Authored by Brian Quarmby via CoinTelegraph.cvom,

Tether co-founder Reeve Collins expects “all currency” to become stablecoins by 2030 as part of a broader shift that will see all forms of finance go onchain. 

“All currency will be a stablecoin. So even fiat currency will be a stablecoin. It’ll just be called dollars, euros, or yen,” said Collins in a wide-ranging interview during Token2049 in Singapore. 

“A stablecoin simply is a dollar, euro, yen, or, you know, a traditional currency running on a blockchain rail by 2030,” he added. 

Collins argues that stablecoins will be the primary method for transferring money within the next five years, as the benefits of tokenized assets have become too compelling for traditional finance to ignore.

“Probably before that, because you’re still going to use dollars. But it depends on what your definition of stablecoin is. The definition of stablecoin is essentially that you’re moving money on a blockchain,” he added. 

US crypto shift was the best thing to happen

Collins said that the best thing to ever happen to the crypto market was the positive “shift in stance” toward the sector by the US government this year.

Tether co-founder Reeve Collins. Source: Cointelegraph.

He argued that many large TradFi firms were too afraid to enter the industry out of fear of government scrutiny, and while there is still some gray area surrounding the industry, it’s a very different ball game these days.

The Tether co-founder stated that this shift has opened the “floodgates,” with the traditional finance world scrambling to enter the crypto sector and blockchain-based stablecoins being a key focus due to their inherent utility.
 
“Every large institution, every bank, everyone wants to create their own stablecoin, because it’s lucrative and it’s just a better way to transact. And so those floodgates are open, and what it’s going to lead to is that soon, there won’t be CeFi and DeFi,” he said.

“There’ll be applications that do things, move money, give loans, do investments, and it will be a mix of the kind of the old, traditional style investments, and then the DeFi types of investments.”

The tokenization narrative is strong

Collins said tokenized assets offer far greater transparency and efficiency than non-tokenized assets — given that they can be moved quickly across the globe without middlemen — which in turn offers more potential upside.

“That is why the tokenization narrative is so big, because everyone realizes the increase in the utility that you get from a tokenized asset versus a non-tokenized asset is so significant that even the same two assets, just once they’re moved onchain, since the utility increases, that means the return increases.” 

Downsides of going fully onchain

However, Collins acknowledged there were also risks to such a monumental shift in global finance, such as the security of blockchain bridges, smart contracts and crypto wallets.

Crypto hacks and social engineering are also key issues that need to be addressed, he said, though he emphasized that overall levels of security are “improving.”

“And so the old trade off is still going to remain there… which is if you want to be fully in control … you can do that, but it’s technically complex,” said Collins.

“If you want to trust a third party like you do traditionally with banks, there are a lot of those services like the custodial versus non-custodial, so that those services will get more robust, and people will have more options moving forward. So yes, there are always risks in technology,” he concluded. 

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has newly announced the opening of a Norwegian-led training center for Ukrainian soldiers in southeastern Poland.

The newly constructed Camp Jomsborg is a project overseen by Norway’s Brigade Nord in the town of Lipa. It is capable of housing up to 1,200 troops at a time and is expected to focus on “developing drone capabilities” at a moment EU officials are advancing plans for a collective ‘drone wall’ defense network in eastern Europe.

“This is not a one-way street. An important element is that we will draw on Ukrainian experience. Right next to us is a drone launch strip,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

Norway’s defense ministry has already confirmed that training has begun there, with Norwegian and Estonian instructors in charge of a “three-figure number” Ukrainian troops.

A statement previewed further that once the camp reaches full capacity, it will be able to “train several thousand soldiers”.

W jednostkach wojskowych powstają ośrodki szkolenia z wykorzystania bezzałogowych statków powietrznych. Programy realizowane m. in. w ośrodku VESTA 1. Warszawskiej Brygady Pancernej i ośrodku ZJAWA 15. Brygady Zmechanizowanej są na bieżąco aktualizowane w oparciu o doświadczenia… pic.twitter.com/nV9t2sURiu

— Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz (@KosiniakKamysz) October 3, 2025

Citing Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik, regional source Notes from Poland details:

The programme covers both basic training and advanced courses for officers and specialists. Norway has so far allocated 10 billion kroner (€860 million) to Operation Legio, covering equipment, camp construction and training. Other Nordic and Baltic countries are also contributing, with total donations sufficient to equip two brigades.

“Our concept is that Ukrainian needs are the driving force,” said Sandvik. “Their need is for both soldiers and equipment to strengthen existing units.”

