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Authored by Timofey Bordachev via vz.ru,

Only a few years ago, most of Western Europe seemed like a fortress of stability in international politics. With robust economies, solid social systems, and the grand edifice of “European integration,” it gave an impression of permanence, impervious even to major geopolitical upheavals.

Now, however, it has become an inexhaustible source of peculiar headlines and confusion.

We see endless talk of sending “European peacekeepers” to Ukraine, drawn-out dramas over forming a government in France, or pre-election storms in a teacup in Germany. There are attempts to meddle in the Middle East, and above all, a deluge of irresponsible, often meaningless statements from Western European politicians. For outsiders, these developments provoke a mix of bemusement and concern.

In Russia, the Western side of our shared continent’s apparent decline is met with suspicion but also a certain sadness. For centuries, Western Europe has been both an existential threat and a source of inspiration for Russia. Peter the Great famously reformed the country to borrow the best from European thoughts and culture. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union, despite great sacrifices, secured victory over Nazi Germany during World War II. And for many Russians, Western Europe has long been an “Eden,” offering respite from what were often harsh realities back home.

But a Western Europe that is economically unstable, politically chaotic, and intellectually stagnant is no longer the same as what once inspired reforms or envy. It’s no longer a place Russia can look to as a neighbor worth emulating or even fearing.

How the rest of the world sees ‘Europe’

For most of the world, Western Europe’s problems provoke only curiosity. Major powers like China and India are happy to trade with its various countries and benefit from its technology and investment. But if Western Europe were to disappear from the global stage tomorrow, it wouldn’t disrupt their plans for the future. These nations are vast civilizations in their own right, historically shaped far more by internal dynamics than by European influence.

Meanwhile, African and Arab nations still view Western Europe through the lens of colonialism. For them, its decline is of material interest but little emotional consequence. Türkiye sees European countries as prey, aging and weakened rivals. Even the United States, a supposed ally, approaches the continent’s crises with a businesslike detachment, focused solely on how to maximize its own interests at Europe’s expense.

Why is this happening to Europe?

It’s tempting to blame Western Europe’s odd behavior on the degeneration of its elites. After decades under US patronage, its leaders have lost the ability to think critically or strategically. The end of the Cold War allowed them to govern without serious competition, leading to complacency and mediocrity. Many of the brightest minds went into business, leaving politics to those less capable. As a result, Western European foreign policy departments now resemble provincial bureaucracies, out of touch with global realities.

The expansion of the EU in the early 2000s, which brought in several small former Eastern European nations, only exacerbated this problem. Their provincial outlook often dominates discussions, reducing complex issues to simplistic, parochial concerns. Today, Western Europe’s politicians are adept at convincing the world – and perhaps even themselves – of their own incompetence.

But the root of the problem runs deeper. Western Europe faces a growing contradiction: its political insignificance clashes with its still-considerable material wealth and intellectual legacy. For centuries, its countries have accumulated vast resources and developed unparalleled intellectual traditions. Yet its strategic irrelevance renders these assets useless. Even France’s nuclear arsenal, once a symbol of power, now garners little respect on the world stage.

Germany, the EU’s economic powerhouse, exemplifies this impotence. Despite its wealth, it has failed to translate economic strength into political influence, even over its own affairs. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022, allegedly at the hands of its American allies, symbolizes the bloc’s inability to defend its interests or hold its partners accountable.

The United Kingdom, often touted as Western Europe’s most active foreign policy player, plays this role largely under American patronage. Brexit, for all its drama, did little to change this dynamic.

A century of decline

More than 100 years after the First World War dismantled Europe’s empires, the continent finds itself with resources it can no longer wield. The EU’s most recent foreign policy “victory” — the difficult absorption of impoverished Moldova — highlights its limitations. Meanwhile, Georgia, with its defiant government, remains beyond Brussels’ grasp. Even in the Balkans, the EU’s influence is limited to countries subdued by NATO and completely encircled by the US-led geopolitical order.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of modern Western Europe is its lack of reflection. Even the continent’s intellectual elite seems to live behind a wall of denial, detached from reality. This attitude extends to domestic politics, where the rise of non-mainstream parties is dismissed as voters “choosing the wrong way.” In foreign policy, its leaders continue to act as though their opinions still shape global politics, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

The EU states march on, oblivious to their diminishing power and the shifting global environment. In theory, such persistence might seem admirable. But world politics is not a Glass Bead Game, as Hermann Hesse would have put it, and clinging to outdated behaviors will only hasten Western Europe’s decline. At some point, even its vast material and intellectual wealth will no longer be enough to sustain it.

