A cashless society is one in which financial transactions are conducted primarily through digital means rather than physical cash, relying on technologies like credit cards and mobile payments.

While no country today has fully reached this concept, there are some (like China and South Korea) that have seen widespread adoption of mobile payment platforms and digital wallets.

To see whether the U.S. is also moving in this direction, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized data from the Federal Reserve’s latest Diary of Consumer Payment Choice.

Data and Methodology

This graphic shows the share of each payment method’s use for all purchases in the country.

These figures are based on the results of a nationally representative survey of U.S. consumers, which tracked purchases they made during an assigned three-day period (n= 4,453). The following table lists the data we used.

The key takeaway here is that the use of cash has fallen from 31% in 2016, to just 18% in 2022.

Cash Use Fell During COVID-19 Pandemic

Cash usage in the U.S. fell during the COVID-19 pandemic due to several reasons:

• Hygiene Concerns: Fear of virus transmission through physical cash led consumers and businesses to prefer contactless payment methods.

• Social Distancing: The shift towards online shopping and delivery services, which require digital payments, increased during lockdowns and social distancing measures.

• Banking Adjustments: Reduced access to ATMs and banking services during lockdowns made obtaining and using cash less convenient.

It’s interesting to note that based on the Federal Reserve’s data, cash usage was already trending downwards before the pandemic, suggesting that the pandemic merely accelerated a trend that was already happening.

Authored by Sinead Murphy via The Brownstone Institute,

The UK Meteorological Office has just reported that we have enjoyed the hottest May on record. 

Meanwhile, those of us who have lived in the UK during May have endured unseasonal cold and rain, and have complained to one another constantly about it. 

Welcome to the age of abstraction, when lived experience is irrelevant and theoretical constructions carry the day – when what is deemed right and true is unmoored from what is actually happening here and now. 

Over four years ago, Covid lockdowns staged a dramatic confiscation of present reality. The question is, did we ever get it back?

When the UK government ordered its first lockdown at the end of March 2020, the present reality was put on hold – businesses were shut, schools closed, social activities banned, and human interactions restricted. 

Chaos and suffering inevitably ensued. But in the midst of the misery, there arose a new possibility. 

With present reality in abeyance, we were freed of its reality check. And we began to indulge in a new and joyous expectancy, of a wonderful future to revive a glorious past.

‘We’ll meet again,’ Queen Elizabeth assured us, reprising in her words and presence a fondly recalled togetherness of the last world war and promising its restoration as if it had only just been paused – as if the decades-long decimation of community and family and individual had never happened, as if only a temporary order to Stay Home stood between us and a lost world. 

This new possibility was tantalizing and quickly took hold of Middle England, the BBC-believing bastion of British Values, bent ever more implausibly on keeping calm and carrying on. 

By 2020, this beleaguered demographic had been all but spent from spotting certainties and consolations on the horizon of Left and Right, to forestall a looming vertigo at elite interests dashing its hopes from above and state-reliant deplorables whose fate beckoned from below.     

Middle England, front and centre of policy and institution, had long been demoralized by its present reality: 

Consigned to jobs made ever more bullshit by the erosion of ambition and discipline; flip-flopping between debt and the dregs of old desires; addled by precarity and the virtuosity that survives it; overseeing the retreat of human sympathy everywhere and applying for relief to anxiously awaited festivals that never failed to disappoint.

Lockdowns’ suspension of this reality was in itself a great boon. 

But greater still was what followed: unimpeded anticipation, of a happy tomorrow to follow a happy yesterday, in which all we would do because all we had done was Hug Granny and Play Whist and Toast Marshmallows and Sing Carols.

This was not nostalgia. It was infinitely more potent. 

In nostalgia, the past is glorified as what is dead, as what is ‘vintage’ or ‘retro,’ as what can therefore only be remembered, however wistfully. 

In lockdown, the past was reanimated, suddenly reframed as what would be again once universal cocooning came to an end.

Lockdowns relieved us of the one thing that had stood between us and fantastic recollections of Digging For Victory and Winning At Cribbage: present reality. 

We were free now to regret the past, not hopelessly as what was lost and gone, but hopefully as what had just been put on hold and would soon resume once things got back to normal.

Yes, we still went through the present realities of 2020 and 2021. We ate food and washed clothes and logged on, and drank too much and fought too hard and lost our sense of purpose. But suddenly, all of that was in parentheses – not real at all, just for now.  