Norway is a founding member of NATO, but also demonstrates that Scandinavian countries have risked conflict and tensions with Russia while bolstering the alliance in the context of the Ukraine war.

Currently, northern European countries like Denmark claim to be experiencing an unusually high number of ‘mystery’ drone incursions, which they blame on Russia. This is all being used as justification to ramp up war-readiness and expanding defense budgets.

It is also being used to justify continued build-up of NATO military infrastructure on the ‘eastern flank’ and right up to Russia’s doorstep, which itself has remained a rationale for the ‘special military operation’ from Moscow’s perspective.

Via The Libertarian Institute 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promoted Colonel Andriy Biletsky to the rank of Brigadier General. Biletsky has said the purpose of the Ukrainian right is to fight the “Semitic-led untermenschen [subhumans].”

“To confer the military rank of brigadier general on Colonel Andriy Yevhenovych Biletsky, commander of the 3rd Army Corps of the ‘East’ Operational Command of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the presidential decree signed Wednesday said. 

Biletsky is the commander of the Third Separate Assault Brigade and the founder of the Azov regiment. He is an outright white supremacist.

“Ukrainians are part (and one of the largest and highest quality) of the European White Race. Ras-Creator of great civilization, the highest human achievements,” he said in a 2007 speech. 

“The historical mission of our Nation, in this turning point, to lead and lead the White peoples of the whole world into the last crusade for its existence against the Semitic-led untermenschen,” the statement went on.

The Third Separate Assadly Brigade webpage says it maintains “the same principles on which the legendary ‘Azov’ and the entire Azov movement are based. The foundation worldview principles of the Azovian units are Ukrainian-centrism, traditionalism, hierarchy and responsibility.”

Below – archived Guardian article: “This provocative show of strength culminated at a torch-illuminated fortress, where militia members swore oaths of allegiance to Andriy Biletsky, an ultranationalist MP who heads the National Corpus party.”

Additionally, Zelensky awarded the Hero of Ukraine posthumously to Andriy Parubiy. Parubiy was assassinated in August. In 1991, he founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine that used the Nazi Wolfsangel as its logo. 

Neo-Nazis, like Biletsky and Parubiy, gained power in Ukraine following the US-backed coup in 2014. Following the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, Parubiy rose to the position of speaker of the Parliament, and Biletsky founded the Azov Battalion. 

Above: BuzzFeed archived article writes that “Azov’s neo-Nazi links are clear” while still hailing Ukraine’s “democratic” but “flawed” government.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Marker.us

America is thoroughly divided. It has been divided and polarized for many years. Anyone who thinks they can stop it or fix it is fooling themselves. Anyone who thinks that conflict is avoidable is delusional. Anyone who thinks the division is “artificial” or a “false left/right paradigm” is naive. It is very real, tangible and undeniable.

Many would argue that the core problem is the globalist cabal, influencing the population from the shadows, stoking violence from useful idiots and controlling every aspect of civil unrest. While these social engineers very much exist and they do try to play both sides of the chess board, they are only able to influence conflicts to a point.

They didn’t create the conditions that make the conflict possible. Those conditions are inherent and eternal. The globalists merely exploit the divisions that already exist. Leftists WANT the power to destroy conservatives. They want control and they want to see blood. It’s the thing that subconsciously drives every political decision they make.

Globalism as an ideology or a conspiracy has no power without the divergent and psychopathic subset present in every single society on Earth. Around 5% of any given population has narcissistic, sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies.

Around 23% of the US population reports dealing with at least one mental illness and is likely to be taking some form of medication. Many of these people would still be considered “functional” in daily life, but not necessarily capable of controlling their emotions or avoiding reactionary behavior.

Then you have around 25% of the US population with an IQ of 89 or less (well below average). This element of the public is deficient in critical thinking skills and they are more easily manipulated.

These are just the intrinsic problems.

When it comes to environmental factors, there’s the less obvious but always present element of academia that is “so smart they are dumb”. People who are educated but also heavily indoctrinated with an ideology that feeds their insecurities and their biases. Many of these activists are people with mental and emotional deficiencies trying to fill a void in their lives. They have no original ideas and they will rabidly and arrogantly defend the beliefs that they have been programmed with.

Easily corruptible Americans exist across the political spectrum, left, right and center. However, today you are more likely to find most of them on the extreme left.

