Category: simonblack

When the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence 248 years ago tomorrow, they were creating much more than a nation. They were giving birth to an idea.

America, at its core, is an idea. And it’s one that ranks as one of the greatest innovations in the history of human civilization, right up there with the wheel, the steam engine, the printing press, and the Internet.

The idea of America wasn’t born in 1776, however. By then it had already evolved over thousands of years.

The ancient Greeks embraced individual liberty, direct democracy, and a respect for the rule of law.

The Roman republic further refined Greek democracy and developed a more professional legal code. The early Roman Empire embodied peace through strength, ushering in nearly two centuries of geopolitical stability and economic prosperity under the Pax Romana.

The later Byzantine Empire fused Greek and Roman ideas with Judeo-Christian values. And by 1000 AD, the Republic of Venice– borrowing from Rome’s republican form of government– infused an early form of capitalism to this model.

The Dutch republic of the 1600s refined the concept of a powerful, free, capitalist society even further, as did philosophers like Rousseau, Montesquieu, John Locke, and Adam Smith.

So, when the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence (and subsequently the US Constitution), they didn’t have to start from scratch; they drew from a rich, 2,000-year intellectual heritage of the giants who came before them.

This means that America is ultimately a composite of the very best ideas that human civilization ever had to offer— and the combined concept was then elevated to unprecedented heights.

Nothing is perfect, and America wasn’t either.

But based on this idea, the United States became the world’s largest economy in less than a century and the dominant global superpower about 80 years later. That is an unparalleled achievement which no other superpower in human history has come close to matching.

It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of the world’s most important innovations, from airplanes and air conditioning to cell phones and chocolate chip cookies, were either born or perfected in America.

Again, none of this is an accident. America’s success is deliberate outcome from combining the best ideas from 2,000+ years of human civilization… plus some disciplined execution and a little bit of luck.

Obviously, America has weathered challenges as well. The Civil War. The Great Depression. The turmoil of the 1960s.

But its foundation of economic potential, plus a baseline of social cohesion and shared values, have always allowed the nation to overcome… and for the idea of America to persist.

The country is now at an undeniable crossroads, and it’s not just about a single election.

There are obvious signs of national decline: rising inflation, mounting debt, diminished global standing, a loss of government dignity, and stinging embarrassments like the shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Even the idea of America itself is on the ropes; there are powerful forces within government, media, and the education system who seek to redefine America’s core principles.

Capitalism has been demonized and reinvented. Individual liberty has given way to a radical woke ideology. And the concept of limited government is almost a punchline at this point.

Still, there is a plausible scenario in which America’s best days are ahead.

If politicians embrace the principles that originally fueled the country’s prosperity—such as capitalism and laissez-faire productivity—America could experience an economic boom not seen since the Industrial Revolution.

By cutting taxes, slashing anti-capitalist regulation, and embracing the free market, the increase in productivity could be staggering.

This boom would lead to increased tax revenue, i.e. funds which could rebuild the military, secure the southern border, save Social Security, curb inflation, balance the budget, and chip away at the national debt.

As China buckles under the consequences of its central planning and upside-down demographic pyramid (brought on by its idiotic “One Child policy”), the United States could easily reassert its global primacy.

The dollar’s status as the global reserve currency would be unquestioned, and the world could see a new era of global peace and prosperity.

This is not a pipe dream. It’s a genuine possibility.

The other possibility is that the government does nothing to arrest America’s decline.

The debt continues to spiral further out of control. Rising deficits trigger painful inflation. Excessive regulation stifles economic growth, leaving the economy stagnant and performing far below its full potential.

Individuals are constrained by politicians’ incessant and debilitating rules about how to live, what to buy, and what to drive. The social fabric continues to tear apart with idiotic mandates, censorship, wokeness, gaslighting, and a hatred for capitalism.

Unfortunately, that is the road the country is presently on. Yes, it can be fixed. They can change directions. And we certainly hope that happens.

But as we used to say in the military, hope is not a course of action. That’s why we have a Plan B.

Having a Plan B is not being negative or pessimistic. It’s certainly not irrational. And it’s not unpatriotic.

The fierce individuality to NOT bow down to circumstances is exactly what has allowed America to persevere so many times before.

And taking sensible steps to preserve, protect, and defend what you have worked so hard to achieve in life is about as core of an American value as it gets.

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Tiffany Hart spent nearly a decade working at the World Economic Forum until she finally reached her breaking point in 2022.

“We don’t eat our own dog food,” she said of her former organization. “We [the World Economic Forum] promote inclusion and improving the state of the world and women’s issues but do the opposite.”

The Wall Street Journal released a bombshell account this weekend detailing dozens of instances and former employees, like Tiffany Hart, who spoke out about the WEF’s culture of racism, misogyny, and sexual harassment.

One woman (who was demoted after going on maternity leave) called the WEF “a psychologically violent institution” that has absolutely zero credibility to speak about women’s issues.

Jean-Loup Denereaz, formerly one of the organization’s most senior leaders, publicly humiliated a black woman on his team, and said, “What can you expect from a N–,” using the full word to her face and in front of other employees.

Another manager openly discussed in front of multiple employees how chocolate-covered marshmallows from Denmark used to be called “N- balls,” again, using the full word.

Female staffers say they were often groped by senior executives. Male employees routinely commented on their appearance and told them to lose weight. Young staffers were often propositioned and encouraged to have sexual relationships with VIPs.

Even three of WEF founder Klaus Schwab’s former assistants say he personally made routine sexual advances.

Gee, what a surprise: the creepiest megalomaniac in the world is complete hypocrite!

But of course, rational people already knew this. Klaus Schwab and the WEF are the same guys who insist that “we” need to eat bugs and weeds to solve climate change… while they dine on filet mignon at their climate summits.

They want to ban to wood stoves and gas-powered vehicles, but they fly into Davos on their private jets— and don’t even bother to carpool!

