Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Prescription drugs cost more in the United States than anywhere else in the world. President Donald Trump and some bipartisan senators want to change that.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

Trump has so far issued several actions related to prescription drug prices. The latest, announced May 12, is a Most Favored Nation Prescription Drug policy, requiring pharmaceutical companies to offer their lowest price to U.S. customers.

An earlier order aimed to ensure that the middlemen in the drug supply chain can’t hold on to rebates provided by pharmaceutical companies and instead must pass savings on to Medicare beneficiaries.

In all, the president has taken at least a dozen actions to reduce prescription drug costs, while no less than nine Senate bills aim for the same results.

Some of these ideas have been introduced before.

Trump’s Most Favored Nation pricing plan was introduced near the end of his first term.

The plan was stalled by court challenges, and President Joe Biden dropped it shortly after taking office.

A plan to make vendors pass manufacturer discounts on to Medicare beneficiaries was proposed in 2020. Biden rescinded it before it took effect.

There have been modest successes, including a pilot program begun by Trump in 2020 to cap insulin costs for Medicare Part B beneficiaries at $35 per month. At the time, a single vial of insulin cost about $100 in the United States.

That program was a success, and the idea was later broadened to include all Medicare beneficiaries through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. By 2024, most major drug companies had voluntarily limited out-of-pocket expenses for insulin for all U.S. customers to $35.

Yet Americans still pay nearly three times as much for prescription medication as any peer nation, often even more.

Trulicity, a medication for Type 2 diabetics, was listed for $67 in France, according to a 2021 Government Accountability Report. In the United States, it cost $798.

Meanwhile, Remlivid, an oral cancer medication, was listed for $4,723 in Australia. In the United States, it was listed at almost five times that price: $22,048.

Why? One answer is that other governments leverage the power of their national health plans to control pricing, while the United States lacks a comprehensive national prescription drug strategy.

The solution, according to at least one senator, is to stop putting patches on a broken system and take a comprehensive approach to regulating the entire pharmaceutical supply chain.

How Others Do It

Some nations can negotiate low prices for prescription drugs because they have national health care plans, which gives them near complete control over the drug market. Here’s how that works for some, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Australia

Australia has a national health care system that is partly administered by state, territorial, and local governments.

Prescription drug pricing is set at the national level, starting with an assessment of the drug’s value. That assessment is made by Australia’s independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, which evaluates new drugs for cost-effectiveness and may recommend them for inclusion on the list of approved medications under the national health plan.

That decision is made by Australia’s national minister of health, who then negotiates with the manufacturer to determine a price. Among other considerations, the health minister evaluates the impact of adding the drug on the country’s budget.

In this photo illustration, an Australian Medicare card is displayed with prescription medicines in Sydney, Australia, on March 25, 2025. Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken more than a dozen actions to lower prescription drug costs in the United States. Still, Americans pay nearly three times more for medications than other developed nations. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Canada

Canada keeps prescription prices low in two ways. First, Canada’s federal government sets a maximum allowable price for each medication. The government bases this price, in part, on the therapeutic value of the drug. That value may be higher if the drug is the first of its kind, or lower if there are similar drugs already on the market.

Second, the country’s 13 provincial and territorial health plans negotiate pricing jointly with manufacturers, combining the power of their respective markets.

France

France has a national health care system that includes prescription drugs.

The French government negotiates prices with manufacturers based on an assessment of the therapeutic value of the drug. The country also places a cap on total prescription spending.

The Drawbacks

These arrangements significantly lower prescription costs for the government and for patients. But there are drawbacks.

When a U.S. insurance company can’t negotiate an acceptable price from a drug manufacturer, the insurer may choose not to cover the drug. However, another company will often cover it, so patients still have options.

However, when a drug is omitted from a national health plan, it may be more difficult to find it or afford it anywhere in that country.

For example, Signifor, a drug used to treat hormonal diseases, was not available in Ontario, Canada, according to a 2021 study by the Government Accountability Office. Some forms of diabetes drug Trulicity were not available in Australia. Cancer medicine Revlimid 5 milligram and 10 milligram capsules were not available in France.

Or, drugs left off the national coverage list may still be available, but at a higher price.

Drug shortages are another problem.

In countries with national health plans, pharmaceutical companies have less incentive to ensure supply. Companies will favor markets where there is more potential for profit.

“[Drug] shortages are a natural outcome of imposing prices divorced from free market processes,” Jeremy Nighohossian, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, told The Epoch Times.

Stephen Ubl, president and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, “Importing foreign prices from socialist countries would be a bad deal for American patients and workers,” in a May 12 response to Trump’s plan.

Read the rest here...

The proposal in the “Big Beautiful Bill” to add an extra deduction of $4,000 for filers collecting Social Security payments within certain income limits and for people age 65 and older could be a significant boon to areas of the country with a large share of older beneficiaries, according to Bloomberg calculations.

For instance, some of highest concentrations of retirees in the country are in Southwest Florida, the communities of the Villages in central Florida, parts of Arizona, and the upper peninsula of Michigan, all solidly red areas of the country. 

As Bloomberg adds, in 2023, the latest data available, Florida’s 17th congressional district had more than 236,000 beneficiaries age 65 and older. 

In aggregate, people in that congressional seat collected $533 million a month in Social Security payments that year. 

The increase in the standard deduction in these areas with a high concentration of older beneficiaries would create a significant uptick in disposable income for parts of the US.
 

Investment banker Catherine Austin Fitts sat down for a wide-ranging interview, in which she warned about the future of food security, digital financial surveillance via Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), and fighting back against "the most invasive form of tyranny that's ever existed."

Sitting down with Breeauna Sagdal - Senior Policy Fellow at The Beef Initiative, Fitts paints a picture of modern society teetering between high-tech control and a rebirth of grounded living.

For starters, people need to take control of what they put into their bodies...

The Cost of Health in an Age of Wealth

Fitts recounted what we all know; just because you're rich doesn't mean you have two brain cells to rub together - noting that when she was an investment advisor, clients with $10–15 million brokerage accounts claimed they "couldn't afford" biodynamic or organic food. 

