Category: simonblack

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

December 15, 2025: Hackers Leak Script of Obama/Disney ‘Supertheyro’ Collaboration

Last year, Disney’s latest contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Trans-Thor: Hammer of Change, proved lackluster at the box office. In fact, it was the lowest grossing MCU film of all time, even worse than 2023’s financial and critical disaster, The Marvels.

That’s why Disney opted to shutter the franchise and come up with fresh ideas for a brand new superhero series, one which keeps up with modern trends.

Disney CEO Bob Iger teamed up with former President Barack Obama, who has become a prolific film producer since his 2023 Netflix project, Leave the World Behind.

Leave the World Behind, of course, famously took a swipe at white people as untrustworthy, and that’s apparently what prompted Iger to reach out to the former President for a collaboration.

Though the joint Obama-Disney project has been in the works for two years, it had been kept top secret… until now.

Hackers recently managed to obtain access to a sever full of emails between the Obamas and Iger, plus screenwriters and producers; apparently the server password was “123456”.

Hackers posted all of the Obama-Iger emails online, plus the movie’s current script; the project is called Activist Alliance: Justice Against the Hate Machine.

The story line follows a non-binary gender studies doctoral candidate who is exposed to an experimental substance in a Harvard lab which transforms they/them into the ‘supertheyro’ known as “Virtue Signal”.

They gain the ability to detect micro-aggressions, wrongthink, and toxic masculinity occurring anywhere on earth.

Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of oppressive thoughts, Virtue Signal teams up with “Power Shift”, a mild-mannered drag queen who works at the local library reading stories about diversity and inclusion to children by day… but fights injustice as a supertheyro by night.

Power Shift has the super ability to transform racism, misogyny, and homophobia into progress.

The main plot centers around the evil super villain Leon Musque, a wealthy heterosexual white cismale who owns the social media platform “Bitter”.

As a self-avowed “free speech absolutist”, Musque refuses to censor obvious mis- and dis-information from his platform, and the Internet becomes overrun by offensive opinions and hate speech; Virtue Signal and Power Shift team up to destroy Musque’s empire.

With the help of the Latinx pansexual eco-warrior Verde Vengeance, the three supertheyroes form the “Activist Alliance” to fight against Musque’s Bitter hate machine.

The Activist Alliance starts small— correcting small injustices and righting wrongthink wherever they can. In one scene, Virtue Signal shames an airline that forced a 700-pound woman to buy two tickets.

In another, Verde Vengeance intervenes to censor a right-wing extremist spreading misinformation about China being the source of the most carbon emissions. Then Verde Vengeance memory-holes plastic straws, so the world forgets there was ever anything but the paper kind that fall apart when moist.

When Power Shift sees the #MeToo symbol in the sky, they knows someone needs their help.

In one harrowing scene, Power Shift rushes into an office building to save a woman who had just been told, “I like your glasses,” by a male co-worker. Lecturing the man on the pain that his violence has caused, Power Shift encourages him to repent by joining a pro-Hamas rally at Harvard.

However, the Activist Alliance realizes that they are simply addressing the symptoms, and not the root cause of the problems. In a dramatic scene which takes place atop Mount Rushmore, the team realizes they need to track down and neutralize the source of Leon’s power: conservative straight white cis-males.

“We need to re-educate straight white cis-males everywhere,” says Virtue Signal, while re-carving George Washington’s face into Barack Obama’s. “We have to find someone who looks like them and can convince them to go into re-education camps.”

It’s at this point that John Cena makes a cameo appearance. Speaking only in Mandarin, he uses Leon Musque’s social media platform against him to broadcast an impassioned speech across the world.

Cena convinces white cismales to follow him into reeducation camps, saying (translated from Mandarin), “True, some of us may never emerge from the camps. Some of us are too far gone. But that is simply a sacrifice we must be willing to make for the greater good.”

It’s reported that the re-education camp scenes in the movie will be filmed in real camps on location in the Xinjiang province were China typically houses its Uyghur ethnic minority.

Mr. Obama apparently reached out to President Xi personally to secure the deal and get China’s backing for the movie.

According to emails between Iger and Obama, the two, “fully expect this to be a huge blockbuster,” and “feel this could really make a difference in the world, to the extent that we should prepare for the Oscars, Golden Globes, etc.”

No word yet on whether the hack and leak of the script will affect plans to release the film next summer.

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In the year 404 BC, after decades of chaotic and bloody conflict among ancient Greek city states in the Peloponnesian War, Athens finally surrendered to its rival Sparta.

The defeat marked the end of the Golden Age of Athens… and Athenian democracy; almost immediately after the war was over, Sparta’s chief military commander created a ‘junta’ style dictatorship to rule over Athens. Democracy died overnight.

This council of dictators became known as the “Thirty Tyrants”, and their regime was brutal.

The Thirty Tyrants waged genocide on the Athenians, exterminating roughly 5% of the population. They exiled or murdered ideological opponents. They confiscated people’s property. And they strictly controlled how Athenians were allowed to live their lives.

At one point during their regime (according to Xenophon’s Memorabilia), Socrates was summoned before the Thirty Tyrants and told that he was prohibited “to hold any conversation whatsoever with the young”.

Apparently, they were quite concerned about the famous philosopher spreading disinformation.

In our modern era, we hear quite a lot that “democracy is under attack.” It’s one of the favorite catchphrases of the left; when they don’t like a particular speaker, political candidate, or idea, they say that it ‘threatens democracy’.

Yet these same people have created their own version of the Thirty Tyrants who have been anointed with quasi-dictatorial powers. Nobody elected them. But they have an absurd amount of authority to govern how everyone else is allowed to live their lives.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which finally ended today in the United Arab Emirates, unelected fanatics from around the world gathered in a room to formally declare “the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era”. 

Some 85,000 participants attended the two-week event, according to the UN, though the real decision-makers number a few dozen at most. These are today’s Thirty Tyrants, and they include people like unelected US climate envoy John Kerry, who arrived at the conference on his “wife’s” private jet.