What comes next?

For Russia, Western Europe’s intellectual and moral stagnation presents both challenges and questions. Historically, the EU was a neighbor that inspired reforms and shaped foreign policy strategies. But how does one engage with a declining power that refuses to acknowledge its own fall? And if the bloc is no longer a meaningful counterpart, who will become Russia’s new “unifying other”?

These are questions Russia must answer as it navigates a world where Western Europe’s influence continues to wane. Whatever the answer, it’s clear that its era of dominance is over. Its decline is undeniable – even if Western Europeans themselves refuse to see it.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

“The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.”

That is the shocking, but true, statement issued by Nigel Farage (on X) as a digital counter on the Reform website showed its membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Tories during their leadership election earlier this year.

Farage went to describe this as a “historic moment”:

“Reform U.K. are now the real opposition.”

He also shared a video of him celebrating the news at a Boxing Day hunt yesterday morning.

This is an historic moment.

The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.

Reform UK are now the real opposition. pic.twitter.com/t8SOHThxp3

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 26, 2024

As The Daily Mail reports, the result comes off the back of a successful year for Reform with the party claiming five seats in the General Election in July, including Mr. Farage taking Clacton.

The party also finished in second place in a whopping 98 seats and played a key role in splitting the Conservative vote.

Responding to the surge in membership numbers, Party chairman Zia Yusuf said:

“History has been made today, as the centuries-long stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics by the Tories has finally been broken.

“Nigel Farage will be the next prime minister, and will return Britain to greatness.”

There were 131,680 Conservative members eligible to vote during the party’s leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak in autumn.

The figure, revealed as Kemi Badenoch was announced leader on November 2nd, was the lowest Tory level on record and a drop from the 2022 leadership contest when there were around 172,000 members.

Merry Christmas @KemiBadenoch. pic.twitter.com/XtuHgwhQ4W

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 26, 2024

A Conservative Party spokesman said:

“Reform has delivered a Labour Government that has cruelly cut winter fuel winter payments for 10 million pensioners, put the future of family farming and food security at risk, and launched a devastating raid on jobs which will leave working people paying the price.

“A vote for Reform this coming May is a vote for a Labour council – only the Conservatives can stop this.”

Reform’s overtake of the Conservative Party’s membership numbers comes amid claims that Elon Musk is poised to donate $100 million to the party.

Mr Farage revealed that “money was discussed” in his meeting with Mr Musk, telling The Times: “We are in negotiations about whether he can help. He is fully behind this.”

 

Authored by Alexander Liao, Olivia Li and Sean Tseng via The Epoch Times,

The fall of the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria could destabilize the partnerships between China, Russia, and Iran – a loose coalition driven by shared opposition to Western powers.

For starters, the three countries have been key backers of the al-Assad regime. Their weakened support significantly contributed to Assad’s collapse of power.

Russia, where Assad is in exile, has been a major supporter, providing military aid and deploying mercenaries to bolster the regime.

Yet more than two years of war in Ukraine have strained Russian resources. Although Russia still held naval and air bases in Syria, its ability to assist Assad was limited.

Iran, too, has played a vital role by giving direct financial and military help. But Iran has been hit hard by sanctions and its proxies have been incapacitated by Israel, reducing its capacity to aid Syria.

Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas have been impaired by Israel after Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel in October last year. In September, Israel’s alleged detonation of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon severely impaired confidence in the group’s leadership.

China has backed Assad by vetoing United Nations resolutions against his regime and by offering investments and aid, and no direct military assistance has been reported. The Chinese Communist regime has historically been opportunistic in backing anti-Western regimes. When the strategic or economic costs became too high, Chinese support tended to shift.

The opposing forces in today’s world echo the arguments of the late Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington, who wrote “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” published in 1996.

The scholar predicted two major global blocs: one led by the United States and its Western allies and the other by China, supported by Russia and several Islamic countries. Although his description of post-Cold War conflicts seemed remotely possible when his book was published, today’s global geopolitical landscape resonates with his vision.

Syria’s future is still uncertain. Should it descend into a failed state, it could mirror a post-2001 Afghanistan or present-day Yemen characterized by lawlessness, internal conflict, and lack of central governance.

This scenario would disrupt the strategic interests of Russia, Iran, and China. For instance, Russia has already begun large-scale withdrawal from Syria. At the same time, Iran is seeing its land corridor to Lebanon compromised, a route crucial for the movement of military personnel, weapons, and resources to Hezbollah. Communist China sees a setback in its political influence in Syria, which joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, or global infrastructure investment program, in 2022—not a single project has been announced.