A number of studies link far-left ideology with psychopathy and narcissism, and the majority of incidences involving legitimate politically motivated violence are committed by leftists (I outlined in my last article how data from left-wing NGOs like the ADL is rigged to make it appear that conservatives are “more violent” when we are not).

It’s important to understand one vital thing; the key to grasping the root of the leftist problem: Leftist ideology, socialism, Marxism, communism, globalism, wokeness, etc. attracts mentally unhinged people.

It sometimes creates them, but mostly it gives dangerous and unstable people a home, a club, a place to feel as if they are the majority and that they are on the right side of history.

These stunted aberrations already exist everywhere, but in a healthy system they are usually isolated from each other and from normal society. In an unhealthy system without morals, responsibilities or self restraint, they thrive. The woke movement is a metastic mechanism; a relentless magnet that pulls in the ugliest elements of society and weaponizes them to attack the whole body.

This is how every communist revolution starts – By gathering the dregs of a population together and telling them they are “the victims”. It then turns that mob loose for the sole purpose of burning down a target nation.

Maybe 20 years ago the “false left/right paradigm” was an apt description of our nation’s quandary. Today the term does not apply. The leftists and the globalists have become one body, one entity. They are the same enemy, working hand-in-hand. You cannot defeat the leftists without defeating the globalists, and you cannot defeat the globalists without defeating the militant leftists (and by the way, Neo-Cons are also leftists).

I would make one distinction here: There are people who consider themselves tied to the liberal left but they are actually centrists. They might be misled or uneducated on the facts, they might let their emotions rule their thinking, but they are not necessarily friends of the globalists. Some of them hate globalism as much as conservatives do, but they wrongly believe that globalism is a product of free market capitalism and conservatism.

Globalism is fundamentally socialist, not capitalist. It is built first on corporations which only exist because of artificial government charter and government protection. The central bank bailouts, for example, protected numerous corporations from the financial consequences of their mismanagement. The idea of “too big to fail” is a socialist policy, not a capitalist one.

Central banks are a primary plank of the Communist Manifesto, not free market ideology. Furthermore, globalism forces nations into interdependency instead of advocating for self sufficiency and redundancy. In other words, it’s about top-down control and removing choice from free markets. The political left proudly promotes this kind of system. They despise public choice.

This is why the leftists and globalists are perfect allies.

Globalists at the World Economic Forum (the Davos crowd) have been pushing the “Great Reset” for the past decade. This reset is decidedly leftist in its goals. They want a “sharing economy” in which private property is abolished. Citizens would be required to borrow everything they have from the government, from apartments to cars to dinner plates. As the WEF says, you would “own nothing and be happy”.

It is a purely communist concept and fully supported by the political left.

Then there’s the climate change agenda which demands carbon taxation, the dismantling of industry, the government regulation of the public diet and food supply, as well as population control (based on the lie of man-made global warming). Again, these are draconian restrictions that leftists cheer for.

How about open borders and the end of nationalism? Leftists and globalists agree here, too. Both groups are ready to go to war in order to force western populations to accept mass immigration from the third world. Entropic immigration is a tool for ending western civilization, and leftists joyfully expedite that collapse.

In terms of philosophy, progressive ideology and globalist theory intertwine into a symbiotic beast called “moral relativism”. Every element of the woke movement is based in selfish aggrandizement. All of its ideas require a morally relative framework that values hedonism over self restraint. In their minds, one cannot be free until one abandons all responsibility and conscience.

It’s a confusing juxtaposition: They believe they are not free until they are allowed to entertain their darkest fetishes. At the same time, they want to micromanage the behaviors of everyone else.

You will never see conservatives trying to defend this kind of thinking. You see leftists defending it all the time. In my view, two recent events make our irreconcilable differences abundantly clear: The pandemic response and the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

During the pandemic we witnessed a clear fracture between conservatives and leftists in how we view freedom. Most leftists applauded the lockdowns, the mandates and the vaccine requirements. It wasn’t that they were afraid of Covid: They reveled in the vicarious power.

They became animals frothing at the mouth for more. They demanded that conservatives be fined, imprisoned, forced to comply with the mandates. Many even wanted our children taken away.

After Charlie Kirk’s assassination by a gay leftist (who confessed to his parents that he committed the attack after they recognized him in suspect photos), millions of other leftists danced, sang and cheered for the murder. They called for more blood, more death. They were in ecstasy.

This was a defining moment for me, and I think it was a defining moment for our nation. The mask was completely torn away. Now we know, without a shadow of a doubt, the woke left is a purely evil movement. Not misguided. Not misunderstood. Not well meaning but stupid. They are evil.