These people force-feed us these quasi-religious beliefs about how we should live, what to think, and what to believe. They constantly howl about diversity and inclusion, women’s rights, etc.

It’s long been obvious, and now there’s even more proof: the World Economic Forum doesn’t actually stand for anything. They’re just a bunch of creepy, misguided, hypocritical racists.

Unfortunately they’re far from alone. This same cancerous hypocrisy pervades so many powerful institutions, including the government and media.

We saw this at last Thursday night’s debate: proof that virtually everyone in the media and in the party covering for Biden’s mental feebleness over the past four years has been lying.

It’s clear that they, too, stand for absolutely nothing.

And now these same people who claim to be so concerned about “democracy” are ready to disenfranchise their own voters and install someone like Gavin Newsom as the new candidate.

Newsom, of course, is another example of someone who stands for absolutely nothing.

Just the other day, Newsom gave California’s version of the State of the State address in which he compared his political opponents to literal Nazi fascists.

That’s such a common tactic for these people; their ideas are such horrendous failures that they cannot debate anything on the merits. Their ideas have no merit.

Under their watch, inflation is up, crime is up, the debt is up, border security is down, global security is down, etc.

Since they cannot claim success anywhere, their only ‘argument’ is to cancel and censor dissent, or to label their opponents Nazi fascists, white supremacists, or anti-science cave men.

What’s ironic is that someone like Newsom actually seems to know that there are problems, and he’s demonstrated that he can fix them.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping met Joe Biden in San Francisco last November, Gavin Newsom somehow found the ability and authority to clean the place up. For a few days, there were no homeless people on the streets, and San Francisco was the safest big city in the world.

But then as soon as Xi left, he let the streets go to shit again.

Clearly he knows how to solve the problem. He’s choosing to not solve it… while simultaneously claiming to care so much about the voters and streets and the cities. Again, the guy stands for nothing.

Like most institutions of the Left, the only thing they stand for is that they should be in charge.

Meanwhile, the problems pile up. Illegal immigrants overrun the southern border. Deficits and the national debt surge. Inflation refuses to be tamed. Instability festers at home and abroad.

You’d have to be clinically insane at this point to actually think these people will fix anything. They are only going to make things worse.

This is especially true when it comes to economic challenges, mostly because the people in charge (especially on the Left) have NO understanding of the real world.

Many have never in their lives participated in the private economy. They’ve never had a real job or started a business. So they don’t have the foggiest idea how their idiotic policies will wage havoc down the road.

Obamacare is a great example: 14 years later, America has lower quality, more expensive healthcare, with less personal choice and more bureaucracy.

Yes, some people are better off. Most are worse off. Was it worth the cost?

Again, though, the Left can never justify their decisions with facts or successful outcomes. And that’s why, when people criticize or disagree, they resort to censorship, cancellation, de-platforming… Or just calling someone an anti-science racist caveman misogynist bigot.

Big shocker— it turns out they’re the ones who are the actual racists and misogynists. They stand for nothing but their own power.

And that is the whole reason why it makes so much sense to have a Plan B. And realistically, the chaos they cause is making that turn into Plan A pretty quick.

For example, people are starting to recognize that their endless runaway spending is actually a serious problem. $2 trillion deficits have quickly become the norm, and that has led directly to elevated inflation.

Yet as individuals we can mitigate inflation by investing in real assets— many of which are absurdly cheap right now and have major catalysts for growth.

The people in power are intent on raising taxes. Not just new wealth taxes and higher payroll taxes, but at bare minimum, raising taxes on the middle class by allowing the 2017 tax cuts to expire.

Yet there are many ways, as individuals, to legally reduce our tax rate, in some cases down to a flat 0%.

They are driving Social Security into the ground. But you can plan for your own retirement AND cut your taxes, with tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

They’re importing crime and refusing to prosecute criminals. But you can obtain a second residency or passport in a foreign country where you enjoy spending time. This way, you and your family will always have a place to go if the need ever arises.

These people have an overwhelming sense of arrogance, and will continue to double down on their failures.

They want us to think that they’re the ones in control… but nothing could be further from the truth.

Individuals have tremendous power to protect themselves from their destructive hypocrisy. It just takes a little bit of education and the will to take action.

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“The President is very sharp,” former congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told audiences not long ago. “Some NATO leaders have told me they were very surprised… because he is so sharp and he’s on top of everything.”

MSNBC further trotted out various guests and hosts, including Mika Brzezinski, to gush about Joe Biden’s sharpness and mentally agility.

Members of the President’s party also claimed that, in private meetings, Joe Biden was absolutely at the top of his game.

And the White House’s top propaganda officials, i.e. Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, and Rachel Maddow, all routinely praise Biden’s strategic foresight and supernatural ability to raise America’s position in global affairs.

Now all of a sudden the headlines read: “Panicked Dems look to replace Biden”, and “Biden must step aside”.

The CNN “analysts” last night were absolutely hilarious in their depressive response to the debate; a few of them were almost in tears about their guy’s pitiful performance.

And the New York Times this morning was full of editorials from Leftist lunatics like Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman pleading that Biden bow out of the race immediately.

Funny. These are the very same people who have been insisting that Joe Biden hasn’t lost his edge. Now they want him to withdraw from the election.

The web of lies that they have been spinning for the past four years came crashing down hard last night. Everyone saw a mentally incompetent, enfeebled, confused man stammering and rambling devoid of any intellectual direction.

Even the rare occasions yesterday when he showed flashes of coherence, Biden had to resort to gas-lighting the American public in order to defend his record.

It was extraordinary that he said, with a straight face, that nobody wants to “screw with America”.

Come again? It was only a few months ago that Iran launched missile strikes against US soldiers at bases in Iraq and Syria.

Deliberately attacking US military personnel is the DEFINITION of screwing with America.

He went on to insist that the rest of the world respects US leadership. He bragged about how great the US economy is doing, how prosperous people are, and how he’s taken steps to secure the border.