Kerry was a key architect of the final resolution, which demands that member nations “[transition] away from fossil fuels in energy systems. . . in keeping with the science.”

In short, this means that coal-fired power plants, plus oil- or natural gas-based combined cycle power plants, etc. must be eliminated. Further, production of coal, oil, and natural gas also needs to be eliminated… or “phased-out” as the climate tyrants like to say.

Their ignorance, as usual, is overwhelming.

Bear in mind that oil, coal, and natural gas constitute over 50% of global electricity production according to the most recent data from the International Energy Agency. So, shifting away to renewable energy sources would require at least 12,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of additional production from wind and solar.

Let’s briefly examine the numbers:

The LARGEST planned solar powered electricity project in the world is the Gonghe Talatan Solar Park in central China, which will reportedly max out at 16GW in capacity.

So, at best, the largest solar plant in the world will produce roughly 40 TWh of electricity per year, which is just 0.3% of the electricity needed to replace fossil fuels. 

Now, let’s adopt a “can do” attitude and presume that hundreds other similarly sized projects will be built around the world. What resources would this require?

Well, the International Energy Agency’s own report shows that “optimally tilted” solar panels produce around 1,800 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year for every square meter of panels. 

So, 12,000 TWh (equivalent to 12 TRILLION kWh) of electricity per year will require 6.6 BILLION square meters of solar panels. Needless to say, that is far more than has ever been produced in the history of the world… combined.

But let’s continue with our “can-do” attitude and assume that global solar manufacturers can ramp up production enough to provide such an absurd number of panels.

Remember that solar panels require silicon; in fact, one square meter of solar panels (again, according to IEA data) uses about 600 grams of silicon.

Silicon comes from quartzite rock, which is fairly common in nature. So, producing all those panels obviously requires mining lots and lots of rock.

But the process of extracting silicon from quartzite rock is complicated; in fact, the chemical reaction calls for ‘carbothermal reduction’ using pure carbon, i.e. COAL, in a ratio that requires 2 parts carbon for every 1-part silicon.

It’s also worth noting that silicon only constitutes about 5% of a solar panel. Much of the rest is made from plastic– which is obviously a product derived from crude oil.

So that takes us back to the Thirty Tyrants’ overwhelming ignorance. They want the world to produce billions of square meters of solar panels… which will require nearly 8 billion kilograms of coal, not to mention gobs of oil-based plastic.

But at the same time, they want to eradicate coal and oil production forever.

This is pure insanity. You cannot produce solar panels without oil. You cannot produce solar panels without coal. In fact, the laws of chemistry require twice as much coal for every unit of silicon produced.

These progressive fanatics have already tried to reinvent biology by conjuring 10,000 new genders out of thin air. But they cannot reinvent chemistry.

Bizarrely, though, despite these passionate ignoramuses being so hilariously ill-informed, they still have tremendous power to set rules and policies around the world.

Today’s Thirty Tyrants are trying to dictate how the rest of us should live our lives.

In fact, the next time you run your new ‘eco-friendly dishwasher’ and the plates come out of the wash dirtier than before, you can thank John Kerry for his pitiful ideas. He’s even managed to ruin basic appliances.

The Thirty Tyrants are also deliberately trying to create shortages of critical resources– oil, coal, natural gas, copper, and so many more– even though producing solar and wind energy requires those very resources.

This is a major reason why I’m such an advocate for owning real assets… because the Thirty Tyrants and their armies of passionate ignoramuses are hellbent on making critical commodities skyrocket in value.

We might not be able to stop them. But we can at least benefit from their ignorance.

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Rene Descartes probably wasn’t thinking about gargantuan budget deficits and a $34 trillion national debt when he published Principles of Philosophy in the year 1644. But his ideas absolutely fit the scenario today.

Up until that point in history, much of science and mathematics was still based on the 1,500+ year old theories of Aristotle and other ancient Greek intellectuals– many of which were totally wrong.

Aristotle, for example, believed that a moving object required constant force to remain in motion. And this erroneous theory remained conventional wisdom well into the Middle Ages.

But Descartes challenged Aristotle’s view. Building upon the works of other minds like Galileo and Avicenna, Descartes declared that an object in motion will remain in motion… and an object at rest will remain at rest… unless acted upon by an external force.

Isaac Newton borrowed this conclusion when he published his famous ‘Laws of Motion’ four decades later; and today we call the concept ‘inertia’.

But inertia is not just a principle of physics. It applies to human beings too– our lives tend to take on a momentum of their own, naturally gravitating in a particular direction… unless we take deliberate action to reverse course.

Nations are subject to the same forces as well. In fact, history is full of examples of empires that rode a wave of negative momentum into terminal decline.

Analysis shows that their problems were almost always fixable. Ancient Rome, the French monarchy of the 1700s, the Ottoman Empire, etc. all declined from challenges that could have easily been solved: primarily, stop spending so much money.

Powerful nations tend to get in serious, serious trouble when they habitually overspend beyond their means. They go into debt, they inflate the currency, they raise taxes and plunder from the private economy– all of which make the problem even worse.

This is inertia: the object in motion– an empire in decline– remains in motion unless there is deliberate and timely action to reverse the decline.

Honestly this isn’t a particularly difficult concept to understand: if overspending is gradually (then suddenly) propelling your decline, then cut spending. Duh.

Yet history shows that this almost NEVER happens. And it’s astonishing that people in power have consistently failed to understand this simple concept for more than 5,000 years.

We’re witnessing the same thing today– the US is plagued by massive challenges of its own making. Or at least, the making of inept politicians.

The biggest problem is the government’s addiction to spending. Last year the annual budget deficit was nearly $2 trillion. Again. And there is no end in sight.

Right now, this very day, the US Treasury Department is set to issue a whopping $230 billion in debt. And tomorrow they’ll issue another $91 billion… for a total of $321 billion in just TWO DAYS.

I’ve written about this extensively, but I’ll keep repeating it because it bears repeating: spending is completely out of control.

