Category: simonblack

One of the many Orwellian habits of politicians is give cute acronyms to their idiotic legislation.

The CARES Act from 2020, for example, stood for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security”.

The CARES Act was one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in US history; it paid people to stay home and NOT work, which decimated the US labor market. And it also cost tax payers hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud from the “Paycheck Protection Program”.

But, hey, at least the CARES act shows that they care.

Another ridiculous acronym is the GILTI tax, which stands for Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income. It’s supposed to be pronounced “GUILTY”, which is completely absurd.

First, let me give you some background.

Most countries around the world impose RESIDENCY-based taxation, i.e. you generally only pay taxes if you live in that country. If you move away, you don’t have to pay tax there anymore.

Even high-tax countries like France don’t tax their citizens who leave France. So if a French citizen moves to Singapore or Costa Rica, he/she no longer pays most French income taxes.

The United States is almost unique in the world in that it imposes citizenship-based taxation, requiring US citizens to file and pay federal taxes… even if they move overseas.

Until recently, however, this same rule did NOT apply to US companies; for decades, US companies could ‘move’ overseas, i.e. establish foreign entities in low-tax jurisdictions around the world. And those low- or no-taxed foreign entities would not owe any tax in the US.

Enormous companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook famously all took advantage of this benefit by planting their tax flags in low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland or British Virgin Islands.

Doing so saved these companies tens of billions of dollars in taxes, much to the ire of politicians who think they know how to spend everyone’s money better than we do.

So, in 2017, politicians finally changed the law. And US companies who own foreign companies in low-tax jurisdictions became subject to this new GILTI tax… because that’s precisely how the government wants you to feel about reducing your tax bill: guilty.

Of course this is ludicrous. No one should feel guilty for following the government’s own rules to legally reduce their tax bills.

After all, politicians don’t exactly spend your money responsibly, wisely, or oftentimes even ethically.

We’re always told that we should voice our discontent with government in the voting booth. But if we’re being intellectually honest, elections have rarely made things better.

If you really have a problem with the way that incompetent politicians spend your money, than a far better approach is to use their own rules to minimize the amount of money you have to pay them. Simple.

And, ironically, the “GILTI” tax actually presents an interesting strategy to reduce taxes, especially for entrepreneurs and business owners in the Land of the Free.

That’s because, instead of actually punishing or forbidding the ownership of low-tax foreign companies, GILTI inadvertently ENCOURAGED it.

In the past, a US business could set up a new company, along with a tiny office, in a place like the British Virgin Islands where the tax rate is 0%.

All of the employees were still in the US and employed by the US company. All of the work was being done in the US. But all of the revenue, and all of the profit, was being booked by the British Virgin Islands company.

The net result was that the US business, through its BVI company, paid 0% tax.

The one catch was that all the money essentially had to stay in the BVI. If the BVI company paid any of its profits back to the US business, there would be substantial tax to pay.
GILTI changed all of that.

The new rules still allow US businesses to own foreign companies. But now, whenever the foreign companies generate a profit, those foreign profits are immediately taxable in the United States.

Bizarrely, though, the foreign companies’ profits are entitled to a 50% tax discount. Since the current corporate tax rate in the US is presently 21%, this means that foreign profits are taxed at 10.5%.

Now, 10.5% is obviously a lot more than 0%.

But the key benefit of the GILTI rules is that a US business can bring in ALL of its foreign profits, immediately, at the discounted tax rate.

Once that money is in the US, it can be plowed back into the business, or invested in a variety of other asset classes, including stocks, real estate, etc.

Clearly there are a multitude of additional rules and details to understand– I’ve only provided a very high-level overview; and anyone considering this approach should seek professional tax advice.

For example, this structure is more difficult to implement for brick-and-mortar businesses… though it is especially compelling for online-based businesses, including drop-shippers.

The larger point is to show that there are so many completely legitimate ways to save a lot of money in your annual tax bill. And that’s nothing to feel gilti about.

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It’s been seven months now since Silicon Valley Bank went bust. And so much has happened in the world since then that SVB’s collapse almost feels like ancient history.

But something is going to happen tomorrow– at precisely 6:45am Eastern time– that could rekindle anxiety in the banking system once again.

And it’s not hard to understand why; the problems in the banking system… the problems that brought down Silicon Valley Bank and others… didn’t go away. In fact they got worse. And now several other large US banks are getting dangerously close to the edge.

This is not hyperbole. I’ll explain:

Remember that Silicon Valley Bank failed because they suffered sudden, massive investment losses… losses that were so large that the bank’s entire capital was wiped out.

And yet Silicon Valley Bank’s hyper-destructive investment wasn’t toxic subprime loans, or some exotic derivative. SVB went bankrupt because they loaded up on US government bonds.

US government bonds are supposed to be THE safest asset class in the world. Yet even supposedly ‘safe’ assets can lose money. And government bonds have suffered enormous losses over the past two years.

The reason is pretty simple: interest rates. Back in the summer of 2020, interest rates were at historic lows. And if you don’t know anything else about bonds, just understand that whenever interest rates rise, bond prices fall.

Banks like SVB bought tons of US government bonds back in 2020 and 2021 when interest rates were at historic lows. So, put another way, banks paid record high prices to buy government bonds.

But starting in 2022, the Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates. And with each successive Fed interest rate hike, bonds became worth less and less.

Silicon Valley Bank’s bonds eventually lost so much money that the bank was wiped out.

The $500 billion dollar problem in the US banking system, of course, is that Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t alone. In fact MOST banks bought government bonds… which means that MOST banks have racked up enormous losses over the past few years.

And the bank that has racked up the worst losses of all… is Bank of America, which reports its quarterly earnings tomorrow morning at 6:45am.

Now, Bank of America has done its best to hide its losses. And they use a completely legal accounting scam to do it.

In short, banks have a quirky option in the way that they classify their bonds; one way is to classify their bonds as what’s called “Available for Sale”, or AFS.

This classification means that if the bank ever needs to come up with some quick cash, they can sell AFS bonds at any time. AFS bonds are literally available for sale, as the name suggests.

The other classification is called “Hold to Maturity”, or HTM. Bonds designed as HTM cannot be sold. Instead, the bank must hold its HTM bonds for their full duration.

So if a bank buys, say, a 30-year Treasury bond and classifies it as HTM, the bank has to hold that bond for the full thirty years. They cannot sell it.