We need to accept the reality that we can no longer treat these people as if they are our fellow countrymen. As President John Adams once stated:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Our nation was not made for leftists. That is to say, we are at war with a moral relativist enemy that wants to see us erased from history. The fact that this enemy lives next door to us is incidental. I’m willing to fight for our constitutional rights, but not the rights of people that want to see the constitution burned.

Few if any of the Founding Fathers would have tolerated the woke left in their lifetime. They would have kicked them out of the country without regret.

The most peaceful solution to our problem would be nothing less than a shared agreement of national divorce. The political left and the globalists must be separated from the rest of us, cast to their own degenerate communist enclave. A place where they can sink or swim based on their insane dystopian theories on society (much like North Korea).

They could give up on their ideology, embrace moral objectivity, meritocracy and national identity; but we all know that’s not going to happen.

The final choice, and the most likely, is that we go to war. In which case, leftists would not last long and the globalists would escape overseas.

Mark my words, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the numerous attacks by leftist activists are just the beginning. I predicted this outcome right after Donald Trump’s election win and I warned that, like all communist uprisings, the violence will continue to escalate. The assassinations will pile up unless something is done.

At bottom, everything the political left champions falls perfectly in line with the globalist vision for the future. They are not separate, they are the same organism. When you see an Antifa thug, an NGO activist or a transgender militant, what you are looking at is a willing appendage of globalism, not a “patriot” trying to be heard.

This is why I can no longer tolerate the impotent calls among some conservatives and libertarians for “unity”. Nor the calls for “forgiveness” and “reconciliation”.  Our most fundamental beliefs are mutually exclusive. It’s a childish notion to think you can coexist with the devil in the same house when his only desire is to see your destruction.

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

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A combination of ideology, social media, mental health disorders, and medication may be influencing recent trends in violence and radicalization among those who identify as transgender, according to experts.

“My general feeling is that we’re seeing more of it … not for any one factor, but because of several factors all convening, and they’re all amplified by the political rhetoric,” said C. Alan Hopewell, a Fort Worth neuropsychologist.

When people struggling with their sexual identity are prescribed hormones to change their bodies, it impacts the way they think, he told The Epoch Times.​

Hopewell said that combining hormones, medication, and intense online pressure can create a dangerous situation.

Since 2018, there have been at least six high-profile shootings at schools and businesses involving individuals who identified as transgender or were described as gender-confused.

Two were mass shootings, which are defined by the Crime Prevention Research Center as the killing of four or more people in a single incident that’s not gang-related or related to some other crime.

Last year, Anderson Lee Aldrich, a man who identifies as nonbinary, was sentenced to 55 concurrent life sentences for the 2022 shooting of five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In 2023, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a woman who identified as a man, opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville. Three 9-year-olds and three adults were gunned down before police shot and killed Hale.

Robert Westman, who changed his name to Robin, killed two children and wounded 21 others before killing himself at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis this August. The 23-year-old left a manifesto saying he “was tired of being trans” and scrawled anti-Christian messages and the words “kill Donald Trump” on weapons.

Likewise, members of the Zizians, described as a cult-like group largely made up of transgender individuals, have been mentioned in connection with the death of a woman during an attack on a California landlord in November 2022, the landlord’s subsequent killing, and the deaths of a Pennsylvania couple.

Most recently, the Zizians have been linked to a highway shootout in Vermont that left a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead.

In Texas, Cameron Arnold, also known as Autumn Hill, and Bradford Morris, also known as Meagan Morris, were charged with the attempted murder of federal agents in connection with an ambush of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in July.

Both suspects were members of an Antifa-affiliated group and both identified as transgender, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Court proceedings recently revealed that the man arrested for allegedly plotting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 identified as a woman.

Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, was romantically involved with a transgender partner whose picture in a “furry” suit has been widely distributed online.

Friends reported that Robinson delved into a “dark” internet culture, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on Sept. 14.

Messages on the cartridges in a rifle found by police in a wooded area after Kirk’s shooting gave insight into the shooter’s motive.

According to court documents, the phrase on one cartridge contained a reference to online furry and roleplay culture. Another read “Hey fascist! Catch!” and featured arrow symbols that may have referred to a sequence of controller moves that unleash a bomb in the video game “Helldivers 2.”

Robinson’s mother told investigators that over the past year or so, Robinson’s political beliefs had been leaning to the left, “becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” according to the documents.