The international landscape could shift again after Donald Trump returns to the White House. His administration might quickly seek to end conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Wrapping up the Russia–Ukraine war would also terminate the “no limits friendship” between China and Russia, drastically changing their relationship. A more hawkish U.S. administration might concentrate on confronting the Chinese regime, which it sees as a chief rival. Such a move would strike a heavy blow to the anti-Western bloc of China, Russia, and their Middle East allies.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Bernard Hudson via The American Mind,

The radical racial ideology has infiltrated the Agency…

Under the best of circumstances, it is difficult for any intelligence service to collect, analyze, and produce actionable, predictive data for a nation’s leadership. This task is made considerably harder when lockstep adherence to a fringe political ideology is imposed upon the workforce tasked with carrying out this challenging mission.

Unfortunately, this is the situation the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community are in: to America’s detriment, their leadership enthusiastically imposed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology upon their employees.

To underscore how deeply DEI has metastasized inside the host, in a recent enlightening and publicly available statement, the CIA’s Chief DEI officer said there are three criteria by which an intelligence officer can be promoted at America’s most important foreign intelligence service. Only one of them is related to mission impact.

The others are a rather vague “corporate mindset”—and DEI.

Of the three, adherence to the cant of DEI is the most important; those who do not vocally and unreservedly support it are denied promotions and meaningful assignments. Like rallies held by authoritarian regimes, you do not want to be the first to stop clapping at the approved, serial pronouncements.

It’s ironic that a CIA created to oppose the Soviet Union would embrace the ideological straitjacket that is DEI, an enterprise that uncomfortably mirrors the USSR’s political commissars. Guardians of the party’s orthodoxy, the commissars were coequal with the leadership inside the government agencies where they were assigned, holding considerable sway over who was promoted and who got what assignments. While they were successful for some time in keeping the ruling clique in power, their endless purity tests and unreviewable power helped breed endemic cynicism among the government workers who had to play along to keep their jobs. It accelerated the systemic, institutional incompetence that plagued the Soviet Union to the end of its unlamented run.

Since DEI, the uniquely American take on the USSR’s commissar system, has been imposed on the Intelligence Community, there has been sufficient time to evaluate its impact on its mission, which is the only metric by which any intelligence service’s value should be measured. Using that standard, there are three conclusions we can draw about the effect DEI has had—and none of them are positive.

First, DEI does not fill a gap in the law; it is a quota system masquerading as equal opportunity. It is important to recall that the DEI enterprise has been imposed upon a federal workforce that already operated under long-existing regulations which mandate fair treatment of all employees. The modern U.S. Intelligence Community had successfully built an environment where anyone could succeed, provided they were willing to work hard and make sacrifices, two concepts one almost never hears uttered by DEI’s most vocal proponents.

As it has come to be practiced, one of DEI’s major outputs has been to combine the outside consultant’s mania for numbers with the fervor of heresy-seeking.

At every administrative level, the modern IC seeks to know and document the race, sexual orientation, county of national origin, disability, and age of anyone seeking promotion or a new assignment. This information is apparently formally incorporated into every Human Resources panel, which has determinative power over the vast majority of assignments and promotions. Findings which do not match the vague and ever-changing standards are almost certainly identified as requiring remedy. (Of course, vague and unreviewable standards are the hallmark of how DEI is practiced within the federal government.) The remedy frequently imposed involves adjusting the recommendations of promotion and assignments panels to make them compliant with the current orthodoxy. This means that assignments, promotions, and opportunities will go to individuals less qualified than other candidates in order to serve the alleged greater good.

Second, as it is driven by a core belief that much within institutions is oppressive and unfair, DEI fuels an institutionally distracting grievance culture. Because it seeks to measure personnel outcomes based more on fringe identity politics than on mission impact, it provides a ready-made tool for anyone to challenge a strictly merit-based promotion and assignments system. Anyone who has served at a senior level in the federal government understands (even if they will not publicly speak of it) that there is a wide disparity between the top performers in their workforce and the bottom quintile.

Because DEI prioritizes identity, including self-identity, over mission impact, it has tended to encourage a culture where the least capable workers demand the most of the senior management’s time and attention. Rather than focus on supporting the top performing employees who drive outsized gains in every human institution (including federal agencies), senior managers must constantly navigate an ever-growing number of grievance claims—many of dubious validity and any of which, if mishandled, could harm or derail that senior official’s career.

