"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter. Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
"Francisco’s Money Speech” from “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand.
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"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."
- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”
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Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:
- The US is in a league of its own when it comes to its debt burden,
as rating agencies bemoan ‘long-running deterioration’ in fiscal governance."
- Fortune Magazine
Rancho Santana, Nicaragua - "Last week, we were baffled. This week we are merely puzzled. How could there be such a difference between the macro picture - prominently featuring the two out-of-control empire killers, debt and war...both clearly cruisin’ for a bruisin’...And the US stock market, prominently featuring approximately $30 trillion of ‘value’ that really doesn’t exist? (Estimates vary, depending on how you figure it. If the stock market were s’posed to be only 100% of GDP, it would have to wipe out the equivalent of 150% of GDP - or $45 trillion - to get back to where it ought to be.) We’re not predicting anything. We’re just pointing out the risk of the Big Loss is right in front of our eyes.
In the meantime... Here’s a good move by POTUS, USA Today: "US will withdraw 5K troops from Germany, Pentagon says." It is perfectly obvious to everyone that the US is not needed to defend Europe. The EU has a GDP of $20 trillion. Russia’s GDP is less than $3 trillion. Can Europe defend itself? Against what? Russia has its hands full just trying to get control over a fairly narrow, Russian speaking part of the Eastern Ukraine, where the people overwhelmingly voted to join the Russian Federation.
But there are powerful lobbies that want to keep US troops stationed all over the world. And they’ve got (paid) friends in Washington. Newsweek: "The Republican leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany, a key ally of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)."
So, Trump, good on you. It’s too bad the that proximate cause of his decision was based on personal pique over the Germans’ reluctance to join his latest misadventure. But that’s the trouble with Trump, even when he does the right thing, it’s for the wrong reasons. And whatever good is achieved, if any, is undermined by the next Executive Order.
Cutting taxes, for example, was not necessarily a bad idea. But increased spending eliminated the benefit. So did the ‘tariff’ program, which acts as a tax increase on Americans. Getting rid of immigrant ‘rapists and murderers’ was something we could all get behind. But the next thing we knew masked stormtroopers were grabbing our much-needed gardeners and burger flippers.
And there’s the attack on Iran itself. A big promise of the Trump Team was that its ‘drill, baby drill’ would lower oil prices. The cheaper oil, along with lower taxes, was meant to drive spending, tax collection, and GDP growth. But then, the big dope gets led into a jackass war and the most important oil valve in the world is closed. Brent Crude has nearly doubled since the shooting started.
All of these contradictory policies were advertised as the product of Trump’s multi-dimensional genius. But even the New York Times is finally catching on to what this ‘genius’ is all about. “America is Officially an Empire in Decline,” says a weekend headline.
The old gray lady is about a quarter of a century late...(the War in Iraq was the beginning of the decline)...and where the ‘officially’ comes in, we don’t know. But up on 8th Ave they’re finally figuring out what The Donald is a genius at...and what he is meant (by history) to do. Stay tuned. Tomorrow...how turning off the oil tap is likely to play out."
120,000 Soldiers Starving, Israel Stunned Badly Now"
"In just 5 days, Iran executed a flawless, multi-phase campaign that completely destroyed Israel’s supply lines. Ports obliterated, bridges shattered, depots destroyed, and airfields cratered - leaving 120,000 IDF soldiers stranded without fuel, ammunition, or food. This detailed military analysis breaks down exactly how it happened, the brutal logistics math, and why even the United States couldn’t save them. A historic strategic shift in the Middle East is unfolding right now. Watch the full breakdown and share your thoughts in the comments."
"I spent thirty years studying military logistics and campaign planning. Every serious student of military history knows the truth that modern defense establishments have spent fifty years trying to forget: armies do not collapse at the front. They collapse at the rear. Fifty Iranian Su-24s and five hundred UAVs just proved that truth against the IDF in the most operationally precise logistics interdiction strike in modern military history. Ninety percent of IDF forward food supply destroyed in a single engagement window. One hundred and twenty thousand frontline soldiers running on seventy-two hours of carried emergency rations. Tonight I explain exactly what that countdown means - and why Washington cannot stop it in time."