"I would just be shocked," Fitts recalled. "You're financing the national security state through your brokerage account… and meantime you're eating food as… one ally said to me recently, 'Have you priced the cost of cancer lately?'".

In short, the wealthiest Americans often fail to connect financial decisions to physical well-being. "The health and wellbeing of my family is the basis of our family wealth," she said.

Food, Not Gold, as the Ultimate Asset

While gold has traditionally served as a hedge against financial instability, Fitts is now more bullish on beef. "You put gold in a vault, it doesn't grow. You put cows in a field… and they multiply," she told Sagdal. "They're the ultimate in increase."

This sentiment fits hand in glove with that of The Beef Initiative - the concept that investing in local, regenerative agriculture not only ensures food access, but represents a resilient form of wealth creation. In Fitts' opinion, families and communities should form long-term capital relationships with ranchers; a reversal of decades-long trends in corporate food centralization

Fitts is urging private investors to begin financing and building relationships with their nearest farmers and ranchers in order to maintain health, and mental clarity during the ongoing "war" on freedom. 

"It's not just 'purchase and finance the capacity you need. It's more than that "" Fitts said. "You need be part of funding and organizing political efforts designed to protect your food supply. You need to do all these things, because this is war, and if you want to win you need to be healthy."

The war that Fitts refers to is neither kinetic, nor overtly seen. Rather, the effects of this silent war are felt and experienced through increased surveillance and a general sense that things are not okay—especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. And while the pandemic may have exposed the fragility of America's supply chains, Sagdal and Fitts address the origins of this fragility.

"How have we arrived in our current predicament, where our cattle volumes are at a seventy-year-low, where our food security has been hollowed-out, and our middle class is gone? What is the goal for the next phase, and how do we stop it?" asked Sagdal - tying into a recent interview Fitts gave to Tucker Carlson.

Fitts responds by sharing that people within central banking have used new technologies to centralize control.  

"This is what Sir James Goldsmith was talking about, the global centralization of economic and political control," Fitts said, referring to a 1994 interview with Charlie Rose." It's continued for my whole lifetime. And, as we see this centralization of control, we witness the deterioration of the quality of life."

"[Globalization] uprooted the countryside, bloated the towns, destabilized the towns, and created terrible chaos," said Goldsmith, referring to the The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. "Under global trade agreements like GATT, millions of small farmers were displaced in favor of "efficient" industrial agriculture, "to satisfy an economic doctrine… We are worshiping the wrong god: economic index," Goldsmith continued.

CBDCs and the Coming Age of Programmable Money

The conversation delved into an interesting intersection; monetary policy and surveillance. According to Fitts - a (based) former Bush administration official, the push toward Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) represents not financial inclusion, but financial control.

Referencing public comments by BIS general manager Agustín Carstens, Fitts warned that CBDCs could give governments the power to dictate not just how money is spent - but if it can be spent at all. "If you're locked down and can't leave your house, your money won't work outside your house, "she said. "If they don't want you eating pizza, you can't eat pizza."

Carstens, in a widely viewed IMF panel, stated: "Central banks will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of [CBDCs]… and the technology to enforce that."

According to Fitts, this is essentially akin to the Chinese Communist Party's social credit score - a goal plainly stated by Bo Li, the Deputy Director of the IMF and former Assistant Director of the People's Bank of China. In short... CBDC is social credit on steroids. 

"By programming CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency], those money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own, and what kind of use this money can be utilized," Li calmly outlines. "For example, for food."

Fitts explains that all money and monetary policy will be an expression of a Central Bank liability…with the technology to enforce it. "In other words, it's not your money, it's our money.  So, we can set the rules around how you use our money,  and we can enforce it centrally. And what he was referring to was A.I. and software." 

"We're talking about the most invasive form of tyranny that's ever existed on this planet," Fitts warns." What has been happening, you know, is this system has been slowly tightening around each of us. It's now coming to the point where it's more visible.

"Now we're talking about getting into something that's complete control, and of course you can't control the money in this way unless you can control the food supply," she continued, suggesting that this level of government control isn't possible unless they can control the food supply and the amount of land available for private use.

Land Grabs in the Wake of Disaster

Fitts alleges that recent crises - from the pandemic to natural disasters - have provided cover for rapid land centralization. "During stagflation… that's the perfect opportunity where the people who can print money can finance themselves grabbing a lot of land," she said.

Sagdal added that programs administered through HUD and tied to "resilient city" planning often mask community displacements under euphemisms like "strategic buyouts" or "community-driven relocation."

Watch the rest of the interview below, where Fitts and Sagdal discuss;

• The Invisible Cattle Problem

• Fraud, Entrainment, and Psychological Manipulation

• A Battle Over the Brain — and the Plate

What to do?

Start by taking control of your food supply: skip the multinational-owned supermarkets marketing questionable products by buying rancher-direct. 

Second, read the bombshell MAHA Report released last week by Health & Human Services and the White House to understand the blueprint for reshaping America's food supply chain, with local farmers at the center.

That's what we're trying to do here with the Beef Initiative; helping you and your loved ones to become less reliant on multinational corporations' hormone-laden slop. You need to know where your meat comes from. Know that it's clean. 

The Beef Initiative's motto is "Shake your rancher's hand" for a reason; you need to know exactly where food is coming from, what their standards are, and pay close attention to what you're putting in your body.  To do this, we need to support independent farms that adhere to the highest standards.

Courtesy, Beck Ranch

As Fitts recounts in a perfect closer, reciting one of her favorite quotes from a Swiss doctor; 'The currency of the future will be relationships of trust."

Watch the entire interview below:

.  .  . 

Authored by Lane Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Even Trump Can’t Kill The Rally

Last week, we discussed how the rally had repaired much of the previous damage following the correction. As we noted:

“This past week, the market continued its advance. There is little reason to be bearish with key overhead resistance levels broken. However, as shown, the markets are reaching decently overbought levels after being extremely oversold. This suggests that at least for now, the “easy money” has been made. With the market above the 200, and above the 50 and 20-DMA, pullbacks should be between 5600 and 5800. Investors can use such a pullback to increase portfolio equity exposures and reduce hedges accordingly. Conversely, 5000 to 5200 becomes the next critical target if those lower supports are violated. Notably, such would require some unexpected event to unfold.”

