Month: April 2024

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

We’ve all surely had dark thoughts that the CIA is really running the United States, including many media venues. Maybe that’s been true for decades and we just didn’t know it. If so, let’s just say that it would explain a tremendous amount of what has otherwise been clouded in secrecy.

How would this be possible? Knowledge is power while secret knowledge is full control. Even fake knowledge means power and control, such as we found out in the phony Russiagate investigation early in Trump’s term. They hounded the new administration for years under a completely fake scenario in which Russia somehow got Donald Trump elected.

Yes, that was an intelligence operation all along, one directly designed to overthrow an election, a “color revolution” on our own soil.

How dare an agency not elected by the people, and evading oversight and public accountability, put itself ahead of the Constitution and the rule of law? It’s been going on for many decades as the agencies have gained ever more power, even to the point of forcing a full lockdown of America and even the world under false pretense.

None of this is verifiable precisely because of the secrecy involved. It’s not as if the intelligence community is going to send out a press release: “Democracy in America is an illusion. We know because we control nearly everything, plus we aspire to control even more.”

The incredulous among us will shoot back: look at what you are saying! Your conspiracy theory is non-falsifiable. The less evidence you have for it, the more you believe it. How in the world can we argue with you? Your position is not really plausible but there is nothing we can do to convince you otherwise.

Let’s grant the point. Still, let’s not dismiss the theory completely. Based on a New York Times (NYT) piece that appeared last week, it contains more than a grain of truth. The article is titled: “Campaign Puts Trump and the Spy Agencies on a Collision Course.”

Quote: “Even as president, Donald J. Trump flaunted his animosity for intelligence officials, portraying them as part of a politicized ‘deep state’ out to get him. And since he left office, that distrust has grown into outright hostility, with potentially serious implications for national security should he be elected again.”

Ok, let’s be clear. If the intelligence community led by the CIA is not the “deep state,” what is?

Further, it is proven many times over that the Deep State is in fact out to get him. This is not even controversial. Indeed, there is no reason for these journalists to write the above as if Donald Trump is somehow consumed by some kind of baseless paranoia.

Let’s keep going here: “Trump is now on a possible collision course with the intelligence community …. The result is a complicated and possibly destabilizing situation the United States has never seen before: deep-seated suspicion and disdain on the part of a former and perhaps future president toward the very people he would be relying on for the most sensitive information he would need to perform his role if elected again.”

Wait just a moment. You are telling us that all previous presidents have had a happy relationship with the CIA? That’s rather interesting to know. And deeply troubling too, since the CIA has been managing regime change the world over for a very long time, and is now directly involved in U.S. politics at the most intimate level.

Any president worth his salt should absolutely have a hostile relationship with such an agency, if only to establish clear civilian control over the government, without which it’s not possible to say that we live in a Constitutional republic.

And now, according to the NYT, we have one seeking the Presidency who does not defer to the agency and that this is destabilizing and deeply problematic. Who does that suggest really rules this country?

Is the NYT itself guilty of the most extreme conspiracy theory imaginable, or is it just stating facts as we know them? I’m going to guess that it is the latter. In this case, every single American should be deeply alarmed.

Crazy huh? As for the phrase “never seen before,” we have to push back. What about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Calvin Coolidge? They were all previous presidents, according to the history books that people once read.

There was no CIA back then. If you doubt this, I’m pretty sure that your favorite AI engine will confirm it.

One must suppose that when the NYT says “never seen before,” it means in the post-war period. And that very well might be true. John F. Kennedy defied them. We know that for certain. The mysteries surrounding his murder won’t be solved fully until we get the documents. But the consensus is growing that this murder was really a coup by the CIA, a message sent as a lesson to every successor in that office.

Think of that: we live in a country today where most people readily admit that the CIA probably killed the president. Amazing.

It’s intriguing to know at this late date that the Watergate “scandal” was not what it appeared to be, namely an intrepid media holding government to account. Even astute observers at the time believed the mainstream narrative. Now we have plenty of evidence that this too was nothing but a deep state attack on a president who had lost patience with it and provoked another coup.

All credit to my brilliant father who speculated along these lines at the time. I was very young with only the vaguest clue about what was happening. But I recall very well that he was convinced that Richard Nixon was set up in a trap and unfairly hounded out of office not for the bad things he was doing but for standing up to the Deep State.

If my own father, not a particularly political person, knew this for certain at the time, this must have been a strong perception even then.

