Authored by J.B.Shurk via The Gatestone Institute,

The mission objective of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is remarkably simple: the smartest, best people in the world should rule everyone else. In WEF parlance, their schemes of total supervision and behavioral modification will create a “sustainable” future for humanity. Humans become nothing more than “things” to be counted, shuffled, categorized, tagged, monitored, manipulated, and controlled. They become nothing more than cogs in the WEF’s great trans-humanist, technocratic machine.

Pictured: WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab in Davos on May 23, 2022. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

When Sir Thomas More wrote his socio-political satire about a fictional island society in the New World, he gave it the fabricated name, Utopia, derived from simple Greek and meaning, “no-place.” Although More was humorously telling his audience that his idealized community existed nowhere, centuries of central planners chasing the fantasy of utopian societies have failed to get the joke. Worse, for every peaceful religious community seeking separation from modern civilization, there is a power-hungry tyrant seeking to impose his will upon everyone else.

It seems as if not a generation goes by when some megalomaniac does not rise to proclaim, “If only the world does exactly as I demand, I will deliver you paradise here on Earth.” Usually, these same narcissists go down in history remembered as either vainglorious buffoons or bloodthirsty tyrants — often both.

Today, Klaus Schwab rises as leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to promise a “Great Reset” for the human race. He envisions a future Utopia achieved through technological precision, centralized management of Earth’s resources, careful observation of citizens, the merger of human and artificial intelligence, and the monopolization of government power by a small professional class with recognized expertise. Although the WEF has spent the last 50 years organizing conferences, publishing policy proposals, and connecting global leaders in industry, banking, information technology, intelligence gathering, military strategy, and politics, its mission objective is remarkably simple: the smartest, best people in the world should rule everyone else.

Separated from all its pretensions about “saving the world” from unchecked population growth and climate apocalypse, the WEF is nothing new. Its foundations have been around at least since the time of Plato, when two and a half millennia ago the Greek philosopher proposed that the ideal city-state would be ruled by “philosopher kings.” Just as Plato surveyed the world and predictably concluded that people from his own vocation should logically govern everyone else, the World Economic Forum’s global “elites” have come to a strikingly similar determination. Far from advancing anything forward-looking or modern, Schwab and his acolytes walk in the footsteps of an ancient Greek. For a half-century, the WEF’s members have been on a quest to devise the perfect global government without any say from Western nations’ voting populations, and to no-one’s surprise, those same “philosopher kings” have nominated themselves to do the ruling. How convenient.

As is true of almost all visions of Utopia, the WEF’s new world order will be remarkably centralized. “Experts” on climate change will determine what kinds of energy may be used by businesses and consumers. “Experts” on sustainability will determine what foods humans (at least the non-“elite” variety) may eat. “Experts” on disinformation will determine what kinds of news and which side of a debate may be known and promoted. “Experts” on healthcare will determine how many times each citizen must be injected with ever-newer “vaccines,” whether citizens must be kept in lockdown “for their own good,” and whether face masks must be worn to prove continuing compliance. “Experts” on extremism will determine what kinds of speech are “harmful.” “Experts” on racism will determine which groups in society have unfair “privilege.” “Experts” in inequality will determine whose property must be taken and which groups the State should reward. “Experts” in whatever the State requires will determine that the State is acting reasonably every step of the way. However, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, individual rights, and other personal liberties will mean little in a WEF-constructed future running on philosopher-king-approved expertise. At no time can an individual’s needs, wants or concerns be allowed to obstruct the “greater good.” This is Schwab’s drab vision of Utopia.

Should he and the WEF clan pull it off, they will do so by using technology to enfeeble, rather than empower, the human race. Already, people have become familiar with the new terms of their future enslavement. Central bank digital currencies will allow governments not only to track every citizen’s income and purchase history in real time but also to limit what a person may spend depending upon government-determined social credit scores, perceived infractions of the “common good,” or perhaps unfair possession of “systemic privilege.” Digital vaccine passports will not only provide universal tracking of every person’s movements but also ensure stick-and-carrot compliance with future mandatory orders during declared “health emergencies.” Personal carbon footprints measuring each individual’s “culpability” for so-called man-made climate change will have the effect of recording everything a person eats and everywhere a person goes, while constantly “nudging” each citizen with digital rewards or penalties to modify behavior toward the government’s preferred standards. It should go without saying that when any government possesses such omnipotent powers, invasions of privacy will only expand, declared “health emergencies” will become only more numerous, and government “nudging” will become only more intrusive.

If this sounds more dystopian than utopian and every bit like an unwanted prison overseen by unaccountable government agents, that is precisely what it is. WEF zealots do not even hide their intentions anymore, already going so far as to push the construction of “Smart Cities” or “Fifteen Minute Cities” in which tens of millions of people can be relocated, live side-by-side in small apartment complexes, and move through a constant maze of entrances and exits accessed solely through digital ID verification and approval. In essence, the goal is to create a digital panopticon implementing all of the surveillance programs above, to provide future rulers with absolute control, while leaving everyone else in a permanent state of docile incarceration. In WEF parlance, such schemes of total supervision and behavioral modification will create a “sustainable” future for humanity. No doubt prison wardens feel much the same way when convicts are kept behind bars in rows of secured cages. The difference is that in the WEF’s Utopia, no crime must be committed to reap Schwab’s unjust “rewards.”

Now, if Westerners appreciated just what is coming their way, they might go apoplectic and resist the WEF’s new world order. For this very reason, the most important war being waged today is one that is never discussed openly in the press: the covert war over information. When people are allowed to openly debate ideas in the public square (including the digital square of social media and web pages free from search engine shadowbans), that “free market of ideas” will go where the people debating those ideas take them. For government “narratives” not only to survive but also to dominate all dissenting opinion, government-allied platforms must tilt the scales of free speech in their favor by ridiculing, censoring or outright criminalizing the thoughts and words of dissident minds. In any other market, such intentional interference would be considered anticompetitive collusion in violation of antitrust laws, but because the World Economic Forum’s acolytes treat competing free speech as dangerous “misinformation,” the “free market of ideas” has been transformed into a controlled “safe space” for the government’s friends.