"In 48 hours, Iran destroyed 15 IDF ammunition depots and eliminated 50,000 tons of carefully stockpiled weapons - the entire material foundation of Israel's northern front combat power. Artillery batteries fell silent. Tank crews sat stranded on positions they could no longer defend. Precision strike packages were cancelled permanently. The northern front didn't collapse under enemy fire - it collapsed because everything needed to fight had been surgically removed before a single ground engagement began. This is the complete operational breakdown of how Iran executed the most devastating ammunition interdiction campaign in modern military history - and why Washington had no answer."
"History Is Repeating - And This Time It’s Bigger"
"The economy is showing serious warning signs, and history may be repeating itself. In this video, Dan from i Allegedly breaks down the striking similarities between today’s economic conditions and the 1973 oil embargo. With energy prices rising, inflation sticking around, and over 20% of the world’s oil supply moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the risks facing the global economy are bigger than most people realize. At the same time, Americans are struggling to keep up. From record spending on gasoline to a surge in pawn shop activity and declining consumer spending, the cracks are forming everywhere. This video connects the dots between rising fuel costs, market vulnerability, and the real-life financial pressure hitting everyday people right now. If you want to understand where the economy is headed next, this is a must-watch."
"People don't realize what's about to hit grocery stores this summer. In mid-March 2026 the United States fertilizer supply was at 75 percent of normal levels at the exact moment Corn Belt farmers were preparing their soil for planting. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries approximately one-third of all internationally traded fertilizer, has been effectively closed since February 28th when Iran shut it in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. Some fertilizers rose more than 40 percent in just one month after the war began according to research by Florida International University professor Aya Chacar published in The Conversation. Cereal plants absorb the vast majority of their nitrogen needs during early growth. Reducing nitrogen application by 10 to 15 percent or delaying application by two to four weeks can reduce corn yields by 10 to 25 percent. Farmers who fear not being able to optimize their yields are deciding right now to plant less corn or switch to soybeans which need less fertilizer. Either choice reduces the corn supply.
Corn is not just a vegetable. Corn is animal feed, high-fructose corn syrup in thousands of processed foods, ethanol blended into gasoline, and the raw material for plastics and packaging. The USDA projected a 3.1 percent average increase in all food prices for 2026 using data collected before the war began. That forecast is already obsolete. The U.S. beef cattle inventory has shrunk to its lowest level since 1962 after a combination of persistent drought and high costs in 2022 forced producers to kill 13.3 percent of the national beef cow herd, the highest proportion ever recorded. Farm-level cattle prices were 26.5 percent higher in August 2025 than the previous year. Beef and veal prices were 15 percent higher in January 2026 than January 2025. Avian influenza has resulted in the culling of more than 185 million birds since 2022, the largest animal disease event in American history. Egg prices hit an all-time average high of $6.23 per dozen before declining and the flock remains one outbreak away from another price explosion.
Cornell University professor Christopher Barrett told Newsweek that labor accounts for half the cost of food in your grocery cart and that the food system is especially dependent on foreign-born workers. Current immigration policy and deportation tactics are creating labor shortages that drive up food system workforce costs. University of Minnesota economist Kjetil Storesletten told CNBC that the price of food is going to move quite a lot and that the increased fertilizer price will be passed through to food entirely because farmers, processors, and retailers operate in low-margin industries.
The ABA/Farmer Mac Agricultural Lender Survey projects that only 52 percent of U.S. farm borrowers will be profitable this year. The Federal Bank of Chicago reported estimated crop losses of $10 billion for soybeans, $20 billion for corn, and $8.5 billion for wheat. Farm bankruptcies are soaring. Farm debt is set to hit a record high. The Farm Bill has not been reauthorized and is operating on its third extension of the 2018 law. The government shutdown froze financial assistance to farmers during critical crop-planning season. SNAP benefits face a $295 billion cut over the next decade, a 36 percent reduction, the largest in the program's 90-year history. Work requirements are expanding to ages 55 to 64. Benefits will be cut approximately $100 per month for 600,000 low-income households. Fourteen percent of U.S. households reported food insecurity between January and October 2025 according to Purdue University, up from 12.5 percent in 2024. In New York City 40 percent of families cannot afford weekly food costs according to Robin Hood and Columbia University. One in three Americans skipped a meal in the past year according to the Century Foundation. The U.N. World Food Program predicts an additional 45 million people worldwide could face hunger by end of 2026.