While such accounting vagaries might not be especially thrilling, I assure you that the distinction between HTM and AFS is critical in understanding the scam that’s taking place.

Banks traditionally used to classify the vast majority of their bonds as AFS. And this made sense; AFS is the most flexible classification. AFS gives banks the option to either sell the bonds, or hold them. HTM bonds, on the other hand, cannot be sold and MUST be held to maturity.

And that’s why, back in 2015 for example, Bank of America classified a whopping 83% of its bonds as AFS, and only 17% as HTM. And that ratio was pretty typical of most big banks.

But the nuance of AFS is that, if the bonds lose value, banks have to report those losses… and the bond losses negatively impact their earnings.

In the past, this never really happened. Bond prices were exceptionally stable. And aside from minor fluctuations, banks never really had to report big losses on their bond portfolios. Until now.

Government bonds have lost 23% of their value since 2020 due to the Fed’s interest rate hikes, creating hundreds of billions of dollars of losses for big banks.

A 23% loss for US government bonds is unprecedented, and it’s never happened in modern financial history.

If banks were holding most of their bonds as AFS, like they traditionally used to do, they would have to report these huge losses. And that would be devastating for their earnings, for their stock prices, and for their executive bonuses.

So instead of reporting those losses, the banks have magically reclassified their bonds from AFS to HTM.

Unlike the AFS classification, banks don’t have to record any losses on their HTM bonds. So reclassifying bonds from AFS to HTM is like pretending that hundreds of billions in losses don’t exist.

Bank of America, for example, has at least $100 billion in bond losses, potentially much more. But because they’ve reclassified most of their bonds as HTM, those losses haven’t adversely affected their capital, or their earnings.

Remember when I said that Bank of America used to classify a standard 17% of its bonds as HTM? Well, today, 83% of their bonds are now HTM. It’s a HUGE difference.

And the ONLY reason why they would do this is to avoid recording $100+ billion in losses.

Bear in mind that Bank of America only has around $200 billion in total capital. So if they were honest in their accounting, they’d have to write down roughly HALF of their capital. Maybe more.

This is becoming eerily close to another Silicon Valley Bank problem.

Granted, the market happily ignored Silicon Valley Bank’s financial woes until it was too late. And I’m guessing that, tomorrow morning, the market might also choose to ignore Bank of America’s growing bond losses. For now.

But this problem cannot be ignored forever. And it’s a pretty clear example of what’s known in finance as a “Gray Rhino”.

You’re probably familiar with the famous “Black Swan” metaphor, which refers to a highly improbable, difficult-to-predict event that has a major, negative impact.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an obvious Black Swan event.

The metaphorical opposite of a Black Swan is known as a Gray Rhino– an event that is fairly likely and should be easy to predict.

Gray Rhinos don’t sneak up on you; visible evidence builds until the risk becomes completely obvious.

And yet, Gray Rhinos are almost always ignored… typically because people have confidence in flawed systems, illogical axioms, or historical legends.

The world is full of Gray Rhinos that very intelligent people choose to ignore. America’s national debt crisis is a Gray Rhino. Social Security’s looming insolvency is a Gray Rhino. The US dollar’s loss of reserve status is a Gray Rhino.

These are all obvious risks that hardly anyone acknowledges. Instead, people have rejected simple arithmetic and clung to an irrational belief system based on the historical legend of America.

Major banks in the US have suffered more than $500 billion in bond losses, wiping out a substantial portion of their capital. Despite some banks’ attempts to cleverly hide those losses with accounting tricks, the problem is obvious.

By the way, this same problem has affected the FDIC– whose Deposit Insurance Fund is invested primarily in US government bonds… and has hence also suffered massive losses.

It’s also affected the Federal Reserve, which now has roughly $1 TRILLION in losses from its bond portfolio.

(Ironically, many smaller banks are now MUCH safer; smaller banks are typically much more responsible with their depositors’ savings, and so they haven’t suffered the same types of losses.)

This is a Gray Rhino. But unlike other Gray Rhinos like the national debt, the US dollar, and Social Security which may still be a few years from erupting, this banking Gray Rhino might rear its head much, much sooner.

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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.

October 13, 2024: Hamas Surrenders to US Military’s “Operation Glitterbomb”

After more than a year of fighting since the Hamas attack of October 2023, the world awoke to joyous news today. The terrorists have thrown down their weapons and surrendered to the US military due to the unexpected and profound success of the Pentagon’s bold initiative: “Operation Glitterbomb”.

In a speech this morning that was live-streamed to the nation, President Biden said proudly, “A lot of people criticized me and said I made the military weaker. Well, I might have slashed our Special Forces. But we just created the most special force of all with Operation Glitterbomb.”

The President then turned to his left and appeared to high-five someone who wasn’t there, then wandered off into the Rose Garden as concerned aides rushed after him.

The military initiative that the President was referring to, codenamed “Operation Glitter Bomb,” was the brainchild of Rear-Admiral Marina Del-Rave, who believed that a combination of sequins, sassy dance numbers, and empowering ballads could be the key to breaking down barriers and achieving peace in the Middle East.

The Admiral’s strategy was to convert Hamas terrorists into peace-loving progressives by winning them over with America’s favorite form of entertainment: drag shows.

For most of the last year, the Defense Department had been secretly working on a specialized ‘Pride’ float dubbed “The Trojan”.

Fitted with the loudest speakers and brightest lights on the planet, The Trojan was then shipped off to the Middle East for duty where it was anchored near Hamas military bases in Gaza.

Once in place, The Trojan unleashed nonstop drag-themed entertainment, complete with elaborate costumes, choreographed dance routines, and lip-sync battles.

Del-Rave believed that blasting American culture into Gaza, 24/7, would “win them over to the fun camp of the US! After all, who wants to fight when you could dance?”

The Admiral turned out to be right— Hamas surrendered to Trojan. But perhaps not for the reason she expected.

After watching a dance routine nicknamed ‘the Gaza Strip’, one masked Hamas gunman declared, “This is torture. This is a violation of our human rights. It’s like force feeding us pork.”

Some fighters reportedly begged to be water-boarded rather than continue watching more drag shows. “We were prepared for bullets and bombs,” lamented one captured fighter. “But nothing could have prepared us for the sheer force of ‘I Will Survive’ sung in nine -inch heels over and over again.”