Lockdowns achieved a transfer of the reality-effect from an inglorious present, sodden with disappointment, to a host of abstract ideas plundered from an invented past and projected to an inflated future. 

Over four years on, we are no longer supported in our exemption from present reality by government orders to Shelter In Place. Present reality is returned to us, after a fashion.

It appears, however, that we do not want it back, that the lockdown mode continues to tantalize. 

The reluctance with which many have relinquished their facemask has surely warned of this. As has the ongoing normalization of work-from-home.

But there is another and more insidious aspect to our cleaving to lockdowns’ suspension of present reality: our growing enthusiasm for theoretical constructions for which present reality is irrelevant.

During lockdowns, we plundered the almost-dead stock of yesteryear for content for the new mode of fond expectancy – abstract ideas of Dunkirk Spirit and Oh! What A Lovely War were hastily put abroad, adorned with Union Jack bunting, mugs of builders’ tea, allotment lemonade, and royal memorabilia.  

But already before lockdowns ended, the stock of abstract ideas began updating. 

The widely disseminated death of George Floyd launched a Black Lives Matter theme complete with its cartoon fist, and the rainbow of Gender was a seamless segway from the I Heart NHS refrain that had played ad nauseam for Covid. 

As lockdowns receded, we were encouraged to extend our exemption from present reality by a growing fund of available abstractions: Climate, Health, Equity, Security, Safety, Identity…

These abstractions come with ready-made, insertable symbols: Black Lives Matter fists and Gender rainbows have been joined by Ukraine flags, Greta hastags, syringe icons, and wildfire emojis. 

We trade these ideas as if they are old friends – unobjectionable, universally liked. We pin their cutesy signals to our messages and our lapels.

But these ideas are not our friends. They are quite the opposite. Because these ideas are not only theoretical, they are necessarily theoretical – by definition inapplicable to our lives and therefore indifferent to our flourishing. 

The idea of ‘Environment’ is no more relevant to the rubbish blowing around our street than the idea of ‘Climate’ refers to the weather outside or the idea of ‘Health’ is concerned about how we feel or the idea of ‘Gender’ maps onto our biology.

Nothing about these ideas touches down in present reality. By trading them between ourselves – by posting them and tweeting them and dropping them into our casual conversations – we perform a contempt for present reality and a will to exempt ourselves from it, perpetuating the effect of lockdowns long after the lockdowns have ended. 

Early Covid scepticism often argued that they invented Covid so they could have lockdowns. In retrospect, this was wrong. They invented lockdowns so they could have Covid. Not the disease of course, which was a concoction. The idea. Or rather, the kind of idea.  

Covid is not just an abstract idea. It is an essentially abstract idea. It refers to something never heard of before – an asymptomatic disease, a disease for which present reality is necessarily irrelevant. 

The Vaccine, which followed fast upon Covid and with great eclat, is another essentially abstract idea. With no significant effect on either transmission or infection, it is among us only as scorn for lived experience. 

But Lockdown too is such an idea, describing a degree of distancing of people from one another and of cessation of the activities of life that could never be achieved in reality.

It is in this sense that lockdowns have defined our societies, escorting us from a time when present reality was relevant and required to be manipulated to a time when present reality is irrelevant and can be vetoed at will. 

Lockdowns both launched an assault upon present reality by physically removing us from it and piloted, through the impossible idea of Lockdown, the cycle of abstraction that continues to transfer the reality effect from lived experiences to theoretical constructions.  

In the end of it all, perhaps they invented lockdowns just to get Lockdown, imposing abstention from present reality to kickstart abstraction from present reality. 

Of course, we still live out the realities obscured by their abstractions – beneath the pristine idea of Lockdown, there arose material conditions from which millions continue to suffer, not to mention the physical devastation unfolding under the idea of the Vaccine. 

But somehow, all of that is in parentheses. The fallout from lockdowns is revealed in public inquiries and injuries from vaccines are reported in the media. Yet, it produces little effect – as if none of reality is real, but only a series of aberrations. 

Exemption from present reality, begun so theatrically by lockdowns, continues unabated. What counts as vital circulates in the abstract, and lived experiences are sidelined as mere happenstance, hardly worth our notice at all. 

Foucault’s most important insight is that you do not need to enslave people first in order then to exploit them. There are ways of exploiting people that also enslave them. 

The disciplinary techniques of industrial production, with their unerring distribution of people in spaces and times, made people at once docile and useful.