This creates a peculiar work environment, where the senior-most managers are increasingly evaluated more through the lens of how their less capable and more aggrieved employees view them, rather than by the mission value those senior managers bring to the challenging task of understanding and clandestinely confronting America’s adversaries.

Finally, DEI is a thought-and-sentiment-monitoring mechanism, allowing a fraction of the IC’s non-operational and non-analytical workforce to reach into any level of an organization and assess the personnel and operations of that office against DEI’s blurry and ever-changing goals. Combined with the grievance-seeking culture which is always DEI’s fellow traveler, it creates an informant culture which seeks out alleged non-compliance at every level of an organization with a zeal that would impress the early Soviet Union’s counter-intelligence apparatus.

It is almost certainly less career threatening in the modern CIA to dispute findings related to the plans and intentions of America’s key foreign adversaries than it is to show anything less than full support for the DEI apparatus. No doubt or heresy will go unnoticed or unaddressed. It is not unreasonable to assume that, for senior managers, many types of mission failure would probably be more survivable than being assessed as unsupportive of DEI.

The tragedy is that the CIA, and the broader IC, have incredible capabilities, but none of those are enhanced by the dangerous, fringe orthodoxy that is the modern DEI machine. Abolishing that apparatus will improve the only metric that should matter when evaluating an intelligence service: how well it collects and produces foreign intelligence and how effectively it gives America’s enemies pause.

This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, tracks the share of U.S. households by annual income bracket from 1967 to 2023.

All annual income is in 2023 dollars, adjusted for inflation, but not for cost of living differences.

Data is sourced from the Census Bureau, published 2024.

Americans Are Making More Money Than Ever Before

Incomes for American households have grown quite a bit in the last six decades.

In 1967, nearly one-third of households made less than $35,000 a year (adjusted to 2023 dollars), and in 2023, that’s fallen to one-fifth.

Here’s the share of households per income bracket for every year since 1967. Categories have been combined from the original source and all figures are rounded. As a result percentages may not sum exactly to 100.

Year	Under $35K	$35K–100K	$100K-200K	Over $200K
1967	31.3	54.4	12.7	1.7
1968	29.7	54.4	14.3	1.6
1969	29.1	52.8	16.2	1.9
1970	29.6	52.3	16.2	2
1971	30.2	51.8	16.1	1.9
1972	29.1	50.4	18.0	2.5
1973	28.6	49.4	19.3	2.7
1974	28.9	50.4	18.3	2.4
1975	30.4	50.1	17.2	2.2
1976	29.7	49.7	18.3	2.4
1977	29.8	48.7	18.9	2.6
1978	28.8	48.3	20.0	3.0
1978	28.8	48.3	20.0	3.0
1979	28.4	48.4	20.1	3.1
1980	29.8	48.0	19.4	2.7
1980	29.8	48.0	19.4	2.7
1980	29.8	48.0	19.4	2.6
1981	30.4	47.9	19.1	2.6
1982	30.6	47.6	18.7	3.1
1983	30.4	47.3	19.2	3.2
1984	29.5	46.6	20.4	3.6
1985	29.0	46.4	20.8	3.8
1985	29.0	46.4	20.8	3.8
1986	28.0	45.5	22.0	4.5
1987	27.8	45.1	22.5	4.7
1988	27.2	45.2	22.6	5.0
1989	26.9	44.7	23.1	5.4
1989	26.9	44.7	23.1	5.4
1990	27.1	45.5	22.4	5.1
1991	28.0	45.1	22.0	4.9
1992	28.8	44.2	22.1	4.9
1993	28.7	44.1	21.8	5.4
1994	28.6	43.7	22.0	5.8
1995	27.4	44.0	22.8	5.8
1996	27.2	43.2	23.4	6.3
1997	26.3	43	23.8	6.9
1998	25.1	42.6	24.7	7.7
1999	24.6	41.6	25.5	8.3
2000	24.2	41.8	25.5	8.6
2001	24.9	41.9	24.9	8.4
2002	25.2	37.1	25.1	8.1
2003	25.7	41.0	24.8	8.4
2004	25.6	41.4	24.6	8.4
2005	25.2	41.5	24.6	8.8
2006	24.6	41.3	24.9	9.2
2007	24.6	40.9	25.3	9.1
2008	25.9	40.7	24.6	8.8
2009	26.1	41.4	24.0	8.8
2010	27.1	40.6	23.7	8.6
2011	27.3	41.4	23.0	8.4
2012	27.4	40.8	23.4	8.4
2013	26.8	39.6	23.6	9.8
2014	26.8	39.8	23.7	9.8
2015	25.3	39.0	25.2	10.5
2016	24.2	39.5	24.9	11.5
2017	23.8	38.7	25.4	12.1
2018	23.0	39.2	25.6	12.3
2019	21.0	38.0	26.5	14.6
2020	21.8	38.1	25.8	14.2
2021	22.7	37.1	25.7	14.4
2022	22.7	38.5	26.0	12.9
2023	21.0	38.1	26.5	14.4

