Authored by Kane McGukin via BombThrower,com,

Is the Core vs. Knots battle a replay of two ideological Federal Reserve Plans that ultimately centralized gold, the original sound money?

TL;DR: The Core vs Knots battle is an attack on the Bitcoin network. A monetary struggle no different than the fight to establish the Federal Reserve in 1913.

The 1900s, like today, began with bankers at war over the governing rules of money. Two competing factions, the Aldrich Plan and Glass-Owen Plan, launched an assault on sound money because men sought more power and nations demanded more control.

Gold, like Bitcoin, is money because of its first principle origins. Yet the misconception, then and now, is that survival requires more complexity.

History shows how fragile conviction can be. An offer for a seat at the table is enough to flip once passionate defenders of sound money to enablers of credit and unlimited debt. Original goldbugs like Keynes in the 1920s and Greenspan in the 1980s proved unable to brush off the emotional pull of notoriety, currency, and control. Each flippening reintroduces inflationary tactics that corrode money’s principles and value.

Cunning design and corrupt schemes have often proven far too great for man to overcome.

Never a Dull Moment

There’s never a dull moment in Bitcoin or in the world of finance, for that matter.

The latest continuous divide within the Bitcoin community may look like another technical battle. But does it point to something deeper? While it feels like there’s a never-ending need to have something technical to argue over, beneath the GitHub commits and mailing list debates lurks a ghost from the past. The ideological struggle that gave birth to America’s Federal Reserve.

The Fed’s creation was framed in the language of decentralization and regional representation.

Yet its foundation was built on two forces: filters and control (here and here). Behind the curtain, the true drivers in 1913 were the same as they are today. A desire for power, profit, and the ability to manufacture credit money from a hard money basis. A Paper Bitcoin Summer, if you will.

Source: The Princes of Yen by Richard Werner

Ask any Bitcoin maximalist what they despise most, and the likely answers are: the Federal Reserve or the dollar’s undeniable debasement.

That’s what makes the current Core vs. Knots clash so fascinating. It’s not just a nerdy civil war inside Bitcoin development. Viewed through the lens of monetary history, the parallels come into focus. A reminder that only a little over 100 years ago, lines were drawn and sides were picked between two competing visions for a new financial system: the Aldrich Plan (big-bank, corporate centralization) and the Glass-Owen Plan (populist, individualistic ideology). With full hindsight, both promoted decentralization in name only.

Both claimed to defend the money with one important caveat, both plans led inevitably to the centralization of gold, the original “sound money”.

By expanding the Op_Return size (protocol inflation), are we not reintroducing the debasement Satoshi rooted out?

By offering a more centralized Bitcoin client, are we not centralizing trust?

Are both options not heading down a similar “Federal Reserve” path?

Regardless of side, the question we should be asking: will Bitcoin, too, cloak centralization in the language of decentralization?

Bitcoin Is a First Principle Asset

As we saw in 1913, a similar banking stalemate led to the Federal Reserve Act being pushed through on the eve of Christmas holiday. Plowing forward at all costs was not the right answer. History reminds us that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Heated debates tend to harden into an us vs. them mentality, where momentum overrides principle. More often than not, the final path hasn’t resolved the gripes but has paved the way for political and centralized control of money.

“Smart cows show the other cows how to bypass the filters. You know, like you can open the gate. So, you know, it’s always been the case. You could always bypass these things, but I don’t think we would agree that we should bypass the dust relay fee and start seeing a massive amount of dust clog up the network.” – Samson Mow

In the world of banking, there have always been cops and robbers. Piles of assets and monetary value have always enticed the idea of a bank heist. Bitcoin and digital money are proving to be no different. The storage source has shifted, but the mentality to capture remains the same. It’s a reminder of how you embed a European Central Bank Plan inside of an American financial system. Divide and conquer.

If you look at ordinals, that’s one. They’re it’s kind of like an ICO but with pictures. You know, they’re selling these these PFPs or whatever wizard images and cat images and then they have a war chest and they don’t care. They can print more stuff. – Samson Mow

Whether it’s printing from the FED, ICOs, DATs, or Bitcoin Treasury Companies, the invisible hand is one of fractional reserve banking policies.

Furthermore, what Samson describes with ordinals and fee compression rhymes with history. Changing the cost to process a transaction to $0.01 sat/vbytes allows unintended consequences at some point. Just as “cheap trading” fueled reckless high-frequency speculation in equities around 2008. Cheap blockspace and zero-fee incentives risk repeating the same cycle and diluting the value of Bitcoin’s network.

Lowering friction may look like innovation, but history shows it usually ends in centralization and systemic fragility.

Low fees, in essence, remove the security of a financial moat.

Greed’s Temptation and Calling

At the height of the 1914 crisis, John Maynard Keynes was asked to brief the Chancellor of the Exchequer on whether the pound should remain tied to gold. Keynes argued emphatically that it must:

… he (Keynes) had come down very strongly in favor of maintaining the link: “London’s position as a monetary center depends very directly on complete confidence in London’s unwavering readiness” to meet its obligations in gold and would be severely damaged if “at the first sign of emergency that commitment was suspended.

… But whereas before the war he had thought that the best way to achieve this was to ensure that currencies such as the pound be fully convertible to gold at a fixed value, he had now come to believe that there was no reason why linking money supply and credit to gold should necessarily result in stable prices. – Lords of Finance

If the examples of John Maynard Keynes and Alan Greenspan, along with the parallel of 1913 versus today’s Bitcoin divide, reveal nothing else, it is that inflationary pressures, though often hidden, are always present. The history of currency is a long dotted line of individuals who ultimately bend the knee to the erosion of value systems.

Their words defended markets and sound money, but their actions were of centralized control.

