Category: simonblack

On Sunday March 10, 1793, in the village of Pin-en-Mauges in western France, a prominent local textile vendor named Jacques Cathelineau was peacefully enjoying his Sunday afternoon, when five men suddenly appeared to deliver urgent news.

Cathelineau could probably read their faces and knew what happened before anyone said a word.

By the spring of 1793, the French Revolution had been in full swing for nearly four years, and the entire nation was in chaos.

King Louis XVI and his family were executed two months prior, and the country was now being run by a faction of left-wing radicals under Maximilien Robespierre.

Robespierre spent money like a drunken sailor, and his extreme spending binge resulted in massive government budget deficits. So, he and his allies concocted an absurd paper money scheme… which predictably resulted in skyrocketing prices. Full-blown hyperinflation would strangle France soon after.

Robespierre’s pitiful leadership also managed to spark a war against Prussia, Britain, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.

And with so much pressure from rising prices, war, and political instability, the French economy crashed.  Industrial and agricultural output plummeted. And there were shortages of key resources, including food.

In short, France was a complete disaster.

Yet despite such horrendous conditions, there was an even worse problem lurking: French society was deeply divided– between those who ardently supported the revolution, and others those supported the church and return to monarchy.

This ideological polarization was so extreme that violence became a foregone conclusion.

And that’s what the men had come to tell Jacques Cathelineau on March 10, 1793: the social uprising had begun.

Hours before, violence had broken out between revolutionary forces and a local group of royalist teenagers… and it was time for people to pick sides once and for all.

Jacques Cathelineau knew exactly where he stood: he was loyal to Church and King, just like most people in the region. So, he comforted his terrified wife, promised that God would protect them, and departed to assemble the villagers.

Cathelineau started with just 26 men from his tiny hamlet. But by the time he reached Jallais Castle some 7 kilometers away, his ranks had swollen to over 3,000.

This event marked the start of what’s known as the Vendée War– a civil war within the French Revolution. It was an ideological conflict pitting pro-monarchy, pro-Catholic peasants against the forces of Robespierre… as well as against ordinary French citizens who supported the revolution.

The violence was brutal. The following day, for example, on March 11^th, 1793, hundreds of pro-revolution Frenchmen were massacred in the town of Machecoul. And the pro-revolution faction carried out its share of massacres as well.

It was French-on-French violence, and no one was spared. Men, women, and children participated in the killings, and they were victims as well.

This is an obviously extreme, nightmare scenario. But it’s a cautionary tale worth examining given the number of warning signs we can see in our own time.

France in the 1790s was a major superpower in decline. In fact, it had fallen so much from its peak that it was hardly recognizable.

The people in charge were incompetent fanatics who believed that they (and they alone) were enlightened enough and had the properly aligned moral compass to tell everyone else how to live their lives.

In fairness, some of their ideas were good. Others were highly destructive.

But the Vendée War did not arise because of policy ideas. People erupted because they were tired of an all-knowing group of elitists force-feeding their belief system onto everyone else.

Those same leaders in government fanned the flames of societal polarization. They persecuted their political opponents. They censored ideological and intellectual dissent. And they claimed that any opposition to their ideas constituted a threat to the Republic.

These conditions are similar to our own time. Fanatical elitists lead a major superpower, and the West in general. Both are in decline. They attack ideological dissent and insist that democracy is under attack. Opponents are labeled “Right Wing Extremists”.

The polarization is so strong that publications from the New York Times to Politico seem to think that a “New Civil War” is already upon us.

Now, ‘war’ is a very strong word… typically used by people who have never experienced it in person. Twitter feuds do not constitute war. Even violent protests do not constitute war.

But it’s clear there is an extreme divide upon Western Civilization that may very well be the greatest threat that we face.

External war, whether against China, Russia, Iran, or all three, would be horrendous. But winnable. And at the moment, despite all the woke histrionics from the US Defense Department, there is not a nation in the world that wants to test the resolve of the United States Marine Corps.

Deeply rooted internal conflicts, on the other hand, are hardly ever winnable.

At the moment it’s too dramatic to suggest that there’s a New Civil War upon us, or even coming. But we are already at the point of “Civil Divide”, capital C capital D.

And we can see it all over the West, from all sides of the political spectrum, in all shapes and sizes. The BLM Summer of Love in 2020. January 6. The absurd “Queers for Palestine” marches.

Then there’s Ireland… which on Friday was shocked by the brutal stabbing of several children.

All it took to send people into an absolute frenzy was the rumor that the attacker was a Muslim foreigner, and rioters took to the streets.

The fires, the looting, etc. were clearly stupid. And illegal. But that doesn’t invalidate the anger that people feel, even if their reaction was immoral and based on unsubstantiated rumor.

Migration in Europe is an obvious crisis, and people are justifiably angry.

Europe’s delusional elitist leaders threw open the doors, allowed people in by the shipload, showered them with outrageous taxpayer-funded benefits, then force-fed “multi-culturalism” down everyone’s throat whether they wanted it or not.

Two decades of this ridiculous policy has resulted in marches of tens of thousands of Muslims in the streets shrieking “Allahu Akhbar” and “White Trash” while they waive Hamas, Taliban, and al-Qaida flags.

People are fed up with it. They’re fed up with rising crime, violence, and rape. They’re fed up with being told to respect others’ culture while no one respects them or their own culture.

Arson and looting are obviously wrong on so many levels, and the rioters in Dublin should be prosecuted just like any other criminal.

But the government response has been very telling.

Rather than talk about the underlying problems in their society, the Irish parliament has immediately taken action to update hate crime and hate speech legislation; Senator Pauline O’Reilly said today that if Irish people’s anger over migration policy causes foreigners “such discomfort that they cannot live in peace,” then it is “our job, as legislators, to restrict freedom for the common good.”

No one seems to care about the discomfort of Irish people fed up with the government’s multiculturalism fantasy.

The Irish rioters’ looting, violence, and arson was totally wrong on so many levels. But the anger over failed policy and bad ideas is understandable: multiculturalism has been a disaster. In fact, nearly everything these delusional elitists have come up with has been a disaster.

