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Via  Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with an update on his big turn toward war in Ukraine with Russia.  

Two weeks ago on USAW, Armstrong predicted, “After May 15, war is turning up (in Ukraine) and it will be turning up into 2026.”  

That prediction paid off to the exact day as peace talks between Russia and Ukraine ended on May 15 after just two hours, and neither side agreed to meet again.  

War is already here, and there is no stopping it with peace talks.  Armstrong says, “Putin knows and understands this is not a just a war with Ukraine, this is a war with NATO..."

"If Putin agrees to a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine, what’s that going to do?  Absolutely nothing.  

You have every European country reinstituting drafts.  In Germany, even people 60 years old have been told to report.  Poland has ordered every able-bodied man to show up for military training.  They want war.  Their economy is collapsing.  You hear about this de-dollarization, and it’s not happening.  The capitalization of just the New York Stock Exchange is worth more than all of Europe combined.  That’s just the New York Stock Exchange...

You’ve got Macron in France, they call him the ‘Petite Napolean.’. . . Without war, Europe is going to collapse.  It’s in a sovereign debt crisis . . . They have done everything against the economy.”

Armstong thinks Russia will finish off Ukraine sometime in 2027 and Europe a year or two after that.  And, Yes, Armstrong still thinks Ukraine will disappear from the map.

Armstrong urged his contacts in Washington to “Get the hell out of NATO.”  It seems some in the US government are considering this warning as this headline breaks today: “US to Begin European Troop Withdrawal Talks, NATO Ambassador Says.”  Armstrong says, 

“I have been told by some very influential people on Capitol Hill ‘you’re right, we agree.’  That’s what I have been told. . . . I have been complaining about this for months, and my view is Europe is committing suicide, and let’s not be part of it this time.”

Is President Trump getting this message?  Armstrong says, “Yes, I believe so. . . . Trump also said a peace deal does not seem likely, the hatred is too great on both sides.”

The neocons back home also want war with Russia and have wanted it for a very long time.  Trump is either going to make peace or walk away and not participate.  Maybe this is why former FBI Director James Comey put out his not-so-cryptic call to assassinate President Trump with his “86 47” now deleted Instagram post.  Comey was the man who held Armstrong in prison illegally for contempt for 7 years. 

Armstrong says, “Comey has always been part of it.  Just for the record, he was the US Attorney in New York.  He’s the one who kept me in contempt until the Supreme Court said what the hell is going on?  Then, they had to release me.”

How did Armstrong land in jail?  

Armstrong says, “They asked me to put in 10 billion dollars . . . to take over Russia, and I refused..."

"  It was Comey that was the US Attorney for New York, and he kept me in civil contempt, which has a maximum sentence of 18 months, and he kept me in for 7 years.  

He kept rolling it and rolling it and rolling it. . . . I was told if I put in $10 billion, I would get $100 billion back.  

They intended to have all the assets of Russia going through the trading desk of New York.  All the oil, gold, diamonds, platinum, you name it, they would have it all.  And I said, no, I’m out.  I am not into regime change.”

Fast forward to today, and the powers in Europe still think they can take Russia and steal their assets to fix the extreme financial problems in Europe.  

Pensions, banks and bonds are in deep financial trouble in Europe.  

Stealing from Russia and gaining control of $75 trillion in natural resources is why they want and need war.  Armstrong says, 

“They went to negative interest rates in 2014.  I warned them.  I said listen; you are out of your minds.  

You are syphoning money out of the bank reserves and pension finds.  It’s a basket case.  It really is.  They have no appreciable economy. . . it’s shrinking, the number of actual businesses has shrunk in Germany.  (Germany is 25% of the EU economy.)  This is why they need war.”

Armstrong says Europe is going to lose and lose badly in a war with Russia.  

Armstrong says if Trump gets out of NATO, the US will thrive and do much better financially than Europe.  

Let’s all hope President Trump gets us out of NATO before it’s too late.

There is much more in the 60-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong as he gives his analysis on war, default, depression and unpayable debt that will make a huge mess for the world for 5.17.25.

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There is free information, analysis and articles on ArmstrongEconomics.com.