Meanwhile, the other end of the spectrum is seeing growth in the bracket size. In 1967, fewer than 2% of American households made more than $200,000 per year. In 2023, that number had risen to 15%.

Of course, there’s an increase in labor to also be accounted for. Six decades ago, only one-third of all U.S. households had all parents working. By 2009, the situation had reversed.

What This Chart Doesn’t Tell Us

Lastly, looking at incomes is only one half of the story. It doesn’t account for how prices of goods and services have changed relative to growing incomes.

Houses for example cost about 3x the median income in 1967, and in 2022 cost nearly 6x the median income.

However, the vast majority of consumer goods are much cheaper now, relative to incomes, due to how manufacturing has moved out to other parts of the world.

Food is also much cheaper, dropping from 15% of household income in 1967, to around 7% in 2022 – the year when record food inflation had pushed prices up.

Naturally, incomes vary quite a lot across the country. Check out Mapped: Median Income by State in 2024 to see by how much.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

We live in a society where a significant chunk of the population feels painfully alone much of the time.  It is an epidemic that has enormous mental, emotional and spiritual implications, and it is one of the clearest signs that we are a society that is coming apart at the seams.  One of the primary reasons why there is so much loneliness in our society is because the institution of the family is in decline.  Today, the proportion of the population that is single and childless is at an all-time high, and the proportion of the population that is married with children is at an all-time low.  How can anyone possibly claim that we are headed for a bright future when we are facing such alarming societal trends?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 40 percent of Americans report feeling lonely at least some of the time…

The latest version of the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey — a broad gauge of the economic and social issues affecting American households — found some not-so-surprising news: Americans are lonely.

The survey conducted between August 20 and September 16 reported that 1 in 8 people (12.6%) was feeling lonely either “always” or “usually,” including nearly a quarter (23.3%) of the younger population (those aged 18 to 29). Since the Household Pulse Survey at the start of the year, slightly more people are now feeling lonely a lot of the time. 40% of people reported feeling lonely at least sometimes.

Those are very troubling numbers.

But of course others that have studied our epidemic of loneliness have come up with similar numbers.

In fact, a report put out by the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that close to half of the U.S. population experiences feelings of loneliness…

Last year, the US Surgeon General released a worrying report about the deep sense of loneliness that many Americans are experiencing. The report, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” found that approximately 50 percent of adults in the country are feeling lonely, and that people of all ages are spending significantly less time with others.

The findings have profound implications for the health of the country. Being lonely or socially isolated puts people at heightened risk for a number of serious illnesses—the report estimates it to be the health equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day—including depression, cardiovascular disease, and dementia.

Those that feel lonely on a regular basis are far more likely to develop serious illnesses, and they are far more likely to die early.

So this is a crisis that we should be taking very seriously.

One survey actually discovered that the proportion of men that do not have any close friends has increased “fivefold since 1990”…

Who are the loneliest people in America?

American men were said to be in a “friendship recession,” with a survey finding the number of men without any close friends increased fivefold since 1990.

Have you ever wondered why so many older Americans seem so sad much of the time?

Well, now you know.

People are yearning for human connection, and Google search trends prove this…

So it’s no wonder there’s been a rise in running clubs, knitting groups, pickleball, and more, as people search — quite literally — for ways to meet new people. Google searches for terms like “how to meet people” and “where to make friends” are at or near an all time high.

Somewhere along the way, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

And I believe that it starts with the institution of the family.

In 1940, just 7.7 percent of all U.S. households were one person households, but by 2020 that figure had jumped to 27.6 percent…

Over a quarter (27.6%) of all U.S. occupied households were one-person households in 2020, up from just 7.7% in 1940, according to recently released 2020 Census data.

The share of people living alone increased every decade from 1940 to 2020 (Figure 1). The largest increase happened between 1970 and 1980, when the share increased from 17.6% to 22.7%.