Of course, no rational person believes such drivel. Joe Biden has been a disaster from Day 1, and he was cognitively unfit far before he became President. But the rats in the media have been covering for him and propping him up from the very beginning.

Their latest lie is that Joe Biden has a cold, which apparently caused last night’s acute dementia.

Sure. Doesn’t everybody get a severe case of dementia when they catch a cold? I guess that’s what “science” tells us.

The New York Times further reported that, “Former President Trump’s attacks were frequently false, lacked context or were vague enough to be misleading.”

Of course there was no mention of Joe Biden saying anything false, vague, or misleading.

There was no “fact check”, for example, when Biden said that everyone respects America, the military is stronger than ever, that taxing the rich will solve Social Security’s bankruptcy, or that the Border Patrol endorsed him.

(While CNN and the New York Times didn’t bother to fact check Biden, the Border Patrol Union did announce on its X/Twitter account that “we never have and never will endorse Biden.”)

It appears now, however, that these media rats know their plan failed. No one can possibly believe their lies any longer, and the rats are deserting their own ship.

Their panic would almost be gratifying if it weren’t so ominous.

Now their attention is turning to who should replace Biden; ultimately this means that the party’s senior leadership will choose a new candidate.

Ironically, this is also the same party which moans constantly that “democracy is under attack.”

But hang on— this same party also deprived its own voters of a choice.

When Bobby Kennedy announced his candidacy to challenge Joe Biden for the nomination, they refused to engage and chased Kennedy out of the party.

In short, the party made sure their own voters did not have a choice.

Now, once again, they want to deprive voters of the opportunity to choose. Instead of holding primary elections, the party bosses will decide for everyone else who will be the Presidential candidate.

Sounds democratic to me, comrades!!

The ominous part is where this might go.

It’s obvious the rats have all been lying about Joe Biden in an attempt to prop him up as a serious candidate. Their endless river of deceit about his mental sharpness was proven to be blatantly false last night.

Now they’re already plotting to subvert the democratic voting process, yet again, and force a new candidate onto voters.

Frankly, I was surprised at how much discussion there was last night about the national debt, deficits, Social Security, etc. So, they obviously know that the US has serious, serious problems and is in decline.

But arresting that decline is not a priority. Their only priority is keeping one guy out of office, no matter the cost.

These rats have no morals and absolutely no regard for voters. And they’re willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goal. Lies. Propaganda. Gas-lighting. Censorship. Cancel culture. Weaponizing the justice system. Knee-capping democracy. Whatever it takes.

I don’t know how far they’ll go or what destructive solutions they’ll concoct. But I do know that the most likely cost of their derangement is the continued decline of America.

That’s why it makes so much sense to have a Plan B.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren gave another speech on taxes a few days ago proving, yet again, that she is coming for your money.

It’s always thinly veiled behind the refrain of making “the rich” (as defined in her sole discretion) pay their “fair share” (also defined in her sole discretion).

Frankly she’s been shrieking this refrain since before she even became a Senator. Yet for more than a decade she’s never once made her position clear. If anything, she keeps moving the goalposts.

Warren famously started by slamming billionaires, i.e. the top 0.1%. She then cast a wider net to the wealthiest 1%.

Later she derided the top 5%, claiming those evildoers should not be eligible for student loan forgiveness… or even Medicare!

And when she howls about “accountable capitalism” on her website, Comrade Warren trolls the the top 10% for having too much wealth.

This trajectory throughout her career shows an ever-expanding reach– from the top 0.1% to the top 10%. And it would be foolish to assume she’s stopping there.

Naturally Comrade Warren has no idea what she’s talking about.

For example, she ignorantly blames eye-popping federal deficits on tax cuts that go as far back as 2012– when then President Barack Obama made a compromise with Congress to extend the Bush-era tax cuts.

Warren claims, to this day, that “once Obama made that tax cut deal with [the other party], the federal deficit ballooned.”

I know Socialists aren’t great at math, but this is blatantly false. All you need to do is look at the Treasury Department’s own data.

The federal deficit actually FELL in 2013, i.e. the year after the Obama tax deal. Then it continued to decline in 2014… and in 2015.

In fact, if the federal government had simply frozen spending at 2012 levels, then the entire federal deficit would have nearly disappeared by 2016.

Instead, however, Elizabeth Warren and her merry band of Bolsheviks continued to find creative new ways to spend money. This is why federal spending has more than DOUBLED since 2012.

This is quite curious… because, despite a 2x increase in federal spending, America does not seem twice as secure against overseas threats. Infrastructure is not twice as robust. Public schools have not doubled their performance.

And if you look across all government performance– military readiness, customer service quality at the Internal Revenue Service, FAFSA student loan enrollment, Obamacare enrollment, Medicare efficiency– it’s ALL down.

One would be hard-pressed to come up with something that the government does BETTER today than it did in the past… except for racking up massive deficits.

I guess Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have anything to do with that, though.

She completely fails to see her own role in increased spending. She even fails to see how tax revenue has actually INCREASED since the tax cuts– because lower taxes promote a healthier economy.

Despite such overwhelming evidence, however, she STILL wants taxes to increase. She just doesn’t get it.

If high taxes were the key to a prosperous society, then Ivory Coast, with its record 60% tax rate– should be absolutely booming. And yet it is one of the world’s most impoverished nations.

But simple truths never stop the dangerous Bolshevik logic train.

Warren is now fighting against members of her own party who are negotiating an extension of the 2017 tax cuts.

And if you’re thinking, “Big deal, Lizzie is just one Senator, she can’t do anything on her own,” then think again. Warren is not alone. And more importantly, she has the power to hold everyone and everything hostage.

That’s because Congress and the next president don’t have to raise a finger for taxes to increase for most Americans in January of 2026.

Many of the individual tax cuts introduced by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are set to automatically expire at the end of 2025. So, in order to extend them, both chambers of Congress plus the President, whoever that might be, will have to take deliberate action to make it happen.