Think about it: last fiscal year (which just ended on September 30, 2023), the US government took in $4.4 trillion in tax revenue.

Now, that would have been just enough tax revenue for the government to run a balanced budget– as recently as 2019, i.e. pre-Covid– when all federal expenses totaled roughly $4.4 trillion.

But today, $4.4 trillion is nowhere NEAR enough tax revenue to fund the government anymore. Over the past four years, these people have ballooned federal expenses to roughly $6.3 trillion. And this number is not going down.

The President’s proposed budget for this current Fiscal Year (2024) raises federal spending to $6.8 trillion, $7.1 trillion next year, and to $10 trillion by 2033. Plus, none of these projections considers the possibility of another national emergency, crisis, bailout, etc.

The net result of these somewhat rosy budget forecasts is that the national debt will continue its rapid increase… which means that interest payments will continue rising as well.

This is a big deal, because the increased interest payments end up consuming more and more of the federal budget.

In fact, the White House’s own forecast shows that interest on the debt, plus mandatory entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare) will consume 100% of federal tax revenue by 2031.

This means that, in 7 years, the entire discretionary budget of the United States government, including the military, will have to be borrowed.

(See for yourself on Table S-3 of page 137 of the President’s plan.)

They’re obviously aware of the problem– it’s in their own budget forecast. And this is clearly a solvable problem: cut spending. Go back to the 2019 spending levels.

But that’s an incomprehensible idea to the people in charge. So is another rational solution: optimize tax revenue. After all, if you can’t cut spending, then you might be able to make ends meet by raising revenue.

But they’re not doing that either.

In fact, Fiscal Year 2023 saw a 9% decline in tax revenue from the previous year. That’s not exactly a surprise, given that the people in charge are on the warpath to make things more difficult for productive people and businesses.

They’ve demonized the energy companies, driving up the cost of doing business for everyone. They have created an almost hilarious level of regulatory compliance– green compliance, woke compliance.

I read a story in the Wall Street Journal about a moving company that hires young college athletes to haul people’s furniture. They’re now under scrutiny from federal regulators for age discrimination.

Again, this is the opposite of what they should be doing. A healthy, vibrant economy where people are free to produce will deliver greater tax revenue, helping offset their outrageous spending addiction.

But instead, they’re strangling the economy, which reduces tax revenue.

Social Security is in a similarly terrible predicament; the program’s trustees project that Social Security’s key trust funds will run out of money in 2033.

If no action is taken, then retirees will face substantial cuts to their monthly benefits. Or the federal government will have to bail out Social Security to the tune of trillions of dollars– just as a down payment.

Again, this isn’t a terribly complicated solution; at the moment, Social Security is legally obligated to invest all of its money in very low-yielding US government bonds.

But the US has some of the most talented money managers in the world. And if they turned over management of Social Security’s funds to the private sector to boost annual investment returns, they could really close the funding gap and prevent a catastrophe.

Yet no one wants to touch the program. No one even wants to talk about it.

Based on this momentum, what’s most likely to happen is that the Federal Reserve will have to conjure trillions of dollars out of thin air down the road in order to bail out the government and Social Security.

This action will most likely spark another nasty bout of inflation, and most likely the end of the US dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency. This would be disastrous for the US economy.

Again, America’s problems are not unsolvable. The solutions are actually fairly simple when you think about it. But, just like inertia and the Laws of Motion, a country in decline will remain in decline until leaders make deliberate, responsible decisions.

Unfortunately, that’s not happening. And I don’t see anything on the horizon to suggest that it will happen anytime soon.

This is an obvious reason to have a Plan B. And in my view, owning ‘real assets’ ought to be a major part of that.

More on this soon.

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In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

December 8, 2025: US Supreme Court rules 21-6 to uphold Life Sentence for Donald Trump

After a mysterious pneumonia began spreading in China beginning in late 2023, media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC all adamantly claimed— based on information disseminated by Chinese government and the WHO— that the new virus affected children the most, and that the death rate would be more than 20%.

By early 2024, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, insisted that schools be shut down. President Biden quickly complied with her demand, issuing a nationwide Executive Order requiring all schools to shut down.

His order was immediately challenged in court, with the US 5th Circuit issuing an injunction against the President’s order. Mr. Biden and his Senate allies then quickly appointed 18 new justices to the Supreme Court.

This newly expanded court then ruled 21-6 in favor of Mr. Biden that his executive order was constitutional, and that he had the legal authority to shut down America’s schools.

Days later the court also ruled 21-6 that Mr. Biden did not abuse his authority when he added 18 new justices to the court.

Subsequently, in March 2024, when President Biden brought Anthony Fauci out of retirement and awarded him sweeping emergency powers to manage the pandemic response, this appointment was also challenged.

But the Supreme Court once again ruled 21-6 that the President did, in fact, have the legal authority to award Dr. Fauci absolute power.

Dr. Fauci then canceled the 2024 election, citing non-specific pandemic concerns. And when this order was challenged, it was also upheld by the Supreme Court in a 21-6 ruling.

Other landmark rulings of the expanded Court include its 21-6 decision to overturn all of Hunter Biden’s criminal convictions, and 21-6 decision to eliminate the debt ceiling.

This morning, however, the Court issued perhaps the biggest decision in its history when it announced (after two days of deliberation) it would uphold the life sentence for former President Trump, who was convicted last year of multiple crimes.

Once again the vote was 21-6.

Justices Nancy Pelosi and Alvin Bragg co-wrote the Court’s brief majority opinion, stating simply, “Have a nice life. Sentence. LOL.”

Justice Claudine Gay, the former President of Harvard University, wrote in her concurring opinion that “with Donald Trump behind bars, the world will be one step closer to finally eradicating the Zionists. From the River to the Sea!”

In a dissenting opinion, Justices Gorsuch and Alito expressed utter horror for the state of the nation, writing, “We cannot recognize this country any longer.” Though Dr. Fauci has announced that the will declare their opinion disinformation and cancel it from the public record.