You hear the rap that these agencies—the CIA is one but there are many adjacent others—are not allowed by law to intervene in domestic politics. At this point and after so much experience, this comes across to me like something of a joke. We know from vast evidence and personal testimony that the CIA has been manipulating political figures, narratives, and outcomes for a very long time.

How involved is the CIA in journalism today? Well, as a traditionally liberal paper, you might suppose that the NYT itself would be highly skeptical of the CIA. But these days, they have published a long string of aggressively defensive articles with titles like “It Turns Out that the Deep State Is Awesome” and “Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe.” We can add this last piece to the list.

So let’s just say it: the NYT is CIA. So too is Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Slate, Salon, and many other mainstream publications, including major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. The tentacles are everywhere and ever more obvious. Operation Mockingbird was just the beginning. The network is everywhere and the practice of manipulating the news is wholly normalized.

Once you start developing the ability to see the markings, you simply cannot unsee them, which is why people who think and write about this can come across as crackpot crazy after a while.

Have you considered that maybe the crackpots are exactly right? If so, shouldn’t we, at bare minimum, seek to support a Presidential candidate with a hostile relationship to the intelligence community?

Indeed, that ought to be a bare minimum standard of qualification. There is simply no way we can restore civilian control of government and constitutional government until this agency can be thoroughly reigned in or abolished completely.

Just when you thought you’ve already witnessed a lifetime’s worth of examples of the government being excellent capital allocators with your tax money, one more shining example comes along. 

Last week it was reported that Washington Governor Jay Inslee has announced $45 million worth of subsidies that is going to allow “low income” families to purchase an electric vehicle. 

The initiative offers families the opportunity to receive financial assistance for either leasing or purchasing electric vehicles, with up to $9,000 allocated for leasing and $5,000 for purchasing, according to Must Read Alaska.

The program is open to individuals earning 300% or less of the federal poverty level and extends to both new and used EVs. Approximately 9,000 people can benefit from the grant, with the potential for either 9,000 individuals to opt for the $5,000 deal or 5,000 individuals for the $9,000 option.

“Washingtonians really get it when it comes to electric vehicles,” Inslee said at a press conference last week. 

Governor Inslee characterized the initiative as a means to “democratize EVs,” emphasizing a broader goal of advancing the electrification of transportation. He expressed optimism about widespread adoption, anticipating significant participation and benefit from the program.

However, the program has faced criticism, notably from Washington Policy Center Environmental Director Todd Myers. Myers contends that the subsidies fail to effectively curb carbon emissions and represent a misallocation of taxpayer funds that could be better utilized for other environmental priorities like (we swear we are not making this up) salmon recovery.

Hey Todd, two wrongs don’t make a right! But we digress. Despite the controversy, the grant funds are slated to become available to eligible low-income residents in August.

Myers wrote in a blog post: “This is one more example of how wasteful and ineffective Washington’s climate policy is.”

He continued: “It also reveals the disingenuousness of claiming that climate change is an ‘existential crisis’ while wasting tens of millions of dollars on projects that do nothing to address that crisis.”

 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Parsing geopolitics is fun but our attention is better directed to the limits and second-order effects of legacy systems in each of the rival states.

Geopolitics, like any conflict, is dramatic: rivals jostle for hegemony on a 3-D chessboard, war threatens, etc. The focus of this drama is on the leaders’ calculations and the pieces being moved around the board in the complex battle for hearts, minds, resources and the high ground.

This is the conventional context of history, and so accounts of the rivalry between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire read like contemporary accounts of the rivalry between China and the U.S.: the actors and scenery changes, but the dramatic plot remains the same.

A less dramatic but closer reading of history tells a different story: imperial decline stems not from external rivalries but from internal limitations. Externalities–plague, drought, invasion–are not causes so much as events which reveal the limits of the empire’s internal legacy institutions.

These rigidities can be structural–economic or political–or cultural / social. There are two dynamics in play here:

1. Once solutions are institutionalized, they become legacy systems that focus not on flexibly solving problems but on sustaining and defending the interests of the institution and its insiders. The solution becomes the problem.

2. Whatever is viewed as a solution generates unanticipated second-order effects which the system is ill-equipped to resolve.

There are many examples of these dynamics in both China and the U.S., and indeed, in every nation / polity.

Consider the goal of increasing homeownership, a laudable ideal that the U.S. pursued after World War II by institutionalizing the heretofore unavailable innovation of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages and government-agency backed mortgages (Veteran Administration-backed mortgages for veterans, FHA, etc.).