And Lizzie can easily hold up the process.

Thanks to Comrade Warren stonewalling her own colleagues, this is becoming more and more likely by the day. What are the implications?

For starters, the standard deduction will be reduced by nearly 50%, from $14,600 (for single filers) to approximately $8,000. So much for only soaking the rich.

There are a host of other provisions that will hit the middle class harder than anyone else. Yet Lizzie remains firm in both her resolve and her ignorance.

And again, she’s not actually alone.

Joe Biden has also proposed major tax increases: a 5% payroll tax hike, taxes on unrealized capital gains, a top rate to 44.6%, and various changes that substantially increase estate taxes.

Obviously, everything is on the table given the upcoming election in a few months. But we do know, no matter what happens, that there is a growing number of Socialist politicians who want to increase taxes… because no matter how much they collect, it is never enough for them.

This is why we encourage our readers to avail themselves of the many, completely legal ways of reducing their taxes.

For example, Americans who move to the US territory can qualify for special tax incentives that offer rates as low as 0% for eligible capital gains, and 4% total tax rate on eligible business profits.

By moving overseas, US citizens can take advantage of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), which allows taxpayers living abroad to exclude up to $126,500 per year from US taxation (adjusted annually for inflation). Plus, you could exclude thousands more in housing costs.

Even if you stay where you are, contributing to tax-advantaged retirement accounts is a great way to legally optimize your current (and future) tax bill.

The larger point is that the tax code is full of ways to reduce what you owe and get ahead of any automatic tax hikes.

Unless you truly believe that you are getting your money’s worth from the ever-expanding US government budget, it makes a lot of sense to do everything you can to reduce your taxes.

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When Publius Licinus Valerianus (known to history as as Valerian) became emperor in 253 AD, the Roman Empire was in the midst of the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’— plagues, inflation, escalating conflicts, growing social tensions, rising crime, declining trade, and a struggling economy.

But Valerian had decades of political experience, so everyone thought he would save the day.

Instead, he continued bankrupting the treasury with huge deficits. He raised taxes, debased the currency (which caused inflation to soar), and demanded ideological conformity. Dissenters were arrested and severely punished, and many had their property confiscated by the state.

The imperial borders were also a mess; barbarian tribes were coming across the northern border in what was tantamount to a full-scale invasion of Roman territory, while the Sassanid Persians were invading Rome’s Arabian provinces from the Empire’s eastern border.

Rome’s once-legendary military was also shrinking; in fact, the Empire had a historic military recruitment crisis on its hands.

Rome wasn’t just unable to attract the best and brightest to its ranks; it was practically unable to recruit anyone at all.

Long gone were the days when a career in the Roman legions was considered an honorable profession. Roman citizens were simply no longer interested in serving. And Roman patriotism wasn’t just dead, it was laughed at.

To address these challenges, Valerian expanded the use of mercenaries. He essentially bribed new recruits, including and especially foreigners, offering money, citizenship, and land grants in exchange for serving in the military.

This marked a clear and obvious turning point in Rome’s history: empires last because they sustain their strength– and that strength requires both a prosperous economy AND a powerful military.

And it’s incredibly difficult to have a powerful military when nobody wants to serve.

The US military finds itself in a similar position today. In fact, the US in general is going through a similar period as Rome’s “Crisis of the Third Century”, complete with political scandal and instability, inflation, massive deficits, border incursions, and even a pandemic.

And the parallels between Rome’s third century military and the state of the US military today are quite strong.

Last year, the US military missed its recruitment goal by 41,000 troops, which is a staggering, record-high figure. The active-duty US military is now at its smallest size since 1940.

As a result, mission readiness is down. Fitness standards are being abandoned. Recruiting bonuses have skyrocketed. Some politicians have even suggested offering citizenship to illegal immigrants in exchange for serving in the US military.

One of the biggest reasons for this recruitment crisis is that 77% of young people in America do not meet the basic standards to join the military, whether for physical, mental, or moral reasons.

And that last one— moral— is the fastest growing part: young people aren’t interested in serving because they are being indoctrinated to hate their country.

Teachers at Fort Lee High School in New Jersey and in Berkeley California, were recently caught, for example, teaching that Hamas is a peaceful resistance movement… while Israel is genocidal.

The teacher’s union covering school districts in Portland, Oregon recently published lesson plans which praised Hamas… yet completely failed to mention their October 7 terrorist attack murdering innocent Israelis.

By the time students make it to university, they are filled with hate for their country; it’s so palpable that the supreme leader of Iran, one of America’s biggest enemies, recently praised American university students.

“You are currently part of the Resistance Front,” the Ayatollah told America’s youth, “and have waged an honorable battle despite the relentless pressure of your government.”

The kids in the street wearing their keffiyehs and screaming about their pronouns have no interest in serving.

Meanwhile, the patriotic Americans who filled the military’s ranks for decades have been maligned as “extremists”.

These are the very people who love America so much that they were ready to die for their country— and kill the enemies of their country, which is no less consequential.

Yet instead of embracing the people the military so desperately needs, the government practically lampoons them and their core beliefs.

The Army used to have slogans like “Be all you can be,” and “Army Strong”. Those have been replaced by recruiting ads about soldiers with lesbian moms. Even the CIA recruits by catering to the woke, Diversity & Inclusion crowd.

It’s bizarre to see recruiting ads tailored to radicals who hate their country and have no interest in serving. And gee what a surprise— the woke recruiting campaigns have failed.

Now the Defense Department has resorted to bribing people.

Of course, the military has long offered recruitment bonuses and college tuition in exchange for service. But it was typically one of the reasons to join, not THE reason.

That’s no longer the case. Just ask the soldiers who make TikTok videos about why they joined:

“For a Camaro.”

“To pay my bills.”

“For the money.”

Soldiers have long been a cynical group; I remember this even from my time in the service more than two decades ago. But today it seems to be at a completely different level.

