming to make it swing the other way. The people with privilege are making bank on the war.
It’s not been so great for the war: Behind the presidential podium in Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, Trump addressed the nation and told the US that its military objectives were almost complete and that the war was “very close” to being over. Yet, 21 days later – and 52 days since the first strikes were launched – the same roadblocks remain. (More to follow below on the biggest and least-recognized danger for oil in Trump’s on-and-off-again approach.)"
Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'"
"Doug Casey on Tax Day, Inflation, and the War on the Middle Class"
"Doug Casey on Tax Day, Inflation,
and the War on the Middle Class"
by International Man
"International Man: Tax Day just passed on April 15th. What does it say about a society when productive people must spend part of every spring calculating how much tribute they owe the State?
Doug Casey: It's said that nothing is certain except death and taxes. But let's reserve a conversation about the inevitability of death for another day.
Taxes are not only unnecessary for running a civil society, but evil (Click here for a free copy of "Market for Liberty"). Nobody discusses the moral dimensions of taxation. People only talk about vacuous technical details. Are taxes too high or too low? Should the rich be taxed more? How should taxes be spent? People accept the institution of the State, with its coercion, taxes, and inflated currency, as part of the cosmic firmament. What passes for a philosophical discussion is whether you should support the equally loathsome Democrats or Republicans.
The "powers that be" actually want to destroy the middle class. That’s not something they’d say, but the elite would prefer a society with a small number of themselves supported by a sufficient number of proles but without a troublesome middle class. They don’t like having to rub shoulders with masses of hoi polloi when they visit St Mark’s Square in Venice or Machu Picchu in Peru. They want just enough service personnel around to make it an enjoyable experience. The elite see the middle class as an enemy and a risk to their high status. They agree with Lenin, who said the middle class should be ground between the millstones of taxes and inflation.
Lenin understood that taxes made it hard for the proletariat to accumulate capital. And since their savings are in fiat currency, inflation - a more subtle form of taxation - destroys the value of whatever they manage to save.
The State, as Mao said, comes out of the barrel of a gun. Since it’s based on coercion, it’s only natural that some form of socialism, or at least fascism - state capitalism - is their preferred way to organize society. Currency inflation, income taxes, and debt have enabled governments to get completely out of control. The prognosis is not good.
International Man: There seems to be growing public discontent over taxes. Do you see that as healthy skepticism, or the early stages of people realizing the system itself is fundamentally predatory?
Doug Casey: I'd like to believe that the average person is starting to understand that the State itself is the problem. But that would be overly optimistic. Americans have been indoctrinated over the years to think that government is benevolent, that it’s "we the people". They get to vote every four years and have the illusion that they can change things. But really, it's only a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. In the last election, the Uniparty offered Boobus Americanus the choice between Kamala Harris, simultaneously an ideological communist and a loopy dingbat. And Donald Trump, who is increasingly revealing himself as a megalomaniac and state capitalist in the tradition of Benito Mussolini. Perhaps, assuming there’s an election in 2028, we’ll be offered a choice between Josef Stalin and Adolph Hitler.
International Man: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said Americans could get a "real wage increase" by adjusting their withholding. What are your thoughts on this? Does this tap into a growing public feeling that taxes have gotten so high that keeping more of your own paycheck now feels like relief?
Doug Casey: It was clever of the government to initiate withholding taxes in 1943, as a "temporary" wartime measure. Since then, the average American not only doesn’t have to write a check to the government on April 15th, but typically gets money back from the government. Scott Bessent proved himself intellectually dishonest and a liar, phrasing an adjustment in withholding as a wage increase. But it’s what should be expected from a member of the elite, a shill for the Uniparty.
It’s part of an overweening narrative of lies. The great COVID hysteria stole trillions of dollars from society. But many people learned to love and rely on the government more, as a friend and protector, when it gave them piddling relief checks. Some believe AI will create mass unemployment; there's a movement to institute UBI or Universal Basic Income. That’s just great. It will relieve millions of any lingering notions of personal responsibility. The sheep will believe that State welfare is natural, necessary, and good.
International Man: How long can the middle class survive being squeezed between higher taxes and rising inflation before it’s simply bled out of existence?
Doug Casey: Government as an institution is genetically programmed to grow. Bureaucrats move up to the next pay grade by getting more people to supervise, which requires more taxes to enable all the wonderful things that the government does. The prime directive of all living things, whether we’re talking about amoebas, individuals, corporations, or governments, is: Survive. Unfortunately, since governments don’t produce, the only way they can survive (barring conquering and looting a foreign country) is to tax, borrow, and inflate their fiat currencies. The middle class - not the proletariat or the elite - bears the burden. The State destroying the middle class, the most productive part of society, is like the parasite destroying its host.