Hamas leaders saw no other option but to surrender in order to avoid further psychological destruction.

When asked about her operation’s resounding success, Adm. Del-Rave said,

“Everyone was outraged last year when the Navy began using a drag queen as the face of our recruiting efforts. Now you know it was part of a secret plan to rebuild our military strength. Well, watch out China! Watch out Russia! America’s adversaries will now think twice before risking the wrath of our diversity and inclusion.”

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Like most people, I’ve been closely following what’s been going on in Israel and Gaza since Saturday’s attack.

Most of our readers know that I’m a former intelligence officer; while it seems like a lifetime ago, those instincts never leave. And as I’m shaking my head in disgust at what’s happened, I also can’t help but notice a number of peculiarities that just don’t add up.

First, it’s bizarre… almost suspicious… just how poorly trained the Hamas fighters are. As I watch videos of the gunmen, they demonstrate a distinct lack of even basic firearms proficiency.

They have limited trigger discipline. They wave their weapons around like children playing with toy guns. They shoot one-handed as if they learned marksmanship from watching Rambo.

Plus their small unit tactics are pitiful; they don’t know how to move and fight as a unit or how to clear buildings. They don’t even know basic hand and arm signals.

There also don’t seem to be any tactical or strategic objectives. In warfare, opposing sides seek to achieve clear goals– destroy high value targets, disrupt lines of communication, neutralize enemy units, secure key terrain, etc.

But there’s been none of that so far from Hamas.

This weekend’s attack had obviously been in the works for several months, with significant external support from Iran.

Yet it appears that all of the meticulous planning went into logistics, finance, smuggling, and cross-border coordination. Zero planning went into figuring out the actual mission… let alone training the fighters for combat.

It’s as if Hamas and their allies in Iran thought about every tiny detail about the attack… except for the attack itself. Instead they just rounded up a bunch of angry teenagers, put weapons in their hands, and told them to go murder civilians while screaming “Allahu Akbar”.

Now, it’s not unusual for terrorists to be poorly trained. When I was in the military, we saw so many reports of bomb makers accidentally blowing themselves up, or fighters literally shooting themselves in the foot, that my colleagues and I euphemistically referred to them as “stupid terrorists”.

It’s also not unusual for a terrorist group to lack achievable objectives; some people just want the world to burn, and anyone attracted to such a vocation is typically lacking in intellect and strategic vision.

But this isn’t an ordinary terrorist organization. This attack was essentially from a sovereign government. And it’s frankly strange that they would take such a big swing without thinking through the basics.

Another point that doesn’t add up is America’s role.

Much has already been written about the Biden administration’s culpability in this attack, including the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan that weakened America’s standing in the world, as well as abandoning tens of billions of dollars in military equipment to the Taliban.

Then of course there was that small matter of releasing $6 billion to Iran in exchange for five US hostages (at least three of whom were also Iranian nationals).

Well, Mr. Biden himself announced that at least 14 US citizens have been killed by Hamas. At least 20 US citizens are missing in Israel and suspected to have been kidnapped by Hamas.

So where is their $6 billion? What was so special about those Iranian-Americans that the United States government (which laughably insists they ‘do not negotiate with terrorists’) allowed Iran to pocket $6 billion in frozen cash to release them?

Don’t misunderstand– I’m not advocating for paying Hamas to get the American hostages out. Quite the opposite. In my mind, you don’t negotiate with terrorists. You neutralize them. Especially when said terrorists are sloppy, emotional, poorly-trained cowards.

But that’s not the point. I’m just trying to understand the logic. Why pay $6 billion for some Americans, but nothing for other Americans? For that matter, why do a costly, one-sided prisoner exchange with Russia for a WNBA player, but don’t do the same to secure the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich (who has been unjustly held in Russia for more than six months)?

What is the President’s logic?

Sorry I almost threw up in my mouth a little bit. I apologize for suggesting the man has any logic at all.

Bizarrely, the Pentagon– presumably under the President’s direction– went to the trouble to announce that a rescue mission “is not off the table”. What does that even mean? If you’re going to rescue people, you go and do it. You don’t say you might do it. Or that doing it “is not off the table”. You just go and do it, while you still have the initiative and element of surprise.

Saying you might send your Special Operations Forces on a rescue mission either tips off the enemy, or proves you are full of hot air… thus weakening your position even further. Talk about a bonehead move.

(In completely unrelated news, the Pentagon also recently announced that it was slashing its Special Operations Forces. But hey, at least the Navy has plenty of drag queens now. )

A final point that doesn’t add up is what the media is calling an “intelligence failure” on the part of the Israelis. Come on. That’s a colossal understatement at best.

Mossad (Israeli intelligence) has agents and operatives all over the world. They have countless resources in Gaza. They have people in Iran. They have assets at luxury hotels in key cities like Beirut, Cairo, and Dubai, all to keep tabs on high profile guests and meetings that take place.

So it’s almost hard to believe that they were caught off-guard and had no idea that this attack was being planned for months.

They completely missed the smuggling operation that brought an arsenal of weaponry into Gaza. They missed the multiple meetings that took place over the past few months in Beirut between Hamas leaders and senior Iranian officials.

And these weren’t even secret meetings; they took place in broad daylight and included some of Iran’s top military commanders and even the country’s foreign minister.

It’s not just Mossad; plenty of nations’ intelligence agencies (including in the United States) keep close tabs on Hamas and Iran. The CIA has a whole division dedicated to Iran. Yet apparently everyone missed it.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that, despite the mountain of bureaucracy and compliance now required in the global banking system, everyone also missed the river of money that funded Hamas’s operation.

This is mind boggling; laws like FATCA, CRS, and the USA PATRIOT Act were supposedly passed, at least in part, to cut off terrorist groups from the global financial system.

Banking has become so cumbersome that the rest of us ordinary, law-abiding citizens have to suffer ridiculous paperwork and compliance just to conduct routine financial transactions.

Your bank will treat you like a criminal if you withdraw $5,000 in physical cash.

Yet Iran– a nation that has been blacklisted by the global financial system– has been able to send hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas– a blacklisted terrorist organization.

This is not a simple ‘intelligence failure’. The ‘experts’ missed it. And the systems they designed failed miserably.

At best, this was a catastrophic breakdown of an entire system that was put in place worldwide to prevent the very thing that just happened this weekend.