Once the institutions promoting homeownership became self-sustaining legacy systems, they changed from “solution” to “problem.” As homeownership rates reached 65% of American households, the institutional drive to increase homeownership led to the development of subprime mortgages designed for households that did not qualify for conventional mortgages.

To grease the skids, lending standards were stripped to the point of irrelevance, liar loans took center stage and ratings agencies rubber-stamped risky mortgages as low-risk.

The net result of this institutional self-serving inertia was the collapse of subprime securities and the near-collapse of the global financial system as the dominoes of default and obscured risk started falling.

Turning to China, consider this chart of what happens when a one child per family state policy is enforced for three generations:

The policy was institutionalized with a sensible goal of limiting population growth to increase living standards, but without consideration of the second-order effects down the road.

In three generations, there are four grandparents and two parents who are all single children without siblings, uncles or aunts, and a single child who could be tasked not just with caring for two aging parents but four even older grandparents, should they live beyond the ability of their own aging offspring to care for them.

China has acquired the markers of a great power–missions to the moon and Mars, a mighty military and global economic influence–but it lacks a state-funded universal social welfare system that provides a substantial pension and medical care for every retiree regardless of their employment or earnings. This leaves much of the care of China’s rapidly aging generations on the shoulders of the third generation of single offspring.

As in other nations, China’s birthrate has declined precipitously as the financial pressures on parents mount, especially on young mothers who desire career opportunities equal to those available to young men.

Social welfare programs become increasingly costly and burdensome as populations age. Any state-funded solution will require diverting enormous sums currently spent elsewhere to the care of a large aging cohort.

The sources of brittleness and failure that are overlooked are internal, not external. Parsing geopolitics is fun but our attention is better directed to the limits and second-order effects of legacy systems in each of the rival states.

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An initial US Navy ship has reached Eastern Mediterranean waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip where its crew has begun constructing a floating platform for the ambitious Gaza humanitarian pier project ordered by President Biden, new satellite images published by Planet Labs show.

USNS Roy P. Benavidez is now some 5 miles from the shoreline location which serves as the base of operations, overseen by the Israeli military. The Associated Press writes that “A satellite image from Sunday by Planet Labs PBC showed pieces of the floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea alongside the vessel.”

Both US and Israeli officials have voiced that they hope to have a mobile pier in place and humanitarian deliveries being offloaded via maritime routes by sometime in the first part of May.

The causeway is expected to be at a length of 550-meters (1,800 feet) and will have Israeli military protection. US Army and Navy engineers are expected to remain at sea, especially after days ago the pier site came under mortar shelling by Palestinian militants who have warned against foreign forces stepping foot inside Gaza.

A new Reuters report meanwhile indicates the pier will cost US taxpayers at least $320 million to finish. This is double the early estimates which were floated earlier this year.

“The figure, which has not been previously reported, illustrates the massive scale of a construction effort that the Pentagon has said involves about 1,000 US service members, mostly from the Army and Navy,” writes Reuters.

“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee, has complained.

“This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost the American taxpayers at least $320 million [US dollars] to operate the pier for only 90 days,” he continued.

Earlier this month, USAID director Samantha Power said that famine already exists in some parts of the Gaza Strip. WSJ has underscored this as well in its reporting last week: “Some U.S. officials have said the pier, which will float several miles off Gaza’s shore, will help get more aid into northern Gaza, where some residents are already living in famine-like conditions, according to estimates released last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an international initiative tasked with assessing the risk of famine around the world.”

Many government officials especially from Global South countries have highlighted Washington’s contradictory approach to Gaza – on the one hand the US has been funding the Israeli military machine, sending controversial weaponry like 2,000-pound bombs, while on the other Biden has condemned the soaring civilian death toll and humanitarian catastrophe. Ironically, to some degree the United States is funding both sides of the conflict.

Authored by Egon von Greyerz via VonGreyerz.gold,

Since the October 2023 gold low of just over $1,600 gold is up but is anyone buying?

Well no, certainly none of the normal players.

Gold Depositories, Gold Funds and Gold ETFs have lost just under 1,400 tonnes of their gold holdings in the last 2 years since May 2022. 

But not only gold funds are seeing weak buying but also mints such as the Perth Mint and the US Mint with its coin sales down 96% year on year. 

Clearly gold knows something that the market hasn’t discovered yet. 