We were not meant to live alone.

But now more Americans than ever are doing just that.  Just look at this insane chart…

Sadly, this decade that trend has continued.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, right now 29 percent of all U.S. households are one person households…

In 2024, there were 38.5 million one-person households, which was 29% of all U.S. households. In 1974, one-person households represented only 19% of all households.

The reason why there are so many one person households now is because almost half of all U.S. adults are not married…

From nationalsinglesday.us, “Did you know that 46.4% of U.S. adults are single according to the U.S. Census Bureau? That’s 117.6 million unmarried Americans – nearly every other adult aged 18 and over. This includes those who are divorced or widowed as well as those who have never married. National Singles Day is observed each year during Unmarried and Single Americans Week.”

More than ever before, Americans are rejecting traditional norms regarding marriage and family.

In fact, the proportion of the population that is single and childless now exceeds the proportion of the population that is married with children.  A chart that Brad Wilcox just posted absolutely blew me away…

The chart above makes it abundantly clear that we are a dying society.

Our birth rate has been under replacement level for a long time because so many Americans don’t want to get married and don’t want to have children.

Sadly, our entire culture has become anti-marriage, anti-family and anti-children to a very large degree.

If we do not reverse the insidious trends that have corrupted our culture, we have no hope of defeating the epidemic of loneliness that we are currently facing.

Humans are meant to love and to be loved, and that is one of the reasons why the traditional family unit is an absolutely vital societal institution.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Bloomberg’s Emily Chang asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an exclusive interview at their estate in Lake Tahoe about a 4,500-square-foot underground structure – considered by some as a ‘doomsday bunker‘ – at his 1,500-acre ranch in Kauai, Hawaii. 

Chang asked: “You do have a bunker there; is there something you know that we don’t?” 

Zuckerberg’s response was priceless because he denied it was a doomsday bunker, calling it a “little shelter … basement.” 

The billionaire said his whole ranch “got blown out of proportion as if it was some kind of doomsday bunker, which is just not true.” 

In late 2023, Wired revealed that Zuckerberg’s bunker was around 4,500 square feet, equipped with a “blast-resistant door” and enough food for the tech bro and friends to survive an apocalypse. 

So, what does Zuckerberg know about future world events coming down the pipe?

Well, read Free Press Jay Solomon’s latest note, “Is World War III Already Here?”

Not everyone is a billionaire who can afford the luxury of a custom bunker. However, Zillow recently listed an affordable option: a bunker in an old missile silo in Missouri with EMP shielding and one in Kansas for under a million dollars. 

Authored by Joshua Mawhorter via The Mises Institute,

Santa Claus is a magical and benevolent figure who is able to produce and distribute gifts to children every Christmas Eve at no cost to the recipients.

But many economists and people in the general public mistake the political state for Santa Claus for failure to recognize the nature of government and one of the most basic rules of economics – a government has no resources of its own and cannot “give” with one hand what has not first been taken by the other.

In a recent Mises lecture, Joseph Salerno elucidated how politicians, many mainstream economists, and the general public operate according to the fallacious “Santa Claus principle” rather than the economic realities of scarcity, opportunity cost, trade-offs, production preceding consumption, and the nature of intervention. Salerno explains,

The central principle of economics is that the means for improving human well-being—what economists call “goods”—are naturally scarce and must be produced before they can be used to satisfy human wants. The scarcity principle also implies that, once produced, goods cannot be bestowed on one person without depriving some other person or persons of their use. In other words, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The state and its friends reject the scarcity principle and uphold its polar opposite, the Santa Claus principle… (emphasis added)

Government, by its very nature, cannot act as Santa Claus. It does not have a magical source of production and distribution of goods, it can only expropriate the prior production of others. All its actions of “production” are really acts of consumption and rearrangement of resources. Also quoted by Dr. Salerno, Mises and Fredric Bastiat, respectively, express the same principle,

…[at] the bottom of the interventionist argument there is always the idea that the government or the state is an entity outside and above the social process of production, that it owns something which is not derived from taxing its subjects, and that it can spend this mythical something for definite purposes. This is the Santa Claus fable raised by Lord Keynes to the dignity of an economic doctrine and enthusiastically endorsed by all those who expect personal advantage from government spending. As against these popular fallacies there is need to emphasize the truism that a government can spend or invest only what it takes away from its citizens…

While government has no power to make people more prosperous by interference with business, it certainly does have the power to make them less satisfied by restriction of production. (emphasis added)