International Man: Why do so many Americans still tolerate crushing taxes when the government’s real talent seems to be wasting capital and punishing productivity?
Doug Casey: Most Americans have betrayed the idea of America. Americans have been thoroughly indoctrinated with collectivist philosophy over many generations. They've come to conflate the State with society, thinking that they're the same thing. In fact, the State is a dead hand on society and the enemy of the common man. Now, in the 21st century, most Americans are directly or indirectly reliant upon the government. If the government collapses under its unrepayable debt, and its currency loses all value, I doubt Americans will see the State as the problem. Perversely, they’ll see it as the only possible solution. They’ll clamor for a much stronger government offering more benefits, run by a Big Man who seems to have all the answers.
What can you do about this accelerating trend? April 15th has passed, and you’ve calculated how much you owe the State to tighten the noose around your neck. You should be both angry and ashamed. I certainly am. We do what we can, but it’s not much. We know that protesting too loudly or not paying enough will result in bankruptcy or incarceration.
I’ve offered palliatives in the past, and I expect to do so in the future. But increasing, or at least preserving, your personal wealth doesn’t solve the bigger problem - namely, that you're being hunted by a giant predator, slowly eaten by a parasite. And that predator is getting hungrier, the parasite is becoming more virulent. What’s the ultimate solution? Nothing, I fear, that’s either safe or legal."
Musical Interlude: 2002, "Through the Rainbow"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "Through the Rainbow"
Beautiful...
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Some spiral galaxies are seen nearly sideways. Most bright stars in spiral galaxies swirl around the center in a disk, and seen from the side, this disk can appear quite thin. Some spiral galaxies appear even thinner than NGC 3717, which is actually seen tilted just a bit. Spiral galaxies form disks because the original gas collided with itself and cooled as it fell inward. Planets may orbit in disks for similar reasons.
The featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a light-colored central bulge composed of older stars beyond filaments of orbiting dark brown dust. NGC 3717 spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 60 million light years away toward the constellation of the Water Snake (Hydra)."
Chet Raymo, “Strange”
“Strange”
by Chet Raymo
“In a review in the “New York Times” Book Review, Daniel Handler writes: “And strange? Well, let’s get this straight: All great books are strange. Every lasting work of literature since the very weird “Beowulf” has been strange, not only because it grapples with the strangeness around us, but also because the effect of originality is startling, making even the oldest books feel like brand new stories.”
Strange: Out-of-the-ordinary, unusual, curious. “The strangeness around us,” says Handler. There is a paradox here. What could be less strange than the world around us? It is the same world that was here yesterday, and the day before that. More to the point: It is a world ruled by law. Inviolable causal bonds. That’s what makes science possible.
And yet, and yet. I walk wary. Strangeness lurks on ever side. Strangeness leaps out of every pebble in the path, every wildflower, every spider web flung between weedy stalks. In the midst of the utterly ordinary the extraordinary abounds. Nothing is so commonplace as to be common. The strangeness of the world, as in literature, has its source in the head, in the convoluted interaction of mind with world. Strange, that we should be here, strangers in a strange land, pilgrims on our own yellow brick roads where nothing is ordinary because everything is perceived through the filter of a unique consciousness.
And strange? Well, let’s get this straight. I hope never to lose the capacity to see the strangeness in the familiar, the curious in the everyday, the exception in the unexceptional.
“I do not expect a miracle,
or an accident,
to set the sight on fire...”
wrote Silvia Plath. Just being here is enough. Just being here is surpassing strange.”
o
"There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 93 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."
- Douglas Adams
"Don't Be Brain Dead - In Other Words, Think For Yourself"
"Don't Be Brain Dead -
In Other Words, Think For Yourself"
by Robert W Malone MD, MS
"Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think."
- Thomas Edison
"The “Gell-Mann Amnesia effect” was coined by Michael Crichton, MD to describe the experience of encountering unreliable information in main stream media and the “approved narrative” in your area of expertise, and knowing by first person experience that this narrative is wrong. And then suspending your own critical thinking skills and trusting these same type of “experts” (legacy/mainstream “approved” media) in another area outside of your expertise.