In an absolute shocker that you'll never believe (unless you read ZeroHedge) - Klarna, the Swedish financial technology firm known for its "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) offerings, reported a sharp increase in losses for the first quarter, driven by a rise in consumer defaults and economic unease in the United States.

The company posted a net loss of $99 million for the three months ending in March, more than double its $47 million loss during the same period a year earlier. The deterioration comes amid a rise in customer credit losses, which climbed 17 percent year-on-year to $136 million, underscoring mounting concerns about the financial health of U.S. borrowers.

Klarna’s business model - providing interest-free installment loans for retail purchases - has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in the United States, where the company has partnered with major retailers such as Walmart, eBay and DoorDash. But the surge in unpaid loans and shifting macroeconomic conditions have intensified scrutiny of the company’s exposure to economic headwinds, according to the Financial Times.

The results also follow Klarna’s decision to halt its long-anticipated initial public offering in New York, after recent tariff announcements from President Donald Trump roiled markets. The administration’s trade policy has heightened inflation expectations and dampened consumer sentiment, with one widely watched confidence index falling to its second-lowest level on record last week.

Despite the growing defaults, Klarna emphasized the short-term nature of its loan book, noting that 83 percent of its balances refresh within three months. The company said in a statement that it's "closely monitoring changes in the macroeconomic environment," and "remains well-positioned to adapt swiftly if required."

Klarna’s credit loss rate as a share of total payment volume remains relatively modest at 0.54 percent, a slight uptick from 0.51 percent a year earlier.

Revenues for the quarter rose 13 percent to $701 million, as the platform reached 99 million active users. The company has leaned heavily on artificial intelligence to streamline operations, delivering Monday’s earnings through an AI-generated avatar of its chief executive.

Klarna has also pursued aggressive cost-cutting, reducing its headcount by 39 percent over the past two years. Customer service expenses declined 12 percent year-on-year in the latest quarter. At the same time, the company is grappling with a 15 percent rise in funding costs, now totaling $130 million.

Last month we noted that Americans are increasingly tapping Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing to pay for daily essentials -- even groceries -- according to a Lending Tree survey, in which  41% of those polled say they were late on payments over the past year, which is up from 34% in last year's survey. About three-quarters of the late-payers say they were late by no more than "a week or so." However, where that and other numbers are concerned, it's important to note that these stats are based on survey responses -- not the hard data of their BNPL providers. Given human nature, it's reasonable to think respondents would understate subpar behavior. 

The top two categories of BNPL purchases are clothing, shoes and accessories (41% of BNPL users) followed by technology devices (39%). However, there's been a surge in people who've used BNPL for groceries -- 25% versus 14% last year.  A whopping one-third of Gen Z BNPL-tappers say they've used the financing for groceries. Similarly, 16% of users have tapped BNPL for food delivery or takeout.

"Have you ever used BNPL services like Affirm or Klarna?" (via Lending Tree)

Other findings:

• Nearly half of the respondents have used a BNPL loan, with 11% saying they've used them 6 or more times. 23% have had three or more of them running simultaneously.  
• 53% of men have used BNPL, versus 46% of female respondents. 
• 64% of Gen Zers (age 18 to 28) have used BNPL, compared to 29% of Boomers (61 to 79)

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The United Kingdom and the European Union have reached a wide-ranging agreement aimed at expanding cooperation across key areas such as defense, energy, migration, law enforcement, and youth mobility — a deal that critics argue is a flagrant rowback on Brexit.

Announced following the U.K.–EU summit on Monday, the so-called Common Understanding outlines both sides’ intention to build on existing post-Brexit frameworks, including the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

While the agreement does not constitute a new treaty, it signals a shift toward closer integration in several sectors that effectively bring the U.K. back into alignment with EU rules and institutions, undermining national sovereignty.

The agreement reconfirms reciprocal access to fishing waters until June 2038 and extends bilateral cooperation on energy. It also launches a new Security and Defense Partnership covering topics such as support for Ukraine, cyber defense, military mobility, peacekeeping, and space security. Dialogue is also planned in areas like maritime safety and international disaster response.