In 1990, Deleuze updated Foucault’s insight to explain that you do not need to pacify people first in order to steal from them. There are ways of pacifying people by stealing from them.  

The debt-based consumerism of post-industrial societies at once made people complacent with gratification and transferred their wealth to elite corporations.  

By 2020, we had moved beyond the paradigms of production and consumption, even reproaching ourselves for overproducing and overconsuming. 

By 2020, it was the age abstraction.  

Lockdowns officially launched this new age in spectacular style. But quickly, lockdowns became unnecessary. 

For, it emerged that you do not need to lock people away from present reality first in order to circulate unbelievable ideas. 

If reality is sufficiently hostile and the ideas are sufficiently abstract, you can lock people away from present reality by the circulation of unbelievable ideas. 

When we shake our heads to one another about Climate, or submit to screening for the good of our Health, or question our Identity, we exempt ourselves from present reality as effectively as if we were under orders to Stay Home. 

And the powers that should not be can tell us anything they like, even that it’s sunny outside.

Canada was the world’s top uranium producer for years until Kazakhstan dethroned it in 2009. Fast forward to 2022, and Canada held the second spot, pumping out 15% of the global supply. By 2023, Canada became the top uranium supplier to the US, delivering 27% of total deliveries. With uranium prices soaring in the last several years, primarily because of the ‘Next AI Trade’ theme (laid out for pro subs), Canada’s uranium mining boom could lead it to reclaim the top spot. 

A new report from Bloomberg highlights that Canada’s Saskatchewan province is the epicenter of the country’s uranium mining boom:

What Saskatchewan has, though, is uranium. Lots of uranium. The bedrock is so loaded with it that the area around just one stretch of the lake, it is believed, could generate enough nuclear energy to power more than 40 million homes for a quarter century. 

Cameco and Cameco/Orano operate several active mines in the commodity-heavy region, and there are also a number of new mines under development.

According to the World Nuclear Association, Canada is poised to overtake Kazakhstan as the largest uranium producer as new mines come online in the years ahead.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a hard pivot, embracing nuclear power to achieve Canada’s net-zero emissions goals. This marks a major reversal after years of promising to move the economy away from commodity extraction. 

Let’s revisit our December 2020 note titled “Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze” and, more recently, “The Next AI Trade.” In these notes, we argue that nuclear power is the cleanest and most reliable energy source for electrifying America.

Thank AI data centers for the consumption surge in power. 

A ChatGPT search requires 10x as much power as a traditional Google search pic.twitter.com/khdSbvxsOH

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 19, 2024

Goldman’s forecast of cumulative electricity growth shows that over the next five years, electricity growth is expected to jump from  2.6% to 4.7%, driven by major utilities revising their estimates higher. 

Wall Street finally jumped on the nuclear power bandwagon earlier this year. From Goldman to BlackRock, everyone is piling into the powering-up America theme with nuclear energy.

Given this hot trend, projections from the World Nuclear Association show that global uranium supply deficits will explode in the 2030s as new plants come online.

Due to tightening supply and higher demand, uranium prices have soared over the last five years, up 233%, outpacing silver, gold, copper, and lithium. 

Recently, BofA’s Lawson Winder provided clients with a transcript of a panel discussion with some of the world’s top uranium executives… 

The biggest takeaway: “Many institutions are still learning the role of uranium in the energy transition, suggesting upside to money in the space.” 

Most of the nuclear power expansion currently occurs in the Eastern Hemisphere, mainly in China and India. However, with the Biden administration finally getting serious about atomic power, a significant reversal in the US is underway with the recent historic restart of the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan. 

“Today, there are 61 nuclear power plants under construction globally. Another 90 or so are in the planning stage and more than 300 have been proposed,” Bloomberg said. 

The US receives 19% of its electricity from 93 nuclear power reactors. In the years ahead, more retired reactors will be restarted, which will increase the number.

Russia controls about 46% of global enrichment capacity, while the US controls only 9.5%. The US’ reliance on Russian uranium is a major problem in a world that is fracturing into a dangerous multi-polar state.

The mining boom in Canada signals that the country could soon reclaim its spot as the world’s top producer while breaking the US’ dependency on Russian uranium.

Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,

Last week, President Joe Biden and a number of top American and European officials met in Normandy to attend a ceremony marking the eightieth anniversary of the D-day invasion. In a pair of speeches, Biden recounted the operation that he said marked the beginning of the “great crusade to liberate Europe from tyranny” before drawing a direct connection to where things stand with the war in Ukraine.