Core vs. Knots feels like the same corporate-led sleight of hand that steered Keynes and Greenspan and that defined the Aldrich and Glass-Owen plans. It is the same temptation facing Bitcoin today.

Source: The Princes of Yen by Richard Werner

What is clear is this: it is easy to praise sound money in theory, but far harder to defend it once the “in-crowd” offers you a seat at the table.

The lure of acceptance and the search for yield are powerful drugs. Both have the power to flip a goldbug into a credit junkie without leaving a trace of evidence.

Source: The Princes of Yen by Richard Werner

The Simple Lesson That is Hard to Live By

First principles are non-negotiable. They are like primary colors in art. Remove one, and the structural foundation for all future innovation collapses. Cloud the palette with too many colors, and the core value is drowned by unnecessary bloat. Too many features introduce the Ethereum problem. Endless left-turns disguised as innovation, when the mission could be achieved in a few simple right-turns.

Gold’s important role as sound money was pushed aside, not because it failed, but because men failed to hold the line. Bitcoin faces the same test today.

If Core vs. Knots, ordinals, or fee games erode Bitcoin’s principles, then the ghost of 1913 will win again, only this time in digital form. In a future world, Bitcoin credit will be all the rage.

*  *  *

Get on the Bombthrower mailing list here and receive a free copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto and The CBDC Survival Guide when it drops.   Subscribe to Kane McGukin’s Substack here.

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

Last month, just hours before President Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly, the U.S. Secret Service dropped a bombshell report revealing it had dismantled a massive, decentralized SIM farm network located just 35 miles from New York City. The network had the operational capacity of a telecommunications stealth weapon capable of paralyzing the entire metro area’s cell network through a massive denial-of-service attack.

New details emerged in an exclusive report from Blaze News, citing sources within the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. intelligence community, who revealed that these SIM farms had been operational for more than a year and were operated by China’s Ministry of State Security.

“This is something that is a direct threat to our nation right now,” a top intelligence official told Blaze News. “A direct threat to our nation, and it needs to be shut down today — like ASAP. Only five of them have been taken down so far.”

The Blaze’s report continues:

The SIM networks were put in place and are managed by China’s Ministry of State Security, an ultra-secretive, massive espionage agency that has grown in prominence and global activity in recent years, according to the journal China Leadership Monitor.

The MSS employs more than 800,000 people, nearly double the Soviet KGB at its peak. The MSS “now operates worldwide at a scale and tempo not seen in decades,” China Leadership Monitor wrote in a recent newsletter.

Several officials who spoke with Blaze News anonymously said the establishment and use of this destructive network by China should be considered an act of war. The potential threat to America would be “second only to thermonuclear war,” one source said.

“It’s absolutely an act of war — an internationally recognized act of war,” one intelligence expert told Blaze News. “Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure is, and facilitating terrorism to the point where you’re trying to kill high-ranking members of the United States government. Those two alone are acts of war.”

. . . 

“These things were being used all summer to SWAT people since Trump was elected,” said one source, speaking anonymously because the source is not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation. “Swatting — that’s a terrorist act. The Trump administration declared that a terrorist act.”

While the Chinese facilitated the SWAT raids, it is believed that Americans who are familiar with the system — either through a government or a criminal enterprise — are initiating the hoax calls, the source said.

The swatting of a senior Secret Service official and some Secret Service protectees last spring led to the investigation that discovered the Chinese SIM farms in the Tri-State area, the Secret Service confirmed to Blaze News. A Secret Service engineer assigned to the investigation was key to discovering the SIM network.

An intelligence analyst told Blaze News that:

What’s shocking is that there may be up to 100 or more of these sites everywhere. There’s probably 60, 80, 100 of these in the United States.

The discovery of weaponized SIM farm nodes by China should not come as a surprise. This is because the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing irregular warfare campaign against the U.S. has been supercharged over the years, especially in the era of Trump. 

The book China’s Total War Strategy: Next-Generation Weapons of Mass Destruction – published by the CCP BioThreats Initiative and authored by Dr. Ryan Clarke, LJ Eads, Dr. Robert McCreight, and Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin – outlines how the CCP pursues an aggressive, multifaceted “total war” against the U.S. that leverages next-generation weapons, including synthetic narcotics (e.g., fentanyl and cannabinoids), bioweapons (e.g., Covid-19), psychological manipulation and influence (e.g., TikTok), and a broad arsenal of irregular warfare tools (read report).

And now, SIM farms appear to be another domain of the CCP’s irregular warfare campaign, an effort to collapse America from within by paralyzing communication networks. Throughout this year, one high-level Trump official has warned us about the devastation left behind by the years-long “Salt Typhoon” cyberattack carried out by China. On another front, Congressional Republicans of the Oversight Committee have been investigating the dark money networks and political affiliations of billionaire Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. national reportedly residing in Communist China, who allegedly was funding far-left color revolutions in the U.S. to sow chaos. Are you starting to get the picture now? 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

“The most useful expert, of course, is the one who can lie.” Guy Debord

We’re living in the golden age of Spectacle: whatever substance remains in politics is lost in the endless parade of outlandish political theater, finance is dominated by staged spectacles of media-savvy CEOs announcing the next trillion-dollar product, and online, all the world’s a stage for everyone’s spectacle.

French philosopher Guy Debord outlined the value of spectacle in a society and economy that is increasingly dependent on artifice rather than authenticity in his 1967 book, The Society of the Spectacle.

Here is how Debord described his 1967 book in his 1988 follow-up work, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle: “In 1967, in a book entitled The Society of the Spectacle, I showed what the modern spectacle was already in essence: the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign.”

Debord is laying out a way to understand how society has become subsumed by economic forces, specifically markets ruled by the corporate-state.