Access to fishing waters has been a bone of contention since the 2016 Brexit vote and is seen as a major concession by the U.K. Ahead of the news breaking, rumors had been swirling in Westminster that fishing rights were on the table, leading Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to warn, “If true, that will be the end of the fishing industry.”

Starmer has surrendered to Brussels.

Labour can’t be trusted with their weak leadership. pic.twitter.com/Fl2j7kgyPe

Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch also remarked, “Twelve years’ access to British waters is three times longer than the government wanted. We’re becoming a rule-taker from Brussels once again. And with no details on any cap or time limits on Youth Mobility, fears of free movement returning will only increase. This is very concerning.”

The new mobility framework proposed is for young people, allowing limited-duration travel between the U.K. and EU for work, study, volunteering, and other cultural purposes. In parallel, the U.K. and EU will begin discussions about associating the UK with the EU’s Erasmus+ program, including negotiation over financial terms. These discussions are framed as promoting “people-to-people” ties, especially among younger generations.

Why would a Labour Brexit deal be hard to agree?

Usually when two sides negotiate, they have different priorities & aims.

With Keir Starmer's negotiations with the EU, both sides have exactly the SAME priorities and aim: the total surrender of British sovereignty to Brussels. pic.twitter.com/zpIB2gUwDN

In the area of internal security, both sides committed to strengthening cooperation under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. This includes information-sharing with Europol, improved coordination on terrorism and serious crime, and the potential expansion of biometric and vehicle data exchange. There is also intent to address difficulties faced by law enforcement in accessing electronic communications data across jurisdictions.

In economic and environmental matters, the agreement outlines plans to explore U.K. participation in the EU’s internal electricity market and to establish a link between the U.K. and EU emissions trading systems. Both initiatives would require the U.K. to align with EU rules in relevant areas, such as state aid, environmental protections, and trading mechanisms. This alignment would be monitored through dispute mechanisms, with the European Court of Justice acting as the final authority on EU law. The move effectively reintroduces the ECJ as the supreme arbiter in such areas.

This has been an amateur negotiation from the start, ending in a total sellout. pic.twitter.com/BwbhqiiGWE

On agri-food trade, the two sides agreed to work toward a Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement that would remove many current barriers to the movement of animals and plants between Great Britain and the EU. However, this too would involve dynamic alignment with EU regulations and limited exceptions subject to EU approval. The agreement specifies that the U.K. would be consulted during the EU policy-making process but would have no vote or participation in formal decision-making bodies. Again, issues of sovereignty arise, with the United Kingdom signing up to align with regulations without having a seat at the table.

The deal also includes plans to deepen cooperation on illegal migration. Areas of focus include upstream control efforts, information-sharing on visa abuse and migrant smuggling, and coordination with EU agencies such as Frontex and the EU Agency for Asylum. Practical measures to prevent Channel crossings and improve return mechanisms are also under discussion.

Though the agreement repeatedly emphasizes mutual benefit and respect for each side’s legal framework, many of its proposals rely on U.K. adherence to EU rules and oversight structures. The European Commission is explicit in its expectation that the U.K. will align dynamically with changing EU legislation in areas covered by the agreements, while contributing financially to relevant EU programs and databases.

Former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman called the deal a surrender. “The government has let down our fishing community. This capitulation is unforgivable for our coastal communities and fishermen. The British people won’t forget this. The beginning of the end for Brexit.”

Starmer, however, took to social media to defend the deal, telling Brits they “deserve better than the last government’s deal. It wasn’t working for anyone.”

He claimed that while previous governments had “dithered and delayed,” his was “getting on with the job and delivering in the national interest.”

Read more here...

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

The facts of a surreal yet broken (and hence increasingly controlled and desperate) financial system are becoming harder to deny and ignore. 

Below, we look at the evidence of control rather than the words of dishonest policy makers and ask a simple question: How long can lies supplant reality?

The Great Disconnect: Tanking Growth vs. Supported Markets

It’s becoming harder to keep up with the increasingly downgraded GDP growth estimations from the Atlanta Fed.

As recently as August, its GDPNow 3q21 estimates for the quarterly percentage change were as high as 6%.

But within a matter of weeks, this otherwise optimistic figure was cut embarrassingly in half.