Several times this past week, we discussed that the market was due for a corrective pullback after reaching more overbought conditions. On Friday, the market gave way early in the morning on fresh comments by President Trump instituting 25% tariffs on Apple (AAPL) on any product not manufactured in the U.S. and 50% tariffs on the EU, as trade talks are not going well. As is always the case, amid a bull run, sellers are still unwilling to sell over fear of “missing out” on rising asset prices. It takes some “event” to bring sellers into the market, which we saw early on Friday.

However, by late afternoon, markets bounced off the 200-DMA and clawed their way higher as comments from Scott Bessent took the sting out of Trump’s announcements. Most importantly, he made two significant statements to alleviate concerns over the recent yield rise. First, he expects the US budget deficit “to be something with a 3% in front of it by 2028,” with revenue from tariffs to be used to solve the deficit. This is crucial as the CBO projections of never-ending deficits do not consider the effects of policy changes that can lead to economic growth. Tax cuts, deregulation, the coming productivity boost from Artificial Intelligence, or the infrastructure demand for power can significantly impact future growth rates.

Secondly, he specifically mentioned the SLR. The Supplementary Leverage Ratio (SLR) is a rule imposed after the 2008 financial crisis that increased bank capital requirements. This is particularly interesting to the bond market, where reversing that requirement will allow banks to purchase more Treasury Bonds. Bessent noted in his interview that the Treasury is close to “moving the SLR requirement and could see that move by the summer.” That shift in the SLR requirement is very bond-friendly and will work to bring rates lower. (For more, read our Daily Market Commentary from last week.)

Technically Speaking

Even with Bessent’s comments, that market remains overbought short-term, and a further consolidation process is likely into next week. At the end of this week, we removed our short-market hedge, added to bonds, and reduced equity exposure. If the market is going to consolidate, we can allow cash to act as the primary hedge. However, if the 200-DMA is violated, the 50-DMA will become the next critical support. From a bullish perspective, the 20 and 50-DMAs are now sloping positively, which should provide rising support levels. Overall, we suspect that the market will stabilize. Of course, there are always risks to be aware of, so increased cash levels are essential now.

We are not “bearish” on the market because buybacks remain a powerful market influence over the next month. The recent surge has been the largest since the October 2022 market lows. However, those will begin to fade in the middle of June, which could weigh on markets into the Q2 earnings reports.

For now, this seems to be an “unstoppable” bull market, and investor spirits have become substantially more bullish. However, all rallies eventually end. That doesn’t mean a “crash” is coming, and as noted last week, the market is holding the 200-DMA for now. This suggests the previous correction phase is likely complete with support gathering at slightly lower levels. However, there is never a guarantee, so we have taken some recent gains and raised cash levels. We will be patient for a much better entry point soon.

With that said, let’s discuss how to navigate a seemingly “unstoppable” bull market.

Retail Buyers Go “All In”

Last week, we started the market update by analogy between the COVID pandemic decline and this year’s correction. As we noted:

“It is worth remembering that there are many competing differences between the current macroeconomic backdrop and 2020.”

“However, as we discussed in that previous analysis, even a “unstoppable bull market” gives those who can be patient better risk/reward opportunities to increase equity exposures. For example, after the initial rally off the March 2020 lows, the market pulled back and consolidated briefly before rallying further. Then, another longer consolidation process that year provided another entry point for bullish investors.”

“The weekly Technical Gauge we produce each week in this newsletter below follows the same path as 2020. While not yet back to bullish technical extremes, it is moving quickly higher to more elevated levels. When those readings reached 80, the market went through a longer consolidation process in 2020.”

Most interesting is that retail investors have been fueling the market’s advance. As noted in our #DailyMarketCommentary:

“Monday was a record-setting day. Stocks opened down 1% on news that Moody’s downgraded the US credit rating to AA. While some perceived the downgrade as problematic, retail investors, aka individuals, bought stocks at the highest rate ever. Per JP Morgan, retail investors purchased a net of $4.1 billion of US stocks in the first three hours of trading. As their graph below shows, Monday’s retail buying stampede dwarfs prior instances”

While the retail net inflow was quite impressive, it does leave the bulls and bears with a consideration. We should ask ourselves who the retail investors bought the stock from. The answer, by default, is institutional investors. This trend of retail buying from institutional investors has been ongoing. As we wrote in “Smart Money or Dumb Money: Who Will be Right?“

Smart money (institutions and hedge funds) is aggressively selling this market while individual investors, aka dumb money, are aggressively buying. The difference in opinions is stunning.

The data below confirms that view, with the recent stretch of Hedge Fund short selling remaining unprecedented and reflective of some skeptics. Over the past 3 COT reports, Hedge Fund shorts surged ~$25bn – the largest amount for at least the past 10 years. 

Viewed through another lens, Hedge Fund shorts as a percentage of total open interest reached 41% – the max dating back to February of 2021.

Typically, institutional investors tend to be right. However, in the short term, particularly over the last few years, retail investors have been heavy buyers of corrections. The only question is whether retail investors run out of money before institutions are forced to cover?

Valuations Take A Back Seat

That said, the rally so far seems unstoppable. Every time the market opens lower, as on Friday following Trump’s tariff increase, buyers step in. As such, the patience needed to wait for a correction has been hard to come by. As noted previously, we remain bullishly biased but expect a pullback.

“We must remember that market advances can only go so far before an eventual correction occurs. My best guess is that if the markets are to reach all-time highs this year, we will likely have a correction to reset some of the more extreme overbought conditions, as shown below. Any pullback to the 50-DMA is likely a good entry point to increase exposure on a better risk/reward basis.”

The bull market that started in October 2022 has surprised many, given the number of traditionally more bearish indicators, such as inverted yield curves, leading economic indicators, and rising interest rates. For many individuals, trading a rising stock market is difficult because they expect the inevitable resumption of the “bear market.” However, as the market continues to rise, investors are pressured to buy equities, creating more demand, thereby pushing asset prices even higher.