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Yesterday Senator Elizabeth Warren used a Wall Street oversight hearing to whine about cryptocurrency.

At one point, almost as if a well-choreographed football play, she passed the ball to Jamie Dimon — CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in the world — to “explain why crypto is such an attractive financial tool for terrorists, drug traffickers, and rogue nations?”

It’s hard to imagine a more loaded question.

Mr. Dimon gleefully caught the pass and said:

“I’ve always been deeply opposed to crypto, Bitcoin, etc. You pointed out the only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers, anti-money laundering [sic], tax avoidance… because it doesn’t go through, as you mentioned, all these systems built up over many years — Know Your Customer, sanctions, OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control] — they can bypass all of that.”

What an astonishing display of complete and total ignorance on the part of Mr. Dimon and Ms. Warren.

This notion that Bitcoin is great for criminals is one of the most worn out, naive tropes about cryptocurrency that exists. Criminals can (and do) use virtually ANYTHING to launder money, conduct transactions, and extort their victims.

Fine art. Baseball cards. Government subsistence vouchers. Rare coins. Amazon gift cards. Popular consumer merchandise like iPhones. Sports betting. Prepaid credit cards. And yes, the US banking system.

At least with Bitcoin, every single transaction is publicly recorded on the blockchain, which means that government entities can track the movement of funds.

Frankly criminals are much better off using JPMorgan Chase for their illicit transactions.

Perhaps that’s why JPMorgan Chase was the bank of choice for Bernie Madoff, the man who ran one of the most infamous Ponzi schemes of all time. JPMorgan Chase facilitated decades of suspicious activities related Madoff’s fraud.

But that only scratches the surface of the bank’s involvement in criminality.

In 2020, JPMorgan Chase paid a $920 million criminal penalty for market manipulation, involving tens of thousands of fraudulent orders in precious metals and bond futures markets, which were placed and then canceled before execution.

And according to “the FinCEN files,” investigative reporters uncovered that JP Morgan “moved money for people and companies tied to the massive looting of public funds in Malaysia, Venezuela, and Ukraine.”

In total, JP Morgan may have facilitated over half a TRILLION dollars of money laundering between 1999 and 2017.

And you can find similar misdeeds across the banking industry.

For example, Wells Fargo’s rap sheet includes: forging customer signatures to open accounts in order to boost sales goals; selling unnecessary car insurance leading to 20,000 vehicle repossessions; a “software glitch” resulting in over 500 wrongful home foreclosures; overcharging 26x on foreign currency transactions; illegally repossessing military members’ vehicles; and actually selling customer Social Security Numbers to identity thieves.

It’s also interesting to note that Jamie Dimon was the “personal banker” of Adam Neumann, WeWork’s outrageously unethical founder.

Remember that Adam Neumann borrowed money from his company to buy office space, only to lease that office space back to the company at a profit, and bilk shareholders in the process.

He even changed the name of WeWork to We, then sold the rights to the word We to his own company for $6 million.

When WeWork tried to go public, JPMorgan Chase was its lead IPO advisor, but conveniently sold its $100 million stake just before the IPO crashed and burned.

Jamie Dimon was involved in all of this. But now he wants to take the moral high ground about crypto.

Do criminals use crypto? Of course, some criminals use crypto. Some criminals also use iPhones and fly on Delta Airlines. And some criminals have accounts at JPMorgan Chase.

Yet Dimon and Warren single out crypto, absurdly claiming that criminality is the “only” use case.

I doubt they’ve ever bothered to read the original white paper, in which the clearly stated intent of Bitcoin was to be a medium of exchange for online transactions — a common currency of the Internet.

Over time, however, Bitcoin has become a more speculative instrument… which is probably its biggest use case to date; plenty of people buy Bitcoin because they think it will go up in price. Or they use it as a long-term store of value.

Another major use case of crypto, of course, is the tokenization of financial contracts which eliminates middleman bankers like Jamie Dimon. So it’s no surprise that Mr. Dimon hates crypto.

But perhaps the most ridiculous thing he said at that hearing was, “If I was the government, I’d close it down.”

He seems to think that the government could simply ban cryptocurrency, and, poof, demand would vanish.

Because that worked so well during alcohol prohibition, or the never-ending war on drugs, or prohibiting illegal downloads of movies on the Internet.

Crypto would be even harder to control.

Cryptocurrency offers a decentralized, peer-to-peer currency which can travel across borders in seconds. That governments can’t control it is a feature, not a bug.

That means a future where people can’t be de-banked by Justin Trudeau for protesting against his vaccine mandates. It means keeping personal custody of your funds, without having to trust third parties like JPMorgan Chase who treat you like a criminal (when they aren’t too busy acting like criminals).

Jamie Dimon is supposed to be a sophisticated banker and business leader. Yet his words are steeped in so much irony, drenched in so much hypocrisy… and he doesn’t even realize it.

It is so obvious that significant elements of cryptocurrency are here to stay; even the Federal Reserve is toying with crypto.

So for Jamie Dimon to say “close it down” sounds like a guy shouting at windmills. Or worse — like a scarcity-minded medieval ruler in the Ottoman Empire banishing the printing press.

We’ll see what happens if Bitcoin continues rising; my guess is that JP Morgan will eventually start recommending their private clients buy crypto again… and Dimon will act like he knew it all along.

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It’s my sincere hope that I’m able to live both the quantity and quality of life that Charlie Munger had.

Even at age 99, he appeared vivacious and energetic– as one Wall Street Journal reporter remarked after interviewing him back in September. Their session went four straight hours with Munger going nonstop the entire time without so much as a bathroom break.

I was reading that interview recently, and there was one thing in particular that Munger said which really stood out to me.

When discussing the United States and its colossal political, social, and economic problems, Munger remained optimistic and said, “a great nation has a lot of collapse in it.”

He’s right. And history is very clear on this point. Empires and nations wouldn’t qualify as great if they collapsed in the blink of an eye.