Here the public, on the one side, the state on the other, are considered as two distinct entities, the latter intent upon pouring down on the former…a veritable shower of human felicities [like Christmas gifts]…. The fact is the state does not and cannot have one hand only. It has two hands, one to take and the other to give…. Strictly speaking, the state can take and not give…. [because] its hands… always retain a part, and sometimes the whole, of what they touch. But what has never been seen, what will never be seen and cannot even be conceived, is the state giving the public more than it has taken from it…. (emphasis added)

Dr. Salerno, Mises, and Bastiat all expose the often “unseen” costs of government intervention. The government is not and cannot be Santa Claus. Unlike Santa, governments necessarily must coercively extract scarce resources prior to distributing “gifts” to anyone.

Mises used Santa Claus several times as a way to teach economic realities. Politicians, several economists and economic schools of thought (e.g., especially those in the current vogue MMT school), and the general public need to learn that that state is not and cannot be Santa Claus. Mises said that, “No government, whether democratic or dictatorial, can free itself from the sway of the generally accepted ideology.” Thus, a danger in popular government and democracy is “the [widespread proliferation of] doctrines which aim at substituting the Santa Claus conception of government.”

What is more subtle, however, is that many politicians, economists, and laymen somewhat understand literal scarcity and trade-offs, but most do not understand the complex, painstaking development and importance of a capital structure. Thankfully, one does not have to understand the capital structure to benefit from it, but the presumption of the existence and maintenance of a capital structure can lead a society to assume it as a given and decide on policies of large-scale capital consumption which lead to economic destructionism. Says Mises,

The Santa Claus fables of the welfare school [and others] are characterized by their complete failure to grasp the problems of capital. It is precisely this defect that makes it imperative to deny them the appellation welfare economics with which they describe their doctrines. He who does not take into consideration the scarcity of capital goods available is not an economist, but a fabulist. He does not deal with reality but with a fabulous world of plenty. All the effusions of the contemporary welfare school are, like those of the socialist authors, based on the implicit assumption that there is an abundant supply of capital goods. Then, of course, it seems easy to find a remedy for all ills, to give to everybody “according to his needs” and to make everyone perfectly happy.

Mises sensibly realized that the social philosophies justifying interventionism and believing that the state was Santa Claus terminate in distortions of the price and capital structure, waste, and economic regression. Eventually, by assuming the Grinch was really Santa, Christmas is “stolen.” Mises explains the inevitable conclusion of such philosophies,

An essential point in the social philosophy of interventionism is the existence of an inexhaustible fund which can be squeezed forever. The whole doctrine of interventionism collapses when this fountain is drained off. The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself.

The Grinch!

No, the state is not Santa Claus. In fact, the state is more akin to the Grinch!

The Grinch hated the Whos down in Whoville and their yearly exuberant celebration of Christmas, thus he hatched a plan to steal from the Whos everything Santa brought, everything pertaining to Christmas, and even their other possessions. Having a change of heart (by it growing three sizes), the Grinch returned the gifts and possessions to the Whos. He was treated as a hero and benefactor, and even invited to participate in their Christmas celebration. We can assume that the Whos did not really believe that the Grinch had furnished them with gifts by returning stolen goods, but rather honored his penitence.

What lessons are we to learn from the Grinch? That a returner of stolen goods is heroic? What if—being tricked by his return of stolen items—the Whos thought the Grinch was awesome, a generous benefactor of gifts at no cost to them?

They would—like the general public and many so-called economists—be duped into believing that the expropriator who had taken their production and possessions, then returned them, was a magical Santa Claus-figure who could magically distribute gifts. At least the Grinch only did this once, felt remorse, returned everything he had taken, did not do it again, did not attempt to deceive the Whos into thinking that he was an independent, magical gift-giver, and did not morally lecture the Whos into believing that all he did was to their benefit.

On the other hand, the state takes regularly, keeps part of what it takes even as it rearranges and “gives,” allows people to think that government provides these “gifts,” and that this is all for the benefit of the recipients.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, visualizes data from recent Consumer Reports surveys on car brand satisfaction and reliability.

Rivian, BMW, and Tesla were the three most satisfying brands in 2024, but far from the most reliable. In terms of reliability, Japanese brands like Subaru, Lexus, and Toyota came out on top.

Data and Key Takeaway

The underlying data behind these rankings is listed in the tables below.

Satisfaction is represented as the share of owners who would buy another car from the same brand, while reliability is based on Consumer Reports’ proprietary survey data.