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In light of so much chaos that has gripped the world lately, I wanted to change focus briefly and reflect on the passing of one of the most titanic, sovereign-minded human beings in modern history.

Most people have never heard the name Chuck Feeney… and he worked very hard to keep it that way. Given everything he accomplished in life, maintaining his anonymity was a pretty extraordinary feat.

You see, Feeney was one of the wealthiest men who ever lived. And that’s pretty hard to keep a secret, especially since he made his fortune helping people dodge taxes.

I’m not joking.

Feeney came from humble beginnings, born into a blue collar family in northern New Jersey. After a brief stint in the Air Force, Feeney and his college roommate started selling “duty-free” alcohol and tobacco to American soldiers who were stationed overseas.

The concept of tax-free shopping was still in its infancy back in the 1950s when Feeney got started. But it caught on quickly, and their venture expanded rapidly.

For the next four decades, Feeney and his partner’s company– DFS Group– became the largest and most prominent chain of duty free shops in the world. You’ve probably walked through many of these shops at international airports, where they sell everything from cigarettes to sunglasses.

Personally I’ve always thought that duty free shops are a bit of a scam; the markups are outrageous and shoppers don’t really save any money.

Nevertheless, duty free shopping is wildly popular, and DFS Group has raked in billions of dollars in profit over the years by helping shoppers avoid duty, sales tax, and VAT on their purchases.

This means that Feeney was responsible for depriving governments of more tax revenue than just about any other human being who ever lived.

But Feeney’s aggressive tax strategy didn’t stop with selling duty-free alcohol to tourists.

He was relentless throughout his life to set up structures that would minimize his taxes; he set up offshore companies in Liechtenstein and Bermuda (both zero-tax jurisdictions), and had the companies legally owned by his wife– a French citizen who was not subject to US offshore tax reporting.

By the time he sold his stake in DFS Group in the mid-1990s, his company was paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in distributions EVERY YEAR. And Feeney’s zealous tax avoidance ensured he paid as little to the government as possible.

What’s even more unique about Feeney, though, is that he gave away nearly his entire fortune– while he was still alive.

Feeney never had a taste for the high life. He flew literally millions of miles in economy class. He wore a cheap $15 watch. He took the bus and train. He pinched pennies and lived in a modest apartment.

Despite all of the money he made from his business, and from the sale of his company, and from avoiding taxes, Feeney left himself $2 million (with an ‘M’) for retirement… and gave away $8 billion (with a ‘B’).

This is what makes his anonymity so incredible; making billions of dollars attracts attention. Doing so and not paying taxes attracts even more. Giving it all away attracts even more.

But Feeney managed to stay in the shadows, often making anonymous donations in order to avoid the spotlight.

He endowed universities, funded life-changing medical research, developed advanced healthcare centers in the developing world, and so much more. In his own words, Feeney said merely, “I guess I’m happy when what I’m doing is helping people.” And that’s what he did.

Don’t get me wrong– I’m not suggesting that people should give away all of their money like Chuck Feeney did. And frankly I wouldn’t support many of the causes that Feeney chose to fund.

But that’s the whole point. What Chuck Feeney did with his own money wasn’t anyone else’s business but Chuck Feeney’s. It wasn’t my decision. And it certainly wasn’t the government’s decision.

The world is full of politicians these days who want to raise taxes ever higher, to take more money out of your pockets and decide for themselves what to do with it.

And let’s be honest– their track record is appallingly bad.

In the Land of the Free, for example, politicians have used tax dollars to pay people to NOT work, to create more inflation, to make the economy less productive, to support inefficient green energy fantasies, and to weaken the military.

Barack Obama used to famously tell his supporters, “Don’t boo. Vote.” The idea– which has cascaded across American democracy –is that citizens should voice their opposition in the voting booth.

I don’t think it’s controversial anymore to point out that elections aren’t helping; I’m reminded of the old joke about the definition of insanity: ‘trying the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.’ That’s what elections are in the US now.

A much more effective way to voice opposition and advocate for change is by taking completely legal steps to reduce what you owe… and keep control of your money.

This is why I admire Chuck Feeney so much– not for what he chose to do with his money, but for the fact that he put himself in control.

Joe Biden, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren want everyone to believe that they (and they alone) know best how to spend your money. They act as if we are feudal serfs living in the Dark Ages, obliged to serve the nobility.

Chuck Feeney had a completely different mentality. And I think it’s safe to say that he did a lot more good in the world than most politicians.

The truth is that each of us is in control; our incomes, our assets, our choices are up to us. How we raise and educate our children, what we choose to put or not put in our bodies… it’s all up to us.

Feeney had the right idea. And the sooner people start taking back control of their own lives from governments-gone-wild, the better, more peaceful, and more prosperous the world can become.

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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.

October 6, 2028: Congress Fails to End Government Shutdown Amid Capitol Evacuations

After a tumultuous day in Congress yesterday, politicians’ efforts to reopen the government after it shutdown last week came to a screeching halt after both the House and Senate had to be evacuated from the Capitol, and then locked down.

Trouble in Congress had been brewing for several months, as the deeply divided House had once again been unable to pass a budget to fund the government for fiscal year 2029.

A total of 14 different Speakers of the House have come and gone so far this year— the longest lasting seven weeks, and the shortest just four hours.

Experts blame a handful of Congressmen for holding up the budget process— a group of fiscal conservatives which calls itself “The Regiment”.

The Regiment has repeatedly said they will vote against any budget bill that creates a deficit for the United States.

Members of The Regiment submitted their own budget proposal to the Congress last month; however, since the interest bill on America’s $46 trillion national debt now takes up the majority of tax revenue, along with Social Security and Medicare, The Regiment’s proposed budget had eliminated almost everything else in government.

This zero-deficit budget proposal was overwhelmingly rejected. However, with no alternative compromise in sight, Congress failed to pass a budget by the September 30 deadline last week, causing yet another government shutdown— for the fourth year in a row.

Yet with their Congressional seats on the line in next month’s elections, many members of the House of Representatives are under immense pressure to end the shutdown… especially those who are in tight races.

One budget compromise emerged yesterday which seemed to have enough bipartisan support to pass, and end the shutdown. But a series of events prevented members from being able to vote on it.

The first event occurred yesterday morning when Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York called in a bomb threat, forcing the Capitol to be evacuated.

At first Congressman Bowman denied that he called in the bomb threat. But when Capitol Police released the audio, he walked back those claims.

