The latest IRS data makes one thing clear. The United States is undergoing a massive redistribution of wealth between states, and it is being driven almost entirely by tax policy. California lost $11.9 billion and New York lost $9.9 billion in income in a single year, while Florida gained $20.6 billion. […]
Cloaking a fake “market” with artifice to maintain its asymmetrical distribution of wealth and income also cloaks its detachment from the real world. I often refer to the dynamics of self-correction and self-liquidation. Systems that use feedback to rebalance extremes are self-correcting: rather than accelerate as they approach a cliff, they […]
Even if the Strait of Hormuz opened tomorrow, and that is certainly not going to happen, we are being warned that the economic impact of this war will be felt all the way through the end of this decade. A lot of energy infrastructure has already been destroyed during this […]
“Whenever governments are granted power to purchase their own debt, they never fail to do so, eventually destroying the value of the currency.” – Ron Paul Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture so we can assess the US government’s financial situation, where it’s likely headed, and […]
A Fragile System Built on Invisible Inputs The modern global food system, often perceived as vast, resilient, and technologically advanced, rests on a surprisingly fragile foundation—fertilizers. These chemical inputs, largely invisible to the average consumer, sustain nearly half of global food production. Without them, the abundance of supermarkets, the predictability […]
What Iran is doing right now is something we have seen repeatedly throughout history whenever a currency begins to die. Governments start issuing larger and larger banknotes because the existing denominations no longer function in daily life. This took place in the Weimar Republic hyperinflation, where trillion-mark notes were printed, […]
Today’s Digest covers helium force majeure from Qatar disruptions, Turkey’s gold sales, surging China EV demand, Israel-Iran strikes, Houthi missile attacks, U.S. drone ops, Asian crude pricing, Iran shipping blocks, Anthropic Claude leak, brain organoid AI, and Vanden Bossche warnings. Economy AirGas, an Air Liquide company, declared force majeure on […]
It’s probably nothin’ according to the MAGA crowd and the Fed fanboys alike. But then again, anyone who has been paying attention to the financial metrics for more than two weeks might beg to differ. When you have the following eruption in real time, there is surely an economic earthquake rumbling ominously […]
Are we really going to go through this again? It appears that the Iranians are absolutely determined to keep traffic through the Strait of Hormuz paralyzed until they get what they want. In order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, an absolutely massive military operation would be required, and perhaps […]
When interest rates are pushed artificially low in the midst of constantly-increasing costs of living, the avenues by which average Americans save and grow their wealth are limited. Frugality—demonstrated by spending less than you earn and socking away a portion of your income in bank CDs—becomes an exercise in frustration […]