Truly strong, dominant superpowers are able to survive pandemics and natural disasters. They’re able to fend off foreign invaders. They’re able to withstand economic crises. And, even after a major catastrophe, they have the savings, the unity, and the cohesion to rebuild.

This is why the declines of nations and empires throughout history typically take a long time, until, after years or even decades of accumulated bad decisions, they finally reach a tipping point.

Put another way– to borrow from both Munger and Hemingway– great nations collapse gradually, then suddenly.

The best book I’ve ever read on the subject is anthropologist Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies, which examines the common factors of how different societies throughout history– from ancient Ur in Mesopotamia to Western Rome to the Olmec in Mexico– declined and collapsed.

(Tainter’s definition of collapse doesn’t necessarily mean a civilization ceases to exist, but that it experiences a steep decline in political, social, and economic structure.)

And his analysis shows that one of the key culprits in collapse is the decline of a society’s ability to solve problems.

This pretty much describes the US federal government in a nutshell. They don’t solve problems. They can barely talk about problems in a civil and rational manner. And quite often they refuse to even acknowledge problems.

Earlier this year when the US sovereign debt rating was downgraded, for example, the White House reacted with genuine confusion; they couldn’t understand why they were being downgraded and said the decision was “bizarre” and “puzzling”.

This reaction demonstrates a total lack of awareness about the problems– i.e. a nearly $34 trillion national debt, $2 trillion annual deficit, etc.

Even when they do manage to ‘solve’ problems, they usually wait until the last minute and then just kick the can down the road.

Earlier this year, the government was facing yet another crisis over the debt ceiling; mature adults would have gotten to work to negotiate a compromise. But the President insisted he would “refuse to negotiate” over the debt ceiling, sparking tremendous uncertainty about the government’s finances.

The 11^th hour bargain just punted the problem into the future and didn’t actually solve anything.

Most of the time politicians resort to petty name-calling and histrionic virtue signaling, without any rational discussion of problems or priorities, let alone informed conversation about viable solutions.

And the problems continue piling up.

On the rare occasion when there is consensus (like multi-trillion-dollar COVID bailouts), there’s rarely any rational, long-term thinking to weigh the costs and benefits. They just spend like drunken sailors and increase the national debt without regard for the consequences or the future.

The national debt is growing so rapidly that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, interest on the debt, plus mandatory entitlement spending (like Social Security), will consume 100% of federal tax revenue by 2031.

It’s pretty hard to imagine the US continuing to be the dominant economic and political power in the world when the government has to borrow money just to fund the military.

But that reality is seven years away.

Then, two years later in 2033, Social Security’s primary trust fund will run out of money and require a massive multi-trillion-dollar bailout.

All of this will probably cause foreign nations to abandon the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, further accelerating the fiscal and economic decline.

Now, this outcome is not inevitable. Every country has challenges, and there are solutions to the problems that the US faces.

But the clock is ticking, and it doesn’t look like there is any political or social will at the moment to prioritize and rationally compromise to solve problems.

Munger was right; great nations do have a lot of collapse in them. But only to a certain point. And that point increasingly looks like it may be less than a decade away.

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Galileo must have already known what was going to happen when, on February 24, 1616, a panel of eleven ‘experts’ commissioned by the Catholic church delivered its final report.

The panel had been ordered to assess Galileo’s work– specifically his ‘controversial’ assertion that other planets revolved around the sun– and not around the earth, as the church had been preaching for centuries.

And as expected, the panel ruled that Galileo’s theory (as well as similar work by other scientists) was “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical. . . and that in regard to theological truth it is at least erroneous in faith.”

The following day Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition and ordered to “abandon these opinions” and “abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it” under penalty of imprisonment.

The experts had unanimously ruled against him. Everyone agreed. The science was clear. They were right, and Galileo was wrong. And possibly a heretic.

Obviously, we know today that Galileo and other scientists like Copernicus who came before him were correct. But the Inquisition of Galileo wasn’t about science. It was about power and control.

Those in power often believe that they must be seen as the ultimate authority. They need have all the answers… to know everything and to be right about everything. So whenever someone comes along with a different conclusion, they view this as a threat to their authority… and they squash it.

Galileo’s Inquisition wasn’t the first instance of this suppression. And it certainly wasn’t the last.

We saw it all through the COVID pandemic, with that magical phrase repeated over and over again: “the science is clear”.

‘The science was clear’, for example, that putting masks on children as young as two years old was somehow going to save millions of lives. And anyone with a different conclusion on the matter was told to abandon their heresy under penalty of being canceled.

But apparently the science wasn’t so clear after all. This past Saturday, The BMJ– the medical journal of the British Medical Association– published a new meta-analysis of 22 studies which concluded:

“Real world effectiveness of child mask mandates against [COVID-19] has not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence. The current body of scientific data does not support masking children for protection against COVID-19.”

This conclusion would almost certainly have been suppressed three years ago, as it represents a direct challenge to what global and national health authorities were saying at the time.

They never expressed uncertainty, or that the science could change. Their view was absolute– and correct. And, like the Inquisition of Galileo, they had zero tolerance for dissent.

Climate science now follows this same Inquisition approach… and the tactics have been very much on display during the 28^th annual UN Climate Change Summit, known as COP28, which is currently taking place in the UAE.

Everything about this event is a complete joke; even on the COP28 website they have a fancy video filled with global celebrities whose theme is “No more waiting. It’s time to take action.”

Hang on a sec. What exactly was the purpose of the previous 27 annual climate summits if there hasn’t been any action yet? Apparently, COPs 1-27 were complete failures in which absolutely nothing has ever been accomplished. But now it’s up to COP28 to finally get something done?

This is hilarious given that most of the big shots who are attending COP28 are the same virtuous hypocrites who have flown in on their private jets year after year to all the previous summits. I guess they’re finally serious about doing something this time.

One widely publicized exchange over the weekend was the “She Changes” panel… because feminism and gender identity politics has soooo much to do with climate change. The science is clear.