This arrangement manages the populace by turning everything into a spectacle which in Debord’s view is not “real life,” it’s a representation that we passively accept without understanding how it transforms our identity and social fabric from “being” to “having,” i.e. buying and owning stuff that is a representation of who we are.

This representation is managed by technocratic expertise.

What we refer to as propaganda, marketing and narrative are for Debord all aspects of spectacle.

Spectacle as a simulation or facsimile of “real life” speaks to a profound alienation: we passively watch spectacle and take that passive consumption as “real life” without understanding it’s all managed to maintain the dominance of those benefitting from this arrangement.

This echoes many related ideas (for example, “The Matrix” films), simulacra being passed off as the authentic “real thing,” and Marx’s concept of alienation in which the worker has been disconnected (alienated) from the product/value of their labor.

The core idea here is that Spectacle is inauthentic, fake, a simulation, a substitution of representation for substance, that creates a peculiarly unreality. These are the themes I explore in my book Ultra-Processed Life.

The entire appeal of social media can be seen as personalizing Spectacle, as we each gain audience and influence by making ourselves and our lives into unreal representations, i.e. spectacles.

Here are some illuminating excerpts from Debord:

“Because spectacle replaces real life with a mere mediated representation of life that cannot be experienced directly, it provides a framework where mass deceptions and lies can consistently and convincingly appear as true.

It has recreated our society without community, and it has obstructed the ability to communicate in general. Such processes and their ramifications ultimately mean people cannot truly experience life for themselves: they have become spectators, bound to an impoverished state of unlife”

In The Society of the Spectacle, Debord explains that the economy subjugating society first presented itself as an “obvious degradation of being into having,” where human fulfilment was no longer attained through what one was, but instead only through what one bought and displayed. As society’s capitulation to the economy accelerated, the decline from being into having shifted “from having into appearing.”

With respect to knowledge, therefore, experts no longer have to be experts or have expertise, they only need to take on the appearance of expertise.

“All experts serve the state and the media and only in that way do they achieve their status. Every expert follows his master, for all former possibilities for independence have been gradually reduced to nil by present society’s mode of organisation. The most useful expert, of course, is the one who can lie.”

“The vague feeling that there has been a rapid invasion which has forced people to lead their lives in an entirely different way is now widespread; but this is experienced rather like some inexplicable change in the climate, or in some other natural equilibrium, a change faced with which ignorance knows only that it has nothing to say.” Debord

This reminds me of a comment French writer Michel Houellebecq made in an interview: “I have the impression of being caught up in a network of complicated, minute, stupid rules, and I have the impression of being herded towards a uniform kind of happiness, toward a kind of happiness that doesn’t really make me happy.”

A reliance on spectacle to create a peculiar unreality may not be solely modern.

If we think of late Rome’s extravagant spectacles–staged battles in the Coliseum, chariot races, etc.–they were representations of a Roman strength that was no longer real.

In the real world, Rome’s power flowed from its vast importation of wheat from North Africa, its lucrative trade with the Mideast and India, its silver mines in Spain and its well-trained and provisioned legions.

Once these decayed or collapsed, the spectacles in Rome were no longer manifestations of power, they were representations of a power that was rapidly dissolving in the world beyond Rome.

As a final thought, consider how AI is being presented as automated expertise. But isn’t AI just a representation of true expertise that “serves the state and the media” in a new theater of Spectacle?

*  *  *

Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films.

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Key Points:

• “Super Stem Cells” boosted memory in monkeys and offered protection against neurodegeneration.
• They halted age-related bone loss and restored vitality in more than half of the 61 tissues examined.
• The therapy also cut back harmful inflammation and reduced the burden of senescent cells — the aged, non-dividing cells that drive aging throughout the body.

In a discovery that may have profound impacts on aging, scientists in Beijing have taken a dramatic step toward what once seemed impossible: making old animals biologically young again. The study was published last month in the journal Cell.

By fortifying human stem cells with a gene long linked to longevity, they rejuvenated aged monkeys – improving memory, protecting bones, calming inflammation, and restoring youthful activity across dozens of organs.

The work, while still in animals, is among the most compelling demonstrations yet that aging in primates might be reversible.

The Science Behind the Breakthrough

At the heart of the study are mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) – a type of stem-like cell found in bone marrow and connective tissues. These cells act as the body’s maintenance crew, capable of turning into bone, cartilage, fat, and muscle cells, while also secreting factors that help nearby tissues repair themselves.

But like all cells, MPCs age with us and eventually succumb to senescence  a state of permanent retirement. Senescent cells don’t divide anymore. Worse, they pump out inflammatory molecules, scar tissue signals, and other “toxic chatter” that accelerate aging in neighboring cells. In effect, senescent cells spread decline.

Upgrading the Repair System with FoxO3

To overcome this exhaustion, researchers turned to FoxO3, a protein known as a longevity gene regulator. In healthy young cells, FoxO3 acts like a switchboard operator, turning on DNA repair pathways, antioxidant defenses, and stress-resistance programs. In older cells, FoxO3 activity wanes – leaving them vulnerable to damage.

Hydra, a freshwater organism capable of regenerating indefinitely, rely heavily on FoxO to keep their stem cells active. Humans share this same protein, and genetic studies link variants of FOXO3 to exceptional longevity in people.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences team genetically engineered MPCs so that FoxO3 would stay permanently active inside the nucleus, constantly flipping on protective genes. 

The researchers engineered senescence-resistant cells – “SRCs” – by altering genes that control DNA repair, stress resistance, and mitochondrial function. These fortified cells were then transplanted into elderly macaques whose age roughly corresponds to a human in their 60s or 70s.

They found that SRC treatment mitigated age-related brain shrinkage, and rejuvenated multiple organs and tissues.