Biden called Russian president Vladamir Putin a tyrant who invaded Ukraine simply because he is “bent on domination.” Biden then renewed one of his favorite tropes, asserting that if Ukraine falls, its people will be subjugated, its neighbors will be in immediate danger, and all of Europe will be threatened by Putin’s aggressive ambitions.

But the West’s chosen depiction of Putin as a tyrant bent on conquering the entire European continent suffered its latest setback last month when it came out that the Russian president is interested in halting the fighting and negotiating a deal that recognizes the current battlefield lines.

Putin is showing this interest even though the Russian military is in a strong position that seems likely to get even stronger. Last year’s long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive was meant to drive Russian forces out of Ukraine. But since its launch last summer, Ukraine has lost more territory than it has gained. Recently, the Russians even launched a brand new incursion into territory around the northeastern city of Kharkiv—territory that had already been recaptured by the Ukrainians in late 2022.

Russia’s minefields, artillery, and punishing glide bombs have not only kept Ukrainian forces from advancing but left them struggling to hold their positions along the current front line. Meanwhile, Russia has significantly boosted war-related production far beyond anything we’re seeing from the West, which, while bad for the Russian economy in the long run, ensures the intensity of Russia’s bombing and shelling will not cease anytime soon.

At the same time, the Ukrainian government is facing a serious shortage of soldiers that no amount of foreign aid or equipment transfers can do anything to alleviate. Earlier this year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that sought to boost conscription rates by making it easier for the government to find and identify draft-eligible men. But the problem persists, leading Ukrainian officials to tap into the country’s prison population, cut consular services to military-aged Ukrainian men living abroad, and forbid men who are dual citizens from leaving Ukraine. As the country’s supply of young men runs low, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier has climbed to forty-three years old.

What makes Ukraine’s situation even more tragic is how easily it could have been avoided. One month after Russia invaded in early 2022, both sides reached an agreement where Russia would pull back to preinvasion boundaries and, in return, Ukraine would agree to not seek NATO membership.

The deal could have put an end to the fighting and handed Kyiv control of all the land Russia had just seized. But, according to senior negotiators on both sides and high-level mediators from the various countries facilitating the talks, officials from the United Kingdom and the United States convinced the Ukrainians to walk away from the deal and fight.

Since then, Ukraine’s leverage over Russia has only diminished. Many Ukrainians have been killed or maimed as the war has devolved into a brutal trench-style artillery war. Meanwhile, Russia laid permanent claim to the land it had earlier agreed to hand back to Ukraine.

Even with its extensive conscription laws, Ukraine does not have enough soldiers to break through Russia’s now heavily fortified lines, much less to drive Russian forces out of all the territory claimed by Kyiv. The Ukrainians have, so far, been able to prevent the Russians from advancing and seizing all the territory that Moscow now claims. But with their dwindling numbers, Ukrainian forces won’t be able to hold these lines forever.

So, accepting Russia’s offer to move this conflict from the battlefield to the negotiation table is almost certainly the best chance Ukraine will get to hold onto the eastern territory they still control.

But rather than take this opportunity, the Ukrainian government and its backers in Europe and the United States have instead decided to escalate the conflict with risky, strategically pointless provocations.

President Biden and a number of other European heads of state recently gave Ukraine a green light to use NATO weapons to conduct strikes within Russia. Around the same time, Ukraine struck two Russian strategic nuclear early-warning radars and attempted to strike a third one deeper in Russian territory.

And, as if hampering Russia’s ability to confirm that they are not under a nuclear attack after allowing Ukraine to shoot US missiles into Russia wasn’t enough, the US then test-fired two nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles—launching them four thousand miles from California to the Marshall Islands.

The escalations have not been one-sided. Russia conducted drills simulating the use of strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus and has sent warships and a submarine to the Caribbean. The Russians have also stepped up shelling and airstrikes in Ukraine in response to the strikes on their territory.

None of this is necessary. The strikes on Russian territory have not translated to Ukrainian gains on the battlefield. And the Russian early-warning radar Ukraine hit wasn’t even aimed at Ukrainian airspace. All these escalations do is prolong the Ukrainian people’s suffering while nudging the world closer to a catastrophic nuclear accident.