So, this panel was basically the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, trying to demonstrate her virtue and genius by berating the CEO of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company.

But the CEO wasn’t having any of it, at one point saying, “Stop pointing fingers. Show me solutions. Show me what you can do. Show me your own contributions,” and blasted her for creating even more divisions in an already polarized world.

Then he committed the ultimate heresy and said that completely eliminating fossil fuels in the near future would “take the world back into caves” and that “no science out there . . . says that the phase-out of fossil fuel” will achieve the UN’s global temperature goals.

The reaction was almost pandemonium as virtuous hypocrites around the world immediately voiced their opposition to the CEO’s dangerous wrongthink.

“The science is clear,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who added that we must “stop burning fossil fuels– not reduce, not abate. Phase out.”

“The science is absolutely clear,” said Bill Hare, the chief executive of a government-funded climate non-profit. Completely eliminating fossil fuels “will enhance the lives of all humanity.”

“The science of climate change has been clear for decades”, said Professor Frederike Otto, listed as one of Time’s “100 most influential people in the world”.

There’s that magical phrase again: the science is clear.

Now, I’m not attacking climate science or those who dedicate their lives to it; there’s plenty of solid data out there. Plus, I love clean air and water as much as anyone, and I do my best to conserve resources and be greener. I’m also rational about it, which is why I’m so much in favor of nuclear power.

But there is a certain arrogance to saying “the science is clear” without acknowledging any uncertainty, or that many of their end of the world predictions haven’t come to pass.

There’s nothing wrong with being wrong.  Science is a process of continuous growth, examination, and discovery.

But to say “the science is clear” is to say that today’s conclusions are fully settled and will never change. If we’re intellectually honest, there are very few things we can say this about.

Yet these people insist that “the science is clear” about eliminating fossil fuels. We MUST keep global warming below 1.5C, and the ONLY way to do that is to completely eliminate, i.e. “phase out” oil.

No discussion about costs and benefits is allowed. Their view is the only view. The science is clear.

It doesn’t help that they make a joke of themselves by having their virtuous hypocrite climate bosses fly in on private jets. And they insist on mixing in gender identity politics. In fact, at COP28 this year, there’s an entire theme on the agenda for “Gender and Inclusion”. The science is clear.

But even if we accept the absolute certainty of their conclusions, there’s the matter of implementing their ideas.

They demand, for example, that all energy be green. That means (in their definition) solar panels and wind power.

Yet shifting to 100% green energy will require a number of critical resources (like copper and various other minerals) that the world simply cannot produce. And even if the production capacity existed, these same people insist on shutting down the world’s mines– because they’re bad for the environment.

They don’t think realistically about implementation, or costs versus benefits; they live in a theoretical dreamworld where TeraWatts of green power will simply fall from the sky.

It’s bizarre that such unrealistic fanatics have so much influence in dictating global policy. And this is one of the reasons I’m so vocal about investing in real assets, in part to benefit from their irrationality.

If the climate fanatics want to shut down mines, yet simultaneously create skyrocketing demand for copper from solar panel production, then it seems pretty likely that copper prices could soar.

If they want to completely phase out fossil fuel production, that probably means oil prices will rise.

If they want to require every business to become “net zero” and buy carbon credits, it probably means that the price of carbon credits will eventually be much higher.

And if reason ever prevails– which it eventually does– and nuclear power is finally recognized as a viable solution– which it is already starting to be– then demand for uranium will go through the roof.

But given uranium’s meager production and almost entirely drawn-down stockpiles, this also suggests that the price of uranium could one day go nuclear.

I won’t say the science is clear… because it seldom is. But in a world run by fanatics, these sorts of ideas certainly make sense to consider.

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In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

December 1, 2028: COP33 Climate Conference Urges Americans to Stop Eating

As world leaders gather for the 33rd COP Climate Summit, the theme of this year’s event is “Just Stop Eating”.

The United Nations, which hosts the conference, said that with extremely high oil and coal prices significantly reducing demand for fossil fuels, it is time to turn the focus on reducing the climate change affects of agriculture.

“Farming, especially the production of meat animals, is contributing to the warming of the globe at an unprecedented rate,” said Secretary-General of the United Nations Justin Trudeau as he opened the conference.

“And to tackle the root cause, we have to tackle demand— that is, people eating food.”

He said that as the fattest nation, the United States is the main problem when it comes to agricultural emissions.

“For the United States, this is not just an issue of climate change,” Trudeau continued, “This is a matter of public health. And as we learned from successfully combating Covid-19 with lockdowns and other restrictions, public health issues need the heavy hand of government to be solved.”

Since the 2023 COP28 agreement, the US has annually sent hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations payments to developing nations, compensating for its industrialization-driven greenhouse gas emissions that have disproportionately impacted these countries with natural disasters.

But experts say this is not enough.

Therefore, much of the COP33 agenda this year is focused on how to make Americans stop eating.

Some critics have noted the odd use of language which consistently uses the phrase, “just stop eating,” as opposed to “reduce food intake.”

“Of course, we don’t mean Americans should starve to death,” Trudeau said, glancing suspiciously side to side. “But it’s pretty clear a little climate change diet wouldn’t hurt.”

One breakout session will “explore the use of public health mandates to force Americans to stop eating.”

“Anything based on science can be justified as a public health mandate,” Trudeau said. “The scientific health benefits of fasting and calorie restriction are clear. And therefore these could, and should, be mandated on the American public.”

But mandates are not the only avenue that will be discussed to drastically curb Americans’ calorie intake.

Another session is called, “Appealing to Catholics with Biblical justifications to stop eating meat.”

The discussion will surround how a coordinated media effort might revive the Catholic tradition of fasting from meat on Fridays and during lent.

“If Catholics are willing to walk the walk, they would extend those traditions year round.” Trudeau said. “I think the Pope agrees, and we are working closely with him to add this to the next Papal Bull.”

But just in case traditional religion isn’t enough, COP33 will host spiritual guru Charlotte Tan who promotes the practice of sun gazing to replace meals.