What happens when government ambivalence toward free speech is combined with the amoral technocratic force behind the WEF’s plans for global Utopia? Well, as Herr Schwab recently proclaimed at the World Government Summit in Dubai when discussing artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, and digital identities: “Who masters those technologies — in some way — will be the master of the world.” (After that, is one-world-government still considered a “conspiracy theory”?) If the WEF controls the digital world, then it will essentially control the people. Once the stuff of science fiction, WEF technocrats even have a plan to “hack” into employees’ minds by monitoring and decoding their brainwaves.

Google is onboard with such thought control: it has declared its intent to expand a “pre-bunking” program meant to “immunize” people against what Google sees as “propaganda” or “misinformation” by indoctrinating unsuspecting Internet users with Google’s own home-brewed yet approved propaganda. By manipulating Google’s users without their knowledge, the search engine behemoth can ward off competing ideas — brilliant!

Microsoft founder Bill Gates feels the same way. In an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, the self-styled vaccine expert argues that AI technologies should be used as powerful tools to combat “digital misinformation” and “political polarization.” This comes on the heels of a recent discovery that Microsoft has already been using a British think tank, Global Disinformation Index (GDI), to secretly blacklist conservative media companies in the United States and prevent them from generating advertising revenue. The kicker? The U.S. State Department has been funding GDI’s “disinformation” work through taxpayer funds to the National Endowment for Democracy and its own Global Engagement Center, which are then transferred to GDI before GDI launders the tawdry viewpoint discrimination back to Microsoft and other companies behind a thin veil of “objectivity.”

Following the WEF model of creating an all-powerful partnership between private industry and government authority, Microsoft and the State Department have figured out how to undermine dissent by having third-party organization, GDI, label all such speech as “harmful disinformation” on its “Dynamic Exclusion List.”

Likewise, publicly funded news outlets throughout the West — including Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium — are working together to “develop online-based solutions” to target “hate comments and increasing disinformation.” What could possibly go wrong when State-controlled institutions collude to control the dissemination of information? As former Twitter “Trust and Safety” executive Yoel Roth testified before Congress, “Unrestricted free speech paradoxically results in less speech, not more.” From this Orwellian doublespeak standard, the clear line separating protections for free speech from outright censorship is whether the speaker articulates points of view in agreement with the WEF’s ruling coalition of Big Tech titans and government authorities or not. In Schwab’s Utopia, there is no room for truly free speech.

What happens when the job of censoring the public is placed entirely in the digital hands of artificial intelligence? Even though some political leaders have cautioned that AI could be an “existential threat” to humanity, and even as technology pioneers such as former Google chief Eric Schmidt admit that AI-powered computer systems should be seen as every bit as powerful as nuclear weapons, the rush toward AI-constructed Utopia is full speed ahead. That should give anyone of sound mind troubling pause. After all, the cognitive biases of Big Tech “elites” such as Gates, Schmidt, and others will almost certainly translate into digital biases for any artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT, an AI software program launched late last year, is already scaring the bejesus out of people with its overt political bias. In one instance, the AI concluded that using a racial slur was worse than allowing a city to be annihilated by a nuclear bomb. In another, the AI justified the suppression of Trump voters as necessary to “defend democracy” and prevent the spread of “dangerous speech,” while simultaneously arguing that “AI should not be used to suppress the free speech” of Biden supporters. Meanwhile, no sooner had some experimenters gained access to Microsoft’s new AI-powered chatbot than the synthetic brain started threatening people.

These troubling early signs give credence to Schmidt’s warning that AI should be regarded as equally and inherently dangerous as nuclear bombs. Where he and other WEF-allied global “elites” differ from the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, however, is in their seemingly urgent desire to turn these awesome AI weapons directly against Western peoples.

Clearly, if Schwab’s World Economic Forum intends to usher in an AI-powered Utopia where he can be the “master of the world,” then he has little use for human beings. In a very real sense, humans become nothing more than “things” to be counted, shuffled, categorized, tagged, monitored, manipulated, and controlled. They become nothing more than cogs in the WEF’s great trans-humanist, technocratic machine — useful for a time, perhaps, but ultimately a burden to feed and house and logically expendable. If artificial intelligence can do the thinking that Schwab needs and support the ideas that Schwab adores, then humans are just in the way. Should the World Economic Forum get its centralized Utopia, the “thingification” of the human race will be a giant step toward its eventual disposal.

In the past year, Japanese bank Nomura has had a penchant for making several headline-grabbing outlier predictions about the Fed: in June, Nomura was the first bank to call for a 75bps rate hike (a view that quickly became consensus after the infamous Hilsenrath weekend report that blew up the Fed’s forward guidance), followed one month later by an even more show-stopping forecast for a 100bps rate hike in July. Verdict: it got one out of two right (the former, not the latter), yet still not a bad track record when the bank takes the bold step to break away from the echo chamber herd.

This week, the bank has done it again, because with the Fed seemingly torn between keeping its 25bps rate hike cadence or expanding it to 50bps to give the tightening campaign a little extra “oomph” after the latest FOMC minutes found that a higher than expected “few” favoed a 0.5% rate hike, Nomura’s strategist Aichi Amemiya writes that he now expects a 50bp hike in March followed by 25bp hikes in May and June “as persistent inflation drives the Fed to a more hawkish stance.”