Instead of fantasizing about waging some World War II–level offensive on Putin’s Russia, Biden and his friends in NATO should come back to reality and, before it’s too late, agree to work this conflict out with words for a change.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Universal Health Coverage (UHC) means that everyone has access to a full range of health services – from emergency interventions to palliative care – without financial difficulty.

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Julia Wendling uses data from CEOWorld Magazine to visualize the countries that have UHC versus those that do not, along with how UHC coverage breaks down in terms of the global population.

The State of Universal Health Coverage in the World 

In 2024, 73 of the 195 countries worldwide had UHC, resulting in around 69% of the world’s population having some form of universal healthcare.

The United States is the only developed country without health coverage for all of its citizens.

As of 2022, the Census Bureau estimated that only 36.1% of Americans were covered by public health insurance. Private health insurance covered 65.6% of the population. This along with other facts has led the U.S. having the world’s highest healthcare spending figure per capita.

The History of Public Health Coverage

Germany was the first country to establish a social health insurance system. Launched in 1883, the program began by covering only blue-collar workers, then slowly expanded its net of those covered.

The first international declaration underlying the need for adequate health care was the Declaration of Alma-Ata in 1978 at the International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978. The conference’s target was to achieve global UHC by 2000.

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion of 1986 also reiterated the “Health for All by the year 2000” goal, ultimately paving the way for more countries to adopt UHC.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Wednesday’s meeting between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg saw the two leaders reach an agreement on the bloc’s military aid to Ukraine. Hungary won’t oppose NATO’s decisions in this regard like it briefly did the EU’s in exchange for NATO not forcing Hungary to participate in a conventional intervention there, allow its territory to be used to facilitate that, and fund the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Simply put, they agreed to disagree and not interfere in the other’s affairs.

While some observers abroad who are favorable towards Orban might be disappointed by this, they’d do well to reflect on how unrealistic it was for them to imagine that he alone could stop NATO’s plans. The Hungarian leader has become a cult hero among Western dissidents who oppose the bloc’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine after bravely warning over the past two years about how irresponsible and dangerous this policy is. His strongly worded statements perfectly channeled their views on this issue.

Nevertheless, he’s ultimately just one man in charge of a comparatively small country whose role in this proxy war is overshadowed by nearby Poland’s and neighboring Romania’s. It was therefore impossible for him to throw a wrench in NATO’s plans and all that he could ever hope for at best was to get public guarantees that Hungary wouldn’t be drawn into this imbroglio. That’s precisely what he received on Wednesday, which Stoltenberg gave him in an attempt to improve the bloc’s reputation.  

From NATO’s perspective and keeping in mind Hungary’s inability to stop a conventional intervention in Ukraine as well as prevent others from funding the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it made the most sense to leave that wayward member alone in order to deflect from allegations of bullying. Publicly pressuring Hungary to send its troops to Ukraine and let others transit across its territory despite how unpopular these policies are at home could draw negative comparisons between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Accordingly, Hungarians might violently rebel against their literal NATO occupiers in that case and could also obstruct the logistical routes upon which this conventional intervention would depend, thus creating many more security, logistical, and image problems than it’s worth. That’s why the choice was made to respect Hungary’s decision to remain outside the ambit of these activities, which is pragmatic and also lends false credence to claims that NATO is a collection of democracies, not liberal dictatorships.

Orban knew that he’d never able to stop what might be coming, which is why he only wanted to get public guarantees that his country’s objective national interests would be ensured in that scenario. His earlier tiff with the EU over Ukraine was primarily about publicly guaranteeing that Hungary’s blocked funds wouldn’t be redirected to that country, while the latest one with NATO was primarily about publicly guaranteeing that his troops and territory wouldn’t be used for intervening there.

Not only did he get what he wanted from both, but he also got the EU to agree to a verification mechanism for non-lethal aid to Ukraine and for NATO to agree that Hungary won’t fund the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Both were superficial concessions though since the EU’s mechanism contains no veto rights for discontinuing the continued dispersal of this aid if corruption spirals further out of control while NATO has no mechanisms for forcing Hungary to fund the Ukrainian Armed Forces anyhow.

These two aspects were added to their respective agreements for the sake of public appearances in order to make these interconnected blocs appear more democratic than they actually are. The EU has legal means for overruling Hungary just like NATO has forceful ones, but neither wanted to resort to them since it was easier just to give Hungary what it wanted. Likewise, it was also easier for Hungary to agree to these deals than to Quixotically resist those two, which could end in disaster if it dared to do so.