The bullish bias is evident in the long-term relationship between stocks and bonds. The ratio of stocks to bonds has far exceeded that of the “Financial Crisis,” and is now on par with the “Dot.com” bubble peak, with a similar sharp slope higher.

Does that mean the market is about to “crash?” No, but there is an apparent correlation between the detachment of stocks to bonds and historical valuation metrics. However, in the short term, all that matters is price. As discussed in “Technical Measures,“ valuations are a terrible market timing tool. Valuations only measure when prices are moving faster or slower than earnings. In the short term, valuations are just a measure of psychology. To wit:

“Valuation metrics are just that – a measure of current valuation. More importantly, when valuation metrics are excessive, it is a better measure of ‘investor psychology’ and the manifestation of the ‘greater fool theory.’ As shown, there is a high correlation between our composite consumer confidence index and trailing 1-year S&P 500 valuations.”

The chart indeed suggests that investors should sell everything immediately. However, given that this is monthly data, these turns can and do take much longer than expected. This “lag” leads investors in the short term to believe that “valuations” no longer matter. Such is a dangerous assumption that investors paid dearly for in the past. Valuations do matter, and they matter a lot, just not today.

Therefore, when investors are caught in an “unstoppable” bull market, we must revert to price analysis and trading rules to navigate the markets.

Navigating An Unstoppable Bull Market

There are millions of ways to approach technical analysis, and investors use millions of combinations of technical indicators to decipher market movements.

I am only going to discuss how we do it with you.

Notably, technical analysis does NOT predict the future. It is the study of historical price action, which is the purest representation of the psychology of market participants. From that study, we can make statistical observations about the behavior of market participants in the past. Those assumptions can help form a “guess,” assuming similar variables, about how they may act in the near term.

For our portfolio management needs, we keep our analysis very simple. We use one indicator to indicate if prices are overbought or oversold, two moving averages to determine the trend of prices, and Bollinger bands to warn of significant deviations from those moving averages. I show the technical setup in the sample chart below from SimpleVisor.com.

When markets rise, we look for “warning signs” that stocks could be due for a short—or intermediate-term corrective period. Conversely, during market declines, we look for indications that markets are oversold and ready to advance. Currently, we are dealing with the former.

Historically, when prices move toward the upper bands of 2- or 3-standard deviations above the 50-day moving average (dma), the Williams %R is overbought, and the MACD is crossing lower from a high level, stock prices generally correct to some degree. Such is the potential environment we will likely deal with in the next few weeks as earnings season concludes and the corporate buyback window closes. This is also why we have suggested holding off trading portfolios and increasing cash levels until some of these more overbought conditions are corrected.

But that is difficult to do in an “unstoppable” market advance.

Trading An Unstoppable Market

It’s not as hard as you think, once you conquer the emotional side of the equation.

Commandment #1: “Thou Shall Not Trade Against the Trend.” – James P. Arthur Huprich

Let me be very clear. We are discussing risk management. You must understand the market’s overall trend and when it is changing. The negative price trend of 2022 is now over, and since then, the market has continued to trend positively. While you can argue, fight, and provide all the reasons why “the game is rigged,” the fact is that the market continues to push higher. Those participating are building wealth, those who aren’t…well…aren’t. You have a choice.

We are in a “bull market.”. As such, we want to maintain our exposure to equity risk. However, this does not mean we should ignore what the market tells us and let the ebbs and flows wash over us. Eventually, another “ebb” will come, and we will want to reduce risk accordingly. That does not mean selling everything and going to cash.

“In a bull market, you can be either long or neutral. In a bear market, you can only be neutral or short.” – Dennis Gartman

The market will eventually pull back, and likely soon. During that correction, prices will likely remain confined to the 50-dma, as noted above. Could a correction be larger? Yes. The market is currently overbought and extended, so we suggest that investors manage risk and remain cautious about committing cash reserves to the market. However, we will want to use corrections that reverse those overbought and extended conditions as an opportunity to increase equity exposure.

“Willingness and ability to hold funds uninvested while awaiting real opportunities is a key to success in the battle for investment survival.” – Gerald Loeb

Geopolitical discussion is swirling around Trump's confrontation of South Africa's government and their complicity in a growing race war against white Afrikaners.  The specific issue being open calls for property confiscation and the murder of the white population.  No group or political party is singing songs about killing black Africans.  They are only singing songs about killing whites.

This fact and a myriad of conditions have led many overseas, especially in America, to worry about the potential for full spectrum genocide.  There is already a slow grinding death machine that is chewing up Afrikaner farming communities over the course of years, but it situation could easily cross the line into mass murder. 

Others, however, are rooting for South Africa's socialist government. 

A common refrain in the past week is the argument that Donald Trump is "pushing SA into the arms of China and the Belt and Road Initiative" by cutting off foreign aid and making the treatment of the Afrikaners into an international debate. What would happen if SA turned to the BRICS?  As if this was not already a reality, South Africa has been closely tied to the BRICS since they formally joined the economic bloc in 2010.  From 2010 to 2018 the BRICS experienced substantial growth and global influence. 

However, the China of 10 years ago is not the China of today.  China's foreign direct investments (FDI) in Africa were steady since 2003 (like US investments) as the country started buying up oil and raw commodities, but they are now on the decline.

The communist nation's economy is in dire straits.  The shutdowns during the covid pandemic triggered a deflationary spiral that they have not been able to recover from.  Foreign investments in China have dropped over 77% since 2022.  The country suffered a 27% investment cut in 2024 alone. 

It should be noted that the Chinese were already experiencing an export drop in 2018-2019 due to Trump tariffs and reduced consumer spending in the west.  In 2025, the CCP is struggling with a crushing deflationary crisis - It's likely if current tariffs remain in place or expand, China will face a financial crash.

In turn, Chinese investment in some regions is shriveling.  To put the money situation in perspective, most African nations have little to no capacity to develop without foreign cash flow.  They need first-world nations to back infrastructure and resource projects.

China's investment in Africa peaked a decade ago.  Their direct investment into Africa in 2023 was $3.96 billion.  In 2018 China announced a $15 billion foreign aid and investment deal with South Africa, but there are suspicions as to how much of this cash is actually reaching SA. China's overall cash flow into the region is dropping fast.  This was partially due to the pandemic and the lockdowns, but also because of the greater deflationary crisis that has struck China after they finally started easing conditions for medical tyranny.  