His point was that one must use critical thinking skill even when outside your core competencies. Crichton writes: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward - reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
In other words, think for yourself. As we transition into a new era of another war we must think for ourselves. Government(s) will want to control the narrative. They will control how main stream media and big tech respond to this crisis. Do not fall for the dominant paradigm, but instead do your own thinking. Dig deeper. We are so lucky to live in an era of alternative media. As much as the government hates it and those of us who look for “truth,” we still have this ability to think for ourselves and to find information that is not readily available on MSM.
This morning, while I was having breakfast with my wife Jill, we were talking about our personal finances. As I sipped coffee, I said to her “I don’t know enough about economics to make an assessment on crypto currency, how the situation in Iran will affect world economies, and the global push to transition from fiat money to digital currency.“ In so many words, she said to me that I had actually spent my whole life studying politics, investing and global economies as a way of living in the world. So why in the world would I now think that I was incapable of making an analysis of the current economic situation? And then the punchline- I needed to get going and do more research into the subject. She is right, I was being intellectually lazy. More than that, I was letting the legacy main stream media and pushed propaganda take my mind. I was giving over my critical thinking skills to MSM.
“Gell-Mann Amnesia” is exactly the trap I had fallen into. It happens all the time. Back in the day of the “founding fathers”, 250+ years ago, people did not have the luxury of being intellectually lazy. You had to think for yourself. That is what is so different about a more rural life. The problems that crop up are constantly changing, and they are very much in the present. You have to solve them yourself. That reality is what gave rise to the United States of America, as a country and as a culture.
The United States must re-create an army of critical thinkers. It is how We the People take back our power. We must find candidates for elected office who think for themselves, and we need to work to elect them. Now is the the time to not accept mediocracy and corruption in our elected officials. And no more WEF-trained hacks that do what they are told by non-US, non-elected third parties.
Elements of the population are revitalizing their core belief system to fight the heavy-handed governmental edicts coming from the globalized public health deep state. They recognize that big pharma and the World Economic Forum acolytes that backs it has infiltrated every level of our government and virtually all “world leaders” from the Western “Democracies”. They recognize that corporatism and totalitarian thinking guided by the WEF has become the norm for many elected officials. That these officials have been trained by the WEF. This must stop. The army of critical thinkers that is emerging with the Great Awakening has to support this effort in every way possible. Why? Because public health is just the “camel’s nose”; the WEF has great plans for us in all aspects of our lives!"
"The Illusion Of Freedom..."
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
- Frank Zappa
"It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials, as if existence had ceased, facts had vanished and only the frantic negatives uttered by officials and columnists gave any clue to the reality they were denying."
- "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand, 1957
The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Return”
“The Return”
“Suddenly the window will open
and Mother will call,
it's time to come in.
The wall will part,
I will enter heaven in muddy shoes.
I will come to the table
and answer questions rudely.
I am all right, leave me
alone. Head in hand I
sit and sit. How can I tell them
about that long
and tangled way?
Here in heaven mothers
knit green scarves;
flies buzz.
Father dozes by the stove
after six days' labor.
No - surely I can't tell them
that people are at each
other's throats.”
- Theodore Roethke
"Blockade"
"Stuck in the Strait of Hormuz"
"Blockade"
by Robert Gore
"The world is threatened by a blockade more deadly than Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. That blockade is the refusal among the West’s ruling class to allow entry of any thoughts not conforming to their prejudices, slogans, and unattainable objectives. Their minds are more tightly sealed than Hormuz or Bab-el-Mandeb ever has been. In their credentialed arrogance they preen about their intelligence. They are fools repeatedly rushing in where no angel would tread.
If President Trump’s Iran adventure represents what now passes for his and his administration’s mental processes, the U.S. and the world are in grave danger. This fiasco in progress has bypassed every marker of intellectual proficiency. It offers no cognizance of history, geography, or military reality, no recognition of past mistakes, no lessons learned, no acknowledgement that their may be things about which its perpetrators are ignorant. It’s bereft of elementary common sense, much less wisdom tempered by experience and humility.
Trump is not playing with a full deck. Not only are his mental processes visibly deteriorating, but he’s morally compromised in every way possible. His abject servility to Netanyahu, Israel, and the American Jewish lobby may well be due to their ruthless blackmail. He is leading the U.S. to humiliation and defeat that will spell the end of the last vestiges of its failing empire.
That fall may come to be regarded as the first phase of the Age of Chaos. Many of us will be probably be alive to see the culmination of this first phase, but the entire Age of Chaos will probably play out long after we’re all dead. An empire must have the ability to expand its dominion and to subjugate the people within it. Both expansion and subjugation have become problematic.