Here’s his reasoning, excerpted from the note (available to pro subs in the usual place):

Resurging inflation leads to our revised forecast of a 50bp rate hike in March and a higher terminal rate

Incoming inflation data suggest the underlying inflation trend may have stopped moderating in recent months. Although the Fed downshifted to a slower pace of rate hikes in 25bp increments in February, the recent persistence of inflation, in addition to strong labor markets and easy financial conditions suggests: 1) the Fed is unlikely to rely on goods-led disinflation, as it could be short-lived; 2) the underlying trend inflation may be re-accelerating, thus raising the risk of under-tightening and 3) aggressive policy action might be needed to tighten financial conditions. Against this backdrop, we revise our near-term Fed call as follows (Fig. 1):

• A 50bp rate hike in March.
• Two 25bp rate hikes in May and June to a terminal rate of 5.50-5.75%. Previously, we had expected one more 25bp rate hike in March to a terminal rate of 4.75-5.00%.
• Our expectation for the first cut is unchanged at March 2024.
• We maintain our view that balance sheet reduction will continue until March 2024.

The 50bp rate hike in March may sound aggressive. That said, we think the Fed is further from a pause on rate hikes than we had originally believed and it is possible more front-loaded rate hikes will be needed to tighten financial conditions and control inflation.

Furthermore, in light of the continued recent easing in financial conditions (chart below, right), Nomura suggests that the Fed may also be motivated to hit a higher terminal rate.

Amemiya followed up on his forecast today, after Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari spoke at a moderated discussion, and Atlanta Fed President Bostic released an essay on “Striking a Delicate Balance” between reducing inflation and inflicting too much economic pain: Kashkari responded to the question about the size of rate hikes, indicating he is open-minded to either 25bp or 50bp, which lends support to Nomura’s call for a 50bp rate hike in March. However, he stressed that he is focused on the “dots,” referring to the FOMC participants’ projections for the federal funds rate. He said the March dots are much more important than how much the Fed will raise at the March meeting. He also said January data are concerning, and that he is leaning towards pushing up his policy path. That suggests he may revise up his 2023 dot to 5.625% from 5.375% in December.

According to Nomura, “while we expect a 50bp rate hike at the March meeting, alternatively, the Fed could raise the median 2023 dot to 5.625% which may have a similar market impact. However, our key point is that we will likely see renewed hawkishness at the March meeting, either in the form of a 50bp rate increase or higher-than-expected dots.”

Meanwhile, Bostic’s essay came across hawkish, in our view, however his terminal rate expectation remained at 5.00-5.25%. It’s also interesting that he mentioned “a narrative has gained momentum among some commentators that the Fed should consider reversing its course of raising the federal funds rate.” This comment is somewhat out of line with our perspective that recent market developments have tended towards expecting and pricing in a higher terminal rate.

And while other banks are becoming increasingly hawkish, not one is willing to stake its credibility on predicting that the Fed will once again backtrack on its hiking strategy, and boost rates by 50bps this month after raising 25bps in February as that would be a tacit admission of yet another serious error, the third in a row (after “transitory inflation” and the 50bps to 75bps June rate hike switcheroo).

For what it’s worth, after pricing in just one 25bps rate hike in March for much of February, the odds of a 50bps are now at 25bps and rising.

More in the full note available here for pro subs.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

Jordan Peterson’s interview with Jay Bhattacharya is one of the more insightful conversations to come out of the post-pandemic period. It’s fascinating to see Peterson coming to terms with the sheer scale of the lockdown during which time he was rather sick. We could have used his voice then and I have no doubt that he would have been fantastic. 

Fortunately for the whole world, we did have Jay. It’s not just his credentials or his position at Stanford University. It’s his erudition that gave him the reach to make sense of our times. In this interview, Jay explains the unfolding of events in ways I personally found compelling. 

Summing up his message, the response upended a century of public-health practice based on computer modeling that was not informed by any medical knowledge or public-health experience. That modeling came to be fused with a military-style response that waged a war on a pathogen with no exit strategy. Powerful industrial interests saw their chance to realize every hidden agenda.

That was further complicated by severe political division. Even though the lockdowns began under the Trump administration, opposing them mysteriously came to be seen as “right-wing” even though the pandemic policies violated every civil liberty, massively harmed the poor, divided the classes, and trampled essential freedoms, which one might suppose were concerns of the left, once upon a time.

Jay knew from the beginning that these policies were a disaster but his method of dissent was to stick with the genuine science. He worked with colleagues very early in the pandemic on a study from California that proved that this war on the “invisible enemy” was futile. Covid was everywhere and only a mortal threat to a narrow group in the population needed to have its guard up while the rest of society moved on. That study was released in April 2020 and the implications were undeniably devastating to the war planners and the lockdown pushers. 

The conclusion of the study seems rather commonplace now: “The estimated population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection may be much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases.” But at the time, when dissent was rare if non-existent in scientific literature, and when the planning elite had declared its number one goal was to track, trace, and isolate, and thereby minimize infections through compulsion while we wait for a vaccine, this conclusion was anathema. 

That’s when the attacks began. It was like he had to be shut down. The popular press began to go after him savagely, smearing both the study and his motivations (this later became outright censorship). At this point, he began to realize the intensity of the campaign against dissent and the push for full unity in favor of the policy response. It was not like normal times when scientists could disagree. This was something different, something fully militarized, when a “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” consensus was being demanded by every institution. That meant no heresies against orthodoxy were allowed. 

At this point, the interview breaks and Peterson begins to ask probing questions of the sort he likes concerning the spiritual struggle all of us face in life, a subject that clearly consumes him. Peterson believes that all seeming political struggles are ultimately personal ones. Do we back off and acquiesce to conventional wisdom or do we continue to walk toward the light as shown by our conscience? 

He asks Jay if he faced this moment, and Jay admits that he did indeed face this. He realized that continuing in this direction – researching to discover facts and telling the truth as he saw it – would massively disrupt his career, his life, and everything he had worked for. Everything would be different, away from comfort and into an uncertain and isolated frontier. 