Unlike what some of Orban’s supporters abroad might have speculated about him being scared by neighboring Prime Minister Robert Fico’s attempted assassination into reaching this latest deal, the Hungarian leader gave up nothing except for his symbolic protests and got all that he wanted. NATO would destroy its credibility by going back on its public guarantees to Hungary, which it has no reason to do since Hungary isn’t integral to its plans for Ukraine anyhow, so this deal is expected to last.

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.”

– James Madison

James Madison, often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” once predicted that the Bill of Rights would become mere “parchment barrier,” words on paper ignored by successive generations of Americans.

How right he was.

Although Madison initially felt that the inclusion of a bill of rights in the originally ratified Constitution was unnecessary to its success, Thomas Jefferson persuaded him that “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.”

The Bill of Rights drafted by Madison—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—was a document so revolutionary at the time that it would come to be viewed as the epitome of American liberty.

The rights of the people reflected in those ten amendments encapsulated much of Madison’s views about government, the corrupting influence of power, and the need for safeguards against tyranny.

Madison’s writings speak volumes to the present constitutional crisis in the country.

Read them and weep.  

“The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” — James Madison

“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.” — James Madison

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” — James Madison

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” — James Madison

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” — James Madison

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” — James Madison

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”— James Madison

In the years since the founders laid their lives on the line to pursue the dream of individual freedom and self-government, big government has grown bigger and the rights of the citizenry have grown smaller.

However, there are certain principles—principles that every American should know—which undergird the American system of government and form the basis of our freedoms.

The following seven principles are a good starting point for understanding what free government is really all about.

First, the maxim that power corrupts is an absolute truth. Realizing this, those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights held one principle sacrosanct: a distrust of all who hold governmental power. As James Madison proclaimed, “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” Moreover, in questions of power, Thomas Jefferson warned, “Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” As such, those who drafted our founding documents would see today’s government as an out-of-control, unmanageable beast.

The second principle is that governments primarily exist to secure rights, an idea that is central to constitutionalism. In appointing the government as the guardian of the people’s rights, the people give it only certain, enumerated powers, which are laid out in a written constitution. The idea of a written constitution actualizes the two great themes of the Declaration of Independence: consent and protection of equal rights. Thus, the purpose of constitutionalism is to limit governmental power and ensure that the government performs its basic function: to preserve and protect our rights, especially our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and our civil liberties. Unfortunately, the government today has discarded this principle and now sees itself as our master, not our servant. The obvious next step, unless we act soon, is tyranny.

The third principle revolves around the belief that no one is above the law, not even those who make the law. This is termed rule of law. Richard Nixon’s statement, “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal,” would have been an anathema to the Framers of the Constitution. If all people possess equal rights, the people who live under the laws must be allowed to participate in making those laws. By that same token, those who make the laws must live under the laws they make.

Fourth, separation of powers ensures that no single authority is entrusted with all the powers of government. People are not perfect, whether they are in government or out of it. As history makes clear, those in power tend to abuse it. The government is thus divided into three co-equal branches: legislative, executive and judicial. Placing all three powers in the same branch of government was considered the very definition of tyranny. The fact that the president today has dictatorial powers would have been considered an offense to every principle for which the Framers took their revolutionary stand.

Fifth, a system of checks and balances, essential if a constitutional government is to succeed, strengthens the separation of powers and prevents legislative despotism. Such checks and balances include dividing Congress into two houses, with different constituencies, term lengths, sizes and functions; granting the president a limited veto power over congressional legislation; and appointing an independent judiciary capable of reviewing ordinary legislation in light of the written Constitution, which is referred to as “judicial review.” The Framers feared that Congress could abuse its powers and potentially emerge as the tyrannous branch because it had the power to tax. But they did not anticipate the emergence of presidential powers as they have come to dominate modern government or the inordinate influence of corporate powers on governmental decision-making. Indeed, as recent academic studies now indicate, we are now ruled by a monied oligarchy that serves itself and not “we the people.”

Sixth, representation allows the people to have a voice in government by sending elected representatives to do their bidding while avoiding the need of each and every citizen to vote on every issue considered by government. In a country as large as the United States, it is not feasible to have direct participation in governmental affairs. Hence, we have a representative government. If the people don’t agree with how their representatives are conducting themselves, they can and should vote them out. However, as the citizenry has grown lazy and been distracted by the entertainment spectacles of modern society, government bureaucrats churn out numerous laws each year resulting in average citizens being rendered lawbreakers and jailed for what used to be considered normal behavior.