Last month, their GDP forecast sank much further to 0.5%, and as of this writing, it has been downgraded yet again to 0.2%.

Needless to say, 6% estimated growth falling to effectively 0% growth is hardly a bullish indicator for the kind of strengthening economic conditions which one might otherwise associate with risk asset prices reaching all-time highs for the same period.

The growing yet steady disconnect between market highs and economic lows is getting harder to explain, ignore or deny by the architects of the most artificial, rigged and dishonest market cycle in modern history.

In short, it is no longer even worth pretending that stock markets are correlated to such natural measurements as a nation’s economic productivity.

After all, who needs GDP in the New Abnormal?

By now, even Fed doublespeak can’t hide the fact that the only market force which the post-08 markets require is an accommodative central bank—i.e., a firehose of multi-trillion liquidity on demand.

But as for this most recent GDP downgrade, it is being blamed on tanking US export data.

More Fantasy: Bogus or Real Taper?

The question facing investors heading into year-end is whether any of the foregoing realities will place pressure on the Fed to continue the now normalized fantasy of unlimited QE or stick to its equally fantastical “taper-talk.”

Toward this end, Powell could delay the planned “taper” or, as is likely, simply move ahead with what is essentially a bogus taper involving a nominally insignificant reduction in money printing offset by ongoing yet deliberately hidden liquidity from the Standard Repo Facility and FIMA swap lines.

Thus, whether we see a delayed taper or a bogus taper, the net result is still more fiat liquidity flooding the always dollar-thirsty (and QE-addicted) financial system.

This, of course, translates to increased currency debasement and thus rising tailwinds for gold, BTC, industrials and commodities.

Should, however, the FOMC announce a genuine taper, the net result for gold is still positive.

Yes, a real taper means slightly higher rates and increased volatility (bad for risk assets) along with a stronger dollar, but inflation rates will still supersede interest rates, favouring gold anyway you look at it.

Again, and as discussed in prior reports, gold can and will rise if rates rise, so long as inflation rises faster, which for all the reasons we’ve addressed elsewhere, convinces us that a future of negative real rates is the only future central banks can allow.

More Inflationary Tricks (i.e., Fantasy)

Why?

Because short of default, the only and time-tested trick left up the sleeves of debt-soaked policy makers to dig their way out of a nightmarish and historically unprecedented debt hole (which they alone created) is by pursuing policies of deeply negative real rates.

This twisted inflationary playbook, so familiar to rigged insiders yet unknown to the vast majority of retail investors, boils down to a policy play by which our “experts” solve debt with more debt and hide the truth behind more complex policy adjectives (i.e., lies).

Specifically, this means the “experts” will:  1) deliberately seek more inflation while 2) lying about true inflation levels and then 3) repress interest rates in order to partially inflate their way out of debt with 4) increasingly debased currencies.

Take the U.S. Dollar’s purchasing power, for example…

Keeping the Serfs Down—The Policy of the New Feudalism

Needless to say, more inflation is a direct tax on the increasingly poorer middle class.

Sadly, too many are too busy trying to make sense of months of lockdowns, vaccine mandates, movement restrictions, crime waves and inflating rent payments to notice that they have been made into serfs in a Brave New World where greater than 80% of the stock market wealth is held by the top 10% of the population.

Let’s be clear: I’m a screaming capitalist, but a pandemic world in which Bezos, Musk and other billionaire wealth has increased by 70% while 89 million Americans have lost their jobs is NOT capitalism, but a symptom of a rigged system in which the anti-trust rules I learned in law school, or the social and economic principles I learned in economics are simply gone.

Then again, when I was in school, we were once taught how to think, not what to think.

With each passing day, we see increased evidence of what I wrote (and described) elsewhere as a new feudalism marked by grotesquely distorted notions of truth, reporting, data, natural market forces and political/financial accountability.

In order to keep this report objective rather than an op-ed, let’s just consider the facts and case studies right before us.

Yellen & Dimon—Two Classic Lords Spinning Familiar Yarns

Take, for example, the aforementioned tanking of GDP, now being attributed to openly tanking export data out of the U.S. and the undeniable supply chain disruptions impacting the global economy.