He faced that choice and made the decision to go ahead, undeterred. But the decision cost him dearly. He could not sleep. He lost tremendous amounts of weight. He faced social and professional ostracism. He was dragged through the mud daily in the press and scapegoated for every policy failure. He was accused of conspiring with the purveyors of dark money and every other form of professional corruption. He found himself vexed beyond which he had ever been in his entire career. But still he forged ahead, eventually gathering with other scientists to make what is now a famous statement of public health that has stood the test of time. 

It’s fascinating to consider how few in academia and professional life made this choice. And the reasons why are also intriguing. Many in these high-end professions, particularly in academia, have far less job flexibility than we think. We might suppose that a tenured professor in the Ivy League could and would say anything he wants. 

The opposite is true. They are not like the barber or auto mechanic who can leave one job and easily start another a few blocks away or in a different town. They are, in many ways, trapped in their own circle of influence. They know this and dare not depart from industry norms. And too often those norms are formed by funding. Yale University, for example, gets more overall revenue from government than from tuition. That’s typical among such institutions. And now we know that media and tech are also on the payroll. 

These conflicts of interest combined with careerism played themselves out in brutal ways over the last few years. The high-end professionals who left their jobs to work in the Trump administration, for example, found that they had no jobs waiting for them at all when that presidency came to an end. They were not welcomed back, certainly not by academia. They were discarded. I personally know of many cases where people on advanced career tracks lost all merely by agreeing to what they believed would be public service. 

The lockdowns era made this much worse. All over the country, scientists, media figures, writers, think-tank officials, professors, editors, and influencers of all sorts were pressured to go along. Not just that: they were threatened to go along. And it wasn’t just the opinions that mattered. There were all sorts of compliance tests along the way. There was the “social distancing” test. If you didn’t practice in it, that somehow marked you as an enemy. The masking was another: you can tell who was who and what was what based on the willingness to cover one’s face. 

The vaccine mandate, appallingly, became another wedge issue that enabled all kinds of professions to purge people. Once the New York Times claimed (summer 2021) to have evidence that the unvaccinated were more likely to be Trump supporters, that did it. The Biden administration and many university administrators felt that they had the ultimate weapon to achieve the purge about which they had longed dreamed. 

Comply or get tossed out. That was the new rule. And truly this largely worked. Diversity of opinion in many sectors of society – media, academia, corporate life, the military – is dramatically reduced after this epoch. It doesn’t matter that courts later came along to say it was all bad law. The damage had been done. 

Still, we have to be curious about those who did not go along. What drove them to depart from their fellows? This is why Gabrielle’s Bauer’s book Blindsight Is 2020 is so valuable. It doesn’t cover them all but it does highlight the voices of many who dared to think for themselves. And yet here is the truth: among this dissident set, very few aren’t doing something completely different today from what they were doing in 2019. They have changed jobs, changed professions, changed towns and states, and even seen families and friendship networks shattered. 

They all paid a huge price. I’m not sure I know any exceptions to the rule. Going against the grain and daring to stand up for truth in a time of totalitarianism is exceedingly dangerous. Our times have proven that. (Brownstone’s Fellows program is designed to give many of these purged people a bridge to a new life.) 

I titled this article a contagion of cowardice. It might be too severe to call it that. Many people went along for entirely rational reasons. Another point to consider is that moral teaching in the great religions has not typically required absolute heroism. What it does require is not doing evil. And those really are different things. Staying quiet might not be evil; it’s only the absence of being heroic. St. Thomas even writes this in his treatise on moral theology: the faith celebrates but never requires martyrdom. 

And yet it is also true that heroism in our times is absolutely necessary for the preservation of civilization when it is so brutally under attack. If everyone chooses the safe path, and crafts one’s decisions around the principle of risk aversion, the bad guys truly do win. And where does this land and how far can we slide into the abyss under those conditions? The history of despotism and death by government reveal where this ends up. 

The best case for heroism over careerism and cowardice is to look back over these three years and observe just how much difference a few can make when they are willing to stand up for truth even when there is a big price to be paid for doing so. Such people can change everything. This is because ideas are more powerful than armies and all the propaganda that a machinery of power can muster. One statement, one study, one sentence, one small effort to puncture the wall of lies can bring down the whole system. 

And then the contagion of cowardice comes to be replaced by a contagion of truth. Those who stood up for that form of contagion deserve our respect and gratitude. They also deserve to survive and thrive in the new renaissance that so many today are working to build. 

More than people right now are willing to admit, civil society as we knew it collapsed over these three years. A massive purge has taken place within all the commanding heights. This will affect career choices, political alliances, philosophical commitments, and the structure of society for decades to come. 

The rebuilding and reconstruction that must take place is going to rely – perhaps as it always has – on a small minority who see both the problem and the solution. Brownstone is doing its best and the most possible given our resources and the time in which we’ve had to operate. But much more needs to be done. The rebuilding requires a spiritual-level commitment to intelligence, wisdom, bravery, and truth. 

Watch the full interview below:

Ford Motor Company filed a US patent application that shows autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles could potentially repossess themselves if their owners miss lease or loan payments.

The idea of self-driving cars repossessing themselves might sound dystopian, but it is not surprising that automakers are considering this technology to ensure payment. Repossession is a common practice, and as we’ve described recently, cracks are beginning to form in the subprime auto loan market (read: here & here). 

While this patent application was first filed in Aug. 2021 and formally published on Feb. 23, it could be years before Ford implements such a technology. 

The patent, titled “Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle,” explains how a future lineup of Ford vehicles would be capable of “[disabling] a functionality of one or more components of the vehicle.”

If a driver misses a car payment, the vehicle will disable air conditioning, radio, GPS, and cruise control to irritate the driver.  

If the owner misses more payments, the repossession cycle will worsen. The car would emit an “incessant and unpleasant sound.” Worse, the vehicle might lock out the driver on certain days until payments are made. 