Keep in mind, there's not a single financial data point coming from the CCP that can be trusted.  The government has thoroughly rigged all stats to show steady growth.  Experts on Chinese employment data suggest that the government is hiding an impressive spike in joblessness.  In the case of youth (workers age 16-25) they argue that China's unemployment is not 21%, but 46%. 

This number better correlates to China's falling exports and imports (numbers that are harder to manipulate or hide), and the lack of recovery from the covid lockdowns.

South Africa is also dealing with a persistent trade deficit with China that is benefiting the CCP far more than it is benefiting the SA economy.  South Africa primarily exports raw materials to China while China exports a multitude of finished goods with higher value.  The trade imbalance has resulted in an accumulated cash outflow of US$114.83 billion from South Africa to China.

South Africa only raised concerns about these alarming trends in 2024, at the ninth FOCAC meeting.

In other words, China's partnership is definitely not a boon for South Africa.  China feeds on other nations, they do not save other nations.  The narrative that China will swoop in to protect SA if the US permanently cuts off foreign aid and investment is perhaps based on an outdated perception of China's economic strength.  Or, it's based on delusion.

South Africa's 32% unemployment rate, instability in infrastructure and depressing violent crime spike are not going to be solved by fizzling investment from China.  China can't even save itself and has taken to rigging nearly all of it's economic indicators instead of trying to fix the problem.  Their investment plans are falling by the wayside because they can't afford to support Africa anymore.  In the meantime, the CCP pays lip service to greater financial cooperation, but the shrinking numbers tell us the real story. 

If the South African government thinks they will be able to attach like a barnacle to China's economic ship as a way to "stick it to Trump", then they are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The situation remains very combustible and could easily explode at the slightest spark...

Russia and the US rarely agree on much, but their top diplomats just sounded the alarm about Syria, which should convince objective observers that there’s credence to their warnings. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “The situation in the Middle East is particularly troubling, especially in Syria, where groups of radical militants commit real acts of ethnic cleansing and mass executions on ethnic and religious grounds.”

This was a reference to March’s Kristallnacht-like killings of Syria’s Alawite minority.

As for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he said that “It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they’re facing, are maybe weeks — not many months — away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up.” He was likely alluding not only to the mass killings of Syria’s Alawites, but recent tensions with the Druze minority and potential problems in implementing spring’s national reintegration deal with the Kurds.

Prior to these top diplomats’ warnings, there was some cautious optimism about Syria’s future after Russia was able to retain its bases there for the time being, Trump met Jolani/Sharaa, and the US and then the EU lifted sanctions on Syria. Nevertheless, the aforesaid three positive developments were still overshadowed by the abovementioned problems, which pair with the Israeli-Turkish rivalry in Syria to create a very combustible situation.

To make matters worse, Russia’s Khmeimim airbase was recently attacked by what Russian milblog Rybar claimed were Uzbek militants, who might have gone rogue for whatever reason but Rybar suspects that they actually intended to send a plausibly deniable hostile message from the new authorities.

Whatever their true motivation might be, it shows how volatile the situation remains in Syria, which could prompt all relevant foreign stakeholders into seriously considering their contingency plans there.

These are Russia, the US, Turkiye, Israel, and even the Iranian-led “Resistance Axis” to a degree, and the interplay between them could decisively shape Syria’s future. 

Apart from the previously described Israeli-Turkish rivalry, Israel was reportedly lobbying the US to keep Russia’s bases in Syria earlier this year, while another report claimed that Israel is engaged in secret Emirati-mediated talks with Syria. There are also recent reports about the Trump-Bibi rift, which might be irreconcilable, to consider too.

Another influential variable could be the nascent Russian-US “New Détente”, which might see them coordinate their activities in Syria, just like Turkiye and the US might do the same after Trump congratulated Erdogan for last December’s regime change. Observers also shouldn’t rule out that the “Resistance Axis” might have some “sleeper cells” across Syria waiting for the right time to “awake”. The chaotic interplay between these relevant foreign stakeholders could easily “Balkanize” Syria.

Syria might therefore be in for some tough times ahead due to these factors. 

To recap, the new authorities’ persecution of minorities might push some of them into taking up arms, after which they could be patronized by the identified foreign stakeholders. 

Some of these external players might then exploit these partners as proxies for dividing-and-ruling Syria. 

If another full-scale war ensues, then the region will once again be destabilized, and another tidal wave of refugees might crash into Europe.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The Sweden Democrats have announced they will campaign in the 2026 general election on a pledge to stop migration to the country.

In an op-ed for Svenska Dagbladet published on Wednesday, party leader Jimmie Åkesson and migration policy spokesperson Ludvig Aspling said Sweden’s national security must take precedence over the right to asylum, marking a hardening of the party’s already tough stance on immigration.

“Sweden’s safety must come first — even when it conflicts with the right of asylum,” Åkesson wrote in a Facebook post linking to the article.

“Before the 2026 election, we will therefore demand that Sweden be given the opportunity to completely stop migration.”

The article itself proceeds to criticize the foundation of the European Union’s asylum system, calling it flawed because it deprives individual member states of the right to determine how many asylum seekers they admit.

The nationalist duo suggests that the current rights-based asylum regime, which sets no theoretical upper limit on the number of people who can be granted protection so long as they meet the legal criteria, is not fit for purpose.

According to the party, this legal framework has created a “strange situation,” where countries like Greece, Poland, and Finland have effectively sealed their borders to asylum seekers, yet received approval from Brussels. Åkesson noted that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen even praised Greece for previously closing its border with Turkey, calling it “Europe’s shield.”

“We see it as completely obvious that migration from certain countries is a direct threat to national security here in our country as well,” Åkesson and Aspling stated.

“It is time for Sweden to start adapting its actions to reality and stop treating EU rules as if they were Swedish law.”

While Åkesson initially vowed to give Swedish voters the chance to “completely stop migration,” the article suggests a Sweden Democrats administration would initially clamp down on asylum policy and pause migration from specific regions, reserving the right to halt migration in its entirety should the deteriorating security situation in Sweden not improve.