It’s not just in Europe, either. Lockdowns, mask mandates, decriminalized shoplifting, cashless bail, non-prosecution of crime, the southern border crisis, etc. came from the same types of delusional elitists in the US.

New York City probably embodies this delusional elitism the best. It’s a ‘sanctuary city’ which ignores federal immigration law. And soon-to-be Mayor Eric Adams said proudly (on June 3, 2021) that “people from every nation seek refuge” in New York.

The city practically rolled out the red carpet for illegal migrants… and now it’s a full-blown crisis. Mayor Adams now whines to the federal government to bail out his poor judgment and has asked New Yorkers to open their homes to migrants.

Naturally, there are very few people who do so. It’s easy to support a policy idea when you don’t have to bear the cost.

(When I was in New York City two months ago, city officials had just evicted a 95-year-old Korean War veteran from public housing… to make room for migrants.)

Naturally, immigration only scratches the surface of the tip of the iceberg. Cities across the country are seeing the destructive results of their idiotic policies about homelessness, business regulation, woke prosecution, etc.

Yet despite the mountain of evidence that their ideas don’t work, the delusional elitists still want to plow ahead with their ideas… and label the opposition as right-wing extremism.

Even more astonishing is the millions of passionate ignoramuses who believe them… who still buy into this progressive nonsense.

But Friday’s violence in Ireland is another clear example that there are plenty of people who have had enough.

The Civil Divide is very real. And the temperature is rising.

This is not a problem that can be easily solved, if at all. And without a solution, it will be virtually impossible to fix all the other problems– economic, geopolitical, etc.

It took France nearly three decades to finally settle down, during which period they went through the Reign of Terror, Napoleon’s dictatorship, and more.

One can hope that cooler heads will prevail. But in the meantime, it makes sense for rational heads to strongly consider a Plan B.

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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.

November 24, 2027: “Media Literacy” Classes for school-Kids a Huge Success

It’s been four years since California and New York mandated “Media Literacy” classes to tach public schoolchildren how to recognize online misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.

And according to public education officials, the classes have been a resounding success.

They point to recent testing which shows students being able to accurately identify 95% of digital misinformation.

For example, students correctly understood that online content showing American or Israeli flags almost always contains misinformation and disinformation intended to advance violence and oppression.

Meanwhile, news websites which sympathetically display Palestinian flags are trustworthy sources whose claims can be completely believed without question.

Students have also learned to judge the veracity of online content by analyzing the intersectionality of its author.

The more victim groups an author belongs to, the higher the chances of the article being true. And students have learned to conduct extensive research on the matter.

Authors who list their pronouns on their social media profiles are almost always to be believed, especially when those pronouns differ from the author’s biological sex.

But students have also been trained on the nuances of intersectionality analysis.

Jews, for example, do not count as a victim group. In fact students learned that Jewish authors are far more likely to produce mis- and dis-information than atheists.

Furthermore, in accordance with the principles of #BelieveAllWomen, news articles written by persons identifying as female are far more likely to be true than other articles written by cis-males.

Yet students also learned that this principle should not be applied when the news in question pertains to sexual assault allegations against President Biden.

Students also learned to completely discard content from conservative news sources, and they were also trained on the most efficient ways to quickly report those posts to the proper authorities.

As part of their graduation requirements, students are also required to complete a capstone project to demonstrate their ability to apply media literacy skills in the real world.

For example, the graduation capstone exercise for students at Justice High School in New York City was to find a scholarly article from the past that used to be considered ‘science’, but is now obvious misinformation.

Students unearthed an old Scientific American article from 2007 which discussed how paleontologists identify the gender of various human skeletons.

The article contains a number of offensive statements, such as “Living animals have primary sexual characteristics, such as genitalia, that differ between males and females.”

Students instantly recognized that acknowledging any biological difference between males and females is extremely oppressive, and hence blatant misinformation.

Grief counselors were immediately brought in to provide emotional and mental health support to students who were exposed to the article’s offensive statements.

But the students were eventually able to continue the project. And they soon found that the article’s lead author was a white cismale. This was the final evidence required to make a ruling: misinformation, disinformation, AND malinformation.

The school’s head of Media Literacy, Miss Leed, explained, “The students were shocked that such dangerous content could have been out there for so long, especially from a purportedly ‘scientific’ publication. But we raised the issue to the editors— by posting their home addresses during a rant on TikTok— and they agreed to revise editions of the magazine going back decades. This is a huge win for our students.”

But she said students were confused about why the people responsible for spreading such misinformation hadn’t been arrested and prosecuted.

“We try to explain to the students that the First Amendment was specifically designed to help protect misinformation. But it’s up to sheroes like us to take justice into our own hands.”

Education experts say that this new media literacy skill more than compensates for the students’ steep decline in reading and mathematics proficiency.

Source

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When journalist Don Hoefler first coined the term “Silicon Valley” in the early 1970s, the San Francisco Bay and Santa Clara valley region had already been home to thriving tech companies for decades.

Then future titans like Apple and Adobe joined the scene, and the region really started to take off.

Today, Silicon Valley is responsible for about 3% of US GDP. Given that its geographical size is just 0.1% of the country’s land mass, that’s a pretty good use of resources.

Now imagine you are the leader of a country… and that you have the power to snap your finger and do the same thing— boost economic output by 3% by giving up just 0.1% of your land mass.

That’s a pretty good tradeoff. And it seems like it would at least be worth considering the costs and benefits of such a deal.

That’s exactly the opportunity that the Republic of Panama has in front of it.

Most people might be surprised to learn that Panama has vast mineral deposits— especially copper. And there has been some limited mining operations in the past.

One site in particular, known as Cobre Panama, is a major copper mine that has been producing commercially for the past few years. The mine’s operator is a Canadian company named First Quantum Minerals, and just last quarter they produced 112,734 metric tons at the site.

That’s quite a lot for a copper mine. Production is so strong, in fact, that Cobre Panama is estimated to be worth roughly 3% of the entire national economy.

And at approximately 30,000 acres, the project is approximately 0.1% of Panama’s land mass.