To address this, none other than two of the most media prolific “lords” of the new feudalism, Fed Chairwoman-turned-Treasury-Secretary Janet Yellen and current JP Morgan CEO and 2008 bailout-beneficiary-turned-Fed-Crony, Jamie Dimon, assure us not to worry.

How nice.

Yellen, for her part, has recently said:

“I don’t think we’re about to lose control of inflation.”

 “As we make further progress on the pandemic, I expect these bottlenecks to subside. Americans will return to the labor force as conditions improve.”

Again: How nice.

But let’s not let warm words get in the way of cold facts.

Yellen, like every Fed Chair since Greenspan, has a long history of buying time with comforting words that have nothing to do with hard reality:

“You will never see another financial crisis in your lifetime.”
– Janet Yellen, spring 2018

“I do worry that we could have another financial crisis. ″
– Janet Yellen, fall 2018

Despite a long and well-documented history of outright dishonesty spewing from the mouths of financial media darlings and policymakers like Yellen and Dimon, both are now pushing a bullish “be calm and carry on while we profit and control” meme.

They recently seized upon Biden’s move to run the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on a 24/7 schedule to alleviate bottlenecks, which increased throughput by roughly 15% (3,500 containers/week v. 950,000 containers per month.)

That’s nice, and sure, it helps.

But despite such band-aid measures, supply chains won’t normalize until early 2023, at the earliest…and that assumes no further disruptions, which frankly, is a naive assumption.

Folks, it’s not up to Yellen or Dimon to give us honest guidance as to whether supply chains will normalise in 2021. It is up to China and Biden’s entirely Orwellian vaccine mandate.

Speaking of Yellen, Dimon et al, aren’t we all a bit curious about the now undeniable marriage of the Federal Reserve (an illegal private bank) and the U.S. Treasury Department?

And as for bank CEO’s like Dimon, have we not forgotten other bank CEOs like Goldman’s Hank Paulson, who made a similar “marriage” to the Treasury Department just in time to bail his former bank out of the Great Financial Crisis that it helped create?

Are these the honest brokers we want deciding our economic fates or signaling/controlling our economic future?

Vaccine Passes and Mandates—The Great Smokescreen

And as to the mandate… Note Yellen’s careful yet semantic magic of hiding autocracy behind humanitarian lingo.

Her comment above regarding bottlenecks “subsiding” once “we make further progress on the pandemic” is very comforting, no?

But it’s just another veiled way (i.e., smokescreen) of pushing a vaccine mandate which defies every principle of the social contract our founding fathers achieved in that silly document I revered as a 1L and known otherwise as the U.S. Constitution.

As I’ve said many times before, I’m no source for medical advice, and my circle includes many who are vaccinated and un-vaccinated alike—with equal respect for the choices we’ve made and equal disgust for the notion that such choices should be imposed rather than voluntary.

Simple Questions, Cold Math, Global Control

But should we not at least be asking ourselves if the pandemic discussion is less about global health and more about global control?

Without seeking to offend anyone’s COVID stance, can we nevertheless agree that C.J. Hopkins makes an undeniably clear and common-sensical point by simply asking a few basic questions?

For example, why has so much political, social and economic power been given to a minority of policy makers to scare/distract the world into ignoring a now obvious global power-shift justified by a virus which causes mild-to-moderate symptoms in 95% of the infected and whose case fatality rate is quantifiably somewhere in the range of 0.1% to 0.5%?

Yet despite such simple math, tens of thousands of firemen, police officers, nurses and military personnel—the very heroes who have placed themselves on the front lines of our increasingly criminalized, sick and psychologically damaged population– are now being forced out of work for not agreeing to a forced jab imposed by anti-heroes?

One has to at least wonder why so much effort has been made by a government-influenced/co-conspired media to spend its time criminalising the unvaccinated rather than making front-page noise pointing out the obvious criminalisation of our global financial system?

The Real Criminals

By that, I’m thinking of the years of recently revealed insider trading at the Fed, the anti-trust violations of the non-tax-paying Amazon robber-baron or the open media-censorship and just plain shady that occurs daily at Facebook—an entity so blatantly shameful that it thinks a name-change can hide its dark past?