Finally, federalism is yet another constitutional device to limit the power of government by dividing power and, thus, preventing tyranny. In America, the levels of government generally break down into federal, state and local branches (which further divide into counties and towns or cities). Because local and particular interests differ from place to place, such interests are better handled at a more intimate level by local governments, not a bureaucratic national government. Remarking on the benefits of the American tradition of local self-government in the 1830s, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed: “Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty.”

These seven vital principles have been largely forgotten in recent years, obscured by the haze of a centralized government, a citizenry that no longer thinks analytically, and schools that don’t adequately teach our young people about their history and their rights.

Yet here’s the rub: while Americans wander about in their brainwashed states, their “government of the people, by the people and for the people” has largely been taken away from them.

The answer: get un-brainwashed.

Learn your rights.

Stand up for the founding principles.

Make your voice and your vote count for more than just political posturing.

Never cease to vociferously protest the erosion of your freedoms at the local and national level.

Most of all, do these things today.

If we wait until the votes have all been counted or hang our hopes on our particular candidate to win and fix what’s wrong with the country, “we the people” will continue to lose.

Whether we ever realize it not, the enemy is not across party lines, as they would have us believe. It has us surrounded on all sides.

Even so, we’re not yet defeated.

We could still overcome our oppressors if we cared enough to join forces and launch a militant nonviolent revolution—a people’s revolution that starts locally and trickles upwards—but that will take some doing.

It will mean turning our backs on the political jousting contests taking place at all levels of government and rejecting their appointed jesters as false prophets. It will mean not allowing ourselves to be corralled like cattle and branded with political labels that have no meaning anymore. It will mean recognizing that all the evils that surround us today—endless wars, drone strikes, invasive surveillance, militarized police, poverty, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, etc.—are not of our making but came about as a way to control and profit from us.

It will mean “voting with our feet” through sustained, mass civil disobedience.

Ultimately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it will mean refusing to be divided, one against each other, by politics and instead uniting behind the only distinction that has ever mattered: “we the people” against tyranny.

Since the last FOMC statement (on May 1st), stocks and bonds have outperformed (with the former at record highs), gold is flat while the dollar is down modestly. Amid all that, oil is down significantly…

Source: Bloomberg

These market moves have been prompted by a ‘bad news is good news’ regime as US macro data has serially disappointed…

Source: Bloomberg

…adding significantly to hopes for a more dovish Fed (2 cuts priced in for 2024 and an additional 92bps of cuts in 2025)…

Source: Bloomberg

The good news is that while growth ‘surprises’ have slipped lower, inflation ‘surprises’ have also drifted lower after four months of stagflationary signals worrying markets…

Source: Bloomberg

Today we also get to see a new DotPlot, which is expected to show and adjustment down from three to two cuts for 2024 (with a risk to an adjustment down to just one cut)…

Source: Bloomberg

Of course, as a reminder, the global backdrop for today’s Fed decision is that big US trading partners, like Canada and the euro area, have cut interest rates even as inflation remains an issue.

So, What Did The Fed Do?

The Fed held rates unchanged as expected…

*FED HOLDS BENCHMARK RATE IN 5.25-5.5% TARGET RANGE

And changed wording on inflation (from a “lack” of progress):

*FED: INFLATION MADE MODEST FURTHER PROGRESS IN RECENT MONTHS

BUT…

The dot-plot was hawkish, adjust to just one 25bps cut in 2024 (and four 25bps cuts in 2025)

*FOMC MEDIAN FORECAST SHOWS 25 BPS RATE CUTS IN ’24 VS 75 BPS

*FOMC MEDIAN FORECAST SHOWS 100 BPS RATE CUTS IN ’25 VS 75 BPS

There were no dissents today, extending the streak of zero votes against the FOMC policy decision to 16 meetings, the longest period of no dissents since Alan Greenspan’s 17-meeting streak from August 2003 to September 2005 – when Mark Olson dissented.

Read the full redline below (barely changed):

With activist hedge fund Elliott Management in the pilot’s seat at Southwest Airlines, the budget airline’s popular “bags fly free” policy is under scrutiny.

If Paul Singer gets his way, the airline’s popular “bags fly free” policy could end. This policy is a huge value proposition for customers when choosing a carrier to fly across the US. 