And still, if the lockout doesn’t work and payments are missed, the vehicle could drive to a safe, nearby location for a repo team to seize it and avoid confrontation with the owner. 

It is worth noting that filing a patent application does not necessarily mean the technology will be implemented, but the takeaway is a glimpse of the dystopic future. 

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Never is a very, very long time in politics. Yet whenever the topic of secession or so-called national divorce comes up, how often do we hear that “secession will never happen.” It’s difficult to tell if people using the term “never” actually mean it. If they mean “not in the next ten or twenty years,” that’s plausible. But if they truly mean “not in the next 100 (or more) years,” it’s clear they’re working on the level of absolutely pure, unfounded speculation. Such statements reflect little more than personal hopes and dreams.

Experience is clear that the state of most polities often changes enormously in the span of a few decades. Imagine Russia in 1900 versus Russia in 1920. Or perhaps China in 1930 versus China in 1950. If someone had told the Austrian emperor in 1850 that his empire would be completely dismembered by 1919, he probably would have refused to believe it. Few British subjects in 1945 expected the empire to be all but gone by 1970. In the 1970s, the long-term survival of the Soviet Union appeared to be a fait accompli. For a visual sense of this, simply compare world maps from 1900 and 1950. In less than the span of a human lifetime, the political map of the world often changes so as to be unrecognizable.

Yet there are always those who are quite comfortable with the status quo and who tell themselves it will continue indefinitely. Many find comfort in the hope that their favorite national regime will be a thousand-year reich, living on indefinitely into the rosy future of “progress.” Claims to political immortality are also frequently important as rallying cries in support of the state. As French Marxist philosopher Régis Debray noted, the idea that “France is eternal” may be empirically untrue, but the sentiment nonetheless serves to motivate the French soldier or French nationalist to preserve his regime.

Meanwhile, the opposite impulse, a recognition of the regime’s mortality is seen by many as a kind of heresy against the national political idols. It may be obviously true, but to say it out loud is “treason.” The cry of “traitor,” of course, has long been the go-to strategy for those with an emotional attachment to the regime. Like many heresies before it, this one must not go unpunished. Thus, “traitor” was the cry of the French republican who thought it better to butcher women and children in the Vendée rather than allow that portion of France to be independent. It was the cry of the Turkish imperialist who carried out a genocide against Armenian separatists.

The reality is that the current shape of any regime is more tenuous than many hope. The debate is not whether the US regime will fundamentally change in size and nature. The question is when and in what way. Those who are willing to examine the possibility of gradually unwinding state power peacefully through decentralization—rather than letting internal national conflicts explode into violence and revolution eventually—display a far better grasp of political history than the knee-jerk unionists.

The emotional nature of this opposition to secession can be seen in the fact that the opposition grants no middle ground in the debate. The only allowable options are the status quo or war.

Options for the “middle ground” include a confederation built on a consensus model in the style of the old Dutch Republic. There is the model of the very loose confederation in the style of the old Swiss confederation. There is the option of a customs union with voluntary membership, such as the European Union. There is the option of a mutual defense compact among independent polities, as we find in a multitude of defense leagues. None of these options require a state that imposes nationwide regulation and taxation in the manner of the enormous administrative state that we have today.

Yet most of those who oppose secession also oppose all of these options. We don’t hear, “Well, secession is too far, so let’s move toward a much more decentralized model.” Why do we never get this olive branch from the centralizers? Because their opposition to secession is more about supporting the status quo. They want a national government to impose nationwide policy in a way that reflects the national ruling class’s values. It’s the colonialist mindset all over again: “Oh, we can’t let those people in state X set their own rules for elections/abortion/trade. Those people are too unenlightened/racist/stupid to be allowed local autonomy.”

This intransigence can also be found in the way that the opposition often delights in the idea of using violence against potential separatists. Congressman Eric Swalwell, for instance, suggested the US government use nuclear weapons against internal separatists. And then there are those who make light of the idea of a second blood-soaked civil war. Indeed, the insistence on tying twenty-first-century decentralization to a war in the mid-nineteenth century (160 years ago) implies that the unionist “solution” back then justifies the same solution now. Note the emphasis is always on the American Civil War and not on the many examples of peaceful secession movements: Iceland from Denmark, Norway from Sweden, Singapore from Malaysia, Malta from the British Empire, and the Baltic states from the Soviet Union (to name a few). Instead, the average American antisecessionist is apparently obsessed with making war against his own neighbors. 

I guess Marjorie Taylor Greene and the rest of Northern Georgia did not learn their lesson about secession the first time.

*SHERMAN INTENSIFYING* pic.twitter.com/ivz4NYEAVf

— Nunca Trumpismo (@NeverTrumpTexan) February 20, 2023

Of course, that sort of thing can only be carried out today if modern Americans are willing to die and kill—or have their children die and kill—in the name of “preserving the union.” How many are willing to do this? Hopefully not many. Those who are willing to do it can only be described as fanatics.

The presence of these proviolence antisecessionists does remind us of the continued danger of political union, however. Those who favor union may interpret mere discussions of disunity as a sign of the need for ever-greater federal control over the population. This is also the strategy preferred by states: tendencies toward disunion are countered by an ever-stronger and ever-more-unyielding state. The strategy is tried and true. This is how a fragmenting Roman Empire was preserved for another 150 years after a breakup seemed all but assured during the third century. The emperor turned the empire into a military dictatorship. The same method of imposing unity has been employed countless times across countless polities—and at great cost to human rights and self-determination. Yet not even Diocletian’s dictatorship could ultimately prevent the secession of the western regions of the empire. (Justinian’s later attempts at reunifying Italy with the empire failed as well, and only brought enormous and unnecessary death and destruction.) Secession and disintegration have always been inevitable for large diverse states. The Romans were not immune. The Americans are not immune.