The duo cited an increase in bombings, shootings, religious extremism, and criminal networks as justification for exceptional measures, arguing that these conditions meet the threshold of an extraordinary situation, comparable to those that once allowed the Swedish government to temporarily override ordinary immigration laws. That provision was abolished in 1976, but the Sweden Democrats now want it reinstated.

“If public security does not improve significantly before [the election], we will then demand that the ordinary immigration law be put out of play during the term of office,” the party stated. 

This would involve pausing migration from Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, with limited exceptions, and expelling the roughly 6,000 foreign nationals identified by Swedish police as having links to gang crime.

The party also hinted that “other unconventional measures may also be relevant” depending on the security situation.

The Sweden Democrats have helped to prop up the current center-right administration in the country, lending it the votes it needs to govern effectively in exchange for pledges to tighten asylum and immigration rules and bolster law and order.

But, according to Åkesson and Aspling, steering immigration policy toward the EU’s minimum legal standards is no longer sufficient, and Stockholm must go further to preserve the Swedish way of life.

“It is time for Sweden to also become part of Europe’s shield,” they concluded.

Åkesson has previously called for a ban on new citizenship applications into Sweden under the current government, criticizing what he claims is the “completely crazy policy” of allowing applications by “individuals from deeply dysfunctional countries where there are often completely different values than those that characterize our Swedish culture.”

At his party’s annual conference in November 2023, the Swedish nationalist made headlines after he advocated in favor of Swedish authorities being handed the power to requisition and demolish mosques that are proven to be used to promote messages incompatible with Western values.

“It is not a right to come to our country and build monuments to a foreign and imperialist ideology,” Åkesson told his party’s faithful, also demanding a ban on the construction of new mosques.

Read more here...

Authored by John Mills via The Epoch Times,

Cuba has been impoverished by years of communist control, but it possesses a strategic vantage point that China prizes.

Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in his congressional testimony on May 6 that Cuba is a “strategic battleground” with China. Twenty sensitive U.S. government facilities in Florida are in range of the expanding Chinese Cyber and Signals Intelligence Collection network in Cuba.

Even before the Russians minimized their presence in Cuba in 2002, the Chinese were eyeing the Caribbean country.

Berg said that in February 1999, then-Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian visited Cuba and met with his counterpart, then-Defense Minister Raúl Castro.

“According to an article in El Nuevo Herald, the two reportedly signed an agreement granting China access to a number of former Soviet listening stations across the island, including the Bejucal base less than 10 miles from the old Lourdes station,” he noted.

As part of the path toward resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy pledged publicly not to invade Cuba. The Soviets pledged to remove nuclear and “offensive” weapons from Cuba. The Soviets maintained a reduced presence in Cuba for the rest of the Cold War, including an intelligence collection station at Lourdes, outside of Havana, and occasional naval and air visits, while the United States maintained a robust overwatch of Cuba from bases in southern Florida.

Chinese Military and Intelligence Network Grows in Cuba

In the summer of 2023, Cuba leapt onto the front pages with the sudden, surprise news release about a Chinese spy presence in the country. After the media report, the initial response from the Pentagon was to deny the topic. 

Then, The Associated Press reported there was an anonymous Biden administration official who confirmed that this started in 2019, which was a clever way of deflecting responsibility toward President Donald Trump. 

Berg pointed out that then-National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby “reversed course and admitted to China’s spy bases in Cuba, but insisted that its presence had existed since 2019 under the first Trump administration, implying the Biden administration had ‘inherited’ the challenge.”

“Around the same time, reports surfaced that China was pursuing the construction of a military training base in Cuba,” he added. 

Kirby had apparently missed the 1999 visit by Gen. Chi Haotian. In July 2024, The Wall Street Journal released additional imagery and reported that the Chinese military and intelligence footprint grew even larger than first reported.

The Chinese regime’s presence in Cuba is just one element of Chinese surveillance surrounding Florida. China has been operating gas and oil platforms that may have intelligence collection capabilities in the Gulf of America (previously known as the Gulf of Mexico) on the western side of Florida.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, former commander of U.S. Northern Command, pointed out, before the Chinese spy balloon episode, the danger of the Chinese infrastructure presence in the Bahamas, only 50 miles to the right of Florida.

Cuba Receives Promises of Chinese Support

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez in Moscow on May 9 during the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II. 

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said about the meeting, “China is ready to work with Cuba to further strengthen their ironclad friendship, build a closer China–Cuba community with a shared future, and set an example of solidarity and cooperation between socialist countries and sincere interaction between developing countries.”   

In addition, the BRICS alliance—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—welcomed Cuba into the organization on Jan. 1, 2025, saying that the Caribbean country’s membership would allow it to become “a relevant player on the international stage.” Beijing dominates policy and plans for BRICS.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has developed an alliance with Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and South Africa in its “no limits” strategy to take on the United States, and it appears Cuba is entering this grouping of communist and totalitarian countries.

CCP Lures Latin American Countries With Financial Offer

Following the U.S.–China tariff truce, China hosted a forum with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Beijing on May 13. Left-leaning leaders in Latin America, such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, were in attendance.  

The CCP used a Belt and Road Initiative power play and extended a credit line of $9.2 billion to the Latin American countries in attendance, with a very important caveat: The currency used in the line of credit would be the Chinese yuan.

The move, which excluded the global reserve currencies like the U.S. dollar, aimed to promote the yuan while China deepens its ties in the Americas. Of all the opportunities in the Americas, Cuba offers China the greatest return on investment. The short distance to the United States from Cuba allows the CCP a key intelligence observation point and a way to create a counterbalance of world support for Taiwan. 

There may not yet be missiles in Cuba, or at least they haven’t been identified, but another Cuban crisis is developing. As a Foreign Affairs article said, “Trump Will Disrupt Three Decades of ‘Benign Neglect’ of American focus on the Americas, with Cuba likely being one of the starting points.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

But all bubbles pop, and there are no tricks left to fund both the greed of the few and the needs of the many.