“To say I ‘called in a bomb threat’ is a total mischaracterization,” Bowman said. “I did not say there was a threat. I simply reported what I thought to be a suspicious device that looked like a bomb. It turns out that it was just a metal water bottle used by one of my staffers. But how am I supposed to know the difference between a bomb and a water bottle? If you see something, say something… Anything else is a threat to democracy.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries backed up his colleague, saying, “This is a simple misunderstanding that could have happened to anyone. And to suggest nefarious intent is, frankly, a threat to our democracy.”

Unfortunately, just as the House had finally reconvened and was prepared to end the government shutdown, a lockdown of the Capitol was forced when an anonymous biothreat email was sent to all Representatives and staffers.

The email claimed that several people in the House Chamber were infected with the newest variant of Covid-25. The Sergeant-at-Arms then ended the session and took control of the Chamber under his authority granted by the Congressional Biohazard Act.

At that point, everyone in the room was forcibly given a Covid-25 rapid test and booster shot; only when every single tests came in negative was the email declared a hoax.

Congress then broke for lunch and was set to reconvene at 4pm to vote on ending the government shutdown.

Unfortunately, on the way back from lunch, 31 different members of Congress were carjacked at gunpoint near the Capitol in Washington DC.

Along with the 18 members of Congress who were unable to attend session due to their ongoing corruption trials, there were not enough remaining members left in session to approve the bi-partisan budget deal.

Naturally, as yet another day closed without a resolution to the government shutdown, the finger pointing began.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett said, “Let’s talk about who really threatening Democracy— these extremist-ass who think deficits matter. Ever heard of money printing? Pass the damn budget— $2 trillion deficit ain’t shit. STOP THREATENING DEMOCRACY.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar accused The Regiment of “literal violence” for withholding $20 billion of funds to “rescue trans people from an ongoing genocide.”

When AOC tweeted, “Republicans threatening democracy are extremists, full stop,” Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted back, “I know you are, but what am I?”

Meanwhile, with Congress in gridlock, President Biden— who emerged two weeks ago from his most recent coma— has taken matters into his own hands.

Despite being expressly directed by the Supreme Court that he does not have the legal authority to fund government agencies without Congressional approval, Biden has kept the checks coming to the entire executive branch.

“If Congress won’t act, we’ll arrange funding on our own. We know a thing or two about that,” he told reporters, with a wink to his son Senator Hunter Biden standing nearby.

When asked how he plans to get around the Constitutional mandate that spending bills derive from Congress, he said, “My dad always said ‘Son, when democracy is threatened, some rules have to be broken.’ And that’s good advice.”

The Biden administration also took the opportunity to increase funding for the NATO-Russian War, which has increased the national debt by nearly a trillion dollars in just one week— all without the approval of Congress.

US stocks and Treasurys have plummented as both businesses and foreign governments continue to pull investment from America.

Many have expressed shock and dismay that the United States government has lost the ability to govern itself, or to solve basic problems.

“This is a basic stability issue,” said Volkswagen CEO Herbert Deiss last week, right after his company announced that it was closing all US factories. “We just can’t rely on the American government anymore, and it’s too difficult to operate a complex business in that environment.”

His comments were met with ferocious retorts by several members of Congress who called Deiss a “capitalist pig who exudes toxic masculinity”, and told him to “STOP THREATENING OUR DEMOCRACY!”

Elon Musk recently spoke out saying that Congress “can’t even seem to act like grownups, let alone engage with basic civility…” He then posted a Poop emojii on Mark Zuckerberg’s X profile before challenging the Meta CEO to a light-saber duel.

Zuckerberg accepted, and the match is tentatively scheduled for December 31st in Athens, Greece.

 

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When Julius Caesar first crossed the English channel and invaded Great Britain in 55 BC, he thought it was primitive, barbaric, and uncivilized… especially when compared to the splendor of Rome.

But Caesar knew it had potential. He wrote to his colleagues back in Rome that Britannia had vast minerals, timber, and livestock, and that it could provide excellent resources for the Empire.

The Senate concurred. And though it took nearly 100 years, Rome eventually conquered Britannia and made it an imperial province.

Over the next several centuries, the Roman government invested heavily in Britannia and built an incredible civilization there, including roads, engineering works, and major building projects.

Britain became a kind of paradise; in addition to the exceptional Roman works, the weather was also just about perfect. The soil was fertile. And it was sparsely populated.

All of this caught the eye of barbarian tribes on the European continent, who constantly attempted to migrate into Britannia. But Roman legions defended against these incursions for centuries.

By the early 400s, however, the western Roman Empire was essentially finished. Inflation was out of control. The legions were revolting. Civil wars and invasions were commonplace. And the Roman government simply no longer had the resources to provide security for faraway provinces.

So, in 410 AD, the Roman emperor Honorius essentially abandoned Britannia and stopped providing border security.
(Honorius was widely considered incompetent; in fact the ancient historian Procopius describes him as a complete buffoon who may have had a few screws loose.)

With Roman security gone, Germanic barbarian tribes almost immediately began mass crossings over Britannia’s southern border. And, over time, they made the land their own– by slaughtering many of the local Britons who remained.

The Germanic tribes– especially the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes– brought their ‘Anglo-Frisian’ language with them. This language developed rapidly into what linguists call ‘Old English’, and Rome’s abandonment of Britannia is the key reason why modern English is rooted in German.

Personally I’ve always been fascinated by how languages develop– and English is especially interesting.

When the Vikings invaded Britain and established their own settlements in the mid-800s, their ‘Old Norse’ language mixed with Old English. The influence of Old Norse is still obvious today; dozens of many common words including knife, rotten, sky, and wrong are of Norse origin.

After William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, the language once again transformed– this time with heavy French influence.

This is one of the reasons why there are so many synonyms in our modern language; the word ‘ask’ is Germanic in origin. But the word ‘inquire’, which means almost the same thing, is French in origin.

There are so many other examples: motherhood/maternity. Holy/Sacred. Work/Labor.

It’s also fascinating how, as language evolves, words take on different meanings. For example, in the 1300s, the word ‘nice’ used to mean ‘ignorant’ or ‘foolish’. Yet today it has a totally different meaning– pleasant and kind.

Often times these changes are cultural. There was a time, for example, when it was common to describe a happy, joyous person as ‘gay’. Now it almost exclusively refers to someone’s sexuality.

And sometimes, of course, governments and institutions deliberately adjust the language, often to suit a political agenda. Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and North Korea’s Kim Il Sung all manipulated the definitions and even eradicated words from their languages.

Sadly we see similar Orwellian tactics with the English language today. The word liberal, for example, originally referred to someone who favored individual liberty. Then it was hijacked by people who never saw a tax or regulation they didn’t like.

And the definitions for ‘man’ and ‘woman’ were crystal clear for all of human history until just a few years ago.

The latest, however, is the new definition of the word “rich”.

‘Rich’ is Germanic in origin, similar to the German word reich; 1,000+ years ago it referred to a ruler or powerful person. It started being associated with money in the 1300s.

But even still, the word rich for centuries has been typically associated with tremendous, almost unimaginable wealth.

When I was a kid and watched Scrooge McDuck swimming in an indoor pool filled when gold coins, I thought, “man, that guy is rich”.

Leave it to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to change that definition.

Remember when the socialist politicians first stormed to power in a America a few years ago? At first they were constantly moaning about billionaires.

AOC herself infamously lamented “You don’t make a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.” Not only does she demonstrate complete ignorance about the private economy, such statements also make me wonder how she thinks the government collects trillions of dollars in tax revenue…

However they quickly widened their gaze. And, since billionaires make up less than 0.001% of Americans, they then started attacking the top 1%.

This became the new definition of ‘rich’. And at the time this meant around $500,000 in household income. Good money, for sure. But not exactly Scrooge McDuck.

But I predicted a few years ago that this definition would continue to evolve. And AOC has willingly obliged.

A few days ago, she lamented about the horrible crises plaguing New York City– crises, by the way, which are of her colleagues’ own making. Homelessness, migration, crime, etc.

Her solution to these problems, of course, is more government. That means more money. And more taxes.

And who should pay these taxes? According to AOC, the rich. And that now means the top 5%.

She has moved the goalposts once again. It’s not the top 0.001%, nor the top 1% who are considered ‘rich’. Now it’s the top 5%, i.e. households making $250,000, or individuals making $125,000.

Ironically this includes AOC herself, whose Congressional salary pays $174,000 plus other financial allowances and extremely generous benefits.

Naturally we can expect AOC and her ilk to keep moving the goalposts. Elizabeth Warren’s definition of ‘rich’ already includes the top 10%. And in time I suspect we’ll see politicians complaining about the top 25%… and then the top 50%.

That’s the problem with their way of thinking; to paraphrase the late Margaret Thatcher, sooner or later they’re going to run out of other people’s money… which means constantly casting a wider net.

This is why I say that AOC wants you to be rich. But not in the way that you think.

She has no regard for your actual prosperity. She doesn’t want you to succeed, to have financial security, or to enjoy nice things. Quite the opposite, actually.

She’ll never admit it, but deep down AOC wants people to suffer… so that they depend on the government. This is the source of her power– because it’s predominantly people who suffer who will vote for politicians that promise more government benefits.

So she definitely doesn’t want you to be rich in the way that we think about it. She just wants to adjust the definition of the word ‘rich’ in order to ensnare you in a cycle of endlessly higher taxes.

The bottom line: this is coming. The only solution these people can think of is higher taxes and more government spending. It’s almost a certainty.

Fortunately there are so many completely legal steps you can take to minimize your tax burden.

Naturally you could try the the Hunter Biden tax strategy, which is to simply not pay what you owe and then blame your tax fraud on being a crackhead junkie, and rely on your dad to get you off the hook.

But for civilized, law-abiding people, you may simply consider maximizing contributions to tax advantaged retirement accounts.

That said, nothing is more powerful than voting with your feet. Even moving to a lower tax state can save you a boatload… hence why droves of people are leaving California and New York.

Puerto Rico’s tax incentives are very compelling. You could pay as little as 0% on investment income, and 4% on business income.

For non-Americans who aren’t taxed based on their citizenship, cutting your income tax rate to zero is as simple as moving to a zero tax jurisdiction.

But even Americans can benefit from the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion by moving overseas.

Based on 2023’s exemption, a married couple could exclude over a quarter million dollars of income when you factor in the housing exemption— and after all, according to AOC, this makes you filthy rich.

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Byzas of Megara must have been positively dumbfounded when first set foot on the banks of the Bosporus River.

It was the year 667 BC, more than 2,700 years ago, and Byzas was on a mission from the Greek mainland to find new colonies.

His fleet had just landed on the European side of modern day Istanbul. And as he gazed across the river to the Asian side, Byzas could see another small settlement– a tiny colony known as Chalcedon.

From a strategic and maritime perspective, the Asian side of the river was obviously inferior. There was no protective terrain, no natural harbors. And the ground was more of a swamp.

Byzas thought the settlers at Chalcedon must have been blind to build their settlement on the wrong side of the river, when they could just have easily built on the vastly superior European side.

But he wasn’t about to let the Chalcedons fix their mistake; so Byzas immediately seized the land and established a new colony. It became known to history by many names– Byzantium. Constantinople. And now Istanbul.

One of his first priorities was to build a wall… to protect from the Chalcedons just in case they got any bright ideas and tried to seize the European side for themselves.

And over time, the walls of Byzantium grew. Later rulers added dozens of towers and gates. The walls were reinforced and thickened. New walls were added.

By the time Byzantium became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 300s AD (and was renamed Constantinople), the city’s walls were already impressive. But Rome’s imperial government continued to invest further in the city’s defenses.

Eventually the Walls of Constantinople became legendary; kings and military commanders around the world simply accepted as truth that the city’s walls were impenetrable. And it remained this way for more than 1,000 years.

But the legend finally died on May 29, 1453. After a prolonged siege, the armies of Ottoman leader Mehmed II did what everyone had thought was impossible: he breached the walls of Constantinople and sacked the city.

In retrospect this shouldn’t have been a surprise. By the 1400s, the Byzantine Empire was bankrupt and nearly collapsed. Everyone knew it. Especially the Ottomans.

But there’s something inherently emotional about watching a legend die, so the loss at Constantinople was a shocking event at the time.

History is full of similar stories, as is our popular culture.

Muhammed Ali was 38 years old when he climbed into the ring to face a much younger Larry Holmes in October 1980.

Everyone knew that Ali was slower, weaker, and well past his prime. But he was also a legend… so, despite all rational evidence, people still believed Ali could win. The odds in Las Vegas, in fact, were quite close.

Reality set in when the bell rang; Larry Holmes savagely pummeled Ali for ten straight rounds until Ali’s trainer finally threw in the towel to stop the fight.

A young Sylvester Stallone was in attendance and watched the fight from the first row; it was so brutal he later described the fight as “watching an autopsy on a man who’s still alive.”

Even when it should be obvious, legends still die hard.

It’s difficult to not feel the same way about the Legend of America. People around the world… including hundreds of millions in the United States… don’t want the legend to die.

But the rational data is too obvious to ignore.

Late Saturday night, after narrowly avoiding another shutdown, the US government closed its 2023 fiscal year. And while the final data won’t be published for a few weeks, it looks like the deficit for the year will be close to $2 trillion. And gross interest on the debt will total nearly $900 billion.

That’s on a national debt that now exceeds $33 trillion– an increase of more than $10 trillion (around 50%) from before the pandemic in October 2019.

It’s extraordinary how little the people in charge seem to care.

In fact, not only will this catastrophe continue to be ignored, I’m almost certain that the White House will actually brag about these results; they’ll make some bizarre claim that these abysmal numbers prove that their idiotic policies are working.

And their propagandists in the mainstream media will dutifully repeat this fiction with a straight face to the American public.

Yet even the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the problem will quickly become much worse.

Just consider that spending for this current fiscal year (which started yesterday) is projected to reach $6.4 trillion. However only about $900 billion of that is “discretionary”, non-defense spending.

In other words, almost all the money that the government spends is either mandatory entitlement programs (like Social Security and Medicare), interest on the debt, or defense.

Conclusion? There are very few options to make a significant dent in the deficit problem. They’ll either have to cut benefits to Social Security recipients. Or slash military spending. Or default on the debt.

It’s doubtful that any politician has the will to do any of those things. So the fallback option, of course, will be to do what governments in trouble have almost invariably done throughout history: print more money.

The Federal Reserve will almost certainly have to reverse course… and not only STOP the interest rate hikes, but reverse them and slash rates back to zero. They might even make interest rates negative, just to give extra, needed support to the federal government.

The impact on the dollar in this case will be substantial, including inflation, and the loss of its dominant global reserve status.

And this brings me back to the ‘legend’ of America’s invincibility.

The legend has already been pierced multiple times over the past few years from a series of national humiliations– the embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan, the President shaking hands with thin air, the constant debt ceiling and government shutdown fiascos.

Any rational observer can easily see that that America is past its peak, like Muhammed Ali in 1980. Yet most people still want to cling to the legend of invincibility… and they’ll continue to do so until it finally crumbles for good.

Now, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that the US still has a narrow window to solve its problems. It’s also true that the US is not alone in having gargantuan challenges.

Europe is suffering major fiscal imbalances too, not to mention a migration crisis and war in its backyard. China has its own economic, banking, and demographic emergencies.

But none of that is a sensible reason to ignore such obvious threats. It seems foolish to pin one’s hopes and dreams on politicians who shake hands with thin air, refuse to work together, nor rationally discuss problems and priorities.

And this is why having a Plan B is so critical.

History is an ample guidebook to the future consequences of these challenges. More inflation. Higher taxes. Social chaos. Potentially even war.

Yet while it’s clear we cannot rely on government to fix the problems of their own making, a solid Plan B can mitigate the consequences.

The basics are simple: don’t keep all of your eggs in one basket. Have a place to go. Diversify jurisdictions. Own real assets. Implement simple, legal strategies to reduce your taxes. Protect your assets. Think long term.

There are plenty of solutions out there as well.

But the first step is separating legend from reality.

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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.

September 29, 2027: Kamala eliminated from “America’s Next Top Leader” Episode 1

Late last year, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)— the non-profit group that has governed televised debates among US Presidential candidates since 1987— announced groundbreaking changes to its traditional debate format.

The Commission’s Executive Director stated back in December 2026 that it was time for presidential debates to “keep up with America’s rapidly evolving culture and values, and the way we engage in political discourse.”

And that’s why, the CPD’s Executive Director said, “starting with the 2028 election cycle, the Commission will replace the traditional debate format with a new reality show called America’s Next Top Leader.”

The decision was immediately controversial; many prominent politicians and media personalities were outraged, claiming that the switch to reality TV was an “insult” and “threat to democracy” that trivializes the electoral process and distracts from the serious issues facing the nation.

Others supported the new reality-TV format, given that Americans tend to respond better to drama and entertainment rather than frank policy discussions.

And many proponents believe that a reality TV format is the natural progression given the trend of poor decorum at traditional debates.

“Let’s be honest, debates have been more about insults over substance for a long time now,” said pop culture analyst Taylor Trend. “‘America’s Next Top Leader simply makes it official and packages it in a way that’s engaging for the modern audience.”

Over the past several months, newly appointed co-Producers of America’s Next Top Leader— Simon Cowell and RuPaul— released details on the show’s format.

They said that every episode of America’s Next Top Leader will feature Presidential candidates participating in various challenges designed to test their leadership skills, charisma, and ability to generate viral moments.

Challenges include crafting the most retweetable slogan, delivering canned talking points within a 15-second time limit, shouting over the debate moderator, and participating in “roast battles” where candidates unleash personal attacks on each other.

As candidates are eliminated, the few remaining will have to participate in increasingly more difficult challenges. For example, later this season in Episode 7, candidates will compete to see who can most subtly grope an intern in a theater full of cameras.

Episode 5 will feature the “most degrading photo-op” challenge, and Episode 3 will showcase the “flip flop challenge” to see which candidate can reverse his/her position the most times within 60 seconds.

Last night’s inaugural episode was watched by a record 94 million people, smashing the previous record of 84 million set by the first 2016 Trump-Clinton debate, and coming in right behind the 1994 LAPD police chase of OJ Simpson which was watched by 95 million people.

Perhaps one of the most entertaining parts of last night’s episode was the “Crisis Lightening Round” where candidates had to give a 5 second response to some of America’s biggest looming problems.

Moderator: “Stacy Abrams— Social Security runs out of money. Go!”

Abrams: “I’ve instructed the Federal Reserve to print the money and send every retiree a Social Security check that can be harvested and cashed by local election volunteers.”