Those are basically Silicon Valley proportions: a 3% boost to GDP on just 0.1% of the country’s land.

Now, even though the mine has been operating commercially for a few years, the government just recently awarded the mining concession to First Quantum; and the contract was formally signed into law by the Panamanian government last month.

But people were furious, and protests started almost immediately.

Panama is undoubtedly a country where political corruption runs deep, and there have been issues with graft and bribery in the past, including with other large-scale mining projects.

So it’s understandable that Panamanians are skeptical of their government.

There are also a number of Panamanians who are against the mining contract for environmental reasons.

But the protests have essentially brought the country to a near standstill for most of the past month.

Protestors have borrowed a favored tactic of European climate protestors, i.e. they have blocked roads, intersections, bridges, and even the country’s main Pan-American highway.

(European climate protestors have even super-glued themselves to the pavement; fortunately Panamanians haven’t done that yet.)

The net result for Panama is that the economy has practically ground to a halt. It’s almost as bad as the COVID lockdowns.

People can’t get to work. Schools have been closed. And since transportation is virtually impossible, even basic goods like gasoline have started running low.

It’s become so ridiculous that some regions of the country have had to truck in critical supplies from Costa Rica.

Most people in the country are firmly against the closure of their economy. But, as with most cases, it only takes a few passionate ignoramuses to create a big problem.

Many of the protesters are young… and incredibly ardent in their support for the environment; and I try not to judge people for their views, even if I disagree.

But I have a difficult time respecting ignorance, and hypocrisy.

Very few protestors have bothered reading the contract— including key protest leaders (suggesting to me that the protest leaders are in this for status, power, and money, and don’t really care about the environment.)

They have never studied copper mining or bothered to read the environmental impact studies. They just have a knee-jerk reaction to be opposed to something, based on almost zero understanding of the issue.

These same protestors are all about green energy, like wind and solar.

But what does every wind turbine and solar panel require? COPPER!!

So they are simultaneously in favor of green energy, yet militantly opposed to mining one of the most essential elements to produce green energy.

They also fail to realize that the copper is going to be mined anyhow. If not in Panama, then somewhere else in the world.

So you’d think that someone who is truly opposed to copper production would strip themselves of every bit of copper demand from their own lives. That means no electricity, no mobile phone, no Internet, no automobiles.

Without copper, you’d essentially have to go back to living in caves.

But the protestors aren’t willing to do that. They’re far too ignorant of what they’re protesting about. They’re even ignorant of their own hypocrisy.

Yet they’re far too passionate to even realize that they’re completely ignorant.

This is what passes for ‘activism’ today. And it’s all over the world.

Two years ago, after the democratically-elected state government of Georgia passed a new voting law, a number of very prominent institutions and individuals jumped all over it.

Joe Biden called Georgia’s new voting law “Jim Crow 2.0”. The CEOs of major corporations including Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, and Major League Baseball all insisted that having to present an ID to vote was racist.

(Nevermind that you need to present an ID to pick up tickets for a baseball game or fly on Delta Airlines.)

These were all very prominent people who were totally ignorant, yet wildly passionate.

We saw the same thing during COVID times, during the BLM “summer of love” in 2021. And we’re seeing it again today—

Much of the developed world has been taken over by passionate ignoramuses shouting “ALLAHU AKHBAR” in the streets who are too impassioned to think straight about the issue.

I mean, the fact that a group called “Queers for Palestine” even exists sort of sums up the concept of Passionate Ignorance.

Passionate ignoramuses don’t want to engage in rational discussion. They don’t want to be presented with ideas or thinkers that might challenge their ideological echo chamber. They don’t even want to read.

They do, however, want to scream and shout and virtue signal on social media, without ever once questioning their intellectual premises or actions.

They’re also cheered on by brainless media and celebrities, who themselves are passionately ignorant.

The actor Leonardo DiCaprio posted an Instagram message of support to the protestors in Panama earlier this week and encouraged them to keep fighting for the environment.

I wonder if Leo has ever been to Panama or a copper mine. Or whether he realizes that this single mine produces 3% of GDP. Or that the contract is worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to Panama (big money for a small country).

I wonder if Leo realizes that without copper mines, there would be no more movies, no more Instagram, no more private jet.

I wonder if he ever thought about encouraging them to read the contract, or to educate themselves, or to act rationally.

Apparently not. Leo thinks raging for the environment is a good idea. So the passionate ignorance continues.

Source

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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.

November 17, 2024: Harvard launches “Jihad Immersion” study abroad program

Harvard University, long known for its progressive academic offerings, has stirred controversy with its latest array of courses. In response to growing student interest in Palestinian causes, the university has introduced a series of provocative new classes.

One of the most contentious courses, “Intro to Explosive Expression: Bomb Making 101,” purports to explore the “art and science” behind explosive devices, framed as a study in “political and revolutionary engineering.”

Critics have lambasted the course as being in poor taste and potentially dangerous, while supporters argue it provides critical insight into the struggles faced by oppressed groups.

In a similar vein, a course titled “Decapitation as Discourse,” examines the history and technique of beheading as a form of political statement.

Special guest lecturer Mohammed Deif, the Supreme Military Commander of Hamas, will guide students through the study and practice of the most effective means of separating a head from a body— using cadavers, of course.

Students in this course will also learn how to use proper lighting and filming techniques to livestream a beheading on YouTube. However Harvard administrators were quick to point out that they do not condone violence, and the course is merely about political and emotional expression.

There’s also a new course entitled “A Survey of Jewish Anatomy”, which resurrects the old pseudo-science of phrenology. Students will study updated methods of taking cranial measurements to determine skull size, forehead slope, and distance between eye sockets, so that they can correctly determine whether they are in the presence of Jews.

A number of Palestine-focused study abroad programs have also been added, including the “Jihad Immersion” option; according to university officials, this program was so popular with Harvard students that it filled up within 3 minutes of being released.

Intifada Immersion also satisfy’s multiple physical education credits, as students will spend a semester at a Hamas training camp. According to the program’s brochure, they will learn vital skills, such as how to swing across monkey bars wearing a balaclava with an AK-47 slung across their backs.