The American empire is a confederation constructed after World War II. Unlike the Roman empire, its lifespan will be measured in decades, not centuries. The U.S. confederation has been unable to expand its dominion to North Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or most of the Middle East. The exception to the latter is the imposition of the Zionist state of Israel, but that “success” may ultimately lead to the downfall of both Israel and the U.S. empire. The one unambiguous success has been the incorporation of Warsaw Pact nations after the fall of the Soviet Empire. That incorporation has reached its limits with the confederation’s attempt to absorb Ukraine, which may well fail due to Russia’s opposition.
Notwithstanding this litany of mostly failure and the obvious difficulties inherent in an effort to subjugate Iran, Trump and Netanyahu went ahead with what was within a few weeks a readily apparent fiasco. There are, as Jeffrey Sachs and others have pointed out, disturbing indications of megalomaniacal insanity in both men. Failing empires get the leaders they deserve; the fall of the Roman empire had its crazy emperors
Empires are inherently offensive. Sustenance comes from plunder; they must grow or die. The problem for the U.S. and imperialism in general is the yawning disparity between the costs of offensive and defensive warfare and the emerging dominance of asymmetric, or guerrilla, warfare. Historically, guerrilla warfare has been the weapon of the weak, usually defensively employed. The problem for would-be invaders is that the weapons of the weak have become so effective against the weapons of the strong (assuming nuclear weapons are off the table) that it’s stymied offensive warfare. The former are orders of magnitude cheaper than the latter - $30,000 drones are taking out multimillion dollar aircraft, tanks, and seagoing vessels.
Recent history is replete with examples that only fools and madmen (i.e. Trump and Netanyahu) ignore. Exhibit A would be the Russia-Ukraine war, which featured the debut of the newest “star” of asymmetric warfare: drones (See “The Ants New Weapon,” Robert Gore, SLL, June 17, 2025). That war has settled into a World War One-style battle of attrition as drones and artillery have made advancement for either side difficult and costly. New drone-based tactics and counter-tactics evolve almost daily with only measured progress by the Russians; certainly not what they expected when they began their offensive over four years ago. And this is in eastern Ukrainian territory that’s Russia friendly!
Exhibit B would be Yemen’s Houthis, whose closure of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait at the southern end of the Red Sea was a test drive for ally Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthis have punched well above their weight, waging often effective land, aerial, and naval warfare against Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, and the U.S. They are part of the Axis of Resistance and receive both tangible and rhetorical support from Hezbollah and Iran. The U.S. government alleges that they also receive support from the Russian, Chinese, and North Korean governments.
The Houthis have employed increasingly sophisticated drones and missiles, many of which have been supplied by Iran. President Trump’s Operation Rough Rider, which launched air and naval strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen; a subsequent cease fire forced by Houthi attacks on more than 190 ships, and Trump’s dubious declaration of victory were a preview of U.S. and Israel’s two subsequent attacks on Iran and their attendant lipstick-on-a-pig propaganda.
The foundation of guerrilla warfare is decentralized cells, operating with a high degree of autonomy from central command. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iranian government has adopted this guerrilla strategy, named Mosaic, as its mode of defensive warfare. Iran has been turned into 31 autonomous operational zones with substantial drone and missile capabilities. Thus, killing most of Iran’s formal leadership and extensive bombing, particularly of Tehran, did not achieve the stated objective: a quick Iranian capitulation. Nor did it prevent a lethal Iranian counterstrike.
Guerrilla warfare works because it engenders chaos against forces attempting to either impose order or their own brand of “managed” chaos, from which order will supposedly emerge. The Iranians have certainly engendered chaos in the Middle East, and if order emerges, it will apparently be on their terms. Most important, Iran could exercise control of the Strait of Hormuz with its sovereignty intact and greatly enhanced influence in the region.
The U.S.-Israel alliance is confronted with a choice. It can recognize the epochal reality currently unfolding: short of nuclear attack, invasion and traditional offensive warfare are being rendered virtually obsolete. The implications of full reality recognition would be enormous. The U.S. would have little or no influence in the Middle East, perhaps withdrawing completely (other than commercial transactions), while that of nearby powers Russia and China would expand.. The petrodollar arrangement from which the U.S. has so greatly benefitted would be over. The development would herald the end of the American empire and the possible ascendancy of Russian and Chinese-led multilateralism.
That would have its salutary aspects for the U.S. Psychologically, it’s way past time for a well-deserved comeuppance. Economically, the empire is an unaffordable luxury for a government $39 trillion in debt. Politically, the nation has enough problems at home without creating more for itself abroad.
However, the outlook for Israel would be bleak. For decades it has fomented chaos and division in the Middle East to reduce the chances of unified Islamic opposition against it. An Iran that has defeated the U.S.-Israel alliance and become the dominant power within the region would be Israeli and American Zionists’ worst nightmare. Israel’s continuing existence would be in question. Not necessarily because Iran would acquire nuclear weapons, if it doesn’t already have them. Rather, the small Jewish state will stand revealed as militarily vulnerable, and it has many actual and potential enemies in the Middle East. That fact suggests that the alliance won’t choose reality recognition, but rather nuclear nihilism.
The Sampson Option is Israel’s well-known strategy should it be confronted with circumstances that its leaders feel threaten its existence. They would activate Israel’s nuclear weapons - if Israel’s going down they’ll take the rest of the world with it. It may have enough nuclear bombs to do so. The Israelis characterize the Sampson Option as a deterrence strategy, and if push came to shove nobody knows if they’d press the button. However, the apocalyptic rhetoric spouted by Netanyahu and his cohort, and American Christian-Zionists like Mike Huckabee, is not reassuring. If the Israel-American alliance opts for nuclear nihilism, global chaos is assured. The continuation of Homo Sapiens is not.
Regardless of the alliance’s choice, increasingly amplified chaos is in the cards. Even if the impossibility of maintaining an empire is fully, if begrudgingly, recognized, the American empire’s dissolution will be chaotic. Its satrapies will be left to scramble for alternative military and economic arrangements. Accommodations will have to be made with the global majority as centuries of Western domination draw to a close.
That’s not to say that multipolarity among the global majority will be any kind of nirvana. The ever-strengthening forces of decentralized chaos will be impossible for any government to contain. Power always corrupts; multipolarity won’t abolish rivalry among nations and venality among their rulers. Russia and China, the leaders of the multipolar bloc, are currently led by exceptionally adroit authoritarians; their successors probably won’t be as adept. Governments, as coercive political arrangements, are incompatible with human freedom. As such, they’re never permanent, and today’s tyrannical behemoths are well past their sell-by dates.
Chaos may be most intense within the U.S. Much of its apparent strength rests on the shakiest of foundations. Decisive defeat in the Middle East will undermine the military “glue” that has supported the U.S. since World War II and its fiat dollar since 1971. Then there’s the exponentially mounting debt. Those two factors will eventually obliterate U.S. financial markets. The burgeoning chaos reflects the mental chaos playing out in so many American minds - apocalyptic Christian-Zionist dispensationalism, woke, transhumanism, “art” and “culture” that are neither, elite depravity, and who knows what other mental and moral depredations (it’s hard to keep track). These are the ingredients for uncontrollable chaos.
Insanity inevitably meets reality, and the latter always wins. There’s a good chance the U.S. will splinter. The most optimistic scenario is that some of the resultant pieces become enclaves committed to protecting freedom and individual rights. They would have to have the capability to protect themselves from malign elements. They would also require an unswerving commitment to reason and mental clarity not currently apparent among any appreciable segment of the American population. However, chaos will impart wisdom among some of those who survive it, and they could potentially rebuild and institute order based on choice, incentives, and cooperation, not coercion and violence.
Contemplating bewildering day-to-day developments without a broader analytical framework only heightens the bewilderment. That framework doesn’t come from a social sciences perspective, but the physical sciences offers some understanding. Without getting into the weeds of the concept of entropy, it’s fair to say that entropy is associated with disorder and randomness; that in systems left to spontaneous evolution entropy remains constant or increases, that energy is required to slow, stop, or reverse the entropic process, and certain processes are irreversible.
For centuries, order - controlling entropy - has been imposed by governments, but now they’re being overwhelmed by entropic processes. They can no longer command the resources necessary to contain the decentralized and ever-increasing dispersal and power of computing, communications, and weaponry. The “energy” of governments is being overwhelmed by disorder and randomness, and that process is almost certainly irreversible. Ironically, most of what governments now do to impose order only increases disorder and chaos; they are adding to rather than subtracting from entropy.
This analysis yields no confident predictions about what happens next; chaos is unpredictable. Nor does it yield claims of knowledge about billions of unknowable data points. What it does yield is some comprehension of the epochal breakdown well underway. Not particularly comforting, but it at least offers insight amidst the unending confusion."
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