RATES MUCH HIGHER 

For the last few years I have been clear that there will be no lasting interest rate cuts. 

As the chart shows below, the 40 year down trend in US rates bottomed in 2020 and since then rates are in a secular uptrend.  

I have discussed this in many articles as well as in for example this interview from 2022 when I stated that rates will exceed 10% and potentially much higher in the coming inflationary environment, fuelled by escalating deficits and debt explosion.

“But the Fed will keep rates down” I hear all the experts call out!

Finally the “experts” are changing their mind and  believe that cuts will no longer happen. 

No central bank can control interest rates when its government recklessly issues unlimited debt and the only buyer is the central bank itself. 

PONZI SCHEME WORTHY OF A BANANA REPUBLIC

This is a Ponzi scheme only worthy of a Banana Republic. And this is where the US is heading.  

So strongly rising long rates will pull short rates up. 

And that’s when the fun panic starts. 

As Niall Ferguson stated in a recent article:

“Any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defence will not stay great for very long. True of Habsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire”.

So based on the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), the US will spend more on interest than defence already at the end of 2024 as this chart shows: 

But as often is the case, the CBO prefers not to tell uncomfortable truths. 

The CBO forecasts interest costs to reach $1.6 trillion by 2034. But if we extrapolate the trends of the deficit and apply current interest rate, the annualised interest cost will reach $1.6 trillion at the end of 2024 rather than in 2034. 

Just look at the steepness of the interest cost curve above. It is clearly EXPONENTIAL. 

Total Federal debt was below $1 trillion in 1980. Now, interest on the debt is $1.6 trillion.

Debt today $35 trillion rising to $100 trillion by 2034.

The same with the US Federal Debt. Extrapolating the trend since 1980, the debt will be $100 trillion by 2036 and that is probably conservative.

With the interest trend up as explained above, a 10% rate in 2036 or before is not unrealistic. Remember rates back in the 1970s and early 1980s were well above 10% with a much lower debt and deficit.

US BONDS – BUY THEM AT YOUR PERIL  

Let us analyse the current and future of a US treasury debt (and most sovereign debt):

• Issuance will accelerate exponentially 

• It will never be repaid. At best only deferred or more probably defaulted on

• The value of the currency will fall precipitously

HYPERINFLATION COMING

So where are we heading? 

Most probably we are facing an inflationary period leading to probable hyperinflation 

With global debt already up over 4x this century from $80 trillion to $350 trillion. Add to that a Derivative mountain of over $2 quadrillion plus unfunded liabilities and the total will exceed $3 quadrillion. 

As central banks frenetically try to save the financial system, most of the 3 quadrillion will become debt as counterparties fail and banks will need to be saved with unlimited money printing. 

BANCA ROTTA – BANKRUPT FINANCIAL SYSTEM 

But a rotten system can never be saved. And this is where the expression Banca Rotta derives from – broken bench or broken bank as my article from April 2023 explained. 

But neither a bank nor a sovereign state can be saved by issuing worthless pieces of paper or digital money. 

In March 2023, four US banks collapsed within a matter of days. And soon thereafter Credit Suisse was in trouble and had to be rescued. 

The problems in the banking system have just started. Falling bond prices and collapsing values of property loans are just the beginning. 

This week Republic First Bancorp had to be saved. 

Just look at US banks’ unrealised losses on their bond portfolios in the graph below.

 Unrealised losses on bonds held to maturity are $400 billion.

And losses on bonds available for sale are $250 billion. So the US banking system is sitting on identified losses of $650 billion just on their bond portfolios. As interest rates go up, these losses will increase.

Add to that, losses on loans against collapsing commercial property values and much more.

EXPONENTIAL MOVES 

So we will see debt grow exponentially as it has already started to do.  Exponential moves start gradually and then suddenly whether we talk about debt, inflation or population growth. 

The stadium analogy below shows how it all develops:

It takes 50 minutes to fill a stadium with water, starting with one drop and doubling every minute – 1, 2, 4, 8 drops etc. After 45 minutes the stadium is only 7% full and the last 5 minutes it goes form 7% to 100%.

THE LAST 5 MINUTES OF THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM

So the world is most probably now in the last 5 minutes of our current financial system.

The coming final phase is likely to go very fast as all exponential moves do, just like in the Weimar Republic in 1923. In January 1923 one ounce of gold cost 372,000 marks and at the end of November in 1923 the price was 87 trillion marks!