Put simply: MPCs provided the hardware – the body’s natural repair crew – while FoxO3 was the software upgrade that made them resistant to aging.

What Happened Inside the Monkeys

The results were striking:

• Bone health: Normally, older primates show progressive bone loss, a close analog to osteoporosis in humans. Monkeys that received SRCs maintained or even improved bone density, suggesting the treatment reversed skeletal decline.

• Cognitive performance: When tested on memory and learning tasks, the treated monkeys performed significantly better, recalling objects and navigating mazes more effectively than untreated peers.

• Inflammation: Blood tests revealed a sharp drop in inflammatory markers. Since chronic inflammation – sometimes called “inflammaging” – drives many age-related diseases, this finding suggests SRCs could help blunt the root of multiple disorders.

• Organ vitality: Post-treatment scans and biopsies revealed rejuvenation in the brain, bone, and even reproductive organs. The researchers believe this widespread effect was mediated by exosomes — tiny vesicles released by SRCs that carry rejuvenating proteins and genetic material to other cells, essentially acting as messengers of youth.

As one of the lead scientists, Si Wang, put it: “We see evidence of rejuvenation.”

Why This Matters

Most anti-aging strategies tested so far – from rapamycin to fasting mimics – have worked primarily in rodents. Translating those gains to primates, with their longer lifespans and complex physiology, has been an elusive goal.

This study is different. By showing functional rejuvenation in macaques, it bridges the gap between mouse biology and human potential. The findings suggest that aging is not simply the result of passive wear and tear but is, at least partly, programmable and reversible.

If similar approaches work in people, SRCs could one day treat not just osteoporosis or memory decline, but the broader syndrome of aging itself.

But Enormous Questions Remain

Experts stress that while the results are promising, translation to humans is far from assured. Questions loom:

• Safety: Will senescence-resistant cells behave predictably, or could they persist too long, increasing cancer risk?

• Durability: How long do the benefits last? Months? Years? A lifetime?

• Delivery: Can such cells be manufactured at scale, and will the body accept them without immune rejection?

• Ethics: How should such therapies be tested in people, and who should have access if they work?

“This is a milestone, but we must not leap to human immortality headlines,” said an independent gerontology expert. “What it shows is that systemic aging in primates can be modulated — that is profound enough.”

A Glimpse of the Future

For now, the macaques remain under study, their bodies whispering signals of youth from transplanted cells. But the implications are profound: if scientists can replenish the body’s repair machinery with cells designed to resist aging, medicine might shift from treating diseases one by one to addressing their common root.

That vision – once dismissed as science fiction – is now edging closer to scientific fact.

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

The Egregore of Far-Left Radicalism Is Wounded – But What Will Take It’s Place?

Today’s post is excerpted from the October edition of The Bitcoin Capitalist Letter – get a special deal for Bombthrower readers here »

“At the physical level, we are witnessing a war of structures,
on the meta-physical level, a battle of pendulums.”
— Vadim Zeland

Within the space of a few days over the second week of September, the world looked on in horror as a pair of unspeakably horrific crimes were committed; by now it’s likely everyone knows what I’m referring to.

I’m talking, of course, about the stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a North Carolina transit train – and the all-too-public assassination of Charlie Kirk, at a campus event in Utah.

The images from both events were horrific and circulated widely, there is no need to show them again here – but this “one-two” punch in my mind was the definitive knock-out blow to the far-left domination of our cultural zeitgeist.

A few days after the Kirk assassination it became apparent that something big had shifted; at the time I called it the “Turning Point for the Radical Left”. It ran on Zerohedge and racked around 100K reads.

The TL;DR on that, if you haven’t read it, was that Charlie Kirk’s assassination will mark the moment the cultural tide turned against the Left.

It didn’t happen in isolation; it was the culmination of a progression that I first started documenting back in 2022, when both RFK Jr and Peter Thiel gave keynotes at the Bitcoin Conference in Miami – and it became clear to me that the entire edifice of “woke capitalism” upon which the whole left-wing, collectivist paradigm was built, was beginning to crumble.

The process gained momentum via the through-line of the Oct 7 massacre in Israel, and the targeted killing of United Health CEO Brian Thompson.

In the aftermath of these events, we started to see public opinion – and corporate / private governance –  start to turn against the radical left.

After publishing my piece, and to my point, we saw lefties trying to regain the upper hand they once took for granted – with calls for Marvel to fire Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt.

His moral crime?

He asked the public to pray for the family of Charlie Kirk.

Marvel will do no such thing, because, as I’ve said, those days are over.

What did happen, however, was Marvel’s comic universe rival, DC, canceled the “Red Hood” comic book series, after its author Gretchen Felker-Martin (who is trans) posted on Bluesky:

“Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b-tch… Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie.”

I can’t think of any alternate universe where this kind of sentiment toward anyone is okay, let alone sane. To my point that the momentum has shifted, even Bluesky suspended his account.

Wow.

I closed out my Bombthrower piece asking the open question about what was the fundamental driver that led to the far-left takeover of the zeitgeist?

“Some say this ever-increasing polarization and these seemingly ritualistic events are all orchestrated by shadowy actors playing the long game. My take? It’s something deeper”.

There are some very obvious trends and beats here that are hard to ignore.

For starters, Kirk is not Trump, or even Elon Musk or Peter Thiel. His security detail likely wasn’t excessive; it was unlikely anybody thought it needed to be anything beyond a few bodyguards who could repel a bike lock-wielding soy-boy in a man-bun.

If somebody really just wanted him dead, there would have been easier ways to get at him, and fare a better chance of getting away clean after.

Murdering him in such a spectacular and shocking manner was deliberate and intentional. It was calculated to drive an effect at a mass, psychic level – and there are ritualistic elements to it, as there are wont to be in these archetypally shocking hinge-moments.