The International Fresh Produce Association warned that produce cannot be stockpiled and that as energy prices rise they drive higher consumer prices while natural gas becoming a premium commodity raises costs for plastic food packaging. American grocery stores operate on a 72-hour inventory cycle. Three days of food on the shelves at any given time. Seven simultaneous crises are converging on the American food system this summer: the fertilizer disruption from Hormuz, the cattle herd at a 64-year low, the avian flu fragility, the farm labor deportation, the farm financial crisis, the SNAP cuts, and summer heat stress on crops livestock and cold storage infrastructure. Not one of them has a solution that arrives before your grocery bill does."
"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: credit, equity valuation, funding,safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
"Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and military analyst, breaks down Iran's latest strategic moves and what they mean for Israel and the entire Middle East. Is the IDF truly prepared for what's coming? Scott Ritter shares his expert analysis on Iran's military capabilities, regional alliances, and the geopolitical shifts reshaping the world order."
120,000 Troops Starve As Israel's Army Collapses in 5 Days"
"For the first time in modern warfare, Iran severed 90% of IDF supply routes in a single coordinated campaign - leaving 120,000 Israeli soldiers stranded without fuel, ammunition, or food across five active fronts. No emergency resupply reached them. No American airlift broke through. No diplomatic intervention reversed the collapse. Within five days, the most American-backed army in the Middle East was operationally paralyzed not by battlefield defeat but by systematic logistical demolition. This is the unfiltered breakdown of how Iran executed the most devastating supply chain interdiction campaign in modern military history - and why the Pentagon had no answer."
"Iran has reportedly cut every major IDF supply line, leaving over 120,000 Israeli soldiers without food, fuel, and ammunition. Is Israel's military on the verge of total collapse? Lawrence Wilkerson breaks down the shocking geopolitical fallout."
“Clive Hamilton in his “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change” describes a dark relief that comes from accepting that “catastrophic climate change is virtually certain.” This obliteration of “false hopes,” he says, requires an intellectual knowledge and an emotional knowledge. The first is attainable. The second, because it means that those we love, including our children, are almost certainly doomed to insecurity, misery and suffering within a few decades, if not a few years, is much harder to acquire. To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut-level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to the devastation of the ecosystem, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality. The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth – intellectually and emotionally – and continue to resist the forces that are destroying us.
The human species, led by white Europeans and Euro-Americans, has been on a 500-year-long planetwide rampage of conquering, plundering, looting, exploiting and polluting the Earth – as well as killing the indigenous communities that stood in the way. But the game is up. The technical and scientific forces that created a life of unparalleled luxury – as well as unrivaled military and economic power – for the industrial elites are the forces that now doom us. The mania for ceaseless economic expansion and exploitation has become a curse, a death sentence. But even as our economic and environmental systems unravel, we lack the emotional and intellectual creativity to shut down the engine of global capitalism. We have bound ourselves to a doomsday machine that grinds forward, as the draft report of the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee illustrates.
Complex civilizations have a bad habit of destroying themselves. Anthropologists including Joseph Tainter in “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Charles L. Redman in “Human Impact on Ancient Environments” and Ronald Wright in “A Short History of Progress” have laid out the familiar patterns that lead to systems breakdown. The difference this time is that when we go down the whole planet will go with us. There will, with this final collapse, be no new lands left to exploit, no new civilizations to conquer, no new peoples to subjugate. The long struggle between the human species and the Earth will conclude with the remnants of the human species learning a painful lesson about unrestrained greed and self-worship.
“There is a pattern in the past of civilization after civilization wearing out its welcome from nature, overexploiting its environment, overexpanding, overpopulating,” Wright said when I reached him by phone at his home in British Columbia, Canada.
“They tend to collapse quite soon after they reach their period of greatest magnificence and prosperity. That pattern holds good for a lot of societies, among them the Romans, the ancient Maya and the Sumerians of what is now southern Iraq. There are many other examples, including smaller-scale societies such as Easter Island. The very things that cause societies to prosper in the short run, especially new ways to exploit the environment such as the invention of irrigation, lead to disaster in the long run because of unforeseen complications. This is what I called in ‘A Short History of Progress’ the ‘progress trap.’ We have set in motion an industrial machine of such complexity and such dependence on expansion that we do not know how to make do with less or move to a steady state in terms of our demands on nature. We have failed to control human numbers. They have tripled in my lifetime. And the problem is made much worse by the widening gap between rich and poor, the upward concentration of wealth, which ensures there can never be enough to go around. The number of people in dire poverty today – about 2 billion – is greater than the world’s entire population in the early 1900s. That’s not progress.