The consequences of a collapse of the financial system and the global economy, especially in the West can take many decades to recover from. It will involve a debt and asset implosion plus a massive contraction of the economy and trade.

The East and South and especially the countries with major commodity reserves will recover much faster. Russia for example has $85 trillion in commodity reserves, the biggest in the world. 

As US issuance of treasuries accelerate, the potential buyers will decline until there is only one bidder which is the Fed. 

Even today no sane sovereign state would buy US treasuries. Actually no sane investor would buy US treasuries. 

Here we have an already insolvent debtor that has no means of repaying his debt except for issuing more of the same rubbish which in future would only be good for toilet paper. But electronic paper is not even good for that. 

This is a sign in a Zimbabwe toilet: 

Let us analyse the current and future of a US treasury debt (and most sovereign debt):

• Issuance will accelerate exponentially 

• It will never be repaid. At best only deferred or more probably defaulted on

• The value of the currency will fall precipitously

That’s all there is to it. Thus anyone who buys US treasuries or other sovereign bonds has a 99.9% guarantee of not getting his money back. 

So Bonds are no longer an asset of value but just a liability for the borrower that will or can not be repaid.

What about stocks or corporate bonds. Many companies won’t survive or experience a major decline in the stock price together with major cash flow pressures. 

As I have discussed in many articles, we are entering the era of commodities and especially precious metals. 

The coming era is not for speculation but for trying to keep as much of what you have as possible. For the investor who doesn’t protect himself, there will be a wealth destruction of an unprecedented magnitude. 

There will no longer be a question what return you can get on your investment. 

Instead it is a matter of losing as little as possible. 

Holding stocks, bonds or property – all the bubble assets – are likely to lead to massive wealth erosion as we go into the “Everything Collapse”.

THE NEW ERA OF GOLD AND SILVER

For soon 25 years I have been urging investors to hold gold to preserve their wealth. Since the beginning of this century gold has outperformed most asset classes. 

Between 2000 and today, the S&P, including reinvested dividends, has returned 7.7% per annum whilst gold has returned 9.2% per year or 8X.

In the next few years, all the factors discussed in this article will lead to major gains in the precious metals and falls in most conventional assets. 

There are many other positive factors for gold. 

As the chart below shows, the West has reduced its gold reserves since the late 1960s, whilst the East is growing its gold reserves strongly. And we have just seen the beginning of this trend.

The US and EU sanctioning of Russia and the freezing/confiscation of the Russian assets in foreign banks are very beneficial for gold. 

No sovereign states will hold their reserves in US dollars any more. Instead we will see central bank reserves move to gold. That shift has already started and is one of the reasons for gold’s rise. 

In addition, gradually the BRICS countries are moving away from the dollar to trading in their local currencies. For commodity rich countries, gold will be an important part of their trading. 

Thus there are major forces behind the gold move which has just started and will reach further both in price and time than anyone can imagine. 

HOW TO OWN GOLD

But remember for investors, holding gold is for financial survival and protection of assets. 

Therefore gold must be held in physical form outside the banking system with direct access for the investor. 

Also gold must be held in safe jurisdictions with a long history of rule of law and stable government. 

The cost of storing gold should not be the primary consideration for choosing a custodian. When you buy life insurance you mustn’t buy the cheapest but the best.

First consideration must be the owners and management. What is their reputation, background and previous history. 

Thereafter secure servers, security, liquidity, location and insurance are very important. 

Also, high level of personal service is paramount. Many vaults fail in this area. 

Preferably gold should not be held in the country where you are resident, especially not in the US with its fragile financial system. 

Neither gold nor silver has started the real move yet. Any major correction is likely to come from much higher levels. 

Gold and silver are in a hurry so it is not too late to jump on the gold wagon.

A tornado outbreak on Saturday night across southern Oklahoma decimated a major distribution center for budget retailer Dollar Tree. The facility supplies stores across the Oklahoma-Texas area, plus other surrounding states, which may spark supply chain issues. 

Professional storm chaser Aaron Rigsby posted several aerial images of the Dollar Tree distribution center in the Marietta area on X. The photos show the damage left behind after a tornado ripped through the center of the massive warehouse. 

Images from Marietta, OK Tornado. Would appear as if cars and semis were tossed off the interstate last night next to the Dollar Tree DC that was impressively shredded to bits. #OKwx pic.twitter.com/2y46FeJfdF

— Aaron Rigsby (@AaronRigsbyOSC) April 28, 2024

Another storm chaser, Brandon Clement, posted an up-close drone video of the wreckage, showing millions of products that won’t arrive on store shelves anytime soon.

A tornado hit Matietta, OK. Destroying the Family Dollar Distribution center. It also hit a Dollar store, hospital and flipped cars and semis on I-35. #Tornado #Damage #OKWX #Oklahoma #WXTwitter pic.twitter.com/7AF7bgBcQ0

— WxChasing- Brandon Clement (@bclemms) April 28, 2024

Marietta is located in Love County. The country’s sheriff’s office posted on Facebook that “power lines everywhere and buildings have been destroyed.” 

“Significant damage to dollar tree warehouse, homeland, dollar general, nursing home, and part of the hospital,” the sheriff’s office said. 

With the Marietta distribution center offline, this may spark significant disruptions in the supply of goods to stores located in Texas, Oklahoma, and surrounding states. 

Dollar Tree operates 25 distribution centers nationwide, serving over 15,500 stores.  

There is no official statement from the company specifying supply chain impacts. 

Will anti-bitcoin crusader Liz Warren demand that British Pounds be banned next?

shut up https://t.co/7ytElXwXR5 pic.twitter.com/AiTKkB6aKJ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 22, 2024

Jo-Emma Larvin navigated through London’s Heathrow Airport on a fateful day in August 2020, pushing a cart laden with seven suitcases. Traveling business class to Dubai, Larvin and her companion passed through security, seemingly no different from the throngs of other travelers. Yet, unbeknownst to airport authorities, her bags held a clandestine cargo: millions of British pounds, wrapped in rubber bands and sealed in plastic.

Their destination? An international money launderer, adept at converting cash into gold or other currencies, the Wall Street Journal reports, without mentioning bitcoin once, because let’s face it: 99% of all money laundering involves not crypto but cold, hard cash!

The money launderer, who charges a hefty fee to clients to exchange cash for gold and other currencies, has been operating via Heathrow to Dubai – the former doesn’t scan outbound luggage for cash, while the latter welcomes sacks of it. They’re also the #1 and #2 of the world’s busiest airports for international passengers.

The UK mandates passengers declare amounts exceeding $10,000 to customs authorities. Larvin, however, risked arrest by not disclosing her precious cargo, not that anyone would notice. The suitcases slid through Heathrow’s baggage-handling system and its 3-D scanner, designed to detect explosives rather than contraband currency.

The next morning in Dubai, the women calmly collected their bags, declaring $2.8 million at customs, a practice fully permitted by UAE law. While the UAE allows any amount of cash to enter its borders, the laxity of international airports in monitoring money flows has created a loophole, one exploited by money launderers worldwide.

Each year, more than $2 trillion in proceeds from illegal enterprises enters the global financial system, with a significant portion smuggled across borders by air. According to estimates by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Financial Action Task Force, “hundreds of billions in illicit cash” fly out of the UK and other nations to countries with fewer regulations.

One of the reasons for so much airline smuggling is that banks around the globe have stepped up the reporting of suspicious transactions, making it more difficult to launder money using traditional wire transfers. So it’s back to even more traditional ways of money laundering.

“You just can’t walk into a bank with this much money without being flagged,” said George Voloshin, of ACAMS, an industry group for financial crime-fighting professionals. “You will be arrested at the next branch.“

Larvin and her boyfriend became two operatives in an intricate web of money launderers working for a UAE-based kingpin. Over a few months in 2020, this network smuggled around $125 million, primarily from the UK to Dubai. “How did they manage so much money in such a short time?” wondered Ian Truby, a senior officer at the UK’s National Crime Agency. “Security isn’t designed to detect such activities.”

Three weeks after her initial journey, Larvin returned to Heathrow with her boyfriend, carrying eight suitcases filled with cash. “It’s fucking ridiculous,” he texted, voicing concern about drawing attention. “Talk about conspicuous.”

The pair’s operation ultimately contributed to unraveling a broader international laundering scheme.

The Kingpin

Documents, court records, and interviews reveal how a man named Abdulla Alfalasi spearheaded the smuggling operation, transporting cash from Heathrow to Dubai since 2017. He expanded during the pandemic, once departing with 11 suitcases weighing 463 pounds and reporting $850,000 in Dubai. Alfalasi’s connections, including his father-in-law’s involvement in developing Dubai’s airport, provided an air of legitimacy.