University officials state the purpose of the program is to encourage physical activity while enhancing empathy and understanding of guerrilla movements.

In addition, Harvard will also fund the “Pride March in Gaza” field trip for the Queers for Palestine student organization. The group aims to highlight the intersectionality of LGBTQ+ rights and the Palestinian cause.

All trip participants, however, are required to sign a waiver that holds the university harmless in the event of a brutal lynching.

Another controversial addition is Harvard Law School’s new concentration on Sharia Law. This course includes a unique project where students compete to shout down visiting conservative legal scholars by screaming “Allahu Akbar” the loudest and most times in a row.

Harvard also hired a new professor, former Rep. Rashida Tlaib, to teach a capstone course entitled “Women’s Rights in Palestine.”

Palestine currently requires women to seek court approved permission from a husband or other male head of household in order to go about in public without a male chaperone.

The course— which will now be a graduation requirement for all students— seeks to frame what may appear to be oppression of women as a liberating force which actually promotes feminist power.

For example, the course asserts that full body and face coverings in the Islamic world actually help free women from toxic masculinity and patriarchal standards of beauty.

Despite the backlash, Harvard maintains that these courses are meant to push the boundaries of traditional academia and encourage critical thinking on complex global issues.

Harvard officials have also stated that these offerings reflect the university’s commitment to academic freedom and the exploration of diverse perspectives.

That said, Pro-Israel students who protested the new courses have been expelled.

Source

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We’re going to talk about strip clubs and binge drinking today. Yet surprisingly this article is not about Hunter Biden.

I’m actually talking about the FDIC… as in the organization that’s supposed to insure customer deposits in the US banking system.

The FDIC isn’t typically an institution that’s associated with sex, drugs, and booze; in fact an agency that sends people from bank to bank across the country to comb through financial records and look for infractions of obscure regulations… should qualify as THE most boring in the world.

But the reality is the complete opposite.

According to a bombshell report published earlier this week by the Wall Street Journal, the FDIC has a hard-partying, sexed-up Caligula boozer dick pic culture that’s a cross between National Lampoon’s Animal House and the TV show Mad Men.

According to the Journal’s report, some FDIC meetings would take place at strip clubs. Senior bank examiners routinely sent around dick pics to the women on their teams. Auditors were encouraged and pressured to drink whiskey shots during work hours while in the field.

Female employees were openly rated on their looks and expected to have sex with their male supervisors in exchange for promotions and higher ratings.

And vomiting off the roof of the FDIC’s Washington DC area hotel was so common it became a rite of passage. (I was as surprised as anyone to learn that the FDIC owns and operates its own hotel…)

Taxpayers rightly have a certain expectation of their public officials– especially when said public officials have the solemn charge of ensuring the safety of the banking system.

And I think it’s safe to say that a hypersex boozer dick-pic culture at the FDIC falls far, far short of that expectation.

Now, as ridiculous as the FDIC’s party culture may be, it’s made even worse by the fact that the organization has repeatedly failed at its core mission.

Earlier this year, several large banks in the United States (led by Silicon Valley Bank) went bust; these were all banks that were regulated and supervised by the FDIC.

FDIC examiners had conducted multiple audits and examinations of Silicon Valley Bank… yet they never sounded the alarm or raised a red flag.

Perhaps that’s because senior management was too busy f*cking the analysts and getting hammered on the job.

It reminds me of the revelation about the SEC back in 2010.

The SEC is the government agency that regulates financial markets; yet they totally missed the warning signs of the Global Financial Crisis, as well as the Bernie Madoff fraud.

Well according to an internal investigation by the SEC’s Inspector General, it turns out that many of the agency’s senior employees were too busy looking at porn to do their jobs.

According to that Inspector General report, one senior SEC regulator accessed porn sites 1800 times during a two-week period from her government laptop. Another top attorney at the SEC spent up to EIGHT hours per day watching porn at work.

Yet even the SEC’s brazen debauchery has now been surpassed by the clowns at the FDIC. And the problem clearly starts at the top.

The FDIC’s chairman was hauled in front of Congress earlier this week where he faced questions about his agency’s extreme misconduct, as well as his own.

The chairman blatantly lied while under oath to the Senate panel by claiming that he had personally never been investigated for misconduct.

Yet upon later realizing that he would be caught in his lie, the FDIC Chairman then reversed his testimony and admitted that, yes, he had in fact been investigated for personal misconduct.

It’s all so utterly pathetic. And yet, this is the organization that’s expected to maintain a sound banking system in the US… which is a pretty big challenge right now. Here’s why:

1) Banks already have accumulated $650 billion of losses

Commercial banks across the United States bought trillions of dollars worth of bonds with their customers’ money over the past few years, back when interest rates were at record lows.

But now that interest rates have risen from nearly 0% to 5%, those same bonds (that that the banks acquired with YOUR money) have lost a ton of value.

In total, banks in the US have racked up a whopping $650 billion of unrealized bond losses; this is an enormous figure, and it poses a major threat to several institutions which may already be insolvent.

2) More losses are coming from commercial real estate

Commercial real estate is suffering– especially office properties.

We can all see it: companies are cutting costs and reducing their real estate footprints, with a number of businesses permanently embracing remote work.

Demand for office properties has softened considerably. Prices are dropping. Defaults are rising. And many banks will end up taking significant losses from their roughly $1 trillion in exposure to US office real estate.

This problem is just starting to unfold, so there’s a lot more coming in the future.

3) The $221 TRILLION risk from derivatives is very difficult to calculate

Back in the 2008 financial crisis, one of the major problems that almost brought down the entire system was major derivatives losses. And ever since then, the term ‘derivatives’ has been a bit of a dirty word.

Derivatives are not necessarily bad; essentially they’re like insurance policies to protect investors against sudden and major price swings, sort of like how options can mitigate losses in the stock market.

The lurking problem with derivatives is that it’s easy for some institutions to take on WAY too much risk. And if a single Black Swan event arises, it only takes a handful of irresponsible boneheads to wreck havoc in the financial system.