Need more evidence? Allow me to offer Exhibit A— an online recruiting advertisement for the US Coast Guard that I recently saw:

“Think you’re too old or out of shape for the U.S. Coast Guard? Think again.”

Bribing people to join only got them so far, and now they are begging people to serve who are too fat and old.

Again, strong nations need both a robust economy AND a powerful military.

We’ve written at length about America’s future economic tsunami; the government itself forecasts the national debt to grow beyond $55 trillion over the next decade. Social Security will run out of money in 9 years. The US dollar is on the road to losing its global reserve status soon.

The challenges plaguing the US military, however, add yet another dimension to America’s problems.

Mission readiness is down. Most major weapons systems, from fighter jets to naval warships, are rapidly becoming obsolete… yet there is no money to replace them. And this recruiting crisis continues to worsen.

I’ve written before that, theoretically, these challenges are fixable. And there is still a very narrow window of opportunity to do so.

But at the moment it doesn’t appear that the people in charge even recognize the problems, let alone have the willingness to solve them.

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Tim Sheehy is a former Navy SEAL who graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He earned a Bronze Star with Valor for his distinguished service and a Purple Heart for his wounds. And after leaving the Navy, he started a successful aerial firefighting business which now employs 200 people.

Fed up with the direction of the country, Sheehy is now running for Senate in the state of Montana and hoping to unseat his opponent— Montana’s incumbent Senator Jon Tester.

Tester has represented Montana in the Senate since 2007, during which time the national debt has increased by more than $25 trillion.

Senator Testor has certainly played his part in helping to expand the debt; he has consistently voted for almost every big-spending, deficit increasing piece of legislation that comes across his desk.

For 17 years he passed massive budget deficits; raised the debt ceiling; handed out trillions of dollars of free money during COVID; and sent endless, unchecked funds to Ukraine.

Then, when his free-spending policies resulted in the worst inflation the country had seen in four decades, Tester then voted for the pitifully named “Inflation Reduction Act”, which has resulted in even higher food, fuel, and housing prices.

But according to Tester, it’s people like Tim Sheehy— the wounded Navy SEAL veteran who started a successful business— who are to blame.

“Tim Sheehy is not part of the solution; he’s part of the problem,” Senator Tester recently said of his political opponent.

There is it, straight from the Bolshevik playbook: success is a terrible sin, and inflation is rich people’s fault.

With control of the Senate on the line, the usual suspects in the media have predictably jumped in to malign Sheehy in every way imaginable.

For example, after Sheehy said that he grew up in rural Minnesota, the Washington Post “fact checked” the claim and said his hometown had a population of 27,000 people.

That’s some hard hitting journalism that’s staying focused on the real issues!

And if hailing from a town of 27,000 people wasn’t bad enough, the papers also pointed out that Sheehy’s childhood home had a view of one of the 11,800 lakes in Minnesota.

CRIMINAL! CRIMINAL!

If that weren’t nefarious enough, the media has also taken Sheehy to task over the $100,000 loan he received from his parents to start his current business (which is now worth nearly $1 billion).

The Washington Post also ripped into Sheehy because there has been some discrepancy about how many times he was shot in Afghanistan, and whether he was discharged from the Navy because of the shrapnel in his body, or due to injuries sustained during a submarine training exercise.

Clearly this is the issue that should be in focus. Not inflation. Not the migration crisis (which affects every single one of the fifty states). Not the incredible dangers lurking in the world.

Nope. WaPo wants to malign a Navy SEAL and downplay the guy’s service to his nation.

They’ve made an especially big deal about one eyebrow-raising episode in which Sheehy lied in order to protect one of his Navy subordinates from being punished.

There’s a sense of loyalty in the military that most people— and certainly woke activist reporters— will never understand.

To this day, twenty years after my own military service, I would still lie down in traffic for my platoon sergeant, and he would do the same for me. That bond of loyalty is even more pronounced among special operations troops like the SEALs.

But such things are incomprehensible to the left… whose only notion of loyalty is loyalty to the party— not to principle, and not to people.

Perhaps this is why they’re so LASER-focused on Sheehy. Seriously, why should the Washington Post and New York Slime even care about a Senate race in Montana?

Obviously because control of the Senate is up for grabs this year. And these supposedly objective papers are doing everything they can— including maligning a Navy SEAL— to seal their party’s victory.

These are the same “news” outlets, by the way, who ran with the Russian collusion hoax, and helped to cover up how Hunter Biden earned an undisclosed $10 million from companies in Ukraine and China while his father was Vice President.

Or, remember when Hillary Clinton claimed during her 2008 presidential campaign that she landed under sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Tuzla, Bosnia? She described having to run to their vehicles with their heads down, while footage actually shows Clinton calmly walking across the tarmac, and greeting a young girl who presented her with a poem.

Yet these so-called “journalists” are printing stories about how Sheehy’s childhood home had a lake view (in a state that’s literally called the Land of 10,000 lakes), and intimating that his Bronze Star citation may have been politically motivated.

And his opponent claims that Sheehy, a Navy SEAL and successful entrepreneur, “is part of the problem.”

What else does someone have to do or be in America in 2024 before the left admits that maybe that guy is part of the solution?

This is how insane the Left has become— and that includes the pathetic media. All the more reason to have a Plan B.

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I have written to you more times than I can count about how the US government’s own budget officials forecast a $20 trillion increase in national debt over the next ten years.

Remember, this isn’t some wild conspiracy theory. This was from an official projection released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) back in February.

Well, it turns out the CBO’s 10-year forecast is now much worse.

Two days ago, the CBO released an updated budget forecast. And the differences between their current forecast, and the one they released just four months ago, are pretty substantial.

Four months ago, the CBO projected that this Fiscal Year (FY24)’s annual budget deficit would come in at $1.5 trillion. Now they estimate it will be $1.9 trillion.

In other words, their deficit forecast became 27% worse in just four months.