Or how about years of open price manipulation by bullion banks, the BIS and other dark corners of the OTCto deliberately force the natural price of gold and silver to the floor in order to illegally price-fix and protect globally debased currencies from the embarrassment of what a natural gold price would otherwise confirm, namely: Your currency has died, thanks to the white-collar criminals otherwise touted as experts.

In case you think this is mere sensationalism or speculation, I’ve written hundreds of pages and countless reports of graphical/mathematical/objective evidence of the same, and even an entire book on the rigged-to-fail system otherwise passing as normal to make this clear distortion of economic rules and political laws objective rather than pejorative.

Nor am I/we alone in pointing out the obvious. From the honest minority in markets to an honest minority in politics, plain-spoken truth is fighting for free expression.

More Honest Voices

Take, for example, the recent press conference (ignored, of course, by the main/muddy stream media) held by key members of the European Parliament to openly defy the insanely autocratic notion of a health pass to distinguish the compliant from the free or the “safe” from the “unsafe”.

As one brave parliamentary member from Germany, Christine Anderson, candidly observed, if you think the vaccine pass was made because the government cares about you, you are clearly ignoring its real motive, which is to control you.

And this is straight from the European Parliament.

Control, of course, only works if enough people are scared, tired or uninformed enough to be controlled.

As for the financial system, signs of its increasingly obvious attempt at more controls to mask increasingly shameful policies are literally everywhere.

And yet… and yet…the media, the masses and the majority of investors continue to follow their murky and shady lead.

Again, just keep it simple and factual rather than partisan or medically controversial.

Criminal Evidence

In the last 20 years, for example, policy makers have tripled the global debt levels yet made no commensurate progress with global GDP, which is literally 1/3 of this embarrassing debt pile.

That is shameful. Debt like this always destroys economies. Always.

Instead, those same “experts” have mouse-clicked more instant money out of thin air in the last decade than all the money ever created by all the combined central banks since their inception.

They actually want you to believe that a debt crisis can be solved with alas…more debt.

Such staggering money creation has led unequivocally and directly to the greatest and most inflated risk asset bubble in the history of capital markets.

Yet rather than admit to the open failure of such monetary expansion, which has simply crushed the natural purchasing power of fiat currencies…

…the architects of this failed experiment will now try to blame such excessive debt and currency destruction on a pandemic rather than years of their own pre-COVID policy crimes.

Today, politicians and their central bank masters are literally comparing the Pandemic’s 4.9M death toll to the unthinkable disaster which was the +75M killed in World War 2.

They then employ this pandemic narrative to justify another Bretton Woods-like reset.

To those who have studied, or far worse, experienced the Second World War, do you think it’s even remotely fair to compare it to the “war on Covid”?

The Carefully Telegraphed “Reset”

And what is this “needed” reset?

In a nutshell, it’s more fake money in the form of CBDC or even digital SDR’s from that shameless control center of failed monetarism otherwise known as the IMF and a central bank near you.

Those Who Control Money & Information

In an open and free system, rather than criminalising police officers, nurses, or even athletes who refuse a jab, should we not be pointing our headlines, adjectives and subpoenas at the bankers, experts and policy makers who put the global financial system at this horrific, debt-soaked and socially destructive turning point?

Are you waiting for Mark Zuckerberg, Don Lemon, Wolf Blitzer or the censorship boards at YouTube or Google to guide you?

Sadly, those who control money as well as information have immense and undeniable power.

Thus, a media that controls deliberate COVID distraction, supported by the lords who created this financial serfdom, continues.

That is, the feudalists responsible for such grossly mismanaged financial markets are all too aware (and nervous) that they have equally created the greatest wealth transfer and wealth disparity ever witnessed, akin to the pre-revolutionary era of Bourbon France, Romanov Russia, Batista Cuba or Weimar Germany.

Such otherwise immoral and corrupt wealth disparity, wealth transfer and wealth creation explain why the very architects of the same would rather have the masses fighting about jabs, school boards, and “woke” SJWs gone wild rather than at themselves–the root cause of the fracturing we see all around us.

Why?

Because controlling serfs with lies, fear, and division is better than letting those serfs replace you with truths.