Moderator: “Gavin Newsom, the US just defaulted on its debt. Go!”

Newsom: “We only owe the debt to ourselves. Fighting climate change and supporting childhood gender identity is all that matters.”

Former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg drew laughter for his response when the moderator said, “Pete Buttigieg, the US dollar just lost global reserve status. Go!”

Buttigieg stammered for a moment before admitting, “I don’t know what that is.”

Later in the show, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shined when it came time to design the most viral Tweet with, “Billionaires have been STEALING from you for their whole lives! No more ‘tax the rich’. Now it’s time to LOOT the rich. #HungryforJustice.”

The studio audience cheered in approval.

During the GOP’s roast section, Glenn Youngkin scored big when he told Chris Christie, “Spending restraint? Looks like you’ve never restrained yourself in your life. The only thing growing faster than the federal budget is your waist. I don’t need your policy advice, but the one thing I’ll trust you on is your pick for the best pizzeria in New Jersey.”

Chris Christie, however, redeemed himself when he was able to successfully shout over all the other candidates in the “screaming match” segment.

Republicans stumbled during the ‘victimhood’ challenge in which they had to show how they identify as an oppressed class.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, for example, claimed that, as a Christian, he is “among the most oppressed people in history.” Ron DeSantis couldn’t get the hang of it, and ended up complaining about the lack of Italian food at Yale’s dining hall.

At the end of the show, the judges— which included Cowell and RuPaul, plus Kim Kardashian, David Hasselhoff, and 15-year old YouTuber Ryan Kaji from Ryan’s World— announced their decision of the first candidate to be eliminated: Kamala Harris.

Cowell savaged the Vice President before eliminating her from the competition; he quoted the Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison, saying,

“What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.”

Clips from the show have already racked up hundreds of millions of views on TikTok and YouTube, and political pundits have spent hours dissecting the candidates’ performances and predicting who would advance to the next round.

“I think this is a much better way to choose politicians,” said one commenter, “because it’s more relevant. We need a leader who knows how to go viral and capture attention. Nothing’s more important in today’s world.”

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There’s something pleasantly reassuring about mathematics: We shouldn’t have any doubts about the fact that 2 + 2 = 4.

Yet over the past few years, we’ve started seeing the most absurd assaults on basic science and mathematics. The most hard-core fanatics now assert, with a straight face, that it’s racist to say that 2 + 2 = 4.

This is a major part of the fanatical left’s playbook: make up the most ridiculous claims possible, then repeat them so many times that people eventually believe it.

This is how we have accumulated idiotic cultural axioms like “silence is violence”, and my personal favorite, “diversity is strength”. They make about as much sense as Big Brother’s claims from 1984; “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.”

We see the same play with climate change and the false narratives about renewable energy.

Greta Thunberg, Klaus Schwab, John Kerry, and Larry Fink would have you believe that wind and solar are going to save the planet.

I’m all for a clean environment as much as anyone; I want my kids to enjoy a beautiful world just as I have been able to do.

But wind and solar are bad fictions that are being deliberately peddled by people who should know better. They tell us that renewables are the answer, and they repeat it so many times that many people believe it to be true.

But the renewable assertions are just as foolish and idiotic as the fanatical left’s other major talking points.

If Greta Thunberg had gone to school and actually learned math instead of loitering outside the Swedish legislature in her yellow rain jacket, then perhaps she’d have more sensible things to say about the climate.

(And so would the millions of people who inherited so-called “climate anxiety” from exposure to her Green Propaganda Machine.)

One of the key metrics to understand in climate and energy math is the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI, sometimes written as EROI).

Consider that it takes energy to make energy. Mining coal, for example, requires human beings and heavy equipment, all of which consume an energy source (diesel fuel, food, etc.)

At the same time, though, the coal they mine has the ability to generate electricity – another form of energy.

So in the case of coal, EROEI measures how much gasoline, etc. it takes to mine coal relative to how much electricity that coal produces.

EROEI is expressed as a ratio. With coal, it’s around 30:1, meaning that for every 1 unit of energy required to mine coal, that same coal produces 30 units of energy.

Oil and gas also have strong EROEI levels, which makes them very efficient forms of energy.

But renewables like wind and solar? The EROEI levels are pitiful, at 5:1 or less. This means that wind and solar are expensive, inefficient forms of energy.

Regardless of the math, though, governments are pushing to power most of the world with renewable energy by 2050.

The State of California, for example, banned the sale of gasoline-powered passenger vehicles starting in 2035, which will naturally push everyone in the state to use electric vehicles.

They also passed a law that new residential housing must have solar panels installed.

So the politicians’ dream in California is that everyone will be driving electric vehicles and charging them from their solar-paneled homes.

But there’s a huge problem with their thinking; in addition to the EROEI math proving that this is a highly costly and inefficient solution, it’s also virtually impossible.

I wrote last week that the amount of natural resources – copper, lithium, cobalt, etc. – required to produce the electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, etc. it would take to fulfill this green fantasy… Would take hundreds if not thousands of years to mine, based on current production rates.

Again, this is simple math, just like 2 + 2 = 4.

But it’s the same fanatics who deny 2 + 2 = 4 are the ones who come up with these idiotic climate ideas… like demanding costly, super-inefficient sources of energy which require so much lithium and cobalt to produce that it will take thousands of years to mine it all.

Worst of all, the obvious solution is staring them right in the face: nuclear power has one of the highest EROEIs known to man, and its carbon emissions are even lower than that of solar panels.

Sure, obviously I don’t want to live next to a nuclear power plant. I don’t want to live next to any power plant. I don’t want to live next to 1,000 industrial windmills either. That’s not really the point.

The point is that the math is irrefutable; the entire green fantasy collapses under fourth grade arithmetic.

The people making these decisions know the math. They know the real numbers. So it’s really hard to understand why they keep peddling such ridiculous fiction.

There is some good news to this story, however. Like I said, nuclear is the obvious solution. So obvious, in fact, that people as different as Elon Musk and Bill Gates are both on the same page about nuclear energy.

And seemingly every day there are more and more prominent voices talking about how nuclear is the superior choice.

There are plenty of countries (including China and India) that are racing to make their power grids nuclear, and I think it’s only a matter of time before the West catches up and surpasses them… but not without sticking it to the green fanatics first.

In the meantime, there are some seriously undervalued nuclear power investments out there…

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