More importantly, their forecast for the total accumulated deficit over the next ten years– which stood at $20 trillion just four months ago– has now increased to $22 trillion.

How could these numbers become so much worse in just four months?

Easy. These people at the CBO are not stupid. And estimating long-term budgets is actually a fairly straightforward process.

The Social Security Administration, for example, already knows how much they’ll be spending on benefits next year, the year after that, etc., because they have all the data about how many people were born in 1963, 1964, and so forth.

Similarly, the Treasury Department already has a good idea how much money they’ll have to spend paying interest on the debt this year, next year, etc. They know which government bonds will mature, and when. While there is some variability with respect to interest rates, budget officials can get reasonably close in estimating long-term interest costs.

The big X-factor in budget forecasts is Congress. From time to time, these people get together and pass some outrageously expensive legislation… like the Inflation Reduction Act. And these idiotic ideas are impossible for the CBO to predict.

And that’s the problem: in the last four months alone, Congress has piled on a bonanza of spending.

That’s not to say certain spending isn’t important. But there’s never any sacrifice or debate. They never say, “we want to prioritize X, which means we need to cut Y.” They just add more and more to the deficit.

And that’s why the CBO’s deficit forecast for this Fiscal Year (which ends in about three months) has exploded way beyond their estimate from just four months ago.

It’s the same with their ten-year projection; their forecasts become worse with each update.

For example, one thing they haven’t accounted for at all in their ten-year projection is that Social Security will run out of money during that ten-year window, triggering a multi-trillion-dollar bailout.

And that Social Security bailout is not included in this estimate. So, the $22 trillion figure could become much, much worse.

Even $22 trillion would mean the national debt reaching $57 trillion by 2034– an amount that would almost certainly result in the loss of the US dollar’s global reserve status.

$22 trillion in additional debt over the next decade also likely means that the Federal Reserve will have to essentially ‘print’ money in order to fund these deficits.

(And as we all experienced recently, a massive increase in US government debt fueled by a gargantuan increase in money supply from the Federal Reserve, creates lots of inflation.)

The growing national debt will likely also reduce America’s standing in the world, and we can already see that now. Adversary nations are running amok doing whatever they want with total impunity… because the US government has neither the money nor resolve to stop them.

It’s all completely and utterly pathetic.

I would point out that there is still a very narrow window of opportunity to fix this problem before it spirals out of control. But the time is now. This is not something that can be deal with 10 years from now; in fact, most of that $22 trillion in new debt will be coming over the next 5-7 years.

But avoiding that fate will require a tremendous amount of discipline, focus, sacrifice… and the biggest missing ingredient of all: common sense.

America would need a government willing to prioritize productivity and economic growth over some destructive anti-capitalist, hyper-woke agenda.

And it goes way beyond who’s sitting in the White House. It’s 435 members of the House, 100 Senators, and countless agency heads.

It’s the (unelected) people at the Federal Reserve, and sadly, others outside government who have tremendous influence in setting national priorities.

This including CEOs who have embraced the woke left, and the media which consistently perverts what national priorities should be.

These are some of the key players who would need to be largely focused on the task at hand.

There is a lot on the line here, and what happens over the next 4-5 years will likely seal America’s fate.

If I’m honest, it’s not looking good. It’s hard to have confidence in the “leadership” and institutions right now. Maybe it will all change. Maybe voters, business, etc. will wake up. But I’m not holding my breath.

Obviously, the US still has a lot of incredible things going for it— a robust economy, and insanely large, diversified, deep capital markets.

But that’s what makes it so exasperating, especially those of us who were born and lived in a time of peak America. It’s difficult to watch them destroy something so incredible.

Realistically, though, there’s not really anything that people can do as individuals to change the system and turn the ship around.

But as individuals, we can absolutely take sensible steps to mitigate such obvious risks. And that approach makes more and more sense every day.

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Unlike Joe Biden, 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin was at the top of his game and still making incredible contributions to the United States.

It was the spring of 1787– five and a half years since the last major battle of the American Revolution– yet still more than two years before the Constitution would take effect.

This period between the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional republic was incredibly unique because the country was fully free and independent… yet it lacked any real leadership.

The governing body at the federal level– the Congress of the Confederation– had almost no power, and its roughly fifty members spent most of their sessions bickering with one another.

People became so fed up that there was serious talk of secession, and the United States almost ended before it really began.

81-year-old Benjamin Franklin helped to smooth things over when, on April 21, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation authorized him to design the first official currency of new country– the penny.

(Congress did not expressly name Franklin in its Act, however historians widely believe they specifically intended to tap his genius.)

A national currency would be a pretty big step forward in unifying the country; at the time, commercial trade was a messy free-for-all with no standardized method of settlement.

Merchants and businesses would settle transactions in a variety of currencies– Spanish dollars, British pounds, old continental dollars, Dutch guilders, French ecu, etc. Many of the individual colonies had their own currencies too, forcing a terrible exchange rate system for which there was no real market or liquidity.

Rural settlers often relied on a barter system, and whiskey became an incredibly popular medium of exchange.

The economy was a complete mess, and Congress thought that a standardized currency would help.

So, Franklin designed a 10.2 gram copper penny– which is about 4x larger than the mostly zinc penny that exists today. On the obverse (front) side are Masonic symbols typical of Franklin, along with the English language motto “MIND YOUR BUSINESS”.

(Historians assume that Franklin used the word “business” literally, like Dr. Spock encouraging his fellow countrymen to work hard and prosper.)

Franklin’s penny did the trick in making commerce easier and more standardized, and the secession talks quickly cooled.

Then the US dollar was formally created a few years later by the Coinage Act of 1792… and for the next several decades, the US monetary system was based on real assets— physical gold, silver, and copper coins.

It wasn’t until the Civil War that the Union government started issuing paper money… though paper dollars back then were really just promissory notes; the text on the 1862 dollar stated, “The United States Will Pay the Bearer ONE DOLLAR at the Treasury in New York”.