Truth Still Matters – Fundamentals, Too

For that select yet blunt and independent-thinking minority who thankfully prefer candor over propaganda, reality over fantasy and genuine rather than hyped solutions to the problems and problem-makers all around us, al l we can do is trust history, truth, natural market forces and each other.

As for us, our candid solution to the foregoing string cite of distortions, controls and historical tipping points remains the same.

Regardless of the tricks, resets, and digital new bluffs of the new feudalism, enough free-thinkers, nations, informed investors, and wealth managers understand that they hold a better (and golden) hand to combat the dirty hands and dirty currencies unravelling all around us.

If there’s one thing history and free market forces have taught us it’s this: In the end, broken systems die and real money returns.

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Last night the news broke that former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, which has already metastasized to his bones.

The conversation has gone in two predictable directions.

On the one hand you have the predictable “out pouring of support” from fans of Team Blue, “liberal” journalists and celebrities.

On the other hand you have cynical commentary from Team Red, questioning the timing of the announcement and wondering how someone with such a high profile and (presumably) first class medical care could have cancer missed until such a late stage.

A third, quieter, option is to suggest a connection between this cancer and the Covid “vaccine”.

(A possibility I reject out of hand, because I don’t believe there is any chance at all he was really given the experimental shot.)

But all of these conversations miss the point.

The question is not “what caused Biden’s cancer?” or “why did they cover up Biden’s cancer?” it’s “why are they telling us Biden has cancer?”

Remember, the same media reporting “Biden has cancer” spent months reporting “Biden doesn’t have dementia” and “Biden’s as sharp as ever”, despite plain evidence to the contrary.

They lied. Over and and over again, for years. 

They quite literally told you to disregard the evidence of your eyes and ears.

Until they stopped, and suddenly Joe Biden’s “mental decline” was no longer a conspiracy theory, but totally real and the reason to put Kamala Harris on the ballot.

Joe Biden’s mental acuity did not change, all that changed was the requirement of the narrative.

Media reportage has no correlation with the truth. 

Not negative correlation, no correlation. They are unrelated.

If Joe Biden had cancer, and it was narratively convenient that he did not, they would say he did not.

If Joe Biden didn’t have cancer, and it was narratively convenient that he did, they would say he did.

If it becomes narratively convenient that Biden no longer has cancer, they will just say it went away – and that will have no bearing or relation on whether or not it did go away, or ever existed in the first place.

If Joe Biden died tomorrow, and it was narratively convenient he was alive, they would pretend he was alive. 

And with current video and photo editing software it wouldn’t even be that hard.

The news cycle has a purpose that is not related to facts or truth – again, not “opposed to” but “not related” – and as such our conversations about “the news” must be had, almost entirely, on the meta level.

Why this? Why now?

I really feel like I have said this a lot.

Authored by Richard Fulmer via The Mises Institute,

From atop the flawed foundation of the Labor Theory of Value, Karl Marx made a series of predictions about capitalism that time has proven incorrect. Among these are the immiseration of the masses due to capital accumulation, chronic overproduction, capitalist-driven imperialism, and the inevitable rise of monopolies.

Immiseration

Even during Marx’s lifetime, capitalism was already improving the material conditions of workers and raising living standards. The Industrial Revolution, along with advancements in technology and productivity, enabled even low-skilled workers to achieve a standard of living once unimaginable to even the wealthiest.

In fact, capitalism has delivered many of the promises socialism once made. Marx envisioned a future where the working class would achieve prosperity, leisure, and cultural development—goals largely realized under capitalist systems. Today, workers enjoy higher real wages, shorter workweeks, better working conditions, and greater access to healthcare and education than at any time in history. Innovations once considered luxuries—such as indoor plumbing, refrigeration, and instant global communication—are now standard for much of the world’s population.

Capital Equipment

Marx believed that new technology:

• Eliminated jobs and forced workers into lower-wage positions. He theorized that automation would create a permanent “industrial reserve army” of unemployed workers, driving wages down.

• Reduced workers to mere machine operators. He argued that specialization and mechanization would strip workers of their skills and bargaining power.