“When you commune with nature, you realize the abundance around you. Gazing at the setting or rising sun can provide enough nutrients to your body to replace about half of your calories.”

Tan says that her “Nature’s Bounty” walks have also been popular among spiritually in-touch Americans.

“What we do is take a quick walk around a yard or a city block and find all the unused food resources just there for the taking. By eating edible weeds like dandelion or chickweed, people can save money, which gives them more time for meditation and activism.”

“But we don’t stop there,” Charlotte Tan continued, “Crickets, grubs, maggots— these might seem disgusting at first glance. But enlightened people realize these are just parts of nature. They are wholesome, fulfilling, and rich in high calorie lean protein. And best of all, they don’t add to a human’s carbon footprint. In fact, by eating them, we reduce it.”

Tan said that scorpions were especially popular food last year at her tent at Burning Man.

While promoting the replacement of meat like beef and chicken with protein sourced from bugs is nothing new for COP, this does represent a more creative approach.

“In the past, we have focused on data and logic to try to convince people to eat bugs,” Secretary-General Trudeau said before the conference’s first night meal of filet mignon. “This approach tackles the emotional side. Tapping into the spiritual awakening happening around the world is a great way to advance our collective mission.”

“We’re in this together,” he added, chewing his steak.

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When the international news agency AFP announced last week that libertarian outsider Javier Milei had won Argentina’s presidential election, the headline was absolutely hilarious.

AFP claimed that the election of Milei– a self-described anarcho-capitalist, was “plunging the country into uncertainty in the midst of a crippling economic crisis.”

Uncertainty? We’re talking about a country that’s basically in hyperinflation and has been plundered by decades of cronyism, corruption, and criminality.

I suppose the foreign media would have been happier if Milei’s opponent, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, had won… never mind the fact that Massa was one of the key figures who has engineered Argentina’s near hyperinflation.

But that’s sort of the point; the media is one of the key pillars that holds up the establishment. They’re an integral part of it. And they’ll always support establishment candidates, no matter how incompetent or criminal they may be.

It wasn’t just AFP either. Time, for example, wrote, “Argentina Just Elected an Eccentric Populist Who Seeks Counsel From His Cloned Dogs,” running with Milei’s recurring campaign joke that his dogs are his advisers.

The joke is obviously not true, but they felt compelled to paint the guy as a lunatic… as opposed to the button-down establishment candidate who helped wreck the economy.

Politico declared: “Right-wing populist Milei set to take Argentina down uncharted path”. I’m not sure what their point is– would be better for Argentina to remain on the well-trodden path to hyperinflation?

The Financial Times ran a story entitled, “Radical libertarian Javier Milei seizes victory in Argentina”.

This one is absolutely absurd. If you don’t buy into establishment politics, you’re a “radical”. And apparently, it’s impossible for an anti-establishment candidate to, you know, win the election. So, he SEIZED victory.

Argentina shows that in a country dominated by incompetence for so long, people do eventually wake up and choose something entirely different.

Milei wants to take a chainsaw (a frequent campaign prop) to Argentina’s federal budget and eliminate entire departments of government– including the education and health departments, plus the central bank. He wants to dollarize the economy and shut down Argentina’s central bank.

He has his work cut out for him. But if he can accomplish even a small fraction of what he’d like to do, there’s a good chance he’ll arrest the decline and leave the country in a much better place.

I actually lived in Argentina for a brief period some years ago, and it has such extraordinary potential. Buenos Aires has a fantastic night life, lifestyle, and culture. It’s also amazingly inexpensive (when you exchange dollars at black market rates).

Yet the inflation, crime, corruption, and bureaucracy make life quite difficult.

Hopefully Milei can put the country on a different path, and Argentina will be in a totally different position in several years.

In the meantime, anybody who’s ever wondered what it’s like to live in a country run by an anarcho-capitalist, well, now you have the opportunity.

Argentina is actually a fairly straightforward place to obtain residency and citizenship. And given Milei’s libertarian street cred, he may very well make it even easier. I wouldn’t be surprised if he rolled out an economic citizenship program to bring in much-needed revenue (and foreign currency) into the country.

You’ll probably recall that economic citizenship programs (often referred to as Citizenship by Investment Programs, or CIP) have become quite popular in small countries– especially Caribbean islands that depend on tourism.

These are completely legal programs whereby a foreign applicant can make an investment in the country (often overpriced real estate) or a government donation, in exchange for citizenship.

Over time, as more and more countries rolled out their own economic citizenship legislation, competition among various CIPs became fierce… which has driven the price down to as low as $100,000.

The programs are often controversial in their home countries as well; on a small Caribbean island with a population less than 200,000 (and where less than 100,000 vote in local elections), the idea of bringing on, say, 10,000 new “economic” citizens is often met with anger and anxiety.

But Argentina doesn’t have this problem. It’s an enormous country with almost 50 million people… meaning Milei could bring in 500,000 economic citizenship applicants and it would be a drop in the bucket in terms of population.

Yet the revenue from those CIP applicants would amount to $50+ billion, which would be incredibly meaningful to the economy.

For now, Argentina offers temporary residency to anyone who can prove they have about $2,000 per month in retirement or passive income. That means Social Security, pensions, annuities, rental income, dividend income, interest payments, etc.

Unfortunately, employment income does not qualify.

But there is an alternative. You could qualify for temporary residency by depositing about $24,000 into an Argentinian bank.

You must renew annually by once again proving you qualify financially. Plus, you must spend six months of each year in Argentina in order to qualify for renewal.

That means Argentina likely won’t work for a “back-up” residency, where you don’t want to spend significant time in the country.

But naturalization is where Argentina shines.

After holding temporary residency for just two years, you can apply to naturalize as an Argentine citizen, with a solid B+ rated passport.

This is one of the fastest naturalization time-lines in the world. And even though in reality you can expect to wait another two years after applying for the bureaucracy to approve you, this is still a quick naturalization timeline compared to most other countries.