According to Bloomberg… 

“Elliott appears to have a different view, noting in a website presentation that Southwest has “written off” revenue opportunities implemented across the industry over the past 15 years, including assigned seating, premium products, a bare bones basic economy fare and checked bag fees.” 

Southwest’s policy clearly stated on its website: “Each Customer is allowed two free checked bags.” 

Elliott is right to consider scrapping the policy to boost additional revenue for the struggling carrier, which recently withdrew its 2024 fiscal outlook due to delays in Boeing jet deliveries.

According to the US Transportation Department, in 2023, the airline only collected $73 million in checked bag fees, while American Airlines took in $1.4 billion. Spirit Airlines collected $988 million, and Frontier Group collected about $880 million. 

Data from IdeaWorks and CarTrawler show that airlines globally collected $33.3 billion in baggage fees last year, up nearly 15% from 2023. 

President of IdeaWorks, Jay Sorensen said if Southwest were to drop its “bags fly free” policy because of pressure from Elliot, that could trigger an exodus from loyal customers. 

Sorensen said such a change could be “traumatic” to the airline’s customers, culture, and employees.

Conor Cunningham, a Melius Research analyst, said the policy is “so ingrained in the culture” that he “can’t imagine that they’d give up on it.” 

Southwest’s “value proposition and something customers know they are getting when they travel with us,” Cunningham said. 

Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and founder of Atmosphere Research Group, said, “I don’t think Southwest can dismiss not charging for bags anymore, not when you have an activist investor sitting on $1.9 billion of your stock.” 

In markets year-to-date, Southwest shares have broadly underperformed the S&P airline index. 

“There are going to be decisions that Elliott may force on the airline, with Southwest holding its nose. You cannot ignore that shareholder,” Harteveldt concluded. 

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund responded to a viral video of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) admitting that she was responsible for the lack of preparedness on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Pelosi should take responsibility!” Sund posted on X, adding “She put herself in the security decision process and her Sergeant at Arms denied my requests for support before and during the Jan. 6 chaos. She undermined my law enforcement capabilities.”

Sund, who was in charge of the Capitol Police during Jan. 6, then asked “Why did they change the law (2US1970) that tied my hands?”

Pelosi should take responsibility! She put herself in the security decision process and her Sergeant at Arms denied my requests for support before and during the Jan. 6 chaos. She undermined my law enforcement capabilities. #accountability #jan6

Want proof: Why did they change… https://t.co/zLgp0qVHtg

— Chief Steven Sund (@ChiefSund) June 11, 2024

On Monday, the House Oversight Committee posted footage of Pelosi admitting “I take responsibility” for the lack of security on Jan. 6.

The video shows Pelosi in an exchange with Chief of Staff Terri McCullough on the evacuation. Pelosi states:

“We have responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there. And we should have. This is ridiculous.

You’re going to ask me in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached…that, should we call the Capitol Police? I mean the National Guard?

Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?

…

They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more.”

In February of last year, Sund told journalist Tucker Carlson that Jan. 6 was a “setup” – noting that Pelosi’s staff refused to authorize the deployment of the National Guard at the Capitol despite his pleas, and that federal agencies withheld information and warning signs of potential dangers prior to the riot.

“It doesn’t seem like people really want to get to the bottom of it,” said Sund, adding “It really doesn’t. And it just gets worse. It gets worse from there.”

Sund got approval to bring in the National Guard at 2:09 p.m. Before his approval, he alleged that he begged several generals, including General Michael Flynn, to bring the National Guard. The officials told Sund they did “not like the optics of the National Guard” as he allegedly begged for their assistance to intervene in the violence. –Daily Caller

“This sounds like a set up to me,” Carlson said, adding “I’m sorry, it does.”

To which Sund replied:

“It gets better. So I beg and beg and he goes ‘well, I’m gonna walk down the hall and we’ll talk to the Secretary of Defense or whoever he’s gonna talk to. Right then I get a notification, oh, I’m still on the call, we have the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. And I said we have shots firing, I still remember yelling over the phone. We have shots firing on the U.S. Capitol, is that urgent enough for you now?“

According to Sund, the National Guard didn’t show up until 6 p.m., hours after the fatal shooting of Babbitt. He also claimed that the Pentagon deployed resources to the homes of generals, but not the Capitol.

Watch:

Ep. 15 Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reveals what really happened on January 6th. Our Fox News interview with him never aired, so we invited him back. pic.twitter.com/opDlu4QGlp

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 10, 2023