The Treasury Department’s most recent report states that there’s $221 trillion in total derivatives contracts in the US financial system. This is obviously a lot of money… though in fairness it was twice that amount in 2008.

The real issue is that it’s extremely difficult to assess the real risk, or to stress test scenarios in which a Black Swan event may trigger another derivatives chain reaction meltdown of the financial system.

In theory the FDIC should be looking at all of these risks. They should be looking at derivatives. They should be looking at commercial real estate defaults. They should be looking at banks’ massive bond losses.

Yet at the moment they’re apparently too busy sending dick pics and getting so boozed up that they literally puke off the roof of their own hotel.

The good news for the US banking system is that there’s still a fair amount of equity– totaling just over $2 trillion.

But that’s across the entire banking system. Many individual banks– including a few large ones– have taken on way too much risk and have suffered far too many losses.

So I wouldn’t be surprised to see more bank failures down the road, especially if interest rates remain high and the economy contracts. And once again the FDIC will be caught with its pants down… apparently in more ways than one.

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On a routine day in the winter of 1993, workers at the Chehrabad salt mine in the Zanjan Province of Iran discovered a remarkably preserved corpse dating back to 300 AD.

He apparently died in a salt mining accident in the early 300s. But the salt had apparently kept the man’s body largely intact. Even his leather boots were still in great condition.

Perhaps most interesting was that the man was wearing a golden earring, and he had a number of silver coins in his pockets… suggesting that he may have been the mine’s paymaster, or perhaps even its owner.

Salt mining was an incredibly lucrative business back in the ancient world, and the owner would have probably been making a small fortune.

That’s no longer the case today, of course; salt is a cheap commodity that has little value in our modern society. But, intriguingly, the gold and silver found on the ancient man’s body are still worth as much today— if not more— than they were back in the 300s.

Lately I’ve been writing about very rational (and likely) scenarios where the price of gold and silver could skyrocket over the coming years.

I don’t say this because I’m a “gold bug”. I’m not fanatical about a chunk of metal. I’m not fanatical about anything except for my children; my conclusions about gold and silver have been objectively reached after careful research.

And I also acknowledge that I don’t have a crystal ball. In fact I am the first to admit that there is still a very narrow path for the United States, and the West in general, to escape from the financial black holes that they have created.

I’m not being sensational, either. The Congressional Budget Office itself projects that interest expense on the national debt, plus mandatory entitlement spending (like Social Security) will exceed all federal tax revenue by 2031.

Then, two years later, Social Security’s primary trust fund will run out of money in 2033… resulting in major cuts to monthly benefits.

The Federal Reserve will be left with very few options.

Either (1), they allow the government to fail. They allow Social Security to fail. They allow confidence in America to collapse. And they lose complete and total control of the market.

Or (2) they step in— most likely well before 2031— and bail out the federal government.

This means slashing interest rates back to record lows (or possibly even negative levels), and printing money as if their lives depend on it. In other words, they’ll resort to the same playbook that they used in 2009, and in 2020.

I’m betting on #2. Few bureaucrats have the stones to stand idly by while the federal government fails.

But the consequences of #2, i.e. low rates and more money printing— will predictably be more inflation… And most likely a formal, international rejection of the US dollar as the world’s dominant reserve currency.

The last point is critical to understand… because it’s very likely that a new global financial system would involve GOLD as the dominant reserve asset.

And that trend alone could send gold prices soaring more than 5x, to $10,000 or more. (And silver prices would likely rise as well.)

But I wanted to point out today that, should this likely scenario arise, the value of certain gold and silver companies would skyrocket far beyond 5x.

An international gold standard would mean that gold miners would become some of the most important companies in the world… and many large institutions would be rushing to invest in them, pushing their share prices higher.

A sudden surge in gold prices would also mean that mining company profits would go through the roof.

This combination could mean that share prices of gold mining companies rise at an even higher rate than gold itself.

Obviously there is greater risk to owning shares of a mining company, versus owning physical gold or silver.

Mining is a complicated business that often involves environmental protests, worker strikes, and serious operational challenges. Owning physical gold doesn’t carry any of those risks. So there definitely is a risk versus reward calculation to think about.

But one way to protect yourself against the downside is ensure you buy shares of mining companies at an excellent entry point.

Right now there are several large mining companies that are trading for incredibly lofty and unattractive valuations. One of the biggest gold miners, for example, is currently selling for over 400x earnings, and 40x Free Cash Flow. No thanks.

But if you look at smaller and medium sized miners, there is still a lot of value in the market .

For example, one company we wrote about for our premium investment research service The 4th Pillar, is a low cost, top quality producer with highly profitable operations. Yet it’s currently trading at less than TWO times operating cash flow.

(Two times cash flow means that the business is essentially making me a 50% operating yield, which is super attractive.)

A low entry price like this is critical; if gold miners do end up becoming critical (and popular) businesses to own in a few years’ time, then the company could see its share price increase by 10x or more.

But even if I’m wrong, I still own shares of a profitable business at an operating cash flow yield of 50%. That’s not such a bad scenario.

Remember, ANY investment is risky— and mining company carry unique risks. (This is also a reason to also consider mining royalty businesses, but we’ll save that for another time.)

But given that shares of many high quality mining businesses are deeply undervalued at the moment, it’s an idea worth considering.

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On the evening of June 18, 1815, in the Belgian hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean, nearly 70,000 troops under the command of the Duke of Wellington, alongside 50,000 allied Prussian soldiers, fought against the French forces of Napoleon Bonaparte in the historic Battle of Waterloo.

Waterloo was a bloody affair, with heavy casualties on both sides. But the Anglo-Prussian alliance won the fight, and Napoleon was forced to abdicate his throne just a few days later.

The Napoleonic Wars– more than 12 years of constant conflict– were over, and Europe was finally at peace.

Now, legend has it that famed banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild was present at Waterloo and witnessed the battle himself. He then braved a massive storm over the English Channel to reach London as quickly as possible where he bought up all the government bonds before news of the victory had reached Britain.

In another version of the story, Rothschild was in London during the battle. But his private intelligence network quickly passed the news of Napoleon’s defeat, giving Rothschild the opportunity to buy up British government bonds on the cheap before anyone else heard the news.

And in yet another version of the story– personally endorsed in 1940 by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels– Rothschild bribed a French general to deliberately lose the battle so that he could make a fortune on British government bonds.

None of these stories is remotely true. In fact, most people don’t realize that Rothschild almost lost his fortune because of Waterloo… and that he personally played a vital role that helped Britain win the war.

Rothschild was essentially given a secret mission in January 1814 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who commissioned Rothschild to smuggle gold to British generals in Europe.

Britain didn’t have the gold; fighting against Napoleon for so long was extremely expensive and had drained the British treasury. So, government had to issue tons of debt to pay for the conflict.

Rothschild’s job was to turn those government bonds– which were just pieces of paper– into real money, i.e., gold, that British generals could use to pay and feed their troops.

This was an enormous challenge; Rothschild not only had to procure vast sums of gold, but he had to transport it all through French blockades and checkpoints.

Fortunately for Britain, Rothschild was incredibly good at his job. And both the Duke of Wellington as well as one of the most senior officials at the British Treasury praised him for his skill and discretion.

But Rothschild did make one huge mistake: he assumed the war would drag on for years.

And in anticipation of the British government having to go deeper into debt to pay for it all, Rothschild used all his profits to buy more gold that he could then send to the troops.

By the summer of 1815, Rothschild was sitting on a mountain of gold.

But then came Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo… and Rothschild knew instantly that the price of gold would plummet because of the peace. He also knew the losses he would suffer would potentially wipe out his entire fortune.

So, Rothschild made a risky bet and used his gold to buy up British government bonds, which were still quite cheap. He believed that, with Napoleon defeated, Britain’s economy would grow dramatically, and the bonds would increase in value.

He was right. And over the next two years, Rothschild realized a 40% return on the bonds, minting him a profit of roughly $1 billion in today’s money.

What’s interesting about this story is that, on July 20, 1815, the evening edition of the London Courier newspaper reported that Rothschild had made “great purchases” of British government bonds.

While Rothschild didn’t formally intend to ‘rate’ the quality of the bonds, news of Rothschild’s investment was received as an almost endorsement… or even a recommendation.

People thought that if someone as sophisticated as Rothschild saw value in the bonds, then they must be worth buying.

Rothschild had essentially put his gold seal of approval on Britain’s national debt. And his analysis proved to be true.

More than two centuries later, this business of analyzing and rating a sovereign government’s bonds has grown into a highly formalized industry. And it’s primarily controlled by three companies: S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch.

Similar to Rothschild’s unintentional endorsement back in 1815, these agencies formally grade the creditworthiness of governments, with the highest rating generally being ‘AAA’.

The United States government has long enjoyed this pristine AAA rating. Until, that is, S&P downgraded the federal government’s credit rating on August 5, 2011.

Back then, S&P said they were “pessimistic” that Congress would be able to “stabilize the government’s debt dynamics anytime soon”. And the agency projected the government’s debt burden would reach an unbelievable $20.1 trillion by 2021.

(It turns out that S&P was wildly optimistic; US government debt reached $20.1 trillion on September 8, 2017, more than four years ahead of their forecast.)

The Treasury Department was furious about the downgrade. And according to the Chairman of S&P’s parent company, then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner called to make threats against the company, claiming that he had just spoken to President Obama about the downgrade.

And to absolutely no one’s surprise, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against S&P shortly after, alleging that the company engaged in fraud. (The case dragged on for years until S&P finally settled for a $1 billion fine.)

That was enough to scare the entire ratings industry into submission. No matter how high the debt burden became, how incompetent the Congress, how outrageous the budget, how ridiculous the legislation… the rating agencies refused to downgrade the US government.

Until this year.

A few months ago, Fitch made the first move and downgraded the United States; in their report, Fitch cited the government’s inability to solve problems and compromise, such as waiting until the last minute to fix the debt ceiling fiasco earlier this year.

(The Biden administration responded with genuine confusion, calling Fitch’s downgrade “strange” and “bizarre”.)

Now comes Moody’s, the last of the big three credit rating agencies, which on Friday downgraded the US outlook from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’.

Moody’s cited obvious risks like rising interest rates and the explosion in the national debt, which have “increased pre-existing pressure on US debt affordability.”

In other words, the US government won’t be able to afford to make payments on the national debt for much longer.

I’ve written about this before: the government’s own projections show that interest payments on the national debt, plus mandatory spending like Social Security, will consume 100% of tax revenue by 2031.

Then Social Security’s primary trust fund will run out of money two years later. It’s an enormous problem.

But it’s not just the fiscal mess. Moody’s also cited “continued political polarization” that prevents the government from tackling any of America’s big problems.Ironically, almost as if to prove Moody’s point about political polarization, the White House blamed the downgrade on “Congressional Republican extremism and dysfunction”.

Unbelievable. These people really can’t solve problems. They can’t even acknowledge problems. They only know how to fight and argue and create more problems.

Almost fifteen years ago when I started this publication and making predictions about America’s fiscal ruin, my comments were considered extremely controversial.

Today this view is officially mainstream; all three major rating agencies cite these clear and obvious risks. They’re finally stating what everyone already knows to be true.

I’ve written before that, technically, America’s enormous fiscal challenges are still fixable. But there’s only a very narrow window of opportunity remaining to do so.

(I’ll walk you through the math of how this could happen in a future letter.)

Sadly, it’s pretty clear that the people in charge don’t seem to care in the slightest. They’re not moving in the direction of solutions… rather they’re creating more problems.

And this is really why it’s so important to have a Plan B– to acknowledge obvious risks and take sensible steps to reduce their impact on your family.

There are countless permutations and no one-size-fits-all solution; a Plan B might include diversifying your finances, having another place to go, owning real assets, having a second passport, taking legal steps to reduce your taxes, protecting your assets, and more.

Having a Plan B doesn’t make you unpatriotic. It doesn’t make you a pessimist. And it doesn’t make you a conspiracy theorist.

It means you are a rational, independent-minded person who takes obvious risks seriously; essentially, it’s what we hope our politicians would be.

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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.