He recruited Michelle Clarke, an executive assistant from Leeds, who soon began recruiting others, including Larvin. The scheme enticed participants with promises of easy money, business-class flights, and luxurious accommodations. Yet the allure was short-lived for many.

In October 2020, two couriers were intercepted at Heathrow, and a subsequent investigation uncovered a vast network of 36 international couriers. Clarke was arrested in Zanzibar in December, carrying $9 million in gold on a private plane.

Authorities eventually arrested Alfalasi and several couriers, unveiling details of the operation. Alfalasi pleaded guilty to money laundering and received a 9-year, 7-month prison sentence. His assets, including vehicles and watches, were seized. Clarke remains under investigation in Dubai for money laundering.

In texts to the Journal, Larvin’s boyfriend, Jonathan Johnson, said that he and Larvin were simply two ordinary people who were hoodwinked. He suggested that if what they did was such a big crime, why aren’t airports scanning luggage for cash?

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, “Empires fall from grace with alarming speed.”

Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it’s one that I’ve kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.

I’m from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to the “New World” to seek promise for the future.

As I’ve spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I’ve had the opportunity to observe many British contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on board when Britain “came back.”

This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world’s foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn’t returned to its former glory.

And it never will.

If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal. Whether we’re looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that’s existed at one time, history is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it’s fallen.

But of what importance is this to us today?

Well, today, the US is the world’s undisputed leading empire and most Americans would agree that, whilst it’s going through a bad patch, it will bounce back and might even be better than ever.

Not so, I’m afraid.

All empires follow the same cycle.

They begin with a population that has a strong work ethic and is self-reliant. Those people organize to form a nation of great strength, based upon high productivity.

This leads to expansion, generally based upon world trade. At some point, this gives rise to leaders who seek, not to work in partnership with other nations, but to dominate them, and of course, this is when a great nation becomes an empire. The US began this stage under the flamboyant and aggressive Teddy Roosevelt.

The twentieth century was the American century and the US went from victory to victory, expanding its power.

But the decline began in the 1960s, when the US started to pursue unwinnable wars, began the destruction of its currency and began to expand its government into an all-powerful body.

Still, this process tends to be protracted and the overall decline often takes decades.

So, how does that square with the quote, “Empires fall from grace with alarming speed”?

Well, the preparation for the fall can often be seen for a generation or more, but the actual fall tends to occur quite rapidly.

What happens is very similar to what happens with a schoolyard bully.

The bully has a slow rise, based upon his strength and aggressive tendency. After a number of successful fights, he becomes first revered, then feared. He then takes on several toadies who lack his abilities but want some of the spoils, so they do his bidding, acting in a threatening manner to other schoolboys.

The bully then becomes hated. No one tells him so, but the other kids secretly dream of his defeat, hopefully in a shameful manner.

Then, at some point, some boy who has a measure of strength and the requisite determination has had enough and takes on the bully.

If he defeats him, a curious thing happens. The toadies suddenly realise that the jig is up and they head for the hills, knowing that their source of power is gone.

Also, once the defeated bully is down, all the anger, fear and hatred that his schoolmates felt for him come out, and they take great pleasure in his defeat.

And this, in a nutshell, is what happens with empires.

A nation that comes to the rescue in times of genuine need (such as the two World Wars) is revered. But once that nation morphs into a bully that uses any excuse to invade countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, its allies may continue to bow to it but secretly fear it and wish that it could be taken down a peg.

When the empire then starts looking around for other nations to bully, such as Iran and Venezuela, its allies again say nothing but react with fear when they see the John Boltons and Mike Pompeos beating the war drums and making reckless comments.

At present, the US is focusing primarily on economic warfare, but if this fails to get the world to bend to its dominance, the US has repeatedly warned, regarding possible military aggression, that “no option is off the table.”

The US has reached the classic stage when it has become a reckless bully, and its support structure of allies has begun to de-couple as a result.

At the same time that allies begin to pull back and make other plans for their future, those citizens within the empire who tend to be the creators of prosperity also begin to seek greener pastures.

History has seen this happen countless times. The “brain drain” occurs, in which the best and most productive begin to look elsewhere for their future. Just as the most productive Europeans crossed the Pond to colonise the US when it was a new, promising country, their present-day counterparts have begun moving offshore.

The US is presently in a state of suspended animation. It still appears to be a major force, but its buttresses are quietly disappearing. At some point in the near future, it’s likely that the US government will overplay its hand and aggress against a foe that either is stronger or has alliances that, collectively, make it stronger.