President Donald Trump said on Sept. 15, “It looks like he became radicalized on the internet.”​

The FBI is investigating other possible accomplices in the assassination of the conservative influencer.

Ideology and Violence

When asked whether the FBI should be investigating transgender extremism, Trump told reporters on Sept. 21: “Something seems to be going on, but you can’t make that statement yet. We’re looking at it very closely.”

Groups such as Armed Queers of Salt Lake City, a militant anti-fascist group that wiped its social media presence after Kirk’s assassination, and Trans Army have come under public scrutiny.

Armed Queers spoke on “queer resistance” at the University of Utah in 2023. The group, which calls itself a revolutionary LGBT organization that defends “oppressed people,” is led by Ermiya Fanaeian, a transgender activist whose parents were Iranian immigrants. Fanaeian identifies as a “trans woman of color.”

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said in an X post that the socialist group is now under FBI investigation in connection with Kirk’s slaying. She noted alleged funding links between the group and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Trans Army, which offers “guides, toolkits, and counterinsurgency strategies to survive and fight back” denied the group was anything but peaceful, after journalist Andy Ngo posted on X that the organization was training for a “paramilitary insurrection against the U.S. government.”

The group said in an online statement, ​“The recent portrayal of the Trans Army initiative as a violent revolutionary force fundamentally misinterprets the organization’s intent, purpose, and advocacy.”

​Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist group on Sept. 22 and signed a presidential memorandum on Sept. 25 with the aim of dismantling left-wing terrorism networks in the United States.

The memorandum stated that recent political violence, including anti-ICE shootings and assassinations, did not have organic origins.

“Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society,” the president said.

The memorandum directed the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and people engaged in political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.

Hormones and Mental Health

Dr. Lauren Schwartz, an Oklahoma psychiatrist, cautioned against the assumption that transgender individuals are inherently violent.

“I would be very cautious to link it directly to a violent act, of something like murdering someone or assassinating someone,” she told The Epoch Times.

Schwartz said individuals experiencing gender confusion are already vulnerable, and affirming their beliefs does not appear to improve their situation. Instead, she noted, their conditions may worsen.

“Steroids, and testosterone specifically … I do think all of them put these kids and young adults in horribly compromised medical situations, even if it has nothing to do with harm to others,” she said.

While the number of mass killings involving transgender individuals is small, some experts say that the proportion appears statistically high.

​“If you look at mass public shootings since 2018, what you find is about 5 percent of the mass public shooters were trans individuals, and given that their share of the population is about 0.7 percent, they’re obviously overrepresented,” John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told The Epoch Times.

Read the rest here…

Reaffirming that the sober revolution in America is continuing full steam ahead into fall, a new Goldman report shows total alcoholic beverage sales fell 3.9% in the two weeks ending September 20, consistent with prior 4-week and 12-week declines. 

There’s a lot to unpack in Goldman’s alcoholic beverage trends note, which cites NielsenIQ data through September 20. A team of analysts led by Bonnie Herzog wrote the report. Here’s the breakdown:

Overall U.S. Market

• Total alcoholic beverage sales fell -3.9% in the 2 weeks ending 9/20/25, consistent with prior 4- and 12-week declines.

• Volume remained under pressure (-3.0%), while pricing slipped slightly (-0.7%).

• Spirits and Cider were the only categories avoiding volume contraction.

Beer Category

• Beer sales declined -3.8%, driven by a -5.2% volume drop, partially offset by +1.5% pricing.

• Modelo: Sales down -3.5% on weaker volumes (-4.6%) but modest price growth (+1.2%).

• Bud Light: Sales fell -8.9%, losing 44 bps market share to 7.7%.

• Michelob ULTRA: Grew +2.5%, gaining 55 bps market share to 9.0%.

• Coors Light & Miller Lite: Both declined (-4.6% and -7.8%), with share erosion.

Flavored Malt Beverages (FMBs)

• FMB sales fell -6.8%.

• Twisted Tea: Sales dropped -12.8%, though market share edged higher.

• Simply Spiked: Severe weakness continued (-32.0%).

• Hard Seltzers: Down -5.7%, led by Truly (-13.6%) with share loss.

Ready-to-Drink (RTD)

• Cocktails Strong growth continued: Spirit-based RTDs: +23.1% Wine-based RTDs: +28.5%

Promotions

• Promotional spend moderated slightly to 18.5% of sales (from ~18.6–18.7%).

Herzog’s team published an extensive chartbook visualizing the NielsenIQ data, underscoring a “sober revolution” that has gained momentum since the Covid lockdowns. Gen-Z sober behaviors are also changing the drinking landscape.

The charts line up with Gallup’s latest survey showing (read report), for the first time in the poll’s 90-year history, that a majority of Americans now view even moderate alcohol consumption as harmful to one’s health.

Bud Light sales remain depressed after a transgender TikTok in early 2023 nuked the brand. 

Hmmm.

Related:

• “Sudden Spike” In US Marijuana Substitution For Alcohol Ahead Of Trump-Era

• Beer Distribution Data Signals “Rough Start” To Summer Drinking Season

For the full 75 charts and tables on the latest U.S. alcohol trends, ZeroHedge Pro Subs can access the report in the usual spot.

Authored by Mike Donghia via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Being able to identify financial traps can help make security in your midlife and beyond a breeze.

When you’re young, the central money problems to solve are how to grow your income and begin to invest so the magic of compounding is on your side.

As you approach retirement, the challenge shifts to managing health care costs and transitioning your investments to a stable phase, allowing you to draw on them.

What about the midlife years when life is busy and the demands on your time are at their all-time high? What is the most innovative way to approach your finances during this season?

As I enter my mid-30s, I am firmly entering the exciting midlife years with a career and a large family to care for. After years of having to closely manage our money, a bit of breathing room has finally emerged. However, I’m convinced the key to this season in life is avoiding the money traps that so easily entangle otherwise intelligent people.

Midlife can last for around three decades—a long time to see your career and investments grow if you’ve set yourself up that way. That much time also means plenty of opportunities to get off track and blow your blessings on trivial mistakes.

7 Common Midlife Money Traps

There are several ways we can fall into financial trappings. Becoming aware of them can help us avoid their ill effects.

1. Allowing Your Spending to Increase With Rising Income

Our default human behavior is to spend nearly everything we make. As your income grows, your expenses grow proportionally, as if by some inexplicable magic. It happens without even thinking about it, but means your rate of savings never increases. The opportunity cost is significant because that money could be invested conservatively and grow over time to meet larger needs that will surely arise down the road.

2. Not Diversifying Your Investments

There comes a season in many people’s lives where they get the idea that they can invest their own money better than the average professional. Generally, people who get the investing itch end up concentrating their investments into what they see as “sure bets” instead of diversifying and accepting normal rates of growth. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and this will work out, but more often you’ll be unlucky and see painful drawdowns. For most non-experts, it’s a trap to avoid.

3. Underestimating the Impact of Inflation

Another type of person views the stock market and other investments as risky and therefore avoids them altogether due to fear. They read about the volatility in the news or hear about friends or family losing money, and want to stay as far away as possible. What they often fail to account for is the slow, draining effect that inflation can have over decades. With just three decades of 2 percent inflation, your original amount is worth about half of what it was at the start. The moral is: Don’t let fear keep your money from earning interest— find a local advisor that can help you make wise investments.

4. Carrying High-Interest Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt is a trap, and possibly the main reason, besides health care expenses, that people end up in bankruptcy. Avoid at all costs. Aim to make it through your entire midlife years without ever paying a dime of credit card interest. For one, if you have a substantial emergency fund, it should never really be needed. If you do need a loan for any reason, there are much cheaper sources that any bank or credit union can point you toward.

5. Falling for Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

We all know the dangers of the midlife crisis and the irrational decisions it can lead people to make. Sometimes we feel “behind” on our financial journey and want to make up for lost time in one fell swoop. When it comes to money, always assume there’s no additional upside without additional risk, and your midlife is not the time to be ratcheting up the risks you’re willing to take. It’s far safer to find a source of side income if you want or need to grow your savings faster.

6. Not Building an Emergency Fund During Good Times

Many of the problems mentioned in the above list can be avoided by making it a priority to build an emergency fund and add to it over time. Having cash on hand, or money that you can quickly and easily convert to cash, is one of the best safety nets you can build for yourself. While many people advocate for three to six months of expenses, I say to aim even higher in your midlife—up to 12 or even 24 months so that you can weather any financial storm.

7. Buying Too Much House or Too Nice a Car

One of the most common traps people fall into when they finally start having some extra dough is looking around and seeing how they stack up to their peers. Not wanting to appear behind, many upgrade their lifestyle with bigger homes and newer, higher-status vehicles. I’m not against spending your well-earned money, but be careful that you’re doing so thoughtfully, and with the bigger picture of your financial goals in mind.

Hollywood’s middle class is collapsing, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Production has slowed to historic lows, jobs are vanishing, and longtime workers are leaving Los Angeles in droves.

Animator Brian Mainolfi, who once worked with Chuck Jones and on Disney films like Mulan, hasn’t had steady work since 2024. His only income is $350 a week teaching three hours away. “By the end of the year if I don’t have something, I’m going to have to apply to a big-box store or a grocery store,” said the 54-year-old, now burning through savings.

Production manager Pixie Wespiser, 62, who has worked on 36 shows including Night Court, said: “This is the first year since 1989 that I haven’t had a show to work on. I look around and I see so many people who are seriously suffering.”

Oscar-winning sound mixer Thomas Curley hasn’t worked since April 2024. What he misses most is the teamwork: “Feeling like you’re part of a team that’s making something that can provide joy for millions…that level of purpose is a really hard thing to let go of.”

The downturn began after the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. Streamers, once in a content arms race, slashed spending to chase profitability. Nearly 30 percent fewer big-budget productions began in 2024 compared with 2022, and this year is down another 13 percent.

FilmLA reports that production in the region hit its lowest point, outside the pandemic, since at least 1995. Los Angeles County motion picture jobs fell from 142,000 in 2022 to about 100,000 by the end of 2024. Unemployment in L.A. is higher than state and national averages, worsened by wildfires and a housing crunch. With cheaper options abroad and new fears about AI replacing artists, recovery looks distant.

The Journal writes that the collapse has rippled far beyond film sets. Local businesses that once relied on entertainment workers are shuttering. Cookie shop owner Courtney Cowan, whose Milk Jar Cookies once thrived on studio orders, shut down in early 2024 and declared bankruptcy. “It’s not dramatic to say that the result has been personal financial ruin,” she said.

Some industry veterans are leaving the city altogether. Former assistant director Susan Hellman, who worked on shows like Entourage, sold her Venice home and moved to Florida after months without work. Animator Rachel Long, who built her career on series like BoJack Horseman, retrained as a phlebotomist. “I went from drawing blood to drawing blood,” she jokes, though her new job pays a fraction of her old salary.

California has expanded its film tax credits, and some producers are lobbying for federal ones. But studios continue to chase lower costs in Canada, Europe, and beyond. Producer Steven Paul, shooting The Last Firefighter in Los Angeles, admitted it cost far more than filming overseas but insisted, “If we’re going to say we want to bring production back to America, I can’t be the one filming everywhere in the world.” For thousands of workers, though, that fight may come too late.

As one writer put it: “It felt like the floor fell out.”

Authored by Carey Wedler via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

California is home to numerous profitable industries, but many of the state’s residents struggle to survive under the weight of big government. Case in point: excessive regulations have suffocated the state’s housing market and led to some of the nation’s highest rents and most expensive homes.

In contrast, metro areas in the South, particularly in Texas, are leading in the construction of new apartment buildings this year. Austin hosted nearly double the number of new units as Los Angeles, which is larger tin both geographic and population size. One of the reasons for the South’s housing boom is its less-restrictive regulatory environment. According to Doug Ressler, a senior analyst and manager of business at Yardi Matrix, a real estate data firm, “Southern metros typically offer streamlined approval processes and fewer regulatory hurdles, making it easier to bring multi-family projects to market.” Notably, Texas lawmakers further relaxed the state’s land zoning laws earlier this year to allow for more housing construction.

Californians have long been victims of government overreach. Has the tide begun to turn?

Earlier this summer, members of the heavily Democratic state legislature voted to roll back CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, for certain building projects. The law, passed in 1970 and signed by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, mandates that developers consider environmental impacts when proposing construction projects. CEQA requires government agencies tasked with approving building projects to conduct reviews based on potential environmental threats, including those to nearby water, air, flora, and fauna. CEQA also allows members of the public to file lawsuits to block projects based on environmental concerns.

The law has faced widespread criticism, as builders say it contributes to making housing construction too expensive and time-consuming. But faced with staggering housing shortages and skyrocketing costs, the Democrat-dominated state legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom instituted unprecedented reforms at the end of June.

The reforms removed the CEQA review for certain types of developments, effectively “exempting or streamlining infrastructure projects, including high-speed rail; community water and sewer systems; certain types of daycare centers, health clinics and food banks, wildfire risk reduction projects; and ‘advanced manufacturing’ located in industrial zones,” Deborah Sivas, co-director of Stanford University’s Environmental Law Clinic, told ABC News.

Perhaps most significantly, the reforms grant an exemption for “infill” housing construction projects. Infill housing generally refers to urban housing built in and around existing developments. CEQA restrictions previously created a huge hurdle to building infill housing in densely populated areas where it is most needed. The reformed CEQA will unblock most new infill housing developments, which is expected to expand the state’s housing supply.

CEQA advocates have argued the law is not a significant impediment to the housing supply, claiming few CEQA lawsuits actually target housing projects. But others disagree with this assessment.

Nick and Daniel Yost, a father and son who are both environmental attorneys and activists, have pointed out that “The mere threat of a CEQA lawsuit is enough to stifle new housing developments since such suits can add substantial time, cost and risk for builders who already face daunting construction costs.” Lawsuits don’t actually have to be filed to disincentivize developers from starting new projects.

Further, according to a 2018 analysis by veteran attorney Jennifer Hernandez published in the University of California Law Environmental Journal, the most frequent targets of CEQA lawsuits have been housing projects—specifically multifamily construction projects in urban areas. Referring to her previous research on the effects of the law, she wrote that “CEQA lawsuits were most often aimed at infill housing (especially multifamily apartments in urbanized areas).”

She also noted that projects generally viewed as good for the environment often become CEQA targets, as “more transit projects were challenged than roadway and highway projects combined, and that the most frequent ‘industrial’ targets challenged were clean energy facilities like solar and wind projects.” Additionally, even some environmental advocates have taken issue with CEQA’s detrimental effects on the environment. As Nick and Daniel Yost noted, CEQA restrictions on infill housing can force construction projects into open and agricultural spaces.

Further, many CEQA lawsuits are actually efforts to weaponize the law for non-environmental interests. A 2022 paper by attorney Noah DeWitt published in Pepperdine University’s law journal argued that “the wrong people have discovered the right ways to make CEQA serve their own interests—interests that demote the environment to a secondary concern.” Developers seek to stymie projects that may compete with their own business. Unions are also known to threaten CEQA suits if developers do not hire their workers.

NIMBYs (“Not In My Backyard”) also leverage CEQA—not to protect the environment but to limit new housing developments in their communities. Such applications of the law have harmed the poor and minorities, who suffer the most from rampant housing shortages. As DeWitt notes, CEQA tactics are used to keep such groups out of certain areas, and bear a “strange resemblance to the sorts of racially based tactics used to keep minorities out of white communities in the 1960s.”

CEQA perfectly encapsulates a key flaw of progressive governance: the “fix” for one problem often creates another. An ideology attempting to serve many high-minded ideals will quickly damage some cherished cause by seeking another. CEQA’s costs have become so high that some Democrats are willing to compromise. Even so, others in the legislature staunchly opposed these CEQA reforms, insisting that reforms should also prioritize the construction of low-income housing. The endless appetite for controlling and tinkering—in this case, in the name of helping the disadvantaged—has virtually ensured such dire, if unintended, outcomes.

This fracture within the California legislature highlights an emerging attitude in left-leaning ideology: the “abundance agenda.”

The term aligns with the popular book, “Abundance,” by authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. This mindset acknowledges that bureaucracy and administrative excesses have created serious barriers to prosperity and innovation, from housing to infrastructure and energy. Klein called out progressives in a New York Times piece earlier this year, writing:

“It has become too hard to build, and too expensive to live, in the places where Democrats govern. It is too hard to build homes. It is too hard to build clean energy. It is too hard to build mass transit. The problem isn’t technical: We know how to build apartment complexes and solar panel arrays and train lines. The problem is the rules and the laws and political cultures that govern construction in many blue states.”

Unsurprisingly, a 2024 UC Berkeley survey found more than half of California voters agreed that “it is difficult to access at least some essential goods and services.” Limiting the question to finding suitable housing at an affordable price, almost half said they strongly agree, reflecting, the scholars summarized, “the severity of the state’s decades-in-the-making housing crisis.”

Some skeptics of the CEQA rollback are not defenders of the law, but worry rolling it back may not have much effect. Some builders have said the reforms may provide more freedom and speed up timelines, but that “plenty of barriers to home construction remain in California,” citing “bureaucratic delays, high labor and materials costs, strict liability laws, and environmental regulations.” Further, while the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market research organization, praised the reforms, it highlighted new instances of bureaucratic red tape built into them.

The state’s CEQA rollback is a vital step toward solving at least some of the many problems California’s big government has created. But there is a long way to go, if legislators intend to help the people most hurt by decades of excessive regulation.

From the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)