But you could cut this time down even shorter if you give birth to a baby in Argentina.

Due to the legal concept of jus soli, right of soil, the baby immediately becomes an Argentine citizen, and as the parents, you are immediately eligible for permanent residency.

A few months later, right after acquiring permanent residency, you can apply for naturalization.

Passports can be compared to real estate investments in that their value fluctuates over time, typically changing gradually but sometimes shifting abruptly.

In the late 90s, Argentina was on the US waiver program, which meant Argentine citizens did not need a visa to enter the US. That made the passport quite valuable.

But by 2002 in the midst of a financial crisis, Argentina was removed from the US visa waiver program.

This is common for countries with poor economies— their passports’ value as a travel document tends to decrease. Just look at Venezuela as a good example, as more and more countries close their borders and require visas with onerous application procedures to stop mass migration.

Conversely, passports from countries that have rising economic prospects generally become more valuable.

Chile is an example of this, which currently has a great passport that does allow visa-free access to the United States.

Taking a long-term view, an Argentine passport might once again become much more valuable.

And given that it’s one of the most straightforward to obtain, that investment of time and energy may be well worth it.

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On March 20, 1602, after a few years of painstaking negotiations, a deal was struck amid the cobblestone streets and legendary waterways of Amsterdam that changed the world of finance forever.

The Dutch Republic (as it was known back then) was already a major economic power in the early 1600s; Dutch merchants boasted an enormous fleets of thousands of ships and lucrative trading posts around the world. Money was pouring in to the economy.

But at the same time, competition was fierce. England, Spain, Portugal, etc. all wanted in on the vast wealth that Dutch merchants were minting from the spice trade.

So in an effort to fend off international competition, Dutch traders unified their operations; merchants in Amsterdam merged in 1601. And, the following March, the remainder of the country’s prominent merchants joined.

They called their new venture the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC); it is known to history as the Dutch East India Company.

What made VOC so innovative is that investors could buy shares in the company, and hence enjoy a piece of the profits proportionate to the number of shares they owned.

But on top of that, they also launched a stock exchange… creating a secondary market where investors could buy or sell shares of VOC.

This was game changing.

These innovations by themselves were not new; other ‘joint-stock’ companies had been formed in the past. And other rudimentary financial exchanges had already been in existence.

But the Dutch put the two together, combining a major business enterprise with a formalized stock exchange. It had never been done before… and the idea marked the beginning of the country’s economic dominance, known as the Dutch Golden Age.

Naturally, as the Dutch Republic became Europe’s most powerful economy, its currency– a gold coin known as the guilder– became the unofficial reserve currency around the world.

From Eastern Europe to Japan, Indonesia, and parts of India, traders often exchanged goods and services for Dutch guilders because they had confidence that the coins would be universally accepted.

And the guilder’s status as a de facto reserve currency lasted for centuries.

But history is very clear that no empire, and no reserve currency, lasts forever.

Eventually the dominance of the Dutch republic was displaced by the British Empire, and the guilder by the British pound. Britain, in turn, was eventually displaced by the United States and the US dollar.

But only someone willfully ignorant of history would believe that America’s and the dollar’s dominance will last forever.

And this should hardly be a controversial assertion anymore.

Politicians within US government have routinely demonstrated an outrageous level of pettiness, incompetence, and the inability to solve even the most basic problems.

They have absolutely no control over abhorrent deficit spending. They go into debt to pay people to NOT work. They ignore downgrades of their sovereign credit rating. And they actually cheer themselves when the deficit is “only” $2 trillion.

America’s central bankers, meanwhile, conjured trillions of dollars out of thin air without any clue of the repercussions. They failed to predict inflation. They failed to diagnose it. They failed to do anything about it.

And when they finally did take action, they failed to anticipate any negative consequences of raising interest rates so quickly.

Literally two days before Silicon Valley Bank went bust earlier this year, the Chairman of the Fed told Congress that “nothing about the data suggests we’ve tightened [raised interest rates] too much.”

These people are clueless. And everyone has noticed.

Confidence in the dollar is waning, and foreigners are starting to diversify to other assets. Data from the IMF showed that the US dollar’s share of foreign exchange reserves had fallen to a multi-decade low.

Similarly, foreigners’ appetite to own US government bonds is dropping rapidly. A decade ago, foreigners happily owned 43% of all US government bonds. Today foreigners’ share is 30%, and falling.

These trends show very clearly that the dollar is simply not as dominant as it used to be.

In a recent interview, Aerdt Houben, a senior official at the Dutch central bank, said the quiet part out loud, and explained that the Netherlands was already preparing for a world in which gold (and NOT the US dollar) is the primary global reserve currency.

“The beauty of gold is that it’s stable in value, it retains its value. That’s one of the reasons why central banks hold gold… Gold is like solidified confidence for the central bank… If we ever unexpectedly have to create a new currency or a systemic risk arises, the public can have confidence in [the Dutch central bank] because whatever money we issue, we can back it with the same value in gold.”

The Dutch understand this concept very well; after all, they once held the world’s #1 reserve currency position… and then lost it. So they know the same thing will happen to the dollar. It’s inevitable.

I agree entirely with this view and have written about it extensively: I believe there is a very high likelihood that the dollar loses its reserve dominance within the next 10-years, and probably sooner.

The Congressional Budget Office has already forecast (rather optimistically) that interest on the debt, plus mandatory entitlements like Social Security, will consume 100% of US federal tax revenue by 2031.

This means that everything else, including the military, will have to be financed by debt.

Two years later in 2033, Social Security’s primary trust fund will run out of money, according to the program’s annual trustee report.

These are not conspiracy theories; rather, these are the government’s own forecasts. And I believe that either event could trigger a reset of the global financial system in which the US loses its dominance over the rest of the world.

Personally I don’t think that anyone trusts China enough to anoint its yuan as the new global reserve currency.

But gold is an asset that has a 5,000+ year history of trust and confidence.

And if gold does become the global reserve once again, you can likely bet that gold prices will go to the moon.

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