November 10, 2029: A Big Mac in California now costs $45. Lawmakers Plan Another Minimum Wage Hike

Members of the California State Legislature expressed anger this week after fast food chain McDonald’s hiked prices of its signature Big Mac to $45 per sandwich at locations across the state. In other states like Texas and Florida, however, Big Mac prices are below $15.

“This is capitalist greed, pure and simple,” State Senator Justin Flate said, “And we won’t stand for it.”

Flate, of course, was the state lawmaker who spearheaded the 2026 law that raised minimum wage to $40 per hour, as well as last year’s bill which raised minimum wage to $50 per hour.

Flate stated this morning that he will respond to McDonald’s price hike by sponsoring a new bill which raises the minimum wage to $60 per hour, which is 3x higher than the rest of the country.

“There’s a clear pattern here,” Senator Flate said. “Every time we raise the minimum wage, McDonald’s and other businesses raise their prices. This is a greedy, intentional action on their part to snub our efforts to control the cost of living for Californians.”

Lawmakers say they can’t understand why California’s cost of living has risen so much more quickly than the rest of the United States. Some estimates say that a $10,000 per month household income is required just to meet Californians’ basic needs of housing and food.

This, despite the strongest efforts in the nation by lawmakers to drive minimum wage higher, and to heavily regulate the companies whose price hikes are driving inflation.

For example, a 2027 law requires all California farmers to calculate the exact cost of each crop grown, report it to the government quarterly, and sell those crops for no more than 10% above cost.

But lawmakers say unfair competition from farms in bordering states has made that regulation less effective.

Experts also say that the sky-high cost of living is the primary driver of a shoplifting epidemic that has been affecting the state for nearly a decade.

In 2014, California raised the threshold for felony theft from $450 to $950, essentially decriminalizing shoplifting under $950.

But in an effort to make sure desperate shoplifters were not unfairly punished, in 2024 the state indexed the felony threshold to inflation.

Now, stealing goods worth $3,500 or less is considered a misdemeanor.

Many residents and businesses point to the state’s extreme cost of electricity, which is more than seven times the national average.

But legislators insist that saving the environment is worth the high cost of electricity.

California has put itself on a path to be 100% solar-powered, despite most other states investing heavily in inexpensive nuclear power. And to help fund the transition, the legislature passed a head tax on businesses of $100 per employee per month.

The head tax has failed to raise revenue as countless businesses shut down or fled the state, and California saw its deepest deficit last year than it has seen in decades.

But lawmakers aren’t discouraged. They say this all just invigorates them even more to apply the proper economic interventions to fix the state.

Senator Justin Flate said, “We know that we are doing the right thing. We know that. There is no question. It’s clear, we just haven’t been aggressive enough yet. But just wait until you see us in action during the next legislative session!”

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Almost two decades ago, I walked into a coin shop in Florida to buy my very first piece of silver.

I was in my mid-20s at the time and just starting to teach myself about financial history, the national debt, and central banking.

It was early in my education. But I had already determined that owning precious metals would be a good idea as a hedge against future uncertainty and rapidly increasing government debt.

But I didn’t have much money at the time. So silver– at just a few dollars per ounce– was well within my budget.

The clerk behind the counter probably noticed my military haircut and seized the opportunity to make a joke at my expense.

“Well, we’re mostly out…” he said, grinning, “but I can offer you a dime bag.”

I assumed this was a marijuana reference and explained to the guy that I had a top-secret security clearance and didn’t go in for that sort of thing.

But he laughed and explained that he was actually referring to a bag that was literally filled with dimes.

I still didn’t get it.

But the clerk was kind enough to teach me that, prior to 1965, dimes in the United States were minted with a silver content of 90% (with the other 10% being copper). He then pulled out a sandwich bag full of dimes, weighed it, and showed me how to calculate the silver content based on the bag’s weight.

A one-pound bag, for example, contains 200 pre-1965 dimes, each with about 2 grams of silver content. That’s a bit more than 13 troy ounces of silver per one-pound ‘dime bag’.

I held onto that bag for several years, until 2011 when silver prices went through the roof. And I ended up going back to the very same dealer to trade the dime bag for a little bit of gold.

(I’ll explain why I did that in a moment– it had to do with the gold/silver ratio.)

Precious metals in general have been excellent investments over the past twenty years. But I believe there’s a strong case to be made that gold and silver prices could go much, much higher from here.

Gold’s rise will be fundamentally driven by rapidly deteriorating US government finances. And I’ve written about this extensively.

The US national debt is now $33.7 trillion; the debt is so large that the Treasury Department spent nearly $900 BILLION on interest payments in the last fiscal year (FY23), which ended about six weeks ago.

That number alone– $900 billion in interest payments– is astonishing.

But even more astonishing is that FY23’s interest bill was 22% MORE than the previous fiscal year, and 56% more than the interest bill from the year before that!

Think about that: a 56% increase in interest expense in just two years?

One reason, obviously, is out of control spending. I mean… these people always find an excuse to overspend by trillions of dollars. First it was COVID. Then it was inflation. Then it was Ukraine. Now the Treasury

Secretary insists that America can “certainly” afford to fund two wars at the same time.

All of these expenditures result in insane increases to the national debt, which drives up annual interest expenses.

The second issue is the rapid increase in interest rates.

Two years ago the government could borrow (and refinance) at practically 0%. Today they have to pay around 5%.

Now, remember that almost the entire US public debt will have to be refinanced over the next few years.

So if rates remain at 5%, and the debt keeps rising, this means that the annual interest bill could reach $2 trillion over the next few years.

Don’t take my word for it. The Congressional Budget Office’s most recent forecast show that annual interest payments, plus mandatory entitlement spending (i.e. Social Security and Medicare) will consume over 100% of federal tax revenue… by 2031.

Then Social Security’s primary trust fund will run out of money two years later, in 2033.

The consequences of this mess mean that, most likely, the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates and start printing trillions of dollars again in order to bail out the government.

And this will most likely result in inflation… as well as a severe loss of confidence in the US dollar around the world.

The dollar has been THE dominant reserve currency since the end of World War II. But history tells us that reserve currencies CAN and DO change. This time is not different.