Every society / economy is a distribution mechanism that distributes:

1. Gains

2. Losses

3. Risk

4. The costs of securing the sources of gains.

As a general rule, markets / economies don't really care who ends up with the losses, and this is why markets / economies are fundamentally pathological structures: the single-minded focus is to maximize gains and minimize costs and losses by distributing them to others by any means available.

As a general rule, societies have to manage the distribution in a slightly less pathological manner to keep the status quo from being overthrown by those forced to bear the costs and losses. As Mao famously observed, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," and so the sociopaths sluicing the gains into their own pockets and dumping the costs and losses on the economically / politically powerless without regard for social stability find the way of the Tao is reversal as those getting the crumbs eventually have nothing left to lose.

In other words, markets / economies are embedded in a social structure, not the other way round. And the social structure has to balance the distribution fairly enough to keep the majority from concluding they have nothing left to lose by throwing their lot into overthrowing the status quo.

We can gussy this structure up with a lot of theorizing and references to Plato, Marx and Machiavelli and hundreds of other players in the longstanding drama, but these are the fundamental forces in play: do the sociopaths have enough political and financial power to channel most of the gains to themselves and dump the costs and losses on others, or is the system capable of enforcing some limits on the sociopaths?

I submit that the United States is in the firm grip of the single-minded few focused solely on maximizing their gains and distributing costs and losses to others by any means available. The social and political restraints that placed modest limits on the aggregation of power and wealth into the hands of the few have crumbled, and this structural collapse has been hidden behind flimsy billboards hyping the latest in distractions: AI, tariffs, stablecoins, Rich Mom fashions, etc.

These flimsy distractions are about to be blown over by the windstorm of recession and social disorder as the American households clinging on to the fantasy of The American Dream as all the costs and losses are dumped on them as the gains flow to the top 10% finally throw in the towel on the status quo.

The entire bloated, distorted beast has been living on buy now, pay later skims and scams, and the debt pushers have turned enough of the populace into debt-junkies that there's few new customers left to addict.

The entire travesty of a mockery of a sham is out of balance and cannot be restored with the usual magic tricks. The interests of the citizenry--supposedly respresented by elected officials--have been trampled underfoot by a thundering herd of fraud, swindles and corruption, the means by which the sociopaths control the distribution of gains, losses, costs and risks.

This systemic dominance of fraud, swindles and corruption has been not just normalized but hyper-normalized: we all know the entire system is hopelessly compromised by corruption, but since we're powerless to change this distribution, we act as if this is normal, and go about our business, debating AGI (artificial general intelligence) and other absurdities to pass our time while we await the inevitable reversal of fortunes.

Here is the real distribution of gains, losses, costs and risks in America: the gains go to the most corrupt few and the losses, costs and risks are distributed to the many. Here are three of the latest manifestations of fraud, swindles and corruption among a seemingly countless stream of self-serving outrages that are no longer outrages, they're just the way things work now.

Here's how Corporate America takes care of its customers: the gains are ours, the risks are yours. It's taboo to call things what they are, so we can't say that Corporate Anerica is pathological--even when it is:

A Devastating New Expose of Johnson & Johnson Indicts an Entire System.

Revealed: UnitedHealth secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers.

Owner-Occupancy Fraud and Mortgage Performance. (rampant mortgage fraud... again)

As always, I am honored to share a remarkable data base of Corporate Fines and Settlements from the early 1990s to the present compiled by Jon Morse. There are 2700 entries, updated through December 2024.

What's finally happening is the system can no longer collect enough resources to fund the minimum required to satisfy the sociopaths and the minimum required to satisfy the bottom 90%, so something's gotta give. The solution has always been straightforward: print or borrow another couple trillion dollars to fund the greed of the sociopaths and whatever it takes to keep the herd from stampeding.

The trillions are getting harder to print/borrow, and so it's finally squeeze-time. Gosh, this is actually kinda hard: do we squeeze the sociopaths, who scream bloody murder at any reduction of their gains, or do we squeeze the bottom 60% who are already on the cliff edge? Can we sorta kinda squeeze both enough to keep the status quo intact?

This isn't sustainable stability: it's entropy dressed up in the finery of stability. The sociopaths have concentrated sufficient financial and political power to stave off any real reductions in their distribution of the gains, and so the costs and losses will be distributed to the bottom 90% in various forms, as usual. Only some percentage of the bottom 90% no longer has sufficient credit or income buffers to absorb more losses, costs and risks.

The last trick in the status quo's hat is a credit-asset bubble that generates an illusion of unending wealth for everyone: wealth for those who own the assets, of course, and wages for everyone below due to the trickle down effect where you buy a $1 million vacation home and I live in my car in a parking lot working in town:

In a Snow Paradise, They Live in This Parking Lot: People experiencing homelessness can sleep in their cars in this wealthy ski town in Colorado, but only if they have a job.

But all bubbles pop, and there are no tricks left to fund both the greed of the few and the needs of the many. The top 0.01% own five times as much as the bottom 50%--170 million Americans. That's some very pretty entropy dressed up as stability.

Look, I wish it were different, but the facts speak for themselves:

Do we hear the chorus of complaints of the top 0.1%? Why oh why aren't the bottom 50% delighted to own 2.5% of total household net worth? It's more than enough, right?

This makes the impossible--a reshuffling of the social order on a grand scale--not just possible but inevitable. Nobody saw it coming, etc. Um, yeah, sure, whatever.

*  *  *

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Via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: Who exactly are the neoconservatives—where did this movement originate, what do they fundamentally believe, and why does their ideology seem so relentlessly focused on promoting war and global intervention?

Doug Casey: Most of the neocons have a background as socialists or hardcore leftists. But the neocons are smarter than the average statist in that they could see that socialism was a failure—it wasn’t working anywhere. So what they did was adopt conservative-seeming economic policies, while maintaining all the other trappings of socialism.

Neocons are universally state worshipers. They don’t believe in principles as a matter of principle. You could say that a foundational thinker for the neocons is Niccolò Machiavelli, who promoted the idea in his book The Prince that whatever works and accomplishes the goal of the ruler should be done—that it’s counterproductive to think in terms of right, wrong, or morality.