• Extracted more work in less time. He feared that capitalists would use technology to increase profits by lengthening shifts, reducing breaks, and intensifying production speeds.

Instead, technology has increased workers’ productivity, making them more valuable to employers, who, in turn, offer higher wages to attract and retain them. While some jobs have been eliminated, new industries and occupations have emerged, often requiring higher skill levels. Factory workers today perform fewer menial tasks and more complex functions, such as CNC (computer numerical control) machine programming, maintenance, and oversight of automated systems.

Rather than longer workdays, the average time on the job has significantly declined. In Marx’s time, factory workers commonly labored 60-80 hours per week. Today, most industrialized nations have 35-40-hour workweeks, and benefits like paid time off, sick leave, and retirement plans are widespread. Moreover, automation has largely eliminated the most dangerous and physically punishing tasks.

Marx saw economic progress as a zero-sum game, where capitalists’ gains necessarily meant workers’ losses. Instead, technological advancements have expanded economic output, creating new industries, higher wages, and improved working conditions.

Overproduction

Marx claimed that capitalist employers would suppress wages to the point that workers couldn’t afford to buy the goods they produced, leading to unsold inventory and economic collapse. But workers are never expected to buy everything they produce in any economic system.

Consider a cobbler in medieval Europe who made 30 pairs of shoes per month. He couldn’t possibly purchase all of them—he had to sell them to buy food, clothing, and materials for more shoes. But the shoe market didn’t collapse because demand wasn’t limited to cobblers—other people needed shoes too.

Similarly, in modern economies, businesses don’t rely solely on their employees as customers; they sell to a broad market that includes domestic and international consumers. Capitalism has consistently overcome supply-demand imbalances through pricing mechanisms, market expansion, and innovation.

Imperialism

Marx believed capitalists profited by extracting “surplus value” from workers—paying them less than the value of their production. He argued that as automation and competition reduced profit margins, capitalists would exploit workers by cutting wages or increasing working hours, and seek new sources of cheap labor, ultimately resorting to conquest to sustain profits.

This prediction failed on multiple fronts. First, workers’ ability to switch jobs, negotiate higher wages, or start businesses prevents employers from driving wages to subsistence levels, though the same cannot be said for Marxist-Leninist societies in which the state is the only employer.

Second, trade—not conquest—has proven to be the more effective path to economic expansion. As Adam Smith noted in The Wealth of Nations, war and colonization are more costly and less productive and profitable than is voluntary exchange. The reason why war and imperialism correlates with capitalism is because the state—allied with crony capitalists—expands off of the wealth from capitalism.

Finally, capitalism fosters innovation, creating new markets and industries. Economic growth has come not from territorial expansion but from developing new goods, services, and business models that increase wealth across society.

Monopoly

Marx predicted that competition would inevitably drive smaller firms out of business, leaving only a handful of monopolies powerful enough to suppress wages, control prices, and stifle innovation.

While monopolies do arise, they are typically short-lived in competitive markets. Whenever an entrepreneur introduces a new product or service, he may temporarily enjoy a dominant market position, but competitors soon emerge if the government does not prevent market entry. In fact, this situation does not technically describe a monopoly since monopolies involve legal privileging of politically-connected firms by the state.

Furthermore, as companies grow too large, they often face diseconomies of scale—inefficiencies that increase costs and reduce agility. Bureaucracy, slow decision-making, and organizational complexity often weaken large firms, opening opportunities for smaller, more innovative competitors.

Ultimately, government intervention, rather than free markets, has been the primary enabler of enduring monopolies. Regulations, subsidies, and licensing requirements frequently serve to protect established firms from competition.

Conclusion

Karl Marx’s predictions about capitalism have consistently failed. Instead of immiseration, capitalism has increased living standards. Instead of job destruction, technology has created new industries and opportunities. Instead of economic collapse due to overproduction, global trade has flourished. Instead of conquest, capitalism has fostered economic expansion through voluntary exchange. And instead of monopolistic stagnation, competition and innovation continue to drive economic progress, despite the intervention of political states.

Marx’s economic forecasts were not just incorrect but fundamentally flawed. Capitalism, despite its imperfections, has outperformed Marx’s vision by delivering prosperity on an unprecedented scale.