If we continue to refuse to deal with things in an orderly and rational way, we will head into some sort of major catastrophe, sooner or later. If we are lucky it will be big enough to wake us up worldwide but not big enough to wipe us out. That is the best we can hope for. We must transcend our evolutionary history. We’re Ice Age hunters with a shave and a suit. We are not good long-term thinkers. We would much rather gorge ourselves on dead mammoths by driving a herd over a cliff than figure out how to conserve the herd so it can feed us and our children forever. That is the transition our civilization has to make. And we’re not doing that.”
Wright, who in his dystopian novel “A Scientific Romance” paints a picture of a future world devastated by human stupidity, cites “entrenched political and economic interests” and a failure of the human imagination as the two biggest impediments to radical change. And all of us who use fossil fuels, who sustain ourselves through the formal economy, he says, are at fault.
Modern capitalist societies, Wright argues in his book “What Is America?: A Short History of the New World Order,” derive from European invaders’ plundering of the indigenous cultures in the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries, coupled with the use of African slaves as a workforce to replace the natives. The numbers of those natives fell by more than 90 percent because of smallpox and other plagues they hadn’t had before. The Spaniards did not conquer any of the major societies until smallpox had crippled them; in fact the Aztecs beat them the first time around. If Europe had not been able to seize the gold of the Aztec and Inca civilizations, if it had not been able to occupy the land and adopt highly productive New World crops for use on European farms, the growth of industrial society in Europe would have been much slower. Karl Marx and Adam Smith both pointed to the influx of wealth from the Americas as having made possible the Industrial Revolution and the start of modern capitalism. It was the rape of the Americas, Wright points out, that triggered the orgy of European expansion. The Industrial Revolution also equipped the Europeans with technologically advanced weapons systems, making further subjugation, plundering and expansion possible.
Wright explained this further on our call. “The experience of a relatively easy 500 years of expansion and colonization, the constant taking over of new lands, led to the modern capitalist myth that you can expand forever. It is an absurd myth. We live on this planet. We can’t leave it and go somewhere else. We have to bring our economies and demands on nature within natural limits, but we have had a 500-year run where Europeans, Euro-Americans and other colonists have overrun the world and taken it over. This 500-year run made it not only seem easy but normal. We believe things will always get bigger and better. We have to understand that this long period of expansion and prosperity was an anomaly. It has rarely happened in history and will never happen again.
We have to readjust our entire civilization to live in a finite world. But we are not doing it, because we are carrying far too much baggage, too many mythical versions of deliberately distorted history and a deeply ingrained feeling that what being modern is all about is having more. This is what anthropologists call an ideological pathology, a self-destructive belief that causes societies to crash and burn. These societies go on doing things that are really stupid because they can’t change their way of thinking. And that is where we are.
And as the collapse becomes palpable, if human history is any guide, we like past societies in distress will retreat into what anthropologists call “crisis cults.” The powerlessness we will feel in the face of ecological and economic chaos will unleash further collective delusions, such as fundamentalist belief in a god or gods who will come back to earth and save us.”
As Wright told me: “Societies in collapse often fall prey to the belief that if certain rituals are performed all the bad stuff will go away. There are many examples of that throughout history. In the past these crisis cults took hold among people who had been colonized, attacked and slaughtered by outsiders, who had lost control of their lives. They see in these rituals the ability to bring back the past world, which they look at as a kind of paradise. They seek to return to the way things were. Crisis cults spread rapidly among Native American societies in the 19th century, when the buffalo and the Indians were being slaughtered by repeating rifles and finally machine guns. People came to believe, as happened in the Ghost Dance, that if they did the right things the modern world that was intolerable – the barbed wire, the railways, the white man, the machine gun – would disappear.
We all have the same, basic psychological hard wiring. It makes us quite bad at long-range planning and leads us to cling to irrational delusions when faced with a serious threat. Look at the extreme right’s belief that if government got out of the way, the lost paradise of the 1950s would return. Look at the way we let oil and gas exploration rip when we knew that expanding the carbon economy was suicidal for our children and grandchildren. The results can already be felt. When it gets to the point where large parts of the Earth experience crop failure at the same time then we will have mass starvation and a breakdown in order. That is what lies ahead if we do not deal with climate change.
If we fail in this great experiment, this experiment of apes becoming intelligent enough to take charge of their own destiny, nature will shrug and say it was fun for a while to let the apes run the laboratory, but in the end it was a bad idea.”
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