Many neocons self-identify as Wilsonians. Woodrow Wilson was one of the very worst presidents, responsible for the income tax, the Federal Reserve, US participation in WW1, and trying to “make the world safe for democracy,” among other things.

International Man: The neocon agenda appears to be intellectually rooted in figures like Leo Strauss and even Trotsky. How do you explain the rise of this ideological blend within what many still call the “conservative” movement?

Doug Casey: They only seem conservative because they’ve found it useful to adopt free market–seeming economic policies. This goes back to the long-standing confusion between capitalists and fascists.

Socialists believe in state ownership of the means of production—factories, farms, mines, and the like. Capitalists, however, believe in private ownership of the means of production, as well as private control over them. Fascists—a word that was coined by Mussolini, incidentally—also believe, or at least tolerate, the private ownership of the means of production. That’s why they’re easily confused with capitalists. But fascists believe in complete state control over the means of production, while leaving ownership in private hands.

This is why there’s so much confusion in the public’s eyes between capitalism and fascism. The key difference is control, and a strong partnership between the private and public sectors. That greatly enhances the ability of business owners to enrich themselves, at the expense of the average worker.

In point of fact, neocons are all fascists—in every way. They worship the state, just like in fascist Germany and Italy, where industries were privately owned but completely tied to the interests of the state. Almost all the world’s economies are fascist; there are no pure capitalist or socialist countries. We really should call the neocons fascists.

They also have an aggressive foreign policy, which fascists are known for. They’re fascists in every way, including their support for substantial welfare programs for the populace.

International Man: Despite a track record of costly failures—from endless wars to ballooning government power—why do neoconservatives still wield such influence? Why does anyone in Washington or the media continue to take them seriously?

Doug Casey: I’d say it’s because of their outspoken belief that the State should be the central influence in society. That the government should be the country’s dominant force, not the family, religion, business, or other civil institutions. People now go along with that. It’s understandable that everybody wants a big brother to kiss all their problems and make them better. The average person, who wants something for nothing, a free lunch, is morally weak. And he’s intellectually confused by statist propaganda.

If you create a powerful state which promises to not only take care of you, but also to “win” against other states, a lot of people will respond. Many treat the State the same way football fans treat their favorite teams: “we” will win against “them.” It’s easy to get the hoi polloi hooting and panting like chimpanzees against some fabricated enemy.

Intellectuals have coined arguments that cater to this kind of mass psychology, and people go for it. They like the idea of being protected and being part of a powerful, winning team.

I’ve met any number of well-known neocons personally. Charles Krauthammer, Bill Bennett, and Paul Wolfowitz among them. They’re intellectuals and quite civilized on the surface. But all of them promote completely evil and destructive ideas. The fascist system we have has treated them very well. They’ve become much wealthier than they could have under socialism or capitalism.

International Man: Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, have recently called out the neocons by name.

Figures like Douglas Murray have suggested the term ‘neocon’ is the new n-word. Mark Levin has gone so far as to label its use anti-Semitic.

Why are some neocons using accusations of racism to shut down legitimate and important discussions?

Doug Casey: A great way to shut down any discussion today is to call your opponent a racist. And this has some grounding with neocons because a large majority of them—just like a large majority of intellectuals in general—are Jews. Neocons are reflexively pro-Israel as well. I listened to Mark Levin go on a rant about this on his show recently; he was practically frothing at the mouth in anger.

It’s odd that people consider it racist to stereotype any group and decry that as a bad thing. It’s not. Stereotypes develop because they reflect reality. Members of stereotyped groups often prefer to pretend that we’re all equal, and their group is just like anyone else. But it’s a fact that birds of a feather flock together.

It’s unfortunate that almost all the leading neocon intellectuals are Jews.

International Man: The neocons have long pushed for US war with Iran. What would the geopolitical fallout be if they succeed, and how might such a war impact global markets, energy prices, and economic stability?

Doug Casey: It would be a huge mistake for the US to attack Iran, as they seem to be planning to do. They’re moving B-52 and B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia, which is within easy striking distance of Iran, while Trump thumps his chest and threatens war. It’s a mistake because Iran is a somewhat advanced society with about 92 million people; it’s hunting big game, not like the pipsqueak countries the US has been losing against for the last 75 years. But also because any outside attack always unites a domestic population. It would unite them against the US, and further empower the Mohammedan ideologues now in charge.

It would also be a mistake because it would be immoral—not that anyone cares. The Iranians have never attacked the US. The world is, I think, getting tired of the US promiscuously bombing anyone they like. In fact, almost all of the Islamic terrorism over the last 30 or 40 years has come from Sunni Muslims. The Iranians are Shia Muslims. They don’t get along well with the Sunnis—much like Irish Catholics never got along with Irish Protestants, or Protestants and Catholics in Europe generally never got along back in the days when religion was a factor.

It’s suspicious, now that Trump has become so cozy with the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, which are all run by Sunnis. It makes sense that they’d like to use the US as a cat’s paw to steal Iran’s oil. Just as Israel would like to use the US as a means of taking out their enemy. It looks like the US, and Trump, are being used to do the bidding of the Arabs and the Israelis. Although we’re in no way threatened by the Iranians.

If a war did happen, the Iranians are in a perfect position to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is the conduit for around 40% of global oil exports—about 21 million barrels transit the Strait daily. None of it, incidentally, goes to the US. It’s genuinely not our problem.

The smart thing for the US is simply to leave Iran alone. If they have problems with their neighbors— Saudi Arabia and particularly Israel—let them sort it out among themselves.

Because Iran is a theocracy, making many economic decisions based on religion rather than economics, the current regime will eventually collapse, and the country will reorient. The last thing we need is to carry somebody else’s water by starting a potentially catastrophic war where the US has absolutely nothing to gain, but a lot to lose.

*  *  *

As Doug Casey makes clear, the neocon agenda is not only reckless but deeply tied to the growing economic and geopolitical instability we face today. The consequences of their actions could trigger a crisis unlike anything we’ve seen in decades. Read our special dispatch: Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse — a crucial resource for those who want to not only protect themselves, but come out ahead when the system buckles. Click here to download it now.