So really this paper money represented a claim on real assets owned by the government, i.e. gold and silver coins being held by the US Treasury.

Today’s dollars are obviously no longer backed directly by real assets. However, we discussed earlier this week that, fundamentally, money today still does represent a claim on government assets.

I won’t rehash the entire article, but, in short, currency and government debt (i.e. US dollars and Treasury bonds) are very closely related. From a finance and accounting perspective they are actually both considered “cash equivalents” and can easily change forms into one or the other.

And, legally, owning government bonds ultimately entitles the investor to a claim on the government’s assets; if a sovereign government defaults, investors have legal remedies to satisfy the debt.

This is not uncommon in modern finance. One famous case from 2012 involved a US hedge fund that was seeking repayment from the government of Argentina. Argentina refused to pay, so the fund filed a lawsuit and legally impounded an Argentine naval vessel while it was docked overseas.

Again, this is what money really is today– a claim on government assets.

When everything is fine and stable, this system works pretty well. But it breaks down when there’s a dangerous explosion in government debt and money supply (again, the two are closely linked).

For years, my partner Peter Schiff and I have both made a strong argument that America’s skyrocketing national debt will most likely result in significant US dollar inflation.

And inflation clearly means that money, i.e. the claim on assets, becomes worth less and less.

This is why, when there are obvious signs of a spiral, it’s sensible to consider owning the assets directly, rather than owning a claim on the assets.

Foreign governments are already doing this; they’re ditching their US dollar holdings in favor of real assets. This is why so many governments and central banks have been loading up on gold.

So, what do I mean by real assets? These are the critically important, functionally useful, and scarce resources that a nation and economy need to function, including certain commodities, real estate, technology, and productive businesses.

But it really depends on context. Not all commodities, for example, are real assets… because not all commodities are truly critical.

Gold provides an incredibly important reserve function in global finance. Copper is crucial to human development. Our modern world does not exist without oil and gas.

On the other hand, human civilization would be just fine without sugar, cacao, amber gemstones, and a host of other raw materials.

It’s the same with technology: truly disruptive tech that makes the world better, faster, cheaper, and more productive is important. Swiping, scrolling, time-wasting apps are not important.

I think about this ‘spectrum of importance’ like university majors. Electrical engineering is a really useful and important field. Gender studies isn’t.

We’ve written countless times that the global financial system is shifting before our very eyes. US dominance is waning– and that is an unfortunate yet obvious assertion that I take no pleasure in making.

The US national debt– which the government’s own budget officials project will increase by $20 trillion over the next decade– is about to reach a bifurcation point where it will be unfixable.

On top of that, Social Security is set to run out of money in nine years. And the federal government remains completely dysfunctional.

Peter and I have long argued that the most likely minimum scenario will be major inflation. Don’t expect the government to do anything about it– they’re the ones creating the inflation.

But there’s a time-tested way for individuals to hedge that inflation risk: rather than holding 100% of one’s savings in paper money, i.e. a rapidly depreciating claim on economic resources, consider owning the most vital economic resources directly.

This means real assets that are and will continue to be incredibly important to the economy. And the good news is that many of them are dirt cheap right now. More on this soon.

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The blood was barely dry in the streets outside of the Bastille when the brand-new government of revolutionary France started confiscating assets.

It was November 2, 1789. And by a margin of 508 to 346, France’s fledgling legislators– on both the Left and the Right– voted to nationalize all of the real estate owned by the Catholic church. And that was a LOT of property.

Between the confiscated Church assets, plus the land they had just expropriated from the king only a few weeks earlier, the revolutionary government had seized roughly one-third of France’s entire land mass in less than a month.

But they didn’t stop at asset confiscation.

Remember that France was completely bankrupt at this period in its history; France’s national debt was so high that there wasn’t enough money in the Treasury to even make interest payments, let alone fund normal government operations.

So almost immediately after seizing church lands, the Legislative Assembly hatched a new scheme to bring in much-needed cash: they created a special type of government bond called assignats, which would pay a 5% interest rate and be secured by the confiscated properties.

This idea of an interest-bearing government bond, secured by real estate, proved extremely popular with investors and financiers, and the first issuance of assignats sold out almost instantly.

That first bond sale brought in 400 million livres, which was considered a substantial sum of money at the time. However relative to the size of the French national debt, it was just a drop in the bucket.

(To put this figure in context, 400 million livres would be comparable to the US government raising about $1.5 trillion today– a significant amount, but tiny compared to the $35 trillion national debt.)

France’s politicians swore that the assignat issuance was a one-time thing, with a hard limit of 400 million livres. But naturally it was only a matter of months before they issued another 800 million… then another 400 million, then another 600 million.

You get the idea.

Now, the first issuance was hard. Assignats were considered controversial, and there was a lot of debate and argument among the politicians.

But with each passing issuance, it became easier and easier to authorize more. Eventually there was almost no debate about the dangers of issuing more debt, and the majority of the French government became blind to the risks.

It took less than two years for the amount of assignats in circulation to vastly exceed the value of all the real estate which supposed backed them. And then something very predictable happened.

The thing about assignats is that they became a type of currency in France; rather than use traditional coins like the silver ecu or copper sou, French people began to use assignats as form of paper money.

The government even formally made assignats legal tender in April 1790.

So naturally as more and more assignats surged into the French economy, inflation rose rapidly and soon became a full-blown crisis.

Now I’ll pause here for a moment to highlight the many similarities between this monetary experiment in Revolutionary France and today’s financial system.

In 1789, assignats were technically debt. But they were also a form of money. That is true today as well.

The US government is the largest debtor in the history of the world with a $35 trillion national debt. But its debt securities (i.e. Treasury bonds, notes, and T-bills) are also a form of money.

Obviously, no one buys a coffee at Starbucks with T-bills. But governments and central banks around the world do hold US Treasury bonds as form of savings. Banks and major corporations consider the US government bonds they own as “cash equivalents”. And many large financial transactions are settled by swapping US government bonds.

So, there is still a close relationship between debt and currency.

We can also see the link between debt and inflation; just like the French engineered major inflation in the 1790s by issuing more and more debt, the US government created the highest inflation in 40 years by issuing trillions of dollars of debt during the pandemic.

Another key point is that, just like assignats represented a claim on French government assets, modern debt securities also represent a claim on government assets.

When investors buy US government bonds (or realistically any sovereign bond), they are ultimately investing in the government’s authority to tax, seize, or otherwise commandeer virtually everything in the economy.

In theory if the government were unable to make interest payment or pay back the debt, they would be able to hike tax rates, nationalize businesses, etc. to satisfy creditors.

But as the French case shows, the authority to tax an economy and seize its assets is not infinite; there is a limit on how much an economy can produce… and how much the government can tax and confiscate.

In good times this is rarely a concern. When government debts are low, no one worries about its ability to repay– the claim (i.e. total debt) is trivial relative to the size of the economy.

But as government debts spiral out of control, the claim begins to exceed the value of the assets.

France reached that level in the early 1790s. The US may be reaching that level very soon… which is a major reason why we anticipate the US dollar losing its reserve status over the next few years.

It’s important to understand these financial relationships:

1. Debt and currency (including inflation) are closely linked.
2. Debt ultimately represents a claim on the government’s authority to tax the economy
3. That authority is not infinite
4. Risks pile up when the level of debt exceeds the claim on the economy

This is all somewhat of a technical explanation of why it makes so much sense to consider owning real assets as a hedge against inflation and a ballooning national debt (which, again, are closely linked).

Debt, and hence currency, ultimately represent a claim on economic resources. But when both debt and money supply are out of control, it’s much safer to directly own the economic resource, rather than the claim.

We’ll discuss this more later in the week.

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Rumor has it the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Lina “Genghis” Khan, has set her wrath on a major US liquor distributor for the egregious crime of selling in bulk.

The company in the path Khan’s fury is called Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits; they distribute alcohol to bars and restaurants across the country… and like any rational business, they offer discounts for large, bulk purchases.

Some guy who stops off at a gas station to buy a Corona beer is obviously going to pay a higher price (per beer) than a huge restaurant chain that buys tens of thousands of Corona bottles at a time.

But to Genghis Khan, all prices should be the same.

A mom-and-pop shop that buys a few dozen at a time versus a major retailer than buys thousands of cases, should pay the exact same price per unit.

Not only does Genghis Khan not understand this very basic business principle… but she’s apparently never been to Costco either.

Costco has 100+ million members, and Sam’s Club has 50+ million members, all of whom understand that when you buy in bulk, you should pay a lower unit price… and hence save a lot of money.

What rock has she been living under that she can’t understand why bulk purchases result in substantial cost savings?

It’s the rock known as academia— in which Genghis Khan spent her entire adult career writing strongly-worded papers about the dangers of competition and capitalism, before being hired by Joe Biden to run the FTC.

It’s clear that if she gets her way, Genghis Khan will only succeed in driving up prices even further.

In fact the obscure law that Genghis Khan is using to justify her raid on Southern Glazer’s is called Robinson-Patman Act, which dates back to 1936.

Congress passed it over nine decades ago to help protect small grocery stores who were suffering from rising food prices due to the Dust Bowl. It states that suppliers cannot “discriminate in price” among their customers… and from Day 1 it was a terrible idea.

The government’s own analysis showed that the Robinson-Patman Act actually caused prices to increase, rather than keep them stable or fall. Perhaps this is why no one has bothered to enforce the Robinson-Patman Act in decades.

But Genghis Khan is resurrecting this old law to drive prices higher in America. And it’s not even her first effort to do so.

A few months ago I wrote about her lawsuit to block a proposed merger between two grocery store chains: Albertsons and Kroger.

The crux of Khan’s argument— which she offered zero evidence to substantiate— was that the merger “may lead to higher prices and reduced services for consumers.”

Sure, why not. It might also lead to alien invasions or the Dallas Cowboys actually winning the Superbowl.

But if Khan had any business sense whatsoever, she’d recognize that a merger between two grocery store chains would create substantial cost savings— savings which would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices.

A merger also allows the combined chain to remain competitive against the vast amount of competition in the grocery industry— from Amazon and Walmart, to farmers’ markets and co-ops.

Competition is one of the key forces of capitalism that helps keep costs down. Competition forces companies to cut costs, innovate, and provide more value to customers.

But Khan is always trying to disrupt that competition. It’s the opposite of what she should be doing.

That she fails to understand such basic principles is pretty scary given her substantial level of authority. Seriously, how out of touch do you have to be to not understand bulk discounts?

New parents don’t go to 7/11 to buy a few diapers at $1.50 each. They buy the 192-pack at Costco for 23 cents each.

Genghis Khan was never elected. She has never run a business or even worked in the private sector. She is as unqualified to run the FTC as she would be to run NASA or the US military.

And yet Joe Biden thought it a good idea to give her an enormous amount of power to destroy competition and make things more expensive.

I also have to point out whenever I talk about Genghis Khan that she’s widely disliked within her own agency and appears to be a terrible boss.

An internal government investigation showed that Khan consistently mismanaged government resources and abused her authority. Career professionals within the FTC said that she is “making decisions for headlines” as opposed to following the law.

The investigation also found that the FTC is “beset by dysfunction and chaos stemming from poor leadership and ideological bullying of its Chair and her leadership staff. These findings reinforce the results of repeated government-wide surveys that found the FTC to have a toxic work environment under Chair Khan.”

That’s the energy that Genghis Khan and her inflationary horde are bringing to the US economy in their efforts to stifle competition and keep inflation high.

Frankly it is beyond comprehension how this person has not been impeached by Congress. And that’s another good reason to have a Plan B.

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