So it’s very likely that the dollar could lose its dominant reserve status… and be replaced by a universally accepted asset like gold.

Gold is already an informal reserve asset; it’s why central banks and sovereign governments around the world stockpile it by the metric ton. So it wouldn’t be much of a paradigm shift for gold to become THE formal reserve asset.

In this scenario, gold would likely skyrocket to $10,000 or more.

Then there’s silver… which also has upside potential for the same reasons as gold. Silver is a precious metal too and tends to perform well in an inflationary environment.

And should gold become a formal reserve asset, silver prices will likely soar as well.

But I explained on Monday that there are other forces to drive silver higher. Greta Thunberg and John Kerry are among them.

Climate fanatics who insist on transitioning to 100% clean energy like solar completely miss the fact that producing near infinite solar panels will require unfathomable quantities of key minerals… including silver.

Because silver is an essential ingredient in the production of solar panels, these climate fanatics are creating massive, artificial demand that could drive silver prices much, much higher.

And this takes me back to the gold/silver ratio.

There’s a strong case to be made that both gold and silver could achieve significantly higher prices in the future. And each metal has its merits– it’s not really a competition.

But at the moment, silver is priced more attractively.

Traditionally, the price of gold relative to the price of silver has been about 50:1 to 60:1; but this gold/silver ratio often fluctuates. When I traded my silver for gold back in 2011, the ratio was less than 40… meaning that gold was cheap relative to silver.

In the early days of COVID back in March and April 2020, the ratio shot up to 120:1, meaning that silver was very cheap relative to gold.

(We also published an alert to our premium members back then about how to capitalize on silver’s cheapness and nearly double their money in a matter of months.)

Right now the gold/silver ratio is hovering just below 90. That’s fairly high… suggesting that silver is pretty cheap relative to gold.

So, while there are strong cases to buy either one, at the moment, silver has a more attractive entry price. It’s worth considering.

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By the summer of 1812, Napoleon still thought of himself as nearly invincible. He had conquered nearly all of Europe with relative ease and brought the continent’s remaining rulers under his control. He had personally lost just a single battle.

And his chief nemesis, Great Britain, had just been dragged into a new war with its former colony, the United States.

In short, things were really going his way. And the summer of 1812 would have been a great time for Napoleon to take a break, consolidate his gains, and focus on quelling internal rebellions and intrigue from within his vast, new empire.

So naturally he decided to invade Russia instead… something that no one had successfully done since Genghis Khan.

Yet Napoleon was convinced he would once again cruise to an easy victory, writing to his Foreign Minister on June 27th, “I have an army to which no modern army can be compared. . . I am in good hopes.”

Now, Napoleon was obviously a brilliant military commander, so his optimism wasn’t unjustified. He had studied other failed invasions of Russia– like Swedish King Charles XII’s futile attempt in 1708– so Napoleon knew that keeping his army well-supplied would be essential for victory.

That’s why he spent months preparing for his invasion of Russia. His generals stocked up on food, ammunition, clothing, medicine, etc., and staged them at key resupply points in eastern Europe.

But despite such intense preparations, they simply weren’t sufficient. Even someone as experienced as Napoleon managed to vastly underestimate the logistics and resource challenges to be successful.

And the end result was that Napoleon’s armies ran out of food. In fact hundreds of thousands of his soldiers died, many from disease and starvation. Morale plummeted. Confidence was shattered. And Napoleon’s enemies seized on the opportunity to unite against him.

It was a total disaster… and a major reason for it was failing to grasp just how difficult it would be to find enough resources– particularly food– to keep the operation going.

Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia is just one example of this timeless lesson from history: leaders often come up with grandiose plans and bold ideas without the slightest understanding of the resource challenges.

And one modern incarnation of this folly is the fanatical green agenda that aims to completely replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

For argument’s sake, let’s just pretend for a moment that this is a great idea and totally worth the $100+ trillion cost, i.e. let’s assume money is no object… which is basically what the greenies believe anyhow.

Money doesn’t solve the most basic challenge of the green fantasy: where will they get all the raw materials?

Solar panels and wind turbines require a lot of resources, including basics like iron, copper, and steel. They also need some really nasty minerals, like cobalt, which are typically extracted by child labor in Africa under appalling conditions.

Wind and solar also require a host of other obscure elements like indium, terbium, dysprosium, and praseodymium; and the quantities of these minerals that will be needed to achieve renewable energy goals are far, far greater than what’s possible.

For example, producing enough solar panels to have 100% renewable energy by 2050 will require production levels of of Indium that are over 10x greater than exist today.

Ramping up Indium production by 10x is no small feat… especially when these same green fanatics simultaneously want to cancel the mining companies.

It’s ridiculous when you think about it. They want the world to be powered by solar panels. But they don’t want to prevent the mining of the essential minerals needed to produce those solar panels. It’s progressive logic at its finest!

This is why I opened today’s article talking about Napoleon’s attempted invasion of Russia; he failed because he underestimated the vast quantities of raw materials that would be required to sustain his armies.

Similarly, today’s green fanatics will fail because they are underestimating the vast quantities of raw materials that will be required to achieve their dream.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t try. Fanatics never let ignorance get in the way of a bad idea.

And this is what leads me to silver.

Silver is an essential ingredient in the production of renewable energy technology; simply put, you can’t make the energy grid renewable (on wind and solar, at least) without massive quantities of silver.

Every MegaWatt of power produced by solar panels requires 1 kilogram of silver, or one metric ton per GigaWatt (GW). And those may be very conservative estimates.

My colleague Gregor Gregersen, founder of Silver Bullion in Singapore, told me over the weekend that a recent study estimated up to 21 metric tons of silver will be needed for every GW of power.

Either way, green energy requires substantially more silver than is being mined right now.

And remember that silver production is already in a deficit at the moment, i.e. industrial and investment demand for silver ALREADY exceeds annual mining output.

Yet on top of existing demand, these completely unrealistic renewable energy goals will easily increase silver demand by another 3-5x.

This is a pretty clear growth catalyst for future silver prices…

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