The US will be entering into warfare at a time when it’s broke, and this will become apparent suddenly and dramatically. The final decline will occur with alarming speed.

When this happens, the majority of Americans will hope in vain for a reverse of events. They’ll be inclined to hope that, if they collectively say, “Whoops, we goofed,” the world will be forgiving, returning them to their former glory.

But historically, this never occurs. Empires fall with alarming speed, because the support systems that made them possible have decamped and have become reinvigorated elsewhere.

Rather than mourn the loss of empire that’s on the horizon, we’d be better served if we focus instead on those parts of the world that are likely to benefit from this inevitability.

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Socialist ideas are becoming increasingly popular in the US. At the same time the US government is printing money hand over fist. All while the US empire continues to overstretch itself across the world. It’s all shaping up to be a world-class disaster… one unlike anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why New York Times bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video showing how it all could go down. Click here to watch it now.

The United States is about to experience a resurgence in nuclear energy. The federal government is expected to continue restarting shuttered nuclear power plants in the coming years to meet the increasing demand for clean, dependable energy essential for powering the economy of tommorrow. 

“There are a couple of nuclear power plants that we probably should, and can, turn back on,” Jigar Shah, director of the US Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, told Bloomberg in an interview.

In March, Shah’s office approved a loan to Holtec International Corp. to reopen the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan. This was a historical shift, and it was the first nuclear power plant to be reopened in the US, setting a precedent for atomic energy to make a triumphal comeback. The plant could begin producing power as early as the second half of 2025.

Shah said, “A lot of the other players that have a nuclear power plant that has recently shut down and could be turned back on are gaining that confidence to try.” He declined to give specifics about which plants were slated to reopen. 

Nuclear power is the largest single source of carbon-free electricity. Given onshoring trends, electrification of transportation and buildings, and, of course, as we’ve noted in “The Next AI Trade,” the proliferation of AI data centers will overload power grids nationwide unless a significant upgrade is seen.

We again highlighted the enormous investment opportunity early Monday titled “Everyone Is Piling Into The “Next AI Trade””, which lists companies powering up America for the digital age.

Nearly 3.5 years ago, we provided readers with a straightforward investment thesis: “Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze.” Back then, it became apparent to us that the resurrection of the nuclear power industry was imminent. 

And the trend is only gaining steam as the revival of nuclear power plants will continue benefiting some of the largest uranium producers, such as Cameco. We told readers to buy uranium stocks, such as Cameco around the $10 handle – now it’s nearing $50 a share. 

As a whole, uranium stocks have soared… 

We’ll leave readers with recent comments from Patti Poppe, the chief executive officer of Pacific Gas & Electric.

Poppe told a Stanford University forum that nuclear power should continue to be part of California’s power generation mix as efforts to decarbonize the grid. 

“Nuclear should be part of the future,” she said, noting that the state’s only nuclear power plant – Diablo Canyon – could be granted a license extension through the 2030s by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

So there it is: Nuclear is being revived at a time when the nation’s grid is nearing a major upgrade due to rising power demand. 

Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

A state lawmaker in California has introduced legislation that would severely restrict a teacher’s ability to hand out homework assignments to students that are deemed to be too much.

As reported by Breitbart, State Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo (D-Calif.) introduced AB 2999, formally known as The Healthy Homework Act, in February.

The bill would mandate public school officials to “develop, adopt, and update” their policies regarding homework “at least once every five years.”

The bill would also require schools to take into account research which allegedly shows the physical and mental health impacts of homework.

“I think this is going to make a huge impact for the students,” said Schiavo.

“The times have changed and our homework policies don’t always change with the times, so we need to make sure we are addressing issues that are effective and also don’t harm kids.”

Schiavo was partially influenced by the fact that her sixth-grade daughter, Sofia, hates homework; she described homework as “exhausting” and “overwhelming.”

“It’s depressing that my whole day, from when I wake up to when I go to bed, is nearly all taken up with schoolwork,” said Sofia.

Several alleged “experts” have agreed with Schiavo’s view that homework largely needs to be banned. Harris Cooper, professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, claimed that “there is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study,” and that students should have no more than 10 minutes of homework per day.

A recent survey by Stanford University found that, of over 300,000 student respondents, 45% said that homework was their top source of stress.

“If it’s such a source of stress for kids, and we know taking stress off kids’ plates will make a difference in their mental health, this is something that can practically impact kids’ mental health overnight,” Schiavo continued.