The answer lies not in doubling down on political unity, maintained through endless violence or threats of violence. Rather, the answer lies in peaceful separation through expanded self-determination, regional autonomy, confederation, and consensus. The choice we now face is between a rearguard attempt at preserving political unity “forever” and facing the inevitable reality. On one side, there are the unionists with their devotion to the status quo and their colonialist mindset. On the other side are those who seek to temper the power of the central state and pursue local self-determination. The centralizers are on the wrong side and will ultimately be on the losing side as well.

Hunter Biden’s criminal defense attorney, Joshua Levy, has quit the ‘first son’s’ legal team amid an environment of “unease and dissent” among the 4-lawyer legal team.

Levy’s departure came after the addition of Abbe Lowell, who is also on Hunter’s team, and was hired in December to defend Hunter and the Biden family amid nine congressional probes which include wire fraud and money laundering.

Levy was hired to work on opposing congressional investigations looking into the complex web of Biden family dealings, the NY Times reports. 

Mr. Lowell’s addition led to the exit of another lawyer — Joshua A. Levy — who specializes in helping clients facing congressional inquiries.

President Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, had recommended Mr. Levy for the job. But Mr. Levy had clashed with Kevin Morris, a lawyer and close adviser to Hunter Biden who has lent him money to pay his back taxes and some other bills, according to a person familiar with the strategy. Mr. Morris and Hunter Biden brought on Mr. Lowell late last year, prompting Mr. Levy’s departure. -NY Times

According to the report, Levy was not pleased with Lowell’s legal strategies – such as bombarding Rudy Giuliani, former Biden associate-turned-whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, and 12 others with “litigation hold” demand letters in order to preserve records from the “laptop from hell” – a strategy seen by some critics as a desperate PR stunt to change the narrative in favor of the Bidens.

According to Mike Davis, founder and president of the pro-Trump Article III Project, the letters were a “desperate, frivolous, and laughable” effort that would end up damaging the Biden family position since the lawsuit will lead to discovery, including Hunter Biden’s on-camera deposition, Breitbart reports.

Lowell’s involvement in Hunter’s defense has not only forced the exit of Levy but has also triggered infighting with attorney Chris Clark, another high-profile attorney who leads Hunter’s criminal defense. Clark’s professional history includes working as a partner at the same Washington, DC, law firm where Rep. Liz Cheney’s husband works. The firm’s biography of Clark says he represents Hunter in the “grand jury investigation regarding tax issues.” -Breitbart

In December, NBC News reported that Lowell will be primarily responsible for coordinating Hunter Biden’s response to the anticipated congressional oversight investigations, as well as other legal issues.

The incoming House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said at a news conference in November that Hunter Biden and other Biden family members will be a major focus, specifically if the family’s business activities “compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.”  -NBC News

The White House in November accused Congressional Republicans of stoking long-debunked conspiracy theories” in regards to allegations from House lawmakers that President Biden was actively involved in overseas business dealings with his son Hunter.

“Instead of working with President Biden to address issues important to the American people, like lower costs, congressional Republicans’ top priority is to go after President Biden with politically-motivated attacks chock full of long-debunked conspiracy theories,” said White House Counsel office spokesman, Ian Sams.

Except, here’s former Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski explaining how the Biden family brought him in on a shady Chinese energy company deal.

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

Rapidly rising food, housing, medical, and tuition prices are squeezing Americans, and many do not understand the real cause of their falling living standards…

That confusion opens the door for opportunistic politicians who promise supposed freebies to ease the pain of inflation. Many, unfortunately, succumb to this siren’s call.

Perverse as it is, the policies offered to people suffering from inflation create even more inflation. In other words, inflation has a way of perpetuating itself, much like a heroin addiction.

We are already seeing cockamamie schemes in the US, like “inflation relief checks,” which attempt to solve the problems of inflation by creating more inflation.

The political-inflation cycle follows a clear pattern:

Step #1: In a fiat currency system, the government will inevitably print an ever-increasing amount of currency to finance itself.

Step #2: This makes prices and living costs rise faster than wages.

Step #3: The average person feels the pain but doesn’t understand what’s happening.

Step #4: More people support politicians who promise freebies to relieve the pain inflation causes.

Step #5: The government prints more currency to pay for the freebies.

Step #6: This creates even more inflation, and the cycle repeats.

At this point, we have to ask ourselves whether the political situation in the US will improve.

Unfortunately, the data points to a troubling but inevitable answer… “no.”

Reason #1… is simple: a growing majority of US voters receive government money.

When you count everyone who lives off political dollars instead of free-market dollars, we’re already well north of 50% of the US population.

In other words, the US has already crossed the Rubicon. There’s no going back.

The growing majority of voters who collect net benefits from the government is a built-in constituency to perpetuate policies financed by ever-increasing inflation. That’s why I think the US has entered an unstoppable inflation death spiral.

The notion that people living off government largesse and political dollars will come around to a libertarian way of thinking is a pipe dream.

In short, there is simply no hope for positive change from the political system. That means one thing is sure: an ever-increasing amount of inflation to pay for all these government programs.

For many decades, Argentina has infamously been trapped in a perpetual cycle of hyperinflation and socialism from which it cannot escape. And now, the US has entered that same inescapable cycle.

Reason #2: Central Planning Doesn’t Work

Although many don’t realize it, interest rates are simply the price of money.

And they are the most important prices in all of capitalism.

They have an enormous impact on banks, the real estate market, and the auto industry. It’s hard to think of a business that interest rates don’t affect in some meaningful way.

However, interest rates are controlled by a politburo of central planners at the Federal Reserve, not set by the market like any other price.

It’s bizarre that most people don’t understand the implications of this or thoughtlessly accept it as a “normal” part of a supposed free-market economy.

Further, it should be self-evident to everyone that economic central planning doesn’t work.

In Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the 5th plank calls for the “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

That is a perfect description of the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

In reality, the Fed is nothing more than a politburo of bureaucrats attempting to centrally plan the economy by tinkering with the money and interest rates—the most important prices in all of capitalism.

Even if we presume the Fed has benign intentions—which it doesn’t—central planning is impossible, and failure is inevitable.

That’s why the Fed is in a mission-impossible situation—much like it was impossible for the Soviets to centrally plan their economy.

Here’s the bottom line…

The Fed can’t save the day any more than the State Planning Committee of the USSR could.

Reason #3: Inflation Is the Only Way To Manage an Impossible Debt Load

The media, politicians, and financial analysts often flippantly use the word “trillion” without appreciating what it means.

A trillion is a massive, almost unfathomable number.

The human brain has trouble understanding something so huge. Let me put it into perspective.

If you earned $1 per second, it would take 11 days to make a million dollars.

If you earned $1 per second, it would take 31 and a half years to make a billion dollars.

And if you earned $1 per second, it would take 31,688 years to make a trillion dollars.

So that’s how enormous a trillion is.

When politicians carelessly spend and print money measured in the trillions, you are in dangerous territory.

It took until 1981 for the US government to rack up its first trillion in debt. The second trillion only took four years. After that, the next trillions came in increasingly shorter intervals.

Today, Congress has normalized multi-trillion dollar federal spending deficits.

The US federal debt has gone parabolic and is well over $31 trillion.

If you earned $1 per second, it would take over 995,000 YEARS to pay off the current US federal debt.

And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.

The US federal government has the largest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace.

The debt will keep piling up as the US government continues to pay for political promises. It’s virtually inevitable.

Below is a chart of the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit projections for the next decade. These estimates will almost certainly be too rosy, as they often are.

Even by the CBO’s optimistic projections, the US government will have a cumulative deficit of over $15 trillion for the next ten years.

Historically, there has been a vast foreign appetite for US federal debt, but not anymore.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government has launched its most aggressive sanctions campaign ever.

As part of this, the US government seized the US dollar reserves of the Russian central bank—the accumulated savings of the nation.

It was a stunning illustration of the dollar’s political risk. The US government can seize another sovereign country’s dollar reserves at the flip of a switch.

The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock,” noted:

“Sanctions have shown that currency reserves accumulated by central banks can be taken away. With China taking note, this may reshape geopolitics, economic management and even the international role of the U.S. dollar.”

China is one of the largest holders of US Treasuries, and it indeed took note of what happened to Russia. It’s probably why Beijing cut its Treasury holdings to a 12-year low.

Even US allies, like Japan, have also cut their Treasury holdings.

There are numerous other examples. But it’s clear the world isn’t hungry for more US debt right now.

So, who is going to finance these incomprehensible budget shortfalls? The only entity capable is the Fed’s printing presses.

In other words, the government has no choice but to finance itself through legalized counterfeiting and debasing the currency.

Allow me to simplify this fraud in three steps.

Step #1: Congress spends trillions more than the federal government takes in from taxes.

Step #2: The Treasury issues debt to cover the difference.

Step #3: The Federal Reserve creates US dollars out of thin air to buy the debt.

It’s also crucial to note that inflation is a big bonus to debtors. It allows you to borrow in dollars and repay in dimes.

And since the US government is the biggest debtor in the history of the world, it is the single largest beneficiary of inflation.

The US government can only finance itself with the Fed’s printing presses. It is also incentivized to debase the currency as it attempts to deal with its impossible debt burden.

What Happens Next

When you put together the pieces, the big picture becomes clear.

I believe the US has entered an inflationary death spiral for three reasons:

Reason #1: A growing majority of voters who collect net benefits from the government is a built-in constituency to perpetuate policies financed by ever-increasing inflation.

Reason #2: Even if we presume the Fed has benign intentions—which it doesn’t—central planning is impossible, and failure is inevitable.

Reason #3: The US government cannot finance itself without the Fed’s printing presses. It is also incentivized to debase the currency as it attempts to deal with its impossible debt burden.

In short, it’s game over.

The US government is fast approaching the financial endgame.

They have no choice but to “reset” the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped.

Think of it like this.

Imagine a spoiled child playing a board game, and rather than admit he is losing, he flips the board.

This is what governments will do now that they are financially checkmated. They can’t win, even in their own rigged game, and now they are left with the choice of losing power or flipping the board. Since power does not relinquish itself voluntarily, we should presume they’ll choose to flip the board.

I suspect it could all go down soon… and it won’t be pretty.

It could result in an enormous wealth transfer from you to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.

What exactly will the “reset” look like?

What can the average person do about it?

I just released an urgent PDF guide, “Survive and Thrive During the Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years.” Download this free report to discover the top 3 strategies you need to implement today to protect yourself and potentially come out ahead.

With the global economy in turmoil and the threat of a “Great Reset” looming, this guide is a must-read. Click here to download it now. 

After a catastrophic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, early last month, President Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, corporate media outlets, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Environmental Protection Agency, and some local officials have ensured air monitoring and water sample tests show everything is under control. 

But is it? Well, not according to the local newspaper Ohio Star. Reporter Hannah Poling said a confidential source told her that a wildlife biologist and consultant for the federal forestry received hundreds of reports over the last several days from forestry workers discovering “hundreds of dead animals in Ohio’s parks.” 

Several labs across the country have received specimens of whole minks, deer, elk, worms and livers of such animals, and they are finding toxicities that are off the charts, the source said. 

“These highly toxic levels are the exact chemicals that were released from East Palestine. Wayne National Forest and Shawnee State Forest in Ohio, are downriver from East Palestine and are two parks where samples are from,” the source continued. 

Meanwhile, the BBC reported: 

Nearly 45,000 animals have died as a result of a toxic train crash this month in an Ohio town, environmental officials have said.