The conspiracy minded would tell you this is intentional signalling – which may be true, at least partially – but I tend to think it’s because we live in a reality of “high weirdness” where events are playing out in a non-linear fashion across dimensional axes that we aren’t even aware of.

But let’s follow this train of thought for a bit; I’m not comfortable sharing this publicly, so this is all between us girls.

For years I ruminated that the Fabian Socialists had achieved complete victory in their stated mission of bringing world communism into being through a centuries-long process of inexorable infiltration of our institutions:

They started with academia, then media and culture – and finally government and supra-governmental constructs such as the World Economic Forum.

It was always driven by what I’ve called “the 3M’s of neo-collectivism”, namely: Malthusian, Marxist and essentially misanthropic.

It’s an anti-human philosophy that regards our species as a cancer that needs to be managed, and ideally, depopulated.

We’re heavily into tin-foil hat territory here – but a lot of this has been laid out in the writings of Julian Huxley, Warren Wagar and beyond.

It’s never been refuted – and we see in the contemporary climate-alarmism movement a disdain for life itself and an embrace of the #Degrowth cause.

So there’s that.

Then I wonder — why all the trans violence?

This feels so “off” to me, it’s like somehow under the hood the entire movement decided “hey, let’s make ourselves the absolute most vilified segment of the population in existence” – and proceed to carry out only the most heinous of crimes.

This is a relatively recent development and it feels somehow deeper than plain-Jane frustration with being marginalized (and misgendered).

The legendary ex-KGB handler Yuri Bezmenov, who defected to the West over forty years ago, warned his debriefers that the Soviets would undermine America from within. They would achieve final victory over the West, not through military force – where it was impossible to win – but through subversion.

Demoralization: Infiltrate & undermine institutions, amplify antisocial
Destabilization: Create internal conflicts & radicalize, leads to clashes
Crisis: Collapse → civil war | invasion
Normalization: New authoritarian rule, discard old change agentspic.twitter.com/fDVRuDNw82 https://t.co/C2QAAMfs9e

— Yuri Bezmenov’s Ghost (@Ne_pas_couvrir) September 14, 2025

They would, in Bezmenov’s warnings, engage in a multi-decades program of:

Demoralization: Infiltrate & undermine institutions, amplify antisocial behaviours

Destabilization: Create internal conflicts & radicalize, leads to clashes

Crisis: Collapse, leading to civil war  or invasion

Normalization: New authoritarian rule, discard old change agents

It’s a long game. The “demoralization” phase alone is 15 – 20 years: “a single generation of students”, in Bezmenov’s words, to take them “in the opposite direction from the society’s moral and cultural values”.

Of course, the USSR collapsed; did they set a plan in motion that continued operating after they unleashed it? Even after the handler regime was no more?

Or, was that same playbook adopted – essentially co-opted – by someone else, the next geopolitical rival, perchance? Like the CCP.

China also knows they cannot, yet, defeat the USA in a military conflict, at least not outside of the Asian-Pacific theatre – but if there’s one thing the Chinese are known for, it’s thinking in generational increments and in non-linear terms.

Cultural Marxism makes very little sense to normal, rational people. It verges on total nihilism, and yet, it caught on like wildfire over the past couple decades and is now out of control and running amok across campuses and in our streets.

Before September we were a few smidges away from civil war – now, I shudder to think what happens next.

I remember a few years ago I was listening to a Value After Hours podcast (I’d never be able to find the episode) where they were talking about Ray Dalio’s prediction that America had a significant probability of being in a full-on civil war within three years.

At the time Tobias Carlisle said “that sounds absolutely bonkers”.

Dalio was recently on Diary of a CEO – following this theme of mass civil unrest, and that was recorded before the second week of September.

So imagine if the subversion of our universities and media over the past few decades was the result of the most far-left and radical elements being funded and encouraged by a foreign actor, like China.

Carefully nurturing the polarization, the angst, the demoralization of the entire population – on all sides – pushing it along with specific, targeted acts of camouflaged terrorism in order to bring it to a climactic state of unendurable tension – and then, the finale:

An act so heinous and itself so polarizing that it ignites the “response”. Those familiar with the Hegelian dialect, “problem → response → solution”  (which happens to be the “three-act play” structure of every conspiracy theory), would recognize it.

Even I recognize this and you all know how much I disdain most conspiracy theories. It’s a cognitive bias that I know is there but I hang on to it, because, frankly – it helps me maintain my equilibrium.

I do not like the idea of world history being the outcome of behind-the-scenes machinations by all-powerful cabals, because believing that would make me feel powerless and helpless.

So normally I subscribe to Hanlon’s Razor, as an article of faith.

But as I’ve been admitting lately – it’s been getting harder to keep believing that. Most recently, it’s almost impossible.

What I notice now, is things have gotten so out of hand that huge chunks of the population would cheer for an authoritarian strongman to take over the machinery of government – either through populist movements or even soft coups (or overt ones), so long as they promised and delivered a “return to rule of law and normalcy”.

Ngl… Trump fits the bill neatly.

They would succeed on the first aim, through largely technocratic means, probably nodding toward the state capitalism and political meritocracy of China, and call it the new “way of the world”.

But “normalcy” would be gone.

What I do believe is that we are in a Fourth Turning, in the Howe and Strauss sense, and that this fourth turning is unique in that it is occurring against the backdrop of a widely intolerable acceleration in the pace of change (“Future Shock”) and massively increasing wealth disparity because we’re in the early innings of a global fiat hyperinflation.

If you back out the Fabians, the KGB and China and just stick with Future Shock and hyperinflation, you still have all the ingredients for a tightly wound powder keg:

Not many Americans understand the correlation between soaring government debt & spending and the rise in violence, radicalized politics, and all kinds of social “weirdness.” Inflation undermines the stability of civil society because it erodes the incentives for hard work,… https://t.co/PldYWSgaaO

— Porter Stansberry (@porterstansb) September 11, 2025

What is probably in play are elements of all of these forces. That’s what makes it so difficult to get a read on what is happening.

There is no unified, coherent cabal behind this: the more I study the phenomenon of “pendulums” (in the Vadim Zeland sense), morphic fields and even egregores, I have come to suspect that there is no “they”, but there are “its” – several of them – converging, competing, conflicting, all the while amplifying and accelerating each other.

There is no “they”

But there are multiple, competing “its”

That is all.

— Mark E. Jeftovic (@MarkJeftovic) September 30, 2025

Pendulums feed on both positive and negative mental energy. In Zeland’s words, in order to do one of two things:  “the pendulum’s goals are always to stabilize its own or a higher structure, and to destroy a competing structure”.

More on these larger forces another time, but for now,  frankly, it’s rather amazing the system remains on the tracks at this point.

I don’t expect it will last; I find myself once again perusing real estate listings for bug-out bolt-holes outside of the city.

*  *  *

Today’s post is excerpted from the August edition of The Bitcoin Capitalist Letter – get a special deal for Bombthrower readers here »

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U.S. grocery prices have spiked 29% since 2020, putting strain on consumers’ wallets.

This impact has been felt across global cities, as supply shortages, extreme weather events, and pandemic-era inflation have pushed prices higher. But where in the world do customers face the highest prices overall?

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the cities with the most expensive grocery prices, based on data from Deutsche Bank.

Grocery Prices in Geneva are the Highest Globally

Below, we show the grocery price index in 2025, reflecting the average cost of groceries in U.S. dollars using New York City as a benchmark:

Switzerland is home to two of the top three most expensive cities for grocery prices, with Geneva seeing prices 5% higher than in New York City.

San Francisco ranks second globally, with prices rising 19% since 2020. A combination of high real estate prices and strong wages are among the key drivers behind expensive grocery costs. Last year, consumers in California spent on average $298 per week on groceries, outpacing New York’s $266 in spending.

Coming in at eighth place is Seoul, driven by currency fluctuations and weak economic conditions, leading consumers’ purchasing power to be among the worst in the OECD.

Grocery costs in Paris, meanwhile, are nearly 30% lower than in New York City, a level similar in Sydney, Singapore, and Vancouver.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the U.S. cities with the most expensive grocery costs in 2025.

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Financial writer, market analyst and precious metals expert Craig Hemke predicted at the beginning of 2025 that the US dollar would have a “vast devaluation.” 

One look at the explosive record setting gold and silver price gains and you can see this was a correct prediction, especially with the yellow metal. 

Hemke says, “It’s not that the gold is going up.  The gold is not changing.  Gold is gold.  What is changing is the amount of dollars it takes to buy that ounce…” 

“The dollar is devaluing against gold.  That’s how people need to look at it.  Gold is your financial protection against this madness where we are just going to keep printing more and more dollars trying to service this incredible debt.  We are recording this on the last day of the fiscal year. 

The US is going to run a $2 trillion deficit over the fiscal year.  It’s only getting worse, and the dollars it takes to service that debt is growing.  You just have incredible devaluation of what your dollar can buy.  I just want to point this out:  An ounce of gold is now $3,800–to buy one ounce. 

You go back 10 years ago, and it was $1,100 to buy one ounce of gold.  You go back 5 years ago, and it took $2,000 to buy an ounce of gold.  The gold is not changing.  What is changing is the amount of dollars it takes to acquire it.”

Hemke contends there are many things driving the price of gold and silver higher.  A few of the big drivers include: 

• Central banks have been buying record amounts of gold since 2022, and they continue to do so. 

• The Fed is on record basically saying that it will buy Treasuries (print money) in 2026 to make sure interest rates will not rise.  (They call it yield curve control.)  

• Hemke also says there is rapid depletion of physical gold and silver to the point that they may start running out and will be unable to deliver physical metal. 

• Stablecoin is coming online to create demand for Treasuries. 

• There is talk of revaluing the gold in Fort Knox to a much higher price to make the government’s balance sheet look healthier. 

The list goes on, and Hemke says, “The math is the math, and that’s why I can feel so confident about this…” 

“There is $2 trillion in new debt, and we are now just north of $37 trillion.  It takes $1 trillion a year to simply service that debt. . .. This is extraordinarily bullish for gold and silver.

You are basically enshrining negative real interest rates, which is what they are trying to do.  In a sense, you are trying to pay off yesterday’s debt with cheaper dollars of tomorrow.  That’s how they got us out of the massive debt to GDP hole after World War II, and that’s why they are going to try it again.  It’s a massive devaluation of the currency.  It’s bullish for all hard assets, not just gold and silver.”

In closing, Hemke says, “This system of leverage, non-allocated accounts and hypothecation has held sway now for almost 50 years.  It’s that system that is dying…”

”  The price (of gold and silver) is going to go up regardless.  Again, it’s not the gold or silver going up in value, it is the purchasing power of the dollar that is declining.  I know some people are saying that silver is up to $48 again, and it’s going back to $18.  I say probably not.  They are telling you what is coming next year. . .. There are a lot of reasons why the price of gold and silver . . . can go considerably higher from here, and you don’t want to miss out.”

There is much more in the 48-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Craig Hemke of the popular website TFMetalsReport.com 9.30.25.

Not even a day after Portland Police arrested journalist Nick Sortor outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in South Portland, the totally unexpected happened overnight … dozens of young men muscled past Antifa, chanting “USA” and “NICK.”  

On Friday night, dozens of young men gathered in front of the ICE building in Portland to show their support for ICE and for journalist Nick Sortor, whose Thursday night arrest sparked a federal investigation into leftist corruption in the city (read report). 

“THIS just happened. We gathered the young men in front of the ICE building in Portland and started a “USA” and “NICK” ( @nicksortor ) chant 🇺🇸 They can arrest us all they want, we’re never backing down, and Oregon isn’t lost just yet!” conservative activist David Medina wrote on X. 

THIS just happened.

We gathered the young men in front of the ICE building in Portland and started a “USA” and “NICK” (@nicksortor) chant 🇺🇸

They can arrest us all they want we’re never backing down and Oregon isn’t lost just yet! pic.twitter.com/9XFdoOHdYi

— David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) October 4, 2025

Young, masculine men, what Democrats and globalists fear the most, were likely energized with the American Spirit after the political assassination of Charlie Kirk… 

Young Oregon Patriots have arrived at the ICE Building in Portland to support ICE and the incoming troops!

These guys are in HIGH SCHOOL. Charlie would be proud.

Let’s go!! pic.twitter.com/Jc4o25M8fN

— David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) October 4, 2025

Clearly Democrats and their radical leftist revolutionaries have lost the plot – and more importantly, they no longer control the narrative. While most Americans still demand that criminal illegal aliens be deported. 

They screwed up when they took Charlie from us.

Young men are more emboldened than ever!

Ending the night in His name. Jesus is Lord. #Portland pic.twitter.com/kClX2gI6hq

— David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) October 4, 2025

Just around midnight, the boys rally around chanting U-S-A as they spot their fellow patriot Nick Sortor
pic.twitter.com/6PKdbfHPXj

— Kev Posobiec (@KevinPosobiec) October 4, 2025

And, here we go again. Real America Voice’s Ben Bergquam reported that a conservative activist was arrested in front of the ICE building. “They arrested Nick Sortor last night, and now they’re arresting this guy. Portland Police protect ANTIFA.” 

Unbelievable! Just now in Portland!

Portland PD arrest the only guy on a megaphone chanting in support of ICE and America, Thomas Wayne Allen! While the leftists chat death to ICE and America, this guy gets arrested for supporting us! How Pathetic!

Law & Border @RealAmVoice pic.twitter.com/W1YubfFCLa

— Ben Bergquam – Real America’s Voice (RAV-TV) News (@BenBergquam) October 4, 2025

After this week’s shitshow in Portland, it sounds like President Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, will soon announce federal cuts for the Portland area overrun by radical leftist groups. 

*  *  * Calling all chads *  *  *

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Over the past three years, the economic conversation has been a “promised recession.” If you read the headlines, tracked economist surveys, or even listened to Wall Street strategists, you would have assumed a downturn was imminent. Many investors, bloggers, and YouTubers have had a “parade of horribles” promising a recession is just on the horizon.The logic was simple enough. The Federal Reserve aggressively hiked rates from near zero, inflation spiked to four-decade highs, the yield curve inverted for the longest stretch on record, manufacturing surveys collapsed, and stocks entered a bear market in 2022. Historically, those conditions have been reliable precursors to economic pain.

And yet, here we are, late into 2025, and the U.S. economy is still standing. Not only standing, but GDP remains broadly positive, unemployment is relatively low, and equity markets sit at record highs. If the “promised recession” were near, none of that would be the case, and for many investors, the “recession that never came” has been one of the great surprises of this cycle.

But does that mean we’ve escaped it altogether? Or is the downturn still lurking, delayed by policy distortions and fiscal largesse?

I want to tackle that question today because how we answer it matters for portfolio strategy. Both the recession and the no-recession cases have merit. Each has its own probabilities, risks, and market implications.

Why a Recession Still Looks Plausible

Let’s start with the bear case.

History tells us that a recession almost always follows when the yield curve inverts, well, technically, it is when it UN-inverts. Nonetheless, since the 1960s, every sustained inversion has been followed by an economic contraction, sometimes quickly, sometimes with a lag. The inversion that began in 2022 was the deepest and longest we’ve ever experienced. If that signal still carries weight, it is logical that we should expect economic weakness to emerge.

Further, manufacturing activity has been in contraction territory for most of the past three years. The ISM Manufacturing Index, long viewed as a leading indicator, recorded 26 straight months below 50 through early 2025, briefly perked up, and then rolled back into contraction again. Historically, that kind of persistent weakness doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It usually shows up in corporate earnings, hiring, and consumer confidence.

In addition, the role of Fed tightening has been added. Monetary policy famously operates with “long and variable lags.” The most aggressive hiking cycle in four decades would always take time to filter through credit markets, household spending, and corporate balance sheets. Post-pandemic distortions and massive fiscal deficits may have extended the lag, but we should expect that the effect hasn’t been repealed.

And speaking of deficits, that’s another issue. Washington has effectively been running crisis-level stimulus despite a growing economy. Federal spending has helped mask underlying weakness. But it’s also raised debt-to-GDP ratios to levels that will eventually constrain fiscal policy. The “sugar high” from deficit-financed growth is not permanent, particularly since debt detracts from economic growth in the long term.

Finally, valuations, as we discussed recently. Equity markets are priced for perfection, with mega-cap tech leading the charge. That means if growth does falter, even modestly, the downside could be amplified by the simple reality of stretched multiples.

Taken together, these factors suggest the recession call wasn’t wrong so much as early. The patient looks healthy today, but the test results show underlying conditions that can’t be ignored.

If we were to assign a probability of a recession in the next 12-18 months, it is likely somewhere around 55%.

Why the Economy Might Dodge It

Now, let’s give the bulls their due and explain why they were right to dismiss the “promised recession.”

The biggest reason we haven’t fallen into recession is simple: spending. Both consumers and the government have been more resilient than expected, and the massive amount of liquidity injected into the economy following the pandemic has created enormous distortions to economic data. The huge surge in the monetary base has not fueled the “wealth effect” in the economy, but has sustained activity.

Despite higher interest rates, households benefited from excess savings built up during the pandemic, increased wealth from housing and markets, and a historically tight labor market kept nominal wages elevated. As such, people kept spending and went further into debt, which kept GDP afloat.

Meanwhile, government deficits have poured unprecedented amounts of cash into the system outside of a crisis period. Infrastructure projects, industrial policy initiatives, and entitlement spending have all provided ongoing support. In effect, Washington has been running “emergency stimulus” permanently, which has kept normal recessionary factors from occurring.

Second, the nature of the economy itself has shifted. The U.S. is far more services-driven today than in past cycles. Manufacturing weakness is notable, but it only represents about 30% of the economy today versus nearly 70% in the 70s. Given that it is a much smaller factor in the economy, it is services that we should focus on, and while weak, they have not been in recessionary territory. The chart below, an economically weighted composite of ISM Services and Manufacturing, shows that recession risks are elevated, but no recession is likely at the moment.

Third, corporate America has adapted remarkably well. Companies took advantage of ultra-low rates in 2020–2021 to refinance debt. Their balance sheets are stronger overall, and many firms have locked in cheap financing for years. That reduced the immediate pressure of higher Fed funds rates. However, such is not likely the case for smaller and mid-capitalization companies, and the risk of a rise in bankruptcies is not zero when they must refinance their debt. That could weaken economic growth but is not necessarily a guaranteed recessionary outcome.

Finally, the Federal Reserve itself has shown a willingness to pivot quickly. After hiking aggressively, the Fed began cutting in September, signaling that “risk management” and preventing unnecessary economic damage were priorities. Whether you agree with it or not, that backstop has provided psychological support to markets and businesses alike.

The bulls argue that these structural and policy supports could allow the U.S. to avoid a traditional recession altogether. Growth may slow, productivity gains (particularly from AI and automation) may cushion margins, and the expansion could grind on longer than skeptics expect.

But that is also not a guarantee, and the assigned probability of “no recession” in the next 12-18 months at 45%.

What This Means for Markets

For investors, the probabilities matter less than the preparation. Whether the economy slips into recession or not, the implication is that volatility will remain elevated, and risk management is essential. It also does not mean the financial markets can’t experience a 5, 10, or 20% correction outside the “promised recession.”

If the recession scenario plays out, equity valuations will likely compress, earnings estimates will fall, and risk assets will reprice lower. Defensive sectors, like utilities, staples, and healthcare, could outperform. Treasury bonds, ironically left for dead in 2022, would likely provide ballast as yields decline in a flight to safety.

If the no-recession scenario materializes, markets may not be “all clear” either. Corrections occur annually and can impact portfolio performance and investor psychology. With much of the “soft landing” narrative already priced in, the risk of correction is elevated. The S&P 500 is trading at multiples historically reserved for periods of strong, broad-based growth, leaving little margin of safety. Even modest disappointments could trigger corrections.

I always return to risk management here. As I’ve written many times, investing is not about making bold predictions but instead aligning portfolios to probabilities, protecting against the downside, and participating in the upside when it comes.

Today, that means remaining cautious even as markets cheer new highs. It means trimming exposure where valuations are stretched, holding a healthy allocation to cash and fixed income, and being selective in equity exposure. It means acknowledging that both outcomes—recession and no recession—are plausible and positioning accordingly.

Let’s also step back and acknowledge the broader lesson. Economists have a terrible track record at calling recessions.

• In 2007, two-thirds didn’t see one coming.

• In 2022, two-thirds thought one was imminent.

Both times, they were wrong. Why? Because the economy is not a machine that spits out predictable results. It’s a complex, adaptive system shaped by human behavior, policy distortions, and unforeseen shocks. Models can tell us what should happen, but a “promised recession” or not, reality often finds a way to surprise us.

That doesn’t mean we ignore the indicators. Yield curves, manufacturing surveys, and credit spreads all have information content. But it does mean we treat them as part of a broader mosaic, not as gospel.

As an investor, humility is key. The market doesn’t owe us clarity. The job is not to know the future with certainty, but to navigate the uncertainty with discipline.

So forget about a “promised recession” and focus on what matters.

Goldman analysts examined twelve companies (all within the GS coverage) with high exposure to middle-income consumers, including Walmart, Best Buy, Target, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Tractor Supply, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty, Petco, Bath & Body Works, Five Below, and Dollar Tree. 

Using GS Data Works, company data, and Pace.AI, analysts led by Kate McShane determined the median household income by retailer, finding an average of about $81,848 across the retailers in the GS universe. 

Breakdown: 

• The average household income across the group is $81,848.

• Highest Income: BJ’s Wholesale Club, at $90,433

• Lowest Income: Tractor Supply at $68,829

• 

Although the 12 companies vary in their relative exposure to the middle-income cohort, all maintain very high exposure levels (63%–74%) and are positioned to benefit from the tailwinds.

Breakdown: 

• Highest middle-income exposure: Academy Sports + Outdoors, Walmart, Tractor Supply, Dollar Tree, and Dick’s Sporting Goods. These firms also have the lowest household incomes (except Dick’s).

• Lowest middle-income exposure: BJ’s Wholesale Club, Target, Ulta Beauty, Petco, and Bath & Body Works. These firms have the highest average household incomes.

Median household income by retailer.

Latest commentary from executives at the twelve companies on the middle-income consumer.

The full note offers deeper insights into middle-income consumers. ZeroHedge Pro Subs can access this in the usual place.