Note: several brands were left out due to insufficient data. These are: Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Lucid, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Mitsubishi, Polestar, Porsche, Ram.

A key takeaway from this data is that owner satisfaction isn’t necessarily tied to reliability. For example, both EV brands in this survey (Tesla and Rivian) scored very highly in satisfaction, but poorly in reliability.

On the other hand, brands like Acura and Mazda rank highly in reliability, but lower in satisfaction.

There are limitations to this data, of course. Satisfaction is highly subjective and prone to bias (e.g. Rivian is a new brand that caters to a specific demographic), while reliability is a complex metric that can be difficult to properly gauge.

Rivian satisfies, Volkswagen disappoints

Consumer Reports also highlights which brands satisfy owners within specific areas. Rivian ranked the highest in terms of comfort, usability, and ownership costs (which are typically lower for EVs).

Meanwhile, Volkswagen ranked the lowest in terms of driving experience and usability. Audi, another VW group brand, ranked lowest in terms of cabin storage.

It’s interesting to note that Rivian and Volkswagen have recently joined forces to share EV platform technology.

If you enjoyed this graphic, check out Global Car Production by Country on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Bangladesh’s new US-backed ruling arrangement initiated a graft probe into their country’s Russian-built Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) on the basis that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her relatives allegedly embezzled $5 billion from this $12.65 billion project financed 90% by Russian loans.

Rosatom immediately denied these accusations and claimed that they’re just a means to discredit Russia’s top investment in Bangladesh. Here’s their full statement as reported by TASS:

“Rosatom is committed to a policy of openness and the principle of combating corruption in all its projects and maintains a transparent procurement system. External audits regularly confirm the openness of the business processes of the project. Rosatom State Corporation is ready to defend its interests and reputation in court. We consider false statements in the media as an attempt to discredit the Rooppur NPP project, which is being implemented to solve the country’s energy supply problems and is aimed at improving the well-being of the people of Bangladesh.”

This analysis from over the summer about how “The West Can’t Compete With Russia’s ‘Nuclear Diplomacy’”, which was written in response to the Financial Times’ attack at the time against the RNPP, explains more in detail how Rosatom empowers its partner countries through preferential terms. The latest graft allegations are therefore indeed meant to discredit this project, but there’s more to them that’ll now be touched upon in this analysis.

The new ruling arrangement in Bangladesh seized power with the US’ support by orchestrating a Color Revolution that briefly turned into a spree of urban terrorism before toppling the government. It’s accordingly indebted to its patron and incapable of making any major decisions without its approval. This latest policy of investigating alleged graft connected to the RNPP is merely a ploy for achieving several objectives simultaneously.

These are discrediting Hasina; discrediting Russia; possibly inflicting serious financial damage upon the aforesaid if the new ruling arrangement refuses to pay back most of Bangladesh’s loan on this pretext; discrediting Rosatom; and thus giving the US an unfair edge in its NPP competition with Russia. This faux investigation is already being exploited by Western media to misportray Russia and its state NPP company as corrupt, which works to the benefit of their American and other Western competitors.

The purpose is to create a false precedent that can then be weaponized to scare other countries away from doing business with Rosatom on the basis that doing so would cast aspersions on that government’s commitment to anti-corruption practices. Those that want to build NPPs will then be pressured to consider more expensive Western contracts with worse terms in order to avoid the negative Western coverage that would accompany choosing Rosatom instead.

Any government that still decides to do business with Rosatom over its Western competitors will then have to brace itself for an intense Western information warfare campaign that’ll be lent false credibility by the involvement of Western-financed “NGOs” within their society. They’ll aim to mislead average folks about the government’s integrity by reminding them of the false RNPP precedent to make people think that their leaders are also plotting to siphon off billions from their publicly financed deal with Russia.

A low level of unrest might follow that could then be scaled appropriately depending on the authorities’ response such as if they resort to forceful measures for restoring control in the event that a riot erupts. That’s not to say that a Color Revolution will immediately follow the clinching of any agreement with Rosatom, but just that whichever governments still decide to do business with them will have their reputations impugned through these means and this could then fuel more unrest at a later date.

Bangladesh’s new ruling arrangement shouldn’t go along with their American patrons’ games since the country truly needs the affordable energy that’ll be generated by the RNPP. Throwing this strategic project’s future in jeopardy as a favor for being placed into power is arguably treasonous since it works against their country’s objective national interests for the sake of advancing a foreign one’s. Hopefully they’ll realize the damage that they’re inflicting on Bangladesh and reconsider this politicized probe.