 The figure from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources updates the initial estimate of 3,500 animals dead after the 3 February derailment.

The source also told the Ohio Star that Governor DeWine attempted to block scientists from entering state parks:

The governor and the railroad were blocking scientists from getting soil samples in East Palestine, but they were able to still grab some for testing. Likewise, the soils are highly contaminated,” the source said.

The source claims that the Ohio governor only uses his own hand-picked scientists to “give him the results he wants.”

“It is heartbreaking to me that politicians like DeWine make an issue like this political. It should not be. He should be doing all he can to protect people, animals and the environment and not just cover his own behind,” the source added.

There have been countless reports of health concerns by the residents of East Palestine and surrounding communities following the derailment of ten railcars carrying hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, that first responders eventually burned off. 

After the burn, “some residents say they have been diagnosed with bronchitis, lung issues, and rashes that doctors and nurses suspect are linked to the chemical exposure,” said Ohio Star. 

According to local TV station WKBN, residents have sent a list of demands for Norfolk Southern and the federal government, outlining the much-needed help their community deserves after a botched response. 

Below is the list of demands:

1. Relocation for anyone who wants it. Folks don’t feel safe and aren’t getting their questions answered. Anyone who wants to be relocated to hotels or safe housing should have the opportunity to do so, paid for by Norfolk Southern.
2. Independent environmental testing. The EPA must immediately begin and continue to test soil, water, and air, including for dioxins throughout the region, and commit to regular public meetings to explain findings. Norfolk Southern must pay for an independent scientist, hired by residents, to represent the community and participate in all technical meetings regarding testing, cleanup, and safety plans.  
3. Ongoing medical testing and monitoring: We still don’t know what the short and long-term health impacts of this disaster will be. Federal Health & Human Services must provide ongoing health monitoring to evaluate those in the impacted region, guarantee health coverage, and Norfolk Southern must cover the cost.
4. Dispose of the toxic waste safely: The EPA cannot take the solid waste from the derailment and dispose of it in the Heritage Thermal toxic incinerator, in nearby East Liverpool, that has already been polluting our communities for years. This will only further spread the contaminants. Norfolk Southern must stop destroying evidence – we need a safety plan before resuming cleanup from the derailment site.
5. Norfolk Southern pays 100% of the costs. Taxpayers shouldn’t foot this bill. Norfolk Southern made this mess, they should clean it up. The company must commit to paying 100% of the costs for testing, relocation, cleanup, medical monitoring and costs, and an independent science advisor.

The Biden administration’s lack of leadership and physical presence after the train derailment was a crucial mistake. What happened is that Biden’s opponents, such as former President Trump, seized on this opportunity for political points ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle. Trump met with local officials and residents last week. Some have said this is “Biden’s Katrina.” 

Authored by Rea S. Hederman, Jr. via RealClear Wire,

As America teeters on the edge of recession, various factors have contributed to its broken supply chains, historic inflation, and depleted workforces. One factor that has gone largely overlooked has been a silent burden for employers and employees alike: obesity. This is one of many critical topics highlighted during Obesity Care Week.

Recent national studies highlight the economic costs that obesity imposes on America’s beleaguered workforce. According to a National Institute of Health study, workers with obesity are almost twice as likely to miss work. More likely to be sick or absent from work for longer periods of time, these workers lag in work experience, which reduces their future pay. Researchers estimate that such productivity losses cost America $1.0 trillion annually.

Similarly, workers with obesity are more likely to suffer diabetes and other debilitating diseases that increase healthcare, health insurance, and workers’ compensation costs for employers. A study by Duke Health, for example, revealed that workers with obesity filed twice as many workers’ compensation claims and that average medical claims per 100 employees were more than $50,000 for those with obesity compared to only $7,500 for those without.

Obesity’s indirect costs are expensive, too. Adults with obesity are more likely to remain under employed or forfeit better wages. A Journal of Business and Psychology study warned that workers suffering obesity may lose more than $114,000 in earnings due to productivity losses. And adults with obesity are more likely to remain unemployed entirely, costing them a lifetime of potential income and savings.

Ohio feels the negative side effects of obesity more acutely than most states. With one-third of its workforce fighting obesity, Ohio ranks 15th in the nation. Over the last several years, obesity-related health issues have cost the Ohio Department of Medicaid hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, a forthcoming study by The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center estimates that obesity has sidelined more than 32,000 workers — more than enough to construct and fully staff Intel’s new semiconductor plant in central Ohio. And those missing workers have deprived the state of nearly $20 million in tax revenue.  

Other states have already taken promising steps to better help those suffering obesity. Ohio should do the same. 

Nutrition counseling, surgery, and medication are helpful to obesity sufferers, and Ohio’s state employee health plans have adopted an “all of the above” approach to fighting obesity and getting people with the disease back into the workforce. As those efforts proceed, researchers, employers, and regulators should monitor the results — in Ohio and across the country — and enhance the most successful.

In the meantime, Ohio should also pursue commonsense regulatory reforms to make access to obesity treatments easier and more affordable. Ohio’s nutrition licensing requirements, for example, remain some of the nation’s worst and most stringent, restricting access to diet and nutrition counseling and artificially raising prices. Relaxing those regulatory requirements will lower prices and increase access to life-changing counseling for thousands.

Reducing obesity through prevention and better care in the workforce is a win-win-win for Ohio, employers, and employees battling obesity. Bringing obesity-sufferers back into the labor force will reduce state-funded healthcare costs, boost tax revenue, help alleviate worker shortages and supply chain woes, and provide or increase earnings for those under- or unemployed. Studying obesity prevention and treatment methods, encouraging the public and private sectors alike to implement best practices, and prudent regulatory reforms like relaxing nutrition counseling licensing requirements could help get Ohio on the road to recovery and wellness.

Rea S. Hederman Jr. is executive director of the Economic Research Center and vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute.